Without any third party members, Sungyeol is pretty sure they’re just absolutely terrible at all of this. This, being whatever it is exactly between he and Myungsoo (which he is pretty sure started out as nothing, but eventually lead to somewhere with lines too blurred to read in between anymore) and he really wishes their room assignments would be different as he sees the younger male settle into the bed opposite his, reading a book that Sungyeol has become familiar seeing him with. The situation would be less awkward if Woohyun hadn’t personally invited Myungsoo to his play that weekend.

“You’re a cheater,” is what Myungsoo had said to him, possibly three months ago, enough time for it to settle and yet the wound still seemed fresh (or perhaps it just always happened to re-open whenever Sungyeol would have to be within five feet of Myungsoo).

There was no way for him to deny that, he had been in fact, cheating. Sungjong (his former roommate) didn’t seem to have an issue with it, dancing over the fact that Sungyeol was publicly seeing Woohyun, but secretly seeing Myungsoo behind everyone else’s backs. Myungsoo (his current roommate and possible ex if that is possible) has all the world’s problems with it however. And why shouldn’t he, Sungyeol thinks, Myungsoo must hate him more than anyone.

He swivels back around in his desk chair, typing mindlessly at his laptop with the intention of at least adding another five thousand words to his essay which was due last week. Myungsoo seems to ignore most of him, out of spite or because he really is done with Sungyeol. But, sometimes-- and Sungyeol swears by this, Myungsoo crawls into his bed late at night, when it’s that odd hour in between night and morning, when it’s too dark to see anything clearly and Myungsoo thinks Sungyeol is deep asleep, but knows through experience that Sungyeol could wake from the drop of a pin. The beating of his heart pressed against Sungyeol’s back is so loud it could start an earthquake and sometimes Sungyeol fears it already has.

-

“It was good, wasn’t it?” Woohyun asks, bright and without a single knowledge of anything between the two roommates who stand before him, one holding flowers that he takes as he embraces him.

“You truly were the star,” Sungyeol replies, smiling back, Myungsoo’s presence behind him thick like a noose around his neck.

The youngest of the three doesn’t show any signs of anything, congratulating Woohyun on a job well done, walking off with Dongwoo when the other appears. For his part, Sungyeol seems to worry over nothing, except for the nights when Myungsoo seems to erase his mind of everything, of Woohyun and exams and essays, when Myungsoo captivates him into nothing but him.

Of course, Sungyeol falls deeper than intended to.

-

It’s one of those days where the rain paints pretty streaks all over the windows and lights and makes Sungyeol want to stay in bed all day and sleep, one of those days here he wishes every second with Myungsoo didn’t feel like both Heaven and Hell correlating to pool Sungyeol under a thick sheet of guilt and make him wish he hadn’t ever met the younger male in the first place.

“He’s waiting for you in my room,” Sungjong says through the receiver with a tone so neutral that Sungyeol swears it sounds incriminating to the ear.

Sure enough when Sungyeol makes his way over to Sungjong’s new dorm room, there is Myungsoo, curled on Sungjong’s bed. He looks thin, fragile, like he’s going to shatter if someone doesn’t mold into him, doesn’t hold him so he won’t need to find his pieces again later. It can’t be Sungyeol though, it just can’t. Sungyeol can’t be the one to keep Myungsoo from breaking apart when he is the one inflicting the damage. Greedily in just this moment, he cradles him, softly in his arms. His touch is gentle, scared almost, as he lets fingers slips through the strands of Myungsoo’s hair, his other hand wrapped loosely around his waist.

“Let’s go home,” he mumbles with lips against the shell of Myungsoo’s ear, voice tender and chest aching.

“Why does it have to be you?” Myungsoo says through broken sobs, a throaty sound shaking him. Sungyeol wonders why indeed as he brings Myungsoo to his feet, walks him out, repeating why in his head over and over again as if someone will bring him the answer.

-

“Do you think,” Myungsoo asks in a small, but raw voice, “we could have fallen in love?”

Sungyeol doesn’t think about that. “I’m sorry,” he says, knowing the words are hollow and have no meaning in them.

Myungsoo lays in between him and the wall, the two squished together in Sungyeol’s small dorm bed, hearts beating in sync to the rain.

They hadn’t slept together, not the way Sungyeol does with Woohyun. The way where Woohyun kisses him and makes him melt under hot fingertips, the way where Sungyeol feels like he’s losing himself as Woohyun grinds into him, pulling him apart thread by thread.

All they were able to do was kiss. Just one kiss. And Sungyeol felt all that he had with Woohyun in that one kiss he had with Myungsoo.

Sungyeol doesn’t think about the possibility of falling in love with Myungsoo, he already knows he has.

-

They break up when Sungyeol breaks apart. Woohyun yells, screams, throws things at Sungyeol. He begs, cries, asks questions that remain unanswered when he leaves. He doesn’t tell Myungsoo about it, doesn’t tell anyone until each one of them can piece it together themselves when they see the two distant from one another, pretending each other never had a place in their heart, when Myungsoo comes back to the dorm room and sees all of the random little things Woohyun has left behind all gone.

“I loved him,” says Sungyeol, drunk, intoxicated in his own self hatred.

“Past tense,” Howon announces. “You don’t anymore, do you?”

“Not in the same way,” he slurs, wondering how he had once felt more for Woohyun.

Howon’s eyes flicker over to an approaching figure, one too obscured by Sungyeol’s own drunkenness to see. “Sometimes all it takes is one person for you to feel a different way,” he says quickly, standing and leaving Sungyeol in a confused stupor.

Then it’s Myungsoo sitting across him at the table, hands fidgeting as he tries to settle them anywhere where it doesn’t make him feel stuffy. They don’t speak at first, silent and afraid, the air alternating between thick and thin, making Sungyeol gasp through a hiccup.

“Why did you break up with him?” Asks Myungsoo, far too suddenly that all the blood rushes to Sungyeol’s head in a heartbeat.

“None of your business,” Sungyeol sniffs childishly.

“Bull,” Myungsoo huffs, but there isn’t any anger in it. “Why did you do it?”

And there it is again, the why haunting Sungyeol, clinging to him and making him have to face the horrors of himself. All of the horrors that Myungsoo brings forth within him. “Figure it out for yourself,” he grumbles, swallowing thickly under Myungsoo’s gaze.

He doesn’t relent as he leans in, expression nothing but serious and it makes Sungyeol envision a puppy wanting attention, wanting to crawl into bed with you at insane hours of the night and make you be gentle and soft, make you wish you could be something more than what you are.

“Do you think,” Myungsoo starts, wetting his lips a little as he fumbles with his words, “we could fall in love?” 

The previous ‘ I’m sorry ’ doesn’t seem to want to slip out of Sungyeol’s mouth this time, his thoughts heavy and telling the clouding in his brain to thicken as he mumbles out a quiet, unsure, “I think so.”