I didn't know why I'd spoken up.

Those words, telling Mingyu to reveal the truth, they'd come straight out of my mouth without a single thought, as if I'd longed to say them for a long time. 

And of course, not only I was shocked about that sudden decision but the members were so as well, nobody letting out a word after I'd spoken up, just looking at me with confused expressions, probably thinking they'd heard me wrong.

And yet I'd spoken those words.

"What?" I heard Mingyu mutter in utter shock, looking at me with the widest eyes of them all, "You want me to tell them the truth? You mean- you want me to just-"

He stopped himself, furrowing his eyebrows and shaking his head as if my request didn't make sense, as if I'd said the most illogical thing to ever have been said.

And maybe it was just that. Words that should have never escaped my lips. 

My mind suddenly became fuzzy, telling me to take those words back, to make sure the secret would never be revealed, to do everything in order to keep the members in the dark. 

But I was too late.

"Okay, I'll tell you."

Mingyu's voice seemed so far away and yet it echoed through my head.  So loud and clear that I stopped breathing for a short moment of time, not quite believing if I'd heard him right. Not even wanting to believe what he'd said.

"If it helps you guys to understand why I have to leave, then I'll tell you everything." Mingyu uttered, his eyes wandering through the room and settling on me, widening a little as his eyebrows rose, almost as if he was asking me for permission once again. 

And I so badly wanted to just shake my head and let it all go, to stop him from letting our secret out yet all I could do was stare at him with my mouth opened slightly, eyes blinking at him. Mingyu's lips then formed a small smile and before I could resist he nodded at me, silently telling me I would be okay, that he'd make sure it would all get better.

And just like that I nodded my head as well, telling him to go on.

"Okay but just so you guys know, what I'm going to tell you now will most likely hurt a lot of you," Mingyu claimed, taking a deep breath before continuing, "and I know you'll probably be confused and furious while listening but please, let me finish the story instead of jumping to conclusions."

Some members nodded, others just looked at Mingyu in a mixture of confusion and annoyance, not even understanding why it was so hard for him to just start telling them what was going on.

Of course they couldn't understand.

"Well, I never really told you guys about this since I hate speaking about it but I guess I should start there since it's one of the reasons why everything happened the way it did." He started, closing his eyes for a short moment as if he was trying to gain courage through it.

"My family has never really given a about me. When I was young, I tried to do a lot to make them proud of me and yet nothing was ever enough. Being a good athlete was useless, having many friends and being good at socializing was unneeded and well, just everything I did in general was always sort of wrong. So I always had this one thought that I have to make something out of myself to make my parents proud, to make them acknowledge me as their son."

Mingyu's head fell a little as he was too ashamed to look at the members. And I just sat there, not understanding why he was telling them those things when he should've talked about my unconditional love for him and how he'd wrecked my heart instead.

"I wasn't good at studying and so I just knew that I needed another way to become big, to make them proud, to just be somebody." He laughed a little at his own words, as if they didn't sound right anymore. "And I guess that's when I realized that I should become an idol and started to urge my parents to let me become a trainee. Because I thought that maybe if I'd become famous they'd suddenly love me a little more. And you know what? They actually liked the idea and let me audition for Pledis. Maybe they just wanted to get me out of the house or something like that, I'll never know, but they seemed enthusiastic about at least one thing in my life and so I promised to myself to become very ing famous when I joined you guys and started as a trainee. Because it felt like a way to finally make my parents really love me."

I didn't understand why Mingyu was telling that story at all, why he couldn't just start with the day I'd kissed him and ed everything up. It didn't make sense to me why he was talking about his parents when they didn't matter in this situation at all, why he couldn't just get to the ing point and let out all the dirty secrets of the last few years.

"When I started as a trainee Wonwoo instantly became my best friend, you guys probably know that. He didn't ask many questions and just accepted me the way I was and I honestly loved that about him. He was always there for me and gave me so much more than my family had ever given to me. It was just, well, a very happy time for me," Mingyu went on, smiling a little as he raised his head, "and I honestly thought that I never wanted to lose him because he was a lot more to me than just a friend. He was like, I don't even know how to describe it, he was just the best person I'd ever met. I literally thought of him as my soulmate."

My eyes widened at Mingyu's words. I mean, of course I'd known he'd thought of me as a best friend during our trainee days yet this felt like so much more. Like he'd always seen so much more in me than I'd known. 

And even though it made me feel giddy inside, it suddenly also made my chest hurt. Because it was wrong, so wrong.

"I don't know if you guys remember but Wonwoo and I fought very heavily a few months before Seventeen Project started. It was when we'd first heard about the whole "shipping" thing that was going on on the internet. While Wonwoo hated it and felt very uncomfortable with the whole idea, I loved it. I mean, it brought attention to us and since I was worried about not being able to debut or not being noticed in such a big group like ours, I thought it was perfect how the fans' fantasies literally brought the spotlight on me. Which is why I encouraged Wonwoo to keep up our skinship and to be very close to me overall."

The members nodded a little, understanding where he was going while I was completely confused. Why had he started with his parents? Why was he talking about our conflict about skinship? Our problem had nothing to do with those things.

"Wonwoo was completely against us showing more skinship and what did I do? I just ignored how uncomfortable he was because I only cared about the advantages we got from it. I honestly didn't even listen to Wonwoo since I felt like it was the perfect solution to be more popular in our group. Which is the reason why Wonwoo started to avoid me and the two of us started to fight for quite some time. You guys probably only remember how we suddenly stopped being close, well, now you know why. It's because I made Wonwoo uncomfortable and he didn't know what else to do than to ignore me to make me understand."

I tried to remember the time we'd fought about that, the memory almost blurry since it'd been such a long time, the conflict almost non-existent in my head. But suddenly it was back, the feeling of not being understood by Mingyu, of being completely lonely while avoiding him and of course, the pain I'd felt whenever I saw him look at me with those confused eyes, asking me what he'd done wrong. 

"At first I didn't notice how Wonwoo was avoiding me but as I started to become aware of it, I was so lost. It wasn't the same for me without him by my side so I kept thinking something was missing, Wonwoo was simply not there and suddenly I felt so so empty. I realized how selfish I'd been and how little being popular meant when I didn't have my best friend next to me. And so, when Wonwoo and I made up I promised to myself to stop thinking about being in the spotlight in Seventeen and to just keep doing well while having my best friend by my side."

I was at a loss for words. Mingyu had thought about so many things back then and yet I'd never even noticed how much he'd done for me, how much he'd done for our friendship. I'd always just complained and gotten mad at him for not understanding me when he'd actually tried to. He'd tried so much.

"But where exactly does the problem start? Because all of this doesn't seem like it would make Wonwoo want to, you know, leave us." Jeonghan complained, apparently as confused about the slow pace of Mingyu's story as me. A few members nodded, agreeing with him.

"It started when Wonwoo broke what we had, or well, when I thought he didn't give a about me and felt like he'd deceived me the whole time." Mingyu stated, letting out a sigh. "I told you guys how much our friendship meant to me, right? How I'd decided to always put Wonwoo first because he literally meant everything to me? Well, on the night of our debut everything changed."

I froze, suddenly fearing Mingyu's words and the power they held. Suddenly scared of the way he described everything so realistically and yet so different from the way I'd experienced everything. 

After all, I knew what was coming next.

"I'm not sure if you remember but that night Wonwoo and I stayed behind in the living room a little longer while you all went to bed already since you were tired. And yeah, we kept talking about how happy we were and how amazing it was to finally have debuted when Wonwoo suddenly asked me that question."

He stopped, not sure weither he should keep going. His eyes found mine, asking me if it was okay, if I was alright with him telling them what had happened, what I'd said and done.

"Can I kiss you?"

The words slipped out of my mouth without my consent, making some members' eyes go wide while others just nodded, already knowing what had happened that night. Mingyu also looked at me in shock, not because my words had been new to him, of course not, but probably because he couldn't believe I'd actually spoken them so easily. 

Hell, even I couldn't believe I'd done that. 

"Wait, wait, wait. So does that mean you're gay?" Soonyoung asked me, some members letting out words I couldn't catch. And I only stared at him with wide eyes, not able to respond at all. Was I gay? Yeah, of course I was. But did it really matter? 

Apparently, yes.

Which is why I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, slowly nodding my head before opening my eyes again.

Gasps filled the room.

"Wait, what? Hyung, you're into men?" Seungkwan almost screeched, "and never told us? You literally live with twelve other men and never even thought about giving us a heads up about you being gay?" 

I looked on the ground, suddenly feeling so small. 

"I don't really-"

I didn't know where to start, what to say, how to stop the many voices, the questions thrown at me. They weren't aggressive or filled with hatred like I'd thought, no, they were simply confused and hurt, some even curious.

And I felt so ashamed of myself.

"I don't really, I don't know, like men. I never really did." I started to explain, still looking on the ground as the words left my lips since I didn't dare to raise my head and meet the members' gazes. "Only Mingyu."

The last two words came out in a whisper, so light and soft, so fragile and weak. 

More gasps, a few members muttering phrases like "oh my god" and "what the ", making me want to sink into the ground. I wanted to look up and proudly just state it, to not give a about the reactions of the other members and just tell them how much I loved Kim Mingyu. 

But I couldn't.

"So you've been hiding this from us all this time?"

"Why didn't you tell us before?"

"How could you just keep this a secret?"

"Hyung, don't we matter to you at all?"

The last question hurt, hurt so much that I actually had to raise my head and look at Chan who'd spoken those words in a soft voice. 

He looked so confused.

"No, of course you matter, I just-" I couldn't find the words, couldn't tell Chan how I'd imagined all of them getting disgusted with me and wanting me out of the group, couldn't tell him how little I'd trusted them.

"Wonwoo was scared you'd want him to leave," Junhui spoke up, making heads turn to his side, "and you should understand that it wasn't easy for him. He suddenly realized he was gay, of course he couldn't just yell it out into the whole wide world. He was scared, confused and helpless. Let's not forget Mingyu didn't make it better at all."

"Wait, you knew? Hyung you knew about this?" Seungkwan asked, his eyebrows furrowing. "Why did you know about it and we didn't? Or wait, who else knew about it? Don't tell me I'm the only one who was kept in the dark."

Some members started looking around, trying to make out who could possibly have known about me being gay. I let out a deep breath, trying to calm down but failing miserably as I noticed how thick the tension in the room had become.

Once again, I felt suffocated. 

"It's Junhui, Minghao and Seungcheol who knew. And not because we told them but because they sort of found out on their own." Mingyu explained to everyone. "But that's not even important right now. We're still just at the beginning of the story, so can you guys just be quiet and listen to me while I still have the courage to tell you what happened? This isn't easy for me either."

I let out a small chuckle at his words, feeling somehow annoyed at the way he made himself look like a victim when I was the only one attacked by the members and thrown questions at, when I seemed to be the only one who'd been at fault. 

"So the thing is, when Wonwoo asked me that question I sort of didn't understand his intention. I thought he was joking around and laughed at his words and Wonwoo got frustrated and well," Mingyu hesitated for a moment before continuing, "and then he suddenly kissed me. Like, for real."

"I told you I wanted to kiss you." I muttered, making the other members' eyes go even wider as they took in our words. "I made it so clear that I wanted to kiss you and that I was confused myself but you wouldn't even listen, Mingyu. You just kept laughing at me."

"Yeah, I know." Mingyu agreed with me, his voice soft. "I know I just laughed at you but it was because you were suddenly talking about those things and I didn't understand what was going on. You were suddenly so damn different and everything was weird and I didn't know what else to do than to laugh. And then you kissed me and it was just-"

He didn't continue his sentence, clearly at a loss for words. He closed his eyes for a short moment and let out a frustrated sigh, trying to calm down.

"I thought Wonwoo was playing around with me." He then let out, his eyes slowly opening again and finding mine so easily, his stare deep. "Hyung, you suddenly just kissed me and I didn't even know why or what exactly was going through your head, okay? So of course I got angry, who wouldn't have? I thought that you were testing me or something, that you wanted to play some sick game I couldn't understand. And when I asked you why you'd done that you didn't even know. You just kept muttering you didn't know what was going on and you looked so confused and I suddenly just felt how everything was breaking apart."

"Well, I was confused." I stated, still staring back at him. "I didn't know what I'd done, yeah. I didn't know what was wrong or why I'd kissed you because I'd never even felt any urge to do that before but that night, you just- Mingyu, you can't blame me for being confused while finding out I'd actually been gay my whole life. I literally had no ing idea what the hell was wrong with me and you just screamed at me."

Silence, there was nothing but a thick silence filling the room, my eyes suddenly stinging, my heart beating so loudly I was afraid the others would hear it. 

"And suddenly you became unreachable and so so mean and I couldn't even-"

"Can you guys please explain this in a way that we can understand too?" Hansol asked, looking irritated as he tried to put our words together. Mingyu nodded, still a little taken aback from whatever we'd been doing just seconds ago.

Had we fought? Not really. 

"That night I told Wonwoo to stay away from me. I told him not to come sleep in our room because I honestly didn't know what to do with him in the same room. I needed to be alone to think about everything." Mingyu explained, trying to find the right words to say. "I told you that I'd literally set Wonwoo as my top priority and that I'd put him before my wish to become popular and well, loved by my parents. That night I suddenly had the thought that Wonwoo didn't think of me the same, that I wasn't even nearly as important to him as he was to me and so I decided to stop thinking of him as my priority."

"You ing wrecked him, that's what you did." Junhui snarled, probably as fed up as me at the way Mingyu tried to make everything he'd done sound so gentle and nice when he'd treated me like during that time.

"Wait, this is where your strange questions started to happen, right?" Seungcheol asked, making the members look at him in confusion. "Mingyu came up to me and asked me how to make someone you can't distance yourself from fall out of love with you. He was talking about Wonwoo, of course, but I didn't know that and thought he was talking about one of our stylists or someone like that. So I gave him some pretty ty advice to just act like a jerk and make that other person hate him with a passion."

The other members stayed silent, nodding at Seungcheol's words with a rather irritated look on their faces. It was a lot for them to take in, after all.

"And I guess Mingyu took my words by heart because he-"

"No, actually that's not really the truth. I mean, yeah, I came up to you and asked you for advice because I wasn't really sure what to do but actually I-" Mingyu hesitated, not wanting to tell the whole truth. His eyes found mine for a second but instantly fell, as if he was ashamed of what he was about to say next. "Actually I explained everything to Seungcheol in a way that would make him give me that sort of advice. Because I wanted him to tell me just that. I wanted a valid excuse to act like a despicable and treat Wonwoo like dirt. I wanted to hurt him, really, I wanted him to feel like . Because I felt betrayed and played with and wanted Wonwoo to feel even worse, I honestly wanted that."

His words hurt. They hurt so much even though I'd sort of known he'd felt that way when treating me the way he did. And as the memories came back, the memories of him avoiding me and telling me how I meant nothing to him anymore, how I'd become disgusting and despicable, how he'd done everything in order to make me feel small, as those memories came back and I understood that he'd always done it all with intent I couldn't stop myself from tearing up anymore.

He'd done everything in order to hurt me and there was no other excuse for it, no other reason but the fact that he'd wanted me to be in pain, to be wrecked and ed up.

"But that's not the worst part of it. Shortly after our debut, our manager asked Hyung and me if we could do more fanservice since he'd noticed that the fans liked us together." Mingyu went on, the memories suddenly clouding my mind, the memories of Mingyu's harsh words telling to me go on with it all, to play along, to stop ing up the way I did. "And I wanted to do it. I wanted to be liked by the fans, to stand out and make everyone notice me. So since I was mad at Wonwoo anyways and had the power to literally just do with him whatever I wanted I just- I made him do the fanservice with me. I told him to pretend like everything was fine in front of the cameras and you guys but kept treating him badly when no one was looking. And I felt like I was doing the right thing because the fans liked it."

"Mingyu, what the ." I heard someone hiss and as I looked up I noticed that many members had a rather grim expression on their face, eyebrows furrowed as they took in Mingyu's words. My heart hurt, hating to see their reaction, hating the way they looked at Mingyu when I knew he deserved nothing less.

"It all makes sense now. Why you guys fought, why you suddenly became best friends again and even the reason why Wonwoo seemed to be so much quieter than before." Jisoo uttered, others agreeing with him quickly.

"So you just kept on doing that? Pressuring Wonwoo to do fanservice with you and bullying him at the same time for being in love with you? Is that why he tried to-" Soonyoung stopped himself from going further, his eyes suddenly finding mine, instantly softening as he took in my state.

I probably looked like , my eyes filled with tears and most likely red and swollen. 

"Wonwoo, how could you just let him do that to you without telling anything to anyone. Why didn't you say-"

"I did," I interrupted Jeonghan, "I did talk to someone. There was another person who found out about it all and even offered to help me."

"You mean someone who almost you." Mingyu scowled, making the other members' expressions go wide with shock, many asking what the hell Mingyu was talking about, Minghao, Junhui and Seungcheol trying to calm them down. 

But it was no use.

I was suddenly bombarded with even more questions, too many voices asking me for answers at once, too many members calling my name. 

And I froze even more, scared of those questions, of the whole truth being revealed. I didn't even know how to explain anything to the members anymore, all those memories so distant, without connections, twirling around in my mind as I tried to calm down, making me feel the pain once again, making all those horrible feelings come back.

I felt like throwing up.

"Shut the up for a second, will you?" Minghao then screamed, fed up with the members' reaction as well. "This certainly isn't the time for you guys to throw all those questions at Wonwoo! Can't you see that he's trying his best to let you all in on the truth? Hell, I don't even know the whole truth but the things I know are already worth enough for him to want to kill himself! So maybe y'all just shut the up now so that he can tell you what's going on without having a heart attack, you inconsiderate bastards."

And just like that it was silent once again, Minghao panting heavily from his outburst while the other members looked at him in nothing but shock, some gazes falling on me as well, almost apologetic as they saw the few tears falling down my cheeks.

"I- I was never , honestly." Was all I could say, swiftly wiping away those unwanted tears. "I wasn't, , he didn't me, Mingyu. He just loved me and wanted me to love him back. But he would've never me."

"He had his ing hands all over you, Hyung. If I hadn't saved you back then-"

"If you hadn't saved me then he'd eventually stopped after realizing what he was doing. Seokjin-hyung isn't the kind of person to other people and you should know that." I cut him off, still hating the way Mingyu tried to badmouth Seokjin whenever he had the opportunity to do so. "Seokjin actually cared about me."

Mingyu sighed, the other members just looking at us in confusion.

"I met Seokjin-hyung during our 'Adore U' promotions. He overheard Mingyu and me fighting in the bathroom and basically found out about everything Mingyu put me through without even intending to." I started to explain to them. "He gave me some advice and told me I could always ask him for help and well, even though I didn't want to since I hated to just let a stranger help me with those kind of problems, eventually I did ask him for help." 

"And of course he helped you," Mingyu laughed, clearly annoyed. "After all, he wanted you for himself and saw it as a chance to make you his new little toy. Hyung, don't forget what he did. Maybe he changed now but that doesn't mean his actions should be forgotten. That day, he- Hyung, you know exactly that he was about to you."

I looked down, feeling too much shame.

"Mingyu is talking about the day when Seokjin came to our dorm and we all left after noticing that Wonwoo was fighting with him," Junhui spoke up, noticing that the other members needed further explanations. "Remember how Minghao and I went back since he'd forgotten his phone back at home? Well, that's how we found out. We went back and overheard how Mingyu was screaming at Seokjin and telling him to stay away from Wonwoo and how Seokjin kept talking about Mingyu hurting Wonwoo. It was really confusing to us and since we didn't know what to do we just hid in the kitchen."

Minghao nodded. "Yeah, Seokjin left soon after and then Mingyu and Wonwoo started to fight, not only about Seokjin but also about the whole thing that was going on between them. It was honestly so confusing and we didn't really understand but what we did find out was something about Wonwoo being in love with Mingyu and Mingyu having given him a hard time because of it. Also, that Seokjin had sort of offered to help Wonwoo but taken advantage of that."

It was silent, so silent.

"He made this plan with me. Told me we could pretend to be falling for each other so that Mingyu would stop," I told them, slowly looking up and noticing how the members' eyes were filled with disbelief. "I just wanted Mingyu to stop it. To stop telling me how useless I was and how disgusting I'd gotten, to make him stop blaming me for breaking our friendship, to stop laughing at me and make me feel so small. I just- I wanted to stop loving him and so I agreed to Seokjin's plan. But it didn't work out. Mingyu didn't believe us and so I told Seokjin-hyung that we should stop pretending when Mingyu didn't even care. He wasn't very happy about that and- yeah, one day he came over and-"

I couldn't say it out loud.

"Seokjin told Wonwoo that he'd helped him because he wanted him for himself," Mingyu let the other members know. "He'd literally pretended to be this super nice older Hyung when he'd wanted nothing but to make Wonwoo his. And when Wonwoo said he didn't want him he literally just took him."

I nodded. "Yeah, he tried, that's right. But nothing happened."

I wanted to sink into the ground, hating the members' horrible expressions. They were clearly shocked and I knew I couldn't blame them for that yet I wished they wouldn't look at me with those apologetic eyes, with that clear disappointment because I hadn't told them sooner.

It made me feel so small.

"After Junhui and Minghao had found out Minghao came up to me because he wanted explanations," Mingyu continued after a moment of silence. "At first I thought he was on my side and so I explained to him what had happened but Minghao-"

"I was so ing mad," Minghao cut him off. "Mingyu was literally so proud of the way he'd treated Wonwoo, it was honestly disgusting to listen to him. And so I screamed at him to ing stop what he was doing and I told him that he was the reason why Wonwoo had almost been . I wanted him to acknowledge that what he was doing was wrong."

My eyes widened. "What?"

"Yeah, that's right, Minghao kept repeating that it was my fault and since I was already frustrated about the whole "thing" that had happened between Wonwoo and Seokjin I started to feel, yeah, guilty." Mingyu tried to find the right words. "I felt so ing guilty since deep down I knew that everything had been my fault. And I hated how Wonwoo had been so oblivious to Seokjin's actions, I hated it so ing much. How he'd trusted him and thought of him as his new best friend when he should have thought of me as his best friend."

I looked at him in confusion, my eyebrows rising. 

"I mean, during that time I might have treated Wonwoo like but it wasn't like I really hated him with a passion," Mingyu tried to explain. "I just felt like he'd broken our friendship and I wanted back what we'd had. But it felt like we couldn't go back to that and so I just suppressed those feelings and concentrated on, well, things like the fanservice. That day I couldn't hold back my feelings anymore, though. I literally hid in our practice room and cried my eyes out there because I felt so ing bad about everything I'd done." He stopped for a moment, hesitant. "And then I kept telling myself that it wasn't my fault at all, that Wonwoo had done everything to himself since he had broken our friendship. I kept repeating it to myself even though I knew I'd been at fault."

My eyes widened, remembering how I'd found him in the practice room, how he'd sobbed and stuttered phrases without connections.

"Wonwoo was the one who found me there. He found me and instead of laughing at me or going away like I wanted him to he ing hugged me and literally listened to me blaming him for everything I had done," Mingyu let out, his voice trembling a little. "I kept shouting at him and yet he didn't even care. He just saw me crying and instantly took me into his arms. And I really ing loved him for that because I needed comfort and he was there, he was there even though I kept saying he should leave, even though I kept repeating how he'd made my life miserable. Wonwoo just-"

He didn't go on, not finding the words to say. 

"I just loved you," I muttered in a sad whisper, remembering how much I'd liked to have Mingyu in my arms and how little I'd cared about his words since they hadn't made sense anyways. "And I comforted you because I hated to see you sad."

"But you shouldn't have done that." Mingyu declared, his eyes finding mine. "To be honest, it confused me so ing much. I started thinking about how I never wanted you to let go of me again and how nice it was to be in your arms and I just ing hated myself for having those thoughts because I didn't know what they meant. So I kept telling myself that I was just missing a friendship that didn't exist anymore and again-" He took a deep breath. "And once again I blamed you for destroying the friendship and told myself that the way I treated you was alright, that I wasn't doing anything wrong."

I nodded.

"But it wouldn't work. I started to ing love how close we were when doing fanservice and wanted to be with you more and more," he said, shaking his head a little. ", I just wanted to be close to you and it didn't make any damn sense because at the same time, I was trying to hate you so damn much." 

I didn't understand, just looking at Mingyu as his words repeated in my head.

"I noticed that I was so ing obsessed with you and you know what? I just kept explaining to myself that I wanted you to help me with the fanservice, that you were nothing but an object to help me to become popular," he chuckled, looking almost disgusted with himself. The members were quiet as they could do nothing more but to take in Mingyu's words, probably having reached a point where they didn't even want to ask questions anymore, too shocked by all the secrets unraveling. 

"And so I kept ing telling myself for months that all I wanted was to be popular, that my ultimate goal was to be liked by the fans, to be known enough to make my parents proud of me," Mingyu went on. "And it worked like that. Thinking of you as nothing but an object worked because it explained why I was so ing addicted to you."

I bit my lip, feeling sick as he said those words even though I didn't understand their exact meaning, realizing that there was still so much I'd never known, so much I'd never wanted to know.

"But then you started to rebel against me and didn't accept what I wanted you to do anymore and I got so frustrated with your behavior and just wanted you to ing listen to me because that's what you were supposed to do," Mingyu shook his head, hating what he was saying, looking like he felt like throwing up as well. "And then our special stage at the Encore Concert happened and I was so ing confused as we practiced for it because I felt so much satisfaction while being so close to you. And Wonwoo, I knew how hard that stage was for you, I understood that you had a breakdown shortly before we went on stage because you couldn't be so close to me but listen, I ing loved that stage. I loved the tension and closeness and I knew that it wasn't because we were doing fanservice but because of something else."

I wasn't even certain if I was breathing anymore, my heart pounding hard as I took in Mingyu's words, knowing that something was wrong.

Something was extremely wrong.

Mingyu sighed, looking at the other members in shame. "You guys probably remember how Wonwoo literally ran off the stage after the concert. Well, now you know why. He was going through hell that day and the worst part of it is that I ing liked all of it. I loved to have him under control, to make him tremble for me and to know how much he loved me. I just-" Mingyu stopped himself, chuckling as tears filled his eyes. "I ing wanted him so much."

I couldn't say a single word, frozen. 

"Wonwoo and I fought backstage. Of course he was mad, he was so ing mad at me for making him go on stage and I knew that yet I liked how flustered and mad he was because it basically showed how much he loved me and I wanted that so much," Mingyu explained as the members just looked at him in a mixture of shock and irritation. "I provoked him even more because I loved how his cheeks were all red and his eyes were filled with so much anger." 

I wanted to say something, anything, yet my mind was blank.

"And then Wonwoo's lips were on mine and I felt like I was dying since it felt so ing good," he laughed at himself, almost as if he couldn't believe what he was saying, his eyes lowering as his lips formed a sad smile. "I knew that I was making a mistake when kissing back but god, it felt so good that I didn't even want to stop."

I wanted to scream at Mingyu, scream that he was lying, that his words weren't the truth yet I couldn't see the lie in his eyes.

"When I noticed that you guys were coming I instantly let go of Wonwoo and pretended that nothing had happened," Mingyu uttered. "I was confused and knew that I'd made a mistake so when Wonwoo asked me why I'd kissed back I couldn't even answer him because it just-" He laughed again. "It didn't make sense. After all, Wonwoo was nothing but an object to me so why did I want him so ing much?" 

Was he speaking the truth? I didn't know anymore, just letting him speak as I tried to follow his confusing words. 

"I had to check, to know why I'd liked kissing him so much, to understand what the was going on with me," Mingyu explained, hesitating before continuing. "So when Wonwoo asked me the next day why I'd kissed him back and I still didn't know what to answer since I had no ing idea what was happening, I just kissed him again. I didn't even want to confuse Wonwoo at that point but just had to know why I was craving for him so damn much." The tears fell as he was not able to hold them anymore. "And that's when I realized that, , I probably had feelings for Wonwoo."

I shook my head, not believing him. "No, don't lie, Mingyu. You never-"

"I left Wonwoo like that. I kissed him like my life depended on it and then, without even explaining myself, I just ran away because I couldn't accept the thoughts that were going through my head. It just didn't make sense because I hated Wonwoo. I was so sure that I hated him yet he somehow made me want more."

"Mingyu, you're not making any-"

"I hid in the company's restroom. You know the one next to our practice room? I just ran there and kept splashing water on my face to just- to ing wake up or something," Mingyu told them, not even letting me say a single word. "I was so damn scared of my feelings. Nothing made sense anymore, honestly, everything I'd believed was suddenly so wrong and I knew that I couldn't keep up with the way I'd acted towards Wonwoo because I just- god, I couldn't do that to him anymore."

"But you never-"

"Then Wonwoo suddenly came storming into the restroom as well and he was crying so ing hard, okay? He looked so lost and confused and suddenly he just collapsed to the ground and I thought I'd finally ing broken him," he stopped himself a little, trying to stop his tears from falling. "So I went over to him and took him into my arms because I just wanted to ing comfort him, to make up for what I'd done. Yet as I held him there I ing realized just how wrong it was of me to be thinking that I should take care of Wonwoo when he shouldn't mean anything to me. He was so ing upset yet I couldn't think about anything else but the fact that I was doing something wrong by comforting him."

It was all ed up.

Once again.

ed up.

"So when he finally stopped crying I actually just wanted to unwrap myself from him and walk out, to forget whatever had happened the last few days and just go back to being a complete ," Mingyu explained, laughing at himself once again. "But then Wonwoo started talking about everything never having been my fault at all. He said he'd talked to Seungcheol and finally knew how I'd just misunderstood Seungcheol's advices."

"Well, it seemed like you'd done all of that to make me happier so of course I thought you'd never intended to hurt me," I interrupted him, sighing.

"Wait, I can't follow you guys anymore," Soonyoung spoke up, first looking at me but his gaze soon traveling to Mingyu and then Seungcheol. "What did you say to Wonwoo?" 

Seungcheol bit his lip, taking in a deep breath. 

"I told Wonwoo about those advices I'd given to Mingyu. Honestly, I was just worried Mingyu was having a fling with a stylist or something and so I wanted to ask Wonwoo if he knew anything about all the weird questions Mingyu had asked me. Wonwoo completely flipped out that day and screamed at me that he was the one Mingyu had always needed advice for. I was seriously so shocked, like, Wonwoo basically came out to me and just stormed out of the room in a matter of seconds and yeah, apparently he suddenly thought Mingyu had been treating him badly just because of my advices and not because he'd wanted to-"

"Exactly. I thought Mingyu had been trying to protect me, that he'd tried to make me fall out of love because he wanted me to be better. I basically just tried to find an excuse for me to forgive Mingyu for his actions because I so badly wanted him to be a good person." I explained to everyone. "So when I collapsed in the restroom and Mingyu comforted me it was sort of  a confirmation that Mingyu actually never wanted me to go through pain. I felt like I was finally escaping the hell Mingyu had put me through because I told myself that he'd done everything for my sake."

It was way too silent, the members looking at me like they couldn't even believe my words anymore.

"Yeah, Wonwoo kept stuttering how nothing was my fault and all and so I-" Mingyu looked up, his eyes meeting mine for only a second. "I took Wonwoo's state of mind for my advantage. I mean, I knew I couldn't go on with treating him badly anymore but I also didn't want to just go on as friends because I was pretty sure Wonwoo would try to distance himself from me then. I couldn't risk that since I wanted him to keep doing the fanservice with me and so I suddenly had this idea."

"What idea?" Minghao questioned, eyebrows furrowing as he looked at Mingyu in disbelief. "Shouldn't this be the part of the story where you acknowledged your feelings for Wonwoo and you two started dating? Why is there a ing idea you had instead of a realization, Mingyu?"

He was angry, finally understanding where the story he knew had gone wrong.

"No, it wasn't realization. I mean, yeah, I knew I had some feelings for Wonwoo but honestly, all I cared about at that moment was for Wonwoo to keep doing the fanservice with me. So what I'm trying to say is, I didn't even think about my feelings at that point but just about popularity, about fame, about Wonwoo as the other part of me that I needed to get to the top." Mingyu revealed the whole ugly truth. "And so I told him that I liked him, that I had feelings for him and wanted to try out loving him.”

The members' eyes widened, some looking at me for a short moment, some letting out gasps or sighs.

"Wonwoo was confused at first, of course, but it was pretty easy to convince him that I'd grown feelings for him the past few weeks since the whole kissing thing had happened. He basically bought a story about me falling head over heels for him in less than twenty minutes.” Mingyu went on, some members not even looking at him anymore as he let out the truth. "He didn't even ask any questions but just let me manipulate him, as if he knew I was lying but just didn't care anymore."

I nodded, letting out a small breath. Heads turned towards me, too many gazes staring at me, some apologetic, some confused, some disappointed. I just nodded again, a sad smile growing on my lips. And before I could hold back any longer, my shoulders were already shaking, the sobs escaping without my permission, thick tears clouding my vision. 

“And it went on like that for a while. Wonwoo thought I was in love with him and was happy enough to do anything I wanted him to do. The fans were happy to see us together, so I was happy as well. It worked well for a while.” Mingyu explained, his eyes set on the table as he didn’t dare to look at anyone anymore. “But the problem was that I had no idea what to do with my feelings. Wonwoo gave me so much love and warmth that I kept falling and I knew I would lose my mind by just accepting those feelings, so I tried to cut them off. I faked my love for him while actually trying to stop myself from loving him and it was messing with my mind, so hard. At some point I could only hate myself anymore since I knew I was going too far yet I-“

“Yet he didn’t stop. When I actually noticed that he didn’t truly love me, he still didn’t stop but just tried to make me believe him even more. And I knew something was wrong yet I didn’t exactly know why he was pretending to like me. It didn’t make sense.” I continued, tears still falling down my cheeks as I spoke, my sobs thankfully having stopped. “So I did the only thing I knew to do and that was to get help from someone. I don’t even know why or how I gained the courage to do so but at some point I called Seokjin-hyung again.”

I heard sighs, some members even cursing at his name.

“It was actually Seokjin who realized what was wrong. Wonwoo didn’t even tell him much yet he somehow just found out by himself what I was doing.” Mingyu uttered, shaking his head with a sigh. “He knew my intentions and then, some day when we meet during promotions, he confronted me and told me he knew what I was up to. We argued and I tried to tell him to shut up and stop butting into our business but he just didn’t.” Mingyu took a deep breath, preparing himself for the words he had to say next. “A few days after our argument Seokjin visited our dorm to find Wonwoo. He wanted to tell him the truth and get him out of his misery, you know, he actually wanted him to get better. But instead of Wonwoo I was the one to open the door for him and since I thought Wonwoo had gone to the practice room with all of you I didn’t hold back when arguing with Seokjin.”

It was still.

“I was at home.” I only muttered, feeling too tired to say anything else.

“Yeah, Wonwoo was at home. Basically, he overheard everything Seokjin and I were talking about and well, as I’ve said, I didn’t hold back my words. I said things I didn’t mean, horrible things about Wonwoo, just so Seokjin would understand that telling Wonwoo the truth would be too much pain for him to handle. I let all my frustration out on him, trying to make him shut up already, so desperately trying to get him out of our lives that I said the worst possible things about Wonwoo that I could’ve said. I don’t even know anymore if I meant them or if I was going overboard because I was trying to get Seokjin to stay out of our business. I honestly don’t even know anymore, I was in such a bad state of mind where I would’ve done everything so that Wonwoo would stay by my side yet I almost lost him on the same day because I was too ing selfish.”

I didn’t dare to look up anymore, the silence in the room too suffocating, my mind too clouded, my body too tired to listen to Mingyu any longer.

“It was the day Wonwoo tried to kill himself, right?” Seungcheol guessed, his words sounding so harsh when they were nothing but the truth.

“Yes, it was.” Mingyu agreed, his voice sounding broken and tired. “After arguing with Seokjin I went to the company and that’s where I found you guys, asking me where Wonwoo was. Then you told me he should’ve come with me, that he’d been waiting at the dormitory for me.” He stopped, inhaling deeply. “And I guess you guys know the rest of the story since you were there with me and saw what happened. You saw what I made Wonwoo do, you all ing saw it.”

I slowly looked up to see the tears in our members’ eyes, some only sitting there and staring into nowhere, unable to believe what they’d just heard. Nobody dared to speak up or ask any questions anymore, clearly too lost to do so. 

Mingyu, too, had tears escaping his eyes, his head soon dropping, his shoulders starting to shake. He was sobbing in silence, probably too scared to cry any louder and disturb the other members as they took in everything that had happened.

And after complementing for a long moment what I should do I finally stood up, not even uttering a single word as I slowly walked towards my room and left the members behind, not able to endure the thick overwhelming sadness surrounding them any longer.

I opened the door to my room and let my tired legs lead me to my bed, my body collapsing on top of it as I welcomed the softness of my blanket. And as I closed my eyes and let my tired limbs rest, I only vaguely listened to the sudden yells,  the curses and the many loud voices screaming through the dorm.

I didn’t even realize that the members were fighting because all I could think about was sleep.

Since everything inside of me called for that.

______

A/N: What up I'm Magda, I'm 20 and I never ing learned how to continue a story. Yes, I’m still alive and have now decided to finally end this story. I’m sorry for being so ing late (don’t know if there’s anyone left reading this story) but yeah, I’ve gone through some hard stuff the last year and wasn’t emotionally stable enough to keep writing. Even coming on here to tell you guys that I can’t write was something I couldn’t do, so I’m very sorry for that. Still, I’d like to end this story since I can’t forget about it. 

Again, I’m sorry and thanks for reading this mess of a chapter. It’s mostly just a recap of everything that has happened but in Mingyu’s POV, so I guess it’s pretty boring? Idk, some things in here were actually never said in the story (because it was of course Mingyu’s point of view) so maybe that’s something interesting for you guys. Love you all and see you soon.