It’s long. Too long. Long enough that it’s definitely not an accident anymore. The rooftop is silent aside from the break of their breath, the whir of far off traffic and and the hum of cicadas.

Then Tzuyu’s ringtone cuts through the ambient noise.

“Ignore it,” Jun murmurs, a request, placing firefly kisses beneath her ear in a place she never knew lips could feel so splendid.

“I shouldn’t,” Tzuyu replies. He tugs her earlobe between his teeth and she just about turns into a puddle of agreement before he pulls back. He hands her the phone that he’d confiscated earlier and it’s Jihyo’s name lighting up the screen. A fearful weight pulls down on Tzuyu.

“Hey Jihyo,” she replies, making pointed eye contact with Jun above her, who moves to sit up, allowing her to do the same.

“Hey, where did you go?” Jun can hear Jihyo’s tiny voice coming through the phone.

“Uhh, nowhere important, what’s up?” Tzuyu says.

“Well, when you’re done being nowhere important, you should come back to the party. Everyone’s having a lot of fun!” Jihyo says, speaking loudly over the thud of music. The tension Tzuyu’s holding visibly gives.

“Alright. I’ll be there soon,” Tzuyu replies, ending the call.

She gives Jun a look of resignation.

“We gotta go?” he asks.

“We gotta go,” she echoes in confirmation.

Self-disciplined is Tzuyu’s nature but she allows herself to tangle in the darkened hallways with Jun several times on their descent, each time messier and less graceful than the last, both giggly from the sneaky silliness of the situation. It’s still heart wrenching in its sweetness.

Because in the back of Tzuyu’s mind there is this thing that she still cannot allow herself to admit. She realizes that some nights are meant to remain pockets of time with funhouse logic and actions that mismatch the intentions of a new day. And so she'll indulge it for now, while they're on this plane of irreality, without too much consideration for whether she's indulging Jun or herself.

They pause behind the ‘employees only’ door, and Tzuyu turns to Jun, who weaves his fingers through hers; happiness pulls at the corners of his lips and he draws his gaze up from the sight of their interlaced fingers to meet her eyes.

“Our secret, okay?” she asks.

“Yeah,” he replies, voice quiet.

She leans back against the wall and tugs her hands from his, and him forward into her at the same time, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and kissing him, lingering and indulgent, one last time. Jun feels like she’s trying to communicate something with it, but he’s not exactly sure what.

“Okay,” she says, tilting her forehead to his, resolving herself to go but unwilling to articulate it.

“Okay,” he replies, acquiescing with his words but capturing once more. There’s something too rapturous and jubilant to be denied in this forbidden, condemnable moment. Jun knows she feels it too, if her compliance is any indication.

“Okay, okay,” she murmurs more hurriedly this time, pressing her fingertips to his collarbones so that he’ll back away.

She’s got more self-control than he does by miles, that’s for sure.

Tzuyu walks out first and finds Jihyo singing a trot song with Dokyeom at the karaoke machine, some of the partygoers crowded around the area laughing and dancing in the glow of the colored, flashing lights. There’s another bunch of people at one end of the table playing some sort of game involving cards and lots of table-slapping, drinks sloshing out and laugher erupting from them as she crosses the room. The sight makes her grateful for the drawn blinds of the storefront.

She makes an immediate beeline for Minghao, pulling him to the back of the karaoke crowd by the wrist.

“Hey, so you know when you said earlier that that thing was all for me?” she says, speaking in code; though it’s in Mandarin, Jieqiong is here and Tzuyu doesn’t trust her well enough for her to know what she’s up to, not by a long shot.

“Yeah?” he replies, interest piqued.

“Well, can I have it, actually?” she replies, low and hurried.

Minghao bestows her with a look of confusion but pulls it discreetly out all the same, handing it to Tzuyu behind her back and out of sight of the others.

“Thanks, Minghao,” Tzuyu replies and he gives her a nod in response, slipping away back into the crowd to not draw attention to their conversation. Tzuyu’s glad for a taciturn friend at a time like this.

She makes her way to the bathroom, nicking a can of coke on her way. Once alone she unscrews the flask, pouring the contents of it down , though she wants to gag and spit it out.

Because she needs a reason, a justification, a buffer between her thoughts and reality. She wants to crowd out the corners of her mind screaming at her that none of this is okay.

“Hey,” Chaeyoung says to Tzuyu once she exits the bathroom, linking an arm through hers and steering her towards an open booth. “You won’t believe what happened. Momo decided to dance on a table and fell off into the waiting arms of one Kim Mingyu. He was red in the face for about a hundred years after; it was the best.”

“Jeez, you guys have been getting into some crazy hijinks,” Tzuyu says, glancing over to find the pair who are on opposite sides of the room.

“Speaking of, where did you go?” Chaeyoung asks.

“You know, here and there,” Tzuyu replies evasively. Chaeyoung quirks an eyebrow at her but doesn’t press the issue further. For a second time tonight, Tzuyu’s thankful for a friend that doesn’t pry.

Later in the night when the party has died down a bit, Jun finds Minghao sitting stoically with a half-empty glass in front of him, Mingyu snuggled against his shoulder, possibly sleeping. With Wonwoo home sick, Mingyu has been a barnacle to Minghao as of late.

“Sup,” Minghao says when Jun sits across from him.

“What’s with Gyu?” Jun asks.

“He still thinks he can drink as much as I can,” Minghao says, shaking his head in disapproval and pity.

“Poor thing. He’ll learn one day,” Jun says with an empathetic nod. For his part, Minghao looks perfectly composed, if a little disheveled from the night’s events and the fact that he isn’t hairsprayed into oblivion as they usually are during the day.

“So, you and Tzuyu?” Minghao asks casually.

“What about me and Tzuyu?” Jun replies airily, his hackles rising in suspicion. How the hell does Minghao always seem to know?

“Nothing,” Minghao says, quirking an eyebrow and taking a sip of his drink that seems to imply that it’s definitely, absolutely the opposite of nothing.

Jun doesn’t press it, though. As much as they’re having a conversation between friends, the stakes of the situation are still too towering for anything resembling a public area.

Later that night, after the party has wound down and the girls have made it back to the dorm and they’re all cozied up in their beds, the adrenaline settles and leaves heavy panic behind; a weight in Tzuyu’s stomach settles like dread. What did she do?

What did she do?

What did she do?

Oh god.

Weibo

Jun, 16 June, 5:17pm: hey are you free any time this week?

Jun, 17 June, 9:21pm: ?

Jun, 18 June, 1:08pm: guess not

-18 June, 8:40pm: missed call, Jun-

Jun, 19 June, 1:33pm: call me when you get a chance

Jun, 20 June, 12:09pm: are you ok?

Jun’s busy and no doubt that Tzuyu is too—she’s everywhere these days: street advertisements, commercials, variety shows—and it makes for an easy excuse of why they can’t see one another. He knows that variety filming can take all day—often ten hours for a one-hour show—to say nothing of CF filming and photo shoots.

It’s fine, she’s probably just at a schedule. She’s busy these days. Maybe she saw it and forgot to reply, he tells himself time and time again. He tries to push down the niggling seed of doubt that’s sprouted within him but it serves only to plant it further.

He resorts to asking Mingyu to ask Chaeyoung if something is up with her, but all reports turn up clean: ‘she seems fine, is getting on with her life as per usual, and why do you want to know?’ But it’s all filtered through Mingyu and Jun can’t exactly tell him or Chaeyoung why, so that’s all he’ll get for now.

Jun bears in mind what Seungcheol said to him months ago, to think of the team and not let problems affect his work in a destructive way. He owes it to them to show the same commitment as everyone else. When they’re practicing he turns his phone off, full stop, and doesn’t check it until they’re done for the day. He knows that staring at their messages and willing a new response to appear is just shy of crazy, and tries not to indulge it.

The days move by at a fast clip, in spite of it. Days in the Pledis building stretch on without any signs of shortening. Hours go by in the practice room, filled with rehearsals for the fast-approaching KCON in New York, sessions to learn new routines for their concerts next month, and rehearsals to clean their next promotional routine that they’ll be performing in only a few weeks time. It’s all punctuated by recording sessions, filming v-apps, and breaks for meals. Though he and the other Seventeen guys (minus Wonwoo, for now) are worked to the bone, since they’re between promotional periods they actually have time to sleep for once. Jun’s worrying gives way to exhaustion, night after night, until it’s time to head to New York and he hasn’t heard a peep from Tzuyu in a week.

Tzuyu’s spent the last week idling in indecision, indefinitely. She knows that now, she has to make a choice. Before, she could fret without end over what she wants but she can’t face him now. She holds too much power in her hands and is overwhelmed by how to wield it.

She thinks of Krystal, Sulli, Suzy, IU, Taeyeon, Tiffany… the list of female idols who have had their careers tarnished and stunted by dating scandals is staggering. The stakes are high, for her, for her group. It’s sickening to think of the way that her market value will go down if she’s seen as impure, and terrifying to think of the threats that would emerge from the fandom of another popular group, as Jun’s is quickly becoming. And then, this would all impact her group, directly and indirectly both. She’d already razed Twice’s hopes of success in China to the ground, and to do so further would be career suicide, for herself and the rest of the group members that she loves and cares for. How could she possibly subject others to that?

But the selfish part in her, the id to her superego, wants him in a way that’s blinding. Pandora’s box is open, and how can she shove it all back in?

Short answer: she can’t.

Jun jerks forward in his seat as the plane touches down, the wheels jolting on impact as the rushing crescendo of airplane brakes accompanies the pull of rapid deceleration. JFK airport looms in the distance, crowned with far-off skyscrapers, fog and pollution adding a hazy filter over the buildings that soar into the sky.

“New York,” he hears Seungcheol mumble jubilantly, his voice thick with sleep, as he joins the waking world.

“We’re visiting the Statue of Liberty, right?”

“If we have time, Dino-yah,” Jeonghan replies affectionately.

It’s the third week of June, and Seventeen is in New York for KCON. Jun has resolved to enjoy himself, because otherwise what’s the damn point? He won’t let Tzuyu’s silence ruin things for him. He’s in the US, with his group members who are always a tremendous fun, so he may as well make the most of the trip.

The next few days are spent in rehearsals, with intermittent free time to explore the city. The mix of people of different colors and races, many with loud dispositions, is utterly jarring to them all. Joshua and Vernon herd them, like little sheep, through the wending streets and alleys of the cities, communicating effortlessly in a foreign tongue while Jun can only pick out words here or there that he understands. This must be what it felt like all those months ago, when he’d led them confidently through the bustling streets of Hong Kong. Being on the helpless end is disarming.

The music starts, vibrating thick and heavy through the air. A tiny version of it plays through Jun’s earpiece; the thunder of the music from the industrial sound system and the clamor of the crowd renders the music coming from the speakers indistinguishable.

He waits at his mark for his cue. Counts the music in his head.

5. 6. 7. 8.

Go.

And then he is onstage. There’s only blinding, flashing lights, s beside him, and the roar of the crowd, dark and soaring up into the sky, the top edges of the stadium made visible only by the asive glow of the city on the skyline. This is KCON.

“Damn, what a rush,” Hoshi says, pulling his tie loose as they pour into their dressing room, dabbing at his face with a towel to clear off 20 minutes’ worth of sweat. The time onstage is objectively short, but minutes before an enormous crowd distort themselves, stretching impossibly long into the distance while simultaneously disappearing in a snap.

Just like that, their purpose for being in New York is over.

“Americans’ reactions are amazing,” Mingyu says in awe, already changing out of his stage outfit.

Everyone is amped, on edge, a high that only performing for such a massive, effusive crowd can bring. Jun’s still drunk off of the response from the audience, adrenaline and endorphins marrying to create a cloudy buoy of elation.

This right here, this feeling, is how he knows that he would never want anything else.

“Something’s been up with you lately, Jun,” Woozi says, glancing up from his notebook. They’re in their hotel room, spending their last few hours in the US locked indoors while the nighttime city hums on the other side of the wall. On long trips, Woozi abandons his production software and writes, just writes, songs that’ll never see the light of day because mournful doesn’t sell. His soul is old and tired, and if Jun could ever fully get his mind around reincarnation, Woozi would be the first one he’d believe to have lived a hundred lives, for his depth of thought and feeling that transitions effortlessly into levity.

Woozi is used to exhaustions, and the many permutations it manifests in, so he never says much. Though the one time Jun would hope for him not to ask questions would, of course, be the one time he asked.

“Does it seem like that?” Jun replies as he pulls off his shoes, feeling the situation out.

“No. It’s not obvious, at least,” Woozi replies, eyes still on his notebook as he erases away at a line.

“Then why do you say so?” Jun asks, tiptoeing around the topic.

“I just know you. You’re normally a lot more optimistic and energetic.”

And annoying.

He doesn’t say the last part, but Jun knows it can be true sometimes (not that it’s hard to annoy Woozi).

“I can’t be tired?” Jun replies, fishing through his luggage to find pajamas, and for an excuse.

“If you say so,” Woozi replies, unconvinced, and pops his headphones in. Woozi has no interest in teasing the truth out of someone who is playing coy and beating around the bush, so the conversation is over for now. Still, it makes Jun realize that his acting may not be as convincing as he’d thought.

Variety filming is no small occasion, Tzuyu learned quickly after debut. A one-hour show could take half a day to film, to say nothing of the hour or two (or three) spent on hair, makeup and wardrobe before even setting foot on set.

The purpose is relatively straightforward: they want her on the show to capture her reactions, and to increase viewership. Beyond the tedium, it’s usually rather easy; all there is to do is follow directions of the PDs and behave with the same vigilance as is usually necessary in public, while making sure the cameras catch her good side.

Today’s a mukbang of sorts: they’re on Please Take Care of My Refrigerator, the Korean version of the show her labelmate Jackson hosts in China. With Jungyeon by her side, Tzuyu feels like she can take on anything.

Well, almost anything.

They’ve moved onto the section of the show where the chefs make dishes for the guests to try, and today’s meal is none other than hotpot.

“It reminds me of the Chinese food I ate with my family as a child. Eating this again after so long makes me feel happy,” Tzuyu says to the hosts, reminding herself of the appropriate direction to look for the cameras to capture her while diligently providing the reaction she knows they want. The inclusion of the dish is deliberate, and she knows it’s the prompt for her and Cao Lu, another guest and Chinese import from girl group Fiestar, to provide their responses.

“Tzuyu kept saying while she was eating that these dishes remind her of her mom,” Jungyeon adds in, stretching the truth a touch, for effect.

“Yes, I used to eat similar dishes with my family when I was young,” Tzuyu says with a nod.

“It seems like eating this type of Chinese food makes you think of your mother,” the host comments.

“Uh,” Tzuyu replies, her voice wobbling.

The memory of Junhui at Auntie Mei's from months ago is triggered: clear as day, the image of him, eyebrows knit in concern, chopsticks held aloft and beckoning her to take 'one bite’ flashes through her mind. She begins to laugh in nervousness while emotion, sudden and swift, comes over her in a torrent and begins to close .

Because this was the last time. The last time that she had anything that reminded her of home. She is reminded of Taiwan, of her mom, but overwhelmingly of this desperate aching inside of her that she has tried time and time again to wall off only to have the barriers forever be melting, disintegrating under the pressure of her yearning heart.

She cannot unbraid these things, these feelings, of home and of longing; there’s a humming nostalgia wrapped in it all. She realizes that she cannot miss one without the dominoes falling for the others. In sum total, the joy of home is clouded out by a fresh, undeniable darkness.

Tears come, now. On broadcast, the apex of her discomfort, and yet this untenable, immovable reaction emerges. There are dozens of cameras filling the room, dozens more blinding stage lights shining on her and heating up the room, which is full of faux-friendly people who play nice but view her reaction in terms of the ratings it will bring rather than the pain behind it. This situation is not worth her tears.

(Well, not the immediate physical one. The backstory is another thing.)

“Tzuyu has never cried during a broadcast before. This is the first time,” Jungyeon says beside her, genuine shock, not for-the-cameras shock, written across her features.

All Tzuyu can do is think ‘stop crying. Stop crying. You’re being filmed. Pull yourself together.’

She gathers her will and stills the reaction within her, grounding herself in the moment and forcing thoughts of anything but the people and cameras before her from her mind.

Cao Lu makes a joke when asked if she misses her parents, and Tzuyu’s laughter lays down another layer, sealing off her unnerving thoughts.

And she tries, for the hundredth time, to forget.

A few days later, Junhui calls her, and she knows that she needs to speak to him now, because it’s too cruel to ignore him for any longer than she has—it’s been two weeks now—with no explanation. She knows he must be grasping at straws for reasons why, desperate to believe excuses by now.

“Hello?” she says tentatively.

“Are you avoiding me?”

His words run into one another, not sloppy, but less composed than usual.

“Are you drunk?” she asks.

“Answer the question.”

“You answer the question.”

“I asked first!” he becomes petulant, his tone whiny and demanding.

“Fine. No, I’m not avoiding you.”

She cringes at her own barely-plausible lie. It’s so obvious that she is.

“Don’t lie to me,” he says scathingly.

“Why would you ask a question if you think you already know the answer?” Tzuyu asks incredulously, chagrined at the anger in his tone.

“I wanted to hear you say it,” Jun replies.

“You’re unbelievable,” she says.

“You’re unbelievable!” Jun retorts.

“And you’re drunk!” Tzuyu says in annoyance.

“No I’m not. I only drank as much as Seungcheol and he’s fine.”

“Jun, you are not Seungcheol,” Tzuyu says, dismayed by the mere idea of the situation.

“Are you talking about me?” Tzuyu hears in muffled Korean in the background. “Give that to me!”

There’s a muffled skirmish and then Seungcheol’s voice comes through the phone, clipped and clear as day, equal parts amused and exasperated.

“Tzuyu?”

“Seungcheol?”

“Sorry about Jun, I told him not to try and keep up with me,” Seungcheol says, rather more lucidly than Jun.

“It’s okay. I kind of deserve it,” Tzuyu replies, catching her thumbnail between her teeth in guilt and nervousness.

“Why do you say—Jun, hold on—why do you say that?” Seungcheol asks.

“I think you know.”

“Actually, I don’t,” Seungcheol replies lightly. Maybe Jun had kept his mouth shut, after all.

“Huh. I guess you don’t, then. I’ve kind of been avoiding Jun,” she says, admitting so easily to Seungcheol what she couldn’t to Jun. She’s not really sure why it feels so different to say it to him.

“And why’s that?”

'Because we kissed and I'm having an existential crisis about it'?. No, try again. She doesn't want to lie to Seungcheol of all people, but there's no way to elegantly put the truth. There are several beats of silence before Seungcheol continues.

“Actually, I don’t think I want to involve myself in it. But I do think that you should talk to him because avoiding him isn’t going to solve any problems.”

He’s right. Avoiding it will only make things fester but it’s intimidating to say the least. She’s still trying to make sense of everything: of her reality, of what she knows she can and can’t want in relation to what she actually wants, and where to go from here. She doesn’t want to hurt him but she realizes too late that not speaking to him isn’t a neutral action.

“Can you tell him I’ll message him about it? I have to go,” Tzuyu says. Not that she literally has to. But still, she has to.

“I don’t want to get in the middle of this…” Seungcheol says warily.

“Please, Seungcheol,” she says, pleading and exhaustion in her voice. He’s silent for a moment.

“Okay. But whatever’s wrong with you guys, I really hope you resolve it, soon. I don’t like you two fighting.”

“We’re not fighting,” Tzuyu says quickly.

“Semantics. Remember what I said.”

“I will. Bye, Seungcheol.”

“Later, Tzuyu.”

Tzuyu messaged Jun to meet her tonight because there is a weight pressing heavy down on her, heavier with every day and she needs to do thisnow because if she doesn’t she may lose her courage.

So she’s in the basement practice room at JYPE in the middle of the night because she needs to be on her own turf. There’s a series of small beeps and then a melodic signal that the door’s unlocked from the outside, then Jun walks in.

“Hey,” he says, voice soft, and holds his arms out just slightly to wrap around Tzuyu but she backs away. Confusion and hurt colors his features but he just drops his arms again, taking a seat.

“What’s been up lately?”

Tzuyu’s on the defense, and walks across the room, placing distance between them, shifting weight back and forth on her feet in anxiety.

“What do you mean, what’s been up lately?”

“Are you kidding me, Tzuyu?” He asks, exasperated. She crosses her arms, looking up and away from him. The gravity and weight of this moment, and what she knows she needs to do, are sinking their teeth into her, and it feels sharper and more definite just looking at him.

He makes his way over to her, and tries to place a hand on her shoulder but she jerks away from his touch.

“I can’t do this, Jun.”

“What?”

Dismay and disbelief and a host of other unbelieving emotions all crease his face, like he’s not sure what she means and can’t absorb it, but , didn’t he at least partly see this coming? He must trust more in the likelihood of situations to turn out well than she does. He was always the optimist to her doubtful realist—she refuses to consider herself a pessimist, thank you very much.

“The other night… it was all a mistake, a big misunderstanding. I don’t see you like that,” Tzuyu says, unable to look him in the eye as she speaks, but she glances up when she’s finished, and Jun sees fear shining in her eyes.

“Don’t lie to me,” Jun replies, defensive. She stutters, not expecting him to see through her so easily.

“It's true,” Tzuyu says.

Jun replays the moment of Tzuyu pulling him into her the other night through his mind. Everything in that—the gentle smile on her lips, the soft sincerity in the way she looked at him, the way she wrapped herself around him and kissed him, soft and lingering—she couldn’t fake that, could she? He refuses to believe it.

He presses a hand to her shoulder, forcing her to backpedal several steps until her back hits the wall. He stands over her, a determined look in his eyes, and runs his fingers slowly, feather-light down the column of her neck and over her shoulder. Her chest rises and falls more rapidly, something desirous and fatal bubbling up inside of her.

He leans forward, mouth millimeters from her ear.

"Stop. Lying."

He pulls back to look her in the eye and every molecule within her feels like it wants to close the gap between them, for lips ebb and flow as the tide does, kaleidoscope colors blooming in the blackness of her eyes, delineation between them a thing of the past.

However, she summons every infinitesimal bit of her self-control and pushes him away.

"I'm not lying. I was drunk."

"What?"

He’s taken aback by this, lips parting in a tiny, befuddled ‘o’.

"You heard me. I'm sorry if I got carried away that night but I wasn't in my right mind."

"You didn't seem drunk," he counters, halfway musing to himself. He reviews the night for the hundredth time and wonders: had he missed glassiness in her eyes? A slowness in her actions? Words running together? In his memory none of those are present, but it has been weeks and the details are faded, blurry around the edges now.

"Give it a rest, Jun. I know how much I had, and I know how I felt," she says, her words edgy and sharp.

“Why are you being like this?” Jun asks. The Tzuyu he knows is sweet and thoughtful and inquisitive, if a little closed off, but this… this is unprecedented rudeness.

He resists one last time, and she knows that the only way to protect them both is to crush him. She had so wanted not to have to pull this card. But it's the only way. She knows she has to hurt him now, because this is inevitable. If she can rip through his loyalty and trust now, at least the break will be clean, have a chance to set and heal. Things between them are not meant for this world, for daylight. They're condemned to forever be ships passing at night, in fear.

"Jun, come on. Be realistic. What makes you think someone like me would get with someone like you?"

There’s a pause while that registers with him, like he’s reviewing the words to make sure he’s heard them properly.

“What the hell do you mean by that?” Jun asks, defensive.

“You know what I mean, Jun,” she says, her voice all cold and dismissive. ‘It’s the only way,’ she reminds herself. In another life, they could be, but they’d made their choices and now the only thing left for them was to accept the consequences.

“I don’t. Enlighten me, please.”

“You don’t see it? I’m being lauded as one of the most beautiful and popular girls in the country. And you’re… you’re… I don’t have time for someone like you,” she says icily. She’s impressed she doesn’t choke on her own words. “You even said it yourself, the other day, ‘we can’t all be Twice-level popular’.”

“Bull,” he says in a whisper, after letting her words sink in and simmer. “Bull,” he repeats, voice raised and hoarse and cracking. She’s the one hurting him, so why does it feel like he’s twisting a dagger in her with the pained inflections and frustration in his voice?

“It’s not bull. It’s fact.”

“Are you ing kidding me, Tzuyu?” Pause. Desperation. Hesitance. Silence. “So you're going to throw everything away between us, just like that?" Something durable and fixed shatters inside of her, at the vulnerability, the pleading in his voice. “I feel like I don’t even know you. Whatever the has gotten into you, all this that you’re saying, this isn’t the Tzuyu that I know.”

“Then I guess you don’t know me very well, Junhui,” she says coldly.

He gives her a look that is long and scathing. Beneath she can see the hurt and confusion of the boy who ardently, sincerely gave his heart for her to stomp it into the dirt in return.

Instead of replying, he stands, and backpedals towards the door.

“Whatever, Tzuyu. Maybe someone, some day will live up to your standards,” he says, darkly flippant and full of tightly regulated agitation, shutting the door loudly behind him. The room is silent save for the sound of his retreating footsteps, and then the click of the outside door as he exits through it.

She unravels as soon as he leaves. It’s the only way, she reminds herself again and again and again, trying to fix the idea in her brain. Breaking his heart is the only solution with finality, the only way to make sure it never happens again because she doesn’t trust herself, either. They’re playing the most dangerous game, and from the outset they should’ve known that there would only be pain at the end.

Jun strides at a fast clip at first, until his legs betray him and he stumbles one too many times over the concrete and forces himself to slow down. But partly—mostly—he’d just wanted to get as far away from Tzuyu as possible. Once his heartbeat and breathing slows to normal he pulls out his phone, dialing a number he hasn’t called in a while. Maybe ever.

Because his mind’s still abuzz, ablaze, and he needs something else right now.

“Hello?”

“Hey Jieqiong, are you busy?”

A/n: sorry guys. I worship chaos. Plus the whole unflinching realism thing.

Pls gib comments, they feed my motivation to finish this story (there’s probs around 2-3 chapters left).

I’m always on tumblr and I love to chat. Questions/concerns/discussions/requests: rgywrites.tumblr.com.