It was a spontaneous question that appeared in his mind as he pondered late at night, the answer flowing quickly to the rush of his heart and the tingle of his cheeks. He couldn’t recount the moment his indifferent feelings towards Johnny changed. For the longest… Johnny had always been an acquaintance. A fellow pier. But, somehow, gradually… He grew to be a friend, to something so much more.

Taeil wasted no energy to deny his feelings. He knew denying them would make it more sufferable and he never expected the hardest part for him was noticing all the signs. He knew it’d be painful and uneventful, but he ever expected this slight pinch to grow to his heart being strangled. Of course because he finds himself in a situation of unrequited love and his newly confirmed crush has been blatantly avoiding him for reasons he could not concur. Yet he still found himself questioning his decision of acceptance.

Was denying it better than not lying to himself? He continued to contemplate. Would denying it have saved him from this bitter heartache? He used to be content with just being his friend. But when did he become so greedy?

Could it have been the phone call? The miscommunication?

It seemed inevitable his mind and heart would warp reality to the narrative that made him satisfied. His naive heart would believe one thing and not the other. He never forgot the alternate - more likely - explanation. He simply misheard him, he never should have picked up the call anyway. There was no way, even in an alternate universe, he could feel the same way. Yet the voice on the other line spoke so clearly in his mind, the words that he could only hear in his own head being told to himself. He found himself hoping, and for that reason, was why he felt so at loss. He depended so much on this one person, which he had never done before.

It didn’t matter anymore.

Taeil threw his backpack on the floor when he got to his room, throwing himself the same way onto his bed. He stared at the ceiling, tears streaming down his cheek again, feeling loss yet again.

“What was I doing this entire time,” Taeil spoke to the thin air, “Falling for you...?”

“W-Wait!” Johnny suddenly grabbed Yuta’s hand on the steering wheel, making the boy’s foot press on the brake and send all three forwards in their seats.

Yuta’s head made impact on the back of his seat and he cursed out loud. He rose his fists to swing at Johnny, but his threat was ignored with Johnny’s flailing arms trying to grab their attention to whatever he was pointing at. Yuta looked over, trying to follow Johnny’s finger to see what the hell he was so shocked about to almost get him in an accident.

“It’s Doyoung!”

“Doyoung?!” Jaehyun jumped from his seat and tried his hardest to see for himself, practically taking over Yuta’s seat.

Yuta shrunk off to a side, as he struggled himself to find where the hell he was.

“I-I see him!”

“They’re going to the gym,” Johnny began unbuckling his seatbelt, “We have to get there before them!”

Yuta furrowed his eyebrows, “What? Why?”

“Are you stupid? He’s with Ten! They’re going to see Jaehyun,” Johnny opened his door, “Come on!”

Jaehyun had already gotten out of the car, running ahead of Johnny with his duffle bag swung over his shoulder. Yuta sighed, pulling back into the parking space and locking his car. He got out, not sure why he was following his friends when he still didn’t have a clear idea of what happened other than Doyoung’s ty explanation: “I want to choke them with my bare hands and throw them off the school’s roof!”

He was rushing over when he saw a glimpse of someone’s back, his heels instinctively turning around to get a better glance of who it was. It was exactly who he thought it was, making his heart flutter in the weirdest, unfairest way.

“Han-” He stopped himself from calling his name when he realized he was in public. He saw how quick he tensed up just by the first syllable of his name, and he could only guess he was running away from the same torment. He’d never go out the front entrance for another reason.

He knew where he’d go though. He took one last glance behind him and saw his friends had vanished already. Not taking a second to waste, Yuta rushed to his car to be a step ahead.

“Hurry and change!” Johnny threw the clothes in Jaehyun’s duffle bag at him as his friend struggled to take off his belt.

“I am rushing!”

Johnny sighed, more stressed himself than how Jaehyun seemed to be, going over to his friend to help him.

“Take off my shirt for me, I’ll take off the belt.”

Johnny obeyed easily, ing his shirt with twitchy fingers. When his shirt was entirely ed, Johnny wiggled Jaehyun out of it’s sleeves and threw it off to the side, hoping somehow it would land in the duffel bag which was on the other side of where he had thrown it.

“What’s going on here?!” The locker room man called out, hearing the ruckus.

The two boys couldn’t explain themselves when he saw the sight in front of him. Jaehyun, unintentionally pinned against the lockers with Johnny over him, just having thrown his shirt aside.

“Not in here!” He snapped as he grabbed Jaehyun’s shirt and angrily put it in its rightful place in his duffel bag, “Take it elsewhere!”

Jaehyun shook his head and squirmed away underneath Johnny’s shadow, “I’m changing, I swear-”

“I was helping him!”

The locker guy looked away from the boy standing in front of him, stripped out of his clothes aside from his boxer briefs. He didn’t want to get fired if someone saw them like this.

Just as the locker guy was ready to turn around and forget the scarring image, a voice rings behind of him.

“There you are!”

“Ten?” Johnny rushed over at the sound of his best friend’s voice, “Oh god, is Doyoung with you?”

“No, he’s…” Ten glances behind Johnny and sees Jaehyun struggling to find his sweats, before the locker room guy picks them up for him and hands them over. “Are you guys leaving?”

“No! Where’s Doyoung?”

Ten sighed in relief, “He’s in the main gym, waiting for Jaehyun…”

“W-What?!” Jaehyun finally joined them as he pulled his shirt on, not noticing it was backwards, “He’s there already?”

“Yeah, we just-”

Jaehyun didn’t care to hear anything else. He ran off, despite his shoes untied and his shirt on backwards. Johnny tried to call out to him and tell him, but his friend had already disappeared in a swift second.

“Alright, alright… No need to thank me,” Ten shrugs nonchalantly, “I know I’m so kind.”

Johnny smirked at the short Thai boy as he wrapped his arm around him as they walked out, “I knew you two were up to something when I saw you guys heading here. Since when had you guys made up?”

“Uh, like thirty minutes ago?”

“Oh,” And he pulls his arm off him, “And where’s my apology?”

Ten rolls his eyes, “I don’t need to apologize to you.”

Johnny frowns. They were too close to apologize directly anyway, if they did it would get awkward. He was just relieved he didn’t have to fix this mess by himself.

Now, they had to wait.

"Jaehyun!” A girl called out and rushed over to the hasty boy, “Are you going to practice~? I thought you left!”

Her friend joined in on the other side of him and wrapped an arm around his bicep, “You're practicing so hard that you're tense. Here," The girl ran her finger down his neck giving him chills, "Let me give you a massage."

Jaehyun smirked for a second but then he remembered why he was in such a rush. He shook his head and politely declining the offer, he excused himself. The girls whined behind him, ignoring his words and catching up to him again. They wrapped each arm around his bicep, feeling him up and with batting eyes, trying to woo him.

“Jaehyun~ why don’t you ditch practice with us and we can come over my house?”

“Yeah! You said you’d give me your time, didn’t you?” Her friend whined as she cleverly pressed her chest against him.

He shook his head, “I’m sorry girls, I really can’t-”

He lost his voice when he saw a familiar figure walking towards him, stumbling on his feet a bit. With the weight of the girls, he found himself twisting his ankle and falling face first.

“J-Jaehyun!” The girls cried out, over exaggerating his fall, their hands freely roaming across his chest. They lifted him up slowly with their hands glossing over his face and hair, “Are you-”

“Is your ankle okay?”

The girl instantly took her hands off Jaehyun when they glanced up to see who was hovering over them. They quickly scrambled back onto their feet to walk away with her friends while whispering to her friends about the sudden intruder.

“Who was that?”

“Kim Doyoung. He’s so scary…”

“And rude. My Jaehyun~ stay away from that !!”

Ignoring their words, Doyoung crouched down to offer a hand for Jaehyun. Jaehyun felt his temperature rising from embarrassment, his head not yet reacting to the hand being held out to him. He could only stare at the floor, wanting to go back in time so bad and tell his ankle to ing do its job right.

Doyoung scoffed and straightened himself out, staring down at Jaehyun for a moment, before taking a deep, shaky breath and walking past him. Jaehyun felt his heart drop to the center of the earth and get burned to ashes as it beated.

Unaware of each other’s feelings, they both thought to themselves: I can’t do it.

“Jaehyun! Bro, what are you doing here still?” An obnoxious voice calls out to him.

Jaehyun picks himself up, afraid to turn around to see how far Doyoung has left him again. He fakes a smile at his teammate and plays it off, “I… Came after all.”

“Awesome! We really need you, y’know? You bring in all the girls to watch!” His teammate laughed as he led Jaehyun back into the main gym.

His other teammates laugh in agreement, yet are unaware of the gloomy expression cast around their ace on the team. They were unaware of his tightly squeezed fists and shaky breaths. Why was it so hard for him to look him in the eye?

Was he afraid he’ll fall in deeper? See his face, and want to kiss him heavily?

No.

He was afraid of disappointing him yet again.

Would leaving him alone be the smarter thing to do? Or, in better words, the righteous thing to do?

Should he have stopped himself from running back here?

“Jaehyun, let’s take the court!”

Jaehyun woke up from his daze, realizing he was staring blankly at the floor again as he tied his shoes. He got up and went back onto the court, yet his feet were slow and uncooperative. He couldn’t get it out of his head.

Maybe it is for the best to leave him alone.

"I couldn't do it," Doyoung cried as he found Ten and Johnny in front of the locker room, "I can't apologize to him. All I want to do is verbally assault him!"

"Doyoung, calm down," Ten squeezed his friend's hand, "You have no idea how much I just wanted to say, "you're dumb" so bad earlier. But you just gotta man the up and apologize sincerely, and then afterwards throw as many insults as you can at the damn . You hear me?"

His friend groaned and leaned back onto the wall, "... I can’t-”

“Doyoung, you’re gonna go back there and do it, you hear me?” Johnny nagged at him as if he were his mother, “We’ve worked too hard to have you two here. You both want to make up but are too afraid of each other.”

Doyoung scoffed, “Jaehyun isn’t afraid… He’s just stubborn.”

“That’s what your twisted, disgusting little head of yours is telling you!” Johnny smacked the back of his head lightly, “But if you stopped pinning Jaehyun as simply the enemy, you’d see he’s always tried his best with you. You should’ve seen how burdened he felt, even more so now… At least hear the poor guy out, man.”

Ten nodded, “I told you, Doyoung. Jaehyun’s different with you. He’s trying his hardest, but if you keep being insecure, he’s going to give up.”

“You guys are supposed to tell me he’s a terrible guy and I should leave him, not this…” Doyoung sighed, “How do I even…? I’ve never done this. What do I even say? ‘Sorry I’m ing irrational and act out when I’m angry, but you’re in the wrong too, so take it back?’”

“Doyoung!” Ten smacked Doyoung’s back, “Quit being selfish! I apologized without blaming you, can’t you do the same?”