(Kyungil POV)

...

You could cut the tension with a knife. (You really do love your cliches.) It hasn't been this awkward backstage in a long time, maybe ever, and it's your fault but you can't fix it so you don't even try, you ignore the problem, you ignore him, which only makes it worse. The bus ride back to your hotel feels like it takes a year and no one is unaffected by the atmosphere, normally boisterous conversation choked by silence. 

 

For the first time, you're grateful that you're not rooming with him, that you ended up with a room to yourself. Less grateful that your room has a door that connects to his, a door that had been unlocked until tonight. Or maybe you're just an idiot and the housekeeper locked it. (She didn't, but you're definitely an idiot.)

 

You feel terrible. Guilty. You don't know what you were thinking, why you would say something like that, why you let a knee-jerk reaction control you. Sure, this is sort of new for you and yeah, you'd actually spent a lot of time trying to convince yourself that those words were still as true as you thought they were, but you know they're not now and you still said them.

 

Whatever your words, you know what he heard. You're not my type, I don't like you, you're crazy for thinking I did, stay away from me. None of those things are true, but you know he'll believe every word, and it's all your fault because you let it get to you again, you acted without thinking again, only this time the results are devastating and not at all worth it. You tried to take it back, because he looked so hurt and confused and you wanted to try some kind of damage control, but there were too many eyes on you, too many ears listening, and you couldn't say enough to convince him that you hadn't changed your mind, that you still wanted him, that you do like him. 

 

You collapse on your bed, stare at the ceiling, close your eyes, see his face in your mind. He looked so thrown off, so devastated, so disappointed by your reaction. He was being completely honest with you and you pulled back, you broke his heart and you promised yourself you wouldn't do that anymore, you promised him and he believed you until now. (Maybe that makes him an idiot too.)

 

It's ruined. You ruined it. Things were good, he was happy, he was safe, and you destroyed him. And why? Why would you say those things? Why couldn't you just laugh it off, at least turn it into a joke or a bit? (It wouldn't be the first time.) Instead, you treated it like a lie, like an attack, like you took offense to the implication, to something that you know is simply the truth. Instead, you hurt him and you hurt yourself and he'll probably never look at you the same and he shouldn't. You don't deserve the way he looks at you, no, the way he used to look at you. You deserve the way he looks at you now, the way he looked at you backstage, the way he looked at you in the van. If he'd looked at you like that the whole time, you might not be in this mess right now. (You should have stopped looking at him a long time ago.)

 

Even if you thought he'd accept your apology, what could you possibly say? What were you supposed to do instead? Confess in front of hundreds of people, say he's your type too, tell them you've been hooking up for two months? Is that what he wanted? You'll never know what he wanted because you'll never get him to talk to you again, probably. 

 

You're driving yourself crazy and you know that everyone else is still up, wired from all the adrenaline and screaming fans, so you head down to the lobby to find them. "Jaeho, give me your room key," you command and he gives you a look as he hands it over, but you ignore it because he's not totally innocent in all this either. 

 

When you reach the door to his room, you hesitate for a second. What if he's really mad, what if he blows up at you, what if this only makes it worse? But you don't know what else to do and the tour isn't over yet and you can't sleep while he's this upset anyway, so you knock twice, unlock the door and let yourself in. The lights are dim, but not off and he's laying on his side away from you. You think he might be asleep until he says, "I don't want to hear it, Jaeho." 

 

"Not Jaeho," you whisper and he rolls over to see you and his eyes are red and kind of puffy and you didn't think you could feel any worse, but you do. He sits up, trying to hide the fact that he's upset, but it's much too late for that. "Why are you here?" You shrug. "I thought you'd ignore me," he confesses. "Thought about it," you say, sitting down across from him on the other bed. "I didn't want to lie. I know I should have lied, but I didn't want to."

 

"You shouldn't have to lie," you reply. "It's just... complicated." He nods. "Are you mad at me?" he asks. "No. You?" He adjusts his hands nervously in his lap. "Not mad, it just hurt." You want to tell him you're sorry, that you'll be better, that you'll never say something like that again, but you don't, because there are no guarantees and this is always going to be hard to explain, hard to control. (Even harder to resist.) You want to show him, to prove to him that you didn't mean it like that, that he's obviously your type too, but now is probably definitely not the right time for that. You clear your throat instead. 

 

"Tell me how to fix it?" you suggest. "Don't do it again? When it comes up again, don't say it like that. Don't go off script and I... I won't either." He's still fiddling with his hands and for some reason that makes it even worse, like he's nervous around you, like he's scared of what you'll say or do next. (Maybe he's right to be.) You thought this would help, but you feel even worse than when you were alone, staring at the ceiling and seeing his face in your head, analyzing every second of his expression, wishing you hadn't said anything stupid and just hugged him back, wishing you weren't in this mess right now. "Okay," you agree. "I'll stay on script."

 

"Okay," he repeats. "So, now what?" He looks back up at you, still looking miserable and exhausted, and it's because of you, it's your fault that he looks like this right now and he deserves better than that, better than you, you're sure of it now. You broke his heart earlier, now it's time to break your own. "Now we go back to normal. Not... I mean, last year normal." You realize you might actually mean two years ago, and in order to actually be normal you'd have to travel back before you met, but you settle for a year ago for now. (Because you know it's impossible to go back any further.)

 

He nods, biting his lip because he must have known this was coming. "Right. Normal," he repeats, letting your words sink in. "This is the only way, you know that right?" The only way to protect him, to keep him safe, to be strong, to save yourselves more pain in the future. "I know," he whispers. "Tomorrow," you add, "tomorrow we go back to normal." He glances at the clock. "It's already tomorrow."

 

"It's not tomorrow until you get a good night's rest," you argue. If you never sleep again, does that mean you don't have to go back? How long can someone live without sleep anyway? Wouldn't it be preferable to live without sleep if you didn't have to live without him? Does that mean he's become more important than your life? (Was he ever less important than you?) He looks back up at you, realization passing over his face. "If you're not ready for normal yet, I mean," you clarify. He stands up from his bed, grabs your hand, pulls you behind him, unlocks the door that separates your room from his in some metaphorical display of forgiveness, locks the door behind him, lays down on your bed, pulls you down with him. 

 

Not your best plan, perhaps, but better than some. Maybe not the best thing for either of you, but it's been a long time since you've done what's best for you. What's best for you would have been ending this before it began, getting out at the first sign of trouble, surrounding yourself with unbreakable walls, digging a moat around you and posting guards at the gate. It's far, far too late for that now, so this will have to do. (It's not enough.)

 

This time when you wake up, he's the one that's gone. It's never happened like that before and that's when it hits you, like a brick wall, like there's a bag of weights on your chest and you can't breathe and you can't move and you can't think and every part of you is aching because this is real, it's real and it's over and you ruined it, and you knew you would but you did it anyway. It's wrong and it shouldn't have to be like this and you shouldn't be this miserable without him. You should have tried harder, you should have paid more attention, because you're already starting to forget all the things you spent months learning about him and you feel sick because you'll never see that look in his eyes again, the one you were too afraid to name, the one he saved for you, the one you tried your best to return. (You succeeded.)

 

You know it's right for him, but it's your fault and it didn't have to happen like this, when you're working and in a foreign country and you have to see him every day, you have to get on a plane with him later, you have to give the fans what they want even if it hurts, even if it kills you. You should have ended this before the tour, at home. You should have taken him somewhere special, somewhere beautiful, and bought him dinner and let him down easy, explained why this couldn't go on, explained that it wasn't because you didn't care, because you didn't want him, because you didn't lo–

 

The walls are closing in and the ceiling is crumbling and the sky is falling and you're gonna cry, it's gonna happen, but not yet, not now, you still have work to do, you can't fall apart yet. You have to shut it out, turn it off, pretend you don't feel anything, even though that's not what you want, even though that'll only hurt him more, this is not the time to fall apart. When you get home, you can fall apart, but not here, not now, not like this. (Not with so many eyes on you.)

 

He manages to evade you until you're on the plane, leaving early with the staff and sitting at a different gate until the boarding call. You stuff your bag into an overhead bin and he's already sitting by the window and of course your seats are next to each other, of course you have to spend the flight in his personal space, it's only right, you deserve it. You deserve the fact that he won't look at you, that he leans against the window instead of you as he tries to get some extra sleep, that the only words you hear him say for hours are, "I'll be normal again when we land." You probably deserve worse than this, you feel worse than you've felt in a long time, and you know it'll only get worse, it'll only get more real as time goes on. 

 

The plane lands and you gather your things and he seems normal again, he really does, but you're not and you feel like you're dying and you want to take it all back, but he smiles and carries your bag and follows your instructions to the letter. Normal isn't supposed to hurt, but it does, it's breaking you, it's destroying you, it's wrong and it's all your fault and you can't fix it and it's too late and you want to run, but you can't because you'd have to run without him and you can't do it. You won't. You go where you're supposed to and you do your job and you spend all your time away from the rest of the band, away from him, and you hold yourself together, and you don't fall apart. (Not where you think you could be seen anyway.)

 

Here you are in the city of love with a crushed spirit and a broken heart. You were supposed to look at art, admire the architecture, go to wineries and try new foods, as a band, or maybe just the two of you, but it's all for nothing now. You could have had all of it if you just hadn't screwed it up, if you had waited another week, you could have done everything you wanted. Couldn't you have just waited until you were home to hit the self-destruct? 

 

No, of course not, because you deserve to be stuck in Paris with him but not actually with him, you deserve to be stuck in your hotel room the whole time. He doesn't, so you're glad when you hear that he's running around the city with Jaeho, probably getting into a little trouble, being normal. You're not glad when you accidentally catch him crying backstage, when he mutters something about European dust as an excuse when he leaves the room. You're not glad at all because he's upset and he's looking at you like you're a stranger and you can't cry, not yet, there's still another show after this one, you have to bury it, you have to pretend it's not there. Isn't that what you were doing last year? Isn't that what normal means for you? Why is it so hard to go back?

 

You avoid each other after the show, going back to the hotel separately, not because he wants to, not because he's not back to normal. You're not sure if you'll ever feel normal again, if you ever did in the first place, but he's fine and it's kind of killing you and he can't be fine, right? He can't be fine because this is destroying you and he cares about you as much as you care about him, he has to be suffering too, why is he so good at hiding it from you? (Because he's had to do it before?)

 

When you land in the next city, the last city, you start to breathe a sigh of relief, you'll be home soon, you'll have some time off soon, but you think too far ahead, because when you get to the hotel you find yourself sharing a room with him again and you think your bandmates must have had something to do with it because they don't seem to want to share with either of you. He opens his suitcase on the bed and starts to unpack, looks over at you when you don't start to do the same. "Normal, remember?" he says. "Yeah, I remember."

 

You feel trapped in your room and you set out on a walk and you know if things were really like they were last year he'd beg to come along, but he doesn't, because it's not like last year. Walking used to clear your head, but it's too full of useless words and ideas and demands, nothing can clear it, you're miserable and it's what you deserve. You get back to the room and you're kind of hoping he's not there, that he's hanging out in somebody else's room for the night, but he's there, working, being normal. He looks up from his work as you lay down on your bed and close your eyes. 

 

If this were last week, you'd bug him until he gave up on work for the night, make up some lie about the hotel gym being too simple for your regiment, ask him to help wear you out instead, grin like an idiot when he agreed. If this were last year, you'd pester him into working out with you in the gym, you'd sneak out for drinks, you'd listen to him sing karaoke, sigh when he forced you to sing with him, you'd probably pass out next to him, probably not on purpose. You never thought about what it was like for him, not enough at least. You could have been more considerate, pushed the boundaries less, given him room to breathe, but you didn't and you're not sure why it took you so long to realize. Maybe you liked it, tiptoeing along the lines that separated you. (But those lines were there for good reason.)

 

You actually asked him about it once, laying on the couch in his studio, watching him work, waiting for him to get annoyed with you, pay you some kind of attention. "Wasn't it hard for you? Before?" you asked after a long silence. "Yeah," he offered, still focused on his work. "Why didn't you tell me to stop?"

 

"Because you might have actually done it," he explained, swiveled around in his office chair to face you. "It was better than nothing, even if it hurt." You didn't really get it then, but you get it now. It's not what you want and it's might not be enough, but it's better when he's here, even though it hurts. 

 

You try to be normal over the next day and a half before you go back home, but it's not working yet and it feels like it's getting worse, when you remember it's your fault, remember that he'd probably take you back if you offered, you probably wouldn't even have to beg, he probably wouldn't make you apologize. You can't do that to him, but you've been tempted more than once. When you see him, when you don't, onstage and off, all of your waking hours. (Not that it's much different when you're asleep.)

 

The flight home is long and tiring and you sit next to your manager and you try not to look across the aisle at him, choosing instead to sleep most of the way home. You want to know if he's looking at you, but you're not sure you could take the answer, whichever it is. (You're sure. You couldn't.)

 

When you get home you have a few days off to skip town, to try and fail to delete his pictures from your phone and sing drunken renditions of the saddest songs you know and cry until you can pretend that things are normal again, depend on your friends to keep you from contacting him. You think they fail once, but you can't remember if it was real or not. (You've got a lot of that these days.)

 

When you get back to the dorm, he pesters you to record a new song and makes stupid jokes because he knows you're not normal yet, but you're trying to be for his sake. When he falls asleep in his studio, you carry him to his bed because it's normal. When you mostly accidentally pass out next to him, you start to think normal doesn't really apply to you anymore. When you wake up to his sleepy, perplexed face, you decide it never did.

 

(Two days ago, he woke up to thirteen missed texts from you, ranging from sad to angry to graphic. He should have deleted them all, and he started to but he couldn't finish, because he still feels dumb enough to hope you have a chance and this almost feels like proof.)