interlude: yj
3:37am(Yijeong POV)
...
It's really late, or really early depending on how you feel like looking at it, and he's asleep on your desk, breathing quietly, his face relaxed and motionless and flawless and you're falling again, you feel the ground crumbling underneath your feet, you feel your heart ripping itself to shreds. Your breathing is less than steady as you reach toward him, feel his skin beneath your fingertips, brush his hair away from his eyes, close your own as your hand falls back to your lap.
Eventually, once you've looked at his sleeping features for far too long, you place your hand on his shoulder, shake him awake slowly, gently, whisper his name. He opens his eyes and he looks at you and your breath catches because he is so goddamn beautiful and it's not fair, why him, why did it have to be him? He smiles at you, his eyes only half open, tells you to get some sleep as he stumbles to his room.
You should sleep, you can't accomplish anything else tonight, but you're not tired and your heart is aching and your breathing is shaky and it feels a little bit like you might be dying, so you stay at your desk, work yourself into exhaustion, pass out on the couch. It's nothing new, it's of no concern to anyone, but it feels different and it scares you and you can't look at him, can't look him in the eyes, but he doesn't even seem to notice.
Stop falling in love with your straight friends, you tell yourself, he is never going to like you. He can't, he's in charge of you and you're not his type. (You will never be his type.)
You figure he must be worried about you, though, because he drags you away from your computer one night, drags you out of the dorm, drags you into a bar. "Trying to get me drunk?" you try to joke, but he doesn't seem to think it's funny and everything is changing but you can't explain it, so you drink instead, stumble home past 2, hope he remembers the way back because you're not thinking straight, because you're leaning against him and his hand is resting on the small of your back like it belongs there and you can't focus, your bloodstream is overrun by alcohol and your head is clouded by his presence and you're not sure if you can feel anything that's not him anymore, not sure that you even want to.
It's okay, you tell yourself, repeat it over and over in your head. No one will think this is wrong if they think you're both drunk, and you are drunk so it can't be wrong, right?
The dorm is dark and he's too close to you and you can't see anything and you're distracted and you end up slamming your shoulder into the side of the hallway, hard. You try not to make a sound but your nerves are screaming in pain and he knows it, so he presses his hand against your mouth, presses your back into the wall, and you can't think of your shoulder anymore, you can't think at all because he's looking at you with laughter in his eyes and his thighs are pressing into your hips and his skin is touching your lips and you think this might be heaven, you think maybe you've died and ascended to a higher plane, you think that he'll definitely regret this if he remembers it in the morning.
You see the second he realizes you're in a bit of a compromising position and his eyes sober up immediately, he backs away, stops looking at you. You think he'll bolt, but he still follows you into your room, lay down next to you, stares at the ceiling, waits for you to speak. "Do you feel any better?" he whispers because your roommate is sleeping and this feels strange, dangerous, wrong, this feels like something you have to keep hidden. "Yeah, I guess," you whisper back. "You don't have to work so hard. You can ask us for help."
"I can handle it," you insist, and his hand finds its way to yours, his fingers running across your palm. "You don't have to do this alone," he tells you and your heartbeat triples in speed because he doesn't mean it, he can't, but you don't want to be alone and right now, you're not. He passes out before you do, because your mind has been spinning itself sober for half an hour, and his hand is still touching yours, and he smells like the cologne you bought for his birthday, and you know he couldn't have possibly worn it for you, but you're falling, you're falling deeper and deeper every second.
The next morning, you wake up with a pounding headache and a huge bruise on your shoulder, but it's okay because later on, when you're alone with him in your studio, he remembers that you got hurt and maybe it's just because it's his job, but his fingers ghost across your purpled skin and he says, "You should be more careful, that looks really nasty," and he's looking at you in a way that tells you he remembers everything, and you don't see any regret behind his eyes , because maybe he doesn't regret it.
Stop thinking this means something, you demand of yourself, he doesn't like you, he probably doesn't even like you as a friend. (He only puts up with you because it's his job.)
You're working overseas and you're sharing a room and the quarters are too close and your head is full of thoughts of him, and so are your dreams. He knows you're dreaming about somebody, it's painfully obvious, but he doesn't know who it is and he won't let it go. He'll bring it up at the most awkward, embarrassing moments, like right before you go on stage or when you're out to eat with the whole band and the staff. "Come on, just tell me, it's not a big deal," he'll say.
At some point, you give up and lie, but he obviously doesn't believe you because you pick the most obvious answers possible, the girls that everyone is obsessed with so that you have an explanation if he asks you why you're into them. If you pick someone too obscure, you wouldn't know what to say, how to make it seem like there was any possibility that you would have a thing for them without overcompensating and seeming like a jerk.
You can't tell him the truth because the truth is that you've dreamt about him more than a couple times in the past two weeks, more than several times since you met, and you don't think it'll stop happening anytime soon. If it was some actor or some rock star who kept appearing in your unconscious mind, then maybe you could tell him the truth, maybe you could be brave enough for that, but you can't predict how he would react if he knew you were dreaming about him, you just know it would ruin everything.
Stop dreaming about him, you beg your subconscious, stop wanting him so badly, he's going to find out. (It's a wonder he hasn't found out already.)
On one December night, you follow him out into the cold, sit across from him at a table and pretend to eat, but you can't, you're not hungry, something is wrong, something is building and it's big and it's dangerous and it's too late to stop. You walk back to the hotel and you try to support his drunken weight, but he's upset, he snaps at you and it doesn't hurt as much anymore, you've come to expect it.
He's been trying to push you away, to get some distance, to make this stop for weeks, and you've gotten used to it, learned how to predict his strategies. Maybe that's only making it worse because there has to be a reason behind his efforts, he wouldn't waste his time separating himself from you without a damn good reason, and you're not sure what that reason is, but the possibilities are clouding your ability to think logically.
You're back in your room and he's collapsed on your bed and you hardly drank anything, but he's right there and you can't stop, you sit next to him, touch his hair, rub his back, hope he looks at you, but when he finally does, he looks like a stranger. There's a look in his eyes that you've never seen before, that you didn't know he had, and you can't explain why it's directed at you but you're glad it is. You realize why because he leans in, he kisses you, he slides your jacket from your shoulders, and there's no time to think, there is only time to act, you kiss him back, you pull him on top of you, you know this is a risk but you're taking it.
It feels like a dream, except that you know it's real and he's kissing you and he keeps saying your name like it means something, like it matters, like it's important, and this is so much more than you could have imagined, this is worth all the waiting, all the dashed hopes, all the suffering, because he's real and he wants you, even if it's just for tonight, and that's more than enough for right now.
The next morning you wake up alone and you knew it was too good to be true, you knew he didn't mean it, but it still catches you off guard and you only allow yourself a few minutes to cry in the shower because this is your fault, you asked for it, you have to live with the consequences.
Stop being an idiot, you scream internally, this is what you get for letting it go too far. (This is exactly what you deserve.)
You didn't think there would ever be a next time, but it doesn't take long to find out you were wrong, and it's not as urgent and he's not rushing you, he's not rushing himself and he looks at you like this might not just be happening because he's lonely and pent up and you're the only one around, and he whispers that he loves you before he can stop himself and it's everything and your heart stops and you know it's a lie, but it's the kind of lie you want to let yourself believe.
Don't trust him when he says he loves you, you remind yourself, he doesn't really. (He's just not good at thinking things through.)
When you open your heart and he rejects you in front of hundreds of witnesses, looks at you like you're a liar, a freak, a monster, you know it has to end, but you're still not willing to do the ending if you have any other choice, so you let him end it for you.
He wants things to go back to normal, and you know it's the only way, but you delay normal to kiss him, to be with him, to wake up next to him one last time, to sneak out before he notices, because you're so good at torturing yourself, because you deserve to suffer. You're expecting him to flip some kind of 'normal' switch the second you get to the airport, but he doesn't and it's messing with your head because he seems different, even upset, and you don't know what you're supposed to do about it because maybe he's just upset with you and he asked for normal and you have to do what he asks.
Seeing him after that is killing you, but you have to bear it, you work together and you have to be normal and no one else can know what you're going through, you have to pretend, you have to forget. You have to hold yourself together because you were never stupid enough to believe that this could work and it shouldn't surprise you that you ended up here.
Don't cry, you tell yourself, you knew this would happen. (This only ends one way.)
When you start seeing more of each other at home, it feels real again and you've forgiven him even though he hasn't apologized, but you'll never forget the way he looked at you that night, like you were a stranger, you have to remember it, remind yourself when he implies that he's attracted to you, every time he meaninglessly says he loves you, every time you start to feel like this matters, every time you think this might not end in flames.
Stop looking for more, you chastise yourself, you don't get any more than this, you're lucky you have this much.
You're almost done preparing for a comeback and you're exhausted, mentally, physically, emotionally exhausted, and things don't usually go well for you when you're this tired, because you get reckless, you touch him when other people are around, you say things you shouldn't, you fall asleep in his arms and you kiss him awake and this is ruining you, but you can't stop now.
You all go out to eat the night before your album drops and he sits a little too close, leans in when he's talking to you, he's making your head fuzzy and you're not sure where this is headed, but you've been telling yourself he doesn't mean it for months and it's not working anymore. Now, when he kisses you, you feel like he wants to, and when he blurts out that he loves you, you feel like it might not be an accident, and when you banter on stage, you feel like it isn't an act, and it terrifies you as much as it excites you because you always thought the inevitable final flames of your relationship would devour only you, and now you're not so sure.
Stop letting him pretend, you decide, maybe this isn't as one-sided as you thought. (Maybe he doesn't just like you as a friend.)
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