If I told you this was only gonna hurt...

“Do you like my brother?”

Kim Joonmyun looked over at Zhang Yifan in surprise. They were in the locker room changing after their PE class. Everyone else was already gone, but he hadn't expected his friend to ask him that so suddenly. Granted, Zhang Yixing, Yifan’s younger brother, did confess to him yesterday. Joonmyun had yet to give the other boy an answer. He did like Yixing, but...he didn't how Yifan would react. “I like him…” Joonmyun said after some time.

Yifan sighed. He figured, but he needed to make sure. He needed to make sure that Joonmyun understood what he would be getting himself into. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“I’m sure, Yifan.”

“You do realize that this is just going to be painful for you.” The tall blonde crossed his arms over his chest “Yixing isn't normal. What if he gets a nosebleed? What if he faints? What if he’s in terrible pain? Can you handle that?”

Joonmyun wasn't sure if he could. He knew that Yixing was suffering, but he wanted to be there for him. He wanted to hold him and tell him everything would be okay. He wanted to be everything that Yixing couldn't be. He wanted to be everything Yixing needed. The brunet nodded “I can handle it.”

“What if he dies? Can you handle that?” Yifan stared at Joonmyun with eyes that looked angry, sad and concerned all at once. “I know this cycle Joonmyun: you see the cute face you like, then you see the leukemia, and then you realize that you can't separate him from the leukemia so you remove yourself from the situation altogether.”

“I’m not like th--”

“Joonmyun, this is only going to hurt. You're going to fall in love with him. You're gonna watch the disease tear him apart. You're gonna suffer by watching your boyfriend dying on a hospital bed. Can you handle that?”

The smaller boy looked up at Yifan determined “Yes. I want to be with Yixing.

Thanks to Pastiche at Antidote Graphics for the Poster!