Wonwoo eyes the neon sign warily. He is in the right place, sure. He surveys the parking lot with hooded eyes, and he can pinpoint which cars were owned by his friends. He flicks his eyes towards the analog clock of his car. Damn, he thinks. He didn’t plan to arrive late. On the contrary, he didn’t plan to arrive at all. But he conceded to Mingyu’s constant nagging and begging. Wonwoo could almost imagine his puppy dog eyes pleading him virtually for every message Mingyu sent him. “Hyung, it’s a bon voyage party. Won’t you come for me?” he recalls Mingyu using the guilt-trip card. He tousles his hair and gives himself one last look in the mirror before stepping out.

The laser lights temporarily blind him upon entrance causing him to shield his eyes reflexively. He can hear the shrieks of his friends, Soonyoung the loudest among them all. He hears Mingyu pointing out the obvious, “Hyung, you’re late,” and he can feel the hands of his friends groping his face and further disheveling his hair. Wonwoo opens his eyes and it’s inevitable. His gaze is fixed beyond his friends crowding in front of him, his sight absolute. It zones in on him and suddenly it’s like the first time Wonwoo sees Jun again.

His friends are huddled together one lunch break, seemingly fawning over something, or someone. Wonwoo hears their questions, and rolls his eyes over some of them. “You’re from China? Is it true that the population there is booming?” a friend of his asks. He scoffs inwardly before sitting down, unnoticed, before catching up on a book he’s reading. The stupid questions roll on for a solid ten minutes, and that’s the only time that his friends realize that lunch isn’t forever. They begin to disperse one by one to buy food, and that’s the only time Wonwoo pays a glance to the space they’ve vacated. His eyes zone in on him, and the stranger glances up to share a stare with Wonwoo. “Jun,” he offers, “I’m new.” Wonwoo gulps. He’s beautiful, he thinks. “Wonwoo,” he says and accepts the outstretched palm. He uses his uniform sleeve to wipe off his glasses before putting them on again, just to make sure he wasn’t imagining the angel in his midst. 

He snaps out of it when Soonyoung imprisons him in a headlock, “Jeon Wonwoo, our bag of luck!” he says jokingly and their friends erupt in chorus, “Bokjumeoni!” Wonwoo flashes them a timid smile and wriggles out of Soonyoung’s armpit. “You’ve finally made an appearance,” Seungcheol says good naturedly. He knows what he meant. Wonwoo wasn’t always like this. He used to love going to their get togethers, be it spontaneous or planned, until. Then he just stopped attending altogether. He catches the look on his friends’ faces and he picks up something of worry, and something he can’t read. Wonwoo flashes them a smile to reassure them he is okay, and he allows them to maneuver him to their table.

Wonwoo is given the hot seat, and he answers all of them, save for one, which he enigmatically evades by switching the topic to Soonyoung’s new release entitled Hurricane. Their friends buy the drift and pretty soon, everyone was goading Soonyoung to transform to Hoshi for a minute of a sample verse. “Jihoon helped in producing the title track,” Soonyoung says and pats Jihoon squarely on the back. Suddenly, everyone was sharing their own stories about their work and career. Mingyu plays the good host, hopping from one table to another after lingering for awhile, entertaining his other friends. Wonwoo tries to put his full attention to what his friends were saying, but his thoughts drift to elsewhere. Wonwoo wonders about the look on his friends’ faces when they regarded him. He wonders about what it means. He wonders about what Jun will think when he finally sees him. He wonders about what ifs. He wonders about his answer to the question he evaded during the hot seat. Seungkwan was in the middle of sharing his experience in MC-ing in his resident program when Wonwoo stiffs subconsciously, making out Jun walking towards them. The voice that carries out to his ears is something that he can recognize anytime, anywhere. “Hey guys,” the voice says, “Wonwoo,” it even adds. The owner of the voice nods towards him, his features masked by the harsh light of the the club. Wonwoo finds it difficult to find his voice and he takes awhile before he can say, “Jun,” out loud. He clamps his mouth shut when he almost blurts the name he once called repeatedly in affection. Wonwoo squints up at the space on top of Jun’s head, refusing to look at his face.

A silence settles over them, his friends sharing a look among them. Wonwoo looks at them confused, but he gets it. He gets it. Really. He gets it when a face pokes out from behind Jun, addressing and greeting everyone else but him. “Wonwoo, this is Minghao. Minghao, this is Wonwoo,” Jun introduces them to each other. Wonwoo’s voice is missing once again. They exchange bows along with awkward waves. He gets it when Minghao sits with them, beside him. Wonwoo gets it when Jun sits besides the new face. So that’s what it meant, he thinks to himself. His heart is drumming violently against his chest. It’s been awhile since he’d been this close to Jun. Jeonghan picks up the conversation, urging Seungkwan to continue. Everyone settles once again with good humor and great conversationalists that were Seungkwan, Seokmin, and Soonyoung. Wonwoo laughs along and smiles his automatic, the feeling not reaching his eyes.

The conversation eventually reaches Jun’s turn and he shares stories of his own, some of it including Minghao. His friends are tensed, but they relax when they see Wonwoo impervious. Hansol tries his luck in diffusing the tension by asking Jun and Minghao to relive their first meeting. How ironic, Wonwoo muses, because he was just reliving his and Jun’s first meeting awhile ago. Chan smacks the back of Hansol’s head and says something unintelligible to which Hansol replies, “So that Wonwoo-hyung can know Minghao one way or another, geez.” Wonwoo smiles at them both, despite being confused. Jun starts narrating and it rouses irk from the darkest spots of Wonwoo’s being. The latter’s trying his best to drown out Jun’s voice with the club music, to distract himself with the vintage disco balls hanging in the ceiling. There are five of them. He tries and yet there are some snippets that reach his ears nonetheless. He hears Jun’s laugh mixed with Minghao’s. Wonwoo thinks they’re laughing at him. “He was literally spitting on me! Pu pu pu, I actually thought it was raining!” Minghao tells and his friends laugh, Wonwoo offers an automatic smile again, albeit smaller. “You promised we’d leave that one detail out,” Jun accuses him in a friendly tone, his voice rising above the wheezing of their friends. “As long as you wouldn’t spit on me!” Minghao replies. “I already promised though, don’t you remember?” Jun quips and they laugh simultaneosly, seemingly sharing an inside joke. Wonwoo looks away. Liar, he thinks to himself.

"You won’t leave me?” Wonwoo asked one day when Jun visited his dorm when Soonyoung was out, leaving him alone to their shared room. He looked up at Jun and revels in his features. There is something that dances in Jun’s eyes when he looks down on Wonwoo. The grip he has on Wonwoo’s waist tightens as he presses a kiss on Wonwoo’s forehead. “Never,” Jun says in a soft voice, “I promise.” Wonwoo looks at his significant other in admiration and awe. He was sure that Jun can see the twin rose hues coloring his cheeks because of their close proximity. They stare at each other in a challenge, refusing to back down. “How about you? You won’t leave me?” Jun asks him in a smaller voice. Wonwoo doesn’t answer, instead, he buries his face in the crook of Jun’s neck, but not after flashing his signature enigmatic smile.

The party reaches its peak once the DJ makes an appearance. Almost everyone made their way to the dance floor. Wonwoo watches his friends scurry to the middle to shimmy their hips to the beat. He was about to ask the waiter for another glass of wine, when Jun spotted him alone when he was making his way back from the restroom. “What are you doing?” Wonwoo asks loudly when Jun snatched his wrist. Jun pulled him to the middle. The simple contact made his heart rate reach unimaginable heights. “What are you doing?” Wonwoo asks him one more time when Jun refused to answer.

"What are you doing to me, Jeon Wonwoo?” Jun asked him. He was showcasing what he’ll wear at a party that his college department was holding tonight. They were in front of the mirror and Jun was surveying his look. Jun’s gaze seizing him up was enough for Wonwoo to feel embarrassed. “What are you doing?” he asked Jun when he felt Jun removing some of his make-up. “Damn, you still look good without it,” Jun whispers. Again, Wonwoo’s cheeks became heated; he took it as an indirect compliment. “You know what? Maybe I should just come with,” Jun tells him. “But you aren’t invited?” Wonwoo shoots him an innocent look. “I know, but you’re there. I’ll change in a jiff,” was the answer Wonwoo got. He stares at Jun incredulously. “What are you doing?” he asks another time with a hint of laughter in his voice, but he waits for Jun to finish changing.

“It’s a party. You should loosen up,” he answers when they reach the dance floor. A minute passes between them, before Wonwoo finds himself raving with the sick beat, dancing with the laser lights. It hits him that’s he’s having a good time with him. It hits him that this wasn’t what he planned. You hate him, he reminds himself, yet he was here dancing sloppily, embarrassing himself in front of him. They both lose themselves in the moment, their hair bobbing along with their movements, their laughter mixing with each other’s. It was in that instant that Wonwoo finally looks at him for the first time in forever. Wonwoo’s heart is suddenly light. He revels in his sharp nose, in his Adam’s apple boasting of masculinity, in his soft eyes barred by some strands of hair. Wonwoo resists the familiar urge to push the stray strands away. Wonwoo's gaze lingers on Jun's lips. He wonders if Jun ever tried to call out for him. Wonwoo could almost feel them turn back time when Jun looks at him, looks at him like they're still together, looks at him with a smile on his face. He’s beautiful like this, Wonwoo muses. He wonders if Jun can hear his heart beating in their nominal distance. Wonwoo surrenders to the tugging of his lips and his face breaks apart in smile, only to be rid off when Minghao finds his way to them, disrupting Wonwoo’s fantasy of a what if.

“Finally found you! I lost you on our way back from the restroom,” Minghao exclaims then laughs. Wonwoo stops dancing and Minghao greets him to which Wonwoo bows back. Jun and Minghao dance together, in front of him, and Wonwoo feels sick. Their friends find them in the crowd and they start a dance showdown. Wonwoo looks on, not bothering to join the energized chants for Chan who was nailing a Michael Jackson routine. He watches in silence, a ghost of genuine smile pasted on his face. He wants to spit something out, some fire that could burn Jun out. Seungkwan attempts to copy Chan’s dance but manages to morph it into a body gag. Everyone laughs, but Wonwoo can only recognize Jun’s laughter ringing in his ears. 

Wonwoo's staring now, he watches Minghao whisper something to Jun, and Wonwoo’s taken aback by Jun's reaction because it’s the first time he sees Jun this way, in this angle, in this light. It's a sudden, but Wonwoo can count the stars collecting in Jun's eyes and he can categorize his complexion under a eye. He’s shimmering, Wonwoo thinks, and it's like all the glitter in the world is embedded into his skin. Jun's laugh flows out of him effortlessly, the melodic sound tickling the corners of Wonwoo’s lips. Jun’s laugh has always been contagious. He wonders if Jun ever looked this way when he was with him, when they were together. They're tugging, tugging, and tugging, but Wonwoo refuses to break out in a smile. He talks animatedly in reply—and from the way Minghao is looking at Jun fondly, Wonwoo knew. And from the way Jun's anticipating Minghao’s reply, Wonwoo just knew. Jun lets out another laugh, and this time it's venom to Wonwoo’s ears. They prick him: tugging and tugging and tuggingtuggingtuggingtugging Wonwoo all the way down. 

Wonwoo looks at Jun and he feels like he’s losing. Wonwoo looks at him, and he realizes he has. Wonwoo feels like an idiot. Wonwoo would rather Jun to think of him and hurt a million times more than he did. Wonwoo would rather Jun to stop being so blasé about him. He would rather he'd stop laughing. Stop laughing, stop being happy, Wonwoo tells Jun telepathically. He doesn't. He continues on. The stars are back in Jun's eyes, and he hates the way it twinkles along with his soft laughter. This time the venom trickles down Wonwoo's skin, entering the crevices, contaminating him, mingling with his inner demons.

Wonwoo walks away and Jun doesn't even notice as he's engulfed by the crowd around him, by Minghao; a forcefield banning him entry. Wonwoo leaves without a trail; the inside of his mouth cotton, his legs lead, his heart heavy.

Wonwoo is stopped by Mingyu on his way to the parking lot. “Wonwoo-hyung,” Mingyu starts, his voice laced thick with concern. “Congratulations on getting a job in a 5-star restaurant in Indonesia, Mingyu!” Wonwoo says with intense control, not allowing his voice to break midway. “You’re making it sound like I’ll be gone forever, hyung. It’s just for 4 months,” Mingyu jokes. Apparently, Mingyu just checked his car, which as to why he was coming from the parking lot. “Oh, they’re having a dance competition,” Wonwoo laughs dryly, “I’m going to go ahead, if you don’t mind.” “So soon?” Mingyu interjects but from the exhausted look on Wonwoo’s face, he adds, “Of course, I don’t, hyung. Thank you for coming, but… are you okay?” Mingyu asks tentatively, as if Wonwoo was a bomb waiting to detonate. And he was, but he won’t bother Mingyu’s night by exploding in front of him. He nods wordlessly, biting down his tongue. He pushes through Mingyu, and he hears the faint farewell of his friend dissolve behind him. I’m the liar, Wonwoo thinks to himself as he flees into the cold night.

The drive home is a series of blurry stoplights, glazed eyes, and shaking fingers. Wonwoo reaches his unit in a blur as well. The second he shuts his door, his resolve came tumbling down. His night wasn’t supposed to end like this. Wonwoo imagined himself laughing and having a grand time, more importantly, he planned he’d show Jun what he’d lost. Wonwoo recalls telling himself he'll pretend tonight, that he'd fake it to make it. But the memories came easier with Jun around, with the string of what ifs teasing Wonwoo. They emerged from the deepest recesses of his mind, because no matter how hard Wonwoo tried, they were still there, along with his feelings for the boy he tried so hard to hate, to hurt, to forget. He runs through the questions his friends asked him during the hot seat; he remembers that one he purposefully eluded, because it hit too close to home, and the answer’s no. He hasn’t moved on yet, and he thinks he won’t be able to. Not now, and not ever.

Wonwoo is fumbling with the buttons on Jun’s shirt. He’s on Jun’s lap, and they were alone in Jun’s dorm. Their touches were fleeting, each time equally electrocuting. They stop and they rest against each other, chests heaving. “Junhui,” Wonwoo breathes out. Jun pries Wonwoo away from him and peers in his eyes. “What did you call me?” Jun sing-songs. “Don’t like it?” Wonwoo inquires, nervousness pecking the frays of his question. He called Jun by his given name. He just wanted to try it. Jun smiles a cryptic close-lipped one. “Again.” Wonwoo calls him again, his voice hoarse with desire. “Again,” Jun orders him as he nibbles on Wonwoo’s clavicle. “Junhui,” he calls out affectionately. Wonwoo repeats the name again and again and again until it loses meaning, until the sounds of their hearts and pants empower his own voice. 

He can still pinpoint Jun without difficulty in the crowd, because to Wonwoo, he sticks out like a sore thumb. Every touch can still send him tingles to every crook and nook of his body. The memories are still as vivid as ever, clear as day, crystal like water. Old habits die hard, the poison tells him. The realization crashes against him like waves hungry for the sand. Wonwoo slides down his door in resignation. It wasn’t the same for Jun anymore. There was no electric shock, the spark missing. Jun moved on. Jun touches him freely now, talks to him like he's someone he didn't love at all. Jun laughs easily now. And he didn't seem fazed at all by Wonwoo's presence. Jun moved on, Wonwoo not.

The bomb that is Wonwoo implodes, a black hole him in, robbing him of the walls he carefully constructed around himself. They crash in on him, setting his demons free, which burst out of him, and everything he has kept in for months and months fight to rush out of him. Wonwoo tries to prevent the waterworks by biting on the inside of his cheeks forcefully as he slides down his door. Wonwoo is laughing at his own pathetic state, then he's holding his mouth shut with his hands, the tears are threatening to escape now. His limbs are jelly, his hands are numb, his eyes are sore. He tries and he fails. His lips quiver and they try to dig out his voice. “Junhui," Wonwoo croaks out before the tears cascade down his cheeks to his gasping mouth. They run down in fat, hot tears, violent and imposing. The taste of blood rust is mixing with the bitter salt of Wonwoo's tears. Jun's name still rolls off his tongue like smooth velvet, like calm waters, like it was made for him to say and to own. Wonwoo chants it again and again and again, the volume of his voice decreasing every time, until it's simplified to a whisper, until it's not Jun's name anymore, but a memory, a prayer, a habit of a past life. Junhui, Junhui, Junhui. It echoes through the empty expanse of his unit and it reminds Wonwoo that he will never win against Jun, he's lost, and it bluntly reminds him of his own empty heart. 

“Never," Wonwoo whispers to nothing, to no one. He wonders what could have happened if he just answered Jun when he asked. He wonders if Jun noticed he was gone. He wonders if Jun spends some nights like this: alone, nondescript, and void. He wonders if Jun missed him at all. Wonwoo continues chanting; his voice laced with broken promises and shattered pieces, with memories he held close to his heart. Wonwoo’s lips that called Jun's name went dry sometime in the night, never able to reach him, echoing on its own. 

Nights like this had become a habit, eating away Wonwoo's soul.