“He still loves me, I know he does,”

Wonwoo watches with sad eyes as Chan looks at the advertisement for flights to Los Angeles one more time, before he finally tears his eyes away and walks away. Wonwoo follows behind wordlessly.

It’s been three months.

Three months since Joshua Hong, Chan’s first and only ever boyfriend, left him behind for his dream job in Los Angeles.

Joshua was perfect - sweet, charming, gentle, kind. Everything Chan wanted, and he adored Chan. They had been together for a year and a half when Joshua told Chan. His company was offering him a manager position in Los Angeles. He had been wanting this for years.

And Chan, sweet, supportive Chan, encouraged him to take it, bright eyed for the thing that made the one he loved happy.

The problem was that Joshua left, and convinced Chan to stay.`

“I can’t ask you to uproot your whole life to come with me, so it’s better that you stay, and we end things now, while it’s still good. Right?”

Wonwoo had just sat in stunned silence as Chan calmly told him and Soonyoung, his two closest friends, over pizza in Soonyoung’s apartment.

“And you just said, ‘Okay’?!” Soonyoung had spluttered over his slice of pizza.

“Of course,” Chan huffed, “He’s totally right, I can’t change my whole life, and it would be worse if we tried long distance and then broke up over the phone,”

Chan spoke like it was fact. Like it was so logical.

“But you love him,” was all Wonwoo said. Love is not logical.

Chan had just smiled, sad eyes, but expression calm, content. “And he loves me. It’s just not the right timing now,” he had said.

Wonwoo just remembers looking at Soonyoung, and knowing that they were both as lost as each other.

The three months since have been rough. Chan had maintained the “happy for Joshua and content with the relationship ending” facade for a month or so. Then came the panicked frenzy of regret and the two of them stopping Chan from calling Joshua for the seventh time in one night. It was usually strange hours so Joshua rarely answered, and his follow up messages were so distant, Wonwoo began to resent Joshua, even though he knew Joshua was probably hurting from the break-up too.

But for Wonwoo, the realest of pain was right in front of him. It was Chan stopping outside cafes where he and Joshua used to frequent, seeing any mention of Los Angeles or the U.S. and faltering in his step.

It was Chan calling Wonwoo crying in the middle of the night because he was lonely, and Wonwoo driving down deserted streets to hold Chan as Chan cried, for Joshua, for the relationship they had, that they no longer had.

For Wonwoo, it was watching the boy he had loved for the past eight years cry for another boy who no longer loved him the same way, if at all.

 

Soonyoung slides the balcony door open and scoffs a little.

“I can feel your judgement from here, Soonyoung,” Wonwoo mutters. He watches his breath cloud in the cold air as Soonyoung steps out onto the balcony. The buzz of the party fades away as the door slides closed.

“Because I haven’t seen you hold a cigarette in years, and I know you stopped after the second year of college,” Soonyoung says, leaning back against the railing.

Wonwoo offers him the lit cigarette and Soonyoung takes it.

“Seokmin will kill me if he sees me,” Soonyoung says, blowing out the smoke and handing it back to Wonwoo.

“He’ll smell it first,” Wonwoo murmurs, taking another drag from it.

Soonyoung chuckles. “True,” he says, staring at the night sky above them. After another moment, he turns to stare at his friend. “So, want to tell me why you’re smoking again?”

“Just have too much on my mind,” Wonwoo says simply.

“Your brain is always in overdrive. That doesn’t say much,” Soonyoung says. He turns around to lean over the balcony railing, looking onto the road with Wonwoo. “Is it Chan?”

“Of course it is,” Wonwoo mutters. “You know he’s the only reason I lose my rationality,”

“You should tell him, you know,” Soonyoung says. “It’s been years,”

“And he is still grieving. Besides, one would argue it’s too late now,” Wonwoo says.

“You would argue that, because you’re too much of a coward to say something,”

Wonwoo opens his mouth to snap something sharp in return, but he falters. Soonyoung is right. He often is, unfortunately.

“He is still in my life, Soonyoung,” Wonwoo says quietly. “That’s all I want from him,”

“He will never see you as more if he doesn’t know you see him as more,” Soonyoung replies.

“I don’t need more,” Wonwoo says.

Soonyoung scoffs, and plucks the cigarette from between Wonwoo’s fingers. “Sure, keep telling yourself that, Wonwoo.”

 

Wonwoo is content. He is. Chan needs him, even if it’s just Sunday afternoon to play games so he can forget about the fact that yesterday was Joshua’s birthday, and Chan had been saving to buy him a really rare collection of books.

Chan spends some of the money on him and Wonwoo at an internet cafe for six hours, and they spend the time screaming at computer screens and each other as they try not to die. Wonwoo buys him dinner and Chan laughs loud and bright when Wonwoo tells him about something that happened at work. He thanks Wonwoo for the meal with shining eyes and waves goodbye enthusiastically.

But then Chan calls him later that night, asking him to come have a drink between giggles and over thumping music. Wonwoo makes his way through several bars and clubs before he finds Chan in the middle of a club dance floor.

Wonwoo watches Chan move to the beat, lost in it. Chan moves with ease and with grace. He has always been at home dancing, with music. It’s been so long since Chan danced. Wonwoo remembers the fervour with which Chan had taken to the dance team in university. It was how he met Soonyoung, and then Wonwoo, who had been Soonyoung’s dorm mate at the time.

Joshua had loved music too, but a different kind, and it hadn’t taken long before Chan had forgone the dance studio for time with Joshua and his guitar.

Wonwoo only intervenes when Chan stumbles and nearly falls on an unsuspecting girl, Wonwoo catching him just in time.

“Time for you to go home,” he says and drags Chan out of the bar, while Chan grins at him.

“Hyung, you came! Let’s play,” he says.

“No, you should be home,” Wonwoo says through gritted teeth. Chan isn’t wearing enough clothes for this weather. Wonwoo yanks off his jacket and bundles Chan in it and then into his car.

“It’s not midnight, hyung. We should be out! It’s New Year’s Eve,” Wonwoo buckles him in and closes the door.

He sighs and his breath clouds in front of him. “It’s not just New Year’s Eve,” Wonwoo murmurs, before he clambers into the car and drives back to Chan’s apartment.

Chan fusses the whole time Wonwoo tries to get him ready for bed, reverting to a little kid that doesn’t want to go to bed.

“What do you want?” Wonwoo sighs, defeated. He just wants to tuck Chan into bed and then go home.

Chan continues to pout, sitting on the edge of his bed. But before Wonwoo can ask again, Chan leans forward, forehead resting at Wonwoo’s stomach and sighs heavily.

“Please don’t leave me,” Chan murmurs. Wonwoo feels his heart twist. It’s going to be one of those nights.

“Okay,” Wonwoo says, arms wrapping around Chan’s shoulders, patting his head.

But instead of asking him to lie down and cuddle, as Chan usually does on nights like this, Wonwoo feels Chan pull away.

Wonwoo looks down, surprised and a little confused to see Chan looking up at him. It only increases when Chan stands, eyes incredibly focused for someone who is intoxicated.

“Chan, what - ?” Wonwoo begins, taking a step back because they’re too close, but Chan doesn’t let him. He grabs the back of Wonwoo’s neck and crashes their lips together too hard.

Wonwoo jerks back, startled. “Chan?! What are you doing?” he cries. Chan answers by pressing himself against Wonwoo, kissing him again.

Wonwoo flounders, instinct telling him to hold Chan, to kiss him back, to give in to all the feelings he has kept quiet all these years. But his brain tells him this is wrong, that Chan doesn’t actually want this. Chan is intoxicated, he is still in love with Joshua, and Wonwoo is just his best friend.

Wonwoo loses his balance in his floundering and Chan pulls him down onto the bed. Wonwoo pushes himself up with his arms, breaking the kiss.

He breathes heavily, head reeling. Chan is staring at him, waiting, fingers tangled in Wonwoo’s hair.

“Chan, no,” his resolve is flimsy, but it’s still there.

“Stop talking and kiss me,” Chan murmurs. And when Chan arches up to nibble gently on Wonwoo’s bottom lip, his resolve shatters.

It’s wrong. It’s so wrong. Wonwoo knows this, but he can’t deny he has wanted this, even if in a slightly different manner. But Chan kisses him back and Wonwoo can’t think straight, can’t focus on anything other than the way Chan kisses, how he tastes, how his fingers run through Wonwoo’s hair, how he feels under him on the bed.

And when Wonwoo kisses Chan’s neck, he memorises the way Chan sighs, writhes and clings onto Wonwoo.

Then Chan breathes out a word.

“Shua,”

And everything stops, like cold water had been dumped on them. Wonwoo freezes and then slowly pulls away.

Chan’s eyes are wide when Wonwoo looks at him. Wonwoo’s heart feels like there are daggers sticking out of it. But that’s what he gets for pretending things are different to how they are. That Chan is no longer in love with Joshua. That Wonwoo is anything more than Chan’s friend, his hyung.

“Hyung - ”

“Sorry, Channie. You should get some rest.”

Wonwoo gets up without another word, without hearing another word. His whole head feels like cotton wool.

He grabs his jacket, his keys, nearly falls over putting on his shoes. He closes the door silently behind him and trudges back to his car with a loud humming in his head.

But reaching his car, Wonwoo just sees his reflection. He sees his hair sticking up in multiple directions from Chan’s hands running through it, sees the way his jacket hangs off one shoulder because he had put it on so quickly. And just like that it all comes back crashing onto him.

He was kissing Chan. He was willing to do more than that. With his best friend. Nevermind that he had been in love with him for eight years. It was Chan. Chan was in love with Joshua, deserved nothing less than Joshua.

“You’re a person, Jeon Wonwoo,” he mutters to himself.

And instead of getting into the car, driving home and wallowing in self-pity, Wonwoo pulls out the pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket, lights one up, and wallows in his disgust on the street around the corner from Chan’s apartment.

He takes a drag, curses to himself, and then hears the bang of fireworks halfway across the city.

“,” Wonwoo mutters around the cigarette.

What a way to start the new year. Smoking on the road by his car after nearly sleeping with his best friend who was still in love with his ex-boyfriend.

He has no idea how he’s going to tell Soonyoung, let alone face Chan again. If he can ever face Chan again.

“Could you have ed up any more, Jeon Wonwoo?” he mutters.

The fireworks continue above in the night sky. Wonwoo watches it and breathes out smoke.

There are about three more fireworks, before a voice asks,

“Can I join you, hyung?”