Kibum was getting restless. He knew the feeling. It was the urge to walk, to move, to go somewhere that wasn’t here. He also knew what was causing it. He dreamt every night of the men, taking and demanding and forcing until he woke, covered in cold sweat and usually on the floor, sometimes in the corner of the bedroom or even the hallway. He made it to the front door one time before he woke up.

Kibum hated it. He hated that Jinki spent half his time watching out for him, waiting until he slept to sleep, making sure the deadbolt and chain lock were both fastened before bed, making sure Kibum’s keys were hidden away where his sleep-panicked self couldn’t find them.

It was making Jinki ill, even if he tried to pretend it wasn’t. He made sure Kibum was asleep before he fell asleep, he made sure he woke up in the morning before Kibum did, he woke up every time Kibum did. He looked exhausted, dark circles under his eyes and he yawned all day. It was too painful.

“I think I’m going to sleep on the couch tonight,” Kibum suggested, voice a little too casual for the words. He kept his head tilted down at the tray of carrots in front of him, but he looked sideways at Jinki. The older man had frozen and was blinking quickly.

“I… Why?”

“Just because,” Kibum said.

“Oh. Um, okay. I-if that’s what you want, I guess… I’ll get the extra sheets.”

Soaking rice forgotten, he turned toward their hall closet, bypassing Kibum with a little extra space. He was always careful to never crowd him, but this was more than usual. The little sliver of pain in Kibum’s heart cracked, but he put an easy smile on his face.

“Thank you.”

“Yeah,” Jinki said, the bundle of bedsheets in his arms. He headed into the living room and Kibum could hear the sound of fabric flapping as Jinki shook it out.

Before too long, the sound of rustling faded and Jinki hadn’t reappeared. Curious, Kibum peeked around the wall and saw Jinki sitting on the half-made couch, head in his hands. Kibum watched him for a few seconds, heart falling further, but retreated to the kitchen when Jinki started to move again.

Dinner that night was awkward, filled with long silences and failed attempts at innocuous conversation. At last, Jinki pushed his bowl aside and stood, heading for the sink.

“Well, I’m going to bed early. Goodnight, Bu—Kibum. I…” Jinki hesitated, looking uncertain. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow. You can… If the couch is uncomfortable, you can always come to bed.”

“Leave the dishes,” Kibum offered, trying to find some way to ease the sting. “I’ll do them.”

That seemed to have the opposite effect he had intended and Jinki physically flinched, but he went to the bedroom and Kibum could hear the water start running in their bathroom. After about four minutes, Kibum timed it on the clock on their microwave, the light beneath the bedroom door vanished and he heard their bed creaking as Jinki settled down for the night.

Sleeping on the couch solved his sleeping problems, simply because he did not, in fact, sleep. He lay there, eyes open all night, hastily pretending to be asleep every time something in the apartment creaked for fear of it being Jinki. He even pretended to be asleep when Jinki woke and got ready for work, “slept” through the gentle kiss Jinki pressed to his forehead, and the whispered, “I love you so much, Bummie.”

By the time Jinki came home from teaching, a few hours later than he normally would have, Kibum had made up his mind. He just hadn’t decided how to tell him yet.

Jinki looked as though he were going to try to greet Kibum the way he always did, a hug and a kiss to the cheek, but then thought better of it and went to hang his coat in the hall closet. Kibum waited in the hallway while Jinki took off his shoes. He was moving more slowly than ever, arranging them just so until he finally turned around and Kibum was shocked to see that he had tears shining in his eyes, even if they hadn’t fallen. His instinct was to reach for him, to find out what was wrong, to try to fix it, but he was afraid that was the wrong thing to do.

“You’re unhappy,” Jinki said after a second or so of silence. “I’m making you unhappy.”

“It’s not that at all,” Kibum protested quickly. “Jinki, it’s… It isn’t you.”

The older man turned and walked into the living room, Kibum trailing behind him, chewing on the inside of his lip. A voice in his head, sounding suspiciously like Jinki, told him to stop. He ignored it.

“I need to… talk to you,” Kibum said, voice soft. Jinki nodded and turned around, waiting. “I think… We’re not working. The two of us. And it’s not because you haven’t tried. You have. You’ve given me more than anyone in my entire life.”

“But?”

“But I’m not… right for you. You hate how much I smoke, you hate how little I sleep, you hate how easy it is to scare me. Jinki, we will never work.”

Jinki was silent, eyes focused on Kibum’s face.

Kibum swallowed, trying to hold his voice steady so it at least sounded like he was sure about what he was going to do. “Jinki, I’m leaving.”

“Okay.”

Well that… hurt. “Okay?” Kibum echoed.

“I want you happy, Bummie. If you’re not happy with me… Then that’s my fault. I love you, but sometimes that just isn’t enough.”

Kibum nodded, breathing heavily through his nose. “Jonghyun said it was okay if I moved in with him for a little while. I have that interview at the health foods store…”

“Are you packed?”

“Yeah. My clothes… I’ll send Taemin for the rest of it later.”

“Okay.”

It hurt a little bit that all Jinki was saying was ‘okay.’ It’s not that he wanted Jinki to fall to his knees and beg him to stay, and that wasn’t Jinki’s style anyway, but maybe it hadn’t just been Kibum who was getting restless. Kibum swallowed again, picking up the bag of his clothes.

“Well… goodbye, I guess.”

“Kibum--” Jinki hesitated. “I… Goodbye.”

He could feel Jinki watching him as he walked out the door. Jonghyun’s apartment wasn’t far, and he hadn’t accumulated much more than a few sets of clothes in the few months he’d been living with Jinki. Even so, the bag seemed impossibly heavy by the time he pressed the buzzer beside Jonghyun’s name.

“Hello?”

“Jjong?”

There was a pause and then, “Kibum?”

He nodded before he remembered Jonghyun couldn’t see him. “Yeah. It’s me. C-can I come up?”

“Of course.”

The door buzzed and Kibum stepped through. Jonghyun was waiting at the door when he reached the fifth floor. He took the bag from Kibum, setting it down just inside the doorway and then held his arms open. Kibum stumbled through the doorway and wrapped his arms around Jonghyun, biting down on his lip to try to stop the tears.

“He didn’t even try to stop me.”

Jonghyun shushed him as though he already were crying. “He thought it was best for you. He always wants what was best for you.”

“He just said ‘okay.’ That’s it. He didn’t…” Kibum had to stop, biting down harder on his lip until he tasted blood.

He let Jonghyun pull him into the apartment and settle him on the couch. He took a quick breath to get control of himself.

“I’ll start looking for a new place as soon as I get a job. The person I talked to at the store said the interview was really a formality…”

Jonghyun just rolled his eyes. “Yeah, whatever. I have a spare bedroom. It’s got a couple guitars in it and some cheap- recording equipment, but there should be room for you in there.”

Kibum spent a few minutes on Jonghyun’s couch, then went into the bedroom. He had hardly closed the door when he heard Jonghyun speaking quietly into a phone.

“Jinki? Yeah, he’s here. No. Why didn’t he just go to Taemin’s?... No, of course he can stay here as long as he wants. What, did you think I was going to throw him out on the streets?” There was a long pause. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. Just chill the out, okay?” Another pause. “Yeah, I’ll do that. He’s a big boy, Jinki. He can take care of himself. Goodbye.”

Kibum spent the next two weeks in Jonghyun’s apartment. Jonghyun accused him of moping, but he wasn’t moping. Kim Kibum didn’t mope. He just selectively left the apartment for the interview and then only for work. It wasn’t until the Tuesday morning that Taemin showed up at Jonghyun’s door that he went anywhere else, and he wasn’t given any sort of choice in the matter.

He’d been sitting on the couch in Jonghyun’s living room, legs crossed under him, staring blankly at the television. The door opened, but he hardly thought about it. It really wasn’t until a hand seized his shoulder and almost pulled him off the couch that he realized Jonghyun was still sleeping off his drinking from the night before.

He fell into a solid form and after a bit of work, managed to get his feet on the floor and stand, staring at Taemin in shock. “What the--”

“What the hell are you doing?” Taemin demanded. He looked absolutely livid and that rendered Kibum speechless.

“I’m—What?”

“So you dump Jinki, fine. I don’t get a say in that. You move in with Jonghyun, also fine. But you hide out like a ing kicked dog?”

“I am not hiding!”

“What are you doing, then?” Taemin asked. He shoved hard at Kibum’s shoulder. “If you’re going to break up with him because… Why?”

Kibum sank down on the couch. Taemin sat beside him, waiting.

“I’m all wrong for him, Taemin.”

Taemin stayed silent.

“I’m not right for him. He deserves someone who’s not… not me. Someone who can love him.”

“So you don’t love him?”

Kibum pressed his hands to his face, drawing in a ragged breath. “How am I supposed to know, Taemin? The only people in my life I’ve ever loved are my mother and you, and that is so different from what I’m supposed to feel for Jinki.”

He felt an arm slip around his shoulders and he turned into Taemin’s embrace. Taemin’s hand ran gently up and down Kibum’s back. It didn’t make him feel much better, but it was comforting and familiar.

“It’s better that I break his heart now than later. It’s… How do you do it?”

“Hm? How do I do what?”

“You were fourteen when you started. Makoto at least waited until I was seventeen to me out. How do you just…”

He felt the subtle change in Taemin’s grip on him. It tightened for just a fraction of a second, so quickly that he hardly would have noticed if not for the way Taemin’s voice changed when he spoke. His words were clipped, as though he were trying to get them out without thinking much about what they meant.

“We were different, you and I. I was… I was a kid. I was protected property. Special. Elite. The first time I showed back up with a bruise, Makoto had one of his guys beat the man. He kept me safe until I was sixteen. He threw you to the wolves, Kibum.

“Minho was the first person ever to show me kindness in any way. I mean, sure, he did buy me once, but he was gentle. I don’t just mean physically gentle. He was… I don’t know how to say this. He was kind. And then when he saved us, it wasn’t because he got his own . How is that so different from Jinki?”

“Taemin.”

“Okay. I didn’t come here to convince you to go back to him anyway. I wanted to get you out of the house. Jonghyun said you never go anywhere. Come out with me. Let’s just grab something to eat.”

Kibum didn’t want to, but he’d never really been able to refuse Taemin when he was determined to do something. He let Taemin take him to the Japanese place down the street, let Taemin that both the waitress and the cook were eyeing him, but that the cook probably thought he was a woman.

After that, Taemin showed up occasionally to drag Kibum out. And things got better. He went out on his own more often, even if it was just to go and get some groceries, or to make sure Jonghyun made it back from the bars.

One night, exactly two months after Kibum left Jinki, he got the chance to ask the question that had been bothering him. He’d gone to the bar with Jonghyun and waited long enough for the other man to get a little buzzed, sober enough that he’d be able to answer Kibum’s questions and drunk enough that, ideally, he could pretend to forget by morning.

Kibum was working his way through the second drink he’d never even heard of before and Jonghyun was on his fourth, possibly fifth. The music was loud enough to make him wince, but he hit Jonghyun in the arm, drawing his attention back from the waitress.

“What?”

“I have a question.”

Jonghyun blinked at him a little blearily, but nodded. “Go for it.”

“How’s Jinki?”

He must not have waited long enough because Jonghyun paused with the drink to his lips. He set the glass down on the napkin on the table.

“He’s miserable, what do you expect? He hasn’t had a lot of people in his life to care about.”

Apparently, Kibum had waited long enough for Jonghyun to not bother sugarcoating his words. They hurt a little, more than a little, digging into his chest like shards of steel.

“But he’s okay?”

“He doesn’t understand why you left. He thinks he was his fault and goddamn if getting him to admit that wasn’t the work of weeks.”

“It wasn’t--!”

“No, but to hear him tell it, you were there and then you weren’t. You told him you loved him, and then you left.”

Kibum shrank back in his chair. Jonghyun sighed and looked down at the glasses on the table. “Let’s just go home.”

Jonghyun didn’t wait for Kibum to agree or disagree, but stood up, wavering a little on his feet before he steadied himself, and then headed for the door. Kibum grabbed both of their coats and followed. He tried to catch Jonghyun’s shoulder to help him walk, but the older man shook him off and strode a few angry paces ahead, letting Kibum trail behind the entire way back to the apartment.

Kibum slept badly that night; he always did after drinking, but it was worse than usual, half-dreams that left him exhausted. He dragged himself out of bed for work that next morning, not having had enough to drink to leave him hungover, but feeling that way anyway. Jonghyun’s room was quiet, and Kibum wasn’t surprised he was still sleeping. Kibum was more than willing to let him stay that way.

The eight-hour shift felt much longer than that, despite his co-worker’s non-stop chatter. Normally, it didn’t bother him, but by the time his replacement came, Kibum hardly waited to pass on greetings. He stepped onto the street, dialing Taemin’s number almost on reflex.

“Hello?” Taemin asked.

“Hey. What are you doing now?”

Kibum could almost hear the look Taemin was giving the phone. “Sitting at home. Fridays are my day off, and Minho’s at work.”

“Come to Insomnia.”

“Are you alright?” Taemin asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just meet me there?”

“Okay. I’ll meet you there in ten?”

“Thanks.”

Kibum had avoided Insomnia since he’d broken up with Jinki, but it was two in the afternoon and everyone else should have been at work. He figured it was probably safe enough, as long as they were out before Jinki’s classes finished at four. Truthfully, after two months, Kibum wasn’t even sure if they still met for coffee after work, but he figured it was better to give himself plenty of time. He stepped into Insomnia’s warmth just after two-fifteen. Taemin was already waiting with two drinks at a table in the corner, far from the high table in front of the window.

“What’s wrong?” Taemin asked as soon as Kibum sat down.

Kibum waited a few seconds, taking his time sipping at his latte and savoring the flavor, before he answered. “I talked to Jonghyun last night.”

“Yeah, that’s what Minho said. Jonghyun’s been hiding in our living room since about six-thirty this morning.”

Kibum wrinkled his nose. “Really? I thought he was still sleeping.”

“He showed up when Minho was getting ready for work and hasn’t left yet.”

“How was that?”

Taemin shrugged. “He just ignored me most of the time. I’m getting used to it.” Kibum started to tell Taemin exactly what he should do to Jonghyun when Taemin let out a sharp sigh. “Don’t be stupid, Kibum. It’s fine. Minho’s angry enough as it is.”

“At you?”

“No, not at me.”

Taemin fixed him with that look, the one Kibum had become so familiar with over the last years of their lives. Kibum took another drink of his latte, suddenly finding it bland and tasteless.

“Is Jinki really that upset?”

“He’s heartbroken. Did you think he wouldn’t be?”

“Still?”

“He loves you,” Taemin said, as though that were explanation enough. Taemin started to say something else, but he froze with his mouth half-open, staring over Kibum’s shoulder.

Kibum turned slowly, almost expecting to see Makoto looming in the doorway. Jinki had just stepped inside, his head turned to talk to whoever was behind him. He tripped over the doorjamb, giving Kibum a brief view of Minho, and then he straightened.

“I didn’t tell them I was coming,” Taemin said quickly. “I swear.”

Kibum started to turn back around, but instead he found himself standing, taking a few steps toward the door. Jinki’s head lifted and he stopped so suddenly Minho bumped into him.

“Jinki, what the hell?”

“Kibum?”

“Hi,” Kibum said. He didn’t think he was capable of stringing together any more syllables than that.

He vaguely heard Minho say something, and then Taemin was working his way out from behind the table, leaving Kibum and Jinki alone.

“Can I sit?” Jinki asked after a lengthy span of awkward silence. Kibum nodded, staring at Jinki as he settled himself in Taemin’s vacated chair. He’d been okay at Jonghyun’s, when the only reminders of Jinki he had were the pictures on his cell phone he hadn’t been able to make himself delete yet. Seeing Jinki here in front of him made things very complicated.

“H-How are you?” Kibum asked, the words sticking in his throat. He took another drink of his coffee and nearly choked on it.

“I’m… I’m okay. How are you?”

Jinki’s stare was making Kibum self-conscious. He set the cup down, pushing it a little away. The coffee stains on the table suddenly became very interesting. Kibum looked down at them, rubbing his hands on his jeans.

“Good. I got the job with the store.”

“How do you like it?”

“It’s not rocket science, but I like my coworkers well enough. I think once I have enough money saved, I’ll get a place of my own.”

“Good. That’ll be… good.”

“This is stupid, Jinki,” Kibum said. “It’s not like we’re strangers. We can talk like normal people.”

Jinki hesitated and then stood, bracing his hands on the table, sending the coffee cups to shaking, although they stayed upright. “No, we can’t. We… Kibum, it hurts to look at you. I’m sorry. Maybe later, after some more time has passed, then we can talk. I need to go.”

Before Kibum could even form a protest, Jinki was out the door. Kibum floundered for a few seconds. He never expected Jinki to leave like that. Really, he hadn’t expected leaving to hurt this bad, for either of them.

Kibum jumped to his feet and practically ran out of the coffee shop. It took him a moment to identify the back of Jinki’s coat in the afternoon crowd, but when he did he sprinted after it, catching Jinki’s elbow just at the end of the block.

Jinki turned slowly to face him.

“Kibum, please don’t do this.”

“Why?” Kibum asked. There was a strange tumultuous feeling in his stomach. “Why not?”

Jinki glanced around them. He caught Kibum’s shoulder and pulled him into an alleyway, somewhat secluded from the bustle around them.

“Because I can’t remember how much I love you and then hear you talk about finding a new place to live when I know damn well you should be living with me.”

Kibum took a step back in surprise. Jinki never, ever swore. Even Jinki looked surprised. Kibum reached out and brushed his fingers through Jinki’s hair.

“Jinki.”

“Kibum, don’t.”

“Jinki, listen to me.” He waited until Jinki’s fidgeting stopped before he started speaking again. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m not sure what I feel. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know if… I don’t know if I love you, I don’t know if I love you as much as you love me. Jinki, I don’t know these things! I don’t understand them!”

Kibum felt Jinki’s arms wrap around him suddenly, pulling him in tight. He felt a moment of panic at the grip. Jinki released him immediately and then hugged him, much more gently this time. Kibum returned the hug, burying his face against Jinki’s shoulder.

“It’s okay, Bummie. It’s okay. I love you. It’s okay.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Come home with me. We can figure it out. Please, come home with me.”

Kibum nodded and then nodded again, hands clenching hard in the back of Jinki’s coat. “I missed you.”

Jinki pressed his lips to Kibum’s forehead, his hand down Kibum’s back. “I missed you, too. Come home.”