Over the next few days I am constantly on edge. The certainty lingers on my skin that all we need is a little bit of privacy and it will all happen again.
So it does and I am proved right.
He uses every opportunity to get close to me and I enjoy it more than I can take – I try to pretend that he’s just grocery shopping when he’s actually away with Sekyung. At first our meetings are just hugs and simple kisses, but then I find myself at the bottom of that staircase in my head once more. And as during one of those kisses Jjong buries one hand in my hair, pressing me close in reality, in my mind he reaches for me, pulling me after him onto the next step.
We spend the following days climbing the staircase together. The way our lips lie rigidly on each other’s quickly transforms into him unbolting my mouth, leaving me to cling onto his neck, flustered.  With every step we take he becomes harsher; he embraces me so tightly that his fingers dig into my back and he presses me into walls or any surface he can find, almost crushing me. I wonder why he is the one to set the pace, since I am the one pining for this relationship. But I come to the conclusion that he just needs to continue at his rate because he can’t have that roughness with his girl.
Addicted and dependent by this point I’m unaware that every fleeting touch leaves a scratch and every shivering kiss a sour aftertaste.

Jjong’s singing voice reaches my ears, muffeled by the wall it needs to travel through.  I recognize the song nonetheless: Wheesung’s “Girls”. Perfectly aware as to why he has gotten to the subject of “girls” – his recent date must have been very inspiring – I stay inside our room instead of going to him and greeting him (with a kiss). I wait and try to trace down his location in the apartment by following his voice. As the lyrics become perfectly understandable, I’m sure that he’s right behind the door and yes, he bursts inside with a boisterous: “Girls!”
“Hey, Jjong, I’m not a girl.” Flat response.
He doesn’t let himself be deterred from singing, though.  The happiness is practically beaming on his face.
“So I can’t stop loving girls!” How easily an at least decent mood can be wrecked.
I must look really annoyed when I tell him: “Stop your talk about women. It gets on my nerves.”
He smirks at me, almost knowingly, hopefully not too knowingly.
“They risk their lives on jealousy, girls!” I’m the one to do that.
But it doesn’t matter, Jonghyun comes dancing – jumping, wriggling? – to me, grabbing my shoulders and turning me right and left and right and left to imitate some kind of dance. This fooling around always gets me and his good mood is just contagious, so I join him in his deranged dance. He pokes me in the side, I yelp, smiling and he sings the next verse:
“That’s why you are so cute, Key!”
I pause for a moment, a short leap somewhere in my chest at the two last words. I don’t have time to think; Jjong keeps singing and spinning and shaking me.
“I can’t help but hold you! Oh, oh, oh.” His voice is right in my ear then, hands on my back, because Jjong always follows his words with actions.
“When you say all men are animals, you look prettier. My heart beats faster.” No, my heart beats faster.
“When you take care of the little things, tears well up. You look so gentle.” There will never be tears over me, Jjong. He’s being ridiculous.
The next verse makes me tense and I think that his good mood must have somehow messed with his mind:
“So I can’t put my hands on your beautiful body, you tease me.” In the following Oh there’s no voice left, only breath. This whole situation and his last statement give me a flash of energy, which somehow manages to strike my vocal chords.
Still in that embrace, my mouth asks him, not my brain,
“You’re always talking about women and girls. How much you love them. Then how can you… do those things with me?”
“But Key…” He pushes me away a little bit to look at my face, clearly hurt. I curse myself for asking.
“We’re best friends, so that’s okay, isn’t it? We’ve talked about it before, you said it was okay. And besides, you’re just special.”
Special. Who doesn’t like to hear that? Especially me, especially from him…
Still, I’m hesitant.
“What’s the matter with you? It’s just normal, isn’t it? This…” He draws me closer so that my arms glide around his neck. “And this…” He drags his mouth over my cheekbone until it reaches the corner of mine. The next “This” is obscured by our lips. I think that he wants to continue his explanation, but there’s no way that any sound will slip between us. By then Jjong has clearly gotten his point across. So where is the almighty Key to stop him now? Instead, I wait for him to pass onto the next stage, but then I realize… the only way to increase the intimacy of our current position is…
The moment I have this thought the almighty Key is back, but in a whole new, daring, self-harming way.
I pull away, out of breath and even though he wants to lean in again, I stop him.
“What comes now, Jjong?” Wanting to curl my tongue into the back of my mouth, I bite my lip; this goes too far. At first he looks like he doesn’t realize what I’m hinting at, but then his jaw suddenly springs open, his throat clenching in a silent gasp.
There is that mutual stare again; looking into each other’s eyes but actually at the one same thing, because I know we’re both thinking of it and it makes heat crawl up my neck.  I regret saying anything and everything, since voicing impossible wishes never ends up well.
So I turn to face away from him and clench my teeth.
That staircase is in my mind again, yet now Jjong and I are standing on its very top, never looking down.
But then I comprehend that I have been wrong all along, that I have miscalculated the number of steps, that there is one more, which I could have never imagined. Because now… Jonghyun’s hand is on my bare skin under my shirt.
Nonetheless I grasp that urging hand in my mind, it’s pulling me forward. Even though there is no next step to place my feet upon, I take it anyway.
And I fall.