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Warning: this explanation chapter will be unnecessarily long.

If you’re reading this, then we’ve probably reached the end of Lather, Rinse, Repeat (in reality, I’m actually still writing chapter forty seven, lol), or as I like to call it, project-destroy-Youngjae. Just because it is.

But before I say anything else, I’d like to thank everyone for sticking to the complete mess of words this story was. Thank you for sitting by and (cursing at Jaebum at some point in the story, I’m sure) watching our Youngjae grow up from this awkward I-hate-my-life-ANGST kid to somewhat of a self-sustainable man he’s become. Reading everyone’s comments was what brought the inspirations to keep writing. You guys are awesome.

In the end, the story took a lot of swerves and turns I didn’t expect it to. The first twist being that this was originally supposed to be a one shot and definitely not this long. It was also supposed to end with Youngjae’s suicide. With Youngjae’s suicide, the story would have ended, not having a narrator to continue on, but I imagine the actual story behind it wouldn’t have ended there. As the title says, Youngjae was supposed to continuously keep falling in and out of love with Jaebum, never really able to let him go. But let’s not get too deep into that story. It wasn’t written and that’s that.

Now let’s move onto the characters and their backgrounds. As you know, (if you didn’t … … then wow) this story is an AU (alternate-universe for those who don’t know the initials) story. And since it’s told in Youngjae’s point of view, everything is very distorted and just ugh. Youngjae is a biased is what he is. (But we can’t blame him.) So here, I’ll explain a little bit of the facts that Youngjae missed during his life time (in the story).

Let’s start with Jongup. He’s Daehyun’s younger brother. Two years younger, as it is in real life. (Two years, but more around one than two since Jongup’s an early 95. Give or take 19 months I think.) Digging a little into the two brothers’ lives, they’re not actually legitimate brothers. They’re half-brothers if that counts for anything. Daehyun was the product of his mother’s high school fling. She met a man that she absolutely fell in love with in high school – the big player of the school who had with everyone and their mothers – and wha-bam. . They never did get to go on a relationship further from that drunken , but miracles behold, babies always come to the mothers that aren’t ready. Daehyun’s mom became pregnant. Her family, the rich bastards they are, decided that if they left her to be like that, she’d go off and somehow get that player boy. So they arranged for a marriage with the other rich kid down the block, Jongup’s dad. So to put at blunt, Daehyun is a bastard and Jongup the legitimate kid. (Daehyun took after his mother’s surname.)

About how Jongup became paralyzed waist down, as JB explained in the story, he got in a car accident while chasing after Daehyun in the middle of the night. JB was telling the story to the best of his memories that he could. But what he doesn’t know was that the reason Daehyun decided to rebel that night was because of Youngjae. But before we can get there, let’s talk a little bit about Daehyun and his past.

Daehyun was a pretty well off kid. He was a genius and good looking to put. His family was rolling in cash and pretty much, he could get whatever the hell he wanted. Everything except freedom anyways. His friends were always checked by his parents and often cast aside, rejected. So he didn’t have much friends to begin with. But growing up and attending stupid academies, he met Himchan at his piano lessons. He thought Himchan was the coolest thing next to … … well, himself. But the thing was that Himchan wasn’t too interested in Daehyun. He was more interested in playing with his own friend, Yongguk. Daehyun though, wasn’t one to easily give up. He soon found out about Himchan’s obsession with his little brother, Youngjae, and found a queer fascination in him too. Maybe if he got close to Youngjae, he could get to know Himchan. But Youngjae wasn’t one to open up too easily either – blast it! So to put another step to his plans, he became friends with JB (who his mom oddly enough accepted), learning that Youngjae was attracted to him. So in short, it was just this giant maze to get to know Himchan – but his obsession to the older brother soon led to him gaining an odd fascination for Youngjae (that still yet hasn’t faded) and a new best friend. In the end, he doesn’t care much for Himchan anymore.

Keeping in mind that Youngjae liked JB, he was often upset whenever Daehyun got grounded. That usually meant that JB would be left alone – since his best friend was locked up at home and all. So one day, he confronted Daehyun about it, calling him stupid. And that, that was the leading factor why Daehyun decided to make a run for it that night. He didn’t want to look stupid in front of Youngjae. That later was the cause of Jongup chasing after him and, even later, the crash.

On Jongup’s death: he was a character that I was going to kill off for the sake of the story’s progress. In short, the minutes I put Jongup in the story, I knew I was going to kill him. A little sad, but it had to be done for the progress of this story. Originally, I was going to kill him off before any of us got attached but … … things didn’t work out to plan. Gup is just too adorable.

The real reason behind Jongup’s death was because of a common flu. Hold up; hold your horses. Keep in mind that Jongup was continuously sick throughout this story. Jongup had a failing immune system, so even the simplest of colds could be dangerous to him. He was mauled pretty badly by the car that night, you see. That’s why Daehyun is completely blaming himself for Jongup’s death later on. He knows that if he hadn’t run away, or rather, if he had just waited for Jongup to catch up instead of trying to rid himself of a bothersome little kid, things wouldn’t have turned out the way they did. But it’s not like he can rewind time or anything.

That’s why Daehyun wants to buy him the whole world. But remember how I said that Daehyun’s family is rolling in cash? A lot of people questioned early into the story that Daehyun’s family was struggling. That’s obviously not the case, so why did Daehyun work several jobs? Not to mention the fact that he never ate with Youngjae when they were at McDonalds. This was because he wanted to buy everything for his little brother – not with the money he had rolling around at home from his inheritance, but with the money he made himself. He still blamed himself for what happened to Jongup and thought it was only his punishment to work like a dog in turn for hurting a poor Jongup. He’s a bit of a masochist if you ask me.

Let’s talk a little bit about Jaebum now. He’s not a bad guy, as I kept saying. He’s just a kid, heavily confused. For one, he knows he likes girls – the s and all – but at the same time, oh gosh, Youngjae is looking pretty smoking.

Since Jaebum first met Youngjae, he’s always been a lil’ interested in him. Youngjae kept saying that Jaebum couldn’t be interested in him, but after Jaebum saw Daehyun’s queer interest in him, he couldn’t help but start feeling the same – cause whoever caught cold Jung Daehyun’s attention had to be something special. Somewhere in the beginning of the story, Jaebum is a bit cold toward Youngjae; this isn’t because he doesn’t like Youngjae, but rather because he’s trying too hard to sort out his feelings – he was pretty damned sure he didn’t like boys.

Throughout the fic, Daehyun is often found around Youngjae but never makes a move. This is because while he likes Youngjae, he also happens to value his friendship with Jaebum, his only real friend. But when he finds out that Jaebum is going out with Youngjae, he still can’t help but feel a little jealous. And it’s throughout their queer relationship that Daehyun harbors his secret crush (or so he thinks) that makes him punch Jaebum in the face when he hurts Youngjae. Note that Daehyun did understand everything that was going on Jaebum’s life is why he allowed them to have a private conversation at school during that time.

It isn’t mentioned in the story, but Jaebum broke up with Jiyeon a little after being punched.

After everything that went on and his official break up with Youngjae, Jaebum realized that he may actually be gay. While he did like them s, he didn’t like so much – lol jaykay, he’s panual – so he went off . Lolwot. He meets JR a little later after Youngjae and goes out with his new boy toy.

A little into our side characters, Yongguk is pretty much Himchan’s soul mate. They always stuck by each other as children and balanced each other out. Yongguk isn’t much explained in this story, but that’s because he wasn’t a character that was supposed to be here. Neither was Junhong. Yongguk was here to let rest my inner banghim shipper and Junhong because … … well, he’s Junhong.

To clear up the reason why Junhong told Youngjae “The reason why Jongup is the way he is now, is all because of Daehyun hyung,” is because … … like he said, he likes Youngjae. What he really meant by this isn’t written clearly. It’s assumed that what he meant was Jongup’s state in the wheelchair – because that’s what Youngjae jumped to – but that may not be. For all we know, he could have been talking about Jongup’s bright personality, or his sometimes selfish ways – what with Daehyun buying him pretty much the whole world. What he really meant by that sentence, I’ll let you guys figure out on your own.

And that pretty much says it all for these characters. They’re all a little stupid and everyone in a sense is a bit dirty, sinning in their own ways (except Jongup, he’s my precious. Sob) but they’re still perfect just the way we are.

Through the period of which we thought Youngjae had totally recovered from his earlier obsession, he’d actually been still suffering anyways, only, it was less visible. He wasn’t throwing everything up anymore and still eating – if only just a little – so it had managed to escape Himchan and Yongguk’s radar (same with Daehyun when he moved to live with them for a while). Youngjae himself probably didn’t recognize his queer symptoms of counting and limiting what he ate; by that point, it was too normal and an every-day activity to him that it was no longer worth mentioning. A bad habit, you could call it. But all in all, he wasn’t eating as much as he was supposed to, using the excuse of not having enough time or money be his loophole. One meal a day really isn’t enough to keep someone at a healthy body weight, especially if they leave half of said one meal untouched.

The ending of the story is very vague. It’s never mentioned whether Daehyun and Youngjae actually get together or not. And I did that on purpose in a sense. It’s not supposed to be perfect. Again, I’ll leave it up to you guys to choose what happened. Maybe Jaebum returned to be with Youngjae. Or maybe Daehyun and Himchan actually got together. Who knows?

Long explanation is long.

It’s been an amazing ride and I’m overall very pleased with this story. Sure, things didn’t quite end the way I wanted it to and I did end up spending nights without sleep to write up a new chapter (or three) for the next day, but in the end, everything was worth it.

Thank you to everyone for the support and love. Each and every comment was very much a help in boosting confidence and inspirations to continue writing.

I love you all and I hope to continue to see you guys later ~

And, fun fact: Daehyun and Jaebum are related. Daehyun’s mom’s high school fling was actually Jaebum’s dad, hence why the woman accepted Daehyun being friends with Jaebum.