“Please talk to me,” Minhyun begged Aron. Aron had stopped crying, but obviously something was wrong with him.

“About what?” Aron asked him, his eyes fixed on the road.

“About why you were crying…”

“You don’t want me to talk about it, remember?” Aron responded, in a way that seemed almost challenging. Minhyun fell silent. He didn’t know how to reply. It was as if Aron was trying to make him feel guilty.

“Didn’t we agree to forget about it?” Minhyun responded after a silence.

“It’s not that easy to forget,” Aron said, his voice faltering slightly.

“What do you expect from me, hyung?” Minhyun asked quite irritably. He didn't understand why Aron was adopting this accusatory tone, and he didn’t understand what he had done wrong. Whatever was happening between them, it was spiraling out of control and Minhyun didn’t know what he had done to cause it or how he can possibly prevent it.

“I’m going to honor your request and not talk about it anymore. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” Aron replied, his voice again faltering.

Minhyun was shushed by that remark. He sat back in the seat and crossed his arms. Somehow, he was angry with Aron for being obscure, for blaming him, for using what he said again him. Aron was seemingly not taking rejection very well.

Minhyun recalled what Sujin told him about love. If Aron truly did love him, then Minhyun’s happiness would be more important than his own. If Aron truly did love him, then he wouldn’t expect Minhyun to do anything else but reject him. Aron was acting in a way that made Minhyun think Aron wanted him to act against his own will.

“You don’t really love me do you?” Minhyun said to Aron.

Aron side-eyed Minhyun and became tense. He seemed like he was about to burst, but he gulped once and kept his eyes on the road.

“Sujin told me,” Minhyun explained, “that if you really love me, you wouldn't be acting like this…”

“You told her?!” Aron almost yelled in a burst of anger.

“Yes and…”

“That was not your secret to tell!” Aron shouted, “you had no right to do that, Minhyun!”

Minhyun was slightly taken aback by Aron’s overreaction. He felt slightly guilty for telling her as he didn’t think it meant so much to Aron that no one knew. “She’s not going to tell anyone,” Minhyun tried to reaffirm.

“Just don’t talk to me anymore,” Aron said. Minhyun noticed that Aron was beginning to tremble. Minhyun wasn’t sure if Aron was trembling out of sadness or anger or frustration, but Minhyun knew he had to stop Aron from trembling because it was affecting his grip on the steering wheel.

The car started to move erratically as Aron’s unstable hands steered, “hyung,” Minhyun cooed, reaching out to grab the steering wheel and stabilize it, “calm down or pull over.”

“I just want to get to Seoul as fast as I can,” Aron said in one breath and he continued driving.

“No, Aron. You’ll get into an accident like this. Pull over for a minute and get yourself together!”

“No!” Aron refused stubbornly and carried on driving despite being a clear road hazard.

“Hyung, if you’re angry, I get it. But please don’t do something you’ll regret now. You could kill someone! Stop the ing car!”

“I’m okay, Minhyun! I’m fine!” Aron insisted, but he was clearly still trembling.

Before Minhyun or Aron saw it coming, they heard a crash. Aron pressed the brakes before any further damage happened, but it had been too late to avoid any damage at all.

“Oh no,” Minhyun said, getting out of the car to see what had happened. Aron had run into a pole, and it caused the front headlights to break and the metal on the front of the car to bend and lose color. Aron had wrecked their manager’s car. The new car that his manager had spent years collecting for. The car that their manager entrusted them with. The car Minhyun was supposed to bring back to the manager, intact…

Aron got out of the car to see the damage as well. They both know that it would take a lot of money to repair. They both knew that this is going to disappoint their manager, and that he would probably hate them and never trust them again.

“You !” Minhyun yelled in Aron’s direction. “Look what you did!”

“Me? You were the one yelling in my ear while I was driving! This is all your fault!”

“Stop being a jerk and take responsibility for this! It’s the least you can do,” Minhyun spat.

“You are so… so heartless,” Aron said to Minhyun quietly, and retreated back into the car. Minhyun also went back into the car and saw that Aron had started crying again.

Aron started the car and drove a bit before pulling over safely to the side. He stopped the car and buried his face in the steering wheel.

“Why are you crying?” Minhyun asked Aron, feeling guilty.

“The person I love said me loving him was ‘uncomfortable’ for him. The person I love accused me of not loving him at all. The person I love betrayed my trust and told someone a secret. The person I love called me an and a jerk. The person I love is yelling at me when I feel the worst I’ve ever felt my entire life. My relationship with the person I love is falling apart right in front of my eyes and there’s nothing I can do to stop it,” Aron said, crying more and more as he said it. “Now tell me, who wouldn’t cry in such a situation?”

“I’m sorry,” Minhyun apologized right away, feeling remorseful as Aron cried right in front of him. He hadn’t realized what he had done and that it had hurt Aron like this. He wanted to make it up to Aron somehow, but he didn’t what else to do but to apologize sincerely though.

Aron rolled his eyes and wiped away the last of his tears. He took a deep breath and tried to calm down a bit.

“I’ll get my dad to drive us… if you want,” Minhyun offered.

“No. Just give me a minute and please just… be quiet.”

Minhyun shook his head. “Hyung, I’m not going to let it stay like this between us the entire way there. We are going to talk about this right now until both of us are content.”

“Talking won’t help Minhyun.”

“If talking won’t help then what will?”

“Time,” Aron answered, “just wait for a few weeks until the tension fades away.”

Minhyun shook his head again, “no. I don’t want that! I don’t want our relationship to have a history of unsettled disputes. Aron, you mean too much to me for this to come between us.”

As soon as Minhyun said that, he began to think. How would their relationship be from now on? What would happen if they get back to being friends?

“Minhyun please, please stop talking,” Aron begged.

“No. I’m not going to stop until…”

Aron opened the door and got out of the car, obviously irritated.

Minhyun also got out and followed Aron. “Hyung, why don’t you want to talk to me?!”

Aron stopped midway in his tracks and turned to face Minhyun. “Because you don’t want me to!” he yelled in his direction, his voice cracking and tears forming in his eyes. “You said it yourself. It makes you uncomfortable to talk about it.”

“I take it back,” Minhyun told Aron, “Please, hyung. Whatever it is that’s making you act like this, let’s talk and sort it out.”

“Minhyun, nothing you say can possibly make this better,” Aron told Minhyun.

Minhyun took a deep breath as a thousand thoughts and considerations ran through his head all at once. He then shook his head as he came to the epiphany that he needed to something to save their relationship.

Minhyun took a few steps closer to Aron and then put his arms around him, hugging him. Aron hugged Minhyun back after a few seconds, and sniffled slightly into Minhyun’s shoulders.

“Hyung,” Minhyun said still hugging Aron and attempting to say something that would make it better: “I am the tiest friend ever for yelling at you, for telling my sister something that was meant to be between us, for accusing you of not loving me. I’m sorry for telling you that I’m uncomfortable with the fact that you like me in that way. I’m not, hyung. And look, I’ll prove it. I want you to tell me what you feel about me. Right now. Say it, and it won’t make me uncomfortable.”

“I am in love with you,” Aron said after a pause.

“And I am not in love with you,” Minhyun said truthfully, “but I do love you. Very much. More than anything in the world.”

Aron broke away from the hug. He had stopped crying and there was a slight smile on his face.

“I’m not done,” Minhyun said to Aron. Minhyun took Aron’s hands in his and continued, “and you know what? I realize now that you don’t have to be in love to date someone…”

“Minhyun, don’t do this…” Aron tried to stop him.

“No, no. I want to do this.”

“You’re doing this out of sympathy and not…”

“No, not out of sympathy. I’m doing this because our relationship is spiraling out of control, and even if we somehow manage to get back to being friends, I know it will never be the same. I’m doing this because I want to account for your feelings towards me. Like I said, I love you, and I want to maintain a happy relationship with you, a relationship that doesn’t mean you have to hold back with me whenever we’re together. I realize now that being just friends would mean you’d have to do just that.”

Aron blinked as he processed. He didn’t seem to understand Minhyun’s convoluted explanations, and he wasn’t even sure that he’d grasped the implication of what Minhyun was saying.

Minhyun then confirmed, with a little bit of hesitation, “hyung, I want to be your... your boyfriend.”