after this chapter, the plot is moving forward again. sorry for the prolonged frustration.

The morning was cold, the wind kept mussing up their hair and clothes. Kyung shuddered not knowing how they could be approaching summer with such a temperature, but Jiho seemed to be at ease, as though the cold did not bother him at all. He leaned back against the freezing rail of their balcony.

“Hey,” implored Kyung, shoving a tablet in front of Jiho’s face. Jiho let out an annoyed groan as the old pigeon he had been talking to flew away.

“What,” he grunted.

Behind Kyung, Jiho could see Taeil toddling around in pink slippers with a toothbrush in his mouth.

“Just, read this,” said the rapper, shoving the tablet into Jiho’s hand. Jiho looked down at the technological device with a bemused expression.

GIRL’S DAY TAKEN DOWN FROM ‘NAVER-BAND CAMP’ CAST

“Why,” Jiho muttered to himself. “This is wonderful.”

“Did you do this?” implored Kyung.

“The Fates have their beauty,” exclaimed Jiho, looking up with dancing lights in his dark eyes. The excitement on his face was making Kyung suspicious. “Do they ever need Caw to make them beautiful?”

Kyung frowned.

“You didn’t do this?”

“No.”

“You’re lying.”

“Solomon does not lie,” said the leader, clapping his ‘friend’ on the shoulder.

“Woo Jiho does,” said Kyung flatly. “Because Jiho is human.”

“Oh. You are good,” replied Jiho, dragging the other rapper back inside, sensing that Kyung was about to freeze to death. “Though, I am not saying you are right.”

x  

 “Why?” he murmured, staring up at how deliciously vulnerable she allowed herself to be with him.

Junhee gave him a stern look, completely innocent of how her presence on his lap might affect him, and it was this easy trust that prevented any adverse reaction from Junhong, even after all these years. He found that he couldn’t comply.

“Because,” she said, pushing his shoulder as she straddled him.

“Because what?”

“Because you’re…you’re my bestest,” she said, pecking him on the mouth and Junhong couldn’t help but feel his insides lurch from both her words and actions. He could almost remember how being alive felt, how being Junhong who belonged to nobody but Junhee felt, and he realised he missed being that person who belonged to her, forever, more than he’d missed anything else from his past.

The air was suddenly hard to breathe, and an unidentifiable emotion seemed to slice him open. His grips around the sheets tightened as he tried to push his feelings away.

“Bestest?” Junhong flushed, feeling the familiar word roll on his tongue. She pushed again, gently, eyes casted downwards before bringing her forehead back to rest against his.

He missed being Junhong; he missed being alive, being happy, being with Junhee and what did it matter if she left him? Wasn’t it partly his fault that she did? Junhee was back now and this girl had never really made any sense in his life anyway, so why would he need any rationality to bring back together what they had?

“You’re the only one who matters,” she murmured, and he saw the vulnerability hovering just beneath her determination. “What’s the point of living if I mean nothing to you?” She gently rubbed the tip of her nose against his, smiling sadly. “I want you to break me until there’s no way of going back, Junhong.”

“Why,” he swallowed back a lump in his throat. He was sure he was going to break before she did.

“I don’t believe words…from the boy who never had the words,” Junhee answered quietly, eyes flickering downwards, blinking her semi-unfocused gaze back to him. She murmured something soft, and Junhong thought it might be his name, but his attention shifted to where Junhee tilted her head, trailing the tip of her nose down his before drawing back slightly, eyes locked on his dark gaze.

His heart was beating against his ears as he stared at her, uncomprehending. He was mesmerised, trapped, by what he saw gleaming in those childlike depths before him. Junhong saw the interest and it pleased him. He saw the intent and it made his stomach clench with anticipation.

But what he lost himself in, what held him steady before her, was the fear. He wanted, he longed, but he was afraid and wasn’t sure what it was that made his heart lash out wildly at his ribcage; the notion that she was afraid of whatever might occur or the smooth warm press of against his.

When he dove up for her, what he saw was a broken smile and he kept his eyes open, locked on hers. The kiss was feverish and her fingers tightened to the point of pain upon his neck. She let out a soft whimper that sounded like a sob and something cut at Junhong’s heart. Junhee tipped him backwards on the bed, eyes teary but fixed upon him as both their breaths quickened.

He’d seen the dilation, felt the now piercing gaze upon his face as she levelled up her enthusiasm to match his, devouring him, gasping. “I really had too much faith in you, Junhong,” she murmured brokenly, her voice filled with hurt and disappointment and all Junhong wanted to do was take them away, but he surged forward. Taking advantage of her distraction, he plunged his tongue deep, superseding hers to fully plunder and she was too slow to bite back the whimper that escaped.

The hand resting on his collar bone moved downward, palm spread, fingers splayed, curving inwards and Junhong expected them to simply sink through his flesh and then pull back, triumphant, his heart held aloft in victory.

Junhong wondered if any human had ever felt the terror he now felt, as Junhee’s hand seemed to close about his heart, its pulse beating against her palm and he closed his eyes.

‘She can’t know.’

“I didn’t just kill them with a kiss,” he hissed against her lips.

“I know,” she nodded, nails digging into his shoulders. “Do what you’ve got to.”

It was survival instinct, he thought, that had him snarling, reversing their positions so Junhee now laid beneath him, his teeth scraping over her lips, battling his own roar of need. He fisted a hand into her hair, ruthlessly savaging , ‘I don’t care’, pressing hard enough to know she’d have swollen lips for hours, lips that would show the world that Junhong had kissed her. ‘I don’t care’.

The mere thought of it was enough to have his hips bucking forward into hers, his free hand crushing down onto her ribs to hold her in place as she sobbed against him. ‘I don’t care’.

The bed creaked, a low groaning sound that mirrored Junhong’s own frustration and anguish. He straightened up, spun around, meaning to simply move away but somehow his legs carried him further and further until he was out the door, never once looking to see the loss written across his best friend’s face.

Junhong couldn’t do it. He couldn’t ruin her.

“You do care. You care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it.”

The rest of the week before the filming of that stupid program went like this:

“What’