[ First, you think the worst is a broken heart. ]

He can’t get up.

(He doesn’t want to. There is no point.)

Every day he regrets his decision, but he tells himself that staying with Daehyun wasn’t an option if he wants him to be free and happy. He is a burden to the younger, a weight that he didn’t need to carry; Daehyun has his dreams, and he had a long life ahead of him – a life that would be better without him.

He has to convince himself every day.

Maybe one day, he’ll believe it.

[ What's gonna kill you is the second part. ]

It’s a foreign place and a foreign room, and everything is so different that Yukwon feels like running home. The new apartment is polished and neat, but it isn’t quite what like what he really wants it to be.

Home is where Daehyun is.

It kills him every single day that he couldn’t come home. He thinks he cries even in his sleep.

(And if he doesn’t, his heart does.)

‘Daehyun is beter off without me,’ is what he tells himself, every time he remembers the love of his life, and he wonders what’s he doing now?

Is Daehyun thinking about him, like he is? Is he safe? Is he eating? Sleeping?

Better off without you.

(A part of him hopes that it isn’t true.)

He tucks himself into the bed the first night, and for the first time, sleep escapes him.

[ And the third, is when your world splits down the middle. ]

Days are impossibly colder.

He throws his phone away.

(He doesn’t. He tosses it in one corner of the room, switched off. He can’t take hearing Daehyun’s voice anymore; listening to his voicemails where he cries and begs for him to come home knocks him to his knees.)

It was too much. He can’t get up.

He curls up on himself, his eyes filled with tears when one day, Daehyun finally stops calling.

[ Fourth, you're gonna think that you fixed yourself. ]

Days pass. He convinces himself that he’s fine.

He has a new job, in a new garage. He customizes cars; it was a dream come true.

(He’s far away from all of it; he doesn’t feel, he just does things. He buries himself with work. He can’t think anymore.)

It goes on until he meets someone new and when they tumble amongst the sheets he tastes bile in his mouth, rising up from his stomach.

It’s so ing different that he feels stained. This isn’t supposed to happen. It’s when they’re done that his mind wanders back to the old roads and he has to leave the other sleeping alone. He gets dressed, quickly, and he doesn’t look back.

Traitor. What have you done? Daehyun will… Daehyun’s not here anymore.

He walks home, feeling more alone than ever and he sleeps the night and the next day away, and repeats it all over again.

[ Fifth, you see them out with someone else.]

He’s like a man dying of thirst, and he tempts fate as he takes his car to the district where he and Daehyun first met. He misses him. Every fiber of his being misses Daehyun, and he drinks him – or what was left of them – in. He passes by the university where Daehyun went, the park nearby where they used to go together, and then the hospital – maybe if he sees the places Daehyun’s been – where they’d been - it’d feel like he was right there with him.

When night falls, he thinks that he needs to go, having enough of the self-inflicted torture, and he’s about to turn a corner when a sight has him almost crashing into a post.

It’s him.

He’s become thinner, the hollow of his cheeks easy to see even from afar. There were circles under his eyes, darker than the ones before, and he can’t help but feel that everything, every single thing, is his fault.

Someone runs toward Daehyun and clutches his hand, and Yukwon swears that everything crashed around him right that second when Daehyun offers the smaller boy a small smile, not letting go.

The world feels like it was tearing itself apart and Yukwon speeds up until he can’t hear anything else but his engine and his heart pounding in his ears. His cheeks were wet with tears and how dare he cry? He left him alone, after everything he’s done and now he ing cries –

– it’s over.

(He can’t help but glance at the rearview mirror. If Daehyun saw him, would he have let go of the other’s hand?)

[ And the sixth, is when you admit that you may have ed up a little. ]
 

There isn’t a chance for them now, Yukwon knows that much.

But he hopes.

If he didn’t make that decision, could he be the one holding Daehyun’s hand right now?

(He tries not to think of the curve of Daehyun’s lip as he looks at the other boy, but it was enough to send him reeling like he was punched in the gut. He can’t bear it. He can’t. Drowning his sorrows in alcohol only burns his throat, but not his mind; not the image carved on the back of his eyelids.)

He’ll probably get to see Daehyun grow in his job, helping others and they might have had a family – but where is he now? Where are they now?

(He’s alone in a bed that’s too big and the sound of static from the television is the only noise in the empty house. He looks at things, but he doesn’t see them. He hears, but he doesn’t listen.)

[ You’re going through six degrees of separation. ]

He hopes.

(For what, he doesn’t know. Daehyun is mad at him. There’s no chance. It was a choice that he’s made, a choice that he has to live with for the rest of his days.)

Maybe fate will pull its strings and they’ll meet again. If they do, maybe Daehyun will forgive him. Maybe. Maybe one of these days, Daehyun will come and find him, call his phone if it still works, and he’ll answer because he’ll accidentally press the button and he gets to hear Daehyun’s voice again, like a breath of fresh air after being submerged into deep waters.

(Maybe he’ll go and find Daehyun and take him back… but he’s a coward.)

More days pass and he’s numb; but he hopes.