Sungjong walks down the street, hands in his coat pockets. A gust of wind blows by him, skipping across his face and carrying a couple leaves with it. They float about lazily, dipping orange and red and brown through the sky. And for you my dear, I am an autumn leaf, carelessly falling without a sense in my mind. He’s trying so hard not to think but by doing that, it’s all he is thinking about.

Last night. After Myungsoo came and he told him everything, he had fallen asleep in his arms only to wake up the next morning to find Myungsoo gone. He was alone. He can’t erase sadness forever. Everyone is alone.

Now, he feels…he doesn’t know what he’s even feeling. Or if he’s feeling anything. It could just be he’s numb from all that has happened. He is just of void of empty nothingness.

I’m not empty but rather full of lost feelings.

No. He feels a little better after telling Myungsoo everything. It had lifted him up slightly. And the fact Myungsoo told him he wasn’t disgusted, that he will stay with him, only adds to it.

But maybe Myungsoo didn’t mean it. He could’ve just said that in the heat of the moment, saying only what Sungjong wanted to hear when really he thought everything but.

Sungjong suddenly feels like he can barely breathe as that thought enters his mind. He tries to swallow but something is blocking his windpipe. Yet it’s nothing. Just…just air.

Maybe he regrets telling the elder man. People always say “why regret?” but he knows why. If he had known now what it really meant, he wouldn’t have done it in the first place.

He kicks a stone that’s in his path, watching it roll across the pavement in front of him. Maybe it’s best if he just let Myungsoo alone for right now. Of course he had to dump everything on him and then expect an answer right away. No, his hyung needs time. To either stick with him or to abandon him completely. He in a breath at this. He’d leave him alone for right now. He won’t see him anymore until he knows his true feelings.

As much as it pains him.

But he’s used to it by now. Things shattering inside him with only the wispiest hope of being repaired. He’s used to it. People leaving when they said they’ll say, people promising things but breaking them, people saying meaningful things when they really mean nothing at all.

Looking up, he catches sight of dark hair in the open window of a car. As he peers closer, he realizes it’s Myungsoo. The older man is leaning one arm out of the window, his other handling the steering wheel. He’s waiting for the light to turn green and as he looks around, the two lock eyes.

And that’s when I realize everything you’ve told me is exactly what I wanted. Did you really mean it?

Sungjong scrunches his face up and frowns. He knows what he had just told himself but now every instinct in him is screaming to go over to the other. He needs his touch, his words, his comfort. But he can’t. He can’t.

Myungsoo raises his eyebrows at Sungjong as they continue to stare at each other. They are caught in the suspension of time, everything melting together into a muddled mess that’s both heavy and airy at the same time. Myungsoo doesn’t know what is happening to him or what he’s supposed to do now.

After leaving him this morning, he had been thinking of nothing else. All the information he had learned is still spinning around and around his head, going from sadness to anger to guilt to love to bitterness and back, all the time, every second. He doesn’t even know what to think.

Continuing to gaze at the young man, he heaves a sigh. He thought he knew Sungjong, knew his hidden meanings and lost words and terrified emotions and that he could read between the crooked lines. But he didn’t. 

And now he knows why.

Something flashes in the younger’s eyes but Myungsoo is too far away to read what it is. But then he sees the younger man frown and turn his back on him, going back the way he had come. He opens his mouth, about to yell out his name but then thinks better of it and sighs.

“Sungjong…” he mutters instead. How is he supposed to face him now?

The information he had been given rattled him that’s true. But he will not go back on his word. He won’t leave Sungjong, just as he promised. Is that what the other is worried about?

As he watches the retreating figure of the other, he silently vows that he will do whatever it takes to make Sungjong believe him. I promise.

Car horn honks penetrate his brain and he hurriedly pulls forward, seeing the light has turned green. He chances one last look at the younger’s back before pressing his foot on the gas pedal.

He didn’t expect to run into him here.

Police sirens wail and flash their blinking lights, three parked in a row on the side of the street. Their bright lights cast around and around, putting the whole scene into a bloody outlook by giving everything a red tint. It is illuminating against the darkened sky, making everything more sinister than normal. People are yelling and talking, all a loud, mindless buzz in his ears.

He doesn’t know what happened. All he knows is that he didn’t expect to see him here, at such a despondent scene. What is he doing?

And why is Sungjong here as well? He was just walking through, minding his own business, knowing he had to pick up something for dinner but at such a sight, all thoughts of food leave his mind. He can barely focus on eating anyway when seeing the young man puts butterflies in his stomach.

Sungjong sees Myungsoo jump over a bike rack on the sidewalk, since it was quite crowded with curious pedestrians and police officers. He looks around and then starts to hurry away from it, coat flapping in the slight wind. The younger only lets his eyes wander, his body too frozen to move. He’s sure he has an odd expression on his face and he’s sure people are annoyed at him for standing still but he can’t seem to make himself do anything at all except look at Myungsoo’s back.

Except then Myungsoo turns. And he sees him. Getting a look at his face, Sungjong feels like his breath has been knocked out of him when their eyes meet. Then he can only see the other, everything else fades away and he feels like he’s falling in the depths of his eyes and he doesn’t know if he wants to get out.

Myungsoo’s eyes widen and he takes a few hesitant steps towards Sungjong until he’s only a foot away. Then they’re face to face and he’s not saying anything and Sungjong isn’t saying anything and they can only look at each other with some strange ache in their chests that make it hard for them pull in a breath. There’s nothing separating them now, except…themselves.

Sungjong can’t stop the disbelief working its way through his systems. Even though he was the one that had decided to give Myungsoo his space for a while after what he just told him, he’s the one that can’t move away.

“M-Myungsoo hyung?” he whispers, his breath disappearing in the cold air as soon as it leaves his mouth. The elder has a sad look on his face-remembering his brush off from earlier. But he doesn’t leave.

“Sungjong…” he trails off as he takes a step closer. Sungjong feels his cold body shiver even more in the other’s presence but he doesn’t move because he still feels like a statue even as he feels his heart beating a million miles a minute.

This is the closest they’ve been since that night where Sungjong told him. He doesn’t mind it, he actually has been craving it but now that he has it, he doesn’t know what to do.

“Are you…mad at me?” he asks quietly, almost afraid of the answer. No, not almost, he is afraid of the answer. What if he says yes? That would kill him.

“No,” answers Myungsoo simply. “No.” Sungjong breathes a slight sigh of relief. It must have shown on his face because Myungsoo-hesitantly, it seems-reaches out and takes his hand. They stare at their fingers for a moment before their eyes eventually find their way back to the other.

I hope things will always be like this, Myungsoo thinks as he gazes into Sungjong’s wide eyes. I hope we will always find our way back to each other. I hope his eyes will always give me these butterflies because nothing else has felt this good. I hope in time he will learn to love himself like I have.

He knows they will never go back to the way they once were, not after that, but they will always be friends.

And maybe something more, he adds inside his head.

A/N: So...how's everyone doing? Now things are at least a little bit more resolved or whatever but for how long? Until next time darlings!