Long stretched minutes slowly tick away. Bit by bit, he feels himself falling apart. It dawns upon him in short, but heavy landed revelations, shooting through him relentlessly like merciless bullets. Every lie ever fed to him, every lie he once took as truth, gradually dragging and trapping himself in darkness until he disappears. 

He would scream, if his voice let him. He’d scream until his lungs are entirely depleted from much needed air, until his throat starts burning and his eyes stop tearing. But in reality, it wouldn’t matter. He knows no matter how hard he screams, his voice is getting smaller in this reality that renders him nothing but powerless. His voice, his words, are meaningless in a world filled with lies. 

Lies he’s been fed for as long as he can remember. He no longer knows what’s real, and what isn’t. 

A knock on his door makes him snap out of it, if only for a little while. 

“Daesung?”

He sighs, knowing very well he’s supposed to answer the door but not doing so out of spite. 

“We need to talk about this.”

Another sigh, and another moment of nothing. He waits for Seunghyun to leave before he lets his mind wander off again. 

When it gets silent, he thinks about the words that turned life as he knew it entirely upside down. Six words making him doubt everything that ever happened between them. Six words turning him into the confused mess he is right now.

I am in love with you.

What does one even say to that? Thanks? I appreciate it? 

Daesung groans as he buries his face in his pillow. Of all the things he could have said, he had gone with “oh”. And as if that wasn’t the worst part, he’d even stayed to watch the hope in Seunghyun’s eyes falter and crumble before he soullessly turned around and hid himself in his room. Hence his current state of hermitage. 

It’s not as much that he doesn’t know what to do about those feelings — though he has to admit it plays a fairly large part in the grand scheme of it all — but more that he doesn’t know what to think of everything that happened leading up to the unexpected confession on Seunghyun’s part.

Every word, every smile, every touch he’s been fed up until now suddenly feel like lies. Like Seunghyun’s been mocking him for thinking they were genuine acts of kindness, of friendship, of brotherhood.

No matter how hard Daesung tries, he cannot bring himself to just accept Seunghyun’s feelings. Because they’re wrong. So, so wrong.

Feelings of love, of being in love, are meant to cement the sacred bond formed between a man and a woman. That’s how it is, and how it’s supposed to be.

And that’s why he cannot bring himself to get up and open that door. Because he doesn’t know what to say when he sees Seunghyun’s face. He doesn’t know whether hugging him and pulling him close and telling him everything is going to be alright is an okay thing to do. He doesn’t even know if he would even be able to look Seunghyun in the eye and tell him it’s okay. That he doesn’t feel the same way, but that it’s okay, and that it doesn’t change anything between them. Because Lord knows everything has changed. 

Later that evening, Jiyong knocks on his door and practically lets himself in the second Daesung turns the doorknob. 

“What happened?” He asks, instantly making himself at home on Daesung’s bed. He frowns when Daesung doesn’t reply, and his mouth falls open when Daesung defeatedly drops himself down next to him. “He told you,” Jiyong gasps.

Daesung wants to laugh and cry at the same time. “You already knew?”

“Well,” Jiyong starts, pulling Daesung close and rubbing soothing circles on his back. “Yeah.”

They remain like that for a while. Daesung trying to regain his breathing, and Jiyong waiting it out. 

Daesung retells exactly what happened, and Jiyong listens, carefully. They talk for hours. But of all the things Jiyong says that night, only one thing keeps echoing through Daesung’s mind all the way till morning.

You shouldn’t forget he’s your friend in the first place. 

And Jiyong is right, Daesung realises. So he hauls his own out of bed and drags himself into the shower stall. In less than half an hour he’s fully dressed and ready to go. Though he’s still not sure what he’s going to say, how he’s even going to face him, he knows it’s the right thing to do. Because yes, Seunghyun is his friend, and Daesung is Seunghyun’s. So he might as well act like it.

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