Jaehwan’s voice drifted about sweetly in Sanghyuk’s head and he tried to hold onto it, catching some of the syllables and trying to make sense of them. They eventually woke him up fully and he blinked a few before he could focus his eyes on the curve of a back, the sharp outline of a spine on the edge of the bed, Jaehwan sitting there with his left elbow on his thigh, resting his head on the palm of one hand while he held his phone to his right ear with the other.

“I’m at Sanghyuk’s,” he murmured in a low, hoarse voice. He let out a sigh—the whole image suggested that he was feeling the pressure of the problems he had been able to forget about the night before falling back onto him with a crushing weight now. “Yeah. Yes, I spent the night here, but you shouldn’t be surprised, Taekwoon.”

Sanghyuk felt the anger gnaw at his insides again. Jaehwan still talked to Taekwoon after how that jerk had handled him, but he didn’t yell or cry, he just sounded devastated.

“I’m not sure if it would be a good idea for me to go home right now,” Jaehwan said, his voice shaky. “Maybe… maybe we should spend some time apart, don’t you think?” Sanghyuk swallowed hard, his hand grabbing the sheet underneath him. The silence stretched on, but Sanghyuk wasn’t sure Taekwoon was talking—the only occasion they met he had hardly uttered five words, but of course, Sanghyuk had no idea how he worked around Jaehwan. Jaehwan suddenly let out a soft chuckle and Sanghyuk’s heart fluttered from happiness and his stomach cramped from fury at the same time, knocking the wind out of him. “Not instant ramen, right? Taekwoon, I—” a second of silence, and then, very faintly, almost inaudible: “I love you, too.”

Sanghyuk heard Jaehwan say his goodbye to Taekwoon, but he didn’t listen. He watched Jaehwan collapse on top of his legs, back moving up in a deep sigh. Sanghyuk lifted his hand from the sheets, all five fingers trembling from the tension, the tips lingering on Jaehwan’s skin above his right shoulder blade, caressing gently when they settled. Jaehwan jerked up and turned around with wide eyes that shone guiltily, a sad smile curling the corners of his full lips upwards, and Sanghyuk felt his entire self smile back—eyes, mouth, everything. Jaehwan had dark circles under his eyes, his nose was pink, lips cherry red, hair sticking up and face creased. It was a whole new level of beautiful that Sanghyuk thought no word existed for.

“How are you feeling?” Sanghyuk asked and almost cursed when he found that his voice wasn’t as strong as he wanted it to be.

Jaehwan didn’t reply. He put a hand on top of Sanghyuk’s on his back, still smiling, but his face looked like the grey clouds on an August afternoon. Sanghyuk didn’t want him to cry again.

“Thank you for everything, Sanghyuk,” he said then, letting go of Sanghyuk’s hand and standing up to find his clothes on the floor.

“Aren’t those still wet?” Sanghyuk asked, sitting up, ignoring Jaehwan’s words, because they sounded like goodbye and he was not ready for that yet. He didn’t think he’d ever be. “I’ll give you something—”

As he stood up, Jaehwan grabbed his arm, stopping him.

“I’ll be fine. Please, don’t worry about me.”

“How could I not,” Sanghyuk mumbled, staring down at the floor while Jaehwan pulled his jeans on. “You’re going back to that sick, possessive bat.”

Jaehwan looked up at him, his frame too small as he hunched his shoulder, his face tiny as his head hung.

“It’s not right, is it?” he asked quietly.

“No, it’s not,” Sanghyuk agreed, his hands sliding up on Jaehwan’s bare arms, resting on his shoulders. “He’s hurt you, Jaehwan. He’s binding you to himself. Why do you think I’m your only friend?”

Jaehwan looked at him like he had been slapped. He took a step back, leaving Sanghyuk’s hands lingering idly in the air.

“It’s not his fault.” Jaehwan shook his head. “What do you even know about that?”

“I know what you told me about it last night,” Sanghyuk replied, his hands dropping back down next to his sides. “You’re here for a reason, Jaehwan.”

“I’m here because I overreacted things and wanted comfort,” Jaehwan said, his cheeks dusted over with pink, his eyes scanning the floor. “I would have called you eventually if you hadn’t found me. I needed you, Sanghyuk, that’s why I’m here.”

“But it didn’t mean anything to you,” Sanghyuk concluded, and Jaehwan looked hurt at that, his eyes snapping up to Sanghyuk’s face, glazed over with regret. “I’m nothing compared to Taekwoon.”

“That’s not it at all,” Jaehwan whispered, and, for a second, the thought of Jaehwan looking like a puppy who got scolded flashed through Sanghyuk’s mind, suppressing every source of his anger. “I like you a lot. You have no idea how much you mean to me; you’re the most wonderful person I’ve ever known.”

“Then why don’t you stay here?”

“Because I can’t,” Jaehwan replied, picking up his shirt and sweater, putting them on. “I have to go back. I always have to go back.”

“Is he a physical threat?” Sanghyuk asked, sounding desperate for which he hated himself more than Taekwoon for anything. “Is he blackmailing you?”

“No! No, he’d never do anything like that to me.”

“Then what is it that makes you obliged to be with him even if he’s the biggest on Earth?”

Jaehwan looked like he wanted to hug Sanghyuk, but all he did was reach out for his hand and hold it. Sanghyuk didn’t budge as Jaehwan’s fingers curled around his; his hand was limp in Jaehwan’s grip.

“Taekwoon…” Jaehwan started with a deep breath, “he’s been everything I have for so long that I can’t live without him anymore. You can say I’m too poetic or romantic or whatever, but… he’s my past and my present and he’s probably all of my future as well. Without him, I’m just an empty shell. You fill up the void he can’t and will never be able to, and I’m honestly so grateful for that. I don’t want you to leave me. You make me feel complete like no one ever has.”

“You can’t toy with my feelings like this, Jaehwan.” This time Sanghyuk was the one who recoiled from the touch, his hand clenching into a fist after Jaehwan finally released it, blunt nails pressing into his palm. “If, as you said, I’m just a filler for that void, you should never have shown me other type of affection, because I seriously thought that what happened between us yesterday and the other day and weeks ago was something special. I don’t think you haven’t realized how I feel for you—you’re not stupid.”

“I have,” Jaehwan said, deflated. “I have and unconsciously took advantage of it. I’m so sorry, Sanghyuk. But you have to know that if Taekwoon… if I weren’t so dependent on him, I would definitely reciprocate your feelings, maybe even stronger than the way you feel about me.”

That sparked a small flame of hope inside Sanghyuk, the type you hold onto even when you know it can never happen, like when the doctor says your beloved one has a 90% chance of dying, but you still believe in that 10%. 

“So, you’re going to leave me here with the promise that in a parallel universe you could love me, is that it?” Sanghyuk asked, the saddest grin making its way onto his face. He felt the tears well up, but he was not going to break down now, Jaehwan had to know that he’d really ed up, not just made a little kid too hopeful and took away the prospect later. “Are you realizing how cruel this is? It… It all seems like you want to get away from Taekwoon but don’t have the courage to do so. I don’t understand.”

Jaehwan just stood there with his eyes shining beautifully and Sanghyuk almost hugged him tight, he almost cupped his face and kissed him, almost dropped to his knees to plead with him to stay, but he was prouder than that. His heart was being broken into the tiniest pieces, and he was, in a sense, too far gone to let this small affair with Jaehwan just slip by, but he was not going to fool himself with the miniscule chance that Jaehwan’s voice would lose that silkiness it only had when he was talking about Taekwoon, and that his glow would radiate for Sanghyuk rather than the oppressive, egoistic man.

“I will never regret this,” Jaehwan said eventually, and Sanghyuk suddenly felt like someone clenched his heart as strong as they could, squeezing the happiness out of it. “You’ve saved me, Sanghyuk.”

“Then, at least, there will be something that was worth going through all of this,” he smiled, tried to smile, tried to hurt Jaehwan just a little. Jaehwan wanted to say something but Sanghyuk didn’t let him. “I won’t leave you. I promised I wouldn’t and I don’t want to lie to you. I just need time, okay?”

“I would give you fifty years if that was what you needed,” Jaehwan mumbled, quite poetic, probably the musician forming the words in his mind.

“Maybe I’ll need just that.”

Jaehwan looked around the floor again, looking for more of his things, but his clothes were all he had. He glanced back up at Sanghyuk who suddenly felt ashamed of his own half-, but figured that draping the duvet around him like an ugly gown would do no good for his already severely injured pride. He only blushed at the realization.

“Thank you,” Jaehwan said again, meaning it from the bottom of his heart—Sanghyuk could see it in his eyes. “And I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” Sanghyuk said lamely, looking away.

Jaehwan took that as an indication to leave, and maybe it was exactly that. He walked out of the room; Sanghyuk heard him put his shoes on, and a few seconds later the opening and closing of the door. He was gone.

Sanghyuk sat down on the bed, rubbing at his face, nails scraping the skin of his cheeks as he pulled his hands downwards. 

Jaehwan was selfish, Taekwoon was poisonous and Sanghyuk was overly dramatic. These were facts, but even if he admitted that he was just a little more than (righteously) butthurt, this whole thing was still off. The goddamn thumping of his heart inside his chest, the pressure in the backs of his eyes and his trembling limbs told him so.

He had no idea what it was that he felt, and he desperately wanted to label it to make it somewhat tangible and existing, because things that hardly exist cannot be destroyed, and he was not going to live with this aching, suffocating feeling for the rest of his life. He liked Jaehwan a lot, probably in every sense of the word, but it still wasn’t right—that term just didn’t contain the right letters, it tasted funny on his tongue. He felt affection for Jaehwan; he was precious to Sanghyuk, so much so that he would have done a lot of things he wouldn’t have done for Hakyeon, for instance, and Hakyeon was his dearest friend. He was fond of Jaehwan, and even more so after the kisses of the night before, because Jaehwan showed him what it felt to be fully comfortable and content with things, how it felt to have everything in the world in place.

Sanghyuk lay back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, counting the cracks that looked like spider veins on the white paint.

There was one single expression he didn’t want to think of, but it was prodding at his brain, gradually growing from a vague idea into a powerful, heartbreaking notion.

If he— what if he… loved Jaehwan, what if he was actually in love with him as Hakyeon suggested? Would he ever be able to shatter that feeling? Would he ever be able to crush it to pieces that don’t matter anymore like a few grains of dust on an old picture frame? If it was love indeed, and Jaehwan was never going to requite it… would he be able to fall in love with someone else? Would he be able to jump from an unsealed emotion to another—to the same feeling but for someone else? His worst fear was that he was going to be in love with the wrong person for the rest of his life and never would he experience how it feels to share all he had with someone who was right for him.

He didn’t want to become the swan in the pond. He didn’t want to be bitter over someone who was never going to return to him.

It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Jaehwan wasn’t there.