a/n : hi hi?? long time no see :")) i'm sorry for leaving for so long - it really took me a while to get inspiration to continue writing, and in a few weeks my exams are starting and the stress probably propelled me to write (´-ι_-｀) i really hope you like the chapter. i know its short, but i've been wanting to shape this moment since i started writing tdots and somehow i think it represented a relationship i have in life. anyway, please do tell me how you felt or if it was bad and i need serious help with writing (lmao, i'm workin on it.) ily all so much and thank you so so much for the 450 subscribers here and  212 on my other story ;-; i really appreciate if anyone is reading my stories and liking them! without further ado, ty for reading my a/n and have fun!!

Mingyu pushed and stumbled along with Wonwoo into his room frantically. He shoved Wonwoo in the closet and locked it behind him. “Keep quiet for a while.”

In the closet, Wonwoo breathed fabric softener, and listened to the ostentatiously joyous tone of his childhood friend, greeting old ladies he recalled Mingyu countlessly grumbling over. He held his shaking fingers tightly against his chest and counted his breathing; a wave of thoughts crashed at him, and he wasn’t sure which to entertain or if any could be. The heat lingered on his neck, like a suffocating halo, or a rope of a choker, and it made Wonwoo nauseous. The way his bones had pressed against the damp toilet seat, moist from the humidity of summer, how his mouth stayed open and gasped for air, anywhere in the confines of the cubicle, how he saw himself in the murky toilet water, the lousy parts of a contraption, and how he unknowingly choked out Mingyu’s name in the midst of it all, laughed at endlessly by people whose names Wonwoo forgot by then.

Everything.

Everything was for Mingyu.

Wonwoo inhaled the lavender of Mingyu’s clothes (by all means innocently, with no underlying intent) and listened to the thump of footsteps that stopped at Mingyu’s door. And if, just if, six years ago, by the river, had Mingyu not been there, Wonwoo wouldn’t even be here, breathing, like living matter.

“They’ll probably take about half an hour before they leave. They just want to try my mom’s cake or something. Apparently it’s a new recipe.”

The light of the room flooded into the closet, and Wonwoo flinched, like the light pierced the dark and was uninvited. Mingyu extended his hand to Wonwoo, who crouched between boxes and underneath cloth.

“I told my mom I was going to sleep early, so I’m switching off the lights. You okay with that? That way my mom won’t come to check on us either. I’ll switch on the night lamp though, so you don’t get scared or anything.” Wonwoo nodded, and Mingyu pulled him onto the grey mattress. It was funny how talkative Mingyu had gotten - nerves, Wonwoo had discovered over the years.

On the bed, they faced each other, Wonwoo still dazed from the flashes of memories and Mingyu stared at the purple wrung around his friend’s neck. He swiped at the hues brusquely, like you would when there’s a mosquito bite that won’t stop itching, and it snapped Wonwoo out of his dreams and into reality. “Let’s get rid of it.”

Wonwoo’s eyes on him flickered, and he shifted uncomfortably beneath the glare directed at his neck. “You do that by waiting. It’s called healing.”

Despite Wonwoo trying to stay calm, it was proving to be relatively difficult with his childhood friend gripping his neck and smoothing the skin roughly. Mingyu said nothing, as if he talked more to the bruise rather than to Wonwoo. It scared Wonwoo.

That the shadows within the room cast by the lamp boxed them in, restricted where the limits of the room extended to, and the air was out to accommodate the size. That Mingyu had barely moved since he fell beside Wonwoo on the bed, unblinking, like something was turning in his head and talked over Wonwoo’s voice to him. That the voice grew louder, like it told him incessantly to get rid of the bruise using whatever methods he could. That everything about Mingyu, his room, his clothes, his closet, his eyes, flowed smoothly like the calm before a storm. It scared him.

Wonwoo gripped Mingyu’s hands, and he desperately thought of something to reassure him.

“I mean, we can, right? We did six years ago,” Mingyu breathed. Stones lodged themselves in Wonwoo’s throat and he smiled weakly, his suspicions of Mingyu’s behavior finally proving to be true.

“We can’t,” Wonwoo pried Mingyu’s fingers off of his neck gently, “this is different. It’s already there. You can’t undo something that’s already been done.”