I woke to the sound of Khun sketching.  

The sound was as familiar to me now as the sound of my voice. I knew when I open my eyes I would find Khun sitting somewhere in the room, watching me from which ever angel the light hit me best according to him. I stretched under the sheets, opening one eye and moving towards the light coming from the window. The warmth felt nice but I knew it was just an illusion. The minute I set foot outside I would surely freeze.

I opened my eyes, wiping the drowsiness of with the back of my hand. He was closer than I expected, sitting crossed legged on the bed, watching me with that far off look he got whenever he was into one of his paintings. I doubted he noticed I was up, already putting the final touches to whatever he was working on. I knew how he worked, the facial expressions he often did when he was absorbed in his work. He wasn't the only one watching during those hours we had spent at his studio.

Him watching me, immortalizing me with his sketches. Me watching him, the way he held the pencil, how he bit his lips when was trying to get the shading just right. How he looked at me without really looking at me. Not as Khun, the warm and kind hearted guy I had met, so full of depth it would take forever and then some years to really get to know him. But as Khun, the passionate artist, the one that saw beauty even in the dullest of things.

 He must have been up for a while, just sitting there and watching me. The creep.

"Yah... You know watching people while they sleep is rude"

My voice was horsed, my body aching in places that it shouldn't, and I was sure my face looked horrible. There was not a single person in the world that could honestly say they look good when they woke up. Yet the way he was looking at me was as if he had never seen anything else more beautiful in his life.

That's when it hit me.

The reason why he was in my room, the reason I was sore and currently under the sheets. The reason why there was a very red and noticeable mark on Khun's neck.

I waited for it. Waited for the world to become heavier like it usually did. Waited for the feeling of regret to weight me down, to remind me there wasn't such a thing as a happy ending... I waited but it never came.

I couldn't, I simply couldn't bring myself to regret what I had done.

"The guys..."

Still, just because I didn't regret it didn't mean I wasn't worried.

"You want us to keep this between us, right?" He asked, and I nodded.

"Just until I can make things clear with Taec" I quickly added, noticing the hurt look in his eyes and wanting it to quickly go away.

He came closer, leaning in, his lips touching my forehead and I hear a quiet sigh coming from him.

"Don't take too long"

 Too long is a rhetorical phrase. There isn’t an equation accurate enough for me to calculate how long is too long, and how long is not enough.

I know that is not fair, not to Khun, not to Taecyeon, not to myself. I tried to find the right time to tell him, to speak to him and sort things out but the opportunity never presented itself.

I was concerned, worry I would hurt Taecyeon's feelings. Petrified at the idea that I may come in between their friendship. And then I was reminded why Taecyeon and I never would have worked out in the first place.

Taecyeon’s mother had come to visit. There wasn't much warning, nor time to prepare. The house was clean thanks to Khun and Wooyoung and their obsessive compulsive need to keep everything disinfected. Chansung and Khun offer to cook a meal since they are the best out of the bunch and MinJun turned up his charm and took care of the entertainment.

Everyone was busy.

Everyone has a task to do but I was left moving around the house awkwardly. I found myself wishing that Wooyoung was around, and that he would have called off work for the night. He would help to ease the tension, or maybe he would have made it worse. Really I didn’t know which option was worse.

“So why did you move here?”

Taecyeon’s mother asked me, her eyes scanning me. She didn’t look at me with the same affection and tenderness as she did the others. She had barely looked my way when they had arrived and had seemed surprised, almost shocked to see me. It seemed that Taecyeon didn’t tell her he had reunited with an old friend.

It wasn’t until later that I understood.

 I woke in the middle of the night, for what I don’t even remember but I heard the voices coming from Taecyeon’s room. I would have walked away but my name was mentioned and curiosity took the best of me.

He’s not normal Taecyeon!

She said in a loud whisper and I could hear Taecyeon huffing somewhere in the room.

How could you allow him to live in here, knowing his condition?

The insults didn’t stop there. Not once did she called me by name, constantly referring to me as a thing, as an abomination, as some sort of disgusting virus that would surely infect the others if allowed to stick around.

Not once did Taecyeon told her the truth.                                                                      

Sure he defended me, told her I was as big a part of the house as everyone else. That she should watch her tone and the way she speaks about his friends. To mind her business and let me be. But not once did he tell her the truth. Not once did he come clean and told her that not long ago he had confessed his “love.”

I didn’t cry. Not there, nor later when I crawl into my bed and grabbed the bottle of pills from my dresser. Not even after I decided against taking them.

For once I didn’t want to feel numb.

 Prejudice and segregation had always been a big part of our lives. Whether we accepted, and see it for what it is. Or choose to walk around wearing a blindfold, clinging to that bull philosophy: see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil so therefore it doesn’t exist.

It doesn’t matter how you choose to live your life. At the end you have to be prepared to own up to your choices, to defend them against anything and anyone. As well as live up to the consequences those choices may bring.

Taecyeon had made his choice, and even thought I knew he wasn’t to blame, even though I knew I had been in his shoes once and that coming clean to his parents would not be an easy thing to do, even though I knew all this… I had made my choice as well; and he wasn’t it.

I moved out.

Two weeks after Taecyeon’s mother had come to visit I asked Wooyoung and MinJun for help, neither one asked any questions, nor try to stop me. We all knew it was for the best. They knew about me and Khun, how they had figured it out I didn’t bother to ask. But then again I had been a fool if I thought it was possible to keep a secret between from them.

MinJun had made sure the place was nearby, not wanting to let me stray too far and Wooyoung helped me get a second job working nights with him at a club near the one he worked at.

The new place was small, not cozy or homely like Khun’s but it was the best I could afford.

“I’m not running” I told Taecyeon on my last night in the house. He had asked me out on a walk.

 “You know my stay here was only temporary until I could find something else, and you have my address. You know where to find me”

“What about Khun… does he know where to find you too?”

There were a lot of implication with the simple question. A lot of unresolved issues that were way passed the expiration date to be resolved. I didn’t tell Taecyeon about the conversation I overheard between him and his mother. There was no need. I didn’t want to use that as an excuse, I didn’t want to make him feel like his inability to be honest was the reason I decided to do things the way I did.

True was, that Taecyeon was just an unresolved chapter in my life. The more I thought about it, the more I analyze the situation, the more I came to understand that what had kept that loved I felt for him alive all these years was my inability to move on. My inability to accept that he rejected me.

I understood now that it wasn’t me the one he was rejecting back them, it was himself. And it was himself the one he continued on rejecting now. I felt bad for him. I truly did. But this… this was something he had to come to terms with himself. Like I had.

But I had no intention of continuing to waste my life waiting for him to do so.

I was not better off than when I first came here, and the pills were still kept in a drawer just in case. But I like myself a little more than I did a few months back. I understood myself a little more than I did back then.

“Yes” I told him, answering his question and keeping the rest of my thoughts to myself. “Khun knows where to find me”

I opened my eyes. The faint light coming from the window announcing the end of another day. The clock read 6:45 PM, a whole hour passed my session time and I had not even noticed.

 “Relax Junho” Andy told me, probably noticing the panic in my eyes and quickly reassuring me.

 “I didn’t have any appointments beside you, and you were doing so well I thought it a shame to interrupt you. And I won’t charge you, I quite enjoy the story you so kindly share. That is more than enough payment for me”

Something this man was impossible to read. Andy Lee was a king man I have had the fortune of stumbling upon. Chansung had recommended him after attending a lecture of his, and it had taken a while but I had finally decided to pay him a visit.

I had been coming to the office once a week for the last 8 weeks, this one been my 9^th and each time it was like peeling a different layer I didn’t know I had. Breaking down walls I didn’t even realized I had built.

 “Are you going to see Nichkhun now?”

The doctor asked, setting down the notebook he usually took notes on. I had taken a peek once or twice. Scribbles and notes written in impossible small letters I couldn’t even begin to comprehend. I had given up after a while.  

Perhaps it was better if I didn’t know what he wrote down. I had told him everything. Things I didn’t share with Wooyoung or MinJun, things I still didn’t have the courage to say to Khun.

 “I am.”

“Good” His voice was always warm. Understanding. “Enjoy yourself, and Junho?”

“Yes?”

“Come early for your session next week. I’m eager to hear how your story ends”