Hanbin didn’t know how to make everything right again. He was failing at college, at home he was a wreck, and his friendship with Bobby was nowhere to be found. He wanted to lay back and cry all day long.

College felt like being beat every single time he entered the classroom. He wasn’t sure of really liking the major he had chosen despite being one of his passions right beside music composition. Things he learnt were practically useless for him and, how would ‘Science Theory through History’ helped him in the future? Completely unnecessarily, just his opinion. Add that to the fact that he was in his second year and he was still as lonely as when he entered the first day, without knowing a single person. Now he knew everyone but he didn’t fit in any group. He knew it was mostly his responsibility, he was shy and quiet when he didn’t feel comfortable. But, it made him feel so bad he was at the edge of crying almost all the time. He was pretty much a crier lately.

Hanbin told his parents he wanted to put on hold his studies until he became utterly convinced of his choices. Maybe changing his major, maybe keep going on this one, he didn’t know. And right know it was killing him. Having told that, his mother went crazy, he had only seen her so angry a few times and it never was at him. They hadn’t talk since then and the relationship between them had been pretty tense for a while now, their interactions almost non-existent. Hanbin had reached the point when he pretended to be asleep when she arrived late at night after work.

But he had a job, and, miraculously, he was feeling more like himself there than in any other place. Nobody expected to receive more than books and CD copies from him and those were, precisely, two of the things that made him happy. He was working on his former high school library. Having spent all of his teenage years inside those walls, he was more than comfortable there, surrounded by books and kids no far from his age. He could even listen to music while making his compositions.

It reminded him of better days, when things were easier and he was happy and had fun and saw his friends whenever he wanted. Nowadays, they met once a week, if they were really lucky. He talked to them, obviously, but it wasn’t the same. Every single time they met he had to take a breath and keep it in for a second to hold his tears, because it made him so happy and he missed them so much.

Bobby was different. For him, it is. He missed him, desperately. But he also missed the way they were, how they worked together, how they seemed to complete each other like a two-piece puzzle. They were eye to eye in almost everything, and in cases when they came across different points of view, it didn’t affect a single aspect of their dynamics. He missed the comfortable silences, the back hugs, the piggy rides and silly little jokes. He missed talking about nothing because Bobby wasn’t quite comfortable with deep talk, but looking into each other eyes and knowing that things would work out. Because they were together and, who had the guts to get between their friendship?

Well. Time did. Time, and Hanbin’s stupid feelings. They grew older and their life choices made them fell apart. Nothing drastic. But Hanbin felt the loss like a knife through his heart. Because, during their lifelong friendship, his feelings for Bobby had grew stronger and stronger until they no longer fitted the label of ‘just best friends’ and fell closer to ‘I love him and would spent all day with him just kissing and watching TV’.

So yes, somewhere along the way he had developed a huge crush on his best friend. And yes, he hadn’t fully acknowledged this information until it was late and Bobby had found himself a boyfriend. Because, yes, Bobby was apparently not as straight as he thought he was. Hanbin may have been in love with him for around 6 years (‘most part of their friendship’ added his brain) but he had come to terms with it just a little time ago.

That is, after spending the whole night crying his heart out in what, he later recognized, was his first panic attack. The new of Bobby’s relationship had crushed his heart and broke his soul in small, really small, pieces, or at least it felt like that. He was still trying to put himself together and more than half and year had went by. Nice. Later, when he already had admitted it aloud (only to himself, obviously) he started going to the psychologist. And he realized his friendship with Bobby was long time ago somehow lost. They had drove apart, and not being able of saying ‘I love you’ the way he really meant it was making him a little more distant to Bobby as time passed. And then Bobby moved away and then he became an item with Jinhwan and only thinking about it made Hanbin feel like throwing up and crying. That bad.

June and Donghyuk were the only people in his life who knew how really bad he was. And even they didn’t know the real reason behind his, now common, panic attacks and sudden tears. The loved him. And that was enough. So when they met and Hanbin clung to them for more than a minute or started sobbing a bit, they didn´t ask the reason. They knew. And Hanbin was sure that despite he hadn’t told them all, they knew. They had to, because it was pretty obvious and Hanbin wasn’t exactly hiding it from them. He was waiting for them to ask, because along the way he had become so coward, so unlike himself, he didn’t have the courage to say it aloud to anyone besides his therapist.

So, back to the present, Hanbin was kind of stuck in life. He had reach a point where Bobby and him didn’t talk at all, he didn’t know anything about Bobby’s life and he was pretty sure Bobby didn’t know anything about his. And he had only two options, as his psychologist had told him. He could keep going on like this, destroyed over every little fact about Bobby, missing the good old days. The other option was to go and tell Bobby, not necessarily that he loved him but yes the fact that things had changed and he could no longer hold on to the current situation. He no longer was happy and he couldn’t remember the last time he truly was. He wanted Bobby to declare how he felt about the truth. Because Bobby was also distant and had already asked (being drunk so it didn’t count) if Hanbin was okay and had confessed being sad over being so apart. But how do you tell your best friend in the whole world that your heart is splitting apart seeing him so in love with someone else and wishing it was you, and hearing him say that he could tell Jinhwan and him everything and wanting to scream that Jinhwan wasn’t really his friend. It was almost impossible.

He could drag the choice for his whole life if he wanted. But there wouldn’t be much of him at the end. It would destroy him completely. He had to choose.