“I like you too,” I replied warily, partly on instinct but mostly in sweet denial to what was rapidly becoming clear.

Before I could even think, I felt his slender hands on my skin, his lips pressed to mine. Everything was dizzy and sudden. They way he kissed was uncertain — confused and sloppy. At the back of my mind, I vaguely realised that he really hadn’t been lying about not having kissed anyone before. However, that revelation was quickly followed by another, more startling one.

I was kissing Gongchan!

My eyes shot open. Frantically, I gave him a hard shove, so that he fell backwards onto the metre seat with a harsh scrape. A scene which may have been comical if not for the circumstances.

“I knew I should’ve kept that Jinyoung away from you!” I yelled when I was finally able to find my voice. “You can’t — You’re not — No! What has he done to you?!”

“Nothing bad,” Gongchan replied, calmly tidying himself up as if nothing had happened at all. But there was a sadness and a loss in his stance — slumped shoulders, downcast eyes — that almost caused me to become even more anxious. “He just helped me realise that what I felt for you was real. Real love.”

“Like a brother!" I inisisted desperately. 

No," he said simply, sighing and looking as if he lost all the energy in his body, "Not like that at all."

No. No. That wasn’t right. This wasn’t right. My head was spinning. Every thing I had feared was coming true. My face was burning up and there was a tightening sensation in my chest, as if someone had taken my heart in their hands and squeezed the life out of it. I didn’t understand. It wasn’t possible.  My best friend couldn’t be… like that. 

“No! I can’t — I can’t accept this,” I stammered out, backing away from him. “You’re completely mad. When I get back, you better be back to normal. I’m sorry, Gongchan, you’re… you’re just not in your right mind. You’re not — ” 

I was so dazed I don't even think I really knew what I was saying. Everything felt surreal, like a dream. I felt like I was on a nexus between two paths. On one of them was the familiar, the safe path, the one I'd known all my life. When I was taught what was right and what was wrong, or specifically, what was right between friends, what was wrong between two boys. On this path was the part of me that didn't want to grow up, the part that was afraid of the future. That wanted everything to stay the same forever, in this little town time forgot, nestled between the wheat fields and wild blue ocean. Where time moved slow, and my friendship with Gongchan remained unchanged from the time we were kids. Innocent and brotherly. Riding our bikes out of town, fishing in the sea, playing arcade games all day. Like how it was meant to be. 

The other path was the unknown. It was filled with things I didn't understand. It was dangerous and strange. I knew it wasn't right - to see another boy in that way, like you would look at a girl. But it was that small voice in my head, like that night on the lookout, the part of me that thought about Gongchan all the time, that was nervous but secretly hopeful, secretly thrilled at what had happened... However, it was so soft, overpowered by my other conflicting emotions, my shock, my fear and anger.

Drowned out by the rest of me that hated this part so much. I hated myself because deep down, despite my feigned ignorance and oblivion, I knew how I felt, and it wasn't how I supposed to feel. I didn't want to be like that, I didn't want to be ones of those queers everyone shunned, I didn't want the dreaded "foreign disease." I wanted to be normal, cheerful and peaceful like I was before, before all these changes started happening.

"Calm down, hyung," Gon