Headlines have been shouting my name lately. I’m all over the news sites across the world. Kpop news articles bombarded sites with different stories of what might have caused my decided hiatus, all wholly based on their own assumptions and observations. Others have absurd predictions like I might be having some kind of serious disease and I don’t want to hurt fans so I decided not to tell why I have to be on break which they further assumed might be for my recovery. Some compared my departure to EXO’s Kris’, Luhan’s and Tao’s which were far more improbable because I didn’t say permanent, I only said temporary. (But they do have a bit of a point there because I might be gearing up to take my career to a whole new level which would be debuting in Hollywood, if I only have offers as of the moment but I have none.) I had also heard gossip sites mention about the possibility of me having a non-showbiz girlfriend who might have brainwashed me to leave the Kpop scene and live a normal life with her. I laughed at the idea. The ‘girl’ in the girlfriend would be changed as soon as they’ll know the truth of me. But nobody knows. My family doesn’t know. My second family, Seventeen members’, don’t know. Pledis Entertainment is clueless, too. As clueless as the angry fans around us. No one ever knows why, but I know why. I am the only one who knows why, because I am the only one who knows my true self.

“Hyung, it’s not yet too late to change your mind,” Chan’s eyes reflect the sadness of being deprived of reasons, and a hint of desperation to know why. Well, almost everyone’s eyes around me reflect such.

I tighten my lips and manage to stretch a small smile, “I’m already sure about this. Besides, I think this is for the better.”

I am packing my things in the living room and everyone, the 12 people I will leave behind, takes a seat around me, circling me as if watching someone pack their things is the most interesting thing to watch (unless it's packing for a vacation.) But their faces are devoid of life, blue and lonely like the river at night. Like watching a cortege on the waters.

I sigh as I drop the last shirt on the pile, “Come on, guys. It’s not that I am going to die.”

 “For what good, then?”

After days of being mute, Jeonghan finally speaks and all heads turn to him, including mine. His eyes are focused on me with an imploring look. Much like the expression of Chan’s eyes, but deeper and more serious that I want to look away but it will only make me more suspicious.

He continues, “What good will you leave behind or bring after doing this?” 

“I told you, I want to figure out who I really am.”

That’s only how close I am to revealing them the truth. For now, I can’t take the risk of allowing them to swim under the tip of my iceberg to know the greater truth submerged under the shortness of my answers.

 Jeonghan stares at me a little longer, harder at first but in the next few seconds, his eyes go blurry and clouded, urging him to look away and down at his crossed legs. I feel guilty and hurt over his pain because I know I have caused it, but not telling him the reasons of all these sudden madness of my decisions sounds much bearable at the juncture. Though deep inside, I want to tell him. I badly want to tell him, and only him I would tell because nothing else in the world can lift me out of this pain but only when he finally understands me. But part me of says the great time isn’t now. I can't afford now because I'm still scared he wouldn't understand. I’ll tell him soon. I still need more time. I still have to fix myself, so when the time comes that I tell him, I can explain it to him in the simplest and clearest way possible. Not now that my thoughts are a mess, cluttering inside my brain like an office scattered with papers and I don't know which one to pick first to arrange them properly. Not now that I am still a mess.

I continue packing my things despite the painful and gloomy silence hovering over us like cumulonimbus clouds ready to empty their dark fluffs of raindrops and thunderstorms. From the corner of my eyes, I see Jeonghan chewing his bottom lip as hard as he is picking his nails and as grudgingly as he is staring at the floor in front of Wonwoo who is sitting across him.

 I search everyone's face which is painted with reluctance to look at me. Some hang their heads low, staring at the floor and at their feet and at their fingers. Some have their heads tilted to the side and absently staring at the wall. Everyone seems to be staring at anything but me. 

 Looking at them suffocates me with guilt.  Guilt, the only emotion I have been feeling lately. Guilt, the knot pulling itself together inside me. Guilt, my eyes resist showing. Guilt, because I can't let them know. 

I clear my throat and stand up.

“I’ll go get some of my clothes.” I lie, as I point an index finger to the direction of the dorm room I share with Seokmin and Jeonghan.

I linger for a while but receive no reaction, just blinks and stares. I heave a sigh before walking my way to the room.

I close the door behind me and survey the room for the last time; from the plain white ceiling to the glowing fluorescent lamp and to the windows and the double decks reposed against each brown-painted sidewall then to the floor with Seokmin's and Jeonghan’s caps, gadgets, shirts, shoeboxes, shoes and their other things all over it, and laid my eyes to a stop at the closet.

I stare at the ajar closet doors before looking up again at the ceiling. A ball of air exits my mouth and nose and I try to count how many times I hear myself sigh today and realize it was too many to count. Sighing is the only hope I have to make me feel lighter but I guess it isn’t enough. 

This is one of those days where you can’t do anything to make yourself feel better. Even sleeping won’t banish every heavy emotion away, they always come back into the system as I wake up. What’s the actual and logical use of sleeping again? To let your organs rest before functioning to how they’re used to when you’re wide awake, not destroy them over the course of slumber hours to create new ograns and wake up to a new life. When I thought sleeping renews you, I figure out it only reclines you for a bit, to forget everything just for a bit.

This pain and guilt cripple me and I should be crawling by now, which becomes almost true because I practically crawl into Jeonghan's bed. I smell the sheets which smell like him, clean and fresh like a newly-bathed baby who had just swum in a pool of ivory liquid soap. I inhale the scent hungrily. This might be my last time, so I fill my lungs with it. All of his scent. All of him.

I don't think of getting out of his bed. I stay there for minutes, wishing I'll continue to stay for hours or days or months or years. Though he’s not next to me and I wish he is, but somehow, the scent of his presence or the image of him preoccupying every chamber of my brain, are enough for me to stay. But why can't I just stay then if that's what's enough for me? I ask myself and laugh sadly at the irony of the situation.

Knocks disrupt the stillness of the door and of the room. I hurriedly jump out of the bed. Good thing, I was able to lock it as I closed it awhile ago, so with a tiny relief, I buy myself an ample of time to rub my face with my hands but when my hand touches the skin below my eyes, I feel a cold liquid nipping on my palms. I didn’t realize I cried. Am I that foolish?

I wipe my hands on my pants as I stand up and open the door, to reveal Jeonghan standing outside of the room. His eyes are glassy and he’s looking past me, at the wall. Before I can take a few steps back, he enters the room as if I am not there, as if I’m just a breeze coming through the window.

I watch him pick up his bag from the floor beside the lamp table. I study his bent body, the well-defined outline of his back, his neck-length blond hair covering the side of his face as he busies himself in rummaging through the things inside the bag.

This might be the last time,I tell myself.

So I lavish my eyes with the sight of him, taking his image entirely into my mind and keeping it in the farthermost part of my brain where no one can reach it. Although it’s piercing my heart with guilty pins. Although he doesn’t like it for he loathes me now. But I stand there by the door, my hand gripping the knob tightly to keep me from falling, and I watch him. Just watching him because I don’t know when I will be able to watch him again. Or will I be able to watch him again? Do I have enough time in the future to look at him again? 

Every question I have been asking myself today doesn’t have any answer. My life is a wide ocean; the things awaiting me beyond the horizon are still unknown.

“Joshua.”

I hear Seungcheol’s voice and turn my head to the side to see him. He presses his lips together before a weak smile spreads across his face as he his head to the side. I am not able to process the meaning of the gesture and it takes me a few seconds to realize he was referring to Jeonghan.

“Oh,” I mutter softly and before I am able to say something, Jeonghan passes by me nonchalantly, still treating me like a wind or a ghost.

“Let’s go,” I hear him say as he grabs Seungcheol by the sleeve.

Seungcheol stumbles a little before he gains harmony to Jeonghan’s paces. But his gaze doesn’t break away from me. Ruth is in his eyes. He becomes a friend who is ready to do something to tie the broken rope together again, whether make a knot or glue it or pin it on the ground with a stick – anything that would make us up. Anything that will bring me and Jeonghan together again, back to how we’re used to be.

But it can’t be done at this moment. The rope must remain broken because forcefully tying it now will only strangulate our necks.

I nod at Seungcheol and mouth, It’s okay.

It will be okay. Soon. We will be okay.

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[A/N: That's for the Chapter 1! ^^ I did my best and I hope it turned out well. There might be some grammatical errors, and I would like to apologize for it because I really at technicalities and everything about grammar. I even ask for help from a closest friend-slash-editor to edit my works for me. If you're reading this, hi! And thank you for helping me with this. ^^ To someone who reads this, I hope you enjoy it. ;)