[A/N] I haven't finished Chapter 6 but I feel the need to update, so here it is! Again and again, I hope you are going to enjoy it. ^_^ 

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No one calls out from inside the room when I knock at my Mom’s door, and three knocks bang against it before I make my mind to open it up by myself. I slightly break open a gap and nose my face in cautiously to look who’s inside or whether there’s even a person inside.

“Come in, Josh,” I hear my Mom.

Guardedly, I enter the room and carefully close the door behind me. Mom is in the other side of the room, to the right of the door, sitting in front of her desk placed by the corner of the room. She has a jean-clothed leg laid over her other leg and her chin is resting on her knuckles, her elbow propped up on the table, and the flowery folds of her long-sleeved ruffled blouse drapes over her arm. She’s clad, means she is about to go somewhere than stay in the house.

Stern and rigid is her back facing me. She’s not looking at me, nor at the blank wall in front of her. Instead, her gaze is set out to the palm trees outside the window lining along the edge of the street.

Outside, the sun is peeping through the rooftops of the houses across the street and rays flow through the windows of Mom’s room in slanted shafts. Her room is as quiet and gloomy as the living room downstairs, and the distopian city of Heaviness is back in motion inside me and my heartbeats are clamant clatter of metals being hammered on anvils. The screaming meemies inside me can’t shut themselves up and anxiety is, again, a sickening nagger yelling at my ears about what’s going to happen with this grave discussion I’m going to have with my Mom.

Whereas, the world outside is 180 degrees diametrical from Mom’s room. Peppy rumbles of cars, giggles of titillated children on their way for a summer vacation, and neighbors spirited by the beautiful and sparkly morning calling out to each other along the street. The world is bright and cheerful again, like it wasn’t dark and angry last night.  The world is a paradise once more like last night isn’t a catastrophe. And somehow, it’s more like the world was able to rebound easily after the storm but except the only casualty left, our home.

I stand still by the door, waiting for Mom to stir up a conversation and bring the topic into light - the incredulous information I revealed to her yesterday.

You’re the one who wants to talk about it, now why don’t you make a start? My imaginary alter ego whispers through gritted teeth in my ears. He’s right. I’m the one who needs something here, I should make the first move.

Yet, my lips refuse to open. Suddenly, it becomes a coward. Down the stairs, my determination topped out but it bottoms out as fast as it peaked. As soon as I stand before Mom, my courage dwindles into nihility.

Pick it up. Pick the courage up. Pick yourself up. Where was the “up and forward” you said? Now, you’re ego is shrinking down to the ground and you’re stepping backwards.

I did take a step backward. My feet shifted uneasily below me.

I hear Mom heaves a sigh which stops me from taking another step back. She withdraws her chin from her knuckles and reposes her arm on the table, and eventually, she turns to me.

“Why are you here?” she asks and looks at me with bleary eyes, though not fagged of sleeplessness but more of confusion and deep thoughts. Her face looks weary, even her voice reflects the same weariness. Her whole disposition is jaded.

“I think it’s about time to talk about it, you know, about what I told you yesterday.” I keep making gestures with my hand because I am nervous.

She takes a worn down breath before agreeing. Slightly, she raises her chin up. She shifts her legs to the other side as she sets down the top leg beside the other, and waits for me to speak.

Taking a deep breath is the sole method to fill myself again with determination, as if I had unintentionally exhaled the globe of resoluteness and it aerosolized around, coalescing with the air, and I have to breath it again with more struggle as I did when I twined it inside. I try to recall how I felt so driven to talk about this back when I was on my way to her room, so I can recreate inside me the sense of resolution to get this over.

“Mom, I know it is,” – for I am still not use to the fact that I am in love with someone of the same uality, “against everything we believe in and–”

“You’re aware it’s abominable, right?”

“I know,” I swallow an imaginary lump in my throat, “but I swear, I haven’t slept with him.”

What I struggle to assert churn me up with guilt that I turn my head to the side and glare at the wall. I believe I haven’t, in the five years of being together, but I also believe I regret I didn’t. Every time I turned my body over as I shifted to the edge of the top bunk and pressed myself against the sheets to have a clearer view of Jeonghan below me, I tried a countless times to pull myself away from the temptation, knock out every desire of going down and crawl into his bed. To be by his side and watch him closely than I had ever been, but sans touching, sans cuddling. Just memorize every detail of his face that I can almost forget my own, like staring at the stars and the moon that I can almost forget I’m here on Earth.

Does that sound abominable?

A blanket of silence hover over us, congealed humidity in gray fluffs, and it’s making me drop a bead of sweat on my forehead, and down my neck and nape.

“It’s more than just whether you have slept with him or not. That’s not the only thing I’m talking about here.”

She stands up. Another drop of sweat follows, and more and more drops follow but the chilly air flowing from the room’s AC doesn’t take any effects to keep me cool and dry. It only escalates my agitation.

She continues, “You know what religion says about it. Our religion, for that matter.”

I retort, “I’m aware of those Bible verses barking about how going against the nature is an utter abomination and how we don’t deserve to be in whatever kingdom or eternal life the heavens had promised. I know it, okay? I’m fully aware of it.” Every single time I fall for Jeonghan.

While I was speaking, my gaze didn’t break away from the wall, like I was talking to it and not to Mom for looking at her would make me shudder in unforgivable shame, like I am dirty and plagued.

“So, why?”

Mom pitches up the volume of her voice. She can probably scream at me now, if only she weren’t trained to constrain herself from blaring reprimands. 

She carries on, “Why didn’t you stop yourself when you first felt a little bit of it before it gotten worse? Why didn’t you convince yourself it isn’t the right thing to do?”

“I don’t know, I don’t even know!” I regain back my soft voice when I realize I was near shouting, “It’s just….I can’t.”

Shaking my head, I look down at my feet, and swallow a lump that isn’t even there, to hold my tears back.

It’s odious. What I am is detestable, hateful to the eyes of righteous people and hurting the mild brilliance of the righteous heavens. I know it isn’t right, but it feels so good I forget it isn’t right.

Silence befalls us, and neither of us don’t find the courage to speak. Then, Mom breaks it.

“Do you think you can change yourself?”

Do you think you can unlove him, is what she meant.

Instantly, I look up, but dropmy head down by the next second as I realize that I don’t have an answer to it, or even a potential to answer it, so I resolve to left the room. Closing the door behind me, I lean against it and respire faster and harder than my system is oriented to.

I can’t make up anything to answer it at the moment, for I haven’t even gathered up the papers in diffusedness  mantled inside my brain. It’s a clutter of this sets of words: For I love Jeonghan but I don’t know what he would think about it as I tell him and I’m scared what will happen yet his answer is the only thing I’m waiting for because I can’t stop this anymore, however I don’t want to stop even if he walks away because I’m already too deep in love I don’t think I can climb back to the aperture.

Is there even a way to unlove him? No. You can’t unlove someone once you love that person, it only gets buried, and it’s up to you whether you’ll bury it or leave it open.

When a rock blows up and pulverizes into tiny pebbles from a rock mound against a cave wall, a wild and puissant flush gushes out. That’s what I felt it was. Something electric busted the rock.

                He is alone, sitting on a long bench stretched beside the door outside of the CEO’s office. His hair is cut short at his nape, bouncy on top, while curls behave themselves by his temples. Head down, feets close to each other, hands on his lap. Shy and unsure.

                “Hi, are you the new trainee?”

                Abruptly, he lift up his glazed gaze to me like he  just came into this world and a human talking to him isn’t something he got used to in wherever he came from.

                His nods are quick but bewildered.

                I extend a hand out to him. He stares at it and blinks, like a human arm is a foreign object.

                “Joshua.”

                “Jeonghan.”

                It is where it starts. When our hands touch.

And I won’t obstruct the gush. I won’t bury it, for mine of him can’t be. Pieces can’t be solidified to stop the overpouring. I will continue to softly flow to him since that day.

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[A/N] *takes a deep breath, deeper than the Marianas Trench* Okay! Phew! This chapter is actually a little bit crucial to write about because it talks something about morality, something sensitive, but before I ventured in bringing the matter of "religion" in here, I looked up about it and gathered enough information, though I cannot assure I'll be delving real hard into the issue because I'm not yet mature enough to do so. Though I'll try to mold myself to be matured and well-informed enough to integrate it here. Also, I think all of you knows how Jisoo is a religious person so I'm hypothetically putting in the context of this how his ual identity (IN THIS STORY) clashes against his religion, but I hope this won't make anyone uneasy or uncomfortable. I mean, I hope it isn't a taboo to incorporate something about Jisoo being religious in this story. This is fanfiction anyways so I hope you will understand. It's not like I'm making fun of his religion, right? Soooooooo, I really hope I didn't waste your time and you enjoyed it. Until the next update! :D