That day was their first month anniversary. Wonho was very excited to see Changkyun again: he was dying to hug and kiss him. He was counting down the minutes for the economy class to end to go find his boyfriend and give him the gift that he had prepared for the special occasion.

The day before, after helping his mother clean the cafeteria after all the customers left, she cooked muffins with him just for Changkyun. Her mother already knew that they were dating, and she was so excited that she also wanted to participate in the gift for the little boy.

Wonho glanced at the lilac bag that rested on the floor next to his desk; from above, the content of the plastic box could be seen: the muffins were covered in a dark blue frosting that looked like the cookie monster. He had even made the bulging eyes of the television character that Hoseok liked so much since his childhood days.

And of course, the muffins were low in fat, since Wonho was very interested in healthy cooking. He smiled satisfied, imagining the face that Changkyun would make when he saw the gift: he thought it would be fun to bother him a little and ask him for a favor in return, like a kiss, or maybe two.

When the bell finally rang, he hurriedly picked up his backpack and bag; he said goodbye to Hyungwon and Minhyuk, who were going to stay a little longer in class to review some notes that the redhead didn’t understand and left the classroom, without being aware that Minhyuk had stuck his brown eyes on him with a strange smile on his lips.

His heart pounded on his chest like crazy as he walked down the hall and, before turning the corner, he stopped leaving things on the ground to pull his cell phone out of the back pocket of his jeans and look at his reflection. He combed his bangs with his fingers and found that his choker was in place, that his teeth were impeccably white and that, in fact, he was as attractive as always.

With a smile, he put back his phone on his jeans, pressed his blue sky shirt with his hands and picked up the things on the floor before continuing his way. However, as soon as he saw Changkyun leaning against the wall just a few meters away from him, he stopped short and his smile widened: was he waiting for him?

He was touched by that gesture and began to approach him, with a tremendous desire to embrace him.

“Changkyunnie?” he called animatedly, already at his side. The aforementioned seemed not to hear him and had his eyes fixed on the ground; Wonho called again without receiving any response and his smile was replaced by a pout. “Hey, Changkyunnie," he insisted, shaking his arm covered by a large gray sweatshirt.

It was then that he managed to catch his attention and Changkyun lifted his catlike eyes to look at him.

"Ah... hi," he greeted him with a weak voice.

It pained Wonho to receive that greeting after not seeing each other for almost a month, but the feeling of worry was greater. “Is something wrong?” Changkyun shook his head and forced himself to smile. The older one observed him without believing him and noticed that his briefcase was lying on the floor a few meters away from him. “Isn’t that your briefcase?”

Before receiving an answer, he bent down to pick it up and offered it to the black-haired boy, who grabbed it hastily and pressed it to his chest.

“Thanks... I must have dropped it.”

It was obvious that something was wrong, and Wonho wanted to know it so badly. He didn’t want to force him to tell what the problem was, so he decided it would be a good idea to give him his gift to try to cheer him up.

“Changkyunnie, you know that today is a special day, right?” he asked, giving him a little poke with the shoulder. He gave him a confused expression that told him he had no idea. “Eish... you’re always like this. We've been together for a month," he explained with a pout.

The pianist parted his lips to say something, but closed them and looked down at his feet.

"I'm going to ignore that coldness of yours and I'll give you your gift anyways," Wonho went on with theatricality before offering him the lilac bag, "but just because I'm a good person.”

Changkyun's eyes opened slightly when he saw the gift and only when Hoseok began to swing the bag in the air he decided to take it hesitantly. He glanced inside and saw the box with the muffins; he pressed his lips together and stared at the smiling faces of the cookie monsters without showing any expression.

"My mother helped me make them," Wonho explained proudly. “Believe me, you'll never find any better muffins.”

The murmurs of classmates walking down the corridor beside them made Changkyun look at their judging expressions; his face reflected his affliction and he turned his gaze back to Hoseok, whose expectation to know his opinion of the gift was evident.

"I..." he muttered, squeezing the handle of the bag, "I'm not hungry.” With that, he returned the gift and Hoseok held it between his fingers, staring at the dark haired boy with wide eyes. The smile on his face began to fade until it vanished: he hoped it was a joke and that Changkyun was really excited about the gift.

But when Changkyun turned around and walked down the hall, Hoseok knew it was no joke. He remained still in place, watching the small figure of his boyfriend get lost in the distance and blinked numerous times.

Suddenly, he felt naive and stupid. His eyes began to redden and his throat narrowed painfully: his heart ached. A lot.

No... something must have happened to him.

That's what Hoseok told himself; Changkyun may sometimes be cold, but he just had crossed the line. Something must have happened, he was sure of it. He rubbed his eyes to prevent any tears from falling and took a breath while throwing his head back.

When his breathing calmed down, he looked down at the inside of the bag: the bulging eyes of the muffins seemed to say silently 'you ed up everything' and Hoseok wrinkled his nose.

"Don’t look at me like that," he reproached them sulkily. “Changkyun just has a bad day, that's all.”

He knew how Changkyun was like, so he should be twice as understanding. He would give him space not to overwhelm him, surely in the end he would return to him to tell him what the problem was. Or so he hoped.

♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫

"You’re so ing disgusting. Do you think you're special because oppa knows you exist? ing die already."

“Hey.” Jooheon's touch on his shoulder startled him and he his desk to look at him. The concern was evident on his face. “Are you okay? You’re a little pale.”

Changkyun crumpled the note that he had found on his desk and squeezed it tightly in his fist so that the blond wouldn’t see it. He gave him the best fake smile he could and nodded; Jooheon insisted a little more that if he wasn’t feeling well, he should go home, but the little boy kept answering that everything was fine.

Actually, nothing was fine. Nothing.

Those guys he'd met two weeks ago in the fourth-year hallway hadn’t left him alone since then. First were the notes: every day, there was a new one in his desk, threatening him with words to get him away from Wonho. The scores he carried inside his notebook were torn apart the day he took them out in the auditorium to practice. Inquisitive looks chased him everywhere, ‘accidental’ shoves... they even cornered once in the bathroom and hit his stomach until he kneeled down and begged them to stop. It was becoming unbearable.

People spoke, and Changkyun turned a deaf ear; however, he couldn’t prevent a voice from taking control of his head and torturing him every day. He was going down to the ground floor of the faculty when it appeared again.

ing disgusting. Die already, everyone would be happier if you just disappeared. Die. Die. Die.

He grabbed the handrail on the stairs and closed his eyes tightly, trying to get that voice out of his mind, but finding himself unable to do it. He stayed like that for a while, trying to recover, but a female giggle from the upper floor made him raise his head. Before he could move away, a hard object hit his head and broke, releasing a slimy substance that ran down his hair and stained his entire face.

He brought a hand to his cheek, and verified that what he had on his face was egg white. He didn’t even look up again when he removed the shells that had remained attached to his hair and finished descending the steps with apparent calm, heading to the bathrooms.

Once inside the toilets, he threw his backpack on the floor and went to the sink; he opened the tap with trembling hands and washed his hair and face with little delicacy, wishing he could disappear, wishing he could go home and hide there forever.

He looked at the mirror, and it returned his haggard reflection and impoverished by the lack of food and sleep: he looked like the Changkyun of his high school years. He thought he had overcome it, that he had become braver, stronger. But he was freaking afraid. And even then he wasn’t going to allow himself to cry, at least not in front of those people, much less in front of Wonho.

He remembered Hoseok's concern during those last days, how he tried to be understanding and patient with him so that he would tell him if anything happened to him. And it was even more painful to remember how he had rejected and ignored him in equal measure.

He just couldn’t allow that, because of him, Wonho fell into the same pit for which his fears and insecurities were dragging him. Since they had started dating, people also started talking about Hoseok, describing him with nasty words that made his stomach twist inside of him.

He preferred to suffer alone... it was the best for both of them.

“Changkyun!”

Hyungwon's voice made him jump and turn with the drops of wet hair sliding down his forehead. Beside the slender boy, who was watching him with a frown, was Minhyuk. The redhead paled at the sight of him, and immediately looked down at his feet. Changkyun couldn’t ask himself why he was reacting like that since Hyungwon had taken a couple of steps until he was right in front of him.

Hyungwon, in spite of his usual somnolent aspect, always kept a smile or a caress on his hair for him, but this time it was completely different. He had never seen him that angry.

“I looked for you everywhere, what are you doing here?” He took a moment to rest his eyes on Changkyun's drenched hair. “What happened to your hair?” He couldn’t come up with any credible excuse, so the pianist just shrugged his shoulders and avoided eye contact. He received a sigh in response and the older one turned to Minhyuk. “Could you give us a moment?”

The redhead intended to say something, but he remained silent with a guilty expression and left, leaving them alone in the bathrooms.

“Look, Changkyun...” he called with a tired expression, “I don’t want to get into your personal life... but, are you having problems with Wonho?”

The question made his body tense.

“Why you ask?” Changkyun answered lowering the tone of his voice, without knowing very well what to say.

“Why do I ask?” Hyungwon repeated incredulously. “You just need to take a look at you both to know that something is wrong.”

Was it that obvious?

"Everything’s just fine," he finally replied, avoiding eye contact for fear of facing those eyes that were judging him.

Hyungwon put his hands on his shoulders and got him to raise his face.

“Wonho won’t talk to us,” he explained seriously. “He doesn’t want to see us, and he hasn’t been around here for two days.” The news made Changkyun's heart shudder with guilt. “Are you sure that everything’s just fine?”

The accumulation of emotions inside the black haired burst and made him shove Hyungwon’s hands roughly. He didn’t want him asking any more questions. He didn’t want to talk about Wonho or the fourth-year people. He didn’t want to know anything.

"Stay out of it, it’s not of your business," he muttered defensively.

Hyungwon looked at him with disappointment, making him feel the worst person on the planet. He couldn’t stand it another second, so he went around him and picked up his backpack with the intention of leaving, but the older one spoke again and he stopped.

“I told you not to hurt him.” Those words made all of Changkyun's muscles freeze and an unpleasant sensation flood his body. “He was crying because of you, you know?”

The sadness and anger were evident in Hyungwon's voice, and Changkyun didn’t dare to turn around to face him. Just imagining Hoseok crying because of him made his heart twist, and he just couldn’t take it anymore.

He left without looking back, tightening the straps of his backpack hard, biting the inside of his cheeks to avoid shedding any tears. Changkyun never cried, and that wasn’t going to be the exception.

He left the faculty and walked through the campus under the gray clouds that threatened to become a storm very soon. He advanced without slowing down, trying to convince himself that getting away from Wonho was the right thing to do.

It's best for both of us.

He didn’t know how long he had been walking, but he had passed the student residence a long time ago. His legs started to hurt because of how fast he was going, and he didn’t care one bit.

I don’t want him to be hurt.

Hoseok's warm smile broke through his memories and he began to decelerate slowly. In his mind, the pink lips of the brunette turned into a pout, and his beautiful hands pulled on his sweater, trying to attract his attention as always.

"Changkyunnie, listen to me!" "Look what shirt I bought the other day... it looks great to me, right?" "Ah... I'm sure you never imagined having such a handsome boyfriend."

Before he knew it, Changkyun was standing in the middle of a sidewalk on the outskirts of the campus. The icy breeze made him shudder and his hair was still wet; he could feel the drops coming down his neck, seeping into the sweater: if he didn’t dry off soon, he would surely catch a cold.

He looked up at the sky and, just then, a thunder rumbled in the distance, but the boy didn’t even flinch. The only image he had in his head was the one of those brown eyes that used to give a cheeky wink just to annoy him, that smiled too when his owner was happy, that always watched him with adoration and tenderness. And now, those eyes were reddened, sad, letting out the tears that his coldness had caused.

Changkyun never cried. Or at least until that day.

He was broken from inside, and he couldn’t help crying in silence. Without stopping looking at the clouds, he wished he could be like them, fly through the sky and evaporate from this world; that way, maybe the people he had hurt so badly forgot about him and could be happy.

And yet, a small part of Changkyun wanted to be selfish. He wanted to be happy too and be with Wonho despite what people said; it was then that tiny part of his being took control of his body and made him pick up his phone from his pants pocket.

For once in his life, he wished to leave behind his fears to be happy.

With languor and still sobbing, he put on his glasses that he kept inside his denim jacket and dialed Hyungwon's phone number. He put it on his ear and, while waiting for him to answer, a few drops began to descend from the sky.

The tightness in his chest grew stronger as the rain moistened his hair and his glasses even more.

“Hello?”

Changkyun took a few seconds to answer. But when he did, he spoke decisively: this time, he would express himself without fear, without hesitation.

“Give me the address of Wonho's place.”

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Breathing hard, soaked from head to toe and holding his also wet backpack with one hand: that was the image that Wonho found on the door of his house, in an old apartment block.

“Changkyun...” he murmured totally surprised by the appearance of the small boy in his apartment. The dark haired boy just watched him through his fogged up glasses; his heart was beating so fast it could get out of his chest, and nerves were eating his stomach.

Changkyun was happy to see Hoseok there, in front of him, with his messy brown hair covering his eyes, wearing a gray and pink tracksuit and an expression that had gone from surprise to worry.

I’ve missed him to death…

Without a word, he dropped his backpack to the tiled floor and hugged Wonho almost without strength, but at the same time clinging to him as if his life depended on it. He needed those arms to wrap him with his comforting warmth, he desperately needed it.

However, Wonho's body remained rigid. Changkyun didn’t pull off until a while later, hurt by the rejection that, after all, he deserved for how he had treated him the last days.

When their eyes met, the pianist discovered that what was in them wasn’t rejection, but a mixture of sadness and gratitude. Hoseok raised his fingers and gently his wet cheeks before pulling him to him and kissing him, letting out all his contained emotions. Changkyun closed his eyes and tilted his head, kissing him back clumsily and feeling that his heart was going to burst.

They separated a few seconds, enough to observe each other and smile before kissing again with more desire, walking blindly into the interior of the apartment.

It was that day when Changkyun realized that he was totally and completely in love with Shin Hoseok.