He doesn’t jump.

He hears a voice and he wonders if he really did jump, if he died, if the faint voice he hears is an angel. It’s so stupid that he still believes in that stuff but he does, so he turns around. It’s a girl. 

“Excuse me..are you youngjae?”

“I..Am I..dead?”

“Of course not! I’m sorry I shouldn’t have bothered you, you just...looked so sad...a-and I’m a big fan of your YouTube so I just... I guess you can’t be happy all the time but.. it just seemed so different than how you were on your channel I just thought I’d make sure you were okay..”

Oh.

He’s alive. He isn’t sure why that makes his chest feel so heavy but it does. But he can’t change that right now, there’s a girl, a fan, trying to talk to him and he’s two seconds away from sobbing again. Not like it would matter, if she knows of him she probably knows how disgusting he is, all the that’s happened the past month, and he isn’t exactly in the mood for some stranger to remind him how much of a he is. Youngjae guessed the tears stared to well up in his eyes again because the girl panicked.

“I-I’m sorry if I made you upset.. I just.. can we talk?”

He wants to say no. Wants to scream at her, and everyone else in the world, to just leave him alone and let him die in peace but for some reason he doesn’t, he nods. 

“You’re one of the brightest people I’ve ever seen.” 

Not anymore, he thinks.

“You honestly helped me through some of the hardest times of my life. Isn’t that crazy? A ten minute YouTube video of you just goofing off and making people laugh made me unbelievably happy even on my worst days.”

She gives youngjae a sad smile, as if she’s remembering all the terrible times in her life, if youngjae stares hard enough he likes to believe he can see those bad days too,the hardest days in the world for her that he simply fixed with a goofy video. It’s unbelievable. He doesn’t think it’s possible someone like him could’ve actually made people happy. He himself can’t even be happy. 

“...Can I tell you something? I was here a year ago. And I was in a similar state..” she glances up at him and he knows she knows what he intended to do today. He feels sick. “Then I thought, what if I could be like you one day? What if I could make people happy like you do, if I could even just help one person, it would be enough. It’s the Choi Youngjae effect I guess.. you just radiate happiness wherever you go and I truly hope you always feel the same.” 

Youngjae doesn’t remember when breathing became so hard, or when his chest began feeling this tight but it’s all he can think about right now. He’s distantly aware of the girl asking if he’s fine but the ringing in his ear is too much for him to make out exactly what she’s saying. So he does what he’s been doing a lot these past few weeks, he sobs. He sobs for awhile but it isn’t as sad as he expected it to be, he’s letting go. Letting go of all the trauma and heart break that’s been building up for months. 

For the first time in a long time he feels like things will get better, that he’ll be okay. 

His mind is racing a million a minute and its telling him to go home. He thanks the girl, this complete stranger, for doing something even the people closest to him couldn’t, making him have hope. He doesn’t remember much of the journey home over the way his heart beats and his mind races. 

Once he arrives he suddenly remembers how things left off with the others, how can he just waltz in there like nothing happened a couple hours ago? But he can’t give up now, not when he’s this close. He has to have strength. For himself. For bambam and yugyeom who suffered on his behalf. For Jackson and jinyoung who went above and beyond for his happiness. For mark whose changed just for him. For jaebum whose suffered just as much as him because of his mistakes. He’s neglected his friends for too long and they’re all hurting because of it, yugyeom especially, for reasons unknown to youngjae. He can’t keep them in the dark any longer. So he opens the door. He lets them into his life again. When he walks in jinyoung, yugyeom and bambam are sitting in the living room red eyed and somber. His heart hurts. When they lock eyes they wince, clearly regretting mistakes from today but he doesn’t care, he hugs them so hard it hurts. He loves them too much to let their mistakes define him, he’s pushed everyone away for too long and he won’t lose the only ones who haven’t left him. So he hugs them as hard as he can, hoping it can express his feelings better than words ever could.

Jinyoung is the first to pull away.

“Youngjae..I’m so sorry I’ve been so ing stupid I just- I don’t know what I’m doing jae-ah. My best friend- he’s practically my brother- he ed up. He ed up so badly and I can’t fix it. I cant fix you. I cant do anything right and it’s killing me. I just wanted you to be happy I’m-“ 

“Jinyoung it’s not your problem to solve. You’ve done nothing wrong. not everything is your job to fix, I’m broken but I’ll put myself together again myself. I’ll go to therapy. I’ll help myself. Jaebum has made mistakes but I cant let them dictate my life, I’ve found my closure and I hope he finds his too.”

Jinyoung doesn’t speak for awhile.

“Therapy..you going to therapy is his closure youngjae. Jaebums stubborn..he’ll blame himself for awhile but if you go to therapy he’ll know you’ll be doing better, that’s all he needs to move forward in life.” 

Youngjae lets out a sigh of relief. Jaebums been wrong. He’s hurt him worse than anyone ever has, but if youngjae spends the rest of his life hating him he’ll only hurt himself further. He wants to move on. He can’t forget, but he can move on. But he doesn’t think he can do it alone. He needs his friends too. 

“Bammie..gyeomie...forgive me?”

“What? Forgive you? Were the ones that have been complete dickheads we’re the sorry ones..” of course bambam is the first to speak, he can’t possibly understand how youngjae thinks any of this is his fault.

“Jae...we’ve been terrible friends to you. You’ve been struggling so much, more than we could’ve ever imagined and we didn’t do enough, we-“

“You’ve done everything you could for me. Through the worst days of my life you guys were by my side like you’ve always been. Even when you didn’t know what was happening because I kept you out of the loop. I just....thank you.” 

“Bambam...”

The younger raised his head to look up at youngjae, surprised to be directly talked to.

“I’m really sorry to you especially. You’ve never pushed or pried into my life even when it hurt you to not know what’s wrong and I couldn’t even be a decent friend and let you into my life. We’ve been best friends since we were 9 and I know sometimes you feel like a third wheel in our friendship but you’re so important to me bammie and I’m sorry for not making you feel like you were.”

Bambam was left speechless, he wanted to tell youngjae he had nothing to apologize for, that he’s the best friend he’s ever had but words wouldn’t come out. 

“I think we should end the apologies here, we’ve messed up and I want to move on. We cant go back to the happy go lucky days when we were just “kings squad” and making stupid videos on the internet but we can decide our future and I want ours to be happy.” Youngjae says with a content smile.

Yugyeom happily suggests another sleepover, it’s what the boys always do to cheer up and if they want to move on from the mess that was the past month of their lives this is the best way to start. The boys start getting blankets and pillows and snacks to settle down for the night in their small living room with stupid cartoon movies that are bound to make bambam and youngjae burst out in songs and giggles like children. Jinyoung feels out of place. He isn’t sure if he even Belongs here right now with all of them, they’ve been best friends since childhood and he’s just...jinyoung. He feels he’s overstayed his welcome and starts to stand up. They probably wouldn’t even notice, he thinks. He could leave right now and the world would continue. But youngjae does. Just as he’s starting to get up youngjae grabs his arm.

“Hyung. Stay please.”

It’s enough to lift the worry off jinyoungs shoulders. He visibly relaxes and starts to settle back down again. Of course youngjae could make everyone feel loved and important, it was apart of the youngers charm. Youngjae catches the elder admiring him and shoots him a warm smile jinyoung gladly returns. He soon turned his attention back to the movie and jinyoung did the same. He wasn’t sure what movie they were watching but bambam had broken into song atleast three times so far (which he wasn’t sure how it was possible, he could’ve sworn the movie started ten minutes ago) and it made youngjae laugh a lot because his voice was still hoarse and cracked a lot from crying earlier and yugyeom wouldn’t stop throwing pillows at him to get him to shut up. They wanted to live in this moment forever, just dumb teenagers with no worries who were happy simply because they were. They have hope. Hope for brighter days and a better tomorrow.

authors note: hello !!! I’m back after so long...sorry my writing still I’m trying . I hope everyone is having an amazing year I wanted to start the year off with hope for better days (hence the title) comments are appreciated !!