Chapter 9
Doubt

The kiss was everything.

Although it could be described as a merely prolonged peck, it was everything to Kyuhyun. It was eye-opening to all that could be and all that never will. It woke him up to the absurdity of his hopes. It stripped away at his resolve until all he was left with was the tingling sensation on his lips.

For days, he pretended to smile but he was truly mourning. He retreated into himself. His mind was plagued with the depressing awareness the person who made him the happiest was also the source of his greatest misery. He convinced himself that Siwon was just trying him out. That he wasn’t loved. That he was just Siwon’s dongsaeng.

And he was an idiot to agree to that kiss. He felt empty, afterward. As if he had given it all to Siwon and had nothing left to give. He had burnt out. He didn’t have the will or emotional robustness to be Siwon’s experiment.

He could tr