Beams of light that shone through the uncovered glass window and the chirping of birds awoken Sanha from his slumber. Though he did not want to get up, he was forced to if he wanted to sleep some more. He quickly pulled the curtains and turned off the lights ,which he forgot to do last night, to make the once brightly illuminated room as dim as possible. Instead of going back to sleep in the couch, he proceeded to his bedroom. He dragged his body, still tired from all of the crying he had done last night, and threw himself to his bed. But as he did, his morning alarm had went off, making a very loud and annoying sound. He quickly turned it off and buried himself in his soft blanket and pillows, hugging and hiding his frail body from the cruelty the world had to offer.

*

By the time he woke up, the sun was readying itself to start setting. It was one of his alarms that awoken him. He tried his best to ignore it but it continued to ring even after thirty minutes. Getting up felt such an ordeal to him that he was tempted to go back to sleep again if not only his stomach growled of hunger. So he did and made food for himself.

He wasn’t really in the mood to do anything. It was a weekday yet he could care less that he had missed some classes. He didn’t want to deal with people nor school works today, or in the days that are about to come. All he wanted to do was lay in bed until he felt better.

*

At some point during Saturday, Sanha realized why he couldn’t finish the song he had been working at for some time. After laying awake and not being able to sleep any further on the second day of his absences, the unbearable silence fueled his anxieties more. Not being able to take it any longer, he decided to put a random radio station to listen to. As if the world heard his pleas, the station only played songs that were slow and soothing. And he let the lyrics and the voices of the artists move him with the emotions and meaning they wanted to convey.

In the passing of every song played by the radio, he had an epiphany. He was fueled with the feeling of needing someone beside him everyday. He craved a presence that he had always felt even when it wasn’t physically near him. It was a feeling of reassurance and comfort. But he knew that wishing for it wouldn’t really satisfy him. Rather than relief, it would bring more pain. It was stupid. Because even though it hurted, he still wanted to see him.

He learned that telling your heart to not do something it’s supposed to do was impossible. In each passing day with him, he didn’t realize that he had already fallen in deeper. But maybe, he realized, he had always known he was in love with the boy and that he had always been afraid of being left behind, of not receiving the other end, of not being loved back. He had always known that the boy was in love with Bin and that it would never change. He had known that if it ever came to a point where he had to confess his love, the boy would never choose him. So as some kind of defense mechanism, he had always played it safe, manipulated his heart into thinking that it wasn’t the case, and put a guard on his heart thinking it would be enough. But it wasn’t.

*

Listening to music helped him clear some of his troubles and one of those was the unfinished song. He realized one focal point why the song he and Myunjun worked on wasn’t working. The song that he wanted to make and sing wasn’t his. Simply put, it wasn’t his story but of Myungjun’s. The melody and the strumming of chords portrayed a sweet feeling of falling in love, of a person who reciprocated the love he was given. It reminded Sanha of how Myungjun met Jinwoo and how Myungjun was courted by Jinwoo for a year before they became officially together, as mentioned by the former when they had been hanging out in his place weeks ago.

There wasn’t really anything wrong with using the song. It had its charm. But Sanha was knowledgeable now that whatever words he wanted to put into it, it wouldn’t work simply because his definition and experience of love is different from that of others. And Sanha wanted to use it, his song and his voice, to communicate the emotions that his words failed to materialize; he wanted to portray his side of the story. He couldn’t bring himself to use someone else’s story as it felt like cheating, mostly to himself.

And so, Sanha picked up his guitar, started playing random chords and went back to square one. He tried his best to arrange his thoughts and emotions, and convey them all in the way he would play the guitar and in the words he would sing. Feeling determined to pour his heart and soul to his sound and to tell his own story through it, he isolated himself from the outside world for a remainder of days.  

*

By Friday morning, his academic standing couldn’t handle any more blows so Sanha decided to finally get up and go to his classes. Everything seemed normal, beside Eunwoo and Myungjun’s persistent questioning on where he had been and why he was absent. He played it off by saying he had a flu and faking a cough. Thankfully, his friends bought it and continued with their day. Sanha looked at his watch. English class next, huh. His stomach felt queasy, partly of some type of excitement but mostly of uneasy and anxiety.

Sitting next to Minhyuk didn’t really felt better. The boy greeted him warmly and asked why he wasn’t around the moment Sanha walked in the room. Sanha could only fake a smile and respond his rehearsed phrase of ‘I had a flu’ as he felt his heart drop and his stomach swirled. It looked like the boy missed him very much as Minhyuk kept talking to him and doing little endearing things like linking his arm to Sanha’s. If it was the old naive and foolish Sanha, he would have felt blissful. But now, dismay was the only thing that took over him.

As the clock continued to tick by every second, Sanha stared at Minhyuk and how beautiful he looked as the dawn’s light shone through his skin. Looking at him, words flowed through his mind. Before those words ever escaped him, he quickly took his pen and wrote the words that seemed fitting to his song.

You’re talking without knowing it all.

You’re not even aware of my feelings.

But this isn’t it.

When did I become a comfortable dongsaeng?

*

With the glimpse of inspiration he was able to take from being able to sit next to Minhyuk, Sanha continued to write lyrics for the song he was composing. It also provided him an alibi to refuse Minhyuk when the boy asked if he wanted to go hangout after. And so, he was back at his apartment that night with an awakened mind and a burning passion in his heart to transcribe his feelings into the thin sheets of paper. He felt some weird type of adrenaline flow through his whole body that kept him going through the hours. After he was satisfied on the progress that he had achieved, he stretched his arms and layed in the couch, where he had been doing his songwriting, only to be welcomed by his morning alarm signalling that he had to get ready for the day. He groaned but followed obediently anyway.

*

Five days nearing the due date of his songwriting project and Sanha finished his song. Sanha had done an all nighter for the past days, not being able to sleep as he felt energized to put his feelings into words. He had caved in his apartment once again but this time, he was more productive than ever. The song writing, somehow, relieved a part of his burdens but it did bring new ones along the way.

He planned everything in his head; he thought that his one-sided love wouldn’t really do him anything good and that he should just end it quickly. And the only thing he could think of as a way of ending this beautiful yet tragic affair is to confess and to come clean-handed. Just thinking about it and the possible scenarios made him feel dizzy yet strangely empowered. But no matter how many scenarios he had played in his mind or how many he would hope to happen, he knew that it only had one inevitable outcome.

No matter how much he played that one ending scene in his head, he couldn’t stop the fears from forming and falling, causing his music sheets to be soaked in his tears. It hurted but he decided not long ago that the pain of rejection is better than the pain of denial and pretending. And so, with every power, will and energy he had left, he focused on every intricate detail in the words and the melody he wrote for the song in hopes that all his emotions be communicated clearly and all of it be released.

The new day’s light was threatening to shine upon his dimly lit living room. He held all the music sheets he had written on and scanned everything. Once he was satisfied with all of its content, he placed it neatly in a folder beside his laptop on the coffee table. He stretched his limbs and took a deep breath, finally coming down from the adrenaline of writing and sleep catching up to him. Since it was a Sunday, he didn’t have to worry about going to classes and so he decided to do some shut-eye. Before he went to his bedroom to sleep, he looked at the folder once more. This is it, He exhaled a shaky breath and head to his bed.

Denouement.  

*

The boisterous dialogues and frantic movements of furniture filled the atmosphere in Seoul University’s auditorium. People were moving left and right into various areas in hopes of finding available seats or better ones. The room’s spacious capacity, which can hold approximately five hundred student bodies, was nearly filled. Sanha took a peak beside the curtains that divided the stage and the backstage. Various professors that taught music and/or took part in the performing arts department settled at the front rows facing the stage, auras having that of a wolf ready to seek its prey as they ready their pens and papers to give verdict on the students’ hard work, or lack thereof.

He was able to spot his friends in one corner. Bin, and Minhyuk sat on one row at the upper left corner. He also saw Jinwoo seated beside Bin and looking nervous for Myungjun, Sanha assumed. His gaze naturally went to Minhyuk, who was oblivious as the group continued their banter. Unconsciously, Sanha reached for his heart and held his shirt as he felt his heart sank at the sight of him.

The situation inside the backstage was as chaotic as it was on the outside. Some performers are moving frantically and rushing for no real reason, others practicing their strumming or warming up their vocal chords, and a few doing some other thing than the very thing they were going to do in this event. In one corner, Myungjun was practicing his song with headphones plugged in. He also saw Eunwoo in another corner doing the same but occasionally stopping to breathe out due to nervousness. The air was so engulfed with nervous and anxious feelings, it felt hard to breathe. And Sanha was no person to be immune to this feeling.

It felt ironic and almost like karma. He recalled uttering words like “why should I be nervous?” and such to Eunwoo in one of his classes a while back. Now, his heart won’t stop sinking and his whole body felt very weak from all the anxieties attacking him left to right. But unlike the others who feared that they would make a mistake on stage, Sanha’s was more than that. It wasn’t the crowd but rather that one person blended in it. It was the fear of not being to go back to the good old times. It was the fear that things will never be the same ever again after. It made him want to run away and play pretend to preserve that illusion of happiness in his mind. Unlike others whose fears are ended after their story was portrayed and communicated, his will spark the beginning. The beginning of the end.

*

An hour later, a quarter of the students had already performed. It was quite a show; various performers thought out of the box, singing over recorded harmonies, singing with a few back up singers with them, or bringing dancers into the mix while they sing and perform with them. What can you expect, they were the music majors of the prestigious Seoul University. Watching every performance at the side, Sanha grew more and more disheartened. Looking at the other’s creativity and their performance made him think that maybe his efforts were not enough.

He was brought back from his deep  worries when the person in charge called his name from one place, designating that he was next to perform. He gave a small and nervous smile at the staff and started to inhale and exhale slowly in hopes of calming his heart and the uneasy feeling deep inside his chest. He hugged his guitar as he waited for the person performing to finish. A storm of applause followed after a few seconds and his heart was as loud,if not louder, of that.

Although his nervousness was eating him from the inside, he tried his best not to show it on the outside as much. He almost tripped on the way the center of the stage but he managed to get his balance before he could fall. It looked terrifying; sitting on a stool in the middle of the stage blinded by spotlights directed toward him and watched by hundreds of eyes. He was tempted to run back to the backstage and just backout but his feet had a mind of its own, as if it had already decided to go and sit on the stool.

He took a second to breathe everything in. His eyes wandered the whole surrounding until it stopped to a particular spot. And for a second, it felt like everything stopped. Sanha looked at him with a feeling of longing; a longing for what exactly, he didn’t know. He knew how everything would end but his stubborn heart wouldn’t stop giving him false assurances that maybe it will be different. The boy only smiled at Sanha and mouthed ‘fighting!” with a raised fist. Sanha exhaled a breath which he had unconsciously been holding since entering the stage and put his attention to his guitar.

“Hi. My name is Yoon Sanha. Class of professor Choi,” Sanha introduced as he positioned his fingers to the starting chords of the song. Sanha started to strum his guitar and bring to life the emotions he had been hiding and growing overnight.

You’re talking without knowing it all

You’re not even aware of my feelings

But this isn’t it

When did I become a comfortable dongsaeng?

Sanha’s eyes naturally found Minhyuk’s. When their eyes met, it felt more real. It felt like the whole auditorium was now empty with only the two of them staring at each other. All the things he felt when they had first met until today felt stronger and overwhelming. His chest felt tight and his breathing was unsteady. It required him double the effort to sing smoothly and put his emotions into words.

I’ve tried to tell you several times

I take a step closer towards your perfection

Slowly as though I’m bold

And indifferently as though I’m warm but

Because I’m a fool

I’m always like a fool in front of you

With a voice barely audible I lay my heart open but

Because I love you

I can’t express it into other words

I wonder if there was any chance you knew

I wonder if you know

It felt liberating; to be able to put his feelings into words. Even though he was already aware of them, singing it aloud made him realize it more. Although he couldn’t see himself right now, he was sure that he was conveying every message he wanted to convey. And he continued to as he started to sing the next verse of his song.

Whether you’re behaving the way you are

Because I’m young

Or changing the subject

I’m aware now

Don’t tease me because I’m young

Seems like you’re mistaken

I didn’t know I amounted to this

I’m just being careful

It’s not that I don’t have the courage to confess

Because I’m a fool

I’m always like a fool in front of you

With a voice barely audible I lay my heart open but

Because I love you

I can’t express it into other words

I wonder if there was any chance you knew

I wonder if you know

He put emphasis on the last three lines of the song.

Because I love you

Because I love you

Because I love you

As the song fades slowly alongside those words, the audience started to clap. Bin even cheered for him causing everyone to look at him and laugh at him. But Sanha couldn’t hear any of it. His focus was still all on Minhyuk. He felt his tears welling up but he knew it was to early for that. Minhyuk smiled at him and mouthed “good job”. If it was the old him, it would’ve made his heart jump all over the place. But today, it made him well up more.

This is it.

*

The cold breeze brought by the winds of autumn made Sanha shudder and hug himself for self warmth. He had been in the rooftop of the performing arts department’s building shortly after his performance. He was waiting for someone in particular to come to him. It looked cliche, he thought, but there wasn’t really a better option than this. It was too crowded downstairs and he didn’t want anyone to hear about what he was going to do. He unlocked his phone and saw that he had waited for thirty minutes already since he had sent his text to meet him at the rooftop.

Maybe this is better; to be stood up and just pretend that everything was okay. Sanha continued to bargain with himself as he observed the beautiful decoloring leaves swaying with the wind on the population of people under him. As Sanha was enjoying the view, he heard the door open but didn’t look back to check who it was. Sanha heard a few footsteps and assumed that he was trying to look for where he was, to which after a second he found.

“Sanha! You did great job awhile ago. I really like your song and your voice is just… wow I’m just in awe,” Minhyuk spoke as he continued to walk to Sanha. Sanha took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly before turning around to see him. And when he turned to look at him, that was when the feelings started to well up and started to feel real and suffocating.

“Eunwoo and Myungjun had already finished their songs. The others are all downstairs waiting for us so we can celebrate on all of your successes. We’re going to that fancy restaurant downtown known for their fried chicken,” Minhyuk babbled as he held Sanha’s arm. He stopped halfway when Sanha didn’t move an inch from where he had been standing, head hanging low. Sanha had been trying his best to collect every single courage he had left in his body, although it may seem that nothing was left.

“You ok? Anything wrong?” Minhyuk asked. Only silenced followed.

“Minhyuk. I-” Sanha didn’t know why but his words were stuck on his throat. He couldn’t formulate the words and it just stopped halfway through. Minhyuk looked at him with concern in his eyes.

“I… I like you,” Sanha finally said. Though it have sounded abrupt and sudden, it took everything in him to utter those three words. He searched for Minhyuk’s reaction on his face. And just like in all the scenarios he had made in his head on confessing to him, it was there; those apologetic eyes and nervous lips afraid of breaking him.  

“I-... I’m sorry Sanha.” Just like in all of his wicked mind’s scenarios, those words were always what was first said. It felt like he had heard it a thousand times yet when he heard the real one, resisting his tears from falling took a lot of energy from him.

“I’m in love with someone else. I’ve always been in love with Bin. You know that.”

“I know,” Sanha faintly smiled.

“I-...” Minhyuk was at a loss for words. Sanha knew that Minhyuk was a nice guy and he didn’t want their friendship to be ruined and was trying his best to save what he can by not breaking him.  

“You don’t need to say anything Minhyuk,” Sanha said and playfully punched Minhyuk’s shoulder, which took him by surprise. “Or do anything, I just wanted it to get it off my chest. You looked so worried you should’ve looked at your face,” Sanha fake laughed. It was a weak attempt on pretending to be happy, even Minhyuk knew that, but it was the only thing he could think of to make the situation less awkward than it already was.

“You should go ahead and tell the others I’ll be taking a few minutes before I meet with them,” Sanha said, wanting to be left alone. “But-” Minhyuk started but couldn’t finish when he saw a stream of tears on Sanha’s face. “Please, Minhyuk,” Sanha said weakly and pathetically, making him cry even more and choke up on his words.  Minhyuk hesitated for a second but Sanha watched him walk out slowly to the door until he disappeared. And every emotion poured out when he saw the other’s back leaving him for good.

Why can’t it be me, Minhyuk? Am I not enough? Will I never amount to him? He didn’t know if the words were spoken or thought of but he couldn’t care less. The tears he fought hard to not fall were now released mindlessly. It hurt. But it wasn’t the rejection. It was his mind’s tricks. It was grasping on a hope that some type of miracle would happen. Despite a thousand negative thoughts, he still hoped everyday for that one scenario where his love would be reciprocated and his love would be given a second chance. But reality is cruel and unjust. Even if he had put everything in his song and tried to convey it in words like he had did or escaped and play pretend that his feelings never existed, it would all lead to this inevitable heartbreak.

He broke down to the floor and stayed there lying and crying, not caring if someone would see him in that state. After a while, his cries turned into silent sobbing. With the calm wind blowing and the cold concrete against him, he closed his eyes as he felt his heart slowly calm down.

I’m a fool. I’m the biggest fool. I’m your biggest fool.