A/N No detailed scene, a lot of implied and they talk about a lot. So if you are under 18, be cautious.

I'm in my head, I'm a mess
I wanna let you know
I've got a lot on my plate
And I'm never home
But I can promise you this
You'll never wanna let me go

-Feels Right, Alina Baraz

 

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2020
 

The only thing Lucas would often find himself remembering on his darkest days would be the ticking of the clock.   He had learned how to find comfort in the change of minutes, the passing of seconds. On his darkest days, Lucas would tell himself that all things pass and if ever he was going through a hard time, he would have to wait till midnight.   Midnight was when he would tell himself that it was a new day, that bad times did not last and faded away into tomorrow. He found himself relying on this thought, Lucas telling himself that one day, he’d find himself in a time in his life where he wouldn’t look forward to midnight.   He was a different person after midnight, Lucas getting lost in his thoughts. On some days, his thoughts would fill his mind to the brim and he would try to escape them, bodies he could hold onto, a frenzy of kisses with strangers whose names he wouldn’t remember.   Lucas Wong did not have an easy life.   He had never met his father but everyone who met him would always tell him that he had his father’s eyes. His mother always seemed empty, floating between reality and the loss of her husband that she was hardly ever there. There were times Lucas would wonder if it was his fault that his father left, the kid watching his mother wash clothes for a living.   Then she got married when he was eight, a Korean man that Lucas hated. They had to move and Lucas saw himself in his mother to this very day. They were so vulnerable, they clung to the people who gave them warmth. Even if it was bad for them.   Lucas to his mother, his mother to her newlywed husband.   But Lucas was different because he learned how to recoil when he got too close-- a habit he had kept throughout his years.   His stepfather was abusive and Lucas watched his mother beg pitifully on some occasions to stop the beatings. It made Lucas sick to the stomach and it didn’t help when his mother got pregnant. Just like that, Lucas was cast to the side.   The unwanted son.   Lucas felt like an outsider looking in and it would have helped if his stepfather became a better person but soon after that, high school Lucas was broken by the news that his mother had cancer. A part of him hated her, a part of him understood why she acted the way she did.   Lucas did what he had to do to survive-- join an underground fighting club. As unlucky as he was with his life when it came to family, his friends from Vision High were the people who gave him strength. Parental figures like Kun and Shanghai were the people who stopped him from ing up, an older brother like Ten or Johnny who understood him and stood by him despite losing a friend, and best friends like Winwin and Xiaojun who quietly gave him comfort when he needed it.   Hendery was different, however, and the first time he met Hendery; he knew that this guy would either make his life a living hell or bring his life closer to heaven. Hendery was his go-to person and despite Hendery being that one person who knew Lucas like the back of his hand, Lucas hated how he treated Lucas like he was fragile.   Hendery saw him as broken and Lucas could see it in his eyes that Hendery was trying his hardest to piece him together. That’s what brothers are for, Hendery would tell him. Besides, I need to find meaning in my life and you give me meaning.   Lucas found comfort in Hendery’s words and even if he was a man of pride, he found himself opening up to Hendery and the rest of his friends. It didn’t take long for him to find himself admitting to himself that they would be his second family. He felt like he belonged with them so much to the point that the first time he heard of Hendery falling in love made him uncomfortable.   They were in Johnny’s living room.   “Really? She literally just tied your shoelaces for you,” Lucas was saying. Johnny was wiping a couple of glasses in preparation for his next party. “How do you even…”   “Lucas.” Johnny chuckled, his eyes flashing over with adoration at Lucas’ tone. He sounded like he was whining, like a kid whose toy was about to get stolen. “One day, you will fall in love over the littlest things.”   “If that happens, someone will be able to break me over the littlest things, too,” Lucas pointed out, crossing his arms across his chest. “Don’t let me get started on what happened between you and Shanghai jiejie--”   “Too far, Wong Yukhei,” Johnny said, cocking up an eyebrow at the younger boy. Lucas knew how sensitive Johnny was when it came to Shanghai, Lucas sighing. Johnny and Shanghai were best friends, yet a difference of dreams and ideals had led to them breaking apart. Lucas always believed that they kind of loved each other, that was why their relationship was volatile.   Because Shanghai cared too much.   “Lucas will just continue ing around,” Hendery piped up, not a care in the world. “But no man is an island, right? It’s not like any of us are going to get married any time soon.”   “True. I’ll be getting married when I’m thirty.” Johnny shrugged, placing another glass down.   “You’re not going to leave me, right?” Lucas asked suddenly, his question directed to Hendery. His best friend raised both his eyebrows comically, Lucas staring him down.   “Sure, brother. Why would I?” Hendery answered but it wasn’t long till that changed.   Hendery had come back to him, Lucas in Kun’s house this time. He and Hendery both had a room near SM. He loved Kun and he loved Johnny, but staying with Kun was stressful. The male kept a close eye on his eating patterns, kept berating him on his smoking habits-- Johnny was no different from being a bad influence, the male hosting parties from time to time and that was enough for Lucas to join in on the drinking when he shouldn’t.   “I’m going to leave you,” Hendery had said, looking like he had recited the line in his head a hundred thousand times. “Lucas… if you love me, you’ve got to let me go.”   Lucas had frozen, the banana in his mouth as he blinked. Hendery? Leaving him? What did he mean?   “I’ve met someone new. It’s not you, it’s me,” Hendery continued, Lucas slowly turning to his best friend.   “Are you breaking up with me?” He demanded, Hendery sighing and finally plopping his down on a chair. “What does this mean? What do you mean you’re going to leave me?”   If Lucas did not have abandonment issues, he did now.   “Look, I want to move in with Gucci,” Hendery began and Lucas knew he had no say in it. Hendery paid for the room, he did not have the luxury of choice. “And you can stay in her old room!”   “You can’t be serious,” Lucas asked, deadpan. “Didn’t you say she had a grumpy housemate?”   “I mean, she’s not that bad. She’s actually nice once you talk to her. She’s just very particular about certain things. Apparently, she has this thing with sleeping with people and kicking them out after the sun rises.”   “I like her already.”   “See? It’s already working out!” Hendery nodded over and over again.   “Too eager, Hendery.”   “Look, I’m saying. You don’t study. You’re just home to sleep and I know you work overtime in sales. It’s just a place for you to rest your head and on the weekends, we’ll hang out. Like the olden days.”   Olden days. He was already talking like a decade had passed.   “Fine,” Lucas concluded, chewing on the banana. Hendery smiled at him, finally going up to his best friend attacking him in a hug. “I said, fine.”   “You don’t know how happy I am! I thought you’d get mad!” Hendery exclaimed, Lucas finally not fighting against Hendery’s death grip.   “You know full well I don’t have a choice. My mom just got healthy and I just want a simple life,” Lucas said to Hendery.   While Lucas was insecure about how his life was and how lacking in assets he was as compared to his friends, he was thankful they respected the person he was. All he wanted to do now was work, earn money to pay off his debts and maybe one day he’d work hard enough to be the man he always wanted to be.   Lucas was a man of pride and passion; last but not least, Lucas was a man filled with a lot of love to give.   He was just too scared to show it. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________   [Apartment]   Behind every strong girl is a man who is their kryptonite. A man who knows their weaknesses or a man who is her weakness and for me, that is Yoon Jeonghan. Yoon Jeonghan and I have been friends since we were young and as hard as it is to admit, he was older, handsome, very intelligent, and the one person that I always had a crush on.   Being childhood friends was one thing… Being attracted to your childhood friend and him knowing is another. I had my eyes glued forward, keeping track of the light that was changing to red so I would be able to cross the road, Jeonghan on the phone.   “I bought you your birthday present,” I was saying, Jeonghan chuckling and telling me that I didn’t have to. “But it’s a present that has to be used together.”   “I’m guessing it’s some ticket to an amusement park or something and not an item,” Jeonghan mused on the other side of the phone. He wasn’t that far off. “Say… You say a roommate is moving in?”   “Mhm. Apartment-mate, House-mate, room-mate.” I gave a small nod to myself. “Gucci’s moving in with Hendery.”   A scoff. It was not a secret how Jeonghan and his gang of merry men, SEVENTEEN, hated Hendery. Except for Hoshi-- Hoshi liked everyone. It wasn’t Hendery, per se. It was more of where they came from.   “Good for her. Wonwoo is still caught up with her. Saw him sulking the other day” Jeonghan told me and I rolled my eyes.   “Yeah, well. He didn’t deserve her. He couldn’t give her clarity and I guess this is what happens when nice girls are tired of being played. They move on to the best thing for them.” I ran a hand through my short hair, pursing my lips. “Am I coming over tonight?”   “Sure. Thanks for reminding me. I need to stash up on condoms,” he replied and I almost stopped in the middle of the road before I reminded myself that I had to keep walking.   My relationship with Jeonghan was complicated at best. Childhood friends who slept with one another, unlabelled. I used to sleep with other people. I was a huge feminist and if men could sleep with women without having their reputation tainted, I believed I should be able to do the same thing.   ual liberty.   It had been only recently, however, that I began to feel tired of constantly trying to find people to fill my bed. Tinder dates only do so much to fill my aching core, men from random parties only satisfied me for a good thirty minutes until they would bottom out, and I hated how some of them would call me at 3 am to ask if I was interested in a second round.   I was never interested in seconds.   That was the first time I ended up in bed with Jeonghan. He knew he was special and I arrived at his SEVENTEEN mancave one night, drunk and annoyed that the so-called Tinder date lasted three seconds. He took care of that for me.   Maybe it was because we knew each other. Maybe because he was a friend who had always listened to my ual escapades that he knew where to touch, which part I was most sensitive to and how I liked it.   That was the first time I felt like the was mind-blowing. It may have been because I liked him, too. I remember laying in bed with him, the sun coming up and by instinct, I had bounced off the bed just to be stopped by him.   I never stayed for morning-afters but with Jeonghan, I did.   We said that we would get together, but it seemed like it wouldn’t happen any time soon. Slowly but surely, he had told me. What was stopping him, I wonder.   “Did you…” My voice trailed and I frowned. Funny how I wasn’t as outspoken as I was with Jeonghan compared to other people. “Did you sleep with anyone?”   I expected him to say yes, and I was mentally prepared to feel a pang of jealousy for when he did. We never did say that we would stop sleeping with other people, I just expected that he would somehow just stop it on his own.   “Nah,” he replied but I remembered the pack halfway full the other day I came over and I couldn’t help but feel a little bit suspicious. “The boys borrowed a few.”   Oh. I guess that made sense, considering all of them all lived together.   “I’ll see you tonight,” he said to me and I hummed, entering my apartment building. My father owned the apartment complex and Gucci, as much as I told her didn’t have to pay for the room, did it for very cheap. I smiled at the guard who bowed at me when I reached the fourth floor.   I have always been very meticulous and I sniffed the air, the strong scent of perfume wafting to my nose when I frowned. It wasn’t a perfume I was familiar with-- it had a stronger scent, a musky scent. Was Hendery around? Did he drop by?   I pushed open the door, the scent engulfing my nose. No, it wasn’t Hendery’s perfume. One thing I loved about Hendery was that my roommate's boyfriend had not a single ounce of toxic masculinity in him. I remember him telling me he’d order some girl luxury perfume and upon asking him if it was for Gucci, he proudly said that it was for him.   He liked smelling sweet.   I moved into the room, my eyes going onto the filled-up trash can. If Gucci was here, she would have automatically taken out the trash. She knew how I hated the trash not taken out. I looked over to Gucci’s old room, hearing someone move in the background when I frowned when I saw a closed sign on the door.   Wow, this Lucas is eccentric. Who puts a closed sign on his door?   I moved to the trash can, pressing my feet on the lever before narrowing my eyes at it. There was a banana peel and the corners were beginning to go brown. The oxidation of the peel would leave a smell. That meant I had to wash the trash can-- I bit down on my lip, a sense of bubbling annoyance beginning to arise when I huffed.   I could hear soft music from behind the door and I heard shuffling, the door suddenly opening for me to look up to see a six-foot-tall man with brown eyes and my mouth went into a perfect O, Lucas’ eyes widening with recognition.   “You--”   “The dude!” I began, pointed at him. A month back, the party where Hendery and Gucci had met… apparently, for the second time since the first time she didn’t even know who he was, I had found myself getting dicked down by a very handsome man who held so much smoldering intensity in the party, he definitely brought it back onto the bed.   While he knew how to last and it was pleasurable while it did last, I left for some Macdonalds since I knew Gucci would need the extra kick of food because she was drugged the night before. I never knew his name was Lucas, more so, he formally introduced himself with a different name.   Yuko? Yuka? My eyebrows furrowed, Lucas tilting his head at me when my eyes traveled down his torso when I realized I was eyeing him while he was eyeing me back.   “Well, you look familiar...” He mused and I fought the urge to roll my eyes.   “So do you. Couldn’t you have taken the trash out when you were done moving in?” I snapped, jerking my finger over my shoulder at the open trash can. He raised an eyebrow at my tone and he did the one thing I hated men always did-- Lucas smirked.   “You mean like this?” Lucas asked, taking long strides towards the trash can and taking the plastic out of the trash can, then placing it right on the ground. It wasn’t the fact that he did it, it was how he did it, the male watching my every move. Like he enjoyed the way my shoulders tensed up at the sight, the way my eyes darkened over with irritation.   “I liked it better when we were kissing.”   “That’s what all girls say. You ain’t special, princess,” his words made my blood boil. I ain’t special? My tongue poked the side of my cheek. “Not the insult you think it is.”   He said this more to himself than to me and when my eyes fell onto the un-taken trash; I did what my impulsive, easy to rile-up self usually did-- that is to piss the other person right back.   I stepped forward grabbing the trash bag and hauling it, my face pinching at the smell when I kicked open his door and threw it straight into his bedroom, watching the contents fall right onto his bed.   “What the !” Lucas’s bellowed out when I looked straight at him, Lucas in disbelief. “Why would you do that?”   “I hope that’s enough to be the insult I want it to be,” I lashed out, Lucas beginning to walk towards me but I was fast enough to sidestep him, rushing to my bedroom and slamming the door shut. “Trash belongs with trash, Lucas!”   “Yeah, well. you!” he fumed.   “I already did!” I sniped back. “Not the insult you think it is, pretty boy.”   And with that, I fell back onto the bed, vexed at the whole idea that I had found out that I hated my housemate. Already. I leaned back, hearing Lucas go back to his bedroom and slam the door shut. He was probably cleaning up when I called Gucci, my lips jutting out when I heard her sweet voice.   I missed her. Terribly.   “I ing hate him,” I blurted out, Gucci letting out a sigh. It seemed like she half expected it. I heard Hendery in the background, my best friend’s boyfriend asking me what was wrong. “Come back to me.”   “You know she can’t do that,” Hendery pointed out and I vocally growled at him. “Calm down, tiger. I will fight you.”   “Hendery, he’s nothing like you,” I complained. “You said I’d get along with him!”   “Of course, he’s nothing like me! We’re not the same, only one of me.” Hendery paused. “It was either you guys would get along or you wouldn’t.”   “Birds of the same feather flock together but in this case, I’m like water and he’s oil,” I said, putting the phone on speaker so I could get ready to go see Jeonghan.   “No, I think you are oil. Lucas is a sweetheart. He’s water.” Hendery corrected and I frowned but my best friend was quick to stick up for me.   “No, she’s water. She’s great. Lucas is oil. He’s grumpy most of the time.” Gucci butted in and I smiled at her words.   “Both of them are grumpy, who are we kidding?” Hendery asked his girlfriend and much to my dismay, my best friend finally agreed. So much for standing up for me, I thought, reapplying my mascara. “You guys are so similar, it’ll take some time. I can assure you, Lucas can be a great friend if you know how to talk to him.”   “She’s no different, you know. Unless you piss her off, she’s an overall great person. Sometimes.”   “Wow. I love the confidence in me, Gucci.” My sarcastic tone made her next words come out as apologetic.   “Sorry, but you are easy to piss off.”   I rolled my eyes but I knew that it was true.   “I’m off to see Jeonghan,” I told them, Hendery telling me to say hi to him. “Jeonghan hates you, Hendery.”   “I know,” Hendery replied and I could hear the smile on his face. “Those who hate just want to torture themselves.”   “I can’t believe you and Jeonghan are finally going to be together,” Gucci added. “You guys have been friends for so long and maybe your whole sleeping with random people will come to a stop.”   “It has stopped for a while,” I admitted, grabbing a new black jacket and throwing it over my shoulder. “Talk to you both later. Love you.”   “Love you!” They chorused back.   The one thing I loved about Hendery dating Gucci was that I earned another friend. Hendery was an amazing person, as spontaneous and loud as he was. He balanced my friend’s shy side well. I finally hung up the phone, moving out of my apartment, my eyes on Lucas’ door that had a closed sign.   Maybe we did get off the wrong foot.   I made up my mind and told myself that I’d handle it when I get back.   The only person I could think of right at that moment was Jeonghan. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________   It was 3 am by the time I got back and I placed my shoes neatly by the door before I went to sleep. The next morning, I was up by 7 am, rushing to the kitchen because I woke up ten minutes late. I took a sip of water, going straight for my sneakers when I shoved my feet into them, my eyes widening at the wet sensation that was beginning to travel through the bottom of my socks.   I squealed, kicking the sneaker off and lifting my feet into the air. It was sticky, the smell of pudding making me make a face. The realization then hit, my eyes going straight to Lucas’ door to see that it was closed and most probably locked but I noticed a post on his door.   Scrawly handwriting, a similar phrase that I had yelled out before throwing the trash into his bedroom.   Rotten food belongs with rotten food :)   I gritted my teeth, my eyes fluttering close. I had to control my anger. I had a lab session today and I needed to be at my best, mentally and emotionally. I flung my other sneaker against Lucas’ door out of anger, hissing to myself at how unlucky I was to have to co-live with someone like Lucas when I finally exited my apartment.   If only he wasn’t Hendery’s friend, I would have already evicted him.   I was put in a bad mood the whole day and while it served as a good thing for my lab session since I was mixing things a little bit aggressively, I couldn’t stop thinking of what I could do to him. My lips were pressed in a straight line, Gucci placing a hand on my shoulder to bring me back to reality.   “This class is for crime scene investigation and here you look like you’ll be the cause of the crime scene.”   “I’m legit, so pissed off,” I told her, wiping a bead of sweat from my forehead. The air conditioning of the lab wasn’t even helping the heat that was buried deep in my stomach from the thoughts of revenge I couldn’t shake away. “He ing out pudding into my shoes. How did he even know I’d wear that pair?”   “Uh.” Gucci frowned, her hands laying a piece of paper under the light. “You label your shoes.”   I froze when I then slammed the glass jug down onto the table, the other students looking over at me. I did label my shoes but it was according to my schedule. If I studied in a different building, I would wear sneakers because they were easy to walk in. High heels on presentation days, usually Thursdays because I had to assert dominance in those presentations and psychology states that height influences confidence.   “I mean, how could he--”   “You did throw the trash into his bedroom and said, “Trash belongs with trash”," Gucci reminded me and I glared at her, my best friend flushing pink. “He’s just returning the favor.”   “Are you on my side or his?” I demanded, Gucci sighing. “I’ll get him back. I’ll get him back before I go see Jeonghan today.”   “You’re seeing Jeonghan again today?” Gucci asked, looking genuinely surprised. “Getting serious?”   “That’s what I hope,” I answered, glancing at the phone to see that Jeonghan had texted. “Can’t believe I’m getting a boyfriend right after you got one.”   “To be fair, my time frame of transition wasn’t