Their relationship was hard to label sometimes.

The confusion was mostly caused because of the way Hyukjae acted if Jongwoon showed him just a little bit of affection, because of the disgusted faces he would pull out even though he liked it – secretly, but no one knew that. Any attempt of giving him a hug, or just the thought of doing anything remotely nice to Jongwoon got him cringing. His behavior was almost like the one of a tsundere, if it needs a term.

It was impossible to count in their fingers the amount of times Hyukjae shied away from any touch, any hug or any attempt of kissing, putting on his most disgusted face he could muster, was almost stupid with how many times it happened. Or even the amount of times people would find him melting on Jongwoon’s embrace every time they thought no one would be around to find them in that position, or the way his smile turned happier if Jongwoon brushed his lips against his cheek was even more stupid. (What took the crown for the most stupid thing, though, was Hyukjae’s words whenever that happened. “What? I am just grabbing something that fell on the floor, we are not hugging!”, “He was just saying something! It is not what it seems!” )

It was very much clear that Hyukjae liked Jongwoon, and they knew that Jongwoon liked him back, even though Hyukjae liked to play it off like he disliked Jongwoon. Still, it seemed that no matter how many signals both were giving to each other unconsciously, how much Hyukjae changed around Jongwoon or how much Jongwoon seemed to be happier around Hyukjae, both refused – or never thought of – giving what they had an official label. While the reason was unknown and none of them ever said the reason, it seemed that for them, they were friends and it was enough.

But.. No one in their friends circle could consider them friends. What they had was too different from what two normal friends would have and friends do not “accidentally” kiss each other in the lips three times in a row and ignore it as if it was a normal thing without panicking. Yet, it was stupid to consider them boyfriends because neither of them made any move and Jongwoon had said countless times that nothing was going on and no one proposed  , so referring to them as that was probably a death sentence if they ever found out.

So.. no one had any clue of what they were and what territory their relationship lied. Hyukjae liked it that way – Jongwoon, not so much.

You see, giving what they had a label would make things easier – but it was hard to do so when even they were unaware of what they were. Of course, there were moments they would act like boyfriends and kiss and just enjoy being with each other, but there were also moments it was just easier to slip back into the habits they had when their friendship was not a giant mess of uncertainty.

For Hyukjae, it sounded nice not giving it a label – it meant he could be a little reckless and give Jongwoon a bit more than he would normally want to, all while making sure they can go back to the ‘we are just friends’ territory in case anything backfired. It was a little painful and his heart would shatter bit by bit the more he gave and took because he realized what he was doing was making Jongwoon look a little bit down. Still, it felt scary and there were so many chances of it all going wrong that he continued, just so he could have a small taste of what dating Jongwoon would be