They've been best friends since they were kids, running around the neighbourhood with pots over their heads to substitute as helmets. Jungshin remembered how Minhyuk used to trip, denting the thin metal of an old colander countless times. He remembered how he used to have his hand wrapped around Minhyuk's, teaching the boy how to write his name.

    He remembered how Minhyuk used to smile-- a smile so genuine that his already almost nonexistent eyes disappeared into thin slits.

    He remembered how, five years later, Minhyuk got a crush on some girl named Soyu. He remembered how it would hurt him to see Minhyuk hurt; rejected. He remembered how he told himself to stay strong for his childhood friend.

     Jungshin had told their stories time and time again. He told of their adventures, of their "princesses" and of their "alliances". This time he was telling them to Lizzy, his first girlfriend.

    "Oh! I really want to meet him." She'd exclaim after every story that Jungshin would be more than proud to tell.

    He'd only answer the same thing every time. "Soon, maybe."

    Everyday, he comes home to his roommate; his best friend; his companion. Everyday, he notices how Minhyuk speaks less and less as each day passes. He was pressed against the corner of the room that night, curled up under his best friend's blanket. He was shaking and his lip was quivering. Jungshin tried to ignore how Minhyuk's eyes were swollen from crying. He tried to ignore the way that his best friend instinctively clung onto his shirt as he picked the boy up and set him in his bed.

    He tried to tell himself that he didn't feel like crying himself.

    They were in college already when the first time that they didn't spent the night under the same room came. Jungshin asked Minhyuk if he was okay with it. Somehow he'd hoped that the boy would just be honest with him and tell Junshing that he wasn't. The chinky eyed boy, instead, smiled his usual smile- one that he'd grown so used to faking by then- and said "It's alright."

    No, Minhyuk. Junshing thought. I know it isn't.

    But Jungshin went anywat.

    He'd gotten a call in the middle of the night, silent sobbing on the other end of the line. He remembered how he instantly slipped out of bed and drove back to his- no, their- apartment. He remembered how he could never bear to hear Minhyuk cry.

    Minhyuk was in his arms within three seconds of him bursting into the room. Lizzy had fifteen missed calls piling up in Jungshin's phone, left forgotten in his back pocket. That was the first time that Minhyuk had been totally honest with himself in almost three months since the taller boy started dating Lizzy.

    "Jungshin" He mumbled into the cloth of Jungshin's already wet shirt. "Don't leave me."

    The taller boy found himself kissing the top of Minhyuk's head. "I would never." But Minhyuk had already grown silent; he'd fallen asleep.

    By 6AM they were both awake and there was no mention of the events from the previous night. Minhyuk was is usual self again, from the silence down to the forced smile that he seemed to throw at Jungshin every single day. 

    "Stop forcing it." Junghsin finally said, his voice cutting through the silence like a knife.

     Silence yet again.

    "It seeing you like this."
     "I know..." and Minhyuk was in the bathroom again.

     Under the fifty missed calls from Lizzy, there was a single text.

We need to talk. -Liz

    It was eleven PM and Minhyuk came home to an empty apartment. Touche. He bit his lip, ignoring the fact that it was quivering as he opened the fridge and poured himself a glass of milk.

     That was the first time that he contemplated over suicide. He'd read somewhere that the ones that seemed happy are the ones that hurt the most. He wondered if he seemed happy in the eyes of his best friend. He wondered if anyone would even care if he threw himself out the window at that moment. He found himself laughing at every single time he cried, alone, and fell asleep int he corner of the room, cold.

     "Kang Minhyuk, where the  have you been?" He'd turned to find Jungshin, beat up, tattered, sweating, panting.