It was hard loving someone who was broken

And while Sungjoon broke quietly leaving fragments of himself between black ink and yellowed pages or flushing them down the toilet, leaving a trail of red footprints in his wake, Youngkwang broke widely, all claws and screams and shattered glass.

So Sungjoon held Youngkwang through the nights, through the nightmares and the fear. He ran his hands through Youngkwang’s hair and rubbed his back, whispering empty promises of love and forever and happiness. He went through all the motions of comforting, but inside he was just as mutilated as Youngkwang, just as mangled.

And time seemed to run from Sungjoon, everything flashing by in neon colors and he was left palm outstreched where he tried to grab some reality to hold onto. But time stalled for Youngkwang, everything crawling slowly past his black eyes and he was stuck somewhere between the past and the present

And although they were both damaged, they still had moments where one cracked a joke and the other broke out into a rare smile and laughed (rusty and unsure) and for a minute they were able to fool themselves into happiness. But their ghosts always came back to haunt them.

Youngkwang walked around their clouded world blindly, all preconceived misconceptions and ignorant words and Sungjoon let him (even though it only caused more cracks in the mirror). Because Youngkwang dealt with pain brashly and loudly, a bomb waiting for the flame to ignite (and half the time Sungjoon was the one who lit the fire).

They made love in the middle of the night when they couldn’t sleep and felt too close to the edge, too ready to fall. So noses traced spines and bones while nimble fingers danced over ridges and canyons. Lips and teeth tried to sew the ruptured flesh and dismembered hearts back together, desperately trying to douse their pain in pleasure. And although they loved each other as much as mannequins could, the silence that enveloped them after as they held each other always called their bluff.

But they completed each other, Youngkwang performing the actions Sungjoon couldn’t make and Sungjoon thinking the things Youngkwang couldn’t face.

So they went like this in circles, round and round and round

Until one day Sungjoon drowned in his thoughts and the bath, embracing death quietly (“Sorry” was all he left behind)

Youngkwang thought it was ironic because without Sungjoon he realized they may not have been as twisted as they thought they were, but twisted was still twisted and Youngkwang needed Sungjoon to stich him together, he needed Sungjoon to shower him with kisses and empty words (that may not have been so empty all along), he needed Sungjoon’s rare smile and even rarer laugh.

Youngkwang thought it was ironic that maybe they had really been in love the whole time.