“Sorry I’m late,”Jiyong apologizes, smiling shyly.  Seunghyun pulls him stealthily into the closet, and he’s greeted with a kiss. “I’m assuming it hasn’t happened yet?” he asks.

“No, you’re just in time,” Seunghyun smiles. “Daesung will be a few more minutes. “He wraps his arm around the slender boy. “You’ve been busy lately,” he muses. “I’ve missed you.” The last time Seunghyun can remember seeing Jiyong was about a week ago. Of course, they both had busy lives, there were deadlines coming up, and the end of the year was approaching. Seunghyun probably would have complained more about the empty spot in his bed had he not been pouring over his draft and hardly getting any sleep himself.

“Yeah,”Jiyong hums. “But it’s paid off,” he smiles. “I’ll tell you more about it later. I don’t want to take away from this,” he says, gesturing vaguely at the scene before them. A nervous looking Choi Seunghyun is pacing in front of the door, a small black box in his hand. There are other friends hidden away in various locations of the house, some hidden better than others.

“Nah, you should tell me now,” Seunghyun says, pulling Jiyong into a tight embrace. Normally his face would flush bright red, but the closet is dark—plus he can use the cramped space as an excuse. “Daesung’s always had a nasty habit of being late.”

Jiyong hesitates before speaking, but Seunghyun can hear the slight quiver of excitement in his voice as he speaks. “You know how I had that lunch meeting today,” he begins. Seunghyun nods, resting his chin on Jiyong’s shoulder. “Well, it was to sign a contract.” Jiyong lets out a huge breath, his voice a little uneasy—mostly due to disbelief and excitement.

“That’s great!” Seunghyun congratulates—a little too loudly, apparently, because the other Seunghyun throws a dark glare towards the closet that houses Jiyong and Seunghyun. “That’s really great news,” he says, his voice lowered. “I knew you’d be able to do it.” He kisses Jiyong’s cheek, which is tight from his wide grin.

“It’s only for a single, just so they can test to see how I’d fare popularity wise,” Jiyong says, immediately trying to make his achievement seem less of a big deal.

Seunghyun is about to respond, but is when there are scattered whispers of ‘shhh’ floating around the room, as they hear a key in the lock of the door. The other Seunghyun is down on his knee in an instant, suddenly looking calm (though the slight sheen of sweat on the back of his neck gives him away), and the rose petals strewn across the entryway and the tea candles placed in strategic locations all look like they belong.

Daesung’s face when he enters his apartment is the funniest thing. Not in a comical sense, of course. Despite knowing him for the majority of his life, Seunghyun hadn’t been quite sure what his reaction to the lavish romance would be. Of course, Seunghyun always had his suspicions that Daesung ate that kind of thing up, but he usually never let on. When Daesung stepped into his apartment, he froze. His eyes widened, and flitted from the petals to the candles to his Seunghyun and back to the petals. He opened his mouth and closed it a couple times—quickly of course.

The other Seunghyun gracefully cut his shock short as he showed Daesung the black box in his hands. Seunghyun didn’t manage to hear the proposal itself, but he knew the exact moment when it happened, because Daesung dropped to his knees, letting lose one of his smiles that were too big for his face, and threw his arms around the other Seunghyun.

Everything seemed as though it was happening in slow motion, but the other guests were popping out of their hiding places, shouting congratulations and throwing confetti, adding to the overly happy atmosphere of the room. Jiyong and Seunghyun emerge from their closet, joining in the clamoring chorus of congratulations and laughter. Daesung and the other Seunghyun are both on their feet, grinning ear to ear, fingers intertwined as they gracefully accept all the congratulations.

The celebration is nothing lavish. It’s quite intimate—friends among friends, but Daesung and the other Seunghyun seem to have a lot more friends than Seunghyun remembers because it seems like ages before he has a moment with Daesung all to himself.

“Hey, congratulations,” he says, pulling his friend into a hug. Daesung is grinning ear to ear, smiling too hard to give any kind of thanks, but Seunghyun knows he means it all the same. “It’s about time,” he says with a laugh.

“Did you know about this?” Daesung asks. Seunghyun shrugs, but the glint in his eye gives him away.

“To be honest, I’m surprised Seunghyun told me about this,” Seunghyun says with a laugh. “You know how terrible I am at keeping secrets.”

“You’re awful,” Daesung nods in agreement, sipping from his glass. “But how about you? How have things been going? I feel like I haven’t heard from you in months.”

“I’m finishing my draft,”Seunghyun sighs. “The deadline for me to have it in is coming up really fast. I haven’t seen much of anyone, I’m afraid.”

“I’m sure it’ll feel good to have it all over and done with,” Daesung says, a comforting tone in his voice. “When you’re done we should celebrate, go out for drinks or something. Bring Jiyong along,” he says, cheerily. “I feel like I haven’t really gotten to know him very well since you’ve been dating, or whatever it is you’re doing.”

Though Daesung probably didn’t mean for them to, his words hit Seunghyun a little harder than he’d expected. There was something about the way Daesung labeled their relationship. Sure, labels were just words, and in the end words didn’t really matter so much to two people who loved each other. Except, to Seunghyun they did, and that was probably what bugged him the most. Words were important. Words were his whole life. Everything he did revolved around the interpretation of words, and the meaning and flow of words, and the poetry of words. In Seunghyun’s eyes, words made a relationship all the more important. Because, if you didn’t have the words, you couldn’t have the relationship. Words were used to express emotion. Words were used to express commitment. And he and Jiyong didn’t really have that. They didn’t have much of anything, except countless hours wasted away together and an unspoken agreement to be true to each other. And that just wasn’t enough for Seunghyun.

Seeing Daesung and Seunghyun deepen their relationship wasn’t really helping.

He knows better than anyone that Kwon Jiyong is absolutely terrified of relationships— that there’s something about them that makes him want to run away in the other direction. Perhaps it was something in his past relationships, maybe it was an attitude that was developed from watching his own parents’ relationship crumble. But whatever the cause, Kwon Jiyong thought that all relationships would fail, and there was simply no way around the matter. For Kwon Jiyong, true love didn’t exist and there was no point in labeling a relationship, because that just made things messy.

*

(Day 063)

“Hmm,”Jiyong says, pondering. “Unicorns?” he asks, a childish laugh spilling from his throat.

“I believe in them,” Seunghyun says without hesitation, causing Jiyong’s laughter to escalate. “What?” Seunghyun responds defensively, though there’s a smile splayed across his own face as well. “There’s too much folklore about them for it to have all been made up!” he says. “Unicorns had to exist.”

“If you say so,” he laughs. “Your turn,” he says, nudging Seunghyun’s cheek with his nose.

“Well, what do you think about true love?” Seunghyun asks. Jiyong’s legs are intertwined with his, the rest of their bare skin covered by the bedsheet. Jiyong’s blonde head is resting on his chest, moving up and down with each breath Seunghyun takes. They’re far too close to be comfortable in this heat, their skin radiating the heat of what feels like a thousand suns, but neither of them complain so long as their skin is touching. Seunghyun’s ceiling fan is rotating in lazy circles, refreshing the two of them from the summer heat with a soft breeze.

“Don’t believe in it,” he grins, though he almost looks sad. He rolls over onto his stomach, propping his chin up in the palms of his hands, and looks at Seunghyun.

“How can you not believe in true love?” Seunghyun asks incredulously, a hint of a laugh in his voice. Seunghyun has been raised believing in true love since day one. It’s in books and in movies, it’s in his own life (his parents have been blissfully married [or so it appeared to him] for twenty -seven years). True love was just like oxygen. He had no proof of it, and he hadn’t the slightest idea how it worked, but he knew it was there. And he knew he needed it.

“It’s just an idea,” Jiyong shrugs. “An idea that sounds nice, so people put it everywhere, but nine times out of ten, it’s not real. People think they’ve found it, but what they’ve really found is a rich woman, or a nice guy, or a good . It’s not really true love. It’s never really true love, so there’s no point in putting a label on anything until you’re one hundred percent sure.”

“What about that one time,” Seunghyun says. “That one time out of ten? It’s really true love then, isn’t it?”

“I suppose,”Jiyong sighs, curling back into Seunghyun’s side. “But so few of us find it, how are we supposed to know what it really feels like? Besides, there are so many people we could love, for a multitude of reasons, and in none of those instances is it ever true love.”

“Ooh, you are cynical,” Seunghyun says.

“And, statistically,” Jiyong continues, “the chances of finding that one person that you will fall completely and truly in love with are close to zero. But most people try anyway and hope for the best. Some of them realizing they have found the one, some of them realizing they can’t tell the difference, some of them not even caring.”

“What about us?” Seunghyun asks. He knows the question will put Jiyong on edge, and he tries so hard to hold it back, but it’s spilling out of his mouth barely after Jiyong has a chance to finish his sentence. He expects some sort of wild reaction, and is prepared to apologize profusely (maybe even suggest resuming their previous activities as a way to make it up), but instead, Jiyong stares up at the ceiling and thoughtfully bites his lip.

“I don’t know yet,” he sighs. “I don’t know.”

*

“So you’ll be gone a lot, then?” Seunghyun asks, breaking the silence in the car as he and Jiyong drive back to his apartment.

“Hmm?” Jiyong asks, clearly being pulled out of his thoughts.

“With this contract, you’ll probably be gone a lot, right?” he repeats.

“Oh,” Jiyong says, and nods. “Yeah, I’ve got to do a lot of work recording and re-writing and stuff until I come up with something that they like,” he says, absentmindedly.

A silence falls in the car, and it’s the most uncomfortable thing Seunghyun has ever experienced. He’s got a lot on his mind, and he knows he’s an idiot for even thinking of bringing it up with Jiyong, but he’ll never rest if he doesn’t. There’s got to be something more coming from the both of them.

“Daesung and Seunghyun looked really happy,” he mused, speaking slowly.

“Yeah,”Jiyong said, smiling. “I’m really happy for them. Marriages are a big deal.”

“And you have no objections to it?” Seunghyun asks slowly.

“What do you mean?” Jiyong asks. “Why would I not want them to get married?”

“Well, I mean, do you think it’s going to work out? Do you think they’re the ones for each other?”

Jiyong is silent for a moment, pursing his lips and staring out the car window. Seunghyun is screaming at himself mentally, but he’s already brought up the topic, and there’s no turning back now.

“If they aren’t, then there’s probably no hope for the rest of us,”Jiyong says softly. He brushes quickly underneath his eye, and Seunghyun contemplates for a moment pretending that he didn’t see the tear, but decides against it.

“Are you alright?” Seunghyun asks. Jiyong sighs, in a breath, and looks at Seunghyun, his eyes incredibly sad.

“What are we doing?” he asks. It’s a dreaded question, because Seunghyun has heard it from Jiyong a hundred times before and he hates it, because he’s always asking himself the same question.

“We’re doing whatever makes us happy,” Seunghyun answers simply, because he doesn’t really have an answer for what he and Jiyong are doing together. Or what they’re doing in general. He just knows what he wants for them to be doing, and it’s more along the lines of what Daesung and Seunghyun are doing.

“Are you happy?” Jiyong asks, sadly.

“Of course I’m happy. I’m with you,” he says, taking Jiyong’s hand in his. “Doesn’t being with me make you happy?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Jiyong nods, squeezing Seunghyun’s hand tightly. “Yeah it does.”

Seunghyun has instantly decided to drop his previous plan. It’s best not to push things, to demand things from Jiyong that he’s clearly not ready for, to be selfish. If Seunghyun being with Jiyong makes him happy, then that’s what he’ll do. For as long as it takes. Until Jiyong finally realizes that, maybe, true love does exist, and it’s staring him right in the face.

“Then let’s just stay like this,” Seunghyun says simply, more for himself than for Jiyong.

____________

(A/N: I swear I'm not dead!!! Sorry, I've been gone for so long!! I'm back, I swear!)