A couple of hours since Jongwoon left for the airport, the doorbell to the Kim’s residence, or mansion, Kyuhyun is still awed at how big their house is, rings.

It’s a place he knows how to get to by heart that he doesn’t think of how to get there that morning but just waits on the bus stop for that certain bus number he gets into to get those Jongwoon’s house. He looks at the house and tries to remember anything from it in vain. He wonders if he’ll ever get back those memories he lost with Jongwoon and Hyesung now that he has lost both.

Mr. Kim answers it and is shocked to see the least person he expected to see that day of all days. He could have shown his face five years later after they come back (if they’ll come back) and Mr. Kim will still hate him and his (no) guts.

“What are you doing here?” Mr. Kim glares at Kyuhyun.

“I – Just,” Kyuhyun stammers.

“You are not welcome here,” Jongwoon’s father spits, almost slamming the door in Kyuhyun’s face but Kyuhyun steps on it and he almost breaks Kyuhyun’s leg.

“I – Uh,” Kyuhyun says, looking at Jongwoon’s father seriously. “I need to talk to your son, sir, please.”

Mr. Kim doesn’t budge as he continues to glare at Kyuhyun and his leg in between the metal gate he is so tempted to break, remembering the night Jongwoon comes home with bloodshot eyes and a broken heart, like his son’s heart has not been broken enough for a lifetime.

He obviously doesn’t know Jongwoon is leaving. Or had already left. Of course he doesn’t know. 

“You…” Mr. Kim starts and Kyuhyun can hear the spite in his tone and the poison in his words as he continues to send daggers into the trespassing man on his properly. Every inch of him is tempted to bring hell into Kyuhyun, to give him pain and suffering because that’s what he gave his son but he is being stop by one thought.

His son loves this man.

“Get out,” Jongwoon’s father would rather throw him out that hurt his son even more by hurting Kyuhyun. It’s not right and it’s not going to make things alright. He looks at Kyuhyun and gives him the stare not of a company’s founder and president but of a father. “You are trespassing a private property. You need to get out or I will call the police.”

Kyuhyun must be losing his mind at the same time he is beginning to gain balls.

“Please, sir, I’m begging you. I need to talk to your son,” Kyuhyun keeps half of his body in between the gate, as a matter of fact trespassing.

“He has nothing to say to you,” Mr. Kim tries to keep his calm, not for Kyuhyun but for Jongwoon.

“But I have something to say to him!” Kyuhyun exclaims, but his tone is not angry. It’s not mad. It’s pleading, it’s begging for the man to give him a chance to talk to his son he knows is so precious to him he needs to protect and he understands where he is coming from but he needs to see Jongwoon. “I need to apologize to him… For being such a jerk, for being an , for being a coward. For letting him take all the blame. For letting him be hated by everybody for something he did not do. He did not do alone. For letting him be pointed, be cursed, be singled out in the crowd. For not standing up for him. For not standing up with him. For not having the same courage he had when he continued to face the crowd for who he is…”

Kyuhyun looks at the man and this time, he doesn’t stop the tears. There is so much in him he needs to let out, he needs to say, he needs Jongwoon to hear that he can’t damn care if he is crying outside Jongwoon’s house, in front of his father, where strangers and people are just passing by them and probably hearing what he is saying because he needs Jongwoon to hear them.

He doesn’t notice the tears and he can’t care about them because as he says the words, as he says the apologies he needs to get across Jongwoon, he realizes how much wrong he’d done to the man he swore to all heavens he loves. He realizes how much he hurt him, brought him pain and broke his heart because he is afraid. He realizes that he doesn’t deserve Jongwoon and he accepts that. He got to ing accept that but right now, right then at that moment, he wants to apologize. Because Jongwoon deserves that much.

He takes a deep breath and looks at Jongwoon’s father. “I need to apologize to your son, sir,” he says again, “For never giving back as much as he had given much. I need to apologize.”

Mr. Kim looks at Kyuhyun and he doesn’t understand. He still hates him for hurting his son but he looks at him and he sees the man Jongwoon loves. Loved. Loves.

“I – I know,” Kyuhyun continues, feeling breathless. “I know I don’t deserve your son, I lost that long ago and I’m not going to fight it. I – I can’t hurt him again. But I need to see him because I need to apologize, sir. I need to…”

He finally loses it and almost falls on his weakened knees.

But Mr. Kim catches him. “Get up,” he says, holding Kyuhyun’s arm.

“You know,” Jongwoon’s father starts, looking at Kyuhyun. “You think you’re not afraid anymore by coming here and saying all this, telling me how you need to apologize to my son, the things you need to apologize for. But you are the same coward that you are when you did all those things you just said and hurt my son.”

“You are sorry. Everyone can be sorry!” Mr. Kim exclaims, not hiding his fury, “But you don’t want accountability. You don’t want to do something to make amends, to make changes. You are so willing to stand where you are because sure, you did your apology and that’s going to give you your goddamn self-satisfaction but you are not willing to turn things around.” He doesn’t hide his disgust as he says those things. He’s not going to give pity to the person who hurt his child.

What parent can?

“You,” he stares at Kyuhyun’s eyes, “are still afraid.”

Kyuhyun looks back at Mr. Kim. “I don’t want to hurt your son again,” he whispers.

“Then,” Mr. Kim starts, glaring at Kyuhyun again, “don’t ing hurt him again! Because I swear if I was wrong about you with Hyesung, and you weren’t the reason she died, I know every goddamn pain you brought to my son and if he gets even just a prick on his finger because of you again, I ing swear I’ll kill you.”

Jongwoon’s father’s words are hitting him one by one like big stones but he takes everything because he knows he deserves every single one of it. He is not taken aback by the threat but by the fact that, coming from Jongwoon’s father, is he telling him what he thinks he is telling him?

“My son loved you,” Jongwoon’s father says, his eyes never leaving Kyuhyun, both serious and calm. “He still loves you… Do you love him?”

Kyuhyun is surprised by Jongwoon’s father’s question but he looks at him seriously and answers, “I do.”

“Then, are you willing to wait for him?”

Wait. What? Wait for him?

Kyuhyun looks at Mr. Kim in puzzlement.

“He already left two hours ago,” Mr. Kim finally tells Kyuhyun. “But you know, you’re the one he loves the most. Because he’s willing to be the one to go, he’s willing to hurt himself even more than you hurt him so that you can be happy.”

This time, Kyuhyun breaks down.

But he doesn’t want to stay there. He wants to run to the end of the world if he can catch Jongwoon but he knows he can’t realistically. He wants to get out of there, to run. To just run to fill his head with air and let it explode with everything in it that’s already enough to kill him. But he doesn’t want to die. He doesn’t want to die but if ing hurts right now so he wants to like, almost die just so he can take his mind off everything!

No, he can’t die because he needs to see Jongwoon. He still needs to apologize to him personally and to tell him he loves him.

It doesn’t matter how long. It doesn’t matter when.

He’s going to wait for Jongwoon.

But now, it just ing hurts too much he can’t even think properly how he’ll play for the game later. He grabs something from his duffel bag, a piece of crumpled paper that was where the original lyrics and music of ‘Your Eyes’ was written that he spent what was left of last night to bring back to the original state, inserted it in his printer and scanner too many times the ink almost faded but thankfully it didn’t so it could be straightened, and placed it carefully at a homemade frame he also did last night. He meant to give it to Jongwoon because it belongs to him more than it belongs to Kyuhyun. He meant to give it to him as a final goodbye, after apologizing for everything he did that brought him pain.

But it looks like he can’t even do that now.

“This,” he slowly says to Mr. Kim, handing the frame with the words of the last song they sang together, feeling like he’s running a marathon even though he is still there, standing with half of his body on the Kim’s property, “belongs to your son.”

Mr. Kim looks at him worriedly because he looks like he’s going to faint.

“I want you to know how sorry I am,” Kyuhyun says, looking at Jongwoon’s father. “It kills me to think how much pain I brought him. And now… And now I’m paying for it.”

Jongwoon’s father is not able to answer anymore as Kyuhyun begins to run, with no direction like always, but this time, with a clearer head than he ever did. Because he loves Jongwoon and he lost him. He’s gone and who knows how long it will be until they see each other again. But he loves Jongwoon. He loves him so much he knows he deserves this but it still hurts.