9.

“I’ve seen you…”

Kyuhyun nodded in admit.

“I know you have feelings for him.”

He nodded again.

“So go to him.”

He was unsure of what he wanted.

He wasn’t strong.

Something washed over him, something frustrating and sorrowful; a tough mass of horror that stuck itself to him, and even though he had seen it coming he wasn’t prepared and didn’t plan to stop it and it drowned him. In distress he grabbed a strong, a harsh hold of Sungmin’s hand.

The other kept staring at him, before they both looked down.

Kyuhyun released his grip.

“Kyuhyun-ah. I don’t want to see you like this anymore.”

“Anymore? Do you think I’ll ever get over this?”

He halted in his plan of blurting things he hadn’t thought through. Sungmin’s doleful eyes halted him. Everything did.

“You’ll-… You love him.”

Kyuhyun didn’t want to cry. He couldn’t cry over the truth. He couldn’t cry when all was his fault.

He couldn’t cry of remorse.

“I can tell.”

The younger pressed his lips together, glancing away from Sungmin.

The room was silent.

The only light shone from the bathroom door.

Their hearts were crying out.

“I love you too.”

A broken and subdued voice was the only thing Kyuhyun could get out. He stared at a dark corner.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…” Despite the force within him that told him to not cry, to not be a weakling, he couldn’t hide his true self from Sungmin. “I thought it would pass… I really did.”

His tears slipped and he kept staring at the same spot. The light of the bathroom suddenly seemed stronger from the corner of his eye.

Sungmin sighed as he brushed his hand over the other’s shoulder.

“If you want to, please be with him.”

He moved his hand to Kyuhyun’s cheek, finding and feeling his tears, trying to wipe them away in the dark.

“You don’t want to know that your boyfriend likes someone else. I don’t want to be with you and know that you’re in love with Ryeowook, even if you love me too.”

“I know.”

Kyuhyun, who admitted his tears, turned his head back and exhaled slowly.

“We’re over.” The older clarified with a soft tone.

But the softness in his voice didn’t neutralize the sharp pain in his heart.

There was another tremor of uttermost terror passing through him.

His tears didn’t make anything better.

Sungmin holding his hand didn’t make anything better.

But Kyuhyun knew he could.

Eventually.

His lips quivered as he agreed,

“We’re… Over… But I’ll always be there for you… I promise I’ll always be here.”

Sungmin smiled with blank eyes.

“Me too.”

He reached forward and captured the younger in between his arms.

Kyuhyun leaned in with all the love he had.

The room was silent.

The light from the bathroom illuminated their faces.

Their hearts understood.

Kyuhyun watched Sungmin sleep soundly; eyes firmly closed and bed cover neatly spread on top of him.

He was beautiful.

Kyuhyun definitely knew what he had possessed; everywhere people told you that you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone, but he knew that hadn’t been the case. Because Kyuhyun cared for Sungmin like there had been no tomorrow, and when all came up to the point they were now, Kyuhyun still hadn’t had a change of heart.

He still had feelings for them both, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Ignoring the tiresome knowledge that the time was close to 2 in the night, Kyuhyun pulled out the sketchpad he had received on his birthday. He was restless and he wasn’t in the mood of studying.

He eyed the grey cover for a while, and clenched the little box with pens.

Better than nothing.

He leaned back against the wall, took out a pencil, and stared at the pad.

What was he supposed to draw?

He looked over at the sleeping Sungmin.

“It can be a way to pass time… Or release emotions…”

At the painful feeling in his stomach, Kyuhyun frowned, gazed at Sungmin a bit longer, then put the tip to the paper.

He hadn’t drawn with a serious effort since he was little.

But not even this time was he sure of how much his mind was focusing.

He ended up with three weakly drawn hearts.

They weren’t placed according to proportions, but their sizes were identical.

Around the hearts, he drew the outlines of a fire. It reached to almost the edge of the paper, and when the outlines were done, he filled in random places and strengthened the lines.

Frustrated with the clear vision of the fire, but the fact that the hearts were almost blended in, Kyuhyun filled in the outlines of the hearts as well, frowning until he felt content.

He brushed his fingers carefully over the heart at the top, before glancing over at Sungmin again. As if he had been gone for so long.

Kyuhyun observed him for a while.

He listened to his own heartbeats.

He embraced reality, yet in some way, he was gone in fantasy.

The pencil hovered over the uppermost heart soon enough, and he found himself half-coloring it with the same pencil. He pressed just enough on the white material and brought the pencil back and forth; watching as the white heart turned half-grey.

And Kyuhyun somehow felt content about it.

He looked back at Sungmin, but didn’t find anything inspirational from there anymore.

Kyuhyun pursed his lips. He was conflicted.

“…Or release emotions…”

He shook his head. The pencil ran over another heart that was further to the right and drawn in the middle of the paper.

The room was so deadly silent that he for a while wondered if it was even possible that Sungmin was breathing, or if Kyuhyun’s heart was still inside his chest.

The time was 02.30 and Kyuhyun was leaning forward on the bed, peering in concentration on the drawing his mind was creating and his hand giving life to.

Thoughts about everything and nothing collided in his mind, giving him no bigger clue of what he was really trying to think through.

Maybe there wasn’t anything to think through.

Maybe he wasn’t trying to think.

Maybe the chaos had never subsided in the first place.

Kyuhyun drew small, random shapes on places along sides on the heart and filled them in. There were about four of them, and they looked like pieces of a puzzle.

As if they were waiting to be solved, and connected to something.

He knew he had to fight through it.

Kyuhyun gazed at the third heart.

He frowned at it.

He left it empty.