Times like this hurt the most: the kitchen empty apart from the dust floating in the acid sharp sunlight; his phone dormant by his side; coffee cooling at his elbow because it doesn't taste right. He forced down a meal only ten minutes ago and he still feels empty and sick. The sensation in his chest is like his heart has come unhooked from its proper place and is floating inside him, knocking against the inside of his ribcage with pangs he can feel all the way into his stomach. If he was anyone else maybe he'd be smoking a cigarette with heavy sighs or chewing off his fingernails with tears running down his face but because he's Park Kyung and anyone could walk in at any moment, he just sits there and waits. It's the waiting he hates the most.

He knows Jiho isn't thinking of him in the same way he's thinking of Jiho. This has always been the way of their friendship, and he understands that. He wouldn't try to explain why he waits because the one time he did, Jiho got angry and told him he never asked him to do that; why doesn't he just live his own life, why doesn't he just find a way to fill his time? It's not the asking that matters though; it's the expectation. Because at some point, he will text, or call, or walk through the front door, and if Kyung isn't there he will wonder why. And life will go on just as it always has, and his day will be bright and lively again, and the loneliness will dissolve like it was never there. He will let himself think, yet again, that things are going to change, and he will go to bed feeling safe and wanted. Tomorrow is another matter.

Kyung traces over a burn on the table and chokes down some more of his coffee. If he could just say no, then everything would be different, but he can't. Because they operate on Jiho's time, because he's the one with the producing duties and ten different cameos on other people's tracks and now, the soft-skinned girl with the pretty eyes who he sees whenever he has time for. Kyung has been there so long that there's no question that he will be there; therefore he takes lowest priority. Jiho doesn't save up time for him; he doesn't pencil in an evening on his crammed schedule for Kyung. He just turns up, suddenly at a loose end for a few hours, and snaps Kyung back under his spell.

"I feel like he takes me for granted, sometimes," Kyung said to Minhyuk, as they watched Jiho dash off without a backwards glance from their latest performance for another assignment. Not even a word of thanks to Kyung, who sorted things out with their manager when Jiho was two hours late and bought him lunch so he wouldn't have to go the whole day without eating.

"He does. That's how best friends work," Minhyuk said, and gave him an encouraging pat on the shoulder. But Minhyuk doesn't understand, and none of them understand, and Kyung is going to be driven crazy soon by the waiting around, by the total uncertainty.

He doesn't even know if Jiho wants him around any more, or if he's just a useful distraction when he has nothing better to do.

Whatever it is, Jiho is away, and busy, and not responding to any of Kyung's messages, and Kyung is the one sitting in the kitchen with a hollow chest and gritty eyes and nothing better to do than wait. He's tried to fill his time, but nothing comes out right when he's in this mood: words sound like nonsense, everything he writes is so maudlin and hopeless it makes him ashamed, nothing on the television holds his attention. On top of everything else he feels pathetic, for being affected this much. It's not like Jiho is his boyfriend; they're close but they have their own lives and he should be able to live his just as freely. But he can't. For so long it was just the two of them; even the rest of their band members never came close to intruding on that private world they shared. Now that's been shattered to pieces by the arrival of someone else - someone Jiho doesn't know anywhere near as well but for some reason, loves just as much.

Maybe if Kyung had someone like that, it wouldn't be so difficult. It's being left behind, over taken yet again by the friend he always knew was two paces ahead of him. It's suddenly finding the place he occupied in Jiho's life, unquestionably, solidly, being pulled from under his feet and offered to someone else, someone neither of them should trust yet because what is two months compared to twelve years? What are some shy, tender smiles and intimate touches compared to pulling each other through hell?

Kyung drinks down his cold coffee, pushes the chair back from the table and shakes himself, hard; in ten seconds he will get up with force and find something to do, and when Jiho comes bursting in he won't just drop everything to run back to his side. He will, for once, be the one asking him to wait, and Jiho will be confused and unsure and Kyung knows that this is all a lie he tells himself to try not to feel so weak and abandoned. If he doesn't grab the opportunity while it's there, Jiho will be gone again and back in God knows how long, and Kyung will kick himself all evening for not accepting the simple, satisfying comfort of having someone close by his side, someone he knows (or thought he did) and loves and trusts (or thought he did).

He puts his hands back on the table, palms down, and closes his eyes hard. His phone is mute and the house is ticking over in unbearable silence, and Jiho is not there. Kyung wishes he could be not there, just for a day.