I hear him taking a deep breath. “I’m thinking of withdrawing”

      “Withdraw from what?” I ask, still looking away.

      “From the band”

      His words make me turn to him immediately. My eyes lock with his after a long time. And for the first time since the filming, he doesn’t try to leave my eyes.

      “What do you mean?” I put down the beer bottle on the table in front of me.

      “If I keep staying, people are however going to notice the issue and it will bring some bad reputation to our group” He sips some beer again.

      “So you think if you leave the band it’s going to gain us some good reputation?” My tone is furious.

      He’s being unreasonable, very unreasonable.

      “At least it’ll take away this awkwardness between us and people won’t notice anything different”

      “Dude! We have 5 members. If one leaves that is going to create a complete difference because our band name is based on the five of us”

      “There’s no other way left” He rocks the beer bottle back and forth on the table.

      “Are you kidding? There’s a thousand ways left! First; we can work on pretending and acting better on-screen. Second; we might can come up with some lie and calm down these fangirls or third…” I pause for a moment. “We can try to make up and let go of this awkwardness”

      I felt like something peeled those words off my heart.

      “Is it even possible?” He asks as if it’s something impossible to do.

      “This whole awkwardness started after we did that film” I sigh at the last word.

      “No, no. This started after you confessed” He says the word I hate to hear.

      “It would have been better than this if you gave me a yes or no”

      He immediately breaks our eye contact. I idly wonder how he managed to mention my confession without looking away from me. But now he’s staring at a wall taking more sips from his beer.

      After another moment of silence and then I speak. “Anyway I got your answer from your silent treatments but if we ever discussed about this before, then we might have settled this already. Instead you decided to ignore me from the day I…” I hopelessly stuck at what I was going to say.

      I don’t have the courage to talk about my confession. The fact that he avoided was the main reason that hurt me this much; six months and he’s still avoiding it as if it was some curse for him. He should have either told me that he isn’t interested or that he don’t like me but no, he decided to ignore.

      “That changed things between us Hyung Jun” He speaks without turning at me.

      I remember the days when he used to call me Hyung Junah, but today it’s just Hyung Jun.

      “It might not have if you didn’t decide to ignore. I mean you agreed to do the film and then you act like it’s something you hate” I pick up my beer again, I need beer.

      “Just because I did a gay film doesn’t mean that I’m into men”

      That hit me like a hurricane.   I’m sure somewhere along the journey I felt that he isn’t interested in men but, I always thought it was me whom he didn’t like. But yeah, sometimes the awkwardness told me that he doesn’t want to get involved with guys. But… but I had feelings for him since we came back as a band again. And when he decided to do that film, I thought he’s like me, into men. So I decided to confess hoping for a good answer, not this awkwardness of course.

      I wait for him to say something but he doesn’t. I feel my eyes tearing up. “You could have told me that without torturing me like this for six months” My voice breaks as I try my best not to cry.

      “I wish I knew how to” He sighs and drinks all the remaining beer in one breath.

      “I wouldn’t have confessed to you if you never did that film. Why would you ever do a film like that if you are not into men? Weren’t you scared of your personality being judged?”

      “It’s just acting” He wraps up everything in such an easy way.

      A loud clink occurs as I put down the beer on the glass table. “Before we started the film we both agreed to stay friends no matter what happens. Even though none of us directly talked about it but we knew something might happen and that’s why we agreed to something like that”

      “I shouldn’t have done that film. That’s what caused all of this ” He stands up and walks to the kitchen.

      I watch him taking out two more beer bottles from the refrigerator and coming back to the dining table. He opens them both and turns at me but doesn’t meet my eyes.

      “Oh so you regret doing it? Why didn’t you think about it before?” I ask harshly.

      “I don’t know” He shakes his head staring down.

      I get furious once again. How come he doesn’t know of a reason why he did the film? What is he a kindergarten student? One reckless decision of his changed my entire life.

      “Why’d you do the damn film with me Jung Min?” I shout loudly, standing up.

      My knees hit the table and the beer falls down spilling the liquid all over it. I couldn’t care any less nor could he.

      “Because then someone else would have done it!”

      “Why would it even matter to you?” I ask.

      “Because I couldn’t bear watching you with someone else!” He shouts looking at me.

      My breathing stops for a moment. None of us leave each other’s eyes.

      “I had feelings for you goddammit” His shouts again and loudly slaps the dining table.

      My mouth drops open. The tears forming in my eyes make me blink and I snap out of the frozen posture. My body helplessly fall onto the sofa and I try to speak but I can’t find my words.

      “You never even noticed” He takes a seat.

      “I…”That’s all I can say.

      “It took you a damn film to build feelings for me. It all happened because of those intimate scenes we did in the film. If we haven’t done the film, then you wouldn’t have ever confessed to me either”

      “It wasn’t just the film” I whisper.

      “Don’t lie Hyung Junah”

      As much as I’m sad and hurt right now, a thrill of happiness goes through me as he addresses me like that. It try to cover my face with a smile but I hold it back.

      “I had feelings for you since our comeback”

      “Don’t make things up. It won’t help now”

      “I’m not making things up!” I stand up with anger.

      He sighs and sips a new bottle of beer.

      “I swear to you I’m telling the truth. The only thing that film did was ensure me that you didn’t have any problems in liking… men” I stop for a moment. “But then you started ignoring me and I thought the reason was because you didn’t like me, only me. And I-”

      He speaks before I finish. “Nothing would make any difference now”

      “At least I confessed to you, but you! You never told me how you felt-”

      “Forget it!” He jumps in between again like he’s ashamed to talk about it.

      “No! We are not avoiding this again. We are going to talk about it. After all that’s why I came here so I’m not leaving until we are settled with this”

      “I didn’t have confidence” He mumbles.

      “You turned me down when I came to you. And you expect me to believe the fact that you have feelings for me?” I ask in a dry tone taking two steps towards him.

      “Had…” He corrects me and I sigh.

      “Whatever. Why didn’t you even ask me anything without jumping into conclusions?”

      “Because you are Hyung Jun! And I know you so well”

      “Obviously you don’t” I snap and turn around to head out because I’m disappointed.

      I take a look at the spilled beer deciding whether or not to clean it because it’s a mess I’ve made and this is not my house. But I know if I stick around more than this then I’ll be the one to end up getting hurt more and more. So I walk towards the door ignoring it.

      “Hyung Junah wait…” He speaks from behind.

      “Wait for what Jung Min?” I turn back at him. “Wait for what? It’s completely clear to me that you are sick of me right now and that you don’t have feelings for me anymore. And I’m completely sure that if I keep hanging around you like this, alone…” I highlight the last word. “I’m just going to get more hurt, nothing else”

      “It’s just not possible for me to be my old self back again” He says looking down.

      “We can’t turn back time. Especially you can’t” I say in an offensive tone and walk out of his home.

      After a several steps, being the pathetic fool I usually am, I take look back at his apartment to see whether he’s following me or not. All I see is an empty hallway. The pain pierces into me.

      We’ve talked today more than we’ve ever done in the past six months. In one way it’s making me happy but in another way it’s making me want to break into tears.