A/N: This is my first attempt at writing this love triangle, and it's from Junhyung's POV. I'm not too content with the way it came out, but it's a scenario I really wanted to explore so I decided to leave it as it is. Hopefully it will be enjoyable despite its flaws. As for the timeline, in my mind this took place sometime at the end of July or beginning of August lol

ALWAYS

(everything leads me back to you)

He almost thinks he’s imagining her. Almost. He’s had a tiring day and his eyes hurt, aching for some well-deserved rest ,when and all of a sudden he rounds a corner and there she is standing all by herself. A tanned figure surrounded by the light grays and blues of the Cube building. She looks out of place, all motionless like that, but he is the one who feels the urge to get away just by looking at her petite frame.

He doesn’t.

It’s really been too long since he has last seen her. The vision feels foreign to his eyes and the sensation helps to remind him that he has missed her.

“Hey.”

His greeting is as unexpected as her presence—she was supposed to have a schedule somewhere else. Anywhere else. Her body stiffens—an instinctive reaction that he notices (and loathes) all too easily. But what he ignores is that her mind is bleached by the mere sight of him.

Despite the hurt he feels by her evident discomfort he gives her a kind smile, an implicit peace offering that she doesn’t bother to return. All he receives in response to his efforts is a disdainful side-glance accompanied by an equally disdainful monosyllable.

“Hi.”

The edges of his smile become strained but he stubbornly refuses to let it fall apart.

“How have you been, Hyuna-yah? I haven’t seen you in a while”

Silence.

He swallows down his uneasiness, doesn’t let a single trace of it show nor in his expression nor in his body language. He does, however, his suddenly all-too-dry lips and wishes he could do something to alleviate his throat, too.

“I’ve heard your schedule is crazy packed… Are you getting enough rest?”

“I’m fine.”

The response is as brisk as her presence in his life has been for the last two months and he knows he shouldn’t expect nor ask for anything else, not anymore—but he still gives it another shot, because she doesn’t look fine.

“… Are you sure? You look tired, Hyuna-yah. Your eye bags are—”

“I said I’m fine.”

She sounds annoyed, now. Her defenses up as high as they’ve ever been since—since, well… since things fell apart.

The thought tugs at his heart and keeps him grounded. Keeps him standing there in spite of her coldness, despite knowing that leaving would probably do both of them a favor.

He knows he needs to tread around her carefully, treat her as if she were a time bomb that could explode at any second, with the minimal wrong move. So he apologizes (it hadn’t been his intention to antagonize her) and then pushes his point in the most indulgent way he possible can. “It’s just… you haven’t been getting enough rest, have you? Ah… you know how that affects your health, Hyuna-yah. You should—”

“Aish, stop nagging me!” The explosion is hasty enough for Junhyung to be startled. It seems he hadn’t been able to avoid stepping on a landmine, after all. The rapper parts his lips, ready to try to at least defend himself, but Hyuna replies to his unsaid words as if she had read them on his eyes.

“Yah, don’t! I don’t need you getting worried about me, stop acting as if you cared!”

It’s not the first time she spits those words to him but to Junhyung they still felt like a slap. An all too weight-y statement capable of knocking the wind right out of his lungs.

If there was something he hated—if there was something that made his blood boil—that was Hyuna undermining his feelings for her with so much self-righteousness, as if such a lie were an absolute truth.

“I do care, Hyuna”

His affronted words are met by a snort and followed by impassive silence.

Yong Junhyung closes his eyes and takes in a deep breath.

To anyone walking by, it merely looked as if he were resting his tired eyes. If they could get a glimpse inside his mind though they would realize that inside there was a whole different story unraveling. Junhyung was trying with all his might to get a hold of himself and swallow down all the things he would’ve liked to say to her; letting his temper loose was a luxury he couldn’t afford, not when Hyuna wasn’t even trying to hold hers back. If he wasn’t careful he would end up responding to Hyuna’s taunts and that would only make things worse.

If they could be worse, that is.

That mere thought only served to make him angrier.

Did she really have to make things harder like this? Neither of them had exactly the easiest of times going their separate ways, so why is it that he can still make the effort of at least rekindling their old friendship while she insisted to treat him with such scorn?

Junhyung knew women and the way they worked. He knows, and so he’s aware that when women were hurt about something they became freaking hedgehogs, and so though it pains him, he isn’t blind enough not to realize that Hyuna may still be hurting because of him (even if she may never admit it)—but at the same time he can’t help but be selfish.

If he’s willing to at least try—because he cares about her, because he doesn’t want to lose her any more than he already has—then why can’t she do the same thing? Didn’t that mean that she didn’t care half as much as he did?

Really, did she have to be so—?

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

Junhyung came to his senses only to realize that Hyuna was giving him a guarded look. With a start, he realizes his eyes had opened out of their own volition somewhere through his reverie and they were set on her.

He takes another deep breath and wills himself to calm down for the umpteenth time. Clings to that awful feeling of guilt weighting down on him in order to keep his reply placid and abated as to not infuriate her any further.

“Sorry. I wasn’t looking at you, I just got lost in thought is all”

Hyuna rolls her eyes. “Pft. Yeah, right. What is it? If you want to say something, then just say it.”

Her narrowed eyes and daring tone make Junhyung frown, his temper quickly rising again.

“I said it’s nothing.” She was obviously trying to provoke him, trying to get a reaction out of him. Well, too bad for her. He wasn’t going to play her game.

“Whatever, I’m leaving now”

“Yeah. It’s always easier to leave…”

It’s just a murmur. He isn’t even sure if she meant it for him to hear, but he does so anyway and it makes him stop dead in his tracks.

“… What?”

“I said: say hi to Hara unnie for me.” Is what Hyuna replies, her lips adorned by a sweet smile so fake that it was painful.

That gets Junhyung. Despite all his efforts, for better or for worse, Kim Hyuna still knew how to push his buttons better than anyone.

“Who said I was going to see her?”

“And you aren’t?” Hyuna asks back with arched eyebrows, her voice deliberately innocent and regaining some of its child-like qualities in the process.

Her obvious act makes Junhyung narrow his eyes.

“No. Just so you know, I’m going back to the dorm. We have to go to Japan tomorrow and I have to—”

“Save it.” Dismisses the brunette all too easily, her conduct taking a swift turn and going back to the uncaring façade she loved to adopt around him nowadays. “You don’t have to explain anything to me, you know?”

That was the last straw. Leading him on like that only to throw in his face the fact that things between them had changed, only to make him feel like a fool—enough was enough. Whatever cool he had been able to hold onto slipped from his hands and was washed down the drain.

“Damn! Why do you have to be so—so—!”

“So what?! Be upfront about it for once!”

Junhyung saw red. The game of hide and seek was over; if Hyuna wanted him—

“… so damn childish! Goddamn Hyuna, grow up a little! Maybe then you’ll be able to find a guy and actually keep him by your side!”

—then she sure as hell had found him.

Junhyung turns around and storms out of the building before Hyuna can have the chance to pick herself together and yell at him. But he knows from the moment he turned his back on her that he had messed up. Big time.

It was exactly what he had tried to avoid from the get go—the reason why the two of them had been dancing a waltz of avoidance for the past two months. There were too many unsaid things, too many raw feelings still bottling up inside and begging to be heard—and Hyuna’s behavior didn’t make things easier. It never did, it never had, and—

And Junhyung wishes he could stop caring, but he can’t. He just can’t, damnit, and he knows Hyuna can’t, either.

He had seen her face. All he had gotten was a mere glimpse of it right as he turned around to leave, but it had been enough to make his heart ache and his gut swell with guilt.

Her expression as he yelled those hurtful words to her, the shine in her eyes, her agape lips—he had hurt her. Again. Had dropped a load of salt in a wound that was open and still bleeding.

So much for shouldering all the pain for her.

He felt like an idiot. Like the worst of s.

Damn it. He should’ve left while he still had the chance.

… but wasn’t that what started everything in the first place? Wasn’t that the beginning of the end?

Junhyung leaves the question hanging, never to be replied. Shaking his head, he tries to clear his thoughts.

Hyuna’s pained expression refuses to evaporate, however, and nothing Junhyung does can hold it back from haunting him for the rest of the afternoon.

-

‘So what?! Be upfront about it for once!’

“What’s wrong, Jjun?”

Junhyung blinks. Feeling disoriented by the sudden pull back to the present, he struggles to reignite the car as the traffic light shifts to green. A girl moves in the passengers’ seat, her big eyes set on him with concern written across them.

He doesn’t meet them, however. Pretends to be focused on the road extending ahead of him. It makes lying easier.

“It’s nothing, I’m just a bit tired… and I have some lyrics on my mind… you know how I get when inspiration hits” He sends her a reassuring smirk-like smile and makes brief eye contact through the rear mirror before turning his attention back to the road.

The girl by his side clicks her tongue and frowns, almost pouting. “You’re lying. What are you hiding, Jjun? If you’re worried about something, you know you can tell me, right?”

No, no he can’t. Not this, at least. How does one tell your current girlfriend that you can’t get the hurt face of one of her best friends—the girl you were in love with for the longest of times, at that—out of your mind?

It didn’t matter if the reason was that he had messed up and hurt Hyuna without intending to. It still wouldn’t sound pretty, and even if Hara would pretend to understand—would pretend to accept it, to not mind it, as she always did—the last thing Junhyung needed right then was to hurt yet another person due to not minding his words.

Or due to not being able to control the way he felt. Both were true, and the latter needed to be solved before it had the chance to screw him over even more.

Even now—even then he was getting screwed over by his apparent incapability of forsaking the past and focusing on the present. He was committed to it—committed to the decision he had taken and to the girl beside him, but the truth is that despite that he has been absentminded throughout the whole date. Absentminded and filled with regret due to the words he had yelled to Hyuna that morning.

His heart felt heavy, and the feeling just wouldn’t leave him alone. Not even Hara’s smiles or her touch could ease up the awful sensation, and that made him feel even guiltier, because her sole presence should’ve been enough to make him forget everything but her.

“Jjun? Junhyung, are you listening?”

… and he was doing anything but that. Damn, he really, really needed to get a hold of himself and that wandering mind of his.

“Yeah, that I can tell you anything, right? I know. Don’t worry Hara, it’s nothing… Today was just really exhausting, that’s all. Sorry for worrying you”

She doesn’t look convinced, but she lets it slide, knowing well that she wouldn’t be getting anything out of him. It’s with a pout that she gives in. “Okay… but remember! If you need to talk to someone, I’m here for you, okay? Don’t forget that…!”

Junhyung smiles, touched and thankful, and reaches out to playfully flick her nose. “Thanks, babe”

He says the nickname without thinking and while Hara lights up, something inside of him does a double take.

The nickname felt weird. It feels alien as it slips through his lips and leaves a bittersweet aftertaste in his tongue; the last time he had used that had been with—

With Hyuna.

Hyuna.

Hyuna.

Everything lead back to Hyuna. Always.

There was no avoiding it. He had to apologize.

-

It’s a quarter past 3AM and his flight left at 8AM. He had to be at the airport at a quarter past 7, and wake up at 5. He had no time for this. He was supposed to be getting some rest after dropping his girlfriend off at her dorm.

But instead he’s parking in an all too familiar building and making his way past the guard in the door—a guard that he also knows only too well. He walks to the elevator and marks the floor without even hesitating, without even thinking; he knows all the corridors by heart, and they lead him to a single door with a white bell that he rings twice before he can regret it.

He is supposed to be sleeping, and so was she—but neither of them had ever been good at doing what they were supposed to do, and he knows damn well that he wasn’t the only one who would be kept awake tonight due to unwanted thoughts and feelings that weren’t supposed to be there anymore.

His suspicions are proven right as her groggy voice reaches him through the speaker on the side of the door.

“Who is it?”

He remains silent, however. She wouldn’t open if she knew it was him on the other side, he was positive of that. So he waits, motionless, as she repeats her question two more times before the speaker goes mute again.

Any sane person would’ve probably backed away and not opened the door, much less at those hours. But Junhyung knows Hyuna, and he knows her curiosity wouldn’t leave her alone if she didn’t find out who was there. She had never really had a good sense of imminent danger, yet another thing he would always nag her about.

He probably should nag her again, now—he thinks, as the door begins to open—but as her make-up less face appears through the peak in the door, Junhyung doesn’t have much time for anything. Hyuna’s eyes have widened to impossible widths and she tries to close the door in his face before Junhyung even has the time to blink.

Thankfully, such reaction was entirely too expected, so Junhyung’s feet sneaks in just in time to prevent the door from closing.

“Wait, Hyuna—Let me in!”

Hyuna pays him no heed, struggling to push him away and seclude herself back in her apartment. “Are you crazy? I’m alone in here! What do you think this will look like?!”

“I don’t care, let me in!” And he meant that. He didn’t care if anyone saw them, after driving all the way there, there was no way in hell he would leave without sorting things out with Hyuna once and for all.

The girl struggles silently for a few more moments before inquiring, her voice sharp and her features troubled.

“… Does Hara unnie know you’re here?”

Junhyung says nothing but his silence says it all for him. Hyuna rolls her eyes and pushes him, hard. “You’re the worst, seriously. Get out!”

“Wait! Let’s talk here then, with the door open like this. It won’t take long anyway”

“Are you crazy?” By the way she was looking at him, it was obvious Hyuna seriously thought that he was. Completely out of his mind, even. Junhyung does nothing to correct her; there may be some truth to that statement, and besides he had run out of resources and he needed her to give in at least this much. He needed her to relent enough to at least hear him out.

But Hyuna gives no signs of caving in. While she stops trying to forcefully push him away from her apartment’s threshold, the look she was giving him made him feel just as, if not even more unwelcomed than her physical resistance. “What do you want? To insult me again?”

Junhyung breathes in deeply. He had thought of a lot of ways to approach the subject, while he was driving there—but the truth is that while faced with the real deal, there simply was no easy way to do it. There was no easy way of saying what he had come here to say.

He sighs, already dreading what was to come.

“Look, Hyuna… I’m not going to take my words back.” It may not be the best place to start, but that was one point he wanted to make clear, no matter what. He had meant what he said, it’s just… it wasn’t supposed to come out the way it did. Or at all. “But… I am sorry about the way I said it. I didn’t mean to.”

“So?” Hyuna prods, apparently unfazed. She crosses her arms across her chest and gives him a deadpanned look. “That doesn’t mean you think of me as any less childish.”

Junhyung doesn’t deny the accusation, but he also makes no effort to hide from his expression how sorry he truly was for his outburst. “I’m still sorry I hurt you”

“Heh, please… ” Hyuna looks away as she snorts, her lips contorted in a grimace meant to sting. But when her eyes land on his again, Junhyung can easily see there were things she was trying—and failing—to hide. Her feelings, for one. “… You can’t hurt me any more than you already have.”

The statement was meant to sound cold. It was meant to be just that, a statement—but it ends up being a drained admittance of a fact the two of them knew only too well, even if they did their best to pretend they were unaware of it.

Alas, she was lying.

Truth was, Junhyung could still hurt Hyuna. Because she had never stopped hurting in the first place.

“Hyuna…”

She shakes her head and backs away, pitifully. She’s back to trying to close the door, but she’s doing so half-heartedly, weakly—with her head hung low, curtains of hair shielding her eyes and expression from the boy standing before her.

“Just go, Junhyung. I don’t even know what I ever saw in you, seriously… I don’t care anymore, just let me be.”

She may say that—but with the way she says it, coupled with the way it hurts him, Junhyung can do anything but.

I don’t know what I ever saw in you

He wishes he didn’t feel half as bothered, half as hurt as he did by her words—her words, which she had unknowingly spoken in banmal. Reminding him without even intending to of the way things used to be between them, making him face the harsh reality they were living and worsening the blow even more—but all his wishing lately has turned out to be futile, and this isn’t the exception. And as he swallows down the hurt and looks at her, he wonders if this was how Hyuna felt that morning. He wonders if he made her feel like he didn’t understand how he fell for her in the first place.

If that was the case, then he… he had a lot of amends to make. He just… didn’t know if there was any way to fix issues and cuts that ran as deeply as these did.

The possibility of their bond being damaged beyond repair frightened him. So much so that half of him was tempted to just… just turn around and leave. Right there and then. Take the easy way out. Not find out if things were as bad as he feared they may be.

But…

yeah, it’s always easier to leave…

He had already made that mistake once, hadn’t he? If he kept running… they wouldn’t get anywhere. And he wanted to get somewhere with her—that’s what he had always wanted.

Even if that somewhere was the end.

“Don’t say that, Hyuna…”

“Don’t say what?”

She looks so small and fragile then. Eyes set on the floor, frame hidden behind oversized clothes—everything in her demeanor screamed beaten. tired. resigned.

But there was also a lot of hesitance there. A lot of underlying hurt and anger. And Junhyung was determined to get to the bottom of it all, even if he got burnt in the process.

“That you don’t care anymore. Stop lying, Hyuna-yah… it doesn’t do either of us any good”

His words reignite the match inside Hyuna and her eyes return to life, b brightly with resentment and reproach.

“Huh? and why should I care if it doesn’t do you any good, Junhyung-ah? As far as I remember, you never cared if your decisions hurt me, too!”

There she went again, pushing all the blame into his shoulders and completely missing the point of every damn thing they had gone through in the past months. Junhyung has had enough of it, this time she would have to hear him out—

“Stop that! Stop trying to play the victim here, Hyuna! You know damn well I’m not to blame for all of this!”

“So what are you saying then? That it’s all my fault?! Huh?! Is that what you’re saying?” Her eyes narrow and her voice raises an octave higher. “That it’s my fault that you left me and hooked up with one of my best friends?!”

Junhyung feels insulted, and also guilty. Insulted by what her words insinuated, and guilty for whatever truth there may be behind them. His face contorts into a grimace product of a mixture between anger and distress.

“That’s not how it was, and you know it! I left you because I had to! Because if things had stayed the way they were, we wouldn’t have gotten anywhere!”

“How can you know that, huh?! Who the hell made you a fortune-teller?” Hyuna was completely irate now, looking every bit as insulted and indignant as Junhyung felt mere seconds ago. “Things could have worked out! You had no right to tell me we were doomed when we didn’t even start!”

“I said it as I saw it, Hyuna!” Junhyung defends, helplessly. Bringing back his decision again, fighting over it like this with her for the first time—it was taking a toll on him to the point he was beginning to second-guess ever coming to apologize in the first place. This scenario was due months ago. It was taking place a little too late.

They were supposed to be over this. He was supposed to be over this.

But instead of being over it Junhyung spits out reproaches of his own—reproaches he had never meant to voice aloud. Wears on his sleeve wounds that he had meant to hide from her forever.

“If you were so convinced we could’ve worked out, then why didn’t you ever tell me that? You were the first one to agree and say that you weren’t ready for this, for us!”

Hyuna pushes him, furious. “Do you have to keep reminding me that I messed up?! That I was too much of an idiot to hold onto you?! What about you, huh? You didn’t even try, either!”

“Bull! I waited, Hyuna! I waited four freaking months for you to show at least a sign of wanting me back! I waited for you to feel ready, but you never did!” Admitting that aloud hurt more than he could’ve thought possible. It felt as if he were living it, all over again—the incertitude, the longing, the waiting, the hurting, the disappointment. All the conflicting emotions that had defined his feelings for Hyuna these past few months were there, pulsing painfully inside of him, threatening to overcome his senses and swallows him whole. His voice is hoarse, his head begins to hurt. “You started dating around and tried to ignore me, and what the hell was I supposed to do, huh? Was I supposed to wait forever when it didn’t even seem like you cared?!”

That hits Hyuna, it hits her hard and she chokes on an unleashed sob as her defenses fall and crumble at their feet. “I cared, damnit! Of course I cared! How could you have not seen that?!”

Junhyung shakes his head and hangs it, heavy with the disappointment he has felt all along. “I got tired of playing guessing, Hyuna. I was always honest to you about how I felt. I always showed to you that I was willing to give you my all. For once… for once, I just wanted you to do the same for me. But you never did.”

His eyes meet hers and his shoulders slouch as he breathes out his next words, a mere murmur only for her to hear. “You just… gave me up without even trying”

There are tears openly running down Hyuna’s cheeks, now. Her hands land against his chest, an intended push that she has no will to see through the end, and so her fingers fist in his shirt instead.

“What was I supposed to do, oppa? Try to steal you back from one of my best friends?”

She inquires, sounding miserable. There’s no anger there, not anymore—there was only sorrow, and genuine confusion. Right then, she was as much at a loss at what to do as she had been back when all this had happened.

Junhyung’s everything aches as he looks down at her. Seeing her looking so stricken and so lost had always felt like a stab straight to his heart, even more so now that he was the cause. But the truth was… Hyuna wasn’t the only one who had been hurting all long, and the bitterness keeps him from giving in to comforting her.

“… You had plenty of time before me and Hara got together, Hyuna. You had plenty of time, but you still did nothing.”

And that—that was what everything came down to. He may have walked away, but he had always made sure to remain at arm’s reach. Always waiting. Always hoping. Always.

But Hyuna never tried to grasp him. Not even when everything between them began. He had always been there, but no matter how hard he tried, he always seemed to slip in between Hyuna’s fingers.

And, at the end... at the end, it had gotten tiring. It had become more than he could handle. And so, he made a decision—a decision that deviated his road from hers, and he had spent so much time away that he forgot the way back. The thread tying them together stretched more than any of them could handle, it seemed.

… Both of them had let that happen.

"Look, Hyuna… I don’t blame you.”

He doesn’t. There’s no one to blame in a business where both of them held the same responsibility; a thread had two ends, after all.

“You weren’t ready. You… still aren’t ready. I understand that. I always did. But…” Junhyung breathes in deeply and his hands encircle Hyuna’s, which were still fisted in his shirt. Her fragile hands are shaking. But so are his. “All I ask is that you understand me, too. Hyuna… Hyuna, look at me”

Hyuna remains unresponsive, her tear-stained face lowered and hidden from his sight. Her state makes a wave of thick desperation wash over Junhyung, and he squeezes her fists urgently.

“Hyuna! Look at me! Please.”

The girl must have heard the anxiety in his voice, because she swallows down the lump in and slowly raises her face. When her eyes meet his, Junhyung gives a moment to the both of them to steady themselves, before speaking.

“You have to understand that if I let you go, it was because I thought it’d be the best for you. Wait—just hear me out!” He asks, holding her in place as she tried to get away from him again. “I know you think these are all just pathetic excuses, but they aren’t. Listen, Hyuna… if you weren’t ready to be with me, then maybe… maybe it just means I wasn’t the right guy for you, you know?”

Hyuna meets his eyes briefly and then averts them again. But Junhyung doesn’t try to make her look at him again, because he had seen enough. He had seen the same bitterness, the same reluctance he himself felt as he thought of those words.

Hearing himself say it… it felt like an out of body experience, somehow. Admitting that he wasn’t the guy for Hyuna was like giving her up all over again. It felt as if he were letting a part of himself go and wither like fallen flower-petals.

“You will find that guy someday. A guy you’ll want to fight for, despite everything. And when that guy comes, you will be ready. Because, well… you just will be.”

He would have liked to not believe his own words, but truth is he was convinced of them. No matter how much he wished for the contrary, the only logical explanation was that he just wasn’t the guy Hyuna would fall madly in love with.

And it . Even now, months later—it still . Because not even being in a relationship could erase the fact that though he hadn’t been the right guy for Hyuna, he had thought she would be that girl for him.

She had felt like that girl.

“I… I’m sorry I couldn’t be that guy for you, Hyuna. I really, really would have liked to be him, but...” He wills his eyes to stop stinging and forces his lips to give her a comforting smile. It comes out painful-looking, and Junhyung is thankful that Hyuna is still trying to avoid looking at him. “… I guess some things just aren’t meant to be, right?”

Hyuna’s leg—which she had been moving compulsively as a let-out for her nerves—halts, her body stiffening. Her tiny fists, which were still covered by Junhyung’s warm hands, start to squirm faintly in his hold.

She wanted to go back inside, he could see that. But he wasn’t done yet. He had yet to say the most important thing.

“Even so… that doesn’t mean I can’t care about you. I may not be your boyfriend, but I am your friend, and you’re important to me, Hyuna.” He wants to reach out and cup her face in his hands. Wants to wash away the new wave of tears that start to leak down her cheeks, but he knows he can’t. Knows it would be inappropriate, and so he holds himself back and squeezes her hands instead—he had stepped on enough boundaries for tonight.

“You may not feel the same way about me right now, but just give it a chance, will you? Please. I’m still here, Hyuna. I may not be able to offer you the same things I did in the past, but… I have not gone anywhere.” His words are vehement. He has been aching to say them for so long now, he couldn’t help but pour all of himself into them. He needed Hyuna to realize this, to understand this, to accept it.

“You just have to… let me in.”

He falls silent afterwards, and Hyuna remains wordless. So all Junhyung does is stare at her. Stare and will his thoughts and feelings to reach her, reach her in the same way hers have always reached him.

The girl takes in a deep breath and bites down on her lower lip, before slowly, delicately detaching herself from him and his hold.

She takes a single step back, her hands hanging by her sides.

“… Go home, oppa”

Junhyung takes in a deep breath of his own, holding back the strong urge to hold her again. “… Alright. Just… will you be okay?”

Will you be okay?

Such a vague question. Just what did he mean? Her schedule, her health, her broken heart, will you cry yourself to sleep tonight, what?

He doesn’t know it, himself. Maybe it was everything at once.

It takes her a few moments, but when she meets his eyes, she stares into them long and hard and then nods once, then twice, resolutely.

“I will be. I may still have a long way to go but… I’m working on it. I’ll get there some day, you’ll see.”

Her words sound sincere, unguarded. There’s conviction behind them, so Junhyung nods, smiles. It felt bittersweet. “I know.” And then adds, after a moment of hesitation overpowered by the familiar sensation that always ran through his veins whenever Hyuna looked into his eyes like that, “I’ll be waiting.”

Such a vague statement.

He gives no time for any of them to make anything out of it though, simply turns around and leaves after giving her one last smile that somehow felt like a goodbye, and he has almost reached the elevator when Hyuna’s voice calls him back.

“Oppa!”

Junhyung wipes around to face her, but Hyuna’s lips remain parted and unmoving, her voice secluded somewhere inside . She simply looks at him, while shadows of many different emotions dance across her features. She looks at him for a very long moment that seemed to stretch on forever, and then she finally gives him a slight smile.

It’s soft, and barely there—but Junhyung can see it just fine despite the distance, because it reaches her eyes. It’s the first genuine smile Hyuna has given him in months, and something inside his chest feels like it’s about to burst with happiness and hope.

Maybe Hyuna could see the celebration taking place inside chest, because her smile widens slightly as she slowly shakes her head, and just like that Junhyung knows he won’t get to hear what truly made her call him back.

“Goodnight, oppa. Text me when you get to the dorm, okay? I’d hate it if you got yourself killed because of me”

Is what she ends up saying instead, but Junhyung can’t find it in himself to feel disappointed. At the contrary, he feels a current of electricity running through his body and chuckles, amused at Hyuna’s all too familiar antics. “’kay, will do. And you get some sleep, alright? Don’t take it the wrong way, but those eye bags are starting to look pretty ugly”

His comment gets him the expected reaction—the one reaction he had desired, and as he watches Hyuna frown and whine, he feels his spirits lift so much so that he felt like he could just float away to his dorm at any second.

“Yah! Really, I haven’t given you permission to tease me like that yet, okay! You still have a long way to go to get there!”

“No teasing, just giving sincere advice! You should be grateful I’m this generous!”

“Tsk, you and your ego. Just get going already!”

Is what Hyuna throws over her shoulder as she waves goodbye to him.

It’s only when the girl goes inside her apartment and softly closes the door behind her that Junhyung allows the goofy grin to curve his lips, staring at the spot where she had been standing mere seconds ago with a fond look in his eyes.

It’s been a long while since they’ve bantered like that. It was downright ridiculous just how much he had missed it.

“Goodnight, Hyuna”

They were still capable of being friends.

Not everything was lost between them. Things could get better. Things would get better.

He just needed to be a little patient, but soon enough Hyuna would be capable of treating him the way she once had. And then things would go back to normal, and that is the one thing Junhyung has been yearning for all along.

All he wants is to be able to be her friend. That’s all. That was enough for him.

As he makes his way to his car, a smile plastered over his face, he fishes out his phone only to find that he has a couple of missed calls and text messages. Most of them were from Doojoon, who was telling him to get his sorry back to the dorm because otherwise he would be moody at the airport tomorrow and that would be no good for the fans, but there was also one for Hara, who was wishing him a goodnight and a safe trip tomorrow.

Junhyung’s smile widens. Things hadn’t been easy at first, but they seemed to be really working out for the best. He would give his girlfriend a call tomorrow as soon as he stepped on Japan; he felt he owed her for not being truly himself while they were on their date today.

When he gets in his car, still thinking about possible ways to make it up to Hara, he turns on the radio and the soulful melody of A Bitter Day starts to play. The song was just starting, Gina’s melodious voice enveloping him like a blanket, and Junhyung leans his head back on the seat and sighs.

Hyuna.

There it was again.

Everything lead back to her.

Everything.

Always.

… And Yong Junhyung would be lying if he said a part of him wasn’t counting on that to bring them together again in the end. 

end.