It seemed like the second Jongin’s family relocated to the United States because of his father’s job, all of his friends began dating each other. Jongin did not particularly mind this new development (although he’d prefer Zitao refrained from sending him video recordings of Joonmyeon and Jongdae making out on the couch), other than the fact that his best friend―and probably the love of his life―started dating that Chanyeol.

Well, to be fair, Chanyeol wasn’t actually an (he was actually really nice and entertaining, if not a bit annoying), but that didn’t stop Jongin from feeling horribly bitter that Chanyeol had gotten into Kyungsoo’s pants and then stolen his heart so quickly, when in fact Jongin had been trying the same thing but in reverse order for years. But, if he was honest with himself—because more often than not, he never was—he knew that it was him who had been the barrier between Chanyeol and Kyungsoo for a good part of their friendship. With Jongin conveniently out of the picture, they’d come together so naturally that more often than not it made Jongin feel terribly pathetic.

Eventually he had taught himself to combat the hollow feeling in his chest while living in New York City; after meeting some exciting new foreign friends, Jongin had taken on a completely new personality, reinventing himself entirely under a new nickname: Kai. Long gone was the painfully awkward Jongin, shy and introverted with only the small network of friends; now he was the y, dangerous, and enticing Kai. Residing in America surrounded by people of all different types of beauty, culture, and nature, Jongin had found a way to distract his yearning heart by learning to prowl the streets at night with his friends doing reckless things, dancing his nights away at clubs and coming home drunk or high off his ―if he came home at all. He’d picked up all kinds of habits associated with the “bad” crowd and his parents were absolutely horrified at the effect moving had on their previously well-behaved and perfect son.

Pretty soon Kim Jongin was but a distant memory; he’d become Kai and he liked it that way. Whereas Jongin had been content waiting for a love that ended up slipping through the cracks, Kai drank in all the love given to him like it was the air he breathed, the taste of it intoxicating on his tongue.

He was never going back.