There were cero feelings.

I remember there were cero feelings until you talk to me for the first time. It was Saturday, the first day I came into YG building with my bunny smile and long hair. I was the weird one, with me accent and a little Korean that I learned at home only because of my mom’s desire of not losing part of our culture. I remember that day as it was a normal day, maybe yesterday.

I was trying to do my best speaking with everyone around me. “Make friends”, mom told me, and that was the only thing I cared about. Jinwoo was there, smiling at me just because he felt the impetuous obligation of being kind and then a ring sounded accompanying my attention. They said your name and I wanted to know you.

I remember perfectly you came in with a green big t-shirt, a birthday gift, and a smile that brighten more than one face. The day went by and something happened, it wasn’t my imagination, a true complicity was built between us. We were kids and friendship among kids is easy to be built, there are only some funny jokes and games needed but our time together didn’t get reduced. My mind was always thinking about you, how I could help and make you feel better. We grew up and our time talking about videogames was spent working on some tracks and practices that ended up with both lying on the floor with difficulties for breathing. I got used to spend my nights with you, taking care of your sleep to make sure you rested enough to go on with the following day. You didn’t know about it because my face was brighter than ever when you woke up. It was my routine and tiredness wasn’t my enemy after all.

My feelings for you were always pure and well-intentioned. I never meant to have something that you couldn’t give me back and it was okay, love sometimes might be cruel but I had our friendship and that was more than enough for having me smiling the whole day. It didn’t hurt at first and maybe at second, but after all those years seeing you every minute of the day my heart started to get darker. WIN, Show Me the Money and then Mix and Match made me realize that I couldn’t protect you forever… I wasn’t the strong one and every time I looked in the mirror I felt the jealousy climbing up my guts turning me into someone I didn’t want to be. Competition was part of our lives but seeing you with other people just made me feel useless. You didn’t give me more than two words during the practices nor even a look, my name sometimes was shouted when I did wrong with the dance steps however it wasn’t enough. My love for you was breaking me apart.

I decided to spend my days with the newbies. They didn’t know about our close relation so they couldn’t realize the gap growing between us. That was refreshing for me: our friendship couldn’t stand by its own and I needed to get rid of the thoughts I had stuck in my head.

I was sitting on the floor, enjoying the band company. Jinhyung and Chanwoo were talking to me so I decided to turn around and evade my mates’ looks which were judging me harder than ever. I beat my record: one week without exchanging a word with them. And I was feeling all right, yeah.

Of course.

All the boys were laughing and speaking loud, making jokes between each other, pushing their bodies playfully… having a good time. But I didn’t feel like fitting in. I had the impression of being a chess piece in a checkers game, with my eyes going back and forth searching for something I couldn’t find, something that was driving me crazy for a long time and I couldn’t suppress anymore.

Hanbin was the one feeling better with my absence. It looked like “best friends” is not a word that can last forever. He was resting his back on the mirror and his gaze on the different member’s faces. I could read each one of the emotions the leader was having in that moment: in every moment. Part of my trainee years were wasted on guessing what that boy was thinking about and how to make him feel less tired after hours in the studio. Maybe it could sound like something mad but in fact it was a small portion of the strong friendship we made along the years, a friendship turned into a diamond that I wanted to protect at all costs… and that I lost time ago.

I thought a broken heart is something people have to live with. Everybody feels sad sometimes and not everybody has a good romantic relationship. I knew it was practically impossible to be loved back specially when the other person is Kim Hanbin. Anyway, I wasn’t counting with the fact that our friendship could be easily touched when an emotion as love intervenes.

I didn’t want it to change; I wanted everything to stay the same but those looks… those looks, those smiles. Why was he always looking at Chanwoo like that? They met months ago and he slept with him, watched movies with him and trained hours and hours with him.

It was the kind of things we did together when our friendship was still important to him.

-Chanwoo-ah - he said again, making the newbie raise his head and go running to him.

“It’s pathetic”, I thought. But not long time ago I would have had the same reaction as Chanwoo, so inside of me I couldn’t blame the boy for acting like an idiot in front of the leader. We were all in love with that boy, some of us stronger than others.

I started thinking about what could’ve been and couldn’t have been arrived… maybe because of immaturity, lack of experience or a bit of ego… or maybe because I didn’t know how to love in the right way, but who knows about loving correctly?

I closed my eyes visualizing the future of the past I thought I could have had. I only wanted to share some little things with him: a deep look, deeper than normal; waking up in the same bed, a bad joke between us that only we two could understand, a hug not too long but two beats more longer than usual because if it took three or four I wouldn’t be able to let him go…

It was frustrating to know I couldn’t make the feeling disappear, that I broke my own friendship with him without knowing… that love only belonged to me and at the same time it was external because if Hanbin didn’t exist that feeling wouldn’t either.

-Well, some are getting better than others. You’re improving too fast, Woonie - Hanbin said.

Woonie… Chanwoonie…

“He used to call me that”, my mind spoke.

I slided my eyes so they could reach my own hands and stayed quiet for minutes until a hand fondled my left shoulder. I could feel Yunhyeong’s hand trying to calm me; he was the only one that didn’t give up on me even though my attitude was terrible with him and the others. He spent nights in silence hearing me sobbing inside my sheets and tried to comfort me after being ignored over and over again. He was the one suffering both sides of the band and tried hard to put them together again.

I got up and crossed the room to finally get my stuff and run out that ing building.

I was making my way home alone, feeling how winter cold was starting to possess Seoul’s air. My hands hidden in my pockets and the slow walk made me look like a lost kid in the sea of grey skyscrapers that the city showed, surrounded by different color lights and people with nowhere to go.

Just like me.

I only wanted to disappear, for one night, giving no excuses, not answering the phone, not having to smile when I didn’t want to or just talk because it was needed in a conversation. I only wanted to break free of everything, run and don’t look back even if consequences needed to be taken the next day.

I could hear my own thoughts as echo for my steps. In a city so big I felt lonelier than ever, like if I was a stranger that no one could perceive: just a shadow in an alley, a voice in the traffic, a breath in the dense contamination.

“I’m so sorry”, I was thinking while my feet were taking the initiative leading me somewhere my mind didn’t know, “I’m so sorry I broke this friendship with my ty attitude, I’m sorry I’ve destroyed everything… I’m so sorry”, I wish Hanbin could hear me so he was able to understand the process of fading I was suffering. But what could I do? I was nothing, no one. If I disappeared they wouldn’t miss me.

That thought made me walk even faster, with my shoulders hunched so cold stayed away from me. However the coldest breeze was installed in the center of my chest and hadn’t left it yet. I wished it to go away and leave me alone.

I could not stop looking at the cars passing me on the road, some people walking by my side pushed me but I was so deep in thought that didn’t perceive none of what was happening around me. My legs had taken seriously the idea of running away and disappear; maybe I could fulfill one of my small desires as the rest of them were truncated time ago.

I don’t know how long I was walking the busy streets that gave way to narrower and uneven sidewalks leading to lost neighborhoods which I had never been in. I climbed several hills without knowing exactly where they would lead me, I was so obsessed by the idea of escaping that nothing could stop me flee away further and further from the city.

Why had I fallen in the mistake of suffering something like that? How could I be so selfish? Kim Jiwon, you idiot. If you had just decided to take it and be quiet, keep it to myself forever… do not let the smile evaporate. It can’t be complicated. I ruined everything.

I finally got into an empty wasteland. It was a green field, like a park, with Poplars near a wooden fence that created a nonexistent privacy on the place. Just two lamps lit the park and I felt those bulbs were an orange analogy to my moral state. Few lights lit what remained of what once I was. I didn’t only missed spending time with my best friend and feel integrated in the group but the fact of not finding myself in the mirror. That was complicating my life to the point of reducing me to a stranger.

I walked briskly to one of the wooden tables set there. I was scared of being alone at that hour in an unknown place, even though part of me was ignoring the fact that something could happen to me: who cares? At the end of the day I hadn’t much more to lose.

I left the bag next to me and sat on the table itself, resting my feet on the bench that served as a seat. I needed to find something more to protect me from the cold so I opened my “companion” to take a scarf. The phone vibrated violently inside my bag, there was a lot of missed calls from JinHwan and Donghyuk. I did not care, really did not. “It’s just commitment or to ask you to bring some food way home”, I said aloud gloomily. A sad smile invaded my face: even that friendship with the others felt resentful.

«-I’m always gonna be here for you. I’ll take care of you – Hanbin took the hand of the boy beside him and squeezed it happily.

-I’m the oldest; I should be taking care of you.

-But I love you the most. So I’ll always protect you, I promise. – the little boy showed his pinky finger to seal the deal with his best friend. He was a kid but he felt their friendship would last forever, his idea of becoming an artist developed into something he had to do with Bobby.

-We will always be friends, right?

-Yeah, forever.

Jiwon smiled and passed an arm around Hanbin’s body, ready to sleep. »

Memories fought inside my head, making me release some lost tears that dripped down my cheeks to the chin and then fell onto my hands. I missed those times. 

I was so focused on calming myself that for a moment I didn’t notice the different vibration of my mobile phone. Long sequences were changed for small spaces that warned of other type of contact. I didn’t want to cry; in fact I hated crying, maybe because it was something unusual in me and made me feel even weirder.

I managed to smile as the Kakao pop showed a different message from the missed calls of my colleagues.

“Bobby, please, answer”.

It looked like somebody was still caring even when my attitude was ty as hell.

I touched the screen with my finger and opened the application to read the messages written. The hours dated since my break from the training center and it looked like somebody hadn’t given up on me.

Yunhyeong.

“I know you’re sad right now. I’m so sorry I couldn’t make you feel better these weeks… I’m sorry I couldn’t do anything for you at night. I know friends have to be by your side but whenever I see you not smiling I don’t know what to do. Bobby, I’m so sorry. Please, answer.”

“Where are you? I’m worried”

“Bobby, if you don’t answer I swear I’ll break your head”

“There’s hamburger for dinner, please, answer”

I smiled a little when I read those messages, there were like twenty one left but, after that, all of them started to get desperate. I could imagine Yunhyeong sit in the sofa looking at the door. We always enjoyed having dinner together and talking about different things, he was willing to learn about rap and I was kind of glad he asked me for some artists. He even wanted to learn something and we had spent hours at night trying to make him rap.

I must say he was terrible, but we had fun.

In the moment I was reading the last one – “Kim Ji Won once you arrive home I will kick your that hard that you’re going to poo my whole socks wardrobe for a week” – I received a new one a bit longer.

“I know that love is hard sometimes but it doesn’t mean that you’re not loved back. Bobby, I should have said it before, but you’ve never tried to say anything. Hanbin loves you too much, maybe he’s been acting weird for a long time, but haven’t you? Why didn’t you try to tell him? Why are you making a fuss when you don’t know what he feels? Trust me, I know what a one-sided love is, but it doesn’t mean you have the right of having me worrying about you. I’m too handsome to have worrying wrinkles. You don’t have to act like this; you don’t have to be sad. We all love you! You’re our smile.”

“In fact… you’re my smile”.

I held my breath for almost one minute until I understood that my attitude was near poor. Yunhyeong was right, I never tried and I had been being a total with all of them. They were my friends, they were people I loved like hell and my selfishness was hurting them. 

-Ash… - I muttered, rubbing my forehead with tiredness. – you right, Yunhyeong, as always.

A little smile came to my face and wrote back the fastest I could.

-“Should I tell?”

“You should. But come back home”

I put aside my pride and finally got up from the table to leave. My next task was to head back home and pretend that my anger was related to anything else. Probably for when the time arrives I just let feelings run down the river, I would drop everything and advance as I’ve always done. Friendship, my diamond, was much more important than a stupid affair.

I was about to leave, feeling a bit down. Yeah, one-sided love was terrible. But why should I care? I had Hanbin, his presence, his smile, his way of giving little kisses when he has Chococons at home. I only wanted him to be happy and for the moment he was. He was everything for me.

-That’s all I need.

As I was walking I remembered the first time I understood I was in love with him. I didn’t want to accept it though it was useless to not let it sink inside of my body. I was scared of being caught or to make him feel uncomfortable with my presence. That was the main reason why I didn’t said a word and just walked away. Feelings grew stronger as our friendship was getting too, but things didn’t change. Why did it take so long to being called love? I guess I was new in that topic and couldn’t understand it, I still can’t. All I knew was that Hanbin was precious enough to have me staring at him for hours and didn’t notice. Maybe that’s what love does. To make you act like an idiot and do things without realizing. Since the beginning of our friendship I would give everything for him but even when I understood love had made its entrance that feeling only developed into something uncontrollable, something I couldn’t manage.

My fingers slipped through the screen, I was about to write my situation and that I was going to take a cab when another message arrived to my Kakao.

-God, won’t you leave me alone? – I shouted. Fortunately no one was around so I didn’t felt like a crazy man.

I almost crashed the phone against one of the trees, I hated mobile phones but once I saw Hanbin’s name I stopped walking and contained the oxygen in my lungs.

He never texted me, and for a moment I had to re-read the name thinking I was confusing the chat with Yunhyeong’s.

I couldn’t enclose the smile that illuminated my whole face. My knees felt like jelly and I wanted to start screaming and go home running to hug my best friend close to me and never let him go. Nevertheless I was static, I couldn’t move but my whole world was shaking of emotion.

“You, little bastard”

«Writing…»

“I love you”.

This was supposed to be a Yunhyeong x Bobby thing but it ended as double B (yeah, I'm sorry, I think is the only thing I know how to write and still I don't like how it is written but I uploaded anyway) Hope you like it, guys!