Everything seemed like a blur.

It always did.

It is actually quite amazing if you observe the school’s population from afar. There was a mind in every individual, and they would all move as one, going towards classes or the canteen or the school gates. It was a really spectacular sight for a person like Seunghoon, especially when they seemed to group around and follow specific people, when they were of the exact same minds and thought.

Now, if you had picked one of those minds along the hallway and asked if that person knew Lee Seunghoon, he or she would furrow a little, before saying something along the lines of “maybe” or “yeah, he’s in my class”. Worse still, if you had asked for any additional information, like “who’s his best friend” or “do you know where he might be right now”, all you would be met with is a shrug and an indignant “I don’t know”.

You see, Lee Seunghoon is a wallflower.

He was the one that belonged and didn’t at the same time, the one that would sit by quietly at the back of the class and pretend to be air and the sound of scribbling notes. He was all quiet and smiles when someone approached him, the type where you will eventually forget that you owe him his pen. But he loved this way of life. Silence on his part taught him many lessons, like how to observe without any distractions, hearing the silent cry of help or jeer of scorn in one’s eyes.

There were two people in the school that always picked at his conscious, like how something would fleet by your eyes and disappear when you tried to focus on it, drawing his eyes to them whenever they stepped into his field of vision. To him, they were the center of the bouquet, fine-groomed and tarnished by an experienced florist’s hands, standing out tall and proud of their stature.

Song Mino was one of the select people that he noticed with a vigor. If the school’s food chain was a literal bouquet, then Song Mino would be the tall and large sunflower that resided in the central of attention, basking in the social popularity and attentive glances. He was the playboy of the school, and in fact, the most popular one. Both boys and girls would fall at his feet if they could, just to get the attention of said kingka.

The other, however, was Kang Seungyoon, the complete opposite of him. In his eyes, Seungyoon was a standalone rose, and instead of playful smirks and conceited eyes, he had cold lips, unsmiling, but not frowning either. Others may not have noticed it, but Seunghoon did, that warmth that lumbered beneath those cold, hard exterior and eyes, the waiting for a simple act of someone trying to open it.

As for himself, he thought of as a simple margarita, a small spirit of a flower that could go unnoticed to the people manning the sidewalk. But he was fine with that. He’d already accepted that this was what he would be.

…

Shock.

Hurt.

Heartbroken.

Betrayed.

The was how Seunghoon had felt as he was left alone on the school’s rooftop compound, door slamming behind Mino’s retreating figure. He should have known that things would have watered down to this, that the notorious player would only logically dump him for another. He had been too blinded, he realized, he must have lost his logic in all that pretense bliss that Mino provided, blindfolded him like a moth with a flickering candle flame.

It was all like a well-executed lie.

He started to slink his way down the ledge of the rooftop, the wall the only thing separating him from the long drop down. He had ignored the nagging feeling that something was desperately wrong, especially when Mino started to draw away. But he realized too late, and now, he could only look at him from afar again, just this time with the back of another called Nam Taehyun next to what used to be his.

He lolled his face up to the sky, hazy city air partially covering the azure. When and how Taehyun had managed to snatch Mino’s heart away, Seunghoon would never know, but he didn’t hate him just because. He always stuck to his morals, that he shouldn’t judge just by knowing what he did, that there might be sadness and confinement in his eyes, because the happy ones are normally the most depressed ones.

He was so absorbed into his thoughts, he barely registered the fact that another form of a person had stumbled into the landing, thoughts as equally huddled as his own, tears also allowing gravity to take hold of them, feeling lost, with no direction to follow. It currently didn’t matter that the other also didn’t care if he existed, that his feelings needed another for support, for they were both too broken to even manage on their own. Both their tears were silent, no violent wreckage, no blunt hiccups nor convulses, their forms still like the now used and damaged puppets they were.

Seunghoon was now facing the familiar stranger, who seemed to be starting to slip into a hunched-up position, mirroring his own. His body had moved without consent, stumbling over the classical guitar casing, pressing his weight on his ankles in front of the huddled figure. Brown eyes stared into equally broken ones, and somehow, Kang Seungyoon found himself in arms that felt like home, and he let it go, and as Seunghoon listened to the broken heartstrings forget the one that left for Song Mino, he tried equally his best to forget the tune meant for the one that left for Nam Taehyun.

…

Everything seemed like a blur.

Wind howled in his ears, regret tingling at the back of his mind, crushed disappointment burning at the tip of his tongue. Those drunk words that stumbled and poured from the chapped lips had set in a thousand paper cuts, each one sharp and embedded. Maybe that was the reason why he now stood on the roof’s edge, Seungyoon’s previous promise as empty as the air he was about to step back into.

You’re the most important things to me in the world, he had said.

But the smell of whiskey and tequila on his lips a mere hour ago seemed to yell in controversy, words of spite and traitor reminding himself of the childhood and parents he used to have before the impact of glass from the car’s windshield. Perhaps the small sorry of a hug had triggered all of this, those apologetic eyes boring into his forgiving ones, but he wouldn’t know.

Truth be told, Seungyoon was the anchor that had held him back to life ever since Mino had abandoned him. Seunghoon had simply deflated, grown more tired, endlessly cold on the inside out. Without Seungyoon, he could have been in this position much earlier, with different reasons, but a same motif. The night sky above him shone down with a lone North Star, the moon barely a curved slit hidden in the blanket of darkness. How he had managed to slip into the school compound in the middle of the night, he didn’t know, but he had simply found himself here, about to break his bones from a suicidal fall.

He gulped in a freezing breath of air, drying his throat and stickily burning his tongue, remembering this moment, before he let his eyelids slip shut. Now that the anchor was gone, nothing would be keeping him down, and as he remembered those smiling eyes, he took his last step forward.

In that bare minimum of three seconds, he thought of a lot of things.

3.

He thought of Kang Seungyoon’s smile whenever they were alone, the pure bliss in his eyes, the gratefulness for their threaded fingers, timidness in their shared butterfly kisses.

2.

He thought of Kang Seungyoon’s spitten and ground words that pressed into his skin, jealousy and rage burning in his eyes, reluctance in his pushes away from himself, explanation going on deaf ears.

1.

He thought of Kang Seungyoon’s guilt-ridden features if he was to ever see this, and he suddenly wished that time would stop, that the universe would stop turning, because he couldn’t bear to see it because he still loved—

Impact.

…

In the lucidly translucent darkness a cell phone buzzed to life atop a neighborhood high school, illuminating the darkness with its miniature glare. The text shone in thin, black letters of Hangul, and the calm black loomed again as the screen automatically relocked.

“Happy Birthday, hyung. I’m sorry, forgive me?”

~END~