If My Yesterday is a Disgrace (2/4)

[kaisooficrec]

December 2016.

Chanyeol’s birthday party gets pushed back a week. Just as Kyungsoo suspects, Baekhyun had been a gigantic liar and the party is massive. Almost every corner of Chanyeol’s Gangnam apartment is occupied by a guest, large groups of them, holding cans of Hite beer and taking vodka shots by the kitchen counter.

“Kyu’soooooo,” Baekhyun greets him, once Kyungsoo has shouldered his way through the foyer and into the living room. Chanyeol has a huge apartment, but today, it suddenly feels five times smaller. “You’re here!”

“Of course I’m here,” says Kyungsoo. “Social obligation dictates I must be.”

Baekhyun chortles and it’s extremely unattractive, but Kyungsoo forgives him a little because he’s very, very drunk. His breath also smells horrible so Kyungsoo is kind of eager to wriggle out of his grasp. He floats around a bit, trying to find people he recognizes. Eventually he sees Chanyeol by the pool table, conversing animatedly with a girl in a striped dress and long, long legs. He excuses himself when he sees Kyungsoo.

“I can’t wait to see what you’ve gotten me this year,” Chanyeol grins widely. There’s a Hite can in his hand but it doesn’t look like he’s been drinking it. “A stuffed animal? Pens? A pack of ramyeon? You’re always the practical sort.”

Kyungsoo shrugs. “You’ll have to wait and see, I guess.” He looks around. The second floor is visible from the living room. He sees a few people up there that he recognizes vaguely from TV but no one he knows himself. On the couch, in front of Chanyeol’s flat screen, Sehun has Baekhyun in his lap, playing a video game with Chanyeol’s shy Chinese friend and singer, Zitao, who Kyungsoo had met at Chanyeol’s last birthday party.

“You better not leave before midnight, you flake,” Chanyeol pokes Kyungsoo in the tummy, which Kyungsoo usually finds Very Annoying but it’s Chanyeol’s birthday so he can’t put him in a headlock. “Go have fun. Talk to people.”

“Both you and Baekhyun seem to think I have a problem talking to people.”

“Not a ‘problem,’” Chanyeol says. “You just never seem to do it.” He takes a long sip of his beer. “Did Jongin not come with you?”

Kyungsoo swallows. “I asked if he wanted to, but he said he got held up at the café,” he says. Jongin had texted his reply in perfect grammar. “He’ll come, though. It’s Jongin.”

Chanyeol smiles, punching Kyungsoo’s shoulder in his overly touchy, super friendly manner of doing everything. Kyungsoo had actually met Chanyeol through Jongin. The two of them had shared a music theory class. Chanyeol was re-taking the class while Jongin was taking it in his third-year, and Chanyeol had ended up tutoring Jongin through the course. They spent a lot of time together back then.

“Do you like Chanyeol? ” Kyungsoo remembers asking.

Jongin had been cooking a pot of ramyeon in his kitchen, his back turned so Kyungsoo couldn’t see his face and his voice was hard to read. But he was smiling when he turned around. “Sure I do, ” he replied. “You have to like Chanyeol. He’s a walking, talking ball of happy. ”

That hadn’t been what Kyungsoo meant, but he’d decided not to push.

“Go back to your other guests,” Kyungsoo says. “I won’t run away from your party.”

Chanyeol shakes his beer can. “Promise?”

“Promise,” Kyungsoo says.

He runs into a couple more people that he recognizes-two Chinese guys named Yifan and Lu Han who worked in PR at the entertainment company. Yifan’s Korean skills aren’t as good as Lu Han’s, a bit thick on the vowels, but still perfectly understandable. He makes small-talk with them while watching Sehun and Baekhyun out of the corner of his eye, creaming Zitao in whatever first-person shooter they’re playing.

“Jong’n!!!” Baekhyun exclaims, in his high-pitched drunk voice. “Ya here!”

Kyungsoo sees Jongin walking into the living room. He stands behind the couch and pats Baekhyun’s head in greeting, and Kyungsoo isn’t sure if Jongin just hasn't seen him, but Jongin isn’t looking his way.

And there’s someone else who walks in behind him.

“Hey, it’s Yixing-ssi, right?” Sehun waves at the newcomer who nods and waves back. Yixing. Kyungsoo remembers him from the few times he’s stopped by the entertainment building to visit Jongin or Chanyeol. He’s one of the other performance directors at the company, a little bit older than Kyungsoo himself.

Yixing looks slightly awkward amidst all the noise. When Baekhyun starts speaking to him in slurred, poorly-structured Korean, Yixing glances at Jongin with his small, dimpled smile. Jongin laughs, poking Baekhyun’s cheek. “Baekhyun-ah, Yixing-hyung can’t understand you if you don’t enunciate properly,” he says.

“No one can understand him, even when he’s sober,” mutters Sehun. He starts loading a new game without Baekhyun. “Zitao, you’re on my team now. Don’t make us lose.”

Zitao grumbles that if anyone is going to make them lose, it’s going to be Sehun.

“Want a drink, Jongin-ah?” Yixing’s voice is melodic and sweet, and he places his hand on Jongin’s arm to get his attention.

Jongin nods, moving into the touch. “I’ll go with you.”

It’s very, very hot in the apartment now. Kyungsoo excuses himself from Yifan and Lu Han, and escapes to Chanyeol’s balcony. Chanyeol keeps the balcony closed and locked during his parties but Kyungsoo slides it open discreetly, closing it behind him.

He thinks no one has noticed, but then he hears the door opening again, and when he turns around, Sehun’s stepping onto the balcony with a lazy expression and his hands in his jeans.

“I thought you were in the middle of an important campaign mission,” Kyungsoo says, turning back around so that his arms are leaning forward against the metal railing. “Don’t leave Zitao hanging like that.”

“Tao’s got about a million other friends in there,” says Sehun, striding over so they’re standing side-by-side. “He won’t miss me.” He starts to pull out a cigarette from the back pocket of his pants. It takes him two tries to light it. He lets out a long exhale when the end finally flares up.

“Soju and Dream High,” he says, after a minute.

“What?” Kyungsoo looks over at him.

“Jongin,” Sehun clarifies. His mouth is barely moving, like this isn’t a conversation he wants to have. Kyungsoo doesn’t want to have it either. Sehun is staring out at the Seoul skyline but the lock of his jaw, the tight line of his lips… it reminds Kyungsoo of the way Sehun had looked at Kyungsoo’s high school graduation. They had been in the bathroom. Sehun was looking at him through the mirror: Maybe don’t hang out with Sunyoung when Jongin is around.

That’s all he’d said, and then he’d left. Neither of them had ever brought it up again.

“Jongin,” Sehun repeats, “spent Wednesday night at my place with a bottle of soju and made me watch Dream High as he drunkenly sulked.” He raises an eyebrow at Kyungsoo. “You ever seen him drunkenly sulk? ‘Course you haven’t,” he says before Kyungsoo can say anything, but his tone isn’t accusing. It’s flat, struggling to sound apathetic; the way he says everything. “He’d never sulk in front of you.”

“He loves Dream High,” says Kyungsoo. Suddenly, he wishes he’d grabbed a Hite can before he stepped out. Or maybe some vodka.

“I know,” says Sehun. “Especially when you sing along to the acoustic version of ‘Genie’ with him.” The smoke comes out thick when he exhales. “He literally said that.”

“He’s ignoring me now,” Kyungsoo says. “He’s never ignored me before.”

Sehun hums. “What’d you expect? He needs space. He can’t get over you without space.” The words ‘get over you’ burn Kyungsoo’s chest. It’s ridiculous, to feel this sick about this whole thing. It’s not like Kyungsoo didn’t know. After ten years of friendship, it’s hard to miss the way Jongin stares at him. How his gaze goes soft, when Kyungsoo pretends not to notice.

Kyungsoo has always, always known. But to hear it out loud was something else entirely.

“Look, I know he’s your best friend,” Sehun says.

Kyungsoo opens his mouth immediately. Sehun shakes his head, quieting him.

“He is. He’s your best friend, you don’t have to fight me on it,” Sehun takes a sharp drag of the cigarette. Kyungsoo hasn’t seen him smoke in months. “You guys were inseparable the moment you met and that’s something I’ve always understood. Really. It never bothered me, even in high school.”

“We’re both his best friend,” Kyungsoo says, anyways.

Sehun gives him a withering sort of smile. Barely a smile, just an exasperated press of his lips. “No, Kyungsoo,” he replies, insistent. “He would move the moon and the planets for you. Don’t you get it? This is not a crush. You can’t keep pretending it is. Jongin is not fifteen anymore.” He sets his hands on the railing, cigarette balanced between two thin fingers. “He is so hopelessly in love with you, Kyungsoo.”

“Sehun-“ Kyungsoo wants to throw up the stones in his stomach.

“Four bottles of soju, and all he could say to me was: ‘I wish I didn’t make Kyungsoo-hyung so uncomfortable,’” Sehun says. “Not ‘I wish Kyungsoo-hyung loved me.’ He’s never even dared wish that. Not even when he’s piss drunk and ready to black out for twelve hours.”

The image of Jongin red-faced and curled up on Sehun’s couch as he mumbles, sad and incoherent, flashes through Kyungsoo’s mind. Jongin didn’t even like the taste of soju-Kyungsoo remembers Jongin telling him that after Kyungsoo had had to drive Jongin home from his first party, when Jongin was about sixteen.

“I never, ever meant to hurt him,” Kyungsoo sighs, but it feels like the wind just eats up his words.

“Sometimes we don’t mean to hurt people,” Sehun says carefully. “It doesn’t mean we can stop them from hurting.” He side-eyes Kyungsoo, and then looks away. “Did you never think it was weird that he never really dated anyone through high school? Through college? And not for lack of options, that’s for sure.”

Kyungsoo knows that. Of course he’s noticed the way girls’ (and boys’) gazes linger on Jongin in cafés, restaurants, on the subway. It only made sense, really. Jongin had the lean, graceful physique of a dancer, and the approximate proportions of a runway model. Jongin is oblivious, but Kyungsoo isn’t.

“I’ve encouraged him to date,” Kyungsoo says, with a half-shrug.

The wind is so, so cold. It’s December now, Kyungsoo remembers. December, and Kyungsoo is standing outside without a jacket and shoes.

“Maybe you have, but… still. You haven’t exactly been straightforward with him,” Sehun licks his lips. Kyungsoo can almost see him forming the words in his head, hesitant. “I mean, well, firstly, you’re protective over that wallet he bought you eight years ago even though it’s frayed and falling apart.”

Kyungsoo blows on his hands. “It’s a good wallet,” he mutters. “So what?”

Sehun rolls his eyes. “You keep his sweaters, his clothes, and you just wear them when he ‘forgets’ to take them back. You talk about his dogs like they’re your kids, you call him to sleep over whenever-” Sehun stops abruptly, then shakes his head, “Whenever you need company. Can you blame Jongin for maybe entertaining the thought for a split second?”

Kyungsoo is quiet for a minute or two. Everything he could possibly say has escaped him. Sehun has known him too long to listen to excuses anyways.

“Look, I’m not telling you to find it in yourself to fall in love with him,” Sehun says. He walks over to the tiny patio table. There’s an ashtray in the middle that looks new because Chanyeol doesn't smoke. Sehun pushes his cigarette into it. “You did the right thing, by being honest with him. Even if it doesn’t feel good right now. And I know that… I know it’s not easy for you to…” he sighs. Sehun isn’t any better at finding the right words than Kyungsoo is. “Jongin understands, all right? He’s not expecting anything. He knows you don’t… Never mind. All I’m saying is both of us… we both-Sunyoung-noona was important to us too.”

Kyungsoo closes his eyes. His fingers have gone numb from the cold, but he can feel his teeth chattering. “Sehun, please.” Please stop.

“Jongin won’t stop being your friend. He’s as loyal as a puppy,” Sehun unzips his sweater and drapes it across Kyungsoo’s shoulders. It’s not very thick, but it gets Kyungsoo to stop shivering. “But you have to understand, hyung. His feelings for you aren’t going to fade overnight,” he says. “Ten years is a long time to be in love with someone.”

The door slides open behind them. “I knew you’d b’here!” It’s Baekhyun, pointing an accusatory finger at Kyungsoo. “Balcony is off-limits. Come on, Kyu’soo. Time to take a shot.”

Sehun laughs, following Baekhyun inside. He stops to look at Kyungsoo over his shoulder.

“Yeah,” Kyungsoo says. “I’m coming.”

Sehun nods, leaving the door ajar.

It starts to snow, suddenly. The first snow of the season. It’s still a bit early for snow, but it’s the light kind. The kind that just looks like slow rain. Kyungsoo catches a snowflake on his fingertip. It melts as soon as he touches it.

It had been a night just like tonight, years and years ago, when Sunyoung had been in Kyungsoo’s kitchen, watching the first snow through the small window. She was wrapped in a long cardigan. Kyungsoo tried to call her back to bed. She didn’t say anything at first. But when she’d turned around, her eyes were conflicted. Panic? No. Just searching. Searching like flashlights into the depths of Kyungsoo’s soul.

She’d started mumbling so nervously then. It was unlike her to mumble. Or to be nervous. Kyungsoo was confused. He had tried to stop her, stepping forward, kissing her softly. She kissed back but it didn’t stop her from pulling away, staring him dead in the eye and asking in that no-nonsense way she liked to ask all her questions, “But do you love me?”

The question had shaken Kyungsoo to the core. “Of course I do.” He did. He’d never felt so sure about anything before. Sunyoung was intelligent, and liked all the things he liked, and she was funny without ever trying. Of course he loved her. She was all he’d ever known.

Her stare hadn’t wavered, and with the moonlight behind her, she’d looked so delicate and pretty. “More than-“

“Kyungsoo! Are you coming or not?” It’s Chanyeol this time, calling him over with a jerk of his head. He’s a bit flushed now-a comfortable, half-sober glow.

“Yeah,” Kyungsoo says, pressing a cold hand against his cold cheek, and not feeling anything.

Minseok moves out the following week.

“Here,” he says, grabbing Kyungsoo’s wrist and forcing a fat envelope into Kyungsoo’s hand. “Take it.”

Kyungsoo’s eyes widen out of their sockets. “Hyung, what the heck?”

“It’ll cover the rent, at least until you can find another place,” Minseok says. They’re standing by the front door and Kyungsoo can hear Heeyeon humming a pop song in the kitchen as she puts the last of Minseok’s dishes into a box, winding them up first with bubble wrap. “Don’t you dare try to slip it into one of my boxes when I leave, got it?”

Kyungsoo doesn’t know what to say. He squeezes the envelope. It feels like it could cover a lot more than just rent. “I can’t take all this,” he murmurs, sliding his finger over the flap to look inside.

“I insist,” says Minseok. “If it makes you so uneasy, just think of it as you doing a favour for me-by accepting it.” He winks, crooked smile pulling up his lips, and Kyungsoo thinks Minseok really was some sort of blessing of a roommate. He’ll miss him. Kyungsoo steps forward for an awkward hug and Minseok laughs but wraps both arms around him.

“Best of luck,” Minseok pats his arm. Heeyeon appears from the kitchen. “This isn’t goodbye, Kyungsoo,” he says. He holds out his hand, and Heeyeon takes it, as Kyungsoo holds the door open for them. Heeyeon steps through first. Minseok gives Kyungsoo a final, comforting smile. Then he’s gone.

Minseok and Heeyeon… Kyungsoo thinks he and Sunyoung could have been a lot like them, if things had turned out differently-moving in together, planning a wedding, packing up matching mugs into bubble wrap.

Maybe in another life, Kyungsoo says to himself, as he turns on the TV because the hum of the heater and the tick of the analog clock are too silent and Kyungsoo is jittery, being alone.

In this life, all Kyungsoo has are memories of a happier time. Sunyoung, Jongin, Sehun in high school, laughing over a large bowl of popcorn, watching movies in Sunyoung’s basement because she had the nicest television and surround sound. Kyungsoo wouldn’t have met Jongin and Sehun, if it weren’t for her.

The three of them shared a dance class outside of school. One day, in sophomore year, two months after he and Sunyoung started dating, Kyungsoo had dropped by the class.

“This is Jongin and Sehun,” she’d said to him. “They go to our school. A year younger than us.”

Sunyoung invited them to come along on their bubble tea date that day, and Kyungsoo remembered sipping on his straw, staring at her and his two new friends and feeling so full and so warm.

Sehun was talkative from the get-go. Jongin, on the other hand, looked a little brooding on the outside, but that was just at first. Beneath the surface, if you knew how to look, you’d see Jongin was as easy to read and as open as a book. There was nothing enigmatic about him at all. His smiles always meant something, and made you feel important. He pouted when he was concentrating. He laughed loudly and happily at almost anything. And he’d wormed his way easily into Kyungsoo’s life-Kyungsoo, who’d always had trouble making friends.

But Jongin was Kyungsoo’s best friend for the simplest reason: Jongin was stubborn and loyal and always there.

No one else had sat with Kyungsoo for eight hours at one in the morning on New Year’s Day 2010, keeping his hand on Kyungsoo’s thigh and squeezing in even, soothing pulses as Kyungsoo held his head in his arms, bent forward in the plastic hospital chair, trying to forget the sound of the windshield smashing into tiny pieces; the steering wheel going slack in his hands; Sunyoung’s head snapping, in slow motion, her long hair flying up around her soft face-

No one saw Kyungsoo cry except for Jongin, as Kyungsoo collapsed onto the floor, tucked his knees to his chest, letting Jongin hold his shaking body against his own. “It wasn’t your fault, hyung. Shhh, it wasn’t your fault.” The warmth of Jongin’s arms had seeped through Kyungsoo’s tattered clothes, through the tremors, through the cold silence of his heart. And Kyungsoo thinks that warmth never truly left.

It was selfish, Kyungsoo knew, to keep that warmth for so long and to never give it back. But everything about Jongin was warm. Warm tones. He was a scarf on a windy day, hot coffee in the middle of winter, a bright smile in the darkest parts of Kyungsoo’s life.

December 2016 / New Year’s Eve.

New Year’s Eve is traditionally at Baekhyun’s house.

Kyungsoo shows up late, past 11PM, because Baekhyun lives a bit far and the streets are busy and Kyungsoo had fallen asleep after Jinri had texted him around nine. What time should I come by tomorrow? she’d asked.

Kyungsoo hadn’t replied. It doesn’t matter though, because Jinri will come by anyways. He makes sure to give his parents a quick call to greet them, answers all his mother’s questions (“Have you been eating well?”) and then tries to hang up quickly before she says anything else, like how it’s been years and maybe Kyungsoo should try driving again. (“Maybe, mom,” Kyungsoo had replied, but he hadn’t meant it because even just the thought had made his hands shake.)

“Don’t spend New Year’s Eve alone, okay sweetie?” she says, voice gentle through the phone. “I know today is… well, I know it’s always a hard day for you.”

“Don’t worry,” he tells her, chewing his lip anxiously. “I’m going out. I’ll be all right.”

“Good.” She sounds relieved. “That’s good to hear.”

Baekhyun’s gathering is much smaller than Chanyeol’s birthday party. Just the regular few, plus his roommate, Jongdae-a Yonsei grad who works at the hospital and was usually out of the house whenever Kyungsoo visited.

Tonight, though, he’s drinking along with the rest of them, Baekhyun’s head dug into his shoulder as the group sits on the floor around the television. This is the only kind of New Year’s celebration Kyungsoo can really handle-small, but not too small. Just enough people and noise that Kyungsoo can’t hear his own thoughts.

No one really seems drunk, just a bit buzzed. The exception, however, is clearly Jongin who is a sleepy drunk and is taking up the entire couch, lying down on his stomach.

“He’s going to miss the countdown,” Kyungsoo says, walking over to the couch and bending down to get a look at Jongin’s tired face. There’s hair in his eyes and he’s about half-awake. Kyungsoo sits him upright, brushing Jongin’s hair back with his fingers.

“Ah, he’s fine,” Chanyeol replies, sparing Jongin a look over his shoulder. He’s more focused on the TV screen. “Let him sleep. He’s going to have the worst hangover in the morning.”

It’s rowdy in the living room so Kyungsoo pulls Jongin up from the couch and shuffles him down the hall to Baekhyun’s bedroom. Kyungsoo throws Jongin’s arm around his shoulder as he hauls him through the door, placing him gently on Baekhyun’s unmade bed.

“Hyung,” Jongin’s voice is thin and breathy, his hand on Kyungsoo’s wrist to keep him from leaving. Kyungsoo closes the bedroom door with his foot so that it’s quiet. The hallway light had been the only thing lighting up the room. Now it’s dark. The moon is covered by clouds tonight. “Hyung, you’re here.”

“Yes Jonginnie, I’m here.” Kyungsoo has seen Jongin drunk only a handful of times, but this was by far the worst. Jongin’s eyes are completely unfocused, blinking at irregular intervals. He smells like alcohol and musky cologne.

“Yur not gonna leave me, right?” whispers Jongin. He’s wearing a faded Seoul National sweater. “You’ll stay, right?”

Kyungsoo licks dry lips. “I’m always here, Jongin.”

“Mmm,” Jongin sways in place, and Kyungsoo helps lean him against the wall so that he can sit up on the bed without falling over. “Tha’s the problem, isn’t it? You never leave me, even if you should. Yur too nice.”

“Why-“ Kyungsoo coughs. There’s a boulder in his throat. “Why would you think I should leave you?”

Jongin’s still gripping the edge of Kyungsoo’s sweater tightly. Kyungsoo takes a breath and climbs onto the bed, sitting beside Jongin, conscious of the inch he leaves between their legs.

“B’cause,” murmurs Jongin, “I make so many problems with my feelings. You don’t deserve to feel so terrible b’cause of my feelings. Stupid, stupid feelings.”

Kyungsoo closes his eyes and lets out a long sigh. It does nothing to make him feel lighter. “Your feelings are not stupid to me, Jongin.”

They haven’t spoken in weeks. It feels like the first time in ten years that they’ve ever gone this long without talking. The way Jongin’s gaze is as cloudy as smoke, the way he doesn’t even seem to feel Kyungsoo placing his hand on his arm, trying to reach out to him… it’s like Jongin has numbed himself into feeling nothing at all.

“I think…” Jongin hiccups, “I think I’ll probably forget this all in the morning.” He bends his knees up so he can hug them to his chest, leaning his head against his legs. He’s staring right at Kyungsoo now, lips quivering. Jongin usually had a way of looking at you like you were the only person in the room. But tonight… tonight there’s so much weight in his eyes.

“Can you do me a favour?” asks Jongin, voice quieter than a whisper.

Kyungsoo nods once. “Anything.”

“Listen, and don’t interrupt for just a minute,” Jongin replies. Kyungsoo doesn’t think Jongin is crying but it’s too dark in the room to really know for sure. “Can you do that?

“Yes,” Kyungsoo says. “Anything.”

“Good,” Jongin closes his eyes, inhales, and doesn’t exhale. Then his eyes open again, still hazy and glazed-over but just a bit of the warmth is back. It’s not the same, though. Not entirely. That’s what scares Kyungsoo above all; that it might never be the same. Not everything becomes history, Jongin had said.

“I love you, Do Kyungsoo. I am in love with you.”

Kyungsoo’s heart shakes violently. The sound of his name exhaled in Jongin’s broken breath squeezes all his organs together, so tight that Kyungsoo fears his insides have turned to mush.

“I love your hands. I love how they’re small and fit completely into mine. I love that you hum when you think no one is listening, how you care about so much-about the people around you, but you try to pretend you don’t. To others, and to yourself, you pretend. I love… I love your attention to detail. I love the way you rub your nose when it’s chilly. I love how you look in my clothes. I love how you layer ten sweaters in the winter, how your skin is always cold but your soul is so, so warm,” Jongin pauses to breathe, and Kyungsoo sees his throat bob in the darkness.

“I love that you never cared that I like boys,” Jongin continues, “That you still looked at me the same way, even when no one else did. I love-“ His voice chokes all of a sudden. Kyungsoo reaches for his shoulder, which he can see is shaking, but Jongin slides out of the touch. “I love that you call me Jonginnie, even though it makes my heart crumble into a million tiny pieces because it’ll always mean more to me than it does to you.”

Kyungsoo holds his breath, not trusting himself to break the air between them. Jongin doesn’t say anything for a while. Through the walls, Baekhyun and Chanyeol’s laughter carries over the sounds of the New Year’s countdown.

Ten.

“I love your smile…” Jongin sounds very, very far away. “I love how… when you smile, sometimes I can pretend you love me back.”

Nine.

Kyungsoo wants to say something but his mind is blank and empty. Or maybe it’s just so incredibly full, of too many things, all at once, that he can’t figure out what it is he’s really feeling.

“Sometimes,” Jongin’s tongue runs along the fold of his lips, “you smile at me because you know I love you. And even though your smile is sad, and sympathetic, I still love it too.”

Eight.

Jongin swipes a hand down his face. His skin is glowing red, probably burning. “I sort of picked a terrible day to tell you all this, didn’t I?”

Seven.

“New Year’s Eve, of all days…” Jongin shakes his head and Kyungsoo hates the way his voice breaks. “I know it’s your least favourite day.”

Six.

“My New Year’s wish…” Jongin goes on. He’s looking up at the ceiling now, where Baekhyun has his favourite Girls’ Generation poster taped up. It has all nine autographs on it because Chanyeol had gotten it signed for him one year. “I wish I could love you without all the… without strings.”

Five.

Jongin is only a few inches from Kyungsoo, but he’s never felt farther. His voice starts to taper off. “Everything would be easier if I didn’t love you, huh?” Kyungsoo sits very still, studying the column of Jongin’s neck, the outline of his jaw and nose and the shadow of his eyelashes against his cheek.

Four.

The fear is clawing at Kyungsoo’s chest all over again: it might never, ever be the same.

Three.

“Maybe you wouldn’t be so afraid to smile at me. Like you are now,” says Jongin. “Maybe one day, it’ll all be different.”

Different… Kyungsoo has never been good with different.

Two.

“So tha’s all… my wish,” Jongin’s eyes blink lazily, words slurring together again. “My New Years’ wish.”

One.

“Happy New Year, hyung.”

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Best of luck…

A voice rings in Kyungsoo’s head, but it all passes into a dream.

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