Chapter Text
When Junseo wakes up the next morning, it’s with a pounding headache. His body feels heavy, weighed down by every feeling he refuses to let show, every word he doesn’t say, all of it piling on top of each other and making a kind of weight of itself. He’s still nauseous, though he can at least put that down to having drank an entire bottle of soju on an empty stomach, and not the other thing. Not his heart, not the thing with feathers which he’d had to kill last night, the little bird which would not sing again, telling him he has a chance, that maybe just maybe—
The sound of shuffling footsteps and running water floats in from the other room, telling him that Geonwoo is awake, and by the sound of it, alone. So he hadn’t brought Sangwon home with him, and he hadn’t gone back to Sangwon’s either.
Junseo closes his eyes for a moment, breathing in slowly, trying to will his body into moving. His limbs feel leaden, either because of his hangover or his uneasy sleep, or some combination of the two.
He doesn’t particularly want to face Geonwoo right now, not like this, not when the expected conversation sounded something like, ‘how was your date?’ and ‘I’m glad you had fun’, and other things Junseo doesn’t mean. He doesn’t like lying to Geonwoo, it’s just what he keeps doing, white lie upon white lie, each one like a brick laid in the growing wall between them. He doesn’t want the wall there either, but it grows anyway, as he tries to protect his heart from any further pain.
Still, Junseo is starting to learn that it’s an impossible task. It hurt last night, it hurt now, and it was always going to hurt, and it’s going to keep hurting. He was always fooling himself. It’s going to hurt until he gets over Geonwoo. It’s going to hurt, wall or not, because even if Geonwoo’s hand is covered in thorns, Junseo is still going to take it. He’s always going to take it. Because Geonwoo is his friend.
So he gets out of bed, and he prepares to take Geonwoo’s thorn-covered hand, to ask and to smile and to encourage. Remembering that he’d fallen asleep in what he was wearing yesterday, curled up on top of the covers like a child, he changes into something else and then finally goes out into the living room.
“Oh, hyung,” Geonwoo says, looking up from his cereal. “Did I wake you up?”
“No, my headache did that,” Junseo replies.
“Headache?” Geonwoo repeats, his brow furrowing as he watches Junseo make himself a bowl of cereal. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Junseo says, waving a hand and attempting a smile. “Just tired, that’s all. I stayed up too late.” A half truth is all he can offer, and another white lie to add to the many he tells. He sits down at the counter next to Geonwoo with his cereal, and takes a steadying breath. “How was your– your date?”
Despite his best efforts, his voice comes out wrong, a little too high pitched and somehow unlike him. He hopes Geonwoo is too tired to notice. Next to him, Geonwoo flushes slightly, though that complicated thing flickers in his eyes. The corners of his lips twitch, like he can’t decide whether to smile or not.
“It went really well,” he says, picking at the dry skin of his thumb. “He’s uhm… he’s really nice, and he’s– he’s funny too. We had a really good time.”
“That’s good,” Junseo manages, voice still a little off, uneven. “I’m glad.”
Geonwoo nods, and he looks away for a moment, his expression hidden from Junseo’s view. When he looks back at him, there’s only a trace left of whatever had been there seconds before, not enough for Junseo to make sense of it.
“Was it nice having the apartment for yourself for once?” Geonwoo asks. “What did you even do without me here, hyung?”
“Oh, it was great,” Junseo says, sounding like himself again. He’s grateful for the change of subject, that he doesn’t have to ask Geonwoo any more questions about the date. His answer is, of course, a lie, but he can’t tell the truth either. He wouldn’t know where to start, and he’s afraid that if he did start, he’d end up saying too much. “I got so much done.”
“Are you saying I’m a bad influence?”
“I’m saying it’s a lot easier to get things done when there isn’t somebody knocking on your door every five minutes.”
“Ow,” Geonwoo says, clutching his heart dramatically. “I’m moving out.”
“Like you have the money for that,” Junseo scoffs.
Geonwoo laughs, nudging Junseo with his shoulder, eyes crinkled at the corners. “Hyung, do you have any plans today?”
“Reading,” Junseo replies. “Or, wait– isn’t it my turn to do the laundry?”
“I can do it,” Geonwoo says quickly. “I don’t mind. If you have a headache, you should get some rest.”
“Geonwoo–”
“It’s fine,” he cuts in. “Really, hyung. Just let me take care of it.”
“I’ll just take some painkillers or something,” Junseo says, shaking his head. “You don’t have to–”
“Hyung,” Geonwoo interrupts again. He puts a hand on Junseo’s wrist, squeezing gently. “Would it really kill you to let someone do something nice for you?”
“I– that’s not…”
“It is, though, isn’t it?” Geonwoo says softly. “You never ask, you never… so I have to take the opportunity when I can to do something for you. You’re on bed rest, hyung. Doctor’s orders.”
Junseo sighs, but relents, feeling both embarrassed and ashamed. As much as he wants to protest, he’s afraid of where the conversation might go. Where it might end up. And Geonwoo is trying to do something nice, but Junseo is lying about why he has a headache, and he doesn’t deserve Geonwoo’s sympathy let alone his help. He’s already taken so much. But he can’t say that, not without saying the other thing, so instead he nods. They finish eating breakfast together, and Junseo takes the painkillers and lies down on the couch, after a final and imploring look from Geonwoo. His book lies unopened on the coffee table as he watches Geonwoo bustle around the apartment collecting laundry instead.
The window is open, letting in a gentle breeze, a relief from the usual heat that wafted in during the summer. Geonwoo comes out of his room dressed in his old basketball shorts and a loose t-shirt, hair ruffled and unstyled, and looks at Junseo with a bright, heart rendering smile. This is all Junseo wants. Just this; just he and Geonwoo and the quiet of their apartment, the easy way they move around each other, conversations had without saying a word. But he can’t say it, not out loud— instead it’s in the stutter of his heartbeat when Geonwoo says ‘goodbye, I’ll be back home soon’— I want this. I want this.
I want you.
Instead he watches Geonwoo’s back, as he’s done so many times. He’s always watching Geonwoo’s back, watching him walk away, while he stays in the same place, waiting. What he’s waiting for he isn’t sure; for Geonwoo to see him, maybe. To see him for what he really is, a liar and a thief.
While Geonwoo is away, Junseo finishes the last pages of his book. He puts it in his bag so he doesn’t forget to bring it with him to the cafe the next time he goes for the blonde barista. Then, feeling both guilty and restless, he decides to make him and Geonwoo some lunch. By the time Geonwoo gets back, he’s almost done cooking.
“Hyung,” Geonwoo says, with an exasperated sigh and a somewhat pained expression on his face. He drops the bags of clean laundry and walks over, peeking into the pot. “You’re supposed to be resting, we could’ve just-”
“I know,” Junseo says. “But the painkillers worked, and then I finished my book, and then I got bored. I’m fine, Geonwoo.”
Geonwoo frowns, and before Junseo can stop him, he’s pushing the hair out of Junseo’s face and pressing the inside of his wrist to his forehead. Junseo knows he should pull away, but he feels paralyzed, he’s not even breathing anymore, all of him held in that single spot where he feels Geonwoo’s steady heartbeat against his skin, reduced to only that, existing only where Geonwoo touches him.
“You’re really warm, hyung,” Geonwoo says quietly, pulling away, and suddenly Junseo can move again.
“Because it’s 30 degrees outside,” he replies, trying not to let his voice shake. To not let it show how much the touch had rattled him. “I’m fine now, okay? It was just a headache.”
A beat. There’s a vaguely familiar expression on Geonwoo’s face, similar to the one he’d had when they got home after Junseo had gone out in the rain. It’s somehow desperate and a little lost, like he’s carrying something heavy and has nowhere to put it down.
“You’re really stubborn, you know that?” Geonwoo says finally.
“Talk about the pot calling the kettle black,” Junseo scoffs, but his heart aches, aches for that expression Geonwoo can’t quite hide, and whatever it might mean.
A weary smile tugs at the corners of Geonwoo’s lips, but he gives in for now and helps set the table. Later, they sort through their laundry together, a quiet domesticity settling around them that feels almost taunting. Like the universe is saying; this is what you want. What you can’t have. What you’re bound to lose.
…
As August slowly turns into September, the heat finally starts to dissipate. Classes start back up in earnest, and Junseo is grateful for it, if nothing else then because it occupies his mind, gives him something to do with his hands. He never knows what to do with his hands these days. And his brain, if left unoccupied, keeps drifting off to things he’d rather not think about, Geonwoo, what he’s doing, who he’s doing it with, and how it’s not him.
It seems to be going well with Sangwon, from what Geonwoo shares with him. They’d gone on two more dates, but now they were both busy with classes. Geonwoo has been trying to arrange a time for all three of them to meet, and Junseo is running out of good reasons to not go through with it. He’s not sure what exactly it is he’s afraid of, but he’s afraid, afraid of Sangwon, of the the idea of meeting him. Like if he doesn’t look at him directly, maybe he doesn’t exist, or he flickers somewhere in between, both there and not, like a quantum particle in a state of superposition.
Until Junseo lays eyes on Sangwon, he can pretend Sangwon either exists or doesn’t. He’s as much Schrödinger’s Sangwon as he is Geonwoo’s. It seems that Junseo can’t help but cling to every possibility, the indefinite time between then and now, hope he’s tried to smother that refuses to die, wings still flapping at every brush of fingers, of knees knocking on the couch while they watch television. He’s tried to numb himself to it, to Geonwoo’s touch, to no avail. It always lingers like a burn.
He sighs, then turns to root through his bag, fingers brushing the book he’d promised to the boy in the café. He never did go back there, even though he keeps meaning to. He gets distracted, or he’s too busy studying, or he remembers the pitiful amount of money in his bank account. Like so many other things, the book’s become an extra weight he carries with him.
“I forgot my pencil case,” Junseo says, straightening back up and looking across the table at Jiahao. They’re sitting in a secluded corner of the on-campus library, books and papers scattered across the table in between them. “Hello? Earth to Jiahao?”
Jiahao stirs, looking up from his phone. “Huh? Oh, here,” Jiahao says as hands him a pencil, “sorry, I’ll start actually paying attention in a minute. I’m trying to get Xinlong to come to the party.”
“Just how many people are you inviting to this thing?”
“Twenty… forty-ish?” Jiahao says, shrugging. He puts his phone down and looks over at Junseo. “You are still coming, right hyung?”
“What do you mean twenty forty-ish?”
“I did try not to invite as many people as last time,” Jiahao replies. “But you know what the performance department is like… we all know each other…”
“Still, that’s incredibly vague, even for you,” Junseo says, sighing. “Can you even fit forty people in you and Xinlong’s apartment?”
Jiahao shrugs again, “maybe? There’s the roof too. And besides, I doubt everyone who said yes is even gonna show,” he nudges Junseo’s foot under table. “You’re still coming, right?” he asks again.
“I… Yeah, I’m coming.”
“It’ll be good for you,” Jiahao says. “Socializing a little won’t kill you, you know.”
“It might.”
“It won’t.”
Junseo sighs, sinking further down into his chair. Jiahao is probably right, it probably will be good for him— but all he feels right now is a building feeling of dread. They talk about other things, study, and all the time, the weight stays, it grows, until it’s crushing and makes it hard to even breathe. It doesn’t settle till Junseo’s home, lying on his back in his bed, staring up at the ceiling. It eats away at him, growing larger while he gets smaller and smaller.
Geonwoo is going to be at the party. He remembers him mentioning it in passing, and if he was going, Sangwon was probably going too. If not because Geonwoo invited him, then because Jiahao had; they were both in the performance department, and Jiahao had said Sangwon was nice. This fact doesn’t make Junseo any less afraid.
He’s always been a coward. He was a coward when he and Geonwoo kissed and he went on pretending it never happened, he was a coward when he realized he’d fallen in love with Geonwoo and didn’t tell him, he’s been a coward ever since, hiding, lying, making himself smaller so that Geonwoo will stay in his life. He’d rather have him as a friend than nothing at all. He’s a coward now, waiting, always waiting.
And some small part of Junseo can’t help but hope that maybe this will finally be the thing that lets him get over Geonwoo. Maybe seeing him with someone else, happy, will finally allow his heart to get over him. Maybe reality will finally sink in.
Junseo has tried for so long to convince himself that Geonwoo did not love him, that he couldn’t love him, stifling his own feelings, pushing it down and praying for it to go away. Maybe the real reason he didn’t tell Geonwoo was because he didn’t want to know the answer, because it was better to not be sure, easier. Maybe he’s been scared because he didn’t want to know whether he is loved; and because saying something out loud would mean learning for sure that he is not.