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Sejun, Byungchan thinks as Sejun's hands trace his back, is like all four seasons condensed into a second, icy cold at one point, voice full of reluctance, void of any emotion. The next, he's burning hot, because that's all the time it takes to flip him over, and Byungchan thinks it's beautiful, that he's beautiful.
In Summer, Sejun's hair sticks to his forehead, sweat dampening strands as heat radiates off him. His mouth burns against Byungchan's neck, his fingers leaving a trail of fire in their wake as they skim the surface, exploring every inch of Byungchan's body with warm hands. His eyes ablaze, filled with so much passion and so much want and for a split second, Byungchan feels wanted, needed even; he loves it all.
The next day, Sejun will change, faster than a sudden downpour of rain, or the browning of the leaves on trees in autumn, and he'll wake up to a wintry snowstorm that chills him from the inside, leaving him feeling so empty and so alone. Sejun's side of the bed as cold as the coffee in the coffee pot, he left hours ago, left Byungchan to wake on his own to a stale pot of coffee and unmade bedsheets, glacial at the touch of the used fabric. The used blanket is the only sign that Sejun had existed at all, and for all the time after the split second, Byungchan feels unwanted, unwelcome; he hates how much he loves it.
Sometimes, when Byungchan closes his eyes, he can imagine the stinging cold to be Sejun's fingers, his hand's warmth seeping through his skin and spreading across his being. The distance between them is so wide, the temperature so low that he's easily mistaken because the ice is so cold that it burns, flooding his system with a sharp fire, the pinpricks of icicles. It's the only thing he can do to stop himself from falling apart at the seams.
That, and pray that his warm Sejun, full of passion and adoration, would quickly return to his bed that night. Their love is a demon that Byungchan indulges, allowing himself to fall deeper and deeper into hell, for he knows objectively, that hell is anything but cold.
✯✯✯
Seungwoo sits down with him and Subin in a cafe biweekly, when his roommate is off at work and his apartment far too quiet, though it roars with noise in comparison to Byungchan's. He looks at the two attentively, offering advice to their life problems when he can, when he can't, he acts as nothing more than a good listening ear, and that's enough, more than enough.
They've known each other since early childhood when they were all just foolish neighbourhood children with stars in their eyes and so many hopes and dreams for their futures. He studies them closely now, Seungwoo looking strangled in his neatly ironed dress shirt, working nine-hour shifts in a bland office downtown instead of the singer he had wanted to be when six. Subin looks exhausted, his eye bags darkening by the week and he often resembles someone who's about to crash and burn and give up.
Then Byungchan thinks of himself, drowning out Subin's half-hearted rant on a teacher in his school, and he thinks of all he wanted to be as a child, he wanted to walk the runway, his name flashing in lights, the centre of the universe to a whole nation. Instead, he wakes up to an empty apartment every day, feeling trapped between four walls, and he can't even be the object of affection of the one man whose attention he wants most. He laughs bitterly, catching an odd glance from his friends, he ignores it, laughing further at his misery, because where did it all go so wrong for them?
"Byungchan?" Seungwoo calls out nervously, waving his hand before the younger's face and Byungchan is forced to push Sejun out of his mind, to the best of his ability. He nods lazily in response to Seungwoo, averting his gaze because he knows that if he sees those eyes of pity once more, he would definitely break.
"Is it Sejun-hyung again?" Subin asks curiously, voice full of reluctance like he didn't want to have to be the one to ask Byungchan the dreaded question. Byungchan knows himself best, knows there's a good reason why Subin wouldn't want to hear him speak of Sejun. When he doesn't respond, Subin just sighs, placing a small hand on his back, rubbing circles in to calm Byungchan down. "Maybe it's time you stopped this?"
Byungchan shakes his head immediately. "Never," he whispers, biting down on his lip to prevent the flood of tears he knows hide beneath his eyelids. "I'll never give up on him."
Not now, not ever.
✯✯✯
Sometimes, Sejun's eyes are cold and his expression empty and Byungchan is reminded of a blank night sky, void of clouds and stars and all the wonders and beauty that lie beyond the heavens. He wears his heart not on his sleeve, nor his cheek, but rather beneath the soles of his feet, crushing it with every step he takes. Yet bravely, Sejun would speed up in his steps, smashing his own heart with every movement, all to narrowly miss the warmth that Byungchan's touch leaves behind.
Sejun has always been at the absolute extreme of his emotions, for his tears have always been either a waterfall or an empty desert; for his anger has always been either the loud clap of thunder before a storm or the silent and unbearably hot winds of a summer night; for his love has always been overly passionate or distant and neglectful, and because of it, Byungchan suffers.
He often finds his fingers desperately reaching out to Sejun, trying his best to connect with him, to help him, to love him. But then, Sejun will speed up, breaking into a run and shattering his heart and love below his feet, and Byungchan's hands will barely brush against his back before he disappears again and the distance grows.
And Byungchan's heart, which he so carelessly left behind on the floor before seeing Sejun, falls victim too, turning into nothing more than a powdered mess because Sejun is just so heavy and Byungchan is just so weak, so vulnerable to the one who fled with his affection. And when their hearts break together, the ashes fall into a cloud of stardust that pollutes Sejun's empty night sky, and the beauty is back and he loves again.
Byungchan's feelings, all his love and affection, is but collateral damage in the war to get Lim Sejun to feel again, to love again, and to have his hands trail Byungchan's back, leaving fire in their wake and reducing Byungchan to foolishness and sweat and a want so strong that it threatens to swallow him up. And as much as it hurts Byungchan, he can't stop, always goes back, never abandons his empty night sky, hoping that one day, Sejun will let him paint his blank canvas with every colour beneath the sun.
✯✯✯
“You should confess,” Seungwoo says one day, sitting opposite Byungchan at a cafe and doing his best not to stare at the owner with lovesick eyes. Byungchan feels his fork drop from numb fingers. “I mean he might like you.”
“He doesn’t, hyung,” Byungchan says, voice full of a certainty that he’s never had about anything before and Seungwoo looks up at him curiously. How do you know? He knows Seungwoo wants to ask, but truthfully, he doesn’t have an answer, it’s just something that he knows, a fact that he would never be able to erase, no matter how hard he tries. “Don’t ask why.”
“I was going to, but alright,” Seungwoo says with a sigh, looking at Byungchan with those sympathetic eyes yet again and part of Byungchan wants to punch that look right off his face, and everyone else’s faces, because he’d be damned if he ever wanted the public’s sympathy. “It’s better to let him know than to keep this up. Byung, he could permanently damage you.”
“Enough,” Byungchan says with a flippant wave of his hand, because he doesn’t want to hear Seungwoo trash Sejun for the third time in a week, because although he knows that Sejun is hurting him, killing him from the inside, he’s far too tired and in love to dare to disrupt what they have now, because what they have is perfect, and he has no intention of ruining it.
✯✯✯
Sejun first looked at him with dark eyes when he was eighteen, around two and a half years ago, when they’re both plastered out of their minds from their mutual friend’s birthday party. By then, kissing had become commonplace in their friendship and neither was opposed to having makeout sessions without any feelings behind either lip. That was always a lie, Byungchan always hid feeling behind every brush of their lip, always.
He presses Byungchan down on the bed, hands running up and down Byungchan’s thighs before skimming across his stomach and then his back, his fingers are so warm and against Byungchan’s smooth skin, they just feel so right. Brushing against his hip bones and shoulder blades, both having lost their clothes somewhere along the struggle to get from the kitchen to Chan’s bedroom. His lips rosy, gently kissing Byungchan’s collarbone and jawline and Byungchan is embarrassed by how quickly his boxers tent and the funny way Sejun looks at him when he notices it.
Sejun looks so different from the kid on the elementary school playground, the kid Byungchan had approached eight years before without knowing that he was a year older. The Sejun back then was taller than him, but not any less adorable, lacking the prominent bone structure he has now and the soft features; every part of Sejun is intense now, his eyes, his nose, his jaw, his temporary emotions, and Byungchan hates how affected he is just thinking about it.
“Are you two fucking on my bed?” Chan calls from outside, he sees Sejun break away from the intense gaze and stare at the door sheepishly. “I mean, I always saw it coming but please!”
“Yeah,” Sejun calls back in a lower voice than normal, he doesn’t sound even half as ashamed as he looks and Byungchan stares at him with so much want . “What are you gonna do about it.”
Byungchan looks at Sejun and is reminded of a summer paradise.
✯✯✯
“You should tell him,” Subin says, resting against the sofa pillows and agreeing with Seungwoo’s words from a few days ago and Byungchan has to bite on his lip to stop himself from screaming, because he won’t tell Sejun, not today, not tomorrow, not any lifetime after. “Hyung, this is hurting you, why can’t you see that?”
“I know,” Byungchan says, close to drifting off in the apartment Subin lives in alone and thinking back to how the three of them had once promised to move in together after he and Subin graduated, now that he lives with Sejun in a home where the four walls seem to collapse on him when he wakes up, it’s nothing more than another unfulfilled dream.
“It’s just that I think he’s worth the heartbreak.” And Subin definitely knows better than to argue with that.
✯✯✯
Part of Byungchan wonders why fate had to be so cruel, why the stars aligned against him and let him catch feelings for someone he could never reach, for letting him love in a relationship where feelings just aren't okay. Part of Byungchan spends hours a day, holed up alone in his bedroom and tucked under the blankets, inhaling Sejun's scent through the pillows and comforters and he wonders just how it ended up like this.
As many times as Byungchan finds himself waking up to an empty apartment he supposedly shares with Sejun, he can't bring himself near to accepting the fact that he and Sejun have nothing between them, nothing but sex and hormonal relief for the two. The air between them is heavy, but lacking in emotion on Sejun's part.
Byungchan realised a long time ago that he could never have what he wants with Sejun, for the older has always been a little hesitant to feel and Byungchan hates how much of his heart Sejun owns, but if he could change how he feels, a chance to remove the heartbreak, if he could wake up one day and see Sejun nothing more than another one night stand, he wouldn't. Loving Sejun, as painful as it is, is the best thing that he's ever done, and he wouldn't trade it in for the world.
It gets increasingly easy to forget that they share nothing romantic when Sejun's smirking down at him with intense eyes, darkening every time Byungchan chokes out a "more". It gets increasingly easy to forget that what they have is a no-strings-attached kind of relationship when Byungchan finds himself sobbing into his comforter hours after Sejun left because he just feels so lonely, and the other is the only cure to his abandoned heart.
✯✯✯
When he talks to Chan about it, he gets the same opinion falling out from Chan’s mouth that he does from Seungwoo and Subin, tell Sejun .
“Look, Byungchan,” Chan says with an encouraging smile, running his fingers through his hair. “I’ve known Sejun almost twice as long as you have, yet he isn’t even half as close to me as he is to you, and the same for you. You know why?”
Byungchan shakes his head, because he’s always been a little bit of a fool and he’s never really been able to see things as well as Chan has. “He likes you,” Chan says simply, and the papers in Byungchan’s hands fall off numb fingers. “Sejun’s an idiot, and he wouldn’t know it himself, but trust me, he does.”
“And what if he doesn’t?” Byungchan asks softly, thinking to his summery boy and wondering what would happen if he tried to tie them together in a no strings attached relationship, wondering how strong the strings would have to be to ensure that Sejun doesn’t break free.
“Then,” Chan says, before hesitating and letting himself breathe a little. “Then maybe it’s time to move on.”
“And if you answer with a never again, then you may as well confess, no matter the outcome, because that’s a promise that I’d like to see you keep.”
✯✯✯
Byungchan thinks of many ways to confess to Sejun after that, because he’s a little foolish when it comes to love and relationships, but he wants to prove it to Chan, that what he feels will be a forever, that it’s not as fleeting as Chan’s dozen over one night stands. He thinks of Sejun more and more as the days go by, feeling more and more hopeless as time passes.
He’s in bed one night, thinking it through (and maybe he thinks about Sejun a little too) when he buries himself beneath blankets, giving up on a lost cause (but not on Sejun).
He lets his thoughts of Sejun lull him to sleep.
✯✯✯
When it happens, it’s a mistake.
They curl up on the sofa together, Sejun pressing soft kisses into Byungchan’s hair, the whole scene is so domestic that it’s so easy to forget what they are, and how not okay it would be for Byungchan to slant their lips together and thread his fingers through Sejun’s hair, confessing his love over and over again through the hammering beats of his heart. It’s so easy to forget that Byungchan just does and it happens so quickly that he can’t stop himself.
“I love you,” Byungchan blurts out before he slaps his hand over his mouth, horrified with alarms ringing through his mind, wanting to take it all back, but he can’t. The damage is done. He watches Sejun’s eyes widen in shock, his jaw drops slightly and he sees Sejun look at him, really look at him, for the first time in years, and Byungchan feels his heart break all over again, because Sejun tears away from Byungchan and scrambles to the other side of the sofa, like Byungchan is some virus and Sejun is unvaccinated.
Fuck it, he thinks. Fuck it, fuck all of this. Just fuck it. He ignores the feeling of his chest splitting open and takes a deep breath, repeating it for the other, even though he can tell by Sejun’s expression, he heard him the first time. “I love you.”
Sejun laughs in disbelief and Byungchan’s heart drops to his stomach and then to the floor, silently, he curses Seungwoo and Subin and Chan, because they all had a hand to play in this, in ruining the best thing he’d ever had. Loudest of all, he curses himself for being so ridiculous, for believing that someone like Sejun, Lim Sejun, would ever love the chaotic mess that he is, or love anyone at all. “We’ve been friends for years, we’ve been doing this for years,” Sejun states nervously, he still sounds stunned. “What changed?”
“What changed?” Byungchan repeats, by then he’s swallowing back tears and trying not to crack under the immense weight of his chest, he laughs hopelessly and makes eye contact with Sejun. “Nothing,” he says with a tone of defeat and his eyes stray away from the older. He smiles bitterly and takes a deep breath, desperately trying to suppress his stutter and painful inability to suppress his feelings, because he just feels too much and Sejun feels too little; he’s already ruined all he had with Sejun, he doesn’t need to tear it apart any further. “Nothing at all.”
“Then–” and Sejun doesn’t even have the time to finish his question without Byungchan cutting him off, because he already knows what Sejun wants to ask, knows what answer Sejun seeks.
“Always, Sejun,” he replies, standing up and walking towards the coat rack and taking his jacket off the poles, slipping it onto his shoulders. He gently brushes his fingers against the handle, trying to ignore the weight he feels in his chest that threatens to pull him down into a sobbing mess on the floor.
“Where are you going?” Sejun asks, alarmed, and his legs tremble like he wants to lunge at Byungchan, but he can see Sejun rooted to the spot, frozen, and he knows that Sejun won’t be moving anywhere for awhile. “Stop.”
“I’ve always loved you.” He slams the door behind him and runs out onto the street, ignoring the way Sejun yells for him, because he looks so present now and he knows it’s only a matter of time before the winter returns and he stops caring, and maybe Byungchan is just not ready to have his heart shattered for the millionth time.
✯✯✯
He’s in a bar downtown that evening, hoping to drink away all of these feelings and run from the harsh reality he has to face, when he meets Hanse; they’re both too tipsy to think straight, but not quite drunk enough to excuse falling into the same bed that night.
Hanse is the same age as him with dyed red hair that falls behind his ears, barely touching his neck and narrow eyes that examine everything carefully. He’s beautiful, Byungchan thinks, and even when he stumbles in his steps and his words slur together a little, he’s still the most gorgeous thing in the room. Three shots later and Byungchan finds his own face flustered and red with the heat of alcohol, he leans in to kiss the red-haired boy and Hanse doesn’t pull away, pressing deeper into the kiss and it feels so nice. Hope blooms in Byungchan’s heart, with a silent prayer that maybe this time, he could move on a little, fall a little out of love with the dimples and smile that have held his heart for a few years too long.
He stumbles in his steps as he walks, with the two of them supporting each other as they make it to Hanse’s apartment two streets down. There, Byungchan finds his shirt torn off his body and Hanse’s mouth pressing against his neck, sucking small bruises into his collarbone that would serve him a memory of the night in the morning. His hands trace the shorter’s back and he feels Hanse shiver beneath his touch, and Byungchan pushes every thought of Sejun out of his mind, and for the first time in so many years, he feels like he can finally breathe.
It’s far from being that easy. Regret floods over him at 4am, when he’s woken up by a throbbing pain in his head, not quite painful enough to be considered a hangover, but it’s there , and it’s annoying enough to make him want to sleep forever. A body turns next to him, rustling the sheets a little and part of Byungchan wishes it were Sejun, but the sight of red hair and the darkening marks on collarbones remind him of everything.
Hanse moves to sit up next to him, staring at him with those analytic eyes for a moment that is a second too long, and then he sighs. In a low and consoling voice, he speaks to him like a friend he’s known his whole life. “You want to forget someone, don’t you?” Byungchan’s jaw slacks, right before he breaks, fingers digging into the sheets in hopes that it’ll stop the buildup of tears in his eyes, but there’s too many emotions to hold back with a dam as weak as Byungchan’s heart and mind, and so he gives it up for a lost cause. He spills the entire story to Hanse, narrating the tale of a ten-year-old boy who caught feelings and ended up in a no strings attached relationship and how the said boy, even a decade later, just can’t move on. Hanse sighs and runs a friendly hand down his back and Byungchan, shamefully, catches himself closing his eyes and wishes and wishes and wishes that when he opens them, Hanse will be gone and there will be a summery Sejun in his place, holding him close and whispering meaningless assurances into his ears.
“So you’re sleeping around to try to move on?” Hanse asks carefully, like he’s walking on a floor of lava and broken glass, trying not to get hurt with every step. His words tear Byungchan away from his thoughts and pulls him back into a reality that he doesn’t want to have to face.
“No,” Byungchan answers, hesitating long enough to catch Hanse staring at him with those sympathetic eyes that he’s grown to hate, but on Hanse, all they make him want to do is cry enough to make the ocean jealous. “I’m doing it to forget.”
There’s a difference, Byungchan thinks, between forgetting and moving on, because forgetting is like leaving what is everything to you behind and moving on is like giving up on the someone you love the most. Byungchan would rather forget Sejun than ever lose feelings for him, because as much as it hurts him, being in love with someone he can never have, he would prefer to keep the fire in their touch, the hastened beating of his heart when Sejun stands too close. These little things, exploding within Sejun’s heart, they’ve left him feeling more alive than anything before. He could never move on from something like that, and even if he tried, it’s a little too late for that, because Byungchan is no longer the ten-year-old who was a little in love with Sejun, rather, the twenty-year-old who cannot imagine living without him at all.
The twenty-year-old who is no longer just a little in love with Sejun, because he’s not and he accepted it so long ago. It stopped being a crush years ago, and evolved into something more like love, and Byungchan could never give up anything he loved, so why change that now?
“I don’t think I could ever move on from him.”
✯✯✯
Byungchan ends up sleeping the irritation in his head away in Hanse’s bed, Hanse who smiles at him and tells him that he’s welcome to stay as long as he wants, and if not for the purpling bruises that dot both their necks and the red scratch marks that line Hanse’s back, Byungchan could believe that Hanse was an old friend, rather than his most recent lay. He sets water and painkillers out for Byungchan and leaves for work with an encouraging smile and a wish that everything would get better for him quickly. He also leaves his number on a post-it note, accompanying it with words inked on the note, in handwriting that Byungchan finds easier to read than Sejun’s. If you ever need a friend.
Byungchan folds the paper and keeps it in his pocket with a smile and a mental promise to save the number in his phone later that day. He stays in Hanse’s apartment a little longer, cleaning up his shelves and making his bed, waiting until he feels starved at 2.30pm before he heads out the door on trembling legs in hopes of finding food, which he does at a place called Kang Cafe, his and Seungwoo’s regular hang out place, owned by a young man about a year older than him. Byungchan talks to him for the first time and he’s nice leaving Byungchan with the urge to come back one day, and the villainous voice in his mind that Byungchan’s been trying to suppress for years hopes that he can come back with Sejun. He pushes the thought out of his mind immediately.
When he gets home, or whatever ruins is left of his home, he sees Sejun sitting blankly on the sofa, tired eyes staring blankly into an empty space. Byungchan clears his throat a little and Sejun looks up wearily, opening his mouth to say something, before Byungchan subconsciously tugs down on his collar and reveals the patches of purple lining his collarbone. Sejun closes his mouth and turns away wordlessly, brows furrowed and internally, Byungchan fumes, because Sejun isn’t even looking at him. Sejun is back to that Sejun, the Sejun that he spent ten years chasing after in vain. Then, Byungchan is questioning why he even did that, why he let his collar dip so dangerously low, and he understands why. Last night was a stunt, for Byungchan to prove to Sejun that he doesn’t want him anymore, that all they have is over, that he broke the nonexistent agreement of loyalty; and it hurt the most that Sejun didn’t even seem to care at all.
He sighs, shoving his hands into his pockets and almost storming back into their bedroom, and then he’s alone again and he regrets everything. Memories of Sejun pile up in his stomach in a mixture of butterflies and dread and enough alcohol to make him sick. He bites on his lip and tries to stop himself from throwing up the memories of the past ten years, but it grows too big for him and he’s tempted to give up, a significantly large part of him, his head, his heart, is sure that he could never give up, not in a million lifetimes.
✯✯✯
Byungchan ends up muting his phone and throwing it against Hanse’s mattress when Sejunnie lights up the screen for the dozenth time in an hour. He stays away from anything that reminds him of summer and stars and smiles that mean nothing, for every memory tears his wounds open again, and for Byungchan who’s trying so hard to heal, he cannot afford to be torn up again, to be reduced to ashes and stardust by empty memories once again.
He often wonders if all of this is normal, to give your heart away and willingly watch the one you love most step on it until it breaks in a clean half, to be in love with the same person who kills you from inside, and to be incapable of moving on one, five, ten years later. He knows it’s not, anyone with even the slightest self-preservation skill would have run away from the beginning, run far enough to leave Sejun’s field of vision entirely. But Byungchan has no control over himself and what he feels for Sejun, so he stays and watches. He wishes it were easier to move on, to leave everything behind and to scream fuck it into the wind, but he can’t, because Sejun is an ocean that keeps him grounded like an anchor, and he’s nothing but a tiny sailboat trying to return to shore.
He sighs and lets the oceans currents carry him away like a soft wave that rages louder than anything else, pressing seashells to his ears and he thinks he can hear the ocean.
✯✯✯
Hanse is as good a friend as he is in bed, he opens his doors to Byungchan when being around Sejun’s apartment is just too much for him to handle, holds Byungchan close and lets him cry it all out and Byungchan wishes and wishes that one day he’ll wake up and Hanse will be the one he loves instead. Hanse is there , present whether Sejun is or not, he’s there to be anything and everything Byungchan wants him to be, and after so many years of being hurt by the same knife, Byungchan feels like he’s finally found bandages big enough to hold his cuts together and help him to heal.
Time can heal broken hearts, but having a little bit of love from other places can help to patch the cracks that the hours can’t fill. Although he may have permanently destroyed whatever he had with Sejun, he finds that he can build other, smaller homes elsewhere. Human hearts were never meant to be a single person’s residence, so many building safe places in Hanse and Seungwoo and Subin and Chan and that nice cafe owner, maybe that will be enough to mend Byungchan’s heart once and for all.
Maybe he can finally learn to say I love you to people who aren’t Sejun, maybe he can forget Sejun and leave everything behind, sail away from the ocean and into a small stream, where nothing but love can touch him. Maybe he can learn to love again.
✯✯✯
He comes home from Hanse’s apartment late one night, when the two find out that they both know a Heo Chan– because really, who doesn’t Chan know?– and they invite him over and the two listen to Byungchan rant and cry about Sejun for an hour, before forcing him to get up and bake something salty to get his mind off sweet smiles and strawberry-flavoured lips. The hour hand has long passed midnight by small numbers that are insignificant in anything but time.
He finds Sejun in the living room, fast asleep on the sofa with his head rolled back against the unfolded headrest and Byungchan swallows to distract himself from the pang of affection he feels as he watches the boy curled up in a fetal position to fend himself from the cold. He looks like an eleven-year-old again, the lines of stress gone from his face and Byungchan thinks that if he opens his eyes, he’ll see them full of hope and wonder and Sejun will be back to a time before everything was so complicated and they held the world in the palms of their hands.
“You fool,” he whispers, it’s mostly to himself, even though he said it loud enough for Sejun to hear, had he been awake. He leans down to kiss the bridge of Sejun’s nose. “You’ll get a cold.”
He drapes a spare blanket open Sejun’s shoulders and kisses him lightly again, before nostalgia fills his heart lungs, because they used to play with this blanket, making forts and tents and enjoying their lives before they grew up and everything went bad. He smiles a little sadly before heading back to the room they used to share, lying back on the pillows and letting his wants and wishes lull him into a restless sleep. He falls asleep to a summery dream, knowing full well that he’ll wake up to a snowstorm again the next day.
The knock on his door the next morning wakes him up long after the sun rises, it’s 11am and his head spins a little as he calls to the door knocker, inviting them in. Then, he finds his head hurting instead of spinning when he sees that it’s Sejun, standing at the door in the work clothes he didn’t change out of the previous day, a crumpled dress shirt and black pants. His hair stands with static from the sofa, the area under his eyes darker than the rest of his face, and there’s still rheum above his eyelids, yet he somehow manages to still be the most beautiful person Byungchan has ever laid his eyes on, it makes him sick. Sejun cradles the blanket Byungchan remembers gently placing over his shoulders, holding it close to him.
“Shouldn’t you be at work?” Byungchan asks in exhaustion, averting his gaze from where he knows he’s been staring too long. “You’ll be late.”
“I took the day off,” Sejun replies, tone as empty as ever and Byungchan tries not to flinch away at how uninterested he sounds, how big the distance between them has grown, and for Sejun who has never seen Byungchan as anything more, this silence is probably strange, because Sejun doesn’t even know that he’s hurt Byungchan at all. “You didn’t come home last night, I waited until I couldn’t.”
“Why?” Byungchan feels a snap in the back of his head, throbbing and hurting, louder than a snowstorm and he wishes that Sejun would either fall into his lap or leave and never come back, he’s tired of being stuck in a loveless limbo. “So that you can fuck me and leave me again?” He sees Sejun tense up, almost letting the blanket slip from his hands, blinking slowly, but his eyes don’t leave Byungchan, they don’t trail away like they always have.
“Where did you go?” Sejun asks, ignoring all of Byungchan’s words, and the younger hears a crack in his voice, but he passes it off as his imagination, pretending that he didn’t hear the distance between them get wider.
“I was at Hanse’s, we made salted caramel brownies. Do you want some?” Byungchan answers quickly, adding the question to the end in hopes that it would throw Sejun off guard. It doesn’t, he sees Sejun’s brows furrow.
“You’ve spent a lot of time with Hanse lately,” Sejun tries to make his words sound like a muse, but it comes out more like an aggravated spit, his voice wavers slightly and Byungchan stares at him in shock. “Is he your boyfriend or what?”
“No, hyung. No,” Byungchan answers simply and he sees Sejun recoil, he knows why. Hyung , Sejun hasn’t been hyung to Byungchan, not in a long time. “But I don’t really see how that’s any of your business. If you must know, yes I’ve spent most of my free time with Hanse and Chan-hyung and Seungwoo-hyung and Subin and the nice cafe owner instead of you. Because they don’t make me regret existing with every little word, hyung. They don’t make me beg for painkillers with every little touch. They don’t make me feel like I was set on fire from the insides with every little kiss. They numb me, help me, bandage me up. You breathe life into me and rip it away as soon as I get used to having it.”
“How could I spend time with you when I feel like shit just for breathing around you?”
“Byungchan, I–” Sejun starts, cutting himself off from whatever he was going to say. He sits beside Byungchan’s legs on the bed and leans back, pressing against the mattress. “Do you remember this?” He asks, holding the blanket to the ceiling.
“I miss those times.” The I miss you goes unsaid.
✯✯✯
Byungchan leaves for lunch, he can’t even eat around Sejun with the mess of butterflies and anger and bitter regret threatening to make him throw it all up and ends up at the same cafe he has decided to frequent. It’s empty and he guesses that he looks like he needs company, because the nice cafe owner sits across from him and introduces himself as Kang Seungsik, smiling at him with the second most stunning smile he’s seen in a long time– the first is Sejun’s, go figure.
Something about Seungsik’s aura has Byungchan spilling the entire story to him, just like he did with Hanse, and Byungchan’s starting to feel like he’s not venting, he just needs to talk about Sejun to other people. Seungsik continues smiling and Byungchan blinks at his soft lips, wishing that it was easier to move on for the millionth time, because he can see himself loving Seungwoo and Chan and Seungsik and Subin and Hanse in every future except the one he’s in, the one where Sejun’s there, chaining down his heart. Byungchan finds that so unfair.
How unfair is it that the one who ruined him most is the one that has the easiest access to the deepest, weakest part of his heart?
Seungsik treats him to lunch, waiving his bill and waving a flippant hand to stop Byungchan from taking out his wallet, and winks at him before he leaves, telling him to introduce him to his “tall friend with the nice nose” and Byungchan grins, knowing how much Seungwoo would squeal once he hears that, he departs with a promise to Seungsik and his fingers hovering above the text button.
Byungchan: @Seungwoo Cafe guy finds you hot, hit him up ;)
Small things like this, like watching his friend getting noticed by the guy he’s been pining after for years, this is what makes the world beautiful and a future worth working towards. It’s what instills Byungchan with hope that he’ll reach a happy ending too one day, be it with or without Sejun.
✯✯✯
“Sejun’s jealous,” Chan says with a tone of finality in his voice. “I’ve known him for eighteen years and he’s never snapped like that before.”
“Seriously?” Hanse asks with large eyes, or as large as they go with eyes. “How can someone live twenty two years without blowing up at a friend or something.”
“Sejun has an odd amount of control over his emotions, so much that it turns him aloof,” Chan says, patting Byungchan’s back with an encouraging smile, it’s been happening more and more recently, him earning encouraging smiles more than sympathetic ones, and he appreciates it so much, because sympathy means that he can’t do anything other than wallow in his own sadness and encouragement shows that he can do anything if he rises up to it. “I’m surprised that he got mad, and jealous.”
“He doesn’t like me, he wouldn’t be jealous,” Byungchan argues back, not wanting any more false hope that would set his heart ablaze, because although he does need warmth in the winter, he’d rather burn anything else than his love for Sejun. “Besides, I’m just me. He doesn’t want a wreck like that.”
“Honey,” Chan sighs, shaking his head. “I think he wants you more than anything else.”
✯✯✯
He returns home late again that night, walking quietly through the door at 9pm, knowing that Sejun isn’t due home until 11pm, he can sleep without him. The memory of Sejun taking the day off floods back into Byungchan’s mind when he sees him sit in front of a cold dinner at the dining table, alone. He’s falling asleep on the table and Byungchan sees him holding the blanket beneath the table, covering his thighs with it. “Hyung?” He calls out without thinking, inching closer to the table and checking on his food. “Hyung, you can’t eat this stuff, it’s two weeks old.”
“Don’t call me hyung,” Sejun whispers angrily through short breaths, a sulk creeping all over his sharp features, shrouding his face in an imaginary shadow. “It’s just Sejun. I’m not above you in any way.”
“I know,” Byungchan says plainly, picking up Sejun’s plate and bringing it to the kitchen sink. “I’m doing it to maintain the distance.”
Sejun lets hurt flash over his eyes and face, flinching when Byungchan’s fingers brush over his hands. “I think we need to talk.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Byungchan replies calmly, ignoring the dread that pools up in his stomach, the butterflies flapping tornados into his body.
“Then,” Sejun says a beat too quickly, his voice full of desperation. “Please, please. I want.”
“I want to build a blanket fort with you,” Sejun chokes out and Byungchan stares at him with moons for eyes, he can see the hope and the stars that shine in the dark, empty galaxy of Sejun’s eyes and he’s sent back into the past, when Sejun’s eyes used to sparkle like that all the time and there were no worries in the world falling on his shoulders.
How could Byungchan say no?
✯✯✯
“Byung!” Sejun called out happily, stacking the pillows on top of each other in hopes that from his 1.55-metre height, he would be able to reach the ceiling. “Let’s stack this to the sky!”
“That’s ridiculous,” Byungchan said, but it falls on deaf ears as the pillows fall on each other and knock them both to the ground, Sejun giggling and trying to throw the pillows off himself. It is ridiculous, he thinks, there’s no way he could ever reach the sky, not while the heavens reside in his eyes, still, he finds himself helping to restack the pillows and position the blankets to create the perfect blanket fort, all for his Sejunnie .
He reaches for the sky by Sejun’s side and he feels his fingers barely brush against heaven’s soft flooring, because he can do anything when he’s with Sejun. Sejun faces him and the indents on his soft cheeks deepen further, and that’s when Byungchan, surrounded by pillow feathers and soft blankets, falls in love with Lim Sejun for the first of a million times.
✯✯✯
When they’re done, they lie on the floor together in a mess of sweat, rolling in the blankets and smiling nostalgically. “Do you remember the first fort we built?” Byungchan nods listlessly in acknowledgement, trying to push the thoughts out of his mind, trying to stop himself from pressing his lips against Sejun’s and having his heart broken for the millionth time.
“I miss that,” Sejun mumbles, his face reddening slightly. “I miss you.”
It’s not fair, how Sejun can say things like that even after all that’s happened, it’s just so unfair that Sejun built such a big home in his heart and continues to live in it even after he’s tried to evict him a thousand times. It’s just not fair.
Sejun still freezes Byungchan out after all this time, still steals his breath away and makes him feel so giddily high just by running a finger over his thigh or by moving in to kiss Byungchan’s cheek or just by existing at all. After six years, Sejun is still the owner of Byungchan’s heart, and he knows deep down that Sejun always will be.
“You know,” Sejun says carefully, like he’s walking on the thinnest layer of ice, his voice sounds a little bit forced, like he’s choking his words out, rather than speaking them. “I really miss you.” Byungchan numbs, doesn’t know what to say, how to respond to the words that he’s wanted to hear for so long.
“I know that you doubt it,” Sejun continues with an unstable breath. “Because I’m really, truly shit at understanding and processing my emotions, and feeling at all.” Sejun sits up to reposition himself, so that he’s looking right at Byungchan, who feels like there’s something caught in his throat, he tries to swallow it down, but it’s too big and too much for him and he feels like throwing up butterflies again, they’re just butterflies this time, not mixed in with anything else, anything that seeks to hurt him, just butterflies creating a storm within him. “But I really, really love you.”
Byungchan can’t help it, the soft sob that escapes his lip, he rolls over to bury his face in Sejun’s collarbone. “I think,” Sejun says, mostly to himself now. “I’ve loved you for a long time, I was just a little too foolish and uh, emotionally constipated to notice how I felt, and it took almost losing the most important person to me to figure out how much I want you. Not in any bullshit sexual way, I want to wake up next to you in the morning and hold your hand in public and kiss you against every landmark on the planet.”
“Byungchan,” Sejun chokes out once more, but he sounds more confident this time and Byungchan only notices the tears rolling down his face when Sejun wipes his eyes with the corner of a crumpled blanket. “I know I messed up, but I really love you.”
“Okay,” Byungchan coughs out, swatting Sejun’s hand away and letting the tears run. “Okay.”
He lets his thoughts of Sejun lull him to sleep for the millionth time, this time, however, Sejun is there and he’s holding Byungchan close and Byungchan wishes more than anything that the stars and the heavens and the ocean and summer itself are all more than a dream, he hopes Sejun is more than a dream.
He wakes up to Sejun leaning over and kissing him gently, rosy lips pressing onto Byungchan’s mouth, and Byungchan falls in love with Sejun for the first of a million more lifetimes to come.