Work Text:
sungwoon and daniel fall in love under the burning radiance of the august sun.
the sky is a painting of orange and pink, and daniel looks beautiful against it.
sungwoon looks up at daniel, daniel with his blinding smile, daniel with his pink hair falling into his eyes, and he makes a choice. “i think i might love you, kang daniel.”
“and i think i might love you too,” the younger holds sungwoon’s face in his hands, and sungwoon leans into his touch. “i think i might love you for a long, long time if you allow me to.”
“do whatever you want.”
i will love you for a long time, too.
(a promise falls from the heavens and sungwoon catches it in his hands).
sungwoon and daniel fall out of love under the million year old night stars.
“did you fall out of love?”
the younger’s voice is shaky, throat scratchy from shouting for the last hour, and he doesn’t look sungwoon in the eye.
sungwoon stands by the kitchen table, hands in his pockets, and daniel is on the couch, wide shoulders hunched and head in his hands.
water drips down the wall across from sungwoon, a big dent in the middle of the water stain, shards of porcelain on the carpet, dead flowers in the mess of broken promises and torn hearts.
sungwoon doesn’t remember who did that—sungwoon remembers a lot of it, sungwoon remembers daniel slamming the front door and the angry red of his face, sungwoon remembers screaming in daniel’s face and pointing an accusing finger at him, sungwoon remembers daniel’s knuckles turning white as he fisted his own jeans, entire body shaking, sungwoon remembers ripping the promise ring off of his finger and tossing it across the room, but he doesn’t remember who broke the damn vase.
it’s a tiny detail, something that sungwoon shouldn’t care about in the face of this , but sungwoon has to focus on something , on something stupid, or it will all be for nothing.
if he doesn’t think about the vase, he’ll think about daniel, about daniel who is so kind and loving and gentle and good to him .
if he thinks about this , he’ll do something stupid, and it’ll hurt daniel more.
(he’d run back into daniel’s arms and promise to love him forever, and god, he couldn’t do that to daniel, he couldn’t break a promise again, he wouldn’t do that).
he knows what it was like to fall in love with daniel, he knows what it was like to be flooded with this warmth , this adoration at each smile, at each laugh, at each touch, he knows what it was like to hold daniel’s hand under the shining sun and promise that he’d love him with all of his heart, and he knows what it was like to love daniel, to love every little thing about him, to love him so, so much, but he doesn’t know what it was like to fall out of love.
is it happening?
has it already happened?
he looks at daniel now, and his heart hurts, god it hurts so much, and guilt eats at him, and tears sting at the back of his eyes. he looks at daniel, and sungwoon wants to close the distance and hug him. he wants to hold him in his arms and whisper sweet nothings into his ear. he wants to make daniel know that it’ll be okay, that it’s okay if they don’t work out, that love works in odd ways, that someone will love him more than sungwoon could…
ah.
sungwoon has fallen out of love.
it happened without so much as a warning.
for years sungwoon had loved daniel more than he had loved anything, and suddenly, sungwoon stopped.
sungwoon doesn’t know how it happened, but he knows that it happened, and it can’t be changed.
daniel looks up at him now, hands touching the ring on his finger. daniel looks at sungwoon, and there’s this look in his eyes, this look that hurts sungwoon so much, this look that stabs at sungwoon’s heart and makes him want to apologize.
(daniel knows).
the blonde stands and he walks across the room, closing the distance with long strides until he stands a foot from sungwoon, and sungwoon wants to run, but he wouldn’t do that to daniel.
daniel cradles sungwoon’s face in his hand, thumb tracing circles into sungwoon’s skin, touch comforting and warm, but sungwoon doesn’t lean into it, he doesn’t move at all, and maybe that is the point that it falls onto them.
tear stains line daniel’s face, his lips are chapped, his eyes are red and puffy, but he is still so fresh and so, so beautiful, and it breaks sungwoon’s heart.
sungwoon knows that daniel is good for him.
sungwoon knows that daniel is too good for him.
daniel asks sungwoon again, eyes kind and understanding as he looks into sungwoon’s soul, voice soothing and soft, “do you still love me?”
sungwoon knows that daniel wouldn’t force him to answer, sungwoon knows that daniel wouldn’t ask him to stay with him, sungwoon knows that he’s a genuine soul with a heart of absolute gold, sungwoon knows that he’s the perfect man, and above all, sungwoon knows that daniel still loves him so much.
sungwoon just knows.
sungwoon knows daniel.
sungwoon knows that daniel has to hear him say it.
“no, i don’t.” the words are foul on his lips and he wants nothing more than to make it so it wasn’t true. how he would do anything to make it a lie.
but he cannot change the truth, and the world looks away at the moment sungwoon breaks daniel’s heart.
“i’m so sorry.”
the blinding smile that paints daniel’s lips is meant to comfort sungwoon, to say that it’s okay, to make him know that he understands.
but his eyes don’t shine.
and it is all sungwoon’s fault.
(maybe it was only sungwoon who stopped loving).