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There is a playlist of love songs at the bottom of Vernon’s music library, songs he hears when he’s roaming the mall or surfing through radio channels. He collects them like baseball cards or beanie babies. That’s all he really has to compare it to, because those are the only thing he’s ever collected in the past.
Seungkwan collects hearts like they are love songs, and Vernon knows he’s at the top of his playlist.
Love songs are not of Vernon’s usual tastes, he’d much rather listen to underground rappers and anything, “ boppy ”, as his friends would describe it.
It wasn’t until he fell in love with the way Seungkwan’s face lit up at the first note of “Your Song” by Elton John that he found himself searching for more songs with gentle strums of guitars and flowery lyrics. He doesn’t ever want to go back.
As far as he’s concerned, there is no before Boo Seungkwan anyways. Seungkwan is constant, all encompassing, sometimes the only thing real to him when everything else is a blur. Seungkwan is his friend on the school yard and his confident when he tearfully admits to wanting to drop out of college. There is no before Seungkwan, not because of some dreadfully romantic or poetic reason, but because it is simply a fact.
There is a before he fell in love, however. There is a lot of before, years of being best friends, falling outs and making up. Comforting each other after messy breakups and nursing each other back to health after messy nights out (Seungkwan is a lightweight, Vernon refuses to admit that he is too.)
There is a before when Vernon would roll his eyes when Seungkwan would put on his playlist, and Seungkwan would just smile his smug smile and sing along as loud as he could to his favorite ballads. There is a before when Vernon would shake his head and laugh when Seungkwan would fling himself on his bed, complaining about how badly he wanted to fall in love. There is a before when Vernon didn’t understand, not really.
But not-so-suddenly everything changed, over weeks and months and years he found himself drumming his fingertips on the steering wheel to “Still Into You” by Paramore, humming along to “She’s Thunderstorms” by Arctic Monkeys, admiring the way the headlights of passing cars lit up Seungkwan’s face as he sang along, always so passionately even if it was just barely above a whisper.
Falling in love with a stranger is an odd thing, falling in love with your best friend is stranger.
So now he lives in the greyest area he’s ever known, and he tries to ignore the way jealousy blooms in his chest when Seungkwan fawns over another boy.
Watching Seungkwan fall in love is painful and beautiful, much like being in love with him in and of itself. Vernon watches and smiles as Seungkwan leans into him -- Minghao, the boy who lives three floors down from their shared apartment, who always smells like expensive cologne, and has the kindest smile Vernon has ever seen -- and he can’t even hate the guy.
Vernon wishes he could be angry, wishes he could curse the man who is taking Seungkwan away from him, but he knows Seungkwan was never his, and that’s what hurts the most.
But he knows it’s worth it, because the way Seungkwan’s eyes light up when Minghao shows up on their doorstep with his favorite flowers is the most beautiful thing Vernon has ever seen. And Minghao is smart and sensitive and artistic and his laugh makes Seungkwan blush. And Seungkwan goes on and on about how he finally feels like he’s being treated right, and Vernon smiles, genuinely, even if he wants to scream that he could do that too.
And he knows that if Minghao breaks Seungkwan’s heart, or if Seungkwan breaks his, he will be there to hold him either way. And he knows that love songs will never sound the same. And he knows that Seungkwan will never be more than his best friend.
He listens to his playlist on repeat, anyways.