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JENO WATCHES.
Jeno watches as Jaemin’s soft brown locks get caught in the wind, furling around his head like an angel’s halo. The way his face lights up when he smiles, the ways his eyes crinkle right at the seams, the way when he laughs, his whole body shakes like he’s just so happy.
Jeno watches, and Jeno falls in love. And he’s been in love, for the past three years, and he’s been okay with it. He’s been happy reveling in Jaemin’s warmth, just staying next to him, and watching him light the world up, and set his heart on fire and take hearth from it.
But time passes and tides turn, and what Jeno has come to believe as normalcy, as routine, as predictability comes to a staggering halt, not in a shriek, but in a whisper and a quarter. He feels it ending in his chest, when Jaemin takes his hand in the middle of Jaehyun’s wedding celebrations and drags him to the hills. The evening sun paints the sky in tangerine brush strokes, the flock of birds returning home a jab at where this is headed. It feels like a time to fall in love, but all Jeno feels is his ribs falling apart and being laid to rest in these hills, only the dusk a witness and tombstone to his demise.
Jeno isn’t a fool. He knows he couldn’t have stayed in that blissful intermediate of having Jaemin without asking him to belong to Jeno. With this part of his life fast coming to an end, he knows he’s needed in places that are not this tiny little town he’s found a home in. Places that are away from Jaemin. He knows if he doesn’t do something, he doesn’t have even a sliver of a chance for a forever with Jaemin. And this moment, right now, is ride or die.
Because while Jeno’s not a fool, he is a fool for Jaemin.
“It’s just—” Jaemin’s saying, and Jeno watches, listens, holds on to every word, “I don’t know. Everything’s suddenly changing, Jeno-yah. One moment I’m spending my days with you and Jaehyun hyung and blissfully ignoring the responsibilities that will come with adult life, and now suddenly, we’re graduating, Jaehyun hyung’s married, and you’ll go off back home to take over your family business and I— I’ll miss it. I’ll miss all this so much. I’ll miss you.”
You don’t have to miss me, Jeno thinks, not if I can take you with me. Not if you’d be in my arms and let me love you. Again, and again, and again, every day to come.
“You don’t have to stay here,” Jeno says, heart hammering. Jaemin laughs.
“Should we run off and join a pirate ship?”
Does Jaemin know? Does he know that Jeno’s about to risk it all for him? That’s he’s ready to do anything, if it’s for him? That he’s baring his heart out right now?
His silence speaks volumes, and when Jaemin’s turning around to meet his eyes, there’s nothing but cherry red panic in them.
He shakes his head before Jeno can get a word out. “No.”
But Jeno’s not going to lose him like this. Not like this, when he hasn’t told him just how much.
“It’s no use, Jaemin, we’ve got to have it out. I have loved you ever since I’ve known you, Jaem, I couldn’t help it. And I’ve tried to show you, but you just wouldn’t let me—” Jaemin’s shaking his head, over and over, he’s walking in circles in the grass so he doesn’t meet Jeno’s eyes but Jeno runs, he chases, he follows. Like he always has. “— which is fine. But I must tell you now, and ask you to give me an answer, but I cannot go on like this any longer.”
I cannot go on walking by your side but not thread my fingers through yours. Waking up on the roof together at the middle of the night but not reaching over to pull you close. Having you close enough to press my lips to yours and let our souls sing in symphony, but just watching on as we don’t do any of that.
“I gave up billiards. I gave up everything you didn’t like, every part of me that disappointed you. I’m happy I did. It’s alright, and I waited and I never complained.”
Jaemin looks like he’s on the verge of tears as he stops and stares at Jeno, and Jeno knows he’s a mere reflection. But he can’t, in good conscience, not bare his heart out naked, like this, on the cusp of everything changing, for the better or for the worse.
“Because,” he says, and at this a sob chokes the back of his throat. His eyes singe with tears, but he pushes the words out, “Because I figured you’d love me, Jaem. And I get it, I understand that I’m not half good enough and I’m not this great man—”
At this, Jaemin seems to snap, reaching forward to take Jeno by his shoulders. “No, stop. Yes you are. You are a great man, and you’re too good for me and I’m so grateful to you and I’m so, very proud of you and I—”
And Jeno clutches. He clutches to that small ray of hope that tugs at the sinews of his heart that Jaemin would realize. That he would realize that he could love Jeno, and that he does love Jeno and they’ll be happy together.
But he’s holding on to thin air.
“—I don’t know why I can’t love you the way you want me to. I don’t know why.”
Jeno’s heart plummets, freezing to ice, and shattering as it hits the marbled floor. There’s a bitter, repulsive bubble of anger that shudders through his body — it’s not blazing, or fiery. It’s freezing, it’s sharp, it’s numbing.
His voice is a whisper. “You can’t?”
Jaemin looks like he’s going to break. “No. No, I can’t. I know — I’ve known for a while. And I tried to, but I can’t change how I feel. And it would be a lie to say I do, when I don’t. I’m so sorry, Jen. I’m so sorry, but I just can’t help it.”
And then Jeno’s laying his cards out.
“I can’t love anyone else,” he says, but his voice is so soft, and so broken, “I only love you.”
“Jeno,” Jaemin says, and now he’s frantic. He’s pulling at excuses to throw at Jeno. “It would be a disaster if we’re together—”
“It wouldn’t be a disaster.”
“—we’d be miserable—”
“I’ll be a saint.”
“I can’t. We can’t.”
“Why?” Jeno asks, and he hates the way his voice cracks, “Why, when everyone expects it? Your family does, my grandfather does too. Why’re you saying this? Say yes, and let’s be happy together, Nana.”
He’s so close now, that if Jeno moves an inch ahead, he could kiss him. Like he’s been dreaming of for days, and weeks, and months. But Jaemin presses his palms softly against his chest.
“I can’t say yes truly, so I’m not going to say it at all,” he says softly, “And you’ll see that I’m right eventually, and you’ll thank me for it.”
Jeno doesn’t know how he says it to his face, the feelings he’s held in his heart for so long. “I’d rather hang myself than realize that. I’d rather be dead.”
And then he’s pulling back because this is too much, being so close to him, feeling the heat that radiates from his body where they touch, feeling the buzz under his skin, and he’s walking in circles, not meeting Jaemin’s eyes as the horror of his words dawns upon Jaemin and he’s frantically trying to hold him back.
“Listen to me, Jeno,” he’s saying as he tries to reach for Jeno’s hand, desperately, begging, “You’ll find someone lovely, who will truly love and adore you, and make a fine partner for you and your fine household, but that’s not me. I wouldn’t.”
“Yes, you would,” Jeno says, although he knows it’s falling on deaf ears. Jaemin just continues, his words picking pace like he has to get them out.
“Look at me. I’m homely and I’m awkward—”
“I love you, Jaemin.”
“—and I’m not fit for the world you live in and you’d be ashamed of me—”
“I love you, Jaemin.”
“—and we would quarrel. Look. We’re can’t help it, even now. I’d hate elegant society, you’d hate my ordinary wants from life, and we’d be unhappy and wish we hadn’t done it, and everything would be horrid.”
Jeno’s tired of the excuses. “Is there anything more?”
Jaemin’s exhausted, and his eyes tell. He looks down. “No, nothing more.”
The heavy iron anchor pulling Jeno’s heart down doesn’t lift. “Alright,” Jeno says, turning around. He has to leave.
But then, Jaemin reels him back again, moth to flame. “Except that—”
And Jeno, foolish Jeno, is turning around in hope again, eyes wide.
Jaemin pauses, and then sighs. “I don’t think I’ll ever fall in love, Jeno. I’m happy as I am, and I love my liberty too well to be in any hurry to give it up.”
Jeno resists a pained scoff. Jaemin loves. Jaemin loves so very deeply. He always has, it’s a part of him.
“I think you’re wrong about that, Jaemin,” he says, calmly now, not heeding to Jaemin’s soft no, because he’s done. He’s done. He’s poured his heart out and he’s gotten rejected and he can’t do anything about it than be hurt. Hurt, and hurt, and hurt some more. And know with even more of a certainty how foolishly, madly in love he is. “I think you will fall in love, headfirst, drowning. I think you’ll find someone, and you’ll love them, and you’ll live and die for them because that’s your way, and you will.”
And Jaemin looks so very miserable. They both are. Their honest, warring hearts who can’t point to the same north cry for them.
Jeno bites on his lower lip, and then says it, “And I’ll watch.”
Like he always has. And, as it turns out, he always only ever will.