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A new beginning.
Jisung thought it was a new beginning, he let himself believe that, manipulated himself into thinking his previous experiences had nothing to do with this one, that this time - someone could actually love him back, someone like him could love him back.
He hoped that everything would be different this time around, imagined sparks dancing inside Minho's eyes, imagined that the subtle touches to his arms and thighs made him feel something, believed the looks of concern Minho gave him to hold something like love .
But they didn't.
Hope ate him up once again, the weeds growing inside his heart finally breaking it apart, it was all a dream, a fleeting quimera, it didn't matter how good Minho made him feel at the end of his days, it didn't matter how every single touch took all his pain away for as how long as it lasted - he didn't feel the same, Minho didn't feel the same.
He didn't wait for him after long lectures, didn't text him after midnight, never touched him first, never asked for comfort like Jisung did, never held his hands out of his own will - but Jisung hoped anyway, he thought those little things that felt like barriers to just be part of the way into Minho's heart, as if he was going up a hall of stairs, hoping to meet him at the very top.
But when Jisung got there, at the very top, it hit him like a truck, like a hurricane, burned him lava, the sudden realization that he was never special in his eyes, that Minho treated everyone else like he treated him, that they were indeed just friends, and that whatever had been happening to him and inside him for the last 2 years wasn't the long awaited romance he had craved for all his life.
Jisung felt stupid, dirty, foolish, miserable, he should've known , How could someone like Minho love him back? Why would he? He wanted to laugh out loud, nonstop, like a lunatic, laugh until his mouth burned from the pain, until it would hurt more than his heart.
But nothing could ever hurt him more than knowledge, more than knowing he was pretty, but never pretty enough , liked, but never loved , the everlasting agony of awareness, being fully unwanted , fully unloved .
Love
Everything he ever wanted, everything he could never have - but hope stayed with him, year after year, every time he met someone new, every time someone remotely attractive was nice to him, his desperation making him little, making him pathetic, all he ever wanted was to be loved in return - wanted the universe to gift him something back for all the time he spent suffering, Jisung wanted to be more, so much more, Jisung wanted to be happy .
Not even being sure if happiness was real, reachable, or just a dream that went away and chose to escape him every morning, Jisung wanted to be happy.
"You'll find someone"
Minho tells him, smiling beautifully, with a melodic giggle that draws lines around his mouth and nose, that make his eyes smaller - beautiful details Jisung doesn't want to notice, not anymore, details he wants to forget, details he wants to erase, and prays to the universe they won't make his heart warm in the mornings after this one, not anymore.
He lets go of Minho, both physically and emotionally, he can't be forcing holes into his own heart anymore, can't be drowning in the ocean of his own love, because he might, eventually, actually run out of it. It's done, nowhere to run, Jisung paints a dot at the end of their sentence, friends. - it's all they will ever be, all Minho could ever give him.
"I like to think I won't, so I can sleep in peace at night"
He says, and Minho laughs again, but this time, Jisung's eyes don't follow the sound.
It doesn't matter anymore, if love is real or not, if he is indeed unlovable, touching the burning scars scattered all over his heart won't bring him any good. Jisung says his goodbyes, and digs a grave for love in his backyard, but just like the words on that prayer dedicated to a god he never believed in his mom made him memorize when he was nothing but a little child; was buried, he descended to the dead, but on the third day he rose again, he ascended into heaven, Jisung hopes he will win his love back, one day, and hopes it will actually be what he hoped for - a new beginning.
He closes his eyes and hopes one last time, that his love will one day sit at the right hand of God , the Father almighty , that he won't need to worry whether or not he will be able to sleep in peace at night, that he won't ever have any more familiar, reoccurring nightmares.