Chapter Text
Seungkwan stared him down across the table.
Joshua idly stirred his coffee. It had been like this for about ten minutes now. Since he walked in, basically. It was clear that Seungkwan was here because he ha something to tell Joshua. Even without the prolonged silence and the constipated expressions, Joshua would know that, because he and Seungkwan rarely met one-on-one. They were perfectly good friends, but there was little occasion where they wanted to hang out that couldn’t be made even better with the rest of their friend group. It was plainly obvious that there’s something going on.
Seungkwan opened his mouth, and then snapped it shut again. He gave a frustrated sigh.
Joshua decided not to push. Whatever Seungkwan had to say was obviously bad news, and he was in no rush to hear it. He sat there, drinking his coffee and taking delicate bites of his tiramisu, and he waited.
Finally, Seungkwan took in a deep breath. He set his palms flat on the table. He, very conspicuously, did not look at Joshua. It must be bad.
Joshua braced himself for impact.
Seungkwan said, “Jeonghan-hyung and Seungcheol-hyung broke up.”
Alright, Joshua could see what all the fuss had been about.
"Ah," he said, and then he went to continue, and found he had nothing else to say.
He turned his focus inwards, and began to take stock of his emotions. Weirdness seemed to be the reigning one, naturally, but there was some confusion in there, and some concern. Which was good. Those were his best friends, after all. Then, there was a bit of relief. A tiny thread of vindication. He guessed he shouldn’t begrudge himself of those.
Seungkwan gave him a sad, wide-eyed look. "Nobody else knows," he said. "It's—it was only a few days ago. I don't know when they're going to tell everyone. I just… I thought you should know."
He looked upset. They were all grown up enough now that Joshua rarely felt their age differences anymore, but he felt it now, as Seungkwan sat in front of him looking young and sad and unsure. Seungkwan wasn’t really here to speak to him because he once dated Jeonghan and Seungcheol, Joshua realized. He was here because Joshua was the one other person in the enviable position of being both Jeonghan and Seungcheol’s best friend, and he needed backup.
Joshua breathed in deeply. He asked, “How did you find out?”
Seungkwan chewed on his lip. “Seungcheol-hyung told me. I’ve been talking him through it so far, I guess. I think he really needs it; you know how he is. And, well…” He sighed. “You know how Jeonghan-hyung is.”
Joshua sighed too. “Yeah,” he replied. “Yeah, alright.”
Knowing Jeonghan and Seungcheol, there weren’t going to be any sides to pick in this. Joshua just couldn’t imagine it turning out like that, and he was the leading expert in breakups with the both of them. Plus, Seungkwan would never hesitate to make his stance clear if there were a genuine source of contention. There was no choosing teams, here.
But the two of them were different people, and they needed different things. And if Seungkwan was talking to Seungcheol, and he wasn’t talking to Jeonghan, and he was sitting here telling Joshua about it: that could only mean one thing.
It meant that Jeonghan was on his own. And Joshua knew Jeonghan, to the bone, to the marrow. He needed many things. Some things Joshua had in abundance. Some things Joshua could never give him. Some things that probably nobody in the world could give him.
Being alone was never, ever what he needed.
—
The next day, Joshua showed up unannounced to Jeonghan’s house with coffee, cake, and flowers. The coffee for moral support. The cake as a consolation gift. The flowers: pure emotional manipulation. When they were dating, and Joshua younger and worse at articulating his feelings, he would sometimes buy Jeonghan flowers in lieu of saying things he was too scared to say. They became a bit of a symbol in their relationship; when flowers were present, it meant that there was something that needed to be said. A conversation to be had. Most likely, a difficult one.
The day that they broke up, Joshua walked into Jeonghan’s apartment to find a bouquet of roses waiting for him.
Joshua supposed, more than anything, the flowers were him being mean. He figured that Jeonghan would appreciate it.
He knocked on the door.
Joshua had plans with Seungcheol as well, later in the week. That was the good thing about Seungcheol. He was a mostly adjusted person, so Joshua knew that a few days wait to discuss the breakup wouldn’t hurt him, and Seungcheol would actually show up to a scheduled talk about feelings. Jeonghan was Jeonghan, and was thus a trickier case. A few days' wait would only give him time to go even more out of his mind, and Jeonghan would not show up to any kind of scheduled talk about feelings. His feelings, at least. Maybe if Joshua had lured him in by making it seem like a discussion about his own feelings — but no. Jeonghan would’ve been suspicious.
Like Joshua said. Tricky.
Still, Jeonghan had no way to prepare for or avoid an ambush, so he fell for Joshua’s trap, and he opened the door.
Joshua saw it on him instantly. The rough, heavy blanket of misery draped around his shoulders. There was the uncertain look in his eyes, the unsteady downturn to his mouth. Everything else in Joshua dissolved: all his conflicting feelings clamouring over each other dimmed to absolutely nothing. There was only the fact that Jeonghan was hurting.
Joshua had never been able to leave him alone. Not any time, but especially not like this.
Jeonghan blinked at him. “Shua,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting you. Are you okay?”
Joshua needed to get in the house before he tried to corner Jeonghan. He replied, “Yeah,” and then, “Can I come in?”
Jeonghan nodded. He looked down, taking in the items Joshua was carrying, and his nod wavered.
“Wait,” he said, but by then Joshua had already pushed inside. He beelined for the coffee table and set everything down. He turned to Jeonghan and put his hands on his hips.
Jeonghan was still lingering in the hallway, his arms already crossed in defense.
“Seungkwan told me,” Joshua announced. “You can drop the act.”
Jeonghan immediately scowled. The expression was so familiar, so dear, that Joshua almost smiled to see it.
“What the fuck? But I didn’t even—” Jeonghan cut himself off. Joshua saw his reassessment of the situation play out on his face. “Ah. I see.”
Joshua didn’t say anything. Just looked at Jeonghan.
Jeonghan met his gaze for a few seconds, before dropping it to the floor.
“Right,” he said, pulling his arms tighter around himself. He scowled again, but Joshua could tell this one was just for show. “Well. At least I got you, I guess.”
Joshua meant to reply with something about how Jeonghan hadn’t gotten anybody, and neither had Seungcheol, because they both knew that wasn’t how this worked, but what he said instead was, “You always have me.”
That made Jeonghan look up again. Made him do something with his face that was almost a smile.
"Even if I killed somebody?"
Joshua could still see the sadness hanging around him, which was his justification for playing along. It would be his justification for driving off a cliff, if that was what it came to. Jeonghan looked sad.
"I guess I'd help you hide the body, you maniac."
Jeonghan's eyes glimmered. “Even if I keyed Seungcheol’s car?” he asked. The fact that he ranked that above murdering somebody in severity was only overtaken in insanity by the fact that Joshua did too, a little bit.
“I’m sure he probably deserved it,” he replied. His voice did not waver with the lie. He would have to buy the coffee when he caught up with Seungcheol later, for his own conscience.
This time, Jeonghan did smile. A ghost of one, but a smile it was. It was strange to see, when his eyes still looked so fucking sad.
“Even if I broke his heart?”
Abruptly, Joshua was tired of this game. They’d somehow slipped back into an old, old routine, something that was closer to flirting than to conversation. It was too reminiscent of them living out of each other’s pockets and pretending that they didn’t want this to be it, it reminded Joshua too much of their days spent constantly pushing the boundaries of whatever it was they had, just to see when it would finally break.
Joshua folded down onto Jeonghan’s couch. He said, “You wouldn’t.”
That, out of everything, was what made Jeonghan smile properly. If Joshua had known that the unfettered truth was what would draw that out of him from the beginning, he would’ve ditched the coffee and the cake and the flowers and just brought the dredges of his heart for Jeonghan to pick at instead.
Jeonghan came to sit down next to Joshua. Very simply, he responded, “I did. He wouldn’t have dumped me otherwise.” Then, he reached out to pick up the bouquet of roses. He ran his finger along the curve of a petal. “You brought me flowers.”
There were too many things packed into those words. Joshua didn’t even know where to start picking it apart. The reveal that Seungcheol had been the one who initiated the break-up was illuminating, and it cast everything else into shadow. Joshua found himself suddenly very convinced that Jeonghan had broken his heart.
When they were dating, aside from hearing the words from Jeonghan’s mouth himself, nothing would’ve torn Joshua out of their relationship, and Seungcheol was twice as dedicated as Joshua, twice as tenacious, twice as optimistic.
“I thought they would make you feel better,” he said on autopilot.
"Asshole," Jeonghan replied, fond.
Seungcheol was more than Joshua had ever been, had so much more to give. That was why things hadn’t worked out between them, after all. Joshua had never needed so much. Didn’t know where to put it.
And, leaving the what s and why s of Joshua and Seungcheol aside — it was Jeonghan. What the fuck causes somebody to walk away from Jeonghan?
Pulled by a fear Joshua couldn’t describe, he asked, “Did you actually?”
Jeonghan’s head rolled back onto the couch. Joshua stared at the long line of his neck, and traced his gaze up to his chin, his mouth, his nose. His grief-stricken eyes, looking nowhere.
“I must’ve,” Jeonghan replied, with a shrug. He gave one, quiet laugh. “I don’t know how, but I must’ve.”
Around the two year mark of Jeonghan and Seungcheol dating, their friend group finally caught onto the fact that they could be it. This could be it, for them. Late bloomers, the lot of them. Joshua had known it after the first month, came to accept it after the fifth. In light of that, the silent sympathy and pity and concern from his friends after two years seemed so misplaced. He knew this was coming all along. Who knew better than he, when it came to Jeonghan and Seungcheol? Of course they were it for each other. He couldn’t have wished for better for them.
It seemed that Jeonghan wanted it to be forever too. Thought it. Had no idea what to do in the absence of it.
Joshua wanted, terribly, to ask if Jeonghan had felt anything like this after they broke up.
Instead, he said, “Eat your cake, Jeonghan.”
Jeonghan put down the flowers and picked up the cake. He took a bite, and then the next piece he sectioned off, he held out for Joshua to take. When it came to Jeonghan, Joshua had never been one to look a gift cake in the mouth and not have it too, so he accepted the bite.
They ate the rest of it like that, alternating forkfuls of cream and strawberry and sponge, the silence saturated with Jeonghan’s sadness. Joshua wanted to crawl over and push Jeonghan flat and lie on top of him, their limbs lined up: chest to chest, shoulder to shoulder, hands to hands. To remind him that no part of him goes without, goes alone. As if Joshua could ever be enough to keep Jeonghan within his own body.
Then, a thought occurred to Joshua. Without meaning to, he snorted.
Jeonghan gave him a sidelong glance. "What?"
Lips pursed, Joshua tried to figure out whether saying it would make Jeonghan mad, or make him laugh too. Eventually, he decided that Jeonghan would be most mad if Joshua didn’t say anything, so he stammered, "I, uh, I just realised: we've come full circle."
Jeonghan narrowed his eyes.
Somewhat helpless, Joshua continued, "You broke up with me. I broke up with Seungcheol. And now—"
He got cut off with a groan. “Oh my god,” Jeonghan said, his face scrunched up, "Seungcheol dumped me. Fuck. We have come full circle."
Unable to stop it, Joshua barked a laugh. Jeonghan hit him in the shoulder.
"This is not that funny," he snapped.
It wasn't, but it was, and either way, Joshua couldn't stop laughing. Jeonghan had his adorable, furious scowling face on as well, which only made the hilarity of the situation worse.
Jeonghan sighed.
"You're unbelievable," he replied, but he was smiling, and Joshua knew he was close to cracking.
It didn’t take much longer. A few more seconds of Joshua snickering into his hand and Jeonghan started laughing too, closing his eyes and letting the mirth light up his face, chuckling his stupid, seal laugh.
Joshua witnessed this and thought, I want to kiss him.
It wasn't a particularly surprising thought. Joshua had wanted to kiss Jeonghan for so long that it barely even registered as a want anymore; it was instinctual, a blink, a breath. He wasn't aware of it until he was. He felt it even after falling out of love, and he barely managed that.
Nobody fell out of love with Jeonghan. There was no point to it. It was like falling out of love with the sun. Sometimes it was too fucking bright, too hot, too harsh. Sure, whatever, it would eventually destroy you. But it was still there. You’d never get out of the light.
In that moment, Joshua made some kind of mistake. Thought about it too hard. Let it show somehow. Because when they stopped laughing, and Jeonghan looked over at him, he saw it.
Joshua would never be able to pinpoint what it was that he saw. As if he could ever guess what it was that Jeonghan saw in him, ever.
All that matters was that Jeonghan saw something in Joshua’s expression. And he blinked, and then he toppled over onto his side, slumping into Joshua’s lap.
Jeonghan looked up at Joshua, his head cushioned on his thighs.
“Joshua,” he said quietly. “I feel very, very sad.” The admission came so haltingly that Joshua knew he wasn’t bullshitting. This was the worst, most effective weapon in Jeonghan’s arsenal: he'd use the truth to manipulate you. Even though Joshua knew he was getting suckered, he couldn’t do anything to help it. “Make me feel something else? Please?”
Joshua looked down at Jeonghan. He felt the warmth of him, the weight of him. The fragility of him.
Judiciously, he gave Jeonghan a flick in the forehead.
“Ow!” Jeonghan cried, and while he was disarmed, Joshua leaned down and kissed him. There was nothing else for it. Joshua had never been able to leave him alone.
—
He was on his way back from the gym the next day when Seungkwan called him.
Like some kind of massive idiot, Joshua picked up. He didn’t even get a greeting.
“I cannot believe,” Seungkwan began, obviously seething, madder than Joshua had heard him in a long time, which was concerning because Seungkwan regularly got worked up to tears over social badminton, “that you fucked Jeonghan-hyung!”
At the very least, Joshua was glad that by picking up this phone call, he was avoiding the situation wherein Seungkwan camped out at his apartment door to rain his fury on him. It would be a lot more difficult hiding his reactions that way.
Joshua moved the phone away from his mouth, took a fortifying breath, and then returned to the call. Seungkwan was sitting there in stormy silence, waiting for a reply.
“Jeonghan said that to you?” Joshua asked. He kept his tone very mild, and slightly amused. He couldn’t seem defensive. If he got emotional, he would immediately lose.
“No, he hasn’t said shit to me,” Seungkwan said. Before Joshua could cut in with his so where are you getting this from, he continued, “but Jeonghan-hyung met up with Soonyoung-hyung today!”
There, Seungkwan took a brief pause to hysterically mutter, mostly to himself, Soonyoung-hyung! He told Soonyoung-hyung before me! Joshua decided it wasn’t his place to comment on that.
With a huff, Seungkwan rerouted. “And apparently, they’re going out tonight. With Mingyu-hyung as well.” His tone turned icy. “You and I both know what it means when Jeonghan-hyung agrees to go out with those two. And, before you even start, I found this out from Jihoon-hyung, so you can toss that line of argument out. I know the info’s credible.”
That had been the next line of argument Joshua was going for. He had to give Seungkwan credit there.
There were a lot of things that Joshua could say in response to Seungkwan’s tirade. It had been great sex, for one, which Seungkwan definitely wouldn’t find relevant but Joshua — and also Jeonghan — would consider solid reasoning. They were both adults. Jeonghan had been the one to initiate it. Joshua was clearly the loser here, because he was the one still in love with Jeonghan while Jeonghan had just needed physical comfort.
So many things he could say, and what he said instead was: “I mean, you honestly must’ve considered it a possibility when you sent me to talk to him.”
Seungkwan hung up on him. Joshua found that fair.
In his defense, it wasn’t as though Jeonghan and Joshua didn’t have sex occasionally after they broke up. Never when they were with other people, obviously, and never with any baggage attached aside from the stuff that Joshua didn’t let anybody see, and it had never gotten regular enough to become a thing. It had been, at most, a quarter of a thing. A known, acknowledged quarter of a thing. Mingyu used to call Joshua an idiot over it, which was probably true. All to say, Seungkwan should’ve seen it coming. Just a bit.
About ten seconds later, Seungkwan called back. It wasn’t Seungkwan on the phone, though. It was Vernon.
“Dude,” Vernon said, in English. The flatness of his tone sparked a laugh in Joshua.
“Sorry,” he replied, also in English. “I didn’t think before I spoke,”
“I get the impression you haven’t been thinking a lot in the past 24 hours,” Vernon replied. In the background, Joshua heard Seungkwan crow a laugh. He was on speaker, then. A chat with the happy couple. Joshua smiled despite himself.
Switching back to Korean, Joshua crooned, “I’m sorry, Kwan-ah.”
“I’m not talking to him.” Seungkwan called out. “He’s an enemy of the state.”
Despite the fact that Joshua could obviously hear him, Vernon reported into the receiver: “He’s not talking to you. You’re an enemy of the state.”
“Do you think it’ll help if he knows it was really good sex?” Joshua asked.
Vernon went, “Ugh, hyung,” but still dutifully turned around to call to Seungkwan, “He says it was—”
“I heard him the first time!” Seungkwan shrieked.
“He heard you the first time,” Vernon informed Joshua. There was a smile in his voice, so Joshua supposed that Vernon wasn’t too mad about the whole thing. Made sense; Vernon was more Joshua’s friend than he was Jeonghan’s, and Vernon was also a believer in having great sex whenever you could.
“I’m sorry,” Joshua said, coaxing and gentle, directly addressing Seungkwan now. “I mean, I don’t regret it, it was great sex and it was a decision both of us were comfortable with making, so I guess I’m not sorry but—” He paused, pursing his lips. “I really did think I was leaving him better than I found him.”
Jeonghan seemed perfectly fine in the aftermath. They both had work the next day, so Joshua left early, but he hadn’t sensed that anything was off, and it was him. Him and Jeonghan. He would’ve sensed something off. He was sure of it.
Joshua said, “You know I wouldn’t do anything to hurt him.”
There were a few moments of silence, and then some rustling. The sounds of Seungkwan murmuring thanks to Vernon, and the phone being picked up. Footsteps, maybe.
Seungkwan brought the phone to his ear and exhaled unsteadily. “I know,” he said, “I know, I know. I’m sorry too. Actually sorry. I just— I’ve never seen hyung like this before. I don’t know why he won’t just talk to me—”
He cut himself off.
Joshua must be a terrible person, because all he could think about was how — there it was. His confirmation, the unfortunate truth Jeonghan hadn’t acted like this after their breakup. Of course he hadn’t. Joshua didn’t know what he had been expecting.
He sighed. “We’ll figure it out, Seungkwan, okay? Between us, and the rest of the group, Jeonghan’s going to be fine. Seungcheol too. We’re all going to be fine.”
“I know,” Seungkwan said again, reluctantly. “I just worry about them.”
Joshua gave a gentle laugh. “You worry about everybody.”
“Everybody is very worrying!”
Joshua smiled to himself. Seungkwan was never going to change, and he was glad for it.
“Kwan-ah,” he said, “me and the other hyungs, we’re adults. I promise we can handle ourselves.” It struck Joshua, perhaps a little late, that he probably shouldn’t be lumping himself in with Jeonghan and Seungcheol in their breakup, but also perhaps the time to be rethinking that particular categorization was before he had ill-advised rebound sex with Jeonghan. So. Moot point.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Seungkwan grumbled, but Joshua could tell he’d won the argument.
He nodded in fond agreement even though Seungkwan couldn’t see it. “I’ll talk to Jeonghan again, figure out where his head’s at,” he said. “And I’m going to meet up with Seungcheol on Thursday, so I’ll check up on him then too. It’s gonna be okay, alright?”
Seungkwan huffed. “Try your best to keep it in your pants, hyung.”
It was a peace offering, and Joshua took it gladly. “Again, I think you’re sending the wrong man for the job,” he replied, and smiled to hear Seungkwan laugh in response.