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it’s nothing new when jaehyun hears doyoung softly snoring next to him in the middle of the movie they’re watching. it happens quite frequently, it usually happens in the first quarter of the movie. next he’ll wake up somewhere in the middle, mumble a quick apology and ask jaehyun what he's missed. jaehyun tells him that it’s okay, he can keep sleeping and that he’ll tell him all about it tomorrow. it’s never the movie’s fault, or jaehyun’s. he’s just been working too hard lately.
jaehyun doesn’t really mind, he thinks it's cute. he likes retelling the stories and most of all he likes that doyoung gets to rest.
the next day jaehyun will tell him all about it: who ends up with who, so and so died, the dog lives, the neighbor was the killer, he was in love with her this entire time and so on.
“hyung, when i tell you the plot of a movie, that doesn’t really count as watching the movie. i don’t think it’s fair to log it” jaehyun says as he scrolls through doyoung’s letterboxd profile “and technically you’re rating the movie based on my retelling. it’s not fair”
doyoung shrugs “well how else are people going to know i watch films?”
“i’m your only follower”
“right”
jaehyun doesn’t know when it started, or how. he stopped paying attention to the movies too, except he's wide awake.
he tried really hard once he noticed. at first maybe he thought it was the movie he chose that week. today he decided maybe he's just over the live action spiderman movies. no, that doesn’t even make sense, he thought. he loves andrew garfield. maybe it just makes him think of mark? but why is that a bad thing? (because his costume that one halloween was bad?). he's just making shit up now. he racks his brain to find the answer while uncle ben dies for the 65th time. he doesn't even know if that happens in this movie, he gave up watching.
and then he hears it.
his best friend softly snoring next to him--it should be nothing new. after all, they’re a quarter into the movie. it should be nothing new. but why doesn’t it feel that way? jaehyun’s too scared to look at him now. too scared to face the thought he’s been putting in the back burner for years. too scared to admit that maybe this feeling isn’t even new, that it’s just now rising to the surface. no, there's too much at stake, jaehyun thinks. he's watched too many movies about the best friend who's secretly in love. it only works out in the movies, his life is not a movie. despite this, jaehyun thinks it would be unfair to both him and doyoung to not do anything, or at least say anything.
finally, he turns to face his best friend. doyoung looks tired but peaceful. jaehyun feels a knot in his stomach or maybe it's his heart swelling. as jaehyun watches the rise and fall of his chest that accompanies the soft snoring he came to know over the years, he begins to calm down. jaehyun realizes the feeling isn’t actually new. with doyoung, jaehyun feels like he’s exactly where he’s supposed to be. this is nothing new, this is something that was always there. this is constant. doyoung is constant.
doyoung seems to feel jaehyun’s eyes on him because his eyes slowly flutter open “what?”
“you missed it” jaehyun laughs
“missed what?”
“i’ll tell you all about it tomorrow”