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He should be over it by now, he knows that.
It's been... months. If Seungmin is fully honest, he doesn't even recall the date Jisung left. Dissociated so hard for so long that his sense of time evaporated, and he hasn't looked to figure it out. Hasn't glanced at their messages since they day Jisung went away, because that makes it real.
It makes it real, and Seungmin still feels so stuck in this pit of denial that he can't climb his way out of. It feels like his worst nightmare, really. And every day since Jisung left him, Seungmin has just felt like he's... drifting. Like he's one second away from blinking awake out of a stupid dream, and he'll find that Jisung has texted him about leaving for work, and Seungmin will have the chance to remind him that he's the most important person in his life.
Because he sucked at that, really. Still does. But there was something about Jisung that just... made it so hard. So scary. So risky.
Jisung was... so real. Jisung was his everything. Jisung was his love and his family and his hope and his dreams. Jisung was his pride.
And Seungmin is so hopelessly, pathetically lost without him.
He's trying to make friends. He's trying to move on. But nothing feels human. Nothing feels real, not like he did. Jisung gave him everything, and Seungmin wanted it so, so badly, yet he still managed to trample it all into the ground, destroy it without even meaning to.
He is trying. But friendships feel empty. They feel incomplete. Seungmin doesn't know if he's subconsciously comparing them all to him, or if he met his true soulmate in Jisung and Seungmin just wasn't enough.
Because that's kinda how it feels. That Jisung was perfect for him, and Seungmin was the opposite. A curse. A regret.
Seungmin could never regret meeting him. The only thing he regrets is not trying hard enough to kill himself two months before Jisung showed up.
Jisung was his salvation. Was supposed to be his light in the dark. He befriended Seungmin at his lowest, and he still loved him anyway. He still wanted all of him. He took him in. They bonded faster than Seungmin has with anyone, ever, and it was healthy. Mostly. Nothing can ever be perfect with Seungmin, and they had their serious struggles at first (entirely caused by him), but they balanced out.
Seungmin thought they balanced out.
He thought he made Jisung happy. It's all Jisung ever said. That Seungmin was his getaway, his chance to decompress. If a day was shit, simply jisungandseungmin could fix it right up.
But maybe Seungmin was just holding him back. That's what Jisung said, isn't it? Thank you, freedom. No more Seungmin, so he's free.
Jisung is set free, and Seungmin is trapped here, in his stupid pit of longing, for the rest of time.
Because no one will ever be Jisung. And no one except Jisung could ever repair the trust that Jisung broke by lying, and by leaving, so what's the point? What is Seungmin even searching for?
He has someone who calls him a best friend, but who isn't one for him. Their friendship is not what best friends are to Seungmin, and they know that. Jisung should have known that, why didn't he know that? How could he ever think he was being replaced? How could he ever think that Seungmin would ever stop loving him more than anyone?
Seungmin tried. He confessed. He told Jisung he'd marry him, if he could. He told him his dream would just be the two of them, living together, a family. A future. Seungmin would bring him lunch every day so they could sit together, so Jisung wouldn't feel lonely and he wouldn't have to worry about cooking as well as everything else he already does. They'd go to all the stores where Jisung lives, all the stores Seungmin has always wanted to go to.
They had plans. And it's so hard to plan anything with anyone, now, not because of the trust that was lost, but because they're not those plans, with him.
Maybe Seungmin wasn't clear enough. Maybe his commitment wasn't clear enough. Maybe Jisung didn't realise Seungmin meant, and wanted, everything.
Or, maybe, love just isn't enough. Maybe Seungmin's love isn't enough. Maybe nothing he can do will ever be enough.
He still calls Jisung his best friend. It's been months, and even if he isn't Jisung's, Jisung will always be his. Jisung might not think it's fixable, or worth fixing. But Seungmin won't ever leave him behind.
He can't even try to describe what it is he feels for Jisung. What it is he has always felt. Soulmate feels like too constricting of a word, so Seungmin tried to write it into songs. He roped Jisung in to help, sometimes, and their visions always matched. Their ideas of the love the two people Seungmin wrote about synced perfectly, beautifully. And it was supposed to be them.
Seungmin-and-Jisung. Jisung-and-Seungmin.
But now it's just Seungmin-and-Nothing, because all he feels is a deep, aching nothingness, a void. And it's unfillable, unfixable, unavoidable.
He is unfixable. He was supposed to be fixable. All he wanted was to be fixable, and to be believed in, and to be worth waiting for.
But Jisung waited enough. Said it himself, it got tiring. Toxic. Unsafe. Seungmin was never happy, always complaining. Nothing was ever good enough.
That's not how it felt to Seungmin, not really. But he's so fucking awful at communicating, and he gets so frustrated, and upset, and Jisung got tired of being the one to always apologise first but Seungmin never wanted apologies. He had told Jisung that, over and over. He doesn't want anyone to say sorry to him, because he doesn't believe they have bad intentions — he's simply upset. He wants to be heard, and understood, and he wants to be listened to.
He wants people to care enough to make the adjustments he needs without thinking he hates them in the process.
Because he doesn't hate people. He never hated Jisung. Even after Jisung made those comments about Seungmin having no other friends, he didn't hate him. Even after Jisung broke every promise he ever made, Seungmin never hated him.
He tried. He wanted to. He still cries over not hating Jisung, because if there's one thing Seungmin is good at, it's being angry. There are two constants in Seungmin's life: love, and anger. He loves stronger than anyone he knows.
But his anger is red-hot rage. It's fire under his skin. It makes him tremble and swims his vision. It gives him an energy that nothing else does, and he hates it most of the time. He hates the way it burns in him, an unextinguishable fire in his gut that scorches and roars and turns him into a hateful, spiteful, cruel, terrified little boy who lashes out instead of letting people in.
He hates it, but sometimes he wishes he really could just be angry at Jisung. Seungmin's anger gives him control. It gives him peace of mind, a searing blanket of safety. The only protection he has.
Maybe hating Jisung is the only way Seungmin could ever find his way out of his pit, but he can't. Won't.
God, he couldn't even if he tried. And believe him, he has tried. He has been angry, here and there. Has spiralled, so many times.
But he doesn't even hate Jisung for replacing him with Seungmin's ex. It just hurts. But he doesn't hate.
He doesn't hate Jisung for lying. It makes Seungmin feel sick, and has probably ruined any remaining thread of trust he ever had, but, it was almost non-existent anyway — it's not like Jisung can fully be blamed.
He doesn't hate Jisung for erasing him from his life so fast. For blocking him everywhere.
He doesn't hate Jisung for ignoring his very existence from the moment he left.
He doesn't hate Jisung for saying life without Seungmin is freedom.
He doesn't even hate Jisung for writing all his feelings into a song instead of saying them to Seungmin. That Seungmin had to find out everything through something Jisung posted online, for the whole world to see, but when Seungmin interacted he was still somehow the problem. He was still blocked and erased all over again.
Seungmin doesn't hate him. But he so desperately wishes he could.
It makes him feel weak. Unloved. Nobody gets to see the parts of him he gave to Jisung. No one ever will. If who he is, deep down, isn't enough for Jisung to love him, then Seungmin isn't going to dare to share anything vulnerable with anyone else again.
He doesn't trust people. He's cynical, he's guarded. He's rude and he's unapproachable, and he's near impossible to get close with. But with Jisung, none of that happened. Seungmin fell for him the moment Jisung commented on one of his songs, and they clicked from day one. One minute, they don't even know each other exists, and a week later they're an integral part of each other's everyday lives.
It's stupid, isn't it? That Seungmin is still so hung up over him? It's embarrassing and it's vulnerable and he can't even talk about it with anyone, because there's nothing they can do, and it just makes him cry, and it makes him spiral.
Which is why he's here, again, for the second time this week. Writing another song. The words still feel lodged in his throat, like he's still not saying the right things. He doesn't know what he even wants to say. Nothing will bring him back, so nothing will ever be perfect.
How many songs will he have to write to feel like he's maybe, finally starting to move forward? He's been writing them for months, but his words only seem to be filled with more despair as time goes on.
Time is supposed to heal all wounds, so why isn't it healing him? Why does it never heal him? Why does it feel like nothing ever changes? Like time is passing for everyone else. They're moving on. They're progressing in life.
And he's stuck, scared and alone, trapped in the moment that they left, in so much subconscious denial that he doesn't even know how to prove to himself that Jisung isn't coming back. He doesn't want to come back.
If he wanted Seungmin, if he wanted them, if he wanted things fixed, he would have come back by now.
But he found better people. His people. His sunshine twin. He found love that's worthy of him, which Seungmin never was.
It's his punishment, he knows. He's spent his whole life not feeling loved, not feeling like he's good enough, not feeling wanted, for as long as he can remember. Even back when he was just a little kid, or when he was in school.
And it turned him cold. Spiteful. Wretched. It poisoned him, and it's been so long that Seungmin doesn't think there's a cure that could ever work on him.
Why did he think Jisung could truly love him? It's stupid, isn't it? No one ever has, so why, why did he let himself fall for it?
Every shred of good he tried to wring out of himself, just for Jisung... it was all for nought. It wasn't enough. It was everything Seungmin had, and it wasn't enough, and now he doesn't even have that any more.
He has nothing. He is nothing. If nothing he gives is ever good enough, he doesn't want to try any more. It takes too much energy, and he's been running on empty for... well, forever, he thinks.
He's been using up energy he doesn't have, and it's draining every piece of his soul, and the only person worth doing that for doesn't want him, so Seungmin doesn't want anything. He doesn't want life, he doesn't want to exist. He doesn't want happiness, because it will never feel perfect, it will never feel fulfilling. There will always be something missing. Someone.
But it's life now, right? This is just what he has to live with.
Or not. Nobody is forcing him to live. But he can't even find the energy to do anything about that. He doesn't want to be here, but he doesn't care enough about anything to figure out how he's supposed to make that happen.
So he'll just... drift. For as long as it takes.
Maybe along the way he'll find that magic cure. But that was supposed to be Jisung, so, why would Seungmin trust anyone who might make him feel that way again?
They'll just leave.
He doesn't blame them, but he's spent years trying to be good, trying to be better, trying to be fixable. All he has ever done is fail.
What's the point in even trying any more?