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Jun approaches him with a glass of whiskey; Dylan takes it without a second of hesitation.
The condensation drips, creating a ring-shaped puddle on the sticky counter of the bar, identical to the way sweat is left sticky on the abandoned groom’s temples. Dylan understands it's his fault Jun ended up here, but he can't find the words to tell his best friend that Hoshi's 'sudden' takeoff is because she notices Jun slowly drifting away, and Dylan now wonders who's really inside the half-drunk Jun's heart.
“Jun?” Dylan notices that his voice slightly cracks when he says it. His chest is already heavy from the anxiety he has felt since the afternoon. The silk of his best man's blouse clings tight to his heaving back. “I have something to tell you.”
Jun’s eyes are blurry from all the tears he denies letting fall. He isn’t the type to cry. The type who lets people know he is vulnerable to human emotions. He had worked so hard throughout his life to be the fun guy, the guy who gets what he wants. Once he had retreated for the sake of Thame’s love for Po and vice versa, but Hoshi? She picked him back up as well; she had eyes for him, and when she left him standing there in front of their closest family and friends, Jun began to wonder if he was a problem.
Jun chugs down the majority of his liquor, allowing the alcohol to burn him further before turning his head, dazed eyes barely making contact with Dylan. He hums low in acknowledgment for what Dylan wants to announce. “Yeah?”
Dylan's knuckles turn white as he grips the edge of the old wooden counter tightly; his stomach rumbles with the fear that if it had been any other day, Dylan would have fled by now. Courage has a challenging time finding the rapper. It isn’t like it is ever easy when he has to speak his thoughts. Dylan can hear blood rushing through his veins in his ears. It roars as if he were standing next to a waterfall. Words stuck to his pharynx like hot glue. “Maybe—maybe it is better if I just—”
“Are you trying to comfort me?” Jun interrupts, his head slumping into his palm tiredly. His eyes had already given up on opening. A long exhale escapes his nostrils as Dylan watches it flare. “You’re horrible at it, so don’t even try.”
“I’m not.” Dylan responds, his eyes darting to his glass of whiskey before taking it all down in one shot. His eyes squint at the way the liquor dilutes all of his fear, or at least he hopes it can. He slams the glass down with a sharp clack before reaching over and pulling Jun in for an embrace. “I hate that I have to do this.”
Jun’s breath hitches at the force. He feels Dylan’s arms strung around his neck, chin resting on the blade of his left shoulder. The hug is tight in a way that signals that Dylan is terrified, muscles tense against Jun’s nape. “Dyl—”
“It’s my fault.” Dylan mumbles with a trembling voice. “I did this to you. I caused all of this.”
“What do you mean? What nonsense are you spewing?” Jun’s arms find themselves on Dylan’s forearms, trying to untangle the knot that chokes him. However, the more he tries, Dylan only resists it more persistently and only clings harder.
“I really don’t want to lose you, dammit.” Tears, hot, run down Dylan’s face until it soaks the white shirt of Jun’s wedding outfit. The cologne that Hoshi gifted Jun still clings between them, mixing with a spicy scent of whiskey. “I can’t lie to you anymore.”
Instead of more struggle, Jun drops his hands down to Dylan’s spine and holds them there, saying nothing. His breath evens out as his head drops into the dip between Dylan’s neck and shoulder.
“I am in love with you, Jun.” Dylan’s words are barely voiced. Yet, they act like tiny shards of glass that slowly crumble and prick into Dylan’s skin. Time almost feels too still. “Hoshi knew. That’s why she left…”
Jun is stationary in his spot. The statement does not even cause a start. There is not even a single breath taken. If Jun’s body hadn’t been warm, Dylan would have thought he was hugging a statue. The air grows silent enough that Dylan can hear his pulse hammering against the contacted skin.
“Fuck.” Jun finally breaks the silence before he pulls his head back, hands pressing on Dylan’s chest away from his own. “You shouldn’t have said that.”
“What do you—”
“Go home, Dylan.” Jun looks away. “We’re both drunk. Let’s not.”
Dylan watches Jun turn away. His chest collapses into itself, and for the first time in months, he refuses to let the distance win. Before he knows it, a hand shoots out and catches Jun's wrist.
The skin warms into Dylan's palm; heat extracts straight from the liquor Jun drinks to ignore. The rapper had enough with the silence. Look where that got them both. One scene preceding the crash. Dylan's stomach churns like he is standing at the edge of the hill looking down, fingers grasping at Jun's skin like it can keep him from falling. “That's the exact reason why we should talk now.”
Jun's jaw clenches, and he doesn't pull away, but he doesn't turn back either. The man still there allows Dylan's hand to wrap around his wrist like an anchor he's not sure he wants. "You think drunk confessions count as talking?”
“For as long as I’ve known you, none of our sober talks have been productive.” Dylan is unwilling to let go, as if he did, Jun would consider leaving instead. What if tonight is the only time Dylan has the guts to tell Jun to stay with him? What if Dylan's burning chest from the cheap whiskey is the only thing pushing him to say what he needs? “Why do we keep pushing each other away when we're hurting?”
Jun's breath catches, and he finally turns around, red-rimmed eyes searching Dylan's face for a lie he won't find. "Because staying hurts more.”
Finger twists slightly around Jun's wrist, and Dylan finds his heart almost failing at the sight of the man he loves vulnerable. He stares back at those two pairs of brown eyes he has dreamed of waking up next to for the last half a decade, eyes spiced up like someone poured cinnamon into the corner of them. Nose already sniffles a defense out of habit, like those times he tries to win their argument, but this time Dylan fails, watching Jun's face morph into something he never witnesses.
Dylan's thumb moves without permission. It brushes across the inside of Jun's wrist where his pulse is hammering. "When was the last time you let yourself be hurt?" Dylan asks, and his voice fades into a rumble on the last word. "Let it hurt with me instead of running from it.”
Jun's face falters into something rawer than just tears, like he's finally too worn out to hold up the mask. The free hand comes up to cover his eyes. "You poetic fuck, don't look at me like that.”
In the last 6 years, including training, debut, and maintaining MARS, Dylan has written a total of 127 tracks. 81 of those are for the idiotic motherfucker who sits across from him. “When am I not looking at you like that?” Dylan pulls Jun in until the brown-haired man rests his forehead back onto his shivering shoulder. “Why are you trying so hard?”
Jun's hand drops from his face and clutches at Dylan's shirt instead, bunching the silk between his fingers like he's drowning. "Because if I stop trying—” Jun babbles like he forgets how to speak when it comes to the truth. “I'll start to want you back.”