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"Can you accompany me downstairs?" Hyunjin asks, nervous as he gulps and chokes on air but he tries to suck it up. "I just booked a cab. Do you mind?" It isn't the best time for a confession in a hazy state of bodies gyrating to the blaring music, but the liquid courage was telling him it was now or never, so with finality he says, "I was gonna tell you something anyway."
"Okay, sure." Changbin leads the way out of the bar holding onto Hyunjin’s wrist, strategically shifting through the small spaces to propel them forward, until they were down to the last step of the first floor stairwell.
"Stay there. I'm gonna run as soon as I say it. Or you can rush back up," Hyunjin says, all sorts of anxious as he walks to create a distance between them.
"Why is the air so tense?" Changbin chortles, a stupid teasing smile on his face.
Suddenly Hyunjin's hyper aware that he's gonna have to confess now. Changbin chuckles even more, for a very short while until "I liked you” comes out of Hyunjin’s mouth in a rush. Past tense. "Stupid," he mutters under his breath, but Changbin doesn't hear it because they are a meter apart. At literal arms length.
"For how long?"
"Around last year." Another lie. It started even earlier than that. It was even more complicated than that.
Silence.
"Oh."
Followed by loud honking.
It didn't look like Changbin had anything more to say, so when Hyunjin looks back, he frantically searches for the plate number of his ride and locates it.
"I have to go, bye," he says in a hurry before he shuts the backseat of the cab he gets on.
The last thing he sees as he peers from the back of the car is Changbin's back, slowly going back up where they came from.
The car ride let's him process what just happened. He feels happy, relieved, maybe a tad bit forced. Like a thorn has been plucked from the inside. So this is how it feels like to confess feelings. He feels chirpy and internally marks it as an achievement.
But the high crashes as fast as the rain pours when he gets off the cab an hour later
This is stupid , Hyunjin thinks, sprinting in the dark to the gate of his house. He gets off the cab all disheveled by the guardhouse of his village. Blame stupid village regulations they wouldn't let the vehicle pass without a sticker. The porch of his home wasn't far off anyway
What was he thinking? Why had he told Changbin? Why did he have to confess at all? All he got was an "Oh" and that thoughtful unreadable expression the older had always sported. It hits him that Changbin hadn't said anything, not that he allowed him enough time to say anything at all though.
As he slots the key in and opens the front door of his family's home, he can't help but let out an ear-splitting yell, rubbing his hands all over his face in frustration. He could care less if his parents were home. It was past 12. They were deep sleepers, no big deal.
Sweat beads at the corner of his face. He doesn't know if it's from the alcohol he had downed bottle after bottle or the inhalation of second-hand smoke a couple hours ago, but he feels warm. At the back, all over, slowly seeping through and taking over.
He knew he wasn't in control. He had confessed and the ball wasn't with him any longer. He had taken his turn. It's up to Changbin now as he looks at his phone. Nothing from the older. A text from Jisung, though. "Where did you go?" it reads, but he's too far gone to reply.
With shaky hands, he downs a glass of water and hastily comes up to his room and locks it. He sheds his clothes, uses them to dab at the moisture sticking like second skin on his body, and gets into workout clothes: a track suit and clips on a sports headband in the same color.
Red . Anger. Madness. Love? Bull— He gets on the treadmill at the corner of his room, pushes Start and it's moving. He ignores the specifics (age, weight, etc.), but sets the incline to a 5 and the speed to 7.5 in a jiffy. Crazy. He needed to know he was in control of at least one factor in his life, he needed to train for swimming anyway. He tries to keep up, heaving, almost out of breath and it's barely ten minutes until the tears wash down the control board and he's pressing Stop. The machine comes to a halt and he gets off, settling at the edge of his bed as he cries.
That’s when he sees his phone light up. One message.
Changbin: Are you home yet?
He musters up the courage, quickly swiping at the letters before he presses send.
Hyunjin: Yes. Thank you.
He cries harder and it makes him remember.
Hyunjin had liked Changbin the first time Minho introduced them in his sophomore year, way before Changbin and Minho even graduated. He liked Changbin even before that trip he took to Jeju, even before the older had promptly commented on a picture he posted at Mt. Hallasan: "Looking good. Enjoy the rest of your trip! ;)" with a wink. He just had to put that wink.
Maybe it was Changbin's goofy smile. The way he was soft inside past the tough and intimidating exterior. It was just some kind of shield, nothing to be afraid of in all honesty. The older had always felt comfortable around him, doing his cute little antics, draping himself all over Hyunjin whenever he felt a little tipsy from their night outs with friends: Minho and Jisung mostly, sometimes even with Seungmin.
Changbin wasn't the most handsome, but he was charming. He had a way with words, never backed down to a challenge. Witty, funny, and cunning Changbin was that Hyunjin just found himself falling. Found himself replying to every text message of good morning, are you home yet , and have you eaten; gotten so used to the blue light that blinked until the wee hours that kept him laughing instead of sleeping.
Whenever Jisung was with Minho, he'd find himself with Changbin. At first they just shared an exasperation on their best friends mutual pining for each other. They'd go on trips to the mall after school or between breaks, hit the arcade, eat a meal together—even do that stupid thing where they would pass by a stranger with both of them situated left and right of said stranger or pass in the middle of a couple. No one was allowed to go home without achieving 10 passes.
It was somewhere between those Hyunjin was smitten and how he finds it easy to bring Changbin home to the Hwang household on the weekends when they don't need to go back to the school dorms. It was convenient they lived a few kilometers near each other that it became a habit. It came to a point where he thinks Kkami looks for the older rather than him.
He liked Changbin even when the older would tie his hair in a stupid tiny sprout, with full bangs, or the cool undercut. Somewhere between the times Changbin would invite him to a concert as a plus one from the free tickets he got as perk at his org and where Changbin would jokingly chase at his lips with his own landing on his cheeks anyway because it was natural friend affection.
He always just shut his eyes and took a deep breath whenever a confession was brewing forth past his lips.
It's been a week since then and still no message from Changbin. Not even a weird dot or a joke they were used to to break the awkward silence like that one time Changbin had turned to him out of the blue and uttered, “Are you straight?” even if the answer was obvious and Hyunjin ended up ignoring it anyway.
He refuses to get out even when Jisung knocks on his room and pleads entry. It hurts and it hurt bad the way he felt like his heart was in his throat, constricting in the narrow passageway like it wanted to jump out and be hurled to rid off the numbness its owner was trying to harness.
On the third day, he lets Jisung in. The younger sits at the edge of his bed, whereas he covers himself in his comforter and blanket.
"I couldn't stop crying, Sung," he huffs. His eyes are puffy as it is, so he reaches for his eyeglasses from the bedside table in an attempt to make it look less swollen however futile the effort. If anything, it emphasizes it more.
"I don't know what to offer honestly," Jisung sighs, rubbing down Hyunjin's back. Suspiciously, his other hand typing out something on his phone. "Changbin hyung, he—" pause "—he looked so distraught when you left."
"I finally told him. In past tense. I said ‘I liked you’, past tense." Hyunjin covers his eyes with the back of his hands. "Did he say anything about it?"
"No. I didn't want to ask because I thought what if you hadn't? I wasn't in the position to let him know if you haven't."
"That's fine," Hyunjin reassures Jisung. "He didn't say anything and I just ran."
“Wait, Jin.” Jisung brings a hand up. “If I were in the same situation, you would’ve confused me.” He scratches at the back of his head, deep in thought. “Too.”
“I didn’t know how confessions work,” Hyunjin whimpers. “What was I supposed to do? My ride was waiting. I booked it before we went down and I had him accompany me. How did yours go down with Minho hyung again?”
Jisung refuses to answer any question, only choosing to simply say, “I think you should do it again.”
“Now you’re speaking in tongues. I’m not doing that again! That’s insane. It took all of me and my liquid courage to even say it. Hell, it took all my energy the entire night. I—no, definitely not. If someone should do it again, it’s not gonna be me. I don’t think I can handle the rejection a second time around.”
“He never rejected you, though? There was no clear motive in your confession.”
“If it wasn’t a rejection, he could’ve texted,” Hyunjin defends. “That’s what he’s always been good at, keeping me up with his dumb jokes. Suddenly he just stops?”
Before Jisung can say anything, they hear a knock on the door. Hyunjin just smiles small at Jisung, silently telling him to open the door for him which he does rather quickly. He turns to Hyunjin and says, “My cue to leave.” before he’s opening the door wide and letting Changbin in and shutting it close.
Hyunjin’s face falls. He isn’t really given any time to duck, cover, and hold his makeshift fort of blankets so he lets his hands fall on his sides where it lands on his soft comforters. He runs his hands on it and bites the insides of his cheeks.
“Hey,” Changbin greets, still leaning on the door from when Jisung closed it. He doesn’t make a move to get closer, just stays in position.
“Hey yourself. Why are you here?” Hyunjin tries his best to look at him, or the door, or his forehead. That’s what people who didn’t really want to make eye contact do but want to appear as though they are.
“I’m here to ask and clarify a few things. I found it hard to wrap my head around the idea of you liking me. I mean, why?”
“You don’t get to ask, I don’t know why either.” Hyunjin bites, before looking back down at his hands, picking at his nails now.
If Changbin heard the bite to Hyunjin’s words, he doesn’t react. “Jisung was worried. Everyone was, you just upped and left and didn’t talk to anyone for a week.”
“I needed to pull myself together, scout a few jobs, get my life somewhere. You should know. Graduation and all.”
Changbin sees through the lie, smells the sarcasm in that. Hyunjin always was one to talk with a sardonic undertone.
“I thought you were really pretty the first time I saw you, Hyunjin,” Changbin starts instead. “Too pretty in fact I even asked Minho if he thought I was your type and the only thing he told me was to leave you kids alone. That was also the time when I’d tease him about Jisung, a little after that time you told me something was up between them.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Did you really mean it? You liked me? So it’s past?” Changbin takes a brave step forward, calculating how many more until he’s nearer to Hyunjin so he could let him know too.
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.” Another step.
“Why?”
“Because I love you Hwang Hyunjin,” Changbin says it loud and clear, with no hint of a joke. “Present tense, just to be clear," he clarifies, fidgets where he stood. "This is the part where I open the door and say ‘I have to go, bye’,” he scoffs and then he follows up with a laugh, a throaty nervous one at that, until he catches Hyunjin suppressing laughter with his hands on his mouth, all crescent-eyed with his head tipped back.
Hyunjin reaches behind himself and fluffs up a pillow and throws to Changbin’s general direction. “Please pick it up and get over here.”
“Why?” Changbin picks it up and moves forward anyway, standing by the edge of Hyunjin’s bed before setting himself down to sit beside the younger.
“Because I feel the same and it was never past. I thought if I told you in past tense I can put it behind, move on, and I could swallow the bitter pill alone of you rejecting me even without giving you a chance to speak.”
“That was kinda funny, admittedly, when I replayed it a few times in my head trying to look for a deeper meaning.”
“Shut up,” Hyunjin says, but he doesn’t mean it even as he slaps softly at Changbin’s arms.
“I brought you carrots, onions, and eggplants downstairs by the way,” Changbin segues.
“Everything that I don’t eat, thanks.” Hyunjin rolls his eyes. Changbin just shifts closer, winding his arms around Hyunjin’s shoulders.
“Now we can have double dates with Minho and Jisung,” Changbin quips again, flawless change of topic as Hyunjin lolls his head on the space where the older’s shoulders and neck meet.
“Gross. Are you hearing yourself right now?”
“As if we haven’t been doing so this whole time.”
“Right.”
“Come on. For real, I bought you a few things downstairs. Like your favorite sushi. Mom let us in, told us she was getting—”
“Mom? As in my mom?”
“I’ve been calling her mom the few times I come over and she never complains, thought I should just keep calling her that then.”
“They are used to you coming over,” Hyunjin says, matter of fact.
“Okay, but we really need to go down. I recall Minho saying he doesn’t trust Jisung in kitchens and he’s kind of there and Jisung wanted soup—”
“Never let Jisung near a kitchen!” Hyunjin exclaims, before throwing off the covers and swinging himself to the side of his bed until he’s parallel to Changbin.
“But wait,” Changbin taps his thigh, stops him from setting off. “From now on I’ll call you my Jinnie, if you'll have me.” Changbin shifts a little until their faces are only mere inches apart. Hyunjin makes for a painful yet playful forehead bump that they only smile into before he leans in and presses their lips together softly but briefly in an answer.
It's not exactly the first time and at this point they just think, About time.
“My Beanie, I love you too,” Hyunjin retaliates when he draws back. “And I meant b-e-a-n because,” he shrugs, leaving it up for interpretation.
The squeal Jisung makes as they go down, hand in hand, just makes them squint and cover their ears as Kkami barks at the same time. Hyunjin doesn’t miss the way Kkami jumps at Changbin, seeking attention, and for a quarter hour he keeps on making grabby hands at his own dog who wouldn’t even look at him.