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Jihoon sighed loudly when he heard his alarm go off, he stretched his hand and pressed the button with a little too much strength, he hated having to wake up every Monday morning, just like any other person, but his alarm clock had to remind him every time with big yellow letters that it was Monday, it hurt his eyes. He sat up and looked over to the left, Seungcheol was still asleep, facing the other side of the bed, he woke him up by shaking him a little.
“Wake up, it’s late,” he said while getting off the bed, he could hear Seungcheol whining a little bit about it but he walked to the bathroom after him.
Both of them looked at the mirror still a little bit sleepy while they were brushing their teeth with apathy. Jihoon leaned down to spit and got out of the bathroom, he took his time while making breakfast because he still had time to get ready for work. Seungcheol got out of the room already dressed with his uniform and Jihoon looked at him sideways, he took his stuff and then approached Jihoon.
“I’m leaving now or I’ll be late, I’ll grab breakfast on my way.” Jihoon nodded slowly.
“Are you gonna be here for dinner?”
“Yes.”
He kissed Jihoon on the cheek before leaving the apartment. Seungcheol wasn’t used to having time and coming home to have dinner with Jihoon, but when he did it wasn’t really extraordinary, Jihoon wasn’t a really good cook. So both of them sat at the table, they talked for ten minutes about their days and then they were on their phones until they finished eating. Seungcheol took a shower and Jihoon decided to go sleep early.
“I’ll be late tomorrow so don’t wait for me to have dinner,” he said when he got out of the shower, he was dressed to go to sleep and had a towel to dry his hair.
“Okay.” Jihoon whispered distractedly, he left his phone on the table and turned to the other side “Goodnight.”
“Are you gonna sleep already?” Seungcheol asked while getting closer to the light switch.
“Yes, I’m tired.”
“Okay then, goodnight,” he said softly while also getting in bed, he turned around to put his phone to charge and both of them were soon fast asleep.
Jihoon opened his eyes at the sound of his alarm and again turned it off with a little too much strength, the word “Tuesday” also hurt his eyes, as if it were mocking him for his boring life and that there were still too many days for the weekend. He sat up and shook Seungcheol a little bit to wake him up, and back to the boring routine they always had. Silence while they were brushing their teeth, a kiss on the cheek before leaving and the usual “Don’t wait up for me tonight”.
Jihoon thought about that while he was listening to Jeonghan rant about their boss and how he was making them do too much stuff. He was listening to him distractedly while approaching the coffee mug to his lips to try and enjoy the little spare time they had.
“It should be illegal to make us stay so many hours without paying us the extra. Joshua told me that…
“I’m going to break up with Seungcheol.”
Jeonghan stopped talking immediately and opened his eyes in surprise when he heard what Jihoon just said.
“What?”
“I’m gonna leave Seungcheol.”
“Why?” he asked incredulously but kept talking before Jihoon could say anything “No, you can’t break up with him. How many years have you been together?”
“Eight.”
“Exactly, you’ve been together for eight years. Why would you leave him? You’re… Jihoon and Seungcheol, the perfect couple.”
“It wasn’t a question Jeonghan, I’ve already decided, I’m gonna tell him tonight.”
“But why? Did you fight?”
“No, we’re fine.”
“Then why do you wanna break up with him?”
“Because I don’t love him anymore.”
Jeonghan stood silent for a moment, looking at Jihoon with an expression of complete disbelief, trying to process what he just said.
“What? You’re 26, the relationship is not supposed to die until you’re like fifty, with an adopted kid that doesn’t wanna see your face and you’re still married to him because divorce is too much paperwork."
“Well, I’m the one who doesn’t wanna see Seungcheol’s face, I don’t need to adopt a kid to know that.”
“But I don’t get it, did something happen for you to reach this conclusion?”
“Not really, I’m just tired of all of this.”
“Of what?”
“The routine that we have, both of us are working all day long and we barely see each other.”
“Well then ask for vacation, you could go to a cabin, like you did two years ago.”
“I don’t think that’s gonna fix anything.”
“When was the last time you had sex?” Jihoon frowned and thought about it for a while “Oh, that’s not a good sign.”
“I don’t remember…” he said and thought about it a little more “Oh no, wait. It was on new year’s eve, after your party, we were a little drunk.”
“Jihoon… It’s May.”
“I know.” Jihoon sighed and rolled his eyes.
“Well, I think you just need to take some time off, it’s okay.”
“Jeonghan, we sleep back to back.”
“Oh, that’s not good… I don’t get it. You were in love with him. He’s the perfect guy, he’s attractive, he’s a cop, your family loves him and you know him since high school.”
“I think… He’s my high school boyfriend and we’ve been together for a long time, I guess everything was fine when he was still in the academy and my only worry was to study for exams.”
“That was four years ago.”
“I guess it took a toll on me.” he shrugged “Before this we could barely get our hands off of each other and I was so worried every time he had to go away on a mission for a few days. Now I don’t even remember the last time we kissed properly and every time he tells me that he’ll be away for a couple of days I just get happy that I’ll be alone.”
Jeonghan looked at him with a frown, clearly, it was pity on his expression, he sighed and thought about it before speaking up.
“Okay, if that’s what you believe it’s the best option then I’ll support you. What are going to do?”
“I don’t know, I’ll have to see how he reacts. Maybe he’s already expecting it and we can talk calmly about it. If everything goes well he’ll probably go with his parents for a while. If it goes wrong then prepare your sofa-bed for me.” Jeonghan nodded.
Jihoon wasn’t expecting Jeonghan to change his opinion, he had thought about it for a while and he was sure of what he was going to do. But he didn’t know how would Seungcheol react and he had to warn Jeonghan because if everything went wrong the first person Seungcheol would call would be Joshua. He didn’t want to look like the villain so he needed to explain his reasons before Seungcheol appeared at their doorstep completely heartbroken.
He was nervous about it so he couldn’t stay still for the whole afternoon. So he started cleaning and cooking to keep his mind off of the matter. But he couldn’t help but imagine different scenarios of how everything would turn out. Seungcheol said he would be late and not to wait up for him, so it didn’t surprise him when he heard the front door open at midnight when Jihoon was already changed to go to sleep because he was tired of waiting.
“Seungcheol?” he asked while walking to the door.
“Hi, you’re still awake?”
“Yes, I was waiting for you.”
“Why? It’s late.” Seungcheol murmured while taking off his jacket and walking to the room to put his gun away and locked.
“It’s not that late, you come by this time every day.”
“I’m tired Jihoon, I just had a fight with my boss. I-....”
“I wanted to talk to you.” Jihoon blurted out, catching his attention easily, Seungcheol turned around to look at him.
“Alright, what did you wanna talk about?”
Jihoon grabbed his hand and he made him sit on the bed to look at him in the eyes, Seungcheol noticed that it was something serious.
“Did something happen?”
“I want us to be over.” he blurted out without thinking too much, he didn’t want to talk too much about it, it would hurt him either way.
“What?”
“I’m breaking up with you,” he repeated calmly, he could see various emotions go through Seungcheol’s face, but it was sadness that he saw when his eyes started to get teary.
“Why?”
“Because…” Jihoon sighed before talking “I don’t think it’s a good decision for us to be together.”
“You don’t love me anymore?”
There was a moment of silence before Jihoon could decide to answer truthfully.
“No.”
“But I still love you.”
“Really?” Seungcheol opened his eyes in surprise when he saw that Jihoon sounded sceptical about that.
“Yes, of course, I love you. Did you doubt it?”
“Yes,” he answered like it was obvious.
“Why?” Seungcheol started to raise his voice, clearly mad that Jihoon didn’t believe him.
“‘Why?’ I don’t remember the last time you kissed me, we barely see each other and... It’s not like before…”
“What? Are you actually blaming me for everything that’s happening? I don’t kiss you because you don’t want me to! It’s been a while since you’ve been avoiding my kisses, I barely get to kiss you on the cheek without you flinching away. We don’t see each other because I’m at work and I’m so sorry Jihoon, but last week I asked if you wanted to take a vacation and you said no. And I’m the one who’s at fault?”
“I didn’t say it was your fault! Just… Seungcheol please don’t make this more difficult than it already is.”
“This is difficult for you ? You’re the one who’s breaking up with me!” he screamed and got up of the bed “Are you expecting me to just accept it? I’ve been trying for a long time to break away from this shitty routine that we have, but you’re the one who doesn’t want to.”
“Maybe it’s just too late,” he whispered and shrugged his shoulders.
“Too late for what?”
“To go back to what we were before.”
Seungcheol opened his mouth to protest but he immediately shut it and ran one of his hands through his hair, his eyes were still watery.
“What can I do?”
“Nothing Seungcheol. It’s over,” he answered calmly.
There was a moment of silence before Seungcheol could finally say anything.
“I’m gonna go sleep on the couch. I’ll leave tomorrow,” he whispered while he was getting out of the room, he closed the door behind him.
Jihoon let out a loud sigh and put his elbows on his knees to let his face fall in his hands. He stood there for a while and then rubbed his face. It took him a while to fall asleep, probably because he had a lot on his mind, but he didn’t regret anything, not even when he heard Seungcheol cry just before he fell asleep.
Jihoon opened his eyes when he heard his alarm go off and he complained because he was too tired to get up. He stretched his hand and turned his head to make sure he was hitting the button. He frowned, confused when he saw the word “Tuesday” in the alarm clock, so he knocked it a couple of times, thinking that it was broken. He turned around and flinched when he saw Seungcheol next to him, he wasn’t expecting that. When Seungcheol felt Jihoon moving he woke up slowly.
“What are you doing here?” Jihoon asked in disbelief.
“What do you mean?” Seungcheol rubbed his face to wake up a little bit “Why? Am I late?”
“No but… Last night you said that you were sleeping on the couch.” Seungcheol moved his hands from his face and looked at him with a frown.
“What?” he laughed slightly after hearing what he just said “No. Why would I do that? You went to sleep early, remember?” Jihoon looked at him confused.
“No, but last night…”
“I’m gonna take a shower. Make some coffee, maybe you wake up a little more,” he said with a smile before getting up to go to the bathroom.
Jihoon stayed in bed for a few moments, trying to understand what was going on. Did it affect him so much that now he was acting like nothing happened? He grabbed his phone to look at the time, it was Tuesday. Was his phone wrong too? He walked to the bathroom and saw Seungcheol brushing his teeth like nothing had happened the night before.
“Are you okay Seungcheol?”
“Amazing, why?”
“Because… Last night…”
“What happened last night?” Jihoon looked at him confused, he didn’t know what to say.
“What we talked about…” now it was Seungcheol who was confused.
“You didn’t say anything, you went to sleep early because you were tired, remember? Maybe you dreamt it.”
“Maybe,” Jihoon whispered thinking about it, he turned around and walked to the kitchen to make some breakfast.
He thought about it while making coffee and then he heard Seungcheol getting out of the room already dressed for work.
“Remember that I’m going to be late tonight, don’t wait up for me.” he said before placing a kiss on his cheek, Jihoon nodded slowly, still thinking about the whole situation “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yes,” Jihoon answered distractedly.
Seungcheol smiled and waved goodbye before getting out of the apartment.
Jihoon had his head on another place for the entire morning before he could notice he was in the coffee shop he always went with Jeonghan. They sat at the same table as always and Jihoon stared at his mug while he heard Jeonghan complain about work.
“It should be illegal to make us work extra hours without paying us, it’s so dumb. Joshua told me that…”
“Did I tell you that I’m breaking up with Seungcheol?” he asked confused.
“What?! No, when were you going to tell me?”
“Yesterday, I’m pretty sure I told you.”
“Jihoon, I didn’t even come to work yesterday, remember? I had a meeting with Wonwoo.”
“But that was Monday.”
“Yesterday was Monday” he explained as if it was obvious, but he immediately remembered what Jihoon just said “And why are you breaking up with Seungcheol? You’ve been together for…”
“Eight years, I know.”
“Have you…”
“No, we didn’t have a fight.”
“Then why…?”
“I don’t love him anymore.”
“Just like that?”
“I feel like everything is just a routine. Like I’ve been living the same day over and over and just changing a few things.”
“Take some…”
“We’re not going on vacation.” Jeonghan looked at him frowning and sighed “It wasn’t a question Jeonghan, I’ve already decided, I’m breaking up with him.”
“Okay… He’s going to be heartbroken.”
“You don’t know that maybe he already knows.” Jeonghan shrugged and raised his mug to drink more coffee.
Jihoon felt this sensation of deja-vu the entire day, and couldn’t figure out why he was reliving the same day, maybe he dreamt it. He was nervous about the whole thing for months, and he finally decided that he was going to do it that day, maybe he had a nightmare about how Seungcheol was going to react. That was a bad outcome for the whole situation. He wished that nothing went like the dream he had last night.
But, when Seungcheol returned home at midnight, everything seemed too familiar for him.
“I’m tired Jihoon.”
“Did you fight with your boss?” he asked softly, waiting for a different answer than what he already knew.
“Yes, he just wouldn’t…”
“Seungcheol we need to talk.” Seungcheol turned around surprised.
“Why does that sound bad?”
“Because it’s bad.”
“Did something happen?”
“Sit down please.”
“Jihoon, you’re scaring me.”
Jihoon sighed and waited for a moment before telling him what he was waiting to say for months now. He could see everything unfold just like in his dream, Seungcheol’s expression became so sad that Jihoon couldn’t bear to look at him in the eyes.
“You still love me.” he guessed with a whisper, Seungcheol looked at him in disbelief.
“Of course I still love you, did you doubt it?”
“I guess I did… At one point.” Seungcheol opened his mouth to talk, but Jihoon interrupted him before he could say anything “That doesn’t change anything Seungcheol. I don’t love you anymore, I want us to be over.”
“Jihoon please…”
“I’ll just go sleep on the couch,” he said getting up and walking to the living room.
He thought it would go different from his dream, but just like the night before he could hear Seungcheol crying just before he fell asleep.
Jihoon almost gasped when he heard the alarm and noticed that he was back in bed and not sleeping on the couch like the night before. He looked at his phone almost desperately and frowned when he saw the date. Tuesday.
“Is everything alright?” Seungcheol asked concerned when he saw Jihoon looking so stressed.
“Yeah,” Jihoon whispered while getting out of bed and walking to the kitchen.
Everything was the same. He said goodbye to Seungcheol after he told him that he would be late for dinner, he went to work, listened to Jeonghan vent about their boss and talk about Joshua before he tried to convince him to not break up with Seungcheol. And when he came back home everything was the same, he still saw his neighbour in the elevator, he still saw the same dog bark at him on his way home, he still saw the same two people fighting in the street. Nothing had changed, and Jihoon was starting to wonder if it was just a dream, because it seemed all too real to be just in his imagination.
Seungcheol reacted the same way he did the other two days when Jihoon broke up with him and he decided to go to sleep in the couch like the night before, in his dream, maybe? He was still too confused to process anything that was happening to him, maybe he was just tired. But he couldn’t fall asleep, so he turned on the TV with the volume low so he wouldn’t disturb Seungcheol, even though he was pretty sure Seungcheol was still awake, probably crying. He looked at the news absentmindedly, he didn’t really care about what happened, there was a protest that day so there had been a few injured people, the trains didn’t work for a few hours, Jihoon knew that because he had to walk home, because his car was towed while he was at work, again. Now he knew that the underground didn’t work because there had been a bomb in one of the stations. He thought that was pretty crazy, but as soon as they started to say how many deaths and injured people there had been Jihoon changed to another channel. In that one, they were talking about an armed robbery in a store that was near his house. Jihoon sighed loudly and turned off the TV. He couldn’t hate the world more than he already did.
Actually, he could. Because if he was right, it had been already a fucking week and he was still stuck on Tuesday. He couldn’t take it anymore, this was not a dream, he was clearly repeating the same day over and over again. He heard Seungcheol walk out of the room, but he was too immersed in his thoughts to listen to what he had just said, he was still thinking about last night’s break up.
“Ok whatever, I’ll see you tonight,” Seungcheol muttered when he noticed that Jihoon wasn’t paying attention to him.
“Do you not kiss me anymore because you think I don’t want you to?” he asked before Seungcheol walked to the door.
Seungcheol froze in the middle of the kitchen and waited a moment before turning around to look at Jihoon, who still had his gaze fixated on his coffee.
“Do you?”
“If I want you to kiss me?”
“Yes.”
Jihoon thought about it for a moment and before he could say anything Seungcheol got near him, placing his arms around his waist.
“Do you remember when we broke up five years ago?”
“Yeah, we were still in college,” Jihoon answered without understanding where all of this was going.
“You broke up with me because you were too busy with your exams and you didn’t even wanna see my face. You refused my kisses and we fought almost every single day.” Jihoon nodded slowly, remembering all of that like it was yesterday, probably because they were in a very similar situation at the moment, although they didn’t fight. “I didn’t see you for two weeks after we broke up and I really thought it was over. But you came back, and we’re still together. I know it’s difficult for you to talk about things and that sometimes you need your space if you don’t want me to kiss you right now… Then I’ll wait. I will always be there for you Jihoon, I love you.” he said with a smile before leaning closer to him and placing a kiss on his forehead “I’ll be late for work, I’ll see you tonight, ok? Don’t wait up for me.”
Jihoon didn’t know why he started crying when he heard the front door close behind Seungcheol. He was too good for him, and he broke his heart five times already, he heard him cry five times and didn’t feel regret. That day, he didn’t tell Jeonghan he was going to break up with Seungcheol, they just talked about their boss the whole free time they had.
And he didn’t wait up for Seungcheol, just like he told him. Maybe if they went back to the routine everything would go back to normal. He woke up when he heard movement beside him, he turned around and saw Seungcheol next to him in bed.
“Sorry, did I wake you up?” Seungcheol whispered when he saw Jihoon turning around.
“It’s okay.” Jihoon approached him and placed his arms around Seungcheol to cuddle with him, he pretended not to notice the surprise in Seungcheol’s expression, they hadn’t been that close for months now.
“I’ve had a long day, I had a fight with my boss and I’m so tired,” Seungcheol said softly while placing his head on top of Jihoon’s.
“It’s okay, let’s just go to sleep, tomorrow will be another day.” Seungcheol kissed him on the forehead before closing his eyes and falling asleep. “Hopefully,” Jihoon whispered to himself before finally falling asleep.
When he opened his eyes he didn’t feel Seungcheol’s arms around him, the first thing he saw was his alarm clock, which clearly said “Tuesday”. He felt like he could cry, but instead, he just woke up Seungcheol by shaking his arm, ready to go on with his routine.
Jihoon felt dead inside, probably he was. Maybe he just died in his sleep and this was hell, repeating the same day over and over again. Which happened to be the day where he broke up with his boyfriend. He stopped breaking up with Seungcheol after a few days, but everything just went the same, absolutely nothing changed. Besides breaking up with Seungcheol it was a really boring day, just a usual Tuesday, pretty fucking boring. After two weeks Jihoon started to lose count of the days and so he didn’t notice that it had been a month already and he was still experiencing the same day.
He cried every single morning in his bathroom office and he couldn’t take it anymore. He hadn’t noticed how boring and unhappy his life was until he had to repeat the same day over and over again. He didn’t love Seungcheol any more than he did when everything happened. He just learned how to live with him as he had always had before everything.
He got home that day and sighed when he threw his jacket on the couch. He was tired of going to work, why did he have to do all of that if everything was going to be erased the next day. He couldn’t but to start crying, he’d been doing that a lot lately. But could you blame him? Everything was the same, every single day. He couldn’t change anything. The one time he tried to book a plane ticket to get away from there it just got cancelled, that happened four times. He couldn’t do anything because no matter how far he was from his house, even if he drove hours away, he would eventually fall asleep and then wake up the next morning in his bed next to Seungcheol.
When Seungcheol came back home from work, same time as always, he was surprised to find Jihoon crying in the kitchen.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked worried while hurrying to be next to him.
“It’s just…” Jihoon sobbed but then realized that he couldn’t say anything to Seungcheol because he wouldn’t understand.
“Jihoon, you can talk to me. Tell me what’s going on.” Seungcheol said in a soft tone.
“No, you don’t understand, you can’t do anything about it.” Jihoon stepped back and tried to get away from Seungcheol, he was annoying him, he wanted to deal with this on his own.
“Jihoon, please, just talk to me, I can’t see you like this.”
“See me like this? Seriously? Now you acknowledge it? When you see me crying? Haven’t you noticed that there was a problem before?! Because I sure have!” Seungcheol fell silent for a moment “What?! Were you expecting me to just shut up and be quiet about it? I’m not happy Seungcheol! And you know it very well!”
“Jihoon, I try my best to…”
“You try your best to what?! Huh?! What’s your fucking excuse? Because I’m pretty sure that you behave exactly the same, you can’t just wait for me to get better because it’s not going to happen!” Jihoon screamed, crying, Seungcheol didn’t know what to respond.
“You’re not ok now Jihoon. Do you want to talk about this? Sure. But you need to sleep it off, you’re too anxious. Tomorrow we’ll talk about this more calmly.”
“There’s no tomorrow, don’t you understand?!”
“What?” Seungcheol asked confused.
“I’m sick of this!” Jihoon screamed completely in despair.
Seungcheol raised his hands and tried to approach him to calm him down but Jihoon stepped back, trying to avoid him. He bumped the kitchen table and looked behind him. He saw Seungcheol’s belt resting there and without even thinking twice he grabbed his gun. Seungcheol opened his eyes surprised and approached him quickly to take the gun from him but Jihoon turned around and made him back off.
“Jihoon… What are you going to do?”
“Seungcheol… I can’t deal with this anymore” he whispered and started crying, feeling his throat closing at the sight of the gun “I’m living the same day over and over again and I can’t make it stop, I’ve lost count. I want this to stop.”
“No, Jihoon… I know maybe it feels like that, we can take…”
“Don’t you dare say that we can take vacations!” Seungcheol didn’t know how to respond to that “I want it to stop.”
“And what are you going to do with that gun?”
Jihoon looked at it for a moment before turning it around so the barrel was facing him.
“No! Jihoon please, stop for a moment, think what you’re about to do.”
Jihoon didn’t answer and just shook his head, he approached the gun to his head.
“I’m sorry Seungcheol, but I don’t know how to stop this, it’s the only way,” he whispered before pulling the trigger.
“NO!”
Seungcheol jumped and grabbed the gun, the bullet went straight to his chest when he changed the course of the gun. Jihoon felt his heart stop for a moment when he saw Seungcheol standing there, staring at him a second before his life disappeared from his eyes.
“No, no, no, Seungcheol…”
He started crying even harder and the gun made a loud noise when it fell to the floor, Jihoon tried to grab Seungcheol so he wouldn’t fall too, but he was too heavy and they both ended up on the floor. He touched his chest desperately as if he could make the bullet disappear, Seungcheol didn’t seem like he was breathing.
“Please, no, it shouldn’t be like this,” he whispered while crying, he closed his eyes and placed his head on his chest.
When he opened his eyes again a gasp left his lips and he sat up quickly when he heard his alarm go off. Seungcheol woke up too when he heard Jihoon waking up like that.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, sitting up to see what was going on.
“Seungcheol,” Jihoon whispered touching him to make sure it was real, he was in front of him.
“Did you have a nightmare?” he asked when he saw that Jihoon was crying.
He nodded slowly and pulled him into a tight hug. Seungcheol placed his arms around his body and caressed his hair, trying to calm him down. He placed a kiss on his forehead and stretched his hand to stop the alarm. Jihoon turned around and, for once, he felt happy when he saw that it said “Tuesday”.
“You know I would never hurt you, right?” Jihoon whispered looking at his eyes.
“Of course I know.” Seungcheol smiled at him and caressed his cheeks to make sure he was calm now.
“I can’t… I can’t go to work Seungcheol.” Jihoon whispered clinging to him.
“It’s alright, just call in sick.”
Jihoon thought about being alone at home for an entire day that he had to repeat. He didn’t like that idea.
“Will you stay with me?”
Seungcheol stepped back for a moment to look at Jihoon in the eyes.
“Yes, of course. Let me just call my boss,” he replied with a soft smile on his face before leaving a kiss in Jihoon’s forehead and getting out of bed.
Jihoon still felt his hands shaking after what happened last night, he never felt more relieved to know that he could repeat the entire day. He went into the living room after going to the bathroom and saw Seungcheol on the phone with his boss, he was telling him that Jihoon was sick and he had to take care of him, when his boss told him a couple of things Seungcheol started to lie and say that it wasn’t just a cold and that he had to take Jihoon to the hospital.
Jihoon smiled softly when he heard that, Seungcheol was saying all of that just because his boyfriend woke up crying.
“Done,” Seungcheol said, turning around to look at him “I called your boss too.”
“Thank you,” Jihoon whispered before hugging him.
Seungcheol seemed to be enjoying what was happening, he clearly wasn’t happy that his boyfriend was so upset, but it had been so long since Jihoon behaved like that he couldn’t help but smile every time Jihoon hugged him or smiled at him.
They ended up on the couch, watching movies all day long, Seungcheol ordered food so they wouldn’t have to cook something. And for the first time in a month, Jihoon felt actually happy to be repeating the same day.
But when the alarm went off after him and Seungcheol fell asleep on the couch he wasn’t too happy about having to repeat the same day again. He stopped the alarm and turned around to look at Seungcheol before shaking him to wake him up.
“Do you want to skip work today?” he asked softly when he noticed that Seungcheol was waking up.
“Why? Do you feel bad?” Seungcheol asked, rubbing his eyes.
“No, I just… Don’t feel like going.” Seungcheol frowned even though a smile was on his lips, he looked confused about what Jihoon was telling him.
“And you want me to skip work too?”
“Yes, I don’t want to be alone at home the entire day.”
“Alright, let’s skip work,” Seungcheol said with a smile before kissing him on the cheek.
Jihoon felt even better than the day before when they spent the day sleeping on the couch and talking about anything. He decided to do that for the next few days, he felt like a teenager, as if he was skipping class to make out with his boyfriend in the locker rooms. Which was literally what Jihoon and Seungcheol used to do when they were in high school.
They were taking it easy, they hadn’t kissed yet, Seungcheol was very careful to not cross Jihoon’s boundaries, but as time passed Jihoon felt more and more comfortable being around him. Seungcheol noticed the change but he wouldn’t comment on it, probably thinking that they would have time to talk about it the next day, but there wasn’t a next day. Jihoon still had to see the surprise in his face every time he told him to skip work to spend the day with him. As days passed the change in Jihoon’s behaviour was so extreme that Seungcheol was starting to get more and more confused.
“I missed this so much,” Seungcheol said with a smile when they were cuddling on the couch, Jihoon was resting between his arms and his back was against his chest.
“What?”
“I missed being like this with you.” Seungcheol whispered leaving a kiss on Jihoon’s shoulder “Are you okay?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you feel better?”
“Seungcheol, you realize I’m not actually sick and it was just a lie to not go to work, right?”
“No, I don’t mean that.”
“Then what do you mean?”
“I mean if you’re happy. You’ve been so distant and you’re always at work, I don’t know how to reach you and I didn’t know what to do about it. I’m so glad you were the one to reach out.”
“Do you ever think about whether if you love me or not?” Jihoon whispered.
“What?” Seungcheol asked confused.
“If you ever reconsider our relationship.”
“No, not really Jihoon, I’m pretty sure that I love you.” there was a pause before Seungcheol spoke again “Why? Do you think about that?”
“Sometimes,” Jihoon mumbled, a little bit nervous of what reaction could Seungcheol have.
There was silence before Seungcheol finally spoke up.
“That’s alright.”
“You’re not mad?”
“Jihoon,” Seungcheol started speaking with a smile on his face “We’ve been together for eight years, it’s only fair that you wonder that sometimes. Not a lot of people end up with their high school sweetheart.”
“I don’t like that you’re never mad with me. I feel like the bad guy.”
“You shouldn’t feel that way, I’ve been mad at you plenty of times, and we’ve fought a lot. But that doesn’t mean I love you any less.”
“What do you mean when you say that you love me?” Seungcheol let out a sigh, trying to think of an answer to that question.
“I mean that… Whatever happens, I want to be with you, and I couldn’t imagine being with someone else. I mean that even if we had to be stuck together in the same room I wouldn’t hate you by the end of it.” Jihoon laughed when he heard that. “I know these last months haven’t been easy for you, Jihoon, and I always want to help you and be there for you. I’m sorry if what I did wasn’t enough.” Jihoon turned around to look at him, he cupped his face between his hands.
He realized that he was happier now that they were together and alone, those last few days had been better than the entire year. Jihoon frowned and looked at Seungcheol in the eyes, who was waiting for Jihoon to say something. Jihoon opened his mouth to finally speak but changed his mind at the last minute. He leaned forward and kissed Seungcheol hesitantly.
Seungcheol raised his eyebrows surprised but was quick to kiss him back, he slipped a hand around Jihoon’s waist to bring him closer. Jihoon frowned and he didn’t want to stop kissing Seungcheol it had been so long and he didn’t notice how much he missed it. When they parted to look at each other’s eyes none of them knew what to say.
“I missed that,” Seungcheol whispered finally.
“Me too.”
“When was the last time?”
“I don’t remember.” Jihoon laughed while shaking his head, Seungcheol laughed too and leaned in to kiss Jihoon again.
They ended up kissing for what felt like hours, but they hadn’t kissed in so long, now they couldn’t stop.
“Should we go to the bedroom?” Jihoon whispered between kisses.
“Wow Jihoon I don’t know, aren’t you going a little bit too fast.”
“Jesus Christ we’re not teenagers Seungcheol.” both of them started laughing.
“It sure feels like it.”
“Stop talking and take me to the bedroom already.”
“Yeah, you’re right, we’re not teenagers anymore, if we were we wouldn’t even have bothered about moving from the couch,” Seungcheol said, making Jihoon laugh when he carried him to the bedroom.
Seungcheol wasn’t wrong, Jihoon felt like that was their first time, and he couldn’t stop laughing sometimes, he didn’t even know why he was giggling so much. But he loved listening to Seungcheol tell him that he loved him all the time.
And when he woke up the next morning with his alarm and felt that they were sleeping back to back, he didn’t even care. Jihoon opened his eyes when he heard that all too familiar sound, he stretched his arm and stopped the alarm. He could feel the sun through the curtains and he smiled before rolling to the other side of the bed and placing his arms around Seungcheol. He felt Seungcheol waking up slowly, he was too sleepy, but he turned his head to look at Jihoon a little bit confused.
“Good morning,” Jihoon whispered with a slight smile.
“Good… Good morning.” Seungcheol answered, still confused at Jihoon’s behaviour. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, perfect, why?”
“I don’t know… You seem… Happier.”
“I am.” Seungcheol turned all the way to face Jihoon, still a little bit sceptical at the whole situation.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” Seungcheol smiled fondly and leaned in to place a kiss on Jihoon’s forehead.
The younger one grabbed his face with both hands and made him lean in to kiss him, Seungcheol was so surprised he couldn’t even kiss back. Until Jihoon leaned back, Seungcheol looked at him in shock for a moment and then kissed him again, this time with more passion. Jihoon smiled into the kiss and placed his arms around Seungcheol’s shoulders. That kiss felt hungry, Jihoon had kissed Seungcheol the day before, but this Seungcheol hadn’t kissed Jihoon in a long time, and he could feel it in the kiss.
“Wow…” Seungcheol mumbled when they stopped kissing “That was… Unexpected.”
“Yeah?” Jihoon asked with a smile, caressing his chest “But did you like it?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Then, should we stay at home so we can keep doing that?”
“You want to skip work?” Seungcheol asked surprised, Jihoon nodded with a smile on his face. “Oh well, I guess I don’t have another choice.” Jihoon giggled when he heard that.
It wasn’t that hard to make Seungcheol stay at home with him for the following days.
“Why don’t you stay at home today?” Jihoon asked with a smile, grabbing the lapels of his jacket to bring him closer.
“Why would I do that?”
“Because last night the food was bad and today we’re feeling so bad we can’t go to work,” he explained with a smile, Seungcheol opened his mouth to say something but he then realized what Jihoon meant when he said that.
“You want me to lie to my boss?”
“Just tell him you’re going to be in bed all day, you’ll go to work tomorrow. Also, it’s not a lie.” Seungcheol laughed when he heard that.
“But I gotta go tomorrow, and you too, this can’t be more than a day.”
“Don’t worry.” Jihoon answered with a smile “There’s plenty of time left until tomorrow.”
For the next few days, Jihoon felt like he could spend all the time in the world with just Seungcheol, in their apartment. They kissed, they kissed so much. And Jihoon told him he loved him so many times, he didn’t think he could get bored. They had sex, in every single corner of the house. They watched every movie under the sun. And they failed countless times in the kitchen at their poor attempts at cooking, but it didn’t matter because it would always end up in laughter.
Every day Seungcheol would be surprised about Jihoon’s behaviour, and Jihoon felt like he could fall in love with him all over again. It wasn’t that bad that he could repeat the same day over and over again. Seungcheol would sometimes ask him about the drastic change in his behaviour but Jihoon always answered vaguely.
“Jihoon, are you ok?” Seungcheol asked him one time.
“Perfect,” Jihoon replied with a smile, they were cuddling on the couch while watching a movie.
“Yeah, I know you’re ok now. But will you be okay tomorrow?” Jihoon frowned when he heard that, that one was new.
“Tomorrow doesn’t matter,” he answered shrugging.
“It matters to me.” Jihoon frowned and turned around to look at him.
“Why does it matter? I’m happy now, aren’t you happy about that?”
“No, I’m not Jihoon.”
“And why the hell not?”
“Because this is not for the better, you can’t just ignore all of these months that we barely talked to each other. You weren’t well and who is going to assure me that you’re not going to fall into that hole again in a few days?”
“What do you want me to do about it? I’m trying my best.” Jihoon said, noticing how his eyes were starting to get teary.
“Just talk to me, I want you to tell me what’s wrong. You can’t ignore this, and I don’t want you to ignore your mental health just because you’re happy for one day.” Seungcheol told him in a soft tone, Jihoon felt tears starting to run down his cheeks “Just tell me what’s wrong, you can trust me.” Jihoon swallowed before speaking.
“I hate my job, I hate this town, I hate you for not reaching out when you knew I had a problem. I hate your job for keeping you away for so long and I hate myself for thinking that I didn’t love you anymore.” Jihoon whispered while crying, Seungcheol looked at him surprised but didn’t know how to respond to that “Remember when we were like twenty years old?” Jihoon asked trying to smile, even though he couldn’t stop crying “You were going to be a great detective in the big city and I was going to be one of the best journalists who travelled all the time, and the only problem that there was in our minds was that we wouldn’t be able to see each other that often. But I would always say that we wouldn’t have to worry because we would have so much money that travelling to see each other wouldn’t be a problem for us.” Jihoon placed a hand on his cheek to dry his tears, but it was useless because his crying wouldn’t stop “We wanted to move to Paris, for fuck’s sake, we don’t even speak french.” he laughed slightly when he said that, Seungcheol did too, Jihoon noticed that Seungcheol was starting to cry too. “And look at us now, you’re still a cop and I don’t even work in journalism anymore.”
“Jihoon, what do you want to do?”
“I want to get away from here.” he finally said, releasing the knot in his throat “Do you want to go to Paris? Wasn’t there a program in the Interpol that you wanted to join? I could work in a magazine, with my years of experience it won’t be that difficult to get a job, and I speak like four languages.” Jihoon told him with a smile “Wouldn’t you like that? Paris? We could get married there.”
Seungcheol opened his eyes widely when he heard that, Jihoon almost heard him choking up.
“Jihoon… Did you just propose?” Jihoon nodded slowly.
“What do you say?” he asked with a smile, Seungcheol didn’t have to wait to answer that.
“Yes, yes, of course, Jihoon, we can definitely do that.” Jihoon smiled widely and leaned in to kiss him.
Jihoon was able to stop crying after a while and he noticed that he couldn’t stop smiling, Seungcheol was in the same mood. They talked about everything that they wanted to when they went to Paris, they had so many plans and now they seemed to know exactly how to achieve them now that they had more years of experience. Jihoon was so happy that he completely forgot about everything when they went to sleep cuddling.
But he felt like he could cry when he woke up with the alarm and noticed that Seungcheol wasn’t hugging him anymore. When he saw the word “Tuesday” he felt like he could throw up, so he got up quickly and went to the bathroom. A minute later Seungcheol was knocking on the door.
“Hey, are you ok?”
“Y-yeah I’m fine, I’ll be out in a minute.”
“Alright, I’ll go make breakfast.”
Jihoon sighed and looked at himself in the mirror, he was going crazy. He couldn’t live like that anymore, that last month had been amazing, he loved spending time with Seungcheol and falling back in love with him. But losing all of those plans, the proposal, it just crushed him. If he kept going like that he would end up grabbing Seungcheol’s gun once again and he didn’t like that idea. He walked out of the bathroom and went into the kitchen, where he saw Seungcheol preparing something for him.
“Seungcheol I… I need to talk to you…” Jihoon whispered, his voice felt shaky, he didn’t feel well.
“Is everything okay?”
“No, no it’s not.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I need to tell you something, I feel like you’re the only person I can trust. I need you to let me speak, and please, you need to believe me.”
“All right,” Seungcheol answered sitting down next to Jihoon, he grabbed his hands because he felt like it was the right thing to do because Jihoon seemed distressed.
“It’s been over a month now… Since it’s the fourth of May,” he whispered slowly and he could see the confusion in Seungcheol’s expression.
“What?”
“Let me speak.” Seungcheol nodded and kept quiet. “I’ve been waking up on the same day for over a month, and I know it sounds crazy, it is, but it’s a living hell and I can’t take it anymore. I swear to you, I’m not lying, but I need someone I can trust, I need your help Seungcheol. It’s gotten to the point where I almost tried to kill myself one time, but I hurt you instead, and I can’t… I just can’t…”
There was a moment of silence, Jihoon raised his stare and looked into Seungcheol’s eyes, he didn’t seem confused, he looked like he was trying to process everything.
“You don’t believe me.”
“No, no, it’s not that.”
“Then what is it?”
“I believe you Jihoon, I really do.”
“Really?” Jihoon asked surprised.
“Yes.”
“Please tell me you’re not behaving like this so you can take me to a mental institution later without me putting up a fight.”
“No, no god Jihoon.”
“Then what is it? Please say something.”
“I think I know how to help you.”
“What?” Jihoon stared at him in disbelief, but truly it was hope.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“There’s this criminal, we caught him yesterday. He killed someone and we’re trying to make him confess, we have the proof but if he confesses everything will be easier.”
“What does he have to do with anything?”
“He keeps saying that he killed him to stop the cycle… Because he was repeating the same day over and over.” Jihoon opened his eyes wide in surprise and a big smile appeared on his face.
“You have to take me to him, I need to talk to him.”
“I don’t know if I can do that.”
“It won’t work if you talk to him, I need to ask him everything.”
“Jihoon, this is a murderer we’re talking about. And he doesn’t even hide it, he said he’ll give us the confession today.”
“Why today?”
“He said he needed a day to pass, to make sure.”
“I need to see him.”
“Okay, I’ll try my best but I can’t tell you anything for sure.”
Jihoon smiled and leaned in to kiss him, Seungcheol opened his eyes surprised but it didn’t take too long for him to kiss him back.
“You kissed me…” he said when Jihoon pulled back.
“Yeah I know, we’ve been over this two weeks ago.” Jihoon rolled his eyes and walked to his bedroom to get changed. “You know, it would be nice to kiss you once without you getting surprised about it.”
“Oh, but you’ve had plenty of time to kiss me all the other days, I haven’t kissed you in ages.” Seungcheol got up and followed him to their bedroom.
“And what are you going to do about it?” Jihoon asked while taking his shirt off and opening the closet.
“Catch up,” Seungcheol answered while grabbing his hips and lifting him up to take him to the bed.
Jihoon let out a laugh that was cut off by Seungcheol’s lips on top of his. He had been waiting almost two months to get some answers, he could wait another hour.
“I tell you I’ve been living the same day for over a month and the first thing you want to do is have sex?” Jihoon asked with a smile, completely breathless after Seungcheol fell on the bed beside him.
“Have we done this before?”
“Oh yeah, all day long, I made you call in sick. I haven’t gone to work in like a month,” Jihoon answered with a smile and Seungcheol laughed.
Jihoon felt Seungcheol’s arms around him and he smiled widely.
“I missed this,” Seungcheol said after kissing him deeply.
“Well, you’re going to miss it tomorrow too if we don’t do something about it.”
“Right, yeah, we need to go, I’m already late.”
They both got dressed and left the house in Jihoon’s car to go to the police station. Jihoon parked in the parking lot, next to the patrol cars.
“Hey, Jihoon! It’s been a while.” Mingyu greeted him with a smile.
“Yeah, I’ve been busy.”
“Did you both sleep in?”
“Yes,” Seungcheol answered laughing a little bit.
“Well get inside, the boss has been asking for you.”
“On it.”
Seungcheol moved forward to kiss Jihoon when Mingyu left.
“I’ll meet you at the back.”
“Okay.”
After seeing Seungcheol get inside the police station he drove the car to the back of the building and got out. After a couple of minutes, Seungcheol opened the back door to let Jihoon in.
“We have to be quick.” Jihoon nodded and followed Seungcheol through the hallways. they were strangely empty, but Jihoon didn’t mind since he wasn’t even supposed to be there.
“Get inside,” Seungcheol said after opening a door, Jihoon got inside and Seungcheol closed the door behind them.
It was an interrogation room, there was a man cuffed to the table, he looked at Jihoon confused.
“Who is he?” he asked looking at Seungcheol “Shouldn’t I have my lawyer in here?”
“You’re going to jail anyway, you don’t need a lawyer,” Seungcheol said without hesitation and pulled the other chair for Jihoon to sit.
He sat down and looked at the man in front of him, Seungcheol stood behind him in silence.
“So, he told me you said you were repeating the same day over and over again.”
“Yeah, who are you? A psychologist?”
“You could say that.”
“I’m not crazy okay? I killed him to move on, and it worked. I prefer a few years in jail rather than living in that hell ever again.”
“Who was he? Why did you kill him?”
“He was my boss. I’ve been working with him for twenty years.”
“And what happened?”
“He fired me.”
“So, you killed him because he fired you?”
“No, I killed him because he fired me 247 times.” Jihoon opened his eyes widely when he heard that.
“Why did you think that was going to stop everything?”
“It was the only thing that changed. I followed my routine for over twenty years and suddenly my life changed completely, I have nothing else, my job is everything, and he took it from me. After that, I had to live that day for almost a year. I couldn’t hear him fire me again, so I killed him. And it’s Tuesday! Do you know how happy I am? I love Tuesdays!”
“It’s been Tuesday for over two months now, so you’re going to tell me what you did to stop this madness.”
The man looked at him in disbelief, he stood in silence for a moment before finally speaking.
“You’re going through it, too?”
“I thought I made it clear.”
“I don’t know man, I just killed what made my day different, so…”
“Yeah, I can’t do that exactly.”
“Did you do anything that changed something in your life? Something important.”
Jihoon stood quiet for a moment and tapped his fingers against the table, he was too nervous.
“Uhmmm…” he looked at Seungcheol from the corner of his eyes, he was standing next to him and he didn’t know how he would react “I… I broke up with my boyfriend,” he whispered hesitantly, he could see Seungcheol’s surprised expression, but he chose to ignore it.
“Ok, did you fix it?”
“Yes! I’ve tried everything, I even proposed, but I’m still waking up the same day.” Jihoon exclaimed, tired of everything, he could see that Seungcheol was getting more surprised by the second.
“Then that’s not the problem. Don’t you know anything else that was more important than that?”
“No, of course not, it was a pretty normal day.”
“Well maybe if you kill your boyfriend…” he said shrugging.
“That’s off the table,” Seungcheol said crossing his arms, the man looked at Seungcheol confused and slowly put the pieces together.
“Oh, so that’s why you’re here, he’s your boyfriend?” Jihoon didn’t answer that question. “Man, I don’t know how to help you, I was desperate, I didn’t think it through. It worked for me.”
Jihoon opened his mouth surprised when he heard that, he stared at him for a moment in complete disbelief.
“That’s it?! That’s all you can do?! You spent almost a year in a loop and you couldn’t figure anything out?! Are you that dumb?” Jihoon stopped talking when he felt a hand in his chest, trying to stop him.
“Jihoon, that’s it, let’s go.”
Jihoon had to stand up because Seungcheol was stronger than him, they got out of the room and Jihoon felt like everything was spinning.
“You broke up with me?”
“That was two months ago,” Jihoon answered without thinking too much, a lot of things were going on in his head.
“How many times did you break up with me?” Seungcheol asked in a serious tone.
“I…” Jihoon raised his head to look at him and thought about it for a moment. “I don’t remember.”
“Jihoon!”
“No, no, Seungcheol please don’t. I already went through that with you. You can’t get mad at something I didn’t do to you.”
“Yes, you did!”
“No, no I didn’t.” Jihoon shook his head and saw that Seungcheol was getting angrier by the moment. “Look at me.”
Seungcheol moved his eyes to Jihoon when he felt his hands in his cheeks.
“I love you, and yes, I broke up with you because I was confused and I didn’t know if I truly wanted to be with you.”
“What changed your mind?”
“You.” Jihoon answered in a whisper “I told you this morning, I tried to kill myself before trying anything else. But you made me change my mind. Because I completely forgot what you were really like, outside of our routine and our life. I guess this loop has made me realize that we… We have all the time in the world and we should spend it together.”
Seungcheol opened his mouth to say something but they were interrupted.
“Seungcheol we have… Hey Jihoon, what are you doing here?” Jun asked when he saw them standing in the hallway.
“I… He forgot something so I came to give it to him.”
“Well, the files of the autopsy came in.”
“Is there something wrong? He died from the bullet wound.”
“You should see it for yourself.”
Seungcheol walked with Jun to see the papers of the autopsy and Jihoon followed him without thinking it twice. Seungcheol looked at the papers and raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“He died from a heart attack,” he whispered surprised.
“The bullet wound wouldn’t have killed him if he didn’t have that heart attack,” Jun explained.
“This changes everything, the charges are not the same. Have you told anyone else?”
“Not yet.” Seungcheol nodded and thought about it.
“We need time,” Seungcheol looked at Jihoon and grabbed his arm to pull him aside after giving back the papers to Jun.
“Then everything he said doesn’t help me at all. What the hell am I supposed to do?” Jihoon whispered so no one heard him.
“I don’t know.” Seungcheol sighed loudly and ran a hand through his hair.
“I’ve tried everything Seungcheol, you don’t understand. It’s impossible to get rid of this and I don’t want you to die.”
“We’ll get to the bottom of this, don’t worry. Go to the car and wait for me there.”
Jihoon nodded and walked to his car. After ten minutes he saw Seungcheol walking to the car and getting in.
“What did you do?”
“I told my boss I had to do some stuff related to the murder so he could relocate me, I was supposed to go to the protest.”
“Alright. Where should we go?” Jihoon asked.
“We have to talk to the CEO’s wife.”
They drove to the CEO’s house and knocked on the door. An old lady opened the door for them, she looked like she had been crying a lot. Seungcheol introduced them, he lied and said that Jihoon was working in the case as a psychiatrist. After a few questions from Seungcheol Jihoon decided to talk.
“Did your husband have a record of heart disease?” the woman looked at him surprised.
“Yes, he did, he took pills for it.”
“And was there something bothering him the last days?”
“He was very anxious because he had to fire one of his workers, he’d never fired anyone before and it was a very valuable colleague.” Seungcheol and Jihoon frowned when they heard that.
“That’s all you know?”
“Yes, no one is telling me anything, they’re all saying I have to wait.” the woman said desperately.
Seungcheol approached her and started to talk to her about what she was supposed to do now, the usual police talk to civilians when something went wrong. Moments later they were back in Jihoon’s car.
“What the fuck are we supposed to do with this information?” Jihoon asked frustrated.
“Let’s think for a moment, he died because of a heart attack, do you think he died because of the heart attack every day that he repeated.”
“No, because then he wouldn’t have shot him.”
“Ok then maybe seeing the gun triggered the heart attack.”
“And how does that relate to me, I just broke up with you, I didn’t try to kill you for fuck's sake. And you don’t have heart disease or anything, you’re perfectly healthy so I don’t know why you would die out of the blue.”
Seungcheol opened his mouth to say something but his walkie talkie made a sound and the voice of his colleagues was heard, telling him that they needed back up.
“I have to go, but we’ll figure this out at home, ok? Don’t worry, everything will be fine.” Jihoon nodded and started to drive back to the station.
When he got home and he was finally alone he tried to put the pieces together and work a solution, but he just couldn’t. He smiled when he heard the door open, but it was so late and he felt so sleepy, he felt completely drained.
“Hey, are you doing ok?” Seungcheol asked him when he saw him sitting in the couch, Jihoon just shrugged.
“Fine I guess, I couldn’t think of any solution.”
“What do you want to do?” Jihoon looked at him for a moment and thought about it before saying anything.
“Let’s go to sleep,” he said softly, Seungcheol looked at him confused.
“What? But then…”
“It doesn’t matter. Let’s go to sleep Seungcheol.”
“But I want to help you. What are you going to do?”
“You’ve already helped me a lot, I just want to go to sleep now, can we go to sleep?”
“Yes,” Seungcheol answered and nodded.
Fifteen minutes later, after Seungcheol showered and changed, they were both lying in bed, Jihoon had his head resting on his chest and Seungcheol had his arms around his body. There was silence before Jihoon spoke up.
“I love you Seungcheol.”
“I know, I love you too Jihoon.”
“I’m sorry I broke up with you.”
“You didn’t break up with me.” Jihoon frowned when he heard that “You broke up with another Seungcheol, a long time ago.” he smiled before closing his eyes and falling asleep.
He felt like he could cry again when he heard his alarm and he saw “Tuesday” on his alarm clock, but he kept it together.
“Good morning,” Seungcheol whispered when he woke up.
Jihoon debated on whether to tell him what was happening to him again or not, he just looked at Seungcheol and leaned in to kiss him. As he expected, Seungcheol was too surprised to kiss back for the first few seconds, but he did nonetheless. When they parted Jihoon looked at him with a smile on his face and Seungcheol fell silent, too surprised to know what to say.
“You’re going to be late for work,” Jihoon whispered before getting out of bed with a soft smile on his face.
Seungcheol could not stop kissing him now that he knew he could, and having breakfast was a little bit hard when you had lips that would not leave your mouth.
“You have to go,” Jihoon warned him while laughing when they were at the door.
“I’ll try to be home by dinner,” Seungcheol said with a smile before giving him one last goodbye kiss and closing the door behind him.
Jihoon smiled and bit his lip before he ran to the bedroom to get dressed and start his entire day, he had to find out what was happening to him. He decided to do some research, he was home the entire day, ignoring the calls from his boss. But he couldn’t find anything about loopholes without it being fiction. He researched the CEO, but he could only find news about his death, nothing about heart diseases. And his research on heart diseases wasn’t very fruitful either. Before he noticed it was already dark outside and he hadn’t done anything. So he decided to drive to the police station and sneak in by the same place he had the night before. He looked around before opening the door where the murderer was. He looked surprised to see Jihoon there without any cop.
“Are you my lawyer?”
“We’ve been through this before. I know you already, I’m going through the same thing you went through for almost a year, and I need answers.” The guy looked at him surprised.
“What?”
“You already know what I’m talking about.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Your boss didn’t die because of the bullet, he died from a heart attack,” Jihoon explained to him and saw the surprise in the man’s face. “I broke up with my boyfriend and I’ve been living the same day for almost three months now.”
“And what should I do about it?”
“Help me figure out how to fix this. And don’t you dare say kill my boyfriend.”
“Have you tried not breaking up with him?”
“Yes of course!”
“Then that’s not the problem.”
“You stopped the cycle when you made him have a heart attack, he didn’t die all of the other times, right?”
“Yes.”
“And I know that he was nervous about firing you, I spoke to his wife.” there was a pause, the man looked at Jihoon before speaking.
“He was relieved.”
“What?”
“My boss, he was relieved the first time he fired me, and all of the other times before that. I don’t usually react badly to situations, so he seemed really relieved when I just accepted the fact that I was fired.”
“Do you think he should’ve had a heart attack if you didn’t react so well?”
“Yeah, maybe. I mean my entire body was telling me to scream at him, but I didn’t.” Jihoon thought about it for a moment before speaking.
“What if… He was supposed to have a heart attack, but because you reacted so well, he didn’t. And when he finally had the heart attack he was supposed to have, the cycle broke.”
“Do you meant to tell me, that my reaction was saving him?”
“Maybe,” Jihoon whispered shrugging. “But I don’t know how that relates to my problem.”
They both stood silent for a moment, thinking about what to say next. But before any of them had the chance to think of something, they heard people screaming outside, someone was having a fight. Jihoon tried to ignore it but then remembered that Seungcheol always had a fight with his boss before coming back home.
“I think that’s my boyfriend,” he said standing up.
The man followed him too, for some reason he wasn’t cuffed to the table, both of them were curious about what was going on outside. Jihoon walked slowly through the empty hallway, everyone seemed to be in the main room, where the fight was taking place. Jihoon looked at what was going on while trying to not be seen. He saw Seungcheol and a few other policemen standing in front of their boss, Jihoon remembered that Seungcheol was at the protest, they all seemed tired. Jihoon opened his eyes surprised when he heard that they were all complaining because their boss told them to go to the train station because there was a bomb threat.
“Our shift was over hours ago, we should be going home by now!” Seungcheol complained because none of his colleagues seemed to have the courage to say something to their boss.
“Seungcheol we have a bomb threat, we need all of our man in duty.”
“For all you know it could be fake! I’ve been doing extra hours for the entire week, Jihoon’s waiting at home for me.”
“There are other cops who have families who are going there, you don’t have…” the man stopped talking when he realized what he was about to say.
“What? What were you going to say?” Seungcheol asked surprised “Jihoon is my boyfriend, he’s my family . I’m sorry I can’t get married because the law doesn’t allow me to, but you let other people go home to their families, how am I different to that?”
“I-...”
“Because I’m gay, really?” his boss stood quiet for a moment and Seungcheol realized the whole precinct was looking at them “I’ll see you tomorrow morning, I’m heading home now,” he said before grabbing his things and heading out before he could say anything else.
Jihoon closed his fists in rage, he didn’t just have a fight with his boss, that probably happened every other day if those were his thoughts on Seungcheol. If his boss was really homophobic that he couldn’t see Jihoon as an important person in Seungcheol’s life, then how did he behave the rest of the time? How did his partners behave around him?
Jihoon felt someone grabbing him and before he knew what was happening he was back at the interrogation room. He was still trying to process everything that he just witnessed.
“He was supposed to go to the train station,” Jihoon whispered.
“What happened at the train station?”
“There’s a bomb, a lot of people died.” Jihoon finally looked up at him, there was a moment of silence before the guy said something.
“You’ve been saving him, every single day.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“You don’t have to do anything, he chose to come back home to you instead of going to the train station. You have to break up with him before all of that happens, if he has nothing to come back home to then he’ll go to the train station like he was supposed to, you have to stop saving him, that’s how the cycle is going to break.”
“But I don’t want him to die.”
“Well it has to happen, or you’re just stuck living the same day for… I don’t know how long.” the man said with no remorse “It’s either you or him, choose.”
“Wait, I can choose?”
“You’re not actually thinking about sacrificing yourself for him, right?”
“I can do that?” Jihoon asked surprised, he got up from his seat.
“I don’t know… I guess you die and the loop is over. I mean, I haven’t died.”
“But you killed someone.”
“I was desperate!”
Jihoon frowned and he decided to not say anything, he could get it, he was desperate too, to the point where he killed Seungcheol in an attempt to kill himself.
“Wait, but he died already, one of the times, I killed him by accident.”
“But it wasn’t at the train station.” Jihoon thought about it for a second before speaking.
“I have to go.”
Before he knew he was driving back home, his head was filled with thoughts and he was starting to feel dizzy. But as soon as he opened the door and saw Seungcheol, he felt better.
“Hey, I thought you’d be back home already.” Seungcheol greeted him with a smile, apparently, he had time to shower and put some comfortable clothes.
Jihoon looked at him and didn’t wait another second before walking up to him and kissing him. Even though he was surprised because of the suddenness of the kiss, he kissed back, and soon they were both in the bedroom.
“You know I love you, right?” Jihoon whispered when they fell to the bed.
“Yes, of course, I love you too Jihoon.”
“And I would never let anything happen to you.” Jihoon looked at him in the eyes and caressed his cheek.
“Jihoon, are you ok?” Seungcheol asked with a slight smile.
“Better than ever,” he answered before kissing him again.
It had been ages since the last time they had sex like that, even for Jihoon. So it didn’t take him long to fall asleep, he was just glad that he could do so in Seungcheol’s arms.
He didn’t feel stressed when he heard the alarm go off one last time. He smiled after turning it off and turned around to hug Seungcheol.
“Good morning,” he whispered before leaving a kiss on his shoulder.
Seungcheol woke up slowly and was confused to find Jihoon cuddling with him.
“Hey, good morning.”
“What do you want for breakfast?” Jihoon asked him with a smile on his face.
“I-I don’t know.” Seungcheol laughed when he heard that.
“Come on, get up, you’ll be late.”
Jihoon got up from the bed and walked to the bathroom to brush his teeth, a minute later Seungcheol went into the bathroom too and grabbed his toothbrush. He still looked a little bit puzzled because of Jihoon’s behaviour. Jihoon looked at him through the mirror while brushing his teeth and moved his hips to knock Seungcheol and annoy him. But that only made Seungcheol laugh.
“You’re in a good mood today.”
“I am,” Jihoon replied after he washed his mouth.
When Seungcheol was done Jihoon leaned forward to kiss him, Seungcheol opened his eyes surprised, but he kissed back without thinking it twice. Jihoon raised his arms and hugged Seungcheol while kissing him.
“I love that you’re always so surprised every time I kiss you,” Jihoon said with a smile.
“Wha…?” before Seungcheol could say anything Jihoon kissed him again. “As much as I love doing this, I have to take a shower to go to work,” Seungcheol mumbled against Jihoon’s lips.
“Well then, take a shower,” Jihoon said before taking his shirt off and opening the shower curtain so they could both step in.
The usual five-minute shower that Seungcheol took every morning turned out to be 30 minutes long. Seungcheol was too lost in kissing Jihoon to notice how late it was.
“Oh fuck! I’m going to be so late Jihoon!” he exclaimed when he finally realised and he stepped out of the shower to get dressed. Jihoon didn’t even bother to get dressed and just put a bathrobe on. Seungcheol walked out of the bedroom with his shirt still open and rushing.
“Here, eat something before you go,” Jihoon said with a smile.
“Thank you Jihoon, I’ll see you at dinner ok?” Seungcheol leaned in to kiss him on the cheek but Jihoon’s moved his face and gave him a kiss on the lips.
“I love you,” he whispered against his lips.
“I love you too,” Seungcheol replied with a smile and kissed him again before finally leaving.
Jihoon sighed and walked to the bedroom to get dressed to start his day, it was going to be a long one, longer than any of the previous ones.
When he finally got to the station, he sat down as if he was waiting for his train to arrive. But the hours went by and he didn’t get on any of the trains. He was completely numb and he kept checking the time. He remembered the news as if he had seen them the day before, he remembered the exact train that the bomb was in. And when he finally saw that train arrive at the station he took a deep breath and got up to get in.
He looked around, it looked like any other ride, it was a little bit crowded, but Jihoon started to walk, looking around for anything that seemed suspicious. He wanted to find the bomb, but if he didn’t he wouldn’t really care. He kept walking but raised his head suddenly when he heard a woman scream. Then, everything was chaos, everyone started to run in one direction and Jihoon was being pushed around, but he managed to run in the direction where the scream had come. He saw a man standing n front of a briefcase, Jihoon decided to react quickly and he ran to grab the briefcase before he did.
“No! Don’t fucking touch it!” the man threatened him pulling a gun out of his pocket.
“Why? You gonna shoot me? Come on, do it and the bomb goes off.” Jihoon threatened him back.
“Are you crazy?!” Jihoon looked back and he saw the passengers at the end of the carriage, they couldn’t get to the other one in time.
Jihoon looked at the man and smiled, he wasn’t supposed to die with the bomb, he was supposed to escape before it went off, that was why he was reacting like that at the idea of Jihoon setting the bomb off before he had time to escape. Big mistake.
“Open the door,” Jihoon asked him, nodding to the door that led to the next carriage, usually where the bathroom was located on those kinds of trains.
The man looked at him for a moment before he finally opened the door and they both went inside the little space that there was between the two carriages of the train.
“Disarm the bomb,” Jihoon ordered him placing the briefcase carefully on the floor.
“I don’t think you understand this situation.” the man told him before raising the gun and pointing it at his head.
Jihoon didn’t say anything and just sat down on the floor, taking the bomb out of the suitcase and grabbing it with both hands.
“I can be here all day long. shoot me and the bomb goes off, disarm it and we both live,” he said looking at him in the eyes, challenging him.
The man started to look more and more stressed out by the second. He tried everything, threats, pleads, but Jihoon would not budge.
They both raised their heads when they heard the sound of a megaphone, the police had arrived. Someone told the man to get out of the train and leave the bomb untouched so they could disarm it, they gave him a lot of instructions on how to get out, arms in the air, gun on the floor, and no one would get hurt. But the man decided to not follow their instructions and just kept the gun pointed at Jihoon, who did not move an inch.
“Jihoon, we know you’re there.” Jihoon raised his eyebrows surprised when he heard that “Please help us avoid anything bad happening.” he recognized that voice, it was Mingyu. “Seungcheol is here, if there’s no gun, leave the bomb untouched and step out of the train.”
“No, no, no, why is he here? He wasn’t supposed to be here.” Jihoon mumbled, starting to get nervous, the man tried to use that in his favour.
“Huh, so now you don’t want the bomb to go off? Get the fuck up.”
Jihoon raised his head and kicked him in the shin, when he bent over because of the pain Jihoon grabbed him by the leg and made him get closer.
“Disarm the fucking bomb,” he ordered him and smiled when he noticed that he dropped the gun in the process.
“Let me go!” the man screamed, too scared of being so close to the bomb.
They both opened their eyes widely when they heard the bomb make a ticking sound. The man tried to get away as fast as he could but Jihoon had him in a tight grip.
“No, no, please, he doesn’t deserve to die,” he whispered closing his eyes and clutching the bomb against his chest.
“What are you talking about? That bomb is going to explode if you don’t get up and let me go!” the man screamed trying to get away.
“No! You’re not leaving until you disarm it. If you don’t we both die.”
Jihoon thought about it, if he shielded the bomb with his body the impact wouldn’t reach that far, Seungcheol could live.
The man reached for his gun and aimed at Jihoon.
“Let me go or I’ll kill you!”
“Do you think I care?! I’m going to die anyway, just disarm it!” Jihoon screamed when he felt a bullet go through his shoulder.
When he realized that he was actually going to kill him without disarming the bomb, he raised the bomb to shield himself from any bullet. If he fired the bomb would explode and he would be dead too.
“You have no choice, just disarm it.”
The man got closer and placed the barrel of the gun against Jihoon’s head.
“Get the fuck up.”
Jihoon breathed slowly, trying to calm himself, even though he felt tears in his cheeks.
“Shoot.” he whispered, closing his fists against the bomb and pressing it against his chest “Come on, shoot. I’m not afraid.”
“You’re fucking crazy, why are you doing this?”
“Why are YOU doing this?! Don’t you know there are innocent people in here?”
“Do you actually think that I’m alone in all of this?”
“DO I LOOK LIKE I CARE?!” Jihoon breathed slowly and looked at him in the eye. “I’m going to die anyway, just kill me already.”
“If I kill you everyone else dies, do you understand that? None of this will help anyone.”
Jihoon looked around and tried to calm himself to think straight for a moment.
“Shoot me. You want to kill them, right? I’m the only thing stopping you from finishing the job. What are you waiting for?”
“Yes, you’re right.” said the man pointing the gun at Jihoon, he lowered the bomb so that if he shot him it wouldn’t touch the bomb and it wouldn’t explode immediately. “You did all of this for nothing? So useless.”
Jihoon stood quiet for a second and the moment he saw him press his finger on the trigger he slid the bomb towards him. There was a shot and Jihoon screamed because of the pain, that bullet was close to his chest. The man got scared when he saw the bomb near him and he lost his balance, Jihoon was quick on his feet even though he had two bullet wounds. He got up and took the gun from his hands just so he could point it at his head.
“Disarm the bomb. Now.”
“Shoot, I don’t care.”
“Do you think I believe you? If you didn’t care for your life you would have shot me when I had the bomb in my hands, you’re afraid the bomb is going to go off and you’re going to die. On the other hand, I don’t care if I die, so I’m not afraid to shoot you in the head, no matter how close you are to the bomb.”
Jihoon smiled when he saw that the man was crying while reaching for the bomb. He clutched his stomach and tried to keep himself composed while he saw the man disarming the bomb. He had a bullet wound on one shoulder and another on the stomach, near his chest he wouldn’t be conscious that long.
“Done.” the man whispered and Jihoon sighed in relief.
“Give it to me.”
Jihoon let go of his stomach and grabbed the bomb with his wounded arm, the other hand still pointing at the man on the floor.
“The police are outside....” he tried to finish the sentence but he didn’t have enough strength in him. “Seungcheol…” he whispered and turned around to open the door but before he could take another step he collapsed on the floor and everything went black.
Jihoon opened his eyes slowly, maybe he woke up before the alarm this time.
“Seung…” he tried to call for him to wake him up, but the moment he moved his arm to shake him, he felt pain everywhere.
“Hey, easy, easy. Don’t move.”
Jihoon opened his eyes completely and saw Seungcheol standing beside him, they weren’t at home, they were in a hospital room.
“What happened?” he asked looking around.
“You saved a lot of people Jihoon.”
“What day is today?” he asked suddenly alarmed.
“It’s Thursday,” Seungcheol answered calmly.
Jihoon looked at him for a moment before he started sobbing.
“Thursday?” he asked while sobbing, Seungcheol looked at him confused although he had a smile on his face.
“Yes it’s Thursday, you had a really fast recovery.”
“Oh my god I’m so happy it’s Thursday.”
“Jihoon, what’s wrong?” Seungcheol asked with a smile on his face.
“I’ll explain it to you later,” Jihoon said while wiping his tears from his cheeks.
“Jihoon, why were you at the station?” Seungcheol asked softly, grabbing Jihoon’s hand.
“To save you.”
“To save me?”
“Yes, I couldn’t let you die.”
“Jihoon what are you talking about?”
“I told you,” Jihoon said with a smile “I’ll explain everything to you later, when I’m not doped on painkillers so you can believe what I’m saying.” Seungcheol laughed when he heard that. “Right now I’m just happy that you’re alive.”
“I’m glad you’re happy,” Seungcheol said while caressing his hair.
“I love you so much Seungcheol,” Seungcheol couldn’t stop smiling while he was listening to Jihoon “Do you remember that we wanted to go to Paris? We should go to Paris.”
“What are you talking about?” Suengcheol asked while laughing.
“I’m not joking Seungcheol. I’m serious.”
“Yeah, I remember.”
“Do you want to go? We can go live there, like we always wanted. Do you want to get married there?”
“What?” Seungcheol asked, completely breathless.
“Do you want to marry me?” Jihoon asked again as if he didn’t hear him the first time, his expression completely serious.
“Yes,” Seungcheol answered with a smile, placing a kiss on his forehead and kneeling in front of his bed to grab his hand. Jihoon smiled when e noticed that Seungcheol was crying.
“Don’t cry, you should be happy,” Jihoon told him before wiping one of his tears.
“I am, these are tears of joy,” Seungcheol whispered before leaving a kiss on his hand. “I was so worried about you Jihoon, I thought I would never see you again, I couldn’t live with myself if you weren’t there with me.”
“I couldn’t live without you either,” Jihoon whispered with a smile on his face.
“How…? How did you change from barely talking to me to wanting to marry me? Please tell me this isn’t the adrenaline or the painkillers and you’re not gonna go back to hating me in a few days.”
“No, Seungcheol… I never hated you, I could never hate you. I just needed time, I needed time with you, just the two of us, and I had loads of days to think about us. To realize that I still love you.” Jihoon explained while caressing his cheek, Seungcheol looked puled, which made Jihoon laugh. “Don’t worry, I’ll explain everything later.”
“All right.” Seungcheol nodded slowly with a smile, it didn’t look like that smile was leaving his face any time soon.
“Right now, just get over here, I want to sleep a little bit with you close to me,”
Jihoon said and then scooted over so Seungcheol could fit in the bed with him, Seungcheol laughed and got in bed with him, wrapping his arms around Jihoon so they could cuddle. Jihoon smiled before closing his eyes and resting his head against Seungcheol’s chest.
“I love you,” he whispered before falling asleep, knowing that he would wake up still in Seungcheol’s arms. Before he fell asleep he heard a very soft ‘I love you too’, which made him smile in his sleep.