Chapter Text
“I can’t sleep.”
The loud ticking coming from the clock Yunho’s mother had been gifted long before Yunho was even born had echoed through the entire house, and Yunho’s bed placed in the corner of his childhood room had always been way too small to even fit one person — let alone two — especially the older they got, and the taller they grew.
Mingi often finds himself basking in that memory.
The memory of warm and lanky limbs crammed together in Yunho’s bed only meant to fit one person, a result of Mingi’s back aching and Yunho refusing to sleep on the thin mattress laid out on the floor, a memory he sometimes wishes to revisit.
His back had hurt to the point where he was on the verge of crying — in frustration, of course, because it was back when Mingi’s teenage brain still believed that boys weren’t allowed to get emotional because, well, he’s a man and men don’t cry — and the summer air made the room feel like he was both suffocating and overheating at the same time.
And the boy, still far from a man, sprawled out beside him had only made things worse.
Yunho, still tall back then even though he had yet to catch up with Mingi and his sprouting limbs, had been taking up too much space with his lanky figure and the added body heat coming from having someone lying next to him did nothing but make the stuffy summer air worse.
Mingi doesn’t think he has ever hated Yunho as much as he did at that moment, crammed together on a summer night in Yunho’s small bed because they insisted on having a sleepover.
Yet, he finds himself longing to go back to that one insufferable night.
‘’Sleep on the mattress on the floor then,’’ Sleep had lingered in Yunho’s voice when the words had spilled past his lips in the form of a muffled mumble, such a contrast to Mingi’s own annoyed and sharp voice that had pierced through the previously quiet room.
‘’You know I can’t,’’ Mingi spat back at him, frustrated and Yunho’s warm breath fanning across his neck only made him all the more frustrated, ‘’My back hurts, can’t you sleep on the floor instead?’’
‘’Nope.’’
‘’Why? You’re being a fucking dick,’’
‘’Because,’’ Yunho had mumbled into his pillow, ‘’Then my back will also start to hurt, and I don’t want that. Just go to sleep, the pain will be gone by the time you wake up.’’
Mingi doesn’t recall ever crying in front of Yunho before that night.
He remembers being close to crying in front of him one time, the first time they celebrated Mingi’s birthday together and Yunho had gotten him a necklace — and Mingi still remembers how red his ears had been when he handed him the small box, small and embarrassed mumbles of my mom made me buy it, if you don’t like it that’s totally fine spilling past his lips — and Mingi had blamed his teary eyes on the beaming sun.
He never did cry back then, even though he had to fight back the sob threatening to rip through his chest for almost twenty minutes after Yunho had helped him put the necklace on — the tears never came. He refused to let them.
Months later, in Yunho’s bed, he lets them flow.
One small, barely audible sob had ripped through his chest, and Mingi had cried in front of Yunho for the first time.
Yunho, with his head moments prior buried into the fabric of his pillow and with sleep lingering in every limb of his body, had shuffled around and by the time he was up and leaning against his arm, all traces of sleep ever being present were gone.
‘’Are you,’’ He had uttered, ‘’Are you crying?’’
And Mingi had only cried even harder.
Of course I am, he had wished to say, my back hurts and it’s so hot that I think I might explode and you’re being a dick by doing absolutely nothing even though you can and now I’m embarrassed because I’m fucking crying.
He never did say that, and instead, he had just sobbed even harder — somewhat thankful that the darkness prevented his friend from actually seeing the way his bottom lip had been quivering and the tears dropping onto his sheets — with a weak ‘fuck off’ spilling past his lips.
Yunho, however, had never been the one to take Mingi’s cruel words to heart.
‘’Hey,’’ The confusion and urgency behind Yunho’s voice had only caused Mingi to cry even more, and feel all the more embarrassed, ‘’Are you okay? What’s wrong?’’
Everything, Mingi’s teenage brain had screamed, everything is wrong.
But then he had felt Yunho place his palm against his bare back, warm and comforting despite the warmth already existent within the room, and for a moment — Mingi found himself wondering why all his thoughts had suddenly gone quiet.
‘’Is it your back?’’ Yunho had asked, hushed and mumbled, with one hand gently stroking the skin Mingi was certain felt clammy from the sweat, and all Mingi had managed to do was nod his head.
He wasn’t even sure if Yunho would be able to see his small nod through the darkness, yet he still nodded — too scared to utter a single word, too scared that his voice would break if he as much as tried to.
‘’I’m sorry,’’ Yunho had mumbled and Mingi still remembers the remorse and guilt that had lingered behind his words to this day, ‘’I didn’t think it was that bad, I’ll sleep on the floor, I’m sorry,’’
Yunho never knew when to stop apologizing, something he still doesn’t know how to, and although Mingi had wanted nothing more than for Yunho to get out and get on the floor instead — he had been quick to shake his head.
‘’No,’’ He had croaked out as soon as he felt Yunho’s touch beginning to slip away, voice wavering and wet with tears, ‘’It’s okay.’’
Yunho’s hand had still been resting against his bare back, and Mingi found himself wishing for it to never disappear. Comforting, it felt comforting.
It felt familiar, it felt right .
‘’Are you sure? I don’t care about my back hurting, you’re in pain and if having more space helps then I’ll go sleep on the mattress,’’ Yunho had uttered after a moment of silence, and Mingi had just nodded his head in response once more.
‘’It’s okay, you can stay.’’
Silence had once more engulfed the room when Yunho had laid back down, and his hand had trailed up and down Mingi’s spine, leaving comfort and warmth to linger and soothe the pain that caused the tears to spill down his cheeks — until the tears had stopped flowing and until he eventually had fallen asleep.
They never spoke of that night ever again.
Not even when they woke up the following morning, the sun peaking through the blinds disturbing their sleep and causing Mingi to wake up before Yunho — with the comfort of one arm wrapped around his torso and small puffs of air tickling the back of his neck.
Mingi has cried in front of Yunho more times than he can count since that one, warm summer night — yet he often finds himself thinking of that one particular night, the night where he for the very first time allowed himself to crumble in front of his friend — and Yunho had been there to catch him.
Now, however, when he finds himself spread out across his own way too small childhood bed — and the room is so cold that no matter how long he spends under the covers, he can still feel the shivers that wash over him — Mingi has never longed to go back to that one night more in his entire life.
Go back to the summer warmth that had almost suffocated him and to the covers halfway kicked off the bed, back to the familiarity and comfort of his best friend’s room, back to Yunho.
Mingi then, always so blissfully unaware and blinded by the work of time and its ruthless ways, realizes what he perhaps always has known.
Yunho.
It’s Yunho. Of course it’s Yunho.
It’s always been Yunho — all along, it’s been Yunho.
Under stars that since long ago lost their ability to glow in the dark, plastered onto the ceiling above Mingi’s bed in the corner of his childhood room and between high-school years that went by too quickly, Mingi finds it lingering, all at once, in every moment he’s spent by the side of his best friend.
Don’t take those stars down, Yunho had uttered while they visited Mingi’s family over the summer and Mingi found himself staring up at the stars. Yunho by his side, like so many times before.
They’re ugly, Mingi had countered. They don’t even glow in the dark anymore.
Don’t care, Yunho had answered. Unbothered and casual. Don’t take them down, promise?
Mingi never asked why Yunho was so determined on making him promise that he’d let those stars decorate the ceiling until time would eventually find its way to them, too — and when it did, the stars would fall down by themselves.
Mingi doesn’t need to ask anymore.
I promise, Mingi had said.
Because the traces of love left unsaid and the proof of longing for something more exists in those stars, Yunho never said. Mingi didn’t know. Mingi never knew.
Mingi now, however, knows.
And when Mingi is so certain he can see those stars behind Yunho’s eyes, years later, those traces — for the first time ever — become apparent and suddenly he’s reminded of what the stars used to look like while they still glowed.
Because in Yunho’s eyes, the stars still glow and Mingi only then sees it.
How Yunho is the one, how Yunho has always been the one. Mingi sees it all.
I love you, he almost utters into the darkness and quietness of his childhood bedroom, I love you?
Yunho, I love you, Mingi realizes when the stars decorating the ceiling stare back at him and Yunho is nowhere to be found.
✧
Time heals all wounds, people claim. Yunho doesn’t agree.
Time has healed some of his wounds in the past, like the one time he had secretly and maybe not so discreetly been trying to follow a dance tutorial on YouTube which only resulted in nothing more than him not perfecting a single move, and with a nasty cut to his knee after he had stumbled over limbs still so lanky and fallen into the corner of his bedside table.
It was nothing a bandaid couldn’t fix, but the pain still lingered — for weeks on end, every time he’d get in the shower the small cut would sting and burn, and whenever the skin would rub against the fabric of his jeans, the cut, which Yunho thought had healed, would open itself back up — and Yunho was back to the evil circle of pain all over again.
It did eventually heal, even though Yunho at one point never thought it would — much like all things.
Because time heals all wounds, and the cut that seemed to never go away turned out to be no exception.
The small, barely visible scar that was left to decorate the skin, however, remained — and every time Yunho catches a glimpse of the slightly lighter skin that sits just below his knee, he gets reminded of the fact that time doesn’t heal all wounds. Not really.
Each glimpse of the scar is a reminder that the embarrassing and painful cut was once there, and Yunho is forced to remember the struggle that one tiny cut had put him through — how he had struggled to hide it from his dad to avoid any questions about how it got there, how he had to bite his tongue whenever it came into contact with water and stung so badly that he once almost cried.
Therefore, time does not heal all wounds, at least according to Yunho.
Yunho, who hasn’t heard Mingi’s voice in almost three months, Yunho, who still remembers the sound of Mingi’s voice like it’s the only thing he’s ever known.
And the bittersweet memory of their last encounter remains embroidered into his mind, and so does the picture of Mingi looking at him with such pity and so does the sound of his own wailing and sobs.
Three months ago, Yunho was so certain his whole world had come crumbling down in the middle of his living room.
And three months later, with the echoing reminder of the words that had spilled past Mingi’s lips, Yunho has never been more certain that time does, in fact, not heal all wounds.
Yunho never had to explain to his friends why he and Mingi no longer exist within the same space, even though the questioning eyes never went unnoticed by him — perhaps it’s thanks to San, and actions Yunho will never know that his friends never question the lack of Mingi’s presence whenever Yunho is present — all Yunho knows is that Mingi does still linger, and hasn’t disappeared from the face of earth, even though it feels that way to Yunho.
He lingers in comment sections when Yunho goes to compliment his friends, just like his perfume sometimes lingers in the bathroom right by his locker, and sometimes, just sometimes — Yunho catches him lingering in crowds so big, crowds where he’s not meant to found.
Yunho will always find Mingi, though, even when he wishes not to be found and even when Yunho doesn’t want to find him.
Because Mingi is embroidered into every piece of Yunho, in every part of him there is a part of Mingi — and when Yunho walks into the library or the party a friend of a friend is hosting, Mingi will be there. Lingering, existing.
And Yunho never looks twice.
The knowledge is all he needs, the knowledge of Mingi still existing everywhere he goes — it’s all he needs to know that time does not heal all wounds when Mingi remains a part of him no matter how much time passes and when the words echo through his mind like a broken record.
I love you.
‘’Hey, San?’’
The sound of fingers coming down to repeatedly press against the same four buttons ricochets off the walls, followed by a low hum from the male seated on the floor, back leaned against the couch. ‘’Aren’t you supposed to be studying?’’
A chuckle rumbles through Yunho’s chest in response. ‘’No point,’’ The books remain stacked on top of another on top of his desk, all books he’s meant to be returning in the following weeks. ‘’I won’t be studying more than necessary.’’
San doesn’t tear his eyes off of the TV mounted onto the wall, ‘’Changing majors doesn’t equal less studying, just so you know,’’
But it does equal getting rid of courses you have no desire whatsoever to take, Yunho thinks.
And it does equal straying away from memories you wish to forget, and moving forward to a place where you wish to be.
In Yunho’s case, it’s leaving the business major behind.
And to try and let time heal all wounds, at least one last time.
‘’Okay,’’ Yunho lets out, ‘’Are you done lecturing me now? Can I ask my question?’’
Another hum leaves the back of San’s throat, ‘’I wasn’t lecturing you,’’ Yunho mentally disagrees, ‘’And it depends, is it a stupid one? Because I’m like, in the middle of a game,’’
Yunho takes a moment to think whether or not his question is a stupid one or not.
His eyes remain glued on the screen, watching as San slightly twitches in the corner of his eye every time his character takes a hit a little too heavy for his liking, and perhaps his question is a stupid one.
Perhaps it’s one he’ll regret as soon as he has asked it, and perhaps San will look at him with both pity and disagreement once the question spills past his lips — he doesn’t know.
And he can’t know, unless he asks the question.
With an inhale so subtle that he doesn’t even hear it himself, he parts his lips to speak. ‘’Remember the number we talked about a while ago?’’
Casually, and unbothered, he asks. His gaze remains fixed on the TV, even when San’s thumb comes down to press one of the buttons of his controller one last time and the game abruptly pauses, he refuses to look away.
The silence that fills the room doesn’t feel suffocating, at least not in the way Yunho had expected it to. He expected pity to cut through the air, he expected a soft Yunho to trail off San’s lips — and a part of him even expects to be scolded.
Scolded for thinking San would ever allow Yunho to put himself back in the spot where he found himself three months ago.
San, who had been the first one Yunho had called after Mingi had left, and San had such trouble understanding what he had been trying to tell him over the phone that San later on told him he thought he had gotten seriously injured — San, who had rocked Yunho to sleep after many sleepless nights filled with wails and broken sobs.
San, who has witnessed Yunho in his worst moments of distress. San, who has helped Yunho pick up the pieces of himself, and helped him through every moment where he’s lost them all over again.
Yunho wouldn’t blame him if he answered his question with a simple no. Yunho thinks he would’ve done the same, if the roles had been reversed.
‘’Yeah,’’ San suddenly lets out, and when he slightly turns his body to look at the male, Yunho finds himself scared to meet his gaze. Scared to see what he might find rooted inside of the gaze, scared that it’ll be pity hidden inside his eyes.
Yunho doesn’t want pity. He is so, so sick of the pity.
And when he eventually does look down at the male seated on the floor and meets his gaze, there’s not a single hint of pity lingering inside of it.
Nor is there any disappointment, or is there any indication of a scolding. Warm, and welcoming eyes stare back at him — and Yunho feels slightly bad for thinking he’d ever be met by anything other than just that.
‘’Do you want me to send it to you?’’
All Yunho can do is nod in response, and all San does is offer him a small, warm nod before he’s already turned back and the game is back on.
They leave it at that, just like Yunho wishes to do.
Because this is his last attempt at letting the universe prove to him that time does, in fact, heal all wounds — not San’s — it’s Yunho’s choice, and it’s Yunho’s attempt at something he might as well know will lead him nowhere but right back to where he found himself three months ago.
When Yunho later on finds himself alone in the quietness of his apartment, long after San has left with the excuse of having to study unlike some other people — the number that decorates the top of their chat feels foreign and it feels haunting.
But a part of Yunho thinks that’s all he’s ever known.
Haunting. Everything has only ever felt haunting, and Yunho thinks he needs to embrace the unwelcomed feeling sooner or later.
Therefore, with a trembling thumb and a breath a little too shaky escaping past his lips, he presses down on the number and brings the phone up to his ear to listen to the ring that follows.
It rings once, and it rings twice — and Yunho, when there’s no one else to do it for him, tells himself that it’s okay.
It’s necessary, San would’ve told him — words he now chooses to tell himself between each ringing sound that echoes through the speaker of his phone. It’s necessary, it’s necessary for him and it’s necessary for the wounds time has yet to heal.
Then, the ringing stops, and for a split moment, Yunho almost puts the phone back down.
‘’Hello?’’
Unfamiliar and long forgotten, a voice speaks up on the other side of the phone, tiredness and equal confusion lingering behind the soft-spoken word — and Yunho doesn’t put the phone down.
It’s necessary, he tells himself — and somewhere between the tiredness and confusion coming from the other side of his phone, Yunho finds reassurance lingering.
‘’Is,’’ A quick, sharp breath is all he needs to recompose himself, ‘’Is this Hongjoong?’’
✧
The abstract, colorful painting that had once decorated the wall in the back of the coffee shop a few blocks away from school is nowhere to be seen when Yunho sits down in the familiar yet unfamiliar leather chair.
He’s not sure if he’s happy that it’s now a plain, monotone painting hanging off the wall — or if it’s a sense of borderline disappointment rooted deep inside of his chest once he notices the change of decoration.
Disappointed, mixed with missing nostalgia — nostalgia he doesn’t necessarily long for.
Nostalgia of realizing feelings he once didn’t know he harbored.
Feelings he now, months later, has somewhat accepted and come to terms with.
Somewhat, because not really — and therefore, he finds himself back in the leather chair and almost missing the abstract painting that had hung off the wall back then.
Back then, when there had been a taller and broader — and most definitely more familiar — figure seated from across the still way too small table, and not the almost delicate frame that his gaze now lands on when he takes a sip of his coffee.
The atmosphere, however, is almost just as tense and awkward as it had been the last time Yunho found himself seated in the back of the coffee shop.
Manicured fingers curl around a still semi-hot coffee cup, some of the nails painted in different hues of blue lightly tap against the porcelain and Yunho finds himself inspecting the nails — like some kind of artwork, which kind of makes sense, considering there’s no abstract painting hanging off the wall to distract him this time.
There’s no abstract painting with explosive colors to help him avoid his own feelings, rather said, therefore he settles for the male’s colorful nails instead.
Hongjoong’s colorful nails.
‘’I like the color,’’ Yunho finds himself uttering in a desperate attempt to escape the awkward silence that had engulfed the table ever since Hongjoong returned holding a coffee between both hands, one finger pointing towards the other male's hands. ‘’The blue nail polish, I mean.’’
Truth is, Yunho has never been any good when it comes to small talk.
Especially not with people he doesn’t know too well, which is kind of ironic, at least to Yunho — who considers the male seated from across the table a stranger — a stranger who he’s practically shared his entire life with.
A stranger he has once shared Mingi with.
Hongjoong’s gaze lands on the fingers curled around his coffee cup, slightly nodding his head before he looks back up at Yunho, ‘’Thank you, I got them done yesterday,’’
And Yunho just nods back in response, because yeah, he truly does suck at small talk.
He’s not here for small talk, though.
Neither is Hongjoong, something the lingering eyes that gaze at him from behind the rim of his coffee cup tell Yunho.
Lingering, and equally curious eyes — the question of why am I here? — rooted and hidden inside of them when they stare at Yunho.
A question Yunho has trouble answering, and it’s not because he doesn’t know how to.
The sound of Hongjoong clearing his throat rips through the air, ‘’You know,’’ He begins, gaze suddenly averted and no longer on Yunho, ‘’I can’t say I fully understand why I’m here, or why you asked me to meet you in the first place.’’
A question Yunho has known the answer to for a while, an answer to a question he has tried his best to avoid and run away from.
Yunho, however, no longer wishes to run away.
He no longer wants to run away from what he knows he sooner or later has to face, and therefore, with shaky hands and a wavering voice calls Hongjoong and asks if he’s free the following week.
Hongjoong, a stranger to Yunho, a stranger whom he has not seen since he last saw him in the kitchen of San’s apartment months ago. Back when Yunho still chose to run away, back when he didn’t know better — back when heavy, questioning gazes terrified him — something they no longer do.
Still terrifying, sure, but Yunho knows better now.
It’s always going to be terrifying.
Hongjoong is no exception, he realizes when he looks up from his coffee and is met by the same heavy and questioning gaze he had been met by last time they saw each other. It’s still just as terrifying, and perhaps Hongjoong finds Yunho’s both uncertain and hesitating gaze just as terrifying.
‘’Yeah,’’ Yunho manages to utter in the form of a breathy chuckle despite the hesitation lingering inside of his chest, ‘’I’m sorry if it made you uncomfortable, asking San to send me your number and stuff,’’
Hongjoong just gazes back at him, before he shrugs his shoulders and brings his cup back up to his lips. ‘’You’re fine. I’m just surprised San still has my number considering me and Mingi broke up a while ago, you know?’’
Yunho isn’t surprised that the topic comes up so early, the topic of Mingi.
It’s why they’re both here, to begin with, after all.
And the slight dig directed towards Yunho hidden behind Hongjoong’s voice doesn’t go unnoticed, either.
Somehow, it’s justified, at least according to Yunho — who somewhat finds the dig towards him fair.
Yunho chooses to just hum in response, and hopes that Hongjoong doesn’t catch onto the slight tremble in his voice. ‘’No, yeah, I feel you,’’ Casually, Yunho tries to sound casual, ‘’I’m glad though, because that’s why I wanted to see you.’’
Hongjoong slightly raises his eyebrows at Yunho’s words, bringing the cup back down to let the porcelain lightly collide with the wooden table.
‘’You wanted to see me because San still has my number, or because me and Mingi broke up?’’
Yunho never got to know Hongjoong.
Despite existing in his presence more often than not, and despite making mindless and almost shy conversations whenever Mingi was nowhere to be seen, Yunho never actually got to know the shorter male now seated in front of him.
Him, as in something more than just Mingi’s boyfriend — him, as in Kim Hongjoong, who adorns different hair colors every time Yunho sees him and small and delicate hands that press against piano keys to express thoughts he will never be able to convey — Yunho never got to know that part of him.
Kim Hongjoong, as in who he is. A friend, even a mere stranger — Yunho never had the opportunity to know him in any of those ways.
Mingi’s boyfriend is all he was, and no longer is.
The edge to him, however, is something Yunho knows.
An edge Yunho has known about ever since Mingi first started talking about him, an edge he has heard about whenever Mingi has cried into his shoulder about yet another pointless argument that has made Yunho loathe him — an edge he is now seeing.
A sharp, yet curious edge existent behind his words when he stares at Yunho from across a small wooden table in the back of a coffee shop.
Yunho, however, can’t afford to feel scared by the sharp edge he’s now witnessing for the first time. He can’t.
Not now, when it’s too late to turn back.
‘’I just,’’ He speaks up before he can even consider turning back, ‘’I just need some closure. You can leave, if you want to, I won’t hold it against you.’’
Selfish and perhaps a little bit unfair, but it’s the truth. The ugly and perhaps nowhere fair truth, the only truth Yunho knows — and the one thing he’s ever asked for — closure.
Something only Hongjoong, who does nothing but stare back at him with manicured fingers still curled around white porcelain, can give him.
‘’Closure?’’ Hongjoong repeats, almost mimics and Yunho does nothing but nod in response.
Yunho expects for Hongjoong to get up then. For his manicured and dainty fingers to leave the warm white porcelain and for the sound of the chair scraping against the wooden floor to echo through the coffee shop, for Hongjoong to walk out and for this to be the end of their shortlived relation to one another.
He doesn’t.
Hongjoong doesn’t get up, nor does the sound of his chair scraping against the floor echo through the cafe — and the anger or shock Yunho expects to find lingering inside of his eyes is nowhere to be seen.
Hongjoong just stares at him for another moment, before he looks down at the cup of coffee. ‘’I used to really dislike you, you know?’’
No, I did, in fact, not know that, Yunho thinks when the confession spills past Hongjoong’s lips in the form of a muffled mumble. He supposes it shouldn’t surprise him, though.
The lack of enthusiasm when it came to getting to know Yunho, the very few interactions they had throughout his and Mingi’s relationship — it doesn’t surprise Yunho in the slightest.
‘’You were always there, from the very beginning,’’ Hongjoong continues, and before Yunho has the chance to furrow his brows at the statement, Hongjoong parts his lips to speak. ‘’Maybe not physically, but you were still there, in every topic and every conversation,’’
Oh.
‘’Which makes sense, right? You’re his best friend, like, I get that,’’ Yunho almost disagrees, and tell him that he’s not his best friend — he’s not Mingi’s best friend — at least not anymore.
The urge to disagree, however, dies and crumbles before he even has a chance to think about it any further. He’s not here to prove himself, not to Hongjoong and most importantly, not to himself.
‘’But there’s a difference between talking about your best friend and the way he talked about you,’’ Yunho doesn’t miss the way Hongjoong’s sharp gaze hasn’t met his own ever since he started speaking. ‘’There were days where I wondered which one of us he was actually dating, me or you,’’
Hongjoong chuckles then, even though there’s nothing worth laughing at. It’s not funny, Hongjoong’s statement isn’t funny — not to Yunho and not to Hongjoong.
‘’He never cheated on you,’’ Yunho utters, quick and perhaps a little too hastily, ‘’We never did anything while you were together, never, I’d never, Mingi would never’’
Hongjoong, after what feels like forever, lifts his gaze and looks up at Yunho once more, then he laughs.
‘’I know,’’ He lets out, ‘’He didn’t have to, I still knew.’’
I still knew, and Yunho thinks back at their encounter in the kitchen all those months ago.
The betrayal existent behind Hongjoong’s delicate features, the sorrow and the fear. Yunho, months later and with the tiniest bit more clarity, now understands the fear and sorrow that he had failed to understand back then — and the lump that forms in the back of his throat feels all too familiar.
‘’I’m sorry.’’
Quietly and as honest as it gets, Yunho lets the words slip past his lips. He refuses to look away from the shorter male, to show that he means it. That he truly is sorry.
He never meant for it to be like this.
He never wanted it to be like this.
But it is like this, whether Yunho wants it or not — it is like this, and the least he can do is tell Hongjoong how sorry he is.
How sorry he is for the despair that Hongjoong refuses to show — or maybe no longer carries, Yunho isn’t sure — how sorry he is for everything.
Hongjoong, however, just shakes his head. ‘’I won’t accept your apology,’’ Casual when the words leave the tip of his tongue, ‘’Because there’s nothing for you to apologize for.’’
There is, Yunho wishes to counter. I’ve been selfish, I still am.
Yunho is selfish for calling Hongjoong, months after him and Mingi broke up, he’s selfish for asking him to meet him — he’s selfish for being here, picking at old wounds that for all Yunho knows might’ve been long healed before Yunho decided to show up.
He doesn’t.
He doesn’t apologize again, nor does he counter Hongjoong’s words with denial. Instead, he decides to be honest once more. ‘’I haven’t talked to him since you broke up.’’
He’s not looking for pity, nor is he looking for Hongjoong to console him. He’s being honest, because it’s the one thing Hongjoong deserves — if he won’t accept his apology — then honesty is the one thing Yunho has left to offer him.
Hongjoong just hums from across the table, ‘’Can I tell you something?’’
Yunho just nods in response before he has the chance to think about it, watching as Hongjoong brings the cup of coffee up to his lips and takes a sip of the liquid.
‘’If it wasn’t for you, I would’ve loved loving Mingi,’’
Yunho almost crumbles then.
Almost, because between the harsh words in the form of a soft mumble coming from the man seated in front of him and the guilt that washes over him — Yunho has already crumbled so many times before.
‘’And if it wasn’t for me, I’m sure you would’ve loved loving Mingi, too.’’
I know, Yunho almost says.
Because Yunho has loved loving Mingi for years, he knows what it’s like to be obliviously in love with loving Song Mingi — what it’s like to bask in the feeling without even knowing it’s love he’s basking in — and he knows what it’s like loving Mingi with the knowledge of there being someone else.
And Hongjoong isn’t lying when Yunho says he would’ve loved loving Mingi if Hongjoong never existed, and Yunho knows that.
Just like he sees the man seated in front of him, a man who has once shared the love Yunho holds for Mingi and a man who has once held Mingi in ways Yunho has only ever yearned for — and Yunho knows it’s not fair.
It’s not fair that Yunho gets the closure, that Yunho is the one who will walk out of the coffee shop with the same clarity Hongjoong has dreamt of ever since Mingi entered his life. It’s not fair that Yunho will be the one to walk out of the coffee shop with determined steps while Hongjoong, who has to pick up the pieces of something he was never meant to be involved in, will be left with wounds ripped open.
For that, Yunho wants to apologize.
Apologize for loving Mingi, and for being the reason why Mingi will never love Hongjoong the same way Hongjoong loves him.
Hongjoong doesn’t have the say the words out loud, because Yunho can already hear them, loud and clear, when they’re written in the gaze he gives him from behind the rim of his coffee cup.
You don’t have to love loving someone in order to love them, though, Hongjoong doesn’t say.
I know, Yunho doesn’t respond. I hate loving him.
But I do.
‘’I’m sorry,’’ I do love him, ‘’I’m sorry I put you in this situation to begin with.’’
Hongjoong just chuckles, before he places the cup of coffee on top of the wooden table once more and rests his chin in the palm of his hand. ''And I still don’t accept your apology.’’ He shrugs, and Yunho can’t believe that this is the first time Hongjoong makes him laugh.
''Do you still hate me?’’
''Isn’t that too deep of a question? I mean, we’re in a coffee shop,’’
Yunho shrugs in response, ''Let me rephrase then,’’ He continues, ''Will you hate me?’’
Hongjoong then, for the first time ever, flashes Yunho a smile. A genuine one, one Yunho has never seen before — at least not directed towards him, and then he shakes his head. ‘’He’s been yours since the first time he laid eyes on you, Yunho. I can’t hate you for something I accepted a long time ago, something as inevitable as this.’’
And the clarity and closure Yunho has begged and wept for comes to him right there and then.
Served on a silver platter, as clear as day, the clarity he has longed for is right in front of him — in the form of a warm smile plastered on Hongjoong’s lips in the back of a coffee shop — and Yunho knows then.
Just like when he walks out the doors leading into the coffee shop, Hongjoong is left behind to finish his coffee on his own — because that’s how it’s supposed to be. Yunho knows that's how it's supposed to be.
Hongjoong is Mingi’s boyfriend, and Yunho is Mingi’s best friend, except the fact that Hongjoong is no longer Mingi’s boyfriend and Yunho is no longer Mingi’s best friend.
Because that’s not what they’re supposed to be. Hongjoong isn’t supposed to be Mingi’s boyfriend, just like Yunho isn’t supposed to be Mingi’s best friend.
Something Hongjoong proves to him, with nails painted blue and a smile Yunho has never known until he sees it in the back of the same coffee shop he once got his heart broken in.
Something as inevitable as this.
Inevitable, because that’s exactly what it is — Yunho loving Mingi is inevitable, always has been and always will be.
Yunho already knows where he’s heading the second he steps outside the coffee shop, and for that, he thanks the universe for proving to him that time does, in fact, heal all wounds and Kim Hongjoong.