ʚ Nani ɞ

HUENINGKAI

𝚆: love bombing, emotional whiplash, clingy possessiveness.

TAEHYUN

𝚆: condescension, superiority complex, belittling.

BEOMGYU

𝚆: suggestive and a mention of jerking off, emotional whiplash, verbal cruelty disguised as playfulness.

SOOBIN

𝚆: victim playing, passive-aggressiveness, psychological manipulation.

YEONJUN

𝚆: cursing-verbal aggression, threats of violence (against other men), revenge porn (nudes) threats.

𝙽𝚊𝚗𝚒'𝚜 𝙽𝚘𝚝𝚎: who would u dislike having as your ex more? i could probably handle all of their dumbasses except tyun's. i would drown in my tears if someone talked to me like that.

You had one suitcase, one carry-on, and two friends who had been acting weird for the past hour. They had both insisted on taking you to the airport, and because you couldn't say no to either, all three of you took the same car. Both of them insisted on driving, and in grown men fashion, they settled the matter with a game of rock-paper-scissors. Beomgyu won, but the triumphant grin on his face lasted all of three seconds. The moment he slid into the driver's seat, Soobin opened the passenger door and dropped into the front seat before you could even reach for the handle. 

You blinked.

“Shotgun,” he exclaimed.

Beomgyu shot him an incredulous look. “You weren't even trying to get shotgun.”

“I am now.”

You laughed, completely missing the way Beomgyu's eye twitched.

The drive wasn't much different. Soobin spent most of it turned halfway around in his seat, talking to you from the front as if the distance between the backseat and passenger seat was unbearable. He started to recount every childhood story you two had, things Beomgyu knew nothing about. And Beomgyu wasn't much better. He pushed his seat as far back as it would go, and tried to change the conversation to all the moments you and him shared in college, events Soobin hadn’t lived with you.

“Eyes on the road,” Soobin reminded him for what felt like the tenth time.

“I'm looking.”

“You literally aren't.”

“I can multitask.”

“You absolutely cannot.”

You giggled from the backseat as they continued bickering. Soobin had always been a bit of a worrywart, constantly reminding people to be careful, asking if everyone got home safely, carrying medicine just in case someone needed it.

You didn’t know he only did that for you.

When you arrived at the airport parking lot, both boys fought about who was going to open the door for you. In the middle of their fight, without them noticing, you had opened your own door and grabbed your bags from the trunk. Next, naturally, they fought about who was going to carry your bags. Beomgyu, using the ‘what's that on your shirt’ trick on Soobin, managed to take your suitcase with a prideful smirk. Soobin had to resign to your carry-on, which was, in its totality, a baby pink with a little bow on the zipper. Regardless, he carried it with his head held high. You were sure that if it were up to them, they would also carry you all the way to the gate so your pretty feet didn't get tired. But they knew better than to suggest it. 

And now you were in front of the airport, one street to cross before your new journey started.

“So,” Beomgyu said, shoving his hands in his pockets and looking somewhere slightly to the left of your face. “You're really leaving. To study abroad.”

“I am really leaving,” you confirmed. “To study abroad.”

“Cool.” He nodded. Swallowed. Looked at the sky. Looked at the pavement. Looked at the sky again. “Cool, cool, cool.”

Soobin, standing on your other side, exhaled very slowly through his nose. He needed to calm his nerves. He had been rehearsing for days. You didn't know that, but he had. Seventeen drafts in his notes app. Seventeen. But this last one was perfect, or so he had convinced himself. 

“I just want you to know,” Soobin began, “that some things... change. Over time. And people—”

“The flight's in three hours,” you said.

“—and people,” he continued, louder, “sometimes realize that what they felt all along, even when they were kids sharing juice boxes on the playground—”

“Apple juice is still better than orange.”

“—was actually something more.”

You raised an eyebrow at that.

Beomgyu cut in, physically stepping in front of Soobin with all the subtlety of a man who had been waiting for his moment. “Okay but can I just say something really quick.”

You nod your head. The airport was right in front of you. You had time.

“We've been best friends for how long?”

“Four years.”

“Four years,” he repeated, as if this were a courtroom and this was his closing statement. “Four years of inside jokes, three a.m. convenience store runs, me being there for you for every mental breakdown you had during exams, knowing your perfect ratio of soju and beer, holding your hand during every scary movie so you don't get scared—”

“You screamed during Coraline.”

“CORALINE IS TERRIFYING AND THAT'S NOT THE POINT.” He laughed a laugh you recognized immediately as the fake one, the one he used when he was nervous and trying to cover it. You stopped yourself from calling him out on it when he took a deep breath and actually looked at you, which he had been avoiding all morning. “The point is. I think... I think I might... there's something I've been meaning to—”

“Are you going to say it?”

He tensed his jaw.

“I'm very close,” he said.

Soobin squared his shoulders. This was it. He was going to say it. Choi Soobin, after twenty-three years of knowing you, was finally going to say it. 

“I don't want to ruin the friendship,” he exasperated.

“SAME,” Beomgyu gasped, pointing at him. “Me too. That's—yeah. Same.”

You stared at them both.

They stared back.

Five seconds passed.

“So neither of you,” you said slowly, “are going to say anything.”

“We didn't say that,” Beomgyu said.

“We're just... building up to it,” Soobin added.

Another five seconds passed. 

Then Beomgyu and Soobin looked at each other. 

“Okay,” Beomgyu said slowly, “but one of us has to say it before she gets on that plane.”

“Agreed,” said Soobin with a quick nod.

“So it should be me.”

“It should obviously be me, Beomgyu, we grew up together. I have history with her.”

“That's literally less impressive. I fell for her actual self, as an adult.”

“Okay, you need to stop saying it like that, it's making it sound weird—”

“You know what I mean—”

“Guys,” you said. They didn't hear you. Or they did, and chose not to.

“I have been waiting years,” Soobin hissed, slamming his hand on his chest, close to his heart. “Years of—of watching her grow up and thinking, wow, she's becoming into a wonderful adult—”

“I THINK SHE'S WONDERFUL TOO, I just arrived at that conclusion more efficiently. I even wrote a song and learned how to play it on the guitar. I was going to play it outside her window—”

Soobin blinked. “You wrote a song?”

“I wrote a song,” Beomgyu confirmed.

“Okay that's sweet…” Soobin admitted. Then he shook his head and straightened up. “But my confession was going to be more romantic. I had a whole plan. I was going to take her to the mountains right when the autumn festival starts—you know how she loves that kind of thing—and I was going to wait until the sun was almost gone and then—" He steps forward and digs his index finger onto the other boy's chest. “And you can't speedrun a lifelong bond!”

“Watch me—” Beomgyu elbowed Soobin, pushing him to the side in order to get in front of you.

“GUYS,” you tried again, louder this time.

Useless again, as they were now actively pushing each other on a public sidewalk over the right to say something neither of them had managed to say in a combined several years of friendship.

The stoplight was red. Had been red for a while. It was probably going to turn green soon. So you looked at them, looked at the crosswalk, and decided it was time to go. You picked up your suitcase, which Beomgyu had abandoned mid-argument, and took your pink tote from where it was dangling from Soobin's fingers.

You would text them from the gate.

You stepped off the curb and took a step forward. And at the exact moment, reaching across you to shove Soobin's shoulder, Beomgyu’s hand accidentally made contact with your shoulder instead. It was not a hard push. It was barely a nudge, really. A graze. A whisper of force. 

It was, unfortunately, enough.

You stumbled. One step too far into the road.

What happened next occurred in approximately one second and would be described differently by everyone who witnessed it. A bystander looked up from his phone. A pigeon took flight. Soobin's seventeen drafts flashed before his eyes in the same way your life is supposed to flash before yours.

A silver Porsche came through the intersection.

The driver was Joshua Hong. He was, at this particular moment, in the middle of a situation that was difficult to explain to anyone who wasn't already familiar with his very specific circumstances—mainly that his attention had been momentarily drawn to the passenger seat, where a certain someone had just informed him, very calmly, that she had no plans to return his powers anytime soon. He was, in his defense, going through a lot. The demon thing was complicated. The inappropriate thoughts were even more complicated. 

He saw you approximately half a second before impact. He felt terrible immediately. He would continue to feel terrible about it for a long, long time. The real reason being that his passenger would not let him forget it. She would bring it up at every opportunity.

The suitcase rolled into the other lane, stopping cars abruptly. Horns blared. A woman rushed toward your laying body, already calling for help.

Beomgyu and Soobin stood frozen on the curb.

“She's going to be fine,” Beomgyu said. “Right?”

“Someone already called an ambulance,” Soobin observed. “They should be here soon.”

Neither of them moved.

“That’s good.” Beomgyu whispered.

Soobin closed his eyes. “Yeah. She’ll be fine”.

Five seconds passed.

“The song was really good, by the way,” Beomgyu offered. “If it matters. I practiced for three months.”

Soobin opened his eyes and stared at the middle distance. “The festival has this whole love myth going on. It’s for couples.”

“She would have loved the song.”

“She would have loved the mountains.”

Across the street, Joshua Hong was apologizing to everyone in a five-meter radius while his passenger stood beside him with her arms crossed and an expression that communicated ‘I told you to watch the road’. 

He would have to pay the hospital bills.

End of story

(You were fine. Fractured wrist with a mild concussion. Your flight had to be rescheduled by two weeks. Joshua Hong sent a get-well card that had a rainbow unicorn on the cover. His passenger added a small note at the bottom corner, signed with her name, that said ‘sorry about him’. Beomgyu showed up to the hospital with your favorite flowers. Soobin showed up a minute later with your favorite snacks. They got into a hushed argument in the hallway about who had gotten there first. Neither of them confessed. And if you're being honest, you had known for a while. About both of them. You weren't sure what you were going to do about it. But your flight was rescheduled. You had two weeks. Maybe they'd figure it out.)

𝙽𝚊𝚗𝚒'𝚜 𝙽𝚘𝚝𝚎: i'm not going to add this to my masterlist. i just wanted to prove a point as to why I HATE THESE TROPES. i'm expecting y'all to write yeonjun for me now thanks. it must be real weird reading this without ctaching all the references i'm making lmao.