underwater

When Kihyun leaves to prepare dinner, she doesn’t follow him into the kitchen. She settles a careful distance next to him on the wrinkled leather couch, away from the chattering noise of Minhyuk and Changkyun at war in the game room. A seeker of silence, he observes as he raises his head and her eyes meet his. The contact has her taken aback, her pupils rounded and wide with innocent alarm. He gives a nonchalant, non-committal nod, and she slowly blinks back, owlish.

It’s so oddly adorable, he’s secretly charmed.

He leans back and lets his eyelids lower.

The silence isn’t awkward at all. In the most unexpected way, her quiet presence is comforting. There’s a slight crick in his neck, but his consciousness drifts off as he listens the faint rhythm of her breathing. A blissful haze creeps over his mind, he’s about to dip into the sweet nothingness of sleep when a hand presses against his cheek gently. Without thinking, he nuzzles into the warm skin.

Still gentle, the hand shifts his position. He grunts in drowsy protest, nudging his face against the direction of the guided push. It refuses to let up, and he squints open in quick irritation, attack ready on his tongue.

All he can see is her.

A small pull is at the corner of her lips, and amusement gleams in her eyes. 

“I’m sorry for bothering you, but it’s bad for your neck if you sleep like that,” she says softly, and Hyungwon only hears kindness.

His irritation vanishes into thin air, as quick as it came, and he allows her to move his head to lie on the cushioned armrest. She’ll be good for Kihyun, he thinks.

His eyelids close heavy. His muddled consciousness melts a crack in his guarded armour, and his lips are too loose. He finds himself mumbling out loud, look after him, Kihyun can be difficult, he means well, he’s usually too busy looking after us to look after himself.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to look after him for long,” she whispers. It’s almost inaudible in the silence. 

He knows she’s telling herself rather than answering him.

Hyungwon doesn’t really understand, but he recognizes sadness and he thinks he feels a dull stirring in his chest—

Then, his unconsciousness takes him completely.

.

.

.

“Why are you here alone?”

His voice comes out raspy and it makes him sound cranky and ill-tempered. It’s well past noon, but he had just rolled out of bed. He’s still bleary eyed with the hangover of sleep, and a sleepy Hyungwon is never a happy Hyungwon.

Startled, like a deer in the headlights, she meets his gaze from her spot at the kitchen table. 

“Kihyun is out on a schedule with Minhyuk and Hyunwoo. He asked me to wait for him to come back,” she pauses in meek hesitance. Her lips part again as if she had more to say, but she purses them and looks away instead.

Hyungwon too, turns away without replying. The silence that floods the room is awkward enough that he feels some sort of internal cringe, but he does nothing to alleviate it. Everything is making his head hurt. He rubs out an oncoming migraine, and scuffing of wood against tile fills the soundlessness.

She’s out of her seat and rummaging around the kitchen cabinets. Tension is knitted between the blades of her shoulders, caution in every movement.

Distance. 

He's all too aware. He sees the signs, the weight of reservation within, will withering at the pressure of possibly being unwanted.

A part of him gives way, and he sighs through his softness. He doesn’t intend to regularly involve her in his life (like Minhyuk) or instant acceptance into a blossoming friendship (like Jooheon) just because she’s dating one of his members, but he (admittedly) loves and respects Kihyun. He would like to be on good terms with her, something along the lines of the closer side of close acquaintances, and Hyungwon definitely doesn’t want her to feel unwelcome.

“You don’t have to be so formal, and you don’t have to explain to me why you’re here. Relax, you’re with Kihyun.”

She stiffens completely, arm frozen midair and hand disappeared in the depths of a cupboard. She doesn’t turn her head to look at him.

“You don’t need to distance yourself,” Hyungwon continues, “we’re all glad that you’re here. Kihyun’s been really happy these weeks.” 

He hears her inhale deeply, a little shaky and unsteady, but she still doesn’t turn around. Maybe he overstepped his bounds.  

Unbidden, he walks out of the kitchen. He plops himself onto the leather couch, and he groans in frustration as he buries his face into his hands. He thinks of her back, her shoulders curled in, on guard and awaiting hostility. You’ve just made things worse. Why can’t you just get along— 

“Hyungwon.” 

He spreads his fingers and peeks at her between the gaps.

“Hyungwon,” she says again, somewhat shy. Her voice has always been soothing to his ears, but hearing his name was another experience. It’s not quite a smile yet, but her mouth lifts slightly upwards.

She holds out a mug to him. It’s his mug, sleek black with C.H.W. engraved on the handle that had been gifted to him for his birthday. 

He’s a little perplexed. “Why are you making me coffee?” he can’t help but ask, but he easily accepts the mug from her, touched by the detail.

She’s nowhere near as bright as the afternoon sun, but he thinks her eyes twinkle. 

“You’re with Kihyun, too. Shouldn’t I look after you the way he will?”

She smiles, cheeky. It’s a small smile, but it’s a start. 

He blinks. He’s not sure if its the aroma of coffee or if Kihyun had cleaned yesterday, but the light from the glass windows seem to sparkle gently.

He brings the mug to his lips and takes a sip.

Strange.

It’s black coffee. It’s black coffee, but it tastes somehow sweet. 

Even stranger, Hyungwon doesn’t mind the sweetness.

.

.

Hyungwon is at the wrong place at the wrong time. 

He’s a simple man, really. All he wants is his daily dose of caffeine in tranquility and peace, accompanied by the quiet buzz of city life. As fate would have it, a cruel mistress indeed, he ends up at the same cafe as her and Kihyun. They don’t notice him, but drama finds him wherever he goes.

He watches as a girl saunters up to her, shoulders squared with arrogance, her perfect manicure tipped with cruelty. Dread dips down his spine as he recognizes her as one of Kihyun’s past loves, one of the ill-fated that ended messy and met death with spite.

“I still can’t believe it, but word has it someone like you is Yoo Kihyun’s new other,” the girl bites to maim, voice sharp and steel-bladed. “Are you?”

He grits his teeth.

Where on earth did Kihyun go?

He’s not involved but he doesn’t exactly feel uninvolved. He wants to embrace the bliss of ignorance, blind his eyes and deafen his ears, to pass her off as another stranger. He doesn’t know her well enough, he has no right to be involved, so it has nothing to do with him.

(He ignores the Kihyun would expect you to be involved lurking in the depths of his mind.)

He’s always been passive in nature, unbothered by conflict, ready to run to keep the comfort of his status quo. A prey in a predator’s disguise. 

But Hyunwon’s body refuses to obey him, and his sight can’t seem to focus anywhere else.

She looks up from her hot chocolate, bewildered at the hostility. Her pupils shake for a second, two, and then her expression shifts into an impasse, neutral without any trace of any emotion.

“I am.” 

“What makes you think you’re good enough for him?” The girl snarls, clearly airing out her disdain with no sense of misplaced blame.

It has nothing to do with me, don’t get involved, nothing to do with me, repeats in his head but the anger is thrumming through his veins and his blood screams at him to do something. He pushes his chair back before he knows it, feet firm on wooden ground as he strides a long step forward—

“I don’t,” she says quietly, but it rings loud against the noisy silence of the cafe business, “I never thought I was.”

—and he stops.

Her level gaze never falters, but the softness of her words don’t match how hard and deep they strike him to the core. "Why do you think I'll meet a different end than you?" She shakes her head offers a bittersweet smile, more bitter than sweet, “I can assure you our endings won’t be much different.”

“Kihyun isn’t the type to change.”

The girl looks a little taken aback, but her tongue is tied and her malice breathing its last, dying breath.

The tension fizzles out like that.

.

.

.

“I’m so sorry, I left you alone in such a common place with so much traffic,” comes Kihyun’s worried, worried voice, warm and filled to the brim with genuine concern. “I saw her on my way back, did she talk to you? Did she give you any trouble?”

“No, Kihyun. She didn’t mean it. She’s was hurt, that’s all, still not over her heartbreak.”

Kihyun scoffs, “Hurt? Not over her heartbreak? She gave me the dirtiest stink eye earlier, if eyes had lasers I would be nothing but ashes.”

She sighs, but it’s fond.

Hyungwon can physically hear the way she folds and tucks away her raw ruefulness underneath a smile. “We just talked a little, she reminded me how lucky I am for being with you.”

Kihyun laughs in love, amused and overflowing with happiness. Hyungwon wonders how Kihyun fails to pinpoint the uncertainty weighing her shoulders and the missing beats of her heart. 

Why do you think I’ll meet a different end than you?

But it has nothing to do with him, so he takes a sip of his coffee.

Our endings won’t be much different.

Cold.

Hyungwon finds it difficult to swallow.

.

.

.

In his carelessness, he drops a glass. 

Hyungwon sees the way the glass shatters onto the white tile floor in slow motion. Completeness, a whole, then imperfect, unmatched fragments, breaking into pieces and parts, parts and pieces— 

In a million diamond pieces, it glitters with breathtaking beauty and hidden cruelty, and in that beautiful cruelness, he cuts himself on the shattered shards. 

Don’t broken pieces combine into completeness? Aren’t shattered shards an imperfect piece of perfection?  

Rich redness dribbles down his palm, and he follows the blood flow, but his mind, lost, wandering in wonder.

A whole is a sum of its parts. How are parts summed together to make a whole? 

A gasp.

“Hyungwon!” 

He turns to the kitchen doorway, and she stands, struck, face colourless with concern.

How can you fix broken perfection when you’re missing shattered parts?

.

.

.

“You need to be careful, Hyungwon.”

“It’s just a small wound,” he protests, indignation sparking alive, “it’ll heal in no time.”

She huffs, blown up and adorably miffed as she blots liquid redness away from the bleeding cut on his palm. It’s not like he wants an injury on his hand either, but Hyungwon can’t help the upwards curl of his mouth as he watches her administer first aid.

“It will heal,” she sighs, “you don’t need to get stitches, at least. But why were you letting yourself bleed out all over the glass?”

He laughs a little nervously. Well.

“I got lost in thought for a second...maybe?”

...

“Maybe you need to wean off your coffee addiction. On the contrary to popular belief, I think too much caffeine makes you lag.” 

In mid scoff, an involuntary hiss escapes him as she dabs alcohol over the open skin. She looks up with a playful frown on her face, “Does it hurt, you big baby?”

“You’re being mean,” he jokes, “my heart hurts.”

But she agrees, humming nonchalantly, almost too nonchalant for the sudden depth to her voice. “The worst wounds are the ones you can’t see. The ones that hurt the most are the wounds that hurt the heart.”

“And wounds that hurt the heart,” she says, final, cradling his hand gently, “are the ones that others can’t help you heal.”

He falls quiet, because he’s not quite sure how to respond. There’s too many secrets hidden among too many doors, and Hyungwon doesn’t want to knock too hard and suddenly find himself an intruder. She finishes the wrapping of white bandages with a clean knot, tucking loose ends neatly into place, “Well, that’s that.”

Nodding, Hyungwon rises to clean up the mess still on the floor, but she scrunches her nose and huffs at him, a silent bid to sit back down. He’s too tired to argue, so he does, and swallows the little bit of guilt that lingers. He watches her pick up the glass, one cautious shard by shard, and he thinks she looks like she’s collecting broken pieces of herself. His heart squeezes, he takes a deep breath, and—

“The gossip. Those rumors. You don’t have to take that kind of behaviour from his exes, strangers, staff, whatever.”

She hums in true nonchalance, “I’m fine, really. They’re not asking the wrong questions, either.”

She sweeps up the remaining minuscule cuts on the floor, invisible to the eye but still shimmering, glinting with subdued beauty in the passover of light. 

Then softer, like a little secret told out loud, “They’re asking the same questions I ask myself.”

It’s the fact that Hyungwon knows she fully means every single word she says that makes his simmering emotions bubble over and burst.

“Why? Why are you letting them hurt you? Why don’t you tell Kihyun?”

“It doesn’t hurt me—”

“You should tell Kihyun anyways, he would want to know!”

If I were Kihyun, I would want to know. I would need to know.

“I don’t want to worry him when it doesn't bother me, and,” she stops, blinks once, and exhales the tiniest quiver in her voice away to calmness—

“I’ll just be another goodbye in the end, anyway.”

It’s absolutely absurd to Hyungwon. He doesn’t know much about relationships, sure, he doesn’t know much about love, but he knows Yoo Kihyun.

“I’ve never seen him love anyone like he loves you,” he confesses, “you have nothing to be afraid of.”

She looks at him, and his breath loses itself to the glint of soft tragedy in her eyes. He sees hopelessness at peace, he thinks she’s too restrained for a heart that Kihyun’s so careful not to shatter—

Hyungwon realizes she’s been shattered all along, by her own hands.

Like broken glass pieces, sadness sparkling on cold tile floors.

“I’m not afraid he’ll leave me,” she whispers, barely, and it’s the only thing that falls from her lips with complete certainty, “I’m waiting for when he will.”

Something stirs in his chest again.

This time, it aches. 

.

.

.

The sun dips lower into the horizon, and the sunset stars flicker. Something about the dying light and the golden glow caught in the tangles of her hair pulls him in too deep and under the edge, the sky a thousand novas for a thousand old wounds gasping to resurface, and Hyungwon is just so tired of toeing lines.

Do you hate yourself?

The question leaves his lips before he realizes, four rogue little words escaping without a destination to cross an invisible boundary, but forever searching, searching and searching.

Her eyes lower to secrets and unspoken wisdom, and the corners of her lips pull up. Hyungwon holds his breath because, for a moment, he can’t see starlight reflected in the glassy distance of her pupils. It’s a complex blend of bittersweetness, the smile that she forms; a little amusement, a little morbidness, and his chest aches as he can’t even begin to unravel everything in between. Then, she’s so unbearably soft, almost unheard in the wind but piercing through the confines of his heart.

“Why did you hate yourself, Hyungwon?”

He freezes. The orange afterglow of setting sunlight is still warm, but a tentative chill settles in icy pricks along his skin.

He remembers long nights, hard nights, sleepless nights, when exhaustion of the body and mind rooted so far into his soul that he just couldn’t rest. He remembers moonlight misery reflecting off his glass windows, ghost whispers of not being good enough, not measuring up, never ever catching the trailing threads of success. Fake it until you make it, was what he was taught, but some part of him screamed he would never make it, and all his efforts, futile. He still doesn’t know how he managed to pretend he glittered gold for so long while he believed he was dirt. She eyes him in his memories, all too knowing for someone that has not been through those experiences, and Hyungwon can’t help but shudder.

“You have that look, too. That look of someone who is going through or have gone through it. It’s an almost crippling uncertainty, but it’s also not baseless insecurity, isn’t it? The uneasiness can dull to almost nothing, but it never quite leaves—”

She breathes out into dusk, and shifts her head to hold his sight. He almost flinches, almost shys away from her eyes. For once, she’s holding nothing back, and the bareness makes him feel too exposed, his steel armours overturned and vulnerabilities unearthed. 

“You have it, Hoseok has it, Minhyuk has it too, but Kihyun’s not one of you,” she says, dead center bullseye and an arrow straight through his heart. The way her voice floods with unconditional love and acceptance wants to bring Hyungwon on his knees. “You know this better than I do as Kihyun’s longtime friend, don’t you? This little something Kihyun can’t understand, never will understand. He knows he’s someone the universe made to shine.”

She laughs lightly, fond but a bit dry, and stars are lost in the crescents of her eyes.

“I’m not as extreme as you seem to think, though. I don’t hate myself, not at all. I wouldn’t have said yes to Kihyun if it was like that.”

Confusion bursts, because Hyungwon just knows there’s something more. His forehead wrinkles, concern flooding in his voice as he starts, “But you...you’re not okay—”

His thoughts fade out into white noise as she raises her hand towards him and tiptoes. His pulse quickens seeing her so close, and he blinks in subtle panic. Then, he feels the warmth of her fingertips gently smoothing the tension folded between his brows away, and he just stares.

“It’s not so bad, Hyungwon, don’t waste your worries on me,” she says, all quiet and tender, as if that could soften the hard blow to the hard truth—

”I just don’t know how to love myself.”

That’s even more awful, not knowing how, Hyunwon wants to argue, anger alive on her behalf, but he sees her sorrow and her unshed tears and the words die on his tongue. Instead, he reaches up and takes her hand into his. 

Hyungwon gives her a gentle squeeze. Hating would be easier. There’s a thin line between love and hate. Love can bloom into hate and hate can grow into love, but what can be molded when it comes to an I don’t know? 

She gives him another bittersweet smile, understanding, and slips her hand away. The memory of warmth lingers on his skin with the sudden emptiness.

He watches her turn back out to the sky, but when he follows her gaze, the sky has already darkened several shades of night, the stars are not brighter but bleaker, and it feels like he’s falling.

.

.

.

Hyungwon dreams of broken glass, of gentle hands, of a beating heart that loves bravely without loving itself. 

He collects the pieces of glittering glass into his hands, and it glows with injured iridescence in the mild lull of sunlight at dusk. Then, there’s a heart in his hands, beating bare and bleeding. 

It won’t stop beating even though it bleeds. 

It bleeds through angry out-of-place stitches, too clean and disturbingly artificial. The thin threads do nothing but wound the heart more, tearing the flesh in uneven gashes at the seams.

With docile fingers, Hyungwon removes the stitches and lets it bleed, and the blood flow begins to lessen, from a rough river to a gentle trickle. His hands stain wet red, but soft pulses flutter against the skin of his palm and for a moment, he thinks the heart is beating for him.

He almost forgets how to breathe. His own heartbeat skips four times, and with each missed beat, he yearns harder and he falls deeper.

He thinks he would give his own to keep the heart beating.

I love you. I love you, I love you—

I   l o v e   y o u.

He dreams.

It’s just a dream.

.

.

.

Bad days come and bad days go. His bad days catch up to him to seize him at gunpoint, and Hyungwon surrenders without a fight. A dejavu to his silly teenage years, again, he’s a self-caged captive with invisible chains and no one else to blame.

Pathetic.

There’s a pit in his stomach, a void in his chest, darker than black and an endless hole. He wants to cry but his veins are bloodless, his emotions in overdrive and he feels too much and nothing all at once.

 He curls into himself more and he wishes everything would just stop and go away—

He groans inwardly when he hears the unmistakable click of the apartment door. A quick mental count of schedules tells him it has to be Minhyuk or Kihyun or both, and he really does not feel like humouring either in his current state. Then, he hears distinctly feminine footsteps and for some reason, relief stirs in the numbness of his core.

“Hyungwon…?”

She’s peering at him from the doorway. Her brows are furrowed, lips twisted into a frowning pout and Hyungwon knows she can tell something is wrong. She disappears down the hallway, and returns with a pillow and a blanket. 

Hyungwon lets her maneuver him around, obediently lifting his head so she can slide the pillow underneath. She tucks the blanket up to his chin and makes sure his head properly supported by the pillow, and her easy acceptance already makes something in him more grounded.

“Do you need some time alone?” 

He shakes his head, “Can you stay?” 

He only needs to ask once. Without question, she settles on the floor next to him. Normally, Hyungwon would be a little unnerved at the way she was watching him so carefully, but he knows her now and her kindness, so he finds himself relaxing in her air of concern and comfort instead. 

In a smaller voice, he admits, “I don’t think I want to be alone right now.”

Hyungwon thinks he’s a grown man and he still can’t handle the width of his emotions, can’t hide them or mask them long enough without cracking miserably at the edges. 

“I’m pathetic, aren’t I,” he turns to her and his eyes water.

“Oh Hyungwon,” she coos with a sigh, leaning closer, she brushes wisps of his hair out of his face, “of course not. It's okay not to be okay.”

Her fingers kiss his eyelids so he lets his eyes falls shut and listens to her over the beat of his pulse.

“You’re more than what anything thinks of you, Hyungwon,” her touch trails the curve of his nose, “You’re more and what you think of you.”

“You’re doing your best, and that’s enough.”

At that, he opens his eyes to look at her, pointedly.

“You should tell that to yourself, too. Take your own advice,” he huffs.

She smiles back, amused but a little sullen. She presses a finger against the thickness of his lips. “That’s the secret, isn’t it? The fight between what you know and what you feel. It’s a losing war for my knows, though.”

His lips tingle at the phantom touch of her fingertips.

Her eyes are clear and deep with untold insecurities that he thinks he could drown in them. He wants to drown in them. He doesn’t understand why Kihyun can’t see them, even if he doesn’t understand them.

His heart skips, falling, and he’s not sure if he’s anchoring himself or his heart when he reaches out and grasps at the soft knit of her sweater. She gently pats his arm in a soothing gesture, “It’s okay, I’ll stay, Hyungwon.”

He closes his eyes again. He doesn’t let go and he seals his fate, fallen.

I love you.

It’s not just a dream.

.

.

.

When he wakes, she’s still on the floor next to him, but her fingers are slotted in-between his. She’s asleep and her cheek is nestled close by his side; Hyungwon can’t help but smile at the soft little exhales of her breathing. He keeps their fingers entwined while he collects his consciousness, then, he notes, there’s a blanket carefully draped over her.

He hears Kihyun singing from the kitchen, the faint sizzling of stir-fry, along with muffled clatters of pots and pans. Hyungwon slips his hand away.

Later, he realizes they cancelled their date. She waves him off and just asks if he’s feeling better. Kihyun too, is not bothered at all, tells him to take care of himself and never asks for an explanation.

Love fills him, and Hyungwon knows he matters to both of them, but reality checks and remorse quickly follows.

He can’t do this to Kihyun.

.

.

.

Kihyun doesn’t understand, but he does. 

Uncertainty. Uneasiness. Insecurity. The cycle of having doubt constantly clawing at your insides, stitching invisible wounds, then waking up next to anxiety and bringing misery to bed. 

He’s past that. He’s supposed to be past that. It’s been years since he had last seen the stranger of insecurity and self-hate, but he still remembers the struggle as vividly as yesterday.

It’s been a long time since Hyungwon had truly hated himself.

The clock turns three am and he thinks of her. He thinks of gentleness and unconditional acceptance, of her eyes and her smile. He thinks of the way she’s broken without bleeding, of how she’s so capable of holding herself so sturdy in her uncertainty. 

And hate crawls out of his grave, his familiar stranger. His ears ring to the trembling noise thrumming in his veins, his heart flutters painfully, and there’s something he’s been denying for far too long.

Hyungwon realizes, he knows why he’s been hating, why hate has slithered out of his slumbering shadows to strangle him blue.

He hates himself—

He hates himself for falling in love with a heart that belongs to someone else.

He hates himself for falling in love so completely, so irreversibly, that he would be okay with anything as long as that someone else learns how to love happily.

Maybe, most of all, he hates himself for loving so selflessly.

.

.

.

Fallen hearts are bound together just to break, he believed.

He was wrong.

Hyungwon isn’t bounded, but he would still break his fallen heart and hand it over on a golden platter if his broken pieces could fix hers.

.

.

.

The walls in their home are too thin. 

“I don’t know, Kihyun. I can’t, not yet.”

“Why not? You get along fine with my members. My family isn’t much different.”

“It’s not that. It’s just. I. I don’t know if I’m confident enough.” 

The adoration in Kihyun’s chuckles are hardly filtered out by the walls.

“It’s fine, I'm confident one. I have enough confidence for the both of us. It’s like how I love you and how I’m loving enough for the both of us.”

No, Hyungwon thinks, that’s not helping her at all.

“You’ll be fine because I’m by your side. For now, just think about it, okay?”

He hears her breathe out, long and winded. 

“Okay, I’ll think about it, but give me a little more time.”

He doesn’t find the embrace of sleep, that night.

.

.

.

What is love when you love something broken?

Is it love for what is was before it became shattered parts and pieces? The memories of when it was whole?

Is it love for what it could be if it was built back together whole? The potential of being fixed?

Or is it love because it’s broken? 

Love for it being broken, love because the brokenness is in your hands to break further or to fix.

Kihyun, Hyungwon wants to plead, wants to ask, wants to beg, don’t just love her for being broken.

.

.

.

She looks like she wants to cry. 

Her eyes are dry, but something about the way she blinks and squeezes her eyes shut gives her away. 

His heart hurts, seeing her like this. He wishes he could cradle her face in his hands and tenderly rub the exhaustion out of her eyes. Instead, he takes a seat next to her and purses his lips.

“Are you okay?” 

She shakes her head, “No, I don't think I am.”

Hyungwon frowns. He spreads his arms and pats his chest, an open invitation. She takes it, leaning in, tucking herself under his chin and resting her forehead on his shoulder. She inhales, shaky and unsteady.

“Kihyun tells that I’ll be okay because he’s with me, because he loves me. Does that mean I won’t be okay if it’s just me? That’s not right, isn’t it? But then, without him, what am I?”

“You’re just you,” he says, and he wishes he was wiser, with more words to give, “that’s already more than enough.”

He feels her eyes close against his collarbone, a brief flutter of lashes and she admits, “I don’t think I can learn how to love myself.”

“Why? I was worse than you, I hated myself. I’m past it now, and you can too.”

Against him, she shakes, and her voice rises a pitch higher, a touch more frantic, “It seems like such a faraway never and I don’t believe in myself. How can I believe he loves me when I don’t love myself? I know he does. It’s not about him, I’m not insecure about him loving me.” 

And Hyungwon knows. When it came to Kihyun’s love, for her, it was never insecurity. 

“I know Kihyun and I can’t go on like this. He doesn’t understand and I thought it was okay but it’s not. I don’t expect anything of him, but I’ll still hurt when it ends. But it can’t hurt any worse than now, can it?”

She shudders, hands clutching at his shirt as she buries her face in it. Even muffled, the way her voice breaks off is strikingly clear.

“I love him, Hyungwon. But loving him is hurting me.”

His heart throbs in waves of unadulterated pain, a dagger’s gash through muscle.

She’s close to tears. A dry sob leaves her lips, and he hates the sound of her giving up. 

“I can’t do this, Hyungwon.”

“You can,” he says, patting her back. Because I love you, he wants to say, because I can see the whole picture from your broken parts. A different sort of beauty, shattered but complete like a stained glass mosaic, lit up in colour at sunset. I will wait while you piece them together, a puzzle, one step at a time. 

“It would be so much easier if I could believe you,” she whispers.

Hyungwon wishes he could hold her forever, chase away her demons and make her believe.

.

.

.

Hyungwon finds himself at the wrong place at the wrong time.

He’s entering the key pin when the door pushes open with a resounding click. Kihyun doesn’t see him, his sharp profile facing straight ahead and somewhat in a trance. He’s one feet out the door, but the other foot lags behind, hesitant, as if he can’t bear to exit. He stays like that for a few minutes, and Hyungwon can’t bring himself to move.

Then, Kihyun sees him, but he squints as if he’s not sure he’s really there. Hyungwon can see wet complication glistening against the redness of his eyes, and the shorter man quickly blinks a few times.

“Make sure she’s okay,” he says, thickly, and he swallows and stops as if each word caused him torment, “please.”

Oh.

Even if it had to happen, he didn’t think it would happen this soon.

Hyungwon can only nod.

Kihyun turns and leaves, and he looks like he’s leaving something for eternity, as if he was going somewhere he could never return. He can see the shorter man’s shoulders heave, but he never looks back.

Hyungwon knows.

If Kihyun looked back, he would stay.

Hyungwon has never seen prideful Kihyun look so small, so defeated, so wounded.

.

.

.

He finds her fading into the dim glow of the kitchen. Her face is passive, blank eyes unfocused. She’s staring off into glazed memories, lost in newfound nothingness. His searching gaze zeros in to her hands, her fingers pressured white from their grip on the marble counter, clutching the edge for life as if she would fall forever, a bottomless drop.

He hears her breathing quiver, and dread builds heavy in the pit of his stomach, queasy.

He clears his throat hesitantly, swallowing some uneasiness.

At his cue, she turns towards him, and all he can see are defeated eyes, bleary but glossy, glistening with heartbreak. His chest squeezes, tight and with worry.

“Hyungwon,” her voice is so drenched, trembling with weakness but still feebly trying to hold herself together. She takes another breath, and he can physically see something in her break. “Hyungwon,” she whispers his name in a small, wobbly breath, and he hates the way it sounds.

In haste, he approaches her and places an unsteady arm around her shoulders.

It’s the final straw that breaks her completely.

She curls into him, as if seeking comfort to ease the chaos in her mind and the war in her heart. He can almost hear her shattering, and her already shattered pieces grinding into dust.

“Hyungwon,” she tries again, “Kihyun—” 

Her voice breaks with wetness. He hugs her closer to him.

“I know, it’s okay,” he soothes, “You don’t have to say it. I know. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” 

He tucks her head under his chin, his hand a supporting pillar against a crumbling building at her back. She’s shaking, unbearably tiny and he wonders how he can keep her from falling apart in his arms, from whole to pieces and from pieces to scattered ashes.

A whimper escapes her, then a sob, another, louder, and it escalates into hysteria.

He purses his lips, the beat of his pulse pounding with second-hand pain. The saltine wetness that seeps through his shirt burns hot acid on his skin. Each sob is a poisoned dart aimed straight at his vitals, and he keens and keens. His own eyes sting and he lowers his eyelids with heavy exhale.

It hurts.

Even if it meant his heart breaking on the sidelines, he wishes they ended with a happily ever after. He knows it’s out of his hands, but he wishes he could’ve done more for her and Kihyun.

Still, a stupidly selfless fool.

She chokes on her own tears and her hand fists into the fabric of his jacket. Her grief trembles right into his chest, right next to his heart, and his heart palpitates with torment. He wonders if it is possible for his heart explode from the anguish.

This hurts so much more.

His stupid heart, fallen and still falling, bleeding with cupid’s poisoned arrow shot through his pulsing flesh. 

Kihyun leaves to prepare dinner, she doesn’t follow him into the kitchen. She settles a careful distance next to him on the wrinkled leather couch, away from the chattering noise of Minhyuk and Changkyun at war in the game room. A seeker of silence, then. He raises his head and her eyes meets his, rounded and wide with innocent alarm. He gives her a nonchalant, non-committal nod.

She slowly blinks back, owlish. It’s so oddly adorable, he’s secretly charmed.

He leans back and lets his eyelids lower.

The silence isn’t awkward at all. In the most unexpected way, her quiet presence is comforting. There’s a slight crick in his neck, but his consciousness drifts off as he listens the faint rhythm of her breathing. A blissful haze takes over his mind, he’s about to dip into the sweet nothingness of sleep when a hand presses against his cheek gently. Without thinking, he nuzzles into the warm skin.

Still gentle, the hand shifts his position. He grunts in drowsy protest, nudging his face against the direction of the guided push. It refuses to let up, and he squints open in quick irritation, attack ready on his tongue.

All he can see is her.

A small pull is at the corner of her lips, and amusement gleams in her eyes. 

“I’m sorry for bothering you, but it’s bad for your neck if you sleep like that,” she says softly, and Hyungwon only hears kindness.

His irritation vanishes into thin air, as quick as it came, and he allows her to move his head to lie on the cushioned armrest. She’ll be good for Kihyun, he thinks.

His eyelids close heavy. His muddled consciousness melts a crack in his guarded armour, and his lips are too loose. He finds himself mumbling out loud, look after him, Kihyun can be difficult, he means well, he’s usually too busy looking after us to look after himself.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to look after him for long,” she whispers. It’s almost inaudible in the silence. 

He knows she’s telling herself rather than answering him.

Hyungwon doesn’t really understand, but he recognizes sadness and he thinks he feels a dull stirring in his chest—

Then, his unconsciousness takes him completely.

.

.

.

“Why are you here alone?”

His voice comes out raspy and it makes him sound cranky and ill-tempered. It’s well past noon, but he had just rolled out of bed. He’s still bleary eyed with the hangover of sleep, and a sleepy Hyungwon is never a happy Hyungwon.

Startled, like a deer in headlights, she meets his gaze from her spot at the kitchen table, 

“Kihyun is out on a schedule with Minhyuk and Hyunwoo. He asked me to wait for him to come back,” she pauses in meek hesitance. Her lips part again as if she had more to say, but she purses them and looks away instead.

Hyungwon too, turns away without replying. The silence that floods the room is awkward enough that he feels some sort of internal cringe, but he does nothing to alleviate it. Everything is making his head hurt. He rubs out an oncoming migraine, and the scuffing of wood against tile fills the soundlessness.

She’s out of her seat and rummaging around the kitchen cabinets. Tension is knitted between the blades of her shoulders, caution in every movement.

Distance. 

It’s a little too familiar, he's all too aware. He sees the signs, the weight of reservation within, will withering at the pressure of possibly being unwanted.

A part of him gives way, and he sighs through his softness.

“You don’t have to be so formal, and you don’t have to explain to me why you’re here. Relax, you’re with Kihyun.”

She stiffens completely, arm frozen midair and hand disappeared in the depths of a cupboard. She doesn’t turn her head to look at him.

“You don’t need to distance yourself,” Hyungwon continues, “we’re all glad that you’re here. Kihyun’s been really happy these weeks.” 

He hears her inhale deeply, a little shaky and unsteady, but she still doesn’t turn around. Maybe he overstepped his bounds.  

Unbidden, he walks out of the kitchen. He plops himself onto the leather couch, groaning in frustration as he buries his face into his hands. He thinks of her back, her shoulders curled in, on guard and awaiting hostility. You’ve just made things worse. Why can’t you just get along— 

“Hyungwon.” 

He spreads his fingers and peeks at her between the gaps.

“Hyungwon,” she says again, with a tinge of shyness, “you take your coffee black, right?” Her voice has always been soothing to his ears, but hearing his name was another experience. Her mouth lifts slightly at the corners, but it’s not quite a smile yet.

She holds out a mug to him. It’s his mug, sleek black with C.H.W. engraved on the handle that had been gifted to him for his birthday. 

He’s a little perplexed. “Why are you making me coffee?” he can’t help but ask, but he easily accepts the mug from her, touched by the detail.

She’s nowhere near as bright as the afternoon sun, but he thinks her eyes twinkle. 

“You’re with Kihyun, too. Shouldn’t I look after you the way he will?”

She smiles, cheeky. It’s a small smile, but it’s a start. A step closer.

He blinks. He’s not sure if its the aroma of coffee or if Kihyun had cleaned yesterday, but the light from the glass windows seem to sparkle gently.

He brings the mug to his lips and takes a sip.

Strange.

It’s black coffee. It’s definitely black coffee, but it tastes somehow sweet. 

Even stranger, Hyungwon doesn’t mind the sweetness.

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