#&hh

                  ✧ ┊ honesty hour  ┅┅┅┅  catching up on ancient memes

he begins with one of his traditional smiles, all bright sunshine, fabricated, presumably. “what do you mean?” he asks, innocently, but it’s more for fun than anything, because he’s supposed to be honest.

his expression evens out. it’s harder these days. “i used to think i really had two sides,” he admits, and he shrugs, like it doesn’t matter, and maybe, in the end, it really doesn’t. there was no doubt he flashed all of his smiles and batted all of his eyelashes to get in good graces– to earn favor and snatch attention and fondness. he did it so they’d think he’s innocence– pen him as weak, and someone that would never take advantage of them, though jihoon was far from it. jihoon was really a nightmare.

“i don’t know if i have two sides anymore. i guess the fact that i don’t means it must’ve just been an act, right? i guess i fooled even myself,” and he smiles again, but not as wide. the greatest scam of all time, it would appear. 

“it’s not like being friendly and energetic was completely a ruse, even if i was trying to mislead people. that’s just something i was upon meeting people, and i think in the end, it really did become a part of my personality,” he says it lightly. he feels like he has to use past tense, since it’s so hard for him to get back in touch with that part of himself. he misses it. he wishes it still felt natural– hopes it does again.

“i think there are three sides to me, actually. there’s that one. the second one is…what made the first side. the manipulation, the need for control, the…irrational…need for attention.” he knows himself, even if he doesn’t like to admit these things. “angry. strong but dark, not afraid of and not above anything.”

“they both exist to protect the third side which is…what i am now.” emotional. insecure. desperate for love and so afraid despite fooling himself into thinking he wasn’t afraid of anything, fragile and quiet in its existence. it’s the realest, rawest, and truest version of jihoon, so rarely bared, now exposed for everyone to see, unguarded, because for now, he is broken. his defenses are broken, and he isn’t quite sure how to rebuild yet. 

                  ✧ ┊ honesty hour  ┅┅┅┅  catching up on ancient memes

it’s a difficult question, but have any of these been easy? this answer takes longer to come to him, and the words even moreso. “i guess just…who i really am?” it sounds so juvenile when he says it out loud, and he wrinkles his nose in disgust. it doesn’t feel entirely right, either, but he doesn’t know how else to say it. “i want people to like me.” he wants the attention. he wants to wrap them around his finger, and to be worshipped if he can get it, but he’ll take friendship, too. he’ll take any sort of favor.

he’s so afraid of losing it. it’s why he detests his own vulnerability– why he keeps his walls up and insists on strength, and even has that walled off by a bright bubbly persona manufactured for the purpose of getting on good sides and earning trust and affection. he is so afraid of anyone knowing he is damaged. he hides his darkness behind bright smiles not just to make it cut deeper when he unveils it, but because he wants to control everyone else’s fear. he wants them to be afraid of him on his own terms– never wants to put himself in a position where he is unwanted.

✧ ┊ honesty hour  ┅┅┅┅  catching up on ancient memes ( mentioned: @mixspencer​)

these questions are far too difficult for his liking. jihoon doesn’t like to think about guilt. there was a time he didn’t feel any– not really. he doesn’t know what’s changed since then, or why his heart has softened, or why he’s so vulnerable and…weak. he knows he can’t afford to be, but the events of the past few months have worn him down so he can’t be anything else in his honesty.

maybe he felt guilty about all of this before, too. there are two things, and he can’t pick one over the other, so unfortunately, he needs to admit both.

“i feel guilty about woojin,” he says, looking down, recalling the memories. woojin– their relationship one jihoon only got into based on physical attraction, no feelings involved, as they never were. it was just like his past relationships: for fun, to kill the time, for the attention and all the adoration he could get. he always took and took and never gave back anything genuine, everything a sham from his end, as he did to everyone, but something about woojin was a little different. something about woojin made jihoon lose a little bit of his control– a little shaky, a little uncertain, near the end. real emotions started to rear their head: real attachment, real appreciation, and it brought about real fear. so jihoon did what he does best when he feels that rare emotion of fear, and ruined it before it got any farther to protect himself. he cheated on woojin, partially as a test of his dedication and potential love for him– to see if he still stayed with him, but mostly to end the relationship, and make it clear how little he cared. in retrospect, it’s so cruel and irrational, because he did care. now jihoon knows, and that caring was what drove him to act as he did back then. that underlying guilt is likely why he hasn’t been in a relationship since, too.

✧ ┊ honesty hour  ┅┅┅┅  catching up on ancient memes ( mentioned: no one by name! and yet )

“what do you mean?” he asks, with a ghost of that trademark jihoon, manufactured, sugar-sweet smile, eyes disappearing into crescents at all, but he can’t keep it up, and the expression falls. he resents it– how hard it is to pretend to be happy since his best friend’s departure. it’s like losing the safe space he had to be himself leaves the real jihoon to bleed into every other area of his life unwelcome. he needs those smiles to run a restaurant, and to get his way– for his sternness to be more effective and to win trust. 

it just doesn’t feel as important as it once did, trying to weasel his way onto the good sides of everyone he meets meaning nothing to him when the person most important to him was off in another country. it wasn’t like he died, and if he stayed in myeongcho he very well could have, so there’s a part of jihoon that understands. jihoon is the only one making their friendship end here, and he knows if he can get over his resentment, that friendship will likely still be there, even if it won’t be the same.

will jihoon be the same? it’s like relearning how to live. he’s trying to rebuild into someone better, even if he doesn’t know what that looks like– if he wants to be stronger or kinder, and if he’s capable of either. 

&h✧ ┊ honesty hour  ┅┅┅┅  catching up on ancient memes ( mentioned: @mibomin @mixspencer )

before bomin’s departure, this would’ve been an easy yes. he has the job he’s worked toward for his entire life, is surrounded by people he likes, has a loving family, doesn’t want for money. he laughs and he smiles and he has a (couple) place(s) to lay his head at night.

it’s just different now. with bomin’s departure, he can’t see the other friends in his life as clearly anymore. now all he can see is how much he took up, and the space he’s left behind. he’s had time to process him leaving, but that feeling is still here, even as he tries to fill the emptiness with everything he can, after that first week of moping. he’s still not really over the moping, he’s just over showing it now, locking it up and tossing away the key to continue on and be professional, as he always does. the fake smiles don’t come as easily though, nor does being friendly, so his customer satisfaction may not be as high as before, and he’s not happy with that.

he’s not happy with how lonely he feels, and not happy about how he treats spencer, and that he can’t just replace bomin with more of spencer like he hoped he could, even for as much as spencer helps, and has done everything in his power to. he’s not happy in an empty dorm, by himself, studying a subject at myeongcho university, which he only enrolled in because his former best friend, now on the lam, did.