#untitled009

The way you walk and talk is just like her, yawning all the time, it's crazy. Everything is the same: a montage from head to toe.

Well, not really, Zico thinks. Jaehyo’s a bit different.

A bit. Yeah right. First of all, he’s male, the sarcastic voice that’s always so prominent in Zico’s head taunts. And Zico wants to say fuck you, but then he realizes he’d be swearing at himself, and how stupid is that?

You have so many similarities with the girl who hurt me so painfully. Whenever I see you, I doubt my own eyes. But strangely, I’m attracted to you more because of it. What do I do?

Zico tells magazines and TV interviews he’s never had a girlfriend. Never had time for one. But it’s a lie and he knows it is one as much as his fans suspect it is one. In the end there’s no point in admitting whether or not you’ve had a girlfriend because the reactions and speculations that followed were the same either way. Being the kind of person that he was, trekking about the streets rapping when he wasn’t housed in studying, it would’ve seemed rather impossible that Zico had never met a girl he had the strong desire to date. But in saying that he had only ever had just the one – and Zico had appreciated her as much as a guy could possibly appreciate his first girlfriend. Which was a lot. He was a young guy, frivolous, energetic, full of curiosity about stepping into the dating world. Experimental. And most of all easily lead on. And that had been Zico’s mistake.

But it was okay to make mistakes in life.

You just weren’t meant to make the same one over and over.

No wonder you seemed familiar when we first met: your body facial features, and unexpectedly, simple minded. The fact that half of your recent calls were with guys, and your daring move of pushing me to the corner when we kiss.

Jaehyo hadn’t really kissed Zico. Well he did, but it was very short and simple. Just a touch of two lips together, so quick that Zico blinked and it was over, and so soft that he questioned himself as to whether it had just been his imagination. But even in that case, why had he imagined it? So far as he was concerned his mind had never dwelled upon another guy as much it had upon Jaehyo. It was uncanny and part of Zico doesn’t like it but he knows denial is only a coping mechanism and that sooner or later he had to face the fact and it was better that it was sooner, because then that gave him time to figure out what to do with himself around the vocalist.

Inside and outside, all similar, like a carbon copy: the inside of my chaotic mind is a mess.

Jaehyo isn’t what Zico would call pretty, but he’s what he would call a pretty boy. That being said it was not like he was effeminate: he wasn’t like a girl. Zico knows the word “pretty” was so often associated with girls that if applied to anything, that anything was associated with femininity, but that isn’t the case with Jaehyo. It’s his glistening eyes teamed with his taut, smooth skin, kept in check with only  God knew how much BB cream… and, of course, superior genetics. Zico notices that even without the aid of make-up, Jaehyo’s skin is still luminous and pale and all kinds of nice. So whenever everyone else gave him crap about only being so handsome because of his products, Zico got a little bit annoyed. A firm believer in giving credit where credit was due despite anything else, it was only natural for him to feel so.

I’m scared that the break up process might be the same.

Was the attraction something he would act on? Without a doubt, yes. Zico had thought about it many times over when he was holed up in his studio, muttering over the spray of random lyrics on the paper in front of him. He’d thought about how it might be like to know that Jaehyo’s heart was his, to have his hand in his own, to know that the next time he wrote a love song it might actually be for someone instead of being a product of his imagination and dreams about what it would be like to be in love, be intoxicated by a curvaceous girl at a club or be have his heart stamped on. Maybe next time he wrote, he could detail what it felt like to have that one person on his mind all day long and all through the night. But at the same time, he knew that the relationship would also provide for him a well of depressing thoughts and chances for him to write about how much it hurt to love someone too.

Should I just quit?

The next time they kiss, Zico’s the one who initiates it. He pulls Jaehyo aside from the main area of their dorm, into their shared bedroom with Minhyuk, and he pretends to be having a talk with him, speaking in a semi-loud voice for the others to hear, and when he’s certain nobody’s keeping an eye or an ear out for them anymore he kisses him.

And this time it lasts longer than a second.

But my mind won't change.

The more time Zico spends thinking about it, the more time he wastes knowing he could have spent it doing something with Jaehyo.

How can it be this identical? The more and more and more I spend time with you, the more and more similar you are to her.

It doesn’t weird Zico out at all that Jaehyo reminds him of her. After all he’s only ever had one previous love. So it wasn’t like he could compare Jaehyo to ten or so other people. Whether that was lucky or not, Zico didn’t know. But he knows it’s for more reasons than that: Jaehyo does things in a way that convinces Zico he’s not just imagining the similarities, the correlations. Like how he’s always looking at his phone when they’re all out, and how he’s always speaking into in a low voice. At first Zico thinks that it’s because he keeps looking at his reflection, but then he smiles in a way that can only be explained away by mentioning a potential love interest.

I don't want to miss the love that I have found again. I’ll try it. I will trust you.

There’s a difference, though between Jaehyo and her: Jaehyo actually puts down his phone when Zico asks. And he can ignore it for as long as Zico wants. But after that, the discreet smiles pick up again in full force, as if Jaehyo had only put his other “commitments” on hold while Zico had been speaking to him. He hadn’t quit them completely – he was just staving them off temporarily.

Why again? Oh why do I do this to myself? Why am I like this?

But Jaehyo’s kisses keeps Zico’s mind on him. No matter how many times Zico forces himself to focus on other things, scolding himself that he doesn’t need to think about his rather neglected love life when he has something else called a career, but every so often, right on cue, Jaehyo will kiss him, play footsy with him under the table, indulge him in a little exchange of sweet nothings as he corners him in the bathroom late at night when everyone else is asleep.

You're so identical with her that I contemplate whether this is right or wrong.

Someone once told Zico – was it Taewoon? Zico can’t really remember – that there was no right or wrong when it came to love. Maybe to your friends said it was wrong, that it was illogical, but love more often than not did not call for the bounds of reason. It was unexplainable only because it made a person make decisions they otherwise would not make given another context. Some things said, some things done… sometimes, they could only be described by the concept of love. Whether it was right or wrong, whether it was stupid or smart, love was love and it was overpowering.

Whether I open eyes widely or just scan you in a glance, your words, your actions, everything: the same.

As if his handsome good looks had not been gravitating enough on its own, there were little things that Jaehyo did that would always make Zico look. And not just look, he would stare, sometimes mirror the action absentmindedly. Of course the others had noticed, but it wasn’t something they pointed out – he did it a lot when it came to girls, a strange habit they had come to familiarize themselves with. Like when a girl licked her lips, especially when a girl licked her lips. It was nothing unusual.

But when Jaehyo did that thing where he swept his fringe aside with pinches of his right index finger and thumb, or only licked his upper lip, it drove Zico mad.  Because it was just like her, because she used to do the same with her hair… and with her lips, but the bottom one, not the top, especially when she was reading her text messages.

I just followed my heart: I shouldn’t pay attention to the little details. Yeah, no matter what baby, even if I shed tears again because of the break up, so what?

Overanalysing things was, Zico knows, a sure-fire way to drive a person into insanity. He did not want to become one of those psychotic boyfriends that everyone hated, questioning why this and why that and why did you not reply to my text message, you had fifteen ample minutes. So he doesn’t ask Jaehyo why he keeps smiling and smirking at his screen and tapping a reply at the speed of light. He doesn’t ask where Jaehyo’s going 1:25 am in the morning, dressed like he has someone to impress. And he doesn’t ask why he looks exhausted and happy, buzzed with energy when he returns, even though it’s 3 am and he’s hardly had any sleep at all, and even though he can smell alcohol on his breath and the faintest whiff of the facial cleanser only girls use.

So what? You're the person that I choose. I will love you.

There’s really no other way to say it. Except with an I love you. But he’s not brave enough to say it, so Zico just thinks I love Jaehyo. It’s the only way he thinks it’s possible that he ignores everything if only for the hope of receiving another kiss or another short text message telling him to be strong and that Jaehyo’s thinking of him. It’s stupid, but its love and Zico can do nothing about it.

Did I or didn’t I say? I told you, told you not to get along with him… did I or didn’t I say?

No, Zico thinks, even as he pens the lyrics. I didn’t.

And even if it hurts, he’s fine with it. Because he has to be.