Archive of Our Own

It’s summer when they meet again, more than two years after the last time. It’s 12:09 am, too early to call it late, too late to call it early.

Doyoung is in a flannel shirt that’s eerily similar to the one he wore when he broke up with Taeyong. “Hello,” he greets him, lips in a tight smile.

“Doyoung,” he greets back, voice calm amd steady despite the mess of emotions in his mind. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

At this, Doyoung’s smile broadens a little, but still doesn’t reach his eyes. “I did.”

Taeyong’s hands still for a second, the rim of the can cool against his lips, before he downs the whole drink. The cheap beer is lukewarm now, running down his throat unpleasantly. He has to clear his throat before he can speak again. “What?”

—

A truth is not a truth until you say it out loud.

It’s what came to Taeyong’s mind when he wrapped cold, pale fingers around the knob and twisted and swung the door open and was met with Doyoung sitting on the couch, socked feet resting on the floor, arms crossed, lips pressed into a thin, white line, eyes empty and cold as he glared at Taeyong. He hadn’t even bothered to take off his coat, and he was still wearing his beanie. Blonde strands stuck out from under it, falling to his eyebrows. His shoes were left on the floor just beside the couch, the ratty shoelaces and the dirty soles blending in with the shabby atmosphere that clings to cheap apartments no matter how many times you scrub the walls and the floor.

He looked ready to leave, even though this was the first time in a few days that he’d come home.

(If he still considered this home. If he ever did.)

Taeyong didn’t say anything, didn’t greet him. He entered the apartment and removed his shoes and placed them on the rack. Doyoung didn’t say anything, either, just watched him with those dead eyes.

A truth is not a truth until you say it out loud.

Taeyong read that somewhere before, or maybe someone had told him that. It didn’t matter.Doyoung was still staring at him as he walked into the kitchen to grab a glass of water. He was waiting; Taeyong knew he was. They’d been together for a year and he had memorized all the things Doyoung refused to say.

But Taeyong didn’t want to be the one to speak up. It was stupid, but there was still a flicker of hope somewhere in his chest, in the words that came to the back of his throat and died before they reached the seam of his lips, even when it had been hanging between the two of them like a loose thread in an old sweater that he kept avoiding despite the itch in his fingertips, just to make it last a little longer.

The clink of the glass when he put it in the sink was strangely loud.

It seemed like a signal for Doyoung to finally speak. “Taeyong.”

Taeyong’s grip on the edge of the counter tightened, until his knuckles were white. The little flicker died, and he could almost taste the smoke creeping up to his mouth.

“I think we should break up.”

And there it was—the thread pulled, the sweater unraveling into tangles at Taeyong’s feet. The truth that poured out into the space between them, the words pulled from his mouth. It was a truth, now. It was the truth.

And Taeyong was disappointed, but also a little relieved.

—

“I expected you would be here.”

Taeyong feels a sudden rush of hope, and then anger, and then sadness, and then exhaustion, so heavy and overwhelming that it makes him unable to speak for a while.

Doyoung is watching him, taking a sip from his own drink, his other fist clenching and unclenching. It’s a nervous habit Taeyong knows all too well. It’s clear that he’s waiting.

Taeyong doesn’t know what to say.

Doyoung calls his name. It sounds familiar yet strange in his deep voice, like a song he knew once and has forgotten until he heard it again.

He chooses to ignore the statement. “It’s been a while,” he says, opting for small talk. Small talk should be the best option, for now. This casual talk is good because he can make his exit after the customary how are you and that’s good to hear and see you around.

“Yeah, it has,” Doyoung answers. “How are you?”

Taeyong exhales through his nose. “Good. It’s the start of senior year next week, so,” he gestures to his surroundings—mostly drunken conversations, upbeat music shaking the floor beneath their soles, red cups passed around the crowd.

Doyoung cracks a smile. “Yeah,” he says, “Gotta make the most out of it before it’s over, as Johnny says.”

“That’s true.” Taeyong smiles back, just to be polite. “What about you?”

“Classes start the week after the next, for us. I’m just taking it easy now, since I don’t have any prerequisite courses to catch up to.” He gives a dramatic sigh.

Taeyong hums in acknowledgement. “That’s good to hear. It’s nice that you can study what you want now.”

“Yeah,” Doyoung says, then he looks down. “It was stupid not to take it from the start, though. It felt like I wasted a lot of time.”

Doyoung had wanted to pursue arts since high school, but his parents wanted him to follow his father’s footsteps and take up engineering. Taeyong still remembers how he used to get so stressed he’d break down before major exams during their freshman year, saying I can’t do this anymore, I don’t enjoy this, this is not what I want, and Taeyong having to stay up with him until he calmed down, having to study Doyoung’s modules even though it had nothing to do with his own Music Composition program, just so things could be easier for Doyoung.

And then he broke up with Taeyong and transferred to another university. And now Doyoung says it’s a lot of wasted time—and Taeyong will agree, but it felt like admitting that their relationship was meaningless, too. That may not be what Doyoung meant, and Taeyong believes he’s long over the heartbreak, but it felt like it mattered to him, a little bit.

“Ah,” he settles as a reply. “You have a lot of time now to focus on your major subjects, then.”

“Yeah, finally.” Doyoung says. Then he looks straight into Taeyong’s eyes and says, “I have time for other things now, too.”

Taeyong is the one to turn his gaze down, this time. Doyoung seems to be aiming for something, and Taeyong feels the urge to run away the first chance he gets. “That’s good.”

“Who did you come with?” Doyoung’s feet move closer to him, just half a step.

“Yuta,” he replies, still not lifting his head. “He’s with Johnny and the others.”

Doyoung hums. “The roommate?” he asks, and Taeyong nods. “I met him, earlier. Johnny has talked about him a lot. He seems nice.”

“He is,” Taeyong says, and leaves it at that. He doesn’t ask Doyoung back. He doesn’t really see the need to.

(He doesn’t want to know.)

They’re quiet, after that. His drink is empty, and Doyoung seems to have run out of things to say—it’s the perfect time to leave. Taeyong begins to open his mouth, but Doyoung cuts him off.

“It must have come out in a weird way, earlier,” Doyoung says, relaxing as seconds pass and Taeyong stays. “I meant that I expected you would be here, because of our friends.”

Our friends, Taeyong echoes in his mind. It sounds a a bit strange—Doyoung is acknowledging the fact that they have something they still share, even though they haven’t talked in years. They do have the same circle of friends, and it’s not uncommon for them to talk about Doyoung when Taeyong is present. He’s heard a lot about the younger, and he’s certain that it goes both ways, but to have this connection be openly spoken aloud feels almost wrong, like a word they’ve been banned from using.

It feels like bad omen, Taeyong thinks, like it has stirred something up that shouldn’t be awaken.

“I,” he starts, then clears his throat again. He needs another drink. “I almost didn’t go.”

“Oh,” says Doyoung, disappointment clear in the way his tone falls. “You’re here, though.”

Taeyong looks at him. Doyoung is wearing another slight smile, patient yet cautious. Taeyong doesn’t know what his own expression looks like, if it’s clear that his feet are itching to run away. “Yes,” he answers, “Johnny has been pestering me since last week to come to his party, so I didn’t really have a choice.”

Doyoung laughs at that. The sound is genuine, familiar like an old, forgotten shirt that’s been stuck in the back of his closet. “It’s embarrassing to admit this, but while he was pestering you, I was pestering him to let me come here.”

Why, Taeyong wants to ask. Why now. What stops him is that he doesn’t know if he wants to know the answer.

“Would you mind if I get another drink?” Taeyong says, faking a smile, and doesn’t wait for Doyoung’s answer before turning on his heel and walking away.

—

Taeyong turned around just in time to see Doyoung standing up from the couch and starting to put on his shoes.

He was leaving, now. He was leaving already. He wasn’t even waiting for Taeyong to reply to the sudden statement—Doyoung had made his decision, and Taeyong could never change that.

They were breaking up. And this time, it was not a threat. It was certain, a declaration—they were breaking up, and Doyoung alone decided on that.

It was unfair, and Taeyong would start a fight about it, would argue that it’s not a decision Doyoung got to make alone.

But Taeyong had been fighting, for a long time. And he had been doing it alone.

He was exhausted.

Looking back on it, he thought it was his fault. He should’ve seen it. There were all of those signs, too. Doyoung could smile so easily. He seemed like he knew Taeyong well, even on the first time they met. He had a way with words. He was easy to be with.

Doyoung had all those, so of course it was easy for him to know Taeyong all too well. It was easy for him to learn Taeyong’s strengths, his weaknesses, which buttons to push, how to love him, how to hurt him. It was easy for Doyoung to find the hollow parts and start from there to break Taeyong.

It was his fault. He should’ve seen it.

“Okay,” Taeyong said, after a long silence. “Let’s break up.”

There was no one to hear it. Doyoung was already moving, and the only reply Taeyong got was the slam of the door.

—

The path to the kitchen seems longer than it should be, and Taeyong’s shoulder collides with several others’ before he reaches the keg where he fishes out another can of beer.

His palms are sweaty and the can almost slips from his hold as he pops it open and takes a swig, downing almost half the drink in one go. The liquid runs cold down his throat, then burns at the base of his chest.

He walks around the kitchen, giving waves to acquaintances, friends of friends he’s spoken to once, nods to people he’s seen from his classes in the past.

He doesn’t know where to go, now.

He catches a glimpse of Yuta’s purple higlights, and almost follows him, but Yuta goes down the hallway into the living room, where Doyoung was. Taeyong will definitely not choose to go there.

He ends up going to the backyard. The heavy beats from the Cherry Coke song playing inside the house becomes muffled as soon as he closes the door, and the chilly air outside welcomes him.

Taeil is with Johnny and Jaehyun, and calls him over to where they’re sitting on the grass. “It’s weird that all of you are outside when you’re the one who threw the party,” Taeyong says, plopping down next to Jaehyun.

“They’re adults, they can entertain themselves,” Johnny says. He must be on his fifth or sixth drink—his words are slurring, thickening with the accent he used to have when they were freshmen. “Besides, it was too crowded in there.”

“Says the one who invited most of the people inside.” Jaehyun snickers, his eyes on his phone, idly scrolling through his Instagram feed.

Taeyong thinks of Doyoung, again. Johnny often throws parties, and would do it even for the smallest of reasons as an excuse to get drunk, but Doyoung never came to any one of them—until tonight. “You really did invite a lot of people,” he says, exaggerating his tone.

“Too much people, maybe,” Taeil adds.

Taeyong nods in agreement, giving Johnny a sharp look. “Definitely too much.”

Johnny sits up with slow movements. “Look,” he says, pointing at Taeil, “I did not invite everyone in there. I invited a few people, and then they invited their friends. And then,” he gestures to the door, “there.”

“And a few people for you is how many? The whole student body?” Jaehyun continues, bumping his shoulder with Johnny’s.

“And Doyoung,” Taeyong adds, unconsciously, not even noticing what had poured out of his mouth until the words have reached his own ears.

“Oh,” Johnny voices out, suddenly seeming sober enough to have a serious talk. “Doyoung—he’s, uh. He wanted to come, and—uh.”

“He pestered you to let him come, you mean,” Taeyong provides for him. “He told me that earlier.”

“Yeah,” Johnny says. “He did. I’m sorry—”

“It’s fine,” Taeyong cuts him off. “It’s no big deal. It just surprised me a bit, is all. Just, a little warning could have been nice.”

“I would tell you, but I really didn’t think he was serious about coming. He never was.”

“Until today,” Taeyong mutters. “He showed up today.”

Taeil is the one to speak up this time. “Well, it’s been long enough. I guess.”

Taeyong can’t say anything about that, so he just nods. It’s true, anyway—it has been long enough.

But not long enough, at the same time. Seeing Doyoung makes him feel like a ghost, still. Like a spirit roaming around, feet a few inches above the ground, part of the world but only watching it from a safe distance away. Like he’s okay, but not okay enough to open himself up and become tangible again.

“He talked to you?” Jaehyun asks.

“A bit.”

Jaehyun hums, waiting for an elaboration, and studies him with an expression that he seems to wear a lot around Taeyong often, his eyes scanning every little movement in Taeyong’s face, may it be a minuscule tick in his jaw or a little tremble in his lips.

Taeyong hates it. It makes him feel like one of Jaehyun’s many science experiments, like some type of specimen between glass slides. He keeps his own expression neutral. It’s an action he found difficult at first, but had gotten used to in the past years from shrugging away every worried glance of his friends.

Doyoung called him transparent, one time. He told Taeyong how easy it was to know what he was feeling. Doyoung told him it was a fault, that it made him gullible.

He wonders how Doyoung will describe him now.

“It was fine. He just asked me how I’ve been. The customary small talk between exes,” Taeyong says, even adds a joking tone to it, trying to make it sound like it’s not a big deal, because it’s not.

(He’s trying to convince himself the same thing.)

Jaehyun cracks a smile and goes back to his phone, seemingly satisfied with Taeyong’s answer.

“The clouds look dark tonight,” Johnny says. “Don’t you think so, Jaehyun?”

“It’s 1 am, hyung. What were you expecting? The sun?”

“I mean, I think it’s going to rain, dumbass.” Johnny nudges Jaehyun’s shoe with his feet, and as if on cue, the air shifts and a gust of wind brushes Taeyong’s cheek.

Taeyong closes his eyes, lets the wind run its cold fingers on the back of his neck. Somehow, he feels the grass beneath him again, sharp against the exposed skin of his crossed ankles. “Yeah, I think so too.”

“Taeyong is the only one who listens to me,” Johnny sighs, getting up now, movements sluggish. “I think I’m going to head back inside. Taeil, let’s go.”

“Why do I need to come with you? You can go back there yourself,” Taeil huffs, but he’s moving too, standing up and patting the grass off his pants.

“You can’t live without me, though.”

Taeil bumps his shoulder with a light fist, then heads to the back door. “Don’t you think it’s the other way around?”

“But look, you’re still coming with me,” Johnny says, even though he’s walking behind Taeil, and the latter’s reply is cut off by the door closing behind them.

Taeyong watches this scene and feels unattached. There’s some sort of twisting inside his chest, something close to longing but not quite.

He reaches into his pocket for his pack and lighter. He places one stick between his lips, cups his hand around the little flame to light it. The wind blows the small fire at the first try, and then the second, and then the third. He sighs and gives up, putting the ligher and the cigarette back in his pocket.

“Do you think it’s going to rain soon?” Jaehyun asks. His phone is now on his lap, the screen black.

“I don’t know,” Taeyong answers. “Maybe in an hour, or something.”

“Summer rains are so annoying.”

Taeyong doesn’t agree, but he says, “Yeah, sometimes.”

“Do you want to head back inside, hyung?” Jaehyun gets up to his feet and brushes the grass blades off his pants. “I’m craving for a drink.”

Taeyong contemplates it. The music is louder now, and he hears a collective cheer from inside the house. Beer pong, maybe. He can picture it: Johnny and Taeil teamed up together and Yuta somewhere behind them, cheering and laughing, his arms around the both of them.

And Doyoung is somewhere inside, looking for him, or maybe with their friends.

“I think I’ll stay a little longer here,” Taeyong says. He closes his eyes and lays down on the ground.

“Okay, just call me if you want to go home,” Jaehyun says, and Taeyong hears him walk away.

The music becomes louder when the door is opened. It’s a while before it becomes muffled again when the door closes, like Jaehyun decided to wait for him but gave up midway.

—

Taeyong didn’t have time to get over their breakup.

Instead, he was thrown into a storm of final exams, catching up to subjects he barely passed and cramming for final outputs. He woke up early, at the dead of the night, to go to the studio and finish up his piece. From there, he’d head straight to university, go back to the studio after his classes, and then come home just before midnight, where he’d crash into his bed after his shower and get as much sleep as he could squeeze in before the routine started again.

He didn’t see Doyoung once during this hectic period. For a while, his absence made their breakup seem like it was a fever dream, like it was something that will pass—like Doyoung would come back, after some days of cooling off.

And then, a week after, a note appeared on the dining table.

I already paid for this month’s rent, it said, I hope that gives you enough time to move out. I’ll pack my own stuff. Goodluck on your studies and take care of yourself. I’ll still worry if something happens to you.

After that, Doyoung’s stuff started to disappear, one by one. First it was his clothes hanging on the line, and then his blue mug with the chip in the handle, and then his coffeemaker.

So in addition to all the academic stress, Taeyong had to find himself another place to live in. He considered in-campus housing since it would be cheaper, but the first semester was just ending and it was the middle of the academic year. He was put on the waiting list for one building, but Taeyong didn’t want to wait in an empty apartment (where he could still smell Doyoung’s cologne) by himself, so there was no choice left but to look for apartments outside the campus, which would cost a lot more, especially now that he didn’t have anyone to split the rent with.

The week after his finals was a blur of scrolling through lists and visiting one apartment building after another, weighing different options and trying to visualize himself living alone.

By the time he had the luxury to break down and process everything, it had already been three weeks after the break up. Taeyong came home in the afternoon to find Doyoung sitting on the floor of the living room, taping up the top of a cardboard box.

“Oh,” Doyoung said, “hey. I won’t stay long. I don’t have stuff here anymore except for this, and I’ll be done soon.”

He was speaking so casually, as if he was talking to a classmate, not his ex-boyfriend. He was not meeting Taeyong’s eyes.

“It’s okay,” Taeyong assured him, his voice shaky. He had not moved from his spot in front of the door, his shoes still on. “Take your time. I don’t really mind.”

Doyoung looked up at him this time. His hair had gotten long, almost covering his eyes. His roots were showing, the black a dark contrast to his bleached hair. “Someone’s waiting for me downstairs, actually, so I’ll be quick.”

Taeyong felt like crying.

He went to his room, leaving the door open in case Doyoung wanted to talk. (It’s stupid, how he was still hoping that they would fix things.) He swallowed the lump in his throat, fought back the tears.

Doyoung left without saying anything. Taeyong heard a rustle, footsteps, and then the door opening. Doyoung’s voice, and then another person’s—a guy. Whispered conversations. Taeyong heard snippets of sentences—sorry, i can, did you forget anything, no, i got everything already.

The door clicked shut.

Taeyong laid in bed, unmoving. The sky turned to orange outside his window, and then purple, and then his room was blanketed in darkness.

Taeyong had not cried since they broke up, and he didn’t, this time.

It felt like he was a new person when he got up and out of bed. It felt like it had been years, like he had aged, but when he looked at the time on his phone, it was eight in the evening on the same day, and only four hours had passed.

His eyes remained dry.

—

Taeyong feels the first drop of rain on his left cheek, the second on his eyebrow. The third drop falls on the scar under his eye.

By the time Taeyong sits up and opens his eyes, it’s already a light drizzle. Drops fall against his skin gently, like they’re lulling him to sleep.

Or maybe it was the alcohol that was making him sleepy. He does have a low tolerance to it, as his friends like to remind him.

His phone buzzes in his pocket. Taeyong almost ignores it, but it buzzes again, and then again, not even a minute later.

[1:26 AM] YUTA-SENPAI

hey ty where r u

[1:27 AM] YUTA-SENPAI

i cant find johnny and the others either

[1:27 AM] YUTA-SENPAI

too many ppl. where r u?

Taeyong gets up and brushes off his pants. He really doesn’t want to go back inside yet, but his friends must be looking for him. Just picturing their inquisitive glances and their worried questions already makes Taeyong feel exhausted, so he figures he doesn’t really have a choice but to go to them.

The drizzle has turned into a light rain as he walks back to the house.

The door opens just as he was about to enter, and Doyoung comes out. Their eyes meet, and Taeyong is the first to look away.

“Oh, it’s raining,” Doyoung says.

“Yeah, it is.” Taeyong brushes past him, their shoulders briefly touching. He catches a whiff of subtly sweet amber scent, and Taeyong remembers it as the perfume he bought for Doyoung on their first anniversary.

The memory does something to his heart, makes him aware of his distance to Doyoung. He steps away from him like he’s been burned. “Uh,” he says, “my friends are looking for me.”

“Wait, Taeyong—”

There’s a hand loosely wrapped around his wrist, warm against his cool skin. He turns, and Doyoung is looking at him.

“Can we talk?” Doyoung asks. The door is still open, and half of his face is illuminated by moonlight, the other half by the fluorescent lights inside the kitchen.

Stupidly, Taeyong thinks he looks pretty like this. Doyoung has always been good-looking, as evidenced by his popularity, but this Doyoung in front of him has a different glow—his cheeks are rounder, eyes brighter.

He looks better, like he’s learned to take care of himself more since they’ve broken up.

And all the while, Taeyong has learned to hate his own reflection.

He pulls his wrist free from the other’s grip. Strangely, Taeyong feels cold. “My friends are looking for me,” he repeats.

Doyoung closes the door behind him. “Just for a minute?”

Taeyong sighs. “About what?”

“About—” Doyoung runs a hand through his hair, bites his lower lip. “About us.”

The word surprises Taeyong so much that he just stares at Doyoung for a whole two seconds. And then it registers, and he feels heat in his stomach, similar to rage. “What do you mean, us?” He’s whispering, barely audible above the music from the living room and the noise of the party, but it comes out mean, and Doyoung actually takes a small step back, as if he’s been hit. “Doyoung, why did you come here?”

Doyoung doesn’t answer. He must not have been expecting Taeyong’s reaction—he’s still staring at him, lips parted.

“Look, Doyoung, I—”

“I wanted to see you.”

A chorus of yells erupts from the living room and a group of people stumble into the kitchen, all of them going straight to the counter and mixing their own drinks. They’re talking loudly among each other, debating about imported beer and something else Taeyong can’t catch, and Doyoung is still staring at him, his jaw tense.

“Taeyong!”

It’s Seungwan, a girl from his department. She’s holding a red cup in one hand and a bottle of vodka in the other, ushering Taeyong into their group.

Taeyong takes a deep breath and walks over to them, feeling Doyoung’s gaze on the back of his neck. “Hey, sunbae,” he greets them, forcing a smile.

Seungwan is smiling at him. On a closer distance, Taeyong notices that her lipstick is smudged at the corners. “Why are your hands empty,” she exclaims, and then she pushes her drink into one of Taeyong’s hands. The pink liquid sloshes around, sticky on his fingers.

“Thanks,” Taeyong says. He can almost hear Yuta berating him about his low alcohol tolerance in the back of his mind, but he pushes the thought away, sipping at the drink. It goes down his throat like molten fire. “I needed this, actually,” he mutters.

“Of course you do!” Seungwan laughs as if it’s the most hilarious joke she’s heard all night. Her cheeks are dusted pink, enough to conclude that she’s not fully sober. “Where are the boys?” she asks, and then she looks around, eyes catching Doyoung by the door. “Oh,” she says, and then she stares between the two of them, little giggles escaping her. “Are you two—” she points her index finger at Doyoung, and then at him, “—back together?”

Taeyong is drinking, and the liquor goes down the wrong way, forcing coughs out of him, his throat burning even harder as he tries to inhale more air. His eyes tear up, and then he’s bending over the counter, covering his mouth.

A hand lands on Taeyong’s back and rubs in small circles. He focuses on the warmth, wiping his eyes and breathing with his mouth open, the air scratching his throat.

“We’re,” he rasps out. Seungwan is still grinning at him lazily, like she didn’t just witness Taeyong almost die in front of her. “We’re—”

“Friends,” Doyoung cuts him off, and Taeyong belatedly realizes that it’s Doyoung’s hand that is on his back. He shrugs it off, and Doyoung glances at him, a wounded expression in his face. “For now, we’re friends.”

The idea is so ridiculous that Taeyong can do nothing but scoff.

Seungwan hums in reply, distracted. She’s eyeing the bottle in her hand. “That’s where everything starts,” she says. It looks like she’s trying to wink, but ends up closing both of her eyes instead. “Good luck, besties!” She giggles, and then she’s off into the living room again, her friends following her.

The song ends, and another follows, ELO crooning from the speakers, the beats slow but loud.

Taeyong is the first to speak. “I don’t think we’re friends.”

“Then,” Doyoung says, “can we be—”

The cup lands on the counter with a smack. The anger is back, hot and strong, and Taeyong barely notices that his whole hand is now drenched with the sticky liquor. “Are you serious right now?”

“I am.”

Taeyong laughs, sarcastic and bitter. “I don’t think I can be friends with an ex, Doyoung,” he says, “I guess I’m not that kind of person.”

Doyoung’s eyebrows furrow. “We can forget that we—that we didn’t work out,” he says, and when Taeyong just laughs at him again, he follows it with: “Isn’t that the mature thing to do?”

Taeyong gapes at him, and he rarely gets this angry, but now he can feel it, simmering under his skin. “Did you just call me immature?”

“No,” the other says, quick to defend himself. He takes a step closer to Taeyong and raises his hands to touch him, but then seems to think better of it and stops halfway. “What I’m saying is, it’s been two years. I’ve changed.”

“Good for you, Doyoung. Congratulations.”

“Taeyong,” he calls, and there it is again—that feeling of familiarity and strangeness, confusing and comforting at the same time. “I want to try again.”

“Try what again,” Taeyong asks, although he can feel what Doyoung’s answer is going to be.

“Let’s start over.” Doyoung looks around, as if searching for words. “As friends. Maybe we can—”

“We were never friends,” Taeyong says. “Don’t you remember? We fucked, and then we went on dates, and then we fucked some more.” He can’t feel his hands, and he looks down to see that they’re shaking. “And then we,” he pauses, unsure. “And then we thought we were in love. And we broke up, naturally.”

He’s not sure if it’s a trick of the lights, but Doyoung’s eyes are wet. “When you say it like that, it feels like we didn’t seriously date for a year.”

“I said it like that because that’s how we ended.”

“Maybe,” Doyoung says, voice shaky. “Maybe we can change that.”

Taeyong sighs, and now he can feel the anger ebbing, slowly being replaced by exhaustion. “I don’t know where you’re going with this.”

Doyoung is not aiming for something, Taeyong realizes now. He’s not looking for another beginning—he was trying to prolong the ending, because it never did end, not even for Taeyong.

Doyoung did break up with him, but his presence never left—he’s still in Taeyong’s judgements about himself and other people, in how he carries himself, in how he continued, how he still continues. He didn’t move on, he didn’t stop loving Doyoung, because he never had to.

It wasn’t love, Taeyong realizes now. Maybe it was, at one point, but it faded long ago before they even ended their relationship. What they had before—it was ideal, but it was never real. Doyoung pressured him to be the person he wanted, and Taeyong let himself be molded into a structure he could never fit in, and lost his own self in the process.

And now, he’s still wandering, waiting for someone else to put him back into a shape that will be enough for them. It was what Seulgi meant, he realizes now. Taeyong is hollow because he’s still lost, and he never tried to find himself. It’s so funny that it is almost sad, like he’s watching an ant die through a magnifying glass under the hot sun, marveling and crying at the beauty and brutality of it.

“If we started as friends,” Taeyong says, “do you think it would have been different?”

The question surprises Doyoung—it makes his gaze snap up to meet Taeyong’s, and he does this thing with his eyebrows. He recognizes it as the expression Doyoung used to wear when he failed to understand Taeyong. Taeyong sees his throat move.

His phone rings, barely audible above the music, and Doyoung sighs silently. If it’s a relieved or a disappointed sigh, Taeyong isn’t sure. He lets it go on twice, watching Doyoung, waiting.

The answer doesn’t come, and strangely, the silence itself feels like one.

And now, Taeyong learns that you don’t have to say something out loud for it to be true. A truth spoken out loud is just a truth that’s acknowledged, but one that never made its way out of someone’s lips—it’s a truth that’s always been there.

Yuta’s contact name is flashing on the screen, below a picture of the two of them making duck faces. Taeyong inhales deeply before answering, feeling his lungs shrink even with the intake of air.

—

His new roommate’s name was Nakamoto Yuta. Yuta’s former roommate moved out because he transferred to a university in Beijing, and Johnny was the one who introduced him to Taeyong.

“Man, I’m really glad you need a place to live in,” he said, the first time they met. Taeyong had just stared at him, slightly offended. “I mean, it’s not cool that you, like, lost your place, but I’m glad that I can quickly find someone to split the rent with,” he quickly added. He was talking too fast, almost stumbling over his words several times.

It was a little endearing. Taeyong remembered thinking, Yuta seemed like an easy person to be with.

And he was. Taeyong and Yuta fit like puzzle pieces, moving around each other and meeting in the middle at the right times. Yuta was quiet—he asked, once, why he had to move out, and Taeyong’s answer was met with an empathetic hum, and they never talked about it again.

He kind of liked that, that he wasn’t forced to elaborate. It was humiliating—Doyoung breaking up with him was humiliating. A hundred times more when he was the one who had to tell it.

Taeyong got comfortable with Yuta soon enough. They had more mutual friends than they thought they would have, and the fact that he didn’t know Doyoung felt like a breath of fresh air. His friends seemed like they were walking on eggshells around him whenever the topic of his ex came up, and if it ever did, the glances they sent his way made him want to curl in on himself.

Taeyong didn’t lose his friends after the breakup, but he still felt the distance.

Coming home to find Yuta trying not to burn the kitchen as he attempted to make dinner for the both of them was like a change of scenery, a distraction from the mess that was his life at the time.

With Yuta, Taeyong stopped feeling like he’s been sleepwalking. Yuta was like the inside voice that berated him to remind him how to breathe. For a short while, when they’re side by side on the couch marathoning several seasons of sports anime, when they’re scarfing down cheap Chinese takeout and complaining about it because neither of them had the energy to cook, or simply when they’re just in the same vicinity doing their own thing, he remembered how to tear himself apart from the inside quietly instead of making such a big deal about breaking.

—

Yuta is sitting in the bathtub, his arms hanging off the sides, a red cup in one of his hands. He gives Taeyong a lazy smile.

“Yo,” he greets Taeyong. “You always know where to find me, huh?”

“Or maybe you called to look for me, and you’re always lurking in the second floor bathroom whenever Johnny throws a party.” Taeyong closes the door behind him, muffling the noise of the party. “It doesn’t take much to find you, you know.”

“Not always,” Yuta defends, rolling his eyes. “And besides, it’s comfortable here. Plus, I just asked where you were. I didn’t tell you to come find me.”

Taeyong laughs at that. “Whatever you say. Let me join, then. Scoot.”

Yuta folds his legs, and Taeyong occupies the space provided for him. Their limbs are too long for their small nook, and their knees bump several times before they settle into a position they’re somehow comfortable with.

“What brings you to my lair?” Yuta asks, his tone light but his eyes sharp with inquisition. “The crowd drained all your extrovert juices?”

“You could say that.” Taeyong sighs.

Yuta laughs. “It’s not like you had much, anyway.”

Taeyong chuckles and leans his head back against the wall. “That’s true.”

They’re quiet after that, and it’s the type of silence that they are both comfortable with. Taeyong has always preferred this type of connection, one which does not require much thinking over every little interaction. Being with Yuta is natural—he’s easy to be with, and even his presence is enough to calm Taeyong.

It’s the complete opposite of what he had with Doyoung before. With Doyoung, Taeyong felt like he had to always, always, always consider what Doyoung would think before he had to act. With Doyoung, Taeyong had to overthink every statement. His relationship with Doyoung made him feel so self-conscious, so insecure of himself that he valued Doyoung’s opinion so much more than others’, even his own.

It was one of the hardest things to change about himself, after they broke up. Sometimes he still finds himself doing it, weighing different people’s opinions about him, forgetting that he is his own person.

“I met your ex,” Yuta says, pulling Taeyong back to the present. “Earlier. Doyoung?”

Taeyong nods. “So I’ve heard.”

Yuta takes a sip from his drink. “So he’s talked to you, too. He was looking for you when he came up to me.”

“He was?”

“Yeah. I didn’t tell him.”

“He found me, though. Still.”

“That’s true. But it wasn’t because I pointed him to where you were earlier.”

“Fate, maybe,” Taeyong says, sarcasm dripping off his chuckle afterwards. “Fucking fate.”

Yuta laughs. “Fate? Debatable. I think it’s closer to desperation.”

“You don’t seem to like him much,” Taeyong says. He’s itching for a cigarette, but Yuta hates it, so he just settles for stealing Yuta’s cup.

“False,” Yuta says, raising an eyebrow at him. He doesn’t stop Taeyong, though. “I don’t like him at all.”

The drink is sweet but has a strong, chemical-ish aftertaste. Taeyong takes another gulp of it before giving the cup back. “He said you were nice, though.”

Yuta laughs again, louder this time. It bounces off the walls of the bathroom and pulls a similar curve to Taeyong’s lips. “That’s rich. I told him he can go fuck himself.”

“He didn’t seem to mind,” Taeyong says, then relaxes further in his seat. “He didn’t sound sarcastic at all.”

“Maybe it’s because I was smiling when I said it.” Yuta grins at him, his eyes bright under the flourescent. “I do have a nice smile.” He tilts his head back, then downs his remaining drink in one go.

“That’s not a good decision,” Taeyong tells him. “That’s a strong mix. You’ll regret it in the morning.”

Yuta wipes his lip with the back of his hands. “I’m used to having regrets as breakfast. They’re the best when paired with a steaming bowl of hangover soup.”

Taeyong takes the cup from his hand and places it on the floor. “Sure,” he says. “If you’re asking me to make soup for you, I will.”

“I know,” Yuta says, looking down at his hands. “You always do.”

“Well, I don’t exactly have a choice. If I don’t do it, you’ll whine and throw tantrums all morning.”

Yuta’s reply is a light chuckle, and then, “Taeyong, how are you?”

He raises an eyebrow. “I’m not drunk enough, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“That’s not it.” Yuta’s voice is calm. “I mean, how are you? Really.”

Taeyong laughs it off. “You’re not the type to ask that.”

“False,” Yuta repeats. “I just don’t ask you. You make it hard, you know, to ask you stuff like that.”

“Why?”

“You’ll just say you’re okay,” he says, casually like he was talking about a fact. “You make it seem pointless.”

“Huh,” Taeyong hums. “So why are you asking?”

Yuta shrugs. “Just wanted to try, I guess.”

“I’m fine.”

“You sure?”

Taeyong thinks about it for a moment. “I think I am.”

Yuta studies him, and Taeyong tenses. “You’re different around me,” he states, as if he has just come up to a conclusion. “Have you noticed that?”

“What do you mean?”

“Johnny told me to be careful around you, you know. Before we met. He said you were like a ticking time bomb.”

Taeyong avoids his eyes. “That was a long time ago.”

“I know, but you warmed up to me surprisingly fast,” he continued. “You were a little more open, though it’s still impossible to know what you’re thinking. Sometimes I get glimpses, but then it passes and the door is shut again.”

“Stop spewing metaphors at me,” Taeyong says, leaning his head back against the wall. “You lit majors are so weird when you’re drunk.”

Yuta rolls his eyes. “What I’m saying is, I think you’re keeping things from yourself, too. You’re not letting yourself see everything.”

“You sound so sure about it,” Taeyong says, feeling something break inside of him.

“Because I am.” Yuta moves closer to brush Taeyong’s hair away from eyes. “I’ve lived with you all this time,” he adds, and now he’s smiling again, genuine and understanding. “You could say I’m the omniscient narrator.”

When he was young, his grandmother gifted him this ugly sweater. It was green, and not even the nice kind of green—it was too bright, even for young Taeyong, with a large print on the front that says Minesota with just a single n. He never wore it outside, but whenever he got down with a cold or some kind of flu, he always reached for it. It was warm, the lining thick and the material soft against his feverish skin. He used to believe that it had some kind of magic that healed him.

Living with Yuta is like that. Like waking up after a fever-induced nap, the sweater soft against his cheek.

“Okay then, omniscient narrator,” Taeyong says, slowly relaxing. “What happens next?”

Yuta squints at him. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know,” Taeyong answers. “He asked if we could be friends.”

“Friends?” Yuta chuckles. “So he wants you back.”

“I don’t know,” Taeyong repeats.

“Well, what do you want to happen next?”

Taeyong stares at his hands. He tries to think about it, but all that comes to mind is Doyoung’s eyes under the flourescent lights of the kitchen, wet and shiny with something like longing.

“I don’t think we were ever friends,” Taeyong says, instead of answering the question. “I think that was one reason why we didn’t work out.”

Yuta hums. “And if you become friends this time?”

Taeyong purses his lips. “I thought you hated him.”

“Of course I do,” Yuta says. “You wouldn’t be like this if not for him. I just mean, maybe it’s worth a chance.”

He pauses, studying Yuta’s expression, searching for the slightest hint of sarcasm, and he comes up with none.

“It’s too late for that,” Taeyong says, swallowing, “don’t you think so?”

“I dont know,” Yuta says. “I just feel like you both need it to work out this time.”

Taeyong scoffs. “It didn’t work out the first time, why would it work out now?”

“You’re both older, for starters,” he holds up a finger, and then raises another as he continues listing reasons down. “You’ve changed, and I’m sure he has too. And lastly,” he looks at him sharply, “you’re starting this time as friends.”

He entertains the thought, for a moment. Doyoung as a friend—it’s hard to imagine. What would he be like, as a friend? Would he be caring, would he look at Taeyong like how he did at first?

It’s always like that, with Doyoung, isn’t it? It’s all about questions he wouldn’t be able to answer by himself.

“There’s always the possibility that it would end up badly again anyway.”

“Then it does end. Not your fault, not his either. It’s just—I dont know, it’s just the universe itself telling you that you’re not meant to be together.”

“That’s—” Taeyong pauses, searching for the right word. “That feels like a waste of time.”

“Is it though?” Yuta asks, not looking at him now. “I mean, you’re wasting time anyway with all this wondering about what could have been. Why not just get your answers right out of him?”

—

Taeyong dated a girl named Seulgi a year after Doyoung broke up with him.

How they met—it’s cliché. His mother is a friend of Seulgi’s mother, and once they found out that their children were enrolled in the same university, everything just clicked into place. His mom gave him Seulgi’s phone number and urged him to text her because you’re the guy, Yong-ah, and then he would be forced to bring home-cooked meals to Seulgi’s house whenever he visited home. They became sort of each other’s connection to home, and it happened naturally.

Seulgi was a bright person. She was always smiling whenever she opened the door after Taeyong hesitantly knocked, always waving at him when they see each other in campus, always surrounded by people with similar auras.

She was the complete opposite of Taeyong who preferred to shy away to his room whenever there were visitors, who just smiled and nodded when he came across people he knew, who found isolation more comforting than a loud group, even when he was with his friends.

Still, with how much they saw each other through their connection with their homes, even their differences seemed to fit with each other as well. Over time, they met even when their mothers had nothing to ask for either of them, and though they were in different departments, they frequently spent their break times together, sometimes with Seulgi’s friend group, or sometimes just the two of them.

And it just seemed natural that they would date.

“I have something to say,” Seulgi announced one Thursday during the winter break as they were waiting for the train to arrive, muffled under her red scarf.

Taeyong hummed, eyes not leaving the cooking tutorial on his phone.

“I think we shouldn’t go back home together anymore.”

He paused the video and turned to Seulgi, watching only her eyes and nose, half of her face covered by her scarf. She was not looking at him. “Did I do something wrong?”

“It’s not that,” she says, finally turning to look him in the eyes. “I just—it’s just awkward.”

She was stammering, and from the time Taeyong knew her, Seulgi rarely stammered, unless she was very nervous and/or irritated, on the path to getting angry. And Taeyong didn’t want to deal with that, so he just said, “Okay, if that’s what you want,” and locked his phone, putting it into his pocket.

The tip of her nose was red, and her eybrows were furrowed as she stared intensely at Taeyong. The sight is quite funny, but they were not in a laughing mood this time. “You’re not going to ask why?”

“I mean,” Taeyong had clarified, “I would, but you seem angry.”

Seulgi scoffed. “I’m not.”

“Why, then?”

She didn’t answer right away, watching her own hands fumble for a while. “My friends already think that we’re dating.”

Taeyong knew about that, but he didn’t know that it made Seulgi uncomfortable. They’ve always denied it, anyway. “I understand. Okay.”

Seulgi’s eyes were wide now. “Why are you so quick to agree to anything and everything I say?”

“What,” Taeyong said, rubbing the back of his neck in confusion, “what do you want me to do, then?”

“I don’t know…” Seulgi drifted off, not looking at him now. Taeyong waited for her to say something again, but a minute passed and she didn’t, so Taeyong pulled his phone out of his pocket again and continued watching the tutorial.

A full minute into the video, Seulgi had muttered something under her breath, so soft Taeyong almost didn’t notice it until he heard her sigh.

“What did you say?”

“I said,” Seulgi said, irritation now clear in her tone, “Should we try it?”

Taeyong gestured to his phone, a silent question for clarification, and when Seulgi stayed quiet, he said, “This is the lazy coward’s way out, though. No bake.”

“I’m not lazy,” she scoffed again, “I’m asking if we should try dating.”

“Sorry?”

Seulgi turned her head away, which made her scarf shift down. Her cheeks were dusted pink, and it was clear that it wasn’t from the cold when she whispered, “Dating. Want to try?”

He didn’t like Seulgi then, at least not romantically. But then she said, “All my friends think we already are, anyway. It doesn’t really change anything between us. It’s just—” she sighed, “dating. Eating together and stuff. Going on, well, dates.” Her voice was hurried but calm, like she was explaining to a child.

Taeyong was an asshole then, because she knew that Seulgi liked him. He’d seen it in her sheepish smiles, in how she seeked Taeyong out in not-so-subtle ways, in the difference in how he treated Taeyong compared to her other guy friends, all caring and shy at times.

He knew that Seulgi was lying when she said it wasn’t going to change anything between them. But Taeyong felt odd, like he was liquid in search of a container to fit himself into, and dating—it seemed like a good distraction at the time.

“Should we?” he asked, imagining his words falling out between them like drizzle on still water, creating small ripples.

There was a weird flash of something like hurt and realization in Seulgi’s expression, but it was gone before Taeyong can fully see it, and then she smiled, small and shy. “Okay,” she said, and then she shifted closer to Taeyong, snatching his phone. “So what were you watching?”

On the ride home, Seulgi fell asleep with her head on Taeyong’s shoulder, her hair tickling his chin whenever she moved. Taeyong leaned closer to her, watching as the spaces of light between their shadows disappeared.

—

The rain stops as Taeyong watches from the porch, a lit cigarette between his lips. It’s almost 3 a.m., and now most of the people had gone home.

The front door opens as Taeyong blows out a puff of smoke, gray vanishing into black sky. A man stumbles out, almost crashing face first on to the ground if not for the pair of arms that hold onto his waist. Taeyong follows it with his stare, until he sees—

“God, Sicheng,” Doyoung chides the tall man leaning back against his chest. “You know your own alcohol tolerance, for fuck’s sake. I can’t take care of you all the time.”

The man—Sicheng—mumbles something that Taeyong doesn’t understand. It seems to be in another language, and Doyoung sighs, replying in the same medium, and then he looks up and says, in Korean, “Hey, man, sorry, but do you think you can maybe—”

Taeyong sees him freeze as their eyes meet, but then Sicheng speaks again and flails his arms around and Doyoung groans as he tries to help the other man to stand straight. Sicheng makes it seem impossible though, and soon Doyoung continues, “Sorry about this, Taeyong, but I think I need a little—”

He’s cut off by Sicheng this time, shouting again in a foreign language. Taeyong puts out his cigarette and heads to the two of them, holds on to Sicheng’s arm and drapes it around his neck. The chairs are close, but it takes them almost five minutes before they’re able to sit Sicheng down, not a single word exchanged between the three of them aside from Sicheng’s mix of broken Korean and that language—Chinese, it seems, judging from the tones and certain words he recognizes.

“God, Sicheng,” Doyoung repeats, more of a sigh this time, “You’re not allowed to drink ever again.”

His tone is light as he says it, though, and Taeyong notes the familiarity in it, the slightest lilt of adoration. He feels a clench at the base of his lungs. He’s itching for another cigarette. “You should take him home,” he says instead.

Doyoung startles a bit, like he’s just remembered that Taeyong is just a few feet away from him. “Oh, Kun is on his way now.”

He doesn’t know who Kun is, but he just nods. “That’s good.”

It’s quiet again, after that. The music from inside the house had stopped minutes ago, and now there’s nothing that breaks the tension between the two of them, so thick Taeyong can almost breathe it in. He sits on the chair opposite Sicheng’s and pulls out his phone from his pocket, unlocking it and pretending to do something, but actually just idly scrolling through his homescreen.

Doyoung sits on the chair beside his. Taeyong resists the urge to shift away.

“I thought you went home already,” Doyoung says after a while.

Taeyong opens his Instagram app. “I was thinking I could help Johnny and Taeil clean up after everyone leaves,” he replies, not looking up from his phone.

“Ah,” Doyoung says.

Jaehyun has posted a picture of him and Yuta, their tongues sticking out while holding up peace signs. He double-taps on it, and then scrolls again, passing through pictures of food and several posts of #OOTD and #FridayNightShenanigans and—

It’s Seulgi, her arms around a guy’s waist, grinning wide and pretty, her eyes crinkling. The guy is tall, and he’s looking at her with a soft smile on his face, eyes partially covered by dark hair.

Taeyong exits the app and locks his phone, then puts it on his lap.

“Kun says he’s almost here,” Doyoung announces. “Do you think you can maybe help me with Sicheng?”

Taeyong doesn’t want to, but he just nods.

“I would introduce him to you, but he’s not looking so great right now,” Doyoung tries to joke, but Taeyong keeps thinking about Seulgi’s picture, and he doesn’t really have the energy to even fake a laugh. Doyoung chuckles, empty and even faker than what Taeyong could probably have done.

“It’s fine,” he says, and forces a smile that’s meant to be amused. “I’m sure there’ll be other chances for us to properly meet.”

“Yeah, I’m sure there will be.”

Taeyong can’t think of a reply because he didn’t really mean what he said, and it’s the perfect time for Kun to arrive and honk loudly. Doyoung is quick to get to his feet, and Taeyong doesn’t know how they did it, but in a few minutes they were able to stuff Sicheng into the passenger seat. Kun and Doyoung speak in Chinese over Sicheng’s off-key rendition of Galaxy, and Taeyong feels left out until Kun smiles at him and says, in Korean, “I need to go now, I have work at 8. Thank you very much…” He raises his eyebrows in question.

He’s speaking formally, and Taeyong gets this urge to straighten up. “Taeyong,” he provides, “It’s nothing, really.”

“Yes, Taeyong, thank you still.” Kun’s expression is out of place as Sicheng continues singing and Doyoung shushes him, all kind and pleasant as if he just hasn’t been asked to drive a drunk person home at three in the morning.

“Drive safe,” Taeyong reminds him, smiling back. Kun nods, converses with Doyoung again, and then he’s off. Taeyong watches the black car leave until it turns into the corner.

Taeyong walks back to his previous place on the porch and lights up another cigarette. Doyoung is hovering near, and Taeyong can feel his stare at the side of his face. “You’re not going home?” He asks, partly because he wants to be alone but wants to be nice about it, at least as nice as he can force himself to be when Doyoung is involved.

“Don’t feel like it yet,” Doyoung says, and moves to the seat that Sicheng was in earlier, facing Taeyong. “You smoke.”

Taeyong laughs. It’s not even funny, but the way Doyoung says it is all breathless and with widened eyes, like he just can’t believe what he’s seeing. “Yeah, a bad habit I can’t seem to stop.”

“Since when?”

“I don’t know. Months ago, I guess.”

Doyoung hums, and then, “Thank you. About Sicheng, I mean.”

“It’s nothing. I was just, well, around.” Taeyong blows out a puff of smoke, and Doyoung subtly turns his head away even though it doesn’t reach him.

Fucking dramatic, Taeyong thinks to himself. Still, he doesn’t finish his second stick and throws it on the floor to crush it with the heel of his shoe again. Another thing to clean up later, aside from the mess that’s probably the living room after everyone has left.

—

“This isn’t working anymore,” Seulgi said, one Friday evening. Her heels clacked against the floor a bit too loudly as they walked inside.

“The elevator?” Taeyong pressed the button for the doors to close, and was reaching out for the one to take them to the ground floor. “Should we just use the stairs, then—”

Seulgi grabbed his wrist. “The fucking elevator is working perfectly fine, Taeyong.”

Her words were steely, but calm, despite the fact that he had never heard a profanity leaving her lips until then. It was unusual, and Taeyong felt like she had just dropped a bomb and it was seconds away from exploding.

“Okay,” Taeyong said, breathing in deeply. He didn’t have the energy for another argument, and even if he had, he would rather save it for the social interactions he would be forced to have at Yuta’s birthday party. “Is there something wrong?”

Seulgi wasn’t much shorter than him in her heeled sandals, and in rare moments like this, she didn’t have to raise her head as she looked at Taeyong straight in the eye. “God, Taeyong, you really are fucking dense,” she said with a scoff, crossing her arms across her chest. “What the hell happened to you that made you stop feeling?”

Irritation pooled low in the base of his lungs, and he tried to breathe it out in a sigh. “Stop cursing.”

“I can curse all I want. I can do what I fucking want.”

“Look, Seulgi,” Taeyong uttered through his teeth, trying very hard to steer the conversation away from the path that could lead to another screaming match. “Yuta’s waiting for us. We don’t have the time for another argument.”

“Another argument?” Her voice was getting louder, and Taeyong looked around them, hyperaware of the thin walls in Seulgi’s apartment building. “Is everything just another fucking argument for you, Taeyong?”

“Keep your voice down,” Taeyong warned her, moving to take Seulgi’s hand. “Look, we are not going to my place when you’re in this pissy mood.”

“Pissy mood?” Seulgi echoed again, and ran her hands through her hair, ruining the updo that she spent a good half an hour on. “Why? So we can act like we’re fine around your friends?”

“What does my friends have to do with—” Taeyong gestured vaguely with his hands. “With whatever’s happening right now?”

“Because you seem to care more about what your friends would think.”

There was a throbbing pain somewhere at the back of his eyebrow, and he pressed two fingers on his temple in an attempt to make it stop. “Look, can’t you just tell me what the problem is, instead of acting up like some kind of five-year-old child throwing tantrums?”

“The problem,” Seulgi said, stepping closer to him, her voice going back to being calm when she continued, “is that I’m tired of this.”

Taeyong clenched his jaw, waiting for an elaboration.

“You don’t feel, Taeyong. You’re like a fucking robot.”

Seulgi said it softly, and it cut through Taeyong’s insides the way a poisoned blade would, his gut folding in on itself. He felt this burning in his nose, like he’s breathing in chlorine. “What the hell does that mean,” Taeyong heard himself say.

When Seulgi spoke again, Taeyong felt himself detach. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. You don’t know anything because you’re so absorbed in hating yourself.” Her words echoed inside the elevator like he was hearing them from inside a tunnel. “I insisted that we start dating because I actually liked you, Taeyong. And at one point, I loved you. Fuck, I think I still love you.”

When Taeyong just stared at his shoes, she continued. “I know you didn’t feel the same way. We both know that, and I don’t blame you for that. But I—I’m stupid to think that I can actually give something to you, do you understand that?”

He didn’t. Taeyong chose not to voice that out.

“You are so—you’re like a walking corpse, Taeyong. Every day, you wake up, you do your thing, and it’s just—it’s like a cycle. You go through every single fucking day just for the sake of going through it. When you kiss me, it feels like routine. It doesn’t feel real.”

The only words that Taeyong could say was, “I’m sorry.”

“Your friends told me about it,” Seulgi said. “I know about Doyoung.”

The name brought Taeyong even further away from himself, and now he was just watching his own body tense up.

“It wrecked you real bad, huh?” Seulgi said, and she seemed sadder now, like she had no choice but to accept that Taeyomg couldn’t give her anything.

“I’m sorry,” Taeyong said again.

“Should we break up?”

He sighed, finally looking at her. Her eyes are still bright with anger. “I feel like that’s the right decision,” Taeyong said. “Maybe we should.”

“Okay,” she said. She was quiet after, just studying Taeyong’s face like she was memorizing his features. “This feels like it’s happened before, don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” Taeyong answered. He thought back to train stations and shadows blending into a single shape.

Seulgi sighed again, running a shaky hand through her messy hair. “Good luck, Taeyong.”

He listened to her heels clacking until he couldn’t hear it anymore.

As they closed, Taeyong caught sight of a man in the elevator doors. He was disheveled, the shadows from the light emphasizing his sunken cheeks, gaze empty and dull.

He blinked, and when he opened his eyes again, he found himself staring back at his own reflection.

Taeyong smoked his first cigarette that night, at Yuta’s birthday party.

“You look like a ghost,” a guy had told him as he joined Taeyong on the small terrace. Their elbows bumped when he leaned his arms on the railing, and the contact felt foreign on Taeyong’s skin. His accent was obvious, and his voice was high and small, like an adolescent’s. Not in a bad way, though, Taeyong thought.

“Thanks,” Taeyong said, “I do feel like one.”

“Eh, all of us do at some point,” the other replied, rummaging through the pockets of his pants until he came up with a pack of cigarettes and a lighter shaped like a soju bottle. “Want one?”

Taeyong shook his head. “I don’t really smoke.”

The man laughed, small and light. “Maybe we can change that.” He handed Taeyong a stick. Taeyong had never understood why people liked to romanticize smoking—a vice that literally poisoned you from the inside—but as he studied the stick in the other’s long and thin fingers, he thought it looked graceful.

He took the cigarette, oddly feeling calm, even though he didn’t even know this man’s name. “I guess I’ll try,” he said.

“It’ll make you feel less like a ghost and more like a poltergeist, I promise.”

“Like a poltergeist is any better.”

“It is!” He laughed again. “At least a poltergeist can throw shit around. Ghosts just float and, I don’t know, watch stuff happen.”

This pulled a small smile from one side of Taeyong’s lips. “Sure, uh—”

“Ten,” Ten said.

“Ten,” Taeyong repeated, testing out that single syllable. “Like the number?”

“Like the number.” Ten smiled, showing straight teeth and bright eyes.

Ten met Yuta through the exchange program, Taeyong learned later into the night. He was in one of Yuta’s classes, and he’s a year younger than him—the same age as Doyoung. He’s born in February, just a few weeks younger than Doyoung.

Ten reminded him of Doyoung so much that it was fucking pathetic. Taeyong felt fucking pathetic.

He put the cigarette between his lips and inhaled, shallowly at first, but the smoke still flooded the inside of his lungs and he coughed it all out. Ten laughed beside him, patting his back pathetically. His touch was warm through the thin fabric of Taeyong’s shirt.

“It’s like that at first,” Ten said through his chuckles, “it gets better eventually. That’s when you can be a poltergeist and roam around and throw shit whenever you want to.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“Then,” Ten lifted his gaze, his lips curving slightly curving upwards—an empty smile. “I’ll pull you back down to Earth, I guess.”

The cigarette burned down to its end as they talked longer, and Ten lighted him another one, his eyelashes casting long shadows on his cheeks when he leaned in close to Taeyong’s lips and flicked the lighter on.

When the the second stick burned out, it seemed natural for Taeyong to bring Ten back to his room, the party muffled behind him as Ten pushed him against the door and kissed him for the first time. Taeyong kissed him back and slipped his fingers under Ten’s shirt and planted his feet on the floor, trying not to disappear.

“Your hands are so cold,” Ten sighed against his lips as Taeyong guided the both of them to his bed. “You really are a ghost.”

He kissed Ten harder, rubbing up and down the latter’s sides, stealing more and more of his warmth and Ten allowed him. He tasted like smoke and felt like liquid under Taeyong, and when Taeyong fucked him, he wrapped his legs around Taeyong’s waist and kissed him, opening his mouth and letting Taeyong take and take and take.

The next morning, Taeyong woke up alone. The windows were open, the breeze coming in harsh and icy wisps to brush against Taeyong’s bare skin, and he pulled up the blanket up to his chin and curled in on himself.

When he got up hours later, he found an unopened pack of cigarette and a lighter shaped like a soju bottle on his bedside table.

—

“I don’t think I would be able to, back then,” Doyoung suddenly says, after a minute.

“Sorry?”

“Being friends,” Doyoung explains. “I don’t think I would’ve been content with just being friends back then.”

Taeyong cannot keep himself from scoffing. “It doesn’t matter now.”

“I guess not,” Doyoung replies. “But I just want you to know that.”

“Okay,” Taeyong says.

Doyoung is clenching and unclenching his fists again. It’s strange—in the past, Doyoung has always been the confident one between the two of them. Taeyong is older in a lot of aspects, but when they were together, Doyoung had the final say more often than not. And that includes their breakup.

Now, though, Taeyong feels like he’s watching someone keeping himself from tearing at the seams. Doyoung is tense, and if Taeyong leans in a little closer, he’ll notice that Doyoung’s fingers are trembling.

Taeyong knows this man in front of him so well, and yet, right now it’s like he’s meeting him for the first time. There’s that thought again—Doyoung has certainly stirred something up, and Taeyong can feel it coming, breathing down his neck.

It’s confusing, and scary, and tempting all at once. He doesn’t know if he wants to run away from it or towards it.

“I’m glad I found you again,” Doyoung says, and his voice is soft, breaking at the edges. “I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

It makes Taeyong freeze in his seat. It’s been two years, and it’s the first time Doyoung has apologized. It’s sad that he’s waited for it for so long, yet now that he raises his head and looks at Doyoung in the eye, searching for sincerity, he doesn’t feel satisfied.

“You’re sorry,” Taeyong echoes. “For?”

“I don’t know,” Doyoung says. “For what I said earlier, I guess.”

Ah, Taeyong thinks. It’s here, an answer he doesn’t need to hear from Doyoung—he’s not satisfied because Doyoung is apologizing for the wrong reason. “Okay,” he says. “No big deal. We’re not fully sober.”

“You’re right.” He catches his head in his hands, and despite the distance, Taeyong hears the sharp exhale he lets out. Taeyong doesn’t know if it’s because they haven’t seen each other in two years, but it’s such an unnatural move on Doyoung that he would think it was staged if not for the tremble in his voice. “But if I have that excuse to blame my stupid decisions on, then I guess I’ll go all the way.”

Taeyong feels like he’s choking, and he unconsciously tugs at the neckline of his shirt. His words come out quiet, barely a whisper. “Where are you going with this?”

Doyoung lifts his head and looks him in the eye. “I miss you.”

There are two types of anger, Taeyong learned in the past two years.

One is the type that he’s seen on most people—loud, dizzying, taking everything in its path with a fire that crackles and burns until it explodes and turns everything into ash. He’s mostly seen it on Doyoung, months before they break up, in insults and blames that were expressed in screams and tears.

The other is the type that simmers under the skin, liquifying as it flows with the oxygen in his blood, running unnoticed in his system until a memory triggers it. It’s the type of anger that’s always been hidden, but it burns quietly when awaken. He’s seen it for the first time on Seulgi.

It’s what Taeyong feels right now, the flames white hot and searing as it licks on the base of his stomach, and the smoke tastes like poison in the back of his throat.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, and Taeyong almost wants to cry, because it’s what he wants, it’s what he’s wanted for so long, but at the same time it’s not, and Taeyong is so tired of looking for answers when he knows he can never have them on his own. “I know this is unfair, that I’m doing this now—”

“You know, Doyoung, I wish you just cheated.”

Doyoung moves closer. “I never—”

“I know,” Taeyong says. “I know you never did. But I wish you just cheated on me, instead of just—” Taeyong tries to stop entirely, but his lungs feel constricted, and everything comes out of him in a huff of breath that feels strangely comforting, like it’s calming the fire inside him. “I wish I—instead of us falling apart without any clear reason, I wish you just cheated.”

He stays silent, so Taeyong continues, not even realizing that his voice has started to become shaky. “It would have been a lot easier to deal with, you know? I’d think, okay, so maybe he didn’t like me enough, it would have been alright. Or if you found someone better, that’s alright, I can move on from that because at least there’s a reason that’s clear enough. But, but what you did, just deciding that we should break up, as if I have no say in it, as if I didn’t deserve to have at least that, it felt so—it’s humiliating. And you never apologized, and you kicked me out of our apartment with a fucking note, and you never apologized for that either. And I did everything, Doyoung. I held on to you for as long as I fucking could. And you—do you remember what you told me?”

Doyoung opens his mouth, probably to answer, probably to defend himself, and Taeyong knows he won’t be able to handle anything, so he continues. “You told me you stopped meaning it a long time ago when you said you love me, months before we break up. Fucking months, and I held on to you for so long because I thought, as long as he’s telling me he loves me back, there’s a fucking chance. As long as he’s telling me he loves me back, I can fix this. I kept telling myself that it’s okay that I’m alone in wanting to fix it, to fix us, but then one day you just snapped and told me, I have to force myself everytime I tell you I love you, and Doyoung, do you fucking know—”

He’s trembling all over, and his vision gets blurry. He reaches up to rub his eyes and he feels the first drop fall down his cheek just as fast as he can wipe it away, and as if that’s the catalyst, in no second he’s crying for the first time in more than two years, feeling his lungs crumple with every sob, every breath of air scratching against his throat, and he can’t stop.

Doyoung is moving toward him, his hands on his shoulders, then on his wrists, and Taeyong tries to push him away. “I’m sorry,” Doyoung is saying, again and again and again and again, and Taeyong breaks because now he’s apologizing for the right reasons and Taeyong still doesn’t have the answers he wants.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, Doyoung,” Taeyong says, words broken in syllables as he tries to breathe, “I don’t get why you’re here. I don’t get why we’re here, talking and—I don’t fucking know.”

“I’m sorry,” is all Doyoung says.

“Why now,” Taeyong whispers, knocking the hands away from his face. “Why the fuck are you apologizing now, two years later?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Fuck you,” Taeyong tries to scream and fails, pushing at Doyoung’s chest with as much force as he can, which isn’t much, but he still stumbles back. “Fuck you, Doyoung. You think you can show up two years later and apologize, and then what?”

The answer is a little different this time. “I don’t have plans, really. I just wanted to see you. And I’m sorry.”

It’s confusing, and Taeyong is so, so tired.

“This is exhausting,” he says, breaths coming in a little easier now although it still hurts, the rage melting into something less in his veins. “You never give me answers. It’s exhausting.”

“I can do that now,” Doyoung says, and his hands are visibly shaking now as he runs one through his hair. “I want to. I can do that now—”

“What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?” It hurts even more to look at Doyoung now, and Taeyong covers his face with both his hands, his next words muffled behind them. “It’s not like what you say will mean anything. We’re over, Doyoung, a long time ago—”

Taeyong goes back to his younger self again when his hands are yanked away by his wrists, when Doyoung shakily holds his face and presses a kiss that’s gone before he can even feel it.

“I’ll give you anything you want,” Doyoung says. “Anything.”

And under this type of anger, a truth shows itself—what Taeyong wants is to be honest with himself.

When Doyoung leans his forehead on his, Taeyong presses his sneakered feet harder against the ground, and it’s solid under his soles.

—

Months after he and Seulgi broke up, Taeyong was packing up for winter break when he sees Doyoung’s old shirt at the bottom of his dresser, stuffed between old jackets and jeans he didn’t wear anymore. It had the picture of a plush bear on the front, with the text don’t just stand there, come and hug me printed below it in bubbly letters. The fabric was soft with use, the hem stained by ink splotches. It was Doyoung’s favorite sleepwear until Taeyong decided to steal it.

If Taeyong closed his eyes, he would remember quiet nights with Doyoung, lazing around their bedroom and feeling like time had stopped while the world continued to move outside their window. He felt like someone had just poured cold water over his head—it was easier to pretend that he was over everything when there was nothing to remind him of it.

If he were Yuta or Johnny, the logical thing to do would be to throw the shirt away. Maybe Yuta would even use it as a rag first. If he were Taeil, it wouldn’t have been in his closet in the first place.

But he was Taeyong, and here he was, folding the shirt neatly, smoothing the fabric with his hands, his heart in his throat and his eyes stinging with tears he refused to shed. He took his remaining pairs of jeans out of his closet, put the shirt at the bottom, and piled his remaining clothes atop it. Out of sight, out of mind.

He sniffed, wiped his eyes even though nothing fell from them, patted his cheeks and breathed slowly.

And then he went back to pretending.

—

It’s close to five in the morning now, and the house has gone quiet.

Taeyong and Doyoung enter. All the lights are off and no one bothers to turn them on.

Taeyong’s phone buzzes in his hand. He doesn’t feel the need to open the notification that lights up his phone, and just reads the snippet of a message. It’s from Johnny, something about cleaning up in the morning. He ignores it.

“Let’s go upstairs,” Doyoung says. He sounds a little distant, and Taeyong doesn’t even notice that he’s following the sound of Doyoung’s footsteps until they stop.

Taeyong walks ahead. From the light of the streetlamp trickling from the open windows, he sees the shadow of a bed on the center of the room, a small bedside table on its right side. It’s easy to trace the guest room because he’s been here more times than he can count, mostly to sleep off a hangover or just to crash when Yuta has someone over.

“Should I turn on the light?” Doyoung asks.

Taeyong shakes his head, but then he remembers that Doyoung may not see it, so he croaks out a soft no.

“The lamp, then?”

“No,” Taeyong repeats. Doyoung doesn’t answer, and somehow, the thought that they can’t see each other clearly makes Taeyong feel a bit braver. He moves to sit on the edge of the bed, his back facing the window.

The bed dips as Doyoung sits beside him, maintaining a careful distance. “Where should I start?”

Taeyong lets his mind blank. He doesn’t even feel his own lips moving when he asks, “What happened to us?”

Doyoung’s breath hitches and Taeyong hears it. It’s so quiet. It’s unusual for Johnny’s house to be this quiet.

“Can I really answer that?”

“Well,” Taeyong says. “You were the one who broke up with me.”

“Do you remember our first anniversary?” Doyoung asks, after a moment.

“You mean our only one,” Taeyong hears himself say. He doesn’t feel that drunk anymore, but here, sitting a foot away from his ex in the dark, it’s strangely easy to be honest.

A light chuckle, and then Doyoung replies, “Yeah. Our only one. We bought the cheapest wine we could find and we tried to watch an English movie without subtitles, but we didn’t even make it halfway. And then we tried to slow dance but you set up the wrong playlist, and in the end we just cuddled and made out for hours.”

Taeyong laughs, genuine this time, the sound surprising even himself. “You were on playlist duty that night,” he points out. “Also, trying to slow dance to EDM wasn’t all that bad.”

“I never said it was,” Doyoung says. “It was fun. I think I was happy that time.”

“Me too,” Taeyong whispers. He leans back until he’s laying down on the bed. “I don’t know what happened after that, though.”

Doyoung doesn’t say anything for a while, and Taeyong counts his breaths. And then, as if he has finally made up his mind, he starts, “I think I was at that period in my life.”

“What do you mean?”

“It wasn’t an existential crisis,” Doyoung tries to explain, his voice softening. “But it’s something close, I think. It’s like some sort of a delayed season of growing up.”

Taeyong turns to him, watches the shadows of his movements, and waits.

“When I got up in the morning and saw my own reflection in the mirror, I didn’t feel like I was looking at myself.” He sighs. “One night, as we were having dinner, I kept asking myself, why am I here, of all places? Which should make sense if I traced the details of how I got there, of course, but I was just so confused. I thought, I didn’t need to be here, but nonetheless here I am, and I couldn’t do anything about it. I wasn’t sure if that was what I wanted. Do you understand?”

Taeyong doesn’t, not really, but it takes him a little close to understanding. “So it wasn’t because of me,” he tries. “At least, not all of it.”

Doyoung lays down beside him. “I think I was just angry about everything because it seemed to me like you had everything figured out, and I was just doing something I was supposed to, like I’m a robot coded to follow someone else’s wishes,” he says. “I guess I was envious. I knew that if I couldn’t pull myself together, I might end up left behind.”

“Do you still feel like that?”

It takes a long time for Doyoung to answer. “Sometimes, I guess,” he says. “It’s not that bad anymore, though.”

“You could have told me.”

“I know,” Doyoung says. “But running away was easier.”

“For yourself.”

“Yeah.” He pauses, and the he follows it with, “I know that now.”

“It still doesn’t make that much sense to me,” Taeyong says. “I still have a lot of questions.”

“I expected that.”

“I can’t trust you right away, Doyoung.” His breaths come in easier, and he lets himself weigh the mattress down. “You can’t blame me for that.”

“I know,” Doyoung repeats.

“I haven’t been honest to myself for a long time.” He feels a slight touch t the side of his palm, and he lets Doyoung wrap his pinky around his. “I have a lot to work on, too.”

“You can take your time.”

They don’t speak after that, and Taeyong watches the sky lightening outside the window, the morning peeking like a promise. There’s warmth starting from the little point of contact in the tips of their fingers, traveling up his arms and his spine, and Taeyong closes his eyes and grounds himself with it.

—

A year and a half after they broke up, Taeyong dreamed about Doyoung for the first time.

Like most dreams, Taeyong didn’t even know what it was about. What he recalled were little moments, like a collection of movie stills: Doyoung closing his eyes and leaning in to kiss Taeyong on the lips, Taeyong pulling away because he couldn’t breathe, Doyoung saying I don’t love you anymore, Taeyong gasping for air.

When the light passed through the flimsy curtains covering the single window of his room and into his closed lids gently roused him, on this moment between waking up and being awake, when the world was just a blur of monochrome shades interrupted by smudges of pale colors, Taeyong let himself believe that he was not alive, that he was not a part of the busy, tired Earth. He didn’t open his eyes for a few minutes longer. In enough time, it was easy to feel like he’s disappeared. It wasn’t a sad thought, but it wasn’t a pleasing one, either.

And then his senses adjusted to his surroundings—first his vision, taking in the sharp glare of the sun and the unpleasant stains in the ceiling of his room, and then the smell of the air freshener mixing with the odor that specifically lingered in rented rooms and apartments and dormitories, dust and old things and the hundred stories of past tenants, and then the sound of footsteps and boyish yells and the traffic outside filled him—and the pain hit him like a tidal wave, crashing through him and taking away everything in its path.

There was no one beside him. He fisted handfuls of his blanket, blinked and blinked, rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, and nothing changed.

And he was relieved, but also a little disappointed.

—

Morning comes as the light passing through the thin curtains covering the window of Johnny’s guest room and into his closed lids gently rouses him. He lingers on the moments between waking up and being awake, when the world is just a blur of monochrome shades interrupted by smudges of pale colors, and Taeyong lets himself believe that he’s not alive, that he’s not a part of the busy, tired Earth. He doesn’t open his eyes for a few minutes longer. In enough time, it’s easy to feel like he’s disappeared. It’s not a sad thought, but it’s not a pleasing one, either.

And then his senses adjust to his surroundings—first his vision, taking in the sharp glare of the sun and the blue walls lined with framed geometric artworks, and then the subtle scent of perfume, amber and old things and the hundred stories he tried to forget, and then the sound of footsteps and boyish yells and the traffic outside fills him—and the warmth wraps around him like a safety blanket, swallowing him in comfort that he didn’t know he needed.

Doyoung’s eyes are still closed, his lips parted. He’s still holding onto Taeyong’s hand, fingers wrapped loosely around his. Taeyong lightly brushes his thumb against the side of Doyoung’s palm, and a course of heat lights up his nerves.

Doyoung stirs awake, lids fluttering open. He moves his hand until his palm is lined up with Taeyong’s, fingers folding to weave between his and tightening like he’s pulling Taeyong back down to Earth, and Taeyong falls with it.

And he is relieved, but also a little disappointed.