Chapter Text
January 2018
Why did it have to be you?
Why did I wake up one day and realize that I was in fact in love with you?
It was too late, although even if I noticed my feelings for you early on, nothing would make a difference.
I'm a coward, you don’t know that, but you don’t know most things anyways. You don’t know me; it hurts but I'm dealing with it. I'm always in my head, thinking about what could’ve been. But I'm a coward, even in my dreams, fantasies I can’t hold your hand, let alone look at you. Maybe deep down, though not very down, I know you won’t look at me the way I want you to.
I love you and I realized that on a very cold winter day while I was on my way home from class. I saw you wearing a huge jacket, zipped all the way up. Your nose was red, eyes teary from the extreme cold and I decided I would like to keep you warm for the rest of my life.
But nothing works that way,
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March 2018
I thought the only barrier between you and I was the fact that I was a coward, you were too beautiful, and I didn’t deserve you. But today I found something out.
All the things that went through my head when I thought about confessing to you, I, not even for a second thought that maybe, just maybe, you could be straight.
And now you have a girlfriend. She’s beautiful, probably smart, hard-working and brave. Long story short, everything I'm not.
You hold her hand, look at her with the kind of fondness I could never dream of.
Do you love her? Are you in love with her?
Do you think about her all the damn time and you’re so sick and tired of waiting for something to happen, even an eye contact but it doesn’t happen, so you just think about how stunning they look under the crappy school light? Do you see her in your dreams and even in your dreams, the reality you created while sleeping, she won’t look at you because she’s just that impossible for you?
I'm frustrated, I just want to feel your eyes on me for a second so that I can die happily.
But nothing works that way,
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April 2018
I'm your friend.
Today you met me. I pretended to not know how you look when you read a book that piques your interest or how you look at people when you think no one is looking.
You said, “I’m Yeonjun” and smiled, I melted away. I don’t even know how I was able to say “I’m Beomgyu” without having a breakdown right then and there.
I'm your friend, now I know stuff about you and even though I heard a lot of things about you from other people, this is different because you’re telling me things. And that is better than hearing anything. Hearing your voice and hearing you say my name is better than anything my ears have ever heard.
You don’t even know how excited I was to listen to you talk about your favorite movie or that one class you suck at, although I know you don’t suck at anything. What I wasn’t excited to hear though, was you talking about your girlfriend.
I tried not to show that I didn’t want to hear how much you appreciated her or how it was second nature for you to hug her because you’ve been doing that a lot and you want to do that for as long as you can.
You loved her and I was stupid. But I tried not to show I was crying when I told you I had to go in the middle of the conversation, leaving you confused at the café we liked to go to after classes, where you would smile blindingly at me.
But nothing works that way,
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August 2018
I think I shouldn’t have been your friend.
With the way you look at me, talk to me or even with the way you acknowledge the fact that I exist, I go into a spiral. I don’t want to feel this way, I don’t want to look at you and think how it would be like to be loved and needed by you. I don’t want to think anything other than how wonderful it is for me to have such a good friend, I don’t even want to think about how you look under the sunlight with eyes full of love and hands full of affection, when it’s not even me those are directed at.
It's not like I don’t think you love me; I do know that you love me but it kind of hurts knowing that your sincere romantic feelings won’t ever be directed at me. You love me, entirely platonic, and I should just be happy with that considering months ago I wasn’t even on the list of people you knew existed. Yet, I'm not happy, not even close to it.
I try to think about a parallel universe where you know I have these maddening feelings for you and only you. Where you know that you’re the most important thing in my life and if I ever lose you, it would be like losing myself, completely harrowing and stripping me out of every feeling and everything that makes me a human being. I think about you knowing, yet in that universe you don’t run away. You stay, even though you can never return those feelings.
But nothing works that way,
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September 2018
Am I just stupid?
Staying in this friendship is proving to be a harder thing than I supposed.
I thought that if I got close enough, enough to know what it would be like to be something to you, I wouldn’t want more. But that’s exactly what happened. I want more and more every time you say I love you to me, not knowing the damage it does to my already in shambles heart.
Can I do this? Can I stay in this friendship fully aware of what I can become by simply wanting more and not getting enough? It’s a complicated situation that even I can’t wrap my head around. I want to stay away from you so that I know what it’s like to be without you, even though I was once without you. However, I can’t seem to recall those days as if they evaporated when I met you.
I want to stay away from you, but I don’t ever want to not be with you.
Would you call me crazy if you knew what I was thinking when I space out while we’re on your couch studying a test we know we can’t pass?
But then again, I love you knowing I can’t get you, so it seems like I'm doing things that are counterproductive all the time.
Maybe you wouldn’t call me crazy, maybe you would just laugh, hug me and tell me it’s going to be all okay.
But nothing works that way,
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December 2018
You cried today.
You and your girlfriend had a fight and broke up, you showed up at my house looking defeated, so I held you while you cried your eyes out until I realized you were really in love with her.
Besides not being a good thing to realize after all the times I’ve been around you both, the one thing I ignored to find out came back to bite me in the ass.
I thought I would be happy, ecstatic and maybe over the moon to hear that you broke up, but I was the opposite of that. I was happy you were happy after all.
You just cried, I didn’t talk, you didn’t talk either. I asked, “Are you okay?” you answered, “No” even though I already knew you weren’t okay. I said, “You will be” and I meant it. You would be happy, but would you be happy enough? I tried to convince myself that I would make you better, wouldn’t leave your side so that you never feel lonely and remember her. Unfortunately, I’m not capable.
Should I be happy now that you’re available?
Something in me says yes, maybe this is my chance at getting closer to you, closer than friends. However, you’re still unavailable for me. Impossible, unattainable. Almost as if we’re the sun and the moon, fire and water, always around and close to one another but never together.
Today when you fell asleep in my arms after crying, I fell asleep trying to imagine us together, a future where you loved me like I loved you but not nearly as much.
In the dream, when I looked into the mirror, I saw her.
Nothing works anyways.
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February 2019
Am I delusional?
The answer is yes. It's been months since you broke up with her, you’re now happy. Well, happy as much as I can make you and I assume it’s not as much as she made you. But you seem happy about that as well. Even when I'm your friend and making you happy is my duty, you don’t say I'm not enough. I appreciate that, mostly because if I ever heard those words coming out of your mouth, I don’t even know what I would do.
It's been months since you became available, not for me obviously and I became delusional in these months. Normally, I accepted the title you have given me, being friends with you was a blessing but now it’s a nightmare. I want you around all the time, I don’t ever want you gone like a baby that didn’t learn object permanence, even when you’re gone for a second a reminder pops up in my head that says ‘he’s gone, get used to it’ but I know I won’t ever get used to not being with you.
I cry myself to sleep every night, who’s to say you won’t find another ‘her’ or you won’t get together with her? You're permanent in my life but I can’t seem to get it in my head that I'm not permanent in yours.
I crossed the dangerous line of imagining, now I can picture us together. I hold your hand, you look at me like I was the missing puzzle of your life this whole time. I say, “I love you” and you say it back. But it’s dangerous, not because I would want more. I’ve been wanting more this whole time, what is dangerous is that I can’t differentiate imagination and reality. Sometimes I wake up with you beside me, I get confused and hug you. You say nothing as you hug me back, but I know it’s because you’re too kind to say something. Sometimes when you’re in the kitchen cooking us something, I hug you from behind but again, you say nothing as you laugh and tell me not to distract you or else, we’d be eating burnt food. But I know it’s not because I have the power to distract you as I have the power of a dust particle that flies around the room aimlessly, it’s because you confuse me with her. You've been doing that a lot lately. You don’t say her name or anything, but the way your face looks tells me you didn’t mean what you just said or did because you only got confused.
Perhaps, I'm not really confused, I'm just trying to make my dreams come true by pretending everything is real. Maybe the only one confused here is you, and I'm pretending to be confused to justify my actions.
Either way, I know what I'm doing is wrong and it’s kind of taking advantage of your situation and I don’t ever want to hurt you knowingly or unknowingly. I'll stop.
Nothing works anyways.
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April 2019
I'm trying.
I'm trying my fucking best to put some distance between us, but it doesn’t work.
Today Soobin told me that you were worried I was ignoring you, which is not true. I'm just not taking every chance to hug you or hold your hand, it’s extremely difficult but I think it’s what’s best for you and me. If I keep doing those things, I won’t be able to remember how you really feel and I will put a meaning behind every little thing that you do or say to me. But you don’t know that.
Soobin told me that you were happy I started showing physical affection towards you, that you felt like I was finally comfortable enough to show my love towards you like that. I can understand that, I really do understand that. However, you don’t understand or know anything about my genuine feelings. If I get too close, I won’t get enough, I will want more like I've been doing this whole time.
It's embarrassing really, I am reaching my breaking point without anyone realizing that my feelings for my best friend are really overwhelming me and it’s getting harder to be around him.
Why did it had to be you?
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June 2019
I don’t feel good.
It's been a whole month of feeling sick, fainting and losing appetite to realize something is really wrong with me. I'm stressed, overwhelmed, overthinking, sad all the damn time and I just want to run away from everything.
Even you.
Especially you.
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July 2019
I haven’t seen you in two weeks.
Do I feel better? No.
Do I miss you? Terribly.
Did you try absolutely anything to reach me or see me? Yes.
Did I give you excuses and unsatisfactory answers? Yes.
I'm not proud of it, but at this rate I can’t seem to bring myself to see you.
I’m weak. I look in the mirror and see someone else. A stranger almost. It's like withdrawal. Withdrawal from a drug. The drug here is you.
I didn’t mention how I was feeling because I thought you would be worried, even though you can’t read these. It’s funny, I'm lovesick. It’s hilarious.
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October 2019
I don’t know why any of these are happening.
I just wanted you to love me back, was that too much to ask?
I almost want to say you’re a bad person for taking my heart but not giving yours, however I know that if you knew any of these, you would try everything in your power to turn back those feelings. You're a really good person and maybe that’s the reason why I feel like shit. I don’t deserve you and I know it.
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November 2019
What would I do if I could turn back?
Turn back to the day I first saw you.
I wouldn’t look at you, I wouldn’t fall in love with you. You have no idea how much it hurts to keep loving you.
My body keeps rejecting the idea of staying away from you or staying close to you. I don’t know what to do. It almost seems like I'm blessed and cursed by you.
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January 2020
It's been four months since I last saw you.
I know you’re sad, I can feel it in my bones. Soobin keeps on calling me, trying to convince me to see you, even though I already said there was nothing wrong. There is something wrong, more than one thing. Kai keeps on sending me funny things, almost blowing up my phone, to see if I'm going to laugh or send something funny back. I try to do exactly that to not worry him. Taehyun keeps on talking to me and not mentioning you as if nothing happened, to see if I'm going to open up to him but I don’t.
And you.
You keep on texting me about what you did that day and ask me questions as if I'm not ignoring you.
I'm ignoring you; I'm ignoring myself too. A part of me says I should be right by your side commenting about the things you text me about.
I don’t even recognize myself anymore, I look in the mirror and see someone I never knew that one day could identify as myself, Beomgyu. The foods I could never get enough of taste like cardboard and ink. That one class I loved so much that I would literally run to, I don’t go anymore. My legs that won so many leg wrestling matches get tired when I'm walking from my bedroom to the bathroom and collapse right there in front of the sink. My eyes that you loved so much and complimented at any given chance, are now always wet and puffy. Sometimes I can’t even see straight, it almost feels like I'm blind, but I know I'm not when I see us smiling from the picture on my nightstand.
Maybe I'm seriously ill, not only lovesick but fatally ill.
But I don’t even know if I want to get better and live.
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March 2020
Today I woke up in the middle of the bathroom floor, covered in my own vomit.
I don’t remember what happened and how I got there but when I started sobbing out of nowhere, I knew for sure my body knew what happened, but my brain didn’t.
My own body is betraying me, every part of me is pathetic and I don’t even want to tell you how long I sat in my own vomit, sobbing.
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May 2020
It's getting harder to remember.
It's getting harder to form sentences.
It's getting harder to do simple things like getting up from bed.
It's getting harder to breathe, I do that only for you.
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August 2020
If I had to describe my last year, I would say constant headaches, being pathetic, being miserable, being useless even to myself. I can’t even form a correct sentence now.
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October 2020
I don’t think I can live like this Yeonjun, I know you’re sad enough, and I don’t want to make you any sadder than you are right now, but I don’t think there is more for me in this lifetime.
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December 2020
I'll always love you but I'm in constant pain. I'm going insane, I'm not even Beomgyu anymore. I'm someone else. I don’t think you would like him. I love you, Yeonjun. But you don’t love me back and maybe it’s okay.
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Life is hilarious, Yeonjun.
You have all these years and all these people living in the same lifetime as you, but you want to live and grow old with one person. It's amazing when they love you back, but it’s terrifying when they don’t.
Loving someone is an incredible feeling, being loved by someone is an entirely different feeling. I've never felt loved by someone.
My whole life I loved people more than they loved me. My dad left my mom for someone else and left me for their kid. If he loved me as much as I loved him, would he even leave me?
My mom, whom I adored, lived with me until I was twelve years old. I wanted to be with her all my life, she was such a constant and I was so afraid of losing her. At that time, I was sick, and my mom used to work two jobs to keep me alive. Every night when we went to bed, cuddling so tight, I would tell her I loved her, she would cry herself to sleep. I later found out about her mental health problems. Later found out she was trying to kill me every night but felt guilty and terrible for trying something like that every time I said I love you to her.
Would she try to kill me if she loved me as much as I loved her? Why would my love for her weigh her down so much so that she would cry a river every night if she loved me as much as I loved her?
I never felt loved by someone in my life, I've always loved and loved until I had nothing to give.
But you loved me, you loved me as much as I loved you, but not in the way I wanted. I wish I could take my desires for your love back, I wish I was just content with you loving me and caring for me as a friend, but I'm not. I feel suffocated under your love, because I’m not who you think I am. I deceived you, made you think I was your best friend when all I was doing was getting closer to you just so that I could love you a little more. Can you forgive me? Maybe you’re too angry at me, too upset with me to even think about forgiveness but can you forgive me later? I love you, and I am so happy I got the chance to get to know you in this life because I loved you even more.
I know you. I know you are coming to my place at night. You don’t knock, you just look at the door for a while and leave. Is it because you know I’m never going to open the door? I know you created a scenario in your head that, me not opening the door must mean I don’t care for you anymore, yet I cannot seem to bring myself to let you in and explain that it has nothing to do with that. I love you too much to open the door and let you see the worst version of me.
Life is miserable, Yeonjun. I had all these years, 23 of them, but I only enjoyed living it when I met you. And only after 3 years, my life is coming close to an end. I didn’t spend enough time with you, I didn’t tell you ‘I love you’ enough, I didn’t love you nearly enough.
Life is really miserable, Yeonjun, because as I’m writing this letter to you, I feel defeated. I feel all those 23 years on my shoulders telling me to let it go, telling me to just leave. And I think I am going to listen. I will leave this town, this city, my friends, everything that I know and most importantly, you. Soobin, Taehyun, Kai, they’ve all been through so much because of me. I’m aware of the damage that I have done. Every day, waking up and getting worried all over again because you don’t know how your best friend is. Maybe it would’ve been better if I just told them I wasn’t fine, if I showed them I wasn’t fine, but I am sure they will try to save me, and when that doesn’t work, they will blame themselves forever. I am beyond saving.
Do not blame yourself for anything. I did this to myself, Yeonjun. I knew loving you would be my downfall, and always wanting more would be my end.
I love you.
Beomgyu.