Thank god it had been Youngbin's father that knocked on the door in the morning instead of his mother. William Lee poked his head in, had let out an amused sigh, a gentle "Good Morning" when Youngbin finally pried his eyes open and lifted his head a bit.

"Slept well?" The man spoke with his voice lowered to not wake up Alex, who was still knocked out on the mattress next to Youngbin. Youngbin nodded, slowly, yes, he actually had. For the first time in a week or so.

Maybe it was because he was so incredibly tired and exhausted that his body couldn't help but shut down, or maybe it was because he wasn't alone that night, but he certainly had a good sleep. He hadn't even dreamed, or at least couldn't remember if he did, which was a good sign, actually.

"You can come down to get breakfast, if you'd like," Youngbin's father said, before flashing another fond smile, and closing the door again.

Youngbin exhaled, stretched his arms as he sat up. Then he looked at Alex, who was still peacefully sleeping. He didn't even look like Alex. There was no sharpness left in his face now, none of that carefully curated edge, just messy hair and a slight pout and lashes resting on his cheeks, eyes that began moving a little underneath the lids before they finally fluttered open. And when those eyes met Youngbin's, they widened a bit, before darting through the room.

"Fuck," muttered Alex, his voice lower than usual, raspier, "You scared the shit out of me."

"I didn't do anything?"

"You fucking stared at me until I woke up?"

"I looked at you? Once."

Alex blinked slowly, still looking at everything in this room except for Youngbin. He stretched out his arms in front of him, then let them fall down again and crossed them behind his head as he closed his eyes once more.

"You looked at me and I woke up. What does that say about you?"

"What does that say about you?" Youngbin furrowed his brows. "Light sleeper?"

"Well, usually I'm not." Alex cleared his throat, turned his head to the side to no longer face Youngbin.

"But you are today?"

"I didn't really- sleep that well, to be honest. But it's fine."

"Oh. I'm sorry. Should I have given you more pillows?"

And then Alex didn't say anything for a few seconds, rather it looked as though he held his breath. Then, slowly, he said: "I guess, yeah. Don't worry about it though." And something about him seemed a little sad. Youngbin didn't like that, but there wasn't much he could do about that. Except maybe reach out to him again, like he'd done yesterday, and take his hand. Youngbin decided not to do it though.

"Uhm, dad said we can get breakfast, by the way. Just came in."

"And he didn't care about the, you know, being in the same bed thing?"

"Well." Youngbin shrugged, pulled himself up on his bed frame to stand and stretch his legs a little. "He doesn't look like he cares. Maybe just not tell my mother."

"Yeah, I don't think I will-" Alex cleared his throat, his voice sounding a little less hoarse. "And, uhm- You didn't mind either?"

"My fault for falling asleep on your mattress, I suppose. It was quite comfortable to me- Sorry about the pillows again."

"N-no worries."

Youngbin sat back down on his own bed, cold and untouched since last night, and he bounced a bit as he fell onto the still perfectly folded sheets. Really, he'd expected it to be- weirder? Worse? More stomach twisting to sleep next to Alex? But back then he didn't really care all that much, being much too tired to care about anything anymore, and when he had just woken up and seen Alex first thing, it was just, well.

A pleasant view. A comforting sight. Nothing that made him feel sick, or wrong, or strange, just a friend that had spent the evening with him, just someone he could trust, just someone he felt so very safe around. Alex had started to feel a lot like Kaya. Safe. A part of Youngbin's life.

It was a shame that Alex hadn't seemed to have woken up with that same feeling of familiarity.

"I think I'll go home early today. Uhm, it's gonna rain later, I think, so I should probably be home before that." Alex kicked his blanket away, revealing his outfit consisting of a pair of very dad-looking pants along with a strangely, but strangely attractively fitting shirt. On Youngbin, that shirt was quite oversized. On Alex, though- Well, it certainly looked good on him. But what didn’t look good on him?

“Well, there’s exactly one bus from here to the city centre and it… goes at 11-something, I believe?”

“And what time is it right now?”

Youngbin shrugged as he searched his pockets - his pyjamas didn’t have any - for his phone, then cleared his throat. “If I had a clock in my room, I could’ve told you.”

“Guess I can walk home then.” Alex rubbed his eyes, and the fact that he had talked about leaving before even agreeing to have breakfast hurt Youngbin a little. “Probably before it starts raining, though.”

It wasn’t really supposed to rain anytime before noon, and Youngbin could certainly tell that it wasn’t noon just yet, and wouldn’t be for quite a while. But who knew how long he’d have to walk.

“That’s a shame,” Youngbin finally said out loud, and Alex froze up for a couple of seconds before something seemed to soften up a little. “I get bored on Saturdays, I quite honestly wouldn’t mind if you, you know, kept me company or something?”

How unusual of Youngbin to say this. He wasn’t the type for company. Not in his free time, not on weekends, not with anyone that wasn’t Kaya. And even Kaya keeping him company, in person, outside of school and on weekdays, wasn’t always as relaxing as maybe it should have been. But keeping Alex around today was. Or it would’ve been.

“Well, I guess I’d love to keep you company, but-“ He cleared his throat and Youngbin could tell that something was on his mind, he simply hadn’t figured out just yet what it was, and why it was. “I don’t know, sorry, I-“

“You don’t have to,” Youngbin quickly added. “You haven’t slept well so it’s probably best to recharge at home, I get that, but I’m just saying, if you were to stay for a little longer, I’d be fine with it. I’d be happy.” I’d be happy to welcome you here, was what Youngbin wanted to say, but then it stuck like that, with “I’d be happy”, because quite frankly, he’d be happy. He was happy. What a crazy damn thing. Youngbin was happy.

He kind of forgot what it was like to feel- well. To be okay at the moment. To have someone around you, to have a friend, to meet a person that was good to one. And then there was a kind of sadness peeking through, not enough to make him feel unwell, but it certainly was flashing through that happiness.

He had missed so much. He had found one friend, years ago, and he stuck to her and nobody else forever. Everyone except her, except Kaya, was an enemy of sorts, a danger, and she was the only one, and then there was Alex. Now Youngbin realised how much joy he could’ve had if people just liked him a little more, and hated him a little less, and he could’ve found a couple more friends.

But, really, he didn’t even need any more friends, he just needed Kaya and Alex. Maybe Alex’ friends. They were kind. He thought of Margo, and of Lani, and maybe even Min, maybe there was some chance that one day they could be Youngbin’s friends as well. Maybe. And if there wasn’t, it’d be fine, because there were Kaya and Alex, and they were enough. They were more than he had ever expected.

“Guess I’m gonna have to stay for breakfast, then?” Alex sounded a little softer now, a little less tense, and he smiled, finally, although it wasn’t that bright one that Youngbin usually saw on him. Tired, probably, he was too tired to smile, which was okay, because Youngbin was frequently too tired to smile. But it was the first time he’d seen it on Alex, and perhaps deep down, it worried Youngbin.

Alex’ eyes had lit up as soon as he took a look at the breakfast table that Youngbin’s mother had prepared. Scrambled eggs and bacon and bread and cheese and all the good things, and Youngbin knew that Alex didn’t usually have breakfast as lavishly as this. Neither had Youngbin, actually, he rarely had breakfast in the first place, but his mother would always put her entire soul into the food whenever anyone was over.

And after a hefty portion of egg, Alex looked much more alive. Enough to help do the dishes, then put the mattress in Youngbin’s room back into the storage where it belonged, and to compete with Sohee in one round of arm wrestling, one that took terrifyingly long, and that Alex just barely won.

Awake enough to walk home as well, to grab his things, though he admittedly didn’t have many things with him in the first place, and walk that pretty long walk home. And then, Youngbin was kind of left alone once again, on a Saturday out of all days. And after helping his mother in the kitchen, and getting a hesitant pat on the back, paired with a "He's quite nice, I suppose", Youngbin was back in his own room, which began to feel a little empty, lonely even, once more.

After that usual Saturday ritual of throwing himself onto his bed and turning on some music, he was about to simply lay there and let depressing lyric after depressing lyric infiltrate his brain as he was being swallowed by boredom and yearning for something he couldn't quite pin down. But, this Saturday, he decided against it.

Instead of letting his phone slip out of his hand to stare at empty walls, he kept it there, in front of his face, as he remembered something.

Without thinking much, because for some reason he'd do that a little less lately anyways, he pressed a button that he swore to never touch again a couple of months ago, and just like that, Instagram was installing itself back onto his phone.

What was his password again? What even was his username? How could he even be sure that his account still existed? After wiggling his fingers over the keyboard for a while, he finally typed something in that he vaguely remembered to be his password, and just like that-

He was back in. The feed took a little to load in, and then the first pictures began to appear on his screen. He never followed many people, usually celebrities, then Kaya, of course, and a couple of people from theatre class-

He squinted. The layout of the app had changed again. Profile pictures had changed. Usernames as well. Who were all these people again? Youngbin sighed, scrolled down for a couple of seconds just to be hit with the first ad almost instantly. Yeah. It looked as though there had been more reasons to delete the app other than the whole bullying thing.

A red dot blinked in the upper corner. Youngbin dared to tap on it, again, because he didn't seem to think much about his actions anymore, at least not tonight, and the music that his playlist was spitting out fittingly got more dramatic as he was greeted with masses of old message requests, some names he recognized, others seemed to be burner accounts.

He decided to not scroll down, the few messages he could see in the preview were enough, really.

Ah, a slur. Was that a "kys" he had spotted? Whatever. Sent three months ago. Youngbin ignored them. He felt like he was able to do that today. Ignore message request after message request. All of them were old, except for maybe three. Some homophobia, some more homophobia, and-

Now Youngbin tumbled out of his detached trance, his brain finally read, and more importantly, processed the words on screen. A request from five days ago. "so yea just thought i s...". That was all the preview showed him. That, and the account name. zhngdmn. What looked like a keysmash for a second soon turned into a recognizable name, paired with the profile picture showing a familiar face. Zhang Demian.

And now, Youngbin's finger moved by itself as he tapped on the chat and was welcomed by multiple messages.

» hi youngbin hope this isnt weird but ur account showed up in my suggestions and ur profile pic is crazy pretty lol

just wanted to ask if its okay to request? since ur on priv but i kinda wanna see ur other pics

ur cute and u know ur angles tbh

so yea just thought i should check in with u first lol «

What the fuck.

That counted as flirting, didn't it? Demian had the audacity to flirt with someone that was taken? Well, Youngbin wasn't really taken, so it didn't really matter, but Demian didn't know that, he didn't know that Youngbin's reddening face wasn't actual emotional cheating or whatever it was called.

Or maybe it wasn't flirting, Youngbin didn't really know what exactly flirting looked like anyway, maybe he was just being nice, but someone being nice alone made Youngbin flustered most of the time. Probably couldn't hurt to accept his message request, and then subsequently accept the follow request, for no reason in particular. Probably couldn't hurt to tap on Demian's profile either and just look over some of his posts really quick.

He knew his angles. If there was a person that knew how to look good in pictures, it was Demian. In fact, his pictures weren't even regular selfies, but rather seemed like they were his full time job. Full body shots of outfits in high fashion poses with filters and fitting backgrounds and brands tagged in the caption and hundreds of likes. Comments of a couple of verified users, heart eye emojis, drooling emojis, fire emojis, single words like "hot" and "slay" and "king" and "omg". It probably was a full time job.

And he did his job really damn well. So well that Youngbin’s stomach turned a couple of times looking at those pictures. He was hot. And now he was following Youngbin and had access to all those grainy pictures of Youngbin from half a year ago. He decided to not follow back, he didn’t need to see Demian’s perfectly staged fashion shots and his two coloured eyes gazing at him with such a sultry model look. He didn’t need that at all.

Instead, finally, he remembered what he installed that damn app for in the first place. Quickly, he typed in a different account name, and Alex came up instantly. He'd given Youngbin his username before leaving when he had reminded him of the singing videos, said "And don't look at my pictures too closely!" and Youngbin hadn't been too sure if he meant that seriously.

Alex had a decent chunk less followers than Demian, but he still had a lot, like, a lot, and Youngbin wasn't really sure where they all came from. Regardless, he became one of them. Aside from the number displayed on top of his profile, Alex' and Demian's accounts couldn't have looked more different at first sight.

One was curated and clean and certainly had a colour scheme going on, a layout of sorts. Outfit picture, outfit picture, inspirational quote, outfit picture, outfit picture, aesthetically pleasing breakfast shot, outfit picture- There was an edge to Demian's account, definitely, but it was oddly brand friendly.

Nothing about Alex had ever been brand friendly, and neither had this social media account. He still knew how to pose, still showed off outfits, still put a worrying amount of work into the pictures he posted, but the vibe was very different. Maybe a little less shallow and a little more honest- as honest as Alex could be in public.

He'd mentioned that it'd take a good long scroll through Alex' account to find any videos of him, but Youngbin was determined to find them, after all, that was the only reason he installed that app again in the first place. And Alex had a lot of pictures on his account.

Of himself, and of his friends, and of the woods and the sky and street signs and graffiti and his tattoos on his lower arm, and his upper arm, and his shoulders, and on his chest-

Youngbon's thumb moved over the screen a little faster when that showed up, scrolling away, quickly, he didn't need to see that, didn't need to see Alex showing off a tattoo on his naked chest. Ah. But Youngbin did kind of want to see it. The tattoo, that was, not his-

He still scrolled past it, no time to look at that, to look at any of the other pictures. Youngbin was looking for something. And as he was looking, the feed slowly changed a bit, gradually the colours changed, and so did the backgrounds of his pictures. It seemed as though posts were missing, he'd gone weeks without posting anything- or perhaps he had simply deleted whatever happened at that time. And then, something very noticeable changed.

Suddenly, Alex' hair was curly again, still bleached, still a little crispy looking, but at least no longer straightened, and a couple of posts later, they had reverted back to their natural state: black and curly and very unfamiliar. But quite pretty.

Youngbin scrolled further, looked at pictures that were a year old, that looked nothing like Alex, because for one they didn’t have his signature grey hair, and also they- well. Alex didn’t look like Alex in his own pictures because Youngbin now knew what Alex was supposed to look like. And the real Alex looked very different from the public Alex. Youngbin had started to forget that.

After a couple more pictures, none of them looking like Alex, Youngbin finally hit what he had been looking for. A video, its thumbnail showing a curly haired Alex sitting in front of a white wall, an acoustic guitar in his lap. Posted one year and five months ago, simply captioned “desert song”.

Youngbin tapped on the video, and it started with Alex clearing his throat, then smiling at the camera, quickly but genuinely, and there he looked a little more like himself. Then, he played. Then, he sang.

Alex’ voice was smooth when he spoke, but it was smoother when he sang. He sounded careful at first, a bit quiet, the first few notes being low and probably hard to reach. Until he reached what Youngbin assumed to be the chorus, and very suddenly, a desperation overcame Alex’ voice.

Louder, higher, almost painful. Alex belted out notes that sometimes seemed off, didn’t quite fit or harmonise or sound right, and yet they sounded perfectly intentional, and incredibly hard to pull off that way. Every crack and every imperfection and every weirdness was a perfect display of emotions and pain and tiredness and rage and so damn much desperation.

Alex sounded so good, and it twisted something within Youngbin, but it was different from those many times before. He wasn’t sure what it was, and he didn’t feel like he needed to figure it out, but instead let it happen, because that song sounded as though it wanted you to twist and turn.

Then it was over, Alex looked up, smiled at the camera, and leaned forward to turn it off. Youngbin exhaled. There was a heaviness within him now, as though those odd tones and pained notes had left him longing for something, maybe for whatever the lyrics of that song were longing for as well. Though Youngbin hadn't quite listened to the words Alex actually sung enough to figure out what that was.

So he was tempted to maybe listen to it a second time, but something instead redirected his fingers to scroll down just a bit, and open the comments. Most of them were written by one person, Margo, he figured that out after quickly tapping on the profile to check, and they were all quite encouraging.

"LETS GOOOOOOO VOCAL KING" "KILLING IT" "EVERYONE WANTS YOU!!!!!!" "GET IT EMO BOY!!!!!!"

Youngbin scrolled further. There were some names he didn't recognize, commenting those same few emojis, just like there had been plenty underneath Demian's posts. And then, Leia? A comment from Leia, probably, judging by the account name. From a year and five months ago, long before they had ever started dating.

"this is sooo good omg", and then a reply from Alex: "thx :D"

So they'd been friends before, for quite a long while even. Or at least acquaintances. And right underneath Leia's comment, zhngdmn, leaving praise. "dude ur a rockstar that was so good", and a reply from Alex, "ik ;P".

Youngbin blinked, then checked the account name again. Was that actually Alex? And was he actually replying to Demian, who he claimed to always have hated, who was slimy and an asshole and who should never be talked to? Well, it seemed like it.

Now, Youngbin wasn't a nosy person, he liked to stick to his own business, didn't feel the need to dig around in people's relations, especially not one and a half year old relations, but, maybe, for some reason, Alex' business was a little interesting, and so was Demian's, and if these businesses had crossed at some point, he really wanted to know how and why.

So Youngbin scrolled a little further. More pictures of Alex with his hair looking natural and soft and healthy, posing with Lani and Margo and Min and Wayne and a bunch of people Youngbin had never seen. Those older pictures had less likes, less comments, and if they did, it was Margo who'd spammed Alex with compliments, or insults, depending on the picture. Sometimes, depending on who was tagged in the post, he'd get a single emoji reply, or some kind of inside joke. No Demian, though.

So Youngbin scrolled back up, one year and five months ago, one year and three months ago, eleven months ago- Ah. A video at that old gym Youngbin had visited with Alex a while ago. Alex throwing a basketball at the hoop with his eyes closed, and missing spectacularly. And in the comments, between Margo calling him a loser, was one more word.

"hot", written by Demian. Hot? Demian was saying that about Alex? He wasn't wrong, of course, but- Demian thought Alex was hot? And now they hated each other's guts, apparently? How were they calling eachother hot a year ago?

Youngbin scrolled up further. When had that stopped, and when had Demian started leaving insults in Alex’ comments instead? Or maybe it was one of those 'hating each other but also being attracted to each other' things, though Youngbin was pretty sure that only fictional characters could actually feel like this.

Demian wasn't really to be seen anywhere after that comment, and now Youngbin remembered that Alex did in fact start dating Demian's sister, so perhaps commenting on one's sister's boyfriend's Instagram posts wasn't the move. And perhaps that, Alex and Leia getting together, was the thing that made Demian hate Alex. And if someone hated Alex, he'd probably just hate back.

Youngbin now realised that he kind of mindlessly scrolled through pictures of Alex like it was a morning paper, and he hadn't even looked at the pictures properly, just searched the comments for any hint of whatever. Cyberstalking wasn't a boyfriend thing to do, wasn't it? And neither was it a friend thing to do. He shouldn't have to comb through someone's social media in order to find something out about them, he could've really just asked. But Youngbin wasn't the kind of person to ask much, he'd already established that, and also, of course, he wasn't nosy, not that much, not usually.

So he closed the app, put his phone down and- and what? What was he supposed to do now? It was quiet in his room once more, but Alex' voice still echoed in the back of Youngbin's head. With a sigh, he picked up the phone once more, now opened Spotify, and after some hesitation, typed in: "Desert Song"

Chapter 13 - desert song

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