Kaya sat on the floor in front of Youngbin’s dirty mirror, tapping her makeup brush against her eyelid, leaving a sparkling blue stain. She opened the eye, turned her head a bit, leaned closer to the mirror and continued the procedure. Blue pigment drizzled off her brush with every dab, landing on her long skirt, or Youngbin’s floor.

He watched her, his favourite woollen blanket draped around his shoulders.

“Are you sure you don’t wanna come along?” She didn’t lift her gaze from the mirror, though disappointment was written all over her face.

“I’m not really a party guy.”

“Well, it’s not really a party. That’d imply drinking and doing drugs and making out in a stranger's bedroom. And also red plastic cups. Also this thing closes at midnight, so hardly a party. At least not compared to the kind of stuff the, you know, popular kids are calling a party.”

Truth was, the annual halloween event organised by the Rosebury Cultural and Artistic Committee had never been particularly exciting. Though they had good food and a relatively well done costume contest, attendance had always been pretty low. Because why would one come to an event called RCAC HALLOWEEN BLAST if one could just get shitfaced drunk in Min’s basement?

Well, Youngbin and Kaya usually did attend, at least until the costume contest was over, and then they’d leave and cuddle up and watch trashy ghost hunting shows. Halloween was the event of the year for the two friends, and had been since they first met.

But this year, for the first time ever, it wasn’t really all that exciting.

Kaya was going to win the costume contest, probably, because she always won at least something, and this year, Youngbin wouldn’t be there to congratulate her. Instead, he’d stay home. And regret everything.

“I feel bad for just leaving you here, though.” Kaya sighed, put her brush down to finally look at Youngbin. “Especially in the… Well, the situation you’re in.”

The situation being the breakup. The breakup that wasn’t actually a real breakup, but then ended up feeling kind of a lot like one after the… conversation Youngbin and Alex had the day prior.

Kaya had obviously figured it out. Not all of it, not what actually happened, but the fact that Youngbin and Alex no longer were together, she’d figured it out quickly. And thankfully, she’d decided to not ask any questions, because Youngbin wasn’t sure he could make up any answers right now.

“I’ll be fine. I’m gonna just binge Ghost Files tonight or something.” Youngbin cleared his throat.

“Well, now I feel even worse!” Kaya’s frown grew. “I’m going to a stupid costume contest when I could watch Ghost Files with you instead!”

“No, Kaya! Come on, you’ve been preparing that costume for so long, you should go! Honestly, I’m just sorry I’m… ruining halloween? Like it’s kind of the highlight of the year and now I’m just- Not really functioning.” Youngbin pulled his blanket closer, avoiding Kaya’s expression that grew more worried with every word he spoke. “You deserve to go out and have fun and not worry about me for a second, okay?”

“I’m gonna be worrying about you every second I’m there.”

“Well, I’m not allowing you to.”

“I’m gonna do it anyways.”

“You’re not going to, because I’ll be mad at you then.”

“Then you’ll have to be mad at me.” Alex would’ve begged Youngbin to not be mad. But Alex wasn’t here. “I don’t wanna leave you rotting here.”

“Come on, I’m not-” He was rotting, kind of. “-I’m fine on my own. I can have fun all by myself, you know!”

Kaya rolled her eyes, went back to applying her makeup. She was dressing up as a siren this year, had practised the makeup look a dozen times.

“You’re not really the kind of person to have fun by himself, I’m going to be honest.”

“I also have Dan,” Youngbin quickly added.

“Oh, yeah, because Nighttime Dan is known for his riveting commentary when watching ghost hunting videos.”

“His silent presence alone is enough to comfort me.”

“Youngbin, I don’t mind staying here with you tonight. I’m serious. I owe you some- something, I guess.” Her brush froze in the air as she pressed her lips together for a second, then she turned back around to face Youngbin. “I don’t think I’ve been a very good friend lately.”

Youngbin raised his eyebrows. “Oh?”

“I just- Throughout that whole relationship thing- Well, no, I don’t think I’ve been a super good friend for a while now. Like, in general. Even before Alex.” She cleared her throat, cast her gaze down. “I’ve been pretending to know what’s good for you, and then the one time you do the opposite of what I want you to do, you actually start being… happy? Or at least kind of happy.”

Kaya now pulled her legs to her chest, resting her arms on her knees. The metallic blue fabric of her skirt stretched and shifted its hue to something greenish. A pretty skirt. It’d been expensive. Youngbin didn’t want Kaya to not wear it out today.

“Like I just always wanted you- both of us to be as invisible as possible so nobody bothers us, and it kind of made you miserable, but I always thought that you’d be even worse if there was even more attention on you. Life may be boring like that, but at least people are leaving you alone, you know? But- Well, people didn’t leave you alone anyways. I wanted you to be safe, and then I ended up kind of locking you in a cage? I’m no better than your mom.”

Youngbin wanted to speak up and disagree. But- No, he wasn’t going to blame her. He wasn’t going to be mad at her, call her a bad friend, after all, she was the one to know Youngbin the best. She’d never want to harm him. But maybe she’d done so regardless.

“I’m not- trying to side with Alex, at all, but I’ve watched you be unhappy for years and then you spend your time with someone that isn’t me for once and suddenly you change and grow and- I realised that maybe it’s me. Maybe I was the problem.”

“Without you,” Youngbin began, inhaling deeply, “I wouldn’t be- I don’t know if I’d function. I’d be even more of a shell of a person than I already am. Kaya, you’ve been my only friend for years because I felt like I’d never ever meet anyone that gets me like you do. I never thought I’d need anyone else.”

“But you do need someone else.”

Maybe he did, kind of.

“But that doesn’t mean I need you any less.”

“Don’t say it like that.” Kaya sighed, her eyes darting through the room as though to avoid looking at Youngbin. “If you make me cry now, I need to redo my whole makeup and I don’t have much time anymore.”

“I’m not trying to make you cry, I’m just trying to say thank you somehow.” Because she knew, thank you was hard to say when one was supposed to put so much emotion into two little words. Of course Kaya knew that. Because Kaya had in fact figured out every part of Youngbin’s scattered brain.

“I still- I think I wasn’t the best friend to you lately, though. I mean, doesn’t matter if I can’t stand Alex, I shouldn’t have- you know, been such an asshole about him, just because I was jealous of him.” So she was. Youngbin was right. “Though, I guess it doesn’t matter now, since he’s your, you know. Ex. But I still feel like I shouldn’t be an asshole about him.”

Right. He was his ex. His ex boyfriend. Youngbin pressed his lips together. Boyfriend had never felt like the right word. Ex boyfriend felt even more wrong now.

Kaya turned back to the mirror and continued to work on her makeup. Youngbin sank further into his blanket as he watched her, and tried to really just not think about it. About what exactly? About it. All of it. Alex and every single emotion that came with him. Every unwanted thought that’d popped into his head for the past month and a half.

Of course he couldn’t not think about it, though, because the memory of Alex and the way he broke underneath his own confession haunted Youngbin.

It couldn’t possibly have been true. Those feelings that he claimed to have lost a fight against couldn’t be real. Youngbin didn’t want them to be real. Youngbin didn’t know what he wanted to be real anymore.

“Kaya?” Words came out of his mouth without his brain's permission. “Do you ever feel like- Do you ever think that your problems could be solved if only you changed one thing, and then you change it, and nothing really happens at all?”

“Well, no.” Kaya leaned closer to her reflection in the mirror as she dabbed glitter on her cheeks. “Because changing one thing never really solves a problem. You usually have to do a lot of things to solve something. Maybe-” Now she carefully placed little gems on her face. “Maybe a big change sets things in motion to then… Like, change a lot more little things, and then maybe that makes things better. But just making one big step isn’t the solution, you gotta take a lot more little steps after… Also- I’m not really one to change anything at all about my life, so I wouldn’t know anything about that experience either.”

Youngbin stayed silent, and tried to think about the implications of that, that one thing wasn’t enough to make things better, but trying to come up with more things to change hurt his brain. Not that it hadn’t been hurting since yesterday.

“What exact problem were you trying to solve by breaking up with Alex?”

Everything.

“I don’t know.”

Everything. The fear. The sickness. The thoughts of being, frankly, disgusting. Dirty, even. The fact that he’d been forced to convince everyone that Youngbin could love and be loved, that he deserved that. A lie, of course. It was a lie. He'd told many lies in the last month or so, but that one had been the worst.

“I didn’t want to ask,” Kaya cleared her throat, “but why’d you break up?”

“Well, I- I suppose I don’t- love him.”

“You suppose you don’t?”

“I’m pretty sure I don’t.” He didn’t. He was very sure of it, actually. Well, mostly sure. He was sure in the moment he proclaimed he didn’t share Alex’ feelings. Before and after that, he wasn’t as sure as he wished he would’ve been.

“Do you like him or not?”

“It’s a difficult question,” Youngbin concluded. “And it shouldn’t be. I think if that question specifically is difficult then it’s probably not a very good thing.”

“Well, can’t really argue with that. Though-” Now she applied lipstick, a blue one as well. “I mean, I guess sometimes things are difficult but still worth working through. Not that I’m an Alex supporter here, but-”

“I feel like maybe “Do I actually like my boyfriend” is one of those questions that absolutely should not be difficult to answer.”

“You’re right, you’re right.” Kaya sighed, pressed her lips together as she thought, just to ruin the shimmery surface of her lipstick and reapply it again, this time she spoke slowly, carefully. “It just came out of nowhere, kind of- Wait, Alex didn’t do anything to you, did he?”

She turned around now, her golden eyes gleaming at the thought. Youngbin quickly shook his head, maybe a bit too hard. Oh, he’d never done anything to Youngbin. Nothing bad, at least. Or nothing he didn’t like.

“No, what? No. It’s just- It doesn’t matter now. I don’t really want to think about it any longer. About him.” Youngbin fell back, pulling closer his blanket. He’d thought about it a lot. Too much, probably, and his brain hurt, and so did his heart, and his stomach, and at some point, it’d just been his entire body that ached.

Enough. Enough of that, and enough of Alex. It was too exhausting to continue to ask himself a question that should’ve been easy to answer. In the end, Youngbin had lost his best friend, and he just couldn’t be sure whose fault it was.

“Alright. But don’t start eating your feelings, yeah? No bottling up. We don’t want your first ever breakup to be the one you’re not gonna get over for the next five years.”

“I’ll talk about it when I’m ready.” Whenever that was.

“Got it. Any other gossip you wanna talk about?”

“Not really.”

“You kind of got to infiltrate the popular kids for a while, nothing juicy to tell me about?”

“Okay, Janis Ian. I didn’t notice any crazy scandals. Probably because I was the scandal.”

“How boring. I already know all your secrets.” Maybe most of them. A couple. Probably fewer than Kaya would’ve liked. “Oh, wait, I have gossip now. You know that old lady that used to be the librarian at school? I heard that she got fired.”

Kaya surely must’ve been out there having the time of her life and winning that costume contest with her sparkly siren outfit. Youngbin wasn’t. He didn’t really have any kind of time as he sat at the dinner table watching his father and sister devour the beef in front of them. He didn’t feel very hungry. He didn’t feel very much of anything. It was almost as though he didn’t exist.

“So, when will that hair dye wash out, actually?” his mother noted, eating her food a little more gracefully than the rest of the family.

“It’s already washed out quite a bit.” Had faded, at least, the red had gotten a little more dull and brownish. Still an eye catcher though, enough to draw attention to Youngbin whenever he was surrounded by all the brown haired and blonde dyed people.

“I don’t think it really has.” His mother raised her eyebrows. “Quite noticeable still.”

“Can you try purple next?” Sohee asked, and their mother rolled her eyes.

“Don’t you try anything like that again once this has washed out. No matter what Alex says.”

Youngbin cast his gaze down onto his barely filled plate, and Sohee cleared her throat.

“I’m not very hungry today.” He poked the meat in front of him with his fork once, then dropped it, shooting an apologetic look towards his mother, who’d furrowed her brows. “Could I- maybe go to my room?”

“Are you sick?”

“No, just- I’m tired. And not hungry.”

His mothers eyes narrowed now as her expression turned sour.

“If you’re just planning to sneak out again-“

“What? Why would-“

“The other day, Miss Dawn told me she saw you sneaking around on the streets, late at night, being loud, with a certain someone. Now, I didn’t want to bring it up, Youngbin, I was hoping you’d feel guilty for it. But if that Alex boy convinced you to do this again tonight-“

“We’re not together anymore,” Youngbin blurted out now, and his voice cracked just the smallest bit before he cleared his throat.

His mother's eyes widened, and she opened her mouth, a “thank god” obviously laying on her tongue. Words that she swallowed, and instead, a cold Oh escaped her lips. She cast her gaze down on her food again, scared that her son would be able to see whatever emotion swirled in her eyes now.

“Well,” she started, then pressed her thin lips together as she arranged her words. “I suppose- You may go up into your room. If you’d like.”

Youngbin nodded, left the dining room, and walked upstairs, though every step felt heavy, his legs hard to lift. He hadn’t said it out loud like this yet. He didn’t have to tell Kaya, she’d just known. But to say it-

It was difficult. Unfamiliar. Just like telling people that he’d gotten together with Alex was hard just six weeks ago. The latter never felt quite right. A silly lie that should’ve been easy to see through, a line he’d deliver with such a lack of confidence. To truly believe that Youngbin and Alex could ever-

Youngbin stopped in his tracks. It didn’t matter how foolish it was. Enough people had believed it. Even Alex. Youngbin forgot how to breathe and hurried into his room, the door falling shut behind him, locking him up forever.

He didn’t have the energy to think about it. To process whatever the hell was going on in his chest, his heart, his brain. To identify each of these emotions and thoughts and worries, to give them names, to sort them out, to understand and maybe regret them. He didn’t want to regret them. He wanted to be right, he wanted the words he’d said to Alex to be the correct ones. In no way did Youngbin want to be the reason something good fell apart.

No, it wasn’t good. It wasn’t anything. It was never-

“Binnie?” Youngbin hadn’t heard Sohee knock on the door, nor had he noticed her coming in. She hid her hands behind her back, a worried look on her face, large dark eyes scanning her brother.

“Yeah?”

“Sorry about the- Well. Sorry about Alex.”

“It’s- Don’t worry too much.”

Sohee cleared her throat, nodding slowly, her lips pressed into a fine line mirroring her mother’s face.

“Is it bad that I’m sad? Because I kinda liked him.” She hesitated before adding: “And I think he was good for you.”

Youngbin didn't know if he was supposed to agree. He wanted to, a little bit. Alex had been good. Had been great. Perhaps his friendship had been the best thing that ever happened to Youngbin.

“I mean, unless you don't think he was. Then he was a shithead and I hope he explodes,” Sohee added when only Youngbin’s silence had replied to her.

“I suppose it’s- Just more difficult than that. Than good or not good.”

“Probably.” Sohee nodded once more. “It’s not like I know anything about relationships.”

“Me neither.”

“Mhm… Well.” She moved her hands behind her back. “I don’t know if this will actually cheer you up, but- There’s a gift that arrived for you. Uhm. It’s a bit awkward now. There.”

Sohee revealed her hands from behind her back, throwing a plastic bag at Youngbin just to hit him right in the face. The bag crinkled as he picked it up and observed it. It was clear, square, and inside was… just some red fabric? He opened it up, pulled the fabric out, and unfolded it, just to reveal more colours. It was a big rainbow flag. Oh.

“Hee-“

“Yay, happy pride, I guess.” Sohee cleared her throat, staring at the floor and pressing her lips together into a somewhat embarrassed smile. “I thought- Well, your walls are kinda empty. Uhm, or you could hang it up above the front door so our whole neighbourhood can have a little breakdown.”

“You bought that?”

“Well, yeah. Mom’s fault for giving me hefty pocket money.”

“Well- Thank you-“ There wasn’t much he could say, because humanity hadn’t made up the right words to convey that feeling of shock and happiness and thankfulness and surprise and utter love just yet.

“It’s weird. It’s kinda weird like this, Bin. I don’t know what I’m supposed to say to you now.”

“I don’t know what I’m-“

“Yeah, yeah. I know. We both don’t know how to use words. But like, we probably have to say something to each other in this situation. Like, I don’t know. Cool that you’re gay. I love you.”

Youngbin finally felt a big smile creep into his face, finally, he’d missed it. He’d missed smiling, even though it sounded so awfully cheesy, he’d missed not feeling like absolute shit. He’d done so since Sunday- Maybe since Friday. Maybe longer. The past days blurred into an undefinable mood, into rain clouds and cold wind.

But there it was. The sun. For just a little bit.

“Cool that you’re an ally. I love you too.”

Sohee gave a thumbs up, her tooth gap peeking through when she smiled.

“Are you, uh, not going out with Kaya today, by the way?”

“Well, I- I didn’t really feel like it.”

Sohee’s smile faded slowly.

“Oh,” she let out, tempted to say something else but catching herself.

“Yes.”

“Wanna watch scary movies with me instead?”

“I think I’m good. I’ll just take some time for myself.”

“Okay, well. You know where to find me.”

“I do.”

“Cool. Have a good night?”

“I’ll try.”

Sohee responded with a sigh, one more sad smile, then she left.

Youngbin turned the pride flag in his hands, looking at it. The fabric wasn’t particularly expensive, but still must’ve cost her quite a lot. The colours looked vibrant, and the flag itself was pretty big. Probably big enough to-

Wait.

Youngbin grabbed some pushpins from his desk, then carefully stood up on his bed holding the flag up to his window. Perfect size to hang over the window like a curtain, for the sun to cast a rainbow coloured shadow into the room during the day.

He carefully attached the flag to the walls, then stepped off his bed to admire his work.

Admittedly, his room had always seemed rather cold to most visitors. Youngbin himself was used to it. It had always been like this. His walls had always been white and mostly empty, there’d never been much decor or colour around, aside from the plethora of pillows on his bed. And it never bothered him. He didn’t know his room in any other state.

Except now, there was a huge rainbow hung up right above his bed. Now, he saw what it could look like. He looked back around at the walls behind him, empty except for a single poster and a couple of pictures, and suddenly they looked lonely.

Now that he knew how nice things could be if he just dared to let them be, everything else, everything so familiar, no longer felt so safe. Now wasn’t that a stupid way to be reminded of Alex.

Youngbin closed his eyes as though that would shut out the memory of him. Memory. It sounded like Alex had died. He was alive and well- He was alive. Just gone. For now. Probably. Maybe. Hopefully not, but likely, he was gone out of Youngbin’s life until he could figure out how to get back his best friend.

Or maybe he shouldn’t be trying to get him back at all. Maybe it was so much better for both to be as far away from each other as possible, forever, and go back to life before meeting each other. Maybe-

Youngbin opened his eyes again, and six rainbow colours gleamed at him. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe things were worth a change. Maybe he should never go back to a life before Alex, but keep on going. Things had already changed, and he couldn’t ever go back into that tiny little shelter of comfort, because he’d already shattered its borders.

Perhaps Alex had started to lay out a path for Youngbin. Now it was his chance to keep walking.

Even if it was without Alex.

Chapter 28 - i'll be alive after all

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