Alex Hill fell into Min’s pool on Saturday night, some time around 2 pm. Approximately ten minutes earlier, he’d sent Youngbin a voice message and subsequently blocked him.

If it hadn’t been obvious from the voice message alone that Alex was extremely drunk (which it was), the video going around of him yelling and then getting hit in the face and being knocked out immediately convinced Youngbin that this was the case. So technically, the message should’ve meant nothing. Because Alex was drunk.

But Alex was drunk, and that alone had haunted Youngbin for the last two days. The amount of drunkenness. And the emotions this had amplified.

“I didn’t ever wanna fucking talk to you again, but, like-”

Youngbin had listened to the message a couple too many times.

“Just wanted to let you know that you can fucking… that you can go fuck yourself.”

The first few times to be able to discern what he was saying in the first place.

“You go fuck yourself ‘n I’m gonna go fuck myself. And, uh-“

Then to make sure what Youngbin was hearing was correct, double checking each word.

“And- Don’t go thinking that I- I don’t- Y’know, I don’t care about you, actually, and I’m not gonna care again, ever, and I’m not even gonna fucking remember who you are.”

Then to listen to the background noises, to see if there was something worth picking up on.

“And if I have to fucking kill myself, I’m gonna stop thinking about you. ‘N not give a shit about you. I already don’t give a shit, by the way.”

Then to hear his voice again. Because Youngbin hadn’t heard it in too long. Even though he didn’t like Alex’ voice in this state, he still needed to listen.

“I can have anyone I want, too, Youngbin. So don’t go thinking that I’m gonna cry after you forever. I’m not gonna. I’m not. So like, fuck you. Fuck me.”

And after that, Alex didn’t come to school. Again. Or still. But he wasn’t there. And because there was a worry that this voice message would be the last he’d ever hear of him, Youngbin had listened to it again.

And had continued to listen to the version that had burned itself into his brain at every waking hour. He wasn’t sure what that said about him, the fact that he was still thinking, kept thinking, couldn’t stop thinking, but Youngbin tried to ignore it. Like he’d been ignoring every single Alex related feeling.

Sadly, having to concentrate on ignoring feelings so much made it difficult for Youngbin to listen to literally anything else around him. Including Tuesday afternoon English class. His track record in keeping a clear mind during this lesson specifically wasn’t great.

Kaya nudged him in the side to snap Youngbin out of his thoughts.

“Helloo?” She leaned forward to get a better look at his face, eyes still lost, searching for something that wasn’t there. “Lesson’s over.”

“Ah.” He took a deep breath. Surely, the lesson was great and interesting and engaging. What a shame that he’d missed it. “Did we get any homework?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t listen during that part.” Kaya got up, swung her bag over her shoulder. “I have to go ASAP, I have an appointment. Also, I’m supposed to remind you to get your history textbooks out of your locker.”

She shot a finger gun at him, smiled, then swiftly turned and left the classroom along with most of the other students. Youngbin sighed, struggling to get up from his chair. He’d felt heavy. For the past week, but especially for the past two days. Heavy with worry and hurt and more things he didn’t feel like giving a name.

His body moved slowly, packing together his few things. History textbooks. Right. History textbooks. Don’t forget them. He walked out of the classroom as one of the last, only Leia Zhang and one of her friends still at the back chatting as they packed up.

History textbooks. History textbooks. History textbooks. History textbooks in his locker. Get them. Youngbin remembered, he did a great job remembering, so much so that he walked right past his own locker. He sighed. He was out of it, clearly, had been out of it for way too long. He pretended to wonder why.

For a second, he couldn’t remember the code of his own locker, until muscle memory kicked in and opened it up for him. His locker had always been perfectly set up. Neatly and nicely and sorted by subject and size of books. So, it was easy to find the history textbooks. It was easy. They were in there, and Youngbin froze in front of his locker.

Where on earth were they again?

How were they labelled? Surely they just said “history textbooks” in big bold letters. Or perhaps the letters were small and hard to read, because all of the letters in front of Youngbin were hard to read. Were they even in here?

“Are you even listening to me?”

“Sorry?” Youngbin snapped out of his trance of staring down the jumbled mess that was his locker. He certainly hadn’t realised that someone was standing behind him, much less that they were talking to him.

“Don’t ‘sorry’ at me, shithead.”

Youngbin froze. An unpleasant voice, all too familiar, scratched against his ears like nails on chalkboard. He hadn’t had the displeasure of hearing this guy speak in a bit.

He stayed still. Like prey, hoping for the predator to not see it. It had worked all the time, hadn’t it? Youngbin would always stand still, and then things would pass. And surely Leo Harris would be dumb enough to forget that he was there in the first place.

“Look at me when I talk to you.”

“And why exactly are you talking to me?” Staying still had always worked, so Youngbin wasn’t sure why he wouldn’t just do exactly that. But he didn’t want to. He didn’t feel like freezing today.

Alex had never stood still in these situations, hadn’t he? So why should Youngbin now? He didn’t have Alex anymore, and perhaps he didn’t even need him.

“Don’t ask me stupid questions.”

“Don’t talk to me.” Youngbin closed the locker. Those books didn’t matter. He just had to get out of here. “Leave me alone.”

“Awe, what’s that? Scared because you’re all alone?” Actually, Youngbin wasn’t sure why he’d ever been scared of Leo. He looked like an idiot and sounded like an idiot and behaved like an idiot, and everyone, including his own friends, thought the same.

“Can you just leave me be?”

“Nobody to protect you now, is there?”

There was no way that guy actually took himself and what he said seriously. He sounded like a horrible actor. And what, really, had he ever done? Like actually done to Youngbin? Aside from spewing bullshit and posting his face everywhere like some obsessed fan? And, well, shove him down a couple of steps once, but he’d gotten away with only one bruise back then.

Oh, yeah. And he glued him to a table. Youngbin had kind of forgotten about that part, actually.

“Your big bad boyfriend got punted into a pool the other day, have you heard?” And he wouldn’t let go! He just wouldn’t shut up! Youngbin rolled his eyes. “Oh, never mind! He dumped your pathetic gay ass, probably only wanted you to suck his dick for you!”

“Jesus christ,” Youngbin murmured, locking the door to his locker again. Just some weeks ago this comment would’ve made him want to throw up. Right now, it was nothing but annoying. As if he hadn’t heard that before from hushed whispers in the cafeteria or the classroom or literally any other part of the school. As if he hadn’t gotten used to that already, long ago.

“What? Was I right or nah?”

Youngbin turned around, looked Leo straight in the face. Not the eyes, he’d probably go up in flames if he tried to, but he sure stared at that ugly forehead. For a second, Leo seemed to be taken aback with that almost-eye contact.

“What do you want from me?” Perhaps Youngbin’s fingers did turn numb just the smallest bit. His chest tightened, now that he saw that big stupid bully in front of him, and nobody else around him.

“Oh, what do I want from you? Huh?” He didn’t want anything. He didn’t even know what he wanted. He wanted to feel like a big guy, even though there was no one else around him to congratulate him.

Leo Harris was just a pathetic stinky loser with absolutely nothing going for him in life. Youngbin gave his best to remember that, now that the fear did start to rise in his stomach. He couldn’t hurt him. If he just walked away, he’d be fine. So Youngbin tried to walk away.

“I’m talking to you.” When Youngbin didn’t give a response, Leo only had to take two large steps before ripping Youngbin’s body around, back to face him.

Adrenaline rushed through him as soon as a cold hand had gripped his arm, and suddenly the week-old touch of Dennis Nelson began burning on his shoulder again. Youngbin ripped his arm away, swatting after Leo like a fly in an attempt to make him let go.

“Leave me alone,” Youngbin snapped, instantly freezing again under Leo’s shocked gaze. His mouth stood open for a few seconds, before his face darkened.

“Did you just try to punch me?”

“What?”

“Did your twink ass just try to punch me? Huh?”

“I didn’t try to punch you, you dumb fuck, I-“

“What did you call me?” Leo had raised his voice to a yell, echoing down the empty halls. Youngbin flinched. “Say that again, you little shit!”

“Shut up and leave me be, god damnit-“

“Tell me to shut up again, huh! Who the fuck do you even think you are?”

“What the fuck’s your problem?”

“You’re my fucking problem.” Leo’s voice had turned from yelling to a strange hardly understandable growl. “The fuck do you think you are? That you can talk to me like that, huh?”

With each word, or each grunt resembling a word, Leo stepped closer to Youngbin, and he couldn't move anymore. Whatever had given him the strength to say anything, to turn around and move, to react in any way that wasn't just freezing had left him. That was it, then. He didn’t know what was going to happen to him, but he couldn't do anything about it. He’d have to let it happen. Whatever it was.

“Huh? Why are you looking at me like that? The fuck’s up with your face? The fuck do you want?”

“Can you just fuck off-”

A slap landed square across Youngbin’s face before he could even finish the sentence, throwing him off balance. His vision blurred, not just from the impact and shock but because his glasses flew off his face, sliding across the floor.

His ear rang as Youngbin stumbled to the side, holding his face where the hit had just landed. His eyes briefly darted up towards Leo, then instantly looked away again as soon as he was able to make out his hazy features like a dark cloud hanging above his head.

There it was again. One after another, his limbs detached from his body, becoming numb and weak and shaky. It had to happen some time. Youngbin had gotten away unscathed for long enough, and now every threat made in the past was becoming reality. Now that he was a perfect lonely victim. Now he was prey.

Who was he kidding? He always was. Had always been. Would always be.

But nothing else happened. Fear has numbed the pain in his face, but no other hit would follow. Through a shrill ringing sound, a voice echoed through the hallway.

“Get off of him, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

Youngbin didn’t look up, not yet, he’d turned into stone right there, unable to move again and risk drawing attention to himself.

“What do you want, you bitch?”

“Go! I’m gonna call a teacher!”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Of course I would, fuckass, now go, leave him alone.”

“You can’t tell me what to do.”

“Yes, I can. Piss off now. Before I send those shrivelled little dick pics you kept harassing me with to everyone I know.”

“Fucking whore-”

“Yeah, whatever. Piss off.” Silence, heavy steps moving away, lighter ones approaching, then a sigh. “I fucking hate men. You okay?”

Youngbin moved. Slowly and carefully, rigidly, his fingers trembled, his eyes burning and brimming with tears he was trying so hard to hold back. He’d known the voice talking to him. Fleetingly so.

“Youngbin?” she repeated. “Can you hear me?”

Barely. Her voice, soft and gentle and quieter than before, only hardly broke through the buzzing and rushing in Youngbin’s ears, caused by both anxiety and the hit still echoing through his body like a ripple on still waters.

“I-” Youngbin’s eyes finally met Leia’s, deep black and just as dull as his own. “I’m fine.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that before.”

Youngbin had never seen Leia up close before. Nor had he ever really talked to her before, because he’d just assumed that she’d hate him anyways. But she looked- nice. Oddly friendly when concerned. Not that he’d be able to really see her, his vision still blurred.

“My glasses-”

“Shit, yeah. Wait.” Leia picked them up, examined them, and her frown only worsened. “They’re a little bent.” She carefully put them on Youngbin’s nose, and he noticed the distortion in the frame instantly. If it wasn’t for his entire face overwhelmingly burning right now, that would’ve bothered him to death.

Youngbin blinked, slowly, both to get rid of the tears still welling up in his eyes involuntarily and to get used to his glasses again. Then he looked at Leia once more, and it somehow felt very, very wrong. Like she wasn’t at all the kind of person he should be talking to. Like two very unlikely worlds had just collided.

“Are you okay? Ah, shit, your nose- Let’s get to the nurse’s office or something, that doesn’t look-”

“Why are you being nice to me?”

Things fell into place now, clicked in Youngbin’s brain, and he moved away, made a step back just to walk straight into the lockers behind him. Leo hated Youngbin. Leia hated Alex, and probably also Youngbin, and this was part of their plan to get back at him, and Leia would pretend to be nice to Youngbin just to turn around and make fun of him even more. The slap was on tape, and Leia was just waiting to post it, and then everything would start again, and every step Youngbin had walked forwards he’d have to take back.

“Because some dick just punched you?”

“But why are you- You don’t even know me. You have no reason to-”

“Hey, hey, hey. Chill. Don’t move your head so much, you’re bleeding.”

Youngbin’s hand shot up to his face, feeling his cheek, then his nose-

“Great, now you’ve got it on your hands. Come on now, just get to the nurse’s office with me. Or at least to a bathroom.”

“I don’t trust you,” Youngbin spat out.

“I don’t care, you’re getting blood on your sweater and I can’t stand expensive shit getting dirty.” Leia’s voice had lost a little of that gentleness, sounding more like he’d imagined her to sound. Not yet mean though. She was supposed to sound mean. She was supposed to be a lot of things that she wasn’t right now.

“I just don’t get why you-”

“Youngbin, you got slapped in the face, why would I just-” Now Leia stopped, sighed as she rolled her eyes. “What did Alex tell you about me?”

“N-Nothing, just-”

“I know he probably made me out to be some mean bitch, or like, a total loser that hates everyone and everything-” No, actually he made it sound like she was making him out to be just that. “But I swear I’m not- That.”

“That’s not even it, he didn’t-”

“You’re dripping, Youngbin.” Youngbin quickly held his hand underneath his nose. There was indeed blood on his sweater. Shit. Leia turned around without waiting for him, walking down the hallway towards the next bathrooms, and Youngbin was forced to follow her.

“Besides, it kind of feels like we are on one team now,” she added when Youngbin had caught up with her. “We could start a secret society for all of Alex’ exes.”

Right. That. Youngbin bit down on his lower lip, which hurt. Exes.

“I don’t hate him,” Youngbin felt the need to say.

“I don’t hate him either. Neither does Willow. I don’t really know who his other exes are but I’m pretty sure they’re not wasting their energy on hating Alex either.” Leia pushed open the door to the girls bathroom, waiting for Youngbin to walk in. “You don’t have to hate someone to break up with them.”

“I kind of thought you guys hated each other, actually.” Youngbin now caught himself in the mirror, and quickly averted his eyes. He didn’t like seeing that face, swollen, with a bloody nose and tired eyes and everything else that was wrong with him.

“I think maybe we pretended to.” Leia pulled paper towels out of the dispenser, held them up to Youngbin, then wet another towel and began carefully scrubbing away the stains on his sweater. It was an expensive one indeed. “But like, try hating your best friend.”

“Best friend?”

“Weird for me to say that, right?” She scoffed. “I mean, we were friends for a pretty long time. I’d like to call it best friends, but I also know he wouldn’t have seen me as a best friend. He’s pretty picky with that title.”

Was he? It didn’t seem to take much for him to consider Youngbin his best friend. Then again, he’d considered him more than that, right?

“I'm sorry,” Leia sighed, “I probably shouldn't be talking about Alex so much. You're probably sick of hearing about him.”

Youngbin wasn't, truthfully. He did want to hear about Alex, in fact, craved to hear anything about him.

“It's fine, actually.” He cleared his throat, wiping the blood off his hands. “I think we have… very different perspectives on him. It's interesting to hear you talk about him.”

“It’s curious, isn’t it?” Leia had given up on cleaning Youngbin’s sweater, disposing of the paper towels and leaning against the sink. Her eyes looked tired as though she was reliving old, dusty memories. “I always thought how strange it was that- Well, how different things went with you. You just suddenly appeared out of nowhere and started dating him. And him and I, we’ve known each other for months, and it took so long for us to… You know.”

“Fall in love?”

“Can we call it that? Not sure. I don’t know if I was in love. I don’t know if he was either. We just, like, were close friends and then we kissed and then we were kind of forced to date because best friends can’t just kiss and not do anything about it.”

Can they not? Well, no. They couldn’t. Alex and Youngbin couldn’t, at least, apparently. He’d believed that they could, just kiss, as best friends. Youngbin had really thought that he could just move in and- He felt a lump in his throat as he thought about it again. As if he hadn’t done so enough in the past weeks.

“What was it like when you kissed?”

“Excuse me?” Leia raised her brows, her lips couldn’t help but form a slight smile. “That’s an interesting question.”

“Not sure why I asked,” Youngbin admitted. Not sure what he wanted to hear, either.

“Well, it didn’t suck. He’s a good kisser. Just, like… I think I want something different. And he was better off kissing some else. I don’t know. Was just weird. Kinda wrong. But we were good at ignoring that.”

“And how do you know that a kiss feels wrong?”

“You’re asking questions, buddy…” She crossed her arms, scanning Youngbin as though to read his mind, his intentions. He wasn’t sure of his intentions himself, his mouth had just decided to speak without his brain proofreading the sentences first. “Am I your relationship therapist today? You want me to give you a full sex ed class?”

“I just- I’m starting to think that I-“ Messed things up. Felt things the wrong way. Interpreted things the wrong way.

“Girl, if you want him back-“

“I don’t!” He did, wanted his friendship back.

“You’re sounding like you regret dumping him.”

“No-“ Yes, because he had kind of broken up their friendship as well.

“Kinda sounds like it. Like you thought it didn’t feel right but now you’re not so sure anymore.”

“That’s not what I’m thinking.” It was. Kissing Alex had felt so- “Forget it. Let’s not- I think we’ve talked enough about him.”

“Okay.” Leia looked him up and down once more, a look on her face that was a little too knowing in his opinion. “Talk to me about something different, then. I’m not gonna go until your nose has stopped bleeding.” Now she furrowed her brow. “That’s a lot of blood, by the way. Does that happen often?”

The bleeding had stopped after a while, and despite Youngbin’s best efforts to not drip everywhere, his sweater was pretty much ruined and the floor of the girl’s washroom looked like a murder scene.

He’d made an attempt to clean it off as best as possible, together with Leia, who, for some unknown reason, had stayed with Youngbin throughout the whole process. She was now applying some lip gloss as Youngbin stood next to her examining his face in the mirror. His cheek was swollen, red traces of blood still stubbornly stuck to his nostrils, the thin frame of his glasses bent, awkwardly sitting on his nose.

If Alex- If his mother would see him like that, all hell would break loose. He prayed that she wasn’t home this afternoon. Or at least wouldn’t bother to look at him too closely.

It was terrifying, really. To see his own face like this. It certainly wasn’t as beaten up as Alex’ a couple of weeks ago, the swelling would stop soon, his glasses were an easy fix. It wasn’t even a proper fight. It was a single slap, one hit, probably not even as heavy as Youngbin had felt it at that moment.

But it’d been a hand on his skin, it’d been violence nonetheless. Youngbin had been hurt. For the first time, he felt deserving of the title of “Victim”. He stared into his own eyes, a pair of scared, hurt, lonely eyes. They were his. This was happening to him. He wasn’t just a shadow, he was real, he was alive, and he was hurt.

“Leo has been bothering you for a while, hasn’t he?” Leia caught Youngbin’s eyes in the mirror as she closed the lip gloss tube, looking right through him into his mind. “He’s such a weird guy. I knew him in elementary school and he used to be kind of nice but he always just wanted to look cool in front of his friends.”

Leia wiped away a leftover blood stain from the sink, then leaned against it as she checked her phone. Youngbin had momentarily forgotten that he was talking to the popular girl. She knew people, a world, so different from what Youngbin had known.

“He slipped down some weird pipelines real fast once he latched onto Dennis Nelson, especially after his falling out with Alex.”

“Falling out?”

“Damn.” Leia raised her eyebrows. “You ask a lot of stuff. You really don’t know any of the lore, do you?”

“I suppose I don’t? I was too busy being bullied by these guys to look into their backstory.”

“I’d assumed that maybe Alex would’ve told you about it. Especially after that nasty fight a couple of weeks ago.” She hummed, letting her phone sink back into the pocket of her coat.

Alex hadn’t really- told him a lot. He’d always been a little secretive of his past, his emotions, perhaps in fear of a negative reaction, in fear of Youngbin dropping him for it. There’d been one time where Alex had been honest with his feelings. And Youngbin had validated these fears when he did. His stomach turned.

“Dennis and Alex were pretty close friends from what I know. I think they bonded well over the whole, like, hating the rules thing. Like two assholes united. But I guess they had different reasons for being assholes so they had this huge falling out and ended up beating the shit out of each other.” Leia let out a sigh, almost dreamily. “Well, there we go, talking about him again. It’s probably time to get out of here, the janitor doesn’t like students fucking around in here for too long.”

Youngbin nodded, and Leia pushed herself away from the sink and left the bathroom, Youngbin following her closely. It felt like maybe he should’ve lingered a bit, or slowed down his steps so as to not make it look like he was following Leia, leaving with her, but she didn’t seem to mind, continuing to chat with him as though he was her friend.

“You’re in the theatre club, aren’t you?” He’d been asked this question before by any unlikely person. “I mean, I saw all the videos and stuff they spread. Are you still in though?”

“Well- Yeah. I suppose I am. Though I’m not really taking part in the play this year, I suppose.”

“Hm. How come?”

“I just-“ Youngbin pushed the large entrance doors open. “I don’t want to.”

Leia hummed again, shrugged, pulled out her phone once more.

“4:37. You taking the bus?”

“Shit. Would’ve taken the bus but I just missed it.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” She pulled out a keychain from her coat pocket, multiple keys as well as little charms and accessories and one of these self defence gadgets dangling from it. “I can drive you home, if you're okay with that? Assuming you don't want to wait for the next bus in like, half an hour.”

To get in the car with the popular girl, the one that dates the cool guys, the one that was supposed to be Youngbin’s enemy for the past two months, sounded like an incredibly dumb thing to do. To stand in front of the school bus stop, all alone, actually sounded like an even dumber thing to do, though, and Youngbin let out a sigh as he nodded.

Of course she could still switch up and drive him into a wall, but even then, Youngbin supposed, he would have deserved it for his stupidity.

“You don’t have to,” he quickly said, but Leia shook her head.

“You look beat up as hell, Youngbin, I’d rather not have you stand there all alone, I'm gonna be honest.” She held up the little self defence thing, a pointy little thing and a pepper spray, but, of course, purple and bedazzled. “I know not to let people run around by themselves, especially if it’s getting dark soon. I’m a girl’s girl. Or like a boy’s girl in this case.” Youngbin just nodded, slowly. “Let me know where you live and I'll get you there.”

“Do you know where Min lives?”

“Who doesn’t know that?”

“Yeah, well, someone around there, we're pretty much the same neighbourhood.”

Leia let out a whistle, eyeing Youngbin.

“That explains your designer shit. And your cute little Vivienne Westwood necklace you wear all the time.”

Youngbin wasn’t sure if he was supposed to take that as a compliment, or if he should question how Leia had even noticed the jewellery he sometimes wore, but he just decided to grin in response.

Leia’s car was- well, quite on brand. It was a nice looking one, a bit newer and more expensive looking than the one Alex drove. Lani’s car, that was. Alex had driven Lani’s car. It was clean inside, a small plush charm hanging from the rear view mirror, the steering wheel covered with a fur cover. A girly car. Youngbin didn’t quite like calling things “girly”, but this was very much the epitome of that word, and it was certainly intended to be just that.

Upon sitting down, she reapplied her lip gloss once more, then started the car. Youngbin quickly noticed the seats heating up.

“So, any plans for the weekend?”

“Cry,” Youngbin said, and regretted ever being born in the same moment. Why did he say that? Well, those were his plans, but he didn’t have to say that. Leia laughed though.

“You’re kinda funny, Youngbin. You have this really dry humour.” That wasn’t humour. But he appreciated it nonetheless. “No, like, if you're free… There’s this party in the woods with a huge bonfire. I’m going with Willow. If you wanna come along, that’d be totally fun. Y’know, kinda the “Alex Exes” gang. You can totally take your friend with you, that Kaya girl.”

“She wouldn’t like you,” Youngbin let out, realising for a second time that he should probably just not say anything at times. Leia shrugged.

“That’s fine. You can ask her anyways.”

“Why would I-“ Youngbin quickly stopped himself, laid out his words in his head exactly this time as to not sound like an idiot once again. “I mean, I appreciate it. But you don’t know me, and as you can see, I’m not the… most liked person. I’m not sure why you’re even helping me. So why are you inviting me to a party? Why are you being so nice to me?”

Leia stopped, her eyes becoming duller as she thought, her hands gripping the fluffy steering wheel.

“Well.” She started, then paused a second time. “I mean- Well, I’m moving away pretty soon. It’s kind of… I kind of realised that… Well, I wanna tie up some loose ends, I guess. And be nicer. I feel like I need to make up for not liking you for no real reason.”

“I didn’t really like you for no reason either,” Youngbin said as though that would be comforting in any way. “I mean, I didn’t dislike you but I just… I wasn’t really supposed to like you so I didn’t.”

“I wasn’t supposed to like you either. But you're like, pretty cool, so…”

“I didn’t really do anything cool.”

“No, but I just vibe with you. Sometimes you don’t like people for no reason, and sometimes you do like people for no reason, right? I’m a vibes kinda person, I guess.”

“Sure.” Youngbin didn’t understand a single thing. “I kind of get it, I think.”

“Cool.” Leia smiled. “So? You wanna come along on Saturday?”

Youngbin sighed, hesitated. Absolutely not. A party was the last thing he wanted now. Not now that someone had opened fire on him, now that the possibility of him getting hurt, physically hurt was there and so much more real than before. Not with a girl he barely knew, not to a place he didn’t know anyone at, not at a fire in the woods.

“Who else is coming?” Leia shrugged.

“Everyone. But not in a Min’s party kind of way. You’ve been at one of their parties, right? Willow told me, I think. It’s not as chill, Min doesn’t really let people they hate in, so like, no Leo or no Dennis. But like, everyone can show up at the bonfire so you never know. There’s no invitations or anything.”

“That’s not very comforting.”

“Trust me, it isn’t for me either. But it’s fine, you can avoid the people you hate pretty well. I’ve done that before.” She hummed again, then added: “Also, I need more people to fill the car so I have an excuse to not drive Demian there. Asshole can go find his own ride.”

Right. Youngbin’s stomach turned when he heard his name. Demian was Leia’s brother, a fact he’d almost forgotten. The two didn’t look too similar, probably because his hair was bleached, and then, of course, his eyes kind of distracted from the rest of his facial features. So did his body.

But Leia didn’t seem too fond of him herself. Not that Sohee had never called Youngbin an asshole, though never with such disdain in her voice. And that actually made Leia seem just a little more safe. A little more comfortable to be around. They had a shared enemy, multiple even. But Youngbin wasn’t sure if she counted Alex as their enemy as well.

“Do you think Alex is coming?” He didn’t mean to ask, at least not out loud.

“I hope he isn’t.” Another sigh. “Not after last weekend. I don’t know if you saw?”

“I did.” Who hadn’t seen it. Who hadn’t talked about it. The great Alex crashing and burning, or rather, drowning. Someone had filmed it. Though it wasn’t by far torn apart as much as videos of Youngbin as Romeo, rather it was commenting on the situation and not on Alex himself. People didn’t even seem to acknowledge that it was him that had fallen. Even in his lowest, drunk and failing moments, people didn’t quite want to fuck around with him.

“I’d rather have him sit this one out. I was talking to him that night- Well, tried to. Not easy to really talk when he’s so out of it. I don’t think he even knew what he was saying. You should’ve seen him. Was a… sad sight.”

Youngbin didn’t really want to see him, nor did he want to imagine it. Not when it was his fault. And it was, there was no denying it. It was Youngbin’s fault for destroying Alex like this by saying things he wasn’t convinced by himself. Not at the time he said it, and not now. Not when he listened to Alex’ voice message. Not ever.

Youngbin had known that he hurt Alex, convinced it was for the better. Convinced that he’d done Alex a favour. He’d said that Alex was wrong, that his feelings weren’t real, when that was so obviously wrong. Youngbin knew that what Alex was feeling, what Alex was telling him was real. He knew, he’d felt it when Alex had kissed him. But he’d ignored it. Tried to.

As if that actually could’ve been ignored though, as if Alex’ taste didn’t linger on Youngbin’s lips for days to come, his taste, his hunger, his love. He’d thought it was an accident at first, genuinely believed that neither of them meant it, that it was a heat of the moment decision, but it became clear that it wasn’t. And yet, Youngbin ignored it. Instead decided that he was hard to love. Because he’d been told exactly that. Youngbin hadn’t even questioned that when Demian said these words to him, because they perfectly fit into Youngbin’s own narrative.

He was hard to love. He’d believed that. Still did. And would, until the end of his life. But Alex had been willing to do it regardless of how difficult it’d be. Not that this made it any better.

Because not only was Youngbin hard to love, but someone was willing to do that hard work and love him anyway. And Youngbin didn’t deserve that hard work. So he shut it off. He threw it away. He stopped Alex from working, with the impression that that’d be better for the both of them, and only now, after seeing how fucking miserable that had made Alex, he started to consider that maybe, it would’ve been worth it to work. That all that work for someone undeserving would’ve been better than losing each other.

Not that he could still do anything about this. The revelation had come too late. Youngbin had tried to walk this path alone, without Alex, but today was proof that he couldn’t. That he needed him. That he craved the safety Alex had given him, that he couldn’t go on without it. The safety and the strength and the comfort. But it was gone.

The drops of blood on his sweater were never coming off.

“Youngbin?” Leia’s voice broke through the building anxiety, the regret, and Youngbin slowly sank back into his seat. “If you don’t want to-“

“No, it’s fine.” His voice was shaking. He inhaled deeply, losing control of his body and mind, or rather, becoming too aware of it to the point that he detached from himself completely. “I’ll think about it.” And he remained silent for the rest of the car ride.

The car door fell shut behind him, and his face began to hurt once more, as though the hit landed fresh on his cheek a second time. His hands trembled as he unlocked the front door, the key refusing to fall into its lock.

Inside, it was loud, buzzing, deafening. The TV was on. His father was laughing, so was Sohee. Something in the kitchen moved, and the steps of his mother echoed through the hallway as Youngbin started to lose his balance.

“Youngbin?” Her voice was distant, as though calling out to him from a different realm. “What took you so long?”

Leia’s presence had kept Youngbin awake, and now he’d fallen into a trance. Piece by piece, his body shut off, leaving only guilt raging in his stomach, his chest, his throat. Guilt, and awareness. The knowledge that he was real. That he was being perceived. That he was hated, and, worse yet, loved.

“What happened to your clothes?”

He attempted to answer, yet not a word was able to form in his mouth. A wall had built itself around his brain, not allowing anything to come in nor leave.

“And your glasses- Youngbin, what happened? Did you get in trouble?” Whether his mothers voice was disappointed or worried, Youngbin couldn’t decipher. There’d be too much energy needed to decide this. Too much attention to pay. He walked past her, up the stairs.

He hadn’t ever ignored his mother. But he wasn’t really ignoring her after all. He couldn’t even hear her. And what he heard was an amalgamation of too much. Of phrases and pleas and shouts. And almost crystal clear, between voices and accusations, was Alex’ voice message.

“So, like, fuck you.” The door behind Youngbin fell shut. Fuck you. Fuck me.

Chapter 33 - i'm not here, this isn't happening

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