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Jun 16

ruin the friendship (l. heeseung)

in which heeseung dies before you ever have to risk losing him.

pairing: heeseung x fem!reader || wc: 19.3k || cw: best friends to ???, heavy angst, grief, mourning, yearning, slow burn, mutual pining, hurt/no comfort (at the beginning), confessed-too-late, kissing, found family/friendship group dynamics, mentions of enhypen’s jay, jake and sunghoon, and le sserafim’s chaewon and yunjin, teasing, use of petnames, swearing, spoiler: happy ending || warnings: major character death, accidental overdose (not graphic but mentioned), depression, alcohol, suicide and substance abuse references, intense emotional distress and grief || a/n: very much inspired by taylor swift’s ruin the friendship. i hope you love this as much as i did <3 (and that you don’t cry as much as i did)

you’re in the middle of a thursday that feels like any other thursday when the call comes.

it’s late afternoon, the kind of gray november light that makes everything inside your apartment look softer than it is. you’re on the couch with your legs tucked under you, laptop balanced on your thighs, half-reading emails you keep meaning to answer. the radiator clanks every few minutes like it’s trying to remind you it’s still alive. your phone buzzes on the coffee table, face down, and you almost ignore it because it’s probably just another work call from your boss.

but it buzzes again. and again. three times in a row.

chaewon’s name lights up the screen.

you smile before you even pick up. chaewon never calls unless it’s something good or something catastrophic; she’s a texter through and through. you swipe answer and press the phone to your ear.

“hey, chae—”

her breathing is wrong. it’s too fast, too shallow, like she’s been running or crying or both.

“hey,” she says, and her voice cracks on the single syllable.

you sit up straighter. the laptop slides off your lap and thuds onto the cushion beside you. “what’s wrong?”

there’s a long pause that feels like drowning. you hear her swallow, hear the faint sound of traffic behind her, wind whipping against the speaker.

“it’s heeseung,” she finally says.

your heart does something strange — skips, then stutters, then drops straight through the floor.

“what about heeseung?” you ask, but you already know. you don’t know how you know, but you do.

chaewon starts crying then, not loud, just quiet and broken, the way people cry when they’ve been holding it together for too long.

“he’s gone,” she whispers. “he died. tuesday night. they found him wednesday morning. i— i didn’t know how to tell you. i’m sorry.”

the room spins. or maybe you do. the radiator clanks again but it sounds miles away. you stare at the wall across from you, at the tiny crack in the paint you keep meaning to fix, and you wait for the words to make sense.

they don’t.

“what do you mean,” you say, calm, too calm, like you’re asking about the weather. “what do you mean he died?”

“overdose,” chaewon says, and the word lands between you like a gunshot. “they’re saying it was accidental. painkillers and… something else. his mom called me this morning. the funeral is on saturday.”

you close your eyes. you see him instantly — you’re seventeen, and he’s leaning against the hood of his brother’s jeep outside lakeside lounge, one boot crossed over the other, grinning at you like he knew every secret you were too scared to say out loud.

“are you okay?” chaewon asks, voice small.

you open your mouth. nothing comes out.

you try again. “i don’t— i don’t know what to do or say, i—”

“come home,” she says. “please. just… come home.”

you nod even though she can’t see you. “yeah. okay. i’ll— i’ll get a flight.”

after you hang up, you sit very still for a long time. the apartment is quiet except for the radiator and the low hum of the refrigerator. you keep waiting for the tears, for the screaming, for something big and cinematic, but nothing comes. just a hollow ringing in your ears and the sudden, brutal awareness that you haven’t spoken to lee heeseung in four years.

four years.

the last text you sent him is still in your phone because you never delete anything. you scroll to it now with shaking fingers.

december 2021. you were home for winter break, sophomore year of college, and you run into him at target. he was thinner than you remembered, eyes a little too bright, but he hugged you so hard your feet left the ground.

you: it was good seeing you today. don’t be a stranger, okay?

he never replied.

you had told yourself he was busy. you had told yourself you were busy. you had told yourself a lot of things.

now you stare at that unanswered text until the screen blurs — not from tears, not yet, just from refusing to blink.

your thumb hovers over the call button under his name. you press it before you can think.

it rings once. twice. then his voicemail, the same one he’s had since junior year: “yo, it’s heeseung. leave a message or don’t, i probably won’t listen anyway.”

beep.

you open your mouth. nothing comes out. you hang up.

the tears come then, sudden and violent, like someone turned on a faucet behind your eyes. you curl forward until your forehead touches your knees and you cry the way you haven’t since you were a kid — messy, breathless, ugly. you cry for the boy who used to drive you home when you missed the bus, who saved you the last mountain dew at every party, who once wrote “you’re my favorite person” on the inside of your chemistry notebook in sharpie so you’d see it every day for the rest of the semester.

you cry because you never told him you loved him. not in the way that mattered. not in the way that might have ruined the friendship.

you cry because now it’s too late, and “ruin the friendship” feels like the cruelest joke the universe ever played.

when the crying stops, you’re empty. you book the earliest flight you can get — 8:15 tomorrow morning — and you pack without thinking. jeans, black sweater, the boots you wore to senior prom because you can’t find anything else. you pull the yearbook from the back of your closet and flip to the page where he wrote, in his messy half-cursive:

“don’t forget me when you’re famous, loser. love always, h.”

you trace the letters with your thumb until the ink smudges.

you don’t sleep.

at 4:47 a.m. you’re sitting on the floor of your bedroom surrounded by photographs you haven’t looked at in years. you, heeseung and chaewon at the lake, summer before senior year, all sunburned shoulders and cheeky smiles. you and heeseung in the photo booth at the fall festival, making dumb faces, his arm slung around your neck. you and heeseung on the football field after the last game, confetti in your hair, his letterman jacket over your shoulders because you were freezing.

you find the one you’re looking for at the bottom of the pile: the two of you at sixteen, sitting on the tailgate of his brother’s jeep under the lights of the gallatin county fair. you’re looking at the camera, grinning, but he’s looking at you. you remember that night so clearly it hurts. he had just beaten you at ring toss and won you the ugliest stuffed giraffe in the world. you named it seungie and kept it on your bed until you moved away.

you’re still holding the photo when your taxi arrives.

the airport is a blur. security, coffee you don’t taste, boarding. you take the window seat and stare at the clouds the whole flight, replaying every almost you ever had with him.

you should have kissed him the night he drove you home in the rain after your first prom.

you should have kissed him the night he showed up at your house at 2 a.m. because he couldn’t sleep.

you should have kissed him every single time he looked at you like you were the only person in the room.

you should have ruined the friendship.

the plane lands harder than it needs to. you walk through the airport like a ghost, rolling your suitcase behind you, eyes swollen, throat raw. chaewon is waiting at arrivals in the same hoodie she wore in high school, the one with the bleach stain on the sleeve. when she sees you she starts crying again and you meet in the middle and hold each other so tight it hurts.

“i’m sorry,” she keeps saying into your hair. “i’m so sorry.”

you don’t say anything. you just hold on.

in the car she tells you what she knows, voice careful, like she’s handling something fragile.

it happened at his apartment. alone. his mom hadn’t heard from him in a couple days — normal lately, she said — and when she went over… she found him.

they’re calling it accidental. prescription stuff mixed with alcohol. he’d been struggling for a while, chaewon says. pain pills after an old football injury flared up again. then harder things when those stopped working. he never told you. he never told anyone, not really.

“he asked about you,” she says quietly as she merges onto the highway. “all the time. every time i saw him. “how’s she doing? is she happy? tell her i say hi.” i always told him to text you himself. he always said he didn’t want to bother you.”

you stare out the window at the familiar blur of the suburbs sliding past.

“i wish he had,” you whisper.

chaewon reaches over and squeezes your knee.

the funeral is tomorrow. you’re staying at her place tonight. you could’ve stayed at your parents’, but the idea of sleeping in your old bed felt impossible. heeseung’s old t-shirt — the black one he left at your house in senior year and never asked for back — is still folded in the bottom drawer. you aren’t ready to smell it and realize it doesn’t smell like him anymore.

chaewon’s parents hug you at the door like you’re still a teenager. they give you the guest room that used to be yours half the weekends in high school. the walls are still the same soft yellow. there’s still a polaroid of you, chaewon, jake, and heeseung taped to the mirror — homecoming, junior year, all four of you in a pile on the football field.

you sit on the edge of the bed and stare at it until the edges blur.

you pull out your phone again. scroll to his contact. thumb hovering.

you type:

i’m home. i’m so sorry i wasn’t here. i’m so sorry.

your finger hesitates over send for a long time.

then you delete it, letter by letter, until the screen is blank again.

you lie back on the bed fully clothed and stare at the glow-in-the-dark stars chaewon’s dad helped her put up the summer before senior year. you and heeseung had laid right here one night that same summer, whispering about the future like it was something you could hold in your hands.

you close your eyes and you can almost feel him beside you, warm and solid and alive, laughing under his breath at something stupid you said.

you whisper into the dark, voice cracking:

“i should’ve kissed you anyway.”

you wake up before the sun does.

the house is quiet except for the soft creak of old wood settling. chaewon’s childhood cat, muffin, is curled at the foot of the bed like nothing in the world has ended. you didn’t sleep at all. you just laid there counting the glow-in-the-dark stars until they faded into morning.

the clock reads 6:12 a.m. the funeral is at eleven.

you sit up slowly. your body feels borrowed, like someone else’s bones are holding you together. the black dress is hanging on the back of the door where chaewon put it last night. simple, long-sleeved, knee-length. you wore it for your grandfather’s funeral three years ago and swore you’d never wear it again.

you shower in water so hot it stings. you watch the steam curl around the fish stickers still stuck to the ceiling from 2017 and you think about the day heeseung helped you put them up — chaewon's wish. he had stood on the edge of the bathtub with a wet sponge, laughing when you almost fell trying to reach the high corner. he caught you by the waist and said, “careful, loser. can’t have you breaking your neck before college.”

you turn the water colder until you can’t feel anything at all.

downstairs, chaewon’s mom has made coffee and pancakes nobody will eat. she hugs you without saying anything and you breathe in the familiar scent of her vanilla lotion and almost lose it right there in the kitchen.

chaewon appears in the doorway wearing the same black dress she wore to her uncle’s funeral last year. her eyes are already red. she doesn’t speak, just hands you a mug and takes your hand.

you sit at the vanity while she does your makeup because your hands shake too hard to hold the eyeliner steady. she keeps it simple — concealer under your eyes, a little mascara, nothing that will run too badly when you inevitably cry, and little blush. "to help you look less like a ghost." she tries to joke. but she’s crying, silent tears that drip off her chin onto the carpet.

“you know what? i keep thinking i’m going to see him walk in,” she whispers. “like this is some sick joke and he’s going to text us "gotcha" any second.”

you nod. your throat is too tight for words.

she lines your lips with the soft pink color you used to share in high school. her hand is steady even though her breathing isn’t.

“there,” she says when she’s done. “you look beautiful.”

you look like a ghost wearing your own face.

the drive to first presbyterian takes twenty-three minutes. you count every one. the radio stays off. chaewon’s knuckles are white on the steering wheel. you watch the town slide by like a memory you’re not ready to live inside again — the gas station where heeseung used to buy you blue raspberry slushies, the overpass with all the faded graffiti, the turn for lakeside beach where you spent half your summers.

the church parking lot is already full. you recognize too many cars. jake’s silver civic. sunghoon’s mom’s minivan. jay’s truck with the dent in the tailgate from the night you all tried to fit six people in the backseat.

you sit in chaewon’s car longer than you should. people stream past the windows in black coats and quiet voices. someone’s baby is crying somewhere. the sky is grey.

“i can’t do this,” you say. your voice sounds like it belongs to someone else.

chaewon reaches over and squeezes your hand so hard it hurts. “you don’t have to be strong. just… one foot in front of the other. i’m right here. everyone is.”

you get out.

the cold hits you like a slap. november air sharp enough to cut. you pull your coat tighter and follow chaewon up the stone steps.

inside smells like lilies and candle wax and too many people breathing the same air. the foyer is crowded with faces you haven’t seen since graduation. some of them try to hug you. some just nod with wet eyes. someone’s aunt you don’t even know presses a tissue into your hand.

then you spot them, clustered near the memory table like they’re holding up the wall with their shoulders.

yunjin sees you first. she’s in a simple black dress, hair pulled back with the same silver clip she wore to every formal since sophomore year. her eyes are already red, mascara smudged at the corners, but the second she spots you and chaewon she opens her arms wide and doesn’t let go until you’re both folded into her. she smells like the same peach perfume she’s worn since 2016. “i'm so glad you're here,” she whispers into your hair, voice thick. “we’re here. we’re all here.”

jake is right behind her, jacket too big like he borrowed it from his dad, tie crooked the way it always was. he doesn’t say anything at first, just pulls chaewon into a hug so tight her feet leave the ground for a second. when he lets go his eyes are glassy and he tries for a smile that doesn’t land. “traffic was a nightmare,” he mutters, like any of you care about traffic today.

jay shows up two seconds later holding two bottles of water he stole from the reception table. “move, idiots, let them breathe,” he grumbles, but his voice cracks halfway through and he shoves one bottle at you and one at chaewon like hydration is the only thing he knows how to fix. jake immediately snorts, “you literally just said the same thing to me in the parking lot,” and jay snaps back, “yeah, because you drive like a blind grandma,” and it’s the same dumb bickering they’ve done since freshman year, only today it sounds empty, like muscle memory trying to fill the silence where heeseung should be rolling his eyes and telling them both to shut up.

sunghoon is leaning against the wall beside the guestbook, arms crossed, wearing the black suit his mom probably forced him into. his hair is too neat, like he spent twenty minutes in front of the mirror trying to look okay and still failed. normally this is when he’d make some terrible joke about heeseung haunting the buffet or something, but today his mouth stays in a flat line. when you catch his eye he just lifts one hand in a tiny wave, then looks down at his shoes like the floor might open and swallow him if he speaks.

chaewon reaches for him first. sunghoon lets her hug him, arms hanging limp for a second before he finally wraps them around her and buries his face in her shoulder. you hear him mumble something that sounds like “this is so fucked up,” barely audible.

yunjin links her arm through yours and chaewon’s like she’s physically holding the three of you together. jake and jay stop arguing the second they notice. for once nobody tries to fill the quiet.

you’re all just standing there in a crooked half-circle, six kids who used to stay awake all night, talking about how cool they'd be when they got to adulthood.

yunjin squeezes your arm. “we’ll get through this,” she whispers. “together. like always.”

jay clears his throat, eyes on the ceiling. “yeah. group effort. no one left behind, right?” his voice wavers on the last word and jake elbows him gently, no heat behind it this time.

sunghoon finally looks up. his eyes are bloodshot but dry, like he ran out of tears on the drive over. “he’d hate this,” he says, so quiet you almost miss it. “all of us crying in our fancy clothes. he’d call us dramatic and idiots.”

a tiny, broken laugh escapes someone — maybe chaewon, maybe you — and for one second the six of you are breathing the same air you breathed at seventeen, when the worst thing that could happen was a failed test or a breakup or getting grounded for sneaking out.

then the laugh dies, because heeseung isn’t here to laugh with you, and the hole he left rips open all over again.

yunjin rests her head on your shoulder. jake reaches over and squeezes the back of your neck, quick and grounding. jay mutters something about needing air and disappears toward the side door, shoulders shaking. sunghoon just stares at the memory table, like he’s waiting for heeseung to walk out of one of the photos and tell them the joke’s over.

chaewon threads her fingers through yours and holds on tight.

there’s a table by the guestbook covered in photographs.

you stop breathing.

heeseung at eight years old with missing front teeth. heeseung in his football jersey sophomore year, helmet under his arm, grinning like he owned the world. heeseung and his older brother at christmas — both in ugly sweaters, his brother holding him in a headlock while he laughs so hard his eyes disappear. heeseung at graduation, arm slung around your shoulders, making bunny ears behind your head while you laugh so hard you’re crying.

and then the big one on the easel.

his senior portrait. the one his mom made him retake three times because he kept making faces. in this version he’s looking straight at the camera, soft smile, eyes bright, hair a little messy the way you always liked it.

you reach out and touch the edge of the frame like you’re expecting it to be warm.

it isn’t.

yunjin’s hand finds the small of your back. “come on,” she whispers. “let’s go inside.”

the sanctuary is packed. you recognize almost everyone. teachers. old neighbors. half the football team. people who used to sneak you beer at parties. people who cried with you at your graduation.

you all move toward the sanctuary like a single bruised organism — six bodies that used to be seven. no one speaks. the only sounds are dress shoes scuffing on tile, yunjin’s not-so-quiet sniffles, and jake’s shaky inhale every few steps.

mrs. kim, the old lady from down the street who used to invite you all over to eat her delicious chocolate muffins, spots you in the doorway and immediately waves you over to the pew she’s saved near the back, third from the end, same one your group always claimed for youth group movie nights. she pats the bench like it’s the most normal sunday in the world. you almost lose it right there.

chaewon slides in first, then you. yunjin squeezes in on your other side and immediately grabs your hand, lacing your fingers so tight it hurts in the best way. sunghoon follows, sits on the aisle, and rests his elbows on his knees like he’s holding himself together with his own arms. jake drops down next to him and stares straight ahead, jaw clenched so hard you can see it jumping. jay takes the end seat, back ramrod straight, but his knee keeps bouncing until sunghoon reaches over and stills it with one hand without looking.

the six of you fill the entire pew, shoulder to shoulder, knees knocking. just like senior year pep rallies, except no one is laughing and the air smells like lilies instead of gym floor and cheap deodorant.

the casket is closed. thank god.

you’re not sure any of you could handle open.

yunjin’s thumb keeps rubbing slow circles on the back of your hand. chaewon’s head drops to your shoulder for a second, then lifts again like she’s scared to take up space. jake’s leg starts bouncing the second sunghoon lets go. jay’s fingers drum silently on his thigh (three beats, pause, three beats), the same nervous rhythm he used to tap on the cafeteria table when heeseung was late to lunch.

no one says it out loud, but you all leave the exact same empty space in the middle of the row: the spot where heeseung would have slid in last, throwing his arm across the back of the pew, stealing someone’s program to doodle on, whispering dumb commentary until yunjin elbowed him and chaewon threatened to move seats.

the gap stays empty.

none of you dare fill it.

there’s a giant spray of white roses on top. a framed photo from his last birthday — twenty-four candles, his smile huge, frosting on his nose. someone put his letterman jacket over the back of a chair up front like he’s just stepped out for a minute.

the service starts.

you don’t hear most of it.

the pastor talks about light and legacy and a life cut short. heeseung’s cousin reads a poem you don’t follow. then his older brother walks to the podium.

he looks exactly like heeseung but taller, harder around the edges, like someone carved the softness out of him years ago. he’s wearing the same black suit he wore to their grandfather’s funeral. his hands grip the sides of the lectern so tight his knuckles go white.

“heeseung was my little brother,” he starts, voice rough. “he followed me everywhere when we were kids. copied everything i did. stole my clothes, my cds, my jeep, my friends. drove me insane.”

a few people laugh through tears.

“but he was the best person i ever knew. he had this way of making everyone feel like they mattered. like they were the only person in the room. even when he was hurting, he still showed up for people.”

his voice cracks. he looks straight at the casket.

“i should’ve shown up more for him. i should’ve seen it. i’m sorry, man. i’m so fucking sorry.”

he can’t finish. he just stands there shaking until their dad comes and leads him back to the pew.

then his mom stands up.

mrs. lee looks smaller than you remember. her hair is grayer. she’s wearing the pearl necklace heeseung bought her for mother’s day senior year with his walmart paycheck.

she doesn’t cry. not at first.

“my youngest boy,” she says, voice steady, “loved harder than anyone i ever met. he loved his friends like family. he loved this town. he loved music and driving too fast and making people laugh even when he was hurting.”

her gaze sweeps the room and lands on you for a moment. her eyes are the same warm brown as his.

“he talked about you kids all the time,” she says. “especially one of you.”

your heart stops.

she doesn’t say your name but everyone knows. you feel the weight of every stare. chaewon’s hand finds yours under the hymnal and squeezes until your fingers go numb.

“he kept every picture,” mrs. lee continues. “every note you ever wrote him. every stupid voice memo. he said you were the best parts of high school. he said—” her voice finally cracks. “he said he wished he’d been braver.”

the silence that follows is suffocating.

then she sits down and the dam breaks. people are crying openly now. someone beside you — probably yunjin, but you feel too numb to check — is sobbing so hard their whole body shakes.

you stare at the casket and you feel it like a physical thing — this giant, gaping hole where he used to be.

when it’s over, people start filing up to pay respects. you stay seated. your legs won’t work.

mrs. lee finds you anyway.

she walks straight to your pew and kneels in front of you like you’re the one who needs comforting. her hands are cold when she takes yours.

“he loved you,” she says simply. “he never stopped doing it.”

you try to answer. all that comes out is a broken sound.

she pulls something from her pocket — a small envelope, worn soft at the edges. your name is written on the front in his handwriting.

“he asked me to give you this,” she says. “if anything ever happened. i didn’t know— i didn’t think—”

she presses it into your palm and closes your fingers around it.

then she hugs you so tight you can feel her heartbeat.

when she lets go, she’s crying. you didn’t think she had any tears left.

you clutch the envelope like it’s the only real thing in the world.

outside, the graveyard is worse.

the wind has teeth. everyone huddles under black umbrellas even though it’s not raining. the casket is lowered slowly while a recording of heeseung singing “how to save a life” plays from someone’s phone — off-key, laughing, seventeen years old, the summer you all thought would never end.

you stand at the edge of the hole in the ground and watch dirt hit polished wood and you think: this can’t be real. this happens to other people. not to us.

chaewon and yunjin stand beside you the whole time. jake and sunghoon are on your other side, shoulders shaking. jay can’t even look.

when it’s over, people start drifting away. hugs and murmured sorrys and promises to text. you stay until it’s just you, chaewon, and the fresh pile of earth with a temporary marker that still says beloved son and brother like words can hold what’s gone.

the envelope burns in your pocket.

you wait until you’re back in chaewon’s car, heat blasting, windows fogging, before you open it.

your hands shake so badly you almost rip it.

inside is a single sheet of notebook paper, folded into a perfect square the way he used to pass notes in chemistry. and a polaroid — the one from the fair, you and him on the tailgate, you looking at him while he looks at the camera.

you unfold the letter.

“hey loser,

if you’re reading this, i fucked up pretty bad, huh?

i’m sorry. for everything i didn’t say. for every time i almost texted you and didn’t. for every almost that stayed an almost.

you were my favorite person. always. even when we stopped talking. even when i was too proud or too scared or too high to pick up the phone.

i loved you. not just as my best friend. you know that, right? i think you always knew.

i should’ve kissed you that night after prom when we sat in my brother’s jeep for two hours pretending we weren’t about to ruin everything. i should’ve kissed you every single day we had.

i hope you’re happy. i hope someone loves you loud and brave and never lets you wonder.

if i could go back, i’d ruin the friendship in a heartbeat.

love always,

p.s. play “off my face” at my funeral. tell them it’s because i was obsessed with justin bieber. don’t tell them it’s because of you.”

you read it three times before the words stop blurrying.

then you fold it back into its perfect square and press it to your chest like you can hold him there.

chaewon doesn’t ask what it says. she just starts the car and drives.

you watch the cemetery disappear in the rearview mirror and you whisper to the empty air where he should be sitting shotgun:

“i loved you too, idiot.”

and for the first time all day, it starts to rain.

chaewon’s house smells like cinnamon and the same laundry detergent it’s used since 2009. her parents hug you too long, whisper that you’re family, always have been. you nod into their shoulders like a robot. chaewon tries to steer you toward the kitchen, toward tea or soup or anything that pretends normalcy is possible tonight, but you stop in the hallway, hand on the banister.

“i need to go home,” you say. the words come out flat, like someone else is using your mouth.

chaewon blinks. “you are home.”

“no. my home. the old one. just… i need air. i need to walk.”

she opens her mouth to argue, sees your face, and closes it again. she knows this version of you: the one that used to sneak out at 2 a.m. when feelings got too loud. she just grabs her keys.

“then i’m driving.”

you shake your head. “i’ll walk. it’s ten minutes. please.”

she hesitates, then presses her old hoodie into your hands. the one with the bleach stain on the sleeve. “text me every five minutes or i’m calling search and rescue.”

you promise. you step outside and the november air bites your cheeks raw.

you don’t plan the route. your feet do.

gallatin road is quiet for a friday night. the streetlights buzz the same orange they always have. the shell station is still open, neon beer signs flickering. you pass the spot where heeseung used to idle his jeep while you ran in for blue slushies and sour gummy worms. you can almost hear him yelling “hurry up, loser, i’m not made of gas money” through the open window.

you keep walking.

the overpass comes into view, grey concrete tagged with layers of spray paint. most of the names are faded now, but you find the one you’re looking for halfway up the railing: hee + you, carved with his house key the september it rained for nine days straight. the letters are worn soft from weather and fingers tracing them over the years. you run your thumb across the grooves and feel the sting behind your eyes start again.

you remember standing right here, september senior year, grass still glistening from the afternoon storm. he’d driven you both out “for air,” which meant he wanted to smoke and you wanted to pretend you didn’t notice. he leaned against the hood, hair damp, hoodie sleeves pushed up, smiling like the world was simple.

you’d wanted to kiss him so badly your chest ached. his girlfriend — soojin — had been away at her cousin’s wedding in busan. it wasn’t an invitation, but it could have been. you stayed on your side of the hood, hands in your pockets, talking about college applications and whether the south's weather was better than the north's. safe things. he dropped you off at 1 a.m. and you both pretended the air in the jeep wasn’t electric.

you should’ve kissed him anyway.

you walk faster.

the turn for lakeside beach is dark, chain across the entrance, off-season. you slip under it anyway. the gravel crunches under your boots. the lake is black glass tonight, reflecting a half moon. you find the old parking lot and there it is: the spot where heeseung's brother's jeep used to sit every friday night junior year. heeseung would steal the keys, pick you up after curfew, drive here with the headlights off so the cops wouldn’t notice. you’d sit in the back, legs swinging over the tailgate, watching whatever game was on someone’s phone screen propped against the windshield.

he always sat close enough that your knees touched. always passed you the warm mountain dew first. always smiled miles wide when you laughed at his terrible commentary. you remember one night in particular: september again, sky huge and star-drunk. he’d looked over at you mid-sentence and just… stopped talking. the game kept playing through the phone speaker, but everything else went still. you had felt it then, the pull, like gravity had shifted. you had both looked away at the exact same second.

you should’ve kissed him anyway.

you sit on the cold ground where the jeep used to be and pull your knees to your chest. the wind off the water is brutal but you don’t move.

prom night is harder to remember without tasting bile.

you had gone with dawon because he asked first and you were seventeen and stupid, and thought if you said yes to someone else the wanting heeseung would stop. it didn’t. you spent the entire night hyper-aware of heeseung across the gym in his rented tux, hair slicked back, with soojin even though she had broken up with him four weeks prior over text. you caught glimpses of him over dawon’s shoulder while “in da club” blasted and the disco ball threw cheap light everywhere.

heeseung had looked at you like you were the only person in the room.

every time the song hit the drop, you’d lock eyes across the shiny wood floor and the wilted orchid on your wrist felt like a handcuff. dawon kept trying to grind on you. you kept pretending you didn’t see heeseung’s jaw clench.

there was one moment, right after the chorus, when dawon went to get punch and you stood alone by the bleachers. heeseung started walking toward you. you remember the exact number of steps: twelve. twelve steps and the entire gym disappeared.

then jake grabbed him, yelling something about a group photo, and the moment shattered.

you’d spent the rest of the night pretending your heart wasn’t sitting in your throat.

you should’ve kissed him anyway.

you don’t know how long you sit by the lake. long enough for your fingers to go numb. long enough for the moon to crawl halfway across the sky. your phone buzzes: chaewon checking in. you text back “i’m alive” and then turn it face-down on the ground.

you speak out loud to the dark water.

“you idiot,” you say. your voice cracks on the second word. “you absolute idiot. i was right there. every single time. i was right there and i was so scared of losing you that i lost you anyway.”

the wind carries the words away like they were never yours.

you stay until the cold seeps into your bones and you can’t feel your feet. then you stand up, brush gravel off your dress, and start the long walk back.

every streetlight feels like a spotlight on every moment you didn’t choose him.

when you reach chaewon’s porch, the light is still on. she’s sitting on the top step in her pajamas, wrapped in a blanket, waiting.

you sit down beside her without a word. she opens the blanket and pulls you into it. your teeth are chattering.

“did you find what you needed?” she asks quietly.

you shake your head against her shoulder.

“i just found more places where we should’ve kissed,” you whisper.

she doesn’t say anything. she just holds you tighter while you cry into the bleach-stained hoodie that still smells faintly like lakeside beach and september rain and the boy who will never drive these roads again.

you wake up in the yellow room again, but it feels different today. the light is harsher, the glow-in-the-dark stars look cheap and childish in the daylight, like they’re mocking you for ever believing in wishes. your body aches like you ran a marathon in your sleep, like every muscle is bruised from holding itself together. the black dress is crumpled on the floor where you dropped it last night, one sleeve inside-out, looking as exhausted as you feel. you’re wearing one of chaewon’s old volleyball t-shirts (the one with her number 7 fading across the chest) and sweatpants that sag at the waist and smell like her dryer sheets and the faint ghost of vanilla body spray from 2018.

chaewon is already up. she’s sitting on the edge of the bed holding two mugs of coffee like an offering, like if she just keeps your hands full you won’t be able to shatter. her eyes are puffy, hair twisted into a knot on top of her head, and she’s wearing the same hoodie she cried in last night.

“morning,” she says softly. “or afternoon, technically. it’s almost one.”

you sit up slowly. the room tilts for a second. your head feels full of wet cement, thick and slow. you take the coffee but don’t drink it. the warmth against your palms is the only proof you’re still alive.

“mrs. lee called,” chaewon continues, voice careful, like she’s stepping around broken glass. “she wants us to come over. she… she has things. for everyone. things heeseung wanted people to have.”

your stomach drops so fast you taste metal. the coffee sloshes in the mug and burns your thumb but you barely feel it.

you nod anyway. you have to.

the drive to the lees’ house is silent except for the click of the turn signal and the low hum of the engine. chaewon keeps glancing at you like you’re made of glass, like one wrong breath and you’ll crack into a thousand pieces she’ll never be able to glue back together. you stare out the window and count the same streets you walked last night like a ghost: the shell station, the overpass, the faded sonic sign. everything looks smaller in daylight. everything looks wrong.

the house looks exactly the same from the outside: white siding peeling at the corners, crooked mailbox with the flag stuck halfway up, basketball goal in the driveway with the net long gone and the rim rusted orange. but when mrs. lee opens the door her face is hollowed out, cheekbones sharper, eyes red-rimmed behind her glasses like she hasn’t slept since tuesday. she hugs you both so tight you can feel her ribs through her sweater, can feel her trembling like a leaf about to fall.

the living room smells like coffee and lilies left too long in water. it’s full of people you haven’t seen in years and some you saw yesterday but already feel like strangers. jake is sitting cross-legged on the floor holding a stack of old vinyls, running his thumb over the worn corners like he’s trying to memorize them. sunghoon has heeseung’s favorite black beanie pulled low over his eyes, the one with the tiny hole near the cuff that heeseung used to stick his finger through when he was thinking. jay is turning a worn-out guitar pick over and over in his fingers, the one heeseung used to flip across his knuckles like a coin trick. yunjin stands by the window with her arms crossed so tight her knuckles are white, wearing heeseung's old football jacket, staring at the front yard like she's waiting for him to pull up in the jeep blasting terrible 2010s rap.

on the coffee table are neat little piles. cds in cracked jewel cases. photographs with curled edges. t-shirts folded like they’re still warm from his body. a basketball with signatures scrawled across it in fading sharpie. a pair of beat-up vans that still have lakeside beach sand in the treads. everyone gets something. everyone gets a piece of him to take home and pretend it’s enough.

then mrs. lee walks straight to you.

she’s holding a shoebox. plain white nike, men’s size 11, the same kind he wore senior year when he swore he was done growing. your name is written across the lid in black sharpie in his handwriting — big, loopy, unmistakable. underneath it, smaller, almost shy: open when you’re ready. not here.

“this one is just yours,” she says. her voice cracks on yours like it hurts to say it. “he started putting it together… a while ago. kept adding things. adding and taking away. told me if anything ever happened to him, you were the only one allowed to have it. he was very clear about that.”

she presses it into your arms. it’s heavier than it should be. heavier than a box of memories has any right to be.

you can’t speak. your throat is sandpaper. you just clutch it to your chest like it might float away if you let go, like gravity might finally decide it’s had enough of you.

people try to talk to you after that. chaewon keeps one hand on your elbow like she’s afraid you’ll collapse. jake tries to hug you and you let him but you don’t hug back. sunghoon asks if you want water. someone’s mom you don’t even know presses a tissue into your hand like tears are the only currency left. you barely hear them. all you can feel is the cardboard edges digging into your ribs and the weight of his name on the lid and the way mrs. lee’s fingers trembled when she let go.

you last twenty minutes. maybe twenty-five.

then you’re moving. mumbling something about needing air, needing to walk, needing anything but the suffocating kindness in this room. chaewon starts to follow but yunjin catches her wrist and shakes her head once, firm. you hear her say, low, “let her go. she needs to do this alone,” and something in her voice sounds like she knows exactly what alone feels like now.

you walk.

it’s colder today. the wind slices straight through chaewon’s hoodie and raises goosebumps on your arms but you don’t feel it. the box bumps against your thigh with every step, a steady thump like a heartbeat you don’t have anymore. people’s voices fade behind you. car doors slam. someone calls your name but you don’t turn around.

the ten-minute walk to your parents’ house feels endless and instantaneous at the same time. your street is quiet, leaves skittering across the asphalt like they’re trying to escape. the porch swing creaks in the wind, empty. the jack-o-lantern your mom carved before they left for your dad's job trip is already sagging, mouth caving in. you still have your key on the ring with your city apartment keys and the stupid miniature lightsaber you won at comic-con last year. it turns in the lock like it never forgot you.

you let yourself in and the familiar smell hits you like a punch to the sternum: lemon floor cleaner and the cinnamon candle your mom always burns in fall and something underneath that’s just home. everything is exactly where it was when you were seventeen. the same faded rug in the entryway. the same crooked family photos on the wall. the height marks on the kitchen doorframe where heeseung used to measure how much taller he’d gotten than you every summer, drawing little arrows and writing “hee > you” in sharpie until your mom yelled at him.

you don’t turn on the lights.

you go straight upstairs, past the living room couch where he used to sprawl with his feet on the armrest while you pretended to do homework and he pretended to care about your calculus notes. your bedroom door is still painted that awful teal you picked sophomore year because it matched the scrunchie you wore every day. the paint is chipped near the handle from years of slamming it when you were mad. you shut it behind you softly this time and slide down until you’re sitting on the carpet, back against the bed, box in your lap.

the room hasn’t changed. same white furniture. same fairy lights strung over the window that burned out two christmases ago. same corkboard covered in faded concert tickets and polaroids and the movie stub from the night you and heeseung saw the fault in our stars and he pretended he wasn’t crying. the bed is unmade because your mom aired it out before they left. the quilt your grandma made is folded at the foot.

you stare at the lid for a long time. minutes. hours. time lost meaning somewhere between the funeral and now.

then you open it.

the first thing on top is the ugly stuffed giraffe from the gallatin county fair. seungie. its fur is matted and graying, one eye missing, one ear floppy. there’s a new note pinned to its neck with a safety pin, paper yellowed and soft:

“still the best prize i ever won. keep him safe for me.”

underneath is the gray hoodie. the one you stole so many times he stopped asking for it back. the one you wore for three days straight after your first college breakup. it’s folded neatly, sleeves tucked in, and it smells faintly like his cologne and laundry detergent and something else you can’t name anymore but your body recognizes instantly. you pull it out and press it to your face and breathe until your lungs hurt. you can feel your heart breaking a little more.

then the mixtapes. five cds in cracked jewel cases, sharpie titles in his handwriting that’s gotten messier over the years:

- songs that sound like driving with her, windows down, summer 2018

- songs for when she’s sad and won’t tell me why (i always know anyway)

- songs that made me want to kiss her and never stop

- songs for the nights i almost called (there were so many)

- songs for after (in case i’m too late)

there’s a flash drive taped to the bottom of the last one labeled simply: play me last. the tape is peeling.

a stack of polaroids rubber-banded together. you flip through them with fingers that don’t feel like yours: you asleep on his shoulder in the back of his brother’s jeep, mouth open, drooling a little. you and him at 3 a.m. waffle house, whipped cream on your nose, his finger reaching toward the camera to smear it on you. you sticking your tongue out at the camera while he looks at you like you personally hung the moon and stars. the two of you at graduation, his arm around your neck, both of you crying and laughing at the same time.

every note you ever passed him in class, folded into tiny perfect squares. some of them have water stains. some have doodles in the margins. one just says i miss you in your handwriting and below it, in his: me too, loser.

the disposable camera from senior skip day you thought got lost forever. it’s still got six exposures left.

and at the very bottom, underneath everything, buried like it was the hardest thing to let go of, another envelope.

this one is thicker. the paper is soft, like it’s been handled a hundred times, folded and unfolded and refolded again. your name is on the front again, but messier, like he was shaking when he wrote it. dated three days before he died.

you open it with fingers that refuse to stop trembling.

“hey loser,

if you’re reading this one, i really did it this time. i’m so fucking sorry.

i’ve started this letter fifty times and thrown every single one away. this is the first one i’m keeping. maybe the last.

i keep thinking about the night after our last prom. how we sat in my brother's jeep for two hours pretending we were just waiting for traffic to die down. you had your shoes off and your feet on the dash and that stupid wilted orchid dangling from your wrist and you were humming along to whatever was on the radio like you didn’t know i was dying to kiss you. i had my hand on the gearshift and you kept brushing it every time you moved and i thought my heart was going to explode out of my chest.

i should’ve kissed you then. i should’ve kissed you a thousand times before then. i should’ve kissed you the first time you fell asleep on my shoulder and drooled on my hoodie. i should’ve kissed you when we were fifteen and you cried in my passenger seat because your dog died and i didn’t know what else to do so i just held your hand until you stopped shaking.

i think i’ve been in love with you since that day. maybe before. maybe always.

i never told you because i was scared. scared of losing you. scared of being too much. scared i’d drag you down with me when things got bad. and they got bad, baby. they got so bad some days i couldn’t see straight. the pills started as “just for the pain” and turned into the only thing that made the noise quiet. i hated myself for it. hated that i couldn’t be the guy you deserved. the one who would’ve fought for you instead of disappearing like a coward.

i tried to text you a hundred times. had whole conversations typed out and deleted. i’d get high and open your instagram and just stare at your face until the screen went black. you looked happy. that was enough. that had to be enough.

there’s a flash drive in here. it’s everything. every song that ever made me think of you. every voice memo i recorded at 3 a.m. when i was too drunk or too high or too sad to call you and tell you i still loved you. every stupid love song i couldn’t listen to without crying like an idiot.

if you listen to it, start with track 7. it’s the one i wrote for you last year and never showed anyone. it’s called “ruined friendship” and it’s about how i would’ve burned the whole world down for one kiss. it’s rough. my voice cracks in the second verse. i was crying when i recorded it. don’t judge me.

i hope you’re happy. i hope someone is holding your hand right now and telling you every single day how incredible you are. how funny and kind and smart and beautiful even when you’re mad and your hair’s a mess and you steal all the covers. if it’s not me, that’s okay. just don’t let them take you for granted the way i did.

i love you. i loved you when we were sixteen and invincible and thought the world was ours. i loved you when we were twenty and pretending we weren’t in love and drifting apart like idiots. i love you now, wherever i am.

ruin the friendship next time, okay? for me. don’t wait. don’t be scared. kiss them stupid and never let them wonder.

always yours,

p.s. the hoodie still smells like me if you bury your face in the left sleeve. i wore it the night i finished this. i fell asleep in it thinking maybe tomorrow i’d finally be brave.”

you don’t cry at first.

you just sit there holding the letter against your chest like it’s the only thing keeping your heart inside your body. like if you let go you’ll bleed out on your childhood carpet and no one will find you until your parents get home next week.

then you find the flash drive and crawl to your old laptop still sitting on the desk under a layer of dust. it takes three tries to get it to read. the screen is cracked in the corner from the time heeseung dropped it trying to show you a youtube video. you click track 7.

his voice fills the room. just him and an acoustic guitar, raw and cracked and perfect. a little too close to the mic, like he was nervous.

“glistening grass from september rain… grey overpass full of neon names… you drive… and it was not an invitation… should’ve kissed you anyway…”

you curl up on the carpet with the hoodie pulled over your head like a hood, sleeves over your hands, the giraffe clutched to your chest, and you cry until there’s nothing left. until your throat is raw and your eyes burn and your ribs ache from sobbing so hard you can’t breathe. until the only sound in the house is his voice singing every almost you never took, every moment you let fear win, every second you thought there would be more time.

outside, the sun sets without you noticing. the room grows dark except for the blue glow of the laptop screen.

you fall asleep on the floor surrounded by pieces of him, the box open like a wound that will never close, the hoodie pulled up to your chin and seungie tucked under your arm like when you were seventeen and everything was still possible.

and somewhere in the dark, you swear you can smell blue raspberry slushies and september rain and the boy who will never again walk through your front door yelling “loser, i’m here!” like he owned the place.

you imagine he’s sitting at the foot of your bed, caressing your skin, making you laugh, telling you it's okay to ruin the friendship, that he's not scared anymore.

you don’t know when you fell asleep, or if you even did. the carpet is rough against your cheek, the hoodie tangled around your limbs like a straightjacket. the room is pitch black except for the faint glow of streetlights slipping through the blinds, turning everything into sharp shadows. your eyes are swollen from crying, your throat raw like you’ve been screaming. the giraffe — seungie — is still clutched in one hand, its floppy ear pressed against your palm.

tap.

tap tap.

the sound is so faint at first you think it’s your heartbeat echoing in your ears. but it comes again, insistent, rhythmic. three slow, one fast. exactly like—

your body goes cold.

you sit up so fast the room spins. the hoodie slips off your shoulders. the box is open beside you, contents spilled like guts: cds cracked in their cases, polaroids scattered, the letter crumpled where you dropped it.

tap.

tap tap.

rocks against glass. your window.

you crawl to the window on hands and knees, heart slamming against your ribs. you push the blinds apart with shaking fingers.

he’s there.

heeseung is there.

standing in your front yard under the oak tree, hands in his pockets, looking up at your window with that half-grin you’ve seen a thousand times. seventeen. hair too long, curling over his ears the way it did senior year. wearing the gray hoodie — the exact same one you’re holding in your lap right now. the porch light catches the side of his face, highlighting the tiny scar above his eyebrow from that stupid skateboard stunt that jay made him try.

he lifts one hand in that lazy wave, pinky and thumb out like a surfer. then he mouths: “open up, loser.”

you can’t move. you can’t breathe. your head spins. your fingers dig into the windowsill until the wood bites into your skin.

this isn’t real. this can’t be real. you buried him yesterday. you read his suicide note three hours ago. you listened to his voice crack on track 7 until the laptop died.

but he’s there. solid. alive. picking up another pebble from your mom’s flowerbed and tossing it lightly at the glass.

tap.

you fumble with the latch, hands numb. the window sticks like it always has — did — in may, swollen from spring humidity. you shove it open and lean out, night air cool against your feverish skin.

“heeseung?” your voice comes out a whisper, cracked and small, as if you were afraid.

he grins wider, teeth flashing white. “took you long enough, i'm freezing here. you sleep like the dead, dude.”

the dead. the word hits you like a slap. you flinch.

he doesn’t notice. he’s already jogging toward the drainpipe, the one he’s climbed a hundred times. his sneakers — beat-up converse with the laces frayed — scrape against the siding as he hauls himself up, muscles flexing under the hoodie. he swings one leg over the sill and tumbles into your room in a heap, laughing under his breath.

“graceful as ever,” he says, sitting up and brushing dirt off his jeans. he looks at you then, really looks, and his smile fades a little. “are you okay? you look like you saw a ghost.”

you stare at him. up close, he’s so real it hurts. the freckle under his left eye. the way his hair sticks up in the back from his helmet. the faint smell of axe body spray and spearmint gum — the kind he always chewed before tests.

you reach out without thinking, fingers brushing his cheek. warm. solid. alive.

he freezes, eyes widening. “uh… what’s up with you?”

you pull back like you’ve been burned. your mind is screaming: dream. hallucination. grief psychosis. but your heart — your stupid, broken heart — is pounding like it believes.

“nothing,” you whisper. “just… bad dream.”

he nods slowly, not convinced, but he lets it go. that’s heeseung for you. always letting things go when you need him to. he glances around your room, taking in the teal walls, the fairy lights, the corkboard with all the tickets and photos. everything exactly as it was senior year. no dust. no cracked laptop screen. no empty house because your parents aren’t traveling yet — they’re downstairs, probably watching late-night tv.

wait.

you glance at your desk. no laptop. instead, your old desktop computer with the bulky monitor and the stickers peeling off. the calendar on the wall: may 2019. last week of may. two weeks until prom.

your breath catches.

“hey,” heeseung says, snapping you out of it. he’s sitting on the edge of your bed now, kicking his feet like a kid. “are you gonna tell me why you look like you’re about to puke, or are we sneaking out?”

sneaking out. that’s what this is. what this was. he used to do this all the time senior year — throw rocks at your window when he couldn’t sleep, drag you out for midnight drives or waffle house runs or just sitting on the overpass talking about nothing.

you swallow hard. “where to?”

he grins again, that miles-wide smile that makes your chest ache. “lakeside? my brother's got the jeep in front of my house, but i can hotwire it if he’s asleep.”

his older brother. probably twenty-one, still living at home, still yelling at heeseung for borrowing his stuff without asking.

you nod before you can think. “yeah. let’s go.”

you climb out the window after him — your legs remember the motions, even if your mind is reeling. the drainpipe creaks under your weight. heeseung waits at the bottom, hands out to steady you when you jump the last few feet. his fingers brush your waist and you almost collapse right there.

“easy,” he murmurs. “you good?”

no. you’re not good. you’re losing your mind. but you nod and follow him down the street, sneakers quiet on the pavement. the neighborhood is asleep, porch lights flickering, crickets chirping in the warm may air. it smells like cut grass and impending summer.

heeseung walks close, shoulders bumping yours every few steps. he chatters about nothing — some dumb thing jake did at practice today, how sunghoon almost got detention for skating in the halls again. you listen and nod and try not to stare at him like he’s a miracle.

because if this is a dream, you don’t want to wake up.

if this is time travel — some cosmic do-over triggered by his words in that letter, “ruin the friendship next time, okay?” — then you have to be careful. you can’t just kiss him tonight. you’re too shocked, too raw. your hands are still shaking from holding his suicide note. if this is real, you’ll wait. you’ll make sure. you’ll do it right.

his brother’s jeep is parked in the lees’ driveway, keys probably still in the ignition because he’s forgetful like that. heeseung hops in the driver’s seat like he owns it, fiddles with the wires under the dash until the engine rumbles to life.

“won’t he kill you?” you ask, climbing into the passenger side”

heeseung shrugs, backing out slowly. “nah. he loves me too much.”

your throat tightens. you remember his brother at the funeral, gripping the podium, voice breaking: “i should’ve shown up more for him.”

you look away, out the window at the blurring houses.

gallatin road is empty this late. heeseung cranks the radio — some old taylor swift song from sophomore year — and sings along off-key, drumming on the steering wheel. you watch him and feel the tears prick your eyes again.

“hey,” he says after a while, turning down the volume. “seriously, what’s wrong? you’ve been weird since i got to your window.”

you shake your head. “just… stuff.”

he glances at you, eyes soft in the dashboard glow. “you can tell me, you know. we’re best friends, right?”

best friends. the words twist like a knife. you remember the letter: “i loved you. not just as my best friend. you know that, right?”

“yeah,” you whisper. “best friends.”

he doesn’t push. he never does.

lakeside beach is deserted, chain across the entrance glowing faintly in the headlights. heeseung parks just outside and kills the engine. you slip under the chain, gravel crunching under your feet. the lake is silver under the moon, waves lapping softly at the shore.

you sit on the same spot as always — the old picnic table with the graffiti carved into it. heeseung hops up beside you, legs swinging.

“remember last time we were here?” he asks. “after the spring game? jake dared sunghoon to jump in fully clothed and he did it. that idiot almost drowned his phone.”

you laugh despite yourself. it comes out choked. “yeah. you had to fish it out.”

he bumps your shoulder. “well, jake wasn't gonna do it,” he chuckles. “team effort.”

silence falls, comfortable but heavy. you stare at the water and think about the box. the letters. the plushie. no shoebox in your room. no flash drive. no track 7 echoing in your head.

is that what started this? his words in the letter — “ruin the friendship next time, okay?” — like a spell, a wish granted by some cruel universe. or maybe it’s all in your head. maybe you finally snapped, grief carving hallucinations so vivid you can touch them.

“hey,” heeseung says softly. “earth to loser.”

you look at him. his eyes are warm, concerned. the same eyes that looked empty in his senior portrait at the funeral.

“if something’s wrong,” he says, “you can tell me. i’m here.”

i’m here. the words break you a little more.

you want to tell him everything. about the overdose. the casket. the rain at the graveyard. the letter where he said he should’ve kissed you. but you can’t. if this is a dream, it’ll shatter. if it’s real… you might change everything. ruin it worse.

“i’m fine,” you lie. “just stressed about prom.”

he rolls his eyes. “prom? that’s two weeks away. you got a date yet?”

you shake your head. in the original timeline — or whatever this is — you went with dawon. regretted it instantly.

“me neither,” he says, looking out at the lake. “soojin’s been hinting, but… i don’t know.”

soojin. his on-again, off-again girlfriend. the one who broke up with him two weeks ago. the one who wasn’t there when things got bad.

your fists clench in your lap.

“you should ask someone else,” you say before you can stop yourself.

he looks at you, eyebrow raised. “like who?”

like me. the words stick in your throat. you’re too shocked. too scared. you can’t ruin the friendship tonight. not when you’re still half-convinced you’ll wake up any second to an empty house and a shoebox full of regrets.

“i don’t know,” you mumble. “someone cool.”

he laughs. “very helpful.”

you sit there until the sky starts to lighten at the edges, talking about nothing and everything. school. college apps. his latest mixtape. you soak it in, every laugh, every glance, memorizing him like he could vanish again.

when he drops you off, climbing the drainpipe with you, he pauses at your window.

“night, loser,” he says. but he doesn’t leave right away. he looks at you like he wants to say more.

your heart pounds. the words echo in you head “ruin the friendship next time, okay?”

“night,” you whisper.

he hesitates, then swings out and drops to the ground. you watch him jog across the lawn, disappearing into the shadows.

you close the window and sink to the floor, back against the wall. no box. no letters. no plushie.

but in your pocket — wait. you reach in and pull out a pebble. one of the ones he threw. smooth and cool in your palm.

real.

or dream?

you curl up on the bed, hoodie still on, and stare at the ceiling until sleep drags you under.

you wake to sunlight streaming through the blinds. birds chirping. your mom yelling from downstairs: “breakfast in ten! don’t be late for school!”

school. senior year. may.

you sit up slowly. the pebble is still on your nightstand.

you dress in a daze — jeans, t-shirt, the sneakers with the hole in the toe. downstairs, your parents are at the kitchen table, dad reading the paper, mom flipping pancakes.

“god morning, sleepyhead,” mom says. “you look like you didn’t sleep at all.”

“i had a bad dream,” you mumble, pouring orange juice.

dad glances up. “is everything okay?”

you nod. but your mind is racing. if this is real — if you’re back — then you have two weeks. two weeks to ruin the friendship the right way. to tell him. to kiss him. to change everything.

school is a blur. the hallways smell like floor wax and teenage sweat. your locker is covered in stickers, the combination is still 15-10-01 — heeseung's birthday.

chaewon slams into you at lunch, arm linked through yours. “oh my god, did you hear? jay got caught making out with that sophomore in the janitor’s closet.”

you laugh, but it feels distant. then you see him.

heeseung at the end of the hall, leaning against his locker, talking to sunghoon. he spots you and waves, that easy grin.

you wave back, heart in your throat.

the day drags. in chemistry, he passes you a note folded into a perfect square: i'm bored. draw me something.

you sketch a stick figure of him falling off a skateboard. he snorts when he unfolds it, draws devil horns on your head, and passes it back.

normal. everything normal.

but at the end of the day, he waits by your locker. “wanna grab slushies? my treat.”

shell station. blue raspberry. like always.

you nod. “yeah.”

in the jeep — his brother’s, borrowed again — he blasts the radio and you roll the windows down. warm may air whips through, tangling your hair.

at the station, he buys your slushie and his mountain dew, steals a sip of yours when you’re not looking.

“thief,” you say, swatting his arm.

he laughs. “you love it.”

you do. god, you do.

back in the jeep, parked under the overpass, you sip in silence for a while. the graffiti is fresh — your names carved there, but not worn yet.

“hey,” he says suddenly. “about prom…”

your pulse spikes.

“do you think i should ask soojin?”

no. ask me. ruin it.

but you’re still too shocked. still waiting for the dream to crack.

“if you want,” you say weakly.

he nods, but he looks disappointed. or maybe that’s your imagination.

that night, you lie in bed staring at the pebble. “ruin the friendship next time,” you whisper to the dark.

tomorrow. you’ll do it tomorrow.

but tomorrow turns into the next day. and the next. you’re paralyzed — every time you open your mouth to say it, the words freeze. what if this is real and you scare him off? what if it’s a dream and saying it wakes you up to the empty house and the shoebox and the rain-soaked graveyard? you tell yourself you’ll do it after school, or during lunch, or on the drive to the shell station, but the moments slip away like sand through your fingers. you watch him laugh in the hallway, slinging his backpack over one shoulder, and you think: tomorrow. definitely tomorrow.

the pebble sits on your nightstand like a talisman, smooth and unyielding. every morning you pick it up, roll it between your thumb and forefinger, and whisper “ruin the friendship” like a mantra. but by the time you see him in first period, leaning back in his chair with his pencil tapping against his notebook, the courage evaporates. you pass notes instead — dumb doodles of teachers with devil horns, inside jokes about jake’s terrible haircut. safe. familiar. the kind of friendship that doesn’t end in overdose and closed caskets.

a week melts away like that. may bleeds into hotter days, the air thick with the promise of summer and the buzz of senioritis. prom posters plaster the walls: glittering crowns, disco balls, “a night to remember” in curly font. everyone’s talking about dates and dresses and afterparties. yunjin drags you dress shopping after school on wednesday, twirling in front of mirrors in poofy gowns while you sit on the fitting room bench, phone in hand, half-listening.

“what about this one?” she asks, spinning in a blue dress that makes her look like a mermaid. “too much?”

“perfect,” you say, but your mind is on heeseung.

he texted you last night: can’t sleep again. wanna sneak out? you said yes, met him at the end of your street, walked to the overpass and sat with your legs dangling over the edge, watching cars blur underneath. he talked about college — maybe community college first, stay local, help his mom. you wanted to grab his hand, tell him everything, but instead you bumped his shoulder and said “you’ll figure it out.”

coward.

thursday lunch, you’re at the usual table in the cafeteria — you, chaewon, heeseung, jake, yunjin, sunghoon, jay. the noise is deafening: trays clattering, laughter echoing off cinderblock walls. heeseung’s across from you, stealing fries from your tray like always. his knee bumps yours under the table and you jolt like it’s electric.

“so,” jake says, mouth full of burger, “prom dates. who’s locked in?”

sunghoon shrugs. “i'm going by myself. it's more fun that way.”

jay rolls his eyes. “you mean no one asked you.”

yunjin elbows you. “what about you two?” she points between you and heeseung. “going together? best friends going to prom pact or whatever?”

your heart stops. this is it. say yes. ruin it.

but heeseung laughs first, rubbing the back of his neck. “nah. we’d kill each other by the end of the night.”

everyone chuckles. you force a smile, but it feels like glass cracking. “yeah,” you mumble. “a total disaster.”

he looks at you then, something flickering in his eyes — regret? hurt? — but it’s gone before you can name it.

friday after practice, he catches you by your locker. sweat-damp hair sticking to his forehead, football jersey slung over his shoulder. “hey, loser. walk home?”

you nod, falling into step beside him. the sun’s dipping low, painting the parking lot gold. kids yell goodbye from car windows. heeseung’s quiet at first, kicking a pebble along the sidewalk.

“i’m gonna ask soojin to prom,” he says suddenly.

your stomach plummets. just like before. the words hang in the air, heavy and sharp.

“oh,” you say, voice too high. “cool. she’ll say yes.”

he glances at you sideways. “do you think so?”

“yeah. she isn't over you. never will.”

he nods, but he doesn’t look happy. “what about you? has anyone asked yet?”

“nope.” dawon will, tomorrow. you know the script.

“someone will,” he says softly. “you’re… you know. amazing.”

your chest aches. tell him. tell him now.

“thanks,” you whisper instead.

that night, you lie in bed staring at the ceiling, pebble in your fist so tight it leaves indents in your palm. heartbroken doesn’t cover it — it’s like reliving the funeral all over again, but slower, drawn out over days instead of hours. you’re a coward. you know it. but the fear is bigger than the want, a wall you can’t climb. what if he says no? what if he laughs? what if this fragile second chance shatters and you wake up to chaewon’s yellow room and the weight of four years gone?

saturday morning, dawon corners you at the mall where you’re pretending to shop for prom stuff with chaewon. he’s all nervous smiles, hands in his pockets, shuffling his feet.

“hey,” he says. “um, prom. wanna go with me?”

just like before. the wilted corsage. the awkward dances. the glimpses of heeseung across the gym.

you should say no. change it. go by yourself. or better — ask heeseung.

but you hear yourself say “sure,” because it’s safe. because changing too much might break whatever magic brought you here.

chaewon squeals, hugs you. dawon grins like he won the lottery.

you feel sick in your stomach.

sunday, rocks at your window. tap, tap, tap tap.

heeseung climbs in, flops on your bed with a dramatic sigh. “soojin said yes.”

“congrats,” you say, sitting cross-legged on the floor because being too close feels dangerous.

he rolls onto his stomach, chin in his hands, looking at you. “dawon asked you, huh?”

“yeah.”

“cool, he's a nice guy.” but his voice is flat.

silence stretches. the fairy lights twinkle mockingly.

“we could’ve gone together,” he says quietly. “as friends. it would’ve been fun.”

as friends. the knife twists deeper.

“yeah,” you say. “would’ve.”

he leaves earlier than usual, climbing out the window without his usual joke. you watch him go, heartbeat loud in the quiet room.

prom is five days away. you have the dress — the same one, hanging in your closet like a ghost. you practice in the mirror: heeseung, i like you. more than friends. let’s ruin this.

but the words stick every time.

you’re running out of time. again.

the next days bleed together in a haze of almosts.

monday, four days until prom.

you sit in chemistry, two seats away from him, watching the way he chews on the end of his pencil when he’s concentrating. mr. kim gives a lecture about molarity and you scribble in the margin of your notebook: tell him today. you underline it three times. when the bell rings, heeseung turns to you with that easy grin.

“lunch plans?”

“cafeteria?” you suggest, voice steady even though your palms are sweating.

“actually,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck, “soojin wants to meet up. talk prom stuff. corsage colors or whatever.”

your stomach twists. “oh. cool.”

he hesitates. “are you sure you’re okay? you’ve been this… quiet.”

this is it. open your mouth. say it.

“yeah,” you lie. “i'm just tired.”

he nods, but his eyes linger on you a second longer than usual. then he’s gone, backpack slung over one shoulder, disappearing into the hallway crowd. you stand there until chaewon drags you to lunch, complaining about her spanish oral exam. you nod in all the right places, but all you can think is: coward. again.

tuesday, three days until prom.

dawon finds you at your locker before first period, bouncing on his toes like an excited puppy.

“hey! so, prom. we should coordinate, right? what color’s your dress?”

you haven’t even tried it on yet. it’s hanging in your closet like a bad memory. “um… navy, i think.”

“sweet! i’ll get a tie to match.” he grins, then lowers his voice. “are you excited?”

“yeah,” you say, forcing enthusiasm. “totally.”

he walks you to class, chattering about his dad’s limo rental and the afterparty at jake’s lake house. you smile and nod and feel like you’re drowning.

at lunch, heeseung slides into the seat across from you with a tray piled high. soojin’s not there — she’s at cheer practice — but her absence feels loud anyway.

“dawon is all in, huh?” he says, stealing one of your tater tots.

“i guess so.”

he chews thoughtfully. “he’s a good guy. does he treat you right?”

you shrug. “he’s nice.”

heeseung nods, but there’s something tight around his eyes. “good. you deserve nice.”

you want to scream. i deserve you, you idiot. but the words stay locked behind your teeth.

after school, he texts: shell station run? blue raspberry therapy?

you go. you always go.

in the jeep, windows down, warm may air whipping your hair into knots, he blasts that stupid justin bieber song he pretends to hate. you laugh when he sings the high notes off-key. at the station, he buys your slushie first, hands it to you with a flourish.

“for the lady who’s too cool for prom excitement.”

you take a sip, brain freeze hitting instantly. “i’m excited,” you protest.

he leans against the hood, watching you. “you don’t seem like it.”

your heart hammers. tell him. tell him you’re not excited because you’re going with the wrong person. tell him you’ve loved him since you were fifteen and crying in his passenger seat over a dead dog. tell him about the letters you read in another life, about the song he wrote that cracked in the second verse.

instead you say, “i'm just nervous. big night.”

he nods slowly. “yeah. me too.”

you drive to the overpass after, park under the graffiti that still looks fresh. your names carved there, sharp and new. he cuts the engine and you sit in silence, slurping the last of your drinks.

“what if college changes everything?” he asks suddenly, voice quiet.

“it won’t,” you say automatically. then you think about the four years of silence, the unanswered texts, the funeral. “or… maybe it will. but we’ll be okay.”

he looks at you, eyes soft in the fading light. “promise?”

your throat closes. “promise.”

he reaches over and squeezes your knee, just once, before pulling away. the touch burns for the rest of the night.

wednesday, two days until prom.

you try on the dress after school. navy satin, simple, the one chaewon forced you to buy. it fits the same as it did in the original timeline. you stare at yourself in the mirror and hate how you look — like someone going to a dance with the wrong boy.

your phone buzzes. heeseung: window tonight? can’t sleep.

you hesitate, thumbs hovering. if you let him in, you might say it. or you might not. you’ve had so many chances.

you text back: yeah.

he climbs in at 12:47 a.m., hair messy from tossing in bed. he flops onto your carpet instead of the bed, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars you both stuck up junior year.

“remember when we thought these would last forever?” he says.

you lie down beside him, shoulder to shoulder. “they kind of did.”

he turns his head. you can feel his eyes on you. “are you sure you’re okay? you’ve been weird all week.”

your heart is a drumline. this is the moment. the perfect one. quiet room, just you two, the whole world asleep.

“heeseung,” you start.

“yeah?”

you open your mouth. the words are right there — i love you. i’ve always loved you. go to prom with me instead. ruin this friendship, please, before it ruins us.

but the fear rushes in like a flood. what if he doesn’t feel it? what if he pulls away? what if this whole second chance crumbles and you wake up to november rain and a closed casket?

“i’m just… scared,” you finish lamely. “about everything changing.”

he’s quiet for a long time. then he reaches over and laces his fingers through yours, squeezing.

“me too,” he whispers. “but we’ve got each other, right?”

right.

you hold his hand until he falls asleep on your floor, breathing slow and even. you stay awake all night, caressing his skin, memorizing the weight of his fingers in yours, the soft sound of his sleep, the way his hair falls across his forehead.

prom is on friday.

you know you'll either ruin the friendship or lose him all over again.

and you still don’t know which scares you more.

thursday. one day until prom.

you wake up to an empty room. the spot on the carpet where heeseung fell asleep is cold, the indentation from his body already gone. he must have slipped out before dawn, climbed down the drainpipe like he’s done a hundred times. no note. no text. nothing.

your phone stays silent all morning. no good morning, loser. no dumb meme. no stolen photo of his breakfast with the caption wish you were here to steal my bacon.

by first period you’re checking it every thirty seconds. by lunch you’ve refreshed the messages app so many times your thumb hurts. he’s not in the cafeteria. jake says he texted something about a headache and staying home. sunghoon shrugs — probably just tired from practice.

you’re not buying it.

the silence feels deliberate. like after you held his hand all night and said nothing, he finally felt how wide the gap between you has grown. or maybe he’s just sick. or maybe this whole second chance is starting to unravel and tomorrow you’ll wake up in november again, hoodie in your arms, rain on the window.

you float through the day like a ghost. teachers’ voices blur. hallways stretch too long. every laugh in the corridor sounds like his until you turn and it isn’t.

after the final bell, chaewon and yunjin ambush you at your locker.

“okay, emergency sleepover,” yunjin announces, slinging her arm around your shoulders. “tonight. my house. no excuses. it’s literally our last day of real high school freedom before prom chaos takes over. we need to cherish this moment. we might never see each other again after graduation and we'll becom—”

“yunjin,” chaewon groans, “you’re so dramatic. we’re all going to the same community college for at least a year.”

“details!” yunjin waves her off. “this is historic, real night to remember. pack your pjs, face masks, and every embarrassing story you have. we’re making memories.”

you try to protest — you want to be alone, want to drive to heeseung’s house and make sure he’s okay — but they’re already steering you toward the parking lot. yunjin’s driving, chaewon shotgun, you in the back clutching your backpack like a life raft.

yunjin’s house is warm and loud — her younger brother yelling at fortnite in the basement, her younger sister watching youtube in her bedroom, her mom making popcorn and telling you girls to “keep it down to a dull roar.” you spread out in yunjin’s room: fairy lights on, old disney movies queued, junk food mountain in the center of the bed. yunjin insists on giving everyone matching bunny headbands for selfies. chaewon paints your nails a ridiculous glittery purple while yunjin braids your hair and narrates every prom disaster story she’s heard since freshman year.

for a while it works. you laugh until your stomach hurts at yunjin’s impression of principal lee dancing at last year’s prom. chaewon tells the story of how in primary school jake once tried to ask her out by writing it in pizza toppings and spelled her name wrong. you almost forget the ache.

but around midnight, when the movies are over and the lights are dimmed to just the fairy string glow, the conversation drifts.

yunjin is lying on her back, staring at the ceiling. “okay but real talk. prom couples this year are so boring. jay and i are literally just going as friends because neither of us wanted to deal with the drama of asking someone. same with chaewon and jake. it’s like… why does everyone feel like they have to force it?”

chaewon snorts. “speaking of forcing it. soojin and heeseung? no shade but… come on.”

your body goes stiff.

yunjin sits up, eyes wide. “oh my god yes. they have zero chemistry. it’s like watching two cardboard cutouts slow dance.”

chaewon glances at you carefully. “it’s kinda sad, honestly. everyone knows he’d rather be going with someone else.”

yunjin nods enthusiastically. “someone who’s literally been right in front of him since like… middle school.”

they both look at you.

you try to laugh it off. “guys, stop.”

but your voice wobbles.

yunjin’s face softens. she scoots closer. “babe. come on. we’re not blind.”

chaewon reaches over and takes your hand. “we’ve watched you two orbit each other for years. the way he looks at you? the way you look at him when you think no one’s watching? it’s so obvious it hurts.”

your throat closes up. you’ve held it together for days — weeks? — but the dam finally cracks.

they're your girls. you can let go.

“i’m so scared,” you whisper. the words come out tiny and broken.

yunjin wraps her arms around you immediately. chaewon piles in from the other side until you’re sandwiched between them.

“scared of what?” chaewon asks gently.

“of ruining everything.” your voice cracks completely now. tears spill hot down your cheeks. “he’s my best friend. if i say something and he doesn’t feel the same… if he pulls away… i can’t lose him. i can’t.”

yunjin strokes your hair. “sweetie. you’re already losing him. not all at once, but little by little. every day you don’t say it, he thinks you don’t feel it. and he’s going to prom with soojin because he thinks that’s what you want — for him to move on.”

you sob harder. it’s ugly, shoulders shaking, nose running. you don’t even try to hide it.

“i love him,” you choke out. “i’ve loved him for so long and i’m such a coward. every time i try to say it, i freeze. and now he didn’t even text me today and i think he hates me and tomorrow he’s going with her and i’m going with dawon and it’s all wrong and i don’t know how to fix it.”

chaewon holds you tighter. “you fix it by being brave once. just once. tell him. worst case, he says he doesn’t feel the same and you guys take space and heal. but best case? you get everything you’ve wanted since you were fifteen.”

yunjin adds softly, “and honestly? we all know it’s the best case. that boy is stupid in love with you. he just hides it the same way you do.”

you cry until there’s nothing left, until your eyes burn and your head throbs and the bunny headband is soaked. they don’t let go the whole time. yunjin hums an old lullaby her mom used to sing. chaewon rubs slow circles on your back.

when the tears finally slow, you’re exhausted, wrung out, but something inside you feels lighter. cleaner.

“tomorrow,” you whisper into yunjin’s shoulder. “i’ll tell him tomorrow.”

yunjin kisses the top of your head. “good. and if you chicken out, we’re both tackling you until you do.”

“or we lock you both in a room until you finally confess,” chaewon laughs wetly. “we love you, okay? no matter what.”

you nod against them, breathing in the familiar scent of yunjin’s vanilla body spray and chaewon’s coconut shampoo.

outside, crickets chirp. inside, fairy lights twinkle.

you fall asleep between your best friends, heart raw and open, dreaming of rocks against glass and a boy with a miles-wide smile waiting underneath.

friday. prom day.

you wake up tangled in yunjin’s blankets, mouth dry from crying, eyes puffy and sore. the fairy lights are still on, casting soft shadows across the room. chaewon is curled at the foot of the bed like a cat, yunjin’s arm flung over your waist. for a second everything feels normal — sleepover haze, the faint smell of popcorn and nail polish remover.

then you check your phone.

no messages from heeseung.

not a single one. not even a stupid emoji or a “morning loser.” the last text is still from wednesday night: yeah. when you said you’d let him in.

your stomach knots so hard you have to sit up slowly. the room tilts. chaewon stirs, blinks at you with one eye.

“you okay?”

you shake your head. “he didn’t text.”

yunjin groans, rolling over. “it’s only—” she squints at her phone. “9:47. maybe he’s still asleep.”

“he’s never asleep past nine,” you whisper. “even on weekends.”

chaewon sits up fully now, hair wild. “okay. deep breaths. we don’t know anything yet.”

yunjin nods. “he’s probably just… freaking out in his own way. guys are weird. remember when jake didn’t text me for three days after i beat him at mario kart? turned out he was practicing in secret so he could win next time.”

“that’s not the same,” you mumble.

“no,” yunjin admits, “but the point is: radio silence doesn’t always mean disaster. give him space. you’ll see him tonight.”

you want to believe them. you try.

yunjin’s mom makes chocolate chip pancakes and lets you steal all the whipped cream. you spend the morning on the couch watching old prom transformation videos, yunjin and chaewon arguing over whether glitter eyeshadow is back or if it should stay dead. they keep you busy — doing each other’s makeup trials, ranking prom dresses on pinterest, forcing you to pick a lip color even though your hands shake every time your phone buzzes and it’s not him.

you text the group chat with the boys: anyone heard from hee?

jake: nah, he said he wasn’t feeling good yesterday. probably sleeping it off.

sunghoon: dude’s been weird all week tbh

jay: he’ll show. he always does.

it doesn’t help.

by early afternoon, your parents text that they’re heading out for their pre-prom dinner reservation with dawon’s parents. you hug yunjin and chaewon goodbye in the driveway, promising to send pictures later.

the house is quiet when you get home. too quiet. you blast music while you get ready. you shower, shave, lotion, all the rituals, even if you don't feel like it. the navy dress slides on like it was waiting for this exact day. you do your hair the way chaewon taught you, do your makeup carefully so the slight redness around your eyes doesn’t show.

you look good. you know you do. but every time you glance at your phone — still nothing — your stomach knots tighter.

dawon arrives at six sharp, looking nervous in his rented tux with the navy tie he promised. he hands you the corsage — an orchid, just like before — and blushes when you pin his boutonniere on.

“you look amazing,” he says, sincere.

“thanks. you look nice, too.”

your parents take a million pictures on the front porch. you smile until your cheeks hurt. dawon’s parents do the same. finally you escape into his dad’s suv, waving as you pull away.

the gym is transformed — twinkle lights strung across the ceiling, disco ball spinning lazy rainbows, balloon arches by the doors. music thumps from inside, some top-40 remix that makes the floor vibrate. couples spill out onto the lawn taking photos, laughter everywhere.

you step inside with dawon’s hand at your elbow and scan the room immediately.

soojin is there.

but she's alone.

she’s standing by the punch table in a red dress, phone in hand, looking around like she’s waiting for someone who hasn’t shown up. no heeseung.

your heart stops.

dawon leads you farther in, chatting about the decorations, but you barely hear him. chaewon spots you from across the room — she’s in emerald green with jake, who’s already making silly faces for the photographer. she waves wildly, then sees your face and frowns. yunjin is nearby with jay, both laughing at something on jay’s phone. she catches your eye and mouths: are you okay?

you shake your head slightly.

you pull out your phone under the cover of posing for a group photo with the girls. still no texts. you type one to heeseung anyway: you here?

it sends. delivered. no bubbles.

the night stretches ahead like a bad dream you can’t wake from. dawon asks you to dance and you say yes because what else can you do. the floor is crowded, bodies moving under colored lights. you catch glimpses of soojin checking the doors every few minutes, expression tightening.

slow song comes on — some ed sheeran ballad. dawon pulls you in, hands respectful on your waist. you sway automatically, but your eyes keep searching.

he’s not here.

he didn’t come.

you feel the tears prick again and blink hard, staring at the disco ball so they don’t fall. dawon notices anyway.

“hey,” he says softly. “you okay?”

you nod, but it’s a lie and he knows it.

chaewon and yunjin appear at your side like guardian angels. “bathroom break!” yunjin announces, grabbing your hand. chaewon tells the boys something about girl emergencies and steers you away.

in the bathroom hallway, quieter, they pull you into a hug.

“he’s not here,” you whisper, voice breaking.

“we know,” chaewon says. “soojin has been alone all night.”

“maybe he’s sick,” yunjin tries. “or something came up and he—”

“he didn’t text me,” you cut in. “not once. after i held his hand all night and said nothing. he knows. he knows i don’t feel it and he’s… done.”

your voice cracks on the last word.

yunjin cups your face. “listen to me. you are not done until you talk to him. prom isn’t over. the night isn’t over.”

but even as she says it, you feel the weight of the original timeline pressing down — the one where everything slipped away quietly, day by day, until it was too late.

you fix your makeup in the mirror, hands shaking. the music thumps faintly through the walls.

you have to find him.

tonight, you’ll either ruin the friendship or lose him trying.

you pull away from chaewon and yunjin in the hallway, wiping your eyes with the back of your hand. the bass from the gym thumps through the walls like a heartbeat you don’t want to feel right now.

“i need to find him,” you say, voice steadier than you feel. “even if he’s avoiding me. i need to know.”

yunjin nods immediately. “we’re coming with you.”

chaewon squeezes your arm. “let’s get the boys. it'll be easier if it's all of us.”

you weave back into the gym. the lights are low, colored spots sweeping across the crowd. dawon spots you and starts heading over, but chaewon intercepts him with some story about needing girl time. he looks confused but nods, sweet as always.

jake, sunghoon, and jay are by the snack table, ties loosened, sleeves rolled up, looking bored. jake’s got a cupcake in each hand. sunghoon’s scrolling his phone. jay’s leaning against the wall like he’s too cool for all this.

yunjin marches straight up. “emergency meeting. now.”

jake’s eyes widen. “what did i do?”

“nothing,” chaewon says. “it’s about heeseung.”

the boys go still.

jay straightens. “he still hasn’t shown?”

you shake your head. “soojin is here. alone. he didn’t text me all day. i think… i think he’s pulling away.”

sunghoon pockets his phone. “he’s been off for days. kept saying he was fine, but he looked like shit.”

jake swallows his cupcake whole. “we gotta find him. he’s probably at home brooding or at the lake or something.”

jay’s already moving. “my car is out front. let’s go.”

you all follow him out into the warm may night. the parking lot is chaos — limos idling, parents taking photos, kids yelling. jay’s truck is parked near the back, black and lifted, looking ridiculous next to all the rented sedans.

six of you. one truck with a cab that seats five, max.

jay unlocks it. “uh…”

yunjin eyes the cramped space. “this is not gonna work.”

jake, ever the problem-solver (or pushover), shrugs. “i’ll ride in the bed. it’s fine. it’s like five minutes to his house.”

sunghoon snorts. “it’s twenty minutes, idiot.”

“and illegal,” chaewon adds.

jake’s already climbing into the truck bed anyway, grinning like it’s an adventure. “come on, live a little! i’ll hold on to the tailgate.”

jay groans. “if you fall out, i’m not stopping.”

“you love me too much,” jake says, settling in with his tux jacket flapping.

yunjin laughs despite everything. “fine. but if cops pull us over, you’re paying the ticket.”

you pile into the cab: jay driving, sunghoon shotgun, you squished in the middle back between chaewon and yunjin. it’s tight — knees to chests, elbows everywhere. yunjin’s dress poufs up like a balloon.

“this is ridiculous,” sunghoon mutters, trying to adjust his seat.

“shut up. jay, drive,” yunjin says. “we have a best friend to rescue.”

jay peels out carefully, avoiding prom traffic. jake whoops from the back like he’s on a rollercoaster. you catch a glimpse of him in the rearview — hair whipping, arms spread wide, looking happier than anyone should in a truck bed.

“slow down!” chaewon yells.

“he’s fine!” jay yells back.

“he’s gonna fly out on the first turn!” sunghoon adds.

jake’s voice floats in through the cracked window: “i’m living my truth back here!”

you can’t help it — you laugh. it’s short, surprised out of you, but it breaks some of the tension in your chest.

first stop: heeseung’s house.

the porch light is on, but the windows are dark. his brother's jeep isn’t in the driveway. jay parks and you all pile out — jake tumbling over the tailgate dramatically, tux pants dusty.

mrs. lee answers the door in pajamas, hair in curlers. she looks surprised to see six teenagers in prom formalwear on her doorstep.

“is heeseung home?” you ask, voice small.

she frowns. “no, honey. he said he was going to prom. left hours ago in his tux.”

your stomach drops.

“he looked nice,” she adds, trying to smile. “told me not to wait up.”

you thank her, mumble goodbyes. back in the truck — jake voluntarily hopping into the bed again, claiming he “earned the spot” — you rattle off the next places.

lakeside beach: empty. chain still up, parking lot deserted.

the overpass: nothing but graffiti and distant headlights.

the shell station: closed for the night.

waffle house: a couple of underclassmen in the corner booth, but no heeseung.

by now everyone’s quiet. even jake’s stopped joking. the prom glamour feels ridiculous — the glitter on your dress catching streetlights, yunjin’s heels killing her feet, jay’s tie completely undone.

“where else?” sunghoon asks.

you think. the football field. the place behind the bleachers where he used to go when things got bad at home sophomore year. or the old park with the broken swing set.

“the field,” you say. “try the high school field.”

jay turns the truck around.

the gates are locked, but there’s a gap in the fence everyone knows about. you slip through one by one — jake holding the chain link up for the girls, dresses snagging on metal.

the field is dark, floodlights off, just moonlight silvering the grass. and there — under the scoreboard, sitting on the tailgate of his brother's jeep like he’s waiting for a game that ended years ago — is heeseung.

tux jacket off, sleeves rolled up, tie loose. he’s staring at the empty field like it owes him something.

your heart slams into your ribs.

the group stops a few yards away. chaewon squeezes your hand. “go,” she whispers.

jay clears his throat. “we’ll… wait by the fence.”

they retreat, giving you space but not leaving. jake gives you a thumbs-up that’s more nervous than confident. yunjin mouths “you got this” while chaewon presses her hands to her heart like she’s praying. jay leans against the fence with his arms crossed, pretending he’s not watching every second. sunghoon just nods once, solid and steady.

you turn back to the field.

you walk across the grass alone. your heels sink into the turf with every step; halfway there you kick them off completely, leaving them behind like shedding an old skin. the cool blades tickle your bare feet. you carry nothing but his jacket over your arm and the weight of every unsaid word in your chest.

heeseung watches you approach. he doesn’t move from the tailgate, just sits there with his elbows on his knees, hands loosely clasped, staring like he can’t believe you’re real. the moonlight catches the sharp line of his jaw, the mess of his hair, the way his tie hangs crooked and defeated.

you stop a few feet away, close enough to see the redness around his eyes.

“hey,” you say, voice barely above the crickets.

“hey,” he answers. it comes out rough, like he hasn’t spoken all day.

you take a breath that shakes on the way in. “you didn’t come to the prom.”

he looks down at his hands. “yeah. i know.”

“soojin has been waiting all night.”

he winces. “i texted her. told her i couldn’t make it. she’s… probably pissed, and she probably hates me.”

silence stretches, thick and aching. you climb onto the tailgate beside him, leaving a careful foot of space at first. then you shift closer until your knees almost touch. the metal is cold through the thin fabric of your dress.

“why didn't you come?” you ask. the question hangs between you like a live wire.

he laughs once — short, bitter, humorless. “come on. you know why.”

“say it anyway.”

he turns his head. the look he gives you is raw, stripped bare. no walls, no jokes, no easy grin to hide behind.

“because i can’t watch you dance with him,” he says, voice low and cracking on the edges. “i can’t stand in that gym in a stupid rented tux and pretend i’m okay watching dawon put his hands on you, watching you smile at him like— like it doesn’t kill me every second.”

your breath catches.

he keeps going, words spilling faster now, like a dam finally breaking.

“i’ve been in love with you for years. years. and i thought if i just waited, if i was patient, you’d see it. you’d feel it too. but every time i got close — every time we held hands or stayed up all night or sat right here like this — i chickened out. because you’re my best friend. you’re my favorite person. and the idea of losing you was worse than anything.”

his voice cracks completely on the last word. he looks away, jaw clenched, eyes shining.

“and then this week… you held my hand wednesday night. all night. and you still didn’t say anything. and i thought, okay. that’s it. she doesn’t feel it. she never will. so i stayed home tonight because i couldn’t fake it anymore. i couldn’t stand there and smile while you danced with someone else.”

tears are sliding down your face now, hot and unstoppable. you don’t even try to wipe them away.

“heeseung,” you whisper.

he shakes his head. “it’s okay. i get it. we’re friends. best friends. i’ll… i’ll figure out how to be okay with that. i just needed one night to—”

“stop.”

he stops.

you shift closer until your knees touch. until there’s barely any space left.

“you’re an idiot,” you say, voice thick with tears. “the biggest idiot i’ve ever met.”

he blinks, confused.

“i’ve been in love with you since we were fifteen,” you say. the words tumble out, shaky but sure. “since the night my dog died and you drove me around for hours until i stopped crying. since every midnight drive, every stupid note in chemistry, every time you stole my fries and smiled like you knew exactly what you were doing to me.”

his eyes widen.

“i was going to tell you a hundred times this week,” you continue. “every day i told myself today’s the day. and every day i froze. because what if you didn’t feel it? what if i said it and you pulled away and i lost you forever? i was so scared of ruining us that i almost let you slip away anyway.”

tears spill faster now. you don’t care.

“i went with dawon because it was safe. because saying yes to him meant i didn’t have to risk saying yes to you and hearing no. but it’s been killing me too. every second. watching you with soojin. knowing you were pulling away because i was too much of a coward to speak.”

you reach out, trembling fingers brushing his cheek. he leans into the touch like he’s starving for it.

“i love you,” you say. the words feel huge, sacred, terrifying and perfect all at once. “not just as my best friend. i love you so much it hurts. i love you when you sing off-key in the jeep. i love you when you’re quiet and sad and won’t tell me why. i love you enough to risk everything.”

his breath hitches. his hand comes up to cover yours, pressing your palm harder against his face like he’s afraid you’ll disappear.

“really?” he whispers. voice broken open.

“really.”

for a moment you just breathe together, foreheads almost touching, tears mixing on your cheeks.

then he closes the last inch of space.

the kiss starts soft — hesitant, like you’re both afraid it’s a dream that’ll shatter if you push too hard. his lips are warm and trembling against yours. you taste salt from both your tears. his hand slides from your cheek to the back of your neck, fingers threading into your hair like he’s anchoring himself.

then it deepens. years of waiting, of almosts, of unspoken everything pouring out. you shift closer until you’re pressed against him, one hand fisted in his shirt, the other cupping his jaw. he kisses you like he’s been drowning and you’re air. like he’s scared it’ll end any second.

his fingers tangle tighter in your hair, tilting your head so he can kiss you harder, deeper, like he’s trying to make up for every moment he didn’t. you taste tears — yours, his, you’re not sure anymore — and the faint trace of the spearmint gum he always chews when he’s nervous. your whole body is shaking, not from cold but from the sheer relief of it, the terrifying joy of finally, finally having him.

when you break apart, it’s only because you can’t breathe. your foreheads stay pressed together, noses brushing, breaths mingling in the small space between you. you’re sobbing now, full-body sobs that wrench out of your chest like something breaking open after being locked too long.

he pulls back just enough to look at you, eyes wide and wet, thumb brushing frantically over your cheekbones like he’s trying to wipe the tears faster than they fall.

“hey,” he whispers, voice cracking. “hey, baby, breathe.”

the endearment hits you like a wave. baby. he’s never called you that before. not out loud.

you clutch at his shirt tighter, knuckles white, pulling him closer until there’s no space left. your face buries in his neck, breathing him in — warm skin, faint cologne, the familiar scent that’s always just been heeseung.

“i thought i was gonna lose you again,” you sob into his shoulder. the words come out muffled and broken, but you can’t stop them now that the floodgates are open. “i thought— i thought if i said it, you’d pull away, and then everything would fall apart like— like it did before—”

he goes completely still.

you feel it — the way his arms tighten around you, almost painfully, like he’s trying to hold all your pieces together.

“before?” he asks, voice barely audible.

you pull back just enough to look at him. tears blur your vision, but you see his face clear enough — the confusion, the dawning worry.

you shake your head, trying to steady your breathing. “it doesn’t matter. not anymore. just— i was so scared. every day this week i told myself i’d say it, and every day i chickened out because losing you as my friend felt worse than never having you at all. but then tonight, when you weren’t there, when you didn’t text… i thought i’d waited too long. again.”

your voice breaks on the last word. fresh tears spill over.

he cups your face in both hands now, thumbs stroking your cheeks, eyes searching yours like he’s trying to read every secret you’ve ever kept.

“you’re not losing me,” he says fiercely. “not ever. i’ve been yours since we were kids. i was just too stupid to say it out loud.”

you laugh through the tears — a wet, hiccuping sound that’s half sob.

“we’re both idiots,” you whisper.

“yeah,” he agrees, smiling even as tears slip down his own face. “but we’re idiots together now.”

you lean in and kiss him again, softer this time. slower. like you have all the time in the world now that the worst part is over. his arms wrap around your waist, pulling you into his lap on the tailgate. you straddle him without thinking, dress riding up, but you don’t care. you just need to be closer.

your hands slide into his hair, fingers threading through the strands you’ve wanted to touch like this for years. he shivers, hands tightening on your hips.

when you pull back again, you rest your forehead against his, both of you breathing hard.

“i love you,” you say. it’s easier the second time. “so much.”

“i love you,” he answers immediately, voice thick. “god, i love you so much it’s stupid.”

you laugh again, and this time it’s real — bright and watery and full of everything you’ve held back.

from the fence, the cheering starts up again — louder this time, jake’s voice carrying across the field: “get a room!”

you both turn, faces flushed and tear-streaked, but you’re laughing now, the sound bubbling up uncontrollable. heeseung buries his face in your shoulder for a second, groaning, but his arms stay tight around you like he’s never letting go.

“shut up, jake!” you yell back, voice still wobbly from crying.

jake cups his hands around his mouth. “finally! i’ve been waiting for this since sophomore year! my ship has sailed!”

yunjin wolf-whistles, high and piercing. “about damn time, you idiots! i’m crying, my mascara’s ruined, this is your fault!”

chaewon’s jumping up and down with yunjin’s arm around her shoulders, both of them squealing. “i knew it! i told you all in junior year this was gonna happen!”

sunghoon’s grinning wide, rare and genuine. “took you long enough, hee. thought i was gonna have to lock you two in a room myself.”

jay shakes his head, but he’s smiling too, slow clap starting. “congratulations on growing a spine, man. proud of you.”

heeseung flips them off with one hand, the other still locked around your waist. “thanks for the support, assholes. really feeling the love.”

“we love you!” yunjin yells. “both of you! so much it hurts!”

jake starts a chant — your names, over and over, until everyone joins in, off-key and ridiculous. you hide your face in heeseung’s chest, laughing so hard your ribs ache. he’s laughing too, the sound rumbling against your cheek, warm and alive and yours.

“okay, okay!” he calls finally. “show’s over! go back to prom or something!”

“nah,” jake says, already backing toward the fence gap. “we’re good. you two need alone time. gross alone time.”

“don’t do anything i wouldn’t do!” sunghoon adds, smirking.

“that’s not a high bar,” chaewon teases.

the boys start herding the girls away, still bickering and laughing. yunjin blows you both dramatic kisses. chaewon gives you a teary thumbs-up. jay salutes with two fingers. jake yells one last “use protection!” before sunghoon smacks him upside the head.

their voices fade as they disappear through the fence, leaving just the distant hum of prom music and the soft rustle of grass in the breeze.

heeseung looks down at you, eyes soft and shining. “they’re never gonna let us forget this.”

“good,” you say, smiling up at him. “i want to remember it forever.”

he kisses you again — quick, sweet — then hops off the tailgate and offers his hand. “come on. let’s get out of here.”

you take it, jumping down barefoot beside him. he grabs your abandoned heels from the grass, dangling them from his fingers with a grin.

“your brother's jeep?” you ask.

“my brother's jeep,” he confirms. “he’s at his girlfriend’s tonight. keys are under the mat like always.”

you both climb in — he opens the passenger door for you first, ever the gentleman even with tear tracks on his face. the engine rumbles to life, familiar and comforting. he backs out slowly, headlights cutting across the empty field, then pulls onto the road.

windows down, warm may air rushing in, radio low — some old song you both know every word to. he reaches over the console and laces his fingers with yours, resting your joined hands on your thigh.

“where to?” he asks.

“anywhere,” you say. “just drive.”

he smiles — that miles-wide smile you’ve loved forever — and hits the gas.

you cruise gallatin road with no destination, past the shell station glowing neon, past the overpass where your names are still fresh in the concrete. he sings along off-key, squeezing your hand every time the chorus hits. you lean your head against the seat, watching him — the way the dashboard lights catch his profile, the way he glances over at you every few seconds like he’s checking you’re still there.

at a red light, he lifts your hand and kisses your knuckles, eyes on yours.

“i love you,” he says. simple. sure.

“i love you,” you answer.

the light turns green. he drives on.

you lean your head against the window, hair whipping in the wind, his hand warm and steady in yours, and you smile at the open road stretching ahead.

you finally ruined the friendship.

and it was the best thing you ever did.

taglist: @andieekosmos, @heyinnnn, @solonenova, @neabrownn, @drowsypanther, @redessertired, @pinkdazed, @enhypenlvrsstuff, @strwberrylhs, @imsignificantlillady, @vanillakirstein

nishioyakhee

Sobbing, I’ve read this like 5 times now, need to make this into a film😩😭

#my heeseung

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