summary: blaise thought she would never fall in love again — but her best friend might be changing her thoughts on love soon.
warnings: mentions of breakups, depression, guilt, self victim-blaming (?), mentions of love, being numb, mentions of toxic jealousy, mentions of possessive + controlling behaviors
takes place in october 2019.
31 days of october masterlist
october had always been blaise’s favorite month. she loves the cool air and the colored leaves that decorated the sidewalk — crunching under her shoes with every step she took.
she always had the best memories in october — whether that be with her siblings or with her friends, but she always had a feeling of nostalgia everytime fall crept around the corner.
but now — blaise felt bittersweet about autumn. autumn was when she realized she was falling in love with her best friend, hyunjin. a year had passed since blaise made the realization, but only four months had passed since the couple had broken up.
blaise was never the same after she found out hyunjin broke up with her. she was filled with sadness, with anger, and resentment almost constantly. she could barely even recognize herself when she looked in the mirror. her heart was broken into thousands and thousands of little pieces — and now she was slowly starting to pick them all up again, taping all the broken pieces back together again.
it wasn’t easy — the four months alone. the first month, she felt anger. she couldn’t bear to be in the same room as hyunjin without feeling enraged. she couldn’t believe that hyunjin could do such a thing to her — someone he claimed to love. she was so angry that she moved out of the dorm and into her brother’s apartment, that was actually closer to the company compared to the boy’s dorm.
the second month — she felt sadness. she felt like there were holes in her heart, she felt alone without her best friends on her side, and most importantly, her first love. every night, she cried herself to sleep, begging for anyone to take this pain away from her. she didn’t stop until her brother calmed her down, or she was too tired to continue.
the third month — she felt the guilt. she blamed hyunjin’s inability to be loyal on herself. she felt foolish for falling in love with him — she felt ashamed that she loved someone who was two-sided. she blamed herself or how things turned out — because if hyunjin was satisfied, why would he have to go to someone else?
and now on the fourth month, she felt numb. her heart felt heavy on her chest — but she was numb. every morning she woke up, she felt like something was pressing down on her heart, trying to push it down and build walls around it once more. she could feel herself start to become closed off again — she could feel herself relapsing into a dark headspace again, one that never did her any good.
the only thing, or person she should say, that kept her from drowning in her thoughts, was her best friend — yeosang. yeosang was her best friend, he had been ever since he debuted. the two of them met through yuri — who invited blaise to their dorm the week the company annouced that ateez was going to debut soon, so she could meet all of her members.
blaise found out that night that the group who was soon to be called ateez was a chaotic mess — but were the exact people yuri needed to be surrounded with. blaise never saw yuri so happy before, and she was happy that her best friend finally found her home, where she truly belonged.
blaise became great friends with the rest of the boys that night — but her and yeosang had clicked immediately when they met. they both shared love for skateboarding, even though blaise was only a beginner. yeosang offered to teach her some tips and tricks, and blaise accepted his offer with no hesitation.
almost every weekend — blaise and yeosang were skateboarding in either an abandoned parking lot, or at the skating park when it wasn’t crowded. but when hyunjin and blaise started dating — they stopped hanging out every weekend, instead they rarely saw each other.
yeosang had became a problem in their relationship — according to hyunjin. hyunjin was always skeptical about yeosang, even when he had no reason to be, and the feeling only intensified when him and blaise became official. he always became jealous when blaise told him that she was going to hand out with yeosang — he even accused blaise of liking yeosang more than him, which was never true. so, after multiple arguments, blaise agreed to stop spending so much time with yeosang — and after that, the two friends barely spoke. yeosang never got an explanation until the couple broke up, and blaise showed up on his doorstep crying apologies.
blaise and yeosang had slowly started to rekindle their friendship — and by starting to see one of her best friends every week, blaise was slowly starting to heal. everything was turning back to normal — like how it was before she got tangled up with hyunjin. today, yeosang and blaise were going to bake cookies and decorate them for halloween. blaise promised to bring her brother some home, but she knew that ateez would eat them all before she even got a chance to put them in a container.
yeosang was always her shoulder to cry on during these four months, he stayed up late on nights where blaise couldn’t stop crying, even if he had to be up early in the morning the next day. he cracked jokes to distract her from the pain when she needed it — and he was her voice of reason when she felt like everything was her fault. blaise realized how much she missed yeosang, and she was starting to find herself thinking about him more than she would like to admit.
blaise was at the doorstep of ateez’s dorm, and before she even got the chance to knock, yuri was slinging the door open and pulling blaise into a hug, dragging her into the apartment.
“i missed you so much!” yuri screamed, blaise giggling when yuri dramatically lifted her up in a hug — as if she hasn’t seen her in years.
“you literally saw me three days ago.” blaise chuckled, pulling herself away from the older girl’s grasp, raising her eyebrows when yuri continued to pout.
“that’s a long time!” yuri exclaimed, laughing when she realized how childish she sounded. “yeosang is in the kitchen — he started baking without you.” yuri shared before giving blaise one last hug, going back to the living room where she was watching a movie with hongjoong.
as soon as blaise entered the kitchen, yeosang had swooped her up in his arms — that were getting even more defined each time she saw him — and spun her around in a circle, her giggles bouncing off the cabinet doors.
“i think this is my favorite hello,” blaise giggled once yeosang had set her down — and the boy was clearly getting flustered. he awkwardly chuckled and looked down at his feet, a boyish smile on his lips. yeosang always did thing in the heat of the moment — but got shy once the adrenaline faded. blaise loved that about him, she found his sudden bursts of energy adorable, and amusing.
“i had to buy a mixing bowl and a cookie sheet for this — because we have no kitchen utensils in this household at all.” yeosang joked once his shy spell passed — holding up the blue mixing bowl and the grey sheet, resting them on the counter next to the cookbook.
“this says the cookies take about an hour to make and bake in total — so i was thinking we should listen to some music to pass time?” yeosang suggested after rereading the recipe briefly — to which blaise was quick to agree, pulling her phone and shuffling her favorite playlist, one that she made with yeosang when they first became friends.
“i’m so happy you always trust me with the music — i finally accomplished being the friend with the best music!” blaise cheered, missing the way yeosang grimaced when she said ‘friend’. but, he brushed the feeling off, because blaise was still in the process of recovering from her messy breakup, and she did not need to make her life even more complicated than it already was.
so, yeosang swallowed down his feelings like he had always done — and started pulling out all the ingredients they needed, occasionally singing along with blaise. the two of them had shortly developed a routine — yeosang would put all the ingredients in a bowl and blaise would mix them — with yeosang getting everything ready to put the cookies in the oven.
the duo couldn’t help but sing and dance around the kitchen while the cookies were baking, not caring that yuri and hongjoong were complaining in the next room or that seonghwa was watching them with a fond smile on his face — they just were doing what they always done. no matter how upset blaise was, she knew she could always rely on yeosang to put a smile back on her face — and his charm never failed him.
blaise always knew that yeosang had a special place in her heart — of course he did, he was her best friend! but she never knew how hard she felt for yeosang, how much she loved him until recently.
maybe it was the fact that she hadn’t seen him in months — maybe it was the fact that he was her light in her dark storm, or maybe, now that she wasn’t isolated in her own dream world with hyunjin — she was finally letting herself feel the repressed feelings she had for so long.
blaise thought she was never going to fall in love with anyone ever again after hyunjin — but when yeosang was looking at her like she was the most sacred thing in the world — blaise thought that maybe one day — she could give love another chance.
