eden feels a little bad for disturbing her friend while he’s working a shift, and if there was more time she would’ve loved to do things differently. but as things stand currently, eden’s been pushed into a bit of a corner herself and desperate times call for desperate measures. “hey, jijoon,” she calls softly, unwilling to disturb the bookstore’s atmosphere, tapping on the male’s shoulder briefly to attract his attention. “i need to ask a very big.. favour of you...”
stopping short from where he stood in jijoon’s kitchen, hyunki felt like the entire night prior was borrowed time. his phone sank like dead weight in his pocket, reminding him he’d promised to call nikita last night, when he was out ― and he’d forgotten. this time, not because of alcohol, but because he’d run to jijoon’s out of habit and muscle memory. nothing more, he was sure. hyunki would have to lie when he gave his excuse the next day for why he fell through on the promise. he wasn’t doing anything wrong, but he still felt itchy from the exchange he was having, like entertaining these feelings at all was somehow cheating. hyunki bitterly reminded himself, ‘ ― you can’t REALLY cheat on someone you’re not in a relationship with. not really. ’
and even though he was drunk enough last night that he’d struggle to piece together what he did, hyunki was sure he and jijoon hadn’t don’t anything, the blanket and pillow on the couch where hyunki had crashed was proof of that. he was actively looking for ways to excuse his being there and spending the night. it occurred to him then, way after the fact, that showing up at his ex-boyfriend’s place ― the only person hyunki had ever told that he loved ― at 3 am asking for somewhere to crash, was fucking stupid. but the part of him he couldn’t entertain knew he’d found more safety and comfort with jijoon than he’d had anywhere else. drunk hyunki didn’t know how to refuse that out of respect for a relationship he feared would never be a relationship.
it was weak, hyunki knew that. even weaker when he’d leaned into the old memories and made the two of them breakfast, felt invasive in knowing where everything was in the cabinets, and more inappropriate, he made jijoon’s favorite omelette and hadn’t realized until it was on a plate. it was the guilt, he’d tell himself when he thought later about why he was so eager to try and play house with jijoon like they used to. guilt from intruding on ‘a stranger’s’ home in the middle of the night and expecting jijoon to answer the door. it was all so selfish of hyunki to put the other through this STILL.
――― i do miss you. i don’t know how to handle it.―――
he stood frozen in the kitchen, no longer having the heart to ignore the conflicting feelings he’d avoided for months. “ i didn’t know you missed me. ” he finally replied. coward, coward, COWARD. he laser focused on the dishes drying, hyunki had cleaned his mess after the guilt-trip induced omelette making. “ it was always so easy with us.” his voice was so soft, like he was scared the other might actually hear him.
