❝you are my favorite 'what-if'. you are my best 'i'll never know'.❞ yohan and yanjun for a more pre-est dynamic .. one-sided or because personal burdens got in the way and it never happened ?? all build up and no release @tragedyrich
there is a consistency to yohan that yanjun's always loved. he points it out whenever he can, addresses it like he would a home; the world makes little sense but he can count on this very thing, on predictable yohan and his outward feeling. every thought and opinion crosses the threshold of his lips, judgments unreserved and privy to all regardless of status or power or place. it's refreshing and familiar - yanjun himself is nothing if not loud to its very definition. it doesn't surprise him that they work well together; even the conflict is streamlined, arguments often spiralling into nothing as soon as they vocalize their point of view upfront. (and they always do.) it's in this exact circumstance however, that yanjun finds himself blindsided. the yohan he knows, the friendship he covets so dear to his heart - it is with a lurching brake that he recognizes it: sudden unpredictability. he is wide-eyed, incapable of masking his own shock, or retaining any sense of comforting ease. yohan is handsome, of course he's handsome - yanjun is of similar age and gay to boot - so it doesn't take much to be charmed. but perhaps he tailed too many assumptions, allowed his faith in yohan's consistency to hypothesize the simple thought that: if yohan liked him, he would make it clear. and yanjun is delusional and queer enough to have picked up on it, if he had - he's stubbornly certain of this. except now he doesn't know up from down or left from right. the sky is below him and the ground is scattered to the air, yanjun is gawking and yohan is in love with him. or was? it is with potent effort and a wariness of the silence accruing that yanjun closes his mouth into a thin line - flustered and visibly lost. he doesn't know what to say to this. "...what are you saying?" his tone isn't one of rudeness, only clarity, tender habit allowing himself to reach over, to touch yohan gently on the slope of his shoulder. he brushes it, rubs the muscle there like he's expecting to coax out a detailed summary and swallows, throat dry and narrow. "is this - are you telling me that..." his thumb stills on the stroke down, "yohannie, do you have romantic feelings for me?" he spells it out for both of their sake, blunt as usual, though yanjun doesn't feel particularly bold today - insides like a ball of yarn.