martyrs & maniacs. | tbz jujae

O1.

Juyeon has always been told that he can be quite a doormat. Usually, he swats those words away, laughing at the people who deem him as such while saying that you just don't know me enough. Those people — some of them are even his closest friends — will just shrug, and what's funny is that almost all of them have the same answer.

"Maybe I know you more than yourself. Juyeon, stop letting yourself be stepped on every single time."

It's not true. Juyeon isn't a doormat! He can fight and stand up for himself if he wants to, right? He looks at the time on his phone. 8 P.M.

Right.

It's a rainy Saturday night. The restaurant that he is in is filled with people having dinner peacefully — too crowded for a small place at such a late time, but who is Juyeon to complain when he is there for the same reason as well? It's very cold, and Juyeon rubs his hands once in a while to warm himself up. He can feel his nose freezing and it doesn't help that the restaurant's air conditioner is blasting on its highest temperature. On top of that, he forgot his jacket at his room and had to settle with only his thin long sleeves and jeans shielding him from the cold.

Stupid.

He can't help but curse at himself for forgetting to bring a jacket, but it's his own fault why he is freezing to death, anyway. Chanhee's "let's eat dinner together tonight" text at seven in the evening made him so excited that he left his thick, warm jacket on top of his bed.

Although Juyeon already ate his dinner and was about to go to sleep (quite early, he knows, but he has been pulling all nighters for the past week so he's making up for his lack of sleep), he sprung up from his bed to rush to his boyfriend and their usual date place. You can't really blame Juyeon — Chanhee practically ghosted him for a week now (but Juyeon doesn't really want to acknowledge that) so imagine his surprise and happiness when his baby finally announced his presence.

You see, Juyeon is head over heels in love with his boyfriend, who he started dating a few months ago. He met Chanhee at the start of the school year when they both attended the meeting for potential student council members. What stuck in Juyeon's mind when he watched the younger sit beside him for two hours is his sweet smile and laugh, a bit high-pitched at times but nonetheless adorable. Put that alongside the angelic voice that captivated him when he heard the other sing outside the glee clubroom and Juyeon found himself falling.

Chanhee is his gay — bisexual? — awakening that went on to become Juyeon's first boyfriend. It's his first serious relationship after Sihyun back in high school, and even if he's still grasping the basics of being in a relationship after years, Juyeon is determined to make this work.

Juyeon's happiness slowly decreases and is replaced with worry when the clock's hour hand pointed at 9. Chanhee is already two hours late, but Juyeon tried to shrug it off. He will come. Chanhee will come. Juyeon assures himself. After all, Chanhee is late in most (if not all) of their dates. Juyeon is already used to it.

'Chanhee won't let me down, would he?' Juyeon asks himself thirty minutes later. He takes a look at the window and sees the rain starting to get heavier. 'No, he's probably stuck in traffic. It's raining, after all.'

It's a lie. Juyeon's only lying to himself. He knows it, but he refuses to acknowledge it. Chanhee's apartment is only a few blocks away from the restaurant, and the last thing he probably worries about right now is traffic.

Stupid, stupid.

9 P.M. turns into 10 P.M., and the people in the restaurant started getting less and less, but Juyeon is determined to stay. The restaurant is open until 1 A.M. anyway, and he already ordered something small to reassure the staff that he's not just some college student leeching off the restaurant's free WiFi.