martyrs & maniacs. | tbz jujae

O7.

"Juyeon, come on! You need to get the fuck out of your bed!"

Juyeon can hear Eunseo shout through his room's door, but he just groans and covers himself with his blanket even more.

Love is a shitty little thing. One moment it will make you feel like you're on Cloud Nine, heart practically melting because of the amount of love you have for a person, then the next moment it will make you cry yourself to sleep every single night.

How long has it been already? Three days? Four? Five? Juyeon no longer cares about keeping track of time anymore. He no longer cares about going to class either. He just camps inside his room, sulking and crying like what typical protagonists in a story do when they just experienced a break up. He's gotten a bit pale because of lack of sunlight, and even lost a few pounds from eating nothing but instant noodles once a day. He hasn't interacted with any human ever since Chanhee "got rid" of him.

Juyeon isn't really one to cry. He's emotional, yes, but he can count on his fingers the number of times he practically became a tear dispenser. But the engagement with Chanhee really opened up so many wounds that he never knew were even there. Chanhee's words feel like a knife that stabbed him multiple times, burying deep in his body with every intention of hurting him and leaving him scarred for a long time. If his mother is here, she would've smacked him already for being such a weak man. A real man never cries, never sulks, never gives up, she would always say when Juyeon was young.

But is it really not alright to cry when the person that you plan to spend your forever with threw you away like you're just some kind of disposable toy? Even worse, throwing you away after kissing you and lifting your hopes up?

Oftentimes, when Juyeon isn't tending to his broken heart, he would be staring at the ceiling. He will look at the glow in the dark star stickers that Chanhee suggested when the younger first stepped foot in his bedroom. He would stare and just think of what went wrong, what is he lacking, what he did that made Chanhee grow tired of him. He never visited the idea of cheating again, because Chanhee made it clear that he is the one who is wrong. And Juyeon believes him.

"Juyeon, I swear to God if you still don't open the door then I'm gonna break it down!"

"As if you're strong enough!" Juyeon shouts underneath the covers.

"Fucking try me, you bitch!"

Ever since Juyeon locked himself in his room and cut contact with everyone, Eunseo has been visiting him. As if the fight in Younghoon's room never happened at all. She went back to being Juyeon's friend that always worries about and cares for him.

It's not just Eunseo. Younghoon also comes from time to time for the same reason; to persuade Juyeon to get out of his room. Sometimes he comes along with Eunseo, sometimes he comes alone. Nevertheless, Juyeon has the same response to both of his friends: NO.

Juyeon feels very pathetic. He just got dumped, and now everyone knows how much of a loser he is for crying in his room all day. He isn't the Juyeon everyone knows anymore. That's how much Chanhee's decision affected him.

"Juyeon? Open up, please. We're so worried about you." Another voice emerges from behind the door and Juyeon easily recognizes it as Hyunjae. His face softens upon listening to the older's pleas for him to open the door.

He doesn't know how, but on the first night of Juyeon's "depressed days", Hyunjae already knew about his and Chanhee's break up. The now-blonde left him multiple messages telling him that everything is going to be alright and that he is always there whenever Juyeon needs someone to talk to. Hyunjae is the only exception to Juyeon's no-contact rule. The other boy's words manage to lift him up little by little, but not enough for Juyeon to feel alright and reply with texts that exceed three sentences.

He has been sending comforting messages ever since, but today is the first day that Hyunjae finally tries to convince him to open up — with the door and with his feelings.

Something in Hyunjae's voice made Juyeon rise from his bed and open the door. He opens it just in time, because Juyeon can see Eunseo preparing herself to barge into the door to break it with Younghoon desperately holding her back. Normal Juyeon would have laughed at the sight, especially at Eunseo's pose which made her look like she's doing karate, but Normal Juyeon is gone. What his friends are seeing now is Heartbroken Juyeon, another version of him that will probably stay for a long time.

God. He sounds like a loser experiencing a highschool gothic phase.

Hyunjae immediately runs closer to check on him. When he concluded that Juyeon is physically okay, he proceeded to hug him. Juyeon can't help but hug him back, engulfing the older boy with his long arms. Eunseo joins them while Younghoon just caresses his head. This is probably the reason why he still can't move on and why he is still crying and acting depressed; he needs comfort. Juyeon needs emotional support. He doesn't have his friends by his side to comfort him, to tell him that it's okay because in the first place, Juyeon drove them all away. But now that he's under the arms of the people important to him, Juyeon finally feels in peace.

"Dumbass. Even if I keep telling you that you're the uglier Juyeon and that you're a fucking doormat that doesn't mean that you should shove me away. I don't like seeing you hurting." Eunseo cries on his back.

Juyeon's lips quiver. He swats away the voices in his head shouting at him to stop being a manbaby and show his friends how vulnerable he is. He melts at Hyunjae's embrace.

Times like this makes Juyeon wonder what he did in his past life for him to deserve his friends.