the most brilliant darkness;; jwy, csan

08

on one hand, you think it's rather unfair for you to have any sort of romantic feelings for jung wooyoung. being tied up in whatever it is you have with san is arguably a dick move on your part. because while you have feelings for wooyoung, there's a part of you that clings to san like a piece of velcro refusing to pull away on the first yank. it's unfair to wooyoung because should anything come out of those feelings you harbor, it would be horrid for you to remain with san the way you are now. it's unfair to san for you to openly admit feelings for another man when the idea of you seeing someone else upsets him. in turn, it's unfair of san to be running around like a chicken with its head cut clean off and hiding you away like you're some secret that your friends can't and shouldn't know about, like being romantically intertwined with you is some sort of crime that can't be exposed no matter what.

and that's the greater crime, is it not?

can it even be measured in such a way?

when, if ever, do feelings become a crime against morality? is it fair for you to like wooyoung while in a purely sexual relationship with san?

you like wooyoung, whose feelings remain ambiguous and unknown to your nervous heart, but you also harbor some sort of ...thing towards san, who claims to love you and sometimes — only sometimes — his actions match those words, before he turns are ignores you and holds you at arms' length when you're around friends.

it's messy and convoluted and fairly wrong, and you're certain that's what yunho would say if he knew about any of it. which is the exact reason why you are sitting down with hongjoong in the front area of café aurora and not yunho. you debated asking seonghwa for advice, someone who is older and wiser than the rest of the group, but he deals with enough between all his schoolwork and clinicals that asking the lonely little art child who works "when inspiration strikes like a bolt of lightning from the sky" didn't seem too far-fetched instead. despite your inhibitions about the obnoxious redhead with the weird red clogs that currently knock against your chair leg every so often, he has grown to be someone you trust with some level of mediocrity.

"so," he starts after taking a sip of his iced coffee which may or may not have six pumps of syrup in it. "to what to i owe the pleasure today?"

wooyoung is in the back of the café, working on some breads and pastries while the two of you sit out here next to the window on your own. frankly that's for the best because you had tried to convince hongjoong to meet you somewhere else but he hit you with a "i'm already here and bought you coffee so you're coming here and nowhere else".

"i could use some advice?"

"i gathered that much from the way you're looking around like an anxious dog."

if you had it in you, you would lean over and smack him upside the head, but you don't.

"well... um..." there's no good way to start this conversation, nor is there a good explanation that will make you sound like even half of a decent person. you don't know how san would react to you telling hongjoong about your odd relationship-but-not; something tells you that he would be upset and probably ignore you for several days before telling you to meet him at the hotel for another excursion. and that should be a red flag to you, that should turn you away because you know you deserve better than that — hell, your ex treated you leagues better than that, but you aren't supposed to be thinking about him, the therapist said that if you think about him too much then you'll never move forward in life and—

"hey, you good?" hongjoong cuts through the train that is rushing towards the cliff and knocks it back on course to safer terrain. "anxious dog turned panic attack real quick there for a second." well. that's a much simpler explanation than the one your therapist gives. another question you should be asking yourself is why the fuck are you talking through this with hongjoong instead of your therapist.