we are inevitable | jakehoon

nine.

"Hey," Sunghoon calls out, holding out the crumpled corner of paper he's just picked up from the ground behind a girl, one of his classmates from his calculus class. He vaguely recalls that she's a cheerleader, having seen her cheering with the team at a couple of games this year. "Is this yours?"

The girl walking away from him turns back, hands busy mid-ponytail. "Ah, it is! Sorry, if you could give me a sec-" She scrambles to finish putting her hair up, almost dropping her hair-tie in all the hurry.

Sunghoon drops the arm he's extended while he waits. He doesn't mean to peek, but the pattern of numbers written in quick black-pen scrawl are too familiar not to catch his eye.

107734-

He smoothes out the folded edge of the paper as subtly as he can.

1077344829

"Jake gave you his number?"

"Wait, you know him?" The girl seems sheepish enough; her cheeks color as she takes the paper back from Sunghoon.

Sunghoon smiles tightly. "Well, who doesn't?" he says lightly. "He gave this to you?"

"Ah well, I didn't manage to get it from him," she admits, grinning awkwardly. "He left last night before I could ask for it. One of his teammates gave it to me after the game, I don't remember who."

"He has a boyfriend, you know." Sunghoon doesn't know how successful he is in keeping his tone neutral, but god knows he tries.

"Oh?" The girl looks down at the piece of notebook paper in her hand. "I didn't know that."

"Well, he does. That's what I know, at least," he adds, as if it's an afterthought. "What did he say?"

"I don't know, I didn't ask," the girl answers, frowning. "I won't message him then. I didn't expect it, though. He doesn't...really act like someone who's taken."

Revelations sometimes come when one least expects it. As he turns away to head for student council that day, he realises it in all its bitter truth for the first time.

─

"Hey, did you see the trailer for that new movie?"

"What? The space one?" Jake looks over at the phone screen Sunghoon offers him.

"Yeah, it's out in theaters today," Sunghoon continues. "Do you wanna go see it after school?"

"Ah, I don't know about that," Jake answers, frowning. "I have extra practice today. I'll check with the captain, but I don't think I should skip so often."

He overheard the captain of the football team in the hallway earlier on, talking excitedly to his group of friends. They rowdily make plans to have lunch at some new place in town, because they don't have practice this afternoon.

"Okay," Sunghoon smiles. "Let me know if you can go, though."

Suddenly he's seventeen years old, and they're playing the birthday game again. They smile and nod and talk in circles, though both of them already know everything that's been going on.

Nothing about the birthday game has changed. But, Sunghoon thinks, he knows the proper name for it now.

In all honesty, it really should be called 'lying'.

─

jake <3
last seen 27 minutes ago

hey, you still in school??

nope! yumi's dad got her a new car,
so she offered me a ride since
she lives nearby

i didn't feel like walking today :,(

sorry, i should have said earlier. hope you didn't wait long!

see you tomorrow!!

To be completely fair, Sunghoon tells himself, he doesn't feel like walking today either. He feels more like going to the nearest lake and drowning himself.

Regardless, he packs up the books in his locker before leaving. He counts the trees on his way home.

Two, four, six, eight.

Fifty-two of them.

Trees are usually even. Reality is the one that's odd.

─

There has to come a point where something happens. People are not exponential graphs; they don't decline with gradual decreasing gradient until they approach an asymptote which they will not touch regardless of infinite units of expansion along the axis.

In most cases, people cross the axis, and deal with the consequences afterwards.

"I need to talk to you."

"Oh, I'm supposed to be heading for practice now," Jake says quickly, backpack already slung over his shoulder. "Can this wait? I c-"

"No, it can't. I just need ten minutes, okay?"

"Okay."

Sunghoon lets the silence hang until the door closes behind the last person to leave, and they're alone in the room.

"I know you don't have time for me, so I'll make this quick, got it? So listen, Jake-" Sunghoon drags his fingers through his hair with enough force Jake wonders he doesn't pull a handful of it out too. "Truth?"

"Truth."

"I don't deserve this," Sunghoon answers simply. "This- whatever this is you're giving me, this half-assed, half-hearted, half-baked effort, and you think I'll put up with it because, what, because I don't have a fucking golden string on my finger to map out the rest of my miserable fucking life?"

"Sunghoon, that-"

"Do you think I don't see what's going on? God, I'm not stupid, you know that?"

Jake doesn't answer. Sunghoon continues.

"Is that what all this means to you? That you don't have to love me as much, or treat me as well anymore, because now you have something else to fall back on?"

"Sunghoon, that's not how this works, I swear. If you could just listen-"

"I listened," Sunghoon cuts in, and Jake falls silent. Sunghoon never interrupts, no matter how important whatever it is he has to say is. "I've been listening ever since this all started, waiting and waiting blindly for you to turn around and call my name. You just didn't."

Sunghoon can't tell if Jake is stunned into silence or just doesn't know what to say, but he doesn't much care anymore.

"All I'm saying is, if you can't decide if you should pick someone you've never met over me, then it says a lot more about what you think of us than you thought it would."

As Sunghoon turns to leave, Jake sees his shoulders shake from suppressing his sobs, and he wonders inwardly if he'll ever get to put his arms around those shoulders and comfort the only person he's ever loved again.

"There's no use trying, is there? The stars have said their piece. This was inevitable."

He goes home alone tonight. He thinks of the night of December 31st, or rather, the morning of January 1st, when Sunghoon told him he'd ask him the same question again in thirty days' time when he was ready to answer.

Jake realises belatedly that though thirty days has long passed, Sunghoon didn't ask him again.

He thinks of a cardboard box with no holes in it, and the object inside that makes a noise when you shake it.

Is the cube a sphere?

Truth or comfort?

Truth.

It isn't.