Other Side of the Fence | ✓

ii - in a room full of people

Hyunjin drank to the point his vision had turned blurry and his head felt light, his body felt floaty and he's immensely giddy.

He doesn't feel like himself anymore, but isn't that the point? He needs to drown that other part of him, because he can't take it. The thoughts are too much and the pain is never planning to leave him. Not in his wrecked state, not when he's sane.

That pinching feeling of discomfort and hollowness prominent in his chest, and it only quietens when he'd been successful in drowning them with intoxication from alcohol.

It's the only way. He thought he already got over his unhealthy coping mechanism, having been successfully avoiding it for about a year, but there he was standing in the middle of a faceless crowd holding a bottle of whiskey with a foggy mind and clouded senses.

He'd tried everything to fill the void, but none worked. Not even the rushing feeling of adrenaline when he was up on the stage was enough to fucking shut it down. Not when he plays his guitar, not when he writes a song, not when he sings, not when he's alone. None. None of those is enough to fill in the interstices; the cavities that were caused by the cracks in his heart.

The hurtful pounding in his chest was always there, a reminder of what he'd lost and how important that was to him.

It hurts... Everything in him was in constant pain and the only way to stop it, albeit presently, is by drinking alcohol.

It was so fucking unhealthy, but it was the only way to momentarily ease the pain, and that's all the reason that he needed to tilt the bottle of tequila up, and drink it bottoms up.

Everyone around him cheered, whistling and laughing merrily at his 'success' in the little drinking game they had where he obviously lost, hence the dare to finish a still high enough bottle of tequila that just got handed to him by someone he doesn't remotely recognize.

His stomach is churning with a detestable feeling from all the different liquor he had consumed that night, but he's alright. If anything, it wasn't enough.

His name and his face are still distinct in his mind and the pinching in his chest is still there. He needs more.

He's not numb enough.

Putting the bottle down, he felt someone tugged on his arm and his breathing stopped.

Why was he there?

Is his brain fucking with him again? It's one of those times when he would project that pretty face into someone else's again, wasn't it?

Hyunjin ran the back of his hand on the person's face before him, and it was there. The stars he likes so much, the marks that were never an insecurity but an asset. It was there. Felix.

In a matter of seconds, their mouths are already clashing. He doesn't care if it's really him or not anymore.

He's sad and tired and desperate enough to thank the heavens for sending someone who at least remotely resembles anything of him.

It's a dick move, and believe him, he's not usually like that even hammered to death, but those freckles...

He missed him so much.

He kissed that person with so much yearning, a misplaced longing that was being poured into someone whose lips don't taste the same -doesn't feel the same.

It felt so wrong.

"Hwang Hyunjin!"

A loud voice boomed into the room, getting everyone's attention as it rang over the louder music that was playing inside the house.