↱FRIENDS↲ ⇾woosan⇽

downfall

It happened over time, gradually, less and less, but it did still happen: San stopped making lists.

Not because he didn't want to, or because his insides stopped screaming at him to do something with the constant anxiety pooling in his veins.

San had plenty he wanted to write about, he was just scared of writing something that contradicted the rest of the pages, made every good thing he's ever thought irrelevant just because he was fucking miserable.

He didn't want to fill Wooyoung's list with all the vicious things he'd been muttering under his breath the past week.

He didn't want to ruin his image of Wooyoung, at least not on paper, and if that meant
San still cared about the boy then so what?

San wanted people to be able to look in his journal, read his scribbled nonsense and say that Jung Wooyoung guy sounds nice, to which San would force a smile and think he is, to everyone but me.

San knew it was his only good way of coping, the only way that had proved to actually work in the past, but he couldn't risk fucking that part of his life up as well.

Making lists was supposed to make him feel better, not add fuel to the fire that was trying to tear him down.

With only a few weeks left of school, and his first day as a new producer right after graduation, San threw himself across the finish line, devouring study guides and instant coffee just to make it through his finals unscathed.

Over the course of those seven days, San didn't leave the apartment unless he was on his way to class, and even then he was leaving at the last possible second, sprinting to class wearing a hoodie in the middle of spring, the skin beneath his eyes becoming purple with exhaustion.

He looked fucking terrible according to Hongjoong, and Hongjoong was usually right so San did his best to push through those last days with as little attention as possible, hoping no one could tell how ripped apart he actually was inside, hazardously stitched together just for the function of walking.

Hongjoong and Yeosang did their best to be there for San, neither of them asking for an explanation but probably assuming right anyway.

It wasn't that hard to guess that San's downfall was related to Wooyoung, no matter how pathetic it sounded.

San thought most of their kindness was annoying, especially when they'd purposely leave the middle spot of the couch open just in case San wanted to be cuddled, but they were also the only people San hadn't completely shut out since his fight with Wooyoung, and so he tried not to be too annoyed.

Now, if San's honest, he felt bad.

The amount of unread text messages he had on his phone was record breaking.

Never in his life had he been able to handle that many unresolved conversations.

Yunho and Jongho were asking where the hell he was, Mingi was sending him shitty memes to try and make him laugh, all while Seonghwa was completely out of his mind with panic, asking San if he was okay, telling San he needed to talk to Wooyoung.

It wasn't a surprise that Wooyoung had gone to Seonghwa about what had happened, but it still frustrated San.

He didn't want their friends knowing, it was embarrassing being the hopeless one in the equation, and that's exactly what San was.