game over | doil

chapter 11

step eleventh - game over

Early evening sunlight streamed into Jaehyun's apartment, casting a warm glow on the cosy living room. Taeil was explaining why he was with Johnny a week ago, he knows Jaehyun was pretending to not care about it but his eyes were telling his despair.

The night when Johnny drives Taeil home when Doyoung was too busy with Taeyong – the journalist decided to also write about the suspicious stiffness between Johnny and Taeil. The mesmerizing intense stare – that was the title of the article.

Sicheng helped Taeil to erase every piece of the articles and make sure to fire the responsible journalist; which created even more suspicion, and curiosity from the netizen that was always waiting for the idol to make a mistake.

They started questioning; who is Taeil? Who is behind Johnny?

"I don't like him. I need to be friends with him at some point. He is your boyfriend after all. I can't just ignore him, and I need his help that night."

"He is not my boyfriend. I don't care, you can do whatever you want."

An unexpected knock on the door startled the two best friends. Jaehyun that had been ignoring Taeil's eyes stared at Taeil in surprise, exchanging puzzled glances. Jaehyun has a very small circle of friends, and only a few people know where he lives. And most of the time, they will inform Jaehyun if they wanted to visit his place because Jaehyun is rarely home.

"Johnny?" Taeil guessed. Must be Johnny, he wanted to explain his place as well. Look, Johnny loves Jaehyun too. Taeil doesn't understand why Jaehyun was so in denial of his own feeling.

Jaehyun shrugged. Taeil gathers his stuff ready to leave and gives Jaehyun space to straighten things out with Johnny. Jaehyun walked to the door and was actually expecting Johnny to stand by the door. To his surprise –

Doyoung was desperately catching his breath, motioning inside Jaehyun's apartment.

"Is –is Taeil here?"

Jaehyun furrowed his brow.

"Can I –can I see him?"

At the same time, Taeil walked out with his stuff, thinking to give Johnny and Jaehyun time of their own. At the same time, Doyoung runs toward Taeil, holding the man so tight, scanning the beautiful face before pulling him into a tight hug.

Taeil looked at Jaehyun, asking what is going on. Where is Johnny?

Jaehyun shrugged – gesturing to Taeil that he will be out and Taeil can take all the time he wants.

Taeil slowly raised his hands to hug Doyoung once Jaehyun closed the main door. Taeil hasn't seen Doyoung since what happened at Taeyong's apartment. Taeil has Doyoung's schedule and he knows Doyoung is booked and busy for the whole month. He wanted to be an understanding partner.

And Taeil won't lie about still feeling the pain of Doyoung choosing Taeyong over him. Taeil wanted to take time to think about his action as well, he should be more understanding of Doyoung. Also, Doyoung never reached out to him after that night. Taeil suddenly feels ashamed that he always tries hard to reach out for Doyoung and it seems like Doyoung doesn't even care about him.

The proof is, no call or text from Doyoung since the night at Taeyong.

Taeil realized it late but he appears to know how to handle the pain now. He spends more time pondering about himself and learning how to be more understanding of others rather than just sitting there feeling the pain and blaming everyone for his pain.