Winter Hearts

Nowhere to Run

Hongbin awoke feeling the worse for wear. It was late, the sun was high in the sky and had been streaming into the room long enough to warm it despite the heaters having been off for a few hours now. He listened for noises outside but the house was still and quiet.

He had spoken to Kkomae, who had simply nodded and said he had expected the clips to be of an intimate nature. He asked Hongbin for details which he had had difficulty sharing. It wasn't just his own discomfort but the discomfort he felt on behalf of Leo. And particularly, for Siana.

When he had watched the clips with Leo before, he had suddenly been given insight into the nature of their relationship - and how Leo's hash up of their first moment together must have felt for Siana. The strange distance that suddenly came between them so quickly after their night out, and her sudden outburst when N had confronted her about it. He remembered N's distraught return that day when he had taken his cue to usher all the boys out of the house. N had banged on Leo's door.  Later, when he had asked N if everything was alright, N had cryptically said that he hoped Leo knew how to treat a girl right. Hongbin knew that Leo was still angry at himself for how he had treated Siana, but he knew it couldn't possibly be as bad as what Siana must have felt the moment he pulled away.

She is obviously over that, he thought to himself as he went to wash up.

Seeing those clips just brought back home how hard his crush on her had been. Well, it was more than a crush. He feared that she was going to get seriously hurt, but at the same time was wishing that he could be in Leo's place - which was contradictory to his fear for her. Anyone of them getting involved with her could risk getting her seriously hurt. So, his secret wish to be the one she wanted, was selfish and self-serving. Still, those images gave him a look at how things could be if it were him in her arms.

He noticed on his way to the bathroom that Leo's door was open, and he peeked inside to see the room was empty and the bed unslept in. His mixed feelings about knowing that made him feel listless, and he checked himself, wondering why that was so.

He still felt invested in Siana's interests, even though he had put to bed any of the rabid thoughts that had consumed him over the past few days. Or at least, he thought he did.

I blame Panos, he thought as he splashed water on his face, remembering the teasing he endured during their night out in Arachova. He put words and thoughts into my head that I hadn't even articulated to myself. Those words and thoughts bloomed into full-grown fantasies before he knew it, and he felt a little like he had been run over by a dream and left to deal with its effects alone. He couldn't speak to anyone about it, he didn't want to. He had come as close to speaking the truth as he could when he talked with Leo, without actually making a confession.

Who was he to do so? He had no stakes, it wasn't his place. He was barely a third wheel.

He harboured a gentle fantasy about a world where Leo and Siana weren't interested in each other at all, and where he could finally see where his own attraction for her could take him. Again, Siana. He wondered whether, if that were truly a reality, Siana would be interested in him at all, or even if he would have become interested in her with the same intenstiy as he felt now.

Hongbin sensed that he was fixating on her because of proximity and opportunity - she was the only girl close to them all right now, and represented an ideal that he didn't know he was looking for until he came to know her. Also, comparing himself to Leo had intensified his at first incidental, general, attraction to Siana. Maybe he was stuck on her simply because he had allowed himself to think in terms of what he didn't have, rather than what Leo Hyung had.

He looked at himself in the mirror, despondent.

He reiterated the pep talk he had been giving himself over and over. This wasn't about Siana, this was about wanting to go there with someone. Finding and being yourself with someone. You see Hyung's happiness and you want to experience something like that too.