I LOVE YOU | BANG CHAN [✓]

four

[ up all night on another red eye, i wish we never learned to fly. ]

Chan was known to not be able to sleep. He always pulled late nights, tossing and turning until he decided it was better to just get up and do something productive. He was used to staying up until the sun rose in the morning and he was used to surviving the day on only a few hours of sleep, as unhealthy as it was. He was also used to his thoughts keeping him awake, and not being able to turn them off even for a few hours of a peace.

However, the past two nights had been the worst he had experienced so far. He didn't think he even slept ten minutes before thinking back on what had happened the past two days. He almost wished he hadn't said anything, if he had just kept his feelings to himself he wouldn't have created any of the tension he was experiencing right now. But he knew that if he had kept his feelings bottled inside him even for a day longer, he would have exploded.

When he had told her he loved her, he experienced a wave of relief. All of the weight he had been feeling since he realized he was in love with his best friend three years ago had lifted and he felt nothing but freedom. That was why he told her he didn't regret it, and refused to take it back. This was something he needed to do for himself, regardless of the consequences that had, and would continue to follow due to his choices.

What kept him awake was not his regret in being honest in how he felt, it was the response he had received. He wasn't saying that he expected her to feel the same way, in fact he was almost positive that she didn't since he knew how closed off she usually was. He just didn't know why she was so adamant in wanting him to be lying. If she had just said she didn't feel the same, Chan could work towards moving past the rejection and moving forward to go back to a friendship that was strictly friendship. He could cry a little, eat some ice cream, and get over it.

What kept him awake was the fact that she didn't say she didn't love him.

Sure she could have easily been implying that statement by wanting him to be joking and wanting him to take back what he said, but Chan was an over thinker and an optimist. Not receiving a blatant "I don't love you" made him want to believe there was still a chance, even if it was small. Or maybe that was just him wanting to believe he didn't have to live in a universe where the person he loved was nothing more than just a friend.

Maybe Chan was just stuck in that moment where he felt free from his feelings. Maybe he wanted to live in that short moment where the statement lingered in the air and there was the possibility she could return his feelings forever because it was so much better than the moment they were in now.

No, he didn't regret saying "I love you," but he did regret how light and happy he felt in that moment only for it to fall back onto him and make him feel 10x worse than he did before. He was back to feeling stuck, he was back to feeling afraid to say what he really wanted to say. It was like being given the power of flight, being able to go anywhere you wanted whenever you wanted, only for it to be taken away and chained back to the ground.

Chan had tasted freedom, and that made feeling trapped even more agonizing.