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"...I hope you're happy, but don't be happier," the words rolled off Sunoo's tongue in strings of music. Singing in front of Sunghoon was his favourite thing to do. The younger one strummed the last chord on the guitar and looked up at the raven.
"You're getting really good!" Sunghoon cried, thumping Sunoo on the back lightly. "Thank you," the boy mumbled with a smile, light pink tickling his cheeks. He liked Sunghoon. Cross that, he loved Sunghoon to bits. They'd been best friends for a couple of years but they, or rather Sunoo, wished they were more. Sunghoon was unreadable that way. You could never tell if he had feelings for Sunoo or anyone for that matter. He was in fact the school heartthrob and was often asked out by squealing teenage girls with makeup-encased faces who twirled their hair on the tips of their fingers, and sometimes shy, beautiful male classmates of his. But he shut them all out. He was quite content in his friend group of four: him, Sunoo, Jake and Niki. He even sometimes interacted with their siblings and was particularly close to Jake's brother, Jungwon.
"Am I actually better than the last time I played?" asked Sunoo genuinely, tucking a lock of his long dirty-blonde hair behind his ear and getting up to set his guitar aside. "Yes, I see you've been practising," Sunghoon replied, smoothing out a crease on his shirt. "I have," Sunoo answered. "I love Olivia Rodrigo." "Conan Gray's better, though," the older boy joked. "Just shut up—" "Choose me~" Sunghoon finished Sunoo's sentence with a lyric from Conan Gray's 'The King'. This happened often. But I guess that's expected when both you and your best friend are hardcore, dedicated music enthusiasts.
"What's up with you? What's the latest news in your class?" Sunoo asked after a bout of laughter shared between the two of them. "Nothing much, just the usual things I don't care for," Sunghoon lied dryly. "Ah." "You?"
There was so much Sunoo wanted to respond to with that. He wanted to pour out his feelings to Sunghoon but he couldn't. There was a wall of difference between them, and he wanted to ask why. Did Sunghoon know that Sunoo had feelings for him? Was he that obvious?
"Same, nothing much." More lies.
Was this what developing feelings for a friend meant? Maybe — and that's a big maybe — getting somewhere romantically but drifting apart platonically? Costing you the comfort you had before, but giving you something new tht you can only experiment with?
A moment of silence followed during which Sunoo and Sunghoon shifted around uncomfortably. It was soon broken when Jaeyun called Sunghoon's phone.
Can a contact name make you feel shattered?
That's what Sunoo precisely felt when he saw Jaeyun saved as 'Jake ❤' on Sunghoon's phone. He dind't save Sunoo or Niki with red hearts; why Jaeyun?
"Sorry, I have to take this," Sunghoon muttered, attempting to hurriedly hide his phone screen before Sunoo saw it. "Hey," Sunghoon smiled, picking up the call. Sunoo couldn't hear what Jake said, but he was sure they weren't having a normal conversation from the tones of the next 'mhms' and the small chatter that followed.
