if only you knew

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ 34

seungkwan made a promise, and he fully intended on keeping it. he was going to spend his time sorting out his feelings. he was going to forgive his friends. he was going to explore his options.

of course, as most things are, that was easier said than done.

the first month was hard. the first month was really hard. he spent many nights crying and cursing loudly at himself for his stupid idea. he wanted nothing more than to run to either one of them and beg them to ignore his proposal. but he knew that they were doing the right thing. there was so much that they needed to do before they could be together, which was something that seungkwan had to constantly remind himself.

but just knowing that he wasn't the only one suffering made him feel slightly better. when things got particularly hard, he would just look up and exchange a knowing smile with his best friends, a secret only the three of them knew hidden behind their eyes.

it would have hurt more if it was just him suffering. but it wasn't just him this time, so that was what helped seungkwan keep pushing. just knowing what was possibly waiting for him next october was enough to keep him going.

by month two, seungkwan heard a rumor from soonyoung that wonwoo may have been hooking up with someone. and seungkwan didn't want to be mad about it, but he went home and debated if he should forget the stupid promise he made and just be with mingyu. but something about that felt wrong to him, like he was just planning on being with the older boy out of spite. so he just ignored his hurt feelings and pretended to support wonwoo's new endeavor.

of course, a week later, wonwoo caught wind of the rumor and publicly reprimanded soonyoung in front of their friends. he profusely insisted that the rumor wasn't true, glancing at both seungkwan and mingyu as he said that soonyoung was lying.

seungkwan and mingyu, who were sitting next to each other at that time, just looked at each other after wonwoo's explanation. one look into each other's eyes and they felt their faces heat up in embarrassment. no words needed to be exchanged for them to know that they had the same, if not similar, reaction to the rumor. of course, one of the conditions of their arrangement was that they weren't allowed to talk about it, so they just gave wonwoo a reassuring smile and went about their day.

the next few months went by pretty quickly. things got easier for seungkwan. and he hoped it got easier for his best friends, as well.

it was around the summertime when seungkwan decided to actually explore his options. it was one thing to say he would, but it was another to actually do it.

the population in seungkwan's town was small. it was the kind of town where everybody knew everybody. he couldn't walk around town without an auntie passing by and stopping him to tell a story of how they changed his diaper once or how they were at his third birthday party. though it was sometimes suffocating, it was something he normally found charming.

however, this meant that everyone knew, or at the very least had their suspicions about him. seungkwan wasn't in the closet. by all means, he was open about who he was. but he knew he lived in a conservative area, so he wouldn't take it to heart when people would drag their kids away from him, as if he were some big bad gay monster that was going to infect the youth with his love for girl groups and drag queen shows.

but, as expected in such a small, conservative town, there was a serious shortage of queer people in the area. seungkwan was confident that he knew all of the queer people in town, closeted or not. and he thought it was a little funny that a good percentage of them made up his large friend group.

seungkwan has had his fair share of hookups in the past few years in the safety of his town, so he didn't actually have many options. when mingyu said he didn't have any options, he was just being dramatic. seungkwan, however, was not.