Not Your Lover (2PARK✔️)

Step Four: Gathering

i miss sungwoon :(

Your Love by Astro, one of the first young groups i fell in love with, father of an ult called Park Jinwoo

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I desperately want to throw something, preferably something that will shatter upon impact, but I'm stranded here in a room of witnesses. Each one, eyes digging deeper with each passing moment, regarding me carefully. I want to thrash about, launch my chair against the wall, shake Jihoon and scream at him for still hating me after all this time.

It's been sixty God damn days. I've suffered on my own for sixty days, while you just hated me. I've held my breath for sixty days and begged for something that could never happen.

Seeing Jihoon this morning, seeing the way he stared at me in that library. As if I were a stranger. My heart could shatter all over again right now just thinking about it. I don't know how either of us can muster enough strength to even breathe the same air for an entire-

"It'll only be until the new year, just until schedules for our second mini album are basically over." Daehwi, ever the peacekeeper, stands beside me and tugs at my shirtsleeve. "It won't be that bad, really. You're just a backup dancer, you won't even have to come to rehearsals with us-"

I snatch my arm out of his grasp, my eyes on only Jihoon. I only need to hear his thoughts. His opinions. His ideas on how to make this any better. He merely looks away, his shoulders sagging as he drops his chin into his hand atop the table.

I grit my teeth at the sight, wanting so badly to cross the space, grab him up from his chair and shake him like a doll. Wake him up.

He just lost his best friend, a part of me reasons, settling my mood some. I feel my own shoulders fall at the thought, my chin lowering as I squeeze my eyes shut. I don't want to be here anymore.

I haven't wanted to be here all day, but finally arriving, and discovering what the bastard pushed us into-

"Sungwoon did this for a reason, obviously." Doctor Ong, with that single curl at the front of his hair, stands as well. "He wouldn't just pin the two of you against one another merely to see you struggle-"

"He sure as hell would," I mutter just as Jihoon says, "Of course he would."

We glance at each other, though what should have been a smile is a dark frown whittled into his face. "Why are you still looking at me like that?" I snap, throwing my hands up in frustration. "Jesus! You know, Jihoon, it's already been a long ass time since we've even had to speak but you're still treating me like I'm the plague-"

"If you were the plague, I would never have had to see you again," he says calmly, now following the others and standing. There are only two chairs between us, and I think he has gauged this as well, because he leans back when I take too deep of a breath.

"Park Jihoon, I get it." I scrape my hand down my face, officially exhausted. "I understand. You hate me. You don't want to see me. But how am I supposed to get out of this if you won't even treat me like a human-"

"But you can't!" Daehwi, grasping onto my shirt once again, whines quietly. "Hyung, you can't leave us again."

I turn to face him, realizing for the first time today that his hair is a streaked through with a deep brown, a fresh change to the dark blonde he's sported for years now. "Daehwi, I have shit in Canada. I don't have money, I don't have a place to stay-"

"With us, of course! Not in our apartment exactly, but there are plenty of extra places!" He shakes my arm in his tight grasp, as if I'm made of nothing but paper. "We all agreed-"