𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐜𝐚𝐧'𝐭 𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐦𝐲 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭 ☾︎ changki

C H P - 10

"Minhyuk... I'm such an idiot, aren't I?"

----

Kihyun's eyes suddenly began to sting with tears. Somehow, deep in his heart, he had known this was going to happen, and yet... he still wanted to believe that it wouldn't. He wanted to force himself to be naïve as to not hurt himself, just as he never hurt his friends. He wanted, even yearned, to believe that Changkyun wasn't what the rumors had said him to be. The male wasn't so horrible of a person. He wasn't his actions. He wasn't a liar. He wasn't... who he was. He wanted to believe that Changkyun was still the flirty, beautiful, kind person he had fallen in love with. He just wanted to believe.

Even in the moments where all of the evidence sat before him, and the main suspect in the crime of heartbreak sat before the jury, tearfully confessing to his sins, he just wanted to believe that he was hearing wrong, that he was seeing it wrong, that he was wrong.

But there it was.

Right in front of his face.

There was no more denying it.

He had been the only one willing to believe.

"Kihyun, what do you mean you're 'such an idiot'? You're one of the smartest people I know! And what's up with your eyes? Why do you have to look so..." Minhyuk's breath hitched in his throat when Kihyun glanced up from his lap and allowed their eyes to connect. He couldn't even finish his sentence before he was worriedly setting a hand on his friend's cheek. "... Sad?"

The older just shook his head, brushing the blonde's hand away as he let out a slight chuckle. His shoulders shook, but not with any real amusement. "Nothing. Nevermind." He cast his gaze downwards, then, wanting to hide his frown and the mist in his eyes and the crack in his heart. He just wanted to hide; maybe because he was so naïve, or maybe because he was ashamed that he had allowed himself to be played as easily as the others were. Or maybe even... maybe even because he was scared of allowing anyone to know that he still had feelings. If they knew, if he knew, surely it would happen again... right? Surely he would be hurt again?

"I thought I saw something on my phone, but I guess I saw wrong. That's why I'm a little dejected. There's nothing to worry about."

And then there it was.

That smile.

That bittersweet smile.

"Thank you for worrying, though."

----

"What would you do?"

Those four words flashed before his eyes in a sequence of pictures, like a movie on repeat.

"What would you do?"

"What would you do?"

"What would you do?"

Kihyun had to scribble the words down over and over again just to get them somewhat under control. Each time he rewrote the sentence, the pressure of his pen grew harder, more urgent, and before he knew it, he had ripped a hole in the remaining pages of his notebook.

"What would you do?"

He let out a sigh of exhaustion and fell back in his computer chair, his eyebrows pulling together. The question was still there, lingering behind all of his other thoughts.

The more he thought about it, the more useless he felt.

For the longest time, he had thought he and Changkyun were close, thought that maybe the younger even considered him to be his best friend. After all the moments they had spent together, happy or not, could they have been anything less?