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Jun knows.
Glancing at his watch for the nth time, he observes how each couple starts to depart from the restaurant.
“Sir, we’re almost closing,” the waiter tells Jun, with pitiness in his eyes that he fails to conceal.
“Just put it on my tab,” Jun replies with a wooden expression and gets up to leave.
He treads lightly toward the parking lot as he watches how surrounded he is by love. Some couples are holding each other’s hands as they walk, while others are avowedly too riveted in their own bubble. Yet, all he feels is exhaustion from waiting for too long.
Jun arrives at the car park and starts the engine, driving to the place where he first confessed. He sits on the wooden chair in utter silence, contemplating everything about his life. His dreams, his future plans, and his relationship.
As Jun’s mind wanders gravely, he fails to realize how much time has passed. When he fishes his phone out of his pocket to check the time, he sees several messages and missed calls from his boyfriend. Jun ignores every single one of them and stands to head toward his car. Yet before he can even turn around, his ears grasp the voice of the person he has been waiting for for such a long time.
“I thought I might find you here,” the voice says softly.
“Why are you here, Dylan?” Jun faces his boyfriend, weariness apparent on his face.
“I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you next time.” Dylan approaches Jun and hugs him, leaving no space to breathe.
Jun pushes Dylan away and stares at him with a tinge of anger. Dylan avoids his gaze, somehow too terrified of what Jun might see.
“Look me in the eye, and tell me you love me.” Jun demands of Dylan.
Dylan shoots a dagger at Jun. “You don’t get to say that to me. I’ve put up with you for—”
Jun is taken aback. In those two years, not once did Dylan use those words to describe their relationship.
“Oh, wow! So all those years you were just tolerating me?” Jun tries to earn composure. No matter what, he won’t yield to Dylan.
“Baby, I’m sorry. You know that’s not what I meant.” Dylan attempts to reach for Jun’s hand, yet Jun is too quick to keep his hand away from Dylan’s grasp.
“No, we both know you meant every single word you said.”
“What the hell? Where is this coming from?” Dylan’s face contorts into a seething anger.
“You tell me, where exactly am I coming from?”
“Is this about me being late to our date? Come on, Jun. You are so fucking immature.”
“And you know it’s not about it.” Jun looks straight into Dylan’s eyes and asks him, “You were with him, am I right?”
Dylan freezes yet quickly regains his composure. “He’s sick, Jun! If only you knew how much his body was burning, you would understand why I couldn’t leave him.”
“Just tell me that the moment you saw the opportunity to be alone with him, you didn’t hesitate to seize it despite knowing your boyfriend is waiting for you at your favorite restaurant on your fucking anniversary!” Jun replies in a raised voice.
“The fuck are you talking about?” Dylan replies with the same rage in his voice.
“What, you think I don’t know? You’re not exactly trying to be subtle, at least not to me.” Jun responds as Dylan freezes completely.
“You were staring at him as if you were begging him to love you instead. And that’s how I look at you, too.” Jun leaves his gaze from Dylan and stares at the city lights in front of them. “But you know the difference between us? He’s the friend you had feelings for. And you? You’re my fucking boyfriend, Dylan.”
“Then why did you even ask me to be your boyfriend, knowing I love someone else?”
“Because I can’t bear the thought of you in pain! Whenever you see them together, I also see how your eyes start to grow red. Or how you’re about to cry whenever you hear them discuss their future plans.
I see everything, Dylan; I feel everything. Yet I thought that maybe, just maybe, if we’re together, you can move on from him and learn to love me instead.
I guess I’m wrong.”
Jun paces back and forth, with both rage and sorrow coursing through his veins. Dylan remains standing with his lips sealed as if his words departed from him.
“Do you know how much I have been suffering?” Jun asks all of a sudden. “Every fucking day, I wake up to that gnawing feeling of a possession of mine abandoning my system of its own choice. So fucking forceless. And that’s what hurts me the most, Dylan! All he had to do was call your name, and you’d immediately claw your way out of my body just to get to his.
Actually, no. You were never here to begin with. You were always with him.”
Dylan finds his way back to Jun’s eyes; his face abounds with too many apologies.
“I have so much yearning for you that it can actually drown me to death. What should I do with this longing, Dylan? Should I just allow myself to succumb to my demise?”
“Don’t meet your doom just for me, Jun. I’m not worth it.”
“But I’m already ruining myself for you. I’m already ruined.” Jun scoffs.
“You don’t get to shift all the blame on me! It’s your decision, Jun. I didn’t ask you to do all that for me.”
“Because I thought you would eventually reciprocate my feelings! I figured I just needed to show you how much I love you, and in time, you’ll forget whatever shit you have for him.
I figured you would love me back, Dylan!”
Jun sinks into the chair, with his swollen eyes serving as proof of his suffering. Dylan sits down, still leaving enough distance between him and Jun.
“I’m sorry, Jun. I truly am,” Dylan whispers softly, guilt consuming him little by little.
“In those two years, I belong to you, Dylan.” Jun gazes at Dylan. “This love I have been carrying in my chest ever since I caught sight of your beauty. This hope that in the end, you’ll look at me with the same fondness that is only for him. This longing for you to yearn for my presence the same way your heart aches for him. And this pain that comes from the truth that you’re never going to love me back.
I’m all yours, Dylan.
But were you ever mine?”
The two stare at each other for a few seconds.
“Is this the end for us?”
“It never even started in the first place.”
“For what it’s worth, you made me happy and loved in those two years.”
Dylan stands up and walks away. Away from their dreams. Away from their future plans. Away from their relationship.
Away from Jun.
Jun lies down with a gaping hole in his chest that seems to be swelling, gnawing from his skin to his bones until blood trickles all over his body.
“I’m so fucking foolish, waiting for him to give me a space in his heart when another’s name has already been engraved in there.”
Jun knows Dylan will always keep crawling back to Thame.