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Jisung had told himself, on the way here, that he wouldn’t start this conversation. That it was pointless, that he’d only humiliate himself, that Minho wouldn’t care enough to listen anyway. He’d repeated the words like a prayer: don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it.
And yet here he was, his heart beating too fast in a space that felt too small, staring at the person who had once been his safest place. Minho sat across from him with that same unreadable calm. Not hostile. Not even cold.
Just… unreachable.
Jisung hated how practiced it looked, how familiar. He hated more that he had grown used to it, like silence was the only language left between them.
He folded his hands, unfolded them, folded them again. His knees bounced until he pressed them down with his palms, as if the movement alone might betray how close he was to unraveling.
Don’t say it.
But the deafening quiet pressed against his ribs until it was unbearable, and the words slipped out before he could stop them.
“I waited,” Jisung said, and his voice cracked on the second word. “For you to… reach out. Just once. A message, a call. Anything really.”
The words sounded too fragile in the air, and he wanted to take them back immediately. They sounded like begging.
He wasn’t begging. He didn’t want to beg. Not after everything that happened.
Or maybe after all he was begging. He couldn’t tell the difference anymore.
Minho blinked, slowly, as though absorbing something unexpected. His answer didn’t come. The silence stretched. It felt almost unbearable.
Jisung pressed on, because if he stopped now, the silence would devour everything that is left.
“I could have written first. I know. I tell myself that every day. But it didn’t feel like it mattered anymore. I thought—” he faltered, forced himself to continue with a trembling voice, “—if I was worth it, if I meant something, you would come to me. Even just once. And when you didn't …”
His breath caught. “…I thought I had my answer.”
Minho’s gaze dropped, and his hands flexed once against his thigh. He looked almost like he wanted to interrupt, but he didn’t.
The silence this time was worse. Unbearable.
Jisung bit the inside of his cheek. “Do you understand what that does? Waiting until the waiting starts to rot? Convincing yourself every day not to hope, because it hurts too much when the phone stays blank?” His laugh came out sharp, humorless. “And still hoping anyway, like an idiot.”
Finally, Minho spoke. His voice was soft, almost careful: “It’s not that I didn’t care.”
Jisung’s stomach twisted at the phrasing. ‘Not that I didn’t’. A double negative, like Minho couldn’t bring himself to say it clean.
Minho kept going, halting. “I saw you pulling away. And I told myself you wanted space. That reaching out might make it worse. And then… I let that excuse sit. Too long.”
“You let it sit for years.” Jisung’s words landed flat, almost too flat.
Minho flinched. Barely, but enough.
For a moment, neither spoke. The weight of it sat heavy between them. Jisung felt like crying, but instead he found himself staring at the trees, tracing the lines of each leaf on the branch, just so he wouldn’t have to look Minho in the eye any longer.
“Do you even want to be let in anymore?” Minho asked, so quietly it nearly vanished in the air.
Jisung paused momentarily and blinked hard, stung by how the question managed to twist the knife further. His throat tightened. “I wanted to before,” he whispered. “I wanted to every day that I sat alone and told myself not to care. And now? I don’t even know if I should.”
Minho’s hands tightened into fists on his knees. He opened his mouth, closed it, and tried again. “...I’m sorry.”
The words hung there, trembling but insufficient.
Jisung nodded once, not in forgiveness, not in rejection… just acknowledgement.
He didn’t believe the apology fixed anything. But he couldn’t bring himself to reject it, either.
The silence fell again, even heavier than before. Next to them, a bike passed on the street, its tires whispering over the pavement. It made the space feel even smaller.
Neither of them moved for a long time.
And Jisung thought, bitterly: maybe this was the most they would ever manage, sitting in the rubble of what should have been, too late to rebuild, too stubborn to walk away.
He almost said it then, the thought that burned his tongue raw:
If I mattered, you wouldn’t be apologizing now. You would have come years ago.
But he kept it inside, because if Minho didn’t understand by now, he never would.