To Put On An Act [bxb]

Chapter 27 - CONFESS

Maybe things were going to be fine.

Youngbin was almost there. And then they'd talk. And then things could be fine.

Once Alex said the truth, confessed to all these feelings and thoughts and desires he's had, things would be fine. He'd taken a day off to be so not fine, and now he was ready for it all to go right. He was ready to talk, and finally be the damn adult he was supposed to be. He was ready to tell Youngbin.

And then, maybe, if suddenly the universe decided to become some utopia in which Alex was allowed to have a happy end, Youngbin would love him back, and they could go back to kissing each other until they ran out of breath. Without pulling away and apologising this time.

It wasn't going to happen like that. Alex knew. Of course it wasn't. But if Alex kept his feelings inside any longer, it'd drive him into certain death.

And he didn't quite have anyone else to talk to about what he was feeling. Because Lani wasn't talking to him, still, and Margo seemed to have sided with Lani for the time being.

So all Alex had was Youngbin.

Maybe it'd go just fine. Maybe he was lucky enough to live in the reality in which Youngbin said yes. Said "I love you" back to him. Said "I want to kiss you" and meant it.

And then things were going to be fine. He pulled his legs towards him, hugging them as he sank further into his couch. His heart was about to burst, and he knew that things were never going to be fine again.

It was so selfish to still have hope. Idiotic. Egotistical. To believe that Alex was actually able to fix things for once. To fix a relationship, out of all the things. Something he was so notorious for ruining. To think that he could win someone back, as though he once had him in the first place. He hadn't. He couldn't get him back. He sure as fuck couldn't get him to come to him.

He shouldn't have told Youngbin about Leia. The suggestion of breaking up never would've happened, then. He could've pretended for Youngbin to be his boyfriend until December, until she was gone. Could've lived in that delusion of being loved for a little longer.

Easily ignoring Youngbin's constant comments of them being best friends and not real, because he wouldn't ever want it to be real. Ignoring the fact that they couldn't ever kiss again, instead just laying awake and replaying that one time they actually did in his head every night.

He could've just gone on convincing himself that Youngbin was really his boyfriend. He could've used him and played with him and formed him into what Alex wanted him to be in his head, could've done the exact thing Demian and Kaya and Margo and Lani expected him to do, could've become that player that people had assigned him to be.

He could've just gone back to being an awful horrible piece of shit, ("gone back", as if he had ever stopped being that), but no, he'd started to feel so damn sorry for himself, he'd begun letting guilt rip into his heart. He'd started to love someone, and had opened a wound and allowed Youngbin to reach into it, and now the only way to close it again was for Youngbin to carefully sew it shut.

Either that, or he'd bleed out. Maybe he wanted to bleed out. Maybe he'd thought about it one too many times. He'd come to terms with it, though. That today, he was going to offer Youngbin to patch up that wound, and that he'd be left bleeding on the floor.

Someone knocked.

Alex felt too heavy to get up. To move his limbs. His stomach turned and twisted, his heart was somewhere between breaking through his ribs and stopping completely. His attempt at pretending to have hope for things to be fine had failed completely now. If he simply didn't open the door, then maybe-