Crumbling Bridges {YuJae} | complete

five

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Jaehyun swears he's never felt so miserable.

Yuta averts his eyes when Jaehyun arrives for his afternoon shift, and Jaehyun's jaw tightens even more than at the office that morning. The tips of his fingers buzz with the desire to reach out and greet him. The silence sweeps through his body in a chill until he shudders at the sight of the Japanese man. His heart copes worst of all. It skips a beat when Yuta brushes past him to reach a messy stack of CDs before its rhythm slows, cold from tension and despair and emptiness. He didn't realise how much he values Yuta's presence until the elder began to ignore him. Their relationship has always been the definition of 'friends from work', so the ache in his heart startles him into a constant state of dipped eyebrows and bitten lips.

"Yuta feels just as bad as you do. Trust me."

The bell of a departing customer marks the start of lunch break, only today Jaehyun sits with Johnny in the staffroom instead of walking to the park with Yuta. He'd rather be in bed, avoiding everyone.

Johnny's words ring through his mind, yet their meaning passes through one ear and out the other because it doesn't stick, his thoughts insisting that he's the only one at fault, that he deserves this silent treatment.

"He shouldn't have grabbed you like that. You were just trying to do the right thing." Johnny adds.

"I don't think shoving a luminescent box of tampons in my coat pocket would be classed as 'doing the right thing'." Jaehyun huffs in response. He looks away from his plain cheese sandwich to watch Johnny fumble to find a counterargument.

"Look." Johnny says after a lengthy pause. Jaehyun looks back down at his food. "Yuta's worried. He told me. We spoke last night, and he feels guilty for not believing you, or shouting at you, or whatever even happened. I don't know."

"It seems like you two talk a lot." Jaehyun's tongue burns from the irritation seeping into his mouth, and it swirls into the indignation of his heart and the numbness of his fingers. Johnny frowns in confusion. He opens his mouth to contest, but Jaehyun beats him to it. "You told Yuta that I'm gay. I bet you told him about Hyejin and Sanghoon, too."

"No." Johnny bites back as soon as the second name reaches the air. "No." He repeats, softer this time. "I didn't. And I would never unless you specifically said. That's for you to tell."

"Then why did you gossip about my sexuality?"

Jaehyun doesn't back down. Inside, he keels away from the angry red façade that works to craft him into the perfect puppet. He knows he's being irrational. His actions run away with his anger far too often, and he picks at his fingernails to avoid meeting his friend's eyes and witnessing the disappointment in his expression. He feels like a scolded toddler. Not the twenty-nine-year-old man he is. Yet the instinct to defend his identity clutches at his throat, like it used to all those years ago.

Taeil enters the room and Jaehyun whips his head round. The store manager greets them with a quick nod as he rushes to find a particular box in the stack against the far wall before he returns to serving customers. Johnny shuffles in his seat, downs the rest of his coffee, and Jaehyun nibbles on his sandwich.

"Yuta likes you, Jae." Johnny mutters. It takes a moment for Jaehyun to register his words but once his lips parts in surprise, the elder is speaking again. "He said you looked like the straightest man on the planet. So I corrected him. I'm sorry, I should have asked and-"

"He like likes me?"

Johnny raises his eyebrows as if it were obvious, and Jaehyun flushes hot.