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He'd basically be a part of the scenery. Or move from room to room like a ghost, just like he did at every other social gathering. But he had to go, he had to go because he was pathetically weak for Im Jaebum.
Jinyoung usually showered for no longer than twenty minutes. He rinsed himself over and over again, trying in vain to fix his fucked up life with the mint shower gel. Then he'd stretch out on bed and cry for a few minutes in the soft purple flash of fairy lights which ran along the edges of the ceiling. He'd tell himself that it was okay to cry, to mourn for something rather than compressing it within himself.
Jinyoung was mourning the end of everything that had defined his life up to a point: Jaebum, his parents' marriage, and his remaining days in a suburban South Korea.
He wanted to escape so bad, knowing that Jaebum will never tag along with him, knowing that Jaebum will never be his in true sense, he will never get the respect as his boyfriend.
So Jinyoung spent a good part of his senior prom drawing a IJ+PJ in a giant heart in the last stall of the school's bathroom. It covered the entire wall and took two red markers and almost an hour to complete. Groups of boys will come and go, take a leak in the urinals and talk about how they were gonna get lucky with their dates. But for most part of it, Jinyoung had the company of the stale air and the sound of his shattering heart mixing up with the muted sounds of crappy hip-hop coming through the walls.
Before saying goodbye to the school premises, he passed by the bleachers, where a few other dateless boys and girls were sitting and watching the couples having a gala time on the dance floor. They were all scattered at a safe distance from one another as if their loneliness was contagious.
For the first time in all night, Jinyoung spotted Jaebum. In the center of the dance floor, like the life of the party, like the envy of other boys and the crush of many girls, Jaebum was too cool to stand uselessly like him. He had Seulgi in his arms, shimmying along to the beat of a track which was popular two summers ago.
It didn't take Jaebum long to notice Jinyoung staring at him. The moment their eyes met, Jinyoung could only think of the previous afternoon in Jaebum's bedroom. The blinds were closed and Jaebum's mother was moving upstairs vacuuming the carpet, whose low buzzing sound drowned the mewls of Jinyoung. It had started off with their hands frantically travelling over each other's bodies, like they were in a race against time.
Then Jaebum had wordlessly pulled down Jinyoung's trousers and opted to fuck him with an overused vibrator. Lying on his stomach, face buried in the mattress to suppress his cries, Jinyoung wondered what exactly he expected out of this relationship. Jaebum took no time to get rid of the bed sheet and the evidence on it once Jinyoung came.
Jinyoung waved at Jaebum. Jaebum let his gaze linger for a moment longer and then turned towards Shownu, the captain of the soccer team who was also his longtime confidant and the one to plague Jinyoung relentlessly. Jaebum didn't look back at Jinyoung, grabbed a flask from Shownu which was definitely filled with anything but fruit punch and danced off to Seulgi.
Jinyoung smiled to himself. That's exactly how his relationship with Jaebum has always been. He shouldn't be surprised.
He shouldn't be surprised at Jaebum's girlfriend Jinah, the queen bee of the school.
He shouldn't be surprised at Jaebum not reacting when Shownu and the boys from soccer team constantly pushed him around.
He shouldn't be surprised at Jaebum dialing him up at odd hours, ordering him to show up just so he can use Jinyoung's body any which way he wants.
But Jinyoung should be surprised at putting up with all of these for 3 years.
He believed that he had lost the last of his dignity the very day he allowed Jaebum to touch him inappropriately and stuck onto it like a bad habit. But it was all going to be over soon. Standing at the cusp of adulthood, Jinyoung waited for his college life to arrive so he can shake off his bad habit and start a new life out of this suburban wasteland.
