"I u-understand", he started to retrace his out stretched hand but the later snatched the figure mid-way.
"Whatever", he said irritated, "I accepted this only because it's iron man."
*Flashback ends*
I smiled holding the small figure in my hand a warm feeling filling my stomach.
"So he did decide to keep it after all," I said in my head.
I stood there for a while holding the figure in my hands until it was snatched from my hands.
"Wha-why are you holding this Hyung?" he took the toy from me with a slightly flustered expression.
"Where did you get this Kookie, it looks so old. You should probably throw it out", I said testing him as I gave the toy a disgusted look.
"whyyo? It's mine. I should decide what to do with it", he said in a slightly defensive tone.
"Hyung", he said after lost in thoughts for a moment.
"How come you and Jimin are not together in the same university?" he said with questioning eyes making my breath get stuck in my throat.
"Ah.... He..... He went to America to learn Dancing. He was able to get in the college there but not me, so I forced him to go and joined SNU instead. It is better this way. He needs to learn to be on his own, don't you think", I said making up the string of lies that kept erupting from my mouth.
Should I have told him the truth at that moment?
Maybe if I would have I wouldn't be suffering from the guilt that was eating me up each and every moment I spent with him.
It wasn't my place to be, beside him.
Holding his hand, laughing with him, enjoying my life, I shouldn't even be there, to begin with.
I took his place; I took what was supposed to be his.
How can I live in peace knowing that this life that I am living is a lie and soon this façade will fade?
What then?
How will he react?
Will he accept me being me and not Jihan?
Will he understand why I did, what I did?
Will he step forward and embrace me sharing my pain, or will he push me away so far that this time I even won't be able to even see him from afar?
I lied but I had to lie, to protect his happiness, his smiles because I couldn't bring myself for being the reason for his sadness.
The glimmer that I saw in his eyes when he first saw me thinking that I was my brother, how can I dare to take that away from him.
The way he embraced me in his warmth, how could I dare to leave him out in cold.
Maybe it was destiny, giving me a chance to be with him when all the time he pushed me back in our childhood because I wasn't the perfect one.
But was I now?
I was still hiding behind the mask of Jihan to be with him because for me he was always my first priority.
My first friend, my first bully, my first crush and now my first lie but for him, I was always non-existent, a burden, a tag-along, a waste of space.
How will I be able to stand his hate when he'll get to know the truth?
These thoughts haunted every second of my existence. I didn't know that I will start living a lie after allowing him back in m life, well technically back in Jihan's life.
I played with him, I laughed with him, I enjoyed my weekends with him, I shared my pains with him, and we shared each other's warmth getting closer to each other second by second of our lives.
And for a second there I forgot that I wasn't the one he wanted, I wasn't the one he came back for.
For a moment I became selfish there, believing that all of this was the truth, my reality but I knew I was only hurting myself that soon I will have to let the veil drop and then my hideous' self will come out, but who knew that this all will happen sooner than I ever expected.
