Tell Me No Lies

『Hook, Line & Sinker』

Squeals filled the air and I gasped for air, scrabbling out of my position on the floor and out of the digging fingers grabbing at my side. 

"Leedo! No more!" I begged, letting out another squeal of shock when his hand encircled my wrist and pulled me down on top of him. 

"You don't like my tickles?" I squirmed against his chest, attempting to knock his hands from my sides, small fits of giggles escaping between my protests. 

"Leedo!" I whined through a laugh, clamping my hands around his and trying once again, unsuccessfully, to escape him. His left leg held me in place and he leant up, pressing delicate kisses over my face, ignoring my continuing protests about needing to get work done. 

"Stay here." He whispered, eyes finding and holding mine, stilling my efforts to escape him. 

I'd already put off my work for a whole week, opting to spend my days beside Leedo and my nights curled up at his side, catching moments of sleep between our lengthy talks. It had been at least ten days since I'd last seen any of my friends and a solid fourteen since I'd last spent the night at Ateez's dorms. 

My relationship came foremost. 

It trumped everything. 

The happiness was as addicting as shovelling down a litre of icecream during sad movies and Leedo's presence was a welcome addition to what had once been my shrivelled up, hopeless life. 

We were a month in and I still hadn't even told them though. So while I wanted to stay here with him, watch another movie while he played with my hair and told me some childhood story,  I couldn't. 

"I can't. Not today." I murmured back to him, seizing his lack of restraint to get up, seizing my shoes from the floor and forcing them onto my stumbling feet. He propped himself up, watching me with a curious expression. "I have work." 

The 'work' was turning up to their dorm and hoping they were there, while I still had the courage to come out and tell them about my relationship. 

If I didn't do it now, who knows how long I would go avoiding them in an attempt not to spill it at the wrong time, to the wrong one of them. 

It was better to do it now, quickly and while they were all together. 

"Fine." Leedo grumbled, getting up and sweeping me into a tight hug, his face buried into the side of my neck. 

"Stay here until I come back?" I asked when he finally released me, turning a hopeful gaze towards him. He grimaced, glancing at the watch strapped loosely around his wrist. My hope plummeted to the bottom of my stomach. 

"We have practise today." He responded apologetically, sighing. I nodded, understanding. I worked with idol's for a living, snapped photos of them and sold my work back to the companies. I would be an idiot if I didn't understand that he wasn't going to be busy more often than not. This week had been a blissful one off that probably wouldn't be repeating for a long while. 

"Alright," I stood on my toes to press a light kiss to his lips. "Then I'll call you tonight." 

He nodded, slipping his own shoes on and sweeping up his jacket from the floor, where it had been laying for almost the entire week now. Puffs of dust rose up from it and I snickered, tucking my keys into my pocket and waiting for him to leave before stepping out and locking the door behind me.

Time to face my best friend and explain my distance.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ─── 

"Hey stranger." Hongjoong greeted me with a surprised look, pausing in the hallway as I let the front door close slowly behind me. His hair was red now, and much shorter than when I'd seen him last. It looked good. 

"I like your hair." I nodded at him, smiling uneasily. He raised an eyebrow, one hand lifting absently to touch the top of his head. 

"Right... You hadn't seen it yet." The words felt like a slap to the face, or a punch to my gut. Reality kicked in and I realised just how much I must have missed, just how distant I'd become from the boys that I'd grown up with, that I considered my family. 

"Y/n?" The heavy, uncomfortable, silence that had settled over us was shattered by Yunho appearing over Hongjoong's shoulder, his mouth open wide in surprise. A towel was draped around his shoulders and his hair was still wet. A lot of the blue had faded from it, leaving it a mixture of soft blue, blonde and faint dark where his natural hair colour was beginning to grow back. 

Drops of water were sliding down the side of his face and neck, though he barely seemed to care as he stepped forward and swept me into a bone crushing hug, wet head burying into my neck. 

"We've missed you." He said quietly, lacking his normal bouncy loudness and exuberance. I frowned, peering at Hongjoong over the top of his shoulder until he pulled away, a forced smile on his lips. 

Something was wrong. 

Really wrong. 

Hongjoong was frowning too, barely even attempting to feign happiness now. The initial shock of seeing me must have worn off because he was looking anywhere but at me now as Yunho slipped silently past us both, back the way he'd come from. 

Back towards the bathroom, from which steamy air had still been escaping from his shower. 

The door clicked closed behind him, leaving Hongjoong and I once again in an uncomfortable silence. This time it felt suffocating. 

"What..." I blinked, staring anxiously down the hall as if an answer would present itself to me from behind Hongjoong. But there was only an odd darkness that felt colder than the air outside the dorm and the silence continued as Hongjoong continued to evade my stare. 

There was a wounded air to him. 

I'd expected Yeosang to be upset with me, angry even, for blowing him off so many times without any real explanations. 

I hadn't thought that everyone would be taking it to heart that I hadn't come around, that I hadn't returned their calls. 

"I came to explain." I filled the tense space with the only words that I could think of that would snap him out of his staring contest with the ceiling. His frown deepened but he nodded slowly, glancing at me. 

He still had contacts in his eyes, they must have had a performance today. 

I gave up on waiting for him to make the first move and forced my way past him, down the empty hall and into the usually busiest room in the dorm - the living room. 

Normally there would be at least three of the eight boys sprawled across the surprisingly luxurious sofa, either arguing over what to use the tv for or complaining at whoever won the usage of the tv. 

Normally if there were at least three of my friends in here, the tv would still be left on, playing one of San's idiotic favourites or filling the room with the sounds of some game lobby that Mingi and Jongho had left it on. Normally the room was a mess, with cushions and blankets bean bags scattered almost haphazardly around the floor space. 

But now it was nothing like that. Now it was perfectly clean, quiet and empty. It felt like a cemetery filled with the ghosts of my friends. Tears filled my eyes, blurring the room and burning the back of my throat with emotions. 

Why did my personal happiness have to come at a cost like this? 

A hand touched my shoulder, warm and understanding, arm slinging around me and drawing me against a familiar and comforting chest. 

"Where have you been?" Seonghwa's words stirred the hair on top of my head, his sigh vibrating through my body as he held me and let me cry silently into his more than likely clean shirt. He didn't complain, he never would. 

"I'm sorry." I whispered, voice barely more than a whimper of air from my throat as I slackened against him, trying desperately to conjure up even a grain of the happiness I'd been soaring on the whole week and even the walk here. A bounce had been in my step, a smile had stretched my mouth so wide that my jaw hurt and it had felt like surely nothing in the world could dent the pure cloud of delight I was flying on. 

But the cloud was a storm now, threatening to drown me under it's oppressive reality. 

The words I'd prepared myself to tell my friends, the news I'd wanted to break to them, felt like a petty excuse in the face of what their home, my home, felt like. 

I'd wanted to share my happiness with them and now it felt like I was going to be rubbing it in their faces. 

"Is she crying?" A small and extremely distinguishable voice asked from somewhere nearby. Seonghwa let me go, his shoulder blocking my view as he turned to answer San. 

"Of course she is. You would too." He chastised the younger, earning a slight hum of acknowledgement. San teetered around his older friend, reaching for me and swiping a tear from the corner of my eye with a sad smile. 

He didn't say anything though, his eyes said more than his mouth would have even if he had of spoken. He felt betrayed, confused and upset. All emotions he wasn't acccustomed to feeling and that put his vibrant world off kilter. 

And he hated that someone he loved and cared about could just suddenly disappear from his life for such a long amount of time without any word, any explanation that made any sense. He hated that he'd depended on me enough that it had hurt him, had allowed him to become vulnerable. 

I'd bet my life that was how most of them were feeling. I dreaded seeing the rest of their faces and at the same time I needed to. 

I needed to explain it to them because the thought of this impacting our friendship was more terrifying than the idea of never seeing Leedo again. 

"Can you get everyone?" I asked them both, trying desperately to control the tremor of my voice as I sat on the edge of my favourite spot on the sofa. San and Seonghwa exchanged a long and silent look before Seonghwa dipped his head almost imperceptibly and they both disappeared in different directions, voices calling softly to their friends, our friends. 

I tried to steel myself for the conversation coming, tried to shove the shock and fear deep into the cavern of my mind where it couldn't interfere with what I needed to do and say. 

My resolve shattered piece by piece as each of my eight friends filtered with heavy footsteps and equally heavy expressions into the room, silently finding their own space in the room. 

The final piece of it become nothing more than a memory when Yeosang slipped in beside Wooyoung, the both of them with deep shadows below their eyes and nothing more than a glance to spare my way. 

My throat closed around my words and a choking sound that might have been mortifying in any other situation escaped me. My hand flew to my mouth when everyone's eyes snapped to me in worry, burning tears slipping down my cheeks again. 

It wasn't meant to be this hard. It should never have gotten to this point. 

My happiness had completely blinded me to the family I had in this room, that I had forsaken for a stupid boy. 

I bit down hard on my lip, forcing my breathing to return to normal as they waited, the worry never leaving their eyes. 

"I owe you all an explanation, and an apology." Eyebrows raised and a soft snort that came from Jongho's corner of the room squeezed my heart painfully but I continued. 

"I-" 

"You abandoned us." Mingi muttered, lips a straight line as he glared at me. I blinked, taken aback by his angry expression. Yunho placed a placating hand on his friend's arm, grimacing apologetically at me. 

As if it were his fault. 

As if he was the one needing to be sorry. 

Something inside me snapped and I scrambled to my feet, finding myself in front of Mingi and glaring back up at him with surprising speed and courage. 

If he wanted, he could knock me flat and break every bone in my body in the mere seconds it would take me to draw in a breath. 

And maybe he should... But he wouldn't. 

That only made me angrier. 


"I didn't abandon anybody." I snapped up at him, all too aware that I was completely misplacing my emotions but beyond caring now. I shoved a finger into his chest, earning a shocked breath of air from the boys either side of us and a raised eyebrow from Mingi himself. "How many times have all of you disappeared for weeks on end?"

I looked around at the faces of my friends, dashing tears from my cheeks. 

"How many times have I forgiven you for hurting me, for ignoring my messages?" This time I looked at Yeosang, directing my words to him. His jaw tightened and his eyes flashed with guilt. 

"How many years have I been at all of your damn sides, supporting you, helping you, CARING ABOUT YOU?" I ended my breath with a yell, whirling and stalking over to a cool faced Jongho. 

"How many times have I put up with each of your problems, put aside my personal issues to help you with yours?" His facade faltered and he looked away. 

"I take a break for a week and you all act like I freaking murdered your favourite pet." The anger was beginning to drain now and I slid to my knees in front of them, head bowed. 

The silence became suffocating. 

So.

Damn.

Hard.

To.

Breathe.

"I just need..." 

For them to understand.

For things to be the way they were. 


"I need you to forgive me." 

Was I seriously asking them to forgive me? 

All of this could have been avoided. All I'd had to do was tell them, instead of hiding and thinking that none of them would understand. 

They were my best friends. I'd known them for the better part of ten years. 

"I forgive you." Arms encircled me from behind, cold nose burying into the hollow of my neck. The hands laced in front of me were bare of any rings and elegantly long, nails perfectly even crescents at the tip of each finger. 

I'd recognise those hands anywhere.

Yeosang. 



A/n - Welp. This one definitely got a bit more dramatic than I was expecting, honestly I think I was feeling a little dramatic as I was writing this. The next chapter will definitely be a lot lighter! I just felt that the story was losing direction a little.

What do you think? Too much? Let me know ;p