Ship/Member:former josh/seungcheol Major Tags: N/A Additional Tags: exes, running into the person who fucked you up on the street, joshua as the one with hope, but seungcheol pov, depression, disassociation Permission to remix: Yes
***
Seungcheol sees him everywhere.
Literally and figuratively. Joshua’s — Jisoo’s — Joshua’s face is on billboards, buses, benches, magazines. Skincare, makeup, whatever. He’s everywhere. Inescapable.
Seungcheol’s brain turns every masked stranger’s face into his. Eyes morph wider, kinder, sweeter than Seungcheol ever actually saw them. Twinkling with mirth that he’s not sure was ever real. He sees Joshua everywhere, and he doesn’t.
He runs into something solid. Someone. He drops his phone, bends down to pick it up.
“Oh,” a voice says, and fear splits down Seongcheol’s spine like lightning hitting a tree. “Coups. Seungcheol. Hi. I didn’t expect — hi.”
Seungcheol looks up at Joshua’s face and blinks, blinks again. Joshua is smiling politely. It doesn’t reach his eyes. Seungcheol knows it well. Joshua started smiling at him like that halfway through their relationship and Seungcheol hadn’t done anything about it. He hadn’t done anything about the end, either.
Joshua told him he got signed as a model to an agency and that he’d be traveling frequently, too frequently to really maintain a relationship. There wasn’t a big fight, or misunderstanding. No violence. No yelling. Joshua said they should probably break up and Seungcheol agreed. He wasn’t blind; Joshua had been looking for a way out for months. This was convenient. Neat. Almost an afterthought.
Seungcheol wonders, cruelly, if Joshua had ticked it off a list before bed that night. Break up with hyung. Check! Done! Maybe he’d even had a little candy as a treat.
“I live here,” Seungcheol says. “I’ve always lived here.”
“Right, of course, I know that,” Joshua answers, laughing. It’s joyless. Has it always sounded that way? “It’s just crazy! How have you been?”
How has he been? How can he answer that? Does he remember a single thing from the past six months? He goes to work, he exercises, he sometimes sees his friends. Is that what Joshua means? It feels a little like he’s been walking in a fog and has just woken up. There’s something to resent Joshua for, too. Seungcheol straightens, pockets his phone.
“It was nice to see you,” he says mechanically. “I have to go.”
He shoulders past, head down, hands in his pockets. Maybe the fog will come back soon and he won’t have to think about Joshua’s face anymore, or his tone. Like he’d been happy to see Seungcheol. Like it had been a funny coincidence.
[FILL]hopeful or hopeless
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: exes, running into the person who fucked you up on the street, joshua as the one with hope, but seungcheol pov, depression, disassociation
Permission to remix: Yes
***
Seungcheol sees him everywhere.
Literally and figuratively. Joshua’s — Jisoo’s — Joshua’s face is on billboards, buses, benches, magazines. Skincare, makeup, whatever. He’s everywhere. Inescapable.
Seungcheol’s brain turns every masked stranger’s face into his. Eyes morph wider, kinder, sweeter than Seungcheol ever actually saw them. Twinkling with mirth that he’s not sure was ever real. He sees Joshua everywhere, and he doesn’t.
He runs into something solid. Someone. He drops his phone, bends down to pick it up.
“Oh,” a voice says, and fear splits down Seongcheol’s spine like lightning hitting a tree. “Coups. Seungcheol. Hi. I didn’t expect — hi.”
Seungcheol looks up at Joshua’s face and blinks, blinks again. Joshua is smiling politely. It doesn’t reach his eyes. Seungcheol knows it well. Joshua started smiling at him like that halfway through their relationship and Seungcheol hadn’t done anything about it. He hadn’t done anything about the end, either.
Joshua told him he got signed as a model to an agency and that he’d be traveling frequently, too frequently to really maintain a relationship. There wasn’t a big fight, or misunderstanding. No violence. No yelling. Joshua said they should probably break up and Seungcheol agreed. He wasn’t blind; Joshua had been looking for a way out for months. This was convenient. Neat. Almost an afterthought.
Seungcheol wonders, cruelly, if Joshua had ticked it off a list before bed that night. Break up with hyung. Check! Done! Maybe he’d even had a little candy as a treat.
“I live here,” Seungcheol says. “I’ve always lived here.”
“Right, of course, I know that,” Joshua answers, laughing. It’s joyless. Has it always sounded that way? “It’s just crazy! How have you been?”
How has he been? How can he answer that? Does he remember a single thing from the past six months? He goes to work, he exercises, he sometimes sees his friends. Is that what Joshua means? It feels a little like he’s been walking in a fog and has just woken up. There’s something to resent Joshua for, too. Seungcheol straightens, pockets his phone.
“It was nice to see you,” he says mechanically. “I have to go.”
He shoulders past, head down, hands in his pockets. Maybe the fog will come back soon and he won’t have to think about Joshua’s face anymore, or his tone. Like he’d been happy to see Seungcheol. Like it had been a funny coincidence.
Yeah, Seungcheol would rather not think at all.