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70 rue de N/S

15:30

Han Jisung had a heart like a house; well-kempt, infrastructurally improved by the day from the love that he held for his dear Felix. The furniture that occupied the interior comprised of varnished wood and cushions fluffed with the thoughts that he'd harbor and fantasies that he'd fall asleep to about the other.

Jisung's mind was almost like a church utterly contradictory to the one that had defamed his pride. The altar was built to worship the mere idea of Felix's existence, whilst his senses occupied every available space on the pews with their widths, attentive to the sermon preached by his heartbeats.

Jisung's sense of smell warranted records of Felix's perfume that'd diffuse a blush across his cheeks at all times. The ears ensured to never waver in listening to any and everything that Felix mentioned, and to ignite goosebumps from the base of his tone that was near impossible to grow used to.

The sense of taste; to appreciate Felix's skin or lips on Jisung's tongue whenever they were given the opportunity to be careless within the confinement of Jisung's apartment.

The touch to feel Felix.

The sight to see Felix. To admire his freckles and nearly symmetrical face. His blonde hair and russet eyes. Felix. Felix Felix Felix. Oh, how head over heels Jisung Han was for Felix Lee.

Felix had promised a visit that Wednesday afternoon, after approximately ten days since their last meeting. And Jisung seemed to have been walking on clouds since being informed of the visit. Yes, Felix had sounded somewhat monotone over the house phone, but still. It was Felix, and that was what mattered.

Jisung skipped along the floorboards of his home with a silly grin on his face, glancing ever so often at the guitar resting on his made bed. He hoped to surprise Felix and rejoice with the songs of grateful laughter that'd flow from Felix's throat; the songs that Jisung had pre-written and was ever so eager to claim in real-time.

Impatient, yes, but Jisung had found it to be all worth it when a knock sounded at his door. He would fail to move so swiftly for anything else; for anyone else. Jisung's smile was wider than his cheeks could handle and his eyes shown bright and his heart beat fast, hopeful. But upon opening, Felix's almost sorry expression sought to dampen him just the slightest, but no.

Jisung wouldn't allow that. Perhaps Felix had just been having a terrible day, and Jisung was with the faith multiples larger than a mustard seed that he could turn it around for the better. With the guitar. With himself. With the love that they shared.

"My love," Jisung kissed Felix's cheek after closing the door behind them. And then he reached to kiss Felix's lips but frowned when Felix barely made any attempt to even keep him there, and hold him closer, and reciprocate the physical affection that Jisung was oh so desperate to have a taste of. To have a taste of what he gave, from the one that he gave to.

Jisung had a heart like a house. A house with circuits wired by Felix himself. Unstable current. Sparks at switches. Weary wires for insulation.

"Jisung," Felix hummed, reluctantly pushing Jisung away when Jisung leaned in for another, potentially deeper kiss. "Jisung, we need to talk. I- I need to talk to you... about something that has been in my heart for some time. I shouldn't hold back any longer."

Jisung wished to smile as bright as he did before, in the coming minutes. He prayed that Felix was feigning distress in order to earn his wholehearted surprise when he'd speak something to quench the anxiety bubbling in Jisung's abdomen.

It was just a pity that Jisung was living a life of shame in the eyes of the God that he claimed to pray to. So of course, such a desire could not be granted.

Jisung should have known that. Jisung could tell when Felix's expression dropped lower, causing his gut to twist in fear and unwillingness to hear of what it was that Felix had to say. Because piecing together the puzzle of Felix's too-minor affection and pitiful, sympathetic expression, what else could it be that Felix had to confess?

Jisung wished for anything but to think of it.

Anything but to set the house of his heart ablaze; to flame until ashes.

"What is it?" Jisung asked and sat at the small, circular table in his kitchen, pulling out a chair for Felix to sit across from him, before doing whatever he could to be the slightest bit comfortable. "You look... troubled. I'm worried. Should I be worried?"

Felix toyed with the tips of his fingers, chewing on his lip, and breathing in with closed eyes before letting his voice reach Jisung's apprehensive ears. "I will begin by saying that I am more than grateful for everything that you have done for me, Jisung."

No 'Ji'.

Jisung brought his feet up on the spindle of his chair and folded his arms over his knees, laying his head there, listening, scampering to turn off all portals to electricity in the house of his heart. Panting, on the inside. Fretting, tired. Terrified by the mere idea of having his entire home burn to the ground. Of having the church in his mind turn against his heart like the one in his reality had given him its back.

Jisung closed his eyes and listened to Felix's continuation.

"I'll never forget what you've sacrificed for me, Jisung. You lost everything just to spear me the harshest blow- I will never ever forget that, Jisung. And I am deeply sorry that I will never be able to pay you back for your sacrifice... in the way that I would truly want to."

"What- what do you mean?" Jisung asked, almost breathless.

It was easy to wonder why he was so on edge when Felix hadn't yet connected all of the wires of his bomb, but Jisung could smell the plutonium. It blinded the sweet fragrance that bounced off of Felix's shirt and trousers, threatening to ruin Jisung's sense of smell for the remainder of his life.

Whatever it would be, by the end of their conversation.

"What I mean is- I- I- How do I even say such a thing."

"Just say it, Felix. Quit beating around the bush. You're making me more anxious than I already am."

"I am not in love with you, Jisung."

Silence. Smoke. Furniture melting away, wood deteriorating into unusable charcoal. Walls breaking apart into ashes.

Chaos barged through the doors of the church in Jisung's mind. Senses scattered and bumped into each other, some landing unconscious. Like touch, Jisung was numb. Sight stood frozen in fear; Jisung could hardly recognize the boy sitting before him. Smell: the throttling particles of rich smoke clogged his nostrils, and Jisung could hardly breathe.

Could hardly think.

Could hardly live.

"What do you mean, Felix?" Jisung managed to ask coherently. He did not even recognize that he was crying, cheeks damp with lengthening streaks of the salty liquid. Jisung set his bare feet back on the floor, desperate to feel something. But alas, with a heart and mind subconsciously occupied with saving whatever could be from his lost home, Jisung couldn't sense the wooden surface beneath his feet. "What do you mean by 'not in love'?"

"I mean... I don't love you as you love me, Jisung. I don't feel the same as I did when we had just begun our relationship." Felix breathed in, sharing his own tears, pleading with his own heart to continue letting go without the fear of later confrontation, freeing himself. "And I'm aware of how absolutely unbelievable I sound right now. I know- I know you might hate me after this conversation but, I just want you to remember that I am grateful. And I am still open to being in your life, and you in mine... But without romance."

"Is there something that I have done, Felix? Something that I've said- i-implied? Tell me and I promise to fix it. I promise to fix- I promise to change, Felix. Anything. All of me is yours and yours- yours- all of you was mine. What went wrong, Felix? What have I done wrong?" Jisung cried a cry from his stomach. Jisung sobbed a sob of utter disbelief at the situation at hand. He shed tears in pity for those that he had let fall over a year back, when he sacrificed his dignity for the boy who was now claiming to have fallen out of love with him.

Jisung's chest hurt, physically. Jisung's head ached. His skin burned. Insanity sang his name with the aim of seduction.

Nothing was making any sense.

Would anything make sense ever again?

"It's not you, Jisung," Felix said. "It's not you. It is all me. I am the one who foolishly fell out of love, and I just had to accept that keeping this relationship would inevitably hurt either of us." He sighed; breathing hampered by mucus. "I am sorry, Jisung. I'd have never imagined that we would have come to this. But it can't be helped. I don't love you."

"Is it your father?" Jisung asked, a violent quaver to his voice. "Is it the church pressuring you to do this, Felix? To tear me apart like this." He stood to his feet, hands flailing on either side of his head to add emphasis to the volume of his voice, and the mutilated emotions. "You promised to remain by my side, Felix. We had plans. We had plans to migrate after our studies. We had plans to love each other, for as long as we lived. And you've let it come to this, Felix?"

Felix couldn't speak. Could not assemble any word or phrase to justify such betrayal from his heart.

"What am I supposed to do now, Felix? After I've suffered so much. It has never been in my intentions to reproach, so I cannot even find the peace to do such a thing now, even when you've- even when you've fallen out of love." Jisung felt weak in the legs, joints losing themselves in the waves of vulnerability, tempting Jisung to his knees. To beg. To weep at Felix's feet. But he would not allow it.

He loved, truly. But not at the cost of the very little pride that remained after all that went on.

"Leave," Jisung stated, assertively, not meeting Felix's eyes in fear of succumbing to the weakness of his muscles. "Just get out. Go your own way, Felix."

"Ji-"

"Leave."

And so, Felix left, with a sore on his own heart where Jisung's was ripped from. He had to halt his steps in an alleyway to be able to cry freely for even just a moment, for he knew that such an expression had to stray far from his face in other to settle inside his home without interrogation. He couldn't allow his parents or little sister to see him like that. To see him so weak. To see him humbled at the throne of rebellion, tempted to never liaise with it again.

Felix wept for Jisung; for the love that they once shared. For the burnt patches of grass with ashes littered above that Jisung once called a home, wired by their love. Wired to the connection of their hearts.

An electrical fire, irreversible. A spark, inextinguishable.

+ + + + +

Magasin de musique Oddinary

17:15

The guitar. Jisung could not hold on to it. He would not bring himself to play it, ever, as the chords would only sing songs chorused with Felix's name, as if not at all sympathetic toward Jisung's heart. The mere standing knowledge that the instrument that Jisung had purchased with so much hope and excitement for the future that he had such confidence in was enough to churn his stomach.

Enough to push him to throw up from the force of his tears before he finally mustered up the courage to take the guitar back to where he had bought it from.

The inspiring smell of varnished wood and fragranced packages tickled Jisung's insides as he stepped into the music shop. The one where he had met Minho, and Hyunjin, and appreciated their membership in his sexual dilemma. Although they had seemed to already settle in their truth.

Jisung had thought he was solidified in who he was too, but never mind. Not after what Felix had done to him. The preacher's son. What was he to think? For all anyone knew, Felix could have turned everything around to follow in his father's footsteps and pretended to be pained with his confession just to lighten the blow.

Jisung shivered at the thought, sighing.

"Afternoon. I've come to bring back this guitar," he announced upon entering, placing the guitar on the counter, and looking everywhere but at the cashier; Hyunjin. Didn't want to allow Hyunjin's scanning eyes to spot and grow weary at his red and puffy ones.

"I'm sorry, darling. But we don't usually give refunds- Is something wrong with the guitar? We'd have no issue fixing it," Hyunjin said, lifting a hand hesitantly to the top of the instrument, disagreeing with the impulse to reach out and touch Jisung's arm, concerned. "You look troubled... Jisung, correct?"

"Yes, Jisung. I simply want the guitar no longer. So please, hold it. I am not requesting a refund."

"Why?" The other familiar voice called Jisung's eyes over his shoulder, to meet Minho's. And Jisung regretted giving in to the reflex to recognize because now, he could not look away. He kept his eyes locked with Minho's, allowing the man to read him as he pleased. To draw conclusions from the light red that substituted the bright white that had gleamed when they first met, Jisung's round, flustered cheeks, pouted lips, and pert nose reddened at the tip.

"Because I don't want it," Jisung tried to snap, but was humbled when his unstable voice betrayed him. At last, he looked away from Minho, down at his feet, rolling his shoulder when Minho's hand landed on top.

The shop was empty, apart from the three, so Minho pushed further, caring. "What's wrong?" He asked, thinking thrice before lifting Jisung's head by the chin to form a bond between their eyes again. "You've been crying. You're very clearly bothered by something. We're here for you, Jisung. We're multiples of you. You can speak to us."

Tears. They just kept coming. And Jisung could not stand himself, his tendency to let his guard down so soon, but he couldn't help it. His head fell forward onto Minho's chest, and he shook as Minho guided him to the backroom inside the shop, whilst Hyunjin remained at the counter in case of any wandering customer.

But Minho was all that Jisung would need, anyway. All that Jisung would have ever wanted, in his predicament. He clung to Minho and cried. Tensed. Screamed as quietly as he could into Minho's chest. And eventually, Jisung's sounds grew so loud that Hyunjin felt obligated to shut the doors early and close the curtains to further sell that business was over for the day, before joining them at the back.

They wondered what could have made Jisung break like that. Wanted to assume that it was one of the worst cases of prejudice, a loved one lost to the hands of death, or a broken heart. A wounded soul. A conscience zapped by faulty wiring.

Jisung held his breath, wishing that it would all go away. That he would open his eyes and Felix would be in his arms, or that nothing had ever happened between them in the first place. That he had never grown attracted to his church leader's son. That he had never indulged in his earthly desires and courted a man.

That he had never fallen in love.

A broken heart wounds, but it does not kill, unless one lets it.

Jisung wanted to let it.

Thought that he would, eventually. Because the despair was insufferable. The shame, the pain, the burning in his chest, the task to accept that Felix walked away and left him in the mess that they had created together.

Oh, goodness. Oh, dear.

Minho looked at Hyunjin above Jisung's head, pressed into his chest, and mirrored Hyunjin's frown.

What was, was. But what would be?

+ + + + +

Motel 3racha

21:30

Felix was not heartbroken. But he mourned a broken heart. His conscience was not electrocuted to numbness, but it was being tortured by the ropes of a rack; being pulled apart by guilt, and the seemingly predestined nature of his situation.

He found no use in tears from his end of the dilemma, yet sobbed almost as though he were in Jisung's place. And Felix hated that; loathed himself for his inability to stop the flow of tears and move on with the life he desired for himself; not fully, but more than that with the days spent in liaison with Jisung.

And to add insult to injury, whilst crying as silently as he could in his bedroom, moping over what he could not change, cursing at the clock's personal autonomy that kept him from turning back the hands of time, a knock had sounded on Felix's bedroom door. His father. Said something about wanting to go on a father-son drive and proceeded to take them to the church where only they were present.

Florian had sat beside Felix on a pew, and placed on hand on his son's knee, fatherly, eyeing him from the side before focusing blankly on the crucifix that added some form of significance to the podium on the altar.

He'd gone on to ask his son about Chan. Whether or not Chan had ever tried to influence Felix's young mind to stray from the church. Whether Chan had ever made an attempt to guide Felix down a path contrary to the narrow one that his father had begun to pave from birth. And nothing was remotely wrong with that. Because Florian was a father, after all. Performing his duty as a parental guide; nothing about it was unusual.

Felix just wished that his father had picked a better time, for his own emotional well-being. The concern was sincere yet irksome. And Felix had to silently withstand the metallic taste on his tongue that resulted from the rough bites granted to his bottom lip from his teeth; the only way to keep the tears from flowing. To keep Jisung out of his mind, as much as possible.

But Felix couldn't remain at home when they returned. The urge to let everything out without the fear of judgment or inquisitive disturbances had grown unbearable, so with indirect permission from his half-asleep mother beside her husband in slumber, Felix had made his way to Chan's motel. On foot. Under the darkened sky and admonitory streets of Paris.

So there Felix was, embraced by Chan on his bed, soothed from the tears that had been flowing ever since his arrival at least thirty minutes earlier.

Chan hummed above Felix's head, raking one hand through the blonde locks, and giggling softly now and then at their disheveled state, and Felix's warmth, curled up by his side. They were so close. So, so, so close. Almost too close. Their heartbeats were decipherable when Felix finally came to a steady calm, and Chan sought to simply lay and listen for a few moments before speaking up.

He smiled at the pattern.

Blushed at the essence of Felix's life.

"Do you feel better?" Chan asked. "Calmer? Ready to talk?"