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“Why?”
Johnny hates the way his voice catches, hates that this is what five years of shared joy and sadness, of building their home brick by brick, have all culminated in—not in a triumph of hearing the love of his life say ‘yes’ to his proposal, but in tense silence, the bond between them frayed, his mother’s wedding ring sitting at the bottom of a glass, the champagne inside left untouched.
Countless scenarios had played in his mind when the nerves of proposing got the best of him, yet he never thought his biggest fear would come true. He never thought the night would end with Doyoung sitting across from him with his shoulders slumped, eyes glassy with tears, and sorrow written all over his lovely face. In that moment, Johnny hates himself for throwing stones at their warmth-filled home without realizing that it was actually made of glass—a glass house reflecting what he desired yet never revealing its true nature until it was too late, until Johnny decided to take that leap of faith and try to make their home a permanent residence when Doyoung had been thinking of moving out.
Now it lies shattered on the ground, its jagged edges stabbing the soles of his feet and leaving blood all over the floor.
“It wouldn’t have worked, Johnny,” Doyoung says softly.
He looks handsome tonight, donned in his maroon dinner jacket, hair falling over his kohl-lined eyes. So lovely when he’s breaking Johnny’s heart.
Johnny wants to rage, wants to destroy the fine china on their table, maybe even flip the whole thing for good measure. But the anger fizzles out as swiftly as it appears. Johnny can never be angry at Doyoung—not level-headed Doyoung, who thinks two steps ahead of everyone, who’s so calm when he’s dissecting Johnny’s arguments that every time they fight that Johnny has no choice but to kiss him to shut him up because he doesn’t want to admit defeat.
Yet for all his level-headedness, Doyoung cries easily. He cries when he gets a promotion at work. He cries when Johnny surprises him on his birthday after his boss chews him out. He cries when he’s sick because he hates that Johnny has to leave work to take care of him, even when Johnny doesn’t mind. He cries when Johnny proposes to him because apparently—
His mind buzzes, and all he can think past the hurt and the anguish is that maybe Doyoung doesn’t love him as much as Johnny loves him.
Or maybe—maybe Doyoung never loved him at all.
“But we are working, Doyoung,” Johnny counters slowly, ignoring the ache, the frustration, and the sadness that threaten to overflow. He doesn't know where they went wrong, doesn't understand why Doyoung chose now. Why not before? Why not after? After they got home, away from all these prying and pitying eyes? Why won’t he grant Johnny the dignity of hearing his ‘no’ in private?
But then again, Doyoung has never been cruel, and that’s what made Johnny fall in love with him in the first place. Five years is a long time to know someone, yet all Johnny feels now is lost. Maybe Doyoung sees the cracks he missed, the water leaking from the ceiling he didn't notice, the damage creeping in slowly until everything collapsed. Maybe Doyoung tried to fix it, but the destruction was just too much, and maybe Johnny was the one who caused it without knowing. Maybe Doyoung sees the futility of his actions—that what he’s trying to save is unsalvageable, or maybe it’s just not worth saving—so he decided to stop, to just let it crash and burn. Because that’s where they were headed after all.
And maybe Johnny only sees what he wishes to see, and this is the price he has to pay for his ignorance. But then again, Johnny would never blame him for it; he just wishes Doyoung had shared all of this with him, because Johnny at least deserves that much, doesn’t he? Deserves not to be blindsided.
Doyoung shakes his head. “We aren’t, Johnny. You might think that, but this—” He gestures with his hand. “—isn’t working, and hasn’t been for a while now.”
“I don’t understand,” Johnny trails off. Everything has become muted, the world losing its color. Unsure, he leans back in his chair, suddenly exhausted.
“When was the last time we had dinner together, Johnny? The last time we talked without turning it into an argument? The last time we fell asleep together? You were gone all the time.”
Doyoung looks angry now, his lips thinned into a stern line, his eyes sharp and accusing. Johnny is not ashamed to admit that he hates this side of Doyoung—this side that corners him until he has nowhere left to go.
“I have work, Doyoung. I can’t just leave those meetings, and the seniors dragged me to that bar, okay? You know how it is, and we need the money.”
Doyoung barks a sardonic laugh. “We wouldn’t need the money if your family aren’t so materialistic.”
“You don’t want to go there, Doyoung,” Johnny warns.
Doyoung leans forward, eyes flashing dangerously. “Oh, yes, I do, Johnny. In fact, let’s go there. Do you—do you know what they call me?”
There’s a hitch in his voice, and Johnny stamps down the urge to cross the small distance between them and gather Doyoung’s shaking frame into his arms.
“They called me a gold-digging cocksucker, a crazy whoreson, while they laughed in their fancy clothes, holding their fancy alcohol while they judged and belittled me,” Doyoung whispers. Johnny expects fury, but Doyoung only sounds tired, like this is a fact he has accepted.
Johnny is well aware of his parents’ and extended family’s dislike of Doyoung. He has had a couple of conversations with his mom where she told him to break things off with Doyoung, to stop shaming them and marry a girl from a proper family. He didn't know that Doyoung knew. He didn't realize that maybe Doyoung’s reluctance to spend the holidays with his family was because he knew, and suddenly, things start to fall into place.
“I’ll talk to them. I’ll make sure they won’t say another word about you, about us,” Johnny states firmly. He will talk, threaten—whatever is needed come Christmas when he goes home, making sure that any words against Doyoung will no longer be tolerated.
Doyoung shakes his head again, this time harder. Frustration brews in his reddened eyes. Johnny’s words seem to have the opposite effect of what he intended; instead of looking relieved, Doyoung looks even more upset.
“Then what do you want me to do?” Johnny pleads.
Doyoung looks at him sadly, yet with so much conviction. For a moment, Johnny longs to run his hand through his hair, longs to brush away the tears threatening to spill from his lashes. He longs to kiss those lips. He longs to go back two hours. He longs to go back to their home, and he wishes they had never left at all.
“I don’t need a big house at the suburb or fast cars or expensive jewelry, Johnny. I just need you.” Doyoung murmurs somberly, as if this too is breaking his heart.
“You know what they’ve been saying about me behind my back, and not once have you said anything to defend me. You never stand up for me, Johnny. I know that your mom wants you to marry a nice suburban girl, to leave the city for the house with the white picket fence and give her a couple of grandchildren. I know how much you love and care for your mother, for your family, Johnny, and I know how much it would break your heart to turn your back on them, so—” Doyoung takes a deep breath, blinking the tears away from his eyes. “So this is me, saving you from having to choose.”
“Let’s break up, Johnny.”
Johnny’s family is traditional and conservative; they believe that God made man and woman to be husband and wife. Yet when he came out to them as bisexual, his mom supported him wholeheartedly, convincing his father to let Johnny leave the suburbs for the city. Johnny will forever be grateful for what she did, for believing in him and allowing him to flourish. But Johnny is also not blind to how, the older she gets, the more she pushes him to come back, how she never warms up to Doyoung, and how by staying silent she shows his other relatives that Doyoung is free game, ripe for the picking. She never participates, but she never does anything to discourage the vultures.
And Doyoung, ever-perceptive Doyoung, would have pieced it all together while Johnny was too blind to realize where the thread was going. Johnny had thought that his mom and his family would eventually warm up to Doyoung, that once they were married, everything would be okay. Doyoung would be his husband, and all would be well. He has always been too naive for his own good—a trait Doyoung finds endearing and that causes his mom endless despair.
Doyoung has never been cruel, but isn’t this cruelty, too?
His world seems to collapse at those three words. Everything narrows down to Doyoung’s determined face, to the slight tremble of his lips, to his white-knuckled fists on the table.
The world shatters and reforms in the span of a second, but Johnny is still trying to make sense of everything.
Five years, and on the very night that was supposed to make him the happiest man alive, here he is with everything he holds dear crushed and mangled, the tapestry they wove together torn.
Johnny feels tears prickling in his eyes. The magnitude of his new reality crashes down on him. This is it. This is the end.
Johnny takes in a shuddering breath. “Did you know that I was going to propose?”
“I had my suspicions.”
“Then why? Why didn’t you ever bring any of this up?”
“I did, Johnny. Over and over again. And every time I tried to talk to you about it, you just swept it under the rug. I was waiting for you to fight for me, for us. I was waiting for you to stand up for me, and yet no matter how long I waited, you never did. It took me a while to realize that I don’t want to spend forever with someone who won’t fight for me.” Doyoung exhales harshly, pausing to blink incessantly to clear away his tears.
The next sentence he speaks is delivered so softly it is barely audible. “But I’m also selfish, Johnny. I never want to leave the restaurant. I never want to leave the dance floor. Even though I know that our time is finite, I want to have us for as long as I can.”
And that is the truth. Doyoung would wait, but not forever, and Johnny isn’t aware of the hourglass dripping sand little by little until it runs out.
“We can have forever, Doyoung,” Johnny pleads once more.
“No, we can’t. I won’t—you know I won’t, Johnny. Not after everything I’ve been through, I won’t lower myself to be trampled.”
“I’ll talk to them. I’ll make them understand—whatever it is that you want. Just please—give me another chance.” Johnny’s voice cracks as he pleads, reaching forward to grasp Doyoung’s clenched hands.
Johnny will go down on his knees, prostrate in the middle of this restaurant for everyone to see, if it means Doyoung will smile and say that everything is going to be okay, that they will be okay.
But Doyoung withdraws his hands, his expression closed off. It’s like he’s deaf to Johnny’s pleas. Doyoung has never been cruel, but maybe this is what Johnny has made him into: a cruel god delivering judgment with no care for his subject's suffering. This is what Johnny has made him into by hurting him.
“It wouldn’t have worked, Johnny,” Doyoung counters brokenly.
Maybe it would have. Maybe it wouldn’t have. But Johnny can never know, because Doyoung doesn’t want to try again. In life, sometimes when you break something, it can still be salvaged. Sometimes it can still be patched. And sometimes it breaks and stays broken.
This, as Johnny comes to find out, is the latter.
“You will find someone else, and they—they will patch the tapestry I shredded, and then—you won’t remember any of this. All of my champagne problems.”
Doyoung has always had a flair for poetry when he talks, calling this a ‘champagne problem’ when it’s more akin to an atomic bomb for Johnny, and telling him that he will find someone else when all Johnny wants is him. It's cruel, but maybe he deserves it—deserves Doyoung’s cruelty as a fitting punishment for his cowardice, his ignorance.
“I don’t want anyone else. I want you,” he sobs. Johnny has always been an ugly crier, and once he starts, it’s hard for him to stop. But Doyoung is patient; he lets Johnny cry until there’s nothing left, until his tear ducts dry up, until his eyes turn red and hollow.
“Was any of it real? Did you mean any of it?” His voice cracks, but Johnny doesn’t care, not when he’s hollowed out. Doyoung has scraped everything clean, and all that’s left is an empty shell.
“Of course I did, Johnny. I love you.”
“But not enough to stay,” Johnny says, crestfallen.
Doyoung gives him a pained smile. And there it is, the answer he’s been looking for.
“Can we—can I at least take you home?” Johnny asks softly.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Johnny.” Doyoung replies, his voice brittle and frail. He looks at Johnny with so much pain in his eyes, and this, Johnny realizes, is grief. He wonders how long Doyoung has been mourning them. How long he has been grieving their dying love while Johnny has been too busy building their happily ever after, oblivious to the fact that Doyoung has already made his peace with it, that he’s ready to let them go.
But Johnny never had that chance. He’s not ready, and he might never be ready, but it’s not up to him now, is it? Not when Doyoung has made it clear. Yet, doesn’t he at least deserve a goodbye?
“Please? Just for tonight?” He hopes that Doyoung will at least grant him this. The Doyoung he knew was never cruel, but this new one, as Johnny comes to find out, is not as forgiving.
Doyoung shakes his head. “Go home, Johnny. We’ll talk tomorrow. I’ll stay with Taeyong tonight.” Then he stands up. With one last apologetic glance at Johnny, he leaves. The host rushes over to hand him his coat, and Doyoung accepts it with a small smile and quiet thanks.
Regret has a special kind of flavor—bitter and cloying, suffocating everything until you can only sprawl on the ground limply. Regret is what Johnny feels as he watches Doyoung’s back become smaller and smaller until it disappears through the glass door.
He stares at the door for a while, then pours the now-warm champagne into his empty soup bowl. He scoops the ring out with the spoon, rubs it dry with the napkin, and puts it in his pocket. He walks to the counter and pays the bill, ignoring all the pitying gazes of the guests, the servers, the maître d', and the host as he hands Johnny his coat.
With his mom’s ring in his pocket and their picture in his wallet, Johnny walks out of the restaurant and into the cold night.