Chapter Text
I don’t drink because I like it.
I drink because it keeps my hands busy.
If my hands are busy, they don’t reach for my phone.
If they don’t reach for my phone, I don’t type his name.
If I don’t type his name, I don’t remember the way it looks when it lights up my screen, too familiar, too easy, like it never learned how to leave.
The glass sweats against my palm. The room is too quiet. My schedule for tomorrow is folded neatly on the table, printed in black ink like it has any authority over me at all.
Filming starts at six.
Script read-through at eight.
Interview at noon.
Smile. Laugh. Pretend.
I tilt the glass back anyway. The alcohol doesn’t burn anymore. It just settles. Heavy. Slow. Like it’s learned my body and decided to stay.
I think about how James used to laugh at me for drinking like this.
You don’t even enjoy it, he’d say, watching me with that soft crease between his brows and the slightest hint of a pout on his lips. You just look like you’re trying to disappear.
I told him once that disappearing sounded nice.
He didn’t laugh that time.
I work too much now.
Everyone says it like it’s a compliment.
Net’s so professional.
Net’s really focused lately.
Net never rests.
They don’t see me pacing my apartment at three in the morning, script in hand, rereading lines I already know by heart. They don’t see how my legs shake when the room gets too quiet, how I put music on just to drown out the sound of my own thoughts.
They don’t see me counting hours the way other people count scars.
Working is easier than missing him.
Barely.
James used to tell me I worked too much. What are you running away from?
What are you so afraid of? he asked once, sitting cross legged on my couch, hair still damp from the shower, wearing one of my shirts like it had always belonged to him. So natural. So right.
I told him I didn’t know.
I lied.
We were just us.
Just Net and James.
Nothing else.
That’s the part everyone clings to, like it erases everything else.
We never said the words.
We never gave it, us, a title.
Never crossed lines on paper.
Never gave interviews that confirmed anything real.
But he knew how I took my coffee.
I knew which nights he couldn’t sleep.
We shared clothes, space, habits.
We shared silences that felt like confessions.
When we were still a ship, a fantasy, marketed, curated, it was easy to hide behind the roles. Skinship came with cameras. Lingering looks could be blamed on fanservice. Hands that stayed a second too long were just part of the image.
But somewhere between late night rehearsals and dinners after schedules wrapped, the pretending got blurry.
James would fall asleep against my shoulder in vans that smelled like hairspray and exhaustion.
I’d let him.
Every time.
I memorized the weight of him without meaning to. His body, his mind, his soul.
The day we ended it.
Ended us, whatever we were. We sat across from each other like strangers pretending to be polite.
James’s hands were folded tight in his lap. He looked calm. Too calm.
“I want to focus on DEXX,” he said. “Being an and artist means I can’t be… I need to try.”
I nodded, because I knew.
Because I respected him too much not to.
“I want to keep acting,” I said. “And I don’t want either of us held back by something we can’t explain.”
That was the truth.
The lie was that we could just stop.
We agreed it was mutual.
We agreed it was mature.
We agreed to stay close.
We didn’t agree on how much it would hurt.
Now he’s everywhere and nowhere at once.
His face on screens I pretend not to watch.
His voice in songs I accidentally memorize.
His name in rooms I don’t speak in anymore.
Leader James.
Beautiful James.
Smiling-for-the-camera James.
And me standing next to a new acting partner, matching energy, matching laughs, matching poses.
People say we look good together.
He is nice and funny.
Working is easy.
Lately, I don’t hear James’s name.
Not in interviews.
Not by fans.
It’s better that way.
I don’t tell them that every time someone does say his name, my chest tightens like it’s bracing for impact.
The alcohol finally does what it always does.
My head spins.
My thoughts loosen.
I sink down against the kitchen counter, back sliding until I’m sitting on the cold tile floor. The lights feel too bright. The world feels tilted, like it’s waiting for me to fall the rest of the way.
I think about the night James stayed over because the rain wouldn’t stop.
He stood in my doorway, hair damp, eyes unsure.
“Just tonight,” he said. “If that’s okay.”
I let him in without answering.
We didn’t kiss.
Didn’t touch.
We just lay there, inches apart, breathing the same air like it meant something.
At some point, his hand found mine.
He squeezed once.
Not a question.
Not an answer.
Just proof.
I crack.
It’s quiet, but it’s real.
The tears don’t come like in series. They just leak. Slow. Embarrassing. I press the heel of my hand into my eye like I can push the feeling back in.
“I miss you,” I whisper to no one.
That’s what I am.
A man built out of almosts and what-ifs.
I miss the way James said my name when he thought no one was listening soft, careful, like he was afraid of breaking something already fragile. I miss the way he leaned into me without thinking, the way his laughter felt like it belonged to me for a while.
I miss the version of myself that believed love didn’t need a label to be real.
There’s a knock at the door.
At first, I think I imagined it.
The alcohol does that sometimes.
Then it comes again.
Three knocks.
Uncertain.
Familiar.
My heart stutters so hard it almost hurts.
I don’t stand up right away. I can’t. My legs are shaking too badly. I stay there on the floor, staring at the door like it might disappear if I blink.
Another knock.
“Net,” a voice says, quiet but unmistakable.
James.
I get up.
I don’t remember crossing the room. I don’t remember unlocking the door. I just remember it opening and there he is.
No makeup. No stage smile. Just James, eyes red, shoulders tense, looking like he ran here without thinking it through.
For a second, we just stare at each other.
Then he breaks.
He steps forward and presses his forehead into my shoulder like it’s muscle memory, like his body remembered before his mind could stop it. His arms come around me, tight, desperate, like he’s afraid I’ll vanish if he lets go.
I hold him.
Of course I do.
Nothing is fixed.
Nothing is solved.
But for one quiet moment, with his weight against me and his breath shaking through my shirt, I let myself believe that missing each other was never one-sided.
And maybe that’s enough to keep me standing.
Just tonight.