The bathroom light was too bright.

It flattened everything — skin, shadows, expressions — turned them into something merciless and honest. The white tiles reflected it back, sterile and unforgiving. The mirror above the sink showed two boys who were supposed to love each other.

Nut stood closer to it.

Hong stood behind him.

“You smiled at him,” Nut said, his voice low, controlled in the way storms pretend to be before they break.

Hong leaned against the closed door, arms crossed — not defensive, just tired. “He asked me a question.”

“You didn’t have to look at him like that.”

“Like what?”

Nut’s jaw tightened. The fluorescent light caught the sharpness of his cheekbones, the tension building under his skin. In the mirror, he could see Hong’s reflection — calm, frustratingly calm.

“Like he mattered,” Nut said.

Silence filled the small room, thick and damp as steam. The faint scent of soap and Hong’s shampoo lingered in the air.

Hong stepped forward. “You think I don’t choose you? Every day?”

Nut let out a humorless laugh. “It doesn’t feel like it.”

The words cracked something open.

Hong’s expression shifted — not anger, not yet — but hurt. “Then what does it feel like?”

Nut didn’t answer.

Instead, he stared at their reflection: Hong’s dark eyes steady, his own flickering with something ugly and small and terrified.

Jealousy was never loud at first. It was quiet. It whispered. It made you count glances and measure smiles and imagine things that weren’t there.

“I saw the way he touched your shoulder,” Nut said.

“It was nothing.”

“It wasn’t nothing to me.”

Hong moved closer until he was just behind Nut, close enough that their shoulders almost touched. Close enough that Nut could feel the warmth of him. “Then look at me,” Hong said softly. “Not the mirror. Me.”

But Nut couldn’t.

Because the mirror showed everything — his insecurity, his fear of being left behind, his belief that he would never be enough for someone as bright as Hong.

“I hate that you make me like this,” Nut whispered.

Hong flinched. “Like what?”

“Scared.”

And then it happened.

The pressure inside him snapped.

Nut’s fist came down against the mirror above the sink.

The crack was sharp, splitting the air. A jagged line ran through their reflection, distorting their faces into fractured pieces.

For a second, there was only ringing silence.

Then Nut’s breath hitched.

A thin line of red traced down from his knuckles. It wasn’t dramatic, wasn’t cinematic — it was real. The blood slid over his skin, fell in small drops into the white sink below.

Red against white.

Too bright.

Hong moved instantly. “Nut …”

He grabbed Nut’s wrist, pulling his hand back gently, eyes wide — not angry, not disappointed. Just scared.

“What are you doing?” Hong’s voice shook.

Nut didn’t look at him. He stared at the sink where the water from the faucet (Hong had turned it on without thinking) began to dilute the red, spiraling it down the drain in pale pink swirls.

“I don’t want to lose you,” Nut said.

It came out broken. Small.

Hong froze.

“That’s what this is?” Hong asked softly. “You think I’m leaving?”

Nut swallowed hard. The pain in his hand was distant compared to the ache in his chest. “Everyone does eventually.”

Hong cupped Nut’s face with his free hand, forcing him to look away from the ruined mirror and into his eyes.

“I’m not everyone.”

Water kept running.

Hong reached for a towel, wrapping it carefully around Nut’s bleeding knuckles, pressing firm but gentle. His hands were steady now.

“You don’t get to hurt yourself because you’re scared,” Hong murmured. “You don’t get to punish yourself for loving me.”

Nut’s breathing was uneven. “I hate feeling like I’m not enough.”

Hong leaned his forehead against Nut’s. “You are enough. But you have to let me choose you.”

The cracked mirror reflected them in fragments — two boys holding each other in pieces.

“I choose you,” Hong whispered. “Not because I have to. Because I want to.”

Nut’s shoulders finally sagged.

The jealousy didn’t disappear. It never did that easily. But it softened, dulled by the warmth of Hong’s hands and the steady pressure of his touch.

The sink was clean again, white restored.

But the mirror remained broken.

And maybe that was fitting.

Because love wasn’t about perfect reflections.

It was about staying — even when you saw every crack.

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