where do we go – the director's cut and commentary

[reikawakubo]

hi long time no see hehe!!

i’m so sorry for the wait…i know i’ve been saying for months that i’d work on this but every time i would sit down to do it, my brain would just go blank. i genuinely could not remember my thought process when i wrote this fic fr. but now i am back and i will attempt to explain my silly little fic to anyone who is interested<3

i remember i had such a hard time writing this last part because i wasn’t quite sure where i wanted to take it—i knew i wanted this installment to be about jaywon rebuilding their friendship and rebuilding the trust between them after everything has happened, and i knew i didn’t want to make it easy for them.

from the beginning, i had planned to make this part jungwon’s pov, because after villainizing the poor guy for two out of the three parts of this series, i thought he needed a redemption arc that you, as the reader, can see for yourselves. i know this is my own fic and i wrote the damn thing, but i was quite mad at jungwon myself lol!

stylistically, i wanted to make sure to incorporate and emulate the previous two parts to make them feel more cohesive—i decided to continue on with the more punchy, emotional interludes that i employed in part II.

i think the driving force of this fic was jungwon’s guilt and his self-punishment. while i think it is important that he acknowledges his wrongdoings and does his best to earn jay’s trust and respect again, i do think jungwon is deserving of good things (i.e. jay).

okay rambly overview intro over, onto the commentary!

 

 

Jongseong’s smile is catastrophic.

It’s devastating, it’s the makings of a disaster and Jungwon thinks Jongseong is to blame for his ruin. The same could be said about him and the way he swept up Jongseong and dropped him without any warning.

 

 

of course, i had to bring back the storm/natural disasters motif just to tie it into part II! i still believe that jaywon was a natural disaster in that they were so overwhelming and all-consuming. the metaphor just made sense to me.

further down in the intro, i talk about how it never occurred to jungwon that he could do something about his love for jay. i feel like i was projecting a bit with this bit—i think so often a lot of us have people in our lives that we love but we never do anything about it. obviously fear plays into it…sometimes there is a lot to lose, but there’s also so much happiness you’re depriving yourself of, especially when you choose to settle for something (or someone) that might not be good for you. that’s what i wanted to acknowledge here! jungwon settled.

 

 

“I told you to stop apologizing.” Jongseong doesn’t sound upset, per se. This gives Jungwon the courage to look up, to take in the downturned corners of his mouth.

Jungwon opens his mouth, shuts it. “I don’t know what to say,” he finally admits. “Or do.”

…

“Do you think we did this too soon?” Jungwon asks the biggest question that has been on his mind, one that he hadn’t even really wanted to ask himself because he’s terrified of the answer.

“Did what?”

“Coming back into each other’s lives.”

…

“I would have taken anything whether it was too soon or not,” Jungwon says quietly, and he can feel his face warm at the admission.

 

 

i pulled a few bits here, since they’re all related. it’s pretty clear that a lot has changed between the two of them, and it makes sense. they’re best friends who are in love and are recovering from the toll of codependency and all the fallout that comes with it. it isn’t meant to be easy and i think it takes a lot of relearning each other, especially since the fallout resulted in such a big change not only in their dynamic, but the way they each are as people.

i think i wanted to pull out all the stops right away—i wanted to put this question on the table from the beginning because i wanted to put it into perspective for all of us and make us think. should they have waited longer to be friends again? and to have jungwon respond to the question the way he did just goes to show how full circle everything in this series is. “i would have taken anything.” this mindset feels so familiar, doesn’t it?

i think it’s ironic that jungwon has adopted so many of the mindsets that jay had in part I and II of the series. the biggest theme of the series is just the idea of a cycle of suffering lmfao. everyone gets a little taste of what the other is feeling and i think that could be the best way to learn a lesson.

there’s another part further in the fic that discusses how they went about coming back into each other’s lives, so i’ll continue that line of thinking when we get to it!

 

 

“Too soon?”

Jungwon would recognize the use of this phrase anywhere. “You’re hanging out with Sunghoon-hyung too much.”

“Didn’t really have much of a choice. My other best friend was out of commission.” Jongseong is smiling wryly, and Jungwon feels that overwhelming sense of guilt clawing at his throat again.

 

 

i’ve said this before, but i think sunghoon is the best character of the whole series. i loved writing sunghoon in part II forcing his company upon jay and being around him all the time to keep him from falling into that dark place again. i love the idea of jay grudgingly going along and having to deal with sunghoon’s own brand of crazy and adopting little quirks and phrases that sunghoon uses. jay even adopts some of that bluntness of sunghoon’s, which i think is a good thing!

in general, i love jayhoon as a pairing whether romantic or platonic, and it was fun fleshing them out the way i did.

 

 

“People are allowed to want good things,” Sunoo reminds him gently, but Jungwon just shrugs.

“Not me, not when it’s him.”

Jongseong is too good, too good for him. Something Jungwon has always known about him is the fact that he has always loved indiscriminately without expecting anything back—he is prepared to give himself over completely at all times without question. Jongseong is the type of person to be so selfless that it almost comes across as self-destructive. That is something Jungwon has always loved about him.

 

 

is this fic just another excuse for me to wax poetic about jay and how much i love the way he loves? maybe! i’ve said this in so many of my fics and my dreamwidth fic commentaries, but jay is so painfully genuine. obviously we only know jay in the way that he chooses to present himself to us in enha content and the way he chooses to interact with us, but based on what we’ve seen i think it’s safe to say that jay is just as earnest and kind as he seems. i also think he’s a fucking loser, but that’s neither here nor there<3

anyways, back to the fic.

i keep emphasizing the kind of person jay is just because i think it puts into perspective what jungwon ended up doing to him. jungwon has mentioned before that he fully knew what he was doing which. well. that’s fucked lol. yes, jungwon was going through his own shit and jay was there for him the way any good best friend would be, but it became more than that and jungwon was aware of the toll it was taking on jay but he let it continue anyways because he got something out of it.

 

 

“You need to trust that he knows what’s good for him, and what he can handle.” Sunoo shrugs. “If he wants you in his life, then that’s his decision to make. Why give him the option if you didn’t want him to take it?”

Jungwon smiles wryły, looking down at the table and focusing on the scratch marks embedded in the wood surface. “I just can’t stop being selfish when it comes to him.”

 

 

first of all, oof. but i think sunoo makes a good point here! we as the readers know jay has done a lot of work on himself and has worked through the complicated feelings he has about the whole ordeal between him and jungwon. and after examining his feelings and everything that he’s gone through, he chose to have jungwon back in his life. he sought jungwon out first (if we take the voicemail out of the equation).

i think at this point it’s safe to believe in jay and his decision-making skills—and his decision was supported by sunghoon so his logic and rationality skills Have to be sound lol!

the fact of the matter is, jay chose this and jungwon is allowed to want it too.

another thing i wanted to address is that last bit of dialogue. i don’t think anyone is necessarily selfish for going after things that make them happy—i think the Way they choose to do it is what matters. obviously, in the first installation of this series, the way jungwon went about it was selfish, destructive, and not ok. we’ve reached the point where jungwon is self-punishing when he doesn’t need to be. sunoo points out a little further back in this scene that jungwon has acknowledged his mistake and has apologized and is working to making it right, and that’s all he can do at this point.

 

 

“Is this okay?” Jungwon’s voice is quiet, scratchy as a mishandled wool sweater. Jongseong doesn’t say anything for a few moments and he closes his eyes for a second, begins to pull away in humiliation, but Jongseong puts an arm around his shoulders, holding him fast against him.

“Yeah, more than okay.” Jongseong lets out a breathy laugh as quiet as a landing feather. “Sorry, I was just surprised.”

Jungwon tries not to let it show that he stops breathing when Jongseong‘s arm drops lower so it’s around his waist instead, hand resting comfortably on his hip. They sit like this, a mirage of the past, and his heartbeat doesn’t relax for a single moment.

 

 

[muffled screaming]

anyways. i think such a big part of the jaywon dynamic is skinship. i’ve talked about this before in my jaywon characterization post, which you can read here. the fact their relationship has evolved to the point where they don’t even feel comfortable doing that anymore is kind of a big deal in my opinion!

lowkey my heart fluttered a little or whatever when jay pulled him back against him when jungwon was about to pull away….anyways lemme be sane lol!

 

“How come he hasn’t brought this up to me?”

“I don’t pretend to know what he thinks about in his stupid little brain.”

 

 

sorry, just wanted to take a moment to appreciate the jayhoon dynamic again. i just love their friendship so much and their dynamic irl makes me laugh…i think i’m going to try and write a jayhoon fic one day<3

 

 

Jongseong is right. This room is the smallest out of all the practice rooms available for the dance department students to use, but it’s Jungwon’s favorite anyway. He thinks it has something to do with the floor to ceiling window, the one that gives him the perfect view of the quad and the way the sun sets behind the buildings that surround it. He likes the way campus looks in the dayglow, the way light touches everything and turns it golden.

Sunset is the only time Jungwon allows himself a break from the back-breaking practice he throws himself into. And if he stays long enough, he pauses to watch the sun rise too.

Jungwon looks over at Jongseong and shrugs, smiling faintly as he takes in the way the sunglow halos around him through the window. “I just like the view.”

 

 

fellas is it gay to love the way the sun makes ur bro glow? i wanted to have a moment where jungwon admires how beautiful jay is and thought this was a simple way to do it. this scene is pretty short, and it’s because originally i meant to have this be an even shorter interlude section with dance and the mindset as the main focus, but i couldn’t resist throwing jay in there for a quiet, tender jaywon moment.

 

 

“I really struggled getting over you walking away from me. I know you did it for both of our sakes, but I had such a hard time accepting that. Had a hard time believing that you had done anything wrong at all. And then I get to the point where I can say to myself, yes, I love him, but I’m so unbelievably angry at him. And myself. Seeing you at that party after months, nearly a year, of our friends separating us made me feel the most unreal amount of bitterness. And an unreal amount of anger.

“And for you to call out of the blue a few days later to tell me that you love me? That you’re in love with me? After all the time I spent tormenting myself and trying to get over you? It was confusing and it hurt and it was unfair.”

 

 

imagining how jay felt when jungwon walked away kind of deeply hurts me lol.

let’s take inventory of what we know about jay at the time: he was emotionally dependent on jungwon, as much as jungwon was dependent on him. jay was willing to do anything for him, drop anything for him at jungwon’s request. jay was willing to accept whatever little scrap of attention and feelings that jungwon would spare him, even at the cost of his own emotional well-being.

now let’s take all of that and add in the fact that jungwon tears himself away and says point-blank that he’s been using jay and taking advantage of him, going as far as to kiss him to “see how it’d feel.” and now let’s remember that jay took all of that in stride and said it was ok. god. are we feeling the gravity of just how emotionally devastating it was when jungwon walked away?

and to think of jay struggling with his emotions and how he felt about the ordeal and how much he had to work through with the help of sunghoon along the way…the amount of work it took just for him to realize that he hadn’t done anything wrong. the amount of work it took for him to admit that he was angry at jungwon. the turmoil he experienced…all that just to get knocked onto his ass with one jungwon-sighting and one voicemail.

every time i think about this it makes me want to die…jay suffered so much…poor thing…i’m sorry i put you through that…sike (i’m joking, mostly.)

 

 

“Part of that is my fault. I’m the one who asked you to be in my life again, and by doing that I’ve subjected us to this weird limbo we’re in. Subjected myself to more confusion and self-confliction. It’s my fault for giving into myself. And giving into the fact that I missed you.” Jongseong lets out a breath of laughter, more wry than mirth. “I don’t know what I thought was going to happen when I asked for us to be friends again. I think part of me was scared we’d never speak again if we didn’t.”

 

 

i thought it was important to make a little reference to what sunoo had said earlier in the fic about jay making the decision to let jungwon back into his life. i think deciding that is so very him, so expected of him. because despite all the progress he’d made, one thing is still true: he loves jungwon. no amount of self-reflection could change that (in this fic). but by giving into his feelings, he has subjected them to this limbo that they’re in, just like he said.

the last two lines are interesting. i think a lot of the time when people spend time apart or give each other space, it can sometimes evolve into being permanent. the fact that part of the reason he asked jungwon to come back was out of fear of the possibility of permanence and out of fear of losing him is also very him.

 

 

“I’m sorry.” Jungwon’s voice is ragged, as if the guilt has been clawing at his throat, shredding it. “I’m sorry I put you through all of this. I was your best friend. I knew you better than I knew myself and I knew you’d give me everything without hesitation and I knew it would hurt you and I knew it was hurting you and I still let it happen. I don’t think I’ll ever stop feeling the guilt from that.”

 

 

i thought it was important for jungwon to acknowledge what he’d done again. i think when you’re having a conversation like this, it’s important to confirm the other person’s grievances against you, because it’s important that both parties feel heard. it’s a matter of respect, i think!

 

 

“No matter how many different ways you could play out how this whole conversation could have gone, there isn’t any possible scenario where I can just stop being in love with you.” Jongseong lets out a puff of laughter. “That doesn’t change.”

 

 

jay you are one gay mf. and all for one yang jungwon.

also the fact that i wrote this before everything everywhere all at once came out and the vibes are similar to the whole, “in another life, I would have really liked just doing laundry and taxes with you.” sighs dreamily.

 

 

“That makes sense,” Jongseong says after a moment. “Right person, wrong time.”

Jungwon smiles. “Something like that.”

“So, what about now?”

He looks down at their hands, the way their fingers are intertwined and how this just feels so right.

“Perfect person. Perfect time.”

 

 

of course, i have to bring the fic back full circle!

originally, i was going to include more scenes where they ease into dating and learning each other and loving each other and all that. but then i wrote this scene and finished it and the fic just felt…complete at this point. i felt like i would be doing the fic a disservice if i kept going after this point, and it would have taken away from what i was trying to achieve with this last installment and with the series as a whole.

this series was such a rollercoaster from beginning to end, and i’m beyond grateful that anyone would give them a chance even with the scary tags lol!

i’ve mentioned before, but this series is very, very personal to me. the entirety of part I was based on personal experience and it took a lot out of me to write it. this was originally meant to be a series for bts and i actually started writing this back in 2017 and was never able to finish it. the fact that i was able to pick it up again after this long and not only finish the first part, but take it through to the end feels so cathartic to me. parts II and III were the closure and happy ending that i never got, but fleshing it out and giving jaywon this opportunity for closure and a hopeful future together was also very fulfilling for me lol!

once again, thank you so much for reading my series and following along with me until now—it means the world to me!