“Seungkwan, this is so bad,” Seungcheol groaned as he paced back and forth.

Seungkwan, who was sitting on the park bench casually finishing up his ice cream, sighed and said, “It really is.”

“UGHHHH! WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?!” Seungcheol screamed to the sky.

Some people passing by glanced over at Seungcheol with scared looks, but Seungkwan just smiled and waved them off. “Hyung, we need to make a plan.”

Seungcheol scoffed, throwing his hands on his hips. “How is a stupid plan gonna help me here?! Jihoon refuses to talk to me and he thinks that I’m still in love with Jeonghan! He won’t even let me explain what happened to him!”

Seungkwan couldn’t tell if his friend was sad or angry at this point, so he decided to go with “upset” to fit somewhere in between. “Look, hyung, I know you’re upset. This is really bad, I know.”

“I’ve been at home crying for four days! You better know!”

“Hyung…”

“This is the first time I’ve seen the freakin’ sun in over half a week! This is the first time I’ve talked to someone since Jihoon shut me out! Jeonghan thinks I’m going through depression or something and my professors think I’m just ditching classes now! Everything seems to be crumbling at my feet and I don’t even have the capacity to cry about it anymore!” Seungcheol frantically yelled.

Waiting a second to make sure his friend was done talking, Seungkwan let out a deep breath. “Okay, hyung, I know it seems like everything’s horrible right now, but let’s try and tackle the root of all your problems.”

“Yes. Please.”

“Jihoon.”

Seungcheol stopped walking and held his tongue. Just focusing his attention on the boy he feared losing made Seungcheol squirm in his skin. He felt the lump in his throat but quickly shoved it away, reminding himself that he’d have plenty of time to cry later. Right now was dedicated to feeling better. And, stupidly enough, making that plan Seungkwan suggested. “Right.” He sighed and slowly made his way over to sit down beside Seungkwan. “Right.”

“We need a plan,” Seungkwan repeated, taking the last few bites of his cone before wiping his hands on his jeans. “We need a course of action.”

Seungcheol closed his eyes and listened. “Okay.”

Seungkwan glanced over and could easily read the stress written all over Seungcheol’s face. Trying his best not to show his worry for his friend, Seungkwan calmly asked, “What do you want to do here, hyung?”

Seungcheol scoffed. “What kind of a question is that?”

“I mean, what do you want to happen between you and Jihoon?” Seungkwan clarified.

“Well, isn’t it obvious?” Seungcheol replied slightly annoyed, tilting his head back and letting his closed eyes look upwards. Images of the boy he ached for flashed in his head. Jihoon smiling. Jihoon laughing. Jihoon blushing. “I want to be with Jihoon.”

“But that’s too broad right now,” Seungkwan pointed out. “He’s not even talking to you, how do you expect him to go out with you?”

Seungcheol slowly nodded, realizing his friend was right. “Baby steps, then?” Seungcheol asked.

“Baby steps.”

Seungcheol rubbed his forehead and leaned over his knees. “Fine,” he said into the ground. He thought it over for a second and tried to figure out what he truly wanted to happen with Jihoon. Then, with that in mind, he had to shrink it into the tiniest possible goal. With a sigh, Seungcheol finally said, “I want Jihoon...to look at me.”

Leaning over to get a better look at Seungcheol’s face, Seungkwan raised an eyebrow. “That’s it?”

Seungcheol immediately shot backwards, eyes flying open and arms flailing in the air. “WHAT DO YOU MEAN THAT’S IT?! YOU JUST SAID BABY STEPS!”

Quickly realizing his mistake, Seungkwan threw up his hands in defense. “OKAY! OKAY! YOU’RE RIGHT I’M SORRY! THAT’S GREAT HYUNG! YES! SEE, THIS IS POSSIBLE! The plan is forming!”

Seungcheol groaned and turned away from Seungkwan. “You’re so dumb.”

“I’m helping you and you need me!” Seungkwan retorted, smiling smugly. “Okay, so you want him to look at you. How’re you gonna do that?”

Stopping just to breath, Seungcheol blankly looked out into the distance. “I have no idea,” he sighed. “That’s kind of the issue. He’s nowhere to be found.”

“He literally lives right across—”

“I KNOW WHERE HE LIVES!” Seungcheol quickly interrupted. “OF COURSE I KNOW WHERE THE HE LIVES! I meant I haven’t seen him around! He’s probably purposely avoiding me!”

“So, you have to catch him.”

Seungcheol groaned again, rolling his head to look back at Seungkwan. “And how am I supposed to do that?”

“Well, when you guys were first getting to know each other, you learned a lot about what he does right?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“So you kind of know his schedule.”

Glaring at him in the corner of his eye, Seungcheol dropped his jaw just a bit. “You want me to stalk him?”

Seungkwan put his hands up like a balancing scale. “Not ‘stalk,’ more like…”

“I can’t stalk him.”

“Not stalk! Just…” Seungkwan was trying to find the right way to phrase it. “Just, be in the right place at the right time. Like in the mornings, you know he comes to the coffee shop. Well, then, just get up early and wait for him there.”

Seungcheol pursed his lips thinking about this. “But you said yourself he hasn’t been coming lately.”

“True,” Seungkwan nodded. “But that’s just an example. Obviously, he probably changed that part of his routine since I’m there and everything. But, what about the rest of his life? Do you know his classes?”

Seungcheol thought it over real quick and a small smile came on his face. He looked down at his hands as he said, “Econ 205, Music Theory 101, Literature Year 2, and World History 410.” Chuckling a bit, he smiled, “Yeah, I know his classes.”

“Then stay around them.”

“But we’ve never run into each other on campus before. He’ll know I’m tracking him.”

“So?” Seungkwan said. “What does that matter? You like him and he likes you. I doubt the first thing that’ll run through his mind’ll be ‘Oh woah, I wonder what Seungcheol’s doing here?’ if you find him. He’ll probably be thinking…”

“He’ll probably be thinking, ‘When is this guy gonna leave me alone?’” Seungcheol sighed coming to the possibility that Jihoon may never be okay with him. Just thinking about that made him feel like he was being punched in the gut. “He clearly doesn’t want me to bother him, Seungkwan.”

Gently, Seungkwan said, “But you want to see him.”

“But is it really all about what I want?” Seungcheol realized. “What if he wants to move on and let go? Can I seriously just sit here and think about what I want? That’s exactly what I did with Jeonghan and look where we are.”

“But you said it the other night,” Seungkwan commented. “Jihoon’s not Jeonghan.” Seungcheol leaned back and listened closely to his friend. “You said that Jihoon makes you feel things Jeonghan never did. Maybe before you were going about things wrong, but this time, it may be acceptable not to let go. And, honestly, I don’t think Jihoon’s ready to let go either. If he was, he would just walk past you in the halls and not be afraid to come to Akkinda. He would just live life the way he used to. But he’s clearly not over you and that might be because he doesn’t want to let go.”

Seungcheol watched the leaves sway in the wind as Seungkwan continued. “And remember, he doesn’t know the full story. He deserves to know everything before he can truly move on. And it’s YOUR job to make sure he gets all the information he needs to make a decision. Granted, it could be a somewhat long process, but let’s start with getting him to look at you. Seungcheol, you have to find him. You have to ‘stalk’ him, but not in a creepy way. You have to fight for him.”

Seungcheol took a deep breath and thought it all over. More pictures of Jihoon raced through his brain. Jihoon sitting on the ground in front of his apartment. Jihoon sitting on his floor the first day they met. Jihoon sitting at the front counter with him on their first date. Jihoon sitting on his bed chatting away. “That kid does a lot of sitting,” he thought to himself. And then he paused as one more thought popped into his mind: Jihoon sitting...waiting for Seungcheol to find him. “You’re right,” Seungcheol finally said. “You’re right. I’ll find him.”

“Good,” Seungkwan smiled. “You’ll find him…”

“...and get him to look at me,” Seungcheol grinned.

Laughing a little, Seungkwan was happy to see Seungcheol cheer up even the slightest bit. “That’s the plan.”

“Thanks Seungkwan.”

“I’m just doing my job,” he said as he wrapped his arm around Seungcheol’s shoulder. “I bet wherever he is right now, Jihoon’s probably thinking about you.”

“Yeah,” Seungcheol scoffed. “Thinking about how awful I am. I can’t believe I managed to screw this up so fast.”

“Isn’t that a theme with you and Jihoon though? Things tend to happen fast?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t want this to happen at all! It’s one thing to have stuff happen quickly. It’s another to have them come up when they never had to. I could’ve dealt with this so much better if…”

“If what?” Seungkwan pushed.

Seungcheol sighed again and rubbed his cheeks. “I don’t know. If…”

Seungkwan waited for him to finish his sentence, but the end never came. “Hyung, I seriously don’t think this could’ve gone well no matter the circumstances.”

“Oh come on,” Seungcheol groaned. “I bet I could’ve let him know all of this without hurting him so badly.” But he struggled to think of a way where he could.

“No, no,” Seungkwan shook his head. “I think this was inevitable.”

Seungcheol raised an eyebrow and questioningly looked at his friend. “What? You think I was bound to hurt Jihoon no matter what?”

Seungkwan sighed and leaned his head against Seungcheol’s as he looked outwards. “Kind of. Based on this huge backstory of yours, whoever you ended up with would’ve gotten hurt by it. And that’s not your fault, it’s your history’s. He would’ve eventually found out and we’d be here, just maybe later in the future.”

Annoyed with how right all of this sounded, Seungcheol bit his bottom lip. “That’s not fair.”

“It’s not, but at least we’re dealing with the problem early,” Seungkwan suggested. “You and Jihoon never even got together, but you know you want him back. Your feelings are so strong and it’s only the beginning. So, if you guys can get through this, you can get through anything.”

Seungcheol grinned a little, thinking of that wonderfully positive hypothetical. But as reality sunk in, he knew there was another way things could go. “But…”

And Seungkwan knew too. “But, if you guys can’t get through this…”

Seungcheol leaned into his friend and swallowed hard. “...then maybe 17 isn’t my lucky number.”

thank you everyone for reading and supporting and everything! next update in a few days maybe a week? yeah definitely more to come XD THANK YOU!