“Hyung! You’re hogging the covers!” Chan shouted into the darkness as he yanked the blanket he and Jihoon were sharing.

Jihoon groaned and rolled over. “Ugh, Chan, if you’re gonna be like this just let me go sleep on the couch!”

“No!” he protested. “You’re not allowed to sleep out there all alone! You must be watched!”

Jihoon rolled his eyes but smiled just a little, grateful for his friend’s care. He reached under their pillow and pulled out his phone to check the time. 12:01am. Not even that late. Jihoon leaned into the wall and tugged on the blanket just a bit.

“Hyung!”

“Oh my god,” Junhui mumbled from his bed on the other side of the room. “Guys, go to sleep.”

“We’re trying!” Chan replied.

Slightly amused, Jihoon chuckled. “Thanks again for letting me stay here, guys.”

“Any time, Jihoon,” Junhui said. He turned over to face Chan and Jihoon smooshed onto Chan’s tiny twin bed. The first two nights that he stayed over, like any normal person, Jihoon slept on the couch out in the living room. But the previous night, Chan had gone out to get a glass of water and found the poor boy blubbering by himself in the middle of the night. So, to keep an eye on him and make sure he was okay, Chan insisted that Jihoon sleep next to him. “You feeling better?”

Jihoon sighed and shifted onto his back, placing his hand behind his head and staring at the ceiling. All the lights were off, but his eyes had adjusted to the point where he could make out some shapes and figures. “I don’t know,” he softly answered.

Chan put his arms over the comforter and copied Jihoon’s position. For a second, he just glanced over at Jihoon for any indication that he would keep talking. There was none. “Does hiding out here make anything better?”

He sighed. “I don’t know.” After his last encounter with Seungcheol, he was just too confused. His heart wanted something his brain knew it shouldn’t have. The idea of sitting down and talking to Seungcheol had crossed his mind plenty of times, but he just still wasn’t ready. And almost meeting him in the hallway just reminded him of how unready he was. So he needed to get away, and the best option was Chan and Junhui’s place.

Chan and Junhui didn’t live too far from Jihoon. When Junhui first came to Korea, it was Chan’s family that took him in as an exchange student. But two years ago, due to work conflicts, Chan’s family had to move out of the city. So, Junhui decided to take Chan in for him to finish high school while Junhui attended college. Their apartment was relatively close to both of their schools, so it was the perfect place for Jihoon to get away from all his problems.

Or so he thought. Jihoon first thought that if he was far enough away, the boy across the hall would fade from his mind a bit. But that wasn’t the case in the slightest. His emotions were almost heightened because of the distance, and that just pissed him off even more. Not only was he angry with Seungcheol, but he was angry with himself for wanting to forgive Seungcheol. It was all too much to take in, so much so that he would just burst into tears randomly. To an extent, he felt as if his emotions had shifted to more annoyance than hurt. But then he would just think about Seungcheol’s big eyes and shaky voice and realize that, yes, it was indeed hurt that he was feeling.

“Are you gonna talk to him any time soon?” Junhui asked, leaning his head on his arm.

Jihoon groaned and rubbed his face. “I honestly don’t know. I don’t know if I want to, but…”

“But you’re gonna have to,” Chan finished.

Jihoon scoffed. “No, who says I have to? I could literally go the rest of my life without talking to him.”

Even in the dark, Jihoon could tell Chan was raising an eyebrow at him. “Hyung. Come on.”

“I could!” Jihoon insisted, as if he were trying to convince himself as well. “I could just go about my daily life without caring if I saw him or not. Yeah, that’s totally possible! I’ll keep going to Akkinda and Seungkwan and I will go back to just knowing each other through coffee orders,” he quickly babbled, words just flying out of his mouth. “I never had any classes with Seungcheol so nothing has to change there. I could even move in with you guys! We could get a bunk bed so Chan and I wouldn’t have to share! It would be great!”

Junhui and Chan glanced at each other for a moment before Chan said, again, “Hyung. Come on.”

But Jihoon didn’t say anything. They could both sense he was becoming a bit hysterical, like most people do when they’re in a ridiculous situation. Juhui softly said, “Jihoonie.”

“Mm,” he grumbled, his eyes closed.

“Do you want to never talk to him again?”

Jihoon hesitated. He took a moment to just think before he answered. “No.”

There was a pause as his friends just waited. Jihoon sighed and stared at the inside of his eyelids. “No. I...I do want to talk to him again,” he said before groaning and covering his face. “But why?! Like, why on earth would I ever want to talk to someone like that again?! I mean, the other day when I was running away from him, I was almost tempted to stop! Do you know how insane that is?! It’s all too confusing and too dumb, I don’t understand!”

Another pause. He sighed again and batted his eyes open. “I don’t understand...but...I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m ready, but then again, when would I even know if I was ready?”

His friends waited to make sure he was done before they gave any advice. Junhui was the first to throw something out there. “I think…,” he hesitated as he watched his friend just lay there, completely still. “I think you should talk to Seungcheol.”

Jihoon groaned and rolled over onto his stomach. He stuffed his face into the pillow, causing Chan to shift closer to him. In a muffled voice, he screamed, “But how?! How am I supposed to do that without wanting to punch him or run away from him?!” He groaned and scoffed as he mumbled, “Or even kiss him.”

That last comment made Junhui crack a small grin. “Just let him say what he was trying to tell you the other day. Ya know, when you were running away,” Junhui suggested.

Chan nodded and turned to face the side of Jihoon’s covered face. “You’d probably feel better if you talked to him. It would clear the air and you’d be able to live in your own apartment.”

Jihoon glanced over and saw Chan sympathetically smiling at him, and for some reason that grin was enough to get him to listen. “You think?”

Chan eagerly nodded again. “You say you don’t know how you feel about a lot of things right now, right?”

“Right,” Jihoon affirmed.

“Then let Seungcheol give you some more information so you can figure out how you feel. Your heart’s probably all confused because your brain knows there’s more to the story,” Chan said. “Based on what you’ve said hyung, Seungcheol’s trying really hard to get back to you. And I know you say you’re not ready, but you have to start somewhere.”

Calmly taking in everything Chan had to say, Jihoon thought it over. He to his side so he could see Chan and Junhui. “I have to start somewhere.”

“Right,” Chan grinned.

Junhui smiled from his bed, impressed with how well Chan managed to get his message through Jihoon’s thick, love-infested skull. He chuckled, “Baby steps, Jihoonie.”

“Right.”

There was a pause as Jihoon thought for a moment. “So the first step would be...to talk to him?”

“You could say that,” Chan said. “Actually though, you would probably start with an even smaller step like…”

“Looking at him,” Junhui added.

“Right, looking at him could be your first step if you really want to take it slow.”

“Looking at him,” Jihoon thought to himself. All of a sudden, a flashback of the other day’s incident raced through his mind. A clear picture of Seungcheol’s face popped into view, his sad, tired face through the elevator’s crack. His eyes were scared and desperate. His cheeks were flushed red from the chasing. His lips were...quivering. In that split second, Jihoon had looked at him.

“I think we can move on to the talking,” Jihoon finally said.

“Okay,” Junhui agreed. “Then we’ll go with that. Next time you see Seungcheol, talk to him.”

Jihoon let that soak in real quick. The idea of sitting down and having a conversation with Seungcheol for the first time in...a long time made his heart race. It was thumping in his ears. It was so loud that Jihoon almost felt that Chan could hear it. “Don’t be too scared, hyung,” Chan said, comfortingly rubbing Jihoon’s arm as he sensed his anxiousness. “It’s just the first step.”

Jihoon nodded. The first step. Then a thought occurred to him. “What’s the last step?”

Chan didn’t answer. He had a lot of good advice for the present dilemma, but he wasn’t sure what to recommend for the future. But as the older resident of their home, Junhui was used to thinking ahead into the unknown. “It can be anything. What do you want from all of this?”

“I…,” Jihoon started to say, but he stopped himself. What did he want from all of this? He couldn’t say that he wanted to be with Seungcheol. Sure he was up for going back to being civil, but the idea of being in a relationship with Seungcheol was still too painful. But at the same time, he couldn’t completely rule out that idea. He missed their fun dates and easy conversations. How could he not even try to get that back? But how could he get back to that with someone like Seungcheol? Someone fun and charming? Or someone untrustworthy and deceiving? It was all...up in the air.

“I don’t know.”

Junhui nodded. “That’s fine. You don’t have to know for a while.”

“A while?”

“These are baby steps, remember. It all takes time.”

“Right,” Jihoon nodded.

Chan grinned and watched his hyung contemplate a little more. He would give anything to be able to crawl into Jihoon’s brain and help out with the gears inside. He wanted to do anything to help him feel better. So he decided to do the one thing he for sure could. Inching closer, Chan wrapped his arms around Jihoon and squeezed his body. Even though Chan was younger, he was a little taller than Jihoon. “Oh my god, Chan,” Jihoon muttered as he tensed up, not expecting that much contact.

But Chan just kept smiling. He locked his chin around Jihoon’s shoulder and said, “Everything’s gonna be okay, hyung. Whatever happens between you and Seungcheol, I think it’ll be okay.”

And again, somehow Chan’s simple words were enough to make Jihoon ease up. He released his tension and fell into Chan’s embrace. With a small smile, he hugged him right back. “Thanks.”

For a moment, they just kept hugging in the dark, until Junhui couldn’t contain his chuckles any longer. He tossed his blanket off and swung his legs around. “Okay, I want in on this,” he laughed as he walked over to them. Without any other warning, he plopped his body right on top of both of them, smiling and engulfing them in his arms.

Chan grunted and laughed, “Hyung! You’re too heavy!” He tried to shove Junhui off, but he wouldn’t budge.

And that was fine with Jihoon. He just laughed and let himself get crushed. It was the first time in a while since he had felt good pain, and it was beyond comforting. Opening his eyes a bit, he grinned at his friends. “Thanks guys.”

Junhui flashed him a huge smile. Ruffling Jihoon’s hair, he replied, “Any time.”

i think im gonna try updating wednesdays and saturdays :) hopefully i can stick to that XD THANKS AGAIN GUYS! lighter chapter so hope you still liked it!