They met at art school, both driven and directionless in equal measure. Coming together had been easy, staying together even easier. Within a year they were moving in together, sometime this year he would probably propose. Things were going great, he had a job he loved, a woman he loved and a flat full of tasteful, Scandinavian furniture. But, for the first time since they got together three years ago, his girlfriend wasn’t here with him on his birthday.

His friends tried to drag him out to celebrate but he turned them down in favour of a couple of bottles of red wine and the warm embrace of his flannel pyjamas. Which is how he ended up at 11:49 pm, 11 minutes before his 25 th birthday, curled up in bed in front of a pretentious film noir. He’d left the bath running in the background, after pouring half the contents of his girlfriend’s expensive bath soap into the tub, and let his head sink into his pillows. If he was going to feel lonely, hell he was at least going to be comfortable too.

After shaking his wine glass to every last drop out of it, he forces himself out of bed to refill the glass. The film pauses on an unflattering face and he laughed to himself as he stumbles out into the empty flat, wincing as his bare feet touch onto cold tiles. The wine glugs as he poured it into his empty glass, echoing around the kitchen and serving to remind him just how alone he is tonight. He laughs to himself again, making his way back into his room with wine in hand. The bath is appropriately bubbly when he gets back, so he shrugs off his bath robe and stretches a tentative toe into the water. Just before letting his whole body melt into the bath, he's interrupted by the doorbell. Twice.

Usually he would just ignore it, but this time he's drunk. And drunk Seunghyun can't ignore things. Drunk Seunghyun sighs loudly, aggressively shrugs his bath robe back over his shoulders and stalks, wine glass in hand, through his flat to the front door. His soapy feet leave bubbles over the hardwood flooring (if his girlfriend was here she would kill him) and there is more than one occasion when his foot slides out from underneath him. This only angers him more, and he flings the door open, determined to know who is ruining his already ty night.

A smaller man (smaller than Seunghyun, at least) stands on the other side of the door frame, leaning against the wood and jutting his hip into the air. Tight, leather pants grip his thighs and a netted top rests on top of it. Seunghyun can see his peeking out.

“Happy birthday, big boy.” The man says, looking up at Seunghyun through heavily lined eyes and a fringe that must have come straight out of a gay club. He blinks, not sure if he was drunk, dreaming or having one of those psychotic episodes he’s read about in Vice magazine. But the man reaches a delicate arm out and brushes his fingers against Seunghyun’s cheek, which he feels.So no, definitely not a psychotic episode.

Fight or flight responses finally kicking in, he jumps away from the man’s touch. 

“I think you have the wrong flat.” He says, moving to shut the door between them.

“Seunghyun, right?” The stranger butts in before he could do so. Seunghyun hesitates. “Your friend said it was your 25 th birthday, said you were too shy to ask for this yourself.” He explains, sliding his lithe body in between the doorway and crossing the boundary into the flat.

“What? The ers, seriously – hey, I didn’t say you could come in!” Seunghyun’s voice rises about 5 pitches as he realises the man was now in his flat, s and all. It earns him a nervous giggle from the other man, who stands in front of him wringing his hands.

“Just trust me.” The (Seunghyun was fairly certain of this now) whispers, and in the blink of an eye his hands were wrapped around Seunghyun’s waist and a warm tongue was prying his lips open.

“Hmpf.” Seunghyun mumbles, as their teeth clash and the other man knocks the air out of him. His hands shake as they grab at Seunghyun’s buttons unsuccessfully. Quickly, Seunghyun comes to his senses, shoving the man off himself and into the opposite wall.

“Dude!” Comes out of his mouth next, in a voice that hasn't been that high since he started puberty. He immediately regrets saying dude (what was he, a frat boy?), but at least it gets the other man’s attention. “I’m not gay! My friends must have ordered you as a joke.” He says, panting. Adding “Sorry.”, as he sees the younger man’s face slowly crumble. They both stand in his hallway, an awkward silence weighing on their shoulders. Scratching the back of his neck and keeping his gaze firmly planted on the floor, Seunghyun’s unwanted finally speaks.

“The thing is…the thing is I haven’t been paid yet. They said you would do it, and if I don’t get paid then the agency gets mad and it comes out of my own pocket.”

The look in his eyes is enough to convince Seunghyun that he’s telling the truth, but if his girlfriend was here she would tell him through pursed lips and clipped tones that he was always too trusting, and did he even remember the time he took a shot from a stranger and woke up  in the bathroom of a club with his identity stolen.

“Let me just call my friend real quick.” He says, to placate the voice in the back of his head more than anything. The other man nods and he quickly selects a number from his contacts, pretty sure he knows which arsehole would set out to ruin his night like this. “Lee Dong Hwi.” He snarls down the phone, to be answered by laughs from the other side.

“I’ll deal with you tomorrow. Do I need to pay him?” He cuts in before his friend can say anything; he’s a struggling actor with a habit of running away with himself once he’s given an ounce of attention.

“Yes, I also said there would be dinner in it for him.” Dong Hwi’s low, baritone voice answers down the phone before cracking into laughter again. Seunghyun hangs up, fighting the urge to smack his head into the wall. Turning back to the stranger in his flat, he is just about to ask how much it will be when the faint sound of trickling water registers in his head. Running water. From the bath. By the time he’s offered a garbled explanation to the , put his glass of wine on the counter and ran into the bathroom, it’s flooded. Bubbles litter the tiles and a steady stream of water flows over the tub. He groans loudly, not wanting his night to go like this one bit and vaguely aware of the other man’s presence behind him.

“!” He curses loudly, wading over to the taps to finally turn the water off. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t want to spend the rest of this ty night alone, or maybe it’s the wine making him feel overly emotional and responsible for the other man’s well being but before he can stop himself he’s turning around and saying; “My friend said I owe you dinner. I could do with some comfort food right now, does pizza sound ok?”

Maybe he’s gone insane.

The has a name; Jiyong. And today is Jiyong’s first job, he tells Seunghyun with another nervous grin. They’re sat on Seunghyun’s couch, clothes still damp from the flooded bathroom, necking back wine. Jiyong puts it away like his life depends on it and Seunghyun starts to top his glass up slower, not wanting to add a vomiting onto the extensive list of reasons as to why tonight is ty.

“Why are you doing…this.” He doesn’t have the guts to call it what it is and waves his hands to try and articulate it. “You don’t strike me as someone who’s comfortable with it.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I love .” Jiyong says as he hiccups, leaning back into the sofa and crossing his legs. Seunghyun’s girlfriend would hate this. “But I’m just doing this to pay off my student loans. Not that, like, there’s anything wrong with people who like this, I just don’t.”

He’s rambling, now. Wrapped up in a hoodie that Seunghyun gave him and onto his third glass of wine in thirty minutes. A knock at the door saves Seunghyun from having to carry on the conversation as the pizza arrives and Jiyong claps his hands together in anticipation.

“So what do you do?” Jiyong asks him as he makes his way back to the sofa, pizza in tow. Heat from the boxes makes his glasses steam up as he hands them to Jiyong, planting himself down next to the younger man.

“I’m in art restoration.”

“Ah, explains why you have so much money.” Jiyong replies, unabashedly, waving his arms around the room to demonstrate his point.

“It’s not so much me,” Seunghyun chuckles. “My girlfriend runs an art gallery. That’s why she couldn’t be here today. A new exhibition opening.” He finds himself explaining, without being asked to explain.

“I see.”

They finish the pizza in silence, broken by the sound of Jiyong slurping at his empty wine glass. Seunghyun fetches a couple of crisp £20 notes before guiding Jiyong to the door way and they both look as dirty as they feel as he places the money in Jiyong’s hands.

“Do you need me to get you a taxi home?” He asks the other man, just realizing that he’s still wearing his hoodie but lacking the energy to do anything about it.

“It’s fine.” Jiyong waves his hand and offers Seunghyun one last smile. Seunghyun watches him stagger away, then closes the door on the weirdest night of his life since he tried to get high from bath salts at University. It’s four am when his girlfriend finally comes home, smelling of cigarettes and champagne and a night that he wasn’t invited to. His hands roam over her body as he presses kisses into her neck, and the headboard slams against the wall as they have .

“I wish you’d been here, babe.” He whispers to her as their breath falls into a rhythm and their limbs intertwine with each other.

It’s been a week since his birthday and he’s finally seeing his friends again, having put them off every night this week in favour of his girlfriend. Whipping noises greet him as he makes his way over to them at the bar, hugs and beer his way. A couple of shots later and Soo Hyuk is dragging them to his favourite gay club, the kind of club where all the music is Madonna and the toilets look like you could catch an STD from breathing, because they just have to meet this new guy he’s trying to sleep with. They’re all very well acquainted with Soo Hyuk’s ual conquests but go along with him anyway. Which is how he ended up, for the second time this month, stood in front of Jiyong, speechless.

This time his neither of his s are visible, covered by a black top with a dragon curled up on top of it. Black shadow lines his eyes again but this time his fringe os pushed up into a quiff. He looks like a Korean Danny Zuko and Seunghyun can't take his eyes off of it.

“Do you two know each other?” Soo Hyuk asks, as he watches their eyes widen and their jaws go slack.

“No!” Jiyong jumps in. “Not at all, you just didn’t tell me you had such a handsome friend.” He nudges Soo Hyuk playfully and Seunghyun takes the cue to laugh along with him.

“Well good luck with that one.” Soo Hyuk replies, resting his arm on Jiyong’s shoulders in a manner so possessive it makes Seunghyun a little uncomfortable. Soo Hyuk’s arm travels down Jiyong’s waist and Seunghun makes the decision to leave for the bar before the situation gets any weirder, waving goodbyes and throwing ‘I’ll see you later’s over his shoulder. Jaeger bombs wait for him at the bar and he downs them in quick succession, wincing as the sickly-sweet liquid travels down his throat. That’s just the start of it.

Sweat clings to his body as he dances up against strangers, too wasted to know where his body ends and their's begin. Someone slips a pill into his hand and without giving it a second thought he’s swallowing it with his vodka, the beat of the music shaking his body to his core and getting rid of any anxieties he would usually feel. An arm wraps around his waist from behind and he swivels round, met by Jiyong’s face and a smile that he could only describe as electric plastered over it.

“Hey, have you seen Soo Hyuk?” Jiyong shouts, barely audible over the music. Seunghyun shakes his head in response, he hasn’t seen his friends in ages. Jiyong moves in as if to whisper something and then their lips are meeting, Jiyong’s hands grip his waist and the room starts spinning. People melt into one another and the song turns into incomprehensible sounds because all he can think of is that Jiyong is kissing him again and he really needs a cigarette.

“I have a girlfriend.” He manages to say, once Jiyong breaks away from him. The other man liftsup the corner of his mouth and shrugs. The rest of the night is a blur.