Jiyong moves in on a Wednesday, and it takes Seunghyun every once of strength within him not to act like a child who didn’t get his way while helping him get his things up to the flat. Together they manage to heave three heavy suitcases into the lift (it’s just clothes, Jiyong says), and an uncomfortable silence fills the air as the lift starts to ascend the floors. Jiyong makes several attempts at conversation, but they fall dead in the air.

The lift reaches the fifth floor and he sighs involuntarily, a habit that’s becoming increasingly hard to break, and Jiyong looks at him.

“Sorry.” Seunghyun mutters, looking down. “I’m just tired.” He’s not just tired, he’s exhausted. Exhausted of feeling like he’s going to cry at any moment, but it’s not fair to unload all his on the other man so he bites his tongue, sticks to just tired. 

They’re both breathing heavily by the the time they’ve dragged them to the flat (he needs to quit smoking), and his mind has wandered off, forgetting Jiyong is even behind him until the younger man trips over his coat rack (a one of a kind, art deco piece).After picking up the fallen coats and ignoring Jiyong’s excessive apologies, he leads him straight to the spare room.

“Wow.” Jiyong whispers. “Eun Hee wasn’t joking, then.” The walls are lined with empty canvases, ghosts of his creativity, his mother would say if she saw it. Brushing his hands along them, Jiyong spins round to look at him.

“Why haven’t you painted any?” His eyes are wide, searching for an answer. To Seunghyun, it’s an intrusive question and the hairs on the back of his neck stand up (he has a bad habit of getting overly defensive).

“Didn’t have the time.” He murmurs, eyes caught on the biggest canvas. That was going to be a self portrait, but work and life got in the way. A little voice in the back of his head would always accompany him in front of his canvases, asking why he should even bother when he’s not very good. “Can’t all follow our dreams like you did, some of us have to live in the real world.” He doesn’t know why he says it, why he feels the need to make a jab. Jiyong’s eyes widen, and Seunghyun feels immediately guilty. “Sorry, I’m just tired and being an arse.”

“It’s fine; you’re letting me live here for free. Be as big of an arse as you like.” Jiyong replies, but his smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He sits down on the bed, feet not quite touching the floor and starts to swing his legs. “The sheets are nice.” He says, the duvet. Seunghyun grunts in response. The sheets are nice. A fancy Egyptian cotton that Eun Hee suggested they get, but the bed dwarfs Jiyong.

Sitting there hunched on the covers, fiddling with the buckles on his bag, he looks more like a child than a grown man. Seunghyun hovers awkwardly, unsure of whether or not to help Jiyong unpack until the younger man flashes him a look. Taking that as his cue to leave, he starts to slowly move towards the door.

“Right, well.” He clears his throat. “I’ll let you settle in, there’s a spare set of keys on the nightstand. Let me know if you need anything, yeah?” He throws over his shoulder, already opening the door to the rest of his flat.

From behind him he hears a soft “thanks”.

He doesn’t see much of Jiyong over the next couple of days, but boy does he leave his mark on the flat. Stray socks appear everywhere, from sofas to bathroom floors, and there’s a constant layer of crumbs on the kitchen counter tops. One time he finds a pubic hair in the kitchen.

“How do you know it isn’t yours?” Eun Hee asks, incredulously, as she glances up from her magazine, greeted with his face of disgust. He just sighs, watching her head slowly look back down into her pages.

It would get to him more, how distant she’s been ever since Jiyong moved in, but he’s busy. Days filled up with job interview after job interview and catching up with friends he neglected for his own pity party.

One of those friends is Soo Hyuk, who Seunghyun tentatively tells about Jiyong. He barely conceals his shock.

“You did what?” He asks, almost spitting his drink back into his travel mug. Dead leaves roll past their feet in the wind, signs that winter’s really on its way.

“Not me. Eun Hee. I could hardly say no.” Seunghyun replies, knowing how inadequate his excuse sounds.

“Are you getting back at me for something? Did I piss you off?” Soo Hyuk asks, the same look of bemusement still on his face. They’ve stopped in the middle of the path, earning dirty looks from the runners who have to dodge them to avoid an accident. Seunghyun prefers their looks to Soo Hyuk’s, currently. “Is this the same thing you’d do since we were kids? I’d piss you off and you’d find the most abstract, convoluted way to get back at me rather than just talk to me about it?” No matter how true it is that he does that sometimes (when he was 13 he turned his final art piece into a dig at Soo Hyuk for kissing a girl he had a crush on), it gets to him nonetheless.

“No. And honestly I shouldn’t have to justify this to you.” Seunghyun starts off, feeling his stomach clench into a ball. There’s a split second of silence between the two before Soo Hyuk’s mouth forms a tight line.

“When did you turn into such a good Samaritan?” He asks, with the corners of his lips gently turning up.

“Please, it’s all Eun Hee. You know I would never offer up my space to anyone.” Soo Hyuk laughs in response, the tension gone. They’re walking again, crunching leaves under their feet as they fall into a comfortable silence.

In fact it’s not until the following Saturday when he finally sees Jiyong. 

He’s not having a great day (or a great month, to be more honest). The job search is getting him nowhere (honestly when did the economic recession become a real thing, and not just something he would read about on the news). Eun Hee cancelled on their dinner plans (their first plans they’d made since it happened) and he has a pounding headache. The 98’ bottle he’d been saving in their wine rack is seeming more and more tempting with every passing second, and he opens the door to his flat with the full intention of passing out on the sofa with a wine glass in hand.

But he’s stopped in his tracks. There’s an unwashed cutting board on the kitchen counter top and a pile of dirty dishes by the sink, and this isn’t the first time he’s come home to find Jiyong’s mess. Irritation floods through him. It’s over the top, he knows that, but the knowledge of that isn’t enough to stop him furiously washing up the board, hoping his loud sighs and clangs will be heard by Jiyong.

Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, Soo Hyuk’s words echo. You’d find the most abstract, convoluted way to get back at me rather than just talk to me about it. He grits his teeth. All he seems to do is let people get away with . And maybe he’s angry about the dishes in the sink, maybe he’s angry about the way his life seems to be going down the drain (or maybe he’s still angry about Soo Hyuk stealing his 13 year old crush). But it’s time to change that, he thinks, shaking soap suds from his hands. His whole life people have been telling him to just talk, to tell them when he’s angry.

So he walks across his flat, with 20 years worth of anger boiling up in him and poor Jiyong as his target. He doesn’t knock, he’s too angry for that. But as he’s turning the door handle somewhere, in another recess of his mind, he realises he really should have.

Jiyong, fresh out of the shower, is standing in nothing but a towel. A towel draped over his shoulders, leaving s and moles and everything out in the open.

He shouldn’t look down, but he does. Like deer caught in headlights, they both stare at each other, eyes wide in shock. He doesn’t know what’s wrong with him; he’s seen another man’s before. Seen tonnes of in his life. But his legs wont move and his mind is whirring, searching for something, anything, to say.

Jiyong is the first to move, having gotten over the initial shock of Seunghyun bursting into his room fairly quickly. He quickly wraps the towel around his waist, smirking at Seunghyun’s expression.

“Can I help you?” He asks. That’s enough to break Seunghyun from his spell, and the look on the younger man’s face gives him the urge to punch him.

“Just try and wash up from now on, yeah?” He says, gruffly.

Jiyong has the decency to look as embarrassed as Seunghyun feels.

“Sorry, forgot how messy I was compared to other people when I was living alone. I’ll try harder.” Drops of water fall from his hair onto the wooden floor boards, something which would normally irritate him but Jiyong is biting his lip and rubbing an anxious hand through his hair. He’s finding it hard to look away. “Would you mind…leaving? I need to get changed.” Jiyong says, a familiar smirk back on his face.

“Yeah, sorry. Should’ve knocked.” He says, closing the door behind him.

Even though she told him not to bother, he waits up for Eun Hee, that night. There’s a couple of glasses of wine in his system and enough in hers too for them to clumsily fumble under the sheets, something they haven’t done in a long time. Afterwards she rolls onto her side, and he watches her back rise and fall as she breaths.

He has to tell himself that he did this because he wanted to.