The kitchen was slowly filled with the fascinating sound of chewing.  Leeteuk had tried in vain to start a casual conversation, but Kangin would only grunt and Heechul, when he had said anything, said something that was…not breakfast appropriate. 

                Finally, Leeteuk decided the only question left to ask was probably one no one wanted to answer.  “So, what have you been up to since college?”  He directed his question toward Heechul who simple answered,

                “Dropped out first semester of Junior year,” without even looking up from his plate. 

                “Me too, actually,” Leeteuk admitted, hoping to avoid an awkward situation where Heechul felt they were condescending to him.  “I had to come back home to deal with some family business.” 

                Kangin threw him a quick glance which Leeteuk met expressionlessly.  This exchange didn’t escape Heechul who had been forced to be observant of the secret ways people speak to each other.  

                “I’m actually working on finishing my degree from home now.  That’s what all that is,” he gestured toward a large stack of books and papers on the counter.  “What about you?  What have you been doing?” 

                “Getting felt up by gangs in alleyways,” Heechul responded, trying to pull his lips back down over his teeth to prevent himself from laughing.  His efforts were a marked failure as his shoulders shook, revealing his personal amusement.

                He looked up then to see that both Kangin and Leeteuk were staring at him.  “What?” he questioned pathetically.

                Kangin rolled his eyes, grumbling, “Honestly, this kid…” 

                “I’m technically a few months older than you,” Heechul retorted.

                “Maybe if you acted like an adult I’d remember that.” 

                Frowning and tipping backward in his chair, Heechul provoked, “Yeah?  Why don’t you tell me how productive and mature you’ve been over the past few years?  What were you doing in the part of town you found me in anyway?  Looking for a building so you could branch out your wildly successful business?”

                Kangin was seething under Heechul’s flippant remarks, but he wisely contained himself.  “I just finished a two year internship at a law firm this past summer and have been searching for a new job for the past few months,” he patiently explained.

                Heechul scoffed, “You haven’t found anything?  Where have you been searching, the bottom of a glass?”

                That was enough to send Kangin over the edge.  He stood up violently, his chair sliding back and nearly tipping over.  He towered over the table, setting his intense gaze upon Heechul but the smaller man just watched him with a smile of contempt, the purpling bruise on his face standing out under the harsh overhead light. 

                “Kangin,” Leeteuk said with a warning note, slowly standing up himself. 

                The bigger man seemed to be contemplating whether it would make more sense to bash Heechul’s head into the table or just decapitate him with a dish, but Leeteuk’s censure seemed to work its way into his head and he relaxed slightly. 

                “I’m heading out,” he announced suddenly, storming away from the table and grabbing his keys off the counter before he marched toward the door. 

                Heechul noticed Leeteuk mouthing a countdown under his breath and jumped when the door slammed precisely when he reached one.

                Having some sort of decency in him, Heechul’s face had become almost shamed as he apologized, “Sorry.” 

                Leeteuk shook his bowed head, his hands gripping the table.  “No, no, it’s fine,” he sighed.  “Kangin’s just had a rough few years.” 

                Heechul let his silence illustrate his curiosity.  Clandestinely glancing around the room, he tried to piece together the nature of the friendship between Leeteuk and Kangin.  They seemed like polar opposite personalities.  Zeroing in on the fridge, Heechul saw that there were only three photographs.  There was one of Leeteuk smiling with his arm around a boy who looked like him but wasn’t smiling as wide, another one of a beaming young girl at a birthday party, and the third of the two roommates together at one of the campus dining halls, looking much younger than they did now.

                “What happened to the two of you?”

Leeteuk flipped his bangs out of his eyes, startled by the question.  “What do you mean?” 

“You look a lot happier back then,” he pointed to the photo on the fridge.  “And who’s the girl?”

 Leeteuk slowly sat back down in his chair, looking at his house guest.  He stared at Heechul for a long time, expressionlessly, seizing up his motivations.  Having apparently weighed his judgments, he then announced, “That’s Kangin’s sister.  She died of cancer this past year.  She’d been fighting it for a while but from the beginning the doctors said that it was going to end like this.”

                Heechul’s gaze remained level on Leeteuk, and that’s how he knew Heechul was actually affected by his words.  The slight man continued to stare as he managed, “ luck.” 

                Leeteuk nodded.  “He started slipping after that:  going out drinking more and more often.  It really hit him hard, you know.”

                “So, what, you invited him to stay with you so you could keep an eye on him?” 

“I did invite him, but he actually came to look after me,” the red-blonde answered honestly.  “Junior year when I dropped out, I don’t know where I’d be, really, if he hadn’t been here.”   

While this all seemed to be sinking into Heechul’s head, he continued to stare at Leeteuk like he was putting together a puzzle.  It set Leeteuk on edge.  Doing a slight double take, to check that he really was the only one in the house, Leeteuk wondered, “What?” 

                “It’s just I find it hard to believe that Kangin was so caring—”

                “He’s not the bad guy that you thi—”

                “But I’m not going to let that distract you from talking about junior year.  You clearly want to.”

                Leeteuk’s mouth parted slightly as if he had been forced to stop himself from saying something. 

                “You already told me Kangin’s,” Heechul pointed out.

                Realizing that he probably shouldn’t have told Heechul what he had about his roommate, Leeteuk figured it was only right and fair to tell his story too.

                “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”

                Heechul stuck out his hand and Leeteuk shook it. 

                Scratching his head, Leeteuk began, “I guess I should start near the beginning.  My family, well, they’re very rich.  My father owned a pretty successful  company.  When he died of a heart attack about 6 years ago, my mom, brother and I were left with a lot of inheritance.”  He his lips to give himself a chance to gather his thoughts and continued, “It was…really hard on my mom.  She stopped taking care of herself.  I was heading off to college, but my brother was just starting high school.  Whenever I came back to visit I noticed that my brother was less and less happy, less and less bright.  Mom was pretty much a lost cause.  I started having our accountant pay for a nurse to look after her.” 

He stopped again, mindfully brushing his bangs out of his eyes to stall as he tried to figure out how to say the rest.  This gave enough time for Heechul to realize the kid with Leeteuk on the fridge was his brother.  “I really, really adored my brother, you know?  Whenever I had a break we’d go somewhere, anywhere he wanted to go.  But I guess I didn’t come back enough.  I didn’t really know that much about him at all.”  He took a deep breath and said, “One day, my junior year, I came back and I called into the house that I was home, but no one answered.  And I passed by the living room and mom was on the couch staring at the TV…and I asked her where Woo Jin was and she said ‘in his room.’”

Leeteuk cleared his throat and adjusted his tone before finishing, “He had hung himself from the ceiling fan.” 

Heechul didn’t even flinch:  his gaze unwavering.

Leeteuk quickly finished, “After that I had mom sent to a home so she could be under full time care but she didn’t last long after that.  I inherited the house but I didn’t want it so I picked the apartment and moved here.  And I’ve been here ever since.”

Heechul blinked steadily, his dark eyes revealing nothing.  Leeteuk was so absorbed in that stare that he jumped a little as Heechul spoke, “I’m sorry you had to find him.” 

Surprised by this response, Leeteuk said, “It’s…it’s okay.  I just wish I’d known enough to stop him, you know?  I feel like such a failure for not knowing why.  I just wish that I knew what the actual reason why was.”

“He probably hated himself,” Heechul said.  Leeteuk wanted to balk at the callousness of such a comment, but he couldn’t, because Heechul had said it with such sincerity that Leeteuk figured he understood. 

“Yeah, well, if that was it I should have done something about it.  I should have made it clear that I cared more.” 

“You can’t really fix it,” Heechul explained.  “it’s born inside of you.” 

Leeteuk looked at Heechul curiously, impressed and saddened simultaneously by his maturity in this matter.  He still had to disagree, “I’d like to think that everyone can be helped.” 

“Then you’re naïve.”

Not wanting to linger on the topic, Leeteuk finally led on, “Okay, I’ve fulfilled my part of the deal.  What’s your story?  Why did you end up here?”

Heechul tipped back in his chair again, staring up at the ceiling as he began, “Okay, so, once upon a time, a man and a woman were feeling a little frisky one night. . .” 

“Too far back,” Leeteuk exclaimed quickly, with an affected scowl.

“Well, if you’re to be believed, Kangin dragged me out of. . .”

“Do I even have to say it?”   

Grinning wildly, Heechul tipped his chair back down and said, “Okay, legitimately?  This is pretty much the world’s most boring story.  I got sick of college conveniently around the time my parents decided to disown me for being, and I quote, “a cross-dressing, pansy-, screw-up,” which may hold the record for the phrase with the largest amount of hyphens per word.”  Heechul was smiling as he said all of this, but Leeteuk’s face was completely serious. 

“So then, since I didn’t have a dorm anymore, or a house, I decided to try and be a normally functioning adult and get a part time job.  Huge mistake.  I mean seriously, look at me:  I don’t exactly scream normally functioning adult.” 

The corner of Leeteuk’s mouth twitched in what he hoped was a convincing attempt at a smile. 

Heechul didn’t notice or ignored Leeteuk’s reluctance. 

“Right, so I took a bunch of jobs but I couldn’t hold any of them down for longer than 3 months because apparently you’re not allowed to people whenever you want.”

Leeteuk returned a blank stare and Heechul’s wild grin turned into a frown lightning fast.  “Part of that was a joke,” he pointed out, then leaned across the table in a conspirational fashion to finish, “but I’m not going to tell you which part.”  He winked.  When even that failed to get a good laugh out of the other man, Heechul sighed and fell back into his seat.  “You’re a tough audience.” 

“Sorry,” Leeteuk apologized, shaking his head a little.  “Go on.” 

Picking up a piece of crust and inspecting it closely, Heechul proceeded to say, “Yeah, well after that I pretty much decided to find out how far down rock bottom was.  People always say you can hit rock bottom and then work your way back up, but I think they’re wrong about that.  I think you can always dig a little deeper.”

“What was rock bottom for you?”  Leeteuk asked seriously. 

“Don’t know yet,” Heechul admitted.  “And isn’t that just a little bit exciting?” 

Leeteuk had to laugh at that even though he felt a little bit cheated.  He knew that he shouldn’t have expected Heechul to just cry him a river.  They had literally just met.  Leeteuk knew that he was more comfortable sharing with people than the next guy because he didn’t see people as strangers.  Stranger was always a temporary label.  He also knew that most problems couldn’t be fixed with one talk, but he also worried that Heechul wouldn’t stick around long enough for him to do anything about it.  Suddenly getting hit with the brilliant revelation that he should fight fire with fire, Leeteuk countered,

“Well, then, if you’re willing to stick around, I would love to see if we can find rock bottom,” he spoke with a mischievous edge which intrigued Heechul immediately.

“Are you flirting with me Mr. Leeteuk,” he teased back.

“Well, you see,” he sighed, “I have this awfully big house and only Kangin for company.  Could you stay for a week, a day, an hour?”  He unrolled his final words with obvious exaggeration, raising his eyebrow and pursing his lips for dramatic emphasis.

Heechul tried to hold back a snicker and just ended up choking instead.  He burst out laughing and Leeteuk grinned back, feeling accomplished. 

Throwing a pretend feather boa around his neck, Heechul answered, “I would be honored.”

A/N  WOW I am an idiot. XD  If you struggled through to the author's note in the previous "Chapter 3" I said: "This feels too long."  ....because, apparently, in addition to Chapter 3 I uploaded Chapter 2 again.  >,<  Sorry about that.  This is the right version.  Thanks for putting up with me.  <3      Again, I love comments but I love you more.  XD    Um...Subscribe if you like it!  Also, I apologize for my overbearing American-ness.  In my mind I swear this is set in Korea, I am just culturally deprived on the east coast U.S.A.