Daesung had been filling out apprenticeship forms for well over two months; he had yet to send any of them out though. The problem that he was having wasn’t a logical one, and no matter how hard he tried to convince himself that he should just choose one of the forms and send it out….he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

See, Daesung had a problem, and it was basically entirely mental, but he just couldn’t get past it. No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t get himself to commit to the career path he had agonized over and worried about for almost a year now. He knew without a doubt and with every fiber of his being that he wanted to try and work with dragons…but he just couldn’t get himself to commit to it. As it stood, it was mid-January and he had five applications for various Quidditch teams, three for apprentice healer positions, eight for the different dragon enclosures (and multiple drafts of each of those), and two half-done ones for the Arithmancy society.

Seunghyun was, rather needless to say, completely and utterly mad with worry. He had managed to stave off the full force of his worry for a little while, but no amount of thought misdirection could get him to stop worrying entirely.

“Sometimes, I wake up in the middle of the night, and he’s still out there.” Seunghyun says with a nod toward Daesung who was sitting at the coffee table in the living room.

“He’s stressed, just relax.” Jiyong says, looking up at him over the top of the pair of glasses that he was wearing.

Seunghyun makes a face but refrains from saying what he really wants to: that Jiyong is probably the last person that Seunghyun would ever take that kind of advice from. “When’d you start wearing glasses?” He says instead, and Jiyong lets out a sigh and leans back from his crouched position over the breakfast bar.

“Youngbae got them for me…said I’ve been squinting too much lately and he’s worried that I’ll make myself blind.”

Seunghyun couldn’t stop his eye roll. “Right, of course.” He says absently, turning his attention back to Daesung who was currently furiously searching through a stack of books at his feet.

“Oh come on then!” Jiyong says finally after around two minutes. Seunghyun almost jumps at the frustrated tone, but manages to control his reaction in time.

“What?” Seunghyun asks, turning his head to look at Jiyong from across the breakfast bar.

Jiyong sighs and rubs a hand up his face and under his glasses, pushing them up so that he can squeeze the bridge of his nose. “Daesung, you want to talk about Daesung, let’s talk about Daesung.” He says, dropping both hands to the counter top before him.

“Uh, right.” Seunghyun says, a little put off by Jiyong’s attitude. “Um, he’s been worrying over his applications for months.” He says, slowly warming to the topic. “And he’s been filling them out for just as long. Not only that,” Seunghyun says, leaning closer to Jiyong, “but I’ve looked at the applications…more than half of them aren’t even for dragon enclosures, Jiyong.”

Jiyong nods, his face in a mask of passivity that Seunghyun has never been able to see through, not in all of their years of friendship; it was Jiyong’s thinking face. “Have you ever thought,” Jiyong says after a short pause, “that just maybe, Daesung doesn’t always have everything figured out,” Seunghyun backs up a small bit, and his head to the side. “That maybe, Daesung is just as confused and uncertain as all the rest of us?”

Seunghyun is quiet for a moment, looking over at Daesung who was still furiously scribbling across a pad of paper in the living room. What exactly was Daesung thinking? Why wasn’t he able to commit himself to what he had professed to want so badly?

Seunghyun’s face must have started to show a growing concern because he’s snapped out of his reverie by Jiyong. “Oh stop it. Honestly,” he says, rolling his eyes and running a hand through his hair. “Just go over and ask him if he needs help deciding what to do.” Seunghyun shakes his head slightly, “Oh no, don’t do that. And if he tells you he doesn’t need your help, then you tell him that you’re going to help him anyway. Got that?”

Seunghyun takes a deep breath and nods, before shooting Jiyong a look. “Thanks, but…”

“What?” Jiyong says, snapping his head back up from its position over the papers in front of him.

“I think that maybe you should have that same chat with Youngbae.”

Jiyong’s lip twitches up, as if he were about to retort, as if he were about to deny that Taeyang would or could ever need his help in deciding his life… but then his face falls and he nods. “Yeah, maybe you’re right.” He says, and Seunghyun nods with his lips pressed into a flat line.

Daesung barely notices as Seunghyun sits down at the coffee table across from him. He was trying to decide the best way to describe his love of Arithmancy without it sounding too much like a desperate plea for recognition, and was having a remarkably hard time at it. He had just written a particularly dreadful sentence about his convictions and love for mathematic truth, when the parchment was dragged away from him.

“Hey!” He almost snarls, snapping his head up to look at the culprit.

“I didn’t realize you were so passionate about the ‘poetry of simplified numbers’.” Seunghyun says, completely ignoring Daesung’s outburst and arching a brow. Daesung frowns and leans forward to grab the parchment out of Seughyun’s grasp.

“Yeah, well, it was my favorite class at Hogwarts, which you should know.” Daesung says rather harshly. He feels bad almost immediately, but can’t take it back because he isn’t sure how and all of his pent up frustration and anxiety was starting to come to a head.

“I would have known that your passion for it ran further than that of a supremely interesting class and into the lands of ‘I must have an internship at an Arithmancy magazine’ if you had just told me.” Daesung doesn’t respond. “In fact, I was under the impression that you desperately wanted to work with dragons. I mean, you agonized over the decision for months, and now…”Seunghyun’s voice had lost its cool edge and he ended his short lecture with his hand sweeping out over the table.

Daesung’s eyes followed the path of Seunghyun’s hand and for the first time in months he actually took in what he saw there: broken quills, dried ink wells, crumpled up bits of parchment and food wrappers. Juxtaposed against all of that mess and general uncleanliness were his pile, and if he were honest, the piles for the Dragon Enclosure apprenticeships were in the best shape and had the best and least disgusting area to lie in. He lets out a rather dejected sigh and sits back so that he can cross his legs under the low table while he rubs his face.

“Merlin, Seunghyun.” He says with his hands stuck up in his hair. “I couldn’t even begin to tell you what I thought I was accomplishing by doing all of this.”

Seunghyun smiles and shrugs. “Probably just trying to put off the inevitable.” He leans closer to Daesung from across the small table and fixes him with a level stare. “You know what you want to do, Dae, and I suggest that you do it. I don’t want to see you upset with yourself for missing this chance. Don’t be like Ji and I. It’s not worth it.” Seunghyun was afraid that he was going to actually cry, and he didn’t want to do that because that would make Daesung decide to switch the conversation over to him and his job and life issues.

Luckily for Seunghyun, Daesung wasn’t in the proper place to be switching the subject around to his boyfriend’s lack of a life plan. He drops his gaze from Seunghyun’s and looks out into the kitchen where he could see Jiyong scribbling furiously across a page. He takes in a deep breath, closes his eyes for a moment and then turns back to Seunghyun.

“Alright. I will have Youngbae look over my forms tonight and then send them out tomorrow.” He says after a moment, and Seunghyun’s face breaks into a big smile.

“That’s my boy!” He says, moving around the table to give the younger man a hug.

Daesung smiles brightly and squeezes Seunghyun tighter. “But don’t think you’ve gotten out of talking about your future plans.” He says softly and evenly into Seunghyun’s ear. Seunghyun tries to rear back in surprise, but Daesung doesn’t budge. “Just hug me.”

***

It was nearing the end of May and so too the end of the school year when Jiyong strolled down the street of the bustling village of Hogsmeade on his way to the Three Broomsticks. He was whistling a rather jaunty tune, one that he had just recorded at the Wizarding Wireless studio with Youngbae, and was in an overall great mood. He sits himself down and orders two butterbeers and whatever the special is; he’s not really hungry, but Youngbae had told him to eat something.

He only waited for a short while before he saw Erato enter the building and look around for him, he puts up a hand to wave her over, and then watches as she winds her way toward him. She was definitely an attractive girl, he decides just as she settles into the chair across from him, and he was slowly working his way to certain that she would be perfect for Seungri. She gives him a smile and then drops a small bag on the table between them.

“I got exactly what you suggested,” She says, and her smile slips just a small bit as she turns an uncertain gaze down at the bag. Jiyong turns on another smile and pats her hand reassuringly.

“Little Seunghyun will love it, no worries there.”

Erato makes a face that rather clearly states that she doesn’t entirely trust him, but is going to have to deal with it anyway. “Right,” She says with a forced sigh as she shakes her head and then removes the bag from the table. “What did you order for me?” She asks with a grin while eyeing the two mugs and the large bowl on the table in between them.

Jiyong smiles and pushes a mug toward her. “Butterbeer, and if you’re hungry…it looks like a kind of stew.” She accepts the mug happily but raises an eyebrow at him.

“You don’t even know what it is?”

“I didn’t really ask many questions, I just ordered the special.” He says with a wave of his hand, effectively dismissing the conversation. “So, how have you been?”

“Fine, fine, totally fine…being ridiculous and buying birthday gifts months and months in advance…” She takes a sip from her mug and then sets it down. “So far in advance, in fact, that I may just have to contrive some random reason to give it to him.”

“I would suggest giving it to him as a thank you gift for your dance lessons.” He says, trying to hide his smirk behind his own mug of butterbeer.

She scowls slightly, “You’re making fun of me.”

“No! I think it was a brilliant ploy to get him to spend time alone with you. I really do.” He says, and then flashes her a charming smile. “Utterly brilliant, truly.”

She sighs and shakes her head. “You would think so, wouldn’t you? But still he does absolutely nothing.” She sits back in her chair a little, looking slightly defeated, before sitting up quickly. “You don’t think that he actually prefers like, you or Daesung, do you?” She asks, only half-joking.

Jiyong lets out a snort of laughter. “Aside from probable idol-worship…Nah, definitely not.” Erato rolls her eyes at him and settles back into a comfortable position.

“So, what were you up to this morning?” She asks, dismissing their previous topic as she reaches over to pull the mystery special over to her side of the table.

“Ah, nothing spectacular,” He says, looking out over the dining room with slight disinterest. “Youngbae is down at the Wireless today so I went there first.” He starts drumming his fingers against his mug absently as he turns his attention away from the people in the room.

“I heard you have been writing songs rather prolifically,” Erato says carefully, aware that Jiyong wasn’t really present in the moment. She didn’t want to interrupt his flow, but she did want to direct the conversation a bit.

“Yeah, I guess. I’ve always written a lot of stuff, but since Youngbae’s been letting me put the songs on air I’ve been refining the stuff that I already had and writing new stuff…It’s not all new stuff, so it’s just a lot of editing…” He was turning just a little bit pink and Erato was enjoying it.

“Hmm, yeah. Seungri was saying how much he enjoyed the ability to sing the stuff you’ve written…but most of it’s for Youngbae, yeah?” She asks, tilting her head to the side as she talks.

Jiyong sensed that she was leading him down a path that would probably lead to him talking more about Youngbae than he was comfortable doing, but she wasn’t being as overt as Daesung or Big Seunghyun so he wasn’t entirely certain that that was where she was going. “Um, well, a lot of the older stuff is because he was in the common room with me when I wrote a lot of it so I could test it out on him…but over the summer, with everyone around to test the music out on I can write for all of them. Seunghyun has been lending his voice to a number of songs lately, actually.” He was only vaguely aware that he was rambling.

“Mm, really? That’s a little surprising. Seunghyun doesn’t strike me as someone who would enjoy the whole singing thing all that much.” She says with a slight smile, and Jiyong lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding; he was safe.

“Well, he doesn’t sing so much as rap, so you’re technically right.” He says with a smirk, and tilts up at the corner into an involuntary smile.

“Alright, you got me there.” She says before pointing at him with her spoon. “Seungri met you guys down there, yeah? What were you recording? Will I get to own it at some point?”

Jiyong laughs outright at this and shakes his head at her. “You’re impossible.” She makes a face and gestures for him to continue. “Yeah, Seungri came down, we’ve been recording and singing live on air for a while, and I know you’ve been listening to them.” She smiles brightly and he waves a hand in dismissal. “I don’t know, we might release something if there is a demand, and only if I can find the right songs for it. But, whatever. This morning Youngbae was singing. I needed him to sing some parts of a few unfinished songs that I had, and it is impossible to have any time with him during the week so I capitalized on the time I had this morning.”

“Hmm, yeah. So, he’s still busy all the time?” She asks, her spoon and looking around as if hoping that more food will appear out of nowhere.

Jiyong chuckles and takes the spoon out of her hand and places it in the bowl. “Yeah,” He says with a slightly defeated sigh. “He picked up his pace at the Healers’ Academy after I talked to him a couple months ago and has been working overtime there to get ahead…or back on track, I don’t know really.”

“Mm, did he tell you why he had been dragging his feet with it? In all your letters you never mentioned…”

“Ahh, he felt overwhelmed and he wasn’t sure if it was what he wanted, but what will it hurt, you know?” Jiyong sighs and rubs a hand over his face. “I think he also felt bad about having this opportunity while like Seunghyun and I are kind of just dragging our feet here with no real idea what to do.” He shrugs. “He’s just too…motherly. He just wants us all to be on the same level so badly that he forgets that he should pay attention to his own life and happiness before he worries about ours.” Jiyong swallows hard at the end and looks down at the table.

“Aww, sweetie.” Erato says, leaning forward. Her first instinct was to awkwardly pat him on the hand or shoulder, but she knew better than that; if he wanted contact he would initiate it. She takes a deep breath and clears , causing Jiyong to look up at her questioningly. Here goes nothing. She thinks with a sigh before she sits back in her seat and crosses her arms over her chest.

“What?” He asks, when she doesn’t immediately say anything.

“It’s just, Jiyong it’s so obvious,” She says, pausing only briefly before steeling herself to plow right on through. “But the thing is that you know that, and you know that everyone else knows your little non-secret. What I want to know is why you don’t just man up about the whole thing and spill the beans.” She shrugs and sits back almost nonchalantly. “Are you ever going to just admit it?”

Jiyong stares at her for a couple of seconds, slowly blinking as he soaks up her words. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, don’t you pull that innocent routine on me. I know that you like Youngbae, just like I know that you are aware that I’m not the only one who knows this.” She raises a hand as Jiyong goes to interject something. “I don’t want to hear it.” She says, and Jiyong just sits back and crosses his arms over his chest, stubborn resistance written plainly across his every feature. “Jiyong, are you ever going to just tell him?” She asks after a pause, and then shakes her head. “I have a lot of work to do, end of year exams coming up and everything.” She sighs and then takes a chance and leans forward and puts a hand over one of Jiyong’s fisted ones. “Look at me.”

Jiyong takes a deep breath and then slowly looks up to meet her eyes, and it actually kind of hurt.

She smiles. “There now, that’s better.” She shakes her head to get a stray piece of hair out of her face before refocusing on him. “I want to say that you’re only hurting yourself, but that’s not true because you and I both know that Youngbae is and will suffer from your inability to accept the inevitable. I can only guess at what is holding you back, but I can assure you that it isn’t worth kidding yourself over.” She lets go of his hand and stands up. “You’re worth more than the life you’re letting yourself lead.”

She grabs the bag with Seungri’s gift up off the floor and starts to turn away, but Jiyong’s voice stops her.

“I’ll expect an owl from both you and Ri tonight then, yeah? Telling me the happy news?”

Erato laughs and Jiyong cracks a small smile. “Yeah, no, I’m thinking that we will probably dance around this issue for another year or so. Don’t want to get it all out there too soon, right?” She winks and then walks away with a wave over her shoulder.

Jiyong lets out a breath and shakes his head. He was still as confused as ever about what to do with his Youngbae problem, but he knew that one thing was definitely certain: Erato was perfect for Seungri.

***

“Bae?” Seungri says quietly. So quietly, in fact, that it took Youngbae a little longer than normal to react.

“Yeah?” He asks, equally quietly, wondering idly if this was going to be one of those times when Seungri needed to hide under a desk because he didn’t have a desk big enough on hand at the moment.

“Why did you make us those books?” Seungri asks. He was leaning back in one of the spare chairs in Youngbae’s office at the Wireless, one hand in the front pocket of his sweatshirt, the other resting on his knee.

Youngbae sits back in his chair and forces himself to focus solely on Seungri…and then allows himself a small smile. “That would be telling.” He says, and his smile grows into a grin as Seungri groans and lets the chair drop to its proper position.

“You sound just like Jiyong,” Seungri says on a pout and then lets out a huff of breath as he pulls the book he had been talking about out of his pocket. “I’ve been answering questions like crazy…” he says before pausing to look down at the book with a scowl. “They just keep coming and they are so hard but I just can’t stop myself.”

Youngbae smiles and shrugs, “But you can answer the questions, right? The book only gives you a question when it thinks you can answer it.”

“The book can’t think, it’s a book.” Seungri says, and the forcefulness behind the statement is a little alarming to Youngbae.

“Well, no…no it can’t actually think.” Youngbae says slowly, picking his words carefully while eyeing the younger boy. “But the spells on it are designed to bring forth any number of questions that I wrote down at certain times. Your body, the spells you learn and use, your current mental state…all of those things will influence what questions you are given to answer.”

Seungri is silent for a moment, and Youngbae takes the opportunity to reach for his own little book of questions and flip through the pages. The purple ink of the questions still looked as new and perfect as the day he wrote them, and his answers, all done in black with his blocky and precise hand-writing, were calling out for him to read. Sometimes, when Jiyong was sitting out in the kitchen and Seunghyun and Daesung were out with each other, Youngbae would hole up in the privacy of his own room to re-read his answers in the hopes of finding something deeper in them. He was hoping against all sane hope that somewhere in all of his answers he had come up with a solution to Jiyong’s unhappiness and Daesung’s hesitance (though now Daesung was happily going through a testing process in Wales, so Youngbae supposes it’s not all that bad anymore). But he always came up short, and he was starting to think that it had more to do with the questions he had yet to answer than with his inability to come up with something to help his friends.

“So…you wrote all of the questions?” Seungri asks, breaking the silence after a couple of minutes.

“Uh, yeah.” Youngbae says, clearing his throat and refocusing on Seungri. “I mean, I got help from a bunch of books but yeah, I basically wrote them all.”

“Even this one!?” Seungri asks incredulously, shoving the open book into Youngbae’s face.

Youngbae leans back and takes the book from Seungri’s hand, throwing him a ‘what the hell’ look before turning his attention down to the question. It read: Given your current circumstances, what would you say to the person closest to you and your heart, if you knew that you would never be able to speak again? Youngbae frowns slightly, remembering how anxiety ridden he had been throughout his school-life when it came to his friendships and relationships.

“Well…Yes, I did write that,” He says, and then sighs when Seungri just raises an eyebrow at him. “Seungri,” Youngbae starts, only to sigh and shake his head, wondering if it was even worth saying. “No matter how close we all were as friends while in school, I still felt as though it could all fall apart at any minute. So yes, you will find some ridiculously ‘sappy’ questions in here, but I don’t think they are anything worth getting upset about.”

Seungri stares at him for a second, his mouth open just a little, as if the shock of hearing that one of his most constantly supportive friends was insecure sometimes had completely thrown him off of his groove. But then he caught himself and went back to being indignant. “I can’t possibly answer that question.” He says, setting his mouth into a hard line and crossing his arms in defiance. “No, I definitely can’t.”

Youngbae his head to the side, ignoring, as he always did, the younger boy’s seeming rudeness. “Why not?” He asks, and Seungri opens and closes his mouth for a couple of seconds, obviously lost for words. “I mean, at first it seems like a rather hard question to answer, but if you really focused you would find the answer…and not being able to speak isn’t the end of the world, Seungri, no matter how prolific a speaker you are, if you lost the ability, you would find other ways to communicate.”

Seungri scowls again and reaches out to get his book back. Youngbae hands it over and they sit there in silence for a bit while Seungri contemplates the question. “It’s not what I would say that makes it hard, Bae…it’s who I would say it to.”

Youngbae nods slowly, agreeing completely with the boy’s words; because Youngbae had also recently gotten that question, and he was having just as hard a time with it. He shakes his head and then slaps his hands on his knees, effectively jerking Seungri’s attention to him. “Alright, so, we’ve got some new songs to record and some lunch to be had, and then maybe we could go out and search the shops for a couple of gifts…”

Seungri’s eyes light up with excitement and he nods, standing up to lead the way to the small space that they recorded in. “What kinds of gifts?” He asks eagerly, causing Youngbae to laugh.

“Well, Daesung will have finished four months of training down at the Welsh dragon center coming up in a couple of weeks at the end of June…and I was thinking the you should probably get Erato something for tutoring you…as well as just generally dealing with you.” Youngbae says, his eyes wrinkling up as his face falls into a bright smile.

Seungri grumbles something unintelligible before storming into the recording area. “You really sound like Jiyong.” He says, and Youngbae notices that he’s trying to hide a blush.

***

“Jiyong, are you ever going to just tell him?”

Jiyong stabs his quill angrily into the desktop as he recalls the conversation that he’d had with Erato basically a full month or more ago. It was the beginning of July and he had tried most everything he could to not think about the conversation, but it hadn’t worked very well. He was trying to write a song, a poem, a story; hell, he would have been alright with just drawing something. But he couldn’t because what she had said was nagging at him.

“Are you ever going to just admit it?”

He had avoided admitting to himself that he liked Youngbae for about a year and a half, and had effectively avoided telling Youngbae for three years. So yeah, he’d been holding this in for a while, and yeah, basically all of his friends knew about it. And yes, they had all brought it up to him at some point or another.

But still he refused to admit it, and that was apparently a problem.

Youngbae was attractive and smart. He was popular on the Wireless, and he had fans because of the local Quidditch league he played in with Daesung when they were both free, which was becoming less and less often, but still. Youngbae was asked out constantly, hit on frequently, and Jiyong always found a way to stop it; and he felt bad. These were the thoughts that were penetrating his concentration and preventing him from being creative, they were preventing him from doing much of anything except pine and break quills; something that he had been doing for the past few weeks with increasing frequency.

He was sitting in the room that he, irony of all unfortunate ironies, currently shared with Youngbae in their apartment. This was partly because none of them made enough to bump up to something bigger and really the next step was a house and the four of them were not really keen on committing to a household when they were looking all over the place for jobs. And partly because they only had three bedrooms, and since summer break had just begun, Youngbae had offered to move into Jiyong’s room for the time being so that Seungri could have his own room; it almost hurt how innocent it sounded when Youngbae said it.

So here he was at his desk, a gift from Daesung and Seungri, facing the window because that’s how he preferred it, while he simmered and stewed in his own thoughts. So it was only natural the he would miss Youngbae walk in and stop, looking at him with a worried expression on his face.

"You alright?" The sudden noise shocks Jiyong back into reality, and he spins around, locking his eyes on Youngbae as the man moved further into the room and toward him. "Your quill is broken," Youngbae says, a small smile creeping onto his face as he looks down at Jiyong, "This will be the, what, eighth one this week?" He asks, a full smile breaking out on his face as he reaches down to take the quill from Jiyong’s limp hand.

But Jiyong clutches at the quill tighter and pulls his hand away, eyes on Youngbae’s hand, knowing immediately that the bright smile on his friend’s face would fall and turn back into a frown of concern. "I’m fine, maybe I like my quills broken, and my concentration shot, and my nerves fried." Jiyong says, keeping his eyes down as he turns back to the desk. His motions were jerky and his tone was acidic and the words came out to fast to be convincing and too mumbled to actually really be heard.

Youngbae moves closer, putting his hand on Jiyong’s shoulder. The sudden tensing of muscles under his hand, and the almost immediate shove off that his hand received were startling to Youngbae, and deeply worrying. "Come on Ji, what’s the matter?" He asks dropping down to his knees and turning Jiyong’s chair toward him, "You can tell me, you know that."

Jiyong snorts derisively, partly to cover the blush that he felt coming on when Youngbae had so easily turned the chair, and because he was feeling way too frayed to be nice. “Do I?” He asks, before seeming to come to terms with something and straightening up, meeting Youngbae square in the eye, “Alright then, I’ll tell. But you have to stand up, stop touching me, and move back a little.”

Youngbae does as he is told. He was confused, but his mind starts going over the possible things that GD could be getting ready to tell him. Maybe he’s an illegal animagus and he’s…

Jiyong takes an audible breath, closes his eyes briefly, and then locks them back on Youngbae. “I like you.” The room is silent for a moment as Jiyong waits for Youngbae’s reaction, and Youngbae processes the words.

"Um, well, yes, I…like you too, Ji, that’s why we’re friends." Youngbae says, feeling a little caught off guard. He wasn’t quite sure where Jiyong was going with this, or why it was such a big deal, so he startw to move forward again, "look Ji, I don’t understand what the problem is but if you’re not going to tell me just—" He is cut off by the icy glare that crosses Jiyong’s face as it falls into a mask of anger.

"No, don’t be stupid, you don’t wear it well. You know exactly what I mean Youngbae. I like you, I love you. Dammit Youngbae! Just leave me alone, maybe now I can write in peace.” He was done, so he turns back to his piece of parchment, waiting for the words to come so that they would drown out the silence that had followed his admission.

"Oh Ji." He hears Youngbae say, in that voice that he uses when everything has clicked into place and he’s starting to smile. "Is that why…?"

Jiyong just nods mutely, and lets Youngbae take the broken quill out of his hand as he turns him so that they’re facing again. Jiyong was right, Youngbae was smiling, and it was only a little sadly.

"You have to tell me these things, otherwise I don’t know. You of all people should know that."

"From what I’ve heard, everyone and their mother could have been telling you, so why would I think that I could." Jiyong says, his eyes cast downwards and his hands resting slightly curled in his lap.

"Because they’re not you." Youngbae says, one hand reaching for Jiyong’s and the other moving to lift Jiyong’s chin.  “They’re not you, and why would I believe them if my own best friend couldn’t verify the information for me?”

Jiyong chuckles thickly and knocks Youngbae’s hand away from his chin. “Well, I’m telling you now, just so you know…for future reference and all that.”

“Right,” Youngbae says softly, “So next time you suddenly need my attention at a bar when I’m talking to people I can assume jealousy? Or maybe if I catch you staring I can assume that my impressive good looks have captivated you…?” Youngbae trails off, a smile on his face, and Jiyong pushes him.

“If you knew, why didn’t you say anything?” He says, feeling slightly put out, but not in the least bit uncomfortable; he was used to dealing with Youngbae in any number of situations and could most definitely do so now.

“You think I knew?” Youngbae asks, sitting back on his heels, a look of confusion on his face. “Oh come on, you know me better than that.” Jiyong raises an eyebrow and Youngbae lets out a sigh. “I noticed you staring a long time ago….but I never really understood why…and then I just stopped noticing.” Jiyong nods, a motion that Youngbae takes to mean ‘yeah, I can see you doing that you idiot’.

“And…?”

“And nothing. The others had asked me multiple times if I noticed anything weird about your behavior with me, but Ji…you’ve always acted the same way around me…how was I supposed to differentiate your actions?”

Jiyong sighs and rubs his ink-stained hands against his eyes. “You weren’t, because I didn’t want you to. I’m not upset with you, not at all… I just needed to get it out to you.” Jiyong takes a breath and looks up at Youngbae. “So you can leave now, I want to get back to writing.” He says, and he thinks it sounds rather lame, but he makes a vague hand gesture toward his messy desk and considers Youngbae dismissed.

“You’re not getting rid of me that easily, Jiyong Kwon. Not after you tell me something like that.” Jiyong doesn’t turn to look at Youngbae, but he knows that the man is now standing. “No, you need to let me process it and then you need to let me work it out.”

Jiyong nods absently, trying hard not to be hurt by the fact that it had been what felt like an eternity since he had told Youngbae his feelings, and Youngbae hadn’t reciprocated in kind. “Yeah, Bae. Go ahead and process.” He says.

“You need to let me gather my own courage and put aside my fear,” He says, and Jiyong only barely catches what Youngbae has said and it takes a second for the meaning to set in before he’s sitting up a little straighter. “So that I can reciprocate in kind,” Youngbae says quietly, and Jiyong feels himself turning to face Youngbae even though he really hadn’t wanted to. “and tell you that I feel the same way.”

Youngbae had to go to a Quidditch match not soon after the confession, leaving Jiyong alone with his thoughts and newfound happiness.

He still couldn’t write a single thing that didn’t have to do with hearts or Youngbae’s name.