“Ok come on, it’s cold out here,” Vick said as he moved his hand from Jiyongs’ shoulder to the middle of his back and guided him out of the park.

Vick found a little café down the street from the park and asked the waitress if they could have a booth in the back. She walked them back and gave them some menus and left them alone. Jiyong was still in a daze but Vick could tell that he had calmed down a bit as he sat down. The young man’s face was paler than normal but it was tinted red from just being out in the cold.

Jiyong picked up the menu from the table and flipped through it without really looking at. Vick watched as the younger man as he mindlessly went through the menu and after the third time of going through it, Vick reached out his hand to stop him.

“Jiyong look at me.” Vick waited until he looked up, “I know you have a lot going through your head right now and we can talk about it later. Right now lets just eat something.”

“But I’m not hungry,” Jiyong mumbled.

“I don’t care. You are going to sit here and eat with me because after today I’m not going to be able to see you for a few days. I want to have a good time with you right now and enjoy our time together. And if that means I have to force you to eat, then so be it.”

Jiyong saw in Vicks eyes that he wasn’t going to give in anytime soon, so he lowered his head, giving up and said, “Fine, but can we just get something to-go and head back to the studio. I just don’t feel like being out in public.”

“Sure,” said Vick as he called their waitress over, ordered something quick, and left the café making their way toward the studio.

Vick thought it would be best if he left Jiyong to think things through on the way, so they walked side by side in silence. After about a 15 minute walk they finally made it to the studio and without thinking Vick walked right up to the front. When he turned to wait for Jiyong to open the door, he saw him going around the side of the building. He was starting to think that Jiyong had lost his mind if he didn’t even know where his own studio was. But he decided to follow him anyway.

As he turned the corner of the building he saw a staircase leading to the second floor that Jiyong was making his way to the top too.

“Where are you going? I thought you said you wanted to go to the studio?”

Jiyong turned around and stared at Vick until it dawned on him, “Oh, sorry. Umm… up here is my place, when I said I wanted to go back to the studio, I meant my apartment.”

“Your apartment, I didn’t know you actually lived here.”

“If you don’t want to come up I understand.”

Vick gave Jiyong his best “are kidding me” face as he made his way up the staircase right behind Jiyong. The younger man sighed, not really wanting to deal with anything at the moment, and opened the door. As they made their way inside, Jiyong told Vick that he could go ahead into the living room and that he would meet him there in a minute.

Jiyong went into the kitchen to make them some tea and as he was doing so he tried to collect his thoughts. He knew he was going to have to explain things to Vick not only about things in general, but about how Jae is an ex-boyfriend of his and how obviously Vick now knows that he’s gay.

He wasn’t keeping it a secret from him, well maybe he was, because he’s falling for him and he didn’t want to mess things up. Over in America, when he started rising to fame he tried to keep his preference to himself, but in Hollywood nothing ever stays a secret. However when he came back to Korea, its more frowned upon so he kept it hush-hush. Only a handful of people knew and he wanted to keep it that way. But the cat was out of the bag and it was time to face the music. He set the kettle on the stove, turned it on and then dragged his feet as he made his way to the living room.

Vick had taken their food out of the to-go bag, spread it all out on the coffee table and sat on the floor waiting for Jiyong. When he finally came in Vick could see how stressed out he was, really it looked like he would get sick any second. Jiyong looked at Vick and was about to say something but Vick spoke first, “Sit. Eat.”

Not wanting to argue, Jiyong sat as far away as possible from Vick and started picking at his food. They sat there in silence for what seemed like forever just eating. The kettle whistled and Jiyong was glad for the small distraction, so he got up and brought their tea over.

It was starting to bug Jiyong that Vick wasn’t saying anything or asking any questions about what had happened. When he had picked away half of his food he finally looked up at Vick and asked, “Why aren’t you talking to me? Is it because of what happened? Are you just here because you feel bad for me?”

“You’re rambling again,” Vick said looking at his food and then raised his head as he continued, “I thought I would leave you be because you would talk when you’re ready. And no, I am not here because I feel bad for you.”

“Then why?”

“You are my friend who just was in an emotional fight with someone from their past. I know how that feels and I want to be here for you.”

Jiyong internally winced at the word “friend”, but just took a deep breath and asked, “Well what do you want to know?”

Vick slightly chuckled at his phrasing, looked at Jiyong and saw pain spread across his face. So he quickly explained, “Sorry. It just feels like déjà vu, only our roles are reversed.”

Jiyong scrunched his eyebrows together, not understanding.

“The photo shoot? Our conversations? It started out with that phrase ‘What do you want to know’ except I was the one asking it.”

Realization swept across Jiyong’s face and he relaxed a bit, glad to know that Vick wasn’t laughing at him. Vick continued to answer the original question, “If you don’t want to talk about it, its fine, I understand. But honestly I do hope you trust me enough to talk to me.”

Jiyong stared at Vick, looking at every feature of his face. From his sharp jaw line and his high cheek bones, to small imperfections like the scar below his left eyebrow, Jiyong was in love with every single detail. But his last place to look was Vicks’ eyes, and it was almost his undoing. When he looked into his eyes, Jiyong saw that Vick was pleading for his trust. He could see so many different emotions in the older man’s eyes and all he wanted to do was break down right there and tell him everything. He dropped his head, sat there for a minute and collected his thoughts.

When he was ready, he took a deep breath and raised his head to look at Vick again. His heart started racing, his hands become sweaty, but he finally whispered, “Ok.”

Vick leaned against the couch and sat as still as he could, listening to Jiyong explain.

“First off, which you probably guessed from what was said at the park, I’m gay.” Jiyong watched for a reaction from Vick but when he didn’t see one, he continued, “That guy from the park was an ex of mine from when I first came back to Korea. He was at a function for one of the designers I photographed for, and well, one thing led to another and we started seeing each other. After a few weeks I realized that we had nothing in common and we started growing apart because of it. He was a really nice guy but there just wasn’t a connection so I decided to put a stop to it before things could get complicated.”

 Jiyong paused, looked down at his hands and started playing with watch band. He took a deep breath and continued, “After we split, he would call and text me off and on wanting to try again, but I was busy with work so I kept on telling him no. Sometimes he would stop by the studio wanting to talk, but again I would tell him no and to stop coming to see me. I found it weird that he was doing these things because when were together he was never clingy or anything. Eventually he stopped, but then one day we bumped into each other by chance about 2 months ago and he started it up again. But I guess he was more desperate to get back together because as you saw he followed me to the park.”

When Jiyong finished, he looked to Vick again and saw that he was not showing any kind of emotion still. “Well… that’s about it really.”

“Ok,” Vick said still just sitting there.

“Ok? Is that all you’re going to say?”

“Well what do you want me to say? You just had a fight with your ex. We’ve all been there before. Granted it did get a little too heated in my opinion when he tried to take a swing at you. I’m just glad I was there to stop him.”

Jiyong dropped his shoulders and felt some of the tension release from his body. He had gotten himself so worked up in anticipation of Vicks reaction.

“So you don’t care that I’m gay, or really, that I didn’t tell you I’m gay?”

“No, why would I? First off I already knew you were and I thought that if you wanted to tell me personally, eventually you would.”

Jiyong shot up, “You knew! How did you know?”

Vick chuckled at Jiyongs reaction and said, “Well after the photo shoot, when I went to Japan I wanted to find out more about you so I umm…,” Vick was a little embarrassed that he was saying this to Jiyong, he laughed at himself and said, “I googled you.”

Jiyong started laughing and Vick joined in. They sat there for a few minutes just laughing, glad for the sudden break from this morning’s tension. Once they regain their composure Vick continued, “Yeah I looked you up on google, read some news articles and what not. In one of the articles it talked about what kind of person you found attractive or something and you started describing a guy.”

Jiyong thought back and remembered the article he was talking about, but he couldn’t remember what kind of guy he described. Then he asked again just wanting to make 100% sure, “So you don’t care?”

“No Jiyong, I don’t care. We’re friends, very close friends and nothing is going to change that.”

Jiyong could feel his heart tighten inside his chest at Vicks words. He was thankful for Vick acceptance of him, but it was painful to hear Vick say that they would only be friends. He would always hold onto the hope that someday it would change.

“You know I actually have something I want to tell you…” Vick said after a minute.

Jiyongs heart started racing as he waited for Vick to continue, but just as Vick was about to speak again Jiyongs phone started ringing. Both of them jumped at the sudden sound and Jiyong scrambled to turn it off but when he looked to see who was calling, he saw what time it was and answered it.

“Where are you?” Seungri yelled on the other end. “The meeting starts in an hour and we still need to go over some things for the proposal.”

“I know. I know. I just saw the time. Some things happened this morning and I’ve been with Vick talking about it and time slipped away from me. I’ll be there in half an hour.” Jiyong hung up and looked at Vick.

“What were you going to say?”

“Huh?” Vick forgot for a second but he thought that the time wasn’t right so he said, “Oh yeah, never mind. It’s nothing really, we can talk about it later. You have to go.”

Jiyong gazed at him looking for some hint as to what he was going to say but then looked at the phone in his hand. The meeting was supposed to last only a couple hours at most and Vick was leaving the next day for some fan event in the south, so he thought what the heck, I’ll just ask.

“Do you want to come back over tonight? I know you’re leaving tomorrow but I was thinking we should just chill and maybe order some pizza and watch a movie.”

Vick smiled and said, “Yeah that actually sounds really good. I haven’t done that in a couple years.”

Jiyong wanted to jump up and down when he heard Vicks answer but all he said was, “Ok great.”

Vick and Jiyong got up and made their way towards the door to say their goodbyes.

“Listen, I just want you to know how much it meant to me that you talked to me today. Don’t think anymore about Jae, forget about him and move on with your life.”

“I’ll will. Thanks for listening and being here for me. Despite what happened I’m glad it did. Hopefully now I won’t have to deal with him anymore…”

“If he does call you, tell me ok?”

“Ok.”

“Well I better get going or you’ll be late for your meeting.”

“Yeah, umm I’ll see you tonight. How’s 8 o’clock?”

“Sounds good.”

Jiyong looked at Vick and they smiled at each other. And just as Vick was about to leave he brought his hand up and ruffled Jiyongs hair as he said, “See ya later.” And then he walked down the stairs leaving Jiyong motionless in the door way.

Jiyong whispered to himself, “Damn him.”

Just when he got over a rollercoaster of emotions, he goes and does that again. And this time he did it when he was leaving, just like Seunghyun used to do. He shook he head to get rid of the thoughts and went back inside to grab his stuff for the meeting.

On his way there all he could think of was how much he wanted it to be 8 o’clock already.