Hello! I'm actually not dead, though my external hard drive is, which caused the rather long absense as I tried to restore everything and wallow in self-pity. But now I'm back! With several chapters at that. And also a soon to be completed one shot for "25 Lives" an amazing collab with a bunch of other beautiful writers.

Again I'm sorry for the dissappearing act and I want to thank all of you left for sticking around. T=T I won't let you down again. OTL

Seunghyun sat in that old leather booth, head hung to the table, eyes absently following the hazy trail of raindrops down the large pane of glass. The coffee in his hands was little more than a source of warmth, an anchor to reality in the fog of his mind. His shift had ended and he knew he should head home, but he couldn’t find the will quite yet.

“Don’t look so happy to be off or anything…” the warm mumble of Daesung’s voice shook him from his trance. He turned to halfway look at the bright blonde.

“Sorry. I just-”

“I know.” Seunghyun lazily reared his head upright as Daesung sat by his side.

 “As pathetic as it sounds, I never actually expected to meet Ji… Not really, you know? He was intangible. Like his presence was just some figment of my mind’s warped need for connection. Something to dull this ading sense of loneliness.”

“Thanks.”

“Dae…” Seunghyun groaned, but Daesung just smiled.

“I know I know… I do think its something to be said that that boy has had more interaction with you in several weeks than anyone else has in the past year.”

“Are you purposefully mocking me, or is it just innate?”

“Someone has to keep your mind from drowning itself in overanalyzed nonsense.”

“Oh really?”

“Totally. But, unfortunate as it is, I can’t be around all the time. So the idea of someone else being around to tame that pretty little head of yours is alright by me.” A light scoff escaped Seunghyun’s lips.

“I think you may be getting one or two steps ahead of yourself there.” Daesung just smiled and shook his head.

“Nah. You just don’t see it. You’re too busy watching him to see the way he’s watching you.”

“Because that make a world of sense…”

“Will you just shut up and listen?” Seunghyun nearly flinched in surprise at his sudden stern tone. Daesung rested his hand on the other’s shoulder, waiting for their eyes to meet, before he softly spoke. “You don’t see the way he looks at you Seunghyun. You don’t see the way his eyes follow you when he thinks no one is looking. He’s not the kid I used to see when I went out. He searches now. He searches the crowd looking for a face he knows he won’t see, but desperately wants to. He’s looking for you, even if he doesn’t always realize it.”

Seunghyun didn’t speak, he couldn’t. He just let Daesung’s words roll through his mind like wine over his palette. He desperately wished those words to ring true, so he fought the lingering doubt in his chest.

“I hope you’re right Dae.”

“Ji, I love you, I really do, but if you don’t start talking I swear on all that is good and holy I will beat it out of you.” Youngbae finally spoke as Jiyong sigh interrupted his work for what had to be the twelfth time since he arrived.

“Sorry. Just thinking.” Ji mumbled absently as he stared out the balcony window from his seat on the sofa beside Youngbae.

Bae wearily just shook his head and returned to work on his laptop. He knew Ji would break, he’d just have to wait it out. 2 days of lesson plans and 3 cigarette breaks from Jiyong, he finally spoke.

“How do you know Seunghyun?” Jiyong tried his best for the question to come off off-handed, and it seemed to work by Bae’s surprised expression.

“We met through a mutual friend. You know Daesung, right? We go to the same church. He’d drag Seunghyun to parties once and a while and we kind of hit it off. Smart kid, good head on his shoulders. Why?”

“Just curious.”

“You’re never ‘just curious.’ What’s up?”

“I’ve just ended up running into him a couple times. I wondered how you knew him.”

Youngbae knew there was more to the story than this, but he knew better than to push too fast. Things had been too strange lately for him to let Jiyong shut down too soon, so he knew he’d have to play along.

“Yeah, like I said, good kid. Wish he’d hang out more.”

“Do you know why he doesn’t?” Bae couldn’t help but quirk his brow as he turned to his friend.

“He was seeing someone.” He paused briefly, reading the crestfallen expression that briefly flashed across Jiyong’s face. “But was quite a while ago now. I don’t know why he doesn’t now.”

Jiyong absently nodded, but couldn’t help the words that escaped his breath. “Maybe he’s not over them.” 

While his voice was to small for Youngbae to really hear, the nearly hollow din of Jiyong’s once rich timbre left him increasingly uneasy.

“Ji, please just tell me what’s going on. I want to help.”

Ji let out an increasingly frustrated sigh. He had no idea what he was doing. He didn’t want to admit he needed advice, even though that was the exact thought that brought him unannounced to Youngbae’s doorstep in the first place. This tempest of foreign and increasing unsettling emotion swelled as he finally met Youngbae’s concerned gaze, conceding with an exacerbated huff, head landing on Bae’s rather uncomfortable knee.

“I’m lost Bae.” Youngbae tilted his head, confused.

“In what?”

“In Seunghyun.”

Youngbae paused, giving a knowing smile.

“So that’s where you’ve been.” Jiyong turned to look up at him.

“What do you mean?”

“Like you said, you’ve been lost. Even when you were with us, you haven’t haven’t always been quite there.”

“No, it’s a good thing.”

“But-”

“It’s not a bad thing to care about someone you know. Or to want them to care about you.” Youngbae gave him that maternal stare down, but Ji just rolled over, defiantly breaking eye contact and Youngbae smiled.

“The problem lies in if you care for each other the same way.” Youngbae’s smile fell as he found that sliver of fear that wavered in Ji’s scoff. He gently began to run his fingers through messy silken strands of Jiyong’s hair.

“I wish I could tell you things will be okay Ji. And I can’t say what you feel or what he feels, and I won’t bother trying to say I’d have an answer for you even if I knew. You just have to trust yourself to know if whatever it is you’re looking for is there, and honestly I hope it is.”

Ji didn’t answer, because that was what he dreaded to hear. For he knew what the frantic drumming in his chest wanted and the sickening rock in his gut told him, were two very different things.

Oh also, since I lost a hefty chunk of my art with my hard drive I was thinking about doing short GTOP comics. Would people read those? Can comics even be posted on here? (I'm about as technologically compitant as a grandma) I'll totally take prompts or suggestions for them.

-H