"Hello?" Sunggyu picked up the phone one night.

"...Hello, princess," an amused voice drawled out. "And how are you doing on this fine, fine evening?"

"Nam," Sunggyu growled. "How did you get my number?"

"Oh, here and there," Woohyun said dismissively. “A little birdie just whispered in my ear.”

Sungjong, Sunggyu accused in his mind. “What do you want?”

“Just wanted to see how you’re doing,” Woohyun said amusedly. "How's your face?"

“I’m doing fine, thank you very much,” Sunggyu barked. “Now if you’ll leave me alone, I have work to do.”

He went to end the call, but Woohyun’s words made him hold.

“Stay away from him.”

Sunggyu put the phone back to his ear, “Who?”

“Who else?” the voice said darkly. “Hoya, of course.”

“No.”

“What do you want, Kim? Money? Fame? Do this one thing, and you can have it all.”

“I said no, Nam Woohyun,” Sunggyu said appalled. “I don’t want your money, and I don’t want anything that you have, or anything that has to do with you!”

“I’ll give you your friends back if you give me mine.”

“And Hoya can only have one friend?” Sunggyu shot back. “Maybe, Hoya doesn’t want to spend all of his waking moments with a bastard like you!”

“Who are you calling a bastard?” Woohyun asked lowly. “Because the only one I see here, is you.”

“Bull. You’re the worst I’ve ever met,” Sunggyu cursed. “You wouldn’t even let go of a friend! Have you ever thought about what Hoya wants? Not everything is about you!”

“I know that I don’t like to share,” Woohyun argued. “I know that Hoya’s been spending an abnormally large amount of time with you, and that is definitely not normal!”

“Not normal?!” Sunggyu swore he was losing it. “I told you! Hoya likes me, he likes my company!”

“He likes my company better!”

“Oh yeah?” Sunggyu gloated. “Whose company has he been around these past few weeks? Definitely not yours.”

Woohyun growled animalistically, “Tell that to my face, I dare you.”

“I’ll assure you, Woohyun, violence is not the answer,” Sunggyu drawled.

"-"

“Because unlike you, I think with my head and not my fist," Sunggyu sneered.

“Kim," the man's voice was deadly clear. "Tomorrow,” Woohyun ordered. “Four o’clock.  Meet me at the front entrance to the university. I’ll show you what I think then.”

“Sorry, Nam,” Sunggyu chuckled. “I have a meeting scheduled.”

“A meeting?”

“With Hoya,” he smiled in victory, already anticipating Woohyun’s animosity.

“What?!”

“You heard me,” Sunggyu smirked. “Hoya’s coming back, and I’m meeting with him tomorrow.”

“No, you’re not.”

"I am."

"You are not."

“Whatever, Nam. Hate to break it to you, but you're not the dictator of my life.”

"I swear, Kim-"

“You know what we're doing tomorrow? Tomorrow, Hoya and I are going out for ice cream, then like usual we’re going to see a movie tog-”

“Go any further, Kim, and I’ll kill you,” Woohyun sneered maliciously. “Mark my words.”

“Oh, I’m so scared,” Sunggyu smirked. “What are you going to do, pay me to go away?”

“Well how about I steal every single one of your friends, so you know how it feels like?”

“You don’t know anything about friendship.”

“Oh? What don’t I know?”

“I know that my real friends aren’t going to desert me. I know that real friends stick up for one another.”

“Then maybe you don’t have any real friends.”

“Then you don’t either,” Sunggyu barked irritatingly.

“Oh, Kim!” Woohyun burst out into an evil gloat. “Hoya and I had been best friends since we were born. Compared to me, you are nothing to Hoya.”

“I know that I mean enough for Hoya to spend more time with me than you,” Sunggyu shot back. “Let’s face it, Nam: Hoya has grown bored of you.”

“ you.”

Sunggyu heard a crash on the other end, and he guessed that Woohyun just broke something. His smirk widened; he just loved to put the almighty Nam Woohyun on edge.

“Best friends ever since you were born? My ,” Sunggyu scoffed. “So all those years, Hoya had to put up with you and your horrid personality? I feel him, I really do.”

“You don’t know how much I hate you right now,” the voice snarled through the phone.

“I’m so scared,” Sunggyu laughed. “Touche, mate. Feeling’s mutual; I hate you back.”

“You better,” Woohyun lowly smirked. “It would be quite the situation if the opposite happened, now wouldn’t it?”

Sunggyu stopped. “Opposite?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” the man said smugly. “Everyone falls in love with Nam Woohyun at some point. Wouldn’t want you to, you know-”

“ you, Nam Woohyun. That’s the most ridiculous, ludicrous, pompous joke you’ve ever pulled.”

“Or has it already happened? That would explain you’re always so mean to me all the time,” Woohyun mused gloatingly. “It’s just like in those dramas-”

“Stop it!”

“-where a person acts like they hate the other character when in fact-”

“Damn you Nam Woohyun-”

“-they are actually in love with them!” Woohyun pronounced gleefully. “My, my, Kim Sunggyu, I never knew that you fancied me.”

“You know as well as I that this is not true!” Sunggyu growled in a low breath. “That is the most ridiculous thing that I’ve ever heard, and you are the most ridiculous person that I have ever met.”

“My pleasure,” Woohyun grinned. “Nam Woohyun is never wrong, mind you.”

“Really?” Sunggyu said, incredulous. “Now, that is just wrong.”

“It’s right.”

“The fact that you said it’s right makes it wrong.”

“What? I don’t understand you.”

“Yeah, I don’t understand you either.” A smile threatened to grace Sunggyu’s features. “Absolutes are always wrong, Nam Woohyun.”

“No, they’re not.”

“Yes they are; you just used the word ‘never’.”

“I didn’t!”

“Of course you did.”

“When? I didn’t.”

“‘Nam Woohyun is never wrong’, may I quote?” Sunggyu was on the verge of laughing.

“I didn’t say that.”

“Oh, please, Nam Woohyun. You may be able to fool those swooning fangirls of yours, but not me.”

Woohyun smirked, “Why? You’re in love with me all the same.”

“...You disgust me, Nam Woohyun.”

“Are you trying to deny the truth?” Woohyun chuckled.

“No. Because that’s not the truth. It’s a lie!”

“Then why are we talking so much right now?”

Sunggyu stopped.

What?

Woohyun’s last sentence led to an abrupt pause on the phone line that seemed to augment with every millisecond. Sunggyu furrowed his brows. What did Woohyun just say? Was he implying what he thought he was implying?

“What are you saying, bastard?” Sunggyu murmured, after a pause. There was no hatred in his voice; there was just question, and a type of softness that Woohyun couldn’t decipher, yet he was unable to come up with a snarky comeback.

“I don’t know,” Woohyun said dumbly, and immediately after he said it he regretted it.

Sunggyu didn’t seem to notice, but he continued speaking in that quiet voice of his that just made Woohyun pull the phone closer to his ear, “You called me first.”

“I did,” Woohyun admitted, but that was all that he was willing to say.

Sunggyu said nothing back, and Woohyun was glad. This conversation had taken a strange turn, and now both were rendered with nothing else to say. Woohyun didn’t know exactly what this was, and he didn’t know if Sunggyu was feeling it also, but he wasn’t going to be the one asking the other man questions.

They stayed like that for another whole ten minutes, neither speaking to the other. It felt long, it felt short, it felt....strange. Not bad, Woohyun might add, but not good either. It felt strange, the two of them silent on the phone like that, just listening to each other’s breathing.

Sunggyu’s breath came out in soft slow puffs and Woohyun wondered if he could hear or measure a steady heartbeat through the line, so he just pressed the phone closer to his ear to listen. Unknowingly, it was calming to him, yet he would never bring himself to admit it.

The phone call held like that, the two of them, silent with nothing to say, listening to each other’s breathing, and it just held, the both of them  thinking,  curious, confused,  wondering, about absolutely everything and nothing at all.

It was Woohyun who broke the silence between the two. Before he could register what he was doing, he harshly said, “Good night,” into the phone.

He had full intentions on closing the phone, but his hand wouldn’t move. His phone stayed in his grasp, not leaving his ear until he hears a response from Sunggyu.

“...Good night,” Sunggyu murmured, and the other line went off.

Woohyun set his phone down with a sigh before crossing his arms and leaning back against his chair, deep in thought.

...Exactly what just happened there?