I apologize for the chapter coming a day late. I was having some time with family. Here is your chapter everyone!

I thoroughly hope that everyone is enjoying this fanfic. We've reached the end, and after you read this there will only be 3 chapters left. I would like to show my gratitude for anyone who reads this fanfic, becuase you have no idea how much I love you all <3

I hope that everyone enjoyed the flashbacks! And after some time, you now know Woogyu and Dongwoo's history. 

"We're going to be late, hurry up," Woohyun whined as he, Sungyeol, and Myungsoo trudged up the stairs to get to homeroom. 

It was the start of another week, and on Monday Woohyun and Myungsoo had to wait for Sungyeol to get out of a quick meeting for tutoring. Turns out the meeting was a lot longer than they intitially expected, and the group found themselves on the verge of being late to homeroom. They had three floors to sprint.

"I'm coming, hold on." Myungsoo was huffing and puffing, pulling himself on the railing to climb up the stairs. Myungsoo was never a fit person. He admittedly did not participate in sports, exercise much, and quite frankly he did not do many things that involved exerting effort. Myungsoo already had a class right across the hallway from their homeroom he could simply walk to without a sweat, but with the looming fear of Hak Yeon's wrath he was obliged to go all the way to the first floor and guard Sungyeol. This was his workout for the day let alone his workout for the whole year. "I hate running." Myungsoo mumbled. 

"You hate a lot of things, get over it." Woohyun rolled his eyes, helping pull Sungyeol up the stairs. "Teacher Jung has been on my case lately and I need to get to homeroom."

"I don't suppose Teacher Jung took Sunggyu's outburst lightly last week," Sungyeol commented. "Have you seen him today?"

Woohyun had been avoiding any kind of interaction with Sunggyu since. With the advice he took from his brother, he spent time by himself to ponder his feelings for the bastard. Whenever he saw Sunggyu, it would be Sunggyu trying to talk to him first. Woohyun would end the conversation and be busy with something before the conversation went longer than five minutes. It also helped that Woohyun had a string of doctor appointments for the past couple of weeks. He had not been working at Guk Pan for a while to rest his hand.

"Sunggyu is taking a smoking break today," Myungsoo chimed. "He was stressed all weekend about something and needed time by himself."

"Really? I wonder what happened," Woohyun wondered.

"Probably the usual business you would expect out of-" As they approached the third floor of the school, Sungyeol took a leap and skipped one of the steps to get to the top. He slipped on the edge and fell back to his downfall.

", Sungyeol!" Woohyun reached his hand out to try and grab his friend but missed as he was falling.

Luckily, a night in shining armor came in time to hold onto Sungyeol's hand just as he was going to fall. With all his strength, he pulled Sungyeol back up to a stand on his own two feet. 

Myungsoo stormed up the stairs the second he saw Sungyeol fall back, putting his arms out to catch him. He was surprised when he saw the job was already done. 

Sungyeol was still holding onto the person's hand desperately even after his saving, his eyes closed shut as he was afraid to open them and accept what would happen next. He opened them back up, and to his surprise it was the person both wanted and did not want to see the most. "Dongwoo," he whimpered.

Dongwoo's eyes were in a flurry of worry, taking deep breaths as he was scared that Sungyeol was a goner. His palms were sweating, looking down to see he was still holding onto Sungyeol. He let go instantly. "Sungyeol, I have to get to homeroom." Averting his eyes from the group, he ran past the three of them and sprinted for class.

"Wait, Dongwoo!" Woohyun spun around to try to talk to him, but before he could Dongwoo ran around the corner.

Myungsoo caught Dongwoo at the corner of his eye with a face full of embarrassment and dismay. "So are those rumors really true? Dongwoo used to be in a gang in America?"

Sungyeol stayed quiet, crossing his arms and letting that sink in. Dongwoo and Sungyeol had ignored each other since the incident with Hak Yeon in the hallway, despite the fact Sungyeol had been really wanting to talk to him about it. He was the first person to crack in breaking their silent engagement, but Dongwoo would leave to outright avoid it all. In fact, Dongwoo had also been avoiding Woohyun and Hayoung. 

"Yeah. Hayoung and I were talking about it over the weekend when we were setting up paying arrangements for the fair." Woohyun scratched his head. "Hak Yeon sure has a way of ruining people's lives, huh?"

"Kind of." Myungsoo shoved his hands down his pockets. "There was this one time when Hak Yeon and Hongbin were messing around with this kid last year and threatened him by hanging up down a five story building."

"So that was true." Woohyun felt an uncomfortable pain in his stomach, forcing itself up to make him gag at the thought of Hak Yeon and his cruel jokes. "I don't know the specific things Dongwoo did in his past, but he's a good person. Now he's completely different, and meeting him for the first time at the last school dance I would have never expected him to do that. That's all that matters. The Dongwoo I know is a good guy and he shouldn't be getting all of this hate around school."

Dongwoo experienced a decline in his popularity once the incident spread around school. Many people saw Dongwoo's personality as fake and failed to see through his past and accept him as who he was now. A lot of the students ridiculed him, some of them fearing him and expecting him to lash out at any given moment. Everyone thought this way except for the first friends he made here, but Dongwoo was not giving anyone a chance because he thought everyone hated him.

"That's what you get, sometimes. It takes a miracle to get out of hell." Myungsoo sifted through his bangs, stepping up the stairs to walk to homeroom. "Let's hurry up and go to homeroom Mr. President and sidekick. I have some things to discuss with you. For example, I sure hope you bought a ferris wheel."

"What the hell, you wanted a ferris wheel?" Woohyun shrugged his shoulders, following Myungsoo to get to class.

Sungyeol was the last person standing at the top of the stairs. He sometimes wished he never met Dongwoo, because if Sungyeol never did this would not hurt him this much. Sungyeol had little to no experience with a person like Dongwoo. Or Sunggyu. Or Hak Yeon. Their whole group. He had almost felt like his whole self was corrupted with the hole he buried himself in. Sungyeol wondered if his life could ever be the same again, and to add Hak Yeon's indignation in the picture he was trying to find the button in his life to quit. It all hurt, knowing that Dongwoo was as terrible as Hak Yeon accused him of. As terrible as he saw when they tried to save Sunggyu. 

It was even more terrible knowing that Sungyeol liked Dongwoo more than anything.

"Sungyeol, come on we have a couple seconds left," Woohyun called out.

"I'm coming." Sungyeol answered.

(((())))

Sunggyu returned home from school on Monday night, thankful that there was no work until Tuesday. He slammed the door open with his shoulder and walked into an empty apartment that was lit by the sunshine creeping through the blinds. "Finally, time for myself," he muttered. Sunggyu threw his backpack on the floor next to his living room couch and took out a box of cigarettes from his back pocket. He opened the flab, only one cigarette left to blow. He brought it to the tip of his lips, plopping onto the couch with his legs wide open in exhaustion. He reached into his front pocket and lit up his last smoke for the day, taking it out to blow rings into the air.

Sunggyu was always addicted to smoking, but the amount he smoked significantly increased during stressful times. The whole day at school and the weekend prior, Sunggyu questioned his decision to quit Guk Pan. He weight the pros and cons before deciding on Friday night of his decision, but after he announced it to Boohyun he was still uncertain if leaving was best for him and everyone else. Sunggyu shoved the cigarette into his mouth, ing his shirt and stripping it off to throw on the coffee table in front of him.

This ing . I don't even want to make a decision.

 His front pocket vibrated. Sunggyu reached into his front pocket and just as he reached in it vibrated again. Someone is calling me. Sunggyu took out his phone and whipped out the home screen. Dongwoo was calling. He slid his finger to answer the call. "Dongwoo?" Sunggyu took his cigarette out, crashing the tip into his father's ashtray on the coffee table. 

"Hey Sunggyu." Dongwoo's voice was soft.

"What's going on?" Sunggyu was curious he was calling him. Dongwoo had never talked to him on the phone before, and it was uncharacteristic for him to do that. 

"Can I ask you something?"

"You don't have to ask me anything. You can just say it, you know."

His throat cleared through the line. "It's just that no one at school can look at me the same way again. Everyone thinks I'm this horrible criminal who is going to eat you alive and spit you out."

Sunggyu took a deep breath, understanding where Dongwoo was coming from. "Well if people no longer like you for the past then they can it. They shouldn't care. Cause I think you're the same. Sungyeol too. Woohyun, everyone who is your actual friend could care less."

Dongwoo was silent on the other line. 

"You've been ignoring Sungyeol and everyone else, haven't you?" Sunggyu suspected. 

"It's just... the look on Sungyeol's face when he asked me if it was all true. The look on his face after everything was revealed. He was looking at me like I was some monster, and I can't deal with that. I can't deal with that with anyone at school. So that's why I'm transferring out after the school fair."

"You're what?" Sunggyu's mouth gaped open in shock.

"I'm going to quietly leave and hope no one notices. Go to a different school, a different region. Go back to my actual hometown in Guri? I told my parents about it, and they were on board with it. I fed some lie that the school had bad influences that were triggering my past. Well, bad influences are triggering my past but in a new way."

Sunggyu adjusted his body to lay down on the couch, his legs raised up on top of the couch arm. "If you're really going to leave Dongwoo, I think you at least owe it to Sungyeol and everyone else to tell them. You can't just leave him in the dark. He doesn't deserve that." Which was ironic, because it was the exact same thing that Sunggyu was doing to Woohyun. He was quite delusional about it all.

"I will," Dongwoo agreed. "Does that make me a bad person by quitting?"

Sunggyu asked himself that same question. "You know, I've been hanging out with Sungyeol for the past two weeks. Guarding him, following him to his locker, walking him home to his doorstep today. And my god, they have been the worst two weeks of my life. Ok that's an exaggeration. Sungyeol is ok, but you know. He's obviously on a different level than me, than you. Sungyeol is on track to probably go to Korea or Sungkyunkwan and be a surgeon or something. Don't think of it as quitting. Think of it as..."

Sunggyu finally answered his own question.

"... think about it as, you care about this person so much that you want to see them happy in the long run. Even if it means you won't be there." The sad reality kicked in, and Sunggyu confirmed in his head that he made the correct decision.

"Thanks Sunggyu. I wanted to hear your opinion," Dongwoo said.

"Let me know if you have anything else to say." Sunggyu hung up the line, dropping the phone on the coffee table. He covered his eyes with his arms, closing them shut and forcing himself into a slumber. He was tired, physically and emotionally.

(((())))

Sunggyu went to his locker at the beginning of lunch on Wednesday before meeting up with Sungyeol and Myungsoo. It was a refreshing change for Sunggyu to be by himself at school. For the past couple of weeks Sunggyu made it his duty to protect the people he pulled into his nightmare, giving as much to even walking Sungyeol back to his home on occasion because of it. He rolled his shoulders back and relaxed himself before he had to return to bodyguard his friends.

"Hey Sunggyu."

Sunggyu placed the last of his books in his locker and closed his locker door, hiding behind it was Woohyun. He took a step back startled by the fact Woohyun was standing right in front of him. It was time for another quick and awkward five minute conversation of theirs. "Woohyun, how are you?"

I've taken some time off Guk Pan so that I can study. I've been going through doctor's appointments to take care of this wrist. And I haven't been exerting much energy because I want my wrist to heal as fast as possible so I just go home after school and I study. That, and I've been staying away from you because you're a bastard and I've been confused.

Woohyun raised his wrist out to show off his cast. "My cast has been healing, and I had my chemistry test today."

"How was that?" Sunggyu asked.

"I think that I did well. I've been studying all week for it, and now that that's out of the way I can plan for the school fair properly for next week."

"Oh yeah, I forgot about that. We never really talked about the Guk Pan fundraiser for it." Probably because it ended in the worst way possible. "Did you make enough money for it?"

"Definitely, and with the different families coming in that day they gave us even extra after we told them it was a fundraiser."

"That's great," Sunggyu smirked. "I'm going to find Sungyeol and Myungsoo. Did you want to come with us for lunch?"

"I actually need to meet up with the baseball coach today. Even though I'm out for the season, I'm supporting from the sidelines and going through practices so I don't leave the team," Woohyun explained. 

"Cool, I guess I'll see you around?" Sunggyu nodded his head and walked down the hallway.

"Wait a minute." Woohyun placed his hand on Sunggyu's shoulder to stop him. "I'm working at Guk Pan on Friday."

"Oh, you are?" Woohyun had not worked at the restaurant for a while, and now that he was back on his feet to work it made Sunggyu feel weird. Sunggyu had yet to inform Woohyun he was leaving Guk Pan and prolonged the announcement as long as he could. 

"Yeah. I have something to tell you, too." Wait. No! I take that back. . ! 

"You do? What is it about?" What does this guy want to tell me... I'm really nervous. !

"Yeah Woohyun, what is it about?" Hak Yeon approached Sunggyu from behind, placing his hands on his shoulders to scare him.

"Damnit Hak Yeon!" Sunggyu screamed, squirming out of Hak Yeon's hold and moving to Woohyun's side. "Can't you say hi and wave for once?" 

"That's too boring," Hak Yeon smirked smugly. "Woohyun, how is your wrist?"

"It's fine," Woohyun answered, bringing his hands behind his back to hide his cast.

You do not talk about Woohyun's wrist, you ing devil. "You want my money, I'm guessing?" Sunggyu ped the front pocket of his backpack to take out a single white envelope for his most recent paycheck. He handed the check to Hak Yeon and watched as he tore it open and inspected the contents. "The final amount I owe you should be 220,340 won."

Hak Yeon nodded his head. "I see you've been doing math." He tapped the envelope on Sunggyu's chest with a wicked smile. "Great work, Sunggyu. You really did come out with your promise."

"Of course," Sunggyu snided, fearless in response. "Anything else you need?"

"No, nothing." Hak Yeon folded the envelope and shoved it down his back pocket. "I'll be seeing you soon Sunggyu. And Woohyun." He glared at Woohyun's wrist with a complacent smirk. He snickered, walking away without finishing his sentiment on Woohyun.

"How you ing got into a mess with him, I have no idea," Woohyun rolled his eyes. "Anyways, I need to go now." Woohyun ran past Sunggyu a fast as he could in the other direction before he was late for a baseball meeting.

"How I got into this mess? I have no idea." Sunggyu let out a stressful sigh and zipped his backpack back up. He threw the backpack on his back and went on his way for lunch. 

(((())))

It was a Friday night to remember, and one of the last Friday nights Sunggyu would ever experience at Guk Pan.

Sunggyu finished his seventh week at Guk Pan. After cleaning up the main restaurant area, they stayed in the kitchen after hours to help prepare for the coming days with Woohyun labelling certain foods and Sunggyu cutting different meats for preparation. It had been the first time in a while where the two of them have hung out together for more than five minutes. With Sunggyu working at Guk Pan by himself and Woohyun avoiding Sunggyu to deal with his feelings and go to doctor's appointments, they finaly crossed paths on the winding and messy road they were travelling.

"What are you doing" Woohyun asked, his back against Sunggyu while he sorted items in the refridgerator and marked them by expiration date.

"I'm slicing cuts of pork tendon." Sunggyu answered, whacking his butcher knife and a tender flab of pork and cutting it perfectly in half. "When you were gone, your brother taught me how to cut meat."

"You're really making a name for yourself here," Woohyun stated, throwing a bag of daikon out of the freezer and into a pile of rotten food. "My brother doesn't even let me cut meat."

"It's only for those with prowess talent," Sunggyu snided, wrapping the pork in shrink wrap.

"Prowess. Who uses that word," Woohyun hummed. "Did you find a random page in a dictionary and point your finger at it to use for the day?"

"Why do you have to be such an and appreciate who I am for what I am?" Sunggyu slid his knife on the counter and spun around to project his voice louder at Woohyun. "Why don't you think I can use fancy words?!"

Woohyun turned around himself and slyly smiled at him. "Because this fancy guy I'm looking at right now served a customer soup without the damn soup!"

"I was flustered and it was crowded today!" Sunggyu groaned, turning back around to ignore Woohyun. You won this round. 

"Whatever you say," Woohyun smirked, going back to his own duty.

Sunggyu and Woohyun would spend the next half hour finishing their jobs, sharing fun banter of baseball, the restaurant, insults, and insults for other people. Even in the uproar of laughter and annoyance they caused each other was commonplace, there was strange feeling between the two of them. After only sharing short conversations with each other, it was a feeling that after time apart after one of the most pivotal moments they could have in their relationship, nothing had seemed to change. 

"Hey Woohyun, what did you say you wanted to tell me?" Sunggyu asked.

Woohyun's throat dried up with nervousness, an overwhelming feeling shaking him with jitters. "Oh yeah, I forgot." Of all the things you could ever remember or remind me to do, why this moment?? 

"Go for it." Sunggyu raised an eyebrow, unsuspecting of Woohyun would say.

Woohyun busied himself with opening up different boxes on the refridgerator shelves and scribbling their description on the boxes. He fumbled around, buying time to fully collect his thoughts on what he wanted to confess. Sunggyu's presence added onto his ongoing anxiety, Woohyun sweating in front of a cool storage out of nervousness. He had spent day and night with Sunggyu the only person on his mind, and when he stayed away from him the only thing he could think about was how he wanted to talk and joke around with him. Woohyun really missed Sunggyu, and all of his feelings were solidified with this. "I wanted to talk about the kiss."

Sunggyu stumbled with his knife, dropping it and almost slicing his hand from hearing that. His heart fluttered and after realizing himself he liked Woohyun, this caught him off guard. He was quite scared. Scared of what? Woohyun... I like you. But this is the worst possible time for us to talk about it. We're going through so much, and I don't want you to tell me the kiss didn't mean anything. "Do we really have to talk about this?" 

Woohyun took a deep breath, he himself apprehensive to hear what Sunggyu had to say on the matter. "I know that we both agreed that we were just going to ignore the fact, but..." He cleared his throat for a placebo to gain more confidence with his words. "... I cant anymore. Well, I know that I said I had a test to study for and I know I also said I had a series of doctor's appointments. Those were all true, but I did have a decent amount of time in between to work here or hang out with you, and well I didn't. I just wanted some time apart from you because the kiss got to me and I needed time to process it all."

Sunggyu nodded his head, his heart beating out of his chest and almost landing on the counter in front of him. He did not expect in a million years for Woohyun to say that. It was comforting in a nervewracking way because Sunggyu kind of felt the same way.

"I thought about it. And now we're here in the kitchen of my brother's restaurant. Kind of where it all started before." Woohyun giggled nervously, ripping a box he had not seen before at the top shelf open. "I think I'm rambling now, so I'm just going to say it. Sunggyu, I..."

... like you. When I say I like you I don't mean it like a friend. I mean that you're a stupid bastard, you're really ing stupid. And through everything we've been together up until this moment I shouldn't even be here. I shouldn't even still be talking to you. That kiss made me understand more than anything that, well, I like you for you. More than any other person I know or ever knew. And yes we're still in a ty situation, but once we get out of it I want us to work out. So there Sunggyu. There it is. I like you. 

That was what Woohyun was going to tell Sunggyu.

Until he saw what was inside of the box.

It was a homemade cake. A cake with blue frosting shaped into a soup bowl. The details were accentuated; a pair of cake chopsticks sticking out with cake toppings in it and white steam frosting escaping the bowl. Along the edge of the bowl were words iced in cursive frosting: Goodbye Kim Sunggyu!

"... Sunggyu, what is this?" Woohyun turned around cuddling the box in his arms, his eyes in disbelief from seeing the cake spew out a reality Woohyun did not even know existed. 

"What?" Sunggyu turned around and met eyes with him, Woohyun's eyes tearing up with anguish as he held on tightly to a box. Sunggyu peered at the box nervously, and once he saw what was inside he was paralyzed. Woohyun you weren't supposed to see that. He put his hand out. "Woohyun, I can explain."

"Are you quitting Guk Pan?" Woohyun's voice was breaking up, his whole body in shock that he could not make single sense of anything.

Sunggyu was caught. This was no the way Sunggyu wanted Woohyun to find out, but nonetheless it happened. There was nothing Sunggyu could do to avoid this subject. He only wished it did not happen this way. "After I receive next week's paycheck and pay off Hak Yeon the final amount I'm quitting Guk Pan."

Woohyun bit his lip. "Were you expecting me to find out the day of?"

"No, Woohyun." Sunggyu shook his head, his mouth opening and closing as he tried to speak. "I was going to tell you eventually."

"Do you hate working here? Do you hate my brother? Do you hate the soup here or something? Do you hate me?" 

"It's none of that Woohyun!" Sunggyu ruffled his hair up in frustration, kicking the counter from the frustration. "It's no that at all."

Woohyun placed the cake back into the refridgerator, taking one last glimpse at the words written on it before he turned around to face his pain. The tears were streaming uncontrollably down his face as he was brought back to memories of middle school. "I thought for some reason this was going to be different. We were going to get along and that would be the end of it. But this is like baseball. You're going to leave me alone when everything is good! Build me up as one of your best friends and just take off!"

"I had no choice last time!" Sunggyu dug his face in his hands, pulling them back down to flick his trembling lips. "Woohyun, they kicked me off the team because Gikwang and Doojoon framed me for something they did." He saw the look on Woohyun's face, his pitiful face that Sunggyu wanted to call a bastard and tell him everything was going to be ok. "Woohyun, didn't you know?"

"No, no I didn't," Woohyun mumbled. "Because when I tried to find out what happened I got no response from you. And then seeing you for the first time in high school since, with your new group of friends, acting like you were better than me and like I didn't exist! Sunggyu, what the do you expect?"

Sunggyu admitted he was guilty of that. He purposefully ignored Woohyun's texts thereafter to the point that he even blocked Woohyun from his phone. The agony of seeing Woohyun's texts and knowing he disappointed him was too much to bear. Sunggyu did not want to pull Woohyun down with him. 

"This time, if you're going to walk out of here, you better tell me why. You better explain to me what the is going on, because I think as your ing best friend I deserve better than this," Woohyun sobbed. 

"Woohyun." Just saying his name was heartbreaking. Hearing Woohyun call him his best friend was more than he could take. Sunggyu had to pause for a moment, leaning his head back to prevent the waterworks from coming out. "People like me, we can't escape from our past. No matter how hard we try to change, comes falling back down. There are some people fated for doom, and I'm one of them Woohyun. I can't be around you, I can't do this to you. If I stay here longer, I'm going to pull you down with me. I didn't text you back, and I'm quitting here to protect you from the person I am."

"But the person I see is the best pitcher I have ever met in my life, if he tries putting his mind into something he does a great job. I see a person who I can talk to for hours on end about pointless things in this world. The person I see, I want to be around. So why can't we see this through together Sunggyu?" Woohyun lowered his head, no longer able to look into his eyes. "Things are really rough right now, but why can't we see this through together?"

Sunggyu bit his lip, ripping his apron off and twirling it around his hand. "Woohyun, the same person you're looking at got you that broken wrist. If you see this through with me, I don't know what else will happen to you. You're a good kid, Woohyun. You've always been a good kid. And you know what? I'm not. I ing . Nam Woohyun is the class president, baseball team captain, you're probably going to get a baseball scholarship at this rate. After you heal, you deserve to start over and get what you need. You're going to get a happy ending, Woohyun. And you can't have that if you stick with a lowlife like Kim Sunggyu." 

Sunggyu held onto his apron, no longer able to look at Woohyun crying in front of him. Is this what happened when I left the first time? A single tear fell down his face, wiping it off with his apron. He believed in everything he said. With much regret, Sunggyu took his things and ran out of Guk Pan.

Woohyun covered his eyes with his arms,collapsing to the floor and leaning against the refridgerator for support. He pressed his cast against his face, the one message he could see under the darkness was that of Sunggyu's. I'm sorry about everything.

I hope your wrist gets better soon, bastard. I like you too much to see you like this. - #1.

"Sunggyu don't do this to me... I like you so much."