Woohyun doesn’t realize it but when he’s seventeen and still naive, he falls in love.

 

It isn’t even the simple kind of sweet innocent love that most teens his age go through. Instead he’s doomed to falling in love with his gangly, slightly annoying deskmate who goes on and on about quantum physics and other Woohyun doesn’t understand. Sungyeol’s awkward, but not as awkward as Woohyun feels around him and Sungyeol has tangled curly hair but it can never amount to the knots that are created in Woohyun’s stomach when Sungyeol smiles.

 

It’s unfair, he thinks. Why should someone as handsome and amazing as him fall for someone like Sungyeol? It’s so unfair that Woohyun has to develop awkward teenage feelings for Sungyeol - a male, a freak, a complete idiot. He should be falling in love with pretty girls that have smooth legs and straight hair. He shouldn’t like anyone of the male species and he thinks he’s the most ed up human being ever.

 

He’s only slightly right.

 

Maybe his feelings will go away, after all he’s young and prone to confusion and nothing is as confusing as Lee Sungyeol is anyways.

 

But when he’s turning twenty-two and still in love with Sungyeol, he realizes he’s going to be naive forever.

 

---

 

“Woohyun, what am I going to do?”

 

Three in the morning has never been Woohyun’s favorite time and it always yields as unfriendly as his hair is usually messy and his face much too dry and flaky without all the makeup and moisturizes applied onto it.

 

“Do you even know what time it is?” Woohyun asks, his eyes are barely able to open as they begin to puff and swell. Sungyeol only moves Woohyun’s arm aside as he steps into the apartment and continues to pour out his woes and worries.

 

“This is the third job this month, how am I gonna feed myself?” Sungyeol begins to pace and then he looks up at Woohyun hopefully, “Do you think I-”

 

“No.” Is the immediate answer.

 

“You didn’t even know what I was going to say!”

 

“Yes, yes, I did.” Woohyun rubs more sleep out of his eyes and then shuts his front door, making sure to lock it, “You can stay over tonight or for whatever is left of tonight at least.”

 

“Then can I sleep the bed?” Sungyeol asks with the biggest puppy dog eyes he can produce.

 

“Whatever, just go to sleep and let me rest, please.”

 

Sungyeol’s sitting on the bed with his legs crossed and his phone in his hands as he watches Woohyun pull out a pillow and blanket from the closet and step out of the bedroom.

 

“Wait, where are you going!?” Sungyeol calls out, eyes watching Woohyun stop in his tracks right outside the bedroom door.

 

“To sleep? It’s almost four am, Yeol. I don’t have time for yo-”

 

And Woohyun can’t believe Sungyeol right now.

 

He pulls the sheet off the empty side of the bed and pats it, “You’re sleeping here, silly.”

 

“Su-”

 

“It’ll be like when we were in high school and we used to have sleepovers at my house!”

 

“We’re in our twenties, Yeol.”

 

“So what? Come ooooooon. I need your stiff arms to cradle my poor soul to sleep. It’s been a long day, man.”

 

“You’re kidding,” Woohyun says but he’s chuckling too.

 

“I’ll even let you touch my hair, I know you’ve got a weird obsession with it.”

 

“I do not! I was just comparing it to my own!”

 

“Yes, all those millions of times was just you comparing it to mine. Shut up and c’mere already, I’m tired and you’re keeping me up.”

 

“I’m keeping you up?” Woohyun scoffs out but still crawls into bed with Sungyeol, his arms immediately reaching out to pet Sungyeol’s head.

 

“Very much so. Now tell me how pretty and non useless I am like you always do.” Sungyeol lets a content sigh escape his lips as he rests his head against Woohyun’s shoulder.

 

“I never call you pretty,” Woohyun furrows his brow and continues to run fingers through Sungyeol’s hair.

 

Sungyeol only laughs a bit before closing his eyes and reveling in the feeling of Woohyun’s fingers and for a long while they sit in silence and Woohyun thinks Sungyeol’s fallen asleep until suddenly his phone vibrates and his eyes pop open.

 

His lips break into a huge grin as he lifts his head from Woohyun’s shoulder and immediately texts back to the person Woohyun is currently most envious of.

 

To: My Princess~<3

I love you too Jiae, thanks for worrying, I’ll be fine in the morning. Goodnight!

 

And Sungyeol is only capable of breaking Woohyun more and more as the years pass.

 

And Woohyun is still naive enough to think that Sungyeol might someday be his.

 

---

 

He doesn’t think Woohyun notices, but it’s painfully obvious that the younger male does.

 

Sunggyu hates himself for being so obvious, he’s sure even Dongwoo and Howon know too, but he isn’t ever going to admit to anything with those two.

 

“God, you’re a sell out.” Woohyun comments one day as he fills his coffee cup with sugar and cream.

 

“Excuse me?” Sunggyu raises his eyebrows and squints his eyes incredulously at Woohyun.

 

“You’re too lenient on Sungyeol! Just because he pleads and makes puppy eyes does not mean you let him off for making a mess with chocolate cake in the hall! What if someone slipped and hurt themselves?”

 

“What?” Sunggyu furrows his recently raised brows, “I’m the lenient one towards Sungyeol? I’m sorry but the last time I saw it, you were the one basically on your knees letting him walk all over you.”

 

“That’s different, Sungyeol and I have been friends since high school. You’re his boss, you’re supposed to be a hardass and play the role of the bad guy.”

 

“So what? So that you can be the good guy that he can come running to? I don’t think so, Nam.”

 

“Are you challenging me?” Woohyun sets his coffee mug down and glares at Sunggyu who returns the gesture.

 

“And what if I am? Don’t forget, I’m still technically your boss too.”

 

“Watch it, old man. I could get your job any day I wanted to, but I don’t want all that extra work weighing down my personal time with Sungyeol. You know, all the 'out of work' hours I get to spend hanging out with him.”

 

“More like being the third wheel. He’s told me he’s got a girlfriend already.”

 

Woohyun pauses, “He… Told you that?”

 

And Sunggyu follows up that pause with a twitch of his lips, “Yeah.”

 

The younger scoffs, “So then who’s the real threat? Me or her?”

 

“To be honest, I’m not even sure anymore,” Sunggyu sighs.

 

“You’re a flaming homoual,” Woohyun announces, “I knew it.”

 

“You’re no better,” Sunggyu protest, “Besides. I’m not even that attracted to guys.”

 

“Really? So if I walked around shirtless with my washboard abs and flaunted my glorious thighs in shorts, you wouldn’t find me attractive?”

 

“Disgusting is more like it.”

 

“We’ll see about that then.”

 

And Sunggyu isn’t sure what the hell Woohyun is thinking as he his chin and walks out of the break room, clearly scheming something completely pointless and ridiculous.

 

---

 

The patient in room 7L is an absolute nightmare.

 

Sunggyu hates having to deal with him because he’s never met an individual more corrupt and so ed up. What’s even worse is that Sungyeol doesn’t seem to even notice. During Sunggyu’s check up visits to room 7L, Sungyeol is always present and Sunggyu tells himself that he does these check ups to check up on the patient and not on Sungyeol. He does this to make sure the patient is healthy and fine, not to see if Sungyeol is unharmed and still breathing.

 

Because Kim Myungsoo is dangerous and why did Sunggyu even let Sungyeol near this guy in the first place?

 

The questions that Sunggyu asks Myungsoo are all mundane and without actual purpose because he already knows that Myungsoo isn’t as delusional as everyone else may think, after all he may be fooling himself into thinking he’s there to check up on Myungsoo, but the two both know he’s actually there for Sungyeol.

 

Cue in Sunggyu’s accident.

 

---

 

A week before Woohyun suggests they move Myungsoo out, Sunggyu is resting at the local hospital with a fractured arm that he hides during Sungyeol’s visit.

 

And Nam Woohyun walks in wearing nothing but very short soccer shorts.

 

“What the actual ,” Sunggyu says all in one breath.

 

“Attracted yet?” Woohyun’s smiling and his eyes are small crescents while his white teeth pop out from behind his lips.

 

“How the hell did you even get in here? Are these nurses blind or something?” Sunggyu glances around, wondering what kind of half assed job these people are doing. If it was his hospital then he’d be barking out orders to kick out the man.

 

“I was wearing a coat but I took it off,” Woohyun chuckles, “Seriously though, how awesome are my thighs?”

 

“Pretty gross, now for the love of God, please cover yourself before I sew my eyes shut or throw acid on them.”

 

Woohyun only laughs more and Sunggyu can’t help the grin on his face.

 

Just for a short moment, he’s glad that Woohyun is there.

 

---

 

Sunggyu doesn’t break as fast as Woohyun had.

 

It takes him months before he realizes that Sungyeol isn’t mentally sane, anymore.

 

He has to let Sungyeol go.

 

It’s unfair.

 

It’s because of Kim Myungsoo.

 

Sunggyu was there before Myungsoo so he should have priority, right?

 

But no, because Woohyun was there before any of them.

 

It’s so ing unfair.

 

Unfair to Woohyun, unfair to Sunggyu and unfair to Sungyeol because Myungsoo is poison to him. The kind that once it’s infected you, you can never become cured.

 

What kind of ed up world do they live in where the person you fall in love with doesn’t ever return (over even get to receive) your love, but instead they become attached to a person who is bad for them. Who will destroy them and ruin them forever and it’s so ing unfair because Sunggyu can’t even save Sungyeol.

 

And Sungyeol is just breaking him apart, little by little.

 

When Sungyeol breaks, so does Sunggyu.

 

“Go home early today, Sungyeol.”

 

“Get rest.”

 

“You’ll be fine.”

 

“Time is healing.”

 

But exactly how much time do you need to heal? It feels like Sunggyu is only telling himself these things when he tells them to Sungyeol.

 

And he’s attached to a person who is bad for him and who is breaking him and destroying him and ruining him.

 

It’s a cycle.

Woohyun knows this and so does Sunggyu. They’re caught in a cycle and can’t get free from it.