Author's Note: ehehe

The following day the members woke up early to get ready for their morning's schedule. LJoe groggily wiped his eyes, feeling worn. His face was puffy and he could feel an unusual swelling on his eyelids. He sighed, the coordi-noona will definitely ask what happened last night to cause his face to swell that much.

C.A.P was already out of bed by the time LJoe woke up, which was definitely weird because his hyung usually took the longest to get out of bed. When LJoe stumbled out of the room to head to the bathroom, he saw C.A.P and Niel speaking in hushed tones right in front of LJoe and Chunji's room, blocking the way to the bathroom. As soon as the couple noticed that LJoe was there, they both broke out into suspicious looking grins, but LJoe couldn't really bring himself to care.

"Good morning Hyung!" Niel greeted cheerfully.

"Good morning," LJoe mumbled back, "Can I pass through? I need to use the bathroom."

"Yeah, sure. Hurry up though, manager-hyung just sent me a text. He'll be here soon."

Nodding, LJoe squeezed through and finished his morning rituals as fast as he could.

He saw no sign of Chunji or of the two maknaes, he assumed that the three were already in the kitchen eating breakfast with C.A.P and Niel.

Making his way down to the kitchen, he found all of the members sitting around the table, a simple breakfast laid out in front of them. Ricky and Changjo were talking excitedly about something LJoe couldn't care less about and Chunji had his back turned to him so he didn't notice LJoe coming into the room.

When Ricky brightly smiled at LJoe, wishing him a good morning, Chunji visibly tensed and the atmosphere noticeably dampened.

Plopping down at the only empty seat, which just had to be right next to Chunji, LJoe quietly reached for the carton of milk and a box of cereal and filled his bowl up with sustenance for the time being. They will be fed at the venue of today's activity so he figured a bowl or two would be enough.

An awkward silence nestled itself comfortably on the group and it felt stifling for all of them.

C.A.P, seeing as he was the oldest and the leader by appointment, took it upon himself to ease the obvious friction in the group.

Clearing his throat, he began with "So, are we all ready for today?"

Niel, picking up on their leader's pathetic attempt at diffusing the tension, smiled brightly at everyone, "Yeah, I can't wait, it seems like today will be fun."

"Ahahah, yeah. I have a feeling today's gonna be great!" Ricky followed suit and elbowed Changjo to do the same.

Getting the hint, Changjo threw an arm over Ricky's shoulder and grinned, "I'm so pumped up!"

Chunji and LJoe watched the exchange with blank looks on their faces. LJoe went back to quietly eating his cereal, and Chunji nibbled on a piece of buttered toast.

The other four's smiles faltered. Niel and C.A.P exchanged worried looks, wordlessly making an agreement to talk to Chunji and LJoe separately. They hoped, last night, that since the two were so close, this whole thing will just blow over after a good night's rest. They didn't know how bad the argument was, but based on the two's actions, they gathered that it must have been pretty bad.

Sighing, C.A.P knew that at this point subtlety will lead to nowhere. Opting instead to directly address the issue, he looked at LJoe and Chunji with the sternest face he could muster. It felt incredibly strange, he usually only reserved that face for the two youngest members whenever they were doing something stupid and requiring of some reprimanding.

"Look, Chanhee, Byunghun, whatever happened last night, just for today, since our entire day is swamped with work, let's just pretend it didn't happen, okay? Act like how you normally would, I know the two of you are pros, you can do at least that much with no problems, right?"

He gave the two a look that expected answers.

"Neh," Chunji finally responded. LJoe nodded and looked to the side, refusing to meet C.A.P's eyes.

"Good. But forgetting it for today doesn't mean that you're forgetting it altogether. You two need to talk. And I suggest you do it soon. If you don't want to talk to each other just yet, that's fine, we as a group will try to make it work in front of the camera so that no one will suspect anything today. But please, get through this quickly. All right, that's all I'll say. Remember that if either of you want to talk to any of us about this, we're here for you."

The other three nodded in agreement.

Chunji and LJoe didn't answer, but the group left it at that because at that time, their manager came in telling them to hurry up, finish their breakfast, put their dishes in the sink and leave.

As the group got ready with wardrobe and make up for the filming, the coordi-noonas whispered among themselves when they noticed that two of the Teen Top members looked more tired than usual, despite it being their day off the day before.

"What's wrong LJoe-sshi? How come your face is so puffy, and you look exhausted?" One of their noonas commented as she brushed foundation on his face. "Both you and Chunji-sshi look like a truck ran you over."

LJoe gave her his trademark smile while shaking his head as if to brush off her worry, "Oh, we just stayed up playing a game last night. It's nothing to worry about, Noona."

"Ahh," she gave him a knowing look, "a game, huh? Was it fun?" She winked at him.

LJoe just laughed and let her think what she wanted.

There had always been rumors going on about the boys and the pairings within Teen Top. None of those rumors are ever confirmed though. And they never will be. They were mostly just fan girls' fantasies anyway. The coordi-noonas were no strangers to fangirling.

"Well if you were playing a game all night, I guess that explains Chunji-sshi's red eyes," she giggled as she added the finishing touches to his eyeliner, "don't be too hard on him, LJoe-sshi."

LJoe bit his lip once she finished his look for the day, knowing that the reason why Chunji's eyes, though it really was because of him, was not the reason that the coordi-noona thought. Although, LJoe wished that it was, because it would make things less of a problem.

Chunji must have been crying last night. LJoe felt awful.

Soon he was called to the set by the director with the other members that were done while they waited for the rest who weren't. Then, directions were given, last minute touch-ups on their hair and their clothes. Then the cameras started rolling and all they were waiting for was the cue to start.

"So are you ready to talk now?" C.A.P asked the younger male when they finally got a break for lunch. The other four members stayed inside the building while C.A.P and LJoe went out to get some air. Actually, the elder forcibly pulled LJoe aside to talk to him one on one.

Everything had been working out just fine, but it was incredibly awkward with LJoe and Chunji. Not that it's never really not awkward with the two of them, but the Teen Top members could definitely tell something was not right. It would only be a matter of time before the rest of the production crew noticed something off as well.

The elder sighed when the younger refused to meet his eyes, "I'm not the type of person to pressure others to do something when they're not ready to do it. I'm a firm believer in the idea that everything will right itself in due time. But because I'm the oldest and the leader, I have the responsibility to do something about issues that come up in the group, no matter how troublesome or against my principles it is.

"As such, I'm not going to pressure you into making up with Chanhee, because rushing things might actually make it worse. But I am going to ask you, nicely, mind you, to please talk about it. If not with me, then with someone else. Changhyun, Jonghyun, Niel, whomever. You can't just bottle it up inside you, Byunghun. It's not healthy."

LJoe finally lifted his eyes up from the ground and faced C.A.P "You're right, Hyung. I know that. But... I... just," LJoe bit his lip.

"Arasso, arasso, don't force yourself."

"No!" LJoe grabbed C.A.P's wrist when he made a move to leave, "I'll talk about it. I want to. I... just.. give me a moment."

Taking a deep breath, he gathered his thoughts and chose his words carefully before he began. He must have been quiet for a while because soon C.A.P was waving a hand in front of LJoe's unfocused eyes.

"Well?" the older rapper asked.

"Well, I guess I'll start with yesterday. It was great at first, we had an amazing day. We haven't had a proper date, just the two of us, in a long while so I thought yesterday was the perfect moment to take him out. And it was going really well until we got back to the dorm.

"He got quiet all of a sudden and I asked him what was wrong, thinking that I'd somehow done something to upset him. Then he started spouting nonsense about how someday I might get tired of him and that we'd break up.

"I understood, at first, why he felt so uncertain. He reasoned that at the rate we're going, with all of our busy schedules, eventually there's going to come a time when I'm rarely going to see him and we'll all have individual events to go to. And that we're not always going to be physically together. He also said something about what if people catch on to the fact that we're dating, and that we can't let that ruin our image as idols.

"Then, I don't know... I guess it's the fact that it hurt to hear it out loud that our relationship will never really be accepted by society, and that he's putting so little trust in me... in us, that I got so irritated with what he was saying. And I kind of snapped at him. Then he just walked away. He... looked like he was about to cry.

"Oh my god, I made him cry. Stupid, stupid, stupid," LJoe slapped his own cheeks with both of his hands, punishing himself for hurting Chunji.

"I know all of this is my fault, but I don't know how to talk to him. How to reassure him that whatever he's worried about shouldn't matter because they won't come true. Because now I'm feeling uncertain. It never even crossed my mind that we'd someday have a problem like this. And he brings it up and all of a sudden I'm worried that he's right. That what if, one day, we see so little of each other we start to forget how much we love each other. Or worse, what if one day, because we've missed each other so much, we go absolutely crazy in public and people find out about us."

Clapping a hand to the smaller male's shoulder, C.A.P, who had been patiently and quietly listening to LJoe explain himself, tried to calm him down.

"Ugh," C.A.P frowned, not really knowing what to say, "I'm sorry. I'm really not the best person to give advice. But maybe, if you tried to resolve the problem together, instead of ignoring each other and making it awkward for everyone else, you can get to a solution that works out for the two of you."

"Sorry, Hyung," LJoe hung his head in shame, knowing that his actions were immature and unbecoming of a young man his age. He entered into a relationship of his own accord, therefore if there was a problem, it was his responsibility to face it head on, and not avoid it like a child would. He was an adult now, for crying out loud. Get a grip, LJoe.

"No need to apologize, Byunghun. We all have these moments. Relationships are hard work too," C.A.P ruffled the younger one's hair and gave him an encouraging smile, "So are you going to talk to him now?"

"Yeah. I'll apologize for my behavior last night, and I'll make him see that no matter what, I'll be by his side through it all," LJoe fixed his now messed up hair and grinned back at their leader who always managed to say the right thing even if he didn't know what to say.

"Good." Now hopefully Niel talked to Chanhee as well to help smooth things over, C.A.P thought to himself as they walked back inside the building to finish up their filming for the day.

Niel watched as Chunji violently stabbed at his food with his chopsticks. The two maknaes were too scared to further upset their power vocal and decided to sit as far away as possible from their two hyungs. Niel swallowed before he spoke, carefully choosing his words.

"Hyung, are you all right? I don't know what the lettuce did to you, but it couldn't have been that bad, right?" Niel decided that saying LJoe's name right now might not be a good idea, so he opted to use the poor vegetable as a euphemism. He apologized in his head for taking advantage of their innocent lunch.

Chunji evidently knew exactly what Niel was doing and lightened up on his lettuce massacre, and sighed, "I suppose the lettuce didn't really do anything wrong... per se. It's just... why can't it understand how I'm feeling? Yeah, it loves me now, but what happens when it realizes that it doesn't love me anymore? Or that it can't handle being with me anymore?"

Niel bit his lip and tried his luck, "We're not talking about the lettuce anymore, are we?"

Chunji slammed the chopsticks down hard on the table, making the two maknaes, who were sitting at the opposite end of the room, along with the rest of the production crew and the manager hyungs jump at the noise.

Niel gave the two youngest members a pointed look, silently telling them to avert their eyes and make the others do the same.

Changjo and Ricky quickly drew attention to themselves by laughing and telling the crew members an interesting story.

"No, we're not. That little -head Byunghun—" Chunji didn't finish his sentence as he picked up his chopsticks and stuffed food into his mouth. The rest of his words were an incoherent mess that Niel tried to understand. But all he could really pick up was 'dummy,' and 'LJoe.'

"Ah, Chanhee-hyung, slow down, you'll choke," this time, Chunji didn't try to speak as he ate anymore and began to shovel the rice into his mouth. As soon as the bowl was empty, Chunji put it on the table and took the glass of water to gulp down copious amounts of the fluid to wash down what he just ate.

Niel sighed as Chunji let out a satisfied breath and wiped his lips with the back of his hand, "Hyung, would you mind telling me what's wrong? I gather that something happened between you and Byunghun-hyung?"

Chunji frowned at the mention of his name.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"No... yes..." Chunji huffed, "Niel-ah, have you and Minsoo-hyung ever talked about your future? Not as in your future with Teen Top, but your future together, as a couple."

Taken aback by the sudden question, Niel thought about it carefully before answering him with a shake of his head, "No, I guess... that never really came up. I don't know, I guess I've always just assumed that, given we don't break up, we'll always be together, like how Teen Top will always be together."

"I wish it could be as simple as that," Chunji sighed.

"Why can't it be?" Niel tilted his head in confusion.

Chunji lowered his voice, making sure that no one else would hear, and, for once, feeling thankful that the two maknaes can be really loud and obnoxious, "Think about it, Niel-ah, we're idols. Icons of the Korean pop-culture, if, hypothetically, it gets out to the public that we're dating amongst ourselves, do you know how bad that will be? Not just for our individual images but for the group's entire existence.

"It's not going to be pretty."

"Then make sure no one finds out," Niel suggested.

"But isn't that frustrating? I love him, he loves me, I want to shout it out to the whole world, but I can't. And it's unfair. And it's making me wonder, what if one day, he feels burdened by having to hide a relationship, and he gets tired and fed up with having to keep it a secret? What if I get tired of it?

"I know my love for him is strong, and that he loves me just as much, but we're only human. We can only take so much... I'm afraid of what will happen when all of this just isn't enough anymore, or worse, if all of this gets to be too much to handle. I don't want to break up, but I also don't want to feel like I'm forcing him to stay just so I won't get hurt, or the other way around, I don't want to be forced to stay together if it's not working out. That would just... hurt the two of us."

"... I... never really thought about it that way," Niel said after Chunji became quiet for a moment.

"It didn't occur to me either, until my cousin got married. I started thinking about what would happen ten years from now. Will we still be together? I mean I know we can't get married in Korea but... I just realized that one day, I'm going to want get settled down. Get married. Have a family. And because I love Byunghun, I like picturing that he'd be the one I'll settle down with. And it hurts to think that it won't really come true like how I envision it. I mean... it can't. There's no way that it can."

That got Niel thinking. What if he and C.A.P broke up? What if Chunji was right? He didn't know what else to say because all of a sudden, he too was confused. So much for trying to convince Chunji to forgive LJoe. Niel didn't know what to do next.

Chunji sighed, convinced that he was right after all, before he left the younger member, who was shocked into silence, alone in the table.

Then, C.A.P and LJoe came back inside to eat their lunch and the cameras begin rolling for the final parts of the day's shoot not too soon after that.