First of all, I want to thank JyinNa for making this poster! I was reaaaally happy to see that someone got interested enough in my story to make something like this! It's the first time for one of my stories, so thank you so much! :D

Now, on to the story! \o/ I couldn't wait until tomorrow to post it! ><'

Green: the color of balance, growth and self-reliance.

Sungjong was in town once again. However, this time, he hadn’t contacted Sunggyu to ask him if he could stay over – it would be a surprise. His brother had been more distant these days and he was pretty sure it had something to do with his handsome barman. He had tried to call Sunggyu a few times, but the latter always seemed to be busy and didn’t have time to talk with him – which was already weird enough. So Sungjong had tried with Hoya and Dongwoo, but the couple was being stubborn and said he had to come and see for himself, because he wouldn’t believe them. That last part was probably the one that scared Sungjong the most.

So there he was, on a Friday night, in front of the bar he had visited once before. He was supposed to meet the stupid couple outside, but the evening was kind of cold and Sungjong wanted to see his brother as fast as possible. He sent a text to Dongwoo, saying that he would meet them inside. Then, he entered the bar and immediately looked over at the wooden counter, but his brother didn’t seem to be there. He looked around and realized that the place was way more crowded than the first time he came, probably because of the music, which was actually pretty good. Sungjong made his way through the crowd, scanning the faces to find his brother. He was starting to wonder if the stupid couple had lied to him – they guaranteed him that Sunggyu would be there – when his eyes fell on the man on the stage. It took Sungjong’s brain at least ten seconds to process the information.

Sunggyu was there, singing on a stage, with a guitar and flaming red hair.

Sungjong was looking at him, with eyes and mouth wide open. He was pretty sure the man on the stage in front of him was his brother, but he felt like he didn’t know him all of a sudden. He didn’t know how long he stayed there before he felt an arm swing around his shoulders. He snapped out of his daydream and turned around. Dongwoo and Hoya. He had forgotten about them. They scanned the younger’s face and laughed at his shocked expression.

“Told you we should’ve met outside!” Hoya was the one to speak, because Dongwoo was, as usual, too busy laughing his off. Sungjong, on the other hand, was trying to make out words out of the mess that was rumbling through his mind at the moment. He had so many questions that he didn’t know where to start. So, he started with an easy one.

He pointed at the man on the stage. “Is that Sunggyu?” You know, just to make sure. Dongwoo laughed even louder – if that was possible – and his boyfriend joined him. Sungjong had to wait for them to stop laughing and to give him an answer. That took a while. But, as he saw that the man was actually waiting for an answer, Hoya finally said: “Yep, that’s your brother right there.”

“And… what happened?” For once, Dongwoo didn’t start laughing, but just chuckled before answering, which was a huge improvement.

“Don’t say that like it was something awful! He’s finally acting like a human being! I don’t really have all the details. Well, I have some, but I can’t tell you, you’ll have to ask him yourself! But one day, Sunggyu called me to go to the hairdresser, and I got as shocked as you…”

~ Flashback ~

Even though it was late Monday morning, Dongwoo was laying in his bed, enjoying the warmth of the covers. Today, his students were going on a trip to the sea with some other teachers and he was really happy not to be part of these teachers. Even though he really loved his students – his little angels, as he called them – he was happy to have a day off. However, when he heard his ringtone, he frowned. Nobody was allowed to bother him on a day off. Except if it was Hoya, but he knew very well that his boyfriend was at work at this hour. He reached for the noisy object and looked at the name on the screen: Sunggyu. He didn’t know if he should be surprised: his friend was changing so much lately that he didn’t know what to expect anymore.

“Yes? Sunggyu, how are you?”

“Great, actually. You?”

Dongwoo smiled. It was rare for Sunggyu to say that he was ‘great’. He was always ‘okay’, ‘not bad’, or ‘good’ on rare occasions, but never ‘great’. “Great as well! But aren’t you going to be in trouble if you call me at work?”

“I’m not at work right now. You have a day off, right? Wanna go to the hairdresser with me?”

“Yeah. You have a day off too? That’s great! Of course, I’m coming with you!”

“I’ll come by in an hour, ok? Since I bet you’re still in bed…”

As soon as he hung up, Dongwoo ran to the bathroom to take a shower. He could have just walked, because an hour was more than enough to get ready, but he was Jang Dongwoo and Jang Dongwoo is always hyper about everything. And he realized Sunggyu was the second person who could bother him on a day off – he had never known, since his friend would have never asked to go anywhere with him before.

When he walked out of his apartment, the first thing he saw was a smiling Sunggyu and that only made Dongwoo more hyper. And for once, Sunggyu just let him be. Dongwoo really liked how his friend kept smiling more and more as the days passed by. He should really thank that Woohyun guy. He really wanted to ask his friend about him and about their date, but the hair salon was really close and he guessed the man wouldn’t be comfortable talking about the subject with other people around, so he kept that for later.

They entered the hair salon which was almost empty, as expected for a Monday. Dongwoo knew one of the girls very well and told her he wanted his usual color – a color in between dark gray and blue. What he hadn’t expected though, was for Sunggyu to say he wanted to dye his hair red. He turned to his friend in surprise.

“W-what?”

The other just shrugged, like what he had said was very normal. “That’s why I needed you. You choose the tone of red you prefer, ok?”

Dongwoo just kept staring at him, only waking up when the man slapped the back of his head. “You… Are you sure? I mean, you know, red is… kind of a flashy color.”

Sunggyu just shrugged again and Dongwoo started to panic. His friend had always been the reasonable one, not him! If Sunggyu was starting to behave unreasonably, they were doomed! And what was he supposed to say to make him change his mind? “But… is it okay with your work? I mean, won’t your boss be mad or something?”

Sunggyu laughed. “Believe me, that won’t be a problem!” When Dongwoo shot him a questioning glance, he answered: “I don’t have a boss anymore.”

That’s when Dongwoo really panicked, immediately imagining his friend committing murder.

~ End of flashback ~

His story was interrupted by said boss, who was, obviously, not dead.

“Seriously, how many times have you told that story already? Aren’t you tired of imagining me dead? Who are you telling it to this ti-” He then saw Sungjong. “Oh. Hi.” An awkward silence followed. Myungsoo looked at Sungjong, then at Sungyeol, who was looking at his feet. Dongwoo and Hoya looked at each other, not understanding the situation at all. Sungjong laughed and extended his hand in front of him, waiting for Myungsoo to shake it.

“You’re Myungsoo, right? Look, I’m sorry about… what happened last time. Let’s just forget about it, ok?” He shot him his most beautiful smile and the other man finally shook his hand, after hesitating for a few seconds.

“What happened? What happened?!” Everyone turned to look at Dongwoo, who immediately shut up when Sungyeol elbowed him. Hard enough to make his point, but not too hard, because he didn’t want to die from Hoya’s hand.

Silence returned, so Sungjong decided to go on with their earlier conversation about Sunggyu.

“So, you were saying Sunggyu didn’t have a job anymore… What happened?”

Myungsoo was the one to answer this time.

~ Flashback ~

Myungsoo made his way to his office, greeting some co-workers on the way. Of course, he stopped by his boyfriend’s cubicle and, after looking around to see if anybody was looking at them, dropped a kiss on his forehead. It was going to be a good day.

He went to his office, leaving the door open, sat on his chair and switched his computer on. Just as his fingers were about to touch his keyboard, someone entered the room, making him stop his movement. He looked up and was surprised to see Sunggyu close the door behind him. The man rarely came to his office. Actually, he couldn’t remember a single time when he had without being asked to. And nobody ever closed that door, except himself.

“Sunggyu, how are you? You have something you want to talk about?”

“I’m good. And it’s not really something I want to talk about…” He stopped in front of his boss’ desk and dropped and envelope in front of him. Myungsoo looked down: Letter of resignation. He quickly looked up, looking at the other in surprise.

“Wait… What? Sunggyu, are you sure?”

Sunggyu’s only answer was to nod and smile before leaving him alone and dumbfounded in his office. Myungsoo couldn’t help but think that he had never seen Sunggyu smile like that. However, he was woken up from his thoughts when he heard a resounding ‘WHAT THE HELL?! Are you abandoning me?!’ He got up to go calm his boyfriend.

~ End of flashback ~

Sungjong looked at Myungsoo with wide eyes. “He… resigned?”

“I was as surprised as you, really. I always thought he liked his job. But in the letter, he mentioned wanting to do something more, something he loved.”

Next to them, Dongwoo was having problems staying in place. They agreed to go search for a table where they could all sit and order something to drink – they were in a bar, after all. All this time, Sungjong was throwing glances at the man on the stage, whom he still couldn’t believe was his introverted older brother. Nothing matched. The red hair, the ripped jeans, the confidence. Did his brother suddenly develop a split personality or something?

The five men found a little round table with high stools and decided to stay there. Sungjong and Dongwoo said they were going to go order the drinks, but nobody bothered to say what they wanted. When Sungjong asked Dongwoo on their way to the counter, his friend simply said that Woohyun had decided to establish the Colorful days: every Friday was another color, and one cocktail would be really cheap. In other terms, he was doing the same system than the one he had done with Sunggyu.

As soon as they arrived in front of the counter, Woohyun came to them with a bright smile on his face. “Sungjong! I haven’t seen you in a long time! How are you? Does Sunggyu know you’re here?”

“Hi! I’m fine. And no, he doesn’t know, I wanted it to be a surprise… but I guess I’m the surprised one.”

A spark of amusement ran through Woohyun’s eyes. “You didn’t know, right? How he changed I mean.”

Sungjong shook his head. “He hasn’t talked to me much these days…”

~ Flashback ~

It had been a week. A week since Woohyun had taken Sunggyu to the beach, then brought him to his apartment. A week since they had spent the whole night and day together, then shared that bittersweet kiss in front of Sunggyu’s apartment. He knew there was something weird going on with his… friend? Boyfriend? He didn’t even know. But he understood that it was something the other needed to sort out alone.

Alone. Woohyun had no way to know if Sunggyu was going to come back to him after sorting out whatever was on his mind. He couldn’t help but be afraid of maybe never seeing him, hugging him or kissing him again. He didn’t know how or why, but there was something that had immediately attracted him to Sunggyu and he started to need seeing him more and more over such a short period of time.

He was dying to call him, but knew it wasn’t a good idea. So there he was, lying on his couch, pretending to watch a stupid drama. Then, he heard his doorbell. He got up, wondering who it could be.

He wasn’t expecting to open the door to an awfully y Sunggyu with red hair. He rubbed his eyes and looked at the man again, making sure it wasn’t all an illusion. But Sunggyu was indeed in front of him, a smile on his face and a guitar case in his hand. He was obviously waiting for Woohyun to say something, but the latter couldn’t seem to find his voice back. So Sunggyu just chuckled, stepped closer to the man, placed a hand on his cheek and a kiss on his lips.

“Hello to you too.” There was an amused tone in his voice and only then did Woohyun come back to reality, feeling anger making its way into his brain. He pulled Sunggyu in, then closed the door quite violently.

“Yah! How can you come back like this?! You didn’t call me for a whole week, not even a text, nothing!” He knew he was acting like an over-protective boyfriend, even if they were not officially going out or anything. And he sounded like a whiny kid just now. But he didn’t care. He really liked Sunggyu and he had really wanted to see him this past week.

Of course, Sunggyu understood all that the second he looked in his eyes, so he just hugged the man and laughed more. Woohyun realized that he had never heard that kind of laugh from Sunggyu. The kind of free, light laugh that you can’t seem to control. “I’m sorry, okay? I had to… change a few things in my life.”

“It doesn’t take a week to change a hair color.” He was trying really hard to be mad, but it wasn’t exactly working. And there was Sunggyu’s laugh again. God, that laugh was beautiful.

“I changed a few other things as well. I’ll tell you everything, okay?”

Woohyun just nodded and they headed to the couch. The barman made some tea – because he could make non-alcoholic drinks after all – and they talked for hours. Sunggyu explained to him how he had not only dyed his hair, but also quit his job and started to compose songs again, because he felt like that was what he truly wanted to do. That was why he had come to Woohyun’s apartment with his guitar: he wanted him to hear his songs. It only took a few chords and lines to make Woohyun totally frozen on the couch. He had no idea a human being could sing like this, with all of his heart and all of his feelings pouring out for the public – only him at that time – to see. He had to fight not to hug the man and to let him finish the song. He played a second song, then a third one, and Woohyun was still as mesmerized.

~ End of flashback ~

“Seriously, you should stop talking about me like that. I’m not half as amazing as you say.” Sungjong jumped at the familiar voice and looked to his right, where his brother was smiling at him, his elbow on the counter. “Sungjongie, I didn’t know you were coming. It’s great to see you!” He shot him that kind of huge, warm smile that made his eyes almost completely disappear. Sungjong would have normally mocked him for that, if there wasn’t a layer of black eyeliner on these two crescents. Another thing he had never seen on his brother. He didn’t answer anything.

“Come on, don’t look at me like I’m some kind of monster or something!” With that, he took Sungjong in his arms, holding him closely and ruffling in his hair. There, in his brother’s embrace, Sungjong felt all the tension of his body leave at once: it was still Sunggyu’s smell. He snuggled closer to the familiar warmth and heard his brother chuckle.

“I’m just looking at you like this because you’re a bad brother! I can’t believe you changed so many things in your life without telling me anything!” Then he pulled away a little to point a finger in Woohyun’s direction. “I didn’t even know you had a boyfriend! You said I would be the first to knoooow!” Okay, now he was definitely sulking like a child. Sunggyu always found funny how his brother could sometimes prove himself to be more mature than him – above all when it concerned social communication –, but could act like a little kid the minute after. He rolled his eyes.

“Yah! Stop acting like a three-years-old!” He stopped to pat his baby brother’s head. “I had kind of a lot to deal with these days. Sorry I didn’t tell you everything.” He smiled an apologetic smile and knew he was immediately forgiven. He looked around. “By the way, you came alone?”

It was now Sungjong’s turn to look around. Dongwoo had already fled with the drinks Woohyun prepared while telling his bit of the story and was back at their table at the other end of the bar, laughing with the others. There wasn’t even a glass left on the counter: Dongwoo had stolen them all. Sunggyu laughed at the expression on his brother’s face. “Don’t worry, I’ll make you one!”

A few seconds later, he was on the other side of the counter, pouring liquids from different bottles and crushed ice into a shaker, like he had done it all his life. After a minute, he proudly dropped a yellow drink – that night’s color – in front of Sungjong. After a moment of silence, he sighed.

“Are you seriously going to look at me like that every time I do something?”

Sungjong took a sip of his drink – which was way better than what he was expecting from his brother – before answering. “It’s not like I’ve seen you make a lot of cocktails in my twenty years of life!”

“Well, you’d better get used to it now, because I’m working here!”

“Working here? You mean, as a barman, not just as a rock star?”

Sunggyu stuck his tongue out at the ironic tone of his brother. “Yep, as a barman. It was kind of hard at first, you know, to memorize all the cocktails. I mean, I can’t even say if I get the color right at the end. But I like it.” He smiled once again at Sungjong before going to prepare drinks for the other customers, who were concentrated near the counter now that the small concert was over.

Sungjong stayed alone at the counter for a couple of minutes, watching his brother make drinks happily and smile brightly to everyone. Maybe Sunggyu had changed and Sungjong was insecure, because he didn’t want their relationship to change, but he was sure that it was for the best. He laughed to himself – earning weird glances from the persons near him – when he saw a group of girls trying to flirt with Sunggyu, who didn’t seem to understand the situation at all, and Woohyun gritting his teeth. He snapped his fingers in front of Woohyun’s face to make him come back to reality.

“Can you make me another drink? And make Sunggyu pay for it, okay?” Woohyun chuckled and was about to retort something, when another person spoke, from behind Sungjong.

“Me too, me too!” Sungjong turned around to see a man he didn’t know.

“Yah, Kibum! You’re not drinking off of someone else’s money again tonight!”

Sungjong raised an eyebrow at the sight of the man pouting while taking a seat next to him at pointing an accusatory finger at him. “Why can he then?!”

“Because he’s his brother and I don’t want to get involved in their family business!” Now was Kibum’s turn to look at Sungjong with a surprised look on his face.

“He’s Sunggyu’s brother?! Like, seriously? How can Sunggyu have such a beautiful brother?!” Sungjong started laughing, while Woohyun was telling his friends things like ‘Yah! What do you mean, you idiot?!’. As if it weren’t enough, Sunggyu came at that moment and shot a fake angry look at Kibum, telling him that he heard that, before starting to laugh along with his brother and going back to serve other customers.

* * *

A couple of hours later, the bar was still as crowded, as expected for a Friday night. Sunggyu had just brought another round of yellow drinks to the table where his friends – now with Sungjong and Kibum – were drinking, talking and laughing loudly, when a girl “accidently” stumbled and bumped into him, and he had to catch her so that she won’t fall. He heard her friends, who had quite obviously pushed her onto him, giggle really loud. But he didn’t pay any attention to them and asked her if she was okay, with his best innocent smile. In response, she just blushed and nodded before going back to her friends. Before he could head back to the counter, he heard Sungyeol calling him.

“Sunggyu, don’t you realize that they’re trying to flirt with you?” He chuckled. “You shouldn’t be so nice to them, or Woohyun will get mad!”

Sunggyu’s reaction made everyone look at him in awe once again. He smirked and winked at his friend. “Of course I know that. But making Woohyun jealous is just too funny.” With that, everyone looked over at the counter on the other side of the bar and laughed at said man’s dark expression. He looked back at his friends. “Come on, did you all think I was that clueless?” He sighed at the sea of nodding heads in front of him. He focused on his brother and Kibum, who were sitting next to each other. “I can see when someone’s flirting. And Kibum, get you hand off of my brother’s thigh. You’re not getting into his pants as long as I live!” He threw a threatening glare at the culprit – who was now blushing – and went back to Woohyun, with a smile on his lips.

Woohyun spent the rest of the night mumbling to himself and purposely avoiding his boyfriend. When their friends went back – Sunggyu warned Kibum that if he entered his apartment with his brother, he was dead – and the bar was finally empty, Sunggyu went to make a last drink. He went to his boyfriend, who hadn’t looked at him for hours and was pouting while cleaning the counter, leaned on his back and dropped the glass in front of him and his chin on the broad shoulder.

“What’s that?”

“And I’m the one who can’t see colors. It’s a green drink.”

Woohyun grimaced at the ironic tone his boyfriend had just used. “I shouldn’t have taught you how to make drinks of different colors, it seems to make you arrogant.”

Sunggyu chuckled in response. “Do you know what green is for?”

His boyfriend let out an annoyed sight. “Isn’t it like growth or something?”

“That’s the positive meaning, yes. The negative one is possessiveness.” Sunggyu leaned closer to Woohyun’s ear. “You jealous person.”

Woohyun turned around to face a smirking Sunggyu. “You! You were doing it on purpose all this time?!”

This time, the red-haired man laughed out loud. “You should’ve seen your face every time I smiled at one of those girls, it was priceless!”

Woohyun blushed really hard and started to hit the man in front of him, who was still laughing. Sunggyu had to hold his stomach, unable to control his laugher at the sight of a pouting, angry Woohyun hitting him like a child. He only stopped when he felt his boyfriend hugging him and mumbling something about ‘not being funny’. He chuckled one last time before passing his arms around the other’s waist, pulling him closer. “Sorry, sorry. You were just too funny and cute. You shouldn’t be so worked up by this. You know I love you.” When he didn’t hear any answer from the barman, he moved the other’s chin up to connect their eyes. “Right?”

Woohyun looked at him for a second, smiled and finally answered. “Of course.”

Sunggyu pressed his lips against Woohyun’s smiling ones in a sweet kiss that quickly turned more passionate. When they separated to take their breath, Woohyun whispered: “You really should’ve told Kibum to go to your apartment with Sungjong. We would have mine just for us now.”

Sunggyu smirked that way that made Woohyun’s heart beat like crazy and whispered in his ear: “Your apartment seems really far away right now.” A fraction of second later, he was kissing his boyfriend again with too much passion for Woohyun to handle, pushing him against the counter.

Aaaand that was the last chapter everyone! :D *proud* I really really hope you liked it! This is the longest story I've ever written, even if it's not that much (about 26 000 words in total).

Honestly, I'm sooo grateful for your support, because I don't think I could've found the time and the energy to finish this story without all your nice comments! :) Don't forget to leave a last comment (ooohh that makes me sad to say 'last comment' xD)! Thank you so much, I love you all! <3