To be honest, I hadn’t really thought things through when I decided to learn more about Hongbin. I was majoring in social sciences, not criminal investigation after all, and after asking Ilhoon and Sungjae about Hongbin, it hadn’t been hard for them to figure out what I was looking for. Which was why I was currently forced to sit on the coach while Ilhoon told me about how ‘he was glad that I found someone special’ and ‘make sure to use protection’ (to which I had vehemently denied that I wanted to take Hongbin to bed but was ignored). I sighed, leaning back into the couch and checking the clock to find out that Ilhoon had been lecturing me for a good twenty minutes.

          “Okay, I get it,” I said, cutting Ilhoon off before he could get into the ‘flowers and bees’ talk. “Can you just answer my question already?”

          “-that was rude. You can’t just cut people off like that,” Ilhoon sniffed, sticking his nose into the air like the diva he was. “What was your question again?”

          “What do you know about Hongbin other than the fact that he’s ‘popular, good looking, and probably rich’?” I replied, using the exact same words Ilhoon had said when I asked him before.

          “Oh, I don’t know really. All I ever hear are rumours and gossip. I told you before about his sisters and his engagement party. But that’s really all I know. He has a dysfunctional family for some reason,” Ilhoon answered, shrugging his shoulders. Rolling my eyes at his lack of help, I turned towards Sungjae who was on his phone beside me.

          “Minah noona told me once that he was gay,” Sungjae supplied, looking up. “But I think Sojin noona found out he was actually biual or something.”

          “Why do you know so many girls?” Ilhoon butted in, raising his eyebrow.

          “Irrelevant,” Sungjae dismissed Ilhoon’s question with a wave of his hand. “People are saying that his rich family background is actually a lie though. Someone said that they knew him when he was a kid and he’s actually from some sketchy orphanage. But he escaped when some assassin murdered the person that ran the place. The owner was named Grelod or some weird name like that.”

          “That is definitely a rumour,” I rolled my eyes, before standing up. “In any case I have to get my bottom to work so see you guys later.”

          “Bye!” Sungjae said, looking back at his phone.

          “At least take Hongbin on a second date before you guys do the frick frack,” Ilhoon called as I put my shoes on and opened the door.

          “I’m not going to have with him!” I screamed back, hoping that none of the neighbours had their windows open.

          “Yet,” Sungjae snickered as I closed the door. I decided that it wasn’t worth it to go back and kick Sungjae under the bed so I mentally punched Sungjae in the face before making my way to Starlight.

          “You’re welcome, have a nice day!” I said as I handed the customer her drink. The teenager mumbled something about ‘poor Chloe’ and ‘my ship’ in reply before she stumbled out of the shop. Slightly concerned for her well-being, I closed the cash register and looked around the cafe. Wonshik and Jaehwan were sitting at their regular table, playing cards in celebration (their exams had finished). Taekwoon was actually outside of the kitchen and was in the backroom, finishing some reports that Hakyeon had left incomplete. And Hakyeon, the main owner of Starlight was nowhere to be found. Deciding that it was probably easiest to start with Wonshik and Jaehwan, I mentally vowed to be more subtle with my questions before I called out to the duo.

          “Hey hyungs,” the two older men looked over at me leaning on the counter. “Where’s Hakyeon?” There, that was good. Hakyeon’s location was a casual enough topic to talk about, but there were a ton of roads I could take in order to guide the direction towards Hongbin. After all, between all of the Starlight employees, Hakyeon and Taekwoon seemed to be the closest to Hongbin.

          “I don’t know,” Wonshik replied, shrugging. He threw a card into the pile and Jaehwan moved them to the side. “Where is he ever? Does he even work? How irresponsible.”

          “This is coming from you,” Jaehwan laughed, playing a pair of cards.

          “You don’t work either,” Wonshik shoots back.

          “Yes, but I know the location of our boss,” Jaehwan said, peering at Wonshik over the cards in his hand. “Anyways, he’s off doing important business.”

          “That could honestly be anything,” I scoffed.

          “Yes, but it’s a step up from what Wonshik said,” Jaehwan defended himself.

          “Hakyeon’s never around these days,” I thought out loud. “He left halfway through my shift last time too.”

          “True enough, you know who else isn’t here a lot anymore?” Wonshik agreed, picking up a card from the deck. “Hongbin hasn’t been in for the last two weeks.”

          “Really?” I said, mentally cheering at the fact that I hadn’t had to bring up Hongbin.

          “Well, exams are still ongoing,” Jaehwan replied, tsk-ing at the card on the top of the pile before carefully placing his own card on top.

          “But second year exams ended at the start of the week,” Wonshik pointed out. “There was even a celebration party exclusively for second years, I saw Hongbin there with his friends.”

          “That’s discrimination,” I muttered, “why can’t other years go?”

          “Because second years are ,” Jaehwan grinned when Wonshik shot him a glare. “It’s true. Have you seen the people Hongbin hangs out with?”

          “They do act like s,” Wonshik agreed.

          “Not act, they are s,” Jaehwan corrected. “Jung Krystal ssi punched this other girl the other day because they were wearing the same shirt. She refused to change so Krystal ssi socked her.”

          “Oh right, I heard that Kim Jongin almost got someone arrested because they didn’t get out of his way when he was walking to his class. He framed them for a petty crime but the police released the victim after more serious investigation,” Wonshik added. The two continued to talk about the trending rumours and gossip at Haepari, causing me to sigh internally. Just when I thought my luck had improved, they turned farther and farther away from the topic I wanted to breach. And there was no way I could turn the conversation around to ask about Hongbin without looking suspicious. Having Ilhoon and Sungjae know about my feelings (even though I wasn’t one hundred percent sure I knew what those feelings were) was enough. I didn’t need a nosy Wonshik and Jaehwan knowing as well. Or Hakyeon for that matter. So that ruled out asking him, and if I asked Taekwoon then Hakyeon would probably find out sooner or later. Guess I’d just have to listen closely to the things people said in class. Hongbin was extremely popular after all; it was common for me to hear his name at least once a week. Not that I ever cared. But that was before all of this. Now I’d have to make an effort.

          Have you ever heard of the saying that if you want something you notice it a lot more? Like if you say that there are never any yellow cars, all you see are yellow cars? Well, the exact opposite happened to me. There was no talk of Hongbin for the whole week. Not even a whisper of his name. And honestly, I so frustrated I had actually considered spilling my emotions to Hakyeon. Hakyeon. The person who practically acted like my mom and the last person I wanted to talk to about Hongbin was my mom. Whether it is my real one or the stand in one who took it upon himself to make sure I was getting all my vitamins even though I was already taller than him and I was only his employee.

          Sighing, I collected my books and walked out of the lecture hall, mingling with the rest of the kids in my class. The weather was nice, a bit chilly for the summer time, but I had the day off so I was planning on sitting underneath a tree and studying for my final exam. Sure, second years had finished all their exams, but for first years, our exam periods were longer so we could get used to the new university testing procedure so I had one last exam next week.

          I walked into the sunshine and chose a far off tree, right near the edge of the grass, and sat down with a sigh of relief. Leaning back, I closed my eyes and tried to avoid looking at the pile of notes inside my bag. The last thing I wanted to do was study (even though the whole reason I had sat here was to do exactly that) so I decided to take a short rest.

          “Hey,” a voice said, causing me to groan internally. The universe never seemed to agree with my decisions. Opening my eyes, I practically cursed (but I stopped just in time because my mother raised me to be a well-mannered young man) at the person in front of me. Chansik stared down at me with tired yet determined eyes. I immediately sat up and grabbed my bag for some kind of protection.

          “What do you want?” I asked hostilely. I wasn’t one to be rude but Chansik had done nothing to make me pity or emphasize with him. My first impression of him wasn’t the greatest and his actions from that point onwards tarnished his image even more.

          “I heard you were asking people about Hongbin,” Chansik replied curtly.

          “What’s it to you?” I snapped. Okay, maybe that wasn’t the best comeback, but one; I didn’t think I was being that obvious with my investigation, and two, all this guy ever talked about was Hongbin. You’d think he was an obsessive stalker or something.

          “Hongbin’s my fiancé,” Chansik answered. “His affairs are my affairs, especially when they involve some kid snooping into his background.”

          “First of all,” I clenched my fists together, “Hongbin isn’t marrying you. He didn’t say yes and you can’t force him to marry you. He’s his own person and he has his own rights. Second, this isn’t his affair. It’s mine.”

          “You’re looking into him, it’s my responsibility to know about those who are interested in my love,” Chansik spat back.

          “You’re acting as if he’s an object!” I exclaimed, standing up. “You don’t own him, he can choose who he hangs with and there’s nothing wrong with me wanting to know more about him!”

          “Enough, you’re too loud,” Chansik hushed, looking from side to side. There were a couple other students lying in the grass but most of them were listening to music or talking to each other so no one was really paying attention. That didn’t stop the panicked look in Chansik’s eyes or the paranoid glances he kept sending the people around us. “Come with me,” Chansik ordered and before I could refuse, he grabbed my wrist and pulled me towards whatever place he was taking me too. Luckily, I held onto my bag so I didn’t have to awkwardly stop and reach down for anything.

          “What,” I stated dumbly, staring up at the restaurant Chansik had taken me. We had walked for 10 minutes in awkward silence (although he had finally released me from his iron grip) until we finally arrived at an extremely high end cafe/restaurant (I wasn’t really sure what to label it as).

          “Come on,” Chansik motioned for me to follow him and I meekly walked behind him as he easily sat down near the back of the restaurant. The entire place was way out of my league and I would be lying if I didn’t feel awkward with all the waiters watching us carefully, attuned to our every move in order to swoop in the moment we needed help.

          “Why did you take me here?” I asked carefully after a professional looking waitress came and placed two glasses of water and menus on the table.

          “This is one of Hongbin’s favourite restaurants,” Chansik replied simply, eyes lazily glancing over the menu. “You said you wanted to learn more about him and it’s better if I tell you what really happened rather than you listening to rumours.”

          “Oh,” I replied, eyes widening at the ridiculously expensive prices on the menu.

          “I’m paying, don’t worry,” Chansik rolled his eyes at my expression, chuckling when I shot him a glare. “Do you want me to order for you too?” he asked when I gave up on trying to figure out what the dishes even were.

          “Sure,” I gave up acting as if I knew what I was doing. This was obviously Chansik’s domain and if I was going to get free food and information on Hongbin’s background then who was I to complain?

          “Okay,” Chansik started as the food arrived shortly after he ordered. He thanked the waiter and turned to me seriously. “I’m going to start off with how I met Hongbin. I was maybe, five or six? Young, that’s for sure. My family was going on vacation but I couldn’t go because I didn’t get the right shots. My mom and Hongbin’s mom were good friends so they decided that I should stay with the Lee family for the two weeks my own family was going on vacation.”

          I nodded, listening to Chansik’s story while we both began to dig into our own meals.

          “I was shy; anyone would if they were suddenly brought to this strange house. I didn’t know anyone and I had only met Mrs. Lee a few times. The first few days were terrible. I was scared, lonely, and I went hungry because I was too afraid to talk to the people at the house. But then, Hongbin came. It’s kind of cliché to say that he saved me because I would’ve survived without his help, but he was the first one to approach me. Smiling with his dimples and asking if I wanted a snack. Ever since then, we had been inseparable. Best friends I guess you could say.

          Of course, I always wanted to be something more. I knew ever since middle school when I saw Hongbin with this other girl. I got mad but I disguised it as jealousy over losing a good friend. Mrs. Lee noticed though, and she and my mom came up with the great idea of having us marry. It was weird for sure, South Korea doesn’t exactly idolize same relationships, but I was happy. Finally I could have Hongbin to myself, and I could protect him from his actions. Hongbin’s smart, he’s the top of his class, but he doesn’t have very good foresight. He does things without thinking about the consequences and they hurt him.

          When we were kids he’d always get in trouble because he spoke without thinking and acted against his parent’s wishes. I never really understood why he did that, why he couldn’t just think before doing things, he was too impulsive. But I loved him, I still do, and I want to help him. You understand don’t you? I want to wrap him in my arms and keep him safe from the world. Even now, he doesn’t understand my intentions. He’s my best friend, we both agreed that we’d be completely different people if we hadn’t been friends, and he’s told me multiple times before that he values my friendships, but he doesn’t recognize my love.

          He thinks that I’m just going along with what the adults say. Thinks that I’m only doing this because I don’t want to upset my mother. But I’m not. I love him and I’m doing this for his sake. He was hurt multiple times before, in the past, and he’s still hurting now. He ran away from home, you know that, and he’s been hurting ever since. I can see it in his eyes, in the way he carries himself, in the way his smile doesn’t fully reach his eyes anymore. You won’t notice it, no; you haven’t known him long enough. You don’t know about his quirks, his tendencies, and there’s no way you’ll accept him. I’ve told him this before, that I’m the only one who will fully understand him and love him the way he is, but he’s ignorant.

          He doesn’t agree with my views and worse, he thinks he’s fine. There’s obviously something he’s missing. I don’t want to say that he’s broken, but he’s definitely not perfect. That’s okay though; I’ll take care of him, fix him, and make him perfect. After all, are humans ever really perfect? I think falling in love makes them perfect. So they can meet a partner who will make up for their faults. You see now, don’t you? That the only person who can help Hongbin is me. That’s why I’m asking you to avoid him. Don’t interfere with our relationship anymore, you’re confusing him,” Chansik paused, drinking some of his water.

          I stared at him in silence, we had finished our meals a long time ago but I still couldn’t believe the words coming out of his mouth. He was treating Hongbin like some broken toy, something that he had to fix by himself. But Hongbin wasn’t an object, he was a person and contrary to what Chansik thought, the only person who could help Hongbin was himself. I gritted my teeth, strengthening my resolve and began to study Chansik closely. I wanted to tell him that I would never leave Hongbin alone, especially if he was going to end up with someone like Chansik, but from what I experienced, that would only make things worse. Chansik obviously had some possession issues, and if I told him that I wasn’t going to let him have what he wanted, Chansik would only strengthen his hold on Hongbin. The only thing I could do was to lie, hide my pride and agree to leave Hongbin alone. Although my intentions couldn’t be farther off.

          “Do you think you can take good care of him though?” I asked carefully as Chansik paid the bill (and tried to ignore the massive amount of bills he had in his wallet). We walked out of the restaurant and I noticed that it was now nearing dusk.

          “Of course,” Chansik sniffed, sticking his nose in the air comically. I resisted the urge to laugh (to no avail, but I covered it up with a cough). “So you’ll leave him alone?”

          “...if it’s for his own good,” I replied simply, deliberately leaving my answer open ended. Chansik would take it as a yes, he’d obviously think that whatever he was doing was going to help Hongbin, but to me it was a no. I didn’t think, for a single second, that Chansik had a positive effect on Hongbin. Sure, they were good friends, but I felt like if they became lovers... things would not turn out well.

          “Good, then things are settled,” with that Chansik walked away without another word. Not like I wanted him to stay but I was kind of in an unknown part of the city and I wasn’t completely sure how to get home. By the time this processed through my head however, Chansik had turned the corner and was long gone.

          “,” I cursed, spinning around in a circle, trying to figure out which way we came from. I vaguely remember us passing by some kind of hairdressing shop and to the right of the restaurant looked like a commercial district so I tried my luck there.

          “I am so screwed,” I muttered to myself, passing by the same movie theatre for the nth time. “Where am I even going,” looking up at the sky, I sighed as I noticed that the sun was starting to set. I was still lugging my backpack so my back was aching from the weight of my textbooks and my legs were tired beyond imagination. I had been walked for at least an hour now with still no idea where I was. With tears in my eyes (I’m joking, I wasn’t actually crying, okay, maybe a little, but not a lot), I pulled my phone out of my pocket to call someone to save me when it started to ring in my hand.

          “H-hello?” I accepted the call without looking at the contact ID (good one right?). There was a cough on the other end (not surprising, I probably sounded extremely startled and probably a little scared) before the caller cleared its throat.

          “Hyuk?” a male voice asked carefully from the other end. I almost sighed in relief at the sound.

          “Yeah? What’s up Hongbin?” I replied excitedly. There had been no contact from Hongbin for quite a while now so I was pretty happy that I got to talk to him. Plus, he called me first so I didn’t end up looking like some desperate high school girl.

          “...are, are you free right now? I want to talk to you about something,” Hongbin inquired haltingly. He seemed nervous about something.

          “Uh, yeah, but, I’m not really sure where I am,” I answered sheepishly, rubbing the back of neck in embarrassment.

          “What do you mean?” Hongbin laughed (although it sounded a little forced).

          “Well,” I started, not sure if I should tell Hongbin about my encounter with Chansik. “I was at this restaurant and I’m not sure how to get home from here.”

          “What restaurant?” Hongbin asked suspiciously.

          “B1A4,” I gave in, there was no hiding the fact anymore, not if I wanted to get home. “Chansik took me there.”

          “Chansik did?” Hongbin inhaled sharply. “I need to talk to you then, now. Meet me at your special place; it’s close to B1-, to..., to the restaurant.”

          “O-okay,” I stuttered, confused at Hongbin’s uneasiness. Following his instructions over the phone, I quickly made my way into more familiar territory. Hanging up, I walked over to where the glade was and spotted Hongbin sitting on the grass.

          “Hyuk!” he exclaimed when he noticed me standing at the edge of the glade. He gets up in anticipation as I slowly walk towards him. “Are you okay?”

          “Why wouldn’t I be okay?” I asked cautiously, studying Hongbin’s panicked expression. He was trying to hide it, but almost anyone could tell that he was overly anxious and extremely worried.

          “Well, cause, because you were with Chansik! He’s a good person but he, he can get a little too, too overdramatic I guess,” Hongbin spluttered, eyes widening as he tried to find the right words to voice his thoughts.

          “It’s okay though, I’m fine,” I said confidently, trying to calm Hongbin down. “Why did you ask me to come out here?”

          “Oh right,” Hongbin settled down (not a lot, but anything was better than nothing) and composed himself before speaking. “I, I heard that you were asking around about me?”

          “I was,” I admitted, sighing in my head. Was I really that obvious? It was amazing really, I had only started investigating Hongbin for a couple days now and all the key people already knew what was up.

          “And, I guess that’s why Chansik was looking for you?” Hongbin continued, raising an eyebrow at me. I nodded. “Well, Hyuk, I’m kind of hurt. Why wouldn’t you come to me and ask? Instead you went around, snooping into my business, and listening to rumours.”

          “Well,” I tried, avoiding Hongbin’s eyes. “You never really shared anything with me so I thought if I asked you’d just brush me off and I wouldn’t get to learn anything.”

          “I would never do that!” Hongbin exclaimed. “Hyuk, you’re important to me, I’d never just ‘brush you off’. If you really want to know... I’ll tell you. It’s going to be kind of rough though because I haven’t told anyone else other than Hakyeon hyung, Taekwoon hyung, and Chansik but Chansik doesn’t really count because he was with me through almost all of it.”

          “Really?” I said, surprised that Hongbin was so willing to share his story with me. It was what I was looking for but it felt a little weird, almost like it was too easy. Which was stupid because really, the first thing I probably should’ve done was talk to Hongbin about it. I always lectured others about avoiding confrontations yet that was exactly what I had done.

          “Yeah, it’s fine. All you had to do was ask Hyuk,” Hongbin smiled weakly and began his story.

WOW. CUT RIGHT THERE. AHA. CLIFFHANGER NOT REALLY. *coughs* I’m sorry about not updating. Whoops. It was summer too so I had nothing to do yet I didn’t write... Well I wrote but not this story. I updated my other fics and wrote a bunch of oneshots (and kind of, you know, started a whole other blog on Tumblr) but I never got around to doing this. Now school is starting soon (September 8) so updates are going to be slow once again. I apologize greatly. And I can hear you, my editor, shouting in the distance about ‘I told you so!’ and ‘I tried to get you to write faster!’ Yes, yes, I’m sorry.

Anyways, ’s about to hit the fan. Well, kind of. We’re going to delve into Hongbin’s back story in the next chapter (finally!) and stuff. I tried to make Chansik’s character a little more positive in this chapter but he ended up as a possessive yandere. O.o I didn’t mean for that to happen it just came out that way. Sorry to any B1A4 fans I don’t really know them. *bows* Also, Hyukkie said that learning about Hongbin’s past was ‘too easy’. Muahaha, yes, yes it was too easy. That’s why some bad things might just happen in the future. But then again, who knows? *evil smirk*

By the way VIXX LR won on The Show and my heart, Hongbin was so cute at the ending ahhh. <3 And did you see the V Naver thing where Hyuk got into the fansign oh my goodness how cute was he I can’t my baby. TT^TT I don’t care if you’re older than me I love you so much still ughh. In other kpop news, I recently got into Seventeen and started an oneshot collection (where you guys can request things) so if you like them too please check it out! (Shameless advertising right there that’s what that was)

Also if any of you get the two references I slipped in there good for you aha. Skyrim is a fun game but dungeons are extremely stressful and I don’t play Life is Strange but my friends do so I practically know all about it (the girl who walked into the shop muttering about Chloe is actually based on my friend).

Once again, thanks for reading and I do not own anything in this story other than the idea and plot, any similarities to other works of fiction are purely coincidental or have been used as sources of inspiration. Please do not repost this anywhere without my permission; plagiarism isn’t nice!

Hope you’re smiling!

~ Alateni

PS: Thanks to thatiskkaebsong, Saphirfrost, Eiqaenigma96, and jamietheawkward for upvoting!!