One year later...

 

“Push up your glasses, they’re falling.”

 

Jiyong’s hand reached up to Seunghyun’s nose and slid the rim of glasses up to his eyes, standing on slight tip-toes to brush away a stubborn strand of dyed-bronze hair before smirking and ruffling the entire thing.

 

“Cut it!” Seunghyun snapped, grabbing Jiyong’s wrists with both hands when his brand new bookbag fell to the ground, next to the gates of the university. “You’re infuriating. As always. I thought you just wanted to see me off before you left. Are you trying to start a fight just hours away from your vacation?”

 

“Hey, I didn’t ask for any time off. Captain, that son of a .”

 

“Your last mission didn’t go so well, I understand his reasons.” Seunghyun gazed around the newcomers that were passing by to get to the gates, giving a less-than-subtle laugh to hide away Jiyong’s words that were getting close to audible.

 

“It wasn’t my fault that the bastard didn’t die, I thought I hit him hard enough.” Quickly, Seunghyun grabbed Jiyong in a headlock that appeared playful to others, yet was layered with a warning of immeasurable depth.

 

“Get any louder, will you? You’ll blow my mission before I step near the target.”

 

Jiyong swiftly slid away from the grip, nimbly sidestepping the next one with a wicked smile. “Right, right. Excited to charm your way into another’s man’s heart again? Your skills are disgustingly admirable.” He huffed, twitching his nose is small irritance. “Who is the guy anyway? Another heir to a corporate throne?”

 

Seunghyun winked. “Classified. Have fun in Jongno.” He paused. “Weren’t you born there?”

 

Watching his expression turn from aloof haughtiness to blank indifference in the matter of a heartbeat, Seunghyun stood limply as Jiyong reached up with hesitance, as if debating a kiss, before turning away with a sharp sigh.

 

“Who gives a ,” Jiyong mumbled, half to himself.

 

Seunghyun watched the back of his hunched figure until the car door slammed behind him and it was driving away down the stone-paved road.

 

“Moody bastard,” he mused to himself, pushing up the fake glasses and wiping away the nonexistent sweat from his brows, brushing back his hair with eyes widening in surprise to the newly colored hair. An unnecessary disguise, he had complained to the higher-ups. The glasses will do, my face looks young enough as it is.

 

I don’t know, I think  you should keep it, Jiyong’s voice had interrupted. You look y.

 

There was no more discussion after that. The stench of bleach still burned his nose, the cool liquid of the dye oozing between his roots, Jiyong watching from the back with his shoulder against the frame of the bathroom and his arms crossed over his chest, one hand twirling a pocket knife with a mused smile carved into his lips.

 

Very y.

 

Choi Seunghyun wrinkled his nose, wiping his face of the blase look and replacing it with a shy twitch of his lips, waving to a passing couple who gave no attention.

 

A black, long car drove up in front of him, an old man dressed in a chauffeur's cap and uniform emerging from the front seat, rounding about to the very back of the car and opening the door where a youthful face strided out, patting the man on his back with a hazy smile.

 

“Thanks for the ride, Mr. Park.”

 

The chauffeur laughed. “It’s my job, sir.”

 

Seunghyun’s eyes widened, gazing at the boy out from the corner of his eyes. Noticing the fancy arrival, doubled with a driver and bodyguards that could barely be seen beneath the dark tint of the windows, there was no mistake. How many students in this university could be wealthy enough to afford such a staff. Nothing short of an heir to another successful, tyrannical company with high ambitions.

 

He had to be the target.

 

Pulling out the printed schedule of my semester, he swiftly dialed a number on the screen of his dead phone and put it next to his ear, pretending to take a call while making his way slowly over to the boy that was saying goodbye to the chauffeur who ducked back into the front seat.

 

“Hey, Mom,” Seunghyun spoke into the speaker with no one listening on the receiving end. He was getting closer to the boy who hadn’t even noticed, merely staring after the car with a pleasant smile. “Are you almost here? I can’t get settled into the dorm until I’ve got all my luggage.”

 

Pretending to be unaware of the boy, Seunghyun bumped into him with a trip of his ankles and a push of his shoulders. Both stumbled, wavering in their balance before the boy righted himself and helped Seunghyun up with a firm grip to his elbows.

 

“Are you okay?” he asked, staring at Seunghyun with wide, naive eyes.

 

He would make a quick, easy target. Perhaps there would even be time to visit Jiyong in Jongno before returning to Central.

 

“Oh God, sorry about that,” he apologized, hanging up the nonexistent call and pushing it into his back pocket while holding the schedule into his hands. “I guess I wasn’t looking.”

 

“No, that’s all right. I do that a lot, too.” He gave a bright smile and held out a hand. “But I think that clumsiness is something to embrace. Some people find it adorable.”

 

Grabbing his outstretched hand with a sheepish smile, hiding the slyly sharp glint in his eyes, he introduced himself. “I hope so. My name is Choi Seunghyun, freshman.”

 

The other boy smiled a sort of amused smile. “Nice to meet you, Seunghyun. My name is...”

 

Dong Youngbae, rich heir to a nationwide company. Choi Seunghyun’s next target.

 

“...Lee Seunghyun, also freshman.”

 

The hands stopped in mid-shake for a brief second along with a frozen face, but before it could be given away as suspicion, Choi Seunghyun covered it up with a crinkle of his nose followed by a sneeze, his glasses sliding down to the tip of his nose.

 

“Woah, bless you,” Lee Seunghyun said, patting him on the shoulder.

 

“Hah, sorry about that.” Choi Seunghyun scratched the back of his head in a timid gesture, playing the suddenly changed, dire situation as an abrupt act of awkward realization.

 

“Oh, damn. I completely forgot, my roommate is waiting for me at our dorm. I held onto our key until the manager could make another one for him. I told him I’d...be right back after...my luggage...” He shook his hand one more time with a rushed apology before scuffling out of sight, fumbling for his ID card when the guard behind the gates stopped him.

 

As soon as he stepped under the large clock tower in the far left of the large field littered with university activities of youthful minds, he shook off the unfitting facade with a stretch of his neck, turning to one side until the muscles strained with muted pain. He pulled out his phone and pressed the dial, connecting him to a dreaded confrontation.

 

“Hello?”

 

“Let me talk to the Captain, it’s urgent.”

 

“Who is this?”

 

“Choi Seunghyun.”

 

There was a small pause, then the voice replied in a deadpan voice. “Target?”

 

He gritted his teeth, clutching the phone tight in his palm while shyly nodding and smiling at a passing student who barely gave him a look through his sunglasses. “That’s what I’m trying to confirm.”

 

“What’s your situation, Choi?”

 

“That’s classified, let me explain it to the Captain. Then let him decide if it’s worth telling others.”

 

There was another fumbling on the other line, an irritated mumbling, then the muffled sound of calling for the captain before the line went silent.

 

“What’s happened?” a different voice spoke through the receiving end.

 

Seunghyun swallowed back the crippling fear that crawled through his spine at the sound of his voice and played it off, leaning against the stones of the tower as he spoke, making sure to keep the shudder out from his voice.

 

“Sir, I just needed to confirm my assignment.”

 

“You’ve hardly started, and already you forgot?”

 

“It’s not that I forgot, but I think there might have been a mix-up with the target. The name on the list that you told me to cross off, was Dong Youngbae, correct?”

 

“I’m not hearing the problem, Choi.”

 

“Dong Youngbae, junior year in Seoul University, taking over the chairman’s position after his father...” He trailed off when the sound of fingers drumming against wood cut through the connection.

 

“Did I ever say...he was taking over a company? Did I ever confirm, Choi?”

 

“No, sir...but,” Choi started, baffled at the eerily stone-cold tone of his voice.

 

“And now, let me guess what you were going to tell me. You assumed, you thought for yourself, and you’ve given yourself away to another face. Tell me I’m wrong, Seunghyun.”

 

“Sir, I just...it seemed to be your usual pattern of target, you never specified.”

 

“Did he introduce himself as Dong Youngbae?”

 

“No, sir.”

 

“Did you approach him, thinking that it was on behalf of your goal, Choi?”

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

“Does he know your name, Choi?”

 

“...Yes, sir.”

 

More heavy breathing crackled the connection as Choi Seunghyun bitterly closed his eyes and bit his lip, waiting for comeuppance.

 

“Will this...intrusion get in the way of your mission, Choi?”

 

“No, sir. If he does...”

 

“You know how to handle it. Tie up every loose end that you’ve created for yourself. We can clear any record of you from any records and files, but the curiosities and memories from students are a lot more bothersome to make disappear. You remember that, Choi?”

 

“Always, sir.”

 

He held onto his sigh of relief, waiting for the other voice to finish.

 

“Dong Youngbae is a former client of ours. He paid us heavily to put one young man’s name on the list, and another crate of cash to see him crossed off of it. But then he escaped before any of us could get to him after the deal. He fled the country, and came back and enrolled in the university just a month ago. He knows too much, Choi, he’s a loose cannon.”

 

“Understood, sir. I’ll carry this out as quickly as I can. Sir...” he started to say quickly before the line could be disconnected.

 

“What?”

 

“Was Dong Youngbae’s request ever crossed off the list? The young man?”

 

“That doesn’t concern your task, Choi. Get back to the mission at hand and focus on your own target.”

 

Seunghyun gritted his teeth. “Yes, sir.”

 

He shoved the phone back into his pocket before the ringing of the dial tone could annoy him any further, running one hand through his hair.

 

“ing bastard,” he muttered to himself before flashing a smile to a girl who passed by him, gawking at his face. She blushed and looked away, shuffling to the other side of the field with the smallest of waves.

 

Walking outside of the field and towards the dorms that were lined up around the campus like a fence that caged the students, living in a state of happy years before stepping out into the real world. Choi Seunghyun stepped into the dorm rooms and walked down the corridor until he spotted someone lounging outside of his door, two large baggage by his feet. His bleached strands of hair fell over his eyes, one ear pierced with a thin silver ring. One knee was exposed by the large rip of his jeans, his belt covered with the hem of his too-large white beater that showed off his sides with its long armholes, tattoos and muscles revealed.

 

“Hey, sorry that it took so long. Turns out she can’t come today, it looks like I made you wait for nothing. I probably should have given you the key before I left. Also...thanks for looking after my bag.”

 

He turned his head to Seunghyun and gave an eerie smile that would have been regarded as friendly if not for the poorly masked sadness and despair in them: all the signs of lost hope and painful nostalgia.

 

“It’s all right, I didn’t mind waiting.”

 

Choi Seunghyun gave another sheepish smile, hiding the events of the earlier phone call behind the facade and pulling out the key from around his neck. “You can hold onto it for both of us. People say I’m a little...incompetent, and that I tend to lose things a lot.”

 

The blonde chuckled and shook his head, gesturing for him to unlock the door. “I’m cool with that, I have a habit of losing important things, too.”

 

Unlocking the door and stepping into the bare and empty room, two beds that were pressed together on one side of the room, they both stepped into the room with bare feet and laid their bags on the ground.

 

Choi Seunghyun turned around as the boy walked past him and flopped onto the bed that was the closest to the corner, staring up at the ceiling with one hand outstretched, soothing the bare mattress next to him while biting his lip.

 

After a silence, he sighed and covered his face with his arm. “You can move the bed to the other side, that’s where it was originally. My roommate last year...” he paused for a minute before continuing again. “He moved it here halfway through the year.”

 

Seunghyun tapped his foot on the ground, sensing that they had landed on a sensitive topic. “Oh, okay.” He pretended to hesitate, glancing over at him in curiosity. Would a normal student be asking about this former roommate? he asked himself. Would a normal conversation be urged by asking him what had happened?

 

Rolling his eyes at the predicament, Seunghyun sat himself down on the edge of the bed and began with a stutter. “Uh, I don’t want to pry but...why isn’t your roommate here this year? Did he graduate?”

 

“Hah, please. Even if he was a senior, he probably would’ve had to repeat the year, kid. He was a year younger than me, he would have been a sophomore this year.” The affection in his voice was impossible to ignore, tainted with raw pain as if reopening a wound.

 

He keeps using past tense...

 

“So, what happened to him?”

 

“...He hung himself in his summer apartment in Oryu Dong. Without a note, without a reason.” He uncovered his face just in time to wipe away a tear b around his eye.

 

Seunghyun paused, taking it all in, staring ahead with a blank expression.

 

“...I’m sorry. What was his name?”

 

“Kang Daesung.”

 

Are you sure you don’t want any dinner, hyung?

 

Are you actually here, or am I just imagining this, and am I going to wake up tomorrow morning without you next to me?

 

I love you.

 

The boy facing injustice and a broken heart rose from the bed and rested his arm on top of one knee, holding out a hand with a pathetic attempt at a smile.

 

“I’m sorry, dumping all of this onto you without even knowing each other’s name. I guess we should have introduced ourselves first, we’ll be together often, sharing a room and all.”

 

“Right, right. Completely forgot, sorry.”

 

Sniffling back more tears, the boy took Seunghyun’s hand and shook. “My name is Dong Youngbae, junior.”

 

Seunghyun had to bite his lip to hide the laugh that tickled the back of his throat. This was too easy, he thought to himself. He would definitely make it to Jongno to surprise Jiyong.

 

“Choi Seunghyun,” he said with a friendly, naive smile. "Freshman."

---

A/N: Hello readers!! This is Dabin, returning with a new BigBang fanfic!! Very, very exciting for me. I'm really happy to be back, writing for fans. I'm happy to see that already my Foreword has gotten a positive start: I'm really glad to see some of my fans from my first fanfic No More Tomorrow have already begun to show support for my new fanfic. Also, I'm really happy to welcome all new fans :D Hope everyone enjoys this new story! It's a little different genre than my other story...I think you guys will like it ^^ Well, as they say, let's leave them wanting more~ Please subscribe, comment, upvote! Look out for my next updates, and enjoy!!