Two cups of instant Ramen was what he was able to find. 

Youngbae had sweeped the whole cafeteria for something decent to eat yet the staff could not offer him anything besides that damn cabbage soup, the only dish that was left after today's lunch break (seems like Jiyong and him were not the only ones who despised it).  Upon hearing that, he alternately wanted to grab some sandwiches but no - they were all sold to hungry students who hadn't been able to gulp down that reeking green broth either. Excellent. Lastly, Youngbae had tried his luck at the little shop near their dorm where they usually bought snacks, drinks and other important things like school stuff and toiletries. There, he had found instant noodles, one flavoured with chicken while the other alegedly tasted of various vegetables. Halfway back at their room though, Youngbae realized something that made him groan out in frustration, turn around and go back to the cafeteria again: Water. He needed boiled water.

Finally holding the two steaming cups in his hands, Youngbae carefully took one step after another, flinching a bit when the slight pain in his ankle became apparent. His lips automatically formed a thin line, a frown settling on the boy's face as he tried his best to just shrug the unpleasant feeling off. 

"Youngbae-ya*, you are back.", a hoarse voice uttered as soon as Youngbae stepped inside the room.

The older boy peeked at the other side of the room and saw Jiyong sitting up on his bed, smiling at him. It was such a common thing by now: seeing Jiyong smiling. It was engraved in Youngbae's mind as a familiar picture he could invoke whenever he wanted to. One could say that Youngbae's eyes had gotten used to the sight and yet, his body started to react a bit differently than before. His stomach felt queasy. He felt nauseous. It was really a strange feeling. Had Jiyong infected him?

"This is all I could get for today.", Youngbae said, approaching the other's bed. "It's only Ramen but better than nothing, huh?"

"Anything is better than cabbage soup, right?", Jiyong giggled with husky voice. "I love Ramen."

"Well, then choose: vegetables or chicken?"

"Let's see. Uhm, vegetables."

Youngbae thought and hesitated a bit before he gave him the chicken-flavoured coup, to which Jiyong blinked and stared at him confusedly.

"Chicken is the better choice for you. It's good against colds."

"Oh, I see.", Jiyong replied, nodding and taking the cup in his hands. "You know so much about health Youngbae-ya. I am really impressed."

"Hah, that's just basic knowledge.", Youngbae retorted nonchalantly, giving his roommate a look. "Now eat, will you?" 

"Okay. But uh, Y-Youngbae-ya, where are you going?"

"To my bed?"

"Do you have to? I mean, can't we eat ... together?"

Youngbae watched Jiyong's expression, noting the nervous way in which he was chewing on his lower lip. He couldn't help but smirk at how shy the normally so overly confident boy seemed in that moment. It amused him. "Why, so you can transmit your germs to me?"

"N-No! I just, I mean you don't have to sit that close to me of course, I wouldn't want you to become sick. It's just that I could use some company, you know. I mean, if you don't mind ..."

Youngbae arched his brow, deciding to have a little fun. "You are demanding a lot from me nowadays, aren't you? Forcing your care on me, asking me to accept your help and your presence in my room and now you even want me to keep you company while you're sick. Interesting. I must say that you keep surprising me. I would have thought that you were a bit more modest." , he complained in an exaggerated manner. However, the moment he saw Jiyong's guilty face, he became unsure if the latter had interpreted his tone correctly. 

"Please don't think that way, Youngbae-ya. Honestly, I don't want anything from you besides your company. I am sorry if I came across as selfish - " 

A rough cough interrupted Jiyong's speech and the said man put his ramen on the nightstand in order to keep it from spilling as his hands were looking for something under his bed. Youngbae guessed that it was the water bottle that had rolled out of the younger man's reach so he quickly picked it up from the ground before unscrewing the lid and giving it to Jiyong, who gulped down several sips of the rescuing liquid. Youngbae watched him, frowning and slightly regretting his little joke. 

"Moron, I wasn't being serious. No need to get so worked up.", he scolded, shaking his head. "Now eat this before it gets cold.", he added in a softer tone, before handing him the noodles. 

The way Jiyong sulked and nodded reminded Youngbae of a little child that got scolded by his mother. He couldn't surpress the little smile that his mouth was about to form at that sight but made sure this time to turn his face away so that Jiyong couldn't comment on it again. He sat down on the floow next to Jiyong's bed and the both of them ate in silence. 

A thousand thoughts crossed Youngbae's mind as he watched the blonde from the corner of his eyes from time to time. He wondered why Jiyong had taken his words so seriously and why it was so important to him not to demand too much from him. He tried to link his reaction to the fact that he wanted to keep staying in this room with him. Yes, it seemed that Jiyong didn't want to anger him no matter what. And yet, the tip of the iceberg remained a big mystery to the older boy. He wasn't used to this, wasn't used to someone voluntarily wanting to be around him without any apparent motifs. In the past, whenever people had approached him, it was always because they either wanted to demand things from him he couldn't fulfil or hurt him, be it physically or mentally. Youngbae unconsciously tightened his  grip on the steaming cup in his hands at the memories of his childhood. Yes, it had always been like that until now. And it had caused him to always feel unsafe around his people, threatened, as if every person who even looked at him oddly wanted to harm him. But now ...

Now, when he looked at Jiyong, he couldn't see anything threatening in him. He didn't know why, but picturing his roomate doing cruel things didn't work. No matter how hard Youngbae tried to imagine Jiyong with a knife in his hands while smirking evily, he couldn't.  Whenever he tried, it was all blurry and fuzzy until it faded back to the picture of his permanent smile instead, the picture of the happy and chirpy Kwon Jiyong who called his name in a way nobody else had done before : 'Youngbae-ya.'

The older male teared his gaze away from the blonde and stared deeply into the cup in his hands. An outsider who saw him would immediately be reminded of the typical scene of a lonely man sitting at the bar, looking into the content of his glass while pondering about his life choices, the alcohol in his system slowly abolishing his rationality. Alcohol had sounded tempting tempting at times but it never had been an option fot Youngbae because it reminded him too much of his past, too much of his father. And this cup of noodles didn't contain any answers either. 

Completely lost in his thoughts, Youngbae didn't even hear Jiyong calling out to him at first. 

"Youngbae-ya? Are you listening?"

"Huh, what?", Youngbae asked, looking at Jiyong, who was smiling at him.

"Thank you."

"For what?"

"For saving me and looking after me today. I appreciate it a lot.", the blonde said sincerely.

"H-huh, don't get any wrong idea. I just don't want to get infected by you, that's why.", Youngbae replied, once again not standing the way his roommate was looking at him. The effect of those spicy noodles were killing him: his head felt incredibly hot. 

"Still, thank you very much. I feel much better."

"Would you stop thanking me?"

Jiyong started chuckling at the annoyed expression on the older male's face until his face became more serious. "Say Youngbae-ya, can I ask you something?"

Youngbae heard the hesitation in his voice and decided to give him the green light. "Go ahead."

"Promise you won't get angry?"

"How can I do that when I don't even know what you're gonna ask?"

"Please?"

Youngbae sighed, already annoyed."Fine, I will try. Now, what do you want to know so badly, huh?"

"It's just ...", Jiyong started, staring into the cup in his hands in a smiliar way Youngbae had done before. "No matter how different our characters seem, I see that you and I have in common that we always try to cope with things on our own. In my case, my mother's sickness plays a big role plus the fact that my father has left us so early, leaving me as the only man of our house to carry the burdens of my family."

Youngbae waited, momentarily not getting what Jiyong's story had to do with the question he wanted to ask him. 

"What I am driving at is,", the blonde said, shifting his gaze at Youngbae, "that I have told you my story and the reason why I feel so lonely sometimes. And I want to know ... why I see myself when I look at you. I mean ... I see how well you can take care of yourself and it makes me wonder if it is because you have had no one to depend on all this time, just like me." 

Their eyes met and it almost felt as if Jiyong's brown orbs were boring right into Youngbae. It was intimidating but the older male masked his nervousness with a frown. 

"A-are you angry? Don't be. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. I - "

"I depend on myself." , Youngbae finally said, bending his legs. "I can only depend on myself."

Jiyong gazed at him. "What about your parents?"

"Huh.", the older male scoffed, smirking, "You mean the people who created me? They are the least ones I would ever depend on."

"But ... why?"

"Because one of them is a who abandoned me for a cottage in Malibu and a few million dollars while the other is an alcoholic bastard who blamed me for this all my life." 

"But that's terrible! And they never ... contacted you or anything?"

"Has your father ever contacted you after he left?"

Jiyong thought for a while before shaking his head. "No, I can't remember him doing so. But even if he did, I don't know if I would have been able to forgive him for leaving us behind like that."

"Exactly. 'Out of sight, out of mind' they say, don't they? Not that I have ever been in their minds before though. The woman wrote me a letter once but I threw it away the moment I got it in my hands. After that, she never wrote again. And the other one? My grandpa sent him to rehab and then sent me here. Against my will. The problem was solved in his eyes: His son would get better while his grandson would receive education. Sounds nice, right? But the older I got, the more I understoor that this was his own way of telling me not to depend on anybody, to make my diploma and see to it that I get to stand on my own legs as soon as possible because he, too, wasn't going to feed me." 

Jiyong shoved his blanket aside and rearranged his legs so that he was only sitting on the edge of his bed now, still listening intently at Youngbae's words. "What about friends?"

"Friends.", Youngae scoffed once again, shifting his gaze so he could look at the blonde directly, "Who would want to be friends with someone who hated everyone? Kids like me don't have friends. The news of my mum leaving us for some filthy rich jerk spread fast. We lived in a small neighbourhood with everyone knowing everyone. Soon, I was not Youngbae anymore. My identity was reduced to 'whoreson' or 'alco-kid'. There is no way deeply catholic people let their children play with kids like me. And that's why I started to loathe them all. And I swore to myself, to never depend on anyone but myself." 

"But you can't do that!", Jiyong exclaimed, getting up from his bed so he could kneel down next to Youngbae on the floor. "No, you can't do that. No matter how cruel people have been to you, you cannot lump the rest of this world together. You cannot punish them but more importantly, you cannot punish yourself, Youngbae-ya. Your parents have made mistakes and you have every right to be angry at them. But don't let their faults affect you and your life because it's not worth it. They are not woth it, Youngbae-ya." 

"I am not punishing myself, I am protecting myself. There is a difference." 

The blonde shook his head, eyes becoming glassy. "What you are doing is not protecting yourself, it's isolating yourself. There is a difference between those two words, too.  I know that our situations are different, but I know well what it means to be alone, Youngbae-ya and it is terrible, it is not good to be alone at all.  And I know that you are agreeing with me even if you won't say it out loud. You can manage things on your own but even that has a limit. If you hadn't helped me today, how would I have saved myself?"

"How about you follow your own advice before lecturing me like that, huh? Don't talk like you would be any better! If so, I could ask you the same question: Why do you insist on looking for your mother on your own? Why don't you go and ask relatives or neighbours or whoever for help?"

"I am not better than you. You are absolutely right with that.", Jiyong admitted, putting his hand on top of Youngbae's, which was placed on one of the older man's knees. "But the moment I met you, I knew that what I was doing all this time was wrong. I know I promised my mum to always smile for her but there are times when I have to force myself, to the point that it hurts me, to the point that I start asking myself why I keep pretending that I am alright although my mind is full of worries. You are at least being honest, aren't you? You are real. You don't pretend, like I do.", Jiyong said smiling, even though a few teardrops started rolling down on his cheeks, "And I want to stop pretending, too. I want to stop acting like there was nothing that bothered me and I wish for you to do the same. Let's stop walking this dark path alone. Let's become each other's light as we are two people with the same feelings, two -" 

A series of rough coughs interrupted Jiyong, who had once again overworked his sore throat. Youngbae quickly grabbed the bottle from the nightstand and gave it to him, watching worriedly as the blonde man gulped down the transparent liquid. 

"Sorry.", Jiyong said with husky voice, wiping the remaining teardrops on his face away. "I didn't want to go overboard like that. You must feel bad, having to talk about your past because of me." 

Youngbae bit his lip, lightly shaking his head. "Never mind. It's not like you forced me or anything." He scanned the blonde up and down for a moment before he stood up and offered his hand. "Get up. You should sleep now." 

The younger male nodded and obeyed, taking the other's hand. Youngbae grasped it and helped him up, surprised at how well that scrawny hand fitted in his. He let Jiyong lie down and checked his fever again, noting that it had risen. He gently brushed the blonde bangs aside and put the icepack on the boy's heated skin. Gazing one last time at his pretty face before he turned around to leave. 

However, Jiyong's hand stopped him. 

"Youngbae-ya, you are not angry at me, are you? I can still stay with you, can't I?" 

The way Jiyong's hand tightened around his told Youngbae that Jiyong was very worried about having said something wrong to him and that he was afraid of not being able to stay by his side. For once, this was all he needed to know though: That Jiyong wanted to be around him. 

He turned around again to meet his roommate's fearful eyes, shaking head. "I am not angry, moron. Now sleep. You are talking way too much." 

To that, Jiyong smiled again and Youngbae realised that it suited him much better than those teary eyes from before. He let go of his hand and drifted off into dreamland.

Meanwhile, Youngbae looked outside and noticed that it had become much darker.

He waited until night though, just to be safe.

Only then, when he was finally lying in his bed, did he allow his suppressed tears to flow freely. 

__

* Yes, it's Youngbae-ya, not Youngbae-ah! I have been using the false ending all this time until my friend Sassmaster101 has pointed this embarrassing mistake out! Thank you again! >.< (So much about doing research before using words from another language. I am not a good example!) 

A/N: And here it is, chapter 5! It's getting a bit emotional! >.< I hope that you like it, dear readers. I would like to end this story soon and I think that there really will be not more than two more chapters. As always, I am thankful to you all for showing love to this story! You are the best!