AHHHHHHHHHHHHH

hi

it's been like 50 years wtf

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He couldn't find any words. All he could seem to do was stand there, feet rooted into the floor, staring at them, just staring at them, and it didn't seem like they knew quite what to say either.

There was this weird understanding floating around the room; the three of them were not supposed to have met each other all together in this way, and the fact that they were all realizing that at the same time just made everything all the more awkward. It was a seemingly endless moment before finally, Taekwoon opened his mouth, mumbling, "Hakyeon?" confusedly.

Wonshik turned his head towards Taekwoon with this incredulous look on his face, eyebrows furrowed. "You know him?"

This was bad. This was really bad.

Hakyeon swallowed thickly, gripping tighter onto the doorknob. What the hell was he even supposed to say? Oh, sorry I walked in on you two. Only I'm not really sorry, because you're my best friend who's been brushing me off lately, and you've got the guy that's been leading me on for the past month cuddled into your side. But I also am sorry, because I wish I'd never seen it.

Dammit.

"Okay, I'm just gonna..." he trailed off stupidly, slowly backing out of the room and shutting the door as noiselessly as possible, as if he'd never even stepped in.

He tried to get what he'd just seen out of his head, pretend that he really hadn't seen it at all, but for some reason, that only made it worse.

So...they were together?

Boy, did that explain a lot.

He bit his lip, his chest feeling heavy with this strange feeling he couldn't identify. As much as he'd wanted to find out the reason that Wonshik was being distant, he wasn't sure which was worse: not knowing, or knowing now that Taekwoon was the reason.

With his heartbeat starting to pick up, he unlocked is phone, opening his messages and almost wanting to tell Sanghyuk, or just someone about this mess. Otherwise, he was going to drive himself crazy.

However, his thoughts were interrupted just then by a door opening, and though he didn't really want to see either of their faces right now, his instinct made him take a look behind him, and before he turned back to block him out again, he caught a glimpse of Taekwoon walking down the hallway.

The soft padding of sock-covered feet seemed to approach him in his awkward spot standing at the edge of the kitchen, and he held his breath. The sound stopped a few feet away from him.

On instinct, he walked forward, going and opening the fridge as if he had just casually gone into the kitchen for food, like he didn't give a damn about what just happened.

He thought, in the silence, that maybe Taekwoon would say something. Then again, Taekwoon never really had a way with words.

As he stood there, hiding behind the silver fridge door, (which was still wide open) he heard the footsteps continue on softly, and soon enough, the sound of the door opening creaked out into the otherwise silent room, and Taekwoon was gone.

He took a deep breath, finally closing the fridge door so he was out in the open again.

The door down the hallway opened again, and this time he watched as Wonshik walked towards the kitchen, not seeing Hakyeon at first. Then, he spotted him standing there uselessly, looking lost and awkward and out of place, and Hakyeon wondered what exactly his friend was thinking. About him.

Does he realize that I'm jealous of him?

Or maybe he's distracted by the fact that we all know each other, and none of us knew that we all knew each other, and now everything is really awkward, regardless of whether or not I wish I could scoop Taekwoon up and carry him far away from my best friend. And maybe cuddle him, but that's besides the point.

"Hakyeon," Wonshik offered uncomfortably, leaning up against the wall and peeking his head in. Hakyeon noticed that his skin still looked pale, and his movements were slow, indicating he was still feeling under the weather. He let go of the wall and walked all the way in the kitchen when he received eye contact.

"Hey, I'm confused, and I think you are too. Can we just talk about this?" he asked, and Hakyeon was starting to notice how his voice rang with sickness.

There was a part of him that really did want to listen to him. A part of him that knew that would be the best thing to do.

And yet, at the forefront of his mind and tugging at his heartstrings, there was another part of him that said no. Don't. Don't listen to him. It's going to hurt.

"You two are dating, right?" he asked, and he honestly didn't mean to snap, but the rude tone was biting at the edges of his voice. He hoped Wonshik didn't notice.

Wonshik scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. "Yeah..." he replied unsurely, clearly not understanding what exactly the problem was. "We are, but-"

"That's all I need to know," Hakyeon dismissed with a shrug of his shoulders.

Wonshik's eyebrows narrowed in suspicion. "Hakyeon, c'mon. There's obviously something up here," he protested, crossing his arms over his chest. "If there wasn't, you wouldn't be getting bitter right now. He didn't hook up with you did he?"

"What? No! God, no. Nothing happened, okay?" he insisted, waving Wonshik off. "I'm not even mad. I just need..."

He wasn't really sure what he needed, come to think of it.

For his friends to be more honest with him? Yeah. But he doesn't really want to say that.

Space? Probably. But did that sound like someone who didn't care?

Definitely not.

"I need to go. I told someone I'd meet up with them tonight," he lied, glancing to the door and finding his shoes with his eyes. "Can we please talk about this later?"

Wonshik sighed deeply, caught in between wanting to believe him and being almost sure this was just an excuse to get away. "I guess," he returned, running a hand through his hair. He was pretty much trapped in a corner at this point, so all he could do was give Hakyeon space until he was able to accept things. He just wished he understood why this was so difficult for him.

The older nodded shortly, and then proceeded to walk over and pull on his shoes in a noticeable hurry.

Maybe what he was about to do was pretty stupid, but the part of him that cared was slowly slipping away, and he ended up turning the doorknob despite the feeling nagging in the back of his brain, saying, this is a terrible idea. This is what you finally escaped a couple of years ago.

It was just this one time. Just once.

He pushed the door open, stepping outside to leave Wonshik by himself in the kitchen.
His body relaxed as he let himself be absorbed by the late afternoon.

The weather was so nice. In fact, he thought it was probably the nicest day they'd had in a while. The thought actually made him chuckle bitterly under his breath. Somehow, it almost seemed to mock him - the way the sun hung beautifully in the sky, marking the beginning of the end of the day.

He pushed it out of his mind, pulling his phone out of his pocket and going to open up a contact and tap the number.

It rang once, twice, three times, and then, as he'd expected, the familiar voice answered, "Hello?"

"Hey. Are you busy right now?"

*****

"You're here," the unusually soft voice greeted him. It was throwing Hakyeon off a little, honestly, but on the outside he looked unfazed, unaffected. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Why?" Hakyeon asked as his friend stepped aside to let him come in through the door.

"Because you sound like you feel like . Even for you, Eeyore," Sanghyuk teased, his voice a mixture of sarcasm and gentleness. "So, what happened?" he questioned once they were walking towards the kitchen together.

He slid an arm around his older friend's shoulder warmly, and this time, Hakyeon didn't try to push him off, or even make a snide comment. It was a surprise for Sanghyuk; pleasant, yes, but very much a surprise.

"Nothing happened. I just don't really feel great, so I thought I'd come see you," Hakyeon half-lied, shrugging but not yet giving Sanghyuk a glance.

And Sanghyuk didn't really believe him, but he didn't want to push it right now. If there was anything he didn't want to do, it was make him feel worse by trying to force it out of him.

Instead, he cooed, "Aw, I make you feel better? That's the sweetest," sounding cheesy as ever but hoping that maybe, somehow, it would make his friend feel better, even if it was just by a little bit. Hakyeon had a tendency to be sort of sulky in general, but right now something was really up.

Hakyeon snorted at that comment, shuffling into the kitchen and looking around him. "You got anything to drink?" he asked calmly, choosing to not answer Sanghyuk's only halfway rhetorical question.

"I don't even get a, 'Your kitchen is nice! You have good taste'? Should I be offended?" Sanghyuk joked back, and Hakyeon let himself chuckle quietly.

"Aha! I made you laugh!" the younger exclaimed in triumph, pointing at him victoriously. There was this giant grin on his face, and Hakyeon thought he looked like a little kid. But he thought that about Sanghyuk a lot.

He rolled his eyes fondly. "Gotta butter you up. I want a drink," he returned, and they both knew the first part of that statement wasn't really true, but Sanghyuk gasped in fake offense just to humor him.

And then, he turned, standing on his tiptoes and opening a cabinet rather close to the white ceiling. He wrapped his hands around the necks of a few bottles, pulling them out and setting them on the counter.

"Take your pick, kiss-."

*****

His vision opened up into a room barely familiar to him, the couch he was laying on and the kitchen some ten feet away the main things visible to him. It was dim around him, only illuminated by the warm glow of a lamp in the corner.

Wherever he was, he must've fallen asleep there.

He groaned, rubbing his face with his hands, but despite multiple efforts to wake himself up and gather his fuzzy, barely coherent thoughts together, he still felt sleepy, and even more lost. There was more alcohol in his system than he'd had in a long while; he could tell. But he didn't remember how exactly it had gotten there, or where he was now.

That is, until he heard Sanghyuk's soft voice next to him. "Oh, you're awake," the younger remarked, and weirdly enough, Hakyeon could've sworn he felt him shoving his fingers into his back pocket just after he heard the words.

He had absolutely no idea why Sanghyuk would do that, but he knew that it happened, because he found himself watching the other boy's arm slide back out from underneath him just afterwards, and for a reason even he didn't understand, it made him reach up and wrap his arms intimately around Sanghyuk's neck.

He really didn't mean to. It was completely an accident.

But then he was leaning in as Sanghyuk sat still, completely frozen in shock.

Their lips were so close, almost brushing, and it wasn't until that moment that Sanghyuk really started to try pushing him away.

Hakyeon thought it was just because of his own wishes, and was about to move away, slowly starting to realize what he was doing with guilt filling his chest, but he soon learned that he was very mistaken.

"What are you doing?" he heard an unfamiliar voice ring out into the room, and he pulled their lips far apart then, this new person and their harsh tone startling him back to reality.

He turned to where he'd heard the noise, and promptly found himself looking into the attractive face of a sharp young man who stood at the edge of the room, scowling at the scene in front of him.

"Get your hands off of him," the guy growled roughly, and at first Hakyeon really did not understand why he sounded so angry. He wasn't going to kiss Sanghyuk, but why would this guy even care even if he did?

However, with the next exchange of words, the reason occurred to Hakyeon pretty quickly, even in his drunken state.

"Bin, he's just not thinking straight. Not sober, you know?" Sanghyuk told him, trying to unlatch Hakyeon's arms from around his neck. Hakyeon would have been thrown off by the panic in his friend's voice had his mind not been in another world. "Just calm down," Sanghyuk told the angry man gently.

"I don't care. He better get his hands off of you before I beat the out of him."

Ah. 'Bin'. Also known as Hongbin, Sanghyuk's boyfriend. Also known as the guy who's probably going to kick my momentarily.

"M'sorry. I didn' mean to," he slurred, finally unraveling his arms and scooting away from Sanghyuk like a puppy that had just been hit.

"Get the out of my house," Hongbin spat in response as he pointed towards the door, absolutely fuming.

And so Hakyeon scrambled clumsily to his feet, doing just that. He could hear Sanghyuk trying to say something behind him as he stumbled towards the door, and he wasn't really sure if the words were bitter or not, or even if they were directed at him or Hongbin.

The door was opened for him and then slammed behind him once he was out, and unfortunately, he hadn't been able to see whether or not Sanghyuk seemed mad at him before he'd been kicked out. He really hoped not.

That was when a wave of panic washed over him as he realized that he didn't have his phone on him. Which could only mean that he'd left it inside.

Or so he'd thought; he soon found the thin object stuffed into his back pocket, and that's about when it hit him: that must've been why he had his hands in my pocket. He was putting my phone back, wasn't he?

He sighed to himself. Good going, Hakyeon. You've just royally ed everything up.

But that realization rose the question, why exactly did he have my phone in the first place? Which brought him to pull his phone out to see if he could find out.

Funnily enough, there was only one thing on his lock screen - a text.

taekwoon: yeah I screwed up

Me too, he thought sadly to himself as he went to open the text, only to find a find a long string of messages that he knows for sure he did not take part in. He narrowed his eyebrows, his thumb raising to scroll to the beginning of the messages.

Even more confusingly, they all started with a few words he'd honestly been waiting to hear.

taekwoon: I'm really sorry

As much as it irritated him, he forgave him. He supposed that he deserved to be forgiven anyways. Taekwoon never really did anything wrong. Hakyeon was only hurt because he'd believed in something between the two of them that was never there. It was only his imagination.

His eyes trailed back to his screen, and he read on.

hakyeon: hakyeon's not here right now please leave a message

He snorted. This looked like typical Sanghyuk to him.

taekwoon: hakyeon please don't be mad
hakyeon: no I'm serious this isn't him
hakyeon: this is sanghyuk

There it was. Just as suspected.

taekwoon: oh
hakyeon: okay all jokes aside tho
hakyeon: just what the hell did you do pocket full of sunshine
taekwoon: pocket full of sunshine?
hakyeon: taEK ME AWAY
hakyeon: A SECRET PLACE
taekwoon: oh
hakyeon: A SWEET ESCAPE

Also typical Sanghyuk. Hakyeon chuckled quietly to himself as he read it despite everything.

taekwoon: okay sanghyuk I got it
hakyeon: so are you gonna explain then
taekwoon: what?
hakyeon: are you gonna explain what you did

Hakyeon was a little torn. He appreciated Sanghyuk's worry, of course, but this seemed sort of weird to him. He supposed it was a Sanghyuk type of thing to do, though.

taekwoon: why do you think I did something?
hakyeon: do you think I'm stupid undertaeker
hakyeon: he's at my place right now, drunk off his , and you were apologizing earlier
hakyeon: plus he took the heart off of your contact name this is truly depressing man

That was about the point that Hakyeon decided to stop reading, locking his phone and sighing into the night air. He'd rather not rub things back in again. It'd be better to feel less ty and just forget about everything for now.

He was still drunk, too. He could feel it pulsing through his veins and head, making his legs seem heavy and making him dizzy.

He didn't want to go home right now.

But where else would he go? He really didn't want to sleep on the street either, and there was about a negative seven percent chance of him being let back into Sanghyuk's place.

That was when suddenly, a name popped into his head. A name he hadn't thought about in a long time.

It was someone that he knew would probably help him. Hakyeon had never asked them for anything really; they were just the type of person to offer kindness, even when it wasn't requested of them. Hesitantly, he opened his contacts, scrolling slowly to this person's name.

Was it right? To call them and ask for help like this?

He shook that thought away. It couldn't be so bad to ask for a little favor, right? If this person was made aware that he really didn't have anyone else to turn to. It'd be the first and last time he ever really asked them for something.

Not to mention the fact that they had told Hakyeon they'd be there for him if he did ever need anything.

Okay. This is pretty much your last and only chance at sleep tonight. Don't screw it up.

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this chapter is a wild ride tbh...poor Hakyeon :(

Anyways I really hope you enjoyed this chapter even though I'm the tiest updater ever lol

See you soon! c: