IN HONOR OF HITTING 94 SUBS! OH my goodness, I never thought even one person would read this so I'm super excited. Thank you everyone for loving me and my story and Big Bang. This week you get an extra chapter because you are fantastic people and I appreciate you a whole awful lot. Please keep commenting, I wrote this chapter super fast because the comments got me so excited. Also, forever a big shout out to WhiteTigress, without whom I would not have started this fic.  (SIDE NOTE: this is the second update in three days so check and make sure you read the previous chapter before you continue on to this one.) 

Episode 8:

Aching Heart

SeugHyun had been woken up at some pretty odd hours to some incredibly strange things but this was…oi. Of all of the things, to wake up to at 11pm, a very drunken JiYong awkwardly straddling him on his own bed was probably the weirdest. It made his skin hot in ways he didn’t want it to be. It tempted him with things he couldn’t, shouldn’t, and wouldn’t do. Not like this. In the dark the blue haired baker could just barely make out his friend’s features against the pale glow of the hall light, apparently he’d left the door open when he’d come in. Fantastic.

Groggy voiced and barely awake he managed to croak out, “Kwon JiYong, what do you think you’re doing to me?” in a whisper as the bedsprings groaned a loud protest. He tried to squirm away but his hips were pinned down under the sheets and so he accepted the inevitable embarrassment as his blood pressure started to rise.

The younger man was trying to shift his weight, but he was so off balance that he toppled forward and landed with his hands on either side of SeugHyun’s head. “Seungri gets to, gets tooo have all of the time,” JiYong slurred out. His breath smelled like tequila and vodka, it gave SeugHyun a headache, “Why not meee.”

A scoff pressed through the elder’s lips, a very bitter, sort of angry scoff, “Is that what I am to you?” he snapped, and he definitely had more to say, really, he did, but there were sloppy lips all over his then. It was the literally worst kiss he had ever experienced. All tongue and teeth that knocked with his as he opened his mouth to say something, his words got eaten up, and a desperate alcohol kiss swallowed his voice. Spit that didn’t belong to him dribbled out the side of his mouth.

It was repulsive, and SeugHyun was utterly disgusted by how much he wanted it. Maybe he could have blamed his sleepy brain for the delay in his struggling, but that would have been a lie. It took everything in him and more to throw his arms up and push the orange haired man’s shoulder’s back. “JiYong,” he almost yelled, biting back the crack in his throat, “Stop. No.”

The older man wiped his mouth as on his sleeve the best he could as he forced both Ji and himself up to sitting. Lying on the mattress was making him dizzy.

“Please,” Ji begged, his face flushed in the darkness, “Please SeugHyun…I…I need someone to love me. I need you to love me.”

For a moment Choi SeugHyun pondered the possibility of his having the wrong SeugHyun in mind, which was fairly likely in his current state. The elder let a frustrated sigh pass through his lips as he chanced letting go of his companion’s shoulders. He ran a hand through his brilliant blue hair and suddenly he understood just how abusive Ji and Ri’s relationship had been. If this was what he thought love was…how many nights had he done this satisfy Seungri’s rage? Or to end an argument? How many times had he given his body away cheaply as a consolation for actual communication?

He wished with all of his heart that he had known sooner. “Ji,” he offered softly “I do love you,” words he had said before on many occasions but never with quite the impact the held in that particular moment, “But that,” he gestured in the dark and sighed again, “that isn’t love.”

The blue haired baker found himself leaning forward into an automatic, loose hug, wrapping his arms around JiYong’s thin waist. The other threw his arms loosely around stiff shoulders and rested his head down on the bare skin where SeugHyun’s loose sleep shirt was falling down. Another painful sigh pressed through the older man’s lips as guilt bubbled under his skin. He had always felt guilty for their closeness, like he was taking advantage of Ji’s propensity towards physical affection. No matter how careful he was he always felt guilty.

He had been thirteen when he’d discovered his feelings for the younger man were not normal. Fourteen years of guilty hugs and lopsided “I love you’s.” It was a gentle kind of torture. The sort that allowed him just enough to keep loving but not enough to reach out for reciprocation, and it had to stay that way for at least a while longer. JiYong had more healing to do than anyone had realized.

“Do you want to sleep here tonight,” he offered with a heavy, deeply guilty, incredibly selfish sigh of desperation because he wanted Ji to stay. He wanted the warmth and the illusion of reciprocation. He could live on guilty hugs, and stolen cuddles and lopsided ‘I love you’s’ if he had to. The electric spark that buzzed under his skin and hummed in his heart made him weak for this. Like he would rather the guilt than the emptiness of his bed for the hour and a half of sleep he had left.

The head in his shoulder nodded, hair tickled the soft skin on his neck.

“Okay,” he breathed out, leaning back. JiYong offered no help at all. Not that the elder would have expected it, but it would have been nice. There was an indescribably anguish that came with the smaller man’s body pressed flat against his before he rolled onto his side wiggling closer to the wall to make room on the tiny daybed for both of them. His back pressed into cold metal as the younger man rolled around to crawl under the covers.

His body felt like it was on fire in that moment. Heat radiated through the thin sheet and soft hair tickled his chin as a mumbled “I’m sorry,” tumbled out of Ji’s drunken mouth in a slur of mashed up sounds. A sniffle followed and the elder man had to brace himself for the oncoming flood. He managed to adjust his arms as the younger balled up against him.

SeugHyun prayed to a deity he didn’t believe in for the orange haired man to not remember all of this in the morning, as his warm alcohol breath pressed into the elder’s broad sternum. They fell asleep in a tangle, the blue haired baker running his hand as gently as was humanly possible through messy orange locks. Ji shook with silent sobs until his breathes evened out in the darkness with the door still open and the hall light still on. They both desperately tried to hold on to what was left of their separate and collective sanities.

The sound of a screeching siren blared loud in the silence of the room and SeugHyun jarred awake but tried not to jump because even in his shock he knew there was another body in the bed.

The alarm went off at exactly 12:30am. It usually went off at between 10pm and 12am depending on how much prep work he had felt like doing before bed. Yesterday, as he had cleaned the kitchen he had done an extra hour’s worth of preparations, knowing full well that he would likely have to work the counter and run on naps all week. It had been a long time since he’d been on the nap schedule, and he wasn’t looking forward to it. 

JiYong stirred beside him, made a grouchy sort of grumbling noise as he curled into himself and relaxed. How desperately SeugHyun wanted to stay there, in the comfort and the warmth and the lie he told himself that JiYong loved him the same way.  The blue haired baker had to try and climb over his companion as delicately as he could manage with his joints aching and his body uncoordinated. He slipped when he smacked the top of his clock to turn off the alarm. Basically he just wound up being a clumsy mess, tripping all over and colliding with the younger man’s shoulder as he slid out of bed trying not to take the sheets with him. He landed on his with a loud smack, jarring the trundle bed that was underneath the day bed and the nightstand.

Orange hair shook and Ji was completely awake then, rolling onto his belly he rested his head on the pillow facing his older friend, “You okay?” he asked in his gravely sleep voice. The moonlight from the window on the other side of the room managed to drown out the soft yellow of the hall light and dance across JiYong’s face. The elder almost lost it at that, because dang…holy…how was he even close to this beautiful at freaking midnight after a night downing tequila shots?

“Yeah,” SeugHyun offered, swallowing the lump in his throat. It took some untangling to free himself from the soft purple sheets that had wrapped around his legs. “Are you? You were kind of a mess last night.”

 Ji froze, and then he groaned and then he buried his face in the pillow. “Please freaking tell me that was a dream,” his desperation was muffled by the warm down of the pillow.

In a flash the blue haired man was on his feet and across the room at his dresser. He threw his baggy sleep shirt off, chucking it purposely at the bed. “I would be lying if I told you that,” he offered as he popped open one of the black drawers and searched for a suitable shirt. He found one in the form of a dark green crew neck.

The younger man groaned heavily into the pillow, “Oh hell,” he puffed, turning his head towards the elder. “SeugHyun…I don’t even…”

Honestly, the blue haired baker fought himself pretty hard to not turn around as he pulled his checkered sweatpants off and dug around for a pair of jeans. He never stripped in front of anyone. He’d never even stripped in front of JiYong before, and they had known each other forever. His blood felt hot and his system was absolutely wrecked. Maybe kissing Ji had made him drunk too because he hadn’t felt so messed up since he had given up alcohol. Everything was upside down all of the sudden and he didn’t know how to put it right again.

“Can we talk about this later?” He managed to croak out. The dryness in his throat made it sound tight and maybe panicked. “I have to go to work.”

“We can talk about it never,” the younger man offered. The embarrassment in his voice was so painfully clear it almost hurt to listen to.

In a sudden swirl of afterthoughts as he buttoned and zipped his pants SeugHyun found a clean pair of his sleep pants and turned around to throw them on top of his shirt on the bed, “Here,” he offered, “You still have a couple of hours to sleep.”

As the head baker made for the bedroom door he pretended not to notice how red JiYong’s face was. The bed made an angry protest as the younger man sat up and slid his feet out looking thoughtfully at the soft clothes sitting in a pile next to his lap.

He looked like a kicked puppy…a slightly nauseous kicked puppy. So the blue haired baker did what anyone in that situation would do, he mentally kicked himself, bit his lip and said, “I know it doesn’t seem like it right now, but things with get better.”

JiYong sighed out and put his face in his hands, “I am so sorry.”

The taller man shrugged and offered up his last lifeline, “I’m always here for you if you need to talk you know? I’m a good listener.”

“I know,” the younger’s voice wobbled, “I know, and I don’t know why I stopped coming to you.

“Because you knew what I was going to say.”

“Probably,” Ji admitted, “Probably.”

“Ji, I’m not Seungri,” SeugHyun said, “I know we have the same name so it gets confusing but, I’m not Seungri,” he snorted at his own bad joke, “I don’t need your body to love you.”

The orange haired frosting maker looked up with more tears threatening to fall, like he really had more tears to cry. He opened his mouth and closed it again four times before deciding upon “It wasn’t always like that,” he defended. SeugHyun assumed that the younger man had taken the love as platonic as he usually did. It worked out well that way.

“But it has been for years hasn’t it?” SeugHyun inquired. The lack of sleep was apparently making him brave.

There was no verbal reply, just a choked out sob. The older man leaned against his doorframe and flinched as small shoulders shook. Hands went through orange hair and then laced on the back of a beautiful neck.

“I’m sorry,” SeugHyun sighed, but he couldn’t really bring himself to regret what he had said.

“Don’t be,” Ji said, “You warned me years ago that this would happen.” That was an old memory, a bitter one, that came up like bile and made an no longer twenty year old SeugHyun bite his lip in recoil, “You told me he would chew me up and spit me out like a dog toy someday. I just thought…” the younger man coughed, “I thought if I held on tight enough. If I just gave him what he wanted, that he would get better, and he would stay.”

Something in the older man’s heart just broke, actually broke. It didn’t ache; it didn’t threaten to bend, it just snapped. He hurt for JiYong, and hurt for bitter words he had hissed out in jealousy nearly nine years ago. While he was contemplating going to sit back on the bed with his dear friend and offer what little comfort he could muster the younger man actually stood up and crossed the space between them quickly.

Strong arms wound around the taller man’s waist, sleepy warmth radiated through him again as JiYong came to press up against him. With a hiss of a sigh, he watched the clock numbers through orange hair that his buried his face in and pulled his own arms around trembling shoulder. “It’s going to be okay Ji, I promise,” he soothed as best he could and let guilt continue to pool in his stomach because JiYong needed him.

“I’m sorry I didn’t listen,” the younger kept insisting.

“It was almost nine years ago,” SeugHyun kept repeating, along with a myriad of other excuses like, “I didn’t want to share you,” and “We wouldn’t have this bakery if you hadn’t dated Seungri.” In the end, the thing that finally brought the orange haired man back from his grief came ten minutes later in the form of, “Please, just promise me you wont let someone use you up like this again?”

As the younger man sniffed and pulled away he looked down at their feet, and traced a hand across the elder’s chest, “I wont SeugHyun,” he offered between hiccupped breaths, “I promise. I promise to listen next time.”

“Good,” SeugHyun sighed for the millionth time in two days ruffling his companion’s bright hair, “I promise not to let you. Now go put pajamas on and go back to bed until three.”

JiYong nodded as he turned to walk away. “Do good work.”

“We can talk more when you get up,” he said as he closed the door. There was a loud groan, but he couldn’t say if it was from himself of from JiYong at that point. He landed his forehead on the door for a moment and tried to cool off before he moved on down the hall. His nerves were on fire, his whole body was hot and shaking and starting to get a little sweaty. It was like being in a drunken haze, emotions kept bubbling up and crashing together.

It wasn’t heartbreak at all that he felt it was his soul. His soul hurt. Deep cracks were burning down into his very spirit as he stretched himself thin across the work that he loved and the man that he loved so deeply that it broke him. JiYong was, like always, just out of reach. For years he had put himself aside to take care of Ji, to put back the broken pieces of his best friend who needed him so desperately.

It took a full minute to collect himself before he ran a hand through his blue hair and in the morning air.

“Man,” a voice called down the hall startling SeugHyun, “You look like death.” It was YoungBae, “I can come and help,” he offered.

“Some time by myself would be good today,” the elder replied, “Go spend time with Dae, hug him for me.”

As the taller man passed, his mohawked friend turned to him and asked a very pointed question, that dung deep into his spine like a nail lodged in a piece of oak, “When are you just going to tell him that you love him?”

“I do, regularly,” SeugHyun answered back with a fake smile plastered across his weary features.

YoungBae wasn’t buying it, he never did. “SeugHyun,” the much smaller man took on the tone of a disapproving mother.

“When he’s ready,” was the answer that left his lips without asking, “And when I am. Right now, it would just break both of us. He’s too falling apart and I am too much.”

YoungBae sighed, “Yeah, I know…” and SeugHyun figured he was done so he moved on towards the door only to have, “I hope he sees you this time.”

He managed to mutter a thank you into thin air before he stumbled down the stairs in his slippers. Every breath he took was a drag of air intended to fill his lungs and remind him why he was here, how this mess had gotten so messy. Every moment served as a reminder that he and JiYong and nineteen and twenty would never have made it eight years. A confession back then would have ended in business failure, and broken hearts.

At least now, there was some hope for a future. Honestly, he had forced himself not to think about the possibility, but now, looking forward, he actually had a chance.

Despite the ache in his soul and the broken piece of his heart, the cake batter tasted a little bit sweeter than it had yesterday, because he had a chance this time, to really do this right. Even if nothing came of it, he at least had a chance.

~~~~~~~~~

True story, this chapter wrote itself when I was supposed to be working on something else. It was completely unplanned but SeugHyun decided he had something to say, so here it is. This story breaks my heart at least once every two chapters. I don't even know what I'm doing with my life anymore lol. At least it ended less angsty? I don't even know. My angst meter has been completely broken by now. 

I love you all so much for reading this mess. Pretty please comment with any feedback you have. I love feedback. I live on feedback. Comments make me a better writer and probably a better human. 

With all of the love SeugHyun has for JiYong,

RFL

(PLEASE COMMENT! I WRITE FASTER WHEN I GET COMMENTS!)