Once you have nothing to worry about though, hope becomes an illusion, a drug that drags you into an alternate reality you can’t quit and it stays until your thoughts waste away and render you unable to move forward. 

When Jaehwan is sad, he looks much like an unwatered, wilting flower.

He cups Sanghyuk’s cheeks and pulls him a bit closer, kissing him deeply, because Taekwoon has never been good at putting his thoughts and feelings into words, and because he doesn’t think he could say anything that would express how much he loves Sanghyuk better than kissing him breathless.

“Han Sanghyuk asked me out today.”

He is honestly, deeply, madly in love with Hakyeon, but at the moment, he hates life, hates everything and everyone in the world, even— no, he doesn’t hate Hakyeon, but he does hate the fact that Hakyeon is buzzing around him like an annoying fly, asking him what’s wrong and how he could help when Taekwoon doesn’t reply.

He never really dared to imagine how it would feel to kiss Hakyeon’s lips—that simply seemed too unholy, like Hakyeon was only a paragon of perfection until someone as mundane as Hongbin tainted him by such a human act as a kiss.

Sanghyuk had stupid shiny black hair and a stupidly cute fleshy nose and a pair of stupid, nicely-shaped eyes as well as stupid pink lips he liked to wet with his tongue a little too much between two stupid smirks, and he was also stupidly tall, but Jaehwan would never have a crush on him. He didn’t like bad guys.

Taekwoon had been used to silence once; he had lived in this very flat for years before Hakyeon came into his life, and Hakyeon was the first thing to fill it with noise and laughter and incessant talking, but he was nowhere now.

He said loving Jaehwan was more futile than longing for someone who was long dead. And he was probably right.

Wonshik thinks he’s probably smiling, because Jaehwan apparently smiles a lot and Wonshik, a brooding, always negative and anxious person, thinks it’s like a breath of fresh air seeing Jaehwan smile so easily at everything.

Wonshik snorts, half a smile quirking the left corner of his mouth upwards, but a beat later it dies down and he looks up with sadness in his eyes. “Please, don’t hurt Jaehwan,” he says quietly. “He’s not the one at fault.”

Sanghyuk keeps staring ahead, into the small, narrowed black eyes that are glaring at him, trying to find out how he should proceed from here.

Sometimes looking at Hakyeon was like looking at the sun. 

“The main reason why they’re encouraging people who ‘wish to see the most adorable way of blatant flirting in which both parties seem to be unaware of the other being head over heels in love with them’ to come here is you guys being openly gross."

Sanghyuk doesn’t usually fall for puppy eyes.

“I’m so tired,” Jaehwan breathes and there’s not even the ghost of his roguish grin on his face; he seems so open and vulnerable, more so than he usually does whenever he asks Wonshik to go into his room.

It’s not that Jaehwan doesn’t like the puppy; puppies are cute and Badass is an extremely small one with huge eyes and even huger ears, but he’s also been getting most of Wonshik’s attention, and that hurts.

It’s insane how addictive Jaehwan is, from head to toe, from his sweet scent to his even sweeter voice, from his featherlight touches to his hungry kisses.

“Depending on how good you look,” Sanghyuk said, and when Hongbin looked up and into the mirror with his arms hooked into the straps of a hot pink bra, Sanghyuk’s reflection smirked at his own, “I might make a fake Tinder account for fun.” (third part added)

As someone whose boyfriend appreciates the body aesthetics of both men and women, Taekwoon thinks he is righteously feeling upset about everything that’s going on in front of him.

Taekwoon is too much of a perfectly snarky smartass for Hakyeon’s stupid teenage girl-like taste in men.

Jaehwan hasn’t fallen asleep with Wonshik next to him for weeks.

His necktie is suffocating him and he loosens it, ending up dry-heaving above the sink nevertheless, the anxiety from not getting even just a text from Sanghyuk for the sixth day in a row stirring up in his stomach, making it cramp.

“Lee Jaehwan,” the guy replies and reaches out a hand for Sanghyuk to shake. “Guide to lost souls trying to find themselves The Book. Always a pleasure to set up a rendezvous between an enthralling story and a reader starving to read something good.”

“Dear all,” Jaehwan said in an authoritative tone, “thank you for coming. What we are going to discuss today is a very sensitive, very important issue.” He tipped his chin up and took a deep breath before announcing, “The reason why we are here… is that I am irresistible.”