“One bite.” Dongwoo pleaded.

“I told you, I'm not hungry.” Woohyun pushed the plate away. He had almost forgotten what it was like to have an appetite. His stomach had turned into a permanent rock, appearing to have handed in its resignation, not doing anything except torturing nearby organs at very inconvenient times, even causing him to wake up in the middle of he night. .

“You have to eat something!” Dongwoo sounded really worried.

“Hey, I'm going to be the thinnest one on set, without an ounce of effort.” he offered with fake optimism, winking tiredly at him.

“Yeah, a lot of good that's going to do you, when you are six feet under the set.” Dongwoo and Hoya exchanged looks, Hoya squeezing Dongwoo's thigh lightly as encouragement. Hoya had all but moved in, making him feel like the third wheel every single day. The third wheel was the loneliest wheel of all, running behind the two front wheels with all its might, but never catching up to them, always alone in the back. He was happy Dongwoo had found someone, or at least he pretended to be, but it was hard to be happy about anything these days. He hadn't spoken to neither Eunji nor Sungkyu since that day. He hadn't had the conscience to contact Eunji and she had made no effort to contact him. It was over. He was never going to see her nor Sungkyu ever again. He could of course go to the coffee shop, but there came a time where self respect had to come first. It was a few levels too pathetic to grovel at someone's feet who didn't want anything to do with you, not now and not ever. His heart made a familiar sigh of defeat, each time losing more ground to the blue monster that was turning it into a blue ice crystal, cold and smooth, frozen for all eternity.

“Your phone is making that noise again. If I didn't know better, I would almost think it was a device used for communicating with other people! Weird, huh?” Dongwoo mocked him as he brought him his phone. He hadn't been in the mood to talk to anybody lately.

“I thought I told you to transfer all work calls to your phone?” Woohyun scowled, annoyed. He was too tired to deal with this.

“I did, Sir Cranky-Pants.” Dongwoo took a bow as he handed him his phone as if he was an old-school butler. He could hear Hoya chuckle in the living room. He needed a break from those two love bugs.

“It's not ringing?” he complained.

“That is an astute observation, perhaps this is a magical phone that also receives messages, my lord.” Dongwoo smirked.

“Dude, seriously? With the jokes?” he said, irritated.

“Dude, seriously? With the mood?” Dongwoo threw right back at him. “I'll stop if you stop.” he added with a soft smile.

“Fine.” he shrugged apathetically as he opened the inbox. Two seconds later he was literally swinging from the chandelier. The message was from Sungkyu. How? Why? When? What? Say again?

“Dongie, Dongie, Dongie! Come back!! Sungkyu sent a message!” he said oddly high-pitched.

“Really? What did he say?” Dongwoo's eyes doubled in size, his voice hopeful.

“'Hey.'” he beamed.

“Wow. Give the man a Pulitzer.” Dongwoo shook his head and giggled.

He read it over and over. 'Hey'. It was the best greeting in the history of greetings. 'Hey'. 'Hey'. He said hey!

“What should I say? What should I say?” he jumped up and down on the sofa, incapable of maintaining a straight thought.

“How abouuut....'Hey'?” Dongwoo offered. He was probably making fun of him, but it wasn't such a bad idea. And before he lost his nerve, he sent it. However the moment the digital pigeon departed with his message, he could feel the panic set in. Should he have said something more clever? Sweeter? Should he not have answered so quickly? What if he didn't text back? His throat went dry, his hands clammy. He stared at his phone. His phone, that usually couldn't shut up with calls and messages coming from all over the globe, but the one time he needed it to be noisy, it was completely quiet.

“What?” he said defensively when he noticed the smirk on Dongwoo's face.

“Nothing. It's just... nice to see you like this.” Dongwoo smiled.

“Like what....like a complete idiot?” he snapped, but there was no bite to it, he was too busy freaking out.

“Yeah... something like that.” Dongwoo sent him a wink and escaped to his hubby in the living room.

One minute. Two minutes.

Five minutes.

Ten minutes.

Was he working? Did he not have his phone?

Fifteen minutes.

Was he ignoring him?

Twenty minutes.

Had he sent it to him by accident? When he was really meaning to send it to his latest conquest? His stomach churned when he thought about Sungkyu having another guy already. Man, he shouldn't have sent a reply so fast. He should have included a question, so Sungkyu had no choice but to send an answer back if he didn't want to be an .

He sent Dongwoo a message just to make sure his phone was working.

“Stop friggin' sending me messages every two seconds!!” Dongwoo yelled from the living room.

“Send me one back.” he shouted back. He had to know if there was some problem with his phone receiving messages.

He got a message. And even though he had told his heart to be still because he knew it was from Dongwoo, it jumped anyway.

'For the umpteenth time, there's nothing wrong with your phone!!'.

“This is the last time!” Dongwoo warned, his patience apparently up. In his defense, he had probably sent him around 40-50 messages already.

He watched his phone, trying to will it to react in some way. He was so focused that when it started ringing he was so surprised that he inadvertently threw it in the air. It flew like a magnificent singing bird, for a brief second. He had his heart in his throat as he watched it start to descend. It felt as if it was happening in slow motion. 'Don't break, don't break' he silently pleaded, running to try and catch it. He only missed it by an inch, but thankfully a pile of clothes on the floor broke its fall as it slid under the dresser.

“Aaa don't stop ringing.” he mumbled as he got on all four and blindly fumbled around with his hand stuck under the dresser. “Gotcha” he pulled the phone triumphantly out of the darkness, covered in dust. He coughed. He was going to have to have Dongwoo fire the maid. He quickly swiped the green call button to the side before it stopped ringing, realizing too late that he was not at all prepared for this call. He stared at the phone for a moment, listening to his heart run a marathon. Then he snapped out of it, almost dropping the phone again as he rushed to put it up against his ear.

“Hello?” he said, doing everything he could to steady his voice.

There was only silence that greeted him. Had he hung up already?

“Hey.” Sungkyu finally said. Followed by more silence. He called him, he wasn't going to be the one to start the conversation.

“Hey.” he answered, using Sungkyu's own tactic against him.

More silence. The suspense was killing him. It was just like watching a horror film, that quiet moment where the protagonist goes alone to check something down a dark corridor and you just know something terrible is going to happen, you just don't know when.

“So ah... you coming over tonight? We're ordering Chinese.” Sungkyu casually said, as if this was a normal suggestion, as if he frequented their place and this was no big deal, just another Monday.

“I ...uh... is Eunji not mad at me...?” he hesitated.

“Oh she is.” Sungkyu said matter-of-factly.

“Okay..” he said, confused.

“Great, see ya at 8.” Sungkyu said and hung up, not giving him any room to object.

What did this mean?