Dongwoo swept his overgrown bangs out of his eyes, to engrossed in the passage on his laptop screen to bother with pinning it up, even if it eventually just obstructed his vision again. He had finally found his lead, he would be the first reporter to discover Kim Myungsoo’s secret. He ran to his cell phone and hastily snatched it, pulling the charger up with it and dialed his boss’s number, waiting eagerly for the other to answer. 

    “Do you know what time it is?” the groggy voice of his quite enraged boss greeted him on the other end of the line, making it clear that he had better have a good cause for his call if he valued his life.

    “Yongin, a lead for the Kim Myungsoo case is in Yongin based on my research,” Dongwoo exclaimed as if it was as valuable as discovering a pot of gold, and maybe it was, with the amount of months he had spent looking for one. 

    “Okay, okay, you can go to Yongin first thing in the morning, now can I please get some sleep?” before Dongwoo had the opportunity to answer the question he was answered by the droning of the dead line. He sighed a little in partial relief before ending his end of the call and raced around his apartment so that he could cram all his essentials into his traveling bag.

-the next morning-

    Dongwoo waited for the taxi he booked to arrive while his boyfriend stood by his side silently. This was the first time that Dongwoo was traveling without asking for Howon’s permission first. Howon had been silent about the whole arrangement ever since Dongwoo had told him about it earlier that morning. “I’ll miss you,” Dongwoo murmured in an attempt to break the awkward silence that presided over them since he announced that he was traveling to Yongin. The statement came out a little too loud though, resulting in a few glares from the people surrounding them as Dongwoo’s booming voice interrupted their conversation. Howon held his silence while trying to formulate a response. However this was unknown to Dongwoo, scaring the older, who then began to rant almost immediately; not even giving the younger a chance to finish his thoughts. “It’s just that the Kim Myungsoo case has been so challenging and I thought that I would never find a lead so when I finally did I needed to make sure that I jumped on it. I only thought about following my lead so I forgot to call you and ask you for permission which was…” Dongwoo trailed of with as he heard the other boy begin to chuckle, and took in the oxygen he hadn’t had the time to inhale while speaking. 

    “Am I that possessive?” Howon closed the distance between them and murmured the rhetorical question into Dongwoo’s ear. The humor in his voice reassured the older that he was nowhere near upset, before helping Dongwoo get all of his luggage onto the taxi. Howon waved his boyfriend goodbye until the taxi faded from his vision completely.

~

    “Woohyun,I understand that you aren’t happy with what I did but not talking to me isn’t going to help either of us,” Woohyun seemed content with maintaining the distance between him and Woohyun. Even though Myungsoo liked to think he could function without Woohyun, he couldn’t. Myungsoo let out a sigh, reason was going nowhere with Woohyun and the former didn’t even see what he had done wrong.

    “Whatever happened to consulting with me? I am your psychiatrist but you rarely talk to me anymore,” Woohyun spoke just as Myungsoo thought the room was doomed to die down to an uncomfortable, silent oblivion and it was quite clear that he was angry.

    “Woohyun I was going to tell you eventually…” Myungsoo was cut off. 

    “Eventually my , the only reason I found out was because of Sunggyu. Do you know how much of a slap in the face that was, to know that my fiancé who had little to no connection with you knew more about my patient than I did?” Woohyun snapped. 

    “Woohyun, it wasn’t my fault he told you before I did. What was I supposed to do in that situation, let her kiss me? Plus, just because we got close due to drama filming she should have known better than to try to kiss me on stage. There was no way I was going to accept that advance; I am no K idol that needs to put up with that . I am an actor, so of course I pushed her away. I was not to concerned about what the press thought at that time, about how prying they might get,” Myungsoo retorted with just as much malice. 

    “You haven’t been taking your medication have you?” Woohyun’s exasperation laced the question as he heard the change in Myungsoo’s voice.

    “I have not had time to take the worthless pills you decided to write up for me because you need to prove your use to me somehow. You should just go back to dealing with Sungyeol, I am sure that idiot is the only one that needs you,” Myungsoo retorted. 

    “Myungsoo, calm down. How about you go to bed? We can talk about everything else in the morning,” Woohyun suggested, turning down the stove and turning to face Myungsoo, any anger that he should have been portraying replaced by a gentle smile.

    “Stop treating me like a child, like something that needs to be fixed. I can handle this conversation like any normal adult!” Myungsoo shouted, his whole form shaking with anger.

    “Soo, Sungyeol brought you the pills that Hyun said you should eat,” a twenty-four year old adorning a pink shirt and white jeans made his presence known as he entered the room, a packet of pills in his hand.

    Myungsoo turned to the offending voice, much to Woohyun’s horror and glared at the boy. “How dare you? You always cause all of my problems and yet here you are again making my life worse. It’s your fault that I am in this mess and, like always, you get to play innocent,” Myungsoo growled at Sungyeol. Sungyeol didn’t know what had happened but it was clear that he thought he had wronged Myungsoo seeing as he stepped tried to hug the boy that had just scolded him.

    “Sungyeol didn’t mean to get Soo in trouble, Sungyeol sorry,” the taller boy seemed unfazed by the anger in Myungsoo’s eyes, which only fueled Myungsoo's rage further. The sharp sound of skin against skin could be heard followed by the thud of Sungyeol hitting the floor. That was enough to get Woohyun into action. Though before he could reach them Myungsoo had already delivered a couple of hard kicks to the older’s stomach while cussing him of, causing Sungyeol to let out a slight whimper of pain. That whimper seemed to pull Myungsoo out of his temper however as he glanced down to see the injured Sungyeol.

    “Myungsoo, you should go rest. I will take care of Sungyeol,” Myungsoo shot one last guilty glance at Sungyeol, fleeing the room as soon as his eyes landed on the ball that was an injured Sungyeol.

    “Are you okay, Sungyeol?” Woohyun moved to help the boy get up only to be pushed away.

    “Sungyeol is fine, Hyun should be helping Soo. Sungyeol will get up soon and help Hyun make Soo happy,” Woohyun couldn’t help but feel touched by how much Sungyeol wanted to help Myungsoo despite the fear in his eyes.

    “No, Sungyeol, I am going to clean you up and you are going to sleep.” Woohyun commanded, helping the boy up and leading him to the bathroom.

    ~

    Woohyun lay Sungyeol down on his bed and watched the younger fall asleep in a matter of seconds before picking up his phone and calling his fiancé. 

    The phone went to voicemail as always and Woohyun began talking after the monotone beep. “Hey, Myungsoo has been having a pretty bad day today and I don’t feel comfortable leaving Sungyeol alone with him so I might be spending a night or two over.” With that he ended the call, taking place in bed next to Sungyeol, since he knew the other would crave comfort and human warmth after being hit. As Woohyun pulled the brunette closer, he heard a mumbled “Sorry, Soo.” Woohyun checked to see if the boy was still sleeping. He was. Woohyun would never be able to understand why Sungyeol was so loyal to Myungsoo despite the fact that there were days when he was hit worse than today. Whenever he asked Sungyeol about it though all he would get was, “That is Sungyeol and Soo’s secret.” The boy would then flash a smile that extended to his gums before going back to playing with his blocks or watching cartoons on TV. “I’m sorry too Sungyeol, whenever I let my guard down Myungsoo ends up hurting you. I can’t even do anything about it when it happens because his anger might become worse. That could get both of us seriously injured.” Woohyun felt like all he ever did was apologize, and Woohyun wished could show his affections even though he sadly was only good at speaking them.