"Did you clean up after yourself?"

"Of course! It's buried in the bin!"

"Not what I meant Jonghyun..." Suho grumbled as he took a sip from his beer bottle, but pulling it away from his sink to continue complaining, "I can't believe you hooked up with someone in my sink! Who does it on sink, let alone inside it?!"

Taemin rolled his eyes at the exchange taking place between his friends. They'd been back from Japan for less than a couple of days, and already Jonghyun was wreaking havoc among their (small) friendship circle. Jonghyun had just won 150,000 Won ($130/80) from Minho for a bet over remaining abstinent for their final 5 months in Japan, and in their short return, Jonghyun managed to hook up with 5 girls.

Or so he claims

"To be honest, I'm surprised you haven't got an STI yet," Taemin teased as he took a sip of his beer.

Jonghyun sent Taemin a predatory look, "You better watch I don't make a move on you next, pretty boy. I might just give you something."

"Yeah," Taemin replied, "An STI." 

"Great," Suho sighed, "I'm gonna' have to burn my sink."

"No you don't, I brushed my teeth in it afterwards," Jonghyun reassured his friend, waving a hand in the air dismissively. 

Taemin scoffed.

"I rest my case," Suho shook his head.

"When's Onew getting here?" Taemin asked. He hadn't seen his Hyung since he visited them a few months ago in Tokyo, and he was probably the person he missed the most. 

You sure about that?

"I don't know, I'll ask Minho," Jonghyun shrugged, he turned the other direction, shouting over the booming music, "Yah! Minho! When is Suho getting here!?" 

Minho looked busy chatting to a pretty girl by the punchbowl, carelessly pouring more into his red cup as his eyes began to go wide and slightly crazed from the heavy vodka ratio. Taemin sighed. His friends would never stop womanising - he almost felt inadequate standing with them.

Just because you're a nice guy.

But are you really?

"He'll be here in a minute!" Minho shouted back over the music.

"Is he bringing any girls?!" Jonghyun shouted back unashamedly.

"Why don't they just walk over to one another and talk?" Suho complained before downing a Soju shot in one gulp. Taemin stared at him, wide-eyed, "What? I know my apartment is getting trashed tonight, at least this way I won't care about it."

Taemin chuckled, "Then I guess you won't mind doing another shot?" 

~ 

Half an hour later Taemin was beginning to regret his decision already. Taemin could hardly feel his face, let alone his legs as he trudged his way around the living room, laughing uncontrollably at the chaos surrounding him. It'd been a while since he'd drank properly, let alone allowed himself to actually party. He missed this. Even if everything and everyone was in bad state.

Suho had fallen over and hit his head on the edge of his sofa, and was currently being consoled (more like calmed and restrained) by his two co-workers, Minseok and Luhan. Minseok used his surprising strength to pin the intoxicated friend down, whilst Luhan tried wrestled to place an ice-pack on his bruising forehead.

Two of Suho's other dork friends who Taemin remembered from University, Chanyeol and Baekhyun, were busy drunkenly bribing people at a startlingly corrupt game of strip poker. The two sat grinning, fully clothed, whilst four girls sat in half-, the odds not appearing to be in their favour as Baekhyun placed his cards on the table with a devilish smirk on his baby face.

Minho and Jonghyun had quickly assumed command of the AUX cable, and the This is Drake Spotify playlist was blaring uncontrollably from the speakers. 

"Yah!" Jonghyun called out to Taemin. His shirt had somehow been ripped in half, the torn fabric dangling down around his legs, revealing his toned physique, "Taeminnie, get over here!"

"I'm coming Hyung!" Taemin yelled back before traversing (and tripping) his way over to his friends by the speakers. Tamein had always been gifted with fluidity of limbs, and he certainly wasn't going to hold back on his talent for dancing now; he swayed slowly and carefully to the beat, "Cause' ever since I left the city you!"

"Started wearin' less and goin' out more!" Taemin yelled back, his terrible attempt at English near-undecipherable. But no one cared, and neither did he, he was far too drunk, and so was everyone else.

Jonghyun began to do some awkward hip-ing move, clearly trying to imitate the body rolls that Taemin had mastered, "I can't do it!" Jonghyun roared in pure anger, "Something keeps dangling!"

"What?" Minho roared, "I can't hear you! You used to call me on my cell phone!" He began his best attempt at imitating some of Drake's infamously dodgy dance moves from the MV - he did a surprisingly good job of it.

But before Taemin could even try to imitate and ultimately fail at those moves, drunken Suho leapt up from the sofa and out of the iron grips of his protectors, running towards the doors with his arms wide open, yelling, "Onew-Hyung! He came!"

Taemin stopped body rolling to observe the scene before his eyes; a tall, grinning guy stepped into the apartment before being near-tackled to the ground by the screaming Suho, "I'm sorry!" Onew groaned as Suho clung to him like a child, "Key's piece-of-crap car broke down on the way here."

"Don't hate on the car," another guy -Key, probably- grumbled as he walked straight to the snack table to eat his sorrows away. Taemin was impressed without how fashionable the guy was - I wonder if he could give me a few tips?

"We're here!"

"Who put this music on!? I wanna give them a hug!"

Behind him trudged two girls, both pretty, one a tomboy, the other with longer hair - both seemed pretty tipsy as they giggled and shouted endlessly, swaying ever so slightly as they stepped inside. Then came a taller girl with pale skin and jet hair, again extremely pretty, but with a mischievous flicker in her eyes. Taemin was a lawyer, it was his job to pick up on details like this. But there was something else. Something that made both his stomach drop and heart leap out of his chest.

Her eyes still had that dark coldness within as they scanned the room with uncertainty, her face a sheer mask for whatever emotions lay beneath her harsh exterior, whatever warmth she was still too scared to show. Her hair was longer, no longer cherry red or blonde, the ends slightly frayed - she obviously stopped caring so much to style her hair the way she used to. Her clothes told the tale of a simple life; chic, yet basic at the same time, as if each item had been perfectly mismatched. And her lips -those lips- pressed into that harsh, cold line Taemin never thought he'd see for a long time. He wondered when was the last time he ever saw Soojung smile.

Yet as she walked in, all he could bring himself to do was hide under the punchbowl table. He was no longer the sharp and witty lawyer-Taemin, whose silver tongue and sharp intellect proved a formidable foe for undeserving defendants. No, now he was the little 17 year punching above his weight for a girl who clearly wouldn't give him the time of day. Butterflies fluttered in his stomach and threatened to fly out of his mouth - whether it was alcohol or nerves, he didn't know, but Taemin's only solution was to secretly reach up to the table and grab a bottle of Soju.

"Liquid courage..." he mumbled before bringing the poison to his lips, the cold burn trickling down his throat taking away his fear ever so slightly,

He thought about the last thing he'd said to her. The look on his face when he'd obliterated almost 2 years with that simple word; goodbye. 

Taemin sighed, bringing his hands to his face as despair threatened to overwhelm him. All manner of guilt and longing quickly surfaced, but he forced it down, knowing it was far too late to change what had happened between Taemin and