Hakyeon smiled softly as he watched Sanghyuk messing around with Shownu from the observation deck above the training room. The pair was supposed to be practicing their hand-to-hand, but somewhere along the way it turned into a game. Stuff like that tended to happen with the two a lot during training. Everything turned into a game or a friendly competition.

Sometimes Hakyeon wondered if he should put a stop to it, but he never did. The training still was done. They were still a great team on the battle field. The games and competitions seemed to even help them. but if they did ever get in the way of training, Hakyeon would be sure to put a stop to them.

“Sanghyuk!” Hakyeon’s smile dropped as Wonho rushed out onto the floor, knocking Sanghyuk down with the force of his hug.

“Wonho!” Sanghyuk laughed, playfully shoving the mechanic off, “that hurt.”

“No way,” Wonho argued, “there is no way I hit you hard enough to hurt.”

Shownu just laughed as the pair playfully argued.

Hakyeon didn’t find it anywhere near as funny.

Watching Wonho so close to Sanghyuk made Hakyeon very unhappy. He wanted nothing more than to go down there and drag Sanghyuk away or order Wonho to go back to the garage and leave Sanghyuk alone. But he couldn’t do either. The second was a total abuse of his power and the first…….Hakyeon didn’t have any right to do something like that. Sanghyuk was friends with Wonho and he could hang out with his friends.

Hakyeon was just another friend to him and even that was a bit of a stretch. Well, compared to how Sanghyuk interacted with Hongbin and Shownu anyway. And the real kicker about that was that they used to be closer. Sure, it still wasn’t anything like Sanghyuk’s friendship with Hongbin and Shownu, but they still hung out and talked. Sometimes Sanghyuk would swing by Hakyeon’s office with lunch and they would hang out and talk.

They hadn’t done that it a while.

It bothered Hakyeon a great deal.

“What’s wrong?” Hakyeon jumped when Hongbin suddenly spoke up, “Whoa, calm down. Don’t have a heart attack or anything.”

“Sorry,” Hakyeon sighed, forcing a smile, “forgot I wasn’t alone.”

“I’ll say,” Hongbin laughed, “There’s no way you’d glare at Wonho like that otherwise.”

“W-What’s that supposed to mean?” Hakyeon huffed, “I wasn’t glaring at him.”

“Bull,” the medic laughed, “you were totally glaring at him the second he got near Sanghyuk.”

“I was not!” Hakyeon snapped, flinching when Hongbin glared at him, “Sorry.”

“It’s cool,” Hongbin shrugged, “I get it. You’re jealous.”

“Wait,” Hakyeon paused, processing what Hongbin had just said, “what?”

“You’re jealous,” Hongbin smiled slightly, “of Wonho. Of how close he and Sanghyuk are. You’re jealous because you want to be close like that with Hyukkie. You want to be even closer with him. You like Sanghyuk.”

“What?” Hakyeon gasped, “No! No way.” he paused, trying to find the right words, “I mean, yeah I wanna be close like that with Sanghyuk. We used to be pretty close, but…….but we aren’t anymore and I miss it.” Hakyeon looked down at Sanghyuk, a sad smile forming on his face, “I don’t know what happened, but…….but I want to fix whatever happened. I miss talking to him like we used to. I miss when he’d stop by my office with lunch of both of us. I just……”

“You love him,” Hongbin said and Hakyeon couldn’t really deny it.

“It’s not love yet,” he said, “but does it matter? The way he’s distanced himself from me…….”

“You asked his ex out,” Hongbin rolled his eyes, “how did you think he was gonna react?”

“Right,” Hakyeon sighed, “but still…….if I asked him out……” He would just turn me down. He would just distance himself from me more.

“Just ask him out,” Hongbin told him, smiling brightly, “you won’t know until you try.”

“Yeah,” Hakyeon nodded before excusing himself to head back to his office.

Hongbin watched as Hakyeon left, deciding that there was no way Hakyeon was going to actually ask Sanghyuk out. Not without a little bit of pressure. He smiled to himself, deciding to talk to Taekwoon about their best friends and their feelings for each other.

A/N: and then Taekwoon rode Hakyeon’s about asking Sanghyukkie out until our favorite leader finally did. Haha thank goodness for best friends, right? I've kind of caught up to what i have written, so it might be a little bit before i post more. Sorry about that guys, i just like being 4 or 5 chapters ahead of what i've posted. it takes the pressure off me a little bit, knowing i don't have to try to hammer out a chapter last minute. also helps if i get a bad case of writer's block so you guys can still get some updates and i'm not, like, leaving ya hanging with no updates.