He had told Woohyun he had something he needed to do so he would have an excuse to get out of Woohyun’s house, but Sunggyu doesn’t actually have anywhere he needs to be so he idles on the streets. His mood is a little strange at the moment, his mind hazy like it’s not fully processing everything that has happened, and he doesn’t know what to do with the conversation he just had with Woohyun.

Woohyun likes me. He likes me. Why? Since when?

The questions repeat themselves in his already foggy mind, and Sunggyu keeps hearing Woohyun’s words –

“Nothing needs to happen, you know. Nothing needs to change.”

Squinting his eyes as if that would make the jumble of thoughts in his head sort themselves out, Sunggyu pinches the bridge of his nose. All the new information sit in his brain, bloated, and if Sunggyu even has the presence of mind to examine something beyond this barrage of information, he’ll notice that his own feelings on the matter are more complicated than he expected. The initial surprise and disbelief he had had when Dongwoo accidentally told him Woohyun likes him (Woohyun likes me. Why?) is still there, but the expected sense of understanding – some sort of clarification he thought he would get after asking Woohyun about the issue itself – isn’t part of what he’s feeling. Instead, there’s something else, something amorphous and dark, too shapeless for him to make out what it is at the moment. Though, if Sunggyu’s being honest, it’s not something he really wants to examine too hard right now either.

Sunggyu rubs his hand tiredly across his face. Maybe he should go home instead of walking aimless on the streets. Maybe a warm shower and some food would help him clear his head.

The takeout dinner and long shower eased the tension in his body, but Sunggyu’s mind is still tangled (tripping) on the happenings of the day when he emerges from the bathroom, wrapped in a soft towel.

Still, now that he’s a little bit less fuzzy-brained than he was earlier, Sunggyu thinks maybe the best way to figure things out (figure out what he’s feeling and thinking) would be to talk to someone else. He slowly changes into a soft t-shirt and sweatpants, wondering who he can talk to.

Maybe I can call Myungsoo?

Sunggyu stares at the number on his phone. No, not a good idea. While Myungsoo is a close friend of his since high school (he’s the one Sunggyu started hanging out with more frequently after Woohyun got busy with dating), Myungsoo is as much Woohyun’s close friend as he is Sunggyu’s, and that isn’t the best thing to be when Sunggyu needs an unbiased perspective on what happened today. Besides, he doesn’t want Myungsoo to look at either him or Woohyun differently after telling him this, although he’s pretty sure the guy wouldn’t, but still…

Someone else… Who else can I talk to about this?

Opening Kakaotalk, the first thing Sunggyu sees is the message he had sent Hoya last night, something about their group work. Without processing what he’s doing, Sunggyu finds his fingers starting to type a message to Hoya.

[8:47pm] Can…

Before he finishes the thought, Sunggyu quickly slams the delete button, holding it for longer than necessary. Tapping his nail on the side of his phone, Sunggyu wonders what he should say. How should he start the conversation? He can’t just say hi like he would in a normal conversation, and Can I talk to you about something? sounds way too stilted, even for him. But how does one even go about telling someone else that their best friend basically told them that they like them, only to also say in the same breath that they should just behave like nothing has happened?

[8.48pm] …

Another minute passes, then another, and still Sunggyu’s staring at the blank messaging screen. In the end, he forces himself to stop thinking so hard and quickly types something, hitting send before he can press delete again.

[8.53pm] Do you have a best friend?

It’s too far from what he wants to talk about, but it’s a safe enough start, so Sunggyu waits for Hoya’s reply. It doesn’t take long.

[8.55pm] What kind of question is that?

Then a few seconds later:

[8.55pm] Of course I do. Why are you even asking

Sunggyu waits for a while more, thinking Hoya might send another reply (maybe something lame like, Do you not have a best friend? or some similar jab he would expect from the guy), but he doesn’t. So Sunggyu starts typing his reply hesitantly.

[8.57pm] I… kind of have a situation. Regarding my best friend.

He spends too long trying to figure out what to write after that, and Hoya must have sensed something being up, because instead of his usual sarcastic “And…???” (okay, so there’s usually only one question mark, but Sunggyu swears he can hear the judgement in that short text), Hoya sends:

[8.57pm] …do you need to talk or something?

It’s a much less sarcastic reply that he expects from Hoya, but Sunggyu still thinks he hears Hoya’s judging voice in the message. He’s questioning his earlier decision to talk about this with Hoya when the guy suddenly calls him.

“What’s the cryptic message about?” Hoya says instead of hi, and Sunggyu rolls his eyes. Maybe it’s a bad idea to be talking to Hoya about this. But then Hoya adds in a gentler tone, “Is something bothering you?” and Sunggyu finds himself sighing.

“Yeah.”

It actually takes less time than he thought it would to tell Hoya what happened. Sunggyu doesn’t delve into too much details, just lays out the basic facts.

“Wow, okay,” is the first thing Hoya says after Sunggyu is done. “That’s…”

Sunggyu sighs, dropping onto his bed and pulling his knees towards his chest. “I don’t know what to do about this.”

Hoya doesn’t say anything for a long while, and Sunggyu’s kind of starting to regret telling him when Hoya’s voice starts tentatively from the other side of the phone. “Maybe you need to think about how you feel about this whole thing first…”

“I don’t know what I feel,” Sunggyu answers almost reflexively, setting his chin onto his knees. His head is still filled with thoughts scattered and scrambled, but he isn’t lying when he said he doesn’t know how he feels about this.

“Well, I can’t really help you much, you know,” Hoya says eventually. “Especially if you don’t even know what you’re feeling.” There seems to be more implied in Hoya’s words, but Sunggyu doesn’t ask (doesn’t want to know), so instead he lets Hoya talk to him about hypothetical solutions that don’t work (won’t work) because Hoya doesn’t know Woohyun that well nor does he know the exact dynamics of Sunggyu’s friendship with Woohyun. Though technically, it’s really Sunggyu’s fault for choosing to tell this to Hoya in the first place, instead of someone like Myungsoo. He listens to Hoya try his best to give something other than generic advice to a situation (his situation) that’s probably pretty absurd and which Hoya barely knows anything about, and Sunggyu tries not to think about the complicated tangle of things in his head.

He doesn’t see Woohyun the next day since it’s a Sunday, though Woohyun sends him some photo he found on the Internet that he probably thinks is funny. Sunggyu reads the message but doesn’t reply. He’s not deliberately ignoring Woohyun – it’s not like he usually replies to all of Woohyun’s random “ooh look this is cute” messages when some of them are too lame to deserve a response – but he feels like he might be anyway. Still, Sunggyu figures it’s within the range of his normal behavior, so he chucks his phone aside and gets his laptop out. He’s no closer to figuring out how to deal with the situation (or is there even a situation after Woohyun said nothing has to change?) but spending his entire day dwelling on it probably wouldn’t help, so he might as well do some homework.

It’s only later when he’s already lying on the bed, having spent the day productively finishing all his readings and assignments does Sunggyu realise that he probably should have spent some time thinking about the situation. Because, tomorrow, he’ll have to see Woohyun in school, and now that he’s thinking about it, he has no clue how he will (how he should) behave around Woohyun.

Monday comes too fast with Sunggyu having only slept an hour or two after tossing and turning in bed. He eats lunch with Woohyun and Dongwoo as usual, which is actually more of Sunggyu just si