2017

Howon didn’t know what to do. Woohyun was sulking and muttering to himself as he laid the canvas back on the board and clipped it on. When Howon looked at Sunggyu, Sunggyu looked just as worried, but not as confused as Howon felt. He really shouldn’t have been surprised. Whenever Sunggyu wasn’t ignoring Woohyun, he always seemed to know what to do and how to make Woohyun feel better.

*****

2014

Howon’s new roommates were the best he could have asked for. And for all the things he’d expected to ruin his stay, he would never have believed that his agony would come in the form of angst and inter-personal relationships.

They were fine for the first few weeks until Howon had to go on an MT with the Megastar employees. When he got back, though, it was almost as if he was walking around on eggshells made of trip bombs. While Woohyun was the obvious guilty party in the situation, Sunggyu seemed determined to make both Howon’s and Woohyun’s presence something to be ignored.

 “What’s going on with you two?” Howon asked one day as Woohyun laid out his cones on the laundry room window sill while Howon did laundry.

“Who two?”

“You and Sunggyu.”

Woohyun scoffed.

“It’s nothing. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“I heard you crying…” Howon said, letting the words drift off on their own as Woohyun reddened and dropped the last cone, failing to keep his hands from shaking as he pulled them away.

“That wasn’t about him.”

“What was it about?”

It took Woohyun a few seconds, but he eventually said:

“I don’t know.”

Not that it was Howon’s business but he figured he’d help. So he offered Sunggyu companionship. He tried to get him to spend some time with him and Woohyun. He even tried cleaning up Sunggyu’s studio one Sunday that he had free time. He’d never expected to be on the receiving end of a barrage of insults for moving Sunggyu’s things around.

After that, Howon gave up trying.

*****

It wasn’t very hard to see what was going on once Howon stopped trying to infuse himself into his roommates’ lives. As much of a Sunggyu was, he seemed to graduate to a whole new level every time Woohyun brought someone home. After he’d noticed this for three consecutive booty calls, Howon was taken back to his first day in the apartment when Sunggyu had made Woohyun and Howon promise not to each other.

“Ahh.” Howon said to himself as Woohyun looked up at him from where he was stringing out a newly made painting.

“What ahh?”

“I just solved world peace.” Howon told him.

“Congratulations.” Woohyun replied dryly as he went back to his work.

Sunggyu was in love with Woohyun but was too chicken to do anything about it. And Woohyun was completely oblivious of Sunggyu’s feelings because he was too busy banging everyone. And so the jealousy led to anger which led to discomfort which led to Howon poking his nose into things that were not his business. Which meant all he had to do was-

“Sunggyu likes you.”

“Of course he does.”

“I’m serious.”

“I know you are.”

“Woohyun-”

“Look, I’ve been up all night on this because I have to ship it in three days so I’ll tell you now: anything you say, I’m just going to agree with you because I’m that strung out. So please, don’t expect much from me in this conversation.”

As Woohyun went back to work, Howon threw on his jacket and went to work.

*****

Later that night, as Woohyun threw something together for Howon’s dinner, he decided to bring it up again.

Woohyun laughed. As jovial as Woohyun had always been, Howon didn’t remember a time he’d heard something so p