If there was one thing that Jihoon absolutely at, it would be maintaining social relationships. Literally every single relationship he ever had with anyone went to .

Ever since he was young, people were simply not his forte. It all started when his mother abandoned him when he was three. Young Jihoon was raised by his depressed father, and so that loneliness somehow rubbed off on him and became a part of personality.

Jihoon just naturally pushed people away, and so he didn’t make very many friends. Very few people could handle his random bursts of anger and his attitude issues. He came off as cold and rude and unapproachable to most everyone, and so people steered clear of him for most of his life.

Actually, Jihoon really made only one true friend: his neighbor since he was young, and the only person who was able to deal with his grumpy attitude and stick with him all throughout: Lee Seokmin. Sunshine Seokmin, as everyone called him.

Seokmin was just something special. Even when Jihoon pushed him away and yelled at him and called him names, Seokmin would still bounce back like a spring and be there for Jihoon throughout everything. As Seokmin had known Jihoon for so long, Seokmin somehow developed thick skin against Jihoon’s coldness.

But lately, what Jihoon had once thought was his only successful relationship was falling apart. Seokmin got his first girlfriend, and he was spending all of his time with her. Jihoon was bitter and jealous; how can that girl, who Seokmin only met a few months ago, be getting more attention from Seokmin that Jihoon himself, who had been with him since childhood? It just didn’t make any sense to Jihoon, and he was extremely sour about it.

And so when Seokmin got Jihoon to meet this so-called girlfriend, Jihoon made her cry. He didn’t intend to make her cry, she was just weak-hearted, Jihoon thought. All he did was call her out on her repulsive music taste (boy bands, yuck) and tell her she needed to wash her greasy hair next time she went out on a date. Oh, and he also told her to stop eating so much or she’ll get fat.

Seokmin was furious, about which Jihoon was actually surprised. Seokmin almost never got angry let alone furious…

“What the hell was that about?!” Seokmin yelled at Jihoon after his girlfriend stormed off in tears.

“What? I was only speaking the truth,” Jihoon scoffed and crossed his arms.

“Ugh, I hate you!” Seokmin blurted before running after her.

From then on, Seokmin ignored Jihoon completely. And Jihoon was too proud to apologize, and so that was a temporary end to that relationship.

And although Jihoon liked to appear like the nonchalant lone wolf that he was, he was upset. He wouldn’t lie to himself. He was upset that Seokmin was angry with him, upset that Seokmin was meeting new people to replace him, upset about losing the only friend that he ever had.

Jihoon went to a bar to drown his sorrows in beer.

He sat at the front and made his order to the bartender standing at the counter wiping glasses. The bartender raised an eyebrow.

“What?” Jihoon snapped when he saw the way the bartender was looking at him.

“How old are you, kid?” the bartender asked.

Oh God, not this again.

Jihoon lifted his middle finger at the bartender before grudgingly taking out his ID.

After a quick glance at the card, the bartender began to make the order. “You look young; it’s a compliment.”

“ you,” Jihoon muttered.

“Someone’s snappy today,” that infuriating man said.

“Just give me my beer.”

-

Jihoon didn’t apologize to Seokmin for three months. It was Seokmin who had to come and demand for an apology from Jihoon to his girlfriend. Jihoon begrudgingly apologized, and Seokmin was entirely forgiving, and he went back to being the sunshine best friend that Jihoon knew.

But shortly after the feud with Seokmin, Jihoon was involved in yet another large-scale feud.

Jihoon’s father had been trying to get Jihoon into a boarding school, to which Jihoon did not want to go. One night, his father got the acceptance letter for Jihoon from the school, and told Jihoon he was to pack to attend next fall. Jihoon was furious.

“I told you I didn’t want to go! I told you I didn’t, and you still enrolled me? Well, you! I know what this is about. You want me out of the house, don’t you? Ever since you got remarried you were just waiting for a chance to get rid of me, right?”

“Jihoon that’s ridiculous and you know it!” his father replied. “I’m doing this so I can push you into making a career out of your talents…”

“Yeah right!” Jihoon snapped. “ you! I am not going to that ing school, and I am staying here with you and your wife. I’m sorry I’m a nuisance your perfect family, but I’m not leaving.”

“Jihoon, you’re being very unfair to me right now,” his father replied calmly.

“I don’t want to talk to you,” Jihoon muttered.

From then on, Jihoon’s father stopped talking to him. And Jihoon felt, once again, like he ruined the once-great relationship between him and his father.

That called for yet another round of drinks at the stupid bar.

“I hate him so much,” Jihoon mumbled drunkenly.

“Why? He’s your father. You shouldn’t hate your father,” said the bartender as he was wiping glasses.

“What do you know? You’re probably one of those middle-class boys with a nice happy family. You don’t know .”

“Actually, my father died when I was fourteen. Car accident.”

“How tragic,” Jihoon replied. “My mom away and abandoned me when I was two.”

“Oh? That explains so much,” the bartender replied.

“What the is that supposed to mean?”

“You missed out on maternal love as child. Small wonder you’re so cold and rude. Also, your height make so much more sense now; you didn’t have a mother to tell you to drink your milk so your bones could grow,” the bartender laughed, and Jihoon shot him another middle finger.

-

Things never really got better between Jihoon and his father. Jihoon refused to go to the boarding school, and instead locked himself up in the room. His relationship with his father became nothing more than a business arrangement, in which Jihoon got a weekly allowance from him and that’s it. No sitting with each other at the dinner table, no weekend trips, no Father’s Day celebrations. Jihoon didn’t even invite his father to his music recital.

“You’re being so unfair to him!” Vernon, Jihoon’s half-brother said to him. Vernon was three years younger than him, and the product of his father’s second marriage to an American woman (who Jihoon actually liked but wouldn’t show it).

“Easy for you to say. You’re his favorite after all,” Jihoon snapped.

“Excuse me? Hyung, dad has been working so hard to give you a breakthrough in your career. He’s been supporting your talents, but you’re the one who’s too lazy to hone them. You just don’t see how much others care about you because you shut them out before they even have the chance to make things right with you. Honestly, it’s tiring,” Vernon told him with a frown on his face.

“How much did dad pay you to say these things to me?” Jihoon replied.

“You find it so hard to see the good in people, don’t you? That’s why you’ll end up alone and miserable when you’re older,” Vernon told him. “Stop being an to everyone. I’m done with you.”

That conversation called for another night of drowning in sorrow at the bar.

“People are the worst,” Jihoon said as he began gulping down his fifth cup of beer. “I just want to live in a cave for the rest of my life, away from all of them.”

“That would be favor to society,” the obnoxious bartender said.

“Do you have anything better to do besides remind me how much of nuisance I am to society?” Jihoon asked.

“Not really.”

That earned him another middle finger, but the bartender was so used to it that he laughed whenever Jihoon flipped him off.

Jihoon had another sip from his beer, and his nonchalant front suddenly dropped and replaced with an expression of sadness. “You’re right. I am a nuisance. And Vernon was right too. I will end up alone and miserable.”

The bartender didn’t say anything, although it had been a perfect opportunity to poke fun at the miserable drunkard in front of him. Instead, he prepared another cup of beer in which Jihoon can drown his sorrows.

-

The following morning, Jihoon woke up with a hangover in an unfamiliar apartment. He took a moment to let the headache ease before sitting up and looking around. He found a note on the table beside him, written in green marker: “Hey, it’s the bartender. You passed out and I didn’t know what to do so I took you home. When you leave, please lock up and place the key under the mat at the front door. Thanks! P.S.: Help yourself to whatever is in the fridge. Except no more beer.”

Jihoon mumbled expletives under his breath as he forced himself off the sofa and tried to find his balance. The bartender’s apartment was messy and it didn’t help that he had to dodge random wads of clothes and empty water bottles as he made his way to the kitchen for a drink of water.

When he finally felt well enough to move without , he quickly opened his phone to see where the he was, and realized, to his pleasant surprise, it was only a few blocks from his home.

But he also realized, to his unpleasant surprise, that literally no one called to check up on him.

“I bet no one even realized I didn’t come home tonight,” he said to himself. Suddenly he felt the urge to drink again.

He wondered– if he jumped from the window right now and killed himself, how long would it be until someone realized he was gone? Would anyone even be sad about it? Would Seokmin be glad that his rude best friend was out of the picture? His girlfriend would sure be happy about it, and Seokmin would be happy if his girlfriend was happy. Would his father be happy that he got rid of the son that ruined his perfect family? Would Vernon be glad that his obnoxious, ungrateful brat of a brother was gone?

It just seemed like no one in his life cared about him, and it made him so angry. And sad too, but most angry.

So angry, that he felt he needed to punish them all and kill himself, so that they could all feel guilty for the rest of their lives for driving him to suicide. In a momentary lapse of judgement, he walked over to the window, opened the curtain and moved his hand to the window handle. He stopped when he saw a note taped onto it. In green marker, in the same handwriting as the note beside his bed: “Please don’t do what I think you’re going to do. Call me: ############.”

Jihoon collapsed on the floor as the tears brimmed in his eyes. He was really going to do it, he realized. He was really going to jump out a window until that stupid note knocked some sense into him.

He quickly wiped his tears with his sleeves and closed the curtain to cover the note. He didn’t need that obnoxious bartender to know that he saw the stupid note, and that that stupid note actually stopped him from committing suicide. He didn’t want that to know that Jihoon literally owed him his life.

-

A/N: I will update very soon. I already have it all written~