[Jongup Point Of View]

Waking up to someone beating and yelling at your door is not very pleasant. I can confirm that based on first hand experience, because once I blinked awake on that particular night, I was forced to realize the noise came from my own door and not the street below or my neighbors'. Picking my phone off the nightstand while pulling my body, heavy with sleep, into a sitting position, I checked the time; 02:43. A particularly loud thud that had the door shaking in its frame got me scrambling for something to pull on over my torso. Throwing a pair of half-dirty pants out of the way, and by the feel of it possibly a t-shirt along with them, I found a zip-up hoodie. Slipping my arms in, with a moment's struggling as I mistook the hood for a sleeve, I headed for the door. Someone had been yelling before, but now all I could hear on the other side was foul muttering and something that may be the rustle of keys. Just what was going on? Checking through the peephole, I thought I recognized one of my neighbors; he had moved in recently, and we had yet to greet each other. Head cocked in bewilderment, I unlocked and swung the door open. 

"FINALLY!" My neighbor yelled, tutting irritably as he walked right past me into my apartment. The smell of alcohol followed him in. "ing door, always in the goddamn way," he muttered, kicking his shoes off half way out of the hallway. A second after he disappeared into my kitchen, I rushed to the door opening, hands catching the frames to bring me to a halt.
"HEY." He spun around, freezing with strangely little wobbling compared to the way he had walked, and stared at me. "I don't know what game you're playing, but you need to get out," I told him.
"Well," he said, turning the tap on to flush cold water down the sink, "I see there you'd be confident, but it looks kinda not according them. You catch my flaunt if not one of the drifters."
"... What?"
"I'm saying, it looks bad out of clothes if you go for the first time it looks good," he said, with a tone as if he was explaining the obvious to an idiot. I had not the first clue what he was on about. The words made sense one by one but he was putting them together so incoherently he may as well be speaking a different language. As I stood there, trying to decode the situation and his nonsense, he filled the glass I had left on the counter after using the evening before with water and started drinking. After a few mostly successful drafts, he put the glass down - almost on the counter, but half-way into the sink, and I cringed as it fell. Fortunately the accompanying noise was a thud and not the splitting crashing sound of my life breaking into a thousand bits. 

He headed into the living room next, hitting his toes on the abnormally high threshold. He stumbled forward, jumping on one foot and just barely maintaining his balance. For a moment, immense satisfaction played over his face and he straightened his back. Then it twisted in pain, and he fired off a round of fatal curses, many of which were such long and elaborate phrases I figured he must use them often seeing as how they came out coherently even in his current state. He did something in between sitting and falling down onto the floor, whining about his toes having been murdered. Then, once more returned to what I presumed was his normal voice, he demanded to know what had happened to his bed. I got the strange feeling he was not asking me, despite there being no one else there to ask. What was I supposed to do with this drunkard? Leaning against the door frame connecting the kitchen to the living room, I almost felt like crying. All I wanted was to sleep. Why could I not just be allowed to sleep? Who was he to come beating on my door and barging in and making me deal with that was not mine?

"Hey you! This isn't your apartment. You live next door. Will you please leave?" It was a final, rational, desperate try to end the incident simply and as decent human beings. It failed. I may just as well be a buzzing fly hitting the glass window over and over in futile attempts to get out. He had started crawling towards my couch, and from his somehow clear yet incomprehensible muttering I figured he was having a discussion with the table regarding whether or not it had known his bed could shape-shift. "Should I pull you out by force?" I wondered out loud, arms crossed over my chest. It seemed like a pain. A serious pain. Who knew what the psycho would get up to if I resorted to violence. "Oh it. you," I said while turning the water off. Locking the outer door, I wished I could do the same to the one leading into my room. I would rather not have him barge in on me while I was sleeping. Perhaps, I comforted myself as I crawled back into bed, he was currently incapable of opening doors.

---

"Dude," I groaned, not bothering with cracking my eyes open, "the least you can do is lay still when I let you sleep in my bed." He stopped moving, though he stayed in a sitting position, and I had drifted back to sleep by the time he apologized.
"I'm sorry," he said, voice small, "I was just... not expecting to wake up next to someone, uhm..."
"You don't remember last night?" I asked without moving.
"I, uhm, I... Remember a bit..."
"Oh yeah? Great." Then he could get himself out of there and let me go back to sleep. My hopes that he would be unable to open my bedroom door had proven false before I had even fallen asleep in the night. After stumbling in, he had loudly exclaimed that he found Mister Bed. I had watched in terror as he pulled off one piece of clothing after the other. In the end, he laid down on the far side of my bed and started snoring within seconds. Confounded, annoyed and sleepy as I was, I had decided to just let him be and go to sleep myself. 

I felt him lay back down and frowned a little. Why was he not leaving?
"Last night was good," he said vaguely. I almost opened my eyes in hopes his face would explain what the hell he was talking about. Was he saying the party he went to last night had been good? Was he trying to make an excuse for getting -face drunk and inconveniencing his neighbor?
"... I hope you enjoyed yourself," I muttered.
"Ye-yeah, of course I did. You were really good. Yeah." Huh? In my mind, I constructed the situation as it must look to him, and it did not take me long to understand what was going on. Poor bastard had no memory of last night at all, and waking up almost in bed with an almost stranger, he assumed he had done a one night stand. Well, I said poor bastard, but I hardly felt sorry for him. In fact, I wanted revenge for my ruined night's sleep. And so the perfect idea struck me. If only I could manage to keep a straight face for long enough...
"You seemed to like it rough," I told him. "Didn't really expect that from you."
"O-oh, really?" he said, voice high and bearing shock.
"Really."
"Ah, yeah, uhm. I... do, sometimes."
"You do this often?"
"No," he was quick to reply, "no, I don't really do this... very often... no." He sounded so awkward and panicked I could no longer refrain from opening my eyes to catch his expression as well. A smile was slipping onto my lips, but as I could not make it go away, I decided to pretend it fit the context.
"So I'm special?" I asked, looking into his wide auburn eyes.
"Right." He wet his lips nervously, and I could see he was trying hard to keep a frown away. "You could say that, uhm, uhh..."
"Jongup," I supplied, putting a great deal of effort into forcing my smile away and trying to sound hurt. "You don't know my name? I thought you said you remembered last night."
"Of course I know your name!" He laughed, and I could impossibly hold back my own grin at how I could practically hear him crying on the inside. "What, you think I sleep with people without knowing their name?" Yes. I did not know about having , but he sure sleptsoundly with someone whose name he did not know. It was a shame I did not know his name; I would have to take a different approach to continue the theatre.
"Of course not, babe," I decided to say. "As much as you shouted it last night, you'd have to know it. Unless you completely forgot all about last night." I laughed, not having to fake it as his laughter was so obviously forced it would crack me up any day. This was hilarious. 

"I, uhm, I think I should really get going. Have some things to do, gotta... get home before it's too late, you know." He would find his trip home startling short.
"Oh, are you leaving already? And here I thought we were gonna go for round two."
"No, yeah, I really have to leave," he insisted, and I realized his face had grown red.
"Won't you even stay for breakfast? I mean think about how I'll feel if you just leave now..."
"Oh, uhm..." His eyes darted around the room and I saw guilt on his face. It almost made me burst out laughing. "I can stay for breakfast, yeah, uh, for a short while."
"Great," I said, grinning. More time to play this game. "Your clothes should be laying around on the floor here, I think. Unless you'd like to borrow some clean clothes from me?"
"No, no, thanks, but I'll just use my clothes."
"Alright." I watched him slip out of bed and start gathering his discarded garments. Last night I had really not gotten a good look at him, but with daylight rounding my blinds to light the room up, I could appreciate that he was quite attractive. I stretched and got out of bed myself, shooting his a glance before taking off my boxers and tossing them into the dirty laundry bag. As I opened the drawer where I kept clean underwear, there was an odd thud followed by quick and unrhythmic steps. By the time I turned around, all that was left of my neighbor in the room was a lonely sock. He probably dropped it in his rush to get out. I laughed quietly as I got dressed. 

---

[Daehyun POV]

The moment I got home, I collapsed on my bed and pulled out my phone to dial a certain someone. "Youngjae," I hissed through a clenched jaw, "I am never trusting you again."
"What?" came the innocent reply from the phone I had pressed against my ear.
"How could you let me leave with some random dude?! You should've made sure I went home!"
"Alright. First of all, Daehyun, it's your own fault for drinking so much. And I was drunk too, what do expect me to do?"
"I told you I didn't want to go because I didn't know anyone and you made me go anyway!"
"Secondly," Youngjae trudged on as if he had not heard me, "you did go home alone last night. I helped you get a taxi and all."
"Oh come on!" I snapped. "What does getting a taxi help if you send me off together with some stranger?"
"You got on the taxi alone, you dofus." I could hear he was losing his patience.
"Did not! I had the worst ing morning of my life because of you." I buried my face in my pillow and groaned as the very fresh memories of said morning came poking around.
"Seriously Daehyun, I'm certain I sent you home alone. Just who are you saying you went home with?"
"I don't know! He said his name was Jongup, I think."
"Jong...up?"
"Jongup."
"Jongup? Seriously?"
"Seriously." My so-called friend erupted in laughter and I wished he was in my room so I could strangle him. "It's not ing funny."
"It is! And I'll tell you why. There was no Jongup at the party last night." 

What.

"What?"
"I know everyone who were there last night, there was no one called Jongup." Oh no.
"Yes there was. He lives next to me! He's about my height, bleached hair, ripped- stop ing laughing, or I am buying acid and pouring it over your face next time I see you, you sodden cretin."
"No you're not, and I can't possibly not laugh. You need to tell me exactly what happened right now cause this is the best thing that's happened in years."
"The worst, you mean! I can't remember from last night, and when I woke up I was in someone else's room, in someone else's bed with that someone else sleeping next to me. Do you understand the horror?" Youngjae was laughing so hard, it was not a lost case to hope he would choke.
"Did- did you have your clothes on?"
"No, well yes, I mean, we had underwear on."
"Oh god. I wish I could've been there to see your face. You don't reckon he took any pictures, do you?"
"Of course he didn't!" What if he took pictures last night though? I would have no idea, and he might be in possession of pictures that could ruin my life, holy . "My life is ruined." 

"What happened then though? Did you run away?"
"No... I had breakfast there."
"Really?" He did not have to sound so enthusiastic about it... "What'd he say?"
"Ugh. All kinds of things. Dude just took off his underwear right in front of my eyes, what is wrong with him?"
"Well to be fair, you probably saw each other last night anyway."
"But I don't remember that!"
"Oh yeah, have you checked yourself?"
"What?"
"Like in the mirror, if he left marks or anything. Are you sore?"
"No..." I pushed myself off the bed to stand in front of my mirror, tugging my shirt this way and that to check beneath it. "No marks," I reported. "And I don't feel sore at all. Just hungover."
"Oh," he said, sounding disappointed.
"He said I liked it rough, though... If I'm not sore at all it can't have been that bad," I muttered.
"What's that?"
"Oh, uh. Never mind."
"No, mind. He said you liked it rough?"
"Look, if you're going to keep laughing your off at everything I say I am going to hang up now."
"Sorry," he said after choking the new bout of laughter. "I'll try to be more serious. So what did you reply?"
"Huh? I don't know. Something general, like, yeah, sometimes or something."
"Oh god. You're amazing."
"Gee, I feel like it." "You said he lives near you?"
"He lives in the apartment right ing next to mine," I sobbed. "I need to move again, dude, I can't stay here."
"Well not that I don't get your feelings pal, but you can't move out just cause you had a one night stand with your neighbor. How was it, by the way? Like. Don't you remember anything at all?"
"No, nothing..."
"What if... I mean, what if you actually didn't do anything? Maybe, just maybe, you just slept there. Does he seem like someone you'd go for? Handsome? Your type?"
"That sounds too good to be true." I groaned, collapsing back onto my bed. "Definitely handsome."
"Oh, well. I guess that's it, then. It was worth a try. This has been great Daehyun, thanks for calling me up and telling me all about your major and literal -up, but I gotta go. Talk to you later, try not to bang another stranger 'til then, okay?"
"I hate you."
"Of course," he said, and hung up. I sighed. Long and heavy. 

---

"Hey Daehyun!" I twisted around to look back up the stairs by reflex, but instantly regretted it. There was only one person in this house who would call me so casually, and it was the one person I never wanted to see again. Seriously, what did I expect? Jongup was only a few steps behind me and caught up before I could decide whether or not to run away. "You heading out?"
"Yeah." Obviously.
"Me too. Where you going?"
"Uni."
"Oh, me too! What university?" Oh no. I almost stopped in my tracks. Please tell me we do not attend the same university, I can't be running into him around campus, please, please...
"RTH."
"What program?"
"Industrial economy."
"Oh, indec... we're in different programs then." .
"You, uh, you go to RTH too?"
"Yep. Computer science."
"Great," I said trying to not sound very sarcastic.
"Yeah, isn't it? We'll have company all the way there. Awesome. Train leaves in ten though so you may want to pick up the pace a bit."
"Oh ."

---

Once we were seated on the train, a little out of breath, Jongup picked conversation right back up.
"What year are you in?" he asked.
"Fourth."
"Oh, how old are you?"
"22."
"You're older, then." He grinned, and I tore my eyes off the window to glance at him. "I hope you don't mind I haven't been calling you hyung. I can start now."
"You don't have to," I was quick to say. We were not close. We were strangers. Who was he trying to call hyung, damnit.
"Ooh," he said, grin losing to the face of realization. "I suppose, you prefer it if I keep calling you babe, don't you?" I felt the stranger sitting next to me shift and glance at us, and shot a glare at Jongup - who was already laughing.
"No," I said through gritted teeth, "I do not." His eyes were squinted as he kept smiling widely at me, and I realized he was teasing me on purpose. And having one hell of a good time doing it. The corners of my lips twitched up without permission. Damn but that grin was contagious. "So what year are you in?"
"Mm, it's a bit complicated but I'm basically in second year." I nodded. It's complicated was a common reply from a university student who was asked what year they were in. Particularly computer science students, from my experience. The only ones who seemed to answer completely straight were first years. 

The train reached the central station, and we switched to the underground in silence. I found that I no longer felt extremely uncomfortable in his company. Perhaps it was a blessing I had no recollections of that night. With the light and bustle of the usual morning crowd surrounding us as we did something so normal as heading in for school, I almost felt like I was in the company of a normal acquaintance. Jongup certainly felt at ease, trudging along holding the straps of his backpack (which no doubt contained a laptop). Maybe I did not have to move, after all. 

---

You should invite Jongup to the party this Friday, Youngjae had told me. He never did seem to mind my glares as much as I wished he would. After Youngjae found out my unfortunate unintended traumatic one night stand partner was in the same program as he, he had wasted no time in getting hold of him. I no longer agreed to meet him anywhere remotely near campus, because time and again he would call me over when he just happened to be hanging out with Jongup. Well, hanging out was a generous term; from what I gathered, the younger had been caught and held onto by his seniors until I appeared. Not that he seemed to mind much. Once the rest of our friends heard the story, they had become eager to include Jongup into the circle. If it weren't for obvious reasons, I would not have minded at all. The kid was hilarious. Under normal circumstances, I would likely have treated him like my new best friend. Oh, if only they were normal. 

The party, which I did end up inviting Jongup to, was a rather calm one at our friend Yongguk's place. He was already working full time, and had the nicest apartment out of all of us. It was more of a drink night than party, really, but things did have a tendency to get rowdy. Personally, I get extra loud and obnoxious when I am drunk. A few drinks in and I am considering doing things I know I should not. A few more, and I have no idea why it was ever a bad idea at all. And from there it's really just chance, what happens and what does not. Chance and how well my friends keep track of me. I trusted them, so I let myself drink and drink to my heart's content.

The trust was misplaced.

No one was there to stop me when I cornered Jongup against a wall in the kitchen. Why did I corner him against a wall? Well, first of all, why the hell not? Second, I was honestly not sure what precisely was going through my head. Whether I was actually looking to hook up with him, or exacting some kind of revenge... at any rate, when he did nothing but stare at me for a minute, I slowly leaned in and kissed him. My hands rested on his shoulders and as I moved my lips against his, I could feel a tug at my shirt. He stayed relatively frozen even several seconds into the kiss, however, so I pulled away to frown at him. With how he had been acting the morning after our one night stand, I had been sure he would not mind kissing me. I expected a smirk. But his normally slim eyes were open wide, his shoulders raised towards his ears as he stared at me. He looked properly shocked. 

I took my hands off him and stepped back, shaking my head in confusion. And then he was gone. I could hear several thuds from the hallway before the outer door opened and slammed shut. What.
"Daehyun!" Youngjae entered the kitchen , a surprisingly serious expression on his red face. "Jongup just made a run for it, what the hell did you do?"
"I kissed him. Why did he run away like that?"
"You kissed Jongup? Just like that?"
"Well, yeah, I mean, just like what?"
"Alright Daehyun you answer this right now. Did you use tongue?" I sighed. "Youngjae, please do leave me some privacy, won't you? Seriously, what's wrong with you?"
"Yes or no, Daehyun. Now."
"Fine! Alright. Yes. I did, a little." 

"You did what?!" I turned around to realize Junhong had been listening in. "You kissed Jongup-hyung? Why would you do something like that?"
"What the hell do you mean? Why do people usually kiss other people?" I snarled.
"Well, yeah, but this is Jongup we're talking about. He's like, the most precious guy on planet earth." Seriously, what?
"Alright Daehyun, look," Youngjae said, grabbing my shoulder and attention. "You didn't have a one night stand with Jongup. No one has ever had a one night stand with Jongup."
"I woke up practically in his bed!"
"Yes, you did! You mistook his apartment for yours, trespassed, undressed yourself and passed out in his bed you big great ing dofus!" The words fell like a slap. Or a bucket full of sobering ice cold water.
"I... I did what?"
"Man, I feel so bad for him." Junhong pouted as he uncapped a fresh bottle of beer. "Must've been so shocked."
"You knew?!"
"Everyone knew," Youngjae kindly explained to me. "It was just about the most hilarious thing I'd ever heard, even more so than your version of the story. But how could you attack that innocent kid?!"
"How is he innocent! He said all those things- he just undressed right in front of me! Just like that!"
"Mm, Jongup-hyung does that," Junhong said, nodding. "I think he's so innocent he doesn't even get that he's supposed to be embarrassed." 

My head was beginning to feel like it was being split in two. So, what? What did it all mean? What was going on?
"You're going after him," Youngjae loudly proclaimed. "He probably hasn't gotten far, you catch up to him and kneel and apologize for being something less than a violent ant. Got that?"
"Hey!"
"Go! And make sure he gets home alright, he's not quite sober." As if I was, in any sense of the term.
"... Fine." 

---

I was afraid Jongup would keep running away from me, but when I found him at the closest bus station, he merely glanced up before returning to staring into the ground. He shuffled his feet as I stood next to him, wondering what to say. Before I could decide, the night bus arrived and we both got on. We settled down opposite each other in an otherwise empty four-seat setup. After watching the deserted night scenery pass by the window for a few minutes, I gathered the courage to speak.
"So... I heard there was a bit of a misunderstanding between us." He shifted to meet my eyes, but stayed silent, so I elaborated. "I mean, that morning when I woke up in your bed, uh, I kind of just assumed we'd, you know. I'd apologize but really, you weren't precisely denying it, were you." He smiled a little at that.
"I wasn't the one who trespassed and invaded a stranger's bed."
"Right. I do apologize for that. I'm sorry. I'm also sorry for kissing you all of a sudden tonight, I just thought... I thought we'd already gone all the way, and that morning you were even talking about going for a second round."
"Oh yeah," Jongup said, breaking into laughter, "I did, didn't I? Totally freaked you out." I shook my head, at once understanding how hilarious it must have been for him and suffering the humiliation of knowing it was at my own unwilling expense. 

"Our friends seem to think you're the most innocent person in the world."
"They do, don't they," he agreed, grinning.
"Yeah but, see, I don't agree. I think it's just about as much of an act as the one you put up to me."
"You got me there." He was laughing again, eyes going so slim it was difficult to believe he could see anything through them. "I don't casually have with strangers, and I'm not an innocent angel. I'm just a normal guy. Surprise."
"Why do you put up acts?"
"Cause it's fun," he said, simply. "People who matter see past the acts anyway. I'm just joking around, really."
"All the time?"
"All the time. We're getting off here, babe." He winked and got to his feet. A chill ran down my spine as war flashbacks from the horror I had felt at being called that that morning resurfaced. I would probably never be comfortable with being called that, ever, for the rest of my life. 

Once we were off the bus and started on the short walk to our apartment complex, I picked the conversation back up.
"If you're not so innocent, though, why did you run away when I kissed you?"
"Hmmm... To keep the act up in front of our friends?"
"Really?"
"What do you think?"
"Well, no, I don't think that's it."
"Alright. You're such a horrible kisser I was desperate to escape the situation so I could avoid a recap."
"Hey," I seethed, "I happen to know I am a totally decent kisser, thank you very much." He laughed, unconcerned.
"Okay. I ran away because I knew you'd follow."
"... What's the point in that?"
"The point is, you'd follow me, asking about why I ran off as we took the bus home." Holding his keys against the reader, he unlocked and held the gate to our house open for me. "And by the time we were done talking, I'd be in a perfect position to pull you into my apartment so we could have that one night stand you've been suffering over these past few weeks." I froze by the foot of the stairs, then spun on my heel to stare at him.
"Are you- are you serious?"
"What do you think?"
"I, uh, I don't know. Yes? I mean, that just now sounded way too deliberate to be fake. But..."
"But what?"
"You said you weren't the kind of person to have one night stands."
"I also said I'm constantly putting on acts."
"So you are serious? You had this all planned out?" He shrugged.
"If I did, did it work?"
"I'm... not sure," I hesitated, frowning.
"Well, how about this, then? I ran away when you kissed me because I honestly freaked out. Why did I freak out over a kiss, when I'm not an innocent little kid? Because I really like you. And while I'm not innocent, I'm certainly not experienced. So I ran off without really thinking." I stared at him open mouthed. What was with this kid? First he was one thing, then he was another, then he twirls it all about and claims he was neither all along. 

"People like you are why I have trust issues, seriously," I muttered, rubbing my temples as he gave a self-satisfied grin.
"Don't know what to think, do you?" Sighing, I stepped forward and grabbed his shoulder with one hand, cupping his cheek with the other. I leaned in quickly, but halted just before our lips touched. Then I pulled away and was met with that same shocked expression from earlier in the night. Pulling on a satisfied smirk of my own, I spoke in a soft voice barely above a whisper.
"Somehow, I don't think options one to three are quite it." He glanced up at me through his lashes, lips slightly parted. I could hear each breath he took.
"Oh? What makes you say that?" He replied in a volume matching mine.
"You," I said, then let our lips touch in a kiss that was, this time around, eagerly reciprocated. 

THE END TROLOLOL

//Note: Well, this is it guys. I have no more prewritten Daejong stories, so I can't say when the next time I update with anything will be. If you want to see more from me, I suggest shooting some requests/prompts/ideas at me and maybe I'll get inspired and write something. Thanks to the people sticking with me from In Your Eyes, and thanks to new readers for giving this a shot. <3