Hyesung waited anxiously, his hands deep in his pockets, jangling a few coins. When he saw Andy he took a step forward, then stopped. He watched Andy walk towards him and his tongue slipped out to lips his lip, slightly raw from being nibbled nervously all day.

“Did you wait long?”, Andy said as he stopped in from of Hyesung. He hadn’t quite figured out what he would actually say but he knew that Minwoo was serious. Things needed to be resolved, things that went way beyond their behavior at work.

“Not really. I had to drop some files off to Minwoo.” Hyesung gripped the change in his pocket one last time before he pulled his hands out and pointed down the street.

“There’s a bar down the street. Have a drink with me?”, he said and half expected Andy to refuse but the younger man nodded.

“Sure, but you’re paying….. since this is all your fault”, Andy muttered under his breath as he took off in the direction that Hyesung had pointed. He figured this would go a lot easier if he had a few drinks in him first. Just because he hadn’t confronted Hyesung about what had happened didn’t mean he had forgotten about it. One way or another, he would make the man tell him why he had acted that way.

5 or 10 bottles of soju later

Andy sat in a chair across from Hyesung, feeling stupid and more than a little drunk. He still hadn’t brought up the reason they were together in the first place. He had almost mentioned it when the first bottle of soju was empty but as he thought about the way Hyesung’s weight had settled on his hips, he chickened out.

Then when the eighth was empty, he noticed that Hyesung’s cheeks had started to flush slightly and he was struck by how pretty it looked against the paleness of the rest of his face.

Hyesung didn’t say much the whole time, just drinking the shots that were poured for him. He knew why he was here and it would be easier if he just blurted it all out but there was a part of him that was terrified that Andy’s reaction would match the image he had carried in his head for the last ten years.

Shots were poured again, but not by Andy. Hyesung’s hand shook as he filled Andy’s glass to the brim, almost overflowing it. His own glass, he managed to overfill and grabbed it to drink it down as quickly as he could. Blinking rapidly, he set the glass down and opened his mouth to speak.

“Andy……”, he said but was cut off by the very same man.

“Why were you doing that? You can’t really expect me to believe that you just needed to know where the bathroom was”, Andy said, his voice slightly slurring but the look he gave Hyesung showed he was in complete control of his thoughts and actions.

Hyesung let out a sound that was like a gasp and a cough. The cough took over and he hacked until tears ran from his eyes. The soju he had just gulped burned like fire in his throat and the suddenness of Andy’s question stole the air from his lungs.

“I…..I….”, Hyesung sputtered, his eyes wide as he tried to catch his breath. Andy just sat and stared at him, his face calm as he waited for Hyesung to answer.

Even though Hyesung wished he could disappear in a puff of smoke, he opened his mouth and started to speak.

“When I started at the company, I was surprised to see you there. No, surprised isn’t the right word. Downright overwhelmed is more like it. I hadn’t seen you in ten years and suddenly there you were, glaring at me like I had taken your favorite toy and broken it.”, Hyesung said, trying to stay calm, as he prepared to tell the secret he had kept from everyone.

“The first time I saw you, standing in line to talk to the advisement counselor, I wondered who you were, if you would be in my major and what it would take to get closer to you. I didn’t see you again after that until our first day of classes. When I walked into the classroom and saw you there, I almost sat in the empty seat next to yours but I was worried you might somehow be a mind reader and know exactly what I was thinking.” Hyesung brought one long hand up to his lips and nibbled nervously on his cuticle for a moment before he continued. The man across from him still hadn’t reacted at all and this made Hyesung more uncomfortable than a negative reaction.

“I used to watch you from a distance….. I was scared to get to close. But once I overcame my fear and covered you up while you were sleeping in the study room once”, Hyesung admitted in a soft whisper, his cheeks even redder, this time it was from embarrassment rather than the alcohol.

“and now, ten years later I still have a crush on you. I never got the chance to really love you from afar, so I’m still that kid that got his first crush on a boy and didn’t know who to tell or how to deal with it. So when we got back to you place…… It was like I had to do something, anything, because I may never get that chance again.”

Hyesung finished and focused his attention on filling his glass again, avoiding looking at Andy’s face. As he drank it Andy was still silent. Hyesung his lips and chewed the bottom one nervously and held his breath, totally on board with the fact that the lack of air just might kill him.

(Just a short update. I've been having a hard time with this couple and I think it's because I'm just not used tothem. Hopefully I'll find my way through their story soon.