May

"So what's been going on?" Heechul asked, placing two coffee mugs down on the coffee table. He slowly lowered himself to sit on the couch opposite his friend, a concerned look evident in his eyes.

Heechul had been Hyukjae's friend since the first week he and Donghae moved to Japan. Living in the same apartment building as the young couple, it wasn't hard for them to cross paths almost immediately, and thus a friendship was formed.

Heechul, although he can be extremely immature -- not to mention sarcastic -- somewhat acted as a fatherly figure for Hyukjae. Often the raven headed male would visit Heechul in his apartment when he was in need of some advice.

"It's me and Donghae," Hyukjae revealed, staring at his coffee mug with a frown on his face. "I... we aren't doing very well."

Heechul furrowed his eyebrows. This sounded nothing like the always-happy Hyukjae and Donghae that he was friends with. As far as he knew, the couple had never, not once had an issue, big or small, through their entire marriage, in the nine years they had known each other. They were made for each other, that was obvious. They always got along, never had a single argument over anything at all.

Something seriously must be wrong if Hyukjae came to talk with Heechul about their relationship.

Heechul pressed his lips into a straight line and prepared for the worst. "Did you two have a fight?"

He could see the hesitation in the raven head's eyes. "One fight?" he asked instead of answering.

"How many was it?" Heechul asked sympathetically. He knew that this was bothering Hyukjae more than he would let on.

"I don't even know... too many to count. I think we've fought every day since my birthday," Hyukjae explained.

"What happened?"

"It was... so out of the ordinary," Hyukjae muttered. "Donghae was drinking at work and got fired."

"Donghae drank alcohol?" Heechul asked in disbelief, eyes wide.

Hyukjae nodded. "It was his first glass of wine in his life, and it cost him his job."

"Wow," Heechul mumbled, and Hyukjae could hear the surprise in his older friend's voice. "What does this have to do with the both of you?"

Hyukjae pushed his coffee mug away, despite not having drank any of it. He didn't want it anymore. "It's just... all we do is fight now, and I just want it to stop."

"Would you say that you were mad at Donghae?" Heechul inquired.

"I love him so much. But we just can't get along," Hyukjae said.

"Can you explain what you mean?" Heechul pressed further. With every question he asked, Heechul seemed more like Hyukjae's therapist than a friend trying to help him out. 

"I don't really know," Hyukjae mumbled in a defeated tone. "I could never be mad at him for anything. He's the love of my life, what can I say? But all we do is fight now, I hardly ever see him smiling anymore and I just want everything back to the way it was before. I don't want us to keep fighting like this."

"Tell me what your fights are like," Heechul requested.

"They've never gotten physical, not since the day he got fired. But--"

"What do you mean?" Heechul asked again. 

Hyukjae bit his lip and tried to force back the tears that were welling in his eyes as he remembered that day. "I -- I hit him that day. I slapped his face and I don't... I don't know why I did it, and I can't believe that I did. I never even apologized to him and I just can't forgive myself for doing that... he didn't deserve it."

"I'm sure you didn't mean it," Heechul said.

"I didn't. But ever since that day, I haven't laid a hand on him like that. Our fights now though, they're still really bad, I think. We just argue with each other, sometimes over really stupid things. Sometimes we'll actually yell at each other. And on the worst days, we'll just yell back and forth, getting louder and louder until --" Hyukjae stopped and allowed the first tears to fall.

"Until what?" Heechul asked quietly, leaning forward and gently placing his hand on the younger's knee to comfort him. "It's okay, Hyukjae."

"We'll get louder and louder until I would say something so hurtful and so, so loud that it -- it scares him." Hyuk