(Youngjae's Perspective)

Well, things weren't getting better for Youngjae's dilemma. If anything, he was worse off now!

He'd technically gone on a date with Daehyun, which he was absolutely thrilled about despite the situation that caused it. He'd also successfully managed to not make a fool of himself! Nor did he accidentally intimidate Daehyun by looking at him while tearing into his steak. Sure, he'd said it was to pay back Daehyun's kindness, but Youngjae's heart felt way better when he thought of it like a date...

Youngjae added another check to his mental 'hopelessly gay chart' at how he felt like he'd been swept off his feet yesterday. From his place on the couch, he slid off like putty and dropped to the floor face first, letting the hardwood cool down his face and palms. A wistful sigh passed his lips as he laid on the floor like a dead person at a crime scene.

Then he flopped around on the floor while he let his thoughts run free. From his stomach onto his back, arms flopping like deadweights, then rolling back onto his stomach.

Youngjae had been so done and fed up after having to wait an hour in the cold, constantly checking his phone to make sure he didn't miss the message that either said his date was running late or wasn't showing up. He'd figured after an hour of waiting that it was the latter, but he didn't want to be the person who left when the other had just been running late.

But then Daehyun swooped in and saved his night by being such a gentleman! So caring and considerate... Youngjae couldn't help but fall harder even if he was trying not to!

“Are you going to explain, or are you just going to keep flopping on the floor like a fish, hyung?” Jongup inquired after Youngjae let out a noise that was a mix between a groan and a sigh. “Dying whale mode, huh. You've really got it bad... I'm going to guess it's Daehyun?”

Youngjae shot up to a sitting position, ready to deny with all his being, but then he saw the innocent grin and childlike curiosity on Jongup's face and decided it against it. Jongup had technically been the first person he told on New Year's, so he couldn't even deflect his friend's guess. Instead, he clambered back up onto the couch and covered Jongup's mouth with his hand. “Shh, don't say it so loudly!” he whisper shouted. Jongup raised a brow in confusion, and Youngjae quietly clarified, “I don't want Zelo to find out...”

Zelo was currently in the bathroom dolling himself up. Him learning about Youngjae's growing infatuation for his best friend was something Youngjae didn't have on his list of wants.

“I think he'd be able to help,” Jongup declared, muting his voice out of consideration after prying Youngjae's hand from his face. “He's his best friend, so he'd know best. Right?”

Youngjae squinted at him. “Either that, or he'd get mad at me for not keeping my stupid gay heart in check?” When Jongup tilted his head curiously, Youngjae sighed. “I don't want him to be mad at me for crushing on Daehyun... I've been trying really hard to push my feelings to the back burner, but that's hard when he's just so... so...” Youngjae flopped across his friend's lap, at a total loss for words, only able to get out an exasperated groan.

What wanted to come out was 'oof'.

“Problem with your words, hyung?” Jongup patted his head, and Youngjae rolled over so his pout would be visible. “I don't think Zelo would get mad at you.” Another few pats, but to his forehead this time. “How long have you been trying to not feel this way? Since New Year's?”

“No, only about a week.”

“Why?”

“He's straight,” Youngjae groaned, covering his face with his hands.

“Who's straight?”

The sudden presence of Zelo caught Youngjae off guard. So much so that he jumped right off of Jongup's lap and directly onto the floor. “Ah!” he yelped, flailing about his hands to try and grasp the couch to pull himself back up.

“, Jae hyung, are you okay?” Zelo managed to grab one of Youngjae's reaching hands while Jongup grabbed the other, and the two of them helped their friend back up onto his feet. It felt kind of like a tug of war with his arms, though, and Jongup had to get off the couch in order to offer any real assistance.

“Yeah, you just startled me,” Youngjae responded breathily, brushing his front off and hoping to retain at least some form of dignity-

“He's having a gay crisis.”

-if Jongup hadn't said that. He whipped his head to glare at Jongup and pointed at him in what Youngjae hoped was a menacing kind of way. It didn't seem to come off that way, though. “Jongup, don't you say a thing!”

Zelo scrunched his brows up in confusion. “What the are you talking about?” he wondered, propping a hand onto a dramatically poked out hip.

“Absolutely nothing!” Youngjae spun around to point the menacing finger towards Zelo. An unpleasant feeling settled in his shoulders at the way Zelo's eyes narrowed to slits, only one of them with any sort of eyeshadow blended onto it while the other was plain.

“What are you hiding, Jae hyung?” he interrogated, crossing his arms over his chest.

“What? Me? Hiding something? Pssh, no! I-” The unimpressed brow raise stilled Youngjae's voice. Deception really didn't suit him. Being upfront was more his style. “Okay, yeah. I'm hiding something.” Before Zelo could make an inquiry, Youngjae clapped his hands together and firmly said, “This is something I just can't tell you, Zelo.”

He pursed his lips and looked at Youngjae like he was the most suspicious person on the planet. “...Why not?”

Youngjae gulped. “I can't tell you that either.”

The suspicion alert in Zelo's eyes intensified. “What the , Jae hyung?” Before he knew it, Zelo had grabbed Youngjae by the shoulders and was looking down into his eyes concernedly. “Stop being so damn shady. Jongup says you're having a gay crisis, and I want to help with that! Let me help!”

“Please drop it, Zelo...” Youngjae grabbed Zelo's wrists and pried his hands off his shoulders.

Zelo frowned and pulled his wrists from Youngjae's grasp. “Fine,” he sighed, crossing his arms over his bare chest. “But if you won't tell me, then I'll ask Jongup.” Immediately, both their gazes found Jongup creeping over to the door, just having turned the knob before he'd been caught sneaking away. Zelo's eyes sought the answer, while Youngjae's begged secrecy.

“Don't bring me into this. This is your business,” he quietly said, pausing between the doorframe to look back at them. He awkwardly scratched at the back of his head before averting his eyes. “This is one of those things where like, I probably shouldn't hear what's going on... Have fun working things out, guys.” With that, he walked out of the apartment, but jokes on Youngjae for feeling relieved because Jongup poked his head back in and piped up, “Oh, right. Youngjae is trying not to crush on Daehyun. That's the problem.” Then he closed the door with a speed that would've gotten him a ticket if he'd been driving.

One of Youngjae's eyes twitched. 'How could Jongup betray me like this?' He specifically told Jongup he didn't want Zelo to know, and he pulls this stunt? “MOON JONGUP YOU GET BACK HERE AND FACE THE CONSEQUENCES OF YOUR ACTIONS!” Youngjae was ready to stomp out and chase him to the ends of the earth if need be.

That is, if a hand hadn't grabbed the back collar of his shirt to hold him back. “Trying not to? Is there a problem with my best friend, Youngjae?” Zelo questioned lowly, a dark tone in his voice that Youngjae had never heard from him before.

Youngjae spun around as best he could, trying to fumble out of of the grasp Zelo had on him. “No, it's the complete opposite!” he wailed. He fanned away the rising heat in his face with both hands. 'I need to calm down... I can't be loudly proclaiming my gay thoughts for Daehyun when he lives directly below this apartment and has a high chance of hearing it!' “I'm honestly really into him...”

Youngjae couldn't believe he admitted that to his crush's best friend, but as soon as the words left his mouth, Zelo let go of Youngjae's collar and lightened up. “What's the problem then?” he wondered innocently.

“Well, I know I don't have a chance with a him...”

“No... chance..?” Zelo hummed to himself for a minute, head leaned to the side and lips pursed as he pondered the words. Then he had the audacity to start laughing!

“What are you laughing at? This isn't funny!” Youngjae crossed his arms and gave him the angriest glare he could muster, but that only made Zelo laugh harder.

After a knee slap and a few coughs to clear his throat, he managed out in chuckles, “Daehyun's not ing straight, Jae hyung.”

At least Zelo was being considerate and keeping his voice muted, but Youngjae wasn't sure he'd heard those words correctly... “What?”

“Earlier, you were saying the guy you were crushing on is straight, and Jongup said that man was Daehyun, and you've even admitted it yourself that it's Daehyun... But he's not straight,” he explained, containing his giggles behind his fist.

'Yeah, I did hear those words correctly...' Youngjae dropped his arms to his side and stared down at his feet. “But... he said he's only ever been with girls?” he recalled slowly, now confused by Daehyun's statement rather than reluctantly disappointed. 'Have I interpreted it wrong this entire time?'

“Wait, he said multiple?”

The disbelief in Zelo's eyes as he furrowed his brows and snorted made Youngjae realize that yes, he had interpreted Daehyun's statement wrong, and in more than one way. “He said a girl, so I just assumed that meant females in general...”

'Great, I'm pretty sure I just got my top honours degree in being a catastrophe gay and have started on the next step up! What comes after catastrophe, though? Calamity and cataclysm are a bit too dramatic for my tastes, but that's where I seemed to be headed!'

“Damn it, Jae hyung,” Zelo grumbled with a disappointed head shake. “Haven't you heard what happens when you assume?”

“Uh, no?”

“If you assume, then that means you make an out of you and me,” he explained, as if it should've been obvious. When the response he got was more confusion, he was dumbfounded. “You've seriously never heard that?”

“No, I haven't heard that! Why would I have ever heard that, Zelo?”

Rather than answer the question, he shrugged it away. “Well, your assumption was wrong. Daehyun has had one girlfriend in his entire life.” For a split second, Zelo's entire body became rigid, and the air around him seemed to drop to sub zero temperatures before it dissipated.

“...And that doesn't equate to straight?”

“He's told me he's not straight,” Zelo declared. “He said that gender didn't matter to him for things like that. That his preference is just... someone that likes him. So yeah. He's not straight.”

I don't think love should be restricted to gender...

That made it click in Youngjae's brain. But he didn't get the chance to say anything before Zelo smirked at him and said, “You'd have a good chance with him if you'd just tell him.”

“Zelo, you better not be insinuating what I think you are.” Youngjae couldn't have all his friends telling him to give it a shot! Now that he couldn't convince himself Daehyun was straight to save him from pain, he had to face the reality of why he wouldn't just up and say it.

That fear of finding himself back in a one-sided relationship given to him out of obligation, and that thought hurt way worse than misaligned gender preferences...

“Why not? You should go for it!”

“I...” Youngjae gulped and crossed his arms over himself. He didn't think he could get out of explaining himself to Zelo. So, with a dejected sigh, he quietly admitted, “I'm worried he'd return my feelings because he's expected to, not because he wants to.”

Zelo blinked. “What makes you think he'd do that?”

'Because it's happened to me before?' Youngjae shook his head to get that thought out of it. He worked through his thoughts to find a way to explain it without making it seem like he was speaking ill of Daehyun. “He seems like the type of guy who'd do something because someone else wanted him to, not because it's what he wanted.” Youngjae's words were slow and carefully chosen, but then he found himself rambling. “I don't want him to like me back because I like him. I want him to like me back because he likes me, too! But with how shy he is, if I speak up, I run the risk of him not wanting to upset me by rejecting me so he'd accept it because he doesn't want me to feel bad. But then I'd feel bad anyway for possibly making him think he has to or else and I really don't want him to feel pressured into-”

Zelo brought down his hands harshly onto Youngjae's shoulders, clutching at them tightly and shaking Youngjae out of his rambling. “Woah, woah, woah! Jae hyung, calm the down! Breathe with me...” He took a steady, deep breath, and Youngjae followed suit. After a few of those, Youngjae calmed down, and Zelo released him. Then he declared with a little smile, “That's not something you need to be worried about, hyung. I think you should go for it!”

“Excuse me?” 'Despite knowing my fear, he thinks I should go for it anyway?' Youngjae scrutinized his friends in the hopes of figuring out what was going on his mind to make him think this way.

But he was thrown a curveball with Zelo's next move. “Do you feel warm when you think about Daehyun?” His smile didn't falter, but he did shift into a childlike curiosity that Youngjae had also never seen from his friend.

“What?”

Zelo tapped his chin and looked up in thought before further clarifying, “Like... do you get this warm feeling in your chest and your shoulders and your head and your face?”

“I already told you about my crush on your best friend.” Youngjae raised a brow. “Why are you asking me this? To be super extra sure or something?”

“No reason.” His smile only grew in size as he tilted his head.

“Now who's the one being shady...”

Zelo shrugged. “Look, as your friend, I wouldn't suggest you go for it if I didn't ing think you had a chance,” he started. He gave a firm pat to Youngjae's shoulder, then continued on. “I can give you a one hundred percent Choi Zelo guarantee that things will be well received. I know Daehyun pretty damn well, after all.”

'What's he getting at? Does he know something I don't?'

Before Youngjae could ask for elaboration, Zelo pressed a finger against his lips to hush him. “There is one thing I need to make sure of before you decide to go through with it or not, Jae hyung.”

“And... what would that be?”

“Will you be patient with him?”

“What?”

“Daehyun's currently...” Zelo moved his lips around as he tried to find appropriate phrasing. “He's working through some things. So... if you aren't willing to be patient with him, then don't ing bother. A relationship with Daehyun will probably be a bumpy as hell kind of dirty back road, and if you aren't prepared to take that ride, then I won't fault you for it. I'll fault you if you decide to go for it and back out because you couldn't handle it despite me ing warning you.”

Silence fell over them as Youngjae pondered his options. While Zelo was confident that Daehyun would respond positively to Youngjae's feelings, he also thought that it could be rough going with whatever it was Daehyun was working through...

Whether it was as his boyfriend or simply a friend, he'd probably end up doing that anyway. He wanted to be a positive presence in Daehyun's life regardless of how they considered each other. If he kept things bottled in, he'd still do his best to be a good friend. He'd probably have the what ifs plaguing his thoughts for a while, but he wouldn't let them get in the way. But if he spoke up, he'd better be in it for the long haul because he'd probably have to buckle in for some troublesome patches.

'Is that something I'm willing to do?'

It'd be awfully rude to want to enter a relationship and not be willing to work with his partner through the bad times. Why would he bother pursuing a relationship if he wasn't willing to do that? He's always been an all in kind of guy when dating, and that wasn't changing now!

“So what are you going to do?” Zelo asked, impatiently tapping his foot.

With a firm nod, Youngjae steeled his resolve. “I'll tell him.” 'I just have to figure out how to bring it up first...'

“Great, I'll support you however I can! Just know that if you ing hurt him, I won't hesitate to throw you into oncoming traffic,” Zelo cheerily declared with a clap of his hands.

Youngjae snorted. “Anybody who'd even think about hurting a man so pure would deserve just that.”

A loud laugh escaped his lips before he gave a little pat to Youngjae's shoulder. “See? This is why you already have the Choi Zelo stamp of approval,” he declared before flashing a thumbs up. “Good luck, Jae hyung!”

He was definitely going to need that luck, because even with Zelo's guarantee that things would be well received, the worry still nagged at him. 'Maybe if I approach it how Yongguk suggested?'

--

A/N:

This just in, local gay resolves to not be such a disaster/catastrophe anymore, but he'll probably still be one after he gets things sorted out. That's just who he is, and we don't need the details to confirm that.