Following the setting of the sun, darkness slipped into the crevices of his heart. In the dark, the throbbing pain penetrating through his void heart was more evident. Afraid to be engulfed by the darkness in his empty unlighted house alone with a broken heart, he resorted to dragging Se Chan and a carton of soju to Kwang Soo house.

Upon arrival, in the injured man’s house, Jong Kook settled the carton of soju that he had brought along on Kwang Soo’s dining table.

“Hyung, why did you buy a carton of soju over? Since when you like soju? Didn’t you always hate alcohol?” Se Chan questioned.

After his renowned establishment in getting his name not associated with alcohol, he was prideful for his image to tarnish. Being countered by the sensitive question, he leaned backwards on Kwang Soo’s sofa, where he felt the insides of his stomach tightened. Not wanting to seem obvious, his arms found its way crossed before his chest.

“What are you even talking about?” Jong Kook bellowed. Being the witty person, he had always been, he continued, “I got it for Kwang Soo. It doesn’t seem good to come here empty-handed, isn’t it?”

Hearing that, Se Chan complained, “Hyung, you’re so unfair!”

“Thanks, hyung!” Kwang Soo beamed, as he trailed over to the sofa in his clutches.

“Anything for you,” Jong Kook winked at Kwang Soo, accompanied by a forced smile.

“Se Chan, you came here empty-handed?” Kwang Soo asked the younger man. Now that the spotlight was on Se Chan, Jong Kook beamed heartily at the successful attempt in delivering the lie that he had come up with.

Se Chan exclaimed his explanation to Kwang Soo, “Jong Kook hyung dragged me over without telling me where we were going! How would I know that we will be coming over here? If I had, I would have prepared something for you!”

Kwang Soo totally understood the circumstances that Se Chan had faced, for he had suffered the same treatment before Se Chan’s addition to Running Man. Instead of choosing a side, Kwang Soo offered, “Would you want to drink? I couldn’t possibly finish drinking the entire carton of my own!”

Instinctively, Jong Kook beamed, “I wouldn’t turn down the offer!”

From the start, Jong Kook had intentions to drink with his dongsaengs, hoping to numb the pain inflicted by Ji Hyo. He was proud of his brilliant brain cells for coming up with this plan where he could openly drink with his dongsaengs without getting questioned. Before he even asked, he was amazed by Kwang Soo’s hospitability in offering the soju he had brought for them to drink.

As Kwang Soo was still relying on his clutches, instead of having the host served the guests, being the youngest one amongst the bunch, Se Chan took the initiative to serve their hearty pleasure drinking session by getting soju shot glasses from the kitchen for the bunch.

Initially, the soju shot glasses were slowly refilled. However, soon after, the rate of the soju shot glasses getting refilled was exponentially sped up by Jong Kook. Before the two younger men realised, they became the spectators of ‘Jong Kook’s drinking show’, where he downed one shot after another.

Alarmed by the amount that Jong Kook was drinking, Kwang Soo worriedly queried Jong Kook, who was seemingly getting drunk, “Hyung, I think you are drinking too much already.”

“Is it wrong for me to drink?!” Jong Kook’s intent glare sent Kwang Soo gulping a lump of saliva down his throat. As he was unable to tell if the older man was sober or drunk, Kwang Soo immediately apologised, “No hyung.”

Startled by fear, silence invaded Kwang Soo’s living room yet again.

Despite being the owner of his own apartment, Kwang Soo felt obliged to serve the drunk Jong Kook. As the two younger men communicated over text messages to discuss on how to deal with the drunk person, they decided to wait for Jong Kook to be drunker – dealing with a sober Jong Kook was too scary for them to even think about dealing with a half sober one.

“Why didn’t she accept my proposal?”

The evident pain underlying the tone of his voice that was slurred out of Jong Kook’s lips, caused the alerted Se Chan to exchange a confused look at Kwang Soo. The latter gave a silent affirming nod as a declaration that Jong Kook was completely wasted by the amount of soju he had.

Being the more curious out of the two, after careful thought in the selection of the diction, Kwang Soo hesitantly clarified, “Hyung, what type of proposal is it? Is it a wedding proposal?”

Drinking yet another shot, Jong Kook nodded. While Kwang Soo gaped in surprised at his random guess, Se Chan pried, “Who?”

Frustrated by the insensitive question, Jong Kook groaned, “Who else?!!” and he wallowed yet another shot of soju down his throat.

Realising that Se Chan was oblivious, Kwang Soo waved his hand over to grabbed Se Chan attention. In hopes that the drunk Jong Kook would not catch their conversation, Se Chan mouthed, “What?”

“It’s Ji Hyo noona,” Kwang Soo mouthed his words to Se Chan. Nodding with his mouth that was gasped open, Se Chan gestured ‘okay’ with his fingers over to Kwang Soo for the new information that he had obtained.

Cautiously, Kwang Soo probed, “Why didn’t you get accepted?”

“I don’t know…” Jong Kook shook his head.

Hesitantly, Kwang Soo asked, “Hyung, how did you propose to noona?”

“Was it not romantic enough?” Se Chan joked, knowing that Jong Kook has zero romance cell in his veins.

“I believed it is romantic enough,” Jong Kook insisted. With a clenched his fist on the tabletop, he poured himself another shot of soju with another.

“How so? Tell us about it, hyung!” Kwang Soo nudged.

“I invited her to a restaurant to have a romantic lunch,” Jong Kook said.

“Wow!” The two awed in unison, for they were amazed that this old man still has a teeny bit of romance left in him, despite being assumed to have romance dead in his veins.

Slurring on, Jong Kook continued, “I got the staff to place the ring in the dessert. When the dessert was served, I proposed to her.”

“I can’t believe hyung would pull such a trick!” Se Chan squirmed as he imagined Jong Kook pulling off such a cliché act.

“It seemed romantic enough! Where’s the problem then?” Not understanding where his hyung went wrong, Kwang Soo asked as his brows furrowed together.

“I don’t know…”

Jong Kook slouched forward and hang his head as his reddened eyes stared at Kwang Soo. His emotions were numbed by his aching heart that clenched itself upon hearing the question.

Se Chan lips pursed into a thin protruding line. His arm found its way on Jong Kook’s shoulders, “Hyung, don’t mind me if I ask,” after receiving a nod from Jong Kook to continue, he prodded, “How long have you and noona been dating anyway?”

Jerking forward and backwards his seat, Jong Kook held on his stomach. A hysterical laugh was heard, where the two younger men shot a concerned gaze at him.

“Hyung, why are you laughing?” Se Chan wondered if he had asked something wrong or funny.

In between the series of his hysterical laughter, Jong Kook laughed, “Dating?”

Feeling something amiss, Se Chan exchanged glances with Kwang Soo for a brief moment.

“We are never together in the first place…”

As those words parted Jong Kook’s lips, the throbbing pain from within his heart was resonated out through his voice. Hearing the hurt that was laced in his voice was one thing but making sense of the words that Jong Kook uttered was yet another thing together.

“What?!”

Jong Kook’s eardrums vibrated intensively when the two men, who sat beside him, shouted in unison. They were instantly punished by Jong Kook’s whacks on their heads as he barked in annoyance, “Yah! Don’t make me deaf! I’m a singer! I rely on my ears for a living!”, in which the two immediately apologised.

Breaking the deadly silence, as the pieces of the puzzles in his mind come together to form the puzzle, Kwang Soo concluded aloud, “I guess that explains everything! The reason why his marriage proposal failed was that