“What the hell did you do!? We could hear people yelling all the way from down here!”

“Ji. Not now. I’m not in the mood to talk.”

The younger man glared at his cousin’s retreating back, already making a move to storm after him, but his friend beat him to it.

Taeyang stepped in front of the businessman, grabbing his arm, and effectively forcing the older man to stop his advance to look up.

It was his stare that shocked the younger individual to the point that he quickly let go. “H-Hyung… Are you all right?”

Eyebrows knit together in immediate frustration, Jiyong stomped over to where the two men stood, roughly pushing his older relative around to face him. As was his friend’s reaction, the young man stumbled back slightly, staring at the man in confusion, “W-What—“

Seunghyun finally met their gazes with sad, puffy eyes, tear stains still evident on his cheeks. "I... The two of you were right." Although it would've been normal to take some pride in these words, the two younger men could both only feel surprised. "I screwed up. Really bad." He paused for a moment as he released a choked sob, "I didn't know... I never knew..."

It was clearly evident in the body language of his two dongsaengs that they were both at an absolute loss for words. Carefully, Taeyang moved forward to rest a hand on the older man's shoulder, "Hyung... What happened up there?"

His only response was an abrupt shake of his head as more and more tears cascaded down his face.

"How can we help you?" As the words left the mouth of the man's younger cousin, Seunghyun couldn't help but look up at him with eyes of pure astonishment.

"You would... do that for me?"

He had expected a rolling of the eyes, or a mere scoff. So when the younger man gave him a weak smile full of pity and muttered, "Of course. Even if you're an idiot, you're still my cousin. And what's that saying, Bae? The one from our English class."

"Blood is thicker than water?"

"Yeah. That one." Jiyong paused for a moment, before hesitantly copying his friend's motion of resting a hand on his cousin's shoulder, "I guess that that means that even though you've put me through a lot to the point that I actually cried over it," The young man halted his speech for a moment to chuckle, as if the thought of himself crying was unspeakable, "We're still related. And no matter how hard I try to change that fact, I'll never be able to. So we might as well look out for each other, right?"

The word of the younger individiaul, though not many, greatly affected Seunghyun, and his mind struggled to come up with a response.

And so he let his heart do the talking.

"Don't worry about me. There's someone that I need to talk to. And I think that I can find him myself."

It was the sharp knocking that awoke the elder from his sleep. Grumpy frown etched on his face, he did his best to ignore it, but it was difficult. 

Finally having enough, he forced himself out of the comfort of his warm bed, and slouched his way to the door. "Who the hell is it?"

"Open the door."

The man blinked in surprise. He wasn't used to people speaking in such a rude tone towards him, and he was definitely not expecting the owner of the voice to be requesting an audience with him from the other side of the door. Before he was even aware of what he was doing, he had already opened the door, and allowed the younger individual entrance.

"Seunghyun. What are you doing here? At such a late hour?"

"We need to talk."

His father rolled his eyes at the simple sentence, "And this couldn't wait until the morning? I've told you a million times that--"

Before the older individual could finish his sentence, the young adult cut him off, "And that's just the thing: I'm tired of listening."

The words shocked the older man considerably, although he only raised a mere eyebrow, "Take a seat then."

Seunghyun gave a short nod, brushing past his father as he moved towards the closest seat in the room. As he passed by the older man, his father couldn't help but look at him in curiosity: his son had never acted like this with him before, and he wouldn't deny that he felt somewhat alarmed by the entire situation.

Especially by his son's tear-stained cheeks.

However, he decided to pay no mind to any of these details, and instead took a seat a meter or two away from his son. "You know, your fiancee called me earlier--"

"I'm not getting married to that woman that you've dubbed my fiancee. I'm tired of having to do whatever you tell me to do without having no say in it whatsoever. I'm tired of having to hide who I am as a person for your sake. And most importantly, I hate that even though you're my father you don't respect my wishes, let alone our agreements, in any way shape or form. I'm sick of it, and at this point, I don't care if you're sick of me."

The abrupt nature of his son's harried speech turned his mind blank, and it took him a few moments to fully register what the younger man was getting at. It's just a rebellious moment. I suppose all youngsters have them at some point in their lives. "Don't be ridiculous, Seunghyun. You're the heir to the family business. I'm only serving as your guide as you mature into the man that you were meant to be."

"Y