Seunghyun didn’t look angry, but then, the other three times he had seen him after one of these episodes he hadn’t been angry either. Youngbae stifles a sigh and and dishes up the eggs he had been making onto two plates before placing one in front of Seunghyun. He covers up his smile as the older man groans by turning to retrieve his own plate.

“Not hungry?” He asks, and Seunghyun just pushes the plate away from him before dropping his head to the countertop with a groan. Youngbae smiles, feeling satisfied by his friend’s pain even though he feels instantly bad for it.

Seunghyun takes a deep breath and lifts his head up, looking directly at Youngbae who was very slowly eating his eggs. “Just eggs? Not even toast to go with it?” He asks, momentarily distracted.

Youngbae blinks and pauses mid-chew before swallowing and smiling rather cheekily at him. “You kind of interrupted my breakfast cooking with your rather exuberant entrance.” Seunghyun tries to roll his eyes, but the action causes pain to shoot through his head, so he just stares at Youngbae instead. “You’re rather loud for someone with such a terrible headache that they can’t even roll their eyes properly.” Youngbae finishes, and Seunghyun just sticks his tongue out the man, not sure how to respond.

“So...How’d I get here? I was supposed to go out with Seungri last night...” Seunghyun says after a moment of silence, and he swears that he can see Youngbae flinch slightly.

“You drove.” He says, his voice flat, and Seunghyun is even more confused.

“What’s the matter Youngbae? What happened?” If Youngbae’s reaction to his original question had made him slightly concerned, the sudden guarded expression and inability to look at him that Youngbae was exhibiting now made him a whole new kind of worried.

“Nothing, I’m fine.” He says shortly, standing up and grabbing his plate. “Are you sure you don’t want anything for your head?” He asks, turning away from the breakfast counter and moving to the sink.

“What my head wants are answers.” Seunghyun says, sitting up fully and crossing his arms over his chest. Youngbae turns around slowly, gauging Seunghyun’s mood. The older man was trying to pout, but it was obvious that his headache made any type of facial expression painful to accomplish.

Youngbae lets out a deep sigh before moving back to the counter and sitting down across from Seunghyun. “You showed up at around 3:00pm, completely drunk.” He says, and Seunghyun gives him a look of confusion.

“You’re not usually home at 3:00pm.” He says, and Youngbae tilts his head to the side.

“You said that when you came in. Or something like that...” He says, “But I couldn’t really understand. You were shouting and your words were slurred...” Youngbae takes a deep breath and his brows furrow. “What happened after I left work yesterday?”

Seunghyun stares at Youngbae for a moment, letting his words digest. He didn’t remember coming here, but he did remember being angry. He also remembered the abnormally high number of drinks he had downed in the office before noticing Youngbae leaving the dance studio...

“Aish, I don’t know!” He says running his hands through his hair in frustration. “I remember you leaving and then I started drinking and then I saw you come back for your car and wanted to ask why you had left early.”

Youngbae’s mouth pulls into a tight frown and he looks down at his hands on the edge of the counter. “Well, that explains why you were here this time.” He says slowly, keeping his head down so that Seunghyun can’t see his face.

“I guess but you said I was angry and I don’t....” Seunghyun pauses for a moment as Youngbae’s words finally register in his painful brain. “This time?” he asks, and Youngbae just nods, his eyes never leaving his hands. “What do you mean, ‘this time’? I would remember waking up in your apartment more than this once.” He says, confused and suddenly wondering if this could explain Youngbae’s recent change in mood at work.

“That’s because the other three times I brought you home after you had passed out.”  He says, his voice becoming quieter as the sentence continued. Seunghyun in a breath and pushes himself back from the counter.

“I think I’m going to need something for my headache.” He says, and Youngbae looks up at him quickly. “I can’t think properly while in pain.” He adds, letting a small and pitiful smile grace his face. Youngbae nod and gets up quickly, rummaging through the cabinet behind him to find something that might help him. Once he finds it, he hands it over along with a glass of water and sits back down.

“Why were you drinking? It was only two in the afternoon!” Youngbae says, and Seunghyun grimaces at the nagging tone.

“You’re not my mother. I’m in enough pain as it is, don’t chastise me.” He says, his voice coming out in a whine. Youngbae shakes his head, crossing his arms over his chest as he does so.

“But your drinking is what led you here.” He says, his voice flat and lacking any emotion. “Don’t you think that the drinking part should be figured out?” He asks, his voice rising in what Seunghyun recognized as hope.

“Why didn’t you bring me home?” He asks, ignoring Youngbae’s question. “If you brought me home the other..three times?” Youngbae nods, “Then why didn’t you bring me home this time?” Youngbae sighs and drops his hands to the counter, his fingers playing idly with the edge.

“Because you never remembered coming here, and I wanted you to know that you had.” He says, his voice low and his eyes downcast.

Seunghyun looks at him for a second and then laughs, “Daesung told you to, didn’t he?” Youngbae looks up, surprise written on his face, before he controls himself and lets out a snort of laughter.

“Yeah...he said I had to stop avoiding the issue...”

Seunghyun nods in agreement. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“I kept hoping it would stop.” Youngbae says, shrugging lightly, “it had only happened three times in two weeks...which is kind of a lot but I figured that since it had never happened before, it would just...stop.” He sighs, “But it didn’t and each time I never knew what to expect; were you going to just stand there and yell at me or were you going to try and attack me?” He laughs a little humorlessly and shrugs again, looking away from Seunghyun and toward the window over the sink.

Seunghyun stares for a couple of moments, his mouth open in shock. He mostly couldn’t believe that Youngbae, a strong and rather imposing person himself even with such a short stature, had been intimidated by him. “I...Did I try to hurt you?” he asks softly, still too shocked to really come up with anything substantial to say.

Youngbae lets out a sigh and shrugs, shaking his head. “I dunno, you broke a bunch of dishes the first time, and last night I hid under my desk like a scared child.” he says, sounding more than disgusted with himself.

“Ahh, Youngbae...” Seunghyun says, leaning forward, but Youngbae leans away and shakes his head.

“You’ve done this a few times and...” Youngbae shakes his head again, his arms flexing as he sits up straighter and tenses while thinking about what to say. “You need to fix yourself before something worse happens.” Youngbae’s face was set in a rather blank mask, his tone flat and distant. Seunghyun stares at him for a couple of moments, blinking far more than necessary in an attempt to comprehend.

Youngbae’s tone was so distant, so uncaring...it was so very unlike his normally warm and loving self. Seunghyun takes in a deep breath and shakes his head before setting his face into a very business-like frown.

“I’m sorry to have caused you so much trouble.” He says, and Youngbae’s face instantly softens, his arms falling to his sides. “I’ll just leave now and try to figure out what’s going on for myself.” He says, and Youngbae’s mouth drops open and he leans forward.

“No! Seunghyun I didn’t mean...” Youngbae says, reaching forward to grab one of Seunghyun’s hands off of the counter. Seunghyun just shakes his head and pulls it away.

“I’ll see you Monday morning.” He says, standing up and pushing away from the counter. “Thank you for letting me sleep here last night.” He adds as he walks out into the entryway. He can’t stop the small smile that jumps to his face as he grabs his shoes out of their spot in the neat order that Youngbae had obviously arranged them into the night before.

He shakes his head to rid his face of the smile, and takes a deep breath before shoving his feet into his expensive dress shoes. He keeps his face to the door as he hears Youngbae shuffle out into the entryway to stop behind him.

“What’s the matter, Seunghyun?” He asks, and Seunghyun just shakes his head, opening the door and stepping out into the hall.

Seunghyun shuts the door behind him without even a short goodbye, and walks slowly toward the elevator, trying desperately to remember what had made him come over to Youngbae’s the day before. It wasn’t until he was buckled into the driver’s seat of his car, after cleaning up the bottles all over the passenger’s side, that he checked his phone and saw the message he had ignored the night before.

Seungri: Hey! Sorry I can’t come out tonight! Did you get the gift I left you??

Seunghyun lets out a soft chuckle and shakes his head before typing a quick reply. He shoots a glance over at the half empty pack of beer on his passenger seat and instantly frowns. While the amount he drank from the pack was not enough to get him as drunk as he was the night before, he couldn’t help but to feel like it was partly to blame for his current situation. Maybe he should cut back...

He shakes his head and focuses on driving back to his house. He still couldn’t believe that he had driven out to Youngbae’s apartment while completely drunk. Seunghyun sighs and pulls out onto the road. What had he been thinking, drinking at work? As he pulls into the parking area for his apartment he has a small flash of memory: He was sitting at his desk, thinking about his love-life...Well, that wasn’t enough for a drinking binge. He blows out a large puff of air and closes his eyes for a moment before willing himself to get up and out of his car. He takes the pack of beer with him and slowly makes his way up to his apartment.

What was I thinking? He asks himself while he waits for the elevator to arrive, flipping his keys idly around his fingers as he does so. He smiles slightly at the young woman who exits the elevator when it stops before making his way inside and pressing the button for his floor. The woman looks back over her shoulder at him as she walks away, and instead of the smirk and wink he had been planning to send her, he gave her just a small smile and light head nod. The doors slide closed and he furrows his eyebrows together; that wasn’t like him, not at all. Youngbae. His mind whispers, and he remembers the guilt that he was supposed to be feeling.

Seunghyun takes a deep breath and refocuses his mind on the task at hand. He needed to think of a reason why he would go to Youngbae’s house, as well as a reason why he would be angry with the man. It would probably also help to know when he had gone before, as then he would be able to try and remember why he had gone to Youngbae’s those times as well.

“Aish, what is my problem?” He asks, staring at his reflection in the mirrored wall of the elevator. It stops and he gets out on his floor. Once inside his apartment, he takes off his shoes, drops the pack of beer on the floor in the entryway, and heads into the kitchen for a glass of water.

Once procured, he sits at the table and considers his problem again. His drinking was getting out of hand, he knew that. There were at least four nights that he had out, and on those particular four he knew that he had been at Youngbae’s. Pushing the guilt that he was feeling to the side, Seunghyun tries to recapture the moments before he left his office the night before. Not night, afternoon. His mind reminds him, and he smiles; he had left before 3:00pm because Youngbae had left the dance studio early. Why did Youngbae leave the dance studio early? Seunghyun shakes his head.

“Not important.” He mutters, closing his eyes and leaning back. “The question is: why did I follow him?” Because that’s what had happened. Suddenly the memory comes back; he had been lamenting over his sad lack of a girlfriend, when he had started thinking about Youngbae and the weird sense of relief that he felt whenever Youngbae didn’t find a date. It’s time for a drink. His mind rasps and Seunghyun’s eyes fly open.

“That’s it.” He says, fighting the urge to get up and grab a drink as his mind had commanded. Whenever he thought about that feeling of relief, or really anything that wasn’t strictly neutral and easy to comprehend about Youngbae, he would start drinking. If he were already thinking about Youngbae, then seeing Youngbae leave early and being curious about it would lead him to want to follow the man!

Seunghyun was smiling now, but that was soon wiped away as he realized that he still couldn’t explain why he showed up to Youngbae’s apartment angry. He lets out another sigh before pushing himself up out of the chair so that he could make his way into the living room to lie down on the couch. He must have been really terrifying for Youngbae to actually hide from him, he thinks. There was no way that he could really beat Youngbae in a physical fight, the man was far too strong. He sighs even more deeply than the many times before, and relaxes even further into the couch.

“Just a quick nap first, then I’ll worry about how to fix this mess.” He mutters to the empty room, closing his eyes and settling in. He lets out a large yawn and falls quickly to sleep.
***

The door slowly shuts in his face and Youngbae is frozen to the spot. He should have handled the situation better, that much he knew, but there had been something about Seunghyun sitting across from him at the counter with a plate of eggs pushed off to the side and a pained expression on his face, that made Youngbae unable to function like he knew he was supposed to.

He sighs deeply and runs a hand over his face, forcing himself to get over the shock he was feeling and at least move. After this encounter, he could definitely say that he was worried for Seunghyun. The man was obviously drinking far more heavily and often than he ever had in the past, and it had escalated rather quickly.

“What’s the matter?” Youngbae mutters, nudging one of his impeccably clean dress shoes with his toe so that it was back to being parallel with it’s match. He shakes his head and turns away from the entryway, heading back toward the kitchen.

Youngbae knew that Seunghyun liked to go out most nights, and he definitely liked to drink, it had never really been to excess; and Youngbae used to be able to count the number of times he had seen Seunghyun staggering drunk on only one hand. He shakes his head and moves to the sink, turning on the water to wash the breakfast dishes.

He had never really agreed with Seunghyun’s need to go out all the time. Seunghyun would pester him into going about once a month, and youngbae would agree, mostly to humor his friend. They would go to a bar or a club and Youngbae would dance while Seunghyun and his friends stood around, or sat around, drinking. Then, when he was tired or just sick of all of the people throwing themselves at him, he would walk back to wear Seunghyun was and ask to leave. Seunghyun would then always look around him, ask if Youngbae had found a girl (and sigh when Youngbae shook his head ‘no’) before setting down his drink and following Youngbae out.

Every. Single. Time. Youngbae didn’t go out often as he didn’t drink and hell, he didn’t really like all of the attention that people paid him when he was on the dance floor. Liar! His mind practically shouts, and he lets out a laugh as he finishes up the last of the dishes and wipes his hands on a dish towel. He grabs a glass and fills it with water before leaning back against the counter. He liked being watched, especially on stage, which was why he spent so much time practicing dancing. What he didn’t particularly enjoy was being attacked on the dance floor by drunk people.

Youngbae allows a scowl to appear on his lips for only a brief moment before he shakes his head and refocuses. Seunghyun was acting recklessly and dangerously by getting drunk like this, but what Youngbae couldn’t explain was his ridiculous overreaction to the vague threat that was an angry Seunghyun. Youngbae was far stronger than the older man; though a fair bit shorter. He could easily defend himself, especially against a man as drunk as Seunghyun had been. But he didn’t fight back, and he didn’t even try to subdue the man when he started flying into a rage.

Youngbae shakes his head in frustration; why am I so afraid of him? “I’m not.” He says aloud, the words piercing the silence of his empty apartment. Then what’s going on? “I have no idea.” He mutters, dragging a hand over his face and sighing.

Deciding that talking to himself wouldn’t fix the problem, and neither would dwelling, Youngbae pushes himself away from the counter and grabs his phone off of the breakfast bar. He toys with the device in his hands for a couple of moments before shoving it into the pocket of his jeans and heading into the living room. He wouldn’t call Jiyong and Daesung over this ridiculous problem. He’d already gotten them involved and he felt embarrassed about the fact that both men knew that he had hidden under his desk instead of standing up and subduing Seunghyun; no, it would be best to leave them out of it.

Oh Jiyong and Daesung. Just the thought of them brought a smile to Youngbae’s face. He had spent his entire life waiting for someone to come along and make Jiyong as happy as Daesung did. Well, maybe not his entire life. Youngbae laughs lightly as he sits down on the couch and leans back. No, there was a time when Youngbae had thought that all Jiyong needed was him, and then everything would be fine. Luckily for both of them, or more for Youngbae because Jiyong had been effectively clueless about Youngbae’s increased affection during that time, Youngbae got over it relatively quickly; he realized that Jiyong and him were far more friend than anything else.

Youngbae sighs again, hating himself even as he does it: sighing is an annoying habit to get into, his brain chides and shuts his eyes tightly and shakes his head. Maybe he should just tell Seunghyun that he isn’t into dating girls....”Where the hell did that come from?” Youngbae mutters, shoving his hand through his short hair in frustration. His mind was all over the damn place this morning.

But it would solve at least one problem, Youngbae muses; if Seunghyun knows that Youngbae isn’t interested in all of the girls that throw themselves at him in the clubs, then maybe he won’t ask him to go to them anymore. Youngbae snorts at his own thoughts and shakes his head again. “Like Seunghyun is going to ask me to do anything with him ever after this morning.” He says, even though he knows, deep down, that whatever happened this morning definitely didn’t end their friendship.

How, exactly, was he supposed to bring the topic up? His mind starts racing to find an answer. There was no really great way to do so...it would make much more sense to wait for Seunghyun to try and force him to go out clubbing, but who knows when the next offer for that would be...Youngbae toys with the phone through the material of his jeans, staring at the pocket while deep in thought.

Maybe if Jiyong invites them all out...The thought was stupid, as it would put Seunghyun directly in contact with alcohol and partying, which Youngbae was starting to believe were not doing the older man any favors. However, if it were the four of them, then Seunghyun wouldn’t be alone drinking; and maybe if Jiyong and Daesung were there, they would be able to pick up on whatever might be going on with Seunghyun. And you could tell him you like guys instead of girls-  his mind reminds him, the thought floating through his mind with a distinctly sarcastic glint to it.

“Not that that matters.” Youngbae mutters fiercely; as though he were trying to convince himself of that fact. But it did matter, and the only reason Youngbae could come up with for just exactly why it mattered so much was that he hated how Seunghyun always seemed disappointed that he didn’t have a girlfriend.

Youngbae takes a deep breath before pulling the phone out of his pocket; now he just needed to figure out how to convince Jiyong this was a good idea...