Seunghyun only leaned forward further, arms folded on his lap and head buried between them, as he continued to cry. Jiyong's motion stopped as he felt the older man shaking underneath but he did not remove his hand from his back. It took a few minutes for Seunghyun to regain his composure, at least enough to sit up and try to talk.

“Jiyong, I...” Seunghyun's voice trailed off as he ran his hands through his hair and tugged at it in frustration. “Yes, it is.”

The younger of the two hummed in understanding.

“What happened? Did you get in a fight?”

Seunghyun shook his head, almost violently, and immediately regretted it. It would be much more difficult to get away without an explanation after denying a fight. Especially after denying so vehemently.

“Not a fight but things are awkward between us.”

“Just like that?”

“Yes,” he said. But that was only half the truth. Things did start feeling different pretty much out of nowhere, or at least it seemed that way, but the situation didn’t become so awkward until recently. But how could he explain all of it to Jiyong? How could he make him understand that he needed help sorting out his feelings without telling him exactly what happened? He couldn't see any way around it but he also couldn't see a way of opening up and confessing everything. He felt as trapped in the conversation as he did in the situation with Dongwook.

"That's strange," Jiyong thought out loud, his tone incredulous.

Seunghyun turned to the leader, eyes wide and anxious, lip trembling as he fought off the threat of oncoming tears. He didn't even have a chance to stop himself or even realize that he'd just given himself away.

"Hyung, I know there's something you're not telling me. You don't have to tell me anything but isn't the point of talking, well, talking?"

A single tear escaped Sunghyun's eye as he fought to hold Jiyong's gaze. He didn't want to cower or make it even more obvious that he wasn't being entirely honest. He also was not ready to talk about this with anyone, not even the one person he thought of as his only option. "Jiyong, I just don't think I can. I didn't think so earlier but I guess I hoped I might find the courage to open up. But I can't. There is no courage here to find."

The young leader placed a hand on his hyung's knee and said, "Hyung. You don't need courage with me. Even if you did, you have more than you think you do. I wouldn't be here if you didn't. Like I said earlier, you don't have to tell me anything you don't want to but I am here if you need to." He took a long pause before he said the next words carefully, "Though you might not want to open up, though you might feel like you cannot do it, the fact remains that you need to. And you can't survive long if you deny your needs."

Seunghyun cursed himself internally for getting into this predicament. He had forgotten how good Jiyong was at coaxing things out of people. And, despite the pressure he felt in his chest at the moment, he couldn't help but marvel at his abilities. This is exactly why he is our leader, he thought to himself.

"Whatever it is, I'm not here to judge you. I'm only here to listen."

"I doubt this is something you want to hear."

"That should be the least of your worries, hyung."

Seunghyun absent-mindedly tucked his upper lip into his bottom lip, forming that characteristic pout of his, as he thought of what to say next. Jiyong was really creating an opportunity to open up. He could feel the younger's gaze on him, waiting for Seunghyun to finally say something, but the problem was that he didn't know what to say. So he settled on saying, “I- I don't know what to say.”

“Okay then I'll just keep asking you questions.”

Seunghyun simply nodded.

Jiyong decided to start off slow to ease Seunghyun into actually talking. “So, you said things are awkward between you two?”

The older nodded again.

“How long has it been awkward?”

Seunghyun rubbed his temples as he tried to find a suitable answer. When did it start to feel awkward? Would it be when things felt different the first time and then Dongwook kissed me? Or would that be considered an isolated event? So then the awkwardness started....when? At the bar? That night when things felt a little too intimate? Later that same night when I truly realized things were irrevocably different the moment Dongwook went into the guest room? When would I say things began to feel awkward? When did I begin to feel that way? Is awkward even the right word? Isn't it more like....confusing?

Jiyong cleared his throat softly as he could see his hyung's mind racing. He thought the question was a simple one but, clearly, he was wrong. “Oh...it's really that complicated then?”

“Yes,” the older sighed before thinking. Oh, he thought, Am I going to have to explain that now?

As if reading his mind, the other soothingly said, “Okay, I'll just- I'll go ahead and ask you something else then. Is this more like a one-sided thing or a mutual thing?”

Though his logical side knew Jiyong didn't know about the situation so he couldn't possibly be asking if their newfound feelings were mutual, he couldn't help the wide-eyed and anxious expression that crossed his face. “A mutual thing?”

“Yeah, like, is it just generally awkward between the two of you or do you just feel awkward with him?” Jiyong expertly ignored his hyung's shocked expression.

“Oh,” Seunghyun breathed out in relief, causing the younger of the two to raise a questioning eyebrow despite his efforts to impassive.

“I guess it's mutual. Things are just strange between us lately.”

“Strange how?” Jiyong's face was still a giant question mark but he thought it best not to press the issue. This was hard enough for Seunghyun as it was without Jiyong prying into his earlier reaction.

The expression on Seunghyun's face became unreadable at this point. It wasn't vacant so much as it was a mixture of far too many emotions to be discernible. Jiyong rubbed his lips absent-mindedly as he waited for an answer that would never come without more coaxing. He also knew things would get easier soon as he watched his hyung drink glass after glass of wine out of the corner of his eye. It was thirty minutes and several glasses of wine later when Jiyong finally broke the silence.

“Hyung.”

“Mm?”

“Hyung, what's strange?”

“My relationship with Dongwook.”

The younger of the two, still puzzled, wondered how much more wine his hyung would need to say anything of substance. He was still being vague. Maybe it was complicated enough that no amount of wine could loosen him up.

“It's just different. Things feel different. We feel different. What do you do when you get new feelings and don't know what to make of them?”

Jiyong tilted his head to one side, thinking about what his hyung had just said. He's definitely had enough wine, he thought to himself. This is how he starts to ramble. But, what does he mean by new feelings? New feelings for Dongwook? His mind was clumsily trying to work out what these “new feelings” could possibly be but he just continually seemed to draw a blank. A tiny sigh of exasperation escaped his mouth as his frustration grew.

Seunghyun caught it. His eyes narrowed and he pressed his lips together tightly as if forcing his mouth to keep from revealing anything else.

Jiyong quickly let out another sigh as he placed a hand on his chest and faked a hiccup in hopes that he could cover up and still get Seunghyun to talk a bit more. “Oh sorry, I think the wine....You know I don't-” hiccup. “I don't have it often.” He hiccuped again. Each was tiny, hand still on hist chest, and he looked straight at his glass of wine hoping his act was believable. The last thing he needed was for Seunghyun to think he couldn't continue talking.

The older of the two surveyed him with doubt. Jiyong took the opportunity to push his glass of wine toward him and hiccup again before saying, “You take it. I barely had any of this glass so it shouldn't be wasted.”

Seunghyun was drunk enough (not to mention craving more of the red liquid) to take the bait. He quickly emptied the glass and set it down, during which Jiyong laid back against the couch in order to appear relaxed.

“Ah, it is tough when we can't understand things, isn't it?”

Seunghyun nodded as he poured himself yet another glass.

“What can't you understand then, hyung?” At this point Jiyong was trying to get the other man to open up as much as he was trying to form an answer, mind still working slowly.

“I can't understand why things feel the way they do now. I can't understand why I feel...the things I do. I don't know what to do.”

“What you feel? What to do?”

Seunghyun nodded. At this point, finger circling around the rim of his wine glass, he was mostly thinking out loud. Things were getting hazy and messy so it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep his mind in order. Hm, I haven't been this drunk since that night at the bar. “No, I was more drunk that night. He was too. Makes sense then that things got that way.”

Jiyong turned his head to look over at Seunghyun without sitting up, eyes narrowed in concentration as his mind started to catch up to what had just been said. Face screwed up in thought and slight surprise, he began to wrap his mind around the only two things of substance that had been said- there were new feelings and something happened that didn't usually. He had a brief moment of debating whether to interrupt his hyung's thoughts or to wait for more because he had a feeling in the pit of his stomach his mind was about to come to a realization the other man would not be comfortable with. Seunghyun, who didn't seem to notice he was actually speaking, made that choice for him.

“No. It still doesn't make sense. We've been drunk together a lot of times and we've always been close but never like that. It's because of what happened before. But why?”

At this point Jiyong felt like he was invading his hyung's privacy. Knowing how difficult Seunghyun was finding it to open up he was aware he wouldn't willingly reveal so much. So he took his pause as an opportunity to ask a question and remind the older of his presence. He finally began to form a feeble connection, one that he found trouble believing to be true, and his jaw dropped slightly and slowly.

“What happened, hyung?” Jiyong's whisper betrayed the expression on his face, slowly becoming more pronounced as his mind started moving much faster than before. Something happened when they were drunk. 'We've always been close but never like that.' Seunghyun's words crept from his mind down his spine, chills running over his arms as his eyes grew wide. They were close in a way they never had been before and now hyung is confused about feelings. Oh. .

“Eh?” The eldest of the two practically screamed the single-syllable as the shock of being spoken to took hold of him. Slowly, in his drunken state, he pieced together that his thoughts were spoken and the other had heard. With tears falling freely from his deep eyes he said, “Oh nothing. Nothing to worry about.”

They both knew it was a blatant lie and a weak one at that.

“Hyung,” Jiyong said a bit too aggressively, mind still in shock.

“I can't tell you what happened. I just can't.”

“But it's something that changed your feelings?”

Seunghyun didn't answer. He only stared down at the wine glass in his hands where his salted tears were mixing with his favorite drink. It was ruined. He threw the glass across the table and it shattered as a sob broke from his lips, the dripping of the wine onto his hardwood floor slower than the flow of his tears.

Jiyong sat up quickly, eyes wider than before due to his hyung's sudden action, and bit his lip as he kept his eyes fixed on the small puddle of deep red staining the hardwood floor. He couldn't bear to look at his hyung who, this entire time, had tried to control himself and failed more than once. He couldn't bear to look at the face of the man who was having so much difficulty coming to terms with whatever it was that was plaguing him he couldn't even speak. He couldn't bear to look him in the eyes when he knew something he was sure his hyung was not ready to reveal. How could he look at him then? He knew the older wouldn't want it. And he couldn't move past the shock of the highly uncharacteristic, violent outburst. He was frozen because he had no idea what to do or say next.

“Why did he do this to me?! How am I supposed to deal with it? We're supposed to be friends. Just...friends.”

Jiyong finally looked up at him, eyes still wide from earlier. Though he had formed this connection on his own, it was entirely different to hear it from Seunghyun's own mouth. So there was something more than friendship now between his two hyungs? Of course he was surprised, it would be a lie to say he wasn't. This was definitely not the kind of conversation he was expecting, just as Seunghyun had warned him. And now he finally understood why his hyung was having so much difficulty opening up, expressing himself, even admitting anything to himself. He continued to stare at the other man absent-mindedly, eyes still wide and mouth slightly agape due to the surprise of the revelation and violent outburst combined.

“I knew it.” His deep voice was strong but not loud. He didn't need to be. That voice was intense as any time but now, full of remorse and anger, it was alarming.

Jiyong blinked and quickly closed his mouth, then opened it again to speak but Seunghyun stood up and cut him off.

“Of course you couldn't understand.”

“Hyung-”

“No. Just go. I'm done talking about this.”

His tone was final, frightening. He forcefully pushed himself off the couch and walked away from Jiyong, away from the living room, away from anything to do with the failed conversation.

“Leave,” he said in a bone-chilling whisper as he slammed the door of his bedroom, leaving Jiyong and the shattered glass behind.

A/N:  What's this?  An actual update?!  Well, here is the chapter that plagued me for so long.  It still isn't what I was hoping for but at least it's slightly closer than it was before.  I finally willed myself to work on it a bit and, well, pretty much came to terms with the fact that I might never get what I wanted out of it.  As for actually working on the story, truth be told, the lack of Dongwook in this chapter definitely made things easer.  Why did you have to break my heart, Se7en?  Well, once again, thank you to all the readers who have stuck around and to those newbies who clicked the 'subscribe' button despite the lack of updates.  ＼(^ω^＼)