( Returned Favour – Part 1 of 3 )

Tick, tick, tick, tick… The clock kept steadily ticking closer to three in the morning, effectively making one distressed man more and more anxious as it kept going. Hoya paced around his room idly, many scenarios filling his mind about how his reunion with an old friend would turn out – none of which had a positive outcome.

Only one thing was for sure - Myungsoo was going to give it his everything to give Hoya a hard time and he knew it.  

He couldn’t stop thinking about how distorted and almost unreadable had been the text message he'd received an hour ago from the evidently drunk Myungsoo, after all, he wouldn’t have texted him in the first place had he been sober, not with the distance that had wedged between them over the past year.

A couple of months back when Dongwoo - a good friend of theirs from high school - invited them both over for his birthday, and Hoya was ready to try and make up with Myungsoo and to put the past behind them because he missed his best friend, unsurprisingly, Myungsoo had taken off merely moments after he saw him, and was later found passed out outside of his own apartment next to a bottle of Bacardi by another mutual friend of theirs, Woohyun, who had gone to check on him. None of the guys knew what had happened to him, or why he didn’t just drink the night away inside his apartment – no one but Hoya. 

It actually made perfect sense to Hoya why Myungsoo had acted that way. The very outcome had already been expected the very moment he'd decided to act on his selfish desires that night when he'd slept with his friend. It was stupid of him to expect Myungsoo to be able to put it behind them and after all that still want to remain friends with him. Stupid, stupid…

Myungsoo probably didn’t take a taxi to Hoya's place. He must have decided to walk all the way up, perhaps to sober up before meeting him.

Maybe Hoya should have gone out and picked him up at his apartment instead of letting him walk three kilometres in the lashing rain, intoxicated and alone. But it was too late by the time Hoya realised this; he knew that Myungsoo would be at the door any moment and in just a couple of minutes, he would have to accept and suffer the consequence of the night he demolished the most precious friendship in his life. 

He had nothing to lose. With some positive thinking, Hoya thought it was more of a chance to make things better, as he swirled a glass of liquid courage in the form of whiskey in his hand. 

- - -

Myungsoo let himself into the house without a knock or shout to announce his arrival. Hoya was already onto his third glass by then, still situated in his own room and uselessly fretting about having to face Myungsoo. He set the glass down on the floor next to his bed and sat beside it, elbows propped on top of his knees and his head down.

For the first time in an hour, the clock’s irritating ticks weren’t the most distracting sound in his house. It was Myungsoo’s familiar heavy footsteps in the living room that let him know that the younger had no intention of seeking him out himself, stressing him out more and more as it went on.

What was he even doing?

Hoya wanted to, but didn't go out to check on him. 

It wasn’t until a crashing sound came from the living room – a bottle smashing into the floor – that Hoya finally got up and left his room to see Myungsoo. 

“What the hell just happened?” he asked as calmly as he could while grabbing the younger male's stone cold arms, making him back away from the shattered glass around the liquor cabinet. “Are you hurt?”

Myungsoo didn’t respond, not even to nod or shake his head, so Hoya scanned his hands and feet for cuts himself, relieved to see that he wasn’t hurt. What worried him were the thoroughly drenched grey jeans and white shirt sticking to Myungsoo's skin. 

“You need to take a hot shower before you get hypothermia.” 

He left the room for a moment to fetch a towel and some dry clothes for Myungsoo and then led him to the bathroom. Myungsoo seemed to focus all his energy to keeping his mouth shut, and his eyes on the floor, away from Hoya's worried gaze. 

“I'll be in the living room.”

- - -

After cleaning up the mess Myungsoo had created, Hoya sat down on the couch and sighed. The silence seemed deafening, until the sounds of the clock’s ticking returned and continued to drill holes into Hoya’s mind. 

The shower water didn’t start until 9 minutes after Hoya had sat down. By the time Myungsoo came out of the bathroom – clad in some of his old clothes, which he had left there in the past – it was almost half past 4 in the morning. 

Myungsoo made it very clear with just the way he glared in his general direction without actually meeting his gaze when he approached the couch, that he did not want to talk to Hoya. Then he sat down beside him and glared some more at the fire place Hoya had lit up while waiting. 

It was a quarter to 5 in the morning, that's exactly twenty-three minutes and fourteen seconds later, that Myungsoo finally spoke up.

“Why do you keep staring at the clock? It’s really annoying.” He paused for a moment before adding, “Oh. You must be counting the minutes, waiting for me to sober up so that you can push me out of your house before I decide to stay the night? Never mind then.”

“Thought you’d already be sober by now after that leisurely stroll in the rain, Myungsoo. And I wouldn’t call it ‘staying the night’. Technically, it’s already morning.”

Myungsoo rolled his eyes, groaning, “I don’t care about technicalities, Hoya. It’s just a figure of speech…” He leaned his head back against the couch and kicked his feet up on top of the coffee table to get comfortable. “And I’m not planning on leaving here sober. I’ll fight you if you try to stop me.” 

“Do whatever you want.” Hoya said, shrugging his shoulders. 

Myungsoo scoffed for no apparent reason.

It was really getting on Hoya’s nerves at this point. Myungsoo's attitude was so much worse than Hoya remembered, but he decided to swallow his complaints because this attitude was somewhat justified by his own reckless actions a year before. 

Then Myungsoo did do whatever he wanted and went to give it another shot at finding something to drown his misery with, this time without breaking anything in the process. 

“At least tell me what happened to you today? Why are you here?” Hoya asked quietly. 

“I don’t have to tell you anything.”

“You’re right. But tell me anyway.” 

Myungsoo stopped browsing the colourful cabinet and finally picked up another glass bottle, identically to the one he accidentally or otherwise dropped earlier. Then he disappeared into the kitchen for a second to fetch two glasses before he returned to the couch without sparing another glance in Hoya’s direction.

He filled the two glasses and handed one to Hoya. 

“If you really want me to spill my heart, don’t you know you should get me drunk first?” he watched with annoyance as Hoya took the glass he