Finally, he found the courage to confess his love to his long-love Youngsaeng, a man he had been merely awkward friends with for so long. With a set mind and a thumping heart, he made his way to a private cafe with his bouquet of roses, where he was going to meet his friend to get some advice.

Half an hour later, his friend arrived.

"Yo, Hyunjoong!"

Hyunjoong looked over at the door and glared at his friend who was strolling in. "Ya! Jaejoong! Why are you so late? I've been waiting for half an hour already! I still have more schedules later, y'know?"

Jaejoong chuckled as he settled himself down on the armchair in front of his friend. "Mian, mian, there was heavy traffic and the taxi wasn't even moving so I decided to walk here."

The younger man rolled his eyes and sighed, crossing his arms and legs. Jaejoong smiled when he saw the roses on the table. "So? You're ready?"

Hyunjoong huffed. "I don't know... I've just known him so long. I have no idea how he feels about me either..." Jaejoong bent over and put an assuring hand on his friend's shoulder. "I've been close friends with him for a long time already. I know what type of person he is. Don't worry, it'll turn out fine."

The latter took a deep breath and picked up the bouquet, inspecting the red roses. "Hm... But do you think he likes roses? What if he doesn't like roses?"

"Ya, who doesn't like roses? It's the flower of love."

"There are people who don't like roses," remarked Hyunjoong. "Do you think I should get a few more? Is one hundred roses enough? Should I get more?"

Jaejoong scoffed. "What? You want to get a thousand roses now? Come on, a hundred is definitely enough." Hyunjoong's eyebrows knotted as he inspected the roses again, counting them and nodding as he did so.

"Just what did you call me here for? What advice do you want?" questioned Jaejoong after a while.

Hyunjoong looked up from the roses and carefully placed them down, staring hard at his friend. That made the older man feel slightly awkward.

"How... How should I confess?" asked Hyunjoong slowly and seriously. "Should I just say 'saranghae' or should I explain first what I like about him? Or... How should I do it?"

Jaejoong furrowed his eyebrows and stared up at the ceiling as he thought. "A brief explanation about how you felt when you two were simply friends and then say that you love him. If you say it right away, he might get shocked."

Hyunjoong nodded. "And...?"

"Ya, you're a hallyu star. That should be enough."

***

Finally, the night of fate had arrived and Hyunjoong took a deep breath. He was dressed formally in his black and white suit, holding his bouquet of roses. Tonight, he, Youngsaeng, and their three other friends were going out for dinner since it had been a while since they gathered. He arrived especially early and checked in his roses at the coat-check. Finally, he was ready.

At the table for six, Hyunjoong nervously rubbed his sweaty palms on his pants, continuously glancing over at the door to see if they had arrived yet. His heart skipped a beat whenever the door opened but then frowned when he saw that it wasn't his friends nor his love.

At last, Hyungjun and Jungmin arrived together, bickering as usual even though they were together already. Hyunjoong smiled widely and stood up. "Ya! Jungmin! Hyungjun!"

The two noticed him and waved back, hurrying over to the table. "Annyeong! Long time no see!" greeted Jungmin warmly, manly hugging his friend. Hyungjun also hugged Hyunjoong and then the two sat side-by-side.

"So how are things going? Your online fashion business doing well?" Hyunjoong asked Jungmin, wanting to catch up with them as soon as he could.

"Neh! It's awesome!" exclaimed Jungmin in excitement. "There are so many buyers now I think I can open another shop in another place."

"Jungmin's shop is really amazing," praised the boyfriend of the Jungmin, who was grinning and hugging onto the older man's arm. "He's getting more and more employees, too and I get special previews of his designs and the first ones Jungmin makes. My wardrobe is full now."

Hyunjoong pouted. "Jungmin-ah, you didn't give any to me."

"Ya, I haven't even been able to reach contact with you these days. Just what have you been doing?" the latter asked. "Are your schedules really that tight?"

The singer rolled his eyes. "Do you know how much I begged my manager to cancel my schedules for tonight so I could come here and see you guys again? Now where's Kyujong? He's taking longer than usual."

"You forgot someone...?" Hyungjun echoed, raising an eyebrow. Hyunjoong's lips tightened. "And... Youngsaeng..."

"If you can't even say his name, then how are you going to confess to him?" Hyungjun demanded. Hyunjoong shook his head. "It's not that... It's because... I just don't want to seem like I'm caring about him so much."

"Caring about who?" a sudden voice came from behind.

Hyunjoong gasped and whipped around to see that the sweet voice had come from his long-love, who was standing right behind him and might have heard their entire conversation. He smiled awkwardly. "An-annyeong..."

"Annyeong," Youngsaeng greeted before taking a seat before the older man, completely oblivious to the fact that Hyunjoong wanted to move a little farther away from him to calm his racing heart. The cute man grabbed the menu and began to look through it. "Did you guys order yet? Where's Kyujong?"

"I'm here," Kyujong's voice floated in and they saw him sitting down between Hyungjun and Youngsaeng. Youngsaeng turned over to Hyungjun. "So how're you doing?"

***

For the whole dinner, Hyunjoong was barely able to talk to Youngsaeng as the man was occupied with Kyujong. Jungmin kept on nudging him to hurry up but whenever Hyunjoong opened his mouth to talk, Youngsaeng would interrupt without knowing or turn over to someone else of the group and start talking to them instead.

When the clock neared nine, Youngsaeng glanced over and gasped, looking back at his watch. He quickly got up. "Sorry, I have to leave early. I have plans with a customer to meet him tonight at nine."

Kyujong also nodded. "I also need to get back to the office. The boss is expecting me at around ten and it takes a while to get there."

"Ah! I'll send you there!" Hyunjoong offered to Youngsaeng, suddenly shooting up from his seat after Jungmin jabbed his waist. Youngsaeng simply smiled his angel smile with his dimples. "No, it's alright. Enjoy your time with Jungmin and Hyungjun. Kyujong can send me back to my office. It's on the way, anyway."

"We'll be leaving then," said Kyujong before throwing his jacket over his shoulders and starting out the door. "I really want to stay longer but I don't want to get fired either. See ya~"

Youngsaeng waved back and hurried after his friend. Hyunjoong watched in despair, his hands trembling. Jungmin and Hyungjun groaned together.

"Ya! I told you to confess to him earlier!" sighed Jungmin in exasperation. "Why didn't you?"

"I don't know... ... I just..."

Hyungjun rolled his eyes. "Well, hyung, there's goes your a hundred roses. What're you going to do with them now?"

***

That night, near midnight when Hyunjoong had finally gotten back to his luxurious apartment, he plopped down on the couch and the TV, yawning tiredly. His bouquet of roses were in the trash, his heart aching. Rain pattered out his window and he was in no mood to watch TV but there was nothing else to do and he didn't want to sleep.

Minutes later after he had finally found a channel to his liking, his cell rang. Slipping it out of his pocket, he looked at the caller ID to see that it was Jungmin.

"What do you want?" he groaned into the phone.

"What are you doing?!" shrieked the man from the other side. "Are you still at home? Why aren't you at the hospital?!"

Hyunjoong furrowed his eyebrows and sat up a little straighter. "What? What do you mean? Why would I be at the hospital?"

"Youngsaeng! He got into a car crash!"

Hyunjoong's eyes widened and immediately, he hung up, grabbing his jacket and flying out the door without even turning off the TV. He sped out of the parking lot and onto the main road, his heart beating fast as he tried to get to the hospital as fast as he could through the heavy rain.

When he ran into the hospital, he saw Jungmin and Hyungjun sitting at the lobby together, looking extremely worried. He hurried over, panting. "What happened? How's Youngsaeng? How about Kyujong?"

"The driver wasn't hurt with only a few scratches..." Hyungjun started and took a deep breath. "It was because there was pedestrian walking across the road that time and Kyujong didn't see. By the time, he noticed, they were right about to crash into him and the car swerved into a pole, also crashing into the boy at the same time."

"Was anyone badly hurt?" Hyunjoong asked frantically, in panic.

"One died..."

The older man's pupils dilated and his hands clenched into fists. "E-eh...? Who? Who died?"

Jungmin shook his head. "They said that they have yet to contact the victim's relatives so he is currently unnamed. The doctor said that we could go see if we recognized and we wanted to wait for you to get here before we went."

"Where? Where is he?"

Jungmin stood up with Hyungjun following and walked through the hall, stopping a door nearby a corner. Cautiously, he slid open the door. Hyunjoong stepped in and saw something on the bed with a white cloth covering the body and the face, that meant that the person was dead. But the hairstyle seemed strangely familiar. It was just like Youngsaeng's. The man went to the side of the bed to take a closer look.

"So?" Hyungjun murmured.

The singer felt tears well up as his heart began to crack open. Was this Youngsaeng? The hair color and the height were around the same. He gripped onto the sheets of the bed, tears trickling down as he grit his teeth and looked at the corpse. With a shaking hand, he slowly reached out to take the white cloth when without warning, a sweet voice from behind him floated in.

"Hyunjoong...?"

The latter whipped around with wild eyes and saw Youngsaeng standing at the door, wearing the hospital patient clothes with a bandaged neck, wrist, and hand.

"Y-Youngsaeng... That's you...?" he stuttered in disbelief. He looked back at the body. "Wait! Then who's that?"

"That's the pedestrian Kyujong accidentally bumped into," Youngsaeng told him calmly and froze when he was suddenly hugged tightly by the older man. With hesitation, he wrapped his arms around the latter, soothing him. "Why're you crying? Do you know that man?"

"I'm... I'm so glad..." sobbed Hyunjoong into the white clothes. "Just so glad that you're not on that bed... I'm so relieved..."

"I wasn't hurt that bad. Just a few cuts and bruises, that's it though. Why? Were you worried?"

"Damn it! Of course I was, pabo!" exclaimed Hyunjoong and looked around to see that Hyungjun and Jungmin were nowhere to be seen. Smiling softly in gratitude, he quickly grabbed Youngsaeng's unbandaged wrist and took him into another empty room, closing the door behind them.

"What are you doing?" questioned Youngsaeng worriedly. "I don't think we should be in here."

"I just realized... that in that one split of a second, you can lose everything, you can lose your loved one," murmured Hyunjoong sincerely as he gazed deeply into Youngsaeng's eyes. "Youngsaeng-ah... I've... I've loved you for a long time."

Youngsaeng stared at him with owlish eyes. "E-eh?"

Hyunjoong tightened his lips and swallowed nervously. He met with the latter's gaze, reaching out and taking the boy's bandaged hand gently, cautious not to put any pressure on it. "At dinner... I was planning to tell you my feelings with a bouquet of a hundred roses but you left before I had the chance... And now this happened. If you were the one dead... I don't know what I would do."

Youngsaeng blinked and suddenly, tears began to drip out. Hyunjoong paled and quickly let go of the man's hand, using his sleeve to wipe away the running tears. "Why are you crying? I'm sorry if this made you feel bad. I really--"

"No..." whispered Youngsaeng, shaking his head. "I'm just so happy... I never thought you would actually love me back. I always thought you liked Jungmin... You were always with him and played with him... I thought..."

The older man smiled gently before taking Youngsaeng into his arms, against his chest. Youngsaeng relaxed, letting his shoulders slump down as he breathed in Hyunjoong's scent, closing his eyes. 

"It's you I love, Youngsaeng," murmured Hyunjoong lovingly into Youngsaeng's ear. The latter smiled and reached up, softly connecting their lips before whispering. "I love you, too."