Chapter 16: Hope

****

One Month Later

"Jongin, what do you want for dinner tonight?" Taemin asked his friend as he looked through the fridge, trying hard to find some ingredients to make a decent meal for them. His fridge wasn't very full and the ingredients that he did have were either too old, expired or spoiled, he couldn't cook anything with them.

"Jongin, did you hear me?" Taemin asked a bit louder as he began looking through his cupboards to try and find food. He sighed when he found nothing but a few crackers and some old slices of bread that he was pretty sure he had purchased at least five months ago, "Should we just eat out Jongin?" Taemin waited for a response but when he got none, he walked out of the small kitchen and into the living room where his friend was."Are you listening to me Jongin?" Taemin asked as he stood a few feet away from the other man.

Jongin was unresponsive, his eyes were glued to the coffee table in front of the couch and Taemin finally realized why. He angrily stomped towards the coffee table and picked up the cell phone that Jongin was clearly eyeballing, he held it up, "It's been a ing month Jongin! You're clearly not over him so just ing call!" When Taemin threw his cell phone at him Jongin flinched, "I-I can't." Taemin sighed and walked towards the door, "I'm going grocery shopping but I'll leave my phone with you in case you want to call."

Jongin stared at the cell phone in his hand and flinched once again when he heard Taemin slamming the door close. Once he was gone, Jongin immediately dialed a familiar number, a number he hadn't called in over a month. With shaky hands, he brought the phone up to his ear and listened to it ring for the longest time before he finally heard the familiar voice of his best friend, Sehun.

"Hello? Who is this?"

Jongin stayed silent, not knowing what to say. He had so many questions to ask about everyone but most importantly, he wanted to know about Kyungsoo.

"Hello? Is this a prank phone call?" Sehun grumpily asked.

Jongin tried to say something but he couldn't, it was as if he were frozen.

In the background he could hear a voice, that he suspected was Luhan's saying, "Come back to bed."

"I'm hanging up!" Sehun said.

"S-Sehun, it's me. It's Jongin," he finally said, because he knew if Sehun hung up now, he would never have the courage to call again and he needed to know how Kyungsoo was doing.

"Jongin? Really?"

Jongin nodded, although Sehun could not see, before replying, "I-It's me. I umm ... I'm sorry if I interrupted something."

Sehun chuckled a bit, "Just my beauty rest, do you have any idea what time it is over here?"

Jongin suddenly remembered the time difference and apologized, "Sorry, I forgot."

"It's fine, so anyways, what's up?" Sehun asked, "I mean you must have had a reason for calling right, so ... what is it?"

"Nothing, I just wanted to know if you finally umm ... asked Luhan hyung out?" Jongin blurted out the first thing that came to his mind. He didn't actually mind talking about his friend's relationship with Luhan but what he had really called for was to ask about Kyungsoo.

"Jongin, it's me, Luhan and Sehun asked me to be his boyfriend! Can you believe it?!? I'm actually Oh Sehun's boyfriend, his lover, his one and only! Isn't that great?!?"

Jongin chuckled, "That's great Luhan hyung. I'm really happy for you two."

"Thank you Jongin! Well, I'm gonna let Sehun talk to you now because he's glaring at me. Bye, make sure to call again."

"Bye, Luhan hyung."

"Sorry about him, but anyways, are you sure the only reason you called was to find out about my relationship status?" Sehun asked once Luhan had given him the phone back.

Jongin thought carefully of what to say for a while before answering, "Well, I guess I'm curious about everyone else too. How are they?"

"Well, Joonmyun hyung is happily planning his wedding with Yifan hyung but he does miss you a lot. We all do."

"W-What about my cousin, how is he?" Jongin asked.

"Chanyeol hyung? Well, nothing seems to be going right for him these days, he feels incredibly guilty and partly responsible for your disappearance and his love life isn't any better."

Jongin chuckled a bit, "Love life? What love life?" he asked, "Don't you mean his obsession with Joonmyun hyung?"

"No idiot, he's madly in love with Baekhyun hyung now but for some reason anytime your cousin tries to speak with him, Baekhyun hyung just makes up and excuse to leave. It's kind of sad, really."

Jongin felt bad for cousin but at the same time, Chanyeol was part of the reason why he had lost his Kyungsoo, so he shouldn't feel bad "So, how is Baekhyun?"

Sehun laughed a bit, "Although it's obvious he misses being close to your cousin, Baekhyun hyung is still the same happy, positive person that he's always been and he ... he has really been there for Kyungsoo hyung these last couple of weeks."

Jongin knew this was his chance to ask about Kyungsoo and he wasn't going to be an idiot, as soon as he heard his ex-boyfriend's name he asked Sehun about him, "How is he, by the way?"

"Honestly, he's not okay. The only thing that distracts him from you is designing so that's basically all he does now. He doesn't eat much or sleep much but he does cry a lot. Baekhyun hyung tries his best to keep Kyungsoo hyung healthy but it's difficult. The only person who can help Kyungsoo hyung is you, Jongin."

Jongin feels his heart break a little after hearing that, suddenly he wants to pack up all his things and return to Seoul to be with Kyungsoo, but he can't. Their relationship was over now and Jongin had Taemin now, even if the two weren't dating, at least Taemin would never hurt him like Kyungsoo had. With Taemin, Jongin felt some sense of security.

"I-I have to go now Sehun. Please don't tell anybody about this."

Sehun sighed, "Okay Jongin, but, remember that Kyungsoo hyung loves you and you're not the only victim here. How do you think he felt when you shamelessly flirted with people right in front of his face?"

Jongin didn't reply to Sehun's question and just hung up. At that moment, Taemin walked through the door with a bag full of groceries, Jongin ran up to him and immediately pulled him into the bedroom. He was feeling a number of emotions, sadness, regret, guilt, anger and that resulted in him being rough with Taemin. He tried to ignore the thoughts of Kyungsoo and tried to instead enjoy how Taemin screamed his name as Jongin mercilessly rammed into him, over and over again.

****

Kyungsoo was busy working on his latest design when he heard his office door opening and closing. He already knew who it was but he put his pencil down anyways and looked up to see his friend walking inside the office with two cups of coffee and a sketch book.

"Good morning Baek."

Baekhyun smiled at him as he walked over and set his own cup of coffee and sketch book down on the t