Chapter 59

'Should I send this... or not...?' Sanghyuk pondered, his eyebrows knitted. He had been lying awake on his bed for quite some time already. But after days of having irregular sleeping patterns, he found himself slowly getting accustomed to the new routine. Sanghyuk concluded that it had been because of the stress and the thoughts that kept invading his mind even when he would try to relax. He would jolt awake in the middle of his sleep, not necessarily because of a nightmare, but simply just because. He was still having second thoughts about letting his sister know about this particular issue since he was well aware that it would involve talking about Hongbin and he was not exactly comfortable speaking about him with his sister whom he knew would about it.

Sanghyuk heaved a sigh and rolled to the other side of his bed for the umpteenth time that morning. The message, 'Hyung, is it alright to ask you to check if Hongbin-hyung received my package for him yesterday? I have it delivered at your school and I'm getting worried that it did not reach him,' stared back at him. He lost count of how much he revised the message and how much time had passed since he wrote his very first draft. Sanghyuk ran over the text message that he composed again before he took a deep breath, squeezed his eyes shut, pressed the send button, and hoped for the best. "Ah, I don't know! Whatever!" He cried, tossing his phone away.

Only that mere seconds after, he was scrambling to check his phone again, constantly quitting the app to restart it and see whether a new message has arrived. Sanghyuk stared at his phone for about 5 minutes or so before a new message popped up after his: 'This is Hongbin. Ravi's out cold atm.' It was shortly followed up by: 'And yeah, I received it... I'll open it now and reply to you there,' and 'But you really shouldn't have bothered to get me a phone just because mine got confiscated!! I would get it back again after some time anyway!!' Sanghyuk pressed his lips together to try and restrain himself from grinning. Somehow, just by reading Hongbin's texts, he could imagine him nagging at him about the phone that he got for him.

Another text message appeared: 'Stop responding here and wait for me to add you on KKT with the phone that you got me!! I'll delete the messages...'

It, again, took a couple more minutes, about 10-15 minutes, until Sanghyuk finally received a sticker message on KKT that was accompanied by: 'I'm not used to an Android phone and had to login to my account!! Also preparing for school, waking Ravi up... Trying to. He got so wasted this morning.'

"Wasted...?" Sanghyuk mumbled to himself as he read over what Hongbin said again. He then started to write up his answer, 'Did you two go for a drink together? Why would he do that?' After reviewing what he typed, he pressed the backspace and had input something else: 'Should I have messaged you later then? ^^ I was just thinking... I wanted to hang out with you and talk.'

Hongbin's next message arrived a little later than Sanghyuk expected that he was beginning to panic because of his choice of words. 'You already broke up, for God's sake! He would totally misunderstand! You haven't even explained why you ran away that afternoon!' He at his lips, frowning at the thought of what happened the last time that they saw one another. Sanghyuk dropped his phone on his blankets for a while and tugged at his long sleeves to reveal his bruised arm. He pressed his thumb at the small area and held back a whimper. Yes, it still hurt, but the only thing that he could do now was hope for his bruises to heal and to not multiply. This decision, however, was not up to him. Another sigh escaped his lips when he caught himself feeling down all over again. But what made him slightly less worse was Hongbin's consecutive messages that kept coming up in his screen: 'Sure. But I'm grounded... Come over to my house this afternoon. I'll throw you my uniform from the window so you can pretend that you're from my school. Otherwise my mother would just not let you in!!!'

"You still use the same tactics as before...?" Sanghyuk whispered, scrolling through Hongbin's messages. "Wonder what N-hyung looked like back then..." He snorted, remembering that he heard the story about N cross-dressing from Hongbin, "What must Leo-hyung have thought when he saw N-hyung in a skirt?" His little daydreaming, unfortunately, did not last for so long, as again, his thoughts have now wandered off to think about his N-hyung. He could still recall Hongbin's words from their previous phone call and how worried he sounded about N's wellbeing. N kept reassuring him that he was fine and they always ended up conversing about Sanghyuk's situation with Hongbin that he kept forgetting about paying attention to how N was acting. Sanghyuk then started to wonder, 'Has N-hyung arrived at Ken-hyung's parent's place yet or not...?' Since he was informed that even though Leo stayed with Jaehwan's parents for two days, N still has yet returned like he said he would. It was already strange enough that Leo and Hongbin reached the place before N did because he was the one who departed first. Sanghyuk his bed again and pulled the covers above his body and head, closing his eyes. 'Please be safe, Hakyeon-hyung...' He prayed in his head.

Sanghyuk had been spacing out. Not only did Sungjae constantly bug him about it, even the girl that he was currently seeing noticed his behaviour. He never really told anyone about them – how he came back to her, met with her in private, and asked if she was willing to try things out for a while.  Everyone in their school just somehow figured about their relationship on their own even though it had only been a few days since everything started. She was delighted about his proposal, contrary to what he expected. Of course, she was the one who asked him out in the first place – Sanghyuk's long time crush: pretty, cute, and really smart. It was not his intention to use her to relieve himself off of the stress from finding out Hongbin's feelings; he was genuinely attracted to her and that was why he wanted to try and see if things could work out between them – At least, that was what Sanghyuk kept trying to convince himself.

She was nice as he expected and she had a smile that could certainly brighten up any guy's day. Sanghyuk noticed that about her a long time ago. However, she was not smiling now. Whatever Sanghyuk was seeing before him was something private, something that he assumed only a few people had seen. She was frowning, but he could at least notice the worry in her expression. And because their eyes were locked together, Sanghyuk had not realised that she was straddling him on his seat and how close their proximity was. The moment that he took notice of it, before he could coil back and avoid her, she only pulled him closer with her arms that had been resting on Sanghyuk's shoulders all this time. His cheeks were definitely warm from feeling flustered about their position. He was no longer an innocent child and he knew where everything was headed. He guessed that she was only prolonging their time together when she asked softly, "What's wrong, oppa?"

Sanghyuk felt even more awkward and embarrassed because she addressed him as 'oppa,' when she was already on her senior year and older than him by a year and few months. Had he been alone, he would have already visibly cringed at the supposed endearment. But because he was with her and did not want to offend her, he simply did his utter best in holding back his feelings of discomfort. "I –" Sanghyuk attempted to start, but his words got caught in his throat by accident. The girl on his lap was quick to rub at his back, reminding him that he should slow down when trying to explain himself. He nodded and then fidgeted on his seat, already feeling her weight on him now that he was 100% aware of what was going on. "I... I was just thinking about a lot of things, noona..." Sanghyuk sighed, avoiding her eyes at all costs.

He felt her retreating back just a tiny bit, but it was immediately followed by a whine, "Don't call me 'noona'! You're my oppa so you shouldn't call me 'noona,' okay?"

Sanghyuk gave her a look and yet she did not seem to understand why he did so. He exhaled again, turning his head away, "Sunbae-nim, I... I need to go... I need to make a call..."

He did not get to see what kind of look she had on her face, but she did start to unwind and pick herself up from his lap. "Come back soon so I could finish off my drawing of you," was all that she said before she gave him a peck on his forehead. It startled the latter and the shocked look that he had on his face only made her lips curl into a smile. "Okay?"

"I-I'll try," Sanghyuk stuttered, his cheeks burning bright red. He got up as soon as she returned to her place behind her easel and sketchbook. Her eyes never left him until he disappeared from the room in a rush, carrying his phone along with him. Sanghyuk unlocked his phone while he sped up his pace and headed for the school rooftop. "Please pick up. Please pick up. Please pick up," he kept chanting to himself, waiting impatiently for Hongbin to answer the phone –

"Oh, Hyuk-ah?" Hongbin's voice came through all of a sudden. "Did you need something?"

Sanghyuk slowed down with his steps. "I..." He faltered for a few seconds, but quickly recovered himself, "Since when did I have a reason for calling you! I just wanted to talk, hyung! Like you know... About things – People! Like Ravi-hyung and why he was wasted... And stuff...?"

It was quiet for a little while before he heard Hongbin chuckling. He had not heard it in a while and just for the sake of listening to it for a little longer, Sanghyuk held himself back from asking the actual questions that he wanted to know about: 'How are you?', 'Are you okay?', and 'Do you think that I'm a ty person if I told you that I'm seeing that girl now whom I said I rejected before because I wanted to know what "love" is supposed to feel like?' Sanghyuk quietly cursed under his breath, "I'm a bad person –"

"You're not a bad person," Hongbin countered his soft musings, suddenly sounding stern. "Hey, it'll be better if we talk things out in person this afternoon. I only have a few tasks to do after school because of the student council work, but other than that, I should be home at about an hour and a half after school's dismissal. Sounds good for you? Or... If you can't, I guess we'll have to talk right now – And yes, about Ravi," he changed the subject right away, "He's just dealing with too much at the moment so... Yeah... I can't say more..."

"Ahhh... So it's like that..." Sanghyuk droned out, finally reaching the staircase to the rooftop. "And yeah, it sounds good to me – Uhmm... Hyung? I... I gotta tell you something. Well, ask you something..." He swallowed and then took a deep breath, "What would you feel if –"

"Yah! Han Sanghyuk where are you going?" He heard his best friend's voice all the way from the other end of the hallway. Sanghyuk looked behind him, stopping at the first couple of steps. "Wait for me, I'll go with you!"

"I-I'll call you later, hyung," Sanghyuk said to his phone, already preparing himself to hang up as Sungjae neared him. He was still able to vaguely hear Hongbin's voice that was calling for his name, but he just did not want to explain the situation nor did he have the same amount of courage to ask him the question that had been sitting on his tongue. Sanghyuk ultimately ended the call one-sidedly and took a few steps down to meet his best friend halfway. "I thought you were going to eat lunch with your other friends," he told Sungjae, noticing the sandwich that he was holding on one hand.

"And I thought you were going to be at the art classroom with your 'girlfriend,'" Sungjae answered back, air quoting and mocking the way that Sanghyuk spoke about their senior. He watched the latter roll his eyes at him and groan, but he only slung an arm over his shoulders. "Whatever~ Since