Warning: is going to go down. (sorry for any cheesiness in last chapter... that was my attempt at fluff :U) Also, rated PG-13 for Taehyun's potty mouth. Again, I apologize for any crappiness in quality this chapter, and I love you~ ^^"

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Seungyoon’s POV

After two hours of him ignoring me, I was both uncomfortable and annoyed. He was scrunched up all the way on the other side of the couch, avoiding me as much as possible. Had we really grown so far apart that he couldn’t comfortably sit next to me? This isn’t us. This isn’t how we used to be. I can’t believe it, yet here we are.

I decided to throw caution to the wind. I sprawled out across the couch, laying my head on Taehyun’s lap. This startled him pretty bad since it seemed he was pretty into the movie playing on TV.

“Maknaeeee~,” I whined, making my best pouty face. He looked freaked out at me laying on him, and my heart hurt. He never used to mind this before. I decided to speak sincerely, then, saying softly, “I miss you.”

He just looked at me then, an emotion I can’t read burning in his eyes. But then he slides out from under me in favor of sitting on the floor and goes back to watching TV. I exhale heavily.

We watch the rest of the movie in silence, sadness probably written all over my face. Why is he acting like this now? I thought we were making progress, but now he’s ignoring me worse than ever. What is that I don’t even know what I did this time to make my love act this way.

A few minutes pass, and my stomach grumbles. “I’m gonna make us food—“

“NO!” He whips around and looks at me with terror in his eyes. “No… don’t. I’ll do it.” Then he gets up and shuffles into the kitchen to make us dinner.

I wait in the living room, listening to the sounds of him bustling about in the kitchen. This awkwardness that has settled between us needs to end. I hate it. I hate it so much. I lay on the couch thinking of how we used to be, how I used to be able to see his smile every day. When times were tough and the stress was getting to me with how fast everything was changing for us, his laughter used to be the one constant I could count on. Nowadays, whenever he smiles, it’s not directed at me. More recently, he hasn’t been smiling at all. Now where am I going to get my strength from…? Jinwoo may be our group’s vitamin, but Taehyun was always my personal vitamin. I feel weaker these days without him next to me. I feel so tired without him… so tired…

Just as I shut my eyes, I felt a hard poke on my shoulder. “Food’s ready,” Taehyun mumbled, and I stood up and stretched. I went to go fix my plate and sat down at the dining table across from him. Oh gosh, please don’t let this dinner be awkward too…

It was. The silence continued. I smiled at him when I caught his eyes once, but he just stared bleakly back down at his food. I’m starting to regret letting the others ditch us, this was going nowhere fast. This is slowly destroying all the happiness I felt earlier and replacing it with depression.

How much longer do I have to see my maknae look like that before I die from depression? I thought morbidly, picking through the last bits of my dinner. I believe in it… people dying from broken hearts. I feel like that’s what’s happening to me right now. Each time he rejects me, it twists the knife a little bit deeper into the wound.

“Are you done?” Taehyun’s quiet voice snapped me out of my thoughts. His voice is so beautiful, I thought forlornly. I remember back when we first met… I was blown away from the moment he said “Hello.”

“I’ll take that as a yes then.” He gets up and whisks my plate away. I just stay at the table, struggling to not let my negative thoughts get the best of me. It’s a losing battle so far. It’s a little hard to keep hope in these situations.

The clank of the dishes being washed pulls me from my thoughts again. I look at Taehyun’s back longingly. I’m getting desperate. I’d do anything, anything just to get him to talk to me again. I miss him so much, and I’m so tired of us being apart. It’s difficult being separated when you once were inseparable; that was us, Kang & Nam.

Now what are we? Are we even friends anymore…?

My heart hurt to think of the answer, and I ended the train of thought there. Instead, I stood up and made my way over to the oblivious maknae. He had one last plate to wash, and he was just finishing wiping it clean when I came to him. I threw my arms around him from behind and hugged him close to me. He let out a startled gasp and dropped the plate back in the sink. He froze where he was, but I just kept holding him. He was an inch or two taller than me, so I couldn’t really lean my head on him. Instead, I just pressed my cheek to the back of his head, closing my eyes as he just stood there. I could smell his shampoo, it was like a forest-y kind of smell, like pine trees. I breathed in a little and exhaled through my mouth, causing him to shiver a little bit. I liked the scent… it was so… him.

We stood there like that for a while. This was the third time I’d given him a back-hug recently… I guess this was becoming a habit. I didn’t mind this. The silence between us almost reminded me of the old us, when we would be silent, but it was comfortable silence. We didn’t have that anymore. I dropped my head a little to rest against his shoulder, his long hair tickling my face.

Finally, I felt some movement from him. It felt like he had reached his hand up to his face and was wiping at it. Was he crying? Did I make him cry? I cringed, but didn’t dare let him go; instead, I held him tighter. He slowly went back to washing the plate, leaving my arms where they were. But after he finished, he placed his wet hands over mine, lingering just a little before he pried my arms away from him and turned around to face me. As usual, I couldn’t read the expression on his face. He just looked at me for a long moment, and I looked back. His beauty was taking my breath away, and I was falling hard for him all over again.

Then he dropped those pretty brown eyes from my gaze and said quietly, but firmly, “Let’s go for a walk.”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was a little late now. We walked all around, passing the convenience store, some gas stations, and some parks. I followed while he led, walking way ahead of me. The whole time it was silent, and I had a weird feeling. Why did he suddenly want to go out like this?

Suddenly, he began to veer off the sidewalk toward a deserted playground. I followed him onto it as he walked towards the swings. As he sat on one, I had the urge to push him on it, but I felt like now wasn’t the right time. So I sat on the one next to him and settled with kicking the woodchips.

“We need to talk,” he said slowly, digging his boots into the dirt. I nodded and waited for him to continue. When he didn’t, however, after a few minutes I looked at him in confusion. He was looking down at his shoes still with that strange look on his face. I was just about to start the conversation myself when he spoke, finally.

“I have a bone to pick with you…” He lifted his head up to the sky. “I’m not happy, hyung.”

I swallowed. “What’s the matter, maknae?” I asked gently.

“You.” It was barely a whisper, but I still heard it in the silence of the night. He closed his eyes, his voice a little louder. It shook with his next few words. “You are the matter.”

There is no way I can pretend this didn’t hurt. A thousand tiny knives stabbed my heart at once, and I almost reached a hand up to my chest to squeeze, just to see if the pain was real. I strained to keep my voice strong when I said, “Wae? What did I do?”

He was quiet then, head still tilted back and eyes still closed. “Tell me what I did. Tell me what I did so I can apologize and fix it. Tell me, so I can make you happy again.” I was pleading with him. I can’t have him unhappy because of me. That is the worst feeling I will ever feel.

“You want to make me happy again?” His voice was shaking as it grew in power. “You think you can fix this?” He chuckled, his chuckles becoming giggles as a tear ran down his face.

“Taehyun, you’re scaring me. Please, just—“

“Oh, I’m scaring you?” His voice was dangerously low as he finally turned to me and opened his eyes, the floodgates opening as tears began falling in rivers down his cheeks. “No, no. I think you’re the one scaring me.” He’d finally let his mask down, but there were so many different emotions swirling in his eyes, I couldn’t really identify a concrete one. But what I did see was an overwhelmingly negative aura around him, and something that looked awfully close to hate and anger coming out above all the other emotions in those brown eyes.

My face fell. It made me sick to see him look at me like that. I didn’t understand. How could he be looking at me like that? How?

He ignored my reaction and continued. “Y’know, it doesn’t feel good to have so many different and contrasting emotions at work inside you all at the same time. It gets to make you feel like you’re crazy, after a while.” He was gripping the chains on the swing so hard his knuckles were white. “Do you know what that feels like, Seungyoon-hyung? I don’t think you do. I never know what I’m feeling anymore when I’m around you. I don’t know if I hate you—" this nearly made me fall over "—or I adore you. I don’t know if I want to punch you in the throat or hug you and never let go. I don’t know, I don’t know, I DON’T KNOW!” He was yelling at me now, and I hated it. Hated hearing him say those things to me. He was bent over, pulling at his hair now and weeping.

I scrambled to kneel in front of him. I grabbed both of his hands and pried them from his hair, holding them in my own hands instead. I felt tears running down my own face at seeing my love come undone like this. “Taehyun, please look at me. Please.” I let go of his hands and lifted his head up to look at me instead, running my fingers through his soft hair and wiping his tears away. He just looked at me and cried harder, to the point where he was coughing and having trouble breathing. “You need to calm down, Tae,” I pleaded. He was going to pass out if he started hyperventilating. I wiped more of the tears away with my thumbs, looking him in the eyes and cradling his face in my hands. Even though I was crying too, I tried to breathe evenly. “Breathe slowly with me, like this.” I demonstrated by taking several slow, deep breaths. He followed me and started to calm down. “Just like that,” I whispered. He was looking at me now, looking at me as if he could see into my soul as he lifted his hands up to run them weakly through my hair. Tears were still coming down like waterfalls, and I did my best to keep wiping them away, though my thumbs were quite wet now and only succeeded in smearing them across his face. It hurt me so much to see him like this. “There, baby, you’re okay now; I’ve got you,” I said, my voice barely audible.

And then just like that, it was like a switch was flipped. He twisted his face up and roughly pushed me away, scrambling to put some distance between us. “Don’t touch me. Don’t you dare say that to me!” He hurriedly wiped his face and was back to glaring at me fiercely. “Don’t you DARE pretend for one second—“

“Tae, I’m not pretending!!” I stood up as well and tried to walk towards him, but every step I took forward, he took backward.

“YES YOU ARE!!” he screamed at me. “You don’t care about me, you can’t! If you did, you wouldn’t do this to me!! You wouldn’t toy with my emotions—“

“I’M NOT!!”

“Stop LYING!” he growled.

“I’m not, I promise you Tae, I’m not!!” I didn’t care what I looked or sounded like anymore, I just had to get through to him. “Is that what you think I’ve been doing to you? Is this what you’ve been keeping in?”

“Yes, yes it is. And I can’t believe a damn word out of your mouth because I just can’t fathom how you could do this to me if you cared. It’s like I’m nothing to you, and my emotions are a game or some ! You push me away and then pull me back, with no explanation whatsoever. One day we’re all buddy buddy, and the next you can’t talk to me! You start doing nice for me, but then ignore me for two weeks and stomp all over the feelings of your bandmates. You’re here for me, and then you’re gone the next second! And, and then you…” He hiccups. “You replace me with Seunghoon-hyung, making me feel all kinds of confusing ways, only to find out it was some childish game to mess around with people’s feelings!?”

“Taehyun, it wasn’t—“

“Oh, yes it was! Don’t you tell me it’s not, you’re trying to make me sound crazy!” He pulls at his hair again and goes back to sobbing so hard his body jerks with every hiccup.

“Tae, no I’m not.” My voice is mournful as I, once again, plead with him. Nothing I say gets through to him. He doesn’t believe me. He thinks I’m out to hurt him, and that’s the farthest thing from the truth.

“Everything you’ve done these past several weeks has been selfish and hurtful to everyone around you! You will not feed me this bull about you giving any kinds of s about me, because look at what you’ve done!” He spreads his arms out wide. His voice drops a few decibels as he says, “Kang Seungyoon. I am not a hateful person.” He sounds tired, worn out. “I don’t do this,” he hiccups. “I don’t scream at people. I don’t yell. But just look at me.” His tears have dried… perhaps he has no more left. “I don’t even know who I am anymore. I am so confused, and so very, very tired.”

I however, was crying silently. “Oh, maknae… Is this how you’ve been feeling?” It came out as a whimper. “How could you let it build up to this point? Why didn’t you just talk to me…?”

He shook his head. “When? When you were avoiding me? When you were attached at the hip with Seunghoon-hyung? Please, tell me when.”

“Anytime!” I shouted, getting frustrated. “I will always make time for you! And stop acting like you were alone, because I didn’t leave you alone! You pushed me away!! I tried to talk to you, but you weren’t having it!”

“You were hurting me! I had to protect myself somehow! It hurt just to be near you!”

“Well you weren’t too hurt, I heard you talking with your boyfriend, Minho, and—“

I didn’t get a chance to finish because the next moment he flew at me, pounding on my chest furiously. “You. ing. IDIOT!!” he screeched. “What the hell?! Minho is NOT my boyfriend! For goodness’ sake, I just went with him today as moral support for when he confessed to Bobby!”

I was in shock. What? But then…

“Geez, I dunno what you THINK you saw or heard, but whatever it was, it was wrong!! You are so ing stupid, sometimes! Damn it!” He punched my chest a final time before he backed away. “You wanna know why I can’t believe that you care about me? Because of your stupid excuses like that one, your ways of thinking that are SO ed up, you just end up hurting everyone, and because of THIS!!” He points at himself emphatically. “My feelings are so screwed up right now, Seungyoon! Do you know how scary it is to not know yourself anymore?? Well, let me tell you. It feels awful. I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy, yet here you are doing this to me, your maknae, someone you once called your best friend!!”

So this is the extent of his feelings. The source of all those broken looks and mean glances and his heartbreak was me. I can’t believe it. This was the last thing I ever wanted to do to him. He’s unravelling before me and I can’t do anything to stop it. My tears keep falling, I don’t know if they’ll ever stop. It’s the worst feeling when the one you love hates you so badly he’s shaking with it.

 As if he read my mind, he says, “I don’t hate you. I could never hate you.” He takes a deep, shaky breath. “I know I’m not crazy. I’m just overwhelmed… very much so. And more confused than I ever thought humanly possible. Maybe I’m being overdramatic, but this is how I feel, hyung.” He was speaking calmly now. He even laughs a little. “Even after everything I just said, I don’t even blame you for this, deep down. Not really. Isn’t that strange? What is this…?” The tears are back.

“Tae…” My voice was hoarse, cracking on the sound that made up my love’s name.

“I don’t know where we went wrong… but I know this can’t go on.” His tone scared me.

“What do you mean…?” I strode toward him. “You talked to me. I know now. I know I did wrong to you maknae, and I am so sorry I didn’t realize. I wasn’t there. I see it now.” I grabbed his shoulders. “But we can fix this. I can help you now because I know. Let me be there for you now, Tae!” I was desperate. I didn’t like the look in his eyes as he smiled at me.

“No… you can’t. The feelings are still there. I don’t even know if I’m mad at you, isn’t that funny?” He giggled. “God, Seungyoon, I’m so ed up right now.” He put his hands over his face. “I need to sort this out by myself… away from you.”

What?

“I couldn’t before because you were constantly around, I think. You were always there to confuse me when I thought I’d finally figured it out. I need to be away from that… I’m going to go stay with my mom.”

“No… please don’t, Tae. Stay. We can—“

He shook his head and stepped away from me, walking backwards. “Go home, Seungyoon. I’m going away for a while, I’ve decided. I’m going to go for a walk now…”

“Wait… wait!!” He stops. “What if…” I was scared to ask, but I had to know. “What if you can’t figure it out while you’re away…?”

He smiles. “Then I’ll leave Winner.”

Just like that, he turned and walked away from me.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was alone at the studio. I was trying to work on some music to ease my mind. It’s usually calming, but I don’t think anything can calm the tide of emotions swirling within me right now. Everything was coming down around me like a house of cards, everything was unravelling. Winner was going to be broken beyond repair because of me. Because I was stubborn, and selfish, and all those things I’d been trying so hard not to be.

I’d single-handedly ruined Winner.

I’d let everybody down.

What would the members think? Surely they’d hate me. What about President Yang? CL-noona? Youngbae-hyung? My mom? What would they all think?

My mind was mess. “What do I do” was the single thought running through my mind, making the lyrics I was writing beyond unusable.

My vision was starting to get blurry around the edges. That’s weird, I thought. I shook my head, but it didn’t go away. I rubbed my eyes, but to no avail. I just decided to ignore it.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thirty minutes later, I’d made progress with the song, but now I couldn’t see at all because the blurriness had overtaken my entire field of vision. “Dammit!” I cursed, reluctantly getting up from my seat to see if I could find anyone in the infirmary. I couldn’t even see what time it was and if it was still a reasonable hour for someone to be here.

When black started to appear at the edges of my vision, I got scared. “, that’s not good.” My legs were weak; I would have fallen to the floor if I hadn’t grabbed the banister in the hallway. “ …” I held myself up and limped to what I thought were the stairs down to the main floor. My body hurt all over. I have to get to the street where people can see me… Geez, what’s wrong with me now? I thought angrily.

That was the last thought I had before I out.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Taehyun’s POV

When I got home, it was nearly five in the morning and the sky was turning pink. I was exhausted. Turns out letting all your feelings out doesn’t make you feel as good as I thought.

As I walked to my room, I glanced down the hall and saw Seungyoon’s door wide open, the bed still made. I just shrugged it off. I couldn’t think about him now. It hurt too much. His face when I yelled at him haunted me all night; I never wanted to see that look on his face again. But I’d put it there. I’m so messed up… he should just stay away from me. All I do is hurt him, it seems.

I felt like I was having an out of body experience when I freaked out on him. I don’t even remember half the stuff I said, all I can see is his tears and all I can hear is his voice, cracked and hoarse. Because of me. I know that wasn’t the way, but what could I do? It all had been built up for so long that I just exploded. But it was my fault. I’d let it happen. Seungyoon didn’t deserve that. I’ll have to apologize to him when I come back from mom’s. But for now, sleep.

I undressed and crawled under the covers, falling asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………..

………………………………………….

……………………………………

…………………………..

…………………….

………………

………..

…….

…

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I open my eyes to being violently shaken awake. My heart leapt out of my chest, and I tried to bat away whosever’s hands were gripping me.

“Taehyun-ah! Taehyun-ah, wake up!!”

Once my eyes adjusted, I first looked over at the clock to see if the time could explain this rude awakening. Nope. It was only one in the afternoon.

…Okay, maybe that’s a bit late. But it was a rough night…

I looked back at whoever was sitting on my bed, and I was startled to see Jinwoo’s face streaked with tears and his face crumpled with grief. I looked behind him to see Seunghoon with his hand on Jinwoo’s back, tears on his face as well. Minho was standing stoically beside him, tears silently running down his face.

I was scared. What were they doing in my room looking like this? Where was Seungyoon?

“What’s going on?” I asked cautiously.

Minho just looked away. Seunghoon hung his head, shaking it. Jinwoo was the only one who answered me. “Oh, sweetie…” He tried to keep his voice steady. “They found Seungyoon-ah on the floor of the custodian’s hallway at the YG building.” He burst into tears after that, turning to cry into Seunghoon’s stomach.

My blood ran cold.

I could feel myself losing all color in my skin.

They’re lying.

But they’re not. This would be a sick joke to tell, and not even Minho is capable of pulling something like that.

My voice was already wavering when I spoke, though the tears had yet to come. “What do you mean, they found him?”

Why couldn’t they just say, “They saw Seungyoon at YG building,” or “Seungyoon was in the custodian’s hallway?” Why did they have to say he was “found,” like they were playing a creepy game of hide and seek?

I didn’t like the way they said “found.”

Suddenly, my mind flashed back to last night: the look on his face, the perfectly made bed in the wee hours of the morning.

No.

This was a sick joke. A very, very bad, sick joke. In poor taste. Unacceptable.

I tried again, the tears starting to flow freely down my already dirty face.

“What do you mean, they found Seungyoon?”

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Please don't hate me :D Remember, there IS a happy ending... we just gotta go through some strife to get there. :B