Aren’t you afraid of me?” Chansung asked in uncertainty, only to be answered with MinJun’s soft whining tone.

  “Why would I be?” The elder clucked his tongue disapprovingly.

  He looked over the man standing behind the counter, thinking through all the possible explanations for what was going on. Though he was relieved that, since their last encounter, MinJun had seemed to remember who he was, meaning that their drunken encounter truly did happen, however, the confusion remained  just as strong as before.

  Perhaps he’s a lunatic. No, that wouldn’t do. Chansung wasn’t sure if it was denial, or something deeper, something in his gut that told him that there was more to this man that meets the eye. Upon hearing an impatient complaint from behind, he decided to just order, so as to not be rude and hold up the line. “I’ll take a ham and cheese sandwich with a hot chocolate . . . and a quinoa veggie salad with an iced coffee, black.”

  He didn’t miss the twinge of hurt in the older man’s eyes, but showing true professionalism, MinJun smiled and rang in the order. “Two meals, two drinks . . . Anything else for you and your . . . ?”

  “Nothing else, thank you.” He was going to leave it at that, but after he paid, he found himself unable to stop from explaining further. From trying to rid the face before him of that tormentingly pathetic stare that struck his heartstrings. “My classmate and I are studying. That’s it.” Chansung looked into MinJun’s eyes, as if that would explain for him.

  In a way, he felt that it did.

  After MinJun returned his debit card to him, the man scribbled something down on his receipt and handed the paper slip to him with another one of those signature smiles. “Your food will be out shortly.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me yet.”

  As Chansung stepped away from the register, he had little time to consider the meaning behind those words as he looked around for Junho, finding the jaunty looking boy sitting in a booth by the window with an endearing smile on his lips. When Chansung sat down, Junho’s lips turned down in a pout.

  “That took a long time.” Junho grumbled.

  “There was a line.” He said. It wasn’t a lie. That’s what mattered, right?

  It was enough for the eye smiling boy across from him, since Junho merely shrugged it off and leaned against the table, propping his chin up with his palm. “There’s something bothering you, isn’t there?”

  Was it really that obvious?

  Chansung signed, turning his gaze towards the window for a time before speaking. “I’m dealing with . . . I don’t even know what I’m dealing with, honestly.” He wanted to explain, but the apprehension was holding his words in his throat, keeping him from telling the boy before him the real cause of the turmoil going on in his mind.

  The next words Junho’s soft voice spoke surprised him. “I’m not stupid, you know.” Junho sighed, finally dropping his hand and sitting back against the booth, looking Chansung straight in the eyes. “I know there’s someone you like. And you know that I like you; which means that either you’re a complete . . . or you really consider me a friend.”

  Junho held his hand up to shush him when he made to speak.

  “As your friend,” The smaller boy seemed to have trouble with his words now, and Chansung couldn’t help the guilt he felt as he watched the struggle before his eyes. “If you want to talk about . . . them, I’m here for you.”

  “I wouldn’t do that to you.”

  The other gave a dejected smile. “I can’t promise I’ll be nice, but I will listen.” Junho looked down, almost shyly before looking back at him. “We’re friends, Channie, first and foremost.”

  He’d never admired Junho as much as he did right then. There was a strength inside of the smaller boy that was astounding, and maturity that was greatly deserving of respect, more so than Chansung could ever feel himself worth of. Junho was too good for him.

  Letting his shoulders slump, he felt a bit more relaxed, though not enough to speak unguardedly. “I got really drunk on New Years Eve, and now I’m trying to piece together what actually happened compared to everything I can’t remember from the next day.”

  His friend gave a pensive nod of understanding. “And this person you like ties into this?”

  It sounded weirder and weirder the more he tried to explain.

  “I fell asleep at their apartment,” Chansung tried not to notice how Junho’s jaw clenched, and instead focused on the texture of the fake marble pattern on the table. “. . . When I woke up, I had lost an entire day and I have no memories of how I got back to the dorm.”

  “Jeez, how much did you drink?”

  “I don’t even think it was that much, honestly.”

  After a while, Junho frowned. “What if you were drugged?”

  Immediately, Chansung shook his head. “That’s not possible.”

  “Look at the evidence.” Junho retorted.

  “Min‒” He stopped himself from saying that name, unable to divulge that particular bit of information yet. “He wouldn’t have done that.” He said. “I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t think so . . . but how can you trust this guy?” Now there was protest in Junho’s eyes, like a storm brewing behind his coffee black stare that mimicked something like anger, as well as disgust. “This is serious, Chansung.”

  “I know it’s serious, that’s why I’m going crazy trying to figure this out! Do you think I like having a chunk of my memory completely erased? I can’t focus on anything anymore and I barely slept last night because my mind was up reeling about finding answers to questions that I don’t even know to ask.” He forced himself to calm down. “The one person that I think could have any answers is him.” Chansung sighed, thinking about the mysterious man that had ensnared him in such a roller coaster of emotions.

  He was beginning to wish he had stayed home that night.

  That is, until a figure loomed over their table and Chansung looked up at the haunting man who was staring down at him with well practiced eloquence. “Who had the ham and cheese?” MinJun asked and immediately, Junho’s hand raised up, excited for his long awaited food. The sly cat set Junho’s plate down and turned back to Chansung, smirking. “So that leaves you with the unreasonably healthy salad.”

  Chansung watched MinJun set his plate down; if he hadn’t been studying the elder man so closely, he would’ve missed the small bit of paper that was folded underneath the brim of his plate and slid so closely to him.

  The smile on MinJun’s lips changed suggestively, and his eyes held a mischievous beauty that left Chansung gawking. “Enjoy your food.”

  With a wink, MinJun stalked away, leaving the two of them to eat in a near silence.

He had been reading over the message on the torn off piece of receipt paper for nearly twenty minutes. The nine digits underneath a hastily written ‘I’m off at 2pm’ had him on edge and indecisive as Chansung laid back in his bed and started dialing the number into the touchscreen of his cell phone.

  After their lunch, he and Junho had parted ways, telling the other some lame excuse about homework that, even though it was approaching dangerously close to it’s due date, was still lying on his desk, untouched. His thumb lingered over the green ‘call’ icon for a moment before he finally built up the guts and pressed it.

  There was an answer one ring later. “This is Jun.K.” That familiar voice that he was steadily becoming addicted to answered, and he immediately hung up.

  “.” Chansung cursed himself, dropping his phone beside his pillow and covering his face with his hands.

  He was an idiot.

  No, he was a coward. All things despicable and infuriating and hopelessly intoxicated to the point of near insanity.

  Not even fifteen seconds later, his phone buzzed next to him. Looking at the number returning his call, he cleared his throat before answering. “Hello?”

  “So it was you, after all.” MinJun said on the other end of the line.

  Chansung felt his cheeks flush and his ears turn red with embarrassment. “I think the call dropped.” He lied, a tiny, unbelievable white lie.

  “Mmm, that must’ve been it.” MinJun hummed into the phone, obviously going along with it. “Honestly, I expected you to to call me earlier.”

  “I was a little busy putting off calculus homework.”

  MinJun’s musical laughter made him smile like a lovestruck teenager. “So you’re a full-time student, I take it?”

  Rolling onto his stomach, Chansung sighed. “Unfortunately, that’s all I am.”

  “Ah, a laid back, full-time grad student with a killer smile a a body like Thor . . . I lucked up catching you.”

  “Who says you’ve caught me, yet?” Honestly, who was he kidding?

  Chansung could almost hear the smirk in MinJun’s voice. “Your eyes give you away . . . especially when you’re mid-.”

  His heart skipped a beat, maybe even two. And it took everything in him not to breath heavily into the phone as memories of their drunken night of deviance flashed through his mind. Until then, he hadn’t realized exactly how focused the elder male had been on him. It turned him on, that kind of attention, dangerously so.

  “So tell me something,” MinJun asked after a short silence. “What’s a guy like you still doing on the market, anyway?”

  “About that . . .” He started answering, not really knowing how ‒ or even where ‒ to start.

  “Don’t tell me you’re seeing someone.” The singer whined to him.

  “No!” Chansung defended himself a little too eagerly than he’d planned to. “It’s not like that . . . I only recently got out of a relationship, at the beginning of the school year.” The words just started falling from his mouth, like talking to MinJun was different than talking to anyone else. He wanted, needed, to be honest with the other male.

  “Did he break your heart?”

  Chansung looked over at Wooyoung’s empty bed, closing his eyes before turning away from those memories that were getting a little too close for comfort. “Yes.”

  “Good.” The single word had Chansung raising an eyebrow, about to ask, but MinJun continued without pause. “Heartbreak has a way of making you appreciate the little things.”

  Not only was MinJun graced with eloquence, but he was tasteful and sophisticated beyond words, and it emanated in every aspect of his being. “I want to know more about you.”

  “I’m not that interesting, actually.”

  “But you are.” He didn’t want to admit that he was enthralled with the free spirited man, but he was. “I think the more I know you, the more interesting you become.”

  “Considering our first night, I’d say you already know me pretty damn well, don’t you agree?” The question posed to him was meant to be rhetorical, and he wouldn’t have answered even if he’d been given the time. After a short sigh, MinJun spoke again. “I don’t have any fancy family background or degree, and I don’t do anything of importance except exist as the best person I can be day by day.”

  “You have your music.” Chansung mused softly.

  “My music is everything to me.”

  “Then you do something important every time you sing, and you’re good at it.”

   “Yah!” MinJun’s tone suddenly sounded reprimanding. “You keep this up, and I just might fall for you.”

  Chansung couldn’t even say that he’d mind. He merely smirked and hugged his pillow to his chest as he laid his head down again. “Tell me your favorite things.”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “So I can memorize you.” It sounded cheesy, yes, but he truthfully wanted nothing more than to imprint MinJun into his every thought. To see, breathe, feel, taste and smell the man in everything he did. He wanted that body writhing underneath him again, those rugged kisses melting into his mouth.

  “Ah, you’re such an awkward romantic type. What am I gonna do with you, huh?”

  “You could humor me.”

  “But I like to keep people guessing~”

  “So I’ve noticed.”

  Just then, Taecyeon suddenly came into his dorm, followed by a disgruntled looking Nichkhun. The two of them greeted him and Taecyeon collapsed on the bean bag chair in the middle of the room while Nichkhun took to sitting on the bed that belonged to his roommate. “Channie! Get dressed, we’re going out!”

  “Who’s that?” MinJun inquired over the phone.

  “My incredibly rude friend that doesn’t understand when someone is on the phone.” Chansung answered back loud enough for Taecyeon to get the hint.

  “Oh . . . Go hang out with your friends. I didn’t mean to keep you.”

  “You didn’t. I called you first.” He couldn’t help the red tint on his cheeks upon realizing that there were now two sets of eyes watching him. Taecyeon was making weird hand gestures while whispering to ‘invite them with us’. “Uh . . . Y-You should meet us, we’re going to ‒ where are we going?” Chansung looked at the two guys for an answer.

  “Hookah bar!” Nichkhun cheered excitedly and Chansung nodded, knowing exactly where they were going.

  “It’s a bar called Rainbow . . . they have hookah, and pretty decent drinks.”

  “I know the place,” MinJun said. “Sounds fun . . . I’ll be there around seven.”

  Chansung smiled in relief. “Okay, I’ll see you then.” When he hung up the phone, he realized one thing.

  He had fallen, helplessly and with no attempt to catch himself.