Fifty-two

Taekyung scrunched his nose in his sleep suddenly feeling annoyed.

What's that smell? It wasn't letting him sleep.

"Mmm." Taekyung whined in his sleep not liking the smell.

He moved around in place trying everything before he resorted to his last option and decided to miserably wake up.

Taekyung groaned and sat up with his hands over his eyes.

He rubbed his eyes and as soon as he opened them, he was greeted by four crazy people smiling at him with a cake.

"Mm." Taekyung instantly closed his eyes again and threw the blanket on top of his head, lying back down in bed.

"I feel you." Yohan whispered in between a yawn. Everyone looked at Yohan, quietly laughing.

Jaehyuk handed Hosook the cake, "Here, hold this real quick."

Jaehyuk climbed onto the bed and laid beside sleeping Taekyung. He put his arm around Taekyung's covered body, "Baby! Do you know what day it is?"

Taekyung whined, "Christmas."

Everyone looked at Jaehyuk confused.

Jaehyuk shrugged his shoulders. "No, baby. We're a few days past Christmas."

"Thanksgiving." Taekyung replied just trying to go back to sleep.

"I said past that." Jaehyuk said tired of playing this guessing game.

Hosook looked at Jaehyuk with a concerned face, "Oh shit. Wait did you drug him again?"

"No! I wouldn't drug him on his birthday that's so fucked up." Jaehyuk said offended.

Hosook laughed a bit. "So, not his birthday but any other day is good-"

"Oh! I get it. You're still salty cause of your broken balls, huh?" Jaehyuk said with an evil smile.

"BITCH, I will fucking choke you! And for the record they're not broken! Just... a little bruised-"

"Guys!" Jiha rolled his eyes at his friends bickering back and forth and walked up to the sleeping birthday boy. "Taekyung! It's your birthday today, you know!"

Taekyung lifted the blanket from over his face with twinkling eyes. "Jiha? You're here?"

"Of course I'm here, everyone's here. Did you think we would miss your birthday?" Jiha said about to hug Taekyung.

But then Jaehyuk shoved Jiha out of the way making him fall on the floor.

Jaehyuk jumped on Taekyung while pouting jealousy, "How come you're so happy to see him?"

"He's my best friend." Taekyung replied in his morning voice.

"And?!" Jaehyuk said dramatically. He looked over at Yohan and got even more mad seeing how he helped Jiha up but didn't seem mad.

He gave Yohan a look, "Why aren't you mad? He's your boyfriend and he just tried to hug someone else."

Yohan looked at Jaehyuk like he was insane. "They're best friends and were just going to hug. If he was trying to do something that I didn't like I would say something but this isn't like that."

"You have some serious jealousy issues. It's kind of weird cause you weren't like that with any of your ex's." Hosook said laughing.

Jaehyuk was annoyed with everyone but felt his heart thump at the adorable sight of Taekyung's messy morning hair. "Baby go get dressed and then we'll eat some cake, okay?"

Taekyung nodded his head but before Jaehyuk got up from the bed, the sleeping beauty wrapped his arms around Jaehyuk's neck. "Don't be mad." He pressed his lips onto his boyfriend's without puckering them.

The three boys who stood watching this happen, trying to keep quiet and not laugh. It seemed like Jaehyuk didn't know that Taekyung had fallen asleep on his lips.

Instead, Jaehyuk just stood still dying inside from the cuteness.

(^o^)

"Alright guys, keep him busy for the next... three hours. I think. Yeah, shouldn't be too hard." Jaehyuk said grabbing his wallet and keys to his car.

Jiha nodded his head from the kitchen beginning to cut the cake. "Sounds good. Good luck, man."

Yohan and Hosook grabbed all kinds of snacks out of the cabinets and waved bye to Jaehyuk.

Yohan stopped in his tracks and turned around to Jaehyuk with a teasing smile, "Oh and uhh don't chicken out."

Jaehyuk rolled his eyes playfully and waved his friends goodbye. "Right. Bye guys."

(^o^)

Taekyung finally finished changing and felt awake and refreshed.

Hosook looked away from the TV and smiled at Taekyung, "Look who's finally awake. You ready to open your presents?"

"Yeah, I'll do that right now, I just want to see Jaehyuk really quick. Wait where is he?" Taekyung asked, realizing his boyfriend wasn't there.

"Uh, he went out. He'll be back in a bit so for now why don't you just open presents?" Jiha said trying to cheer up Taekyung.

Taekyung forced a smile and nodded but still felt a tug at his heart after knowing that his boyfriend was skipping out on his birthday. Or at least he hoped that wasn't the situation.

Especially since Jaehyuk had seemed so happy about it, earlier.

Was he really mad about Taekyung trying to give Jiha a hug? Taekyung didn't understand what the big deal was.

Taekyung mumbled to himself sadly before walking over to the couch, "It was just a hug."

(^o^)

"Thanks guys. For all of this, really. I'm really happy that I got lucky with you guys as my friends." Taekyung said smiling sincerely. But nothing ever went past Jiha's head.

Jiha stared at Taekyung feeling sorry. "What's wrong?"

Taekyung stayed silent for a moment but then looked up at his friends. "You said he'd be back in a bit but it's been hours. Why isn't Jaehyuk here?"

Yohan looked at the time on his phone and widened his eyes. "Oh shit! Guys it's been almost 4 fucking hours!"

Jiha and Hosook widened their eyes as well and began to gather all their shit.

Taekyung sat on the couch confused and angry that everyone was leaving. "What going on?! Where are all of you going?!"

"We have to go, Taekyung. Sorry but we were given a very strict time limit." Yohan said feeling sorry for his friend.

Yohan grabbed Jiha and Jiha waved Hosook to hurry over so they could leave and not spoil the plan.

"What!? WHAT TIME LIMIT? Who's ordering you guys around?!! AND WHERE THE FUCK IS JAEHYUK?!" Taekyung began to scream from the top of lungs as his friends as they scurried away and left the house.

He pouted angrily and flopped back onto the couch trying his best to not get emotional. "Fucking... assholes."

(^o^)

Taekyung flinched at the sudden sound of a car honking nonstop.

He got up from the couch and looked out the window confused. It sounded like someone was honking at the house.

He furrowed his brows from seeing Jay, Dean and Christian in a fancy, black Lexus.

He muttered to himself. "What the fuck?"

Taekyung walked to the door and opened it, stepped outside of the house and locked the door behind him. "Um, hey guys. What's going-"

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" Taekyung was cut off by a bone crushing hug given to him by his three cousins who crashed the already dead party.

Taekyung spoke quietly from being squeezed so hard. "Thanks."

Christian tilted his head to his car. "C'mon, let's go."

"Go? Go where?" Taekyung asked.

Christian sighed impatiently. "I'm sure that you've been wondering where Jaehyuk is. It isn't normal for him to just ditch you is it? Especially on your birthday."

Taekyung stared at Christian disturbed. "What the hell, did you guys kidnap him or something?"

"Nah. But we know where he is and we need to take you to him. His orders exactly." Jay said laughing.

Taekyung squinted his eyes looking at them suspiciously.

Dean rolled his eyes playfully and tapped on the hood of the car. "You've gotta be kidding me, Taekyung. You don't trust your own cousins?"

Jay, Christian and Dean made puppy eyes at Taekyung as if letting him know their feelings had been hurt.

"A month ago you guys were ganging up on me and now you consider us cousins?" Taekyung glared at the boys and they just began to laugh.

Christian sighed annoyed. He could tell Taekyung wasn't naive and wouldn't trust them just because they say they'd bring him to Jaehyuk. "Just, hold on."

He took out his phone dialed a number and hit speaker. "Aye Jaehyuk."

"Yeah?" Jaehyuk's voice was audible through the phone.

Christian turned down the volume a few notches feeling like it was too loud, "Taekyung doesn't believe that we'll take him to you. Can you just tell him to come?"

Taekyung bit the inside of his cheek and looked to the side feeling angry with Jaehyuk.

How come he's the one mad at ME for doing something that isn't even bad? And why does he have to take it out on me on my birthday?

"Baby go with them. Don't worry, they'll taking you over here to me." Jaehyuk said over the phone with a loving voice that angered Taekyung even more.

Taekyung nodded his head annoyed. "Okay."

Jaehyuk heard Taekyung's cold tone in the simple answer. "...Are you okay?"

Taekyung crossed his arms, "Yeah I'm fine. C'mon guys lets go."

Taekyung walked away and into the car with Jay and Dean following him.

Christian stood there confused as to what was going on with these two.

"Did he just walk away?" He flinched realizing he was still on the phone with Jaehyuk.

"What? Oh yeah." Christian said looking at Taekyung who sat in the car with the cutest pout. He looked done with the world but it was so cute.

Jaehyuk sighed over the phone feeling stressed out. "Hey."

"What?" Christian responded not taking his eyes off of Taekyung.

"Thank you for doing all this. But if you try anything with Taekyung, I'll kill you." Jaehyuk said with a threatening voice.

Christian looked down at his phone with a small smile. "I know."

(^o^)

Taekyung stared out the window bored.

Jay and Dean sat in the back of the car, giggling at their phones. Mean while, Taekyung sat upfront next to Christian who every now and then looked over at Taekyung.

"You don't have to look so uncomfortable. It's not like we're going to try anything." Christian said finally keeping his eyes on the road.

Taekyung relaxed his body. "You're right sorry." He cleared his throat, "I actually have a question I've been wanting to ask."

Jay turned his phone off immediately. "What do you want to know?"

Taekyung looked down and began playing with his fingers. "What was Jaehyukie - um Jaehyuk like when he was little?"

"A bitchy brat." Dean replied instantly with a huff. Christian and Jay began laughing like crazy.

"He's only saying that because he never had anybody to play with. Dean is the youngest so he was too young to play rough with us and nobody wanted to hang out with him. Dean cried nearly everyday." Jay said sliding his arm around Dean's shoulder.

Christian sighed, smiling to himself remembering their childhood. "Anyways, Jaehyuk was a funny kid. And a real smart ass too, used to piss me off all the time."

Everyone chuckled at Christian's description of the past.

"In general, Jaehyuk was a really good kid." Jay said while making eye contact with Taekyung who seemed happy to learn about it.

Christian felt the need to say what he said next in case Taekyung didn't know. "He was good especially considering everything going at home."

Taekyung turned to Christian wanting to know what he meant. "Everything going at home?"

Dean widened his eyes. "Wait you don't know about Jaehyuk's mom?!"

"Yes! Well I know that she left when he was 13 but that about it, he never talks about her and when he does it's about how he hates her. I don't even know her name." Taekyung said feeling embarrassed that he didn't know much about his boyfriend's past.

Jay nodded his head understanding. "I can't blame him for hating her. I would've too."

"Jaehyuk's mom is Soomin. And... the reason why Jaehyuk hates Soomin so much isn't because she left, if anything he was thrilled about that." Christian explained while pulling over at a gas station. "He hated her because of everything she put Jaeho through."

Christian could tell that Taekyung wanted an explanation to what he said and put the car on park before continuing the serious conversation. "For as long as I can remember, Soomin always had problems. If it wasn't her feeling sick, she was feeling depressed, and if not then it was her complaining about being a mother, if not that she would complain about being married, and all of those things she would blame on Jaeho."

Taekyung furrowed his brows realizing how terrible Jaehyuk's mom truly was.

Jay began getting into it from where Christian left off. "I'm sure you've already noticed but Jaeho is a very kind-hearted man. He almost never gets mad and will always defend those close to him. He loved Soomin so much as to believe every insult she threw at him."

"She cheated on Jaeho on many occasions and when Jaeho would find out he would cry for weeks and try harder to be a good husband and then she would cheat on him again with someone else." Dean said with a sad expression on his face.

Jay sighed resting his head on his hand. "I'm sure you're feeling really bad for Jaehyuk right now but you don't need to. Even with all the bad shit he's gone through as a kid, he always had Christian by his side..." Jay gave Christian a certain look like he was disappointing. "Until he didn't."

Christian scoffed and looked out the window, "If you guys want snacks go get them now."

Jay and Dean got off since they felt slightly hungry.

Taekyung stayed silent wrapping his head around the whole conversation they had just now.

Taekyung sighed feeling a bit annoyed that it was hard to be upset with Jaehyuk after hearing more about his past.

"Hey Christian?" Taekyung said feeling drained.

Christian turned to Taekyung and hummed in response.

Taekyung let his head hit the seat. "Why did you stop being friends with Jaehyuk?"

Christian made a small laugh and checked to see if his brothers were on their way back to the car. After seeing that they weren't Christian's small smile faded away and he looked at Taekyung as if telling him he didn't want to talk about it.

"Please." Taekyung said wanting to know everything about Jaehyuk, probably even something Jaehyuk didn't know himself.

"If I tell you, I expect you not to tell anyone especially not Jaehyuk." Christian said with a dead serious look on his face.

Taekyung nodded, promising that this would only stay between them.

Christian puffed up his cheeks and pouted his lips thinking of a way to say it. He'd never told anybody what had happened for him to not want to be around his former best friend anymore.

"I'm about 3 years older than Jaehyuk so when we were kids I had always thought I was smarter or stronger than him, but Jaehyuk is like... good at everything." Christian said laughing a bit.

He felt like it was stupid complaining about something that didn't matter much. "Listen, I know how I sound right now but being around someone who excels in everything all the time is going to eventually make you self conscious."

Taekyung nodded, he completely knew what he was talking about. He can't help but feel that way himself as well.

"After a while I realized that being angry with him for something like that was stupid but it still affected me a lot. And then one day, I overheard what my dad said to Jaehyuk on my way to grab a glass of water." He sighed a heavy sigh and looked down at his hands.

Christian looked pissed off even talking about it. "My dad told Jaehyuk that he wished that Jaehyuk and I would switch places. That he wished he had the "better" son but he instead got me."

Taekyung couldn't help but stare at Christian with pity.

"So I waited for a year till he started getting better and then I disappeared from his life for a really long time."

Taekyung stared at Christian who looked ashamed at himself.

"I know what I did was wrong and it was super fucked up, but I felt like I would end up going insane if I continued to be near him." Christian had a numb expression on his face.

Taekyung pat Christian's shoulder. "Its okay. Nobody's blaming you for just trying to take care of your own well being."

Christian was taken aback that Taekyung wasn't angry about him dropping Taekyung's own boyfriend. "Thank you."

"Yeah, of course. Feeling better now?" Taekyung asked smiling.

A small relaxed smile crept its way onto Christian's face. "Yeah. You?"

Taekyung laughed realizing he made it clear that he was in a bad mood earlier. "Yup."

Christian made a confused face and looked out his window after hearing someone knock on it. He furrowed his brows and lowered the windows, "What?"

Dean made a smirking face at the two boys, "Oh nothing!"

Taekyung made a face at Dean knowing what he was implying with only his expressions. "Riiight."

Dean fluttered his lashes playfully, "I mean, I'm just saying it looked like you two had a moment there. Am I wrong or... are you guys married now?"

Christian honked at them suddenly, making Jay and Dean flinch at the sudden loud noise.

"Shut up and get in losers." Christian said unlocking the doors and hiding his small smile behind his hand.

They climbed into the backseats and began to bombard the two with jokes.

Jay couldn't stop laughing. "Can I be the flower girl at your guys' wedding?"

Christian could tell that Taekyung didn't like the jokes and had felt guilty for no reason.

"Yeah, sounds good. Makes sense too because you'll fit in real well with the other flower girls in the wedding. You know, height wise and all." Christian said as a comeback to Jay.

Jay's laugh went away and his smile too. "That's not funny."

Everyone laughed at Jay's sudden silence and went back on the road, making their way to Jaehyuk.

to be continued...