feel me | yeonbin

017

Present day

A dose of panic shoots through him as he stares at the phone's clock, counting the minutes that tick by. He can hear people pass him by, singing along with the music pouring over the beach, laughing as they enjoy the wedding without a care in the world.

He's probably worrying too much and he knows he's overstepping if he tries to reach out any more, but he has never trusted Daeul, and he trusts him even less now. Everything about him sets off alarm bells-from the way he chose PR at LG Group over being at Yeonjun's side, the way Yeonjun seems empty of all emotion when talking about him, his frantic need to call Daeul immediately after the meeting. Like he was on autopilot. Following an order.

With a sigh, Soobin fishes out his own phone and dials Taehyun, forehead on his hand now. It feels like Taehyun takes forever to pick up.

"If you got into legal trouble at the wedding, Soobin," Taehyun says, "you are shit out of luck. I'm not familiar with Balinese law."

Soobin doesn't waste time beating around the bush. "I need a huge favor. Yeonjun suddenly stopped replying to my messages and I'm a bit worried about him. I was texting him from Ahyeon's phone and he read them but disappeared. Could you call him?"

"Soobin-"

"I know how this sounds, but just-Please. I just need to be sure," he says. How far does he take this? Does he tell people just how afraid he is of the things Daeul is willing to do? He knows he must look obsessive from the outside, but his gut instinct has never failed him before.

"Okay. Alright, I'll call and come up with some excuse about why," Taehyun says. "Give me five minutes."

"Thank you," Soobin says. He hangs up and opens Naver instead, checking the news for Yeonjun's name. Not that anything that happened tonight would have broken already, but maybe there was something Soobin missed. Maybe Yeonjun had a TV appearance or something airing that he needs to watch back. But there's nothing. Just chatter about the sex tape any time he types in Yeonjun's name, alongside vastly differing opinions about Soobin.

He pauses on one article in particular- CHOI YEONJUN'S EX-FLAME SNAPS AT REPORTER; A PROBLEM IN THE MAKING? -and he nearly rolls his eyes. No doubt it's from that woman outside of Alloy & Ink, and it has everyone thirsting for a chance to assume who and what he is. He checks the comments.

A troublemaker.

A no-good, would-be felon.

Probably jealous and spiteful, trying to ruin Yeonjun for leaving him.

That one hurts. He's used to the other accusations, but that one could never be true. Soobin can be called a thousand names and he won't blink, but accuse him of hurting someone else for any reason? He would never. Especially not Yeonjun.

It's a good thing he knows himself. Soobin hasn't wavered on who he is at heart in years. Something like this might break anyone else, though.

Panic begins to grow and grow, his stomach twisting anxiously, hand cupped over his mouth as he stares at the waves. His eyes drift to the moon as it rises higher and higher, white light dancing across the ocean's surface as the tides pull away from the beach. With every small crash of waves, Soobin counts down. It's a slow, agonizing countdown to his phone ringing again, but it does. He grabs it so fast that the world spins for a moment, and then he presses it to his ear.

"Did you get a hold of him?"

"Sort of," Taehyun says, so Soobin leans on the table to steady himself. "I called Lee Daeul. Now, before you freak out, I had to do something because Yeonjun wasn't answering me. So I called Daeul and said I had a really important question for Yeonjun but that I couldn't get a hold of him. Get this-the fucker let me talk to him on a time limit. Said he'd give me one minute and he meant it."