Hyun
Joong blinked and his heart thudded against his chest. ‘Did she
know what she was saying?’ He wasn’t sure if he should say ‘yes,’
but if he said ‘no,’ he may miss a chance that he had been
waiting for. Because amidst the confusion, he was pretty sure that
with this question, she was willing to show the full extent of her
feelings for him and they could take their relationship to the next
level. He decided to ask the question that had been burning in the
back of his mind for a while. He was wary, but he needed to know.
“Then...Buin,” he started. “Does that mean we’re...a
couple?”
Hwang
Bo was shocked into silence. She had no reply ready for this question
but she knew that if she said ‘no’ now, she might lose him
forever and that was something she couldn’t allow. ‘I can’t be
in a serious relationship with him, it’d be bad. For both of us,
and for me it’s impossible.’ She had her head pressed against his
chest so she could hear and feel the rapidness of his heartbeat. ‘Is
there a way I can make it sound like a ‘yes’ but be able to tell
him that it’s not how it sounded later if things get too
intense?’
Hyun
Joong’s stomach dropped when Hwang Bo didn’t answer immediately.
She brought her head back so that she could look up into his eyes.
She saw all the questions and uncertainty written there. She just
decided to play the coy card. “Are we?” she asked with a tilt of
her head. When Hyun Joong’s face drew into a confused pout at the
non-definite answer she placed her hands on each cheek and squished
his face between her palms. “You’re too cute,” she said.
‘She
just asked me to spend the night and now she’s playing with my face
like I’m a little kid who just built a tower out of blocks.’ His
brow knit in confusion as he looked down into her smiling face. ‘If
I follow her lead all the time we’re not going to get anywhere,’
Hyun Joong thought contemplating her lips. ‘If I take the lead for
once...will she get mad?’ He wondered as he swiftly lowered his
head. ‘She did just ask me to spend the night...’
Hwang
Bo was taken aback as Hyun Joong flung her hands away from his cheeks
and came forward. Before she could register what was happening, Hyun
Joong had claimed her lips in a fierce kiss. She stood frozen, as
Hyun Joong made his conquest against her lips. Hyun Joong let his
tongue flick out against them; demanding, pleading, begging to be let
inside. When he got no reaction, he gently nipped her bottom lip with
his teeth. Hwang Bo let out a small gasp of surprise, and Hyun Joong
took the chance given to him.
Hwang
Bo didn’t know what to think. In all of the years she had lived on
this planet never had she felt such a fire rise up in her for
someone. And it scared her. She surrendered to the kiss without
conscious thought, her hands moving to his chest, up his wide
shoulders to tangle in his hair and she realized something she should
have never forgot. She had been playing with a man, not a boy, no
matter how much younger than her she was. She felt his hot hands on
her back playing with the row of small buttons that held her dress.
He lost his patience trying to remove the buttons from their opens so
just snapped one after another from the thin threads that held them
to the shear fabric. When Hwang Bo felt his hands make contact with
her bare flesh, she knew she had to regain control of this situation
before the young idol came to know just how much power he had over
her.
As
they broke for breath, she took the chance to regain her senses. When
Hyun Joong began to kiss along her neck, she pushed away from him.
“Y-yah,” she said shakily. She cleared her throat. “Yah!” she
yelled loudly. So loudly that it startled herself as well as Hyun
Joong. In the pause that followed, Hwang Bo spoke the only excuse she
could think of at the moment. “You ripped my dress! It was
expensive!”
Hyun
Joong felt panic replace passion when he looked at the state he had
left his Buin in. Her carefully styled and hanging hair was now
tousled and knotted, her lipgloss was smeared, and her dress was
barely clinging to one shoulder, threads dangling free from the
translucent fabric, buttons scattered across the floor at her bare
feet. 'What did I do? Just when she asked me to stay I had to go and
lose my sense and do this!’ He cautiously reached out a hand to
lift the dress back onto her shoulder and tried to smooth her tangled
hair. “I, I could buy you another one.”
Hwang
Bo stepped away from his touch as if he had burned her. She was taken
aback at how much it literally felt that way. She really hadn’t
known how much this kid affected her. It was scary. “M-maybe you
should go after all,” she said, needing to be able to be alone and
get her wits about her again.
Hyun
Joong felt like his heart was being ripped out. His Buin was pale and
breathing heavily and when he had reached out to comfort her she had
moved away as if she were afraid of him. 'I was too rough, too
impatient!’ “Buin,” he tried again, afraid that if he left this
time with her scared of him like this, that there was no way she
would ever call him back. “I promise I won’t try to touch you or
even go near you. Please, let me stay.”
Hwang
Bo shook her head. She had wanted him to stay in the first place
because she wanted him to make her feel better. Not more confused and
frazzled. “Please...just go,” she said.
Hyun
Joong reached out to her again, but she twitched away. His hand
hovered in midair then dropped to his side clenched tightly in a
fist. He would have gone into the bathroom to retrieve his clothes,
but his Buin looked so distraught that he felt like he shouldn’t
stay any longer than he had to. He walked around her and picked up
his phone and his keys from the couch. The last image he had before
he walked out the door was of Hwang Bo standing in front of the sofa,
her arms wrapped tightly around herself, her clothing barely clinging
to her small form. He shut the door softly behind him and pressed his
hand against his
forehead.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It
had been two weeks since Hwang Bo had called him. Hyun Joong fiddled
with his cell phone, wondering if he should just call her instead.
‘She probably doesn’t want anymore to do with me after I acted
like a teenager who couldn’t control his hormones last time.’ He
sighed in frustration. He had spent the last two weeks wishing he
could go back in time and just change those last few moments of that
night.
Kyu
Jong walked past Hyun Joong who was sitting on their living room
couch staring at his phone with an expression that had become
familiar over the past weeks. Something was bothering their leader
and he wouldn’t confide in them. He had shown up late at night two
weeks ago in an expensive outfit he wouldn’t normally wear, his
hair messed up, and his face drawn. Kyu Jong sat down beside his
Hyung and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Would you tell me what’s
been bothering you? You’ve been walking around out of it for weeks,
barely speaking to any of us. We’re worried and would have asked
you sooner but we thought that you would tell us in your own time and
since your own time appears to be dinosaur years, I figured I should
go ahead and ask.”
Hyun
Joong broke out of his thoughts and closed his cell phone. “Ah,
it’s nothing.”
Kyu
Jong frowned at him then folded his arms across his chest. “Hyung,
I know that something has been bothering you and this isn’t the
first time. For a while now, over a year, you’ve been disappearing
at odd times, coming home past curfew, late for events, sad for no
reason I can think of, then some days you’re so happy and smiling
all over the place that I think you’ve been possessed by Hyung
Joon. And why are you always staring at your phone? Could it be...
have you had a girl this whole time and haven’t told any of us
about it? We’re your friends aren’t we!”
Hyun
Joong sighed. “Don’t worry, I don’t have a girl,” he said
sadly. “At least not anymore,” he murmured under his breath.
Kyu
Jong tilted his head and cupped a hand around his ear. “Eh? What
did you say? Why are you always mumbling?” He leaned back. “If
it’s not about a girl, then what is it? Couldn’t be...a
guy...”
Hyun
Joong turned toward Kyu Jong. “Wha-?” he started to ask, when
Young Saeng suddenly appeared around the corner. “Do I hear
somebody who is in need of my services?” he asked.
Both
the guys let out a loud sigh as Yong Saeng strolled into the room, a
jacket held casually over one shoulder by two fingers, a hand tucked
in his pocket. “We don’t even have an event today,” Kyu Jong
said, looking at his band member from the top of his well-styled head
to the gleaming points of his shoes. “Why are you dressed like that
just to walk around the dorm?”
“Oh,
contraire.” Kyu Jong and Hyun Joong winced at the use of the French
word Young Saeng had just uttered. “We do have an event. Get
dressed guys. We’re going to a premiere event that no one should
pass up.”
They
rolled their eyes and pressed themselves more firmly into the couch,
each starting to text a random person just so their weird friend
would think they were busy. Didn’t work. He walked over to them and
with a surprising show of strength grabbed Hyun Joong, then Kyu Jong
by the arm and tugged them to their feet. They were so stunned to
suddenly be in a standing position that they didn’t resist as he
shoved them into their room calling after them. “I expect you to be
dressed in thirty minutes, and Hyun Joong, this isn’t the type of
event where a beanie will do.” Yong Saeng pulled out his phone and
texted Hyung Joon and Jung Min. They wouldn’t want to miss this
event either; they loved meeting all of the celebrities and tonight
there would be one that Maknae would be happy to see again.
Hyun
Joong sighed as he stood inside the room. He wished he could just
stay there and not be bothered for the rest of the day. But he knew
that once Young Saeng had his mind set on something, he wouldn’t
let anyone rest peacefully until it was done...sometimes not even
then. He held onto things for a long time. Hyun Joong went to his
closet and felt his heart constrict when his eyes fell onto the suit
he had left Hwang Bo’s place in. He hesitantly ran his fingers
across the fabric, and then found himself picking it from the rest
and donning it for the party.
Kyu
Jong dressed quickly in whatever was already laying on his floor,
tossed a checkered scarf around his neck then ran a finger across his
tongue and swiped the finger across his hair then checked the result
in a mirror. Excellent. He walked out of his room adjusting his
jacket but stopped when he saw what his leader was wearing.
“Hyung...where’d you get that suit... why?” He cut off what he
was saying when he saw Hyun Joong’s face. ‘I guess I should just
be glad that he’s not sitting on the couch staring at his phone
anymore.’
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hwang
Bo arrived at the party. Her eyes scanning the room to see everyone
who was present. She hadn’t really wanted to come, but her mom had
forced her seeing as she had made it through almost everyone on the
marriage meeting list and none had been what she wanted. So her mom
had told her to take a closer look around her to make sure she hadn’t
missed anyone special. She had laughed it off, but when he came
through the door at the party, her heart jumped in delight. It had
taken all of her willpower not to call him for the past two weeks.
She had wanted to prove to herself that she didn’t need him, but
she missed him terribly.
‘He’s
wearing the suit I bought for him!’ Hwang Bo realized with delight.
She would have jumped up and down and ran to him, but it wasn’t
really in her nature, plus the way they had parted that night
couldn’t have been worse. She had been freaked out and her being
freaked out had freaked him out. ‘I have to find some way to mend
this,’ Hwang Bo thought, discreetly making her way toward him in
the crowded room. He was surrounded by his members on each side. She
had known they would all be there, but she hadn’t yet managed to
think of a way to separate them and get Hyun Joong off by himself
without being too obvious. ‘Should I just text him... maybe that
would be less noticeable, but after not texting him for more than a
week it’ll seem strange.’ She noticed that Hyung Joon already had
his phone out and was waving it around excitedly trying to give his
number to a group of comedians. ‘If I tell him to pull his Hyung
off somewhere alone, he won’t even question it.’
Hwang
Bo pulled out her phone and sent a text to the maknae of the group.
She knew it would be useful to get all of his members’ phone
numbers, even though she had had trouble extracting them from a
suspicious Hyun Joong. She laughed as Hyung Joon became startled at
the sudden vibration of his phone. ‘He’s so cute,’ she
thought.
Hyung
Joon glanced around the room to try to spot Hwang Bo noona after he
received the strange text message: Grab your Hyung and drag him over
to some quiet place. I haven’t gotten a chance to talk to him after
WGM and I don’t want to start strange rumors. Baby shrugged when he
couldn’t spot her and proceeded to carry out the task by grabbing
his hyung by the arm and pulling him across the room saying, “I’ve
got something to talk to you about and I don’t want the other guys
to hear.”
Once
he got Hyun Joong to a secluded spot, he hurriedly disappeared,
telling his hyung to wait and sent a text back to Hwang Bo. “He’s
out back by the weird looking statue pouring water. Noona, do you
know f(x)? Since I did this for you, can you hook me up with Krystal?
Thanks, noona! Sarangeyo!”
Hwang
Bo smiled when she got the text and sent back a slew of emoticons and
told him that she would find a way to get him Krystal’s number. She
then hurried to the back of the building. She widened her eyes... the
owner had a garden full of weird statues pouring water. She checked
around a fountain carved in the image of a little boy carrying a
traditional hat pouring water from the sleeve of a Hanbok...Hyun
Joong wasn’t there. She walked around three that featured ancient
kings in the midst of a fan dance pouring water from the tips of
their fans and even one that exhibited a dog pouring water from a
ladies slipper. Hwang Bo was just about to text Maknae for a more
thorough description of the exact fountain when she heard footsteps
behind her. She turned just as the object of her search came into
view, a confused frown displayed on a face that was noticeably
thinner. Her hand went to her throat as she rushed toward him, her
phone forgotten on the pavement where it had slipped from her hand.
‘I hope I wasn’t the one who made him stressed to the point that
he looks like this.’
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