Once again there he was: blocked inside a stupid club lit with psychedelic fluo spotlights, loud music muffled pretty much any other noise and a multitude of strangers moved with unexpected ease across the dancfloor, managing to avoid other people dancing, small tables where food servings and cocktails sat, sofas and pouf stools that accomodated any sort of escalating mating attempt.

Yet again his head banged in ache and Kyuhyun didn't really try his best in order to hide his discomfort, which only grew more evident.

In fact, with every step he took towards the bar lounge, he felt dizzy and wasted even though he had not touched any drop of alcohol before...not really anyway, just a little bit, what you called the needed amount in socially engaged drinking, if you could ever call it that way.

Ever since arriving with Ryeowook and Sungmin a couple of hours earlier, Kyuhyun had lost sight of the two other men, whom immediately dove into the excited atmosphere of the party and left him alone. At least, Ryeowook was nowhere to be seen, while Sungmin came back to him from time to time, and it seemed like the blondie had set up a sort of personal compass whenever he wanted to find Kyuhyun and check up on him.

That was the same on that very precise moment.

It took Kyuhyun just a couple of minutes to take a seat on a round, soft leather pouf high stool at the bar and rest his elbows on the glassy surface, when Sungmin appeared from behind his back and climbed on a chair next to him.

"Are you okay?" Sungmin automatically ran a hand up his back and softly it to show his concern, since Kyuhyun had slipped a little bit lower on the table and was now lying with his face on the surface, cheek glued to it.

"Not really" Kyuhyun pouted and Sungmin heartily smiled, feeling his heart skip a beat at the sight of those plump lips rounding ever so sweetly, and a bit childishly, just for him.

"Why so?" Sungmin kept on asking. He moved a hand and grabbed his glass from the counter.

At that question Kyuhyun shrugged and suddenly lifted himself back up just to cup his face and rub it in his hands: "I shouldn't have come, I shouldn't have followed you two here when I am just the anti-party kind of person. I hate this, still I am here, totally lost because both you and him left me alone to...to..." Kyuhyun's lips shortly quivered in a quick blabber because he realized he couldn't - didn't want to - express his angered thoughts so freely.

He thought that it wasn't really very nice of them guys to leave him in a totally unknown environment, where he wouldn't have survived too long without knowing the language, just to hook up somewhere in a corner of the hall.

"Ryeowook has been spotted all night long avoiding Troy, that's why you lost sight of him" Sungmin explained in between some quiet sips "I think he changed idea on trying to get him interested"

"And there I thought the guy was the reason he wanted to absolutely come here" Kyuhyun lifted his shoulders, throwing a suspicious glance to Sungmin as this one continued to taste his drink.

"I thought the same honestly" Sungmin shrugged "But he has yet to tell me why he suddenly stopped planning to have fun with Troy. I mean, Troy's always been trying to get his hands on Ryeowook ever since we all graduated from the same high school and moved to university, that's when Ryeowook started to feel more self confident and take greater care of his, how to put it, outer self?" the blondie explained, gesticulating a little bit with his hands to give his speech the right emphasis "It's been a pull and push between them, because Troy usually hang around girls only, while Ryeowook had this quite big schoolgirl-like crush on him. Can you imagine a sadder thing than to see the person you like literally push you away and despise you for years?" at a certain point Sungmin turned to Kyuhyun and asked the question.

The tall glass in his hand was halfway empty, if not for a thick coconut cream that had rested itself on the bottom. Sungmin gulped down the rest of his rum and pushed away the glass on the bar, smiling while noticing that he had successfully caught Kyuhyun's attention for once.

"He didn't want to..." Kyuhyun started, more curious by the seconds.

"Troy hated Ryeowook back at school, because everyone knew the typical quiet boy with lack of self esteem was crushing on one of the most popular boys back then, and the most malicious students began to spread unpleasant rumors about Ryeowook and his uality, you know how these things go, don't you?" 

Kyuhyun shook his head, all his focus gathered on Sungmin's tale and not on the music pumping in his brain. Actually, besides being invited one day to a big family dinner organized by Siwon, where his cousin revealed his preferences and intention to move in with his boyfriend, Kyuhyun had never - even once - been that close in touch with the topic of homouality. Be that in Korea, despite being a constantly growing and westernized country, the topic was still considered pretty much a taboo and Kyuhyun had never to worry in his lifetime to feel outcast because considered different.

And so he stayed in silence, while trying to get more of those tidbits of Ryeowook's character from another perspective that wasn't his brother or Siwon.

"Well, the thing is that Ryeowook retired from school and was taught at home for almost two years. I personally saw his transformation from the shy boy to the one who sought after a second chance to finally show himself to the world. Look, I think I've got a picture" Sungmin fiddled with his pocket only to fish his cellphone out of it after a little while. He browsed the gallery, aimed at a picture in particular: "I shouldn't be having it with me, he would kill me if I ever showed it to you, but it's from our childhood, and since it's got me too in there, he can't tell me to delete it"

Sungmin deposited his cellphone in Kyuhyun's cupped hands and let him take a look. The lit screen showed two little boys surrounded by faded green fields, in the background peeked the irony grey sea from what Kyuhyun recognized to be the East Sea that crashed on the shores of the uttermost north-east Korean regions. It was winter and the two little boys stood hand in hand in front of the camera while showing a shy smile. The breeze swept great part of the right boy's bowl-like styled dark hair, but he seemed not to care as he tightened his grip around his friend's hand and smiled with his eyes. The other one, though, caught immediately Kyuhyun's sight. He was a rather chubby boy, wearing glasses and standing unmoving as if forced in that position to take that picture. However, despite his apparent aversion towards the picture, his very distinctive almond shaped eyes kept on issuing a strange glowing warmth even beside the thick spectacles of his eyeglasses.

And Kyuhyun was struck.

How was it even possible that the boy from the picture could have grown up into someone like Ryeowook?

Short, jet black hair had grown longer and softer to frame the particular profile of the man: high cheekbones emerged after the loss of all the baby fat; his thin lips were now very accustomed at stretching into a profusion of smiles brighter than the sun and which were always accompanied in the gesture by his sparkling eyes, shaped in the most magnetic way ever possible to witness in a human being. It was difficult to imagine that a toned body like Ryeowook had, in truth, hid another past and scars of what was like to be made fun of because of weight problems.

"Ryeowook went through a long transformation process, though I couldn't give you more details because I myself know very little of what he went through. I simply know that little by little he voted himself to this huge makeover, though I suspect that the initial input was to woo Troy and teach him a lesson after being disliked for very long. Then he came..." Sungmin averted Kyuhyun's eyes, feeling the air around them growing thicker as he was lost in a particular thought that still lingered on the point of his tongue, waiting to be decleared.

"It's...terrible" Kyuhyun muttered to himself, while he thought about the sadness hiding behind the fact that Ryeowook felt somehow in need to change himself over just to be fully appreciated. Perhaps he could have been liked for much more than his looks, but under a certain point of view he realized that very few people would have cared whether the boy was bright, or funny, or gifted in a certain subject or in other fields. That was sad, but unfortunately it was the truth.

"Sorry...who?" Kyuhyun asked again, scared of not paying enough attention to Sungmin to get the identity of this new, mysterious he in the tale of Ryeowook's life.

"Never mind..." Sungmin's lips curled in a rather shy smile, but he kept going anyway "The situation now has got Troy dancing around Ryeowook like a bee flying on a particular scented flower, and Ryeowook playing along, giving him very few opportunities to pluck the fruit, if you know what I mean" Sungmin raised his eyebrows in a look of hopefully reciprocated understanding, but Kyuhyun simply felt himself prey of a sudden change of body temperature, the usual one that made him slightly heated on his cheeks and blushing like a girl from too chaste movies.

"Actually, we talked a lot over this, and it seemed to me that Ryeowook had agreed to give him a chance. I thought it was yesterday at the party, but after noticing his disappearance I realized Troy was still surrounded by his group of friends. If you ask me, he found someone else already to replace him, perhaps the same one with whom he slept at home" Sungmin nodded after discussing as if he were giving out concrete proofs to sustain his argument, much detective-like, but Kyuhyun only shifted in uneasiness while listening to it all.

"Why do you think he slept with someone? Did he tell you something?" Kyuhyun's dry mouth found the courage to articulate that question, hoping not to pay it dear after pronouncing it.

Sungmin shook his head, almost amused at how silly Kyuhyun sounded: "No, he didn't tell me anything. But I know, I'm his best friend! He had his typical look of pure bliss and relax depicted all over his face, it must have been a hell of a professional in bed, or he wouldn't have those sparkling eyes this morning! Plus, he used the coconut and vanilla shower gel, which he says it works wonders to get rid of that awful smell of sweat and..."

"O-okay, okay, I get it!" Kyuhyun stammered and blocked Sungmin, almost literally, because he stretched an arm towards the blond one and swiftly grabbed Sungmin's forearm to lightly squeeze in order to urge him to shut up. Professional in bed? Who? Him? Gosh...what a shame he felt while listening to those things being said by a complete stranger!

If only Sungmin knew...

"I think he liked it...and a lot, he rarely gets that look, but when he does, the was worth it..." 

That was the last drop.

"I'm...going to the restroom" Kyuhyun stood up from his place and silently walked away, embraced by the music and his multiple thoughts that once again revolved around the crazy night with Ryeowook. Even his best friend had noticed that look of calm that made Ryeowook glow in a bright aura, Kyuhyun tried to analyze what exactly didn't give him away, since he might have looked just as relaxed and pleased as Ryeowook was, most likely an open