TAEMIN - PRESS YOUR NUMBER

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsOGiTSZ_cg

By the time Kai had finished telling Wongeun his side of the story, keeping mum on the part of seeing her parents one last time before their D-Day; Wongeun had finished his spaghetti cabonara with three pints of Sapporo beer and a shot of bourbon on the side to keep himself resolutely calm. If anyone had heard Kai’s gruesome details of how drastic his life had changed over the course of seven years, they would have done just about the same thing Wongeun had done. No person could sit here in one spot sober enough to withstand the explicit tales that were being brought to light after being hidden in the shadows for so long, especially tales that were coming from someone who could even be considered your own blood, which is why having a drink was fundamentally necessary during such circumstances.

After hearing the words come out of Kai’s lips, Wongeun sat in his seat with a look of disbelief on his expression. The solemn frown that he had on earlier was nowhere to be found as he sat utterly still, feeling a mixture of emotions running through him ranging from sympathy to disappointment to anger and finally, sadness at the outcome of it all.

“Hyung, please say something. I know you’re disappointed in me and I’m also sorry for dragging you into this mess, but I want you to know that I really did this for Hari… If I hadn’t kept up with this job, they would have found her sooner. I only made the deal to work with this devil to keep her out of their line of sight, which it did for a long time… ” mumbled Kai. There was a small flicker of hope in his eyes that Wongeun did not miss.

Is he trying to justify to himself that what he has been doing had been the right thing all along? To put not only himself in danger, but to expose his relations with Hari and placing her at the top of their blacklist? As if she wasn’t already blacklisted enough by them! .  Wongeun furrowed his eyebrows, trying to make sense of the things that Kai was telling him. After a dreadful long pause, he sat up straight with the same frown he had only earlier. “I understand that you had meant well in doing this deed for Hari, but Kai… you do realize that she would have never wanted you to do any of this for her? I’m sure you know as much as I do that there were other options that you could have chosen, much safer ones that would have not landed you in this sort of predicament. With your parent’s connections, you could have easily hired watchmen’s to watch over her… so I don’t get why you would resort to going straight to the root of the problem before properly thinking through with your actions, and realizing that not all problems can be fixed that way.”

Noting that the restaurant was getting busier, Kai smoothly placed his sunglasses back on. Wongeun followed him in tow, by placing his back on as well. The pair shifted into the darker side of the seats where the light did not reflect upon them, and kept their heads low as they continued speaking.

“I couldn’t just sit still while Hari was being hunted,” scowled Kai as he continued to defend his actions, his memory already flying back to the countless amount of times that Hari had been chased down by one of Jonghyung’s men in the past. Even though she was only in elementary school back then, the men were ruthless as they spent many nights lurking around the orphanage in chance of snatching her back to Jonghyung. “I needed to be on his side in order to prevent anything from happening to her. I just… wished I hadn’t gotten lost along the way by getting too comfortable with the job.” A hint of regret and bitterness was playing around the edges of his voice.

Recalling the part where Kai had admitted to doing coke, Wongeun’s frown deepened. “You’re original idea had been to keep her out of harm’s way… but what I don’t get is why you decided to start snorting coke yourself. I’m glad you hadn’t overdosed from the amount of you had told me you had done… goddamnit, Kai. How hurt do you think Hari would be if she had heard you were doing the same thing that ruined her parents? Time and time again, she had expressed adamantly about her clear objections against the use of drugs and you, of all people, know that fact inside out.”

Bowing his head in shame, Kai felt his eyes begin to burn by fighting back the tears that were threatening to spill out. “To be part of Jonghyung’s team, I wanted to make sure that he could trust me fully so that he doesn’t find a way to get to Hari. I only started to do it to be part of their crew, but it began to take my life by threshold as one line a day began to become three to six. I wasn’t addicted to it, hyung, I swear! I just… liked losing myself to oblivion for a short while. With all the problems that were going on in my life, it was hard to put my life together—”

“That’s very selfish of you to say, Kai! As humans, we are bound to run into troubles all of our life, but so far, me and you, we have got it pretty good. Sure we slave our asses off, you especially for that god forsaken company your family runs. But other than that… We’ve got a roof over our heads and food to get us through the day, isn’t that something to be happy about? Meanwhile we have Hari who had lived in an orphanage all of her life, spending most of her youth running away from bad men, most days she didn’t even know if she would even have a scrap of food because she either had no appetite from her depression or gave it to you, or the other kids at the orphanage. She spent most of life being kicked and shoved by horse kids who thought they were better than her, and to this day she’s still struggling to find her means to survive. Yet here you are, basically implying that since you got some minor problems that you caused yourself, you’re doing drugs to ease away from reality. I didn’t realize you had become such a coward, Kai.” Wongeun hadn’t meant for his words to come across so sharply, but the more Kai spoke of his pains, the more it angered him.

Wongeun had known Kai for a long time now, so he was aware of the problems that his young friend faced at home. Yet, it wasn’t entirely bad to the point that one should snort coke because of it. Most of the problems that Kai was dealing with were problems that were caused by himself, which is what pissed Wongeun off the most. Smart as Kai was at times, he also seemed to have a completely ignorant and stupid side of him that he cannot see. From high school up until now, it had only been Wongeun and Hari to give Kai a reality check of the dumb he did, while everyone else simply gave him nothing but kind and encouraging words. Since Kai had been such a popular individual in high school, Wongeun was sure all the lies and sweet nothings that he had been told these last few years went straight to his head.

As Wongeun’s words began to set in, Kai’s expression grew darker and darker. “I’m clean now hyung, it’s been two weeks I swear,” he said through gritted teeth. His hyung was right, he was always right. The truth is the only person he had ever looked up to was Wongeun. He had never known anyone to be as wise, gentle, and caring as Wongeun was. Even when it came to things like fights, he was the one who knew how to calm the situation down, like a gentle breeze passing by the harshness of a fiery heat; he eased the atmosphere with his mere presence. As the years had gone on, Kai had hoped that as he aged, he would have a heart as golden and pure as Wongeun but it seems that fate had a different course in store for him. With the endless amount of obstacles that he had faced throughout the years, it was obvious that karma was an unstoppable force.

No matter how many good deeds Kai had tried to do to patch up his wrongs, the sins he had committed were far too big to erase away. Each attempt at being a good guy, led him down the wrong hole. Every good thing he had done for Hari, even joining the Blood Dragon, eventually backfired hideously. With Wongeun in front of him, his expression stoic and unreadable, Kai felt a small sense of hatred towards himself for not knowing what was good and what was bad.

Finally after some moments of reconsidering, Wongeun let out a heavy sigh, the sort of sigh that one would give as if they had just been defeated and ran a stressed hand through his hair.

“I… honestly don’t know what you want me to say or do right now, Kai. What did you expect from telling me all of this? If you thought I was going to side with you on this, you can’t definitely count me out. I’ve never been more disappointed in you, despite my best efforts to urge you to ignore this gang, you refuse to heed my warning and do as you wish. How am I going to face Hari now?” Wongeun whispered the last part, because just then, the waitress came by and refilled their cups with ice water.

“Can I get you two the desert menu?” she politely asked. Her eyes darted towards Kai, but he hadn’t bothered to look up.

Wongeun rolled his eyes. “No thank you, just the bill and we should be good to go.” He had given her a small smile to assure her that the situation wasn’t as tense as the atmosphere appeared.

“…Alright. I’ll be right back. Do you guys need the machine?” she asked, slightly surprised by the change of attitude in both men.

Wongeun shook his head, “Just cash.”

The waitress nodded her head, collected the last of Wongeun’s empty pint cups and left. A moment later, she returned with the bill and retreated silently to the other side of the restaurant.

“I expected you to tell me that I am a and that I don’t deserve to be Hari’s friend, and if anything, I deserve to be hanged for my crime. That’s what I came to you for, Hyung,” replied Kai. His expression had become so torn that at this point, even Wongeun couln’t help but let his heart soften up a bit.

“Well yeah, you are a pretty ing huge for doing what you did…” Wongeun sighed, and then continued. “But you are not a bad guy, Jongin. You had done what most of us do not dare to do, so that’s worthy of a compliment I suppose. I don’t want you to kill yourself because of this, but I do know that it IS stupidly dangerous to put yourself in danger like this, even if it’s for someone you care about. And yes, you are the biggest idiot I’ve happened to come across for pulling such dumb stunts like this but you had done this for someone you cared about so… I can only give you a half a high five for your ballsy action.” He reached his palm out towards Kai, waiting.

Kai blinked in surprise, somewhat glad to know that his sunglasses were hiding his red eyes.He reached out and lightly smacked his palm against Wongeun’s, laughing slightly, completely taken by surprise at Wongeun’s praise. “Thank you Hyung…”

For the first time tonight, Wongeun’s lips curled up into a tiny smile. “For what? I didn’t do anything but lecture you. If anything, once we get outside, I’m probably going to kick your for the dumb you have been doing.”

Kai returned the smile. It had been a long time since Wongeun had ‘beat’ him up, and in truth, right now what he needed most was a good slam to the head to bring him back to reality. A second too soon, his smile faded at the reminder of having to face Hari. “You think she’s going to forgive me, hyung?”

“No idea, but your friendship has reached its ten years milestone not too long ago… I believe a long overdue apology for your absence, for Hayoung’s actions, and definitely for the truth that’s going to be revealed to her is in order,” replied Wongeun as he took a sip of his water.

Kai grimaced. “That’s not very helpful. I was going to apologise to her either way…”

“Well what’s taking you so long? Hurry and go. You’ve got places to be, and I definitely got a bed to seek out.”

Kai chuckled, noticing how red Wongeun’s cheeks had gone. “Oh yeah, one last thing. Before we pay the bill and go, I need to let you in on something.”

Wongeun slapped a palm over his head. “Please, no more bad news. I don’t know if my heart, head, and body could take any more of your nonsense. I might even get a at this point if you continue to irk me.”

“Don’t worry… Call it a bearing of good news from the angels,” assured Kai.

Wongeun let out a dreary sigh, his shoulders slumping down as he awaited for Kai’s reply. At this point, no news coming out from Kai’s lips was going to be good news.

“If everything works out, and I get everything clean off of Hari’s name here, I’m going to take her with me and we will move to Toronto. My parents family business is here and in America, but they had given me permission to a start a whole new firm down in Ontario, so I’m planning on taking her there. I know she had always wanted to go to LA, but Toronto is becoming a more booming multicultural city filled with lovely art and large pots of land. It’s the perfect city for Hari, I can just feel it my bones. They even have the CN tower, which is somewhat akin to our Namsam tower. If she ever feels lonely, I’ll take her there to remind her of home,” said Kai, his grin stretching from ear to ear as he envisioned his new life with his best friend by his side.

Wongeun froze in his seat, his jaw tightly clenched together after he heard Kai’s words. It was the first time tonight since Kai had explained his situation, that Wongeun had seen such a look of radiance on his friends face. Oh god, I know that look of brilliance all too well. , he doesn’t know about the other guy, does he?

Judging from the last time he had seen Hari, it was obvious that she had… quite a l