3. Why run?

The first question Hyukjae had for Han Geng as the two turned left on Fourteenth Street was, “So, ge, whose party was this again?”

Hyukjae wasn’t really going to listen to what Han Geng was about to say, because he’d already caught a glimpse of the familiar beige-colored mansion, and one glimpse was enough to tell him to run the away. An old wave of nausea rode down his fingertips and turned his stomach upside down. The blonde immediately snapped his bike around to begin back peddling like mad, wind in his hair, air stripping his jacket.

He really tried not to think about the house. He really did. But he wasn’t in control of his mind, which was apparently a twisted, gay- motherer and insisted on sliding from Lee Donghae’s house, to his face, to his voice, to the way he used to moan, to his lips, to the feeling of those against his neck, which was so—unf—

“Donghae’s,” Han Geng popped off his leather jacket and let it hang tentatively over one of the handlebars. There was no answer. The Chinese waited a second. Still no answer. By the time he turned around to glare, Hyukjae had already sped halfway down the block, hair flying and legs in a blur and all.

Han Geng scrunched his features together and tried to smooth them out with both palms. By the time he opened his eyes again, he noticed the shadow of a car pulling up the same corner that Hyukjae was hurling himself towards. The older punk barely managed to open his mouth before the subsequent squeak, crash, thump, and hyperventilation occured. Well, Han Geng thought, damn.

The Chinese considered if nature was trying to tell him never to take his eyes off of Hyukjae. He sighed. He really should’ve tried to negotiate with Heechul some more earlier; he knew well that conning Hyukjae’s sensitive arse into Donghae’s house party was like selling a rat a mousetrap. There was no question that disaster would’ve followed, and if history had any tendency to repeat itself, probably in strawberry-milk flavors. The only reason Han Geng had decided to do this at all because Heechul had his tail (again) and was threatening ridiculous that, knowing Heechul, were probably real.

Heechul was, to Han Geng, an existence fringing on Willy Wonka. When he wasn’t busy stuffing himself into weird costumes and sporting girly, confusing mannerisms, he entertained himself with the misfortunes of others. It was like God had gifted him with a specific talent for discomforting Chinese delinquents. Han Geng hated Heechul with his guts, but he couldn’t disobey him, and he kind of… no, he hated him. That was all. Heechul was weird and girly and just the sight of his unmanly was enough to make Han Geng blush. Out of anger, course.

Han Geng finished mentally swearing out Heechul before he turned his bike around to approach Hyukjae. It wasn’t that he wasn’t worried for Hyukjae; the blonde was his favorite lackey, after all. Hyukjae was cuteness with an attitude, albeit Han Geng would shoot himself in the foot before saying it to his face. He was bizarre, confused, a hell of a fighter, and easily bribed by strawberries—which was how Han Geng had fooled the boy into this whole house party thing in the first place:

“What?” Hyukjae had squinted, brows all bunched together and a sausage roll bouncing between his lips. It was mid-afternoon and Hyukjae had been busy ditching his afternoon physics lecture, because ditching at least one lecture a day was an unsaid requirement for all delinquents. The blonde had peered up at Han Geng and the Chinese’s mildly guilty grimace with a glower, “What do you mean, plus one?”

“Exactly what I said. Be my plus one,” Han Geng had clarified, yanking the sausage roll out of Hyukjae’s mouth and dashing it conveniently in the nearest garbage can, “Too lazy to pick up a chick. You need to get out more anyway. Meet me by the school gates.”

“No!” Hyukjae began chewing dourly on his thumb and muttering something along the lines of, “But I’ve got dance lessons…”

“What kind of delinquent takes dance lessons?” Han Geng had snapped and used his final weapon, a fresh carton of strawberry milk he’d lugged off as his newest fight prize, “Here.”

Han Geng honestly thought that it would be harder, because Hyukjae had an unrivaled attachment to dance that was honestly a little freaky. But apparently strawberry milk trumped all. It took the blonde a total of half a second to dart up and snatch Han Geng's offer, “School gates. You're dead if you ditch me, ge.”

At the current moment, the foreign student really wished that Hyukjae had reconsidered his dance lesson, because the person that stepped out of the car was exactly who Hyukjae wanted to see least: Lee Donghae.

There was a contagiously awkward pause then, during which Donghae froze in a pose that both suggested he was about to fall out of the car and scramble back in. Hyukjae stared up at Donghae with eyes wide and jaw swung open, like a fish taking its last breath. And then time got back on its axis and both began shrieking again, in surprising synchrony. Hyukjae scrambled for his bike while Donghae fell to his knees on the pavement.

The black-haired boy tried to comprehend what was going on as Donghae began chasing after Hyukjae’s bike, looking almost more rabid than Hyukjae did seconds ago. He passed his tongue over his lips, thought about going after the two morons, but decided to screw it. So long as Hyukjae was alive enough to dash off on his bike, he was probably alive enough to beat whatever sense Donghae needed into his skull. Eunhyuk the Blonde, after all, was the district’s best fighter. Han Geng turned his bike around for the umpteeth time, but this time his path was blocked by an expensive-looking backpack.

The Chinese snarled and glowered, wondering if he was ever going to get to the party at this rate, “Yah, you wanna die?”

From where Han Geng was standing, the kid looked a bit like he was going to piss his pants from fright. Choi Siwon didn't feel much different.

--

The only thing crossing Lee Hyukjae's mind as he sped down the road was how the hell he got into this situation.

What did he ever do to deserve this? His leg hurt and his shoulder was probably dislocated and he was peddling a ty bike like there was no tomorrow just because his ex-best-friend-slash--buddy was chasing after him. And said ex-best-friend-slash--buddy didn’t even think the situation was important enough to merit a word. Or maybe it was because he was too busy panting for air? He was running unnaturally quickly for those tiny legs of his. Not that Hyukjae cared either way; the first thing on his priority list was getting the hell away from the brunette.

Hyukjae was about to make a turn at the intersection when, suddenly, Donghae pulled a flying leap and just about knocked him off his bike. Again. Hyukjae wondered if Donghae had something against his bike as his face met the ground for the second time in three minutes. If anyone else had dared pull that trick, Hyukjae would have probably pummeled their face in. But it was Lee Donghae here. It was Lee Donghae and Hyukjae had honestly no idea what to do in his presence but run.

And so, with that idea on his mind, the blonde dropped his bike entirely and began to sprint—with some difficulty, of course, as it seemed that falling the second time did something to his ankle. Donghae caught up with ease this time, keeping pace with Hyukjae without even having the run. The boy spoke up, voice all high and stringy, “Hey, Lee Hyukjae-sshi—”

“Really? We’re at sshi now?” Hyukjae wasn’t sure if he wanted to cry or laugh, but the pain in his right foot inclined him towards the former. So he did. Donghae, looking genuinely concerned, reached over and tapped him gently on the shoulder with a single finger, “Say, why are you running?”

“NO!” Hyukjae attempted to speed up after giving his slightly ridiculous response, which was a brilliantly stupid idea as all Donghae had to do was walk slightly faster and produce another question, “What’s NO supposed to mean? Come on, Hyukjae—”

“NO!”

“Are you alright?”

“NO!”

“Let’s talk?”

“NO!” The blonde repeated. He secretly wanted to say something other than NO, because it made him sound so stupid, stupid, stupid stupid stupid. Nothing like the badass delinquent that he’d turned into. Donghae was probably going to think that he was the same wuss from back in eighth grade. Hyukjae snapped around his heel to finally say whatever it was that he wanted to say, which wasn’t much, really, but even that didn’t work out—his ankle finally gave in and he toppled over.

And just as his ty luck would have it, Donghae reached over to stop his slow-motion fall with a slow-motion, filthily romantic catch. And grin. And spin.

Hyukjae shivered. Really, did that bastard have to spin?

--

Heechul rummaged under the bed—calling it one was a compliment—and just about screamed when his fingers glazed a box of moldy socks (or was it strawberries?). He was angry and near tears and, from the bottom of his heart, itched to snap Kyuhyun’s smartass head off of his smartass shoulders, “Yah! Give me a hand!”

“No, I don’t like dust,” Kyuhyun muttered, eyes peeled on his the screen of his gameboy. Every annoying little beep and bop out of the plastic box shot daring arrows at Heechul’s patience. The part-time drag queen could feel his veins popping one by one with each second, “CHO KYUHYUN!”

Kyuhyun didn’t bother looking up at his watch. Instead, he turned his gaze towards his watch and began reaching for his backpack, “Ah, it’s getting late. Sorry Heechul, I’ve got to be home for dinner.”

“YAH! It's Heechul hyung!” Heechul shrieked, unnerved, “What do you mean, dinner? You’re going to stay here and—”

The slam of the apartment door ended his monologue. Heechul groaned. The tiny bedroom suddenly seemed seven shades darker than when he’d arrived earlier in the afternoon. He hated the place. To Heechul, Eunhyuk’s apartment was way beneath South Korea’s poverty line. Sure, Eunhyuk was living on his own and had no parental support, but that did not justify the state of this nightmare. It was tiny and stuffed and smelled of something weird. Socks or fish or something. He’d have thought that delinquents would be filthy rich, rolling in hapless children’s lunch money, but it seemed that Eunhyuk the Blonde had difficulty filling up his fridge alone. Heechul furrowed his brows, trying to mull over if it was right of him to bully someone as poor and weak and socially alienated. On the one hand, it simply wasn’t the right thing to do. On the other hand, he was Kim Heechul. 

And so Heechul tossed whatever moldy object it was that he’d been holding into the opposite corner of the room and returned to digging underneath the bed. He’d already turned up with two regular magazines, one in Chinese (no doubt Han Geng’s); a shoe-box of crumpled bills; a few more moldy things; some ’s thongs; an empty wrapper; stray bottle caps; and forgotten homework assignments—none of which proved to be any incriminating evidence towards Eunhyuk or Donghae. Heechul sunk his teeth into his lower lip. Perhaps Han Geng was right. Perhaps Eunhyuk was a straight as a chopstick.

Was there no ‘Eunhae’, ever? Then whose picture was it that he saw Donghae ing to a week ago…?

Heechul jumped when he heard the front door slam. A whole slew of obscenities went sailing through his mind. ! Who was home? Wasn’t Han Geng going to take Eunhyuk to Donghae’s house party? Was it Eunhyuk’s girlfriend? Did Eunhyuk have a sibling? Heechul’s face paled as soon as he remembered those old rumors about Eunhyuk messing with the mob. What if the mafia had just walked in? What if they were assassins?

Heechul’s skin crawled. Time seemed to move much too quickly for his clumsy limbs. The footsteps outside were already nearing the bedroom, in some kind of chaotic rhythm—definitely more than one person. The brunette darted from one side of the room to the next, looking for a place to hide. The desk was too small. There was no way he was going underneath the bed. Could he jump out the window? What floor was the apartment on again?

It was too late. The light to Heechul standing, paralyzed, in the middle of the bedroom, arms outstretched in both directions, knees tense, neck twisted in some impossible conformation, eyes still vying for the safe darkness underneath the desk.

But Heechul wasn’t the only one paralyzed. Hyukjae had a moan caught mid-throat and Donghae’s hand in his pants, quite literally, when his half-lidded eyes met with Heechul's. It took Donghae, whose back was against the gossip queen, a few more seconds to realize why Hyukjae had stopped kissing him back and why his grip suddenly felt a lot stronger than passion.

“Well.”

Wait, is this crack or fluff? OTL. Dear everyone, I give up. I will now begin editing this .