6. Stainless steel?

Han Geng woke up the week after Donghae’s house party more or less kind of ed. His mother stood beside his bed, a ladle in hand and a pair of extremely furrowed (and well-plucked) brows over her face. He cowered as the woman’s down-curved lips opened to reveal four pointy, canine fangs, “Who, sweetheart, is that boy outside the window? And why is he telling me that he loves you?”

“I… don’t… know?”

Slowly breaking eye contact, the high school senior inched the blanket over his face until he was safe and obscured under a cotton fortress. His heart was in his throat and he could already taste the two gallons of doom rushing down his throat. A thousand vulgarities gathered at the tip of his tongue, but he could only swallow them in fear of sparking what would be a very, very thorough ladle-beating.

It for the Chinese that his mother happened to have been very skilled in the art of ladle abuse. She was an iron lady made out of one hundred percent crystallized steel, with no fear of insects, heights, immigration laws, mobsters, or god. In Han Geng’s life, the only time she’d had that current look of anxiety was when his father went home with a boyfriend and asked for divorce papers. She’d made it absolutely clear since then that she could stomach his turning into a burglar or or murderer or Mussolini, so long as he wasn’t gay.

“If I catch you doing any of that non-sense, or playing with anyone who does that non-sense,” She’d said four years ago, after his father had came and gone (permanently) with his boy toy, “I’m going to castrate you and pickle your balls in rice wine. And then we’ll have it for high tea.”

The boy hadn’t taken it very seriously then, because he couldn’t figure out what was so attractive about other dudes’ anyway. He thought his father must’ve been insane. s were the most awesome things he’d ever seen and he couldn’t imagine liking anything without a pair of squishy, round, pink-topped melons. Unfortunately then high school and Heechul came around and things got slightly complicated. But Han Geng was sure that, despite all the confusion, he still liked girls. No, it wasn’t that he liked girls. It was just that he couldn’t like guys. His own didn’t please him very much, so why would someone else’s?

Sadly for Han Geng, the case this morning wasn’t of him liking someone else’s . It was of someone else liking his. Or not really his , because Han Geng knew that no matter how drunk he was during the party, he wouldn’t have shown Yesung his . The Chinese actually had no idea why Yesung liked him in the first place, or if Yesung even liked him at all. He assumed that Yesung liked him because Yesung kept chasing after him and offering him unsolicited novels over the past week… but as to why Yesung liked him, Han Geng was at an absolute loss.

That answer, however, was not enough to please his mother, who was currently rolling up her sleeves with menacing determination. Han Geng began wondering what wine-pickled balls would taste like. Chicken?

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“I honestly don’t—Ow!” Han Geng screeched as soon as his mother’s stick of iron hell landed on his hips. He’d taken baseball bats to the head and roundhouse kicks and wrestled with men twice his size, but nothing could beat the smarting agony of his mother’s ladle. He tried to protect himself by curling up under the blankets, but had to fall to the ground in a screaming, kicking heap thanks to his tiny bed and messy blankets

“Ow! Ma! Listen to me—” Han Geng cried as he scurried from one corner of the room to the next. From the corner of his eye, he could see that moron Yesung still waiting outside the front door with a bouquet of roses and his fiftieth stack of offering. The Chinese tried to make a slit-throat motion at Yesung—or anything that said something like get the off my lawn—but Yesung decided to respond by waving excitably.

As his mother chased him around his room, Han Geng made a giant note-to-self to beat some sense into Yesung’s head as soon as he got out, preferably with a ladle.

--

Siwon didn’t just like Han Geng because ‘like’ wasn’t the word. For example, he liked Donghae and Yesung, but his feelings for Han Geng were something borderline fanboy-ing. He felt like squealing every time he saw the guy, for to Siwon, there was something extremely, unspeakably cool about the way Han Geng moved and talked and breathed and Jesus, even the way he raised his arm to punch someone was delightful. Pure bliss. Chinese mother kung-fu-high-kick ing awesome.

Initially, Siwon hadn’t felt this way about Han Geng. In fact, he had felt nothing except repulsion and fear of the delinquent race for the past three and half years of his high school career. Delinquents were like rats, he’d thought, dirty, uncivilized, and worst in packs. Hyukjae, for example, was the personification of the delinquent stereotype. He had the ugliest, most outrageous hairdo to grace mankind since the pink afro, the world’s most unsanitary hands, and a strange compulsion to beat anyone in his way into pulps. Including Siwon. Siwon had been punched by Hyukjae once before and that one time was enough to teach him to stay the hell away from delinquents for the rest of his life.

Especially delinquents like Han Geng, who Hyukjae followed like a pup. Despite having never met Han Geng, Siwon had long heard rumors of the Chinese being some kind of mystical whirlwind of Kung Fu Panda magic, y legs, and the second most scheming mind in Hanyoung High after Kim Heechul. To Siwon, that symbolized a lethal combination that he would not meet before shooting himself in the face.

He kept that thought until Donghae’s house party a week ago, when he’d met Han Geng in person for the first time. Siwon was convinced that he was going to walk away with a broken limb, but that thought was soon swapped away by the observation of how damned good Han Geng smelled. The Christian really wasn’t sure what kind of scent it was, but he imagined that if temptation could smell like anything it would smell like that: a weird mixture of leather, cigarette smoke, a thousand different perfumes, metal, and cheap detergent.

Han Geng had tried to call Siwon Yesung, and Siwon didn’t correct it because he was sure that hearing his own name out of those perfectly firm-yet-supple lips would knock out all his inhibitions. Siwon honestly wasn’t sure why Han Geng decided to drag him along to the party, but he didn’t mind. Han Geng smelled good and looked great and having him by his side made people look at him differently. Siwon loved it when people looked at him (more specifically his abs), but having people regard him with fear, rather than respect, was enthralling. Han Geng was fabulously dangerous and thoroughly, so thoroughly badass that Siwon couldn’t help falling head-over-fanboy-heels for him when someone picked a fight and the Chinese crushed him in a split second.

Siwon had never seen legs been used that way before. He thought that all delinquents fought like Hyukjae, which was a whirlwind of fists and feet and teeth, but Han Geng didn’t fight. It was as if Han Geng was gliding along, dancing and twirling and suddenly everyone toppled over and started . Siwon couldn’t peel his eyes off of the way Han Geng later stamped his foot over one of the aggressor’s chests in the name of interrogation. He could’ve sworn that he was watching a movie—and even if it were a movie, Han Geng would be Siwon’s ultimate bias, and Siwon would ship Hanwon (or Sihan?) hard enough to make Heechul cry.

Of course, Siwon wouldn’t say that in real life because he was the student body president, and people with such heavy moral responsibility were meant to have respectable ualities. Such as heterouality. More precisely, only heterouality. Therefore, Siwon decided to limit himself to being a part-time biual. Homoual. No, biual. Homoual was too radical. He’d have trouble confessing homouality to his the priest and anything he can’t confess to the priest is too big a sin to be thought of.

And so when Han Geng slammed a foot in his rear and hollered, “Why the hell are you doing this to me?” Siwon didn’t quite know what to say. He knew the answer, but he had his image to protect—

Which was why he lugged all the blame on , “Because I thought that you’d like this new series that I got from Donghae…”

Siwon couldn’t believe his ears for a split second. Was Han Geng whimpering? 

--

Hyukjae woke up with a migraine rather comparable to the size of Mount Everest. For some reason he could’ve sworn that he heard Han Geng shrieking for his mother, but as he peered out his back window and into Han Geng’s yard, he couldn’t see any great disturbance. Plus, Hyukjae reasoned, Han Geng wasn’t the type to shriek for anything, really. Except maybe Heechul’s . But on the other hand, Hyukjae decided, Han Geng had a peculiar shriek and the noise that had woken him up without a doubt belonged to Han Geng.

Though relations between the two had stilted a bit after that little incident he had with Heechul’s sorry buttocks, he still cared for the Chinese. After all, Han Geng was one of his best friends. He had followers and minions, but Han Geng was the one person he truly liked—and so he threw on his windbreaker and hurried downstairs, skipping steps at a time and flying down entire cases altogether to see what Han Geng was up to.

Except it appeared that he wasn’t up to much, the definition of which was flirting with Siwon. Hyukjae almost did a double take. He was sure that he was still dreaming and pinched himself on the leg. Han Geng? Flirting? Siwon? Siwon? Choi Siwon? Sure, Han Geng had some weird tastes—namely, Heechul—but Siwon was straight as a chopstick. Siwon was the straightest thing Hyukjae had ever seen, other than himself.

But to Hyukjae’s surprise, he didn’t wake up. Reality stood before him, in the form of two men wrestling and his own idol, Han Geng, whimpering. Whimpering. Hyukjae passed out.

Mentally, that was. Of course Hyukjae wouldn’t really pass out. Hyukjae was tough as a bull and thought that he was made out of stainless steel, a mutant from Steel Planet X. And currently this mutant tried to unsee the sight before him while straddling his bike and wobbling off in a curly line for school.

As Hyukjae disembarked his bike in the usual spot in the schoolyard, he wondered why he was so put off by Han Geng’s public display of whatever-that-was. Of course, he’d seen Han Geng not just whimpering, but outright crooning and frothing at the mouth around Heechul, which had scarcely had an effect on him. What was different about Han Geng with Siwon? Was it because it was Han Geng that was doing the whimpering? Or was it because Han Geng was whimpering around someone who was known for his unfailing straightness? Was it because Han Geng with Siwon was more similar 

Hyukjae had scarcely walked away from his bike when the person he’d pray he’d never run into again popped up inches before his nose. Hyukjae chomped down hard, trying to swallow a small squeak that threatened to emerge from his lips, while backing off. Donghae, however, seemed to have been prepared for this reaction and quickly grabbed Hyukjae by the elbow.

“Hi,” Donghae muttered, his voice coming out all distorted as it had always. Hyukjae didn’t know what he could possibly say after what they’d been through a week ago, so he kept quiet and pulled a poker face. And stared at Donghae’s lips. And tried not to think about how insanely delicious those had felt against his neck and jaw and… .

“Um, so, look,” Donghae scanned the vicinity for possible gossipers and relaxed slightly upon spotting none, “I’m not here for, uh, what you think this is for… um.”

“What do you mean, what should I think this is?” Hyukjae snapped. He wasn’t sure why he felt so angry. If anything, he was more awkward than anything; maybe he was so irritable because he hated feeling awkward and helpless. Helpless. Oh god, seriously? Helpless?

“I mean—not really anything. I don’t think. I mean, there’s nothing between us, right. Right?” Donghae’s jaw struggled up and down as he tried to make a point, “Well but the thing is, Heechul wanted me to tell you to get Siwon off of Han Geng…”

“And you’re here to tell me this why?” Hyukjae leaned up against the tree, attempting to pose like a badass. Part of him believed that if he posed enough like a badass, surely he’d pass for one too. Unfortunately he believed wrongly, because badasses didn’t tend to flush the way he was flushing. His whole face was burning and his fingers wouldn’t stop trembling and there was something between a giddy squeal and moan shoving up his guts. Hyukjae felt awfully like crying. This couldn’t be happening to him. This couldn’t be happening. He wished that Donghae would disappear about as much he wished that time could just go back to a week ago so his hand could’ve dipped a little low—holy , what was he thinking? 

“Because Heechul doesn’t want to.”

“Since when did you become Heechul’s lackey? Didn’t he try to sabotage you only a week ago?” Hyukjae snapped, trying to wheel his thoughts away from how hot Donghae looked and the problem at hand. He was a delinquent precisely because he was too lazy to involve himself in the complex social rules and cliques and ultimatums that high school was comprised of, and here he was, getting dragged into what was probably drama-quicksand, “Also, no. Go back and tell Heechul that I’m not doing any ing favors for the guy who robbed my apart—”

“But he didn’t rob you, really.”

“Lee Donghae, did you just interrupt me?” Hyukjae snapped, “And you’re defending him?”

Donghae kicked around the dirt a little, visibly jarred, “But he said he’d kill you if you don’t do it so I just wanted to…”

Hyukjae snorted. He wasn’t sure if he exploded because he couldn’t stand listening to Donghae defend Heechul anymore or because he simply couldn’t get any redder than he already was, but before he knew it he’d already hooked his hand around Donghae’s collar and shoved the other boy against the tree. Donghae’s hair blew around his face and his lips parted slightly in surprise. Hyukjae could smell the slightest spark of excitement radiating from the fear in Donghae’s eyes and it made his heart thump.

“He can’t kill me,” Hyukjae breathed into Donghae’s mouth, purposefully crushing his knuckles into Donghae’s chest just so he could feel a little bit more of Donghae’s warmth, “And I know that you know it. So why are you here if, you know, we don't mean anything to each other?”

Donghae seemed at a loss for a second, but the second didn't last long. He soon met Hyukjae's glare with a nervous grin and, suddenly, pulled the blonde's face closer. Hyukjae had fast enough reflexes to smack Donghae away before the boy even got to touch his jaw, but he didn’t. He had idea why not. Was it because, perhaps, that maybe he wasn’t made out of stainless steel after all?

Hyukjae honestly wouldn’t say that the kiss lasted longer than two seconds, but with the amount of tongue-age that Donghae had performed and the bite marks Donghae had left all over his lips and chin, Hyukjae thought that maybe it was a bit longer than two seconds. Three seconds? Four seconds? Either way, it wasn’t long enough. He was about to press himself against Donghae again when the brunette suddenly interrupted with the slyest remark, “So, just checking, this doesn’t mean anything, right?”

“Of course,” Hyukjae tried to force the last word out between heavy gasps for air, “not.”

Oh my god, I'm so sorry for the terrible update even after the long wait. On the other hand, I'm going to be leaving the internet for a month, so the next update is going to be in a while. Sorreh! Details here.