lvi. The Unusual Pair

Over 18 years ago: when the future was but another unsolved mystery.

Bounding onto the bed, she evaded his outstretched hands for the second time. His long legs followed her up, lithe like a leopard as he caught her within seconds. Her fit of protest had them both falling down onto the bed below their feet. Laughter was all he could manage in the face of her rebellion, trapping her frowning form under him.

“I won’t.” She asserted.

“You will.” He insisted. 

“Screw you, Park Hyunwoo.” She insulted.

“You’ll look beautiful, Song Hanbyul.” He complimented.

She practically crumbled under his sweet words and sweeter smile. Wrapping arms around his neck, she pulled him down to her. He didn’t resist, snuggling into the nape of her neck, feeling her heart beating rapidly below him. All of her complaints aside, there was no doubting her desire to make him happy.

And if wearing a dress could manage to put a smile on his face, she’d gladly do it.

Red was the color of the night. Red like Hanbyul’s dress. Red like the wine that slid down Hyunwoo’s throat. Red like the tips of either’s ears as the mumbled sweet nothings to each other in the corner of the large room. 

In comparison, the soon-to-be newlyweds were as tightly knitted as a grandmother’s skillful crochet. Either knew the other so well they didn’t have a need for anyone else. Not for the cousins or uncles that looked on at Hyunwoo in envy. Not the countless women who threw looks of scorn Hanbyul’s way in an effort to dislodge her from her boyfriend’s side. In comparison, there was no woman she could be compared to.

That’s what Hyunwoo believed at the time — and still does. 

Others thought him crazy, even borderline insane, for his recklessly human emotions. He grew up being told that love doesn’t happen instantly. It’s something that’s fostered over time. Something that happens between a man and his wife around the three-year mark. Certainly not something to be felt for a mate weaker than himself.

Marry up!

His mother always told him.

Marry smart!

His father always told him.

“Marry me, Hanbyul,” Hyunwoo would ask her the week following this one. 

But, first, came the annual Cha family reunion. 

They traveled all the way to Thailand for it — Hyunwoo obligated to attend it at least one last time.

Hanbyul never liked the hot weather. Humidity was her worst enemy. The hysterical laughter she’d pulled from him as her hair began to curl, frizzy like a french poodle’s, was one of the things that made this trip worth it. “My face feels like it’s melting off,” she complained before refusing to get out of the air-conditioned car for twenty minutes after pulling into a nearby hotel. 

She still did, though. 

Her usual frown drawn across her face stiffly like a streak of permanent marker, she hid in his shadow wherever they went. When he attempted to do the same, she’d scold him at first. She’d let him do it anyway; his hunched over form hanging onto her waist the entire way. “I love you,” he’d whisper into her waist before a hum of affirmation vibrated against his ears. 

All he could think about as stranger after stranger greeted him, acclaimed friends of his father one after the other, was being able to hear her say it back later that night, limbs tangled into a knot not inconvenient enough to untangle. Never inconvenient enough, no matter how hot it was.

To say he was distracted by his thoughts would be an understatement.

That didn’t stop Hyunsoo from slinging an arm around his shoulders, dark eyes drooping as a slurred, “Are you trying to make me jealous?” left thin lips. 

“Is it working?” Hyunwoo shot back, shrugging him off. 

It wasn’t often that Hyunwoo got to meet up with his childhood friend: Cha Hyunsoo. They weren’t related by any means, but their parents had been particularly close. Thus, their names mirrored each other. Hyunwoo never minded it much either. 

Cha Hyunsoo was just another typical male in his early 20s. Secretly a lonely dork, publicly as charismatic as they came. “The only thing I’ve got going for me is my face, so why not make a mask out of it?” He’d told Hyunwoo back when they were teenagers discovering the allure of women for the first time. And it was no understatement. 

Jawline rounding off to a “manly” — as Hyunsoo labeled it — point. Tear-shaped eyes sunken between two youthful patches of skin. Thick eyebrows brushing up against a freshly-trimmed fringe of jet black. He was thin and tall and, without a doubt, good-looking. 

Not that Hyunwoo wouldn’t boast he was just as. 

He didn’t think his personality was anything to win a trophy over, however, so he felt more than blessed to have won over his highschool sweetheart: Song Hanbyul. 

Unlike him, Cha Hyunsoo couldn’t openly disobey generations of familiar commitments. His family had a bigger hand in Hyunsoo’s future. Each and every step was dictated. Each and every person who entered it, whether temporarily or permanently, had been decided before he’d even had the ability to coherently argue against it.

“Do it any more and my fiancé will have both our heads.” Hyunsoo joked, forcing a smile that didn’t reach his dimples. 

“Is she the short one with the attitude problem?” Hanbyul spoke up, forcing herself into the two men’s world with ease. Her intentions, no matter how rude her words, were conveyed just as simply. 

Hanbyul was rarely inconsiderate without reason. Today’s unspoken one was for the sake of Hyunwoo’s good, best, friend. For Cha Hyunsoo who couldn’t speak up against his predetermined future. For the sake of someone who was too tired of receving pity no matter where he turned. For her to do this despite having met him only two days prior, Hyunwoo couldn't have been more grateful than even Hyunsoo was at that moment.

“Can your girlfriend be more perfect?” Hyunsoo broke down, intonations brittle to the touch. 

Hanbyul laid a comforting hand on his shoulder that he molded into, giving into the attraction of humanly affection. Hyunsoo spent the rest of the night in the lovely couple’s company, basking in second-hand happiness. 

It was late that same night when Hyunwoo received a text from his best friend. By the looks of the contents that flashed on the bright screen, the latter was drunk. Hyunwoo, in no state to deny he was anything but, regretfully crawled from under the covers where Hanbyul laid as still as a rock. It’d take a fire to wake her up — and even then it'd be a struggle to shake her back into her senses.

Barefooted, Hyunwoo closed the door to their hotel room behind him and made his way down the corridor. His destination the pool on the fourth floor, he bobbed absentmindedly along to the elevator music. Humming along to Tom Jones’s “It’s Not Unusual” as he skipped to the pool entrance, he greeted Hyunsoo with a smile.

Singing exaggeratedly, Hyunwoo snapped his fingers in rhythm as he approached, “It’s not unusual to be loved by anyone.”

Hyunsoo spat out the beer he’d taken a chug of, doubling over in the plastic beach chair he was sitting in. The pool lights shone up at Hyunwoo like stage spotlights, each wave of neon blue in constant motion like an adoring crowd. Spurned by his friend’s delight, Hyunwoo continued the spectacle.

“It’s not unusual to have fun with anyone.”

He waved at his fans as he sashayed across the concrete, arms opening wide as though to invite them all into his bosom. 

“But when I see you hanging about with anyone.”

He plopped down onto the same beach chair, almost squishing his best friend in the process.

“It’s not unusual to see me cry.” Hooking Hyunsoo’s arm through his, he croaked out an off-tune, “I wanna die!”

It was a long time before Hyunsoo regained his composure; the alcohol dribbling down his chin not helping him keep his facial expressions in check. That plus the constant mumblings of “It’s not unusual to find that I’m in love with you, oh whoa oh oh oh oh,” from Hyunwoo kept him keeling over, stomach clenching itself in pain as nonstop laughter bubbled up his throat.

“Thus we observe a fool in love in his natural habitat.” Hyunsoo’s first words: a good-hearted insult that had only further boasted Hyunwoo’s ego.

“And the green monster of envy along with him!” Hyunwoo jested, always knowing what to say.

Always knowing exactly what troubled Hyunsoo before he said a word, he knocked his half-empty beer into Hyunwoo’s knee, silently offering some. Hyunwoo took it, only to place it on the other side of his legs, out of reach. Hanbyul doesn’t like it when I drink late at night, Hyunwoo explained with a smile. 

“It doesn’t taste that good anymore, anyway.” He added, looking longingly up at the twentieth floor of the hotel; having memorized exactly where his room’s balcony was the night before when he’d gone swimming with her.

“Look at that stupid grin on your face. You don’t even have to say anything for me to imagine what kind of dirty things you’re thinking about.” Hyunsoo gagged, barely able to keep down the bile that threatened to come up along with his sarcastic gesture. 

Hyunwoo patted the center of his back, answering sarcastically right back, “I’m guessing your loving fiancé Seoyeon likes you drunk.”

“When I’m sober,” Hyunsoo cleared his throat, “I’m not as pleasant, she says.”

“When you’re drunk,” Hyunwoo gave him a hard slap between his shoulder blades, “you’re not as fun, I say.”

Hyunsoo managed another laugh at that, “A shame you never liked my sister. We’d have been brothers by now.”

“Your sister is an insatiable man-eater, no offense.” After a short reply of “believe me, none taken,” Hyunwoo continued, “Besides, hope still lies in our children.” 

Hyunsoo’s eyes lit up instantly.

He’d said many times that his children would be different from himself and Hyunwoo. They’d grow up making their own expectations for themselves. They’d have so many choices their heads would spin. He wouldn’t live precariously through them because they deserved to live their own lives. To, at the end of the day, unravel the mystery that was their future all on their own.

“Let’s hope your son is charming enough to sway the heart of my hard-headed daughter.” Hyunsoo imagined, eyes looking at something farther away than that balcony on the twentieth floor.

“Why do you get to call dibs on a daughter?” Hyunwoo argued almost immediately.

“Because I’ve always wanted one.”

“So have I.” 

“So what? I’m older than you. I get to call shotgun when it suits me.”

“So it’ll take a lot to get my darling Hyunjoo to fall in love with your spoiled brat of a son.”

Hyunsoo scoffed, “You have a name for her already? Does Hanbyul know?”

“We discussed it on our second date.” Hyunwoo grinned, unfazed by Hyunsoo’s judging eyes. “I’m shameless like that. A true fool in love to the core, my friend!”

Hyunsoo pondered upon the issue for a moment, only a single moment, before dimples dropped by to greet Hyunwoo as he said, “Then I’ll just have to make sure Cha Myungsoo will be up to such an arduous task.”

Before they could continue to talk about their — then nonexistent — pride and joys, happy what ifs and hopeful maybes swirling in either male’s mind, Hyunsoo’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it from his jacket without another thought, only sparing a glance at his mother’s text before slipping it back into his jeans. His bobbing Adam’s Apple, however, gave away the fact that the message was anything but irrelevant. 

Peaking over his shoulder, Hyunwoo asked a tentative, “What’s wrong?”

Hyunsoo shrugged, too tired to talk about it but too mindful of Hyunwoo’s worry for him to not, “The Hunters' flight just arrived at the terminal.”

“Your father’s still considering it?” Hyunwoo tipped his head back, balancing his upper body on the balm of his hands, finding his next words to be the epitome of unusual, “An alliance between a Werewolf family and the Hunter Faction. To what ends?”

“He says he’s making precautions for our family’s future.” Hyunsoo mimicked his action, eyes catching sight of his half-full can of beer beside Hyunwoo’s legs. His tongue suddenly craved the bitter taste, no matter how “fun” he was without it. “But even my airhead of a brother-in-law knows that’s bull.”

Another moment went by before Hyunwoo asked, “You’re not going?”

“Today’s quite possibly the last time I’ll see my best friend for another year.” Cha Hyunsoo met eyes with Park Hyunwoo, forcing down his troubles for the sake of forcing a smile upon his face, “I’m not going anywhere.”

As they talked about all kinds of things, both big and small, Hyunwoo didn’t have the heart to tell Hyunsoo he was never coming back. And Hyunsoo, in turn, never got the chance to tell Hyunwoo about the impure female werewolf he fell in love with the following month — instantly and easily and everything he'd imagined it to be and more.

A/N: Someone asked about Hakyeon's mother's (Seoyeon: as named in this chapter) and why she seemingly disliked Hyunjoo's father. Thus, this chapter was born! Since it came quickly, I'm sure you enjoyed it despite it not dealing with the characters we've already come to grow and love! You did enjoy it, right?

♫ It's Not Unusual ♫ 

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