Chapter 3

Hyukjae sat on his bed, contemplating the new things he just learned that morning and the night before. He sighed as he sat there on his white, leather desktop chair, his head thrown back and his eyes closed. It all felt sort of surreal. Just two days ago, everything was so easy, so smooth, and so ordinary. Nothing was out of sort. Right now, everything felt like it had been flipped over, just because of that one particular moment of seeing his unsuspicious and holy good president kicking a defenceless kid in an alley. Adding the fact that Donghae had reasoned he did what he had done because the kid was spying on him under his uncle command just muddled things up even more.

Confused would be an understatement if it was to be used in defining what Hyukjae was feeling.

Again, Hyukjae thought hard.

Lee Donghae, this normal, perfect role model student in school, someone who was so easy to read, like an open book. People expect great things from the likes of him, good, admirable things; he gave them exactly that every single time. He gave them what they expect of him, only that. He didn’t do something extraordinary, something out of the typical. He was the usual goody-goody that could be found anywhere.

At the moment, he no longer seemed like an open book. He was more like a book that was never read until the end. The one that people found interesting at the beginning but slowly grew bored of because there was nothing special or anything else to be expected. It was predictable, or so they thought. They stopped reading and never knew there was this plot twist that would wrecked their whole idea of the ending of the story. The book was placed on the shelf by them, all the time thinking everything ended up well and clichéd.

Hyukjae was intrigued to pick up the book that was left there to dust; he was suddenly tempted to read the book that everyone thought had gone well and bored just like any other happy stories. He wanted to know what others didn’t, and most importantly, he needed to know what would lead to the happy ending, if there was any.

That was what he was doing; trying to match things up, patch all the holes in his knowledge about Lee Donghae. But, he couldn’t, not by himself, not without the main character of the book.

‘I’m going mental,’ Hyukjae thought, picking up his blue jacket and putting it on while he descended the stairs down to the next floor and out the door. He was going to go meet Donghae, if that was what it took to figure things out and end his curiosity.

Donghae had told him to come with him tonight if he wanted to know more while they were walking back into class after their little talk at recess that morning. Hyukjae had said he would think about it, but not making any promises that he would come. He didn’t planned on going, but he kept on dwelling about the matter and it made him felt he had to go.

Donghae was the closest thing to a friend he had, and knowing his own uncle had sent someone to spy on him made Hyukjae thought something was wrong and he might be in some sort of problem. What was the problem, he was going to find out. After he knew what it was, he would help settling it if it was out of hand. And then, everything will go back to normal, everything will be easy, smooth, and ordinary again.

Hyukjae liked easy, smooth, and ordinary. He didn’t like being caring, though. Caring was what he was feeling, and it made him slightly uncomfortable to feel that way suddenly after so many years of never feeling it.

Curiosity and caring; he wanted to end those emotions and that was the only reason he was making his way to Donghae’s house, he told himself.

He had expected Hyukjae to come and see him, so he had eagerly waited for him outside, bouncing slightly with both enthusiasm and nerve. He wanted to share his little secret with his best friend, wanted to show the other side of him, since he noticed that the other seemed to be intrigued by it; not like Hyukjae would admit that or anything, he knew. There was a glimmering of hope that Hyukjae would like him more, and that was all that mattered to Donghae – a hope. At the same time, he felt nervous because thoughts like ‘what if he reacted badly?’ and ‘what if he fears me after this?’ kept on forming in his head. He tried pushing those away, but they kept coming in another form of question. There was no end to ‘what ifs’, anyway.

Donghae’s pout did not cease as he sat by the sidewalk. His knees were up against his chest and he placed his head on them, his arms as a pillow. ‘This is futile’ he thought as he continued to wait. He started thinking maybe Hyukjae didn’t really bother to know more. Maybe Hyukjae wasn’t interested in him – Donghae almost choke at the thought of that. He shut his eyes, trying to delete that thought.

“Hyukjae’s gay. He is gay. He is gay for me. He is,” he repeated like a mantra, though not so loud. This was his way of motivating himself to never stop hoping. Busy calming himself down, he didn’t realize someone had come up to him.

Hyukjae saw someone sitting by the shoulder of the road, and by the frame he knew it was Donghae, though the boy’s face was hidden. He walked closer until he was in front of the other, hoping to catch his attention but it didn’t work. He squatted down and stared at the mob of black hair. Hyukjae heard whispering from the boy, nothing else was coherent enough except the word ‘gay’, and his brow rose.

“Who’s gay?”

“Hyukjae!”

Both of Hyukjae brows shot up at the shout of his name, “Me?” he asked, incredulous.

Donghae looked up as he shouted out and clamped his mouth with his hand as he looked at Hyukjae. Uh oh! He quickly unclamped his mouth and said, “Hey, Hyukjae! Hyukjae, hey! Hey!” he tried covering his slipped of tongue with enthusiasm. He grinned widely, hoping so hard Hyukjae took it as a form of greeting.

Hyukjae tilted his head, still feeling a bit uncomfortable. His face relaxed after a moment, “Hey, Donghae.” He didn’t hear the soft breath of relief coming from Donghae. “I came,” he continued.

Nodding, Donghae said, “Yeah, you came,” speechless for a moment as he now stared at Hyukjae, who was very close to him. He had thought that the other might not be here and now he didn’t know what to do or say, no matter how eager he felt when he first went outside to wait for the blonde.

“Yes, and?” Hyukjae said. He stopped himself from rolling his eyes when Donghae gave him a confused look. “You said you’re going to tell me more about yesterday.”

Donghae’s mouth formed an ‘O’ before he took on a serious mask and stood up, Hyukjae copied. Wordlessly, he walked, leaving Hyukjae to make the choice of either following him or stay there. The latter followed him.

Silence surrounded them as they strolled around, leaving the small housing area where Donghae lived behind and entering a small town. Hyukjae walked a bit behind, just looking at the other walking with his hands in his pants’ pockets. He looked around after a while, as he realized he had never been to this part of the city before, though his house was not that far from Donghae’s. The place seemed a bit eerie, shops were mostly closed. They were passing 10pm already and maybe that was the cause. When Hyukjae looked back at Donghae, he saw the boy lightning up a cigarette.

“Are you serious?” Hyukjae asked, exasperated.

Donghae stopped and turned, “What?” he retorted, the cigar tugged between his lips.

Hyukjae rolled his eyes before walking up to him and pulled the offending thing out of his mouth, “I can’t believe you are the person who keeps on pestering me about road safety almost every morning,” he said, throwing the cigarette on the pavement and crunch it with his shoe. “Now, quickly explain the things I want to know.”

Donghae had a small smile on his face. ‘So, he did listen to me talking.’ He contained himself from jumping on the spot and put on a neutral face, “I’m going to show you the things you want to know. I need to do something and I’m already late for it.”

“Late for what?” asked Hyukjae, figuring that it must not be a good thing if it needed to be done at night.

Donghae shrugged and make to start walking again, before he remembered something. He pulled out two black masks and put on one, covering his nose and mouth. He held the other for Hyukjae to take.

“What’s that for?”

Donghae sighed; Hyukjae was asking too many questions tonight for his liking. In fact, this was probably the day he had asked the most questions since they had known each other. He took the liberty of putting the mask on for his friend, tugging the elastic strings behind his ears, “How did you think I manage to keep everyone ignorant about this for so long?” he said, before leaving Hyukjae to follow him again.

And so, they continued walking, but not for long. They approached a shop that had the ‘closed’ sign on it, but Hyukjae thought it was better not to ask about it. Donghae placed his hand on the door but didn’t open it. Instead, he turned and stopped Hyukjae from coming in. He told Hyukjae to stay quiet and hidden outside and that he won’t be long inside. Hyukjae protested, saying then there was no point of coming with him.

“It’s not good to go in. I’m not supposed to bring anyone. You can peek from the glass window. There are a lot of things covering you from being seen by those inside.”

Hyukjae sighed and nodded, leaning against the wall near the said window. He watched Donghae walked in before he looked through the window, cursing when it was too dark to see anything. Then, a small light was , near the back, and Hyukjae could see Donghae. The latter was gripping someone’s hand and giving a one arm hug. Hyukjae groaned when Donghae took the offer of a cigarette from the man.

He continued to look, curious about what was being discussed about. Another man handed a steering lock to Donghae before the group of half a dozen men walked towards the door – Hyukjae was sure they were all adults. They didn’t have the mask on like Donghae too. Hyukjae’s eyes met Donghae for a brief moment and a brow was lift by Donghae before the light went off. Hyukjae got the message and hid himself on the side of a vending machine.

Holding his breath, Hyukjae waited until he couldn’t hear any sound of shoes against the pavement before stealthily followed them. He had to duct behind whatever was big enough to block him a few more times, as the men sometimes turned to look around.

The group of men stopped in front of a house. Not as big as Hyukjae’s, more like a house of the middle class, though it was apparent that the owner was quite wealthy. Hyukjae watched closely what they were going to do next. One of the men placed his hands against the brick wall and squatted down, and Hyukjae was shocked when Donghae stepped onto the man’s shoulder, jumped to grip the edge of the tall wall and climbed over it with ease. He was awed because that was a high jump, and the rest of the small troop needed more boost.

Hyukjae was wary whether to move on and continued to see what they would do or staying there and just wait. He was so tempted to watch what Donghae was about to do with the steering lock he had been holding since leaving the shop. So, leaning into the temptation, Hyukjae went to peek through the house’s gate. The gap was small enough to assure him that he wouldn’t be seen.

The men were surrounding a car under the porch. Donghae had taken his mask off, Hyukjae noticed. The boy had a peculiar glint in his eyes, he seemed wicked, devilishly. Hyukjae couldn’t take his eyes off him, he didn’t even blink.

Donghae gripped the steering lock with both hands and brought it up like a baseball bat. Despite being hidden so well in the dark, he seemed to know where Hyukjae was, because, he locked his gaze with the other, the atrocious glint still there, and he smirked at him. Right before he swung the steering lock down onto the Mercedes. The car’s alarm went off but Donghae continued hitting it, the other men kicking the side and one stood aside and watched with a smirk.

Hyukjae still didn’t blink. He was speechless since Donghae gave him that smirk. The only sound that was clear to him was the erratic beating of his heart against his ribcage that almost hurt. Why did he felt so attracted to this and couldn’t stop staring?

Well, an update after 2 months. Sorry. I am a bit free now, after a hell of a two weeks assignments. Plus, it was EunHae Day yesterday, so I knew I need to update this. Hope it's better. You got to see another devilish!Hae. How are you liking him so far? Right now, I'm trying to balance the story with between cute!hae and devilish!hae. While pondering about the plot, I found one, but it contained more angst than I originally planned. So, I hope you don't mind that. Anyway, do you think we're progressing at a nice pace or am I too fast?