Chapter five: by rssj1314 
"Anything more will only be in your imagination." ~Heechul; Straightforward And Sincere

 

It is probably, most likely, very much definitely an occupational disease when Henry is just sitting around, trying to relax his long term tormented ears, but finds himself oberserving everyone around him as though he's looking through a set of very high definition camera lenses.

 

Jungmo has been trying to come up with all the right interview questions to ask and Donghae is extremely busy trying to avoid Jungmo as best as he can, so now is actually the perfect time for Henry to, well, y'know, slack.

 

"Do you drink?"

 

Henry breaks out of his people watching trance and blinks up into a beautiful set of single lidded eyes. "Where did you learn that from?"

 

A small glass tumbler is set on the table in front of him, half filled with a red-brown substance. Henry stares at it for a while as the bartender takes a seat across from him with a rather heart melting smile. "Donghae hyung. Where else?"

 

It sort of makes sense so Henry doesn't bother arguing against Xiumin's rather assertive tone and accurate pronunciation. "What's this?" He asks, pointing at the drink sitting very still in front of him.

 

Xiumin laughs and pulls out his cell phone, typing away. When he finally shows the screen to Henry, it reads:  "Single malt whiskey, in a coctail. For beginners."

 

"I'm not a drinking amateur." Henry defends himself in a slightly offended manner. Xiumin blinks with emptiness in his eyes. Henry sighs and takes the cellular from him, typing with quick fingers. "After seeing Jungmo and Hyesung get drunk, I've opted not to make a fool out of myself."

 

After reading his message, Xiumin laughs.

 

"It's okay," Xiumin writes him, "Jungmo hyung's not here to laugh at you. It takes a lot of work to make a single malt whiskey coctail; I worked on it for a long time in order to perfect it. Try!"

 

Henry purses his lips. How was he supposed to reject that? A little bit of consideration later he picks up the glass tumbler and tentatively takes a sip. The taste is very strong at first but eventually the fruity sweetness starts to seep in and spread over his tongue. Suddenly, his head feels a little light.

 

Alright, so maybe he's not much of a drinker.

 

"Oishii?" Xiumin wants to confirm, eyes wide with anticipation.

 

For an unknown reason, the expression on the bartenders face, the way he annunciated each syllable in the word, and, well, just everything (and probably anything, really) made Henry really want to laugh. So, he laughs-- loud, hard, uncontrollably as the glass tumbler begins trembling in his hand.

 

One sip was all it took.

 

"Wow," Luna exclaims, exiting the kitchen and walking past the boys. "How many crazy people do we house here, anyways?"

 

Xiumin chuckles and takes the drink away from Henry, taking a small sip of it himself. The taste is decent-- it could be better, really-- but Xiumin is rather satisfied with the outcome of his mixing, i.e. Henry's current state of consciousness. "He's not crazy," Xiumin corrects her, finding Henry's reddened cheeks extremely adorable at the moment, "he's drunk."

 

 

"So, how long are they supposed to be out there?"

 

Victoria chews slowly on the food that Sungmin had just fed her. Being Sungmin's guinea pig has its quirks. "Don't know," she shrugs, taking a drink of water and swallowing her mouthful of caviar. "It doesn't seem like they'll be leaving any time soon."

 

"When are you going to return his shirt?" Sungmin asks with perked interest. He frowns a little, staring at all of his ingredients, before taking a small teaspoon of brown sugar and decoratively splattering it across a dessert plate. "Poor guy could have caught a cold, you know."

 

She chuckles, setting down the glass of water and pouting when Sungmin wants to force feed her another bite of a new dish he's been experimenting with. "I'm full," she argues.

 

He kind of just stares at her, holding the fork up towards her, until she sighs and opens to accept the food. "Shirt. Return. When?" Sungmin repeats himself.

 

Victoria rolls her eyes, cleaning the corners of her lips with a sheet of paper towel. "I don't know. The next time I see him, maybe? By the way, this chicken is a little on the bland side until the rosemary kicks in but the garlic makes it taste burnt or something."

 

"It's always the garlic!" Sungmin hisses in annoyance.

 

She furrows her eyebrows. "Then don't use garlic?"

 

And then Sungmin starts mumbling a whole sputter of words that she isn't quite able to piece together very smoothly so she sort of just spaces out until Sungmin turns to look at her and pulls her back into their conversation. "You know, you say he's good looking and a pretty nice and naive guy... I don't see why you didn't just go for it."

 

"Do I look like one of those girls that take advantage of poor helpless young men?" Victoria scoffs.

 

Sungmin gives her a look. Just when he is about to retort, she raises her palm into his face and stops him.

 

"Don't even. I don't want to hear it." She says, sticking her tongue out at him.

 

The man laughs and turns away. "What'd he do to get into community service anyways?"

 

"Who knows?" She pouts, helping herself to a whisk of whip cream sitting beside Sungmin's plate of dessert. "All I know is that he's an incredibly weak drinker and hauling him back to that work site was a feat in itself."

 

"You just dumped him there?" Sungmin asked, a little appalled.

 

Victoria shakes her head but then nods again. "Well, to be exact, he dumped himself there. I was going to take him into the hotel and get him a room but he kind of collapsed, hugged the grass, and passed out. There was no way I could have carried him on my own and it was too late at night to call someone out to help me."

 

Listening to her animated explanation makes the whole story a little more amusing, as per always.

 

"So that's it? No y one night stand or at least a little bit of passionate intimacy?" He mocks.

 

She coughs on the sweet creamy taste on her tongue and almost chokes. "Anything more will only be in your imagination," she exclaims with gradually reddening cheeks.

 

"Sad," Sungmin feigns a little bit of disappointment. "I thought we were finally going to break you out of the cage."

 

 

 

 

Donghae is, to say in the least, considerably surprised to see how passed out Henry is when he's working his way towards Sungmin's kitchen.

 

"Is it dead?" He asks Xiumin, nudging the bartender with his elbow, who's busy reading an article on a soccer player. Xiumin finishes his sentence before he glances up at Donghae, who's holding a bottle of wine in his hands, and follows the translator's line of sight until his eyes land on the very unconscious Henry,

 

Xiumin whistles. "Nope."

 

"What'd you do? Drug him?" Donghae laughs.

 

Xiumin shakes his head, neck feeling a little stiff from reading in one position for so long. "Nope, but close. I gave him a single malt whiskey."

 

At that very moment, Donghae sees an empty glass tumbler on the table top. "That little thing?"

 

"Just a tiny sip of it," Xiumin nods. "I finished the rest."

 

"What a wuss," Donghae croaks with amusement in his eyes. "Are you just going to sit here until he wakes up?"

 

Xiumin doesn't answer. Instead, he sits up in his seat, erects his back, and blinks up at Donghae. "Hyung! Teach me Japanese!"

 

Staring oddly at the bartender, Donghae crosses his arms over his chest, the wine sitting comfortably in between, and asks, "We're not that close."

 

"You're close to Sungmin hyung!"

 

"So?" Donghae crooks an eyebrow.

 

"And Sungmin hyung is close to Yesung hyung, who is close to me! So, ultimately, you are technically close with me," Xiumin exclaims matter of factly.

 

More amused by his statement than anything, Donghae decides to give in. "Only if you promise to provide me with a good selection of port for Sungmin; you know, help me earn some brownie points or something."

 

"Deal," Xiumin grins.

 

Therefore, they begin their little Japanese session. Xiumin asks various soccer terms, not even knowing whether or not Henry is interested in soccer-- even if Henry weren't though, Xiumin would probably be able to find a way to get Henry hooked into it.

 

About half an hour later, Sungmin comes trudging out of the kitchen with an arm around Victoria's neck. They're speaking rather happily until Sungmin sees Donghae and Xiumin leaning in considerably close to each other, Henry sprawled over the table top beside them.

 

Victoria can literally feel Sungmin's arm tighten around her neck, kind of suffocating her.

 

"Do you want to greet them?" She asks.

 

Sungmin clears his throat, shrugging.

 

Knowing Sungmin, Victoria just smiles and drags him over to the table. She greets Xiumin with a tough pat to the back, making him jump from surprise, and Donghae smiles widely when he realizes Sungmin is with her.

 

"Looks like you boys are having fun," Victoria grins. "Isn't that the Japanese cameraman?"

 

Xiumin nods.

 

Holding out the bottle of wine towards Sungmin, Donghae says, "look what I've got for you! A previous client of mine was visiting the city and brought it to me as a gift, straight from Italy!"

 

The wine is shoved into his arms so Sungmin has to release Victoria and cradles the bottle delicately in his hands. "Your client bought it for you. I can't just take it."

 

"Keep it," Donghae laughs, "you know I don't drink that often anymore. You can either share it with your friends or use it in your food-- I've heard it does really well with white meats."

 

Victoria smiles knowingly. Got it from a past client, huh? Yeah. Right.

 

"Are the two of you headed somewhere?" Xiumin suddenly asks.

 

Sungmin nods. "We were just about to head over to the bar and look for your brother."

 

"I promised them that I'd treat them to dessert," Victoria sighs. "Do you guys want to come along? If I'm going to break my wallet, I might as well destroy it completely."

 

Shaking his head, Xiumin points at the drunk cameraman and explains that he needs to wait for Henry to wake up since he's the one who put him in this sad condition. Donghae, on the other hand, is more than willing to tag along with them.

 

As they head towards the bar, Victoria makes certain that Sungmin is standing in between Donghae and herself. She disconnects herself from them entirely when they spot Yesung behind the counter; as quickly as she can, she runs up to Yesung, links an arm around his, and drags him out to the front where Sungmin and Donghae are.

 

"Looks like we've got new company," Yesung smirks, eying Sungmin teasingly.

 

Sungmin sort of just glares at him dangerously. Donghae grins and waves a small wave at him.

 

"Ice cream?" Victoria asks.

 

Yesung scoffs and turns his head slightly to look down at her. "Hah, you wish!"

 

"There's an Italian dessert shop just down the street," Sungmin says, "they've got the highest quality gelato and the fanciest collection of cookies I have ever seen. Maybe we'll be able to enjoy a bit of this wine Donghae has provided us with."

 

Hearing Sungmin's comment makes Donghae grin even wider.

 

Victoria and Yesung exchange a look. If breaking her wallet means entertaining her best friend and his love interest, then why the hell not, right?

 

"Sounds good to me," Yesung agrees. "I've always wanted to try their tiramisu, to be honest."

 

The four of them then head out the front door in two pairs. Victoria and Yesung walk arm in arm and Sungmin and Donghae walk side by side. Any other onlooker would most likely assume them to be two couples venturing into the outside world together.

 

Honestly, they wouldn't be that wrong if it weren't for Yesung Kim.

 

"Hey, isn't that your shirt hanging out of her purse?" Kyuhyun asks, elbowing Changmin.

 

Changmin wipes the sweat off of his jawline and glances over towards the entrance of the hotel. "Yeah," he says with a small pout, eyes dimming. "Looks like I won't be getting it back today."

 

They can't tell whether he's unhappy because of the shirt or because of the fact that Victoria seems incredibly close to the men she's taking an outing with. There's probably a little bit of both, Kyuhyun and Yunho presume.