“You’re ing my sister!” Kyuhyun shouted, being held back my Kangin, Donghae, and Yesung.  “How the hell did you think I’d react?”

            Heechul was standing across the room from him, as Kyuhyun had just about tackled him and started swinging wildly in the air trying to hit him, and he hadn’t settled down much since.  Ahra and Ryeowook were standing off to the side next to Sungmin and Eunhyuk, who were too shocked to react yet, while Leeteuk stood next to his brother.  Yunho and Boa still stood at the other side of the table, confused and silent.

            “You need to calm down, Kyu,” Leeteuk told him.

            “Are you on his side?” Kyuhyun asked, exasperated.  “You don’t seem very shocked by this.  Did you know?”

            “I didn’t know, but I’ve suspected something for a while now.”

            “And you’re okay with your brother and cousin getting it on together?”

            “I want their happiness more than anything else, even if it is a bit of a sticky situation.  But they are not blood relatives, when it comes down to it,” Leeteuk pointed out.

            “He’s been her legal cousin since she was a baby!” argued Kyuhyun.  “They were raised as cousins.”

            “We rarely saw each other when we were young.  You’re mother put her into camps whenever she wasn’t in school to further her education and to improve her music skills and by the time we were teenagers, I was usually away acting.  She was almost an adult by the time I spent any legitimate amount of time with her and I fell for her immediately,” Heechul argued back, tears welling up in his eyes.  “I fought my feelings for her for a whole decade and still I couldn’t convince myself to stop loving her.”

            “If you survived that long, you should have kept going instead of ruining her innocence!”

            Heechul raised his eyebrows and glanced over at his beloved cousin.  Everyone in the room who’d been around the house for a while knew that Ahra had a variety of lovers in the past and innocent wasn’t quite the right word to describe her.

            “Kyuhyun, I wasn’t exactly a , you know.  I’ve been with—”

            “Shut it!” Kyuhyun hollered.  “I did not ask you to defend him, did I?  I mean that uous relationships are about as disgusting as you can possibly get.”

            “Except we’re not actually related,” Heechul pointed out.

            “You’ve been cousins almost your entire lives—since before I was born—and that still makes this whole situation sickening.  How do you think the family would take this?  What would your fans think if they knew?”

            “Don’t you think I’ve never thought about that myself?” Heechul asked, walking closer to Kyuhyun until his brother grabbed ahold of him.  “I spent years dealing with the guilt I felt over my feelings, which I assumed were completely one-sided, for years.  You don’t know how many times I tried to distance myself from her only to find her depressed because she felt I was rejecting her.  I didn’t know what to do!  I had no one to talk to about it because I was so ashamed of feeling this way.  But I can’t ignore it anymore!”

            “You should have let her hate you then,” Kyuhyun concluded.  “It would have been better than letting her fall in love with someone that she shouldn’t have feelings for as well.  You could have stopped it from happening if you’d stayed away.”

            Heechul nodded.  “You’re probably right.  I could have.  I could have broken both our hearts.  For a long time, I thought I was the only one who felt anything.  If it were just me, I would have walked away.”

            “He did walk away still,” Ahra said.  “For this last year, we fought about it.  I wanted to see him and he refused to let me.  He finally caved when we both came here.  I’ve made it impossible for him to stick with his plan.  It’s my fault.”

            Kyuhyun closed his eyes and shook his head.  He was beyond reasoning with at this point and he knew that he needed to calm down and think about it before he said anything else to either of them.  “I need to breathe.  Let me go.”

            Donghae released him, but Yesung and Kangin knew better than to trust him so easily.

            “I promise I won’t touch him.  Let me go so I can leave.”

            Leeteuk nodded to Kangin and Yesung, who released him.  Kyuhyun turned and headed for the door.  He stopped suddenly, turned around and walked to the middle of the room.  He grabbed Ryeowook by the wrist and then dragged him along with as he marched out of the dining room.  Ahra immediately left and headed upstairs while Heechul and Leeteuk walked out of the room and into the living area to talk alone.  The room was utterly silent for a stretch until Sungmin finally sighed loudly. 

            “Well, Ryeowook slaved away at this all day, so I’ll be damned if I let it go to waste just because of a little family problem.”

            “A little family problem?” Yesung asked.

            “Well, we all know that this really isn’t that odd.  Something like this always seems to happen when the whole family gets together,” Sungmin pointed out.  “Come on, everyone.  Let’s finish dinner and then Yesung and I will clean up.”

            “I’ll help too,” Boa volunteered.

            “So will I,” Yunho chimed in.

            “Splendid!  We’ll have a cleaning party!”

            And with Sungmin’s encouragement, the rest of the group sat back down to eat.  No one heard from Heechul, Ahra, Kyuhyun, or Ryeowook the remainder of the night, leaving the house rather quiet and dull.

            Ryeowook looked around, but could see very little in the darkness.  It was a new moon and, were it not for the headlights, he might not have seen anything at all.  Kyuhyun was tense, his knuckles white as he gripped the steering wheel hard.  He looked straight ahead without saying a word since they’d hopped into his SUV and drove away.  It had already been nearly fifteen minutes of silence and Ryeowook was beginning to wonder what his plans were.

            “Where are we going?”

            Kyuhyun took a deep breath, but already seemed to be settling down.  “We’re headed to the hotel in the next town over for the night.  I need to get away and I’ll be damned if I’m leaving without you.”

            Ryeowook reached for Kyuhyun’s hand and pried it off the steering wheel.  He threaded Kyuhyun’s fingers through his and squeezed.  “I’m glad you brought me with.”

            Kyuhyun brought their hands up towards his face and kissed the back of Ryeowook’s hand before setting their hands down in his lap.  “I’m sorry I ruined dinner.”

            “Whatever set you off?  How did you know?”

            “Everything just came together in my head suddenly.  I probably would have suspected something even before now had I not assumed they’d never become romantically involved because they’re family.  And they may not be blood relatives, but they’re still family, Wookie.  That’s what makes this whole thing hard to swallow,” he explaine