“Kiseop,” I draw out his name in a tired tone as I walk into his room, “You need to come down for breakfast.”

“Get out of my room.”

           I just turn around and leave, not wanting to fight with him so early in the morning. As I start to go down the stairs I grab onto the railing and in that instant I’m overcome with a sharp pain in my entire hand. This cut really hurts! I start to whine on the stairs angered by my own hand. “Move,” Kiseop comes up from behind and abruptly pushes me out of the way. Someone’s in a bad mood.

           As we eat breakfast I realize Kiseop reminds me of a little child. Just by the way he acts. He doesn’t do what he’s told. He misbehaves. He gets angry whenever he doesn’t get his way. Usually I would find this annoying or immature…but it’s almost cute coming from him. “Stop staring at me,” I didn’t even notice I was.

“Don’t flatter yourself.”  I know it’s a lame comeback since it was obvious I was staring at him.

“Um…we’ve been thinking,” My mom motions to her and Kiseop’s dad. “We think you two should spend some time together.”

“We already live together.  Isn’t that enough?” Kiseop says and I agree with him. It’s already awkward enough having to live in the same house.

“Well, we want the two of you to spend the day together.” There’s a moment of silence.

“You’re joking?” I look at both of them and then at Kiseop who has a horrified expression on his face. 

“No. You’re both not allowed to leave the house.” Mr. Lee says rather bluntly.

“We think this is a good chance for the both of you to become closer.” My mom keeps talking thinking she’s sugar-coating the idea.

“I was going to go to the movies with my friends.” Jared, Junsu, Eli and I were going to hang out today. I asked Dongho if he wanted to join us but he said he was hanging out with Soohyun today.

“Have them over.”  Mr. Lee is holding his son’s threating stare.

           Once the parents left I retreated to the couch waiting for the others to come. Kiseop has been glaring at me for the past ten minutes. “What!” I yell out annoyed of him always staring.

 “I don’t want to hang out with you and your friends.” He says with a disgusted expression.

“You think I want to hang out with you? It’s not my fault we’re stuck together.” Kiseop puts his head phones in and blasts the volume on his iPod so I can even hear it a few feet away.

It’s only another few minutes before the doorbell rings. Kiseop gets off the couch and walks into the kitchen and takes a seat on one of the stools. I answer the door and let Junsu in. “Hey. Jared said he’d be here in a few minutes.” He says with a smile.

“Alright.” I lead him into the living room. I sit back on the couch and he sits on the chair closer to the TV. I could tell when he saw Kiseop in the other room by his expression. He seemed to tense a little and become uncomfortable. “Are you okay?” I ask.

“Oh yeah, I’m fine. Um…is he going to be here the whole time?” He asks nodding his head towards the kitchen.  “Oh…yeah. We’re supposed to be bonding. So he can’t leave either. But, don’t worry he won’t bother us.” It’s kind of odd how Junsu almost seems to be scared of Kiseop.

            It’s actually quite awkward being with Junsu today. I don’t know why but his entire personality seems to have changed.  It’s almost like he’s totally miserable being here. It’s a little insulting.

            When the doorbell rings for the second time I’m completely relieved to have someone else here. I sprint to the door and swing it open. Jared walks in texting on his phone. “Hey.” He makes his way to the living room and takes a seat next to Junsu. Once he puts his phone away and notices Kiseop in the room next door he asks, “Why is he here?” His tone is a little obnoxious and it seems to piss Kiseop off. “Because it’s my house.” He raises his voice so we can hear him loud and clear from the kitchen. Jared rolls his eyes.

“What happened?” He points to my bandaged hand.

“Oh, I cut it with a knife trying to make dinner last night.”

“Did you go to the hospital?”

“No…Kiseop said it wasn't deep enough to be serious.” I take a glance into the kitchen and notice Kiseop is glaring at me like he usually does.

           “He would know.” Jared says obvious trying to be a wiseass about something. I don’t understand what he means by ‘he would know’ but it REALLY pisses Kiseop off. I can hear him slam his chair backwards and turn to watch him walk out to the pool slamming the glass door on his way out. The room is fills with an awkward silence. After a few uncomfortable moments I ask, “What was that all about?” Jared just shrugs his shoulders and starts to play with his phone again. Junsu stays quiet but looks somewhat guilty…almost like he knows something I don’t.

           The next hour or so goes by painfully slow. I’m bored to death. And for some reason I find both Junsu and Jared irritating. Junsu definitely seems to up to Jared for some odd reason. I almost feel invisible! They’re only talking to each other! And they’re not even talking about anything worth listening to. Only school gossip and girls, I’m not really interested in either one. I keep myself from straight out asking them to leave because I know that would be really rude.

            After a while Jared’s goes off. He checks it and then says, “Oh, sorry Kevin, we have to go.” I don’t bother asking why, I’m just happy that they’re leaving. “Oh, okay.” I lead them to the door and watch as they walk off.

           Now what should I do? I stare at Kiseop from the window for a little while, but then decide I might look like a creeper and stop. Eli was supposed to come but I don’t know where he is.  I should do something to get back at Kiseop for dumping paint on my head…but what. If I value my life, I shouldn’t touch his cigarettes…I GOT IT! I’ll put blonde hair dye in his shampoo! He always makes fun of me and Eli for having blonde hair, I am kind of curious about how he would look as a blonde.

I run up stairs and find my hair dyes under the sink in the bathroom. I grab Kiseop’s shampoo and dump all of the coloring into it.

           Now what should I do? I glance out the window to see Kiseop is still outside. I walk around my room for a while waiting for a good idea to pop into my head. I text Eli a few times, wanting him to come over and hang out. I jump up and down on my bed, go through my clothes for no good reason, and put my hair put in a dozen little pony tails. I look across the hall and see Kiseop’s door is partly open. Usually he locks it so no one goes in.

           For some reason I think there is something in there calling my name. I get this strong urge to go snoop. I know I shouldn’t but somehow I find myself already going through his things. I go through his clothes which are all black and boring. He has a lot of magazines but they’re all of cars and music. I don’t know why, but I was expecting him to have magazines girls, but I guess he doesn’t. He has a really nice guitar, I wonder if he plays.

            I look under his bed and pull out a box. It looks like an old shoe box. I take off the lid and look inside. Surprisingly there’s a whole bunch of things stored in it. There are a lot of old pictures and a locket. The locket is shiny and golden and in the shape of a heart. I snap it open and inside is a picture of a beautiful women holding an adorable baby. She’s got long curly hair and chocolate eyes. I realize this is Kiseop’s mom. I feel kind of sad remembering how she passed away, and soon my mother will be taking her place. Just by looking at her smile tells me she was a sweet and warm hearted person. I wish I could have met her. She has the same effect Kiseop does. Just by looking at them, you feel draw to them.

            I look at some of the old pictures. Most of them are of Kiseop when he was young with his mother. He did seem really close to his mom. He resembles her so much it is unbelievable.  I don’t know why I want him to like me so badly…It’s not that I’m gay. I like girls…even though I’ve never had a girlfriend. I don’t really find them that interesting, they kind of annoy me. Even if I was gay there would be no way I’d like Kiseop. He doesn’t even have a good personality, and he’s going to be my brother…so that would be weird…

            If I ever dated a girl I would want her to be different. She wouldn’t worry about what others think. She’d be independent and strong willed. She’d have to be pretty but also have a good personality. All the girls at school just don’t really appeal to me…

There’s this one picture that I really like. It’s of Kiseop holding a little stuffed animal Dalmatian. He looks really cute.

            All of a sudden I hear the glass door to the kitchen slide open and then close. I start to panic and quickly try to put everything back in its original position. When I hear footsteps coming up the stairs and dart out of the room, his room is already a mess, he’ll never know I went snooping in his room. I’m able to run in my room and jump on my bed a split second before he reaches the top of the stairs. As he walks past my room he looks in and gives me a weird look. “What?” I ask almost nervous he suspects me of doing something. “Nothing, I’m going to take a shower.” He walks in his room and then comes back out with a pair of clean clothes. He goes to the small bathroom at the end of the hall by both of our rooms. It’s funny I have my own bathroom in my room, but Kiseop doesn’t.

I relax and listen to some music while Kiseop showers.  A few minutes there’s a loud slam. “Kevin!” He sounds pissed. I walk out into the hall and see Kiseop with a mad expression. His hair is golden blonde. I smile in victory. “What?” I ask even though I’m pretty sure I know why he’s mad. He did love his perfect black hair, but he actually looks good as a blonde.

“What do you mean what you little , my hair! I’m going to kill you!” He starts to run towards me and I’m a little fearful about what he’s going to do so I dart down the stairs. “Come here!” He chases after me around the house. I run out side into the yard but sadly Kiseop’s a fast runner. He tackles me onto the grass. I struggle to run away but he’s managed to sit on my stomach so I can’t push him off. “I should rip your hair out.” He says grabbing a handful of my hair and pulling it rather hard. “GET OFF!” I try to smack him in the face but he pins my hands above my head. I struggle but it’s to no use. Suddenly he leans his face down centimeters from mine and I can feel his warm breath on my neck. I can feel my face burn bright red. What the hell is he doing? He notices my blush and smiles. Finally after a few more extremely uncomfortable minutes he gets off and walks back into the house.

            I don’t know why but I got butterflies in my stomach when he got so close.

***