A week after transferring to his new school, Kim Hanbin is convinced he’s in some weird, alternate universe of that Heirs drama. Constant talk of stock and who’s currently dating the president’s son flood the small halls; the latter eventually reaching the media. Everything is so superficial, its nauseating.

Of course Hanbin is the top gossip as soon as he steps foot through the doors. He’s like the Shin Hye Sung of this version, humble and a bit on the naïve side,-only he’s the son of a well-known politician instead of a child of a poor, mute maid and he’s met with warm welcome in place of skepticism. The girls already throw themselves at him for his looks and status; the guys, even if there is a shred of envy for all the female attention, admire and covet his athletic stats from his former high school.

Faculty, staff and students alike consider him an impressive addition to the school. But Hanbin knows no school isn’t ran by an alpha, and it doesn’t take long to find out that alpha comes in the form of Kim Jiwon. He and his boys are the ones who seem not to be in his face, choosing to watch from afar as the entire student body crowds Hanbin between classes. With his steely, tough guy stares, disheveled uniform and cigarette box-pockets, Hanbin easily pegs “Bobby” as the Kim Woobin of the school.

Then at the end of that week, on a Friday, Hanbin is walking into class and Bobby, who could have actually tripped him on his way in, finally speaks to him for the first time.

“Hey punk.”

Sighing because he knew he couldn’t avoid him forever, Hanbin pauses. His hands dig deeper into his pockets.

“Do you dance?”

Frowning a little, Hanbin turns around. “What?”

“I said do you dance?”

By now the entire class is watching and tittering. However, the usual smirk on Bobby and his goon’s faces is absent. It looks like there will not be a showdown between two alphas, but an alliance. If Hanbin is compliant at least.

The new boy thoughtfully studies the three before assuring himself there’s no malicious intent. “Yeah. Why?”

Bobby shrugs. “You walk like you can dance. I assumed you could.”

“How does someone walk like they can dance?” Hanbin snorts.

“The same way a walks and you can tell she ain’t no ,” Junhoe, the student on Bobby’s left, snickers. “Isn’t that right, Eunmi?”

In the front of the classroom, the female student with the shortest skirt on record turns on the desk she’s sitting, curls her red lips and flips her middle finger at Junhoe. In turn, he wags his tongue vulgarly between two fingers.

Hanbin rolls his eyes just as Bobby speaks again. “He’s not wrong.”

“Maybe, maybe not. What does that have to do with me though? So what if I can dance.”

“Its not just that you can dance.” Bobby rubs his chin, leaning back in his chair, sizing him. “You’re probably pretty damn good at it.”

The class “ooo”s and “ahh”s in disbelief. Struck by the absurdity of it all, Hanbin ignores them and laughs cynically. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Meet us on the roof at lunch,” Jinhwan, Bobby’s right, says with a pen sticking out the side of his mouth. “Don’t be late punk.”

“That’s not an invitation to the rest of you,” Junhoe adds loud and clear, causing the class to moan in disappointment. “Strict iKON business.”

“What’s iKON?” Hanbin asks, yet the teacher walks in that moment, so he’s forced to take his seat without an answer. Apparently though, he’s asked a dumb question, since every student in the class either shakes their head or squints at him incredulously as they face the front of the class. Behind him, Junhoe has smacked his forehead, Jinhwan rolls the end of the pen between his teeth pretending he didn’t even hear such a stupid question, and Bobby crosses his arms in amusement, staring at the back of “new money’s” head.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

As it turns out, Hanbin’s Heirs theory is credible.

He learns on the roof that Friday that iKON is the name of a discreet dance group Bobby has formed with his buddies, all talented b-boys, singers and a sole rapper. All sons born of wealth, their hobby is nicely funded by their allowances, but comes with the price of consequence if their elite parents find out.

In his recruitment, Hanbin is to be sworn into secrecy, and he also learns just how loosely Bobby (ironically) is bound to confidentiality when Chanwoo accidently spills the beans on their leader’s personal life. Bobby doesn’t have to really worry about disgracing his family since his hyung has birthright to their empire-their father doesn’t care what he does. Junhoe, who’s closest to Bobby, makes it his business to clasp Hanbin’s shoulders to kindly, animatedly elaborate on exactly who Bobby is, which has the boy scowling and walking away to the corner of the roof to smoke and stare over the horizon. With the truth pouring out, Hanbin’s eyes have softened and eased up, trained on Bobby’s backside. Listening to Hanbin, his surprise even fades at the fact that the leader chose to walk away in sheepish irritation over kicking their asses.

Hanbin’s theory is credible and at the same time, off. Bobby is the forgotten son of the wealthiest family in the country, only favored by his sick mother because his father only cares about the son of his late first wife, his heir. Both Bobby and his mother are pitiful and Bobby refuses to see it that way, determined to cure her and make something of himself not to prove it to his father, but to prove to himself that he isn’t worthless.

Its probably a bit much to reveal to a stranger.  Junhoe realizes that too late as he’s scolded by the others, yet Hanbin isn’t fazed. His smile is crooked, subtle when he takes his time joining the other boy on the edge. One hand removes from his pocket to swat the cigarette from Bobby’s lips; his foot ashes it out in the gravel just as quickly. As Bobby whips his head over to let him have it, Hanbin tsks down at the stick.

“What kind of dancer does this to his body?”

“Whatever, .” He kicks at Hanbin’s leg, making him remove his foot from the cigarette. “And I hope you don’t feel entitled to in my business just because those idiots couldn’t keep their mouths shut.”

“Hold out your hand.”

“Huh?”

“Just do it.”

Bobby does it slowly, watching the other boy suspiciously. His brows arch in the next second when the fool bends, scoops up air and heaps it in his hand. He repeats it over and over. “What the hell are you doing?” Bobby asks in aggravation, hand still out dumbly.

Hanbin dusts invisible sediment from his hands, smirking. “Hoping you can hold on to this pile of s I give about your business.” And with that, he walks back toward the others who are busy selecting music for his impromptu “audition.”

Bobby stares after him for a second, curses him, and pulls out another cigarette. Just as the flame of his lighter gets close to end of the stick, he halts.

Another curse, louder, arises from behind Hanbin, and he smiles to himself at the scuffle of Lee Minho’s-not Kim Woobin’s- footsteps catching up to him.

An alpha of an entirely different breed.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

He doesn’t know why he’s dubbed BI. Bobby gives him the name one day, after practice.

“I don’t get it,” he says, toweling his neck and wrinkling his nose.

“There’s nothing to get punk.”

“Watch it, I’m hyung.”

“And I’m sunbae-

“How do you know that?”

Bobby rolls his eyes boredly. “When did you start dancing?”

BI opens his mouth to retort…then all he can do is mean mug the leader, scrubbing his neck raw with that towel.

“Like I thought.”

“But seriously, why? On paper it looks too similar to Bi, like Rain-sunbae. And too close to bi, like biual…”

Bobby’s smile is boyish, though strangely sad. It isn’t even directed to BI, not directed anywhere in particular, and the other boy notices it plainly. BI wouldn’t have been as alarmed as he was if Bobby hadn’t also completely stopped what he was doing to smile all insanely like he did, yet there’s no room to say anything since that’s the time the rest of the group decides to romp over roaring about pizza.

He never does find out why he’s called BI.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

He should have known living as a Brian Puspos amongst b-boys wouldn’t always be picnics and walks in the park. Ideas for choreo often clashed. Using the typical “teach me teach you” approach was just a rung beneath disastrous. Bobby’s temperamental preaching about how a dance group that couldn’t adapt to any dance style wasn’t a dance group at all faded into white noise after a while. But while BI was only a little pissy about not being able to b-boy correctly, the others began to turn on him, calling him the weak link and questioning why he was even recruited-nevermind that aside from their leader, he could spit and was  damn good at composing and producing the group’s performance mixes.

They hadn’t even confronted him about it but BI knew it, he eavesdropped and he felt it when they quieted down at his entering presence. He was about to disappear without so much of a goodbye.

Then in front of everyone, Bobby swooped in like how the cigarette was swatted from his lips, and announced that BI wasn’t going any ing where. Case in point, the elder boy’s shoulder was gripped in place, his face red and downcast.

“You bastards forget this is a brotherhood, don’t you? Well, I’d like to see you try keeping this group afloat without me or him.”

BI would never forget it. They were all in the practice room at Bobby’s mansion. The boys still stared at him with contempt despite their obvious guilt and submission. All except Junhoe, who, unlike the same kid who amiably joked and supported him before, gazed at him hollowly. With the look of someone who knew something precious was being taken away from him right under his nose. Most of all BI wouldn’t forget Junhoe’s face, nor would Junhoe’s expression grow less savage as the weeks passed and Bobby unintentionally gravitated towards the group’s non-b-boy.

Both boys secretly knew what drama simmered beneath the surface ready to erupt, yet it wasn’t enough to sideline their friendship-maybe they could relate in that way among many ways, that they were somewhat selfish. Bobby was a prickly pain in the BI was recklessly getting used to and BI was the piece of pretty boy Bobby was carefully getting used to. As Bobby stressed over and over, BI complimented the group with his dancing. When they practiced together, just the two of them, BI saw in the leader’s wandering eyes how sincere he was about that statement.

But he couldn’t help thinking Bobby wasn’t exactly saying he complimented the group.

Not from the way he would intensely stare at BI during a solo practice slot. Such a possessive, holding stare, BI would bud with goosebumps on the back of his arms. Dancing and breathing felt impossible to do at once.

Aside from that and Bobby’s occasional zoned out, standoffish episodes, BI couldn’t complain. The kid was alright. They had a lot of fun together. To sometimes goof off, they stood across from each other downtown and mirror danced, putting on the “skit” that Bobby was just a punk dancing to his iPod and he was steadily getting annoyed with the copycat across the street; they jooked, slid, and popped and locked their way down the sidewalk, doing more aggressive, complicated moves until they burst out laughing, signifying their affiliation and “truce”. Of course, as Seoul’s top young chaebols, exposing themselves wasn’t too smart (albeit your average Korean didn’t recognize them) so it wasn’t done often. When they did it though, man, BI didn’t know if he or the applauding citizens were more entertained.

At least, he thought that was the highlight.

Then when Bobby introduced him to his true passion for practice, he felt like the boy had finally stripped fully in front of him.

Well, just about really.

“Are you crazy?” he remembered yelling at him over the rolling thunder, and Bobby just grinned maniacally, They were in Bobby’s vast backyard, BI had just met his sick mom, and there they were in nothing but black basketball shorts, barefoot, about to have practice. “What the hell?”

“I dance my best in the rain,” the younger boy had reiterated excitedly, dipping his head back to peer into the dark grey sky. His eyes were twinkling, nothing like BI had ever seen before, when he faced him again. “I mean it.”

“Bro-

“Just watch me.”

And watch him he did. Bobby waited until it was pouring. There was only nature’s rhythm, no man-made music, and Bobby muddied himself dancing his heart out in the middle of that yard.

Something that scary and beautiful and abnormal, BI didn’t know what else like it existed. That the thrill and beauty of it never ceased to lose its touch to him, even after the many times he witnessed or partook in storm practicing with Bobby thereafter-he couldn’t explain it. He could never understand it how Bobby understood it or look as spellbinding as Bobby did doing it yet it was an act so sacred and so binding with the younger boy, he was compelled to be there.

He just knew Bobby heard hip hop in the heavens: percussion in the thunder, cymbals in the lightning, melancholy bars in the howling winds and a beat in the pelting rain. The genius musician of a weirdo heard it, felt its pull, and did what was natural. Even if it meant he’d look like a mental case flailing out in the middle of a semi-hurricane.

Perhaps, the greatest art of it was that it couldn’t be understood like how Bobby understood it.

BI respected and appreciated it. That’s all he could do, and he was content with that.

Who else, after all, had ever bared their soul like that to him?

“Bobby,” he whispers one night, when they’re seated on stones in Bobby’s mother’s garden breathing heavily. The storm is over but neither is ready to retreat to the house.

“Yeah,” he huffs, facing him in winded joy.

BI stares at him hard, noticing how much the younger resembles a rabbit when he’s at his happiest. His navel area puckers. “I’m cold.”

“Wanna hit the hot tub then?” Not waiting for an answer, Bobby jumps up and springs away. Silently BI gets up and follows, allowing the freshly dew-dotted vegetation to brush his skin freely. Once at the hot tub, Bobby is already sunken in the steaming, turquoise water. BI slides in next to him, grateful too for the heat, but unable to help the chills rolling down his back.

Its quiet save for the frogs, BI bothering his bottom lip while Bobby has his eyes closed, relieved to soak his aching muscles.

“Bobby,” he says again, quieter this time.

“Mmm.”

BI pushes away from the wall, water rippling from his movement. He draws up to his friend nervously, pressing his body close so quickly, Bobby’s eyes fly open. At BI’s solemn, timid expression, he rolls his eyes. “Nice try,” he croons, “but you can’t scare me jackass. Especially not out here.”

BI’s lips quirk though not into a smile. He smooths Bobby’s bangs back from his forehead, hand gliding down to hold his cheek.

After gazing at the hand on his face, Bobby goes to stare back at his practice partner. From how he’s looking now, he gets it.

That’s when BI, Hanbin rather, leans in and kisses him hard.

And in doing so he has some possible expectations. He’s basically baring his soul back, letting Bobby in on his best kept secret knowing it could just as well turn out brutish. Or Bobby could be nice about his rejection, so BI doesn’t have to regret trying. Or Bobby could, by some slim chance, thank him in his head for being the one to initiate and kiss him back.

What comes next is so unexpected that BI doesn’t know how to take it. It doesn’t take long for Bobby’s mouth to reciprocate. , his limbs automatically react, arms embracing the other boy’s broad shoulders, thighs and legs hook to his waist. Bobby pulls him closer, so firm that BI can feel his crushing into Bobby’s oddly non-stimulated crotch.

When BI removes his lips from shock, Bobby’s head sinks into the crook of his neck, and the voice the leader uses is so light and shaky, BI’s suddenly aching heart obligates him to embrace him back. His brows furrow deeper the more Bobby speaks.

“Hyung I won’t cry this time,” the boy muffles into his skin. “I promise I won’t cry. Put it in how you want. It doesn’t hurt anymore so I won’t cry ok? I won’t be too loud hyung, ok?” He bucks against him, nails kneading gently into BI’s back. Gestures that seek, BI senses in dread, affection that is illusion.

It damn sure doesn’t sit right with him and he can’t-he won’t-have Bobby this way. Its one thing for the kid to dance in the rain till he caught cold, its another for him to clutch him like there’s a thunder storm inside of him just waiting to be triggered.

BI would never think in a million years that he’d be the one to do the rejecting if something taboo arose between them, but he is.  With heavy heart he tears away, hops out the tub and fast walks back to the mansion before Bobby can come back to his senses.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Junhoe and Bobby are childhood boys so BI isn’t bothered that he would notice the awkward tension between him and Bobby these days. He’s worried that Junhoe will pay too close attention to him and, in the process of trying to figure out what the rift could be, learn that he’s been gay before he became gay for Bobby. There’s nothing necessarily “there” for Junhoe to use as confirmation. BI’s never dated because he’s surprisingly picky. Him being an all-star, an undercover flirt, an A student isn’t a cover up either. Yet there’s something about Bobby’s oldest friend that seems wise despite his comical role. BI doesn’t trust that, nor the unknown of what Junhoe could do with that kind of information.

In the meantime, he could be slapping himself for being so negligent, even though his self-blame is misplaced since he couldn’t have known.

Bobby’s dancer’s body is strong and limber; he rarely injures himself. So it makes it all the more alarming that BI would see Bobby limping into school sometimes. Whatever happened to him, that apparently happened often, had gone overboard that time.

At the private mentions of the limping and the hot tub, BI knows it’s natural for Bobby to clam up, cool out and feign amnesia. Honestly he’d be the same way. However it doesn’t change the fact that he’s mad as hell.

Backstage after one of their underground performances, his anger really shows when he tries to pull Bobby aside and make him explain why he chose to perform with a busted bottom lip. With Junhoe in the foreground of the rest of the speculating members, BI knows he’s hanging onto every word and expression but he doesn’t care at that point. If Junhoe can never grasp that BI is mad that Bobby is suffering, he could believe the lie that BI is mad at him.

“Its not your business,” he says evenly to Junhoe as Bobby storms off tight-lipped. He throws the other boy’s hand off his arm, ready to chase after Bobby’s fading white jersey.

The next thing he knows, that same discarded hand is fist-shaped and knocking him to the dirty floor. Junhoe coolly stands above him shaking out his hand, ignoring the shocked, cursing gasps of the rest of the group. Although once BI registers he’s been hit, the boys’ shifting body languages mean they know they might have to intervene.

“What the , man.” BI wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Leave him alone.”

“I thought I told you it wasn’t your business.”

“You weren’t supposed to drink tonight,” Jinhwan murmurs behind Junhoe, his disapproval going unheard.

Yun makes sure he doesn’t say it too loudly, lest he gets wopped next: “No wonder his dancing was off.”

“Why can’t you just stay in your place? Picking at scabs and don’t even know what the you’re doing.” BI’s picking himself up, glaring at the ornery singer inching toward him. “He doesn’t need you.”

“I don’t care about your history with him,” BI warns. “Its not your business. And if you were half the friend you claim to be, you would have made ‘it’ your business a long time ago,” he adds, now sour eye to sour eye with Junhoe.

“What is he talking about?” Donghyuk asks, looking to the rest of them.

“That’s what we’d all like to know,” Chanwoo pipes.

Junhoe quietly stands there until something in him snaps, and he steps back heaving with silent humorless laughter. The laughter is incessant to the point that BI dismissively calls him a crazy bastard and starts to walk off to find Bobby-and once again he is stopped, Junhoe moving swiftly to jack him up by his collar and mash his face to the elder boy’s.

“Oh ,” Yun whispers.

“So you think you’re the only one that knows, huh?” Junhoe shakes him back and forth, hissing voice rising with every alcoholic-laced word. “Is that what you ing think, you ing loser? You don’t think I’ve practiced with him in the rain? You don’t think I know what it’s like to have him begging me to make love to him?”

Livid at the physical disrespect to himself and the moral disrespect to Bobby’s privacy, BI shoves him away and decks him across the jaw. Junhoe shakes away the pain, charging to him to the floor where the two interlock in a power struggle, both grunting, trying to climb atop the other to wail out on the other’s face. The rest of the group tries to jump in as they were prepared to do, but Jinhwan, the unspoken second in command, holds up a hand so they stop. “Let’s go.”

Donghyuk his head at him wide-eyed like ‘bih you crazy’. “But they’re going to kill each other!”

“Maybe someday, not tonight.” Jinhwan glances at the rolling pair, then gives the group a pointed look. “This has been a long time coming. Let’s go find Bobby.”

There are no further questions. They depart uneasily, all uneasy except Jinhwan, yet they don’t worry too much; eventually, they’ll know what happened. If not, it wasn’t meant for them to know. That’s the way things ran in the iKON squad.

BI underestimates Junhoe’s liquid courage when he remembers Bobby is his objective, decides to quit wasting his time with this clown and ends up bum-rushed through the club’s back door as he’s trying to run out. There’s nothing but a dimly lit, weed riddled parking lot behind the club so BI lands on the concrete, Junhoe atop him. The fight continues, small flurries of snow drifting down to provide irony to the situation.

“Let go of me you psycho bastard!” Mustering up most of his strength, BI flips the drunk boy off of him and pins him down before he can grab him again. “If you keep this up I’m not going to hold back anymore,” he huffs.

“Don’t hold back then,” Junhoe rumbles, his eyes slits. “I won’t.”

“Why?”

“If you don’t get that I ing hate you by now, I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t know what else it will take to make you go away.”

“But...” BI peers down at him, edge softening some. He tries to say something, remaining speechless as the seconds tick pass. Gradually, too, Junhoe’s body slackens under his; the only part of him that actually surrenders.

“You think you know how to fix it, you think its as simple as that just because you’ve gotten close to him, and that’s what pisses me off the most. I’ve been there for him for years and I still can’t fix it, so what makes you so ing special?”

“Who says I’m trying to fix it, you idiot? I don’t even know who’s hurting him so what can I do?”

Confusion flits across Junhoe’s flushed features, then he’s back to scowling. “Well, it doesn’t matter anyway. Just know what you’re doing now is only going to make things worse.”

BI narrows his eyes at him slowly. “I think it pisses you off more that I know so much so early. Whereas it probably took you…”

The scowl deepens. “Probably,” he says lowly, tightly. “So again I ask…what makes you so ing special?”

The wind picks up, causing the flurries to swirl around them. BI picks his head up to watch them, peeling off the younger boy as he does so. Hair whipping wildly, he finally faces Junhoe, who’s sat up as well.

“That’s a good question,” he says quietly.

Junhoe’s anger hasn’t subsided much, but at the sight of the other boy’s lost, shriveled up appearance, he smacks his teeth to himself for feeling like he wasn’t as justified as he felt. “Hey,” he says roughly.

BI turns back away from watching the sky.

“If you think you can turn him out, you’re too late. His hyung made sure of that.”

I figured that much. And apparently he ain’t feeling you like that. “What hyung? Is he someone we know?”

He shakes his head. “If he was a neighborhood hyung or somebody like that, I would have already taken his out.” Junhoe rolls his eyes, stands and rotates his swollen jaw, wincing. “You know who it is.”

BI remembers seeing the heir to Bobby’s family’s cooperation a few times. As far as quiet, stoic, uptight businessmen went, the guy was truly typical. He virtually had nothing to do with his younger half-brother except when the family joined for dinner and Bobby was emotionelessly asked to pass a dish or scolded about causing trouble.

Now in hindsight, BI recalls something untouchable and murky about the guy when he was around him. BI didn’t like the way he regarded him, whether it was the phony half smiles he gave when others were around or the piercing, soul-scrambling stares when they were alone for even thirty seconds.

Thinking about it now, he realizes how different the man’s looks were when directed at Bobby, how much more chilling they were and how Bobby, who normally strutted around with his head high, hunched into himself ever so slightly at the mere sound of dress shoes on marble tile.

BI realizes, sickening himself out there in that desolate lot, that he’s been playing stupid the entire time.

Assessing BI’s far-off squint into the distance and his balled, bruised, trembling fists, Junhoe shakes his head again. Without a word he leaves the boy in the cold, waving off the club employees who try to ask if he’s okay as he enters the building.