First of all, thank you sooooooo much for those who helped me by responding to my request for help and had given your opinions!! ^^ I really do appreciate you guys' help, and I will try to do better for the following chapters!! For now, enjoy~

"You're late,"

Seungri was walking to the stairs to go to his room when he was greeted by Seunghyun's mother. He turned around, and faced the lady who was sitting on the sofa. The woman was expecting him to reply anything, but Seungri only stared at her impassively.

"Well, aren't you going to tell me where you've been..?" Still, there was no answer from the boy with brunette locks. But Haejin, mid-30 reaching 40, was a woman with patience. It's never easy to have the son of the man you love completely ignores you the first year you married his father. So more or less, she had gotten used to not getting any reaction from her stepson like this.

"I hope you're not associating yourself with bad kids, wouldn't want another rebellious child in the family, would we..?"

Seungri visibly rolled his eyes hearing Haejin talked about her son like that. "You're seriously blaming Seunghyun on that..? Don't you know that bad kids come from bad parents, bad parenting, broken homes,"

"Then who else is to blame..? Me..? Your father..?" Haejin had always known that their marriage was never approved by both boys. Seunghyun showed his protests by making sure he gets detention at least thrice a week since elementary school. And Seungri, well.. He chose to hide his feelings from everyone.

Haejin had pointed these unusual behaviour of their children to Myungsoo. She could somehow sense that her own child and stepson had came to hate her. However, her husband had shrugged the issue off, assuring her that time will change everything, so she need not worry. So Haejin had been waiting.

But it's been 12 years..

"Seungri, can we talk..?"

Seungri actually had scoffed, and with cold eyes he said to her, "Stop trying to be my mother, you'll never be one in my eyes," He turned without caring to see Haejin's response and started walking towards the staircase.

"Happy birthday," 

Seungri abruptly stopped. Haejin's voice was barely audible, but he managed to hear her. "I thought of buying a gift, but I figured that you'll hate it.. So I decided against it,"

Then light footsteps were heard leaving the living room as Haejin walked to the other direction to her room. Seungri stood still on his feet, clueless on what to think or feel anymore.

If it was his old self, he would have felt nothing, and uncaringly leaves the woman even before she was starting to speak. But..

Recently, Seungri had started to feel things.. He had always felt plain and numb to everything before, but these days he'd been experiencing new feelings on a few occasions.

The chilly sensation of the cold temperature due to the rain when Jiyong had thought that running in the rain from the school to Seungri's car would be fun. He felt a sweet fluttering feeling in his heart too, as they sped through the bad weather, hands intertwined with each other.

The warm radiating from the body next to him that one afternoon Jiyong was sitting near him, assisting him on how to solve the question. He felt a sense of assurance, being near the one he loves really does boost his confidence. 

The irritation of seeing Seunghyun patting Jiyong's head when the older guy had bumped into him at the cafeteria. And the satisfaction of seeing the older guy cursing loudly to the top of his voice because somebody had pushed his beloved motorcycle that he had parked safely until it fell to the ground. 

The slight tug in his heart while he watched Jiyong cries, when his not-boyfriend was focusing on the movie they were currently watching inside his room. The tingling feeling when he watched Jiyong's teary eyes and red puffy cheeks, when he scolded Seungri for not focusing on the movie and letting Jiyong cry all by his own. Cute.

The old Lee Seungri would probably feel disgusted at him, but it was who he was becoming now. It was who he should have been. It was who he would have been if things didn't happen the way they did.

He lowly sighed, and continued his pace to climb up the staircase. All the while wishing that Jiyong would know how to help him tomorrow.

It was during lunch on the next day, when Jiyong had pulled Seungri by the hand to one of those empty never-been-used classrooms. Apparently, he had setup a birthday surprise with a small self-bake chocolate cake and a candle on top of it. Seungri was clearly surprised, because Jiyong seemed to have forgotten the date since this morning. (Even though Seungri may or may not have dropped some hints to him because Seungri may or may not want to hear his not-boyfriend wishes him 'Happy Birthday!'..) It turned out Jiyong was only pretending, and of course Seungri had kissed Jiyong after that. A sweet lovely innocent kiss, because Jiyong was just so sweet and cute with his adorable smile as he exclaimed, "Surprise!!".

How could Seungri resist not kissing him?

The cake was delicious, and Seungri complimented the taste not because he's biased, he had came to accept the fact that Jiyong was truly amazing when dealing with food.

Jiyong had prepared the food on a mat that was laid on the floor. He actually took some effort in pushing the tables away to clear out the middle space in the classroom. Seungri had made sure Jiyong know that he really do appreciate Jiyong's sweet efforts. So he had kissed the adorable boy again, and they took the kiss on a slow pace, taking their sweet time to explore each other, tasting the remnants of chocolate cake in each other's mouth.

Hands were roaming on each other as Jiyong moaned when Seungri's hands went to his and squeezed them. The Ice Prince had taken the opportunity to let his tongue enter Jiyong's intoxicating cavern. The pleasure from their kiss was melting Jiyong's insides, sending delicious shivers to his spine with the skillfulness of Seungri's tongue and touches. Counting the number of times they had kissed, Seungri had turned from 0 to 10 in the grades of a kisser throughout those kisses. (Like they say, practice makes perfect.)

When oxygen finally became a necessity, they reluctantly pulled out of the kiss and lied down next to each other on the mat, side by side. Seungri took this time to ask for Jiyong's opinion, as he caressed Jiyong's hand that he was holding.

Seungri told him everything that happened last night as soon as he arrived home after going out with Jiyong.

Yes, he was with Jiyong last night. For all the moment he treated Jiyong like nothing in school, he'll pay them back by granting any of Jiyong's wishes. So last night, a trip to amusement park it was. Seungri had actually rented the whole place -- to which Jiyong had scolded him, because to him that is money-wasting -- and Jiyong had forced him to play with him on every ride existed there. Surprisingly to Seungri, it was very fun, and Jiyong looked so happy.. Remembering the pure excitement on Jiyong's face last night as they went up the Ferris wheel, kind of eased Seungri's mind a bit.

Jiyong listened throughout the whole story, and when Seungri had reached the end, he asked, "What exactly do you want me to help you with..?"

Seungri sighed frustratedly, "I.. I don't know.. Perhaps you should start with telling me my real problem...?"

Jiyong drew in a breath and slowly let it out, "Okay then, first of all, I think yo