Hyukjae sighed as he grabbed the canned coffee from the vending machine. He walked over to his car and looked over the mountains, getting lost in his memories.

The older man had his back turned towards him allowing for a good view of the tattoo on it. Hyukjae scanned the colourful painting of an orange phoenix and flowers around it. He lifted a hand a reached for the man’s back and let his fingers trace over the tattoo. 

Jongwoon stirred a bit and turned around; Hyukjae flinched in surprise as he was lost in his thoughts for a moment and removed his hand quickly from the older man. Jongwoon reached for the retreating hand and grabbed it.

“Say, Hyukjae,” the older man stared in his eyes with a playful smile on his face “Have you taken a liking to me?”

“…Like?” Hyukjae looked intently at his coffee.

Certainly, compared to the start, the longer I spend time Yesung the more I enjoy our time together. I think   I’ve taken a liking to him in that way…  Hyukjae rationalized in his head.

I did plan to end our relationship, but on the other hand, we had gotten closer…

Irritation shrouded his mind and he threw the can in the nearby bin in frustration.

“This won’t do after all!”

He took a couple of minutes to calm down and sighed.

“I wonder if we can’t be just friends…”

There was a rustling behind Hyukjae but he paid no attention to it too in his thoughts. Suddenly someone grabbed him from behind and placed a hand with a cloth over his mouth. Hyukjae was too shocked to react. He just stumbled backwards and trembled as he breathed in the soaked cloth. His head was fizzy.

“Real sorry about this, but orders are orders,”

Before Hyukjae passed out he turned around to see an unfamiliar face of a younger and taller man. 

Am I perhaps getting dragged into…something pro…blema…  Hyukjae swayed as his eyes involuntarily closed.

Slowly Hyukjae came into consciousness and before he managed to open his eyes he felt his hands being restricted behind his back. 

“…ugh,” he carefully opened his eyes and took in the unknown place he was in and the two strangers close by.”…Where am I?”

“He’s up,” Hyukjae blinked, trying to get his vision to clear up. He was in a traditional house and the man that kidnapped him was standing up with his hands in his pockets and next to him was another guy with longish black hair. He looked older than the first guy and way more threatening. He was sitting in a polite yet firm way with his legs under him and his arms crossed across his chest.

“Apologies for the rough treatment,” the sitting man started speaking.

Then something hit Hyukjae as his mind had cleared.

“Are-are you from the mob?”

“Hm…you’re surprisingly calm. I expected you to be more distressed.” The man commented on seemingly composed Hyukjae. 

“Well, I’ve got a bit of an experienced with this sort of situations,” Hyukjae recalled his first meeting with Jongwoon.

“…I see,” the man replied.

Did I do something?  Hyukjae wondered as the serious atmosphere made him sweat. 

He gulped as he focused on the floor.  Perhaps…

“Now, I’ll get straight to the point and ask you,”  

This is someone from the organization that Yesung messed with when I met him.

“Are you Kim Jongwoon’s lover?” 

Hyukjae’s breath hitched and he quickly looked up at the man. “Huh…?”

Then the tense atmosphere in the room was broken by the younger man who started chuckling until he was softly laughing. “, sorry, I just can’t take this anymore,”

Hyukjae was perplexed by the whole situation and was frustrated that he could only just move his eyes between the two men in his uncomfortable position on the floor.

“Kibum-nim, your face is so serious. Also, you’re way too blunt, just asking the poor guy if he’s someone’s lover,”

“Shut up, you moron,” the man, Kibum as the younger man had addressed him, snapped.

The younger man gripped Hyukjae and placed him in a more comfortable upward position. He grasped Hyukjae’s shoulder.

“Come on, look at his face!” He shook Hyukjae a bit in his excitement. “You have to properly explain things,”

Kibum cleared his throat and his face relaxed a bit even if there was no visible change to it.

“Apologies, I may have been too straight forward,” he looked at Hyukjae “Firstly, allow me to introduce myself,”

“I’m Kim Kibum; Jongwoon is my elder brother,” the man explained before the younger man appeared in front of Hyukjae’s vision with a smile.

“I’m the one who brought you here for some reason, Johnny, nice to meet you,” he introduced himself a bit too friendly for someone who just had kidnapped him. 

“You’re Yesung’s younger brother,” Hyukjae repeated more for himself but Kibum answered him nonetheless.

“Yes,”

So he has a younger brother… 

“And Johnny was the one that was investigating why my idiot brother wasn’t returning to the organization,” Kibum added.

“He discovered that Jongwoon was frequently in your house, so he came over. Those are the circumstances.” Kibum finished his explanation and Hyukjae stayed quiet for a bit, going over the information in his mind.

“But you guys, did you have any plan? Coming over to my house…” Hyukjae trailed quietly, trying not to get them mad at him.

“We did not wish to waste any time since, at any rate, we had already left the office to come to the countryside,” Kibum reasoned before sighing.

“To be honest, it’s rather troublesome. After a childish fight between the followers of the same main household, he decided to hole himself up and left the seat of the boss empty,” Kibum’s face darkened and Hyukjae’s shuddered from the menacing aura the man gave off.

“It was enough to cause such injuries, but he’s treating it like it’s a quarrel between children!” He raised his voice before calming himself and breathing out.

“…In the begging I thought he was just sulking because he lost the fight,” Kibum continued “But perhaps it was because he became infatuated with someone like you,” Hyukjae’s feet were prickling from his position and he moved them around to get rid of the sensation in them. Moreover, he felt a heaviness in his chest after the remark from Kibum.

“Yesung-ssi and I aren’t really…” he clenched his hands in despair. 

He was truly just amusing himself by taking me to all sorts of places…

“So do you have that sort of relationship with the boss or not?” Johnny cut straight to the point but was less demeaning than Kibum. 

“That type of relationship…” Hyukjae wondered for a bit “Once in a while…well, we do that sort of thing…that’s our relationship,” Hyukjae didn’t want to dwell too much into finding a better explanation for their relationship.

“But you see… we’re not dating or something like that,” Kibum smiled faintly in content. 

“That’s good then,” Hyukjae furrowed his brows “You’re after all just a toy to him.”

…A toy  Hyukjae lowered his head feeling disturbed by the satisfied face of the man before him.

“With the way things are, I’m unable to face even the chairman of the head family...” Kibum continued composed “And truthfully, I’m having trouble supporting the organization by myself,” the man explained seriously.

“That’s why, Lee Hyukjae, I’m asking you to cut all your ties with the boss,”

“I…” Hyukjae was surprised by the sudden request. If he was just a toy why did that man asked him this.

“As you’re only friends with benefits, this is a simple matter, is it not?”

“Yeah…” Hyukjae heard himself saying but felt unenthusiastic about the idea.

No, this is a good opportunity, isn’t it? Since I’d been thinking of bringing my relationship with him to an end.

Yeah, ending it… 

Hyukjae shifted to get up.

“Hyukjae-ssi?” Johnny called him from the side.

“Yeah…”

I’ll return to my uneventful mundane life…

There was racket from outside of the room and nearing footsteps before the door opened with a smash.

“Hey, Kibum-ah!” Hyukjae and Johnny turned in shock to look at Jongwoon who just entered the room with a bang while his younger brother didn’t move at all.

“Why the hell did you kidnap Hyukjae for?” Kibum gave his brother a look.

“You’re being irksome fellow as usual. But to be honest I’m surprised that you made an appearance earlier than anticipated,”

Hyukjae smiled weakly. “Yesung-ssi…”

Jongwoon looked at him and felt like something heavy fell from his chest.

“Hyukjae, what a relief,” he moved closer to him to untie him. “Are you alright?” He asked with concern while looking at the red wrists of the younger man. He caressed them quickly and Hyukjae thanked him. 

Jongwoon quickly changed his mood as he glared at his younger brother. He shifted closer to him with face darkened and raggedness in his eyes.

“Bastard, how could you do that to someone innocent?”

“What’s gotten you so angry? You do realize that this is because you were ignoring our attempt of contacting you?” The younger brother retorted, not slightly taken aback by Jongwoon’s sharpness.

“Are the people in our organization such incompetent brats that they can’t do anything without a leader?”

“You always have a comeback to what I have to say…”

The other man in the room watched the quarrelling brothers by the side as if they were watching a tennis match – back and forth between them.

“Ahh, you two…” Johnny interrupted them “We won’t get anywhere with you two fighting. Didn’t you say we don’t a lot of time?”

“I suppose so,” Kibum sighed as he quickly felt exhausted from his older brother.

“Hyungnim, due to circumstances, we have to return to the organization by the fast train tonight,” Kibum explained once they had calmed down.

“Isn’t that too quickly? I’ll stay for a week longer…” Jongwoon disputed.

“We have already obtained Hyukjae-nim’s approval,” Jongwoon’s eyes twitched in surprise and then became somber.  

“You’re not even lovers. Why do you seem so baffled?” Johnny asked.

“Your tactics are really deceitful, brother,” Jongwoon spoke as he didn’t look at Kibum.

“Then for today, wait for me just for the rest of the day,” Jongwoon stood up and turned towards Hyukjae. The younger man locked his eyes with Jongwoon.

“I’ll definitely go back with you guys tomorrow,” Jongwoon promised and his brother observed the duo before getting up and exiting the room.