Kyuhyun and I were walking along the busy streets of Myeong-dong, trying to find a good music store. The street was full of people—adults going to their respective jobs and teenagers who were just hanging around. I watched as they entered cafés, walked along the sidewalks, and entered different kinds of shops.

Suddenly, my attention was diverted to a pet store, and my previous plan of finding a music store was forgotten. I dragged a complaining Kyuhyun to the store and listened to the chimes of bell as I opened the door. I let go of the still-complaining Kyuhyun and headed straight to the dogs; the turtles could wait. I stared at the dogs of different breeds. There was Keeshond, Pekingese, pug, Chihuahua, Japanese spaniel, Maltese, and many more. It reminded me of hyung’s nickname for me—rabid dog.

To be honest, I was jealous of my brother. He owned a cat, and they looked happy! Contrary, Ddangkoma only blinks at me (sorry, Ddangkoma; I still love you). I want to get a cat, too, but hyung won’t let me buy one. But a dog is a different story, isn’t it? Ddangkoma needs a friend, too. I took out my wallet and found it, well, full of money, but I still need to buy something else.

I sighed and averted my gaze from the pleading eyes of the dogs which I couldn’t resist. My line of sight then landed on a cat, which looked like Heebum, and I remembered that I needed to call Heebongie hyung to inform him about the current situation. I quickly dialled hyung’s number, and, surprisingly, he answered the phone. He usually didn’t answer when he was busy.

“What is it?”

“The glee club can’t go because they already agreed to join the coastal clean-up, but Kyuhyun will still come,” I reported straight to the point.

Kyuhyun looked at me when he heard his name and mouthed,“Heechul hyung?”

I nodded at him and put the phone on loudspeaker for Kyuhyun to hear our conversation.

“That’s unfortunate. We don’t even need that kid.”

Kyuhyun looked offended and said out loud, “Hey, I’m not a kid!”

Hyung and I laughed at the same time, and hyung told him, “Yes, you are.”

I, on the other hand, asked him, “Is that the part you should be worried about?” Kyuhyun just pouted and stayed quiet while hyung and I continued to laugh.

“Oh, well,” Heebongie cleared his throat and told us in an annoyed tone, “I already recruited four members from the photography club and five from the Buddies in Motion.”.

“Is something wrong, Heebongie? You sound pissed.” I was starting to get concerned. Was our situation really that bad?

“Totally. I will tell you tonight. I need to go.”

“Sure, hyung.” I ended our call and spotted a music store, Audaciti, across the street. A large banner was held in front, with the name of the store written on it. The store looked nice enough. It was simple, and only a few people were coming in.

I looked back at the cute dogs and nudged Kyuhyun.

“I want to buy a dog.”

“I could see that,” Kyuhyun said as I watched the dogs longingly. He probably wanted to get out of the store as soon as possible so he told me that we could go back later. That is if I still have money after I bought what I wanted from the music store. I agreed to his plan, and we headed toward the store with him lagging behind me.

“Hyung, can I sleep at your place tonight?” he asked hopefully as we cross the street.

“Why?” I asked him.

“I just want to.”

 “No,” I replied, not even glancing at him.

“Come on, hyung. I will not hide Ddangkoma again,” Kyuhyun pleaded.

“No,” I repeated firmly.

We reached the entrance of the. I was about to open the door when he asked while whining, “Why not?”

“Because,” I fixed my eyes on him while I held the door knob, “the last time you slept in my house, you and Heechul hyung turned the whole house into a war zone. I certainly do not appreciate getting scolded with the both of you by umma, and I certainly do not want to clean another mess that I did not even participated in making. Understood?”

I didn’t wait for his reply as I opened the door and headed straight to the guitar racks, searching for a guitar. I wanted something simple yet beautiful.  I hated anything too flashy—just like the pink guitar that caught my eyes. Yes, it was cute, but it was something I wouldn’t use in public. It was definitely not my style.

I could have continued to ignore the whining brat beside me, but being the good hyung I truly am, I turned to look at Kyuhyun to confront him.

“Give me two good reasons for me to let you sleep at my house. I’m giving you five seconds to tell me. One….”

Surprised at first, Kyuhyun was able to think of an answer fast, “I could help you compose and....”

“And?” I waited for him to continue.

“And....” He put his hands in his chin in a thinking position.

Running out of patience, I started to count once more, “One, two, three...”

“Wait!” he told me hurriedly. “I will buy anything you want from this store!” Kyuhyun paled when he realized what he just said. He immediately regretted saying the word “anything.” He might be rich, but his money usage was limited. If his mother caught him wasting money again, he’ll get screwed. I remembered once when we went to the arcade, Kyuhyun wouldn’t stop playing and almost spent all of his allowance for the month. His mother found out about it and grounded him for two weeks.

Away from the good memory, I smiled at Kyuhyun  while he shivered at the thought. “Deal!”

“Wait, hyung, let me change what I just s—.”

I cut him off, saying, “What’s done was done.”

He pouted and glared at me accusingly, as if to say, “You tricked me!”

“Hey, don’t blame me. I didn’t do anything,” I told him.

“You knew I would panic! I didn’t even understand what I just said.” I ignored him and went back to searching. I felt him glaring at me, but for a different reason this time—a fury from being ignored.

 “You’re going to buy a guitar? I thought you don’t know how to use one?” he asked, confused. I still couldn’t get used to his fast mood change.

It was true that I didn’t know how to play a guitar, but I heard from a friend that if you were great with piano, you would do awesome with a guitar. I also wanted to compose with a guitar like in the movies. You could go anywhere you want with your guitar at your back, and play it whenever you want.

Have you watched “Midnight Sun”? The girl there was an awesome guitarist and singer. It was quite inspirational yet devastating. “Yes, I don’t, and you’re going to pay for it, not me.”

“Yeah, sure. Then why are you going to buy one?” he asked, using aegyo unconsciously, which made me gag in my mind.

“For a genius, you’re pretty dumb,” I told him. I continued searching on the next display racks, but sadly, nothing caught my attention.

“Am not. You want to learn how to use a guitar, right? You should have just borrowed from my sister. She told me before that learning the basic chords and strumming is a must before buying. It’s waste of money if you give up,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Whatever.” I ignored him and continued to skim through the racks when I saw a black guitar. Plain yet cool. And elegant. Just my style. I was about to reach it when a man suddenly grabbed it.

The guy smirked at me as if provoking me. I gave him a death glare, but the man did not back down. I observed his appearance and noticed a lot of piercing in his ears. He wore too much eyeliner and styled his hair in a Mohawk. He wore a black wife beater, which exposed his not-so-built muscles. He wore simple, ragged pants and black running shoes. He would have given me the expression of a gangster if he wasn’t so thin.

I was pissed, but I decided to just let him be. There was a lot more guitars in this place, and it was not worth the time, though I couldn’t hide my dissatisfaction. The man left. I was about to tell Kyuhyun that we should leave, but I did not find him beside me.

“Cho Kyuhyun! It’s been a long time!” I turned to look where the voice came from and saw Kyuhyun surrounded by three guys near our age.

I hid behind the racks and watched the scene. I could see Kyu’s tense form, and worry spread over me. Were they the people Kyu talked about before?

“Are you ignoring us? How rude! I thought we were friends!” one of them exclaimed, and all three of them laughed. I saw the guy who took my guitar walked to them.

“Oh, Kyuhyun? What are you doing here? I thought you were dead!” he said, sounding surprised.

“Jinki! Don’t be like that! He just transferred to another school because the teachers were not accepting his bribery anymore.” Kyuhyun tensed more from the statement, and Jinki placed his arm around Kyuhyun.

“Yeah, I keep forgetting about that. But you still remember us, right? I guess I should make you remember. I’m Jinki, the small guy right there is Kevin. The blonde one is Sungkyu and that guy who looks Chinese is Luhan.” His three friends protested about the introductions, but Jinki just waved them off.

“Should we do our old tradition? You used to treat us to everything! That’s the thing I missed the most. How about you pay for this guitar in the cashier and come back here after so we can talk?” Kyuhyun stood frozen, but I resisted the urge to come out and beat the living hell out of those brats: Kyuhyun needed to learn to fight for himself. I remained in my position as I watched Kyuhyun open his mouth and then close it again.

I could sense Jinki getting impatient. He tapped his right foot repeatedly on the floor and raised his eyebrow as if to say, “What the hell are you waiting for?

It seemed I was not the only one surprised with Kyuhyun’s reaction. All of us watched incredulously as  Kyuhyun made the most unexpected move, one I would never thought he would have the courage to do. Pride swelled inside me as he took action.

“Leave me alone! Stop treating me like trash, and buy the guitar on your own. I can’t believe how blind I had been, seeing that you don’t look that intimidating.” Kyuhyun turned his back on them and started to walk away. The four idiots stood frozen with their mouths wide open, which was quite funny, I could tell you. Kyuhyun stopped in his tracks and looked at them.

I had to bite my tongue to stop myself from laughing when he said, “Could you please do me a favor? It could also help the people around you if you stop wearing those things.” Kyuhyun looked at Jinki’s clothes with distaste. “It makes you look desperate.” He turned his back with a smirk, and that simple move put Jinki out of his trance.

Jinki let go of the guitar and ran to Kyuhyun. He grabbed Kyuhyun’s arm, and that was when I decided it was the right time to interrupt. I stepped away from my hiding place and moved before Jinki’s punch could connect to Kyuhyun’s face. I caught his hands and gripped it tightly, and the rest that happened was history. Well, I could tell you that the aftermath was Kyuhyun standing with wide eyes and the four idiots lying on the ground, with me standing in the middle.

Acting as if nothing happened, I grabbed the forgotten guitar and made my way to the cashier without saying a word. The cashier asked if something happened because he heard some weird noises. I just gave him an innocent look, smiled, and acted as if I didn’t beat anyone.

“Oh, we were just talking with our old friends. I don’t know why they’re not leaving yet, though. Maybe you should check on them. I’m afraid they are beating each other up since we left them when they were still arguing.” I lied. Lying was not that hard when you were a great actor. Though I didn’t participate in our films, I could say that I was one of the best actors of our crew. Was I too conceited? Get used to it; my brother influenced me.

The cashier bought my words and nodded. He handed me the guitar case (the guitar came with a case), and I handed him the cash in return. I left the store, not even checking if Kyuhyun was following or not. I hailed a cab and climbed inside. Kyuhyun followed suit. I gave the driver my address, and everything turned into an uncomfortable silence.

“Hyung?”  Kyuhyun asked hesitantly.

“You’ve done well,” I told him. He seemed surprised by my sudden random comment.

He blushed a deep shade of red and muttered a small, “Thanks.”

After ten minutes or so—not that I was keeping track of time or anything—Kyuhyun mumbled something I could not understand.

“Speak louder. I can’t hear you”

“I’m sorry for being a burden,” he said loudlier. I stared at him for a few seconds and sighed.

“What’s there to be sorry about? You’re finally growing up, and that’s great news. You should be proud of yourself because I sure am proud of you.” I smiled at him softly and ruffled his hair playfully, which he answered with a smile.

“You should teach me how to fight sometimes, Yesungie hyung,” he told me with a playful gaze.

“Sure, if you’re willing to undergo the same training I had from Heenim.”

Kyuhyun shivered and replied, “Never mind.”

I just laughed at his reply, and we just chatted until Kyuhyun fell asleep on my shoulder. I watched the scenery as the cab passed by houses and trees. I couldn’t help but think, Finally, the day will be over.

The cab reached my house, so I woke Kyuhyun up. My house was neither that big nor was it that small. Our family liked to keep things simple despite our social status and weird personalities.

About our social status, I feel obliged to tell you that our family owned the famous “Y Style” company which sold eyewear. We were also planning to sell bracelets (designed by me) and maybe necklaces as well. We had branches in different countries, and a chain of stores in each country. Aside from that, we had a café, which was distributed to me, hyung, and umma. Umma ran three cafés while I ran only one. The same went for hyung, but I considered myself the owner since he was too busy to take care of it. Appa single-handedly ran our company, though it was no secret to us, his family, that he passed most of his desk job to his most loyal secretary. I found it quite weird myself that we only owned five cafés (as if that wasn’t enough), but there was a reason behind it.

Umma complained one dinnertime that she hated feeling useless at home and demanded a job from Appa. Appa obliged, of course, but he didn’t want her to help him run the company because it was too hard and boring. That incident resulted to us running cafés. Though why am I obliged to tell you all these was also a mystery to me.

Kyuhyun and I climbed out of the cab and walked from the front porch to the door. Our front porch was filled with different flowers planted by my umma. She always found time to take care of our garden despite of how busy she was taking care of her cafés.

We reached the door, and I opened it. There, I found a lot, and when I said “a lot,” I meant a lot. Did that make sense? There were eighteen pairs of footwear, and that made me want to run away from my own house.

Kyuhyun followed my gaze and said, “Woah! That’s a lot of shoes.”

I wanted to strangle Kyuhyun for speaking too loudly. My plan of running away was flushed in a drain when I heard someone coming toward us. I panicked and tried to think of an escape route, but it was too late.

Sunny appeared, and I saw her face brighten from the sight of us. “At last, you’re home! We’ve been waiting for you for a long time. It’s also a good thing that you brought Kyuhyun with you.”

Forget what I said about this day finally getting over.

This is going to be a long night.

Comments are appreciated. Should I still continue this story? Please give me your thoughts. T-T