In which Kangin almost spent the night in jail.

It was the mark of a true gentleman to be able to stand tall in any situation.

Kangin deliberated on this quaint piece of wisdom as he watched his friend smoothly navigating the dangerous waters of a parley with a grim-faced police constable. That Choi Siwon was a gentleman through and through was a fact impossible to contest; it was discernible in everything he did, from the way he dressed and carried himself, to his cultured voice, refined speech, and impeccable manner. Even in this dingy setting, with an underpaid officer of much inferior status as his interlocutor, his trademark poise and civility remained firmly above reproach.

Which was why, as unfavourable as the current situation might seem, Kangin was fairly confident that his predicament would end in a matter of minutes.

“This way, sir.”

The constable sounded resigned, if a bit resentful. Kangin quickly rearranged his position on the hard, wooden bench which constituted the entire furniture provided in the holding cell, and closed his eyes, feigning a light doze.

“If you do not get up in the next three seconds,” Siwon’s less-than-amused voice firmly cut through his pretence, “I will gladly let you grace this place with your presence for another night.”

Cracking open an eye, Kangin grinned at the tall man frowning down at him. “Moments like this remind me why I treasure our friendship so much.”

“Oddly enough, they seem to have the reverse effect on me,” was his friend’s dry retort. “The next time something like this happens, I’m not going to lift even a finger, let alone make a visit to a prison at such an unearthly hour only to pay your fine.”

“That is what you said the last time too,” Kangin murmured, slowly rising to his feet. The door had been unlocked and the constable was now standing at a respectful distance, away from the two of them. Clearly, the memory of Kangin’s rowdy arrival earlier that night was still fresh in his mind.

“Come,” Siwon said with a sigh. “It’s almost four in the morning.”

“Four o’clock in the morning is nothing to you when you are wooing a lady,” Kangin muttered, following his friend out of the police station to a fog-riddled London night—or early morning, as it was.

“Well, unless I have been very much deluded in the last ten years, you are not a lady, are you?”

“Thank you, dear friend, for confirming my position in your priority ladder,” he said wryly.

A coach was waiting for them outside, along with a coachman and a groom who quickly jumped in attendance at the sight of their master. Kangin could finally feel a wave of relief wash over him once he had been safely ensconced inside. Putting up a brave, cavalier front might be somewhat of his specialty, but a prison was still a prison, even for a man of his calibre.

“So,” Siwon spoke again once the coach had started moving along the cobblestone street, "do I want to know what sort of catastrophe it was which landed you squarely in a prison cell? If I remember correctly, you were about to play cards when I left.”

Kangin shrugged, mood rapidly souring once more. “Just some kid being annoying.”

“It fails to explain why I am bailing you out of jail at four in the morning.”

“He started it.”

“Started what, precisely?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Kangin said brusquely, closing his eyes to signal the end of the discussion.

“Fine.” Siwon sighed and settled for silence for the rest of the journey.

 

In which Kangin found himself bullied by his own servant.

After spending the majority of the next day in bed sleeping and seething in silent frustration, Kangin came to a decision that he would leave town for a while. Whether it had anything to do with the adventure of the night before (as well as the humiliating defeat leading to said adventure) was not something he liked to dwell upon, and so he chose to ignore this aspect of the matter entirely. Kim Youngwoon did not run away from anything, and certainly not from a thoroughly impudent young man who beat him at card through deceitful means.

The next morning found him leaving the hustle and bustle of London under the pretext of a business trip. No one outside the close-knit circle of his small household needed to know the truth—that he was, in fact, retreating to his summer house in the country despite the early season.

Or hiding, as Siwon called it in his letter three days later, to which Kangin wrote a reply of five words that would definitely be frowned upon in polite company.

After one week of nothing but nature and solitude, however, the prospect of going back to town (and consequently facing all the unpleasant aftermath of his disgrace) began to sound not quite as repulsive as it had been. After a second week, boredom was steadily and surely driving him closer to the brink of madness with its absolute lack of anything to do.

That and the endless display of touchiness from his manservant.

“If you can’t make an effort to smile when you come into my room, then for the sake of everything that breathes, don’t come in at all.”

“You are in need of dressing, sir,” was the coldly polite but clearly petulant answer.

“I can bloody dress myself if I have to,” Kangin retorted, which only prompted a look best described as disdainful scepticism from his valet. Lee Hyukjae might have chosen valetry as a profession, but their close age and the fact that they had once been childhood playmates had brought their working relationship to a somewhat unusual—even questionable—ground.

In other words, there were times when Kangin felt unsure if he was truly the master between the two of them.

“It’s just for a few days,” he heard himself speak again when it became clear that Hyukjae had no intention of replying. “We aren’t going to stay here forever.”

“By definition, sir, thirteen is not a few.”

That tone of voice would have earned any other valet an immediate and dishonourable dismissal. Instead, Kangin resigned himself to suffer Hyukjae’s ministration in silence as the younger man pulled and tugged at his clothes with more force than necessary. Kim Youngwoon, a formidable man by any other standard, could not even raise his voice to his own servant. He would have been the laughingstock of the entire society should any word of this ever leak out.

Still, he never wondered if this unusual lenience had anything to do with how he had watched Hyukjae’s father drown eighteen years ago—or how he had pressed Hyukjae’s face against his chest so the younger boy would not see. All he knew was that some higher power had seen it fit to throw their lot together, and the unfortunate result was that he would have to endure the full brunt of Hyukjae's wits and occasional tantrums for a very long time.

“My point stands,” Kangin said again as Hyukjae moved toward the dressing-table to fetch a brush. “This is just a brief stay. We’ll be back in London before you even know it.”

“It doesn't change the fact that a few days wasted are a few days forever lost,” Hyukjae pointed out grimly, slapping the brush against Kangin’s shoulder. “In a battlefield, matters of life and death are often determined by seconds, let alone thirteen days.”

“For God’s sake, man, you’re talking about your obvious attempt to woo Siwon’s valet, not an actual battle.”

“It is an actual battle for your humble, lowly servant, sir, but I understand if it seems but a trifling matter to a great man such as you,” was Hyukjae’s stiff reply, dripping with so much sarcasm that Kangin was rendered speechless for a few moments. Meanwhile, the slapping still persisted, now descending onto his back and seeming to have grown in intensity.

“Alright, you know what?” He turned around and took the brush away from Hyukjae’s hand before it could inflict an actual bodily harm on him. “This has to stop—and I mean right now.”

“If you say so, sir.”

What soon followed as Hyukjae went around to tidy the room was the cold silence of an injured dignity. Kangin struggled with himself for  fifteen anguished seconds before confessing his pride defeated once more.

“He isn’t going anywhere,” he said weakly.

“With all due respects, you cannot possibly know that, sir.”

“Of course I do. Why else would a man with his kind of looks and popularity give you any time of day when he practically can have his pick of any pretty maid who is desperately scraping for his attention?”

That he had said the wrong thing was quickly evident when Hyukjae’s expression turned even darker. “And that is precisely why I can’t afford to lose even one single moment. Surely this simple application of rational thinking does not escape you, sir?”

Kangin resisted an urge to throw the brush he was still clutching in his hand. “You’re a total pain in the arse, I hope you know that.”

“I would have said ‘so are you, sir’, but naturally a person of my status isn’t allowed the same freedom of speech.”

“See?” Kangin threw up both hands in despair. “And I was just about to share some good news with you. But since you insist on annoying me so much, clearly I will have to reconsider.”

There was a moment of silence as Hyukjae paused, holding two boots of different colours in his hand (no doubt another form of revenge) and eyeing him suspiciously. “What kind of good news?”

“The kind that involves a letter which I might or might not have received yesterday from a certain friend of mine, and a paragraph in it which might or might not have entailed a certain valet of his.”

Hyukjae was in front of him in a blink of an eye, setting down a pair of boots (matching colours this time) with all the grace and deference of a perfect servant. “What did it say?” he asked hopefully.

“Of course,” Kangin muttered to himself, rolling his eyes; the absurdity of the situation—and the fact that he was discussing his valet’s love life—did not escape him. “I should have known.”

“WHAT DID IT SAY,” Hyukjae repeated, considerably louder this time that Kangin could not suppress a wince.

“Fine, alright! He told me about this valet who prattled about you to his employer as much as you do to me. Or maybe not,” he added under his breath, “since obviously no one talks more than you do.”

Hyukjae took a long, pensive moment to properly digest this piece of information, brows furrowed even as his fingers continued working mechanically on the intricacies of buckles and bootlaces. “I am unable to determine whether you are telling me the truth, sir,” he finally said.

“Are you calling me a liar?” Kangin heard his voice rising a notch.

“I merely insinuate that to have one’s way, one might feel compelled to resort to dishonest means.”

“That’s calling me a liar, bastard.”

“I certainly cannot convince you otherwise, sir, if you have already decided to think so.”

For the seventh time that day, Kangin wondered what he had done to deserve this insolent man in his life. “Shut up for a moment and listen. Lee Donghae is valet to one of the richest and most popular men in England. He is far from lacking in looks, manners, style, et cetera, which means that he has all the opportunities to keep any company that he wants—and yet he chooses yours. So what are these facts telling you?”

“That I have an overwhelming number of competitors?”

“That you have nothing to worry about, damn it!”

“But certainly as a countermeasure–”

Kangin gave up. Two hours later, they were already well on the road back to London and he had Hyukjae sitting in front of him and smiling the entire way.

“Shut up,” Kangin growled. “And stop grinning like an idiot.”

Which only made the younger man grin some more.
 

In which Kangin discovered that a new kind of love was in the air.

It took Kangin another three days after his return to finally leave the safety his house and once more brave the trials and tribulations of social life, as presented by his club.

The front door of the Blueline was, as always, closed to anyone with no membership claim to the distinguished gentlemen’s club. Kangin, however, encountered no such trouble. The door swung open almost immediately and Mr Shin, the manager of the establishment, greeted him upon entering with a smile and a message that his cousin was waiting for him.

Kangin did not even pause to wonder how Kim Heechul could have found out about his return despite everything he had done not to advertise that fact.

Sighing, he relinquished his hat and cane to the care of Mr Shin and made his way into the inner rooms, pausing every so often when his name was called by an acquaintance. It did not take him long to feel at home. The club might not be as large as some others, but it was exactly this comfortable atmosphere and close circle of patrons which made the place a favourite hideout among its members. The steady hum of conversation, occasionally punctuated by ripples of laughter from this or that corner, was everything he was familiar with. While the Blueline could boast among its patrons no small number of peerages and the crème de la crème of society, everyone knew well enough to shed their social trappings at the door in return of a good time in a friendly, pleasant environment.

Kangin knew, however, that he had to postpone any other pursuit until he had spoken with his cousin. He found Heechul in the smoking room, sitting in the company of his most recent conquest, Tan Hangeng, a handsome, quiet Chinese man who had a strange, pacifying effect on everyone around him.

Heechul noticed his entrance at once, the beautiful face breaking into a smirk at the sight of him. “Look who has come out of hiding.”

“Just because I’ve decided not to show my face in public for a few days does not mean that I was hiding,” Kangin pointed out matter-of-factly, taking an empty seat at his cousin’s left.

“Sulking then.” Heechul shrugged, tossing his shoulder-length hair. “Siwon said that a kid beat you at card and that’s the reason why you disappeared for two weeks.”

“Siwon is a liar.”

“Siwon is morally incapable to be a liar, so there is the fallacy of your argument.”

Kangin was about to retort when their mutual friend’s arrival interrupted his line of thought. It was actually a wonder, he reflected wryly, looking up, how Choi Siwon could walk into any establishment and immediately more than half pairs of eyes in the room would be drawn to his direction, ladies and gentlemen alike. Which was just as well that there was no member of the fairer present, for in addition to being the heir of one of Europe’s leading banking families and the possessor of no little charm, the man was also famous for a smile which could send many ladies of distinction to their knees, their hearts stolen and their sensibilities at stake.

The celebrated smile, however, was conspicuously absent at present. In its place was the most minuscule facsimile which only made its appearance when he noticed Kangin’s presence in the room.

“So you’re back in town, aren’t you?”

“Courtesy of your valet,” Kangin replied sarcastically. “Which reminds me, by the way, thank you for spreading lies about my business trip.”

“Really?” Siwon raised his eyebrows. “I thought I had the information from the most reliable source. Courtesy of your valet.”

Kangin spent about three seconds contemplating the advantages and disadvantages of murdering Lee Hyukjae before abandoning the ridiculous idea with a sigh and turning his attention back to his present companions.

“One of these days, the two of them are going to leave service and elope to Gretna Green, and we are going to be sorely deprived of valuable manservants.”

“Perhaps,” was Siwon’s distracted reply as he settled in a corner seat, away from the rest of them. Kangin felt a frown gathering on his brow.

“What happened to you?”

“Nothing,” his friend murmured, eyes avoiding him, and proceeded to open a newspaper. Kangin turned toward the other two who had been listening to their exchange in silence, giving them an inquiring look.

“He’s in love,” Heechul declared after a moment's pause.

There was a long silence as Kangin stared at his cousin in a mix of disbelief and uncertainty. “Did you just say that Choi Siwon is in love?”

“As I live and breathe.” Heechul made a solemn gesture in front of his chest, although a smirk was clearly hovering at the corners of his lips. “And about time too if I say so myself.”

“You are one to talk,” Siwon piped up from behind his paper.

“Well, pardon me for resigning my membership from the school of the sceptics, but I have found my true love.” The older man threw a warm look at Hangeng, who reciprocated with a small, affectionate smile. (Kangin was valiantly suppressing an urge to make a disgusted face at this point.) “But I’m glad that you have decided to take a page from my book. How many hearts again did you break last year? I’m pretty sure I consoled at least forty-seven damsels myself—and who knows how many gentlemen suffering in silence because you wouldn’t even look at them.”

“And you would, as I recall.”

“I was a lost, misguided soul back then,” Heechul sighed dramatically, caressing the back of Hangeng’s hand. Kangin quickly decided that it was time for a swift and decisive interruption.

“Wait, let me make sure that I understand this correctly. Somewhere during my absence, Siwon fell in love. This Siwon. Our Siwon.”

Heechul’s only response was a look which could roughly be translated into something along ‘are you a moron’. It was Hangeng who finally cleared his throat and decided to answer. “Yes.”

Kangin felt the beginning of a grin on his own face “Well, that certainly explains why you suddenly stopped nagging me to return to town in your letters,” he said to Siwon who, for some unexplainable reasons, was still determined to hide his face behind a copy of The Times.

“I have no idea what you are referring to,” was the other man’s frosty response, which only made Kangin's grin widen even more.

“And who is this unlucky damsel? Are we expecting wedding bells, or is she a married lady and that is why you’re languishing here like this instead of making a move on her?”

That was when Heechul suddenly collapsed into a giggling fit. Kangin raised an eyebrow, but his cousin only hid his face behind his lover, who was clearly having difficulties resisting a smile himself.

“You made a slight error,” Hangeng informed him.

“What error?”

“It’s him, not her.”

There were two seconds of complete silence, after which Kangin did not stop laughing for five minutes straight. Siwon had been the only one among their circle of friends who had constantly refused to admit his preference on their own , always hiding behind the pretext that he would have to marry a woman to keep to his deceased parents’ wishes. That now he should have found himself falling for a man was not only ironic, but also beyond hilarious.

“Are you done?”

Kangin blinked his tear-misted eyes repeatedly and then looked up, for the first time noticing the other patrons who were shooting him concerned, even annoyed looks. Siwon had deserted his corner in favour of standing in front of him with arms crossed like an intimidating gaoler, but the sight only served to send another wave of hilarity through Kangin’s system.

“There is a five-letter word for this sort of situation,” he finally managed to wheeze out.

“Karma?” Heechul, having sufficiently recovered from his own fit, ventured a guess.

“Irony, but karma works too,” Kangin said with a smirk, searching the pockets of his coat for a clean handkerchief. (Hyukjae had a habit of putting it in the most obscure and inaccessible corner he could find—variation, as he called it.) “So, do I know this phenomenal fellow who has successfully made Choi Siwon eat his words?”

“I doubt it,” said Hangeng, still smiling. “He’s new in town.”

“And the two of you have met him? What does he look like?”

“Not me,” Heechul admitted regretfully. “Hangeng, however, had the privilege to be present when this life-altering, earth-shattering, planet-moving event took place.”

“Yes, by all means, you all have my expressed permission to keep laughing and making fun of me,” Siwon said dryly, seating himself in one of the closer armchairs. “A change, I should imagine, from what usually happens.”

Kangin’s retaliation was prompt. “What was that five-letter word again, cousin?” he asked, unable to stifle another grin.

“Karma,” Heechul repeated dutifully.

“Thank you. Now tell me this, dear friend. How did you—in the incredibly short span of two weeks—manage to get yourself ensnared in this fellow's delightful charms?”

“Since when has one needed a reason to fall in love?” Siwon said matter-of-factly, which made Kangin pause for a moment or two. He began to feel that whatever case of the heart afflicting his friend at the moment, it was nowhere near light or easily cured.

“But what did he do exactly to attain your unattainable heart?”

“He bumped into this young man and fell in love at first sight,” Heechul volunteered to provide a concise version of the story, since all Siwon did was glare at an indiscriminate spot on Kangin's forehead.

Kangin frowned. “Is that it?”

“It was literally what happened," Heechul retorted. "What do you want me to say? Mr Choi was strolling along Jermyn Street when he came into collision with loveliness incarnate of the male variation who turned out to be the love of his life?”

“But what does he even look like?”

“It does not matter,” Siwon interrupted them coldly.

“You, my friend, care about aesthetics more than even our royal princesses do,” Kangin said mercilessly. “Of course looks matter to you. Or are you telling me that he is as ugly as a horse and that is why you’re avoiding the subject?”

“He is more beautiful than the moon, thank you very much. I will not have any insult directed to his person, even from an intimate friend of mine.”

The fierce response made Kangin pause—again—and maybe even gape a little. From his right, Heechul affected a little cough and murmured, “Like I said, he’s in love.”

“Obviously,” Kangin muttered, half to himself. “I still don’t understand why being in love makes you snappy though. Does this person—whoever his name is—does his preference lie solely with the fairer ?”

Kangin watched, with mounting interest, as Siwon’s expression shifted from stern to forlorn in a fraction of a second. “He has yet to react favourably to my advances,” the younger man finally said, despair clinging to every word.

“Maybe he thinks you’re a creep,” Heechul commented dryly. “I know I would, if someone sent me eight bouquets of roses in the morning and eight love sonnets in the evening every single day of the week.”

Kangin cringed. “Eight?”

“They met on the eight this month.”

“I see.” He nodded, trying very hard to keep his face straight and voice neutral. “You just can’t fall in love like any normal person, can you?”

“But my affection knows no bound,” Siwon suddenly declared, eyes glimmering with unbridled passion. “How else can I convince him that he has bewitched me body and soul, and that my heart is no longer my own for he has stolen it, as easily as the stars steal daylight from the sun?”

The thick silence which ensued afterward was only broken by Heechul’s bursting into laughter for the third time.
 

In which Kangin found his way into prison for the second time.

It was, in Kangin’s defence, entirely Heechul's fault. None of it would have happened if that cousin of his had not insisted to be stubborn.

“I take it that the rumour about your running away to the country because a kid beat you at card is not true, right?” had been one of Heechul’s many taunts during supper.

“A total myth,” was Kangin's heartfelt rebuttal.

“So if I express an interest in meeting this undoubtedly fascinating individual, then you will have no objection?”

Kangin had glared, scowled, and generally made menacing faces at his cousin’s direction to no avail. One hour later found the two of them making their way through the darkened streets of London to one of Kangin’s regular card clubs. Hangeng had excused himself under the pretext of an early engagement in the morning, and Siwon had outright refused to go to one of those 'heathenish places’, as he put it. (Kangin had a nagging suspicion that he had rushed home to write the next batch of love poems, but so far had not been able to obtain any proof to support this theory.)

“You don’t like to play,” Kangin had pointed out just before they reached their destination. Heechul only shrugged.

“I can watch.”

And that was what he did. Being nowhere as good at card as Kangin was, Heechul chose to hover around the tables and basically disrupted any ongoing game with his comments and antics—which everyone oddly seemed to tolerate, even enjoy, to Kangin’s endless astonishment. He was still watching his cousin’s progress from table to table in half amusement and half consternation when a sudden eruption of laughter drew his attention to a corner table.

And that was when he saw the boy again.

What followed next was a series of unfortunate events which blurred into each other in the horribly cluttered gallery of his mind. Kangin remembered approaching the table and putting forth a challenge, desire for vengeance roaring in his veins. He remembered the boy smirking at him—the only indication that neither his face nor the catastrophe of their last meeting had been forgotten. He remembered bits and pieces of the game and how a single mistake completely unravelled his carefully planned stratagem. (The complacent look on the boy’s face totally did not help.) He also remembered seeing Heechul's face amidst the throng of spectators crowding around their table, watching the proceeding in silence with a strange gleam in his eyes.

“You cheated.” He also remembered accusing his opponent, who had just scored another suspiciously easy victory against him.

“You obviously think so,” was the smug reply. The surrounding tables had fallen silent, all eyes riveted to their direction.

“And you think that I don’t have eyes.”

“I think you think I think that you don’t have eyes.”

That was when Kangin threw the first punch. If he had bothered to wait for a moment in order to assess the situation carefully, he would have realised the boy was a little taller but more lithely built than him—which opened the possibility that he might be accustomed to relying on speed instead of strength. As his own experience with a street urchin five months ago should have taught him, this was the most dangerous type of opponent in a close-range fight. Kangin, however, did not allow himself to wait or to reconsider. He lunged at his smirking opponent at once, ready for a deadly confrontation. (The amount of wine he had consumed during supper was probably a significant contributor to this display of impatience.)

And when he ended up in jail again later that night for destroying public properties—he had not aimed for the post box, and yet, somehow, it was there—Kangin would have cursed his stupidity to India and back if not for the fact that the cause of his misfortune was currently inhabiting the same cell as he did. His anger, neither dimmed nor soothed, followed its natural course and found its vent in a verbal spar, since a physical altercation would have brought the sour-faced constable back and Kangin really did not want to make his situation worse than it already was. Until Siwon’s arrival at least.

“Didn’t run fast enough this time, did you?”

“At least I didn’t dive into a post box,” the boy spat back, his own knuckles scraped and bruised. Kangin felt a lingering throb at the left side of his head, and wondered if it had come from a blow or from a collision with the aforementioned box.

“No, you dived into a prison cell.”

“Listen to the pot calling the kettle black.”

“A very black kettle.”

“Black is an absolute colour, my honourable lord pot of potdom. You cannot say that something is very black unless you’re an idiot.”

Kangin was at the brink of giving into his urge to pummel the boy’s face when the door leading to their holding cell was opened from the other side. The constable strode in, followed by a well-dressed man who, to his excessive disappointment, was not Siwon. The man’s expression darkened immediately at the sight of his companion.

“You should be ashamed,” he spoke in a soft, well-bred voice which nevertheless managed to convey the impression of anger.

“He should be ashamed,” the boy said petulantly. “I didn’t start the fight.”

“It doesn’t matter. You should have governed your temper better.”

“Tell that to this bast–”

“Kyuhyun!” the man interrupted with a shout, just as Kangin bellowed, “Because you cheated, you son of a ! Don’t think that I’ve forgotten!”

The silence which followed was colder than ice. The constable, Kangin noticed, had retreated into a corner, clutching his truncheon tightly in front of his chest.

“Wait for me in the coach,” the gentleman finally spoke again, his tone leaving no room for any argument. Kangin did not wonder when the order was quickly obeyed—although not without a last, hostile glance at his direction. Neither was he surprised when the man turned toward him and inclined his head slightly.

“I apologise for my young cousin’s behaviour.”

Perhaps it was the excessive politeness, or the apology itself, or simply the fact that this person—who had the most attractive pair of lips he had ever seen, Kangin could not help but notice—had to see him in this less-than-flattering condition. All he knew was that his irritation suddenly flared up once more. “You should have put him on a leash,” the words had left his mouth before he could decide on a more appropriate answer.

The gentleman’s eyes narrowed, his jaw tightening. “Once again, I apologise,” he repeated, voice suddenly icy. “We shall take our leave now. Good night to you, sir.”

He turned around and Kangin was left to stew in his regret and anger alone for two long, excruciating hours—because Siwon was clearly holding a grudge against him and did not arrive until then.

End Chapter 1

A/N: Not much interaction between the couples in this first chapter, sorry... >>; I'll try better for the next one.