“Come on, Hyukjae, please? It’s a once in a blue moon kind of thing. And it’s not going to take up much of your time. It’s during the night and you just have to show up and show everybody who the ‘Lee Eunhyuk’ is that the big boss always boasts about.” Siwon pleaded over the phone.

‘ You see, Siwon, that’s exactly the thing. I don’t like going around showing everybody my face. It’s like I’m some sort of display in a museum or an exhibit. I don’t care that it’s only going to take a few hours or what. Heck, I wouldn’t care if it took only two minutes. I ain’t going to the dinner party. Goodbye.’

And all Siwon could hear through the phone was the repeating beeps, indicating that the person on the other line had hung up.

“-sigh- It’s no use.” He said to his companion, sitting comfortably on his office couch.

“What do you mean it’s no use, hyung?” Hangeng questioned, deniably. “We can’t get scolded by the big boss again. He said if Hyukjae isn’t there on the 17th, he would personally chop our heads off and serve it on a silver platter. Hyung, my head is sacred!” Siwon glared at him.

“I-I meant our, our heads are sacred.” Hangeng stuttered back, preparing himself if he got hit.

He laid back and calmed himself down once he saw that Siwon wasn’t making a move to hit him. They both sighed in the end and just sat there thinking for a while, when Hangeng suddenly had an idea.

“Hey, hyung.” He called out. Siwon looked up at him. “Why not…” He didn’t finish and instead looked at Siwon’s face to see if he was getting what he was trying to say. Siwon looked at him confusedly for a minute, he was about to say something when he finally understood what Hangeng had meant.

“God, Geng, no, that’s wrong. We can’t do underhanded tricks like that.” Siwon said as he stood up going to sit on his chair behind the desk. Hangeng stood up too, not backing down with his suggestion.

“Oh, come on, Siwon. It will work! And do you have any other ideas or suggestions? We only have a week left. That may seem like a lot of time, but Hyukjae is the most stubborn person we know. Once he makes a decision, he’ll stick it to it for the rest of his life.” Siwon arched his brow at his sentence and looked at him.

“Okay, maybe not for the rest of his life. But you get it, right? He is as stubborn as my cat when I want to wash him.” Siwon questioned his use of simile but didn’t say anything and instead thought if he should just go along with the idea.

After a moment of thought, he finally sighed and agreed to the plan and they started their secret trip to somewhere they sure can’t tell Hyukjae.

“Omeoni*~”

“Oh my, Siwon and Hangeng, what brings you here?” Mrs.Lee asked in surprise seeing her son’s only friends visiting her.

Siwon and Hangeng walked towards her bedside and sat on the two seats just exactly in front and beside Hyukjae’s mother. Hangeng pouted at her while Siwon, being the gentleman he is, started taking out some gifts and flowers out of the plastic bag he was carrying.

“Omeoni~ Can’t we visit you? We treat you like our own mother~” Hangeng pouted some more in front of her, pretending to be sulking. Seong Hye** chuckled heartedly.

“Of course you can. I was just shocked to see you visit today, at this unholy hour.” Mrs.Lee said, looking at the clock, making her point. It was currently, hmm, you know, just 1:17AM. Nothing unusual about that.

“Haha, well we are busy people.” Siwon said, as he rubbed his back, looking a bit guilty.

“Well, what is your purpose?” Siwon and Hangeng looked at her, a bit taken aback that she knew they came for something and not just ‘visiting’.      

“What? Did you think I wouldn’t know? Pfft, please boys. Visiting hours have ended long ago. You’d have to pull some strings to be allowed to come into my room. I’m sure there’d be a purpose to your visit if are you willing to go through the trouble of doing that. Now, is your purpose Hyukjae?” She asked with worried filled eyes.

Again, Siwon and Hangeng were taken back by her sharpness. She may be old, but her sharpness had definitely edged even more than before.

She sighed after seeing the look in both boys’ eyes, knowing their visit did have something to do with her son.

“It’s not what you think, Omeoni~ There’s nothing wrong with Hyukjae. It’s just that…” Hangeng paused, looking over at Siwon, unsure if they should really do this.

“Just that…?” Seong Hye asked, more worried, seeing the uncertainty in Hangeng’s eyes.

Siwon sighed and continued for Hangeng, “It’s just that-“, Siwon paused for a while, thinking of a good reason, “-Hyukjae, uhh, has been more stressed lately.” Siwon mentally patted himself on his back for thinking of such a good idea and he could also see Hangeng mentally giving him a thumbs-up and mouthing good job for the great cover-up.

“And you know, as his best friends, we talked to him.” Siwon looked at the worrying mother.

“And you know Hyukjae, one of the most stubborn people in the world.” He chuckled out, a bit nervous.

“We were still worried for him but he wouldn’t