Chapter Two: A House Visit

When weekend rolled by, Jung Ilhoon had given them the premonition that he won’t be able to practice with them. “I never said I won’t practice,” he had added.

So when the group met up in Hyunsik’s place’s garage at 8 AM in the morning, sure enough there were only 6 of them present. Hyunsik took up the assignment of attendance checking, and when he noticed who was missing he looked to Eunkwang.

“Did Ilhoon tell you—?”

“Yes he did,” Eunkwang cut in. “He’ll be out for the whole weekend, but he promised to practice on his own.”

“So we didn’t deserve to know?” muttered Changsub, his expression growing dark.

“Hey, hey, hey, stop it, okay? There’s too much negative vibes here so early in the morning,” interrupted Peniel, making a show of covering his ears. “Why don’t we start setting up, so we could get a lot more done?”

The others shrugged and set up their equipment. They played their pieces for almost 5 hours, and each performer tried inputting some tricks into their parts. It was a productive practice session, albeit a missing Ilhoon.

While they were packing up their gear, Eunkwang approached Minhyuk with a serious look.

“Lee Minhyuk.”

Minhyuk glanced at his best friend and immediately knew that Eunkwang was plotting something strange.

“Dude, I know that look. What are you up to now?”

“Let’s go to the Jung’s place.”

“Uhm, why?”

“I want to see what Ilhoon is up to,” said Eunkwang nonchalantly as he zipped up his guitar case.

Minhyuk tucked his drum sticks in his backpack and raised an eyebrow. “You do know how creepy that sounds, right?”

“Yeah.”

Minhyuk grinned. “Okay, I’m in.”

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Soon, the two eldest boys were hopping out of the taxi that had dropped them off in the Gyeonggi-do area, which was Ilhoon’s hometown. Their house was only a few more steps, so Eunkwang and Minhyuk decided to walk the rest of the way.

“What do you suppose we’ll find there?” asked Eunkwang all of a sudden. He couldn’t tolerate long periods of silence.

“The Jung family, I suppose,” guessed Minhyuk, “And whoever Ilhoon is trying to hide from us.”

“Do you really believe that he’s been hiding a secret girlfriend all this while?” asked Eunkwang again, this time holding out an arm as if he was holding a mic.

“I’m not sure on what to believe yet,” replied Minhyuk, playing along with the reporter role-play. “After all, I haven’t enough clues.” Then he paused and looked at his friend. “Wait, why are you the interviwer?”

Eunkwang burst out laughing, and so did Minhyuk. Their playful banter led them right on front of the Jung’s house. They stared at it for a while before Minhyuk suddenly shoved Eunkwang forward to knock. No such thing as ‘knocking’ happened, though; it was more like a painful head-banging-on-the-door type of sound. A few seconds passed before anyone responded. Eunkwang glared pointedly at Minhyuk and was about to pummel him when they heard someone from the other side of the door.

“Wait! I’ll get that! And you stay away from that door.” It sounded like a panicking Ilhoon; sure enough, the rattled boy opened the door for his two hyungs.

“Eunkwang hyung! Minhyuk hyung! What are you doing here?” gasped Ilhoon, looking wild-eyed.

“We were just around the area and we decided to drop by,” lied Minhyuk smoothly. “Are your parents in?”

Sure you were, thought Ilhoon. Out loud, he said: “Uhm, no, they went out.” An awkward silence followed while the three boys apprehended each other on the doorstep. Ilhoon tapped his foot on the floor, fiddled with the knob, and looked everywhere except at his two hyungs.

Eunkwang raised an impatient eyebrow and asked, “Well? Aren’t you going to invite us in?”

“Oh, right, of course. Come in, hyungs,” said Ilhoon as if just coming to his senses. He opened the door wider to let his surprise guests in. Eunkwang and Minhyuk stepped inside, looking around to see if there was anyone to greet and bow to. Ilhoon’s parents indeed weren’t around; so who was he talking to?

“Who were you talking to just now, Ilhoon?” asked Minhyuk. He walked to the living room and lazily the frames on the coffee table, while still looking for anything out-of-place.

Ilhoon looked pretty much tongue-tied. “H-huh? N-no one… I mean… Huh?”

To divert the older boys’ attention, he suddenly stood up to go to the kitchen. “Hey I know: why don’t we all head out for some ice cream or something? I’ve been feeling kind of hot nowadays. Come on, hyungs: my treat!” He grinned at his visitors, his eyes screaming: Yes please have ice cream with me and let’s leave the house as quickly as possible!

Eunkwang glanced at Minhyuk and raised disbelieving eyebrows. He’s making this too obvious, isn’t he?

Minhyuk seemed to reply with his eyes as he shrugged. I don’t know about you, but Ilhoon only treats us once in a blue moon.

Eunkwang laughed out loud, understanding what Minhyuk was hinting at. “Fine. We’ll wait here while you get ready,” said Eunkwang. Ilhoon smiled brightly and ran up the stairs, leading to the bedrooms.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

“Who are those?”

“Some of my hyungs. I have to go now; they almost saw you.”

“Right, sure. Why don’t you want them to see me? I’m not hideous like you, you know.”

“Just because, okay? I’ll be back later.”

“I’ll be meeting them soon. You won’t be able to stop it.”

“...”

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

When he came down, Ilhoon had this weird smile plastered on his face as he placed an arm on each of his hyung’s shoulders. “Let’s go?”

Minhyuk inched his face away. “Yeah, okay; but wipe that idiotic smile off your face. You look creepier than Eunkwang.”

“Since when did I look creepy, Minhyuk?” snapped Eunkwang, but it was all humorous.

“Uh, all the time?”

The three boys laughed as they leisurely walked down the road. She watched them leave from her dark room, behind the curtain with a smile.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-