Une Réunion - A Meeting

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He can’t breathe. It’s so difficult to. It feels like a string is pulling his pair of lungs together, cutting off the air that helps him breathe. Wet droplets of sweat starts sliding off his forehead, down onto his neck, then near his throat where he tries to swallow his fear. But as his ears manages to help him hear the thundering footsteps of his chasers running after him, his fear goes up his throat again and he is so tempted to stop and just throw it all up. He can’t though, he knows he can’t. Stopping means being captured. Being captured means going back to his parents. Going back to his parents is suicide. He still needs to live. Heck, he still needs to start living.

His feet temporarily halted as in front of him were two ways: left or right. There were stairs leading down on an underpass on the left side and a wall he’s sure he can climb up is standing on the right side. There were times were he’s been indecisive. Luck’s not on his side today as this was one of those times and he curses himself mentally as he battles himself on where to go.

Left or right?

Left or right?

Left or right?

Left.

His brain only stops the brainstorming once he heard his name being shouted again. Or was it his name?

“Young master, please stop!”

‘No!’ He wants to yell back. ‘And my name’s not young master!’

He continues to sprint and he takes a second to look back, asking himself if he chose the right way-with a nod, he assures himself that he did as he skips fast down the steps.

~

He must be crazy as he chuckles to himself while he runs, cops just behind him. Funny how he’s so tired of running but he continues on. But it’s much funnier how everything he does in his life involves running-whether it’s his mind running or his fingers running through his unruly black hair in his everyday life-it’s still running.

A massive wall catches his sight in front and he hisses out a curse. He stops and looks sideways for a way and sees the right side blocked by another wall so he swiftly runs down the left side.

He hears a commotion behind him as he runs down the stairs. Thundering noise follows him and on his peripheral view, blue plastic barrels are rolling down as he ran.  His eyes do an automatic roll when he curses the cops behind.

Skipping the last three steps, he jumps down and the echo it made caused the street children to wake up from the uncomfortable sleep, their dirtied eyes following his movements.

“Choi Seunghyun! You better stop right there, moron!”

He snorts as he continues to sprint away across the underpass.

“Don’t you have cars to chase me down, sirs?” He shouts back and laughs at the end. The reply he gets was distinct as all of them shout at the same time.

Deciding not to wait for a clear reply, he sprints up another flight of stairs and eventually ends up with a view from what seems to be a night market.

~

“Excuse me, Mrs.?” He calls an old lady sitting behind a table; his head hung low to hide from his chasers looking for him. He sees one of them asking an old man from across where he is so he ducks his head to the other side.

“Yes, child?” the lady finally answered. She seems blind, he thinks when she stares right ahead of him and doesn’t even bat eyelid at him.

“Can I-Can I sit beside you?” he stutters out. This is the fourth person he asked for a place to hide in and the rejections he received earlier were enough to make him want to explode now.

The woman finally blinks once but smiles as she stood up to retrieve a plastic chair topped from the one she was sitting on. He heaves a sigh of relief before he helps her put it down beside hers. She took a sit again and he follows.

“Are you okay, dear?”

He turns to look at her but her eyes remain looking straight ahead. He silently confirms that she is indeed blind before answering with a faint “Yes, mam.”

“Do you want anything?” she asks again. A man that seems to be running stops at their table, his hands and arms came to rest abruptly at the table, making the thing shake. He hears the old woman beside him gasp but his eyes meet the man’s as the man stood up to turn around. It was of those moments in his life where he feels extremely intimated so he blinks the sight of the man away and turns to answer the question he’s meant to answer.

“Just this chair is enough, thank you so much, Mrs.”

“Just call me Auntie, dear and oh, are you a fan?”

He was taken aback by her question that he didn’t realize the man crawling down and inside their table.

“Excuse me?”

“Well, some famous boys bought something from here,” she tilts her head to the little vials on top of her table. The vials contain various clear colors, some of them labeled with ‘Love Potion’, ‘Aqua of growth’, and something about ‘Futuristic Lover’. “And ever since then people have been going here asking me about those young boys.”

He doesn’t know any famous young boys who bought potions so he says instead, “No, I’m not a fan but these…Are these even real?”

She chuckles, her shoulders shaking. “I do not even know, son. My daughter makes them.”

“Oh.” He answers while taking one on his hands to examine it. “Can I look at one though?”

She hummed a permission so he brings the one on his hands closer to his eyes, the green liquid making the view of the busy night market on the same color. All he sees is the crowd he sees through the vial moves and walks everywhere. Some of them have hands full of plastic bags containing their bought goods and the sellers screaming to get attention and the buyers. Seems to be very crowded and a busy night. Hard to be caught, he thinks and sighs.

He looks left and his eyes caught Hangeng, one of his bodyguards since he was a child, talking to the seller just beside them so he panics, puts the vial down on the table and looks for somewhere to run. He checks Hangeng again as the latter seems to be done talking. He panics more and squeaks an ‘Excuse me’ to the woman and he slides down his chair to hide below the table.

But it seems the hiding place is taken.

He hears a grunt as he sits on someone’s lap and he gasps in fear.

“.” That someone whispered. He turns around only to be met by the man that he saw earlier. The same eyes stares back at him.

“Um, hello.” The man says without taking his eyes off him.

Jiyong raises a brow. “What do you mean hello, what are you doing here?” he hisses.

The man scoffs. “I’m supposed to ask you the same thing. Anyway, I’m here first, so get out.”

The thought of Hangeng went back to Jiyong so he doesn’t move. “I need this place. You get out.”

The man scoffs for the second time. “Finder’s keeper.”

The man’s tone along with the thought of being caught after all the running he did made his blood boil. “Do you know how idiotic you sound?” he spats.

Before the man can answer, Jiyong hears Hangeng’s voice so he slams his hands on the stranger’s mouth.

“Excuse me, mam. But can I ask a question?”

“Yes. Some boys bought some of these potions. Feel free to get one.” Jiyong hears the woman answers and he bits back a giggle.

Meanwhile, Seunghyun winces when he felt the sting of Jiyong’s hands so he grabs the small man’s wrist and tries to pry away the hand covering his mouth. Key word ‘tries’ because this petite man is strong as and it seems the stronger Seunghyun tries to get the damned hand away, the tighter they seem to get so he just gives up and pulls the hair of the man on his lap.

Jiyong squeaks painfully loud when he feels his hair being tugged harshly. He angrily turns around to the man but hears Hangeng again.

“What’s that?” the bodyguard asks.

“What’s that?” the woman repeats.

“Never mind. Anyway, if you found a young boy, 19’s his age, about the medium height, wearing a suit and has brown hair, please call me here.” Jiyong hears a sound of hard paper being flipped.  

“How can I find him, I am blind, mi-dear.”

“Just…never mind. Thank you, mam.”

Jiyong bends down his back to look at the gaps of the table under to see Hangeng’s black leather shoes walking away. He releases a sigh of relief and some of his heavy feelings feel lightened but that moment was cut short when he was pushed away from where he was sitting at.

“Hey!”

“Hey, your face, you little evil sh-“

“Hello, madam. We’re from the NPDA and we’re-“

“Are you a fan?”

Jiyong bites back a laugh again as he prepares to crawl out from the table but is harshly pulled back in until he ends up in the man’s lap again.

“What is wrong with you!”

“Shut the up.” Seunghyun whispered on his ears and Jiyong felt a shiver run down his spine making him follow the harsh order obediently. He whimpered silently when calloused hands curl around tightly on his upper arm. 

“No, we are not a fan. But we’re looking for a tall man-about this height, wearing a red hoodie, has a mess of a black hair,” Seunghyun scoffs at this as fixes his bangs. “name’s Choi Seunghyun. Seen him somewhere, mam?”

“Sometimes I wonder, am I the blind one or all the people are? It seems everyone is blind to the fact that I am unable to see, son.”

“She’s blind?” Seunghyun whispers to Jiyong.

“Yes, duh.”

Seunghyun rolls his eyes at the sass and purposely tightens his hand around the arm he’s currently holding onto. He receives a hiss and a jab of an elbow on his thigh.

“O-oh! We’re sorry, madam! W-we’ll try to a different person. We apologize once again, madam! Have a good night.” And scrambles of feet walking away from the stall.

Jiyong was once again pushed hard until he was out of the table and face to face with the ground. He stands back to get his revenge but stops mid-breath when the man in front of him is now standing tall, Jiyong’s height only reaches to this man’s chin. His face graced by thin purple-ish red lips, sharp nose, high cheekbones and deep eyes-though the other one’s covered by long unruly black hair.

“I know I’m hot and all but don’t drool, little man.” He notices that this man who’s graced by godly face features also has deep bass voice. Jiyong can almost feel the vibrations of each word.

See, when Jiyong focuses on something, he notices everything. A habit he developed because of his studies. It helped him on a lot of things but not now. Right now is not the right time to notice every good thing about the man he just met yet he starts hating just few a minutes ago. 

It also doesn’t help that this man is, well, a man and Jiyong doesn’t swing that way so he passes this a co-human attraction.

That didn’t help either.

So he focuses his focus instead on the kind woman that helped him. She was staring straight ahead, her focus on nothing but a smile is resting on her lips.

“Are you two okay?” he hears her ask. Jiyong raises a brow in realization that she knows there were two men hiding under her table.

He sits down beside her again. He swats the hand waving in front of the woman’s eyes and glares at the owner. Seunghyun scoffs and pushed him but missed when Jiyong ducks.

“Thanks so much, auntie. Your consideration is a big help.” Jiyong holds both of the woman’s hands and she pats them softly.

“You’re welcome anytime, dear.”

Jiyong smiles and scans the night market. There’s still a huge crowd going on but he doesn’t want to take the risk anymore so he turns to the old woman again.

“I think I’ll be going now then, Auntie. Thank you again.”

She pats him again, this time on his head, and says “Take care of yourself, dear. ‘Till we meet again.” And she lets go of him.

He stands and was about to walk away when he remembers someone. He turns back around only to find no one at where the stranger who became his enemy within minutes was standing before he scoffs and mutters ‘Rude’.

~

He ducks behind the trash bin once he got a sight of one of the cops and moved deeper into the dark for cover. Silently retreating his back to the side of the bin, he fishes out his phone from his pocket, and quickly went through his contacts.

There were about 500 people on his phone and he hisses a curse before going all through them.  He has a habit of saving everyone’s number and not deleting them even once so the regret he feels now is too much because 500 people and not even one he can trust.

He scrolled back up and the screen stopped at ‘L’ and at a name ‘Little Bastard’. He grinned before going into a call.

It rang 8 times and before he has the chance to give up, the call was answered.

“Hello? Seunghyun hyung?” the greeting came lively. He pulled back quickly to glance at the time on the screen and it says: 2:34 AM. He wondered how the kid is still awake as this time.

“Hey, where are you?” he asks.

“I’m at the hotel.”

He grinned. Perfect.

“Great. I’m coming now.”

“Huh? What? Hyun-“He hung up before

He went back up to check if the coast is clear and when he noticed no one lurking near him, he sprinted to the nearest bus stop he passed by earlier.

~

He arrives at the hotel an hour later.

The place was obviously touched by lots of money. The garden in front blossoms with different kind of flowers of different colors. On the center of the garden stood a pole, a bright sign rests atop that says ‘Maomaotel’ (He scrunches up his face at the chosen name. It definitely doesn’t suit the place.).There was a way for cars to drive by around the garden and in front is the building itself. The building has, what looks like, six floors but it stood tall in front of him. It’s colored by cream and the windows were touched by shiny gold frames, a mini garden rests in front of each one.

Huh, not too bad for an owner like him. He thinks as he continues to look around. Except the name though. He’s still aggravated by the name like who names a grand hotel ‘Maomaotel’? 

There were no people seen around the motel; typical for this time of night. Two guards were guarding the glass doors though so he tries to walk up the stairs but is, as expected, stopped.

“I’m sorry, sir, but do have any business here?”

“Yeah, I’m here for Lee Seunghyun.” He responds as he stares through the glass of the door and inside the reception where a young man is having a conversation with a young lady. He mentally scoffs. Nothing has changed for this bastard.

“Alright…” the two of them gave way as he entered.

The inside was grander, he takes note. He’s stepping on cream marble. Cushioned couches on carpeted floors on the side and extravagant paintings of art hung on the wall.

“Hyung! Seunghyun hyung!”

He snapped his head to look at Lee Seunghyun who’s beaming from where he is.

“Hey.” He greets casually. The Little Bastard went out from behind the marbled reception area and gave him a tight hug.

“Long time, huh!” he hears his old neighbor’s muffled voice near his ear.

They met when he was 12 and the kid’s 10. There was this one lot beside them that was never lived on until Lees family moved in. Their parents became friends with each other and since it’s only him and the kid around the neighborhood, so they were. They have the same first name too so they became closer after weeks of awkwardness and forced play times. Their parents called them ‘Big Seunghyun’ and ‘Little Seunghyun’. The kid told him to call him ‘Seungri’ because he is a winner and there are lots of victories for him in the future but Seunghyun never calls him that anyway.  ‘Little Bastard’ seem more appealing to him.

“What brings you here?” Little Bastard asks once he pulled away. Seunghyun took this chance to observe his old friend. The same face but with heavier bags under his eyes and grew taller than he last saw him. Everything seems the way they are except for those changes.

“Hyung?” Oh, and the voice is deeper but still squeaky.

“Oh, I need help.”

“What kind?”

“Well, this is a hotel.” He starts and he sees Seungri nod.

“And there are rooms.” A nod again.

“I need one.” He finishes but he doesn’t get a nod. Seungri blinks instead.

“A room?”

“Yeah?”

“Oh, no. But I gave the last one just before you came.” Seungri responds.

“Gave?”

“Well, yeah…he doesn’t have money on him now. Wait, did you run away too?”

He ignores the second question and responds to the first one instead. “He doesn’t have money? You gave it for free?”

“Yeah, he’s a friend.”

Seunghyun fakes a dramatic gasp. “Am I not a friend?”

“No,” Seungri answers. “You’re my big bro.”

Seunghyun scoffs and rolled his eyes but grins after. “Well, you have to help your big brother, right?”

“But I just told you, hyung. There are no rooms anymore.”

“Just put me on the last one. That’s free anyway, right? And I’m just staying for one night!” That’s a lie. He doesn’t exactly know how many nights he needed to hide here. “Please, Seungri.”

“I would, hyung, but this friend of mine isn’t just a normal person. He’s like the son of one man from the government.”

“If he’s a son of one of the bastards in the government then why doesn’t he have money?”

“He ran away.” Seungri answers. “Oh, no, I’ve said too much already.”

“Oh, just like me then. Just one night, Seungri. I Promise. Besides, he’s a man right? I’m sure he doesn’t mind.”

“You ran away? Why?”

Seunghyun looked away for a moment before answering. “I’ll tell you if you let me stay.”

Seungri squinted his eyes. “No, hyung.”

He sighs and says his last weapon because he’s obviously losing this war with the kid. “I still have it.”

“It?”

He gets his phone from his pocket and unlock it to find a picture; the picture.

He grins as he stops at the image and showed it to this kid whose eyes widen at the sight.

“Let’s go then, hyung!” Seungri suddenly pulled his arm to the elevators and Seunghyun laughed.

 That was too easy.

Seungri hangs to him all throughout the ride to the 4^th floor, saying things like ‘I miss you so much, hyung’, ‘When did you become this handsome?’ and ‘You are now my role model, can you be my role model, hyung?”

The doors opened to an equally grand hallway and before he forgets, he asks Seungri where he got the money for all of this.

“Oh, dad. I told him I just want a simple one but he gave me this instead. I’m not usually here though. I have a small motel in Myeongdong, I still prefer that one.”

Seunghyun raised a brow at the kid. “You’re only 17 though.”

“Well, you know from since we were kids that I always wanted business stuff.”

Seunghyun only nods but he agrees mentally. Seungri always wanted to play role playing with him like restaurant where he’s the owner and Seunghyun’s the cook or a company where he’s the president and Seunghyun’s his secretary. He even stole the play money from their family’s ‘Monopoly’ set.

“Here we are.” He hears the younger one say. He looks at the door; a gold ‘0411’ is pasted on the wooden surface.

“Now, shut up first, hyung and let me convince him.”

Seunghyun nods while Seungri knocks. “Hyung? It’s me Seungri.” He called.

A shuffle was heard from inside before the door opens and a petite man comes to view.

The man isn’t just petite in Seunghyun’s eyes though. He’s also familiar.

“You?”

Seungri looks between them back and forth. “You two know each other?”

“From under the table, yes.” Seunghyun answers once he got over the shock and he starts to smirk at the smaller man.

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A/N:

*tenenenene Shinee's back tenenenene Shinee's back tenenene Shinee's back back back back hey!*

Jk. 

GUESS WHO'S BACK Y'ALL. Hurhurhurhur! Finally got hold of my Kpop addiction and now I'm here.

But you'll have to know that I was never gone though. WAHAHA.

I'm just here.

Watching all of you from the shadows.

Jk.

Oh god, I terribly miss all of you, and this and that!!! Gaaaah! I can't handle all of this, gosh~ I hope you all enjoy this...apology chapter hahahaha! 

*struts away*