JongHyun’s mother did indeed end up calling him the next day to inform him about the get together. And just like TaeMin had promised he had told his mother that he was bringing Key. And considering news spread like gossip in a small town between their mothers, she had heard.

            “So who’s this friend that TaeMin says you’re bringing?” JongHyun’s mother asked. Her tone managed to stay casual but he knew her well enough to know that behind that there was a snake trying to find a loop hole that she could pick at until the information she wanted was in her hands.

            “It’s just a friend of mine…” JongHyun muttered. “TaeMin thought I should bring him along to the party.”

            “So it’s a boy?”

            “Uhm… Yeah, it is.”

            “Why would TaeMin want you to bring a boy then? Does he know him as well? Was it that boy I met when I came to pick you up?”

            That got the cat scratching JongHyun’s tongue. He couldn’t very well just tell his mother over the phone that he was indeed dating the boy she’d caught him kissing.

            “You’ll meet him at the party mom,” he ended up saying. There was probably one of those cliché drops of sweat that slipped down his forehead. It’d been a close call but he’d somehow managed to avoid it… For now anyways. It wouldn’t take long before the questions started ravenously eating him.

            “All right then… Well, I’ll see you soon then. You best be sure I meet this boy.” There was disappointment in her voice, that much was clear, but it was better that she be left in the blue for the time being.

            “Talk to you later mom,” JongHyun said before hanging up the store phone. His gaze returned to his text book which he was reading in order to pass the time. He was working his shift alone since Key had come down with a cold that morning and he’d been sent upstairs by Onew to rest up on the couch in the apartment. It was getting extremely tiresome standing there all by his lonesome. There was a lull in the store and Onew was out shopping, too, so he really was left with nothing to do but study for test for which he wasn’t even having.

            It seemed like his boredom was going to stretch out to the final bits of his shift when a voice startled him out of his waking slumber.

            “Oppa! You really do work here!” a girl’s voice squealed.

            “HyunJae?” JongHyun asked, raising his head.

            A sea of girls started pooling into the store. One after the other until they were all running around the store exclaiming over one thing they’d found to their friends. In his haste to keep up with the activity JongHyun knocked over the post card stand, leaving him cursing while he rubbed at his hip.

            “What are you doing here?” he asked when he’d fully recovered from the shock.

            “Mom said you worked here and my friend said she liked this store so I came to see if everything they were saying was true!” HyunJae exclaimed.

            “And what about the mob of girls?”

            “The word spread about the store I guess. So! You actually work here with your funny pink shirt and everything!”

            “Yah! Don’t make fun of my pink shirt! It’s y…” JongHyun smoothed out his shirt self consciously and hung his head to try and make it look like he was a wounded puppy.

            “You know I love you!” HyunJae sang. She propped herself against the counter and fiddled with a couple of the pens resting in the cup by the register. Poor little Hello Kitty’s head was being abused by high lighter blue polished nails.

            “Did you just come here to make fun of me?” JongHyun asked after he’d grown bored of watching Hello Kitty bash heads with her cousins.

            “No, that was just an added bonus. I wanted to talk to you. Did you think you could show up once and solve everything? No, no, no! You’re stuck with me now! Plus, there’s some things I came to straighten out…”  HyunJae’s eyebrows disappeared into her bans as they rose. JongHyun had a feeling that he knew what she wanted even before she said anything.

            “And what would those be? Make it quick because it looks like I’ll be pretty busy soon…” JongHyun ordered.

            “You’ve had mom all freaked out for a while. She says she saw you kissing someone – and when I say something I mean a boy,” HyunJae said. “Care to explain?”

            JongHyun busied himself with picking up the scattered postcards so he wouldn’t have to connect his eyes to his sister’s. If he did she would surely see past him and call out the lie he was forming in his mind.

            “She saw wrong,” was what he said.

            “So you weren’t kissing a boy in this store when mom came to pick you up?”

            “I might have been, but you’ll never know now will you?”

            “Oppa! If you were I need to know! Mom said you were bringing a boy to the party!”

            “What happened to the little sister I had who slammed the door in my face every time I asked about her little boyfriend?”

            “This isn’t about me oppa! Now are you going to tell me?”

            “You’ll meet whoever I’m bringing at the party. Move aside now; you’re blocking the line.”

            HyunJae pouted but hopped off the counter nonetheless. JongHyun knew that she wasn’t just here on behalf of their mother. Her own curiosity had led her to seek out Onew’s little store and made her ask all these ridiculous questions. In a way JongHyun wasn’t surprised that he was pestered so much by his family. After a year of separation he’d changed a lot and now his family was scrambling to catch up with all of these changes.

            “JongHyun!” HyunJae whined.

            The older brother skillfully avoided his younger sister’s complaints and worked at ringing up the items brought forward by the customers.

            “JongHyun, JongHyun, JongHyun, JongHyun, JongHyun, JongHyun.” HyunJae continued to repeat his name until he had no choice but to acknowledge her presence.

            “Yah! HyunJae! If you really want to talk why don’t you go upstairs?” JongHyun asked.

            The young girl perked up at this. “Really?” she asked.

            JongHyun was about to confirm when he remembered who exactly was sleeping on the couch.

           “Actually, no… No, don’t go up. Just stay back here – behind the counter. We’ll go out and talk later or something,” he quickly made up. If HyunJae went upstairs she’d discover exactly what he was trying to put off until the dinner party.

            “Why not?” HyunJae asked, confusion riddling her words.

            “Uh, because I uhh… Have company coming soon and I don’t want you to mess up the apartment.”

            “Who would be coming over at this time of day?” she asked, suspicion now replacing all other emotions she’d been portraying.

            “Hey JongHyun!” The new voice startled both the Kim’s. Their bodies gave a jolt of surprise as they rounded on the new member to their growing party. Onew placed his bags in the back room (picking up a forgotten postcard as he did) and came back to join JongHyun who was frantically trying to keep up with the girls’ demands. He didn’t waste any time in trying to help him out, taking over the register so the other could bag the items.

            “Hello,” HyunJae greeted, her voice suddenly taking on a curious tone.

            “Hi.” Onew gave her one of his most charming smiles that wooed the customers the majority of the time. JongHyun swore he saw HyunJae swoon a bit. She had something brewing up in her head, though. He could see it in the way she looked at Onew with suspicion.

            “I’m JongHyun’s little sister, HyunJae!” she introduced herself casually.

            Onew only had a moment to glance up and let his intrigue known to his entourage before returning to the buttons. “Little sister, huh? How old are you?” he asked.

            “Twenty.”

            “She’s eighteen,” JongHyun corrected.

            “Spoil sport. I came down to see if JongHyun was really working here! Who are you by the way? Are you… I don’t know? A special friend of oppa’s?”

            “I’m Onew; I own this store and live with JongHyun.”

            A look that disconcerted JongHyun passed over HyunJae’s face. Disappointment mixed with suspicion shadowed her features and was accompanied by her ever growing curious smile.

            “So… Would you say you’re… Close with JongHyun oppa?” she asked.

            “Hmm… I guess so… Why do you ask?”

            “Close enough for him to, oh I don’t know, make out with him?”

            “HyunJae!” JongHyun yelled, nearly choking on the breath he’d taken. Onew was just as shocked as he was. His jaw hung open for all but two second before he focused back on the remaining customers.

            “What? You were being so secretive and all and then you didn’t want me to go upstairs…” She left her sentence hanging like she wanted one of the boys to finish her sentence.

            “Onew hyung is my boss and roommate! He is not part of the sick romantic fantasy you have playing out in your head! You will meet whoever I’m brining at the party and that’s it! You can pass the message on to mom, too!” JongHyun yelled.

            “But oppa!” HyunJae wailed.

            “You’ve embarrassed me enough, HyunJae – no more.”

            The final straggling customer exited the shop, announcing the end of the rush and probably the end of business for the day. The only three remaining people in the store now were the two Kim’s and a befuddled Onew.

            “I just want to know who this mystery boy is!” HyunJae squabbled.

            “You’ll meet him at the party!”

            “But that’s so far away!”

            “Tough love!”

            “Wait, what’s going on?” Onew asked, clueless to the events unfolding.

            “I’ll tell you later. It’s time to go HyunJae.”

            “Can’t I at least see where you live?”

            “No, you can’t.”

            “Why can’t she? I don’t see the problem…” Onew murmured, talking more to himself than the quarrelling siblings.

            “She can’t because she can’t,” JongHyun answered unconvincingly.

            “Well, I don’t see why she can’t…”

            “She can’t because -” His sentence never finished considering Onew was leading the way up the stairs with HyunJae following close behind.

            JongHyun didn’t know why he was in such a panic over this but he wanted to introduce Key to his family formally. And, of course, HyunJae was sticking to her guns and doing everything she could to get what she wanted. Just like their father.

            No matter how hard she tried, though, JongHyun was determined not to let her see Key until everyone else. He raced ahead of the pair, knocking over the postcards – again – in his rush, and took the steps two at a time so he could reach the apartment faster.

            When the door swung open he was glad to see that Key has migrated from the couch to the bed in his room like he’d predicted he would. Trotting to the bedroom where the door was half open, JongHyun slipped inside and shut the door quietly behind him. Inside Key was sprawled out on the bed with the blankets bunched up at his feet. In the dim light of the room he could make out the small shimmer of sweat beading up on his skin. His face looked a bit sunken which led JongHyun to believe that he’d gotten worse in the few hours that he’d had to leave his side.

            Making sure the door was closed JongHyun moved towards the bed and kneeled by Key’s head, back the damp blonde hair from his skin.

            “Key… Are you sleeping?” he whispered.

            The boy stirred, his head lolling to the side and his brown eyes squinting open. “JongHyun hyung?” he asked his voice a bit hoarse.

            “Yeah… You’re really hot… Don’t move, okay? Someone came over but they’ll be gone soon… Don’t worry about coming out, all right? Rest up and I’ll take care of you when I’m done…”

            “Who’s here?”

            “My sister…”

            Had Key been a little more awake and tuned into the real world he probably would have sprung up and gone to greet her, but the fever was affecting more than just his energy at that point.

            “I’ll be back soon,” JongHyun promised whilst placing a kiss to his boyfriend’s wet forehead. Giving him a once over quickly he snuck back out the door to where Onew was showing HyunJae around their living quarters.

            “In there is JongHyun’s room,” he heard Onew say.

            “And you can’t see it because I’m treating a sick patient,” JongHyun said. “Don’t make too much noise, okay? He’s sleeping…”

            “Is he the boy?” HyunJae asked, clearly excited.

            “You’re way too nosy for your own good.”

            “It runs in the family.”

            HyunJae stayed for a little longer, finally understanding that she wasn’t going to meet Key a few hours in but still wanting to see where her older brother lived. The added eye candy probably made her stick around a little more than what was reasonable for a normal guest. She stayed until she exploited all reasons to stay.

            “I guess I’ll go now… I better be the first person you introduce him to.” HyunJae gave her brother a big hug, not having to tip toe this time since she was sporting a pair of flashy heels. She gave Onew a warm smile and his own speech of departure before making her leave.

            “I’ll see you in two weeks!” she called before disappearing.

            Onew and JongHyun exchanged a look and then went about their business again.

            “Your sister’s pretty,” Onew said.

            “Don’t even think about it.” With nothing more to say, JongHyun went back down to finish work in the store while thinking about ways to play nurse to Key later.

---

Wasn't I such a liar with teh picture in the last chapter? kekekeke

Double update today and now I'm off to work!