“Noona?” Hyuk called out as he looked into the door that was hanging wide open. There was stuff everywhere, but it was all in little organized piles. He looked around, trying to figure out where Lucca had disappeared off to.

“Hyuk? Is that you?” Lucca’s voice came from the hallway, making Hyuk smile.

“Noona~” he called out, walking through the door. He held up the bag on his arm, waving slightly with his other hand. “HakYeon said you needed this stuff, so I brought it over.”

“Oh, is that the laundry detergent?” Lucca asked, pulling herself up to her feet and stepping over the stacks of stuff around the living room. “I thought JaeHwannie was going to bring it by, but alright.” Lucca shrugged a little, walking over and smiling at Hyuk.

“All of the hyungs are gone, so HakYeon-Hyung told me to bring this to you.” Hyuk held out the bag to her, smiling a little even though the comment hurt him a little.

“Oh, are they…?” Lucca tipped her head a little, looking into the bag to see what she had been gifted with. “Well thank you Hyukkie~” she turned and started towards the hallway, but then turned and looked back at him. “Are you off anywhere in a big hurry?”

“No.” Hyuk shook his head as he stepped further into the house and kicked off his shoes. “Do you want me to close the door?”

Lucca glanced at the door, but then shook her head. “Don’t worry about it. I have one neighbor and they live three miles away I think.” She shrugged, turning back around. “Can you come help me with laundry really fast?”

“Sure.” Hyuk nodded.

Lucca stopped, slowly turning and looking back at Hyuk. “Did you walk here, by the way…?” She asked, peering through the still open door for any signs of a car outside waiting.

“Yes. All in the name of giving you laundry soap.” Hyuk grinned, laughing slightly. “No, I took the subway most the way.”

Shaking her head, Lucca laughed with him. “I’ll take you home in a little bit.”

“Alright.” Hyuk continued laughing for a moment, following Lucca down the hallway. He had never been through her whole house. All he knew was that the place was huge and that he felt like he could easily get lost in there. He had no idea how it was that only two people could live in such a big house. She led him down the hallways until they got to a dark wooden door. He heard sounds of animals coming from another door, one sounding like a parrot holding a conversation with someone, and then the other sounds of other small animals.

“Don’t mind the animals, I started cleaning out their room and it disturbed them and got them all riled up.” Lucca waved her hand at the door. “Come on, the laundry is downstairs.”

“Downstairs?” Hyuk’s eyes widened. “But you have like five floors already going up in your house!”

“Actually, there are only five floors in the house in total. The basement, the den, the ground floor, our upstairs, and then the attic.”  Lucca corrected, pointing at Hyuk with a small smile. “We have to go through the den to get to the basement, so come on, I can sort of show you around better than the last time you were here.”

“You guys have too much room for only two people.” Hyuk laughed, following Lucca down the nice wooden stairs.

Lucca shrugged laughing a little. “I guess we have enough room that if anyone wanted to come over, they could. I honestly just got lucky with this house I think.” She led him down the stairs and waved her hands in the air slightly. They went down a little bit further, and she stopped suddenly and waved towards the room they were suddenly in. “Welcome to the den though.”

Hyuk looked around, seeing that it was a warm atmosphere that had a fireplace set off to one side, and a couch that was pushed over by one of the walls. There were three recliners that were also in the area, turned so that they made a partial circle around a coffee table. There was a TV that was mounted up on the wall above the tidy fireplace that was covered up since it wasn’t in use. In the rest of the surrounding walls were bookshelves, full of different books and other small things like little statues and pictures.

“Wow, this is amazing. You guys did great with decorating this.” Hyuk smiled, looking over at Lucca as she started rounding the stairs towards the one that would lead all the way down to the basement.

“Thanks….” Lucca smiled just barely, her eyes turned towards the stairway. “Come on.” She waved her hand.

Hyuk looked around the den again and started towards the stairs. Following after Lucca, he looked around as they descended the stairs. “Why don’t you guys spend much time down here? It’s nice.”

Lucca laughed a little. “There’s…. No real reason for us to be down here. It’s more of a hangout area when we have friends and stuff over.” She shrugged, tipping her head from side to side. “We don’t have a lot of people come over, so we don’t really spend much time down in the den.”

Hyuk smiled, following her down the stairs and into the carpeted basement. There was a card table that had four chairs around it, a pack of cards sitting on the table. Turning, Hyuk saw that on the other side of the basement, there was a long bar island made out of rich mahogany with some bar stools set in front of it. There were two different cabinets set behind it with a rack full of glasses in between them.

“Where’s the laundry?” Hyuk asked, his eyes wide as he looked around the comfortable basement.

“Over here.” Lucca waved her hand. She led him past the bar and towards a little closet.

Hyuk followed, looking over her shoulder as he tried to take in the wonderful house he had been exposed to. She opened the door, a pile of laundry tumbling down by their feet and catching Hyuk’s attention. “For only two people living here, that’s a lot of laundry….” Hyuk muttered, blinking as he stared at the pile of laundry.

“I know….” Lucca pouted, blushing slightly when she realized that people didn’t normally see the huge messes that were normally hidden in their home. “I’m always at work though, and Raelyn’s always at work and putting herself through college, so we have a hard time keeping up with all of the work, the laundry especially….” Laughing a little awkwardly, she scratched the back of her head.

Hyuk didn’t think about it at first, but then the fact that Lucca had said Raelyn was in college sent his mind reeling. “How old is Raelyn, anyways…?” He asked, looking at the laundry before he knelt down to help Lucca by separating the clothes.

“Raelyn?” Lucca thought for a moment, but knelt down beside Hyuk to help him. “She turned nineteen this year.”

Staring at the clothes for a moment, Hyuk had to think about this. “Oh, okay…” He pushed a few of the dark clothes away and towards the pile that had been built already. As he was pushing through the clothes, he thought about everything that he had already pieced together, and he knew that Raelyn had something to do with it.

How could Raelyn and JaeHwan have been friends when they’re so far apart in age? Unless their families knew each other…but she’s so much closer in age with HongBin-ah…wouldn’t they be friends instead…? Hyuk thought this over as he pushed the clothes around on the ground and separated them all into piles. Just as he was mulling over how he still had no real proof that Raelyn and JaeHwan hadn’t known each other before, his attention was caught by the sight of a green felt looking material.

Tipping his head, Hyuk tried to remember where it was he had seen the fabric before. Reaching out, he grasped it and tugged it out of the pile of clothes. When he did, he heard a light tinkling of the bells that were on the bottom of the material. He raised an eyebrow as he looked at the dark green and bright red boxers he was holding, the bells jingling as he held them up. Looking at Lucca, his eyebrow raised a little more. “And what is this…?” He asked teasingly, realizing he had seen the boxers when they had cleaned out the house and JaeHwan had claimed them.

“What?” Lucca looked up, her face contorting into one of disbelief. “Yah, Han SangHyuk, where is your mind!?” She laughed loudly, shaking her head at him. “Those are Raelyn’s. She’s had them for like three years now. You have no idea how many times I’ve tried to get rid of them.”

“These are Raelyn’s?” Hyuk’s eyebrows raised in shock.

“Yeah.” Lucca laughed. “I don’t know, she’s weird sometimes.”

Quickly tossing them into the colors pile, Hyuk’s mind went into overdrive. He had originally thought they were JaeHwan’s because he had claimed them when they were at the apartment, but was it possible that they just so happened to have the same boxers? Eyes wide, Hyuk went back to separating the clothes so he didn’t draw attention to the fact that he was lost in thought.

Where are they? Hyuk thought to himself, digging through JaeHwan’s drawers to try and figure out if he was on the right path of thought, or if he was just freaking himself out. He put all of the clothes back in place after he dug them up, shutting the drawer quickly. He pulled open the top drawer, finding his elder’s boxer drawer. He went through the neat stacks of underwear, trying to figure out what was happening. Finding only dark colors of boxers and no red and green boxers with bells on them, Hyuk leaned back onto the floor. Does this mean that those boxers that were here were actually Raelyn’s?? He was almost mortified at the thought, because that could only mean one thing.

Maybe they’re in the dirty laundry…. Has Hyung taken his laundry to the laundry room yet? Shutting the drawer, Hyuk looked around the room. He saw that JaeHwan’s laundry basket was empty. Grunting, Hyuk gave the room a once over to make sure they weren’t hiding somewhere. Not finding them, he escaped JaeHwan’s room and rushed to the laundry room.

Opening the door, he saw that they had a pile of laundry there as well. Okay, HakYeon hasn’t done laundry yet…. He knelt down, quickly starting to dig through the clothes. He was holding onto a sliver of hope that the boxers they had found earlier in the year were actually JaeHwan’s and not Raelyn’s, but the closer he got to the bottom of the pile, he found that there was no way he was going to find them. JaeHwan didn’t have a pair of boxers that were bright green and red and had little bells hanging on the ends of them. Hyuk let out a heavy sigh.

Slowly pushing the laundry all back into the laundry room, he mulled over what he had discovered. Standing up, Hyuk went to his bedroom and quickly dug his notebook out from behind the desk. He had found that it was the best place to hide it where no one else was going to discover it. Opening it to the page, he pulled out a pen and started to write down everything.

Raelyn and JaeHwan → New Years. Raelyn was drunk. Boxers actually Raelyn’s.

Stopping, Hyuk looked back at the information he already had.

Leo and JaeHwan. New Years. The stories don’t match? No one knew them from before even though they should have.

Hyuk stopped, looking around the information. “What proof do I have that they didn’t know each other…?” He paused, but then quickly scribbled down that Raelyn and JaeHwan had a five year difference in age and couldn’t have possibly gone to school together. “That’s not enough. I need to know that HongBin-ah for sure didn’t know Raelyn…. There are too many holes that I don’t know….” He bit his lip in thought, trying to think about what else could have happened.

Just as he was about to go out in search of more answers though, he heard the front door open. Not even caring who had come in, Hyuk quickly closed his notebook and stashed it behind the desk again. He knew more than he was supposed to, and at the very least, he knew that much. Letting out a breath, he turned and went out of the door to figure out who had come home.

HongBin was sitting on the ground in the process of untying his shoes so he could take them off. He was humming gently to himself, a small smile playing at his face.

“HongBin-ah~” Hyuk called out, smiling just barely. He had too much on his mind to truly smile at the other boy. If he was even half right about what was going on, the information would completely destroy HongBin.

“Hyukkie~” HongBin smiled as he looked up at him. “I didn’t realize you were home.”

“I just got back from Lucca’s not too long ago. Where are you coming from?”

“I was with Raelyn.” He sighed lovingly, a smile spreading across his face. “She’s so wonderful.”

Hyuk leaned against the doorframe. “You really like her, don’t you?”

“Yeah…” HongBin nodded slowly, smiling at the wall before looking up at Hyuk.

Hyuk nodded, his smile fading a little as he thought about everything that was happening seemingly all at once. He looked at HongBin, and could only think about what would happen if the boy found out about everything that JaeHwan was doing. This secret that Hyuk was slowly uncovering could hurt HongBin more than anything else. He watched the younger for a moment, and sighed softly. “Hey Bean-ah…?”

HongBin looked up at the nickname, suddenly taken from the dreamy place he had been in. “Neh?”

“Do…. Do you trust JaeHwan-Hyung…?”

Blinking at the question, HongBin studied Hyuk for a moment, but then nodded slowly. “I.… We’re working on it, but…. Mostly….”

“You guys were really close as kids, weren’t you…?”

“Yeah, we did everything together. We had all the same friends, we had practically the same schedules and we were barely apart….” HongBin nodded at the memory.

“Oh really?” Hyuk tilted his head. “And you don’t remember Raelyn…?”

HongBin thought about it for a moment, but shook his head. “No…. Of course, they probably met when he started distancing himself from me.” HongBin shrugged a little. “I try not to think about it too much. All it needs is one more lie for me to lose all respect for him….” HongBin sighed softly, but stood up and pushed his shoes off of his feet. “Do you want some water?”

Hyuk watched HongBin, trying to decide what was going through the younger’s mind. “Yeah…. I’ll have some water….”

Dammit. That’s all I needed to hear, and it’s over…. What the hell am I supposed to do…?