Step Back Chapter 13
Title: Step Back | Henry Lau and Kwon Ji Yong | PG-13 | Crossover: Big Bang/Super Junior | Crack pairing
It hurt him so much that Henry wasn’t feeling the same way he was feeling.
“I mean, it’s not like I love/like him or anything…I just feel accomplished and very happy whenever I am with him…”
Jiyong could pretty much notice Youngbae was about to laugh right at his face because everything he said was an utter lie to Youngbae’s eyes and that he already thought Jiyong was hitting on Henry real serious.
Seunghyun must’ve told him. He knew Youngbae wanted him to date since like forever, and when he set up dates without him knowing, with people he didn’t know, at places that made him feel out of place, Youngbae hoped wholeheartedly that Jiyoung could finally find his better half; but whenever Jiyong got out with someone of his own choice, Youngbae would definitely shake his head and say that relationship wouldn’t work out.
Curiously, whenever Youngbae said that, Jiyong knew beforehand he was always telling the truth.
So when Youngbae heard this news, coming from Seunghyun’s mouth it was a gossip rather than news that Ji was supposedly hitting on some classmate of his it wouldn’t have been any surprise that he came rushingto see what was going on.
Jiyong mentally cursed his hyung Seunghyun for spilling fake beans on him with his classmate. He already knew those two put together into the same classroom was dangerous already.
Though Bae didn’t laugh at him. He just gave one of those bitch-please looks he always gave to people whenever they were being immature, and also patted Jiyong’s shoulder.
“He’s in denial”
“Yeah, I know hyung.”
“You dork”
Youngbae grinned.
“Where’s Little Seunghyun?” Jiyong asked.
“You know, stuff tends to ease when you openly admit what their feelings actually are” older Seunghyun started.
“It’s okay to like a boy, Ji. I mean it’s not like the four of us are actually going to murder you in your sleep because you like this pretty foreign boy named Hen-”
“Where’s Little Seunghyun?” Jiyong cut off Youngbae.
“Eh…why should we know?” Seunghyun let out a deep sigh. “I mean he must be busy studying for his exams…and Dae is busy with his high-school application tests…”
“Perhaps we’ll hang out later, I don’t know…” Youngbae shrugged. “Can you come? We’ll have a really good time together”
“You can bring your pretty boy with you if you want” Seunghyun complemented.
God, he hated them. His face darkened.
“Hey, take it easy bro” Seunghyun bro-hugged him. “You know we are just joking…but nevertheless you have to realize you just don’t like him that way, am I right?”
“I am alright, hyung…and please can you just stop? It’s no longer funny”
Seunghyun chuckled.
“I am sorry” he said abruptly.
The atmosphere became awkward as hell.
“Still, he is always invited to come with us…” Youngbae said quietly.
Jiyong slapped his shoulder.
‘But that’s not a bad idea either…hum, shall reconsider it…’ he thought; yes, he was aware that his brothers were going to give the two of them -especially Jiyong himself- a very awkward and uneasy time, but still they would have fun, besides, they basically did it to him every day now and then, so it wasn’t that of a problem.
Though there was also this possibility of Henry getting very fed up and walk out of his life, but, hey, it was a risk he was willing to take.
Not that his brothers were especially annoying anyway. He was sure they were going to be nice to Henry and very teasing and mischievous with him.
Later on Jiyong made a mental note to stop rambling into his head when someone else was talking. It was rude and made the whole convo more awkward.
“Eh, I’ll ask him anyway…”
The two older guys grinned and Seunghyun had to restrain himself from making a sarcastic comment.
-
“Hey~”
“What is it”
“Do u have any plans 4 later on???”
Henry hesitated for a few moments before replying the text.
“No”
“Cool~ :)”
“What do u want anyway”
“Would u go out with us?”
“Yea why not”
“Ok Ill pick u up later~~”
[No reply]
-
Donghae made a pout.
“You’ve been tagging along a lot with that Kwon boy lately, Henry…and you’ve left me here all alone with these dorks that are your other hyungs~ ” said him jokingly poking Henry’s shoulder.
Heechul groaned annoyed.
“Oh, stop it will you?” he was glaring at Donghae “You’re being annoying to all the people in this room.”
All the fifteen boys decided to hang out to someone’s house, and, being Sungmin the one with most spot to share with the others they all decided that today it was going to be him the one hosting the whole thing, not that it needed a host per se, but Siwon said it’d probably look more appropriate to their parent’s eyes if they referred to the event a social gathering rather than a whole day of half-assing at a house that wasn’t yours.
Siwon was right though, Henry thought, his mother would probably have kicked all fifteen of them to the street telling them half-ass at the streets rather than in her own house. She didn’t like young boys who looked like homeless hobos when they obviously weren’t.
That was the reason she had inscribed her children into all those extra-curricular classes; she didn’t want them to hang around without doing anything at all, she wanted them to be productive at anything, just to have them occupied with something, as trivial as it might sound.
That’s why Henry ended up speaking three languages fluently, having basic skills at other two, knowing how to play the violin flawlessly, being not as good as in violin but quite talented as well with the piano, the guitar and the drums, knowing how to sing decently enough -He used to think no one could beat him on that until he got into Korea and met his hyungs, because let’s face it, some of them were so painfully better than him that it hit him very hard in the pride and had to tone down a bit-, having really good ballet skills, knowing boogaloo popping and Latin dance and beat boxing.
He could pretty much enliven a party with all of those skills, but then again there was the fact he didn’t like go clubbing and that he wasn’t that of an attention whore. Okay, he had to admit he did like getting noticed -even if the only things that made people curious about him were only for his looks, but he liked it a lot.
But his case wasn’t as worse as it was with, say, Jeongsu-hyung or Heechul-hyung or anyone else.
To be honest, the only ones who were more toned down were Zhou Mi gege, Siwon-hyung, Kyuhyun-hyung, Jongwoon-hyung, Kibum-hyung , Hangeng-gege and perhaps himself. Not that he minded it, in the end everyone -in this world, to be honest, were a bit of attention-whorey so it wasn’t that of a big deal.
Donghae glared back at Heechul.
“I was just being sarcastic, hyung” he stated as a matter of fact.
“It’s still annoying as hell”
“Oh, but we in fact are dying to know how things are going between you two” Ryeowook declared.
Oh right, that.
“Nothing happened, actually…”
Henry quickly made signals to him with his mouth and fingers. ‘I’ll tell you later’, to whoch Ryeowook nodded and both of them quickly turned around to see if someone noticed. To their good luck, the other thirteen guys were making a fuss over the bowl of popcorn, oblivious to them.
Henry sighed in relief.
Though Heechul did notice. He sighed heavily and decided to look away. He was slightly hurt by Henry’s actions, but he knew that if you had other fourteen boys being your best friends at school, you’d probably choose three or four to be really close to. No one was going to openly say all the things they were going through like an open book for other fourteen others to see…just to the ones you trusted the most.
And unfortunately he wasn’t that close to the youngster to begin with, so he had no chances to know what occurred on that day that made Henry start acting so weird all of a sudden.
He blamed it for the great age difference between them, and decided to not give it a lot of importance.
Anyway, Henry didn’t want him to know in particular; for he knew he’d probably tell everyone about it just seconds later. Yes, he knew it; Jiyong had told him that he already knew he was gay.
-
That afternoon after he bid goodbye to Kyuhyun was a total wreck, at least to Henry’s eyes.
Classes ended at 6 pm, so Henry walked home to refresh himself and change clothes.
Jiyong had told him he would be awaiting for him outside the building as soon as he cleaned himself up as well, so it would probably give him a great deal of time; so he arrived, dropped out his schoolbag somewhere, ate some chocolate treat he had just bought in the store and decided to take a shower.
He ended up taking a 45 minute long shower, when he was just expecting to have a really quick one, just like the ones he took before heading up to school, about 10 minutes or so.
But he really wanted to look nice, there were going to be people he didn’t know at all, so he didn’t want to cause a bad first impression. He put cologne all over himself and was about to pour half bottle on the clothes he was going to wear, until he realized he didn’t have a single clue what he was going to wear.
Because, like…what were you supposed to wear when you’re going out to, like, a club?
Jiyong had told him that they were heading off to a club, and Henry had disagreed at first, but then Jiyong changed his mind.
It was funny how he convinced him into something that his best friends have tried to for months.
But still he didn’t have a clue about what you were supposed to wear when going to a club, and if he asked any of his hyungs he would probably receive a spam of text messages three seconds after full of questions or angry ramblings from those who have tried in taking him to a club, such as “OMG UR GOING OUT TO A CLUB WITH STRANGERS INSTEAD OF ME OMG UR SO EVIL HOW COULD U IM SO MAD N UPSET U DON’T EVEN HAVE IDEA ASDGDEFSJ!!!!!111!!!11!!”
And, to be honest, he wasn’t feeling like dealing with them.
So he just sent a quick message to Zhou Mi, who was the most likely to keep his mouth shut. And because he was a fashionista who knew what to exactly wear at anytime, any occasion, without looking really out of place.
“It depends on who you are going with…”
“What do you mean?”
“I you are going with an established partner then you’ll have to wear something discrete because otherwise your partner will feel jealous”
“If you’re going with some friends, then you should wear something comfortable but at the same time something that makes you an eye-candy for the rest of the crowd”
“If you want to hook up on someone then you should put on something that defines your body more, but at the same time something that doesn’t scream off ‘Free blowjobs’ all over the place.”
“…and, if you really feel the urge to get laid, then I guess you should even go shirtless, I don’t know, I haven’t dressed like one of those before.”
Henry decided to choose the second option.
“Let’s say I am going out with friends, what should I, as in myself, me, Henry Lau, wear?”
Henry heard Zhou Mi chuckle in the other line.
“Something tight that doesn’t make you seem like a manwhore”
“Ok.”
So, then you have Henry putting on a tight white shirt with some text in English printed on it, skinny jeans, a leather jacket with a hoodie on it and classic up-to-toe black converse.
Aside from the jeans, that didn’t really showed off how well-built he was, and that somehow made him feel secure.
He decided to comb his hair in a nice way, so he almost spent other 30 minutes in figuring out how he wanted his hair to look like, making lots of mental notes to have another haircut as soon as possible.
He saw his mirage on the mirror once again, and God, he was feeling so good with it because he looked really good and he couldn’t deny it.
He was so going to cause a really good impression.
‘This is going to be fun, after all…’
Then his doorbell rang.
-
He would have preferred going clubbing for his first time with someone really close to him, like Zhou Mi gege, who wasn’t that fond of clubbing but sometimes did it. Not that he liked it, in fact he was more of a social clubber or something of the like. In fact, he wasn’t that of a ‘social clubber’, he basically did it for his hyungs alone because if it was for him, he would go shopping or writing instead.
But now he was stuck with Jiyong in midst of an awkward situation. He actually felt realy good when Jiyong looked at him from head to toe.
“You look amazing”
That made him feel accomplished; somehow he was expecting the older to react this way, but nonetheless those words made him really happy.
“Thank you, hyung”
Jiyong was wearing a dark grey printed tank top, a black shawl collar tassel inset vest on top,black acid wash skinny jeans and white high-top sneakers. Geez, that boy could perfectly combine clothes.
”What?” Jiyong asked playfully.
“You look great on those, hyung” Henry said.
“Well, thank you” Jiyong smiled.
Henry turned around to see if the other boys were around.
“Where are the others?”
Jiyong turned his head as well, trying to locate his dumb brothers, who were nowhere to be seen.
Stupid Bastards.
“Eh…they were right beside me just a moment ago…” Jiyong said, finally realizing the guys perhaps made it on purpose.
“Oh, I see…” Henry stuttered. “Perhaps they already got going…we shall wait for them there, right?” Henry smiled, trying not to worsen the mood.
“Yes, I guess so…”
So, they started walking by each other’s side; no one was talking at all, but there wasn’t an awkward atmosphere either. Just silence; Jiyong thought it was nice not talking at all, as if they already told each other everything and there were no more words left.
Henry broke the silence, though.
“How are we supposed to get in when we’re still underage?” he sounded preoccupied.
“Because we’re going to sneak in, and pretend we’re eighteen already”
Henry gave Jiyong a bitch-please look.
“It’s pretty obvious we’re still brats, hyung!”
“But they are going to pretend they actually believed us” Jiyong replied.
Henry laughed out loud.
“God, are you for real?”
“Hum, yes, I guess so, Henry” Jiyong smiled too. “It’s easy, we pay for our entrance, just like other normal people, well, we actually pay a little bit more, but that’s it, and then we can have fun.”
“Okay…”
Silence again.
“Hyung…” Henry started, lowly.
“What is it, Henry?”
“You’re awesome, like, seriously hyung” Henry grinned.
Which made Jiyong’s heart flutter.
-
30 minutes or so passed whilst Henry and Jiyong gave up in waiting for the other four boys who were supposed to come along; Henry was being all smiles and silly giggles -which, according to Ji, was something really weird, as he would always complain and mock the older- with everything Jiyong would say. Somehow, all those words his brothers have told him the last days were banging into his head.
He was feeling confused with his feelings, to the point of not knowing anymore what to do with the boy who was just accompanying him; well, in fact he didn’t know what to do with him from the very start, but this time around was different; he could almost feel how his poor and tiny heart was pounding so fast. Henry’s smiles, Henry’s compliments, Henry’s giggles, Henry’s gazes…all those little things he gave away to Jiyong everytime he would make any kind of comment -be it from a very trivial one, to very sarcastic and even rude ones made him feel startled and, well…puzzled.
Just like the first time he saw him.
His mind was now full of Henry Lau.
They were making their way down to the club Jiyong mentioned; Henry’s emotions were a mix between regret and curiousity; but now that he was with Jiyong he couldn’t just say no anymore, he could have perfectly done so about 6 hours ago.
But now it was too late, so he had to bear with the consequences; not that he minded it big time, actually; he was now feeling all clumsy and dumb right now, Jiyong somehow was making feel this way; suddenly everything he said was like the funniest joke ever and Henry just couldn’t fully understand why was it.
Well, perhaps he actually sensed why he was feeling this way with the person who just made him feel stiffened and uneasy just a few days ago.
But he was in denial, so he wasn’t going to admit it.
Jiyong had a quick glimpse of four familiar silhouettes fooling around a convenience store; all of them dressed the same day his brothers were just about an hour ago. The thought of listening to their story of how they fell apart from him made him chuckle a little.
‘Those dorks, no wonder why I love them a lot.’
“Hey” Jiyong poked Henry’s arm softly. “There are those kids” said the lad, pointing out at the little gang. Henry followed Jiyong’s finger.
‘So, that means it’s not going to be the two of us anymore?’
When Henry turned back to see Jiyong, he noticed the older was already heading off to the convenience store.
So he just shrugged and followed him as well.
-
“Hey you four! What are you doing here?” Jiyong gritted.
Seunghyun turned his head and smirked.
“We were just tagging around, you know…Seungri wanted black bubble tea so badly and Dae was thirsty as well and then, well, you two just didn’t seem uncomfortable with each other so we thought we could sneak out for a while and have a drink…well sort of…”
“And then we got lost” Daesung added while taking a sip to his tea; a sly grin drawn in his lips. Seunghyun hit him smoothly with his elbow, whilst shushing him.
“Dae, we don’t need Jiyong to know how much of an air head hyung is…” Youngbae added. Seunghyun glared at them.
Henry was starting to feel out of place, because suddenly everyone was acting so brotherly and really comfortable with each other and the only one who stood there, not knowing how to act or what to say at all was him. As he was about to start excusing himself or making something up just to leave the place, an arm poken his shoulder whilst a voice that was unknown for him called out his name.
“Hi, my name’s Lee Seunghyun; Jiyong, Youngbae and Daesung call me Little Seunghyun, Seunghyun-hyung and mostly everyone who knows both of us call me Seungri, you can call me whatever you want, though; you’re the ever famous Henry Lau, am I right?” Seungri was suddenly shaking off his hand animatedly.
Well, the boy was being really kind and everything, bonus points for trying anyway.
“Um…yeah? I mean, I don’t know what do you mean by famous but yep, I am that man…”
Daesung giggled a little bit too loud and Youngbae choked with his ice tea a bit. Henry couldn’t see in a very detailed way what was the reaction of the elders, but didn’t really seem to care a lot about it either.
“I mean, famous as in the everyone know who you are way…”
Oh, really? That surprised Henry because he thought of himself as anything but popular among the school students; not that he regarded it as a bad way though, but that just left him doumbfounded anyway.
Not that Seungri was lying, though; Henry was quite popular, at least among girls at the junior high section, some guys admired him as well; everyone thought Amber and him were an item, which freaking made sense because hell, they acted as if they actually were one, and Seungri was a bit worried when he found out about Jiyong hitting on him -or that was Seunghyun at least told him- because the simple thought of his loving brother getting himself immersed into a lot of problems because he tried to steal a really popular and known boy from one of the most popular and loved girls from that school.
At last, he was finally glad Youngbae had explained how things actually were, and, well, he ended up liking the boy. He seemed really nice and cheerful.
“Oh, well…thank you”
Daesung groaned.
“Shall we get going?” he bawled “If not, then I’ll bid goodbye and go to another place…not that I like clubs anyway…“
Henry didn’t like them either, but seemingly he was the main reason they had chosen the club thing. Seunghyun clapped his hands up.
“Okay now! We should get going or else Dae will regret it later!”