Petting a Boy Chapter 8 [Hyukhae]

[ime_ime_ime]

Title: Petting a Boy
Pairing: Hyukhae
Length: Chaptered; Chapter 8
Genre: Mafia!AU, Drama, Romance
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3752
Extra infos: Top!Hyuk, Teenage!Donghae
Disclaimer: I hope they are mine.
Beta-ed by: na_jin_br 
Summary: Hyukjae was a 25 years old single 'free-lancer' that loved to play around with girl. Not until he met Donghae, a strange 16 years old boy that cross-dressed when he had saved him from his bullies friends. Maybe Hyukjae regretted his actions, because the boy suddenly invaded his life and free-loaded him. Until almost one year later, when suddenly one by one fishy events and problems started to happen. Leaded them to more lies. But more truths finally had been revealed.
Ime's Note: There! an update! YAY!!!! :"> Happy reading!!

Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2: Part 1, Part 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7


.o0o.
The smell of breakfast in the morning told me that I would have a normal morning and eventually would have a normal day? I hoped so. But the smell of sweets for breakfast didn’t get me fast enough to wake from my shallow sleep. I let myself laying for a bit on the softness of the couch.

Couch?

I rubbed my eyes awake and forced myself to get up. Peeking from the couch to a back that was facing me in the kitchen counter. I frowned.

“Sungmin?”

The owner of the back turned his head and gave me a wide good morning smile, “Yes?”
He was humming an unknown rhythm, a hiss from his frying pan telling him to hurry, “Oh, I hope you don’t mind I made breakfast? I made pancakes for us.”

“Its smell… sweet…”

“You don’t like sweet?” he asked worried.

“Oh, don’t worry, I’m just not used to... you know, usually I get scrambled eggs for breakfast and such…”

“Ah… I see… well, I’ll teach Donghae how to make sweets for breakfast later then!” he decided excitedly.

“You don’t have to! Where is he anyway?”

“He already left for school,”

“Eh? How about his health?”

“He said he was alright. He asked me to tell you he took all the meds you gave him and he would be okay so you didn’t have to be worried…”

“Why I have to be worried? I don’t even care about him really…”

Sungmin snickered at my answer and that annoyed me a lot, as if there was something wrong with my answer.

“Anyway, Hyukjae,” Sungmin said, turning off the stove and untying his apron, “I have to go somewhere today,”

“Oh, you still haven’t finished your business with that rat?”

Sungmin shook his head weakly, he put down two plates on the dining table “It’s gonna be long yaknow, government bureau has sniff out the smelly man and he is under investigation now, anyway, are you going somewhere today?”

“Imma gonna see my boss today,” I reached out for the pancakes, then poured syrup on it, “I promised him earlier… I wonder why he was in such a rush,”

Sungmin took a seat in front of me, “I met him before,”

“Who? My Boss?”

Sungmin nodded, “That man has great ambition,”

“Isn’t that good? You said it as if it’s something wrong.”

“I don’t know, just my feeling yaknow?”

I hummed and took a bite of my pancakes, when I didn’t hear Sungmin continued, I looked up and found him staring at me longingly. “What’s wrong?”

He smiled then shook his head and, without further word, concentrated on his breakfast again.

I called Mr. Boss to tell him that I was coming by. He sounded glad to hear that. So I thought this must be very important to him. But I never imagined that it would be THIS.

Mr. Boss welcomed me warmly and offered me a seat in front of his desk. He even asked about my health.

“Well, Hyukjae, I’m glad to have you in my little association, as only you that I know can help me on this.”

Confused, I asked, “You seem so excited about this, what exactly can I do for you?”

He shook his head dramatically, like his usual self, “You know didn’t you, what I want to gain in this business I’m working in?”

“Money?” I said without much thought.

“No, no, no, Hyukjae, I want respect.”

It was not the first time he talked about this ‘respect’, but in my current situation now, his talk obviously wouldn’t only remain words. He wanted to do something about this and thinking about what Sungmin just said this morning, made me think negatively out of this.

What ‘respect’ defined in this kind of world?

“You understand, don’t you, Hyukjae? I want respect. That means that I have to spread my business to other field as well, not only illegal gamble, robberies, lots, and low level of crime. This district has a lot of potentials. We don’t have any figure to look up to yet! That’s why I have to step up and fill that position. As the respected man, you understand, Hyukjae? That’s why I need you here!”

“You want to be a mafia?”

“Exactly,”

“I thought we talked about this.”

“No, no, no, Hyukjae, it’s not like that I asked you to kill someone,” He laughed. I just remained silent.

“Geezh, young men lately have no sense of humor. Don’t be so stiff, I haven’t asked anything from you, Hyukjae,”

“I won’t do anything if it’s against humanity,”

Mr. Boss still had a smile on his face, but it stiffened a bit. Obviously, he started to get impatient. “Listen, Hyukjae, I understand your demand right from the first time you joined us. I can respect it, but we all know it’s just talk, I mean come on. You can talk about humanity to all your heart’s content, but in this kind of business, it a laughable matter. If you are serious about that, you won’t possibly go higher on this business.”

“I have my own judgment on what can and can’t be done. And you can’t decide on what I have to do.”

“It’s a shame, really. You’re one of my favorite subordinates. I know just how stubborn you can be.” he paused and closed his eyes in an attempt to think and calmed at the same time. “You did a lot for me in this long time Hyukjae, so I won’t force you to go against you own values, but, as a farewell why don’t you do one thing for me?”

I thought about it for a while. It was impossible for me to keep working under his orders at this rate. But he indeed did a lot for me too. Maybe he would keep me alive if I agreed on this or even could be my unofficial guardian for future time. But what favor he was going to ask me to do? A job that only me, out of people he knew, could do?

He knew I was hesitating. So he ordered his bodyguard to come into the room before showing me the ‘job’.

He took a pack of white material from his drawer. It didn’t need a second look to know what it could be.

“Meth?” I asked in disbelief.

“I bought this from someone with a very good deal. And if you can confirm the quality of this thing, I can order a mass amount of it and get not only huge amount of money, but also good starting reputation. Of course I’ll give you whatever you want.”

I stared at the white thing on top of his desk. Two main questions running in my head. First question was ‘Why he thinks I’m capable of this job?’ and ‘What will happen if I refuse?’ since refuse this was the only option I had.

“From your look, you seem like you don’t want to do this.”

I gulped down and tried to compose myself before answering, “You know me,” and wished, from the bottom of my heart, he wouldn’t kill me.

He lost his smile from his round face, but nonetheless said, “I understand,”

That took me by surprise, and apparently, it was clear on my face.

“I won’t kill you if that’s what you are thinking.”

Still bewildered, I asked, “Why?”

He refused to look at me when saying, “I know who you are.” Which also answered the first question earlier.

.o0o.
I sat down at the long bench in front of the convenient store where I always bought strawberry milk when I needed to calm down myself.

It felt a déjà-vu when I saw Heechul in his mini skirt waiting for something (or someone, I didn’t dare to asked) in the side way. He saw me and then approached me.

“Yah!” He said, with a not too girly voice, considering he was on female attire right now, “You look like you just saw a ghost or something!” and smacked my arm not so gently.

“Ouch! Why are you getting violent on me all of sudden, hyung?”

“Yah! Don’t be so loud, calling me hyung when I’m like this!” he landed another smack in my arm.

“Ouch, stop that! Or people will think I molested you!”

“You deserve one, monkey! I heard from Hankyung about what happened between you and Donghae!”

Seriously?!! “ What he said is not true. At all.”

“It’s not like you know what he said to me,”

“I can make a guess,”

“Say it!” he dared.

I gulped down and got pale, “I…, I…”

But he suddenly laughed loudly, “That’s why people love to tease you!” at the same time, a horn from a fancy Mercedes draw my attention. Heechul-hyung turned around to see what I was looking at and said, “Oh! My ride. See ya,” and he left.

When Heechul-hyung opened the passenger’s door, for a mere second I saw the driver. Handsome Chinese with a golden hair. Geezh, what’s with Heechul and Chinese anyway?
I had a feeling that I had saw him somewhere, but I couldn’t point it out.

I watched the car driving away while wondering. Heechul mentioned Hannie earlier, which meant the man had met him. What was bothering me was, Heechul casually mentioning Hannie’s name, but got a ride from other man. Whatever happened between them, I didn’t wanna know really, but Hannie was more than a friend to me, so I couldn’t help but to be bothered by that. Not that I didn’t have anything to worry about.

Speaking of the Chinese man. There was one more thing that bothered me.

The last sentence Mr. Boss said was that if I ever encountered them in the future, I could consider that we were strangers, which meant he didn’t want to get involved in anything with me in the future, then he asked his bodyguard to escort me out. Mr. Boss refused to answer my question about the one who told him who I actually was.

I shouldn’t have bothered by that since some of Mafias knew me as well. And the chance that Mr. Boss had encountered them was high.

But the awareness of Mr. Boss on my identity surfaced other problems.

For short, if he knew from a Mafia, he would definitely either take advantage of it or the opposite, avoiding contact with me. He did neither. And the fact that Mr. Boss could get that information meant others could easily access the information too.

I meant if Mr. Boss could find out, Kyu definitely knew too. Same for Hannie.

And neither of them mentioned anything about it.

I couldn’t help but recall a lot of events that involved Hannie. Like the one in the abandoned factory when I was running away from my attacker.

And talking about attacker, there was no significant event after that one. Why didn’t they try to get me when I was so vulnerable now? Whoever they are.

I thought I finally understood what Teukie said that night. When he talked about who-he-called-my-father and I questioned why I hadn’t died yet.

“I believe you are involved in many things due to your jobs, enough to gain enemies, not to mention your father has more enemies than you’ve ever imagined and they will be glad to hurt you, put aside the fact about your status,”

“Okay, I agree in ‘involve in many things due to your jobs’ part, but there’s no reason that I have to worry about two other parts, because, One, no one knows and Two, I don’t have a father, and if your statement is really true, I’m so surprise that I’m not dead yet by now,”

“Do you really not know why you haven’t died yet?” Teukie said, half mocking, half surprise.

“So you do believe that your statement is true?” I said, mocking him back.

“You really are impossible,” and Teukie ended the call without any other word.

Was Teukie hinting that a lot of people knew who I am? He definitely knew something.

Wait… I just realized that I never thought about this seriously. I chose not to care. So why was I caring now? So what if they knew who actually I was?

Geezh, this all matter gave me an headache. So I got back on the store and bought some aspirin before heading home.

I was trying to reach Teukie’s phone in my way back home to ask him about the earlier matter, but I couldn’t reach him no matter how many times I tried. So I called Kangin-hyung instead.

“Hyung! I can’t reach Teukie-hyung phone!”

“Wait!” I could hear rushed voices in the background, a door closed and then back to Kangin-hyung voices, “What did you say again?”

“Are you in the middle of work?” I asked, suddenly feeling bad.

“Nah, don’t worry, I’m not now,” and he laughed too loud that it could reach my ear even when I held the phone as far as the length of my hand.

“Are you slugging off again? Aish! This is why you keep changing your job! No one really wants to employ you!”

“At least I got clean money for living,” He laughed again, but his words felt like a whip that spanked my butt hard. “So, what is it?”

“I can’t reach Teukie-hyung phone!”

“Oh! I know right? There’s something wrong with his phone! Sometimes I can’t reach him either, but Teukie always says his phone is alright. Now I wonder if we need to check if it’s broken…”

“Is that so? If I’m not mistaken, a few days ago Teukie-hyung called me but it went off before I could pick up the call”

“He could be wanting to call you, but changed his mind in the way,”

Well, it was possible, I think I didn’t have to be too worked up about this matter. “Any way I can reach him? I need to talk to him,”

“About what?”

“About what he told me.” I took a pause, considering if it was wise to let Kangin-hyung know, “Kangin-hyung… Did Teukie-hyung talk about, er…, that man to you?”

“Your father?”

I grumbled in disapproval, but confirmed him that it was indeed the matter.

“Well, he talked mostly about you, but he mentioned your father sometimes,”

“What did he said?”

It was so apparent there was a pause because Kangin-hyung didn’t want to say anything about it. “I don’t really remember,”

“Come on, hyung, it’s important! Someone knows who I really am! How can you not protect your dongsaeng in a time like this?”

“Listen, Hyuk, it’s not my capability to say things to you. I don’t want to screw up. I screwed up a lot yaknow? And me not telling you anything doesn’t mean I don’t care for you. You’ll found out soon. I just don’t want you to know from my mouth, that’s all. I think you really should talk to Teukie. Anyway, it’s better for you to call Hangeng for now,”

I was just about to talk back, when I saw a kid running to my directions, “Wait, hyung, I’ll call you back!”

I quickened my step to advance to the said kid who was still running. When he was in front of me, he bent over his two hands on his knees and he was trying to breath.

“What happened, er…, Kibum right?”

“Mr. Lee Hyukjae! You have to come with me!” the kid said, impatiently tug in my sleeve.

“Wo, wo, hold on a minute. What’s the matter? Where’s the kid? I mean Donghae?”

“He’s in trouble! Quick!”

“What did he get himself into? Did he trouble Ryeowook-sshi again?”

Kibum seemed annoyed at me, “Could we please get going? He might be killed when you finish with your questions!”

I didn’t really like to hear the word ‘kill’ especially when I was thinking about Mafias and the possibility of me being murdered.

I called a taxi. The kid named Kibum told the driver where to go. It was the side district where crimes happened more often than other part of the city.

“What was he doing in a place like that?”

Kibum took a quick glance but hesitated to answer. “I don’t know…”

“How did you know he was there anyway?”

“I was with him.”

I turned to look directly at the kid. “What were you kids up to? Is this the reason of his sneaky act?”

“Wait. I’m also concern about him. He looks troubled and often skips classes without any reason and Ryeowook-sshi told me his concern for Donghae, so… so I’m trying to help by figuring out where he always goes after school. I really have no idea why he went to such a place…”

“But you were with him?”

“Technically, I stalked him. But when he goes to this place, a club I suppose…”

“A CLUB!!” I exclaimed in surprise.

“And running to this guys then I thought he was in trouble so I comame out.” Kibum looked at me meaningfully, but I couldn’t understand what he was trying to say with those stares.

“Then what?”

“They…, they captured him. I managed to escape, so I looked for help.”

I was momentary unable to talk and still couldn’t believe the situation “Do you know what the name of the place?”

“I didn’t pay attention…”

I was trying to not panic. There were a lot of places I avoided in that area, since some of them know who I really was. I was afraid if they knew Donghae was with me, he was being used in other to get me or something like that. But I couldn’t be really sure. Maybe they were just scums who trying to sell Donghae for prostitution material. Or trying to rob him. Or rape. Wait… I couldn’t keep thinking this way. It was better if I was looking for help.

I was about to dial Hannie’s number when I just remembered what I thought about him before, so after a consideration, I called Sungmin instead. Even if the guy looked so feminine and gentle, he was good at martial arts. Well, I hope we didn’t need his martial arts though.

“Sungminnie? Where are you?”

“I’m in the ramen shop we visit yesterday,” he said cheerfully, not aware of my panic tone, “You’re right! The ramen is so good I was craving for this since morning!”

“Sungmin, Donghae is in the trouble! He got captured by men from the east district!”

There was a moment of silence then the voice change to…. Kyu? “Hyukjae, what happened?”

“WHAT ARE YOU TWO DOING?”

“What happened? Sungmin said something about Donghae being captured?”

“I thought you were with Ryeowook-sshi now? I THOUGHT YOU HATED SUNGMIN?!”

Kyu sounded annoyed when he replied, “Can we just focus on the problems?”

They agreed on meeting me and that other kid, Kibum I meant, just outside the district. They surely took long. I waited for them restlessly. And before Kyu and Min arrived, I got a surprise phone call from Heechul-hyung.

“Hyukjae, it’s urgent! I need you here!” Heechul said in rushed whisper, he sounded panic and cut off line before I could even answer!

Now what? Seriously, couldn’t everybody choose other time to get in trouble?

When I was about to call him back, Heechul called again, still on the same tone. “Hyukjae!” He exclaimed.

“Calm down, hyung! Explain yourself!”

“Where are you?”

“East district, Donghae, er…, got into a trouble so-” Heechul cut me impatiently.

“Donghae what? What are you talking about? He is here with my Boss!”

“Wait… Wait! What? Your Boss? Kibum said he was here! Got captured by some guys!”

“Who is Kibum? There’re probably my Boss mens, I don’t know, it’s just, they came with Donghae and hand him down to My Boss! I don’t know what they are up to, but I’ve never seen my Boss that delighted before!”

“Can you do something about it?” I was panicking now. From how Heechul addressed his Boss, this Boss seemed important or powerful. Was Heechul-hyung’s Boss the Chinese man who picked him up earlier?

“I can’t! I couldn’t even touch Donghae! That’s why I desperately need help. Wait…” He disappeared from the line, but not disconnected the call. I still could hear his voice said, ‘Just one more minute’ to someone. “I gotta go, I’ll text the address. Be quick!”

“No, wait! Heechul-hyung?!” but he already disconnected.

“What happened?” Kibum asked in a curious tone and suspicious eyes.

“He is not here,” I said helplessly.

“Who isn’t here?”

“Donghae… he got himself into a big shit. SHIT!” My phone buzzed, I just quickly flipped it open. And saw an address.

The address is…

“Kimbum, you should get back.”

“It’s Kibum,”

“Huh? What?”

“My name is Kibum.”

“Oh, right…Kid, I’ll call a taxi for you. Get home or any safe place. And don’t tell anybody about this.” I dragged his hand and stand at the side walk to stop a taxi. But he pulled his hand harshly and said coldly. “I’ll go with you.”

I looked at him disbelief, “Are you nuts? The answer is no,”

“He is my friend, and I care for him!”

I laughed at this. “Listen, Kid. You are a KID. If you go, you’ll be only a burden to me.” The kid was about to talk back, but I beat him. “This isn’t a joke, Kibum! Think realistically! Use your logic! They are criminals, you see? With an ‘S’, and you’re a KID, with no ‘S’. Meaning: you screw up, you die. And you probably can make me die too!”

“But I can’t go home and just wait when you all are in a trouble!”

“Then do something!”

“What?”

“I don’t know! I don’t care! As long as you don’t tag along! Please!”

“Then gimme the address!” He snatched my phone from my grip and did something with it, probably forwarded Heechul-hyung message, then threw my phone in my direction carelessly, I had to do crazy maneuvers to the phone don’t fall to the ground and when I looked up again, the Kid was already running away with all his might.

I had to admit the kid was a little bit clever. Just a little bit. So I hope whatever he had in his head was clever too. If he brought the police, then I would be screwed. Even when I was already screwed now.

I sighed and started to run too.

.o0o.

Ime's Note: NOOOOO!! Things got really complicated now ._.
Hope you guy didnt get tired of me and this series :D
Thank you very much for reading till this point~♥