10 — TELL EACH OTHER LIES

how in the world am i going to see,
you as my brother, not my enemy?

—

seungyoun, being unusually quiet throughout the whole conversation, took the chance to be more observant of his surroundings instead; he paid deep attention to the boys, keep in track of their thoughts and their change of emotions. he's not usually like this before.

and to his surprise, yohan doesn't seem like himself either.

so the situation is quite simple: seungyoun has his attention on yohan, where as yohan's consumed by deep thoughts of daniel. doubt, that's what seungyoun notices from him. a huge amount of a doubt.. and that usually triggers the butterfly effect into the brink of disaster.

and so by that, with his curiosity rising, seungyoun decides to ask yohan privately using his thoughts. he's never done this before to him, he's not even sure if the boy's aware of this sort of power or not, but as intentionally calling him over to have a private talk might cause a stir of suspicion among the other boys, (and that's something seungyoun would not like to apprehend) especially when his behavior after knowing the truth of his past is none or less questionable even to his closest friends. and like so, he sends yohan a quick message through his thoughts.

if you have something in mind, just spill it. daniel's leaving soon.

yohan's eyes widen in shock, then he turns to seungyoun. he points at him instantly, causing the other boys to stop what they're doing and just stare. "did you just say something, hyung?"

wow, is he really this dramatic? seungyoun shakes his head. "no, i didn't say anything."

"really? because i could've swore i heard you just now.."

"he didn't say a word." dohyon clarifies himself. "i'm starting to take concern of this situation, because seungyoun-hyung usually couldn't keep his mouth shut. this is a quite a breakthrough though, i'm glad to be able to refrain from hearing you speak."

seungyoun scowls. "yah, dohyon-ah, don't spread lies."

after a shortwhile, seungyoun decides to try another attempt, hoping that yohan could take notes of what he's about to say without panicking. yohan, this is me trying to communicate with you. now please silently get out of the room because we need to talk—

"you're doing it again!" yohan turns his head back at seungyoun. "stop talking to me without actually talking!"

you might be a genius, but you're seriously bad at taking a wild guess! seungyoun was agitated.

seungwoo sighs. "seungyoun-ah, stop messing with the kid's head."

"hey, i'm not messing with his head—"

wooseok laughs. "finally, seungyoun has someone else to bother other than me. don't worry yohan-ah, he's probably trying to remind you of that food stain on your teeth."

"on my teeth?? where is it—"

having enough of this, having enough of yohan, seungyoun decides to get up from his seat and drag yohan out with him, see if the boy could explain it himself. "i need to talk to you.. need to talk to daniel-ssi." he also pulls daniel's arm and forced the both of them out to talk.

"hey, hyung! what is this?!" yohan yells. "for the last time, I AM NOT AN ANIMAL!"

"and i'm not cupid, but guess what? i'm here to unite you both because you guys seriously got into my nerves." seungyoun groans.

daniel arches an eyebrow, clueless. "what do you mean?"

seungyoun points at yohan. "this dude, being an absolute genius and an idiot at the same time, keeps thinking about you." his hand shifts to daniel. "and then you for some reason, is lowkey freaked out by the fact that this strange dude keeps staring at you. am i correct?"

yohan laughs uneasily. "yeah okay, you might be true, but i don't think this is the place to discuss it—"

seungyoun puts an arm on yohan's shoulder. "yohan-ah, telling lies is a bad thing, you know that?"

"yeah, but—"

"yohan-ah,"

"hyung—"

"yohan-ah."

yohan stops going against him. seungyoun smiles. "let's just stop this once and for all. having suspicions over someone is not a good thing, that's something i've learned after having to cope with this shady ass dude right here." seungyoun pats daniel's back. "miscommunication is the biggest factor to the deterioration of a community. if you got something to say, just spill it. i won't judge you, and he won't either. if he does, i'll shut him up for you."

yohan still looks hesitant. he turns to the other figure. "daniel-ssi,"

daniel glances at him.

"i got a question for you."

daniel pauses for a while. "is that question relevant to the other dude?"

which other dude? seungyoun turns around, seeing no one.

ah.

he's referring to me.

yohan nods gently. "i trust him, so yes."

daniel folds his arms. "alright then, ask away."

yohan takes a deep breath. "daniel-ssi. that day when junho went nuts and i had to come save him because eunsang summoned me.."

".. i'm not sure which one you're talking about but yes?"

"i remember eunsang vaguely telling me about it. he mentioned of a 'blonde man'." yohan points out in advance. "junho saw someone blonde before he passed out. he mutters those words to eunsang, and yet he didn't see anything."

daniel frowns. "ah.. about that.."

"yohan-ah, why are you bringing this up again?" seungyoun asks gently. "daniel's in our side.he tried to save junho with eunsang but he failed, yet that doesn't mean we should discredit his help."

yohan purses his lips. "did he.. fail though?"

"what?"

"he was alone with eunsang that day, we never know what actually happened." yohan states the fact. "for all we know, he might be lying. maybe eunsang never returned back that night, maybe this 'shady dude' had done something to him when they went to save junho from imnet."

seungyoun scoffs. "that's ridiculous—"

"hyung, i'm trying to connect the dots here." yohan says in a matter of fact. "i always believed that daniel wasn't the bad guy, even when everyone thought that he is. it wasn't reasonable for him to plant that chip in junho after all, especially when we found out that the boy ends up hating his guts for some reason." yohan turns back to daniel. "and then you, you exposed the appearance of the chip, weeks after the incident happened. who knows how many other occurrences you haven't told us? he might've as well been correlated to dohyon and hangyul's mom's murder and purposely covered it up so we wouldn't know about it."

"yohan-ah," seungyoun grabs his arm. "you don't have to connect the dots. you don't have to burden yourself with things that happen in the past. all you have to do is to trust me in this, okay? if you don't trust daniel, then trust me instead."

yohan lets go of his grip. "hyung, the reason why you're not curious of anything is because you have the ability to effortlessly know everything. any secrets that he has, any secrets that i have, you might already have a grip on it." yohan says bitterly. "but we're not all like you. maybe it's a part of our rights to ask for an explanation, and it's not just for you, wooseok-hyung, or seungwoo-hyung. it's everyone's right to know." yohan glances at seungyoun. "you're wrong. miscommunication isn't the biggest factor of the deterioration of a community, the lack of trust is. the fact that you're backlashing my trust is almost comical, because it's not me who doesn't trust you, you're the one who doesn't trust me."

seungyoun was out of words. he wasn't aware that yohan's been bottling up all those emotions. he turns to daniel, hoping that he'd take the opportunity to explain himself. daniel, fully aware that it's up to him now, nods at him. he turns to yohan. "you think that i'm involved in kwon jia's death?"

"i believe that junho was quite reasonable to think that you were the one who did it."

"she was my aunt."

"and she was hangyul's mother." yohan snaps back. "don't you think he deserves to know who killed his mother?"

blatant silence. daniel clears his throat. "not now."

"he cries into his sleep, daniel-ssi. he cries when no one notices," yohan continues on. "life is moving on so fast, we might have forgotten about her death, but not him. he's never going to forgive himself until he knows who killed her. it's not that hard for you to notice that, ain't it?"

seungyoun turns to a very heavy-hearted daniel. you don't have to tell him, daniel. he's not in a stable state—

"i didn't kill her." daniel answers blatantly.

yohan pauses. ".. what?"

"i was there, but it wasn't me." he looks down. "i had a quarrel with my father. we were arguing lot, he think that i deserved a punishment. kwon jia was the punishment. he sent his men to eliminate her, and when i tried to save her it was too late." he explains shortly. "i came to save her, yohan-ah. i wasn't the one who killed her."

there. there it was. seungyoun has already known about this for a while, read about it once in daniel's thoughts, but he never believed it until he finally put his trust on him. he always thought that daniel would explain it all himself, but even after a while he never spoke about it again. this is the first time he did.

yohan instead looks furious. ".. so that's what you do."

".. what?"

"in just a second, you're able to eliminate us just like that." yohan mutters. "eliminating your aunt doesn't seem to be a big thing, isn't it? the fact that you don't care enough to tell your own cousins about it shows everything."

"i tried to save her!"

"well if you didn't act like an absolute rebel to your father, she might not have died at the first place!"

"you know why i rebelled against my father?!" daniel raises his voice in anger, standing just a few inches from the latter. "i did that to save your ass from my sister, you little shit." he held him by the shoulder. "you might strive for your own rights, but to me, my only job here is to protect you, protect all of you. i've been doing that every second of my damned life, putting your lives first instead of mine, so could you at least have a little respect?!"

"alright, that's enough." seungyoun immediately separates the both of them before it gets worse. "daniel, stop yelling."

daniel still looks like he wanted to strangle him. "did you just hear what he said?"

"yes, i heard it very clearly, but you must calm down." as he holds off the latter, he gestures at yohan to leave. "yohan, go back in."

"but—"

"just get in."

yohan didn't like being interrupted in a middle of an argument, but he obeyed him anyway because god knows what'll seungyoun do if they get worse. yohan returns back to the eunsang's room, him being unable to hide the disappointment in his face. the other boys didn't question his condition as they were too busy talking to each other. wooseok however was the first one to notice.

"what's with the sore look?" wooseok asks gently in deep concern.

yohan shakes his head. "i'm good." he sits at the spot he sat before, on the edge of the sofa next to dohyon. he catches a deep breath as he tries to recollect his calm.

dohyon straightens his posture. he raises his voice. "hyung—"

"not now, dohyon-ah."

yohan wasn't feeling like explaining himself. he was incredibly baffled by the whole situation; though his maturity knows for sure daniel has a point, he couldn't help but have his emotions hurdle him all over. daniel is right, but the way he expresses it is surely wrong.

dohyon sighs. "you know, i'm starting to regret doubting that junho guy. it took me this long to realize that he actually has a point when he blamed daniel-hyung for everything."

yohan pauses. ".. what?"

the younger boy turns to him. "he told everyone that daniel was the one who killed my mother. i didn't believe it at first, hated him for it even.. but little did i know.. it's actually true."

yohan couldn't believe his ears. did he..? "how did you know?"

a discomforting smile appears on the boy's face. "hyung, did you forget that i have an enhanced sense of hearing?"

—

ooo the battle of the centers ;D (wanna one and x1)

i'm not that proud of this chap bc i feel it's kinda rushed but oh whale enjoy some serious yohan scenes!!! my cupcake's doing his job as the oldest hyung still at school!!

250 votes for next chap~

- yuehwa