Ivory (Sequel to Porcelain)

Chapter 4: Perfectly (In)sane

The moment the taxi finally made it to the end of Donghyun's street and the large brick house came into view, Kwangmin practically flung himself out of the car before it even stopped moving. He was so eager to get inside that he almost forgot to pay the driver, too. Unfortunately for Kwangmin, the slightly-balding man was kind of already in a bad mood, and he figured Kwang was a troublemaker trying to skip out on paying, so Kool Kwang received a very passionate lecture about the importance of responsibility and being considerate of others.

"I mean, I'm a busy man," the taxi driver was saying exasperatedly, waving his hands around. "You may think that you deserve being waited on, but I've got much better things to do than drive you all over creation without getting paid! Think about how you would feel. I know you're young and you don't understand, but-"

"Listen, Mister," Kwangmin said, paused with one leg already out of the vehicle. "I appreciate you trying to shape my character, but I've got an important matter I need to take care of."

"We all have important matters! The world doesn't revolve around you, son!" the driver barked. "Did your father raise you this way?!"

"I don't know, perhaps you'd like to meet him." There was a daring sneer on Kwangmin's face. "I can bring him out if you like. Maybe you'd like to see what happens when he's angry, what he becomes."

My eyes widened. Was he seriously about to reveal Donghyun's secret? Or was he just being his idiotic overly-confident self? Either way, he needed to rein it in. Now. "Kwangmin, just pay him," I urged.

"I was going to anyway," Kwangmin mumbled, clearly annoyed. He handed a few bills to the taxi driver, who jerked them away bitterly, muttering something under his breath about 'kids these days'.

Kwangmin and I climbed out of the car, followed by my sister who was struggling to walk properly with all the many shopping bags she was trying to carry.

I poked Kwangmin's shoulder and when he turned around I gave him a scolding look. "You just can't control that big mouth of yours, can you? What would Donghyun have said if he'd heard you about to spill everything like that?"

He just smirked in that usual way of his that was positively infuriating. "I wasn't actually going to tell him anything. I just wanted to scare him a little. He was being so rude for no reason. If you wouldn't have stopped me, I was totally going to show him my hand."

"What does your hand have to do with anything? Other than being as stupid and immature as the rest of you?"

He held up his hand and wiggled his fingers in front of my face. "I can do the same thing Donghyun can. Wanna see?"

"Oh...that." I remembered when I'd first found about Donghyun being a doll too. His hand had held mine and then transformed right before my eyes, from something warm, soft, and humanly to a doll's hand made of freezing cold porcelain. Definitely creepy. I shuddered just thinking about it, and then rounded on Kwangmin. "You were going to do that to that poor man?! And you don't consider that revealing a secret?"

Kwangmin shrugged. "Eh. Like I said, he deserved it."

I shook my head, half-appalled and half-impressed.

As we climbed up the steps, I could hear Sohyun behind me panting and groaning under the weight of her huge haul.

"Why did we have to leave so soon?" she whined for the fiftieth time since we'd dragged her out of the mall.

I realized I hadn't had a chance yet to tell her about what had happened. I figured she had a right to know, since we had practically forced her to leave when she was enjoying herself. But it still wasn't the right time-I wanted to let Donghyun know before anything else.