Ivory (Sequel to Porcelain)

Chapter 12: Hide and Seek

Donghyun insisted on feeding us before we talked, so Kwangmin, Youngmin-freshly rolled out of bed-and I waited for about fifteen minutes in the dining room, all of us congregated at the table. We could hear and smell Donghyun cooking in the next room.

"What is it you have to tell Donghyun?" Youngmin asked. He yawned and ran a hand through his dark tousled hair, ruffling it up even more.

"You'll find out soon," Kwangmin said. "It's not exactly something we can sum up in a few sentences."

Youngmin nodded. Then he looked at each of us and a curious look came over his sleepy face. "What's going on with you two?"

"I told you. What we have to tell Donghyun is pretty important," Kwang replied.

"No, it's not that," Youngmin said. "You guys just look really awkward with each other. Did you guys fight in the woods?"

Kwangmin's eyes widened. "How do you know we...?"

Youngmin's eyebrows arched. "I saw you out my window. Your Pikachu suit stands out like heck, dude."

"Okay well don't tell Donghyun-"

"Don't tell me what?"

Kwangmin squeaked. Donghyun stood in the doorway holding plates. He scrutinized Kwang with a suspicious look.

"Dad, thanks for the food," I said, stepping up and taking the plates from him. "But, can we please tell you everything now? We already have been putting it off for way too long."

"Sure," he said, sitting down in the chair beside Youngmin. "Go ahead sweetheart."

"Yeah, go ahead sweetheart," Kwangmin said.

Donghyun gave him quite a threatening look, to which he blushed and sat back silently.

"Anyway," I began. "It's kind of a long story. But before I start, I have a confession to make. We snuck into the basement a couple days ago. And we snooped around. And found stuff."

"It was all my idea," Kwangmin suddenly blurted out. "And I set the microwave on fire on purpose."

I stared at Donghyun, expecting a bad reaction. But he didn't look as mad as I'd expected. He sighed. "It's okay. It's my fault for making it so forbidden in the first place."

"Woah. You're not mad?" Kwangmin exclaimed.

He shook his head. "No. I know you had a good reason for doing it. You were worried about Youngmin. So, it's fine. But what did you find?"

I was still shocked out of mind that he hadn't scolded us. For a moment, my disoriented brain almost forgot what I was supposed to say. But then I remembered. "Well, we saw lots of your old stuff. And we didn't mean to go through it all, honest. But we thought maybe we'd get some clues about Youngmin."

Youngmin sat up, an incredulous expression on his face. "You went through all that for me?"

"Yeah, kind of. Well, we had another reason, but I'll get to that in a minute," I continued. "Anyway, Donghyun, we found an old picture of you from your college graduation. And you were with some other guy. But you never told us about having any close friends so we were really curious. I asked Mom and she said you had a best friend for practically your entire life. Someone named Lee Hongbin. Was she right?"

Donghyun nodded slowly. His face was unreadable, but I could tell by the way he'd suddenly tensed up in his chair that he hadn't expected me to mention his old friend's name, and that it probably wasn't a name he cared to remember.