Conceal

13. Questions

Two days after the police found out about Kihyun's incident, Jooheon and Wonho met up with Kihyun for some answers.

Wonho and Jooheon were sitting on a bench, right outside the bakery Kihyun worked in. The sun was setting, its rays casting an orange veil over the ground and sides of buildings, which created an atmosphere not so suitable for the conversation they were about to have.

Kihyun walked out of the front door, doing wrist exercises to loosen up the muscles after kneading dough for the whole day. He was still thinking about the products sitting in the oven waiting to be taken out by his colleagues when he spotted his friends staring at him just a few metres away. The whole situation was disconcerting, especially since the two of them almost never show up unexpectedly like this. Kihyun stopped, wondering whether to pretend he didn't see his friends, or sacrifice his precious after-work free time and deal with whatever problem they had. But his split second of hesitation gave him away - Wonho caught Kihyun's eyes and was already waving him over, while Jooheon was practically screaming his name in public.

With a heavy sigh, Kihyun trod over to the bench, trying to look happy that his friends stopped by. "What's the special occasion?" He asked once he was close enough.

Jooheon and Wonho looked at each other and seemed to communicate with their eyes before Jooheon replied, "We know you are tired, but there's something really important we must find out."

"Yea," Wonho said, taking over. "It's about Jongho, about how he called the police."

Kihyun wasn't sure why he felt suddenly felt hot all over his body. He had no reason to be nervous - it wasn't his fault, and his friends wouldn't do anything harmful (the most harmful thing they could do, Kihyun thought, was to tease him about his height). But he wasn't expecting this question, even if it was so obvious he should've seen this coming. Maybe, deep in his conciousness, he did think about this problem, and it was his instinct that pushed the thought away in order to maintain a calm state of mind.

Maybe that was why he was stuttering now, as if he knew the answer and didn't want to say it, which was the exact opposite of what he was feeling. The best answer he could give was "I don't know", and it didn't really count since it wouldn't help anyone at that point in time, which was why he stopped himself before he could give a response.

"See, I told you he told Jongho himself." Jooheon said, angling his body so he was facing more at Wonho than at Kihyun. Jooheon glanced at Kihyun for a split second before his gaze rebounded. "Now stop drilling him for answers. It's already hard for him as it is."

Kihyun wanted to correct their baseless assumption, but his friends weren't paying attention anymore, and were instead looking somewhere behind him. So he turned around and followed their gaze until he saw the brown-haired man walking towards them, arm held up high and waving as if there was an invisible crowd between them. For a moment he just stared at his colleague, unsure how to react. But then he remembered the topic of conversation he was having and almost hollered at Jongho to go away.

"Hey, speak of the devil," Wonho said quietly enough so that only Jooheon could hear him. "Let's just ask him directly then."

"What? No-" Jooheon wanted to say, and he placed a hand on Wonho's arm as if that was going to stop him from talking. But no one would've heard him anyway, because Jongho arrived and was shouting Kihyun's name.

Kihyun squeezed out a smile that even felt crooked and unnatural, and desperately tried to tell his colleague to lower his volume with his eyes, which, as expected, wasn't working very well. "Oh...hi, Jongho. What brings you here?" Kihyun asked as quietly as possible so Wonho and Jooheon wouldn't hear the annoyance in his stern voice. In fact, he knew the answer to his question - Jongho was finishing off an apple pie when he left - he just hadn't expected Jongho to be done so quickly. Maybe that was why he didn't want to approach his friends in the first place: in case situations like these happened.