I Love This Boy | On Hold

Chapter 13: Soju

"Ji! Wait up," Woojin called, swinging his arm around Hannie's shoulders.

School was finished for the day and Hannie, for once, wasn't staying later for extra hours. His parents once again believed that he was going to hang out with Minnie, which wasn't a complete lie. Minnie would be there but so would half of the school, it was a party after all.

By the time the boys reached the school entrance, Woojin was already waving at the girl waiting across the road with her motorbike. She smiled and waved back at the boys, cigarette in hand.

"How was school?" She teased as soon as they were within earshot, to which the boys groaned and shook their heads in disapproval.

By the time they had crossed the road, Minnie was running over followed by a few of the other boys in their group.

"You're going with Minnie right?" Woojin asked, taking a cigarette offered to him by Haeun.

Han nodded, "Yeah, my stuff is at his. We'll meet you there in a couple of hours?"

"Sounds good," the elder agreed, and the boys parted ways.

Haeun flashed Hannie a smile and put her helmet on, passing the other to Woojin who climbed on the back of her motorbike.

As soon as the two boys were far enough away from the rest, Minnie began asking his questions and teasing again, "So? How'd it go? Are you and Taebin, you know?"

Hannie felt a blush threatening to crawl up his cheeks and nudged Minnie's shoulder. "Not out here. Wait until we get to yours."

Minnie sighed with a smirk, "But are you?"

"Yes. Now can you shut up about it for two seconds?" Hannie snapped, though he was just as excited to tell Minnie all about it as he was to hear about it.

By the time they reached Minnie's room and closed the door behind them, Minnie was bouncing up and down once again as he teased his friend.

"Did you kiss? Did your heart flutter? Oh, look at you, your cheeks are heating up just thinking about it."

Hannie covered his flaming cheeks with his hands and rolled his eyes only to start playfully hitting the younger. "It's not that big of a deal, will you cut it out."

Minnie continued to poke fun at and tease Hannie until they were back outside and on their way to the party, even then he was teasing him but slightly more lowkey than before so not to attract any attention that Hannie certainly didn't want from anyone else.

"Does he know you're going to this party tonight?"

Hannie shook his head as they approached the door. "No, he has a project to finish."

Just like that, their conversation was over, and their senses flooded with pulsating music and dark lights. It didn't take long to find the rest of their friends as they pushed through the crowd. Just follow the sound of whatever stupid thing Woojin was currently doing, and you'd never get lost.

In seconds they were in the crowd, watching Woojin performing his latest stunt at the beer keg. Haeun was pushing drinks into their hands before they had even seen that she was there and both of the boys downed them effective immediately, aiming to catch up with everyone else who was clearly already shitfaced.

A couple of hours in and Hannie was, like the others, hammered. Despite this, he still managed to avoid Haeun's not so subtle advances on him. It seemed so normal to him, to not want to make out with the girl despite doing so many times before. To everyone else, however, it was growing clear that Hannie was obviously avoiding the girl. Though she just played it off with a laugh and downed another shot instead.