PET

IV

[Han Jihoon]

"Dude, I didn't see it last night cause it was dark and I passed out when I came home, but who mauled you, man?" Daniel shoved his face into my line of vision, reflexively making me shove it away with the hand that wasn't holding the ability to stab his eyes.

"Get your ugly face out of my face. I'm trying to have breakfast here." I frowned, forking another bite of pancake into my mouth.

"Dude, your lips are all red, don't tell me you actually got with one of them kinky dudes from the club." With the lack of response from my side, his eyes widened like saucers. "No way! You fucking—was it that fine ass motherfucker from when I caught Knox there?"

I shot him a glare, refusing to answer him, but he didn't need my response apparently. Instead of dwelling on my lack of interaction in the conversation, he cheered obnoxiously loud, jumping around my seat.

"Yo! You're finally getting some bitches bro!" He shook me by my shoulders in celebration while I tried to smack his hands away.

"I'm trying to eat here!" I swiveled around to glare at him.

"Why is it so noisy down here?" Knox's voice sounded from the top of the stairs, echoing down and into the small round dining table beside their kitchen. "It's nine in the morning and I hear Daniel yelling like some overgrown ape."

Knox came down into the kitchen area, shirt missing and sweatpants twisted, grabbing his own plate of pancakes before sitting next to me. I almost wanted to laugh at the bird's nest on his head but refrained and finished off the last of the pancakes on my plate instead.

"Bro, Knox, you'll never guess what happened to our precious little Jihoonie over here!" Daniel was practically bouncing off the walls, hopping his way over to his brother, and proceeding to practically choke him in joy. "He's finally getting some dick in him!"

Knox choked on his pancake this time and nearly got whiplash from how fast his head turned from facing his pancakes to facing me. I could feel his stare burning into me while I got up to get some more pancakes.

"What?"

"Yeah! That crazy fine dude that you were having a meeting with like a week ago?"

"You mean a couple of days ago?"

"Who cares? Jihoon got it on with him! Shacking it up and everything!"

It was my turn to intervene now.

"No." I interrupted them before Knox could believe Daniel. "I met him the other day and we had a nice little chat. No 'shacking it up' happened."

Knox's sigh of relief was deafeningly loud but Daniel's eyes glazed over with mischievous intent. His evil little smile was coming out, making me want to regret even being at his house on the weekend, in the morning after my encounter with that ridiculously handsome man.

"So why are your lips swollen?"

Knox's eyes narrowed in on my lips, the corner of his lips turning downwards when he must've noticed what his sleepy state missed.

"He may have given me a small kiss," I quickly followed it up with, "but that's it! Honest!"

Daniel let out loud cheers as if he had just solved a cold case, but Knox ignored him, asking me quietly, "And what was his name?"

"I think it's Guanlin 'cause that's what he told me to tell the lady at the front desk to write if I ever came back to that fancy club." I shrugged it off. "I don't know if that's his name or—"

"No," Knox cut me off, looking a little pale himself, "that's definitely his name. That's his first name."

"Oh, what? That's his actual name? I didn't think he would just tell me outright like that."