Tying the bloody shirt around his waist to leave his hands free Donghae wished he hadn’t helped Kyuhyun with his prank so he wouldn’t have had his phone confiscated. Realising his train of thought he spun on his heels to find a rather startled Eunhyuk behind him “Hyuk, do you have your phone?”

As his expression fell, he almost couldn’t bring himself to crush the hope Donghae had latched onto “It’s lying on my bed with 3% of the battery left.” Beginning to regret not charging it the day before, Eunhyuk started heading towards the bench when an almighty roar caused them both to jump. Trying not to laugh at finding Donghae in his arms, Eunhyuk watched as he whimpered childishly for a moment “Hae, are you alright?”

“It’s silly…” Donghae mumbled. Surprised by the drastic change in him Eunhyuk did his best to comfort him “I’m sure it’s not, come on you can tell me.” After several minutes of murmuring, Donghae sighed “I thought I saw something jump out of the shadows.” Instantly realising what he meant, Eunhyuk turned to face him and shook him gently “Nothing’s going to hurt you, she was just trying to scare you.”

Clearly not wanting to talk about it anymore he began walking again though not really knowing where he was going. Following Donghae into a new tent, Eunhyuk tried to keep close in case he began freaking out again. As he looked around at the empty and rather rusty cages along one side of the tent, they both began wondering what the tent was used for. Quietly making their way through a soft purr stopped them at the last cage “Please… help me?”

Looking in the cage they found a lion curled up on the floor pawing at what was the start of a pretty decent mane. Sharing a look like they’d imagined the voice, hearing it again didn’t help convince them “Please, let me out.” Staring at the lion who was now sitting up at eye level both of them stood with jaws agape. “Y-you can talk?” Donghae gasped. Clearly fed up with people saying this the lion muttered “Yes I’m a lion, yes I can talk, yes I will bite your hand off if you try and pet me I don’t like it, blondie how do you put up with him?”

Just about following that Eunhyuk immediately jumped in “We’re not dating! We’re just friends.” Neither of them understanding why the lion didn’t seem to believe this, Eunhyuk carried on like that hadn’t happened “So why do you think we’re going to let you out when you openly admit you will attack us?” quietly playing with its tail the lion mumbled “If you let me out I won’t hurt you… I’ll even help you.”

Still with an element of distrust in the air Donghae inquired “And what would you be helping us with?” neither feeling comfortable with the way it looked around before answering, Eunhyuk didn’t care that Donghae had a death grip on his hand “In the next tent, there’s something unspeakable. It fed the invisible girls evil streak making her into the cruel torture loving beast she is today… it’s the worst thing in this carnival.”

Whimpering like a child who’d just grazed his knee Donghae edged closer to Eunhyuk. As he began to realise why people assumed they were a couple, Eunhyuk sighed “Okay, we’ll let you out.” Ignoring the surprised groan of disagreement from Donghae, Eunhyuk climbed round the back of the cage and began fiddling the lock. Noticing Donghae staring rather awkwardly at the lion like he was expecting it to do something, Eunhyuk couldn’t help but smile at him before undoing the padlock.

Getting out of the way before it got out, he headed back round to Donghae as the lion got out and stretched happily “Oh that’s better, I outgrew that cage years ago.” Beginning to feel bad for it Donghae mumbled “How long have you been in there?” casually scratching at its mid-back the lion purred rather blasé “Hmm, 20 years now I think.”