It was Thursday morning and today was a busy day for Heechul. First off he needed to catch up on some cleaning around the house because he was a neat freak and couldn’t go more than three days without washing the apartment down floor to ceiling. Then he had to go grocery shopping, which he reminded himself to buy more snacks because he wanted Kibum to start gaining weight. Finally he had to go to Mir’s school for a meeting with his homeroom teacher later this afternoon.

Of course, he put both Donghae and Kibum to work, handing them a bucket of soapy water and some rags and instructed them to start wiping down anything that they’d laid their hands on in the past day. While Heechul worked in the kitchen, Kibum and Donghae went to their room to start cleaning. Although, Heechul suspected that Donghae chose the bedroom so he could shut the door and text Eunhyuk instead of helping.

And he was right, of course.

Behind the closed door, Donghae was sitting on the bottom bunk with a smile on his face and his phone in his hand. Kibum was doing as he was told, he never went against what Heechul said, and was cleaning off the window and walls.

“Donghae is Eunhyuk your boyfriend?” Kibum asked out of nowhere. He heard the name a lot and Heechul had told him about Leeteuk and co. Plus Donghae was always talking about Eunhyuk this, Hyukkie that.

“What? No! He’s just my best friend,” Donghae exclaimed, blushing as he stuffed his phone into his pocket. He stood up and walked over to Kibum and took his rag back out of the bucket and began to help wash the walls off.

“Oh, Heechul said he was,” Kibum said with a frown.

“Hyung’s a liar. Don’t listen to him. Hyuk isn’t my boyfriend,” Donghae assured him. Kibum nodded and they were silent for a few minutes while they cleaned. Kibum glanced over at Donghae and saw that he looked like he was in deep thought.

“Do you wish he was?” He asked quietly, although it wasn’t any of his business. But Heechul said he wanted Kibum to work on getting closer to Donghae, so that was what Kibum was trying to do. Donghae stopped what he was doing and smiled, his tongue peeking out a bit.

“Yeah,” He said embarrassedly. But then he frowned and quickly looked over at Kibum, “But don’t you dare tell Heechul that or he’ll never let me hear the end of it!”

Kibum smiled softly and nodded as he wrung out his rag.

“I won’t say anything. It’s a secret,” He said, much to Donghae’s relief. The older boy smiled thankfully. He was a bit surprised that Kibum was having this long of a conversation with him since usually he was so quiet and barely talked, even with Heechul. But Donghae knew why, so he wasn’t going to force him to talk if he didn’t want to. But it made him happy that Kibum was talking now.

“Hey, how come you don’t go to school? Or are you taking the week off?” Donghae asked curiously, since he had noticed that Kibum had been home all week even though he said he was in high school. Kibum was quiet for a moment and shrugged

“Why don’t you?” He asked back.

“I asked you first,” Donghae said.

“Well it’s none of your business! Stop asking me questions,” Kibum snapped, throwing the rag he was using in the bucked and walking out of the door and slammed it shut behind him. He stomped over to the couch and threw himself on it and crossed his arms, glaring at the wall. He didn’t know why he’d gotten so mad, but it’d been happening a lot in the past few days. He’d feel surges of anger for no apparent reasons, but he knew it was because of the drugs that he was craving for so much. He didn’t want to take it out on Heechul or Donghae so he’d usually go to the bedroom for awhile until he calmed down.

He closed his eyes and took a few deep breathes, trying to think about something else. But all that came to his mind was another memory of Dayeun, one which he hated himself for.

It was Friday afternoon and school was over. Kibum was walking home in the rain, not caring that he was getting soaking wet or that thunder was rolling through the thick, dark clouds. He was walking slower than usual with a scowl on his face. Today had not been a good day at all for him. First he had woken up late, thus arriving to school late causing him to get yelled at. Then he had a headache all day and he couldn’t concentrate and so he failed an important test, then his girlfriend Yoona decided to break up with him after seven months.

When the house came closer he stomped up the front steps and slammed the front door behind him. He heard his mother call out hello to him, but he ignored her and went straight to his room. He threw himself on his bed and burrowed his face in his pillow, wishing the day would just hurry up and end.

There was a soft knock on the door and it slowly pushed open. He didn’t bother to look up so he could see who it was.

“Oppa? Umma told me to come and see if you were okay,” Dayeun said softly, walking over to his bed.

Kibum just ignored her presence, not wanting to be bothered at the moment.

“Kibum oppa?” She reached her hand over and shook him slightly but he reached over and nudged her away from him.

“Get out of my room,” He said.

“But umma said-“

“Dayeun! I said get out of my room!” He yelled at her.

Instantly she burst into tears and ran out of the room; that had been the first time Kibum had ever lost his temper with her.

Two weeks later and she was dead.

Kibum blinked his eyes and frowned. He’d never felt so guilty after he had yelled at his sister and all Dayeun had wanted to know was if he was okay; and now she was gone. He quickly stood up and went back to the bedroom, only having been gone for like three minutes. Donghae looked up at him with curiously, not having expected him to come back. Kibum stared at him for a second before quickly wrapping his arms around him and hugging him tightly.

“I’m sorry,” He mumbled. Donghae stood there shocked for a second before hugging Kibum back. This was the first time Kibum had let anyone other than Heechul get this close in contact with him.

“It’s okay, I shouldn’t have asked,” Donghae told him. Kibum nodded and pulled away from him, staring at the floor.

“It’s not….I just…I didn’t mean…” He tried to word together a proper sentence to get his thoughts out, but he wasn’t sure what to say.

“Don’t worry, I already know about it,” Donghae said quietly.

“About what?” Kibum asked him cautiously. Donghae glanced at the door to make sure it was closed so Heechul couldn’t hear since he had told Donghae not to tell Kibum that he had told him about the problem.

“About your…drug problem. Heechul told me that you were having withdrawal symptoms and that you were having a hard time dealing with it,” Donghae replied quickly. Kibum frowned and stepped back slightly and averted his gaze from Donghae.

Donghae could see that he said something that made Kibum uncomfortable, so he quickly tried to fix what he’d done.

“But it’s okay, like I said before, Heechul doesn’t judge and neither do I. Just don’t think of it as a drug problem, look at it as you’re sick and are getting better,” He said optimistically. Before Kibum could respond, not that he was planning on it, the door opened and Heechul stuck his head into the room.

“Are you guys done? Wash your hands and let’s go to the store,” He said. Donghae nodded and both he and Kibum left the bedroom and went to the bathroom to wash the chemicals from the water off their hands. They headed out of the apartment together and down the stairs and began walking to the store.

As soon as they went outside, Kibum immediately reached for Heechul’s hand and moved closer to him. Heechul squeezed his hand reassuringly and gave him a soft smile as they walked; he knew that Kibum was still uncomfortable being outside. Jia had told him that Heechul had to work on that because Kibum was socially isolating himself and that wasn’t a good thing. Heechul was thinking about bringing Kibum with him later to Mir’s conference, but that was probably too much for one day.

When they got to the store, Heechul handed Donghae a basket and tore in half the shopping list and instructed him to get everything on the list. Then he and Kibum took a basket and began to walk around together.

Since Kibum didn’t seem to be gaining any weight, in fact he seemed to just be losing it, Heechul walked through the snack aisle and began tossing every bit of junk food into the basket. He got anything and everything, because he was going to do whatever it took to get Kibum to eat more. He was looking a lot paler in the last few days and his skin was clammy. It looked like he was toughing out a case of the flu, but when Heechul had asked if he felt okay Kibum had told him he felt fine.  He thought about taking Jia’s advice and contacting a doctor about the drug withdrawal symptoms Kibum was having. He’d read enough online, but Heechul wanted to make sure that Kibum was staying healthy, which he obviously wasn’t.

As they headed down another aisle, an older couple walked passed them and Kibum moved even closer to Heechul.

“Kibum, I can’t walk with you this close to me,” Heechul said, gently prying Kibum away, but he just clung tighter. If it wasn’t so cute and didn’t remind him of a baby duckling, Heechul would have gotten annoyed. Instead he just smiled softly and patted Kibum’s head.

“Hyung, I’m really cold,” Kibum said softly. Heechul noticed that he was shivering and had goose bumps, but they weren’t even close to the frozen aisle and it wasn’t really cold in the store or anything. He took of his jacket and handed it over and Kibum put it on graciously. But he still kept shivering.

“Kibum, I think that we should go to the doctor soon. I’m getting worried about you,” Heechul said as he looked over some vegetables and put them in the basket.

“But I don’t want to,” Kibum objected with a frown.

“I know you don’t, but it would do you some good. Don’t worry, it won’t be anything like getting your blood drawn, just a basic check up. I want to see if we can get you on something that will help you sleep and start gaining more weight. Oh, and I want you to start taking vitamins,” Heechul said as they moved onto the fruit. He’d found out that Kibum liked apples, so he made sure to get a few of those.

“But I don’t want to,” Kibum said again, crossing his arms.

“It would make me happier if you did,” Heechul said.

“Okay,” Kibum agreed immediately, causing Heechul to smile.

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