Heechul busied himself by getting dressed and putting his hair up while he waited for Hongki to come over. He went to his room and put on his nice clothes and put his hair up with a ribbon. He knew he looked intimidating when he did this, which was the whole point really. No one bullied his children and got away with it. He was going to rain hell on their miserable cursed souls for all the times they had treated Donghae less than what he deserved. He was so cute and innocent; Heechul was completely flabbergasted to how Donghae had been living. Did people these days have no shame? Apparently not.

He sighed loudly and turned the lights off and closed his bedroom door behind him as he walked across the two feet into the bathroom to find a wash cloth and wet it down for a compress. He entered Mir and Donghae’s room and gently placed the wet cloth on his forehead to lower the fever down. He figured that Donghae probably had caught the flu or something, since he’d heard that it was going around lately. As he leaned over to kiss Donghae on the forehead he noticed something sticking out of his pillow case. He curiously reached over to pick it up and saw that it was a photograph of Donghae and his parents.

For some reason, looking at it made his heart hurt and his eyes water up. He’d never really given a second thought to Donghae’s parents or his life before he had found the young boy. But he realized that, yes, they were indeed dead. As good as Donghae hid it, Heechul knew the boy missed them a lot and was probably hurting. He felt guilty for not taking the time of day to talk to Donghae about it and promised himself that he would do exactly that when Donghae was feeling somewhat better.

When he heard a knock coming from the living room and the front door open, Heechul placed the photo back into the pillow case and left the bedroom, shutting the door behind him. He grinned at Hongki and wrapped his arms around his best friend, placing a kiss on his cheek.

“Hallo, yeobo,” Hongki said with a grin, pinching Heechul’s rear. Their friendship just cannot be expressed in words, like seriously.

“Jagiya! OMO! I’m so angry right now! Well, internally I mean, I’m only smiling because of you,” Heechul said, smiling like a Cheshire cat. Hongki rolled his eyes and pulled away from Heechul.

“So what’s going on with Donghae then? His school let him walk home alone? He’s only fourteen for Shisus’ sake,” Hongki asked as they sat down together on the couch.

“Donghae said he got sick at school and when he went to the office to call me they wouldn’t let him. Apparently they rubbed it in his face that he didn’t have parents and wouldn’t let him come home so he just walked out by himself. I’ve had just about enough of him coming home crying every day for some reason or another. They’re going to be sorry they ever messed with him when I go up there,” Heechul growled out angrily.

“Chul, you’re going to need some sort of relationship, a legal one I mean, with Donghae for anything to happen,” Hongki informed him. Heechul frowned and swore softly; he hadn’t thought of that.

“How the hell am I supposed to do that?” He asked. Hongki smiled and pulled out a few folded pieces of papers from his back pocket.

“I figured one of us would have to keep a level head and think things though. Its guardianship documents complete with signatures and everything. Special thanks to some friends of mine,” He said cockily. Heechul yanked them out of his hands and skimmed through the fake contents.

“Hongki, if I wasn’t completely in love with Teukie I would kiss you right now,” He said with sparkling eyes.

“Ew, no thank you,” Hongki objected, making a face.

“That’s not what you said when you were ing me twelve years ago,” Heechul said with a smirk as he stood up and grabbed an umbrella from the front closet. Hongki just laughed and shook his head.

“Pick up Mir on your way back,” He said as Heechul left the apartment.

Mir stood against the red brick wall of his elementary school, his eyes darting back and forth as he watched his classmates leave the school grounds with their parents. School was over, it was raining, he was cold, and Heechul wasn’t there yet. Not that he minded, because now it gave him an excuse to go play on the swing-set.

He really liked playing on the swings, to pump his legs back and forth so he could go higher and higher until he could reach the sky. Unfortunately his classmates never gave him a turn during recess, no matter how nicely he asked them. Every day they would scoff and tell him to go play somewhere else because he was annoying and weird. But he didn’t care, because now he had the entire playground all to himself.

Mir knew that he was supposed to wait against the wall until his umma came, but the swings looked really tempting so he skipped out into the cold rain and sat down on the middle one and began to move back and forth. He grinned to himself as he got higher and higher, the sky looked like it was getting closer so he let go of the metal chain to reach out for it.

And he went flying off the swing-set, landing on the hard pavement.

At first he was too shocked to feel anything, but then he looked down at his hands and saw they were all bloody and so were his knees. He burst out crying when the painful stinging became noticeable and immediately his teacher ran over to him.

“Omo! Mir! You’re bleeding! Can you walk? Let’s get you into the classroom,” She exclaimed, helping him stand up on his two feet. He sobbed loudly as he followed her back into the classroom and she made him sit down at one of the desks while she went and got the first aid kit from the closet. While she did that, Heechul finally arrived and walked in through the outside door.

“Th