VII

Ryeowook looked up from his fashion magazine and scowled as he saw Eunhyuk sitting behind the counter, a cup of already cold coffee in his hands that the younger had given to him nearly an hour ago. "What's wrong with you? You look like you had to endure three weeks without sunlight – or a shopping trip, I can't decide what's worse."

Eunhyuk sighed and placed the cup on the nearest surface. His hands hurt a bit from holding it for so long and there was this strange feeling in his chest, just like he was wasting precious time. "I'm worried."

The other quirked an eyebrow. "About your crush?"

He nodded. "Donghae… told me that we would meet the next day after our date, he even wanted to see me as fast as possible. That was three days ago and I didn’t hear anything from him ever since."

"Did you give him your phone number?"

"Yes, but he doesn’t have a phone."

Now Ryeowook sighed as well. "Could be difficult then…"

Eunhyuk harshly bit his lip and took a deep breath. "Something must have happened", he stated.

"Yah, don’t say that again… Last time you said that he was just too shy to meet you."

"That was something different. We had a great time together lately, he even hugged me, he smiled… Donghae gave me a peck-"

"He kissed you?!" Ryeowook asked excitedly and threw his magazine elsewhere. "Oh my God, that's so cute! How was it?!"

Eunhyuk scooted a bit away from him and sent him a weird glare. "What's up with you…?"

Ryeowook squealed and bit his fist. "He's such a cutie, I swear! When you first told me that you're in love with a -"

"I'm not in love yet and he's not a !"

"-I thought that he was totally different! But when I saw him…" He placed a hand on his chest and exhaled audibly. "I bet you aren’t the only one with a crush."

Eunhyuk's heart skipped a beat. "Does that mean you…?"

"Hell, no. He's not my type", Ryeowook quickly waved his hand. "I'm just saying that he's extraordinary cute. He must make lots of money-"

"Don’t talk about him like that! It's not funny."

He raised both hands in defeat. "Just my opinion."

Eunhyuk got up from his seat and aimlessly walked a few steps before he came to a stand. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans, exhaled loudly.      
During the last nights he had barely slept; his thoughts revolved around Donghae 24/7. Something had happened, he was sure of it. But what if it really was a false alarm? He didn’t want Donghae to think that he was a stalker. The day before he had driven by Donghae's house and this already had made him feel like a criminal. Apart from this it had been senseless; there were countless apartments in that building and he didn’t even know the right floor. He would surely find Donghae at the club – but was it okay to go there? Maybe Donghae didn’t want to see him for some reason and if he would just show up there…

"We should go to that club", Ryeowook stated.

Eunhyuk blinked his eyes in confusion. "W-What? No-"

"I'll come with you. Maybe Jongwoon shows up there too and I can make him jealous. Otherwise I'll just have a good time", he said and shrugged his shoulders.

"I thought you don’t even have enough money to get your cosmetic appointments paid. How are you supposed to spend even one hour in that club then?"

Ryeowook laughed hearty and waved his hand. "You pay, of course."

Eunhyuk's jaw dropped. "What?!"

"Come on, you're richer than me. Apart from that we'll go there to find your crush, so you just have to invite me, it's part of the deal."

"What deal?!"

Ryeowook crossed his legs and smiled smugly. "I know that you're too shy to go there on your own so I'll accompany you – which is really nice of me with the little bit of free time that I got, by the way."

"Wow", Eunhyuk just said with mild excitement, knowing that Ryeowook barely did anything else in his life than reading fashion magazines and looting boutiques. "You're too kind."

Ryeowook flipped his hair and nodded his head afterwards. "I know. You can thank me later."

***

Even though it was his third time in the Purgatory, there was this very unpleasant feeling creeping up inside of Eunhyuk as he was welcomed by loud music and the smell of cigarettes and alcohol. Ryeowook's eyes were open wide in wonder, Eunhyuk's were just flying over the crowd in his search for Donghae. He knew that he was wearing a mask, but he was confident that he would recognize him either way.

"Let's go to the bar", Ryeowook chirped next to him and linked arms with the other to pull him along. Leeteuk greeted Eunhyuk with a wink and had been in this business long enough to not just start talking as if they knew each other. Eunhyuk however was a greenhorn.

"Do you know where he is?" he asked straight away while Ryeowook was still busy with reading the drink menu.

Leeteuk's gaze ran over the crowd as well and a smirk pretty quickly found to his lips. He nodded. "If you mean Aiden, then yes", he answered and sent him a gaze that made Eunhyuk understand that he had to call Donghae by his codename as long as he was there.

"Where is he?" he wanted to know and his heart started pounding against his ribcage because being here most likely meant that Donghae was alright.

Leeteuk nodded over to a place somewhere behind Eunhyuk. "He's dancing. Why don’t you tell me what you want to drink? Then you can enjoy the show without getting thirsty."

"I'd like to have a on the Beach!" Ryeowook exclaimed and grinned from one ear to the other because he knew that he could choose whatever he wanted with his financial source right next to him.

The barkeeper chuckled and turned to his other guest. "And for you?"

Eunhyuk probably had the smallest knowledge of alcoholic drinks in the whole city. "Um…"

"Just give him the same", Ryeowook suggested and patted Eunhyuk's shoulder.

The latter was fine with that; he wouldn’t be able to drink anyway. There were more important things to do. At first he only looked over his shoulder, but after a while he turned around completely on his stool to see what was going on behind him.

Donghae's dancing… But where?

He narrowed his eyes and fixated the pole dancers not that far away. They were all wearing masks as well and had a similar body shape; suddenly Eunhyuk had little to no hope to make out Donghae. He had to admit that he didn’t know him well enough for that, on top of this he had only seen Donghae in way more clothing. The one time when he had seen him in this kind of outfit didn’t help him either; he hadn't paid enough attention to his body. Just the thought that it could be Donghae dancing in front of those needy men made Eunhyuk feel sick to the stomach.

A hand was placed on his shoulder and made him turn his head slightly. "He's the one on the very right", Leeteuk muttered just loud enough to be heard between the beats of the music.

The hand disappeared and Eunhyuk's eyes slowly travelled to the pole dancer on the right side. He saw professionally sinful body movements and how the dancer played with the men sitting around his little stage, staring at him like starving dogs would stare at a piece of raw meat. It was hard for him to believe that this someone who actually made it look like he was enjoying the attention he was given was supposed to be Donghae. Eunhyuk admitted that the other was good at acting and with this job he certainly had to be; everyone wanted to feel desired.

One thing was for sure: Donghae knew what he was doing. He knew what he had to do to make his viewers pull out bill after bill and how to make them hungry for more. Eunhyuk didn’t know much about this kind of business but he assumed that the dancers' main job was to make the people present hot for more so that they might headed with someone upstairs and with this left even more money at the club. Judging by the amount of men who watched him, Donghae seemed to be quite popular. He was talented in the way he moved his hips and without doubt attractive. Eunhyuk however knew that the brunet wasn’t happy in his job, that he hated it and didn’t do it voluntarily. With this and Donghae's childish personality in mind, he couldn’t find any of this arousing.

Donghae was attractive, yes. He was y, yes. Eunhyuk blushed every time their gazes met, also yes. But even if they would've been boyfriends already: seeing him dance like this didn’t and wouldn’t turn him on. He did it for money, for strangers… and he did it because he was forced. Some of Donghae's viewers were obviously drunk and so they didn’t hesitate to laugh loudly, throw bills at him or even get up to harshly slap his behind. Watching this made Eunhyuk mad beyond belief, especially because he apparently was the only one who noticed that Donghae flinched in pain.

"Is that him?" Ryeowook asked and followed the other's gaze.

Eunhyuk nodded; he had almost forgotten that the younger was still there. "Yeah, most likely…"

"Damn… That boy knows some moves!"

Eunhyuk only hummed; a sound that was inaudible with the music roaring in their ears. He bit his lip. Seeing Donghae like this made him incredibly sad and he wanted to ask him so many questions. Why was he doing this? Weren't there other ways to earn a living? What had happened to his parents? Why hadn't they been able to take care of him and why had he been born into such an awful life? On the other hand Eunhyuk knew that Donghae didn’t like to talk about himself and he didn’t want to force him. He didn’t want Donghae to think that he had anything in common with the people that had caused all those wounds on his body.

"Hyung… Are they coming over to us?"

Eunhyuk blinked his eyes. He had been so lost in thought that he hadn't noticed that Donghae had stopped dancing. Now he could see that Donghae was standing beside one of the men, the latter's head close to his as he spoke into his ear. Both hands were resting on Donghae's hips and this alone made a strange wave of heat flood through Eunhyuk's body. It got even worse as they intertwined their fingers and it was almost too late as Eunhyuk eventually noticed that they were heading for the bar. Hastily he spun around on his stool and paid attention to his drink for the very first time that night.

He couldn’t tell what made his hands shake like that – anger or fear? Or was he just nervous to see Donghae again? It surely was the last thing, but he couldn’t deny that he felt jealous as he noticed that Donghae and that man sat down right next to him. Eunhyuk wrapped his fingers around his glass and stared at the little pink sunshade that decorated his drink. He tried his very best to ignore what was going on, yet his eyes secretly flew over to them every few seconds. Even with the red lights he noticed that there were scratches on Donghae's hands. This time he didn’t wonder where they came from. This time they just made him mad.

Ryeowook's elbow pinched into his rips and made him flinch. "If you hold that glass even tighter we'll need goggles", he muttered from the side.

For a second Eunhyuk was dumbfounded, then he noticed that his knuckles were turning white.        
His lips formed a silent 'Oh' and he let go of the glass to nervously play with his fingers instead. There was no real need to actually see what was going on next to him; he noticed that Donghae slightly leaned in to him in his attempt to get as far away from the obviously drunk man without making him become aware of that. Eunhyuk tried to imagine that this dude was just flirting, that nothing else would happen between him and Donghae. Actually he was good at denying things; he was a master when it came to denying his feelings for the brunet, for example. What he really couldn’t ignore however was the fact that the man's hand was brushing over Donghae's back and from there slowly travelled southward.

He coughed slightly and straightened his back. Eunhyuk could hear that Donghae was chatting with the man, but it wasn’t loud enough for him to hear more than some mumbling. Yet he surely cared more about Donghae's words than the dude did because he interrupted him over and over again. Not much later he threw his arm around Donghae's shoulders and pulled him close, placed wet kisses on his temple and cheek. Eunhyuk felt lightheaded and couldn’t decide what he wanted to do first: throw up, cry or punch that guy in the face.

He looked up because the pink sun