2. Is it true?

“Deal with it!”

“I am dealing with it—”

Siwon yanked the manhwa away from Donghae’s nose and scowled. Donghae pretended to have been distracted by an imaginary fly on the wall, though the trick was too old to be used on Siwon. The student council president tried barking again, this time using his dictatorial voice, “Lee. Dong. Hae!” 

“What?” 

“Have you been living on Mars? Did you pay any attention to what Heechul was broadcasting over the intercom this morning? How can you be so calm? This is your life! Your name! Your dignit—Yah, are you alive? You’re dead, aren’t you? You’re a zombie, you’re a friggin’ zombie! And holy , is this a o novel?” Siwon dropped the manhwa in his hand faster than Donghae could blink and jumped a few meters away, “Lee Donghae!”

“What?”

Siwon pointed at the book and began promoting himself from dictator to tyrant, “I—you’re a crazy motherer, and might God forgive you for reading this… this!”

 Donghae stared blankly at Siwon’s look of outraged incredulity. Soon the stare thawed and he presented a slow, toothy grin. He'd seen through all of Siwon's histrionics. They hadn’t been friends for four years for nothing, “You can borrow it for the night. Just hold it with your other hand. You know.”

 The taller boy grimaced, pretending to have heard nothing while grunting complaints. Donghae averted his eyes, saving Siwon the last of his pride while the boy picked up the book from the floor and hastily deposited it in his backpack. The Christian lowered his voice, out of guilt and slight reverence after having accepted the bribe, “Well, anyway. The school knows. About you and that blonde freak—”

“Hyukjae,” Donghae corrected flatly, still trying to look for the imaginary fly.

Siwon arched a brow, fear suddenly lining his words, “Hyukjae? You actually know his other name? Really, it’s not… true, is it? About the two of you doing, you know…?” 

“I don’t know. Why don’t you take a stab at it?” Donghae straightened up from his spot on the staircase and stretched, releasing a moan that gave Siwon a funny feeling in the pit of his stomach. Siwon couldn’t help thinking of Donghae and that violent blonde freak making those noises, limbs tangled together and lips smearing and eyes shut tight and all. The taller boy shivered, immediately wondering if he should’ve taken Donghae’s gift in the first place. If ersion was contagious, then perhaps he shouldn’t infect himself further.

The brunette swung his bag over his shoulder while Siwon was still spacing out and gave the other a pat on the shoulder, “House party tonight. You’re coming, right?”

“Uh—” Siwon’s response was cut off the slam of the fire-escape door. The taller boy furrowed his brows and groaned. Donghae still didn’t seem to realize the degree of he was in. Sure, he’d been fighting Heechul on and off for months now, but this was the first time that Heechul had claimed to have solid evidence. Solid evidence.

Oh god, Heechul and evidence.

--

Donghae stopped before the announcement board on his way to an afternoon physics lecture. It was hard to un-see the dozens of advertisements that had already been plastered for ‘Haehyuk’, half because they were outlined in bright yellow, and half because Donghae could see his own magnified over all of them. Donghae tried to fight the mild tug of a grin on his lips. He was amused. Heechul’s minions were formidable beings, but this time they’d outdone themselves. It was a wonder how they managed to get their grummy paws over a photo from four years ago with such high clarit—

Blonde.

Donghae flinched. There was someone standing beside him. Someone with blonde hair. His blood ran cold and he could’ve sworn every single strand of his hair was standing on its end.

Taking a long, unnaturally long breath, Donghae tried to calm himself down. He was going to be alright. He had a plan, after all. He always had a plan. He’d written a long protocol for the unexpected running into of Lee Hyukjae during his second week of high school, when Hyukjae’d caught him spying from afar.

But the problem was that life had been pretty smooth-sailing from there. Though he was in the same class as Hyukjae, the two sat at opposite corners of the room and they never had any reason to run into one another—so Donghae had had just about no practice with his protocol…

Which was why he’d forgotten what the protocol said. Or what the protocol was even called. The fact that he was plan-less made him more nervous than the fact that a potential level-nine catastrophe was standing within breathing distance of him. After all, Donghae was someone who’d lived his high school career through meticulous planning. He’d spent the past three years building up a reputation for himself, acting under this mask and that, such that he might be able to spend his senior year doing whatever he wanted. It just wouldn’t work if a hurricane were to wheel itself in and up everything. It just wouldn’t. Lee Donghae was too dependent on functional plans for a -up. He couldn’t be ed with. He wouldn’t dare.

Donghae secretly prayed that he was seeing things and that the blob of blonde was just Heechul with a wig. Any sort of wig. He could deal with Heechul with a wig. All it required was some flattery and a checkbook. But he couldn’t deal with Hyukjae. Not in this circumstance. Not as he was smiling stupidly at a couple hundred photos of their asses, having forgotten to plan for the occasion that he’d forgotten a plan. God knows what Hyukjae—no, Eunhyuk—might cost. Hyukjae had turned into Eunhyuk the Delinquent now, and Donghae had heard rumors about his getting involved with the mobs and all. Were mobsters even bribable?  

When the blob of blonde made a noise that clearly couldn’t have come out of Heechul’s wicked, cherry-chapstick lips, Donghae felt his heart wither. All his three years of blood and sweat and pretenses was going down the drain before his eyes, in the form of photographed buttocks.

The brunette turned slowly on his heel. Hyukjae’s face came into focus one pixel at a time. First Donghae saw the bad complexion. Hyukjae must have been living life on cheap buns and ramen cups. And then came the little scratches all over his face, each like a little fight tale that poked at Donghae’s stomach. Then the jaw, which had definitely become more visible over the years; in fact, it stuck out, almost as if it were proud of being a jaw. The single-eyelids, the nose, the bizarre lips… Donghae wasn’t sure if he was scared or . He did almost make love to that face, after all.

Hyukjae, however, paid no mind to Donghae. He didn’t seem to realize that Donghae was even standing there. His eyes were glued on the photos. Donghae figured that if Hyukjae didn’t have laser eyes at that moment, then laser eyes couldn’t be real. The blonde’s hands had balled into fists probably long ago, as the knuckles were already a pristine shade of white. He looked angry. More than angry. He looked volatile. And somehow really kind of hot.

Without a warning the delinquent’s hand shot forward. He almost succeeded in tearing off one of the many yellow posters before Donghae got in the way. Hyukjae’s instinctively vicious snarl snapped clean into a whimper as soon as he realized who, exactly, he was about to attack, “Dong…?”

“Leave it up.” Donghae withdrew his hand from Hyukjae’s wrist and stuffed it back into his blazer, eyeing the crowd around them and Heechul’s wisp of red hair bobbling somewhere in the back. He might not have had a plan for dealing with Hyukjae, but he always had one for pissing off Heechul, “If our Heechul wants to advertise his photoshop skills, let him.” 

Hyukjae’s brow jumped up for a split second. He traced Donghae’s stare to the Willy Wonka-esque princess standing in the back of their audience. Heechul looked as if he was either constipated or trying to grow a pair of claws with which to poke Donghae’s eyes out. By the time that Hyukjae turned his gaze away from Heechul, Donghae had already disappeared down the hallway along with the onlookers. He epitomized his status at that moment, with hands in pockets, head raised high, leaving behind a soft trail of expensive cologne and light-hearted radio tunes.

The blonde felt almost as if he was standing on a cloud then, floating somewhere on fluffy concrete and breathless panting, as he gawked after Donghae’s back. He had no idea why breathing had become so difficult, especially since Donghae hadn’t even acknowledged him. All Donghae did was brush his hand off of a poster that, apparently, was not even real evidence (even though it definitely looked otherwise) of their childhood… 

Childhood what? Stupidity? Mistake? Misfortune?

 “I’ve got to say, I thought I did pretty well.”

Hyukjae whipped around to find some weird-looking nerd (nerd? hobo? troll?) rubbing his chin with pensively. It took him some time to recognize the signature horn-rimmed glasses and put a name to them. It was Cho something. Cho something. Hyukjae distinctly remembered Han Geng falling into out-of-character ing on the topic of a certain junior-year student. The kid had the apparent audacity to hack into his laptop and blackmail him into buying Heechul a birthday present. Hyukjae couldn’t understand why it happened in the first place; the usual Han Geng would’ve marched right over, fired a dozen holes in the kid’s laptop with a shotgun, and burned down a house or something. Instead, Han Geng had scampered over to Hyukjae’s garage and sat there chewing watermelon slices with great vehemence, “I can’t believe that er! He bankrupted me! Bank! Rupt! All of my savings! All of it! For a ing tiara!”

“Then go teach him a lesson or something, ge,” Hyukjae hadn't bothered looking up from his strawberry bowl until watermelon seeds began flinging themselves against his head from Han Geng's passionate dolting.

“No. I won’t. He’s—he’s despicable. Evil. A little ball of concentrated . That’s what he is. Concentrated . .”

“You’re one to speak,” Hyukjae said, beginning to come to the mess that Han Geng had made with half a slice of watermelon and two minutes’ of high-pitched whining.

“Seriously,” Han Geng snapped, “Don’t you with him, Eunhyuk. He’s going to you dry and then crush your bones and sell your ashes to the pet store.”

“Don’t worry, ge,” Hyukjae had rolled his eyes, “I have a troll face, remember? I’m too ugly to have to deal with Heechul, unlike Your Fine Majesty.”

Han Geng had made especially scathing remarks about a pair of horn-rimmed glasses and fugly bed-hair then, saying that the boy carried an aura that just made people hate him. Hyukjae could not think of the description fitting anyone better than the hunch-backed hobo currently taking up his breathing space.

“Yah, where do you think you’re standing?” Hyukjae barked, pulling his usual line. The hobo jumped a good meter and, when he finally regained his footing, regarded Hyukjae with an esteemed gaze. Hyukjae was confused. He had no idea how such a punk could’ve gotten Han Geng into that terrorized, watermelon-colored mess months back. Was Han Geng getting old? Seeing things? Or was this the wrong hobo?

“S-sorry,” The boy stammered, backing up and keeping his gaze fluttering somewhere between Hyukjae’s forehead and the floor. He seemed to decide that Hyukjae’s messenger bag was a good place to keep his attention and focused on staring holes into it. Hyukjae almost felt sorry for the kid.

Out of diffidence to his role as the one of the school’s premiere delinquents, Hyukjae grabbed the kid by the collar. He almost considered stopping, but his remembering Han Geng’s difficulties and a sudden sense of childish pride and vengeance got into him. He gave the kid a few backhands on both cheeks, one of which accidentally knocked his glasses on the ground. He felt immensely sorry then, and had he not his status to protect, he would've probably picked them up for the kid. Instead, he gave the kid a hefty kick on the back and marched down the hallway, hands in his pockets and head up high.

If only Hyukjae saw the Cho something’s malicious beam as he sauntered down the hallway, things probably wouldn’t have gotten as out of hand.

--

Heechul sat in the corner of the school cafeteria, veins popping and eyes crimson with wrath. He'd already snipped half of Donghae’s house party invite off with a pair of tweezers before Kyuhyun popped up beside him. The red-head had not been pleased, and Kyuhyun’s disheveled appearance only ticked him off further.

“Do you not understand the meaning of sanitary?” Heechul snarled, ripping Kyuhyun’s glasses off and giving them a good scrubbing with his handkerchief before replanting them over the junior’s dark-circles, “Don’t tell me you went digging through the garbage again.”

“Nah, I got beat up,” Kyuhyun said lethargically, almost as if he was reminiscing in the fact. Heechul could never figure Kyuhyun out. When Heechul first tagged Kyuhyun into his ranks, Kyuhyun had been a masochistic nerd whose concept of a good time was annoying people he knew he couldn’t afford to annoy. Later Kyuhyun developed this sadist streak, and now Kyuhyun was…

“What the hell’s is wrong with you?” Heechul rolled his eyes, “Actually, I don’t wanna care.”

Heechul did care, actually. Though he might have seemed like the center of the school’s gossip column, Heechul had about as much drama in his life as a goldfish. His daily routine comprised of going to school, pretending to , actually ing, trying to convert Donghae into Heechulism, and eventually retreating home to plan for another day. Or spreading malicious rumors about anyone who ticked him off. Everything always worked out perfectly for him. Drama hated him as much as he hated peace. Even his attempts to tick off the head delinquent, Han Geng, fell apart because the man had about as much guts as a saltwater bristleworm.

Kyuhyun, however, lived in the middle of delicious, savory, sweet chaos. His family ran a computer shop, and so he was privvy to all of the private I-thought-I-deleted-this information in just about everyone’s computers. He even figured out that the principle was sleeping with the janitor, who was sleeping with the sophomore drama teacher. Not to mention, drama was a around Kyuhyun and ed with him at just about every chance.

For example, now. Only Kyuhyun would get the chance to be beat up. Heechul wouldn’t, even if he stripped down and asked for it, which he did. Frequently. All that got him was a Chinese (in denial).

“You wouldn’t? Even if I told you I got Hyukjae’s house key?” Kyuhyun wagged his brows suggestively. Heechul squealed as quickly as he frowned, “Liar.”

“I don’t let people beat me up for free, remember?” Kyuhyun retrieved a pink trinket from his pocket and dropped it in Heechul’s lap. The bed-haired brunette continued to brag about how he’d stolen it while Hyukjae was busy smacking him, but Heechul was no mood to listen.

The red-head smiled. The strawberry key-chain smiled back at him.

Finally, drama was looking his way.

It's actually really hard not to edit something! I'm itching. Just itching. LOL. Thanks all for subscribing!

PS: I have decided to at least allow myself to edit A/Ns. I might really just die otherwise.