They meet in high school for the first time. Hyukjae gets transferred from another school because his parents had to change cities for employment purposes and he immediately signs up as a sprinter in the school's athletics team. He loves running, he loves the feeling he has every time he runs, as it makes him sweat and keeps his mind at peace.

Donghae is on the football team as a defender, but he's quite a bit of a nerd; always trying to be perfect on his tests and assignments, but he loves playing football, being out there on the field makes him feel liberated, as if he can defeat anyone as long as he's out playing. Sadly, he lacks social skills which doesn't help him much since he's on a 'team' and they have to train and play together all the time.

Every day, when he's out training with the other athletes, Hyukjae can't help but notice a really beautiful kid, slightly shorter than him, but much bigger when it comes to body weight, left alone on the football field once the practice is over. 

Hyukjae himself trains on the running tracks next to the field and he finds it odd that the very people who play football with the guy would leave him behind when heading to the locker rooms to shower and change. But then the same thing keeps happening every single day for the next six days. 

Every single day, Hyukjae stops running the moment the football practice ends and watches the boy take a seat on the bleachers, all alone, pulling a lunch box from a backpack that's been lying there the entire time and he himself sits across the field, watching the boy munch on whatever food he's got in the box.

It's not that Hyukjae lacks friends. Hyukjae has too many friends, in fact. More than he really should, because he spends so much time being distracted by them. He has friends from his own section, his friends from the athletic team, he has friends from the music club he isn't really a member of, but frequents often, he also has a set of neighborhood friends he hangs out and cycles with after school. 

But he's never really seen Donghae with anyone. No matter where he's seen Donghae, in class, in the cafeteria, in the corridors, he always seem to be alone. 

Hyukjae doesn't pity Donghae, not at all. It's just that seeing such a sweet kid being alone day after day pulls at something deep in his heart. And even though he wants to walk up to him and ask his name, he hesitates to do so, because what if the kid doesn't want to tell him? What if the kid is just an introvert and doesn't want to spend his time socialising with anyone? But no one really likes to be alone all the time, do they? Everyone needs friends at some point in time. 

It's on the ninth day of watching Donghae that something happens. The kid trips over the ball itself while running behind it and falls face down on the ground. Hyukjae stops in his tracks when he hears the noise of people shouting nearby. When he sees the kid on the ground, he holds himself back instead of running towards him immediately. 

Hyukjae watches. He waits for the other kids to help him up and wipe off the dust from his clothes or maybe take him to the infirmary

but no one does that. Not even a single kid steps up to ask him if he's ok while he's still lying on the ground. And then, wordlessly, they all leave, heading towards the locker rooms.

That's when Hyukjae breaks into a run. As fast as he is, it takes him half the time to reach the kid as it would take anyone else. He soon finds out there's a small cut on the kid's forehead and his lip is bleeding too. There's no exchanges of hi's and hello's or even names, but Hyukjae drags Donghae up by his elbow and mutters how they need to go to the school nurse right now and get him cleaned up. 

Donghae himself is in too much of a daze to realise what's happening so he just nods and hobbles along with some support from Hyukjae.

Once the nurse has his wounds cleaned up and bandaged, Donghae falls asleep in one of the less-than-comfortable beds, and even though Hyukjae doesn't know what he's supposed to do, now that the kid has dozed off, he stays. He stays right next to him, and as he looks down at the peaceful looking boy, he fights the urge to run his fingers through

the soft brown locks falling on his forehead or smoothing away the small frown between his eyes.

Theres something really alluring about the kid for he looks too young to be in high school even, but Hyukjae can't help it. He can't make himself look away from that face and maybe that's where he starts to fall. Except he doesn't know it himself.

So he sits back and closes his own eyes, waiting for the other boy to wake up.

•

That's how they become friends. Not best friends. Just friends. For Hyukjae, Donghae is one of his many friends. For Donghae, hyukjae is his only one.

When Donghae had woken up in the infirmary that day and seen Hyukjae dozing off in the chair next to him, he'd smiled.

For more than a week now, he'd known that this guy had been looking at him from across the field almost every day, but hadn't really approached him, heaven knows why.

And that's why Donghae thought that maybe it was okay. 

Maybe it's okay that he'd gotten hurt. 

Maybe this was fate's way of finally introducing them to each other.

His wound would heal and the scars would resolve but his friendship with Hyukjae could stay for a long time, if they nurtured it with the utmost care.

And that's how Hyukjae starts hanging out with Donghae after their respective running practice and football practice.

Donghae starts bringing two boxes

of lunch instead of just one and even though Hyukjae is reluctant to have an entire box to himself, he gives in easily, for the taste of homemade food is unmatched. They sit in the same place; on the bleachers under the blazing sun. Sometimes eating in silence, at other times Hyukjae being mesmerised by the way Donghae animatedly shares stuff about his day.

Both of Hyukjae's parents go to work and there's no one at home to prepare lunch for him so early in the morning. He doesn't really mind that for he's a good son, and his parents always give him enough money everyday for him