i n t e r l u d e

The message to meet came after nearly a week of no contact.

Donghae had been contemplating if he should try and communicate with Hyukjae since it would be even more awkward to entirely shun each other off camera, but he couldn’t bring himself to send the message.

More than enough times has he tried to send a message just saying a simple ‘hi’, and more than enough times had he ended up deleting everything he typed instead. He could still distinctly remember those awfully familiar moon-shaped eyes, and his heart skips a beat, despite cursing at himself to come to his senses and not make a fool of himself.

It feels so ridiculous, yet he couldn’t help but just hope.

The message came unexpectedly on an odd afternoon when Donghae had another schedule.

His manager had walked in with a look that Donghae couldn’t comprehend, until he saw the message notification on his lock screen, with the name of the sender: ‘Husband’.

Oh, right, I saved that name, Donghae blinks, acting like he saw nothing, ignoring the raised eyebrow his manager shot his way.

He clears his throat, turned away from his manager’s prying eyes, and went to a private corner.

It was a simple message from Hyukjae asking for a meetup, and an address that sounded familiar, though he couldn’t put his finger on where he had heard about it.

He stares at the message, and then finally replies, hours late than when the message had been sent.

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“I don’t think I can continue the filming.”

As if they had been expecting this, Leeteuk and Shindong sigh on cue.

Due to their busy schedules, they hadn’t had a chance to meet Hyukjae after the filming of the first date, and honestly, both of them had been very relieved about that. Not that they could have avoided it for too long anyway.

Hyukjae’s eyes are red, “I don’t think I should.”

The youngest looked like he hardly slept for the past few days, both upset and tired. He hasn’t looked this way for a while, and their heart aches at the reminder. Those were the bad, horrible, and absolutely devastating days that no one would ever want to go through again.

Leeteuk goes over to hug Hyukjae, who despite being upset with his hyungs for the set-up, still melts into the gentle warmth.

“Hyung knew, didn’t you?”

Leeteuk and Shindong grimaces at that and shared a knowing look with each other.

“How am I even going to continue this show?” Hyukjae doesn’t give them the time to respond, the built-up of emotions twirling and tumbling inside him, “He hates me! If he knows it’s me, it’s going to crush him. Once he knows I’m Eunhyuk he’d want to end this anyways!”

It wasn’t usual to see the youngest in such anguish. Not even with what happened two years ago, he h