Chapter Two

Donghae stopped dragging Hyukjae along as soon as they were out of view from their friends. They loved their friends, obviously, but they were a couple and needed some quality and alone time too. It was difficult to get some of those because they worked far apart from each other, and in the evenings they usually went out with their friends than just as the two of them. And as Jongwoon obviously made it clear that public displays of affection grossed him out, Donghae and Hyukjae tried to cut down on that for him. You do not want to get Jongwoon mad, really. He is no pleasure to be friends with when he is pissed off or annoyed with you.

“Finally!” Donghae proclaimed contentedly as he released Hyukjae from his harsh grip and threw his hands in the air as a sign of happiness and relief.

“Aren’t you being a little too much?” Hyukjae asked curiously after seeing Donghae’s overly excited reaction. “Maybe we should just stop being friends with them and hang out together daily.”

“What? No, it’s not like that! I just think we should have some private time too, that’s all,” Donghae replied, apologetic, feeling a little guilty towards his friends who were probably feeling all sad and abandoned on the main plaza. “Besides, hanging out with only you every single day would be the death of me.”

“Ya!”

Hyukjae ended up running after Donghae, feeling semi-insulted, and Donghae was smart enough to run towards the stables. As soon as they had reached, Hyukjae looked at the entrance pensively, before turning to Donghae.

“You really took me to the stables for our first date in months?”

Donghae now also turned to the stable entrance and couldn’t help but giggle. He honestly didn’t know he had run towards the stables, it just had been something automatic. Well, that’s probably what you get when working at these stables 7 days a week, as dragonbirds need food every single day and no one other than the Riders themselves were brave enough to close in on the dragonbirds.

Not that anyone other than the Riders themselves would survive getting close to dragonbirds.

“You know Jongwoon will kill us if we don’t give Whyth his message. Besides, Yiath misses you too.”

“So we ditch our friends to have a romantic evening together, affectionate moments included, and you take us to the stables where, mind you, Whyth is? You know Whyth and Jongwoon have the exact same personality, and Whyth will be less nice than Jongwoon when it comes to being annoyed by some public display of affection.”

Donghae laughed while Hyukjae was getting more and more worked up about Donghae’s rather stupid and innocently made decision and stepped forwards to give Hyukjae a small kiss on his cheek and a body-warming hug.

“You forgot one thing though,” he said, while Hyukjae put his arms around Donghae as well and hugged him in return. They swayed for a little while the slowly dropping temperature engulfed them. “Other than Jongwoon, Whyth is stuck behind bars.”

As if sudden bells of realization had gone off in Hyukjae’s head, he released Donghae as a wide grin appeared on his facial features and dragged Donghae inside the stables.

“You inform Whyth, I’ll go and see Yiath for a bit. Then let’s enjoy the evening, okay?”

Hyukjae dashed off towards a stable located further away, while Donghae remained in the one they were in. Whyth looked at Donghae both curiously and annoyed, and Donghae instantly had to think of Jongwoon, who really had a lot in common with his dragonbird that it was nearly scary.

“Tomorrow you get to go out again,” Donghae said to the dragonbird, whose annoyance was slowly replaced with excitement. As Donghae patted him, he couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for Whyth. As Donghae was a dragonbird caretaker, he spent a lot of time with his dragonbird, Liath. Hyukjae would often visit Yiath in his breaks and whenever he had some time to do so. Jongwoon, however, barely visited Whyth, even though he did nearly nothing throughout the entire day.

Donghae ended up giving Whyth a small dragonbird candy, to show him that he was loved, he really was, and soon left towards Yiath’s stable. Hyukjae was inside the stable hugging Yiath dearly, as if he hadn’t seen him for months, even though he had just done that exact same thing that morning, and noticed Donghae patiently staring at him a few seconds later.

“Where should we go for our date?” Hyukjae asked, giving Yiath a final hug and promising to return to him tomorrow.

“Let’s go to Liath for a few seconds, so she doesn’t feel unfairly treated, and then go to Brarnur fields?” Donghae replied, knowing that Liath had heard the two of them coming from miles ago already. Hyukjae nodded in agreement and closed Yiath back in before joining Donghae to Liath.

Only a few minutes later and they were on their way towards the northern gate, ready to go to Brarnur field and to enjoy nature and each other’s presence.

Kyuhyun disappointedly grabbed one side of the cart’s pull-mechanism, while Jongwoon stood on the other side. They both bent forward to grab the large and heavy wooden beam and pulled it up in front of them. Why they still didn’t use horses to do this kind of hard work, Kyuhyun didn’t know.

It was rather far to the ponds of Atlaia, and Kyuhyun had thought he could just walk hand in hand with Jongwoon or maybe even just talk delightedly, but unfortunately, he could not. Pulling a heavy cart along with you makes both walking hand-in-hand and talking impossible. Only some occasional grunts were heard due to the amount of force they had to exert to get the cart forward.

Which was a little disturbing really, because the cart was still empty. They were supposed to fill it with water at the ponds and return to Osis with the cart filled to the brim. They barely had enough strength to get it forward being empty, so the prospects didn’t seem too good for the way back.

Suddenly the cart seemed to get ten times as heavy, as its wheels got stuck in the mud, and Kyuhyun tried with all his might to keep getting it going, but the cart stopped moving and didn’t budge any longer. Kyuhyun looked to the side to see if Jongwoon was wondering why the cart had stopped moving too, but he wasn’t there anymore. Shocked, Kyuhyun looked backward and found Jongwoon lying in the cart, eyes closed and utterly relaxed.

“What are you doing?” Kyuhyun asked. Jongwoon opened one of his eyes and noticed Kyuhyun staring at him angrily.

“Ah, so you finally noticed?” Jongwoon laughed in return, and he sat up before patting Kyuhyun on his head as if he had just done or said something remarkable.

“Get off of there right now and help me pull this thing, or I’m going back home,” Kyuhyun replied, annoyed, sighing loudly to put some strength into his words.

“You are no fun,” Jongwoon pouted, but joined Kyuhyun on the other side of the beam and helped him in pulling the cart out of the mud and further. It was remarkably easier than before, and Kyuhyun’s worries for the way back slowly vanished.

“Have you been up there the whole time?” Kyuhyun asked curiously, as his annoyance left him too and he had to admit to himself that what Jongwoon had done was quite an achievement.