Life throws many curve-balls at you, Kyuhyun lamented. No matter how well you plan something out, something always falls apart and doesn’t go your way. The best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry*. And in this particular case, the curveball came in the shape of a stupid box of hair bleach.

That night, as Sungmin slinked into their room, Kyuhyun decided to strike with his flattery. He’d been planning to himself all the nice and lovely things he’d say about Sungmin, about how perfect his skin and hair and eyes, and all that sappy crap, were. There was no way that Sungmin could resist such flattery, because as much as the older man liked to pretend he wasn’t vain about his appearance, Kyuhyun knew otherwise. Having shared hotel rooms with Sungmin almost every time the left the country, he knew how much time he liked spending in front of the mirror when there were no time restrictions.

It was bordering on ridiculous actually, and he almost beat Siwon in terms of skin care when he really went at it. Exfoliator, face wash, face softener, pore opening gel, moisturizer, and bed time sleeping cream to keep his wrinkles away. The whole thing confused Kyuhyun a bit who just slapped on a bit of moisturizer and pimple be gone stuff, but he wasn’t about to knock Sungmin’s choices. He, after all, could spend days playing StarCraft over and over. So, for once, he was actually nice about something and held out on teasing him.

He could’ve just said sorry, but Kyuhyun didn’t do sorry.

He could count the amount of times he’d ever formally apologised on one hand. He did everything in his power to avoid actually saying the word, because it made him feel like an idiot. His pride was somewhat pitiful as it was (not that he would admit it), and apologising would bring him down to a level that he just did not want to go.

Cho Kyuhyun never said sorry.

The door swung open and Kyuhyun clenched his fists, ready to strike. Just as Sungmin came into vision and Kyuhyun opened his mouth, his jaw dropped completely and his words stopped in his throat. Sungmin was… blonde? And it looked really good?

“Um,” Kyuhyun eloquently said. “You’re blonde.”

Sungmin rolled his eyes while taking off his shoes, his trying to face away from Kyuhyun. “Yes, wonderful observation.”

“Um, why?” Kyuhyun rationally realised that he should be saying, ‘oh wow Sungmin, you look fantastic! So wonderful and youthful’ and then everything would be fixed, but his brain was a bit stuck in surprise.

Sungmin quirked a brow. “Why?”

“Um. Yes. I mean. Good—it looks good. It’s blonde. Very blonde. And nice. Blonde is nice.” He was short circuiting. His brain and stomach were doing funny things and he could only think in question marks.

Sungmin scratched at his hair self-consciously. “Do you think it’s okay?”

Kyuhyun was having issues functioning. Error message 504. Gateway timeout. Please contact your internet provider for more information. Sungmin had actually made normal conversation with him. And he was BLONDE?

 He made the tiniest of nods. On the outside, Kyuhyun looked completely emotionless. On the inside, it was more like: ?? ?

?? ? ?? ???????????   ? ?       ??    ??? SUNGMIN ?? ??  TALKING??

?? TO ME ??? ?

?  ?BLONDE ?? ? WHAT       

????              ?

Kyuhyun prided himself on his rationality, but it had flown out the window the moment walked in the room with his stupid blonde hair and perfect skin and wait, what? What?

Kyuhyun slowly turned his head to face out the window. He was having a crisis and he didn’t even really know why because Sungmin was just Sungmin his best friend but his stomach was flipping like the first time he’d kissed a girl and none of it made sense.

So he decided to deal with it the way he did most things. He went straight to sleep, leaving Sungmin standing there looking confused.

Sungmin had expected Kyuhyun to up to him, so this development was… a little weird. Kyuhyun had been doing his best to make it up to him for the last week or so, and Sungmin had kept rejecting him, and now he felt a little bad. Even though it was his fault, Sungmin felt like he may have pushed him over the edge a bit and left him feeling depressed.

Sungmin hated fighting, especially with his best friend, and when he came in today he was hoping they could have a nice civil conversation and maybe make up. Sungmin knew deep down that Kyuhyun wouldn’t apologise, because he never did, but maybe he could just be satisfied with making him feel so sorry that he worked his best, in his own way, to make it up to him. Sighing, Sungmin climbed into bed and pulled the covers over, resolving to be a bit nicer to Kyuhyun. They were best friends after all, and this left a bad taste in his mouth. He just wanted it to be like before when they were having fun playing jokes on the rest of the band. He was still pissed off, but they had to get over it eventually, he figured.

Forgiveness comes first in a friendship.

Eunhyuk had dubbed it as ‘subspace mode’. Kyuhyun had been walking around in a daze all day, not able to focus on anything. Leeteuk and Eunhyuk had been watching him, thinking it was a bit weird but not getting too concerned over it. Well, they hadn't, until he tripped over and smacked his head on the ground, and didn’t even complain. Not even one dramatic cry for help claiming that he’d broken something, or a flail on the ground in pain. He just pushed himself up and kept on walking. They looked at each other in worry, because that was definitely a cause for concern.

Eunhyuk spotted the newly blonde Sungmin in the corner of the room, leaning against the wall and chewing on his fingernail as he watched Kyuhyun walk away.

“You don’t think that they broke up or something, do you?” Eunhyuk said, nodding his head to Kyuhyun and Sungmin.

“There’s no way.” Leeteuk waved this idea away, but even underneath he was feeling a bit worried for the two.

Eunhyuk nibbled on his lip. “But this whole last week they’ve been fighting and every day Kyuhyun’s always tried to apologise, but I haven’t even seen Kyuhyun look at Sungmin once today. And Sungmin just keeps staring at him and looking sad. I mean, something must have happened.”

“Maybe,” Leeteuk sighed, trying to stay hopeful for the two. As much as he hated to admit it, if those two broke up it wouldn’t just be bad news for them, but for the whole band.

“I’ll go talk to him.” Eunhyuk patted Leeteuk on the shoulder and followed after Kyuhyun, on a mission to find out exactly what was wrong.

“He’s blonde,” Kyuhyun said, staring at the wall behind him.

This wasn’t how Eunhyuk expected the conversation to go. He thought Kyuhyun might cry a little and spill his feelings, but he was just in subspace mode repeating ‘he’s blonde’ over and over.

“Yes, I’m aware that he’s blonde.”

Kyuhyun shook his head. “You don’t get it. Sungmin is blonde and it’s weird and I don’t get it.”

Eunhyuk just stared at Kyuhyun and thought, ‘ah, he’s finally lost it’. Kyuhyun was always a little weird, but apparently he’d just gone off the deep end.

“Um, my condolences, I guess?”

“He’s BLONDE!” Kyuhyun yelled, throwing his head in his hands,

“... Okaay,” Eunhyuk muttered to himself, backing out of the room slowly. “You just um… feel better, or something. I’m just going to uh, go now.” Eunhyuk slammed that door shut behind him and stared at Leeteuk with wide eyes, who had been standing outside eavesdropping. “I uh, think we just have to um, let him work through his issues.”

Leeteuk nodded slowly. “Yes. Wonderful plan.”

A/N: I like this poem that I quoted (*) from so I'm just gonna stick it on the end here and maybe things might be slightly more plotty and a little more serious (but also not really only a little) because /things/ are going to happen and that is all okay goodbye.

* But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane [you aren't alone] 
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft a-gley, [often go awry] 
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promised joy.