Put on the cap. The cap. Put it on. It’s just a stupid cap.

Hyesung was sitting on his bed. It had been one week after the encounter with Eric at that café, and even though he had been the one to bring up playing Airia again with Eric…

He hadn’t logged in since.

He held the game’s simulation cap in his hands, staring at the glossy black sheen and white retro lettering of Airia on its side. He used to play every single night, putting the device on his head before going to sleep, but now he didn’t even want to step foot in the world that had previously been his paradise.

He couldn’t say that he didn’t miss the game – he did. It had been great fun to him.

But now, his top priority was avoiding Eric.

Stupid game.

Luckily, he hadn’t met that individual after the café meeting, either, so there wasn’t anyone to really blame him for going against his own word. He drummed his fingers against the helmet-like mechanism before biting his lip and hurriedly throwing it underneath his bed, collapsing onto the mattress and staring up at the ceiling. He sighed, listening as the round cap rolled against the floorboards before coming to a stop.

I tried. Again.

He wouldn’t have been so worried if it weren’t for the fact that now, there was something nagging at him – how was he going to deal with Eric once they encountered each other again?

“I want to scream,” Hyesung mumbled to himself, rolling onto his side and clutching at a pillow. Then, at the relapsing memory of Eric cornering him, his ears grew hot and he inadvertently punched the pillow. He didn’t want to think about that; nope.

But the more he tried to ignore it, the more it took over his thoughts.

To be absolutely truthful, this certainly wasn’t the first time Eric had sent him signals. The problem always came in when Hyesung froze up; his nervousness never failed to render him unable to respond in any way. The difference this time around was that it was taking him much longer than usual to recover his nerves. It likely had something to do with his remembering every moment in Airia when he had actually been playing alongside Eric.

Every single time with that online friend had turned out to be with a group member who was playing in the same building as him.

If you lose your composure when he does stuff like that, that says something, right? he thought to himself. Thinking it made him embarrassed, but he was almost getting used to that.

His phone sounded on his nightstand, startling him into sitting up. He eyed the device for a moment as the screen stayed lit. It wouldn’t be Eric, would it?

Hyesung reached out, picked up the phone, and glanced at the name. Minwoo.

He sighed in relief before opening up the message: Yo, Hyesungie! Can you come out of your apartment and meet me outside for a sec? Favor favor favor! >.<

Hyesung sighed again – this time in exasperation – and got to his feet, putting his phone back on the nightstand. He had been about to force himself to sleep, but he had enough time to waste with whatever stupid errand Minwoo wanted with him now.

It wasn’t like he’d be able to fall asleep immediately, anyway.

He made his way to the door to his apartment and slipped on his shoes, opening the door and stepping outside. Now, all he had to do was avoid Eric in any way in case the latter was roaming the building –

“Wow, I didn’t even have to knock.”

No. Way.

Hyesung retreated upon hearing that very person’s voice and darted right back into his apartment, swinging the door to shut it. Before it closed, a tip of a foot moved forward and prevented the door from moving into place.

“Are you stalking me or something?” Hyesung demanded, putting his hands against the door and trying to force it closed despite Eric’s foot still barricading it.

“Ow! Holy crap, dude! Are you trying to paralyze my toes or something?”

Eric leaned his body weight against the door, wincing as he tried to wrench his foot away and counter Hyesung’s strength at the same time.

Hyesung wasn’t making the task very easy. He was panicking – he hadn’t even begun to plan out how he was going to compose himself upon seeing Eric again, and the very person shows up at his door?

“Don’t creep around my apartment!” Hyesung snapped, straining himself as he shoved against the door. Admittedly, he was much weaker than Eric and the only thing keeping him going was the need to not face him today. “Seriously?”

“I won’t be able to dance if you keep crushing my foot!”

A twinge of guilt made Hyesung’s strength give out for a moment. A moment was long enough for Eric to react – he threw his weight against the door. It swung off his foot – and went crashing into Hyesung’s forehead.

“Ow!” The jarring impact of skull against wood automatically drove Hyesung to the floor. His mind was spinning as the pain reverberated across his head, and he was pretty sure he had just heard something crack.

“Oh my god!” Eric exclaimed, crouching down next to him. “Are you okay?”

“I might have a concussion; do you think I’m okay?” Hyesung retorted, lifting his face to glare at him while furiously rubbing the center of his forehead to drive away the pain. It wasn’t helping much. “You might not be able to dance but I might not even be able to sing, idiot!”

“It was completely unintentional…but you sound lively, don’t you?”

Hyesung’s jaw dropped slightly at the remark. ‘Lively’? His head was nearly smashed; you would think he was anything but lively.

Not to mention, Eric had successfully invaded his apartment.

Hyesung inhaled deeply upon finally realizing that the individual next to him was the exact person he had wanted to avoid. Silence fell across the both of them and the imminent feeling of doom latched onto his skin.

“Yeah, I should get going,” Hyesung quickly said, standing up and desperately ignoring the noise of his quickening pulse in his ears. There it was; becoming more intense with each second that passed – the anxiety. “Minwoo’s got stuff-“

“Actually, Minwoo’s back at his apartment,” Eric said evenly as he straightened up calmly. “I told him to send you that text.”

Hyesung froze in the middle of heading out the door. He mechanically turned toward Eric, who was feigning an innocent expression. “Please tell me that you’re lying,” Hyesung said, his voice quiet.

“Uh, nope. I’m buying food next practice in return for his doing that.”

Oh, Hyesung thought blankly.

Well. Crap.

“So you made Minwoo lure me outside, where you were waiting, in order to…?” He didn’t know if he wanted to hear the answer to that, but it came anyway:

“What do you think?” Eric asked, raising an eyebrow. “You were the one who wanted to talk to me through the stupid game, and guess who shows up in that stupid game?” He forced a cynical laugh, barely amused now that it was coming back to him. “Not you! Even though I was waiting there since last week to see you log in!”

“Well, excuse me!” Hyesung shot right back, even though he knew he was at fault. “But I don’t particularly know how to face someone who basically harassed me a few days ago, you know?”

Rather than being hurt, irritation passed across Eric’s face, disappearing just as quickly as it came. “If you considered it harassment, you could’ve just told me to stop.” The remark was said in a scarily composed manner.

Hyesung felt his chest tighten. “Th-that’s not what I meant,” he said.

“Yeah; then what did you mean?” Eric said, sounding extremely peeved. “Because you know what? You’ve been playing push-and-pull with me for the past fourteen years. I don’t know if that’s what you wanted it to seem like, but that’s what I’ve been perceiving it as.”

“I have never done any ‘push-and-pull’ing,” Hyesung said defensively. He hadn’t…had he?

Eric stared at him for a moment before exhaling, his eyes shut. If anything, he had been dealing with this sort of thing for way too long. “Never mind. It’s my fault for falling for an idiot anyway.”

“I’m not an idiot,” Hyesung muttered.

“You did it again!” Eric protested in frustration, alarming Hyesung into taking a short step backward. “Every single time I even say something about liking you, you completely ignore it.”

Hyesung paused for a moment. “I’m sorry.” It sounded lame even to his own ears, but he didn’t have anything else to say. “I…I lose it when you’re too forward with me. It’s easier to pretend nothing happened.”

“…And continue to lead me on.”

“I wasn’t leading you on-“

“If you had told me what you were thinking like – I don’t know – fourteen goddamn years ago, maybe we could’ve gotten long a little better? I wouldn’t have thought that you were leading me on and maybe I could’ve been a little more patient.”

Hyesung gaped at Eric, who seemed completely serious. “So then, what?” he said in pure irritation. “We could’ve started going out since fourteen years ago; is that what you’re saying?”

Eric gained a small smirk on his face. “Are you implying that we could start going out now?”

“What?” Hyesung was so confused and stunned that he didn’t even have the reaction time to blush. “Where did you get that from?”

Eric ignored him and said, “Whatever. I can only stay here for so long, right?” He glanced at Hyesung, taunting him silently. “If you want to know, I guess you’ll just have to. Log. On. To. Airia.”

“Oh,” Hyesung answered sourly. Most of this must’ve been some kind of plot on Eric’s part. “Oh, well, okay. But in order for me to start playing that game, you have to get out of my apartment first.”

They glared at each other for a few moments, the tension replaced by their old quarreling selves. “Alright, then,” Eric said. “But hey, I deserve an apology first, don’t I?”

Hyesung heaved a sigh. “I already said sor-“

Eric leaned swiftly forward, brushing his lips past Hyesung’s so quickly that it barely even registered. “I’ll take that for now,” Eric said happily and triumphantly as Hyesung’s eyes grew wider. Eric made a small salute before exiting out the door, singing, “Don’t forget to log on!”

After some time in silence, Hyesung’s legs gave out and he put an arm out to the wall for support. There were so many things to say about this situation. That, he thought, was nervewracking.

‘Nervewracking’? That wasn’t the word to describe it at all. They had just…just kissed; there was no word to describe that sort of thing!

Hyesung put his head against the wall, shaking his head to clear it of all the confusion. His heart was going to burst. He wasn’t dreaming. Not at all. Maybe that was a good thing.

He dragged himself back to his room, forcing himself to think about anything other than what had just happened before it drove him crazy. Pink elephants, he thought to himself. It was almost a mental chant.

When he got to his room, he got down on his hands and knees and reached underneath the bed, pulling the gaming helmet toward him. “Guess I’ll have to play,” he said blandly, mindlessly rubbing the side of the cap with his sleeve.

He threw himself onto the bed, preparing himself for the sleep and gameplay that would arrive together. He slipped on the cap and stared for a few moments at the ceiling before shutting his eyes, waiting to be taken away to Airia.

What felt like a few seconds later, he reopened his eyes and found himself standing smack in the middle of an Airian city. The familiarity of it all made him feel only a little better. The feeling of his stomach twisting was all too real for just an avatar.

There had to be a horrible reason as to why Eric was so anticipant of his logging in again, and –

An analog box popped up in front of Hyesung’s face. The mechanical font read: You have (1) new notification(s).

“I don’t want to do this,” he mumbled as he reached forward to the translucent screen in front of him. “I really, really don’t want to do this.”

He tapped the screen. Message from: moonfire13. Open attachment?

That was the username that – he now knew – belonged to Eric. He wanted to log out and sleep and dream instead of opening it, but the curiosity would get the better of his fears sooner or later.

He pressed the yes button and the box promptly showed him the screenshot of an online article, titled: Eric and Hyesung of Shinhwa meet in café?

Hyesung got the greater feeling of dread as he scrolled through the article. It was accompanied by pictures of them, clad in their obviously useless disguises, sitting at that table together. The only thing that was missing was that parking lot scene. And that was all he was thankful for.

The comments were the worst; it was filled with crazy boys’ love fangirls hiding behind their usernames:

They’re dating; they’re dating; DON’T TRY TO TELL ME THEY’RE NOT DATING.

Look at them, trying to be all secretive XD

We all know you’re going out…

“Why do I do this to myself?” Hyesung asked himself as he continued reading. When he reached the bottom of the article, it cut off and showed the part of the message that was Eric speaking:

We tried so hard to hide and the paparazzi still found us and look at all that support from our fans ♥ ♥ ♥

Fate for you, Syungie. Kiss ya later.

Hyesung's eyes drifted across the last three words over and over as they sunk into his head.

“You’re not going to kiss me later!” Hyesung shouted, his avatar's face turning red. Somewhere across the artificial universe, Eric was definitely laughing.