Kyuhyun absentmindedly flipped through different pages and apps on his phone, going back to his phonebook every few moments to scroll down to the name ‘Donghae’ and hover there for a few moments before going back to tapping on random icons.

Their little singing session the day before had ended on a slightly panicked note after a couple of hours – they had completely lost track of time and Donghae’s parents had been worried over the fact that he hadn’t called them for so long. They had exchanged numbers before Donghae left, though, and Donghae promised to come to the scrimmage the next day – well, now it was today – so that he could let Kyuhyun give him some more pointers on singing. Well, Donghae had also insisted that Kyuhyun learn how to dance with him, but somehow, Kyuhyun didn’t really expect that to happen.

“Thanks, mom,” Kyuhyun said as they arrived at the school and he climbed out of the car. Normally, he would have driving to school, but he had been feeling a bit tired that day, not to mention a bit unwilling to take his eyes off of his phone for any extended duration of time, so his mother had somewhat grudgingly offered to drive him instead, complaining about how he should hurry up and take his license test so that she wouldn’t have to come with him everywhere he went.

He put his phone away in his pocket as he swung the gym door open, wincing as a blast of heat hit him. The gym wasn’t air conditioned at all, something that the team complained about constantly. Kyuhyun didn’t mind so much, but that was probably only because he wasn’t actually playing a sport in it, and he could always take his shirt completely off if he wanted to, unlike the girls on the team.

Though Lynn had gotten dangerously close to just practicing in her sports bra and spandex a few times.

“Hey, Kyuhyun!” Nyx waved from the other side, where the girls were already warming up. The other team was already here, all wearing blue shirts. Lynn and Nyx had mentioned that the team they were playing today was decent, but not really enough to pose a problem for them.

“Hey, Kyuhyun,” the coach said when she came over, “Do you think you could operate the scoreboard for us? Nyx can teach you how.”

“Yeah, sure,” Kyuhyun shrugged.

“Great. All you have to do is keep track of the points. Real simple stuff. Let me just get her over here real quick,” the coach called out to Nyx, who was peppering with Lynn, and the two of them came over to help out. After a quick explanation, they had gone back to their peppering – or, as Kyuhyun liked to call it, their plan to kill everyone by volleyball travelling near the speed of light.

“Hey, Kyu~” A playful punch on his shoulder and an all-too-familiar voice caused Kyuhyun to turn around. “You keeping score?”

Kyuhyun nodded, “Yeah. I don’t suppose you wanna sit here with me?”

Donghae shrugged, “Why not? Better view. Are we allowed to rig the points in our favor?”

Kyuhyun laughed, “Nah. Besides, apparently, they’re gonna win, so it won’t matter either way.”

“Shh! What if the other team heard you? That would be so mean!” Donghae said as he sat down in one of the chairs. Kyuhyun sat down in the chair in the middle. Kyuhyun played around absentmindedly, trying to set the clock to the time that Lynn and Nyx had told him to. “No, you come down here!” Kyuhyun jumped at Donghae’s voice, looking at him confusedly.

Donghae was gesticulating violently at Eunhyuk and the other soccer players, who were sitting up on the bleachers. Both parties seemed pretty stubborn. But eventually, Eunhyuk came down to join them.

“Donghae~~” Eunhyuk complained, “They keeping asking me to set them up with players on the team, but I only really know Lynn~ What am I supposed to do?” Eunhyuk took the seat on the other side of Kyuhyun, “Hey, Kyuhyun, you think you could help me?”

“Um,” Kyuhyun raised an eyebrow, “Tell them to man up and just talk to them themselves.”

Eunhyuk looked up to the bleachers, where the rest of the soccer guys were just messing around and punching each other, “Yeah…I highly doubt that’ll happen.”

“Hey, I’ll be right back,” Donghae said with a gesture that was somewhere between a two- wave and a salute. Kyuhyun and Eunhyuk nodded in acknowledgment as he left. The referee had just arrived and told Kyuhyun to start the clock, and the team’s warm-up music started playing, a hyped dance track with a steady beat.

“Hey, Kyuhyun, do you have a crush on Donghae?” Eunhyuk’s voice made Kyuhyun jump slightly, since it was so close. “Whoa. Sorry, I was worried you wouldn’t hear me ‘cause the music’s so loud.”

“Uhh…I see.”

“Yeah. Why do they have to play it so loud, anyways? It makes me want to dance,” Eunhyuk complained.

“I think Lynn’s dancing anyways, why not just go join her?” Kyuhyun asked, kind of glad for the distraction from Eunhyuk’s original question.

“Ah, but she’s passing with Nyx, and I don’t want to intrude…”

“Peppering.”

“What?”

“They call it peppering. When they pass like that?” Everyone on the team was paired up, and they were all passing and hitting at each other.

“Huh. Learn something new every day, I guess,” Eunhyuk shrugged. A brief moment of silence commenced, until Eunhyuk exclaimed, “WAIT. You didn’t answer my question!”

“What question?” Kyuhyun asked innocently, making a faux sincere face before cracking a smile. “Well, I wouldn’t really say it’s a crush. Just…an interest. I mean, I don’t even know about his – “

“Biual.” Unfortunately, Eunhyuk said that just as the music had gotten significantly louder for the chorus of a song.

“…What?” Kyuhyun leaned in.

“He’s Biual,” Eunhyuk said, a bit louder, “And oh look, he’s back.” He looked over to the gym doors, where Donghae was pulling at all of the doors, trying to find the one that wasn’t locked. He noticed Kyuhyun and Eunhyuk looking at him, and looked at them with a pouty face as he kept pulling at the doors.

“Go all the way to the end,” Kyuhyun muttered, trying to gesture towards the last door with his hand. Somehow, Donghae managed to get the message, as he went straight for the last set of doors, successfully pulling them open. “Seriously…doesn’t he get it from when we came in earlier…” Kyuhyun muttered, but he couldn’t help but smile.

How many expressions does that kid have?

“Why can’t they just keep all of the doors unlocked?” Donghae complained as he sat down, stretching across the table.

“Security,” Kyuhyun said, “And to keep people below a certain IQ level out.”

Donghae thought about that statement for a moment. “Hey! I would have gotten in eventually!”

“Uh huh,” Kyuhyun smirked. “Don’t worry, I’m sure someone would have let you in. Someone who isn’t really lazy and happens to be in charge of the clock.”

“Hmph. Nice to know how much you care about me,” Donghae said huffily. He reached over and ruffled Kyuhyun’s hair affectionately for a moment, “Ah, thirteen whole minutes? Is that until they start?”

Kyuhyun was slightly offended by Donghae’s action, but his mind quickly left that when he remembered that he was supposed to sound the buzzer at some time around thirteen minutes. When was it again?

Ah. 13:10. Kyuhyun buzzed the thing just in time, wincing at how loud it was. “Why does everything in here have to be so annoying…” He paused, “Oh, except you, of course,” Kyuhyun teased, flicking Donghae on the forehead.

“…Hey…” Donghae muttered.

They continued chatting and singing along to certain songs on the warm-up CD, and at some point, Lynn and Nyx dragged the three of them over to try to play some volleyball. After some very pathetic attempts – though the two of them were quite impressed with how Eunhyuk had a natural talent for volleyball – they had given up and returned to the table, just in time for him to hit the next buzzer. With that, their school’s team took the court and started hitting, and Donghae and Kyuhyun discovered that one of the songs they had just sung to the day before was on the warm-up CD, and started singing along.

“Wow. You’re good. Respect.” Eunhyuk commented.

“Thanks,” Kyuhyun said.

“Yeah, isn’t he good?” Donghae said cheerily. With that, they continued chatting until the game started, and the gym turned eerily silent after one of the girls turned the music off.

Keeping score was a bit more difficult than Kyuhyun expected, since he kept getting distracted. Donghae and Eunhyuk kept bugging him every time he accidentally gave the point to the wrong side or missed a point until Kyuhyun nearly bit their heads off and demanded complete silence so he could concentrate on scorekeeping. After a few minutes of that, Kyuhyun heard something that sounded strangely close to…

“…He’s actually asleep.” Kyuhyun muttered to himself, giving one team another point. He poked Donghae’s forehead lightly, testing to see if he would wake up. He spotted a washable marker nearby.

This…is too tempting.

With that, he grabbed and uncapped the marker.