Hyukjae slammed the door to his room closed behind him and threw his backpack onto the floor, not even caring that he might have ruined the gift he had meticulously wrapped the night before. Considering how Hyukjae hated wrapping presents or wrapping anything for that matter, for him to have wrapped the gift and actually did a great job at it was an incredible feat all on its own. But all of that didn’t even matter as Hyukjae paced around his room, still fuming over the event that took place in school after his dance practice.

Stupid school, stupid birthday, stupid girl, stupid Dara, stupid Donghae, stupid Donghae, stupid Donghae!

It never occurred to Hyukjae that he could hate Donghae, his best friend, this much. But then if anybody asked where that sudden hate came from, Hyukjae would be having a hard time trying to explain it. It wasn’t anger towards Donghae that made Hyukjae felt that way, and it certainly wasn’t annoyance either. It was something else, something entirely different, something he couldn’t put his finger on, something he couldn’t define.

Hyukjae had grown up to believe that Donghae was someone he needed to protect, someone he needed to shield so that those bad things in life couldn’t reach him, so when Donghae became their high school’s Student Body President, became the popular guy and acquired this new power all of a sudden, Hyukjae had this sinking feeling that Donghae didn’t need him anymore. And the fear just made worse when Hyukjae witnessed with his own eyes that there was suddenly this group of kids that sprung out of nowhere and began following Donghae everywhere, taking up most of his time.

It used to be that Donghae would meet Hyukjae every day at lunch time, and the same would happen whenever they were both finished with various extracurricular activities at school and they would walk home together, talking about everything and nothing at all. But all of those interactions ceased to exist once Donghae got busier and busier what with his title of the Student Body President. Slowly, every day meeting at the school’s cafeteria became three times a week, once a week, and then no meeting at all. The same thing happened to their after school walk home, since the Student Body’s meeting usually ran much later than Hyukjae’s dance club practice.

Even as the weekends came, Hyukjae still found it hard to be with Donghae. With the sudden rise of Donghae’s popularity, not to mention that he had grown out of his crybaby phase into a rather handsome and charming young man, girls began noticing him and they too wanted a piece of Donghae’s attention. From the window of his bedroom, Hyukjae could see the girls Donghae brought home with him on a Saturday night, most of them weren’t coming back for the next weekend and were replaced with yet another different girl. And little by little, even talking to Donghae on the phone became difficult to do and Hyukjae became aware that he and Donghae were drifting apart.

It wasn’t like Hyukjae was alone during those times he spent spying on Donghae’s house, he had been with a few girls himself because being in the dance club automatically meant that girls’ attention towards him had multiplied as well. But there was nothing serious about those girls and even though he enjoyed their company, he never failed to notice that he always felt like something was missing. He didn’t know if it was normal to think about Donghae whenever he was with those girls. Every time a girl laughed at his jokes, he wondered whether Donghae would laugh as well. Every time a girl smiled because of his many pick-up lines, he wondered how Donghae’s reaction might be. And that scared Hyukjae.

Deep inside he knew he shouldn’t even think that way and that he should just enjoy the attention that girls were giving him. But he couldn’t help but feel that there was this hole inside him that couldn’t be filled no matter how many girls he spent his time with. And as time went by, Hyukjae learned that the said hole couldn’t be filled because… it was a piece of his soul that belonged to Donghae and only Donghae could fill it. The first night after Hyukjae realized this, he couldn’t sleep. He spent hours tossing and turning in his bed, trying to put a name on what he was feeling but he couldn’t find any. So Hyukjae decided that he would just cut all contacts with Donghae, just until the indefinable feeling went away. The flaw in that plan was that Hyukjae didn’t prepare a scenario of what to do when the indefinable feeling only got stronger after he no longer had any form of contact with Donghae and that Donghae’s face was sometimes the only thing occupying his thoughts.

And Donghae was of course aware that Hyukjae was deliberately avoiding his phone calls and always seemed to be busy whenever Donghae visited his house. So one day at school, Donghae decided to confront Hyukjae and asked him straight up about why he was avoiding him. All he got out of that conversation was a black eye, because Hyukjae decided that Donghae deserved that punch for being ‘a good for nothing best friend’, as Hyukjae put it. What Donghae didn’t know was that Hyukjae immediately regretted what he did and wanted nothing more than to gather Donghae in a hug and kissed the pain away. That thought alone sent Hyukjae over the edge and he became more and more afraid, afraid of Donghae for making him think those things and afraid of why the thought of kissing Donghae felt… right, when it should be wrong. And with that, Hyukjae pulled away once again from Donghae.

However, when Donghae’s birthday got nearer, Hyukjae couldn’t help but feel like he needed to make amends and put aside his irrational fear of Donghae, just on that day, just because it was Donghae’s special day and he hadn’t spent it without Hyukjae ever since they became best friends. And so Hyukjae’s mission to get into Donghae’s good books again in time for his birthday. He spent weeks trying to find the perfect birthday gift and on that afternoon, after his dance practice, Hyukjae looked all over the school for Donghae so that he could finally give him the present and said happy birthday to him in person since the best thing he could come up with on the midnight of Donghae’s birthday was to wish him a happy birthday through the phone. When Hyukjae finally found Donghae though, he instantly wished he never did.

Seeing girls coming in and out of Donghae’s house never hurt, no matter how uncomfortable it might be, because that’s about the only thing Hyukjae saw, and he couldn’t even bring himself to begin thinking about the things that might be happening inside the house. He finally got the taste of it though, when he saw with his own eyes Donghae pretty much attacking Park Sandara’s mouth with his tongue. Hyukjae never cried for something trivial, he wasn’t Donghae after all, but at that moment he really felt like he was about to cry his eyes out. It shouldn’t have to hurt to see Donghae like that, yet it did. It shouldn’t make him feel so hostile, yet it did. Hyukjae didn’t know what to think anymore, so he just ran. And throughout the journey from school to his home, all Hyukjae could think of was how he didn’t wanna see Donghae ever again for the rest of his life because he had had enough of him and the foreign and annoying things he made him feel.

 Hyukjae’s pacing inside his bedroom was brought to a halt when he heard a knock on the door, followed by his mother’s familiar voice.

“Hyukjae-ah, Donghae’s here to see you.”

Hearing that name, even from his mother’s mouth, was enough for Hyukjae to be annoyed beyond reason once again.

“I don’t wanna see him Mom, just tell him I’m busy!”

“Hyukjae, that’s not a very nice thing to do.”

“I don’t care Mom, I don’t wanna see him!”

Relief washed over Hyukjae when he hadn’t heard a reply coming from his mother, but he was suddenly ticked off when he heard the door opened with a click. He turned around, seething in anger, ready to lash out to his mother for daring to enter his room when he clearly wanted to be left alone.

“Oh my god Mom, I thought I told you I don’t…”

Hyukjae’s words were cut off mid-sentence when he realized that the person who had entered his room clearly wasn’t his mother. It was Donghae. A Donghae with a very pained expression on his face and tear tracks on his cheeks. Hyukjae felt like he was being brought to 11 years ago when he had to deal with the crying Donghae.

“Why wouldn’t you wanna see me, Hyukkie?”

“What are you doing here? I thought you had Dara to take care of.”

Hyukjae saw a hint of pain flashed through Donghae’s face from the seemingly casual question Hyukjae just threw at him. But Donghae knew better, no matter how casual the tone might be, he knew the question was implying more than what Hyukjae was actually letting out.

“You saw that?”

“Donghae, how the can I not, you did it in school, anybody could’ve seen you.”

“Hyukkie, if you only know why I did it…”

“I don’t, okay, I don’t wanna know and truth be told, I don’t give a flying how many throats have you shoved your tongue into, just get the hell away from my face. Just go to your little fan club and let them drool all over you because I sure as hell am not gonna be the one to do that.”

Hyukjae immediately regretted saying that once he saw the pained expression on Donghae’s face. And he regretted it even more when tears started making their way down Donghae’s cheeks. Hyukjae wanted so bad to just wipe those tears away because that just felt natural for him. After all, as Hyukjae just realized, he had spent the majority of his life either protecting Donghae from the things that could make him cry or trying to come up with anything so that Donghae would stop crying. Now what was he supposed to do when he was the one causing Donghae to cry?