“Butterflies are always following me, everywhere I go.”

Mariah Carey

Hyukjae and I ate our breakfast silently. It wasn’t much, just a few slices of bread and some cheese but it tasted like heaven to me.

I quietly moaned at the delicious fragrance, every time that the bread and cheese came close to my nose. I knew that Hyukjae was looking at me with a funny expression, something between amusement and something painful.

“You need to slow down a bit, Donghae.” Hyukjae eventually ordered me as I wolfed down the third slice of bread.

I swallowed a piece of bread and slightly pouted at Hyukjae. “But it’s so good.”

Hyukjae sighed, stood up and placed his plate in the sink. “Just be careful,” he warned me, “if you keep eating like that you’ll get a stomachache.”

I looked down at the rest of my slice of bread and then slowly put it down on my plate. “It’s just that I haven’t eaten anything else than fish ever since I was here.”

Hyukjae nodded before pulling his black shirt off.

“What are you going to do?” I asked him as I watched him putting his shirt in the laundry basket.

“I’m going to prepare for our guests.” He almost spit out the word ‘guests’ and his expression wasn’t much better.

And without saying another word, he walked out of the door. I looked down to my bread again and made my decision in a split second. I grabbed the bread in my hand and ran after Hyukjae. And when I finally caught up with him, he didn’t even spare me a glance.

Hyukjae just plainly ignored me and I was fine with that. I had figured out why he did it since last night so it wasn’t much of a problem anymore. I was ripping open old wounds and Hyukjae desperately tried to keep them as closed as possible by acting this way with me. It didn’t necessarily mean that Hyukjae didn’t like me, it was more that he had to work out his own feelings and now he was doing that by being bi-polar towards me.

So the two of us walked over the circus terrain without saying a word. Hyukjae stared straight ahead of him and paid no heed to the people who pointed at him nor at me who was curiously watching him.

Then he abruptly turned left and walked to the bird cage. He pulled a set of keys out of his pocket and opened the cage. I followed him in and closed the door behind me.

I looked over Hyukjae’s shoulder and saw a particular colorful bird sitting on a pole. His little head frantically moved left and right and he began screeching.

“Is he afraid?” I mumbled surprised.

“Probably.” Was Hyukjae’s dry answer.

“Why?”

“Because all of the animals know that I’m the bad guy. You’re the only one who doesn’t quite seem to catch that.” Hyukjae snapped irritated. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to drive me away again or that he was irritated because the animals saw him that way or maybe he was really annoyed with my questions, that was of course a possibility.

Meanwhile the little bird was still frantically screeching and flapping with his wings.

“Shut it,” Hyukjae growled towards the little bird and it seemed to shrink immediately.

“Hyukjae!” I reprimanded him before sneaking past him towards the little bird. I carefully put out my hand and the little bird tilted his beautiful little head in wonder. “I won’t hurt you,” I reassured him and I stepped a bit closer. The bird chirped brightly and unexpectedly flew to my arm and sat down on it. His little claws buried themselves in my arm but I didn’t mind, I was too taken in with that beautiful little creature.

I softly brought my finger up from the other hand and I his tiny hand with the tip of my finger. He seemed to like that and he chirped once more. I laughed along with his chirping.

“He’s so cute,” I told Hyukjae while the little bird’s chest.

“It’s what you call ‘cute’,” Hyukjae replied with a scowl, “if you ask me, Taemin’s just an attention-.”

“Don’t call him that!” I warned Hyukjae but he only scowled some more and he redirected his attention to a new pole that he was setting up. It seemed that he was also a handyman.

I focused on Taemin again who seemed to have forgotten all his worries about me. He was rubbing his head like a cat against my hand to show his appreciation.

I chuckled. “Yeah, I like you too. My name is Donghae by the way, nice to meet you.”

Taemin chirped and began to sing a beautiful but very complicated song. Well, complicated for a bird anyway.

In an almost response to Taemin’s singing, there was clapping outside of Taemin’s cage. I looked up, startled to see that a huge crowd had formed itself in front of the cage. They were listening to Taemin’s song that seemed to perfectly blend in with Hyukjae’s hammer.

Taemin was used to the crowd, he was such a performer that he even began unfolding his wings at the right notes almost as if he was a Disney animal. But in total, the picture looked very cute and happy. Well, that was if Hyukjae hadn’t been scowling in the background.

“I’m done,” Hyukjae declared two minutes later and as if it was on cue, Taemin stopped with singing.

“Okay.” I mumbled a bit dejected and I held my arm close to the pole so that Taemin could hop on it. With another hop, he turned around and held his head a bit low to show me that he was s