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“Wookie?”

Donghae called him for the umpteenth time that day. He snapped his fingers in front of his dreaming assistant and frowned.

“WAKE UP!!”

Ryeowook jumped and whirled around, startled. “Y-Yes?”

“What were you thinking about?” Donghae snapped. He didn’t know why he felt so irritable that day. Perhaps it had something to do with his sixth sense; he felt that something horribly wrong would happen later.

“N-Nothing.”

“Really, I couldn’t tell,” Donghae said sarcastically. Ryeowook stuck his tongue out at the elder and rushed off to his shared bedroom with Donghae. He didn’t want to tell anyone about his encounter with Eunhyuk, and most certainly did not want Donghae to even know about anything or else he knew he’d be skewered alive by the elder. So he just kept mum and plopped himself on the bed, drawing the covers over himself and pretending to go to sleep.

“Aish, really,” muttered Donghae under his breath when Ryeowook slammed the door shut. He wondered why his assistant seemed to be avoiding him ever since he came back from the supermarket the day before.

“Could it be?”

There might be a slim chance that Ryeowook met with that stuck-up idiotic Eunhyuk somewhere, as realization began to dawn on him. Donghae huffed in annoyance. He wasn’t dumb or stupid; he knew something was up the moment Ryeowook came back in a daze from wherever his father sent him that morning. He decided to take a few precautions, just in case Ryeowook really did sneak out later to meet someone he didn’t approve of. He only had one more day left till the end of the bet anyway.

When night fell, Donghae set up a trap outside his bedroom door. Ryeowook was already asleep in bed, so he tried his best not to make any noise as he hung a small bell on a strand of transparent wire he strung across the bottom of his door. It wasn’t enough to trip anyone up, but it promised to make a noise when anyone entered or exited the room. He tested the trap and smiled when it worked beautifully. Donghae then hopped into bed and snuggled in next to Ryeowook with a light heart, dreaming of Eunhyuk working under him like a slave – he’d get that pompous director to clean out the entire attic from top to bottom and scrub all the tiles on the roof – and then vanishing out of his perfect life for good.

Perfect, just perfect.

* * *

It must have been two hours past midnight when Donghae got woken up by a slight jingling sound. He stirred and sat up instantly, groping next to him only to find Ryeowook missing. The bed on his side was still warm, so the younger couldn’t already have gone for too long.

Donghae went on full-fledged panic and jumped off the bed immediately. He rushed out of the room, currently forgetting about the trap he set up and got tangled in it for a while. Just as he managed to untangle himself from the string, Ryeowook walked back towards the room with a horrible bed head, yawning and stretching himself.

“Wookie?”

“Hae hyung?” Ryeowook rubbed his eyes sleepily. “What are you doing here?”

“I should be the one asking you,” replied Donghae. His thumping heart began to slow down. “Why aren’t you sleeping in bed?”

“I wanted to use the toilet,” Ryeowook said, shuffling his feet against the wooden floor. “And I’m going back to sleep now. Good night, hyung.”

Donghae watched as the younger climbed back into bed and fell asleep almost instantly. He leaned against the door frame, relieved that Ryeowook hadn’t betrayed him and met with Eunhyuk in the dead of the night. He let out a sigh, adjusted the trap and got back into bed himself, this time sliding his arms under his assistant to hug him throughout the night.

He thanked the heavens that his sixth sense, for the first time, was wrong.

No way was he going to lose that bet now.

* * *

In the morning, Donghae woke up with a big smile on his face. It was the last day of his stupid bet with the director, and he just knew he was going to win. He grinned happily at the soft streams of sunlight streaking in through the curtains, welcoming the warmth into his chilly room.

It was perhaps still a little early to get up, so he snuggled further under the blankets, still hugging the form in his arms. He wondered why he felt so cold only just now when he didn’t feel the shiver last night.

Donghae frowned. Ryeowook felt less human than usual. He felt too soft and squishy for a normal human being, plus it didn’t smell like Ryeowook either. Donghae opened his eyes slowly, as if he didn’t want to believe what he thought actually happened. Or maybe he wanted to deny that Ryeowook would never leave his side because he was the loyal type.

Whatever it was, it definitely wasn’t Ryeowook in his arms now. Just a plain bolster in his place. And no Ryeowook.

Dread washed over Donghae. He stared, open-mouthed at the bolster on the bed, with the lack of Ryeowook. He almost fell off the bed in his attempt to rush towards the door before throwing off the blankets. He forgot the trap again and walked straight into it, so that wherever he walked there was a trail of bells loudly jingling behind him.

“WOOKIE??? WHERE ARE YOU???”

He rushed from room to room chanting his assistant’s name, throwing open the doors to all the rooms in his house and he even checked in his father’s room although something in his head told him that Ryeowook couldn’t possibly be there. Finding no assistant, Donghae finally dropped to the floor on his knees, clutching on his hair and letting out an ear-piercing scream.

He’d lost the bet.

* * *

Donghae couldn’t believe it.

He decided to walk over to the enemy’s base, just in case Ryeowook had decided to take an early morning jog or something without telling him, but as he neared the salon, all of his lingering hopes were dashed to pieces.

Ryeowook was sitting happily on a comfortable leather seat with a small towel draped over his shoulders, happily chatting away with Eunhyuk, who was fluffing Ryeowook’s hair to get rid of excess water, because he’d just rinsed his hair. Donghae didn’t want to admit that the new colour on Ryeowook actually looked so much bett