“What are you doing?” Hyukjae asks, holding back a laugh as he watches Donghae prance around the room. He’s immediately grinning wide, his gums showing. He covers it with his hand, though, to Donghae’s disappointment. “Is that how you get ready?”

Donghae stops and nods, before going back to doing leapfrogs around the room. “It helps me relax,” he says, smiling at Hyukjae, unembarrassed. “Besides, is it a crime to act like a kid every now and then?”

Hyukjae laughs softly and says, “I guess not… but did you really have to bring in a stuffed toy fish?” He glances at the brightly colored fish set by Donghae’s belongings.

It’s the weekend but Donghae and Hyukjae agreed to meet to figure out their dance. Lucky for them, the school is often open during the weekends to their students who want to practice. Donghae brought his laptop just in case they want to talk about music options, and along with it, some water, a towel, and oddly enough, a toy. Hyukjae only brought a water bottle and another set of clothes to change into later so he doesn’t have to walk home sweaty.

“Hey, don’t talk to my fishy that way,” Donghae defends, frowning upon hearing this.

Hyukjae snorts. “You don’t know how ual that sounds, do you, Hae?” he asks, smirking.

“Hae?” Donghae asks, only catching the last part and how Hyukjae said his name. “Is that a nickname?”

Hyukjae raises an eyebrow and answers, “Sure, I guess. I kind of was just shortening your name.”

Donghae smiles nonetheless and exclaims, “Cool! And what can I call you?” His expression is of pure excitement and it reminds Hyukjae of a five-year-old. He chuckles and shrugs.

“What do you want to call me?” he offers, stretching out his legs as they speak.

Donghae quickly thinks of fun nicknames to call Hyukjae. He wants to call him Hyukkie, but he’s afraid he might not like that, since his best friend already calls him that. He continues to stare at Hyukjae as he thinks and realizes that Hyukjae vaguely reminds Donghae of a monkey. Or an anchovy. Maybe both?

“Monkey,” he finally settles on.

Hyukjae looks up and frowns a bit. “Why?” he asks.

“I don’t know… you just remind me of one. Or would you prefer anchovy?” he asks, accounting for Hyukjae’s skinny figure. Hyukjae shakes his head.

“I guess monkey will do,” he replies, a bit reluctant. But Donghae doesn’t notice and just smiles happily, like all children do when they get what they want.

Hyukjae then goes on to showing Donghae some freestyle moves, which Donghae watches with fascination, wonder, and admiration. Donghae does his own dance, and Hyukjae watches in appreciation. They find ways to take certain moves and put them together to perform a unique move. Donghae then goes on to play a couple of songs he chose earlier, and when they choose a good one, they work on the moves some more.

When they finally have at least half of their choreography done, it was around three. Donghae immediately notices the time and apologizes, saying he has to go. Hyukjae doesn’t think too much of it though, because he plans to meet Sungmin later anyway.

The two part and Hyukjae makes his way to Sungmin’s house. The two live fairly close to each other – in the same neighborhood – so Hyukjae stops by home to drop his stuff off first. When he arrives at Sungmin’s house, he’s surprised to see someone else is there.

“You’re early,” Sungmin says, raising an eyebrow.

“And you’re with Kyuhyun right now?” Hyukjae asks, mimicking Sungmin’s expression.

Sungmin flushes and says, “He’s helping me with singing.”

“But why doesn’t Ryeowook help?” he continues asking, still confused. Ryeowook’s voice is also much closer in range to Sungmin’s, seeing as they both have fairly high singing voices, while Kyuhyun has a deep voice.

“Ryeowook is in a higher class than me. Just one level, but still,” Sungmin mutters. “It kind of how we’re placed in first year classes, though. We’re juniors!”

Hyukjae shrugs. “Maybe we’ll get moved up later. I don’t know, though. My first year dance class is kind of tough as is.”

Sungmin smirks and says, “Have fun practicing with Donghae?”

Hyukjae ignores him and responds, “What about Kyuhyun? You seem to be enjoying your alone time together. Should I leave?”

Sungmin rolls his eyes but moves aside so that Hyukjae can come in. He closes the door behind him and follows Hyukjae to the living room.

“Hi, Kyuhyun,” Hyukjae greets the younger boy.

“Hey, Eunhyuk,” Kyuhyun replies.

“It’s good to see you off the computer,” Hyukjae teases. Kyuhyun just rolls his eyes but smile anyway. Sungmin eyes the two suspiciously, not really sure what is going on.

“How do you two know each other?” he finally asks.

"Eunhyuk ran into the computer lab to escape skinship," Kyuhyun replies with a small laugh.

Sungmin raises an eyebrow, but decides not to pursue the topic. "Listen, Hyukkie, if you don't mind..." he starts saying, eyeing Hyukjae. Not that his best friend was slow or anything, but at that moment, Sungmin swears Hyukjae lost all his thoughts. "If you're not going to do anything here, maybe you should go home," he says, trying to be as gentle as he could. Despite being a bit fed up that his best friend still doesn't understand the situation, he knows that Hyukjae is a sensitive person.

To his relief, Hyukjae nods and says, "I guess I should. I really want to take a shower... dance practice was tiring." He says a quick goodbye to the two and leaves.

"How long have you two been friends?" Kyuhyun asks Sungmin when Hyukjae leaves.

Sungmin smiles and says, "A long time..."

"You love him?" he asks curiously.

"Of course," Sungmin answers without hesitation. "But sometimes I worry for him."

"Why?"

"Because he doesn't even know himself, sometimes. And if you don't even know yourself, how can you know others?"

"... meaning?"

"He's too trusting, he's too naive, too sweet. I'll always have to look after him," Sungmin says softly.

"Maybe his guardian angel will come one day."

Sungmin laughs and murmurs, "Maybe..." He turns to face Kyuhyun and smiles brightly. "Let's finish that lesson, shall we?"

-------

A/N: Ah, I realized that I never put a disclaimer. I don’t use disclaimers though, since I find it fairly obvious that I am in no way associated with, or own, unfortunately, any of the characters. They own themselves, each other, yada, yada. This shall be my disclaimer for the entire story. Honestly, I don’t like disclaimers -.-“ They just remind me and everyone else of the very sad knowledge that I don’t know nor own the characters. /tear.

I just realized how ual Sungmin and Kyuhyun's part may seem... but really, Kyuhyun IS JUST TUTORING Sungmin xD Seriously.

Tomorrow will probably have no updates. I'm going to be busy. I'm just glad I managed to update today. Hopefully, I'll squeeze in one more update to make up for it by tonight. Hopefully. Thanks, as always, for reading, and I hope you enjoyed!