Eunhyuk pov

Step 1: Make them realize the problem.

Step 2: Confront them with something unexpected.

Step 3: Allow no awkwardness.

That’s the list I made in my head. If it’s going to work the way I imagine it, I don’t know yet. Step 1 will be difficult, but I managed it before so it’ll work again somehow. Step 2 is relatively easy and I already know exactly how to do that part. Step 3 will be the most difficult and it’s the part I’m not sure about. If those two friends of mine agree to help me however, it seems to be possible. It still depends on Kyuhyun and Ryeowook though. I can only hope they will do what I want them to and not hide behind their imaginary wall.

First of all, I need to make a call. So I tell Kyuhyun and Ryeowook I need to go to the bathroom and take my cell phone with me. As soon as I’m out of earshot I dial the familiar number. It doesn’t take long until someone answers the call.

“Hyukkie, what’s up? Aren’t you working on the paper?”, Donghae says in his usual happy voice. It seems he isn’t angry anymore.

“Hey Donghae. I need your help. Is Shindong with you?”

“No, I’m currently with Siwon. Why?” Not so good. Or maybe I can change my plan a little?

“Listen. I need you to get Shindong and go to the dance studio with him. Just pretend you’re practicing for a while already. I’m going to be there with Kyuhyun and Ryeowook in half an hour.” Please agree, Donghae. Please!

“Kyuhyun and Ryeowook again? Why are you just doing things with them?” I can hear his pout in his voice. “Why are you bringing them to the dance studio? Do you want to replace Shindong and me with them?”

“Of course not, Hae! I would never replace you guys! I’m only doing this for a better work atmosphere. They are way too awkward, it’s a hassle to work with them.”

“Well, fine. But what about Siwonnie?” Thank god, he agreed. But what do I do about Siwon?

“Hand him the phone.” I can hear two voices softly talking in the background before the darker one speaks into the receiver.

“Yo, Hyukkie. Do you need me for anything?”

“Originally not, but maybe you can organize some drinks and food for us?” It’s a lot to ask for a student, but his family is rich so he wouldn’t have any problems regarding money. He’s quite generous as well besides it’s the only thing I think of that he could do. “You could bring those after an hour or so for Donghae and Shindong. They are probably going to be hungry.”

“Okay, leave it to me. I’m not going to let Shindong starve.” I hear him laugh on the other side of the line and feel relieved. For now everything seems to go better than I anticipated. If It just stays like this, it would be amazing.

“Thanks Siwonnie! I gotta hang up now or Kyuhyun and Ryeowook might get suspicious.”

“Okay, bye!”

“Bye, Siwon!” And I cut the line. I hurriedly go back to the two troublemakers and sit down like nothing happened. They look up for a second before returning their focus towards the papers in front of them. The atmosphere seems even heavier now and I’m really happy to have my friends’ support. Without them, I might not be able to carry my plan out. I just need to make sure Step 1 and 2 will be a success and Shindong will do what’s left. Though I couldn’t tell him my plan and I’m not sure what Donghae will say to him, but his character will be enough to bring a lot more cosiness into this. Everything is set up. Now the only thing left is to let the mission begin!

Ryeowook pov

This is horrible. The dream still is present in my mind and it makes me think of Kyuhyun constantly, but it remains impossible to speak to him. I can’t gather the courage to say something. Whenever I try the dream reminds me of what I want to do with Kyuhyun and a lump of embarrassment forms in my throat. It’s like my body struggles to forget it and helps me in not saying something I don’t want to by accident, but my mind can’t help to think about the dream, Kyuhyun and everything I want to do with him. It seems the only way to help myself is by staying far away from Kyuhyun, but here I am. In his room, in his presence, trying to focus on the paper with no success. How I wished we didn’t need to work on this damn paper so I could just go back to how I was before. Thinking and looking at Kyuhyun, but knowing there will never be a way. That would be so much easier…

“Aish! Why can’t I find the right expression? It was so much easier last Saturday!”, Eunhyuk exclaims and I jump in surprise. Was the room so silent before?

“Can I help you, Eunhyuk?”, I ask and scoot over to him.

“This part here”, he points at a sentence that I can hardly read due to the remarks, arrows and corrections. “’Therefore the definition of Asian music must include European parts in order to be correct.’ I don’t like the use of ‘parts’. Can you think of a better expression?” Eunhyuk is right, it doesn’t sound too good, but I can’t seem to think of another expression. My mind is empty and tries to shove the topic of Kyuhyun back into focus instead. Was it always so difficult to think of something else?

“Sorry, Eunhyuk. I don’t have an idea either.” He sighs deeply.

“It was so easy to find the right expressions last Saturday, but now…” He sighs again and I begin to see the worry in his face. Last Saturday? That was when Eunhyuk brought Kyuhyun and me closer. Wait, he did it just for the working atmosphere to improve, didn’t he? And now that I can’t speak with Kyuhyun, his efforts are useless. I forgot about Eunhyuk again and on top of that destroyed what he build up. I’m so dumb and heedless! What can I do to redeem everything?

“You know what?”, Eunhyuk suddenly speaks again.

“Huh?”

“I’m going to relieve some stress and you guys are coming with me.” Then Eunhyuk jumps up, grabs Kyuhyun’s and my wrists and drags us out of the house.

After 15 minutes we seem to reach our destination. On the way I tried several times to get Eunhyuk to tell me what he was planning, but he wouldn’t say a thing. Now that I’m seeing where he heads to, I shiver softly. We are at a dance studio and I surely can’t dance. I’m a musician, but not a dancer! It seems Kyuhyun thinks something similar, because as I take a glance at him, he wears a feared expression on his face. I can understand why Eunhyuk wants to dance in order to relieve his stress, but why did he take us with him?

As we enter one of the dance rooms, two persons come into view. I can identify one as Donghae, the guy that always comes into the classroom to get Eunhyuk. The other one is unknown to me. I’m certain I saw him at school before, but I neither have a name nor a connection. He’s a little more corpulent than his friends and if I wouldn’t be seeing him dancing, I would wonder what he’s even doing here. But he’s surprisingly good and flexible. Donghae is quite a dancer as well that it makes me wonder how good Eunhyuk might be. I never saw him dance before. Well, despite the Moonwalks he just loves to do whenever the situation makes it inviting.

“Hey, Hyukkie! Finally you’re here. We were waiting for you!” Huh? Donghae was expecting Eunhyuk to come?

“Yah, Donghae!”, the corpulent guy says and gives Donghae a smack. “Did you forget that he wanted to work on the paper today? So what are you doing here?” He turns to Eunhyuk. “And who are those two behind you?”

“My working partners. This is Kim Ryeowook”, he says and points to me. I wave shyly before Eunhyuk turns to Kyuhyun. “And this is Cho Kyuhyun. I brought them here so we can relieve some stress together. You guys know what I mean, don’t you?” Eunhyuk smiles mischievously and goes over to them. Just what is he planning? “So I’m sure you’ve seen Donghae before, but this guy here”, he points to the corpulent one as his gaze turns back to Kyuhyun and me. “This is Shindong. He’s quite a talented guy, you’re going to be surprised.”

We exchange greetings before Donghae makes his way towards the sound system. The music starts to play and Eunhyuk immediately begins to move his body. It’s quite a happy and refreshing song therefore Eunhyuk’s dance moves are strong and extensive. As I expected, he really his a good dancer. Even better than Donghae and Shindong I might say. His moves are smooth and fit perfectly to the music.

While we are leaning on the wall and give the dancer as much free space as possible, Shindong goes to him and joins in the dance. In comparison to Eunhyuk and his own dance from earlier, he now brings on some hilarious aerobic moves. It just looks too funny! I can’t help but laugh and the others do the same. Until Shindong comes back to us and holds his hand towards me, inviting me to join as well. I hesitate and Shindong moves back a little to continue his aerobic moves, still looking and waiting for me. Donghae pats me on the back encouragingly and I need think about Eunhyuk’s misery from before so I slowly make a step forward. Dancing really isn’t my thing, but it’s just for fun, isn’t it? The music starts to flow in my body and makes it move on its own. I know my moves are more comical than actual dancing, but I hardly care now as Eunhyuk comes to me as well. Everyone starts laughing at our weird combo and a big smile starts to form on my face. I almost forget all the surroundings while dancing, but this process is interrupted as Shindong now wants Kyuhyun to dance too and brings the focus to him. Everyone, including me, looks at him expectantly and sure enough, he slowly enters the dance zone. His first moves are a little shy, but he soon gets more courageous and tries to perform some cool moves that look simply hilarious with his stiff body. We erupt into laughter again and I’d even say Kyuhyun is a worse dancer than me which means quite a lot. Overall we have a lot of fun though and just dance our worries away.

Kyuhyun pov

After some time we are all lying on the floor exhausted, but laughing like there’s no tomorrow. Everyone showed some weird and funny moves at some point so we could all dance with no worry of making a fool out of oneself. I don’t know when I ever danced like that before as I know my dancing is horrible and way out of their league. But Shindong making the first step with his almost embarrassing aerobic dance and Ryeowook showing how bad of a dancer he is as well gave me the courage to try it out. In no way did I imagine to laugh like this with everyone and especially Ryeowook. With the company of three other people it was amazingly easy to just let the feelings go and have fun. Not once did I worry about Ryeowook and his weird behaviour from before. There wasn’t a problem for us to look and laugh at the other and the atmosphere was as light as never before. Just then another person enters the room. He is tall and handsome like a model and I remember seeing him somewhere before, but I don’t know him.

“Hey guys!”, the unknown person says to draw the attention to himself. He has a few bags in his hands that the holds up. “You must be hungry so I brought some things for you.”

“Thanks Siwon, but how did you know that we’re so many?”, Eunhyuk asks a bit irritated. So his name is Siwon. That sounds kind of rich…

“Donghae called and told me to come over, because here is supposed to be a big party going on”, he reasons. “But it seems like it’s already over. Anyway, I thought you might want to eat something afterwards.” He then goes further into the room and places the bags in the middle of our exhausted bodies. Shindong hastily sits up and takes a look at the content.

“Wow! You even brought Samgyeopsal! And it’s still warm!”, he says and pulls a plate with pork meat out of one bag before eagerly searching for chopsticks. In the meanwhile Ryeowook inspects the meat with professional eyes.

“The meat is of high quality. It must have been expansive! How can you just give this to us?” He turns to Siwon with surprise and disbelief in his eyes.

“It’s alright, we can afford it. My father would be angry if I gave you low quality food.” Siwon smiles and Ryeowook relaxes a bit. It seems he really is rich.

“So, Eunhyuk. Maybe you could introduce us?”, I interrupt, more interested in the unknown person than the food.

“Ah, of course! This is Choi Siwon. His family is rich and he takes great importance in religion.” Then Eunhyuk turns to Siwon. “These are Kim Ryeowook and Cho Kyuhyun, the guys I’m working on the paper with.”

Again greetings are exchanged before everyone turns to the food and discovers in surprise that half of the Samgyeopsal has already vanished. Eunhyuk quickly takes and tries to save what’s left while Donghae looks at Shindong with his sad puppy eyes. The latter only shrugs though and tries to retrieve the plate of meat. Siwon simply smiles knowingly at the scene and Ryeowook giggles softly. I decide to help Eunhyuk and take the plate from him to hold it out of Shindong’s reach. We pass the plate a few times until Eunhyuk is able to come to an agreement with Shindong. The Samgyeopsal is ours, but we need to give half of our kimchi to him in return. How he can eat so much is a mystery to me, but I accept it as it is and gladly give him my kimchi to get some of the meat. Then a bottle of water is stretched out to me and I take a look at the thoughtful person. Ryeowook is standing there, three bottles in his hands and a smile on his face. He looks me in the eyes shortly before turning his head and stretching his other hand towards Eunhyuk, who gladly takes a bottle and thanks him. Then his face turns back to me and I quickly grab the bottle.

“Thanks”, I say lowly and turn back to look at the meat in front of me.

“You’re welcome”, he returns and makes to sit next to me on the floor. I quickly move a little to give him some space and get another portion of the meat for him. He accepts it silently and starts to eat. I do the same and our focus goes back to Eunhyuk and Shindong, who now show their comical skill while eating as well to keep the mood high.

Eunhyuk pov

Aw, these two are so sweet! Wait, what am I thinking? Well, they are sweet together, but isn’t that something girls always say about couples? Couples… I did something for them again in a way or another. Do I really turn into a matchmaker? By now that thought doesn’t even frighten me much. What frightens me more is the stupid behaviour from Donghae. ‘He expected Eunhyuk to come?’ I’m sure Ryeowook and Kyuhyun thought that. I’m just glad Shindong was able to solve that problem for me. And Siwon’s behaviour was risky as well, but at least he’s clever enough to take care of that inconsistency himself. I nearly died at these moments, because I don’t want Ryeowook and Kyuhyun to know how much effort I’m putting into this. It’s one thing to heighten the atmosphere temporarily to be able to work better, but a completely different one to erase the awkwardness of two people. They might get to know about my knowledge about them if they were to have that thought. That’s something I definitely don’t want to risk. Though it would simplify matters… No, I can’t think like that if I want to stay out of this. I should just take care of the mood for now and see what I do about that later. Thankfully Shindong is here. That makes everything regarding the mood and atmosphere a lot easier.

And so we laugh and eat together until it gets late. I’m not sure how well my plan worked yet, but seeing Kyuhyun and Ryeowook talking in that indirect manner and earlier even directly again makes me assume it worked better than imagined. I need to wait for a situation with just them and me however to be able to compare it. Nevertheless I can call the mission a success.

“We should be going now, the dance studio closes in a few minutes”, Shindong then reminds us. We gather our things and clean the room from our feast just as Ryeowook remembers something.

“Oh! My things are still at Kyuhyun’s place, because you dragged us here. I need to go back there before I can head home”, he says and looks at me.

“Really? I took mine with me. I guess you’ll be going with Kyuhyun then”, I say to him and I can see a blush form on both Ryeowook’s and Kyuhyun’s face. That will be the test if they really aren’t awkward anymore and sadly I can see the result tomorrow at the earliest. Donghae will be really mad if I don’t go home with him now and I doubt he’d be interested in shadowing these two. Well, at least I can go to bed today without much worries. The biggest worry is out of the way for now which leaves only the paper and the dance competition to think about. Hopefully both will work to my favour and hopefully Ryeowook and Kyuhyun have fun on their way home. Good luck you two!

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A/N: I'm sorry the chapters are taking longer than in the beginning, but I'm probably going to keep this rhythm with one chapter per week. It always takes me a bit longer to write in a foreign language in the first place and I'm currently not having much ideas of how to continue this story. Besides, I have a real life to deal with so time is limited. However, considering the fact I'm currently working on a oneshot at the same time (and have ideas for some more), there are going to be uploads alongside the weekly one. Those are going to be irregular uploads that come whenever I want to so don't be surprised and just enjoy them. ;D