It was thirteen past one in the afternoon when Donghae heard the sound of a doorbell ringing from the first floor. He was just finishing brushing his teeth, hair messy from sleep and mind blurry from the last night’s happenings that kept recurring inside his head, when he realized that there was no one else at home. He flushed his mouth and wiped it against a towel, grabbing a hopefully somewhat clean shirt from his room before rushing downstairs.

Head heavy and still feeling a little nauseated Donghae glanced towards their dining room as he passed the kitchen, and it instantly brought back a certain subject that kept terrorizing his mind these days.

It had been so close. He couldn’t believe he had almost kissed Hyukjae.

The churning feeling down on his stomach only increased when he reached their front door. Not giving it much of thought he opened it with a swift move, immediately regretting of doing so when the man now standing in front of him was no other than the red head who definitely was the last person he wanted to see right now.

Donghae felt like he could throw up any moment now—nevertheless if it was because of his hangover or more likely just Hyukjae’s presence.

He had no idea what Hyukjae was doing here right after a night that had even come into his dreams, recreating the whole situation to whole new level that made the matter even worse. Donghae was already hating himself from not keeping it together at the party, so it really wasn’t helpful to wake up all hot and flustered because he had been dreaming about actually making out with this guy who now stood before him looking at him with an unreadable expression.

Dressed in blue, ripped jeans, a black-and-white sweater and a collared shirt tied on his hips with a leather jacket on top, Hyukjae was able to make Donghae feel unexpectedly self-conscious in his black Avengers t-shirt and blue checkered boxer shorts. It irritated the golden brown haired to no end; because this too was something only Hyukjae was able to ignite these days. The red head stared back at him—this time with no glasses on—holding onto two takeaway cups of coffee on his hands. Donghae swallowed nervously as he leaned against the doorjamb, getting all worked up inside because in his eyes the male looked scarily normal. Why was he like that? How was he able to be so nonchalant after everything?

The silence went on probably for a bit too long, when Hyukjae eventually moved his weight onto his other leg and opened the conversation. He sounded like his voice was still hoarse from sleep.

“Earth to Donghae?” Hyukjae rose his hands with the coffees upwards, kind of trying to break the hangover-spell that seemed to still dominate the other, probably making him look like an idiot. For Donghae’s dislike he felt how his face instantly warmed up, but his mind was honestly too busy trying to pause the yesterday’s incident from replaying itself over and over again inside his head. He tried so hard to forget the feeling on his skin when Hyukjae’s lips had been so close that he had been able to feel his hot breath on him, and how the look in his eyes had changed from annoyance to something else for a brief moment.

“H-hi,” Donghae muttered with a small fake glare. He felt so uncomfortable and somehow really exposed for having to face the tattooed male for the first thing in the morning since he had just woken up himself. And because Hyukjae hadn’t been even close as drunk as he had, it was very unlikely that he would have forgotten their fight—and in Donghae’s opinion, especially the attempted kiss. In his books Hyukjae simply couldn’t be so oblivious to his behavior, so he had to remember everything.

Even if Hyukjae didn’t give any hints about it.

“What are you—what do you want?” he grumbled, hands rising to ruffle his messy hair, struggling to cover his awkwardness with irritation and desperately trying to avoid eye-contact.

Hyukjae furrowed his eyebrows in slight annoyance.

“Care to let me in?”

“What for?” Donghae answered, squirming on his feet.

Hyukjae rolled his eyes, and suddenly closed the few steps between them, catching Donghae off guard and making him take few steps backwards to remain his personal space and at the same time letting the red head in before he was able to go against it.

“I thought we should make some progress with the project,” the male said matter-of-factly and took off his sneakers, glancing towards Donghae who happened to close the door behind them and walk past him more into the house.

Donghae knew Hyukjae was right; they were already a little behind of others because of their constant wrangling, but it didn’t change the fact that Donghae wanted to keep himself distanced from the other as long as he could. He shouldn’t let himself any closer to Hyukjae; he was already stepping on thin ice, unconsciously letting his feelings take lead in times when he least should have.

“It didn’t occur to you that a simple text would do?”

The red head gave him a look that pierced right through Donghae, making him cross his arms over his chest defensively.

“I had a feeling you’d ditch me,” Hyukjae said more casually than Donghae liked, a knowing glint hidden in the shadows of his almond eyes.

Donghae bit his lip, fighting the miserable blush that crept towards his cheeks even when he was raging inside. Hyukjae was well aware about the matter, he noticed, but decided to act indifferent against it, and it was almost even more tormenting than getting the usual straightforward feedback about Donghae’s obvious denial.

“So I decided to stop by,” the other continued, still holding the cups at the height of his hips.

The brunette eyed the dark green coffee cups with a familiar logo on the male’s hand, confused. He didn’t find the words, and he couldn’t find the hate from himself he wanted to have.

Hyukjae glanced towards his hands; “Oh. I brought some coffee,” he mumbled and handed it towards the still speechless Donghae, and walked to the kitchen counter to put his own cup down on it. He had noticed Donghae’s awkward essence the minute he had seen his face as he opened the door, but he decided to go with the indifference; maybe it could help Donghae ease off with him. Hyukjae only wanted to get along in order to make some progress with the photographs.

As he proceeded to take his leather jacket off, Donghae couldn’t help but feel dumb and confused. He wanted to ask why, but he was afraid what asking would bring with it.

Why was he like that? Why was Hyukjae so nice to him? Was there some hidden, twisted meaning behind this all? He brought him coffee, came to his place and acted like it had all been just a dream. It was actually the second time Hyukjae had bought him coffee without asking.

He knew that the beer that had been poured over him had been well deserved, but he really couldn’t forget the fact that Hyukjae had almost kissed him back when the brunet had been overwhelmed with his feelings and attempted to do such a stupid thing. Why would he? Donghae had bashed him—like the he was—not caring how wrong it had felt to call Hyukjae all those names, more than likely hurting the red head which he really didn’t even deserve; so why was he here, calm and collected, when he could have—and should have—been more than angry towards him?

The brunet didn’t thank the other, but as Hyukjae’s eyes were subtly glued to him when he didn’t notice, Donghae took a greedy sip of the still surprisingly hot drink that tasted just as bitter as he liked it the best. He didn’t know why, but he always needed to have coffee when he had a hangover. And it sort of made him a little furious how much he wanted to get back his ty attitude—but because the tiredness and hangover still had a grasp on him, he wasn’t absolutely acting as he would have wanted to.

He tried to ignore it, but as he finally put down the half-empty cup on top of the counter, he couldn’t but notice how the red head kept gazing at him, forcing Donghae to look anywhere but back at him. The word coward he had often heard spun inside his head, loud and clear.

“Do you want keep on working with your pics?” Hyukjae then asked, another eyebrow slightly quirked upwards, jaw leaned against his palm. “We have, what, two of yours taken of that young me, now me –thing by far.”

Hyukjae couldn’t shift his eyes away from the brunet. He might have seemed calm like the Buddha himself to the outside, but inside he was a bit more of a mess he thought he’d be. It was a fact he remembered every tiny little piece of detail from last night, and it almost drove him crazy; he couldn’t wrap his head around Donghae at all. At first he was throwing all that bull onto him, and the next second the boy’s lips had almost been touching Hyukjae’s. What was he supposed to think about that?

He had this desire to get Donghae out of his own locked box; it had been so easy to see the same kind of distress he had had before. But what was it now? What was he really after? It was a truth that Donghae intrigued him in many levels, but it wasn’t as easy to admit that he might actually be more interested in him than he wanted.

This didn’t had anything to do with the fact that Donghae was a guy; it wasn’t a thing that would make him refuse to think he could ever like him. Instead it had everything to do with Donghae’s behavior; he was a stubborn jackass who danced to the tune of others. It was the problem that made Hyukjae question everything; he could get himself painfully hurt with a guy like this, and he wasn’t sure if he was ready for that.

It might not be worth all the effort.

Donghae’s eyes wandered to the round clock on the wall, and he realized his mother would be back home in the matter of thirty minutes at most, as she was only gone to the grocery store. He didn’t want to face her—not when he had Hyukjae around. The dinner with them had been such a catastrophe he didn’t want to live through ever again.

“N-not here,” Donghae squeaked, running his hand over his neck anxiously. He finally turned to return his look to Hyukjae, biting his lower lip between his teeth, yet his gaze immediately loitered off. “L-let’s go somewhere else.”

Hyukjae gave him a bit questioning look, clicking his tongue, but eventually agreeing: “Alright. My place it is then.”

A sudden adrenaline-rush went over Donghae as he thought through the option that his mother could be back any time soon, and not least the fact he had just agreed to go over Hyukjae’s place.

“I have to put some clothes on first, then we can go,” Donghae mumbled warily, before hurrying to the stairs again.

“Sure,” Hyukjae answered quietly, taking a seat on one of the stools by the kitchen island as Donghae disappeared to the second floor, leaving him alone. He felt a little embarrassed that he had had to pry himself to get his overly curious gaze turned away from Donghae’s retreating though.

Asdfghjkl, hoe don’t do it. He’s not worth it.

The door to his room was almost closed with a loud slam, but he managed not to cause too suspicious noises. Now hidden inside his room, he leaned against the door and let out a heavy exhale full of agitation and nervous electricity. He knew he shouldn’t waste time, so he rushed to his wardrobe and started to rummage through his clothes. It was hard not to think about that he had just let the damn red head in whilst only wearing his boxers and a wrinkled shirt—until he realized it shouldn’t matter and make him as embarrassed as he really was. He couldn’t believe how much the boy affected him, and it just made him hate his feelings even more now.

It took much longer to find anything to wear than he originally wanted when at the same time he was desperately trying to push off the stupid thoughts that made him feel so conscious about himself and his appearance. How annoying it was when he truly tried not to think anything like that and get back to his usual self. He was only making things more difficult for himself for being so easily swayed by the other.

In the end, he finished up with some skinny jeans and a checkered collar shirt that varied from turquoise to dark navy hues. He spent a minute in front of his mirror, brushing his fingers through his golden brown, short locks until he shook his head in disbelief. I need to stop this, he thought with a low growl inside his head, getting really tired of his own . Hyukjae was just too much. He stared at himself through the small mirror above his nightstand. How was he so ing weak? Why couldn’t he just harden himself and act like a man and not let this pick him to pieces?

I don’t like him. I don’t.

Biting his lips, hard, he finally turned around and left his room.

“Okay,” Hyukjae mused out loud after they had taken a few minute subway ride and a ten minute walk through the area close by, “We’re here.”

The one with the leather jacket gave Donghae a fast glance before he opened the iron gates and stepped into the front yard around a two-storey, old but nicely renowned building that had probably two or four apartments at most. It had tall windows, and balconies on both sides of the second floor. The yard itself had piles of snow here and there, but most of it had melted during the last few warmer days.

Donghae bit the insides of his mouth, hands already sweaty and ducked deep into his jeans’ pockets. A chilly breeze of wind made him shiver, but he doubted it was all because of it was only starting to turn into spring. He was a quivering mess because of Hyukjae and his own stupidity to agree on this. Why couldn’t he just let it all go and scram the whole course? He could just pick something else.

Hyukjae climbed the few steps of stairs to the door and opened the door without a key, since he knew it was already open. Their way from Donghae’s house to his had been mostly silent except from some necessary small-talk. Hyukjae still thought Donghae was an , but so far they had been somewhat behaving themselves. But it would have been a lie if he said that he didn’t wanted to know what Donghae actually was like underneath all the act.

“Your door wasn’t locked,” Donghae suddenly muttered, and when Hyukjae gave him a look of curiously raised eyebrows, the golden brown haired realized he just said that out loud.

Hyukjae gave him a short smile.

“It wasn’t,” he retorted, stepping in, “My grandma lives here, my place is upstairs. She doesn’t care to lock the front door at daytime. She’s not afraid to use the frying pan if a stranger decides to walk in.”

Donghae didn’t know what to think about this. He wasn’t prepared for any of this, despite agreeing to it. He wasn’t, however, able to say anything before the red head had already taken off his jacket as they were on the hallway. On their left side were the staircase to the upper floor, which belonged to Hyukjae. It seemed like it had been made this way, as there was another ‘front door’ in front of them—which Hyukjae then grabbed and turned the handle. Donghae was starting to get flustered. He was going to meet Hyukjae’s grandmother now? It was already a problem for him to be with Hyukjae, let along to meet someone who belonged to his closest circle of people. Obviously he would not be able to try to hide his anxiety under the hateful act this time, he couldn’t possibly act like a jerk towards Hyukjae when other people were around.

Hyukjae let out a sigh, sensing how rigid the brunet after him was. At least Donghae wasn’t saying hurtful things at the moment, though.

“We have to go to over her place,” Hyukjae noted, “She has most of the pictures that are still left of me.” He knew he might have been forcing Donghae to things he didn’t agree in the first place, but this wasn’t about him trying to get him out of the closet now; this was just about their class project. All about school—at least it should have been.

Then he fully opened the door into his grandmother’s apartment, and Donghae swore he felt worse than in the morning after waking up.

“Grandma!” Hyukjae hollered right after they had stepped in and closed the door. They didn’t receive an answer right away, but it made Hyukjae casually continue his path through the small hallway, leaving Donghae a little behind.

The brunet took his shoes off, following close behind to the next room that seemed like a kitchen. He was on pins and needles, feeling so out of place. He hadn’t expected—nor wanted—to get any more into Hyukjae’s life, but here he was, against his will.

Soon a voice came through, startling him at first.

“Hyukjae!” A short, wrinkly woman appeared. She had an apron on and short hair, eyes almost disappearing into her wide smile as she took the noticeably taller red head into her embrace. “My little macaque!”

“Oh god, ‘Ma, please don’t call me that!” Hyukjae whined as he was tightly squeezed against her chest. He had to hunch down since she was really short compared to her grandson.

Round-eyed, Donghae stared a few meters behind them.

“Dear, you’ll always be my little macaque, liked it or not,” she said, patting his cheek and making the male squeeze his eyes shut in sort of embarrassment.

Donghae hoped the walls could have swallowed him the minute she turned to look at him. Hyukjae followed her gaze, and the brunet noticed the change in his eyes as Hyukjae looked at him. His expression was a lot warmer, smiling a little with his eyes even when their eyes met. Donghae felt a churn down on his stomach. He hated the way Hyukjae made him feel, despite how hard he tried to deny it.

“And who’s this cutie here, Hyukjae? Your friend?” the grandmother asked, sounding quite curious. Hyukjae turned his eyes away, scratching his neck.

“Umh… That’s Donghae,” he started, “We’re…classmates. We’re in the same photography course.”

“Oh-oh, come here sweetheart, let me give you a hug!” she exclaimed happily, pulling the unsuspecting brunet into her arms too.

It felt like the air was running out as she hugged him, and Donghae couldn’t do else but stare back at Hyukjae, helpless. She ruffled his hair as she finally let him go.

“Nice to meet you, Donghae.”

“N-nice to meet you too, Mrs. L-Lee...” the youngest of the room cautiously answered, wiping his sweaty palms onto his thighs.

She gave him a hearty laugh in return, flipping her hand, obviously humored.

“Aish, son, just call me grandma or anything you’d like.”

Hyukjae was leaning against the kitchen counter, sniffling the air which smelled sweet. “Are you baking something?”

“Cookies, my dear, cookies.” She gave him a little wink, but proceeded to stroll towards the next room instead. “But you have to wait a little, they’re not ready yet.”

“Damn,” Hyukjae muttered, and Donghae realized he was staring at him—but he couldn’t drift his eyes off him either. Hyukjae was handsome as he only stood there in this relaxed manner, red hair slightly covering his other eye. He could see his tattoos again as he had rolled his sleeves up at some point, and Donghae wanted to stop ogling right away. A little lopsided smile swung over Hyukjae’s lips, reaching his eyes; the warmness was radiating from him, and for a moment Donghae couldn’t stop the feelings from swelling inside of him again. Hyukjae was gorgeous, and he wasn’t sure if he had ever been so attracted to anyone before.

The thoughts made him bite his lips painfully, crunching his nose as it really did hurt.

Hyukjae then suddenly turned to look at him. Donghae could have sworn his stomach turned upside down. Hyukjae then tossed his head towards the obvious living room, asking Donghae to follow him.

His grandma was already gone the same way, now seated on an armchair as they entered the homey room. There were a lot of photos around the walls in frames, and lots of small trinkets on the edges of the bookshelves and the windowsills. The bookshelf was long and full of different kinds of books. It seemed like a lot of memories were spread around the apartment, and Donghae wasn’t sure how to feel about that. It was the contradictory to everything he had gotten used to. Hyukjae was the contradictory. The atmosphere was contradict everything he knew; it was warm, welcoming and accepting.

“I doubt you’re just randomly passing by, are you?” she then stated, and Hyukjae walked towards the dressers on the other side of the room.

“Not exactly,” he mutters, “Where did you keep all those photos again?”

“Photos? Of you?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, the first drawer on the left, dear.”

Hyukjae opened it quietly, pulling out a decorated, wide tin from it. “This, right?”

“That’s it,” she hummed, partly focusing on something she was knitting. “There are few good shots of Hyukjae,” the old woman sing-sunged, obviously telling that more to Donghae than anyone else.

Hyukjae was already rummaging through the photos at the top of the pile, swaying his hand for Donghae to come closer, but Donghae only took few steps as Hyukjae was already sitting on the floor, legs crossed.

“Your sister is coming here too today, Hyukjae.”

Hyukjae raised his gaze. “What? Why?”

The grandmother laughed; “She went to get some groceries for me.”

“I could have done that too,” Hyukjae muttered and then decided to grab Donghae’s hand, pulling from it in order to make the other sit down too. He didn’t really think what he was doing, he really forgot everything unnecessary every time when he was there.

Donghae stared at him for a moment, but eventually did as Hyukjae inaudibly asked. He sat down on the floor. This whole visit made him discover wholly new things about the red head, and he was inwardly angry about it—the only reason for it to be that he got to know more and more about him, remark details of his life, his behavior, his way of sharing his attention towards people he cared about.

All those things that made him even more real to him. All those little things that made him fall deeper.

And oh, the amount of hate he wanted to find against him—but couldn’t.

The grandmother’s attention seemed to be mostly onto the knitting thing she had over her lap, but she gave curious glances towards the boys more often than not.

For Hyukjae, it was a little funny how quiet Donghae was being. Although, it wasn’t such a surprise, but the way the brunet observed everything with his eyebrows slightly burrowed, obviously conflicted, showed him a new side of him too.

Donghae felt uneasy because he wasn’t in control.

“Where do you need the photos, monkey?”

Hyukjae rolled his eyes. “Oh, please. We have this assignment, and a part of it is to retake old photos as we are now.”

Humming, she didn’t pry further as for the moment.

“Ah, seriously, there’s so many,” Hyukjae muttered, sliding the photos over his hands. He stopped for a second, then split the pile and gave the other half to Donghae, who awkwardly took it. “Take those and try to find something, okay? I don’t know, anything that would go for this…”

Donghae swore his cheeks were flushing, but he didn’t go against him either. He started to go through the photos, the first ones seemed to be when Hyukjae might have been something like five or six years old. He looked quite a lot different than he did now; shorter, jet black hair and obviously no ink over his skin. He was just like any other little boy, and the more he watched the pictures, the more he got into a state of weird relaxation. There was Hyukjae playing with toys, Hyukjae baking cookies with his grandma, Hyukjae playing and fighting with his sister (and Donghae noticed they looked a lot alike), Hyukjae looking like a starfish because of his thick winter clothes over his little toddler body, Hyukjae playing with a puppy, Hyukjae drawing, Hyukjae doing this and that—and Donghae loved seeing it.

He didn’t notice how after a while, he already had a smile covering his previously conflicted face.

When Donghae laughed softly out loud, Hyukjae tore his own eyes from the pictures and blinked at him, a little taken aback. He didn’t see the picture Donghae held in his hand, but the sight made his head forge in a new way. It seemed like Donghae was in some sort of a daze, and didn’t remember where, or with whom he was anymore. He was just Donghae, who saw something funny, and it was quite a bit…Adorable.

Wait. What?

“W-what are you laughing at?” Hyukjae asked, not sure if he should be prepared for something very embarrassing.

Donghae froze for a moment, but he soon bit his lower lip and handed the photo towards Hyukjae. Was he being shy?

“T-this,” Donghae mumbled and showed Hyukjae a photo which made the brunet’s eyes glimmer because he was humored but didn’t dare to laugh too loud.

It was a picture where Hyukjae was outside at his grandmother’s yard, being just about four years old. He only had some briefs with Lion King –characters printed on the light blue background, otherwise without clothes, a red bucket on his head and a toy sword on his hand, reaching towards the skies and seeming pretty courageous although blinded. It was a summer day, warm and sunny, it seemed.

Hyukjae might have blushed a little, gritting his teeth in embarrassment. At least he wasn’t wholly !

“Oh, jeez,” he grunted back.

“We can re-do this, right?” Donghae asked, a little uncertain, but too engrossed on being amused to realize he had lowered his walls around him.

“Oh, no we won’t.”

“But it’d be priceless!” Donghae noted, giggling. Giggling.

Being there made Donghae finally let a bit loose. Keeping up the façade started getting harder every minute, and eventually he didn’t even remember to hold onto it anymore. He tried to keep his mind in check, though; reasoning to himself that he was too tired and clear-headed to do anything as stupid as yesterday. It was all thanks to being drunk.

It almost felt like he was able to breathe again.

“No, we are definitely not.”

“Oh come on, Hyukjae. It’s not that bad. You can just wear shorts or something,” Donghae mumbled, lowering his face back at his lap and the pile of pictures, until he glanced back at him from under his fringe.

Don’t do that, Hyukjae thought inside, a little abashed. Donghae’s brown eyes made this stupid sad puppy thing, which made him feel absolutely foolish. However, after staring at him for a while, mouth slightly ajar, he let out a long exhale.

“Fine,” he grumbled, “Whatever.”

A wide, accomplished smile visited Donghae’s lips for a minute as he put the photo aside and kept looking. He couldn’t stop himself thinking about it though, as he imagined seeing Hyukjae’s bare upper body—especially all the tattoos on his arms he had so much wanted to see fully someday. Donghae unfortunately realized what he was thinking, and he immediately regretted everything he had just said.

Not even ten minutes passed by, when there was a noise from the front door, and both the boys raised their attention towards it.

“I’m here!” A female voice echoed, and soon Hyukjae’s sister appeared at the doorway of the living room.

“Hello, darling,” their grandmother said, standing up from the couch and walking to the woman who was few years older than Hyukjae.

“Hi, ‘Ma,” she said sweetly, hugging her. “Oh, Hyukjae—and—,” she suddenly stopped speaking, and as the siblings looked at each other; Sora waving her gaze between the two males, Hyukjae grimacing. Why had he told her about Donghae again? At least she didn’t know about last night, because if she did the both guys might have had to go through hell then.

“Donghae?”

The said one turned to silently question Hyukjae.

“Uh, yes…?” the brunet mumbled cautiously.

“Oh. Oh.”

Hyukjae gave Sora a murderous glare.

“Oh?” their grandma suddenly repeated in curiosity, and Hyukjae felt the electricity flaring around him, his sister and Donghae.

“Uh-huh,” Sora grumbled, before turning towards the old woman. “It smells like cookies.”

“Oh dear! My cookies! Girl go get ‘em!”

Before Sora turned back towards the kitchen she shared a voiceless warning with Hyukjae.

As she was finally out of sight, Hyukjae sighed warily, giving Donghae more reason to wonder how and why his sister knew him.

“How does she—“

“I might have told her what you are like.” Hyukjae’s tone changed from calm to a little colder, as he remembered all the words Donghae had bashed him with. He felt stupid for expecting Donghae to be any different soon.

Donghae lowered his gaze, pictures halted on his hands as he sunk to think about everything from the start all over again.

“Let’s just pick some few easier photos to add into this,” Hyukjae muttered absent-mindedly, taking out a photograph where he was sleeping inside a bus as he was eight years old.

“Okay,” Donghae answered quietly, his lips getting abused all the while. Head filled with thoughts, he tried to browse through some more pictures, but eventually ended up staring at one where Hyukjae was on the beach with his sister. It seemed like everything was fine and great, Hyukjae was smiling and obviously laughing, and Donghae had to swallow because he very well recognized what an he had been, but he couldn’t just let go of his attitude. Hyukjae was too threatening towards his life, and he didn’t want his life to change. 

“It's getting late,” Hyukjae said matter-of-factly, “I mean, to get any good photos taken in this light.” It wasn’t really late, but it was indeed already getting darker, as the daylight was noticeably fading every minute.

“Yeah.”

Donghae was starting to feel bad again. It hadn’t done any good for him to spend the day with Hyukjae like this.

“We could continue tomorrow though,” the red head suggested, seemingly aware of Donghae’s body language that was once again getting tense. For a moment he had thought they almost got along, but Donghae was still struggling.

Donghae thought about for a minute, deciding that if he ever wanted to get Hyukjae out of his life he should finish the project as soon possible. It felt like a lie good enough inside his head when he started to stand up to leave.

“Alright. I can...try to find the last photos for my part so we could finish this soon.”

Donghae swallowed. He hated the look in the other’s eyes; Hyukjae saw through him way too easily.

“Fine,” Hyukjae retorted with a strained tone. “See you tomorrow then. Text me where.”

“Mmh.”

Donghae had managed to get out of the house faster than he thought, although getting bombarded with questions by Hyukjae’s grandma; ‘Why don't you stay for dinner?’ and so on.

He was just walking through the yard, cold breeze driving through his skin and bones when he heard a voice coming from behind. But as he turned around to look, it finally hit him that it wasn’t Hyukjae.

It was Sora, and she seemed serious as she walked to him.

“I need to talk to you for a moment.”