The happy but deathly tired Oh Sehun sneaked successfully back into his hotel room at 4am. He glanced his sleeping hyungs with an apologizing smile before hopping into his own bed, dreaming about falling asleep in his secret lover’s arms.

The sun rose up in the morning without a clue what kind of a terrible day it was going to be witnessing. Sehun had been aware that his actions last night would not be left unnoticed by his hyungs but oh, he would’ve never believed what kind of a fight he would got them into.

Jongin and Chanyeol, Sehun’s roommates, were not acting towards the boy any differently than usually but the bad things started to happen when they all eleven were gathered together at the airport.

“Sehun didn’t bother to come with us, then?” Baekhyun commented quietly at Sehun when they sat down, glancing the youngest boy disapprovingly.

“EXO12 has finally been dropped to EXO10” Kyungsoo sighed half-absently, glancing Jongin who was leaning his head against his shoulder. “At least we would have an even number of us…” Jongin sighed out almost as a joke.

Sehun tried to look apologising even though he felt seriously insulted by his hyungs for saying things like that. “N-no, I was really sad I couldn’t make it into both places and…” “And Super Junior parties were the number one priority, huh?” Baekhyun asked, flicking his tongue in an annoying way. “No! I just thought t-that for once I could…”

“Can’t you guys see it? He puts his own love interests over the future of us all.” Tao said with an amused laughter, glancing Sehun angrily. “W-what love interest?” Sehun tried to look innocent, staring at his hyungs with open mouth. No, Tao, please, don’t…

“Please, Sehun, we all know you and Donghae!” Tao blurted out loudly, checking the other members for confirmation. Everyone was now staring at Sehun in a suspicious way.

“Yes, Sehun, why you and Donghae are becoming so close suddenly? Joonmyun told us that you have sneaked out with him before and…what is happening? I’m not going as far as Tao in saying he’s your l-love interest, but why are you sticking to him so much?” Jongdae asked calmly, staring at his maknae unbelievingly.

“And so suddenly? Few months ago you guys barely talked to each other when you met!”

“Sehun, what’s going on?”

“Are you intending to become a member of Super Junior?”

“Are you going to leave EXO?”

“Don’t we, hyungs, matter to you at all?”

“Sehun, why?”

“Yes, why?”

“Everyone just shut up!” Sehun spat out angrily, standing up so that everyone would surely see and hear him. “This was not me leaving EXO, okay? This was just one silly night I spent not with you guys, just one dinner I didn’t attend, alright? It doesn’t mean anything! Don’t you guys remember when Baekhyun left earlier from the fan meeting because he was supposed to see Taeyeon noona at somewhere? Is that okay then but for me it isn’t? That isn’t fair!” Sehun spoke quickly in his sudden burst of anger, pointing rudely Baekhyun with his finger. Baekhyun looked really insulted, glancing the other hyungs with an open mouth. Sehun gulped, realising he had just caused an even bigger problem.

“Baekhyun is dating. A Girl’s Generation member.” Someone said. It was enough for Sehun to finally burst out in anger.

“Aish, seriously, HOW ON EARTH DOES IT MATTER IF IT IS A GIRLS GENERATION MEMBER? Like, I know for a fact that they are not any better human beings than anyone else!” Sehun screamed, not even caring about whether the airport staff or the fans outside would hear his words. He saw the way Tao was staring at him – with that little satisfied smile when the maknae finally got himself into trouble – and decided to just make everything a step worse.

“Did it come to anyone’s mind that I might be dating as well?” Sehun spat out quietly, causing a deathly silence in the room. He glanced the horrified expression on Tao’s face for once more before grabbing his jacket from the bench and walking out the room without caring about the screaming fans waiting for him outside.

Sehun fell asleep that night feeling oddly empty. The whole day, evening, and even most of the night had gone in the members giving Sehun shocked glances, asking awkward questions that always ended up in Sehun either walking out the room or shouting at their faces terrible insults. Oh, the things the maknae had let out of his mouth…he had gone as far as blaming half of s being gay as well, shouting at Tao blaming he was an embarrassing coward who was trying to touch him whenever the other member’s weren’t around and blaming their group from being worth all the scandals they’ve gone through. This wasn’t the worst: somehow the fight got everyone to say outloud things they’ve never said before and the fight extended to cover basically every single little disagreement the group had ever had. Never, ever during their history had they gone into their bed after such a horrible fight, not even during the times Yifan was leaving the group. Luckily the EXO-M members were leaving early in the morning for their own promotions in Busan, so Sehun had five less faces to meet in the morning. Was this the price of being with someone you loved?

“Let’s welcome our special guests today, let’s give a nice applause to world-famous EXO-K!” The host lady shouted out, the live audience hooraying and shouting the six boy’s names hysterically. The boys ran in with fake smiles and waved and bowed at the audience for their lives. It was time to give an image of a perfect group with all perfect looks and relationships with each other.

“Hi everyone, I’m EXO-K’s leader Suho” Joonmyun started their introductions with a cute little smile and bow, giving an encouraging smile for Baekhyun standing next to him, Baekhyun playfully poking Suho before introducing himself:” Hi, I’m EXO’s vocal, Baekhyun!” He shouted loudly his own name, giving a deep bow for the audience. “Hi everyone, my name is Chanyeol and I’m EXO’s rapper!” “Hi, I’m D.O. and I’m EXO’s vocal!” “Hi, my name is Kai and I’m EXO’s lead dancer!” Jongin said purposefully shyly, as fitting his stage-image and looked cutely at the youngest member to introduce himself. “And hi, I’m EXO’s maknae, Sehun!” Sehun bowed politely. Then, quickly glancing at each other, they bowed at the same time, shouting the organised “We are EXO” slogan they had used to yell everywhere ever since their debut. It wasn’t even hard to pretend to be a happy family when they had gone through it for a countless number of times before.

The show went on with the hosts giving stupid little games for the members to play and tell funny facts about each other. “EXO, we’ve heard you guys have moved into a new dorm and the order of the rooms changed. Who is now accommodating with who?” The female host asked over-excitedly, glancing at the audience before nodding for the boys to start talking. As written in the plan, Joonmyun started talking. “We’re actually now accommodating in rooms of two persons instead of three persons. I’m with the maknae Sehun.” Joonmyun smiled at the maknae who gave a cute wave for the leader from the other side of the row of chairs on which EXO was sitting. Jongin took the microphone from Joonmyun and said: ”Me and D.O. hyung are sharing a room nowadays, only Chanyeol hyung has left the room. He is now with Baekhyun hyung.” “Aww, you must have a nice time sharing your rooms with your precious group mates! Has there any occurred any problems between you and your roommates, any disagreements about cleaning or anything like this?” The female host asked, nodding at Sehun to start talking as planned.

“Err…me and Suho hyung are both pretty clean so we have no disagreements about cleaning. But I must admit that Suho hyung has an annoying habit of talking in his sleep…” Sehun laughed awkwardly, the leader faking a cute facepalm. In fact, the leader did never talk in his sleep but the two boys couldn’t come up with any practical disagreement they were having when they were supposed to write the script for the show. “Aww…but Suho, there must be something annoying Sehun does sometimes?” Joonmyun looked at Sehun for a while, both aware of how horribly forced this conversation was. This was like a play, not normal interaction. “Well, sometimes Sehun wants to go to sleep earlier than anyone else. And its annoying because I have to be so quiet and be afraid not to wake him up.”

“Aww, you guys have a really sweet maknae, don’t you?” The female host laughed adorably, the six guys forcedly laughing with her.

As soon as the cameras closed down and the idols left the live audience the same awkward atmosphere continued like it never had stopped. Without any extra words, the members walked into their taxi and waited for their manager hyung to give them a word before letting them to go spend a free evening.

“Good job, boys! I’m sure your fans will approve this! Great work, great work!” Even the manager hyung could realise something was wrong with the group today – no one even bothered to comment anything but stared out of the windows tiredly instead. The manager sighed and sat down on one of the seats, staring at each one of them in turns. “There has been a fight, hasn’t it?” Joonmyun nodded immediately without watching at s. The manager hyung sighed and stared at his young men for a while. “Try to work it out. It might affect your interactions. Or whatever, as long as it doesn’t overlap with your work: if you can do just as fine as today you can fight all you want. Have a nice evening!” The manager hyung stated calmly, walking out the taxi. The six boys were left in in a painful silence.

As soon as the idols returned to their dorm Sehun grabbed his belongings and ran out the house without a clue where he was going. The storming atmosphere among the group was too much for him to handle; especially when he knew the one to blame was he himself. He knew he was the one who should humbly apologise. But he wasn’t ready for it, not just yet.

Walking alone on the streets was a pretty damn stupid thing to do, Sehun knew it. Even though it was a miracle that no sasaeng fans had learned the location of their dorm, they would find the lonely maknae sooner or later and it would lead into a complete chaos once again. Sehun walked with determination down the street, seeing only the faces of his horrified, insulted and angry members in front of him. How did it come to this?

As soon as Sehun had sat down with his favourite flavour of bubble tea in a quiet corner of a completely unknown little tea shop he picked up his phone. “Sehunnie? Is it really my Sehunnie?” “Yes, umma, it’s me.” “Sehunnie! I was thinking about you right when you called! My little boy, how are you?” “I’m fine, I’m fine. I was just wondering…we have a free evening, and I thought I could…perhaps…come and visit home?” The maknae’s mother went silent for a while. “Oh, this is terrible, but we happen to be visiting your uncle right now. Any other day you had called, me and your appa have nothing else to do than see you, my dear Sehunnie!” “Oh.” Sehun said disappointedly: he had seriously thought his childhood home was a place he could fall upon at any time if he needed a place to be. “But don’t you, Sehunnie, usually hang out with friends on these free evenings? Why don’t you go and pick bubble tea with the cute Zitao?” “Zitao hyung does not like bubble tea, its Luhan hyung who likes bubble tea.” “Ask Luhan to come with you then! Now when talking about it, how’s Zitao? I haven’t seen the boy in ages!”

Sehun cleared his throat awkwardly. Tao, as the closest labelmate of Sehun so far, had visited the maknae’s parents several times and seemed to sync well with his mother. Mrs Oh, you would never guess in what kind of a war your sweet boys are in right now…

After realising his parents would be no use in this situation, Sehun hang up the phone call. What were the options? Call Donghae? He would surely take care of him but after all this scandalous fighting Sehun didn’t even feel like seeing him right now. Go back to dorm? Not an option; he would go there only when he was sure everyone was happily sleeping and he wouldn’t have to face anyone. Hang out on the streets? It seemed like the only option.

Sehun pathetically called a few of his old boy-and girlfriends just to ask if they were free but of course none of them was. How come a super idol like Oh Sehun had really no one to be with?

“Err…you’re Oh Sehun right?” A shy voice of a little girl suddenly asked. Sehun woke up from his deep thoughts just to see a couple of young girls giggling around his table. “Yes!” The maknae forced a smile and made an almost invisible bow for the girls. “Can you please sign this for me, oppa?”

Sehun left the bar before any other fans would notice him. He had kind of predicted his plain blue t-shirt and ugly black cap with no-make-up face would protect his identity but the fans were sadly known for recognising their favourite oppas from basically any given body part. “Sehun oppa! Is it really you?” A group of high school girls ran out of nowhere with pens and papers. “Oppa! Please sign my phone!” “Sehun oppa, please take a selfie with me!”

The situation could be handled until a group of certain familiar faces step in front of his face. “Sehun-ah oppa!” Sehun knew the girl’s voice before he even saw her. It was the creepy sasaeng girl who had dared to ruin his first official date with Donghae. “How come you’re walking alone on the streets like this? Where’s Luhan oppa? Or Tao oppa? Or…Donghae oppa?” The girl asked suspiciously, approaching Sehun all the time until she was uncomfortably close to the tall maknae. Sehun tried to walk away from her but realised he was suddenly surrounded by an impermeable wall of fans with phones and cameras.

“Sehun-ah...” The sasaeng girl grabbed the boy’s arm when he was trying to press through the crowd. The maknae timorously pulled his arm back, remembering the time his wrist got badly hurt because of overly-excited pulling fans. All the fans, even though they didn’t mean anything bad for the boy (at least most of them) were so excited to take pictures of him and record every single movement of his that they didn’t realise the boy had become seriously anxious.

“Excuse me…” murmured the boy shakily, realising there was nothing he could go to. The sasaengs had found him: they would follow him wherever he went. This meant that he couldn’t go back to the dorm anymore without revealing its location to the fans. SM Building was too far for a walk.

Sehun gulped and without caring about his dignity, started running from the fans.

“Donghae, are you home?” Sehun spoke the man’s name quietly as soon as he picked up. He tried to keep his voice down in case the fans screaming behind him happened to hear something. He was fastening the pace of his walk constantly, trying to avoid any larger streets so that no bigger hassle would be created.

“Sehun! I’m at SM Building, we’re practicing our new dance break. Oh lord, it is tricky. Where are you? You sound worried?” Hearing Donghae’s voice after all this had an immediate calming effect on Sehun. How come he didn’t call the man earlier?

“Yeah, I have kind of a tricky situation too…I’m alone walking on the streets and that sasaeng girl is creeping on me. I can’t walk back to my dorm or she’ll find out the location.” Sehun explained calmly, glancing over his shoulder just to make sure the sasaengs were far enough not to overhear the conversation. “Sehun! What, why, why? Aish, I can’t leave from here just yet! What to do with you! Are you okay, did she hurt you?” Donghae practically screamed from the phone, Sehun shifting the phone to prevent his ear from getting hurt. “I’m okay, but I don’t know where I should go.” “Aish, Sehun, why did you go by yourself? Hey, I’ll call my driver. He can bring you to SM Building.” Sehun nodded, just to hum something unclearly after realising the older man could not see his nods. “Okay…I guess that’s the only option.”

After a small pause, during which Sehun wondered whether Donghae had ended the call or not, the man started speaking with a bit more quiet tone. “Or…if you don’t want to come here, you can go wait at my place until I finish? We could really have a chat about these walking alone on the streets-thingies…” Donghae was speaking so fast and unclearly that Sehun barely followed his train of thought. “O-okay…your place? But how can I get in?”

But Donghae seemed to have anything planned out. Sehun was soon picked up by a mysterious black car for the disappointment of the growing number of sasaeng fans following him.  

After the driver had, without further questions, opened the door of Donghae’s house, Sehun was left alone in the huge house without a clue what should he do. The older man had promised to hurry back home as soon as he could, but this would obviously take some time as they were in middle of a practice. Well…

“A-anyone here?” Sehun yelled out curiously, just to make sure he was really alone. His shaky voice echoed throughout the empty building. “No one”, the boy whispered by himself, approaching the living room with shy steps.

The last time he was here he didn’t have time to carefully examine every corner of the wonderful house: he hadn’t realised how elegantly the colours of the living room were in synchrony with each other and what kind of a cute little stuffed elephant toy was lying on the couch. Sehun grabbed the animal with a smile on his face and looked through the pictures hanging on one of the walls. Donghae as a kid with his family, Donghae as a kid with his friends, Donghae graduating from high school, Donghae and Eunhyuk, Donghae and Super Junior, Donghae and Eunhyuk. Sehun couldn’t leave unnoticed the fact that Eunhyuk appeared in more than half of the pictures.

The fight between the EXO members had brought up also the hidden opinions many of them seemed to hold concerning Donghae. Sehun couldn’t get off his head the words his hyungs gave him as a warning. “Donghae is not the man you think. You might be too young to know, but there is not enough fingers in my hands to count all the girlfriends and boyfriends from his past.” Jongdae had warned. Kyungsoo had added “You should be cautious with him; we all know what he is after.”

Sehun, who was resistant to have any negative thoughts regarding his own sweet Donghae, stared at Eunhyuk’s and Donghae’s warm smiles for each other in one of the pictures. These two must’ve been a thing… The maknae felt a bitter cut in his heart when even thinking about it. Donghae was almost in his thirties, Sehun understood that he most probably have had many lovers before. And Sehun himself wasn’t completely inexperienced either, the maknae thought with an uncontrollable shiver going through his body from just the idea of Tao.

Dropping the stuffed toy back on the couch Sehun decided not to bother about the opinion of his hyungs. Who were they to decide what kind of a man Donghae was? How could they, when none of them had been even half as close to him as Sehun was right now? Or…had they?

Soon Sehun found himself wandering in Donghae’s bedroom. The room was really plain and simple: besides the damn huge bed and the mirror-covered closet there was only a small pot full of little prickly plants. Sehun sat on the bed, lying his back down on it carefully so not to mess up the sheets. So, this was the ceiling Donghae fell asleep watching every night, he thought. He smiled by himself, meeting his own eyes through the mirror.

In the kitchen Sehun finally got the magnificent idea. “Donghae must be hungry when he comes back home!” The man’s food shelves seemed to be pretty poor, so Sehun picked up his phone and called his regular Chinese take-away restaurant. After the call, the boy started putting up the table in the living room. He set down candles from the shelves, trying to make everything look perfect for the man when he would come back. For once, Sehun wanted to be the one doing favours for the older one. “Donghae will die from happiness” Sehun murmured by himself, running back and forth excitedly like a little kid.

The food arrived, the dinner was ready but the one last little thing missing was the owner of the house himself. Sehun sat on the floor, staring greedily at the foods waiting on the table looking irresistibly delicious. “Donghae…” He moaned out, glancing his phone. It was already a late night. Why did the man not give any life signs?

Finally Sehun heard voices from outside and lighted up the candles in hurry. He closed all the extra lighting from the house so that his little surprise would seem even more beautiful. The boy quickly jumped to sit on the couch, smiling excitedly by himself while waiting for Donghae to walk into the room to attack him with cheerful greetings.

“…yeah, I know! But it just felt so safe back there that I couldn’t help myself.” A voice filled the silence of the house. Sehun gulped when realising the voice was not Donghae’s. “Wait here, I’ll just go pick it up.” The same voice continued: it sounded familiar but the maknae couldn’t recall whose it was. He heard steps – someone was running upstairs.

Unsure of what he should do, Sehun stood up from the sofa and started walking towards the hallway. Who was the person? Where was Donghae?

“Donghae?” Sehun called quietly just to meet the dark figure of a young girl.

“OHMYYYGOOOD EUNHYUKKKKK THERES SOMEONE!” The girl screamed, backing off against the wall and catching her breath. Sehun almost started screaming too, holding the wall behind him as well. “Sunhi, Sunhi, are you okay?” The man ran down the stairs quicker than a lightning and turned out to be Super Junior’s Eunhyuk. “SEHUN!” The man shouted in confusion as soon as seeing the boy’s terrified face. “Sehun?” The girl sighed out, walking towards the boy in horror. “What the hell is this!!!?!?” She screamed, and even in the dark Sehun could see she was furious. “B-but you’re…” Sehun murmured, realising the girl was the infamous Sunhi with whom he had shared an intense cat conversation in the after party a few days before. Eunhyuk shook his head in confusion, grabbing the shorter girl’s shoulder instinctively. They all stayed in a confused silence in the dark house for a second.

Eunhyuk was just about to start questioning Sehun’s presence with an unbelieving voice when his words were interrupted by the door opening. This time it was the real owner of the house.

“Sehun!” Donghae smiled immediately when seeing the boy, but his smile faded quickly when seeing the two other persons standing in his hallway. “Hyuk?” Donghae raised his eyebrows, giving the man a somehow meaningful glance. Sehun was still too shocked about all this screaming and creeping in the dark that he didn’t really pay attention to anything else than staying on his legs with the assistance of the wall. “Hae, I dropped by to get those documents. And then, suddenly, Sehun appears from out of nowhere and starts to creep on my cousin!” Eunhyuk explained, laughing nervously while patting the girl’s shoulder.

Donghae chuckled, taking off his shoes. “Why would Sehun creep on your cousin? Nice to meet you, I’m Donghae.” He bowed at the girl as soon as he had actually stepped into the hallway. “Nice to meet you, I’m Sunhi, but I’m afraid we’ve met before. In your room party in Hong Kong a few days ago.” “Oh! You’re that cousin! Sure, yes, Hyuk has talked about you!” Donghae smiled charmingly, bowing at her again. Then he faced Sehun, who was staring the whole group of people without a clue what was happening. “Sehun, you okay?” Donghae laughed, grabbing the boy from both of his shoulders and shaking him back and forth gently a few times with a happy laughter.

“What is he doing in here?” Eunhyuk asked curiously, again giving Donghae a meaningful glance that made Sehun drown in an enormous flow of jealousy. These two really seemed to know each other better than he wished they would.  

“He was waiting for me. My driver let him in earlier this evening.” Donghae laughed, grabbing the younger boy from the waist in such a way the younger boy started to feel shy in front of the other people. He couldn’t avoid from seeing the suspicious glare Eunhyuk was giving for their position.

“Why there were no lights on?” Sunhi moaned out suddenly, glancing at Sehun like trying to blame him from being a weird creep. She seemed to have not forgiven the way he had ditched her during the party.  “Were you in the dark? Didn’t you know how to switch the lights on, Sehun?” Donghae laughed and looked up to the boy who shook his head with a face blushed from embarrassment. “I-I...I had my reasons.”

A few moments later Sehun could finally show the reason for all this. The food had already gotten cold and the whole idea started to feel like a bad one. “You should’ve just told them you had prepared me a dinner. Aww, how sweet of you, Sehun, you’re so sweet…” Donghae laughed when sitting down next to the table, opening the food packages with a warm smile. Sehun chuckled in embarrassment, sitting next to him. He wasn’t hungry at all anymore. “That would’ve made things only worse. Now they think I’m a weird creep.” “Aren’t you a little bit of a weird creep?” Donghae made a remark and laughed for the annoyed face the boy was giving him. “Don’t judge. You don’t know how much effort I put in this.” Sehun said, not being able to help a little smile escaping his lips.

When Donghae started eating, Sehun couldn’t avoid his mind still wandering on one little detail.  “Why did Eunhyuk just appear in your house?” “He has my keys. He kind of owns one of the rooms but rarely uses it. I forgot to warn you. He sometimes just unexpectedly drops by.” Donghae explained like this would be a normal organisation to do between group mates. Sehun nodded quickly. Why would the man be lying?

The two men, after gathering enough energy to stand up from the floor, moved to sit on the couch. “Ungh…I’m so full.” Donghae moaned out, kicking Sehun’s leg playfully. “How can you be so skinny if you keep eating like this?” Sehun laughed at the older man’s question. “W-what means like this? Do you think I eat like this every day?” Donghae shook his head, moving to sit on his legs so that he was closer to Sehun than before. “Every time we see each other you eat like a horse.” Donghae admitted with a witty smirk. “No I don’t!” Sehun laughed, hitting the older man with a brown pillow he had grabbed from the couch. Donghae took another pillow and used it as a shield. “You do! Do you ever eat when I’m not with you?” “Barely!” Sehun admitted, keeping on hitting the older man lamely with the pillow. “Aww. You need to move in with me so that I can watch you eating.” “Never!” Sehun said playfully. He crossed his arms and moved to sit on the other side of the couch, glancing the older man with the iest face he mastered. “Sehunnie…” Donghae started to sneak closer to the maknae. “Don’t be angry with me, Hunnie…” He said with an overcute voice, leaning his head to lay on the boy’s shoulder cutely. Sehun abandoned his poker face and burst out laughing.

“You are forgiven.” He said finally, trying to keep breathing even though realising the man was so close to him. Suddenly it came to him they were really alone in the house. Donghae smiled and turned to face the taller boy, smiling at him. After staring at each other for a while, Donghae leaned to place an innocent kiss on Sehun’s confused lips.  

Sehun was so surprised by the kiss that he remained completely expressionless for a while. Then he started giggling awkwardly. Donghae laughed at him, both staring at each other confusedly for another while.  

“To be honest, I would’ve wanted to do that immediately when is stepped in, but there were some annoying obstacles on the way.” “I know…” Sehun nodded sadly, biting his lip shyly. Their eyes met again, this time Sehun cupping Donghae’s face and kissing him with all his power. “Wow…” was all Donghae could pant out when the boy finally broke apart their kiss and scratched his own hair shyly.

Sehun had promised to explain everything for Donghae, and so he did. From the very beginning to the very end, he described the fight in which EXO was storming at the moment. Now, when resting his head comfortably on the older one’s lap and letting him to play with his hair while speaking, the boy felt so stupid for suspecting his or Donghae’s feelings even for a second. The hyungs – they knew nothing about their relationship. Donghae was a sweet man who truly cared about Sehun.

“…and that’s it. Basically that is why I could not take it anymore and ran out on the street. Good enough reason?” Sehun finally ended his rant and glanced at Donghae’s warm eyes smiling at him from above. “I’m so sorry, Sehun. But – I can tell you for a fact – those kind of fights between groups usually end up fine. It is something that basically needs to happen now and then because there are obviously some disagreements even in the best groups. Super Junior, oh how much have we fought during these years. And still we are all in all a pretty close and warm group. Sehun, don’t worry, everything will be fine.” Donghae placed a sweet kiss on the maknae’s forehead, making the boy blush like a teenage girl. Sehun sighed. “The thing that bothers me…it’s not actually that we would fight forever like this…it’s that I’m afraid some of them will not accept the fact that we…we two are…like…we.” Sehun tried to explain, again finding himself lacking the appropriate words. Donghae sighed empathetically. “Yes. There’s always the risk, but based on what I’ve experienced most of the people will not be bothered by it. As long as it is not public for the big audience.” “W-when did you tell…or like how did you tell your group mates about it?” Sehun asked quietly. He would’ve also liked to ask so many other things from Donghae – like, what was his relation to Eunhyuk – but he didn’t dare to. Donghae sighed again, seeming a bit uncomfortable talking about the topic. He curled his fingers in Sehun’s blonde hair, remaining quiet for a moment before starting to speak again. “For me, there was basically nothing to tell. The people who knew about me knew it and the people who didn’t, got to know one by one. It wasn’t a big deal.” Sehun nodded but had a feeling the man was was hiding something.

Their conversation was interrupted by the older idol’s ringing phone. “Yes?” Donghae answered the phone, still holding his left hand on Sehun’s forehead.

“Who was it?” Sehun asked immediately when Donghae hung up, curling up into a ball and sitting next to Donghae. “My manager. Sorry about that.”

Donghae was just about to grab Sehun closer again when the boy realised that the clock was pretty much. He glanced the clock on the wall just to realise it was already midnight. The time had passed like nothing after Donghae had come home.  

“Aish…I should probably go.” Sehun said quietly, reluctantly starting to think of the excuses he’d tell Joonmyun when coming back home. He couldn’t admit he had hanged around in Donghae’s house the whole evening.  

But when Sehun stood up, Donghae grabbed his arm just to pull him back on the sofa. “You know, you could sleep here as well.” The man suggested quietly, playing with the younger boy’s slim fingers. Sehun smiled shyly. “Yeah…but I guess that’s not a wise thing to do, now when everyone’s already angry.” “It’s just a few hours and then it is morning, right? I could swear your group mates don’t care whether you spend it in your bed or my bed.” Donghae smiled quietly, wiping the hair from in front of Sehun’s eyes. Sehun blushed and looked down shyly. To be honest, there was nothing he wanted more than stay the night with this man.

“I-I…but I should inform them. And how? Should I just call Joonmyun and tell I’m at your place?” “Well, why not?” “He would ing kill me! He’s like a mother to me, he would never let me…” “Sehun. You’re already in your twenties. You have all the rights to decide on these things. And I could drive you to your schedules tomorrow! Please…” Donghae practically begged Sehun, holding his fingers tightly.

However, Sehun’s sense of responsibility won this time and Donghae insisted on at least giving him a ride back to the dorm. The couple gave each other the goodbye kisses already in Donghae’s hallway, realising that it would not be safe to do so in front of the EXO dorm.

The two idols, however, had no idea what was waiting for them in front of the dorm.

“Is that…?” “It can’t be!” “It is!” Both men sighed out when they were approaching the dorm’s location at one completely ordinary side street. It could be seen from a distance that there were people standing in front of the dorm. Sasaeng fans.

Donghae made an emergency turn to the closest empty parking space along the street. The two idols looked at each other, both unsure what they should be doing. “Since when…” “We shouldn’t…” Both men started at the same time, staring at the immovable group of girls from distance. “You can’t drive in there…they might see you and spread so much rumours.” Sehun said quietly, taking off his seat belt. “I won’t let you go past them by yourself. They do not behave like normal people, remember that.” Donghae answered immediately, forcing Sehun’s seat belt back on. “But the safety guard is in there.” Their eyes met for one more time, going through a voiceless conversation. Finally Donghae sighed and turned the engine back on.

“Send a message for someone. We’re going back to my place.”