2

Growing

“Ah, that stings!” Hyukjae cringed as he softly touched his bottom lip. He lowered his hand, leaned on the sink and looked at his face. His lip was busted, he had a black eye and a large gash in his eyebrow that would certainly leave a scar. Damn it, he hadn’t looked this bad in a few months.

A drop of blood fell down from his eyebrow onto the sink. Hyukjae cursed again and grabbed some paper towels to clean it.

He was so busy cleaning that he didn’t hear the door open. He turned around when he heard a little cough. There stood Donghae who was now looking at his face with an open mouth and slightly anxious expression. “You’re bleeding!” He incredulously called out as if he hadn’t expected that when he walked in the bathroom.

“Yeah.” Hyukjae answered sheepishly.

Donghae immediately walked to him and grabbed a few paper towels and slowly pressed it on the gash. Hyukjae hissed but didn’t stop him. He began wondering when they had gotten so close that Donghae would take care of his wounds. Even Siwon and Kyuhyun didn’t do that unless it was really bad.

He and Donghae had been friends for two months now but they were a lot closer than Hyukjae had ever been with anyone. And he found out that he actually liked being close to Donghae. There was just one problem… Even though he was physically close to Donghae, he wasn’t emotionally. Donghae let him touch him all he wanted but he never told Hyukjae what was bothering him and something was bothering Donghae more and more, Hyukjae knew that.

Donghae diligently worked on Hyukjae’s gash but he slowly lowered his arm when the bleeding still hadn’t stopped after two minutes.

“Can you please sit down on the toilet seat?” He asked while throwing another paper towel in the dustbin.

“Sure,” Hyukjae seemingly carelessly pushed the door of the toilet stall open with his foot. He had turned around just in time to see Donghae roll his eyes at the display of his nonchalance. He showed Donghae a cocky grin but sat down anyway.

Donghae diligently began to stanch the wound while Hyukjae just watched Donghae’s chest rise and fall slowly.

Suddenly there was a loud bang coming from outside the stall, Donghae made a slight jump in fright while Hyukjae only raised his eyebrows.

“God, it reeks in here!” They both heard a distinctive voice yell but Hyukjae could barely hear the answer: “What did you expect? Seungho used him like a knife sharper.” Before the calmer voice, that Hyukjae recognized as Siwon, called out: “Hyuk, are you here?”

Donghae pulled his hand away. And immediately, Hyukjae had a vague feeling that he didn’t like that, he rather had Donghae close to him. This shocked him and it took him longer to reply than normally.

That caused the stall door to be harshly pulled open by Kyuhyun revealing both Donghae and Hyukjae. Donghae seemed a bit startled. He hastily pushed the paper towels in Kyuhyun’s hand and mumbled: “He’s hurt so take care of him.” Before leaving the stall as quickly as he could.

Siwon, Kyuhyun and Hyukjae watched him go. Kyuhyun and Siwon were stunned while Hyukjae narrowed his eyes. He did not voice his worry but it was definitely there.

Half an hour later Hyukjae looked acceptable enough to walk around in the school. He was set on finding Donghae. He had looked in their classroom, other bathrooms and in the canteen but Donghae was nowhere to be seen.

Hyukjae found Donghae sitting outside. He was playing with the food from his lunchbox and he seemed deep in thought.

“Here you are.” Hyukjae said while sitting down next to Donghae.

Donghae only nodded but didn’t answer verbally. Hyukjae sighed, it seemed like Donghae was getting more depressed by the second. And Hyukjae had the feeling that that wasn’t just because Jessica had moved away.

“Hyukjae?” He suddenly asked and Hyukjae was startled but quickly replied: “Yes?”

“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

Hyukjae had no idea where this question suddenly came from but he smiled: “Can’t you tell by my fighting? I’m obviously the middle child.”

When Donghae shot him a questioning look, he tried to explain: “Well, you see… it’s like the older sibling has been alone and had all the attention to himself while, you know, the youngest sibling… well is the youngest sibling and gets always attention because that sibling is the baby of the family… And I- I didn’t get any attention, I guess.”

Donghae nodded as if he understood the rambling story that Hyukjae had told him.

“So you fight because you’re the middle child?” Donghae seriously asked.

“No, no, no!” Hyukjae quickly corrected. “It was only a joke, Donghae, and a bad one at that.”

“Oh…, okay.” Donghae stared at his food again and then he put it away while he only ate a little bit. Instead he grabbed a bottle with bitter lemon out of