Donghae entered the school the next day and was immediately greeted by a grinning Hyukjae. He had been waiting for him. As they walked towards Hae’s locker, he could feel the looks of pity that all the other students were giving him and it was making him really uncomfortable. Damn…I guess news travels fast. The stares were causing him to shrink into himself and he subconsciously hid behind Hyuk, who put a comforting arm around him and shielded him with his blazer. They walked like that to Hae’s locker and to their home room, where they stopped in the door way, mouths opened in shock. 

The room was in discord. Tables and chairs had been pushed out of the way, no doubt by the same two people who were waring in the middle of the room.  

Kyuhyun was on the floor, writhing in pain, whilst Sungmin was straddling his waist and repeatedly pummelling his chest.

“What the ?” Donghae whispered to himself.

“What the hell is going on?” Hyuk asked no one in particular.

Yesung shrugged. “Kyumin fighting. Nothing out of the ordinary.” 

Hyuk and Hae could only shake their heads as they watched the two boys fight. It was stupidly clear that their best friends liked each other. They could only wonder how long they would deny their feelings for each other, but what they failed to realise was that their friend’s situation was a mirror reflection of their own.

“Yah, if you two don’t stop then you’ll get suspended for real.” Heechul, being the oldest out of them all, took it upon himself to remind them. The only reason why they had escaped punishment yesterday was because of their past connection to Mr Park, but he certainly wasn’t going to let it slip a second time. Donghae and Hyukjae took it upon themselves to separate them before anyone else came in and sat them at opposite sides of the room.

“Dude.” Hyuk grinned and Kyuhyun groaned at his friend's smirking face. “The bunny kicked your … again.”

Kyuhyun groaned once more as he stretched his aching neck. “Don’t remind me.”

“What were you even fighting about?”

Kyuhyun mumbled something intelligible as he looked down in his lap, clearly ashamed by the cause, whatever it was. Hyuk leaned in closer, “What did you say?”

“I SLAPPED HIS !” He yelled, his eyes immediately meeting Sungmin’s wide ones. . I can’t believe I just shouted that. He’s gonna kick my again. But Sungmin was secretly a shy person, as Kyu was starting to realise, and he instead flushed a deep pink and turned his attention to the window.

Cute…  

“Do you want to come over again?” Hyuk shyly asked with his hands in his pockets and his eyes glued to the ground. “I mean you don’t have to if you don’t want to but I just thought tha-”

“I’d like to.”

Hyukjae froze, surprised. He didn’t think Donghae would accept his offer to come round so soon. Then a slight blush crept up his face and he coughed awkwardly, before leading the way.

The journey to Hyuk’s house was full of faraway thoughts and awkward glances. Hyuk could not take his eyes off of Donghae’s soft features, and was thankful that the boy was so preoccupied in his own thoughts that he didn’t look up once and catch him staring.

Donghae was too busy having a mental debate with himself to notice the attention he was getting from the same person he was thinking about. He was beating himself up about how readily he had answered, way to make yourself look desperate. He didn’t know what was wrong with him. He had just come out of a relationship and he was already throwing himself at someone else, Hyuk must have thought he was a . But wouldn’t that please him, wouldn’t it make it easier for him to get what he wanted and leave him out for the dogs to chew over the scraps that were left.

To Hyuk’s surprise, he saw that both of his parent’s cars were parked in the driveway. Shrugging to himself, he concluded that they both must have finished early. As they walked through his garden, he couldn’t help but notice Hae’s attention being drawn to the flowers that his mum planted in her spare time. So you like flowers do you, he noted it for later.

Pushing the door open, he loudly announced that he was home, hearing replies from both the kitchen and living room. “Hae’s with me.” He announc