On any typical day, you would see my apartment being far too crowded for my own taste at times. Of course, my time with Donghae still was mostly spent by ourselves.

I was starting to see more of a change in Donghae the more he hung out with Sora. I mostly blamed how much they watched together and I feared what else they watched when I was away.

Today, while sitting on sofa with Choco on my lap, I was staring at the other human occupant of the apartment as he had stated as I wandered back home from work that he was ready to try cooking.

Fear flaring up on me but he (and Sora before disappearing back home) had reassured me that he had paid enough attention to my sister and cooking shows to try it out as well.

I sighed as I thought about how we hadn’t really done much after I confessed my feelings to him as I was cast off to the living room alone with my thoughts. I could see that there was a certain extra element to how we went on about life but it didn’t go further than that. But I don’t think I was ready to move beyond it anyways.

I was still having a hard time understanding that this cat I had run into half a year ago was suddenly this man that I knew I treasured more and more with each and every passing day. Setting Choco down as I headed towards the island separating the small kitchen and watching as he was beginning to cook, mistakes and all, a meal that I wasn’t too sure how it would turn out.

He was cutting something when I suddenly heard a yelp as he hunched over in his position.

“Hae, is everything okay?” I asked as I started to walk towards him.

“It’s…. It’s nothing,” he stated, cradling one of his arms. I could see that he had nicked his finger a little as a droplet of blood had begun it’s descent from it.

Without a second thought, I took his hand with mine and quickly shoved the bleeding finger into my mouth. Eyes closing as on the blood and coated it with my saliva in hopes to cease the bleeding, I suddenly realized what I was doing and quickly took his hand out of my mouth and held it with mine for a second blinking a little too hard as my heart had suddenly decided it needed to escape my chest with its wild beating. “Erm… I’m sorry. Here,” I pulled him towards the sink and let cold water run against his finger and made it actually cease the bleeding it with more than I could have with my mouth.

After a minute of that, I let go of his hand and tried to keep  my gaze away from his. A soft thanks was mumbled by him and I had proceeded to go  back to my seat to let him continue his cooking.

I didn’t notice that he had taken to placing his wounded finger in his mouth as I had walked away.

Placing a plate in front of me and then one for himself, we sat in the dining table about half an hour later. I couldn’t help but stare at the contents of the plates in mild fear.

“Hae, are you sure this is edible?”

He looked at his food, cocked his head to the side and lightly let his lips protrude in confusement. “It didn’t look this way when Sora made it yesterday…” Proceeding to prod away at the food in his plate, his frown never leaving his face, I couldn’t help but chuckle at the sight.

“Well, we’ll ever know until we try it,” I stated as I grabbed a bit of his experiment with my chopsticks. Placing the green mixture of whatever this was into my mouth and slowly chewing on it, getting a taste for it, I was soon relieved to find out that the food in my mouth was edible. “Oh! This is nice!”

Donghae, seeing that I kept shoving more of his food into my mouth, proceeded to do the same and his frown was soon replaced with a look of relief as he had found that it wasn’t too bad as well.

We sat there eating, chatting away about the taste and he had soon commandeered me to sit on the couch and relax after we were done as he was to clean the dishes.

Turning on the tv to some mindless show, I could soon hear that the faucet had grown silent and suddenly found Donghae’s legs being draped over mine. His face leaning against my shoulder as his hands had wrapped themselves against my arm.

“Thank you for dinner,” I said as I pat at his head with my free hand. I could feel him nod into my shoulder quietly. “I promise that with more practice, you can make that meal great and many more too that I hope to try in the future!”

Feeling my arm being squeezed as if in agreement, we had settled into for a night of just watching mindless shows as my hands slowly away at the legs of this wonderful creature by my side.

-----

Running around during work, trying to get things settled quickly for a broadcast, I had suddenly spotted a wild Kyuhyun wandering my way.

“Hey! Sorry, Kyu, I’m terribly busy right now. I can’t hang out for too long,” I said as I picked up packets of paper from various people around the office causing Kyuhyun to trail along beside me in a rather slow and bored pace.

“Hyukjae, I really cannot comprehend why you stick around in this dump…”

I had to shush him and hope that no one had heard his words as I sighed.

“I’m serious,” he continued, placing his arms behind his head, “I could probably pull a few strings and find you a much better job if you want.”

Shooting him a glare, I continued to nod and smile my way through my colleagues dropping off whatever pile of papers that needed to be handed to them. “What brings you here, Kyuhyun?”

I could hear him sighing behind me as he had failed to get me riled up at work. I’ll have to scold him harshly whenever we’re alone but I can’t deny that he’s picked my interest with his offer.

“Well, I got a pair of tickets to the aquarium and I figured since I don’t have a particular ‘special someone’ in my life at the moment,” he wiggled his eyebrow at me as I had stopped, “maybe a date would sound nice to you.”

“Kyu, I hate to tell you this but in no way, shape or form have I ever been attracted to you,” I said a little too bluntly.

A loud guffaw suddenly filled the room causing multiple people to stare at our direction. Having doubled over from his laugher, it took him a few seconds to regain his composure and wipe a tear out of his eyes. “As if, Hyukjae! I was talking about a certain companion at your place who was ‘only staying for a few weeks’,” he had air quoted the only a few weeks comment and nudged at my arm with his elbow. “I’m sure it would be greatly appreciated~”

“... Is it that obvious?” I was trying to look everywhere but into Kyuhyun’s questioning eyes as I felt heat suddenly creep up on my face.

“With you? Of course it is! You’ve mellowed out drastically and have even started to become more social or so I hear from your sister.” Another nudge at my arm and he slipped an envelope which I assumed had the tickets in it. “You could use a nice little break too, Hyuk.”

Shooting him a thankful smile, I gave him a half hug before shooing him on his way as I was being scolded by the superiors for taking my sweet time by then.

------

The weekend rolled by and I was eyeing the tickets that sat in the coffee table in front of me. I hadn’t necessarily mentioned it to Donghae that I had gotten these. They expired this weekend so it was pretty much now or never for them to be used.

away at Choco who happily sat in my lap and staring at Donghae who was humming away in the kitchen making another weird concoction, I decided to bring it up while we had lunch.

Finishing up the bright orange food that was today’s lunch, I had cleared my throat snapping Donghae’s attention away from the tv as he sat happily on the couch clinging onto both of his knees against his chest after the meal. He tilted his head questioningly my way to signal that he was paying attention to me and making sure to mute the tv to make his point even further.

“Um… Kyuhyun visited me the other day. He gave me a couple of tickets to the aquarium… I wonder if maybe you wanted to go. We could…  make it a date of sorts or something…” I was running a hand over the back of my head trying to calm down my nerves as my gaze bounced from the quiet tv to Donghae’s face.

In a second, he had bounced from his seat and was soon clinging on to the front of my shirt, “oh! Can we? I’ve always wanted to go to one!” His smile only too bright which caused me to pat at his head lightly, smiling back at him.

“Yeah! Just get ready and we can go whenever you’re--” before even finishing up my sentence, he was already at the door, shoes on and sweater draped on his shoulders ready to go.

“LET’S GO!”

-----

It was a pretty crowded afternoon.

On one side, it was a good thing since Donghae had taken to holding on to my arm for dear life so he wouldn’t get caught up on the fray but on the other, I could see that his anxiety had started to work its way out. Luckily, browsing around row by row filled with tanks of fish, his worries were quickly washed away as his attention was fully focused on the underwater marvels that were right in front of us.

“Oh gosh! Hyuk! It’s a Nemo! Look at the cute little Nemo! And oh! OH! DORY FOUND HIM! Look at them go!”

I couldn’t help but chuckle as he was staring at a tank which housed clownfish and blue tangs amongst many others. Finding Nemo did wind up being one of his favorite movies alongside Titanic. Patting the small of his back, I leaned in to watch the fish happily swimming about next to him. “You do know that that isn’t their real names, don’t you Hae?”

“They will always be Dory and Nemo to me, Hyukjae! Don’t be mean!” Crossing his arms as a pout had suddenly formed on his lips, I couldn’t help but laugh and ruffle his hair before wandering away to another section of the aquarium only to find him clinging on to dear life to my arm a few seconds later once again.

We had run into a cylindrical tank which housed an enormous collection of small silver fish. I couldn’t help but smile as Hae had taken to chasing them around pointlessly in their circles.

“HYUKJAE! Where are they going!? Why are they going around in so many circles with such a rush?”

“Well, it says here that the anchovy like to travel in large groups mostly to avoid being easy prey to those that have a tendency to want to eat them.”

Donghae stopped next to me, slighly out of breath and just kept following the fishy trajectory with his eyes. “I guess since they’re that small they’re pretty easy prey, huh? And there’s so many! I bet many others find them very tasty.”

“Well, we could come up with a few dishes if you’re interested in trying them out.”

Donghae had let out an audible gasp as if I had said something forbidden. “I wouldn’t dare! No! Absolutely not!”

“But Hae, I did give you plenty of fish flavored food back when you were, y’know, and you seemed to like it,” I kept staring at him with an amused look on my face.

“Say no more! Not in front of them!” Storming off to the next section, I chuckled and quickly found my way next to him in the darker section of the aquarium. He was staring at a weird creature with a shell. Bending down to read that it was called a chambered nautilus, I had soon found that Donghae had s his hand around mine tentatively intertwining our fingers together. Smiling to myself, I made sure to tighten my grip of his hand and we remained with our hands holding throughout the entire deep water section.

Finally finding the bigger tank which housed the bigger beings that roamed the ocean, I was having an extremely difficult time trying to keep track of Donghae as he ooh-ed and awww-ed as each huge creature passed in front of him. He had taken a specific interest in the huge manta rays and a turtle that lazily made its way across the glass barrier across from him.

Minutes later, we had found ourselves in an area which Donghae had clearly freaked out too much because he had seen it in one of the dramas with Sora. It was apparently called “I hear your voice” and, clinging tightly to the turtle plush I had gotten for him, he was staring in awe in the middle of the tunnel as a huge grin was on his face as he was staring at sharks, manta rays and huge fish of that type.

He looked so handsome, this kid. The brightest smile in the world which carried with it the sweetest innocence as well. I couldn’t help it when my heart had suddenly begun to thump far too loudly behind the ribs in my chest. I was really, really so grateful to Kyuhyun for allowing us this date and for Donghae for being such a wonderful man.

Noticing that we were practically alone in this area as the rush of people had seemed to have settled, I soon found myself next to him. Our shoulders rubbing against each other lightly and my hand had taken a hold of his. Tearing his gaze away from the shark whale that hovered above us and his bright smile still etched on his face, he gazed at me and blinded me with it instead.

Squeezing his hand and using my free hand to cup his face, I softly brought our faces together and locked our lips against each other. I could feel a soft sigh escape him and his stuffed animal suddenly fall in between our bodies. the front of my shirt with his free hand and tightening his grip on my hand with the other, I could feel his soft yet demanding kisses against my lips.

I had by now taken to run my hand from his cheek to his jaw to the  back of his head and let it roam along his hair as the kiss deepened. Gasping for air into each other’s mouths, lips grazing one another, the light le of the upper lip and then the lower and we had become far too engrossed within each other.

Feeling his tongue suddenly tracing the outline of my lips and prodding at the middle parting of them lightly, I soon gave way for it to enter my mouth as he met his tongue with mine softly and oh so timidly.

With his languid against my tongue, I mused in questioning at how he had learned this. Breaking the grip of our hands apart as we both placed a hand behind the other’s back, I could suddenly feel him groan lightly into my mouth.

I couldn’t deny that this kiss was having far too much strength and that it sent shocks and waves of pleasure that the rest of my body had enjoyed immensely but I quickly snapped out of those thoughts as I realized where we were.

Gently pulling back from the kiss, I could see that Hae still lingered with his lips protruding from his face puckering up against air with his eyes remaining closed. Giggling softly, I leaned back in to give him a small peck on his lips once more and then on his cheek before bringing us both into a tight hug.

His body loosened as he returned my hug and I could hear him sigh happily against my neck. “Thank you so much for such a wonderful date, Hyukjae.”

I could feel him softly drawing circles against my back. Smiling, I could only say a few words back at him, “thank you for being here, Hae.”