"I'm home!" announced Hyukjae as he approached the counter where Donghae was working. Donghae didn't look up from his computer, though he smiled a little when he felt a kiss on his cheek. "I ordered some pizza, it should be here in a few minutes. I thought we could watch a movie together?"

 

Donghae grimaced. "Can it be another day? I'm kinda tired."

 

"Oh. Okay," Hyukjae said. "Another day it is."

 

Donghae smiled at him with his mouth closed and continued typing.

 

Hyukjae looked at him. It was already the third time Donghae had rejected his plans. A couple of days ago Donghae had started behaving like this. He would only give short answers, never initiating the conversation. Hyukjae couldn't figure out what was going on, but he thought maybe he was pressuring him. It sounded odd, but maybe Donghae needed his space?

 

A few hours later, after an awkward pizza dinner, Donghae entered the room where Hyukjae was resting.

 

"Hyuk..."

 

"Hm?"

 

"Heechul hyung invited me to spend the night at his apartment... see you tomorrow?" 

 

"Uh... sure. Yeah, have fun." Donghae smiled at him and went to get his phone charger. "Wait, you're leaving now?"

 

"Yeah." Hyukjae nodded slowly, a slight frown on his face. "Bye!"

 

“Drive safely.”

 

Hyukjae gulped. Maybe Donghae needed more space than he thought.

 

He sighed when he felt the door close. The previous days he hadn't given the matter much thought. But now he was starting to feel a little hurt and just plain lonely without Donghae being his playful self. 

 

Was Donghae angry at him? But he hadn't done anything that he knew of. 

 

He pulled out his phone and texted Kyuhyun.

 

Kkyu

Can I come to your place?

No.

Just kidding

Sure, I'm not doing anything anyways

Did something happen?

No... Donghae is going to be out
tonight and I don't wanna be alone.

Ok

See you~

Bring some food

____________

 

Donghae arrived at the apartment the next day and was surprised not to see Hyukjae there. It was Sunday, there was no reason to go out. 

 

He sighed. He wanted to talk to Hyukjae. He wasn't behaving like a good boyfriend, at least not like a rational one. He was avoiding Hyukjae on purpose and he wanted to tell him why, even if it was embarrassing to explain.

 

Hyukjae came home an hour later with some bags in his hand. He went to look for Donghae, found him using his phone on the bed.

 

"Hyuk… hi."

 

Hyukjae smiled at him and lifted the bag.

 

"I brought pancakes."

 

"Oh? Where did you buy them?"

 

"Kyuhyun gave them to me last night."

 

Huh. Great. Any urge Donghae had to talk to him had suddenly vanished. He tried not to seem affected. "You were with Kyuhyun last night?"

 

"Hm. I was bored so I went to his apartment and helped him cook."

 

"Ah."

 

Hyukjae laughed at the lack of an actual response. 

 

"Well, I'll leave them in the microwave if you wanna heat them up."

 

"Thanks." Donghae looked at him for a second. 

 

Hyukjae nodded and left the room.

 

Donghae knew it was stupid, but he felt his mood was ruined every time Hyukjae mentioned Kyuhyun. And, for the past few weeks, Hyukjae did that all the time. Donghae adored Kyu, loved his friend, but he felt like he was pushing Hyukjae away from him. He buried his head in the pillow. He was being irrational and he didn't like it, but he couldn't help but feel that way. All that was left was to try to manage the situation as best as he could.

 

Meanwhile, Hyukjae was trying to connect the dots in the living room. He had seen the younger man's sad eyes when he came into the room, as if he wanted to tell him something. Then, he completely shut down at the mention of... pancakes? And it was the weirdest thing, because Donghae wasn’t a ‘silent treatment’ kind of person. Quite the contrary.

 

He didn't like him cooking with other people? It didn't make sense. Was he upset because he didn't let him know he was going out? Could be… but it didn't explain his behavior the preceding days. Ugh. He wanted to talk to him. But he could tell he wasn't in the mood to talk. He stood up and went to their bedroom again.

 

"Hey, Hae... do you wanna go see a movie tomorrow?"

 

"Hm... I don't know, Hyuk. Have things to do." 

 

"Please?"

 

"Why don't you go with someone else?"

 

"Like who?"

 

"Like Kyuhyun... you'd rather go with him than me anyway, wouldn't you?" he muttered.

 

"Donghae..." laughed Hyukjae softly. "I wanna go with you, that's why I asked you. Wait. Oh my god." Donghae rolled his eyes and got up from the bed to leave the room. "Wait!"

 

"I wanna leave..." he whined when Hyukjae tried to block the door with his body. "I don't wanna talk about it, Hyuk."

 

"Hae… come on. Talk to me."

 

Donghae folded his arms.

 

"Fine. I'm jealous. Let me go."

 

"Donghae."

 

"Agh, Hyukjae...” he looked at the ceiling before letting it all out. “For the past two weeks you've been spending all your time with him!” Hyukjae looked at him without blinking. “We used to hang out the three of us together but now you go to his place whenever you want, you hang out together, you have your jokes that I don't understand anymore. And at first I would ask you how it went and you would answer me in detail, but when you started saying 'nothing special' or 'the usual' with a smile on your face... I don't know why but I felt so jealous... You two have something special now and it's great that you've become so close but... I don't know. I feel like…” he tried explaining it with his hands “I feel like you prefer that 'something special' to ours now. Or that in the future you will." 

 

Hyukjae pouted. Donghae looked down at his shoes.

 

"You really believe that?" he said softly. "That my friendship with Kyuhyun can be the same as what we have?"

 

"I mean... not exactly the same, but... ugh... that's why I didn't want to talk about this. Can we stop? I feel stupid and sad..."

 

Hyukjae laughed and hugged him.

 

"It's not stupid. I get what you mean. Because you and I were just friends for years too, right?"

 

"Yeah," Donghae said with a pout and leaned his head on his shoulder. "We also started getting together more than with the rest of our group, and we went to each other’s houses..."

 

Hyukjae still didn’t know how on Earth did Donghae believe he wanted to be with Kyuhyun in that way. But he did kinda understand where he was coming from. 

 

"Well... you'll be happy to know that I don't have romantic feelings for Kyu. And never will," he said and started smiling. It was so strange, having to clarify that.

 

Donghae smiled as well. "I told you, it was stupid. But thank you," he said quickly.

 

"And, Donghae... I don’t think I’ll have something similar to what I have with you, with anyone. I don't even know if it's possible. So don't worry about that."

 

Donghae laughed before snuggling a little against his boyfriend. Then, he broke away and looked at him apologetically.

 

"I'm sorry I didn't talk to you. Seriously, I was only angry the first day, but then you kept mentioning Kyu more and more and I didn't feel like talking. And it was so embarrassing to bring it up."

 

"Poor baby," said Hyukjae while holding his cheeks with both hands. “Don’t worry about it. Next time tell me what’s going on, though. I’m not used to Cold Donghae being cold and all.”

 

“Yeah, me neither.”