a/n: sort of a double update if you haven't read the one posted four days ago!
 HAPPY EUNHAE DAY!!!

FIFTEEN

Donghae is lying face down on his bed, phone clutched in his hand. Every minute that passes by without Hyukjae calling him feels like a lifetime. He knows Mrs Kim will finish work late, he knows that Hyukjae probably does not even have the phone he’d purchased for him yet, but what if he did?

What if he is looking at it right now?

What if he is seeing Donghae added as ‘Your Donghaek’ and frowning and shaking his head?

What if he saw the ‘please come home’ message and felt disgusted by Donghae’s forwardness?

Donghae pulls his pillow over his head and scrunches his eyes shut tight in despair.

He- he doesn’t quite know where everything went wrong.

His phone rings and he snatches it up and answers so fast he doesn’t even see the screen, breathless with anticipation, heart pounding.

‘H-hello?’

‘Wow,’ the caller says, laughing. ‘That was quick!’

‘Siwon,’ Donghae says, so disappointed he wants to cry. ‘I have to go, I’m waiting for a call.’

‘What?’ Siwon’s amusement turns to concern. ‘Who? Is everything okay?’

‘Yeah,’ Donghae says. ‘But- but I’ve gotta go.’

Siwon ignores the fact Donghae wants to end the call.

‘It’s Hyukjae, isn’t it? Has something happened? Are you okay?’

‘I’m fine,’ Donghae says. ‘But Hyukjae- he found out I don’t like candy.’

‘Huh?’ Siwon sounds confused. ‘Donghae, I was worried there was actually a problem.’

‘There is!’ Donghae, who had sat up to answer the phone, lets himself fall bonelessly back down onto the mattress. ‘He got really upset, he said he wants space.’

There’s a silence while Siwon takes this in.

‘And you’re sure it’s because you don’t eat candy?’ he says, finally. ‘You didn’t say or do something stupid?’

‘I didn’t do anything!’ Donghae says despairingly, running a hand over his face. ‘Well, I got snuggling with him but I left the room, and he said I didn’t have to, and then we were having lunch and he was afraid someone would see us, and then he left, and I bought him a phone but now you’re talking to me so he can’t ring even if he wants to!’

Siwon ignores most of his monologue, including the heavy hint to end the call.

‘Did you kiss him again?’

‘What?’ Donghae says. ‘No! I already told you, I didn’t do anything!’

Siwon sighs.

‘Are you sure that’s not the problem?’

Donghae is silent.

‘This guy seems really into you,’ Siwon continues. ‘He’s kissed you, he’s sharing your bed. He tells you it’s okay if you’re when you’re snuggling with him, Donghae it doesn’t get much more obvious than that. And yet for some reason you’re still not together and now he’s upset? Candy seems the least of the reasons he could be pissed off with you.’

‘I haven’t wanted to pressure him,’ Donghae says. ‘Of course I want to be with him! But a few weeks ago he was the one saying I was just a customer.’

‘I can’t help but think you’ve missed something or messed up somehow,’ Siwon says. ‘This whole situation gives me a headache, I can’t even imagine how poor Hyukjae feels.’

‘I already feel like ,’ Donghae snaps back, hurt. ‘You’re making me feel worse! What kind of friend are you?’

‘One that’s willing to comfort you if things don’t work out?’ Siwon says. ‘You know I’d make the drive up there for that.’

Donghae just makes a disgusted noise. ‘I’m hanging up.’

‘I’m kidding,’ Siwon says. ‘If you think back, I’m sure you’ll work out where you went wrong, so-’

Donghae cuts him off and drops his phone back in the pillows, only for Siwon to redial almost instantly. Donghae sends him straight to voicemail, and then when he rings again, turns his phone to silent and just lies there in the darkness, staring up at the ceiling. Hyukjae had only been staying in the apartment for a few days but it already seems so empty without him and Choco. Donghae groans and flings his arm over his eyes. He doesn’t mean to, but he thinks about what Siwon said.

Is he missing something?

Has he actually done something to hurt Hyukjae?

From the very start the confectioner had been sweet and kind to him. More recently though, it sometimes feels like he is deliberately trying to distance himself from Donghae. But he’d kissed him too, and didn’t stop him when Donghae kissed him back!

And what had he meant I hope you find someone else to experiment with?

Donghae rubs his eyes and tries to make sense of it all. Are his own feelings towards Hyukjae not painfully obvious? Even the other customers had commented on their flirting while Donghae was making yet another purchase at the little sweet shop. Does Hyukjae not know that Donghae is head over heels in love with him? Despite all Donghae’s clumsy efforts to make him feel wanted, Hyukjae’s reactions seem somehow very uncertain.

Almost like he’s already been rejected.

What- what has Donghae done to make him feel like that?

It surely can’t be the ing candy!

Thinking about the chocolates and various sweets he’s been given makes Donghae feel a bit guilty. He never really thought about how much effort the confectioner was putting into the little gifts and extras that he gives Donghae. When he’d received out-of-season strawberries, chocolate-dipped and carefully decorated, he’d initially assumed they were being sold to other customers too. When Mrs Kim had raved about whatever cookie-crumb-coated marvel he’d dropped on her desk, he’d given her the shop address thinking everyone could buy a treat like that. Even when he realized that Hyukjae was treating him differently to the other customers, the sweets themselves had been the last thing on his mind, despite his faked enthusiasm. It was the fact Hyukjae was feeding him a piece of marshmallow that made his heart beat fast, not the damn candy!

He tries to think of the various little boxes and bags of sweets he’s been given. In all honesty, he’s never differentiated between the ones he randomly selected from the glass jars in the shop and the others that Hyukjae shyly produced from somewhere behind the counter.

They’re all just in his desk drawers somewhere, or long ago eaten by the receptionist Mrs Kim.

Donghae’s eyes open abruptly.

Hadn’t she said something, once? She’d been acting oddly and returning that fancy box with the blue bow. Donghae had thought she was crazy and wished she’d go away so he could continue to daydream about Hyukjae.

But she’d brought it up again, the night Donghae had cried in front of her as they scrubbed the homophobic slurs off the pavement.

What had she said?

‘Was