When he first found Blaze, his adorable baby dragon, Donghae had been ecstatic. To him, his baby was the most harmless creature to have existed as he had watched Blaze jumped out of a bush and toddled over to Donghae that day just as he was walking from the bus stop to his school. When he had picked the purplish red dragon, he found that, despite the seemingly scaly and rough skin, Blaze was warm when touched and Donghae just had to give it a hug and then proceeded to put him in his bag.

“From now on, Donghae would be Blaze’s mommy,” he personally declared, cooing at the dragon.

Hyukjae’s first meeting with Blaze went the right opposite of that.

After that initial scream that triggered the dragon into spitting a small flame, Hyukjae went pale and could not even bring himself to touch Blaze when Donghae asked him to apologize. He could understand why Hyukjae was scared – after all, how often do you see a baby dragon? Null – so Donghae thought he would give him a bit of time to adjust to the idea. He still hoped it would not take too long because Blaze needed a daddy as well and Donghae loved taking care of all their pets together with Hyukjae more rather than all by himself – despite all the protesting his best friend made because even though his mouth ran faster than his hands, Hyukjae was good with pets too.

As it turned out, Hyukjae would have to get along sooner with Blaze rather than later.

Donghae, along with his mother and brother, would be celebrating Lunar New Year in their hometown. Although he was taking Droopy – the adorable puppy he had saved in that one rainy day – Donghae could not possibly take Blaze with him, as much as he wanted to. It was too risky and besides, Droopy and Blaze had not really gotten along well, no matter the number of lectures Donghae had given them about being a family.

Thus, a day before he was leaving, Donghae brought Blaze over to Hyukjae’s house without any prior heads up. He knew his best friend would not say no but it was easier this way.

He greeted Hyukjae with a toothy grin when the boy opened the door and, before Hyukjae could say anything, placed Blaze in his arms and dropped a supply bag on the tile floor.

Hyukjae seemed to have frozen up, eyes as wide as golf balls staring at Donghae. It did not seem like he was breathing. Blaze, on the other hand, had hooked his chin over Hyukjae’s shoulder, his breath causing the hair on Hyukjae’s nape to flutter.

“Just for a week. Give him 4 meals a day, about 100g of red meat or intestines each time. I brought along his small water dispenser and he knows how to use it now – Oh, you should have seen how quickly our baby had learned. He’s so smart! Anyway, just fill it up and he’ll drink when he wants,” placing his hands on each of Hyukjae’s cheeks, Donghae tugged himself slightly closer and smiled, “I know you can do this, Hyukkie. I’m counting on you.”

With a wink and a light on Blaze’s smooth, scaly back, “Mommy’s going to miss you, but you’ll have fun with daddy.” He shouted out an ‘I love you’ as he ran out the gate, hoping it would really all turn well.

The week that followed started with lots of grumbling and caps locked words in Hyukjae’s texts to him. Every hour there seemed to be something new for Hyukjae to complain about or ask on. Donghae was not to concern though because with how Hyukjae kept on asking how to do things right for Blaze, the more Donghae knew that his best friend was growing to care for their baby dragon.

But then the multiple texts stopped coming by the middle of the week and Donghae did grow concerned then.

Hyukjae started replying only sporadically, replying Donghae once or twice and then going offline for hours. When asked about Blaze, he said it was all fine. There were no more complaints coming in, nor was there questions about how to do this or how to do that… It was too sudden that Donghae just knew something big must have happened.

Imagine the shock he was in when he came back – entering Hyukjae’s house with the passcode he knew and going straight to his friend’s room after greeting Hyuk’s mom (who was completely used to and okay with Donghae coming in as he did) – and the first thing he saw was the charred and black lining of the bed’s headboard and the various burn marks on what was used to be a white wood bed frame.

The only thing that seemed to be unaffected was the seemingly new white bedcover.

The second shock came when Donghae saw, on the other side of the room, Blaze who was mid-rolling on the floor and right into Hyukjae’s waiting arms, who scooped the baby dragon up and hugged him with one of the widest gummy smiles Donghae had seen on him.

“You did it, Blaze! Daddy knew you could! I am so proud. Want to try it again?”

A soft howl came from Blaze, the first one Donghae had ever heard coming from his baby and it made him gasp, garnering the attention from the other two in the room.

“Hae! Blaze, look who’s back! Mommy!”

Hyukjae placed Blaze on the floor before walking over to Donghae, the dragon toddling next him.

“Aww… Baby!” Donghae crouched down to pick Blaze, unable to stop himself from cooing, “I miss you! Was that the first sound he made, Hyukkie?”

“No. He’s been making these little noises and I’m slowly learning what each one means. That one you just heard is his excited and cheerful howl.”

Donghae pouted, sad that he missed Blaze’s first howl.

After a minute of a warm hug, Donghae allowed the dragon to stand on his own and attacked Hyukjae with a hug, wrapping his arms tight around his friend’s neck.

“Hyukkie! What happened?”

He felt a hand patting his back and a soft laugh in his ear.

“Well, you see what happened to my bed.”

“And you’re not mad at Blaze? Or…” Donghae took a step back and looked into Hyukjae’s eyes, “At me? I’m so sorry it happened!”

“No, not anymore. I couldn’t! After I put out the fire, I had Blaze sitting next to his water dispenser and had this talk with him about safety and how it was wrong of him to just spit fire because he missed you. He just had this… saddest, reprimanded look on his face that I think he learned from you – because that’s what you always do too when I talk to you about the same thing – and that was when he made his first sound! Oh, Hae, he made this sad, sad, sad long, soft howl and looked at me with those teary eyes… I lost. He was too adorable, and I could not be angry with him. Kind of with how I am with you really, come to think of it…”

“Okay so… You gave him a ‘dad’ talk?”

“…Sort of?”

Donghae laughed then, relief at the turn of events. Now he knew they could have fun taking care of their newest baby