Hyukjae has never been so glad for the rush of customers that fill the shop during finals before. Especially since that group of customers also comes with his own finals he has to prepare for. But with the shop being full, Donghae is given little choice other than to take up Hyukjae’s repeated offers to sit behind the counter with him. 

Hyukjae has taken to giving Donghae a riddle in person nowadays, with Donghae usually answering Hyukjae right as he prepares to leave. Hyukjae has purposely been choosing more difficult riddles and watching out of the corner of his eyes that Donghae isn’t searching up the answers. 

He's gotten a few good conversations out of the riddles he's given to Donghae, learning little bits about Donghae along the way. They're nothing groundbreaking, but things like how old the other man is (they're the same age) and what Donghae's favourite food is (doritang chicken) are all very valuable information.

He’s also caught Yesung talking to Donghae quite a few times, but Hyukjae has enough respect not to eavesdrop. 

“I have a difficult riddle for you today,” Hyukjae declares one day as he hands Donghae his drink. Donghae looks up at him, intrigued. 

“Oh?”

“Yes,” Hyukjae says. “I had been looking for difficult riddles and I think I found one that will stump you.”

“Well,” Donghae says, resting his chin in his hand. “I’m very good at riddles. A hidden talent I wasn’t aware of until you started giving me them.”

“Oh I know you’re good,” Hyukjae says. “But this one is difficult.”

“Well then, do tell,” he says.

“Okay,” Hyukjae says, rubbing his hands together. “This one is pretty long. So a farmer goes to a market and purchases a wolf, a goat, and a cabbage. On his way home, the farmer gets to a river and rents a boat. But the farmer can only carry himself and only one of his purchases on the boat with him: the wolf, the goat, or the cabbage. If left together, the wolf would eat the goat, or the goat would eat the cabbage. How does he get everything to the other side of the river?”

Hyukjae finishes and looks down at Donghae, who blinks blankly at him.

“I think I’m going to have to write that down,” he says. He rummages through his bag and pulls out a plain black notebook, flipping to an empty page. “Farmer has three items, wolf, cabbage, and goat. Can only carry one at a time across the river. And if the goat is left with…”

“The wolf, if the goat is left with the wolf, it will be eaten. And if the cabbage is left with the goat, the cabbage will be eaten as well.”

He watches as Donghae scribbles the information down. “But if the cabbage is left with the wolf, nothing will happen?”

“Yeah,” Hyukjae says. Donghae inhales through his teeth and lets it out in a sigh.

“Well, this one is significantly longer than any other riddle you’ve given me.”

“I’m hoping to stump you,” Hyukjae says, unable to keep the glee out of his voice. 

“Ahh, we’ll see,” he says. Hyukjae grins, watching over Donghae’s shoulder as the man draws two parallel squiggly lines for a river and doodles three figures that vaguely resemble a cabbage, a goat, and a wolf. Drawing does not seem to be one of Donghae’s many talents, but the little scribble drawings were endearing to Hyukjae nonetheless. 

He’s beginning to think anything that Donghae does is going to be endearing to him, no matter how annoying he would think it was on any other person. But such is his life at this point, so he just kind of submits himself to his fate.

Hyukjae glances over at Donghae periodically as he works. He often sees Donghae chewing on his lip, as he scribbles away. One time he glances over to see Donghae scratching at the back of his neck, his sleeve riding up just enough for Hyukjae to see a peak of the fading yellow-green discolouration of the bruise on his wrist. If Hyukjae hadn’t been looking for it, he would have missed it, especially since he suspects Donghae is wearing some sort of concealer over the darker parts of the bruise. It makes his blood boil at the sight of it, but unless Donghae trusts him with the knowledge of those bruise's origins, there’s nothing he can do about this.

“I got it,” Donghae declares triumphantly, snapping Hyukjae out of his thoughts.

“What?” Hyukjae says. He glances at the clock. “That only took you fifteen minutes.”

“Which is fourteen minutes too long, because that’s how long it took me to realize the key to solving it,” Donghae says. Hyukjae steps closer, looking at the paper covered in scribbles, with the words “BRING THINGS BACK” written in large underlined letters.

“Well? What’s the answer, then?”

Donghae flips to a new page of his notebook, once again drawing out a river. This time he opts to draw three circles instead of his terrible renditions of the items, labelling each one with a ‘W’, ‘C’, and ‘G’. 

“Okay, so first the farmer brings the goat across the river,” he says, drawing an arrow to show that the circle labelled ‘G’ has now moved to the other side of the river. “Then the farmer goes back and takes the cabbage across.” He once again draws an arrow from the circle labelled ‘C’ to the other side of the river.

“Then, the farmer brings the goat back on his way to get the wolf, leaving only the cabbage,” he says, drawing in his arrows. “He gets the wolf and leaves the goat behind. Then he goes back to get the goat.”

He finishes off his explanation by circling all three of his circle-items, which are now on the other side of the river.

“That’s correct, right?” Donghae asks.

Hyukjae nods. “Though your drawing leaves something to be desired.”

“Mm,” Donghae says, looking down at his notebook. “It does look a little like a spider web, doesn’t it?”

Hyukjae shudders.

“Not a fan of spiders?”

“Bugs in general,” Hyukjae says. Donghae nods, looking back down at his drawing. He scribbles all over it.

“Is that better?” he asks, looking very proud of himself. Hyukjae can’t help but chuckle.

“Well, now you’ve ruined your pretty river! Unlike spiders, rivers are great," Hyukjae says, mentally berating himself. Really intelligent conversation fodder you've offered, ing 'rivers are great'.

Donghae doesn't seem at all perturbed by his awkwardness, because he grins. "I love any large body of water. Especially the Han river, it's so pretty at night. And even prettier at sunrise."

"Really?" Hyukjae says. "I don't think I've ever woken up early enough to see that." 

Hyukjae is not a morning person at all: he would most definitely wake up at two in the afternoon if left to his own devices. 

"It's beautiful in the morning," Donghae says. "When there's nobody around and you are alone with your thoughts and the view. And I really like going on the morning of New Year's to watch the sunrise, because it's such a beautiful start to the year. It's as if the view will carry you throughout the year… I've always wanted to see it with someone, but no one's ever willing to go out so early on the first of January."

"We could watch this New Year's sunrise together," Hyukjae blurts out before his brain can really catch up to what his mouth had said. Then he looks away because that was far too bold of a proposition for someone he's just started to get to know. But Donghae looks up and him and beams, eyes crinkling and pearly white teeth showing. 

God, Hyukjae is never going to get used to that smile. It will knock him down every damn time. 

“Really? I would love that,” he says. “Only if you want to though. I do normally go alone because my boyfriend thinks it’s stupid.”

Hyukjae clenches his fist to keep from reacting outwardly in another way.

It’s the first time Donghae has actually mentioned a boyfriend. But of course, Hyukjae had already known there was a significant other involved, given the bruises he sees, more often than he wants. 

And to know that Donghae’s boyfriend also tells him that the things he enjoys are stupid, well. That man better hopes Hyukjae never meets him. 

“I would love to,” he says. “That’s what friends do, right?”

“Speaking of friends,” Yesung says from behind him, and Hyukjae jumps, unable to stop himself from yelping. He scowls at Yesung, who is draped over his shoulder. But the scowl quickly fades when he hears Donghae chuckling—he can’t stay mad if Donghae is laughing.

Yesung looks equally delig