Hyukjae couldn’t believe that this was his first time going to the Physio building on his own. Then again, considering his own efforts in getting to know the professor better, maybe it wasn’t just Donghae’s fault that they literally knew nothing else about each other.

 Also, it was also going to be the first time he’d be seeing Donghae in a while. 

Luckily, he’d managed to get most of his homework and studying done for the week, so he could (hopefully) spend the weekend at Donghae’s place again after his session later.

It was the day of Phase 2 of the experiment, and it would be a lie to say that he wasn’t nervous at all, even if it wouldn’t be his first time. Joy had emailed him again to say that his slot was allocated at seven in the evening, and since Hyukjae’s last class ended at three, that gave him quite a bit of time to go back, wash up, and get ready.

He thought of going over to visit Donghae a little earlier in the day and maybe hang out at his office, catch some dinner, and stay for as long as he was permitted to. But since it had been days since he last met Donghae, he wanted to dress a little nicer than his regular t-shirts and jeans. By the time he was dressed, he realised that he had just a little over two hours left before his slot at Prof Choi’s place if he hurried.

Takeout it was. It took a while trying to figure out what Donghae liked to eat (another thing Hyukjae still didn’t quite know about Donghae), but he figured that ramen and tteokbokki would be the fastest and universally safest choice for anyone. Not knowing which toppings Donghae liked either, Hyukjae just got one of each and hoped for the best.

Then, he took the 15-minute walk over to the Physio building to meet his professor.

He never told Donghae ahead of time because he wanted to surprise him at his office. Joy did sort of mention that even fewer volunteers opted in for this ion project (Hyukjae wasn’t greatly surprised) so the professors should theoretically still be at their offices instead of at the lab.

Hyukjae stepped into the building and was pleasantly surprised to see that Donghae was already there, waiting at the entrance, with a soft smile on his face. Was he waiting for him? Had he seen him coming? Did Donghae really have telepathic skills after all?

, he looks so y in those glasses. 

“P-Professor?” Hyukjae hurried up to him. “H-Hi, were you waiting for me?”

Donghae grinned when he saw the slight blush on Hyukjae’s face as he came closer to him. He was in a teasing mood. “Why? Who else did you think I was waiting for?”

Hyukjae bit his lower lip and pouted softly. “I hope it’s not Prof Choi.”

“Oh?” Donghae leaned closer and smiled even wider, a playful glint in his eyes. “Why would you think I was waiting for Prof Choi?”

“B-Because of the… experiment later on?” Hyukjae asked softly, the pout still on his face. “Maybe you were waiting for him to take you out for dinner before the research.” 

The student then tried hiding the bag of takeout behind him, but the professor just laughed and gently tapped Hyukjae on the nose. “Well, luckily he didn’t, else then I’d have to cancel on him because a special someone seems to have surprised me with… dinner?”

Hyukjae looked up rather hopefully and was met with Donghae’s playful grin. He blushed and held out the bag of takeout to the professor. “It’s nothing much, just some rabokki I grabbed on the way here,” he said shyly. “It’s not fancy or anything. I-I hope you like rabokki?”

“I like anything you bring for me.” Donghae chuckled and took the takeout bag from the student, letting his fingers brush lightly against Hyukjae’s. Hyukjae immediately ducked his head to hide a blossoming smile on his face. If it weren’t for the receptionist he’d suddenly caught sight of seemingly texting on her phone at her desk, he’d have leant forward to plant a soft kiss on the professor’s lips. 

Still, Donghae didn’t particularly want anyone else to know about their relationship, so he had to keep his interactions with Donghae fairly casual. Unless Donghae made the first move in front of someone, Hyukjae was going to assume that no one else was supposed to know.

“I-I didn’t know what toppings you liked, so I got one of each,” Hyukjae said, shifting his weight onto the other leg as he spoke. “Y-You know, we actually don’t know much about each other’s favourite foods.”

“I know you love anything and everything strawberry,” Donghae said with a wink. “And ramen with an egg, and kimchi pancakes. I think that’s enough for me to make sure you never go hungry in my house.” 

Hyukjae laughed and quickly covered his mouth to hide his gums. Donghae grinned back at him then gestured for him to follow him in, so Hyukjae did. As he passed by the receptionist’s desk, the girl looked up from her phone and smiled brightly at him in greeting. However, she didn’t say anything to him, probably because it was fairly obvious that Donghae was the one bringing him in.

Hyukjae sure hoped that it meant Donghae had indeed been purposely waiting for him at the front entrance. The thought of it made his insides feel all warm and fuzzy.

“Have you been inside here before?” Donghae asked as he led Hyukjae into the office area. “I don’t think you have.”

“No. I’ve only been to the lab in the next building,” Hyukjae answered. He passed by a few closed rooms he assumed belonged to the faculty Dean and other senior professors before coming to a more open area that he instantly recognised having seen in Donghae’s stories. Especially Donghae’s seat, which was right next to the window and still had a huge bouquet of half-dead, yellowish-looking roses sticking out of an awkward too-small vase on his desk.

“Welcome to my humble, second home,” Donghae suddenly said, a little too close to Hyukjae’s ear and making him jump in surprise. The professor’s free hand sneaked down to grab the student’s hand and gave it a light squeeze. “Have you eaten?”

“Not yet,” Hyukjae answered with a smile, squeezing Donghae’s hand back in return. There didn’t seem to be anyone else in the office space with them, and Hyukjae wondered if he could perhaps sneak a kiss before anyone came back. “Where are the other professors?”

“They’re all in class,” Donghae said, tugging Hyukjae in the direction of his desk. “Only Kyu is here.”

“Where?” Hyukjae looked around. He didn’t see anyone else.

“Somewhere,” Donghae answered with a roll of his eyes. “I told him not to say anything stupid while you were around so maybe he went off sulking.”

Now’s the time, Hyukjae thought, his grip on Donghae’s hand tightening. He stopped walking and called out to Donghae. “Prof…”

“Hmm?”

Donghae let out an exclamation of surprise when Hyukjae quickly pressed a kiss against his cheek. His lips immediately turned upwards in a playful grin. “I think you missed, my lips are right here…”

“Oh?” Hyukjae chuckled and the professor’s chin with his free hand, pulling him a little closer to peck him on the lips. Their lips were less than a quarter of an inch apart when they both suddenly heard someone clearing his throat loudly. Hyukjae immediately jumped away and blushed hard. Donghae didn’t let go of their hands, though.

“Excuse you, Cho Kyuhyun,” Donghae said at once, turning to stare at his assistant at the door. “You ruined the mood!”

Kyuhyun gasped dramatically. “I did? Oh no, I’m sooooo sorry,” he said, before erupting in laughter. He waved at Hyukjae, who waved back shyly at him. “Hi there, loverboy. Please refrain from doing any y activities in the office while there are people still around. I’m sure you know some public decency, unlike Professor Lee here.”

The professor groaned and just pulled Hyukjae towards his desk. Kyuhyun let out a snigger and followed the duo, even pulling up a chair and sitting down right next to them. “Ooh, what’s in that bag? Is that dinner? Do I get something too? I’m so famished after helping Donghae hyung redo all his computing data in the database because he didn’t know how Excel formulas worked.”

“Go back to your desk before I flick the sauce all over your shirt,” Donghae warned, narrowing his eyes at his assistant. “I thought I told you not to say anything stupid,” he added with a soft whine in the end.

Hyukjae chuckled to himself as Donghae and Kyuhyun continued bickering about dinner and their workload. His eyes travelled to the vase of roses on Donghae’s desk and he let out a fond smile when he saw that the single-stalk roses he’d sent to the professor were still in quite healthy conditions, whereas the larger bouquet of roses, all thirty-one of them, had already mostly dried up despite their stalks being submerged in the slightly murky water. 

Call it pride or whatever, but he just couldn’t help feeling rather smug that his flowers were seemingly lasting longer than Prof Choi’s ones.

Donghae soon realised that Hyukjae’s attention was diverted at the flowers and he stopped arguing with Kyuhyun about whose fault it was that the whole excel sheet of formulas was ruined (definitely not his doing). He set the bag of takeout on the desk, shooed Kyuhyun away (who left anyway after getting a text from Sungmin), and pulled up a chair for Hyukjae. “Hyuk?”

“These roses,” Hyukjae started, reaching for the dried up petals that had withered and fallen onto his desk, “Who gave them to you?”

“My secret admirer,” Donghae answered without skipping a beat. There was a soft, adoring smile on his lips. “I’ve been receiving roses from them for a few weeks now. They really surprised me with a huge bouquet on Monday. I’m kind of sad that it withered faster than the others, though.”

“Your secret admirer, huh?” Hyukjae decided to tease the professor back. “So, should I just leave?”

“Why?” Donghae’s eyebrows shot up to his forehead in surprise. “You just got here!”

“You don’t need me anymore since you’ve already got a secret admirer, do you?”

“W-What are you talking about?” Donghae completely missed the mischievous glint in Hyukjae’s eyes as he started to get flustered. “I thought… Weren’t you…?” 

Donghae bit his lips. He’d been so sure that Hyukjae had been the one sending him the flowers, but what if he had been wrong all along? It never even crossed his mind that he might have guessed the sender wrong, but with Hyukjae acting like this, there could be, perhaps, a smidge of possibility that he wasn’t the one who sent him the roses after all. 

, and he’d put it all out proudly on display on his desk while his not-boyfriend came over to visit!

“You thought?” Hyukjae urged.

“I thought you sent them,” Donghae finally confessed in a small voice. His voice was a little shaky. Almost unnoticeable, but Hyukjae heard it. “Weren’t you my ‘secret admirer’?”

“Was I?” Hyukjae asked back softly. He reached out to touch the roses from the big bouquet. “I’m pretty sure I’d remember it if I sent you anything like this.”

Just as Sungmin said, Donghae did think that it was him. However, the fact that the professor sounded like he was doubting himself let Hyukjae know that Donghae had been the one who came to that conclusion on his own, and Kyuhyun had absolutely nothing to do with accidentally spilling the beans to him.

Donghae bit