Teenage years! Split this chapter into two parts because it got a bit too long.

And then they were 14, and Donghae thinks he still loves Hyukjae the way he did when they were kids. Or even more, if that was even possible.

One Saturday morning he wakes up to Hyukjae next to him on his bed, his face inches away and suddenly he feels like he can’t breathe. They must have fallen asleep while watching a movie on his laptop the night before, and it’s not like this is the first time they’ve shared a bed. 

But there’s just something different about that day, and Donghae didn’t know why. 

Their legs are tangled, and his head was cushioned on one of Hyukjae’s arms. He should move away, now that he’s awake, but… 

His eyes travel down from the gentle curl of Hyukjae’s eyelashes, down to his cheekbones and nose bridge, and he finds that he cannot look away from Hyukjae’s lips. 

Hyukjae has very defined features, and everything about him is incredibly pretty, even down to his toes. Donghae thinks it’s a wonder how a guy like him doesn’t have people lining up streets after streets just to see him. 

And yet here he is, in Donghae’s bed. Right next to him, and close enough to touch.

Donghae feels his heart spike the way it usually does when he’s about to do something incredibly rash and a little bit crazy. Like the time he decided to ride his bicycle off the hill even though Hyukjae was screaming from the passenger seat behind him to please stop and don’t drive off the hill, please!!!! Or like the time he snuck out of his house by climbing out of the window at 3 in the morning because his parents didn’t want him to pick Hyukjae up at the airport, even though they hadn’t seen each other in weeks since Hyukjae’s family brought him overseas.

Hyukjae is sleeping in Donghae’s bed, and for the first time, Donghae gets an insuppressible urge to kiss him full on the lips.

And it’ll just be like when they were kids, right? After all, they used to kiss each other on the cheeks a lot. It’s okay to want to kiss your best friend on the lips, right? 

So why then is Donghae’s heart booming in his own ears? He wonders if Hyukjae can hear it.

Just when Donghae’s about to close his eyes and lean in, though, Hyukjae suddenly stirs in his sleep. He brings up a hand (the one not trapped under Donghae’s head) to rub his eyes, and breaks into a grin when he sees Donghae in front of him. 

“Hey,” he says, clearly still in a sleep-induced haze.

And Donghae’s heart is still doing somersaults inside of his body — what the hell was he thinking, wanting to kiss Hyukjae? — so he merely offers a tight-lipped smile and hopes to god Hyukjae didn’t know what he was about to do.

He thinks Hyukjae’s going to pull away and even though this would be an incredibly weird reaction to something your best friend is doing, Donghae thinks he is going to lament not having Hyukjae that close to him. Which, again, what the hell?

“I think my arm is numb,” Hyukjae says, turning his arm a little. “I didn’t know empty heads still weighed this much.” 

He earns a slap across his face for his teasing. He laughs, his hand coming up to encircle Donghae’s wrist. 

This is it, Donghae thinks. Hyukjae’s going to sit up and say he needs the bathroom and that’ll be it.

But then Hyukjae suddenly climbs over him and slots himself between Donghae and the wall, and Donghae’s brain is barely done processing the fact that Hyukjae just freaking climbed over him when Hyukjae wedges his other arm between Donghae and his pillow. 

“You can have my other arm,” he says nonchalantly, like it’s no big deal, even though Donghae thinks he is just one more abrupt movement away from seeing god up close and in person. “Let’s stay like this a little while more. It’s too early.” 

Donghae doesn’t say anything and merely nods, and he’s glad he’s still back-facing Hyukjae, because when Hyukjae casually drapes his other arm over Donghae’s waist, his body reacts in a way that would be very awkward to explain to Hyukjae and would be a conversation he cannot get through without setting himself on fire by the end of it.

As he hears Hyukjae snore softly behind him, only one thought presents itself in Donghae’s head: holy , I have a crush on my best friend.

—

Donghae had thought it would go away. He’d thought maybe he’d just felt that way because it was early in the morning and he was sleepy, but by the fifth, sixth time he’d gotten hit across the forehead for being distracted when Hyukjae’s talking to him (he was too busy watching Hyukjae’s lips, though it’s not like he’d tell him that), it was kind of obvious that yes, he did like his best friend, and in a ‘I want to date you’ kind of way. 

But he doesn’t tell him that. 

Of course he doesn’t, because what if Hyukjae didn’t feel the same way? Sure, Hyukjae could say no and they would still be friends, but it wouldn’t be the same. How could it be the same?

He couldn’t stand the thought of losing Hyukjae. Hyukjae’s been such a huge part of his life, he doesn’t think he can see himself without him.

So he says nothing at all. It was better to have Hyukjae as his best friend than to not have him in his life at all. 

He still acts the same around Hyukjae, and Hyukjae still calls him stupid every now and then and yet still offer him an arm or shoulder or whichever body part Donghae’d wanted to lean on that day, and they’re just as inseparable as they’d been before. 

Donghae knows he should probably put some distance between them if he’d wanted his feelings to change, but again, it’s Hyukjae. He doesn’t know how to be without Hyukjae, and he doesn’t want to find out.

And it’s going fine. Or at least not disastrously, and that’s really all Donghae’s asking for.

— 

But suddenly they’re 15, 16 and 17, and Donghae thinks he’s literally going to die if they keep going to the school gym together.

It wasn’t a problem initially, because he liked going to the gym and dragging Hyukjae along just meant they’d get to spend more time together. But then one day, as Donghae stood by the lockers to pack his dirty clothes, Hyukjae walked out of his shower stall abruptly. He was walking towards Donghae, and it was then that he realised Hyukjae had come out in absolutely nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. Donghae nearly combusted right in that moment. 

Hyukjae’s hair was damp, and the droplets of water that clung to his chest (were they beads of sweat or water droplets?) glittered under the ceiling lights. Donghae had always known his best friend has a good physique, but seeing him stand before him, with his stupid muscles sweat-gleaned and his body basically sparkling, Donghae is already about to seek god’s forgiveness for the sinful thoughts he’s about to have.

Hyukjae had come out of the stall to ask if he could borrow Donghae’s slippers so he didn’t have to stand in the soapy water (he’s a bit of a clean freak like that). Donghae kicked his slippers off as fast as he could, willing himself not to let his eyes fall below Hyukjae’s waist as he puts on the slippers. 

Then Hyukjae’s gone back in the stall after throwing him a “see you in a bit”, and Donghae’s uselessly slumping against the lockers because wow, what the actual hell. He moves to sit at the benches and mindlessly puts away his things (and Hyukjae’s things, actually, since they share a locker to save money), and he has to force himself to think about all the Chemistry homework and household chores he has yet to do. 

Otherwise his mind would be drifting to a very Hyukjae, separated from him only by a thin plastic door. Suddenly he has all the Organic Chemistry reaction equations memorised.

When Hyukjae comes out of the stall and hears him muttering under his breath “alcohol undergoes substitution to give alkane, halogenoalkane undergoes elimination to give alkene, carboxylic acid and alcohol react to give ester and water”, he chuckles and asks if Donghae’s stressed out by their Chemistry test next week. 

He’s fully-clothed now, but Donghae doesn’t trust himself to speak and not sound like a blabbering idiot, so he merely nods and grabs Hyukjae’s towel from where it is hanging on his shoulders to stuff it into Hyukjae’s bag. 

“It’s okay, you’re going to do great,” Hyukjae says, and he kneels before him to slip Donghae’s slippers onto his own feet for him. Donghae’s suddenly confronted with two very different mental images: one of Hyukjae bending and tying his shoelaces for him when they were kids, and the other… well, let’s just say Hyukjae’s very grown and kneeling before him to do something kids shouldn’t see. 

Then Hyukjae picks up his own shoes from underneath the bench and puts them on next to him, and Donghae’s desperate to have that second mental image shelved so he just mumbles whatever comes to mind. “You don’t have to help me with my shoes the way you did when we were kids. I can wear my slippers myself.” 

Hyukjae laughs, knocking their shoulders together. “I know you can.”

He reaches, out of nowhere, to ruffle Donghae’s hair, and adds, his eyes crinkling at the edges, “But you were a very cute kid. I would have tied your shoelaces for you any day.”

Don