Hyukjae and Donghae went jogging together the next morning. Hyukjae was wearing a mask and hoodie, enjoying the sight of Donghae jogging alongside him with hair swaying in the wind. Honestly it felt like Donghae was shooting a commercial or a music video, especially with that gorgeous smile he gives whenever their eyes meet. And Donghae was so cheerful even in the early hours of the morning, petting random dogs being walked by their owners or taking pictures of pretty flowers on the road. It was totally so endearing.

Damn I can’t help but fall in love even more.

They separated for a quick shower at their own places, then Donghae drove them to the agency because their call time is the same. Today, Hyukjae will record all the revised rap parts so he's scheduled first, then all of SKYE will record the last two songs, and then final rehearsal for This Is Love and Shirt. 

In between his breaks, Hyukjae finds himself again gravitating towards Donghae. Sometimes bickering around with him, sometimes opening a variety of food or drinks to feed him, or sometimes just sitting quietly by his side.

At one point while Yesung was recording, Siwon was eating chips with Kyuhyun at the couch by the back of the monitoring room. Hyukjae, who was sitting beside Donghae by the monitoring booth, glanced back at them. Seeing the chips they were eating, he borrowed it for a while. He took a tissue and poured some chips into it, placing it in front of Donghae, then did it again and placed it in front of himself. When he turned back to return it, Siwon was looking at him with raised eyebrows. 

He raised one of his eyebrows back in question. “What?”

Siwon just shook his head and Kyuhyun just smirked knowingly.

He was about to retort back when he heard Donghae coughing. He immediately grabbed a water bottle from the table at the other end of the room and gave it to Donghae. 

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, the chips were spicy,” Donghae answered with a scrunched up face.

“Oh sorry I didn’t know they were spicy. Here, eat this instead,” Hyukjae said as he pushed the sweets he had to Donghae’s side of the table.

After making sure Donghae was fine, he focused back his attention to the recording, completely forgetting about his exchange with Siwon earlier. 

***

That afternoon, when everybody was already confident with their choreography, they decided to shoot a practice video for This Is Love that they can use as added material for promotions. They set up a simple tripod and phone, and Donghae volunteered to stand behind the phone to take the video. 

Hyukjae is known for his sultry gaze to the cameras, and he tried hard to fix his stare on the camera lens and focus on his moves. Especially in a practice video where there’s no fancy lighting or clothes or make up, he of course still wants to look cool and y.

However, as they were dancing to This Is Love, his eyes accidentally went to Donghae. 

This is love this is love

The gentle wind, plain flowers on the street

This is love this is love

Love is about the small things

You made me realize

This is love this is love

The clear sky, the sun over the horizon

This is love this is love

You taught me that

Everything in the world is love

Donghae was looking at him intensely, watching him dance. Then their eyes met and suddenly butterflies were flying in Hyukjae’s stomach. The look that Donghae gave him is different from the frequent puppy eyes, or the cheerful sparkly ones, or even the sad emotional ones. If Hyukjae doesn’t know better, he’d think that it’s like a call to his soul, something that resembles one of yearning. And he can’t look away from it. His heart races but it’s totally unrelated to him dancing. 

Out of the plain people who will be

Forgotten in a matter of seconds

I know you’re different

Like the stars, love love

Just the way it is, love love

You and me, just us two

Hyukjae knows he’ll never be able to forget Donghae. He looks back at Donghae as intensely while he sings the next lines.

Hold ya, just wanna hold ya

A little closer, just wanna hold ya