Donghae peered curiously out the window into the dark night. He couldn’t see anything aside from the huge flashes of lightening that were lighting up the sky with more frequency. He could hear the wind, though, and its force made him shudder in his heavy sweater.

     The young man pulled away from the glass, wondering if it would withstand the force of the storm when it finally hit.

     Sitting down on the edge of his bed, he pulled his laptop onto his thighs in an attempt to check the weather. Just as he clicked on the weather icon, he heard the patter of raindrops on the roof and against the one window in the apartment. With a sigh, he stood up to fetch some bowls; the ceiling had this bothersome tendency to leak during heavy rain.

     As he fished around his cupboards for the bowls, Donghae fought the desire to think about… what happened.

     He’d been fighting it for an entire week.

     As he set the various sized bowls out on the table and tried to remember where in the small apartment the leaks usually occurred, he tried not to think about how he hadn’t seen Hyukjae for a week or how he’d skipped the dance practice that day with a lame excuse about not feeling well.

     “Dammit,” he swore at himself, knowing full well that he was clearly thinking about it.

     The biggest flash of lightening blew up outside and Donghae held his breath, stealing himself for the inevitable bang that would follow. But he wasn’t prepared for thunder that was so strong that it would shake the entire building.

     Anxiety tightened its fist around his heart. He really hated storms.

     For a moment, he thought about making a cup of coffee.

     Donghae took huge fistfuls of his hair and pulled, wanting to yell out in frustration.

     It had been a week since he’d had any coffee, as well. He just couldn’t bring himself to make any since…. since that happened.

     Sunday had been spent staring at his pages of homework that he mindlessly did.

     Monday he went to school and absorbed nothing.

     Tuesday he went to school and absorbed even less.

     Another strike of lighting followed by the deafening roar of thunder made Donghae shudder and he ended up kneeling down in front of his bed, hugging his knees tightly to his chest. There was so much stress and anxiety balling up in his stomach that he really wasn’t sure if he wanted to scream or cry or punch something or just lay down in defeat.

     He was so, so terribly confused.

     The rain started coming down harder. Donghae hugged his legs closer, setting his forehead between his knees to hide his face and block out the flashes of lightening.

     He wished Hyukjae were here.

     As soon as the desire entered into his consciousness, there was no way to stop the memories from flooding in.

     He thought about all the text messages and phone calls that he’d ignored; how their frequency of being received began to diminish over the course of the week; how much he terribly wanted to just go on with his life but couldn’t.

     He couldn’t.

     Pat… pat…. pat.

     Lifting his head, Donghae adjusted his eyes back to the light of the room and located where the first leak in the ceiling was coming from. Forcing himself off the floor, he found the problem area and made sure the bowl beneath it was doing its job in catching the falling drops.

     His eyes were staring at the bowl as the rain began to fill it, the repetitive motion somehow mesmerizing.

     Patpatpatpatpatpat.

     Donghae pulled himself out of his trance and walked over to the window where another, more rapid leak had sprung. He adjusted one of his biggest bowls under the sill and when he stood up, he caught a glimpse of his reflection.

     He immediately winced and looked away. He knew he looked awful. The caffeine withdrawal plus the poor sleep plus the not eating had taken a toll on his appearance. But he’d lost his appetite for everything and every time he looked in the mirror, he just wanted to curse at himself.

     What had he done?

     I’ll tell you what you did, a voice in his head piped up. You took the best relationship you’ve ever had with another human being and you ruined it. And for what? To “make an impression”? What was that supposed to do? Prevent him from getting cancer and dying while his memory lived on in a field of flowers?

     I don’t know, he argued back, trudging over to his bed and kneeling down on the floor again to burry his eyes into his knees.

     You ruined everything.

     I know.

     And he didn’t know how to fix it.

     The rain came harder, the lightening and thunder more fierce than he’d ever heard. He didn’t know how long he’d been squatting there on the floor, his back against the bed for extra support and his head bent into his knees to try and block everything out.

     He should really probably try to work through his confused emotions. But there was so much going on that he couldn’t gain any clarity even if he tried.

     Donghae didn’t know how long he was crouched down on the floor like that. It could have been hours, and he would have gone on longer had he not been disrupted by a knocking sound coming from the front door.

     Peeking his eyes out from their hiding spot, he turned his head and looked at the door, thoroughly confused. Surely something just fell on the roof—a branch perhaps?—and there wasn’t someone actually out and about during such a terrible storm…

     His theory went straight to pot, however, when the knocks sounded again, much more insistent this time. Hae’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion and he still waited a second longer before unfolding himself to stand up. His body was shaking now that it wasn’t balled up in a secure knot and he suddenly felt vulnerable.

     Someone was knocking on his door and they were going to see him in his anxiety-ridden state. Someone was going to find out that he was afraid of storms and think less of him, surely.

     Donghae paused at the doorway and tried to give himself a mental pep-talk, taking deep breaths to calm himself down, though he finally resigned himself to the fact that he was just going to have to act his way through this encounter because there was no getting rid of the incessant knots balled up in the pit of his stomach.

     He jumped when there were three more resounding knocks on the door, falling heaver this time with more space in between.

     Taking one last deep breath, he unlocked the door and twisted the knob, cracking it open just enough so he could look out and see who was there.

     He almost screamed like a child when a hand slid through the crack and forced the door the rest of the way open, pushing past Donghae and into the small apartment.

     “Aish, Donghae! What took you so long?!”

     Donghae stared with eyes wide as rice bowls, his stress momentarily gone due to the utter shock he was experiencing by having the very person who was causing most of his tension standing in the middle of the front hallway.

     Hyukjae was wearing a sopping wet jacket with soaked pants to match. In fact, everything about him was wet. Donghae eyed the umbrella at his side, knowing instantly that it was pointless to have tried to use it outside in this weather.

     But what was Hyukjae doing?

     “I’m going to get a towel,” Hyukjae announced, sloshing his way over to the bathroom, avoiding the bowls scattered around the floor to catch water droplets, giving them questioning looks as he disappeared into the bathroom.

     Donghae was nonplussed. The only thing that snapped him out of his trance was an exceptionally loud shock of thunder that had him slamming the front door shut and running to be close to his bed. He fought the urge to crouch down and hug himself like he was before, not wanting Hyukjae to see him in such a pathetic state.

     Hyukjae…

     This was his first time seeing the other man for a full seven days. And Hyuk was acting as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

     The man in question emerged from the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his neck. He had one corner of it up in his hair, trying to dry the locks so they weren’t dripping on his shoulders. When he finally made eye contact with Donghae, Hae felt a shudder pass through his spin (for once not due to the raging storm outside).

     The look on Hyukjae’s face was… unnerving.

     There was a presence in the other man’s eyes that Donghae had never seen before. It seemed to rest somewhere between pain and anger and just to the left of frustration.

     “So how’s it been?” Hyukjae asked, his voice strong and lacking its usual softness.

     Donghae felt confused and his anxiety from the storm was creeping back into his soul. He tensed up and swallowed, “Er… What do you mean?”

     Hyukjae didn’t look amused at all. Instead, he just stood there in his soaking wet clothes, a puddle forming below him while he looked hard at Donghae. “I mean,” he said carefully, enunciating each word completely, “I haven’t seen you for a week and I haven’t talked to you for a week. Tell me what’s new.”

     The storm grew louder outside, the wind seeming to threaten the stability of the apartment building. Donghae flinched when another round of extremely loud thunder filled up the empty space between them.

     “I… Nothing is new,” Hae finally forced out, his throat feeling tight. Apprehension was coiling up in the pit of his stomach. He felt nervous because of the incessant storm and the way he was being confronted by Hyukjae.

     “Nothing, huh? That’s good, I wouldn’t want to miss anything that’s happening in your life.”

     Donghae flinched at the sarcasm dripping thickly from Hyukjae’s tongue, dripping like the water off his clothes.

     “I guess you haven’t been talking to me because there’s nothing to talk about, right?” Hyukjae said, his eyes locked and unblinking at Donghae’s tense face. Everything about him was radiating high levels of emotion. “The fact that you have ignored me for a week has nothing to do with the fact that you kissed me last weekend?”

* * * * * * * * * * *

     The storm outside was nothing compared to the storm raging within Hyukjae in that moment.

     The feelings he was expelling now were the result of seven days’ worth of build up. Those past days had been gradually eating away at his consciousness. Initially he had been torn between confusion and happiness. But after the first day passed with unanswered text messages and phone calls and Donghae hadn’t come to visit him as usual at the café, his bliss had melted away into confusion.

     After the confusion came frustration. After the frustration came anger until the day before he decided that he truly almost hated the college student for seemingly toying with his feelings like that.

     When the storm broke, he broke as well. He’d been half way to Hae’s apartment before he realized what he was doing, but was too far gone in his private pool of emotions to turn around and try to think rationally.

     Though he didn’t want to admit it, he’d never been kissed before—by anyone. No childish lips on the playground, no pilfered kisses in deep doorways at school; nothing before Donghae.

     His hands balled into fists, his sheer frustration blinding his vision. This man in front of him had stolen his first kiss and then didn’t bother to talk to him for seven days?

     They were supposed to be friends.

     Best friends.

     “Why?” Hyukjae asked, not even realizing that his vision was being blurred now with tears rather than anger.

     “I…” Donghae started, his voice shaking. In the poor lighting of the room, Hyukjae finally blinked the tears back and took quick steps to close the distance between them. He stood a foot away from the other man, his gaze still hard.

     “You…?” Hyukjae helped.

     He could see Donghae swallowing a lot and from his new vantage point noticed that the other boy was visibly shaking, eyes wide and unsure.

     Hyukjae felt his resolve weaken. His tense shoulders dropped just a fraction and his intense eyes dialed it back a little, softening at the sight of this man—who he clearly felt strongly for— looking so entirely vulnerable.

     Donghae’s eyes darkened a bit and his head dropped, staying silent.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

     Like the coward he was, Donghae averted his eyes, not wanting to face this reality. If he did, it would mean admitting to things he wasn’t prepared to admit.

     Liking Hyukjae?

     Liking Hyukjae a lot?

     Another harsh flash of lightening and giant boom, the rain falling harder against the building, drowning out the sound of his heartbeat in his ears. Donghae flinched.

     After several minutes passed like this without a word, Hae heard Hyuk sigh. The next words that left the other man’s mouth were significantly gentler than when he’d first appeared, his temper seemingly relaxed for the time being. “Donghae,” he said, trying to meet the other’s eyes. “Please talk to me.”

      The plea caused Donghae to begin a short battle with himself.

     Stop it. Stop being a little coward. Just talk about it.

     Talk about it.

     “Donghae,” Hyukjae’s voice sounded again, even more gentle this time. Perhaps his initial passion had subsided enough to recognize how much this other boy was struggling. Regardless, he sighed and reached out a hand to encircle Hae’s wrist, letting their limbs dangle in the space between them. “Donghae, it’s just me. You can talk to me, remember?”

     Donghae did remember. Ironically, the grip around his wrist seemed to give him more strength because through his anxiety, he managed to lift his eyes to Hyukjae and somewhat begin to “talk about it”.

     “I… don’t know where to start.”

     Hyukjae nodded as if this was a perfectly acceptable way to begin the conversation. He was still standing close to Hae, just a foot of space between them, and his grip around Donghae’s wrist tightened momentarily. “Tell me why you did it,” he helped.

     Donghae heaved a shaky breath, the ball of nerves in his stomach not releasing him. “I don’t remember.”

     “Try.”

     Silence enveloped him and Donghae actually made an effort to think back to the occurrence. He thought about the movie they watched, the events that the fictional characters went through, and then that feeling of helplessness at the end. “The movie made me think,” was the only thing he could come up with.

     Hyukjae nodded, relaxing more and more as they were finally getting somewhere with their much-needed talk. “About what?”

     Thunder rumbled outside, the low note lasting much longer than anyone would have expected. The rain was still pounding and the patpatpatpat of raindrops falling into bowls gave the apartment a cold atmosphere.

     When Donghae didn’t answer for a while, Hyukjae sighed, truly beginning to feel sympathy for his apprehensive friend. With his free hand, he moved to hold Donghae’s other wrist, balancing them out and hoping to give extra reassurance. “Donghae?”

     “I don’t want to miss my chance to make an impact on someone’s life,” Donghae whispered, recalling his feelings from so long ago. He swallowed, shuddering violently. “The girl in the movie… She was so young, younger than us, but she seemed so in love. She really changed that guy’s life.”

     Hyukjae didn’t really think he understood how that train of thought could lead up to a kiss between two grown men, but he figured they would get there. He gave Donghae a reassuring squeeze on his wrists, waiting for him to continue.

     “I don’t want to miss my chance.”

     “Chance to do what?”

     Donghae bit his bottom lip, averting his eyes for a second before he made himself look straight into Hyukjae’s brown orbs. “To make an impact.”

     Hyukjae huffed a sigh through his nose, shivers beginning to wrack his body. He was wet and becoming increasingly cold. Absently, he swung their hands together, sliding his palms down to grip Donghae’s fingers rather than his wrist. He was personally amazed at how quickly he was able to be comfortable with touching Hae like this again, but he couldn’t deny that he was relieved.

     “You could have waited for a girlfriend or something,” Hyukjae offered, his voice definitely softer than his entrance.

     Donghae just shook his head, giving the other man’s fingers a squeeze. The anxiety was growing from his stomach and spreading into his chest, his entire body stiff and aching from a combination of nervousness and… excitement. “I couldn’t wait.”

     “Why not?”

     “It felt right to do it then.”

     Hyukjae paused, feeling his heart tighten beneath his ribs. Although there was a large part of him that wanted to take this at face value, there was still small part full of doubt and disbelief that wanted to question everything. “Why?”

     “I—” Donghae was cut off by another large crack of thunder. The lights flickered and Hyukjae could feel him quiver through their linked hands. “I’ve never been so close to someone before…”

     In the next few minutes, the lights would flicker rapidly on and off, everything about it feeling ominous and scary. Eventually, the lights made a decision.

     The duo was plunged into darkness, their only source of light now being the continuous flashes of lighting outside the window.

     Donghae’s grip on Hyukjae’s hands tightened and through the random bursts of light, Hyuk could see that his eyes were screwed shut and his breathing was labored.

     In that moment, Hyukjae just wanted to wrap his arms around the scared man and comfort him. But he also knew that his next few moves were going to be detrimental to their relationship—

     To their fate.

     That doubtful side of Hyukjae told himself that Donghae’s feelings were just that of a friend. A good friend. He’d never had a relationship like this before, so of course he could confuse it with something else…

     “I’ve never felt like this before,” Donghae whispered, echoing Hyuk’s subconscious

     Hyukjae tried to squash the hope quickly getting out of control in his chest.

     “Thinking about doing something like that with a girl—”

     Hyukjae closed his eyes and bowed his head, knowing that Donghae wouldn’t see how he was preparing himself for the final blow.

     “—I… I don’t think I could.”

     Hyukjae chanced to open his eyes and saw through sporadic lightening that Donghae was staring at him with an incredulous look on his face as if he was coming to the realizations at the same time he was speaking them.

     “I couldn’t,” he whispered again.

     Grappling for some sense of control over the situation, Hyukjae tried to reason with him. “Donghae, I think maybe—”

     “This past week was hell,” Donghae interrupted, as if he never heard a word spoken by Hyukjae. “Not seeing you, not talking to you... I was miserable. It was worse than when you were gone for that time because I didn’t know how you were and I couldn’t hear your voice.”

     Hyukjae mumbled bitterly, “But that was your choice. You didn’t see me on purpose.”

     “Because I was scared,” Donghae confessed, another boom of thunder causing him to shudder out of anxiety. “I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to go on.”

     Hyukjae swallowed hard, knowing that Donghae wouldn’t see how he was leaning his head closer to the other man’s ear to be heard over the storm. “We can still go on, you know. We can pretend it never happened and just return to the way things were. Back to being friends. It would be easy.”

     Liar, Hyukjae’s conscience whispered to him. It wouldn’t be easy at all.

     But for the sake of their friendship, he would try.

     Silence enveloped them. Against the glass of the window, the rain seemed to become heavier as the pats turned to clips.

     It had started hailing.

     Hyukjae, tired of standing up and feeling cold, finally broke the silence. “Where are your candles?”

     Donghae talked around the large anxious lump in his throat. “Top shelf in the closet.”

     Hyukjae released Hae’s shaking hands and felt his way to the closet, finding the candles in just a few short minutes. He set four large ones on the table and eventually dug out a box of matches from a drawer in the small kitchenette. He remembered seeing them in there during one of his many trips to Donghae’s place before.

     The candles seemed to make the atmosphere warmer, fighting back against the harshness of the storm.

     Deciding to just help himself, Hyukjae made his way to Donghae’s dresser drawers and pulled out a set of shorts and a tshirt, changing in the darkness into the dry clothes. Donghae, meanwhile, had knelt back down to his fetal position on the floor, hugging his knees tightly to his chest and digging his forehead into his legs.

     Honestly, it was all Hyukjae could do to not completely scoop the other man up in his arms and comfort him. He was trying to remind himself that things might still be awkward for Donghae, despite their heart-to-heart they just had. And nothing had really been resolved, now that he thought about it.

     Hyukjae touched Donghae’s shoulder to get his attention. “Let’s move up here,” He suggested, motioning to the bed. His action was barely visible in the candlelight, but Donghae got the gist. He stood up, his body stiff from being so tense for so long.

     Hae crawled onto the bed, shaking. Hyukjae followed him and both of them sat with their back so the wall, sitting on the opposite side of where they were last time.

     Last time.

     Hyukjae shook his head to rid himself of the memories that he’d dwelled on all week.

     The endless booms of thunder rippled through the apartment, keeping Donghae on edge. Hyukjae’s lips twitched and he leaned over so Donghae could hear him, “Can you be under the covers with me?”

     Hyukjae winced internally, hearing the bitterness in his own voice.

     Donghae managed a confirming noise from his tight throat and breathless lungs, the anxiety gripping him hard around his entire body. He shifted when he needed to as Hyuk picked up the comforter and wrapped it around their bodies, their shoulders pressing against each other. The urge to lift his arm and embrace his friend was strong, but Hyukjae resisted.

     He’d be lying if he said he still wasn’t a little upset about being ignored for a week.

     Especially after enjoying such a wonderful kiss.

     Some time passed, Donghae’s body feeling fatigued. Eventually, he whispered through the rain, gripping the blanket tightly around his shoulders. “Hyukjae.”

     “Hm?” Hyuk responded, turning his head to look at his friend.

     Donghae breathed in and out slowly before asking the question that had been on his mind since Hyuk’s unexpected arrival. “Why…. Why did you come here?”

     Hyukjae answered without thinking. “You said you were afraid of storms…”

     Silence floated between them, thick and heavy.

     It was a really long time before either of them moved.

     In the next round of loud cracks of thunder, Donghae scooted himself closer to Hyukjae, forcing his way under the other boy’s not un-willing arm and curling up into his side.

     Immediate relief flooded through him and he sighed, closing his eyes so he could be oblivious to all the lightening. “Hyuk,” he croaked out after minute in their new position.

     Hyukjae’s cheek pressed against Donghae’s temple and he heard the man respond, “Hm?”

     Donghae tried to get a grip on his emotions (which were crazy out of whack) before he continued, his voice shaking to match his ever-quivering limbs (though not nearly as bad as before).

     “I don’t want to lose you.”

     Donghae felt the other’s head nod against his in acknowledgement, but Hyuk didn’t say anything.

     Hae swallowed past the lump in his throat. “I’m glad you’re here.”

     Another nod against his skull. This time, Hyuk’s arm that was wrapped around his shoulders shifted and Hae could feel fingers lace their way into his hair, adding to his comfort.

     “I was just scared…”

     Why can’t you stop talking? Donghae asked himself. Something about how they were was causing these comments to just spill out of him with little control.

     “I know. I’m a scary person,” Hyukjae said. Donghae could practically feel the smile sitting on the other’s lips.

     His shaking was slowly subsiding in the embrace of his café friend, his mind going to places other than the storm still raging outside.

     “Donghae,” Hyukjae suddenly said, his mouth so close to Hae’s skin that he could literally feel the breath brushing against his forehead.

     “Hm?”

     Hyukjae’s breath caught, a war going on within himself as he fought to decide if he was really going to say what he wanted to say.

     “About the kiss…”

     Donghae groaned feeling embarrassed more than anything by this point. Now that he knew their friendship wasn’t in shambles, his former fear was replaced by shyness at what they’d done.

     “Y-Yeah?” was the unconfident response Hae came up with.

     Hyukjae held his breath for a moment before deciding to just go for it.

     If Donghae could make impacts, why couldn’t he?

     “I… didn’t mind it.”

     Donghae’s head pulled away and spun to stare at Hyukjae with wide eyes. “… What?”

     Hyukjae bit his bottom lip, running his fingers through the back of Donghae’s messy silken hair absently. “I said… I didn’t mind the kiss.”

     “I… don’t understand.”

     Hyukjae wasn’t sure what else he could possibly say to make his statement any more clear. He frowned and grabbed Donghae’s chin, pulling the other man’s face close to his so they were nose-to-nose and Hae couldn’t look anywhere except his eyes. “Donghae,” he said firmly, eyes unblinking. “You kissed me. And I liked it.”

AN: Some of you are going to be like "WTF?? You JUST updated!!"

And I'm here to tell you that the reason why I posted this so soon is becaaauuuusseeeee *cue the trumpets*

I REACHED 300 SUBSCRIBERS!!!!

TUMBLR! = teasers and stuff

PS: Prepare your ovaries. I'm getting ready to make them explode.