Donghae sighed for the umpteenth time that day and eyed his arm that looked quite lifeless laying on the table with a little piece of cotton being placed on one spot that got abused by the needle a few seconds earlier.

“Are you tired?” the nurse – Donghae’s favorite nurse out of all he had to encounter every time he had to go to the hospital – asked. “Feeling unwell? Eat the chocolate I gave you; it’ll make you feel better soon.”

She seemed genuinely worried. Donghae just had to give his blood for them to run more tests, and it, as we know, pretty often led to the patients feeling unwell.

However, the boy simply shook his head and said, “I’m fine. I’m just upset it’s weekend.”

“Oh. Yeah, well, you probably could find plenty of things to do during weekend instead of going to the hospital, so…”

“I’d rather go to school.”

The girl blinked once. Twice.

And then, she only managed to utter, “Wow.”

He looked at her curiously, “What?”

“You’re probably the only student who ever told me they’d rather go to school instead of chilling at home.”

Donghae smiled, “Well, I’m unique.”

The nurse smiled back at him, feeling a bit better that she could see this boy smiling more often now. She was genuinely concerned about his wellbeing when they just got to know each other; and that wasn’t about his physical state only. The girl was worried it was too hard for a boy of his age to go through everything he’s been facing, but recently she noticed he’s been getting better. Gradually, his attitude was becoming brighter, and she couldn’t be happier for him.

She marked the sample of his blood, putting his data on it, and her smile got wider when she said, “You definitely are. So must be someone from your school.” Seeing Donghae’s shocked face, she chuckled and said, “I’m not too naïve to think you’re having the best time in school. Kids of your age only want to go there if there’s someone special waiting for them in that hellish building.”

Donghae bit his lip, suddenly feeling all shy and insecure. But also…

He felt giddy inside.

You know… call him dramatic, but he always imagined how he’ll behave once there will be someone he’ll have a crush on for the first time in his life. In Donghae’s mind, everything was very different and too idealistic – he imagined himself reaching out to Jaechan and Wheesung and becoming that annoying person who’d mention that person here and there. The boy thought he’ll have so many opportunities to just talk about the one he’ll have such feelings for.

But reality was way too cruel, and no one even knew that there finally was someone who made the boy’s heart melt. Because the only person the said boy was close to was, well, his crush. It’d be weird to talk to Hyukjae about how he was head over heels and asking for advices when it came to him.

Right?

So, although he did feel kind of smitten due to the nurse bringing it up like that, Donghae just couldn’t help but felt kind of excited she did that.

He told no one. There was no single soul whom he could tell he was in love, but he was. He was so damn in love he wanted to scream to the world about that, yet there was no one to listen.

Hyukjae was there for him to talk about stuff, but, once they kissed – they kissed! – he kind of stopped being that type of friend he could talk to when it was about his crush. Because he was his crush.

Ugh, so complicated.

But he wanted to talk about that with someone. Probably had to tell his mom or dad, but they were too well-aware of the fact he was talking to one person only at the moment. Was he ready for a heavy conversation about him liking a boy?..

Donghae wasn’t too sure. He didn’t know how it could possibly go.

The nurse, on the other hand…

“I’m not going to tell your parents if I see them,” she said as if reading his mind. “And you don’t really need to tell me, I just thought that maybe…”

She stopped. Maybe it was too much of her, after all. She couldn’t become the boy’s friend, that’d probably be inappropriate even. But she just… She simply was worried he had no one to talk to this whole time, and now she got so excited that boy seemed to find someone he cares about because that’d mean there was at least someone who was kind to him. She simply…

“I… am not sure about how special the person is,” the boy mumbled. Silently. Slowly. As if he was trying his best to choose the right words. “I mean, that person is special indeed. I’m just… not sure what kind of relationship we have now. I mean, we were… getting there. Then something happened.” He frowned. “Then some old man appeared out of nowhere and yelled at us, so we had to run away and we kind of lost the opportunity to talk about it. And now it’s weekend and I can’t ask what we are now until it’s Monday.”

“Oh,” was all the girl said, realizing that was the stupidest reaction she only could offer. But she tried to comfort herself by thinking that was simply because she didn’t expect Donghae would want to tell her something. “What about calling them?”

The boy bit his lip, “Believe me or not, yet, although we’ve been hanging out for a while, we still didn’t get there.”

The nurse quirked an eyebrow, “You did something, yet you didn’t exchange the phone numbers? Young people are something these days.” She smiled at the boy’s reaction as he scowled. “Instagram? Twitter? Another platform where kids think people older than 25 aren’t allowed to use Internet?”

Donghae shook his head, “I deleted them all. Nothing happened, but I just… didn’t want anything to happen.”

He was afraid there might be a few nasty comments if he’ll keep using SNS like that, and then it could get big and then everyone would know he died once and…

The nurse nodded in understanding, “Well, that . Need to wait for Monday, I assume.”

“Yeah, that .”

Having nothing better to offer, she said, “Just like the way you look after yourself. Why there’re so many new bruises, Donghae? You know that you’re advised to not get injured given how bad you heal.”

“Not like I can control it,” he mumbled.

“Is someone… bothering you at school?”

“No.”

“I could inform your principle. It’s not just a school violence, but it’s really dangerous for you, so…”

“I told you it’s okay.”

The nurse sighed. Their moment of mutual understanding and trust was gone, and that probably was as much as she could get from the boy for now. Sometimes teenagers were too secretive for their own good, yet she could do nothing unless Donghae asks for help himself.

“Try to look after yourself better then, will you?” was everything she could ask him about.

“Yeah, I will.”

“Good. And to help you with it, I’ll give you a note that you’re not allowed to attend PE lessons.”

Donghae’s eyes widened, “What? Wait, wait, why would you?”

“Well, since you’re okay and no one’s bothering you at school, it must be the only place where you get all those bruises and stuff. And since we don’t know how to fix that yet, we need to limit the risks.”

The boy frowned. He wasn’t too fond of the lessons before, but now that was the only time when he could feel less lonely because he now had Hyukjae and, while everyone was paired up, they didn’t look weird or like the outcasts because they were just like all other students; having fun together. Despite the incident that led them to the principle room, those were the only lessons that made Donghae feel like he could breathe.

“Why don’t you know yet?” he asked, almost whined. “Is it really so uncommon?”

“Not like it’s uncommon. More like every person experiences different side-effects, it’s individual. And there’re not too many who got back to life like this, so every time we encounter them, we have to look for the solutions. Sadly, there’s no certain formula of how to act when something like this happens yet.”

Donghae looked at his arm. Yeah, he knew it. That was the reason he had to come here so often and they had to run more and more tests and required his constant check-ups, after all. But it was tiring. He’d love to forget about everything, but him coming here all the time was a constant reminder that he died once and couldn’t become a normal person still.

“We’re trying our best to figure it out as fast as possible,” the nurse tried to assure him.

“And what if it won’t work?” The boy looked right into her eyes, so that even if she tried to lie to him, he’d be able to notice it at least. “You said you’ve to look for a new solution every time. What if there’s none?”

“Donghae, that’s not a mindset you’re supposed to have. We always encourage our patients to…”

“There were cases when there was no solution found, right?”

Something told the nurse she really had to call for his parents during such conversation. Donghae insisted on coming here alone for check-ups – that wasn’t forbidden and teenagers tend to be very persistent on this matter as they really want to be independent, especially at this age – but she wasn’t sure she could tell him something like this directly.

“We will make sure for your case to be a success,” the nurse ended up saying.

Donghae looked away because, although she avoided it, that was his answer.

There were cases when they could do nothing. And no one could guarantee he won’t become one of them.

***

The rest of his weekend went with the enormous mood swings as the boy’s mind kept drifting from ‘Just forget about it and think about your beloved Hyukjae’ to ‘What if there’s not much time you two have left and it’s better to not even start anything as the possibility of you dying keeps increasing?’.

He was jiggling one moment, the next moment he was staring at the wall in his room with an empty head, and the boy had absolutely no control over his thoughts.

It big time he and Hyukjae didn’t get to exchange their phone numbers. For whatever reason, Donghae felt like the moment he sees the guy, he’ll get the answer to all the questions he now had. But he couldn’t even ask for a meeting.

Maybe those swings affected his mood, yet by the moment Monday finally came – yay! – Donghae suddenly got… angry. At himself. At Hyukjae. At fate.

Since fate was an unreachable thing and venting on himself didn’t seem so alluring, there was only one person he could show his anger to.

Should it be mentioned that Hyukjae was, to say the least, surprised when he was met with Donghae’s death glare once the guy entered their classroom and tried to wave to the younger in a friendly manner?

Confused, Hyukjae went towards his seat and only quirked and eyebrow when Donghae plopped down on the chair in front of him and, grabbing the guy’s phone that was in his hand before, said, “You’re terrible!”

“Hmm,” the guy let out and simply watched the younger saving the number on his phone and calling. Once Donghae’s phone rang and Hyukjae got what was that for, he added, “Good morning to you as well.”

“No, you don’t understand. You’re terrible. Awful. Absolutely the worst person ever.”

Hyukjae sighed, “And we haven’t been dating even for a week. I dread everything you might show me in the future.”

That’s when Donghae’s system showed error.

“D… D-d…” he tried to speak, yet that ability was long gone, so he could only return one of the phones to its owner.

“I believe there’re at least 3 more letters before ‘D’ in the alphabet.”

Those who thought soft teasing didn’t work in helping others to find at least some words simply didn’t date Hyukjae.

“Hyukjae!” Donghae whined, looking at him with something that could be considered… a pout on his lips?

“Which doesn’t start with ‘D’.”

The younger hissed and then looked at his own palms he placed on the guy’s desk. They were sitting in front of each other; Hyukjae on his regular spot and Donghae occupied someone else’s, so there was not much space left between the boy’s palms and the older guy’s elbows he rested on the desk when that weird interrogation started.

“So,” Donghae spoke slowly. “It’s official, right? We’re dating?”

Hyukjae quirked an eyebrow again, “And you thought we’re not?” The younger his lips in a worry, trying to collect his thoughts and come up with a reply that’d convey all his feelings. He didn’t notice the moment when Hyukjae smirked and – with sarcasm clearly heard in his voice – said, “Oh my God, Lee Donghae. You’re terrible. Awful. Absolutely the worst person ever. You thought you could kiss me and call it a day? Didn’t know you were a player.”

“Hey!” Donghae hissed, although he smiled. He couldn’t be as loud as he wanted for he didn’t want those few people who were in the class already to eavesdrop, but he wasn’t going to let it slide. “Says the one who stole my first kiss and didn’t even leave me his number! Can you just imagine what was I thinking throughout the weekend? I wanted to call you so many times! I even!..”

The boy froze and looked at Hyukjae with wide eyes. That made the other guy confused, so he tilted his head, “What?”

“You… stole my first kiss.”

Pause.

“And you only got it now?”

“Which means I stole your first kiss as well.”

Donghae’s eyes sparkled, and Hyukjae didn’t like those sparkles at all, especially when the boy leaned in, the widest smile on his face, and announced, “I’m your first, Hyukjae!”

Poor Hyukjae didn’t know about all those mood swings the younger experienced these past few days, so he was, well, unprepared.

A few students looked at them, but resumed doing their usual stuff a few seconds later, so that meant they most likely didn’t even hear what exactly Donghae said, only noticed he got louder.

Hyukjae wasn’t the type of person to get all worried about what others thought about him, yet he still said, “There’s absolutely no need to let everyone know about that.”

“Ah,” Donghae’s smile faded; he moved away and his shoulders dropped a little. “Right, I… I’m sorry…”

The older guy had to sigh once again, “I’m not afraid they might learn we’re dating.”

The boy looked at him with curiosity, “You’re not?”

“Rumors are spreading for a while anyway,” Hyukjae shrugged. “If I was bothered, I’d just stop hanging out with you. I literally don’t mind what others think about us.” He narrowed his eyes. “Which still doesn’t mean they need to be updated about who was whose first and who stole whose kiss.”

Donghae was looking at him with such a weird expression; for a second the older guy thought he saw hearts in the younger’s eyes.

“You’re the best boyfriend I could wish for,” he ended up saying. “The best first I could only find!” Hyukjae sighed, yet that didn’t stop Donghae. “And I’m really glad I ended up to be yours first, too.”

“You’ll be talking about it for a few more weeks, right?”

“At the very lea