August 2^nd, 2029

The bright summer sun bounces off the smooth paint of a black BMW convertible, which is conveniently parked in the small path between the grassy fields. The owner of said convertible, a 42-year-old man that goes by the name of Lee Donghae, still has his fingers wrapped on the top of the steering wheel even though the engine has been off for at least a few minutes. It’s not that he is unaware of it; it’s just that he’s slightly preoccupied with enjoying the slight breeze coming from the open window and the soothing warmth of the sun. Donghae marvels at the fact that he always feels the same way each time he visits this place at the same day every year. The center of Donghae’s lips turns into straight lines as a smile graces his aging yet still youthful-looking face, with his chocolate-colored eyes fixated at the clear blue sky, he says…

“It’s that time of the year again, Hyukkie.”

Still wearing the smile, Donghae then turns his head towards the person sitting beside him on the passenger’s seat, whose gummy smile and single-lidded eyes nearly overpower the summer air itself.

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August 2^nd, 1992

It was sweltering hot that day, and the thin 6-year-old boy lying on his bed holding a mini battery-powered electrical fan that was just inches away from his face, had every intention to spend the afternoon and the rest of his Sunday just lying on his bed reading his favorite comic books. It was too hot to do anything outside anyway. But his mother’s shrill voice that could be heard throughout the two-storey house disagreed with him.

“Hyukjae-ah!”

The boy cringed as he heard his name being called out by his mother like that. He was contemplating on pretending to be asleep so that he didn’t have to do anything that his mother surely wanted him to do when she called him like that, but then he remembered that the last time he did that his mother had him figured out and could tell that he was just pretending to be asleep. Needless to say, it was a risk he didn’t want to take because the prospect of seeing his mother so angry that it seemed like she grew a pair of fangs was enough to make him shudder.

So with the biggest effort he could muster, Hyukjae got off his bed and dragged himself downstairs, where he saw his mother talking to a woman with a black-haired boy clinging to her. He hadn’t seen both of them before.

“Ah, there you are. Hyukjae, this is Mrs. Lee, she’s our new neighbor. I’m going to show her around the neighborhood, so you keep Donghae company, okay?”

Hyukjae furrowed his eyebrows as he finally paid attention to the little boy around his age, who was still clinging to his mother’s hand like she was his safety net. For the first couple seconds Hyukjae could only think of one thing after he looked at Donghae; ‘how can a boy look so pretty?’. Donghae had those gentle-looking eyes with long eyelashes, the ones that looked exactly like those of his noona’s, and the soft lines that made up his face could make it really easy for anyone to mistook Donghae as a girl. Hyukjae immediately despised the idea of spending his Sunday with this new boy, what if his friends found him hanging out with this wimpy-looking boy? Kyuhyun would have a field day at school if he ever found out, he already had too much fun calling Hyukjae a sissy for losing a marathon run to him in gym class and Hyukjae was sure he’d be much worse once he saw who Hyukjae was hanging out with.

“Hyukjae-ah, where are your manners? Say hi to Donghae.”

With much hesitation, Hyukjae extended his hand towards Donghae, and the latter looked up at his mother, searching for approval which he received in the form of an encouraging smile. Donghae then let go of his mother’s hand and timidly shook Hyukjae’s hand.

“Hi, I’m Hyukjae.”

“I’m Donghae.”

Hyukjae mentally rolled his eyes, even Donghae’s voice is too soft to be a boy’s voice and he just found it to be irritable. He was sure that he will demand endless amounts of his favorite Strawberry milk from his mother as a reward for making him accompany Donghae.

An hour after both mothers left the two boys, Hyukjae became more and more certain that Donghae was probably the wimpiest and dullest boy he ever came across. Hyukjae had spent half an hour trying to get Donghae to play video games, read comic books or watch movies with him, yet Donghae shook his head to all of those and just sat at the couch without uttering a single word. Hyukjae then chose to just ignore the timid boy and played video games by himself, only to be bored a mere half an hour after he started because the game wasn’t that fun when he played it alone. Hyukjae threw his joystick aside and huffed, he finally had enough.

“Yah! Are you just gonna sit there and be boring as hell or are you gonna say something?”

Donghae’s eyes went wide at Hyukjae’s bold statement and to Hyukjae’s surprise, Donghae’s bottom lip started quivering and he burst into tears just seconds later. It was Hyukjae’s turn to panic, making Donghae cry wasn’t what his mother told him to do and he could just imagine how angry his mother would get if she found out about it. The fangs, oh the imaginary fangs.

“Jeez, why are you crying? Uh… um… aish, what should I do?”

Hyukjae mumbled to himself, which actually didn’t help with anything since Donghae just kept on crying. Amidst the panic, Hyukjae remembered that he had overheard his mother and Donghae’s mother’s conversation about them moving here from Mokpo. Mokpo was near the beach, right? Hyukjae’s parents had taken him there awhile back. Hyukjae racked his brain, trying to come up with something to associate a beach with, something to stop Donghae from crying. Beach… beach… fish? That’s it!

Thinking that he had came up with a brilliant idea , Hyukjae pulled Donghae by the wrist towards the backyard of the house where a little pond was situated, filled with many colorful Japanese koi fishes that Hyukjae’s father had. Donghae still had tears streaming down his face from what the little boy thought as Hyukjae’s really mean way to get him to talk, but he was intrigued now, what was Hyukjae doing?

As soon as the boys reached the little pond, Hyukjae carefully turned his head towards Donghae, and was instantly relieved to find that Donghae had stopped crying. Despite the tear tracks that were still apparent on Donghae’s cheeks, the boy’s eyes had lit up considerably upon seeing the many colorful fishes in the pond.

“Donghae, I’m gonna call you Fishy from now on.”

Donghae was distracted from staring at the fishes when Hyukjae said that and he threw a questioning look at the thin boy.

“Why would you call me that?”

“Those fishes made you stop crying! What is it with you and fishes?”

“So does that mean I can call you Monkey?”

 Hyukjae once again furrowed his eyebrows at Donghae, for he was such a weird boy. First he burst into tears just because Hyukjae said he was boring, and suddenly he wanted to call Hyukjae… monkey?

“Why monkey?”

Donghae instantly looked nervous when Hyukjae asked him that, looking like he regretted blurting out the question. He looked down and began playing with the bottom of his blue polo shirt before finally answering…

“Uh… because… because you looked like one. That’s why I didn’t wanna talk to you, you scared me. I’m… I’m scared of monkeys.”

Hyukjae couldn’t believe what he was hearing. How could this wimpy boy say he looked like a monkey? His mother told him he was handsome all the time! Hyukjae could feel his dislike for Donghae resurface and he lifted up his hand, with the gesture that signaled he was about to punch Donghae in the face even though that wasn’t what he was intending of doing, he just wanted to scare Donghae and made him feel sorry for saying he looked like a monkey.

Donghae, on the other hand, thought that Hyukjae was seriously about to hit him and reacted the only way he knew how. Hyukjae panicked again as Donghae’s bottom lip quivered and his eyes began watering.

“Oh no, not again, uh… you know what, it’s okay if you wanna call me Monkey, it’s really okay. Just… just don’t cry again. Uh… you wanna touch the fish? I’ll um… I’ll get something to catch it.”

In between his haste of turning around and walking into the house to get anything to catch the fish with, Hyukjae tripped on his own foot… and ended up falling right into the pond, sending water splashing in all directions. As Hyukjae stood back up inside the pond and tried to get the water out of his ear, he heard something he hadn’t heard coming from Donghae since they were introduced. Donghae was laughing, earnestly and cheerfully, his eyes tightly shut as he clutched his stomach from laughing so much. His laughter was so infectious that Hyukjae couldn’t help but to laugh with him, his dislike of Donghae quickly disappearing with each breath he took in between his laugh. He wasn’t even angry that the boy he knew for a mere few hours was laughing at him.

Falling into the pond was worth it after all.

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January 19^th, 1998

“Hae, let’s hide here!”

Hyukjae pulled the already-breathless Donghae with him so that they were both hidden by the tall bush just outside of the school’s soccer field. They sat behind the bush, hugging their knees close to their chests to block out the cold. Both boys’ breaths came out as a thin white smoke as the winter’s air assaulted their already exhausted lungs, a result from running all the way from their class to the soccer field, which was at least a good half a mile away.

“Why did you have to do that, Hae? Why did you have to go against Yesung, you know he’s out to get you!”

Five years had passed since Hyukjae became Donghae’s best-friend-slash-bodyguard, and until that day Donghae still couldn’t get over how scary Hyukjae looked when he was angry. It was funny because Hyukjae complained all the time about his mother looking as scary as the lady in that Exorcist movie whenever she got angry. Donghae thought that Hyukjae wasn’t even aware that the very same talent had been passed down to him from his mother.

What was with Hyukjae being Donghae’s bodyguard, you ask? Well, apparently since they met for the first time until they were both in primary school, Donghae’s tendency to solve any problem he was facing with his tears hadn’t quite changed. In short, the whole school knew that Donghae was the little crybaby that was easily manipulated and bullied. Hyukjae knew this, and that was where he came in. Ever since he met Donghae, he had made it his personal goal not to let anyone play round with Donghae. Being in the school’s soccer team and an all-around social butterfly, Hyukjae was well-liked even among the teachers, so as long as he stuck around Donghae nobody dared to even tease the younger boy.

Things were different when Hyukjae wasn’t around, though. And that day just happened to be one of those days. When Hyukjae’s soccer practice ran a little later than usual, he hadn’t managed to meet Donghae right after his classes ended and when he finally met him, Donghae was at the corner of the empty class, about to be beaten up into a pulp by Yesung and Kangin, the school’s worst bullies, and their equally delinquent comrades. Apparently, Donghae had the balls to shove Yesung, making the latter fell onto the ground. And as brave as Hyukjae might be, snatching Donghae away and ran from the scene was a much better option than being beaten up by at least six kids.

“I… I couldn’t help it, Hyukkie. Yesung said that he would… he would come to your house and do bad things to you and Sora noona.”

Hyukjae sighed and rolled his eyes as Donghae said that, accompanied with the classing quivering bottom lip and watery eyes. Sometimes Hyukjae wished that Donghae would realize that he’s already 11 years old and that him being that fragile was the very reason why the bullies found it really entertaining to pick on him. But that’s how Donghae was and Hyukjae knew he couldn’t change it unless Donghae himself wanted to.

Seeing Hyukjae’s reaction to his words, Donghae felt even more scared. What if Hyukjae stopped being his friend because of what he did? Because he actually wanted to protect Hyukjae? Hyukjae had been doing that for him for such a long time and he felt that it was time to return the favor. As it turned out, he might have done the wrong thing since Hyukjae seemed really angry at him for doing so.

“I’m sorry, Hyukkie.”

Upon hearing his best friend’s apology, Hyukjae knew in an instant that he was being too harsh with Donghae. He meant well after all and he only did what he did because he thought he was protecting Hyukjae by going against Yesung. The tension in Hyukjae’s face quickly melted away and he decided that it was a really inappropriate time to be mad at Donghae. He hugged his best friend sideways and it instantly put a smile on Donghae’s face.

“I’m not mad at you Hae, it’s just… can you at least pick a better time to stand up to Yesung? Like, when I’m around for example. You can shove Yesung all you want when I’m there. If you’re going around challenging the school’s bullies without me knowing then what’s the point of me protecting you, then?”

Donghae chuckled at Hyukjae’s request.

“I won’t do that if you’re around, Hyukkie. The only reason why I was mad at Yesung was because you weren’t there and he might just be telling the truth when he said he’d hurt you and Sora noona. If you’re there then I know you’re okay and I don’t need to be mad at Yesung anymore.”

Something warm, something that could even beat the coldness of the winter air spread throughout Hyukjae’s insides when Donghae said that. To Hyukjae, it felt really good to know that he and Donghae had the same desire to protect each other. It made him aware that he would never be alone, he would always have his best friend with him.

“Hae, I think they’re already gone. Let’s go home, I think Mom said that we’re having samgyupsal for dinner tonight, your favorite.”

“Really?”

Donghae stood up from the excitement of hearing that his favorite food was available for dinner that night, making him visible even from across the soccer field. And what a mistake that was.

“Hey, there they are!”

Both Hyukjae and Donghae’s eyes went wide when they heard Kangin’s yell and they instantly realized that they weren’t actually safe from the group of bullies chasing them earlier. Hyukjae yelled,

“Donghae, run!”

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First chapter. (Still) hoping you guys enjoy this. :)