“Let’s go to the mall!” Donghae screamed gleefully.

“EH?!” the other three yelled.

Donghae reasoned out, “Oh, c’mon! Let’s take a break from the Showcase stuff! It’s summer! We shouldn’t be so stressed with school!”

“He’s right,” Tiffany smiled. “I’m in!” she told Donghae.

Hyoyeon playfully rolled her eyes and yelled, “If Tiffany’s in, then I’m in!”

The three people—Donghae, Tiffany and Hyoyeon—waited for Eunhyuk’s reply. “Eunhyuk?”

“Well..” Eunhyuk muttered, unsure.

Seeing the doubt in Eunhyuk’s face, Hyoyeon cutely begged, “Pleeeeeease~”

After seeing what Hyoyeon did, Donghae excitedly waited for his friend’s reply.

“Okay,” Eunhyuk groaned.

Tiffany bit her lip, trying to hold herself back from laughing and Donghae pumped a fist in the air. “ASSA! I knew it!” he cheered.

Eunhyuk shot his friend a deadly glare while Hyoyeon innocently cocked her head, “What do you mean?”

No reply.

“Weird,” Hyoyeon thought and so she continued, “So when are we going?”

 “Tomorrow? You all free?” Tiffany asked.

Eunhyuk nodded, “Yes, I’m free the whole day!”

“So am I!” Hyoyeon clapped.

“Same here,” Tiffany added.

Donghae concluded, satisfied. He finalized everything & said, “So it’s set! Let’s take the day off & spend the whole day tomorrow at the mall, arasseoyo?”

“Wait. Where do we meet?” Eunhyuk interrupted his friend’s bliss.

Donghae slapped Eunhyuk’s arm, “Aigoo~ Of course, we’ll fetch the ladies before lunchtime!”

Tiffany and Hyoyeon laughed.

Eunhyuk jokingly glared at Donghae.

The four people bade their goodbyes & went inside their respective rooms obliviously. Oblivious that someone was listening from her own balcony. Park Gyuri.

“Getting closer, huh?” Gyuri scoffed, pissed with Hyoyeon’s newfound closeness with Eunhyuk. She whispered to herself, “Let me put an end to that.”

She took out her phone and made a call.

The other person answered, “Hello? Who’s this?”

“It’s me, Park Gyuri. You want to know where Hyoyeon is, right?”

“Neh,” the man in the other end of the line answered firmly with a tinge of excitement in his voice.

“Korea Institute for the Arts.”

The next day..

“Tiffany!” Hyoyeon called to her friend, “Eunhyuk texted me that we should be ready in a few minutes!” The blonde girl was going through her closet.

Tiffany tried on a dress and said, “Ah, jinjja?” She turned around and showed the dress to Hyoyeon. “What do you think, Hyosookie?”

“It’s perfect..” Hyoyeon’s pointer finger flew to her chin before she shrieked, “If you were going on a date!” She stuck out a tongue playfully.

“YAH!” Tiffany pouted.

Hyoyeon giggled as they both went back to their business of changing outfits.

“How do I look?” the two gal pals asked at the same time.

Then again, they answered together, “Great!”

The two girls laughed until their tummies ached.

Meanwhile..

“HAHAHAHA!” the two boys heard laughter from the other side of their wall—the one adjacent with Tiffany and Hyoyeon’s room.

Eunhyuk came out of the bathroom after taking a bath and heard the sound coming from the girls’ room. “Was that Hyoyeon-ssi?” he asked with his hair dripping wet.

Donghae guffawed, “Aren’t they too excited?”

“As excited as you are?” Eunhyuk pointed to his bestie, “I. DON’T. THINK. SO.”

Donghae threw a pillow at Eunhyuk’s direction. “YAH!”

As he was buttoning his shirt up, Eunhyuk informed Donghae, “I’m almost done.”

“Now, who’s excited?” Donghae teased.

“Not me,” Eunhyuk shook his head, half-smiling.

Donghae shouted, “LIES!” He laughed heartily.

Eunhyuk took a last look at the mirror before saying, “Whatever. Hurry up!”

Sliding his feet to his shoes, Donghae muttered, “I’m almost done.”

“Take your time.”

Donghae made a weird expression before asking, “Yah, Eunhyuk! Are you bipolar?”

“MWOH?!”

“Should I hurry up or should I take my time?” Donghae scratched his head.

Eunhyuk chewed the inside of his cheek, contemplating whether he should admit the truth to Donghae or not. He was his best friend, after all. Heaving out a deep sigh, Eunhyuk confessed, “It’s just that they might think we’re too excited.”

“I was actually thinking of the same thing,” Donghae clicked his tongue, nervously running a hand through his hair.

The two boys sighed at the same time.

An hour later at the mall..

“I’m hungry,” Hyoyeon whined, unconsciously patting her tummy.

“So am I,” Donghae seconded, slowly nodding at Hyoyeon’s last remark.

Holding his chin, Eunhyuk asked the three, “So where do we eat lunch?”

“I’m craving for some pizza & pasta!” Tiffany thought aloud, biting her lip at the thought of eating her favorite type of food—Italian.

Shrugging, Donghae said, “I’m fine with that.”

His bestfriend, Eunhyuk said, “I can eat anything.” He flashed his famous grin; one in which his gums were showing.

“Majority wins!” Hyoyeon clapped, bouncing on her toes excitedly.

“Kaja~”Tiffany marched on with that phenomenal eye-smile with what her hazel orbs forming crescents.

The four smiling people entered an Italian restaurant & immediately, a man—a waiter—assisted them to a table for four.

As soon as they were seated, the waiter handed them the menus. And after a few more moments—the waiter gave them some time to decide on what they’re going to order—the waiter came back with a small tickler in his hands, ready to take their orders. “May I take your orders, Ma’ams & Sirs?”

“Ah, neh,” Eunhyuk went first, rubbing his jaw while he kept his eyes fixed on the menu, “I’ll have a serving of classic lasagna.”

The three other people busied themselves over deciding which food they should order.

The waiter asked politely, “And your drinks, sir?”

“Just a glass of water,” Eunhyuk said, nodding before he closed the menu and placed it down.

The waiter turned to Tiffany then asked her, “How about you, ma’am?”

“Carbonara, please!” the young girl answered, flashing her eye-smile to the waiter who was caught off guard by her gesture.

The waiter looked down on his notepad and reiterated, “So one serving each for Classic Lasagna & Carbonara..?”

“Make that two servings of Carbonara, please,” Donghae added, raising a finger on the air to catch the waiter’s attention.

“So,” the waiter looked from Tiffany to Donghae back and forth, “What are your drinks, ma’am & sir?”

“Iced tea,” Donghae and Tiffany said at the same time.

The four young people laughed.

Eunhyuk & Hyoyeon exchanged meaningful glances with the latter biting her lip to prevent herself from bursting out into laughter.

After she had calmed herself down, Hyoyeon placed her order, “I’ll have Chicken Alfredo with just ice cold water.”

After the waiter precisely reiterated their orders, he excused himself.

While waiting for their food, Eunhyuk started a conversation. He mischievously told Tiffany, “Your friend owes me a favor.”

“Ah, jinjja?” the girl cocked her head and turned to her friend.

Hyoyeon just nodded, comically wearing a childish pout before submerging in a fit of giggles.

Donghae amusedly listened to the three people, finding it entertaining.

“And I’ve thought of something already,” Eunhyuk added.

“What is that?” Donghae asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Hyoyeon-ssi shall drop the honorifics and speak informally or comfortably with me and Donghae.” Eunhyuk smiled and continued, “We’ll gratefully do the same to both of you if you will allow us.”

“We will?!”Donghae eyed Eunhyuk weirdly before shifting his gaze to Tiffany.

Nodding, Eunhyuk wiggled his eyebrows, causing the two girls to laugh and Donghae to shake his head dramatically.

Hyoyeon drew in a deep breath and awkwardly said, “Arasseo, Eunhyuk-ah!”

The man whose name was called by Hyoyeon rested his hand on his cheek and chuckled triumphantly.

“That’s more like it, Hyoyeon-ah,” Donghae said, letting the informal name roll out his tongue as if testing whether it would feel right.

After two or so seconds of awkward silence, the three of them—Donghae, Eunhyuk & Hyoyeon—stared at Tiffany as though they were all waiting for her to do the same.

Feeling uneasy from the stares, Tiffany stopped thumbing through her hair. “What are you looking at, guys?” she asked.

“You try,” Hyoyeon told her, nudging her friend’s shoulder gently.

“For real?! Me, too?!”

“Yes, of course,” Donghae said, sticking out his tongue childishly.

Sighing, Tiffany rolled her eyes & forced out, “Okay, Hyoyeon-ah, Eunhyuk-ah, Donghae-ah! Contented now?!” She herself was trying to keep herself from laughing at the awkwardness saying those informal names brought to her.

The other three people cheered but just then, their food arrived as if on cue.

As they started to eat, Hyoyeon tried to start a descent conversation. “How’d you two come to like dancing?” She asked Eunhyuk and Donghae who were initially busy chomping on their meals.

Donghae, whose mouth was still full, looked at Eunhyuk and signaled him to answer for the two of them.

Wiping his lips with a napkin, Eunhyuk started, “When I was young, my family moved to Seoul & then I met Donghae.”

If only Eunhyuk started his story from the time when he was still living in Incheon, then Tiffany and Hyoyeon would’ve found out that they are the three childhood friends from several years ago.

Eunhyuk continued, “Almost everyday, we would hang out at their house after school & we would busy ourselves over anything childish. But when we got tired of that--”

“We started to take interest on visiting my noona’s dance studio,” Donghae continued for Eunhyuk as he swallowed his food. “My noona is a dance instructor and that’s her work. She had always invited me to dance but I thought dancing were for gay people & girls only,” he guffawed, staring at the ceiling as he recalled the past.

“Well,” Eunhyuk butted in, “Lee Hyori noona just danced ballet and jazz so we got the wrong idea of dancing at first.” He joined his friend in laughter and said, “But we eventually discovered that there are dance genres that are guys-friendly, too!”

Tiffany and Hyoyeon nodded at the appropriate intervals as they listened intently to what the boys have to say. They chewed their food gracefully, throwing side comments when needed.

“Since then, we had asked our parents to enroll us to a dance camp every summer!” Donghae told the girls.

Eunhyuk added, “And since we study in the same school, too, we reared our common interest together.”

“So you two are really close childhood friends,” Tiffany assumed before she sipped on her drink.

Donghae enthusiastically nodded and stated, “Yes so we are almost like brothers—knowledgeable about anything concerning the other.. even childhood romance!”He teasingly wiggled his eyebrows at his friend as they mutually know that Donghae about Eunhyuk’s Hyosookie.

“Yah!” Eunhyuk hit Donghae’s head gently and retorted, “They weren’t asking about that!”

Tiffany & Hyoyeon laughed at the scene before the latter began, “Tiffany and I are childhood friends, too!”

“Close childhood friends, to be more precise,” Tiffany said, smiling at Hyoyeon dearly. “Like you,” Tiffany told Donghae, “I know about Hyoyeon’s childhood sweetheart, too!”

Hyoyeon was quick to cover Tiffany’s mouth as she smiled nervously at the two men in front of them. “Tiffany!” she squealed childishly, begging for Tiffany to stop.

As she was about to open to counter her friend’s remark, Tiffany was interrupted by Donghae’s curiosity.

“And where did music appear along the way?” Donghae asked the two girls who were still occupied with a verbal battle as to whether they should tell them the story about Hyoyeon’s Hyukjae oppa.

Relieved by the change in topic, Tiffany answered, “I studied Performing Arts in America for a few years, too.”

Eunhyuk pointed a fork at Hyoyeon and asked, “How about you?”

The two girls looked at each other & Hyoyeon had to quickly think of a lie because in reality, dancing is what she’s really in to—certainly not music.

..to be continued..

Next chapter’s gonna be a direct continuation of this one so I hope you guys stay tuned! And oh, sorry for taking too long to update, neh? Forgive me! *puppy eyes*

COMMENT REPLIES

@XxKay-NiixX. *hugs back* kekeke!~ no worries; writing for you guys is a pleasure! im really glad that i made your night exactly a month ago since this update is published a month after the last one! >:D

@HeeSicaLin. neh, i actually agree! sometimes, these guys can be such pabos when it comes to romance and blah blah blah, HAHAHA! :D

@PeekyWinnie. you're welcome, dear! and also, thanks for the encouragement.. did this update take too long? SORRY :'(