March 19th. The Super Show 3 concert in Malaysia. The next, and last, concert they would have this year would be in May.

Seunghwan cheerfully tells his managees that this is a cause for celebration, and he pays for everyone's meals at a comfortable, but not outrageously expensive restaurant in Kuala Lumpur.

"Cheers!" Kim Jung Hoon, the most handsome of their managers, says, raising his glass to propose a toast. "To the longest break in our history!"

The rest of them cheers, happy smiles all around the table. Most of them forced, Donghae notes. Break, my . 

***

"I really need to earn more money," frets Ryeowook. 

"How much do you earn?" Donghae asks.

Ryeowook grimaces and looks around, paranoid. Although they were in the dorms, Ryeowook was still careful not to say anything against SM ever since Leeteuk suggested their own company may have bugged the place.

"...enough." Ryeowook finally answers. 

He's a real ty liar, Donghae thinks. 

***

In the same month that Perfection was repackaged, Siwon and Donghae start filming for Extravagant Challenge, the Taiwanese adaption of Skip Beat. Donghae  nervously hopes he does well, especially since he dyed his hair orange in an attempt to get more into his role. 

"First Eunhyuk, now you." Siwon laughs and slings his arm around Donghae's shoulder. "Super Junior's looking better and better these days."

Sure. "We'll probably never reach your level, though," Donghae attempts jokingly. 

Siwon smirks. "Well, I do have the most CFs for a reason."

And an even worse voice than me now. "Ha. Yeah." I wish he stops smiling. 

"I don't know who gets the most CFs after me in our group, but if I had to hire one of our members for a CF, do you know who I would hire?" Siwon asks.

"...yourself?"

Siwon laughs. "Good guess, but no. I don't think I appeal to western audiences as well as someone else." Siwon forcefully pulls the shorter man closer to him, and Donghae squirms uncomfortably. "Can you guess who he is now?"

...Is he hitting on me? "...Can you let go of me? Your shoulder's digging into my neck, and it hurts."

"Sorry." Siwon lets go of Donghae, who immediately starts massaging his own neck. "But you still didn't guess. Are you being difficult on purpose?" Siwon asks teasingly.

Donghae glares at him. "Yeah. And?"

***

Although people called Eunhyuk a 'jewel,' Donghae never really thought Eunhyuk fit that description. Hyukjae did. He was rare, precious, and everything to him. He always could make him laugh, did unintentionally stupid stuff, and never scolded Donghae in public. Donghae thinks Hyukjae's the one he fell in love with.

Eunhyuk's hilarious. He's also a womanizer and an alluring, teasing dancer. He scolds and criticizes Donghae in public when Donghae messes up on a particularly high note or hard dance move.

Donghae reminds himself that the sense of relief he's feeling right now is because he's not near Eunhyuk. You still love Hyukjae, Donghae thinks desperately. 

***

Siwon and Donghae agree that Ivy Chen's avoiding them. 

"Women rarely do that to me," Siwon says, puzzled. 

Yeah, right. "I asked her if I could take a picture of us together and post it on Twitter this morning. She eep'ed and ran away."

Siwon furrows his brows. "Does she know that you're gay?"

"Then why would she avoid you?" Donghae shoots back. 

***

I look like a raccoon.

Donghae glares at his eyeliner, realizes the glare was pretty y-looking, and tries it again. Huh. That was my best glare yet. He stiffens as a pair of unwanted and familar arms wrap around his neck.

"Hey, bro."

"Hey Siwon," Donghae grumpily answers, glaring at him in the bathroom mirror.

"Why are you wearing eyeliner today?" Siwon says, running his finger down the expanse of Donghae's jaw. Donghae's tempted to bite down hard on it so Siwon would stop touching him, but then Siwon would probably whine about it to Leeteuk, their managers, and anyone else important who would care. 

 "Experiment. I think my character would wear it sometimes."

Siwon realizes Donghae's fingers are twitching slightly, but he pinches Donghae's left cheek anyway. "You don't need to take your role so seriously. I just try to be my natural self, and look at me now." Siwon removes his arms and slaps Donghae's . "But nice jeans. If you were a girl, I would kiss you right now."

It takes all, plus a little more, of Donghae's self-control to not curse at, throttle, or just beat the hell out of Siwon right now. "Cool. Great. Well, I'm due on set soon. Later."

***

Although still pretty wary, Taiwan as a whole were more friendly to the LGBT community than South Korea was. Donghae finds out this when he walks on set, and a cameraman wolf-whistles at him. Instead of the shock and disgust Donghae expected to see on everyone's faces,  most of the cast, moreso the females, break out into raucous laughter. It makes Donghae scowl even more, as the situation reminds him of the encounter with Siwon earlier.

After Donghae's done filming, the cameraman approaches him. "Hey, I know you Koreans aren't exactly tolerant of my kind, but would you be willing to grab a bite with me at eleven?"

Donghae glares at him. "I don't even know your name."

"Eric Lin." He smiles toothily. 

Staccato. "I'm already seeing someone."

"Oh," Eric sighs. "Is it Siwon?"

Donghae's eyes nearly pop out of his head. "What the--of course not! He's..." Annoying. Arrogant. Talentless. Staying true to himself--if he didn't have his looks or connections he would have never gotten into Super Junior. . "Not my type. And I like women," Donghae adds as an afterthought. 

Eric giggles rather girlishly. "Well, I'm pretty sure he's interested in you. Have you seen the looks he's given you?"

Donghae feels sick to his stomach. "...he's just overly affectionate," Donghae says with a firmness he hardly feels. "He does that with all of Super Junior." Donghae gives Eric a once-over. Lin's actually not that bad. "But I'm hungry and tired of talking of just talking to Siwon. Is that Italian restaurant across the street fine for you?"

Eric looks surprised. "Of course! Formal wear?" 

"Don't get too excited. We don't need reservations, and I'm showing up in these clothes," Donghae says without a smile. 

Eric checks Donghae out once more. "...sure thing."

***

"I heard you went on a date with a today," Siwon says.

"It wasn't a date. It was a meal between two coworkers," Donghae says vehemently. 

"...did you tell Eunhyuk that you went to an Italian restaurant with that gay man who paid for your meal?"

No. "Yeah. He's totally fine with it."

***

Eric asks Donghae to accompany him more and more when they're not filming, and since he's better than Siwon, Donghae agrees. He doesn't care that his other coworkers start whispering about him again. He just pretends like he didn't just hear their whispers and fakes happiness the best he can. Donghae's better at it than he thought. 

Eventually, Ivy approaches him one day and apologizes for seemingly avoiding them. "My friend told me to be careful not to make any of your fans too jealous," she confesses. "She said that one girl told her she was going to kill me if I got too close with you."

Donghae tells her what the middle finger means in America and that this feels like a good situation to use it in. Ivy nods in astonishment at this new knowledge, and Donghae claps when she finally, albeit shakily, takes a picture with him later that day. In the picture, both of them are flashing peace signs. With the index finger down.

***

Hyukjae's hair is dyed platinum blonde for the 5th album. Hyukjae hates the new cut, but everyone else ignores that and squeals over his new hair color. 

"Wow, you actually look...not ugly," Kyuhyun says, so shocked he even stops playing Starcraft to ogle Hyukjae's new hair. 

***

The freeze. Hyukjae saw Donghae perform the freeze flawlessly a lot of times in dance class during their trainee days, but now Hyukjae's the one suddenly asked to practice it over and over.

Hyukjae grimaces, and massages his lower back. He must have fallen a thousand times today. I need to work out more.

***

Hyukjae frowns at his phone. Donghae's texts were getting less and less frequent. Hyukjae was never really needy, but this change in Donghae's behavior somehow unnerved him. 

"How are you doing?" Hyukjae texts.

The response comes back in two minutes. "Showing Ivy and Eric, two of my coworkers, how to do the dance from Perfection."

"Who's Eric?"

Donghae's response comes much later, which unnerves Hyukjae even further. "He's part of the film crew. He's really nice, and I don't have to pay for my own meals whenever I eat out with him."

That's weird. Only I do that for Donghae. "That's convenient for you. How did you convince him to do that?"

"I'm not sure. I think he has a crush on me, since he's gay and does way too nice stuff for me. Yesterday, he told me I'm too hot to be lonely, even if it's just for a month in Taiwan."

Hyukjae blanches. "Stop talking to him!"

***

Donghae smirks when he receives Hyukjae's angry text. "Jealous?" He texts back.

"Who are you texting?" The subject himself asks Donghae curiously. 

Bianca Bai, another one of Donghae's coworkers, grins. "I bet it's his girlfriend."

Donghae smiles vaguely. "Maybe."

"Oooh!" Ivy's eyes gleam. "Can we see a picture of her, please?"

"Nah. Then I might have to face a little competition," Donghae says jokingly, distracted by another text he received from Hyukjae.

Ivy wrinkles her nose. "Silly. How can I be interested in a girl?"

Before Donghae can even think of answer, his phone is snatched out of his hands by a playful Eric. "What the--no, give me that back!" Donghae says, frantically grabbing for his phone. 

"Nuh-uh," Eric says, wagging his finger at Donghae. "No need to be so antsy. We won't judge your two lovebirds' ts."

Donghae pales. What if Hyukjae really sent a t this time? "This isn't funny, Eric! Give me back my phone!"

Bianca smirks. "So you two were ting?"

"No, you dirty-minded woman, we were..."

"Read it out loud!" Ivy says, all of them ignoring Donghae's pleads. "And see if she has a picture ID, too!"

, , . "Hy--she doesn't, so don't even bother looking," Donghae says, panicking. All his acting experience chose this oh-so-very-convenient time to apparently have taken a complete vacation from his brain since Eric seized his phone.

Bianca, Ivy, and Eric take one look at Donghae's face, then one between each other, and crack similar grins. "Liar," Bianca says.

"I get to see her first!" Eric says excitedly. Donghae makes one more futile grab for his phone, but Eric just nimbly jumps out of the way. Donghae can just watch helplessly as Eric opens Hyukjae's text message.

Eric blinks. "Wow." He looks at Donghae's phone, shocked. "I...didn't expect that."

"What does she look like?" Bianca says about the same time Ivy asks, "What did she say?"

"Umm..." Eric glances at Donghae, and says, "Donghae's love is quite the looker. But the message says 'if you want to think so, sure. But please talk to me instead. Now. I need to hear your voice.'"

"Oh, awwww," Bianca coos. Donghae flushes and finally takes his phone back.

"I'll make that call now," he says shakily.

***

I hope Siwon doesn't find out about this, Donghae thinks. Eric asked Donghae to walk with him alone to a nearby teashop, and not wanting to anger Eric, especially now that he knew Donghae wasn't completely straight, Donghae agreed. Eric was sipping tea calmly while Donghae barely touched his because he was so nervous. Eric finally began the conversation after he was completely done with his oolong.

While reaching out for Donghae's hand and squeezing it. 

"Uh," Donghae says, pulling his hand away from Eric's.

"Sorry," Eric says, also withdrawing his hand to comb back some stray locks of dyed, light brown hair that had fallen into his face. Eric absentmindedly examines his nails for a bit, but then jolts back to reality when Donghae accidentally kicks him under the table. 

"Sorry," Donghae echoes Eric.

"It's fine," Eric assures. He looks up from his nails in order to meet Donghae square in the eyes. "So."

"Yeah?"

"...your bandmate. Interesting." Eric blows on his nails. "How far have you two gotten?"

"...we had . Several times. Three times in one day once."

Eric nods sagely. " is always good."

"...it hurt like hell the first time, though."

"You bottom?"

Donghae scowls. "Sometimes." 

"So," Eric repeats.

"Yeah?" 

Eric pouts, but then breaks out into a multimillion-volt smile. He looks like a demented energizer bunny, Donghae thought. "You should have told me you were one of my kind so much earlier!" Donghae blinks.

Eric continues to gush. "Taiwan has so many more opportunities for people like us than in Korea."

Donghae perks up a little. "Such as?"

"Well, they still don't recognize or legalize LGBT relationships, adoption, or marriage yet, " Eric begins as Donghae seems to deflate a teensy bit. "But we have some crazy nightclubs and hangouts if you know where to look."

Donghae grins, but then guiltily shakes his head. "No...I'm already..."

"Come on," Eric wheedles, pulling Donghae's arm. "You don't have to even flirt with anyone--just meet some new people like us, kay?" Eric's green contact-lensed eyes sparkle hopefully. "It would be realllllll fun."

"No, I am..." Donghae begins with a protest, but falters when Eric whips out some pictures taken at various nightclubs. Wow, Donghae thought, eyes greedily taking in the unfamiliar sight of one themed nightclub's decorations and similarly dressed men. He grins. "Is it near here?"

"Five minutes away, hot stuff."