“Hey. Is Donghae in?” Hyukjae is standing right at the doorstep of Donghae’s house. Donghwa, Donghae’s brother, eyes him and grunts. Then he traipses into the kitchen without another word. Hyukjae keeps standing at the open doorway, feeling like a big doofus. Okay… That grunt is either a yes-grunt or no-grunt. Deciding to take his chances, Hyukjae wanders up the stairway to Donghae’s room. He can seriously navigate his whole house with his eyes closed. That’s how often he’s been here.

            Hyukjae approached the door to Donghae’s room, and he hears something weird coming from the room. His first thought is that maybe he catches his friend at a bad time and he’s watching or something. A small hiccup and sob, though, breaks through the door and Hyukjae practically football-tackles the door down.

            “DONGHAE?” Hyukjae shouts out in worry. He is on full on panic mode.

            A curled up figure in the middle of the room greets his eyes. The brunette tufts sticking out clearly from his head signal that Donghae, indeed, is home. The problem is that he’s sporting red, swollen eyes and pouting lips.

            “What?” Donghae grumbles. Hyukjae pauses in hesitation because this isn’t the normal reaction of a crying Donghae. A sad, crying Donghae would’ve tossed a giant Nemo plushie for him to get out of the room. In his hesitation, Hyukjae trips over the carpet and lands face first onto the ground. He lets out a few unfortunate swear words as he gets up.

            “Y-You’re crying,” Hyukjae says.

            Donghae rolls his eyes. “Obviously.”

            Hyukjae, lost for words, just stands there and nurses the bruise on his forehead from the fall.

            “Okay,” Donghae sighs and folds his legs in a meditating position. “I was practicing the art of eating chili peppers. I took only a bite, though, before the spiciness almost killed me.”

            Hyukjae now notices a few raw chili peppers lying on Donghae’s desk. There is a bowl of melted chocolate on the side as well.

            “Chili peppers dipped in chocolate?” Hyukjae asks, a you’ve-got-to-be-ting-me look on his face.

            Donghae smiles through his tears, which is a very strange sight to look at. “Mmhmm. I saw it on a food channel once.”

            Hyukjae cautiously walks toward the peppers as if they may explode anytime on him. “Okay… And there must be a reason you are torturing yourself to tears eating this stuff.”

            Donghae nods. “Oh well. A website* mentioned that chili peppers make you release endorphins, and chocolate has… err, a chemical that’s really hard to pronounce. Short story short, they’re aphrodisiacs! Which are supposed to induce love hormones. Or something like that.”

            Hyukjae only scoffs. “I can’t believe you only took one bite before breaking down into tears.”

            Donghae’s face twists fiercely. He gives his best friend a very obstinate glare. “It was very spicy. My mouth still feels like it’s on fire.”

            Hyukjae only gives him a superior smirk. Donghae, growling, lunges at his table and picks up the only bitten chili pepper. He stabs it into the bowl of chocolate and holds it up threateningly.

            “Let’s see you try it, then.”

            Hyukjae’s body, currently, is sending him ‘abort! Mayday mayday!’ signals, but Donghae is on top of him before he can even twitch a muscle. Donghae stuffs Hyukjae’s open mouth (which is reflexively open for a scream) with the pepper. Hyukjae gags a little, and then chomps his teeth down. Donghae pulls his hand away, flapping it.

            “OUCH! You BIT me!”

            However, Hyukjae is too busy in the throes of pain to laugh at Donghae’s pained face. The piece of hot pepper in his mouth is already going down his throat, and he pants, trying to get the red flames that seem to be consuming his tongue.

            “I’m dying,” he chokes out, the beginning of droplets of tears squeezing out form the corner of his eyes. He turns, still having the mind to scowl at Donghae.

            “Alright,” he growls. “You asked for it.”

            Hyukjae, faster than he would have been even for grabbing the new release of his favorite magazine, picks up a pepper and smears it with chocolate. He forces Donghae’s jaw open with one hand, and proceeds to make him take a bite of the accursed pepper.

            Donghae’s face turns red, and soon, more rivers of tears are pouring out.

            “Damn it,” he wheezes. Hyukjae is lying with his back on the floor, chest heaving as tears go down his face. Donghae plops down next to him, sniffling. They both start sobbing as if they’re watching a very bad Korean drama.

            Their cries are echoing through the room and probably the whole house as well. Hyukjae vaguely sees Donghwa slowly opening the door to see what the hell is happening inside of Donghae’s room. He spots the two with tear tracks running down their pathetic faces, and only raises an eyebrow.

            “…Okay,” he murmurs to himself in a weirded out tone, and closes the door again.

            “You’re going to be the death of me one day,” Hyukjae says, smacking Donghae’s chest half-heartedly. The tears are quickly drying out, and just as he thinks the bout of tears are done, he catches a whiff of the peppers again and more salty water runs out from his eyes. Donghae only laughs weakly, before hiccupping again.

            Hyukjae’s sister interrogates Hyukjae when she sees her brother’s swollen eyes. She breaks down, half-sobbing from laughter, when she hears the reason for the tears.

            “You guys,” she says, shaking her head.

            Now Hyukjae’s really thankful that the sobbing fest happened during the weekend, so that their friends at school wouldn’t have seen their swollen eyes and react the same exact way his sister did. The pure humiliation would’ve pierced his soul in a dramatic death .

            Donghae is humming a jaunty little tune as they walk to school. This morning is obviously one of his quieter days, because on a usual day, he would be babbling about something or other. Instead, Hyukjae takes over and talks about the random stuff (including swearing up and down that he saw a flying raccoon the other day) that has occurred in the past few days.

            “Flying raccoon,” Donghae only says flatly. “I would believe you if you had said flying squirrel. Now, flying raccoon, that’s an entirely different story.”

            Thus, they start off the morning by debating the existence of flying raccoons. This is probably one of their most productive conversations they have ever made.

            It is when they’re walking through the hallways full of rusting lockers that a soft-pitched voice calls Hyukjae aside.

            “Hyukjae oppa. Thank you for lending me your homework. It really helped me understand the lesson.” A sweet looking girl is standing shyly on the side, holding out a few pieces of loose-leaf paper towards Hyukjae.

            “No problem.” Hyukjae’s smile brings out a light flush to the girl’s cheeks. She nods and walks away.

            “Who was that?” Donghae asks with a strange tone interlaced in his voice. The side of his lips is down turned slightly as he gazes at the girl’s back.

            “Park Ji-yeon. She’s in my physics class,” Hyukjae replies.

            “I see,” is all that Donghae says. He hitches the backpack strap on his shoulder with his hand.

            “Are you okay? You look a little sick. Is it from the chili peppers the other day?” Hyukjae tilts his head.

            “Probably.” Donghae lets out a small uneasy grin. “My stomach still feels like it has withered because of the peppers. We’re lucky we didn’t get diarrhea, at least.”

            “Ew.” Hyukjae scrunches up his nose in agreement.

            The class bell rings. They look at each other.

            Well, vomiting rainbow cows’ crap, they’re late.

*The website Donghae got his info off of (or rather, I did): http://people.howstuffworks.com/love3.htm

:)