In Kim Heechul's honest opinion, love was stupid. Fake. Nonexistent.

It pained him immensely to watch his close friends gaze longingly at girls that would never even give them a second glance. He wanted to ignore them when they rambled on and on about how beautiful they thought she was, and how kind, gentle, and sweet they insisted she must be.

But Kim Heechul was many things, and a bad friend was certainly not one of them.

So he would sit and halfheartedly listen to delicately planned confessions and escapades. Of dreams and hopes and smiles and kisses. He'd watch the way his friends' eyes would light up in excitement thinking about the lucky girl that received their affection, and the way their lips would be permanently stuck in a genuine grin of absolute glee. He'd skeptically nod along to whatever they said, but would never encourage their ideas.

Because Kim Heechul would always be the one his friends would go to when they were in tears after a rejection or a bad break-up. And it would always be Kim Heechul who would try to pick up the broken pieces of a shattered heart.

And thus, he promised that he would never subject himself to such agony. Why would he take the time to love someone if they'd never love him back? Why would he willingly put his entire heart, his entire soul, his entire being out on the chopping board for some random girl to slice into a million pieces?

No. He was too good for that. Everyone was too good for that.

But they all refused to listen to him.

Especially a Mister Lee Donghae.

Heechul vividly remembers when the spunky young teenager skipped into his training room of SM Entertainment. He remembers how bright he smiled, and how his eyes twinkled, and how he refused to give up no matter how often Heechul told him that he was an idiot that would never get to debut no matter how hard he tried.

And he remembers that every time he would mock his dongsaeng, the young boy would only offer a sheepish smile and bow before responding with a light, "I'm sorry, sunbae. I'll work harder!"

He was the only one that Heechul couldn't crack.

And so he became one of the only trainees that Kim Heechul willingly took under his wing.

Perhaps the younger boy's optimistic attitude  was actually beneficial to a pessimistic atheist like Heechul. Donghae was upbeat and energetic. He loved to make people happy, even if it was at his expense. His belief that all things would get better as long as he believed was similar to the mindset of a young child. 

And that twinkle. The young man had a certain twinkle in his eye that was simple mesmerizing.

Lee Donghae was nothing like Kim Heechul.

Heechul was lazy and a deadbeat. He didn't care what other people thought about him, and he always put himself first. He was all that really mattered. Heechul was a firm believer that destiny was something that had been drawn before an individual was born. Some people were meant to suffer, and that was that. Things wouldn't always get better as long as you thought that it would, because you can't change something that was written in red ink before you even entered the world. 

And his eyes had no twinkle at all. The eyes of a young Heechul were like black pits of nothingness: boring and dull. The kind that makes people want to look away.

But these differences were what made the relationship between Heechul and Donghae so interesting. They were like the sun and the moon. The sky and the dirt. The light and the darkness. They complimented each other, but it was clear that one was more favorable than the other.

Donghae was more favorable than Heechul.

The latter was quick to come to this conclusion, but it's not like he cared all too much. Why did he have to impress people? As long as he was happy, he didn't need other people. They would only get in his way.

What did bother Heechul was the fact that Donghae was like a lovesick puppy.

It was easy for the young man to claim that he had fallen in love. The poor guy was like a child: always pointing at things he wanted but knew he couldn't have. Occassionally there would be a time that he would actually get close to the girl that he was fantasizing over, but after a makeout session or two, the girl would always dump him. After all, Lee Donghae had the beliefs of a little kid: was only for after marriage.

And it seems that the girls that he always chased were only after that one thing and nothing more.

But what set Donghae apart from Heechul's other friends was the fact that he wouldn't break after a girl had left him. There would never be any tears, no screams, no laying around and doing nothing.

No. There was never any of that.

In fact, whenever Heechul would walk over to console the younger male as he thought he was obligated to, said boy would just shrug and say, "I guess it just wasn't meant to be."

And after Heechul would look at his friends as though he had three heads, the brunet would only continue on to say, "Don't worry, Hyung. She's coming. One day I'll meet her, and we'll stay together."

"How will you know that?" Saying that Heechul was mesmerized by the headstrong belief that his younger friend had would surely be an overdramatic statement. But the older male was intrigued by his friend's mannerisms, and he couldn't help but ask. 

"I'll know as soon as I see her," Donghae would say, "She'll look at me, and I'll look at her, and we'll both just know."

And as those words would depart from his lips, that twinkle in his eye seemed to brighten even more, and Heechul would have to look away. Because for some reason, it was too much for him to bare, "Whatever you say, Donghae-ah. Just don't get your hopes up too high."

Though Heechul uttered these words often, hearing them always seemed to sadden his younger friend. Donghae would look at the older male with an expression that many people would label as pity, but Heechul refused to call it anything but his friend simply being stupid.

"Hyung, your time will come, too. And you'll experience love."

This conversation was often a repeated one, and Heechul would always be surprised when he realized that the young teen hadn't given up on him yet. But then the initial shock would fade, and with an exasperated sigh, Heechul would decide to entertain the imagination of one of his beloved dongsaengs and respond with a halfhearted, "Yeah? Well, how will I know?"

And just like every one of these conversations that they would have, Donghae would smile his wide, toothy grin, and say, "Because when you see her, she'll feel like the only thing in the universe. Your heart will race, and your hands will sweat, and you'll feel dizzy. That's how I think love feels like."

"Sweating sounds disgusting." With that said, no more words on the manner were to be spoken. By this time, Donghae knew that if he said anything more, there was no guarentee that his hyung wouldn't shove him into the next wall and beat him until he was unrecognizable.

One day during their trainee years, when Heechul was twenty-one and Donghae was eighteen, they overheard a staff member mention something about new trainees coming in.

This information was interesting to both of the young men, as new trainees usually meant more people to boss around. Well, that was what they meant in Heechul's case, at least. To Donghae, trainees meant being able to meet new people and create new friendships.

Heechul considered the idea stupid, since it was already ridiculous enough for him to spend so much time with a dongsaeng like Donghae, but he never said anything about it to his younger friend. He knew that doing so would be pointless, as it would result in another intense ramble on the other's behalf on how Heechul should try to be more friendly because without other people in his life, he'd be lonely, and being lonely is the worst thing that could ever happen to someone who lived on planet Earth.

And Heechul had already grown tired of Donghae's rambles a very long time ago.

On that day, snow had finally set foot in South Korea in the form of dancing little snowflakes falling gracefully from the sky. The weather was absolutely lovely, and since it was the first snow day of the year, their trainer was kind enough to let them out early.

The sun was just beginning to set as the two friends exited the training facility and walked in the general direction of a bus stop. Donghae was complaining about how they hadn't been able to meet any of the newbies, and Heechul was halfheartedly listening, but silently thanking whatever mysterious force out there that had made it snow and had granted him an early release from the confines of the practice room.

But before he knew it, he had bumped into an unsuspecting figure that had been standing on the street, causing both her and himself to fall clumsily onto the frozen ground below them.

Heechul's mouth opened immediately to yell at the idiotic individual for not paying attention to where she was going, but as he looked into her eyes, he found himself unable to do so.

She was a pretty young girl, obviously younger than both he and Donghae. Her long black hair was hidden underneath a dark pink beanie, but the ends curled slightly in a way that was too perfect to be natural. She looked stunned by the sudden confrontation, and perhaps that was what caught Heechul so off-guard.

Because as he looked into her big brown eyes, he felt his heart beat faster. He stared at her in wonder, completely forgetting where he was, or what he had been doing. He forgot that he should be scolding her for not paying attention to her surroundings, and hell. He couldn't really say much because he found that right now he wasn't paying much attention to his surroundings either. Before he knew it, his palms began to sweat and he felt nauseous. The familiar sensation of throwing up bubbled in his throat, and the older man had to force a swallow in an attempt to keep it down.

Slowly, ever so slowly, he parted his lips to apologize. To do anything actually.

But suddenly, Donghae was at the young girl's side, offering his hand to help her up.

And then Heechul saw something that made him cringe.

As the young woman took his friend up on his offer, time seemed to stop. They were both still holding one another's hands, and their eyes were glued to one another's faces. 

The twinkle in Donghae's eyes seemed to become the brightest that Heechul had ever seen it in all the long years that the two had known each other.

And in the younger woman's eyes, a spark seemed to have been lit.

Heechul didn't know how long they stayed like that, but he knew that while they stared at each other, a horrible sense of dread seemed to fill his chest.

"Are you all right, Miss? My name is Donghae. Lee Donghae."

And then the woman unleashed a grin so bright that it put Donghae's own smile to shame. Her smile looked like it was something that belonged in heaven. It looked like something that should cause peace to reign throughout the world. It was angelic, it was perfect.

But it made Heechul wince.

"Thank you, Donghae. I'm fine. My name is Jung Sooyeon. But please, call me Jessica."

In Kim Heechul's honest opinion, love was stupid. Fake. Nonexistent.

Author's Note: I thoroughly enjoyed writing this one. I love how it came out, as I tried to use a different style when writing this piece. Instead of agonizing over the words that I wanted to use, I waited until I was in the right mood (in this case, the mood was sad/lonely), and then just typed whatever words came to mind. Since this is a new style, I'd love to hear your honest opinions on this. 

And happy new year!

Credit to ❝G-Way❥Graphics❞ for the beautiful poster.

This is an entry for the Fable Me This writing contest, with the prompt, "It is easy to despise what you cannot get."