Ding dong.

The door was opened by a man that was a few inches taller than Hyukjae, with dark hair and black-rimmed glasses. His face resembled Donghae’s in some ways, which intrigued Hyukjae.

“H-hello. Is this… Lee Donghae’s house?” Hyukjae greeted nervously, bowing down slightly in a sign of respect as it was obvious that the man was older than him.

The man eyed him warily. “Yes, and who are you?”

“I’m Lee Hyukjae, his schoolmate,” the high-schooler replied. “He invited me over to work on a Science project together.”

Recognition passed through the elder’s face and he smiled. “Oh! Yeah, Donghae mentioned you’d be over,” he quickly stepped out of the way to let the teenager through. “Come in. I’m Donghwa, Donghae’s brother,” he introduced himself as Hyukjae toed his sneakers off. 

“Nice to meet you, Donghwa-sshi.”

“Pleasures all mine. Hae’s in his bedroom. Walk up the stairs and it’s the first door on the left, hard to miss,” Donghwa helpfully informed Hyukjae.

With a polite smile, the boy thanked the elder and quickly climbed the stairs to Donghae’s bedroom. He noticed the picture frames hanging on the wall, and paused for a while when he saw one of his friend as a toddler. Donghae was sitting on grass, his face childishly chubby. The boy’s lips were stretched to a wide grin as his small arms wrapped around a white-furred dog nearly as big he was. Hyukjae smiled at the photograph.

Donghae still looked as cute as he did when he was younger. Since the first time Hyukjae saw the younger years ago at kindergarten, he had always thought that Donghae was blessed with attractive genes. His big, doe-like eyes and thin lips made all the teachers swoon when they were in elementary school. And luckily, it stayed that way all through high school. He was always confused as to why Donghae never had that many admirers with such an adorable face. 

Adorable? Huh, that’s a first. Hyukjae thought. Never thought of Donghae that way before. 

With a shrug, he moved on from the picture frames towards the younger’s room. He stopped right in front of the first door on the left, and lightly knocked. Muffled shuffling could be heard from the inside before Donghae exclaimed;

“Coming! Give me a sec, hyung!”

The door opened from the inside by a flustered Donghae in a blue t-shirt and white shorts. His eyes widened when he realised it was not Donghwa. 

“H—Hyukjae?!” Donghae squeaked as he was rooted to his spot. “When d—did you arrive? I didn’t  hear the doorbell.”

“Your hyung answered the door,” Hyukjae replied. “Uh, can I come in?”

Donghae finally snapped out of his trance. “Oh, of c—course!” He opened the door wider to let the elder in. “Sorry for the mess. I thought you’d come, uh, later.”

“It’s alright,” Hyukjae said as he stepped through the threshold. His eyes took in the spacious bedroom, walls painted pastel-blue and the carpet grey. The bed was unmade, half of the comforter hanging off the bed onto the floor and a grey Dell laptop perched on top of the mess. The room wasn’t messy, it looked more ‘lived in’ to Hyukjae. “It’s not that bad.”

The younger closed the door after Hyukjae and quickly went towards his bed to clean up half of the mess. He pulled the comforter so it bundled up on one side of the double bed while Hyukjae dropped his computer bag on the study chair. 

“So, how are you with your quests?” Donghae asked as he continued clearing the bed. “You can sit on the bed, if you want.”

Hyukjae waited until the boy got all of his stuff off the bed before sitting down on it gently. The younger frantically moved about his room trying to get it into order, embarrassed by the messiness. It took a few minutes until everything looked slightly better than it was before. 

“It’s fine,” Hyukjae replied. “Although, I really do need your help for the Monster Dungeon ones. I hate collecting quests.”

Donghae nervously chuckled at that. “Yeah, I get you. It took me a whole week to finish that shrimp-oil quest for some NPC in Edelstein.” He went to grab his laptop and opened it. “Which Monster Dungeon are you talking about?”

They spent the next hour logging onto Maplestory to help Hyukjae with his ongoing quests, pausing every now and then to ask each other about whatever’s going on with their lives. The conversation went from Maplestory, to their classes at school, group of friends, family, until Donghae couldn’t stop himself from laughing hysterically over an incident involving Hyukjae and his beloved dog, Choco. 

“How did you get rid of the stain?!” Donghae managed to gasp out in-between fits of laughter.

Hyukjae also had trouble trying to reply, due to all the giggles slipping out. “It took us at least 5 hours and, like, 2 gallons of bleach, probably! She stopped doing that now, though. Thankfully.”

“My dog used to do that too,” Donghae replied after finally calming down. “She was so naughty, I’m surprised our couch is still standing right now.” There was a hint of sadness when the boy talked that caught Hyukjae’s attention.

“Something happen to her?” He asked. “I saw the photo of you when you were younger with a white dog. Is that her?”

“Which photo?” Donghae asked, tilting his head in confusion.

“The framed one on the wall of the corridor. I noticed it on the way here.”

Recognition lit up on the younger’s face. “Oh! That one! Yeah, that’s her. She passed away last year, before Christmas. She’s been with us since I was born,” Donghae sighed as he looked down at the carpet to hide the sad smile on his lips. “Good thing she left after giving birth to her pup. It would’ve been tragic if Bada went with his mom.”

Hyukjae paused at that. Bada? That sounds familiar, he thought as he looked at Donghae skeptically. “Bada as in, B-A-D-A — Bada?” he asked.

“Yea, my mom named him. Why?”

It couldn’t be coincidence, could it? Donghae, who played Maplestory and owned a dog named Bada, with the exact spelling as the Mercedes who stole his kill?

Could it even be possible? The Mercedes was female, there was no way Donghae would’ve made his character female when the class had an option to be both genders. But his main is the Angelic Buster, wasn’t it? So it couldn’t have been such a shock if he picked to be a female Mercedes, since he did like their cute appearances. 

Thinking back, Hyukjae never actually told the boy about his encounter with the Mercedes. It wasn’t really a topic that you could just easily flow into, so he never thought of bringing it up with the younger. If Donghae was the Mercedes, he wouldn’t be afraid to let the information about his dog’s name slip out because he would think that Hyukjae didn’t know the identity of the Mercedes yet.

Deciding to not bring it up, Hyukjae replied, “Huh. That’s a cute name.”

“Well, he is a cute little thing. Too bad he’s fast asleep right now, though. I could’ve showed you him.” Donghae glanced at clock hanging on his wall and gasped. “Oh! You’ve been here for an hour, and we haven’t gotten anything done. Where are the notes?”

They worked on the Science project for the next 2 and a half hours, stopping now and then to chat about something unrelated. By 6pm, they had gotten the written part of the project done. Now all they had to do was actually perform the experiment and make it work, which they decided to do in class the next day. After wrapping everything up and finalising a few key points, Hyukjae took his leave. He shook Donghwa’s hand and waved back at Donghae as he walked across the street to get to the bus stop.

Hyukjae wasn’t 100% sure that Donghae was the culprit, but he’d try to gather all of the evidence he could find before pointing any fingers. He just gained a new friend, and it would’ve been a shame if it turned out that Donghae had nothing to do with his temporary mid-life crisis. But still, there was still a possibility of Donghae being the Mercedes. If the younger turned out to be guilty, Hyukjae wouldn’t even know what to do with the information. Would he continue being Donghae’s friend, or would they just have a fall out? 

Shaking his head, Hyukjae climbed onto the bus and hoped that the doe-eyed boy was innocent. After all, he was already coming to terms on his newfound attraction for Donghae.

WHAT IS THIS? ARE WE ACTUALLY FINALLY GOING TO START THE PLOT AFTER 5 CHAPTERS???? YASSSSS

am i sorry for not updating? hell yea. i've missed writing so much, and i really hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. i feel like i've gotten immensely better at this writing thingy since i last updated, and i'm hella proud. 

do comment! constructive criticism = much loved.

have an amazing day <3