Oh no, oh no, oh no, this was not good. This was so not good.

Eric was panicking, his mind thinking up a thousand scenarios of his untimely death, none of them particularly a nice way to go. Most involved him being flogged/drowned/burned to death by the resident Little Prince.

Never mind that his arm hurt like hell and the wound on his head was still gushing out blood. Never mind that the paramedics told him to stop fidgeting so that they could tend to his wound (Why bother fixing him up when he was going to die soon enough anyways?) Never mind that he was in a near-death situation just moments before. This was more important than that!

Eric had accidentally crashed Hyesung’s precious car. Hyesung’s very precious, very expensive car.

It had been a fine morning. Eric had somehow managed to convince Hyesung to let him borrow his car—because Eric’s own was in the repairs—to go shopping. Hyesung had reluctantly agreed, but not without issuing a threat that if anything happened to his precious car, he would personally kill Eric with his own bare hands.

Eric was a careful driver, so he didn’t take Hyesung’s threat to heart. But around ten minutes on the road, a reckless driver nearly crashed onto Eric, causing him to swerve and lose control of the wheel. Luckily, he managed to jump out of the car before the car crashed into a wall. Eric managed to get out of that ordeal with a sore arm and a gash across his forehead.

“Mun. Jung. Hyuk!”

Eric gulped. He never used his real name unless he was really serious.

Eric turned around—ignoring the protests of the paramedics—to face the bringer of his untimely death. Shin Hyesung.

Shin Hyesung stood in all his parka-wearing, pajama-pants-clad glory. Eric would have laughed at Hyesung going outside in his light blue pajama pants littered with dancing pink cats, but the furious look that contorted the lead singer’s youthful face was enough to drain Eric’s own face of its color. Eric never saw Hyesung look so furious, and he had repeatedly been on the receiving end of Hyesung’s fury, frequently may he add.

Hyesung stomped towards Eric, ignoring the various protests from police officers and paramedics alike, his steps mimicking a rampaging giant’s angry stomps. As soon as he was only a few mere centimeters from Eric, he grabbed Eric by his collar and hefted him up with the kind of strength no one thought the petite-looking man was able to produce.

“Mun Jung Hyuk,” Hyesung said, teeth grinding and eyebrows furrowed, “Care to explain what exactly happened?”

Eric imitated a gaping fish for a few seconds—either too shocked at Hyesung’s arrival, or much too scared of him—until he forced himself to swallow the proverbial lump in his throat and continued his tale of woe.

“I am so, so, so sorry!” Eric blubbered, “There was this driver—I didn’t see him—The steering wheel—And I just couldn’t—I’m really, really sorry. I’ll pay for the damage, I promise!”

Hyesung was staring (glaring) at Eric apprehensively, rage still very much visible on his face. His grip loosened a little, but he leveled Eric with a more pronounced glare as he did so. “Do you realize,” Hyesung started, “what you have done?”

Eric gulped. There was no way he was getting out of this one.

“I was enjoying my morning eating my breakfast, when I heard there was a car that crashed in this intersection here. A car that looked awfully like my precious car.”

Eric’s eyes wandered briefly to the people around them. Why weren’t they doing anything to prevent Eric’s demise at the hands of the furious singer?

“…And as it turns out, it was my car. Looking much worse than when I had left it in your care. Not even thirty minutes on the road and you managed to crash my car.”

Eric winced. Hyesung’s grip on his collar was starting to tighten once more.

“…So I went all the way out here—running—in my pajama pants and slippers. Do you realize that you have not only managed to destroy my car, but also humiliated me by making me run all the way out here in my pajama pants?” The grip on Eric’s collar tightened until Hyesung’s knuckles turned a deathly color of white, “Do you?”

Eric nodded vigorously, and was ready to blurt out another burst of apologies when something unexpected happened.

Hyesung had hugged him.

The Shin Hyesung, the Jung Pil Gyo, hugged him, the Eric Mun, in public.

It wasn’t even one of those one second hugs, it was one of those long hugs where Eric managed to find the time to discretely pinch himself to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. Ow. So he wasn’t dreaming. Huh. Go figure.

Hyesung pulled away and Eric could see the relief flood his face, his expression was much softer and he was no longer looking at Eric with contempt, just pure relief.

“I was really worried,” Hyesung murmured, voice low so only Eric could hear, “When I saw the news, I—I really thought something bad happened to you.”

“But—” Eric stopped, lowering his voice to no more than a whisper, mindful of their audience, “But I thought you were going to kill me for crashing your car.”

Hyesung looked at Eric incredulously, as if he was looking at the world’s biggest idiot. “Do you honestly think I’d value a car over someone I’ve known and care about for more than fourteen years?”

Eric did not have anything to say to that, so he just kept silent and looked uncertainly from Hyesung to the wreckage of his car. A part of him—a very large part—was elated at Hyesung’s direct proclamation of affection towards him and wanted nothing more than to lift the Little Prince up and spin him around in a show of elation, but another part of him was still wary. This was Hyesung’s baby they were talking about.

“And besides,” Hyesung added, almost dismissively, “I have insurance on it.”

Eric’s shoulders sagged in quiet relief. So Hyesung really wasn’t angry and the whole spiel about worrying about Eric’s well-being wasn’t some brilliant ploy to catch him off-guard. He really was worried about him. Just knowing that brought a large, silly grin to his face

“But you still have to buy me a new one.”

And just like that, Eric’s face immediately fell.

“What? But it’s so expensive! And you have insurance on your old one, use that to buy a new car!”