Winter 2003

Hyuk-jae was very confused. 

He was ashamed to confess that in the 17 years of his life, he had never dated someone, let alone had with anyone. He had never had "that special something" with another person, he didn't know what it was like to be passionately kissed or be held firmly in another person's arms.

Well, not until now.

Amidst being kissed hard and being touched places where only he previously had touched, he couldn't quite comprehend how he had ended up in this situation.

He recalled he had ran from home, and when he had run out of breathe he had stopped and settled down in a park which honestly was too far away from where he lived.

He didn't know how he had ran that far.

Jong-woon hyung had spotted him outside in the cold, brought him inside and warmed him up, and when he had asked Hyuk-jae what he wanted to do he had earnestly answered he wanted to party.

It wasn't that Hyuk-jae was a huge party animal, or even actually wanted to party (he was feeling slightly depressed), on the contrary, he didn't know how parties were supposed to be enjoyed, and he only wanted to know if they were exactly how they were in the summer camp.

He remembered how much of a great time he had had in the camp, specially at night, he had danced and people had cheered for him, but he could imagine "real" parties with alcohol and drunk people probably wasn't the same.

At his request, Jong-woon had only laughed and brought him back home, the last place on earth Hyuk-jae wanted to be.

His parents had embraced him and scolded him for being out so long, and hugged Jong-woon and admired just how big he had become (personally Hyuk-jae felt bigger). Hyuk-jae's parents had then invited Jong-woon inside, where they spent a good 30 minutes chatting in the living room until Hyuk-jae got bored and went to his room to read  manga.

It was then when Jong-woon had followed him there and started talking about deep feelings and forbidden emotions and Hyuk-jae had no idea of what to say so when Jong-woon had asked him what he felt he had blurted out something along the lines of "I like you too!"

Jong-woon had then taken him all in, kissing him like a savage and Hyuk-jae couldn't help but feel afraid, confused and aroused at the same time.

The older boy caressed his thighs as he leaned in and pushed his tongue farther inside Hyuk-jae's mouth, and Hyuk-jae who naturally had never done anything like this before only followed his lead. At one point both of the men felt rather at ease with each other, Hyuk-jae finally accepting that this could be something good, when somebody knocked on his bedroom door and stepped inside.

Hyuk-jae was now very confused again.

And slightly embarrassed.

"Sung-min..!" He gasped as he stared at his friend.

He could see Jong-woon by his right wiping saliva of the corners of his mouth, and wondered if he himself perhaps looked red like a tomato. That would have been an understatement.

Sung-min, who was at an even bigger state of loss of words, gulped hard before opening his mouth, "Hi... I just wanted to drop by to..." He breathed heavily, "happy new year."

Jong-woon stood up quickly after Sung-min had spoken, and gave Hyuk-jae a reassuring smile before telling him he'd call him.

The two boys stayed silent for a while, occassionally looking at each other with the most curious thoughts on their heads.

Hyuk-jae couldn't help but wonder what had made Sung-min come here, after months of completely ignoring him, he had suddenly showed up without even calling first (not that he normally had to, but Hyuk-jae knew their friendship wasn't the sam as before)

.

"Happy birthday." Hyuk-jae mumbled, and for a moment he remembered Jong-woon's lips touching his, but he brushed the sensation off. Now wasn't the time for that.

"Thanks..." Sung-min replied, "your parents called me."

To this, Hyuk-jae stared at Sung-min with disbelief written all over his face.

"What, why?!"

"They said you had vanished and they thought you perhaps were at my place," Sung-min explained carefully,  "but since you never go out by yourself I thought you might get lost, so I volunteered to come here and help search for you if something bad happened."

"Ah, no!" Hyuk-jae whined loudly, hitting his mattress with his fists, "no, no, no, no! I had everything under control, I'm not a child anymore!

"I beg to differ, when I got here they told me you had almost freezed to death."

"Well, that's not true! I was enjoying the cold! You know how much I love winter."

"You hate winter and you were definitely freezing to death."

Weeks passed and the boys quickly found each other again.

They slowly started conversing together in school, snickering when they had to open their books in page 69 and pairing up with each other when they had to choose one partner to work with at the lab.

Sung-min felt in peace with everything, although he more than anything wished Hyuk-jae would stop meeting Yesung hyung at the latter's parents's café after school.

Not only that, but now that Hyuk-jae and Jong-woon seemed to be dating (Hyuk-jae called their relationship "only a friendship" but Sung-min knew that was not the case), Hyuk-jae wouldn't stop talking about "what Jong-woon hyung said yesterday when we were talking on the phone" or "how ridiculously funny Jong-woon hyung is when he dances".

Sung-min was sure he had heard the same stories being told again and again, and Yesung's name was repeated a little too much for his own liking.

But other than that, everything was good.

The boys were cautios with how they behaved around each other, and Sung-min tried as much as he could to keep a healthy balance between hanging out with Hyuk-jae and with Soon-kyu and her friends, and doing homework and attending after-school activites.

He was tired when he went to bed at night, but couldn't complain: he was having the time of his life!

"Hey, don't you sometimes want to have this seriously y girlfriend so everyone would envy you?"

Sung-min was lying on his bed focusing on his homework when Hyuk-jae had asked that question. He glanced over at the younger boy who had sprawled himself all over the floor, and he noticed how Hyuk-jae hadn't even opened his text book.

Sung-min sighed.

"Why would I want people to envy me?"

"I don't know," Hyuk-jae said more to himself than to Sung-min, "I guess because people would pay attention to you?"

"I don't need people's attention all over me, it's stressful," Sung-min replied, "besides, I already have a girlfriend."

Well, this was awkward.

"What!?" Sung-min had never seen Hyuk-jae's eyes so wide and big as they were in that moment, "why did you never tell me?"

"Isn't it pretty obvious that me and Soon-kyu are dating? I've been going out with her since last year."

"I can't believe you never told me!"

"Like I said," Sung-min cleared his throat, "I thought it was pretty clear. You probably haven't noticed because you've been to busy drooling over Yesung hyung."

Hyuk-jae shook his head before giving a cheerful smile and congratulating him, "but she's kinda waaay out of your league."

They stayed quiet after that. Sung-min was fully aware of the fact that Soon-kyu was pretty, petite and cute, whereas he wasn't much to look at. He wasn't that tallest guy in The Republic of Korea, and he wasn't exactly what people considered "handsome", but he knew Soon-kyu liked him for who he was, and not what he looked like.

"Have you guys done it yet?"

"Done what?"

"Y'know..." Hyuk-jae looked at him as if he were talking about the most obvious thing in the planet and Sung-min were just stupid, and he grunted loudly before pulling his right index finger in and out of a circle he formed with his left hand.

"Why would you want to know something like that!?"

"Because I'm a curious ."

"... Not yet, we haven't."

"Really?"

"Really."

"Promise?"

"What's wrong with you?"

"Just promise me I'll be the first guy to know when you've lost your ity."

"That's... weird."

Hey everyone! After more than one month updating, I finally did it! (I've been travelling ;; )

I know my chapters are short, but I think it suits the format suit this kind of fic since it's chaptered. I'll probably move the entire story to livejournal once it's done. :>

As always, thank you so much for reading, I appreciate all of you. <3 Please comment, they motivate me and keep me satisfied. /oh and it's late so if you see any typos don't hesitate to tell me so I can fix it ^__^;;