Hyukjae felt that day by day, every time he had Donghae by his side, he grew up a bit more.

Donghae felt that Hyukjae was a pessimist and needed to give life a chance.

“You’re too nice, Donghae, too nice for your own good.” Hyukjae commented one noon, when he had grown used to Donghae joining him in the cafeteria for lunch. They were comfortable enough to see each other as friends. Donghae sneakily reached out for Hyukjae’s strawberry drink-much to Hyukjae’s despair- and sipped on it cheerfully “alright I take it back, you’re not nice at all and I dislike you for not buying your own and always drinking /my/ strawberry milk!”

Donghae cooed and then giggled “Aww poor baby Hyukjwae wants his milk.”

Hyukjae didn’t speak to donghae for the rest of the day.

That very night, around midnight someone rapidly knocked on his home’s door. His parents who were just getting ready to go to bed wondered who it could be so late at night. They opened the door wearily, only to witness a small brown box with a small chit on it.

“For Hyukjae, I’m sorry!! T_T here I bought you all the strawberry milk my month’s pocket money could buy, but please talk to me! D: ”

The parents grinned when, the next morning, they presented Hyukjae with the chit and the box and Hyukjae could not believe this guy as he smiled and shook his head.

“Idiot Hae” he muttered as he happily dug in.

--

Donghae yowled painfully as his hair was harshly and abruptly tugged back, watery eyes searched for the culprits face, who was currently flashing him the widest of smiles “Hyukah, it hurts!”

Hyukjae promptly smacked a kiss on donghae’s forehead, making the boy furiously rub at it “Ya!” he tried shouting assertively, his embarrassment however clearly showed. Hyukjae cackled as he dropped in front of Donghae on the grassy ground, pointing accusingly “ When you cling to me or kiss me out of nowhere it’s okay, but when I do it, you make that face, hunh?! Hypocrite!”

“am not!”

“are too!”

“am not amnot amnooott!! And what does that word even mean!!?? But it sounds like a bad word so take it back!!”

Hyukjae pressed his hands together with a pleading expression “okay okay, forgive me your highness; you are certainly not a hypocrite. And yes it’s a bad word Hae, what are you, three?”

“Ten actually!”Donghae switched from whiny to content in less than a second and Hyukjae gaped as Donghae purred “Good boy, peace offering?”

Hyukjae put on a blank face “what peace offering?”

When Donghae looked near to tears Hyukjae didn’t hold back his laughter anymore as he tackled the boy down in a hug, squeezing the life out of the squealing boy. After a mini wrestling session the two simply lay there, very used to using each other as makeshift beds.

“Thank you for talking to me again, Hyukjae.”

Hyukjae heard the pout in donghae’s tone, as well as the relief “Silly, how could I not, I was so surprised to see that box full of milk cartons, also so happy, it showed you cared and that you’re too nice.”

Donghae yanked and rolled to reverse their position, at his dry lips as he frowned gently “You thought I didn’t care, when I stole a sip from your milk?”

Hyukjae made a move to squirm out from under him but Donghae was not having any of it “answer me”

A sigh “Hae-ah, it’s just that, sometime I feel that nothing is worth it, in this world, no matter how good you are to someone else, it’s a brutal world out there, it’s no use being nice to anyone.”

Donghae groaned “ You sound like a grumpy grandpa again! You’re too young to be this pessimist!”

“And you’re too nice! Wait you know what pessimist means but you didn’t know hypocrite?!”

Donghae sniffed defensively” Because I told ma’ how you talk and she used that word- pessimist- I got scared it was a disease but she explained it fully so yes, I know what being a pessimist is, she also said you should change your purs-peers-percpcia-“

“Perception, Hae?”

“Yeah!!, that, perception!” Hyukjae  laughed at the way donghae’s eyes had brightened, like someone hadswitched on al lthe bulbs inside his mind “You need to change that!”

Hyukjae raised a brow mockingly “whatever does it mean though, this word, Perception?”

He smirked smugly as Donghae pouted, then groaned and helplessly dropped his forehead on Hyukjae’s chest as it heaved and rumbled while Hyukjae laughed at him.

He didn’t mind though, Hyukjae was talking to him again, they were friends again, that’s all that mattered.

--

“HYUKJAE! WAIT FOR ME”

Donghae huffed as he willed his legs to run as fast as he could after a furious Hyukjae. It was after a few weeks over the “strawberry milk” incident, things had been smooth for some time.

Of course something happened again. Hyukjae had tried to change his perception as per Donghae’s request –they had both visited he English teacher to understand what the word meant and what changing perceptions meant- so Hyukjae had actually been practicing that, unfortunately it did not go too well.

Hyukjae had tried being nice to a rather rude boy who was a junior to top it off. Hyukjae did not expect the younger boy to be rude because earlier in the playground hyukjae had offered the boy to play at the football field first, saying hyukjae and his friends could play later.

 The younger boy had taken advantage and had hogged the field all to himself, later on threatening Hyukjae and his friends as Hyukjae finally asked the younger boys to leave.

So yes, Hyukjae was fuming as hemarched right out of the school after classes, with an anxious donghae at his heels.

“Please! Hyuk, my legs are not as long as yours!”

Hyukjae did stop when he heard a tiny scream, he turned to see donghae jumping out of a speeding car’s way right in time.

“Yah! Stupid! Look both ways before crossing over!” Hyukjae shouted, even more angry now, his heart was hammering against his ribcage due to what he saw and what could have happened had donghae not been able to jump out of the way in time.

Donghae in turn, pouted “You kept walking!” He screamed from across the street “now wait for me if you don’t want me to die!”

Hyukjae sighed, almost face palming as he waited, the signal for the cars went red and donghae jogged over, instantly latching onto Hyukjae’s left arm “Okay, let’s talk.”

“Not about that rude boy, what’s his face-“

“Kyuhyun! That’s his name and look everyone in school knows he’s rude, why did you have to choose him to start being nice to!”

“But donghae, Kyuhyun’s never rude to you!”

Donghae opened his mouth to retaliate but shut it, because yes Kyuhyun was indeed always nice to him “oh..umyeah. I dunno why…he just says I’m nice.”

Hyukjae growled and sped up “That’s it, I’m done being nice!”

“Hyuk~ Later on Kyuhyun came to me to apologize! He said how he acted was wrong, that you were good to him but he didn’t return that goodness and he should have-“

Donghae gasped as Hyukjae abruptly stopped and snatched his arm away, his brown eyes were watery and ablaze “Why did he come to you, you two are not even friends than why you?! Why not me??”

Donghae willed himself to stay strong as he felt his lower lip quiver; he could not let Hyukjae fall back to being a grumpy one! “Because after that you got so angry and you were constantly frowning and not talking to anyone and Kyuhyun got scared! He said he tried coming to you but you looked so cold, he even said he actually liked you for letting him and his friends play first!”

Hyukjae was breathing heavily; his raging mind was slowly calming down and donghae words slowly began to register. Donghae’ saw the slight change in Hyukjae’s expression and felt encouraged so he kept at it “don’t you see Hyuk? The popular rude boy liked you because let them play first, we are older and bigger, we could beat them and chase them away but no, you let them play first! You took a chance and just look at how it turned out, okay it didn’t turn out good immediately but in the end of the day, he did apologize, right?!”

Hyukjae gazed into those wide pleading eyes, the tensed body and quivering lips and he felt his anger rush away as something else replaced it. “Oh, Hae…”

Donghae spotted something over Hyukjae’s shoulder and that gave him an idea to support his stance more “Hyukie, what do you think, how would a dog react if it sees a cat around?”

Puzzled Hyukjae slowly answered” Run..chase after it..even hurt it…why?”

“Why do you think that?” Donghae was beginning to smile and walk close, hands slowly gripping hyukjae’s shoulder.

“Um, because they are enemies? Cats and Dogs can never get well together.”

Donghae bit his lower lip as he grinned “ Then just turn around Hyuk, look behind you.”

Hyukjae narrowd his eyes, fearing a prank beign ready to be pulled on him, or someone with paint gun to be behind him so he cautiously turned around and then he saw it, his jaw almost fell open.

A large strong looking dog was at the moment nuzzling and cuddling with a cat, the cat was purring and curling it’s tail around the Dog’s paws as the dog gently at the cat’s head.

“Oh…” Hyukjae blinked, pleasantly surprised when the two animals began to play with each other, burst of wrestling followed by sessions and hyukjae felt this warmth filling his body as an arm curled around his waist, the familiar weight of Donghae’s head on Hyukjae’s shoulder as the two friends stood there for a moment, silently watching the ‘enemies’ play.

“Thank you hae”

Donghae was on the verge of bursting with joy, when, the next day he saw Hyukjae approach Kyuhyun’s table at lunch time and actually hugged the younger boy.

Donghae did a small victory dance, unaware of the pair of teachers walking by, giggling at the boy’s antics.

Each moment they spent together was full of growth, as human beings growing together and closer than ever.