Part One.

It was Friday night and, as expected, the club was packed. Leaning casually against the bar, I smiled politely at a few regulars who waved at me, eyed new faces for future reference, and in between all of that, I also managed to carefully avoid several pairs of eyes that belonged to old (and quite disastrous) hookups I'd rather not encounter ever again in any way. I was in a pretty good mood, ready to party a little to celebrate The Big Move happening the next day, but then my eyes landed on table four, and I could practically feel the corners of my mouth being tugged down by some kind of an invisible force.

“Looking for someone to bed, Hyukjae?”

I shifted my attention to where the familiar voice was coming from and was greeted by a smirking Heechul in all his fancy, businessman suit glory.

“Well, hello to you, too,” I said, rolling my eyes, before doing one of those bro handshakes I used to find stupid, and I briefly wondered when exactly we started doing this. “And you know I can't tonight. Big day tomorrow, remember?”

Before Heechul could make a smart remark, like how nothing has ever stopped me from taking someone home when I was up for it—which was, truthfully, about 98% of all our weekend club escapades—the female bartender I was sort of friends with came up to Heechul, with that same flirtatious look she's been giving him since the night I introduced them, her tank top showing a generous amount of cleavage that we all knew was meant for Heechul only. Still, she managed to catch a few eyes from the men on the other side of the bar, but it seemed like she neither noticed nor cared about them as she ogled my friend shamelessly.

“Hey, Heechul. What are you having tonight?”

“Hmmm.” Heechul acted like he was seriously thinking about this before he looked at her again with a small smile on his face. “I was thinking of having some of you, but it looks like you're a little busy tonight. The usual, then?”

Giggling, she shook her head, like this was the first time she's heard him say this, and told him she'll be right back with his drink. But of course, not before turning back to wink at him, probably thinking it looked y, when in fact, it had “desperately practiced in front of the mirror for hours” written all over it.

“Seriously, man. The poor girl probably thinks you keep coming back just to flirt with her,” I told him when I was sure Inhye, the Completely-Smitten-With-Heechul Bartender, was out of earshot, giving him a dirty look, which he expertly ignored.

“Which is true, and she knows that. What she doesn't know is why I flirt with her.” He glanced around for Inhye before looking back at me, slightly annoyed, but his voice remained soft and calm. “And really, Hyukjae, stop being jealous. It's not my fault alcohol tastes better when it's for free, and that I also happen to have her wrapped around my finger.”

I laughed at his confidence, defeated. “You're such an , hyung.”

“That, I am.” I could tell that he took it as a compliment. How he found being an a good characteristic to have, I had no idea. But that was Heechul, and it was best not to try and understand how his mind worked.

Inhye came back with Heechul's drink and I didn't miss the accidentally-on-purpose brush of their fingers when she handed it to him. She looked like she was about to chat him up, but then someone bellowed for another glass of vodka and she was off to begrudgingly do her job, while I knew Heechul proceeded to forget about her for the entire night.

“Guys, we have a little situation at table four.” All of a sudden, Kangin was at my side, flushed, and obviously very mad at Leeteuk, who was actually the situation he was referring to. “God. He's such an embarrassment to the male species.”

Leeteuk was still in the state I found him a few moments ago before Heechul arrived – crying, red-faced, and snot running down his nose. It was quite a sight, really, and I would have laughed and taken a picture for blackmailing purposes had I not felt partially responsible for this mess.

“Make that the entire human race,” Heechul muttered, eyes on Leeteuk, after taking a sip from his drink. “I can't believe he's already this -faced and it's not even midnight yet. Christ, he looks like someone died.”

I felt a pang of guilt hit me and for this reason, I had the urge to say something, to defend him. And that I did.

“He's just sad everyone's leaving.” Both of them looked at me like I was stupid, which eventually made me believe that I was, at that moment, very stupid indeed. I decided it was not good to even try to defend Leeteuk at this point – guilt or no guilt, he was pretty embarrassing.

Heechul sighed, shaking his head as he looked away from our oldest friend. “That's the problem with him. He's acting like a mom who has to send off her kid to college. Hell, even my mom didn't cry when I left for Seoul six years ago.”

Kangin snorted at this and I laughed under my breath, knowing exactly what was coming next. “She was most likely relieved, Heechul. Had she cried, that would have been tears of joy.” That was true – Heechul was, to put it midly, a bit of a headache, especially when we were younger.

“You have a point there. But,” Heechul took another sip mid-sentence, slowly, for dramatic effect. “We're talking about Leeteuk here. Do I look like a Leeteuk to you? No, I don't, because I'm a Heechul – the Heechul.”

“He's doing that thing again, you know? The guy thinks he's the group's mother hen and we're all his baby chicks that he has to watch over,” Kangin went on, completely ignoring Heechul's little speech. “I mean, I appreciate it, but right now... he's just overreacting.”

“As I've said, he's just sad everyone's leaving,” I tried to save my friend's face, as he was not doing a very good job by being piss drunk and bawling like a baby in a public place where people knew him. “Henry's getting married, Heechul's moving out next week, you're moving to freaking Europe, and I'm...”

“Spreading your wings to fly,” Heechul interjected, teasing. I rolled my eyes, stealing his drink just to get back at him. He didn't seem to mind though, even as I drank it down to the last drop. “You know what, Hyuk?”

“No, I don't.”

He ignored the sarcasm as he put his arm around my shoulders and all of a sudden, I was on the hot seat. “I never thought I'd say this but, I'm proud of you. This is such a big step for you. Even if Henry's the youngest in the group, you're still Leeteuk's babiest baby.”

I scoffed. I was offended. I was 27 years old, and definitely not a 30-year old's baby. Nope. Never. “I'm not. It's not like I do everything he says. That's Henry's job.”

“The thing with you is that Leeteuk doesn't even have to say anything – you're always one step ahead, careful not to disappoint Mama Teuk. Remember when you broke up with what's-his-face because you felt like Teuk didn't approve of him? Face it, Hyuk,” he said, leaning in to look me directly in the eyes, just like in the movies when the bad guys got their point across. “You're a total mama's boy. But look at you now, all grown up, ready to face the world without Mama Teuk.”

“One, stop calling him Mama Teuk – it's creepy. Two, I've been facing the world without Leeteuk for the past five years and I just happen to live with him, thank you very much. And three, I'd just like to remind you that I broke up with him because you all didn't approve of him.” Heechul didn't look convinced, and Kangin, that bastard, looked amused at the little exchange.

Okay, so maybe I was a little bit of a mama's boy – yes, to my real mother. And it only made sense that I'd treat Leeteuk somewhat in the same manner since he was the one who took me in when I first moved here. I was the country kid, and Leeteuk was the former country kid turned city boy who was willing to help poor, poor me. It was only natural.

“Come on, man, leave the guy alone,” Kangin finally said in my defense, and I relaxed in his hold as he mimicked Heechul's previous actions. He turned to me with a smile, patting my back once before letting go. “Anyway, enough of that. Have you met your new roommates yet?”

I nodded, tilting Heechul's glass as I caught another bartender's attention, motioning for a refill. “Yeah. Just the two of them, though. They seemed nice.”

Kangin made a face at that. “Well, you still have to watch out.”

I gave him an incredulous look. Watch out? For what? Lee Sungmin and Cho Kyuhyun, two of my new roommates, were nice. And they dressed well, too. Plus, there was no nose-picking in front of me, and no invasion of personal space, both of which had happened before, when I first started looking for new apartments. I looked at Kangin, and he was giving me a grave expression. Then, just like that, it all clicked.

“Ugh,” I groaned, running my palm over my face. “Please tell me you're not going to give me the They Might Be Serial Killers in Disguise talk you gave Henry when he got engaged with Fei and he had to meet her whole family.”

“No, that was a completely stupid idea,” he admitted, looking embarrassed as Heechul burst out laughing, probably recalling everything that happened that day. To cut the long story short, it was a nightmare. “What I'm saying is that you should be careful because you never know. Sometimes the seemingly nice ones are actually the craziest ones.”

I considered this for a moment, but then I remembered how good everything went during my first meeting with my new roommates. I tried to think of anything odd, but there was absolutely nothing. They weren't crazy or even remotely weird – after living with three guys with the weirdest quirks for five years, that was saying something.

“Nah, I doubt it. They were actually pretty normal,” I said with finality, hoping they'd just drop it and move to another topic. I hated being the subject of our conversations.

Heechul sighed, looking at me like I was a lost cause. “Well if you say so. Just don't come running to us when things go bat crazy and you're caught off guard.”

“Trust me, that's the last thing I would do.”

-

-

-

Before I left for Seoul five years ago, my mother told me about my very first day of school. I was barely seven years old then, cute (my mother's words, not mine) and lanky, with a smile so bright that distracted people from my gap tooth. On my way to my new school, she noticed how excited I was, practically bouncing in my seat as she drove and tried to calm me down at the same time. I was quite a handful, she said, but she was really happy to see my enthusiastic reaction towards the idea of going to school. As a first time mother, she had only heard stories from her sisters, how my older cousins cried during the entire ride to school, and refused to part with their mothers.

“So imagine my surprise when, instead of clinging to me and crying like the other kids did, you ran through the gates and started looking around the place, and even stopped to talk to your classmates. You were just so excited,” she told me, her face beaming with pride, and that triggered our emotional goodbye. She said she saw a different side of me that day, and she believed that I'd grow up into someone who loved new beginnings, who sought challenges, who made things happen.

And she was right. For years, I had no problem adjusting to my school life. I easily made friends, joined clubs, and tried out everything from soccer to taekwondo. And somewhere between all of that, I found the love of my life – painting. It was my fourth grade art teacher, Ms. Park, who discovered my talent. Back then, I never really thought much about it. All I knew was that I loved to paint, especially when she made us use our fingers. I loved the feel of the paint and the surface of the canvass against my fingertips, loved the way the colors clashed, and the way they blended, and how all these lines and shapes and colors turned into a picture, a story, a feeling. In the same year, I started joining and winning competitions. When I told my parents I was going to pursue a degree in art after high school, no one was surprised.

Of course, my dad was a little skeptical with my decision. Then again, he was always skeptical about everything – the weather, my mother's cooking, the government, his job, the global economy, etc. – so I didn't take it personally. But I assured him and my mother that this was what I wanted for myself, for my future, that I'd do my best, and no matter what happens, I'd live my life with no regrets.

When I finally moved to Seoul, the transition was smooth, as expected. It also helped that I lived with familiar faces. Before the end of my third week in the city, I had already settled in and made quite a number of friends in school. Just like that, I started my life as Lee Hyukjae the art major. It was a piece of cake. As easy as ABC.

So, after years and years of new beginnings, of challenges, and making things happen, there was no reason for me to be nervous as I dropped the last of my boxes in my new room, looked up, and met the eyes of, most likely, my third roommate, Donghae. But I was. I was nervous as hell. There was something unsettling about the way he just stared at me in silence, like he caught me doing something I wasn't supposed to be doing. I glanced at the last box I moved in – no adult magazine or some weird toy was sticking out, so the problem, if there really was one, was me.

Still, however awkward this was, I took this as an opportunity to observe my roommate, as he did his own inspection on me. Then and there, I started the list of qualities my new roommate had. Nice eyes. Thin lips. Shiny, brown hair long enough to be tied in a half ponytail. Pretty, but handsome at the same time.

“So, you must be Hyukjae,” he finally broke the silence, crossing the distance between us to offer his hand. Smooth, deep voice.

“I am,” I said as I shook his hand firmly (soft hands), hoping that my handshake had some sort of a “personality”. “And you're Lee Donghae, right?”

“No, I'm your worst nightmare,” he mumbled as he looked at my boxes, his back facing me. Knowing it wasn't meant as a joke, I immediately added has an attitude problem to the list. He turned to me again, hands in his pockets, looking bored all of a sudden, like he could see through the boxes and deemed my stuff uninteresting. Kind of an , too. He sighed and, as if he never mentioned the nightmare thing, said, “Yeah, I'm Donghae. So I take it the computer freak and the pink maniac explained everything to you?”

“On the assumption that you're referring to Kyuhyun and Sungmin, then yes,” I said, as confusion clouded my mind, “except maybe the computer freak and pink maniac part.”

“Of course,” Donghae said with a sigh, shaking his head. “Of course they'd totally act normal so they wouldn't freak you out. Then I guess they “forgot” to mention the gay part, too.”

Now this made me raise my eyebrow. “The what?”

“The gay part,” he deadpanned, as if it was a universal truth or something, and that I was stupid for not knowing this. “That's me. I'm gay. I like men?  Like you. I mean, psh, not you – you're not exactly Donghae's lover material, you know? But yes! Me being gay. Is that a problem?”

A rambler. And likes making people—or me—feel small.

I couldn't really say anything for a few moments. This was too much to process. Not the gay part and all the other parts that my two other roommates apparently forgot to tell me. But the fact that I just got called “not Donghae's lover material” in a way that made it sound like such a big deal when it wasn't, really; the fact that this was our first meeting and I could already feel Donghae's irrational hatred towards me; the fact that I was actually putting up with this. This whole thing was, for lack of a better word, shocking.

Which was probably the reason why the only thing I said was: “wow.” Of course, Donghae took this the wrong way.

“What do you mean wow? Because if you have a problem with me being--”

“No, it's not that,” I cut him off, not caring if he'd call me out on it. This conversation needed to end. Pronto. “It's totally fine with me. In fact, I'm--”

“Then great!” He exclaimed brightly, clapping his hands together. Quite odd. Cute smile. “My work here is done. So, I'd help you with the moving in and all, but I'm not exactly a nice person, so... yeah. Bye.”

Definitely not a nice person, even according to the man himself.

Donghae left as quickly as he appeared and I found myself standing in the middle of my new room with my whole life stashed in more than ten brown boxes, dazed, and saying goodbye to no one.

-

-

-

One week.

One week, and I finally cracked. The phone felt heavy in my hand, hot against my ear, but I knew that if I didn't get this out of my system soon, I would go crazy. Three long rings later, I heard Kangin grumble out a hello from the other side of the line.

“I think I made a huge mistake.”

“What happened?” I didn't miss the smile in his voice. I could already envision him rubbing it in my face later.

“You were right, okay?” I said with a sigh, dropping my paintbrush on the table right beside me, making a face at my latest work. It was crazy, the painting. Just like my roommates. “They're not normal. At all.”

I took Kangin's laughter as a sign to go on. I could tell that he was dying to hear this, and I was more than willing to divulge the details.

“One of my roommates, Kyuhyun... I don't think he's human. I went out this morning to pick up a few supplies, and he was using his laptop, screaming about a Zealot or something, and then when I came back from the art store? He was still there. Screaming. About a Zealot. I did an experiment, and stared at him for like two minutes, and I swear, he never blinked his eyes. Not even once.”

“He seems like a nice guy.”

Ignoring Kangin, I went on.

 “Sometimes, he screams about an error on codes. At least, that has something to do with his job.” I took a deep breath before proceeding to other issues. “And Sungmin, my other roommate, he's a nice guy, but he's just so weird. There's an area for him called the “pink zone” in the apartment, and you're not allowed to enter the zone unless you're wearing pink. This is also where he writes, so he sometimes calls it his writing haven. The other day, his editor came over, and she was beyond mad at him, something about missing a deadline. Anyway, when he saw her, he just about ran for his life, to the pink-zone-slash-writing-haven and when she was about to wring his neck with her hands, he told her that if she so much as put a finger into the pink zone, when she clearly was not wearing anything in pink, he would stop writing altogether. And she actually stopped and left the apartment. Just like that. I mean, who believes that ?”

“His editor, apparently,” Kangin said with a loud chuckle. When he finally regained his composure, and my roommates' craziness stopped being funny, he tried to offer a consolation. “Well, at least they're not serial killers, right?”

“Very funny,” I muttered, as I picked up the paint brush again, twirling it in my fingers, trying to keep myself sane and calm amidst all the insanity in apartment 501. “I should have just called Leeteuk hyung.”

“Damn right you should have,” he said. “Why didn't you?”

“I don't want him to worry about me. You know how he is-- he worries about the entire universe already, as we speak,” I replied, watching the blurring, circular motions of the paintbrush in my hand. “That, and I do not want to hear it from him.”

“Hear what?”

“ITYS.”

“Ah,” he laughed again, and there was a pause, probably remembering all the times Leeteuk had told him the ITYS. “He is the master of I Told You So, alright. Anyway, don't you have a third roommate? What about him? Someone has to be normal, Hyuk.”

“The third roommate? Oh... you mean the one who hates me for no particular reason? Nope, definitely not normal.”

“You have a beautiful life, Hyukjae. I wish I had it.”

I groaned. “I know. My life. So perfect. I'm such a good friend that I wish you had it, too.”

“Well, what do you say we meet up at EPIC in an hour?”

“Finally!” I screamed happily into the receiver, getting a curse in response. “Now, you're talking. Tell the other guys for me?”

“Sure,” he said, and when I was about to hang up, “Oh, and Hyukjae?”

“Yeah?”

“I told you so.”

-

-

-

The next two weeks after meeting up with the guys were spent avoiding my roommates at all cost. That night, I told my friends about all the craziness I had to endure, and like the good friends they are, they laughed at me and made stupid jokes well into the night.

In Henry's drunken state, he managed to tell me that the only way to survive until the end of my one year contract is to avoid my roommates. So I did, despite my hesitation since I liked to face things head on. But it worked, for the most part. And it helped that I did all my work inside my room most of the time. The closed door that separated me from the rest of the apartment was able to effectively muffle Kyuhyun's screams at his laptop, and Sungmin's about how he can't write anymore and that his career is over (which was almost always followed by his editor, Sunny, pleading with him to “just write the ing book”). Only Donghae's complaints--about the water, his job, the lack of supplies in the refrigerator, the toothpaste that he swore was extra minty, Sungmin's breathing which, according to Donghae, got too loud whenever he was into his writing, among other things—were the ones able to permeate the entire apartment, even through the thick walls and closed doors.

I was doing really, really well until Kyuhyun and Sungmin caught me coming back from the art store one night. I thought having drinks with them was a disaster waiting to happen but, thirty minutes later, I was laughing at a story about some kid telling Zhou Mi, the former occupant of my room, that his outfit was ugly—which was supposedly equivalent to declaring a war against him—with my second beer in my hand and having a good time. To my surprise, they were actually pretty fun people to be around when Kyuhyun wasn't screaming about an error and Sungmin wasn't hiding from a hysterical editor.

Spending time with my roommates made me think about Donghae. Silently, I wondered if he would be there, laughing with all of us, if he wasn't at work, doing overtime, which he did every night from Monday to Friday without fail. I tried not to be bothered with the fact that I noticed that.

“About Donghae... what does he do?” I blurted out, and initially my question was met with nothing but silence. I was about to tell them to forget that I even asked, when Kyuhyun spoke up.

“He's a stripper.”

“What?!”

“Jesus,” Kyuhyun slurred, laughing with Sungmin at my reaction. “I'm kidding, Hyukjae. He's an investment portfolio manager. Fancy .”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Sungmin said after popping a peanut into his mouth. “Why do you look so surprised?”

I shrugged. “I don't know. He just doesn't look like it, I guess. So, why is he always doing overtime?”

This made Kyuhyun smirk. “You seem awfully interested in Donghae,” he teased, playfully, waving his bottle of beer at me. “Why is that?”

“It's not what you think,” I scoffed as I opened another bottle. How insane was that, for Kyuhyun to insinuate I was actually interested in Donghae in that way. No matter how good-looking Donghae was and how nice his body looked in whatever he wore, it wasn't going to happen. At least, not anytime soon.

“Really now.”

I rolled my eyes, “It's true. I'm just curious why he always seems to have something up his . And he always lashes out at us.”

“I heard him complaining about “insufferably, incompetent staff”, so I guess he's got a lot on his hands right now,” Sungmin replied, throwing me an apologetic smile. “It's just his way of coping up with stress. It's annoying, but Donghae has his good points. He's not that bad, really – you just have to stay long enough to see that.”

I mulled over this as I drank my third beer in silence while Kyuhyun and Sungmin talked about

Sunny's latest outburst. Donghae had good points, I knew that, but, as far as I was concerned, they were all physical, on the surface, nothing substantial. Then I suddenly remembered that night when I caught him wearing a pink glove and bringing Sungmin a cup of tea into the pink zone/writing haven. I didn't think about it then, but it made sense to me now, if only a little.

Maybe it was the alcohol, but when I thought about Sungmin telling me Donghae's not that bad as I lied in my bed a few hours later, I believed him.

-

-

-

He's not that bad, my , I thought as I was woken up by Donghae screaming my name. I looked at the date on my calendar at the bedside table and mentally noted that it only took Donghae exactly two days to disprove Sungmin's claim.

“Of course he's not that bad, he's even worse,” I muttered as I got up from my bed. I wanted to ignore him and go back to sleep, but I knew that was impossible. If I stayed in my room for another minute or two, he'd probably knock down my door just to get to me.

“Hyukjae! Hyukjae! Lee Hyukjae!”

I stormed out of my room and walked into the kitchen where I saw Donghae holding what looked like the peanut butter I bought. Yesterday, after telling me to shower because I apparently smelled of paint (oh, how disgusting of me), he asked me to go grocery shopping. It was a long list of food, beverage, toiletries, and Kyuhyun's special skin care products (which didn't seem to be working for him, but don't tell Kyuhyun I said that), and even though I had to finish a piece, I said yes. Because I was, modesty aside, really nice.

Now, consumed by anger because my sleep was disturbed rather rudely, I decided to be anything but nice.

“What is wrong with you?!” I threw up my hands before running my fingers through my hair to soothe my anger. It wasn't working. “It's nine in the morning! On a Sunday! I don't know how you do it in your planet, but here on Earth, we humans tend to sleep in because we're entitled to that!”

He looked surprised at first, to hear me talking back to him, but then he quickly recovered as he shot me a glare so sharp it seemed like it could cut through anything.

“How mature,” he muttered, crossing his arms over his chest. “As you can probably not see since I have great anger management skills—I've been taking classes, you know—I am so mad at you right now.”

I sighed, shaking my head in disbelief. “What did I do this time?”

“You got the wrong peanut butter.”

“What?”

“I said, you got the wrong peanut butter!” Obviously, the classes he'd been taking, whatever they were, were not effective.

“Oh come on, Donghae. Seriously? We're going to have an argument about goddamn peanut butter?”

“Yes, we are, because I specifically wrote creamy peanut butter. Not the one with the crisps, which you bought, genius!” he argued, flailing his arms and at one point, he almost threw the jar at me. “How am I supposed to eat my peanut butter sandwiches with all those-- ugh, you know what? I'm not eating this thing. Hell, I don't think anyone eats this.”

The right thing to do at that time was to take the peanut from Donghae, for safety reasons, say sorry, run to the nearest convenience store and buy that goddamn creamy peanut butter. But I was really mad, and doing the right thing was definitely not part of my plan. Instead, I grabbed the peanut butter from his hand and rummaged through the kitchen for a spoon. Donghae watched in curiosity as I did all of this.

“News flash, Donghae. I do eat peanut butter with crisps,” I said seriously after taking the cap off and scooping out a large amount of peanut butter with the spoon. “And I will. Right now. And you are going to watch me.”

I ate one spoonful after another, relishing the disgusted faces Donghae was making as he watched me eat. This was probably my first time enjoying eating peanut butter with crisps this much, but I knew it had little to do with how it tasted. It was sweet, just how I liked it, but victory, especially one that was won against Donghae, was even sweeter.

“Ew.”

“I believe,” I said, stepping closer to him, not caring that I had a mouthful of peanut butter, “the right word is yum.”

- - -

A/N: I'm sorry Donghae is crazy and kind of an . And that the dialouges are so off and alsfkjakslf. I tried. T_T Also, you're allowed to virtually punch me if I don't update this before December.