The next day, the boys went back out and played in the ocean again, only this time, Ryeowook kept his shirt on and stayed underneath an umbrella. “I’m not going out there right now,” he said to Yesung as he watched his boyfriend slip his own shirt off.

          “Okay babe, just sit there and look cute,” Yesung suggested before walking towards the water.

          “Ryeowook, wanna build a sandcastle?” Sungmin offered as he sat down beside his friend underneath the umbrella.

          “Yeah sure,” Ryeowook agreed as he picked up a shovel and Sungmin picked up a pail.

          “Kyuhyun I’m gonna stay here with Ryeowook so you can go play in the water if you want,” Sungmin stated.

          “Okay,” Kyuhyun agreed before heading into the ocean, joining Donghae, Eunhyuk, Yesung, Heechul, and Hankyung.

          A little ways down, Kangin and Leeteuk had set them up a little spot underneath an umbrella. Leeteuk was sitting under the shade on a chair, reading a magazine, while Kangin lie on a towel and tried to get a suntan. “Dear, did you put on enough sunscreen?” Leeteuk asked as he looked over at his husband and tilted down his sunglasses slightly.

          “Yeah just enough, and then a little bit of suntan oil,” Kangin replied.

          “Just be careful, you remember what happened with Ryeowook,” Leeteuk reminded before turning back to his magazine.

          “Honey, don’t worry, I’ll be fine,” Kangin promised.

          After a few minutes of getting wet in the ocean, Kyuhyun returned to land and walked up to his boyfriend and Ryeowook. “Look Kyuhyun, we built a sandcastle,” Sungmin informed as Ryeowook placed a little flag on top of their small creation.

          “It’s very cute sweetheart,” Kyuhyun replied, kissing the blonde’s hair. “Listen, I’m gonna lie down here for a minute and dry off in the sun, so you guys just keep going on with your business.”

          Kyuhyun lie down on the sand and placed his sunglasses over his eyes before unintentionally falling asleep. Ryeowook and Sungmin looked over at the sleeping dark haired boy, before looking at one another. “Sungmin, I got an idea,” Ryeowook said as a sweet, yet devious smile spread across his lips. Sungmin grinned as he heard Ryeowook’s idea. The two began to bury every part of Kyuhyun’s body in sand, except for his head.

          “Do you think he’ll be angry when he wakes up?” Sungmin wondered as they looked at their work, when they’d finished.

          “I don’t think so, I mean he can still breathe,” Ryeowook reminded.

          “Ryeowook, Minnie, would you boys like a popsicle?” Leeteuk called as he pulled two out of a small freezer.

          “Yay, a snack,” Sungmin replied as he and Ryeowook hurried over to Leeteuk.

          The other boys slowly walked up to Kyuhyun and found what Sungmin and Ryeowook had done. “Hey, Kyuhyun wake up,” Heechul said as he slightly kicked at the sand covered teen.

          The dark haired boy opened his eyes and discovered what had happened to himself. “What the happened to me?” he demanded, seeing that he was covered in sand.

          “I think my boyfriend and your fiancé had some fun while you were asleep,” Yesung stated.

          “I can see that; will you guys dig me out?” Kyuhyun requested.

          “Wasn’t planning on it,” Heechul responded.

          “Yeah, this is worthy of a tweet,” Donghae laughed as he took a picture on his phone of Kyuhyun.

          “When I get out, I will break that phone if you don’t delete that picture,” Kyuhyun threatened.

          “Yes, but first you have to get out,” Donghae reminded.

          “Hankyung, Eunhyuk, Yesung, will you help me out here?” Kyuhyun pleaded as he turned to the three others.

          “”Yeah sure,” Hankyung agreed as he and Yesung grabbed shovels and began to dig Kyuhyun out of the sand.

          “Guys, would you like a snack?” Leeteuk called from underneath his umbrella. Ryeowook and Sungmin were still sitting beside Leeteuk, up the juice from their popsicles.

          The boys dropped their shovels and ran over to Leeteuk, leaving Kyuhyun alone. “Guys, guys?” Kyuhyun asked, when he saw his friends were gone. Turning his head to the side, Kyuhyun watched a small crab crawl over to him and begin to bury itself underneath the pile of sand that rested on top of his body. “Guys, this isn’t funny! There’s a crab somewhere in this thing!”

          “Sungmin, will you please go assist your fiancé?” Kangin requested.

          “Okay,” the blonde giggled before running over to his boyfriend.

          “Minnie, what the hell did you do to me?” Kyuhyun asked.

          “Well we were bored and it looked fun. Are you mad?” Sungmin whispered.

          “That depends on where this crab pinches my body,” Kyuhyun stated.

          Quickly, Sungmin began to dig his fiancé out of the sand before grabbing his hands and pulling him up. “Is that better?” he asked, dusting the excess sand off Kyuhyun’s body.

          “Yes, and no I’m not mad at you,” Kyuhyun replied before placing a kiss on Sungmin’s lips. “But as a punishment for doing that, you’re going to help me shower tonight.” Sungmin blushed before Kyuhyun kissed him again.

          Later that night, everyone was watching TV in the living room, except for Kyuhyun and Sungmin; they were in the kitchen area, looking at things for their wedding. “You guys know that you’ve got like a year until you actually get married,” Heechul reminded from the living room.

          “Yeah, but we do wanna get a game plan down so that when graduation rolls around, we won’t have to worry about that and the wedding at the same time,” Kyuhyun explained.

          “Kyuhyun what if we get like little strawberries put on the cake to give it some color?” Sungmin asked, as he pointed to the laptop screen.

          “That’d be cute,” Kyuhyun agreed.

          “Are the strawberries going to be all over the cake?” Hankyung wondered as he turned to face them.

          “Probably not, why?” Kyuhyun asked.

          “I’m allergic to strawberries,” Hankyung stated.

          “Really, I didn’t know that,” Kyuhyun confessed.

          “Yeah me neither, and I’m your boyfriend,” Heechul said.

          “Well you guys have never given me anything with strawberries, so luckily it hasn’t been a problem,” Hankyung informed.

          “Oh, will there be free roaming animals at the wedding, because those scare me,” Ryeowook added as he leaned his head on Yesung’s chest.

          “I didn’t know you were scared of animals,” Sungmin admitted.

          “Yeah, same here,” Yesung agreed.

          “It seems like there are some things we don’t know about one another,” Donghae noticed. “We’ve all been friends for almost a year and there are still things that are in the shadows.”

          Kyuhyun and Sungmin stood up and walked over to the living room before sitting down on the floor in front of the couch. “Why don’t we shine some light on these shadows?” Kyuhyun suggested. “What’s something you guys have always wanted to know about me?”

          “I honestly want to know why you bullied Sungmin for the first few weeks you knew him,” Heechul stated.

          “Heechul we don’t need to go into this,” Sungmin muttered. “That’s in the past, can’t we move on?”

          “Minnie, I have nothing against your fiancé now, I’m just curious,” Heechul replied.

          “Honestly when I first looked at Sungmin, I fell madly in love with him. The thing is though, I’d never at all been in love with a dude before, and Sungmin was causing me to have these feelings that I was questioning. I didn’t want to believe I was gay at first, so I thought that if I expressed how I was feeling through intimidation, the feelings would go away; but they didn’t, they grew stronger and stronger. You guys pretty much know the rest of what happened. I don’t regret falling in love with him, he’s the best thing that’s come into my life, and I will never do anything to jeopardize our relationship,” Kyuhyun explained.

          “So you were never gay before Sungmin?” Donghae asked.

          “Nope, he turned me, but when he’s this beautiful and sweet and perfect, I don’t mind at all,” Kyuhyun replied as he ran a hand through Sungmin’s blonde hair as his fiancé smiled at him.

          “So Eunhyuk, I wanna know something about you,” Yesung said as they turned their attention to another blonde.

          “Okay, shoot,” Eunhyuk agreed.

          “You never fully told us why you were living with us. I mean you say that you had an argument with your parents, and were staying with us for a few days, but that turned into several months,” Yesung responded. “What happened between you and your parents?”

          Eunhyuk was silent for a few moments before Donghae wrapped an arm around him and pulled him closer. “My parents are very controlling and extremely homophobic. When they discovered that Donghae and I were in a relationship, my father disowned me and kicked me out of the house. They don’t want anything to do with me because I want to live my own life instead of theirs,” he explained.

          “But was I really worth you losing your parents?” Donghae asked in a serious tone as he turned to his boyfriend.

          “Don’t say that Donghae, you are worth the entire world to me, I don’t care if don’t wanna be in our lives, that’s their loss. I love you and I’ll always love you,” Eunhyuk stated before pressing a kiss against Donghae’s lips.

          “Donghae, have you ever wondered about your biological parents?” Hankyung wondered, continuing with questions.

          “Yeah, I think about it a lot. I mean all I really wanna know is why they gave me up,” Donghae stated. “I’ve wondered this for almost eighteen years.”

          “Maybe they weren’t financially stable enough to care for a baby,” Kyuhyun suggested.

          “Or maybe they just didn’t want me,” Donghae muttered.

          “Baby, don’t say that,” Eunhyuk replied as he touched his boyfriend’s face.

          “I mean they never tried to contact me, or write to me; that’s why I was so protective towards you guys, I felt like you three were more family to me than anyone could ever be. And I’m so grateful that we have parents that love and care about us,” Donghae said as they all looked over at Kangin and Leeteuk. “If it hadn’t been for you guys, we wouldn’t be where we are today.”

          Leeteuk and Kangin smiled. “What about you guys, what were you two like before you met each other?” Yesung questioned.

          They noticed Leeteuk looked down at the ground and Kangin protectively take his hand and rub his back. “Did something bad happen?” Ryeowook wondered.

          “There are things that happened in both of our pasts that we’re not proud of, things that happened before we met,” Kangin slowly informed as Leeteuk became teary eyed.

          “What were you like before you met Leeteuk?” Heechul asked.

          Kangin sighed before saying “Before I met Leeteuk, when I was younger, I had a serious drinking problem. Like I would come home every night and just get drunk and pass out in my apartment, and it got to the point where I even needed it at work. My family was devastated I was living this way, so they suggested I do my mandatory two year military service to see if that would help me; and it did, big time. My alcoholism went away; I had a newer, fresher look on life, and was finally able to be happy without having to use alcohol as a crutch. Then when I met Leeteuk, I realized why I stopped drinking; it was fate that I meet him and start a life and family with him, and the only way to do that was to be sober. Because of that, I have not become drunk in five years.”

          “Wow, that’s impressive,” Hankyung agreed.

          “I never knew that about you,” Heechul added.

          “Not a lot of people do; I don’t talk about my past, because I’ve moved on and put it behind me. I promised myself that I would never let alcohol control me and take me away from the one man I love more than anything in the world,” Kangin informed before kissing Leeteuk’s hand.

          “Leeteuk, are you okay?” Ryeowook quietly asked, looking over at the other parent, who had his head lowered and was trembling all over.

          “Does Leeteuk have a bad memory too?” Heechul wondered.

          Kangin looked over at the brunette and whispered “It’s okay honey, you don’t have to tell them.”

          “No, I want to,” Leeteuk replied through tears as he raised his head. “They deserve to know.”

          Kangin nodded before kissing his husband’s lips and whispering “Just take your time; I know it’s hard for you.”

          Leeteuk looked over at the eight boys and muttered “Boys, I’m very happy that you’re all in my life, and that I get the privilege to adopt four of you, and I’m so, so happy that you’re in healthy, loving relationships with your first boyfriends. I wish I could’ve been that lucky.”

          “What are you talking about Leeteuk?” Donghae asked.

          “Did something happen in a previous relationship?” Kyuhyun wondered.

          “Before I met Kangin, I was in a relationship with a man who was extremely controlling and liked to hit me whenever he wanted,” Leeteuk stopped as tears dripped from his eyes. The boys were silent as Kangin rubbed his back and quietly shushed him. Leeteuk soon continued “He picked out what I would wear, what I would eat, what kind of toothpaste and shampoo I used, and if I refused anything, or did it wrong, he would hit me until I understood my mistake.”

          “Why didn’t you run away?” Ryeowook whispered.

          “I tried, but he always found me. I tried to run to my parents, and that’s when they discovered I was gay, so they decided to disown me like Eunhyuk’s parents did with him, and then teach me a lesson by calling my at-the-time boyfriend to come get me,” Leeteuk explained.

          “They sent you back to an abusive man?” Heechul gasped as his eyes widened.

          “They thought I would learn from that experience not to love men,” Leeteuk said.

          “So what happened; how’d you get away from him?” Yesung asked.

          “While he was at work, my grandparents came for a visit, and spotted a black eye and the bruises on my neck from our previous evening, so they questioned it. After I explained everything, they took me away from him and kept me in Seoul with them. After spending six months hiding, I finally decided to try and find a job. That’s when I got a job at a café, and after working there for a few months, a customer came in and was very friendly, and complimented me, and asked if he could take me to dinner. That night, Kangin and I were in a relationship, and I knew that he was a man who would never lay his hands on me hurtfully,” Leeteuk finished, leaning his head against Kangin’s shoulder.

          “Wow, Leeteuk I would’ve never known that you were abused too,” Heechul muttered.

          “What do you mean too?” Ryeowook asked. “Were you really bad hurt Heechul?”

          The raven haired teen nodded slowly. “Like as bad a Leeteuk?” Kyuhyun inquired.

          Hankyung wrapped his arms around Heechul and pulled him closer. “No one other than Hankyung, my brothers, and parents know what I’m about to tell you guys, so please keep this between us,” he requested as Hankyung pressed their heads together.

          “We promise not to tell anyone,” Ryeowook agreed.

          Heechul began to describe the horrors of his childhood again for his friends, and this time feeling Hankyung’s arms wrapped around his body helped him tell his story without tearing up as much. “So do you still have any scars?” Kyuhyun wondered.

          “Yeah, all over my back, that’s why I don’t take my shirt off, except for when Hankyung and I are alone,” Heechul confirmed.

          “I can’t imagine a worse childhood than that, it makes all our problems seem like nothing compared to what you experienced,” Eunhyuk slowly said.

          “I’m just glad I have Hankyung now,” Heechul responded, as he nudged his face against his boyfriend’s. “He makes me feel safe and loved.”

          “And I always will,” Hankyung promised before kissing Heechul’s raven hair.

          “So we all have had bad things happen in our lives, we’re not as different as I thought we were,” Heechul muttered as he gazed at everyone.

          “It’s like we found our soul mates and everything seems happy again,” Eunhyuk added as he hugged Donghae closer.

          “Our lives are like storms boys,” Leeteuk explained. “One second it’s dark and grim, and you don’t know if anything will be good again. Then after a minute, the storm calms, and the sun comes out and for the first time in a long time, you feel like you can be at peace and happy once more.”

          “That’s so true honey,” Kangin agreed as he rubbed his spouse’s back. “Look boys, I love that you’re opening up to one another, but it’s getting late, so why don’t we all head to bed for the night?”

          The boys nodded and slowly stood up. “I love each and every one of you,” Leeteuk whispered as he kissed each teen on the forehead.

          “We love you too Leeteuk,” they responded as they hugged the brunette parent.

          Kangin and Leeteuk watched each of the couples enter their bedrooms before looking at one another. Kangin wrapped his arms around Leeteuk and held him in his arms while Leeteuk sobbed into his shoulder. “I’m sorry you had to relive that; but I promise you that as long as I’m alive, I will never hurt you and I will never let another man put his hands on you,” Kangin muttered as he pressed a kiss onto Leeteuk’s neck. “I love you, I love everything about you baby. C’mon, let’s go bed.” Kangin then picked up Leeteuk bridal style and carried his husband into their bedroom.