III

Courage
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III

Eunhyuk sighed.

It was early in the morning and because they would drive to the airport only in a few hours, they finally could stay in bed a bit longer than usual. Yet he couldn’t take this rare opportunity and sleep longer; not when he had spent the whole night awake.

It didn’t seem like Donghae was aware of the impact of his words he had mumbled the night before. The brunet had simply fallen asleep after some time and had left Eunhyuk behind, wide awake and with a racing heart. Sleeping wasn’t and hadn't been an option to him anymore and he couldn’t even tell why it was like this. Those words weren’t something that special and most of all they were no reason to stay awake all night long. But for the first time ever Eunhyuk found it more than hard to think about falling asleep when Donghae was lying beside him and they had their limbs all tangled up.

Donghae had a weird habit of cuddling with absolutely everything in his reach while sleeping, may it be furniture, bags or other human beings. It had been the first time that Eunhyuk had experienced it himself; Donghae would go from slightly hugging him to holding him in a death grip within minutes. He even had rolled him over so he was lying on his back and Donghae had used his whole upper body as his pillow for the night, one leg thrown over him and his arms holding onto him like there was no tomorrow. Eunhyuk had mutely accepted all of it and had inwardly wondered how it was possible to do all of this without being conscious.             
He also found himself wondering if he was the only one who Donghae would cuddle with like he did it with him. Most likely he wasn’t, simply because Donghae was one hell of a cuddler and normally he wouldn’t mind thinking about the brunet doing the same things with other people. But hadn't Donghae said a few hours ago that he was someone special? And was it bad to feel jealous while thinking about Donghae doing such things with others?

Eunhyuk bit his lip and brought his gaze from the ceiling down to the head that was resting on his shoulder. Donghae was facing him and still sound asleep, just like he had been the whole night. Carefully, he brought his hand up and poked the younger's cheek. There was no reaction whatsoever and so Eunhyuk continued poking him, first his forehead and then his nose. Still nothing.

"You sleep like a stone, don’t you?" he whispered and this actually made Donghae move. He stirred a bit in his sleep and nuzzled his cheek against his shoulder. Eunhyuk chuckled as he heard the contented sigh the other let out and leaned in a bit.

"Donghae", he called silently and with a sweet voice, just to a bit. The younger hummed lowly and was most likely far away from waking up. "Donghae…"

The other scrunched his nose and snuggled closer, hid his face in Eunhyuk's chest and pulled the blanket over his head. Eunhyuk chuckled again. Cute.

Wait. What?

He didn’t have the time to think about what he had just thought before the door to their hotel room was pushed open. Lifting up his head and looking at the door, Eunhyuk was more than surprised to see Ryeowook entering, wrapped in a blanket and seemingly closer to death than living.

"What-"

"Can I stay here?"

"No!" Eunhyuk hissed, but couldn’t stop the younger from already occupying Donghae's empty bed. "Why are you here?"

Ryeowook was unimpressed as he plumbed the pillows up and made himself comfortable. "Sungmin-hyung is wearing his dress again", he whined and buried his face in the pile of blankets around him.

"So what? That doesn’t-"

"It's horrible! Have a bit of mercy!"

"It can't be that bad that you come here and-"

"You haven’t seen it! I only wanted to use the bathroom and when I got out I see him standing there, wearing this… this thing. Again! Who sells this stuff? That should be illegal!"

Eunhyuk rolled his eyes and refrained from throwing the younger out of the room. There were two reasons for it:        
The first one was that he didn’t want to raise his voice to not wake up Donghae and the second one was that he didn’t intent to leave the bed already. And the explanation for that was most likely also Donghae.

"Okay, fine", he mumbled tiredly. "But why did you choose to come to our room?"

Ryeowook scoffed. "Everybody knows that there's one free bed when you share a room with Donghae-hyung."

True…

"Can you then please tell me how you managed to get into this room?"

"Jongwoonie-hyung has a master key."

Eunhyuk's eyes shot open. "He has what?!"

"Sssh, don’t be so loud", Ryeowook mumbled with a lazy movement of his hand. "There are people in here who want to sleep…" And with that he definitely meant himself.

"Tell me one good reason why he should have such a thing! What does he even do with it?!"

Ryeowook cracked one eye open to look at him. "You aren’t really searching for reasons why he does the things he does, are you?"

That was a point.

"True, but-"

"You should stop making such a fuss. You don’t lock your door in the dorms either and I bet you never noticed anything strange, isn’t that right? So shut up and sleep, hyung."

And while Ryeowook listened to his own words and quickly filled the room with soft snores, Eunhyuk was farther away from falling asleep than he had been the whole night. The thought of Yesung having a master key to all of their rooms and with that the opportunity to enter them was somewhat disturbing.

***

Comparison.
That was the only reason why Eunhyuk's eyes kept travelling up and down Donghae's bare upper body as the younger changed into a new outfit for the photo shooting they were doing some days later.

Eunhyuk told himself that it was like that for the nth time that day, insisted of convincing himself madly without knowing any reason for it and without seeing a need to do it. He only thought that Donghae looked good, very good even and that there was no need for him to hide behind those loose shirts or something like that. This was by far not the first time that Eunhyuk saw him like that because they had known each other for years now, but somehow it was different this time.

Had he never noticed it before, how smooth Donghae's skin looked, how the slight tan on it made it even more appealing or how breathtaking the younger's smile was when their gazes met now and then?       
His eyes landed on the younger's firm stomach and the abs that were slightly visible just a little bit higher. They weren’t as well-marked as his own, he noticed, but that didn’t make the other any less attractive. To be honest, there wasn’t a single thing about him that Eunhyuk would change if he'd have the chance to and it really made him wonder why the brunet didn’t have a girlfriend. Donghae looked… perfect.

"Stop checking him out, Hyukjae."

Eunhyuk jumped and abruptly turned his head to see Heechul walking past him, a bored expression on his face. "I wasn’t-"

"Yeah, right. The make-up noonas called for you three times in a row now, so move your lazy over to them before you start drooling."

The younger's baffled gaze flitted from Heechul's back over to Donghae who wore a shirt now and with that denied him any more glances of his body. The elder found himself thinking that he was a bit disappointed about that, but he couldn’t find anything bad about it. Because Donghae was his best friend, of course he would look at him. But checking him out?    
No, that was something he did when he saw girls, not men. He would never look at other men the way he looked at girls and he would never look at other girls the way he looked at Donghae. Something made the brunet special, but Eunhyuk couldn’t tell what it was. Not that it concerned him, no. It just made him wonder.

***

Eunhyuk had been wondering about it the whole day, yet he couldn’t find an answer. That question wasn’t torturing him, but it made him think and he really wanted to find t

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hyukflavor
#1
Wow, it's trilogy! Gonna suscribe it firstttt
haeinmyheart
#2
ive been talking anout this fic on my twitter and it brings back memories huhu so might as well reread it hehehehe
wayforrokkugo
#3
Chapter 37: what
wayforrokkugo
#4
Chapter 34: aww heechul :(((
wayforrokkugo
#5
Chapter 33: omg since hyukja couldn't hit her can i do it instead like a slap on the face or smth 😭 but i love hyukjae just ruthlessly defending donghae, himself, and his choces 💙💙
wayforrokkugo
#6
Chapter 30: god i kinda wanna burn this woman alive but okay
wayforrokkugo
#7
Chapter 29: i hate her i really do
wayforrokkugo
#8
Chapter 24: oh thank god she's somehow gone,,,, i hope she doesnt come back
wayforrokkugo
#9
Chapter 23: lord i hate this soojin girl so bad
Kethryveris
#10
Chapter 37: J'ai adoré cette histoire, malheureusement j'avais commencé par Euphoria que j'ai trouvé vraiment dure et que je n'ai pas réussi à lire en entier (j'ai dû lire beaucoup de passage en diagonale, je pleurais trop). Par contre celle-ci m'a vraiment touché tout le travail de Hyukjae sur lui même, tout l'amour que Donghae lui offre et qui l'aide et le soutient. Bref c'est une fic magnifique... Sauf l'épilogue qui m'a de nouveau projeté dans Euphoria mais je comprends que ce sois nécessaire.... Je vais de ce pas lire Joy. Merci Authornim