V

Things didn’t turn out as awkward as Eunhyuk had expected them to be.

He had thought that this unpleasant silence would follow them around after what had happened in the studio and he had also thought that he wouldn’t be able to look at Donghae anymore without feeling extremely embarrassed. Nothing like this happened however and because Donghae acted like nothing had ever happened between them the next day, Eunhyuk even started thinking that he had only dreamt it.

First they had almost kissed each other, then they had danced like there was nothing they wanted more than the other's body and still nothing changed. Donghae didn’t keep any distance and acted just like before, came to hug him in the morning in his miserable attempts to wake him up and was just as clingy as before. Eunhyuk had tried to stay away from him for some time just to get his thoughts straight – it wasn’t possible. Donghae was always there and it took him some time to understand that it had always been like that. The brunet was an inherent part of his life and when he wasn’t around it was like he had forgotten something, like he had lost something and he immediately started searching for him when he wasn't visible at first sight.

Heechul liked to say that they were attached by the hip and all the times before Eunhyuk hadn't noticed it the way he did it now. But it was true: they were almost constantly together and methods to separate them first needed to be invented.             
It was weird; normally Eunhyuk didn’t like to be surrounded by people all the time and sometimes he cherished it to be alone, but as long as it was Donghae who was with him, it was completely fine. He still acted like he didn’t like it when the younger showed up in his room or something, but he only did that to unconsciously hide from himself that Donghae was someone special with special rights no one else had.

But still, even after all those things that had happened between them, Eunhyuk didn’t consider him to be more than just his friend.

***

With a yawn, Eunhyuk shut the door behind him and blindly switched on the lights in his room. It had been another long day full of schedules that had worn him out to the very core and that had ended less than an hour ago with his moderation of Sukira. He was so tired that he had immediately fallen asleep after taking his seat in the van next to Leeteuk and now he wanted nothing more than to snuggle down into his pillow and sleep. Eunhyuk was just about to pull his shirt over his head to get himself in some nice sleeping clothes as he heard a soft knock on the door.

"Yeah", he muttered and had already prepared the right words to send whoever it was out of the room instantly when he turned around.

It was Donghae who entered his room however – and all mean words were immediately erased from his brain, were replaced by a strange fluttering sensation he felt in his stomach as he saw the younger's smile. His heart started thumping against his ribcage and his bad mood disappeared, all without him expressing anything of it.

"Hey, what's up?" he asked and even felt a bit proud that it didn’t sound like the other's presence turned his whole world upside down for a moment.

Donghae beamed at him, just like he wasn’t exhausted at all and like it wasn’t in the middle of the night. "Do you want to go for a walk with me?" he asked and with the glint in his eyes he looked like the most innocent child on this planet. Eunhyuk groaned.

"Oh no, surely not", he immediately said and turned towards his dresser to find something to wear – or to at least try to make his heart stop racing so much with averting his gaze. Even if he started believing that being that intimate with Donghae had been a dream or something: his body didn’t stop reacting to him whenever he showed up.

"Why not?" Donghae whined and sounded like a kid that wasn’t allowed to buy candy, a trick that absolutely everybody fell for who had ever interacted with him. The brunet wasn’t spoiled rotten because of nothing.

"Because it's late and I'm tired, Donghae. We have to get up early tomorrow and if I go to sleep now I won't fall off my chair during one of the interviews we have then. Apart from that it wouldn’t be bad if you'd go to bed earlier as well."

Silence fell upon them as he grabbed a shirt and knowing what this had to mean, Eunhyuk made sure to keep his gaze lowered.

"Please?" Donghae's aegyo was awful – and it worked awfully well, especially on him. But not when he kept his gaze on the floor and didn’t look the other in the eyes.

"No. Just go to bed and try to sleep."

"But I can't sleep, I'm not even tired yet!" the brunet whined.

"I don’t care. I'm tired as hell, just for your information. And I won't go out with you now. Period."

Eunhyuk felt a bit proud again, this time for standing his ground and for not giving in right away. He thought he knew the younger's tricks by then and couldn’t get fooled by them anymore. But Donghae liked to rub it into everybody's faces that he was almighty – at least when it was Eunhyuk.

"Hyukkie… Please?"

It was barely a second, but he did it: Eunhyuk looked up. What he saw was a pout, but that wasn’t the one thing that made Donghae a shining winner. No, it was the begging in his eyes and Donghae knew, he exactly knew that he always wrapped him around his finger when he was persistent enough. Eunhyuk would always give in when it was him who asked him for a favor – and he did it this time as well.

"Okay… Okay! But not for long, you hear me?"

Donghae grinned and quickly nodded his head as Eunhyuk idly dragged himself out of his room after throwing the shirt onto his bed. They left the dorm without caring about grabbing a jacket and walked along the dark streets of Seoul; Donghae acted like he had drunken three cups of coffee, one liter of coke and a whole pallet of energy drinks as the words rushed out of his mouth. Well, maybe he was just as bubbly as he usually was – but to Eunhyuk who could barely keep himself on his feet while walking, it simply seemed like he was extra bubbly that night. While Donghae kept babbling about his day, his week and his whole life in general, Eunhyuk only yawned and now and then let out a quiet hum to signal him that he was still listening. It was difficult enough for him to not trip over his own feet.

"-I don’t know, maybe it was his nose. But that guy totally looked like him. And that was the reason why I really thought it was him and threw that thing against his head. I mean, who could've guessed that it-"

"Donghae."

"-policeman. Well, I don’t think I have to explain to you that he wasn’t amused about that sticky stuff running down his nape. And the smell, I tell you…"

"Donghae."

"There was this dog not that far away and it smelled it too and started chasing him. It looked really bad from where I stood, but that way he at least didn’t find out that it had been me throwing it. I don’t know if he got rid of that dog, though. I just know that it looked like it wanted to eat him alive. That's one of the reasons why my mom-"

"Donghae, there's a bench. Can we please sit down for a moment before I fall asleep while walking?"

The brunet finally stopped talking and looked around like he hadn't even noticed that they had been moving while he had made Eunhyuk's ears bleed. They had reached a small park by then and without waiting for a reply, Eunhyuk slumped down on the closest bench. He was yawning helplessly as Donghae sat down beside him.

Eunhyuk tried to enjoy the silence around them as Donghae kept quiet for the first time since they had started walking. There was the sound of a few cars driving by in the air, but there was no one on the streets and even t