I don’t think… I'm not in love with you 

All of a sudden, Hyukjae’s phone starts to ring; and the male springs up from his relaxed position and quickly picks it up. He turns to Jieun and sends the girl an apologetic look, mouthing to her: “A call at such time must be an important one, sorry,” and leaves the room. Jieun merely pouts and sighs.

Lee Donghae calling.

“Hey.” Hyukjae begins.

On the other side, Donghae frowns as he turns around to face the balcony in his room. “You sound a little breathless.”

Hyukjae snorts. “What's the purpose of your call?”

“I was waiting for your call, actually.” When Hyukjae doesn't speak, Donghae continues. “Shouldn't you be calling me to ask you about ‘Hyukjae oppa!’?”

Rolling his eyes at his friend’s poor imitation of Jieun (or rather how she loves to address him as ‘oppa’ despite Hyukjae telling her not to), the older listens to the bubbling laughter Donghae emits before replying, “Alright then; what did you think of her?”

“She's…not bad. A lot like…yam.”

“Yam? I didn't know yam turned into an adjective.” The older male jokes.

“You like yam so much that you must get my drift.”

“So, you're telling me indirectly, that I should grab this chance before it slips away?”

“What? You're only considering this now? Whether to be with her or not? Aren't you a tad too late?” Donghae says sarcastically.

“Too late?”

“Duh, .”

“Then, what time would be appropriate to consider it?”

Donghae sighs. “Before you decided to woo her. You should have thought about if you really want to be with her for the rest of your life before you decided to go and make her your girl.”

“Correction: I didn't woo her.” Hyukjae doesn’t like the sound of that, as if he is a prize to be won. It also sounds weird coming out of Donghae’s mouth.

Donghae laughs, “You sound like a wimp, man. Alright, alright; you should have thought about the matter before you allowed yourself to be wooed by her.”

“The thing is, she didn't give me any preparation time to think.”

“Lee Hyukjae, are you showing off right now or do you have a giant stick up your that makes you so stuck up and annoying?”

“Oi, I'm spilling my heart out to you, and this is how you treat me?”

“Then collect the spillage — Seoul is dirty enough as it is, we don't need you to contribute by adding your trashy feelings — and think properly. As your best friend, I wouldn't want to see you in an unhappy marriage.”

“Wow, I didn't think you were capable to have humane feelings. Thanks dude.”

Suppressing a chuckle, Donghae asks. “So…what do you think of my assistant?”

“…Very handsome, very young; basically exactly like what you've told me.”

Sighing with impatience, Donghae refutes. “Then tell me something different!”

“I can't. I've only spoken to him under two lines of conversation, what do you expect me to analyse?”

“Never mind. What stage have you gone with your ‘Hyukjae oppa’?”

Hyukjae then sees the silhouette of Jieun creeping in from the doorway, and he sends a small smile as he fumbles for a reply. “Um…holding hands?” Despite answering that, his brain decided to betray his thoughts and switched on the scene from when Jieun had just initiated a kiss. He feels hot just thinking about it. Jieun, on the other hand, has little to no clue with what Hyukjae is saying and who he is on the phone with, but chooses to sit next to the man anyway. Her mid length black hair falls onto Hyukjae’s shoulder as she rests her head against it.

“Oppa…” Jieun murmurs.

“Who is there? Who are you speaking to? Are you still outside?” Questions flew out of Donghae’s mouth before he could filter them. Although he can't be blamed for thinking, what is Hyukjae doing so late at night?

“I'm…at Jieun’s house.”

On hearing this, Donghae explodes into sparkles of fury. He could feel his blood pressure increasing and Donghae feels dizzy. A prickling feeling nips at his upper chest region, warmth blossoming all over and at the same time it is as if acid is in his veins, souring his muscles. Is he ill?

“Lee Hyukjae! I can't believe you're already clouded by lust, why bothering talking to me and telling me to go slow? Oh, I'm sorry, seems like I interrupted something.”

On that note, Donghae ends the call; leaving Hyukjae’s explanation hanging mid sentence.

Something in the manner in which Donghae talked (more like yelled) through the phone woke Hyukjae up. What is he doing? Even if he is uncertain of his feelings, he still shouldn't allow himself to be swayed by Jieun. That girl…she really is something.

Is he really going to try to like Jieun, just for the fact that she has feelings for him and it’s convenient?

Later that night, when Hyukjae made sure Jieun is fast asleep, he took his belongings and jacket and went home; closing the door gently behind him.

•••

The younger of the two slides open the door and steps outside on the balcony, phone clenched tight in his grip. His eyes blinked rapidly, and tries to clear his mind. Why should he care if Hyukjae is getting some tonight? Touching and kissing, lips smiling against lips? Why doesn't he feel like this whenever Hyukjae slept with his previous girlfriends before? Why does he feel so bitter only now? But most importantly, why does he feel unhappy at the news?

“It's obviously because I'm afraid Hyukjae is a step ahead of me in this bet.” Donghae reassures himself. He can't and won't be able to progress without finding an answer to all of those questions. For now, this answer leaves him satisfied.

Donghae unlocks his phone to send a quick reply to Hyukjae; only to frown at his action after the text is sent.

Why am I lying to Lee Hyukjae?

He paces around in frustration, groaning and screaming. Why is life so complicated?

•••

In the morning, when all is quiet and the sun is barely peeking out of the clouds with a shy attitude, Hyukjae's sister’s names pops up on the male’s phone. Groaning like a zombie — because goddamn it Sora knows when to interrupt him (he nearly cut himself whilst shaving) — he picks up with reluctance. His sister hardly brings good news with her name, so he wonders mildly what it could be about.

Sighing, he slides the answer button and places the object beside his ear.

“Yes, sister?”

“Woke up on the wrong side of bed, I see.”

Rolling his eyes, Hyukjae chuckles. “Hello my lovely sister, what may your peasant of a brother do for you this morning?”

“Ew, nice Hyukjae…I’m not used to this.” She laughs crisply over the phone.

“Sora, get to the point.”

“Alright, mister demanding. I was just wondering what you were doing last night.”

Frowning, Hyukjae ponders about the origin of the sudden question. Can she read his mind or something? How did she know about him staying temporarily at Jieun’s house?

“What do you know?”

“Nothing,” her coy voice betrays her words, “a little birdie happened to tell me that my brother was spending the night in a woman’s house.”

“Well tell that little birdie to mind its own business.”

“Oh, snarky. Did you not get laid last night? Is that why you're so grumpy today?” Now she’s teasing him.

“No, Sora. I did not get laid last night because first, I wasn’t planning to and second, I didn’t stay the night. And I may or may not be slightly pissed that this is the first thing you say to your little brother after nearly a week of no contact.”

“When did it all happen, Hyuk?” Sora is now becoming more and more serious. After all, this is her cute little brother and she won’t allow anyone to hurt him. Maybe except Donghae, he's cute too, and the said male has always been an exception to their family.

“I don’t really know if we are a thing or not Sora, that’s the real trouble. She’s called Jieun, and is an intern in my division and somehow we just…happened, I guess.” As he talks, a frown begins to mar Sora's features.

“Then why were you with her last night?”

“Who told you this?”

“Just answer the question first, Hyuk. I’ll tell you later.”

“A thief broke into her apartment complex last night, and she was afraid so I stayed with her until she fell asleep. Nothing happened.”

The frown digs in deeper.

“What stage are you two at?”

“We’re not a ‘thing’, Sora.”

“Sure, you two just sort of happened. And you just happened to go along with everything. Like a sheep.”

Deciding to ignore her comment, Hyukjae continues. “Um, holding hands; a dinner date and we sort of…kissed and hugged?” For some odd reason Hyukjae's mind flashes back to the night when Donghae was there, or more like when Jieun barged into their friendly dinner.

“And you two still don’t have a label to put on your relationship? Are you playing the poor girl, Hyuk?”

Before Hyukjae could protest, his sister adds on. “Don’t get into something you’re unsure about. You’re not in your high school years, Hyuk, everything you do affects others around you. I’m not biased towards anything or anyone, but it’s unfair of you to string along the girl — who clearly has feelings for you to allow you to advance on her without the boyfriend and girlfriend title. It's also not fair on you to just accept her feelings just because she's persistent and she's an ‘alright’ candidate. A relationship can't and won't work if there is no love and mutual respect. If one day my boyfriend told me he was only with me because he thought I was ‘alright’, you can trust me to give him a good kick in the balls.”

Taking a deep sigh and a breather, she continues. “You either like her or you don’t. Just think about it, okay? Oh, before I end the call, I kind of forced the birdie to tell me. You see, my friends and I were in a club near your house and I thought we could crash at yours, but who knew that you weren’t home; for the first time since forever. So I called your secretary, Donghae, and forced answers out of him. Poor guy, I think I've traumatised him too much. Plus he sounds quite upset when we spoke over the phone.”

“Why did you call Donghae my ‘secretary’?”

“Oh please, he knows everything you do. He keeps me and mum updated on your social, work and love life.”

“Was he unhappy? Why was he unhappy? Did you say something?”

“Are you really asking me that?” Sora stifles her laughter. “Well, would you look at the time, it sure is fast when you’re catching up on gossip! Gotta go, bye! Love you, muah.” The conversation is cut with a dramatic smacking sound of lips, to which Hyukjae cringes because he can just see his childhood years being smothered by wet kisses from his mother.

A sentence his sister told him replays in his head, driving Hyukjae insane for wanting to know answers. Why would Donghae be upset? But Donghae told him through text yesterday that he was just stressed from work. Or…is there more to the matter? Most importantly, what does Sora mean by what she said at the end?

Hyukjae muffles his scream into his towel as he wipes shaving foam off.

•••

As Donghae approaches the entry of his work building, he swiftly picks out his card and swipes in front of the monitor screen; his arrival time to work recorded on the computer. He pretends that he hasn’t seen anything — and by anything Donghae means the two mushed up people called Sunny and Siwon. The couple seem to notice his being and fidgets, as Donghae calls out and turns around with his back facing them playfully.

“Don’t worry! I haven’t seen anything…I swear.”

Sunny nudges Siwon and waves goodbye, leaving her boyfriend quickly as she goes back to work and greets Donghae on the way with a cheery ‘good morning’.

Just as Donghae is about to walk off, Siw