~~~

                Today, Hyukjae, Kyuhyun, Yesung and Sungmin (both are Donghae's friends)  came with us to the park after they went to visit me and Yejin at the cafe.  She was ecstatic to see them; she actually really enjoys their company, I wonder why. Haha.

                I was voted to referee an arm-wrestling match between Yesung and Sungmin; Yesung was sure he could win, while Sungmin just told him "I took martial arts remember?" which led to them actually battle it out.

"Okay, no cheating, no using the table for support, talking to each other to try to win, no pushing or any touching of each other... Yesung,"  I say authoritatively.  He pursed his lips and looked away, nodding reluctantly.

"Oh, and no making funny faces to try to make the opponent laugh... Yesung,"  I add. He nods again, his face serious, while Sungmin giggles.  I'm not picking on Yesung or anything... But he has history with using his antics to win, haha.  They both nod again, getting really intense and serious.

"Ready, set, GO!!! ... - Ahh!!"   I scream as someone pulls me from behind, hiding behind me.  I look ahead to see Donghae running head first towards us, he tries to get behind me to grab whoever it is, but the person continues to use me as a shield.

"Gaheun-ah! Gaheun-ah! Make Donghae stop! He's gonna hurt me!" Hyukjae shouts.    Woooow... I'm the youngest one here, and they’re acting like children.

"Okay, okay, what happened?"   Might as well fulfill my new role.

"Yah, Hyukjae, you can't hide behind her! That's not fair!"  Donghae yells.

"WHAT HAPPENED!?"   Sheesh…it’s like I’m a wall or something.  Donghae sighs and complains,

"Okay, so Hyukjae and I decided to play a game. We said whoever can hang onto the monkey bars the longest wins. The loser gets a flick on their cheek or a slap on the wrist; and now he's running away from me!"    Donghae is clearly unamused.  They're all so childish. Sheesh.

"Hyukjae?..." I say

"Neee?~~ ...."   He answers, sounding nervous.

"If you didn't want to face the punishment, why did you even agree to play?"     Isn't that rule number 1? If you're worried about facing the punishment, don't play. Those were the rules I played by as a kid, aha.

"Well... I didn't think I was gonna LOSE!"  He says in a bratty tone, while peeking over my shoulder to see Donghae.

"Why you little- You didn't think there were even chances of us winning?! You lied!"  Donghae says, exasperated, getting ready to get Hyukjae.

"Ahhh!!!" Hyukjae yells as he runs away again, Donghae running full speed after him.

"YESSSSSSSS!!! VICTORY IS MINE!!!!!"  Yesung yells in his most manly voice, standing up while flexing his arm muscles.

"HEY! YOU CHEATED!!! YOU WERE STEPPING ON MY TOE!!! AND BLOWING YOUR BREATH AT MY EYES!!!"  Sungmin whines.

"Gaheun said that I couldn't touch you, and technically... I didn’t.  My shoe and breath were."   He says, matter-of-factly.

"But that's not fair! Rematch!"  Sungmin continues to whine.

"No, I won already," Yesung answers, crossing his arms and turning his back to Sungmin.

"GAHEUN!!!!!"   They yell in unison.

                Oh boy, now I gotta go take care of them... I swear, whenever I'm with a bunch of them, I feel like I'm working at a daycare. I think Kyuhyun is the only one who never usually has any problems. More mature I suppose, and he's the second youngest here too. Actually... Where is he?    I look around the park and find him sitting at a picnic table, staring intently at his laptop screen while rapidly slamming the arrow keys of his keyboard. He's been playing Tetris nonstop since I showed it to him... Now that I think about it, maybe I shouldn't have shown him what Tetris was... Oops.

~~~

                Donghae, along with all the older 'hyungs' of the group had to run some 'errands' (that's what they said to me, at least) and left Henry and Kyuhyun with me. We were sitting around their apartment, Kyuhyun STILL playing tetris, Henry and I sitting around and watching TV.

"I'm soooo boooooorrrreeeeeddd"     Henry complains, flailing his head from side to side.

"Me too."  Is all I say.  Kyuhyun doesn't wanna leave his game, so we can't really go out anywhere, and he refuses to let us ‘ditch’  him. Haha.

"I know!!! Let's go to the basketball court upstairs!!!"  Henry exclaims.

"... Mmm... Okay,"   I agree. We look over to Kyuhyun who is just staring at us, with a  'what do I do now?' face.

"C'mon Kyu, I'm sure you'll still have good internet connection there. And you don't have to play basketball, just come with us. So we're not 'ditching'  you"  I say. He looks at me for a second, then looks as if he has an idea. He quickly disappears to his room, laptop in hand. Henry and I just look at each other... is he not coming? What just happened?

Kyuhyun comes back out holding a huge black sports bag, no laptop in sight. 

"We going or not? Don't just stare at me... You weird people..."  He says as he walks out. Henry and I laugh, then quickly run to catch up with him.

"You've got to be kidding me!! How am I losing?!?!?"   Henry exclaims, utterly surprised.

"I used to be in a basketball team, it was only for school, but I was in the team for like 2 years,"  I explain. His mouth drops open.

"Still! This is just embarrassing..."   He shakes his head, his hand holding his cap in place.

"Yeah, it really is!"  Kyuhyun calls from the side bench. Still looking at his laptop screen. (If you were wondering, his gym bag held a whole bunch of wires, and two laptops, and a router. Yep... He came prepared.)  … Wait a second... Kyu  understood us when we're speaking English?! What?!

"Well then, HYUNG. Why don't you play?!? I bet she'd beat you too!"  Henry retaliates.  Oh boy, not another fight. Please.

"I don't deny that she'd beat me, I know I'm not good at sports."  He replies calmly, still intensely playing tetris.

                I throw the ball to get Henry to quit whining and start playing again. It worked. Henry and I were about to restart another game of 21, when Kyuhyun yells,

"Gaheun-ah!! Can you come here?"  Henry and I stop the game, and I walk over to Kyu.

"Hmm?"   I ask

"I've finally done it..."   Whaaaa?

"... Done what?"

"I finally think I'm ready to face you..."   Oh... He's so silly. That's why he's been playing all this time?

"I set up a laptop already. And I'm ready to play; I've already sent an invite."  He continues, he looks at me seriously.

"What're you guys doing?!?!"  Henry whines, jogging over.

"Gaheun is going to play with me now."  Kyuhyun says calmly.  Wow... I guess I don't have a say in what I’m doing...

"What?! We were going to play another game!"  Henry exclaims

"Oh... Calm down. Besides you've spent the whole day with her already, until right now. And you're just gonna lose anyways if you play again. You should thank me really; you could be using this time to practice. And when you face her later, maybe you won't lose so bad next time."   Kyu replies matter-of-factly, still not looking up from the screen.

                I look over to Henry, his face looks as if he had just gotten some random, genius idea. Then he immediately turns around and shoots another basket, actually taking Kyu's advice. I sit down and play against Kyu. We’re  both quiet, playing the game. Kyu really improved a lot since the first time we played... I might actually lose...

"NOOO!!!  I was so ready. And I wasn't even  close  to winning ... Rematch please."  He exclaims, as he clicks the 'rematch button'.  Ahahahaha!! Random English is SO cute! Especially with his accent.

"Okay Kyu, but this is the last match okay?"   Last time, he made us play for two hours straight (while Donghae and Henry were destroying their apartment)

"Okay, I promise."  He promises, nodding at me incessantly.

...

…

That wasn't the last game.

~~~  

"Oh! Oh! It's working!... Is it working? Gaheun! I can see you! Can you see me?!"  Donghae asks, looking directly at the camera through the webcam, his face really close. Kyuhyun was nice enough to lend us two laptops, out of his collection of... Billions.

"Yeah"   I answer, waving at him.

"Okay, good. How are you? Have you been lonely without me? I bet you've been missing me"  He asks jokingly, acting as if he had a big ego.   

                He's been gone for only three days, and I DID miss him. A lot. I’ve been by myself for the whole three days, no Kyu, Henry, Siwon, Hyukjae, or anyone else. But I did use this time to stay with Yejin, who was happy to go out with me.

"If you don't answer... That means you really miss me then!"  He teases, trying to get me to talk to him.
I don’t  say a word. Retaliating his stupidity with my silence.

"... You know, if you're not gonna talk to me, you should at least let me SEE you, I can't see you when you look down like that."    Damn it. I think I'm blushing now.

"... Are you BLUSHING?!"

"No. There must be something wrong with your computer screen, why would I be blushing?"   YES. Finally, a somewhat believable excuse.

"There's nothing wrong with my computers. She's blushing."   I hear Kyuhyun call from somewhere on the other side.  Thanks Kyu, thanks.  Donghae just chuckles, still looking at me.

"Guys, get ready! We're heading out now."  An unrecognizable voice calls.

"Araso,"  A bunch of voices say in unison. I hear footsteps and shuffling, then Donghae turns his back to me. He looks like he's trying to block the screen.

"Hae, let's go... What are you doing?"  I can only see part of the voice's figure, Donghae's back is covering the rest of the screen.

"Ne, Ahjussi. Nothing."  Donghae replies, in a serious voice. I can imagine he had his emotionless face on at that moment. … So he was talking to his uncle.

"Who are you talking to?"   The voice asks, in an authoritative tone.

"A friend."  Donghae answers.   ...Oh. I guess his uncle doesn't know about me.

"Hae... You- nevermind that now. We've got to go. Finish up quickly. We'll talk about this later."

                Donghae just nods his head once, and watches his uncle leave. I hear the door close, he turns to me. His head slightly bending downwards, pursing his lips.

"Look, I just told him that we were-"

"It's okay, I understand... You told me you guys weren't allowed. I get it. Don't worry."  I interrupt him.

                He looks up at me. His eyes look so sad. I smile at him, letting him know that I wasn't just saying it, I do understand, I’m not bothered or irritated or anything. He smiles back, but it isn’t the same... His smile doesn't reach his eyes.

"You've got to go now, right? Go! See you soon?"  I say cheerfully.

                Suddenly Kyuhyun, Henry, Hyukjae, Siwon, Ryeowook, Sungmin, Yesung, Heechul, Jungsoo, Hankyung, Zhou Mi and Kibum's face are all crowding the camera, Donghae now washed away in the wave of faces.

"BYE!!!!" They all yell happily in unison, then they begin to make funny faces at the screen, making me laugh.

"Bye," I say to them.

"Yah! Yah! Get out of the way! I need to say bye,"  Donghae says rowdily as he pushes them away.  I hear all the footsteps leave the room.

Donghae just smiles at me, and says, "We'll be back soon, okay? I'll text or call you when I get back here... Soo..."

"We didn't really leave yet!" Henry says, Hyukjae, Kyuhyun and him crowding the camera again, all smiling widely. Donghae squeezes in between them, so I could see him.

"Okay, bye!" I said, waving, laughing at their silliness.

"Bye!!!!"  The four of them wave back at me. Haha, their English.

"I love you, bye!!! ... Muuuaaahhh!"  Donghae says, pretending to kiss the camera. I blush; he's never done or said anything like that before.  We haven't even actually kissed yet... Is that weird? We've been 'dating' for almost a month now...

They begin to fumble with the camera, trying to turn it off. The camera gets covered,

"Hyung, have you ever said that to Gaheun before?"  A curious Henry asks. And then the connection cut off.

That was the first time Donghae told me he loved me.

~~~

A/N:
Sooo... How was it? :) did I go overboard with the amount of short oneshot-ish stories? :S or do you think it was okay?
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And most importantly, enjoy! ;)