{un-beta-ed and failed attempt of writing}

There was a story, a very very short story that I really really treasured. It happened in the period when I just begun to realize that I was probably having a seriously huge crush on the amazing "soccer-man", Lee Hyukjae. How did I even realize about the crush thing when I was the most dense and stupid and clumsy and nerdy boy ever? Well, I didn't, obviously. I wouldn’t have realized it myself if it's not for Sungmin who undiscreetly pointed out my possibly-too-obvious attraction for Hyukjae. Quoting Sungmin's exact words, "Duh, how could I not notice? You were painfully too obvious, Lee Donghae. Your eyes always search for Hyukjae's figure whenever and wherever he was within your 100m-diameter territory and you always look as dreamy as a rainbow cookie while you're at it. Although i don't really fancy such forbidden love between a fish and a monkey because that's too much of a trans-species relationship, but I approve you two." Well, surprisingly, Sungmin did speak the truth albeit exaggeratingly, because no, I did not appear to be dreamy, I had a poker face, dammit! "Yeah right. And that's where you were concerned about." retorted Sungmin while he did that eye roll because really, I'm just that dense.

So, as I was saying, the story begun during one of the rare days when I was just taking my own sweet time to observe-slash-stare-slash-stalk at my secret crush who was within a very close range of proximity with me (my 100m-diameter territory, okay!), although I couldn't really say that it's a secret crush anymore, sadly. It was that time of the day, specifically during the precious lunch hour, when Sungmin managed to nearly choke me to death with his direct and undiscreet sentence of a few words.

“So, you like Hyukjae huh?” He mentioned, more like asking that very unexpected question out of the blue and I, being the hyper-reflexive kid as I always have been, just choked on the drink and inevitably had to splutter most of the orange juice right in front of Hyukjae, onto the table, and fortunately onto Sungmin's bunny face as well. Sungmin had to wipe them off quickly, his face contorted into pure disgust.

Okay, fine. It didn’t exactly happen in front of him because the latter was actually sitting a few tables away from us with his gorgeous back facing me, unfortunately. But then, even his back view is sacred and so precious. And so, while I was panicking thinking if Hyukjae could have seen that horrendous sight of me spitting my drink out in a very very unmanly way, I just decidedly converted that anxiety into anger and redirected it towards the source of my misery-- Lee Ugly Bunny Sungmin. So, I frowned.

“What the hell, Sungmin?!” I whispered furiously, my eyes attempting to shoot a menacing glare at him although it was probably not working because I was pretty certain that my flustered face was actually screaming otherwise (gaping Nemo level of cuteness, duh!). From the way Sungmin was delightedly guffawing right into my face, I pretty much guessed that my face was probably betraying my original intention as I could already feel my face gradually tinged with a deep shade of red while I clumsily wiped the orange droplet that was dripping down my chin. Even so, I still tried to throw him another deadly glare and took another proper sip of my drink before I shoved him my typical in-denial sentences.

“Why would you even ask me that?! I’m obviously—“ I accidentally coughed “—straight!” 

 Sungmin loudly scoffed at my so-called straight exclamation because—

“Yeah, you’re sooooo straight, just like a circle.” He retorted, his voice dripping with so much sarcasm. Not that I noticed that underlying sarcasm until I repeated his answer again though.

“Yes! You're damn right! I’m very very straight just like a cir—yah, you stupid carrot-freak Min-bunny!” I shouted angrily, an octave lower than my usual shrieking voice because I did not want to alert the whole cafetaria with my yelling. But it was very unlucky of me when the students there just had to choose exactly at that moment to momentarily zip their gossipy mouth and my almost-yell was loudly echoing in that temporarily silent-ridden building! Okay, I was probably exaggerating a little, but still, what if Hyukjae heard me yelling and think I'm such a noisy boy? And then he would think I'm such an attention seeking boy and he would despise me to the max and-- oh god, oh god. Can I panic now?

Okay, calm down, Lee Donghae. Think straight, think cool and think of Nemo! Yeah, Nemo is cool. And I'm cool. Just be cool. My thoughts were hectic and crowded, and it surprised me how I still managed to blurt some so-called cool stuffs from my mouth. I even had the guts to think that I was being cool and more mature than Sungmin. I would have snorted at myself if I wasn't this stupid.

“No, seriously. Why would I like him? Why would you even think that way? He’s too gorgeous, he’s so totally not my taste,” I said, a crazy blush heatedly spreading across my fair face. Yeah, very mature, Lee Donghae. Very mature and so very cool. Just as soon, Sungmin’s infamous cutesy but annoying eye roll ensued immediately after those words escaped my mouth in the not-so-discreet attempt of denial. I didn’t even know why I was denying it in the first place when it was obviously just a heavy crush, I mean, what’s so bad about having a crush? Okay maybe except, it's a guy. Still, it's not like Sungmin didn't know about my ual orientation, but whatever, I still wanted to deny it anyway. It was probably just easier that way. After all, it’s always easier to run away than challenge things head-on, no?

And then, there was another time when Sungmin had once taken a video of me secretly as a proof of how embarrassingly obvious I was whenever I was observing-slash-ultimately-stalking my not-so-secret-crush-anymore. And out of the several purest reflexes deeply rooted within me, I just had to smash and destroy his smartphone against the hard-paved ground with a brute force that I didn’t even know I possessed. Because honestly, I was more than mortified at my extreme level of stupidity. I was horrified! Because no one, I repeat, no one would stalk a person with a very creepily wide and crooked grin on their face when they were actually trying to be discreet going about it! At least not that I knew of. But anyway, as a very hurtful consequence, I realized I had to work extra amount of hours just to save the necessary money to replace the phone that I inevitably broke, and should I say, it was extravagantly expensive, curse you stupid Min-bunny!

However, among all those obvious reflexes of mine, there was this one incident that can never rival any of those mentioned previously. Because-- oh god, how should I even start?

It was one of those days when we were having our rare anatomy lab session for the semester. And unfortunately, the session was supposed to be jumbled up between classes in order to promote more interactions between batchmates. However, due to the lack of teaching staffs and my nerdy and knowledge-compacted brain, my teacher, Mr. Jungsoo, forced me to teach one of the student groups regarding the structures in the skull with the excuse of it being a task to improve my social skill, quoting “Lee Donghae, you’re not a problem, but you’re too unsociable I’m worried if you had hormones or not. Now go out there and mingle, teach some classmates and make some friends. Be youthful, Donghae! Youth is all about love!”

Now, that was very sly of Mr. Jungsoo to force his task of teaching onto the students and used his inevitable weakness of introversion. Who could have said no to him when he was smiling that cute dimple of his while batting his eyelids to me, looking as innocent as ever when in fact, he was the most foxy of all? 

But as sly and 'kind of him' as he could get, Mr. Jungsoo still couldn’t really help me because as I had told you before, I was definitely an unapproachable bastard, an outcast. So of course it was to be expected that not many of my batchmates would swarm around me to listen to my honor student lecture, well except maybe for the equally nerd people like Sungmin, yeah right. I wasn’t even sure if they actually knew of my existence up until that point. That itself  pretty much showed the overflowing introversion of mine.

Now, despite all that, I still begun to point out at some structures on the skull mannequin and explained as simple as my brain could allow about how the Dura matter formed several folds within that bony structure as well as where the sinuses were. Yes, did I already mention that nerd was my middle name before Hyukjae befriended me and taught me soccer? Yeah, I probably already did. Maybe.

However, as I was luckily and finally getting to the end of my short ‘lecture’, an abrupt and loud slam of the door came from the front of the laboratory. In the midst of noisy chattering to find out who the heck just dared to slam his way in the middle of Mr. Jungsoo’s class, I quickly sneaked a glance from the corner of my eyes only to see Hyukjae hastily rushing into the lab as he fixed his white coat. I widened my eyes triple the normal size because seriously, I didn’t know he would be in our session. And of course Sungmin would never be as kind as a God to actually tell me that. That revenge-engrossed prick! Just because I ate his favorite bunny carrot cake, he resorted to keep the secret to himself. He dared letting Hyukjae be within my 100 meters diameter territory without allowing me some time to prepare for his highness' arrival?! Oh my goodness, no!

 I spared a second to throw a deadly cute glare at stupid Sungmin before I heard hyukjae announced a very loud sorry for being late and glanced his eyes around only to fix them on me, or probably on my group. I was too stunned from the brief eye contact (or group eye contact?) that I failed to notice that Hyukjae was walking towards me— or us for that matter, and I could feel my breath stuck in my throat, suffocatingly constricting my breathing in a way that I thought I could have possibly ended with an asthma attack and died out of air.

‘Oh my god. Why is he coming over here? Why did he choose me (my group)? Oh my god, he’s coming! He’s hereeeeeeeeee!’ I mentally went crazy in my head, fanboying and gaga-ing over the hotness that was Hyukjae. But I wasn't really trying to cover or pretend as though I was fine and was not fanboying anyone because I was absolutely certain that my face was as poker as it had always been. That was what I thought though. But when I noticed Sungmin silently cackling beside me as soon as he sneaked a peek at my face, I begun to feel my certainty wavering a little. I raised my hands to cup my cheeks and damn, it's warm. Oh god, please tell me I am not blushing.

In the midst of fretting over my flushed and uncool face while trying to pale my face back to original shade, my eyes in evitably found Hyukjae standing just in front of me before he casually blurted out, “Hey, is it okay if I join you guys?” He asked, and thadump! I just felt my heart skipped a beat, or maybe a few more before it beat faster and faster, the sheer force slamming againts my ribcage. It made me inevitably wonder if I could probably die at a very young age just because of Hyukjae-caused angina. Because damn was his voice very y, low and husky. And, and those words and that voice was also unbelievably directed for me! For me! He was talking to me. Not to the group, but me. Oh God, Is this how Heaven feels like? Because I could feel a herd of butterflies ramming their glittery wings around in my tummy in a rowdy cowboy kind of fluttering way and although it felt very heavy, it still feels very Heavenly. Gosh, it's definitely Heaven!

I was completely in my own neverland world, countless of fanboying thoughts flooding my mind when Hyukjae's voice pulled me back to reality. "-- hello? Uh, heeeellooooo?" Hyukjae waved his hand in front of my face, his forehead mildly creased while he stared at my blank face. Awoke from the "dreamland", I just blinked my eyes absentmindedly at him which contorted Hyukjae's face into a mix of hesitance and amuse.

"-- So, as I was saying, I'm late and other groups are crowded, so, can I join you guys?" It took me approximately 9 seconds before his words finally sank in my head, and I blushed furiously when I wondered how many times had he tried to explain and ask that question judging from the way he spoke. God, was it embarassing. I just awkwardly nodded my head and looked just about everywhere but him, avoiding any eye contact. Quickly, I cleared my throat as cool as I could and utterly embarassed myself again when I started out stuttering, only to be interrupted by the naughty Sungmin.

“S-so, as I was saying... the f-foramens on the skull were here in—“

“Oh, Donghae-ssi, I thought we were talking about the pathway of CSF circulation just now?” His voice was dripping with so much sarcasm, I just knew that Sungmin was trying to freaking embarrass me in front of Hyukjae, which he of course succeeded. Because my face, for once again, flushed furiously I could even feel the heat spreading all over my face down to my neck. Ugh.

In response, I could only cough awkwardly and shifted uncomfortably in my seat. I dared myself to look up to continue my explanation on that matter, pretending to be oh-so-unaffected by my little cute blunder, but my voice was quickly stuck in my throat when my eyes caught Hyukjae staring at me. I hitched a breath as I quickly thumped my chest with my fist to ease up my breathing just because it got harder with every second.

“O-oh. Did I? Y-yeah, it must be. I’m sorry. Err, so as I was saying… The dura matter folded itself just beneath the Superior Sagittal Sinus---“

“Donghae-ssi. We already learnt that as well.” Sungmin once again interfered, his face suggesting that he was nearly bursting with laughter with the way his face reddened up, his shoulder vibrating and his hand strongly clutching onto his tummy. I just had to elbow his waist with a small glare before I pretended to fix my white coat.

“W-well, I was just thinking to repeat that topic for Hyukjae here since he just got in.” I tried to cover up. I nearly thought I was doing very great to hide my honest cute mistake but ultimately, it all drained out to pure nothing when I saw Hyukjae’s surprised look.

“Errr… How’d you know my name?”

‘Oh god. Kill me now.’

And Sungmin just boisterously laughed his hard out loud, and seriously, I wish I had a carrot to shove it right into his loud mouth. 

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