What Really Matters - 3/?
[Title] What Really Matters
[Pairing] Haehyuk, others to come
[Genre] Romance/Fluff
[Rating] PG-PG 13
[Summary] Donghae is the new kid in school and he immediately befriends shy and quiet Hyukjae. As Donghae’s popularity grows, his finds himself having to choose between Hyukjae and his popular friends, who doesn’t think he should hang out with the school ‘nerd’.
[Disclaimer] I only own the ideas in this fic.
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Hyukjae was diligently listening to the teacher's lecture and trying to take notes, which suddenly became a harder task than it should have been because of a certain classmate of his.
“Psst, Hyukkie. Psst,” Donghae whispered.
Hyukjae tried his best to ignore the whispers that were almost too loud to actually be that discreet. They had been playing this game for fifteen minutes now. When Donghae first called Hyukjae all he did was grin and smile at him until the other got too flustered and looked away. Refusing to let him do it for a fourth time, Hyukjae fixed his gaze on their teacher.
“Hyukkie, don’t ignore me.” Hyukjae could hear the whine in his voice and the giggle of their classmates who were close enough to hear what was going on. Hyukjae sighed and reluctantly turned to Donghae who was giving him a pair of puppy-eyes that made him and his other classmates melt into a pile of goo.
“May I ask what’s so important that it has half of my class paying attention to you two instead of me?” Mr. Park asked the two. Hyukjae immediately blushed, ducking as far as he could into his seat.
“Hyukkie was just helping me with my notes. He takes really good ones, see?” Donghae reached over and showed Mr. Park Hyukjae’s notes before the latter could think to protest.
He scanned over the notebook before handing it back to Hyukjae with a dimpled smile. “Of course, I expect nothing less from my best student.” He reached over to ruffle Hyukjae’s hair. “You’ll definitely do well in my class with his help,” he said to Donghae before he turned and walked back to the front of the class to resume his lesson.
Hyukjae sighed in relief, only to be interrupted by the troublesome brunette chuckling in his seat. Hyukjae turned to glare at him, which only made Donghae laugh harder. It was like a puppy trying to growl at you; adorably harmless.
Donghae had finally managed to calm down during the lesson and actually pay attention to what their teacher was saying about half-way through the class. Hyukjae looked over curiously, wondering why the other had stopped pestering him and caught himself staring at him. He had his tongue peeking out of the corner of his mouth and a small frown of concentration on his face as he erased something furiously on his paper. Hyukjae let out a small giggle at the sight, one that didn’t go unnoticed by the other. He glanced over at Hyukjae and smiled, throwing a wink at him. Hyukjae blushed and decided it would better to pay attention to his own work.
As soon as the bell rang Hyukjae began packing up his things while Donghae stretched in his seat, letting out a groan as he rubbed his shoulder. Ryeowook came up to them, like yesterday.
“Hey Hyuk, hi Donghae,” he said, smiling at them as they got out of their seats. “That was quite a show you put on for the rest of the class.”
Donghae just laughed and threw and arm around Hyukjae, who stiffened immediately. “I’m glad you enjoyed it. We’ll be here all week.” Hyukjae wriggled uncomfortably and moved from up under Donghae.
“Let’s just go to lunch,” he said, not waiting for the other two to catch up.
“Hyukkie, wait for us,” he called to the red boy in front of them, which only made him move faster.
Unfortunately for Hyukjae, Donghae's puppy-eyes weren’t the only canine-like quality about him. As soon as he saw Hyukjae flee, he started to chase after him. The two ended up running up and down the halls, with the entire schools eyes on them, something Hyukjae was not used to.
He stopped running as soon as he reached the door to the cafeteria and paused to catch his breath. He peeked around quickly, looking for that mop of brown hair.
“Looking for me?” Donghae asked in Hyukjae’s ear, grabbing Hyukjae from behind.
Hyukjae yelped and jumped in the air as he felt Donghae arms encircle around him.
“D-donghae? W-what are you doing? Let m-me go!” Hyukjae said, trying to pry Donghae’s arms off of him.
“Hyukkie, you know you’re really skinny,” Donghae frowned. “You need to eat more.”
“Donghae!” Hyukjae whined. It wasn’t just his face anymore, he knew his whole body was as red as a tomato.
Donghae released his hold on him, only to grab his hand. “We’ve got to feed you more.”
“Why’d you guys leave me?” Ryeowook came up behind them, pouting.
“Sorry, I didn’t know Hyukkie would be so fast.” Ryeowook’s eyes widened and then he broke out into a grin.
“Hyukkie?” he questioned. Donghae nodded.
“Yeah, cute isn’t it?”
“Very,” Ryeowook agreed, giggling. Hyukjae, embarrassed beyond belief, tugged his hand out of Donghae’s and walked towards the cafeteria line.
“Wait for us, Hyukkie!” the two chorused behind him.
They stood in line laughing (Donghae and Ryeowook) and pouting (Hyukjae). Donghae even took it upon himself to fill Hyukjae’s tray with food.
“You should eat more. What if I hug you too hard? I don’t want you break,” was Donghae's embarrasin reply to Hyukjae's confused face.
The three started their walk to the table where Yesung was already waiting when they were interrupted by a loud, “Oppa!”
The three turned towards the direction of the high-pitched voice and saw Jessica walking up to them with two of her friends.
“Oppa, what are you doing?” she asked blinking up at him with a huge smile on her face, and Ryeowook rolled his eyes at the question.
“We’re in the lunch room with trays of food, so we’re obviously going sky-diving,” he whispered to Hyukjae.
One of Jessica’s friends, who Hyukjae and Ryeowook recognized as being Kwon Yuri, heard him and began to glare at him, but suddenly flinched back and scanned the room only to see an angry Yesung who was giving her his own fierce glare that made her cower into the other girl, Kim Taeyeon.
“I was just going to eat lunch,” he answered, returning her smile with a polite smile of his own.
“Why don’t you come sit with us?”
“Actually-“ Donghae and Ryeowook started at the same time, but Jessica had already grabbed Donghae’s arm and started to pull him in the opposite direction, with Yuri and Taeyeon following behind them.
“Hey!” Ryeowook called, but they had already dragged him to their table. He scowled in their direction before muttering a, “Come on Hyuk.” The two walked to their own table, one angry and one disappointed.
“Who do they think they are?” Ryeowook fumed. “They can’t just steal him from us. We had him first!”
“Wookie, calm down. You sound like they took your toy away.” Ryeowook just pouted.
Yesung looked over to glance at Hyukjae, who was sitting with his head hanging down. Every so often he would glance at the table where Donghae now sat, only to sigh and return to poking at his food.
“Don’t worry Hyuk, you’ll see him later,” he said, not liking the dejected look on his dongseang’s face. Hyukjae just looked up and gave him a weak smile and continued to play with his food.
Donghae on the other hand was doing considerably better. After Jessica dragged him to their table he was introduced to the three girl’s friends. Two of whom he had already met.
“Ah, it’s Donghae-sshi,” Siwon called, when he saw who Jessica had pulled to their table.
“Nice to see you again,” Donghae said. “You too Hankyung-sshi.” Hankyung smiled and nodded, from behind the person who was draped in his lap.
“Since, you already know those two,” Jessica interrupted, “I’ll introduce you to the others. That’s Kibum,” she pointed to a boy who had his face in a book who was sitting next to Siwon. He looked up only to give a polite nod and immediately returned to his book.
“That’s Heechul oppa” she pointed the boy currently eyeing him from Hankyung’s lap. His reply was to give him a slight smirk and say a heavily accented, “Yo, man!” Donghae laughed as the others shook their head.
“And that’s Yoona and Tiffany,” she pointed to two girls who were eyeing Donghae and giggling. He shifted under their gaze.
“Hi,” he said lamely. Jessica sat down and quickly motioned for Donghae to take the seat next to her.
He did as was told as sat down stiffly, feeling a bit awkward with everyone’s gaze on him. He felt like they were waiting for him to say something so he opened his mouth only to close it again. He repeated the process about four times when Heechul interrupted.
“You know, when you do that you kinda look like a fish,” he smirked. “Hmm… fishy.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “It really suits you, Fishy,” he said and leaned back into Hankyung’s embrace, looking rather pleased with himself.
“Yah, don’t tease him,” Jessica whined.
Donghae didn’t know what to say. Was that supposed to be a compliment or an insult? He silently wondered if Heechul was like this all the time.
“Yes, he is like that all the time. Unfortunately,” Kibum answered Donghae’s unspoken question and Donghae just gaped at him. “You know, you do look like a fish,” he added, still not looking up from his book. The table collectively looked at Donghae and all laughed when they saw that he did, indeed look like a fish, which only caused them all to burst out in laughter.
“Well, at least he’s a cute fish,” Jessica defended him.
“Yes, very cute,” Yuri and Yoona added.
“Uh, thanks,” he blushed and nervously ran a hand though his hair, which only made the girls giggle and squeal further over how cute he was.
“Donghae, we’re meeting at the field at 3:30, alright?” Siwon said.
“Yeah, okay.”
“Oh, are you trying out for the team?” Yuri asked.
“It’s just a formality. You should have seen him earlier. He returned a shot that Minho kicked.”
“Really? You blocked a shot from him?” Taeyeon asked, amazed. Donghae just nodded slightly, not knowing who Minho was or why everyone looked so impressed.
“Wow. You must be really good.”
“Uh, not really.”
“Don’t be so modest. It was coming right for him and that other kid. What’s his name?” Siwon asked.
“Hyukjae,” Donghae answered, smiling automatically. Jessica frowned hearing the name.
“What were you doing with him?” she asked,
“Well, we live close to each other so we were walking to school together.”
Siwon resumed his conversation with Donghae then, asking him about who his favorite players were, while Jessica’s eyes quickly flickered to the table where Hyukjae was sitting. She saw him staring and got an idea.
“Oppa, why don’t you try some of this? I made it myself,” she smiled as she fed Donghae some of her lunch. Donghae was surprised, but accepted it anyway. She looked back over at Hyukjae and watched happily as Hyukjae put his head back down on the table.
“Yah, no one wants to see that,” Yoona said, stealing some of Yuri’s food.
“Don’t be jealous,” Jessica smirked and continued to feed Donghae.
Donghae, although initially was a bit uneasy, was happy that everyone was so welcoming towards him. He found himself settling into easy conversation with Siwon and Hankyung, and he even enjoyed Heechul’s little teasing. He wanted to see Hyukjae one more time, but the latter’s table was already empty when the bell rang. He walked to his next class with Jessica instead, wondering why he felt a little disappointed.
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A/N: Fastest update ever. You guys can thank rarfroggy20 for it because I was going to wait until tomorrow to post it, but she demanded ever so kindly asked if I could post it now. I hope you enjoy this chapter! ^^