[FIC] Life is perfect as it is

Title: Life is perfect as it is
Characters: Donghae, Kibum
Rating: G
Wordcount: 1.319
Summary: Kibum only knows a guy in his university, Donghae knows multiple Kibums or none at all.
A/N: This is another spinoff to the Go!Stop series that started with Life would be perfect if we had these. This story continues on Donghae's life after he's made the Reset button and turned back time. Go!Stop does not exist in this life, but he still remembers. And what that brings him is not always beautiful.

- - - - -

There’s a guy who has been following him around for days now, always showing up at the same places he’s at. At least he thinks the other’s following him, but then again it’s not like there’s a third person always around as well. The guy doesn’t pay any attention to him, though, he just does whatever. Apparently they go to the same school too.

He doesn’t know him.

.

“Yo Bum, I’m talking to you!” Heechul demands his attention one day at noon. He nods, but finds himself unable to look away from that particular guy. It’s not until Heechul’s back suddenly blocks his view that he realises what the elder’s doing, but it’s already too late by then.

“Hey kid, do you know him?” Heechul asks the guy, pointing at Kibum over his shoulder. The young man looks up, and Kibum’s practically begging him with his eyes not to be annoyed.

Suddenly a wide smile appears on the stranger’s face, making him look twice as young. “Kim Kibum, right?” he then speaks and both Heechul and Kibum nod rather dumbly. “Yeah, I’ve seen him around. Why?”

Kibum smiles, but right as he wants to say something the stranger’s friends suddenly join him, all tall and muscular guys with unfriendly faces, members of the football team. He shakes his head then, takes hold of his tray of food and turns to walk away. But a voice stops him.

“Hey Kibum-ssi!” He turns around before he realises it, questioning eyes on a bright smile, and blinks away his uneasiness. “Care to let me join you for lunch?” There’s only reasons to refuse in his head, but he still accepts anyway.

.

“Hyung! Look here!”

Kibum lifts the heavy guitar in Donghae’s direction, happy grin on his face. It takes only one look at the object for his hyung to come storming towards him then.

“Woah! This is awesome! Should we get this one?” Donghae calls out happily as he looks at the instrument. Kibum frowns at that.

“But neither of us even knows how to play it.” he protests softly.

“Oh come on, Kibum-ah! Guitars are great decoration!”

Donghae is obviously spiked about the idea; the both of them sharing an apartment decorated with guitars and anything else they will be able to get their hands on at the market. Kibum is less convinced, but it doesn’t really matter to him, so he agrees with it in the end.

“Oh Kibum-ah! Look at this!” Donghae calls out, right as Kibum’s asking the owner how much they would have to pay for the guitar. He looks up to see his hyung holding a painting of two children on a grassy field, holding hands and looking at the sun. “Don’t they look like us!?” The question is so simple yet asked with so much honest conviction that he needs a moment to be able to answer.

“They do. You resemble the one on the left the most, with the ponytails and the bow in her hair.” he states calmly then, turning back to the owner of the two things to pay for them. It isn’t until they reach the next stand that Donghae seems to realise what has just been said to him and as the eldest cries out an offended ‘Hey I’m not a girl!’ Kibum just grins.

.

September is a cold month that year, ice covering the windows on some mornings, rain falling often and a biting coldness that seeps into your bones. They have thick blankets, but sometimes even those aren’t enough. Kibum wakes up on many occasions to see a Donghae icicle next to his bed, wanting to find some warmth. They grow accustomed to borrowing each other’s body warmth, settling under two blankets with their backs against each other.

“We need to buy thicker blankets.” Kibum states one day and Donghae agrees, but they never really get around to doing so.

.

“Why did you follow me around those first weeks of school?” Kibum asks in the middle of October. They’re waiting for commercials to end and the movie to start again, huddled up together under their blankets. Donghae turns to look at him, something in his eyes that looks a little like panic but Kibum can’t quite place it.

“Why would you ask that?” the elder then replies, a slight smile pulling up the corners of his mouth.

“Well it’s not every day that a popular guy leaves his football team friends for a random guy he meets one day in the cafeteria.” Kibum retorts, eyes fixed on Donghae’s. They look at each other for a while like that, before Donghae’s tiny smile grows into a bigger one and he easily pokes Kibum’s side under the blanket.

“You were interesting.” he says then, nodding at the TV. “You should’ve gotten us some snacks and tea while the commercials were running instead of asking stupid questions. Now shush, the movie is starting.”

.

December brings a girlfriend by Donghae’s side, January takes her away again. Months pass, school years end and start again. It’s a circle they settle in fine as best friends and flatmates. Life is good, they like it as it is.

.

Things change when one day Donghae wakes up from a nightmare – but not quite – and never is the same again. Suddenly he sees things Kibum never sees and hears people call his name when there is no one around.

He becomes tired, like a man who has seen too much of life and wants to get out of it. It’s a change neither has expected, or at least Kibum didn’t, but Donghae seems to be fine not knowing why it happened. Kibum suspects him from knowing but simply not telling.

.

“Do you know what it feels like to fall?” Donghae asks him one day, back pressed against the brick wall of a long forgotten building. Kibum nods because yes, he’s fallen off things before, but Donghae seems unsatisfied.

“I don’t mean falling where you hit the ground seconds later and get hurt. Do you know what it’s like to fall endlessly with nothing or no one to stop you?” He doesn’t know what Donghae means, so he remains silent. Donghae doesn’t seem to notice.

.

“Kibum! Kibum wake up!”
He opens his eyes to a panicking Donghae, eyes wild, urging him to sit up.

“You can never go with them, okay!” the elder states more than asks. “I won’t let them take everyone from me this time. First Hyukjae and Siwon then you. I won’t let them get you!”

Donghae is obviously rambling, maybe another nightmare, and Kibum has no idea what to do with his friend. He recognises the names Hyukjae and Siwon as friends from Donghae’s back home in Korea, but he has no clue what everything else means.

“Weren’t you talking on the phone with Hyukjae-ssi just yesterday?” he belatedly asks. Donghae stares at him in surprise, then suddenly smiles a bright smile.

“Yes. You’re right.” he says and promptly falls back asleep right where he’s sitting. Kibum covers Donghae with his blanket and takes a seat on a chair next to the bed, watching over the elder until the sun comes up and he wakes with no recollection of what happened over night.

.

“Yeah! Just like that one time when we stole the principal’s bike, remember?” Donghae exclaims with a grin. Kibum doesn’t, but his hyung’s laughing again so he leaves it be. It’s not the first time that he sees the pain, the spark of insanity, in the elder’s eyes that speaks of things he’ll never get to know, memories he can’t even fathom.

“Life is good as it is, right, Hyukjae?” Donghae asks, that precious smile still gracing his expression. He smiles sadly but agrees.

“Life is perfect as it is.” he says, even though his name is not Hyukjae and life would be better if Donghae could remember that, remember him.