Characters: Hyukjae, Donghae
Rating: G
Wordcount: 3.011
Summary: There's no point to living without the other, but is he really gone?
A/N: Written over today and yesterday (and possibly another day before that). Mostly today however. This shot is a creation of my mind that needed to be written. Sequel to Holding on to letting go but I guess readable as a stand alone as well. Pieces of my heart were torn out and put into this, so love it or I will be sad.
- - - - -
To him, life has become much alike to walking over broken glass barefooted. Every step he takes is even more painful than the previous, days blending together in a constant repetition of the same memories, his mind attuned to the stabs of pain they sent throughout his whole body. It’s like he almost welcomes the pain, knowing he deserves it, thinking it better than the emptiness that would otherwise consume him.
The windows of his apartment are small, tiny ruptures in the walls that feel like they’re closing in on him. Small openings for him to look through at the outside world, to see how life is so much brighter for those who are not him. For those who haven’t failed like him.
It’s little tiny monsters clawing at his heart, reminding him over and over again how stupid he’s been. He draws the name in his heart on a condensed window and watches it fade away again, but the feelings never change and when he looks up, the sky is still just as dreary and a single water drop splats apart on his arm, like a tear would if he still had any left to cry.
He’s gone numb over the years, no more tears to cry, no more pieces of his heart left big enough to break. There’s only a constant realisation that he’s alone and perhaps somewhere in the back of his mind he knows that it’s all of his own doing, making the feeling only harder to bear. Trying to live without Donghae is a little like trying to extinct a fire with his bare hands; it hurts big time and he realises that there’s a much better way to do it.
But Donghae is together with Kyuhyun. Or Siwon. Or maybe the other tall guy he saw him together with earlier that month, holding hands as they walked through the park. It’s as if all those people are laughing in his face for being stupid enough to have ever let go of that hand, to have ever let the younger walk away from him, stray too far. But they’re wrong, he tells them in his mind with bitter satisfaction. Donghae’s never walked away from him; he was the one leaving himself.
“What’s Neunggok like?” he remembers Donghae asking one day, the curiosity shining in his eyes. He had been tired that day, his students in dance class having been the most annoying they ever were and traffic on his way home sucking so badly he had almost wanted to leave the damn car somewhere along the way and walk the rest of the way home. It hadn’t been the best of days for him, so he had merely looked at the other in surprise for a moment before waving off the question.
“It’s like any other city.” he had replied then, and Donghae had pouted at him ever so sweetly, poking at his side to get him to say more than that. He remembers pushing away the soft hands and frowning at the insistence the other had nagged at him with. “It’s just a city, Donghae, what would it be like?” he had said then, annoyance seeping into his voice.
His answer had silenced Donghae, the younger looking up at him with something akin to hurt in his eyes before he had turned back to the television, continuing to watch the program that had been their evening entertainment. In reality it was merely something to fight off the silence that had settled between them once again, as talking would only lead them to yet another fight.
He realises now that those were the moments he should have acted differently, responded differently, if he had wanted to keep the other from pushing him away. He realises now that the reason he no longer has anyone to cuddle up to at night or to listen to his nagging had partly been Donghae, but mostly been himself and how he had always expected the other to be there no matter what.
“It’s alright.” a familiar voice whispers to him and he feels his heart settle as his muscles relax. It is alright, he realises, the other’s arms wrapped loosely around him, his face buried in the nape of the other’s neck, surrounded by the smell that used to always be present around him.
He’s not sure how they ended up like this; one moment he hadn’t spoken to the other in ages, the next he was at his doorstep, hoping to find him home. Which he was; all tired eyes and questioning expressions as he saw the other standing at his door at three in the morning.
“What are you doing here? Do you have any idea what time it is?” he had mumbled but Hyukjae had merely thrown himself in the other’s arms, the first tears already finding their way over his cheeks. They held onto each other for dear life, Donghae sobering up soon enough and holding him close as he himself just cried weeks and months of unshed tears. For love, loss and memories.
After several tries at getting him to explain what was wrong, Donghae had given in to his reluctance to answer, growing silent and merely being there. Even after so many years, after so many misunderstandings and things going wrong, Donghae had held him as if nothing had ever changed between them, and it was more than he could have hoped for.
So now here he is, clinging to the younger still, even though his tears have long stopped flowing. He can feel Donghae shifting next to him and a sudden wave of fear washes over him. What if they’ll go back to being strangers the moment he lets go? What if being close like this is merely because Donghae had not known what else to do being overwhelmed by him like that.
The mere thought of going back to the emptiness makes a second wave of tears find their way over his cheeks and he can feel the other’s grip tightening once again, the hand on his back taking up its comforting patting again as well. He can almost imagine the worried look on the younger’s face but is too afraid to look up and see that it’s only that; imagination.
“Hyukjae, tell me what’s wrong..” Donghae finally speaks after another good five minutes of continuous sobbing. “I’ve never seen you like this, what the hell happened? How did you get reduced to this?” He wants the worry he thinks he hears in the other’s voice to be real, but he doesn’t know how that could be possible when all he’s ever done is disappoint the other an endless amount of times, time and again.
When the tears don’t seem to stop, Donghae lets go of him and he barely keeps himself from squeaking in fear, not wanting to have to walk away once again. He fists his hands in the younger boy’s shirt, pressing his face against the fabric again, refusing to face the other in the state he’s currently in.
“Hyukjae, look at me.” Donghae says softly, cupping his face with the soft, warm hands he knows so well and lifting it up, away from the questionable safety of the T-shirt. Their eyes meet then, the first time that day - night? - and he finds worry and care in the other boy’s eyes, only making him want to cry even more. Donghae wipes over his cheeks with his thumbs, cleaning away the fresh tears, and sends him a small, encouraging smile.
“I’m here, Hyukjae.” the younger says then and all he can do is close his eyes with a nod, burying himself in the other’s embrace once more.
He wakes up in a completely dark room, rolling over to cuddle up against the other, but there’s no one there. No one has been there for years now. Long, agonizing years in which he was able to remind himself over and over again how stupid he had been. For the umpteenth time that month he finds himself wondering if that one night had been a dream and for the umpteenth time he grabs at his phone, checking to see if the familiar phone number is really back in his contact list.
“You’re killing yourself, Hyukjae.” Donghae had said to him when the tears had finally subsided, the two of them sitting next to each other on the living room couch. And damn the fact that that was still the same couch as when they lived in that apartment together. “You keep things pent up inside until you break, but you never actually break and it becomes so hard for you to bear that you grow gloomier every day. You have always been like this, even when we were still together.”
Donghae had given him one of those looks that said ‘I know what you’re made of, don’t try to deny it,’ and so he hadn’t. But now, lying in bed in the dark room that will only grow darker unless he turns on a light, he thinks that maybe he should’ve denied it. Because if he never really broke, then why the hell had he been crying like a baby in the other’s arms? What did Donghae really think he was doing there, forgetting any kind of pride as he cried his heart out?
With a snarl, he throws the phone away from him, hearing it drop on the floor mere moments later but refusing to feel bad about it. He’s close to going crazy, really, and for a moment he wonders if maybe Donghae is right after all. If maybe he is killing himself, tearing himself down piece by piece, thread by thread. But if he is, he’s doing it all because of the other and he doesn’t regret a single thing.
“You have to get out more.” Jungsoo tells him one day, throwing the discarded clothes in the laundry basket on his way to the kitchen. Hyukjae can’t even find it in himself anymore to tell the other to leave it, instead remaining curled up on the couch, a pillow squished in between his legs and body. Minutes later Jungsoo stuffs a plate of food in his face, but he merely turns away from it, the smell alone making him want to throw up.
“Starving yourself isn’t going to make him come to save you, Hyukjae.” the elder speaks after a moment, putting down the plate on the living room table and crossing his arms in front of his chest then. “You need to go out there and show him that you want him to come back, that you’re worth coming back to.” He can’t help huffing at those words, but the next moment his whole body starts shaking violently because of his own sobbing.
He curses this feeling, the way he shifts from good to bad to even worse in a matter of seconds. He hates the way Jungsoo has to catch him before he falls, pull him back up, put him back on his feet. He despises himself, despises what he has become, but has no energy left to change it. So he simply cries against Jungsoo’s shoulder for several moments before manning up again and going back to staring blankly ahead.
Zhou Mi is a ray of sunshine in an otherwise dark world. Introduced to him by Jungsoo he shouldn’t have expected anything less, but it still surprises him how the tall man manages to brighten even his days. The redhead drags him out of the house against his will if necessary, bringing him out to see the world and all the wondrous things it has to offer. He follows albeit reluctantly, but the more he goes out the more he enjoys it and soon he’s almost waiting for the other to show up at his door and take him out.
Zhou Mi is stupid jokes and awkward laughter, he’s occasional random hugs and the most awkward stick on legs Hyukjae’s ever seen. Zhou Mi makes him smile more than anyone else and he doesn’t even put an effort into it. Hyukjae finds himself blooming because of him, recreating his life as he goes, one step at a time, starting with a new job and new dreams. Zhou Mi is life and oxygen and Hyukjae breathes him in without restraints.
One day he thinks it’s a good idea to do something in return for all Zhou Mi’s kindness, so he pecks the other on the lips. A long awkward silence, several minutes of staring and a frown later he realises that maybe that wasn’t the brightest idea he’s ever had. Zhou Mi stares at him like he’s just landed on earth in a pink UFO and he feels extremely uncomfortable under that gaze, shifting in his seat and shyly looking away.
“What was that for?” the redhead asks after a while and he shrugs, not having a clue either. At least not anymore, the look on Zhou Mi’s face having erased every explanation he had for what he just did. They stare at each other a few moments longer in awkward silence before Zhou Mi continues the sentence Hyukjae’s action had interrupted. When he leaves later that afternoon, he smiles and waves like he always does, sunshine smile plastered on his face.
He doesn’t visit again.
Life goes back to the dull nothing it used to be. He lies in bed more often than not and doesn’t even open the door for Jungsoo anymore. After several persistent weeks of coming by every day and being left at the door, Jungsoo gives up on him too. He’s okay with that. It’s not as if there’s much of him left to care for anyway. The fact that he’s jobless doesn’t bother him as much, the few drops of water and the bits of electricity he uses are not a lot to pay for anyway. He lives off of his savings, but then again it’s not really to be called living. He decides he doesn’t care anymore.
It’s about seven months after his sister was diagnosed with aids, seven months after the night he spent crying in Donghae’s arms, when someone comes by again. He ignores the doorbell as he has been doing for five consecutive weeks now, but whoever’s at the door is persistent, ringing and ringing until he sees no other way to escape the shrill sound than to get up and walk over to the door, unlocking it and pulling it open with quite a bit of effort.
“What do you want?” he bites at the person standing behind it, freezing in his movements when his eyes lock with the other man. For a while he just stands there, staring like that, the other person looking back calmly, before he shakes his head and repeats his question. “What do you want? Why are you here?”
“I heard you the first time,” Kyuhyun replies coldly, glancing past him into his apartment. “I think the proper words to start a conversation with are ‘Would you like to come in?’ perhaps followed by ‘Excuse me for the mess.’ You don’t really have any manners, do you?”
“Why would I apologise for a non-existing mess?” he retorts, opening the door wider as he realises he isn’t going to get rid of the pest anyway. “Come in then, if you’re going to be a stuck up idiot you can at least do it inside.” Kyuhyun eyes him a moment longer and he swears he can see surprise in the younger one’s eyes, but then the kid walks past him, not even looking back as he speaks up again.
“You do indeed smell better than I had imagined, and I can still see the floor. That’s a nice surprise. Now if you could only show to the outside world that you haven’t died yet, that would be awesome.” he rambles in a flat tone. Hyukjae closes the door and walks over to his couch, not even bothering to see what Kyuhyun’s up to as he flops down on the soft cushions, closing his eyes the moment his head touches the armrest.
“What are you doing here, Kyuhyun-ssi?” he asks in a low voice, not up for the pleasantries and the evasive talk. In fact, he’s not up for anything coming from the younger. He still clearly remembers how it was Kyuhyun prancing around holding Donghae’s hands in the months after their break-up. And even after so many years passed, he still doesn’t want to forget about that.
“I’m here to fix Donghae.” is all the younger replies, but it’s enough to make Hyukjae look up, a frown edged into his forehead.
“Why are you here for that? Donghae’s not around here. You should go to his place.” he replies softly, even the other’s name making him feel weak inside. Or maybe it’s the lack of food and sleep. He’s not exactly sure why, but Kyuhyun smirks and crosses his arms in front of his chest. They eye each other for a while, until Kyuhyun sighs and shakes his head.
“Donghae’s heart is here.” he says then, completely shaking Hyukjae’s world, making every fibre in his body glow and resound at those words. “And you’re not really taking care of it.”
He’s pretty sure the world’s playing tricks on him, but if they amount to him finding himself locked in Donghae’s embrace he’s more than willing to play along. The heartbeat under his hand feels real, though, and he’s convinced he’s not imagining the way Donghae’s breath tickles his neck as the other exhales. He closes his eyes to savour the moment even more, before sighing deeply.
“I’m sorry.” he breathes then and Donghae nods against his shoulder. It’s nothing at all, but it’s everything as well and he feels like he could cry right then and there if Donghae wasn’t already doing that more than enough for the both of them.
