Eunhyuk/Donghae | AU | slight angst | PG | 4104 words

Light slips through the cracks of the blindfold on the window, leaves rays of sun burning down Donghae’s skin. It feels exactly like it felt before he left, the sheets still raw under his back, the pillow under his head keen and uncomfortable, but it reminds him of the days and years he spent here, before Seoul and moving and all that jazz.

Mokpo hasn’t changed a thing since he went away but he did, he matured over the years. His mother says, “Took you long enough to act like a twenty year old,” and Donghae laughs at that, says he’s still a five year old in mind.

The house smells like childhood and summer, the heat swirling around Donghae’s hot skin but he doesn’t mind it. He turns off the teapot when it whistles into his ears, pours water into two cups, scoops sugar into the bowls and sits down in the old rocking chair standing by the end of the patio where sunflowers bloom. He inhales, once, twice, tries to engrain the colours of aging oak and vibrant green grass and that red kettle his mother loves laying on the banister near the booms of peach and pear.

He’s home. He repeats the words for the remaining days.

¨ ¨ ¨

Along the main road between the dentist’s and the butcher’s, there’s an old second-hand bookstore he often visited during summer breaks.  The owner, an old man with huge quadrangular glasses and sorely tired, nonetheless happy eyes, Lee Kyoung-Joo, is his father’s old friend. Donghae can’t say he knows Mr Lee much, all he knows is his eyes never stop searching for unread words, always try to find something new to discover, to make it his own.

There was one time Donghae visited the shop, asking for something he’s never read before. Kyoung-Joo-sshi said there is not much you haven’t read, boy, but called his son to help searching.

His son, a tall and slim young man around the same age, pushed a book about nature into Donghae’s hands, smiled with his lips closed. Donghae wondered why that smile felt so warm and welcoming and familiar even though they have never met or haven’t even seen each other before.

Hyukjae. His name was Hyukjae and Donghae never heard anything rolling so easily off his tongue when he thanked the book and emerged the bookstore.

He looked back several times, tried to recall the way Hyukjae smiled at him with his teeth hiding behind cherry chapped lips. He still remembers the creases along Hyukjae’s mouth, the slight bruise on the left side of his upper lip. Donghae thought he got it during a fight but Hyukjae didn’t look like that kind of guy who got into fights, didn’t seem like a bad boy to him. Hyukjae looked nice and clean and perfect despite his big nose and desisting ears and glasses. He resembled him of his own self, a little lost in this world made out of ed up people but he knew Hyukjae could find a solemn spot in books and knowledge, something that helped him fly away from earth.

Donghae smiles. He wonders if he still has that old book about dangerous jungle flowers that Hyukjae gave him that day. Probably, but he doesn’t know, so he spends the day searching and searching until his fingers touch surface that he can never forget, a surface of past and present colliding.

It’s the book. The title has abraded but the little leaf ornament at the bottom of the cover is still lambent with golden. He snaps it up, mulls over letters and words that made no sense back then but now they do, now he can put the pieces together to earn something new, something he didn’t know before.

It’s past midnight when he finishes. Next morning he tells his mom it’s been the best read in his life.

“Why don’t you go thank Lee Kyoung-Joo-sshi? I bet he would go frantic over you,” his mother says, her hand sliding over the table to grab at Donghae’s arm. The touch is delicate, his mother’s fragile fingers slightly scraping the skin under his wrist, her lightly pulsating pale flesh contrasting on Donghae’s tanned own. She says then, voice suddenly low and vulnerable, “He didn’t have time to say goodbye to your father. He would be really happy.”

Donghae’s heart aches but he smiles and says yes. He doesn’t say, I didn’t have time either.

¨ ¨ ¨

“Hey. Are you lost?”

Donghae whips his head, knocks over two books in his hustle, kicks the underside of the bookshelf he stands at. He doesn’t know who patted his shoulder but he sure would kill him because this damage he just caused will cost him a fortune if not more and… Oh. It’s a boy.

“Don’t worry about that. Those books anyway,” the boy says.

“Pardon?”

He smiles with his lips closed. “You’re Lee Donghae, aren’t you,” he doesn’t ask, he tells. It’s like stating a fact, something you’re a hundred per cent positive of. Donghae’s heart might beat only a little bit faster and he’s afraid it’s not because of two knocked over books. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”

It’s him, it’s Hyukjae. Donghae can tell, he could tell even without looking. “Um, yes. Good afternoon, Lee Hyukjae-sshi. I came to see your dad.”

“He’s at home,” Hyukjae says. Donghae can’t help but mull over the waves in his hair, the stridency of his jaw. “He’s only in on weekdays.”

“Why,” Donghae asks, confused. “Is it the weekend?”

“Hell yes it is,” says Hyukjae then laughs, his facial muscles tensing as he does. “Won’t you go have a party? Couple of drinks with friends? Girls?”

Donghae feels like he’s being sent back to seventh grade when it was cool to get drunk on weekends without your parents knowing and kissing two or three girls behind the shed then getting laughed at the next day in school, the smoke and beer still tangled in your hair and clothes because why not. He knows it because he’s never been like that. He just wanted to be the cool kid. He wasn’t.

“Well,” he stars. “No.”

“Poor thing,” Hyukjae pouts, “Well, neither will I.”

“Okay,” Donghae says, but just because he doesn’t know else.

“Right. Um, come back on Monday, yeah? My father will be here then. He’ll be glad for sure; he’s been saying he misses your cheeky grins for the past four years.”

Donghae lets a hearty smile stretch his skin into happiness. Hyukjae smiles at him too. Donghae still can see him smiling even after he leaves. He denies himself from turning back but from the corner of his eye, he sees Hyukjae standing at the front door for a couple of minutes until Donghae turns to the highway, disappearing among walls of trees and houses. The single thought of Hyukjae watching him makes the pit of his heart warm.

¨ ¨ ¨

Where the peach blooms, Donghae finds his poise. His mother brings him steaming hot jasmine tea in the afternoon when the sun is still high above their heads and sits near the middle of everlasting blue sky cornered by nothing but air. He calls it freedom. His mother says it’s heaven.

“Father must be happy there,” he says.

 “He must be.” She squeezes her hands around her cup of tea, and it’s not even the way she uses her words but the way she looks at Donghae that makes his stomach flip unpleasantly when she whispers, “He’s better off there.”

Donghae can’t argue with that, doesn’t even want to. The past is only past but the future can always bring light to the darkness or illuminate the present with fulfilled wishes and promises that are not permanent but linger between the shades of yesterday and today, where the sun collides with the end of the sky and kisses it goodnight with rosy oranges and hectic yellows. It’s there but it’s not, not really, just the upcoming morning when it’s blue again, blue and new.

“Let’s go back,” Donghae says after the sun has kissed its goodbye and has turned to sleep. Today’s gone but another day is coming up to replace it, and they’re not going to notice it until it’s done, so he takes his mother’s hand to lead her back and kiss her goodnight, the smell of home and the past and the present dwelling still amidst the doors.

¨ ¨ ¨

He goes to the bookstore once again, grins when he feels Hyukjae’s gaze digging into his back and arms from behind. “Hi.”

Hyukjae says nothing just smiles, the same way he did years ago with upcurving closed lips and pursed eyes. He reminds Donghae of childhood and old books but his presence is new and refreshing, something Donghae hasn’t felt long ago.

“How come you came back? Dad’s not in.”

“I know,” Donghae says. It’s a little hassled and fast but he blames it on the swelter. “I came to buy some books.”

“Sounds fun.”

“It sure is.”

“Come then. I’ll show you the new ones.”

“No,” Donghae bits out before Hyukjae can turn around and leave. “I want old books. Old and raspy.”

Hyukjae’s next smile is more than amused, there’s something to it Donghae can’t pinpoint out. “As you wish.”

They settle in a corner where old raspy books stall forgotten. Hyukjae says these are the very first books his dad bought, the first books that had been in Hyukjae’s hands.

“When you land an eye on a book and take it in your hands for the first time,” he says, “It’s like falling in love, over and over again with every line you read and every page you turn. Later you will fall in love with some other books, and they will be love for the first sight just like that but nothing can feel as sickeningly good as holding the very first book in your hands and falling in love with it for the first time.”

Donghae understands, he knows that feeling, the pierce in his heart when he falls and falls in love without apprehending what really happens and then falling and falling more.

Hyukjae shows him a lot of books and teaches him a lot of things; Donghae feels like a child again, an astray boy with braces and acnes whose limbs can’t give out even after running a thousand miles, someone who has the future belayed in his heart and mind and has the laughter ambushed inside smiles vowed with promiscuous words. He feels like a boy he’s already been, a boy Hyukjae’s been too.

“Are you listening?”

Donghae blinks. “Yeah… you’re just…”  

The ring on the front door tinkles and Hyukjae gets up to welcome the costumer. Donghae watches Hyukjae guiding the man away but for a split moment he looks back and their eyes meet. Donghae gulps, thinks about completions to end the sentence with but there’s too much words he can’t say anything when Hyukjae comes back.

Only when he leaves the store does he find an appropriate word to describe Hyukjae, a word that people use too frequently to cherish and too carefree to care, but it’s there, and it’s true.

¨ ¨ ¨

Donghae accompanies Hyukjae during the upcoming weekdays, then on Saturday he finally meets Mr Lee, thanks him for all the books he has put out, says he’s a great man and that’s something his father has told him before. Mr Lee is too overwhelmed to respond anything but he hugs Donghae so close Donghae can see his grey hair prickle on end.

The sun has left its imprints to rest when Hyukjae invites him to sit on the front porch. With just the two of them and Hyukjae’s drink between their thighs, Donghae starts to draw one sentence stories into dry sand, words that has nothing to do with each other but still mean something if you take a step back and just watch. You don’t have to look too closely to understand; sometimes you only have to turn away and just feel.

So Donghae simply lets the quietness of the night seep into his lungs, the stillness of the air into his bones. Hyukjae’s next to him, he doesn’t feel ulterior nor too near, he’s just there and it’s enough to fill Donghae’s heart up with heat.

“Dad really loved your father, you know,” Hyukjae says suddenly. Donghae hums and it rhymes with Hyukjae’s heartbeat that thumps through his clothes into the ground and reaches the end of Donghae’s toes. “They were good friends.”

“I know. Father told me a lot about Kyoung-Joo-sshi.”

Hyukjae picks up his drink, says, “Sometimes I wish he was still alive so my dad would be happy again. He’s all smiley but most days he’s sad… I don’t know what to do.”

Words stuck up his throat, Donghae tries to manage a coherent reply with failing arms and gaping mouth but Hyukjae silences him with a finger on his lips. The finger falls away and Donghae looks into blind darkness where only Hyukjae can be found. He can’t make out his face but he knows Hyukjae’s smiling, brightly, lips closed like he does always.

Donghae smiles back even though he doesn’t know if Hyukjae can see it. He just does, and hopes Hyukjae knows what he means when they fall into a comfortable silence.

“Are you crying?”

“No,” Donghae lies. “Are you?”

“Maybe.”

Hyukjae’s hand finds his laying on the porch. It rests on top of it until they stand up and go separate ways saying goodnight.

¨ ¨ ¨

“Seriously, you’re starting to turn creepy.”

“Why?”

“You’re here every day, I can’t get you off myself.”

Donghae only laughs because he knows Hyukjae doesn’t mean it; he secretly loves Donghae’s arms all over his shoulders and waist, he enjoys the way Donghae snuggles his nose into his hair where his skull is thick and though, hovering his hands over his jarring jaw and eyes.

Donghae comes in with the sun, his blaze replenishing the cracks and holes the loneliness and age has graved into old covers and torn pages, his warmth leaving a kind of cosiness tracing the air and Hyukjae’s day.

He not only comes, he goes too. He sets with the sun, the heat and light running out after closing doors where Hyukjae can only stand and feel the last remains of him before he finally reaches the end of the sky and fades along with daylights, melting into the thin line of a neverending horizon. He leaves but he comes back in the morning with only brightness that lits upon night and burns out during the end of the day. They’re not much, only hints, breaths of a ghost or blinks of tears but they’re there even if just barely.

Donghae looses track in time like the sun does, still moving but getting tired and tired. He doesn’t know how it happens, it just does and comes fast before dawn breaks.

Hyukjae, the son of the retired librarian and owner of the oldest bookstore in town, the boy with sharp edges and imperfect ears and face full of smiles, Hyukjae who knows every words in every books, who owns so much more knowledge than Donghae would ever do, likes him.

He does.

It’s just there really, subtle but still it’s there when they accidentally brush their fingers together or when Hyukjae reaches up for a book, his white shirt rolling up on his stomach letting a piece of him show under; when he explains a simple sentence in six ways just to make sure Donghae understands, when he snaps his eyes back at Donghae in sync with the rhythm of his voice, when he just stares.

Donghae doesn’t know it for sure but what else could it mean, Hyukjae has all the symptoms, everything that can sum love up. Love is not when your heart beats faster. Love is quiet, it creeps up your insides and takes a grasp of your throbbing red flesh, and it feels like drowning, gasping for air to survive. Love is patient, it waits for you to realise then burns your securities down with one single spark that awakes at the beginning of the day when the sun comes up.

Hyukjae has that piercing spark in his eyes as he looks at Donghae, has that electricity in the way he talks to him, the way he says ‘Donghae’.

So the other day when Donghae comes in and lets his own shine burn into Hyukjae’s skin, he tries to look at him the same way he does, tries to touch him almost exactly as Hyukjae tries to. Hyukjae smiles wider than the Nile and brighter than a thousand suns together and it makes Donghae feel substantial, somebody who means something, not like a forgotten book with blank words and ripped pages. He feels like it’s the moment he’s been waiting for long ago and he thinks, I’m not letting this go.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Donghae says though it’s everything that he wants to tell.

“You seem cheeky today,” Hyukjae remarks, the grin on his face not fading.

“So do you,” says Donghae. He can’t hide the smile in his eyes.

“Duh.”

“Duh.”

“Do you want to eat something?”

Donghae’s heart flutters and it doesn’t stop even after they have settled for patbingsu. The shaved ice freezes down Donghae’s throat but the air that furrows the skin on his arms and chest and face is hot, it almost blazes his checkered shirt which clings onto his body at most places.

Hyukjae takes off his shirt and throws it onto the rail, leaving Donghae breathless in heat. His skin is white compared to Donghae’s, it seems like melting snow in the fever of summer and Donghae just wants to wrap him up in ice to defend him.

“Don’t stare too much,” Hyukjae mumbles between two bites of sweet red beans. Donghae doesn’t know if he means it the way he thinks he means it. “I know I’m hot.”

He’s actually hotter than summer and Donghae’s throat is suddenly dry as sand. “Shut up.”

Hyukjae laughs and however Donghae tries to pry his eyes away, it’s in vain.

¨ ¨ ¨

Donghae isn’t surprised when one particular night his mother says, “You’ve become real close with Hyukjae these days.”

He thinks about denying it or waving it off but he was raised to be honest so he simply says, “I think so.”

I think sois not anywhere near the things Hyukjae and him are. They are friends, best friends, colleagues, partners in crime, they sit, they talk, they eat, but when the sun sets it’s way more than that, something he’s not entirely sure what is, but how could he know? He doesn’t know what the sun is, he doesn’t know what the light is, they just seem significant even if they’re untouchable. You only can sense it. Donghae knows and senses, senses it so strongly in his veins they’re almost ripping out.

“I’m just happy you’re okay here. You know… even if it reminds you of your father.”

“He’s a memory,” Donghae says, immediately forgets about ripping veins and thoughts of Hyukjae. “He lives in my heart forever. He cannot be erased, so wherever I go, he’s there. It’s natural. To me, at least.” He drops his head but not a single tear leaves his eyes. “I’m okay.”

His mother blinks. Donghae knows there is something she would like to say because the silence is murdering, it sits down hard on the edges of the trees and covers the both of them with agony.

A breath passes between them, then she says, “I know, son. I know.” She gets up, runs her hand over Donghae’s shoulder as she does. He tries to smile but right now it hurts. “I love you, Donghae. Good night.”

He doesn’t watch her swaying away like the blowing wind. He stares into darkness and closes his eyes.

On the sky, the sun is no longer seen. The blackness has come to take dominance over the scope of heaven, paints it into various dark inks. The end is coming.

Without a word, he shoots up from his place, runs down the highway to reach the end in time. Hyukjae closes the bookstore by nine pm and Donghae shouldn’t be late if he wants to see him, he shouldn’t waste another moment to tell him how he feels, that he lights up his world and he’s the awakening sun at the east and the leaving sun at the west.

He catches Hyukjae right at the door, fumbling with keys that he should know how to use but he’s too tired. He pushes the key in finally, and when it clicks, he’s speechless. “Donghae? What are you– Why are you– Have you been running?”

Donghae breaths heavily but he doesn’t want to explain a thing, he doesn’t want to use words, he just wants Hyukjae to feel. That is why he is not afraid to grab Hyukjae and push his lips against his mouth, and he tells himself, breath in, breath out, breath in goddamn I can’t.

Hyukjae drops the key, in confusion or in fear Donghae doesn’t know, but his hands find the back of his nape and it’s so reassuring that it gives Donghae back the breath he lost.

Hyukjae breaks the kiss and he’s out of breath and mind but Donghae knows what he means when he just smiles and his eyes crinkle at end. It’s a brand new start, a born of a new star above their heads that can shine brighter than the sun, that brings back the light Donghae thought he had let go.

Donghae kisses Hyukjae again, on the edge of his tongue he tastes raspy old books and a bit of the day’s end.

¨ ¨ ¨

It’s middle August. The days that have been the longest slowly start to reduce, the nights that have been the smallest start to increase with each passing day.

Donghae feels September roaring into his ears but it still seems so far away like time has just stopped existing while the clock still ticks at the right angles as Hyukjae leans into Donghae’s warmth and steals it. Donghae embraces him like the sky embraces the stars and the sun on the morning sky, the touch of eternity caressing them ad infinitum.

The sun is only up since a few hours but Hyukjae’s hands are restless against Donghae’s respiring skin, light into tired flesh. It is the exact way how Hyukjae’s grasped Donghae’s heart with daylights and brightness, cautious but lecherous at the same time.

Donghae knows he has to go soon, not as soon as the sun goes to sleep but the end of the summer is coming. He will leave to go back to work, he will have to leave like the sun leaves the sky. It’s close but not too close so Donghae just enjoys the feeling of another kind of skin under his, a skin of Hyukjae.

“When do you have to go?”

“At the end of next week. Will you send me off?”

“I don’t know.”

Donghae frowns. “Why?”

“It will be hard, you know,” Hyukjae chuckles. “Will you pack the books I gave you?”

“I don’t know,” Donghae teases and Hyukjae smacks him on the head. “Ouch.”

“Pack them.”

“Okay.”

Donghae watches Hyukjae walking out the room along with the sun. “Tomorrow,” Hyukjae whispers at the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Donghae nods. He knows it’s hard but it’s not like he won’t come back. “I…”

“I’ll miss you,” Hyukjae says.

“We still have a lot of time.” Donghae doesn’t smile, he smirks.

“Not enough,” Hyukjae murmurs and turns away. “Tomorrow! Don’t forget.”

“How could I,” Donghae says. The door has closed long ago. “How could I.”

¨ ¨ ¨

Donghae goes away with a bit of Hyukjae’s heart in his grasp but he can’t bring his skin’s scent with him, he can’t pack Hyukjae’s face and body to bring it with him to Seoul. The place he’s been calling home for three long months during the hotness of summer seems like a long road to happiness that he has to cross. He has duties but once he’s done with them, he’s going to cross that road towards the sun and will reach the sky for Hyukjae, for his mother, for Mokpo, for home.

He’s not home now. He repeats the words for the remaining days.