inspired by her and him.

comments are loved.

Title: stuck (on you)
Pairing cnu/gongchan
Word Count: 2597

five times a week, Mondays through Fridays, for two solid hours, from four in the afternoon to six in the evening, chansik stays in a cozy coffee shop two streets away from his apartment. he sits in the exact same table (the fourth one, directly behind the palm frond), orders the exact same thing (coffee, black, with exactly two teaspoons of sugar and four  drops of milk) and leaves the exact same way (taps his left shoe twice, his right four times, before standing and saying goodbye to the barista).

it’s more than just a routine, it’s his way of life.

he’s afraid that if he deviates from his usual practices, something bad will happen, like--

-like he’d forget his keys and get locked out of his house

-or buy coffee from a different coffee shop and get food poisoned and die

when you have ocd, you don’t really have much control over what you do. you now it’s baseless, your fears are unreasonable, but hey, in your head it exists, screamsSCREAMSscreams in every cell of your brain, and the best way to shut them up is to wash your hands two times to make sure no bacteria gets under your nails and morph into flesh-eating illness the next day.

so you wash two, three, even four times, to make sure, and remember, use a different bar of soap each time because, you know, germs, and use hot water since it kills bacteria faster and wash, wash, wash until your skin turns pink and shiny and germ-free.

it shuts the voices up for a while, but never for long.

it’s an endless cycle of wash-scrub-rinse-wash, and no matter how many bars of soap he uses, no matter how scalding the water is, no matter how cracked and pink his hand is from all the scrubbing, the washing, the rinsing, the germs are still there, waiting for him.

<> 

it’s never quiet in his head.

there are ticks, there are murmurs, there are whispers, there are questions.

did he lock the door on his way out?

was the gas valve turned off?

did he close his windows?

did he carry an extra bottle of liquid soap?

he rarely talked to people, and even then it’s all under duress. it’s not his fault, he can’t help it. then again,  maybe it is. is it?

what if he says something wrong and they laugh at him?

what is he says something offensive?

make someone cry?

or angry?

what if he does something embarrassing?

so he lives his life following a careful routine placing himself at a safe distance from people. he goes down the same streets, talks to the same people using the same words, uses the same things, frequents the same places. his house is safe-proofed, with everything arranged just so, his clothes by color, his books by height, his toiletries by order of use.

he does this to be safe, to keep himself from potential harm, because what if he uses the wrong item for something and ends up hurting himself? what if he talks to a stranger and gets himself contaminated? what if he has something only he doesn’t know and he contaminates them? what if he tries walking down a different path and end up mugged and stabbed, left to die in a dingy alley? what if he crosses a different street and he gets run down by cars and trucks and—

silence.

his gaze locks on a stranger with longish hair tied back in a ponytail, huge thick-framed glasses perched on his nose, buried in a thick book, and checking his phone from time to time.

the images usually crowding his head are gone, the constant questions muted, the warning bells silenced. he stares harder and sees the boy’s broad shoulders, the slightly chubby cheeks, the plush pink lips squashed by two rather huge front teeth as the older boys casts another tentative look at the door.

he had to talk to him.

he couldn’t even hear the negations made by his mind, he was focused on the boy’s relaxed form. all could see, all he could think about was the way his fingers looked as he pushed his glasses back up, the wisps of hair that escaped his ponytail, fanning across his cheek, the annoyed curve of his lips

-the curve of his lips

-the curve of his lips

-the curve of his lips

“hi, i’m gong chansik.”

the boy looks up at him, and chansik want to stutter an apology because oh god had he said something wrong? offended the guy in some way? probably, because people don’t normally walk up to unsuspecting strangers and give their names out, he probably disturbed him and—

“hello, i’m dongwoo.”

“i’m gong chansik.”

he says it seventeen, eighteen, nineteen times. he knows dongwoo—his name is dongwoodongwoodongwoodongwoo—heard, he told chansik so, but something wasn’t right about the way he said it so he keeps going.

“i’m gong chansik.”

there.

an even twenty.

dongwoo’s phone lights up, he had just received a text. chansik wait patiently as dongwoo reads it, puts his phone in his pocket and looks up at him with a smile.

“so..want to sit down?”

chansik surprises himself when he realizes he does.

<> 

their first date is spent with chansik dissecting and reorganizing his dish. he arranges the little pieces of meat and vegetables by color, and then by size. he brought his own plate him with, as well as his own spoon and fork and glass. dongwoo doesn’t say a word, and so chansik decides to ignore the waiters raised eyebrows as he wiped their table down with the tissues he had with him.

chansik waits for dongwoo to speak, because he’s sure dongwoo thinks he’s weird and crazy and therefore decide to never see him again but no words come, instead there’s just dongwoo’s smile lighting up the night.

“you’re adorable,” dongwoo says to him just as they reach chansik’s door.

you’re adorable.

chansik repeats it to himself fifty times that night, because fifty is a good number.

<>

their first contact happens while they are walking down the park at sunset. dongwoo is looking up at the sky, painted with oranges and pinks and yellows and indigos. chansik is looking at the ground, carefully avoiding the cracks.

there is sudden warmth is his right hand, and it takes him a moment to deduce dongwoo had just slipped his hands into his, intertwining their fingers together. chansik looks down at their joined hands, marveling at how the spaces between them seemed to fit doongwoo’s fingers just right.

for once his head is silent.

no voices reminding him of the germs and diseases he’s exposing himself to by this simple act of letting dongwoo hold his hand.

no warning bells shrieking in his head, commanding for him to make for the nearest wash room and wash-scrub-rinse-wash, because this is another person he’s holding, another person he’s standing close to, another person he’s allowing to put a hand on his shoulder, lift his chin up, rest his forehead against.

another person.  a completely separate entity who could contaminate him. the logical thing to do, of course would be to stay away. run and flail all the way back to his apartment (while carefully avoiding all the cracks on the sidewalk, of course) and then run himself a hot bath and work his way through the rest of the soap bars left in his cupboard.

but he stays where he is. he leans in at the same time dongwoo does, and closes his eyes.

the world is silent, for once, and chansik wonders how dongwoo,with the nerdy glasses and awkward glances, shin dongwoo with the soft, warm hands and even warmer smile could make the voices go away.

dongwoo pulls away with a smile.

chansik chases his lips with his own, and they kiss again.once, twice...twenty-four-times. chansik has to redo a couple because their lips weren’t properly aligned. dongwoo looks like he doesn’t mind.

<> 

chansik talks to dongwoo. always. he calls dongwoo during breaks and texts him in between. he’s never ad someone like dongwoo before, someone who blocks the noise and stops the clocks and acts as a life vest, thus preventing chansik from drowning in the sea of rigid routines he built for himself.

dongwoo knows about chansik, and somehow, amazingly, dongwoo doesn’t mind.

“i like it when you text me every hour,” dongwoo says as he takes chansik’s cup from his cupboard (the blue one with brown puppy paws over it, the only cup among the dozens chansik would use). “it makes me feel you’re always thinking of me.”

they’re walking home after getting their daily caffeine fix, and as per usual, it takes them twenty, thirty minutes longer. there seem to be more cracks on the sidewalk, and chansik has to double his concentration.

“i like that we take a long while to get to your house,” dongwoo says, and chansik lifts his head long enough to see the smile playing in the corners of dongwoo’s lips. “it means i can spend a few more minutes with you.”

chansik stand outside his door and looks down at dongwoo standing a step lower. dongwoo is saying goodnight. at least chansik thinks so. he’s mainly preoccupied with the say dongwoo’s mouth moves when he talks, the way his tongue peeks out as he picks the best words to say to chansik.

“i love you,” dongwoo says, looking up at chansik with the moonlight in his eyes. he says something again but chansik just watched the way he talks-

-the way he talks

-the way he talks

-the way he talks

and then chansik can’t watch anymore, because dongwoo leans in and presses his mouth against chansik’s.

“i love you.” dongwoo’s cheeks are slightly red and there are stars in his eyes.

chansik repeats it twenty times in his head that night.

<> 

chansik thinks things can’t get any better. he moves in with dongwoo, taking all of his eccentricities with him, and dongwoo doesn’t mind.  he isn’t offended when chansik refuses to use any of dongwoo’s plates and cups and utensils, insisting instead on the set he’s brought  with him.

dongwoo doesn’t complain when chansik spends an hour longer in the bathroom than necessary, doesn’t bat an eyelash when chansik has to soak the dishes in hot water before attacking them a sponge and dishwashing liquid (while donning gloves, of course)

twenty-two.

twenty-three.

twenty-four.

“that’s enough, chansik,” dongwoo says as chansik opens and closes the door for the twenty-fourth time that night. chansik feels dongwoo’s hands on his back, feels dongwoo’s breath on his cheeks. “i’m pretty sure we’re safe in here, you locked it twenty-four times.”

and then they would lay in bed, and chansik would turn the lamp on and off, on and off, on and off.

“feels like days and nights are passing right in front of me,” dongwoo says, and when chansik turns he finds the older boy leaning against the pillows, eyes closed, a smile on his face. chansik stops after the lamp turns on for the eighteenth time. he snuggles against dongwoo and drops a kiss on his jaw.

he ends up doing it sixty times, long after dongwoo has fallen asleep.

<> 

apparently chansik isn’t destined for happy endings because a month later, the fights start. well, not really a fight. there were no exchange of heated words, no tears, no punches. just a rift, a gap, a silence that seems to stretch far wider than chansik can see.

chansik wakes up in the middle of the night and stubs his toe on the door on his way to the bathroom. he swears one. he swears fifty times. it’s a thing with him. he can’t stop. he wakes dongwoo and watches dongwoo watch him back, watches dongwoo sigh and roll over and lift his comforter over himself.

“i’m sorry,” chansik says the next morning over a plate of pancakes. “I think it’s the new medication, it makes me feel like crap.” he stacks three pancakes in a careful pile. he tears off a piece and dips it in butter, then in syrup. he puts it down and cuts a little piece off. there. just the right size.

“just eat, chansik,” he hears dongwoo say. “it won’t lodge in your throat.”

dongwoo digs into his own food as chansik blinks up at him. “i—“ a sigh and then—“i’m sorry i snapped. the medicine is probably working, that’s why you feel that way.”

chansik walks dongwoo to the gate. he tries to kiss him but dongwoo stops him with a hand to his shoulder.

“i’m running late, i should go. see you later.”

<> 

things have changed.

dongwoo doesn’t wait for chansik to lock the door anymore. instead he heads straight to the bedroom, and chansik miserably follows him with his eyes as he opens and closes the door exactly eighteen times.

the lamp beside the bed is gone. dongwoo says it makes his head hurt to watch it turn on and off.

he doesn’t hold chansik as they walk home. when chansik stops in front of a crack in the sidewalk, dongwoo just keeps on walking.

when he says 'i love you', his eyes are a piece of starless night sky.

dongwoo says chansik is slowing him down.

he’s taking too much of dongwoo’s time.

and dongwoo needs space, so he starts sleeping at a friend’s house.

chansik is left to wait.

<> 

dongwoo says it was wrong of him to let chansik get too attached, it was a mistake right from the start.

but how can it be wrong?

how can it be a mistake that he doesn’t have to wash his hands after dongwoo touches him? how can it be wrong when he’s the only one who can bring chansik’s chaotic mind to a standstill?

love is never a mistake.

and it’s unfair that dongwoo can go like this, just up and leave like this and move on with his life. chansik can’t do that. he can’t leave and forget and start again with someone else, because he’s stuck. he’s stuck on dongwoo, on the way dongwoo’s teeth shows when he laughs hard at some silly joke chansik says. stuck on the way dongwoo’s smile progresses, like a flower bud slowly opening under the sun. stuck on the way dongwoo rubs small circles on his back, the way he leaves tiny kisses on chansik’s skin.

the thing about chansik is that when he obsesses over things, he usually sees germs sneaking into his skin and filling his pores. or mugged and killed by unnamed thugs down some dirty alley. or crushed by a multitude of cars. dongwoo was the first most beautiful thing he was stuck on.

and so he waits.

<> 

two weeks later chansik is still waiting, waiting, waiting.

he thinks of dongwoo, sees him in his mind, kissing someone else, maybe the friend whose house he moved into,  who only has to kiss him once and he doesn’t even care if it’s not perfect.

he imagines him walking home with that man, and it doesn’t take them an hour because they don’t care about stepping on the cracks.

that man only locks the door once, and doesn't have to do everything in numbers.

he can share utensils with dongwoo because he isn't worried about germs.

they can go anywhere, because that other man, unlike chansik, has no inhibitions, no fears, no issues about new places and new things.

<> 

three weeks later chansik is rushed to the hospital. he was making stew, carefully chopping the carrots when the knife slips and accidentally cuts his wrist. and he couldn’t have that, could he?

so he cuts again.

and again.

and again.

there.

an even twenty.