Donghae is loud, the loudest person Hyukjae has ever known, and when he walks into a room, he takes up all the space in it and everything else becomes the background with just the force of his personality alone. He is a technicolor whirlwind in a bland and still world and because of that people would often forget that Donghae hadn’t even opened his mouth and say a single word.
 

---

Every day during Hyukjae’s track team practice, Donghae would sit on the stand and wait for him to finish so they can go home together. Sometime he would do his homework or study for an exam, but mostly when Hyukjae turn to look at him, he would find Donghae plugged in his iPod and singing wordlessly to the music. More often than not, he would dance a little when he think no one is looking or when he is too immersed into the music that he doesn’t pay attention to his own action and his body unconsciously move to the beat. Hyukjae would stop running for a moment and smile at the sight and Junsu has to shove him to get him moving again.

 ---

Hyukjae doesn’t think Donghae need to say a word or even write a hastily scribbled sentence to get his point across, because Donghae speak with his whole body. In the time that Hyukjae has known him, Hyukjae has become fluent in reading off the facial expressions and body language of Donghae and he has found that Donghae is very, very vocal.

Donghae always bite his lips when he knows he’s going to lose in one of their video games match up or when there's an upcoming oral presentation in class, and when he gets that flare in his eyes, he’s about to do something reckless or stupid like jumping off of a huge boulder and into the sea during their summer break. And when Donghae is particularly curious or interest in something, he tilts his head toward it as if it’s something of a wonder that deserve his complete attention, and when he is feeling shy or embarrassed he covers it with a smile and tries to hide his blushing cheeks behind his scarf.

Donghae can also be demanding, and when he chooses to sulk and whine about it it seems like he’s doing everything to grab hold of your attention, stomping his feet, punching and kicking, and forcibly throwing himself at you. It’s a Donghae that most people would find it hard to handle but Hyukjae has learned to balance between being stern and not let Donghae get his way, while appeasing him enough for him to be satisfied.

Hyukjae’s favorite mood of Donghae is when he is at his happiest and that seems cliché but Hyukjae loves seeing the laughter bubble in Donghae's chest and when it burst Hyukjae steps back and watches, because Donghae laughs with his whole body, head thrown back, arm flailing and smile so wide and big that it must have look silly to everyone else but Hyukjae finds that Donghae in that moment is impossibly beautiful.

Donghae is normally a very tactile person, so when he gets mad at you or simply displeased with the world he puts up this wall around himself that keep people out and he doesn’t want to interact with the rest of the world. Hyukjae hates seeing him like that and would try to draw him out with his favorite snacks or take him to his favorite places till his withdrawn expression is eclipsed by a familiar smile.

Donghae wears his emotion all over his face and in the way he moves. He broadcasts all his feelings for the world to see and Hyukjae can’t imagine baring himself open like that but that is who Donghae is yet people always seem to be confounded by Donghae, like they can’t understand him unless he speak up.

It makes Hyukjae wants to shake them and say, “can’t you see, can’t you see it,” but they never do and instead choose look for cue in Donghae’s notepad or sometimes in his cell phone and never look up and see what is right in front of them all along.

 ---

Today is going to be one of those days, Hyukjae knows it. Just last week he managed to get his time down to 11 seconds in the 100m and things were looking up again. It would mean he can compete in the next track meet and even though it’s not one of the bigger competitions this year, Hyukjae wants to get use to being a competition again. He hated the crowd before the accident and constant reporters hounding his footsteps, but these days he's gettingbetter. At least he thought so, he thinks bitterly to the last run he had and how he barely got under 11 seconds but also fell on his face at the last dash for the finish. At this rate it would be pointless to even go to the meet.

Hyukjae slams his locker door furiously and stomps out of the men’s locker room before anybody can stop him or say anything. He doesn’t want to talk to anyone and he certainly doesn’t need their pity.

Donghae appears right before him as he enter parking lot and Hyukjae must be truly out of it not to have spot Donghae from a mile away because Donghae isn’t quiet when he’s running.

Ice creeaaaaaam!! Ice creaaaaam ♥♥. Let’s go! :D Donghae practically shoves his notepad right in Hyukjae’s face.

Hyukjae sighs and wearily push the notepad away. “Not today sorry, I’m going to the park and practice some more.” 

Donghae frowns and writes furiously on his notepad. Is this because of what had happen during the last run? ☹

It’s embarrassing enough that everyone on his team saw his humiliation, that the former Track Star Lee Hyukjae can’t even get under 11 seconds in the 100m, but Donghae had saw him fail too and not just fail but epically so.

Someday you’ll have bad days, but I know you’ll bounce back! So don’t push yourself so hard and go hurt your knees again. ッ Donghae continues to write.

Hyukjae tries desperately to hold his tongue because he had already heard enough sympathy from his coach and doesn’t need it from Donghae of all people! “Go on without me, I can’t go out. Not with this kind of mood.”

Even more so, since ice cream is the cure for all the gloom, Hyukjae! He grabs onto Hyukjae’s shirt and tries to pull him forward.

Hyukjae jerks away. “I said I’m not going!”

Donghae frowns and writes and writes. I just don’t want you to relapse again. ಥ_ಥ

“Stop--you don’t even understand anything!” He bats away Donghae’s notes and refuses to give Donghae a chance to say anything in reply. Words keep coming out of his mouth and Hyukjae barely pay attention to it as anger stirs in the pit of his stomach.

He hears the notepad thrown to the ground and Hyukjae is so out of it that he doesn’t even know was it him that did or Donghae? But before he can even say anything more, Donghae pushes him right in front of Hyukjae and puts both of his hands over Hyukjae’s mouth to shut him up.

This close to Donghae, Hyukjae could see the white of his eyes and a sad smile hangs on his face. It’s something that Hyukjae never want to see on Donghae’s face let alone be the one to put it there and it’s like a lightning bolt had struck him, because he realizes what he just done. It is so easy dismiss Donghae when he can’t voice his feelings: to ignore his text and notes, and to silence him completely. Hyukjae had done all of that and had reduced Donghae to nothing.

Donghae lets go of him to pick up his notepad. He writes on it and holds it up for Hyukjae to see. Feeling better now?

“I’m sorry,” he says instead, shame and guilt cuts through him like knife.

Donghae gives him a brittle smile. It’s fine, but don’t do that again (ง'̀-'́)ง Then, he quickly sketches out an ice cream cone and points at it excitedly.

“I’ll treat you,” Hyukjae says, because at this point if Donghae had wanted the world Hyukjae would find a way to give it to him.

Donghae always carry several pens and two or three notepads with him wherever he goes, because he has a tendency to misplace them. Heechul got him a cell phone a long time ago but Donghae doesn’t like it as much as his notepad. Donghae’s handwriting is not the prettiest nor has the cleanest lines but he hates how texting seems impersonal and doesn’t let him fully expresses himself. For Donghae, who already lost one way to express himself, he doesn’t want to stifle it further with text messages and Hyukjae finds that he likes Donghae’s bad penmanship and crude drawings.

Mostly, he thinks when Donghae tell him thing like this: When I’m with you, I feel like I don’t need words. (っ◔◡◔)っ ♥

It wouldn’t feel as right and heartfelt if Donghae had wrote it through text and he couldn’t ask for the page and hang it up next to the first medal he had ever won in a race.
 

 ---

One day, they visit their favorite park and set up a picnic they had been planning for a while now. They pulled out their food and talks away about school and Hyukjae’s next track meet, Heechul’s latest crazy client, and anything and everything.

Then, Hyukjae doesn’t know what overcame him but he says, “Tell me a story.”.

Donghae raises an eyebrow at his sudden requests, but he takes out his notepad and writes for several minutes. He holds out the first page to Hyukjae and Hyukjae reads it out.

Once upon a time there was a boy blessed with a very beautiful voice, and people from far and wide fell hopelessly in love with him.

“Far and wide?” Hyukjae raises an eyebrow.

Donghae pouts and writes another note before handing it to him. Shut up, this is my story.

Hyukjae laughs. “Okay, okay, continue.”

This boy, while he was much loved by everybody, didn’t love a single one of them. He had looked down at all of them with contempt and the gods had seen this boy, given an extraordinary gift yet not even care of it and so they took away his voice and all the people that was drawn to him had lost interest in this now ordinary boy because he wasn’t special anymore. Heartbroken and alone, the boy wondered will someone need him now that he can no longer say a single word?

 ---

Donghae rewrote Hyukjae’s world with a few unspoken word.

After his accident he had been withdrawn from his friends and family and all that he had care about was going through physical therapy just so he can run again.

Once his doctor had cleared him of any further issues with his knees, Hyukjae immediately started to join his team practice again. The first week back, he hated it. The very thing that had come to defined him had seemingly left him in the dust and he wasn’t able to get the time he wanted much to his displeasure. Everyone had told him, it would take time for his knees to fully get back to it full strength again but he doesn’t want to wait. He wanted now. 

After another week, his time still haven’t improve he had a fleeting thought about giving up the very thing he loved best and that was the day Hyukjae meet Donghae.

Hyukjae and Donghae had never interacted before despite going to the same school and apparently share a few similar friends, but Donghae had sat on the stand during practice quite often enough that Hyukjae had taken noticed of him. On that day, when Hyukjae had considered quitting, for however briefly that thought was, he saw a rock on the stand Donghae had sat on before he disappeared. Maybe it was curiosity and maybe because he needed a distraction, but whatever it was that drove him to go up the stand and checked it out, he found a note underneath the rock on it said, “you have beautiful wings, fighting \( ﾟヮﾟ)/!” and there was a drawing of a stickman running on a track with a pair of oddly shaped wings on his back that remind him of a really deformed triangle that instead of having straight lines it had waves. It was the strangest thing he had ever seen and it made him laugh for the first time in months.

And that was the beginning of them.

 ---

They don’t talk about it. They hadn’t known each other before both of their incident and in a way they are both glad of it. Donghae never had to look at the Hyukjae now and keep on comparing to the him in the past and Hyukjae doesn’t look at Donghae and wishes for him to speak again, because they only known each other as the person they are now and they couldn’t imagine each other in any other way.

Though, sometimes they both wonder.

Donghae sometimes wishes for Hyukjae to smile and laugh a little more. He wants to go back in time to meet the Hyukjae that who could smile carelessly and laugh openly and just imprint it in his memory, because Donghae thinks Hyukjae got the world’s most beautiful smile. It’s just a tiny wish that he buried in his heart.

Sometimes Hyukjae lets himself imagine what Donghae’s voice would be if he could talk again, would it sound like bell chiming or like a melody in the wind. He thinks Donghae’s voice would be as bright and spontaneous as he is.

Between their wishes and desires, they keep their past tightly packed in a corner and away from their present. They certainly don’t speak about how Hyukjae always sleep with the lights on and how he hates close space. And of course they don’t speak about why Donghae always wear a scarf around his neck never minding the season and sometimes when Donghae moves around too much and his scarf is pull down a little, there are scars peeking through.

They don’t talk about it but they both know it’ll be only time when they both have to open their boxes. But by then they'll do it together.

 ---

“What happen to him afterward?”

Donghae gives him the last page of his story.

He met a beautiful boy with a broken wing. Donghae smiles, bright and fleeting. And in turn both of their worlds changed.

Hyukjae grabs hold of Donghae’s hand in his and tries to imagine if he hadn’t picked up that note that day or didn’t try to pursue the meaning behind the message, then they wouldn’t be here and he would never have known Donghae. That thought seizes his throat and he’s choked with emotion he can’t put a name to.
“I-I’m very lucky to have meet, you’re amazing that I forget you’re mute--no wait that’s not what I meant,” he scratches his head furiously, trying to find the right words, “you’re just wonderful and that I can’t imagine the you before being voiceless and all and you’re just you no matter what ,” he finishes lamely and god he is such an idiot. All that he want and need to say can’t seem to funnel through his mouth and every words seem to be failing him and he can’t string one word after another that can encompass all that he feels for Donghae. “I’m sorry, I wish I was able to say more but I and--”

Donghae put one of his fingers to Hyukjae’s lips to shut him up. I know, don’t worry ♡＾▽＾♡, Donghae writes, simple but clear and somehow he is able to grasp what Hyukjae trying to say. And isn’t that strange that Hyukjae is the one with all the words and the voice to give thought to it yet Donghae with the notepad around his neck and pen always in his hand is the most articulate and be able to know Hyukjae more than he know himself.

Hyukjae lets out a sigh of relief. “I’m glad,” he says and doesn’t have time to say anything more not when Donghae gets that twinkle in his eyes, the one when he’s being playful and silly, and shoves Hyukjae down on the grass and lays on top of him. He rests his head over Hyukjae’s heart and taps his finger on Hyukjae’s arm to the slow cadence of Hyukjae’s heart.

Hyukjae stares up at the sky and sun is playing hide and seek among the clouds and today is a beautiful day. He is glad to be alive.

---

Hyukjae and Donghae are broken and their edges are little worn out and abused and the world may only see them for their damage part, but they knows they are more than that and they’re doing just fine even if the world can’t bring itself to think so.

A/N: QQ I actually manage to not only write something but finished it? /flail I been stuck in the pit known as the writer's slump for nearly three weeks now but somehow today this story spoke the loudest to me and told me to write and so I wrote and wrote. I am so proud of myself right now :DDD, I think I broke my writer's slump? (300 words a day was killer alsjd;faj;sa) So, here's hoping \o. This fic is actually part of a much bigger story I have in mind (the university of u & i), so uh think of it as a preview? haha. As always thank you so much for supporting me and giving me a chance!