Five
Cantankerous

Hyukjae

Hyukjae awakens at seven in the evening to the feeling of something tickling his chest and ribcage.  It’s soft and fluffy, and when Hyukjae opens his eyes and glances down at his side, he realizes that it’s a distinct, orange color.  It takes a moment for his eyes to completely refocus, but when they do he trails his dark orbs down the length of whatever is pressing up against his side and cutting off the circulation in his left arm.  He’s met with quite a view of flawless, slightly sun-kissed skin and a ridged plane along an otherwise smooth stomach.  As his sense of touch slowly reawakens along the rest of his body, he groggily makes out the sensation of someone else’s skin coming into direct contact with his own on his entire left side and he finally realizes the meaning of it all.

He leads his eyes back up to the orange stuff tickling his side and realizes that it’s soft hair; Donghae’s soft hair.  He is certain for a moment that, if not for the lingering traces of sleep, he would probably jump a good few meters out of bed at the sight of the latter’s face.  The events of earlier that afternoon rush back to him and he finds himself, surprisingly, blushing just a bit.  He is by no means a and he hadn’t by any means been one when he’d slept with Donghae, although it is just fully beginning to sink in that he slept with another guy – and not just any guy.  He’d slept with the most adored person in his school; meanwhile he is the seemingly most unnoticed person on the face of the planet.

The thought leaves him reeling, because really, he can’t quite believe he actually slept with Lee Donghae, king of socialization and prince of knowing practically everyone that exists.  He feels as though he should be disgusted; after all, up until this point he hasn’t ever felt any attraction to males and he certainly hasn’t ever considered the fact that he ever could.  Yet as he examines Donghae’s face and absorbs the image of dark lashes laying gently against flawless cheeks and thin lips slightly parted and puffing out small breaths, he finds that, no, he isn’t disgusted at all.

As a matter of fact, he finds that he is rather satisfied.  There is a feeling in his gut that tiptoes delicately along the line of quenching a burning thirst and sating a maddening beast.  It’s fulfilling and gratifying and as confusing as hell is hot.  He’s never been attracted to guys, as far as he consciously knows.  He’s never checked them out, never mentally assessed how they look, never reacted in any which way to male bodies whenever they’ve been around him.  He’s never found a guy particularly likeable in the way that he’s found a female absolutely gorgeous and he’s never really considered the way guys themselves look, only how they carry themselves.  And that includes Lee Donghae.

Nonetheless as he allows his eyes to scan the latter’s face and absentmindedly lifts a finger to subtly trace the outline of Donghae’s well-defined jaw and delicately his cheek, Hyukjae discovers that he finds Donghae attractive.  He isn’t sure why, he isn’t sure how; he’s only sure that Donghae, in his sleeping state, clinging against his awkwardly numb arm, is fairly handsome – startlingly handsome, as a matter of fact.  He feels as though he should be scared, he should be questioning his rationality, because hell guys have never been handsome or relatively attractive at all to him before, but he can’t quite bring himself to do it.  He is at peace with his thoughts.  And that is the thought that does manage to insight some sort of fear within him, because he doesn’t understand why he’s so at peace with himself when he should be flipping out and tearing his hair out of his scalp in frustration over his now rather unknown ual orientation.

That is the thought that has him trying to ease up into a sitting position.  He feels the remnants of the energy expenditure he underwent some hours ago still lingering in the slight extra weight of his free limbs, although he ignores it in favor of trying his best to sit without disturbing Donghae.  It doesn’t quite seem to work, as the latter only seems to cling onto him tighter and let out a small, tired whimper.  Hyukjae frowns and glances down at the orange-haired boy’s face only to meet the sight of a small, barely perceptible pout.

Something within his chest slams.  Hard.  Against his ribcage.  It startles him and forces in an almost inaudible gasp, his shoulders and arms tensing as a result.  However, he has no time to decipher what the sensation could possibly be as Donghae lets out a soft, sleepy moan and begins to lightly flutter his eyes.  The long eyelashes brush gently against the flesh of Hyukjae’s arm, leaving in their wake a soft, pleasant tickle along his skin.  He watches as Donghae’s eyelids slowly lift and reveal his sleep-clouded, brown eyes, and then continues to watch as Donghae detaches one of his arms from Hyukjae’s own to rub at an eye.

“What’s wrong,” he asks, moving his hand from his eye to his mouth to stifle a yawn and then, when done yawning, moving it back to rub his eye for a short while longer.  “Why are you all tense all of a sudden?”  His other arm is still loosely wrapped around Hyukjae’s own, and Hyukjae distractedly finds himself comparing the image to that of a five year old being awoken for school, lightly clinging onto a favorite stuffed animal as he gives his mother a sleepy gaze that screams, ‘Can I just go back to sleep?’.

Consciously, however, he opens his mouth and responds in a low voice, “It’s nothing.”  If Donghae isn’t convinced, he doesn’t show it, instead muffling another yawn behind the hand not clinging to Hyukjae’s arm.  Silence falls in the room as Donghae finally removes himself from Hyukjae’s arm and lifts his own above his head to stretch.  Hyukjae doesn’t miss the way Donghae winces as if the motion pains him, and blushes when he realizes why.

“How’s um,” he begins awkwardly, voice low and just a tad unsure; “How’s your…”  He trails off, clears his throat, absorbs the image of Donghae looking at him with an eyebrow raised.  Then he averts his gaze and gestures toward Donghae himself, and he hears the latter breathe out a small “Oh” of understanding.  “Oh, that,” Donghae replies after a moment.  Hyukjae fixes his gaze on the orange-haired boy, studying him as the latter breathes out slowly through his mouth.

“Well for one, I’m sore,” he continues when he’s done exhaling.  “For another, I’m all sticky.”  Hyukjae inwardly admits to finding himself watching Donghae’s lips twitch into an uncomfortable grimace.  Externally, on the other hand, he frowns and questions, “Sticky?  Why would you…”  But he trails off as flashes of a few hours ago rush back to him, and he realizes why Donghae is so sticky to begin with.  “Oh, ,” he breathes out; “We forgot the condoms.”

He’s sure he looks completely guilty, for in the next second, Donghae is – surprisingly – soothingly patting his cheek and reassuring him.  “Don’t worry about it, Hyuk,” he says in the midst of yet another yawn, and Hyukjae mentally questions just how the guy can manage to pull off looking like a five year old right after confessing to being sticky in a place where a five year old really shouldn’t ever be sticky.  “It doesn’t matter; I can just wash it off.”

Hyukjae frowns, unsure, and then releases a defeated sigh when Donghae gives him a smile that is probably meant to be reassuring, but is really almost as broken as the smiles the latter had been flashing around before they slept together.  He meets Donghae’s gaze, carefully inspecting those heavily lashed, brown eyes in search of some sort of sign that sleeping with the other was not in vain.  But to no avail.  Despite a glimmer of gratitude and maybe a shining chunk of some other positive feeling that Hyukjae can’t quite put his finger on, the eyes are almost completely back to their dull, soulless brown.  They are better than before, although only to an extent; Donghae is still just as broken and shattered and fractured as before.  Sleeping with him hasn’t attained anything near the desired result.

“Fine,” he mutters, although he can’t exactly tell if he is saying it in response to Donghae or as a result of the fact that the latter has made little to no progress despite Hyukjae having gone along with his wishes.  Whichever it is, he refocuses himself to providing Donghae with what he needs physically.  He raises an arm and points at the door to his room, the door itself only slightly ajar, light from the hallway seeping into the otherwise unlit room.  “If you go down in the opposite direction of the living room to the end of this hallway, the last door on the left is a bathroom.  Go ahead and shower if you want.”  He flicks his wrist as if gesturing for the orange-haired boy to go right on ahead, and then turns his head to look at the plain, white wall next to his bed.

Another silence stretches for a while before he hears the soft rustling of bed sheets and the sound of Donghae’s feet coming into contact with the floor.  Hyukjae listens to the other’s footsteps, absorbing the inconsistencies in the boy’s walking patterns.  He figures that Donghae must be pretty sore considering the fact that, from what Hyukjae can hear, he isn’t able to walk straight.  The door of the room creaks open, a few more steps are heard, and then the door almost inaudibly closes shut.

Hyukjae releases a breath he didn’t even know he was holding and turns to look at the door, and then at the mess of clothes on his floor.  His boxers are laying on the floor right next to his bed, Donghae’s boxers not far off from his own.  Their shirts are covering a small portion of the floor near the center of the room and Hyukjae spots his pants somewhere in between the shirts and underwear.  Donghae’s pants are lying, forgotten, at the floor by the foot of his bed.  He sighs out of habit, and then crawls over to the edge of the bed and swings his legs over.  He picks his underwear up off the floor and slips them on, and then goes on to pick up the clothes scattered about his otherwise neat room.

He folds Donghae’s clothes carefully but quickly and leaves them in a pile on the bed as he grabs the rest of his own clothes, wounds them into a ball, and throws them into the hamper standing half-empty in the corner of his room.  Then he grabs Donghae’s clothes in his arms and heads out of his room to the bathroom.  Quietly, he turns the knob, surprised to find that it is actually unlocked, and soundlessly walks in.  He tries not to bitterly think about the fact that he is so used to being unnoticed that he presses himself into the shadows further with his silent, smooth nature as he cautiously places the pile of clothes on the counter by the sink and then proceeds to slip out of the room unnoticed.

He tries not to think about the fear settling into his gut at the thought that he should be freaking out over how he finds Donghae’s wet, fairly attractive instead of feeling the overwhelming peace deep within him at the way the latter meets his gaze right before he soundlessly closes the bathroom door.

xXOXx

Everything is surprisingly normal the minute Hyukjae returns to school.  He half expects people to bustle up to him and ask him what on earth is wrong with him, because he’s slept with the most beloved guy in school and no one’s really heard of his existence until the news leaked, but no.  Nothing.  Still, no one even looks his way as he eases into his normal daily routine and takes his usual place on the west side, near the back, of the main school building.

He stands there for a good twenty minutes, watching, as usual, as the campus begins to steadily fill with its three thousand students.  At exactly thirty-four minutes after seven, the chatter all across campus picks up and Hyukjae averts his attention to the front gates, where a large group of students have begun making their way across campus.  Leading the pack from the very center is none other than Lee Donghae, with a strangely tall, model-like male throwing an arm over the much shorter orange-haired boy’s shoulders and grinning as he talks animatedly about something Hyukjae is too far away to hear.  The latter watches carefully, inspecting Donghae’s face for signs of any change.

At exactly thirty-five minutes after seven, Donghae flashes the group and anyone that happens to be watching – which is, in essence, everyone present on campus at the moment – a smile that is as bright as it is false.  Hyukjae notes how the thin lips are tilted just so, how the eyes are accented in just the right way by the muscles pulling them into a picture perfect expression of happy.  Except that his eyes are dull and soulless and, if anything, worse than from before Hyukjae slept with the orange-haired boy.

For some reason, the realization irks Hyukjae.  He’d known all along that sleeping with Donghae would accomplish nothing, yet he went along with it anyway because of that damned soulless, shattered look in the orange-haired boy’s eyes.  It had set off something in him that made him believe that there was almost no other choice; he had to do it.  He had to do it to help the poor boy out.

Yet it only made him worse in the end, because from what Hyukjae can tell, Donghae is off – and not in a good way.  His smile is still shattered, soulless, those brown eyes still dull and unhappy.  And it incites within Hyukjae a feeling he cannot quite place; a feeling that soon bubbles into annoyance and anger and regret because he should never have agreed to sleep with the kid in the first place.  He should have just come up with some alternate method of resolving things.  But no.  As always, he allowed himself to fall victim to broken souls and shattered gazes.  He is, undoubtedly, the biggest pushover when it comes to seeing people in pain.  He hates seeing others upset and broken and hurt, and so he’s willing to do just about anything to help them feel better – that is, if they actually take the time to note that he exists, because he cannot do for those who do not acknowledge his existence.

Donghae is one of the few people that knows he exists, he figures; certainly the only student in his entire school that notices he is alive and breathing and human rather than background noise without noise, a dainty shadow in the darkest hours of the night, a low and steady hum within a loud chorus of belting singers.  The orange-haired boy is also the only person to ever approach him for just about anything; his mother is never home, his father lacks existence in his life, his teachers act as if the corner desk he chooses to sit in at the back of the room during his classes is unoccupied.  No one speaks to him.  They see him as background noise without noise, a dainty shadow in the darkest hours of the night, a low and steady hum within a loud chorus of belting singers.  And despite Donghae coming to him for something completely outrageous, he feels compelled to go along with what the other has asked him to do.

Maybe it’s out of gratitude for Donghae acknowledging he is human.  Maybe it’s out of annoyance from the other asking him so profusely in such a short amount of time.  Maybe it’s because Hyukjae hates having to see that damn soulless smile that Donghae always has painted on his face when he’s in school – because, no matter what, if people are around, Donghae is smiling.  Maybe it’s because Donghae’s smile is just as empty as the boy’s soul.  Maybe it’s because Donghae’s eyes are screaming volumes and it upsets him that no one notices a thing.  Maybe it’s because Hyukjae has been observing the orange-haired boy for two and a half years and for two and a half years no one has noticed a goddamned thing.  Maybe it’s because people seem to be as oblivious to Donghae’s pain as they are to his existence and he understands what it’s like for people around him to not acknowledge what their eyes would so clearly see if they just opened them a bit wider.

Whatever the reason, he finds that he still wants to help the orange-haired boy – perhaps now more than ever.  He can’t stand the sight of those damned soulless, broken eyes while that stupid smile is painted on the boy’s face.  He tears his gaze away from Donghae and the group of students surrounding him as they walk across campus to their usual spot, making it a point to not look up until they have reached their destination. 

A need.  A strong need makes its presence known within his gut, and Hyukjae concedes to the idea that he wants to find another way to help Donghae.  He wants to find a better way to, as Donghae puts it, ‘fix’ him.  Sleeping with the orange-haired boy has achieved nothing except making him worse and Hyukjae wants nothing more than for that damn shattered look the boy always has to disappear, to be completely removed from not only his life, but from Donghae’s life as well.  He wants to help the orange-haired boy in a completely different way, no matter how long it takes.

The problem is that, regardless of what he manages to come up with, it will inevitably include him having to confront the other to make the notion known.  It’s not a situation that Hyukjae particularly likes, for Donghae is rarely alone, and confronting him in front of others would raise suspicion.  Heavy suspicion.  And it would also draw attention to his existence.  He may hate being unnoticed and invisible to the majority of the world but after spending so much time as such, he finds being noticed out of his comfort zone – beyond the boundaries of what little things he is not internally at war with in his life.  Throwing himself in the spotlight would be stupid when he’s spent so much of his life lingering in the shadows.

A frustrated sigh bubbles up from somewhere in his throat and manages to escape past his lips in a small rush of air that is almost as inaudible as his existence.  It is by no means noticeable, and even he hardly hears it – but then again, when is anything he ever does noticeable?  It is still a mystery how Donghae has managed to notice him watching when Hyukjae can barely notice himself, because after all of this time, Hyukjae feels himself growing numb to his own existence; attentive of the world around him but so silent he forgets that he is human and alive and breathing; not background noise without noise, not a dainty shadow in the darkest hours of the night, not a low and steady hum within a loud chorus of belting singers.

Maybe this is why he feels some sort of gratitude to those that silently acknowledge his existence; to those that show him that he is just as human as everyone else, even if they don’t realize that they’re doing it.  Maybe this is why he wants to help Donghae; because Donghae reminds him that he is not completely invisible; that he exists; that he is alive.  Whatever the case, he finds himself internally struggling between the urge to help the orange-haired boy and the calm, rational part of his brain telling him to just stay and let things go.

Without really realizing it, and a fraction of a second later sensing that he’ll regret his action, he sneaks another peek at Donghae and feels anger surging up again, coursing through his veins in the harshest of ways.

That damned soulless smile will undoubtedly drive him insane.

xXOXx

Over the next few weeks, Hyukjae does nothing but sit and internally wither at the sight of Donghae’s smile.  With each passing day he steadily grows more and more unstable, his emotions stirring in violent ways that he’d never previously believed to be possible.  They wrench and twist and contort his insides as anger rapidly grows within him, insides boiling each and every time he catches sight of those soulless eyes and that empty smile.

It’s killing him that he can do nothing to fix the dull, shattered look in Donghae’s eyes either; the boy is never alone, and Hyukjae thus has no opportunity to tell the other that he wants to help him, albeit on different terms than the last time.  He wants to help Donghae so that that wretched soullessness in his every move never appears again.  The urge to help is unshakeable.  But he can’t.  And it frustrates him beyond belief so much that he finds himself almost at his limit. 

He is slowly but surely going crazy, because he gets angry, and then gets frustrated out of anger, and then grows even angrier at being frustrated.  It is a vicious cycle, a horrid feedback loop with no inhibitor, and he silently thanks whatever heavens are in the sky that he is unnoticed enough to be able to spend his lunch periods alone and unbothered.  It is during lunch that he groans to himself and pulls at his own hair in the shadows of the long hallways of the empty school buildings on a daily basis, without the tether of someone finding and noticing him.

It is currently what he is doing as he unknowingly takes a turn down into another hallway, the large windows lining the wall letting in light at large intervals, the overhead fluorescents buzzing and illuminating the shadows that the natural rays can’t.  The white floors reflect the lighting in his eyes, although he is too far caught up in his thoughts to care.  All he can see is that damned soulless smile; the smile that is slowly but surely ruining his sanity.  He continues to soundlessly saunter down the hallways, unaffected by his surroundings.

It has been three weeks since they have returned to school after that eventful Friday.  Three weeks of obvious suffering on Donghae’s end and mindless torture on Hyukjae’s; three weeks of silence and averting gazes when negative emotions become too much to handle; three weeks of falling deeper and deeper into dark shadows and blocking out the world around him.  Three weeks of pure hell accented by recurring images of dull brown eyes and insignificant upwards tilts of the corners of the lips.

God, how Hyukjae regrets his decision to sleep with Donghae.

If only he’d kept his cool; if only he’d been adamant; if only he’d been strong willed instead of weak when it came to that shattered gaze.  Maybe he wouldn’t be struggling internally as much as he is; maybe he’d actually still have his sanity instead of feeling it slip away bit by bit; maybe Donghae would be smiling with meaning.

He pauses in his tracks halfway down the hallway, furrowing his brow and puckering his lips at the notion.  Regret thrashes around in the pit of his stomach like a moth struggling to fight off the inescapable onslaught of death.  Frustration swirls in his head like thick mist around an unclear lake, dulling his senses and perception of the world around him.  He hears nothing, sees nothing, notices nothing as he stands in the hallway, lost in his own subconscious.

He does not notice Donghae in his presence until the latter is standing right before him, close enough for his shoes to be clearly visible in Hyukjae’s line of sight.  The dark-haired boy gasps – or at least he makes the face he would if gasping, for no sound actually escapes him – instantly back on alert and chastising himself for allowing himself to be caught.  He stumbles backward a couple of steps as he lifts his gaze, allowing it to settle on Donghae’s face and absorb the features.

It manages to strike him again, despite how distraught and frustrated and angry he is, just how handsome Donghae really is.  He absorbs the image of thin lips and a defined jaw line and recognizes the other in a heartbeat.  A part of him panics, because if Donghae is here then his friends may be somewhere nearby as well.  However another, much larger part of him feels some sort of relief settling into his core, for he recognizes the look of desperation on Donghae’s face.

Examining the boy one final time, he is certain he knows what Donghae is going to ask for before the latter even opens his mouth.  Yet he does not say anything and allows the other to talk; after all, it is in his nature to observe at this point, since no one else seems to do it enough to realize he is alive.  He watches Donghae with the innermost stirrings of bemusement as the orange-haired boy opens his mouth and carefully meets his gaze, brows pulled down into an expression that shows a mere fraction of the pain so evidently clear in his dull brown eyes.

“Hyukjae,” he begins, and Hyukjae is admittedly a bit startled at how hoarse the boy’s voice sounds – almost as if he is fighting down tears at the very moment.  “Hyukjae, please,” Donghae continues, “I need your help again.”  Hyukjae does not respond; he only crosses his arms over his chest and raises a dark eyebrow at the boy before him, eyes their usual darkness and face expressionless.  He notes how Donghae’s face seems to grow more desperate by the second.  “Hyukjae, please, I need your help,” he repeats, this time the desperation seeping from his face right into his voice.

Hyukjae feels something inside of him slam painfully against his ribcage, breaking through the numbness and lack of attentiveness the last three weeks of pure hell have incited within him.  He meets Donghae’s shattered gaze unwaveringly and feels the same slamming pain against his chest a second time at the emptiness he finds there.  Donghae has gotten worse; so much worse.

“Alright,” he says, voice low enough to be teetering on the edge of inaudible.  Donghae is close enough to hear him, however, and Hyukjae notices the way a soft, almost relieved sob manages to escape the orange-haired boy’s lips.  He watches intently as Donghae lifts a hand to his eye and rubs it harshly, as if trying to rub away any excess water.  He wordlessly scrutinizes the boy for a minute, letting Donghae have his moment of slight relief before he breaks the news, for he knows above anyone else that the boy desperately needs it.

“But,” he begins again when Donghae has removed his hand from his eyes and looked up to meet his dark eyes again, “this time, I’ll help you on my terms.”  His voice is barely above a whisper, but strong – certainly far stronger than he’d expected it to be when this time came.  He watches again as Donghae’s expression darkens further, discontent painting itself effortlessly on his handsome face.  Hyukjae finds the expression to be wrong; so completely wrong.  It does not match Donghae’s features.  It clicks somewhere within his brain that none of the upset faces Donghae ever makes match his features; none of them suit him.  Donghae has a face for smiles and happiness, he notes, not for hollow eyes and halfhearted upwards tilts of the corners of the lips.  Yet happiness is something he has yet to ever see in the other.

“Wait.”  Donghae finally speaks after a moment, his brows seeming to furrow deeper and deeper with each passing second.  “What do you mean on your terms?”  He gives Hyukjae a look that says he has an idea – and he doesn’t like it – but he’s waiting for refutation, because it is so clear in his eyes that he does not want confirmation.  Hyukjae almost feels sorry for not being able to grant him his wish.

“I’m not going to sleep with you this time,” Hyukjae says, and again it surprises him how firm his voice sounds.  Donghae’s eyes instantly narrow, his face falling into an expression of obvious suspicion.  “Why not,” the orange-haired boy inquires, directly, almost sternly, meeting Hyukjae’s gaze.  Hyukjae doesn’t allow his eyes to dart around the hallway and away from Donghae’s gaze, no matter how much he wants to, silently showing the other that he is adamant about his decision.

“I’m not going to sleep with you this time because I believe that there are better ways to help you,” he replies after a moment of tense silence between them.  He finds it strange how he can feel so calm and at peace above the incessant slamming pain in his chest and the churning of his core tearing through the numbness the past three weeks have left in their wake; he is never like this whenever he is by himself.  He watches as Donghae’s scowl furrows deeper; so deep, in fact, that Hyukjae believes his frown to no longer be a frown, but a glare.  A full out glare.  He watches as Donghae his lips, moistening them just the slightest, before he speaks again.

“Hyuk, we’ve talked about this before,” the orange-haired boy says; “those methods would take far too long.”  Hyukjae remains silent for a moment as Donghae crosses his arms over his own chest as well, gaze still focused solely on Hyukjae’s.  Hyukjae does not allow his expression to shift, keeping it calm and collected; stern and persistent and adamant.  “It may take longer than getting off might,” he says, surprising himself with how cruel and crude his words sound although not bothering to stop, “but it’ll be far more effective.  It will actually help you.”

Donghae seems personally offended at Hyukjae’s words, his mouth flopping open, giving Hyukjae some odd sense of déjà vu as the latter remembers some thoughts about Donghae occasionally resembling a fish.  Something of the sort usually would be enough to make him smirk or chuckle or laugh, however he finds that nothing amuses him about Lee Donghae – not really; not in situations like the one they are currently locked in.  He does not find laughing at the faces of broken souls humorous. At all.

“What do you mean it will actually help me,” Donghae inquires, voice sharp and accusing.  Hyukjae feels his patience – whatever little of it he has left from the torture of the past three weeks – wearing extremely thin all of a sudden.  “Sleeping with me will help me.  It helped me last time,” Donghae continues, eyes breaking away from being locked with Hyukjae’s to scanning the latter from head to toe.  Hyukjae finally allows himself to frown.

“Sleeping with you didn’t help you,” he deadpans; “At all.”  If anything, Donghae seems to grow even more offended.  “Oh, and just how the hell would you know that,” he angrily questions, raising a challenging eyebrow that only manages to stretch Hyukjae’s patience further.  Hyukjae can slowly feel his cool dissipating into the tense, thick air around him.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he says, and he can’t really find it within himself to care about the harsh sarcasm in his voice and the way Donghae’s face falls into an almost hurt expression; “Maybe because I’ve seen your depressed face for the past three weeks with that weird smile that never reaches your eyes?”  He pauses, mulls over the words in his brain for a moment, ponders if they’re a bit too much, shrugs it off and then continues.  “Oh but wait, never mind, I forgot; when your eyes are so soulless that you look dead, it means that you’re the happiest person alive and that nothing can bring you down.  Right, good for you.”

He can’t stop himself from giving the other a scowl so low he feels his own face fall into a glare.  He knows he shouldn’t be acting this way, he knows he shouldn’t be speaking the way he is, but he can do nothing about it.  Donghae has stretched his patience and all of the anger and frustration from the past three weeks is beginning to come to a slow boil under the thin fabric of his façade.  He can feel himself tiptoeing along the edge of his temper.

Donghae’s face actually looks genuinely hurt, although whatever his expression, it does not stop him from retorting with, “Well excuse me for being human.  Maybe if you sleep with me again, it’ll help better than the last time.”  Hyukjae can hear the boy trying his best to make his voice strong, although Hyukjae can also just as easily detect the way it wavers as if he is on the edge of breaking down.  He knows he shouldn’t quip, he knows he shouldn’t respond rudely or negatively, but it’s suddenly too much.  His anger is slowly beginning to break down the walls of his façade, seeping its way into his words and expression; into his rationality.

“Last time didn’t help at all; it made you worse,” he says, his voice making it seem as if he were speaking to an uncomprehending four year old, frustration dripping off his every word.  “You’d think that you of all people would know that, but apparently you can’t tell the difference between pain and relief.”  Hyukjae scoffs as he scrutinizes the orange-haired boy before him, examining everything from the hurt but angered expression to the soulless, tired eyes that tell more stories than the rest of his body language ever can.

“I’m not going to sleep with you,” Hyukjae repeats, voice barely audible again – back to normal in volume with the energy of anger and frustration punctuating every word.  Donghae’s harsh, angry expression crumbles before Hyukjae’s eyes , falling back into the battered, desperate look that he always manages to wear so well around him.  “Hyuk,” he says, and before he even continues, Hyukjae can see that the boy has resorted to begging; “Hyuk, please.  I need you to sleep with me.”

“You do not need me to sleep with you,” Hyukjae replies, and despite the fact that the way that Donghae is looking at him is tugging at some sane part of him and making him feel bad for the other, he can’t find it within himself to forget his anger.  He is far too upset at this point to pity the boy and feel sorry for how he’s been treating the other.  All he can really feel is the annoyance and anger nestled in the pit of his gut, flowing through him like hot lava and leaving behind an odd burning sensation wherever it travels.

“Hyuk, please,” Donghae continues to beg, eyes seeming to search for something in Hyukjae’s own dark orbs as the latter just harshly meets his gaze.  “Your methods will take too long, I know it, Hyuk.  Just please sleep with me; it’ll be faster.  Please.”  Hyukjae feels something slam brutally against his chest at the way Donghae’s voice cracks and tears are beginning to wedge themselves in the corners of the orange-haired boy’s dull eyes.  But he doesn’t back down.  He shakes his head, face stern and unmoving, and it finally seems to break Donghae.

The boy lets out a soft sob.  A soft, broken, shattered, soulless sob.  And Hyukjae feels it tugging at something inside of him, trying to make him feel some sort of remorse for making the boy cry.  But still he feels nothing aside from the pent up anger of the last three weeks emanating from every pore in his skin.

“Was it that bad sleeping with me,” Donghae suddenly sputters out, and it manages to throw Hyukjae off guard for a moment, breaking into him in a way that neither the boy’s sobs nor his soulless, dull brown eyes could in that period of time.  He feels his resolve flicker, his expression faltering as a result.  He manages to recompose himself before Donghae can notice he’s slipped – for now the latter is so caught up in sobbing into his hands that it appears as if he’s forgotten the world around him exists.  Hyukjae clears his throat softly, inaudibly, and speaks again, his tone a bit less harsh, his anger simmering down just the slightest.

“Donghae, it’s not that,” he says, his voice still barely above a whisper and still noticeably strained; he’s still toeing the line but he can’t seem to push away his anger.  It still lingers beneath the short walls he’s managed to haphazardly throw together for a moment of calm.  “Sleeping with you wasn’t bad at all,” he has to pause to fight down the blush that, for some unbeknownst reason, is struggling to make itself known at the words.  Donghae seems to take it as him needing time to finish coming up with empty words, because he scoffs and retorts, “Oh no, of course it wasn’t.  That’s why you don’t want to sleep with me again.”

Suddenly Hyukjae’s anger succumbs to his frustration, submerges itself yet again to the depths of his mind, represses itself back to its original place, a thin gloss of renewed patience holding it in place that leaves him drained and tired and annoyed because the look in Donghae’s gaze is steadily growing worse but he can’t find it within himself to be irrationally angry anymore.  Instead, he just feels guilty; guilty because Donghae is coming undone right before him in the worst way; guilty because he can see just how much Donghae believes his own words; guilty because he can see just how much worse Donghae has become over the course of the last three weeks.

Again, he curses himself for so easily agreeing to the boy’s wish three weeks prior; he should never have slept with the boy.  He should have found his own method to help the boy get better and then been unmoving on his position when Donghae complained that it would take too long.  He is certain that had he done so, he would not be in the exhausting situation he finds himself in; his renewed patience is already wearing thin and honestly he isn’t sure how much longer he’ll last before he completely explodes on the kid, even though the source of his anger is mostly his disappointment in himself for being so weak-willed.

“Donghae, sleeping with you wasn’t bad at all,” he reattempts, and it startles him just how suddenly exhausted his voice sounds; he can feel the exhaustion slipping past his stern façade and into his expression as well, and the way that Donghae is looking at him gives him insight into the fact that his mask is indeed slipping.  “It wasn’t,” he reassures when Donghae opens his mouth to retort.  “The problem with sleeping with you is the fact that it didn’t help you the first time, and I have no doubts that it won’t the second time.”

Donghae opens his mouth, seems to think about something, shuts it, and then opens it again.  “But you’ll never know if you don’t try, Hyuk.  Please, just try it another time.  Please, just for me.”  The orange-haired boy stops, bites his bottom lip callously, and then meets Hyukjae’s gaze, and Hyukjae is blasted by the sight of how much the boy is suffering.  Whatever mask Donghae has had on for the past three weeks is completely gone, replaced instead by his genuinely vulnerable and shattered expression.

The slamming in Hyukjae’s chest only seems to grow more painful at the sight, and he struggles to resist the urge to bite his own bottom lip as an outlet.  He extends a hand toward Donghae’s face and gently wipes a tear away with the pad of his thumb, eyes not leaving the dull brown orbs staring directly into his own dark ones.  He begins to shake his head, although he is almost instantly cut off by Donghae’s desperate, whispered, “Please, Hyukjae.  I need you to sleep with me again.  Please, I can feel myself slipping.”

Hyukjae lets out a frustrated sigh – he honestly hates his situation right now – and retracts his hand from Donghae’s face.  “So then let me help you, Donghae,” he says, voice still hushed and just above a whisper.  Something like hope visibly kindles in the orange-haired boy’s eyes, and Hyukjae realizes that his words could have been taken in a different way.  He hurriedly tries his best to amend for his generic words by adding, “Let me find an alternative way to help you, Donghae.”  He tries to say it just as softly as he said the generic phrase, although it doesn’t seem to have the same effect.  Any semblances of hope that may have been in Donghae’s eyes fade and the boy’s face falls into a dark frown.

“But Hyukjae,” he says, voice reverting back to one that shows his disdain for Hyukjae’s suggestion, “your method, whatever it is, will take forever.  I want to be better quickly, Hyukjae; I need to be better quickly.  I need you to sleep with me.”

Hyukjae tries not to let his anger take hold of him again, he really does, but in the end, he cannot win.  The thin gloss of patience he’s managed to retain his previous anger with breaks and he feels it all roaring back into him, like an ugly monster finally rearing its head in preparation for attack.  He acknowledges the fact that somewhere inside of him, he feels a bit guilty for letting himself slip, although his anger drowns out any feelings of remorse he may feel mere fractions of a second later.  He loses control of his mouth, his mind focused solely on the anger suddenly growing exponentially within him.

Before he can even begin to consider the consequences of what he’s about to do, he opens his mouth and harshly whispers, “God damn it, Donghae, I said I’m not going to sleep with you and that’s final.”  He should feel bad at the way Donghae’s face contorts from disappointed to almost devastated, but he can’t quite bring himself to care anymore.  Nothing matters anymore, aside from the anger he’s feeling within his gut.  “If you want me to help you,” he continues, still in a whisper that is as harsh as it is forceful, “then you’re going to have to let me find another way to help you, because I am not going to sleep with you again.”

Donghae opens his mouth, tears threatening to spill all over again, and Hyukjae still can’t find it within himself to feel guilty about it.  “But Hyukjae your methods will take forever,” the orange-haired boy responds, a sort of dry sob visibly shaking his shoulders.  Hyukjae still can’t find it affecting him in the slightest.  On any other day, those shattered, completely broken eyes would have his knees buckling, and he would be giving in to every one of Donghae’s requests.  But the annoyance and frustration and anger of the past three weeks is too much to ignore any longer; not a single bone in his body is willing to give in to the boy any longer.  Every single one of his nerve endings is burning in the worst way; he suddenly has too much energy rather than none, and that energy is most concentrated in his mouth rather than his brain.

He doesn’t think about what he says before he says it, and right after he does say it, he actually feels some guilt beneath his anger.  It’s still not nearly enough to make him fall to Donghae’s whim after the words spill from his mouth, however.  “If you don’t want my help then you can go ing fix yourself,” he tells Donghae before he allows his frustration and anger to carry him away, making him circle on his heel and direct himself out of the building; paying no real attention to the tears streaming down Donghae’s shocked face, the latter’s dull, shattered, soulless brown eyes widened and so vulnerable it almost makes him regret saying it.  Almost.

He can feel Donghae’s eyes on his back as he leaves the hallway, can feel the gaze lingering as he turns down toward the front of the building, can feel it weighing down on his shoulders as he finally finds himself outside in the crisp air of late autumn, making his way to the front gates of the school.  Lunch is only halfway over, and he’s still got the rest of his classes left, but he can’t bring himself to care.  School is not somewhere he wishes to be any longer.

He pushes the gates open carelessly and barely listens to them as they squeak closed behind him.  He’s numb from the inside out, his anger forcing him to shut out anything in the world around him.  He knows it’s stupid, he knows it’s useless, he knows he’s irrationally angry, but he’s so irrationally upset that it doesn’t matter to him.  He knows he’ll regret it later, he knows he’s beginning to already, he knows he’s beginning to feel guilty for leaving Donghae in that hallway all shattered and broken and soulless as he is, but his anger still manages to weigh out his conscience as he glides along the road soundlessly.

And the fact that he is so noiseless as he makes his way to his home only angers him even more.  He finds that he was stupid to think that he will ever be anything but background noise without noise, a dainty shadow in the darkest hours of the night, a low and steady hum within a loud chorus of belting singers.  He finds that he was stupid to think that he has to pay Donghae back for acknowledging his existence and reminding him that he is human because the notion has managed to land him in this stupid, damned situation.  He finds that he is stupid to let his anger carry him regardless of what his conscience is screaming at him because he knows that he’s only managed to make the whole ordeal worse.  He already hates seeing Donghae’s soulless, broken eyes as is and he knows for a fact that rejecting the other’s pleas for help just a few minutes ago has broken the orange-haired boy further.  He can still feel that shattered gaze trailing him as he walks, and he has to glance over his shoulder to make sure that he is actually alone on his way home.

He lets out a small, silent scream of frustration at himself because damn it all he’s just so stupid sometimes; and the silent scream only succeeds in unreasonably angering him even further because he realizes that he’s so used to being unnoticed and nonexistent in the lives of practically everyone else in the universe that even his screams are silent and unnoticeable.  Everything about him is just so damn unnoticeable.

It’s pure bitterness rather than anger filling him as he finally reaches his apartment building and allows himself in.  Bitterness for being thrown into such a terrible situation, bitterness for allowing himself to sleep with Donghae in the first place, bitterness for being unnoticeable enough that Donghae comes to him for help, bitterness for being unnoticeable at all, because damn it for once in his miserable life he just wishes he’d be noticeable enough to be able to escape the hell he’s living.

Suddenly he’s certain that his conscience won’t bother him about leaving school halfway through the day, because he’s all of a sudden sure that he’s so unnoticed that no one will be able to tell he’s missing.  His teachers will see his name on the roll call list and barely glance up to see if he’s sitting in his usual desk in the farthest back corner of the classroom; as a matter of fact, they’ll probably be glad he’s gone – if they actually take the time to glance up and notice that he is.

None of his classmates will notice he’s gone either, because honestly none of them really notice his existence either.  While the thought leaves him bitter, it also leaves him somewhat grateful, because he doesn’t need the complication of people asking why he just up and disappears occasionally.

His last thought before he enters his unit cuts the deepest and leaves him the most bitter he’s ever been, because it finally sends waves of remorse crashing into his core; the thought that he’s just managed to leave Donghae with that damn soulless smile alone in a hallway, undoubtedly breaking into pieces all over again.  The thought that he’s just managed to become the reason for the empty smile he dislikes seeing so much.  The thought that he went in with the intention to help and came out making it worse because, again, he’s allowed his resolve to crumble with the look in Donghae’s eyes, although this time in a far different way.

The thought that has the breathtakingly painful slamming in his chest intensifying.

Oh my LORD it's FINALLY done.
This chapter took FOREVER to write because I didn't really have a clue what to do
SO I had to sit down and freewrite some ideas for a while (which ended up in me planning out the rest of the EunHae plotline in GREAT detail; this is going to be SO much fun to write). And even after I planned this out, it was still so sketchy and foggy and arghhhh I'm just glad to finally be done with it. This was such a to write.
This is, by far, my least favorite chapter, but hey look we've managed to get a deeper look into Hyukjae's head. He's actually not as indifferent as he tries to make himself think he is, is he?
Anyhow guys, it's almost 2am and I just finished writing this, and I'm exhausted, and I move in for my summer session at a nearby college tomorrow, so I'm updating now because I'm not sure when I'll be able to update again. Hopefully sometime within the next century, but I'll be busy as hell, so I'm just not sure.
This chapter took long enough to get up already and I'm so sorry for that. You guys must be getting so impatient and annoyed (/.\) you do deserve faster updates. I'm sorry. I'll try my best to get the next chapter (KyuMin!) up as soon as possible (oh and KyuMin's story will start getting DARK really fast really soon guys, so buckle up 'cause the ride's gonna be BUMPY).
On that note, I end this long author's note.
Love y'all,
K
P.S; I realize I haven't thanked those of you who have subscribed and upvoted and commented and stuff and I feel like such an , so thank you all you beautiful Lovely people. Thank you so much. I love you all!
(And now I'm done; I promise)
<3