21st of December, 2010

Donghae lived only fifteen minutes away from Hyukjae’s home, but this time it took almost thirty minutes for him to get there. On the way he had stopped over at a little grocery store to buy some soju, and he had just wandered endlessly through the streets for the rest of the walk while smoking and sipping the drink he had bought.

It wasn’t the first time for him to feel like this; as like plain . It had been too much to hear about the proposal – even though it hadn’t yet even happened. But he was so afraid it would. He knew he was being unfair towards Hyukjae. But how could he help it when he didn’t know how to control his growing and swelling feelings anymore? When he had been younger, it had been much easier to try to lie to his own self, but now, it wasn’t so easy anymore. He knew he shouldn’t assume anything from Hyukjae, because the slightly older didn’t know a about his feelings – at least he had never talked about those straightforwardly with him. So Donghae didn’t have the right to act like this.

When he got home, his head felt dizzy and heavy after the soju and those shredded, frustrated tears that had soaked his cheeks thoroughly on the way. The brunette just didn’t have any guts to talk about the painful feeling inside him that made his heart ache more often than it was even healthy.

How long it had been, even?

Donghae had always been very close with Hyukjae, and their relationship had gotten deeper through the years and Hyukjae was most likely, fortunately unaware. Unlike Donghae who had found himself being way too attracted and depended on the gummy-smiling guy than what was understood as normal and usual for friendships. The thing was that he liked Hyukjae because it was just him. He wasn’t anyone else but him. He wasn’t the smartest, the loudest, the shyest or the dumbest, even. He wasn’t the best soccer player, the best in math or overall the sharpest pen in the box. But he was Hyukjae. And it had always been enough for him; enough for Donghae to like him so much that he couldn’t specify a reason why he liked him.

It was one of the tiest things in this whole thing; because if he just knew a reason why he did like, then he would have also found another for why he shouldn’t like him the way he did. Why he had to be the weird one? The one with feelings towards his male best friend. Why couldn’t he just stay as they already were? Stay friends, forever, and let Hyukjae love anyone he wanted without him getting jealous about it? They could still be friends, yet it didn’t seem to be enough for him anymore.

He forgot his soju somewhere near the kitchen when he walked through it to get to his own balcony. It had been just about an hour from the incident, and he was still in a really sensitive mood. He seriously felt like a teenager again with the overpowering depressing thoughts and hopelessness. The tears wouldn’t stop running on his face when he stumbled down on the cold concrete floor, not caring about the coldness or getting sick; it didn’t matter at the moment.

What would be the worst scenario anyway? Losing Hyukjae; he couldn’t bear the thought living without the idiot monkey. He didn’t want to lose all of it, so maybe he could keep the feelings to himself for a while longer, although he had been acting pretty suspicious just a moment ago. And hell, he already regretted leaving like that; leaving while being angry and shouting incoherent things to the guy he cared about the most. Hyukjae was dumb, but what if he had gone too far this time? What if he had realized the real reason behind his y behavior?

There, leaning his back against the coldness, eyes gazing upon the unusually starry sky, he wondered about a happening some years ago; a time they were 16 and 17 years old, arrogant and way more experimental – maybe stupid, you would say. But all the little details… All the loving touches, shared words - Hyukjae just being there with him every time – and few nights from the past just kept bugging him till this day. Had it been just their childish, innocent and naïve children brain thinking, or drunken, frustrated teenage hormones acting, or was it possible that there has always been something else too?

Was he the only one so lost and afraid of the world turning against them that made him deny all those thoughts and feelings boiling inside his broken heart?

15th of May, 2003

“Did she go already?”

Hyukjae walked out of his room, eyes searching if his mother was still at home – but no, there was no one in sight anymore. His mother was already on her way to her double-shift, and it meant that they would be left alone for the next 16 hours.

“Yeah,” he finally replied, making a grin to appear on his friend’s lips. The black haired teenager, actually already seventeen when Donghae was still holding the title of a sixteen year old, walked back into his room and instantly found his friend digging bottles out of his backpack.

With them, the numbers meant nothing. Donghae had always had the type of a bad boy; the one who gave them their ideas, stupid or not, and Hyukjae usually went along. Not because he had to – because he really didn’t need to – but because he wanted to. He could always take the risks, he didn’t want to be left behind, and if there was someone he wanted to experience things with, it would always be Donghae. With Donghae, he was comfortable. With Donghae, everything felt right and exciting.

He leaned against the wardrobe of his room, sending questioning glances towards his friend sitting on his bed who was just opening up the cap of his soju. It made a hissing noise, and Hyukjae bit his lip and wondered about their last time drinking alcohol. It had been few months if he was right, and that time their drinks had been quite a lot lighter in alcohol percent.

“Where did you actually get those?” Hyukjae asked, arms crossed against his chest and looking at Donghae, who in that time had brown locks with slightly lighter highlights. And Hyukjae still hadn’t had any interest to dye his own, sable-black ones which were a bit shorter than his friend’s.

“I had a deal with dad,” Donghae muttered, and some of the usual anger was visible when he talked about his father. They weren’t in very good terms, mostly because his father was a part time alcoholic and not doing much of a good job as a father either.

“Of course…” the older muttered, glaring at the bottles curiously.

“What are you waiting for?” Donghae laughed, while sipping his own enthusiastically.

“Nothing,” Hyukjae stated and went to grab the bottle of his own. They hadn’t ever drunken a lot, and before this they had only drank to the endpoint of feeling a bit tipsy.

Somehow, he had the feeling that this time Donghae, at least, wanted to drink a bit more. His father had been quite a handful for the whole last week, and he knew that the brunette wanted to take a break of it all. Just escape the smothering feelings for a while and just relax and forget about everything.

For the next forty minutes they were only slacking on Hyukjae’s bed, next to each other, side by side, and talked about everything and nothing while destroying the first bottles of their sojus. The latter still had the burning feeling down on his throat clearly, also feeling how the temperature was slowly getting warmer and his head lighter and dizzier. He wasn’t so used to that feeling, but he was comfortable when he was able to be with Donghae.

If he was right, sometimes Donghae had drunken on his own too – and because he wasn’t really proud of that he usually didn’t tell about it to Hyukjae. Donghae definitely didn’t want to be like his own father, but sometimes the temptation to lose his mind seemed to have been a tad too much. He understood that though, since he knew what it was like to him to live only with his father, who, most of the time, was always drunk when he was home. Normally, the outcome was that Donghae’s father totally ignored his son; his needs as a growing kid who would have needed something more to eat; new clothes to wear when the previous ones had already been worn-out; and the natural need for some kind of parental affection and love – but there was none. At least, Hyukjae’s mother had kind of taken Donghae under her wings; making sure that there was always enough food for Donghae too, and just showing that they indeed cared about him – although Donghae didn’t always appreciate the maternal and heartily hugs and hair ruffles being the teenager he was. But as Donghae’s best friend, being the one who knew him the best, he knew Donghae actually liked it even if he had always tried to flee away immediately.

“Hyukjae. Yah, Hyukjae.”

Suddenly, a light nudge onto his bicep made him to turn his face towards the other boy who had been staring at him for a while for being so absent-minded.

“What?”

“I need a cig.”

He sighed and stood up trailing behind the brunette towards the living room, and the balcony Donghae was so fond of. Hyukjae had never even tried, but Donghae on the other hand had been doing that for a while, despite his young age. He didn’t like the smell of it, but he couldn’t claim that there wasn’t anything, somehow, cool in it. Not the habit itself, but the way it made Donghae look like. He couldn’t really figure out the reason why he thought like that though.

“Don’t even start,” Donghae muttered when he looked at his friend who stood beside him.

“I wasn’t going to,” the black haired replied with a soft chuckle, acknowledging the warmness in him again.

“I just clearly saw the way you were judging me,” the younger one huffed. He wasn’t really offended, Hyukjae could see that.

“I wasn’t. I was just… Well, thinking.”

“Yeah, thinking about how unhealthy it is and—“

“Yah! I wasn’t, I just…”

“You ‘just’?”

“I wasn’t judging!”

“But?”

“Nothing!”

The younger one huffed out a puff of greyish air, but smirking when he turned away from the other boy. He was done soon, and while Hyukjae stayed in the living room, Donghae went to fetch other bottles for them to drink.

In the next hour they had talked, argued, laughed, acted like idiots and laughed again like little crazy hyenas whilst lazily sprawling on the leather couch. And they indeed had had fun.  Donghae had also noticed that Hyukjae was already quite drunk, as opposed to him who certainly had a bit better alcohol tolerance. But yes, he was quite drunk too.

The brunette leaned his cheek against the couch’s backrest and gazed at his friend, incoherent thoughts playing inside his head and bothering his focus on his friend’s babbling about something he didn’t even remember wholly anymore. He felt so warm and energetic, but still too lazy to do else, until there was a hiss and one soju was meeting his lips again. There was a laid-back silence, a heavy sigh and a fidgety shuffle coming from the left side. Not long after that Hyukjae took off his black hoodie and threw it on the armchair, huffing. His cheeks were redder because of the alcohol, but Donghae didn’t really care.

That boy was still his definition of flawless, with his pink lips and…and he noticed he was doing it again; staring at him; drowning deeper into his thoughts and forgetting everything else. Hyukjae had always been handsome and cute, but these days he could really prefer to use the word beautiful. And it made him feel so queasy, nervous and irritated. He had really tried – seriously tried to find something similar from the girls of their class, or the whole freaking school, yet the result had always been the same; he only saw those things in Hyukjae. 

But this feeling will most likely go away eventually, he kept telling himself.

“Dammit, why it is so freaking hot here?” Hyukjae suddenly groaned, and the younger could only chuckle to that.

“Because you are drunk, idiot.”

“Am not that drunk,” he mumbled quietly, fidgeting again, and when Donghae threw an unbelieving look towards him, he seemed to grant his defeat. “Well, maybe I am… A little…” He was slurring slightly. “But I’m really…really hot.”

Donghae raised his gaze to him, studying him with his eyes because that wasn’t just whining anymore; it was almost like a whimper. And it made him think about things that were a bit…wrong. But still, he kept staring at him, moving his eyes thoroughly on Hyukjae’s body while in the back of his mind he was scolding himself for doing that. But now when they both were on their drunken states, Donghae laid his eyes on Hyukjae’s crotch area, immediately trying to stop his eyes from widening when he saw the quite an evident bulge on him. He swallowed the soju-flavored saliva down his throat, attempting to look anywhere else but there. But it was pretty pointless.

If he didn’t feel hot already, now his own body was seriously heating up too. Despite his drunken state, he knew it would be just wrong to do anything. He shouldn’t take an advantage of Hyukjae who was clearly more wasted than him, even if was really tempting him. But then, the drunkenness started to seek for goddamn excuses to do otherwise. What if Hyukjae wouldn’t remember anything? What if he wouldn’t mind in that state? What if he just wouldn’t mind because he was too  to think else? And because Donghae definitely was a teenager full of way too lively hormones, a teenager who always ended up playing with fire, he wasn’t enough on his senses anymore to prevent himself for starting things from happening.

“You’re…you’re…” he started, the fear eating his mind when he would still clearly make it stop.

Hyukjae looked at him, his almond shaped, dark eyes showing the embarrassment, but also, the uneasiness because of his physical reactions – which was only because of the alcohol, of course.

“Y-you have a ?”

“Well, yeah. I’m freaking ,” the latter snorted and brought his palm over his eyes. Like it would make it even a little bit easier to be when he couldn’t see any evidence of that.

Donghae swallowed again. His heart had started to beat so damn loudly and in an erratic way he had never really felt before. Everything was so ed up inside him that he wasn’t sure how long he would even care about it anymore. He had been changing a lot from the inside for the last year, trying to find a logical answer for his questions about everything. It had taken so long to confess and realize that he had actually fell in love with Hyukjae. And whenever they were together, it only felt like growing bigger and harder, more painful and achingly. It hurt even more to be with him. But he wouldn’t forgive himself if he would lose Hyukjae because of his wrong and crooked feelings. He wanted to be allowed to voice all of it out, to be able to freely say it without being scared about so many things that would go wrong. So he kept silent. And he would keep it that way. Even if his actions would tell otherwise. He was insecure, asking for approval for his existence. He just hoped that there would be even one person who would take him as he was. But the problem was that he wanted that person to be Hyukjae more than anything else.

Hoping that Hyukjae wouldn’t freak out, hoping that he could trust the alcohol this once, he moved slowly closer towards his best friend. Donghae bit his lip and tried to swallow the lump in his throat – so afraid that everything would start falling apart because of his uncontrollable feelings.

“I could…” he started, so quietly it was almost inaudible for even himself. “I could help you…with that.”

Donghae had almost started to hope that Hyukjae wouldn’t have heard even that, but it was too late.

“W-what…?” Hyukjae’s wording was a mix of a chuckle and feel of an uncertainty – a bit expectant, even.

“I can help you,” Donghae said, so softly and so close to Hyukjae’s ears he felt shivers running through his young body. And he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to feel like that; if it was normal to feel like that, because the reason of his reactions was Donghae.

“B-but—Hae it’s…”

“It’s okay.”

Donghae was so afraid when he placed his hand on Hyukjae’s crotch, fingers trailing painfully slowly towards the button of his pants.

“D-Donghae—“

“It’s okay,” the younger repeated. He wasn’t even sure anymore if it was meant for Hyukjae or himself, but he hoped it would help either way.

The button was soon opened, and after that it took only a half of a second to get the zipper down. The brunette glanced downwards once, then only focusing on Hyukjae who was now looking at him without the hand over his eyes anymore. Hyukjae’s pink lips were opened slightly, breathing quite heavily when the younger was about to touch the bulge still inside his boxers.

“B-but—No, it’s not—Don’t… Just…listen Hae—A-ah.”

Donghae’s hand was now slowly his through the black boxers and he knew it just couldn’t be alright; that it was wrong and weird and everything, but… He couldn’t stop it. His stomach was churning in heat and things he couldn’t understand, and it felt so good it was just impossible to think anything anymore. Maybe the reason for the fireworks inside him was that it wasn’t just his own had; that it was someone else touching, and maybe it could have been anybody else too and it would have been the same. Maybe it wasn’t even so good than how some girl would have made it feel. Maybe it was just his imagination playing with his mind when it felt so wrongly right when it was Donghae.

But the fact that his male best friend was jerking him off soon didn’t matter anymore. He just couldn’t care when Donghae’s fingers moved over the tip, and how his thumb brushed the underside of his shaft. When it suddenly ended, and then came back even better when that hand slid under his boxers and he could now feel the warmness of Donghae’s hand around him, making him feel so good he didn’t even realize that he had his eyes closed. Maybe it was for the better; because then it would have been too real to understand that his best friend was now also kissing him. Brushing his lips cautiously against his own, sometimes nibbling with his teeth and tilting his head to make it feel even better…

Hopefully, it was all just a dream and he wouldn’t need to be afraid to wake up.

The reality still was with the fact that Donghae was indeed kissing Hyukjae, not caring about the consequences – because he wanted it more than anything right now. He felt so much warmer, so much better when he was able to touch Hyukjae. Make him feel good and kiss his soft lips that slightly tasted like soju and something just so Hyukjae.

Donghae kept and listening to those tempting moans and pleasured groans while looking at him like Hyukjae was the most beautiful thing on earth. He was surprised how many new feelings there came with this all, with all those feelings and sensations there already were. If it would have been different, he would have had the chance to say those things. But the reality was brutal and sinful, so he left all those things unsaid.

“Ah, f-…”

Donghae glanced at the other, first biting his lip and then silencing those moans with his own lips, feeling so hard inside his own pants but knowing that he wouldn’t do a thing for it yet.

“Ah—Hae…”

He gulped and tried to keep himself sane when his best friend came onto his hand, panting and heaving, lips swollen and red, and Donghae’s fingers soaked from his …

“ that felt so good…” Hyukjae gasped; voice hoarser and lower than before. He rested his head against the backrest and took a deep inhale, not even noticing when Donghae wiped his fingers onto his shirt and silently closed Hyukjae’s pants.

When Donghae stood up – about to go change his shirt and jerk himself off in the bathroom – he knew Hyukjae would already be fast asleep, fallen into the hangover slumber that would most likely erase his memory and undo everything they just went through.

Later, Donghae found himself sitting and leaning against the bathroom door, and this time, his hand stained by his own . He tried so hard to stop the sobs that had already been coming for a good while, cheeks salted from his tears. And he felt more alone than ever before. He just had to wait for the sun to rise again, to bury all these bleeding feelings even deeper… To forget them once again.