XXIII

Donghae blinked his eyes, kept them shut for a moment and waited for the sleep to finally come. But as they fluttered open a few minutes later, he was still as awake as before. He couldn’t tell how long he had been lying in his bed like this; most likely too long. Donghae couldn’t find any sleep, he wasn’t even tired. His mind was busy with torturing him with too many thoughts and emotions. The only thing that happened when he kept his eyes closed for too long was him wanting to cry because of what had happened some hours ago.

Silent snoring reached his ears and for a moment he thought about waking Leeteuk up so he would have someone to talk with. But their leader was tired and deserved his sleep – and Donghae didn’t want to annoy him with his crying. Apart from that he wouldn’t even be able to tell him what was going on inside of him because Leeteuk didn’t know about them. So what would he think when Donghae would be in his arms, crying his eyes out because Eunhyuk hadn't broken up with Soojin? How would that look like? Crying because his best friend was still in a relationship… How pathetic.

Would he find the guts to tell anybody about all of this someday? If the pain he felt inside of him right now didn’t hurt that much anymore and when he was happy with somebody else by his side?

He scoffed silently.

Being happy with somebody else, somebody else and not Eunhyuk… That didn’t feel right and only brought more tears to his eyes. Donghae swiftly brushed them off and inwardly cursed at himself. He had cried too many tears because of this already. Eunhyuk didn’t want him, not enough to break up with Soojin at least, and it was time to accept that. Tears didn’t bring him forward and that was what he had to do. He couldn’t spend the rest of his life with mourning about this, no matter how many years he had already spend with secretly loving him. They weren’t meant to be. It was time to give up.

He carefully sat up in his bed and slightly turned his head to keep an eye on Leeteuk. Their leader snored peacefully and didn’t even stir in his sleep as the brunet stood up and silently made his way to the door. The dorm was dark as Donghae tiptoed through the living room and up into the kitchen.

Originally he had just wanted to grab a glass of water to maybe find a better sleep, but as he stood in front of the sink, he hesitated to turn on the water. Donghae couldn’t tell where it was coming from, but there was the urge inside of him to go down to the other dorm. He didn’t know what he wanted there and was aware that it wasn’t a good idea. Instead of walking through the dorms at night he should rather try to find sleep again, yet he couldn’t help it. With Eunhyuk's tears in mind he just wanted to make sure that everything was alright, nothing more.

The glass in his hand was placed on the counter and with silent steps he walked up to the main door. He slipped into a pair of shoes and hoped that he wouldn’t be seen by anyone as he swiftly walked down the stairs. Donghae was lucky: at a time like this there weren’t many people walking around in the building and so he managed to reach the other dorm unseen and most likely also unheard.

It wasn’t a big surprise that he other dorm was just as dark as his own and it calmed him down to know that nobody seemed to be awake. That way there wouldn’t be any questions he didn’t know how to answer. Only a short look around was enough to tell him that not all the other members were sleeping though: he could still see that the lights were in Eunhyuk's room.

Donghae stopped. He really shouldn’t go and see why he wasn’t sleeping yet, right? It was none of his business. And depending on what he was doing, Donghae didn’t want to know about it. He didn’t want to hear him calling with Soojin maybe or… even worse things. No, he really shouldn’t care. Eunhyuk was free to do whatever he wanted and that he had told him to leave some hours ago was something he should take seriously. But somehow…

He hesitantly walked up to the raven head's door and stopped right in front of it without knowing what to do. This was wrong, he knew that. And after standing there for about a minute he thought that maybe Eunhyuk had fallen asleep without turning the lights off. Donghae turned around – and that's when he heard a sob.

There was a pang he felt in his heart and after hesitating shortly, he quickly turned back around, his hand already lifted to knock against the door. He did it a few times, very silent but still loud enough to be heard. His heart was thumping against his ribcage now, it was racing.

"Hyukjae?"

It stayed silent for some awfully long seconds, then there was another sob. Donghae felt his stomach drop and his hand found to the door handle in an instant. He pushed it down, but the door was locked; he immediately knocked again.

"Hyukjae, are you okay?"

There wasn’t an answer and so Donghae pushed down the handle again, just to make sure that the door really was locked. He couldn’t tell where the panic was coming from, but he couldn’t fight it. No matter what had happened between them: right now he just wanted to be next to him.

"Can you open the door, please?" he asked, still careful to be quiet. The others shouldn’t know about what was going on, no matter what. But there still wasn’t an answer, still nothing except for silent sobs that only seemed to get louder with time. "Please, Hyukjae…"

It surprised him that tears blurred his vision all of a sudden, but he didn’t care much about them. He knocked against the door again, let his hand slide over the wood and back down to the handle. Eunhyuk was still the man he loved and knowing that he was suffering hurt even more than he pain he felt in his heart.

"Hyukkie… Open the door. Please, just… I won't touch you if you don’t want it, alright? I won't do anything. I know that you don’t want to see me, but… I can't stand hearing you cry. So please. Please…"

Now he was the one sobbing, even though he tried to suppress it. But they were both suffering and he thought that they could give each other so much when they were next to each other instead of being apart. He only hoped that Eunhyuk thought the same.

"Just now, okay? I'll leave you alone if you tell me that you… that you don’t want to be around me anymore. I'll do that. And if this means that… I should leave the band because…I want us to get along, Hyukkie. And I'll leave if I have to. But please open the door so I can make sure you're alright."

Donghae brushed off his tears and stared at the door, sobbed again. For a moment he thought that he should leave and that Eunhyuk definitely wouldn’t open the door because he doesn’t want to see him. But then he heard silent steps, something clicked – and the door was pulled open. Eunhyuk's gaze was glued to the floor and he looked like a mess, but Donghae didn’t have the time to notice that as he already pulled him into his arms to hug him tight.

"I was so worried", he mumbled and quickly stopped hugging him again to be able to look at him. Eunhyuk still didn’t return his gaze and so Donghae thought that he needed to behave, only put his hands on the other's arms to hold on to him. "… It's late, Hyukkie. You really should go to sleep."

Nothing, he didn’t even nod his head. Donghae's hands slid a bit more down and he wanted to grab the other's hands, stopped however as soon as Eunhyuk flinched heavily. At first he thought that the raven head didn’t want him to touch him like this, but as his gaze landed on Eunhyuk's hands, his mouth dropped open. Crimson red stuck all over his right fist and stained his pale skin in a horrible way. Donghae's mind did go blank for a second.

"Oh my God, you're bleeding!"

He pushed him back into the room and down to make him sit on the bed. The chaos all around him wasn’t really registered by his brain as he grabbed Eunhyuk's hand and turned it from one side to the other to see how badly it was injured. He didn’t notice that the raven head was looking at him with tears in his eyes.

"…-hae…"

"Let me get the first-aid box, stay here!"

Donghae rushed out of the room, now without caring about making any noises and was back inside of the room in record time. He pushed the door shut behind him and sat down next to him, rummaged through the small box until he found some cotton and disinfectant. Eunhyuk's hand found back to his and with the soaked cotton held by a little scissor he shortly looked up to him.

"I'm afraid this will hurt a bit", he said, and his hands were shaking slightly.

Eunhyuk stayed silent, only flinched a bit as Donghae started dabbing his skin. The brunet was careful yet quick as he freed Eunhyuk's hand from mostly already dried blood and was glad that the wound was smaller than it had appeared at first sight. Most of the blood could be easily washed away later on and luckily the wound didn’t bleed anymore. Yet he insisted on putting a plaster on it and even wrapped a bandage around the other's knuckles and wrist because he feared that the plaster wouldn’t stick to Eunhyuk's skin properly. Then he sat there, didn’t really care about putting the box back and rather held on