15 : t o o  l a t e

Fri, 28 Dec, 1:34 PM

Hae! Good news; managed to finish my work early today. Guess I’ll get to pick you up from the airport. What time do you land?

1:50 PM

Hope you received my text. I really wanna pick you up tonight.

2:46 PM

Please get back to me, Hae. I’m starting to get worried. I tried getting through to you via front desk again but they told me you’ve checked out. I know you’re receiving these. You know I can see whether or not you’ve received my texts, right?

5:50 PM

Did I do something wrong?

6:27 PM

Okay. I’m probably thinking too much. It’s probably hard for you to text back from wherever you are. Silly me. Always so paranoid.

7:19 PM

I don’t want to overwhelm you. Let me know once you’ve arrived in Busan. I love you. Please be safe.

10:43 PM

Are you back yet?

Donghae opened the boot of the car and proceeded to yank their bags and luggages out, wincing at the sharp pain that shocked his right leg every few seconds from resting his weight on it. He set them on the ground and waited for Kyuhyun to join him behind the car, leaning his body against the vehicle. Taking his phone out of his pocket, he glanced at the screen. 51 missed calls. He sighed.

“Sighing makes you look older,” Kyuhyun said, shutting the boot of the car. “At least that’s what Eomma told me growing up. I told her she must’ve sighed a lot then.”

Donghae laughed. “You’re a ty son.”

“I take pride in being one,” Kyuhyun smirked. He noticed how Donghae had begun to space out, clutching his phone tightly. “You should call him.” He moved forward, placing a reassuring hand on the dip of his best friend’s shoulder, lips pressed into a thin line. Donghae only shook his head in response, thumbing vigorously at the screen of his phone.

Sat, 28 Dec, 12:02 AM

I think we need a break. I’ll call you soon.

The next few days passed relatively quickly, fleeting. Donghae busied himself, returning to his house in Busan in the day to sort through whatever that had been left behind by his family, and sleeping over at Kyuhyun’s at night. He had grown accustomed to ignoring the buzzing on his phone, reaching a point at which it irritated him so much that he decided to switch the device off entirely. He remembered how Kyuhyun had stared at him with a look wrinkled with concern, asking him how long he’d keep this up. Until I’m ready to talk, Donghae had answered simply, grateful that his best friend didn’t press him for more answers. Kyuhyun tried his best to ignore the buzzing of his phone, too, from the worried auburn-headed partner of his best friend. When it became too overwhelming, Kyuhyun, too, turned off his phone, using his spare one in its place. To be honest, he felt some sort of guilt balling up inside his ribcage, from being in the way of the pair. He knew he shouldn’t have been feeling guilty; he was only doing what he needed to protect Donghae from any further harm, and it’s not like he was going against Donghae’s will anyway. This was what he wanted; what he needed. However, there was an elephant in the room that became harder and harder to ignore as the days ebbed away. He could only remain composed for so long.

“I’m telling him you’re here.” Kyuhyun said firmly on a Sunday afternoon. “You two need to sort things out.”

Donghae climbed out of his bed, reaching for his crutch. He hobbled over to Kyuhyun and grabbed his arm, the muscles of his face shifting to form an agonised look.

“Please don’t!” He begged, tugging at Kyuhyun’s arms. He knew that Kyuhyun wouldn’t budge despite his pleas, but he continued to try anyway. “Don’t call him! I just need a few more days to think this through, Kyu. Please.”

Kyuhyun turned, gently slipping out of Donghae’s hold.

“Hello? Is this Hyukjae?” Kyuhyun spoke into the phone with a hand cupped over his mouth, muffling his voice only slightly—and Donghae froze. “Yeah, sorry it took so long to call you. Had a few complications. Yeah, he’s safe. He’s at my place if you want to come see him.” 

Donghae could feel his eyes watering, not long before his vision became clouded. He couldn’t really make sense of what he was feeling—was he angry? Upset? Scared? He didn’t know. Maybe he was a mix of all three. Maybe he wanted to grab Kyuhyun’s phone and hurl it against the wall in a deserved fit of anger, asking Kyuhyun what the was wrong with him. Or maybe he wanted to shrink in the corner of the room and shudder at what was about to come. He let those two options remain thoughts instead, trembling as he stood there, resting his weight on his good leg and crutch. Regardless of how he felt inside, he knew he couldn’t run away forever. He’d have to face what was to come at some point, even if it scared him less. He continued to listen in on Kyuhyun’s conversation.

“Today? Sure,” some sort of relieved smile stretched Kyuhyun’s lips wide apart. “Yep. See you then.”

As soon as Kyuhyun slid his phone back into the pocket of his shorts, Donghae dropped his crutch and grabbed onto him, both for support, and out of desperation. Anyone who didn’t know what Donghae was going through right at this moment would’ve thought he’d just seen a ghost.

“What did he say?” Donghae asked, his face draining of colour. “What did he say?!”

Kyuhyun hooked his arms underneath his best friend’s pits just in time, preventing the latter from falling to the ground. He tried his best to keep his voice from shaking, looking past the fear that caused Donghae’s pupils to shake.

“He’ll be here in three hours,” Kyuhyun informed, pulling away slightly so he could look at his best friend’s face better. “But I’ll be with you. I won’t leave. I’ll be here in case you need me.”

Hyukjae was usually a good driver; one that obeyed the laws of the road, for his own sake and for the sake of whoever that rode in the car with him. Safety was usually his utmost priority, but today that just simply was not the case. As soon as the meeting had wrapped up, he’d bolted for the car, strapped on his seatbelt and sped out of the carpark, taking full advantage of the fact that the roads from Jejudo to Busan weren’t as congested as they usually were. He didn’t want to waste a single second away from the love of his life; the past week had been excruciatingly lonely, and being held up at work certainly didn’t give him enough time to investigate why Donghae had gone cold turkey on him for an entire week (one week was more than enough) He had been wedged in between the dilemmas of confronting Donghae in places he could have been hiding, and giving the man his space. He was glad Kyuhyun’s call had arrived before he’d had to choose between those two choices. 

Arriving at the building some two, three painfully long hours later felt bittersweet. Hyukjae barely knew what to expect. He hadn’t seen Donghae since they’d had that video call, had no answers to why Donghae had ghosted him since returning to Busan, and wasn’t at all prepared to see how Donghae would react to his presence. He could feel his body reacting to the uncertainty, his mind fogged with anxiety, and when Hyukjae was anxious, he’d bite his lips. And this time, he bit into the flesh of his lower lip hard. It wasn’t until he began rapping against the door of Kyuhyun’s apartment that he noticed the taste of iron mixing with his saliva.

The door swung open. 

“Where is he?” Hyukjae asked, rhetorically of course. He slid past the gap of the door and stood in the living room, calling out Donghae’s name once, twice, too many times. Kyuhyun closed the door behind him and turned, staring at the redhead in silence. Just then, the sound of ceramic landing on the counter of the kitchen echoed throughout the quiet house, followed by the sounds of metal and hard rubber knocking against the floor rhythmically. Donghae emerged from the kitchen, disheveled. His hair was a mess, his eyes were puffy, and his t-shirt crumpled. Hyukjae’s eyes glossed over the man; first at the crutch wedged between his right arm and body, and then the bandages wrapped around Donghae’s right ankle. His eyes widened.

“D-donghae, wha..” Hyukjae practically lunged forward, gently caressing Donghae’s jaw while looking him up and down. “What happened to you?!”

Donghae smiled weakly. “I got hurt.”

“By what? By who?” Hyukjae turned around, angry. “I told you to take care of him! I told you to make sure nothing would happen to him!” 

Shocked at how he’d been roped into an argument that he shouldn’t even have been a part of in the first place, Kyuhyun frowned.

“It was an accident,” he said as calmly as he could manage. “We had a short Muay Thai class on our last day in Phuket and Hae ended up hurting his ankle. We only realised it when his ankle began to swell back at the hotel—”

“Or was it because you two were senselessly banging each other?” At this point rationality had made its quiet escape out of Hyukjae’s mind, and everything that came out of his mouth left him unfiltered. “I heard the you said during the video call, Kyuhyun, and I didn’t like it.”

Kyuhyun stepped forward tauntingly. “Oh? What? What did I say, huh?”

“Some ed up about not being able to walk. About him using his body well.”

Donghae stared at his fiancé in disbelief. “Hyuk, he was talking about the Muay Thai cla—”

“Shut up! Stop lying to me!” Hyukjae had begun to shake Donghae by the shoulders. “Stop trying to—”

Hyukjae’s words halted at the sensation of a cold, hard slap across his face. He touched his own face gingerly, tongue in cheek. He was shocked, yes, at the fact Donghae had slapped him, but more than that, he was hurt. Hurt and ashamed.

“Leave us.” Hyukjae said, his voice void of emotion, but Kyuhyun didn’t budge.

“He stays.” Donghae turned to look at his best friend, clenching his jaw. “Kyu, room.”

Like a watchdog on command, Kyuhyun disappeared into one of the bedrooms, closing the door behind him. Out of the bickering couple's sight, he pressed his ear against the cold wood and listened in, just in case Donghae would need him at any point. He was worried about how everything would transpire. At this very moment, he wondered if asking Hyukjae to come over had been a good decision on his part.

“Did you really think I’d cheat on you and then disappear like a complete ?” Donghae’s voice had started out low, gradually increasing in volume and intensity by the end of his sentence. “Did you actually think a person like me would do that?!”

Hyukjae panicked. “Hae, that’s not what I.. I didn’t mean it like that..”

“Then WHAT?”

The sounds of heavy breathing loudened. Donghae was hysterical, and it showed in the way his knuckles whitened as he tightened his fingers around the handgrip of his crutch, and the rise and fall of his broad chest. Hyukjae knew he had to handle this another way. It was neither healthy nor productive for either of them to be angry, so he chose to bury his pride under the soil and reach for Donghae’s face tenderly, hoping physical affection would help his emotions simmer down. When Donghae winced as soon as Hyukjae’s fingers slid under his chin, however, Hyukjae recoiled his hand. 

“I’m sorry,” Hyukjae apologised, hanging his head. “I just… I missed you so much, and I was so worried about you. When I saw Kyuhyun in the background of your call, half-dressed and saying those things, it made me overthink so, so much. I couldn’t control myself. I kept thinking I was going to lose you, and I guess…”

“You keep thinking it’s about you, huh?” Donghae moved back, shaking unsteadily. “It’s always about you losing me, you being worried… You, you, you. You barely even realised how with every ing second that ticks by, it’s mostly me who’s losing you.”

Hyukjae froze. “I don’t… I don’t understand.” He looked so small all of a sudden; his shoulders sank, his lips quivered and he looked anywhere but into his lover’s eyes. Donghae spared him no sympathy, regardless.

“You became so selfish, making everything about you, about how much you loved me, about how happy you were that you finally found me after all these years… You never even once thought to ask me how everything made me feel.”

Donghae paused, blinking back the tears that threatened to stain his cheeks. His nose was red, his head hurt, and he felt like he was about to faint, but he carried on.

“You know nothing about how much I’ve been suffering the past half a year. And yet you still try to make it all about you, assuming ridiculous . Do you wanna know how I feel?”

Dropping the crutch, Donghae fell onto the ground hard, knocking his head against the wall behind him. It didn’t hurt even half as much as the ache in his chest, though. His breathing deepened not long before the hot tears that had pooled on the insides of his lower lids trickled down his face. He became a sobbing, hysterical mess in a matter of seconds, whines of anguish and pain escaping through the tiny gaps of his gritted teeth.

“What’s wrong, Hae?” Hyukjae sunk to the ground and leaned forward, his face only inches away from Donghae’s. “Please tell me what’s wrong, Hae. Tell me how to fix it. I love you, I love you. Please let me fix it.”

Donghae shook his head, crying harder. “You can’t fix it. You’re a decade late.”

“A decade late?” Hyukjae pursed his lips. “What do you mean?”

When only silence greeted him in response, Hyukjae s his arms around Donghae’s body and gently pulled him into a tight embrace, the nape of his hair. He kissed the skin under Donghae’s ear fondly, over and over, allowing Donghae to sob into his shoulder as he waited for Donghae to explain what he had meant.

“Sora-noona,” Donghae said suddenly in between sobs. “She hurt me.”

Hyukjae pulled away. “What did she say to you?”

“She warned me to leave you. She said she’d hurt me if I didn’t.”

“Did she hurt you?”

Donghae shook his head again. “Not yet. But that’s not all.”

“What else?” Hyukjae asked, projecting his suppressed anger into a balled fist.

After a pause that felt like centuries, Hyukjae saw his lover’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed, finally looking up to meet Hyukjae eye to eye. He grimaced as he shifted, moving away from Hyukjae.

“I know who killed my parents.” Donghae whispered.

Hyukjae waited.

“Yours.”

Hyukjae and his sister had always been close, and they had especially grown closer after their parents had left the country to “handle their businesses overseas”, an excuse that Hyukjae now knew was a lie. Only hours before, he had been on the cold, marbled floor of Kyuhyun’s apartment, trying to kiss away at the invisible bruises littered all over Donghae’s skin as he listened to his lover explain all the things that had happened in the last half a year. He couldn’t stop thinking about how Donghae had continued crying for almost three hours straight, and how he continued to whimper even as Hyukjae had carried him into his room and tucked him into bed. Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me. I don’t want you to leave me. I’m not ready, Donghae had begged, his voice weakening with every breath he took. Hyukjae had laid beside him, his hair and reassuring him that he wouldn’t leave, that he’d never leave, and Donghae had fallen asleep about half an hour later, with swollen eyes and dry lips. After explaining what had happened to Kyuhyun, apologising and begging the man to take care of Donghae in his short absence, Hyukjae saw himself out the door. He had business to take care of.

By the time he had arrived at Sora’s house in Jejudo, it was well past midnight. He banged on the door loudly, and in a matter of seconds the door opened. He was greeted by the sight of his older sister dressed in a silk robe, and a man dressed in only his boxers sitting on the sofa.

“Oppa,” she called out, turning her head slightly to face the man. “Leave.”

The man hastily grabbed his things and was out the door in two minutes. After closing the door and doing up the latches and locks, Sora turned around.

“Let me go change into something more appropria—”

Hyukjae grabbed his sister by the wrist and yanked her, his expression cold and unwavering.

“I don’t have time for that.” He said flatly. “Is Jisoo-ssi here?”

Sora shook her head. “I gave her a few days off.”

“Good,” He let go of Sora’s wrist, “because you have a mothering ton of explaining to do.”

Sensing the animosity in her brother’s voice and actions, an animosity that had never, not once, showed itself like that considering how close the siblings had been all their lives, Sora beckoned for Hyukjae to sit down on the sofa and wait as she grabbed them both some water. Her hands shook as she tilted a jug towards the cup, filling it to the brim with water. She balanced the full glasses on a tray with trembling hands and set them on the table in front of Hyukjae, inviting him to take a sip, which he did. Then she sat down too.

“What’s wrong?” Sora asked, managing as innocent of a voice as she could handle as she raised her glass to her lips.

Hyukjae slammed the now empty glass onto the table. “Don’t act coy with me, noona.”

“I’m not—”

“What the were you thinking? Telling Donghae to leave me? Telling him he isn’t good enough for me, that he’s only in this for the money he could inherit? What kind of bull? What the were you high on?” Hyukjae clawed at the fabric on his lap, a habit he did whenever he was either anxious as hell or pissed beyond repair.

“He really isn’t good enough for you, Hyukjae!” Sora screamed back, both offended at how rude her brother had sounded, and how he’d dropped all formalities talking to her. “He isn’t good enough for you and you know it. He’s broken and manipulative! Hyukjae, I’m your sister. You don’t know what’s best for you, and this man—he isn’t it!”

Hyukjae almost laughed in disbelief. “Oh? And I suppose you know what’s best for me?”

“Yes!”

“And I suppose what’s best for me is keeping it from me that our parents killed Donghae’s family?”

Sora dropped her glass. It shattered everywhere, both water and glass shards flying in every direction. Neither of them moved, however. The atmosphere was tense and there was no way either of them wanted to break it.

“How did you find out?” Sora questioned, straightfaced.

Hyukjae loosened the tie around his neck and smirked. “Does it matter?”

“Tell me who told y—”

“You know, after I found out, I started to wonder what else you had up your sleeves. How long more you’d keep this from me before I inevitably found out. Didn’t think I’d have been brought up in such a disgusting, heartless family.”

Sora scowled. “You take that back. Our parents didn’t raise you to be disrespectful.”

“Our parents didn’t raise me at all,” he said calmly, almost smiling. “They only funded me with their heaps of cash while I was left to make sense of the world myself. That’s why I didn’t end up spoilt and ed up like you.”

Pulling her arm back, Sora swung her hand forward to slap her brother—she’d never slapped him before—but Hyukjae caught her wrist in time and forced it downwards before letting go. He stood up, careful not to step on the shattered bits of glass scattered on the floor and walked towards the front door. He ignored every cry his sister screamed out; every we did it for your sake, every Lee Donghae is bad luck, every single don’t choose love over your own family. He smiled.

“Don’t call me your brother ever again,” Hyukjae said. “I don’t have a family.”

And then he disappeared beyond Sora’s front door, leaving the air in the house eerily still and quiet. Sora took the opportunity to reach for her phone, dialing frantically. The line finally clicked after nearly a minute, and Sora wasted no time speaking.

“Appa, he found out,” she panicked. “Lee Donghae found out! What should I do?!”

Her heart stilled at the words, two words, she heard in response. Kill him.

Hyukjae reached Kyuhyun’s apartment at nearly four in the morning. He was grateful to Kyuhyun for waiting up and letting him back in after the fiasco that had gone down earlier that day. You reek of alcohol, Kyuhyun had commented, to which Hyukjae brushed off his words. Hyukjae didn’t have to say anything for Kyuhyun to know that he’d spent the last few hours after confronting his sister drowning his sorrows in copious amounts of booze. What’s important was that he had made it back safely. Donghae needed him.

Climbing into the bed, Hyukjae snuggled next to an exhausted, sleeping Donghae. He slid his arm over Donghae’s torso and moved closer, leaving no gap for air in between their two warm bodies. He kissed the side of Donghae’s sweaty head—the room was extremely cold from the air conditioning and he worried Donghae had instead been sweating from having bad dreams—and then kissed Donghae’s cheek before resting his head on the pillow. He balled the fabric covering Donghae’s torso and finally allowed himself to cry.

“Why is this happening to us, Hae?” He sobbed quietly into the back of Donghae’s neck. Donghae shifted slightly, smacking his dry lips. His eyes fluttered open. Noticing the limp arm draped across his body and the soft sobs coming from behind him, he turned over, now facing Hyukjae. Hyukjae was crying. Why is he crying? Donghae wondered, before the memory of what had happened earlier hit him like a bullet train. He pulled Hyukjae closer and kissed him on the lips softly.

“Don’t cry,” Donghae whispered, smiling faintly. “We’ll go through this together, okay Hyukkie? I love you so much.”

And then his tears fell, too.