TWENTY-THREE

Donghae is lying on his bed, miserable.

A whole thirty-two hours have passed since Hyukjae and he parted.

Thirty-two hours.

Donghae has no appetite.

He doesn’t want to sleep.

He doesn’t want to be awake, either.

And as if he wasn’t feeling bad enough already, walking home in the damp without his jacket has made him catch a cold too. That means that in the moments he’s not blowing his nose after crying, he’s wiping it after sneezing, and there’s now a sea of discarded tissues on top of everything else on his bedroom floor. Donghae has a headache from how many tears he’s shed, and he has a headache from all the thoughts constantly going around in his head, and then he has a headache from having a cold too and he’s just-

He’s ing miserable.

So he just lies there, as he has for most of the last day and a half, and he probably wouldn’t get out of bed at all except from the fact that he has a small, persistent house-guest. He hears her paws tapping across the tiles in the hallway and then clambering awkwardly over the mess on his bedroom floor.

There’s a sharp, expectant yap.

‘No, Choco,’ he says, muffled by the pillow he’s buried his face in. ‘You already ate.’

Choco wags her tail and yaps again.

‘Go pee on the bathmat or something,’ Donghae tells her, because he doesn’t want to move, and if his apartment becomes disgusting then it will match how he feels.

Choco whines and scrabbles at the side of the bed. She’s too small and old to jump up by herself. When Donghae doesn’t get up or offer to lift her up and cuddle her, she scrambles back over the mess of tissues and clothing and goes back to the living room. Donghae hears her whining again, soft and sad.

Great, now he’s making her miserable too.

He drags himself up, pulls his dressing-gown over the same clothes he’d worn to Hyukjae’s place and takes the little dog downstairs into the street. To his surprise, it’s bright outside, the wind brisk and the sky clear overhead. Donghae has not opened the curtains in his apartment and thought it was still the middle of the night.

He gets a few odd looks but he doesn’t care.

Hyukjae’s not there to see him, what the hell does it matter if he’s brushed his hair or not, or wearing the same clothes for nearly two days? Donghae just stands there and stares at the pavement. After Choco has had a chance to pee, she also just stands there, looking this way and that, her clouded old eyes confused.

She’s looking for Hyukjae.

‘Come on,’ Donghae says to her. ‘Back inside.’

Choco yaps and then sits on Donghae’s feet. She wags her tail briefly, looking up at him.

‘He’s not coming,’ Donghae says, and he picks her up before he can tear up right there on the street. Choco wriggles in his arms, clearly displeased as they go back into the elevator. She yaps again, sharply, the sound going right through Donghae’s head.

‘Choco!’ he snaps at her. ‘I don’t know where he is!’

Choco shrinks back, blinking rapidly in fright; Donghae remembers too late how frightened she is of raised voices, that she too has been badly affected by the shouting and violence at Hyukjae’s little shop. He desperately raises her up and kisses her little head.

‘I’m sorry,’ he murmurs to her. ‘Choco, baby, I’m sorry.’

Choco, though, is thoroughly upset. As soon as he puts her back down in his apartment she scurries away from him and hides under the sofa. Donghae thought he already felt as as possible; now he realizes he is in fact able to feel worse. He lies on his stomach on the floor and tries to cajole the little old dog out but she huddles out of his reach, ears down.

Donghae sniffs.

‘C-Choco,’ he tries again, and his voice is wobbling, and- and he really thought he’d had enough of crying already over the last day or so, but somehow there are still tears left. Wearily he gets up off the floor to lie on the sofa instead, the same thoughts that have been plaguing him coming back to go around and around in his head.

There’s a pattern to it now.

First he wonders what Hyukjae is doing. Is he okay? Has he tried to ring Donghae?

What if he hasn’t?

Then Donghae thinks about Hyukjae’s secret second job, and he thinks about other people touching the slim, kind confectioner, rough hands forcing an intimacy that Donghae himself has never experienced with him. Donghae grips hold of the cushion he’s holding in anguish, and wonders what he did so wrong that Hyukjae wouldn’t tell him, wouldn’t even ask for help.

Then Donghae feels ing angry.

How dare Hyukjae say Donghae doesn’t love him! When he never even gave Donghae the chance to love him properly? When he felt like he had to keep secrets? When Donghae himself had felt so awkward and uncomfortable revealing he’d had a buddy, why hadn’t Hyukjae said something then? Donghae remembers how Hyukjae had kissed him and touched him and gone to his knees in that café bathroom; only now Donghae wonders how much of Hyukjae’s urgency had just been to shut him up, to stop Donghae asking difficult questions.

But then Donghae remembers the despair in Hyukjae’s eyes, the way he had broken down, that final little caress of Donghae’s cheek before he walked out.

Donghae rolls onto his back on the sofa, one arm over his eyes. Everything is so confusing, and everything hurts so much.

There’s a movement on the sofa next to him, then he feels a warm wet little tongue away the saltiness on his cheeks. Choco has forgiven him and is trying to make him feel better with damp doggy kisses, nose cold as she nudges at his hands. He turns on his side so he can hug her, and she snuggles up to him immediately. She too is feeling lost, she too does not know why Hyukjae has not come to get her.

Donghae wishes for a moment that he hadn’t broken his own ing phone.

Heechul had come to see him, the night it had happened.

Donghae had not opened the door.

An undetermined amount of time passes. Donghae feeds Choco and kisses her and makes sure she’s comfortable on the sofa before trudging back to his own room, crawling back into bed and falling asleep.

It’s Choco barking and the sound of someone pounding on the door that wakes him. For one terrifying, beautiful moment he thinks it must be Hyukjae; but then he remembers Hyukjae knows the door code. Even if the confectioner didn’t feel comfortable letting himself in, he’d not knock so loudly and Choco would not be barking.

If it’s not Hyukjae, Donghae doesn’t want to see anybody.

He pulls his blanket up over his head and hopes whoever it is will go away soon.

After five minutes or so, it’s quiet again. Donghae sighs, relieved, but before he can fall asleep again, he hears voices outside, hears-

, is that the maintenance man?

There’s the sound of a drill and then a beep as his front door unlocks.

‘Thank you so much,’ Donghae hears a familiar voice saying smoothly. ‘No, I’ll take it from here, thank you.’

Siwon.

Donghae hears expensive shoes approach his room quickly.

‘Donghae?’

Donghae closes his eyes and hopes Siwon will go away, but then his blanket is forcefully whipped off the bed and he is left blinking miserably up at the worried face of his friend.

‘Thank God,’ Siwon says, and he sounds like he means it. ‘You’re okay.’

He sits down on the end of the bed and releases a quick relieved breath.

Then he draws in another and turns to Donghae angrily.

‘Where the hell is your phone? Do you know how worried we’ve been? Would it kill you to listen to your messages once in a while? Your mother has called me about six times in the last two days, I didn’t know what I was supposed to say to her!’

Donghae sits up. Siwon very seldom loses his cool.

‘And then you don’t even answer your door!’ Siwon says to him. ‘What am I supposed to think? You could have at least told someone you were okay!’

‘I don’t feel okay,’ Donghae whispers.

Siwon, whose mouth is already open to continue his scolding, stops. His eyes travel over Donghae; his rumpled clothes, his messy hair, his red nose and watery eyes.

He sighs.

‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘I don’t suppose you do.’

Then he puts his arms out and Donghae crawls into the hug; although he’d wanted to be left alone, now there are comforting arms around him and a warm hand his hair, he feels a bit less desolate than he did a few minutes ago.

‘Do you want to talk about it?’ Siwon asks.

Donghae shakes his head.

‘Are you sure?’ Siwon says gently, trying to move him so he can see Donghae’s face. Donghae usually wants to talk about everything.

This time Donghae just buries his face further in Siwon’s expensive shirt.

Siwon hugs him for a few more minutes. During that time his eyes wander around the room, seeing the piles of used tissues, the clothes and blankets on the floor, the overturned bedside table. He sees Donghae’s broken phone in the doorway. He’d been in such a hurry he’d stepped right over it without noticing. Siwon is still wearing his shoes, unspeakably bad manners, because of his panicked haste to find the unresponsive dentist.

He touches Donghae’s forehead. It’s a bit too warm.

‘Are you sick?’ he asks Donghae. ‘Or just sad?’

‘I feel like crap,’ Donghae says. Siwon moves Donghae so he’s sitting up and looks him over.

‘You look like it too’ he says honestly.

Donghae’s eyes water, and then he sneezes. Siwon hands him the nearly empty tissue box then bends down to unlace his shoes, placing them neatly aside before padding in his designer socks to pick up the scattered pieces of Donghae’s phone. The screen has chipped and the back of the phone casing has broken.

‘This might still work,’ Siwon says, and he’s just trying to fit the battery back in again when Donghae grabs his arm.

‘No!’ he says, panicked. ‘Don’t!’

Siwon pauses, eyebrows shooting up.

‘Hae,’ he says. ‘Don’t you at least want to see if you’ve got any messages?’

‘No!’ Donghae says