The Problem With Lee Donghae

words: 2793

Hyukjae groans at the feeling of being slowly suffocated by something dense and soft; the sensation slowly encompasses his sleep-fogged mind, forcing him to peek his head out of the millions of blankets on top of him. Wait, what the hell? Hyukjae yawns as he angrily tries to worm his way out of the blanket avalanche, feeling equal parts ridiculous but cozy. Expectedly, a few blankets are lost in the process. His head throbs in protest.

He'd like to think if the blankets were sentient they would care.

As he emerges like a less than graceful butterfly, blurry thoughts of last night hit him in waves; his stomach definitely isn't a fan so far. He knows for a fact he went to sleep on the couch while Donghae—unceremoniously—dropped by, and he’s thankful he’s much too tired to feel embarrassed about his best-friend probably carrying him to bed.

Seriously, why doesn’t the younger visit the other members? Surely, Siwon is at least feeling neglected having no one to high-five constantly. Hyukjae doesn’t find any satisfaction always having to entertain the man-child, nope, nadda, you can quote him on that. May lightning strike him where he’s standing if he’s lying, Hyukjae thinks before hesitantly moving a few inches to the right. Okay, so he’s not lying to himself, cool.

“, why am I hot and cold at the same time,” Hyukjae whines, encompassing himself in the first blanket he touches. Weird, he thinks, I don’t remember having a fish blanket. Blowing stray strands of hair out of his eyes (was it time for a haircut already?), Hyukjae carefully navigates his way out of the blanket factory that used to be his room. He pointedly ignores everything but his kitchen isle where a random thermos he also doesn’t remember having sits idly. As he picks up the still warm container, Hyukjae blinks rapidly as he reads the little note stuck to it.

‘Hyung,

don’t get sick again or else I might miss your ugly face.

Your favourite dongsaeng, Donghae’

Hyukjae squints as he tries to make out the weird squiggle after Donghae’s-the —name. He concludes after a minute that it’s an ugly heart and makes a note to tease the idiot about it later. Seriously, who can’t draw a heart? Hyukjae snorts fondly as he uncaps the thermos and takes a sip. Immediately, his taste buds are invaded by the strongest mixture of lemon and ginseng he’s ever drank. Hyukjae coughs and squints at the liquid. He briefly debates about just pouring it down the sink—the thermose almost looks a little sad—not like Donghae would know. ‘He made this for you though’ Hyukjae almost hears the thermos croon. The thermos makes a good point. Before he can chicken out, Hyukjae downs the drink with a vigor matched only by Kyuhyun’s wine drinking skills. Besides, if he’s imagining random things actually talking, he probably needs to drink it anyway.

“Oh god, why does it burn a little,” he grimaces “Also, you’re ugly Lee Donghae.” He states petulantly to an uncaring room. As the grogginess of sleep slowly fades, Hyukjae takes the time to look around his apartment and, “Oh. My. God.” He utters softly at the mess before his eyes. He presses the heel of his hand to his eyes and counts down from five before looking out at his living room again. Nope, still a mess, he thinks sourly.

The couch is strewn with even more unrecognizable blankets, used tissue and food wrappers cover the coffee table, there’s DVD cases by the TV stand some of which were left open. Hyukjae clutches his chest and turns around—that ends up being a mistake. The sink has piles of dishes that he doesn’t remember being there last night; empty food boxes line the counter. He feels his eye twitch and wonders how he could have missed it when he walked in.

Inwardly, Hyukjae debates on downgrading Donghae from best friend to just friend and bumping up Siwon to the number one position. At least the latter is richer and won’t constantly beg him to buy things; Hyukjae sighs, maybe he needs new friends in general.

He doesn’t know exactly what happened all of last night, but he definitely blames Donghae because the man was absolutely here yesterday, that much he remembers. Hyukjae groans and throws the fish blanket towards the couch; it misses and lands on the floor. “Well, I can’t take a shower knowing everything is like this,” he grumbles as he starts to throw things into the trash. Oh god, why were some of the wrappers sticky? What did the younger even order?

It’s not the worst mess Donghae’s ever left, but Hyukjae’s also sick—something Donghae knew—and he has half a mind to call the younger and yell at him if the other half of him didn’t know he’d probably get beat up for doing so. Again, he needs better friends.

“Does he think I’m that much of a pushover? I told Heechul-hyung that he’d turn into a brat from all that babying,” he sighs to himself, “I’m keeping all of these blankets he can go freeze to death for all I care.”

Slowly, the apartment starts to look presentable before Hurricane Donghae happened. He makes sure to separate all the blankets, a good portion of which were not his and, assuming it was Donghae’s, sets them aside on his couch. He frowns, wondering when they watched IT last night before he shoves all the DVDs back onto a bookcase. Truthfully, the only hard part of cleaning was always the dishes, which is the chore he hates the most; naturally he leaves that for last. Time passes as Hyukjae cleans but it escapes him just how late in the day it is already once he’s done making everything tidy. His phone read twelve-on-the-dot.

“Huh, where does the time go?” Hyukjae’s stomach rumbles in agreement. “Oh yeah, I should probably eat.” Turning the television on for background noise, he rummages through his fridge and finds leftover kimchi and rice. He smiles briefly knowing Donghae put these away because he would never use this container for kimchi—it’s the thought though. As the container heats up in the microwave a distant ‘ding’ comes from the couch. Much to his stomach’s dismay, he opens the group chat.

(1215) TopMaknae: Hyung don’t forget our live broadcast on channel 5

Hyukjae flushes a bit, he had forgotten about that live interview. It’s a good thing no one has to know about that though, he thinks as he starts typing. Just as he taps out a few characters, another message pops up on the group chat

(1220) East Sea: Hyukki! Make sure to watch or I’ll be mad! Also rest, it’s lonely with only us here :(

(1220) Heenim: Yah! Hyung’s been keepi