Chapter 2: Acquainted
Insightful
Donghae awoke to the same persistent barking that was his personal alarm clock every morning, already shielding his face from his exuberant puppy that was eager to drag Donghae out of his slumber. He rolled himself over before the barking could continue and the neighbors started to complain again, his hand skimming along the wall, other hand cupping his cheek. It had grown increasingly more sore in the past week. He knew this was part of the healing process but he couldn't even imagine what it looked like.
His friend Sungmin had commented on how it looked, but he hadn't told him where it had originated from, it was easy enough to pass it off as having walked into something.
Running his fingers through his short, recently chopped hair, the uneven brown locks falling flat against his forehead from where he had recently trimmed it himself. He made his way out of his room, humming numbers to himself in sync with each step he took, purely to hear the sound of his own voice, background noise to the silence that now filled his house.
He hated silence, it was something he had lived with for a long enough time that he forgot that he was capable of speaking too. More times than not he had spoken out loud to himself, at home with his own company but now a slight space was filled with the presence of his new puppy.
"Bada!" He sung out, fingertips still lingering upon the tentative bruise shadowing his cheekbone. The events of last week had thrown him off guard and now, he feared going outside more than he ever had.
He always recited the phrase that you couldn't miss what you've never had... but he could certainly fear the unknown. He was different and alone, but it was part of what made him him.
Donghae had been completely blind since he was born, and he couldn't even bring himself to imagine what the world looked like. The thought of waking up one day to see everything was a scary thought, as he had always functioned merely upon touch and sound.
Most of the time he wished he could remain in bed, dreaming was the only real time when he saw things, his imagination was limited as he had no real memories of sights that he had seen, but his mind still worked perfectly and provided him with the shapes of how he could imagine things to be.
He worked four days a week in a call center answering the phones, people often complimented how he had a nice voice but honestly, it was the only time it was ever really heard. Donghae's fingers danced along the worktops in the kitchen as he searched for the radio, switching it on and smiling to himself, singing along to the song that came on, twirling himself around and taking two steps towards the cupboard.
He was content like this, or at least he had been for a while. He could drift around his house upon his own accord without the use of a cane, everything was placed where he had put it, and so it was mere ruitine to pad downstairs, greeted by a rather hungry bundled of white.
The outside world was always an unwelcoming place, filled with the noisy and confusing city life, dangerous roads and as he had experienced lately, dangerous people. He couldn't navigate well outside, and ever since the incident last week he was reluctant to go outside, yet he knew today he had somewhere he had to take his puppy.
He'd stepped on him at first, but by now Bada had learnt to stay out of the way of Donghae's feet and had grown to a decent size, instead springing at his side, a rather patience puppy. Donghae was use to his old labrador, a dog he had grown up with, relied on but had soon outlived.
The Bichon maltese he had waiting patiently at his feet sure was no trained guide dog, and he was yet to learn proper puppy manners but he was an intelligent Dog, something that his friend Sungmin had picked out for him to rely on when he couldn't be around.
---------------------------------------
Hyukjae's day off work today had proven useful, and although he was certainly not a morning person exhausted from working long hours, always one to rise late and drag himself to where he had to go, his rather unruly pomeranian was currently running circles around his feet causing him to sigh in frustration. Ever since he had gotten her for his birthday he'd been too busy with work to train her properly hence the initiative to enroll the both of them in a crash course for training her.
Rolling into class early Hyukjae was dragged along by his excitable dog, slightly embarrassed at having to be in a class filled with women that had equally small dogs. His dog wasn't the most macho of things, and although he wasn't entirely embarrassed about her, he'd had a few comments thrown in his direction, especially since Choco was adorning a pink collar right now.
However... his dog wasn't the only one embarrassingly wearing pink. Minutes later a rather flamboyant male waltzed into the class, his own dog, a poodle trotting obediently at his side, putting Choco to shame.
"Sit." He hissed at her, trying to restrain her from spinning in circles and barking at the dog beside him. "Choco that dog is huge if you don't shut up it'll eat you." He whispered to her, crouching down and holding her still.
"Hi class... My name is Sungmin, this is Cacao and we'll be teaching you some of the basics today." He announced, giving a simple demonstration of how to get your dog to sit before stalking around the class and instructing people on how to do it.
Hyukjae honestly couldn't believe this class was coming out of his own pocket, and more so he couldn't believe that Choco wasn't even showing the slightest hint of cooperating with him.
"Sit. Sit. Choco... SIT-"
The buzz through the room stopped when the door swung open on its hinged, a rather flushed and hesitant male entering the room, and Hyukjae's eyes immediately swooped over to him, drawn to him if only because of how unusual the other male appeared. First impressions had Hyukjae's eyebrows raising, he was the only other male entering the class, and although Hyukjae had the feeling of only just rolling out of bed, he knew he couldn't look as bad as this guy at the moment.
His hair was unkempt and choppy, as if a child had cut it in his sleep as a joke. His clothes were odd, baggy and mismatched, the poor guy had no colour coordination, enough so for Hyukjae to pity him. And to top it all off, despite being indoors, he didn't even seem to notice that his sunglasses were still bridged on his nose and he didn't look like he had any intention of taking them off.
"Donghae!" Sungmin piped up from across the room, moving with a strange precision towards the guy to sling his arms around his neck.
He noticed that Sungmin lingered near him for the rest of the lesson even though the brunette had distanced himself and stayed in one corner of the room only interacting with Sungmin when he drifted over to his friend, not that he needed to because Donghae was acing the class with his dog, and although Hyukjae knew this was not aq competition he couldn't help but grumble under his breath, each new trick that Sungmin introduced, Donghae and his little white dog breezed through them.
Hyukjae's shoulders tensed, agrivated by the giggling coming from behind him, Donghae was clearly amused by something his puppy was doing, and he couldn't help but sigh down at his own dog, currently writhing around on her back trying to ambush her tail.
----------------------------------------------
"Okay, so socialization among puppies is key, helps them to learn better behavour skills so i'll pair you up depending on your dogs size."
Oh no.
Hyukjae scowled at Sungmin suspiciously before his eyes skimmed off, scanning the room for a dog of Choco's size.
"Hyukjae, you'll be with Donghae."
Hyukjae eyes shifted over to Donghae's form, the other guy awkwardly leaning against the wall, head tilted as he listened to sungmin's voice. Making his way over to him he sighed, eyeing his own dog and pleading that she would behave.
"Hi..." Hyukjae murmured when the other guy didn't look up at his arrival. Donghae's lips twitched into a small smile that had Hyukjae's curiosity rising, almost making him temporarily forget how annoyed he was that Donghae's dog was more obedient than his.
Part of him was itching for a response from Donghae and although the other guy seemed persistent on keeping his head down, presumably watching the two puppies as they greeted each other. It wasn't until Choco started chasing Bada in a circle that Donghae finally moved, unable to locate where the puppies where and stepped to the side to try and get out of their way as they circled around his feet, accidentally stepping on Choco and causing a yelp to rise loud enough that it disrupted the rest of the class.
"Hey watch where you're standing." Hyukjae snapped, lunging for Choco and scooping her up protectively.
"M'sorry.." Donghae whispered, backing himself up against the wall again.
"What was that?" Hyukjae answered preoccupied with cuddling his dog, his temper rising, seemingly oblivious to the submissive form of Donghae backing away, and Sungmin's eyes locked on them from across the room. "I didn't quite hear you, you should look at people when you're talking." Hyukjae told him, watching Donghae out the corner of his eye, the other guy didn't even show him any signs of acknowledging that he understood him.
"Hey... why do you even need to wear sunglasses inside hmm?" He questioned, aware of the silence falling over the room and he couldn't for the life of him work out what he had done wrong.
He could feel everyone's eyes burning into the back of his head and he only grew more frustrated under the spot light. "Dude are you even listening to me?" He questioned, reaching across and swiping Donghae's glasses from his head.
Without his protection to hide behind Donghae recoiled back until his shoulder blades hit the wall, tears collecting on the edges of dark unseeing eyes. It wasn't this action that shocked Hyukjae, rather it was the bruise lining the fragile guys cheekbone, recoiling back in shock as covered his mouth with his hand.
"I'm really sorry." Hyukjae apolagised, for something more than Donghae knew, his brown teary eyes rolling in search of a face he would never see.
Hyukjae couldn't believe he'd hurt a blind man two times over in just a week.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
A/N: Sorry if this chapter is a bit crappy
Working up to Hyukjae actually getting to know Donghae instead of insulting the poor guy all the time.
Thanks to anyone who comments and subscribes <3
Comments