Chapter 5: Paranoid
Insightful
Donghae had slept for longer than Hyukjae had anticipated, his eyes settled on the wide open glassed windows, revealing nothing but pitch black sky, hinting at just how long he'd been here. He was tired himself, but Donghae was showing no signs of moving. Surprised at how he didn't feel suffocated, at how although Donghae was a dead weight in his lap, Hyukjae couldn't bring himself to get over how trusting Donghae was, wanting nothing more than to scold the younger man for not being so careful. He figured though that Donghae was blind to it all, to all the ugly in the world and he only saw what he wanted to see in his own mind.
After an hour Hyukjae thought about leaving, slinging Donghae over his shoulder like the sack of vulnerability that he was, his dark eyes running over his tear stained features, his messy cropped hair, glued to his forehead by the reminance of tears that seemed to have flooded his whole face.
Donghae didn't even stirr when Hyukjae settled him down on his own bed, turning to leave before he remembered how absolutely terror struck Donghae had looked when he awoke from a bad dream, and there was nothing to say that it wouldn't happen again.
Rolling his shoulders, he reached over Donghae's slumbered form, grabbing one of the spare pillows, curling himself up on the floor, a guardian against bad dreams for a person he barely even knew.
----
When he awoke, the numbness between his shoulder blades was the first thing he noticed. Although he slept on the floor at times, Donghae's floor was not heated, and so he awoke stiff and confused as to where he was, trying to form some sort of drastic excuse that he could offer up to Leeteuk as to why he would be late to rehearsals. Honestly he felt drained, he could dance all day but when it came down to comforting someone, not a position he'd ever been put in before he was thrown straight out of his comfort zone and it was exhausting.
Scanning his eyes over in Donghae's direction, expecting to find him still asleep, instead he was greeted by Donghae's open, strikingly brown eyes only inches from his. in a deep breath that altered Donghae's attention to him almost immediately. "Oh you're awake!" He murmured, eyes creasing slightly as his wide smile took up his whole face.
Hyukjae's eyebrows rose before he let out a breathless laugh and buried his face in his pillow. "What happened Donghae? Did you fall out of bed?" He questioned, peeking at him to see him shaking his head.
"Nope!" Donghae sung, rolling himself to his feet where he had been lying on the hard floor beside Hyukjae's sleeping, unknowing body. Marvelling at the way Donghae's fingers glided over everything in his room, not needing to use his stick in his home because he was use to it.
"Where are you going?" Hyukjae questioned, throwing the pillow back onto the bed and hurrying after him, his hands hovering uselessly at the air at Donghae's sides, ready to catch him if he fell again.
"To work." Donghae answered as if it was the most obvious fact in the world. "Aren't you?" spinning himself around, socks on wooden flooring was never a good idea, especially not when Hyukjae, following him so closely had no choice but to put his arms around him steady himself.
Donghae, his hair a mess, his shirt buttoned up in an order that left the bottom one on its own, uneven and colour coded wrongly, with his beaming smile and large blinking eyes that despite every knowledge Hyukjae had that he couldn't see him, felt like they were looking right into his soul.
He felt guilty, for making assumptions, for assuming that Donghae, not only did he never leave the house alone, but the very idea that he might have a job, and probably a better paying one than himself, had never crossed his mind.
"Oh.." Hyukjae said a little dejectedly, having thought that maybe he could just spend the day with Donghae, but instead Donghae was already shrugging on his coat, a deep red in colour that made Hyukjae's eyes ache.
Following Donghae particularly closely down the stairs, hands hovering all the time in case he needed to catch Donghae, he set off whistling in search of Choco and shaking his head when he located her, sat in a regal position in Bada's dog bed, the smaller dog sat rejected on the cool floor instead.
"You mind if i come back to get her later?" Hyukjae called out.
----
Donghae made his way down the street, he had a tendency to keep his head tilted when he walked, listening to the sound of his cane tapping against the street, a rhythm that he more often than not found himself humming along to into his head. He could tell just by the way that the breeze stirred his hair that it was going to rain today, something he hated because although he couldn't see it, it often drew the world to a dreary stop and Donghae much preferred to feel the sun on his face.
Hyukjae's appearance in his life still made him nervous, although he couldn't quite wipe the smile off his face. He was use to having just Sungmin for so long, and Sungmin was so use to him that he didn't treat him any different to someone else, and although Donghae liked to be in dependant, he hadn't had someone just hold him in so long, and although Sungmin acknowledged what had happened to him in high school, had witnessed it first hand, he couldn't even bring himself to tell him that the dreams still haunted him sometimes.
His life had been boring for so long, he already had a mental image of what the route to work looked like, what he believed Sungmin to look like, even what Bada looked like simply because of the softness of his fur. But everything about Hyukjae was new, his personality, his sudden interest in Donghae, and he wanted to believe that he'd made a friend, someone that didn't feel obliged to stay in contact with Donghae simply through pity.
Maybe he could hold onto Choco a little longer at his home, maybe he could persuade Bada that her and Bada had made some kind of unbreakable canine friendship and it'd be cruel to separate them. Maybe then it wouldn't just be every fleeting Saturday morning that they met, maybe Hyukjae was what he needed to inspire him to venture outside again.
He knew it would never be as simple as that though, each step he took was heavy, and his usual confidence gained by his cane was long gone, although the solid tapping meant that his path was clear, he couldn't trust that there wasn't someone out there, his paranoia brought on by the punch that landed in his direction if only weeks ago. It still haunted him, he didn't have many enemies in this world, and the few people that did hate him, for unjust reasons, could be right in front of him and he would never know.
The unnerving feeling that he was being followed overwhelmed him, and the temptation to turn his head was something he had to prevent himself from doing. If he acknowledged that he was scared, he learnt from experience that anyone and everyone took advantage of that. Various times he'd been roughed for money, which was why he didn't carry it on him anymore, when he needed to buy something of any significance he always asked Sungmin to accompany him. Speeding up out of instinct he was unaware that it was Hyukjae's coordinated steps following after him, at a great enough distance that there was no way Donghae could identify him.
Getting to work five minutes early in his haste, Donghae sunk down into his chair, swivelling himself around a few times, cheerful, his suspicious feelings long since forgotten. He enjoyed going to work, his home was usually silent, and the room he was sat in now was buzzing with dozens of different conversations.
Their work stations were cramped, but Donghae didn't mind, when it came to lunchtime, the extensive chatter that filled the room made him believe that he really wasn't sitting by himself. His job consisted of taking calls and forwarding them on, a simple enough thing but Donghae enjoyed hearing the variation in peoples voices if it was only a fleeting thing before they were sent on to talk to more important people.
"Lee Donghae, how can i help you?" He answered sweetly, voice ringing out, so much more enthusiastic than everyone Else's, adjusting his headset so that it rested more firmly against his chin.
"Donghae.." A rough voice mused, brittle laughing sounding out across the line. "Did you say Lee Donghae?"
Donghae froze, voice hovering over the bumped surface of his specialised brail keyboard, his fingers skimming over the keys, knowing he should direct the call but he couldn't help himself, his fingers were trembling, panicked he slammed his fingers down on a random key, cutting the line dead before he could fully question the connection the male on the end of the line had with him.
His concentration was thrown off for the rest of the afternoon, his fingers trembling so hard that he kept mistaking some of the keys, other times he forgot how to speak, forgot his usual perky customer surface and just sat, thrown off balance by the idea of that voice ringing again, before he couldn't take it any longer, throwing his headset onto his desk and covering his ears.
"Donghae?"
The sound of his very own name made him jump, even if he was use to his bosses voice, Mr Jung, on a daily basis.
Lifting his gaze up to him, out of respect more than any anticipation of finally seeing his boss' face although his mental image of him matched the stern voice way too accurately.
"Donghae you've been doing you're job wrong all day... we've had various complaints and-"
Donghae's mental capacity had reached it's limit and he blindly rose from his chair, stumbling over the desk leg that he could sware had never been there before, hand fumbling to find his cane.
"-Maybe you should just take a couple days of work."
The sincerity in his boss' voice made him sick, and it had him running, hand jabbing the wall in search of the lift button, watching to escape from the many eyes he could feel burning into his back.
It wasn't often that he ran, but the rain was heavier now, empathetic towards Donghae's current mood, yet his footsteps pounding on the pavement drowned out any sounds of descending rain drops.
He knew the way home like the back of his hand, and running or not he would never get lost, his cane scraping against the pavement behind him, any angry tool that he now grew to hate.
---
Leeteuk hadn't been impressed at his late arrival, giving him that same look he'd been giving him for weeks, only extensified by the fact that he hadn't even turned up to work on time this morning. Of course it wasn't down to his friend to remind him when he had to turn up, but their manager had dozens of other rookie acts to think about, and a bunch of twenty plus men gambling around the room were 'the least of his concerns'. Hyukjae wished he could afford a better one, for Leeteuk's sake, considering he wasn't full filling his dream, and Hyukjae seemed perfectly happy with just dancing in the background for now.
He told himself that he was worried for Choco having wrecked Donghae's house, that it was the reason why he was out the door so fast, jogging all the way back to Donghae's, only to be greeted with a locked door a doorstep that he would no doubt be waiting on for a couple hours.
He didn't know how long he waited until Donghae appeared on the horizon, his brightly coloured closed standing out in the rain, the obscure tapping noise that seemed to rise above the rain. Hyukjae closed his eyes, a momentary action that invited him into Donghae's world, greeted by a darkness that completely consumed one sense but opened up all the others, he could hear the distinct rhythm of Donghae's cane brushing the floor, the rain drops accompany the sound, and being the dancer he was he was in tune to all this, finding the beauty in being able to fit into someone Else's world, and appreciate the fact that when you couldn't see how grey the sky was, how ugly people's attitude's to daily life were... It was kind of beautiful.
Standing up experimentally he smiled to himself, trying to judge where things were without using his eyes.
It wasn't until something soft slammed into him that his eyes snap open, arms automatically shooting out to grab Donghae before he could fall, mistaking the wheezing noise that Donghae made for a gasp, moments later his soft scream rang out, having drawn air into his lungs, yet it was still a noise too quiet to bring attention to himself.
"Donghae-ya! It's Hyukjae.." He assured, causing Donghae's eyebrows to rise in surprise, his eyes rolled, swimming in their own tears, in a desperate search for Hyukjae's face, but it wasn't long before they admitted defeat, settling off to the side, unfocused and unable to identify him.
At a loss for how to persuade the younger that it really was him Hyukjae fell silent, lips parted but none of the reassurances that came to mind were easy for him to roll off his tongue, he wasn't one for words, his actions spoke louder, but Donghae could never see them, could never see the sincerity on his face that he would never hurt him.
"I thought... i thought you were.." Donghae murmured breathlessly, and Hyukjae closed his eyes, reluctant to see the distress lighting up his eyes.
Hyukjae's eyes were just about to open again, but a feather light touch on both eyelids caused him to flinch, waiting until they moved down the bridge of his nose until they peeked open, the concentration on Donghae's face was insufferable, his hands trailing in exploratory lines down his jaw, fingers settling against his mouth, and after the initial shock had wore off, and Hyukjae recognised this as Donghae's only way of familiarising himself when him he smiled, lips twitching against Donghae's fingers, something he could never offer him visually but it sparked an instant response on Donghae's face, his own lips rising into that toothy smile that drew back the rain.
"Are you handsome?" He questioned, causing Hyukjae to splutter in bewilderment.
"No." He laughed bluntly.
"Liar." Donghae retaliated, grinning to himself as he let go of Hyukjae's face and elbowed him out of the way so he could get to his front door. He turned the key in the door easily, opening the door and stepping over the threshold, hesitating enough that Hyukjae had difficulty preventing himself form walking into him.
"Did you work out today?" Donghae questioned, wrinkling his nose up and turning full circle until he was facing Hyukjae, advanced senses and all.
Shifting consciously Hyukjae folded himself in half to observe himself trying to identify, eyes instantly zooming in on his shoes and recoiled, kicking them off as subtly as he could and hurried into his house before Donghae chose to shut him and his reeking feet outside in the rain.
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I apolagise that this chapter is quite short and it took me a long time ;__;
I'm going through a really busy time in my life right now with exams ect. but i still keep updating a priority.
Thanks to anyone thats still reading <3
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