A perception of the present; the sweetest sight
A perception of the present; the sweetest sight
the sweetest sight
Fraction one; a dusk
Everything is dark. The type of darkness that constricts around you so you don’t know where you’re standing. The type of dark that causes you to panic and tremble and you feel impossibly disorientated. Yes, that’s the type of darkness that Donghae was currently dreaming in.
Once there had been colours, oh, such beautiful colours. The colours only remained in Donghae’s dreams now, captured in his memories. They were no longer really there, they had melted from everything he had once seen, becoming various shades of lifeless greys. In his head he could almost imagine the pastel pinks which were once the shade of Hyukjae’s cheeks when caught in a flurry of snow; the creamy ecru’s like the chilled cream that they poured onto fresh raspberries one winter morning, so dulcet and perfect. Strawberries.. Blueberries… Objects he could now only imagine.
Sometimes, people brought Donghae fruit.
Sometimes the fruit brought memories of Hyukjae.
They thought that they would always be locked in each others embrace, but those thoughts were just memories to Donghae now.
Fraction two; a dawn
That perfect winter morning begins with a cup of warm milk and four spoonfuls of Donghae’s favourite chocolate powder. Warm milk, Donghae claims, is the perfect beginning to any cold day and everyone should drink it. Donghae imagines Hyukjae rolling his eyes because he should be drinking tea or something more sophisticated and laughs a little to himself.
When Hyukjae phones that morning, Donghae finds Hyukjae’s voice so breathless with excitement that he forgets about his milk for a moment and slops a little over the side of the cup onto his teddy pyjamas. Donghae squeaks.
“Be ready in ten minutes,” says Hyukjae. “I have something I want to show you.”
Donghae tells Hyukjae that perhaps it would be better if he had a little more time than ten minutes. Hyukjae asks why but Donghae threatens to not go at all unless Hyukjae gives him more time. Hyukjae gives Donghae an extra ten minutes.
Donghae wonders if perhaps he shouldn’t have been mean. He then wonders if he should have told Hyukjae about spilling his milk but thinks better of it. He knows how much Hyukjae hates milk and loves his teddy pyjamas.
They’re both nineteen, the age where they think they’re adults, but really they’re just careless reckless children. They’re shy and uncertain of what destination they’re travelling towards, but they’re one hundred percent sure that they’re going to travel towards it together.
There’s a knock on Donghae’s front door, the sound echoes through his house as he wraps a scarf around his neck. There‘s more noise as Donghae unearths his left shoe from the pile beside the kitchen cupboard and then Donghae hugs Hyukjae, sliding his arms around the bony skinny boy. Donghae says that he likes Hyukjae’s lack of horizontal growing ability as Hyukjae ties his shoelace for him. The moment he stands up, Hyukjae pushes Donghae gently against the wall of the house. His hand slips softly under his shirt, sending electricity shooting through Donghae’s skin as his fingers smooth along his hip bones. Hyukjae’s breath is warm as his face hovers uncertainly in front of Donghae’s and then his lips press tenderly against Donghae‘s lips. His touch is brief, flawless and incredibly sweet. He pulls back, his eyes shining at Donghae.
“Sorry.” Hyukjae flushes, grinning lopsidedly. “Good morning.”
As they walk, Hyukjae takes Donghae’s hand in his. Their arms swing and Donghae thinks how nice and warm he is. He can hear Hyukjae's even breathing beside him and it quietens his mind, the steady, regular ins and outs of breathing and the beat of Hyukjae's heart that he’s holding in his hand.
They work weekdays from late afternoons, and are back together in the early morning. Their mornings are free for them to do whatever they want together. Donghae sometimes thinks that he’s a little tired of his adult life. Working is exhausting.
“You said you wanted to be a adult.” Hyukjae shrugs trying not to grin.
As they walk they chatter about inconsequential things. Donghae zones out from the conversation and secretly thinks that this is the best part of the morning, when he has Hyukjae’s hand and Hyukjae can’t escape from him.
Donghae returns from his daydream. “Someday,” Hyukjae is promising Donghae as he runs his thumb gently over the back of Donghae’s hand. “Someday we’ll sit on a beach together just as the sun is breaking over the ocean.”
Donghae isn’t sure if he’s still breathing. He thinks maybe he'll remain breathless because of Hyukjae for the rest of his life. He loves the effect that Hyukjae has on him, always causing him to be on the verge of not breathing but somehow never quite stopping him from doing so.
They both keep the plans of the trip in their head, finding such exhilaration at the thought of something linking their two futures together. Hyukjae suggests taking the Tokaido Shinkansen line from Tokyo. He says he‘s been to a beach there before and that Donghae would love it. Donghae feels impressed with his boyfriend’s intelligence.
Donghae also silently wonders if it’s possible to die from such an increased heart rate.
“It’ll only take two hours,” Hyukjae smiles, and they breathe into each others hands to try and thaw the numbness from the flurry of snow dropping all around them.
Even in the obscurity of the poor morning light, Hyukjae's smile is blinding and Donghae tells him that he still can't look away from it, still sees it as dazzling as the gradually rising sun. Hyukjae mumbles that he’s glad Donghae likes his smile, a deep raspberry blush spreading across his cheeks. "Very glad," Hyukjae says, feeling a little more bold.
When they reach the place Hyukjae was leading Donghae to, Hyukjae pulls him to the ground and Donghae can feel ice melting through his trousers. He wails and leaps into Hyukjae’s lap and Hyukjae yells.
Donghae feels a little sorry for himself when Hyukjae tells him to stop acting like a baby, but he’s sure Hyukjae is in more pain than him because Donghae landed on Hyukjae’s knee and as Hyukjae explains, knees that are bent backwards when they are jumped on hurt a lot more than a little ice to the does.
After the calamity, the pair look out towards the distance. The biting wind has blended the clouds into swirls of quintessential raging sky and the snow has not halted in it’s descent since they left Donghae’s house earlier. Donghae opens his palm and watches as a flawlessly unique flake lands on his skin and then melts because of his body heat.
"I brought something for you…" Hyukjae squeezes Donghae’s other hand as his eyes look at the bag placed next to his hip. Donghae is still looking at his palm oblivious and Hyukjae feels cross. "Fine, don‘t have it then." He pulls his hand from between them and looks up at the crystallised ice in the blustery weather.
Donghae begs and waves his hand in front of Hyukjae’s face. Hyukjae says it doesn’t matter and that’s that. Donghae moves onto almost crying now and Hyukjae feels sorry, reaches out, and ghosts his thumb over the curve of his jawbone. The tears in Donghae’s eyes freeze and he whimpers.
“Your fault,” Hyukjae points out.
Hyukjae opens his bag and immediately Donghae’s face brightens. Donghae loves fruit, says he can't think of anything fresher or tangier during their busy days. They place round berries into their mouths, enjoying the small explosion as their teeth bite down into the sweetness.
Their days had passed and merged into one continuous stream of existence. As they sat in the snowfall together, that believed wholeheartedly that that particular day was of no exception.
But it was.
Fraction three; irrevocable
He’d taken Hyukjae’s life. One small action and it was gone.
Fraction four; an incessant nightmare
Donghae had locked away a part of himself. Hyukjae had been taken from him and at the same time, so had his eyes.
At night when he cried himself to sleep, he sobbed over fading images of Hyukjae’s face. He missed his gummy smile, his hugs that swept you up into his soothing body, his love. There was no meaning in life anymore without Hyukjae. Whenever Donghae opened his eyes, there was nothing there, it was almost as if his eyes were permanently open, or maybe even closed. Where was he? What time was it? What was happening to him? Nothing made sense anymore, he wasn’t himself anymore. He was not longer Donghae. He no longer had Hyukjae.
They’d been walking home together, slipping on the pavements covered with a deep covering of ice that looked like icing sugar. They were laughing every time one of them nearly tripped over and they clung onto each others hands to support themselves from doing so. The tips of their fingers were almost numb and the feeling was so peculiar that Donghae had begun to giggle. Hyukjae was pretending to eat the last strawberry out of the bag and Donghae had mewled, clinging onto Hyukjae’s arm trying to look more innocent than he usually did.
Donghae successfully obtained the striking red berry and thought to himself how things were seamless; that this was the carefree life that he had always dreamed of. He had thought the words and was just forming them in his mouth to tell to Hyukjae when there had been a terrible screech.
“Hyuk..“ He began, and then Hyukjae had leapt forward instinctively wanting to protect Donghae. Panicked he had looked around and then that was it. The moment had played as if in slow motion and as the metallic glint of the car reflected in his eyes it was too late.
The end.
Fraction five; a perception of the present
Except it isn’t the end because Donghae wakes up.
Donghae wakes up, but his life feels nothing like living anymore.
Hyukjae had succeeded in protecting him, but as Donghae thinks very late at night, because Hyukjae had saved him, it was his fault that he had died. That hurt him. Hyukjae had placed Donghae’s life at a higher importance than his own, and that wounds Donghae more than not being able to see.
In the early hours of the morning when his body is immobile but his mind refuses to shut down, all he thinks about is Hyukjae.
Hyukjae. Raspberries. Crushing blackness.
For Donghae, Hyukjae had been his life, ever since he could remember he had been there for him. Every time he was lonely, scared or felt like crying, Hyukjae would rush round from his house, halfway across the city and he had been there with his thin frame ready to envelop Donghae into a warm hug and pat his back and comfort him. Hyukjae had given him something to hold onto. Now, with no Hyukjae and no eyes, what could he hold onto? What was his purpose here?
In the cold light of each new day beginning, Donghae detests life more and more. Mornings had been their time, their moment, a link between them. Each sunrise, his agony grows and his mind begins to darken. His sightless eyes fill up with hot tears, and he bows his head, burying his face into the teddy pyjamas Hyukjae had brought him, inhaling the smell of fruit and Hyukjae.
Donghae lets out a silent cry of pain before wrapping his arms around himself, attempting to keep his damaged and shattered body from breaking. All alone in his personal darkness, he brakes down.
He knows that if Hyukjae was here, he would laugh at him and tell him to be quiet. Hyukjae always believed that Donghae was too loud for normal decibel levels, but Donghae continuously told him it wasn’t his fault. Donghae had always tried to be quieter, less emotional and more peaceful.
“Hyukjae…” Donghae’s voice fractures as he reaches blindly for his boyfriend because he can’t stop himself calling for him on impulse. When his hands meet nothing but air, pure inconceivable edgeless air, he still struggles and searches. “I‘m trying...”
“But I remember you, and my peace is lost.” Donghae whimpers.
The emptiness is crushing. Every morning, he wakes up hazy from the day before, a tiny glow of hope inside him that everything will have been created in his head, that Hyukjae is still there, but reality won’t bend to Donghae’s will. Every morning it is as if he freshly discovers the news, as if the entire process is repeated in a cycle every 24 hours. Every morning he wakes up and wishes he could be dead.
But oh, Donghae is so, so alive.
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To those of you lovely people who have read my oneshot
please do comment and let me know what you think of it.
It means the world to me
have a wonderful day!
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