Chapter Text
E P I L O G U E
# YoonA
Guys are like piranhas. It’s like they can’t hang out with a woman without thinking of getting her off her clothes. But they have good qualities too! As, for example, they are almost always light-hearted and hot-headed. They don’t overthink things like us girls usually do.
I mean, I love my girlfriends, but there’s a limit to how much womanly drama I can take.
That’s why when I met HyukJae I immediately took a liking to him. He’s a sensitive guy but still relaxed and easy to hang out with. So that’s what we did.
Later I would discover that was due to the fact HyukJae is gay, but when he ‘came out’ I was already fond of him—and I don’t know, I just don’t seem to mind it the way other people do. Certainly not everyone had the guts to be out in a mostly-homophobic Korea. I even found it interesting. Never having met a gay person before, HyukJae’s love life was a mystery to me, a fascinating one even. I just wanted to know and I never wasted a chance to ask—still do, actually.
“That guy the other night. Are you and him…?” I asked the day after HyukJae ran into his friend (what was his name, Dong… It was Dong something, I’m sure) at the restaurant, a glint of slyness in my tone.
“Dating? Nah” he said casually, but there was something in his eyes, maybe also the hint of a smirk, which made it seem as if he was enjoying an inner joke. “It’s… No.”
I cocked my head to the side and narrowed my eyes at him. That hesitance I recognized. It was the doubt of the one with pending business.
“Let me guess, a thing with an ex?"
“Yeah… sort of” he answered dryly, making clear that was all he had to say about it.
The chick side of me was desperate to ask, but I decided against it. When HyukJae is ready, he’ll tell me, I thought.
So, even if HyukJae has this somewhat secretive side to him, I like him. He’s nice. He understands. He’s a good pal.
We used to go to dinner at nice restaurants, all very distant and proper, but as we got closer we decided to ditch that. So now we try different bars and knock off some beers and it feels so damn good to take off the ‘proper lady’ label as well, even if it’s for just a few hours—I don’t think I would like not having it at all, but a brief rest is always welcomed, right?
“He was a greedy guy” he finally says one day, over a couple of beers in a pretty high-end bar I know on the nicest part of this beautiful small town I grew in. “My ex, I mean.”
I don’t know what motivated him, why he decided that now is a good moment as any, or why was he even thinking about that at all, but I decide to just shut up and listen, which is what good friends need to do from time to time.
“He didn’t just want me to love him, he wanted to own me. Completely. He started messing with what I wore, what I ate, who I saw and what I did. It got to the point where he made me wear this leather bracelet with a GPS” he chuckles darkly. “I guess I just wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment” he shrugged.
I frown, clearly because there is this thing in the way that HyukJae oppa says it as if he’s remembering something funny from a warm past. He seems so… fond of the memory? I think I’d heard all wrong. He had a fucking stalker! How can he talk about it as if he was reminiscing about his high school prom?
“So you broke up with him?” I ask, and I realize my voice is a tad shaky. It’s the alcohol, I figure. The alcohol and the tiredness. It must be.
He stares at the bottle of bear in his hands and shakes his head, sighing heavily.
“I guess you could call it that. One day I decided to change the lock. I got a restraining order. I said… I said he was sick and he should die. He insisted and I… I… I couldn’t… I didn’t handle it-like… at all. Everything… It was so awful. I got him committed. It was—sorry; I just don’t want to talk about that anymore” he pauses and swallows, looking as if a big weight was being pushed upon him as he talked.
“Oh my God, I’m sorry” I said, putting a hand on his should and trying to fix the most sympathetic look I can, although it’s kind of hard when you’ve just heard something as shocking.
“Yeah, me too” he admits, sighing deeply. “If things had been different… so much more could’ve been avoided. Because he was… Special. Timing was off, I guess.”
There is something in his words, though, something that lingers in my brain as I try to figure it out through the rest of our conversation (which, thankfully, moves into lighter territories from then on).
It’s still bothering me when I am driving home, pleasantly buzzed but not out of my mind. His last words keep repeating themselves in my head as I go up my apartment and only when I’m brushing my teeth is that I catch it.
It’s adoration.
HyukJae speaks with adoration and, God help me, love about his abuser. That’s why it’s so weird hearing him talk about it. It’s so wrong.
He hasn’t rehabilitated yet.
And probably, he never will.
The feeling will give me chills every time I think about it, of that I’m so sure it hurts.
I can only hope that they shall never meet again, for HyukJae’s wellbeing’s sake.
# SeoHyun
“Oh, someone’s happy!” I comment as DongHae enters the teacher’s lounge.
Lately he’s been so happy, jumpy and excited and smiley and it just makes my heart swell to see him like that… Except he’s also been ditching us constantly to hang out with his new boyfriend, HyukJae—of whom we’ve only heard about, by the way.
I know it’s not HyukJae’s fault—or maybe it is, maybe he’s a demanding little twinkie who asks for DongHae’s attention 24/7. I try not to be judgmental, I really do, but it bothers you when one of your best friends gets a new piece of ass and just forgets all about his previous friendships. Or perhaps it’s not HyukJae’s fault but DongHae’s. He may be the one attaching himself to this new relationship, consciously or not, and HyukJae just goes along with it.
It occurs to me that I don’t really know any of these things. I’ve never seen DongHae date, or talk about dating or even eye someone with interest.
Whichever one it is, we’ll never find out unless DongHae chooses to dignify us with his presence, now will we?
But however it is, I expected more than this from my friend.
And when we are together–or in the same room, to be fully accurate— like now, DongHae is barely more than a robot who’s constantly connected to his cellphone, typing and smirking and looking completely creepy.
“Are you even listening?!” I shout, not caring if I sound hysteric.
It gets on my fucking nerves.
“Could you cut it with the cellphone already, oppa?” I plead, trying another strategy that was deemed to fail since the beginning.
“No.”
He doesn’t even look up to answer, his voice all serious and no-nonsense like I’ve never heard from him before.
I roll my eyes.
Love really turns guys into dicks.
# KyuHyun
“Curiosity killed the cat.”
It’s a popular saying, isn’t it?
Well, I think it's bullshit.
Curiosity is what drives the world forward. We wouldn’t have electricity, wheels, windows or the full fucking cars if guys all along world history hadn’t been curious at one point or another.
Okay yes, I may be over-excusing my curiosity, but it doesn’t matter. Bottom line, I’m a curious guy.
So when our dear friend DongHae starts disappearing more and more until I realize it’s been three weeks since I last saw him, I start to get real worried—and, okay, (more than) a little curious.
I mean, DongHae’s always been a bit of a question mark for us. It goes a little bit unnoticed because he seems so innocent and charming, always cheerful and optimistic, but the fact is that DongHae is the oldest of our group, and as he never really discusses his life in Seoul (whereas he does share quite a lot about Mokpo) the only plausible assumption is that he has a past.
I could say I’m just worried… But that’s not the whole truth. It’s the most important part of it, of course, but there’s also that bit of pounding nosiness that makes me ask that day—I have to take advantage of the reducing company hours DongHae now gives me, and the whole group for that matter.
“So, what’s the deal with this HyukJae guy? Jessica saw you two making out on the park the other day” I say with a playful wiggle of eyebrows, trying to make it casual and light-hearted.
“Oh, we’re… sort of dating” he says calmly. He acts like it’s no big deal, but oh Lee DongHae I know better. Do you think I’m stupid?
“Good. When are you going to bring him along? We want to officially meet the jewel that monopolizes our little DongHae’s attention” I insist, grabbing his left cheek and pulling it shamelessly. I know it bothers him because of the whole reversed hyung-dongsaeng dynamic, but come on! Mentally I’m like eight years DongHae’s senior. “Come on, why can’t we meet him?”
His eyes harden for a minute, his jaw tightens. It’s a weird expression for DongHae’s face, like a mask that you’d never though he’d wear but that somehow fits perfectly. He looks cold and dominant, and I know the word never is at the tip of his tongue.
Instead he coughs and looks away.
“Uhm… I don’t know. HyukJae’s not much of a people person.”
There’s a way in which he says it, though, something in his tone that makes me translate the sentence as ‘I don’t want HyukJae to be a people person’.
And I get curious. More and more curious. Every time I think about it, it sparks the flame of interest inside of me.
I have to call ChangMin and see what he thinks. If anybody knows something that I don’t, that guy’s the guy to call.
# ChangMin
It’s the only thing I’ve been thinking about the whole week.
DongHae has a psychiatric record. Scratch that. He got sent to an actual psychiatric facility due to court order. That isn’t light shit—nor is anything I had to do to get to DongHae’s life records, but hey, an informatics engineer has to do what an informatics engineer has to do.
…
Okay, so I had to pull some threads and cash out some favors in order to get my hands on it, but I finally got it. I read it that same night; at first I thought I’d only browse through it but I ended up memorizing the thing from cover to cover.
It’s shocking, DongHae’s story. Basically because for thirteen years he was the most normal kid from the most normal family in the world: average grades, same school as his slightly older brother, loving mother and father, very middle class… Then they moved to Seoul and DongHae’s history still seemed to be going on a normal path—up to college. There everything froze up, he was detained by the police with charges of domestic violence and abusive behavior and the only reason he wasn’t incarcerated was because his lawyer made a pledge for disturbed psychological conditions. Which, as guessed, was accepted and so DongHae was interned in May that year, and wouldn’t come out for two complete years. Twenty-four freaking months in full confinement… I just… I had to stop reading to let that sink in. Sure, it wasn’t prison per se but… Being locked up for two whole years, you being freedom-deprived?
Fuck.
Of course this story isn’t documented like that on his files. I pieced it all together from hospital records, school records, and then, of course, medical and police ones as well. There were even a few paper interviews about DongHae’s achievements in Mokpo (he was the captain of his soccer team, and apparently a very successful one), and one report from his junior year in High School when he and four classmates won a regional dance battle championship—one of them was Lee HyukJae, the same guy that years later would turn him into authorities for abuse.
After all that chaos, he finished school and moved to our nice beautiful town. Where he got to know us and befriend us—and betrayed us.
Did he? Betray us, I mean.
It's—It’s not like he lied. In fact, the more I thought about it the more I realized he never has. He just… Omitted, disguised, so that the DongHae we know it’s but a tip of the iceberg. A very dark, heavy and even dangerous iceberg.
Still… It’s not the same as lying, right?
Anyways, I shared the whole thing with KyuHyun, just him, because I knew that he wouldn’t freak out (or at least, wouldn’t act upon it) and also because I kind of needed to get it out of my chest. It’s hard to admit that the shock could later equivalent to fear. Perhaps it’s irrational. Perhaps DongHae isn’t dangerous at all. Perhaps he’s cured. That didn’t and doesn’t help the bad feeling sinking in my gut, nothing can.
“Do you think this is the same HyukJae he’s dating right now? The one that we met at the restaurant that one time…” KyuHyun asked, his voice analytical, and I realized that, yeah, indeed he must be.
Oh, crap.
I’m still thinking about all of this when, thanks to Murphy’s always beloved law, I run into DongHae while walking home from the office. He’s sharing a strawberry ice cream cone with a redhead man about his age and height, wearing a similar nondescript outfit. They look so… together, different but the same, it’s somehow disturbing. Maybe it’s just a fixed predisposition of my brain.
“Hey!” I say, trying to use a normal voice, wear a casual expression. It’s harder than you’d think when you’re observing every single detail in their posture and every twitch of their muscles.
He’s uncomfortable, that much I can tell. He looks everywhere but my direction, yet still keeps an eye on the man I can safely assume is HyukJae. The redhead’s always a step behind him, almost hiding from me and I mentally snort. As if I was the guy he should be hiding from.
“So… How have you been? We’ve missed you” I say, and it’s not a lie. We have.
“Uhm… Busy, I’ve been… Busy.” DongHae mumbles. And I notice he hasn’t introduced either one of us to each other—he doesn’t want to, of course. Why… Well, I can’t fathom, but I’ve figured by now that DongHae might be kind of crazy.
“We have to get together, soon. Do you have any time now?” I offer with the girls in my mind; they miss him and they don’t know a thing. They are worried. They deserve to see him.
DongHae, however, doesn’t seem to miss anybody, to want to know anything, to be worried about anybody, for he only tenses up and looks even more awkward. He doesn’t deserve shit.
“Uhm… Maybe… Some other time... I’ll call you, alright?” DongHae says dismissively and then pulls HyukJae past me, hushing an authoritative hurry, don’t look, let’s go that makes me raise an eyebrow as I blink and think… Oh.
Well... DongHae looks healthy, happy, in good shape.
Okay then.
…Asshole.
# DongHae
I am terrified.
I realized it yesterday afternoon. It was Sunday; we were smoking a cigarette together while listening to that sexy R&B album we both love so much. I was lying across de bed with my head and arms on his perfect torso and he was just resting his upper half on a bunch of pillows. HyukJae’s bed is the best—the dream bed we’d always wanted when we were students but couldn’t afford. Like everything else in his apartment, it matches my desires completely. He looked for my best interests even when we weren’t together, and that’s such a powerful aphrodisiac I can’t help but feel even more attached to him.
His right hand combed my hair gingerly while his left traced patterns on my pecks and stomach. The soft leather of his bracelet tickled softly, in the best of ways, and we were so relaxed we were on the verge of falling asleep.
That was precisely the point. We were cozy and happy and I thought… What if this is taken away from us? What if ChangMin or some of the others call the asylum and have me committed again? I mean, sure, I completed the treatment to its full extent, did everything they requested of me (and how did that work out, eh?) and came out as ‘healthy’—but even after all that, if they found out I am back with HyukJae, that he’s wearing the bracelet again, that we… well, we’re us again, no doubt they could contact the police and the clinic, even if HyukJae claims he’s with me willingly. They’d probably say it’s Stockholm syndrome or some shit like that. People will do anything to make you think you’re crazy when they don’t understand you, it’s in their nature. This is how they deal with the unknown.
However, this is how I got to the realization: we’re not safe here anymore.
“Let’s go somewhere” I whispered, looking up to HyukJae without moving from my position. His fingers stopped moving among my brown locks but didn’t leave my head, his eyes widened and he tilted his head, surely wondering where this had come from.
“Where?”
“Wherever. Let’s leave. Let’s start somewhere fresh…”
My lip quivered, I could feel it. And I couldn’t help but feel like a little lost boy. Before, I would’ve never allowed HyukJae to see me like this, to have me like this. But things have changed; even with all the love we carry for each other it’s impossible for us not to have changed. The important thing is, that after all these changes, all this time, we still like, love, adore each other. Maybe it was in the stars… maybe we are just stubborn, stupid and in love. Who knows?
HyukJae thought about it for… quite a short time, actually. I was expecting full-on silence for the rest of the day, but before I could even get up to make some coffee he spoke again: “Okay. I have money saved up. Let’s buy a car, pack up and go wherever we like.”
“Just like that?” I asked, bewildered.
HyukJae looked around as if I was talking nonsense to someone else in the room.
“Well, did you expect a twelve-step plan or something like that?” he raised a cocky eyebrow and my mouth dropped open.
“Excuse me? Is this how you talk to me now?” I snapped, albeit playfully, turning so I was on top of him, straddling his perfect hips. My fingers wrapped around his wrists and pulled them above his head.
“Are you gonna do something to educate me?” he dared, his voice spicy and so hot it made my skin vibrate.
And I thought, maybe this is better. Maybe I like that HyukJae can play his part yet still challenge me… It keeps things interesting. This grown up version of HyukJae has kept me on my toes since day one. He’s bolder, more confident, and it’s so sexy. Sometimes I look at HyukJae, see the sparkle in his eyes, and I just forget how to breathe—he’s perfect.
And he’s all mine.
“Don’t tempt me.”
But in his lust-glazed eyes and wanton smirk I could see that it was all he wanted.
So that was all about the whole moving subject.
…Until today, Monday, when my boyfriend first thing in the morning brought me some boxes, told me to call in sick to work and start packing.
There isn’t much in my apartment—until HyukJae, I led a simple quiet life, and most of my valuable memories (all of which involve HyukJae) are in the storage room.
We decide to go there only after we’ve packed both our apartments in case we run in to any of the ‘other owners’ (they don’t usually go down there, but who knows if we might be that unlucky), and so we start throwing things in boxes, mainly my books and decorative stuff that I’m fond of (the rest I guess we’ll give to charity for sell or something). There aren’t many memorabilia here either—I don’t keep many family photos, and the ones I do have are in the storage. I do have some of the group, though, the most recent being from KyuHyun’s birthday. They all look so happy in that one, except me. Of course. I was perturbed because I’d just seen HyukJae that night at the restaurant.
I understand that I was never out of his reach, all those years I was merely waiting for HyukJae to come pick me up and pull me away from my slumber state. It had to be him in order for the cycle to be complete, so it can really work out now. It’s always been about him, really; winning him, losing him, trying to forget him, having him back, starting again… It’s always been about Lee HyukJae.
Throw them away I say when he respectfully asks what to do with the photos. I don’t want them anymore. There’s no more ‘them’ when it’s just ‘us’. ‘The future excludes, exceeds, outlives the present’. It’s a philosophical phrase we came up with back in High School, during a homecoming dance. We were high out of our senses, yet we discovered that simple truth of the universe, and we decided that whatever happened from then on, we’d never look back.
And we haven’t, not till this day; we never will.
“I’m glad you went on and became a teacher, Hae. It’s the best thing you could do.” He’s holding one of my marine biology books, the heaviest and best of them all, and running his thin fingers over the cover adoringly.
I snort. “Police, doctors your family and mine would disagree.”
“But you love it, and you’re great at it, and they don’t know what the fuck they are talking about.”
There’s fieriness in his voice, mixed with a hint of sadness, very concealed but apparent at the same time. I turn towards him. “Are you okay? Are you sad? Did you like it here that much? Because we don’t have to move if you-”
“I’m not sad because of me, Hae!” He snaps, chuckling with an incredulous expression on his face. HyukJae is such an open book to me; I can read the subtlety of his emotion-shift as if they were written all over his forehead. That, however, doesn’t mean I can always comprehend the nature of his reactions. “I’m sad ‘cause I feel guilty, okay?”
I frown. I really don’t understand.
“I’m guilty because I’m the reason you have to leave your work, and your new friends, and your new life, and even though I don’t regret a thing that’s happened I still feel guilty because I’m human and that’s what I’m like. I want you to be happy, to have everything, me included. So I feel bad taking stuff away with you, even if we have to do it for our own good.”
I stare at him, mouth slack, letting his words sink in for a moment before a smile slowly stars curving up my lips. I don’t think I’ve done many things right in this life—in all honesty people have called me a childish egoistic monster more times than I can remember. And I’ll be the first one to admit that I haven’t been the best person either. If we did a scale of my deed, it’d certainly be tipped towards de ‘bad side’…
“Come here, you idiot” I whisper, grabbing his face and roughly pulling him towards me to kiss him, to taste his mouth and revel in the chocolate-like flavor of complete adoration.
…So I must’ve been the most honorable most kind person in my past life, because I sure as hell don’t know how I got to be so damn lucky to get the most amazing person in the world to love me so fully as HyukJae does.
# HyukJae
One day, the third day since we’ve started packing to be more precise, DongHae asks me about those eight years he never wanted to hear about before. He says he wants to know now; he wants to travel with me and feel what I felt during that time. He wants to relive it next to me, so we can share it.
Our relationship is different now, but the same still. I mean, it’s the same love, I guess, the same feeling. So even if the power scale is calibrated a bit differently than before, who cares? It’s still my DongHae and I’m still his HyukJae.
We try to keep the pace of the packing going, but soon we start to relent as the words start to come out of my mouth.
“After you were… uhm…” I choose my words carefully, trying not to seem petty about the whole ordeal. “Taken away, I was a mess. I didn’t know who I was, I wanted to forget you but at the same time I didn’t, and I didn’t know how to begin either. It continued to hit me. That year I was pure chaos… I drank, and partied and—you know, the cliché stuff. There’s a reason why it’s a cliché, you know? It’s the easiest way to forget.
“Fuck, I was so stupid, Hae. I was just a kid and I never knew anything different and I though…” Maybe this isn’t normal, maybe the others are right, maybe this will end up killing us, maybe, maybe, maybe… “I thought stupid things and got scared. I shouldn’t have but I…” I take a deep breath, and close my eyes, trying to shy away those uncomfortable memories. “It doesn’t matter anymore, after months of barely living I decided I couldn’t let myself die like that, for that I might as well have killed myself. So I thought about how I could get you back, how we could repair what had shattered so badly.”
I pause, thinking about how to get out the next part, the hardest to admit, the one that I am still dubious if I want DongHae to know about.
“I went to look for you at the mental health clinic.” DongHae’s eyes widen and he gasps, but I continue nonetheless. “They wouldn’t let me see you. They wanted me to start therapy myself. Some crap about post-traumatic disorder due to abuse or whatever—all nonsense. So I ran. I hid myself from my family and friends and focused on completing my studies. As I told you, I switched from pre-med to psychology, not only because of the shorter period and flexibility at work, but also because I… I wanted to understand us better. Everyone seemed so determined to make us feel like mentally deranged… I wanted to know why. I wanted to know how we could make it work.” I smile fondly, looking at him with disgusting gooey eyes I reserve just for him.
“And then I started tracking you down. It wasn’t easy, let me tell you. You cleared your record pretty neatly and moved into the last town I’d search for you.”
He smiles somewhat proudly and I feel like kissing away that sexy smug look from his mouth. “And then I did. I found you and came and took you and now I’m the happiest person on Earth because I have you back with me, where you belong.”
We share a charged look, filled with all the emotions that even though we’ve tried, we’ve failed to express because they simply can’t be communicated through words. DongHae’s expression swifts to something terrible and pained. It stabs my heart with guilt and empathy.
“What’s wrong?” I say, my voice wrecked with worry.
“I love you, I really do but… You had those feelings once… And it was hard, like you don’t even fathom. What if you want to leave me again?” he asks, his voice trembling with so much insecurity I can't bear to listen to him anymore so I pull him into a suffocating embrace that feels searing and scorching, like the most eternal promise ever made.
“That will never happen” I assure him, hugging him against me with all the adoration I have for my DongHae. “I love you.”
He breathes in deeply, sniffing my hair and brushing the nape of my neck with his playful fingertips. Out of nowhere I suddenly remember that when I was a teenager I wished I had met DongHae at Mokpo, when he was a little kid that ran around without worries or prejudices inside his tiny head that would later be messed up beyond repair. In time, that fantasy was buried under other worries, but now that I recall it I look down to the man in my arms and feel tingling warmth spread through my chest. This is the closet I’ll get, I think, to that pure-hearted DongHae I never got to know.
And you know what? It’s enough.
“Okay” he mumbles finally, his voice sounding like a little kid’s who’s just stopped crying. “I love you too, Hyukkie.”
# Jessica
“It’s been a week” I say to KyuHyun-oppa over the phone.
He dismisses it with a casual, “A week is nothing by his new standards.”
So I try not to worry.
“It’s been two weeks” I text ChangMin, using no emojis at all to let him now I’m serious.
He doesn’t reply for a long time—something usual for ChangMin who’s not fond of being glued to his cellphone every waking second, but it still gets on my nerves. When he does answer, it’s with a skimpy “He’s an asshole, give it up, kiddo.”
This time, I can’t help but worry.
“Come on, it’s been three weeks and he hasn’t showed up to school!” I nearly shout that day at our weekly Girl’s Brunch.
Is nobody worrying about him but me? Maybe their resentment is getting in the way of their caring, but it still isn’t right. DongHae’s our friend. We should at least drop in to check on him. What if that HyukJae guy smothered him to death and now our sweet friend is lying lifeless in a ditch?
“Well, they fired him of course” SeoHyun clarifies and I roll my eyes.
“Not that it matters because he doesn’t give a shit, apparently” SooYoung adds, having a sip of the beer it’s totally too early to be having. “Seriously Jess, leave him alone. He’ll come begging when he’s ready. You know how stubborn he can get.”
My mouth hangs open in astonishment. Really, how can I be the only one worried about Lee DongHae?
It’s been four weeks , I tell myself as I use the sparekey I had to beg KyuHyun to give me ( “He isn’t worth it, Jess. He might as well be dead to us” he’d said before caving and handing me the key anyways). You have to do this, be brave I think as I enter the apartment, prepared for the worst but only finding emptiness instead.
Seriously, there’s nothing in here.
No furniture, no appliances, no clothes, just a big empty space that feels cold and humid and I want to run and cry and ask what the hell is going on.
“Oppa?” I try, feeling stupid because it’s clear nobody lives here anymore.
Suddenly it hits me that I’ve only been here twice before, this being the third time, and the realization leaves me somewhat uncomfortable, as if I’m stepping on a line here. I understand that DongHae isn’t my friend anymore, perhaps he never was; perhaps that wasn’t even the real DongHae at all.
It occurs to me that DongHae to us has been like this: only a door that we thought lead to somewhere else, except that when we open it we see that there’s nothing behind it, that DongHae wasn’t even behind the door in the first place. All this information makes my head spin. I feel confused, dazed as I walk around for no reason in particular, feeling chills as my heels click-clack against the tile floor. I rub my arms trying to shoo away the sudden cold that crawls into my skin.
I’m about to leave, when something catches my eye. It’s a book on the kitchen counter, shining against the slick granite. I pick it up because what else I’m going to do in this desolated space that feels like another dimension to me?
It’s opened, as if someone had to leave while they were still going through it. And the page it’s opened at has only one giant picture on it, the faded colors tingling in contrast with the following black page with white text on the other page that claims “Honor Roll” (probably the header to the next section).
The picture shows two boys and, of course, one of them is DongHae.
I raise my eyebrows, impressed. That DongHae must be at least thirteen years younger than the one I met, and is wearing a posh private school uniform that screams money even if it’s all wrinkled, with no tie and sleeves rolled up to the elbows. That DongHae is also blonde , a reddish-cherry blonde that falls in spikes around his pretty face. He’s wearing eyeliner, which emphasizes the predatory look he’s giving the camera. It clashes completely with the sweet, cheerful brunette image I have of my friend. It’s like they are two completely different people. He’s sitting on a bleacher with his legs spread, and one level below there’s a redhead kid between them.
He looks familiar from somewhere, but I can’t pinpoint exactly from where.
The redhead’s giving the camera a sultry look, his plump lips parted as one of DongHae’s hands holds his neck while the other is tangled in the hair of the other teen, pulling it softly and spreading his fingers so you can see the red locks twisted around those slim fingers. The pose is suggestive and possessive and it makes me feel uncomfortable to think that these are High School kids, whatever grade they might’ve been in. To me they look more like wild animals than human beings.
Under the photo there’s one of those typical yearbook funny phrases and quotes, this one announces why there’s a whole page dedicated to these two: ‘ Couple of the Year: Badass Gay Icons Lee DongHae & Lee HyukJae. Most Likely to Survive High School Romance: YES (at least until DongHae goes insane and commits murder-suicide, but you never know.)’ And even though I know it's supposed to be amusing, I can’t help but feel there’s a bit of truth in the statement.
DongHae’s sharp menacing glare confirms it.
I leave the yearbook on the table (I would never take it with me, I couldn’t), and go without looking back, closing the door behind me and not worrying to lock up (the apartment is obviously empty, so why bother).
Maybe the others are right.
Maybe the DongHae we know is dead, and we’ll never have him back.
Maybe… No, not maybe.
He is with HyukJae now.
# T H E E N D
The day is perfect for this drive: sunny but not scorching, with the speed of the car producing a nice breeze that hits their faces, the tires rolling across the asphalt smoothly.
They are such a cliché, driving into the sunset on a luxurious convertible with the top down, but they don’t care. They like to feel as if they were in a movie; they like to feel like a billion Won. And as HyukJae drives the expensive car and DongHae sips on his soda, they relax and for once don’t think about anything. They are just where they need to be right now.
HyukJae bites his lip as he takes the left turn in a narrow intersection of the otherwise monotonous highway. The atmosphere is light and easy, but he knows DongHae still hasn’t forgiven him for what happened the day before.
“I’m sorry I left the yearbook behind. I know you loved that thing.”
DongHae snorts. “I told you to stop looking at it and put it in the box. I told you you’d forget it. You didn’t listen. I don’t like you disobeying, HyukJae. You know that.”
HyukJae rolls his eyes—something he definitely wouldn’t have dared do ten years ago, and then pouts with fake innocence covering his features and making him look quite enticing. “I’m sorry, can I make it up to you in any way?” he says, his right hand sneaking to touch DongHae’s knee and then slowly inching his way up his thigh…
Until DongHae harshly slaps the hand away, the fucker.
“Don’t worry, I’ll punish you later” DongHae replies dryly. From the corner of the eye he sees HyukJae’s cunning grin and inevitably he mirrors it.
In the end, even fuck ups like them can get a decent happy ending if they work for it.
If not, they can always go steal somebody else’s.