Incompleteness of You (1/2); R; Dongwoo/Hoya
Title: Incompleteness of You
Pairing: Dongwoo/Howon
Rating: R
Warning: Character death.
Summary: It starts when they overhear Dongwoo’s parents talking with the doctors in the hallway, when they just come back from the cafeteria of the hospital.
A/N: heavily inspired by the book ‘Before I Die’ by Jenny Downham. go read it, it’s gorgeous. also, i’m not professionally educated about the topic of this fic. i mostly based it from this book, and my own interpretation, so for any mistakes, i’m really sorry.
A/N2: dedicated to whitewires because she made me ship yadong like there’s no tomorrow so please blame all of this to her. i hate you yi lynn. special thanks for eonjekkaji who is always there whenever i broke down and was this close to deleting the whole thing. i love you my kawaii flower cum kitty unnir ♥ and lastly for aurelynn because without her this fic won’t even be legible at all ;_______;
Incompleteness of You
Save me from broken time
Who else has been praying and dreaming
About all the things that could have been done
Tell me everything, look at me and tell me, now please stop
Pray - Sunny Hill
Howon hates Dongwoo.
At least that’s what he has been trying to convince himself to believe as he feels Dongwoo’s fingers tighten around the front of his shirt, pressing against his stomach. He leans forwards, gritting his teeth, and he makes the motorcycle go that little bit faster just so Dongwoo knows that this is a bad idea. Dongwoo’s helmet knocks against the back of his own, and the inside of his ears rings.
“Howon,” Dongwoo yells (or maybe whispers, he has no idea under the roar of the engine). “Hey, Howon!”
“I can’t hear you, hyung,” he yells back, eyes focused on the road. Dongwoo’s fingers soften.
“Thank you,” he hears, and he is now sure he hates him. He makes a sharp turn.
It starts when they overhear Dongwoo’s parents talking with the doctors in the hallway, when they've just come back from the hospital cafeteria. The conversation is low and short, but there are the words death and long and not long enough, and Dongwoo’s fingers tighten against Howon’s wrist. Howon presses their palms together, sweaty against dry and Howon thinks Dongwoo’s skin is a little bit too dry.
The thing is, even though Dongwoo has spent most of his life there, spent all of his youth in the little white room number 6073, he is used to being told that he has hope. That all of their efforts will be worth it, that all the pain he needs to go through during chemotherapy will just be a small bump to get back his health, the health he lost to the cancer cells that have been eating his body away since he was ten.
So when he pulls Howon’s hand in the opposite direction, wills both their gazes away from the scene they were staring at, Howon understands, because Howon has been there, always. Howon understands that Dongwoo is desperate, disappointed, angry, confused, and he wants to help, he really does, so when Dongwoo asks for a pen and some paper, he shoves it at him without a word, stays silent even when Dongwoo is scribbling furiously, sometimes looking at the ceiling, thoughtful. He still doesn’t say anything when a nurse comes in with Dongwoo’s parents, telling him that it’s time to go home. Dongwoo waves and tells him that he’s going to return his pen tomorrow, and Howon leaves.
The next thing he knows, Dongwoo sends him a text. Do any of your friends have a motorcycle?
(He steals the motorcycle from his friend, sneaks the key into his pocket and pretends he doesn’t know what his friend is babbling about when he starts to panic. He promises to stay behind in school while his friends search for it, stealthily walks out to the parking lot when their voices’ are out of reach.
He can hear his friends yelling at him when he leaves, but he doesn’t look back as he drives to the hospital.)
Somewhere between the first and third sharp turns he makes, it becomes more about adrenaline and less about Dongwoo, because Howon is a seventeen-year-old boy and he likes the excitement the speed brings him, likes the way his blood courses faster in his veins, likes the way the wind grazes his lips and chin and shoulder, and he almost forgets that Dongwoo is behind him, chest pressing against his back, heartbeat going faster and faster. Howon doesn’t realize it, but Dongwoo closes his eyes so tight they’re going to burst when he speeds up even more, too much, too dangerous, too-
“How-,“ is the last thing he heard before the tires screech against the road, loud and high and deafening and there’s a moment when he grips Dongwoo’s hand before he gets flung ten feet into the air, thrown away from the spinning motorcycle in the middle of the road. His back hits the pavement with a loud crack, a sharp pang, and he hisses.
There are stars, and he thinks he smells blood. Blood.
“Dongwoo,” he says, his lips moving, but his entire body is numb. He looks to the side and not two meters away from him is Dongwoo, lying with his chest moving up and down rapidly, eyes closed. Howon crawls over. “Dongwoo,” he says again, and there’s blood from his nose, from his temple, from his feet, from-Howon holds his hand. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he says, even though his voice can barely be heard. He opens his eyes to meet Howon’s, full of pain but still grateful. “Geez, Howon, you should have told me if you were going to do that.”
Howon reaches into his pocket for his phone, fortunately still usable even with a broken screen. He dials the hospital’s number. “Sorry,” he tries to grin, even though his head is pounding. “Wait, okay, we’ll be fine.”
“I’m fine,” Dongwoo says again, gritting his teeth and wincing. “Gosh, you’re bleeding.”
Howon turns back and sees red, but pays no attention to it. “I’ll be okay,” he replies carelessly, telling whomever picked up where he is; he throws his phone away once the frantic nurse tells him the ambulance is on its way. “Wait, okay. Stay with me.”
Dongwoo’s eyes are half-closed. He bites his tongue. “I’ll try,” he coughs, and Howon finds that Dongwoo isn't moving, not even ten seconds later.
Regret always comes too late, they all say, and Howon couldn't agree more as he holds Dongwoo’s hand tight, waiting for the ambulance to come. The blood doesn’t stop. The back of his shoulder is pounding. Dongwoo’s pulse slows down.
Howon prays.
It’s not supposed to be like this. Howon is supposed to sit beside Dongwoo’s bed right after he’s finished with his classes, doing his homework quietly as Dongwoo chatters about the new drama he'd found while surfing channels out of boredom. He’s supposed to give short comments and laugh at the right moment until he’s done with whatever assignments he needs to hand in the next day. He’s supposed to share anecdotes from school with Dongwoo before a nurse comes and tells them that it’s time for Dongwoo to undergo another test. Howon is supposed to eat at the cafeteria for at least half an hour, until Dongwoo calls his name, his face paler but his smile just as bright.
It’s supposed to be another normal afternoon, spent at the hospital. It’s not supposed to be the day where Howon is sure that he’s going to get killed when the doctors come out from the emergency room with tired faces, some nurses glaring at him. He bites the inside of his cheek.
One of the doctors approaches him. “You’re bleeding too.”
“I’m fine,” he answers, almost automatically. The back of his shoulder burns, but, “Is he okay?”
“He will survive,” the doctor gives him a reassuring smile, “it’s not that bad. He's just lost a lot of blood, but there’s no internal injury. He can go back to his room after the drug wears off and he regains consciousness.”
“Oh,” Howon nods. “Okay.”
The doctor suddenly moves forward, presses an insistent hand against his shoulder. His bones shift painfully when he steps back, and he would've hit the doctor by instinct, if his arm didn't feel so heavy. Why the fuck is his arm so heavy anyway. “You’re bleeding a lot too, Howon.”
Howon is about to give him the same repetitive answer, about to tell the doctor that he's perfectly fine, that he doesn’t even feel anything, but then the doctor pulls his hand back and it’s red, droplets trickling between his fingers, dirty and smelly and sticky and Howon thinks, oh. He hears a yell and a loud crack when his back makes contact with the cold tiles of the floor, before the world turns dark.
It turns out Howon needed seventeen stitches across the back of his right shoulder, and his shoulder blade has cracked in some parts. Dongwoo cries when he apologizes, but Howon just tells him that at least this way, he doesn’t have to do his homework or sit for his mid-semester exams.
His friend calls and yells at him about the broken motorcycle, but he tells him about his injury and that shuts him up.
Howon sees The List again three weeks after that, when he can finally change his clothes without groaning in pain. “I thought you’re sorry about making me not able to write for two weeks.”
“I thought you said it’s fine,” Dongwoo replies, frowning, “and I am. What’s that supposed to do with anything?”
Howon shrugs. It hurts his neck, but he simply stares at the paper in Dongwoo’s hand. “That’s the little piece of shit that started the disaster.”
“Stop being so rude,” Dongwoo chucks an eraser at him. Howon doesn’t even know where he'd gotten it, but he bends down to pick it up anyway.
When he looks up and puts the piece of white elastic on Dongwoo’s lap, Dongwoo is staring at him with a melancholic expression. “What,” Howon asks (and Dongwoo's close all of a sudden, very close). Dongwoo pinches the bridge of his nose.
“You groaned just now,” Dongwoo says, trying really hard to look like it’s not a big deal. But his hand moves slowly against Howon’s cheek, caressing, a silent apology. “Does it hurt?”
Howon reaches up and ruffles Dongwoo’s hair. “A little,” he shrugs, lying but not really. He just doesn’t want Dongwoo to burst into tears again, he reasons, because it’s not entirely his fault in the first place anyway. “I’ll be fine.”
Dongwoo smiles, before his expression turns smug the next second. “Good,” he says, “because I’m going to need you for this.”
Howon groans then. “Not again,” he pushes Dongwoo’s head away, earning a glare. “I’m not going to do it.”
“I haven’t even told you what is it,” Dongwoo protests.
“I can guess,” Howon scowls, an ugly frown marring his expression. “Clubbing? Smoke? Drugs? Girls?”
Dongwoo stares at him hard, before he huffs and lets himself fall onto his pillow. “Shut up.”
“You’re kidding,” Howon says, his eyes widen in mild shock, “you have them in your list?”
“I didn’t even say anything!”
“Your face says it all,” Howon pulls a chair and sits down, his eyes still burning holes in Dongwoo’s forehead. “Seriously though, hyung. I’m not going to help you with them.”
“But you’re my best friend, Howon,” Dongwoo whines as he kicks Howon’s elbow, propped up on the side of bed, “you’re supposed to support and help me through everything.”
“Best friends don’t let their best friends do things that can kill them, hyung,” Howon deadpans, as if he’s trying to teach a little boy that he just can’t eat those colorful crayons, no matter how delicious they look.
“Yeah, well,” Dongwoo rolls his eyes, “I’m dying anyway, so what’s the point.”
Howon stops midway, his mouth open as what he’s about to say dissipates into the air, disappears with the wind. Dongwoo’s face looks horrified, as if he has just turned over a forbidden card, and maybe he just did. He bites his lips and swallows air (swallows silence punctuated with awkwardness), and Howon looks at his Adam’s apple bobbing, his throat dry. He clenches the fist in his lap, knuckles turning white, fingernails digging so deep crimson scars began to bloom on his skin. He leans back in his seat.
“I’m sorry,” Dongwoo finally says, “that was uncalled for.”
You’re an idiot, Howon thinks, but replies, “It’s okay.”
The sky is turning a deep shade of orange, and it hurts Howon’s eyes. He stands up and walks towards the window, closing it. “What’s next on your list?” Howon asks, his tone calm, and he must say that he’s doing a good job acting as if his mind is not a jumbling storm. “I’ll help if I can.”
Howon thinks that if he had a knife, he could've cut through the tense air in the room. He doesn’t even understand why, but Dongwoo looks like he’s about to pass out. He moves closer to the bed just in case. “It’s-they’re stupid,” Dongwoo settles, looking at the crumpled paper in his hand, shoving it under his pillow. “I’m stupid. Just forget it.”
Howon sighs. “I’ll do it.”
“I don’t want you to,” Dongwoo retorts, shaking his head. “Forget it, let’s do something else.”
“Hyung.”
“Howon.”
“I’ll do it, okay,” Howon grips his wrist, not too tight but not too loose, and Dongwoo cringes. He can feel the pulse against his skin, their skin. “I mean, you’re right. I’m your best friend, and-I should support you. I shouldn’t argue with you, it’s unfair for you. I should just, I don’t-“
The fingers of Dongwoo's other hand curl against Howon's. “Just because I’m dying,” he says slowly, pushing Howon’s fingers away from him, “doesn’t mean we can’t argue, you know.”
Howon keeps his expression straight. “You’re not dying,” he says, and moves on. “I’ll help you, what is it?”
The seconds when Dongwoo’s eyes are on him are long and excruciatingly painful, but the older boy finally gives up and pulls the paper out, unfolds it without a sound. “Fine,” Dongwoo says, “Whatever.”
“Good,” Howon answers, an unsaid question.
Dongwoo studies it for a while, before he takes a deep breath. “Are you sure,” Dongwoo asks weakly, not because he’s mad, but more because he’s embarrassed. Howon places a hand on his knee, reassuring.
“I am,” he says, and Dongwoo bites his lower lip.
“It’s kissing.”
A click. “What?”
Dongwoo groans, “Please don’t make me say it again.”
“Okay, sorry,” Howon quickly says, pulls his hand and scratches the back of his head awkwardly. “Uh, okay.” Dongwoo looks at him expectantly. Howon clears his throat. “Okay, a kiss, huh. Do you, uh, do you have any specific person you want to kiss?”
Dongwoo laughs, almost shy. “No, I guess not.”
“So you’ll be fine with a random person?” Howon notices how his voice goes a little higher. He rubs his nose. “Anyone?”
Dongwoo shrugs. “Maybe not exactly anyone,” Dongwoo slowly explains, his shoulder slumping. “Someone I know would be nice, but I don’t know any girl, so.”
Howon blinks. “It has to be a girl?”
Dongwoo turns to him, his eyebrow raised. “Are you going to suggest what I think you’re going to suggest?” He doesn't pose the question with surprise, just curiosity. Howon gulps.
“I don’t know,” Howon replies, his mind blank. “What do you think I’m going to suggest?”
The way Dongwoo looks at Howon, it almost seems to turn something in Howon’s mind, his stomach. He doesn’t even realize it when Dongwoo raises his hands and touches the collar of his uniform, fixing it so slowly it’s agonizing. His skin brushes against Howon’s jaw, and their eyes don’t leave the other. Howon touches Dongwoo’s elbow unconsciously. Almost.
“You,” Dongwoo says, his movement slowing down. Howon takes a step closer. “You’re going to kiss me.”
It’s a statement, but it sounds like a question. Something like a demand. Howon lets his tongue move along his lower lip. Dongwoo’s eyes follow. “Do you want me to?”
Dongwoo pulls him in.
The moment before their lips touch, an alarm goes off in Howon’s mind. He tilts his head to the left out of instinct, but his breath and his brain stop working because he’s about to cross the line between best friends and something else entirely different, and it’s moving too fast, and Dongwoo has his eyes closed, and Howon is ready to shove him away and run.
The moment their lips brush, fire rages somewhere inside Howon, something that makes his insides tingle and burns in a way he doesn't think he dislikes. Dongwoo moves as if he has done it before (he hasn’t, Howon knows), and Howon almost closes his eyes, but.
He pulls back three seconds later.
“I need to-,” go, do something, do anything, away, but his words get stuck in his throat when he sees Dongwoo’s eyes, dark and clouded and he can see his own gaze reflected in them, just as bad. Bad. This is bad, Howon thinks, and pats Dongwoo’s chest. “See you tomorrow.”
He almost leaves his bag and hits the door when he walks out, but Dongwoo doesn’t call out to him. He dashes towards the elevator and rubs the back of his hand against his lips, far too hot.
The next one is sex, Dongwoo texts, and Howon quite literally throws his phone to the other side of the room, screaming.
Howon's standing in front of Dongwoo’s room before he even realizes it. It’s like a routine his body has memorized, and even though he's sworn in his mind that he’s not going to visit Dongwoo for at least, oh, he doesn't know, forever, he stares through the paneled glass (Dongwoo likes to think it's a window) to see Dongwoo’s sleeping figure on the bed.
Shit, he thinks, but opens the door and comes in anyway.
Turns out, Dongwoo is not even asleep, because he sits up almost immediately when his eyes catch Howon’s. None of them break the silence, though, and it’s so awkward that Howon wants to break something. “Hi,” he waves.
Dongwoo doesn’t smile. His gums look too big for his mouth when he doesn’t smile. “Hi,” Dongwoo nods. “Did you get my text?”
Straightforward and to the point. “Yeah.” Howon throws his bag to the sofa.
“I don’t mind random people this time,” Dongwoo suddenly tells him, and Howon tears his eyes away from his fingers that have been picking at the edge of Dongwoo’s bed the whole time they've been talking. Dongwoo looks determined, stubbornly so. “I mean, the last time didn’t go so well, so. I don’t want it to happen again. I don’t want this to happen again.”
Howon wants to throw up. “Of course I’ll do it,” Howon says, feeling like a stubborn child. He doesn’t really care. “I’m not giving you a stranger, hyung.”
“Are you going to be okay then,” Dongwoo gestures with his hand, and Howon wants to catch and hold it. He keeps his hand tangled in the bed sheet. “With us doing-that. With that.”
Maybe not. “If it’s you,” Howon forces himself to say, “maybe I’ll be fine.” And it’s not a lie, Howon realizes, because he knows that if Dongwoo wants to do it, he won’t let anyone else to be with him. It’s selfish of him, and it feels like there’s a dark spot in his heart. Dongwoo doesn’t deserve it, but Dongwoo won’t listen to him either. Howon just knows.
Dongwoo doesn’t look convinced. “We don’t have to do it.”
This, again. “I want to,” Howon insists. He still doesn’t look at Dongwoo.
But Dongwoo pretends he doesn’t hear the uncertainty in Howon’s voice. He laughs instead, that genuine one, the one Howon hadn't heard the other day, the one Howon misses. Howon doesn’t know he can miss Dongwoo’s laughter when it's only been a couple of hours since he'd last heard it. It’s scary, how attached he is. “Do it with me?”
“Shut up,” Howon snaps, his ears burning. Dongwoo laughs louder, but Howon holds their gaze, so he quiets down almost immediately. “When,” he asks, slightly ashamed.
It seems like Dongwoo notices, because when he speaks, he’s grinning. Howon wants to hit him, because it should be the other way around. He shouldn’t be the one being the maiden, shy and embarrassed and awkward. It annoys him, so he hits Dongwoo’s thigh, just because. Dongwoo chuckles. “The next time I’m home, then,” he answers cheekily.
Howon’s brain turns almost immediately, flipping the calendars and dates and months and he tries to remember Dongwoo’s schedule of going home. It should be in three weeks. Three weeks. Shit, Howon thinks for the second time when he’s there. His chest hurts, his heart is pounding a little too loudly, ringing in his ears, and he keeps his lips straight.
He turns a second too late, and Dongwoo sees the worry. The panic. Dongwoo retracts his hand.
“Okay,” he says, and there’s a warning in his voice. “That’s enough. Are you done being like this?”
“Like what,” Howon pretends.
But Dongwoo is not a fool. “Like this,” he says, and Howon jolts back when Dongwoo’s hand makes contact with his cheek, cold against cold and sweaty against dry and Howon wishes he doesn’t do that, but, “If you can’t even stand me holding your hand, the deal’s off. I’d rather have you buying me - I don’t know - a box of cigarettes or something. Or marijuana. I’m sure you can find it somewhere.”
Howon chokes. “You have that crap in your list?”
“Had,” Dongwoo corrects, but he doesn’t look like he regrets it, “that’s beside the point though.”
Howon pinches the bridge of his nose, disapproving. “I’m not letting you touching any of those things.”
“But you-“
“No,” he opens his eyes, and Dongwoo closes his mouth. “I said I’ll do it, and that’s that. Now you should shut up.”
The clock ticks, and the air between them thickens. Dongwoo reaches out, and Howon feels sorry. He meets it halfway, his lips shut. “Howon,” Dongwoo says, his voice soft. “I’m your best friend.”
“I know,” Howon replies, just as quiet.
“You should talk to me,” Dongwoo tells him, abnormally patient.
Howon bites his tongue. “I am.”
Dongwoo bends down, catching his eyes. “And look me in the eye when we’re talking.”
Ugh, he thinks, but he turns and looks at Dongwoo. Finally. He pulls down the bubble moving up his throat. “I am.”
Dongwoo sighs. “Look, if this is about-“
“It’s nothing,” Howon cuts him off, immediately feels stupid when Dongwoo gives him The Look. He clears his throat. “I mean, I’m just trying to help.”
It’s crystal clear that Dongwoo doesn’t believe him, but Dongwoo is Dongwoo and he doesn’t like making other people’s lives hard. Not intentionally anyway. So Dongwoo sighs and lets himself fall back onto the pillow, and mumbles, “Okay,” as if he means it. “Fine, then. Can you call the nurse? I want to sleep, so I need my medication now.”
Howon wants to tell him that he’s not going to be able to come for the next week, or maybe ever, because he has that school festival to organize and friends to hang out with and a girlfriend to date (lies, all lies), but Dongwoo has already closed his eyes, and he figures he will understand anyway. “Sure,” he says instead, patting the other’s forehead, “sleep well, hyung.”
The call comes three days after.
It’s a private number, and Howon is on his way to his dance practice, hands tapping his thighs along with the drumbeats from his earphones when his phone vibrates in his back pocket, startling him. He jumps a little in his seat, earning an unappreciative glare from the old man beside him, and without really looking at the caller’s ID, he flips his phone open, bowing in apology before, “Hello?”
“Howon,” he can hear Dongwoo says, and it sounds a little out of this world, his typical voice after he has just undergone more therapy, more tests, and it alarms him. “Howon, we have an emergency.”
“Emergency,” Howon repeats, his voice shaking. He clears his throat, “Hyung, did you just finish your therapy?”
“What? Yeah, why did you ask? That is beside the point, Howon, I’m trying to tell you something here.”
Dongwoo is always weird, but he sounds distracted and annoyed and Dongwoo is never annoyed, so it pushes Howon to ask, “Are you okay, hyung?”
The line is quiet then. There’s static and it makes Howon’s ear hot, and he realizes that it's begun to rain. He’s three stops away from his destination. “I don’t know,” Dongwoo answers, timid and scared, but he sounds painfully honest. “Will you come?”
Three stops away. “I’ll be there,” Howon answers, a beat too late, but he knows Dongwoo is satisfied.
Dongwoo sits with his back to the door, staring out the open window, watching the raindrops. Howon wants to tell him that he’s going to get the floor wet, but there’s something that makes him shut his mouth, even when he puts his bag down on the unmade bed. There’s an IV connected to Dongwoo’s right wrist, clear liquid fusing with his blood, something that is supposed to make him better. Dongwoo's gripping the pole connected to the tubes (far too tightly, Howon thinks), and Howon touches it quietly.
It doesn’t startle him; it’s as if he has expected it. “Hey,” Dongwoo grins at the rain, and Howon traces the shape of his knuckles.
“What emergency,” Howon says, and Dongwoo tenses.
“It’s nothing important, I don’t think,” Dongwoo laughs, and the way it’s forced is obvious, so obvious that it’s unnerving. A knot forms at the pit of Howon’s stomach, something that happens every time he thinks Dongwoo is trying too hard. “I’m overreacting.”
“What is it,” Howon says, quick and insistent (hasty and too concerned). He tugs at Dongwoo’s wrist, turning the older boy towards him slowly, and when Dongwoo catches his eye, his gaze is worried and pained and there's something dark, something he can’t quite put a finger on. “Tell me,” he demands, quiet determination.
Dongwoo licks his lips. “You won’t judge me,” he says, voice nervous.
“I won’t,” Howon promises.
Dongwoo fidgets, clearly thinking too much. Overthinking has never been something that Dongwoo does, and he’s about to tell this to him just to cut the tension, but Howon gulps down any words he has teetering on the edge of his tongue because Dongwoo looks terrified. He wants to smoothen that frown, to tell Dongwoo that it'll all be okay and that he's ridiculous for worrying like this. “Okay,” he says, finally, and Howon braces himself for the worse. “Okay. It’s-I’ve told you it’s nothing, but. It’s just. It’s bound to happen, you know? I’ve read and watched it somewhere, that people like me will have it eventually, but-“
“Wait,” Howon cuts him, frowning, “people like you?”
Dongwoo shrugs. “People with cancer.”
“Oh,” he replies. “I see.”
“Yeah,” Dongwoo continues, and so, so subtly, pulls his hand away from Howon’s touch. Howon notices, but he doesn’t do anything. “It’s-yeah.”
Howon raises an eyebrow when he hears the finality in Dongwoo’s voice. “I don’t think I get it.”
Dongwoo groans. “This is frustrating.”
“You are frustrating,” Howon retorts, taking a step back. “Seriously, just-“
“I’m losing my hair,” Dongwoo cuts.
Breathe, breathe. Oh. “Oh,” Howon says.
Dongwoo smiles weakly. “Oh,” he chuckles sadly.
“I don’t see why it’s an emergency,” Howon says, and there’s something in the way Dongwoo looks down at his fingers that makes him raise a hand to touch the tip of his sideburn. It’s getting long, three months of not visiting the barber. “You’re overreacting.”
“Told you,” Dongwoo replies, still not looking at Howon’s eyes.
“Hyung,” he tries again.
“I know, Howon.”
“No, you don’t,” Howon insists, “you don’t understand. It won’t change anything between-anything. It will be the same. Everything will stay the same. You have nothing to be worried about.”
That does it. Dongwoo turns then, finally meeting his eyes, and Howon gulps a handful of air. He doesn’t realize it, but his hand is now cupping Dongwoo’s cheek. He can lean in and pretend that it’s just the moment. He doesn’t. “Nothing?”
I still want to kiss you. “Nothing,” Howon reassures.
“So you won’t back out from our deal?”
Now that, he doesn’t expect. “Is that what you’re worried about?” Howon splutters, taking his hand away in shock and annoyance, “that I won’t have sex with you if you have no hair? Seriously, hyung?”
“It’s just--” Dongwoo says, looking embarrassed. At least he has the dignity to look embarrassed, because Howon is petrified. “I mean, it’s not the only thing, but… yeah, it’s one of it.”
Howon gapes. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Well,” Dongwoo’s eyes suddenly turn bright, questioning, “will you?”
Will he? The question punches Howon in the stomach, because it’s a question he’s supposed to fucking fumble with, to find hard to answer (and his decision comes even before he gives it any thought, faster, easier than he'd expected). Howon knows he’s not supposed to not think about it, because after he agrees, it will change, probably, everything between them, whether they want it or not. Howon doesn’t think about it, but when Dongwoo questions it out loud, it makes him pause because, will he? Risk everything they have? Let him lose himself? Because if their previous kiss started a fire, Howon is not sure if he wants to know what sex can start.
Dongwoo stares at him, waiting. Howon’s lips tremble. Love, his heart answers quietly, but Howon pretends he doesn’t hear it. “Of course I will,” he says eventually, “I’ve promised.”
That is a lie, he knows, because maybe it’s not the reason at all. Dongwoo doesn’t need to find out that he’s hiding behind the pretense, though. Dongwoo doesn’t need to know anything. “Okay,” Dongwoo sighs, sounding relieved, “good.”
“Yeah,” Howon shrugs, pushing his hands into his pocket. “Good.”
Dongwoo is allowed to go home the next day. Howon is pretty sure there had been a lot of sucking up and begging involved on Dongwoo’s part, probably to make sure Howon doesn’t back out or anything, but Dongwoo is coming home and Howon waits for him in front of his house, feeling stupid as he holds a bouquet of flower his mother had insisted he bring as a welcome gift.
Which is so stupid in many ways, but the bright green color reminds Howon of Dongwoo, so he brings it anyway.
Dongwoo grins widely when Howon pushes the bouquet into his hands the moment he gets out of the car. “How romantic,” he teases, sniffing the flowers, eyes glinting in silent laughter.
Howon rolls his eyes. “Tell that to my mom,” he snaps, and Dongwoo laughs. It’s been a while, so Howon laughs along.
He sits on the edge of Dongwoo’s bed as the older boy fumbles with his little duffle bag, the only thing he brings to and from the hospital. “What do you even bring from that place,” Howon asks, not really expecting an answer, because he can see Dongwoo taking out some plushies and books, things he tells Howon to bring or buy when he gets bored, nothing too important.
Dongwoo’s sly smile begs to differ though. “Guess,” he sings, and Howon blinks.
“What,” he says.
“Guess what I have in here,” Dongwoo says, his face clearly amused.
Howon plays around with one of his plushies. “I bet it’s irrelevant to me, anyway.”
“On the contrary,” Dongwoo frowns, and throws his now half-empty bag to him. Howon catches it mid-air, chuckling at Dongwoo’s face as he opens the zip, and-
“What the,” Howon almost curses, and Dongwoo bursts into laughter. “Where did you even get this?”
“That’s a secret you shall never know,” he says, and Howon is kind of grateful because he definitely doesn’t want or need to know where Dongwoo got a bottle of lube and a pack of condom. Nope, no, thank you. Dongwoo rips them out of Howon's hands and throws it to the other side of the room, that ugly scowl still on his face. You’re ugly, Howon wants to say, but Dongwoo beats him to it. “You should've seen your face just now, it was hilarious.”
“Shut up,” Howon kicks his shin.
“Ow!” Dongwoo yells in exaggeration, falling onto one knee and rolling around the floor dramatically. “This is abuse! I can’t believe you'd do this to a sick person! You’re so low, Howon!”
“I’m going to smother your face with your plushie and it won’t exactly be the most painless of deaths,” Howon tells him calmly.
“Now a threat,” Dongwoo sighs, “I wonder why I have such a heartless person as a bes-Wait, I’m kidding, it’s a joke! Howon!”
By the time they’re done with dinner, Howon is pretty sure he’s going to explode.
Howon has no idea if it’s him being too sensitive about their whole ordeal, about the fact that they’re going to finally do it at the end of the day, but it seems like everything Dongwoo does to him, around him, are on purpose.
Like that time when Dongwoo knocks a glass of water and spills it all over Howon’s lap. The way Dongwoo wipes the water from his crotch, seemingly missing the wet spots as he rubs the piece of cloth he takes from the kitchen all over; Howon wants to hit him on the head, if only Dongwoo’s parents and sister weren't looking at him sympathetically. Or that time when Howon feels fingers around his knee, fondling, and when he turns to Dongwoo, he’s laughing at something his dad's said, before turning expectantly to Howon. When he realizes the whole table is smiling at him, he forces out a laugh, pushing Dongwoo’s hand away. Dongwoo raises an eyebrow at him, and puts his food in his mouth.
Howon is probably going mad. It’s a possibility too.
Howon flips his phone close, his mother’s usual ramble every time he stays over still ringing in his head, when Dongwoo pushes the door open, a towel slung over his shoulder. He distracts himself from Dongwoo’s red lips, fresh after brushing his teeth, and stares at his forehead instead. “Are you done?”
“Yeah,” Dongwoo says, walks over to the duffel bag he threw away earlier, putting it on the bed. Howon flinches. “Are you?”
“Sure,” Howon answers, and then nothing. It’s awkward as hell, and Dongwoo stands there as if he’s waiting for Howon to say something, to initiate anything, and Howon hates how Dongwoo is always so expectant, always sure that Howon has everything under control, because he doesn’t. Now is one of those times. “I, we. Okay.”
Dongwoo sits down beside him then. “This is awkward.”
Howon chuckles. “Tell me about it.”
“We don’t have to do this,” Dongwoo says, and Howon turns so fast he’s sure he'd broken something. Dongwoo looks stunned too, like he doesn’t expect the words he's just uttered. Maybe he doesn’t. “I mean, if we’re going to be awkward after this, I don’t want to do this.”
“We’re not going to smoke or do drugs,” Howon says.
Dongwoo rolls his eyes and punches his upper arm. “That’s not what I meant.”
Howon laughs then, because the entire situation is ridiculous, because he is ridiculous, because Dongwoo is, and it doesn’t really matter, does it? They will still be them, and that’s all that they need to know. Something will change, that’s inevitable, but so be it. They will still be Howon and Dongwoo, Dongwoo and Howon, and he thinks that’s more than enough. More than anything.
“I know,” Howon whispers, silent. There’s a silent promise there, and he cups Dongwoo’s cheek. “I know,” he says again when Dongwoo is wide-eyed. He leans in, and there’s fire.
“Wait, wait,” Dongwoo pushes his shoulder, and Howon grits his teeth, his shoulder hurting. Dongwoo presses an apologetic hand against his scar. “Sorry.”
“What,” Howon says, almost impatiently, his eyes unfocused, and he thinks he should probably be more respectful, that he should listen to what Dongwoo has to say, but Dongwoo’s knee between his thighs is not helping. At all. He shifts uncomfortably. “What is it?”
“Just,” Dongwoo fists the collar of his shirt, his fingers tight. Trembling. Howon looks at the blush across his nose. “I, uh. I’m skinny.”
Howon blinks. “Okay,” he says, unsure of where Dongwoo wants to bring the (unnecessary) conversation. “I’ve seen your body before though, so it’s not exactly something new.”
“It’s different,” Dongwoo insists, and he sounds so persistent that Howon sits back. “I mean, i just. I don’t have the best body. Or experience. It-it will suck. I don’t want it to be, but I know it would. You-you shouldn’t be doing this, but I don’t want you to stop. It feels good, but-“
“Hyung,” Howon cuts him off, “please shut up.”
Dongwoo sighs heavily then, pulling Howon back down. “You don’t understand, do you?”
Howon turns to press a kiss at the corner of his mouth. “I do,” he says, and slips a hand inside Dongwoo’s shirt. Dongwoo sucks in a breath. His ribs seem to constrict under Howon’s fingertips.
“Howon,” he says, and Howon tells him that he’s beautiful.
Howon doesn’t think he can take it, and he feels bad that he cannot hold his own promise, but.
When they finally do it, slow and dirty and messy in Dongwoo’s room, it is more intense than Howon thought it would be. Which is not exactly a bad thing, because Dongwoo holds his gaze even when he whimpers as Howon pushes in, fingers tracing patterns and promises against his chest, a hand tight against the scar on his shoulder, and it’s all kind of perfect and breathtaking, but it scares him, for some reason. Dongwoo searches blindly for his hand and arches his hips up, and Howon’s mind tells him to run away, and it’s not normal, because this is one of the things in Dongwoo’s list, and as a good best friend, he is supposed to help him. That’s what best friends do, Howon reasons.
But then Dongwoo moans, a muffled and high-pitched Howon-ah against his neck, and Howon thinks, oh. Because he kind of wants to kiss him and make him scream and fuck him slower just to make this, this, last longer, and Howon knows that they’re not what best friends would think if they happen to have sex. He’s not supposed to think that they’re making love. Howon understands that much.
So when stars burst against his eyelids, he bites his tongue to hold the hyung inside his mouth, and there’s a shiver running down his spine. He can feel Dongwoo’s heavy breathing against the back of his ear, their hearts bumping against each other's under their skins, and all Howon wants to do is to close his eyes and sleep.
(Something is changing, shifting.)
He doesn’t. Instead he pushes himself up and away, away, laughing that they are sticky and gross and sweaty and that Dongwoo stinks. His best friend looks hurt, but Howon ignores him to look for something to clean them up.
Howon is halfway into his pants when Dongwoo opens his mouth, a careful “Howon-ah,” and he’s not sure if he should answer or pretend he cannot hear him. He pulls the zipper up and picks up his shirt, draped on the stack of CDs in a corner of Dongwoo’s room.
“I’ll be around,” he says, and doesn’t look back. He doesn’t wait for an answer either, and once the door is closed, he runs.
>>
Pairing: Dongwoo/Howon
Rating: R
Warning: Character death.
Summary: It starts when they overhear Dongwoo’s parents talking with the doctors in the hallway, when they just come back from the cafeteria of the hospital.
A/N: heavily inspired by the book ‘Before I Die’ by Jenny Downham. go read it, it’s gorgeous. also, i’m not professionally educated about the topic of this fic. i mostly based it from this book, and my own interpretation, so for any mistakes, i’m really sorry.
A/N2: dedicated to whitewires because she made me ship yadong like there’s no tomorrow so please blame all of this to her. i hate you yi lynn. special thanks for eonjekkaji who is always there whenever i broke down and was this close to deleting the whole thing. i love you my kawaii flower cum kitty unnir ♥ and lastly for aurelynn because without her this fic won’t even be legible at all ;_______;
Incompleteness of You
Save me from broken time
Who else has been praying and dreaming
About all the things that could have been done
Tell me everything, look at me and tell me, now please stop
Pray - Sunny Hill
Howon hates Dongwoo.
At least that’s what he has been trying to convince himself to believe as he feels Dongwoo’s fingers tighten around the front of his shirt, pressing against his stomach. He leans forwards, gritting his teeth, and he makes the motorcycle go that little bit faster just so Dongwoo knows that this is a bad idea. Dongwoo’s helmet knocks against the back of his own, and the inside of his ears rings.
“Howon,” Dongwoo yells (or maybe whispers, he has no idea under the roar of the engine). “Hey, Howon!”
“I can’t hear you, hyung,” he yells back, eyes focused on the road. Dongwoo’s fingers soften.
“Thank you,” he hears, and he is now sure he hates him. He makes a sharp turn.
It starts when they overhear Dongwoo’s parents talking with the doctors in the hallway, when they've just come back from the hospital cafeteria. The conversation is low and short, but there are the words death and long and not long enough, and Dongwoo’s fingers tighten against Howon’s wrist. Howon presses their palms together, sweaty against dry and Howon thinks Dongwoo’s skin is a little bit too dry.
The thing is, even though Dongwoo has spent most of his life there, spent all of his youth in the little white room number 6073, he is used to being told that he has hope. That all of their efforts will be worth it, that all the pain he needs to go through during chemotherapy will just be a small bump to get back his health, the health he lost to the cancer cells that have been eating his body away since he was ten.
So when he pulls Howon’s hand in the opposite direction, wills both their gazes away from the scene they were staring at, Howon understands, because Howon has been there, always. Howon understands that Dongwoo is desperate, disappointed, angry, confused, and he wants to help, he really does, so when Dongwoo asks for a pen and some paper, he shoves it at him without a word, stays silent even when Dongwoo is scribbling furiously, sometimes looking at the ceiling, thoughtful. He still doesn’t say anything when a nurse comes in with Dongwoo’s parents, telling him that it’s time to go home. Dongwoo waves and tells him that he’s going to return his pen tomorrow, and Howon leaves.
The next thing he knows, Dongwoo sends him a text. Do any of your friends have a motorcycle?
(He steals the motorcycle from his friend, sneaks the key into his pocket and pretends he doesn’t know what his friend is babbling about when he starts to panic. He promises to stay behind in school while his friends search for it, stealthily walks out to the parking lot when their voices’ are out of reach.
He can hear his friends yelling at him when he leaves, but he doesn’t look back as he drives to the hospital.)
Somewhere between the first and third sharp turns he makes, it becomes more about adrenaline and less about Dongwoo, because Howon is a seventeen-year-old boy and he likes the excitement the speed brings him, likes the way his blood courses faster in his veins, likes the way the wind grazes his lips and chin and shoulder, and he almost forgets that Dongwoo is behind him, chest pressing against his back, heartbeat going faster and faster. Howon doesn’t realize it, but Dongwoo closes his eyes so tight they’re going to burst when he speeds up even more, too much, too dangerous, too-
“How-,“ is the last thing he heard before the tires screech against the road, loud and high and deafening and there’s a moment when he grips Dongwoo’s hand before he gets flung ten feet into the air, thrown away from the spinning motorcycle in the middle of the road. His back hits the pavement with a loud crack, a sharp pang, and he hisses.
There are stars, and he thinks he smells blood. Blood.
“Dongwoo,” he says, his lips moving, but his entire body is numb. He looks to the side and not two meters away from him is Dongwoo, lying with his chest moving up and down rapidly, eyes closed. Howon crawls over. “Dongwoo,” he says again, and there’s blood from his nose, from his temple, from his feet, from-Howon holds his hand. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he says, even though his voice can barely be heard. He opens his eyes to meet Howon’s, full of pain but still grateful. “Geez, Howon, you should have told me if you were going to do that.”
Howon reaches into his pocket for his phone, fortunately still usable even with a broken screen. He dials the hospital’s number. “Sorry,” he tries to grin, even though his head is pounding. “Wait, okay, we’ll be fine.”
“I’m fine,” Dongwoo says again, gritting his teeth and wincing. “Gosh, you’re bleeding.”
Howon turns back and sees red, but pays no attention to it. “I’ll be okay,” he replies carelessly, telling whomever picked up where he is; he throws his phone away once the frantic nurse tells him the ambulance is on its way. “Wait, okay. Stay with me.”
Dongwoo’s eyes are half-closed. He bites his tongue. “I’ll try,” he coughs, and Howon finds that Dongwoo isn't moving, not even ten seconds later.
Regret always comes too late, they all say, and Howon couldn't agree more as he holds Dongwoo’s hand tight, waiting for the ambulance to come. The blood doesn’t stop. The back of his shoulder is pounding. Dongwoo’s pulse slows down.
Howon prays.
It’s not supposed to be like this. Howon is supposed to sit beside Dongwoo’s bed right after he’s finished with his classes, doing his homework quietly as Dongwoo chatters about the new drama he'd found while surfing channels out of boredom. He’s supposed to give short comments and laugh at the right moment until he’s done with whatever assignments he needs to hand in the next day. He’s supposed to share anecdotes from school with Dongwoo before a nurse comes and tells them that it’s time for Dongwoo to undergo another test. Howon is supposed to eat at the cafeteria for at least half an hour, until Dongwoo calls his name, his face paler but his smile just as bright.
It’s supposed to be another normal afternoon, spent at the hospital. It’s not supposed to be the day where Howon is sure that he’s going to get killed when the doctors come out from the emergency room with tired faces, some nurses glaring at him. He bites the inside of his cheek.
One of the doctors approaches him. “You’re bleeding too.”
“I’m fine,” he answers, almost automatically. The back of his shoulder burns, but, “Is he okay?”
“He will survive,” the doctor gives him a reassuring smile, “it’s not that bad. He's just lost a lot of blood, but there’s no internal injury. He can go back to his room after the drug wears off and he regains consciousness.”
“Oh,” Howon nods. “Okay.”
The doctor suddenly moves forward, presses an insistent hand against his shoulder. His bones shift painfully when he steps back, and he would've hit the doctor by instinct, if his arm didn't feel so heavy. Why the fuck is his arm so heavy anyway. “You’re bleeding a lot too, Howon.”
Howon is about to give him the same repetitive answer, about to tell the doctor that he's perfectly fine, that he doesn’t even feel anything, but then the doctor pulls his hand back and it’s red, droplets trickling between his fingers, dirty and smelly and sticky and Howon thinks, oh. He hears a yell and a loud crack when his back makes contact with the cold tiles of the floor, before the world turns dark.
It turns out Howon needed seventeen stitches across the back of his right shoulder, and his shoulder blade has cracked in some parts. Dongwoo cries when he apologizes, but Howon just tells him that at least this way, he doesn’t have to do his homework or sit for his mid-semester exams.
His friend calls and yells at him about the broken motorcycle, but he tells him about his injury and that shuts him up.
Howon sees The List again three weeks after that, when he can finally change his clothes without groaning in pain. “I thought you’re sorry about making me not able to write for two weeks.”
“I thought you said it’s fine,” Dongwoo replies, frowning, “and I am. What’s that supposed to do with anything?”
Howon shrugs. It hurts his neck, but he simply stares at the paper in Dongwoo’s hand. “That’s the little piece of shit that started the disaster.”
“Stop being so rude,” Dongwoo chucks an eraser at him. Howon doesn’t even know where he'd gotten it, but he bends down to pick it up anyway.
When he looks up and puts the piece of white elastic on Dongwoo’s lap, Dongwoo is staring at him with a melancholic expression. “What,” Howon asks (and Dongwoo's close all of a sudden, very close). Dongwoo pinches the bridge of his nose.
“You groaned just now,” Dongwoo says, trying really hard to look like it’s not a big deal. But his hand moves slowly against Howon’s cheek, caressing, a silent apology. “Does it hurt?”
Howon reaches up and ruffles Dongwoo’s hair. “A little,” he shrugs, lying but not really. He just doesn’t want Dongwoo to burst into tears again, he reasons, because it’s not entirely his fault in the first place anyway. “I’ll be fine.”
Dongwoo smiles, before his expression turns smug the next second. “Good,” he says, “because I’m going to need you for this.”
Howon groans then. “Not again,” he pushes Dongwoo’s head away, earning a glare. “I’m not going to do it.”
“I haven’t even told you what is it,” Dongwoo protests.
“I can guess,” Howon scowls, an ugly frown marring his expression. “Clubbing? Smoke? Drugs? Girls?”
Dongwoo stares at him hard, before he huffs and lets himself fall onto his pillow. “Shut up.”
“You’re kidding,” Howon says, his eyes widen in mild shock, “you have them in your list?”
“I didn’t even say anything!”
“Your face says it all,” Howon pulls a chair and sits down, his eyes still burning holes in Dongwoo’s forehead. “Seriously though, hyung. I’m not going to help you with them.”
“But you’re my best friend, Howon,” Dongwoo whines as he kicks Howon’s elbow, propped up on the side of bed, “you’re supposed to support and help me through everything.”
“Best friends don’t let their best friends do things that can kill them, hyung,” Howon deadpans, as if he’s trying to teach a little boy that he just can’t eat those colorful crayons, no matter how delicious they look.
“Yeah, well,” Dongwoo rolls his eyes, “I’m dying anyway, so what’s the point.”
Howon stops midway, his mouth open as what he’s about to say dissipates into the air, disappears with the wind. Dongwoo’s face looks horrified, as if he has just turned over a forbidden card, and maybe he just did. He bites his lips and swallows air (swallows silence punctuated with awkwardness), and Howon looks at his Adam’s apple bobbing, his throat dry. He clenches the fist in his lap, knuckles turning white, fingernails digging so deep crimson scars began to bloom on his skin. He leans back in his seat.
“I’m sorry,” Dongwoo finally says, “that was uncalled for.”
You’re an idiot, Howon thinks, but replies, “It’s okay.”
The sky is turning a deep shade of orange, and it hurts Howon’s eyes. He stands up and walks towards the window, closing it. “What’s next on your list?” Howon asks, his tone calm, and he must say that he’s doing a good job acting as if his mind is not a jumbling storm. “I’ll help if I can.”
Howon thinks that if he had a knife, he could've cut through the tense air in the room. He doesn’t even understand why, but Dongwoo looks like he’s about to pass out. He moves closer to the bed just in case. “It’s-they’re stupid,” Dongwoo settles, looking at the crumpled paper in his hand, shoving it under his pillow. “I’m stupid. Just forget it.”
Howon sighs. “I’ll do it.”
“I don’t want you to,” Dongwoo retorts, shaking his head. “Forget it, let’s do something else.”
“Hyung.”
“Howon.”
“I’ll do it, okay,” Howon grips his wrist, not too tight but not too loose, and Dongwoo cringes. He can feel the pulse against his skin, their skin. “I mean, you’re right. I’m your best friend, and-I should support you. I shouldn’t argue with you, it’s unfair for you. I should just, I don’t-“
The fingers of Dongwoo's other hand curl against Howon's. “Just because I’m dying,” he says slowly, pushing Howon’s fingers away from him, “doesn’t mean we can’t argue, you know.”
Howon keeps his expression straight. “You’re not dying,” he says, and moves on. “I’ll help you, what is it?”
The seconds when Dongwoo’s eyes are on him are long and excruciatingly painful, but the older boy finally gives up and pulls the paper out, unfolds it without a sound. “Fine,” Dongwoo says, “Whatever.”
“Good,” Howon answers, an unsaid question.
Dongwoo studies it for a while, before he takes a deep breath. “Are you sure,” Dongwoo asks weakly, not because he’s mad, but more because he’s embarrassed. Howon places a hand on his knee, reassuring.
“I am,” he says, and Dongwoo bites his lower lip.
“It’s kissing.”
A click. “What?”
Dongwoo groans, “Please don’t make me say it again.”
“Okay, sorry,” Howon quickly says, pulls his hand and scratches the back of his head awkwardly. “Uh, okay.” Dongwoo looks at him expectantly. Howon clears his throat. “Okay, a kiss, huh. Do you, uh, do you have any specific person you want to kiss?”
Dongwoo laughs, almost shy. “No, I guess not.”
“So you’ll be fine with a random person?” Howon notices how his voice goes a little higher. He rubs his nose. “Anyone?”
Dongwoo shrugs. “Maybe not exactly anyone,” Dongwoo slowly explains, his shoulder slumping. “Someone I know would be nice, but I don’t know any girl, so.”
Howon blinks. “It has to be a girl?”
Dongwoo turns to him, his eyebrow raised. “Are you going to suggest what I think you’re going to suggest?” He doesn't pose the question with surprise, just curiosity. Howon gulps.
“I don’t know,” Howon replies, his mind blank. “What do you think I’m going to suggest?”
The way Dongwoo looks at Howon, it almost seems to turn something in Howon’s mind, his stomach. He doesn’t even realize it when Dongwoo raises his hands and touches the collar of his uniform, fixing it so slowly it’s agonizing. His skin brushes against Howon’s jaw, and their eyes don’t leave the other. Howon touches Dongwoo’s elbow unconsciously. Almost.
“You,” Dongwoo says, his movement slowing down. Howon takes a step closer. “You’re going to kiss me.”
It’s a statement, but it sounds like a question. Something like a demand. Howon lets his tongue move along his lower lip. Dongwoo’s eyes follow. “Do you want me to?”
Dongwoo pulls him in.
The moment before their lips touch, an alarm goes off in Howon’s mind. He tilts his head to the left out of instinct, but his breath and his brain stop working because he’s about to cross the line between best friends and something else entirely different, and it’s moving too fast, and Dongwoo has his eyes closed, and Howon is ready to shove him away and run.
The moment their lips brush, fire rages somewhere inside Howon, something that makes his insides tingle and burns in a way he doesn't think he dislikes. Dongwoo moves as if he has done it before (he hasn’t, Howon knows), and Howon almost closes his eyes, but.
He pulls back three seconds later.
“I need to-,” go, do something, do anything, away, but his words get stuck in his throat when he sees Dongwoo’s eyes, dark and clouded and he can see his own gaze reflected in them, just as bad. Bad. This is bad, Howon thinks, and pats Dongwoo’s chest. “See you tomorrow.”
He almost leaves his bag and hits the door when he walks out, but Dongwoo doesn’t call out to him. He dashes towards the elevator and rubs the back of his hand against his lips, far too hot.
The next one is sex, Dongwoo texts, and Howon quite literally throws his phone to the other side of the room, screaming.
Howon's standing in front of Dongwoo’s room before he even realizes it. It’s like a routine his body has memorized, and even though he's sworn in his mind that he’s not going to visit Dongwoo for at least, oh, he doesn't know, forever, he stares through the paneled glass (Dongwoo likes to think it's a window) to see Dongwoo’s sleeping figure on the bed.
Shit, he thinks, but opens the door and comes in anyway.
Turns out, Dongwoo is not even asleep, because he sits up almost immediately when his eyes catch Howon’s. None of them break the silence, though, and it’s so awkward that Howon wants to break something. “Hi,” he waves.
Dongwoo doesn’t smile. His gums look too big for his mouth when he doesn’t smile. “Hi,” Dongwoo nods. “Did you get my text?”
Straightforward and to the point. “Yeah.” Howon throws his bag to the sofa.
“I don’t mind random people this time,” Dongwoo suddenly tells him, and Howon tears his eyes away from his fingers that have been picking at the edge of Dongwoo’s bed the whole time they've been talking. Dongwoo looks determined, stubbornly so. “I mean, the last time didn’t go so well, so. I don’t want it to happen again. I don’t want this to happen again.”
Howon wants to throw up. “Of course I’ll do it,” Howon says, feeling like a stubborn child. He doesn’t really care. “I’m not giving you a stranger, hyung.”
“Are you going to be okay then,” Dongwoo gestures with his hand, and Howon wants to catch and hold it. He keeps his hand tangled in the bed sheet. “With us doing-that. With that.”
Maybe not. “If it’s you,” Howon forces himself to say, “maybe I’ll be fine.” And it’s not a lie, Howon realizes, because he knows that if Dongwoo wants to do it, he won’t let anyone else to be with him. It’s selfish of him, and it feels like there’s a dark spot in his heart. Dongwoo doesn’t deserve it, but Dongwoo won’t listen to him either. Howon just knows.
Dongwoo doesn’t look convinced. “We don’t have to do it.”
This, again. “I want to,” Howon insists. He still doesn’t look at Dongwoo.
But Dongwoo pretends he doesn’t hear the uncertainty in Howon’s voice. He laughs instead, that genuine one, the one Howon hadn't heard the other day, the one Howon misses. Howon doesn’t know he can miss Dongwoo’s laughter when it's only been a couple of hours since he'd last heard it. It’s scary, how attached he is. “Do it with me?”
“Shut up,” Howon snaps, his ears burning. Dongwoo laughs louder, but Howon holds their gaze, so he quiets down almost immediately. “When,” he asks, slightly ashamed.
It seems like Dongwoo notices, because when he speaks, he’s grinning. Howon wants to hit him, because it should be the other way around. He shouldn’t be the one being the maiden, shy and embarrassed and awkward. It annoys him, so he hits Dongwoo’s thigh, just because. Dongwoo chuckles. “The next time I’m home, then,” he answers cheekily.
Howon’s brain turns almost immediately, flipping the calendars and dates and months and he tries to remember Dongwoo’s schedule of going home. It should be in three weeks. Three weeks. Shit, Howon thinks for the second time when he’s there. His chest hurts, his heart is pounding a little too loudly, ringing in his ears, and he keeps his lips straight.
He turns a second too late, and Dongwoo sees the worry. The panic. Dongwoo retracts his hand.
“Okay,” he says, and there’s a warning in his voice. “That’s enough. Are you done being like this?”
“Like what,” Howon pretends.
But Dongwoo is not a fool. “Like this,” he says, and Howon jolts back when Dongwoo’s hand makes contact with his cheek, cold against cold and sweaty against dry and Howon wishes he doesn’t do that, but, “If you can’t even stand me holding your hand, the deal’s off. I’d rather have you buying me - I don’t know - a box of cigarettes or something. Or marijuana. I’m sure you can find it somewhere.”
Howon chokes. “You have that crap in your list?”
“Had,” Dongwoo corrects, but he doesn’t look like he regrets it, “that’s beside the point though.”
Howon pinches the bridge of his nose, disapproving. “I’m not letting you touching any of those things.”
“But you-“
“No,” he opens his eyes, and Dongwoo closes his mouth. “I said I’ll do it, and that’s that. Now you should shut up.”
The clock ticks, and the air between them thickens. Dongwoo reaches out, and Howon feels sorry. He meets it halfway, his lips shut. “Howon,” Dongwoo says, his voice soft. “I’m your best friend.”
“I know,” Howon replies, just as quiet.
“You should talk to me,” Dongwoo tells him, abnormally patient.
Howon bites his tongue. “I am.”
Dongwoo bends down, catching his eyes. “And look me in the eye when we’re talking.”
Ugh, he thinks, but he turns and looks at Dongwoo. Finally. He pulls down the bubble moving up his throat. “I am.”
Dongwoo sighs. “Look, if this is about-“
“It’s nothing,” Howon cuts him off, immediately feels stupid when Dongwoo gives him The Look. He clears his throat. “I mean, I’m just trying to help.”
It’s crystal clear that Dongwoo doesn’t believe him, but Dongwoo is Dongwoo and he doesn’t like making other people’s lives hard. Not intentionally anyway. So Dongwoo sighs and lets himself fall back onto the pillow, and mumbles, “Okay,” as if he means it. “Fine, then. Can you call the nurse? I want to sleep, so I need my medication now.”
Howon wants to tell him that he’s not going to be able to come for the next week, or maybe ever, because he has that school festival to organize and friends to hang out with and a girlfriend to date (lies, all lies), but Dongwoo has already closed his eyes, and he figures he will understand anyway. “Sure,” he says instead, patting the other’s forehead, “sleep well, hyung.”
The call comes three days after.
It’s a private number, and Howon is on his way to his dance practice, hands tapping his thighs along with the drumbeats from his earphones when his phone vibrates in his back pocket, startling him. He jumps a little in his seat, earning an unappreciative glare from the old man beside him, and without really looking at the caller’s ID, he flips his phone open, bowing in apology before, “Hello?”
“Howon,” he can hear Dongwoo says, and it sounds a little out of this world, his typical voice after he has just undergone more therapy, more tests, and it alarms him. “Howon, we have an emergency.”
“Emergency,” Howon repeats, his voice shaking. He clears his throat, “Hyung, did you just finish your therapy?”
“What? Yeah, why did you ask? That is beside the point, Howon, I’m trying to tell you something here.”
Dongwoo is always weird, but he sounds distracted and annoyed and Dongwoo is never annoyed, so it pushes Howon to ask, “Are you okay, hyung?”
The line is quiet then. There’s static and it makes Howon’s ear hot, and he realizes that it's begun to rain. He’s three stops away from his destination. “I don’t know,” Dongwoo answers, timid and scared, but he sounds painfully honest. “Will you come?”
Three stops away. “I’ll be there,” Howon answers, a beat too late, but he knows Dongwoo is satisfied.
Dongwoo sits with his back to the door, staring out the open window, watching the raindrops. Howon wants to tell him that he’s going to get the floor wet, but there’s something that makes him shut his mouth, even when he puts his bag down on the unmade bed. There’s an IV connected to Dongwoo’s right wrist, clear liquid fusing with his blood, something that is supposed to make him better. Dongwoo's gripping the pole connected to the tubes (far too tightly, Howon thinks), and Howon touches it quietly.
It doesn’t startle him; it’s as if he has expected it. “Hey,” Dongwoo grins at the rain, and Howon traces the shape of his knuckles.
“What emergency,” Howon says, and Dongwoo tenses.
“It’s nothing important, I don’t think,” Dongwoo laughs, and the way it’s forced is obvious, so obvious that it’s unnerving. A knot forms at the pit of Howon’s stomach, something that happens every time he thinks Dongwoo is trying too hard. “I’m overreacting.”
“What is it,” Howon says, quick and insistent (hasty and too concerned). He tugs at Dongwoo’s wrist, turning the older boy towards him slowly, and when Dongwoo catches his eye, his gaze is worried and pained and there's something dark, something he can’t quite put a finger on. “Tell me,” he demands, quiet determination.
Dongwoo licks his lips. “You won’t judge me,” he says, voice nervous.
“I won’t,” Howon promises.
Dongwoo fidgets, clearly thinking too much. Overthinking has never been something that Dongwoo does, and he’s about to tell this to him just to cut the tension, but Howon gulps down any words he has teetering on the edge of his tongue because Dongwoo looks terrified. He wants to smoothen that frown, to tell Dongwoo that it'll all be okay and that he's ridiculous for worrying like this. “Okay,” he says, finally, and Howon braces himself for the worse. “Okay. It’s-I’ve told you it’s nothing, but. It’s just. It’s bound to happen, you know? I’ve read and watched it somewhere, that people like me will have it eventually, but-“
“Wait,” Howon cuts him, frowning, “people like you?”
Dongwoo shrugs. “People with cancer.”
“Oh,” he replies. “I see.”
“Yeah,” Dongwoo continues, and so, so subtly, pulls his hand away from Howon’s touch. Howon notices, but he doesn’t do anything. “It’s-yeah.”
Howon raises an eyebrow when he hears the finality in Dongwoo’s voice. “I don’t think I get it.”
Dongwoo groans. “This is frustrating.”
“You are frustrating,” Howon retorts, taking a step back. “Seriously, just-“
“I’m losing my hair,” Dongwoo cuts.
Breathe, breathe. Oh. “Oh,” Howon says.
Dongwoo smiles weakly. “Oh,” he chuckles sadly.
“I don’t see why it’s an emergency,” Howon says, and there’s something in the way Dongwoo looks down at his fingers that makes him raise a hand to touch the tip of his sideburn. It’s getting long, three months of not visiting the barber. “You’re overreacting.”
“Told you,” Dongwoo replies, still not looking at Howon’s eyes.
“Hyung,” he tries again.
“I know, Howon.”
“No, you don’t,” Howon insists, “you don’t understand. It won’t change anything between-anything. It will be the same. Everything will stay the same. You have nothing to be worried about.”
That does it. Dongwoo turns then, finally meeting his eyes, and Howon gulps a handful of air. He doesn’t realize it, but his hand is now cupping Dongwoo’s cheek. He can lean in and pretend that it’s just the moment. He doesn’t. “Nothing?”
I still want to kiss you. “Nothing,” Howon reassures.
“So you won’t back out from our deal?”
Now that, he doesn’t expect. “Is that what you’re worried about?” Howon splutters, taking his hand away in shock and annoyance, “that I won’t have sex with you if you have no hair? Seriously, hyung?”
“It’s just--” Dongwoo says, looking embarrassed. At least he has the dignity to look embarrassed, because Howon is petrified. “I mean, it’s not the only thing, but… yeah, it’s one of it.”
Howon gapes. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Well,” Dongwoo’s eyes suddenly turn bright, questioning, “will you?”
Will he? The question punches Howon in the stomach, because it’s a question he’s supposed to fucking fumble with, to find hard to answer (and his decision comes even before he gives it any thought, faster, easier than he'd expected). Howon knows he’s not supposed to not think about it, because after he agrees, it will change, probably, everything between them, whether they want it or not. Howon doesn’t think about it, but when Dongwoo questions it out loud, it makes him pause because, will he? Risk everything they have? Let him lose himself? Because if their previous kiss started a fire, Howon is not sure if he wants to know what sex can start.
Dongwoo stares at him, waiting. Howon’s lips tremble. Love, his heart answers quietly, but Howon pretends he doesn’t hear it. “Of course I will,” he says eventually, “I’ve promised.”
That is a lie, he knows, because maybe it’s not the reason at all. Dongwoo doesn’t need to find out that he’s hiding behind the pretense, though. Dongwoo doesn’t need to know anything. “Okay,” Dongwoo sighs, sounding relieved, “good.”
“Yeah,” Howon shrugs, pushing his hands into his pocket. “Good.”
Dongwoo is allowed to go home the next day. Howon is pretty sure there had been a lot of sucking up and begging involved on Dongwoo’s part, probably to make sure Howon doesn’t back out or anything, but Dongwoo is coming home and Howon waits for him in front of his house, feeling stupid as he holds a bouquet of flower his mother had insisted he bring as a welcome gift.
Which is so stupid in many ways, but the bright green color reminds Howon of Dongwoo, so he brings it anyway.
Dongwoo grins widely when Howon pushes the bouquet into his hands the moment he gets out of the car. “How romantic,” he teases, sniffing the flowers, eyes glinting in silent laughter.
Howon rolls his eyes. “Tell that to my mom,” he snaps, and Dongwoo laughs. It’s been a while, so Howon laughs along.
He sits on the edge of Dongwoo’s bed as the older boy fumbles with his little duffle bag, the only thing he brings to and from the hospital. “What do you even bring from that place,” Howon asks, not really expecting an answer, because he can see Dongwoo taking out some plushies and books, things he tells Howon to bring or buy when he gets bored, nothing too important.
Dongwoo’s sly smile begs to differ though. “Guess,” he sings, and Howon blinks.
“What,” he says.
“Guess what I have in here,” Dongwoo says, his face clearly amused.
Howon plays around with one of his plushies. “I bet it’s irrelevant to me, anyway.”
“On the contrary,” Dongwoo frowns, and throws his now half-empty bag to him. Howon catches it mid-air, chuckling at Dongwoo’s face as he opens the zip, and-
“What the,” Howon almost curses, and Dongwoo bursts into laughter. “Where did you even get this?”
“That’s a secret you shall never know,” he says, and Howon is kind of grateful because he definitely doesn’t want or need to know where Dongwoo got a bottle of lube and a pack of condom. Nope, no, thank you. Dongwoo rips them out of Howon's hands and throws it to the other side of the room, that ugly scowl still on his face. You’re ugly, Howon wants to say, but Dongwoo beats him to it. “You should've seen your face just now, it was hilarious.”
“Shut up,” Howon kicks his shin.
“Ow!” Dongwoo yells in exaggeration, falling onto one knee and rolling around the floor dramatically. “This is abuse! I can’t believe you'd do this to a sick person! You’re so low, Howon!”
“I’m going to smother your face with your plushie and it won’t exactly be the most painless of deaths,” Howon tells him calmly.
“Now a threat,” Dongwoo sighs, “I wonder why I have such a heartless person as a bes-Wait, I’m kidding, it’s a joke! Howon!”
By the time they’re done with dinner, Howon is pretty sure he’s going to explode.
Howon has no idea if it’s him being too sensitive about their whole ordeal, about the fact that they’re going to finally do it at the end of the day, but it seems like everything Dongwoo does to him, around him, are on purpose.
Like that time when Dongwoo knocks a glass of water and spills it all over Howon’s lap. The way Dongwoo wipes the water from his crotch, seemingly missing the wet spots as he rubs the piece of cloth he takes from the kitchen all over; Howon wants to hit him on the head, if only Dongwoo’s parents and sister weren't looking at him sympathetically. Or that time when Howon feels fingers around his knee, fondling, and when he turns to Dongwoo, he’s laughing at something his dad's said, before turning expectantly to Howon. When he realizes the whole table is smiling at him, he forces out a laugh, pushing Dongwoo’s hand away. Dongwoo raises an eyebrow at him, and puts his food in his mouth.
Howon is probably going mad. It’s a possibility too.
Howon flips his phone close, his mother’s usual ramble every time he stays over still ringing in his head, when Dongwoo pushes the door open, a towel slung over his shoulder. He distracts himself from Dongwoo’s red lips, fresh after brushing his teeth, and stares at his forehead instead. “Are you done?”
“Yeah,” Dongwoo says, walks over to the duffel bag he threw away earlier, putting it on the bed. Howon flinches. “Are you?”
“Sure,” Howon answers, and then nothing. It’s awkward as hell, and Dongwoo stands there as if he’s waiting for Howon to say something, to initiate anything, and Howon hates how Dongwoo is always so expectant, always sure that Howon has everything under control, because he doesn’t. Now is one of those times. “I, we. Okay.”
Dongwoo sits down beside him then. “This is awkward.”
Howon chuckles. “Tell me about it.”
“We don’t have to do this,” Dongwoo says, and Howon turns so fast he’s sure he'd broken something. Dongwoo looks stunned too, like he doesn’t expect the words he's just uttered. Maybe he doesn’t. “I mean, if we’re going to be awkward after this, I don’t want to do this.”
“We’re not going to smoke or do drugs,” Howon says.
Dongwoo rolls his eyes and punches his upper arm. “That’s not what I meant.”
Howon laughs then, because the entire situation is ridiculous, because he is ridiculous, because Dongwoo is, and it doesn’t really matter, does it? They will still be them, and that’s all that they need to know. Something will change, that’s inevitable, but so be it. They will still be Howon and Dongwoo, Dongwoo and Howon, and he thinks that’s more than enough. More than anything.
“I know,” Howon whispers, silent. There’s a silent promise there, and he cups Dongwoo’s cheek. “I know,” he says again when Dongwoo is wide-eyed. He leans in, and there’s fire.
“Wait, wait,” Dongwoo pushes his shoulder, and Howon grits his teeth, his shoulder hurting. Dongwoo presses an apologetic hand against his scar. “Sorry.”
“What,” Howon says, almost impatiently, his eyes unfocused, and he thinks he should probably be more respectful, that he should listen to what Dongwoo has to say, but Dongwoo’s knee between his thighs is not helping. At all. He shifts uncomfortably. “What is it?”
“Just,” Dongwoo fists the collar of his shirt, his fingers tight. Trembling. Howon looks at the blush across his nose. “I, uh. I’m skinny.”
Howon blinks. “Okay,” he says, unsure of where Dongwoo wants to bring the (unnecessary) conversation. “I’ve seen your body before though, so it’s not exactly something new.”
“It’s different,” Dongwoo insists, and he sounds so persistent that Howon sits back. “I mean, i just. I don’t have the best body. Or experience. It-it will suck. I don’t want it to be, but I know it would. You-you shouldn’t be doing this, but I don’t want you to stop. It feels good, but-“
“Hyung,” Howon cuts him off, “please shut up.”
Dongwoo sighs heavily then, pulling Howon back down. “You don’t understand, do you?”
Howon turns to press a kiss at the corner of his mouth. “I do,” he says, and slips a hand inside Dongwoo’s shirt. Dongwoo sucks in a breath. His ribs seem to constrict under Howon’s fingertips.
“Howon,” he says, and Howon tells him that he’s beautiful.
Howon doesn’t think he can take it, and he feels bad that he cannot hold his own promise, but.
When they finally do it, slow and dirty and messy in Dongwoo’s room, it is more intense than Howon thought it would be. Which is not exactly a bad thing, because Dongwoo holds his gaze even when he whimpers as Howon pushes in, fingers tracing patterns and promises against his chest, a hand tight against the scar on his shoulder, and it’s all kind of perfect and breathtaking, but it scares him, for some reason. Dongwoo searches blindly for his hand and arches his hips up, and Howon’s mind tells him to run away, and it’s not normal, because this is one of the things in Dongwoo’s list, and as a good best friend, he is supposed to help him. That’s what best friends do, Howon reasons.
But then Dongwoo moans, a muffled and high-pitched Howon-ah against his neck, and Howon thinks, oh. Because he kind of wants to kiss him and make him scream and fuck him slower just to make this, this, last longer, and Howon knows that they’re not what best friends would think if they happen to have sex. He’s not supposed to think that they’re making love. Howon understands that much.
So when stars burst against his eyelids, he bites his tongue to hold the hyung inside his mouth, and there’s a shiver running down his spine. He can feel Dongwoo’s heavy breathing against the back of his ear, their hearts bumping against each other's under their skins, and all Howon wants to do is to close his eyes and sleep.
(Something is changing, shifting.)
He doesn’t. Instead he pushes himself up and away, away, laughing that they are sticky and gross and sweaty and that Dongwoo stinks. His best friend looks hurt, but Howon ignores him to look for something to clean them up.
Howon is halfway into his pants when Dongwoo opens his mouth, a careful “Howon-ah,” and he’s not sure if he should answer or pretend he cannot hear him. He pulls the zipper up and picks up his shirt, draped on the stack of CDs in a corner of Dongwoo’s room.
“I’ll be around,” he says, and doesn’t look back. He doesn’t wait for an answer either, and once the door is closed, he runs.
>>