the boys of summer

[drawingintheair]

the boys of summer
donghae/eunhyuk
Donghae leans against one of the poles beneath the docks with Hyukjae keeping him anchored, their lips spreading open, cautious and daring and the ocean swaying between their mouths.
for lycheejello because she requested these for the comm's drabble fest. All of these take place in the same verse as Our Last Days As Children



kisses left on the shoreline pg-13; 422 words

“My skin is peeling off. I’m never listening to you again.”

“Hey! Not my fault you sunbathe like a tomato.”

Scowling, Hyukjae grabs a fistful of sand and tosses it at Donghae. Donghae just laughs at the way Hyukjae’s nose shines like Rudolph’s. The late June sun has been punishing, dying the sand on the beach a dark golden and washing out the linen drying on the clothes lines in backyard. The last time Donghae used sunscreen, his dad was still alive, used to lather Donghae up in it every morning. Donghae never learned how to turn the whiteness into clarity so he doesn’t even bother, let’s the sun paint his skin as much as it wants.

Crawling across sand toward Hyukjae, Donghae pokes his stomach. Smiles to himself when he draws over Hyukjae’s hipbone and Hyukjae doesn’t protest. “It’s such a waste your birthday is first. What sixteen year old doesn’t get his license?”

This time Hyukjae doesn’t miss and sand gets into Donghae’s eye. They go back to the beach house and Donghae washes his eye out while Hyukjae dives head first into Donghae's sheets. Hyukjae complains about the pain and guilt twists in his Donghae’s stomach because he was the one that was too impatient to let Hyukjae put sunblock on. Getting the lotion he keeps in the bottom of his drawer, he coaxes Hyukjae to take his shirt off and lie on his stomach.

“Feels nice,” Hyukjae sighs and he’s all softness in Donghae’s hands. Like silly putty, Donghae thinks but it’s difficult to conceive the ten year old boy with purple plat-o in his hands with the half naked sixteen year old on Donghae’s bed.

He outlines his hands from Hyukjae’s nape to his lower back, just at the point where it begins to curve, Donghae’s curious fingers pushing to keep exploring. Almost as bad as the itch on Donghae’s lips to kiss the redness on the back of Hyukjae’s neck

“Are you okay?” Hyukjae looks over his shoulder. He raises himself on his elbows to look at Donghae, frozen with his hands on Hyukjae’s shoulder blades. Hyukjae doesn’t look annoyed or put off, there is trust in his eyes and something that almost makes Donghae push forward and kiss his mouth.

He doesn’t but by summer’s end, Donghae promises as he tries to press his sticky hands to Hyukjae’s face who laughs fending him off as they tumble on the bed, he will have kissed Hyukjae and he’s pretty sure Hyukjae will have kissed him back.

pitter patter goes my heart (but i will keep it to myself for now) pg-13; 375 words

The sun doesn’t awake Donghae. He stares at Hyukjae’s body, pressed against him, his own arm thrown across Hyukjae’s front. Hyukjae is all warmth in the earliness of morning and Donghae’s boxers are tight suffocated by Hyukjae’s heat.

Exactly a year ago, Donghae would have nudged Hyukjae awake, turned him around and fit their hips together. Hyukjae would have acted annoyed but his hand would’ve slipped inside Donghae’s boxers and they’d both ignored morning breath and sealed their mouths together.

Donghae does none of that now. He’s about to get out of bed when Hyukjae turns around by himself, humming softly and making their legs slide. Donghae bites down on his lower lip, hard.

“Morning,” Hyukjae mutters, eyes still closed, hair sticking to the corner of his mouth and the sun turns him beautiful. Donghae wants and wants, his heart hammering as intensely as his cock strains inside his boxers, but just because he staked a claim on Hyukjae when they were seven doesn’t mean Hyukjae is his.

Hyukjae’s eyes snap open when their hips touch, mouth falling agape and distress all over his face. Donghae tries smiling but it hurts. His body or his heart he’s unsure which.

When he comes back from the bathroom after leaving with a half red face and a stuttered apology, Hyukjae is sitting up in bed.

“I’ll sleep on the floor from now on.”

“Hyukjae.”

“I don’t. I don’t want things to be weird between us. I hate this.”

Pulling a shirt on, Donghae sits next to him and sees shadows of that seven year old boy who will always be his no matter who has a claim on his kisses now. “I told you I’m fine.”

“But-”

“We’re best friends and no one gets to change that.”

Finally, Hyukjae smiles. Donghae’s own smile stretches across his face. “No one,” Hyukjae agrees and it’s a promise Donghae decides to take him up on.

“Hey. Do you think your dad will make us breakfast if we go over there before he goes to work?”

“Only if you’re there.”

It takes seconds for Hyukjae to pull some jeans on, and they race all the way from the beach to Hyukjae’s house. Donghae beats Hyukjae but he doesn’t win. He never thought nobodies could win but they can, even from miles and miles away.

practice makes perfect pg; 364 words

The last present Donghae received from his father was a classic 35mm camera, bought from a vintage shop and restored for Donghae’s fourteenth birthday. He never gets the chance to teach Donghae the ins and outs of lightning and focus techniques so Donghae uses his leftover birthday money and buys a photography book, decides it’s useless and spends the next few years teaching himself.

"It just takes practice,” Hyukjae says wisely. He draws in the sand and when he smiles at Donghae his lips are sunburned. “Like with everything.”

Donghae snaps a few pictures of the seashore getting a good shot of the sailor ship already at deep sea. He turns back to Hyukjae, lens focused on his smile.

Hyukjae sighs but slaps on the cheesiest smile he can muster up. Finished off with a victory sign and his enthused eyes. The shutter clicks and Hyukjae relaxes. He raises an eyebrow when Donghae approaches him, the camera still in focus and that grin that screams Donghae is up to no good. But he’s still surprised when Donghae leans into his personal space, wiggles his eyebrows and kisses him. Hyukjae clumps sand in his fists but his eyes close and the sun burns his eyelids. Their teeth click a bit and their lips slide with leftover soda pop from the diner across the beach.

It lasts seconds, Donghae already pulling away and sitting a few feet away.

“What was that?” Hyukjae asks, still unused to this, to Donghae’s lips on his and the way they leave the smell of the ocean in his mouth, not salty but intoxicating in his lungs.

Donghae smiles. “Practice. Everything’s just practice right?”

The assertiveness in Donghae’s voice makes Hyukjae laugh, his head tilting and his mouth wide open. Before he realizes, Donghae has snapped his picture, the camera back up to his eye.

Later, the roll on Donghae’s camera full of current driven sea shells washed up on shore, the surfers who caught that fifteen foot wave, and Hyukjae’s smile. Camera strap on his shoulder, Donghae leans against one of the poles beneath the docks with Hyukjae keeping him anchored, their lips spreading open, cautious and daring and the ocean swaying between their mouths.

somewhere at sea level (i'll come and find you) pg-13; 713 words

The clock ticks the passing seconds in time with the rain pelting against glass. Hyukjae looks up from his work and stares outside. Through the window, the day is grey and wet. The apartment is cold and Hyukjae sighs. He gives himself a moment to remember equally wet days in the Junes of his past but those days were always warm, the sun lasted forever and forever ended with the sweeping leaves of September.

Now, summer is hours deep in science literature and, sure, interning on one of his university’s most renown professor’s investigation will look great on his resume, but in his twenty one years Hyukjae has never spent a summer without sand stuck between his toes and the inside of his thighs.

He pulls up the sleeves of his sweater over his hands and thumbs the phone on his desk. It mocks Hyukjae lightly, his thoughts about calling his dad and asking him how the catch is this summer, if he got that extra hand he needed down at the docks. Excuses. He talked to his dad last week, the tide is brining in more crabs than ever and Sunggyu is a diligent worker.

Folding his arms on top of some article about coral reef contamination, Hyukjae let’s himself wonder about Donghae. It’s not even noon but there are an infinite number of possibilities. Sleeping in except he’s probably surfing or eating fresh fish cakes from Han’s Fish Shack on the corner of 11th street. Wonders if Donghae might have gotten back together with Joon as unlikely as it seems. Donghae had sounded upset over the phone last month but if it’s one thing Donghae doesn’t forgive, it’s liars. Hyukjae knows he shouldn’t take comfort in that but he does.

The rain picks up, furious and unrelenting, could sink the whole city under water. It still wouldn’t be summer. There’d be no sand and summer is nothing without sand.

When the knock on the door comes, Hyukjae mistakes it for thunder. It persists, a rhythm to it but Hyukjae can’t pinpoint the song.

Figuring it’s Yongwha, the only other student spending the summer in the dorms, Hyukjae gets up, and this time he will stick to his guns and not give him any of his ramen stash no matter how much Yongwha sweet talks him.

“There’s a convenience store around the corner you ass-” Swinging the door open, Hyukjae’s words get stuck in his throat. “D-donghae?”

Soaking wet from the tips of his sneakers to the roots on his hair, Donghae smiles and raises an eyebrow. There is a duffel bag swung across his shoulders and his skin looks as warm as the sun.

“I know I should have called first but don’t you think calling me an ass is a bit much?”

Rooted in place, Hyukjae’s hand slips down the door, gripping to hold himself back. “What are you doing here?”

Donghae shrugs. The city has turned his hair into a wet mop on his head when it used to be toasted warmth gliding through Hyukjae’s fingers. “Well. Summer didn’t want to come to me this year so I decided to come to it instead.”

Hyukjae tries to swallow but all he gets is a lump stuck in his throat and moisture brimming in his eyes. He doesn’t want to hold back anymore so he clears the miniscule distance, turns it into nothing, and embraces Donghae. His sweater is soaked in seconds but Donghae wraps his arms around him so firmly it sends Hyukjae’s heart into his mouth. When Hyukjae inhales, Donghae’s hair smells like businessmen briefcase leather, train tracks and paint fumes. The skin of his neck, however, is sea kelp and sand, sweet and comforting on the tip of Hyukjae’s tongue when he presses his lips to it.

Laughing, Donghae angles his face so they really kiss, drags his thumbs to wipe away the tears Hyukjae doesn’t shed. They’ve never started summer with a kiss but finally, there is sand against Hyukjae’s skin and he can’t think of a more perfect way to start it. Wishes they’d seen that when they were kids.

It’s raining outside but Donghae tastes like cherries and sun. Maybe, growing up does have it’s advantages.

a/n: Our Last Days As Children was written over a year ago and it's almost winter now so it was nice to go back and immerse myself in summer for a little. Also, some eunhae after like a month. so yeah.