Tracks That Lead Us {Part One}
Tracks That Lead Us
donghae/eunhyuk
high school au
pg-13
8177 words
These are the paths we follow, these are the paths we create. Most of us have our fates set from the moment our feet brush the road. Donghae thinks he has to be the first to cross the finishing line; Hyukjae knows he has the race won from the start. It's not about the race at all. It's about the run.
tracks that lead us
Track season starts in September.
Donghae’s sneakers are worn in and muddy from running all summer, every morning at six a.m. and night at nine. He flexes his toes in their confines and it feels familiar, like a second skin, and Donghae is barefoot against the clay of the high school’s running track.
Football season is over. No more seven a.m. drills. No more missing patches of grass on the green field or blurry lines of chalk messing up the path and Donghae gives football players credit for being fast but they will never be able to run the way man was meant to. Too many obstacles in their way to make a clear break for it and try to reach the horizon.
It’s too early for anyone else to be here, most highschoolers still in bed at five thirty in the morning if they can help it.
Donghae presses his palms to the starting line, rests his weight on the balls of his left foot and counts down from three. When he pushes off, the horizon is within reach.
*
“I hate the beginning of season.”
“Dude, they’re about to start. Can you shut up for two seconds?”
Yesung sighs and gestures wildly in Donghae’s direction as if Donghae encompasses the world’s greatest frustrations. Or just his. “This is why I hate it. You get all crazy about tryouts and it makes me want to punch you.”
“I don’t get crazy,” Donghae argues, slipping his previously restless fingers into the pockets of his sweatshirt. “I just get a little nervous that’s all.”
Yesung stomps his foot against the bleachers, foot mere inches from Donghae’s shin. Donghae screeches in outrage. “This is why I want to punch you. You’re the fastest runner in the league and you freak out because you think some new kid is going to upstage you and yet I, who has to tryout every year because coach is a sadistic bitch, am fine.”
Before Donghae says something to comfort Yesung, or mock him, the whistle goes off twice in quick successions indicating the first runners are up. Donghae shoves Yesung to make room on the bleacher and Yesung barely contains the urge to sock Donghae upside the head. He lets Donghae grip his arm to take out his nerves instead.
“Who’s that?” Yesung nods toward the last boy lined up.
“I don’t know,” Donghae says, eyes running over his body. He doesn’t look like much of a runner. His calves are too thin and his shoulders are too wide, waist slightly curved in an inward arch descending into narrow hips. A swimmer maybe looking to spend the off season keeping condition.
Donghae doesn’t see him as a threat. Even the fastest shark dies of asphyxiation on dry land no matter how quick he is at taking out his prey under water.
The whistle goes off again and all the boys kneel against clay.
Donghae has to contain himself from running down to the track. The boy’s position is all wrong. His left leg is too far back, his elbows should be aligned not tucked towards his chest and his toes should be parallel to his hips, straight. Donghae’s fingers dig into Yesung’s skin. Yesung slaps his hand away as nails pierce into his arm, his good throwing arm at that.
When the whistle goes off again, and it’s been less than a second from the first but it feels like hours, all the hopefuls pop up. Heads bowed and shoulders strung out from containing themselves, they hold back until allowed to break the invisible shield and taste freedom through their toes.
Donghae’s pulse quickens at the sloping curve the last body forms, back sloped and arching at inverse angles in all the wrong places. He doesn’t even register the whistle going off a third and final time.
Coach’s eyebrows raised in content shock say it all.
“Shit,” Yesung mutters, watching the rest of the boys reach the finish line all out of breath and staring at their fellow hopeful standing there all fixed composure and regular breathing with awe and envy. He turns to Donghae, sitting there stunned, and sighs. “I’m going to punch you this season, aren’t I?”
*
0.04
Not even a full second. The kid shaves a measly four hundredth of a second off Donghae’s record time and he’s some sort of world wonder.
“Don’t worry, Donghae. You’re still our star,” Coach says to him after Donghae’s face had contorted when looking at the times.
Lie.
In the real world, a second is nothing. Snap your fingers and you can make it disappear.
On the track, a millisecond is everything.
He tells his parents and brother about it during dinner, keeping his voice neutral and saying it as casually as possible. His father smiles, says, son we’re proud of you no matter what, and his mother serves him an extra helping dessert as Donghwa pipes in with it’s nice to finally see someone can get under your skin, bro. Joking shoulder punch and all. It’s warm and it’s comforting but as he lunges at Donghwa and their mother tries to sternly tell them to behave and not laugh, Donghae knows they don’t understand.
It was his father who gave Donghae his first pair of running shoes and Donghwa was the one who would take him to the running park, sit on a bench and occupy himself with his handheld or play soccer with the neighborhood kids until Donghae was old enough to run by himself. His mother goes to every game she can and hangs up his ribbons and medals on the shelf in the living room. They are his enablers and supporters, his number one fans and Donghae loves them for that can’t be more thankful but they don’t understand about milliseconds and that feeling of being at one with the road. Donghae doesn’t expect them to.
The next morning, Donghae is up before the sun is, coaxes its rays from hiding inside the ocean to light the white lines of the track as his sneakers set it ablaze and burn everything in his way.
*
“Hey.”
Donghae looks over his shoulder and frowns. His calves burn and sweat runs down the sides of his face and he really doesn’t want to deal with this during his lunch break. Most juniors spend their lunch period cramming for pre university entrance exams or chucking moldy pieces of meat loaf across the cafeteria at their friends while the lunch ladies try to dissuade a food fight or convincing the hottest mouth they can find to busy themselves for an hour beneath the bleachers. Donghae spends lunch drenched in sweat and working on resistance training rather than time.
“You’re Donghae, right? Aren’t you in my AP Calculus class?”
Lifting the bottom of his shirt to dry his forehead, Donghae raises his eyebrows. Of course. The kid isn’t just good with time; he’s good at numbers too. “I think you’re confused. I take Trig. Regular Trigonometry. Not some AP course I’m not going to remember when I get to college anyways.”
“I know,” the kid says, taking Donghae completely off guard. He smiles at Donghae, mouth agape and his shirt tail pressed to his temple. “I just thought I should try and break the ice since you’re so hell bent on hating me.”
“I-” Donghae begins to protest but the kid cocks his head in disbelief, a who are you shitting twisted in the corner of his smile now. Wringing his shirt in his left fist, Donghae bunches up light grey cotton as he regards his new team mate.
These are the things Donghae knows about Lee Hyukjae:
He’s not some swimmer Donghae has never noticed but this year’s new kid and in their small town everyone knows the new kid, transferred over from some fancy fake noses stuck up in the air private school. His father lost his job so now his family is on food stamps. (This is not something Donghae knows but likes pretending he does because it makes everything seem fair.) His posture is terrible. He takes AP Calculus even though he’s a junior. He runs a meter four hundredth of a second faster than Donghae.
“Look. I get it. No one likes the new kid. Especially when he makes team in his first year. But I’m not looking to be the school jock hero. I just want to run.”
Donghae knows Hyukjae is trying to sign some sort of peace treaty with him before the first fumes of gun smoke hit the air. He gets it. Hyukjae is not dumb. All Donghae wants to do is stand behind this kid, kick his knees so he stops leaning all his weight on one side and stand up straight with his toes pointing north not inward and forming the weirdest parabola Donghae has ever seen.
“Okay,” Donghae says though he’s not sure what he’s agreeing to exactly.
Hyukjae smiles. “Great. I guess I’ll see you at practice.” He starts walking backwards and gives Donghae a small half wave; Donghae bites his tongue from bursting out laughing when Hyukjae almost fumbles with his untied shoelace.
“Oh, Donghae?”
Face composed as seriously as he can, Donghae looks up instantly put off by the slight smirk Hyukjae gives him.
“Little advice? You might want to put those away before she passes out.”
Startled, Donghae realizes he’s been lifting his shirt this entire time, the flat planes of his sweat slicked stomach slightly reddened by the midday sun. He lets go of his shirt abruptly, unsure if the high pitched sigh he hears coming from the bleachers is of disappointment or relief.
Well, at least his cheeks now match his abs.
Another thing Donghae knows about Lee Hyukjae:
He’s kind of a jerk.
(So is Donghae but that is neither here nor there where Donghae is concerned. That is Hyukjae’s problem.)
*
“I’m going to tell you this as your best friend because I don’t actually want to punch you. Calm the fuck down.”
Donghae blows his bangs out of his face, doesn’t spare a millisecond to elbow Yesung in the gut. It would ruin his formation. “Excuse me for being worried over our first race,” Donghae defends himself and picks up his feet.
Taking a breath, Yesung sprints to stay on par with Donghae, gives a little more than two shits about milliseconds and punches Donghae’s arm. “You never get nervous about the first race. You’re like this because of that dumb new kid, what’s his face who skipped evolution.”
Donghae gurgles a laugh, his strides becoming slower to give Yesung a break to catch his breath.
It’s late Sunday afternoon. Their first meet is this Tuesday. Donghae stops laughing.
“Hyukjae,” he says. The name is not an acid sourness in his stomach, but a nagging reminder, a thorn in his side that doesn’t prickle, merely constantly jabs never actually drawing blood. “And he’s not that dumb. He’s the only underclassman after that freak freshman game addict taking AP Calculus.”
Yesung shrugs, unimpressed, and lifts his hands skyward. Donghae can tell he is silently thanking whoever likes him up there that they can jog now. “Not like he’ll remember any of that crap in college.”
Donghae smiles. This is why Yesung has been his best friend since nursery school.
Deciding they deserve a break, Donghae slows down to a trot and when they finally stop Yesung almost kisses the ground in gratitude.
“You know what?” Donghae sets his right foot back on the ground after stretching it, rolls his shoulders to work the slight burn in his left one before tossing his arm across Yesung’s shoulders. “I’m going to treat you to a McFlurry from McDonald's.”
“With double fudge and M&M’s?”
“Don’t push it.”
*
Donghae doesn’t understand how the common person thinks.
The stands during Track and Field matches are never empty, in fact some of the people have to sit on the floor at the foot of the last bleacher, jackets stripped off and cushioning the hard concrete. The crowd is mainly made out of students who are bored but not bored enough to go home, the car pooling parents with camcorders attached to their hands like permanent fixtures, the guilt driven parents in the impeccable business suits yakking away on their cellphones who always congratulate their kid for getting third and never noticing their shoulders fall because they actually won first. Younger siblings run alongside the runners, the supportive girlfriends and boyfriends and best friends all jumbled with the few Donghae doesn’t know how to categorize.
All the same people who attend baseball and basketball games with one difference.
The lack of energy from the crowd. They don’t sit biting their nails, gripping the edge of their seats, hawk eyes centered and focused on every second that flies by, the ticking of the clock represented by the distance between feet and the finish line.
Ignorant. All of them. It has nothing to with Donghae or milliseconds or winning. It has everything to do with the fact that that man was born to run. It’s there, in the shape of people’s feet, in the straight forwardness of the road, in the feeling of belonging each time they gain that bit much of distance and the sky doesn’t seem so far away in that place where flying almost seems possible. Donghae doesn’t see how all these people can witness the return to their roots, a homage to a time when the only way to survive was short quick strides over hundreds of miles, and not have their breath taken away.
Donghae blames cars for making people take their feet for granted. (This has nothing to do with Donghae failing his driver’s license test. Twice.)
The first few races pass by slowly for Donghae. He whoops in victory when Yesung doesn’t fumble during the four hundred meters relay and tries not to laugh when the last member of the other team sends their baton flying into the crowd and smacking their own coach in the forehead. Donghae has never paid much attention to Field, not one for high jumps or pole vaults but he cheers on his friend Jay and gets water thrown over his head for cheering on the other team. This is a friendly meet between their school and the all boy’s academy on the other side of the river dividing town; it’s all for fun really.
Except it isn’t. It sets the tone for this season. Tells the coach what they have to work on for when the real races come and it’s perverse how unfriendly the intention behind it all is.
Donghae goes to the bathroom after the four hundred meters hurdle. When he comes back, he’s missed the 100 meters race.
He gets there in time to see Hyukjae at the finish line wipe the sweat off his brow with the end of his shirt, smiling to himself then at Donghae when their eyes meet.
“You’re up Donghae,” coach tells him, using his clipboard to push him towards the track since Donghae doesn’t seem to see the need in moving at the moment.
Donghae lines up with the rest of the runners, his left knee lightly brushes his chest, head bowed. For a moment, Donghae feels like they’re kneeling at an altar, willing to sacrifice themselves for the honor of being able to run.
Closing his eyes, he tries to block out the image of Yesung crossing his fingers from the bench. Donghae doesn’t think the coaches would understand that they needed to pause the race so Donghae could kill Yesung.
The whistle goes off.
Later, first place medal around his neck, Donghae tries to not look at the coach's stats jotted down on the clipboard he asks Donghae to take to his office.
His time was 19.80.
Hyukjae did 100 meters in 9.77.
Donghae stares at the numbers for a while, barely stops the impulse to subtract, then add and carry over the one to see if had they been running the same distance, who would have won.
His mind is so full of angles and sine and cosines he can’t do it. For once, Donghae is happy he’s taking Trigonometry and not simple math just so he can be put out of his misery.
*
“Isn’t meatloaf supposed to be you know, meat colored? It’s purple.”
“This is why I never eat here.” Donghae snorts taking a bite out of his spinach pie which is thankfully a color found in nature.
Yesung shoves his tray aside and steals Donghae’s French fries. “I know. It’s like your moon is in Venus or something. Where’s that poison you call food?”
Donghae shrugs, grabbing his protein bar from his bag and chucks it at Yesung. It hits Yesung in the eye. Yesung flings a piece of his meatloaf at him. Donghae ducks and it smacks and slides down the wall.
“So the impossible does happen.”
Hyukjae, clutching his lunch tray so firmly his veins are strung out against his skin. His fingers are long. Lean, Donghae thinks. He’d be good at the relay.
“I haven’t seen you in here once all year,” Hyukjae furthers, pointing to the empty spot in front of Donghae much to both his and Yesung’s surprise. “Mind if I sit?”
Instead of commenting on the fact that Hyukjae has noticed him avoiding the cafeteria like the plague, Donghae shrugs. (It doesn’t mean he doesn’t think about it. He does. All through lunch but he has no idea what it means or why he thinks about it at all.)
Hyukjae smiles and places his tray down, has no qualms about digging into the vaguely purple meatloaf and talking with his mouth open. Yesung makes a face of semi disgust but after noticing Hyukjae isn’t self combusting from radiation he deems it safe to eat the meatloaf.
Hyukjae’s meatloaf is gone in less than three minutes and Donghae is starting to think everything about Hyukjae is fast; the words that spill out of his mouth, his flailing hands as he illustrates his words, it takes seconds for his eyes to light up then burn out when he goes from talking about his favorite band to unknowingly insulting Yesung by saying he always hated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as a kid.
“Thanks,” Hyukjae says after lunch is over, the bell ringing and students stampeding to class.
Donghae leaves his empty tray in the bin by the door and walks out with Hyukjae, Yesung a few steps behind them still fuming.
“For what?”
Hyukjae shrugs, slips his hands in his pockets and there may or may not be a faint blush on his cheeks. He won’t look Donghae in the eye and it makes Donghae have to keep himself from grinning. “For letting me sit with you guys, really. Being the new kid kind of sucks and I’m not exactly Mr. 5000 Facebook Friends.”
Donghae feels strangely at fault. He doesn’t understand that feeling of not being liked. He may not be the star quarterback but he’s well known and popular, invited to every Friday night party and nobly turning down brave confessions and deleting nude picture texts after putting them to good use. His admirers did go through the trouble of sending him the pictures. It would be rude if Donghae didn’t at least look at them.
Hyukjae isn’t even welcome at school yet and Donghae has probably made it worse with his attitude.
“No problem,” Donghae waves him off, finds himself smiling when Hyukjae’s eyes light up again.
“He sucks,” Yesung says as Hyukjae turns the corner and heads off to his class.
Donghae lets Yesung rant about why and how much Hyukjae sucks but he thinks, maybe, Hyukjae isn’t so bad.
*
Hyukjae isn’t bad.
He’s worse.
“You can’t give him the fifteen hundred meters race!”
“Donghae.”
Donghae takes a deep breath at the warning in Coach’s voice, relaxing his hands clawing into the desk.
“It’s not fair Coach. Jonghyun has been working harder than anyone since last year. He deserves it.”
The coach sighs and Donghae knows the decision is final no matter what he says. “This isn’t about who deserves it Donghae. Jonghyun already has the four hundred meters hurdle and I just put him in the relay. Hyukjae is fast and he’s shown a lot of determination to work hard so far. In fact, I was hoping you two would train together. You’re my best runners.”
Donghae scoffs at the universe’s idea of comedy.
Outside the coach’s office, Donghae bangs his head against the door thinking maybe if he passes out from the pain he can block out the world and forget there is such a thing as milliseconds and boys named Lee Hyukjae.
He doesn’t notice the person siting on the bench not until he hears sneakers squeaking against the gym floor and the sharp intake of breath before and a flurry of anger hitting him like a slap.
“What the hell is your problem?” Hyukjae demands. His eyes are flames burning holes through Donghae’s but there’s something else there too. Hurt. It makes Donghae a little sick to his stomach.
“Look, this isn’t about you. It’s about Jonghyun and-”
“Yes it is about me,” Hyukjae cuts him off. He pushes at the air between them, gets in Donghae’s face without being intruding and Donghae tells himself it’s childish to scowl at Hyukjae being half an inch taller than him. “You don’t care about Jonghyun. You’re mad my time was faster than yours yesterday during practice. That’s it isn’t it?” he asks, disbelief and disappointment coloring his voice and eyes.
Donghae pushes the air between them back, makes Hyukjae back off and it actually makes him feel better that Hyukjae looks smaller. Donghae’s stomach hurts even more, vicious and punishing. “You said you didn’t want to be the school jock? You just wanted to run? Load of shit that was.”
Hyukjae eyes widen in shock. Before Donghae realizes, he’s pushed up against the wall. Hyukjae didn’t even touch him.
Folding his arms across his chest, Hyukjae stares Donghae down from barely centimeters. Not even a full inch but he’s taller and prouder and not an ounce of righteous in a perfect semblance of David turned Goliath. “I don’t know how you’re used to doing things but where I’m from in order to be the best you have to beat the best.” I am the best, Hyukjae is saying. Right now, Donghae knows he’s right. He’s the better runner, the better person, the better team mate. Hyukjae’s stance relaxes suddenly, like being angry is too much of an effort. His shoulders slump and he just looks tired. “I told you I don’t want the popularity and in case you haven’t noticed, I don’t have it.”
“I’m sorry,” Donghae says, surprising both Hyukjae and himself. He feels as tired as Hyukjae looks. “It’s really nothing against you personally. I’d probably still act this way if it were anyone else,” he adds trying to make Hyukjae feel better because despite everything, despite the threat Hyukjae poses, Donghae doesn’t like the look in Hyukjae’s eyes when they burn out and he likes making someone feel two feet tall even less.
The anger has leaked out of Hyukjae’s body, self preservation layered in his voice and his shoulders and Donghae wonders if protection is the reason why Hyukjae tucks his elbows into himself when he runs. “It’s about my running. Of course it’s personal.”
Donghae’s heart stutters for a moment or two. Those are his words. He’s never said them out loud but they are exactly what Donghae feels. Running, the road, the race, it all makes up who he is. Donghae blinks and for a second, in Hyukjae, he sees himself.
An awkward silence fills the room for a few minutes. Hyukjae stares at his shoes while Donghae studies the parabola Hyukjae’s feet form.
“Your formation sucks,” Donghae says because the silence is freaking him out and he’s been thinking it since the first time he saw Hyukjae.
Instead of getting offended, Hyukjae challenges him. “Then do something about it.”
“Huh?” Donghae asks stupidly and almost predictably, Hyukjae grins.
“You heard Coach. He wants us to train together. This is your chance. I’d actually appreciate the help.”
“What’s in it for me?”
Hyukjae’s face falls, then the grin is back on his face, a proposition in mind. “I could help you with your math. And by helping me train you train yourself so… what do you say?”
Donghae doesn’t think about it. Truth is he’s tired of hating Hyukjae for no coherent reason. (Jealousy and fear are anything but.)
“Sounds like a deal.”
*
In the eighties teen movie version of their lives everything goes rosy and pastel colored from here. Donghae helps Eunhyuk, they become best friends, fight over the same girl, realize their friendship is more important and win the big race at the end and everyone gets to be happy and a winner.
(In the movie version, Lee Minho plays Donghae. Hyukjae’s character is played by Yu Jaesuk. No one would notice the age stretch anyways.)
Their first training session goes off without an incident with Donghae making Hyukjae run to see what they need to work on, where Hyukjae hits and misses and what is it that makes him look like his feet don’t touch the ground at the same time he seems a million leagues and twenty thousand suns from the sky.
When Donghae shows up for the next day with two litter bottles of water Hyukjae is rightfully perplexed.
“What’s the point of this again?” Hyukjae asks, panting after running two laps with the water bottles in hand, his fingers curled tight around the bottle handles.
Donghae looks up from texting on his phone, his face smeared in apathy. “To test your resistance. Now keep going.”
Hyukjae’s shoulders drop and his knees look about ready to give out on him. Donghae stays where he’s sitting, fighting the impulse to steady Hyukjae before he tumbles. “I’m not the big expert or anything, but how is this supposed to work? I run while you just sit there?”
If there were a panel of judges for coaching techniques, Donghae would not only receive a streak of zeros he’d also never be allowed to help train anyone again. Gaze dropping back to his phone, Donghae says, “Yep.”
There is a long drawn out sight and a blur of movement, Hyukjae’s feet scuffing up chalk and every ounce of will from the minerals in his bones. Donghae watches from the corner of his eye and tells himself if Hyukjae trips or his knees do finally give out on him he’ll at least call the school nurse. It assures Donghae that he’s not that much of a jerk.
Hyukjae doesn’t say no to anything Donghae tells him to do, sometimes a tight set to his mouth or a confused pull of his eyebrows but he takes the sand weights Donghae hands him or jumps rope until he trips and catches himself from barely falling. Coach had told Hyukjae he could trust Donghae, Donghae was their best runner, the best teammate and together Coach knew they could make this year theirs. Donghae wishes he could shove away the jealousy, the childishness, his desire to crush Hyukjae but Donghae has dreams and he doesn’t plan on handing them over to anyone.
When Yesung finds about the training sessions, slipped from Donghae’s tongue during changing after practice in the locker rooms, he does exactly what Donghae expected him to do; burst out laughing. His parents’ reactions aren’t any better, encouraging Donghae and telling him that they are proud of how mature their son is and Donghae can hardly hold his dinner down at the praise, warm and heartfelt, in their voices. The next day, he has Hyukjae sprint from one side of the football field to the other until sundown and the twisting feeling in his gut stays well after the sun has gone home to rest and the moon has risen in all her splendor and lighting path for his run into the night.
“You’re heartless dude,” Yesung says about two weeks in, sitting in on watching Hyukjae run up the bleachers on Wednesday after practice gets cancelled. It’s hot autumn afternoon and the sun beats down on their arms and legs, deep rooted marks that won’t surface on their skin for years. “Does he have any clue you’re just wearing him out?”
He’s been motionless for an hour but merely watching Hyukjae run makes Donghae’s feet burn. “It’s not like it’s totally useless,” Donghae argues, eyes trained on the strain of Hyukjae’s calf muscles. The skin of Hyukjae’s legs is slightly reddened and his veins stand proud, a taunting in how they rise with defiance at the breaking point. “Now he knows how much he can take before he passes out. Every runner should know that.”
Yesung laughs. “Does that help you sleep at night?” He sighs and points at Donghae with his index finger mockingly. “One day you’re going to meet someone who doesn’t believe every little thing that comes out of that mouth yours and then what’ll you do?”
Donghae flicks Yesung on his forehead, dodging the incoming punch Yesung shoots in retaliation. “I already have you don’t I?”
“Sorry, you’re not my type.”
“Please. I’m everyone’s type.”
Even Donghae admits the water bottle Yesung throws over his head afterwards is completely deserved and just the cool down he needed.
*
After their first math tutoring session Donghae comes to two conclusions: either Hyukjae is very stupid or too nice for his own good.
He rolls his eyes at Donghae’s vague explanation of where his teacher is in the curriculum and what Donghae doesn’t understand, coming up with some half baked explanation over not understanding the trigonometric identities and their inverses and what pie has to do with anything. Hyukjae is patient in his explaining drawing out arcs and triangles and angles, what sides divide into the tangent and how a careful calculation leads to the secant and back. He makes Donghae do countless exercises, correcting his mistakes and explaining where he goes wrong and he does not give up until Donghae gets it right.
“Why don’t you give up?” Donghae asks on a particularly stubborn exercise. They’re in a half crowded hallway during study period, the only free time Donghae said he had all week. “Anyone else would have stopped trying.”
Hyukjae looks up from the worksheet Donghae has to hand in, his glasses a little crooked and his bangs mused. Donghae is staring to think that maybe everything about Hyukjae isn’t just fast but a little crooked too; his nose, his running, the shape of his fingers, and that ‘One Piece’ keychain hanging off his duffel bag.
“Because I said I’d help you. And unless you get it right I’m not keeping my promise.”
There’s something about the way Hyukjae is staring at him with his honest words and his shoulder lightly touching Donghae’s that makes Donghae really want to look away. He knows why Hyukjae does whatever he says during their training sessions, why he doesn’t question him or tell Donghae to forget it. Why Hyukjae doesn’t give up. Hyukjae wants what every kid wants; to fit in, to be liked and have friends and find a place to call his own. Donghae understands. He knows this. He wants this. The problem is this place Hyukjae is trying to fit himself into? It’s Donghae’s place as far as Donghae is considered and he’s not sure he’s willing to share it. But that want, that desire Donghae sees in Hyukjae’s eyes when he runs, it burns inside of Donghae with the same intensity and fire.
“Do I have something on my face?” Hyukjae asks after a few seconds, rubbing at his cheek and knocking into his glasses, the frames almost at somewhere between thirty and forty degrees on his face.
“No. It’s just,” Donghae trails off for a few moments, this sudden urge to push Hyukjae’s glasses up the bridge of his nose and fix the mess his bangs make on his forehead mixed in with liking the way the hallway lights reflect off the odd angle of Hyukjae’s glasses and how the end of Hyukjae’s bangs touch the tips of his lashes. “There’s something really… real about you.”
Hyukjae’s expression freezes for a moment, mouth circling in surprise and Donghae almost, almost, wants to take it back. He smiles strangely, voice bemused when he says, “Thanks, I guess?” And maybe it’s because Donghae doesn’t take the time to notice smiles, but Hyukjae isn’t the least bit crooked, his lips spread with tinges of resistance that give way to Hyukjae’s pink gums and the gentle crinkle of his eyes.
Donghae swallows, clearing his throat loudly (not that he’s embarrassed. At all.) and studies his worksheet with renovated interest. “Right. So uhmm. The co secant is … nine over eleven?”
“Right,” Hyukjae says, and Donghae can hear the smile in Hyukjae’s voice. It twists something up in Donghae’s abdomen but it doesn’t send something sour and angry into Donghae’s throat. It doesn’t feel negative or wrong, and for the first time, Donghae doesn’t completely hate the way Hyukjae makes him feel.
*
Donghae starts noticing things about Hyukjae after that.
Things other than his posture and his running stats. Little things that come up to coalition at the oddest of times like the fact that Hyukjae only uses green pens to write and his big thumb is the only nail that’s chipped at the edge; Donghae catches Hyukjae chewing on it when Coach calls an abrupt meeting during class. Things like how much of a walking contradiction Hyukjae is as he stretches his left leg twice right before he runs but walks without caution and crosses the street between the school and the parking lot without so much as a glance for cars. He laughs like a wheezing hyena on crack and he’s obviously embarrassed when his gums show when he smiles. He doesn’t say anything when people call him the new kid or the rest of the team designate him as Frosh, and Donghae laughs and chimes in with the jokes and the teases but he always makes sure to call Hyukjae, Hyukjae.
The most awkward place to notice these things is the locker room because usually Hyukjae is half naked and Donghae, also, is half naked and while Donghae is prone to space out and stare at things, people, absolutely nothing, he’d prefer it didn’t happen while he’s not wearing pants.
“Staring is creepy.”
Donghae bangs his elbow with the edge of his locker in haste to turn and glare at Yesung. Yesung just smiles.
Donghae rolls his eyes because typical Yesung doesn’t get deterred by anything, menacing expressions included, and he goes back to getting dressed. Practice was long today and all Donghae wants to do is go home and sleep. “What are you yapping about?” Donghae asks, pulling his shirt over his head. It sticks to his torso but his skin feels clean and all the tension has been ebbed away from the pressure of the locker room showers.
“Nothing. I’ve just noticed you’ve picked up a habit lately.” Leaning over Donghae’s shoulder, Yesung taps on the poster of Kaká taped on the inside of Donghae’s locker. “I’m glad you got over your man crush on Ronaldo by the way. He’s such a douche.”
“Kaká’s abs are better.” Donghae drops his towel and steps into his boxers, winking at Yesung. “Yours are looking nice by the way,” he says teasingly before his eyes slide across the room. He likes these moments best, after a long day of practice and everyone relaxes, locker room teasing and towel whippings. He finds his stare landing on Hyukjae, and okay maybe it’s more than a habit, but there’s something in how Hyukjae stands here but not exactly a part of with his jeans clinging to his wet body, a concentrated furrow to his brows as he wipes his glasses with the edge of his towel.
“You think so? Oh.” Yesung scoffs. “Yeah. Sure. Change the subject.” The annoyance in Yesung’s face morphs into a smirk when he notices where Donghae is looking. “You’re doing it again.”
This time Donghae turns around so fast he smacks his head with the edge of his locker. He bites down on his tongue to keep his scream trapped his throat. He gives Yesung the dirtiest glare he can muster through the pain. Yesung wiggles his eyebrows. “I wasn’t doing anything.”
“Mhmmm. When you get a boner don’t jerk off in the shower like last time when Joon joined staff as the swim team’s assistant coach.”
“I was not jerking off.”
“Were to.”
“Was not.”
The discussion ends with Donghae wrestling Yesung to the floor, Yesung taking an elbow to his eye and Donghae smacking his forehead against a bench. It doesn’t escalate much more than that (one of the seniors laughingly pulling Donghae off Yesung’s back until Yesung screams uncle) and while Donghae technically wins, the fact remains Yesung was right. Donghae had been staring.
*
Sometimes Donghae feels like he and Hyukjae are on the verge of becoming friends. Or something like it at least. He’ll genuinely laugh at Hyukjae’s lame math jokes and ease up on Hyukjae during their training sessions and things are easy on these days when they are no more than two boys who share a passion for the feel of smooth clay beneath their rapid feet.
Some days aren’t so easy.
“Runners line up,” Coach says with a sharp blow to his whistle.
Donghae steps up to Coach, says discretely as he can. “Coach, I was thinking I could run with the next group.”
Coach eyes him for a moment, a quick evaluation of who else is lined up before he turns back to Donghae. “Unless you have a valid reason go, line up.”
Biting his lip, Donghae thinks about coming up with a valid reason. (He also thinks about how last year he wouldn’t need a valid reason. He wouldn’t have asked in the first place.)
Resolutely, Donghae takes his place at the starting line, senses more than sees the hands that lay flat on the track along with his own. They pop up and they can see the end of the finish line. One hundred meters. Throughout the years Donghae has developed a love hate relationship with such a short distance. It’s not a test of agility or strength. It’s all speed. Intensity. Time. In the perfect combination in small stretches of space, it is what separates runners from everyone else.
Donghae flexes his fingers and takes a quick inhale of breath. The whistle goes off.
He can never explain exactly how it feels. Everything happens so fast. One second he’s so still, the whole world has stopped to the point he can feel time halt, the turn of earth on its axis and himself move along with it. Then, his feet are lifting off the ground, arms pulling and pushing to keep his balance. There’s always something holding him back or thrusting him backwards, but Donghae’s body impulses forward, shoving the barrier as he runs. His heart rate goes from nothing to full impact in seconds, chest heaving and the air never feels as fresher as when his lungs are contracting at the quickest speed.
It is the best and most terrifying feeling in the world.
During the last meter, he turns his head and finds Hyukjae a blurry vision going at with him neck and neck, Donghae swears their feet hit the ground at the same time.
Hyukjae crosses the finish line first.
“You know what they say. You turn your head for half a second and it shaves off your time.” Yesung knocks his shoulder against Donghae’s as they sit on the bench watching the other half of the team run. Donghae nods because it’s true but he’s not really listening.
“Dude?”
Donghae blinks at Yesung’s waving hand in front of his face. He looks up at Yesung and he almost asks Yesung the question he keeps replaying in his mind over and over again.
But Yesung is smiling and it’s not like he has the answer anyhow. “It doesn’t mean anything, yeah?”
Donghae grins. It feels awkward and strained on his mouth and the fall of Yesung’s shoulder lets Donghae know Yesung can tell it’s fake. “Yeah.”
*
After practice, Hyukjae approaches Donghae. Donghae doesn’t mention the fact he was thinking skipping their training session.
“I was thinking we could do something else today.”
Donghae hesitates but Hyukjae’s smile is stupidly eager. Hopeful, Donghae thinks. He’s in no mood to watch Hyukjae sweat for an hour so he agrees, his nod making the corners of Hyukjae’s mouth stretch wider.
“The park?” Donghae asks at the entrance, kids pushing each other on the swing sets and the ducks swimming in the small pond. He follows Hyukjae to the ice cream cart by the jungle gym, eyes widened as Hyukjae orders a triple scoop in a waffle cone.
“You do know there’s like a million calories in that, right?”
Hyukjae looks at him oddly. “You do know were on the track team and not the cheer squad, right?”
Donghae huffs but ask for a double fudge cone dipped in nuts. Hyukjae laughs so hard he almost drops his cone. They sit on a nearby bench, sweet cream melting from the late afternoon sun. Hyukjae ends up a melted mess and Donghae doesn’t fare any better. Elementary schools populate the park, feet sprinting without a care and the last bit of sunlight lighting up the ground and sand they kick up on fire. Donghae’s feet burn with the urge to join them.
“It’s weird to think that was us once,” Hyukjae says finally. He watches a boy no more than six year old reach the top of the jungle gym with a hint of yearn in his voice. Donghae doesn’t tell him about the ice cream smudge on his cheek.
“We were?”
“You know. Kids.”
Donghae blinks. They were once kids. There is something terribly unsettling about that sentence. Donghae doesn’t feel an apathy or empathy to the thought. Looking away from the kids with the wind dancing through their hair to the boy sitting next to him, feet stuck to the ground the way he seems to be between being boy and man.
He gives Hyukjae a half smile when he looks at him. “I’m pretty sure I’m still a kid.”
Before Hyukjae can say anything Donghae is pulling him up from the bench, tossing their half eaten cones into a trash bin and challenging him to the monkey bars. Hyukjae is appropriately surprised but Donghae doesn’t give him room to turn him down, knees bent and already holding on to the first bar. Halfway through, Hyukjae is on the second bar. No count to how many times they swing across until the end, hands curled on metal and feet kicking up the wind that spins and twirls their hair. Donghae’s laughter bursts when Hyukjae knocks him down. It warms the pit of his stomach and rumbles in his chest and he retaliates by taking Hyukjae down with him and nothing matters today. Not any rivalry or animosity between them, no hesitance or jealousy; today they are part of the kids with sun dancing in their hair and sugar kissed mouths.
“Why won’t you run with me?”
It’s late now. The moon has replaced the sun and the stars loom over them, insignificant to their naked eyes but far larger then they will ever be in the scheme of things.
Donghae raises himself on his elbows from where he lies on the park’s merry go round. He’s been expecting this question for some time now. (If things were reversed, he would have asked it the first day.)
Hyukjae sits up, a sort of expectancy in his eyes.
“You know why I won’t race you.”
“You think you’re not just as much of a threat to me as I am to you?” Hyukjae smiles lightly at Donghae’s skeptic expression. “Besides I didn’t ask why you won’t race me. I asked why you won’t run with me.”
“There’s a difference?”
A beat passes between them, Hyukjae gripping onto one of the handles with jittery fingers and Donghae confused because running and racing, it’s all one and the same. Isn’t it?
“Come on.” Hyukjae gestures for Donghae to follow. He gets up but holds back when Hyukjae takes off, a slow figure in the half darkness.
“What are you doing?” Donghae’s voice teeters on curiosity, feet without an ounce of apprehension and back heel already lifted and ready to go.
Hyukjae turns and jogs in place for a moment. His hair is all over the place, clothes rumpled and dried sugar visible in the faint light and all Donghae can see is a kid, no trace of the almost man society claims he should be. “Come on,” Hyukjae says again, voice soft and encouraging before he runs off, not looking back once to see if Donghae follows.
It’s seconds and Donghae is sprinting off. Donghae has never been more thankful he lives in a small town, offset of major city sky scrapers and crowding lights, there is enough natural light so he can make out the shape of Hyukjae’s body cutting through branches and slipping in spaces between trees. His heart rate is fast, out control as he catches up to Hyukjae, closer, closer, so close he can hear Hyukjae’s breathing. He wonders if Hyukjae can hear his.
At some point, Donghae’s mind goes blank. All he can focus on is remembering to breathe and placing one foot after the other, feet pressing deep into the trackless path when he surpasses Hyukjae and falling into Hyukjae’s dirt foot prints when he falls behind. He’s lost to surrounding, to light, to his own body even, and Donghae thinks he might be trapped in a dream. Like if Donghae were to close his eyes and leap, he might taste heaven’s air against his arms. For a second Donghae pretends it’s true, eyelids sliding shut. He feels himself slip and his eyes open, arms maintaining his balance but the loss of vertigo has Donghae running that much harder to keep stay upright.
When he stops, he’s not out of breath. Sweat doesn’t pour from his body and the stillness overwhelms him with such intensity he’s almost knocked off his feet.
He finds purchase on one of the swing set’s chains, teetering on tip toe and breathing in the cool night air. Hyukjae is somewhere in his peripheral vision. More than anything Donghae can hear his breathing in the quiet. That’s when he realizes. He hadn’t thought of Hyukjae at all. In body yes, he’d been aware of Hyukjae’s moving figure, footprints and pants of air but the only thing that had mattered was the run. Not time. Not speed. Not his competitor. Just Donghae. Donghae and the road.
With a suddenness, there is a choke hold around Donghae’s throat. He’s been running for years, pebble stuck sneakers and grass stains on his socks, pushing himself to go faster until his body gave out and for what?
Hyukjae comes closer. His steps are tentative now and he seems to be caught on a pause, waiting for whatever is trapped in Donghae’s lungs (or maybe his heart) to be breathed out. “Sometimes I feel like I don’t even know what I’m running for anymore,” he admits in a whisper, more for himself than Hyukjae.
“I used to think running was pointless.”
“What made you change your mind?”
Hyukjae sits on one of the swings, feet pushing off the ground as he sways slowly. Donghae clings onto the chain like he does to Hyukjae’s next words.
But Hyukjae has no great wisdom to impart; he is a kid after all, naïve and teetering between two edges the same way Donghae is. He shrugs and looks up at Donghae. “It’s not the fact that I finish the run. It’s the fact I had the guts to start.”
Donghae scoffs but his grip on the chains lessens and he plops down on the swing next to Hyukjae. “Did you read that off a back of a cereal box?”
“Maybe.” Hyukjae stops, a funny quirk to his eyebrows. Another shrug and he looks completely relaxed with Donghae for the first time. “Doesn’t change the fact I believe it.”
And maybe that’s the thing. Maybe that’s what makes the countless hours, the strained muscles, the dirt stains and the sense of disappointment if you didn’t give enough. The will to push yourself to start.
Donghae watches his feet swirl in the star dotted sand along with Hyukjae’s, two kids playing in a playground and he thinks, this might be a start too.
*
notes: Just a quick heads up. This isn't a multi chap in the strictest sense of the word. More like a really long one shot I'm not posting all at once. Huge thanks to daisychains555 and rubyls for reading this over and especially to Tee who read the entirety of this fic twice and also came up with the title. Most of my fics would be nameless without her.
donghae/eunhyuk
high school au
pg-13
8177 words
These are the paths we follow, these are the paths we create. Most of us have our fates set from the moment our feet brush the road. Donghae thinks he has to be the first to cross the finishing line; Hyukjae knows he has the race won from the start. It's not about the race at all. It's about the run.
tracks that lead us
Track season starts in September.
Donghae’s sneakers are worn in and muddy from running all summer, every morning at six a.m. and night at nine. He flexes his toes in their confines and it feels familiar, like a second skin, and Donghae is barefoot against the clay of the high school’s running track.
Football season is over. No more seven a.m. drills. No more missing patches of grass on the green field or blurry lines of chalk messing up the path and Donghae gives football players credit for being fast but they will never be able to run the way man was meant to. Too many obstacles in their way to make a clear break for it and try to reach the horizon.
It’s too early for anyone else to be here, most highschoolers still in bed at five thirty in the morning if they can help it.
Donghae presses his palms to the starting line, rests his weight on the balls of his left foot and counts down from three. When he pushes off, the horizon is within reach.
*
“I hate the beginning of season.”
“Dude, they’re about to start. Can you shut up for two seconds?”
Yesung sighs and gestures wildly in Donghae’s direction as if Donghae encompasses the world’s greatest frustrations. Or just his. “This is why I hate it. You get all crazy about tryouts and it makes me want to punch you.”
“I don’t get crazy,” Donghae argues, slipping his previously restless fingers into the pockets of his sweatshirt. “I just get a little nervous that’s all.”
Yesung stomps his foot against the bleachers, foot mere inches from Donghae’s shin. Donghae screeches in outrage. “This is why I want to punch you. You’re the fastest runner in the league and you freak out because you think some new kid is going to upstage you and yet I, who has to tryout every year because coach is a sadistic bitch, am fine.”
Before Donghae says something to comfort Yesung, or mock him, the whistle goes off twice in quick successions indicating the first runners are up. Donghae shoves Yesung to make room on the bleacher and Yesung barely contains the urge to sock Donghae upside the head. He lets Donghae grip his arm to take out his nerves instead.
“Who’s that?” Yesung nods toward the last boy lined up.
“I don’t know,” Donghae says, eyes running over his body. He doesn’t look like much of a runner. His calves are too thin and his shoulders are too wide, waist slightly curved in an inward arch descending into narrow hips. A swimmer maybe looking to spend the off season keeping condition.
Donghae doesn’t see him as a threat. Even the fastest shark dies of asphyxiation on dry land no matter how quick he is at taking out his prey under water.
The whistle goes off again and all the boys kneel against clay.
Donghae has to contain himself from running down to the track. The boy’s position is all wrong. His left leg is too far back, his elbows should be aligned not tucked towards his chest and his toes should be parallel to his hips, straight. Donghae’s fingers dig into Yesung’s skin. Yesung slaps his hand away as nails pierce into his arm, his good throwing arm at that.
When the whistle goes off again, and it’s been less than a second from the first but it feels like hours, all the hopefuls pop up. Heads bowed and shoulders strung out from containing themselves, they hold back until allowed to break the invisible shield and taste freedom through their toes.
Donghae’s pulse quickens at the sloping curve the last body forms, back sloped and arching at inverse angles in all the wrong places. He doesn’t even register the whistle going off a third and final time.
Coach’s eyebrows raised in content shock say it all.
“Shit,” Yesung mutters, watching the rest of the boys reach the finish line all out of breath and staring at their fellow hopeful standing there all fixed composure and regular breathing with awe and envy. He turns to Donghae, sitting there stunned, and sighs. “I’m going to punch you this season, aren’t I?”
*
0.04
Not even a full second. The kid shaves a measly four hundredth of a second off Donghae’s record time and he’s some sort of world wonder.
“Don’t worry, Donghae. You’re still our star,” Coach says to him after Donghae’s face had contorted when looking at the times.
Lie.
In the real world, a second is nothing. Snap your fingers and you can make it disappear.
On the track, a millisecond is everything.
He tells his parents and brother about it during dinner, keeping his voice neutral and saying it as casually as possible. His father smiles, says, son we’re proud of you no matter what, and his mother serves him an extra helping dessert as Donghwa pipes in with it’s nice to finally see someone can get under your skin, bro. Joking shoulder punch and all. It’s warm and it’s comforting but as he lunges at Donghwa and their mother tries to sternly tell them to behave and not laugh, Donghae knows they don’t understand.
It was his father who gave Donghae his first pair of running shoes and Donghwa was the one who would take him to the running park, sit on a bench and occupy himself with his handheld or play soccer with the neighborhood kids until Donghae was old enough to run by himself. His mother goes to every game she can and hangs up his ribbons and medals on the shelf in the living room. They are his enablers and supporters, his number one fans and Donghae loves them for that can’t be more thankful but they don’t understand about milliseconds and that feeling of being at one with the road. Donghae doesn’t expect them to.
The next morning, Donghae is up before the sun is, coaxes its rays from hiding inside the ocean to light the white lines of the track as his sneakers set it ablaze and burn everything in his way.
*
“Hey.”
Donghae looks over his shoulder and frowns. His calves burn and sweat runs down the sides of his face and he really doesn’t want to deal with this during his lunch break. Most juniors spend their lunch period cramming for pre university entrance exams or chucking moldy pieces of meat loaf across the cafeteria at their friends while the lunch ladies try to dissuade a food fight or convincing the hottest mouth they can find to busy themselves for an hour beneath the bleachers. Donghae spends lunch drenched in sweat and working on resistance training rather than time.
“You’re Donghae, right? Aren’t you in my AP Calculus class?”
Lifting the bottom of his shirt to dry his forehead, Donghae raises his eyebrows. Of course. The kid isn’t just good with time; he’s good at numbers too. “I think you’re confused. I take Trig. Regular Trigonometry. Not some AP course I’m not going to remember when I get to college anyways.”
“I know,” the kid says, taking Donghae completely off guard. He smiles at Donghae, mouth agape and his shirt tail pressed to his temple. “I just thought I should try and break the ice since you’re so hell bent on hating me.”
“I-” Donghae begins to protest but the kid cocks his head in disbelief, a who are you shitting twisted in the corner of his smile now. Wringing his shirt in his left fist, Donghae bunches up light grey cotton as he regards his new team mate.
These are the things Donghae knows about Lee Hyukjae:
He’s not some swimmer Donghae has never noticed but this year’s new kid and in their small town everyone knows the new kid, transferred over from some fancy fake noses stuck up in the air private school. His father lost his job so now his family is on food stamps. (This is not something Donghae knows but likes pretending he does because it makes everything seem fair.) His posture is terrible. He takes AP Calculus even though he’s a junior. He runs a meter four hundredth of a second faster than Donghae.
“Look. I get it. No one likes the new kid. Especially when he makes team in his first year. But I’m not looking to be the school jock hero. I just want to run.”
Donghae knows Hyukjae is trying to sign some sort of peace treaty with him before the first fumes of gun smoke hit the air. He gets it. Hyukjae is not dumb. All Donghae wants to do is stand behind this kid, kick his knees so he stops leaning all his weight on one side and stand up straight with his toes pointing north not inward and forming the weirdest parabola Donghae has ever seen.
“Okay,” Donghae says though he’s not sure what he’s agreeing to exactly.
Hyukjae smiles. “Great. I guess I’ll see you at practice.” He starts walking backwards and gives Donghae a small half wave; Donghae bites his tongue from bursting out laughing when Hyukjae almost fumbles with his untied shoelace.
“Oh, Donghae?”
Face composed as seriously as he can, Donghae looks up instantly put off by the slight smirk Hyukjae gives him.
“Little advice? You might want to put those away before she passes out.”
Startled, Donghae realizes he’s been lifting his shirt this entire time, the flat planes of his sweat slicked stomach slightly reddened by the midday sun. He lets go of his shirt abruptly, unsure if the high pitched sigh he hears coming from the bleachers is of disappointment or relief.
Well, at least his cheeks now match his abs.
Another thing Donghae knows about Lee Hyukjae:
He’s kind of a jerk.
(So is Donghae but that is neither here nor there where Donghae is concerned. That is Hyukjae’s problem.)
*
“I’m going to tell you this as your best friend because I don’t actually want to punch you. Calm the fuck down.”
Donghae blows his bangs out of his face, doesn’t spare a millisecond to elbow Yesung in the gut. It would ruin his formation. “Excuse me for being worried over our first race,” Donghae defends himself and picks up his feet.
Taking a breath, Yesung sprints to stay on par with Donghae, gives a little more than two shits about milliseconds and punches Donghae’s arm. “You never get nervous about the first race. You’re like this because of that dumb new kid, what’s his face who skipped evolution.”
Donghae gurgles a laugh, his strides becoming slower to give Yesung a break to catch his breath.
It’s late Sunday afternoon. Their first meet is this Tuesday. Donghae stops laughing.
“Hyukjae,” he says. The name is not an acid sourness in his stomach, but a nagging reminder, a thorn in his side that doesn’t prickle, merely constantly jabs never actually drawing blood. “And he’s not that dumb. He’s the only underclassman after that freak freshman game addict taking AP Calculus.”
Yesung shrugs, unimpressed, and lifts his hands skyward. Donghae can tell he is silently thanking whoever likes him up there that they can jog now. “Not like he’ll remember any of that crap in college.”
Donghae smiles. This is why Yesung has been his best friend since nursery school.
Deciding they deserve a break, Donghae slows down to a trot and when they finally stop Yesung almost kisses the ground in gratitude.
“You know what?” Donghae sets his right foot back on the ground after stretching it, rolls his shoulders to work the slight burn in his left one before tossing his arm across Yesung’s shoulders. “I’m going to treat you to a McFlurry from McDonald's.”
“With double fudge and M&M’s?”
“Don’t push it.”
*
Donghae doesn’t understand how the common person thinks.
The stands during Track and Field matches are never empty, in fact some of the people have to sit on the floor at the foot of the last bleacher, jackets stripped off and cushioning the hard concrete. The crowd is mainly made out of students who are bored but not bored enough to go home, the car pooling parents with camcorders attached to their hands like permanent fixtures, the guilt driven parents in the impeccable business suits yakking away on their cellphones who always congratulate their kid for getting third and never noticing their shoulders fall because they actually won first. Younger siblings run alongside the runners, the supportive girlfriends and boyfriends and best friends all jumbled with the few Donghae doesn’t know how to categorize.
All the same people who attend baseball and basketball games with one difference.
The lack of energy from the crowd. They don’t sit biting their nails, gripping the edge of their seats, hawk eyes centered and focused on every second that flies by, the ticking of the clock represented by the distance between feet and the finish line.
Ignorant. All of them. It has nothing to with Donghae or milliseconds or winning. It has everything to do with the fact that that man was born to run. It’s there, in the shape of people’s feet, in the straight forwardness of the road, in the feeling of belonging each time they gain that bit much of distance and the sky doesn’t seem so far away in that place where flying almost seems possible. Donghae doesn’t see how all these people can witness the return to their roots, a homage to a time when the only way to survive was short quick strides over hundreds of miles, and not have their breath taken away.
Donghae blames cars for making people take their feet for granted. (This has nothing to do with Donghae failing his driver’s license test. Twice.)
The first few races pass by slowly for Donghae. He whoops in victory when Yesung doesn’t fumble during the four hundred meters relay and tries not to laugh when the last member of the other team sends their baton flying into the crowd and smacking their own coach in the forehead. Donghae has never paid much attention to Field, not one for high jumps or pole vaults but he cheers on his friend Jay and gets water thrown over his head for cheering on the other team. This is a friendly meet between their school and the all boy’s academy on the other side of the river dividing town; it’s all for fun really.
Except it isn’t. It sets the tone for this season. Tells the coach what they have to work on for when the real races come and it’s perverse how unfriendly the intention behind it all is.
Donghae goes to the bathroom after the four hundred meters hurdle. When he comes back, he’s missed the 100 meters race.
He gets there in time to see Hyukjae at the finish line wipe the sweat off his brow with the end of his shirt, smiling to himself then at Donghae when their eyes meet.
“You’re up Donghae,” coach tells him, using his clipboard to push him towards the track since Donghae doesn’t seem to see the need in moving at the moment.
Donghae lines up with the rest of the runners, his left knee lightly brushes his chest, head bowed. For a moment, Donghae feels like they’re kneeling at an altar, willing to sacrifice themselves for the honor of being able to run.
Closing his eyes, he tries to block out the image of Yesung crossing his fingers from the bench. Donghae doesn’t think the coaches would understand that they needed to pause the race so Donghae could kill Yesung.
The whistle goes off.
Later, first place medal around his neck, Donghae tries to not look at the coach's stats jotted down on the clipboard he asks Donghae to take to his office.
His time was 19.80.
Hyukjae did 100 meters in 9.77.
Donghae stares at the numbers for a while, barely stops the impulse to subtract, then add and carry over the one to see if had they been running the same distance, who would have won.
His mind is so full of angles and sine and cosines he can’t do it. For once, Donghae is happy he’s taking Trigonometry and not simple math just so he can be put out of his misery.
*
“Isn’t meatloaf supposed to be you know, meat colored? It’s purple.”
“This is why I never eat here.” Donghae snorts taking a bite out of his spinach pie which is thankfully a color found in nature.
Yesung shoves his tray aside and steals Donghae’s French fries. “I know. It’s like your moon is in Venus or something. Where’s that poison you call food?”
Donghae shrugs, grabbing his protein bar from his bag and chucks it at Yesung. It hits Yesung in the eye. Yesung flings a piece of his meatloaf at him. Donghae ducks and it smacks and slides down the wall.
“So the impossible does happen.”
Hyukjae, clutching his lunch tray so firmly his veins are strung out against his skin. His fingers are long. Lean, Donghae thinks. He’d be good at the relay.
“I haven’t seen you in here once all year,” Hyukjae furthers, pointing to the empty spot in front of Donghae much to both his and Yesung’s surprise. “Mind if I sit?”
Instead of commenting on the fact that Hyukjae has noticed him avoiding the cafeteria like the plague, Donghae shrugs. (It doesn’t mean he doesn’t think about it. He does. All through lunch but he has no idea what it means or why he thinks about it at all.)
Hyukjae smiles and places his tray down, has no qualms about digging into the vaguely purple meatloaf and talking with his mouth open. Yesung makes a face of semi disgust but after noticing Hyukjae isn’t self combusting from radiation he deems it safe to eat the meatloaf.
Hyukjae’s meatloaf is gone in less than three minutes and Donghae is starting to think everything about Hyukjae is fast; the words that spill out of his mouth, his flailing hands as he illustrates his words, it takes seconds for his eyes to light up then burn out when he goes from talking about his favorite band to unknowingly insulting Yesung by saying he always hated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as a kid.
“Thanks,” Hyukjae says after lunch is over, the bell ringing and students stampeding to class.
Donghae leaves his empty tray in the bin by the door and walks out with Hyukjae, Yesung a few steps behind them still fuming.
“For what?”
Hyukjae shrugs, slips his hands in his pockets and there may or may not be a faint blush on his cheeks. He won’t look Donghae in the eye and it makes Donghae have to keep himself from grinning. “For letting me sit with you guys, really. Being the new kid kind of sucks and I’m not exactly Mr. 5000 Facebook Friends.”
Donghae feels strangely at fault. He doesn’t understand that feeling of not being liked. He may not be the star quarterback but he’s well known and popular, invited to every Friday night party and nobly turning down brave confessions and deleting nude picture texts after putting them to good use. His admirers did go through the trouble of sending him the pictures. It would be rude if Donghae didn’t at least look at them.
Hyukjae isn’t even welcome at school yet and Donghae has probably made it worse with his attitude.
“No problem,” Donghae waves him off, finds himself smiling when Hyukjae’s eyes light up again.
“He sucks,” Yesung says as Hyukjae turns the corner and heads off to his class.
Donghae lets Yesung rant about why and how much Hyukjae sucks but he thinks, maybe, Hyukjae isn’t so bad.
*
Hyukjae isn’t bad.
He’s worse.
“You can’t give him the fifteen hundred meters race!”
“Donghae.”
Donghae takes a deep breath at the warning in Coach’s voice, relaxing his hands clawing into the desk.
“It’s not fair Coach. Jonghyun has been working harder than anyone since last year. He deserves it.”
The coach sighs and Donghae knows the decision is final no matter what he says. “This isn’t about who deserves it Donghae. Jonghyun already has the four hundred meters hurdle and I just put him in the relay. Hyukjae is fast and he’s shown a lot of determination to work hard so far. In fact, I was hoping you two would train together. You’re my best runners.”
Donghae scoffs at the universe’s idea of comedy.
Outside the coach’s office, Donghae bangs his head against the door thinking maybe if he passes out from the pain he can block out the world and forget there is such a thing as milliseconds and boys named Lee Hyukjae.
He doesn’t notice the person siting on the bench not until he hears sneakers squeaking against the gym floor and the sharp intake of breath before and a flurry of anger hitting him like a slap.
“What the hell is your problem?” Hyukjae demands. His eyes are flames burning holes through Donghae’s but there’s something else there too. Hurt. It makes Donghae a little sick to his stomach.
“Look, this isn’t about you. It’s about Jonghyun and-”
“Yes it is about me,” Hyukjae cuts him off. He pushes at the air between them, gets in Donghae’s face without being intruding and Donghae tells himself it’s childish to scowl at Hyukjae being half an inch taller than him. “You don’t care about Jonghyun. You’re mad my time was faster than yours yesterday during practice. That’s it isn’t it?” he asks, disbelief and disappointment coloring his voice and eyes.
Donghae pushes the air between them back, makes Hyukjae back off and it actually makes him feel better that Hyukjae looks smaller. Donghae’s stomach hurts even more, vicious and punishing. “You said you didn’t want to be the school jock? You just wanted to run? Load of shit that was.”
Hyukjae eyes widen in shock. Before Donghae realizes, he’s pushed up against the wall. Hyukjae didn’t even touch him.
Folding his arms across his chest, Hyukjae stares Donghae down from barely centimeters. Not even a full inch but he’s taller and prouder and not an ounce of righteous in a perfect semblance of David turned Goliath. “I don’t know how you’re used to doing things but where I’m from in order to be the best you have to beat the best.” I am the best, Hyukjae is saying. Right now, Donghae knows he’s right. He’s the better runner, the better person, the better team mate. Hyukjae’s stance relaxes suddenly, like being angry is too much of an effort. His shoulders slump and he just looks tired. “I told you I don’t want the popularity and in case you haven’t noticed, I don’t have it.”
“I’m sorry,” Donghae says, surprising both Hyukjae and himself. He feels as tired as Hyukjae looks. “It’s really nothing against you personally. I’d probably still act this way if it were anyone else,” he adds trying to make Hyukjae feel better because despite everything, despite the threat Hyukjae poses, Donghae doesn’t like the look in Hyukjae’s eyes when they burn out and he likes making someone feel two feet tall even less.
The anger has leaked out of Hyukjae’s body, self preservation layered in his voice and his shoulders and Donghae wonders if protection is the reason why Hyukjae tucks his elbows into himself when he runs. “It’s about my running. Of course it’s personal.”
Donghae’s heart stutters for a moment or two. Those are his words. He’s never said them out loud but they are exactly what Donghae feels. Running, the road, the race, it all makes up who he is. Donghae blinks and for a second, in Hyukjae, he sees himself.
An awkward silence fills the room for a few minutes. Hyukjae stares at his shoes while Donghae studies the parabola Hyukjae’s feet form.
“Your formation sucks,” Donghae says because the silence is freaking him out and he’s been thinking it since the first time he saw Hyukjae.
Instead of getting offended, Hyukjae challenges him. “Then do something about it.”
“Huh?” Donghae asks stupidly and almost predictably, Hyukjae grins.
“You heard Coach. He wants us to train together. This is your chance. I’d actually appreciate the help.”
“What’s in it for me?”
Hyukjae’s face falls, then the grin is back on his face, a proposition in mind. “I could help you with your math. And by helping me train you train yourself so… what do you say?”
Donghae doesn’t think about it. Truth is he’s tired of hating Hyukjae for no coherent reason. (Jealousy and fear are anything but.)
“Sounds like a deal.”
*
In the eighties teen movie version of their lives everything goes rosy and pastel colored from here. Donghae helps Eunhyuk, they become best friends, fight over the same girl, realize their friendship is more important and win the big race at the end and everyone gets to be happy and a winner.
(In the movie version, Lee Minho plays Donghae. Hyukjae’s character is played by Yu Jaesuk. No one would notice the age stretch anyways.)
Their first training session goes off without an incident with Donghae making Hyukjae run to see what they need to work on, where Hyukjae hits and misses and what is it that makes him look like his feet don’t touch the ground at the same time he seems a million leagues and twenty thousand suns from the sky.
When Donghae shows up for the next day with two litter bottles of water Hyukjae is rightfully perplexed.
“What’s the point of this again?” Hyukjae asks, panting after running two laps with the water bottles in hand, his fingers curled tight around the bottle handles.
Donghae looks up from texting on his phone, his face smeared in apathy. “To test your resistance. Now keep going.”
Hyukjae’s shoulders drop and his knees look about ready to give out on him. Donghae stays where he’s sitting, fighting the impulse to steady Hyukjae before he tumbles. “I’m not the big expert or anything, but how is this supposed to work? I run while you just sit there?”
If there were a panel of judges for coaching techniques, Donghae would not only receive a streak of zeros he’d also never be allowed to help train anyone again. Gaze dropping back to his phone, Donghae says, “Yep.”
There is a long drawn out sight and a blur of movement, Hyukjae’s feet scuffing up chalk and every ounce of will from the minerals in his bones. Donghae watches from the corner of his eye and tells himself if Hyukjae trips or his knees do finally give out on him he’ll at least call the school nurse. It assures Donghae that he’s not that much of a jerk.
Hyukjae doesn’t say no to anything Donghae tells him to do, sometimes a tight set to his mouth or a confused pull of his eyebrows but he takes the sand weights Donghae hands him or jumps rope until he trips and catches himself from barely falling. Coach had told Hyukjae he could trust Donghae, Donghae was their best runner, the best teammate and together Coach knew they could make this year theirs. Donghae wishes he could shove away the jealousy, the childishness, his desire to crush Hyukjae but Donghae has dreams and he doesn’t plan on handing them over to anyone.
When Yesung finds about the training sessions, slipped from Donghae’s tongue during changing after practice in the locker rooms, he does exactly what Donghae expected him to do; burst out laughing. His parents’ reactions aren’t any better, encouraging Donghae and telling him that they are proud of how mature their son is and Donghae can hardly hold his dinner down at the praise, warm and heartfelt, in their voices. The next day, he has Hyukjae sprint from one side of the football field to the other until sundown and the twisting feeling in his gut stays well after the sun has gone home to rest and the moon has risen in all her splendor and lighting path for his run into the night.
“You’re heartless dude,” Yesung says about two weeks in, sitting in on watching Hyukjae run up the bleachers on Wednesday after practice gets cancelled. It’s hot autumn afternoon and the sun beats down on their arms and legs, deep rooted marks that won’t surface on their skin for years. “Does he have any clue you’re just wearing him out?”
He’s been motionless for an hour but merely watching Hyukjae run makes Donghae’s feet burn. “It’s not like it’s totally useless,” Donghae argues, eyes trained on the strain of Hyukjae’s calf muscles. The skin of Hyukjae’s legs is slightly reddened and his veins stand proud, a taunting in how they rise with defiance at the breaking point. “Now he knows how much he can take before he passes out. Every runner should know that.”
Yesung laughs. “Does that help you sleep at night?” He sighs and points at Donghae with his index finger mockingly. “One day you’re going to meet someone who doesn’t believe every little thing that comes out of that mouth yours and then what’ll you do?”
Donghae flicks Yesung on his forehead, dodging the incoming punch Yesung shoots in retaliation. “I already have you don’t I?”
“Sorry, you’re not my type.”
“Please. I’m everyone’s type.”
Even Donghae admits the water bottle Yesung throws over his head afterwards is completely deserved and just the cool down he needed.
*
After their first math tutoring session Donghae comes to two conclusions: either Hyukjae is very stupid or too nice for his own good.
He rolls his eyes at Donghae’s vague explanation of where his teacher is in the curriculum and what Donghae doesn’t understand, coming up with some half baked explanation over not understanding the trigonometric identities and their inverses and what pie has to do with anything. Hyukjae is patient in his explaining drawing out arcs and triangles and angles, what sides divide into the tangent and how a careful calculation leads to the secant and back. He makes Donghae do countless exercises, correcting his mistakes and explaining where he goes wrong and he does not give up until Donghae gets it right.
“Why don’t you give up?” Donghae asks on a particularly stubborn exercise. They’re in a half crowded hallway during study period, the only free time Donghae said he had all week. “Anyone else would have stopped trying.”
Hyukjae looks up from the worksheet Donghae has to hand in, his glasses a little crooked and his bangs mused. Donghae is staring to think that maybe everything about Hyukjae isn’t just fast but a little crooked too; his nose, his running, the shape of his fingers, and that ‘One Piece’ keychain hanging off his duffel bag.
“Because I said I’d help you. And unless you get it right I’m not keeping my promise.”
There’s something about the way Hyukjae is staring at him with his honest words and his shoulder lightly touching Donghae’s that makes Donghae really want to look away. He knows why Hyukjae does whatever he says during their training sessions, why he doesn’t question him or tell Donghae to forget it. Why Hyukjae doesn’t give up. Hyukjae wants what every kid wants; to fit in, to be liked and have friends and find a place to call his own. Donghae understands. He knows this. He wants this. The problem is this place Hyukjae is trying to fit himself into? It’s Donghae’s place as far as Donghae is considered and he’s not sure he’s willing to share it. But that want, that desire Donghae sees in Hyukjae’s eyes when he runs, it burns inside of Donghae with the same intensity and fire.
“Do I have something on my face?” Hyukjae asks after a few seconds, rubbing at his cheek and knocking into his glasses, the frames almost at somewhere between thirty and forty degrees on his face.
“No. It’s just,” Donghae trails off for a few moments, this sudden urge to push Hyukjae’s glasses up the bridge of his nose and fix the mess his bangs make on his forehead mixed in with liking the way the hallway lights reflect off the odd angle of Hyukjae’s glasses and how the end of Hyukjae’s bangs touch the tips of his lashes. “There’s something really… real about you.”
Hyukjae’s expression freezes for a moment, mouth circling in surprise and Donghae almost, almost, wants to take it back. He smiles strangely, voice bemused when he says, “Thanks, I guess?” And maybe it’s because Donghae doesn’t take the time to notice smiles, but Hyukjae isn’t the least bit crooked, his lips spread with tinges of resistance that give way to Hyukjae’s pink gums and the gentle crinkle of his eyes.
Donghae swallows, clearing his throat loudly (not that he’s embarrassed. At all.) and studies his worksheet with renovated interest. “Right. So uhmm. The co secant is … nine over eleven?”
“Right,” Hyukjae says, and Donghae can hear the smile in Hyukjae’s voice. It twists something up in Donghae’s abdomen but it doesn’t send something sour and angry into Donghae’s throat. It doesn’t feel negative or wrong, and for the first time, Donghae doesn’t completely hate the way Hyukjae makes him feel.
*
Donghae starts noticing things about Hyukjae after that.
Things other than his posture and his running stats. Little things that come up to coalition at the oddest of times like the fact that Hyukjae only uses green pens to write and his big thumb is the only nail that’s chipped at the edge; Donghae catches Hyukjae chewing on it when Coach calls an abrupt meeting during class. Things like how much of a walking contradiction Hyukjae is as he stretches his left leg twice right before he runs but walks without caution and crosses the street between the school and the parking lot without so much as a glance for cars. He laughs like a wheezing hyena on crack and he’s obviously embarrassed when his gums show when he smiles. He doesn’t say anything when people call him the new kid or the rest of the team designate him as Frosh, and Donghae laughs and chimes in with the jokes and the teases but he always makes sure to call Hyukjae, Hyukjae.
The most awkward place to notice these things is the locker room because usually Hyukjae is half naked and Donghae, also, is half naked and while Donghae is prone to space out and stare at things, people, absolutely nothing, he’d prefer it didn’t happen while he’s not wearing pants.
“Staring is creepy.”
Donghae bangs his elbow with the edge of his locker in haste to turn and glare at Yesung. Yesung just smiles.
Donghae rolls his eyes because typical Yesung doesn’t get deterred by anything, menacing expressions included, and he goes back to getting dressed. Practice was long today and all Donghae wants to do is go home and sleep. “What are you yapping about?” Donghae asks, pulling his shirt over his head. It sticks to his torso but his skin feels clean and all the tension has been ebbed away from the pressure of the locker room showers.
“Nothing. I’ve just noticed you’ve picked up a habit lately.” Leaning over Donghae’s shoulder, Yesung taps on the poster of Kaká taped on the inside of Donghae’s locker. “I’m glad you got over your man crush on Ronaldo by the way. He’s such a douche.”
“Kaká’s abs are better.” Donghae drops his towel and steps into his boxers, winking at Yesung. “Yours are looking nice by the way,” he says teasingly before his eyes slide across the room. He likes these moments best, after a long day of practice and everyone relaxes, locker room teasing and towel whippings. He finds his stare landing on Hyukjae, and okay maybe it’s more than a habit, but there’s something in how Hyukjae stands here but not exactly a part of with his jeans clinging to his wet body, a concentrated furrow to his brows as he wipes his glasses with the edge of his towel.
“You think so? Oh.” Yesung scoffs. “Yeah. Sure. Change the subject.” The annoyance in Yesung’s face morphs into a smirk when he notices where Donghae is looking. “You’re doing it again.”
This time Donghae turns around so fast he smacks his head with the edge of his locker. He bites down on his tongue to keep his scream trapped his throat. He gives Yesung the dirtiest glare he can muster through the pain. Yesung wiggles his eyebrows. “I wasn’t doing anything.”
“Mhmmm. When you get a boner don’t jerk off in the shower like last time when Joon joined staff as the swim team’s assistant coach.”
“I was not jerking off.”
“Were to.”
“Was not.”
The discussion ends with Donghae wrestling Yesung to the floor, Yesung taking an elbow to his eye and Donghae smacking his forehead against a bench. It doesn’t escalate much more than that (one of the seniors laughingly pulling Donghae off Yesung’s back until Yesung screams uncle) and while Donghae technically wins, the fact remains Yesung was right. Donghae had been staring.
*
Sometimes Donghae feels like he and Hyukjae are on the verge of becoming friends. Or something like it at least. He’ll genuinely laugh at Hyukjae’s lame math jokes and ease up on Hyukjae during their training sessions and things are easy on these days when they are no more than two boys who share a passion for the feel of smooth clay beneath their rapid feet.
Some days aren’t so easy.
“Runners line up,” Coach says with a sharp blow to his whistle.
Donghae steps up to Coach, says discretely as he can. “Coach, I was thinking I could run with the next group.”
Coach eyes him for a moment, a quick evaluation of who else is lined up before he turns back to Donghae. “Unless you have a valid reason go, line up.”
Biting his lip, Donghae thinks about coming up with a valid reason. (He also thinks about how last year he wouldn’t need a valid reason. He wouldn’t have asked in the first place.)
Resolutely, Donghae takes his place at the starting line, senses more than sees the hands that lay flat on the track along with his own. They pop up and they can see the end of the finish line. One hundred meters. Throughout the years Donghae has developed a love hate relationship with such a short distance. It’s not a test of agility or strength. It’s all speed. Intensity. Time. In the perfect combination in small stretches of space, it is what separates runners from everyone else.
Donghae flexes his fingers and takes a quick inhale of breath. The whistle goes off.
He can never explain exactly how it feels. Everything happens so fast. One second he’s so still, the whole world has stopped to the point he can feel time halt, the turn of earth on its axis and himself move along with it. Then, his feet are lifting off the ground, arms pulling and pushing to keep his balance. There’s always something holding him back or thrusting him backwards, but Donghae’s body impulses forward, shoving the barrier as he runs. His heart rate goes from nothing to full impact in seconds, chest heaving and the air never feels as fresher as when his lungs are contracting at the quickest speed.
It is the best and most terrifying feeling in the world.
During the last meter, he turns his head and finds Hyukjae a blurry vision going at with him neck and neck, Donghae swears their feet hit the ground at the same time.
Hyukjae crosses the finish line first.
“You know what they say. You turn your head for half a second and it shaves off your time.” Yesung knocks his shoulder against Donghae’s as they sit on the bench watching the other half of the team run. Donghae nods because it’s true but he’s not really listening.
“Dude?”
Donghae blinks at Yesung’s waving hand in front of his face. He looks up at Yesung and he almost asks Yesung the question he keeps replaying in his mind over and over again.
But Yesung is smiling and it’s not like he has the answer anyhow. “It doesn’t mean anything, yeah?”
Donghae grins. It feels awkward and strained on his mouth and the fall of Yesung’s shoulder lets Donghae know Yesung can tell it’s fake. “Yeah.”
*
After practice, Hyukjae approaches Donghae. Donghae doesn’t mention the fact he was thinking skipping their training session.
“I was thinking we could do something else today.”
Donghae hesitates but Hyukjae’s smile is stupidly eager. Hopeful, Donghae thinks. He’s in no mood to watch Hyukjae sweat for an hour so he agrees, his nod making the corners of Hyukjae’s mouth stretch wider.
“The park?” Donghae asks at the entrance, kids pushing each other on the swing sets and the ducks swimming in the small pond. He follows Hyukjae to the ice cream cart by the jungle gym, eyes widened as Hyukjae orders a triple scoop in a waffle cone.
“You do know there’s like a million calories in that, right?”
Hyukjae looks at him oddly. “You do know were on the track team and not the cheer squad, right?”
Donghae huffs but ask for a double fudge cone dipped in nuts. Hyukjae laughs so hard he almost drops his cone. They sit on a nearby bench, sweet cream melting from the late afternoon sun. Hyukjae ends up a melted mess and Donghae doesn’t fare any better. Elementary schools populate the park, feet sprinting without a care and the last bit of sunlight lighting up the ground and sand they kick up on fire. Donghae’s feet burn with the urge to join them.
“It’s weird to think that was us once,” Hyukjae says finally. He watches a boy no more than six year old reach the top of the jungle gym with a hint of yearn in his voice. Donghae doesn’t tell him about the ice cream smudge on his cheek.
“We were?”
“You know. Kids.”
Donghae blinks. They were once kids. There is something terribly unsettling about that sentence. Donghae doesn’t feel an apathy or empathy to the thought. Looking away from the kids with the wind dancing through their hair to the boy sitting next to him, feet stuck to the ground the way he seems to be between being boy and man.
He gives Hyukjae a half smile when he looks at him. “I’m pretty sure I’m still a kid.”
Before Hyukjae can say anything Donghae is pulling him up from the bench, tossing their half eaten cones into a trash bin and challenging him to the monkey bars. Hyukjae is appropriately surprised but Donghae doesn’t give him room to turn him down, knees bent and already holding on to the first bar. Halfway through, Hyukjae is on the second bar. No count to how many times they swing across until the end, hands curled on metal and feet kicking up the wind that spins and twirls their hair. Donghae’s laughter bursts when Hyukjae knocks him down. It warms the pit of his stomach and rumbles in his chest and he retaliates by taking Hyukjae down with him and nothing matters today. Not any rivalry or animosity between them, no hesitance or jealousy; today they are part of the kids with sun dancing in their hair and sugar kissed mouths.
“Why won’t you run with me?”
It’s late now. The moon has replaced the sun and the stars loom over them, insignificant to their naked eyes but far larger then they will ever be in the scheme of things.
Donghae raises himself on his elbows from where he lies on the park’s merry go round. He’s been expecting this question for some time now. (If things were reversed, he would have asked it the first day.)
Hyukjae sits up, a sort of expectancy in his eyes.
“You know why I won’t race you.”
“You think you’re not just as much of a threat to me as I am to you?” Hyukjae smiles lightly at Donghae’s skeptic expression. “Besides I didn’t ask why you won’t race me. I asked why you won’t run with me.”
“There’s a difference?”
A beat passes between them, Hyukjae gripping onto one of the handles with jittery fingers and Donghae confused because running and racing, it’s all one and the same. Isn’t it?
“Come on.” Hyukjae gestures for Donghae to follow. He gets up but holds back when Hyukjae takes off, a slow figure in the half darkness.
“What are you doing?” Donghae’s voice teeters on curiosity, feet without an ounce of apprehension and back heel already lifted and ready to go.
Hyukjae turns and jogs in place for a moment. His hair is all over the place, clothes rumpled and dried sugar visible in the faint light and all Donghae can see is a kid, no trace of the almost man society claims he should be. “Come on,” Hyukjae says again, voice soft and encouraging before he runs off, not looking back once to see if Donghae follows.
It’s seconds and Donghae is sprinting off. Donghae has never been more thankful he lives in a small town, offset of major city sky scrapers and crowding lights, there is enough natural light so he can make out the shape of Hyukjae’s body cutting through branches and slipping in spaces between trees. His heart rate is fast, out control as he catches up to Hyukjae, closer, closer, so close he can hear Hyukjae’s breathing. He wonders if Hyukjae can hear his.
At some point, Donghae’s mind goes blank. All he can focus on is remembering to breathe and placing one foot after the other, feet pressing deep into the trackless path when he surpasses Hyukjae and falling into Hyukjae’s dirt foot prints when he falls behind. He’s lost to surrounding, to light, to his own body even, and Donghae thinks he might be trapped in a dream. Like if Donghae were to close his eyes and leap, he might taste heaven’s air against his arms. For a second Donghae pretends it’s true, eyelids sliding shut. He feels himself slip and his eyes open, arms maintaining his balance but the loss of vertigo has Donghae running that much harder to keep stay upright.
When he stops, he’s not out of breath. Sweat doesn’t pour from his body and the stillness overwhelms him with such intensity he’s almost knocked off his feet.
He finds purchase on one of the swing set’s chains, teetering on tip toe and breathing in the cool night air. Hyukjae is somewhere in his peripheral vision. More than anything Donghae can hear his breathing in the quiet. That’s when he realizes. He hadn’t thought of Hyukjae at all. In body yes, he’d been aware of Hyukjae’s moving figure, footprints and pants of air but the only thing that had mattered was the run. Not time. Not speed. Not his competitor. Just Donghae. Donghae and the road.
With a suddenness, there is a choke hold around Donghae’s throat. He’s been running for years, pebble stuck sneakers and grass stains on his socks, pushing himself to go faster until his body gave out and for what?
Hyukjae comes closer. His steps are tentative now and he seems to be caught on a pause, waiting for whatever is trapped in Donghae’s lungs (or maybe his heart) to be breathed out. “Sometimes I feel like I don’t even know what I’m running for anymore,” he admits in a whisper, more for himself than Hyukjae.
“I used to think running was pointless.”
“What made you change your mind?”
Hyukjae sits on one of the swings, feet pushing off the ground as he sways slowly. Donghae clings onto the chain like he does to Hyukjae’s next words.
But Hyukjae has no great wisdom to impart; he is a kid after all, naïve and teetering between two edges the same way Donghae is. He shrugs and looks up at Donghae. “It’s not the fact that I finish the run. It’s the fact I had the guts to start.”
Donghae scoffs but his grip on the chains lessens and he plops down on the swing next to Hyukjae. “Did you read that off a back of a cereal box?”
“Maybe.” Hyukjae stops, a funny quirk to his eyebrows. Another shrug and he looks completely relaxed with Donghae for the first time. “Doesn’t change the fact I believe it.”
And maybe that’s the thing. Maybe that’s what makes the countless hours, the strained muscles, the dirt stains and the sense of disappointment if you didn’t give enough. The will to push yourself to start.
Donghae watches his feet swirl in the star dotted sand along with Hyukjae’s, two kids playing in a playground and he thinks, this might be a start too.
*
notes: Just a quick heads up. This isn't a multi chap in the strictest sense of the word. More like a really long one shot I'm not posting all at once. Huge thanks to daisychains555 and rubyls for reading this over and especially to Tee who read the entirety of this fic twice and also came up with the title. Most of my fics would be nameless without her.