daydream nation
daydream nation
2663 w, pg (sunye/donghae)
it was the summer they fell back together
a/n thank you to everyone who voted for this fic in the kpop_het contest! <3 sunhae needs love too.
In the summer, the sky melts.
The orange musk drips lower and lower until someone can feel it invading the atmosphere. Incautious hands, only some, are foolish enough to reach out and grab it. They are the ones who are aware that they own the universe. Sunye is not one of those people. She keeps her hands shoved into her sweater pockets in little fists, holding onto something that isn't hers anymore. She doesn't remember the last time she was here. Here, a vague term for being in Korea and not in America. Here, a vague term for just finally being able to be with him. She feels her lungs swell for a moment as she inhales the heavy air. The mood is more consuming than either of them expected it to be. Sunye feels like she has her heart in between her teeth. She's always been careful with her words, but never around him. She wonders what has changed (she wonders if she has changed.)
It's just them now. Not Sunye, the leader of the Wonder Girls. Not Donghae, the superstar of Super Junior. Just them and neither know if that's enough, but it's a start.
"Where do you want to go?" Donghae asks with a passive smile. His arm drapes over her shoulders, pulling her close into his chest. His chin rests upon the top of her head while her fingers grip the back of his shirt tightly.
(She's not going to let him go, at least, not this time) - "Anywhere. I'll go anywhere. As long as you're coming, right?" She jokes with a lighthearted laugh, pressing a chaste kiss against his cheek before she sprints for the driver's seat.
"You're not driving!" He yells with a loud laugh of his own, turning with a stumble before his arms snake around her waist and pull him into her again. For a moment they feel endless, swallowed up in their laughter. They find themselves lost with hugging and being with each other, being near each other, that the rhythm they had once known so well is played again effortlessly. Neither of them notice how long it's been, yet it is so easy for them to fall into beat as if they had never fallen out of it in the first place. It's almost like they didn't forget the pieces of their heart, or leave them behind to pursue more unimportant things. But they came back, and Sunye and Donghae both try to tell themselves that's all that matters (even if it isn't true.)
"Your hair is long now," Donghae says suddenly with his over sized sunglasses sliding down the bridge of his nose. Behind the lens are saddened eyes that were accidentally revealed. He quickly scrunches his nose, his sunglasses traveling their way back up to mask it all. He reaches out to touch it gently, a whole other form of intimacy that she forces herself to remember because they once had it. She inhales slightly, an abrupt, dull ache finding itself caught in her rib cage. It's almost like the sharp edges threaten to pierce her heart.
"It's been like this for awhile," And it sounds like, I missed you in America, I wish you were there with me. It would have been easier - you would have known me better. You wouldn't be surprised at how much I have changed without you. I wouldn't be surprised at how much you've changed without me.
He laughs, apologetic but oblivious, and he shrugs his shoulders while pushing her towards the direction of shotgun. "It looks good, but your hair during the So Hot days was nice too," Donghae reminisces with a boyish smile, looking at her legs.
"And you said you didn't like your legs. That's why you wore pants all the time!" But there are scars on them because she is clumsy, because was a kid once, and he doesn't see anything wrong.
Sunye sticks her tongue out playfully, happy that her own sunglasses can hide the nostalgia seeping into her eyes, "Oh, just shut up and get in the car."
She has her feet up on the dashboard, her knees close enough to her face that she rests of her cheek against them. Donghae remembers when she used to open the window and crane her neck outside, her gaze catching each and every star out there in the eternal abyss. He decides not to remind her because maybe she doesn't remember, maybe it's just him. When the radio station turns into consistent waves of static he sighs and she spends the next five minutes trying to find some words that don't belong to them to fill up the silence. When she finds that there is no avail, she just turns the radio off completely.
"Well, there goes that," Sunye says, almost sadly.
Donghae keeps his fingers wrapped around the steering wheel, his focus on the road and the occasional car that passes by.
"It's cool, it's cool," He says cheekily, looking over at her with that boyish grin.
Sunye catches it and laughs nervously, "What?" She asks, leaning over to hit his bicep lightly.
"Hey, hey - don't abuse the driver, I might just crash," And he jerks the car a little to the passing lane with a mischievous smirk. The action causes her to scream and then hit him again and again and again, before she finds herself smiling.
"You're too much, you know that?" She says with a shake of her head. There's more truth behind it that she can't name. Or maybe it's empty and she wants to put something there, but she can't find the words too.
He huffs and the chuckle gets caught in his throat, "I know."
"There's no signal here!" Sunye complains, her phone up in the air. The effort is futile, the cursed little tower with an x over it is forever there. Her phone isn't an etch-a-sketch. She's standing on the roof of the car while they sky bleeds blue, a deep, lush shade that would soon engulf the whole atmosphere. Donghae takes his sunglasses off, hoping she'll do the same. He stands closely by the car, his arms somewhat spread out. 'Just in case you fall or something, you know (I'll try and catch you this time.)'
"Well, if my calculations are correct," Donghae starts with an arched brow, grabbing her hand as she jumps down, "We're about .. a hundred fifty miles away from any main city right now."
"We've been driving for that long?"
"Well, I have been driving for that long. You have been half asleep," He points at her cheek, the imprint from the side door evidence to his accusation. "You live the good life," Donghae grins. It's painted on his face, but differently than she remembers. Maybe a different brush had been used, or it wasn't as wide - or his eyes just didn't crinkle like they used to, but Sunye tries not to put too much thought into it.
She had told herself once that if they were meant to be, they'd just find each other again. Her priest had always told her that God knows what he is doing. He has a plan for you. Her plan was full of hard work and loss, but she wonders if he put Donghae in between the pages. If their story was merely in between the lines, never a main chapter. Sunye isn't sure if she believes, it but because she has morals, she does. Other people call it fate, Sunye isn't sure what it is. She reaches out and places her hand on his own cheek, almost like the action is against gravity and she's forcing and fighting everything just to do so. He freezes underneath her touch, she can feel it.
"I missed you," She finally admits.
Donghae feels a breath being released from him, one he didn't even know was there - "I missed us."
Out here, no one recognizes them. She isn't Sunye and he isn't Donghae, but they're two people who look happy and that's something new.
Everyone is too busy melting in the sun, skin pigments darkening and holding new memories of what their summer consists of. Donghae musters up courage to start holding her hand on the adventures now. Soon, their fingers lace - and it's nothing like a perfect fit. He reasons that things like that may just not exist unless two people are genetically engineered for each other. But it feels right, it feels like before, and neither of them find any reason to complain that his hand it too big or that her hand is too small. They have stopped at a rest area by an ocean. There was an ice cream truck, one that looked legitimate and not shady. Sunye wanted chocolate chip cookie dough.
"Is the ice cream better here or in America?" He asks, licking his own, plain chocolate one.
Sunye is almost licking frantically, the ice cream spilling over the edges of her cone and sticking to her hands. "Italy," She replies, her tongue still catching the sweetness. Donghae looks over at her with an arched brow, taking a substantial - if not pretty much half of her ice cream into his own mouth.
"Donghae!" Sunye shouts and laughs, letting go of his hand to form a fist and punch him lightly. His lips pull into a wide smile, spreading over his perfectly white teeth. There's vanilla on the corners of his mouth that he doesn't bother to wipe off with a napkin, but just the back of his hand.
"Hey," He replies calmly, looking down at his empty hand.
"Who said you could let go?" Donghae jokes before eating the rest of his own ice cream.
Sunye had always had a happier disposition than most people. She was a fighter. She didn't sulk, she didn't mop, she sucked it up. When he broke her heart, she buried herself into work. Sunye doesn't remember herself crying. She cries because of the hate from antis, she cries because her girls are tired - but she doesn't remember crying because of him. But here she is, sitting on the roof of the car. The tears that threaten to fall from his eyes are fragile and could disintegrate any moment. Trepidation instills itself in the pit of her stomach because oh my God she still loved him.
After all this time?
Always.
And everything was bigger than them. This trip, his ideas, her ideas, and suddenly Sunye forgets why she's there and what she's doing, what she's allowing to happen. It's kind of a scary thing, falling back into a rhythm. Falling back in love. Sunye wonders when she ever fell out of it. When she ever stood up. She wonders when she just stopped remembering and started forgetting - and she merely asks why.
That night, they sleep in the car. Sunye has the back, her legs are short and she is able to fill out the whole row without her neck awkwardly perched up against the side of the door. Donghae, because he is a gentleman, because he is a man - easily passes out in the driver's seat with his face stuck against the window for the majority of the night. In a few hours sunlight streams overheard, peering in through the car windows and into their tired eyes. Donghae is the one who jolts awake first, his hand accidentally slamming against the center of the steering wheel. Sunye is abruptly woken up by the loud horn that rings in her ears. She stretches out and her fist hits the floor. She had forgotten at the limited space within the vehicle.
"We should have bought an RV," Sunye says, blinking some.
"You know much gas that thing eats up? Almost as much as Kyuhyun eats up Ryeowook's cooking," Donghae looks back at her with a tentative grin. He wonders if it's too early to be rambunctious, but she shares a lazy smile as she gets up. He reaches out and fixes the top of her head, letting her hair fall back into place.
"Sorry, I'm not that attractive in the morning," She tells him.
He snorts, "I think you were voted to have one of the best bare faces among idols. Don't be modest."
"Did you look me up in the search engines?" Sunye asks with a tilt of her head and a teasing smirk. He scoffs, rolling his eyes.
"I was on the list too," Is all he says before they sink into another laugh.
"So, where to before we head back?" Donghae asks.
Sunye has her thin arms wrapped around the back of his seat and securely around his chest. Her cheek is placed against the leathery texture of the back of his head rest, her eyes closed. She doesn't let go because she doesn't want this surrealism to end. Ephemeral was what everything felt like. It was too good now to go back. She wishes that this was their reality. Neither of them say anything until Donghae moves his head and his lips touch the bare flesh of his arm and she feels infinite for this fleeting moment. It's almost like she knows that it'll be like this. That this is their reality now. Her arms unravel and she moves her face to the side. He can see her through the side view mirror. Objects in mirror are closer than they appear, he reads.
Donghae turns again and this time, his lips meet hers.
The sand sinks in between her toes with little pangs of reassurance that she's still alive. Donghae is closer by the waves, kicking away at the wet sand that sticks to his feet in a mush. The shoreline here seems endless, almost like them. But she feels bigger now, she feels safer. There's safety in numbers, and she's infinite. They're infinite. Her foot writes down stuff in the sand. Not their names, but just a reminder. Forever, and this time, she makes it untouchable to the waves so that they can't reach and wipe it away. This time, it'll last.
"Hey!" Donghae yells with his feet submerged into the water. She looks up and tilts her head, pretending not to hear him with her hand cupped against her ear.
He shakes his head and his hair falls into his eyes. Sunye laughs because he looks like a shaggy dog or something, with pleading eyes of a puppy that just wants to play. Sunye doesn't give into cute things that easily.
"What?" She yells back as loudly as she can.
Donghae just runs out of the water, stumbling over his own feet, doing a dance move at some point within the distance, and just engulfs her into some embrace that she swears she'll remember. Crisp temperature, salty air, and a kiss pressed against her forehead.
"Ready to go home?" He asks.
She shakes her head in a no but they walked back to the car together, fingers linked.
On the ride home, Sunye cranes her neck out the window, her gaze catching each trail and star of the eternal abyss.
If someone were to ask her how it started, she wouldn't be able to discern any significant point. If someone were to ask him how it started, he'd offer a cheeky smile and say anything, as if it were a secret. If someone were to ask them how it ended they'd merely say it never did. "Road trips," Donghae would say with a nod of his head. "Life," Sunye would say with a smile. Life, fate, the plan, a plan - something that just seemed to work. It was higher than they were, much more above. Maybe they had been linked by string, that they were never lost. Coming back was the hardest part, but coming together was the easiest.
It was the summer they fell back together. It was the summer that everything happened.
2663 w, pg (sunye/donghae)
it was the summer they fell back together
a/n thank you to everyone who voted for this fic in the kpop_het contest! <3 sunhae needs love too.
In the summer, the sky melts.
The orange musk drips lower and lower until someone can feel it invading the atmosphere. Incautious hands, only some, are foolish enough to reach out and grab it. They are the ones who are aware that they own the universe. Sunye is not one of those people. She keeps her hands shoved into her sweater pockets in little fists, holding onto something that isn't hers anymore. She doesn't remember the last time she was here. Here, a vague term for being in Korea and not in America. Here, a vague term for just finally being able to be with him. She feels her lungs swell for a moment as she inhales the heavy air. The mood is more consuming than either of them expected it to be. Sunye feels like she has her heart in between her teeth. She's always been careful with her words, but never around him. She wonders what has changed (she wonders if she has changed.)
It's just them now. Not Sunye, the leader of the Wonder Girls. Not Donghae, the superstar of Super Junior. Just them and neither know if that's enough, but it's a start.
"Where do you want to go?" Donghae asks with a passive smile. His arm drapes over her shoulders, pulling her close into his chest. His chin rests upon the top of her head while her fingers grip the back of his shirt tightly.
(She's not going to let him go, at least, not this time) - "Anywhere. I'll go anywhere. As long as you're coming, right?" She jokes with a lighthearted laugh, pressing a chaste kiss against his cheek before she sprints for the driver's seat.
"You're not driving!" He yells with a loud laugh of his own, turning with a stumble before his arms snake around her waist and pull him into her again. For a moment they feel endless, swallowed up in their laughter. They find themselves lost with hugging and being with each other, being near each other, that the rhythm they had once known so well is played again effortlessly. Neither of them notice how long it's been, yet it is so easy for them to fall into beat as if they had never fallen out of it in the first place. It's almost like they didn't forget the pieces of their heart, or leave them behind to pursue more unimportant things. But they came back, and Sunye and Donghae both try to tell themselves that's all that matters (even if it isn't true.)
"Your hair is long now," Donghae says suddenly with his over sized sunglasses sliding down the bridge of his nose. Behind the lens are saddened eyes that were accidentally revealed. He quickly scrunches his nose, his sunglasses traveling their way back up to mask it all. He reaches out to touch it gently, a whole other form of intimacy that she forces herself to remember because they once had it. She inhales slightly, an abrupt, dull ache finding itself caught in her rib cage. It's almost like the sharp edges threaten to pierce her heart.
"It's been like this for awhile," And it sounds like, I missed you in America, I wish you were there with me. It would have been easier - you would have known me better. You wouldn't be surprised at how much I have changed without you. I wouldn't be surprised at how much you've changed without me.
He laughs, apologetic but oblivious, and he shrugs his shoulders while pushing her towards the direction of shotgun. "It looks good, but your hair during the So Hot days was nice too," Donghae reminisces with a boyish smile, looking at her legs.
"And you said you didn't like your legs. That's why you wore pants all the time!" But there are scars on them because she is clumsy, because was a kid once, and he doesn't see anything wrong.
Sunye sticks her tongue out playfully, happy that her own sunglasses can hide the nostalgia seeping into her eyes, "Oh, just shut up and get in the car."
She has her feet up on the dashboard, her knees close enough to her face that she rests of her cheek against them. Donghae remembers when she used to open the window and crane her neck outside, her gaze catching each and every star out there in the eternal abyss. He decides not to remind her because maybe she doesn't remember, maybe it's just him. When the radio station turns into consistent waves of static he sighs and she spends the next five minutes trying to find some words that don't belong to them to fill up the silence. When she finds that there is no avail, she just turns the radio off completely.
"Well, there goes that," Sunye says, almost sadly.
Donghae keeps his fingers wrapped around the steering wheel, his focus on the road and the occasional car that passes by.
"It's cool, it's cool," He says cheekily, looking over at her with that boyish grin.
Sunye catches it and laughs nervously, "What?" She asks, leaning over to hit his bicep lightly.
"Hey, hey - don't abuse the driver, I might just crash," And he jerks the car a little to the passing lane with a mischievous smirk. The action causes her to scream and then hit him again and again and again, before she finds herself smiling.
"You're too much, you know that?" She says with a shake of her head. There's more truth behind it that she can't name. Or maybe it's empty and she wants to put something there, but she can't find the words too.
He huffs and the chuckle gets caught in his throat, "I know."
"There's no signal here!" Sunye complains, her phone up in the air. The effort is futile, the cursed little tower with an x over it is forever there. Her phone isn't an etch-a-sketch. She's standing on the roof of the car while they sky bleeds blue, a deep, lush shade that would soon engulf the whole atmosphere. Donghae takes his sunglasses off, hoping she'll do the same. He stands closely by the car, his arms somewhat spread out. 'Just in case you fall or something, you know (I'll try and catch you this time.)'
"Well, if my calculations are correct," Donghae starts with an arched brow, grabbing her hand as she jumps down, "We're about .. a hundred fifty miles away from any main city right now."
"We've been driving for that long?"
"Well, I have been driving for that long. You have been half asleep," He points at her cheek, the imprint from the side door evidence to his accusation. "You live the good life," Donghae grins. It's painted on his face, but differently than she remembers. Maybe a different brush had been used, or it wasn't as wide - or his eyes just didn't crinkle like they used to, but Sunye tries not to put too much thought into it.
She had told herself once that if they were meant to be, they'd just find each other again. Her priest had always told her that God knows what he is doing. He has a plan for you. Her plan was full of hard work and loss, but she wonders if he put Donghae in between the pages. If their story was merely in between the lines, never a main chapter. Sunye isn't sure if she believes, it but because she has morals, she does. Other people call it fate, Sunye isn't sure what it is. She reaches out and places her hand on his own cheek, almost like the action is against gravity and she's forcing and fighting everything just to do so. He freezes underneath her touch, she can feel it.
"I missed you," She finally admits.
Donghae feels a breath being released from him, one he didn't even know was there - "I missed us."
Out here, no one recognizes them. She isn't Sunye and he isn't Donghae, but they're two people who look happy and that's something new.
Everyone is too busy melting in the sun, skin pigments darkening and holding new memories of what their summer consists of. Donghae musters up courage to start holding her hand on the adventures now. Soon, their fingers lace - and it's nothing like a perfect fit. He reasons that things like that may just not exist unless two people are genetically engineered for each other. But it feels right, it feels like before, and neither of them find any reason to complain that his hand it too big or that her hand is too small. They have stopped at a rest area by an ocean. There was an ice cream truck, one that looked legitimate and not shady. Sunye wanted chocolate chip cookie dough.
"Is the ice cream better here or in America?" He asks, licking his own, plain chocolate one.
Sunye is almost licking frantically, the ice cream spilling over the edges of her cone and sticking to her hands. "Italy," She replies, her tongue still catching the sweetness. Donghae looks over at her with an arched brow, taking a substantial - if not pretty much half of her ice cream into his own mouth.
"Donghae!" Sunye shouts and laughs, letting go of his hand to form a fist and punch him lightly. His lips pull into a wide smile, spreading over his perfectly white teeth. There's vanilla on the corners of his mouth that he doesn't bother to wipe off with a napkin, but just the back of his hand.
"Hey," He replies calmly, looking down at his empty hand.
"Who said you could let go?" Donghae jokes before eating the rest of his own ice cream.
Sunye had always had a happier disposition than most people. She was a fighter. She didn't sulk, she didn't mop, she sucked it up. When he broke her heart, she buried herself into work. Sunye doesn't remember herself crying. She cries because of the hate from antis, she cries because her girls are tired - but she doesn't remember crying because of him. But here she is, sitting on the roof of the car. The tears that threaten to fall from his eyes are fragile and could disintegrate any moment. Trepidation instills itself in the pit of her stomach because oh my God she still loved him.
After all this time?
Always.
And everything was bigger than them. This trip, his ideas, her ideas, and suddenly Sunye forgets why she's there and what she's doing, what she's allowing to happen. It's kind of a scary thing, falling back into a rhythm. Falling back in love. Sunye wonders when she ever fell out of it. When she ever stood up. She wonders when she just stopped remembering and started forgetting - and she merely asks why.
That night, they sleep in the car. Sunye has the back, her legs are short and she is able to fill out the whole row without her neck awkwardly perched up against the side of the door. Donghae, because he is a gentleman, because he is a man - easily passes out in the driver's seat with his face stuck against the window for the majority of the night. In a few hours sunlight streams overheard, peering in through the car windows and into their tired eyes. Donghae is the one who jolts awake first, his hand accidentally slamming against the center of the steering wheel. Sunye is abruptly woken up by the loud horn that rings in her ears. She stretches out and her fist hits the floor. She had forgotten at the limited space within the vehicle.
"We should have bought an RV," Sunye says, blinking some.
"You know much gas that thing eats up? Almost as much as Kyuhyun eats up Ryeowook's cooking," Donghae looks back at her with a tentative grin. He wonders if it's too early to be rambunctious, but she shares a lazy smile as she gets up. He reaches out and fixes the top of her head, letting her hair fall back into place.
"Sorry, I'm not that attractive in the morning," She tells him.
He snorts, "I think you were voted to have one of the best bare faces among idols. Don't be modest."
"Did you look me up in the search engines?" Sunye asks with a tilt of her head and a teasing smirk. He scoffs, rolling his eyes.
"I was on the list too," Is all he says before they sink into another laugh.
"So, where to before we head back?" Donghae asks.
Sunye has her thin arms wrapped around the back of his seat and securely around his chest. Her cheek is placed against the leathery texture of the back of his head rest, her eyes closed. She doesn't let go because she doesn't want this surrealism to end. Ephemeral was what everything felt like. It was too good now to go back. She wishes that this was their reality. Neither of them say anything until Donghae moves his head and his lips touch the bare flesh of his arm and she feels infinite for this fleeting moment. It's almost like she knows that it'll be like this. That this is their reality now. Her arms unravel and she moves her face to the side. He can see her through the side view mirror. Objects in mirror are closer than they appear, he reads.
Donghae turns again and this time, his lips meet hers.
The sand sinks in between her toes with little pangs of reassurance that she's still alive. Donghae is closer by the waves, kicking away at the wet sand that sticks to his feet in a mush. The shoreline here seems endless, almost like them. But she feels bigger now, she feels safer. There's safety in numbers, and she's infinite. They're infinite. Her foot writes down stuff in the sand. Not their names, but just a reminder. Forever, and this time, she makes it untouchable to the waves so that they can't reach and wipe it away. This time, it'll last.
"Hey!" Donghae yells with his feet submerged into the water. She looks up and tilts her head, pretending not to hear him with her hand cupped against her ear.
He shakes his head and his hair falls into his eyes. Sunye laughs because he looks like a shaggy dog or something, with pleading eyes of a puppy that just wants to play. Sunye doesn't give into cute things that easily.
"What?" She yells back as loudly as she can.
Donghae just runs out of the water, stumbling over his own feet, doing a dance move at some point within the distance, and just engulfs her into some embrace that she swears she'll remember. Crisp temperature, salty air, and a kiss pressed against her forehead.
"Ready to go home?" He asks.
She shakes her head in a no but they walked back to the car together, fingers linked.
On the ride home, Sunye cranes her neck out the window, her gaze catching each trail and star of the eternal abyss.
If someone were to ask her how it started, she wouldn't be able to discern any significant point. If someone were to ask him how it started, he'd offer a cheeky smile and say anything, as if it were a secret. If someone were to ask them how it ended they'd merely say it never did. "Road trips," Donghae would say with a nod of his head. "Life," Sunye would say with a smile. Life, fate, the plan, a plan - something that just seemed to work. It was higher than they were, much more above. Maybe they had been linked by string, that they were never lost. Coming back was the hardest part, but coming together was the easiest.
It was the summer they fell back together. It was the summer that everything happened.