Never letting you go 8/9 - Part two
Part Two
Just like on the outside, the whole apartment was black, except for the space by the sofa which was lit up by the computer screen Donghae was currently looking at, a content smile playing on his lips. With a soft poke on the ‘next’ button, new pictures on the screen flashed before him. The shy smile he saw on Hyukjae’s lips was really adorable and then his eyes had their special spark in them. He almost felt a bit like a creeper as he watched through the pictures he had taken of Hyukjae a couple of weeks ago and found almost every one of them looking better than perfect, but it made him happy. If Hyukjae agreed to it, he would totally take more opportunities to photo Hyukjae, and only Hyukjae.
In the middle of the silence, Donghae’s cell phone broke out in a buzzing tone on top of the tea table and he glanced quickly at the clock and then back to the phone with a small frown. But soon it turned into a smile as he read Hyukjae’s blinking name on the screen and opened the call with a quick swift.
“Hey, you’re still awake?” He asked happily and not feeling any more emotions of uncomfort, because after today, he knew that he really needed to have Hyukjae in his life from now on, to feel complete. The small, guilty chuckle on the other end made his heart pump harder for a split second. “It’s soon eleven o’clock, you should be asleep already.” he ordered playfully, just like a parent.
“I know… I just started missing you again.” Hyukjae replied quietly, and Donghae couldn’t help but feeling so happy, knowing that there was someone thinking about him so much, and missing him. This was probably one of the best days ever, as he had realized the growing of importance Hyukjae was to him.
“I saw you just a few hours ago. But I actually miss you too. But we’ll meet in a week.”
For a good while, Hyukjae didn’t answer, and Donghae almost thought the boy had fallen asleep in the middle of the call. But then that small fragile voice broke out again.
“I’m scared.” Hyukjae said shortly. Donghae didn’t like it at all, not the voice, or the fact that he wasn’t feeling safe.
“Why?”
Hyukjae took a deep inhale, before letting it out. “I’m scared you’re not coming. That you’re leaving me.”
“Hyuk…” The guilt got Donghae even more this time. He had pushed away Hyukjae once, and now he didn’t know how to prove it that he wouldn’t do it again - especially now that he made the boy stay with Heechul. Of course, he wanted him back, but he still had his want for Hyukjae to not be in too much need of him even though it might be selfish. The brunette cursed silently for confusing himself as well and not knowing what was the right thing to do. “I’m really sorry for the way I treated you,” he started softly, “everything became such a blur and -“
“It’s okay.” Hyukjae quickly cut him off, though it didn’t sound convincing to Donghae. He knew, even though Hyukjae might value him the same way he values Hyukjae, the latter might still have some points where he’s not sure how much he can trust Donghae. And it was his own fault for making it that way to begin with.
“I know I can’t leave you now. I’ve already realized that you mean a lot to me, Hyukjae. You’re someone I really feel like I can be at ease with so there’s no way I could let you go just like that. You’ve got to trust me on this that I will come to pick you up.”
He got a soft hum in response.
“I’ll call you again tomorrow, is that okay? You should really go to sleep now."
“Okay…But sing for me one more time before I sleep.”
---
Hyukjae woke up with his phone still lying in a weak grip of his hand, not wanting to let it go since last night’s call. Right now, he could actually feel better when knowing that soon he could continue living the life with Donghae he had become so fond of.
Even Heechul broke out in a huge smile as he watched the boy walk down the stairs right before breakfast on his own record.
“Eunhyuk-ah, can you help me put these to the table.” A pile of bowls was handed to Hyukjae as soon as he entered the kitchen and at first he wondered why Heechul wouldn’t comment about him getting out of the room. It was the first thing he had expected to hear, but still he continued helping the man as if he had been doing this every day.
“Great,” Heechul commented with a smile. “Go ahead and eat so will I get down the others.”
He sat down but didn’t touch anything until everyone else had settled by the table. They all gave Hyukjae small glances, but smiled nonetheless, happy to see him out of the room again.
His day was been spent by watching Heechul shuffle snow from the front porch together with Sungmin since it had been snowing even more during the night. He almost felt a bit jealous at the way they played around with the snow, because it made him miss Donghae even more. Though he got his fun as well when Ryeowook wanted to make a snowman and pulled Hyukjae in to help him with it. It was definitely fun, but too cold, and his fingers were still cold hours afterwards. But he admitted that it was really worth it, because the feeling he got when he remembered what it was like to play around like this with friends, was incredibly amazing.
“Eunhyukkie!” Ryeowook squealed and slung his small frame up on the formers back and hugged his neck. Hyukjae was a bit startled, but then a smile coming all the way from his heart lit up and he started spinning around, making the younger boy shriek with laughter. After Sungmin joined them to do several snowmen in all kind of shapes and sizes and all the snow angels, they hadn’t realized it had been hours they had spent outside until Heechul called them in for dinner once again.
“Thank you.” Hyukjae spoke and bent down his head a bit shyly. Both Sungmin and Ryeowook turned their heads from the television to look at Hyukjae who sat in between them, hiding his face a little in their shared blanket. “Thank you for making this day so much fun. I feel happy.” He smiled both ways before going back to look at the movie. Then two light weights leaned onto his sides and he was being hugged by both of the other boys.
“Of course Eunhyuk, I’ve had a really fun time too!” Sungmin chuckled and smiled brightly. “I like you like this, you’re a really nice person.”
Hyukjae felt warm inside when he realized he was just gaining more friends. His glittering eyes went from the smiling Sungmin to Ryeowook who was half asleep on his shoulder. He didn’t know what the two of them had been through in their past, but right now he didn’t need to know that at all to think that they both are amazing persons.
Hyukjae’s life was really starting over now for real. A new beginning had given him the chance of a good new life. With a content smile, Hyukjae sunk down further in the sofa cuddled up with his two new friends and soon they all were fast asleep, getting rest for the next day.
~*~
Donghae found his days moving on pretty smoothly as well. He was free from any complaints from Jongwoon, though the man was checking up on him twice in a while that he had to make Kyuhyun lure away their boss so he could concentrate a little.
One afternoon he received a text from Heechul and his chest felt full when he opened the shared photo of Hyukjae playing in the snow with rosy red cheeks and a happy smile that lightened his face up. Hyukjae looked even more beautiful like that when he was happy. It made him miss the boy even more when staring at the photo, and wanted to meet him as soon as possible. But now, he knew Hyukjae was doing just fine like Donghae had wanted him to. He made a mental note to thank Heechul for showing him that Hyukjae isn’t feeling all bad when he’s not around anymore.
Donghae went back to work with a happy spirit, and didn’t pay too much attention to Kyuhyun who came bursting through the door and sat down on a chair opposite to Donghae.
“Spill it.” An accusing look was sent over Donghae’s working desk and the latter glanced up from his computer at Kyuhyun for a mere second before returning to the world of his work.
“Spill what? I’m busy Kyuhyun.” Donghae didn’t even have time to push another key on the computer before the younger man slapped down the screen so the laptop was closed. With a sigh, Donghae leaned back and gave the other a soft glare.
“I hadn’t saved that.”
“Auto-saved.”
“What do you want?”
Kyuhyun sat up straight up with his arms crossed fittingly over his chest.
“I want to know what’s going on with you lately.” Donghae’s eyebrows quirked at the other’s word, not really understanding what Kyuhyun was asking for.”Oh come on Hae hyung, don’t give me those eyes! In just a few months you’ve gone from a normal boring guy who only knows work, becoming an annoying chipper thing which isn’t normal for a single guy your age, and just a week ago you were depressed as shit and now you’re going back to the happy state. There’s something seriously wrong with you.”
Donghae held his laughter and only let out an amused chuckle. Kyuhyun really seemed to exaggerate things just a little.
“It’s nothing Kyuhyun-ah; I’ve always been like this.” He was about to lift the laptop screen to go back to work, but Kyuhyun’s hand soon slapped it down so he couldn’t do it.
“It’s that boy, isn’t it?” He said accusingly and giving him an ‘I-can-see-right-through-you’ stare. “I know you’re a nice guy Hae, but you act a little too overprotective over that little friend of yours. And the way he watches you while working says a lot.”
Kyuhyun quirked his eyebrow, feeling pretty victorious that he actually had it figured out while Donghae was just looking at the other with an empty expression.
There was a long quiet silence between the two of them. Kyuhyun was waiting for Donghae to say anything, but it looked like the other was busy to even come up with anything to say.
“I just want to know, are you having a romantic relationship with Eunhyuk?”
“That’s my business, so don’t - “
“Don’t deny anything to me. We’ve been friends for so long; I thought we got over the state of still putting out lies in each other’s faces.”
Donghae was giving up. He knew Kyuhyun was too smart to lie to, and it was true that he shouldn’t be lying to his friend. Though he still felt a bit imitated about the opinions of other’s towards this kind of relationship, not only for his sake, it was for Hyukjae as well. He didn’t want Hyukjae to get hurt because of this.
“You better not let hyung hear anything about this, alright?” He saw the expression of Kyuhyun’s face change and his mouth almost hung open.
“Shit man, are you serious?!”
“Kyuhyun, I mean it! I admit it because I trust you, and I don’t want to risk losing my job nor have something else bad happen. Jongwoon mustn’t know about this.”
“Alright, I get it.” Kyuhyun threw his hands up in defeat and Donghae went back to working on his computer as he decided the conversation was over, though Kyuhyun leaned back over the desk with a smirk.
“Did you do him yet?”
A moment later Kyuhyun got one well-deserved whack on the head and was kicked out of the room.
~*~
“You know, my mother actually asked for you the other day. She said that she really wanted to go out for dinner someday soon, so we agreed for a day next week. What do you say?”
Hyukjae stayed quiet for a while to take the words in before he smiled broadly. “Really?” He said with a bit of excitement in his voice. “She wanted to see me again?”
“Of course!” Donghae chuckled, enjoying that Hyukjae actually sounded happy for that kind of thing. “She really liked you a lot, Hyukjae. Dad as well.”
Hyukjae jumped happily up and down on his bed and switched the telephone to his opposite ear then hugging his pillow. He was feeling happy since the days had passed by in a much faster pace than it had done the previous week and he only had two more days before he would go back to live with Donghae. He really wanted to go back there, but he was also absolute sure he’d want to come visit Ryeowook and Sungmin once in a while after that. They’d already done so many fun things together in a few days that the three of them had quickly grown quite close.
“And there’s another thing I’ve been thinking about…” Donghae’s voice made Hyukjae come out of his previous thought’s and listen carefully to the other. He sounded a bit nervous and it made Hyukjae feeling nervous as well. He sat quietly an anticipated for the next thing Donghae had to say. “Since we’ve never really gone for a proper date, I think we should do that as well. And you know, it’s not even two weeks until Christmas, so I thought we’d go for some shopping.”
“You really want to do that Hae? Then why do you have to wait until Thursday to pick me up?” Hyukjae sounded a bit accusing.
“Hyukjae, of course I want to. It’s because Jongwoon gave me an extra day off on Thursday. I wanted to make it special and spend the whole day with you, that’s why.”
The boy blushed a little and felt his heart growing warm, because Donghae seemed to be so thoughtful.
“I really have to go now, or else Jongwoon might throw a fit at me for not making my proper job.” Donghae chuckled and Hyukjae only nodded quietly for himself.
“Okay… good bye.”
“Hyuk, wait!” Before the addressed boy had time to hang up, his face was flushed with heat and he heard his own heart beats pulsate in his ears after Donghae said the last words, “I love you.”
Hyukjae stayed on his bed curled up. Talking to Donghae for the last two hours somehow had drained his energy out, because he felt so happy while speaking to him, and especially when Donghae even did it during his working hours. Donghae even told him the rare words he usually never hears. “I love you.” His face heated up once again at the thought of it and wondered if Donghae really, really loved him.
The sky that started to darken made him feel even more tired and almost fell asleep when somebody entered his room.
“Hyuk, are you asleep already?” He heard Sungmin’s low voice speak to his back and he lazily turned around on his bed to face the other boy by the door and gave him a small smile.
Sungmin let go of the door handle and happily skipped towards the other’s bed and threw himself down next to Hyukjae, making both of them giggle.
“I heard you were speaking on the phone earlier, so I didn’t want to bother you.”
“Ah, sorry about that.” Hyukjae apologized but Sungmin quickly shook his head and smiled.
“No, it’s okay. I didn’t want anything special, I just wanted some company.” Sungmin pouted cutely, making Hyukjae think he looked like a little baby with fluffy cheeks and he couldn’t help but pinch them playfully.
They continued fool around lazily on the bed since they both had nothing better to do, until Hyukjae’s cell phone started playing a tune again. Both turned their heads towards the device and Sungmin was back to his pouting-mode when he saw Hyukjae picking the phone up.
“Jungsu hyung!” He exclaimed silently at the number and then gave Sungmin a sad look.
“You seem to be popular Hyuk, receiving so many calls in one day.” The black haired boy stuck out his tongue and jumped off the bed. “I’ll just come back later.”
Hyukjae felt a bit bad because he hadn’t spent any time with Sungmin today, but at the same time he hadn’t been in contact with Jungsu for a long while as well. He ended up answering the call and heard Jungsu’s chipper voice call out for him.
--
“You moved to another place? Why? I thought you and Donghae were getting along nicely.” Jungsu asked confused after Hyukjae just told him Donghae wasn’t around at the moment.
“We do, it’s just…It’s complicated.” Hyukjae sighed and snuggled his nose into his pillow while feeling slightly disappointed in himself for not telling Jungsu properly about his problems. They said they were friends, right?
“It’s okay; you don’t have to say it all.” Jungsu said nicely.
“I… I’ll tell you next time we see each other. If you’re not too busy.”
“Ah, well…I’ve gone back to Seoul already…” Jungsu’s voice dripped into an apologetic tone as he continued speaking. “I forgot to give you a call since it came up so suddenly. Sorry ‘bout that.”
“Oh, it’s okay. Maybe next time I guess.” Hyukjae smiled bitterly, because he didn’t know when he’d get to see Jungsu again.
“Aish, Hyuk I gotta go now. You know what; I’ll call you soon again, okay?”
“Sure.”
As soon as he finished the call, he pushed the silent bottom on the phone and then put it away before he went to look for Sungmin again.
~*~
Next morning, Hyukjae woke up early when it was still dark outside. He writhed back and forth in bed for an hour before he sneaked out of the bed and pulled his covers along draped over his shoulders. For some reason he was feeling slightly bad, he didn’t know why, but it just wasn’t a good feeling. The house was still asleep as he tip toed down the stairs and grabbed himself a glass of milk from the fridge.
For some reason Hyukjae got the sudden urge to talk to Donghae, but he thought it wouldn’t be appropriate to call him since it was still too early. The lamppost lit up the street and the small flakes of new-fallen snow outside, and Hyukjae sat by the kitchen’s window until the light started flowing through the air. When Heechul came into the kitchen he was surprised to see the boy sitting there with a gloomy expression.
“Hey, Eunhyuk-ah.” The boy’s attention shifted to Heechul and he forced out a small smile, but he knew he didn’t look very convincing. “What’s the matter? You’ve been so bright these past days, why do you look so down?”
“I don’t know hyung… It just doesn’t feel right.” The man sat down next to him and leaned his elbows over the chair’s back.
“If there’s anything you want to talk to me about Eunhyuk-ah, then I’m all ears for you. Sometimes it’s better to share a burden than lug around with it all by yourself.”
“I just… What if I don’t deserve happiness?” Hyukjae looked up with worry in his eyes.
“What makes you think that?” Heechul replied.
“Everything that’s happened is just bad things. If I feel happy for a while, then there’s always something to take it away from me.”
“Everybody deserves happiness, Hyukjae. But you know, happiness isn’t always something that comes knocking on your door. Sometimes you have got to find it yourself and fight for it, even if it means you’ll get hurt on the way.”
Hyukjae stayed quiet and thought over the words Heechul just told him. The man smiled and saw that the boy actually took in what he said, and hoped he’d get a little perspective on life.
“Don’t worry. Donghae will pick you up tomorrow, remember? Just fight for it, and you’ll have your happiness stay by your side.” He patted Hyukjae’s head before starting preparing breakfast.
---
Hyukjae spent his day in front of the second floor’s balcony, and just stared out at the white piles of snow everywhere. Heechul came by him with food which he barely touched, and asked if he was becoming ill, but that wasn’t the case. He left him alone again after placing a thick blanket over his shoulders.
Both Sungmin and Ryeowook came and sat by him to give him random hugs, and he felt guilty because they both seemed so sad that he was gloomy, thinking something bad was happening to him. But he didn’t even know himself, it was simply just a bad day, he guessed. And to him, it didn’t become any better when he received a text from Donghae.
“Hyukjae, I won’t be able to pick you up until tomorrow night since I need to go to Seoul early in the morning for a photo shoot, and it will be a pretty tiring trip. I’m sorry I said I’d be free from work tomorrow. Is that okay? I’ll call you tonight.” It said, and Hyukjae sat there silently staring at the cell phone as the hours passed by.
His hand squeezed tighter around the device as his breathing became more forced. It was already seven o’clock and slowly he felt like he was bursting apart. His shaking legs started walking on their own record, and he silently made his way to the hallway, putting his shoes on. For some reason, he couldn’t stop the awful thoughts from occurring, because he almost believed them.
“He’s not coming.”
CONTINUE STORY