010 Inundated
Inundated (1 of 2)
R | EunHae | AU; Angst
Summary: He prefers the drowning.
Warning: SiHae
A/N: This is boring. Also wordy. Move along, kids, nothing to see here.
8,719 words
--
His hands are soft; his words softer. The stress on my neck is slowly vanishing, the day’s mishaps starting to flee from the crevices of my brain. But the thoughts on my mind do not leave. They adhere to my skull, not allowing me to rest, to relax. I gulp visibly and he notices. He kisses my neck, noticeably concerned of my inability to let everything go.
I push him away slightly.
He gets the message.
“Fuck.” He hisses, gathers his clothes on the floor, and storms out.
It has been a bad day, or week, or month, really. I don’t remember the last time that the days were good. But he stayed, nonetheless. Maybe it was for the sex. But it had stopped for a while so maybe that’s why he’s leaving. I have no idea, frankly. It’s not like I care too much. I don’t. I’ll definitely miss his hands on my sore muscles, though.
My room smells like him, still, and I make a note to open the windows so there would be no more of his strong musk. But that’s for tomorrow. For now, I’d content myself with the cold air on my bare back. And the silence of my room against the noise of my neighbors’.
--
“Lee Donghae, we’re going out.”
Youngwoon has my time sorted out for me. If it wasn’t for him, I would have gone straight home from work and vice versa. He drags me to department outings and company dinners and high school get-togethers. I don’t really know where he gets his infinite patience from. I don’t really talk much. I’ll probably pass as a good-looking friend but these gatherings really have no use of me. Well, every group has to have a wallflower.
There is much dancing and I make sure to eat my share of the food; I paid my share, anyway. Youngwoon breaks free from the group when a trot song begins playing - he doesn’t really like it.
“God fucking damn it, Lee Donghae. Get out there and dance!” The karaoke room is starting to feel suffocating from the stench of alcohol. Youngwoon laughs heartily, a little tipsy, looking at the girl he has been eyeing since day one. She’d never expressed any interest towards him but it doesn’t bother him at all.
“I’m okay. You know I don’t sing.”
He laughed, “Who said anything about singing? It’s just yelling into the fucking microphone.”
I shrug and smile.
“Ah, you’re hopeless!”
--
I try cleaning on weekends. My room is too stuffy and it gets humid sometimes and it sucks. It’s like having all four seasons in the span of one day and it’s really irritating. So I clean until everything is in place and nothing is scattered on top of my coffee table.
The curtains are white and light blue. The hard wood floor is clean but not as shiny as I want it to be. The walls are white with blotches of black, a gift from the previous tenant which I am too penniless to paint over. The books are fixed neatly on my shelf, arranged by height, save from the book I’m currently re-reading. The CDs arranged alphabetically, by artist - I only have about ten. The DVDs are stacked in a neat pile on the floor beside my TV.
I sit down after a cool shower, setting my laptop on the dining-slash-study table. There are accounts to look at and production lines to audit and work just doesn’t end, especially since Youngwoon shoved all his unfinished reports at me since he has some important people to meet over the weekend.
Luckily, it has started to smell more like fresh laundry and less of him. I’m not fond of using perfume, so it’s difficult to overpower his. Apparently, it’s the bed that smells so much like him.
It takes about two hours of working and lounging around to completely mess up the whole apartment again.
--
“Hi,” his smile is polite and the wrinkles on the corners of his eyes are nice to look at. “I’ll be working for you today. Nice to meet you.”
“Ah, yes.” I really have no idea what to say to this newcomer.
“Oh?” Youngwoon barges in and embraces him. Apparently, they know each other. “What the fuck are you doing here, Lee Hyukjae?”
They talk lengthily and their hearty laughs distract me from the things I have to do. Monday is new assignments day and I barely have time on my hands and I can’t afford to be distracted. I’m not even done with last week’s load yet.
“Don’t tell me you don’t recognize this son-of-a-bitch?” Youngwoon slams a hand on my pile of paperwork. “This is Lee Hyukjae! From high school!”
I wince, seriously annoyed at all the fuss with the new assistant auditor. “Doesn’t ring any bell.”
Youngwoon laughs, the whole floor can probably hear him. “Shut up, this is the Lee Hyukjae? The soccer player you liked?”
--
The assignment is out of the city, as it is with most industrial plants. Today it’s a distillery up north, and I had to take Lee Hyukjae with me.
He seems eager as we got in the car, completely psyched out with his new job, eager to impress his seniors. In his case, that senior is me.
“Stop grinning like that,” I tell him ten minutes into the highway. He hasn’t stopped grinning since we left the company and I’m scared he’d crash the car into a boulder since he’s obviously not paying attention.
“Sorry,” he laughs. I close my eyes and try to sleep but his squeaky voice returns. “I’m just really excited about this job. I’ve been looking for five months and this is a really great opportunity for me,” he says, glancing at me at times. “You have no idea how depressing it was to live off my mother’s money.”
“I don’t think you should be telling me that. I’m kind of your boss.”
--
Unlike me, Youngwoon doesn’t have anything against Lee Hyukjae. I don’t either, but there’s just nothing to talk to him about. Since I didn’t really enjoy high school. And work is just completely stressful at the moment. He invites him over at my house for dinner on a Friday night - our usual dinner together, just the two of us. Apparently, it’ll exponentially become better with Hyukjae around.
He brings food prepared by his mother, like a little kid with a lunchbox. He comes too early. He arrives at seven when we clearly said eight. He insists to help in the kitchen, so I allow him to set the coffee table and put my things away while I finish warming up the take away in the oven.
The TV beeps on once he finishes setting up. It’s a little surprising how he doesn’t even ask for permission. But it doesn’t bother me that much.
Youngwoon arrives half-drunk and it throws our ‘dynamics’ out the window at once. He insists on watching porn while we eat. And he teases me about my stash being of gay sex. I don’t take offence because it’s Youngwoon and he’s drunk. Actually, I don’t take offence at any gay jokes at all because it’s exhausting to give them my time of the day.
Hyukjae shakes his head at his obscenity. I try pacifying him with foreign music videos that showed too much skin.
The two of them wolf down the food and drank beer Youngwoon brought in.
I don’t see it through the end. Halfway through their merry-making, I excuse myself, brush my teeth, and change into more comfortable clothes. I put spare blankets on the couch beside the two idiots, who don’t even notice me and continue making a mess out of things.
--
Youngwoon bails out on the cleaning so Hyukjae takes on his responsibilities, as well. The two of them managed to wreck the whole living area.
In two hours, the room is much more fit for human habitation. The vomit on my bathroom floor is scrubbed away. The trash is taken outside. The coffee table now holds my usual stash of Time magazines.
Hyukjae has showered and put on my smaller clothes.
We are watching a Japanese drama on love and murders. He is eating his second serving of pudding and he is smiling like a mad man, completely pumped up with the idea of some game show attacking people’s sufferings and secrets, wondering aloud why our own artists can’t pull off dark-themed dramas like these.
“Oh,” he suddenly blurts out in the middle of a gut-wrenching scene. “Sir, you remember that day I came to the company?”
I nod vaguely.
“Youngwoon says you liked me in high school? He kept telling me last night, too.”
A laugh comes from my lips as I point my spoon at him, “You were good at soccer.”
“Oh.”
“I hope you weren’t getting any ideas,” I tell him. “I mean, I may be gay but you’re definitely not my type. No offence, but I like meat on my men.”
--
Lee Hyukjae doesn’t go home. Instead, he sleeps with me on my bed, contributing to the scent of my sheets. There is a certain lack of liveliness in his sex, quite the opposite of his personality in real life. It’s not that I’m looking for energetic shit, really, I’m too lazy for exciting things. I’m more of a get-it-over-and-done-with type of person. And the way Hyukjae pushes into me is just perfect.
He doesn’t know how to talk to me the morning after. His hands are awkward and knock off things here and there. He almost spills his glass of fresh orange juice.
“It’s just sex, Hyukjae. Don’t act as if you’ve never done it before,” I say before eating more of his pancakes. He makes good pancakes.
The spoon clatters with the ceramic plate. He nervously picks it up and returns my gaze. “Yeah, I’m just… You’re my boss. And I don’t want to get fired.”
I can’t help but chuckle at a joke I immediately think of but ignore. “Well, don’t tell anybody, then.”
“Not even Youngwoon?”
“Especially not Youngwoon.”
--
The thing with distilleries is that at some places it smells sickeningly sweet and at others it smells awful. Lee Hyukjae keeps complaining about it no matter how many times I tell him to shut his pie hole.
He screams once we’re inside the car and outside the compound. “I am so fucking done with sugars! I really am so unlucky! Why does this have to be my first assignment!”
“You could’ve ended up in food processing where it’s so much worse,” I tell him.
But he isn’t fazed. He keeps on rattling on and on about how being stuck in the office is much better than driving to forests and mountains for these stupid production plants.
“I mean,” he says. “Come on. It could’ve been a chocolate production line and not gasoline.”
“You want to come over tonight?”
“What?” The car comes to a screeching halt.
“Come over. Tonight.”
--
He lunges to me as soon as we’re safely hidden from the rest of my neighbors. His lips are on my neck and his fingers are quick to unbutton my immaculate white shirt. I try stopping him but he doesn’t get the message. His arms are stronger than mine. His skin tastes sweet with a salty undertone.
Somehow, I manage to get him off of me.
“Lee Hyukjae, are you fucking deprived!”
“What? I thought you wanted to come over?”
I laugh. “Does that equate to having sex?”
He shrugs, wiping the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. “Shit, anyway, sorry.”
The grocery items are now scattered on the floor from the paper bags. I start picking them up, “Come on, let’s make dinner.”
Surely, he isn’t the best chef to take home. And I’m not good either. Still, the rice turned out perfectly, and the vegetables are okay. The chicken is heavenly since it’s store-bought. It’s a decent meal. And a horror film is playing on my TV in front of us.
He has been spying on the room next to mine for the past, say, 20 minutes and I don’t know why he’s paying more attention to the locked door than the paranormal shit he suggested we watch.
“What’s inside that room?” He finally asks.
“Monsters,” I tell him without looking at him. “I breed monsters for fun.”
He snorts. “Are you… living with someone?”
“Have you ever seen anybody else while you’re here?”
“No,” he says. “But did you lock someone in there or something? I mean, you can be a murderer for all I know.”
That’s a brilliant idea - to lock someone up in that room. But it really isn’t mine. It’s my roommate’s. “My roommate doesn’t go home often, actually.”
“You have a roommate! That’s interesting.” He makes a trip to the kitchen area to scoop more rice into his bowl and returns quickly. “Do you have a crush on him?”
It’s my turn to snort at him. “Come on. She’s barely here and she’s not really my type. No use harboring feelings for a ghost-like presence in my life.” Besides, she’s my sister, who happens to be an event organizer who travels all the time.
“Oh,” he says. “It’s a she.”
“Yup,” I tell him. “I’m pretty sure you’re the only person I’d want to lock up here at the moment.”
--
My colleagues’ idea of fun is terribly depressing.
Tonight, they’re all convinced that bar-hopping is such a wonderful idea and everyone is so thrilled to get out of the office. They look like teenagers on their first trip to a bar and they’re disturbingly perky.
Youngwoon leads the pack, as usual, and Hyukjae is his new sidekick. There is no need to drag me since the Boss is coming with and nobody wants to look like a sore prick when he’s around. It’s non-stop drinking for everyone and I drink along with them, but in minute quantities.
It’s difficult to imagine how these bunch of people are professionals and that we are the ones in charge of assuring quality and safety when we like a pack of wild wolves who inhaled too much laughing gas.
Nobody mentions next week’s big assignments and who will be getting them. Nobody mentions the accident a few days ago which can potentially impair our jobs. Nobody even notices when Hyukjae excuses himself so he can go home and the Boss points at me to drive him, confident that I’ll come back right after taking Cinderella home.
Cinderella isn’t as sober as he pretends to be. I walk him to his door and he tells me to stay quiet, that his mother might be home. While I half-carry him to the couch, he clutches at my collar, pulling me to him. I lose my balance and stumble onto him, and he doesn’t forget to hum his approval while he kisses my lips, tugging at my tie, and lacing his arm around my waist so he can pull me closer.
“God, you’re amazing,” he mumbles when I try catching my breath.
“Hyukjae?” A stout woman is suddenly on the stair landing, with her hand on the switch. So that’s why I can properly see Hyukjae’s state now. And, boy, does he look wasted.
“Mooooooooom,” he whines. “I was just about to have sex with Donghae!”
“He wasn’t,” I tell his mother. “Our Boss asked me to drive him home and he’s just drunk. I’m sorry.” I break away from Hyukjae’s grip, straightening the creases on my shirt and pulling my zipper back up.
She’s visibly distraught. I start dragging Hyukjae to his room as she leads the way.
--
He returns on Sunday morning, certain that he left some clothes, still. My sister - who’s never home, just happens to have a day off after three consecutive events. She observes us from the dining table, conscious of half-whispered words and the rest of the conversation which we are having in silence.
The clothes are found and packed. He bows to her; I don’t remember telling him that she’s, in fact, my sister. I see him out and close the front door behind me.
“I miss you,” he says, clutching at his bag.
He puts a hand on my shoulder, which I try shrugging off. But it persists, along with the glint in his eyes that tells me how he truly misses me.
“Listen,” he eases the backpack behind him, and tells me, “I’m really sorry about leaving you like that. I know I shouldn’t have. It didn’t take me long to realize how horrible that was. But I couldn’t find the courage to come back. But I want to. I am, now.” He takes cue from my silence, and probably the frown on my face. “It’s too late now, is it?”
I give him a nod.
He hugs me, then, tightly. And it felt like goodbye.
“What was that about?” My sister asks. She has put down her pen and shut the folder she was previously reading. It can only mean one thing - she won’t stop until I talk.
I slump down the chair in front of her. “That was my friend. He was just saying goodbye.”
She smirks, “Oh, I know who he is. He came back? Does he want to get back together?”
“I didn’t want to.”
“Why? Are you seeing someone else?”
Her eyes are on me, scrutinizing, but I know she doesn’t mean anything bad by it. She’s probably just curious about him - she always has been curious about the guys I take home. It’s either that or she’s genuinely concerned about me. I know s he is. She’s a good sister despite her being distant and secretive - which might be my fault since I never once asked her about her life. But she doesn’t seem to have time to take breaks, so I leave her be.
“Hey, Lee Donghae,” she squeaks. “You’re too old for games.”
“Who said anything about games?”
She laughs then. She heads to the fridge and takes out the plate of sliced fruits she prepared the night before. “You’re too obvious, you idiot. You haven’t been in a proper relationship since… ever. Of course you’re just playing with these guys.”
He was different, though. He has silence and calm and he makes me feel normal. He has no demands and no strings yet now that he’s gone I feel as if there were strings, after all. They are invisible and uncannily lightweight so I couldn’t feel them before. The moment he’s out of the door, however, the strings are too tight and too tangled for me to get out of. They’re too heavy and too suffocating. The calm he makes me feel is now more like loneliness. And the silence does nothing but scream at me.
My sister, then, offers me a bite, which I take. “You’re really clueless, sometimes.”
You too.
--
When Hyukjae is introduced to my sister, he blurts out that we have had sex and that he plans to have more in the future. He asks for her blessing, too, which is the cherry on top, to be honest. I guffaw at them. And my sister vaguely laughs along with me.
Hyukjae tries to convince us both that we should really take him seriously.
“Lee Hyukjae,” she says while putting more chicken on his plate. “This is Lee Donghae we’re talking about. I mean, I’m sorry to break it to you, but you should probably ask him if you guys are actually exclusively going out.”
His mouth is agape, his eyes darting from me to my sister repeatedly.
She straightens on her seat. “Sorry.” But she doesn’t look it.
“Please ignore the bullshit she’s spouting,” I tell Hyukjae with a smile on my face, squeezing his knee under the table where she can’t see.
--
Youngwoon breaks down at work, because apparently, he committed this huge mistake which he’s not even allowed to share. Even to his best friend.
Hyukjae takes his side instantaneously, coaxing him to stop being sad over things, collecting the files and folders that he threw all over the place, cleaning up after him.
The Boss calls for me, and I am given the big assignment, instead, complicating things further. Seeing as how Hyukjae is occupied in making Youngwoon feel better, I request for good old Yuri as my assistant. She’s called to the office, as well, and a briefing on the situation ensues.
After about thirty minutes, we make our way out of the Boss’ office. Yuri makes sure to walk me to my desk, obviously overjoyed by the assignment. I notice how Youngwoon spitefully looks at us - at me, because I’m the department’s ace again. I notice how Hyukjae looks at us, too, but his expression is difficult to read with just a glance.
Yuri smiles sadly at Youngwoon - because now we know how he messed up auditing the last firm, almost causing both parties millions of dollars. An operator saves his ass, reporting the leakage, and saving the whole plant from exploding to bits. She tells me she’d see me tomorrow and she sashays down the hall to her side of the floor.
I already know what’s to come next. Youngwoon stomps away like a child robbed of his candies. Hyukjae stays and we remain in awkward silence for a long while.
--
“I’m moving out,” my sister says. Her things are already packed and the coffeemaker is missing from the counter top. I feel my insides drop. “You can’t afford the rent, can you? I suggest you get a roommate.”
Well, if I can find someone as ghostly as her, I’d gladly take him.
“Better yet,” her face lights up and she fiddles with her phone. I take advantage of her distraction and continue stripping my shoes off, looking forward to the comfort of my own bed after a long stressful day at work. She disappears to the veranda, and I lie down on the couch, loosening my tie as I do. “It’s all set. Hyukjae’s moving in tomorrow.”
“Who?”
She laughs, “I told him you needed a roommate and he’s desperate to move out of his mother’s house, anyway. Besides, I’d love to see you fool around while he’s always with you.”
“God, you’re so annoying.”
“I know,” she tells me as she starts wheeling her luggage to the door. “But I’d feel better if you have him around. He’s nice. And possessive.”
She puts on her boots and sunglasses, even if it was drizzling outside.
“Besides, isn’t it amazing how he and I are so close now?”
--
I take Yuri home so I can annoy Hyukjae. We talk work over dinner, ostracizing Hyukjae from the conversation since he doesn’t know anything about our assignment.
To be honest, Yuri is probably the most gorgeous woman in the office. All the guys are after her - except Youngwoon. And me. And, most probably, Hyukjae.
“So,” Hyukjae says while scrubbing the dishes purposefully. “Are you going to date Yuri now? Since, you seem to date your assistants.”
I continue wiping the plates dry, shaking my head because now Hyukjae’s just being stupid. Because has he forgotten I’m gay?
He clears his throat, “Just so you know, I’m still dating you. And I’ve, like, moved in, so… Dibs?”
“You are so annoying,” I tell him without even looking at him. Because I know he’s looking at me. “Can you please not jump into stupid conclusions? I don’t date all my assistants. In fact, I haven’t dated any of my assistants ever.”
“What about me?”
“What about you?”
He laughs awkwardly, “Don’t we sleep together?”
“That’s called having sex, Hyukjae. That’s not dating.”
--
Hyukjae doesn’t talk to me.
He drifts over and around me. There are things to be discussed but he’s a better ghost than my sister. He goes to the office earlier than I do, politely dismissing my offers on driving him. He has been assigned under the Boss, so his hours are doubled but his pay remains the same. I’ve once experienced being the Boss’s assistant but he remains a ghost in my apartment and I never get to give him pieces of advice that might be useful, like the Boss’s obsession with mocha and its derivatives, or his preference of visual presentations.
In the evening, I usually bask in the silence without him, as he goes home extremely late. Needless to say, there isn’t any sex, as well. But it doesn’t bother me as much as his stubborn persistence of my inexistence does.
In the morning, he doesn’t prepare breakfast for me anymore. He throws away the excess coffee he prepares. He doesn’t make me my toasts and he doesn’t buy milk for the cereals either.
I make sure to list down all things I need so I can drop by the grocery store for supplies. He doesn’t badger me about his staple strawberry milk and fruits so I don’t buy them for him. It has been two weeks since we last talked and I’m just sick of waiting for him to talk to me again.
Once the fridge is filled and my takeout dinner is eaten, I start the trip back to my room. I notice a lump of blankets on the couch. I notice that it’s actually Hyukjae under the covers. Upon closer inspection, he looks terribly horrible. He appears pale and he clutches at the blankets as if he’s extremely cold. I run to the thermostat and increase the temperature slightly. I put a glass of water against his lips after I successfully assist him in sitting up. He drinks only a tiny bit and I automatically lunge to the kitchen to make him soup or porridge or something that would stop him being pale and unresponsive.
There is only one person to call - Youngwoon, and despite his being mad at me, I proceed on questioning him on making a proper soup for a sick person and he replies, although hesitantly in the beginning. He laughs at my urgency and my reasons - saying that motherhood doesn’t suit me. I shut him up, thank him abruptly and hang up the phone.
Hyukjae winces; and I hope it was more because of the temperature of the soup than the horrendous taste of it - because I tried having a spoonful and it isn’t all that bad? He finishes the soup, though, and I feel half-relieved. I proceed on changing his clothes to more comfortable ones. I change his sweat-drenched blanket with mine and put a pillow under his head.
I look at the coffee table and notice the mess I made with the first aid kit and the empty soup bowl and the things Hyukjae was doing before he coiled beneath his blanket.
The reports are unfinished and due in a few hours according to a post-it note attached to it. I work on the reports on his computer. Sometimes, he’s really simple-minded, especially when it comes to passwords. It doesn’t take me long to finalize what he almost finished. I send the reports an hour before they are due.
I stand up and stretch, taking Hyukjae’s temperature against mine and he seems to be okay now. I start cleaning up and retreat to my room at around two in the morning.
--
It is lunch when I wakeup and Hyukjae is still on the couch. Feeling lazy, I call so that food will be delivered in about thirty minutes. I remember having things to do since Yuri and I will be presenting auditing results come Monday.
Hyukjae answers the door when the delivery arrives. He starts setting the food on the coffee table while I turn off my computer. He digs right in, and I do the same.
And we eat in silence, but it’s a more comfortable kind of silence - the kind you don’t find the urge to break, the kind which doesn’t unsettle you. When I finish, I don’t stand up at once. I watch him eat more of his pesto ravioli and I sigh because I’m relieved that he’s okay again. Being sickly doesn’t suit him.
He picks that moment to look at my direction and he catches my eyes.
I smile at him timidly - since there’s nothing I want to say and nothing that will make everything better than they already are. Though, of course, things are kind of bad. But, somehow, they’re good, at the same time. And I don’t exactly know what I want or how I feel, but I know that things between us are good, despite the bad things that happened before.
He smiles back, which I didn’t expect, and catches me off-guard.
“Thank you,” he says.
“It’s okay,” I reply. Because it is okay. It’s nothing. I’d like to think it’s nothing - that I did the things I did because that’s what roommates do, usually. And that if the situation is reversed, I’m sure he’d do the same for me.
“I’ll clean up here; go ahead and finish what you were doing.”
“Okay.”
I go back to my room despite wanting to drink orange juice. I close the door and feel utterly confused. I turn my computer on and try to return to my project and bioreactors and seed fermentation but it doesn’t happen. For the first time in a long time, my brain fails to compartmentalize. I remain wanting to drink orange juice but not wanting to see Hyukjae again so soon because there’s something that’s confusing about him today.
I brave my way to the fridge and I see Hyukjae’s back as he does the dishes.
He glances briefly at me and he smiles to acknowledge my presence but he returns to his task instantaneously. I gulp and walk to the fridge, taking the bottle of orange juice and pouring some on a glass. It feels like a humungous task to just stand there in close proximity with Hyukjae.
As I drink, I look at the back of his head, wondering if doing so will make him look back at me. He looks back, done with the dishes, and I watch him wash his hands and dry them with a kitchen towel.
I set my glass on the counter.
He turns to me, perhaps wondering why I’m acting exponentially weird like this.
“Okay,” I take a deep breath and close in the distance between us. My hands are on opposite sides of his face, running to his hair as I put my lips on his. His lips are soft and agape in what is most probably is surprise. I can feel him holding his breath and I realize I’m doing the same. His eyes start to close and his hand slither behind me, pulling me closer. My hands fall to his shoulders and when I can breathe anymore, I stop and clasp my hands at his nape since I can’t feel my legs properly.
He’s still pressed towards me, his hands on both sides of me, clutching at the edge of the dining table. My forehead is against his. And he’s trying to catch his breath and laugh at the same time and I notice how beautiful he is as he does that and it makes me smile, as well.
He’s subtly shaking his head and he collects me to him afterwards, “What was that?”
I allow him to embrace me, shrugging against his strong frame. “I have no idea.”
But I do. And it’s scary. Whatever it is, it makes me feel more than necessary. It makes me feel hyperaware of his hands making their way to my waist, holding me in place, of the minute dots of sweat forming on his forehead, of the implications of the thing I just did - we just did, and the undeniable presence of urgency and intensity in that kiss. It makes me want to slump down on the floor, but his hands won’t let me, or dig my fingernails into his skin or any hard surface that would make me feel numb. I don’t want to admit it but it made me feel alive for the tiniest fraction of time imaginable to mankind. I think I know what this means to him but what it’s starting to mean to me scares me more.
“Listen, Donghae,” he says, his voice marked with the calm I wish I have and the expectations I know I sparked. “I know you don’t take things seriously. But…” He searches for my evading eyes and continues, “This changes things.”
--
R | EunHae | AU; Angst
Summary: He prefers the drowning.
Warning: SiHae
A/N: This is boring. Also wordy. Move along, kids, nothing to see here.
8,719 words
--
His hands are soft; his words softer. The stress on my neck is slowly vanishing, the day’s mishaps starting to flee from the crevices of my brain. But the thoughts on my mind do not leave. They adhere to my skull, not allowing me to rest, to relax. I gulp visibly and he notices. He kisses my neck, noticeably concerned of my inability to let everything go.
I push him away slightly.
He gets the message.
“Fuck.” He hisses, gathers his clothes on the floor, and storms out.
It has been a bad day, or week, or month, really. I don’t remember the last time that the days were good. But he stayed, nonetheless. Maybe it was for the sex. But it had stopped for a while so maybe that’s why he’s leaving. I have no idea, frankly. It’s not like I care too much. I don’t. I’ll definitely miss his hands on my sore muscles, though.
My room smells like him, still, and I make a note to open the windows so there would be no more of his strong musk. But that’s for tomorrow. For now, I’d content myself with the cold air on my bare back. And the silence of my room against the noise of my neighbors’.
--
“Lee Donghae, we’re going out.”
Youngwoon has my time sorted out for me. If it wasn’t for him, I would have gone straight home from work and vice versa. He drags me to department outings and company dinners and high school get-togethers. I don’t really know where he gets his infinite patience from. I don’t really talk much. I’ll probably pass as a good-looking friend but these gatherings really have no use of me. Well, every group has to have a wallflower.
There is much dancing and I make sure to eat my share of the food; I paid my share, anyway. Youngwoon breaks free from the group when a trot song begins playing - he doesn’t really like it.
“God fucking damn it, Lee Donghae. Get out there and dance!” The karaoke room is starting to feel suffocating from the stench of alcohol. Youngwoon laughs heartily, a little tipsy, looking at the girl he has been eyeing since day one. She’d never expressed any interest towards him but it doesn’t bother him at all.
“I’m okay. You know I don’t sing.”
He laughed, “Who said anything about singing? It’s just yelling into the fucking microphone.”
I shrug and smile.
“Ah, you’re hopeless!”
--
I try cleaning on weekends. My room is too stuffy and it gets humid sometimes and it sucks. It’s like having all four seasons in the span of one day and it’s really irritating. So I clean until everything is in place and nothing is scattered on top of my coffee table.
The curtains are white and light blue. The hard wood floor is clean but not as shiny as I want it to be. The walls are white with blotches of black, a gift from the previous tenant which I am too penniless to paint over. The books are fixed neatly on my shelf, arranged by height, save from the book I’m currently re-reading. The CDs arranged alphabetically, by artist - I only have about ten. The DVDs are stacked in a neat pile on the floor beside my TV.
I sit down after a cool shower, setting my laptop on the dining-slash-study table. There are accounts to look at and production lines to audit and work just doesn’t end, especially since Youngwoon shoved all his unfinished reports at me since he has some important people to meet over the weekend.
Luckily, it has started to smell more like fresh laundry and less of him. I’m not fond of using perfume, so it’s difficult to overpower his. Apparently, it’s the bed that smells so much like him.
It takes about two hours of working and lounging around to completely mess up the whole apartment again.
--
“Hi,” his smile is polite and the wrinkles on the corners of his eyes are nice to look at. “I’ll be working for you today. Nice to meet you.”
“Ah, yes.” I really have no idea what to say to this newcomer.
“Oh?” Youngwoon barges in and embraces him. Apparently, they know each other. “What the fuck are you doing here, Lee Hyukjae?”
They talk lengthily and their hearty laughs distract me from the things I have to do. Monday is new assignments day and I barely have time on my hands and I can’t afford to be distracted. I’m not even done with last week’s load yet.
“Don’t tell me you don’t recognize this son-of-a-bitch?” Youngwoon slams a hand on my pile of paperwork. “This is Lee Hyukjae! From high school!”
I wince, seriously annoyed at all the fuss with the new assistant auditor. “Doesn’t ring any bell.”
Youngwoon laughs, the whole floor can probably hear him. “Shut up, this is the Lee Hyukjae? The soccer player you liked?”
--
The assignment is out of the city, as it is with most industrial plants. Today it’s a distillery up north, and I had to take Lee Hyukjae with me.
He seems eager as we got in the car, completely psyched out with his new job, eager to impress his seniors. In his case, that senior is me.
“Stop grinning like that,” I tell him ten minutes into the highway. He hasn’t stopped grinning since we left the company and I’m scared he’d crash the car into a boulder since he’s obviously not paying attention.
“Sorry,” he laughs. I close my eyes and try to sleep but his squeaky voice returns. “I’m just really excited about this job. I’ve been looking for five months and this is a really great opportunity for me,” he says, glancing at me at times. “You have no idea how depressing it was to live off my mother’s money.”
“I don’t think you should be telling me that. I’m kind of your boss.”
--
Unlike me, Youngwoon doesn’t have anything against Lee Hyukjae. I don’t either, but there’s just nothing to talk to him about. Since I didn’t really enjoy high school. And work is just completely stressful at the moment. He invites him over at my house for dinner on a Friday night - our usual dinner together, just the two of us. Apparently, it’ll exponentially become better with Hyukjae around.
He brings food prepared by his mother, like a little kid with a lunchbox. He comes too early. He arrives at seven when we clearly said eight. He insists to help in the kitchen, so I allow him to set the coffee table and put my things away while I finish warming up the take away in the oven.
The TV beeps on once he finishes setting up. It’s a little surprising how he doesn’t even ask for permission. But it doesn’t bother me that much.
Youngwoon arrives half-drunk and it throws our ‘dynamics’ out the window at once. He insists on watching porn while we eat. And he teases me about my stash being of gay sex. I don’t take offence because it’s Youngwoon and he’s drunk. Actually, I don’t take offence at any gay jokes at all because it’s exhausting to give them my time of the day.
Hyukjae shakes his head at his obscenity. I try pacifying him with foreign music videos that showed too much skin.
The two of them wolf down the food and drank beer Youngwoon brought in.
I don’t see it through the end. Halfway through their merry-making, I excuse myself, brush my teeth, and change into more comfortable clothes. I put spare blankets on the couch beside the two idiots, who don’t even notice me and continue making a mess out of things.
--
Youngwoon bails out on the cleaning so Hyukjae takes on his responsibilities, as well. The two of them managed to wreck the whole living area.
In two hours, the room is much more fit for human habitation. The vomit on my bathroom floor is scrubbed away. The trash is taken outside. The coffee table now holds my usual stash of Time magazines.
Hyukjae has showered and put on my smaller clothes.
We are watching a Japanese drama on love and murders. He is eating his second serving of pudding and he is smiling like a mad man, completely pumped up with the idea of some game show attacking people’s sufferings and secrets, wondering aloud why our own artists can’t pull off dark-themed dramas like these.
“Oh,” he suddenly blurts out in the middle of a gut-wrenching scene. “Sir, you remember that day I came to the company?”
I nod vaguely.
“Youngwoon says you liked me in high school? He kept telling me last night, too.”
A laugh comes from my lips as I point my spoon at him, “You were good at soccer.”
“Oh.”
“I hope you weren’t getting any ideas,” I tell him. “I mean, I may be gay but you’re definitely not my type. No offence, but I like meat on my men.”
--
Lee Hyukjae doesn’t go home. Instead, he sleeps with me on my bed, contributing to the scent of my sheets. There is a certain lack of liveliness in his sex, quite the opposite of his personality in real life. It’s not that I’m looking for energetic shit, really, I’m too lazy for exciting things. I’m more of a get-it-over-and-done-with type of person. And the way Hyukjae pushes into me is just perfect.
He doesn’t know how to talk to me the morning after. His hands are awkward and knock off things here and there. He almost spills his glass of fresh orange juice.
“It’s just sex, Hyukjae. Don’t act as if you’ve never done it before,” I say before eating more of his pancakes. He makes good pancakes.
The spoon clatters with the ceramic plate. He nervously picks it up and returns my gaze. “Yeah, I’m just… You’re my boss. And I don’t want to get fired.”
I can’t help but chuckle at a joke I immediately think of but ignore. “Well, don’t tell anybody, then.”
“Not even Youngwoon?”
“Especially not Youngwoon.”
--
The thing with distilleries is that at some places it smells sickeningly sweet and at others it smells awful. Lee Hyukjae keeps complaining about it no matter how many times I tell him to shut his pie hole.
He screams once we’re inside the car and outside the compound. “I am so fucking done with sugars! I really am so unlucky! Why does this have to be my first assignment!”
“You could’ve ended up in food processing where it’s so much worse,” I tell him.
But he isn’t fazed. He keeps on rattling on and on about how being stuck in the office is much better than driving to forests and mountains for these stupid production plants.
“I mean,” he says. “Come on. It could’ve been a chocolate production line and not gasoline.”
“You want to come over tonight?”
“What?” The car comes to a screeching halt.
“Come over. Tonight.”
--
He lunges to me as soon as we’re safely hidden from the rest of my neighbors. His lips are on my neck and his fingers are quick to unbutton my immaculate white shirt. I try stopping him but he doesn’t get the message. His arms are stronger than mine. His skin tastes sweet with a salty undertone.
Somehow, I manage to get him off of me.
“Lee Hyukjae, are you fucking deprived!”
“What? I thought you wanted to come over?”
I laugh. “Does that equate to having sex?”
He shrugs, wiping the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. “Shit, anyway, sorry.”
The grocery items are now scattered on the floor from the paper bags. I start picking them up, “Come on, let’s make dinner.”
Surely, he isn’t the best chef to take home. And I’m not good either. Still, the rice turned out perfectly, and the vegetables are okay. The chicken is heavenly since it’s store-bought. It’s a decent meal. And a horror film is playing on my TV in front of us.
He has been spying on the room next to mine for the past, say, 20 minutes and I don’t know why he’s paying more attention to the locked door than the paranormal shit he suggested we watch.
“What’s inside that room?” He finally asks.
“Monsters,” I tell him without looking at him. “I breed monsters for fun.”
He snorts. “Are you… living with someone?”
“Have you ever seen anybody else while you’re here?”
“No,” he says. “But did you lock someone in there or something? I mean, you can be a murderer for all I know.”
That’s a brilliant idea - to lock someone up in that room. But it really isn’t mine. It’s my roommate’s. “My roommate doesn’t go home often, actually.”
“You have a roommate! That’s interesting.” He makes a trip to the kitchen area to scoop more rice into his bowl and returns quickly. “Do you have a crush on him?”
It’s my turn to snort at him. “Come on. She’s barely here and she’s not really my type. No use harboring feelings for a ghost-like presence in my life.” Besides, she’s my sister, who happens to be an event organizer who travels all the time.
“Oh,” he says. “It’s a she.”
“Yup,” I tell him. “I’m pretty sure you’re the only person I’d want to lock up here at the moment.”
--
My colleagues’ idea of fun is terribly depressing.
Tonight, they’re all convinced that bar-hopping is such a wonderful idea and everyone is so thrilled to get out of the office. They look like teenagers on their first trip to a bar and they’re disturbingly perky.
Youngwoon leads the pack, as usual, and Hyukjae is his new sidekick. There is no need to drag me since the Boss is coming with and nobody wants to look like a sore prick when he’s around. It’s non-stop drinking for everyone and I drink along with them, but in minute quantities.
It’s difficult to imagine how these bunch of people are professionals and that we are the ones in charge of assuring quality and safety when we like a pack of wild wolves who inhaled too much laughing gas.
Nobody mentions next week’s big assignments and who will be getting them. Nobody mentions the accident a few days ago which can potentially impair our jobs. Nobody even notices when Hyukjae excuses himself so he can go home and the Boss points at me to drive him, confident that I’ll come back right after taking Cinderella home.
Cinderella isn’t as sober as he pretends to be. I walk him to his door and he tells me to stay quiet, that his mother might be home. While I half-carry him to the couch, he clutches at my collar, pulling me to him. I lose my balance and stumble onto him, and he doesn’t forget to hum his approval while he kisses my lips, tugging at my tie, and lacing his arm around my waist so he can pull me closer.
“God, you’re amazing,” he mumbles when I try catching my breath.
“Hyukjae?” A stout woman is suddenly on the stair landing, with her hand on the switch. So that’s why I can properly see Hyukjae’s state now. And, boy, does he look wasted.
“Mooooooooom,” he whines. “I was just about to have sex with Donghae!”
“He wasn’t,” I tell his mother. “Our Boss asked me to drive him home and he’s just drunk. I’m sorry.” I break away from Hyukjae’s grip, straightening the creases on my shirt and pulling my zipper back up.
She’s visibly distraught. I start dragging Hyukjae to his room as she leads the way.
--
He returns on Sunday morning, certain that he left some clothes, still. My sister - who’s never home, just happens to have a day off after three consecutive events. She observes us from the dining table, conscious of half-whispered words and the rest of the conversation which we are having in silence.
The clothes are found and packed. He bows to her; I don’t remember telling him that she’s, in fact, my sister. I see him out and close the front door behind me.
“I miss you,” he says, clutching at his bag.
He puts a hand on my shoulder, which I try shrugging off. But it persists, along with the glint in his eyes that tells me how he truly misses me.
“Listen,” he eases the backpack behind him, and tells me, “I’m really sorry about leaving you like that. I know I shouldn’t have. It didn’t take me long to realize how horrible that was. But I couldn’t find the courage to come back. But I want to. I am, now.” He takes cue from my silence, and probably the frown on my face. “It’s too late now, is it?”
I give him a nod.
He hugs me, then, tightly. And it felt like goodbye.
“What was that about?” My sister asks. She has put down her pen and shut the folder she was previously reading. It can only mean one thing - she won’t stop until I talk.
I slump down the chair in front of her. “That was my friend. He was just saying goodbye.”
She smirks, “Oh, I know who he is. He came back? Does he want to get back together?”
“I didn’t want to.”
“Why? Are you seeing someone else?”
Her eyes are on me, scrutinizing, but I know she doesn’t mean anything bad by it. She’s probably just curious about him - she always has been curious about the guys I take home. It’s either that or she’s genuinely concerned about me. I know s he is. She’s a good sister despite her being distant and secretive - which might be my fault since I never once asked her about her life. But she doesn’t seem to have time to take breaks, so I leave her be.
“Hey, Lee Donghae,” she squeaks. “You’re too old for games.”
“Who said anything about games?”
She laughs then. She heads to the fridge and takes out the plate of sliced fruits she prepared the night before. “You’re too obvious, you idiot. You haven’t been in a proper relationship since… ever. Of course you’re just playing with these guys.”
He was different, though. He has silence and calm and he makes me feel normal. He has no demands and no strings yet now that he’s gone I feel as if there were strings, after all. They are invisible and uncannily lightweight so I couldn’t feel them before. The moment he’s out of the door, however, the strings are too tight and too tangled for me to get out of. They’re too heavy and too suffocating. The calm he makes me feel is now more like loneliness. And the silence does nothing but scream at me.
My sister, then, offers me a bite, which I take. “You’re really clueless, sometimes.”
You too.
--
When Hyukjae is introduced to my sister, he blurts out that we have had sex and that he plans to have more in the future. He asks for her blessing, too, which is the cherry on top, to be honest. I guffaw at them. And my sister vaguely laughs along with me.
Hyukjae tries to convince us both that we should really take him seriously.
“Lee Hyukjae,” she says while putting more chicken on his plate. “This is Lee Donghae we’re talking about. I mean, I’m sorry to break it to you, but you should probably ask him if you guys are actually exclusively going out.”
His mouth is agape, his eyes darting from me to my sister repeatedly.
She straightens on her seat. “Sorry.” But she doesn’t look it.
“Please ignore the bullshit she’s spouting,” I tell Hyukjae with a smile on my face, squeezing his knee under the table where she can’t see.
--
Youngwoon breaks down at work, because apparently, he committed this huge mistake which he’s not even allowed to share. Even to his best friend.
Hyukjae takes his side instantaneously, coaxing him to stop being sad over things, collecting the files and folders that he threw all over the place, cleaning up after him.
The Boss calls for me, and I am given the big assignment, instead, complicating things further. Seeing as how Hyukjae is occupied in making Youngwoon feel better, I request for good old Yuri as my assistant. She’s called to the office, as well, and a briefing on the situation ensues.
After about thirty minutes, we make our way out of the Boss’ office. Yuri makes sure to walk me to my desk, obviously overjoyed by the assignment. I notice how Youngwoon spitefully looks at us - at me, because I’m the department’s ace again. I notice how Hyukjae looks at us, too, but his expression is difficult to read with just a glance.
Yuri smiles sadly at Youngwoon - because now we know how he messed up auditing the last firm, almost causing both parties millions of dollars. An operator saves his ass, reporting the leakage, and saving the whole plant from exploding to bits. She tells me she’d see me tomorrow and she sashays down the hall to her side of the floor.
I already know what’s to come next. Youngwoon stomps away like a child robbed of his candies. Hyukjae stays and we remain in awkward silence for a long while.
--
“I’m moving out,” my sister says. Her things are already packed and the coffeemaker is missing from the counter top. I feel my insides drop. “You can’t afford the rent, can you? I suggest you get a roommate.”
Well, if I can find someone as ghostly as her, I’d gladly take him.
“Better yet,” her face lights up and she fiddles with her phone. I take advantage of her distraction and continue stripping my shoes off, looking forward to the comfort of my own bed after a long stressful day at work. She disappears to the veranda, and I lie down on the couch, loosening my tie as I do. “It’s all set. Hyukjae’s moving in tomorrow.”
“Who?”
She laughs, “I told him you needed a roommate and he’s desperate to move out of his mother’s house, anyway. Besides, I’d love to see you fool around while he’s always with you.”
“God, you’re so annoying.”
“I know,” she tells me as she starts wheeling her luggage to the door. “But I’d feel better if you have him around. He’s nice. And possessive.”
She puts on her boots and sunglasses, even if it was drizzling outside.
“Besides, isn’t it amazing how he and I are so close now?”
--
I take Yuri home so I can annoy Hyukjae. We talk work over dinner, ostracizing Hyukjae from the conversation since he doesn’t know anything about our assignment.
To be honest, Yuri is probably the most gorgeous woman in the office. All the guys are after her - except Youngwoon. And me. And, most probably, Hyukjae.
“So,” Hyukjae says while scrubbing the dishes purposefully. “Are you going to date Yuri now? Since, you seem to date your assistants.”
I continue wiping the plates dry, shaking my head because now Hyukjae’s just being stupid. Because has he forgotten I’m gay?
He clears his throat, “Just so you know, I’m still dating you. And I’ve, like, moved in, so… Dibs?”
“You are so annoying,” I tell him without even looking at him. Because I know he’s looking at me. “Can you please not jump into stupid conclusions? I don’t date all my assistants. In fact, I haven’t dated any of my assistants ever.”
“What about me?”
“What about you?”
He laughs awkwardly, “Don’t we sleep together?”
“That’s called having sex, Hyukjae. That’s not dating.”
--
Hyukjae doesn’t talk to me.
He drifts over and around me. There are things to be discussed but he’s a better ghost than my sister. He goes to the office earlier than I do, politely dismissing my offers on driving him. He has been assigned under the Boss, so his hours are doubled but his pay remains the same. I’ve once experienced being the Boss’s assistant but he remains a ghost in my apartment and I never get to give him pieces of advice that might be useful, like the Boss’s obsession with mocha and its derivatives, or his preference of visual presentations.
In the evening, I usually bask in the silence without him, as he goes home extremely late. Needless to say, there isn’t any sex, as well. But it doesn’t bother me as much as his stubborn persistence of my inexistence does.
In the morning, he doesn’t prepare breakfast for me anymore. He throws away the excess coffee he prepares. He doesn’t make me my toasts and he doesn’t buy milk for the cereals either.
I make sure to list down all things I need so I can drop by the grocery store for supplies. He doesn’t badger me about his staple strawberry milk and fruits so I don’t buy them for him. It has been two weeks since we last talked and I’m just sick of waiting for him to talk to me again.
Once the fridge is filled and my takeout dinner is eaten, I start the trip back to my room. I notice a lump of blankets on the couch. I notice that it’s actually Hyukjae under the covers. Upon closer inspection, he looks terribly horrible. He appears pale and he clutches at the blankets as if he’s extremely cold. I run to the thermostat and increase the temperature slightly. I put a glass of water against his lips after I successfully assist him in sitting up. He drinks only a tiny bit and I automatically lunge to the kitchen to make him soup or porridge or something that would stop him being pale and unresponsive.
There is only one person to call - Youngwoon, and despite his being mad at me, I proceed on questioning him on making a proper soup for a sick person and he replies, although hesitantly in the beginning. He laughs at my urgency and my reasons - saying that motherhood doesn’t suit me. I shut him up, thank him abruptly and hang up the phone.
Hyukjae winces; and I hope it was more because of the temperature of the soup than the horrendous taste of it - because I tried having a spoonful and it isn’t all that bad? He finishes the soup, though, and I feel half-relieved. I proceed on changing his clothes to more comfortable ones. I change his sweat-drenched blanket with mine and put a pillow under his head.
I look at the coffee table and notice the mess I made with the first aid kit and the empty soup bowl and the things Hyukjae was doing before he coiled beneath his blanket.
The reports are unfinished and due in a few hours according to a post-it note attached to it. I work on the reports on his computer. Sometimes, he’s really simple-minded, especially when it comes to passwords. It doesn’t take me long to finalize what he almost finished. I send the reports an hour before they are due.
I stand up and stretch, taking Hyukjae’s temperature against mine and he seems to be okay now. I start cleaning up and retreat to my room at around two in the morning.
--
It is lunch when I wakeup and Hyukjae is still on the couch. Feeling lazy, I call so that food will be delivered in about thirty minutes. I remember having things to do since Yuri and I will be presenting auditing results come Monday.
Hyukjae answers the door when the delivery arrives. He starts setting the food on the coffee table while I turn off my computer. He digs right in, and I do the same.
And we eat in silence, but it’s a more comfortable kind of silence - the kind you don’t find the urge to break, the kind which doesn’t unsettle you. When I finish, I don’t stand up at once. I watch him eat more of his pesto ravioli and I sigh because I’m relieved that he’s okay again. Being sickly doesn’t suit him.
He picks that moment to look at my direction and he catches my eyes.
I smile at him timidly - since there’s nothing I want to say and nothing that will make everything better than they already are. Though, of course, things are kind of bad. But, somehow, they’re good, at the same time. And I don’t exactly know what I want or how I feel, but I know that things between us are good, despite the bad things that happened before.
He smiles back, which I didn’t expect, and catches me off-guard.
“Thank you,” he says.
“It’s okay,” I reply. Because it is okay. It’s nothing. I’d like to think it’s nothing - that I did the things I did because that’s what roommates do, usually. And that if the situation is reversed, I’m sure he’d do the same for me.
“I’ll clean up here; go ahead and finish what you were doing.”
“Okay.”
I go back to my room despite wanting to drink orange juice. I close the door and feel utterly confused. I turn my computer on and try to return to my project and bioreactors and seed fermentation but it doesn’t happen. For the first time in a long time, my brain fails to compartmentalize. I remain wanting to drink orange juice but not wanting to see Hyukjae again so soon because there’s something that’s confusing about him today.
I brave my way to the fridge and I see Hyukjae’s back as he does the dishes.
He glances briefly at me and he smiles to acknowledge my presence but he returns to his task instantaneously. I gulp and walk to the fridge, taking the bottle of orange juice and pouring some on a glass. It feels like a humungous task to just stand there in close proximity with Hyukjae.
As I drink, I look at the back of his head, wondering if doing so will make him look back at me. He looks back, done with the dishes, and I watch him wash his hands and dry them with a kitchen towel.
I set my glass on the counter.
He turns to me, perhaps wondering why I’m acting exponentially weird like this.
“Okay,” I take a deep breath and close in the distance between us. My hands are on opposite sides of his face, running to his hair as I put my lips on his. His lips are soft and agape in what is most probably is surprise. I can feel him holding his breath and I realize I’m doing the same. His eyes start to close and his hand slither behind me, pulling me closer. My hands fall to his shoulders and when I can breathe anymore, I stop and clasp my hands at his nape since I can’t feel my legs properly.
He’s still pressed towards me, his hands on both sides of me, clutching at the edge of the dining table. My forehead is against his. And he’s trying to catch his breath and laugh at the same time and I notice how beautiful he is as he does that and it makes me smile, as well.
He’s subtly shaking his head and he collects me to him afterwards, “What was that?”
I allow him to embrace me, shrugging against his strong frame. “I have no idea.”
But I do. And it’s scary. Whatever it is, it makes me feel more than necessary. It makes me feel hyperaware of his hands making their way to my waist, holding me in place, of the minute dots of sweat forming on his forehead, of the implications of the thing I just did - we just did, and the undeniable presence of urgency and intensity in that kiss. It makes me want to slump down on the floor, but his hands won’t let me, or dig my fingernails into his skin or any hard surface that would make me feel numb. I don’t want to admit it but it made me feel alive for the tiniest fraction of time imaginable to mankind. I think I know what this means to him but what it’s starting to mean to me scares me more.
“Listen, Donghae,” he says, his voice marked with the calm I wish I have and the expectations I know I sparked. “I know you don’t take things seriously. But…” He searches for my evading eyes and continues, “This changes things.”
--