home - part 3 of birthday gifts
home
donghae's house is empty
a/n: i apologize, it's not my birthday anymore. but i wanted to gift a little yoonhae because the vanilla couple broke up. but, i can't offer much again. my writing is still rusty and i still need to oil it, but to a fellow yoonhae shipper who gave me a sweet yoonhae drabble for my birthday a year back, for you, i'd like to offer this cotton candy pink and sky blue present for you. i hope your next year at berkley is kind to you and thank you for reading my personal journals back in the day and commenting, it really did help me out during those days. thank you so much. so, for you, kurdoodle
it's another day of boredom, sunsets, and lemonade. donghae lifts his legs up onto the coffee table in front of him, yawns and finds himself slowly falling asleep. it's just another day, he thinks. he's used to doing nothing, but he's a bit fidgety this time around. his mind starts to create a check-list of what he needs to do and what he doesn't want to do.
mow the lawn, garden, and water the plants are the things he need to do. washing the dishes, sweeping the floors, and dusting, are things he doesn't want to do. it's a lethargic day he thinks, things don't need to done until he has the motivation to do it. things would be different if she was by his side.
it seems empty without her. the blankets don't have her scent anymore, the scent that he used to complain about every time she came over with her laundry detergent. he remembers pouting every time she didn't use his, or complaining when she added scent boosters into each load. or asking why she came over with a new bouquet to put in the vase in his room. she'd change it with a different kind of flower. she said it was because she wanted to introduce him to flowers that weren't roses. he remembers how she'd yell at him for always forgetting to cut the stems so they'd live longer. he remembers she'd bring him bottle after bottle of lemonade for each date. it was his favorite, she reminds him whenever he forgot.
but now things are different. he still hasn't thrown away the flowers. they're browning and losing leaves, but he's too scared to toss out the last pieces of her. the glass bottles lay at the bottom of a trash can. he can never drink the lemonade without being reminded of her tart laugh at his lame jokes. the blankets lose her scent, he's starting to forget the color of her hair.
donghae isn't used to lazy days. he can't be lazy or his fingers will start to fidget with memories of her. they'll start to go for the door, open the knob and wonder when she's coming home. they'll want to run their fingers through her elegant brown hair, or kiss her divine skin that he could never get enough of, or try to keep her hands warm whenever they get too cold.
and now he waits for the day for it all to fade away without trying to move on. a disaster, really. she's probably in love with someone else. she's probably giving flowers to someone else and telling him how horrible he was to her.
"hey donghae!" he hears. and he looks up to see that it isn't her. it isn't the girl he wants to hear when the sun sets.
"hey sooyeon," he forces himself to say. he forces a shy smile on his face and tries to pretend that his ex is really her. he has to tell sooyeon that she is just a past memory. just pretend that he is over the late night phone calls, sitting on the porch and swinging until the sky turns red, he has to forget.
"what's for dinner?" he asks. he remembers when she used to wrap her arms around his waist and thank him for dinner.
"whatever you feel like cooking, idiot," sooyeon jokes about, throwing the plastic bags of vegetables his way. ("your main ingredient is chicken, surprise me, lee," she used to say with a childish grin on her face.)
"can't you buy anything than rabbit food?" donghae jokes back. it's painful to be in two places at once. it's hard to focus on the present when someone tucks happiness in the past.
"you miss her, don't you?" sooyeon pesters. her eyebrows furrow together and it's only because he still hasn't thrown out the roses she left in his room. ("this is my last one, i promise," she said with no emotion. he remembers she vowed to never give him roses when they were together.)
"who?"
"yoona."
there's anger plastered on her face, but he doesn't care, in the last few months, she never asked about her. "are you going to keep on pretending that everything is fine when you want her that much?" sooyeon asks, crossing her arms together.
"isn't it better that way?" he answers finally. he slides down on the couch. the artifical mirth disappears from his eyes and the feelings come rushing back. "i thought you said she was with seunggi or something," he mutter bitterly.
sooyeon hums as she disappears in the kitchen. "they broke up about a week ago," she says casually.
donghae is gone. sooyeon smirks. such an idiot like always, she thinks to herself.
"hi."
donghae appears at yoona's apartment. yoona's blonde now, he notes. her confused expression is the cutest thing he's seen in the past month.
"are you at the wrong apartment, donghae?" she asks, looking in the hallway, wondering if he's looking for sunye or someone other than her.
"no, no, i'm at the right one," he says with a grin on his face.
"would you like to come in?" she asks. he nods his head childishly and yoona only shakes her head at his silliness. she lets him in and he sees how she lives without him. there's lots of paintings on the walls, the color scheme is everything that yoona loves, simplistic and easy to pair with.
"i really miss you," he blurts when their eyes meet again. it's like he's seventeen again and she's the first girl he ever thinks is beautiful. the sudden outburst makes her cover her mouth with her hand. she turns red, and he swears this is the moment he should grab her by the waist and kiss her.
she just stands there without much on her mind. slowly, she understands that donghae really means what he means. carefully, he comes closer to her and before he can kiss her, she hugs him. it's something he yearns for. it's something he loves. he wraps his arms around her and he won't let her go this time. without her, he doesn't feel like he can be productive. without her, he isn't at home.