Duties and Privileges, Selfishness and Waiting
Title: Duties and Privileges, Selfishness and Waiting
Pairing: Eunhae
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Angst, romance, weirdness
Summary: Donghae and Eunhyuk have an unusual meeting.
Wordcount: 6,237
A/N: This is a product of me being heartbroken. It was really therapeutic to write, and so it's really personal to me. x.x so I hope you like it!
Also, right, this is all based on a dream that I had about a month ago that I just can't get out of my brain. Yeah, that's it for now ^-^ Enjoy!
"I really wish you'd stop fucking crying already."
Eunhyuk was sitting on a chair in the kitchen he used to own, with his back leaned forward and his arms resting on his legs. He tried to avert his eyes, but he couldn't stop staring at Donghae, who was sitting immobilized by the kitchen table. Slow tears were making their way, one by one, down his cheeks and dripping onto the table. It enraged Eunhyuk, because there was no reason for Donghae to cry. It wouldn't help anything. No good would come of it. Plus, it was so unlike Donghae to just sit and stare in front of him like he did now; crying was one thing, that happened often, but the paralysis that had seemed to come over him... Eunhyuk hated it. What did he think he was doing?
"Donghae, come on. You can't sit here all day." He stood up from his chair, frustrated by the lack of an answer. It was so quiet in the apartment, and he wasn't used to that either. There was always some form of life going on, if not the TV, then Donghae's loud and sometimes very annoying singing. "You aren't even supposed to be here," he added, because yes, it was true. Donghae had no business here anymore, so why was he sitting there crying like it was his right? "Will I have to chase you out?"
"Do you wish you couldn't see me?" Donghae asked then. Eunhyuk almost jerked back, honestly surprised.
"Oh, so you can hear me?" he said, almost sarcastically. He walked over to the table, but Donghae remained with his back against firmly against him, not paying him any attention. "No, I don't wish I couldn't see you. I'm just wondering what you're doing here. You're wasting so much time." He pulled out the chair next to Donghae, but the other man still didn't look at him. His gaze was fixed on the table, on the puddle of tears that had collected there. Eunhyuk noted with irritation how his lower lip was twisted, the way it always was when Donghae was about to start crying, mostly over ridiculous and pointless things. Donghae always cried a lot. It was one of the things Eunhyuk always found strange about him, strange and hard to understand.
Seconds passed. The grey clouds outside the window started releasing the first few drops of rain. The sound of water hitting glass soon meshed with the sound of distant traffic, and Eunhyuk's heart was heavy. "Do I only get one sentence a day, or what?" he asked. "Am I not worth more?"
Donghae sniffled. Unshed tears and silent sobs shook his body, and Eunhyuk had to look away. This was pathetic, and nothing but pathetic. He didn't want to spend another second seeing it. "Fine," he spat, getting up from the chair. "If you want to waste your fucking life crying and not talking, then fine! By all means, cry! Don't expect me to help you, because you gave up that privilege when you threw me away like yesterday's goddamn trash!" He slammed his fist against the table and stormed off, but Donghae didn't even flinch. Must have known he was going to do that, Eunhyuk assumed, and it made him even angrier. Donghae knew him so well that he could predict when his outbursts of rage were on the way, could calculate his every move to know beforehand when he was going to make a scene. Great. Of course, he already knew that he had long since lost any kind of power over the other man.
And yes, of course, that didn't matter anymore. Because Donghae had told him clearly that their relationship (afterwards, Eunhyuk was so ashamed that he wasn't sure if he wanted to call it a relationship at all; it was more of a temporary - the three year kind of temporary - insanity) was over. But he'd made sure to say that he wanted Eunhyuk in his life still, as a... as a friend. A friend. The thought made Eunhyuk shake with both anger and laughter, because it was just so bizarre. Him and Donghae, friends? After everything that had happened? After all of that... insanity? No. And now, when things had become hard again after such a long time of ease, Donghae was here again, expecting some kind of comfort?
Eunhyuk slammed the door to his room. He didn't need to look to know that Donghae didn't jump in surprise the way he wished he would.
The whole thing about being angry was that it was easy, Eunhyuk thought. After years and years of promises of love and a beautiful future, when the promises were all suddenly broken and Eunhyuk was left needing something that was no longer there, suddenly stripped of the right to ask for any kind of comfort of justice, anger should have been the easiest thing to summon from his mind. And it was, yes, definitely, most of the time all he had to do was open his eyes in the mornings and look around his empty, messy, small room, and he'd be overwhelmed with rage in an instant, because how could Donghae do that to him? He'd seen the same story be played out over and over on television, in songs, in movies, in other people's lives, but him and Donghae were supposed to be different. They actually meant the things they told each other, they loved like their lives depended on it, and when Eunhyuk thought about things that could possibly break them up one day, he would always come up with a blank. Hah, and that must have been so different from how other people love, mustn't it?
It made Eunhyuk feel pathetic. Because he was suddenly no different from all the fools he'd see in cheesy romantic comedies, the ones who couldn't see the ending even when it was approaching at the speed of light. The light in the tunnel that turned out to be a train. And that, above all, made him angry.
But then of course, when he actually saw Donghae, things changed again. One look at those gentle, sad eyes, and that short hair that always looked so good when it was ruffled, and he melted down to his very core. In front of the man who betrayed him and broke his heart once and for all, all the hurt, all the betrayal seemed to wash away. And wasn't that just the most stupid thing ever? Eunhyuk thought. Donghae was the one who did this to him, why was that so hard to get into his head? Why, why did his body betray him whenever Donghae was around? Why couldn't he just hate him, tell him every single thought in his head, even if it would hurt them both? Why couldn't he just ask him -- "so, with your new guy... Do you talk about me? Do you tell him things that I used to do that annoyed you? When you sleep together, do you compare him to me? When you listen to the songs we used to sing together, do you ever find yourself remembering that it was my favorite song? My favorite band? And by the way, since you said you loved my voice, my writing and the way I moved, has that disappeared? Don't you ever find yourself craving to hear my singing anymore, like you used to? You told me I was the most beautiful man you'd ever seen, is that not true anymore? Do you comfort yourself by thinking of all the things I did wrong, the times I was never there for you, if you ever feel guilty?"
No, because Eunhyuk had to right to ask any of those things. And what good would it be, anyway? It would be like taking a scalpel and digging around in the fresh wounds, looking for anything that could tell him why, why did this have to happen? Why did he have to fall in love with him?
Donghae walked into Eunhyuk's room late at night and stood staring out the big panorama window of his bedroom. There wasn't much to see out there, so it made Eunhyuk frustrated again.
"Is it really that interesting?" he asked, voice hoarse now from tiredness. He was not going to go to sleep until Donghae had left his room, even though he was now slumped out on his bed, eyes closing every few seconds. "Do you have to be in here? Some of us need to sleep."
"I remember the first time I came here," Donghae mumbled suddenly, and Eunhyuk's protests fell silent at once. "You hadn't come home yet, so I had to wait outside for more than forty minutes. It was in the summer, so it wasn't that bad, I guess. But when you did come home, your father was with you to help you set up your new furniture, and no matter what you say I know he never really liked me."
"I remember," Eunhyuk replied, sitting up on the fort of pillows he had built for himself ever since Donghae had left. "And no, you're right, my dad hated you."
A few silent seconds. It was still raining, but to be honest, Eunhyuk was a little glad. It made the silences not so quiet, not so lonely. "I guess he never had real reason to ever like me," Donghae said at least. He laughed a little, but Eunhyuk could see that it bothered him deeply.
"I liked you. That should have been reason enough."
All of Eunhyuk's anger disappeared the moment Donghae had spoken to him. Because, as usual, a few words was all it took for Eunhyuk to love the other man with all his heart again, and now he didn't even dare to ask why Donghae had ignored him in fear of making it happen again. As long as Donghae talked to him, it would be okay.
"I remember I went home early that day, because your friends came over and I felt awkward."
Eunhyuk nodded. "Yeah, I remember."
"I kind of regret that now. I should have stayed. But you... never blamed me for it. You were always supportive when I was insecure, and I could never really show you how much I appreciated that." Donghae's voice sounded thicker and thicker, as if the tears were working their way up through his throat again. Eunhyuk stood up, but looked away.
"Why are you thinking about this now, in the middle of the night? You should be at home with him, not standing here like a ghost in my room." Eunhyuk always referred to Donghae's new boyfriend as 'him', even in his mind. Giving the guy a name meant he was real, and he was Donghae's, and Donghae's was his. And Eunhyuk's brain was just not ready to process that yet.
But Donghae didn't reply, instead the tears started falling again, and one of his hands found the window pane. "No, Donghae, come on," Eunhyuk said, hurrying towards him. "Don't cry. I don't understand what you want me to do. What's wrong? Why won't you tell me why you're here?" He reached out a hand to put on Donghae's shoulder, but the other man jerked back as if electrocuted. "Fine," Eunhyuk bit out through gritted teeth. "I don't know what's happened to you, but you're being unreasonable. What do you want from me?"
"If I had known it was going to feel like this," Donghae choked out between broken sobs that rocked his body, "I would never have left you."
Eunhyuk took a step back. "And if I had known it was going to feel like this, I would have killed myself before we met." A cruel thing to say, but then again, maybe Eunhyuk was cruel. Maybe he hadn't always been, but since Donghae left, he wasn't so sure anymore. Sometimes he didn't wish any happiness at all for Donghae and him, but a miserable, short life together. Nothing but fights and complaints. As far as cruelty goes, maybe that was still an innocent thing to think, but in the moment it felt horrible.
Donghae sobbed, leaning his body against the window. Eunhyuk bit his lip, regretting the words now that he had spoken them. But taking them back wouldn't change the truth in them, and that was what really hurt. "Do you want me to leave you alone?" he asked. Donghae didn't reply, so he stood listening to the rain for a few seconds.
"I'll take your silence as a no. I'm going to sleep."
Without another word, he climbed into his bed, pulling the sheets over his head, and waited to drift off to sleep, still with Donghae's sobs ringing in his ears. Was he heartless? he wondered. He didn't owe Donghae anything, and if the other wasn't going to let him in, then he had no energy to fight for it. Everything they had built could scatter in the wind for all he cared.
Except he did care, of course.
"How long are you planning to stay? I have things to do, you know."
Donghae had reverted to his spot at the kitchen table, and not long after, Eunhyuk had given up on any thought of sleep. Instead he sat opposite Donghae at the table, staring around at the empty walls and rows of clean dishes.
One could say that Donghae had stopped crying, but it was a question of technicalities. There were no tears grazing his cheeks, and no sobs, but his lips did the same pathetic little curve, and his eyes were empty, his skin was pale, his entire body numb and still.
Eunhyuk leaned back in his chair. "Donghae, for Christ’s sake," he groaned. "Are you ever going to stop this? I may love you, but I won't hesitate to throw you out using violence in the end."
Donghae jerked back. Eunhyuk noticed, and he breathed a sigh of relief. "You can hear me, can't you?" Donghae didn't reply, but stared blankly at a white wall. "You can hear me, but you think you can't. You think it's just wishful thinking, or that after all this time, you're finally going crazy, don't you? You think you're hearing voices." He leaned forward, scanning Donghae's eyes for any kind of a reaction. There was none. "But I'm telling you, Donghae, it's me. It's my voice." A blink of Donghae's big, beautiful eyes, but nothing more. Eunhyuk leaned back again. "But of course, you think this is just your mind trying to convince you to go along with the insanities, right? So how can I convince you of anything?"
He reached out, placing a careful hand on a wall that once had been covered in so many pictures, a collage of times when happiness was an actual word. A possibility, an everyday accessory. Times that, of course, had been long lost, along with the pictures. "I'm begging you, Donghae," he said slowly, "to try to trust me this time. It's me." He took a deep breath, and asked again: "You can hear me, can't you?"
Donghae let out a small sigh, so small that it barely reached Eunhyuk's ears. But not even his eyes moved, his gaze didn't shift a millimeter. Eunhyuk stood up slowly, staring down at the man he loved, the man he would always love for as long as time allowed him, for as long as whatever feelings he had left still worked, and then he slammed his fist down against the table once more, and screamed in the face of the love of his life: "YOU CAN STILL HEAR ME, CAN'T YOU?"
"Yes."
Donghae's voice was small and tired, but there was no doubt in Eunhyuk's mind that he had spoken. He sunk down in his chair again, suddenly feeling so exhausted, but so relieved that he had finally broken through to Donghae. "You can hear me?" he repeated. "But... can't you see me?" He leaned forward, trying to catch the other man's blank gaze, but Donghae didn't even blink. And there was no reply. "No, Donghae, please, don't stop speaking to me," Eunhyuk pleaded, now feeling his own tears well up, much to his annoyance. "Please... You said you could hear me. So talk to me. Please. I'm begging you."
Panic like lightning from a clear sky welled up on Eunhyuk's chest, and he stood up, suddenly at a loss for what to do. "If you cared about me at all, for as much as a second when we were together, don't do this to me. Donghae, I feel like I'm ripping in two, so talk to me, please. Donghae!" He blinked the tears back furiously, and while it worked wonders on his eyes, the pain, the hurt, the fear still ripped and tore at his heart. He ran out of the kitchen and into his room, roamed through the mess on his dusty desk until he found a piece of paper and a blue marker.
As he scribbled down his words on it, he remembered a time when he and Donghae had gone through some of his childhood things, right before they moved in together. Eunhyuk had found an old bag of his school things, filled with drawings and some very minor writing exercises from grade one to three, and they had both giggled at his childish drawings. "Your handwriting hasn't changed," Donghae had said jokingly, and Eunhyuk had chased him around his parents television set for almost ten minutes. The memory calmed him down somewhat, but not enough.
He took the note in his hands, staring down at the shaky letters, "I have so many things I want to ask you", and then he darted back into the kitchen in record time. For an irrational second he had been worried that Donghae would somehow had disappeared, but he was still there, sitting in the same spot with those lifeless eyes still glued to the wall. His hands lay limp on the table. Eunhyuk breathed a sigh of relief, walked up to him and carefully placed the note on Donghae's open palm.
He pulled back, and the reaction came instantly. Donghae's eyes widened, and as he looked down, the absolute shock that overtook his face made Eunhyuk smile. He watched as Donghae lifted the note, trying to make out the letters in the weak lightning of the kitchen, and then his breathing quickened, quickened and quickened again until he was hyperventilating. He almost fell backwards in his rush to get up from the chair - the squeaking of the wood against the floor made Eunhyuk's ears ache - and stared around the room, tears falling from his eyes in every direction as he spun around.
"Donghae, calm down," Eunhyuk said, wanting to step forward and place a calming hand on his arm, but knowing it was anything but a good idea. "It's just me. And I just want to talk, I don't want to hurt you. You must know that, right?" And though Donghae stopped spinning around, he didn't appear to become any calmer. The sound of rain against the window mixed with his heavy breathing as he stood in one spot, gaze flickering around the room madly. Eunhyuk watched him sadly, knowing that he must be so afraid - and why did that hurt Eunhyuk's heart? Donghae had still broken and torn down every piece of his heart, so why should he feel guilty for making him scared? This was all Donghae's fault to begin with!
"Even if I am just your insanity speaking," Eunhyuk continued, rolling his eyes at his own weak will, "just play along for now, Donghae. Please. It will make you feel better. And I promise I will never bother you again, as long as you leave this place once we've talked. Okay?"
Donghae stared down at the slightly crumpled note in his hand. He would recognize his handwriting - of this Eunhyuk was sure, because if he would have forgotten, that would not only be an offense to Eunhyuk, but also a sign that not everything was completely alright with Donghae's mental health. A few moments of hesitation passed, where Eunhyuk could do nothing but helplessly stand by the side and watch, and then Donghae nodded.
"Okay," he said. "I don't understand any of this, but okay."
"I don't expect you to," Eunhyuk replied, because to be honest, he didn't really understand it all that well himself. Donghae stared at the open door to the hallway, and Eunhyuk wished that Donghae would look at him, just for a second. If he could only feel like he was the focus of the other man's attention once again, just one more time... But he stopped himself before he had time to make up an ending to the sentence, because he was about to build himself a fantasy world. If he would be the center of Donghae's attention, even just once, he would have to return to reality sooner or later, and then his entire world would come crashing down again.
"What... do you want to ask?" Donghae said carefully, staring down at his feet.
Eunhyuk took a deep breath. This was it. He searched among the millions of questions that filled his mind every day, but eventually what came out was "how is he?"
Donghae frowned. "Really? That's what you wanted to ask?"
Eunhyuk shook his head, but remembered that Donghae couldn't see him there. "No," he said with a sigh, "it's not. I meant how are you." It was an unnecessary question, one he already knew the answer to, and one he asked only to see what Donghae would tell him.
"I'm... not so good, Eunhyuk," he said. "I'm here, so, you know."
"And my apartment is a place you associate with being unhappy?"
"No," Donghae replied. "But you must understand what it means, that I'm here."
"I don't," Eunhyuk said quietly. "I don't understand any of this. You said..."
"I said a lot of things."
Eunhyuk nodded. "That you did."
"I'm sorry for a lot of them," Donghae admitted, but Eunhyuk only felt increasingly frustrated. He didn't know how to be straight forward enough to ask the right questions, the ones he really wanted to ask.
"Why, Donghae?" he asked at last. "Why did you leave me?"
Tears welled up in an instant in Donghae's eyes, as usual. "I don't know. I really don't know. I think I got tired..."
"Of me?"
"Of life. Of living the same way every day." He hesitated. "But no, not of you. I could never get tired of you."
"And what about him?" Eunhyuk asked. "You don't get tired of living life with him the same way every day?"
Donghae sighed. "I've only been with him for three months."
"And you already live together," Eunhyuk said bitterly. "After two months."
"Yeah."
"It took us two years."
"I know."
"Why is he better than me?"
"Stop it," Donghae said, looking down at his feet again, and Eunhyuk could tell from his expression that it was in shame. "It's not like that. Love doesn't work like that."
"No, you should know a lot about that," Eunhyuk said, the anger finally resurfacing. "How long did it take after we broke up until you got together with him?"
Eunhyuk could see Donghae was hesitating strongly now, polishing his answer in his head, and he was scared that when the answer came out it would be so edited that it had lost all resemblance to the truth. "Three weeks," Donghae said, and Eunhyuk decided that if it was less than three weeks, he didn't want to know anyway.
"How could you do that to me?" he asked, every part of his body aching. "How could you move on so quickly?" He took a slight step closer. "I stayed at home every day thinking about you, wondering if you missed me, if maybe we could somehow work things out and I hoped so desperately that you were thinking the same things, hurting like me, when in fact you were with him."
Donghae nodded, tears spilling over his cheeks. "I know. I'm sorry."
"That means absolutely nothing to me."
"I get that."
"Don't you understand how ashamed I felt when I found out? My whole world revolved around you."
"How was I supposed to know what was going to happen?" Donghae asked carefully. "How was I supposed to know that I was going to meet someone new and fall in love again?"
Eunhyuk shook his head. He didn't have an answer. He didn't know what he wanted Donghae to have done differently, apart from just not leaving him. But that was how life worked sometimes, wasn't it? Things break apart, things end, people change. There's no one to blame for it. No one can know the future. "You weren't. I'm just being honest, I don't understand how you could be with me for years and then move on in less than a month. It makes me feel... like you never really loved me." Donghae opened his mouth to speak, but the tears only poured harder. "I thought I was going to marry you someday, Donghae."
Donghae wiped his tears with the back of his hand. "I did, too."
"Did you really love me?"
"Yes."
"Did you ever think about me when you were with him?"
"...No."
"Do you ever think of me when you're with him now?"
"Yes."
"Do you ever listen to our song?"
"Only in secret."
"Is he better in bed than I am?"
It was a childish question, and Eunhyuk knew that, but he couldn't help it. The questions poured from his lips without his mind's allowance, and it felt good. Donghae just shook his head, the answer too horrible to be said out loud.
"Do you miss me?"
"All the time."
Eunhyuk paused, wondering if he should really believe the other man's words. "Do you regret breaking up with me?"
"Yes."
Eunhyuk frowned. "Only because you lost me. If you wouldn't have broken up with me, you would have spent the rest of your life wishing for something else."
Donghae backed against the wall, needing any kind of support to keep him standing. Eunhyuk followed. "That's probably true. I would have. But I didn't know... how it feels like without you."
"How does it feel?"
Donghae wiped his tears again. "How does it feel when you miss me?" he retorted angrily.
"I'm asking the questions," Eunhyuk said.
"I want to know."
"It feels like I'm about to lose my fucking mind," Eunhyuk replied simply. "It feels like I lost all ability to love without being a selfish asshole, and like I can't decide whether I want you to be happy with him or if I just want you both to die in a car accident."
"I'm sorry, I... made you this way," Donghae hiccupped. "You were always so loving."
"I was. You ruined me. And you used to be such an honest person, now you're just a liar. You ruined us both."
"I know." Donghae slid slowly down along the wall until he hit the ground. "I know. I want to take it back so badly, so none of this would have happened."
"But you can't," Eunhyuk said with a shrug. "It's done. And no matter what you do in the future, it can't be undone. We're both broken, and now it's too late for me. But you can still fix yourself."
Donghae shook his head. "I don't deserve that. After breaking someone like this, I only deserve to stay like this forever."
"Don't waste your life thinking you decide what you deserve," Eunhyuk spat. "You'll be judged by every single person you meet, and whoever hears a story about you, so don't go wasting time judging yourself, too."
Donghae raised his knees and leaned his head against them, his arms blocking out any sight of his face as he cried loudly. "Can't you come back?" he pleaded. "Can't I take it back?"
Eunhyuk walked over to the wall and sank down beside him, making sure to leave at least a few decimeters between them. "What's done is done," he said. "Neither of us can take back what we've done now."
"Would you, if you could?" Donghae asked, glancing around the room over his arms. Eunhyuk caught a glimpse of his reddened eyes, but he didn't soften.
"No," he said simply. "This is the way it is now."
"You wouldn't..." Donghae tried, but his voice broke. "You wouldn't come back to me if we could undo all of this?"
Eunhyuk sighed. The answer was such an obvious yes that it made him embarrassed. He wished it wasn't true. He wished he could be strong and think that no, I don't need anyone who hurts me, I shouldn't waste time on someone who would even entertain the thought of leaving me, but he couldn't. At the end of the day, it had always been, and would always be, about Donghae. "That's a different question," he said tiredly. "I don't want to think about it, because we can't undo anything, anyway. It'll drive us crazy."
"I'm apparently already insane, sitting here talking to myself in an empty room" Donghae said, wiping his tears again - Eunhyuk didn't really understand why he kept doing it. It was really pointless, with the way they were flooding his cheeks and wetting patches on the sleeves of his hoodie. "But I love you, Eunhyuk."
Eunhyuk stared at Donghae were he was sitting, even though he couldn't see much of his face. He remembered what had drawn him to Donghae from the start, so many years and tears ago: that child-like, innocent inability to lie or hurt anybody. Donghae had made mistakes, many terrible mistakes, but there was no denying that child-like quality that still remained in his eyes, even though they were abused from crying for so long. Eunhyuk believed him. He believed that he loved him, but he also knew that it didn't matter. That it was completely pointless. Because love can never be enough when there are things like boredom involved. Something else, something Eunhyuk hadn't quite found yet, was needed, and the two of them lacked it together.
"I love you too."
"What happens now?" Donghae asked. His tears had stopped falling. Eunhyuk didn't think such a thing was possible, but his cheeks were dry now, the skin was worn from so much drying of tears.
The rain had stopped too, Eunhyuk noted. The blinds were down, so he couldn't see out, but he suspected the sun was about to rise. "I don't know." He hesitated, because that was not entirely true, and after all the hurt Donghae had caused him by lying, it didn't feel right to lie. "I'll be going soon."
Donghae nodded. "Going where?"
But to this, Eunhyuk didn't have a good answer. Even if he had known what to say, he wasn't sure he could have said the words out loud. So he waited.
"Eunhyuk?"
"Yeah?"
"Going where?"
"Just... to do my duties as a person."
"Oh?"
Eunhyuk smiled half-heartedly. "Don't you dare forget me."
Donghae frowned, and Eunhyuk had to laugh, but he stifled it with his hand. Though, in hindsight, he wasn't sure if it really had an effect. "I hope you're joking. How could I forget you?" Donghae said exasperatedly. "If you were actually here, I'd punch you."
"I am here, though."
"Okay, so if you had the decency to show yourself."
Eunhyuk said nothing. The door was starting to look very inviting. The anger had been taken from his chest, but the love remained there, as always. It hurt, but maybe that was the way it was supposed to be.
"Eunhyuk?" Donghae said carefully.
"Yeah?"
"I was just checking to see if you had left."
Eunhyuk smiled. "I'm leaving now, Donghae."
Donghae stretched his legs along the floor, revealing his face again. Even broken after having cried for hours, he was still so beautiful. "Now?"
"Yes, now."
Eunhyuk got up, and to his surprise, Donghae did the same. Though, sadly, it was probably just a co-incidence. The same kind of co-incidence that his and Donghae's love had been from the start, the kind of co-incidence that's so easily mistaken for fate.
"Don't forget to write," Donghae said. Eunhyuk stared at him.
"Forget it."
"Why? You wrote me a note earlier, so it's obvious you can."
Eunhyuk had to laugh. "Yeah, but I think things are about to change."
"I'll... I'll take your word for it. But if I find a way to write you, I will terrorize you with letters. Just a warning."
Eunhyuk shook his head. "I'm going now." And he turned around and walked towards the door. There were so many things he wanted to say; most of all he wanted to turn around and say "do me a favor, don't blame yourself too much", but he knew it was completely pointless. Donghae blamed himself for everything, and he always would. No matter what Eunhyuk said. No matter if it was Eunhyuk's last wish. Because if the truth was to be told, if it wasn't for Donghae, Eunhyuk wouldn't be leaving now. It was a horrible thought, sure, but he couldn't deny it.
He turned back in the doorway and looked at Donghae, who had pulled out a chair and sat back down at the table. He looked so lost, and Eunhyuk knew that maybe there were more things to say, but he would just have to hope that Donghae knew. It was time to go now. And as he stood there, watching Donghae pull at a thread in his sleeve, he thought that even if his life was cut short and he had to go through a lot of pain in the end, at least he got to see his most precious dream come true in his life time. Even if it didn't last, at least he had half a fairy tale in his life. And that was more than a lot of people.
"Thank you for making my life shine while I had it."
Eunhyuk walked along a narrow road in the forest, one he knew very well and had walked many times. The sky was cloudy, but there was no rain, and there was no wind, no cold, and no doubts in his heart. It felt right, like he was on the right track, but honestly, he was starting to think something was wrong. Why would he be here, of all places? Every once in a while he passed fields on the side of the road, sometimes with houses built on them, but they were all abandoned. He didn't see a living soul where he walked.
Soon the road split and parted ways in two different directions. He didn't know which way to choose, and there were no signs, so he stood at the crossing, glancing left and right. He was lost.
"A little help here?" he called towards the sky, but there was no reply. He wasn't sure what he had been expecting anyway. Who was he talking to, God? Did he expect him to reach out a long, holy hand and point him towards the right direction? Somehow it didn't seem that likely.
He waited, and only a little while later (he didn't think minutes existed here) a bus came shaking along the road. It was almost wider than the road itself, and Eunhyuk felt a little nervous watching it; it seemed as though it could overturn into a ditch at any moment. And by the looks of it, it was completely packed with passengers, too, and that could turn ugly. Not sure which way the bus was going to turn, Eunhyuk stood between the two roads and waited for it to pass.
When it did, it turned left, and Eunhyuk realized with a slight disappointment that it wasn't going to stop to pick him up. That would have been a great opportunity to ask for directions, if not get a ride -- but then the bus passed him, and every single passenger on it turned their heads and stared at him through the window.
"They can see me," he mumbled to himself.
He waited until the clouds of gravel had settled down, and then he started walking the same direction as the bus.
Eventually the road split into two smaller ones again, but this time there were signs. The one pointing to the left said "Duties", while the other said "Waiting". The road that supposedly led to Duties was long and straight - Eunhyuk couldn't see the end of it from where he was standing - while the one that led to Waiting was winding and instable, leading straight back into the forest.
He stared at the two signs in concentration for a moment. Then he looked up into the sky again. "I think there's been a mistake here," he called calmly. "Isn't 'duties' and 'waiting' kind of the same thing?"
He waited for a reply to come from the cloudy sky, but again, there was none. He was really starting to become tired of being ignored. He leaned forward, trying to see the end of the left road, but to no avail. He was about to follow it when he realized the signs had changed. The "Duties" one now said "Selfishness". He spun around quickly and saw that also "Waiting" had changed, but into "Privilege".
"Ah, I see," he laughed. "I see the difference now."
And without looking back, he walked to the right.