Counting the Cracks (OneShot)
Title: Counting the Cracks (OneShot)
Pairing: Hyukjae/Donghae. slight!Hyukjae-centric.
Genre: AU. Romance. Angst.
Length: OneShot.
Summary: "A dark world aches for a splash of the sun." / Daily routines are maddening, so Hyukjae sneaks out of his world to see the sun.
He doesn't remember the first time it happened. He only remembers the feeling of euphoria and bliss when he felt the sunlight on his skin, the unfamiliar heat pleasant and comforting.
Shock settled in after that first occurrence when he realized where he was. He never meant to be there, never meant to climb that high. He only wanted to get away, to break the pattern just once so he wouldn't have to look back and see a straight line. It pleased him to see a crack here and there, proof that he wasn't just another one of them. He had faults, errors, mistakes - they made him feel more human.
Whenever that need to do something different rose, Hyukjae would drive himself to the edge of the city and park just a mile away from the city limit. He would walk from then on, each step a challenge to the society that raised him. When he gets to the familiar gray wall, its blue paint faded from various trips Hyukjae made himself, various trips of scratching and pounding on that wall, finding a way to get out.
There was a ladder on that wall, though. Hyukjae never knew where it led to, nor did he ever want to find out. He was adventurous, but not suicidal. People say that there is no life beyond the city limits - up, down, left, right, no matter where you go, there was nothing. There was no point in escaping.
(Still, Hyukjae would find it funny how they called it 'escaping' because it only showed that they admitted that they were being imprisoned.)
After that first trip all the way up, Hyukjae couldn't stop. He went back everyday, another bump in his line that he looked back at with fondness. People called him crazy - the few that knew - and began avoiding him, afraid that he'd bring about trouble.
Hyukjae would laugh at them, though, when they talk like that. He'd say, "We're fighting a war. Why would they bother with me, a lowly soldier who everyone thinks is crazy?" But that would only enforce their thoughts, make them more convinced of his insanity, then pat him on the back sympathetically.
"War's drove him mad," they'd mumble as they walk away.
Hyukjae wouldn't even bother mentioning how he hasn't fought yet. They wouldn't listen anyway.
The sun listened, though. Hyukjae knew it did. Because the sun became a person, just for him. A pretty boy with hair curled around his face, messy yet beautiful, and a bright smile. They talked together, and as they did, Hyukjae could feel his cold body warming up.
Today, Hyukjae visits the sun like he always does. It's night time, but the sun is still there, smiling when he notices Hyukjae.
"Long day?" he asks, his voice sweet and warm.
"Exhausting," Hyukjae murmurs, sitting beside him. The sun - he calls himself Donghae, Hyukjae noticed, and laughs whenever Hyukjae calls him the sun - is dangling his legs over the wall. There really is nothing out there - just lots of nameless stars in an empty sky.
"What do you down there, anyway?" Donghae asks, looking over to try and see, but the city is always dark and Donghae can never see anything.
"We pretend to live," Hyukjae replies with a shrug, leaning over to grab Donghae's hand. He likes the feel of the sun - soft and gentle and accepting.
"It reminds me of where I live," Donghae hums thoughtfully.
"The sky?"
Donghae laughs, but doesn't reply. He just squeezes Hyukjae's hand, and the two gaze out at the nothingness before them. Donghae leans his head on Hyukjae's shoulder, and his warm breath bring Hyukjae to life after a long day of training and playing dead.
"I wish I could join you in the sky," Hyukjae murmurs into Donghae's hair.
"I wish you could join me, too," Donghae replies quietly.
"How would I do that?" Hyukjae asks curiously, the sudden thought that perhaps it might be possible to run away with the sun tempting and exhilarating.
"Come back with me," Donghae answers as if it's the simplest thing ever. "Don't go back. Come with me instead, and we can be together."
A life with the sun sounds beautiful to Hyukjae.
"Is it that simple?" he asks.
Donghae chuckles. "Yeah, it is."
"And we'd be together?"
"Mhmm," Donghae hums.
Hyukjae really likes the idea of that. He loves the sun. Its smile, its laugh, its voice - everything is beautiful in contrast to the monotone world of gray he lives in.
But the idea of change scares Hyukjae. Living in the sky? How would he manage? Would he turn into a cloud that covers the sun, or would he become a star as well, just like the sun? If he were to join Donghae up there... would he really be with him? Would things be the same?
He hates this world, but this world has Donghae, and that's all he needs now.
"I can't do it," Hyukjae finally whispers. He can feel Donghae stiffen, and he leans further into him as a sign of comfort.
The two sit in silence, enjoying each others' company until the sun starts to peak out over the horizon and they both have to go. They climb down opposite sides of the wall, and Hyukjae returns to his world.
When Hyukjae isn't with the sun, he is Eunhyuk, a training soldier just like the rest of them. He has yet to know the feeling of actual battle, though, as he continues to procrastinate in his training and refuse to move up in ranks. While everyone around him wants to be a hero in battle, Hyukjae wants to stay here. He hates here, but he loves the sun, and the sun is here.
One night, though, he gets in a fight with the sun.
"Come back with me," Donghae pleads. For some reason, he sounds so much more desperate this time, so much more scared. But for what?
"I can't," Hyukjae says. "I... I live here. This is the only place I know of." And the sky seems awfully scary, he adds in his thoughts.
"But I'll protect you," Donghae says, tugging softly on his arm. "Please, Hyukjae. I can't - I can't keep doing this. I can't keep coming back here. The other day, someone saw me and I swear, they had a - Hyukjae, if you don't come back with me... I might not be able to see you again."
Hyukjae doesn't understand what Donghae is saying. What could possibly stop the sun from coming back? The sun can do whatever it wants. It has no restrictions. "Donghae, what are you talking about? You're the sun. Who could possibly stop you?"
Donghae's face twists even more, and Hyukjae's heart hurts at the hurt expression on his face.
"Hyukjae... I'm not - I told you... I'm not the su-"
A loud alarm goes off in the city, so loud that Hyukjae can hear it from all the way up where he is. He knows it's urgent, so he pecks Donghae and says they'll talk next time. Donghae tries to say something - seems as if he's crying it, actually - but the alarm is so loud that Hyukjae can't hear it.
He rushes down the wall, and back to his own world. His own world that is not the sun's and never will be the sun's.
Days pass after the incidence, and everyday he goes back, but the sun is no longer there. He looks desperately for it, screaming at the sky even because the sun is shining but Donghae is not there. Did he leave? Where is he?
An empty feeling settles in Hyukjae at the abscence, and he fills it with training. He doesn't know how it happens - "he's a natural-born fighter, a real soldier," they say, "we knew we didn't make a mistake" - but he raises in ranks surprisingly fast, and before he knows it, his name is on the list of soldiers to be sent out for the next battle.
The night before the battle, Hyukjae goes up to the wall and sits on top of it. The sun - Donghae - is not there, and Hyukjae wonders why he ever thought he would be. Still, he sits there and waits, staring up at the stars littering the sky. He wonders if it's possible to count them, and thinks back to the time Donghae once tried. It makes him bitter with nostalgia.
He doesn't sleep much that night. He feels restless, and it's not a very pleasant feeling. The morning before the battle, he takes a long look at the wall. The sun barely makes it over, but the very little light that reaches his skin at least offers some comfort.
He's reminded of Donghae's touch, Donghae's hair, Donghae's eyes, Donghae's everything. He doesn't even realize he's not calling him 'the sun', because all he can think about is Donghae.
The march out to the field is interesting, as it is the first time they are outside of city limits. It really is nothing, Hyukjae thinks, and wonders when he ever thought there was something out there to begin with, though. It's all dirt and emptiness, and Hyukjae wishes stars would appear so there would be something.
As the other army approaches, similar to their own but with different colors and faces, Hyukjae wonders for the first time as to why there are fighting in the first place. All he knows is war and Donghae. At least Hyukjae knows where Donghae is from - the sky, obviously - but the war seems to have no reason.
But Hyukjae is reminded by a voice at the back of his mind - it became louder with more training - that they are the enemy. Inhumane, evil, wrong. They're monsters, and Hyukjae's side is the heroes.
An alarm is sounded, and guns are up and shots are everywhere. Hyukjae's focus is on fight, but his eyes wander to a vehicle parked by the wall. What is that? Where did it come from? His thoughts are diverted back to the battle, though, as he takes down another soldier mercilessly.
He hears officials yelling at each other, talking about the car, and a loud explosion. He turns in shock, and sees the car explode. He wonders who was driving, but the voice convinces him that he's just another enemy.
(He doesn't notice that the sky seems dimmer now.)
He's reloading his gun when he sees movement on the wall. Someone is climbing down, and the figure looks a lot like...
"Donghae," he whispers. He knows it's him, knows that hair, that body. He opens his mouth to scream his name, but what comes out instead is a loud scream as a gun is aimed at him from an enemy on the other side and a shot is taken. He watches as Donghae's grip slips after the hit, and he falls to the ground noiselessly.
The war continues, but Hyukjae doesn't. He drops everything and breaks out in a sprint, his vision blurred with tears and a tragic aching cripples him. "Nonononononono," he whispers, stumbling over bodies as he makes his way over to his fallen love.
"Please don't - don't be -" he keeps saying to himself, hoping it isn't him, hoping he saw someone else by mistake. But the face of the body is unmistakeably Donghae's, his face scarily peaceful, as if he pulled himself together in those last few seconds he had so he died beautifully, the way he lived.
Hyukjae falls to his knees, looking up at the sky covered in clouds. The sun is there, but it's hidden. Hyukjae keeps telling himself that the sun doesn't die, the sun can't die. Donghae isn't the sun - he's just one form of it - young and full of life, but not all there is.
And yet, Hyukjae can't imagine himself with anyone except Donghae, this Donghae. He wants this sun for himself, wants him so bad, and now he's...
Hyukjae cannot accept it. A feeling of anger at the enemy who killed his lover overcomes him, and he charges past the lines, ignoring the commands of the officials to get back behind the line. He doesn't feel the shots that hit him, the way his body jerks with each of them. His heart was ripped out as Donghae fell from the side. He had nothing to lose.
Before he can get to the man who shot Donghae down, one final blow is struck, and he falls to the ground. The shot was from behind.
But Hyukjae isn't thinking about that as he lays on the floor, knowing these few moments will be his last. He thinks of the sun beating down on him past the clouds, and how he will soon be with Donghae in the sky.
"I'm finally going to be with you," he whispers, the taste of his tears as bitter as this reality.
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a/n: what is this LOL I think I can blame Lucy for this, because her story was so mindblowing. I can also blame the song ('Cough Syrup' by Young the Giant) I was listening to, which is quoted at the beginning of the summary ("A dark world aches for a splash of the sun.").
Oh. Um. Donghae isn't really the sun. He's a boy from the real world that Hyukjae meets the day he feels the sun's warmth, and he foolishly believes Donghae is the sun. The world Hyukjae lives in... it's an interesting one. It's the same AU as a story I'm writing for KaiSoo (an EXO pairing). It's just a city cut off from the rest of the world... and yeah. That's all I'm going to give away for now, aha.
Interpret this as you'd like, though. In a way, Donghae really COULD be the sun, if you want to look at the story in that aspect. But I was still aiming for a realistic sort of story, so that's why.
This isn't very romantic OTL
Thank you for reading this random story that was created in less than an hour. I apologize for any mistakes, and would be very pleased if they were thrown my way so I may correct them. Again, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed ^^