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catskilt
eunhyuk/donghae
nc-17; 4,796 words; multi-chapter
there was a lifetime in each other, if they chose to see it.
part zero; a moment | part one; a past | part two; a denial | part three; a growing up | part four; a togetherness | part five; a separation | part six; a confession | part seven; a quarrel | part eight; a break up
part eight (ii); a break-up
Beijing is even more bewildering before, or perhaps it's the state of his mind. Did the people speak so loudly the last time? Did the food seem so oily? Was the traffic as crowded and frightening; were the skies as smoggy? He knows a little more of the city now and, thanks to the daily Chinese classes and endless vocabulary lists, a little more Mandarin, but not enough for the managers to trust him with venturing out alone without getting chased down by eager Chinese fans. "You're like my jailer," he complains to Bin, their new Chinese manager who speaks fluent Korean.
"You can go out with me anytime you wish," Bin says, which is true.
"You're never free to go out with," Donghae says, which is equally true. The company is putting tremendous pressure on the managers to work on SJ-M's 'China invasion'; they aren't making as much revenue as they should be, the Chinese market's buying habits seem to be unpredictable and volatile, the group's lack of Mandarin fluency isn't opening up as many opportunities in variety as they were hoping for, and so Chinese classes have increased from one hour daily to two, and the managers are either on the phone constantly or travelling from meeting to meeting.
Ryeowook breaks down on the telephone to Jungsu one night, telling him how tired he is of all the stress and relentless pressure. This isn't how he wants to live his life, he says. He's twenty-three years old, and he should be living it up, doing all the wild crazy things that one can only do in one's twenties. He doesn't want to do this anymore. He wants out.
Jungsu reminds them that they're professionals. Everyone misses the flicker in Hankyung's eyes.
But they are professionals after all, they've been training for this sort of pressure ever since they were kids. Ryeowook's outburst only happens once. Hankyung goes about his work with a mechanical sort of precision that, in hindsight, should have been a forewarning that something wasn't quite right. But they're busy and overworked, and nobody is thinking beyond the immediate future of the next schedule, the next Chinese class, the next performance. Donghae doesn't call back to Seoul. He spends most of his free time with Siwon instead, because Siwon has a naturally cheerful and happy disposition, and optimism is what Donghae needs most at this point. They draw close through the many endless hours on the road, chatting lazily about topics that Donghae can't remember once the conversation is over; maybe it had to do with businesses and investment, maybe it was about God, maybe about the latest movies by Siwon's big-time celebrity friends. Siwon is comforting and safe, a steady presence in Donghae's life that can be relied on at all times, and they stick together so much that Kyuhyun remarks, "out with the EunHae, in with the SiHae."
"What has happened with you and Hyukjae?" Siwon asks once, when they're both sleepy enough to be tactless and confidential; "Haven't the two of you made up yet?"
"We're fine," Donghae says.
Siwon peers at him over the rim of his cup. "You know," he says, "I've been wondering, but I didn't know if I should ask…um, are you and Hyukjae…together? As in…like, a couple?"
"No," says Donghae.
Siwon's eyebrows scrunch together. "But…"
"Not anymore," Donghae clarifies. "We were together for a while. It's over now."
"Ah," says Siwon. "I was wondering, cause, you know…but I didn't like to ask in case…"
"That's good for you, isn't it?" Donghae says. "You don't have to worry about disapproving."
Siwon looks shocked. "I would never…I mean…I don't think it's right but I would never…"
"It's okay," Donghae says, and knocks their cups together. "It's not necessary to talk about it."
Siwon worries his lip. "Are you okay?"
Donghae shrugs. "I guess."
He gets through each day because he can. If there's a part of him that desperately misses Hyukjae, insists on dreaming of him almost every night, yearns to pick up the phone and dial back to Seoul, he tries not to acknowledge it. Other couples have been through worse break-ups. Maybe one day he and Hyukjae will look back on their relationship as just a phase of growing up, something crucial that they needed for self-discovery. Maybe they will even be able to laugh over it together; remember how idealistic we were back then, thinking that we would be the first, the last, and the everything?
Beijing becomes synonymous with that feeling.
… …
Ping Ya brings them out to a club on the one free night that they have in all their time in China. Kyuhyun and Siwon decline, saying that they're too tired and would rather spend the little free time they have catching up with their beds, but everyone else is delighted at the prospect of some fresh air. "I haven't been to a club since I left fucking Toronto," Henry says. "I'm beginning to feel like a caged animal."
The club management has reserved a special VIP section for them that's watched over by security, and for the first time since they landed at the Beijing airport, Donghae feels free. Fuck the paparazzi, fuck SM, fuck schedules and work – tonight they're going to enjoy being ordinary. They're going to get drunk and throw up and say ridiculous things and dance without choreographed steps like other people, and pretend that they have the privilege of normalcy. Bring on the vodka, Zhou Mi says, and the whisky, and the rum, and the tequila...!
It takes about half an hour of shots and glasses and one rambunctious round of the Circle of Death for Donghae's world to change from grim and grey to dazzling and funny. How could he ever have been sad or lonely? The world is awesome. Look at all those people having fun on the dance floor. Look at the amount of good-looking, well-dressed guys walking around. Look at his friends, his true friends and colleagues, all laughing together even though half of them speak Chinese and the other half speak Korean. They're wonderful, the best people in the universe. Who needs love when you have friends like these? He shouts it into Ryeowook's ear so Ryeowook will know the loving feelings running through Donghae.
"Yes," Ryeowook shouts back. "So don't be sad anymore, okay? Tonight we party!"
"Okay," Donghae yells, and promptly falls into someone's lap.
Yet another half hour later, Henry and Ping Ya are jumping around haphazardly on the dance floor and Hankyung is talking in Chinese to Bin. He's crying, in fact; and here Donghae blinks his eyes several times because he has never seen Hankyung cry like this before, not even in the bad days when he'd been facing trouble with his work visa and had to wear a mask during their televised performances. Shit. What could be making Hankyung cry like that? He's home in China, he's part of a group that has won so many music awards that they use them as paperweights. He should be on top of the world. In fact, they all are, they're fantastic, they're making headlines. Donghae forgets his worries the moment he looks away from Hankyung and sees Ping Ya's friend grinning at him. What was his name again? Ming? That famous basketballer. No, the other half of Ming. Yao. Right, Yao. Strange how these Chinese people have one-syllable names. Yao, tall and muscular and astonishingly beautiful in a distinctly non-Chinese way; Donghae remembers that Ping Ya had implied Yao getting plastic surgery in Korea before. He looks like an Asian version of Brad Pitt. He could melt hearts. Donghae feels the first stirrings of arousal since the last morning he'd woken up in bed beside –
"Yao," he shouts.
Yao shouts something back, but it's in Chinese. Donghae strains his ears. He knows Chinese, studies it every day. But colloquial Chinese sounds nothing like what he learns from the whiteboard and textbooks. Doesn't follow the Korean spelling that he painstakingly jots beside characters, nor sound like it uses any of the grammatical rules that they repeat after their teacher. But it's two a.m., and he's drunk on whisky. There are other ways of communication besides the banal tool of language.
"Let's dance," he shouts at Yao.
When I first kissed you, it felt like everything in my life had been leading up to that point. It was you and I thought that there was so much sense in kissing, that we should do it forever, and he's kissing Yao, and Yao is kissing back, and it feels like nothing and everything that a kiss should be. He's dizzy, breathless, and it tastes of alcohol, and Yao is drawing back to mouth along his jaw, and it feels so goddamned good, so familiar and passionate, all that he's been missing.
Maybe this is why people hop into bed with strangers. It's not about being desperate or immoral; it's to fulfil a basic human need without all the complications of emotional involvement; the yelling, the fighting, the hurtful words, the inevitable separation, the misunderstanding, the break-up – how that latte had burned to the roof of his mouth, how he tastes it even now, in this moment of feeling Yao's kisses on his face. Focus. This is love in its purest, simplest form without the messiness of emotion. This is the drawing together of two people who can give each other what they need – just exactly what they need, nothing more or less. Focus, Donghae. There's a man who wants you, and he's beautiful and desirable and absolutely nobody to you; how many people can claim to have this privilege? And if he's to be honest, he does want Yao, does think he could fuck this man, draw his legs up and push into him and watch that sinful mouth fall open –
His head is fuzzy. Yao brings up two shots of something; they down it in seconds and laugh at the ensuing burn in their bodies. Donghae blinks his eyes and stands up and the music is pounding and they're dancing, hip against hip. It feels good not to have to worry about whether he's following the choreography, where he's supposed to be at a given time, or how high his arm has to go for it to look good; and when we danced to La Vie En Rose and you bumped your knee against the bed and laughed with all your gums showing, I thought that we didn't have to go to Paris, we didn't have to go anywhere, we could just stay here and be happy.
Yao is tonguing his ear, hands moving slowly but surely towards his crotch, and Donghae thinks with a sudden shudder, this is the start of what I'm going to be. It'll be him first, and another later, and another after that, and all the anothers until I've lost the sense of what it once was, how it's supposed to be. I'll lose – and here he pauses, because his head is working way too slowly to keep up with his brain, and takes stock of the situation; Yao's hands on his hips, alcohol spilled on his shirt, Yao's deodorant rubbing off on his skin. It could be so easy. It is so easy. Another half an hour – no, another ten minutes, and they could be grinding up against a wall. They could. It would mean nothing – just sex between two men who don't really know each other and probably won't meet again after tonight.
I'll lose him, he thinks. Not only him, but the sense of him, how it felt to share this with him. If I fall into this – if I succumb to this lifestyle…it could be so easy, but –
"No," he says aloud, suddenly.
Yao hesitates, startled, and Donghae frees himself.
"I'm sorry," he says in Korean, and then in halting Chinese, "I love him too much."
He isn't sure if Yao understands, after all his Chinese sounds nothing like what Chinese should be, but he doesn't wait around to ensure that he has made his point. He finds Ping Ya, still working off his alcoholic haze on the floor, and asks to be taken home. Ping Ya takes one close look at his face and doesn't question, for which piece of tactfulness Donghae is eternally grateful. He finds Ryeowook – now holding a still-sobbing Hankyung in his arms – to tell him that he's going home.
"Do you want me to go with you?" Ryeowook asks.
"Looks like he needs you more," Donghae says, gesturing at Hankyung, who's talking on in Chinese and doesn't seem to realise that Ryeowook doesn't understand him and Bin has long since left to join Henry on the dance floor. Or maybe Hankyung does know. Maybe some things can only be said when nobody around understands what you're saying.
He goes home in a cab with Ping Ya's arm resting comfortingly around his shoulder. Thank god for friends like these. Thank god, he thinks in a moment of vivid clarity, for how much he loves Hyukjae.
… …
The smoggy summer heat gives way to the coolness of fall. 'Super Girl' is lighting up the charts in all the Chinese communities around the world. SM talks of planning an Asia concert tour in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong and maybe, Seunghwan says, maybe even in Malaysia and the Philippines. There seems to be enough demand. There are a couple of event organisers that are very, very keen. We could do this. We could bring you guys there. It'll be bigger than anything we've done before.
They go back to Seoul for a short break. It's beyond good being back in Korea; Donghae realises anew the meaning of being at home. He walks past young people barbequing meat along the roadside and colourful street stalls selling food that he knows all the names of, past brightly lit skincare shops and the seemingly ubiquitious Aritaum outlets, the small cafes and the chain bakeries, and feels a deep sense of renewal and recharge, a washing off of Beijing's loneliness and despair. He takes a day off to travel back to Mokpo and place flowers at his father's grave; the flowers that he'd brought on his last visit with Hyukjae have been removed. The air is as sweet and salty as ever, the breezes as mild, ruffling the hillside grass. The sea lies purple and shining in the distance. It's good beyond description to be back in this quiet place where life and death lie intermingled, where remembrance has gone past the place of grief. It's a place where thoughts can be clear and coherent, filled in instead of sketched. And so he sits by the grave and looks over the sea and sets his mind free, lets himself remember the joy of being here with Hyukjae without embittering the memory with sadness and anger.
I will be true to who I am, he thinks. If I am to love and honour only one person, I will love and honour only one person. I made a vow once that I will always be by his side, as simply and surely as his right hand. If I am to be a friend, I will be a friend, with all my heart.
… …
Slowly, they begin to smile at each other again. They've been friends for over ten years, have been through anonymity and success together, and some ties are simply too strong to be broken. Donghae knows that Hyukjae still loves him, knows it without needing any spoken confirmation because this is Hyukjae and there isn't any need of tangible evidence to tell him that Hyukjae loves him as deeply and unconditionally as he ever has. Hyukjae doesn't flinch away the first time post-break-up that Donghae puts out a hand to touch his, doesn't refuse the first time Donghae pulls him out of the dorm for late night grocery shopping. They still laugh at the same jokes, still watch the same shows, still listen to the same music and read the same books and find the same topics fascinating, and it seems that they'll be okay if nothing else; they will remain special to each other. Donghae doesn't mention getting back together, and it seems to ease some stress in Hyukjae's mind. They're 'bosom friends' again, as Siwon puts it, and if they aren't as physically intimate as before, if there are still certain topics that they avoid talking about, at least they've been repaired enough to calm the group's dynamic down.
Donghae stores up their shared moments in his mind, goes over them in his head at night, and tries to pull together all the sensations of being with Hyukjae. How their relationship has been a focal point in his life. How friendship is a pale second to romantic love and yet the only alternative possible because being apart is unfathomable. How being with Hyukjae has defined his own tastes, his musical influences, his ideas and philosophies and habits. What it means to love Hyukjae. What it means to desire him, to lie in bed aching for his touch and remembering how it felt to lie against each other.
"I'm writing a song. It's somewhat about you," he tells Hyukjae mid-way through fall when the weather is turning cold in anticipation of the winter freeze.
Hyukjae's eyes go big. "For the concert?"
"I guess, if they'll let me perform it."
"Can I hear it?"
"Not yet. But…" Donghae takes a breath. "If I complete it, and they let me perform it, how about you coming up on stage and performing it with me?"
"I don't want to take away any attention from you. It's your song."
"But inspired by you. It's only fair that you should take a bit of the spotlight too. Anyway, doesn't it always look better when we're together?"
"Is it a love song?" Hyukjae says, smiling suddenly.
"No," Donghae says. "Most definitely not."
He names it 'Beautiful'. Means to play it for Hyukjae before the end of the year, maybe on a night when nobody else is in the dorm. But, as Jungsu says, it's strange how life doesn't work out linearly. No matter how settled and comfortable you might be with your life at a certain point, something will happen to throw everything into disarray. Nobody predicts that one night Youngwoon will go out with his friends to a bar and get involved in a fight that leaves him both in the police station and on the headlines of all the tabloids over the next couple of days. Nobody predicts that, two weeks later when the heat still hasn't cooled from the security camera footage, Youngwoon will go out drinking with the same friends and end up driving his car into a taxi while in a drunken haze.
Jungsu receives the phone call at four a.m. At five, he's still on the phone, this time in a conference call with the managers. At six, he drives Youngwoon to the police station. At seven, he's telling the group that they have to remain calm, don't panic, this is bad and he'll have to make amends for drunk driving and causing an accident, no mistake about that, but it doesn't do anyone any good if we crucify him. Jungsu's eyes are red and bloodshot and Donghae finds himself thinking, being a leader is hell.
Aside from Jungsu, Donghae and Hyukjae are the only members whom Youngwoon wants to see when he leaves the police station. The two of them drive in a sombre silence all the way to Youngwoon's family's apartment, wondering how everything could have changed so fast and so drastically, how much of a difference one night of indulgence and ill discipline can make.
"Shit," Youngwoon says when he sees their faces. "I am sorry. I am so sorry. I don't even know how to make it up to you guys."
"Hyung, it's not us you should be sorry to," Hyukjae says. "It's the people you hit in that taxi, and our fans who've always supported you and thought you were a role model."
Youngwoon reddens. "I will straighten everything out. I'll do whatever it takes. I won't let any of you suffer from my mistake."
"Yes," says Hyukjae, and it's only at that moment that Donghae realises how angry Hyukjae is, "that's the only thing you can do now. You can be as sorry as you like but if you don't do anything to fix this, it's all meaningless."
Donghae puts a hand on Hyukjae's arm. He should be angry too, because what Youngwoon did was inexcusable, and when he remembers the devastated look on Jungsu's face and the number of calls chalked up on the managers' handphones he thinks, no, we can't let him off, he has to know how much trouble he's causing everyone with his drinking habit. But then he remembers only too well how it feels to be drunk and stupid. He knows only too well, now, what a difference one night can make if you aren't able to pull yourself out of it in time.
"This isn't the end, hyung," he says. "Do what you have to. We'll continue supporting you."
"Yes," says Youngwoon. "I will. I really just…I wanted to…I just needed to say how sorry I am. To you guys. But I know you'll be fine without me. You'll pull together. I…I'll be watching and supporting you, too."
It's terrible seeing him so browbeaten. Youngwoon, the hale and hearty Kangin with his rough manners and larger than life personality. Donghae looks at Hyukjae. It's true, he wants to say. Don't crucify him. He'll have enough judgement and criticism to last him for a long time. There isn't any need for us to add our voices to that chorus.
Hyukjae's trembling when they leave twenty minutes later. They get into the car and Donghae watches as Hyukjae gives way and cries, huge gasping sobs nothing like the frenzy of misery following their visit to Hyukjae's family and yet equally awful in their own way; a disillusionment with someone who has been a friend and a mentor to him since he was a teenager, a worry about the future of the group, a disbelief that they are really in a situation like this. How many more disillusionments do they have to go through, he wonders, before they lose all their faith?
He reaches out to hold Hyukjae's hand and Hyukjae's returning grip is painful in its tightness. "We'll be together," Donghae says. "I'll stay by your side no matter who else leaves or what happens to the group."
Hyukjae doesn't say anything for a long moment, and just as Donghae thinks that he might have overreached himself, Hyukjae says, "Better when we're together, huh?"
Donghae allows himself to smile; just a small, brief one, because the burden of Youngwoon's mistake is still weighing too heavy for any levity. "Yes," he says, and, "it is a love song."
"Of course it is," Hyukjae says.
They don't let go yet. After a beat, he turns over Donghae's hand and kisses his open palm.
… …
Nearing the end of the year, they're announced as the winners of the Daesang at the Golden Disk Awards. Of course, they've been hoping for it, anticipating ever since the flood of music show awards came in for Sorry Sorry, but nothing takes away from the exhilaration of that moment. Not Youngwoon's temporary banishment from the group, nor the exhaustion from having had less than three hours of sleep for the last two weeks from constant planning and rehearsals for their upcoming concert tour and yearend Gayo Daejuns, nor the remarks of the music critics that they've won it only because of their fanclub and not for any integrity that they have in music. They've busted their asses for it since 2005 and here they finally are, standing on the stage as winners of the biggest music award in Korea.
"Your dad would've been so proud if he was here to see this," Hyukjae whispers in Donghae's ear when the programme is over and all the other groups are coming up to offer congratulations. Donghae nods and tightens his grip on Hyukjae for a long moment. "I'm sure he is seeing this," he says, and catches Hyukjae's quick pleased smile before turning around to hug 2pm's Wooyoung.
They celebrate with lots of soju and barbequed meat that night, eating out the restaurant's stock of spare ribs, rib's eye and pork belly as they propose at least twenty toasts to SM, Lee Soo Man, their managers, the sound technicians, Yoo Young Jin, their wardrobe stylists, the cameramen ("for making us look so good", as Kyuhyun puts it), Nick Bass – Donghae loses count of the toasts, gives up drinking soju halfway when he feels his face on fire. He's content to lie against Heechul and eat whatever meat Sungmin cooks and dumps onto his plate, watching Hyukjae as he fools around with Shindong. Nobody, he thinks, is as much in his element as Hyukjae whenever he's entertaining a crowd; nobody is as funnily endearing, as witty and sharp at reading the atmosphere. "I love you," he says aloud to Hyukjae in the middle of the noisy, laughing, drunken revelry, and doesn't even mind that Hyukjae doesn't hear it.
It's freezing when they leave the restaurant and pile into the company vans parked along the road. Jongwoon is so drunk that it needs the combined strength of Jungsu and Ryeowook to drag him onto the car seat. Kyuhyun is singing an overly dramatic Chinese song. Heechul is cursing at something somewhere. Siwon has his arm draped around Hyukjae, gossiping about the newest girl groups. Sungmin is laughing. Donghae turns around to find Hankyung standing quietly behind him, waiting for everyone to claim their seats in the vans.
"We did it, hyung," Donghae says, throwing his arms around Hankyung's neck and pressing his nose affectionately into Hankyung's hair.
"Yes," says Hankyung. "We did it."
There's an odd intonation to Hankyung's voice. It sounds as though he's on the verge of tears, and Donghae has a brief fit of wondering when Hankyung had started crying so much before he assumes that it's because of the Daesang. "We can only get bigger from here," he says, and in that moment it seems absolutely true, that nothing else can possibly stand in their way.
"Yes," says Hankyung again.
Donghae steps back to let Hankyung board the van first. He doesn't have to look around to know that Hyukjae has escaped Siwon's clutches and come up to his side, huffing a little in the cold air. He feels Hyukjae's presence in the marrow of his bones, in the way that a human being is always able to pinpoint their loved one's location without the need for visual confirmation, and so it doesn't startle him when Hyukjae nudges him lightly.
"What do you say we take a little walk first?" Hyukjae says. "I feel bloated from all the meat. Don't wanna go back to the dorm yet. We can easily catch a cab back when we get tired of walking."
"Okay," says Donghae.
They wave the vans off and turn to walk in the general direction of their dorm. The night is cold and crisp, fallen snow piled up at the sides of the street, and they keep their hands in their pockets. They walk at a steady pace, neither fast nor slow, in a silence of companionship, and it seems at this point that they can be Daesang winners, Korean idols, ex-lovers, soon-to-be Asian celebrities; they can be all that, and at the core remain two people deep in love and friendship.
"It's been a crazy year," says Hyukjae.
"Yeah."
Hyukjae pauses a moment to look up at the night sky. "Feels like it might snow again tonight."
Donghae smiles. How many nights have they walked like this, side by side? As young boys with no idea of what lay ahead of them, as hopeful trainees, as newly debuted idols, as fearful lovers, as distressed boys coming to terms with their homosexuality? There'll be more nights, so many more days and nights, years together with Hyukjae, and in this quiet dark the only emotion he can feel is gratitude to the higher powers for letting them find each other. Regardless of their relationship problems in the future or whether they ever find their way back into one another's innermost hearts, he'll remember to be grateful for this; that he is one of the rare, specially blessed people who has found a soulmate.
"Come on," he says. "Let's get home before it snows."
previous: part eight (i); a break-up | next: part nine (i); a falling
---
By the way, people have been mentioning that they miss out on my updates...is there anywhere else that I can cross-post? Or is Twitter enough? I have a tumblr page that I could use to post updates on...it's http://catskilt.tumblr.com.
catskilteunhyuk/donghae
nc-17; 4,796 words; multi-chapter
there was a lifetime in each other, if they chose to see it.
part zero; a moment | part one; a past | part two; a denial | part three; a growing up | part four; a togetherness | part five; a separation | part six; a confession | part seven; a quarrel | part eight; a break up
part eight (ii); a break-up
Beijing is even more bewildering before, or perhaps it's the state of his mind. Did the people speak so loudly the last time? Did the food seem so oily? Was the traffic as crowded and frightening; were the skies as smoggy? He knows a little more of the city now and, thanks to the daily Chinese classes and endless vocabulary lists, a little more Mandarin, but not enough for the managers to trust him with venturing out alone without getting chased down by eager Chinese fans. "You're like my jailer," he complains to Bin, their new Chinese manager who speaks fluent Korean.
"You can go out with me anytime you wish," Bin says, which is true.
"You're never free to go out with," Donghae says, which is equally true. The company is putting tremendous pressure on the managers to work on SJ-M's 'China invasion'; they aren't making as much revenue as they should be, the Chinese market's buying habits seem to be unpredictable and volatile, the group's lack of Mandarin fluency isn't opening up as many opportunities in variety as they were hoping for, and so Chinese classes have increased from one hour daily to two, and the managers are either on the phone constantly or travelling from meeting to meeting.
Ryeowook breaks down on the telephone to Jungsu one night, telling him how tired he is of all the stress and relentless pressure. This isn't how he wants to live his life, he says. He's twenty-three years old, and he should be living it up, doing all the wild crazy things that one can only do in one's twenties. He doesn't want to do this anymore. He wants out.
Jungsu reminds them that they're professionals. Everyone misses the flicker in Hankyung's eyes.
But they are professionals after all, they've been training for this sort of pressure ever since they were kids. Ryeowook's outburst only happens once. Hankyung goes about his work with a mechanical sort of precision that, in hindsight, should have been a forewarning that something wasn't quite right. But they're busy and overworked, and nobody is thinking beyond the immediate future of the next schedule, the next Chinese class, the next performance. Donghae doesn't call back to Seoul. He spends most of his free time with Siwon instead, because Siwon has a naturally cheerful and happy disposition, and optimism is what Donghae needs most at this point. They draw close through the many endless hours on the road, chatting lazily about topics that Donghae can't remember once the conversation is over; maybe it had to do with businesses and investment, maybe it was about God, maybe about the latest movies by Siwon's big-time celebrity friends. Siwon is comforting and safe, a steady presence in Donghae's life that can be relied on at all times, and they stick together so much that Kyuhyun remarks, "out with the EunHae, in with the SiHae."
"What has happened with you and Hyukjae?" Siwon asks once, when they're both sleepy enough to be tactless and confidential; "Haven't the two of you made up yet?"
"We're fine," Donghae says.
Siwon peers at him over the rim of his cup. "You know," he says, "I've been wondering, but I didn't know if I should ask…um, are you and Hyukjae…together? As in…like, a couple?"
"No," says Donghae.
Siwon's eyebrows scrunch together. "But…"
"Not anymore," Donghae clarifies. "We were together for a while. It's over now."
"Ah," says Siwon. "I was wondering, cause, you know…but I didn't like to ask in case…"
"That's good for you, isn't it?" Donghae says. "You don't have to worry about disapproving."
Siwon looks shocked. "I would never…I mean…I don't think it's right but I would never…"
"It's okay," Donghae says, and knocks their cups together. "It's not necessary to talk about it."
Siwon worries his lip. "Are you okay?"
Donghae shrugs. "I guess."
He gets through each day because he can. If there's a part of him that desperately misses Hyukjae, insists on dreaming of him almost every night, yearns to pick up the phone and dial back to Seoul, he tries not to acknowledge it. Other couples have been through worse break-ups. Maybe one day he and Hyukjae will look back on their relationship as just a phase of growing up, something crucial that they needed for self-discovery. Maybe they will even be able to laugh over it together; remember how idealistic we were back then, thinking that we would be the first, the last, and the everything?
Beijing becomes synonymous with that feeling.
… …
Ping Ya brings them out to a club on the one free night that they have in all their time in China. Kyuhyun and Siwon decline, saying that they're too tired and would rather spend the little free time they have catching up with their beds, but everyone else is delighted at the prospect of some fresh air. "I haven't been to a club since I left fucking Toronto," Henry says. "I'm beginning to feel like a caged animal."
The club management has reserved a special VIP section for them that's watched over by security, and for the first time since they landed at the Beijing airport, Donghae feels free. Fuck the paparazzi, fuck SM, fuck schedules and work – tonight they're going to enjoy being ordinary. They're going to get drunk and throw up and say ridiculous things and dance without choreographed steps like other people, and pretend that they have the privilege of normalcy. Bring on the vodka, Zhou Mi says, and the whisky, and the rum, and the tequila...!
It takes about half an hour of shots and glasses and one rambunctious round of the Circle of Death for Donghae's world to change from grim and grey to dazzling and funny. How could he ever have been sad or lonely? The world is awesome. Look at all those people having fun on the dance floor. Look at the amount of good-looking, well-dressed guys walking around. Look at his friends, his true friends and colleagues, all laughing together even though half of them speak Chinese and the other half speak Korean. They're wonderful, the best people in the universe. Who needs love when you have friends like these? He shouts it into Ryeowook's ear so Ryeowook will know the loving feelings running through Donghae.
"Yes," Ryeowook shouts back. "So don't be sad anymore, okay? Tonight we party!"
"Okay," Donghae yells, and promptly falls into someone's lap.
Yet another half hour later, Henry and Ping Ya are jumping around haphazardly on the dance floor and Hankyung is talking in Chinese to Bin. He's crying, in fact; and here Donghae blinks his eyes several times because he has never seen Hankyung cry like this before, not even in the bad days when he'd been facing trouble with his work visa and had to wear a mask during their televised performances. Shit. What could be making Hankyung cry like that? He's home in China, he's part of a group that has won so many music awards that they use them as paperweights. He should be on top of the world. In fact, they all are, they're fantastic, they're making headlines. Donghae forgets his worries the moment he looks away from Hankyung and sees Ping Ya's friend grinning at him. What was his name again? Ming? That famous basketballer. No, the other half of Ming. Yao. Right, Yao. Strange how these Chinese people have one-syllable names. Yao, tall and muscular and astonishingly beautiful in a distinctly non-Chinese way; Donghae remembers that Ping Ya had implied Yao getting plastic surgery in Korea before. He looks like an Asian version of Brad Pitt. He could melt hearts. Donghae feels the first stirrings of arousal since the last morning he'd woken up in bed beside –
"Yao," he shouts.
Yao shouts something back, but it's in Chinese. Donghae strains his ears. He knows Chinese, studies it every day. But colloquial Chinese sounds nothing like what he learns from the whiteboard and textbooks. Doesn't follow the Korean spelling that he painstakingly jots beside characters, nor sound like it uses any of the grammatical rules that they repeat after their teacher. But it's two a.m., and he's drunk on whisky. There are other ways of communication besides the banal tool of language.
"Let's dance," he shouts at Yao.
When I first kissed you, it felt like everything in my life had been leading up to that point. It was you and I thought that there was so much sense in kissing, that we should do it forever, and he's kissing Yao, and Yao is kissing back, and it feels like nothing and everything that a kiss should be. He's dizzy, breathless, and it tastes of alcohol, and Yao is drawing back to mouth along his jaw, and it feels so goddamned good, so familiar and passionate, all that he's been missing.
Maybe this is why people hop into bed with strangers. It's not about being desperate or immoral; it's to fulfil a basic human need without all the complications of emotional involvement; the yelling, the fighting, the hurtful words, the inevitable separation, the misunderstanding, the break-up – how that latte had burned to the roof of his mouth, how he tastes it even now, in this moment of feeling Yao's kisses on his face. Focus. This is love in its purest, simplest form without the messiness of emotion. This is the drawing together of two people who can give each other what they need – just exactly what they need, nothing more or less. Focus, Donghae. There's a man who wants you, and he's beautiful and desirable and absolutely nobody to you; how many people can claim to have this privilege? And if he's to be honest, he does want Yao, does think he could fuck this man, draw his legs up and push into him and watch that sinful mouth fall open –
His head is fuzzy. Yao brings up two shots of something; they down it in seconds and laugh at the ensuing burn in their bodies. Donghae blinks his eyes and stands up and the music is pounding and they're dancing, hip against hip. It feels good not to have to worry about whether he's following the choreography, where he's supposed to be at a given time, or how high his arm has to go for it to look good; and when we danced to La Vie En Rose and you bumped your knee against the bed and laughed with all your gums showing, I thought that we didn't have to go to Paris, we didn't have to go anywhere, we could just stay here and be happy.
Yao is tonguing his ear, hands moving slowly but surely towards his crotch, and Donghae thinks with a sudden shudder, this is the start of what I'm going to be. It'll be him first, and another later, and another after that, and all the anothers until I've lost the sense of what it once was, how it's supposed to be. I'll lose – and here he pauses, because his head is working way too slowly to keep up with his brain, and takes stock of the situation; Yao's hands on his hips, alcohol spilled on his shirt, Yao's deodorant rubbing off on his skin. It could be so easy. It is so easy. Another half an hour – no, another ten minutes, and they could be grinding up against a wall. They could. It would mean nothing – just sex between two men who don't really know each other and probably won't meet again after tonight.
I'll lose him, he thinks. Not only him, but the sense of him, how it felt to share this with him. If I fall into this – if I succumb to this lifestyle…it could be so easy, but –
"No," he says aloud, suddenly.
Yao hesitates, startled, and Donghae frees himself.
"I'm sorry," he says in Korean, and then in halting Chinese, "I love him too much."
He isn't sure if Yao understands, after all his Chinese sounds nothing like what Chinese should be, but he doesn't wait around to ensure that he has made his point. He finds Ping Ya, still working off his alcoholic haze on the floor, and asks to be taken home. Ping Ya takes one close look at his face and doesn't question, for which piece of tactfulness Donghae is eternally grateful. He finds Ryeowook – now holding a still-sobbing Hankyung in his arms – to tell him that he's going home.
"Do you want me to go with you?" Ryeowook asks.
"Looks like he needs you more," Donghae says, gesturing at Hankyung, who's talking on in Chinese and doesn't seem to realise that Ryeowook doesn't understand him and Bin has long since left to join Henry on the dance floor. Or maybe Hankyung does know. Maybe some things can only be said when nobody around understands what you're saying.
He goes home in a cab with Ping Ya's arm resting comfortingly around his shoulder. Thank god for friends like these. Thank god, he thinks in a moment of vivid clarity, for how much he loves Hyukjae.
… …
The smoggy summer heat gives way to the coolness of fall. 'Super Girl' is lighting up the charts in all the Chinese communities around the world. SM talks of planning an Asia concert tour in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong and maybe, Seunghwan says, maybe even in Malaysia and the Philippines. There seems to be enough demand. There are a couple of event organisers that are very, very keen. We could do this. We could bring you guys there. It'll be bigger than anything we've done before.
They go back to Seoul for a short break. It's beyond good being back in Korea; Donghae realises anew the meaning of being at home. He walks past young people barbequing meat along the roadside and colourful street stalls selling food that he knows all the names of, past brightly lit skincare shops and the seemingly ubiquitious Aritaum outlets, the small cafes and the chain bakeries, and feels a deep sense of renewal and recharge, a washing off of Beijing's loneliness and despair. He takes a day off to travel back to Mokpo and place flowers at his father's grave; the flowers that he'd brought on his last visit with Hyukjae have been removed. The air is as sweet and salty as ever, the breezes as mild, ruffling the hillside grass. The sea lies purple and shining in the distance. It's good beyond description to be back in this quiet place where life and death lie intermingled, where remembrance has gone past the place of grief. It's a place where thoughts can be clear and coherent, filled in instead of sketched. And so he sits by the grave and looks over the sea and sets his mind free, lets himself remember the joy of being here with Hyukjae without embittering the memory with sadness and anger.
I will be true to who I am, he thinks. If I am to love and honour only one person, I will love and honour only one person. I made a vow once that I will always be by his side, as simply and surely as his right hand. If I am to be a friend, I will be a friend, with all my heart.
… …
Slowly, they begin to smile at each other again. They've been friends for over ten years, have been through anonymity and success together, and some ties are simply too strong to be broken. Donghae knows that Hyukjae still loves him, knows it without needing any spoken confirmation because this is Hyukjae and there isn't any need of tangible evidence to tell him that Hyukjae loves him as deeply and unconditionally as he ever has. Hyukjae doesn't flinch away the first time post-break-up that Donghae puts out a hand to touch his, doesn't refuse the first time Donghae pulls him out of the dorm for late night grocery shopping. They still laugh at the same jokes, still watch the same shows, still listen to the same music and read the same books and find the same topics fascinating, and it seems that they'll be okay if nothing else; they will remain special to each other. Donghae doesn't mention getting back together, and it seems to ease some stress in Hyukjae's mind. They're 'bosom friends' again, as Siwon puts it, and if they aren't as physically intimate as before, if there are still certain topics that they avoid talking about, at least they've been repaired enough to calm the group's dynamic down.
Donghae stores up their shared moments in his mind, goes over them in his head at night, and tries to pull together all the sensations of being with Hyukjae. How their relationship has been a focal point in his life. How friendship is a pale second to romantic love and yet the only alternative possible because being apart is unfathomable. How being with Hyukjae has defined his own tastes, his musical influences, his ideas and philosophies and habits. What it means to love Hyukjae. What it means to desire him, to lie in bed aching for his touch and remembering how it felt to lie against each other.
"I'm writing a song. It's somewhat about you," he tells Hyukjae mid-way through fall when the weather is turning cold in anticipation of the winter freeze.
Hyukjae's eyes go big. "For the concert?"
"I guess, if they'll let me perform it."
"Can I hear it?"
"Not yet. But…" Donghae takes a breath. "If I complete it, and they let me perform it, how about you coming up on stage and performing it with me?"
"I don't want to take away any attention from you. It's your song."
"But inspired by you. It's only fair that you should take a bit of the spotlight too. Anyway, doesn't it always look better when we're together?"
"Is it a love song?" Hyukjae says, smiling suddenly.
"No," Donghae says. "Most definitely not."
He names it 'Beautiful'. Means to play it for Hyukjae before the end of the year, maybe on a night when nobody else is in the dorm. But, as Jungsu says, it's strange how life doesn't work out linearly. No matter how settled and comfortable you might be with your life at a certain point, something will happen to throw everything into disarray. Nobody predicts that one night Youngwoon will go out with his friends to a bar and get involved in a fight that leaves him both in the police station and on the headlines of all the tabloids over the next couple of days. Nobody predicts that, two weeks later when the heat still hasn't cooled from the security camera footage, Youngwoon will go out drinking with the same friends and end up driving his car into a taxi while in a drunken haze.
Jungsu receives the phone call at four a.m. At five, he's still on the phone, this time in a conference call with the managers. At six, he drives Youngwoon to the police station. At seven, he's telling the group that they have to remain calm, don't panic, this is bad and he'll have to make amends for drunk driving and causing an accident, no mistake about that, but it doesn't do anyone any good if we crucify him. Jungsu's eyes are red and bloodshot and Donghae finds himself thinking, being a leader is hell.
Aside from Jungsu, Donghae and Hyukjae are the only members whom Youngwoon wants to see when he leaves the police station. The two of them drive in a sombre silence all the way to Youngwoon's family's apartment, wondering how everything could have changed so fast and so drastically, how much of a difference one night of indulgence and ill discipline can make.
"Shit," Youngwoon says when he sees their faces. "I am sorry. I am so sorry. I don't even know how to make it up to you guys."
"Hyung, it's not us you should be sorry to," Hyukjae says. "It's the people you hit in that taxi, and our fans who've always supported you and thought you were a role model."
Youngwoon reddens. "I will straighten everything out. I'll do whatever it takes. I won't let any of you suffer from my mistake."
"Yes," says Hyukjae, and it's only at that moment that Donghae realises how angry Hyukjae is, "that's the only thing you can do now. You can be as sorry as you like but if you don't do anything to fix this, it's all meaningless."
Donghae puts a hand on Hyukjae's arm. He should be angry too, because what Youngwoon did was inexcusable, and when he remembers the devastated look on Jungsu's face and the number of calls chalked up on the managers' handphones he thinks, no, we can't let him off, he has to know how much trouble he's causing everyone with his drinking habit. But then he remembers only too well how it feels to be drunk and stupid. He knows only too well, now, what a difference one night can make if you aren't able to pull yourself out of it in time.
"This isn't the end, hyung," he says. "Do what you have to. We'll continue supporting you."
"Yes," says Youngwoon. "I will. I really just…I wanted to…I just needed to say how sorry I am. To you guys. But I know you'll be fine without me. You'll pull together. I…I'll be watching and supporting you, too."
It's terrible seeing him so browbeaten. Youngwoon, the hale and hearty Kangin with his rough manners and larger than life personality. Donghae looks at Hyukjae. It's true, he wants to say. Don't crucify him. He'll have enough judgement and criticism to last him for a long time. There isn't any need for us to add our voices to that chorus.
Hyukjae's trembling when they leave twenty minutes later. They get into the car and Donghae watches as Hyukjae gives way and cries, huge gasping sobs nothing like the frenzy of misery following their visit to Hyukjae's family and yet equally awful in their own way; a disillusionment with someone who has been a friend and a mentor to him since he was a teenager, a worry about the future of the group, a disbelief that they are really in a situation like this. How many more disillusionments do they have to go through, he wonders, before they lose all their faith?
He reaches out to hold Hyukjae's hand and Hyukjae's returning grip is painful in its tightness. "We'll be together," Donghae says. "I'll stay by your side no matter who else leaves or what happens to the group."
Hyukjae doesn't say anything for a long moment, and just as Donghae thinks that he might have overreached himself, Hyukjae says, "Better when we're together, huh?"
Donghae allows himself to smile; just a small, brief one, because the burden of Youngwoon's mistake is still weighing too heavy for any levity. "Yes," he says, and, "it is a love song."
"Of course it is," Hyukjae says.
They don't let go yet. After a beat, he turns over Donghae's hand and kisses his open palm.
… …
Nearing the end of the year, they're announced as the winners of the Daesang at the Golden Disk Awards. Of course, they've been hoping for it, anticipating ever since the flood of music show awards came in for Sorry Sorry, but nothing takes away from the exhilaration of that moment. Not Youngwoon's temporary banishment from the group, nor the exhaustion from having had less than three hours of sleep for the last two weeks from constant planning and rehearsals for their upcoming concert tour and yearend Gayo Daejuns, nor the remarks of the music critics that they've won it only because of their fanclub and not for any integrity that they have in music. They've busted their asses for it since 2005 and here they finally are, standing on the stage as winners of the biggest music award in Korea.
"Your dad would've been so proud if he was here to see this," Hyukjae whispers in Donghae's ear when the programme is over and all the other groups are coming up to offer congratulations. Donghae nods and tightens his grip on Hyukjae for a long moment. "I'm sure he is seeing this," he says, and catches Hyukjae's quick pleased smile before turning around to hug 2pm's Wooyoung.
They celebrate with lots of soju and barbequed meat that night, eating out the restaurant's stock of spare ribs, rib's eye and pork belly as they propose at least twenty toasts to SM, Lee Soo Man, their managers, the sound technicians, Yoo Young Jin, their wardrobe stylists, the cameramen ("for making us look so good", as Kyuhyun puts it), Nick Bass – Donghae loses count of the toasts, gives up drinking soju halfway when he feels his face on fire. He's content to lie against Heechul and eat whatever meat Sungmin cooks and dumps onto his plate, watching Hyukjae as he fools around with Shindong. Nobody, he thinks, is as much in his element as Hyukjae whenever he's entertaining a crowd; nobody is as funnily endearing, as witty and sharp at reading the atmosphere. "I love you," he says aloud to Hyukjae in the middle of the noisy, laughing, drunken revelry, and doesn't even mind that Hyukjae doesn't hear it.
It's freezing when they leave the restaurant and pile into the company vans parked along the road. Jongwoon is so drunk that it needs the combined strength of Jungsu and Ryeowook to drag him onto the car seat. Kyuhyun is singing an overly dramatic Chinese song. Heechul is cursing at something somewhere. Siwon has his arm draped around Hyukjae, gossiping about the newest girl groups. Sungmin is laughing. Donghae turns around to find Hankyung standing quietly behind him, waiting for everyone to claim their seats in the vans.
"We did it, hyung," Donghae says, throwing his arms around Hankyung's neck and pressing his nose affectionately into Hankyung's hair.
"Yes," says Hankyung. "We did it."
There's an odd intonation to Hankyung's voice. It sounds as though he's on the verge of tears, and Donghae has a brief fit of wondering when Hankyung had started crying so much before he assumes that it's because of the Daesang. "We can only get bigger from here," he says, and in that moment it seems absolutely true, that nothing else can possibly stand in their way.
"Yes," says Hankyung again.
Donghae steps back to let Hankyung board the van first. He doesn't have to look around to know that Hyukjae has escaped Siwon's clutches and come up to his side, huffing a little in the cold air. He feels Hyukjae's presence in the marrow of his bones, in the way that a human being is always able to pinpoint their loved one's location without the need for visual confirmation, and so it doesn't startle him when Hyukjae nudges him lightly.
"What do you say we take a little walk first?" Hyukjae says. "I feel bloated from all the meat. Don't wanna go back to the dorm yet. We can easily catch a cab back when we get tired of walking."
"Okay," says Donghae.
They wave the vans off and turn to walk in the general direction of their dorm. The night is cold and crisp, fallen snow piled up at the sides of the street, and they keep their hands in their pockets. They walk at a steady pace, neither fast nor slow, in a silence of companionship, and it seems at this point that they can be Daesang winners, Korean idols, ex-lovers, soon-to-be Asian celebrities; they can be all that, and at the core remain two people deep in love and friendship.
"It's been a crazy year," says Hyukjae.
"Yeah."
Hyukjae pauses a moment to look up at the night sky. "Feels like it might snow again tonight."
Donghae smiles. How many nights have they walked like this, side by side? As young boys with no idea of what lay ahead of them, as hopeful trainees, as newly debuted idols, as fearful lovers, as distressed boys coming to terms with their homosexuality? There'll be more nights, so many more days and nights, years together with Hyukjae, and in this quiet dark the only emotion he can feel is gratitude to the higher powers for letting them find each other. Regardless of their relationship problems in the future or whether they ever find their way back into one another's innermost hearts, he'll remember to be grateful for this; that he is one of the rare, specially blessed people who has found a soulmate.
"Come on," he says. "Let's get home before it snows."
previous: part eight (i); a break-up | next: part nine (i); a falling
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By the way, people have been mentioning that they miss out on my updates...is there anywhere else that I can cross-post? Or is Twitter enough? I have a tumblr page that I could use to post updates on...it's http://catskilt.tumblr.com.
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no subject
Date: 2013-03-05 02:06 am (UTC)and i can spot the characteristics of each person and everything - like hankyung's whole inner breakdown and the apprehension in his voice and the tension but donghae can't spot it (unless in hindsight)
by the way, love that you put in a scene where donghae has the chance to sleep with an attractive man, something with no strings attached, only to pull away after realizing that he would only love hyukjae (even if it was just friendship right now) and ugklhalfdha the admission that it /was/ a love song later. I didn't feel like tearing my heart out at this update (i'm glad. i had that urge for some past chapters before).
remember how idealistic we were back then, thinking that we would be the first, the last, and the everything?
AND THAT SENTENCE
wooooow
could apply to so many couples
no subject
Date: 2013-03-15 02:44 pm (UTC)I'm glad that you didn't feel like tearing your heart out! There has been a fair amount of angst lately, huh? (probably more coming up...oops)