![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
catskilt.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
jewelledhoursYou Are My Sweetest Downfall by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
catskilt
eunhyuk/donghae
nc-17; 5,886 words; rockstar au
the fic where they're rockstars and they both have addictions that they can't kick. i.e. the rockstar au that you didn't want
non-chronological order; also, vaguely set in the 80s. please ignore all inaccuracies as this was mostly written at 2am. lyrics taken from regina spektor's 'samson'.
You Are My Sweetest Downfall
Too much beauty makes Donghae ache.
It's ironic, because he has always embodied too much of everything. He laughs with his whole body, head jerking, body curving in, knees bending; he cries until his nose stuffs up; he loses grip on his temper with heat and semi-violence; he hates without redemption, loves without conditions.
Yet, too much beauty causes a sort of ache in his chest, deep and wonderful and sad. At five years old, when he'd seen cherry blossoms for the first time, he'd cried when his father told him that they would die within a week. Perhaps that cemented the thought in his head that such immortality cannot last, and so he aches for the loss even during the initial heart-stopping dazzle.
He feels it now, as he watches Hyukjae – Hyukjae, his bandmate, childhood best friend, confidante, lover – picking at his guitar, brows drawing to a point above his eyes, lip tucked in one corner as he chases a melody. Hyukjae, in that moment, takes his breath away.
"What're you looking at?" Hyukjae asks casually, not lifting his eyes from the guitar strings.
Donghae sees the hint of a smile at the side of Hyukjae's mouth. "Nothing much," he says.
"Then get back to work."
Donghae mmm's. The afternoon sunlight slants in through the windows, liquid golden, throwing Hyukjae's face into shadow. It's warm, quiet save for the plucking of the strings, for the words running inside Donghae's head. They're making a song, something they have done since they were ten years old singing made-up songs on their way to the town market, and still this communion between them feels special, vulnerable, wrapped up in too many layers of silk.
Hyukjae looks up at last, quirks an eyebrow at Donghae. He knows that Donghae's watching him. That the words that Donghae eventually puts to the melody that they create will have been composed with him in mind. That this is Donghae's way of loving him, always overly much and overly bright.
He's used to it. Once it bothered him, but not anymore. He goes back to plucking at his guitar, and Donghae continues watching him. They don't say anything more until Hyukjae has the melody firmly inscribed in black on his notebook, and when Donghae pens in the song, Hyukjae is in every line.
… …
They're on the road again, instruments clanking away behind them in the pick-up as they drive mile after exhausting mile towards the next dingy club on the list. Donghae can't remember the last time he managed to sleep more than five hours; his eyes feel weighed down by lead, his head thick and heavy. He doesn't dare to take the wheel in case he falls asleep and crashes the car and they all end up in hospital. He prefers to stay in the backseat instead, unburdened by any responsibility, nodding off to the buzz of Hyukjae and Jongwoon's voices.
It's somewhere in the neighbourhood of three in the morning. The witching hour, as Hyukjae's teacher used to call it back in primary school, when they were wide-eyed and gullible and believed in the goodness of Fairyland. There's nothing witching about this, Hyukjae thinks, staring at the road ahead. Witching isn't being bone-tired and sleep-deprived with a sprained toe. He still can't believe that he'd stubbed it so hard against his drum kit.
"Hyukjae," says Jongwoon, "you can take a nap, you know."
"What, and risk you falling asleep cause no one's awake to talk to you? I prefer to stay alive, thanks."
Jongwoon chuckles. He would prefer to have Hyukjae awake, too. Three at night is alien when you're driving alone, no matter how experienced you are. Who knows what might be lurking just outside the cocooned safety of the car?
"You know," he says, "I got to admit, I was looking through your suitcase the other day trying to find a clean shirt to wear…cause all of mine was in the laundry…and…"
He hesitates for a moment, and Hyukjae looks at him, eyes suddenly sharp.
"Those pills," Jongwoon says.
"Yes, hyung?"
"Don't let anyone see you taking them."
The tension deflates. Hyukjae settles back down with a little smile. "Right."
Jongwoon glances at him. So young, so gifted, so much potential, this Lee Hyukjae, the little country boy. They'll go far, him, Hyukjae, Donghae, and Sungmin. They'll take on the world.
"Do they really help, Hyukjae?"
Hyukjae nods, turning down the radio a notch because Donghae's beginning to snore behind them. "Don't think I could get through this awful tour without them."
"Hang in there," Jongwoon says. "This is the start of great things."
… …
Donghae starts singing at seven years old, inspired by the old English rock and roll songs that his dad plays almost daily on their record player. His mum calls him the little jukebox. He sings on his way to school, sings during breaks between classes, sings at home while doing his chores. There are only two boys in the family, so Donghae has to help out with the cooking, marketing and cleaning. He's the younger one, the prop and pivot of the household.
When he's nine, he meets a boy called Hyukjae, standing shyly on the road as his family moves in furniture next door. Donghae's mum tells him to be friendly and make Hyukjae feel welcome as he's their next-door neighbour. She didn't have to. Donghae and Hyukjae become friends within the first ten seconds of laying eyes on each other.
On their first run to the beach, Donghae learns that Hyukjae's an only child. Except, "I wasn't always by myself," Hyukjae explains. "I had an older sister. She died last year in an accident, and Umma and Appa said they wanted to move back to the country."
"Oh," says Donghae, his eyes huge.
"She was very pretty," Hyukjae says, his face falling into grievous lines, and because it hurts to see Hyukjae looking sad, Donghae tries to cheer him up by teaching him a rock and roll song. Hyukjae doesn't want to sing along at first, but eventually he does because Donghae pleads so hard, and once he starts he doesn't want to stop. They sing all the way back to their houses when it's time for dinner, and Hyukjae happily agrees to walk with Donghae to school the next day.
That day marks Donghae's first personal encounter with death. It also marks the first time he sings with a partner.
… …
The lights are terribly hot and bright. They can hear the sounds of the fans screaming, stomping, shouting their names, but they can't really see them. All they can really make out is the front few rows of fans and then a great darkness beyond. Jongwoon turns to his band, nods, gives them a brief wink that means 'let's get this show on the road', and they hit the note of the opening song at a perfect pitch. The screams get wilder. Jongwoon yells into his microphone, "Get up, every fucking one of you, get up!" and they do, with a united roar that makes Donghae shiver. This is the first song of their first stadium concert. They've finally, finally gotten here.
Hyukjae is beating on the drums as though the rhythm is literally pouring out from his fingers, and the entire band plays to him, revolves around his pounding beat. Jongwoon's singing is husky and stirring and exactly what Donghae has ever wanted to hear for his songs; Sungmin's keyboards are flawless. He can barely think – he's a part of the music, lost right in the middle of it, and all he can feel is this pulsing beat, this beauty of harmony, this connectedness that he feels with the other members. This is music that they're making, music in its purest form, and his heart wants to thump right out of his chest.
Until Hyukjae leaves the drums midway through the concert to take up the guitar for their duet. And then Donghae finds Hyukjae right in the middle of the music with him, the sounds that they've composed together coming out of their mouths more perfect than anything he's ever heard. Hyukjae's eyes are smiling into his. It feels like a song for their ears only, even though they're technically performing it in front of four thousand people. It's so intensely intimate that he wonders if anyone in the stadium feels embarrassed witnessing this. If they're seeing what he's seeing now, stumbling hands in the dark, cold winter nights wrapped around Hyukjae in the warmth of his quilt, blue sky mornings with their feet entangled while eating toast, lazy kisses on the beach with sand on their fingers, sensual moments in generic hotel rooms. Hyukjae mouthing his name against his neck.
"Thank you for listening," Hyukjae says into the microphone at the end of the duet. "Donghae and I composed this song together. It's called 'The Sweetest Downfall'. We hope you liked it." He takes a deep breath, but doesn't say anything more; he wants, in fact, to say so much, but everything's inappropriate when Donghae's smiling at him like this with the concert lights in his hair.
… …
It's two in the afternoon and he's washing rice in the kitchen of the apartment that he shares with Hyukjae and two of their college friends, Sungmin and Jino, when Hyukjae comes in, hair tousled and oversized shirt flopping on his shoulders, and nuzzles him from behind.
Donghae tries not to grin. "Have you showered yet?"
"I think so," Hyukjae says. "I don't smell, do I?"
"No," says Donghae, and washes his hands.
Twenty seconds later he's sitting on the kitchen counter with his track pants dangling around his ankles and Hyukjae's head between his legs, sucking him off in slow, languorous strokes. Donghae regulates his breathing; he doesn't want to come so fast, not yet, when their blessed uninterrupted alone-time of one and a half days will be up in about two hours. Sungmin and Jino will come back, lugging suitcases and reality, and they won't be able to spend hours in bed together anymore, pretending that their only responsibility in life is to make love.
Hyukjae rubs his thumb on Donghae's cock as he moves down to mouth his balls, and Donghae scratches his foot lightly down the side of Hyukjae's body, loving the feel of him, of his skin and his hands and his mouth, everything of him. He can't imagine doing this with anyone other than Hyukjae; even though they're in college now and he's been checked out by more students than he can remember, nobody seems to have the same effect on him as Hyukjae does. He doesn't understand it, but there it is, and they're still making love like they could do it forever.
Hyukjae's mouth is back on his cock now, and Donghae knows he won't last long. Not like this, with pleasure humming in every vein and the delicious, delicious sex of Hyukjae, look at him now, his hand stroking his own cock in rhythm to his sucking, jerking off to this, of course he would. He knows, only too well, how Donghae loves to see him get off. He knows that this is Donghae's downfall. Donghae comes with a short, sharp cry, his hands clenched on the countertop, his body tensing in those moments of mindless joy before relaxing into the delightful thrum of tiredness. He doesn't resist when Hyukjae pulls him down from the counter, holds him steady and rocks against his thigh; he rests his fingers on the nape of Hyukjae's neck instead, breathes in his scent and sweat as Hyukjae moans into his ear.
"Come on, Hyuk," he says, wrapping his arms around him. "I want to feel you come against me."
And Hyukjae does, coming undone in the beautiful, uninhibited way that Donghae has grown accustomed to and yet never tires of seeing, his head buried in Donghae's neck, and Donghae has to shower again, or at least give his legs a thorough rinsing, but it's okay.
They're going to be performing tonight at one of the live music bars with Sungmin and a vocalist named Jongwoon whom they've recently recruited through an ad they pasted up on campus. What lies ahead of them is anyone's guess. Donghae keeps his arm around Hyukjae and presses kisses on his shoulder, wondering if they'll still hold each other like this if they ever become stars.
… …
Hyukjae bursts into the dressing room twenty minutes before the concert begins, his hair in a mess, eyes sort of glazed. He smells terrible, like he hasn't washed in days, and his shirt is rumpled into his jeans. Donghae jumps up, but Jongwoon reaches him first.
"Where the fuck have you been?" Jongwoon roars into his face, shoving him back roughly. "Another five minutes and we would've cancelled the concert, you fucker."
Donghae grabs hold of Hyukjae's hand. It's trembling. "Hyukjae, are you okay?"
"Yeah, 'm fine," Hyukjae says. "Let's get this over with."
"Have you been taking those pills again?" Jongwoon shouts.
"Hyung, just…" Hyukjae begins to cover his ears, but just then they're called to be on standby. Hyukjae's outfit doesn't go with what anyone else is wearing, but "they'll have to do, since he didn't have the decency to show up on time," Jongwoon snarls.
About a third of the way through the concert, Donghae finds Hyukjae popping pills in the tiny backstage toilet during Sungmin's solo. For all his song-writing, he can't find a word to put to the emotion that suddenly crushes his chest; a mixture of fear and worry and distress all at once, with a heavy lashing of anger and despair. He can't breathe for a moment. "Hyuk, you shouldn't, those aren't good."
"You take them yourself," Hyukjae says.
"For one time only, and that was three years ago. They'll destroy you…"
"Don't moralise," Hyukjae snaps. "None of you are in any position to – look at Jongwoon hyung, getting pissed out of his mind every other night."
The bitter look on Hyukjae's face is so alien that it floors Donghae. He's still trying to find a response, a way to get through to the real Hyukjae he knows, when Hyukjae suddenly seems to get over his bad mood as quickly as he'd gotten into it. "C'mon," he says. "Still got the rest of the show to go."
He is truly magnificent on stage. The crowd screams their approbation, and the band can't help but play up to him, as they always do whenever Hyukjae is in brilliant form. But this time Donghae can't find his way into the middle of the music. The songs whirl past him, one after another, with his practised fingers picking them out automatically, and all he sees is Hyukjae breaking apart before him.
… …
When he writes his first song at thirteen, Hyukjae knows it is entirely to Donghae's credit. It was Donghae who introduced him to music and singing, Donghae who found his dad's old guitar and painstakingly tuned it according to a manual that he borrowed from the school library and insisted that both of them learn how to play it. Hyukjae knows how much he owes Donghae for revealing his own gift of music to him.
"You are gifted," Donghae says. "One day you'll be super big."
"So will you," says Hyukjae, and he sincerely means it. He isn't the one with the poster-boy good looks and natural charm; he's under-grown and skinny, and his gums show when he smiles. Next to Donghae's shine and popularity with the girls at school, he often feels like a dark, extremely unattractive shadow.
But he loves Donghae too much to envy him for his dazzle, and so he continues on at Donghae's side even though, as they progress into high school, people around them wonder why Donghae likes hanging out with this insignificant-looking boy so much. Donghae dances, sings, plays musical instruments, does a neat game of football, and isn't too terrible at his grades; he's welcome in practically every school clique and present in the dreams of at last half the girls in his class. Hyukjae keeps pretty much to the same little group of boys who play video games and read manga and don't distinguish themselves particularly from every other average teenaged boy in South Korea.
Yet Donghae knows that Hyukjae is the one with the true talent, the one who composes and writes songs that makes Donghae's heart shudder within his chest, the one who will outgrow and throw off his awkward appearance one day, who will be able to command a stage. He doesn't know how he knows this, but when he looks at Hyukjae he sees incomparable beauty, and as much as it makes him ache, it draws him closer like an addiction.
One day Hyukjae writes a song about a man going off to sea in a ship of lackadaisical sailors – no doubt half-influenced by his current craze for One Piece – that first delights Donghae with its imaginative lyrics and then makes his heart clench with a strange sort of feeling that he eventually realises is desire. He can't remember ever feeling so much desire for someone before, not even the handsome Chemistry teacher whom the girls at school are swooning over and whom Donghae harbours a little secret longing for in his heart, and it frightens him, this feeling, because it's stronger than anything he's ever known and takes possession of his mind and body the moment he puts a name to it.
He worries for weeks that Hyukjae will find out and despise him, but there comes a night when Hyukjae's parents are away on a short trip to Busan and he's invited over. They jam on their guitars for a bit, talk a little about school, play a couple of video games and then go back to their guitars, and Hyukjae tries to find an opportunity to tell Donghae that he knows, has seen the looks that Donghae gives him. To tell him that he has loved Donghae ever since that first day Donghae taught him to sing his first rock and roll song. That the idea of Donghae loving him in return makes his heart swell up with so much amazement and gratitude that it feels it could explode out of his chest.
He opts for kissing Donghae instead. Snaking his arm around his waist.
They stumble into Hyukjae's room together, clumsily pulling off each other's clothes. It's nothing that they've done before but they get it right, after a while, and it isn't too difficult to get accustomed to someone's body rubbing against yours in the same sexual frenzy, and when they reach their first orgasm, it shocks them with the intensity of how good it feels.
Later, later, Donghae says, "Do you think you can write a song about this?"
"I will, and you'll sing it with me," Hyukjae says. "I can think of it already…" he hums a short tune, hums it again, pauses and hums it yet again, and Donghae sings to it, "I loved you first."
"You didn't," says Hyukjae, smiling, "but okay."
In the morning, they have sex again. The second time happens just as naturally as the first, and feels even better.
They know that their lives have changed.
… …
"You are my sweetest downfall…I loved you first…"
"Shut up," says Donghae, his fists clenched, "you don't have any right to sing that song…not after what you've done."
Hyukjae looks up at him from where he's kneeling on the grass. "Donghae, please…"
"Don't Donghae please me."
"I said I was sorry, what else can I…"
"Nothing," Donghae says, his rage raising the level of his voice. "There's nothing you can do to make this better. So fuck off."
He looks at Hyukjae, kneeling pathetically on the grass, so far gone that he doesn't seem able to stand up, and a wave of anger and hurt chokes him. "Let's get this straight," Donghae says. "You messed up our album…and got yourself arrested for being in some sick drugs party…and you think that just showing up here and singing me a song is going to make things okay?"
Hyukjae watches Donghae slam his way back into his house. He wants to shout, but I don't even remember how I ended up at that party, and I was the biggest asshole ever and I fucked things up and don't leave me. He looks around him instead. They're back in the little seaside town where it had all started. He'd spent a week in Seoul in their apartment waiting for Donghae to come home until he realised that Donghae wasn't. Then he'd booked his air ticket and hotfooted it down here to this dumpy place in pursuit of the only real thing he's ever belonged to in his life.
He looks up at the little house that Donghae grew up in and wonders if Donghae is crying inside.
His head is fuzzy from the aftereffects of the drugs, and he can't make himself think properly. He knows there's one way he can make things right, but he can't seem to identify it clearly.
He gives up and falls onto the grass, staring up at the sky. He suddenly remembers seventeen-year-old Donghae, sneaking looks at him over the guitar. Shining, beautiful, bright-eyed, baby-cheeked, hopeful. He stifles his sobs. Bites his lips until he tastes the blood and the stinging pain. The tears soak into the soil anyway.
… …
They're termed the biggest find in South Korean rock music history. The media fawns over what they call 'the perfect combination of talent and charm' while the fans alternately scream over the songs and the band members. Donghae knows that they've got a good thing going. Jongwoon doesn't seem to have found a limit to what he can express through his vocals, Sungmin's keyboard playing has been known to make even grown men tear up, and Hyukjae – ah, Hyukjae. Dynamite on the drums, brilliant on the guitar, the driving force behind their song compositions, and the most utterly breath-taking thing that Donghae has ever seen on stage.
And Donghae is the one who rakes in the serious money with the endorsement deals.
"Without Donghae, we wouldn't be earning half as much," Sungmin jokes. Sungmin has looked happier since they added a new member to their band, a Cho Kyuhyun who plays the harmonica with such passionate fervour and sings with so much harmonic beauty in his voice that Donghae sometimes feels hypnotised by him.
It feels like nothing can hold them back. Their first two albums have gone straight to number one, and their concerts are sold out. They've even received a request from a Japanese event organiser to hold a concert in Tokyo.
If only, Donghae thinks, someone had told him to pause and look closely at Hyukjae in the midst of all the excitement and glory.
… …
Hyukjae spends a night behind bars for being caught at the drugged out party. A lot longer on tabloid headlines.
He still can't figure out how he'd ended up at that party. He remembers meeting Woojin, his regular drugs supplier, for his top up. He remembers meeting a few guys from KBS for a few drinks. The next thing he knows, he's caught smoking crack in a roomful of mostly naked, equally drugged out people.
The fact that a significant number of those people are also celebrities doesn't dilute the news coverage of Hyukjae's scandal. He's the biggest name among the big names, and his picture appears most frequently on the front pages. He's condemned by every single imaginable authority on celebrity drug abuse. He's shouted at by his parents over the phone. He's rowed about a thousand times by his record company. Jongwoon throws a few things at him. Kyuhyun leaves Seoul immediately to avoid the fallout. Sungmin says he'll be there if he wants to talk, but lasts fifteen minutes at confidential conversation before he tells Hyukjae bluntly that he has to cut the drugs if he wants to proceed with life.
And Donghae – Donghae doesn't talk to him at all. Isn't even at home when he gets out from jail. Hyukjae spends one week dialling a phone number that never connects and rushing to the window every hour to see if Donghae might be driving into the parking lot. The apartment is pungent with the presence of Donghae; his clothes are in the cabinet, his shoes at the doorway, his magazines strewn on the dining table, his snacks in the kitchen, his DVDs piled up before the TV, his ice cream in the freezer; and yet Donghae isn't there. Hyukjae twists the ring on his left hand that he and Donghae had bought in Rome a couple of years ago and wonders if this is how divorce feels like, if there is any outlet to this overpowering guilt and fear.
For the first time, he fails to even strum the first note.
… …
The problem is, when they're twenty and cramming overnight for their exams and projects, Hyukjae is the single biggest delight and support of Donghae's life. He's the one making the coffee when they're so exhausted they can barely open their eyes, the one leaving funny encouraging messages around the apartment for Donghae to wake up to, the one proofreading Donghae's essays.
The problem is, when they're twenty-two, Hyukjae takes Donghae's breath away when they're performing together on stage.
The problem is, when they're twenty-three, the times that he spends in solitude with Hyukjae just hanging out, talking, laughing, watching movies, eating late night suppers, making love before and after concerts in hotel rooms, are the only times in his life that make any sense at all in the dizzy, crazily competitive, persistently fake, emotionally draining world of entertainment.
The problem is, when they're twenty-six, Hyukjae spends months scraping walls, painting, sandpapering the concrete floor, installing blinds, assembling furniture, and pulling together their new apartment into just the way they want it before they move in.
The problem is, that same year, they buy identical rings in Rome and pledge their marriage vows to each other in a quiet Italian hotel with their legs entangled.
The problem is, Hyukjae has been the joy and pivot of his life ever since he was a child.
Donghae wants to let go, but he can't.
… …
Hyukjae makes love to him three days before the crash and burn. He's in one of his lucid moods then, and he's more like the Lee Hyukjae that Donghae has known for years, the man that he loves enough to say the marriage vows to. It's late afternoon in the Seoul summer and their bodies are slick with sweat despite the fan going overhead. He's sitting on Hyukjae's lap with Hyukjae's cock deep within him, rolling his hips, and they're kissing languidly and luxuriantly, as though they have all the time in the world to spare.
"I love you," Hyukjae says. He looks tired, wrung out, but Donghae hears the sincerity in his voice. He kisses Hyukjae's forehead.
"I love you too."
They don't say anything else. These moments of normalcy are getting rarer and rarer, and Donghae can't bear to say a single wrong word. Already, already, he knows that he has to etch this hour firmly in his mind, though he has no inkling of the heartbreak lying ahead.
… …
"What are the worries that you have?"
"I don't know."
"Are you facing any problems with your family – or your relationship – or the band?"
"I don't know. Not really."
"Aren't you happy? You've gotten another number one."
"Yeah."
"There's really no need to take anymore drugs."
"I don't know about that."
"Are you scared of the competition?"
"Maybe."
"Haven't you gotten everything you wanted?"
"I don't know."
"If you don't kick your drug problem, your contract might be terminated."
Silence.
He doesn't know how to explain that he feels insecure, vulnerable, frightened without the energy and inspiration that the drugs give him. That he feels none of his lauded talent is real; everything is fuelled by the drugs. That if he stops, they'll all see him for what he truly is – an imposter who can barely write a tune or perform a song.
He doesn't know how to explain the constant fear inside him that the next album will flop; the constant stress of having to produce award-winning, chart-topping music.
He doesn't know how to explain how exhausted he really is.
So he doesn't explain at all.
… …
He checks himself into rehab when he gets back to Seoul. They put him on a one-on-one treatment programme. It takes him agonising weeks of overcoming his humiliation and trying to figure out his internal workings. Weeks of sharing the intimate details of his life with kindly strangers. Weeks of pain and sweating and feeling sick and desperate.
Then Donghae shows up one day out of the blue with no luggage, no fanfare, as though he's returning home from work like any other ordinary day. As though he'd never left.
"Why?" Hyukjae asks. He means to say, why, when I've been such an utter and unforgiveable shit to you?
"I heard that you've gone for treatment," Donghae says.
"…Yes."
"It'll be better with me here, won't it?"
It is. He gets accustomed to his treatments at the centre. To pulling back his hand the same minute he reaches out to grope for the pills. To facing up to his insecurities. He begins to remember how it was like before before, when he lived without knowing anything about drugs. He begins to feel sadness and vulnerability without the accompanying sensation of fear.
Donghae stays with him throughout, driving him back and forth and studying cooking shows to prepare proper meals for him. They begin to talk normally again, and one day in September Hyukjae wakes up to the realisation that he feels fine and the fruits Donghae has bought from the supermarket taste good, and his face is oily from sleep and his hair is standing up and he hasn't written a song in what seems like years, but he's okay with all that.
He waits four days, wanting to stretch out the time, not wanting to let go so quickly, before he berates himself for being a selfish asshole and forces himself to say to Donghae, "I'm okay now. I won't lapse. I can handle myself."
Donghae nods with a smile that turns into a puzzled frown when Hyukjae continues biting his lip.
"It's okay," Hyukjae says slowly, "for you to leave me now. I'll take it from here."
"What?"
Hyukjae gestures helplessly with his hands. "I can't thank you enough for being with me through this."
"Hyukjae." Donghae's standing up, peering at him through narrowed eyes. "You think I'm here just to help you kick your drug habit?"
"I've done…so many horrible things," Hyukjae says, not meeting his eyes. "Unforgiveable things. I can't…I can't make you stay with me."
"I think you're misunderstanding something," Donghae says. "I didn't come back because I was being generous. I came back because I'm your husband, you're married to me, you belong to me, and that's what people do when they belong to each other, they see each other through and they stay together."
He kneels down and takes Hyukjae's hands in his. Looks up at his face, at the break of tremulous joy in Hyukjae's eyes. "I know that it's you, now. The real you. You've done horrible things, yes, but you've killed the thing in you that made you do those things, and it's going to work. Us. Me and you. Life. It's going to work out now, baby."
There are tears in Hyukjae's eyes, but he manages a smile before that, a loving, tender, grateful smile, because he thinks that's what Donghae deserves first.
… …
Two years later, they stand on a stage again. The critics were scornful at first, the tabloids mocked their comeback, re-publishing the old scandal and speculating if Korean society will ever accept such troublemakers again. And it is rough, at first. Very.
But the band stands in support with him, Donghae is unflinchingly loyal by his side, and he writes some of the best songs he's ever written before. The songs are really what bring the fans back. Earn them grudging but positive reviews in the media. The PR department also emphasises all the talks he's given about drug abuse and the volunteer work he has done at rehab centres, but he doesn't like that too much, because it makes it seem like he did all that only for publicity when it was out of the bottom of his heart. But the public seems to understand that he's paying back, and they seem to forgive, eventually.
The second album after their comeback hits number three on the charts. The third album finally makes it to number one.
Hyukjae holds the newspaper clipping in his hands. Looks again and again at their album listed as number one and tells himself fiercely: no fucking this one up now. No fear, no stress, no running from vulnerability. Keep giving them what's inside you, naturally. No fucking up.
"No," says Donghae from behind, slipping an arm around his waist. "You aren't that person anymore, Hyukjae. You don't have to worry about a thing."
"How do you know what I was thinking?" Hyukjae asks with some astonishment.
"Guess it comes with the whole old married couple thing," Donghae laughs, and turns him around to kiss him properly.
He hasn't strayed from Donghae even in thought since their reconciliation.
… …
They sing their song under the glaring lights of the stage before thousands of fans; the song that they had written together after their first sexual encounter. Hyukjae has never dreamed, never thought that he could possibly deserve someone like Donghae, so faithful and cheerful and bright and loving. Yet Donghae came into his life like a gift, introduced him to music and uncovered his talent and fought his battles and forgave his unforgiveable transgressions. And maybe it's not about wondering how he deserves Donghae, but about cherishing who and what he has. He looks into Donghae's eyes when he sings, "I loved you first", and remembers that little nine year old boy who had brought him out of his grief for his sister. Even back then, he thinks, and smiles.
Hyukjae has broken his heart, but, unlike the refrain of most romantic tragedies, stitched it back and held it firmly together until it didn't need stitches anymore. Hyukjae is the one great passion of his life, the biggest joy and pride and satisfaction, and Donghae knows it was the right decision to trust in him and stay beside him. He can envision it now, the rest of their lives together filled with so much understanding and trust and faithfulness, and if there are ripples on the surface they can never break beyond just that, the surface.
Hyukjae may have loved him first, but it was Donghae who kept the love going.
Their eyes meeting at the final note of the song feels as intimate as any embrace.
end.
Yes, I too agree that there needs to be a rockstar pwp.
catskilteunhyuk/donghae
nc-17; 5,886 words; rockstar au
the fic where they're rockstars and they both have addictions that they can't kick. i.e. the rockstar au that you didn't want
non-chronological order; also, vaguely set in the 80s. please ignore all inaccuracies as this was mostly written at 2am. lyrics taken from regina spektor's 'samson'.
Too much beauty makes Donghae ache.
It's ironic, because he has always embodied too much of everything. He laughs with his whole body, head jerking, body curving in, knees bending; he cries until his nose stuffs up; he loses grip on his temper with heat and semi-violence; he hates without redemption, loves without conditions.
Yet, too much beauty causes a sort of ache in his chest, deep and wonderful and sad. At five years old, when he'd seen cherry blossoms for the first time, he'd cried when his father told him that they would die within a week. Perhaps that cemented the thought in his head that such immortality cannot last, and so he aches for the loss even during the initial heart-stopping dazzle.
He feels it now, as he watches Hyukjae – Hyukjae, his bandmate, childhood best friend, confidante, lover – picking at his guitar, brows drawing to a point above his eyes, lip tucked in one corner as he chases a melody. Hyukjae, in that moment, takes his breath away.
"What're you looking at?" Hyukjae asks casually, not lifting his eyes from the guitar strings.
Donghae sees the hint of a smile at the side of Hyukjae's mouth. "Nothing much," he says.
"Then get back to work."
Donghae mmm's. The afternoon sunlight slants in through the windows, liquid golden, throwing Hyukjae's face into shadow. It's warm, quiet save for the plucking of the strings, for the words running inside Donghae's head. They're making a song, something they have done since they were ten years old singing made-up songs on their way to the town market, and still this communion between them feels special, vulnerable, wrapped up in too many layers of silk.
Hyukjae looks up at last, quirks an eyebrow at Donghae. He knows that Donghae's watching him. That the words that Donghae eventually puts to the melody that they create will have been composed with him in mind. That this is Donghae's way of loving him, always overly much and overly bright.
He's used to it. Once it bothered him, but not anymore. He goes back to plucking at his guitar, and Donghae continues watching him. They don't say anything more until Hyukjae has the melody firmly inscribed in black on his notebook, and when Donghae pens in the song, Hyukjae is in every line.
… …
They're on the road again, instruments clanking away behind them in the pick-up as they drive mile after exhausting mile towards the next dingy club on the list. Donghae can't remember the last time he managed to sleep more than five hours; his eyes feel weighed down by lead, his head thick and heavy. He doesn't dare to take the wheel in case he falls asleep and crashes the car and they all end up in hospital. He prefers to stay in the backseat instead, unburdened by any responsibility, nodding off to the buzz of Hyukjae and Jongwoon's voices.
It's somewhere in the neighbourhood of three in the morning. The witching hour, as Hyukjae's teacher used to call it back in primary school, when they were wide-eyed and gullible and believed in the goodness of Fairyland. There's nothing witching about this, Hyukjae thinks, staring at the road ahead. Witching isn't being bone-tired and sleep-deprived with a sprained toe. He still can't believe that he'd stubbed it so hard against his drum kit.
"Hyukjae," says Jongwoon, "you can take a nap, you know."
"What, and risk you falling asleep cause no one's awake to talk to you? I prefer to stay alive, thanks."
Jongwoon chuckles. He would prefer to have Hyukjae awake, too. Three at night is alien when you're driving alone, no matter how experienced you are. Who knows what might be lurking just outside the cocooned safety of the car?
"You know," he says, "I got to admit, I was looking through your suitcase the other day trying to find a clean shirt to wear…cause all of mine was in the laundry…and…"
He hesitates for a moment, and Hyukjae looks at him, eyes suddenly sharp.
"Those pills," Jongwoon says.
"Yes, hyung?"
"Don't let anyone see you taking them."
The tension deflates. Hyukjae settles back down with a little smile. "Right."
Jongwoon glances at him. So young, so gifted, so much potential, this Lee Hyukjae, the little country boy. They'll go far, him, Hyukjae, Donghae, and Sungmin. They'll take on the world.
"Do they really help, Hyukjae?"
Hyukjae nods, turning down the radio a notch because Donghae's beginning to snore behind them. "Don't think I could get through this awful tour without them."
"Hang in there," Jongwoon says. "This is the start of great things."
… …
Donghae starts singing at seven years old, inspired by the old English rock and roll songs that his dad plays almost daily on their record player. His mum calls him the little jukebox. He sings on his way to school, sings during breaks between classes, sings at home while doing his chores. There are only two boys in the family, so Donghae has to help out with the cooking, marketing and cleaning. He's the younger one, the prop and pivot of the household.
When he's nine, he meets a boy called Hyukjae, standing shyly on the road as his family moves in furniture next door. Donghae's mum tells him to be friendly and make Hyukjae feel welcome as he's their next-door neighbour. She didn't have to. Donghae and Hyukjae become friends within the first ten seconds of laying eyes on each other.
On their first run to the beach, Donghae learns that Hyukjae's an only child. Except, "I wasn't always by myself," Hyukjae explains. "I had an older sister. She died last year in an accident, and Umma and Appa said they wanted to move back to the country."
"Oh," says Donghae, his eyes huge.
"She was very pretty," Hyukjae says, his face falling into grievous lines, and because it hurts to see Hyukjae looking sad, Donghae tries to cheer him up by teaching him a rock and roll song. Hyukjae doesn't want to sing along at first, but eventually he does because Donghae pleads so hard, and once he starts he doesn't want to stop. They sing all the way back to their houses when it's time for dinner, and Hyukjae happily agrees to walk with Donghae to school the next day.
That day marks Donghae's first personal encounter with death. It also marks the first time he sings with a partner.
… …
The lights are terribly hot and bright. They can hear the sounds of the fans screaming, stomping, shouting their names, but they can't really see them. All they can really make out is the front few rows of fans and then a great darkness beyond. Jongwoon turns to his band, nods, gives them a brief wink that means 'let's get this show on the road', and they hit the note of the opening song at a perfect pitch. The screams get wilder. Jongwoon yells into his microphone, "Get up, every fucking one of you, get up!" and they do, with a united roar that makes Donghae shiver. This is the first song of their first stadium concert. They've finally, finally gotten here.
Hyukjae is beating on the drums as though the rhythm is literally pouring out from his fingers, and the entire band plays to him, revolves around his pounding beat. Jongwoon's singing is husky and stirring and exactly what Donghae has ever wanted to hear for his songs; Sungmin's keyboards are flawless. He can barely think – he's a part of the music, lost right in the middle of it, and all he can feel is this pulsing beat, this beauty of harmony, this connectedness that he feels with the other members. This is music that they're making, music in its purest form, and his heart wants to thump right out of his chest.
Until Hyukjae leaves the drums midway through the concert to take up the guitar for their duet. And then Donghae finds Hyukjae right in the middle of the music with him, the sounds that they've composed together coming out of their mouths more perfect than anything he's ever heard. Hyukjae's eyes are smiling into his. It feels like a song for their ears only, even though they're technically performing it in front of four thousand people. It's so intensely intimate that he wonders if anyone in the stadium feels embarrassed witnessing this. If they're seeing what he's seeing now, stumbling hands in the dark, cold winter nights wrapped around Hyukjae in the warmth of his quilt, blue sky mornings with their feet entangled while eating toast, lazy kisses on the beach with sand on their fingers, sensual moments in generic hotel rooms. Hyukjae mouthing his name against his neck.
"Thank you for listening," Hyukjae says into the microphone at the end of the duet. "Donghae and I composed this song together. It's called 'The Sweetest Downfall'. We hope you liked it." He takes a deep breath, but doesn't say anything more; he wants, in fact, to say so much, but everything's inappropriate when Donghae's smiling at him like this with the concert lights in his hair.
… …
It's two in the afternoon and he's washing rice in the kitchen of the apartment that he shares with Hyukjae and two of their college friends, Sungmin and Jino, when Hyukjae comes in, hair tousled and oversized shirt flopping on his shoulders, and nuzzles him from behind.
Donghae tries not to grin. "Have you showered yet?"
"I think so," Hyukjae says. "I don't smell, do I?"
"No," says Donghae, and washes his hands.
Twenty seconds later he's sitting on the kitchen counter with his track pants dangling around his ankles and Hyukjae's head between his legs, sucking him off in slow, languorous strokes. Donghae regulates his breathing; he doesn't want to come so fast, not yet, when their blessed uninterrupted alone-time of one and a half days will be up in about two hours. Sungmin and Jino will come back, lugging suitcases and reality, and they won't be able to spend hours in bed together anymore, pretending that their only responsibility in life is to make love.
Hyukjae rubs his thumb on Donghae's cock as he moves down to mouth his balls, and Donghae scratches his foot lightly down the side of Hyukjae's body, loving the feel of him, of his skin and his hands and his mouth, everything of him. He can't imagine doing this with anyone other than Hyukjae; even though they're in college now and he's been checked out by more students than he can remember, nobody seems to have the same effect on him as Hyukjae does. He doesn't understand it, but there it is, and they're still making love like they could do it forever.
Hyukjae's mouth is back on his cock now, and Donghae knows he won't last long. Not like this, with pleasure humming in every vein and the delicious, delicious sex of Hyukjae, look at him now, his hand stroking his own cock in rhythm to his sucking, jerking off to this, of course he would. He knows, only too well, how Donghae loves to see him get off. He knows that this is Donghae's downfall. Donghae comes with a short, sharp cry, his hands clenched on the countertop, his body tensing in those moments of mindless joy before relaxing into the delightful thrum of tiredness. He doesn't resist when Hyukjae pulls him down from the counter, holds him steady and rocks against his thigh; he rests his fingers on the nape of Hyukjae's neck instead, breathes in his scent and sweat as Hyukjae moans into his ear.
"Come on, Hyuk," he says, wrapping his arms around him. "I want to feel you come against me."
And Hyukjae does, coming undone in the beautiful, uninhibited way that Donghae has grown accustomed to and yet never tires of seeing, his head buried in Donghae's neck, and Donghae has to shower again, or at least give his legs a thorough rinsing, but it's okay.
They're going to be performing tonight at one of the live music bars with Sungmin and a vocalist named Jongwoon whom they've recently recruited through an ad they pasted up on campus. What lies ahead of them is anyone's guess. Donghae keeps his arm around Hyukjae and presses kisses on his shoulder, wondering if they'll still hold each other like this if they ever become stars.
… …
Hyukjae bursts into the dressing room twenty minutes before the concert begins, his hair in a mess, eyes sort of glazed. He smells terrible, like he hasn't washed in days, and his shirt is rumpled into his jeans. Donghae jumps up, but Jongwoon reaches him first.
"Where the fuck have you been?" Jongwoon roars into his face, shoving him back roughly. "Another five minutes and we would've cancelled the concert, you fucker."
Donghae grabs hold of Hyukjae's hand. It's trembling. "Hyukjae, are you okay?"
"Yeah, 'm fine," Hyukjae says. "Let's get this over with."
"Have you been taking those pills again?" Jongwoon shouts.
"Hyung, just…" Hyukjae begins to cover his ears, but just then they're called to be on standby. Hyukjae's outfit doesn't go with what anyone else is wearing, but "they'll have to do, since he didn't have the decency to show up on time," Jongwoon snarls.
About a third of the way through the concert, Donghae finds Hyukjae popping pills in the tiny backstage toilet during Sungmin's solo. For all his song-writing, he can't find a word to put to the emotion that suddenly crushes his chest; a mixture of fear and worry and distress all at once, with a heavy lashing of anger and despair. He can't breathe for a moment. "Hyuk, you shouldn't, those aren't good."
"You take them yourself," Hyukjae says.
"For one time only, and that was three years ago. They'll destroy you…"
"Don't moralise," Hyukjae snaps. "None of you are in any position to – look at Jongwoon hyung, getting pissed out of his mind every other night."
The bitter look on Hyukjae's face is so alien that it floors Donghae. He's still trying to find a response, a way to get through to the real Hyukjae he knows, when Hyukjae suddenly seems to get over his bad mood as quickly as he'd gotten into it. "C'mon," he says. "Still got the rest of the show to go."
He is truly magnificent on stage. The crowd screams their approbation, and the band can't help but play up to him, as they always do whenever Hyukjae is in brilliant form. But this time Donghae can't find his way into the middle of the music. The songs whirl past him, one after another, with his practised fingers picking them out automatically, and all he sees is Hyukjae breaking apart before him.
… …
When he writes his first song at thirteen, Hyukjae knows it is entirely to Donghae's credit. It was Donghae who introduced him to music and singing, Donghae who found his dad's old guitar and painstakingly tuned it according to a manual that he borrowed from the school library and insisted that both of them learn how to play it. Hyukjae knows how much he owes Donghae for revealing his own gift of music to him.
"You are gifted," Donghae says. "One day you'll be super big."
"So will you," says Hyukjae, and he sincerely means it. He isn't the one with the poster-boy good looks and natural charm; he's under-grown and skinny, and his gums show when he smiles. Next to Donghae's shine and popularity with the girls at school, he often feels like a dark, extremely unattractive shadow.
But he loves Donghae too much to envy him for his dazzle, and so he continues on at Donghae's side even though, as they progress into high school, people around them wonder why Donghae likes hanging out with this insignificant-looking boy so much. Donghae dances, sings, plays musical instruments, does a neat game of football, and isn't too terrible at his grades; he's welcome in practically every school clique and present in the dreams of at last half the girls in his class. Hyukjae keeps pretty much to the same little group of boys who play video games and read manga and don't distinguish themselves particularly from every other average teenaged boy in South Korea.
Yet Donghae knows that Hyukjae is the one with the true talent, the one who composes and writes songs that makes Donghae's heart shudder within his chest, the one who will outgrow and throw off his awkward appearance one day, who will be able to command a stage. He doesn't know how he knows this, but when he looks at Hyukjae he sees incomparable beauty, and as much as it makes him ache, it draws him closer like an addiction.
One day Hyukjae writes a song about a man going off to sea in a ship of lackadaisical sailors – no doubt half-influenced by his current craze for One Piece – that first delights Donghae with its imaginative lyrics and then makes his heart clench with a strange sort of feeling that he eventually realises is desire. He can't remember ever feeling so much desire for someone before, not even the handsome Chemistry teacher whom the girls at school are swooning over and whom Donghae harbours a little secret longing for in his heart, and it frightens him, this feeling, because it's stronger than anything he's ever known and takes possession of his mind and body the moment he puts a name to it.
He worries for weeks that Hyukjae will find out and despise him, but there comes a night when Hyukjae's parents are away on a short trip to Busan and he's invited over. They jam on their guitars for a bit, talk a little about school, play a couple of video games and then go back to their guitars, and Hyukjae tries to find an opportunity to tell Donghae that he knows, has seen the looks that Donghae gives him. To tell him that he has loved Donghae ever since that first day Donghae taught him to sing his first rock and roll song. That the idea of Donghae loving him in return makes his heart swell up with so much amazement and gratitude that it feels it could explode out of his chest.
He opts for kissing Donghae instead. Snaking his arm around his waist.
They stumble into Hyukjae's room together, clumsily pulling off each other's clothes. It's nothing that they've done before but they get it right, after a while, and it isn't too difficult to get accustomed to someone's body rubbing against yours in the same sexual frenzy, and when they reach their first orgasm, it shocks them with the intensity of how good it feels.
Later, later, Donghae says, "Do you think you can write a song about this?"
"I will, and you'll sing it with me," Hyukjae says. "I can think of it already…" he hums a short tune, hums it again, pauses and hums it yet again, and Donghae sings to it, "I loved you first."
"You didn't," says Hyukjae, smiling, "but okay."
In the morning, they have sex again. The second time happens just as naturally as the first, and feels even better.
They know that their lives have changed.
… …
"You are my sweetest downfall…I loved you first…"
"Shut up," says Donghae, his fists clenched, "you don't have any right to sing that song…not after what you've done."
Hyukjae looks up at him from where he's kneeling on the grass. "Donghae, please…"
"Don't Donghae please me."
"I said I was sorry, what else can I…"
"Nothing," Donghae says, his rage raising the level of his voice. "There's nothing you can do to make this better. So fuck off."
He looks at Hyukjae, kneeling pathetically on the grass, so far gone that he doesn't seem able to stand up, and a wave of anger and hurt chokes him. "Let's get this straight," Donghae says. "You messed up our album…and got yourself arrested for being in some sick drugs party…and you think that just showing up here and singing me a song is going to make things okay?"
Hyukjae watches Donghae slam his way back into his house. He wants to shout, but I don't even remember how I ended up at that party, and I was the biggest asshole ever and I fucked things up and don't leave me. He looks around him instead. They're back in the little seaside town where it had all started. He'd spent a week in Seoul in their apartment waiting for Donghae to come home until he realised that Donghae wasn't. Then he'd booked his air ticket and hotfooted it down here to this dumpy place in pursuit of the only real thing he's ever belonged to in his life.
He looks up at the little house that Donghae grew up in and wonders if Donghae is crying inside.
His head is fuzzy from the aftereffects of the drugs, and he can't make himself think properly. He knows there's one way he can make things right, but he can't seem to identify it clearly.
He gives up and falls onto the grass, staring up at the sky. He suddenly remembers seventeen-year-old Donghae, sneaking looks at him over the guitar. Shining, beautiful, bright-eyed, baby-cheeked, hopeful. He stifles his sobs. Bites his lips until he tastes the blood and the stinging pain. The tears soak into the soil anyway.
… …
They're termed the biggest find in South Korean rock music history. The media fawns over what they call 'the perfect combination of talent and charm' while the fans alternately scream over the songs and the band members. Donghae knows that they've got a good thing going. Jongwoon doesn't seem to have found a limit to what he can express through his vocals, Sungmin's keyboard playing has been known to make even grown men tear up, and Hyukjae – ah, Hyukjae. Dynamite on the drums, brilliant on the guitar, the driving force behind their song compositions, and the most utterly breath-taking thing that Donghae has ever seen on stage.
And Donghae is the one who rakes in the serious money with the endorsement deals.
"Without Donghae, we wouldn't be earning half as much," Sungmin jokes. Sungmin has looked happier since they added a new member to their band, a Cho Kyuhyun who plays the harmonica with such passionate fervour and sings with so much harmonic beauty in his voice that Donghae sometimes feels hypnotised by him.
It feels like nothing can hold them back. Their first two albums have gone straight to number one, and their concerts are sold out. They've even received a request from a Japanese event organiser to hold a concert in Tokyo.
If only, Donghae thinks, someone had told him to pause and look closely at Hyukjae in the midst of all the excitement and glory.
… …
Hyukjae spends a night behind bars for being caught at the drugged out party. A lot longer on tabloid headlines.
He still can't figure out how he'd ended up at that party. He remembers meeting Woojin, his regular drugs supplier, for his top up. He remembers meeting a few guys from KBS for a few drinks. The next thing he knows, he's caught smoking crack in a roomful of mostly naked, equally drugged out people.
The fact that a significant number of those people are also celebrities doesn't dilute the news coverage of Hyukjae's scandal. He's the biggest name among the big names, and his picture appears most frequently on the front pages. He's condemned by every single imaginable authority on celebrity drug abuse. He's shouted at by his parents over the phone. He's rowed about a thousand times by his record company. Jongwoon throws a few things at him. Kyuhyun leaves Seoul immediately to avoid the fallout. Sungmin says he'll be there if he wants to talk, but lasts fifteen minutes at confidential conversation before he tells Hyukjae bluntly that he has to cut the drugs if he wants to proceed with life.
And Donghae – Donghae doesn't talk to him at all. Isn't even at home when he gets out from jail. Hyukjae spends one week dialling a phone number that never connects and rushing to the window every hour to see if Donghae might be driving into the parking lot. The apartment is pungent with the presence of Donghae; his clothes are in the cabinet, his shoes at the doorway, his magazines strewn on the dining table, his snacks in the kitchen, his DVDs piled up before the TV, his ice cream in the freezer; and yet Donghae isn't there. Hyukjae twists the ring on his left hand that he and Donghae had bought in Rome a couple of years ago and wonders if this is how divorce feels like, if there is any outlet to this overpowering guilt and fear.
For the first time, he fails to even strum the first note.
… …
The problem is, when they're twenty and cramming overnight for their exams and projects, Hyukjae is the single biggest delight and support of Donghae's life. He's the one making the coffee when they're so exhausted they can barely open their eyes, the one leaving funny encouraging messages around the apartment for Donghae to wake up to, the one proofreading Donghae's essays.
The problem is, when they're twenty-two, Hyukjae takes Donghae's breath away when they're performing together on stage.
The problem is, when they're twenty-three, the times that he spends in solitude with Hyukjae just hanging out, talking, laughing, watching movies, eating late night suppers, making love before and after concerts in hotel rooms, are the only times in his life that make any sense at all in the dizzy, crazily competitive, persistently fake, emotionally draining world of entertainment.
The problem is, when they're twenty-six, Hyukjae spends months scraping walls, painting, sandpapering the concrete floor, installing blinds, assembling furniture, and pulling together their new apartment into just the way they want it before they move in.
The problem is, that same year, they buy identical rings in Rome and pledge their marriage vows to each other in a quiet Italian hotel with their legs entangled.
The problem is, Hyukjae has been the joy and pivot of his life ever since he was a child.
Donghae wants to let go, but he can't.
… …
Hyukjae makes love to him three days before the crash and burn. He's in one of his lucid moods then, and he's more like the Lee Hyukjae that Donghae has known for years, the man that he loves enough to say the marriage vows to. It's late afternoon in the Seoul summer and their bodies are slick with sweat despite the fan going overhead. He's sitting on Hyukjae's lap with Hyukjae's cock deep within him, rolling his hips, and they're kissing languidly and luxuriantly, as though they have all the time in the world to spare.
"I love you," Hyukjae says. He looks tired, wrung out, but Donghae hears the sincerity in his voice. He kisses Hyukjae's forehead.
"I love you too."
They don't say anything else. These moments of normalcy are getting rarer and rarer, and Donghae can't bear to say a single wrong word. Already, already, he knows that he has to etch this hour firmly in his mind, though he has no inkling of the heartbreak lying ahead.
… …
"What are the worries that you have?"
"I don't know."
"Are you facing any problems with your family – or your relationship – or the band?"
"I don't know. Not really."
"Aren't you happy? You've gotten another number one."
"Yeah."
"There's really no need to take anymore drugs."
"I don't know about that."
"Are you scared of the competition?"
"Maybe."
"Haven't you gotten everything you wanted?"
"I don't know."
"If you don't kick your drug problem, your contract might be terminated."
Silence.
He doesn't know how to explain that he feels insecure, vulnerable, frightened without the energy and inspiration that the drugs give him. That he feels none of his lauded talent is real; everything is fuelled by the drugs. That if he stops, they'll all see him for what he truly is – an imposter who can barely write a tune or perform a song.
He doesn't know how to explain the constant fear inside him that the next album will flop; the constant stress of having to produce award-winning, chart-topping music.
He doesn't know how to explain how exhausted he really is.
So he doesn't explain at all.
… …
He checks himself into rehab when he gets back to Seoul. They put him on a one-on-one treatment programme. It takes him agonising weeks of overcoming his humiliation and trying to figure out his internal workings. Weeks of sharing the intimate details of his life with kindly strangers. Weeks of pain and sweating and feeling sick and desperate.
Then Donghae shows up one day out of the blue with no luggage, no fanfare, as though he's returning home from work like any other ordinary day. As though he'd never left.
"Why?" Hyukjae asks. He means to say, why, when I've been such an utter and unforgiveable shit to you?
"I heard that you've gone for treatment," Donghae says.
"…Yes."
"It'll be better with me here, won't it?"
It is. He gets accustomed to his treatments at the centre. To pulling back his hand the same minute he reaches out to grope for the pills. To facing up to his insecurities. He begins to remember how it was like before before, when he lived without knowing anything about drugs. He begins to feel sadness and vulnerability without the accompanying sensation of fear.
Donghae stays with him throughout, driving him back and forth and studying cooking shows to prepare proper meals for him. They begin to talk normally again, and one day in September Hyukjae wakes up to the realisation that he feels fine and the fruits Donghae has bought from the supermarket taste good, and his face is oily from sleep and his hair is standing up and he hasn't written a song in what seems like years, but he's okay with all that.
He waits four days, wanting to stretch out the time, not wanting to let go so quickly, before he berates himself for being a selfish asshole and forces himself to say to Donghae, "I'm okay now. I won't lapse. I can handle myself."
Donghae nods with a smile that turns into a puzzled frown when Hyukjae continues biting his lip.
"It's okay," Hyukjae says slowly, "for you to leave me now. I'll take it from here."
"What?"
Hyukjae gestures helplessly with his hands. "I can't thank you enough for being with me through this."
"Hyukjae." Donghae's standing up, peering at him through narrowed eyes. "You think I'm here just to help you kick your drug habit?"
"I've done…so many horrible things," Hyukjae says, not meeting his eyes. "Unforgiveable things. I can't…I can't make you stay with me."
"I think you're misunderstanding something," Donghae says. "I didn't come back because I was being generous. I came back because I'm your husband, you're married to me, you belong to me, and that's what people do when they belong to each other, they see each other through and they stay together."
He kneels down and takes Hyukjae's hands in his. Looks up at his face, at the break of tremulous joy in Hyukjae's eyes. "I know that it's you, now. The real you. You've done horrible things, yes, but you've killed the thing in you that made you do those things, and it's going to work. Us. Me and you. Life. It's going to work out now, baby."
There are tears in Hyukjae's eyes, but he manages a smile before that, a loving, tender, grateful smile, because he thinks that's what Donghae deserves first.
… …
Two years later, they stand on a stage again. The critics were scornful at first, the tabloids mocked their comeback, re-publishing the old scandal and speculating if Korean society will ever accept such troublemakers again. And it is rough, at first. Very.
But the band stands in support with him, Donghae is unflinchingly loyal by his side, and he writes some of the best songs he's ever written before. The songs are really what bring the fans back. Earn them grudging but positive reviews in the media. The PR department also emphasises all the talks he's given about drug abuse and the volunteer work he has done at rehab centres, but he doesn't like that too much, because it makes it seem like he did all that only for publicity when it was out of the bottom of his heart. But the public seems to understand that he's paying back, and they seem to forgive, eventually.
The second album after their comeback hits number three on the charts. The third album finally makes it to number one.
Hyukjae holds the newspaper clipping in his hands. Looks again and again at their album listed as number one and tells himself fiercely: no fucking this one up now. No fear, no stress, no running from vulnerability. Keep giving them what's inside you, naturally. No fucking up.
"No," says Donghae from behind, slipping an arm around his waist. "You aren't that person anymore, Hyukjae. You don't have to worry about a thing."
"How do you know what I was thinking?" Hyukjae asks with some astonishment.
"Guess it comes with the whole old married couple thing," Donghae laughs, and turns him around to kiss him properly.
He hasn't strayed from Donghae even in thought since their reconciliation.
… …
They sing their song under the glaring lights of the stage before thousands of fans; the song that they had written together after their first sexual encounter. Hyukjae has never dreamed, never thought that he could possibly deserve someone like Donghae, so faithful and cheerful and bright and loving. Yet Donghae came into his life like a gift, introduced him to music and uncovered his talent and fought his battles and forgave his unforgiveable transgressions. And maybe it's not about wondering how he deserves Donghae, but about cherishing who and what he has. He looks into Donghae's eyes when he sings, "I loved you first", and remembers that little nine year old boy who had brought him out of his grief for his sister. Even back then, he thinks, and smiles.
Hyukjae has broken his heart, but, unlike the refrain of most romantic tragedies, stitched it back and held it firmly together until it didn't need stitches anymore. Hyukjae is the one great passion of his life, the biggest joy and pride and satisfaction, and Donghae knows it was the right decision to trust in him and stay beside him. He can envision it now, the rest of their lives together filled with so much understanding and trust and faithfulness, and if there are ripples on the surface they can never break beyond just that, the surface.
Hyukjae may have loved him first, but it was Donghae who kept the love going.
Their eyes meeting at the final note of the song feels as intimate as any embrace.
end.
Yes, I too agree that there needs to be a rockstar pwp.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}