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Donthyuck isn't truly safe; That's the one fallacy that comes along with Renjun. Moving in with him was Donghyuck’s attempt at some sort of normalcy. He realizes the facade early on, knows with the way he’s still so jumpy, too paranoid at the smallest sounds.
He can feel the itch whenever he showers, that urge to yank the curtains open and peek outside of his shower, water scorching hot and skin numb, barely able to make out the shadows hidden in the steam. He can feel it when he’s bent over the kitchen sink, dutifully washing his dishes, never fully paying attention to a chore, but always thinking of his surroundings.
Safety doesn't come in numbers, and it never has.
Having Renjun around is somewhat of a distraction of sorts if nothing else. It’s infinitely better than being alone on the seventh floor of an apartment building that feels as though its walls are out to get you.
He’s followed by an overbearing sense of ruin, jet-black poltergeists, and an eerie wailing when he walks the halls past three in the morning. Renjun tells him it’s the lack of sleep, that Donghyuck is the worst insomniac he’s ever had the pleasure of knowing. Renjun doesn’t know the entire story, and Donghyuck wants to keep it that way.
Renjun leaves for work in the afternoon, brisk air sweeping through the apartment as he holds it open with one foot. He tells Donghyuck goodbye and reminds him to eat. It’s almost motherly the way he does it. Sometimes Donghyuck has the urge to ask him to stay, to keep him company for a while more.
However, there’s something that comes after. When the door locks shut and the only sound around him is the pulse of his heartbeat, leaving Donghyuck to wallow in his despair for the remainder of the night. Renjun quietly comes home as the sun rises, gently closing the door behind himself and sliding his shoes off. This is their routine every day.
So, this morning is like any other. Donghyuck, sprawled across the cushions of the couch, listening to the birds chirp outside of their window, the tv muted long before. He doesn't need to turn around to know Renjun is frowning, he can hear it in his tone when he speaks, the sound of keys jingling as he sets them on the marbled countertop.
“Hyuck,” He calls out carefully, padding through the room until he stops behind the back of the couch. Donghyuck buries himself deeper into the cushions, there’s no way he can hide the dark circles forever set under his eyes. “Are you sleeping?”
Donghyuck groans, shifts in his self-made cocoon, and pulls the blankets tighter. Renjun rounds the corner then, a small sigh as he kneels at Donghyuck’s side. “You stayed up again.” He guesses, a cold hand reaching out to etch an indecipherable pattern into his leg. He only shifts at the touch and tries to smile from where his face is hidden. Renjun doesn’t smile back.
“I was studying.” Donghyuck lies, and the feeling of Renjun’s hand on him is a soothing one. He feels it tighten and then release, slowly moving up his leg, a gentle squeeze to his thigh. Renjun doesn’t believe him, he couldn’t, not with the way he huffs in response, unconvinced.
“You’ve been studying,” Renjun repeats to him, leaning in to finger the top of Donghyuck’s blankets away from his face, gently so. Donghyuck doesn’t fight it, not with Renjun. He lets the warmth of the blankets be tugged away from his face, a sudden gust of cold air replacing it. When Renjun gets his eyes on him, he frowns, reaching out to gently cup Donghyuck’s face. He pouts and Donghyuck’s heart thuds in his chest “Oh, you must think I'm the dumbest person in the world, Donghyuck.”
No, he doesn’t think that; never could. If anything, Renjun is the most perceptive person he’s ever met in his nineteen years of life. Not a single living soul could trick Renjun and Donghyuck is a dumbass for trying.
“Maybe you are.” He huffs.
“Why aren’t you sleeping?”
He doesn’t answer.
Donghyuck is one haunted individual, mentally and physically. He’s been one since the age of seven; After fooling around with a childhood friend in their grandparent's basement. They’d stumbled upon a lot of things down there that day, a dreary and damp cellar, unfinished and concrete cracked. Donghyuck had touched many of the dusty trinkets. He hadn’t known it then, but bit by bit, he’d been the bridge for something larger, something darker.
Growing up is normally this slow, drawn-out process. It’s something that takes time, support, and even love. He had thought about it a lot when he was younger. Donghyuck always imagined easing into his teen years, being thrown into adulthood with a pat on the back by his parents. That’s how his favorite movies portrayed it, anyway. Realistically, that isn’t how it goes for Donghyuck; and certainly not for his friend, who dies of self-inflicted asphyxia before his fourteenth birthday.
Eight years of suffering. It was an unexpected turn, the rubber tires in Donghyuck’s life smoking a dull grey, wheels hot and sticky.
People questioned it right from the beginning; Asking just how a small boy of his stature could strangle himself in his bedroom, with no signs of depression. To the town and his family, he seemingly took his own life for no reason.
Donghyuck always had his suspicions.
He remembers a conversation they’d had a week prior to his death, one of spectral monsters and shadow people that follow you in the night. A fairytale, it had seemed, in Donghyuck’s mind. He’d asked Donghyuck–voice at a whisper, eyes droopy–if he’d thought it was true or a work of fiction. Perhaps he had been being tested then, in an attempt to see if he could be trusted with the truth.
Donghyuck remembers laughing it off. But he’s all too familiar with it now.
He remembers watching his friend lose his sanity, day by day. The years of watching him change for the worse right in front of his eyes. Donghyuck was blind to the obvious then. He remembers the spike in paranoia. He remembers that last day with him, how he stopped showing up to school.
His family told outsiders they’d begun homeschooling, that the public education system just wasn’t enough for their boy, their brightest. It was a mask, a thin veil that Donghyuck could see right through. No one but him knew the real purpose of his absence. They were hiding him. They were concealing the bruised wrists and pounds of lost weight, the mood swings, and uncanny strength. When Donghyuck texts his friend at night, he’s told that he’s scared, that he doesn’t know what’s happening, and that he needs Donghyuck’s help.
That was five days before Donghyuck would be dressed in black at his burial, eyes puffy and nose red. His mother hugged him and told him it'll all be okay, that he’s young and he’ll move on. He’s told that his friend is in a better place, that he’s happy and watching over him from the stars.
His mother wouldn’t ever know, but he hadn’t moved on. Everything he remembers about his childhood friend had attached itself to him, a leech in the shape of a thirteen-year-old boy. He lives with this, the same shadow he’d been told about, the same desire to hurt, and to melt away into nothing. To maim and injure.
Donghyuck is a liability in disguise.
He’s being used, a life source that grew from depression and pity, pure unhappiness and instability. It’s easy for that darkness to burn itself into Donghyuck’s side like a cattle’s branding, and it does. It hurts, it burrows so deep and so painful that some days when Renjun is gone, Donghyuck begs for death. He cries and cries at the constant searing of his skin, the perpetual feeling of dread that hangs over his shoulders like a black cape.
Sometimes it’s easily hidden from prying eyes, Donghyuck works from home and Renjun—in the beginning—would do his best to never intrude. Other times he wears it on his sleeve, the way he hardly talks, the way his eyes darken. He can’t hide it forever. He wakes up not remembering the hours before.
Other times, when he disappears in the night, only to return days later with a broken memory, he walks through the front door, and Renjun is curled up on the sofa, crying, and Donghyuck’s heart pulls in a way it never had in the past. When he carries himself inside, legs heavy and arms weak, that’s when he knows he’s disappointed Renjun again, hurting him beyond repair.
“Where the hell have you been!”
“I thought you were hurt. I thought that something horrible happened to you—that I'd never be able to find you if something had.”
Those nights are gut-wrenching, and the guilt Donghyuck carries in full nearly consumes him. He consoles Renjun and tells him that it’s going to be okay. It’s all so reminiscent of the past, a sick joke written just for him to read over and over. He holds Renjun when he cries for him, just like his mother had done, just as he’d done for his childhood friend.
He feels sorry for Renjun; because this Deja Vu isn’t just coincidental.
Donghyuck is dying too. A mirror of eight years before. His time is almost up.
It’s taken hold of him so firmly that there’s nothing he can attempt to do but enjoy the rest of his time in Renjun’s arms. Remember the warmth of his skin when he holds him on those bad nights, the smile on his face when he laughs at his favorite movie.
Donghyuck won’t be here forever, and that’s why Renjun’s safety is a misconception.
Donghyuck is fading, ever so slowly, painfully. Renjun will be without him, though not for long. This is what Donghyuck feels the most guilty for; when it’s done with him, Renjun is just around the corner, another soul that his demons can feed on.
When Renjun comes in closer, he doesn’t seem mad, at least. He sighs and Donghyuck closes his eyes. He’s so tired, though he wants to see Renjun for as long as he can. He does try to fight it, that feeling of dread that overwhelms him when Renjun lifts the blankets more and makes a noise. He wants Donghyuck to scoot over, and when he does, Renjun slides right in, born to fit.
He smells like his work, and the scent of alcohol lingers in his hair when it hits his nose. Renjun is warmth, the last bit of it that Donghyuck will ever get to experience. He clings onto that, and musters the strength to haul an arm over his waist and pull him into his chest, hold him close and breathe in that smell; the smell of life and innocence that sticks to all the parts of Renjun’s hair and skin. He’s so soft, malleable.
That is what Donghyuck is trying to protect, his soul. His will to live.
He’s figured it out—thinks he has. He could save Renjun, attempt to keep him happy for as long as he can. He thinks, maybe that could work, that all Renjun will need is a good distraction, just like Donghyuck.
“I’m calling off later,” Renjun says. He speaks gently, and he must know how much Donghyuck hates that. The plethora of times they’ve argued over it before shifting through his memories. Renjun needs to work, needs to make something of himself. He shouldn’t be staying home for something like this, not for Donghyuck.
He has to have a life or at least some semblance of it. He has to move on, forget Donghyuck and the pain he drags home every day in the form of weights around his ankles. Renjun, unknowingly, will open himself up all too willingly. A bright red and white bullseye for Donghyuck’s accompanying demons.
He never wanted this, never meant for it. Every day that he breathes the regret of knowing he’s done this to Renjun fills his mind. He wishes he could rewind time. Avoid meeting Renjun. It would’ve been for the better.
“I know you’ve been sick,” He says. “You suck at hiding it.”
Donghyuck chuckles.
“Yea?” He answers, breath slow and measured. He wheezes as quietly as possible. Renjun doesn’t turn to look at him, certainly, it’s too painful for Renjun to see Donghyuck this way, to watch him slip away. Donghyuck is thankful though, he doesn’t know if he can bear seeing the look in Renjun’s eyes.
Renjun just hums and pushes himself back into Donghyuck’s chest a little more.
“Mhm. I’m going to nurse you back to health,” He states, so matter-of-factly, that Donghyuck is almost inclined to believe him. That—if it were Renjun taking care of him and watching over him—surely he would recover, somehow. “You’ll be better in no time.”
Then, he’s giggling, Donghyuck’s fingers press into his waist, thumb folding into his skin and hiking up the hem of his shirt a bit. He savors every moment of Renjun. His heart swells as he watches him turn in his grasp, now face-to-face. His breath hits his cheeks, and it smells like their toothpaste, sweet and spicy cinnamon.
This kills Donghyuck, figuratively and literally. It stings worse than any bee, ten times more so. These could be his last moments with his friend, though he's only known him for no more than a year and a half, Renjun means a lot to him, and—from how Renjun has continuously reminded—Donghyuck means the same.
Yet, he knows there’s nothing Renjun can do, but he’d never say that, never hurt Renjun in that way. Not on purpose at least. If Renjun wants to be blind to reality, he's going to let it go on for as long as he can until it’s impossible to ignore.
This could be the worst way to go about it, dragging out this sort of pain is psychotic in its own right. But Donghyuck is just as inexperienced as any other twenty-two-year-old. Maybe even more so. And no matter how much he tries to hide behind that same veil, he's scared beyond belief.
“Just like when we first met?” Donghyuck asks, eyes closed. He feels something warm in the pit of his stomach as he thinks about the first time they’d met.
Renjun was late to an afternoon class, he’d bumped into Donghyuck so hard that his phone shattered right there on the cement, his shoulder colliding with Donghyuck’s lower lip. It wasn’t a big deal in Donghyuck’s eyes, but as soon as Renjun looked up—eyes big and round—he yelped, a slew of apologies to follow.
“Oh my god. I’m so sorry!” His small hands reached out, a mind of their own before he pulled them back. “You’re bleeding—I’m so sorry.”
“You’re fine,” Donghyuck assures. “It’s fine. See? Just a scrape.” He swipes at his bottom lip with the leather of his sleeve.
Somehow, Renjun convinces Donghyuck to follow him to his dormitory, rambling about how sorry he is, and how he has a first aid kit in his room. Donghyuck had sworn he was fine, that there was no need.
That same afternoon, Donghyuck had walked back to his apartment complex with a pink, hello kitty bandaid right on the bottom corner of his lip.
“Just like then.” Renjun answers in a whisper. He’s smiling, and Donghyuck can’t help but smile too. He pulls Renjun closer, hands comfortable on his waist.
“I guess I'll be alright then after all, won’t I?” He teases and Renjun giggles. It’s such a pretty sound. A sound Donghyuck has grown to adore for all it’s worth. One he will miss with his entire being.
Even with the heartache that comes with his situation, there’s a light, though it’s dim. He thinks about the freedom that presents itself along with death, a weightless feeling that apparitions seem to speak highly of. No worry, no pain. He hopes that’s for him, he prays it greets him with open arms just like the other’s.
Still and all, there’s a pang of deep, horrible guilt that comes with it too. Eventually, after he's dead and gone—his body buried next to his mother’s—Renjun will mourn his loss along with the rest of his friends and family. He may tumble into that same pit of loneliness, just like those before him. Because of Donghyuck, Renjun will suffer alone, suffocating under the weight of losing a loved one.
He holds Renjun closer, tighter. A premature attempt to protect him from what’s to come. Renjun has no idea, his guilelessness allows him to overlook the truth.
Donghyuck’s anguish; it will link itself to Renjun, that same disparity that clings to Donghyuck even now. It will eat him alive, skin and bone for everything he’s worth.
He tries to hold on to some of that hope Renjun speaks about so fondly. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he knows he’ll be reunited with Renjun anyhow. On another plane, in a different existence than the world they live in now. No matter how long it takes, or the pain which is evoked on the both of them, soon, they’ll be together for eternity. That’s the one thing that has him looking forward to the future, makes him happy: the fact that he will be beside Renjun, in his version of forever.