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Donghyuck has his good days and his bad days. There’s no cycle nor pattern to them, which is probably the worst part. Sometimes the bad days can last for weeks on end, broken up by a few good days, and then sometimes he’d last three months without having a bad day.
On good days he can function. He wakes up without a nightmare triggering it, regulating body temperature is done unconsciously, and he chooses to go to the cafeteria with the rest of his classmates over sitting by himself. Sometimes, he’ll catch himself smiling. On his best days he’ll laugh.
Bad days are unbearable. The phantom throb underneath the skin around his chest burns like a thousand suns. Any food recently introduced to him feels like lead in his stomach. Donghyuck finds himself straying back to old regulated diets because it’s all he’d known throughout his childhood, even if they make him want to throw up.
The only thing worse than the physical pain is the emotional pain. Sleep is safe. Dreamless nights are the best ones even if they are few and far between, but worse than the nightmares are the sober moments before blacking out. It’s a scary place; the pitch black of his dorm room beyond his eyelids morphing back into his childhood bedroom as the bleating cries of his mother fill his head. Sometimes he can hear the thump of phantom beatings. When he shifts beneath the blanket it mimics the fleeting touches his sister would give when his father was gone; the only familial contact Donghyuck has had in what feels like the last lifetime.
Touch was never without negative connotations. Touch was a fist lodging itself into the space between his ribs, cracking his sternum, hitting with enough force to drive him into unconsciousness. It was hands fixing his posture, heat against the deepest bruises despite his complaints. Love is faraway faces, siblings watching him from outside their bedroom doors, pain twisting their features. Family is hospital, constantly having to live up to unbearable expectations, never welcoming and always distant.
The water in the shower has lost its heat. He closes his eyes under the beat of the spray, hoping it would carry the weight in his chest with it. He’s so cold. Donghyuck wants to cry to warm his face up.
He dresses wordlessly. The damp hair on the back of his neck curls at his nape. Donghyuck leaves the dorms calmly, avoiding waking any of his classmates up, because at times like this he doesn’t think he could handle confrontation.
His boarding school is a ghost town at night. Street lamps provide little light, casting the campus in a dusty orange glow. Donghyuck stands on the steps of the dorm’s entrance, letting the wind blow through his fringe as it skims the water from his forehead. Even if he’s only been at the dorms for less than a month, it’s an Eden that isn’t quite home but more welcoming than any place he’s stayed at in the past.
Even when the leaves change colors and the dirt hardens to ice beneath his feet the one thing that never seems to change is the moon. It’s full and white tonight; beautiful sitting among the stars. It seems to light up the campus better than any of the streetlights do. Donghyuck sits on a bench made in memory of an ex-student counting the clusters of dandelions wilting instead of getting frustrated with himself.
It’s not that Donghyuck’s blind to the fact he’s struggling. He knows that soon enough the lack of sleep will catch up with his studies and what little social life he has, but confronting the issue will only have others worry about him, and for all that Donghyuck’s beginning to learn that he quite likes having friends, he isn’t ready to have them pity him. He doesn’t know how to respond to that type of emotion yet and doesn’t feel like learning anytime soon.
The sound of footsteps to the side draws him from his stupor. He looks up from where he had been staring at the dandelions to a hooded figure shuffling down the path, having the decency to at least look apologetic for drawing attention to himself.
“Sorry,” Sungchan says as quietly as he can, bowing at the waist. “May I join you?”
Donghyuck stares dumbly at the sight in front of him. He doesn’t reply, and in return, it only makes Sungchan squirm.
“Please?” he tries, still slightly bowed, and now turning red from the blood-rush to his head.
“Sorry,” Donghyuck blurts. He shuffles over despite there already being room on the bench, and nods towards the spot next to him. “Yeah, go ahead.”
Sungchan fills the space. He shuffles his feet around as they both linger in a silence that Donghyuck doesn’t have enough experience to know how to break. He wrings his hands together and watches Sungchan from the corner of his eyes; the tip of his nose has turned raspberry pink and from what Donghyuck can see the skin around his knuckles has reddened from the cold, too. He opens his mouth to say something, to break the awkward tension that’s growing between them, but Sungchan beats him to it. “I might as well be honest,” he says, “I’ve noticed you coming out here for the last few nights. The shower in your room makes the pipes creak when the hot water runs.” Sungchan smiles. “And it wakes me up.”
“Yes. No. Uh.” He coughs into his fist. “Pardon?”
“Here.” Already unzipped, Sungchan reaches into his backpack and takes out a thermos filled to the brim with something warm and sweet smelling. “It’s hot chocolate. By the way—that wasn’t a complaint or anything, I was already awake—you know with exams and stuff, that was kinda rude. I’m really sorry.”
Donghyuck blinks at him, mouth just slightly agape, and Sungchan flushes with embarrassment. He reaches out to cup his hands over Donghyuck’s and guides the hot chocolate up to his mouth. “Drink some if you’re going to stare like that.”
He looks down into the thermos and takes a careful sip. “It’s sweet,” he comments, curious, before taking another sip at Sungchan’s encouraging nod. When he looks back up, Sungchan at least looks a little mollified. His fingers are laced together in his lap to warm them, and the wrinkles on his forehead have softened. “Would you like any?”
“No thanks. Sugar will just make me really hyper—but thank you for offering.”
“It is yours.”
“It’s yours now. I prefer to just have water before bed, anyway.”
Donghyuck takes another sip before capping the thermos. “Thanks.”
Sungchan gives him a side-glance and smiles. “You can forget how cold night is during the day, right?” Sungchan says. “It’s only moments like this that you can remember. That’s why I brought out hot chocolate. It warms you from the inside-out.”
Donghyuck gives a small nod. “I don’t really notice, but I guess I get what you mean.”
“That’s because you self-regulate,” Sungchan points out. “Hot chocolate is more of a deep warmth, y’know?” A pause. “I mean, from what I’ve studied it carries an emotional value to it aside from physical. Like how it’s offered in hospitals and on Christmas Eve and relates to happy memories, so where it does warm you, it also brings with it good feelings and ease.”
“You’ve.. researched it?”
“Well I’d say the word ‘research’ is a little too generous. It was for a social studies project—where you look into coping mechanisms of victims who’ve survived natural disasters.” He seems to catch what he says and is quick to cover his tracks. “Not that I’m in any position to say how you feel or don’t feel, or to call you a victim, of course! I’ve just—well, I’ve seen you come out here for the past few nights—not that I've been watching you or anything, I swear. It’s just sometimes I’m studying or on Youtube and hear movement from someone and think it might be a robber, so I double-check and one time it was you so I assumed that the other times I’ve heard someone up late it was you too, you know?”
Donghyuck merely stares at him. His mouth drops back to an ‘o’ shape, which only seems to fuel Sungchan’s panic. Donghyuck looks for the right words to comfort him, that it wasn’t that creepy he’d been watching him come outside to brood every now and again, but he hasn’t had enough experience with people outside of his intimate family and beyond that Sungchan is a complete enigma. Donghyuck wouldn’t be able to reassure him even if he tried. “And I thought ‘Hey, maybe he just needs someone to keep him some company’, y’know? Because sometimes I can’t sleep and it makes me feel better when there’s someone with me to help me fall back asleep. Not that I’m insinuating we should go back to the dorm and sleep together.”
“It’s fine,” Donghyuck interjects. He hesitates before handing the flask over and nudging it onto Sungchan’s cold hands. “Maybe it’s best if we both share this, after all.”
Sungchan doesn’t look like he realises he’s been interrupted until the warmth of the thermos touches his knuckles. They’re redder than they were earlier and in a bold move, Donghyuck reaches out to gently unfurl his fingers. They twitch once before relaxing around the metal, and Donghyuck watches a few goosebumps prickle up on his knuckles at the warmth radiating from the thermos. “Thank you,” he says quietly, “I needed that.”
“The drink?”
“The interruption,” Sungchan corrects. His feet shuffle a bit before he unscrews the cap and takes a sip. “You’re just—pretty intimidating. I hope that doesn’t come across as insulting, because it really isn’t meant to. I just babble when I’m nervous, and you’re just—really cool, you know?”
Donghyuck wouldn't say he has any experience in making friends. He’s talked to a few other classmates, but nothing consistent enough to be called a friendship. Sungchan, on the other hand, seems to be a magnet for strangers to introduce themselves to him. It’s a sight Donghyuck can’t help but be jealous of; to see him interact with people he hardly knows and to make them laugh after just a few minutes together. For all that Donghyuck’s aware of his own strengths he’s painfully aware of his own weaknesses, and where he seems to shy away Sungchan only blooms. It’s to his own surprise, then, that he startles a laugh out of him when he asks, “Is that a pun?”
Sungchan snorts. His hand, now warmed to a soft pink slaps over his mouth to stop most of the hot chocolate that spurts out. “Hyung!” he cries, louder than intended. “You really are funny. I knew it!”
He flushes with pride. Donghyuck shifts in his seat unsure how to contain the ball of energy that’s threatening to burst him from the inside out, and tries his very best not to think about how he’s just made someone laugh for the first time. Sungchan’s hand, scarred with bitten fingernails, reaches up to wipe his grin and his chin of hot chocolate and bursts into a conversation of how he had accidentally once made cereal with expired milk, and Donghyuck finds himself listening with adept attention even over the most mundane stories. By the time the rest of the world wakes up, Donghyuck catches himself mid-yawn for what feels like the first in months, and ends up falling asleep the second he hits his bed once he and Sungchan are sent back to the dorms by one of the park’s rangers. His sleep is dreamless, and he wakes up half a day later with enough energy to run a marathon.
It’s three weeks later when they stumble into one another again. It’s even colder this time, and the trees have nearly completely lost their leaves. It’s not a surprise Sungchan’s wearing only a hoodie despite the drop in temperature. He catches Donghyuck’s curious gaze from halfway down the path, puffing out a laugh and totters over. He doesn’t ask before sitting on the bench this time, tipping back to look at Donghyuck with a twinkle in his eye despite the heavy bags beneath them. “Second times a charm.”
Donghyuck’s mouth twitches into the faintest of smiles. “Can’t sleep?”
“Nope,” Sungchan pops the p when he says it and tucks his fingers in between his thighs to warm them. There’s no scarf today, but he’s pulled the drawstrings on his hoodie right enough to substitute for one. “How about you?”
“Yeah,” Donghyuck says, “me too.”
Donghyuck wonders if the nightmares have begun to lessen because of the invitation he had to eat lunch with Sungchan and Renjun. His sleep is dreamless and pleasant and Donghyuck finds himself looking forward to the evenings these days, even despite the odd one or two nights where he’s woken by phantom pains of boiling water and fists against his skin.
They both find themselves talking until the thermos goes cold and the blackbirds sing. When Donghyuck falls to his bed he sleeps until noon, and subsequently misses his morning classes. He later finds himself and Sungchan both asking Renjun for his class notes at the same time.
He wonders if he’s become too complacent. Even when the warning signs were there一the tight chest and the muscle spasms and the migraines Donghyuck had ignored them all in favor of powering through and making it past Christmas without a hiccup. Even his sleep schedule had been getting better, he still catches himself daydreaming of holidays at home and Christmasses with gifts quietly exchanged between him and his sisters, and wonders if that’s the triggering point for his only severe nightmare in the last few months.
Donghyuck shoots up in bed a week before school ends and finds himself clutching over his heart like he’s going into cardiac arrest. His muscles ache like they’re cramping up, paralysing him from the waist down before the adrenaline begins to wear and find himself clutching the wood flooring instead of what he thought was grass.
He meets a pair of startled brown eyes as soon as he reaches the stairwell.
Sungchan’s hair is messy under his beanie, and the purple beneath his eyes is ghastly. Donghyuck draws to a stop just shy of the top step and holds onto the railing, feeling a bit boneless.
“We seem to keep bumping into each other at the most convenient times,” he says. His voice falls a bit loud on his own ears but Sungchan doesn’t seem to notice. He looks tired, and only now does Donghyuck take into consideration that maybe Sungchan has always been awake at this hour, too, and not just because Donghyuck had woken him. His skin is dry and there’s a few dark spots on his chin where his complexion would otherwise be clear. “Are you okay?”
Sungchan blinks at him, registering the question after a delayed moment. He offers a weak smile and nods his head towards the stairs. “Can we go on a walk together?”
It takes Donghyuck by surprise even though it shouldn’t because every time they’ve met at times like this it’s always panned out the same. Sungchan’s always been friendly so Donghyuck merely nods dumbly, a fool to deny his offer. They both stare dumbfounded at one another before continuing their descent down the stairs and into the outdoors.
“Cold,” Sungchan mutters, stuffing his fingers into the pockets of his jacket as a particular heavy gust of wind crosses campus.
“At least you remembered your coat this time.”
Sungchan’s eyes roll at that, despite the grin on his lips. His fist comes out to playfully punch Donghyuck on the bicep, but with years of ingrained reflexes muscle-memory drives him to catch it in the open palm of his hand. He doesn’t realise what just happened until he registers the cold skin of Sungchan’s fist slightly trapped beneath the vice-tight grip of his fingers, and only then does Donghyuck reel back a few steps, coloring in mortification. “Sorry. Oh god, sorry.”
“It’s fine!” Sungchan quickly assures, even though Donghyuck can see that it really isn’t. His hands still hanging in the air from where Donghyuck had blocked the punch. The ground tilts beneath him and Donghyuck can feel himself drawn back into his shell, the urge to desperately flee Sungchan’s company clawing up his throat. He has never wanted to embarrass himself in front of Sungchan; the only friend he’d made. “Donghyuck, hey.”
There’s a gentle pressure against his fingers. Donghyuck looks down past his tunnel vision and sees that Sungchan has taken one of his hands between his own. He’s looking up in earnest. Sungchan squeezes his hand between his own. “Come on, let’s take a walk.”
Donghyuck knees almost buckle when he steps. Sungchan is patient, never questioning why Donghyuck has reacted so severely to a simple block, and only making light conversation when deemed appropriate. They trail the edges of the small wooded area surrounding the dorms arm in arm, where Sungchan still has Donghyuck’s hand cupped awkwardly between his two, but he doesn’t dare to remove it. Donghyuck is sure it’s the only thing keeping him grounded right now.
He moves on autopilot, letting Sungchan guide him to the bench to sit. He can’t bring himself to speak.
Sungchan smooths his thumb across the back of Donghyuck’s hand, across veins and tendons, and quietly shifts towards him. “Hyung.”
“Yes?”
“You..” Sungchan trails off. He worries his lip between his teeth, glancing off anxiously to the side, before looking back to Donghyuck, who actually meets his gaze this time. “Have you done the English homework?”
It’s awful. Probably the worst thing Sungchan could’ve said at that moment, but Donghyuck thinks that even though it doesn’t hold any reassuring value nor intent, it manages to cheer him up more than any other question could have, and for that reason alone it startles a laugh out of him that might’ve woken up the entire dorms.
Sungchan’s face reddens. “Hyung!” he hisses, slapping his hands over his mouth to try and contain the ugly laughs that sputter out his mouth, but gives up after a moment and joins in with his own giggles. His laughs border on hysterical, carrying the weight of evenings spent in the throes of anxiety and panic attacks, and Donghyuck finally finds himself free of weight, happy to just sit here and laugh with Sungchan about absolutely nothing.
“Stop laughing at me,” Sungchan cries, wiping his eyes with the heel of his palm once he regains control of himself. “Stop it.”
“I can’t believe you just asked me that.” Donghyuck, similar to Sungchan, uses his sleeve to dry his own eyes. A hoarse bubble of laughter works its way back up and Sungchan joins in as they try to hush one another before getting sent back to the dorms. “I can not believe you just asked me that.”
“You still haven’t answered the question!”
“Have I finished the—,” Sungchan breaks out into pained laughter, and Donghyuck follows along, snickering until his abs hurt in the best way possible and he’s warm from the inside out.
He knows he’s healing because touch is no longer something he fears. As he holds his hands out and receives Sungchan’s cold pair after suggesting he self-regulate both of them, he produces warmth with the intention to heal and not hurt. Bit by bit he feels the goosebumps settle and his muscles relax. He swaps hands and heats his other from the outside-in, resting his head on Sungchan’s shoulder until he feels his eyes start to droop closed. They make it up to the common room this time and fall asleep mid-way to letting the kettle boil, two mugs filled with hot chocolate powder left on the sideboard as Donghyuck dozes off in his coat with a weight of another head rested on the top of his and a hand between his own.