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“It’s not a big deal.” That’s what Donghyuck is telling everyone. He’s said it so many times. Hello. How are you? It’s not a big deal. It’s not. But everyone else seems to think it is.
“You broke up?” Renjun asks, his mouth curled in shock. It’s an ugly face. On a different day Donghyuck might tease him mercilessly about it, but today he stabs his plastic spoon too hard into his ice cream and it snaps.
“You already knew this.” It’s been about three weeks now. It’s not Donghyuck’s fault Renjun was in China and couldn't answer his phone. Not that Donghyuck had called him crying when it happened or anything. He’d just thought Renjun should know, is all. “I know for a fact that Chenle talked to you before I did.” Chenle had gone to China shortly after. As far as Donghyuck knows, he’s still there.
Renjun splays out on the bench, ice cream melting over his fist. “I just can’t believe it.”
“Not sure why.” Donghyuck hands Renjun a napkin. “Everyone thought we’d break up after two hours.”
“That was forever ago.”
One year, three months, blah blah days. Whatever. He’s not even sure when the exact breakup day had been. They hadn’t talked to each other in nearly a month before Donghyuck decided to cut the fraying string of their relationship. Chenle hadn’t implied he felt any differently. It was probably mutual.
Donghyuck glares at his ice cream. “Yeah, well…I need a new spoon.” He tosses the broken plastic at Renjun’s head and turns his back on the conversation.
Chenle had laughed when Donghyuck brought it up. He’d laughed. “Tell me why you really called.” Like it was a joke.
Whatever Donghyuck had been feeling, that had cemented everything. A stone in the stomach, chained to his ankles and thrown in the river. “Let’s meet at the park, like we used to. We need to talk.”
We need to talk had been enough to shock Chenle’s laughter to a halt. Donghyuck remembers that, too, all too clearly. “Is everything okay?” Slow.
“You’d know if you bothered to stop by,” Donghyuck had grumbled, a little too peeved to be nice. He sighed, rubbed the bridge of his nose so hard his under-eyes bruised. Or maybe he was just tired. “Sorry. Let’s just…let’s just do this in person, okay?”
Quiet. “Okay, Hyung.” Chenle never calls Donghyuck hyung. Not before they started dating, and not now, three weeks later. But he called him hyung then.
Okay.
“I feel like I haven’t seen you in so long,” Donghyuck whines to Mark. The summer is here and Mark is working full time at a publishing company. It’s making him more and more insane. During high season Donghyuck hadn’t seen Mark brush his hair a single time. He’d grown a mustache because he kept forgetting to shave. It was hideous. “We haven’t hung out since…I don’t even know.”
“Well, it’s just weird, now, you know?” Mark has the grace to sound embarrassed saying it. “I mean…we can’t just hang out like we used to.”
Donghyuck is cold to the core, dropped in ice. “Why not?” he says woodenly. He knows why.
“I mean, you know. With the whole breakup–”
“Did Chenle get you in the divorce?”
“What?” Mark panics. Donghyuck knows he panics because he hears Mark drop the phone on the floor, curse, apologize to God for cursing, and then hurriedly pick it up. “I don’t know a Chenle.”
“Sure you do,” Donghyuck quips easily. “Pale, sickly little gremlin that has tainted you against me.”
“You think he’s a sickly little gremlin?” Mark repeats dumbly. There’s muttering in the background. Suspicious muttering. Mark clears his throat. “I thought, uh, I thought you guys were still friends.”
Donghyuck almost says something too sharp. “Well. He hasn’t talked to me in over a month since we broke up. So that’s about two months total.”
“He, uh–”
“Save it.” Donghyuck is doing a lot of sighing lately. “We’re all going to hang out like we used to. I’ll get with Renjun and we’ll plan for a Friday, okay? Does that work for you?”
Mark makes a strange noise in the back of his throat. “Yessir.”
Donghyuck misses hanging out as a group more than anything else. He supposes that’s why people tell you not to date your friends – it’s inevitable for the mutuals to pick sides and everything gets fucked up. Although, quite frankly, Chenle shouldn’t be getting anyone in the divorce because Donghyuck was in the right. Still, he can’t blame anyone for feeling a little awkward about meeting up together.
By the time Friday comes around Donghyuck has purposefully not asked whether Chenle will be coming or not. He’s been spending a lot of time in China lately. If he were in town…but Donghyuck won’t hurt himself running down that train of thought. Better to let it fade into the background until he walks into the bar and sees for himself that Chenle is sitting at Mark’s side sipping gin and lemonade like a loser.
Donghyuck is happy to see he’s wrong. Chenle is actually drinking a Coke and Jack.
He ends up stopping at the bar for a shot before he makes his way to his table. “Dearly beloveds,” he says with ceremony. “We’ve gathered here today…in front of God and his company…to…fuck.” Donghyuck grimaces. The drink in his hand is sweaty. “I can’t remember the rest.”
Renjun boos him good-naturedly.
“I’m up for fucking,” Jaemin says casually, casting a lazy glance around the room and rolling his thumb around the side of his pint. “Who can we convince I’m charming?”
“The couple at the bar screams looking for a third,” Chenle says, and it’s the first time Donghyuck has heard his voice in what feels like years. He sounds heavy. His cheek is on his palm, elbows digging into the sticky vinyl of the table. His eyes catch Donghyuck’s for a split second and Donghyuck realizes he’s staring.
Donghyuck doubles down, stare shifting sharp, and Chenle smirks just enough to piss him off before turning back to the conversation at hand.
When they first got together, no one even believed them. “I thought Chenle was fucking Kun,” Jaemin had said.
“I thought Chenle was fucking Mark,” Renjun had said.
“I thought Donghyuck was fucking Mark,” Jeno had said, followed by Donghyuck pretending to vomit into his houseplant.
Looking back, maybe they were just never supposed to fit.
“How long are you in town?” Jisung is asking now, once Donghyuck is finished with his nostalgia.
Chenle leans back in his seat, head hitting the back of the booth. His hair is blond, black at the root, and he looks thinner than normal. In the dark, it’s hard to tell whether he looks like a sickly gremlin or not, but he looks tired. He’s probably been playing games for too late and doing whatever else he normally does. Donghyuck won’t pretend he hasn’t lurked to see Chenle online when he’s gaming.
He swallows a very large swig of his drink and pretends that’s why his eyes are watering. Maybe this was a mistake.
“I’ll be here for a while,” Chenle says vaguely with a grin. “I’ve got some things to tie up.”
Renjun looks at Donghyuck very carefully over his stupid pink drink. Donghyuck’s sure it’s strong so he reaches out and takes it for himself. Renjun doesn’t even protest. They’ll all end up drinking whatever is in front of them by the end of the night. Mark will be the only sober one and somehow Donghyuck still ends up being the one tucking people into the Uber.
Donghyuck wonders if Chenle will pick up his stuff from Donghyuck’s apartment while he’s here. He wonders how he’ll ever get all his shit out of Chenle’s house. Most of it is in China or buried in Chenle’s months old dirty laundry. “You’re heading back to China after, right?”
Chenle looks him dead in the eye. “Maybe,” he says, shifty.
Mark stands up suddenly, palms slamming on the table. “Hey, let’s go get another round. Anyone?”
“I’ll go,” Chenle says lightly, hand on Mark’s shoulder. “Be right back.”
Mark slumps in his seat as soon as Chenle is out of earshot, and Jaemin shoots Donghyuck an unimpressed look. “I’m being assaulted by the dark energy from Monica at the front desk.”
“What?” Donghyuck denies. “I’ve barely said anything.”
“You’re lucky he’s immune to your rotten vibes by now,” Renjun tells him, taking his drink back from Donghyuck’s hand and slamming it back. “He’d be dead otherwise.”
At the bar, the Bi-Curious Couple shoot Chenle elevator looks, and Donghyuck can admit he looks good leaning against the counter. He’s chatting with the bar-tender, too casual. He’s not known to be moody, but Donghyuck is hoping for more than an awkward glance and a tense conversation. He wants drama! He wants regret. He wants Chenle to look less good in those stupid ripped up pants.
The Lemon Drop Chenle brings back to the table is sweeter than the lemon Renjun’s trying to shove down Donghyuck’s throat. But he’d asked for this. It’s what Donghyuck wanted — a night together, like nothing happened.
It’s not a big deal, and Donghyuck will go to his grave swearing that it’s true.
It’s just Chenle and Donghyuck waiting at the metro. Chenle’s local haunt is on the other side of town but he still sidles up next to Donghyuck even though he’s headed down the opposite line. “It’s been a while,” he says, soft.
“You’ve been out of town a lot.” Donghyuck’s mouth tastes like fruit and a bad decision. “You gonna grab your stuff?”
Chenle isn’t one to fidget. Donghyuck kind of misses the kid who’d stumbled over his words, blushed in embarrassment but never let it stop him. He’s too comfortable now. It’s distracting. It sucks. He pauses, and that’s as much of a sign of discomfort as any. “I can.” It’s too thick.
They share a train car and Chenle spends the entire time staring out the window even when all they can see is brick.
Donghyuck wants to say he’s boxed up all of Chenle’s stuff already, after a month of bitterness, but he hasn’t in any way that matters. There’s a box with some of Chenle’s books, a single dirty sock, some notebooks, but there’s a hoodie in Donghyuck’s closet and another toothbrush in the bathroom. God. Donghyuck opens his door and wonders if Chenle can tell he’s still fucked up about everything.
Chenle toes off his shoes and just says, “Sorry,” so maybe he can.
Donghyuck just starts throwing things in the box.
When he’s done scouring the bedroom he comes out and sees Chenle going through the items in the box. Donghyuck has a small figure of a sun carved of jade in his hands and sees Chenle drop a stuffed bear back in the box. It’s from their first real date. “What are you doing?”
Chenle just stares at him.
Donghyuck quietly slips the figure into the box. Their elbows brush. “I was in China so much because I’m selling the house,” Chenle says between the clock’s ticks.
“Okay.” It doesn’t matter now.
“I was gonna—” Chenle cuts himself off with a deep breath. He grabs the box. “Thanks. I’ll go.” He’s back at the front door before Donghyuck has decided whether he cares or not. Donghyuck quietly watches Chenle put his shoes on, balancing the box on his hip, and he watches Chenle slip out the door, shutting it tight behind him.
And then he’s alone.
They’d never turned on the lights. It’s dark and lonely. Donghyuck pulls his phone out of his pocket before he can stop himself.
“—ello?”
“What were you gonna do?” Donghyuck demands.
Chenle’s breathing is labored. He’s probably all the way down the steps by now. “I was gonna…does it matter?”
Donghyuck walks back to his door, fingers fiddling with the lock, in out. “Maybe.”
Silence. “I was gonna ask you to move in together here. It was supposed to be a surprise.”
“Oh.”
“I thought…well. I fucked up. That’s all.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, well…bye.” The phone doesn’t click off.
Donghyuck is standing alone in his dark, lonely apartment thinking about the hoodie he’d left in his closet and wondering whether it matters. “How long are you in town?” he asks eventually. “You were vague before.” He goes out to his window and see’s the rooted blond of Chenle’s stupid head standing still by the lamp post.
“I don’t know. I didn’t come back to fix things or to…I don’t know.” Chenle looks back towards Donghyuck’s apartment window and sees him between the curtains. “Hi.”
“Hi.” Donghyuck swallows thickly. “What did you come back for?”
“It didn’t feel like things were finished.” Chenle turns to the window fully, looking up at Donghyuck from the ground. “Thought I’d try to figure out why.”
Donghyuck pushes his window open and calls out — “You’re so fucking stupid.”
“Shut up!” Chenle yells. He’s smiling. “Some people are sleeping.”
“I’ll call you later.” Donghyuck shuts the window with a slam and hangs up the phone. Horrible. Chenle is horrible. “Have a terrible night,” he tells the lamp post, and he hears laughter headed for the metro stop. He sits by the window watching Chenle leave for too long for it not to matter. His phone is heavy in his hand, and if he pulls the hoodie out of his closet and stays up too late thinking too hard, no one knows.
If he adds a heart back beside Chenle’s contact name, it’s not a big deal.