Chapter Text
Lee Donghyuck had asked Huang Renjun a question.
And Huang Renjun had certainly heard it, he just hadn't given it much thought at all.
"Do you want to hang out sometime—go out or something?"
The dining hall had been awfully loud, and although the mere descriptor of loudness was not an unusual thing, the volumetric amount of said loudness certainly was. The atypical amount of noise should have probably tipped Renjun off, hinted to him something was up, but he was too preoccupied with the issues of his friend in front of him. Shotaro had just been cured from the not-an-actual-love-but-functionally-one potion that had spelled him. It had been—what...?—maybe a week? and he was already considering making up with the one who had cursed him.
"You can say no, it's not lik—"
Renjun hadn't grasped the severity of the question, for really, who could with the incessant noise? For really, who would ever expect anything of any serious merit out of Lee Donghyuck's mouth? So he had waved his hand, cut him off before he could clarify his intentions in any manner. Renjun had told him "Sure, I'll consider it," and then Donghyuck had run off screaming. Terror or joy—he wasn't sure which.
Really, Renjun should have realized his intentions when the following day Donghyuck had approached with fresh flowers and curled hair and an awkward smile that stuck like plaster. But really—who could ever take him of all people seriously? The class clown, the blister of the bathrooms, the immature ignoramus that had once chugged his milk tea through his nostrils.
And so, when Renjun had asked Donghyuck if the flowers were some sort of prank, if they were a facet of another ridiculous shenanigan he and his group of friends often got up to, if they would curse him to sneeze until he touched a blade of grass, Donghyuck had simply coughed in confusion.
That particular day had been February 15th, and for the two of them, their day together had ended then and there.
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Almost two months earlier, fifty-something days before the aforementioned event, Park Jisung had asked Huang Renjun a question—several actually.
He'd first asked him if he was in love. He second asked him if he'd ever thought about having a love. He third asked him that if someone with a name suspiciously close to Donghyuck ever asked him out, would he say yes?
And this time Renjun had been quite cognisant of the question, given it quite a bit of thought. His spoken answer to all those questions was no, but the actual answer to all of those questions was yes, yes, and no. Yes because he thought he was in love; yes because he thought it was with Lee Mark; no because he would never say yes to anyone other than the aforementioned Lee Mark. Renjun had never once—would never ever give a singular thought to anyone else and he was terribly sick of everyone trying to convince him otherwise.
This was pining—unmutual pining—and Renjun had never budged, no matter how many potential suitors his friends had led his way. Love was unwavering. Love was steady, resolute. A commitment, a promise, firm resolve. Love never faltered. Love was a straight line (though mind you—he's gay) that would never be led askew.
Love was a decision. This was his decision.
Half a year later, Zhong Chenle had said he's to go to the dance with Lee Mark, and Huang Renjun almost regretted his decision.
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Donghyuck really cannot understand what's so good about Lee Mark. Certainly he understands why Lee Mark is tolerable, decent, okay, but he's nothing special. There's nothing worth talking about him for hours for. Sure—he's a decent, maybe even good flolf player, and sure—he's probably the most well-meaning dude Donghyuck has ever met, but he's just that. A dude, a guy. Donghyuck is husband material, partner material, significant other material. He's special, god damnit, his mom always tells him he is.
Maybe he's jealous. MAYBE. Not confirmed. And even if so, jealousy isn't bad. Jealousy means he's sincere. Donghyuck is sincere. He's always been sincere. He thinks.
Sincerity is love, is it not? Profound and real and deep. Honest and earnest and true and bona fide from the heart. Donghyuck has loved Renjun for as long as he could remember or, at least, has 'loved' him in love's most infant form (infancy also being how long since he's loved him). He remembers with vivid lack of clarity his chubby cheeks and yellow bonnet and... well, nothing much more. But that matters not, for Donghyuck can still clearly recall the following years of Renjun's childish kindness. Mind not that the recollections are more of a feeling than a memory. He can still hear that laugh—he was the one idiot in the room that would laugh at his bad jokes. He knows he loved the feeling. Now he associates Renjun with love.
So they grew and aged and wizened and Donghyuck matured-ish (though his feelings definitely failed to follow such a path) and inevitably, his true friends became the only two people who truly tolerated him. Unfortunately, Renjun had only found him tolerable. Extra unfortunately, Donghyuck had already decided he was in love.
It was, is, a bit mad and he's a bit mad, but NOT just because of that, but because of this and that.
Because that stupid fucker Park Jisung had rode off into the sunset with that other stupid fucker Zhong Chenle.
"You're kidding me. You're kidding me. You have to be kidding me. He's gone? He LEFT?"
Donghyuck aims a kick at the dresser that houses the majority of Jisung's forgotten belongings, smashing his tippy-toes against the hardwood. It is then that he discovers kicking wood hurts, and then that he finds that physical violence against inanimate objects does nothing to soothe his suffering psyche.
"How could he? I thought we were friends forever, besties whenever? Do everything together?! And he just... just ditched me and did the most awesome thing he's ever done in his life without me?"
Sungchan stares at the ceiling, lays back flat against his bed in their shared dorm. When he opens his mouth to speak, the speech is bored and dry.
"He's in love, dude, like I don't know, man... it's just something you don't get until you have it bro."
Donghyuck sniffles, dramatically punches his pillow into a vaguely head-hollowed shape and shoves his face into it. His eyes shut tight, squeeze like a lemon. The imaginary citrus juice stings and he can feel little droplets form in his ducts. They're not tears though. It's just the lemons, he swears.
A great deal of offenses drag through his mind. A laundry list of lame. The first of course is Sungchan using dude-man-bro on him in the span of five seconds. The second is Jisung's unsaid declaration that Donghyuck is second fiddle to another. The third is that not only is he Jisung's second fiddle, but likely Sungchan's third fiddle to the aforementioned Jisung and Shotaro. The fourth is that the only person Donghyuck would like to fiddle with was fooling around with Na Jaemin less than twenty-four ago.
Donghyuck screeches into his pillow. Sungchan pays him no mind. He does that often.
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The school year ends typically—Sungchan aces everything, Donghyuck doesn't flunk, and Jisung flunks (although this time he's not even around to know it). The school year ending means going home, which means riding in diamond compartments manned by snow white pegasus...es? Pegasi? For Donghyuck, going home means complaining about every problem he's ever had to Sungchan as they travel 100 meters up over ugly terrain.
"Did you know this is the first time we've gone home without Jisung since we were like six or something? I don't know how many years it's been for all of us but—"
"Fourteen."
"—but this is unacceptable! He's breaking tradition! But like a respectable tradition, you know? Not like the bad ones. Anyway! I just can't believe he would ditch without telling us. I mean, I know they're..." Donghyuck gags, chokes out his next few words— "they're... good together and I'm..." his voice turns shrill and squeaky— "I'm happy for him. Unironically, really, I am but..."
Sungchan folds his hands together, patiently waits as Donghyuck fumbles with his words. The sentences he attempts to form slip through the gaps between Donghyuck's fingers like grains of sand. As they fall away, he feels each grain like a second. The time ticks; the panic to find a proper excuse only winds more and more taunt.
"But... I mean, that's just rude, isn't it?"
Sungchan's face is remarkably impassive. It seems he has deduced the conversation to be a delicate subject for Donghyuck and has chosen to act ignorant of the fact.
"It is pretty rude," he concurs noncommittally.
"Yeah! It is! Fuck him!" and then Donghyuck throws himself back against the compartment's plush seats and crosses his arms, a picture perfect representation of don't talk to me. He not-so-secretly fumes, spits foul things in his mind directed really more towards himself than anyone else. He's nineteen, nearly twenty, teetering on double decades and yet still he's completely fucked (a failure) when it comes to life. It just... it just doesn't make sense. What is love? Why does it hurt him? Was he the sidekick in everyone's story? Was he having an existential crisis? Is there any meaning to anything? Oh god—did he remember to bring home his favorite sweater?
Sickening, annoying, stressful questions haunt him the entire ride home. He's lucky pegasuses travel quick for otherwise his potentially altitude induced disillusionment of the human condition would be quite prolonged
They're let off at one of the many designated pegasus drop off fields located outside of the city—a nondescript grass expanse where their families and, if Donghyuck's eyes are seeing correctly, that insufferable child Park Jisung and his icky little boyfriend wait. That absolute bastard.
He and Sungchan tackle him with a hug as soon as they touch down.
As Donghyuck's mother smothers him to death with kisses and his siblings pointedly ignore him, his father lugs his bags out of the compartment using pure muscle and brawn. Chenle questions the non-use of magic and in turn receives a long lecture from Donghyuck's father about the importance of learning discipline from physical labor. Sungchan's family—ever more sensible and magically adept—do not bruise their backs to carry his books, instead stringing them along to float behind themselves as they walk.
Donghyuck, Sungchan, and Jisung's residences can be found in the sprawling suburbia that lies just at the outskirts of the creatively named nearby city it resides in—Enciti. They all come from upper-middle class families and live nice lives where every necessity is satisfied and every comfort is readily available. It is not a life of true luxury, but it is one of abject fulfillment. Granted, although they have all lived (an arguably) many years, the experience crammed into those years is fairly meager for their age. Such are the consequences of experiencing such little adversity.
Or, according to Donghyuck's younger sister, "You're a loser because we went to public school and you went to private."
Well, it's not Donghyuck's fault he's the guinea pig of the family.
Donghyuck has never much been a fan of the trek back home he partakes in every summer (growing stitch in his side there to prove it). If his father weren't such a fitness nut, perhaps he would have hired one of those non-flying pegasus to drag along their stuff or even a car. But certain technology tends to explode around too much magic, so maybe that would have been ill-advised.
The collection of SOOMAN students discuss the happenings during their time away from each other as they head back home. Chenle and Jisung hold hands as they tell the other two about their drunken fast food date and the "extremely cool explosion Park caused at the park." Hot jealousy rushes through Donghyuck's veins and boils his blood as they begin to giggle about "the skateboard incident," and he's just about had it when Sungchan starts cooing over their cute cuddly coupley bullshit. He's definitely had it when Jisung starts nosing Chenle, shoving his stupid nose onto his skin, sniffing him (like, ewh?).
But Donghyuck is a good boy. A great one. He will not be turning green with envy today—no, rather, he'll just balloon into a bitter bitchy broken-hearted blue.
Boo hoo.
He's being melodramatic, he knows he is, but he's never known how to act anything short of theatrical. It all goes back to Renjun because it always goes back to Renjun. If they really had any feelings towards each other, surely some sort of relationship would have bloomed between them in the too many years they had known each other. If they were destined for anything more than they already had, wouldn't those funny little flowers have said something about it already? It's stupid, unfair, he thinks. Everyone else he knows gets simple love, no strings or attachments or any of that sticky stitched together shit. It's straightforward for them. They like someone, that someone likes them back—no one else, no one more. Meanwhile, Donghyuck was stuck talking about Mark ninety percent of the time he would talk to Renjun.
Why did it all have to be so irrational? Why did Donghyuck have to inwardly know deep, deep down that the culmination of their collective feelings was really only a recent obsession on his part? Know someone seventeen-something years and only when your best friend becomes boyfriend with their best friend do you acquire the privilege to converse with them for over twenty minutes—absurd.
It begs the question—what was Renjun really to Donghyuck? The answer, he decides, is nothing he would like to think about today.
Or ever.
"You thinking about your little romance with Renjun?"
Donghyuck startles, trips over his shoelaces and nearly kisses the ground with his face if not for that rebel child's boyfriend's quick reflexes. He stumbles around, steadies on his feet with the help of Chenle's fist wadding the back of his shirt and stands straight, tall-ish and proud, thoroughly nonchalant, very dapper.
"Ahem—" he clears his throat as Chenle lets go of his shirt— "I don't know what you're talking about."
Jisung grins at him, smile impish, sly like a little devil. It's then that Donghyuck regrets being such a strong influence in his life. "Don't try to pretend—come on, you know I know you way too well."
Donghyuck stomps his foot and scratches the back of his head. He hadn't noticed previously—too preoccupied with his own thoughts to—but ahead of them now is the street he grew up on, the neighborhood he grew up in. The place with his family, his friends; the place he goes every summer and calls his home. It's been a while, he thinks, pawing his foot against the pavement. It'll be nice to relax for a while without any... 'learning' shit.
But first, Donghyuck wishes to hit Jisung with his shoe.
"If you're gonna hit me, do it already, coward!"
He groans. Jisung's right—he does know him too well.
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Donghyuck's house is like every other house on the block—triangular roofs, painted wood paneling, two stories, too many windows, a lot of grass, plenty of bush, and a mandatory tree. It's very nice, very clean, quite picturesque. The luckier ones on the street have a pretty white picket fence to enhance the aesthetic, but Donghyuck is not one of those. Instead they have talking flowers (read: weeds) that sprout in their lawn every spring and stay until fall, only to return during the re-arrival of green no matter how many times he's tried to prune them.
After his mother beats every bit of impertinence out of him with strangling hugs and his father pats his hair into a nest, Donghyuck trudges through the foyer straight upstairs. Past his asshole twelve year old brother Dongwon's room, past his asshole seventeen year old brother Dongpyo's room, past his eighteen year old sister Seoyeon's room (also an asshole, also the only one afforded an ounce of creativity with their given name)—Donghyuck dumps his bags down and appreciates his room. Peach walls and bleached hardwood floors—the aura is comforting, relaxing.
He spends a while unpacking, attempts to do it with magic but gives up as soon as his first spell backfires and unfits all the sheets on his bed (a canopy, princess style of course). Alone time equals think time which equals Renjun time.
As he stashes his school books onto the bottom of his shelf, shoving them away to never look at them again, he contemplates when he'll see him again. Renjun doesn't live around, has never lived around, and Donghyuck doesn't even know where around is. The only reason they had known each other in their formative years was because their parents were friends and enrolled them into the same daycares, pre-schools, and eventually, boarding school. Their time together were winters and falls, springs too, but never summer—sunny months illuminating the nothing of their relationship. The only time he'll see him during the summer are the occasional (read: rare) run-ins whilst out in the city. Donghyuck figures the next time he'll see Renjun is in three months when the following school year starts back up.
He blinks with sudden awareness. Three months... next school year...? That one will be his last—the final year before he graduates and joins the workforce with school certification of being a magically competent, well educated human. Donghyuck eyes the unfitted bed sheets thrown against his mattress. He flings himself onto them, not to contemplate the melancholy or bask in woe, but to be productive. Refit the sheets, put it all back where it belongs. He may not be the most knowledgeable magician, but he's really not dumb.
It's a ticking time bomb, and Donghyuck knows he'll let it explode because all he knows how to do is stall and not defuse. He's flailed a lot, never truly failed, but the end result is close enough to it. He's flirted incessantly, done entirely too much and simultaneously not enough. Renjun remains—if those long talks about Lee Mark and smooches with Na Jaemin are any indication—hopelessly unenthralled with him. And Donghyuck knows he will remain that way, and it won't break his heart. It's a silly crush and that silliness will end once that next year at school does.
It occurs to him then, finally makes sense, explains why it all hurts so bad nowadays. It's not really about Renjun (though, he does like him). It's that it was only of recent that his running after Renjun transformed from a goal to ambition. He knows it's because of time. It's because time ticks away and everyone around him grows older and wiser and finds themselves and someone else to top it off. And Donghyuck? He stays the same silly guy with the same silly crush. Everyone grows up, does adult things, stops blowing up toilets. It freaks him out because he knows he needs to do that too. But how?
So he's observed—passively, unconsciously—and his subconscious made its own conclusions. Love was tangible. Romance and serious boyfriends and girlfriends and all that nasty crap were real physical signs of people moving past him, maturing into that stage of life they eventually call independence.
It's love—that attainment, that achievement—that represents everything Donghyuck fails to be... and who doesn't want success? So he thinks, concludes—that is Renjun, a representation.
His bags are unpacked now, room clean and sorted, so he lays down on the bleached wood panel floors and stares up at the ceiling. It's white, it's blank, it's empty.
A pensive sadness for the summer sun—the season having finally illuminated something of their relationship.