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Between today and tomorrow
It’s a night that rains fire. Donghae taps them off with a finger and watches the ashes fall twenty storeys down onto the pavement. He puts the cigarette back in his mouth and sighs, smoke dispersing in the chill of the night.
The sky threatens dawn on what is still darkness. Donghae has lost track of how long he’d been sitting here on this rooftop, but the empty cigarette packs next to him and the dried tear tracks on his cheek, clinging to his skin, are signs that it’s probably been a while. He looks down far, far onto the concrete and thinks about how easy it would be to plummet. He’s so close to that sweet nothing, all it takes is to lean in, to let the weight of his heart pull him down so that the walls along the building quickly converge into blunt, cement ground.
The street lights start to dim, one by one, as the sky warms and catches colour. There was a time when sunrise meant the beginning of a new day and falling in love with a boy who had the sun caged in his lungs and fire held in his mouth. When Donghae tries to speak his voice is small and his throat is dry.
“The sky is beautiful when it burns, Hyukjae. Kinda like you.”
As the edge of the sun breaks over the horizon, Donghae takes one last raspy, tainted breath through the cigarette. The smoke becomes a cloud, dyed in the colours of the sunrise.
Earlier
It’s all a blur at first. Flashes of red and blue, deep voices of men in uniform, and then the world is all white where it smells of iodoform and sickness.
The cops have gone and all that’s left are the doctors.
He catches some murmurs of a cardiac arrest, something about heart failure and cocaethylene and overdose. Sitting on the hospital bench at three in the morning, his face in this palms and tear stains on the floor between his feet, Donghae convinces himself over and over that that’s what killed the thing he loves. Just overdose. That’s all.
And then, for some reason, he remembers a rooftop and a cigarette.
One week ago
“You wanna get outta here?”
Donghae looks up from his half empty glass to see a stranger through his blurred vision. It smells of smoke and alcohol and the bartender is wiping the counter where someone has spilled their drink.
It’s strange that he doesn’t remember how he got here, as if he woke up in some bar without knowing when exactly it was he fell asleep. He’s probably drunk but there’s still an annoying pain in the left side of his chest, so Donghae brings the glass to his mouth one last time, empties whatever was left in it, and grabs his coat.
The next thing he’s aware of is tumbling into a cab with a man and Donghae’s not sure if it’s the same one from before, but they’re kissing. And when the heavy taste of tobacco is strong on his tongue, there's a sweet familiarity with it and it all the more edges him on. They somehow stumble into Donghae’s apartment without getting hurt and Donghae pushes him into the mattress, lets him rip his clothes off and run his mouth down his body.
It helps him cope with the loneliness. Sometimes it’s done quickly in the public bathroom, and sometimes it’s with the soft touch of a woman, but Donghae knows the person he’s waiting for is probably the same one who makes him feel like the loneliest man in the world.
One month ago
“When are you going to realize you’re wasting your time on him?” Kyuhyun says because he’s the only person Donghae really talks to anymore.
They’re on lunch break, which means Kyuhyun has nothing better to do than try to talk some sense into Donghae before it’s back to printing papers and entering numbers on a screen. He takes out a pack of cigarettes and gestures the box towards Donghae.
“No thanks, I quit,” Donghae says.
“Look, you’re actin’ like he’s your responsibility or somethin’,” Kyuhyun lights the cigarette in his mouth with one hand and covers the flame with the other. “But it’s not up to you to fix him.”
“I’m all he’s got, Kyu. He needs me.”
“You sure it’s not the other way around?” Kyuhyun cocks an eyebrow, looks up and a puff of smoke escapes through his mouth. Donghae doesn’t answer. “Whatever. Just don’t wear yourself out.”
Donghae kicks at the pavement with his worn out shoes and squints his eyes at how fucking bright out it is.
“God, I need a cigarette.”
When he could still remember the last time he was happy
It’s been two months since they last saw each other.
That’s the first thing Donghae thinks about as he stands frozen in front of his apartment. There’s a man sitting by the door, his legs in his arms and face between his knees. Somehow, Donghae has expected this. The man looks up at him with bloodshot eyes and hollow cheeks, and Donghae thinks he doesn’t look much different than he had two months ago, wonders if he'd find traces of white powder beneath his nails, something to match the burns on his own fingertips.
“Leave me alone,” Donghae says and starts to walk away from his own front door. He’s only all too familiar with this picture and he knows how it will end.
“Wait,” Hyukjae says and stumbles to his feet, “I’m starting over. Please, I—let’s—let’s start over.”
Donghae stops in his tracks at the foot of the staircase, his heart in his throat. It's not fair that it takes two months to hate Hyukjae and three words to love him. Donghae grips the railings and squeezes his eyes shut. This is the part where Donghae usually drops his defenses. These are the same fucking words that had Donghae on his knees time and time again.
“I can’t live without you,” Hyukjae says with an exhausted smile that almost seems to break his face. Donghae turns to look at him and it physically hurts. Because how can you want something that destroys you so, so bad.
“I think you stopped living a long time ago.” Donghae says as he walks away from Hyukjae, and he doesn’t know that it’s going to be the last time.
You and I both, Donghae thinks instead.
A happy time. Maybe three years ago, maybe a little more than that.
They're waiting for the sun to rise, any time now.
Donghae grins as Hyukjae leans in and uses Donghae's cigarette to light his own. Hyukjae takes a deep breath after and hoists himself up to sit on the ledge of the roof.
"Those could kill you one day," Donghae says as he steps between Hyukjae's legs.
Hyukjae says nothing, just drags him by the collar and pushes their mouths together. Donghae feels the burning in his lungs, but grabs hold of Hyukjae's waist, leans in still to taste the nicotine on Hyukjae's tongue. Hyukjae crosses his feet, locking Donghae between his legs, and it's too easy to become a mess of turning heads and wet lips. They miss the coming of the sun.
Hyukjae takes another long drag when they break away, the smoke rolls out of his mouth and creeps across his cheek.
"Darling, you'll kill me before they do," Hyukjae says.
The smoke becomes a cloud, dyed in the colours of the sunrise.