⋆daddy issues⋆ markhyuck

I.I

February

This was it, this was the day. 

Donghyuck's high school graduation.

As he sits among the hundreds of graduating students, he can't help but dread his future. Yes, he's made it through the three seemingly unending years of high school and was at the end of this road in life, but high school was his safety net. University was the world outside, daunting and infinite. With high school, you were told what to do, you knew what was coming next, you weren't yet an adult, you had a crutch. 

Now, by all means, Donghyuck was left to fall. 

He'd already decided the university he'd attend and he knew his friends had chosen the same but that was a mere familiarity. At the end of the day, the school didn't matter and his friends being there wasn't completely necessary - helpful, not necessary - so he still felt lost, scared and almost abandoned by life. 

Throughout the entire ceremony, Donghyuck sat in a fit of nerves, nearly paralyzed to his seat. He doesn't remember much, not even the proud smile on his mother's face from the audience or the playful howling from his sisters as he walked to collect his diploma. 

He just wanted to go home. 

"Dude, are you ready?" Jeno doesn't specify but everyone knows what he's talking about. University is all anybody has been talking about since late last year. It existed as the happy buzzing from all the privileged youth at his school, as they were birthed into a secure future. Donghyuck just wished they would shut up. 

He shakes his head in response to Jeno, immediately tilting it to rest on his friend's shoulder. "It's okay, me and Yang Yang will be there. If you need anything, we can help you out."

The conversation turns to more youthful banter between the three boys until the night was nigh. They soon separated to their cars and left Donghyuck to meet up with his mother and sisters. 

"Donghyuck, I just want you to know that I'm proud of you." His mother secures her son's cheeks between her palms and tips his head to plant a kiss to his forehead. "And everything will be okay." Donghyuck always wondered how people were so comfortable promising things they couldn't ensure but he doesn't push it with his mother, not today. 

"You may not have financial help from your father but I'll work extra to make sure you have everything you need, baby."

"I'm almost an adult now, I can work too. I'll make it easier on you, you don't have to send anything to me." They hug and Donghyuck is fighting back tears. "I'll take care of it." The thought of being so far from home on limited funds is genuinely unimaginable, but it's safe to assume it's scary, like a pitch black tunnel with no absolute end and your heart caught in your throat as ever twist in the cement comes as a surprise.

The five walked home together, hand in hand, heart in heart. 

He laid to sleep that night, feeling every memory and emotion at once. 

his abandonment

his hurt

his abuse

his stress

his anxiety

It's so strong that he can't help the tears that slip from his eyes. The eighteen years he's lived on earth were tortuous....and to think, being left alone in the world from that point onward would only make everything so much worse.

If only Donghyuck knew that the universe planned to test his entire being and self-worth in only one year, I don't think he would've packed up for school in the next two weeks but he did.

Two weeks later.....

"Thank you so much." Donghyuck burst at the seams with smile from ear to ear. The keys, previously held by the landlord, dangled from his shaking hands. A quiver that ran through his spine but he couldn't help but feel anew as he took the first few steps to his new home, shared home, he had to remind himself. 

He would've never guessed that the costs of student accommodation would be so high and the housing in Seoul to be so out of his reach to pay for on his own. His dreams small and permeable, sat in his hands and he weighed if staying in Jeju would end up being that bad after all, versus feeling tiny and fucked over in a large city. What was he thinking about attending a school held to such esteem, he's nothing but a forsaken country boy. Luckily - or unluckily, he doesn't know yet - for him, an insanely cheap offer for a house with a roommate knowingly paying majority (about 80%) of the rent opened up and Donghyuck thought maybe Seoul was making a small place just for him to fit in. 

The level of freedom was boundless, and for once, just a second, Donghyuck was able to feel carefree and unworried as he ran through the space, curving wide from the cabinet corners and door frames. He's eighteen years old, let him live. 

++

He'd been informed by the kind landlord that his roommate should be in town by morning so instead of heading back with the family, he decides to stay the night at his new place alone. 

Alone? Free?

The concept is a bit fucked in Donghyuck's brain.

So that's how he ended up dancing on top of the dining table, the living room couch, his bed and just about any surface he can plant his feet on, to music blaring from his small speakers, in only his low hanging t-shirt. Air guitar held high as the last few whispers of song disperse in the atmosphere, his chest rises and falls deeply - like he'd just given the performance of his life to a stadium of adoring fans -  and his eyes open to a blurry figure at his front door. 

It frightens him momentarily, until he'd realized it was only a human and belatedly realized once more that only one other human would have the keys to his house. 

His fright morphed into a red cheeks and ears tips and a stuttering tongue. "Hello" He bows to the stranger. the cute stranger. 

336 hours before Lee Donghyuck snaps...