Donghyuck has not stopped thinking about the confession he made.
It felt too much like a spur of the moment, and while a serial victim of the spur of the moment himself, he has never been fond of what it can make people do. Anything done within that slowed-down universe was an idiotic crime, an act of no-thinking, jaywalking down a freeway, squeezing a roll of wasabi down your throat, and backing a car straight into the garage door.
Or, the worst of all, admitting to yourself that you are, in fact, in love with someone.
He stared down the main campus street, which he knew you walked by every other day after your morning class ended, and he breathed at the lack of souls littered across the road. You probably already walked past here and were waiting at the bus stop. He would know because that was your routine, and he was a little late today in coming by to be a block in your route.
He had been too occupied with his ceaseless mind, one that continuously interrogated him about his romantic interest and whether they were real or not. The question had come late to him that night after his friends left his home, and he sat immobilized before his blank computer screen.
Everything felt regular when he was still fixated on the game; he raged and chatted, clicked on the mouse, and tapped the keyboard. But the second he turned all the machines off to prepare for the end of the day, the silence without your sleeping presence haunted him. The book you lent him sat on his nightstand, a symbolization of him leaving a space in his home for you; out of all the places in his big bedroom he could have put the book, he put it close to where he sleeps.
Donghyuck jumped off the high horse and never got back on. His doubt fluttered like the lashes that adorned your eyes because he wasn't sure. Was he in love? How would he know? How would anybody know? Was he even capable of fully understanding what love means? Was anyone fully capable of understand such a fickle, multi-layered, necessary concept?
He could not use his parents as an example; he had never seen them be in love with each other, and neither did he ever feel truly loved by them. He could use Jeno's parents as the standard, but sometimes the way those two old folks bicker with each other felt like there was more than meets the eye when old age had begun tainting a once youthful love. Jaemin has only recently been involved in a one-sided attraction, much like himself was at this moment.
Even though his friends had nodded his way when discussing his affection for you, seeming in perfect unison that there was no denying that he has strong feelings for you, Donghyuck could not shake off the notion that he might be mistaken. And he would hate to be mistaken about love. He would hate to cause any party involved any pain and awkwardness.
Mostly, he would hate to cause you pain. It was something he swore against unconsciously to himself. He would never hurt you intentionally; he would never bite you back; he would never press against your bones despite his overwhelming desire to consume you whole. You love them. He repeated to himself. You will not hurt them. It was not a reminder. It was not a threat. It was a reassurance of the truth.
"Hello?"
Your calm voice hit his ear and filled his heart. Within that instant, he was aware how much to the brim the sink of his chest has with a grotesque loveliness that could only come from you. Whenever he so much as received a drip of your existence, he churned up the faucet to keep it coming so he could drown in it. He was aware, in that instant where you spoke a one-syllable word, where your voice traveled to his ear and his processing mind, that you make him shake and breathe, and he is in love with you.
Then he snapped out of it.
"Where are you? I don't see you at the bus stop!" Donghyuck exclaimed as he looked around the empty area his legs had brought him to. He peered down the street further, then back into the campus. There was not a trace of you at the campus bus stop.
You shuffled with your phone for a bit; the rustling of your clothes sounded through the receptor as you pressed your ear against your shoulder, with your phone jammed between, so you could focus on writing your notes and holding up a page of a textbook. You remained silent, thinking through your writing, and Donghyuck waited patiently on the phone for you.
"I am at the library," you replied when you were done writing.
"Who is it?" Jeno asked as he received the note you gave him. His voice was clear enough to be picked up by the other end of the call.
Donghyuck raised his brows faintly as he processed the distant voice. When recognition hit him that it was Jeno speaking, he pulled an annoyed face and tilted his head, visibly dissatisfied. This was not part of your daily routine. He knew Jeno usually walked you to the bus stop, but then you two would go separate ways. Wasn't Jeno supposed to be on his weekly fun trip to the gymnasium, where he would visit his basketball friends anyway? Why was he with you?
"It's Donghyuck! Lee Donghyuck!" He screamed into the phone impatiently, his voice straining to reach the tone of comical devastation which he was not equipped to reach.
Sounds of shuffling could be heard on the other side. You could be shifting away from Jeno to talk more in private, you could have just pulled your phone away from your ear after Donghyuck's impromptu screaming, or you may just be doing other ordinary things that Donghyuck absolutely wanted to get in on. Either way, the boy on the other end of the phone was restless about not being around you.
"Please don't scream into the phone. You surprised me."
Your meek voice changed Donghyuck's demeanor immediately. He never intends to raise his voice around you unless it is for exaggeration or comedic purposes. What he just did was, one could say, for both exaggeration and comedic purposes, though. He sighed in defeat and relaxed, his shoulders slagging into a body shrink so he would appear smaller and more gentle. It was how he felt all the time whenever he was with you: small and delicate, like a sleeping boy cradled in a great embrace or a human being with flesh that cuts and bleeds.
"I'm sorry," he said into the phone. "I was just surprised to hear Jeno."
You glanced briefly to the side where Jeno was chatting with Jaemin about something that was clearly not about the schoolwork they had invited you over to help with. Jaemin pointed to something he saw on Jeno's phone and made a joke that got both of them erupting into silent laughter. Jeno almost doubled over in joy but held onto the table's edge. His hand soon turned into a fist that tapped against the wooden surface.
You cannot be bothered to scoff or feel disdain for their lack of work ethic. This was not your first time working with people who clearly need to be more competent to finish the task to the perfect condition. It has been like this since high school, and your distancing away from your peer's ability magnified after your childhood began its tragic trail.
Everything has to be done not to the best of your ability but to the best of perfection. If your most remarkable attempt is nowhere near where perfection is, then you are no good at all.
Your work and intelligence being a reflection of your worth were what your parents' abusive education taught you. Be smart enough to find out sooner if someone is unfaithful to you. Be perceptive enough to realize you would be giving birth to a child you cannot love properly. Be useful enough so you can follow instructions to the bone. Be diligent enough so you do not get in an adult's way. Be resilient enough so trauma does not hinder your everyday life.
You have gotten used to it. In fact, you preferred it. You were the only person who could finish a project or do a task how it was supposed to be done, so you preferred to take it all upon yourself. Even back then, when you sent the documents regarding the project to Donghyuck, not all of it was about aiding him in the process. You have fished through all the loopholes and potential mishaps to limit any form of individuality Donghyuck could provide so that everything could be done how you want it.
You have done what you could to help Jeno and Jaemin, writing detailed notes and explaining complicated questions. Whether they actually wanted to spend the effort to do their school work was up to them. As long as your grade would not be dragged down and you would not be affected, their problem was none of your concern.
You returned to your laptop where your project work was displayed and informed, "Yeah. Jeno said he needed some help with his classes, so he invited me to study at the library."
"The school library?" Donghyuck clarified in question. Then he furrowed his brows in disbelief. "Jeno is studying?"
Donghyuck was not sure why he acted so surprised. Regarding academic success, Jeno remained leagues above him due to his self-sabotage. The illusion of Jeno being athletic and joining different sports groups, and therefore, would be academically challenged and having less time to focus on school work, was nothing but a mere illusion. Some of his athlete friends may be the pin that holds the stereotype together, but Jeno was not one of them. That boy knew how to keep himself above average in most aspects of life except romance.
It was just that Donghyuck had never seen Jeno study before. Jeno seemed to be the type to lock himself in a room and stick his nose in the books in silence, and when he was done, he would show himself to the world again. Donghyuck has never seen that boy open a textbook, write down notes, or practice problems outside of the classroom setting. He has always pursued his academic success privately, making it baffling for Donghyuck that he agreed to sit in a library with you.
Hold the wording, Donghyuck! [Name] was not the one who invited Jeno. It was the other way around! Regardless of the sequence of invitations, Donghyuck was not happy about it.
"He's not really studying," you huffed with very faint dismay. "He's laughing with Jaemin about something."
"Jaemin–Na Jaemin? Resident boyfriend Na Jaemin?" Donghyuck exclaimed incredulously at the casual addition to the informal study group. "How do you know him?"
"You've asked me that before and I gave you an answer. We had statistics together, remember? I had to mention his name twice last time for you to catch on to the fact that I knew Jaemin prior to knowing you." You blinked questioningly at the air, seemingly catching onto the fact that Donghyuck was extra alarmed about you knowing half the people in his friend group before himself. You thought nothing of it, though. It was just a product of his fantastic exaggeration skills. "I told you he was the resident boyfriend on campus."
"I do remember," Donghyuck muttered as he rubbed his eyes with one hand. How could he forget? How could he forget flaming blue hair Jaemin with nice eyes and a soft voice? How could he forget pretty cute Jaemin, who you cannot stop hearing about? When he opened his eyes again, he was blinded by the daylight and saw double. "Burns me every time I remember it."
"Stop remembering it," you mumbled monotonously. "Think about something else."
He thought about you, and he did not want to think about you, but there was no way for him not to think about you when you were on the phone with him. After the phone call, it would be the school project he was paired up with you to do. Then, after that, it would be the novel on his bed that you gave him. Subsequently, it would be a bowl of ramen that you brought him to eat once. Then, later, it would be colored pencils that you could use for your planner.
There was always something he could associate you with. They were some kind of excuse to put you in his head. At the consistency of you being on his mind, Donghyuck would take you to his grave, and no amount of divine power could fish you out of his grasp. He needed to stop, he recognized. The more he thought about you, the more it solidified that his confession to loving you was honest, which scared him. Or, he thought if it hadn't been real, the constant pop-ups of your face would give him the false idea that he knew exactly how he felt.
"I'm trying," he slurred out quietly.
The furrow of your brows changed from confusion to concern; there was a vulnerable arch at the center. "Are you okay, Donghyuck?" You asked.
"Yeah. Why?" He let a smirk slip as he rubbed his eye. "Do you want to ask me that again later? I'm right outside the school library. Tell me where you guys are at."
Jeno caught sight of the perking up of your head. Jaemin mirrored his sudden motion, and together they followed the trail of your gaze toward the large glass doors of the library far away. Without his glasses, Jeno could barely see through the glass doors outside, so he nudged Jaemin with his elbow to catch Jaemin's attention. Jaemin returned the nudge with quick annoyance, still searching for anything out of the ordinary on the campus's main street.
"What is [Name] looking at?" Jaemin asked. "What are we looking at?"
Jeno scoffed out a laugh, a hand reaching up to slap across his forehead. "I was gonna ask if you saw anything weird."
"I don't," Jaemin replied curtly before he turned to check if you were still staring at the doors. You weren't anymore. He raised a brow curiously, his eyes trailing down to your moving lips to deduce that you were talking on the phone with someone, and he frowned. "They're on the phone."
"Yeah, it's Donghyuck." Jeno nodded, then he shoved Jaemin with narrowed eyes. "Did you not hear him scream into the phone?"
"I hear him all the time. I can't be sure which ones are hallucinations and which are him in real life," Jaemin deadpanned, seemingly distressed in the most sincere way possible. If one didn't know better, one would wonder what kind of friend Donghyuck was to cause such emotional disaster, even though the judgment may remain the same after they knew what kind of person Donghyuck was. "Did he talk to you..." Jaemin peeped at you and lowered his voice, "... about [Name]?"
"I don't think he's left any of us in the unknown about [Name]," Jeno mused.
"Not that," Jaemin rolled his eyes, "I meant about... what he said the other day...."
Jeno appeared confused, which was enough proof for Jaemin that Donghyuck likely did not go to anybody else about his romantic life issues. It boggled him that he was the most suitable candidate to discuss this with, especially when Jeno knew you better than he did. The only knowledge he had of you was good grades, definitely not a party invitee, and the target of Donghyuck's relentless affection. None of those warranted Donghyuck puking to Jaemin about how incompatible or unsure the potential romantic relationship between you and him would be.
Ironically, the question regarding Donghyuck's love for you could be answered by his unnecessary overthinking of whether he would be a good boyfriend to you. To Donghyuck, though, he was never talking about being your boyfriend but rather if he wanted to be so. To Jaemin, who was more clear-headed despite only half-heartedly listening to Donghyuck's troubles, Donghyuck has already decided that he does love you. He just wasn't sure if he would be good enough for you.
This was a hurdle Donghyuck had to get over by himself.
"What did he say?" Jeno asked upon Jaemin's silence, to which he received a shrug in return. Jaemin has decided to keep it a secret.
You side-eyed the two of them huddled in their seats, and you couldn't even be bothered to roll your eyes. You have already established that those two could work at their pace, however leisurely they wanted. Besides, you have other things in mind. Donghyuck hung up after you told him where you were in the library, not without telling you that he planned to join the study session. You were still processing what he meant when he told you to ask him how he was again.
Weaving through groups of people and bookshelves, Donghyuck finally reached the study area. Long tables and benches fitted closely next to individual seats, surrounded by bookshelves and a service register. His head moved in search of your presence, his feet taking him anywhere he felt you would be as he tapped his phone to fidget. It was the rise of your arm that caught his attention. He looked over, and there you were, waving him over.
Your arm hesitantly lowered when you saw him look. Donghyuck's eyes lit up when he recognized you, and you could see that. The gleam in his eyes was hard to miss. You curled your hand into a loose fist, letting your thoughts flash before your eyes, then you sent him a small greeting wave. This was the first time you saw each other in person today, and Donghyuck thought it was a few torturous hours too long, especially after the faint smile you held upon seeing him.
The same feeling overtook him, like when he heard your voice for the first time today, telling him 'Hello.' His heart was filled grossly to the brim with loveliness and a desire that would wake him up precisely as the sun rise in the morning so he could run up to you and see you first person in the morning. Maybe this was why people slept together, so that they could see each other first thing in the morning instead of themselves in the bathroom mirror.
Donghyuck was aware, sickeningly aware, the moment his eyes perceived your face and his brain lit a fire, that you make him still and breathless, and he is in love with you.
Should he snap out of it?
"Hey," you said once he was near. "Are you okay?"
He scrunched his nose and grinned slyly as he sat on the chair he pulled out beside you. He never did peel his eyes off your face. "Yeah."
No. He doesn't want to snap out of it. He enjoys this. He loves being in love with you, and he is in love with you.
"Oh wow! So you were on the phone with [Name]!" It was Jaemin who exclaimed.
A vein would have popped on his forehead out of annoyance if this was a cartoon. Donghyuck averted his attention to Jaemin, who had stumbled closer to you by creating loud screeches with his chair. Once Jaemin was near, he leaned his torso close to you and moved his head over your seat to talk to Donghyuck. But, before anyone could say anything, Donghyuck slammed a hand over Jaemin's tiny face and pushed him away.
"You're too close!" Donghyuck complained.
"To who? You?" Jaemin questioned rhetorically.
The glare Jaemin received made him shut his mouth, but the bashful and semi-calculative smile remained as he pointedly stared at Donghyuck while retreating to his seat. This was going to happen, Donghyuck knew. In fact, this was supposed to happen because what else were friends for other than blatantly teasing you about the crush you told them you have? The only relief Donghyuck has regarding this is that no matter how obvious Jeno and Jaemin could make his feelings seem, you wouldn't understand it.
You were perceptive, but if something weren't on your mind, it would take people running miles before you could get a sense of it. And Donghyuck knew a relationship was the last thing on your mind.
Dropping the glare, Donghyuck leaned back against his seat and spared a glance at the table. Sitting before you was your laptop, pencil case opened, an opened textbook, and some scattered paper notes you wrote on. He looked further to where Jeno and Jaemin (who had both inched their seat close to you) came from and saw two water bottles, an opened bag of chips, and some random appearances of blue pens with no paper to write on.
"They really were doing nothing, huh?" Donghyuck mentioned as he raised a brow knowingly. He reached over and beckoned you to hand him the paper, which you did. Concentrated, he scanned over the words you wrote and recognized that it was a research methods class that Jeno needed help with. That widened the grimace on his face, and he whispered to himself, "This is introduction-level materials."
"I was doing something," you said with a subtle gesture toward the pair of friends next to you. "They did need some help earlier, but I think they kind of bounced off the textbook and onto their phones when I was writing down some notes for them."
Jeno waved his hand dismissively while Donghyuck threw his friends a satisfied grin. The mere act of them being subtly called out by you was hilarious only because of their tight-knitted friendship, and it's always somewhat funny to watch your friend mess up something trivial. Leaning over Jaemin, who was already reaching an arm behind you to graze Donghyuck's face with sharp nails barely, Jeno let himself stand up a bit to smack the grin off Donghyuck's face.
You frowned with a dodge from Jeno's messy slap. The click of your tongue did not go unnoticed by Jeno, and he immediately apologized with a scoffed-out laugh and a gentle pat on the back of your head.
"By the way, here are the notes for your project." You snatched the paper from Donghyuck's hand and gave it to Jeno. "Let me know if you don't understand anything."
It took Jeno a short minute to read some of the comments you made on his ideas. He quickly caught your attention again by making Jaemin switch seats with him. You scooted over to make space for his fast clumsiness, and Jaemin scolded Jeno's aggressiveness as he made himself comfortable on Jeno's original seat. Knowing that Jeno probably has a lot of questions already, you waited patiently for him to gather himself.
"My professor said this exact thing the other day, but hear me out," Jeno rushed out with a random point on the paper. "Technically speaking, I can skip a couple of steps with the calculations if I just–"
"You can't." You cut him off monotonously. "Don't be lazy. I'll walk you through it."
Donghyuck watched with twitchy brows, as well as the corner of his eye, you and Jeno huddled to the middle of the textbook that you pulled to the edge of the desk and had begun flipping aggressively. He barely got to talk to you after he sat down, and you were already stolen from him! Why were you and Jeno sitting so close anyway? If Jeno has a vision problem, he should have brought his glasses. He had no reason to sit so close. You were wearing your glasses, which meant you could see clearly, so there was also no reason for you to be sitting so close to the book!
Justice! Where was Lee Donghyuck's justice!
"This is introduction class material, Jeno!" Donghyuck whined from next to you, popping his head over to give the least menacing glare he could muster. "How do you not know this?"
Jaemin laughed from the side, his head comfortably perched on the base of his palm as he watched the clown show of Donghyuck's unreasonable jealousy unfold. Jeno didn't bother to respond to Jaemin's bystander laughter. He perked up to innocently look at Donghyuck, eyes wide and confused as if he had been wronged, and he strained out a thoughtless noise through his throat.
"It's not part of his major," you said, taking Jeno's side.
"Nothing is part of that basketball head's major," Donghyuck retorted. "I thought you were good at math back in high school!"
"This is research math, not normal math!" Jeno argued quietly, but his voice was hissy enough to make a point that Donghyuck was being too loud.
Donghyuck deadpanned. He gave Jeno a dead stare in silence for a good ten seconds, enough to make the atmosphere awkward, then he spoke with an equally deadly voice. "Coming from someone who knows how to do that, I'm telling you it's really not all that different."
At this point, Donghyuck was only dragging this out for the sake of dragging it out. The playful banter between friends was natural to him, so was making a big deal out of said playful banter until it escalated to unnecessarily awkward tension. It was to keep up with himself. But part of him thought he might be doing this on purpose because some vulnerable part of him, who told his conventionally attractive friends he loved you, felt paranoid over something he knew his friends were incapable of: stealing you from him.
"What brought this on?" You chimed in before anyone else could say anything.
"If we tell you, we'd be wrong," Jaemin answered quickly. He gave you an assuring yet dismissive nod when you questioned him with a thoughtful gaze, then he shifted to look at Donghyuck with easeful tension on his face. "You need to cut it out. This is not turning into the cafeteria again."
"The cafeteria?" You tilted your head.
"Again–if we tell you, we'd be wrong," Jaemin said.
Jaemin was no help at all. He might as well have not said anything if he had no plans to give you a direct answer. You grimaced to yourself. For a boy whose reputation revolved around being good-looking and charming, he was surprisingly not charming at all. Granted, you only knew him so well; your interactions with him have all been the textbook definition of how people act around mutual friends they met for the first time—awkward, barely there, and brief sentences.
Seeing your dissatisfied, monotonous glare, Jaemin sniffed with a permanently awkward smile and gestured with his chin toward the note on the table. He crossed his arms first, then reached a hand out and made a beckoning motion. "Let me see the paper."
You frowned but responded wordlessly by handing him the paper. Both you and Jeno watched as Jaemin's eyes leisurely scanned the material. Donghyuck decided to take the time to give himself a breather because he wasn't sure why he did what he did just then. He counted every inhale and exhale, and after every deep breath, he promptly forgot it. Shifting his eyes, he looked to your turned side and pursed his lips with hallow pain.
Every crevice of your fingers clumsily spun the pen in your hand. You weren't paying any attention to it but Donghyuck was; there was nothing to the way you absentmindedly interacted with the objects around you, but Donghyuck thought there was everything in it. He could watch you do anything and realize everything there is to know. For now, he just knew he wanted to hold your hand.
"I think I know what this is," Jaemin hummed as he sat up straight. His tone had no hint of sarcasm, meaning he looked through the note you wrote and had an inkling of something he learned in this institution. He scooted his chair closer to Jeno and the table.
As Jaemin reached out to pull the opened textbook toward him, Jeno gestured ridiculously to display his utter shock that out of everyone in this little group, he was the only person with no idea what his course material was about. It made some sense that Jaemin may have taken the same classes as you because of your adjacent majors, but even Donghyuck knew of it, and he took the class as a relaxing elective.
It was either he has fallen from grace academically, or the statement that doing well in high school does not entail doing well in university was unintentionally proven true by him.
"Let me see...." Jaemin ignored Jeno's questioning noises, as he often did, and he began flipping the pages. "I took this class during the first year but... I don't tend to think about what I learned years ago, so I didn't recognize it right away."
You accessed the situation by waiting for Jaemin's final reaction. When you saw that the material was slowly being recalled in his head, you decided that he would take care of Jeno's questions just fine. If anything, Jaemin was the better candidate to explain the concepts. He definitely has a better grasp on how to help someone clueless navigate a complicated topic. You were always very quick to catch up with class materials, and when you explained it to someone, it felt like you were explaining common sense that didn't need to be taught.
Knowing that Jaemin has got Jeno covered (even if Jaemin didn't, if those two needed any help, they would know to go to you anyway), you exhaled in unnecessary relief and leaned back against the chair. Your arms were stretched out so your fingers touched the keyboard of your laptop, and it took you a silent second to stare at the dim screen before you turned to look at Donghyuck, letting your laptop screen go black. You dropped the pen you were spinning.
You didn't think there was a time when Donghyuck wasn't already looking back at you when you searched for him, but he wasn't this time. As if exhausted, his head hung low so his gaze comfortably rested on the gaps between his lap and the floor. His eyes were barely visible from the drops of his hair and how unopened they were. His thumbs twirled around each other on the tabletop, keeping his arms outstretched like yours as an unconscious mirroring of your gestures.
You faintly curled your fingers. This was not the first time you had encountered him down in the dumps, but not once were you sure about what you could do. All you have done is ask him about his feelings, which you always deemed the most effective method to handle someone in emotional turmoil. Donghyuck, though, was not a person whose feelings you handle. There was more going on between your capacity for empathy and him than an ordinary stranger. But beyond your increased heart, you had no real comfort method, so you did the same thing again anyway.
Donghyuck could feel your presence near without seeing you shift your body. Yet, nothing would have prepared him for the proximity of your faces when he finally perked up and responded to your silent approach. The micromovements in his eyes froze in sheer romantic panic, and then it was his body that turned rigid. This was not anticipated at all. Your faces have never been so close.
You stared at him in gentle concern. He noticed the short tremble of your pupils as you looked him over and the blemish of your skin that showed under the library lights. These observations sounded like water-filled ears, calm and quiet, like he fell asleep in the water. His eyes stepped down briefly before they darted up in romantic fear. He memorized the detailed shape of your lips; it was like water-filled ears, bubble popping and he was drowning.
This felt ridiculous, but it made sense. Donghyuck has been closer to other people before. His lips, hands, and body have all touched other people. However, those had come easy for him the same way he had given himself away. This was different. Perhaps it was because you rarely initiated or continued physical touch, or maybe it was just because he was madly in love with you. But when it came to physical intimacy with you, anything within a sniffing distance was a red treasure cross on a map that he would dig through with his calloused hands.
It made sense for him to feel flabbergasted, to pause in his tracks, to want so desperately to kiss someone for the first time.
"Hey, you." He smiled meekly.
"Hey," you returned quietly. "Are you feeling okay?"
The previous burn has long died down. All that remained was a tug-of-war of emotions; something like guilt, something like confusion, something like he shouldn't have said what he did and not thoroughly understanding why he reacted the way he did. Nobody was going to take you from him. You were never his to begin with, and if you were to leave him, it would be your choice and not another's.
Donghyuck figured this all came from him loving you too much. Being unreasonably paranoid, taking out his jealousy on Jeno, sneering at Jaemin's above-average looks—were these not just the consequences of him facing the threat of dividing your attention? That was a threat because he was in love. But the establishment of that reason loses the question of whether his feelings were true, which he needed to tame the shame of yearning for genuine intimacy.
It wasn't that he thought he didn't deserve it. Donghyuck knew he deserved affection. He wasn't ashamed of craving intimacy in terms of worth; he was embarrassed in terms of burden. He felt he was asking for love from too many people at a time, so perhaps it was time he stopped. He hasn't even received it from his parents yet. How could he ask it from you now?
The corner of his lips tucked upward bitterly, but the smile remained. "I could feel better," he whispered.
Your brows arched into a hopeless grimace. "I'm sorry," you replied. "Is there anything that can make you feel better?"
Donghyuck felt his breathing calm because you cared about him. He wondered if you cared about other people differently than you did him. He wondered if he was special to you, and he was riddled with the want to be so. His standing in your life was an enigma so anticipated that the mere fantasization of the perfect answer was enough to soar him over the moon. He imagined you prioritizing him and became undaunted by his sadness and guilt.
But there could be more. He glanced at your lips, felt his heart jump, and immediately looked away. There could always be more with you.
You watched curiously as Donghyuck retreated one arm to his lap. He laid it open with his palm up, and wiggled his fingers as if stretching their bones. Then he peeked at you as he leaned his hand closer to you as an invitation.
"Please hold my hand?" He asked.
Even though you wanted to ask, and there was no real reason why holding hands should make someone feel better despite the hormones and whatnot, you knew Donghyuck thrived off touching. He has shown a consistent track record of initiation, which you have grown decreasingly unwilling to comply with, and you remembered all of them. You memorized every single time your skin touched, through the graze of a finger or a palm to a cheek; you chalked it up to the fact that you had a good memory.
The bottom line was that he wasn't making a joke when he asked to hold your hand. It would make him feel better.
The gap sitting between you and him was warm and less than arm's length. You blinked down at him and felt your features soften, not particularly because of affection, but just that Donghyuck was such an ordinary occurrence in your life that there was only the existence of calm when he was around. His intense eyes peered through the curtains of his hair, looking at you, and he was quiet. It reminded you of the distant view of him sleeping on your couch the other morning and the simple note and apartment key you left for him.
On a gentler thought, maybe this was about your affection for him.
You peeked down at his palm and pursed your lips in uncertainty, your fingertips pressing against each other. This was partly about him and mostly about you trying to get over the familiarity of a no-contact life. This was different than when you would link arms with Jeno, and it was different than the last few times you briefly held Donghyuck's hand. He was just an acquaintance then. Touching him had meant nothing.
Donghyuck took your split moment of hesitation as rejection. His disappointment was quick and unnoticeable; he hoped to touch your hand, but he had no plans to dwell in your established boundary if you weren't comfortable with it. So he smiled like he always did with the most playfully discerning glare and retreated his hand. You jolted out of your trance in mild panic—you hadn't meant to upset him—but he made no implications of it.
"I'm sorry," you apologized out of habit and because you hoped Donghyuck would realize you wanted to comfort him.
He furrowed his brows, initially, with confusion. Then he relaxed into what could only be described as defiance. Not of you. Of your need to apologize for acting on your hesitation. But for once, he has no thought of what your apology made of him. Was he demanding and bossy? Was he someone you must overstep your comfort zone to be around, and whether that make a terrible reflection of him? None of those. This was just about you.
"You shouldn't be," he said.
You flashed him an unsure smirk. You were still debating if you wanted to let him know the offer was up if he were to ask you again, but the prolonged decision-making of such a trivial request was beginning to feel like an unnecessary drag. He probably didn't need any comfort anyway; he was the type to say things because his voice could produce words. Sometimes not even a thought goes over his head. The fact that you were dwelling so hard on touching his hand was the reflection of one thing only: if you didn't like Donghyuck so much, this would have blown over long ago.
Heart rushed to the base of your neck at the thought of liking him. This was the first time you've ever developed a genuine, non-shallow attraction to someone, so surely you would be embarrassed and flustered. But Lee Donghyuck, of all people? The polar opposite of yourself? The man voted least likely to be someone you would be in a relationship with in your imaginary game of superlatives?
"Hey, it's okay," Donghyuck repeated when he noticed your stoic expression, which he mistook as your reaction to rejecting him. "I'm fine."
"You can't possibly be. You just told me you could feel better." You fidgeted, shifting on your seat and picking at your nails. You spared him the most short-lived glance, realized that you made a mistake of looking at him and got upset with yourself, and furrowed your brows in response to the callous mistake. You cleared your throat to clear your head. "But, uh, I wasn't thinking about that anyway."
Donghyuck sat up with a curious raise of his brows. "What were you thinking about?"
You paused. He could not know about your feelings for him; that much was set in stone. Not even you were sure of how you felt. Ruining a decent friendship over uncertain feelings would be considered abnormal behavior for you. It would be illogical, which serves as a hit to your dignity no matter which way, and it could promptly end your relationship with Donghyuck, which would hurt your feelings.
So, what you needed was an excuse.
"You know what I wrote about on the note," you mentioned as you looked at him. "You said it was materials from an introduction class."
"That's because I took the class during freshman year," he said. He looked away from you suspiciously, resting his chin on his arms and looking forward. But you could tell he avoided eye contact because it was unordinary of him not to be staring at you most of the time. He scoffed ahead, eyes bored. "I did not like it."
"But you did pay attention," you speculated.
His action piqued your interest. What could he be hiding about an introduction research class? Did he do terribly on it? He has never shown himself to be the type of student who cares about class performance, though. Perhaps something embarrassing happened? Something so uncomfortable that not even Donghyuck himself could stifle with his natural charisma and inherent shamelessness! Could there be such an event?
"Where did you get that I paid attention?" He muttered with a soft pout on his lips, clearly uninterested in carrying on with this topic. That was also unlike him because he has always been so flexible with conversation topics, and unbeknownst to you, he loved you so much he could talk about anything you were talking about.
You sensed his distaste about the topic, and you debated on continuing. Perhaps only to answer his rhetorical question and nothing more. "I just thought so since you recognized what I wrote about. It's cool that you still remember the materials, and I didn't think the knowledge would have stayed that long in your head if you didn't care about the class."
You hit the nail on the head unintentionally. Donghyuck gave no signs that you have disturbed a part of his long-standing facade curated with his deep desire to weaponize nonexistent stupidity and vengeful disappointment. Nobody has ever come remotely close to acknowledging him before, mainly because nobody had the decency to see him as someone better than what he currently was. This outrageous persona was the best he could develop into, and nobody ever questioned it.
He chuckled under his breath and gave you a smug smirk. "I guess I am smart."
You remained quiet, haunting him with your admirable thoughtful eyes even though he practically had the feel of them etched into his brain. Then, abruptly, you asked, "Are you?"
There was no mock in your tone. That was not a sarcastic question. That was not asked out of hilarity or for comedic relief. You were interrogating him about his intelligence. You were the first person to ask him if he could have been more thoughtful and done better if he had been willing to drop his grunge against a particular cause and make an effort for school. You genuinely asked him if he was smart.
He did not expect you to come barging into his comfort zone so suddenly. Usually, it was the other way around, but even then, he was getting better at going at a slower pace. Your question and the way you asked it were abrupt and straightforward. He felt a hearty laugh bubbling in his chest; he expected no less from his beloved! Still, he was baffled and panicked because of its abruptness. He hid this problem for years, so he had no idea what to say.
Standing up, Donghyuck heeded his instinct and left the table. You physically perked up at his silence, and your body followed his direction without moving from your seat. Jeno and Jaemin also confusedly trailed their attention after their friend after having their attention stolen by the screech of the chair. You huffed an apologetic sigh; you were sure you had said something wrong for him to react this way.
"What happened?" Jeno asked after he moved from his seat to where Donghyuck was before he left the library.
"I don't know." Your eyes lingered on the glass doors. It took you a hefty amount of effort to peel them away. You furrowed your brows at Jeno. It was the only thing you could do to make it known that you felt agitated because your body was frozen. "I may have accidentally said something wrong and upset him."
Jaemin pursed his lips but failed to hold back a disbelieving scoff. You could tell off every crevice of Donghyuck's existence, and that masochistic man will hold onto every word you said with love. The only thing Jaemin could think of that would make Donghyuck upset were you saying you were engaged to anybody that is not him.
When Jeno whipped his head around to glare at him, he maintained eye contact remorselessly. He understood if Jeno cared; part of this fiasco involved your saddened feelings, and you two were best friends. But Jaemin barely knew you and knew that Donghyuck would only let friendship problems brew for so long before he took the initiative to resolve it. Not necessarily because Donghyuck understood that he might be wrong, but because he despised loneliness.
Donghyuck has trouble letting his acquaintances go, let alone someone he is in love with. Jaemin knew that, and the sudden farewell didn't particularly faze him.
But then he accidentally shared a glance with you. You were staring at him with such questioning concern, which he knew was here because of Donghyuck, that his confidence faltered. Jaemin cleared his throat and crossed his arms defensively; he felt awkward around you, but he also had vicariously cared about you through Jeno and Donghyuck's constant mentions of you.
"What did you say to him?" Jaemin asked.
"I..." You did not know how to explain it without giving them the full context. They would not understand it if you told them all you did was ask him if he was smart. Even after you gave them context, you could not find the time to explain why you asked it as a genuine question because you were speculating Donghyuck was involved in a self-sabotaging scheme. You could tell because you, too, have done it to yourself. "I don't want to explain it to you."
"Then I can't help you," Jaemin said.
"I haven't asked for help," you responded bluntly.
With the lack of specific acknowledgment thrown his way, Jaemin could tell you uttered it with sincerity. You haven't asked for his help, and you did not welcome any exertion of effort to gain his support. There was no spite in you. Jeno chuckled at the brief bewilderment that flickered across Jaemin's face. He probably reacted similarly when he first met you and became familiar with how your brain operated in social situations. Something about it was reminiscing, maybe because he still felt guilty for what he didn't do for you during his high school years.
"You should go after him and ask," Jeno suggested with a shrug. "I think he would like that."
You pursed your lips with a thoughtful hum, unsure. "What if he doesn't want to talk to me right now?"
"Yeah, I doubt that!" Jaemin chimed in with a dismissive wave. He smiled at you, funnily like a know-it-all. "He will tell you if he doesn't want to talk to you, he's mean like that. But you won't know if you never try."
You were leaning toward the suggestion, and now you got the reassurance you wanted to execute it. Giving Jeno and Jaemin a brief nod, you asked them politely to watch over your belongings as you grabbed your phone. Jaemin waited until you were out of earshot to pull his face into a grimace, then quickly broke into a humorous, uncontainable smile as he leaned his torso toward Jeno to get his attention.
Jeno pushed Jaemin away by shoving a palm to his face. "What?" Jeno asked between light chuckles.
"They are exactly the way you and Donghyuck described them to be! I can't believe it!" Jaemin whispered aggressively. "I thought you two were exaggerating!"
"Why would we lie about that?" Jeno exclaimed incredulously.
"I–" Jaemin blinked and smacked his lips into silence. "I don't know. I just assumed people lie about mutual friends all the time."
Jeno shook his head. He closed your laptop and gathered your belongings closer into a space to make room on the table. He remained on the chair next to yours, which Donghyuck had occupied a moment ago, and he reached over the table to pull his laptop over to his side. He recalled, his mind laying the sequence gently to him, your grief-stricken state when you thought Donghyuck was angry with you. He sighed to himself, his eyes smiling blankly at the computer screen.
He probably should have told you where Donghyuck used to park his car.