Friday came and went in a daze, Donghyuck almost sleep-walking through it as he watched the hours tick by, time marching inescapably toward Saturday afternoon. He hadn't figured out what he was going to do about his Jaehyun-shaped problem yet, and he was running out of time. He didn't see much of his friends doing the day, with another Drama Society meeting during lunch and his mind becoming distracted by thoughts of the weekend whenever anyone tried to engage him in conversation.
Jaemin made several more frustratingly vague references to needing to speak to him, but every time he was usurped by Renjun appearing, which had him clamming up faster than the zipper he constantly played with on his jacket pocket. Donghyuck eventually told him to just call him on Sunday, rather than have to watch him gnaw on his bottom lip when he failed to evade hurricane-Renjun yet again.
Renjun seemed to understand his nerves and deliberately kept the mood light, finding him--and by extension, Jaemin, hence the younger boy's constant frustration--in the halls or outside the drama studio at lunch, just to hug him and make him smile. Donghyuck appreciated the effort, but he was relieved when the day came to an end and he was finally able to climb into his car and head home.
"Do you want company tomorrow?" Renjun asked as they left the building together. He considered it for a few minutes, during which time Jaemin caught up with them, complaining loudly that they had left him behind. Renjun ignored him, focused instead on Donghyuck, who shook his head and gave him what he hoped was a reassuring smile.
"I'll be fine," he insisted, pulling his keys out of his jacket pocket and flipping them over in his hands a few times. He saw the entirely unconvinced expression on Renjun's face and patted his phone, nestled in the pocket directly above his heart. "I'll text you if I need anything, okay?"
"Why would he--?" Renjun clamped a hand firmly over Jaemin's mouth and dragged him away. He heard the older boy promising to buy him a coffee if he stopped talking, which seemed to appease Jaemin as they walked away from him towards Renjun's car on the other side of the lot. He smiled at their retreating figures, before closing the small distance between him and the peace and quiet of his car's interior.
--
When he woke the next day, Donghyuck didn't hurry to get out of bed, luxuriating in the feeling of not having anything pressing that demanded his attention--other than the elephant in the room, which still sat squarely on his chest, threatening to suffocate him to death. He'd spent all of Friday night getting all of his homework done for the following week, with an occasional call or message to Renjun to make use of both his superior intellect and superior internet speed.
He hadn't wanted to worry about anything other than Jaehyun today, which was a good plan in theory, until he remembered that his brother wasn't due to arrive until the afternoon. That left him a good few hours to stress over his lack of a solid strategy, and to worry that he was going to somehow make things worse between them. He let himself doze for another hour, despite the way the sunlight streamed in and hit him straight in the face but eventually he could avoid the world no longer.
Making his way downstairs, he found his mom in the kitchen, humming softly to herself as she cooked breakfast for his dad, who was tapping away at his laptop in an armchair in the living room. He'd met the man for the first time last night, when he'd arrived home halfway through dinner, but the softly-spoken, middle-aged man had immediately put him at ease with the affectionate way he greeted first his wife and then Donghyuck.
He got the feeling, from the deliberately vague questions he had fielded during the rest of the meal, that his father in this reality was away a lot, and didn't really know a whole lot about either of his sons--which was further evidenced when he asked Donghyuck when he was next going to see Jaehyun in the dorms, to which his mom had shaken her head imperceptibly, a panicked look in her eyes. He'd taken the hint, subtly brushing off the question to ask about his business trip, and she had visibly relaxed as the topic of conversation moved away from Jaehyun.
His father would be no help in figuring out the mystery of his relationship with his brother, Donghyuck had realised quickly. He hadn't questioned the dynamic with his mom further, but he got the impression that the family behaved very differently around the patriarch than they did normally. He just hoped that he wouldn't do anything to ruin that when Jaehyun was there.
"Do you want breakfast, honey?" Surprising him out of his thoughts, a plate was pushed onto the kitchen table near where he stood, before a gentle, warm hand stroked his hair affectionately. "Sit and eat, before it goes cold." She took a plate next door for his dad, and then sat with him as he ate, the only other noise in the room filtering in through the open kitchen window.
After clearing the table and helping her wash up, showing his appreciation physically even as she inevitably waved away his verbal thanks, he headed back up to his room and read over his English essay for a third time. It wasn't necessary, as he had a much wider vocabulary in the language now than he could have ever dreamed of having in high school--thanks largely to touring with Mark, Johnny and, of course, Jaehyun--but it gave him something to focus on as he waited down the clock.
A few minutes past noon, he heard a car pull up outside. Rushing over to the window, he sighed when he realised it was just their neighbour across the street returning home. He watched a woman carry a small child from the car into the house, smiling as the baby giggled and dropped toys all over the driveway behind them as they moved. The woman passed the child to an elderly woman standing in the open doorway, presumably the child's grandmother, before scrambling to pick up all the discarded plastic.
"See you on Monday, hyung." Donghyuck hadn't even noticed the small, black sedan pull up across his driveway, distracted as he had been by the family living opposite. He snapped back to attention as he recognised Jaehyun's voice, glancing down just in time to see his brother slamming closed the passenger door, waving to someone inside. Donghyuck squinted, trying to see through the small gap at the top of the barely open window, but he thought the voice that answered sounded a lot like someone he knew.
"Don't miss us too much." The black car drove off quickly, not giving Jaehyun a chance to respond. He simply chucked instead, waving again at the retreating dark speck, before turning to walk up the driveway. As he did so, Jaehyun glanced up at Donghyuck's open window, the two making eye contact for a split second before Donghyuck ducked behind the curtain to his left.
As he moved, Donghyuck knew how ridiculous he was acting, hiding from Jaehyun when his car was clearly parked on the driveway beside a long silver monstrosity he assumed belonged to their father. Jaehyun would have known he was there soon enough anyway, if he hadn't already figured it out, and yet, as they caught sight of each other, he couldn't help the panic and fear that bubbled up in his chest. He hoped that the older man didn't think he'd been eavesdropping--even if that was, honestly, what he'd been planning on doing when he'd first headed for the window.
Donghyuck stayed in his room for nearly twenty minutes after that, lying on his bed and listening to the soft bustle of cars and people passing on the street outside, coupled with the low rumble of voices from his family below him. He could easily make out the sound of his mom's voice, the timbre lighter and softer, but he wasn't sure if the other sounds he could hear were one or two voices--Jaehyun and their dad, or just one of them.
Eventually, he psyched himself up enough to leave his room, pacing quietly out to the staircase as he mentally fortified himself for the conversation he knew he needed to have. He didn't know if his mother would want to be present for it, wasn't sure if he wanted her there or not, if he was honest, but it was better to get it over with sooner rather than later. If he left it too long, he knew he'd chicken out, and that just wasn't an acceptable option.
"Eomma, why is he here?" Donghyuck froze, leg dangling in free space above the next stair down. He grabbed at the handrail for balance and listened intently, noting the bitter bite to Jaehyun's words as he spoke barely loud enough to Donghyuck to hear.
"I told you, your father wanted to see both of you today," their mom said, matching Jaehyun's volume. She sounded calm, but Donghyuck wasn't convinced. He knew how much today meant to her, to both of them. "I asked him to be here." A half-truth, he thought, as his brother scoffed, the sound carrying a little more this time. He hoped it wasn't loud enough to be heard from the living room.
"It never stopped him from being conveniently absent before. It wasn't so bad, when he made sure he was out with his friends whenever I came home but, lately, it seems like he's here all the time." Their mother let out a soft hum of discomfort, but Jaehyun continued undeterred. "I'm almost never home anymore anyway, thanks to him, and now he's messing up the little time I get to spend with you. It's like he's trying to ruin everything."
"That's not fair, baby," Donghyuck heard her say, but he didn't stick around to listen to more. He stumbled as he turned and scrambled back up the stairs, smacking his knee hard into one of the wooden panels that lined the walls on either side of the staircase before bolting for his room. He had just enough sense left to shut the door gently, instead of slamming it like he wanted to, before he was diving under his covers, curling up into a tight ball against his mattress.
He heard a loud noise echo up from downstairs, followed by several raised voices, but, when no one stormed upstairs to yell at him for listening in to something he shouldn't have, he prayed that he'd somehow gotten away undetected. It was a wholly foolish hope, he knew that, but he didn't think he could survive it if they knew he'd heard them talking about him. He couldn't take the shame, or the pain that suddenly threatened to crush him from all angles.
He stayed in the foetal position, tears slowly soaking into the sheets below his cheek, until it was time for dinner. A loud knock had him flinching away from the sound, heart hammering in his chest, but the quiet, sad voice that called to him through the door left him with little choice. His dad expected a family of four downstairs for dinner, even though Donghyuck would rather throw himself out of the window than go anywhere near any of the people downstairs.
"I'll be there in a minute," he muttered, scrubbing a hand over his damp face. He heard slow footsteps shuffling away from his door, waiting until she started down the stairs before he emerged from under the covers. Taking a quick detour to the bathroom, he knew he'd look like a mess even before he saw his reflection, but the salt-encrusted tear tracks across his nose and down one cheek were worse than he could have imagined.
He quickly wiped them away, unable to do much for his red-rimmed eyes and puffy skin, then headed downstairs, sliding into his seat without a word to the three people awaiting him. He kept his face bowed, hoping his hair would hide the worst of his shame, but he felt several pairs of eyes on him.
"Sorry I'm late," he whispered, glancing up through the strands of inky hair to see that, as expected, his mom's eyes were darting from him to his brother and back, face pinched and lips tightly pressed together. His father was watching him curiously, head tilted slightly to one side. Jaehyun, however, stoically stared at the wall above their mom's head, fist clenched at his side as he sat next to Donghyuck. All in all, it was the tensest moment Donghyuck could recall in a long time, and he would have rejoiced if the ground had chosen that moment to open up and swallow him whole.
"Let's eat, huh?" Her small smile was forced, the tone far too high-pitched and thin to be genuine, but the woman seated on his other side made quick work of serving out food to the rest of them, passing out side dishes at a speed that would normally have made his food-loving head spin. He saw his father temporarily lose interest in the other people at the table, accepting a large bowl of kimchi from Jaehyun with a smile, and Donghyuck forced himself to take a breath or risk passing out.
It helped, so he took another. Then he took a third, the oxygen passing to his brain and easing some of the tension inside his body. He just needed to keep breathing, he told himself. Keep breathing and then, eventually, this would be over. A finite number of breaths and this meal would end.
They all ate quickly, even the clueless man who unknowingly found himself adrift in the sea of tension around him, asking inane questions of his wife and sons whenever his mouth wasn't fun. He didn't seem to notice the lack of enthusiasm in each answer, or the way that nobody else at the table said a word without being spoken to first. When it was his turn, Donghyuck struggled to muster up the energy to explain the musical he was meant to be planning with Dejun, especially considering how distracted he'd been in the meeting the previous day.
"You'll be directing it then, I guess?" his dad asked, tone demanding an answer. He heard Jaehyun let out a tiny sigh as he attempted to inhale his rice faster than was entirely natural, and Donghyuck forced himself to remain outwardly unaffected. It wasn't working, but that didn't stop him trying.
"I was thinking of trying out for one of the leads, actually," he answered, talking to the table below him more than at the question asker. "I haven't decided yet."
"You're not a singer, Donghyuck-ah." He stiffened at the words, spoken kindly but carelessly, and his mother's hand clamped down hard onto his knee. He wasn't sure why she did it, but the gesture was grounding and he quickly twined his fingers with hers. "You shouldn't waste your time with auditions, if you know you won't make it."
"If you'll excuse me..." He had been about to speak, to correct his father and let him know just how wrong he was, when Jaehyun pushed up from the table, chair rocking backwards with a soft thud. "I have some work I need to do for class on Monday. I'll be in my room." Leaving an empty bowl and an even emptier void where he'd been sat, Donghyuck watched as he strode to the doorway and disappeared. The telltale creak of a door opening and closing upstairs let them know that he'd been true to his word, and then silence fell again.
"I'll start clearing up," his mother announced to the room, and then she was out of her seat and bustling around the kitchen like she needed to make herself busy somehow. Donghyuck didn't blame her; he finished his own food quickly, even though it tasted like dirt to him now, while the man sat across from him helped himself to more chicken. A few minutes later, he too excused himself to the living room, citing his own work that was not yet finished, leaving Donghyuck alone with his mother.
"I can't do it, eomma." At first, there was no answer. He half-expected not to receive one at all, but then she was by his side, arms wrapping around his shoulders so tightly he wasn't sure he'd be able to breathe. He wasn't sure he wanted to. He just wanted to escape from this reality for a few seconds, to no longer have to deal with the pain that an unfathomable version of himself had wrought on the people close him, so he clung to her, eyes squeezing shut around the tears that threatened to fall.
"I know it's hard, honey," she told him softly, letting him fall apart in her arms. "I might not be able to do it for you, but I'm here." His breath hitched and he bit his lip to avoid his cries reaching the living room or beyond. She rocked him, pulling him with her onto her chair, their limbs tangling together inextricably. "He loves you. He might be angry, and he might be afraid, but he loves you."
"He doesn't," Donghyuck insisted, leaning back just enough to swipe the palm of his hand across his eyes. "We both heard him earlier." It wasn't worth denying the facts anymore. All of them, except the blissfully ignorant stranger in the living room, knew that he'd heard every word. "He hates me."
"No, Donghyuck-ah." She took his face in her hands, tilting it up so that she could look him in the eyes. "He doesn't hate you. He's just hurting."
"How do you know?" He couldn't help the painful tremor of hope that passed through him at the unwavering certainty in her voice. He had heard Jaehyun's harsh, angry words with his own ears, yet he wanted so desperately for her to be right. "How could you know?"
"Mothers just know." She wiped at his tears again, thumbs firm but soothing. "He could never hate you."