Chapter 15: Family Video Call Check-In
The lake house sofa was a fortress of pillows. Donghae had constructed it himself, a slow, deliberate process that involved shuffling from the bedroom with one cushion at a time. Three behind his back, one under his knees, a spare at his elbow just in case. The afternoon sun poured through the sheer curtains, turning the dust motes into spinning gold and painting warm stripes across the wool throw blanket he’d eventually drag over his legs.
Hyukjae watched from the kitchen island, phone in hand. “The Great Wall of Cushions is complete, I see.”
“It’s strategic,” Donghae said, easing himself down into the formation. He let out a low, satisfied groan as the support hit exactly the right spots. The memory of that tiny click on their living room floor two weeks ago was a secret warmth he carried with him. Progress was measured in millimeters and minutes without ache. “A king needs his throne.”
“A king who needs help putting socks on,” Hyukjae muttered, but he was already moving, adjusting the pillow under Donghae’s knees by a fraction. His fingers brushed Donghae’s calf, a brief, automatic touch. “Your mom in five. You ready for the inspection?”
“She’s going to say I look pale.”
“You are pale.”
“She’s going to say I’m too thin.”
Hyukjae’s eyes flickered over him, a quick, clinical assessment that turned soft at the edges. “You’ve lost a little weight. Your body’s working overtime. It’s okay.” He said it like he was convincing himself, too. He busied himself with the tablet, propping it on the coffee table, angling it just so. Every movement was part of their new choreography.
The video call tone echoed in the quiet, spacious room. Donghae’s mother’s face filled the screen, peering in so close they could see the familiar worry lines around her eyes.
“Aigoo, my son.” Her voice crackled through the speaker. “Let me see you. Move that screen, Hyukjae-ah.”
Hyukjae obediently tilted the tablet. Donghae gave a small, reassuring wave. “I’m fine, eomma. Really. The lake air is good.”
She didn’t look convinced. “Your complexion is gray. Are you eating? I told Hyukjae to make you the bone broth. The one with the mushrooms.”
“He made it twice this week,” Donghae said, catching Hyukjae’s eye. Hyukjae had nearly burned it the second time, distracted by a company email. “It was perfect.”
“Hmm.” She leaned back, her gaze sharp. “You need seaweed soup. Proper nutrition. I’m sending some tomorrow. The courier will bring it by noon. You have to eat it all, Donghae-ya. It’s for strength.”
Donghae opened his mouth to protest, but Hyukjae spoke first, his voice smooth and placating. “We’ll be waiting for it, eomoni. Thank you. It’ll be a big help.” He knew better than to stand between a mother and her remedy.
She fussed for ten more minutes—advice about warm compresses, a story about a cousin’s friend who healed a bad back with acupuncture and prayer, a strict order to avoid all dampness. Donghae nodded, interjecting where required, letting the familiar stream of concern wash over him. It was exhausting and deeply comforting. A tether to a world where he was still just a son, not a patient.
Just as they were saying their goodbyes, another call buzzed through—Hyukjae’s sister. He switched over with a raised eyebrow.
Her face appeared, lively and unimpressed. “Okay, proof of life. I need visual confirmation that Lee Donghae is not currently attempting a pop-and-lock in the living room.”
Donghae burst out laughing, a real, sharp sound that made his back twinge pleasantly instead of painfully. “No dancing,” he promised, holding up a hand.
“Swear? Because last time you were ‘resting’ you were watching old performance videos and your shoulders were doing the choreography. I saw.”
Hyukjae smirked, turning the tablet to show the pillow fortress. “Behold. The pinnacle of indolence.”
She scanned the scene, her eyes missing nothing. The careful arrangement, the throw blanket, the way Hyukjae hovered just at the edge of the frame. Her teasing expression softened, just for a second. “Good. Keep it that way. How’s the pain?”
“It’s… managed,” Donghae said, opting for honesty. “Some days are just background noise. Some days it’s a loud argument. But we’re… filling the quiet.” He used the phrase without thinking, and saw Hyukjae go very still.
His sister understood. She nodded slowly. “You two. Just listen to the doctors, okay? And you,” she pointed at her brother through the screen, “remember to eat something that isn’t just coffee and stress. You look tired.”
After the calls ended, the lake house felt larger, the silence richer. The glow from the tablet faded. Hyukjae slid onto the far end of the sofa, careful not to jostle the fortress. He picked up the remote, muted the TV, and just sat. The setting sun was now a deep orange, bleeding into the room.
Donghae watched the light play on Hyukjae’s profile. The tightness around his eyes that had been a permanent fixture for weeks seemed to have eased a fraction. The protector, momentarily off-duty.
“She’s right, you know,” Donghae said quietly. “You do look tired.”
Hyukjae shrugged, not denying it. “It’s the kind of tired that comes from waiting. It’s heavier.” He glanced over. “Was it too much? The calls?”
“No. It was good. It felt… normal. A version of it.” He shifted, a slow, careful roll of his shoulders. “I liked your sister asking for proof. It meant she knows me.”
“Everyone knows you’re a terrible patient.”
“I’m delightful.”
“You’re stubborn. You try to hide the winces when you think I’m not looking. You push an extra five minutes on your stretches.” Hyukjae listed the offenses, but his voice was fond. “You think I don’t see.”
Donghae didn’t have a retort for that. It was true. They were both watching each other, a silent, vigilant dance. He reached out, not far, just enough for his fingers to brush the back of Hyukjae’s hand where it rested on the sofa cushion. “I see you, too.”
Hyukjae turned his hand over, palm up. An invitation.
Donghae slid his own into it, a simple, profound slotting together. The connection was a current, steady and warm. They sat like that as the gold in the room deepened to dusk purple, as the shadows grew long and merged into one.
“Hyukjae.”
“Hmm?”
“When your mom’s soup comes tomorrow… let’s eat it on the deck. At the little table. I want to sit outside for a while.”
It was a small thing. A massive thing. Leaving the carefully controlled environment of the sofa, venturing onto the cool wooden deck, sitting on a chair that wasn’t perfectly engineered for support. It was a reach.
Hyukjae didn’t immediately say no. He thought about it, his thumb stroking the side of Donghae’s hand. He was assessing risk, wind chill, chair height, duration. Finally, he nodded, a single, decisive dip of his chin. “Okay. We’ll bring all the cushions. And you wear the sweater. The thick one.”
Donghae smiled, his heart-shaped smile finally reaching his eyes completely. “Deal.”
The future felt like that—not a distant, abstract concept, but something as tangible as the plan for tomorrow’s lunch. It was a wooden deck, a bowl of soup, a sweater, and the man beside him, already planning the logistics of a simple meal with the intensity of a general. It was close enough to touch. It was, for the first time in a long time, a thing they could actually reach. And maybe, Donghae thought as he let his head fall back against the pillows, his hand still securely in Hyukjae’s, they could reach a little further the day after that.
“The new duet demo,” Donghae said into the peaceful dark. “The one from the junior producers. Play it for me later. I just want to listen.”
Hyukjae didn’t question it. He just squeezed his hand. “Yeah. We can do that.”
Hyukjae fetched the laptop, settling back into his spot with careful distance. He queued up the file, the clean studio interface glowing in the dim room. The first chords of the demo flowed through the speakers, a bright, radio-ready melody crafted by their newest team.
Donghae listened, his head tilted against the pillows. His fingers tapped a silent, absent rhythm on his thigh. “The bridge is weak,” he said after a minute, eyes closed. “It’s all ascent, no release. They’re afraid of the quiet note.”
“It’s a summer single. It’s not supposed to be deep, it’s supposed to sell.” Hyukjae watched him, the professional critique smoothing the worry from his own features. This was their oldest language.
“Even summer has thunderstorms,” Donghae murmured. He opened his eyes. “It needs a crack in the sunshine. A minor seventh where no one expects it.” He’d always been the one who wove the ache into their hits, the subtle shadow that made the brightness believable. He wrote most of their best material because he understood balance—joy needed the ghost of sorrow to feel real.
“You’ll tell them. When we’re back.” Hyukjae paused the track. The sudden silence felt heavy. “They miss your notes in the margins. The ‘try this’ scrawls on the napkins.”
“I have a note for this place,” Donghae said, his gaze drifting to the dark window reflecting the room. “The mountain stay last year. The way the fog sat in the pines at dawn, like the world was holding its breath. That silence… it wasn’t empty. It was full. I wrote three songs from that week. Just melodies in my head, humming them while you boiled water for coffee.”
Hyukjae remembered. Donghae had been quiet, coiled by the fireplace with a notebook, not writing, just staring at the trees. It had spooked him a little, that profound stillness. Then the demos had come, lush and layered, some of their most critically acclaimed work. “So this is a good investment. The lake house. For the company,” Hyukjae said, a dry tease in his voice. “We’ll write it off as a creative retreat.”
“One tiny problem, Lee Hyukjae.” Donghae’s voice dropped, losing its professional cadence, turning intimate and rough.
Hyukjae knew what was coming. He braced himself.
“The singer-songwriter is sex-deprived.” Donghae said it plainly, holding Hyukjae’s wary gaze. “The mountain inspired ballads. This is just inspiring frustration.”
There it was. Hyukjae looked away first, at the muted TV, at the folded blanket. His protectiveness had built careful, excruciating walls. He’d limited their physical contact to what he could control—pragmatic, careful relief that didn’t risk jostling the delicate architecture of bone and inflamed nerve. Hands and mouths in the dark, service and release, clinical and safe. It was mercy, and it was torture.
“You know why,” Hyukjae finally said, his voice tight. “A blow job doesn’t require spinal torsion.”
“I’m not a physics problem. I’m your husband.” The word hung between them, a claim and a plea. “I’m craving for more. I miss the weight of you. I miss the carelessness of it.” He gestured vaguely at his own torso, a prisoner’s map. “This isn’t just about getting off. It’s about being gone with you. I haven’t been gone in weeks.”
Hyukjae’s throat worked. He heard the truth in it. The loss. He’d been so focused on the biology of healing, he’d sidelined the ecology of them—the messy, vital overgrowth of intimacy that needed more than cautious management. “I’m scared,” he admitted, the words sandpaper-raw. “I’m so scared of being the reason you’re back on that fucking table in the clinic, clutching the donut pillow, white-knuckled. I can’t.”
“So we get creative.” Donghae’s tone shifted, a sly, determined light entering his eyes. The same look he got when he’d solved a melodic puzzle. “You’re the CEO. I’m the idea guy. We problem-solve for a living.”
“This isn’t a chorus to rewrite.”
“It’s architecture.” Donghae began moving, a slow, deliberate excavation from his pillow fortress. He winced once, a sharp inhalation, but didn’t stop. He shifted onto his side, facing Hyukjae, drawing his knees up as far as he comfortably could. “We have a perfectly good, sturdy sofa. You’re already right there.”
Hyukjae stared at him, understanding dawning with a flush of heat. “Donghae.”
“I stay on my side. You stay… adjacent. No torsion.” He patted the space in front of him on the cushion, an invitation. “We just have to be smart. And slow.”
It was a terrible idea. It was the best idea Hyukjae had heard in months. The want, so meticulously dammed, broke through his caution. He moved, not onto the sofa, but to the floor on his knees beside it, putting himself level with Donghae. His hand came up to cup Donghae’s jaw, thumb stroking the pale cheek. “If you feel even a twinge. You say stop. Not ‘it’s fine.’ You say stop.”
“I’ll say stop.” Donghae leaned into the touch, his eyes fluttering closed. “Now stop talking and get over here.”
Hyukjae did. He slid onto the space Donghae had cleared, his body slotting against Donghae’s front, chest to back with a careful, precious inch of air between them. He arranged Donghae’s arm over his own waist, his own hand splaying possessively over Donghae’s hip bone. It was a familiar shape, revisited in exile.
Donghae buried his face in the nape of Hyukjae’s neck, breathing him in. Salt, clean cotton, home. The solid warmth of him was an ache so deep it felt like healing. “See?” he whispered, his lips moving against Hyukjae’s skin. “Creative.”
Hyukjae’s hand tightened on his hip, pressing back just slightly, the first real pressure. It was a question.
The answer was a low, grateful hum that vibrated through both of them. Donghae’s other hand crept down, his fingers finding the button of Hyukjae’s jeans. Not for a blow job. For this. For the slow, shared friction in the darkening room, for the broken sighs muffled in skin, for the terrifying, perfect gamble of closeness. For the momentum of need, finally, mercifully, met.
For the momentum of need, finally, mercifully, met.
Hyukjae’s movements were deliberate, each shift calibrated against the map of Donghae’s injury. He peeled away fabric with a patience that felt like agony, his hands mapping familiar territory now marked by caution. “This okay?” he breathed into the space between Donghae’s shoulder blades, his voice frayed.
“Don’t stop.” Donghae pressed his forehead into the sofa cushion, fingers twisting into the throw blanket. “Please.”
The sex was slow. Hyukjae worked him open with a reverence that tasted like fear and devotion, his fingers slick and careful, reading every hitch in Donghae’s breath as if it were sheet music. When he finally pushed inside, it was with a controlled, inexorable pressure that carved a space for bliss within the strict borders of pain. He filled him up, a deep, stretching completeness that made Donghae gasp, his back bowing into a careful curve.
“Look at me,” Hyukjae murmured, his hand splayed over Donghae’s abdomen, holding him steady. “Eyes open.”
Donghae turned his head, his vision blurring at the edges. Hyukjae’s face was above him, strained with concentration, sweat beading at his temples. Each thrust was a measured rollout, a retreat and return that built a heat so diffuse it felt like drowning in sunlight. Donghae chanted Hyuk’s name, a broken rhythm against the softer sound of skin, the creak of the sofa, the distant lap of lake water. “Hyuk. Hyuk. Hyukjae.”
He came silently at first, a wave of tension that shattered into release, his chants dissolving into a hoarse cry of Hyuk’s name as the pleasure ripped through him, urgent and cleansing. Hyukjae followed, his own finish a shuddering collapse against Donghae’s side, one arm slung protectively over his hip, avoiding the vulnerable spine.