Chapter 4: Normalcy is a Lie
The line, so casually drawn in the desperate quiet of Donghae’s bedroom, was now a canyon. "We never talk about it."
In the three weeks since the change reversed, they had perfected the art of not talking about it. They fell back into a rhythm as natural as breathing. They went to class. They studied at the library. They argued over which food stall had the best spicy rice cakes. Hyukjae was louder now, his laughter a booming declaration of his returned self, his touches more frequent—a punch to the arm, a shove, an arm slung casually around Donghae’s neck. Every single one of them felt like a lie.
The cafeteria was a sea of noise and greasy smells. Donghae pushed a limp french fry around his tray, his appetite gone.
Across the cheap laminate table, Hyukjae was holding court. Two girls from their statistics class were listening, rapt, as he reenacted the previous night’s chaotic dance practice, his hands slicing the air.
“So I told him, if you’re going to be that late, at least come with snacks. A man needs compensation!” Hyukjae finished, leaning back in his chair. The girls giggled.
Donghae watched his mouth, the familiar curve of his smile, the way his tongue darted out to wet his lips. He remembered the taste of that mouth—hot, frantic, yielding. He looked away, his stomach clenching.
Hyukjae’s arm shot out, his hand landing heavily on Donghae’s thigh, just above his knee. He shook him, never breaking eye contact with the girls. “This guy here, though. He’d rather starve than interrupt his precious reading time. Right, Dongs?”
The touch was a brand. It seared through the denim, a jolt of pure, agonizing memory. Donghae froze, the fry slipping from his fingers. He could feel the phantom weight of Hyukjae’s legs wrapped around his waist, the grip of his hands on Donghae’s ass, pulling him deeper.
“Uh-huh,” Donghae managed, his voice tight.
Hyukjae, oblivious, turned his attention to his cheeseburger. He picked it up, took a massive, dripping bite. A thick smear of ketchup and special sauce clung to his thumb and forefinger. He pulled his hand from Donghae’s thigh—the sudden absence of pressure felt like a plunge into cold water—and lifted his fingers to his mouth.
Donghae watched, transfixed.
Hyukjae sucked the ketchup from his thumb, his lips forming a soft ‘O’. Then he slid his forefinger into his mouth, cleaning it with a slow, deliberate drag of his tongue, his eyes half-lidded with the simple pleasure of the taste.
The image superimposed itself violently over another memory: Hyukjae beneath him, eyes wide and wet, lips swollen and parted on a choked gasp as Donghae moved inside him.
Donghae’s hand tightened around his soda can. The aluminum buckled with a faint crinkle. He looked down, his breath sawing in his lungs. He was hard, a painful, shameful erection pressed against his zipper. In the middle of the fucking cafeteria. Surrounded by the smell of frying oil and the girls’ light perfume, while Hyukjae sucked sauce off his fingers.
“You okay?” Hyukjae asked, his voice suddenly low, cutting through the chatter of the girls. He was looking at Donghae now, his gaze sharp, a flicker of something undefinable in his eyes. “You look pale.”
“Fine,” Donghae said, the word clipped. He stood up abruptly, the legs of his chair shrieking against the linoleum. “I… I left a book in the library. Gotta go.”
He didn’t look back. He walked stiffly, awkwardly, out of the cafeteria, his mind a roaring white noise. He needed air. He needed distance. He needed to erase the feel of that hand on his thigh and the sight of that tongue.
He didn’t go to the library. He walked, aimless, across campus, the bright afternoon sun feeling hostile. He ended up at the rear of the engineering building, in a narrow, forgotten courtyard paved with cracked concrete. A single rusted bench sat beneath a sickly maple tree. It was his spot. His place to think, to read, to disappear.
He sank onto the bench, elbows on his knees, head in his hands. The wind rustled the sparse leaves overhead. He breathed, trying to force the images from his mind, but they were etched there now, playing on a loop: the flex of Hyukjae’s back, the sweat-slicked skin, the raw, broken sounds he’d made.
The crunch of footsteps on gravel.
Donghae looked up. Hyukjae stood at the entrance to the courtyard, his hands shoved deep in his jacket pockets. His expression was unreadable.
“You don’t have a book at the library,” Hyukjae said. His voice was quiet, stripped of its usual performative energy. “You returned everything yesterday.”
Donghae said nothing. He just watched him approach.
Hyukjae stopped in front of the bench, blocking the weak sun. “You left because of me.” It wasn’t a question.
“No, I—”
“Don’t lie. It’s worse when you lie.” Hyukjae sat down, not next to him, but facing him, one foot up on the bench, his arm resting on his knee. He was close.Too close. “What did I do?”
The directness was disarming. It shattered their silent pact. Donghae felt a surge of anger, hot and desperate. “You sucked the fucking ketchup off your fingers, Hyukjae. And you looked…”
“I looked what?”
“You know what!” The words tore out of him. “You looked like you were… I don’t know. And you touched me. You always touch me now. Like nothing happened.”
Hyukjae’s jaw tightened. The façade of casual arrogance flickered, revealing something strained, almost fragile, beneath. “Nothing did happen. We agreed. It was a procedure.”
“It wasn’t a procedure,” Donghae whispered, the anger deflating into a raw ache. “That’s the lie. It was… it was sex. It was fucking. You came. I came inside you. That’s not a procedure. That’s… that’s something else.”
The silence between them was thick, charged with the truth finally spoken aloud. A pigeon cooed from the gutter above.
“I know what it was,” Hyukjae said, his voice low and rough. He looked away, at the cracked wall. “I was there. I felt it.”
“Then why are we pretending?” Donghae’s eyes burned. He was tired. So tired of carrying the weight of it alone.
Hyukjae turned back to him, his gaze intense, searching Donghae’s face. “What do you want us to do, Donghae? Huh? Talk about our feelings? Hold hands? It was a one-time thing. A fucked-up, necessary thing. To fix me. It worked. So it’s over.”
“Is it?” The question hung in the air.
Hyukjae stared at him. His chest rose and fell slowly. The bravado was gone, completely. What was left was a naked vulnerability that was far more terrifying. “No,” he finally admitted, the word barely audible. “It’s not over. I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s all I think about.”
The admission was a crack in the universe. Donghae couldn’t breathe.
“When I wake up,” Hyukjae continued, his eyes locked on Donghae’s, “I feel you. When I take a shower, I remember the water was running and I was waiting… and you were out here, hating me. When I see you flinch when I touch you…” He trailed off, swallowing hard. “It’s inside my head. And my… my body. My body remembers things. Things it shouldn’t.”
Donghae reached out. It was a trembling, unconscious movement. His fingertips brushed the back of Hyukjae’s hand where it rested on his knee.
Hyukjae’s hand flipped over, catching Donghae’s fingers, lacing them together. His grip was fierce, almost painful. “I’m so fucked up,” he whispered.
“We both are.”
Hyukjae leaned in. The movement was slow, deliberate, giving Donghae every chance to pull away. Donghae didn’t move. He could only watch, his heart hammering against his ribs.
Their lips met.
It was nothing like the first time. There was no panic, no clinical desperation. It was soft. A question. A tentative exploration of a door they’d both sworn was sealed shut.
Hyukjae’s lips were chapped from the wind. He tasted faintly of ketchup and coffee. Donghae’s free hand came up, cupping the side of his face, his thumb stroking the sharp line of Hyukjae’s jaw. The kiss deepened, turning hungry, a month of silence and pretend unraveling in the slide of tongue, the shared, shuddering breath.
Hyukjae broke away, his forehead resting against Donghae’s. His eyes were closed, his breathing ragged. “We can’t do this here.”
“Your place?” Donghae asked, his voice thick.
“My roommate’s home. Always is.”
“Mine, then.”
Hyukjae nodded. He stood, pulling Donghae up with him. Their joined hands felt electric, a live wire connecting them. They walked back across campus, not speaking, the tension between them a palpable, thrumming thing. Every brush of their shoulders, every sidelong glance, was loaded.
They reached Donghae’s apartment building. The elevator ride was silent, the air thick with the scent of their mingled anxiety and need. Donghae fumbled with his keys. The lock clicked.
The door swung open onto the familiar, dim space. It was the same room. The same bed. The ghost of what had happened there seemed to materialize in the air, watching them.
Donghae closed the door and locked it. The final thunk was a period.
He turned. Hyukjae was already there, pressing him back against the door, his mouth crashing down on Donghae’s again. This kiss was all heat, all claiming, no more questions. Hyukjae’s hands were at Donghae’s waist, yanking his shirt free from his jeans, pushing it up. Donghae broke the kiss long enough to pull the shirt over his head. Hyukjae did the same, his own shirt joining the pile on the floor.
Chest to chest. Skin to skin. It was different now. The planes were hard, muscle and bone, familiar terrain he’d seen a thousand times in locker rooms. But it was charged with a new, devastating history.
Hyukjae pressed his hips forward, grinding his erection against Donghae’s. The friction through two layers of denim was maddening. “Fuck, Donghae,” he breathed into his neck, biting down on the tendon there.
Donghae groaned, his hands going to Hyukjae’s belt. He fumbled with the buckle, the leather seeming impossibly complex. Hyukjae knocked his hands away and did it himself, the metal clinking loudly in the quiet apartment. He pushed his jeans and briefs down in one rough motion, kicking them aside.
He was fully hard, his cock standing thick and flushed against his stomach. The sight was a visceral punch. This was Hyukjae. His cock. Not a phantom memory from a different body, but his. This was the reality he’d dreamed of and feared in equal measure.
Hyukjae, naked now, didn’t hesitate. He went for Donghae’s jeans, popping the button, dragging the zipper down with a harsh rasp. He pushed everything down, his hand wrapping around Donghae’s length as soon as it was free. His grip was rough, expert.
“You’re thinking too much,” Hyukjae muttered, his fist pumping slowly, his thumb smearing the bead of pre-cum over the head. “Stop thinking.”
Donghae was beyond thought. He was pure sensation. He kissed Hyukjae again, a messy, open-mouthed clash of teeth and tongue, as Hyukjae stroked him. “Bed,” Donghae gasped against his lips.
They stumbled toward it, a clumsy, urgent dance, shedding the last of their clothes. They fell onto the mattress, the springs groaning a familiar protest. Hyukjae landed on his back, pulling Donghae on top of him, legs spreading to cradle him between his thighs.
The intimacy of the position, the sheer vulnerability of it, made Donghae pause. He hovered above him, braced on his elbows, looking down.
Hyukjae’s eyes were dark, his pupils blown wide. There was no shame in them now. Only a fierce, demanding hunger. “I want you to fuck me,” he said, the words clear and obscene. “Like before.”
“Hyuk…”
“I mean it.” Hyukjae’s hand slid between them, past his own erection, to the tight furl of his asshole. He pressed a fingertip against it. “Here. I want you in me. Right now.”
The crude direction shattered the last of Donghae’s resistance. He wanted it too. The memory, the ghost, had haunted him. He needed the real thing, this version, to overwrite it. To claim it for them, now, as they were.
“We need…” Donghae began, looking toward the bedside drawer.
Hyukjae hooked a leg around him, pulling him closer. “Just spit. It’s fine. I don’t care. Just do it.”
Donghae’s mind reeled at the filthiness, the raw, pragmatic need. He spat into his own palm, slicking himself roughly. He guided his cock, the head bumping against Hyukjae’s entrance. Hyukjae pushed down, a low, guttural groan vibrating in his chest.
It was tight. Incredibly tight. The resistance was different, muscle and heat without the same slick give. Hyukjae’s face contorted, a flash of genuine pain. Donghae stopped, panting.
“Don’t you dare stop,” Hyukjae gritted out, his nails digging into Donghae’s shoulders. “Push. Fucking push. I can take it.”
Donghae obeyed. He leaned his weight forward, driving in with a firm, relentless thrust. Hyukjae cried out, a sharp, ragged sound, his head thrown back, throat working. He was sheathing Donghae to the root, his body clamping down in a vice-like spasm.
They were both still, frozen in that moment of exquisite, painful fullness. Hyukjae’s eyes were squeezed shut, tears leaking from the corners.
“Breathe,” Donghae murmured, kissing the tears away. “Just breathe, Hyukkie.”
The old nickname, unused for years, slipped out. Hyukjae’s eyes opened. He looked up at Donghae, his expression softening for a fleeting second. Then the intensity returned. He moved his hips, a tiny, experimental rock. The sensation made them both gasp.
“Move,” Hyukjae commanded, his voice wrecked.
Donghae pulled back, almost all the way out, then slammed back in. The dry drag burned, but on the next thrust, it was easier, their bodies finding a wet, primal rhythm. Hyukjae’s legs locked around Donghae’s waist, his heels driving into the small of Donghae’s back, urging him deeper, faster.
It was brutal. It was beautiful. It was a fight and a surrender happening simultaneously. The slap of skin was louder, more percussive. Hyukjae’s cock, trapped between their sweat-slicked stomachs, leaked steadily, painting a hot, sticky trail.
Hyukjae was talking, a stream of filthy encouragement and pleas. “Right there, yes, fuck, just like that—don’t stop, you feel so deep—oh god, I’m gonna—”
His body went rigid, his back arching clear off the mattress. His orgasm ripped through him silently for a second before a raw, broken shout tore from his throat. He came in thick, hot pulses between their bodies, his channel convulsing around Donghae’s cock in rhythmic, desperate clenches.
The sensation was too much. Donghae buried his face in Hyukjae’s neck, breathing in the smell of sweat and sex and Hyukjae, and let go. His climax surged from the base of his spine, blinding in its intensity. He drove in one last, shuddering time, hips stuttering, and emptied himself deep inside Hyukjae with a choked, ragged cry.
He collapsed, his full weight on Hyukjae, spent and trembling. Hyukjae’s arms came around him, holding him close, his own body still trembling with aftershocks.
For a long time, the only sounds were their gradually slowing breaths. The room smelled of sex, of them.
Slowly, the world came back. The afternoon light was fading. Donghae became aware of the stickiness on his stomach, the ache in his muscles, the profound, terrifying intimacy of still being inside Hyukjae, softening now.
Hyukjae shifted beneath him. Donghae pulled out, the separation feeling strangely final. He rolled onto his side, facing him.
Hyukjae was looking at the ceiling. He wiped a hand over his face. “Well,” he said, his voice hoarse. “We talked about it.”
Donghae’s heart, which had begun to settle, seized again. This was the moment. The moment where it could shatter again, where Hyukjae could retreat behind the wall of denial.
But Hyukjae turned his head on the pillow. His eyes were clear, weary, but there was no wall there. Only a profound, unsettling honesty. He reached out and traced the line