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He’s not sure how Jaemin exhausted every single friend until he was forced to land on Donghyuck, but here they are.
Actually, scratch that. More incredile is Donghyuck having to down the strongest dose of allergy meds before entering Jaemin’s apartment every time. Why he said yes, why would he do a single nice thing for Jaemin, when the last time they spoke Donghyuck felt like his chest was ripped open.
He doesn’t know, and yet, here he is.
Lucy, Luna, and Luke. He can hardly tell them apart, but he’s sure the three cats don’t care as long as they get their food two times a day and some scritches behind the ears for a few minutes.
He goes through every thing he’s supposed to do, the same meticulous way Jaemin taught him the day before he left on his business trip. He remembers every single detail, especially the way Jaemin barely looked at him in the eye. The way he spoke facing away from Donghyuck until the very end, in this dry, robotic voice Donghyuck was not used to. Formal, to the point. None of the lazy tilt to his words he used to flirt with Donghyuck even when they were doing the most mundane thing ever, but like he was talking to a stranger.
As Donghyuck changed the cats’s water, refills their bowls, he replays that daft tone of voice and tells himself it doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t. It doesn’t.
Jaemin’s apartment, despite everything, remains the same as Donghyuck remembers, sans all the cat paraphernalia. The mug that was exclusively Donghyuck’s is still in the same spot on the shelf. He still uses the same fragrance that Donghyuck uses —tea tree— for the humidifier in the living room. He still has the same blanket Donghyuck bought on sale for him thrown over the back of the couch. It’s so awfully familiar, Donghyuck can remember with eerie detail how well he used to fit here, how this apartment, this person, was a second home.
Thinking about it hurts. This whole thing hurts.
He leaves quickly after making sure the cats are alright, with an ache building right between his ribs.
Only twelve more days, and then, he won’t have to see the ghosts of his memories everywhere he turns.
Jaemin and Donghyuck broke up six months ago. One fight, on top of all these little arguments they kept having, was enough to undo them. Quickly, like a string getting untied, two lose ends falling apart. Ever since, he kept wondering, where does all the love go? When the anger is gone and the hurt has trickled down to something barely there, the love still remains, and where is Donghyuck supposed to put it? Jaemin, his boyfriend of two years, best friend for longer than that; there’s simply too much history, so much love it feels unbearable sometimes, and now there’s nowhere to put it.
“How come you couldn’t catsit for Jaemin?” He asks Mark, out of nowhere.
They’re shopping. This means Mark is shopping, and Donghyuck is following him around and helping him choose what looks good and what doesn’t.
Immediately he knows Mark is hiding something. He’s always been a terrible liar, with so many tells even someone who didn’t know him would still catch on to him. Donghyuck’s eyes narrow as soon as he catches Mark’s twitching eyebrow, and the resulting nervous giggle is just proof enough.
“Aw man, well, you know I stay late at the studio almost every night,” Mark starts, stubbornly not meeting Donghyuck’s eyes. He pulls out the ugliest flannel known to mankind, studies it, puts it back on the rack. “Not fair to the kitties.”
Donghyuck doesn’t buy it, but he’s graceful and just goes along with it. “And Jisung?”
Mark walks to the next rack with renewed enthusiasm. “Choreographing for a new idol group.”
“Renjun?”
“Japan with Yangyang.”
“Chenle?”
“Busy with Daegal.”
“Jeno.”
“Allergic.”
This finally makes Donghyuck scoff, exasperated with the situation; hurt, angry, confused, bordering on insane, a little. “I’m allergic, too! Even more than him!” And also, “I don’t even like cats.”
Though the triplets are starting to grow on him. So much personality in such tiny creatures. Sometimes they even resemble Jaemin, and it makes him feel crazy.
Mark shrugs, sending an innocent grin his way. Donghyuck doesn’t buy it. He hates everyone. He hates himself. He hates Jaemin.
“I hate you,” he lets Mark know, moving on to the other side of the store and leaving his traitor of a best friend behind. Mark scrambles after him with a little whine, and Donghyuck doubles his efforts into running away from the bastard. Even if he was Jaemin’s last resort, Donghyuck should’ve said no. He should have let his call go to voicemail, he should’ve never even unblocked his number. The little voice in his head —desperate for even a crumb of Jaemin’s attention— should have gotten squashed and put to death once and for all, but.
But Donghyuck couldn’t resist. Hearing Jaemin speak to him, looking at him, it felt like finally taking a deep breath, feeling your lungs expand in your chest, it felt right.
Mark catches up to him when Donghyuck stops at an Auntie Anne’s kiosk. If he’s going to be miserable, might as well be miserable with a cheddar and bacon pretzel.
“Dude, I mean, is everything alright?” Mark asks. It’s hard to stay mad at him when he’s giving Donghyuck those round, bambi eyes, and anyway, he’s more… sad than anything else. Scared, that he won’t ever get over Jaemin. Confused on why his friends would make him go through this when they know Donghyuck isn’t ready to move on.
“I’m fine.”
“Hyuck…”
The bored cashier gives him his damn pretzel, and Donghyuck takes a huge bite, mulling over his next words. He hates the fact that he’s opening himself up to Mark in a damn mall of all places. There’s a bench a few steps away, and Donghyuck goes to sit on it with Mark still trailing behind him like a lost puppy. Serves him right, for being a traitor and a liar.
Mark grabs his wrist so he can take a bite of his pretzel, again giving him innocent eyes when Donghyuck narrows his eyes at him. He wishes his friends were less cute; it’d be easier to stay mad at them if they weren’t so adorable.
He sighs, defeated. “Jaemin keeps Coke Zero in his fridge.”
All he gets from Mark are three clueless, perfectly timed blinks. Donghyuck blunders on. “And he still buys my favorite brand of coffee. His living room is exactly how I left it last time I got bored and reorganized it. In the fridge, he still kept the last carton of half-and-half I left there before we broke up. I know it’s the same one, because Jaemin doesn’t take his coffee with anything.”
“Um, okay…”
“Mark,” Donghyuck sighs again, tired. He needs to be on his way soon, to tend to Jaemin’s cats. “It’s like I never left.”
Finally some sympathy, Mark bumps their knees together, taking another bite of Donghyuck’s pretzel. He lets Mark have the rest of it, no longer interested in anything but taking a fat nap. He wonders if he can crash at Jaemin’s couch, but just the idea makes him feel nauseous.
“Oh, Hyuck, man…” Mark starts. Donghyuck can see that his thoughts are running faster than his tongue can keep up with, and so he waits patiently for him to figure it out. Mark’s words, whether he realizes or not, are always a comfort, even if it’s at the stupid mall. “I think, well, I can’t speak for Jaemin, obviously, but it’s probably hard for him to let go, too.”
Donghyuck ignored the too, part, frowns at the rest. “He broke up with me.”
Very suddenly, with words that came fully from his chest, in a little paragraph Donghyuck has erased from his memory for the sake of keeping himself sane. Mark winces, his seagull brows meeting in the middle of his forehead in a worried frown. Donghyuck uses his thumb to smooth it out, desperate for some touch that will ground him.
“Yeah, but that doesn’t have to mean it was easy. Maybe he broke his own heart, too.”
Donghyuck doesn’t want to think about that. He doesn’t want to think about maybes or what ifs. There’s only the reality of their breakup, and Jaemin’s calloused words before Donghyuck had left his apartment in tears.
“Come on,” he stands up abruptly, ending the conversation open ended and with zero resolution. “I’ll drive you home.”
Mark, his best friend Mark, raises an unimpressed eyebrow at him while he chews through the last bite of Donghyuck’s pretzel, but doesn’t call him out. He squeezes Donghyuck’s wrist one last time, a sweet touch, and follows him to the parking lot.
A week before Jaemin is meant to come back to his children, he calls Donghyuck.
“Jaemin?” He greets, his voice getting somewhat stuck in his throat. Everyday, Donghyuck sends Jaemin a picture of the kitties; evidence that Donghyuck won’t cause them harm as some sick vendetta. He never gets more than a few words, sometimes not even that, just a double-tap heart to his texts. They haven’t talked to each other since the day Jaemin left, and Donghyuck tries to not let it show how affected he is simply to hear Jaemin at all.
Jaemin doesn’t even deem to greet him. “You cuddle with the cats?”
Today’s picture was of the three cats in Donghyuck’s lap while he sat on the kitchen floor. He doesn’t really cuddle, per se, but they do like to purr while kneading his thighs.
“Uh, not really?” He can’t help but frown. Jaemin is weird, but this isn’t more weird than usual, so whatever, he supposes. “I don’t think Luna and Luke care much for me, but they all sat on my lap today.”
There’s something off in Jaemin’s voice. “What about your allergies?”
“I told you I was gonna take medicine for that,” Donghyuck reminds him. Without them he wouldn’t even be here. “And I wash my clothes as soon as I get home.”
“Oh.”
Something tender and uncomfortable trickles down Donghyuck’s stomach. Jaemin has always made him feel vulnerable, but after so many months of no contact, Donghyuck fears he might have lost the small tolerance he had built over the years.
“Is… everything alright?”
The line crackles as Jaemin clears his throat. “No, yeah, everything’s okay, I just…”
Donghyuck can only handle the hesitant pause for a handful of seconds. “You just…?”
Lucy likes him the most from the cats. She always rubs her little face against his calves until he reaches down to shower her in affection. Even now as the other two have ventured into the apartment, she remains purring on his lap, eyes blissfully closed as Donghyuck busies himself with running his fingers through her soft fur.
“I just wanted to check in, I guess,” Jaemin finally replies. His voice is so deep, so tinged with something Donghyuck can’t parse. “Wanted to make sure everything was fine.”
Donghyuck should brush the cats. Donghyuck should hang up. Donghyuck should get all Jaemin-related memories permanently removed from his brain. “Your kids are all safe and sound,” he says instead of screaming into the phone like he really wants to. “I have drunk almost all your Cokes, and I think Lucy is my favorite.”
The sudden word vomit makes his skin prickle with shame. Jaemin doesn’t need to know that, they shouldn’t even be talking right now.
He likes the little huff of air Jaemin lets out, so soft it almost tickles his ear. “Figured you’d like her the most,” Jaemin says. He sounds lighter now, a bit distracted. “And I bought those for you.”
Donghyuck blinks down at the pristine tiles of Jaemin’s kitchen. His ears buzz as the words echo through his mind, going on and on endlessly in his mind.
“Thanks,” he replies robotically, his words empty. The pit of his stomach, too. “Um, if that’s all, I should go.”
This must catch Jaemin off, for some reason. As if this conversation was going anywhere. They’re no longer in the same timeline where they could talk for hours and hours and not get bored. They’re in the timeline where prolonged contact with Jaemin makes Donghyuck feel like he’ll vomit his own little pathetic heart, drop it right on Jaemin’s kitchen floor.
“Right. Good night, Donghyuck.” Donghyuck mumbles something back, ending the call as soon as the words leave his mouth.
He stays on the floor with Lucy until his legs go numb, and only then, he goes home.
On the day before Jaemin is meant to come home, Donghyuck sits on the couch and cries.
Lucy is sitting on the back of the couch near his head, but as Donghyuck lets his tears fall, she stays away from him, the other two somewhere in Jaemin’s room.
They have laughed on this couch. They have talked and fucked and slept and hugged in this couch. This very couch was witness to their relationship in ways no one and nothing else could ever be. They loved each other on this couch. Sitting on it right now, with his heart bleeding all over it, Donghyuck still loves Jaemin.
Luke comes out of Jaemin’s room sometime later to sit by Donghyuck’s thigh, his warm little body soft against Donghyuck, and it makes him laugh. It makes him ache.
On this couch, Donghyuck cries.
On the actual day of Jaemin’s return, Donghyuck makes his last visit.
He feeds them. He refills their water. He gives each of them one of those squeeze tube cat treats, and then cleans their litter box. He makes sure all the Coke cans are in the right recycle bin, and he stares at the half-and-half carton for an obscenely long time before shutting the fridge.
He plays with the kittens one last time. He brushes their long hair, risks losing a finger after trying to pet Luna’s tummy, and he takes one last picture of them playing with him. Proof to himself, maybe, that this could have been his life. He would invest in good allergy meds, or maybe those shots that will eventually rid you of said allergy. Maybe even one of those big, bulky clothes purifiers, if he could afford it. He’d come home to three cats and one boyfriend, and even when it got hard, it would be worth it.
He hesitates sending Jaemin the last picture. His thumbs hover over the keyboard as he ponders and overthinks himself into an early grave, before deciding it’s not important. Jaemin is probably boarding his flight right about now, and by the time he got the text, he’d very well be on his way home.
Donghyuck takes a last good look at the apartment that he’d once considered his home, and then, he locks the door behind him and does the look back.
Renjun returns from Japan with a slight tan and a shiny engagement ring.
Donghyuck always knew Yangyang would be the only one crazy enough to propose to Renjun’s skittish ass and still manage to get him to say yes, and even though there’s a small niggling of jealousy somewhere deep in his heart, it’s overshadowed by how happy Donghyuck is for his friends.
Only after they have appropriately gushed about the trip and Yangyang’s surprisingly romantic proposal does Renjun bring up the cats. Brings up Jaemin.
“So, how do you feel?”
“About what?” He asks back, just as quick, as eager as ever to postpone an honest answer for as long as he can get away with it. He takes a long gulp of his mango lassi as Renjun’s pretty eyes scrutinize his every move; even a quirk of his eyebrow would be enough to have Renjun psychoanalyzing every single moment of his life.
Renjun, blunt and honest as ever, simply shrugs. “Jaemin.”
Donghyuck continued drinking his mango lassi until the glass is empty, and then some. He feels winded already, after approximately one minute of vulnerable conversation. He will simply have to drown himself in mango lassi, until Renjun takes his words back, until Donghyuck can go back to pretending he had erased everything Jaemin related from his mind.
(Donghyuck only ever drinks mango lassi, because Jaemin hates strawberry anything, and would refuse to kiss him otherwise. He still gets mango lassi, even if he won’t get kissed better after.)
No more lassi in sight, Donghyuck feels obligated to answer. He only simmers in his own silence for a beat more before shrugging back, just as casual. “What’s there to feel?” He murmurs, resolutely keeping his eyes in the silverware next to his empty plate. “I just took care of his cats. We didn’t even talk.”
When Renjun reaches out to hold his hand, his engagement ring twinkles under the warm lights of the restaurant. Donghyuck clings on to the touch like a lifeline, and Renjun lets him.
“Yeah, but still. How was it?”
“I was angry at all of you guys for putting me in the position where I’d feel like an ass if I said no,” he confesses quietly, words wheezing out of him in long, painful breath. “I was angry at Jaemin for, well, everything, really. For traveling out of state and because his mom was visiting family in Korea, and for refusing to trust a damn pet hotel. And for breaking up with me.”
The last part is barely said above a whisper. Seven months into the breakup and the words still leave a sour taste in his mouth. The sympathetic look his friends always give him when he admits this outloud always makes him frown, and there’s always, always, always a pang in his chest when he says the words out loud.
“We weren’t conspiring against you, Hyuck,” Renjun frowns, but it melts quickly under Donghyuck’s own hurricane of distress. “Jaemin just wanted someone to care for the kitties, and your schedule happened to be the best.”
Donghyuck shrugs. Logically, he knew this already. He didn’t really blame them or anything, he just needed someone to pin his frustration on, and it happened to be his entourage of idiots. He had ignored Jeno’s texts for a full three days out of spite until he got a frowny face in his messages and caved like the weakling he is.
Not the point. The point is… actually, he doesn’t know. He’d rather still be talking about Yangyang than this.
When Donghyuck says nothing, Renjun goes on. “Mark told me.”
That makes Donghyuck blink in confusion before he remembers, and then it makes him flush an unflattering pink.
“I hate Mark.” He mumbles with little feeling.
“It’s okay to still feel stuck, Donghyuck. No one expects you to forget about him already, and you shouldn’t, either.”
“I want to be over him,” Donghyuck tells him, his words razor sharp even if Renjun doesn’t deserve his frustration. “I don’t want to feel hurt anymore.”
Donghyuck’s apartment looks exactly like it did while they were still dating. He still buys the same laundry detergent Jaemin likes, and there’s a box of protein powder Jaemin had barely opened before he left. Jaemin’s toothbrush is still in his bathroom sink, his hoodies still in Donghyuck’s closet, even if he hasn’t worn them since. He had promised himself he’d fix it all once he felt better about the whole ordeal, but better never came, and every morning he stares at the note pad on his fridge with Jaemin’s last note still on it. I used up the last of your shampoo. Sorry!!!!!
Donghyuck is still tangled up in who they used to be, in what they were before. All that he’s missing would be the man himself, and Renjun is well seare of that. It’s not moving on at your pace, it’s you haven’t even tried.
Renjun offers him a smile, and the rest of his own strawberry lassi. Donghyuck rejects that quickly, but returns the smile, even if it falls crooked on his face. “I just want you to be happy. You know that, right?” Renjun’s wedding band is warm against the palm of his hand. “I want you to be nice to yourself.”
“I am,” he replies, genuinely unsure whether he’s lying or not. “So, when’s the wedding?”
Two weeks after Jaemin’s return, Donghyuck gets a text from him.
The last text on their chat is from the day Jaemin got home. He’d called but Donghyuck had let it go to voicemail, and then he’d sent a thank you text that Donghyuck had double tapped.
Today’s text is a video of Lucy. Her sweet face is the perfect image of relaxation, her purring vibrating through the audio. In the background he can hear Jaemin murmuring soft things to her in a baby voice that would be embarrassing if it wasn’t endearing. Donghyuck replays it two more times just to hear the soft giggling at end.
He double taps the text, and then deletes the video.
Jaemin keeps sending him pictures, sometimes videos, all about the cats. Donghyuck doesn’t reply to them, just reacts with a heart, each time wondering what the hell is Jaemin’s problem. In all the videos he’s baby talking to his cats like they’re the most perfect little creatures, and each time Donghyuck replays it until it gets too much and deletes the video.
He hasn’t once replied with anything that wasn’t an emoji. Sometimes he doesn’t reply at all, hoping it will discourage Jaemin from contacting him at all. Sadly, he does enjoy the pictures. The cats grew on him during those two weeks; he misses how healing it was to sit with a purring cat on his chest with a mind completely empty. Some of them are cute, some are silly, none of them ever have Jaemin within frame.
The past month has been a roller coaster of emotions for Donghyuck, just too many feelings jumbled in his chest all at once.
All it takes is one bad day. One day where everything that can go wrong, goes wrong, and when he gets home instead of feeling safe and comforted, his skin itches with how wrong it is. When he gets Jaemin’s customary text, a video today, he doesn’t even bother watching it. Before he can change his mind he’s hit in the phone icon, and he waits his breath coming in angry puffs for Jaemin to pick up.
Warm, rich, familiar as always, “Donghyuck?”
But it’s a bad day, a day where everything was wrong and now that he’s home in his empty bed it feels worse, so he doesn’t let Jaemin’s voice calm him. Instead it sets him alight, all his nerve endings burning with the discomfort.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Excuse me?”
Jaemin’s confusion only served to piss him off more. “Is this a joke to you?” He spits out, hoping the sharp words land somewhere that will hurt. “Why are you texting me?”
Jaemin doesn’t reply immediately; there’s some shuffling on the other line, a door opening and closing. When he replies, he sounds… “I thought you liked the cats,” he says, though his voice comes out small. “I think Lucy misses you.”
And Donghyuck misses her as well, and he misses Jaemin, and he misses the time where things were still good between them and Jaemin wasn’t tired of him yet.
“I don’t—” He means to say care and finds that he can’t. Donghyuck cares so much, and he feels so much, always has and always will. He can’t even get himself to lie, so exhausted from everything. His words are harsh, exasperated, but they’re honest. “Stop sending me videos or pictures, just, stop. I don’t want to talk to you.”
“Hyuck—”
“No!” Before he could even try contain it the tears start. Wild and painful, in rivulets that stain the neck of his shirt and clog his throat until it becomed hard to breathe. “You broke up with me. You said you were done. Tired!” And now that he’s started, he can’t seem to stop, even as humiliation starts clawing its way up from the very pits of his stomach.
“I’m trying to move on and I can’t do that if you keep… I don’t even know what you’re doing!” It comes out in a crazed chuckle, words almost unintelligible from how hard he’s crying. The line is so silent he wonders if Jaemin even bothered to desl with him, or if he’s crying to himself like a loser. “Just, stop. Please.”
Thunder rumbles as the line goes tight with static, and like a popped balloon, rain starts pouring. Donghyuck breaks with it, falling to the floor so he can hug his knees to his chest, bury his face right into the scratchy fabric of his pants. He cries in the way only a child would; uncontrollable, with all his heart into it, like he’s feeling sadness for the very first time. And all Jaemin does is stay quiet and listen, both Donghyuck and the rain drowning the city out.
It takes too long for Donghyuck to calm down, an embarrassing amount of time until the only thing interrupting his slowing down breath is the stray hiccup.
“I don’t know why I keep hurting you.”
Donghyuck knew they were going to break up before Jaemin finally did it. He knew it was going to happen, and that it couldn’t be him. If something was going to destroy him it might as well be Jaemin, with strong hands that equally built and tore apart at him, as if Donghyuck was made out of clay. With his dark eyes that always seemed to see right through Donghyuck, right down to his innards, his bone marrow, down to his veins.
Just one more fight, he used to think after each one. One more fight and he’ll be done with me for good. And Donghyuck kept provoking him, angering him on purpose, or getting angry at him when Jaemin didn’t even want to bother with that. Their relationship was always… doomed, from the very beginning, even back when they were no more than friends, if even that. Too much like each other where it doesn’t matter, and too different where it does. Even if it was exciting, it was tumultuous. The bad was devastating, life-changing in ways they’re still dealing with, and the good? The good had Donghyuck fearing he’ll never find it again; will never find someone that makes him ache, shake, bend to his will, crumble just like Jaemin does.
That one more fight was on Donghyuck. He’s not sure what had been going on in his head that day, but it was nothing good. It had started off innocently enough; Donghyuck called an anime Jaemin was watching boring just because. Teased him, about having lame tastes. And then he blinked, and suddenly it was about everything Jaemin did, how he talked, why didn’t Jaemin take him on romantic dates? Why did Jaemin spend so much time texting their other friends? Was Donghyuck not enough, was Jaemin bored?
Jaemin had stared at him for long, long time with a blank look on his face, one that only served to piss Donghyuck off even more. And just as Donghyuck had paused to catch his breath, Jaemin had snorted. Dry, humorless
God, I can’t fucking stand you.
Do you have nothing else to do other than piss me off?
Donghyuck, you’re driving me insane. Yes! Yes, I talk to other people, if only to not hear your grating voice. You sure fucking like hearing the sound of your own voice, you self-centered asshole.
And then, in the midst of Donghyuck’s stunned silence, Jaemin had finally calmed down enough to wince as the first tear rolled down Donghyuck’s face
I can’t do this anymore, Donghyuck We need to break up.
Fire that burned and burned until there was not much left other than scattered ashes.
His throat is sticky when he speaks again. “I hurt you, too.”
Sometimes on purpose, sometimes just by simply fucking existing. Doomed before they even knew there was anything there to suffer the consequences.
“Yes,” Jaemin agrees. The rain keeps beating down on his apartment windows, but if he strains his ear hard enough, there’s a cat faintly purring on Jaemin’s line. “Yes, I guess you did.”
There’s a question that’s been festering in his chest ever since he left Jaemin’s apartment that day, and with the protection of the sprawling distance —physically, emotionally— he dares voices it.
“We can never go back, can we?”
He had hope, the first two months. Maybe Jaemin missed him as much, loved him as much, to come back, not just as lovers, but as everything. As friends and as enemies and everything in between. Donghyuck wouldn’t beg, but he wouldn’t make him grovel, either. He would’ve gone painfully easy.
Finally, there’s a crack when Jaemin speaks again, a slight tremble that builds and breaks Donghyuck. “No, I don’t think so.”
Donghyuck closes his eyes, counts to ten, prays to God or anyone that is listening for it to be easier. His lips tremble, forming around soundless words, until he can finally get his wits about himself. “Okay,” he whispers, painful and silent, “Alright.”
“I love you,” Jaemin whispers, the kiling blow, the one that might end him or set him free. The line shakes with each word, wound up static rattled and bothered. “Even if I don’t know for how much longer that’ll be, right now, I love you.”
And the words burn just as much as they soothe. The rain stops rattling the walls of his building. Donghyuck breathes the words in, imagines Jaemin whispering them into the space between their lips as they kiss, like he had done many times before.
“Me, too,” he whispers back, just as quiet. He’s not sure if his heart broke again, or if it just now started mending itself. “I love you, too.”
-
Strawberry lassi tastes as good as Donghyuck remembered.