fairytale hell asteroid | l.dh

fifteen.

Donghyuck has never been around this area before. For someone who studied in the same high school and was currently attending the same university as him, he would have thought you would hang around the same places as he would; somewhere familiar, like the popular karaoke place located inside the newly renovated shopping mall, or the bustling shopping street of unlimited entertainment. But he has never been around here before.

The area you brought him to still has a busy vibe, but it was not as welcoming as the shopping streets he always loitered around with his friends. It felt like a dead street of living people, each hurried, or slowed, steps on the concrete floor a lonely exhale as strangers brushed past you two. The already silent night paired with the lack of conversations being carried between people made this place a ghost town.

He found himself at peace as you led him through the open crowd. His dragging footsteps—an effect of this ghostly street, it seemed—caught himself up to your quick and dainty ones, and it was hard for him to use his voice when the dimly-lit orange streetlight loomed over him and pressured him to keep his mouth shut. It was peaceful, nonetheless. People talked but never to each other, people-focused but never on each other; he could think without limit here because nobody was listening, he could do as he wanted because nobody was watching.

Your back remained close to him as you walked through the street smoothly. Donghyuck could easily deduce that you have been around this place for more than a lifetime since you moved so quickly as if you could never turn to the wrong place. You were quiet, as usual; keeping to yourself and looking straight ahead as if you were on an urgent mission. It made him think: what were you thinking and if you were lonely walking through this street?

It was simple curiosity, and maybe an obsession that his love was causing him to want to know everything about you. He wondered how this street made you feel, and if you walked through it on a daily basis? Did the orange street light make you feel as stricken and heavy as it did him? Did you always walk here at night alone? Were you ever scared, you could call him if you were. Have you ever felt lonely by yourself, you could ask for his company if you were. If he reached out to tug on your sleeve, would you slow down for him?

Curling his hands into loose fists and burying them further in his pockets, Donghyuck cleared his throat under his breath and lowered his head so he could chase away his thoughts with the sight of his moving feet. He probably shouldn't get so ahead of himself. You have given him no hints as to how you felt about his persistence; frankly, if you hated it, you would have just told him. But he overthinks. Despite it all, there are moments when he is hopeless and pessimistic and overwhelmed, and it has never been a side of him that really showed.

It did, though, once. You held his face. He always remembered.

"Donghyuck," you called as you came to a stop.

He was mindless when he heard you, and, unable to react quick enough, he walked himself right into you. He let out a low groan as he stumbled back, while you calmly and quickly reached out for his forearm to steady him. It took one glance at his face (or just the fact that he bumped into you) to realize that he was out of it.

"Are you feeling okay?" You asked as you helped him regain his composure. "I keep asking you this today."

"You did," he huffed out dismissively as he shook his head and ruffled his hair. "I'm okay. Just... this street is a little..."

"Heavy," you filled in.

He nodded, relieved that you understood. "Yeah!"

"It's the orange lights, I think," you pointed out, arching your neck up to glare at the street light that cast the most unusual and unnatural glow upon this street. "It's like a moth to a flame except you're not a moth and you are self-aware about that."