In His Arms - Wonheon ( Wonho x Jooheon )

Chapter 1 : Lonely

Wonho staring blankly at his computer screen, watching as his cursor blinks robotically at him. He’s been like this for some time now, sitting uselessly at his desk for so long that his coffee has turned cold. The black and white analog clock on his wall keeps ticking away and he knows that time is passing and that he should be doing the paperwork that has begun to pile up on his desk but he can’t find the energy to do so.

Because it never stops. It keeps coming onto him like a tidal wave splashing against the shores, trying to drown him on the spot. And it is, slowly but surely, it’s leaving him gasping for air and clawing at his throat.

The problem isn’t work . Work he can do; work is something he has done for years and it is his only way of escaping everything on the inside .

His work is what keeps him distracted. Or… or at least it had been.

He had been foolish enough to ignore the unscratchable itch that had been slowly getting stronger for the past few months. It had started as a dull ache within his chest cavity, hitting him deep when someone would speak to him or glance in his direction and he would feel a small flutter of maybe this is it, maybe they're the one-- but then he would see them and they were never right. Never.

He had tried his best to ignore the feelings within himself, but no matter how hard he tried to push them away, they were always there , nagging at the back of his skull and whispering in his ears. And now ... now it’s all he could think about-- the empty space at his side plaguing him because he knew it’s where someone belonged; someone special, someone right .

Wonho sighed to himself and frowned as the sound bounced off the empty white walls of his office. The clock kept ticking away without any consideration towards him, a cruel reminder that time was simply running out and didn’t give a damn how he was feeling. He let his gaze drop to his desk and eyed the sole picture frame of him and his ma when he was a child. Her smile was bright and she looked so happy with her arms around Wonho’s small body and-- and he could never make himself look for too long because he knew what pain awaited her. Despite her smiling figure in the picture, Hera Shin would pass only three months after he turned twenty two and she would suffer from an excruciating form of cancer that would devour her alive and leave her so frail and weak that she couldn’t get out of her bed for the last six months of her life. So no, Wonho could never look for too long.

He bypasses the frame and glances over the monitor and keyboard, disregards the stack of files that need his signature and the random paperweight that he can’t remember who gifted it to him. He thinks it was probably Shownu or maybe Sana, or perhaps even Momo, but he can’t entirely remember and he doesn’t care enough to wrack his brain for it because it isn’t important.

But other than that, his desk is clean. Impersonal. Nothing holding the slightest importance that drives him forward. He has seen Shownu’s desk with his handful of pictures of him and Kihyun -- their wedding, various vacation spot, backyard bbq’s-- and how they always look so happy to be with each other. He knows that his own office is a pitiful thing to see in comparison to the others but its not like he has things that he could put up even if he wanted to.

Because unlike Shownu and probably every other person on the planet, Wonho has no one. He can’t take pictures with meaning because there is no one there to take them with. He can’t decorate his office with personal objects given as gifts because no one important has given him any. It’s a hard reality to face but he’s been fighting against it since before his ma died and not once has the pain from it gone away. He hates it.  

So. Damn. Much.

Wonho closes his eyes as his pager suddenly vibrates to life. It’s loud and almost makes him flinch at the sudden intrusion. But he doesn’t because he’s become numb to everything after so long. The intrusion is almost welcomed because at least it gets him the chance to escape his headspace, even if only for a few minutes.

Wonho heaves himself silently from his chair and walks to the door of his office. Afterall, he has a job to do.

Technically Wonho is done for the day as soon as four thirty passes but he always pretends to stay after hours in order to get caught up on his work. It isn’t unusual to see him still in his office at eight in the evening and apart from Shownu occasionally telling him to go out and have some fun, the other workers turn a blind eye and just like to consider him a devoted work-a-holic. Which is a cruel form of irony if he would have any say of his own.

Wonho never bothers to correct them.

He works four days a week and always has Friday through Sunday off, so it’s nothing incredibly stressful. When he had first accepted the job as being one of the primary physicians at the hospital, he had known that the hours were more than flexible for having a life away from home. It was giving him the hours to spend on his partner and any future children that would possibly come into the equation. But here he is, at the ripening age of thirty with no partner or children, so hours away from work are more damaging than beneficial.

The hours alone let him sit in silence at his kitchen table and pick absentmindedly at the food he prepares for himself. There are six chairs in total but apart from the one Wonho sits in, they’ve never been used or moved. The sectional couches that are in his living room are large and designed for comfort but apart from the corner piece where Wonho plants himself to watch documentaries, the pillows and cushions remain fluffed with unuse. His bed always stays half-made and when he rolls over to pat the space beside him, the sheets are always cold to the touch. Everything about the house reminds him just how much he has no one else.

So as he leaves work when the skies have turned dark and pulls up into the long driveway, he chooses to just sit there when he finally kills the engine. The radio is on but he isn’t listening to any of it and lets his head fall back onto the headrest, arms dead on his lap. He stares at the house that he grew up in and tries to envision his ma making peach cobbler in the kitchen but all he can envision is her bony hand reaching out for a cup of water that she can barely drink by herself. His eyes stray to the second floor window all the way to the left side of the house where her nightlight would remain lit all throughout the night but there is no faint glow anymore. It’s all darkness, not a light on in the inside or the outside of the house.

Wonho keeps staring because it is all so lifeless. Just like him.  

He silently pleads that this can’t be it. It just can’t.

Wonho swallows down the tightness in his throat and opens the door of his car. As he walks towards the house, he listens to the leaves crunching beneath his feet and the faint jingle as his keys clank together. The security light jolts to life as he approaches and stays bright as he slides the key into the lock. The light welcomes him home when no one else will.