the sun, the moon, and all the stars | h.rj x l.dh

còig

september 24, 2006 

monday morning rolled around all too quickly, for the moon who needed rest from illuminating the night, and the sun who needed to work to shine bright for the day,  yet was so tired. 

the sun sat at his kitchen table, almost peacefully, he had had a nice feast with his siblings, eomma, jisung and chenle on saturday, and slept in basically all day on sunday. the perfect weekend in his opinion. 

unfortunately, it ended pretty quickly. the weekend, and the peacefulness. 

this would be donghyuck's first week with his new schedule, and his first week sharing all his classes with huang renjun. he certainly wasn't looking forward to having to be with the male for such a long period of time. 

"you look like you just saw a ghost." taeyong teased, sitting next to the younger, placing a plate of pancakes in front of himself and his brother. 

"i share all of my classes with huang renjun." donghyuck shivered, digging into his pancakes nonchalantly. 

"yeah, the talk with the principal didn't go to well, mijoo lost it." taeyong explained, ruffling donghyuck's hair lightly. "we know how bad dad's passing hurt you, his little haechan. i don't think any of us really know what's right anymore, you know? what could we have differently, what the future will look like, we only have eomma's income now. all of us noona's and hyungs are working are butts off so we can be stable again, okay?" 

"okay. thank you, hyung, for working so hard. just...if you worry about the future too much you'll miss the present. and what's the point of living if you only worry about what's next. be careful hyung. don't forget about the present while getting sucked into the past and future." donghyuck smiled, leaning into his older brother. "i think seeing you, or any of our family lose themselves to time, would be worse than what happened to dad." 

"well, we won't make sure that happens then, hmm?" taeyong said shakily, wiping his 'i'm not crying it's just dust' tears. "now go get dressed, you don't want to be late." he smiled, planting a kiss on the top of donghyuck's head as the youngest rushed to change into new clothes. 

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renjun had been up for hours, he wasn't even sure he actually slept at all. he couldn't sleep, not like this. bloody nose dried on his upper lip, that salty taste still inside his mouth, his glasses that he hardly ever wore anyway, broken into three scattered on the floor next to him. 

he had been sat there on the marble balcony for hours, he had never moved, never made any noise, never closed his eyes. the memory of what had brought him here, his dad, drunk and grieving, and renjun, who looked just a little too much like xinyuan. 

he wasn't sure why his father would hit him if he thought he was xinyuan, so he figured it was just...just too painful for him to see his daughter, and know it's not her. renjun understood, and it hurt, god it hurt. but he didn't fight back, he didn't scream and squirm. he just let his father lay punch after punch on the frail male. 

he understood every-fucking-thing his father did to him. but he didn't know why it was on the balcony. when renjun grieved, he went to the roof, where his sister, his platonic soulmate, his twin, was pushed off to her untimely death. where the reporters stood for days, weeks, after her death, the same speech playing on repeat. 

if he was his father, he would've hit him on the roof. but that was the thing about death, and mourning, and grief. no one knew how it worked, no one knew what the mourner was thinking, going through, what memory replayed in their head at the most inconvenient times. no one knows who you become after death. 

not even the moon. 

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donghyuck laughed with the kids next to him in homeroom as they waited for school to start. they still had ten minutes until the second bell would ring. this one girl, named abbie or something, was talking about all the sweets they had in scottland. 

this felt nice, is what donghyuck thought. looking around the classroom, he could jisung wave at him from the window outside, while quickly waving back he saw he teacher on her computer supposedly working, but probably read one direction fan-fiction. 

and then he saw the doorway, and he saw the last missing student from the class, renjun, walk in. but it wasn't like a normal day, the boy didn't have his head raised high, boasting on and on about how rich he is. no, the boy rather was in a large hoodie, hood pulled over his head and a cap on underneath it. he slid the teacher a note, probably stating that he was allowed to wear the hood and cap, for 'unspecified circumstances.' 

donghyuck held back the remark as renjun slumped into his chair, and to be honest he wasn't a hundred precent certain that this wasn't a decoy. someone, a butler or something, pretending to be renjun. 

that's when the boy looked over at donghyuck, feeling the stare burning into his head. and when renjun looked up, it was definitely renjun, donghyuck would be dumb to not know that. but it wasn't the huang renjun he knew, the cocky, stuck up, rich bastard. this was someone different. someone donghyuck had never seen before. he wasn't quite sure what this new, delicate, vulnurable, and almost innocent side of huang renjun was. but he wanted to find out. 

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it seemed the universe wasn't on either boys side when it came to seating arrangements. renjun had a hunch it was because the staff figured 'both have dead family member, put them together' but he really wasn't certain. 

he did know however, the only two periods he wasn't sat right next to lee donghyuck, were free period and lunch. definitely not how renjun pictured his school year to be. he was hoping it would be like it always has, popular, yet just him, xinyuan,  jeno and jaemin all the time, smart, but still playful. 

but after xinyuan died. 

renjun wasn't sure that the normalities he was accustomed to would hold up. especially now that his dad was grieving usuing renjun as an outlet. he could feel his status dropping, fast. 

but he didn't have time to worry about that right now, because when he looked up. he didn't see an empty chair, or jaemin asleep, or jeno reading some new book. he was lee donghyuck standing next to a teacher, the english teacher to be specific. 

"mr.huang." the teacher smiled, pulling out a chair as both she and donghyuck sat down. 

"yes, ma'am?" he raised his head barely, not wanting to show off the dried blood and bruises. 

"meet your new tutoree, you will be donghyuck's tutor this year. now get yourselve's aquainted, i'll get the books." the teacher, smiling and walking away. 

"funny seeing you hear, renjun." donghyuck scoffed sarcastically, this school had it out for him. 

"likewise." renjun groaned, placing his head in his hands.