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midnightdonghyun · 1 year ago

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Butterfly ｡˚ ° KDH

Pairings ｡˚ ° Donghyun x Daehwi

Characters ｡˚ ° Omega Donghyun (ab6ix), Alpha Daehwi (ab6ix)

AU ｡˚ ° Omegaverse

Genre ｡˚ ° character exploration, friends to ??? kinda lovers, childhood friends, forbidden romance kinda

Warnings ｡˚ ° None

Word count ｡˚ ° 3k

Summary ｡˚ ° Donghyun is not happy with his presentation and has withdrawn from the world and from the friend he met in the woods as a child. Seeing a reminder of said friend has him out in the forest again... and the two get to talking after a few years of separation.

Notes ｡˚ ° Not proof read lol. Sort of a plot in this one. Idk if i wanna keep this concept like canon? It's a fun dynamic to play with for sure and i like both their charcters but dunno if i should mate them or not

Masterlist Masterlist

Omegaverse Masterlist

Sometimes Donghyun would wake up and feel like he was suffocating on his own scent. He smelled like an isle of fruit, and everytime anyone commented on it he felt nothing but shame. It was a constant reminder. Anywhere he went, anything he touched, it smothered him. He picked up a pen and it was left with a coat of jelly. He smoothed the wrinkles in his pants and they were smeared with jello. He stopped touching other people years ago. He would feel so guilty leaving them with red and orange fruit stains.

A person can’t smell their own scent, but Donghyun was convinced otherwise. Why else would he wake up choking on perfumed air? Maybe it was in his head. Maybe it was his own fear. Or maybe it was the handful of plums the Lord so graciously handed him.

Donghyun didn’t want plums and oranges and strawberries. He prayed for tall glasses of salt water. But this is what he was given. This is what he had to live with.

Even now, staring at the black ceiling waiting until his breathing slowed he had to lie in a bed with apples and grapefruit.

Donghyun always wondered why he was plagued with nightmares. Why he woke multiple times a night trembling and drenched in sweat. He can’t even remember what he dreamed about. If there were faces or demons, if they were bloody with guts or traumatic with lost family members. He just… can’t sleep.

He sat up. Imaginary cherries rolled across the warped wooden floor.

What was the point of trying again? He would just stay awake. Everything was so fitful. Ghosts that he couldn’t remember in his sleep. The crushing weight of failure during the day. It’s like he was stuck in limbo. One foot in the Garden another in Hell. God even gave him a pomegranate to remind him. Look at what you did to man.

The floor was cold, and the light outside was blue and silver. A full moon.

Yellow and blue, Donghyun turned his desk lamp on. Its light was soft, but it took a second for his eyes to adjust to the sudden warmth. His room was small. All of their rooms were small. That’s just how boarding school is, he supposed. Twin bed, desk, a dresser, a radiator, garbage can.

He had been inside other rooms before. They had cork boards with memories bottled into tickets and pictures of their pets. They had framed photos of their parents, siblings, aunties and uncles. Some had old family crests. Some of them had gifts from home. Hand knitted blankets that smelled like their dams, small baskets of their favorite snacks they couldn’t in this small town tucked away deep in the pines.

Donghyun was an orphan. His walls had a calendar and a crucifix. His bed had a synthetic blanket that the school provided. His desk had textbooks and notebooks.

He felt so very alone, and when he started smelling so sweet he understood why he was abandoned. Who would want this?

The few personal items he had weren’t much. There was a bible bound in leather with gold lettering. There was a rosary with white, pearly beads. There was Celery, a worn stuffed rabbit. And then there was Celery’s rosary, of course, currently wrapped around his plush neck. That one had plastic yellow beads. He had a few books of his own. A few outfits.

It’s not like he needs much. It’s not a very holy thing to have so many possessions, anyway. Donghyun was content with his minimalistic room, but… maybe one family photo would be nice.

He’ll have to repent for the jealousy later.

But there was one more thing. His eyes fell on it standing all alone in the dim yellow light that washed over the desk. It was pushed a little farther back, a memory lost to a corner, school and bible studies had taken precedence.

It was a butterfly. Blue. Carefully pinned inside its black frame. It was easy for Donghyun to see the care that went into it. It was a gift from someone special to someone special. Truth be told he hadn’t thought of this person in years.

They were kids when they met. Donghyun had crawled out of the window after one of his nightmares. Lost himself deep in the forest. He was a child then. So was the boy he met. Skinny. Pale. Donghyung was afraid of him at first. Some kind ghost. An evil spirit to entice him into sin or lead him into a lake and drown him. But he was just a boy. A strange boy unnaturally comfortable in the dark woods.

He said his name was Daehwi. He said he was from a village farther up the mountain. He said his family thought of Donghyun’s boarding school as a religious cult. A place full of false prophets and lies. Donghyun was deeply offended at first, but it didn’t last long. They met nearly every night for a long time. He would go into the forest and talk to his friend under the moon. It didn’t matter that Daehwi thought Donghyun was living in religious bondage and following lies and it didn’t matter that Donghyun thought Daehwi was a heretic spreading harmful pagan ideas and living secluded in the woods like a freak. They just worked somehow, and they both learned not to question it much.

Things fall apart when you question.

Daehwi loved butterflies. He pinned their corpses and hung them around his cabin. That’s what he told Donghyun, who thought it was a little strange at first. But Daehwi gave him a gift. And Donghyun wasn’t one to question gifts. It was like a piece of his soul that he entrusted Donghyun with.

Donghyun swayed, still looking at the little soul in the black frame. It was important to Daehwi. Why hadn’t he gone into the forest recently? Why did he stop years ago? If he went back would this small child still even be there? And what would he look like now?

Donghyun was moved to pull on proper pants, socks, shoes, and a jacket before he even really considered what he was doing. Sister Catherine said that sometimes the Lord works in hidden ways. That He pulls you into actions you would never take and when that happens all you have to do is trust Him and follow what He’s pulling you towards. Donghyun steeled his faith as he pulled his first floor window open.

In a last thought he pocketed the white rosary, and then he swung his feet out his window and carefully lowered himself into the shrubs below.

It was a dream, or maybe a memory. He always conflated the two.

The air had a bite to it. Needles swayed in the wind above his head. His feet worked from memory, and everything was bundled in the silver gauze spun by the moon herself. Donghyun started to fret. Would Daehwi even be there anymore? Had he forgotten too or was he bitter with Donghyun’s sudden abandonment? What would he say to him if he was there? He hoped they wouldn’t fight.

The tree they met under was still there. Daehwi said it was a bigleaf maple. It was massive and covered in moss. Thick branches sprawled in all directions and seemed to encompass the entire sky when you stood under it. A leafy Atlas bearing the brunt of the stars on its bark. A few of those branches had collapsed recently, breaking off from the trunk and horrid angels. They were still attached by a few woody tendons, and the entire scene made Donghyun think that something had died in that tree, even though it remained alive above its dragging limbs.

“Softwood rots in humid places like this.”

Donghyun started and turned towards the sudden voice. He appeared silently, as if he had melted from the moonlight. He did that the first time too, when Donghyun was lost and on the verge of tears. He stared for a second, a little awed at the moonghost standing in front of him with his hands in his pockets.

He wasn’t very tall and nor had he bulked up. He was still fairly pale and his eyes still had that clear, freezing gleam.

Donghyun didn’t know what to say. The words that came out were a little stupid, but what was he supposed to say?

“You’re still here.”

Daehwi narrowed his eyes. “I haven’t been. I gave up awhile ago.”

“Fated,” Donghyun took a step closer. “God wanted us here. Together.”

Daehwi cocked an eyebrow. “Your god, maybe.”

Donghyun shrugged, lowering himself into a squat. They used to sit here for ages. Neither one of them cared about how damp their pants got or how the cold would start burning into their bones. They would be too focused on each other. Too busy listening and talking. Daehwi always did all the talking back then. He would tell Donghyun about the stars they couldn’t see under the tree. The butterflies he liked the most. The saints and gods of his religion. How to slaughter a lamb ethically and painlessly. He was without God, but he was fascinating.

He was silent now, regarding Donghyun cooly. Was he angry they stopped meeting? Had he waited in the forest night after night in vain? Donghyun had told him he might stop coming. That things were getting more and more complicated the more he thought about puberty. About presenting. About his future. Did he understand?

“I like to think of Him as everyone’s god,” Donghyun said softly.

Daehwi scoffed. “Of course you do.”

An owl hooted somewhere in the distance. Daehwi looked off in its direction as if he could watch it take flight from here. Even the air around him felt icy and tense. Donghyun traced his angular jawline, eyes moving from his small ear to the tip of his chin. He had grown well. Donghyun wondered about him. His identity, his education, what had happened in the few years they cut each other out.

��My friend, talk to me.” Donghyun’s voice was almost a whisper in the cedars, tangling in the small vine maples and getting lost. “What have you been up to these days? What happened?”

Daehwi’s gaze turned back to him. Donghyun winced. It was dripping with something he couldn’t exactly put a word to. Apathy? Hatred? An unsanctioned marriage between the two?

“I waited, for one thing. I waited for my friend to come back, but he ran off with my gift.”

Donghyun could only flinch and grimace. Gifts were so important, in both of their secluded little sects. Pieces of the soul. A promise from one person to another. The start of a dialogue between the two. He had ghosted a courtship.

“Of course then I realized we were kids mimicking things we knew nothing about and that it never meant anything in the first place. And that hurt for awhile. But you get over it eventually.” He shrugged stiffly looking off into the black distance again.

Donghyun was silent for a few moments. These things had to be navigated so carefully. He was crossing a river by jumping from one small rock to another. They were so wet… covered with wigs of algae and robes of fresh water. A quick sign of the cross and he had to jump.

“So much happened. So much I wanted to die.”

Daehwi’s head turned slowly back in Donghyun’s direction. His gaze was still pained, but a little softer. Donghyun wondered if he ever really got over it.

“What happened?”

“I wanted to be a priest.”

“And why can’t you?”

Donghyun sighed and stood up. There were so many smells in the air. Moss. Water. Wet bark. The forest was alive with scent. It was easy to hide out here where the wind blew everything away so quickly you could barely catch a whiff of it. It’s not like a classroom behind stone walls where you could smell everyone in nearly every adjacent room. So he stepped closer, almost closing the gap between them, and pulled down his coat collar a little and baring his neck in a dramatic flair.

Fruit.

Daehwi’s nose twitched.

“They won’t let us in. Too… compromised. Prone to sin. Made to serve God in other ways.”

“An old stereotype.”

“Religions are full of that.”

Another awkward silence. Daehwi cast his gaze downwards. Donghyun wondered if apathy was his protection the way isolation was his. The wind was picking up, and the treetops were rocking now. Donghyun crossed his arms and shivered. The air started to smell a little bit like rain.

“Do you hate me?” Daehwi’s tone was flat. Emotionless.

“No… why would you say that?”

He shrugged, the leaf litter seemingly more interesting than Donghyun’s face. “I just thought you were supposed to.”

Donghyun didn’t know what to say and hugged himself tighter.

“When you left, I guess I thought you were tired of hanging out with someone your people damn to hell.”

Donghyun kicked at the rotting leaves. He guessed it was true. Daehwi wasn’t even baptized. Where else would he go? But that’s not what the religion is about either. There are core tenets of understanding. Of love. Of forgiveness. Donghyun forgave Daehwi the day they met. Shouldn’t He have?

“Well… what do you think of me?”

Daehwi finally shot him another glance. “I think you’re misguided.”

Donghyun sighed again.

The world around them grew steadily darker. Clouds were blowing in blocking the weak rays the moon could provide them. Donghyun began to dread the walk home. Daehwi was a always a mindreader. He smirked a little, finally lightening out of his pensive and emotionless mask. “Need me to walk you home? Gonna get lost again, little kid?”

“I’d appreciate it. I can’t see well.”

They walked in a single file line. Donghyun was cold and unsettled. He wasn’t sure where they stood. They were talking at least, but it didn’t feel like how it should. Daehwi was upset. Their religions were a wall. All Donghyun wanted to do was climb over it, but he was too scared to find a foothold. He was on one side of the river, and he was too busy fussing over the stones in the middle to even try to cross.

Stone walls and lights in the distance. Daehwi walked him all the way up to his open window, and the rain finally started to fall.

Donghyun swayed, unsure, but desperate to extend some sort of olive branch.

“It’s gonna pour.”

Daehwi grunted in agreement.

“You should… come inside.”

The smaller man studied him for a moment, eyes traveling across Donghyun’s facial features, scrutinizing. Looking for something. But God had other plans. The rain picked up quickly, going from a drizzle to something steadier with threats to let loose into a storm.

“Yeah,” Daehwi agreed, and they climbed into Donghyun’s dark room before they could be drenched. Donghyun shut the window. Daehwi loitered until Donghyun turned the desk lamp back on.

The shrubs outside rustled and rubbed against the wall. Daehwi sniffed.

“It’s bare in here.”

Donghyun shrugged. “What did you picture?”

“A nest at least. You’re such a fucking monk.”

Donghyun let himself laugh a little. “I was raised by nuns, I guess it shows.”

Donghyun could smell him in here. He smelled like a mass on the beach. Incense, pews, salt water, sand. It was infinitely better than fruit, but Donghyun briefly wondered what they smelled like together. Cranberries growing in the ocean? Pineapple on white sand? A hidden apple underneath a church pew?

The butterfly on his desk. Daehwi was running his fingers across the top of the frame. “This was my first one. It’s crooked. I’m better now.”

“Make me a new one.”

“If I do, you can’t leave again.”

Donghyun reached into his coat pocket, feeling the beads he stashed earlier. The rain outside persisted, running down the window like steady lanes of traffic.

“Do you forgive me?” Donghyun asked gently.

Daehwi turned to him, crossing his arms. “For leaving? If you don’t do it again.”

“You said we were kids.”

“We were. It didn’t mean anything except hurt feelings then. If we do it now,” he quirked a brow again. “It’s for real.”

Donghyun took a deep breath. “And you don’t… care? About me?”

A brief look of confusion crossed the younger man’s face before it was back to apathy. “What’d you mean?”

“That I… that I’m… like this.”

Daehwi’s brow creased. “If I cared I wouldn’t have even walked you home. Shouldn’t you be more worried about God?”

Donghyun shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

Silence.

“I prayed to be a beta.”

“That sounds like you.”

“I wanted to preach so badly, Daehwi. I don’t know what to do now.”

Daehwi shrugged. “I don’t know either.”

Donghyun wasn’t even sure a courtship between them would work. It was a matter of religion. They weren’t converting each other. One wasn’t about to drop his belief entirely. They were both feverish with faith. And that made Donghyun afraid. But he pulled out the white rosary anyway and offered it to Daehwi.

“It’s important to me.”

Daehwi looked at it pointedly before slowly taking it from him.

“And if I decide you aren’t for me?”

“Give it back to me.”

Daehwi nodded. “I’ll hold onto it for now.” He hesitated before stepping closer, twisting his head towards the shell of Donghyun’s ear. “You smell good, by the way.”

Donghyun shivered.

Daehwi glanced outside. The rain weakened a little. The night was growing old. “It’s the full moon, Donghyun. I have things to attend to.”

Donghyun nodded. “Just come back?”

“Yeah.”

Silence. A heavy pause, each unsure of how to proceed around the other. Each made a little dizzy by the other’s scent, each afraid of spitting at their faith, each terrified of ending up alone.

“Lend me an umbrella?”

A cloth torch passed from one hand to another. Sound and wind filled the room when the window open and then Donghyun was alone again, just as suddenly as he had left the room earlier that night.

Deep down he knew they wouldn’t last. He just hoped their fling would be worth it.

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