Chapter Text
When you face the open road, out in the vast country, when you follow the faded, broken yellow lines in a leap of faith, there is something about the horizon that makes you realize how small your life was before this. You realize that somehow, before you stepped out of the city you called home and onto the pavement, you convinced yourself you were living.
You know better now. You know better than to waste your limited breath on the mundane, to throw away your dreams for a few godforsaken numbers on a piece of paper. Because America is about what people own and not what they are. It’s about being afraid to die but even more afraid to live.
And either one of the two would make you happy.
This, not knowing how you’ll find your next meal or where you’ll lie your head down at night, who you’d have for company or where you’re going except forward, onwards, for as long as you can; this, having nothing left to lose and nothing less than the world at the horizon, this is how you were meant to live.
***
There’s a little diner that Donghae has always loved just ten minutes outside of the Californian border. It’s got round tables and red leather seats by the window and a jukebox that probably no one ever uses. It’s run by a chirpy dark skinned woman and the best part about it besides the coffee and bacon is her beautiful daughter in a waitress uniform. Donghae orders the same thing he orders every year and hopes, by chance, she might recognize a returning traveler. She doesn’t, but smiles at him anyway when Donghae tries to charm her. Apparently, there are still girls in this world who actually like being called “sweetheart” by strangers with teethless smiles. Donghae likes to believe it’s because of his good looks.
Every summer from since he was twenty, Donghae takes off and drives his 1960 pickup truck across the country. There is a highway down south that runs from the West coast all the way to the East, and when he gets there all he does is dip his feet in the Atlantic ocean before turning right back. Because it’s not where he was headed that matters; it’s the art in the things he sees, the land he’s touched, the road he’s tasted, and the people he meets on the way.
Two bites into his omelette, Donghae sees out the window and watches as a rowdy gang of bikers ride into the lot. There’s about four of them, two with girls, a blonde and a brunette, strapping the back seat. He takes a minute to eye their rides. He’d always wanted to ride a bike like that, something fast, having the wind in his hair and all. They all make their way inside, the girls laughing with their men’s arms over their shoulders. As they take their seats around a table, one of the girls catches his eye.
There’s something about the short, blonde curls framing her narrow face, her full lips, and most of all, the sadness in her eyes, seen even through her smile, that catches Donghae’s attention. The man she’s with is in a black leather jacket, her hand on his lap and his lips on her hair.
Just then, there’s a weird shift in the mood. Donghae turns to see one of the bikers stroke his knuckles up the thighs of the pretty little waitress, who is clearly looking nervous and distressed at the man’s filthy hand. The other men chuckle at their friend’s boldness while the expressions on the girls’ faces are tense. Three tables away, Donghae could hear the waitress say “stop” in vain.
“Hey whattaya say I get you outta that uniform and take you fer a ride?” The man says, pointing a thumb at a black motorcycle sitting outside in the lot.
“No thanks, sir,” she says but it’s no use.
“Hey come on now, ain’t no harm in givin’ a guy a chance is there, sweet thing?” He says. She tries to walk away just as he grabs her arm and spins her around and that’s where Donghae draws the line. “Look dipshit, she’s not interested,” he says and his voice rings in the background of silence.
“The fuck did you say?” the biker says. Donghae’s fists run cold but he stands up anyway, and from this angle it’s clear how little of a chance he has against this guy if things should come to a fight. Donghae has always had a good physique, toned arms and broad shoulders, but he doesn’t have the life on the road, the years of rough knuckles on sunburnt skin that shapes a man into a fighter. Still, Donghae’s not exactly the most logical person when it comes to his mouth.
“I said the lady’s not interested, so you can get your ass outta here and go fuck yourself.”
And that’s how he gets a fist in the face and the taste of iron on his tongue. It all happened faster than he’d expected. He wipes the blood off with a thumb, and just as he’s about to take another blow, one of the girls, the brown haired one, screams “That’s enough, Bobby! Come on, let’s just go! Let’s just get outta here and be on our way now.”
“You stay out of this!” Bobby yells back.
“No! God damn it, Bobby, I’m so sick and tired of this happenin’ every time! Every single goddamn time.” As the brown haired girl says this, the blonde one, with the eyes, sighs and mutters an “Idiot” before she gets up and walks out.
Things seem to strangely fall apart from then on as the man she’s with is the first to follow after her, and then everyone of them after that. It’s known to some people that there’s something about shame that dissipates the heat of a good fight, that even if you beat the other guy to a pulp, you are given no satisfaction. There is a tenseness in Bobby’s jaw as he, too, eventually turns away with a sneer and slams the door on his way out. The sound of four engines starting up stirs the air and just as they ride out onto the road, the woman with the blonde curls turns back to look at Donghae for a split second, and there it is again. Something unexplainable.
The waitress immediately thanks him and tends to Donghae’s face when the gang disappears in mere seconds. Donghae realizes then that damn it, he never got to give the guy a good punch to the gut for the way he treats a woman. He does, however, remember how beautiful this waitress is and it’s Donghae who gets to see her out of that uniform, on her offer, quick breaths in the diner’s bathroom stall before her mother realizes what they’re doing during work hours. She gives him a discount later before he hits the road, and Donghae thinks that perhaps now she’ll recognize him the next time he’s in town.
***
When he was but a boy, Donghae used to spend hours watching his papa work in the garage, popping the hoods open at high noon and showing Donghae what car guts looked like. Unlike people, cars can be fixed so long as they are loved, and his father had a talent for taking the rundown parts and pieces that other men before him no longer wanted and made them into stoic, purring, living machines again. Back then, Donghae had always thought being a car doctor was the coolest job in the world. When he turned sixteen, not much had changed except he was sixteen and that meant he wanted a 1971 Cadillac Eldorado, the kind of car that would impress all the girls at school and possibly the handsome quarterback jock Donghae spent his algebra classes staring at.
When his father sighed and told him being a mechanic doesn’t make the money for a luxury car just as the luxury car doesn’t make the man, he offered Donghae, instead, an old pickup truck that somebody had left behind a long time ago and never came back to claim. It had a busted engine once, but Donghae’s father loved that big ol’ thing the most, told him it was as good as anything a man can hope for, a dream on wheels. Donghae still remembers staring at the faded red paint and calling it a lame piece of crap, just like all the other damn garbage that his father ever tried to fix.
After his father passed away, Donghae dug out the keys, dusty through the years, and took the old truck to see the country, loved it even with the tears and regrets bedded into its leather seats.
--
On a day where the sun bakes the skin and it’s so hot that Donghae’s shirt sticks to his back, he likes to roll all the windows down and, with one hand on the steering wheel, stick his head out to catch the breeze. What would be considered crazy and dangerous in the city is liberating on the country road. The wind makes his eyes tear up, but Donghae loves the sun on his skin and the dirt and dust that trail behind his truck, the gravel bouncing excitedly on the pavement as he zooms past.
Every few miles, there’d be hills that roll by on what is otherwise flat, wild land, and sometimes there’d be people standing off the shoulder of the highway carrying large backpacks, their skin tanned from days out in the sun and their thumbs held up high in the air. Donghae has been on the road long enough to know how to pick a hitchhiker. Some of the most interesting people are ones met on the road, but there's an art in seeing who they are.
There are people who have had their cars break down, people who are lost, who have places to go, who are quiet during the ride but thanks you with all their compassion when you decide to drop them off at the next town and leave them to the rest of their journey. That’s usually how they are.
But if you’re lucky, you might meet the other kind of people. The ones with a brilliant lust for life, a violent thirst for true freedom; the ones who are interesting and beautiful, who have the most captivating laughter and whose sorrow and vitality burned and spread like wildfire; the kind of people you’d tell stories about to your friends back home and at the end of them sigh gosh, he was a man worth knowing.
Off in the distance, there is a woman walking backwards along the road with her thumb in the air, the black leather jacket draped over her shoulders a stark contrast with her windblown blonde locks. Donghae recognizes her even from afar.
When he slows down and their eyes meet, she smiles, cherry red lips against white teeth. She doesn’t seem to remember who he is, but Donghae thinks she’s more beautiful up close, even with the smudge in her eyeliner and the wild tangles in her hair. In the back of his head, he wonders how a girl like her had ended up walking on the road alone. Donghae pulls over beside her and ducks his head to see through the window.
And he should realize it by now, being this close, but he doesn’t. Not yet.
“How far are you going?” He asks instead.
“As far as you’ll take me, Mister,” She says and the sound of her voice takes Donghae by surprise. Too deep for a woman her age, but sultry like the smoky voice of a lounge singer. “Nice ride.”
And that’s when Donghae sees it. The sharp outline of her jaw when she scans the truck, her obvious broad shoulders under that familiar leather jacket, the huskiness of her voice, the odd way her dress hugs her body, and although none of it makes much sense to Donghae, he sees it. He sees it and he wonders how he hadn’t noticed before.
“Hop in.”
“Thanks stranger,” he says in a way that almost makes Donghae blush. He hops into the truck and Donghae doesn’t miss the way the ends of his dress ride up when he crosses his legs and gets comfortable in the seat. As Donghae hit the gas, the strange man in the strange clothes tugs at his netted stockings, flips down the mirror in the car and fixes his lipstick, puckers his lips at his reflection as if to deliberately draw attention. Donghae is dying to ask, dying to understand, but holds back.
They spend the first few minutes in silence before the man notices Donghae’s bruised mouth and realization finally dawns upon him. There is a calmness in his voice when he asks, “Say Mister, you’re that guy from the diner aren’t you?”
“I didn’t think you’d recognize me,” Donghae laughs nervously, “And you can call me Donghae, if you’d like.”
“Well it was real noble of you back there, Mister Donghae,” He says, still in the act, “And stupid.”
“What did you say your name was again?”
“Hyukjae.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Donghae says and doesn’t comment on the boyish name.
“I hope that doesn’t mean you’re going to ask me to suck your dick like the other guys did,” Hyukjae says bluntly and when Donghae almost chokes and drives into the grass, Hyukjae throws his head back and laughs, “I was jus’ kidding! Sorry ‘bout that. Where are you headed on this fine day, Mister Donghae?”
Donghae wonders what he’s gotten himself into.
“Uh, the east coast. To the ocean,” Donghae says without thinking and hesitates before he gasps, “Did the drivers really ask you that?”
“I’ve always wanted to see the ocean,” Hyukjae sighs, and when he looks towards the road it’s as if his thoughts are far away. The way he talks reminds Donghae of the way one would shoot a bullet. He’s bold, piercing. Everything Hyukjae says takes Donghae aback a little, but afterwards he doesn’t say much else, just props an elbow over the open window and looks on into the distance, blonde hair blowing in the summer wind.
Donghae bites his lip and grips the steering wheel a little tighter. Donghae has picked up plenty of quiet hitchhikers before in all the times he’s taken this path, and he had grown up knowing very well not to stick his nose in other folks’ business. But from the start, there had been something curious about Hyukjae, about the girls’ clothing, about the previous owner of that leather jacket and those eyes made darker by purple eyeshadow and coats of mascara, those eyes that Donghae saw cry helplessly without shedding a tear. It’s gone now as Hyukjae gazes out into the moving landscape, but Donghae remembers what it looked like. It looked a little like drowning.
The road ahead is easy and smooth for miles. Donghae turns on the car radio on Hyukjae’s request, and Donghae half expected him to sing along but he doesn’t, just reaches a hand out and guides his fingers along the currents of the wind, eyes closed and lips pressed in an effortless smile. The setting sun sets his hair ablaze and paints their skin orange as Donghae drives down the long winding road. Donghae wonders how any man could see Hyukjae like this and still let him go.
-
By the time they find a motel in a little town off the side of the highway, the sun has all but gone down and the sweat on the back of Donghae’s neck from a day in the heat has dried. It’s not often that a traveler would share their motel room with a hitchhiker, but sometimes it happens and when Donghae sees that Hyukjae isn’t carrying much money, he pays for a room for two. Hyukjae says he’ll make it up to him somehow, and Donghae doesn’t know what that means but agrees on it.
The room they get is small but decent for a countryside motel. Even with the lights on, the room is lit dim and there’s an occasional flicker in the lamp, but there’s two single sized beds and a bathroom with warm water and that’s as good as it gets smack in the middle of Arizona. Donghae takes a look at the showers, and then at Hyukjae.
“Ladies first?” he says and wonders if the men before him played along, too.
Hyukjae kicks off his heels and flops down on one of the beds. “You go ahead, I’m going to lie down for a minute. I’m so tired I could just die right here on this bed.”
Donghae chuckles, “Well try to keep breathing until I come back.”
Some days, there aren’t any motels for miles before it gets dark, so the nights with hot water on Donghae’s skin feels like heaven. His muscles are tense and sore from a long day of driving, but Donghae finds himself panting into the tiled walls with his hand on his cock. The hot water drenches his hair, dribbles a line down his cock when Donghae pumps slow, pressured glides. For some reason, just as he’s close to climax, jacking off quickly amidst the steam, Donghae pictures Hyukjae with boyish hair and no makeup on his face. And before he knows it he’s coming violently into his hand, eyes wide in surprise, thighs twitching and knees almost giving in.
“Shit,” he mutters inaudibly when he’s come down from his high and the water is cold dripping down his back.
When Donghae walks out of the bathroom, Hyukjae is, thankfully, still alive. Upon seeing Donghae in nothing but a towel and wet hair, Hyukjae smiles and says, “Well aren’t you quite the handsome one,” before walking up to a mirror and rubbing a finger along the edge of his lipstick.
The image Donghae had pictured earlier burns in his mind, and at this point he’s dying to ask. They are quiet for a few seconds before Donghae caves in.
“So were you planning on telling me at all?”
For a moment, there is a look of genuine confusion on Hyukjae face, and then when Donghae’s eyes flicker to his body for a fraction of a second, his reflection in the mirror grows solemn. “You.. knew?”
“Look, you know what, forget it, I’m sorry. It’s none of my business. God, I’m sorry.”
“I guess I don’t exactly make a very attractive woman, huh,” Hyukjae says disappointedly.
“No! No no it’s not like that at all,” Donghae panics, “Fuck, you’re really attractive, I just-”
Hyukjae furrows his brows and almost laughs a little.
“I was just,” Donghae is more than a little bewildered, “I was just curious.”
For a little while they just look at each other, and Donghae feels like punching himself in the face. Hyukjae lets out a sigh, bends down to slip off his stockings and says, “It’s late, Donghae. Let’s just go to bed and I’ll tell you in the morning.”
Donghae nods, and despite the bullet, there is a relief in the fact that Hyukjae will still be here in the morning, because as much as Donghae knows nothing about him, he’s drawn to Hyukjae, drawn since that morning in the diner, by the stories untold and the radio songs unsang and the man Donghae still hasn’t met.
Nearing the middle of the night when Donghae is on the verge of sleep, Hyukjae murmurs, “Do you like women, or men too?”
Donghae doesn’t know if he’s just talking in his sleep, but answers, “Both.”