the coffee scent will always tinge the air. pg. han geng/heechul.

[enkannerligen]

title: the coffee scent will always tinge the air
rating: pg
pairings: hankyung/heechul (siwon/sungmin, kangin/eeteuk, kyuhyun/victoria, zhou mi>kyuhyun)
summary: when water is poured there are images of you; i can’t wash them away [coffee!au]
word count: 9814 words
notes: the café!au where heechul is a writer in disguise and seems to have polyamorous relationships. began as something short and drabblesque. became a ficlet. grew even larger; iz nao a reel fic. some might consider it prose for the sake of prose, or something. (lovely.) and it really wasn’t supposed to become ~9800 words in lapslock. i don’t write long things in lapslock, except that i apparently do.

all of his books and series and short comics are credited mononymously as just “heechul”. it works better that way, because people don’t have a family name to link him and them together and almost no one he has met has made the connection. when meeting someone new, when presenting himself it goes a bit like;

I’m Kim Heechul.

Heechul? Like the writer?

Yeah.

and that is all it is. heechul; like the writer, but not the writer. it is fun, a secret that is so obvious and worn on his sleeve, but maybe it is the fact that he has a job in eeteuk’s coffee shop that helps with throwing them off.






he works in eeteuk’s coffee shop every tuesday, wednesday, thursday morning and saturday, along with the occasional sunday when needed. it doesn’t stop him from writing, far from it, even if the time he can spend actively writing is cut shorter than what it could be.

it’s alright, because heechul can take a marker and draw a character from his cartoon or a few words that will be seated firmer in his mind by scribbling it down on the paper cups that are used for those who are taking their coffee on the go. no one minds; some of the costumers who have noticed finds it cute, asking about how he can draw so well.

‘i used to be an art student,’ he tells them and it is not the joke some people seem to think it is. heechul only grins, doesn’t bother with them after that, making sure they never get one of his "decorated" cups again.






heechul wants to write a fairytale for adults, but no one will read it, his editor and publisher and friends tell him. fairytales are for children. not adults. adults don’t believe in fairytales, and you can’t read things you don’t believe in. heechul kindly tells siwon that he has read one of the most famous fairytales and believes it. siwon is only a little offended, already much too used to heechul’s arguments and lack of faith.

‘it’s a fairytale,’ heechul cackles. siwon sighs and perhaps heechul can write a fairytale for adults anyway, even if most people won’t believe it.




‘it’s a pretty good fairytale, anyway,’ heechul whispers that night when he threads his fingers through siwon’s hair as they lay in bed together, facing each other. their legs are almost tangled.

‘it’s alright, hyung,’ siwon answers, his voice a whisper as well and it is like the wind that travels during that time where summer has not yet become autumn, there there there, but you almost don’t notice it if you don’t let yourself.






when he pours water over his head he sees a boy that is soft and sweet like honey and he almost breathes in the drops that rivulet down to the bath again. the boy is not a boy as much as a man, and he have a name that is as soft as his looks and heechul can’t pronounce it really and looses it the second he opens his eyes.






(“Ah, ge, there is someone I want you to meet. His name is Heechul—”

“Like that writer?”

“Yes, like the writer.”)






‘heechul hyung! hi, this is the person i’ve been talking about. he helps me with my mandarin, remember?’

it’s like he has had water poured over his head when he looks up with a smirk, ready to pick apart and scrutinise whoever it is that siwon has brought in and he sees the boy that is a man that is so soft and sweet that heechul can’t forget about him.

‘nice to meet you. i’m hankyung.’ a smile that is soft and slow, slightly uncertain. sweeter than the honey colour of his skin.

‘you probably already know who i am,’ heechul says, flicks his recently dyed hair back with his hand, but thinks no you’re not, because i can pronounce your name right. hankyung is soft, in looks and name, soft and smooth even with the slightest hint of something else.






siwon and hankyung begin to come to eeteuk’s coffee shop together, one day every week, to study. hankyung helps siwon with mandarin and siwon helps hankyung with korean, only to be interrupted by the much better help heechul offers when the shop isn’t full of people and he can take a couple of minutes off. he’s uninvited the same way cold air that rushes inside in winter is, but not quite as unwelcome.






‘are you dating hankyung?’ heechul asks and siwon looks at him in surprise.

‘no, i’m not like that.’

‘like that? you mean gay? and anyway, you don’t have to be gay to fall in love with someone.’

‘i know, hyung.’ heechul lets his fingers trail down along siwon’s jaw-line, up to touch his lips.






jessica knows everything but details before he can tell her. she always knows. so he doesn’t even put it into words and she doesn’t reply in them either. they don’t speak with each other because they already speak too much, say too much.






in eeteuk’s coffee shop there are four people employed and only one who really works. that person is eeteuk himself.

because hyukjae spends most his time talking about girls and dating them and practicing dance steps when he manages to; donghae laughs and flirts with costumers and spends too much time on his phone and stressing about exams; heechul more of a menace at times and laughing at his costumers and occasionally insulting them with all too blunt words.

and sometimes, eeteuk breaks down and cries in the backroom because he is stressed and this is not how he envisioned his life – having a small coffee shop where no one really works and minor chaos ruling their lives and he’s single even when all he does beside being in the shop is to look for someone to date or love or something.

when eeteuk cries no one knows what to do or how to act, because they somehow feel the prickly feel of tears freezing on their cheeks in cold winter weather. so they manage to behave better than ever and donghae asks heechul if perhaps he knows anyone who could date eeteuk so there would be one problem less in the world.

heechul asks kibum who asks a friend of his, or just someone he knows, and hyukjae and donghae and heechul look at the scene with barely hidden glee when mysterious person of kibum’s turns out to be that guy called kangin who might be a little too violent for his own good but looks really cute at times and might just be eeteuk’s type. (at least they hope so.) kangin in turn looks vaguely bemused by sitting alone by a table in the coffee shop, not having ordered anything, and the general calm mayhem that exists around him. heechul is sure this is splendid, if kangin just will go and order something and talk to eeteuk.

hyukjae is fumbling with the dishes and trash and wiping a table or two on his way, donghae busy with the orders he has already gotten and flirting with the girls waiting from him to finish. eeteuk stands by the disk, ready for the next costumer. heechul goes out with siwon and hankyung’s order, places it on the table with much less of a bang than usual, draping himself over siwon’s back with his cheek resting against siwon’s.

siwon asks, ‘what are you doing?’

‘trying to end teukie’s miserable life, and i do mean that in the kindest way possible.’

‘ah,’ siwon replies. (heechul often makes people go ah. it is more amusing than one might think, even when it might not be the reaction he is looking for.) he presses a quick kiss to siwon’s cheek before scurrying away in a blur of colours, spinning like a whirlwind to greet some new costumers by the door and throwing away a couple of empty paper cups in before anyone has managed to take as much as a breath and continue their thoughts.






‘how come you know everyone, yet no one even really knows what you really work with?’ jessica asks one day, her feet hitting the table leg with light thuds. it’s rhythmic and soft, lulling almost. heechul doesn’t know the answer to this, as much as he has the answer to anything. usually. jessica purses her lips.

‘because i don’t want them to,’ he says, at last, and it is almost a question. he moves behind her and takes her hair into his hands, begins to braid it loosely.

‘have you ever lied about not being heechul the writer?’

‘no, but that’s because no one asks. you should know this, 'sica my dear,’ he answers. she sighs and hands him a hair-band when he reaches for her wrist. it is a horrible shade of green that most likely doesn’t work with anything. ‘don’t your parents ever feel weird about you staying over at my place? i mean, i am a man after all.’

jessica laughs. ‘oppa, my parents think we are dating. they are just waiting for us to announce it ourselves.’

‘i see,’ heechul replies. he knows that her parents think this, and wonders if they would forbid her for coming over if they knew how things really are. jessica gets up from her seat, rummages through his fridge for something she can cook. she looks almost prettier than usual with the morning sunlight embracing her, so soft and bright.

‘i’d be lucky to have a girl like you. a super girl of my own.’

‘i know,’ jessica answers, laughing again. ‘but oppa, you have no food.’

he pushes aside her braid, puts it over her right shoulder as he places his hand on her neck and kisses her cheek. she closes her eyes, smile playing on her lips, and heechul realises that this is what they could be if they wanted it to. what jessica’s parents believe. when she opens her eyes he smiles at her and shows that he has a little bag with rice in it, stored between the wok his sister gave him as a present and a pot.

‘a little rice doesn’t make a whole meal!’

‘we can always order pizza,’ he offers, and they do. after he has promised to pay for both, of course – since you’re my pretend-boyfriend, jessica said, dismissive and pretending to be exploiting the fact that boys should pay for girls. heechul humours her, because he knows that she will pay for the pizza next time.






eeteuk and kangin are all sorts of awkward, tentative and somehow really sweet, as dysfunctional as they act at times. they go on failed dates and kangin moves in with eeteuk far too soon than what might be considered good; eeteuk sometimes showing up to the coffee shop in the morning with a distinct glow.

(cackles and knowing grins, the occasional wolf-whistle.)

it makes heechul smile, soft almost, as he watches the small exchanges between them when kangin has time to come by on his breaks, the perfect and small affection that makes them awkward when they think about it. it radiates of a domesticity, the light touches and eeteuk’s laughter and the not quite shy smile kangin sports.

‘so, when are you getting married?’ and ‘any plans to adopt soon?’ becomes standard phrases, most often asked by donghae and hyukjae in whatever order, grins on their faces, sometimes making kissing faces if there aren’t any costumers around that might be scandalized.

‘i want grandchildren,’ heechul tells them solemnly, patting eeteuk’s shoulder comfortingly. ‘me and kibum both.’






jessica stalks him to work. she waves happily to hyukjae and donghae who stares just a bit and when heechul goes to grab his apron, he’s pulled aside by the younger males. they both cast jessica glances, even if hyukjae has sworn off dating for the moment, trying to not be as obvious as they are and heechul is sure that jessica must be laughing at them. quietly, inside her mind, of course.

she throws with her hair; it is amazingly like caramel and catches the sunlight in a way that is all too perfect. heechul feels like laughing at the look in donghae’s eyes even as his heart breaks just a little at the look in hyukjae’s.

‘hyung, is she your girlfriend?’

‘that’s my girl, 'sica,’ heechul answers and leers at her. jessica pretends not to notice, but he can see the laughter in her eyes so clearly now.

and he understands the interest hyukjae and donghae shows, because she’s pretty – contrasts everywhere making her like a paradox or something nice and fancy that he’d say in his writing on a good day, and her real smile could melt the hardest of hearts – could melt the ice that surrounds her. she waves to him, demure in a way she never would act like usually and she looks so soft that caramel almost looks like honey.

‘i thought you were dating siwon,’ one of them says, slight confusion and heechul grins. he likes days like these, and he is happy to look away from the softness jessica tries to create. she’s not this kind of softness.

‘who says i can’t have both?’

‘are you cheating on them?’

‘i never said that, did i?’






after a surprisingly short time of planning, eeteuk buys the small room wall in wall with the coffee shop to expand the sitting area. the coffee shop will no longer be just that, will be a café now, he explains to them and heechul smiles, supportive, even as kangin gives him a unreadable look and donghae along with hyukjae stares at eeteuk in disbelief.

because even if this isn’t what eeteuk thought he would do in life, he’s going to the best of it, and that means getting a slightly larger business and serving pastries or sandwiches or something like that, and it is brilliant in its own right. they are going to have to remodel the kitchen a bit, make the disk longer, find things in the right style for what eeteuk wants this place to be. to feel and represent. it’s brilliant. heechul asks what colour they’ll paint the walls.






‘speak korean,’ heechul says and hits hankyung on his arm when he speaks so soft and different and completely unintelligible with siwon, who, despite his best efforts still has a rather clear accent when speaking mandarin, even to heechul’s ears. hankyung smiles and takes hold of heechul’s hand that might have stayed a little too long on his arm and says something, still in mandarin.

siwon’s laughter is soft even if it is big and enveloping. eyes narrowing, heechul takes his hand from hankyung’s gentle hold and says, ‘be that way then’, and walks away without ever knowing what was said.






hankyung is a dancer. it is something easily recognizable; the way he walks, moves, the way he carries himself. it is slightly different from most other dancers heechul knows, but that is explained by that hankyung danced ethnic dances, folk dances, traditional. it makes him stand out, the extra smoothness to his step, almost fleeting in the way he’s graceful.






one day, a really sweet looking girl enters the coffee shop-turned-café in order to ask for directions.

heechul decides that she is the long lost princess from some faraway country, drifting by this place with mere coincidence – because fate is for losers. that is what he tells her when he serves her a coffee drink she didn’t order and doesn’t need to pay for. she giggles and with her hair in two ponytails, she looks even younger than what she most likely is and it is a perfect picture of (what might be false) innocence that is to never be destroyed.

‘so, if i’m a princess.. you’re going to be my prince?’ she asks, as if she’s used to pick-up lines like what he has said. (she is, but not as imaginative as his, she tells many months later). her smile holds a slightly wicked tint and heechul grins.

‘nope. i’m a princess myself, waiting for a prince of my own,’ heechul replies and there’s a light in his eyes that does for once not make him seem insane. the girl laughs. he likes the sound of it, his own grin growing wider. ‘but, princess, you know my name – dare i ask for yours?’

‘oh, charming,’ she says and hits him lightly on the arm. heechul doesn’t mind. ‘i’m sulli. one of many princesses in the world.’

‘but the only one from another.’ her laughter arises once more and it is sweet in ways completely different from most other sweet things in his life and heechul can feel donghae’s eyes on him, ready to tell him to stop cheating on jessica or siwon or which one it was he dated. also, he’ll be grilled – for this girl most likely hasn’t even finished high school yet.






heechul calls himself a princess, a joke, when it really is a lie. he’s nothing like a princess.






ever since heechul met hankyung, the other man is everywhere, always. in the coffee shop, in the supermarket three blocks from heechul’s apartment, in the beat down bookstore only heechul and the weird teenagers and a couple of the literature students from university ever enters, in the park long after everyone in the world should be asleep and long before anyone should be up.

half of the time, heechul is sure that he only sees hankyung but that hankyung isn’t actually there. that it is some sort of hallucination created by an obsession. it’s hard to know and he never asks and it is only a large coincidence, probably. that good though, he likes coincidences. anything can happen, a plot twist in life.






siwon has too many chinese friends, heechul thinks, because they seem to be everything siwon speaks of these days, beside jesus, until it turns out that he actually knew this one before siwon did. because this one is seasoning, his zhou mi that had a really silly korean name that got scrapped instantly, and heechul grins wide and happy and hugs him closer than he perhaps should - but then again, what is too close?, he asks himself and he doesn’t know. closeness linked with intimacy and the world’s perception of it is a silly thing – he likes to occasionally kiss siwon just because siwon’s kisses are the best way to warm up in the winter and early spring. (small light kisses that doesn’t mean anything and are magic in a way he wishes he could portray in his writing.)

for a second or two, zhou mi looks a little surprised but nothing is really hidden in that grin and his thin arms finds their way around heechul’s shoulders. heechul is almost afraid that zhou mi will break in half, or at the very least get swept away by the wind and fly to another part of the world completely.






(dream about me)






heechul tries pouring water over his head to make all the images of hankyung disappear from his mind - and it works for a second, two, with the cold water shocking him awake and bright-eyed, only to slip away all too soon. the world isn’t in a haze, but under a spell, and the edges turns soft to his touch. he swears under his breath. at hankyung, who won’t leave his mind alone; at the sink that is too shallow for him to put his whole head in it.






sulli decides that tuesdays is the day that she drags along her friends to fill up a couple of the sofas in the corner of the coffee shop (that is really a café, can’t someone ever remember that?). it is all well and good until the day that eeteuk does some weird smile that paints him as a creep before he finds out that heechul has been serving the five of them coffee or what ever they fancied for free.

this spurred the eeteuk-needs-to-hire-more-people-to-work-so-that-he-can-manage-the-place plan that ended with two boys sweeter than anything that was served in the café being hired. not much more work were done by anyone other than eeteuk anyway and now they had shorter shifts.







‘you remind me of this girl i know,’ jessica says, poking donghae’s cheek. he doesn’t answer her but the slightest of blushes spreads across his cheeks and almost up to his ears. it is cute, in a childish way.







‘i’ve been on an international program in japan. i lived in tokyo,’ sungmin tells when asked why they haven’t seen him around campus before. heechul has been to tokyo for a weekend, once, and he thinks that tokyo is a city that is so full of life that it is too much life bristling in one place. from what heechul remembers, it is not the utopia-like world sungmin describes with a soft voice and a smile etched to his face when he tells them more about the couple of years he stayed there.






‘hyung, why do you know so many girls?’

‘heechul knows everyone,’ jessica says, her tone playful and a small smile curling her lips. donghae is lost, swept away by her, and it’s alright even if it isn’t.

hyukjae smiles wider at the next pair of costumers, his gums showing, and one of the girls seated by a table closest to the disk coos adorable. he hears it, and there’s soon a faint blush painting his cheeks a pink colour that heechul would describe as delicate, if he wrote like that.






hovering above him, eyes wide and dark, heechul whispers ‘just follow my lead’ and siwon wakes up to find himself alone on a sofa in a room he doesn’t know. the room is unknown and how he even got there is that as well, and he has no idea of what he’s supposed to do now.

‘hey, you awake?’

siwon turns his head, slowly, and standing there with a concerned look on his face is sungmin from the café, illuminated from behind. the curtains are drawn close, but all too bright light that fills the room, bounces off of the light walls and furniture. thin white curtains does not keep light out, siwon notes, and wonders why no one has told sungmin of this.

‘how did i get here?’ he wonders aloud, instead, almost wincing at the sound of his voice and how it cracks.

‘oh, heechul dumped you with me. said to me to make sure you had some place to sleep and—’

‘hi oppa!’ siwon cranes his neck and catches a glimpse of a short girl, her face round and large eyes wide, and she is probably sungmin’s girlfriend. most likely, with how he hugs her tight and touches her hair. siwon isn’t quite sure as to why this light feeling of disappointment settles in his stomach.


when he tells heechul as much when they meet for lunch heechul laughs, somewhat kindly, as he often does. ‘you’ll figure it out when the time comes,’ heechul says, and siwon wonders if he can hide from what this supposed it is, because from the tone of heechul’s voice he knows it must go against at least half of his most firm beliefs.






heechul wants to write the answer to the world but gets a headache every time he tries, so he writes about people and life and love and carefully constructed worlds that might break when you touch them.

in his books, that is.

in the comic he draw, one page every month; a page with four squares in which the world explodes and there only is sharp humour and a somewhat hidden mockery of ideals. it is so different that it’s hard to be sure that he really is the writer of both, the same artist.

in his comic, heechul has made fun of siwon and jessica both, and neither care, so there is no need for him to care about the outrage he sometimes gets. with his mononym he is almost as good as anonym, so he doesn’t catch the backlash personally – and it is always fun to hear costumers in the café talk about his comic or his books or whatever he has posted on his blog. there is a lot of anger and frustration and complaints, but by some he is seen as almost a hero and that makes working on it all worth it. he inspires people, he hears sometimes, and he wonders if it ever will be enough, even when it’s all worth it. there’s such a large difference, but if asked to explain it, he isn’t sure he would be able to.






sometimes, hankyung calls siwon for shi yuan. it makes heechul’s chest hurt, and he isn’t really sure why. at least that is what he repeats to himself over and over again in the back of his mind as he snaps at them and orders siwon around to do things for him.






heechul collects princesses the same way the coffee shop collects couples of ambiguous sexuality.

he is a princess and jessica is a princess and sulli is a princess. but then, he meets her. she walks in one day, much like any other costumer and heechul falls headfirst in love with her face.

it is shallow, he knows, but it is alright, even if hankyung looks a little heartbroken when they have dinner at siwon’s and heechul can’t stop talking about her. a mystery girl who is almost as pretty as himself, perhaps actually prettier, and she drinks her coffee black and she walked away as soon as hyukjae had given the cup to her.






(subtle, subtle movements - like those of a butterfly’s wings. the fan of dark eyelashes against high cheekbones. deep scarlet red silk a contrast to everything in the world, but oddly like heechul’s hair last month.)





sungmin shines up, happily, happily, when a small group of girls enters the café. heechul can’t remember seeing him like this before and figures he’ll let sungmin take their orders.

‘sunny,’ sungmin says, the shortest of the girls smiling just as happily as him.

‘oppa!’ she calls out, her full lips somehow managing to become pouty around the word before she shines up again. heechul catches siwon’s slightly defeated look. ‘so this is where you work, huh?’

‘yeah,’ sungmin answers her, ready to say something more before he catches eeteuk’s disapproving look; they’re blocking the flow of costumers. (never mind that they are the only ones in line.) sungmin smiles, says, ‘so what do you want?’

‘what do you recommend?’ another of the girls say, and heechul is sure that she’s one of the girls that jessica hangs out with. perhaps all of them are in the same circle of friends, which wouldn’t really surprise him.

‘oh, i don’t know really... what do you say, hyung?’

‘anything with ginger and or cinnamon, it works with the season,’ heechul says, leaving his place behind the counter to sit down with siwon and hankyung at their regular table. he’s almost sure he hears the short girl, sunny, ask sungmin isn’t that the guy who slept on your sofa? when she leans over the counter to come closer to him.

‘she’s pretty, don’t you think?’ siwon mutters before heechul has even sat down. hankyung raises on eyebrow, questioningly, but doesn’t say anything. heechul picks up hankyung’s cup and takes a sip from it. the tea is cold, already, but perhaps it makes sense in reality - it was served more than an hour ago. time doesn’t stand still, no matter how slow it seems to pass when within these walls. he glares at hankyung as if it was his fault anyway, and hankyung smiles slightly.

heechul turns away from him and says ‘i actually don’t think you have to worry about them being a thing,’ keeping his voice low, and the thing that siwon’s eyebrows does is kind of amusing. he laughs, cackles really, and waves to zhou mi who just entered the café. heechul thinks that he might feel eyes on him and hopes that at least one pair belongs to sungmin, that sungmin sees siwon laughing and how beautiful siwon’s face becomes then.

‘go talk to him,’ heechul says.

‘later, i’ll do it later,’ siwon answers and it sounds truthful enough for heechul to let it go as zhou mi joins them, laughs when he begins to tells them about this project he’s supposed to do for this course and heechul finds himself missing going to school.






when hankyung and siwon doesn’t show up to the café in a week, heechul feels uneasy. he can’t seem to get a hold of either of them, even calls home to siwon’s parents to see if they know where he is. they don’t, because they never know where siwon is these days, and this is his fault, trying to make siwon loose his faith. heechul is used to this and ends the call with a cheery fuck you too, mrs. choi, i’ll have a nice time burning in hell.

he feels his energy rapidly leaving him, feels tired, and he has come to rely on having them there in ways he hadn’t really thought about. because siwon is always supposed to be there, to help him out, to answer every beck and call, act on every whim that heechul fancies; but most of all he’s supposed to speak up when he thinks, talk back and make heechul back down just a little every so often.

and hankyung, hankyung is supposed to just be a soft presence that just is. just exists, exists in heechul’s life because that is where he is supposed to be, as much as anyone can be supposed to do a thing.

heechul goes to bed, worrying just a bit, but he knows that neither of them would do anything too stupid. he doesn’t need to worry... what right does he even have to worry, it’s not like their his in any way, shape or form. he chuckles before he falls asleep, he knows, because it keeps other feelings slightly at bay.






(hankyung’s name leaves a soft taste of honey in his mouth and heechul hopes that the kisses they’ll never share won’t be that sweet because then he’d get more caught up and drown in the sinking heavy feel that would muddle the world he knows)






zhou mi has a crush on a boy whose name he doesn’t know. the boy is quite tall and has messy hair, always, and a girlfriend who is so pretty it hurts. heechul wishes he could say something other than story of my life, so he opts for nothing and fleeting touches and half-hugs as somewhat misplaced reassurances that doesn’t cheer zhou mi up as much as he wishes it would. sad smiles show instead, and it is like the shock of cold water enveloping his body and making him drown.

‘why are the cutest boys straight?’ zhou mi asks and heechul doesn’t have an answer. hyukjae swears in the background; there’s coffee everywhere and ryeowook runs to help at the disaster site, if only to make sure eeteuk won’t have one of his more infrequent breakdowns.

‘seasoning,’ heechul says, ‘you don’t even know this boy, do you?’

‘i... no, i don’t.’

‘so give up, you can’t have everything.’ heechul thinks of hankyung, and of trips back to china, and siwon. ‘sometimes it doesn’t matter, because even if they weren’t straight nothing would ever come from it.’






(‘Hyung, why did you tell me that Jessica doesn’t like younger guys when she has dated Jonghyun?’

‘...but she hasn’t. Her only ex is this girl she dated for years, nice and sweet and no names for you.’)






‘i know that you have eloped to china with hankyung,’ heechul says when he answers his phone, the caller id hidden.

‘no, hyung, i haven’t—’

‘—okay, not technically eloped then, as you two probably can’t get married in china, but—’

‘—hyung. i needed to get away, to think about things. some things that have happened and...’

‘some things with hankyung?’

‘no, not something with hankyung. something with.. sungmin, perhaps. i don’t know, hyung, so i needed to get away.’

‘clear your thoughts?’

siwon’s laugh is nice, low, even over the slight static on the phone. ‘something like that.’

heechul pulls his hair back in a messy ponytail, holding the phone to his ear by pressing his should up at an angle that is somewhat awkward.

‘whatever. don’t pull a stunt like this again, do you know that your parents somehow blame me?’ he says, perhaps a little too loud as sungmin looks up from whatever he was doing behind the counter.

‘jealousy is unbecoming for you,’ siwon says. chuckles. doesn’t care about what the words heechul say, but what he means. heechul can’t keep himself from smiling slightly, happy that siwon isn’t there to see it. sungmin looks confused, and even more so when heechul says, ‘laugh while you can and remember that you are paying for all calls.’






‘you pedo-oppa,’ sulli says, laughs when his arm pulls her flush against his body as he places the tray with the coffee and cake on the table. a kiss on the top of her head and he wonders if she has grown even taller in the short time he has known her.

sulli’s friends, just luna and krystal today, laughs at the two of them as well - luna being the only one thinking about half-hiding her large smile behind a hand after a second too much has passed. sulli sits down in the large armchair, heechul follows without much thought and settles on the armrest.

krystal tries with the ice-princess act she has stolen from her sister for a second and a half after that, taking her chai latte with a refined movement, and then sulli pokes her calf with sock-clad toes. warm smiles break out and they laugh again -- but when sulli’s shoes were taken off, no one really knows. sulli curls up in the large armchair, taking her coffee cup and pushing heechul off of the armrest. ‘go back to work, oppa.’






(heechul realises that hankyung isn’t just honey, it’s actually that he’s golden)






he wakes up a friday afternoon and realises he hasn’t really written anything worthwhile in ages. there are poems strewn all over his bedroom floor, handwritten pages of things that will never make it to an editor in small stacks or simply forgotten in his whole apartment, empty documents opened and closed again on his computer. he doesn’t know what he should write about, try as he might. it feels like drowning, this realisation, cold like a lake during winter and hard like there’s ice above him and he can’t reach the air he so desperately needs.

heechul wants to write so much, almost so bad that he needs it, to make words and worlds explode and too much inspiration comes at once that he can’t sort it all out.

he lies in bed and stares at the ceiling, not caring about the buzzing that emits from his phone quite more than a couple of times.

breathe, he tells himself, breathe.

steady breaths. steady breaths should be like a heartbeat, but heechul’s heart is racing at the thoughts of what he might write – of what he wants to write, of everything that moves in his head. he tries putting it on paper, tries writing it in the notes on his phone. it doesn’t work, it’s all too messy, all too much at once, nothing in the world steady or calm.

he stares at the ceiling when siwon bursts through the door hours later, unlocked in a hurried and uncertain way that should make heechul feel bad for making siwon like this.

‘breathe,’ he says, as much to siwon as to himself and then siwon’s heartbeat is there, steady and just a little too quick to be calm. siwon lies on the bed next to him, holds him close, steady and warm. there are words he can’t grasp that he wants to write, but the steady heartbeat that fills him as his head rests against siwon’s chest sorts the tangles out so that they won’t strangle him.






zhou mi’s crush turns out to be one cho kyuhyun, somewhat infamous around campus, who sungmin happens to share a lecture with on wednesday afternoons.

‘a horrible, horrible guy,’ sungmin says. ‘completely brilliant though.’

(zhou mi swoons for a second and a half.)

‘it’s a small world,’ heechul cackles and even zhou mi manages to look a little amused.

the world turns out to be even smaller when heechul realises that sulli’s friend song qian is the pretty girlfriend of kyuhyun’s – and even more so when hankyung and her meet, greeting each other warmly, apparently having gone to the same school. (beijing’s dance academy.)

it is all like a bad drama and heechul considers writing a manuscript for what could be a tv-series, based on events in his life, and he knows it could never be aired on national television.






song qian watches zhou mi, her eyes narrowing slightly at the way he turns his head down as if it would hide his grin, abashed almost, not quite letting his hand touch kyuhyun’s arm. heechul watches her watch zhou mi – sees how her eyes narrow, sees kyuhyun kiss her cheek before he has to run to get to one of his lectures on time, sees how she moves closer to zhou mi and starts whispering to him in mandarin.

heechul wishes he had hankyung here to translate for him when bothered enough by heechul poking him. song qian’s voice is soft, as are her words, while her eyes kind and large and heechul gets the feeling that she isn’t bothered at all by zhou mi’s obvious crush at all.

after song qian leaves the café with a small smile and a brief hug with zhou mi, her eyes seemingly understanding or something alike it, heechul takes her vacated seat next to zhou mi.

‘she’s kind of amazing,’ zhou mi blurts out.

‘have your crush transferred to her?’ heechul asks. zhou mi nudges him with his elbow for that, smiles wide. he still looks shy though, huddling to make himself look smaller.

‘it doesn’t work like that.’

‘it isn’t that simple, no.’

(‘i take it from your silence that you’re not going to tell me anything.’ zhou mi’s smile is a grin again.)






this wednesday afternoon is like any other, with only heechul and ryeowook and eeteuk in. the atmosphere is as calm as usual, only slightly more quiet but for ryeowook is singing, training for the upcoming concert he is to take part in.

for some reason, there always seems to be a dip in costumers on wednesdays, but siwon and hankyung are there as faithfully as ever, studying hard. their slow conversation in mandarin is the loudest thing in the whole café, even when ryeowook he forgets himself and sings for real, as there are only a couple of girls – jessica’s friend tiffany and her friend taeyeon – there except for the occasional costumer who takes their coffee on the go.

‘can i take a short break?’ heechul asks. eeteuk nods his answer, consumed and busy with his phone. odd, almost uncharacteristic for him, but when heechul thinks about it kangin might be having mid-terms sometime soon.

he swallows as he walks slowly to siwon and hankyung’s table, their conversation coming to halt when he draws close. he smiles and he thinks it might be a little weak around the edges. no one comments on it – siwon stands up and pulls out a chair for him, between the one he had been seated on earlier and hankyung.

‘such a gentleman,’ heechul says, voice surprisingly free of its usual bite or sarcasm. siwon only smiles, dimples showing, as he sits down.

‘one should always treat others well, shouldn’t they?’

‘he did this for you when in china?’ heechul asks and turns for the first time to hankyung. their eyes don’t quite meet because heechul is rather sure he might loose his ability to breathe then. hankyung looks better than ever, his voice softer than ever, heechul is sure, when he replies ‘of course’. he laughs lightly and siwon flushes, trying to explain that that really wasn’t the case. heechul isn’t as certain as who he should believe as he thinks he should be.

they start soft, the conversation slightly stilted as they haven’t really met since siwon and hankyung came back from china.

the sound of the bell and heechul looks up; a lone girl enters the café, and it is the pretty girl again. one of heechul’s princesses, even though she doesn’t know it, and perhaps that is a little creepy. he just sighs and turns back to his friends instead, letting eeteuk take her order and ryeowook make her coffee. his mind still reels at how pretty she is, but there is more important things in the world. hopefully.

‘that is my dream girl,’ he tells them with a sigh as the bell sounds as she leaves after getting her coffee, smiling softly. ‘and i let her slip me by.’

‘so dramatic,’ hankyung says and laughs lightly, touching heechul’s arm. gently, like he doesn’t dare to or as if heechul might break. he finds that he quite likes it, likes feeling important to hankyung. siwon glances at his watch.

‘someone has to be,’ heechul replies and sticks out his tongue, makes hankyung’s light laughter continue.

‘heechul hyung, hankyung, i’m sorry, but i have to leave now,’ siwon says after having glanced at his watch for the probably hundredth time in five minutes.

‘hot date?’ heechul asks without thinking much about his word choice, surprised when a blush creeps up siwon’s neck and cheeks, tingeing even his ears red. ‘you’re have a hot date. a hot date, siwon.’

‘it’s not a date!’

‘my baby’s growing up! but don’t you dare forget me, choi siwon, just because you have—’

‘—it’s not a date, hyung, i’m just meeting—’

‘—sungmin?’ and siwon’s cheek turn redder at heechul’s knowing tone, hankyung’s laughter arising again. ‘hurry up, lover boy, go find your love!’

‘it, it’s not really love,’ siwon replies as he stands up, collecting his things, ‘not yet, i think.’

‘just try it out,’ heechul says, takes hold of siwon’s arm. ‘you can only fail, and that will hurt, but then you try and try again.’

siwon leans down, brushes his lips against heechul’s cheek, asks, ‘why don’t you try your won advice, hyung?’

his cheeks are still flushed and heechul has a feeling that his own are matching when siwon smiles at them and goes away, saying a loud goodbye to ryeowook and eeteuk both.

‘what did he say?’ hankyung asks. heechul knows all these things he could possibly answer, but instead puts his hand on the table, close to hankyung. their eyes meet, for real, and time feels like a silly concept more so than ever and hankyung places his hand atop of heechul’s. soft, gentle.






‘you’re older than them, how do you even know them?’ heechul asks song qian, his head tilted to the left as he studies her from behind glasses that aren’t as fake as most people think.

‘i got to know them when i dated amber,’ song qian answers, her smile almost secretive but simply beautiful in a way; mature, in a way. that’s the thing about song qian, she’s mature and refined and simply beautiful, in a quiet way.

he can’t understand why she dates someone like kyuhyun, impolite and snarky to the point of sounding like a child at times. an immature brat, almost, so their relationship just shouldn’t work out, but most likely heechul’s just biased and rooting for zhou mi.






(song qian moves and carries herself the same way as hankyung, soft and smooth, and that is what makes her so elegant. she’s a dancer as much as he is, and heechul wonders just how people can walk so perfectly.)






hankyung smells like the coffee he always drinks in the café when he leans so close that they can’t help but to share air, and heechul sort of thinks about it before pressing his lips to hankyung’s. he feels hankyung become tense for a moment that perhaps is too long, perhaps it’s all wrong even if hankyung’s lips are as soft as they should be. then hankyung’s hand touches his neck with warm and soft fingertips, the air like coffee and the light like honey, heechul wonders how anyone could ever wish for more than this. hankyung is kissing him back, a chaste press of lips against lips and perhaps a small nip, but neither of them really care about deepening the kiss. it should stay like this – they should stay like this.

when their lips part, heechul lets his head rest against hankyung’s shoulder. exhaling, quietly. inhaling, the scent coffee. he wonders if hankyung will taste like coffee, slightly bitter, instead of the honey he looks like. hankyung’s hand is a warm weight where it rests on his neck.






‘i’ve spoken a bit with qian before,’ zhou mi says and heechul stares in disbelief. he talks to jessica about it, questions that whole thing, because why would zhou mi know her and not even realise that she is kyuhyun’s girlfriend.

jessica says, ‘you know how i told you about how pretty much all the english speaking students know each other? the same goes for the chinese students.’

‘but that stupid, you guys only meet to speak in those languages. you should speak korean when you’re in korea!’

‘whatever you say, oppa. do you want to know what i think?’

‘sure, give me your best,’ heechul replies, throwing marshmallows on jessica’s tv. she pointedly ignores his behaviour and he considers throwing the marshmallows he has left on her.

jessica smirks as she whispers, ‘i think it is possible that mimi actually met kyuhyun through song qian.’

it is possibly the best piece of gossip in a long, long time.

(especially when phrased like that.)






the thing about kyuhyun is that even when being a disrespectful brat, annoying and rude and mean, he doesn’t scoff at the half formed ideas zhou mi tells him about. he laughs and mocks, but he doesn’t scoff – doesn’t disregard everything, not even when he acts like that. and zhou mi finds himself falling deeper into love with the boy he won’t have, because kyuhyun is in love with qian and zhou mi doesn’t add into that equation.

song qian and heechul both sees this, sees the way the two of them sits too close on the sofa almost hidden in the corner, sees the way zhou mi keeps on falling and how there is no one there to catch him. heechul knows that zhou mi knows this, has been told as much, and he knows that zhou mi has to fall out of love by himself.

‘this situation is stalemate,’ qian tells heechul with a whisper as she sits at one of the high stools by the counter. because even if it could ever go anywhere, it isn’t going to until something breaks. something might be anything in this case and the world might even have to fall off its axis for it to happen.






‘i might have gotten a job offer, and gone to the interview,’ hankyung whispers into heechul’s hair. he sounds almost afraid and heechul wraps his arms tighter around hankyung’s waist, pushes his face even closer to hankyung’s neck. ‘when i was in china, i mean.’

‘is that why you went there?’

‘not the only reason, but part of it,’ is the soft answer and it is still like liquid honey, soft and sweet and heechul’s heart aches. ‘heechul. i, i could be a dancer.’

and dance is life for hankyung, it is in every single thing he does and every pore of his body - even more so that the softness and honey. heechul wishes he could be the perfect boyfriend who supports his boyfriend every step on the way, but he doesn’t want them to end only because of a job.

‘so, china,’ he mutters, lips touching hankyung’s neck and he can feel him shiver slightly from the touch. ‘why did you even come to korea if you’re just going to run away?’

‘i came because of dreams,’ hankyung answers, a whisper so solemn that it is as if time stood still or simply was nonexistent, ‘but i stayed for you’. it is romantic and cliché, something heechul would never let his writing be and--

‘oh,’ he breathes, says, ‘i could come with you.’

‘that is what i hoped,’ hankyung replies, a slight laugh in his voice and the feeling of warm summer days is back even if time still almost feels as if it is standing still. (perhaps it is.) his fingertips are soft against heechul’s cheek, tracing soft patterns that doesn’t really qualify as patterns.






the world is a mess, a total blur during the months before they’re moving. there’s packing and deciding what they’re bringing - and agreeing on those things.

it is colourful and vibrant, laughter and tears and wishes. wishes for their health. wishes for their fortune. there are wishes everywhere; in their hearts and minds and the air. the world is full of wishes.






heechul thinks that he’s never going to get used to the feeling of someone saying xi che and mean him; but weirdly enough, it is when people call hankyung for han geng that is the most unsettling.

han geng is some things that hankyung wasn’t, couldn’t be, and heechul decides that he like mandarin even less than before, when all it did wrong was to be unintelligible.

but, it helps when they’re home in their apartment, drinking beer and eating cheap kimchi because it is the most korean food hankyung can think about, when they speak korean and heechul is heechul, his name falling from hankyung’s lips all the time, soft soft soft around the edges but perfectly right.






(“You know, I get it. I get why you looked for others who spoke the same language you spoke and understood and thought in. I might’ve spoken too quickly, don’t you think? Because I… I get it, now.”

“I’m sorry.”)






he knows that perhaps he should look for a job. it would help his mandarin, he would find people to hang out with, and people wouldn’t speak behind his back and wonder how he can let his poor dancer of a friend pay for everything. he knows, but doesn’t care.

instead he immerses himself in writing, word after word, sentence after sentence, page after page. he only stops for exploring strange parts in a city he doesn’t know, drowning himself in a culture that isn’t his -- and he is beginning to see magic in it. (that scares him, so he returns as quickly as he can to the apartment and writes again, writes more, writes in korean.)






in the darkness of the night; lights out and thunderstorm around them, heechul says, ‘i can’t be xi che for you the way you are hankyung for me.’

the summer air is heavy.

‘that’s good,’ hankyung mumbles, ‘because you’re heechul to me.’

heechul wonders if it possibly can be healthy to love someone so much that your heart hurts the way his does.






walking outside in the streets, still barely understanding a thing and hiding for all the people he sees but doesn’t meet, heechul visits all the places where tourists never go. back streets and alleys, people shouting and laughing, a homely feel instead of the huge and impressing and heavy feel that still lies over parts of the capital of what used to be an empire.

even wide awake in the middle of the street, heechul begins to dream dreams of this all, of chinese boys that are honey sweet and dance, and culture so different even in aspects that might be similar, of dynasties and colours and spices and food.

struck by inspiration, he hurries home but takes his time to smile at people he meet, and finally inside the door he kicks his shoes off. he spends the afternoon looking up recipes and running shopping and trying and trying; and when hankyung returns home, hours and hours later, there is beijing fried rice in two bowls on the kitchen table. heechul smiles, pushes back long hair behind his ear with deft movements and looks down at the mess he has made.

his papers have been shoved off the table, landing in heaps on the floor, and his cheeks are stained red. later, he guesses that it makes hankyung want to kiss him, as hankyung does just that.






‘i’m bored,’ heechul whines as soon as kibum picks up.

‘get a cat,’ kibum answers and ends the call.



(a couple of hours later, heechul calls kibum again. ‘i got a cat and named him after you.’

‘what?’

‘well, not really after you, not only - his name is hanjayheebum, but i think i’m going to go with heebum most of the time you know?’

kibum hangs up, but heechul can almost swear that he heard laughter.)






hankyung’s voice is soft and sweet, singing soft words and his lips stretches just right, words perfect even as light kisses are pressed against the corner of heechul’s mouth. he sings in mandarin, adds magic to a language and to the world as a whole, sweet honey flowing like a stream in the forest.

the heater is out, again, the second time is as many months. the air is far colder than what either of them would like, but hankyung worries that heechul will catch a cold because he is the one to stay in the apartment the most. hankyung leaves and goes to dance practice and for shows and he gets warmth that way, by feeling life flowing through his veins. heechul finds it sweet that hankyung worries, and tries to convey it when their lips finally meet fully.






heechul could write pages and pages about love that wasn’t meant to be, but he’s caught up in this maelstrom he has decided to call life -- or if it was the other way around, he can’t remember, because hankyung dances and somehow, somehow, it is beautiful enough to almost make him feel like crying. but he doesn’t. he stopped crying for hankyung a long time ago. (that’s what he tells himself.) so if there’s wetness on his cheeks later, it is only remnants of the water cascading over his head and leading him to hankyung in the first place.

and he doesn’t want to write about love that wasn’t meant to be, not when hankyung kisses him after the performance, alive and in love and even if mandarin is stupid, the ‘heechul’ that is whispered against his mouth makes up for it, the smile makes up for it. there might be love that wasn’t meant to be, but it isn’t theirs and perhaps he should be kinder to his characters, as siwon always had told him.






he sits in front of his computer, petting heebum absentmindedly while looking through clips with songs from disney movies, hoping that the korean and mandarin versions are rather alike in translation. he looks for lyrics, but doesn’t quite understand how to read them. he continues to listen to the music anyway, comforting in a way when he can mouth parts of the songs in korean.

when hankyung comes home that evening heechul has turned up the sound almost as high as he can and is singing along, just barely drowned by the music and the singers voices. his words are all wrong, misses pieces and bits and the pronunciation is far harder than he could ever think. hankyung joins in, voice soft and so sweet, always, words perfect as his arms finds their ways around his shoulders. when the song has finished, the apartment feels too empty and silent.

‘you’re amazing,’ hankyung says, voice so soft and his korean doesn’t even feel accented anymore and heechul could lose himself in those words and his feelings.

‘i know,’ he says instead, petting hankyung’s cheek almost as absentmindedly as he petted heebum earlier, his grin weak as hankyung lets go of him and walks out into the kitchen to begin with dinner. heechul lowers the volume on the computer just barely and almost not at all, and clicks open the tab that holds a music video by some boy band or another. the loud electronic music (and singing in korean) is sure to gather some complaints, but he doesn’t care as he sings his heart out and hears hankyung laughing in the kitchen.






china is good for hankyung, and hankyung is good for heechul. though sometimes, in the darkest moments of night when heechul is awake and hankyung’s steady breath is all that exists in the world, heechul entertains the thought of what could have happened, what they would have been, if he had stayed in korea. it is entertaining, except not at all, because sometimes he is sure that this situation is everything but what a dream should be.

but china is good for hankyung, china holds his dream and heechul wants to be part of it, so in this darkness that envelopes him it doesn’t matter if this maybe wasn’t what he thought life would be. it is better than any dream, better than any illusion, and heechul is beginning to find that china is good to him too – in a different way from korea, in a different way from everything he has ever known.






‘let’s go on a trip, together,’ hankyung says and heechul could never possibly say no, as much as he pretends that he could, or even would.

‘where to?’ he asks and hankyung’s grip is soft, as is his grin, when he takes heechul’s wrist in his hand to drag him to the ugly car he had gotten for some reason. it had character, hankyung had said, but heechul thought that he would be the better judge of that.

‘wherever we want,’ hankyung answers and lets go of heechul to unlock the car. there is soft love, wishes in their hearts, words filling the world and heechul itches for pencil and paper.






they watch the ocean, endless, endless and the world is made of loose strings that might never be tied together; perhaps will only be a tangled mess until forgotten… but when hankyung’s fingers are tangled with his own it gets harder to care about that.


full stop