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enkannerligen) wrote2012-09-08 08:43 pm
enkannerligen) wrote2012-09-08 08:43 pm
Entry tags:
unfinished wip #1
hot chocolate effect | r | siwon/sungmin | 6643 words | coffee!au
in all fairy tales there needs to be to be a fight against evil (this time it’s reality)
i don’t think i can stress enough that this is a draft — some paragraphs are edited, while at some places large pieces of the story hasn’t even been written yet. if i had finished this fic, some of the scenes would likely have changed order. so really, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. jumps a lot. i tried editing it as a whole before uploading it, however it is all in all still a draft.
in all fairy tales there needs to be to be a fight against evil (this time it’s reality)
i don’t think i can stress enough that this is a draft — some paragraphs are edited, while at some places large pieces of the story hasn’t even been written yet. if i had finished this fic, some of the scenes would likely have changed order. so really, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. jumps a lot. i tried editing it as a whole before uploading it, however it is all in all still a draft.
‘You have a pretty face, Sooyoung-ah,’ he mumbles. Sooyoung smiles, the beer bottle pressed against her lips as she stares up at the deep blue sky and large full moon.
‘If I have a nose job, I probably won’t need to do anything to my jaw.’
‘You’re already pretty,’ Sungmin repeats, only paraphrasing his sentence slightly. She doesn’t answer him. He knows she doesn't agree, not fully, because of the business. Sooyoung is a model but not quite, taking whatever job, whatever small shoot se can find. She doesn't have the money to be picky, even if it has gotten better since she moved in with them in their house in the suburbs. Her face, while not ugly, doesn't measure up to the beauty standards — especially when paired with her tanned skin. What he's heard her say when they look through her copies of magazines is that maybe, maybe she could make it outside of Asia. She's short though, far too short for runway most of the time and she can't only do editorial work for some reason he doesn't quite gather. He doesn't even really gather how Sooyoung is too short in any way, but she laughs and points at all the beautiful women in her magazines and names their heights. He can't really do much but believe her, as outrageous some heights might seem. So many of them are taller than him, which feels a bit ridiculous.
Sooyoung sighs, drains her beer and places the bottle on the ground. He should feel more guilt over letting a minor drink, but if she's old enough to live in Japan alone he figures she's old enough to drink. They had first met her in that club, after all.
‘Don't dye your hair that colour,’ Jay said as he snatched the package with bright red hair dye from Sungmin's hands. Sungmin looked affronted.
‘I'd never pick such a shade, I was just reading the instructions. I'm leaning more toward this one,’ Sungmin replied, stretching past Jay to grab a package on a lower shelf. He held it up so that Jay could take it from him, and they exchanged the packages with one another, Sungmin quick to put the red hair dye back in the shelf he had originally grabbed it from.
‘This shade?’
‘Yeah, I like it.’ Sungmin swayed a bit back and forth, looking at the shelves before them. ‘I need to bleach my hair first, right?’ Jay laughed and threw the package back to him.
‘Yeah, you want me to get it for you?’ Sungmin pouted. ‘Here, shortie.’
‘Oppa, oppa,’ Sooyoung shouted excitedly, a large smile on her face as she runs out to the garden where Sungmin sits, ‘I got a job! There's a Japanese-American design duo that are doing casual wear and swimsuits, and they want me to be their face for their new collection. I'll have to go to fukuoka for a couple of weeks, but they'll pay all those expenses.’
All Sungmin hears is oppa, oppa, my nose job worked, look i'm pretty! and he has to force himself to smile, because even if he's happy that she has gotten what might be her breakthrough he wanted it to be unnecessary for her to change herself. She was pretty, had always been, but perhaps she was prettier now.
‘You think about Sooyoung more than you think about me,’ Jungmo says, and Sungmin is hit by a wave of guilt for it that comes crashing down and pulls him under as Jungmo peppers nipping kisses over his throat and collar bones.
‘S-sorry,’ Sungmin gasps, breath hitching when Jungmo palms his cock, cups his balls and slides a couple of fingers down to play teasingly at the rim of his hole. Jungmo's fingers are covered in lube, though most of the excess had been used to make the slide of his earlier grip on Sungmin's cock.
Sooyoung sits down next to him on the balcony.
One time, Sungmin tells Siwon the story of what used to be. “I had a crush on one of my friends. Last year in high school. When he found out, not even that I had a crush on him, just that I fancied guys, he was so disgusted that he couldn't even look at me. He never said anything outright, but I think the whole school knew before the week was over. Then I hooked up with a guitar player, followed him over to Japan. Enrolled in a university there and we lived in a small house in the outskirts of the city with his band mates. We walked the streets hand in hand, my hair was pink and people stared and no one did a thing. Concert after concert, small avenues being filled because fuck if they weren't talented, and the pulse of the music was amazing. Emptied you and filled you with life, with real emotions.” Siwon says nothing, and Sungmin quite likes it. Likes how Siwon holds him closer.
‘Why don't you two get yourselves a larger place? You have been living together for the better part of a year now.’
‘Siwon is graduating in a few months, then he has to go to the military. We figured it'd be hard for me to take care and pay for a larger place when... this is all I do.’
‘Oh. The military, of course... but you..?’
‘They don't want people like me. I’ve got sexual identity disorder, you know, so I’m putting it off for the time being.’ Sungmin smiles and strings the white topping onto the cupcakes he had been assigned by Ryeowook. He picks up the small jar with the small heart-shaped sprinkles – the one with only pink hearts, not the mix of lilac and pink — picking up some in a pinch and letting them fall down to land on the whiteness.
In a way Sungmin never could have imagined it is fascinating to watch the sprinkles fall, swirls and thoughts and swirling thoughts the same shade of pink as the hearts. Ryeowook doesn't answer. Doesn't know what to answer.
When Kyuhyun hears that Siwon is leaving for the military soon, he lays an arm around Sungmin's shoulders and pulls him aside. Asks, Are you gonna stay faithful? and Sungmin sputters. Or maybe not. Or maybe that's what he did but thinks he didn't. The fact remains that Kyuhyun asked that, and Sungmin knows it's a joke even if Kyuhyun took him aside to ask it. It doesn't mean a thing.
Zhou Mi runs into the kitchen, hops onto one of the counters closest to Ryeowook and looks conspiratorial. Ryeowook looks mildly horrified.
‘You might have gotten flour on your trousers,’ says Ryeowook. Zhou Mi waves it away with small movements that, with his large hands, don't look especially small. Odd, Sungmin thinks. That's really odd. It is not like Zhou Mi to not to care about what happens to his trousers, especially when it are the expensive skinny jeans he basically used his whole paycheck for.
‘Kuixian is missing,’ Zhou Mi says, looking at Ryeowook first and then over to Sungmin with wide eyes from behind his black frames. Sungmin stares back. Ryeowook kneads the dough.
‘Missing? What do you mean, missing?’
‘Isn't that the right word in Korean? [missing], missing, missing,’ mumbles Zhou Mi, running through various possibilities and thousands of words in his vocabulary, trying to find the right one. Rolling his eyes slightly, Sungmin shoves lightly at Zhou Mi's thigh.
‘It's the right word, I just meant, is he missing?’
‘Expressing his disbelief,’ Ryeowook clarifies for Zhou Mi who nods while he pushes away his long fringe from his eyes with the back of his hand. It falls right back down again. He should probably start wearing a hairnet. Zhou Mi takes one of the hairclips someone left in his hair, and with a firm hand takes hold of Ryeowook's chin, whilst with his other hand pulling back the hair and securing it with the clip. It's a small white bunny head.
‘There, all done!’ Zhou Mi smiles. Ryeowook smiled back, only slightly sceptical.
‘Can we return to the subject?’ Sungmin injects. Zhou Mi spins his upper body around to watch Sungmin. ‘So, Kyuhyun's missing. Why is Kyuhyun missing?’
‘No one knows,’ Zhou Mi says. ‘He's just... gone.’
Zhou Mi likes to gossip, this Sungmin already knows, but everything about the mystery of Kyuhyun’s disappearance makes him almost disturbingly excited. Sungmin considers telling him this, but then Zhou Mi grabs his arm and leans close, whispering about he talked with Song Qian and apparently she and Kyuhyun had broken up a day or two before he disappeared. Rumour had it that Kyuhyun was in Japan, apparently.
Sunny sits cross-legged on his couch — her hair recently dyed, he notes. She has hazardly thrown a brown paper-bag with what smells like some sort of freshly baked pastries in onto the coffee-table. She claims to have made them herself, and when he looks inside the bag he agrees that yes, she probably has. Sunny grins at him as she settles down better into her seat, watching as he leaves and puts on some water for tea.
‘You can’t have hot chocolate with cupcakes,’ she says from the living-room area, her voice carrying through the distance quite easily and bright. ‘Too much sweetness at once.’
Sungmin knows that she doesn’t want them to drink hot chocolate out of consideration for his frail state, which she has admitted jokingly when they had drunk those bottles of wine weeks earlier. They have certainly been able to handle both cupcakes and hot chocolate earlier years.
When he returns to the living room, two large cups of tea in his hands, Sungmin sees Sunny looking deeply concentrated as she stabs at her iPad. She looks up when he places the cups on the table, a light clink of the porcelain meeting the wood catching her attention. Sunny smiles brightly and motions with her arm to the DVDs she had brought and Sungmin pick one up and is reading on the back of it by the time he sees her arm in his peripheral vision taking hold of the turquoise cup that is hers.
‘What do you think?’ Sunny asks, sipping at the hot liquid. Her face is almost completely bare and Sungmin once again feels that he wishes she could be like this all the time. He smiles.
‘Looks alright. You sure we haven’t watched this one already?’
‘No, this is the sixth movie, number six is written like vi with latin letters. We have seen the fourth, iv, and those others before this one.’
‘Oh,’ Sungmin answers. Sunny jumps up and inserts the first movie into the dvd-player.
The three movies she has taken with her are follow the same standard model they set what is now years ago, and they always watch them in the same order. First out is one of the usual action movies she doesn’t care at all for but that he can’t tear his eyes from, that she uses to cope with her fear of loud noises, so it’s alright oppa, Sunny says.
The second movie is the usual slasher horror story she enjoys to shriek to, hiding her face in a pillow whilst once again Sungmin can’t tear his eyes from the movie — but this time he’s so horrified, and it’s not alright at all, until Sunny thrusts a pillow into his face to hide behind.
Somewhere between they finish the first movie and they start the second, they always order food, that they have to pause the second movie to get. The food always end up uneaten and standing on the table before them, cold and completely crap, until Sunny hurries out into the kitchen to reheat it as Sungmin changes movie again.
The last of the three movies is one of those formulaic Hollywood romance movies, sometimes with drama but most often just comedy with a sad moment of will-they-or-won’t-they-happen drama. When they watch it, the last of the movies, late into the night Sunny always leans against his arm or shoulder or across his lap, a pillow under her head in that case as she curls up under the blankets that somehow has appeared magically at the right time.
The light and colourful moving pictures and people beautiful in a different way than people in Korea are considered beautiful chases away images of gruesome deaths and young people being torn apart and blood everywhere, for which Sungmin is very grateful. They tend to fall asleep like that, often before the movie even has ended, the presence of another warm body next to yours, even breaths and a steady heart, enough to lull a person to sleep. To make them sleep deeply, even.
‘You want to go to Itaewon with us?’ asks Ryeowook, smiling softly, but with the small light in his eyes it was clear he was excited about going out.
‘We're meeting up with a couple of friends I have,’ Zhou Mi says, fingering his hair again.
‘You look good, stop ruining your hair,’ Ryeowook says and looks up at Zhou Mi, reaching up to bat away his hand. Sungmin takes a look at the two of them, dressed and styled to infinity and perhaps back again, and then looks down at himself to remember what he's wearing. Something horribly mismatching as per usual. Rather than staying in and watching one of the many movies he used to watch with Siwon and then miss Siwon horribly as he drank a bottle of wine, he decided it couldn't hurt to go out just this time.
‘Sure,’ he says. Ryeowook perks up, Zhou Mi smiles brilliantly.
‘Maybe he's just not interested in boys,’ Zhou Mi says and pats Ryeowook's back lightly. Soothingly. Sungmin rests his head on Ryeowook's shoulder.
‘What would he be doing here otherwise?’ Sungmin asks. ‘His hips are kind of amazing though, have to give him that.’
Ryeowook looks slightly scandalised, and his cheeks a tad more pink.
‘Maybe it's my hair. Maybe I'm not his type. Maybe he wants someone masculine.’
‘Isn't that Jessica's little sister over there?’ asks Sungmin as a flash of bright blue fabric –a dress?– catches his attention.
It takes a few more visits to the same club, until one day Ryeowook goes up on the floor and dances with that one boy who caught his attention. When he comes back and sits down with them, he stares off into space. Looks lost in thought.
‘His name is Henli, and he's Chinese-Canadian. Henli was only going to look for his friend, then he'll come back,’ Ryeowook says.
Sungmin bites back a bitter comment like that's what he said, and you believed it?, but he doesn't want to say it.
A few minutes later Henli the Chinese-Canadian shows up at their table, much to the surprise of them all. In tow are what looks like a copy of Zhou Mi’s boyfriend Jonghyun, or even Donghae who used to work at the café, and Jessica's little sister.
‘Hey,’ says Henli. ‘This is Amber and Krystal.’
‘Fuck,’ Krystal mutters when she recognises most of them from the café. Amber looks confused but keeps her hand on Krystal’s waist, and when recognition shows in her eyes she simply smiles.
‘Weird we’d meet here,’ she says. Ryeowook makes a choked noise when he realises that they’re Heechul’s baby girl Sulli’s friends, and that they are friends with Henli, which might say something about that boy’s age.
‘I probably should have warned you, but Ryeowook is kind of an emotional drunk. Very affectionate, too.’
‘I've kind of noticed,’ Henry says. Ryeowook, who can barely stand up on his own, has already cried on Henry's shoulder for twenty minutes. luckily enough, he hadn't started until they had left the club. Henry was half-supporting him, half-dragging him along as they tried to walk to Ryeowook's apartment.
‘You know, I can take him from here,’ Sungmin says. The girls, Amber and Krystal, left a couple of blocks back and they had made it obvious that Amber was staying at whatever place Henry was.
‘But I'm the one who got him this drunk, I should be the one to help him!’
‘Cute, but I'm not leaving you alone with him.’
‘Huh?’
‘You,’ Sungmin points at Henry, ‘are cute. Sweet. Nice. But I'm not leaving you alone with my very drunk friend. He gets into trouble when he's drunk and alone – has before, might again.’
‘But I love him!’ shouts Ryeowook, but they both ignore him as Sungmin tries to stare down Henry. He also tries not thinking about that he’s glad that Henry’s slumped over by Ryeowook’s weight, and that he would have had to look up to stare him down otherwise.
‘Oh. Fuck. I really didn't think like that at all.’
‘I want to believe you, I sort of do, but I only know your name and that you're from Canada.’
Henry helps dragging Ryeowook home though, and when they get there he carefully toes his shoes off. They put Ryeowook to bed and Sungmin puts a pot on the stove. To boil water, of course, because he’s knows that Ryeowook will wake up after half an hour to an hour and need some tea.
‘You want to stay for tea?’ he asks, because maybe this kid is a good kid. Henry blinks tiredly.
‘Huh?’ he says and it’s not much of an answer, but he sits down on a chair.
‘Tea?’ Sungmin rummages through the box where Ryeowook stores all of his different teas.
Sungmin walks home and wakes up in the afternoon, his cheek pressed uncomfortably against the cold floor in the kitchen. He checks his phone and sees two new messages, both from Ryeowook. He erases them without reading either and calls for some take-out. It's one of those Chinese places and he orders their sashimi and sushi and whatever, because he has no idea what the number to the sushi bar a couple of blocks away is.
Sungmin then gets up from the floor, refills the bowls with water and food for Hyaku and Sen, and goes to lie down on the sofa. He should get a new sofa, he knows, because this one is getting lumpy and he can feel the springs in it. He doesn't want to get one without Siwon.
He almost feels ridiculous, but the sudden and painful pangs of simply missing someone hurts more than he thought. And that is when the worry starts to grow, when he starts to think that even if Siwon comes back it won't ever be the same and the calm balance between them will be ruined. When that balance is gone, Sungmin isn't sure how they will be able to stay together, and he will continue to live in this apartment with his cats and lumpy sofa while Siwon perhaps is accepted back by his parents and finds a lovely and perfect girl to marry.
The doorbell rings and he opens the door after maybe a minute too much has passed. The delivery boy looks annoyed. He pays and when he opens the box of food he sees that he has gotten the wrong order. After eating a few bits of it, he throws it away and goes to sleep.
‘It's unhealthy living like that,’ Eeteuk scolds him on the monday. ‘And you missed your saturday shift.’
‘Sorry,’ Sungmin apologises. Eeteuk looks concerned.
‘I know it's hard on you, but I still need you to show up at work. If it continues I'm going to have to fire you, you know that, Sungmin-ah.’ Sungmin knows that one of the worst things for him would be to lose his job, because there's not many other places that would hire him. Not with what he is (homosexual) and what he has studied (philosophy, contemporary music).
‘I'm sorry,’ he replies and Eeteuk still looks concerned.
Some days Sungmin wakes up and doesn't remember that he has moved back from Japan. He wakes up and he smiles and he thinks of where he'll go today with his camera, what he might possibly catch on film. He rolls over to his side and he's still smiling as he plans on kissing Jungmo, but he's alone in bed. He's not in Japan and he's not together with Jungmo. When realisation hits him it's like a cold shower and he wonders why he can't stop missing what is now years ago. He has changed country and boyfriend, no longer has Sooyoung to share everything and nothing with as they drink beer in the backyard.
This is one of those days. He wakes up and things are like they should, and he worries that these feelings are becoming more frequent the longer Siwon is away. He moves to the shower in a hurry and the water is cold as it hits his skin. He can't possible be more awake.
‘Heechul-hyung has an apartment in Seoul again,’ Sungmin whispers in the phone. ‘Go live with him instead.’
‘Sungmin—’
‘I, I can't right now. To meet you and know that I have to let go of you before I'm ready to. It's better to not meet at all then.’ Sungmin shudders as he speaks. Siwon is quiet, too quiet, and Sungmin wonders if the other man still in on the line.
‘Is hyung even in the city?’
‘He's always in Seoul these days, always.’
‘No, he's not.’
‘No,’ Sungmin agrees. ‘I'm exaggerating.’
‘Time really flies by,’ Ryeowook comments one day, seemingly quite absentmindedly as he makes a pattern in the latte he's going to serve. Sungmin glances at him from where he sits on the stool, and Ryeowook looks up to meet his look. Suddenly, he seems to have realised what he had said as his eyes widen in shock, raising a hand to his mouth. The latte stands forgotten.
‘I didn't mean it like that, oh I'm so sorry, hyung,’ Ryeowook mumbles, quickly and under his breath. Sungmin smiles. Ryeowook looks completely deflated, as if he has committed the greatest faux pas in the world. ‘I don't have any right to say that.’
‘Ryeowook-ah, don't worry,’ Sungmin says. Ryeowook still looks apologetic, but remembers the latte he's holding when Sungmin nods at him. His hand.
‘Oh, hyung, I need to go out with this now,’ Ryeowook says and hurries off.
Sungmin is still smiling when Zhou Mi walks up, places a hand on his lower back in a comforting movement. They both are quiet, Sungmin smiling, and then he chuckles, hides his smile behind a hand. Zhou Mi puts an arm around Sungmin’s shoulders.
恋は思案のほか, says the postcard that just arrived in the mail. Sungmin buys a kanji dictionary when he goes home from work, only able to read the hiragana and he knows that he recognises the first kanji character as well. He has a suspicion on what it might be, but he’d rather make sure than make assumptions.
‘Where did you even go, when you were gone?’ Sungmin asks. ‘Rumour had it that you were in Japan.’
‘Didn’t Zhou Mi tell you?’ Kyuhyun counters questions him, eyes wide as he looks at Sungmin. The scarf he’s wearing with his light pink cardigan is ridiculous and moving in the chilly October breeze.
‘Tell me what?’ Sungmin asks, face scrunched in thought.
‘We met him when we visited Taiwan.’ Kyuhyun coughs, clarifies by saying, ‘Uh, visited my dad. In Taiwan.’
‘You guys met? And, wait, what we? Seohyun and you?’
‘Uh. No. Yixiao and I, this girl I... lived with, in Shanghai.’ Sungmin feels confused, but Kyuhyun only shrugs and Sungmin doesn’t dig any deeper into it. If Kyuhyun wanted to tell him he would, he knew. He sits back on the fence and kicks with his feet, licks at the ice-cream cone he had gotten despite the weather. Kyuhyun shrugs and looks away, Sungmin sees from the corner of his eye.
‘I don't understand you,’ Siwon says. He sounds tired. Sungmin watches the straight line of his shoulder. ‘Sungmin, look at me.’
Sungmin looks at where his shirt is buttoned up to the top button, sees a bit of Siwon's throat above the collar. He hears Siwon sigh.
‘You want nothing more than to be loved, but when you are you can't accept it. You talk big, about love, because you are so sure it will come to an end soon and that's why it's alright. But I still love you.’
Sungmin shies away, eyes flying up to meet Siwon's. Siwon looks older. As tired as he sounds.
‘You need to.. you need to do something, Sungmin. Or--’
‘Don't you dare bring up Japan,’ Sungmin says. It sounds hollow even to his own ears, a far cry from the venomous reply it had been intended to be. Siwon's eyes are sad, as if pitying him. So that has finally started, Sungmin thinks and can't help but feel a wave of relief. The pitying. Poor Sungmin who can't do anything; he has heard it all. Seen it all, in people's eyes. He averts his eyes from Siwon and whispers, ‘Get out from my home,’ ignoring that it is partly Siwon's home too. It is the house where they lived together, but it isn't theirs. It is Sungmin's, he is the one renting it secondhand from his uncle.
‘You can't give up halfway through the fight,’ Siwon says.
‘Spoken like a true soldier,’ Sungmin says and now the venom is there. He looks at Siwon. Siwon stands up, drags his fingers over Sungmin's jawline. Gently. Sungmin sits still, stares straight ahead.
‘I'm a patient man. I believe patience is a virtue,’ Siwon says, voice low and dark. He lowers himself so that he is in Sungmin's eyeline and Sungmin still stares straight ahead. He traces the curve of Sungmin's lip with the pad of his forefinger, the look in his eyes intent. Intent on what, Sungmin doesn't know. ‘I am a patient man, but I won't be foolish.’
With that said, Siwon leaves and locks the door to the apartment with his key. Sungmin doesn't care that his tea is getting colder, he just sits still and stares in the dark.
‘I loved Jonghyun, I really did. He was amazing, really fun. He wasn’t a replacement for Kyuhyun,’ Zhou Mi says. ‘I couldn’t do that to someone, to him. When it comes to me loving Kyuhyun, I love him more and I love him less, and I can function and find another love when I love him less.’
‘And now you love him more again,’ Sungmin states. Zhou Mi doesn’t reply, but that’s enough of an answer in itself.
Sunny drinks wine almost cautiously, as if she’s treading on grounds where he’s dropped one of the overly expensive glasses Siwon had convinced him to buy.
When Siwon returns from the military, every last remnant of baby fat is gone. Angular jaw matched by an angular body, and in some ways when it comes to certain topics Sungmin would like to claim that Siwon’s mind has become more angular as well. He doesn’t say it though, not even when it’s on the tip of his tongue and ready to fly out, because he knows Siwon would ask him to explain what he means and Sungmin already knows that he would stumble on his words and that his tongue would grow weak and be left useless.
Still, even if there’s now this difference in their stance and those small things like how straight Siwon stands, Sungmin is so happy that Siwon finally has come back home to him.
The first night after Siwon has come home they lay side by side on the bed. Their bed. There’s a couple of decimetres between them and they’re not even close to touching. From the sound of Siwon’s breathing, Sungmin can tell that he is as awake as him. Completely and fully. Sungmin blinks but the darkness doesn’t become any clearer.
This continues for many, almost countless nights in a row with Sungmin falling asleep in the early morning hours and twisting around in the sheets, only to wake up sweaty and distressed. Even if hearing Siwon’s steady breathing helps him calm down quickly, he doesn’t fall asleep again in the same manner. Instead the quiet ticking of the clock not helpful in any way with deducing how much time has passed. When he wakes up in the morning by the alarm, he’s far more tired than he was when he went to bed.
Sungmin braces himself with his feet flat against the mattress, one hand on his dick and one hand below, fingers wet with lube moving in and out of his body. Siwon isn't home, is coming home late because he always does, except for the days when he's home all day.
Sungmin pushes his fingers in more harshly, loud moan leaving his mouth as the door opens and Siwon walks in. It feels a bit surreal, how Siwon stops in his tracks and just stares at him, but Sungmin decides to not give a damn and instead continue to push his fingers in and out of himself as a pace that's not as steady as the one his other hand has on his dick. He cants his hips up, the next moan falling from his lips in a low, curling sound and he closes his eyes leaving nothing but sensations. He hears the faint sound of the door closing and fists his cock harder, gasps, and then a large warm hand settles on his hip and grips at him tightly.
Sungmin refuses to open his eyes, even when Siwon's other hand closes over the one on his dick, removing it by uncurling one finger at a time from his hold. Sungmin moans when he pushes his fingers to find his prostate; he moans again when Siwon takes the head of his cock into his mouth and sucks. Siwon hasn't even worked his way half down Sungmin's shaft when he comes with a low groan, Siwon's one hand holding him down as he tries to buck up and the other holding on to the hand of which Sungmin has fingers inside him, pushing them in at a steady pace even when Sungmin has stopped. He can't quite find his breath, not when Siwon continues to suck softly and then licks him clean. Opening his eyes slowly, Sungmin looks not up but down between his legs and meets Siwon's eyes. He can't read the expression because Siwon's face is blank and then he gets off the bed.
‘Do you think less of me as a man, because I haven’t served in the army?’ Sungmin asks and Siwon is shocked by the question. Looks shocked.
Siwon presses Sungmin against the wall, effectively trapping him against it by standing behind him and pressing against Sungmin's pliant body. He gathers Sungmin's hands in one of his own and stretches them high above Sungmin's head, leaving Sungmin to balance on his tiptoes. Sungmin gasps. Siwon's breathing is ragged when he presses the lines of their bodies even closer together, rubbing his hips against Sungmin's arse in small rutting motions. He pushes Sungmin's hands even higher up at the wall, Sungmin trying to move his feet closer together to have a slightly steadier stance — Siwon nudges his feet apart with one of his own, placing a leg between Sungmin's. Sungmin feels infinitely small, a rising sense of vulnerability as he can't really do anything at all in the position. Not without risking to fall, and then only have Siwon to hold him up. But Sungmin also knows is that he just has to say a single word to make Siwon let him go, because Siwon still knows how to listen, and that is almost enough to make his racing pulse calm.
The water from the shower is too warm and Sungmin wishes to reach out and lower the temperature, just a bit, but not really.
The doorbell rings. Sungmin jumps slightly at the sudden sound, his head twisting around even as he continues stirring the vegetables in the pan.
‘Can you get the door?’ he shouts and Siwon stumbles out from the bathroom, pulling the light blue pullover that Sungmin had gotten him as a present over his head while walking to the door. With a small smile having sprung to his lips, Sungmin turns back to the stove, pushing at the peppers with the wooden spatula. The last few rays of sunlight before twilight sets in finds their way into the kitchen through the window, some getting caught in the sheer curtains hanging there. turning off the stove, Sungmin grabs a bowl and puts the vegetables in it and then onto the table, next to the rice and the meat. He moves to the sink and lets the cold water all but numb his hands as he washes them, when he hears Siwon’s voice but not the words he’s saying.
While drying his hands on the towel he walks out in the hallway, sees only Siwon’s broad shoulders and tense back, standing straight and tall. Moving a couple of steps closer, Sungmin catches sight of a woman, her face almost one he remembers where he has seen it before. She’s not Siwon’s mother, no, she’s younger than him.
‘Jiwon,’ Siwon says, the tone of his voice more guarded than Sungmin has ever heard it before. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I wanted to talk. With you.’
‘About what?’
‘The future. I can-- Mother will pay for the last of your education.’
‘Wha-- why? What about father?’
‘They’re divorcing,’ she answers and she cranes her neck to be able to see Siwon fully. She’s not even that short from what Sungmin can see, but she looks small. Almost frail.
‘Jiwon why?’ Siwon’s voice croaks.
‘Because she decided that she didn’t need him. Because father disapproves of my fiance,’ she answers, low and from the tone of her voice, how she speaks, Sungmin gets the feel that she expects to be thrown out and that he will decide to close the door with a bang of finality in her face. As if she’s undeserving of Siwon even listening to her.
Siwon pulls her into an embrace, slightly stiff, and Sungmin averts his eyes.
‘Do you want to stay for dinner, ms. Choi?’ he asks after a heartbeat or two, looking up again and Siwon’s sister look surprised where she peeks out from behind Siwon as she disentangled herself out of his embrace to get a better look of him. Her small, painted mouth a little o. Sungmin has never met her before, so she can’t possibly remember him. She hadn’t been there the last time Siwon spoke to his parents those years ago. He sees Siwon press her hand comforting and securing her of that he’s still there.
‘I’d love to,’ she answers, and her smile is like a smaller version of Siwon’s. Even if he doesn’t look that much like her, they share the same smile, and that Sungmin thinks must surely mean a lot too.
‘She told me mother still prays for me,’ Siwon whispers. Sungmin doesn’t know what to say to that so he hugs Siwon close, cradling him almost. ‘Not that she, she prays for this to go away. Not anymore. But she prays for me.’
‘People have left,’ Siwon comments. Sungmin looks up, ready to ask Siwon to elaborate but met by Siwon's profile he has to stop. Take a breath. Siwon twists his neck, smiles when his eyes meets Sungmin's. ‘People have changed, too, but mostly people have left. When did Kyuhyun even leave for China the first time?’
‘A couple of months after you'd gone to the military,’ Sungmin replies. ‘He just disappeared. Apparently he found some girl that he got together with and mostly lived off. I think they still keep in contact.’ Sungmin looks down at Siwon's hands. ‘Then Kyuhyun went up to Beijing, stayed at Hankyung's place, enrolling himself in a language class and meet Seohyun.’
‘Oh, I see. and when did Zhou Mi leave?’
‘Recently.’
‘And Henry is going back to Canada soon, Ryeowook going with him.’
‘Yeah.’ Sungmin stretches his neck out, offering himself for light and fluttering kisses from his shoulder and up his neck, Siwon moving to stand behind him as he progresses.
‘But you're still here,’ Siwon says and nuzzles his nose behind Sungmin's left ear as he folds himself around him. Sungmin can't stop a giggle from escaping his mouth when Siwon presses closer with his nose and breathes out through it, warm warm air against the shell of his ear.
‘Yeah,’ Sungmin says and moves his head, kissing Siwon's lips. ‘I am.’
Sungmin wonders if it really can be like this, so easy as soon as the pieces mostly falls into place — warmth that is actually happiness filling him when all they have done is spending time close, smiles that makes his heart flutter and that are picture perfect. Surely, he should be over this stage already. But he can't stop it. It is as if he's falling into love with Siwon all over again, but surely it can't be. Surely, as it anything with love ever is surely, because it doesn't make sense at all. But maybe things doesn't have to make sense when Siwon's breath is soft and warm against his cheek — when Sungmin can't stop his smile from widening when he feels Siwon's smile against his cheek.
‘You're not going to leave me, are you?’ he asks before he can stop himself. Before he realises what he said. Sungmin feels Siwon become tense, and even if Siwon had been quiet before, Sungmin can't stop from feeling that Siwon is more quiet now.
(The warm hum that isn't a thing really but perhaps imagination or something done by our lying senses is what can be felt and heard but isn't there if you should look at things at a purely analytical and logical level)
‘What makes you ask that?’ Siwon manages at last. Sungmin can feel cool air where Siwon's body had been pressed close, but where there now is only a distance. Those few, precious centimetres.
‘Just that... everyone leaves. Sometime. After a while. So maybe you will, too,’ Sungmin says as he turns around in Siwon's loose embrace. ‘Heechul and Hankyung left, you left, Kyuhyun left, Donghae left, Zhou Mi left, Kyuhyun left again, Henry and Ryeowook are about to leave. Everyone leaves.’
The tension hangs heavy in the air.
How long are you willing to wait for me?
Sungmin, just tell me if it's something about me that makes me unhappy.
Not you, but the world around us. Military service. Attitudes from society. That I can't love you like I wish to. Korea isn't a good place for people like us.
I can take you wherever you want. I speak English, Mandarin. I'd learn a new language for you. I can take you to America. Canada, if you want to meet Henry and Ryeowook. You would like America, Sungmin. I could take you to New York--
Not New York. Seohyun--
New York is a city with millions of people,
It doesn't feel right.
Then tell me where, tell me anywhere and I will try to make it all possible, I can take you to Japan, Sungmin. If you want to live in Japan, anywhere in Japan, I would take you there now.
London.
What?
I want to move to London. Tokyo is my past, just like I want Seoul to be.
It's sad everyone's leaving though, isn't it?
Not everyone's leaving. Eeteuk and Kangin still live here, as do Taeyeon and Tiffany. Sulli is staying too.
‘If I have a nose job, I probably won’t need to do anything to my jaw.’
‘You’re already pretty,’ Sungmin repeats, only paraphrasing his sentence slightly. She doesn’t answer him. He knows she doesn't agree, not fully, because of the business. Sooyoung is a model but not quite, taking whatever job, whatever small shoot se can find. She doesn't have the money to be picky, even if it has gotten better since she moved in with them in their house in the suburbs. Her face, while not ugly, doesn't measure up to the beauty standards — especially when paired with her tanned skin. What he's heard her say when they look through her copies of magazines is that maybe, maybe she could make it outside of Asia. She's short though, far too short for runway most of the time and she can't only do editorial work for some reason he doesn't quite gather. He doesn't even really gather how Sooyoung is too short in any way, but she laughs and points at all the beautiful women in her magazines and names their heights. He can't really do much but believe her, as outrageous some heights might seem. So many of them are taller than him, which feels a bit ridiculous.
Sooyoung sighs, drains her beer and places the bottle on the ground. He should feel more guilt over letting a minor drink, but if she's old enough to live in Japan alone he figures she's old enough to drink. They had first met her in that club, after all.
‘Don't dye your hair that colour,’ Jay said as he snatched the package with bright red hair dye from Sungmin's hands. Sungmin looked affronted.
‘I'd never pick such a shade, I was just reading the instructions. I'm leaning more toward this one,’ Sungmin replied, stretching past Jay to grab a package on a lower shelf. He held it up so that Jay could take it from him, and they exchanged the packages with one another, Sungmin quick to put the red hair dye back in the shelf he had originally grabbed it from.
‘This shade?’
‘Yeah, I like it.’ Sungmin swayed a bit back and forth, looking at the shelves before them. ‘I need to bleach my hair first, right?’ Jay laughed and threw the package back to him.
‘Yeah, you want me to get it for you?’ Sungmin pouted. ‘Here, shortie.’
‘Oppa, oppa,’ Sooyoung shouted excitedly, a large smile on her face as she runs out to the garden where Sungmin sits, ‘I got a job! There's a Japanese-American design duo that are doing casual wear and swimsuits, and they want me to be their face for their new collection. I'll have to go to fukuoka for a couple of weeks, but they'll pay all those expenses.’
All Sungmin hears is oppa, oppa, my nose job worked, look i'm pretty! and he has to force himself to smile, because even if he's happy that she has gotten what might be her breakthrough he wanted it to be unnecessary for her to change herself. She was pretty, had always been, but perhaps she was prettier now.
‘You think about Sooyoung more than you think about me,’ Jungmo says, and Sungmin is hit by a wave of guilt for it that comes crashing down and pulls him under as Jungmo peppers nipping kisses over his throat and collar bones.
‘S-sorry,’ Sungmin gasps, breath hitching when Jungmo palms his cock, cups his balls and slides a couple of fingers down to play teasingly at the rim of his hole. Jungmo's fingers are covered in lube, though most of the excess had been used to make the slide of his earlier grip on Sungmin's cock.
Sooyoung sits down next to him on the balcony.
One time, Sungmin tells Siwon the story of what used to be. “I had a crush on one of my friends. Last year in high school. When he found out, not even that I had a crush on him, just that I fancied guys, he was so disgusted that he couldn't even look at me. He never said anything outright, but I think the whole school knew before the week was over. Then I hooked up with a guitar player, followed him over to Japan. Enrolled in a university there and we lived in a small house in the outskirts of the city with his band mates. We walked the streets hand in hand, my hair was pink and people stared and no one did a thing. Concert after concert, small avenues being filled because fuck if they weren't talented, and the pulse of the music was amazing. Emptied you and filled you with life, with real emotions.” Siwon says nothing, and Sungmin quite likes it. Likes how Siwon holds him closer.
‘Why don't you two get yourselves a larger place? You have been living together for the better part of a year now.’
‘Siwon is graduating in a few months, then he has to go to the military. We figured it'd be hard for me to take care and pay for a larger place when... this is all I do.’
‘Oh. The military, of course... but you..?’
‘They don't want people like me. I’ve got sexual identity disorder, you know, so I’m putting it off for the time being.’ Sungmin smiles and strings the white topping onto the cupcakes he had been assigned by Ryeowook. He picks up the small jar with the small heart-shaped sprinkles – the one with only pink hearts, not the mix of lilac and pink — picking up some in a pinch and letting them fall down to land on the whiteness.
In a way Sungmin never could have imagined it is fascinating to watch the sprinkles fall, swirls and thoughts and swirling thoughts the same shade of pink as the hearts. Ryeowook doesn't answer. Doesn't know what to answer.
When Kyuhyun hears that Siwon is leaving for the military soon, he lays an arm around Sungmin's shoulders and pulls him aside. Asks, Are you gonna stay faithful? and Sungmin sputters. Or maybe not. Or maybe that's what he did but thinks he didn't. The fact remains that Kyuhyun asked that, and Sungmin knows it's a joke even if Kyuhyun took him aside to ask it. It doesn't mean a thing.
Zhou Mi runs into the kitchen, hops onto one of the counters closest to Ryeowook and looks conspiratorial. Ryeowook looks mildly horrified.
‘You might have gotten flour on your trousers,’ says Ryeowook. Zhou Mi waves it away with small movements that, with his large hands, don't look especially small. Odd, Sungmin thinks. That's really odd. It is not like Zhou Mi to not to care about what happens to his trousers, especially when it are the expensive skinny jeans he basically used his whole paycheck for.
‘Kuixian is missing,’ Zhou Mi says, looking at Ryeowook first and then over to Sungmin with wide eyes from behind his black frames. Sungmin stares back. Ryeowook kneads the dough.
‘Missing? What do you mean, missing?’
‘Isn't that the right word in Korean? [missing], missing, missing,’ mumbles Zhou Mi, running through various possibilities and thousands of words in his vocabulary, trying to find the right one. Rolling his eyes slightly, Sungmin shoves lightly at Zhou Mi's thigh.
‘It's the right word, I just meant, is he missing?’
‘Expressing his disbelief,’ Ryeowook clarifies for Zhou Mi who nods while he pushes away his long fringe from his eyes with the back of his hand. It falls right back down again. He should probably start wearing a hairnet. Zhou Mi takes one of the hairclips someone left in his hair, and with a firm hand takes hold of Ryeowook's chin, whilst with his other hand pulling back the hair and securing it with the clip. It's a small white bunny head.
‘There, all done!’ Zhou Mi smiles. Ryeowook smiled back, only slightly sceptical.
‘Can we return to the subject?’ Sungmin injects. Zhou Mi spins his upper body around to watch Sungmin. ‘So, Kyuhyun's missing. Why is Kyuhyun missing?’
‘No one knows,’ Zhou Mi says. ‘He's just... gone.’
Zhou Mi likes to gossip, this Sungmin already knows, but everything about the mystery of Kyuhyun’s disappearance makes him almost disturbingly excited. Sungmin considers telling him this, but then Zhou Mi grabs his arm and leans close, whispering about he talked with Song Qian and apparently she and Kyuhyun had broken up a day or two before he disappeared. Rumour had it that Kyuhyun was in Japan, apparently.
Sunny sits cross-legged on his couch — her hair recently dyed, he notes. She has hazardly thrown a brown paper-bag with what smells like some sort of freshly baked pastries in onto the coffee-table. She claims to have made them herself, and when he looks inside the bag he agrees that yes, she probably has. Sunny grins at him as she settles down better into her seat, watching as he leaves and puts on some water for tea.
‘You can’t have hot chocolate with cupcakes,’ she says from the living-room area, her voice carrying through the distance quite easily and bright. ‘Too much sweetness at once.’
Sungmin knows that she doesn’t want them to drink hot chocolate out of consideration for his frail state, which she has admitted jokingly when they had drunk those bottles of wine weeks earlier. They have certainly been able to handle both cupcakes and hot chocolate earlier years.
When he returns to the living room, two large cups of tea in his hands, Sungmin sees Sunny looking deeply concentrated as she stabs at her iPad. She looks up when he places the cups on the table, a light clink of the porcelain meeting the wood catching her attention. Sunny smiles brightly and motions with her arm to the DVDs she had brought and Sungmin pick one up and is reading on the back of it by the time he sees her arm in his peripheral vision taking hold of the turquoise cup that is hers.
‘What do you think?’ Sunny asks, sipping at the hot liquid. Her face is almost completely bare and Sungmin once again feels that he wishes she could be like this all the time. He smiles.
‘Looks alright. You sure we haven’t watched this one already?’
‘No, this is the sixth movie, number six is written like vi with latin letters. We have seen the fourth, iv, and those others before this one.’
‘Oh,’ Sungmin answers. Sunny jumps up and inserts the first movie into the dvd-player.
The three movies she has taken with her are follow the same standard model they set what is now years ago, and they always watch them in the same order. First out is one of the usual action movies she doesn’t care at all for but that he can’t tear his eyes from, that she uses to cope with her fear of loud noises, so it’s alright oppa, Sunny says.
The second movie is the usual slasher horror story she enjoys to shriek to, hiding her face in a pillow whilst once again Sungmin can’t tear his eyes from the movie — but this time he’s so horrified, and it’s not alright at all, until Sunny thrusts a pillow into his face to hide behind.
Somewhere between they finish the first movie and they start the second, they always order food, that they have to pause the second movie to get. The food always end up uneaten and standing on the table before them, cold and completely crap, until Sunny hurries out into the kitchen to reheat it as Sungmin changes movie again.
The last of the three movies is one of those formulaic Hollywood romance movies, sometimes with drama but most often just comedy with a sad moment of will-they-or-won’t-they-happen drama. When they watch it, the last of the movies, late into the night Sunny always leans against his arm or shoulder or across his lap, a pillow under her head in that case as she curls up under the blankets that somehow has appeared magically at the right time.
The light and colourful moving pictures and people beautiful in a different way than people in Korea are considered beautiful chases away images of gruesome deaths and young people being torn apart and blood everywhere, for which Sungmin is very grateful. They tend to fall asleep like that, often before the movie even has ended, the presence of another warm body next to yours, even breaths and a steady heart, enough to lull a person to sleep. To make them sleep deeply, even.
‘You want to go to Itaewon with us?’ asks Ryeowook, smiling softly, but with the small light in his eyes it was clear he was excited about going out.
‘We're meeting up with a couple of friends I have,’ Zhou Mi says, fingering his hair again.
‘You look good, stop ruining your hair,’ Ryeowook says and looks up at Zhou Mi, reaching up to bat away his hand. Sungmin takes a look at the two of them, dressed and styled to infinity and perhaps back again, and then looks down at himself to remember what he's wearing. Something horribly mismatching as per usual. Rather than staying in and watching one of the many movies he used to watch with Siwon and then miss Siwon horribly as he drank a bottle of wine, he decided it couldn't hurt to go out just this time.
‘Sure,’ he says. Ryeowook perks up, Zhou Mi smiles brilliantly.
‘Maybe he's just not interested in boys,’ Zhou Mi says and pats Ryeowook's back lightly. Soothingly. Sungmin rests his head on Ryeowook's shoulder.
‘What would he be doing here otherwise?’ Sungmin asks. ‘His hips are kind of amazing though, have to give him that.’
Ryeowook looks slightly scandalised, and his cheeks a tad more pink.
‘Maybe it's my hair. Maybe I'm not his type. Maybe he wants someone masculine.’
‘Isn't that Jessica's little sister over there?’ asks Sungmin as a flash of bright blue fabric –a dress?– catches his attention.
It takes a few more visits to the same club, until one day Ryeowook goes up on the floor and dances with that one boy who caught his attention. When he comes back and sits down with them, he stares off into space. Looks lost in thought.
‘His name is Henli, and he's Chinese-Canadian. Henli was only going to look for his friend, then he'll come back,’ Ryeowook says.
Sungmin bites back a bitter comment like that's what he said, and you believed it?, but he doesn't want to say it.
A few minutes later Henli the Chinese-Canadian shows up at their table, much to the surprise of them all. In tow are what looks like a copy of Zhou Mi’s boyfriend Jonghyun, or even Donghae who used to work at the café, and Jessica's little sister.
‘Hey,’ says Henli. ‘This is Amber and Krystal.’
‘Fuck,’ Krystal mutters when she recognises most of them from the café. Amber looks confused but keeps her hand on Krystal’s waist, and when recognition shows in her eyes she simply smiles.
‘Weird we’d meet here,’ she says. Ryeowook makes a choked noise when he realises that they’re Heechul’s baby girl Sulli’s friends, and that they are friends with Henli, which might say something about that boy’s age.
‘I probably should have warned you, but Ryeowook is kind of an emotional drunk. Very affectionate, too.’
‘I've kind of noticed,’ Henry says. Ryeowook, who can barely stand up on his own, has already cried on Henry's shoulder for twenty minutes. luckily enough, he hadn't started until they had left the club. Henry was half-supporting him, half-dragging him along as they tried to walk to Ryeowook's apartment.
‘You know, I can take him from here,’ Sungmin says. The girls, Amber and Krystal, left a couple of blocks back and they had made it obvious that Amber was staying at whatever place Henry was.
‘But I'm the one who got him this drunk, I should be the one to help him!’
‘Cute, but I'm not leaving you alone with him.’
‘Huh?’
‘You,’ Sungmin points at Henry, ‘are cute. Sweet. Nice. But I'm not leaving you alone with my very drunk friend. He gets into trouble when he's drunk and alone – has before, might again.’
‘But I love him!’ shouts Ryeowook, but they both ignore him as Sungmin tries to stare down Henry. He also tries not thinking about that he’s glad that Henry’s slumped over by Ryeowook’s weight, and that he would have had to look up to stare him down otherwise.
‘Oh. Fuck. I really didn't think like that at all.’
‘I want to believe you, I sort of do, but I only know your name and that you're from Canada.’
Henry helps dragging Ryeowook home though, and when they get there he carefully toes his shoes off. They put Ryeowook to bed and Sungmin puts a pot on the stove. To boil water, of course, because he’s knows that Ryeowook will wake up after half an hour to an hour and need some tea.
‘You want to stay for tea?’ he asks, because maybe this kid is a good kid. Henry blinks tiredly.
‘Huh?’ he says and it’s not much of an answer, but he sits down on a chair.
‘Tea?’ Sungmin rummages through the box where Ryeowook stores all of his different teas.
Sungmin walks home and wakes up in the afternoon, his cheek pressed uncomfortably against the cold floor in the kitchen. He checks his phone and sees two new messages, both from Ryeowook. He erases them without reading either and calls for some take-out. It's one of those Chinese places and he orders their sashimi and sushi and whatever, because he has no idea what the number to the sushi bar a couple of blocks away is.
Sungmin then gets up from the floor, refills the bowls with water and food for Hyaku and Sen, and goes to lie down on the sofa. He should get a new sofa, he knows, because this one is getting lumpy and he can feel the springs in it. He doesn't want to get one without Siwon.
He almost feels ridiculous, but the sudden and painful pangs of simply missing someone hurts more than he thought. And that is when the worry starts to grow, when he starts to think that even if Siwon comes back it won't ever be the same and the calm balance between them will be ruined. When that balance is gone, Sungmin isn't sure how they will be able to stay together, and he will continue to live in this apartment with his cats and lumpy sofa while Siwon perhaps is accepted back by his parents and finds a lovely and perfect girl to marry.
The doorbell rings and he opens the door after maybe a minute too much has passed. The delivery boy looks annoyed. He pays and when he opens the box of food he sees that he has gotten the wrong order. After eating a few bits of it, he throws it away and goes to sleep.
‘It's unhealthy living like that,’ Eeteuk scolds him on the monday. ‘And you missed your saturday shift.’
‘Sorry,’ Sungmin apologises. Eeteuk looks concerned.
‘I know it's hard on you, but I still need you to show up at work. If it continues I'm going to have to fire you, you know that, Sungmin-ah.’ Sungmin knows that one of the worst things for him would be to lose his job, because there's not many other places that would hire him. Not with what he is (homosexual) and what he has studied (philosophy, contemporary music).
‘I'm sorry,’ he replies and Eeteuk still looks concerned.
Some days Sungmin wakes up and doesn't remember that he has moved back from Japan. He wakes up and he smiles and he thinks of where he'll go today with his camera, what he might possibly catch on film. He rolls over to his side and he's still smiling as he plans on kissing Jungmo, but he's alone in bed. He's not in Japan and he's not together with Jungmo. When realisation hits him it's like a cold shower and he wonders why he can't stop missing what is now years ago. He has changed country and boyfriend, no longer has Sooyoung to share everything and nothing with as they drink beer in the backyard.
This is one of those days. He wakes up and things are like they should, and he worries that these feelings are becoming more frequent the longer Siwon is away. He moves to the shower in a hurry and the water is cold as it hits his skin. He can't possible be more awake.
‘Heechul-hyung has an apartment in Seoul again,’ Sungmin whispers in the phone. ‘Go live with him instead.’
‘Sungmin—’
‘I, I can't right now. To meet you and know that I have to let go of you before I'm ready to. It's better to not meet at all then.’ Sungmin shudders as he speaks. Siwon is quiet, too quiet, and Sungmin wonders if the other man still in on the line.
‘Is hyung even in the city?’
‘He's always in Seoul these days, always.’
‘No, he's not.’
‘No,’ Sungmin agrees. ‘I'm exaggerating.’
‘Time really flies by,’ Ryeowook comments one day, seemingly quite absentmindedly as he makes a pattern in the latte he's going to serve. Sungmin glances at him from where he sits on the stool, and Ryeowook looks up to meet his look. Suddenly, he seems to have realised what he had said as his eyes widen in shock, raising a hand to his mouth. The latte stands forgotten.
‘I didn't mean it like that, oh I'm so sorry, hyung,’ Ryeowook mumbles, quickly and under his breath. Sungmin smiles. Ryeowook looks completely deflated, as if he has committed the greatest faux pas in the world. ‘I don't have any right to say that.’
‘Ryeowook-ah, don't worry,’ Sungmin says. Ryeowook still looks apologetic, but remembers the latte he's holding when Sungmin nods at him. His hand.
‘Oh, hyung, I need to go out with this now,’ Ryeowook says and hurries off.
Sungmin is still smiling when Zhou Mi walks up, places a hand on his lower back in a comforting movement. They both are quiet, Sungmin smiling, and then he chuckles, hides his smile behind a hand. Zhou Mi puts an arm around Sungmin’s shoulders.
恋は思案のほか, says the postcard that just arrived in the mail. Sungmin buys a kanji dictionary when he goes home from work, only able to read the hiragana and he knows that he recognises the first kanji character as well. He has a suspicion on what it might be, but he’d rather make sure than make assumptions.
‘Where did you even go, when you were gone?’ Sungmin asks. ‘Rumour had it that you were in Japan.’
‘Didn’t Zhou Mi tell you?’ Kyuhyun counters questions him, eyes wide as he looks at Sungmin. The scarf he’s wearing with his light pink cardigan is ridiculous and moving in the chilly October breeze.
‘Tell me what?’ Sungmin asks, face scrunched in thought.
‘We met him when we visited Taiwan.’ Kyuhyun coughs, clarifies by saying, ‘Uh, visited my dad. In Taiwan.’
‘You guys met? And, wait, what we? Seohyun and you?’
‘Uh. No. Yixiao and I, this girl I... lived with, in Shanghai.’ Sungmin feels confused, but Kyuhyun only shrugs and Sungmin doesn’t dig any deeper into it. If Kyuhyun wanted to tell him he would, he knew. He sits back on the fence and kicks with his feet, licks at the ice-cream cone he had gotten despite the weather. Kyuhyun shrugs and looks away, Sungmin sees from the corner of his eye.
‘I don't understand you,’ Siwon says. He sounds tired. Sungmin watches the straight line of his shoulder. ‘Sungmin, look at me.’
Sungmin looks at where his shirt is buttoned up to the top button, sees a bit of Siwon's throat above the collar. He hears Siwon sigh.
‘You want nothing more than to be loved, but when you are you can't accept it. You talk big, about love, because you are so sure it will come to an end soon and that's why it's alright. But I still love you.’
Sungmin shies away, eyes flying up to meet Siwon's. Siwon looks older. As tired as he sounds.
‘You need to.. you need to do something, Sungmin. Or--’
‘Don't you dare bring up Japan,’ Sungmin says. It sounds hollow even to his own ears, a far cry from the venomous reply it had been intended to be. Siwon's eyes are sad, as if pitying him. So that has finally started, Sungmin thinks and can't help but feel a wave of relief. The pitying. Poor Sungmin who can't do anything; he has heard it all. Seen it all, in people's eyes. He averts his eyes from Siwon and whispers, ‘Get out from my home,’ ignoring that it is partly Siwon's home too. It is the house where they lived together, but it isn't theirs. It is Sungmin's, he is the one renting it secondhand from his uncle.
‘You can't give up halfway through the fight,’ Siwon says.
‘Spoken like a true soldier,’ Sungmin says and now the venom is there. He looks at Siwon. Siwon stands up, drags his fingers over Sungmin's jawline. Gently. Sungmin sits still, stares straight ahead.
‘I'm a patient man. I believe patience is a virtue,’ Siwon says, voice low and dark. He lowers himself so that he is in Sungmin's eyeline and Sungmin still stares straight ahead. He traces the curve of Sungmin's lip with the pad of his forefinger, the look in his eyes intent. Intent on what, Sungmin doesn't know. ‘I am a patient man, but I won't be foolish.’
With that said, Siwon leaves and locks the door to the apartment with his key. Sungmin doesn't care that his tea is getting colder, he just sits still and stares in the dark.
‘I loved Jonghyun, I really did. He was amazing, really fun. He wasn’t a replacement for Kyuhyun,’ Zhou Mi says. ‘I couldn’t do that to someone, to him. When it comes to me loving Kyuhyun, I love him more and I love him less, and I can function and find another love when I love him less.’
‘And now you love him more again,’ Sungmin states. Zhou Mi doesn’t reply, but that’s enough of an answer in itself.
Sunny drinks wine almost cautiously, as if she’s treading on grounds where he’s dropped one of the overly expensive glasses Siwon had convinced him to buy.
When Siwon returns from the military, every last remnant of baby fat is gone. Angular jaw matched by an angular body, and in some ways when it comes to certain topics Sungmin would like to claim that Siwon’s mind has become more angular as well. He doesn’t say it though, not even when it’s on the tip of his tongue and ready to fly out, because he knows Siwon would ask him to explain what he means and Sungmin already knows that he would stumble on his words and that his tongue would grow weak and be left useless.
Still, even if there’s now this difference in their stance and those small things like how straight Siwon stands, Sungmin is so happy that Siwon finally has come back home to him.
The first night after Siwon has come home they lay side by side on the bed. Their bed. There’s a couple of decimetres between them and they’re not even close to touching. From the sound of Siwon’s breathing, Sungmin can tell that he is as awake as him. Completely and fully. Sungmin blinks but the darkness doesn’t become any clearer.
This continues for many, almost countless nights in a row with Sungmin falling asleep in the early morning hours and twisting around in the sheets, only to wake up sweaty and distressed. Even if hearing Siwon’s steady breathing helps him calm down quickly, he doesn’t fall asleep again in the same manner. Instead the quiet ticking of the clock not helpful in any way with deducing how much time has passed. When he wakes up in the morning by the alarm, he’s far more tired than he was when he went to bed.
Sungmin braces himself with his feet flat against the mattress, one hand on his dick and one hand below, fingers wet with lube moving in and out of his body. Siwon isn't home, is coming home late because he always does, except for the days when he's home all day.
Sungmin pushes his fingers in more harshly, loud moan leaving his mouth as the door opens and Siwon walks in. It feels a bit surreal, how Siwon stops in his tracks and just stares at him, but Sungmin decides to not give a damn and instead continue to push his fingers in and out of himself as a pace that's not as steady as the one his other hand has on his dick. He cants his hips up, the next moan falling from his lips in a low, curling sound and he closes his eyes leaving nothing but sensations. He hears the faint sound of the door closing and fists his cock harder, gasps, and then a large warm hand settles on his hip and grips at him tightly.
Sungmin refuses to open his eyes, even when Siwon's other hand closes over the one on his dick, removing it by uncurling one finger at a time from his hold. Sungmin moans when he pushes his fingers to find his prostate; he moans again when Siwon takes the head of his cock into his mouth and sucks. Siwon hasn't even worked his way half down Sungmin's shaft when he comes with a low groan, Siwon's one hand holding him down as he tries to buck up and the other holding on to the hand of which Sungmin has fingers inside him, pushing them in at a steady pace even when Sungmin has stopped. He can't quite find his breath, not when Siwon continues to suck softly and then licks him clean. Opening his eyes slowly, Sungmin looks not up but down between his legs and meets Siwon's eyes. He can't read the expression because Siwon's face is blank and then he gets off the bed.
‘Do you think less of me as a man, because I haven’t served in the army?’ Sungmin asks and Siwon is shocked by the question. Looks shocked.
Siwon presses Sungmin against the wall, effectively trapping him against it by standing behind him and pressing against Sungmin's pliant body. He gathers Sungmin's hands in one of his own and stretches them high above Sungmin's head, leaving Sungmin to balance on his tiptoes. Sungmin gasps. Siwon's breathing is ragged when he presses the lines of their bodies even closer together, rubbing his hips against Sungmin's arse in small rutting motions. He pushes Sungmin's hands even higher up at the wall, Sungmin trying to move his feet closer together to have a slightly steadier stance — Siwon nudges his feet apart with one of his own, placing a leg between Sungmin's. Sungmin feels infinitely small, a rising sense of vulnerability as he can't really do anything at all in the position. Not without risking to fall, and then only have Siwon to hold him up. But Sungmin also knows is that he just has to say a single word to make Siwon let him go, because Siwon still knows how to listen, and that is almost enough to make his racing pulse calm.
The water from the shower is too warm and Sungmin wishes to reach out and lower the temperature, just a bit, but not really.
The doorbell rings. Sungmin jumps slightly at the sudden sound, his head twisting around even as he continues stirring the vegetables in the pan.
‘Can you get the door?’ he shouts and Siwon stumbles out from the bathroom, pulling the light blue pullover that Sungmin had gotten him as a present over his head while walking to the door. With a small smile having sprung to his lips, Sungmin turns back to the stove, pushing at the peppers with the wooden spatula. The last few rays of sunlight before twilight sets in finds their way into the kitchen through the window, some getting caught in the sheer curtains hanging there. turning off the stove, Sungmin grabs a bowl and puts the vegetables in it and then onto the table, next to the rice and the meat. He moves to the sink and lets the cold water all but numb his hands as he washes them, when he hears Siwon’s voice but not the words he’s saying.
While drying his hands on the towel he walks out in the hallway, sees only Siwon’s broad shoulders and tense back, standing straight and tall. Moving a couple of steps closer, Sungmin catches sight of a woman, her face almost one he remembers where he has seen it before. She’s not Siwon’s mother, no, she’s younger than him.
‘Jiwon,’ Siwon says, the tone of his voice more guarded than Sungmin has ever heard it before. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I wanted to talk. With you.’
‘About what?’
‘The future. I can-- Mother will pay for the last of your education.’
‘Wha-- why? What about father?’
‘They’re divorcing,’ she answers and she cranes her neck to be able to see Siwon fully. She’s not even that short from what Sungmin can see, but she looks small. Almost frail.
‘Jiwon why?’ Siwon’s voice croaks.
‘Because she decided that she didn’t need him. Because father disapproves of my fiance,’ she answers, low and from the tone of her voice, how she speaks, Sungmin gets the feel that she expects to be thrown out and that he will decide to close the door with a bang of finality in her face. As if she’s undeserving of Siwon even listening to her.
Siwon pulls her into an embrace, slightly stiff, and Sungmin averts his eyes.
‘Do you want to stay for dinner, ms. Choi?’ he asks after a heartbeat or two, looking up again and Siwon’s sister look surprised where she peeks out from behind Siwon as she disentangled herself out of his embrace to get a better look of him. Her small, painted mouth a little o. Sungmin has never met her before, so she can’t possibly remember him. She hadn’t been there the last time Siwon spoke to his parents those years ago. He sees Siwon press her hand comforting and securing her of that he’s still there.
‘I’d love to,’ she answers, and her smile is like a smaller version of Siwon’s. Even if he doesn’t look that much like her, they share the same smile, and that Sungmin thinks must surely mean a lot too.
‘She told me mother still prays for me,’ Siwon whispers. Sungmin doesn’t know what to say to that so he hugs Siwon close, cradling him almost. ‘Not that she, she prays for this to go away. Not anymore. But she prays for me.’
‘People have left,’ Siwon comments. Sungmin looks up, ready to ask Siwon to elaborate but met by Siwon's profile he has to stop. Take a breath. Siwon twists his neck, smiles when his eyes meets Sungmin's. ‘People have changed, too, but mostly people have left. When did Kyuhyun even leave for China the first time?’
‘A couple of months after you'd gone to the military,’ Sungmin replies. ‘He just disappeared. Apparently he found some girl that he got together with and mostly lived off. I think they still keep in contact.’ Sungmin looks down at Siwon's hands. ‘Then Kyuhyun went up to Beijing, stayed at Hankyung's place, enrolling himself in a language class and meet Seohyun.’
‘Oh, I see. and when did Zhou Mi leave?’
‘Recently.’
‘And Henry is going back to Canada soon, Ryeowook going with him.’
‘Yeah.’ Sungmin stretches his neck out, offering himself for light and fluttering kisses from his shoulder and up his neck, Siwon moving to stand behind him as he progresses.
‘But you're still here,’ Siwon says and nuzzles his nose behind Sungmin's left ear as he folds himself around him. Sungmin can't stop a giggle from escaping his mouth when Siwon presses closer with his nose and breathes out through it, warm warm air against the shell of his ear.
‘Yeah,’ Sungmin says and moves his head, kissing Siwon's lips. ‘I am.’
Sungmin wonders if it really can be like this, so easy as soon as the pieces mostly falls into place — warmth that is actually happiness filling him when all they have done is spending time close, smiles that makes his heart flutter and that are picture perfect. Surely, he should be over this stage already. But he can't stop it. It is as if he's falling into love with Siwon all over again, but surely it can't be. Surely, as it anything with love ever is surely, because it doesn't make sense at all. But maybe things doesn't have to make sense when Siwon's breath is soft and warm against his cheek — when Sungmin can't stop his smile from widening when he feels Siwon's smile against his cheek.
‘You're not going to leave me, are you?’ he asks before he can stop himself. Before he realises what he said. Sungmin feels Siwon become tense, and even if Siwon had been quiet before, Sungmin can't stop from feeling that Siwon is more quiet now.
(The warm hum that isn't a thing really but perhaps imagination or something done by our lying senses is what can be felt and heard but isn't there if you should look at things at a purely analytical and logical level)
‘What makes you ask that?’ Siwon manages at last. Sungmin can feel cool air where Siwon's body had been pressed close, but where there now is only a distance. Those few, precious centimetres.
‘Just that... everyone leaves. Sometime. After a while. So maybe you will, too,’ Sungmin says as he turns around in Siwon's loose embrace. ‘Heechul and Hankyung left, you left, Kyuhyun left, Donghae left, Zhou Mi left, Kyuhyun left again, Henry and Ryeowook are about to leave. Everyone leaves.’
The tension hangs heavy in the air.
How long are you willing to wait for me?
Sungmin, just tell me if it's something about me that makes me unhappy.
Not you, but the world around us. Military service. Attitudes from society. That I can't love you like I wish to. Korea isn't a good place for people like us.
I can take you wherever you want. I speak English, Mandarin. I'd learn a new language for you. I can take you to America. Canada, if you want to meet Henry and Ryeowook. You would like America, Sungmin. I could take you to New York--
Not New York. Seohyun--
New York is a city with millions of people,
It doesn't feel right.
Then tell me where, tell me anywhere and I will try to make it all possible, I can take you to Japan, Sungmin. If you want to live in Japan, anywhere in Japan, I would take you there now.
London.
What?
I want to move to London. Tokyo is my past, just like I want Seoul to be.
It's sad everyone's leaving though, isn't it?
Not everyone's leaving. Eeteuk and Kangin still live here, as do Taeyeon and Tiffany. Sulli is staying too.
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i really feel that even if it may be the rough, same type of tropes, it's also really different to everything else. i really love the way you managed to tie it in with the rest of the coffee au, i love how sungmin obviously has problems and everything's not rosy and fine in korea with regards to homosexuality, i love the sooyoung parts because sooyoung. i really do adore sungmin's relationships with sooyoung+sunny, and then with everyone else too.
'He almost feels ridiculous, but the sudden and painful pangs of simply missing someone hurts more than he thought. And that is when the worry starts to grow, when he starts to think that even if Siwon comes back it won't ever be the same and the calm balance between them will be ruined.'
'Not New York. Seohyun--'
'Sungmin bites back a bitter comment like that's what he said, and you believed it?' are probably some of my favourite lines and they say a lot about him and. and. i love this, and i'm really curious about what happened in japan.
also: kryber, henwook, miminwook friendship. ily
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lol i was so worried about the minyoung parts, because plastic surgery can be such a sensitive topic and i'm afraid it'd be taken in the wrong way. (because i really adore sooyoung and all she chooses to be, and i have nothing against plastic surgery ;;)
hee, thank you. (again.) i, i quite like those parts too just because of the reasons you said ;; /narcissist but well i like several parts of this, i mean like... they’re not part of the 2.4k i deleted of the draft before posting lmao
but uh, japan. japan was kind of a mess, i guess? i don't have it completely planned out tbh, but something like (unspecified) trouble in regards sooyoung/her career, jungmo+jay's band going on tour and sungmin being bound by his studies to stay behind, resulting in a stressful long distance relationship (where he becomes passive and just hangs in the bg) that ends in a messy break-up with completely cut ties, to the point where while sungmin still loved how it had been in japan and liked the country, he couldn't stand being there? which is kind of why he’s all “everybody leaves” and his views on love are a bit depressing. (it makes sense in my head okay)
haha i couldn't keep the kryber out, and the henwook was kind of a (relatively) big deal in the kyuxiao/seokyu/qmi story and ryeowook was in many ways closer to sungmin so it didn't make sense to not include it and miminwook is the sekrit trio of my kokoro. ilu too