Just As Well
Title: Just As Well
Pairing(s): HanChul, slight!QMi
Genre(s): Romance, comedy
Length: 3078 words
Rating: PG-13
Summary: How Heechul got married.
Inspiration(s): Some article I read.
```
“Hey hot stuff, want to get hitched?”
“Hey you, need a man by your side?”
“Hello beautiful, I have two first-class tickets to Las Vegas if you’re interested.”
“I’ve been waiting at the altar forever for you.”
“The wedding’s all set anytime you’re ready, baby. Call me!”
Heechul had heard it all before. As the best-looking guy in town (unfortunately he would never be the best-looking gal while China-born Victoria still roamed the earth, damn her and her prettiness), it was only natural that he received lame-ass marriage proposals by the dozen. He seemed to be particularly attractive to bearded men in their late thirties, which would have been okay if not for the fact that every single one of them seemed to be overflowing with the pompousness worthy of a squirrel in heat. (Seriously, those things had enough sexual stamina to make babies in Heechul’s backyard-his beautiful mowed-at-least-once-a-month backyard where he used to lie down and find shapes in the clouds! Heechul never saw his front lawn the same way again, not to mention lied on it.)
He was beautiful and he knew it. With a pretty face, soft fiery red hair and a wit to match, he charmed the pants off-sometimes literally-of all who came across him so well that everybody was willing to forgive his hot temper and eccentricities.
And since Heechul was just so attractive, he was allowed to be picky with the many choices that pretty much threw themselves at him. This guy was too fat, this one too skinny. One was too poor, the other too rich. The previous man had no sense of humor, the next one just did not know when to shut his trap with the blonde jokes. Heck, he was so picky that there were times he would reject a man just because. After all, the more options you have, the higher your standards become. And boy, were his standards freaking high! Almost as high as that one time when he was six years old when he let go at the top of the playground swings because he was totally convinced that his awesomeness would be able to defy gravity and that he would be able to fly just as long as he was high enough. Yah, no, that never happened and his dream of becoming Superman was shot down the moment his face hit the ground.
So on Heechul went, rejecting marriage proposals as easily as rejecting tea in the morning (he preferred coffee with 3% cream and at least four packs of Splenda Sweetener, because seriously who can actually stand drinking bitter black coffee every morning?), oblivious to the fact that there might actually be somebody out there just waiting to hear Heechul’s passionate and long-awaited fine I’ll goddamn marry you, happy now?.
It happened on a Sunday, also known as The Most Boring Day Of The Week Because The Shops Are All Closed And Therefore There’s Nothing To Do Day (though the Day at the end is rather irrelevant since there has already been a Day in the title, plus the fact that no title should be that long since there are already those blasted hundred-letter scientific terms that narcissist scientists use to make non-scientists feel like utter dipshit). Heechul also disliked Sundays for other reasons, such as those cheesy proposals that had anything to do with Christian faith and how God would want to see them joined on such a holy day. Uh no thanks.
For instance, Siwon, the closest one could get to perfect in a guy, never failed to remind Heechul every week that the nine o’clock Sunday sermon was the day to worship and become attuned to the spirituality of life, and though the redhead sincerely appreciated that Siwon worried about his relationship with God Almighty, he just didn’t freaking care.
Which was why Heechul didn’t jump into ninja mode when the phone rang at exactly eight thirty-four that morning, waking him from his beauty sleep-as per usual. He had always been a light sleeper, and the slightest sound could wake him. The first time Siwon called, Heechul had pretty much pulled a Tom and Jerry stunt and levitated off the bed several feet before falling back onto the covers, certain that he had shaved off at least ten years of life. He had told Siwon not to call him that early in the morning, he had told him that his heart was not strong enough to endure it, but no the man just had to make this weekly phone call part of his routine. Seriously, being woken up by Siwon was even worse than that one time Kyuhyun set a Clocky on his side table, and that was the morning he woke up screaming “THE ROBOTS ARE INVADING, THE ROBOTS ARE INVADING” at the top of his lungs.
Heechul rolled onto his side, let his arms fall onto the phone like dead weight, and grudgingly held the receiver to his ear. “For the millionth time, I am not going to hear a priest lecture me when I already have a mother for that.”
“Uh, hello? Is this Kim Heechul?” a nasal voice sounded from the receiver. Heechul always hated how voices sounded on the phone; if voice was proportional to beauty, the Telephone Voice would definitely be in the Holy Shit Now That’s What I Call Ugly section.
“Yes, this is he,” Heechul responded groggily. “Who’s speaking?”
“I’m a friend of your roommate, Zhou Mi.”
“You mean Seasoning?” the redhead sat up, eyebrows knitted together like his grandmother’s perfect crochet projects-the woman never missed a stitch no matter how many times young Heechul tried to distract her from counting. “He moved out with his asshole of a boyfriend several weeks ago.” Damn Kyuhyun and his godforsaken Clockies.
“So he told me,” Mr. Nasal Voice chuckled. “He also told me that you’re looking for a new roommate, so I was wondering if the offer was still open.”
“What? He said that? New roommate? Since when?” Come to think of it, the landlord was being sort of an asshole lately, pounding at the door screaming that the rent was yet to be paid for and all. “Oh yes, new roommate! Yah, I’m looking for a new roommate. Do I have to meet up with you or something?”
A nasal laugh crackled through the phone, making Heechul wince. “That’s the question I should be asking. But yes, I would think that normal people go through some mutual interview before living together. Can we meet up sometime next week?”
“Sure. Tuesday at the record store at three in the afternoon sound good?” That was usually the time Heechul made a beeline to the CD section and squealed at the covers featuring Sohee from the Wonder Girls. Seriously, a non-anorexic girl who could look good in banana-yellow thick-framed glasses and matching skinny jeans should legally be labeled a goddess. “Don’t tell me you don’t know where it is; there’s only one record store in this damn town.”
That nasal laugh again. “I know where it is. I’ll see you then?”
“Yah, sure, whatever.”
“By the way, my name’s Han Geng.”
“Who cares, I’m going back to sleep,” the redhead snorted before slamming the phone down and rolling back into his satin bed, yawning like his life depended on it. Kyuhyun had once told him that yawning was a universal thing but it was just such a stupid action to do that technically, yawning had no function in the world. “Think about it!” he had insisted, “You can’t yawn without looking like a total dumbass not to mention yawn in public.” Heechul told him to stuff it and to stop harassing him with whatever he read on Science Daily.
Four and a half seconds later, the phone rang again, and Heechul grabbed it and pushed it to his ear angrily. “I said I’ll be there next week dammit!”
“Oh. Really? That’s great!” Siwon’s nasal voice reverberated from the phone, and Heechul’s normally fast wits too hung-over to do anything about it. “Oh, I’m so glad, Heechul! You’ve finally come to realize that God loves you and that Jesus is your savior!”
“What? I did?”
“This is God’s doing, I just know it! I’ll pick you up Sunday morning, eight o’clock sharp. Oh Heechul, I am so proud of you!”
Before the diva was able to react and deny everything, Siwon had already hung up and Heechul slammed his face into his pillow at the sound of the dial tone. “Fuck my life in the name of the Holy Trinity!” he screamed in muffled frustration. He ended up being dragged to the church the subsequent week and all but slept through the Sunday sermon while Siwon sat beside him transfixed, hanging on to every word the pastor said. It wasn’t pretty.
Heechul never blamed himself. In his eyes, he was too good-looking to be blamed for anything except for making others seem bland and unattractive. Hence his ill temper at the music store in front of his favorite CD rack of Sohee pictures galore when a handsome young Chinese man confidently walked up to him and introduced himself as Han Geng.
Instead of greeting the interviewee with his trademark smirk with a clever salutation, Heechul turned on the poor man and pointed a crude skinny finger at him. “You!” he accused. “You’re the one who forced me to attend Father Sungmin’s lecture on Sunday.”
Han Geng was stupid enough to look confused at the allegation. “Uh, no, I’m here to meet with you regarding roommate policies at your flat.”
“It’s all your fault!” the redhead screeched, ignoring the other’s explanation. “If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have mistaken Siwon’s call just seconds later after yours and accidentally set myself up for a lecture concerning the Thirteen Commandments-”
“Ten, actually,” the Chinaman interweaved meekly.
“Whatever, it seemed way longer ten. Anyway, I demand that you apologize right this instant!”
“I’m sorry?” Han Geng squeaked.
“Say it like you mean it!”
With an amused-terrified-exasperated exhale, Han Geng put on his best straight expression and carried out the most sincere apology in the whole history of Faked Apologies that he almost heard the standing ovation and applause by the time he was through. In fact, it was so good, Heechul had no comment by the end of it and did nothing but blink several times before nodding his acceptance. Anybody who knew Heechul knew that if he said nothing, it was probably because he had no critical response.
“I’m Han Geng,” said man reintroduced himself, offering a handshake.
Heechul ignored the gesture and stuck his nose into the air. “I’m not retarded. I already know your name.”
Han Geng shrugged, smiling
“So, when are you moving in?” the hot-tempered man asked.
The newcomer’s eyes widened. “What?”
“Christ, are you daft? I asked when you’re moving in.”
“Uh, anytime you see fit, I guess,” the bug-eyed man stammered. “But what about an interview? Aren’t you going to ask me about my sleeping habits or whether I play my weird loud music at night? What if I’m a serial killer or something?”
The redhead rolled his eyes impatiently. “Fine. What are your sleeping habits and do you play weird loud music at night?”
“I sleep like a log from midnight until six, and no I don’t play weird loud music at night.”
“And are you a serial killer?”
“No.”
“There, interview’s over. You can move in now for all I care.” Heechul flipped his shoulder length hair back and sniffed. “Besides, you should be the one worrying, not me.”
Han Geng’s bug eyes bugged out so much that they were on the brink of rolling out of their sockets. When Zhou Mi told him that Heechul was sometimes a bit eccentric, he did not expect a bit eccentric to be eccentric to the point of utter insanity.
Oh. Uh. Wow.
“Oh. Uh. Wow.” Han Geng’s echoed his brain. “Okay. I’ll see you tonight? I just need to get my luggage from my hotel.”
“Like I care. Now shoo, you’ve wasted me ten minutes that I could have spent admiring Sohee and her amazing fashion feats. Look at her face, isn’t she pretty?”
Han Geng’s eyes mercifully shrunk back to normal size and he smiled softly, deciding at the last second not to tell his official roommate that Sohee’s face paled in comparison to his. But then again, the Chinaman was a homosexual man in the most literal sense of the term, and was thus biased in his own definition of beauty.
Unfortunately, it did not take Han Geng long to realize that almost every other homosexual man in town thought the same way. In fact, when news got out that he had moved in with the Most Sought-After Hottie, he was met with mixed reviews, like those overrated blockbuster movies that were the talk of one season and then totally forgotten the next.
Some of the younger men in town made total asses of themselves with their meatless threats (think of threats as a burger, and don’t you dare argue, a burger is not burger without that slab of meat in the middle and that’s final), while others seemed to idolize the Man Who Apparently Won The Most Sought After Hottie’s Heart, following the poor guy around twenty-four seven and trying to learn romance tips from the master. It got to the point where Han Geng would not have been surprised if one of them came up and sank to his knees with “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope” on his lips. To which he would have replied with “Use the force, Luke” whether or not the guy’s name was Luke or not. He also considered “I am your father” but scrapped the idea when he realized that the consequences of that would be complicated.
The older men totally ignored him, which was better. Unless one of the older men was the manager of some fast food enterprise that paid all of his employees extra to ignore his presence. Then it was just sad. Han Geng burst into tears when he realized that he could no longer go for his favorite midnight sprees gorging on Chinese takeout. Boo hoo!
The upsides of living with Heechul, besides the obvious eye candy, did not make up a particularly long list. Han Geng had to ignore the never-ending flurry of complaints that spilled from the redhead’s colorful mouth, which was harder than it looked. One minute the room was too cold, the next minute it was too hot, and Han Geng lost count on how many times he had to call the Air Conditioning Guy to fix the machine. On some days Heechul would be complaining that Siwon was too annoying, and the next he would be complaining that Siwon was being too nice (and somehow, it was all your fault, Han Geng!). One time at midnight, the diva shook Han Geng awake because he was desperately craving chicken pot pie. Since Han Geng was a nice guy, he agreed to run out to get it for him, and took almost an hour hobbling from closed store to closed store until he finally found chicken pot pie in a 7/11. When he returned to the flat, he did not expect any thanks from his roommate, but he definitely did not expect Heechul to throw a fit and accuse him of trying to make him ugly and fat. “Don’t you know what chicken pot pie does to my pores?” he had screeched wildly. Han Geng only rolled his eyes, wrapped the blasted pie in a plastic bag, placed it in the fridge where Heechul could find it if he ever had any more of those cravings, and went back to sleep without another word. He had already developed Heechul Irrationality Immune System.
Then one day, four months after moving in, Heechul once again lost his patience with his insensitive roommate. “God, Han Geng, why haven’t you asked me to marry you yet?” Both of them almost heard Siwon’s gasp of scandalized disapproval at using the Lord’s name in vain.
The Chinaman rolled his eyes as he continued to stare at his computer screen. He was really starting to develop eye-rolling muscles. “Because you always complained that too many peoples’ cocks were asking you for your hand and that all you wanted was for them and their dicks to fuck off. In your exact words.”
“Well, I’ve changed my mind!” Heechul declared impatiently. “I want you to propose right now!”
“Why should I?” Han Geng frowned and continued to type, ignoring his roommate’s one of many temper tantrums. “You’re only going to reject me.”
“That’s only because I have high standards!”
“Well, then, there’s no point in asking for your hand, isn’t there?”
“Alright. What will happen if I say yes?”
“We’ll get married and we’ll live happily ever after,” Han Geng replied with a hint of amusement and a touch of seriousness. “You’ll continue to be the spoiled brat that you had set out to be, and I’ll continue to be totally immune to your spoiled brat ways. We’ll have a happy marriage, have a few spoiled rotten kids, and I’ll die smiling with you bitching in my ear.”
Han Geng expected Heechul to start bitching about how lame that life sounded, but in place of the several kilograms of imaginative insults he was known for dumping on peoples’ heads, the redhead stayed silent, a blank expression on his face.
Oh.
Han Geng’s heart jumped to his throat. He saved his Microsoft document, logged off, and flew out the door like Superman without flying abilities. He frantically ran down the streets-jumping over fences and almost getting run over twice-and managed to make it to the jewelry store in one piece, where he bought the most expensive ring in stock before sprinting back to his flat. He burst through the door and sunk onto one knee in front of where Heechul was standing. “Kim Heechul, will you marry me?” he asked all in one go, too out of breath to make up some cheesy prelude to his proposal.
Heechul smiled brilliantly. His fine, I’ll goddamn marry you, happy now? lacked the venom that he had originally been saving.
It was just as well. They were already quarrelling day and night like an old married couple anyways.
Pairing(s): HanChul, slight!QMi
Genre(s): Romance, comedy
Length: 3078 words
Rating: PG-13
Summary: How Heechul got married.
Inspiration(s): Some article I read.
```
“Hey hot stuff, want to get hitched?”
“Hey you, need a man by your side?”
“Hello beautiful, I have two first-class tickets to Las Vegas if you’re interested.”
“I’ve been waiting at the altar forever for you.”
“The wedding’s all set anytime you’re ready, baby. Call me!”
Heechul had heard it all before. As the best-looking guy in town (unfortunately he would never be the best-looking gal while China-born Victoria still roamed the earth, damn her and her prettiness), it was only natural that he received lame-ass marriage proposals by the dozen. He seemed to be particularly attractive to bearded men in their late thirties, which would have been okay if not for the fact that every single one of them seemed to be overflowing with the pompousness worthy of a squirrel in heat. (Seriously, those things had enough sexual stamina to make babies in Heechul’s backyard-his beautiful mowed-at-least-once-a-month backyard where he used to lie down and find shapes in the clouds! Heechul never saw his front lawn the same way again, not to mention lied on it.)
He was beautiful and he knew it. With a pretty face, soft fiery red hair and a wit to match, he charmed the pants off-sometimes literally-of all who came across him so well that everybody was willing to forgive his hot temper and eccentricities.
And since Heechul was just so attractive, he was allowed to be picky with the many choices that pretty much threw themselves at him. This guy was too fat, this one too skinny. One was too poor, the other too rich. The previous man had no sense of humor, the next one just did not know when to shut his trap with the blonde jokes. Heck, he was so picky that there were times he would reject a man just because. After all, the more options you have, the higher your standards become. And boy, were his standards freaking high! Almost as high as that one time when he was six years old when he let go at the top of the playground swings because he was totally convinced that his awesomeness would be able to defy gravity and that he would be able to fly just as long as he was high enough. Yah, no, that never happened and his dream of becoming Superman was shot down the moment his face hit the ground.
So on Heechul went, rejecting marriage proposals as easily as rejecting tea in the morning (he preferred coffee with 3% cream and at least four packs of Splenda Sweetener, because seriously who can actually stand drinking bitter black coffee every morning?), oblivious to the fact that there might actually be somebody out there just waiting to hear Heechul’s passionate and long-awaited fine I’ll goddamn marry you, happy now?.
It happened on a Sunday, also known as The Most Boring Day Of The Week Because The Shops Are All Closed And Therefore There’s Nothing To Do Day (though the Day at the end is rather irrelevant since there has already been a Day in the title, plus the fact that no title should be that long since there are already those blasted hundred-letter scientific terms that narcissist scientists use to make non-scientists feel like utter dipshit). Heechul also disliked Sundays for other reasons, such as those cheesy proposals that had anything to do with Christian faith and how God would want to see them joined on such a holy day. Uh no thanks.
For instance, Siwon, the closest one could get to perfect in a guy, never failed to remind Heechul every week that the nine o’clock Sunday sermon was the day to worship and become attuned to the spirituality of life, and though the redhead sincerely appreciated that Siwon worried about his relationship with God Almighty, he just didn’t freaking care.
Which was why Heechul didn’t jump into ninja mode when the phone rang at exactly eight thirty-four that morning, waking him from his beauty sleep-as per usual. He had always been a light sleeper, and the slightest sound could wake him. The first time Siwon called, Heechul had pretty much pulled a Tom and Jerry stunt and levitated off the bed several feet before falling back onto the covers, certain that he had shaved off at least ten years of life. He had told Siwon not to call him that early in the morning, he had told him that his heart was not strong enough to endure it, but no the man just had to make this weekly phone call part of his routine. Seriously, being woken up by Siwon was even worse than that one time Kyuhyun set a Clocky on his side table, and that was the morning he woke up screaming “THE ROBOTS ARE INVADING, THE ROBOTS ARE INVADING” at the top of his lungs.
Heechul rolled onto his side, let his arms fall onto the phone like dead weight, and grudgingly held the receiver to his ear. “For the millionth time, I am not going to hear a priest lecture me when I already have a mother for that.”
“Uh, hello? Is this Kim Heechul?” a nasal voice sounded from the receiver. Heechul always hated how voices sounded on the phone; if voice was proportional to beauty, the Telephone Voice would definitely be in the Holy Shit Now That’s What I Call Ugly section.
“Yes, this is he,” Heechul responded groggily. “Who’s speaking?”
“I’m a friend of your roommate, Zhou Mi.”
“You mean Seasoning?” the redhead sat up, eyebrows knitted together like his grandmother’s perfect crochet projects-the woman never missed a stitch no matter how many times young Heechul tried to distract her from counting. “He moved out with his asshole of a boyfriend several weeks ago.” Damn Kyuhyun and his godforsaken Clockies.
“So he told me,” Mr. Nasal Voice chuckled. “He also told me that you’re looking for a new roommate, so I was wondering if the offer was still open.”
“What? He said that? New roommate? Since when?” Come to think of it, the landlord was being sort of an asshole lately, pounding at the door screaming that the rent was yet to be paid for and all. “Oh yes, new roommate! Yah, I’m looking for a new roommate. Do I have to meet up with you or something?”
A nasal laugh crackled through the phone, making Heechul wince. “That’s the question I should be asking. But yes, I would think that normal people go through some mutual interview before living together. Can we meet up sometime next week?”
“Sure. Tuesday at the record store at three in the afternoon sound good?” That was usually the time Heechul made a beeline to the CD section and squealed at the covers featuring Sohee from the Wonder Girls. Seriously, a non-anorexic girl who could look good in banana-yellow thick-framed glasses and matching skinny jeans should legally be labeled a goddess. “Don’t tell me you don’t know where it is; there’s only one record store in this damn town.”
That nasal laugh again. “I know where it is. I’ll see you then?”
“Yah, sure, whatever.”
“By the way, my name’s Han Geng.”
“Who cares, I’m going back to sleep,” the redhead snorted before slamming the phone down and rolling back into his satin bed, yawning like his life depended on it. Kyuhyun had once told him that yawning was a universal thing but it was just such a stupid action to do that technically, yawning had no function in the world. “Think about it!” he had insisted, “You can’t yawn without looking like a total dumbass not to mention yawn in public.” Heechul told him to stuff it and to stop harassing him with whatever he read on Science Daily.
Four and a half seconds later, the phone rang again, and Heechul grabbed it and pushed it to his ear angrily. “I said I’ll be there next week dammit!”
“Oh. Really? That’s great!” Siwon’s nasal voice reverberated from the phone, and Heechul’s normally fast wits too hung-over to do anything about it. “Oh, I’m so glad, Heechul! You’ve finally come to realize that God loves you and that Jesus is your savior!”
“What? I did?”
“This is God’s doing, I just know it! I’ll pick you up Sunday morning, eight o’clock sharp. Oh Heechul, I am so proud of you!”
Before the diva was able to react and deny everything, Siwon had already hung up and Heechul slammed his face into his pillow at the sound of the dial tone. “Fuck my life in the name of the Holy Trinity!” he screamed in muffled frustration. He ended up being dragged to the church the subsequent week and all but slept through the Sunday sermon while Siwon sat beside him transfixed, hanging on to every word the pastor said. It wasn’t pretty.
Heechul never blamed himself. In his eyes, he was too good-looking to be blamed for anything except for making others seem bland and unattractive. Hence his ill temper at the music store in front of his favorite CD rack of Sohee pictures galore when a handsome young Chinese man confidently walked up to him and introduced himself as Han Geng.
Instead of greeting the interviewee with his trademark smirk with a clever salutation, Heechul turned on the poor man and pointed a crude skinny finger at him. “You!” he accused. “You’re the one who forced me to attend Father Sungmin’s lecture on Sunday.”
Han Geng was stupid enough to look confused at the allegation. “Uh, no, I’m here to meet with you regarding roommate policies at your flat.”
“It’s all your fault!” the redhead screeched, ignoring the other’s explanation. “If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have mistaken Siwon’s call just seconds later after yours and accidentally set myself up for a lecture concerning the Thirteen Commandments-”
“Ten, actually,” the Chinaman interweaved meekly.
“Whatever, it seemed way longer ten. Anyway, I demand that you apologize right this instant!”
“I’m sorry?” Han Geng squeaked.
“Say it like you mean it!”
With an amused-terrified-exasperated exhale, Han Geng put on his best straight expression and carried out the most sincere apology in the whole history of Faked Apologies that he almost heard the standing ovation and applause by the time he was through. In fact, it was so good, Heechul had no comment by the end of it and did nothing but blink several times before nodding his acceptance. Anybody who knew Heechul knew that if he said nothing, it was probably because he had no critical response.
“I’m Han Geng,” said man reintroduced himself, offering a handshake.
Heechul ignored the gesture and stuck his nose into the air. “I’m not retarded. I already know your name.”
Han Geng shrugged, smiling
“So, when are you moving in?” the hot-tempered man asked.
The newcomer’s eyes widened. “What?”
“Christ, are you daft? I asked when you’re moving in.”
“Uh, anytime you see fit, I guess,” the bug-eyed man stammered. “But what about an interview? Aren’t you going to ask me about my sleeping habits or whether I play my weird loud music at night? What if I’m a serial killer or something?”
The redhead rolled his eyes impatiently. “Fine. What are your sleeping habits and do you play weird loud music at night?”
“I sleep like a log from midnight until six, and no I don’t play weird loud music at night.”
“And are you a serial killer?”
“No.”
“There, interview’s over. You can move in now for all I care.” Heechul flipped his shoulder length hair back and sniffed. “Besides, you should be the one worrying, not me.”
Han Geng’s bug eyes bugged out so much that they were on the brink of rolling out of their sockets. When Zhou Mi told him that Heechul was sometimes a bit eccentric, he did not expect a bit eccentric to be eccentric to the point of utter insanity.
Oh. Uh. Wow.
“Oh. Uh. Wow.” Han Geng’s echoed his brain. “Okay. I’ll see you tonight? I just need to get my luggage from my hotel.”
“Like I care. Now shoo, you’ve wasted me ten minutes that I could have spent admiring Sohee and her amazing fashion feats. Look at her face, isn’t she pretty?”
Han Geng’s eyes mercifully shrunk back to normal size and he smiled softly, deciding at the last second not to tell his official roommate that Sohee’s face paled in comparison to his. But then again, the Chinaman was a homosexual man in the most literal sense of the term, and was thus biased in his own definition of beauty.
Unfortunately, it did not take Han Geng long to realize that almost every other homosexual man in town thought the same way. In fact, when news got out that he had moved in with the Most Sought-After Hottie, he was met with mixed reviews, like those overrated blockbuster movies that were the talk of one season and then totally forgotten the next.
Some of the younger men in town made total asses of themselves with their meatless threats (think of threats as a burger, and don’t you dare argue, a burger is not burger without that slab of meat in the middle and that’s final), while others seemed to idolize the Man Who Apparently Won The Most Sought After Hottie’s Heart, following the poor guy around twenty-four seven and trying to learn romance tips from the master. It got to the point where Han Geng would not have been surprised if one of them came up and sank to his knees with “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope” on his lips. To which he would have replied with “Use the force, Luke” whether or not the guy’s name was Luke or not. He also considered “I am your father” but scrapped the idea when he realized that the consequences of that would be complicated.
The older men totally ignored him, which was better. Unless one of the older men was the manager of some fast food enterprise that paid all of his employees extra to ignore his presence. Then it was just sad. Han Geng burst into tears when he realized that he could no longer go for his favorite midnight sprees gorging on Chinese takeout. Boo hoo!
The upsides of living with Heechul, besides the obvious eye candy, did not make up a particularly long list. Han Geng had to ignore the never-ending flurry of complaints that spilled from the redhead’s colorful mouth, which was harder than it looked. One minute the room was too cold, the next minute it was too hot, and Han Geng lost count on how many times he had to call the Air Conditioning Guy to fix the machine. On some days Heechul would be complaining that Siwon was too annoying, and the next he would be complaining that Siwon was being too nice (and somehow, it was all your fault, Han Geng!). One time at midnight, the diva shook Han Geng awake because he was desperately craving chicken pot pie. Since Han Geng was a nice guy, he agreed to run out to get it for him, and took almost an hour hobbling from closed store to closed store until he finally found chicken pot pie in a 7/11. When he returned to the flat, he did not expect any thanks from his roommate, but he definitely did not expect Heechul to throw a fit and accuse him of trying to make him ugly and fat. “Don’t you know what chicken pot pie does to my pores?” he had screeched wildly. Han Geng only rolled his eyes, wrapped the blasted pie in a plastic bag, placed it in the fridge where Heechul could find it if he ever had any more of those cravings, and went back to sleep without another word. He had already developed Heechul Irrationality Immune System.
Then one day, four months after moving in, Heechul once again lost his patience with his insensitive roommate. “God, Han Geng, why haven’t you asked me to marry you yet?” Both of them almost heard Siwon’s gasp of scandalized disapproval at using the Lord’s name in vain.
The Chinaman rolled his eyes as he continued to stare at his computer screen. He was really starting to develop eye-rolling muscles. “Because you always complained that too many peoples’ cocks were asking you for your hand and that all you wanted was for them and their dicks to fuck off. In your exact words.”
“Well, I’ve changed my mind!” Heechul declared impatiently. “I want you to propose right now!”
“Why should I?” Han Geng frowned and continued to type, ignoring his roommate’s one of many temper tantrums. “You’re only going to reject me.”
“That’s only because I have high standards!”
“Well, then, there’s no point in asking for your hand, isn’t there?”
“Alright. What will happen if I say yes?”
“We’ll get married and we’ll live happily ever after,” Han Geng replied with a hint of amusement and a touch of seriousness. “You’ll continue to be the spoiled brat that you had set out to be, and I’ll continue to be totally immune to your spoiled brat ways. We’ll have a happy marriage, have a few spoiled rotten kids, and I’ll die smiling with you bitching in my ear.”
Han Geng expected Heechul to start bitching about how lame that life sounded, but in place of the several kilograms of imaginative insults he was known for dumping on peoples’ heads, the redhead stayed silent, a blank expression on his face.
Oh.
Han Geng’s heart jumped to his throat. He saved his Microsoft document, logged off, and flew out the door like Superman without flying abilities. He frantically ran down the streets-jumping over fences and almost getting run over twice-and managed to make it to the jewelry store in one piece, where he bought the most expensive ring in stock before sprinting back to his flat. He burst through the door and sunk onto one knee in front of where Heechul was standing. “Kim Heechul, will you marry me?” he asked all in one go, too out of breath to make up some cheesy prelude to his proposal.
Heechul smiled brilliantly. His fine, I’ll goddamn marry you, happy now? lacked the venom that he had originally been saving.
It was just as well. They were already quarrelling day and night like an old married couple anyways.