heart on your sleeves
1) hyukfei? however did i come up with this?
2) i entwined another fic into this, try and spot which universe it shares with one of my previous fics hahaha.
3) partially inspired by both firequakes' love for hyukjae and a really nice series called chase.
4) it was fun writing this. now off to my kyuha fic exchange.
Hyukjae is sitting on one side of the green metal wrought benches they have in parks, and Fei occupies the other end.
It’s a fairly balmy day, with nice clouds and a whole bunch of children playing in the fountain just in front of them. One of the boys misses his intended target with his water gun and hits Hyukjae instead.
Hyukjae takes water sprayings very seriously, even if it’s from a five year old with a bright yellow water gun, because his hair just got bleached and dyed and it was expensive.
“Yah, yah!” The boy runs away squealing before Hyukjae even jumps up from his seat, “You come back! I’m unarmed here, you come back and we’ll duel! Oi!”
Fei finally laughs when he’s wringing the water out of his plaid shirt. Hyukjae scowls at her and sits back down, frowning.
“So.” She begins, “What’s up?”
She hasn’t even been back in the country for very long and she’s met two high school classmates already. She meets Sunye in Hongdae on her second week back, and in turn meets Hyukjae when she’s touring Sunye’s art gallery. It’s an amazing combination of fate and coincidence, really.
Fei decidedly thinks that either she’s very lucky (because Sunye is still a sweetheart) or fate just likes being an ass (because Hyukjae is clearly not a Sunye).
The kids in front of them form a line and start to play a fairly complicated game of trains with frequent interjections of water gunfights.
“Apologize,” Hyukjae finally says, “we should start with you apologizing.”
Fei applies to this prestigious arts high in Seoul when she’s seventeen, thinking that it’ll assist her in securing that scholarship to study ballet in the UK. Now that she thinks back on it, she should have known it was not to be, what with all the informal methods of teaching and the odd requirement that all dance students should take part in at least one musical per year.
She sits beside Sunye for most of her time there, and while Sunye helps her get through most of the homework and musicals, she repays her table partner by clearing out most of the presents she gets during the school year.
Sunye has always been fairly popular, but she remembers this particular year when Sunye has this non-stop supply of vaguely worded notes and mini gifts, all intricately wrapped and in different shades of red.
It continues all the way until just before the eve of their SATs, and she’s in the middle of revising for Modern History when their class monitor yells out that Lee Hyukjae of 3E is looking for her.
Fei isn’t too familiar with the class of 3E, but Sunye’s neighbour is a part of them. For a moment she thinks that her class monitor must have been mistaken, but when Lee Hyukjae pokes his head in to look, Sunye pushes her shoulder and she sets off.
The school grounds are empty because it has officially ended for them seniors, but everyone has the sense to come back and do numerous test papers that will prep them for the brutality of the SATs.
Lee Hyukjae walks all the way in front, so fast that he’s at the bench facing their school field before she’s even half way there. He has this cool, detached thing going on, or at least he tries to, Fei thinks absentmindedly.
“Is there anything I can do for you?” She asks, really wanting to go back to Modern History because that’s her weakest subject and scoring a 30 for the SATs isn’t really an option.
Lee Hyukjae doesn’t even look at her, choosing instead to focus on the school building just behind.
“I’m sorry, but if there’s nothing else I must really go back to-“ Lee Hyukjae cuts her off by raising a hand and letting it hang in the space between them, somewhat awkwardly.
“I,” he begins and coughs, “I just wanted to know your answer to my question.”
What question?
“You know, the one in the last note?” He still doesn’t look at her, because he is fixated on the hanging hand now. Fei doesn’t get it, but she does realize that there is something potentially big on her hands right now and she has a feeling that she might not be able to handle it right.
Lee Hyukjae doesn’t look like he’s going to explain himself, and she just stands there for a moment while he scrubs the floor with the back of his right sneaker.
“Look, Hyukjae,” she even has to say his name tentatively because she really doesn’t know him well, “I’m so sorry but I don’t understand.”
He mumbles something that she strains to hear, and it indistinctly sounds like I hope you liked the presents and will you go out with me? He finally looks at her and his eyes are so bright that Fei’s head begins to hurt.
Fei ends up doing the cruelest thing she’s ever had to do.
Hyukjae waits for her to come back down to earth while tying his shoelaces.
“I didn’t even know who you were!” Fei finally says after a long while, voice slightly high-pitched.
He shrugs. “I sent you a year’s worth of notes and gifts. I can’t believe you’re still sticking to that story.” He doesn’t sound like he wants to make her embarrassed; a little bit more hurt than anything else.
Fei wonders if she should reach across and place a hand on his shoulders in an act of rather gauche kindness. It’s been ten years, and she honestly cannot recall too much about high school anymore, but Hyukjae’s bowed head brings her back to that fateful day of rejection and it’s not a nice feeling.
She decides to act on it.
“I honestly thought they were for Sunye,” she tells him gently while gingerly tapping him on the shoulder, “and you never wrote any names so I just assumed.”
Hyukjae moves uneasily for a moment, but when he turns back to face her he looks less hurt.
They don’t talk for very long, until he sinks down into his side of the bench and lets out a queer little sigh.
“Putting the notes on your table were fun,” he tells her while crossing and uncrossing his legs, navy jeans and red Chucks, “at least to a love addled eighteen year old, it was the most romantic thing ever.”
The kids are gone now, bundled into the same SUV and off home for afternoon naps, maybe.
He sits up straight and smiles at her. “Any chance you could have said yes then, though? I was rather a dreamy chap then, you know.”
Fei laughs and lets her arm fall.
“You’re right. I’m sorry, Hyukjae.”
They try to be friends again.
Fei’s back for a job interview pertaining to theatre work, but it doesn’t go very well. Hyukjae helps her out unexpectedly when he tells her of a buddy’s need for a new female lead for a musical.
“Fresh blood,” he rumples his blonde hair, now a mellower shade of gold, “like what our teachers always used to say.”
She agrees to go for a try out. Hyukjae’s friend is tall and pensive and rather bad-tempered, but that doesn’t stop her from wanting the role. She’s not exactly surprised at her career choice anymore, but sometimes people still ask her why she doesn’t dance. She tells them to try living three years in her arts high.
Kyuhyun looks at her with narrowed eyes during her entire tryout, and just when she thinks that it’s time to try elsewhere, he tells her to get ready for three months of rehearsals.
Fei thanks Hyukjae by taking him out for drinks and milk in wine glasses at Sunye’s art gallery. Hyukjae gets a little drunk and Sunye just laughs at him while he does funny dances before collapsing, asleep.
This soon becomes a routine, as Fei finds out.
Fei is a friend now, Hyukjae realizes.
It’s more than he would ever have expected, the girl who rejected him in high school becoming a friend of his. He has never thought of himself as a particularly magnanimous person (Kyuhyun always likes to remind him that he’s very petty with money), but he doesn’t dislike it either.
He pays Fei a visit one day during one of her rehearsals. Kyuhyun is doing his thing; being loud and obnoxious and generally an excellent playwright, while he watches and claps as loudly as he can for her without being mowed down by his friend.
They go for lunch together, a salad for her and a hearty hamburger for him. Hyukjae teases Fei about her vegetables, but she tells him that Kyuhyun is picky about how his female leads look on stage, which launches him into a tirade about Kyuhyun and his utter lack of compassion for others.
Fei listens and eats, occasionally chiming in with an observation or two about her playwright. Hyukjae just relishes in the chance to badmouth Kyuhyun behind his back.
They branch out into different topics, from his work (Hyukjae designs websites for a living) to her rehearsals (Kyuhyun works them hard but somehow always magically disappears whenever his wife pops by for lunch), and they even venture into their high school days a bit.
“You know Donghae?” He sounds a bit surprised when she makes this noise of acknowledgement as he’s telling her a story about him and his best friend in high school and their accomplishments at skipping classes.
She nods and stabs another piece of crouton with her fork. “Rather the heartthrob back then. Where is he now, though?”
Hyukjae shrugs. It’s not like he knows, because Donghae’s a traveler without the tendency to contact anyone while abroad. He’s just about to switch back to badmouthing Kyuhyun and his suspicions on how he even got married when Fei jabs the air with her fork.
“Hey… if you skipped your classes in the morning, how did you manage to put notes on my table for an entire year?”
She laughs at him for the rest of their lunch together and he sends her back to the studio. It’s raining when he steps out and walks back to his car.
He doesn’t tell her, but she was one of the few motivations that kept him in school until the SATs were over.
They go out on various occasions, sometimes with Sunye who runs her art gallery in Hongdae.
One time, they meet an old classmate when Hyukjae drives them and Sunye’s nephew to the zoo. Sooyeon has an engagement ring on her middle finger, and she introduces them to her fiancé, a tall and rather good-looking stockbroker named Siwon.
When the encounter is over and they’re at the lion themed restaurant for a late lunch, Fei asks Hyukjae if he felt awkward just now.
“Clearly, because she used to be together with your best friend?” Fei jabs him in his side.
Hyukjae pushes her along the buffet line. “Not really. I mean, he kinda just abandoned her in Korea, so she has every right to move on and be really happy and we should be happy for her too, I guess.”
He continues as Fei reaches for bread rolls. “I don’t care what other people say about high school love not lasting, but that was a pretty dick move. Even though Donghae’s my friend and we swore to be best buds for life, but yeah.”
“Impressive, Mr. Lee.” Fei nods and grabs a packet of orange juice. “I never thought you’d think that way.”
Hyukjae wriggles his brows.
“But I guess you’re right about moving on. Have you ever heard about the concept of perfect timing?”
He shakes his head.
“When the opportunity has passed you, so has the perfect timing for the incident to occur.” She tells him as they head back to the table.
Sunye’s playing rock paper scissors with her nephew, and while they tuck into their lunch Hyukjae suddenly finds that his bacon doesn’t taste that nice anymore.
Kyuhyun gets a call from Hyukjae one morning.
It’s something to do with his blonde hair, because Hyukjae can’t decide on whether to keep it this way or to go back to some darker colour.
“Do you think dark is the way to go? Black is the new black, no?” Kyuhyun’s eyes narrow with every word.
Hyukjae rattles on. “I mean, going blonde was a rather big step for me. Have you ever seen a web graphic designer with blonde hair? No? Yeah I thought so too. Besides black is lower maintenance and I vaguely remember my hairdresser saying that too. Also, Fei says that I would look better if I went back to black.”
“Hyukjae,” Kyuhyun begins.
“Yeah?” Hyukjae replies brightly.
“You don’t really want to change your hair colour, do you?”
“Sorry?”
Kyuhyun snorts. “You’re clearly just using this as an opportunity to glean love advice from me. You never call me Hyukjae, not ever, unless you want to borrow my PS3 or my Wii or my Xbox.”
Hyukjae is silent for a while.
“Kyuhyun,” he says at last, “have you ever heard of the concept called perfect timing?”
“Perfect timing? Sounds familiar.” Sunye replies as she works on a new oil painting. Fei is perched on a stool beside her, in a white tank top and cotton pants, and drenched in sweat.
She doesn’t have lunch with Hyukjae for once (he mumbles something about a pesky customer and her penchant for obscenely bright colours), and decides to laze her break out in Sunye’s gallery.
They chat on and off about various subjects, and Fei is just gushing about Sunye’s nephew when Sunye turns to her, mouth slightly ajar.
“I know! Wasn’t that the subject of Sooyeon’s book?” Sunye jumps up from her wooden stool and begins to dig through her canvas bag, thrown in a corner of the room. Sooyeon had mentioned her most recent book during their meeting at the zoo, and Sunye bought a copy a week later in support of her old classmate.
She finds it soon enough.
“Look, perfect timing. The concept of which when a specific point in time has been missed means the perfect opportunity for an incident to occur is over.” Sunye reads the blurb on the back of the dust cover aloud.
Fei nods.
“Interesting theory, right?”
“So you think your perfect timing is over?”
Hyukjae hesitates. “Well, high school was ten years ago.”
Kyuhyun was never in high school with him (they’d met during one of Sunye’s art parties actually), so he doesn’t know anything else about Fei and him, and most certainly nothing about their high school days together.
The younger boy listens as Hyukjae tells him about ten years before, how he really liked her even though she never looked at him because they didn’t know each other. How he thought that high school crushes were merely a phase and how he pretty much thought he was fucked when he’d met her again.
And then now, friends.
“Hey,” Kyuhyun abruptly cuts him off, “do you still keep in contact with Hyoyeon?”
Hyoyeon was his girlfriend when he’d first met Kyuhyun. Hyukjae thinks about it for a moment, and promptly comes to the horrific conclusion that it’s hard to even remember how she looks like anymore.
“How about Jieun?”
That was two years ago, but Hyukjae admits rather regretfully that he doesn’t have her number anymore, and when it actually comes down to how she looks like, a fuzzy outline and red hair is all he can recall.
Kyuhyun lets out this odd laugh. “And you remember how a girl from ten years before looks like and her name and her dastardly rejection of you all those years ago in high school.”
Hyukjae doesn’t reply for a very long time.
“Hyukjae, you really are fucked now.”
Sunye looks at her with a knowing look.
“What?” Fei holds her hands out defensively.
“Nothing, I agree!” Sunye smiles that infuriatingly perceptive smile again. “So, do you think your perfect timing is over?”
Fei looks at Sunye’s painting, a half finished oil portrait of the ocean and a bench.
She would really like to say “no”.
Hyukjae is avoiding her.
He shies her for two weeks, and she’s almost at the end of her rehearsals when he turns up one day for lunch. The first thing she notices is that the blonde is completely gone; the short cut he has is brown now.
Kyuhyun gives this little nod of approval, and they go off in Hyukjae’s Hyundai.
He doesn’t drive to their usual café, two blocks away from Sunye’s gallery. Instead he takes a right turn and drives all the way until the city fades away. They keep moving forward, until she can see the beginning of a frothy blue sea outside her window.
There’s a viewing spot ahead and they walk there together, him in front and she two steps at the back. He waits for her to catch up, and lets her sit down first on the wooden bench. It’s a magnificent view, the sun hidden behind wispy clouds and the sea a lovely shade of coral.
Hyukjae’s scrubbing his sneakers against the concrete floor again, a squeaky sound that goes on until he finally decides to settle on crossing and uncrossing his legs again. Fei simply sits and watches.
“So,” he speaks, voice slightly lower than usual, “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. Which is unusual for me, really.”
She laughs and follows his lead in crossing and uncrossing her legs.
It’s windy, and her hair is getting messed up. He reaches over and tucks a stray strand behind her ear, and stays there, not moving. She can feel herself holding her breath.
“I think I’ve been waiting for ten years. For you. Is our perfect timing now?”
He whispers into her ear.
There is a pause.
“Yes.”
She whispers back, lips brushing against his.
They hold hands all the way back to the city, as he drives and she looks out of the window, fingers tangled loosely with his.
2) i entwined another fic into this, try and spot which universe it shares with one of my previous fics hahaha.
3) partially inspired by both firequakes' love for hyukjae and a really nice series called chase.
4) it was fun writing this. now off to my kyuha fic exchange.
Hyukjae is sitting on one side of the green metal wrought benches they have in parks, and Fei occupies the other end.
It’s a fairly balmy day, with nice clouds and a whole bunch of children playing in the fountain just in front of them. One of the boys misses his intended target with his water gun and hits Hyukjae instead.
Hyukjae takes water sprayings very seriously, even if it’s from a five year old with a bright yellow water gun, because his hair just got bleached and dyed and it was expensive.
“Yah, yah!” The boy runs away squealing before Hyukjae even jumps up from his seat, “You come back! I’m unarmed here, you come back and we’ll duel! Oi!”
Fei finally laughs when he’s wringing the water out of his plaid shirt. Hyukjae scowls at her and sits back down, frowning.
“So.” She begins, “What’s up?”
She hasn’t even been back in the country for very long and she’s met two high school classmates already. She meets Sunye in Hongdae on her second week back, and in turn meets Hyukjae when she’s touring Sunye’s art gallery. It’s an amazing combination of fate and coincidence, really.
Fei decidedly thinks that either she’s very lucky (because Sunye is still a sweetheart) or fate just likes being an ass (because Hyukjae is clearly not a Sunye).
The kids in front of them form a line and start to play a fairly complicated game of trains with frequent interjections of water gunfights.
“Apologize,” Hyukjae finally says, “we should start with you apologizing.”
Fei applies to this prestigious arts high in Seoul when she’s seventeen, thinking that it’ll assist her in securing that scholarship to study ballet in the UK. Now that she thinks back on it, she should have known it was not to be, what with all the informal methods of teaching and the odd requirement that all dance students should take part in at least one musical per year.
She sits beside Sunye for most of her time there, and while Sunye helps her get through most of the homework and musicals, she repays her table partner by clearing out most of the presents she gets during the school year.
Sunye has always been fairly popular, but she remembers this particular year when Sunye has this non-stop supply of vaguely worded notes and mini gifts, all intricately wrapped and in different shades of red.
It continues all the way until just before the eve of their SATs, and she’s in the middle of revising for Modern History when their class monitor yells out that Lee Hyukjae of 3E is looking for her.
Fei isn’t too familiar with the class of 3E, but Sunye’s neighbour is a part of them. For a moment she thinks that her class monitor must have been mistaken, but when Lee Hyukjae pokes his head in to look, Sunye pushes her shoulder and she sets off.
The school grounds are empty because it has officially ended for them seniors, but everyone has the sense to come back and do numerous test papers that will prep them for the brutality of the SATs.
Lee Hyukjae walks all the way in front, so fast that he’s at the bench facing their school field before she’s even half way there. He has this cool, detached thing going on, or at least he tries to, Fei thinks absentmindedly.
“Is there anything I can do for you?” She asks, really wanting to go back to Modern History because that’s her weakest subject and scoring a 30 for the SATs isn’t really an option.
Lee Hyukjae doesn’t even look at her, choosing instead to focus on the school building just behind.
“I’m sorry, but if there’s nothing else I must really go back to-“ Lee Hyukjae cuts her off by raising a hand and letting it hang in the space between them, somewhat awkwardly.
“I,” he begins and coughs, “I just wanted to know your answer to my question.”
What question?
“You know, the one in the last note?” He still doesn’t look at her, because he is fixated on the hanging hand now. Fei doesn’t get it, but she does realize that there is something potentially big on her hands right now and she has a feeling that she might not be able to handle it right.
Lee Hyukjae doesn’t look like he’s going to explain himself, and she just stands there for a moment while he scrubs the floor with the back of his right sneaker.
“Look, Hyukjae,” she even has to say his name tentatively because she really doesn’t know him well, “I’m so sorry but I don’t understand.”
He mumbles something that she strains to hear, and it indistinctly sounds like I hope you liked the presents and will you go out with me? He finally looks at her and his eyes are so bright that Fei’s head begins to hurt.
Fei ends up doing the cruelest thing she’s ever had to do.
Hyukjae waits for her to come back down to earth while tying his shoelaces.
“I didn’t even know who you were!” Fei finally says after a long while, voice slightly high-pitched.
He shrugs. “I sent you a year’s worth of notes and gifts. I can’t believe you’re still sticking to that story.” He doesn’t sound like he wants to make her embarrassed; a little bit more hurt than anything else.
Fei wonders if she should reach across and place a hand on his shoulders in an act of rather gauche kindness. It’s been ten years, and she honestly cannot recall too much about high school anymore, but Hyukjae’s bowed head brings her back to that fateful day of rejection and it’s not a nice feeling.
She decides to act on it.
“I honestly thought they were for Sunye,” she tells him gently while gingerly tapping him on the shoulder, “and you never wrote any names so I just assumed.”
Hyukjae moves uneasily for a moment, but when he turns back to face her he looks less hurt.
They don’t talk for very long, until he sinks down into his side of the bench and lets out a queer little sigh.
“Putting the notes on your table were fun,” he tells her while crossing and uncrossing his legs, navy jeans and red Chucks, “at least to a love addled eighteen year old, it was the most romantic thing ever.”
The kids are gone now, bundled into the same SUV and off home for afternoon naps, maybe.
He sits up straight and smiles at her. “Any chance you could have said yes then, though? I was rather a dreamy chap then, you know.”
Fei laughs and lets her arm fall.
“You’re right. I’m sorry, Hyukjae.”
They try to be friends again.
Fei’s back for a job interview pertaining to theatre work, but it doesn’t go very well. Hyukjae helps her out unexpectedly when he tells her of a buddy’s need for a new female lead for a musical.
“Fresh blood,” he rumples his blonde hair, now a mellower shade of gold, “like what our teachers always used to say.”
She agrees to go for a try out. Hyukjae’s friend is tall and pensive and rather bad-tempered, but that doesn’t stop her from wanting the role. She’s not exactly surprised at her career choice anymore, but sometimes people still ask her why she doesn’t dance. She tells them to try living three years in her arts high.
Kyuhyun looks at her with narrowed eyes during her entire tryout, and just when she thinks that it’s time to try elsewhere, he tells her to get ready for three months of rehearsals.
Fei thanks Hyukjae by taking him out for drinks and milk in wine glasses at Sunye’s art gallery. Hyukjae gets a little drunk and Sunye just laughs at him while he does funny dances before collapsing, asleep.
This soon becomes a routine, as Fei finds out.
Fei is a friend now, Hyukjae realizes.
It’s more than he would ever have expected, the girl who rejected him in high school becoming a friend of his. He has never thought of himself as a particularly magnanimous person (Kyuhyun always likes to remind him that he’s very petty with money), but he doesn’t dislike it either.
He pays Fei a visit one day during one of her rehearsals. Kyuhyun is doing his thing; being loud and obnoxious and generally an excellent playwright, while he watches and claps as loudly as he can for her without being mowed down by his friend.
They go for lunch together, a salad for her and a hearty hamburger for him. Hyukjae teases Fei about her vegetables, but she tells him that Kyuhyun is picky about how his female leads look on stage, which launches him into a tirade about Kyuhyun and his utter lack of compassion for others.
Fei listens and eats, occasionally chiming in with an observation or two about her playwright. Hyukjae just relishes in the chance to badmouth Kyuhyun behind his back.
They branch out into different topics, from his work (Hyukjae designs websites for a living) to her rehearsals (Kyuhyun works them hard but somehow always magically disappears whenever his wife pops by for lunch), and they even venture into their high school days a bit.
“You know Donghae?” He sounds a bit surprised when she makes this noise of acknowledgement as he’s telling her a story about him and his best friend in high school and their accomplishments at skipping classes.
She nods and stabs another piece of crouton with her fork. “Rather the heartthrob back then. Where is he now, though?”
Hyukjae shrugs. It’s not like he knows, because Donghae’s a traveler without the tendency to contact anyone while abroad. He’s just about to switch back to badmouthing Kyuhyun and his suspicions on how he even got married when Fei jabs the air with her fork.
“Hey… if you skipped your classes in the morning, how did you manage to put notes on my table for an entire year?”
She laughs at him for the rest of their lunch together and he sends her back to the studio. It’s raining when he steps out and walks back to his car.
He doesn’t tell her, but she was one of the few motivations that kept him in school until the SATs were over.
They go out on various occasions, sometimes with Sunye who runs her art gallery in Hongdae.
One time, they meet an old classmate when Hyukjae drives them and Sunye’s nephew to the zoo. Sooyeon has an engagement ring on her middle finger, and she introduces them to her fiancé, a tall and rather good-looking stockbroker named Siwon.
When the encounter is over and they’re at the lion themed restaurant for a late lunch, Fei asks Hyukjae if he felt awkward just now.
“Clearly, because she used to be together with your best friend?” Fei jabs him in his side.
Hyukjae pushes her along the buffet line. “Not really. I mean, he kinda just abandoned her in Korea, so she has every right to move on and be really happy and we should be happy for her too, I guess.”
He continues as Fei reaches for bread rolls. “I don’t care what other people say about high school love not lasting, but that was a pretty dick move. Even though Donghae’s my friend and we swore to be best buds for life, but yeah.”
“Impressive, Mr. Lee.” Fei nods and grabs a packet of orange juice. “I never thought you’d think that way.”
Hyukjae wriggles his brows.
“But I guess you’re right about moving on. Have you ever heard about the concept of perfect timing?”
He shakes his head.
“When the opportunity has passed you, so has the perfect timing for the incident to occur.” She tells him as they head back to the table.
Sunye’s playing rock paper scissors with her nephew, and while they tuck into their lunch Hyukjae suddenly finds that his bacon doesn’t taste that nice anymore.
Kyuhyun gets a call from Hyukjae one morning.
It’s something to do with his blonde hair, because Hyukjae can’t decide on whether to keep it this way or to go back to some darker colour.
“Do you think dark is the way to go? Black is the new black, no?” Kyuhyun’s eyes narrow with every word.
Hyukjae rattles on. “I mean, going blonde was a rather big step for me. Have you ever seen a web graphic designer with blonde hair? No? Yeah I thought so too. Besides black is lower maintenance and I vaguely remember my hairdresser saying that too. Also, Fei says that I would look better if I went back to black.”
“Hyukjae,” Kyuhyun begins.
“Yeah?” Hyukjae replies brightly.
“You don’t really want to change your hair colour, do you?”
“Sorry?”
Kyuhyun snorts. “You’re clearly just using this as an opportunity to glean love advice from me. You never call me Hyukjae, not ever, unless you want to borrow my PS3 or my Wii or my Xbox.”
Hyukjae is silent for a while.
“Kyuhyun,” he says at last, “have you ever heard of the concept called perfect timing?”
“Perfect timing? Sounds familiar.” Sunye replies as she works on a new oil painting. Fei is perched on a stool beside her, in a white tank top and cotton pants, and drenched in sweat.
She doesn’t have lunch with Hyukjae for once (he mumbles something about a pesky customer and her penchant for obscenely bright colours), and decides to laze her break out in Sunye’s gallery.
They chat on and off about various subjects, and Fei is just gushing about Sunye’s nephew when Sunye turns to her, mouth slightly ajar.
“I know! Wasn’t that the subject of Sooyeon’s book?” Sunye jumps up from her wooden stool and begins to dig through her canvas bag, thrown in a corner of the room. Sooyeon had mentioned her most recent book during their meeting at the zoo, and Sunye bought a copy a week later in support of her old classmate.
She finds it soon enough.
“Look, perfect timing. The concept of which when a specific point in time has been missed means the perfect opportunity for an incident to occur is over.” Sunye reads the blurb on the back of the dust cover aloud.
Fei nods.
“Interesting theory, right?”
“So you think your perfect timing is over?”
Hyukjae hesitates. “Well, high school was ten years ago.”
Kyuhyun was never in high school with him (they’d met during one of Sunye’s art parties actually), so he doesn’t know anything else about Fei and him, and most certainly nothing about their high school days together.
The younger boy listens as Hyukjae tells him about ten years before, how he really liked her even though she never looked at him because they didn’t know each other. How he thought that high school crushes were merely a phase and how he pretty much thought he was fucked when he’d met her again.
And then now, friends.
“Hey,” Kyuhyun abruptly cuts him off, “do you still keep in contact with Hyoyeon?”
Hyoyeon was his girlfriend when he’d first met Kyuhyun. Hyukjae thinks about it for a moment, and promptly comes to the horrific conclusion that it’s hard to even remember how she looks like anymore.
“How about Jieun?”
That was two years ago, but Hyukjae admits rather regretfully that he doesn’t have her number anymore, and when it actually comes down to how she looks like, a fuzzy outline and red hair is all he can recall.
Kyuhyun lets out this odd laugh. “And you remember how a girl from ten years before looks like and her name and her dastardly rejection of you all those years ago in high school.”
Hyukjae doesn’t reply for a very long time.
“Hyukjae, you really are fucked now.”
Sunye looks at her with a knowing look.
“What?” Fei holds her hands out defensively.
“Nothing, I agree!” Sunye smiles that infuriatingly perceptive smile again. “So, do you think your perfect timing is over?”
Fei looks at Sunye’s painting, a half finished oil portrait of the ocean and a bench.
She would really like to say “no”.
Hyukjae is avoiding her.
He shies her for two weeks, and she’s almost at the end of her rehearsals when he turns up one day for lunch. The first thing she notices is that the blonde is completely gone; the short cut he has is brown now.
Kyuhyun gives this little nod of approval, and they go off in Hyukjae’s Hyundai.
He doesn’t drive to their usual café, two blocks away from Sunye’s gallery. Instead he takes a right turn and drives all the way until the city fades away. They keep moving forward, until she can see the beginning of a frothy blue sea outside her window.
There’s a viewing spot ahead and they walk there together, him in front and she two steps at the back. He waits for her to catch up, and lets her sit down first on the wooden bench. It’s a magnificent view, the sun hidden behind wispy clouds and the sea a lovely shade of coral.
Hyukjae’s scrubbing his sneakers against the concrete floor again, a squeaky sound that goes on until he finally decides to settle on crossing and uncrossing his legs again. Fei simply sits and watches.
“So,” he speaks, voice slightly lower than usual, “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. Which is unusual for me, really.”
She laughs and follows his lead in crossing and uncrossing her legs.
It’s windy, and her hair is getting messed up. He reaches over and tucks a stray strand behind her ear, and stays there, not moving. She can feel herself holding her breath.
“I think I’ve been waiting for ten years. For you. Is our perfect timing now?”
He whispers into her ear.
There is a pause.
“Yes.”
She whispers back, lips brushing against his.
They hold hands all the way back to the city, as he drives and she looks out of the window, fingers tangled loosely with his.