Super Junior AU; Hanchul; The Best Days of our Lives
Title: The Best Days of Our Lives
Chapter: 8/25
Fandom: Super Junior AU (High School)
Pairing: Hankyung/crossdressing!Heechul (main), Kangin/Eeteuk, Kibum/Donghae, Yehsung/Ryeowook, Kyuhyun/Sungmin, bestfriends!Eunhae.
Word count: 3,074
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Coming into a strange new world can be strange enough. Unfortunately, someone’s forgotten to tell Hankyung something Very Important.
A/N: My computer is not a very well machine, and today I lost around a quarter of chapter 10, which I wanted to finish before I posted this. However, I think that the delay on this chapter has already gone too far without an excuse, and I'm just going to post it. Hopefully, chapters 10 and 11 will be written fairly quickly, but I'm not too sure how school things will be going. The delay should not be long, but it will probably be longer than the others.
Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 / Chapter 6 / Chapter 7 / Chapter 8/ Chapter 9
Hankyung had not expected to do what he did without repercussions - after all, this was a group of boys who bought Heechul expensive birthday presents just to show that they cared. He didn’t for one second think that they would accept what he did, and to be honest, he half expected to be abandoned by them.
What he didn’t really expect was Siwon punching him in the jaw the next morning, after said boy had pulled him around the corner next the cafeteria, where it was secluded and quiet and no one would be able to walk in on the student council miracle punch the new boy flat out.
“Ow,” said Hankyung, and blinked up at him.
“That’s for rejecting Heechul,” said Siwon, and then, shaking the tension from his fist, offered Hankyung a hand up with his other hand. “And that’s because I understand how you feel.”
“You do?” Hankyung asked, as he took the hand offered and allowed Siwon to help him up, and then he stood, and felt his jaw in case Siwon had managed to dislocate it or something. He felt like he’d have a nice bruise to show in the morning. It was a good job it was Friday.
“Of course I do,” said Siwon. “I mean, you’ve liked Heechul since you first laid eyes on him, I could tell. It must have been a shock to find out like that. Still, I think you were a bit harsh in how you went about it. I’m not supposed to tell you this, but Heechul was really upset.”
Hankyung rubbed a hand over his face. “It’s just, I really liked her - him,” he said. “But he was a boy, and I’m so confused.”
“Heechul has that effect on people,” said Siwon with a grin. “People are just attracted to him. Why do you think so many of the boys in the school dislike him? It’s because he makes them question their sexuality.”
“It’s more than that, though,” admitted Hankyung. “He lied to me. I don’t like it when people lie to me.”
“Heechul doesn’t see it that way,” said Siwon, and twisted his mouth as he tried to think of a way to explain it. “Rella’s entire life is a deception - the way he dresses, the way he talks, the way he acts. But he doesn’t tell anyone that it’s a deception. To him, not telling is not the same as lying, and if the person doesn’t realise for himself, then it’s not Rella’s problem.”
“I’m not sure I can go back to how it was before,” said Hankyung.
“I’m not asking you to,” said Siwon. “I just think that you should apologise for what you did, and leave it. Heechul won’t hold a grudge. He acts on the moment. I think your greatest problem is going to be learning to cope with the flirting, because Rella is not about to stop doing that.”
“I’m going to have no choice, am I?” Hankyung asked, and smiled weakly. “Heechul’s not going to let me forget how it was.”
“If I know Heechul,” said Siwon, “and I do, then yes, you’re probably right. And I think that you’re probably going to get over this great case of denial you have over not being gay.” If Hankyung had known how interfering Siwon would become, he would have walked away then - as it was, he protested loudly, and Siwon just laughed at him.
It proved easier than Hankyung had initially expected to pretend that nothing had happened, or at least, that he hadn’t found anything out - perhaps this was helped along by the fact that Heechul had never learnt the meaning of ‘forgive and forget’, because he tended to just forget. He bounded into the classroom as usual, trilled hello to Hankyung, and proceeded to ignore that Hankyung was being slightly colder than usual. Hankyung got the feeling that maybe all he needed was time to get over the lie, but he knew that Heechul would not give him time, and maybe, for a bit, he did push the other boy away.
This was picked up on by the rest of the class, in particular by the Fan Club Leader, who now kept smiling at him in a way that was supposed to be pretty, but made Hankyung think of a vulture, about to swoop in on its prey. She simpered and flirted and tried to hang off his arm, and Hankyung ignored her more than he ignored Heechul, because she was simply more annoying. Every time Heechul spoke to him, the girl would break in with a snide remark, something about rejection or not being wanted, ambiguous enough to not let Heechul retaliate, but just enough to pick up on.
Things came to a head on Tuesday morning, when Hankyung had sat in the classroom at dinner to study something that he hadn’t done in his country-boy education, and the Fan Club Leader had come back early and started disturbing him. He put up with it for a while, finally seeing what his father had meant by ‘too nice for his own good’, but her voice kept grating on him, the chatter distracting - he had not yet picked up the skill of smiling and nodding in the right places while not listening that Siwon had perfected for moments like this. He had just opened his mouth to ask very politely that she shut up, when the door opened.
“Hey, shortie,” said Heechul, and motioned with his hand behind him. “Get out, he’s trying to study.”
The girl looked outraged at the nickname, and glanced at Hankyung to see what his reaction was - Hankyung was too busy hiding his laughter in his textbook. Instead, she fixed Heechul with a hard look.
“I’m not doing anything wrong,” said Fan Club Leader. (Someday, Hankyung was going to learn her name; at this point, though, he didn’t care what her name was, as long as she was quiet). “Hankyung-oppa wants me here.”
It was certainly at times like this that Hankyung wished he was more confrontational. The lie was obvious - Heechul looked on the verge of laughter - but he still couldn’t bring himself to say anything.
“Sure he does,” said Heechul. “I’m sure he does want someone nattering on at him when he’s trying to study. Do you want to be the one he blames when he fails?”
The girl seemed to have no counter to that - she gaped for a second, and then a sly look came on her face, which Hankyung thought made her look a bit like a ferret. “We’ll let Hankyung-oppa decide,” she said.
“Both of you,” said Hankyung, covering his face with his hands. “Shut up and get out so I can do this.”
The message of that sentence seemed to go over the top of the girl’s head: she turned triumphantly to Heechul and announced, “you hear that? He said to get out.”
“He said both of us, moron,” said Heechul, and rolled his eyes. “Now get out before I make you.”
As the girl walked out of the room, Hankyung glanced up and Heechul winked at him, and Hankyung maybe got the feeling that he’d just been a major part of some sort of a game - and that he’d lost.
The girls seemed to take it for granted that Hankyung was hot property now that Heechul appeared to be off the scene, and over the next week Hankyung found himself as being increasingly popular. And yet, through it all, he compared - Heechul’s smirk with the smiles of the girls around him; Heechul’s almost hysterical bark of laughter with their giggles and feminine laughter; Heechul’s body with their figures; and if he came to any sort of conclusion or reflection as to why this was, he didn’t admit it to himself.
“Hello,” he said, two weeks after he’d found out, when Heechul walked into the classroom, and almost immediately he lost his new-found popularity with the girls. He found that he didn’t really miss it.
*
“Can I ask something?” Hankyung put his meal down the bench they had commandeered outside, to make the most of the nice weather. It had been Eeteuk’s idea, and it was Eeteuk that Sungmin was going to blame if it rained.
“What?” Eunhyuk asked, as he watched Donghae attempt to throw Skittles into Shindong’s open mouth.
“This is going to sound like a weird thing to ask,” said Hankyung. “But when did Heechul, start, you know?”
“Cross dressing?” Donghae looked at him, slightly surprised at the question. “When he was eight.” It was Hankyung’s turn to look shocked; partly at the young age, partly at how easily the answer had been given.
“It’s not like it’s a secret, or anything,” said Eeteuk with a shrug. “Everyone knows it. We just figured you knew, which was why no one told you. Don’t worry, we blame Siwon.”
“You know what I’m like,” said Siwon with an exasperated sigh. “I’ve known Rella for so long that I think it’s obvious.”
“When he was eight?” Hankyung asked, deciding to focus on that surprising piece of news.
“Yeah,” said Donghae. “Remember how he said he had an older sister who moved away to get married? It was around then.”
“His sister was everything to him.” Siwon told him. “And I mean everything. From what I can remember, she was quite clever, and was bound for a high-flying university. Heechul idolised her. She was nice and gentle and smart and she would talk to him like he was already an adult. But then, when she was just eighteen, she announced that she was marrying a man from her high school, and within one month of that, she moved away to the mountains.”
“Heechul was totally heartbroken. I mean,” continued Donghae, “how would you feel if the person you loved most of all in the world suddenly left you? They haven’t had much contact, either, since then. I think, back then, dressing as a girl was like dressing as his sister - trying to be like her, trying to be half the person she was. After a while, it just became a habit.”
“He says it looks better on him,” said Sungmin with a smile. “It suits him, he makes it work well.”
“It was enough to fool you,” said Yehsung pointedly.
The fact was that it had fooled Hankyung, and more than being annoyed at Heechul for not telling the truth, he was annoyed at himself for being so easily fooled. His own assumptions had brought him this far, and now he was finding things out that he’d never known before, when he’d thought he’d known Heechul. He saw now that he hadn’t even tried - he’d been happy just being around him, noticing his smiles or his eyes or things like that. He’d fooled himself into a crush without knowing anything.
“Hello,” said Heechul, appearing at the table and causing Siwon to jump. “Your ears are all red,” he said to him. “You’ve been talking about me.”
“If we were,” said Siwon with a flirtatious smile, “could you blame us?”
Heechul laughed and flicked his hair back with a haughty expression, which said quite clearly that that had been the right answer. Hankyung watched him out of the side of his eye. Even now, he was finding it hard to see Heechul as anything but a girl - everything about him screamed it, but wasn’t that what Siwon had said? Heechul lived on deception, he was good at it, and he had certainly tricked Hankyung, but whose fault was that?
“I think Eunhyuk was looking for you in the dance studio,” said Heechul, and touched Hankyung lightly on the shoulder. Hankyung flinched back from the touch, and Heechul frowned at him. “How long are you going to keep doing that?” He asked. “Because it’s going to get really annoying soon.”
Hankyung shook his head and walked off. Maybe if he avoided touching Heechul, he had reasoned in a bed a few days earlier, he could stop thinking about him.
*
“Wow,” said Hankyung, when he bumped into Ryeowook in the corridor the day before they broke up for summer holidays. The younger boy was sporting a colourful bruise on his forehead, which explained Yehsung’s thunderous expression when Hankyung had slipped into his classroom to ask if he knew where Eunhyuk or Donghae were, so he could ask them something about the routine he was being taught. “How did you do that?”
“I banged it on something,” said Ryeowook vaguely, which Hankyung knew to be Ryeowook-speak for my father did it, you idiot, but I’m not going to tell you that. The two girls Ryeowook had been walking with exchanged worried glances and then looked at Hankyung.
“Ryeowook refuses to tell us what happened,” said one of them, linking her arm through Ryeowook’s. “He’s being really silly about it. I mean, we won’t laugh at him for walking into a lamppost or something.”
“Maybe he’s worried Yehsung-oppa will laugh at him,” said the other, with a wicked smile. Ryeowook flushed red.
“I’ve told you before,” he said in a quiet, embarrassed voice. “There’s nothing going on between me and Yehsung.”
“He’s in denial,” said the one with her arm in his. “He keeps saying that, but we know different.” And she winked at Hankyung, and then the group walked off, Ryeowook still protesting weakly. Hankyung was struck with the differences between the group: whenever he walked into Siwon’s classroom, the boy was always by himself, the girls watching him and giggling quietly in little groups, and even the boys kept their distance. This could have been because Siwon constantly looked as though he was studying or working on something. Yehsung seemed to be by himself a lot, too. Ryeowook and Sungmin, on the other hand, seemed to be always laughing with the girls in their classroom, and Eunhyuk and Donghae were constantly laughing with the boys in their classroom. Hankyung had yet to go into the third years classroom, but he got the feeling that Siwon and Yehsung were exceptions.
“What?” Yehsung asked bitterly, as he walked out of the school gates with Hankyung, Eeteuk and Kangin. “So you’ve seen it then?”
He sounded pissed, so Hankyung just nodded, willing to let the subject drop if Yehsung wanted to. Yehsung, it appeared, didn’t want to.
“His father pushed him, and he hit his head off the corner of the table,” said Yehsung in a dark, annoyed voice. “And then he rang me up in tears, but refused to let me come get him, and tells me to not talk about it the next day at school. Sometimes, I want to push him myself. A father doesn’t do things like that. Ryeowook’s wrong to call him so.”
“You shouldn’t pressurise him into leaving,” said Eeteuk calmly. “Ryeowook’s confused enough as it is.”
“So I’m supposed to just let it go on? He’s being ridiculous! I can’t understand why he keeps sticking up for him.”
“That’s right,” said Eeteuk suddenly and harshly. “You don’t understand what’s it’s like, so maybe you should stop complaining and start supporting Ryeowook instead.”
“Whoa,” said Yehsung, looking at him in shock, slightly taken aback. Hankyung felt the same way - that was the first time he’d heard Eeteuk use that tone of voice. Kangin placed a hand on Eeteuk’s shoulder.
“Calm down,” he said. “Yehsung doesn’t know what it’s like, Hankyung doesn’t know what it’s like, I didn’t know what it was like, but that didn’t stop me from making you leave.”
“That’s different,” said Eeteuk with an annoyed frown.
“No it’s not,” said Kangin, and started walking again. “I think,” he said, “that we should go away somewhere over the summer, just to diffuse things. That way, Yehsung can be certain that Ryeowook’s okay for a few days, I can be sure that you don’t crack up from exam pressure, and it’ll give everyone a break.”
“We’re going to the beach,” said Siwon on the telephone that night. Hankyung raised his eyebrows, and then remembered that Siwon couldn’t see that.
“You decided that quickly,” he said. They certainly had - this was group that took days to decide to do anything, because Heechul and Yehsung would end up arguing and Sungmin would want to do something completely different and Shindong would spend the entire time making jokes and getting Eunhyuk and Donghae involved.
“If it involves a holiday,” said Siwon with a laugh, “we decide it very quickly.”
“What about Kangin and Eeteuk?” Hankyung asked, sitting down on his bed. “I thought they’d be going on the third year trip.”
“No,” said Siwon. “It turns out that I picked somewhere that Kangin’s mother took them when they were twelve. Apparently, it was boring for them then, so they don’t want to go again.”
“The beach,” repeated Hankyung.
“Yeah,” said Siwon. “It’ll be good. We’ll be staying in a group room, one of those big open plan ones, Eeteuk’s already booked it. There’s a place for you if you want it.”
“Sure,” said Hankyung, and began planning on methods to get the money from his parents. Perhaps he could use his college fund, but he doubted it - it was more likely that his father would make him clean the car and mow the lawn and all manner of things that Hankyung did not want to do.
“Think of it this way,” said Siwon, and Hankyung could almost hear his sly grin in his voice. “You’ll get to see Heechul without a shirt on.” And he laughed as Hankyung groaned and flopped down on his bed.
Everything was planned - the hotel was booked, the destination sorted, and it wasn’t until there was three days until they were set to leave that they realised that they had no way of getting there. Kangin suggested hiring a mini-bus. Kibum pointed out that they would never be able to fit everyone into one, or at least, everyone and their luggage. Donghae then piped up that in that case, they’d better hire two. Eunhyuk said in a haunted tone that Eeteuk would have to drive one. There followed a brief conversation in which they thought about this prospect.
“The oldest should travel with Kangin,” said Heechul.
“No,” said Kyuhyun, clearly thinking of his position as the youngest. “We should draw straws.”
“Why don’t we just take the train?” Hankyung suggested.
In the end, they took the train.
Chapter: 8/25
Fandom: Super Junior AU (High School)
Pairing: Hankyung/crossdressing!Heechul (main), Kangin/Eeteuk, Kibum/Donghae, Yehsung/Ryeowook, Kyuhyun/Sungmin, bestfriends!Eunhae.
Word count: 3,074
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Coming into a strange new world can be strange enough. Unfortunately, someone’s forgotten to tell Hankyung something Very Important.
A/N: My computer is not a very well machine, and today I lost around a quarter of chapter 10, which I wanted to finish before I posted this. However, I think that the delay on this chapter has already gone too far without an excuse, and I'm just going to post it. Hopefully, chapters 10 and 11 will be written fairly quickly, but I'm not too sure how school things will be going. The delay should not be long, but it will probably be longer than the others.
Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 / Chapter 6 / Chapter 7 / Chapter 8/ Chapter 9
Hankyung had not expected to do what he did without repercussions - after all, this was a group of boys who bought Heechul expensive birthday presents just to show that they cared. He didn’t for one second think that they would accept what he did, and to be honest, he half expected to be abandoned by them.
What he didn’t really expect was Siwon punching him in the jaw the next morning, after said boy had pulled him around the corner next the cafeteria, where it was secluded and quiet and no one would be able to walk in on the student council miracle punch the new boy flat out.
“Ow,” said Hankyung, and blinked up at him.
“That’s for rejecting Heechul,” said Siwon, and then, shaking the tension from his fist, offered Hankyung a hand up with his other hand. “And that’s because I understand how you feel.”
“You do?” Hankyung asked, as he took the hand offered and allowed Siwon to help him up, and then he stood, and felt his jaw in case Siwon had managed to dislocate it or something. He felt like he’d have a nice bruise to show in the morning. It was a good job it was Friday.
“Of course I do,” said Siwon. “I mean, you’ve liked Heechul since you first laid eyes on him, I could tell. It must have been a shock to find out like that. Still, I think you were a bit harsh in how you went about it. I’m not supposed to tell you this, but Heechul was really upset.”
Hankyung rubbed a hand over his face. “It’s just, I really liked her - him,” he said. “But he was a boy, and I’m so confused.”
“Heechul has that effect on people,” said Siwon with a grin. “People are just attracted to him. Why do you think so many of the boys in the school dislike him? It’s because he makes them question their sexuality.”
“It’s more than that, though,” admitted Hankyung. “He lied to me. I don’t like it when people lie to me.”
“Heechul doesn’t see it that way,” said Siwon, and twisted his mouth as he tried to think of a way to explain it. “Rella’s entire life is a deception - the way he dresses, the way he talks, the way he acts. But he doesn’t tell anyone that it’s a deception. To him, not telling is not the same as lying, and if the person doesn’t realise for himself, then it’s not Rella’s problem.”
“I’m not sure I can go back to how it was before,” said Hankyung.
“I’m not asking you to,” said Siwon. “I just think that you should apologise for what you did, and leave it. Heechul won’t hold a grudge. He acts on the moment. I think your greatest problem is going to be learning to cope with the flirting, because Rella is not about to stop doing that.”
“I’m going to have no choice, am I?” Hankyung asked, and smiled weakly. “Heechul’s not going to let me forget how it was.”
“If I know Heechul,” said Siwon, “and I do, then yes, you’re probably right. And I think that you’re probably going to get over this great case of denial you have over not being gay.” If Hankyung had known how interfering Siwon would become, he would have walked away then - as it was, he protested loudly, and Siwon just laughed at him.
It proved easier than Hankyung had initially expected to pretend that nothing had happened, or at least, that he hadn’t found anything out - perhaps this was helped along by the fact that Heechul had never learnt the meaning of ‘forgive and forget’, because he tended to just forget. He bounded into the classroom as usual, trilled hello to Hankyung, and proceeded to ignore that Hankyung was being slightly colder than usual. Hankyung got the feeling that maybe all he needed was time to get over the lie, but he knew that Heechul would not give him time, and maybe, for a bit, he did push the other boy away.
This was picked up on by the rest of the class, in particular by the Fan Club Leader, who now kept smiling at him in a way that was supposed to be pretty, but made Hankyung think of a vulture, about to swoop in on its prey. She simpered and flirted and tried to hang off his arm, and Hankyung ignored her more than he ignored Heechul, because she was simply more annoying. Every time Heechul spoke to him, the girl would break in with a snide remark, something about rejection or not being wanted, ambiguous enough to not let Heechul retaliate, but just enough to pick up on.
Things came to a head on Tuesday morning, when Hankyung had sat in the classroom at dinner to study something that he hadn’t done in his country-boy education, and the Fan Club Leader had come back early and started disturbing him. He put up with it for a while, finally seeing what his father had meant by ‘too nice for his own good’, but her voice kept grating on him, the chatter distracting - he had not yet picked up the skill of smiling and nodding in the right places while not listening that Siwon had perfected for moments like this. He had just opened his mouth to ask very politely that she shut up, when the door opened.
“Hey, shortie,” said Heechul, and motioned with his hand behind him. “Get out, he’s trying to study.”
The girl looked outraged at the nickname, and glanced at Hankyung to see what his reaction was - Hankyung was too busy hiding his laughter in his textbook. Instead, she fixed Heechul with a hard look.
“I’m not doing anything wrong,” said Fan Club Leader. (Someday, Hankyung was going to learn her name; at this point, though, he didn’t care what her name was, as long as she was quiet). “Hankyung-oppa wants me here.”
It was certainly at times like this that Hankyung wished he was more confrontational. The lie was obvious - Heechul looked on the verge of laughter - but he still couldn’t bring himself to say anything.
“Sure he does,” said Heechul. “I’m sure he does want someone nattering on at him when he’s trying to study. Do you want to be the one he blames when he fails?”
The girl seemed to have no counter to that - she gaped for a second, and then a sly look came on her face, which Hankyung thought made her look a bit like a ferret. “We’ll let Hankyung-oppa decide,” she said.
“Both of you,” said Hankyung, covering his face with his hands. “Shut up and get out so I can do this.”
The message of that sentence seemed to go over the top of the girl’s head: she turned triumphantly to Heechul and announced, “you hear that? He said to get out.”
“He said both of us, moron,” said Heechul, and rolled his eyes. “Now get out before I make you.”
As the girl walked out of the room, Hankyung glanced up and Heechul winked at him, and Hankyung maybe got the feeling that he’d just been a major part of some sort of a game - and that he’d lost.
The girls seemed to take it for granted that Hankyung was hot property now that Heechul appeared to be off the scene, and over the next week Hankyung found himself as being increasingly popular. And yet, through it all, he compared - Heechul’s smirk with the smiles of the girls around him; Heechul’s almost hysterical bark of laughter with their giggles and feminine laughter; Heechul’s body with their figures; and if he came to any sort of conclusion or reflection as to why this was, he didn’t admit it to himself.
“Hello,” he said, two weeks after he’d found out, when Heechul walked into the classroom, and almost immediately he lost his new-found popularity with the girls. He found that he didn’t really miss it.
*
“Can I ask something?” Hankyung put his meal down the bench they had commandeered outside, to make the most of the nice weather. It had been Eeteuk’s idea, and it was Eeteuk that Sungmin was going to blame if it rained.
“What?” Eunhyuk asked, as he watched Donghae attempt to throw Skittles into Shindong’s open mouth.
“This is going to sound like a weird thing to ask,” said Hankyung. “But when did Heechul, start, you know?”
“Cross dressing?” Donghae looked at him, slightly surprised at the question. “When he was eight.” It was Hankyung’s turn to look shocked; partly at the young age, partly at how easily the answer had been given.
“It’s not like it’s a secret, or anything,” said Eeteuk with a shrug. “Everyone knows it. We just figured you knew, which was why no one told you. Don’t worry, we blame Siwon.”
“You know what I’m like,” said Siwon with an exasperated sigh. “I’ve known Rella for so long that I think it’s obvious.”
“When he was eight?” Hankyung asked, deciding to focus on that surprising piece of news.
“Yeah,” said Donghae. “Remember how he said he had an older sister who moved away to get married? It was around then.”
“His sister was everything to him.” Siwon told him. “And I mean everything. From what I can remember, she was quite clever, and was bound for a high-flying university. Heechul idolised her. She was nice and gentle and smart and she would talk to him like he was already an adult. But then, when she was just eighteen, she announced that she was marrying a man from her high school, and within one month of that, she moved away to the mountains.”
“Heechul was totally heartbroken. I mean,” continued Donghae, “how would you feel if the person you loved most of all in the world suddenly left you? They haven’t had much contact, either, since then. I think, back then, dressing as a girl was like dressing as his sister - trying to be like her, trying to be half the person she was. After a while, it just became a habit.”
“He says it looks better on him,” said Sungmin with a smile. “It suits him, he makes it work well.”
“It was enough to fool you,” said Yehsung pointedly.
The fact was that it had fooled Hankyung, and more than being annoyed at Heechul for not telling the truth, he was annoyed at himself for being so easily fooled. His own assumptions had brought him this far, and now he was finding things out that he’d never known before, when he’d thought he’d known Heechul. He saw now that he hadn’t even tried - he’d been happy just being around him, noticing his smiles or his eyes or things like that. He’d fooled himself into a crush without knowing anything.
“Hello,” said Heechul, appearing at the table and causing Siwon to jump. “Your ears are all red,” he said to him. “You’ve been talking about me.”
“If we were,” said Siwon with a flirtatious smile, “could you blame us?”
Heechul laughed and flicked his hair back with a haughty expression, which said quite clearly that that had been the right answer. Hankyung watched him out of the side of his eye. Even now, he was finding it hard to see Heechul as anything but a girl - everything about him screamed it, but wasn’t that what Siwon had said? Heechul lived on deception, he was good at it, and he had certainly tricked Hankyung, but whose fault was that?
“I think Eunhyuk was looking for you in the dance studio,” said Heechul, and touched Hankyung lightly on the shoulder. Hankyung flinched back from the touch, and Heechul frowned at him. “How long are you going to keep doing that?” He asked. “Because it’s going to get really annoying soon.”
Hankyung shook his head and walked off. Maybe if he avoided touching Heechul, he had reasoned in a bed a few days earlier, he could stop thinking about him.
*
“Wow,” said Hankyung, when he bumped into Ryeowook in the corridor the day before they broke up for summer holidays. The younger boy was sporting a colourful bruise on his forehead, which explained Yehsung’s thunderous expression when Hankyung had slipped into his classroom to ask if he knew where Eunhyuk or Donghae were, so he could ask them something about the routine he was being taught. “How did you do that?”
“I banged it on something,” said Ryeowook vaguely, which Hankyung knew to be Ryeowook-speak for my father did it, you idiot, but I’m not going to tell you that. The two girls Ryeowook had been walking with exchanged worried glances and then looked at Hankyung.
“Ryeowook refuses to tell us what happened,” said one of them, linking her arm through Ryeowook’s. “He’s being really silly about it. I mean, we won’t laugh at him for walking into a lamppost or something.”
“Maybe he’s worried Yehsung-oppa will laugh at him,” said the other, with a wicked smile. Ryeowook flushed red.
“I’ve told you before,” he said in a quiet, embarrassed voice. “There’s nothing going on between me and Yehsung.”
“He’s in denial,” said the one with her arm in his. “He keeps saying that, but we know different.” And she winked at Hankyung, and then the group walked off, Ryeowook still protesting weakly. Hankyung was struck with the differences between the group: whenever he walked into Siwon’s classroom, the boy was always by himself, the girls watching him and giggling quietly in little groups, and even the boys kept their distance. This could have been because Siwon constantly looked as though he was studying or working on something. Yehsung seemed to be by himself a lot, too. Ryeowook and Sungmin, on the other hand, seemed to be always laughing with the girls in their classroom, and Eunhyuk and Donghae were constantly laughing with the boys in their classroom. Hankyung had yet to go into the third years classroom, but he got the feeling that Siwon and Yehsung were exceptions.
“What?” Yehsung asked bitterly, as he walked out of the school gates with Hankyung, Eeteuk and Kangin. “So you’ve seen it then?”
He sounded pissed, so Hankyung just nodded, willing to let the subject drop if Yehsung wanted to. Yehsung, it appeared, didn’t want to.
“His father pushed him, and he hit his head off the corner of the table,” said Yehsung in a dark, annoyed voice. “And then he rang me up in tears, but refused to let me come get him, and tells me to not talk about it the next day at school. Sometimes, I want to push him myself. A father doesn’t do things like that. Ryeowook’s wrong to call him so.”
“You shouldn’t pressurise him into leaving,” said Eeteuk calmly. “Ryeowook’s confused enough as it is.”
“So I’m supposed to just let it go on? He’s being ridiculous! I can’t understand why he keeps sticking up for him.”
“That’s right,” said Eeteuk suddenly and harshly. “You don’t understand what’s it’s like, so maybe you should stop complaining and start supporting Ryeowook instead.”
“Whoa,” said Yehsung, looking at him in shock, slightly taken aback. Hankyung felt the same way - that was the first time he’d heard Eeteuk use that tone of voice. Kangin placed a hand on Eeteuk’s shoulder.
“Calm down,” he said. “Yehsung doesn’t know what it’s like, Hankyung doesn’t know what it’s like, I didn’t know what it was like, but that didn’t stop me from making you leave.”
“That’s different,” said Eeteuk with an annoyed frown.
“No it’s not,” said Kangin, and started walking again. “I think,” he said, “that we should go away somewhere over the summer, just to diffuse things. That way, Yehsung can be certain that Ryeowook’s okay for a few days, I can be sure that you don’t crack up from exam pressure, and it’ll give everyone a break.”
“We’re going to the beach,” said Siwon on the telephone that night. Hankyung raised his eyebrows, and then remembered that Siwon couldn’t see that.
“You decided that quickly,” he said. They certainly had - this was group that took days to decide to do anything, because Heechul and Yehsung would end up arguing and Sungmin would want to do something completely different and Shindong would spend the entire time making jokes and getting Eunhyuk and Donghae involved.
“If it involves a holiday,” said Siwon with a laugh, “we decide it very quickly.”
“What about Kangin and Eeteuk?” Hankyung asked, sitting down on his bed. “I thought they’d be going on the third year trip.”
“No,” said Siwon. “It turns out that I picked somewhere that Kangin’s mother took them when they were twelve. Apparently, it was boring for them then, so they don’t want to go again.”
“The beach,” repeated Hankyung.
“Yeah,” said Siwon. “It’ll be good. We’ll be staying in a group room, one of those big open plan ones, Eeteuk’s already booked it. There’s a place for you if you want it.”
“Sure,” said Hankyung, and began planning on methods to get the money from his parents. Perhaps he could use his college fund, but he doubted it - it was more likely that his father would make him clean the car and mow the lawn and all manner of things that Hankyung did not want to do.
“Think of it this way,” said Siwon, and Hankyung could almost hear his sly grin in his voice. “You’ll get to see Heechul without a shirt on.” And he laughed as Hankyung groaned and flopped down on his bed.
Everything was planned - the hotel was booked, the destination sorted, and it wasn’t until there was three days until they were set to leave that they realised that they had no way of getting there. Kangin suggested hiring a mini-bus. Kibum pointed out that they would never be able to fit everyone into one, or at least, everyone and their luggage. Donghae then piped up that in that case, they’d better hire two. Eunhyuk said in a haunted tone that Eeteuk would have to drive one. There followed a brief conversation in which they thought about this prospect.
“The oldest should travel with Kangin,” said Heechul.
“No,” said Kyuhyun, clearly thinking of his position as the youngest. “We should draw straws.”
“Why don’t we just take the train?” Hankyung suggested.
In the end, they took the train.