Seaweed (Ocean's Eleven AU)
Title: Seaweed
Author: himawarixxsandz
Rating: PG-13
Pairing(s): U-Bomb
Summary: Four birthdays without Yukwon
A/N: i took a nap today bc i was taking a break from writing college essays and i had a dream about yushin celebrating yukwon's birthdays during those four years when yukwon was with dongsun so yeah. dedicated to the_blackorder because i think im friends with too many kitty stans sOBS. also i obviously went with Korean ages here and they're Kitty's real life ages starting with april of 2009
The April after Yukwon leaves (has been taken, has been torn away, has been yanked cruelly right out of Yushin’s life) is the hardest-that first birthday is the hardest and Yushin barely remembers that day. He remembers how it had started out, waking up and realizing the date-looking at his calendar, at his phone, and being slammed in the face with the crushing realization of what today is.
He’s lucky, he thinks, that it happens on a Saturday because otherwise he’d have to deal with the repercussions of being unfit for work (and how can the owner of a restaurant be unfit to work?). As things stand, he’s lucky, and it’s a Saturday, and that’s all Yushin needs to close the restaurant for the day-to call his employees and tell them to take the day off-and head off to the bars.
The entire day passes in a hazy, drunken blur and Yushin knows that it’s not even noon yet by the time he’s utterly smashed-he doesn’t even remember how he found a bar that was open on a Saturday morning, but somehow he must have because there’s no other way for him to be limp and nearly lifeless over a bar table before it’s even lunchtime. He’s not sure how the rest of the day goes after that-there might’ve been a kindly woman who took him to the hospital and dropped him off there and the doctors might’ve kept him there for an hour or two to make sure he wasn’t going to give himself alcohol poisoning.
But somehow-somehow-he does end up back in his bed and its nighttime and its nearly midnight, the day is nearly over, and he drinks a little bit more from his own refrigerator above the restaurant (and maybe some from the restaurant’s actual stocks) as he watches the clock’s hands tick towards the day’s end.
(and he wishes he had gotten alcohol poisoning, wishes that he hadn’t been dropped off at the hospital, wishes he hadn’t been given some medicine and told to maybe de-stress quietly at home Kim Yushin-shii, wishes he’d been successful in his endeavors to drink himself to death because he deserves nothing less for being such a worthless, useless older brother that he couldn’t even protect his little brother and he doesn’t even want to imagine-except he can’t, he can’t help but imagine, he has nightmares over it, wakes up in the middle of the night screaming over what Hwang Dongsun might be doing to Yushin’s baby brother at that very moment)
Yushin wonders how Yukwon spent his first day as an eighteen-year-old.
It’s a little better the next year.
And by that, Yushin simply means that he didn’t wake up in the morning and head for the precipice of death by substance abuse, however mild it might’ve been. He gets up, showers, brushes his teeth, tries to flatten his hair, and actually heads down and runs the restaurant. Just the first few hours already exhausts him and his employees can all easily tell that there’s something wrong-and they try to hide that they suspect, but it’s obvious even to Yushin himself how they all are eyeing him warily, as if he might collapse at any moment.
He ends up calling it a day early, leaving the restaurant in the hands of one of the younger co-managers and tells her that she’s in charge of closing up and regulating shifts. He takes a few aspirins and head upstairs to pass out into what he hopes will be a deep and mercilessly dreamless sleep.
(it’s not-he has nightmares that range from Yukwon bleeding and naked to Yukwon blank and not-Yukwon to Yukwon being forced to be something to more than just Dongsun-maybe to Dongsun’s associates-and that’s the worst nightmare of them all and the images refuse to stop flooding Yushin’s mind and he tosses and turns but more and more possibilities just continue to come and what a useless, worthless, disgusting brother he is that he can’t even save Yukwon, what would their parents say had they still been alive-had they been able to see how their oldest son couldn’t even protect his brother-what would they say-)
Yukwon’s nineteen now and Yushin wonders if his little brother is maybe a few centimeters taller, if he’s lost the last of the baby fat that remained on his face, if he’s slimmed down-final vestiges of a teenager beginning to wane.
By the third April, Yushin is able to live again.
The ache is still there, ever-present, but the pain isn’t so intense that it cripples him-no longer renders him breathless, gasping for air, unable to function, unable to make it through an entire day. He’s with someone when the ninth rolls around this time-he’s let himself to stop mourning, has let himself to fall in love a little, and she’s let him to smile and laugh again. He goes on a date with her to a café just a few blocks from the restaurant that evening.
She knows about Yukwon, but only what Yushin’s allowed her to know-she’s under the impression, from the way Yushin talks about Yukwon, that Yushin’s little brother has run away from home (which, really, isn’t all too far away from the truth, given altered circumstances-twisted, horrible circumstances).
“He’ll come back,” she says firmly, with a small, warm hand over his on the table between them.
“Maybe,” is all he replies with, a sad smile playing on his mouth, because obviously Yukwon can’t come back even if he wants to (and maybe if Yushin was half the man Yukwon was, this wouldn’t have happened because Yukwon is so young and yet somehow saved Yushin while Yushin hadn’t been able to do a single, shitty anything for Yukwon).
And Yukwon is twenty today-an adult-and he’s not Yushin’s baby brother anymore, but Yushin just wishes that he’d been able to see the last few years of Yukwon’s childhood (wishes today could’ve been spent together with him-because he should’ve been the one to give Yukwon his first drink at his first bar and he would’ve drunkenly serenaded Yukwon and Yukwon would’ve laughed, equally drunk and for the first time on top of that, and Yushin should be telling Yukwon how proud their parents would’ve been of Yukwon
and how disappointed they would’ve been of Yushin)
The ache is just another part of life by the fourth April.
Yushin’s accepted the sharp throbbing that never seems to leave his entire being, and he smiles and laughs now almost as easily as he had five years ago. He’s caught up with his friends, told them not to worry about how he’d seemed to vanish off the face of society a few years prior, jokes and teases his hoobaes, is going steady with a young woman who shifted from a regular at the restaurant to a regular in Yushin’s heart.
When the ninth arrives that year, Yushin spends the day working as he always does-nothing out of the ordinary-and he spends that night alone upstairs in Yukwon’s bedroom (previously locked for most of the past three years because Yushin hadn’t even been able to walk past the door without the pain choking him), going through all of the clothes that Yukwon had been forced to leave behind, the textbooks, the hats and shoes, the laptop, the cell phone and-Yushin smiles.
He unearths, easily, from beneath Yukwon’s mattress, in between the sheets and crevices of the bed’s frame, little metal boxes filled with lock picks and other miniscule, delicate tools-pieces of hardware, as well-that even Yushin, as technologically clumsy as he knows he is, can tell are probably not for the most righteous of purposes. He remembers the first time he’d ever suspected, back when Yukwon had been running his first jobs, most likely, back when Yukwon had only been in middle school.
Yushin remembers the initial panic, wondering if it was some sort of rebellion, something related to not having any parents-he’d lost nights upon nights of sleep wondering how to confront Yukwon, or if maybe Yushin was just imagining things. He remembers how he’d regretted all of those sleepless nights when he’d realized (as Yukwon, smiling brightly on Christmas day, had twirled the keys of a sports car that was decidedly not within either of their budgets) that his little brother was just too bright, too brilliant, too exciting for normal society.
(and maybe Yushin should’ve been a little bit worried, should’ve been concerned, should’ve signed Yukwon up for therapy or to a psychologist or something-but then again, Yushin has never been and will never be a parent to Yukwon-he’s Yukwon’s brother, and while a parent might be nothing short of horrified over their son being a thief, as an older brother, Yushin can’t help but admire it in that odd way only siblings could)
He wonders, twenty-one-years-old and Yushin has no idea what Yukwon could look like by now-doesn’t know how to project an appearance four years into the future, if Yukwon is still using lightning sharp wit and intelligence and fiery brilliance to cut people like Dongsun down to size.
Yushin spends the morning of the fifth April waiting at the airport. They’re a little late and he reads on the arrivals board that their flight’s been delayed because of weather issues. He squeezes through the crowd and manages to pin himself right against the railing by the time the gates finally do open and it’s among the first few people that they come striding out side-by-side, pitch black sunglasses over their eyes despite the nonexistent sun and done up in classic gray and blue suits despite the balmy spring weather.
The glasses are instantly pulled off from one of the faces as Yushin meets them around the railing and finds himself nearly knocked into a nearby luggage cart by the sheer force of an armful of younger brother slamming into his body. “You guys are late,” he says, as he steadies himself, laughing and meeting Minhyuk’s eyes around Yukwon’s head.
Minhyuk pulls his own glasses off and dimples at Yushin.
“Torrential downpour, hyung,” Yukwon says, drawing back and Yushin is still getting used to how his brother’s face is now all sharp angles and lines-adult and good-looking and older and different (because Yushin had only a few months to get used to the change before Minhyuk had arrived and whisked Yukwon away into a fairytale that Yushin had always wished for his brother to have-even if not in this exact way). “Plane got through all right though.”
“How’d the job go?” Yushin grins as they start heading towards the exit (Yukwon and Minhyuk were never one for baggage claim, as Yushin had learned, it’s more advantageous to travel extremely light).
“Surprisingly,” Minhyuk says, sounding amused as he meets Yukwon’s eyes for a moment, “without a hitch.”
“Thanks to me,” Yukwon shrugs, and he slings an arm around Yushin’s neck.
Yushin raises his eyebrows and Yukwon smiles brightly as Minhyuk snorts. “Tell me after cake?” he asks his brother.
“Cake?” Yukwon echoes excitedly, eyes vanishing.
“Whole banquet waiting for you at the restaurant, kid,” Yushin says, ruffling Yukwon’s hair and his younger brother holds onto him a little tighter right there in the middle of the airport. “Yoonhee baked the cake-I think she likes the idea of giving her boyfriend’s baby brother diabetes.”
Yukwon laughs suddenly, fading away just slightly to hold hands with Minhyuk (with one arm still around Yushin’s shoulders). “Hyung, I’m not your baby brother anymore.”
But Yushin just smiles faintly as they make their way into the drizzly Korean spring weather, as they walk through the parking lot towards Yushin’s car.
Author: himawarixxsandz
Rating: PG-13
Pairing(s): U-Bomb
Summary: Four birthdays without Yukwon
A/N: i took a nap today bc i was taking a break from writing college essays and i had a dream about yushin celebrating yukwon's birthdays during those four years when yukwon was with dongsun so yeah. dedicated to the_blackorder because i think im friends with too many kitty stans sOBS. also i obviously went with Korean ages here and they're Kitty's real life ages starting with april of 2009
The April after Yukwon leaves (has been taken, has been torn away, has been yanked cruelly right out of Yushin’s life) is the hardest-that first birthday is the hardest and Yushin barely remembers that day. He remembers how it had started out, waking up and realizing the date-looking at his calendar, at his phone, and being slammed in the face with the crushing realization of what today is.
He’s lucky, he thinks, that it happens on a Saturday because otherwise he’d have to deal with the repercussions of being unfit for work (and how can the owner of a restaurant be unfit to work?). As things stand, he’s lucky, and it’s a Saturday, and that’s all Yushin needs to close the restaurant for the day-to call his employees and tell them to take the day off-and head off to the bars.
The entire day passes in a hazy, drunken blur and Yushin knows that it’s not even noon yet by the time he’s utterly smashed-he doesn’t even remember how he found a bar that was open on a Saturday morning, but somehow he must have because there’s no other way for him to be limp and nearly lifeless over a bar table before it’s even lunchtime. He’s not sure how the rest of the day goes after that-there might’ve been a kindly woman who took him to the hospital and dropped him off there and the doctors might’ve kept him there for an hour or two to make sure he wasn’t going to give himself alcohol poisoning.
But somehow-somehow-he does end up back in his bed and its nighttime and its nearly midnight, the day is nearly over, and he drinks a little bit more from his own refrigerator above the restaurant (and maybe some from the restaurant’s actual stocks) as he watches the clock’s hands tick towards the day’s end.
(and he wishes he had gotten alcohol poisoning, wishes that he hadn’t been dropped off at the hospital, wishes he hadn’t been given some medicine and told to maybe de-stress quietly at home Kim Yushin-shii, wishes he’d been successful in his endeavors to drink himself to death because he deserves nothing less for being such a worthless, useless older brother that he couldn’t even protect his little brother and he doesn’t even want to imagine-except he can’t, he can’t help but imagine, he has nightmares over it, wakes up in the middle of the night screaming over what Hwang Dongsun might be doing to Yushin’s baby brother at that very moment)
Yushin wonders how Yukwon spent his first day as an eighteen-year-old.
It’s a little better the next year.
And by that, Yushin simply means that he didn’t wake up in the morning and head for the precipice of death by substance abuse, however mild it might’ve been. He gets up, showers, brushes his teeth, tries to flatten his hair, and actually heads down and runs the restaurant. Just the first few hours already exhausts him and his employees can all easily tell that there’s something wrong-and they try to hide that they suspect, but it’s obvious even to Yushin himself how they all are eyeing him warily, as if he might collapse at any moment.
He ends up calling it a day early, leaving the restaurant in the hands of one of the younger co-managers and tells her that she’s in charge of closing up and regulating shifts. He takes a few aspirins and head upstairs to pass out into what he hopes will be a deep and mercilessly dreamless sleep.
(it’s not-he has nightmares that range from Yukwon bleeding and naked to Yukwon blank and not-Yukwon to Yukwon being forced to be something to more than just Dongsun-maybe to Dongsun’s associates-and that’s the worst nightmare of them all and the images refuse to stop flooding Yushin’s mind and he tosses and turns but more and more possibilities just continue to come and what a useless, worthless, disgusting brother he is that he can’t even save Yukwon, what would their parents say had they still been alive-had they been able to see how their oldest son couldn’t even protect his brother-what would they say-)
Yukwon’s nineteen now and Yushin wonders if his little brother is maybe a few centimeters taller, if he’s lost the last of the baby fat that remained on his face, if he’s slimmed down-final vestiges of a teenager beginning to wane.
By the third April, Yushin is able to live again.
The ache is still there, ever-present, but the pain isn’t so intense that it cripples him-no longer renders him breathless, gasping for air, unable to function, unable to make it through an entire day. He’s with someone when the ninth rolls around this time-he’s let himself to stop mourning, has let himself to fall in love a little, and she’s let him to smile and laugh again. He goes on a date with her to a café just a few blocks from the restaurant that evening.
She knows about Yukwon, but only what Yushin’s allowed her to know-she’s under the impression, from the way Yushin talks about Yukwon, that Yushin’s little brother has run away from home (which, really, isn’t all too far away from the truth, given altered circumstances-twisted, horrible circumstances).
“He’ll come back,” she says firmly, with a small, warm hand over his on the table between them.
“Maybe,” is all he replies with, a sad smile playing on his mouth, because obviously Yukwon can’t come back even if he wants to (and maybe if Yushin was half the man Yukwon was, this wouldn’t have happened because Yukwon is so young and yet somehow saved Yushin while Yushin hadn’t been able to do a single, shitty anything for Yukwon).
And Yukwon is twenty today-an adult-and he’s not Yushin’s baby brother anymore, but Yushin just wishes that he’d been able to see the last few years of Yukwon’s childhood (wishes today could’ve been spent together with him-because he should’ve been the one to give Yukwon his first drink at his first bar and he would’ve drunkenly serenaded Yukwon and Yukwon would’ve laughed, equally drunk and for the first time on top of that, and Yushin should be telling Yukwon how proud their parents would’ve been of Yukwon
and how disappointed they would’ve been of Yushin)
The ache is just another part of life by the fourth April.
Yushin’s accepted the sharp throbbing that never seems to leave his entire being, and he smiles and laughs now almost as easily as he had five years ago. He’s caught up with his friends, told them not to worry about how he’d seemed to vanish off the face of society a few years prior, jokes and teases his hoobaes, is going steady with a young woman who shifted from a regular at the restaurant to a regular in Yushin’s heart.
When the ninth arrives that year, Yushin spends the day working as he always does-nothing out of the ordinary-and he spends that night alone upstairs in Yukwon’s bedroom (previously locked for most of the past three years because Yushin hadn’t even been able to walk past the door without the pain choking him), going through all of the clothes that Yukwon had been forced to leave behind, the textbooks, the hats and shoes, the laptop, the cell phone and-Yushin smiles.
He unearths, easily, from beneath Yukwon’s mattress, in between the sheets and crevices of the bed’s frame, little metal boxes filled with lock picks and other miniscule, delicate tools-pieces of hardware, as well-that even Yushin, as technologically clumsy as he knows he is, can tell are probably not for the most righteous of purposes. He remembers the first time he’d ever suspected, back when Yukwon had been running his first jobs, most likely, back when Yukwon had only been in middle school.
Yushin remembers the initial panic, wondering if it was some sort of rebellion, something related to not having any parents-he’d lost nights upon nights of sleep wondering how to confront Yukwon, or if maybe Yushin was just imagining things. He remembers how he’d regretted all of those sleepless nights when he’d realized (as Yukwon, smiling brightly on Christmas day, had twirled the keys of a sports car that was decidedly not within either of their budgets) that his little brother was just too bright, too brilliant, too exciting for normal society.
(and maybe Yushin should’ve been a little bit worried, should’ve been concerned, should’ve signed Yukwon up for therapy or to a psychologist or something-but then again, Yushin has never been and will never be a parent to Yukwon-he’s Yukwon’s brother, and while a parent might be nothing short of horrified over their son being a thief, as an older brother, Yushin can’t help but admire it in that odd way only siblings could)
He wonders, twenty-one-years-old and Yushin has no idea what Yukwon could look like by now-doesn’t know how to project an appearance four years into the future, if Yukwon is still using lightning sharp wit and intelligence and fiery brilliance to cut people like Dongsun down to size.
Yushin spends the morning of the fifth April waiting at the airport. They’re a little late and he reads on the arrivals board that their flight’s been delayed because of weather issues. He squeezes through the crowd and manages to pin himself right against the railing by the time the gates finally do open and it’s among the first few people that they come striding out side-by-side, pitch black sunglasses over their eyes despite the nonexistent sun and done up in classic gray and blue suits despite the balmy spring weather.
The glasses are instantly pulled off from one of the faces as Yushin meets them around the railing and finds himself nearly knocked into a nearby luggage cart by the sheer force of an armful of younger brother slamming into his body. “You guys are late,” he says, as he steadies himself, laughing and meeting Minhyuk’s eyes around Yukwon’s head.
Minhyuk pulls his own glasses off and dimples at Yushin.
“Torrential downpour, hyung,” Yukwon says, drawing back and Yushin is still getting used to how his brother’s face is now all sharp angles and lines-adult and good-looking and older and different (because Yushin had only a few months to get used to the change before Minhyuk had arrived and whisked Yukwon away into a fairytale that Yushin had always wished for his brother to have-even if not in this exact way). “Plane got through all right though.”
“How’d the job go?” Yushin grins as they start heading towards the exit (Yukwon and Minhyuk were never one for baggage claim, as Yushin had learned, it’s more advantageous to travel extremely light).
“Surprisingly,” Minhyuk says, sounding amused as he meets Yukwon’s eyes for a moment, “without a hitch.”
“Thanks to me,” Yukwon shrugs, and he slings an arm around Yushin’s neck.
Yushin raises his eyebrows and Yukwon smiles brightly as Minhyuk snorts. “Tell me after cake?” he asks his brother.
“Cake?” Yukwon echoes excitedly, eyes vanishing.
“Whole banquet waiting for you at the restaurant, kid,” Yushin says, ruffling Yukwon’s hair and his younger brother holds onto him a little tighter right there in the middle of the airport. “Yoonhee baked the cake-I think she likes the idea of giving her boyfriend’s baby brother diabetes.”
Yukwon laughs suddenly, fading away just slightly to hold hands with Minhyuk (with one arm still around Yushin’s shoulders). “Hyung, I’m not your baby brother anymore.”
But Yushin just smiles faintly as they make their way into the drizzly Korean spring weather, as they walk through the parking lot towards Yushin’s car.