Title: Insubstantial
Author: Ink_River10
Pairing: Broken!HanChul
Rating: PG
Warning: Angst
Genre: One shot
Disclaimer: I don't own them. If I did, you'd know it.
Summary: Heechul gets drunk and it all comes crashing down
Author's Note: So I'm sorry for the angst, but I had the most rotten day at work and I am feeling wibbly and upset. So this came out of that. It's sad, so skip it if you don't want to read something angsty!
Insubstantial
Kim Heechul sat on the couch on the 12th floor dorm, his eyes fixed on the television and his hand firmly gripping a bottle of soju. It was somewhere around four a.m., and he was the only one still awake. The lights on the screen flickered over his face like a strange disco ball, but he didn’t care. His eyes burned and his body was exhausted, but he couldn’t sleep.
Instead, he watched the screen as his bandmates jumped around on the stage, laughing and singing or dancing. He watched Shindong laughing and Donghae blushing as Hyukjae slid up behind him, his arm snaking around Donghae’s stomach as they sang.
Heechul looked away from the screen, not wanting to see what came next. Fanservice. Hyukjae and Donghae had learned everything they knew about fanservice from him and…
Don't.
He heard his own voice and looked back at the screen. His face remained blank as he watched himself, holding the microphone and singing on stage with everyone else. He barely recognized himself. He had sung this song a thousand times, done the accompanying dance so often he could do it in his sleep.
But the man on the screen wasn’t Kim Heechul.
No, not the real Kim Heechul.
Something deep inside his stomach twisted violently and he grabbed the remote, slamming his finger down on the pause button. The video paused, his own face frozen, looking back at him.
Empty.
“Kim Heechul is dead.” He said hollowly, his voice reaching no one’s ears.
The frozen ocean of blue behind him on the screen mocked him. His own face mocked him. He knew that no matter how often he watched the videos of Super Show 3, that he would never see the one thing he wanted to see so badly. The one thing that no matter how often his mind screamed that he wouldn’t see it, his heart looked anyway.
Hankyung.
He lifted the bottle of soju and drank it down, all the way to the bottom, until the air inside it nearly choked him. He wanted to throw it against the television and shatter it, break the frozen image of his frozen self on screen so he wouldn’t have to be that person anymore.
But it was four a.m., and he knew that the sound of breaking glass would bring everyone running, and he didn’t want to face them right now. He couldn’t stand the looks on their faces - the understanding and the pity.
It’s okay, hyung. We let you break things, because we know you’re broken.
The soju warmed it’s way through his veins, making him sleepy and weak. His throat closed up as the alcohol brought to the surface everything that he’d been swallowing for over a year. He stared uselessly at his own image on the screen, hating it and hating himself and hating that he was left behind to carry on this charade. He hated the moisture collecting at the corners of his eyes, burning down his cheeks.
You’re pathetic.
There was a time that he had been alive. Truly alive, and everything he did was fueled by the spark that was Hankyung. He had been so naïve then, to open up his chest and freely hand over his heart like that. But he trusted him.
He had trusted him not to break it.
He’d been so stupidly, ridiculously, hopelessly in love. He’d been happy.
But then Hankyung had left, and took the spark with him, and the life had gone out of Kim Heechul. He had become transparent. Insubstantial. The man that existed now was a pale echo of what he had been.
He had been able to keep going until now. He’d shut it all away and put himself on autopilot, moving around like a machine, doing what they asked of him even though he was empty. Going going going until some nights he’d simply collapse with exhaustion just so he didn’t have to listen to the voices in his own head anymore.
But the ache of it had grown and grown until it was eating him alive. Now it seemed like it had reached a pinnacle, and the loss of Hankyung was boiling over and he was helpless to stop it. The loneliness and the hurt and the sheer unfairness of it all burned and clawed at him until there was nothing left but a hollow shell of a man.
“Kim Heechul is dead.” He whispered. His finger pressed the remote once more and the screen went blank, leaving behind a tiny spark that glowed brightly before blinking out, leaving him alone in the dark once more.
.