『24』sailor moon → sardinia
Five Steps To Coming Together
Super Junior, Hankyung/Heechul
one
It’s not like Heechul doesn’t see it coming.
Hankyung and Siwon are holed up in corners all day long, whispering excitedly about something, and Siwon’s singing in bad Chinese in the shower every morning-Heechul knows something’s up. Their manager won’t even look at him when he tries to ask about it, sly, sneaky, and Hankyung just waves his hand in the air and babbles in bad Korean when Heechul prods him about it.
Heechul loves secrets and inside jokes and keeping others out, unless he’s the only one not in on the joke.
Heechul knows something’s wrong, something’s up-so it’s not really that big of a surprise that Donghae excitedly tells him one day when they’re brushing their teeth. Donghae’s mouth is stained blue and green with toothpaste and he smiles the biggest smile Heechul’s ever seen at this unforgivable time in the morning and says, very softy, “Hyung, hyung, we’re going to China.”
Heechul’s hand freezes and he stops brushing his teeth. There’s something bubbling over in his chest, something that had tightened every time Hankyung waved away his questions and every time Siwon had just shrugged when Heechul asked him about it. “Oh,” he says, voice garbled.
“I’m so excited!” Donghae exclaims.
“Fuck off,” Heechul grumbles and spits into the sink.
two
“China?” Heechul snaps when it’s him and Hankyung, sitting in their dorm room, Hankyung already curled underneath the covers and head on the pillow. “You’re going to fucking China?”
Hankyung is quiet for a very long time and Heechul is ready to throw his alarm clock and his lamp and pull the blankets off of Hankyung and just demand an explanation, any explanation, because China’s pretty fucking far, and Heechul hasn’t gotten any word that he’ll be allowed to go too.
“Yeah, hyung,” Hankyung says, finally, saying like it’s a secret, “I’m going home.”
Heechul throws his alarm clock at the wall and slams the bedroom door on the way out. Kibum doesn’t want to share his bed and he kicks and whines and throws a hissy fit, but he shifts to make room for Heechul anyway.
“What’s wrong?” he asks later, once they’ve arranged themselves somewhat comfortably on top of the covers, Heechul laying halfway across Kibum’s chest, Kibum’s legs splayed awkwardly beneath them.
“Hankyung’s going home,” Heechul snaps.
Kibum taps out light melodies onto the bumps of Heechul’s spine and murmurs, “I heard Donghae’s going, too.”
three.
Heechul has a plan.
1. Go to the rehearsal room.
2. Talk to Hankyung.
3. Tell him that moving back to China is stupid, because he worked so hard to come to Korea, and really, wouldn’t it just be stupid and retarded to backtrack like that? Besides, Korea has Kim motherfucking Heechul. China just has Siwon and Donghae, apparently, and none of them are going to put out.
4. Go back home and celebrate Hankyung staying by fucking on Kibum’s bed.
It’s a brilliant plan.
Even Yunho approved. Then again, with a little prodding and whining, Yunho approves of almost everything.
He gets to stage 2 and talks to Hankyung about China, and Hankyung replies, with a smile on his face that Heechul can’t decide is happy or sad or just a mixture of both, “I’ll finally be able to see my parents again.”
Heechul opens his mouth to tell Hankyung that really, he should stay in Korea, but what comes out is, “They’ll be proud of you, asshole.”
Fuck.
Mission: Failed.
Kim Heechul: Failure.
Hankyung beams at him and curls warm fingers around Heechul’s wrist in thanks and in silent apology. Heechul wishes he had the heart to rip his wrist away and stomp off. “Wanna see our dance for the China debut?” Hankyung asks, and Heechul’s throat aches.
“No,” he says, but his feet can’t move, and Hankyung takes it as a yes anyway. Maybe it secretly is.
four.
It’s only later when they’re curled up in bed, Heechul with his eyes closed and Hankyung with his mouth open, talking about how great China’s going to be, and about how excited Siwon is to learn a new language and how Joomyuk really is terribly happy to be going back home, too.
Heechul goes hmm in the back of his throat, which he thinks Hankyung should take pretty much as a hint. Kim Heechul doesn’t go hmm. That is fucking Choi Siwon right there, and if Hankyung doesn’t see that Heechul is being horrifically out of character, then maybe he does deserve to be shipped back to China.
Hankyung just continues talking, babbling in bad Korean that hasn’t gotten any better, and Heechul grits his teeth.
That’s it. Time to pull out the back-up plane.
Operation Fuck This Shit, His Ass Is Mine, Not China’s.
“You don’t have to go,” Heechul says suddenly, and the words hang uncomfortably in the room, visible and tangible things that crawl across Heechul’s skin.
“You have a home here, and you can go back to visit your parents when the real Super Junior’s on break because we’re almost always on break anyway. You don’t have to go back to China. You left China to be a fucking Korean star, remember?”
Hankyung closes his eyes and sighs, wraps cold fingers around Heechul’s wrist. “You know that I have to go, right?” he asks in Chinese, and Heechul hates that he understands the language and the reasons and that Hankyung is bound by his contract and by their manager and by Lee Soo Man to go where they tell him to go.
“Yeah,” Heechul says, and bites back the insults and the bitterness until they feel like they’re overflowing in his mouth.
“You can come visit me,” Hankyung whispers.
“Fuck off, there are like, no clean bathrooms in China,” Heechul snaps and flutters his fingers down Hankyung’s chest to let him know that he’s not okay with it, he probably never will be, but he’s trying to be, bitchy Cinderella aside.
Hankyung smiles and even though it’s dark, Heechul sees it anyway.
“You’re like love letters,” Hankyung says.
“The fuck does that mean?” Heechul asks from where he’s sitting on the floor, taking things out of Hankyung’s suitcase because he’s packed some pretty ugly stuff and some pretty good looking stuff, and Heechul’s decided that if Hankyung’s going to China, he’s just going to wear all that ugly shit that he bought all on his own. In Korea, Heechul can dress him up, but in China, fuck that. He’s on his own.
“You can’t stop looking at them, or reading them, because they’re always there. You can’t unwrite them,” Hankyung continues, and then he shrugs when Heechul throws a shirt at him and tells him that he better not become a writer, because Heechul’s the damn writer in this band, damn it. “I don’t know,” Hankyung says, “You’re just like lover letters.”
Heechul snaps, “I still don’t know what the fuck that means.”
Hankyung rolls his eyes, “Forget it, asshole.”
“Explain it to me!” Heechul says, reaching out to pull Hankyung down with him, sending them both sprawling onto the floor, an awkward mess of tangled limbs and legs, “What the fuck does that mean?”
“I can’t explain it,” Hankyung says.
“Then why the hell did you say it?” Heechul asks, and then waves a hand nonchalantly in the air. “Forget it. Write it to me in a letter. Tell me what you mean. I know you can’t even properly formulate a sentence when you’re around me.”
Heechul reaches out then, and traces Chinese characters onto Hankyung’s face. He’s better at Chinese than Siwon is, he thinks bitterly, and is about to complete the character when Hankyung stops his hand in the middle of Love’s last stroke.
Heechul has never said I love you before, not when he really means it, he realizes.
“Heechul, why-”
Heechul shrugs. “I don’t know, I’m like love letters,” he teases.
Hankyung laughs until there’s tears in his eyes. “That doesn’t make any sense,” he says in Chinese.
Heechul looks at Hankyung and just replies, very softly, “It makes sense to us.”
Super Junior, Hankyung/Heechul
one
It’s not like Heechul doesn’t see it coming.
Hankyung and Siwon are holed up in corners all day long, whispering excitedly about something, and Siwon’s singing in bad Chinese in the shower every morning-Heechul knows something’s up. Their manager won’t even look at him when he tries to ask about it, sly, sneaky, and Hankyung just waves his hand in the air and babbles in bad Korean when Heechul prods him about it.
Heechul loves secrets and inside jokes and keeping others out, unless he’s the only one not in on the joke.
Heechul knows something’s wrong, something’s up-so it’s not really that big of a surprise that Donghae excitedly tells him one day when they’re brushing their teeth. Donghae’s mouth is stained blue and green with toothpaste and he smiles the biggest smile Heechul’s ever seen at this unforgivable time in the morning and says, very softy, “Hyung, hyung, we’re going to China.”
Heechul’s hand freezes and he stops brushing his teeth. There’s something bubbling over in his chest, something that had tightened every time Hankyung waved away his questions and every time Siwon had just shrugged when Heechul asked him about it. “Oh,” he says, voice garbled.
“I’m so excited!” Donghae exclaims.
“Fuck off,” Heechul grumbles and spits into the sink.
two
“China?” Heechul snaps when it’s him and Hankyung, sitting in their dorm room, Hankyung already curled underneath the covers and head on the pillow. “You’re going to fucking China?”
Hankyung is quiet for a very long time and Heechul is ready to throw his alarm clock and his lamp and pull the blankets off of Hankyung and just demand an explanation, any explanation, because China’s pretty fucking far, and Heechul hasn’t gotten any word that he’ll be allowed to go too.
“Yeah, hyung,” Hankyung says, finally, saying like it’s a secret, “I’m going home.”
Heechul throws his alarm clock at the wall and slams the bedroom door on the way out. Kibum doesn’t want to share his bed and he kicks and whines and throws a hissy fit, but he shifts to make room for Heechul anyway.
“What’s wrong?” he asks later, once they’ve arranged themselves somewhat comfortably on top of the covers, Heechul laying halfway across Kibum’s chest, Kibum’s legs splayed awkwardly beneath them.
“Hankyung’s going home,” Heechul snaps.
Kibum taps out light melodies onto the bumps of Heechul’s spine and murmurs, “I heard Donghae’s going, too.”
three.
Heechul has a plan.
1. Go to the rehearsal room.
2. Talk to Hankyung.
3. Tell him that moving back to China is stupid, because he worked so hard to come to Korea, and really, wouldn’t it just be stupid and retarded to backtrack like that? Besides, Korea has Kim motherfucking Heechul. China just has Siwon and Donghae, apparently, and none of them are going to put out.
4. Go back home and celebrate Hankyung staying by fucking on Kibum’s bed.
It’s a brilliant plan.
Even Yunho approved. Then again, with a little prodding and whining, Yunho approves of almost everything.
He gets to stage 2 and talks to Hankyung about China, and Hankyung replies, with a smile on his face that Heechul can’t decide is happy or sad or just a mixture of both, “I’ll finally be able to see my parents again.”
Heechul opens his mouth to tell Hankyung that really, he should stay in Korea, but what comes out is, “They’ll be proud of you, asshole.”
Fuck.
Mission: Failed.
Kim Heechul: Failure.
Hankyung beams at him and curls warm fingers around Heechul’s wrist in thanks and in silent apology. Heechul wishes he had the heart to rip his wrist away and stomp off. “Wanna see our dance for the China debut?” Hankyung asks, and Heechul’s throat aches.
“No,” he says, but his feet can’t move, and Hankyung takes it as a yes anyway. Maybe it secretly is.
four.
It’s only later when they’re curled up in bed, Heechul with his eyes closed and Hankyung with his mouth open, talking about how great China’s going to be, and about how excited Siwon is to learn a new language and how Joomyuk really is terribly happy to be going back home, too.
Heechul goes hmm in the back of his throat, which he thinks Hankyung should take pretty much as a hint. Kim Heechul doesn’t go hmm. That is fucking Choi Siwon right there, and if Hankyung doesn’t see that Heechul is being horrifically out of character, then maybe he does deserve to be shipped back to China.
Hankyung just continues talking, babbling in bad Korean that hasn’t gotten any better, and Heechul grits his teeth.
That’s it. Time to pull out the back-up plane.
Operation Fuck This Shit, His Ass Is Mine, Not China’s.
“You don’t have to go,” Heechul says suddenly, and the words hang uncomfortably in the room, visible and tangible things that crawl across Heechul’s skin.
“You have a home here, and you can go back to visit your parents when the real Super Junior’s on break because we’re almost always on break anyway. You don’t have to go back to China. You left China to be a fucking Korean star, remember?”
Hankyung closes his eyes and sighs, wraps cold fingers around Heechul’s wrist. “You know that I have to go, right?” he asks in Chinese, and Heechul hates that he understands the language and the reasons and that Hankyung is bound by his contract and by their manager and by Lee Soo Man to go where they tell him to go.
“Yeah,” Heechul says, and bites back the insults and the bitterness until they feel like they’re overflowing in his mouth.
“You can come visit me,” Hankyung whispers.
“Fuck off, there are like, no clean bathrooms in China,” Heechul snaps and flutters his fingers down Hankyung’s chest to let him know that he’s not okay with it, he probably never will be, but he’s trying to be, bitchy Cinderella aside.
Hankyung smiles and even though it’s dark, Heechul sees it anyway.
“You’re like love letters,” Hankyung says.
“The fuck does that mean?” Heechul asks from where he’s sitting on the floor, taking things out of Hankyung’s suitcase because he’s packed some pretty ugly stuff and some pretty good looking stuff, and Heechul’s decided that if Hankyung’s going to China, he’s just going to wear all that ugly shit that he bought all on his own. In Korea, Heechul can dress him up, but in China, fuck that. He’s on his own.
“You can’t stop looking at them, or reading them, because they’re always there. You can’t unwrite them,” Hankyung continues, and then he shrugs when Heechul throws a shirt at him and tells him that he better not become a writer, because Heechul’s the damn writer in this band, damn it. “I don’t know,” Hankyung says, “You’re just like lover letters.”
Heechul snaps, “I still don’t know what the fuck that means.”
Hankyung rolls his eyes, “Forget it, asshole.”
“Explain it to me!” Heechul says, reaching out to pull Hankyung down with him, sending them both sprawling onto the floor, an awkward mess of tangled limbs and legs, “What the fuck does that mean?”
“I can’t explain it,” Hankyung says.
“Then why the hell did you say it?” Heechul asks, and then waves a hand nonchalantly in the air. “Forget it. Write it to me in a letter. Tell me what you mean. I know you can’t even properly formulate a sentence when you’re around me.”
Heechul reaches out then, and traces Chinese characters onto Hankyung’s face. He’s better at Chinese than Siwon is, he thinks bitterly, and is about to complete the character when Hankyung stops his hand in the middle of Love’s last stroke.
Heechul has never said I love you before, not when he really means it, he realizes.
“Heechul, why-”
Heechul shrugs. “I don’t know, I’m like love letters,” he teases.
Hankyung laughs until there’s tears in his eyes. “That doesn’t make any sense,” he says in Chinese.
Heechul looks at Hankyung and just replies, very softly, “It makes sense to us.”