Mistakes Never Made {Heechul/Victoria}
Focus: Victoria, Heechul/Victoria, other Vicky pairings (sort of)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Victoria doesn't love him, he's almost positive.
Word count: 3037
A/N: so I decided to do some f(suju) drabbling, but the second one I wrote (this one) ended up being much longer than I had expected it to, and I kept wanting to build on it, so it became this. Oh, and the random pairing generator which I love and adore gave me: Victoria | Heechul ⇒ nightclubs. Usually I can characterize Heechul better than this, Idk what's wrong with me.
Mistakes Never Made
He asked her to come along under the pretense of having fun.
Just her, just him, to have fun. And they've had fun in other places, too. Her dorm with the girls, his dorm with the guys, out to dinner with Sulli and Hankyung, sometimes others, too. Backstage with their respective groups, messing around. Once, he got hairspray in his eye, and she let him squeeze her hand when the sting really bothered him.
Those were all innocent kinds of fun, because Victoria would only drink so much in front of her dongsaeng and her favorite gege. Heechul hopes for a new kind of fun, something smiling behind his smug face as he watches her drink now, a smile that no one knew could exist. Not even Hankyung.
The lighting is low enough with random flashes of color and loud music, he slips an arm around her shoulders because she must be a little drunk by now and she doesn't seem to mind at all. Heechul only had a few sips of his own drink, and he's almost waiting for her to call him out for it. In that case, he would probably ask her why she agreed to come clubbing with him when she has Nichkhun.
Or at least, it always seems like she 'has' Nichkhun. He could be mistaken. The camera lies.
Victoria has really soft hair. One fourth of her is itching to dance again, and he can tell, but then there's one fourth of Heechul that doesn't want her to leave his side. His arm moves from her shoulders to her waist and suddenly, she's leaning against him. She's warm. So warm.
He can feel her smiling into his shoulder, he can feel her eyelashes against his neck now. Her eyes are closed, he feels. But now she's laughing, too, and he feels like laughing with her. Part of Heechul is worried about bringing her back to her dorm later tonight, probably sometime around 3am, and how drunk she might be. Or how passed out she might be, a body in his arms or on his back. Testing his strength. He checks his own breath and tries to focus his eyes on her shoes, then recalling to himself how he barely drank at all.
"Dance?" she asks.
Heechul feels her hand crawling up his side, tumbling upwards until she's tangled her fingers in his hair. Either Hankyung never taught him this weird Chinese dance, or she could just be too disoriented to realize that her current actions would not constitute dancing. At least, nothing near anything of the wholesome variety.
Her other hand starts sliding around to his back, until her body is flush against him.
"Victoria-" he puts one of his hands against her cheek. Her face is hot, a soft heater against his palm. Before he can do anything, she's gone from a sleepy-looking drunk to a hyper one, taking both his hands and dragging him along onto the dance floor.
The kind of dancing around here looks more like waving your arms around and flailing, and a couple body waves or smooth movements by the few who might actually know what they're doing. That few includes Victoria, and he starts by standing still, standing awkwardly even though her hands are around his neck, and her pretty mouth is open whilst she moves her hips. His hands hover, a centimeter in the air surrounding her waist.
Maybe he isn't drunk enough, because wasn't there a time where he'd be the one to pull someone else out to dance with him? Wasn't there a time where he'd pull Siwon or Hankyung against his will-only slightly-into enduring this feeling he's going through right now? He wants to touch her, but thinks of the cameras Victoria had recently been under, with Nichkhun at her side.
And then he thinks about the way she laughs when they talk about Hankyung. Something burns in his throat. And then he doesn't think at all because Victoria's lips are on his face. Horrible aim.
The sound of him dropping the pan is probably what wakes her. She's not completely sure, but her hair is completely flat on one side, pressed against her scalp when she sits up and rubs her forehead. A headache is brewing just behind her skin. Victoria lifts herself carefully and hears a kettle whistling-more like screaming-and a round of chuckles when someone swears loudly.
He sounds familiar, but she can't be sure. The haze of a hangover is blocking her memory. Even when she's been hearing him laugh since her trainee days, probably. It sounds that familiar, but not the familiar she's actually yearning to hear.
It takes her this long to comprehend the rain splattering against the window like little vendettas. She just wants to sleep into next week, she doesn't feel right.
And why is Siwon standing in the doorway?
Victoria makes a move to cover herself with the blanket that's twisted around her leg, but fails, then looking down and realizing she's dressed perfectly fine. Only she's not in the same jeans and blouse she wore last night. She's dressed in dark green sweatpants tied at its tightest to ensure it could fit her small frame, and a loose t-shirt. White.
She doesn't hold back giving her best confused and slightly appalled look to Siwon, despite the headache that just makes her want to shut her eyes and pretend she's somewhere else.
"Don't look at me, I didn't do anything," he says, raising his hands and hoping to come off as defensively as possible. "Ask the guy who's failing at making breakfast."
Her eyes say what? but her mouth says nothing. Her brain says something, too, but she can't decipher it, it's all in rapid Korean and since when did she know how to think in Korean that quickly?
"I just came in for my watch," says Siwon, collecting something off the nightstand. The watch, probably. "Are you hungry?"
Victoria thinks about nodding, but remembers the state of her head and says, "Yeah."
"Can you tell me what day it is?"
"Huh?"
"Just kidding," he says, sort of laughing as he says it. "Come on, maybe if you try to help, Heechul won't burn everything."
Victoria lets Siwon help her out of the bed, his hand gentlemanly and comforting against her hip, the other one taking her own hand, more fragile in its form. She thinks about his hand, tense in strength against her forearm-but that was long ago, and it had only been for the sake of the video. Look intense, look scared, look like you want her. Three different people, three different expressions and feelings back then. One of those people isn't here to complete the picture.
A lot of things have only been for the camera. Barely anything she really cared about in that way, though. She wants to sigh, but opts not to. Not in front of Siwon. She feels like talking about Hankyung, the want popping out of the blue.
Heechul is pouting over the stove, a sheen of sweat from being busy in the kitchen forming on his forehead. Victoria gets a twisting sensation in her stomach, but not the kind where Siwon would need to hold her hair back for her. Heechul looks out of place, and she wants to hug him.
"Usually Hankyung would be doing this," he complains when he sees Siwon. Victoria is pretty sure he sees Siwon first, anyway. And she's dressed in what she assumes are also Siwon's clothes. Camouflaged perfectly, or not.
"Obviously you are, though," Siwon counters putting Victoria in a chair. He leans over her, and all she sees is his face. "Coffee?"
"Oh, yes, please."
"Anything in your schedule today?"
Victoria decides it's okay to shake her head this time. Siwon is turning to face the coffee maker, but he's still listening to her. "I knew it'd be okay to go out late last night since today's my day off. I don't get a lot of those."
"None of us do," Heechul whines, flipping a pancake. Perfectly. Victoria almost claps for him.
"Just for the record, I offered to make breakfast," Siwon says, to Heechul, she presumes.
"Just for the record, I turned your offer down."
Victoria laughs. So this must be Siwon's place. She recalls Hankyung telling her once that Siwon doesn't live in the dorms with the others. The name Shiyuan passes through her mind, and she bites her lips, her headache getting worse. She leans her forehead against her arms, folded against the table.
A large, warm palm is on her back then, rubbing circles. Siwon. Heechul's hands are a different shape, and she kicks herself for being able to tell the difference so easily.
She isn't one of those kinds of girls.
"I've got some Advil."
Rummaging around in the cupboards, that's what she hears. And then the sound of a bottle hitting the tabletop. Then a plate, and she can smell maple syrup invading her nose. Sweet. Siwon hands her a glass of water when she sits up and takes two pills out of the bottle for herself.
"Why are you guys…being so nice to me?"
Heechul clacks through the cupboards for a glass, loudly, as if waiting for Siwon to give her an answer. As if he's trying to break something, even.
"Why shouldn't we be?" he asks, and it's the perfect answer in a way. Victoria smiles and winces when the sun peeks through the window and catches her in the eye. Flames behind her skull, and she gulps down the Advil she was given, setting the glass down again in preference from some coffee. Heechul drinks from the same glass seconds later, same side.
Five minutes later, Siwon is turning on his radio and Heechul suddenly kisses Victoria on the forehead. He leaves a noticeable ring of syrup. He smiles through breakfast, telling her that she's going with him to his activities, maybe even his radio show.
"What about the girls?" she asks, the first thing on her mind. They don't call her Umma just because she keeps them fed, although that does take up at least half of the title. Growing girls. She's constantly reminded of how much younger they are than her.
"Taken care of," Heechul says when Siwon sits down again, eying the mark on her face that Heechul gave, clearer than lipstick but still obvious to anyone sitting close enough. Across the table. "I called Sulli."
"Tell me about your old boyfriends?"
Victoria fumbles with her hair, just washed and currently drying in recycled car air. She's in one of Siwon's old sweatshirts, too small for him and almost right for her. It's grey, there's a sports logo to the left side of her chest. "I didn't have many," she says. "It was hard to keep a relationship, too busy with the Academy."
"Academy?" he raises an eyebrow.
"Beijing Dance Ac-"
"Oh right. You know Hankyung went there, too."
She nods, but he doesn't see, he's looking outside the taxi window. "Yeah. We talked about it."
"Did you know him when you were there?" Heechul asks.
"Not that I can remember."
Heechul faces her again, eyes neither showing if he was pleased nor displeased. It's hard to tell right now. Most of the time, it is hard to tell what he's thinking. Victoria, on the other hand, worries that she might be an open book. Could Heechul read through her pupils that she might have seen him a few times, caught somewhere in her memory and what she would have liked to have been real? She doesn't remember anymore if her path and Hankyung's past had actually crossed back then. Too long ago, perhaps.
"So anyway. Boyfriends."
Victoria rubs at her forehead with the back of her hand like it's still sticky from syrup and Heechul's mouth. "Um. What do you want to know?"
"Names."
Like a blacklist? "…Why?"
"Curious, of course," he crosses one leg over the other, but it's hard to do that in this cramped space.
"I don't know if I-"
"Fine, never mind," he sighs, leaning his elbow against the window, but not rolling it down. Victoria guesses that he doesn't want to ruin his hair. He did spend a good chunk of their time in front of the mirror before they left Siwon's place. Siwon took a different cab, to head over to the dorms.
Victoria picks at her nails. "Well, there was, um…Kibum-ssi gave me a bracelet. In my trainee days."
Heechul's head snaps towards her again. "What?" he bites the word out. "Oh god, really?"
She nods. "It wasn't much. He kind of…liked me, I guess?"
"Oh," Heechul examines her. "You two would not make a good match. You're with Nichkhun for a reason." What he says is completely different from what he wants, or means. Heechul thinks, for once, that he needs a filter.
"I never wore the bracelet, except for during some rehearsals. Never on stage. Or on camera. We stopped talking."
"Kibum's stopped talking to most of us," Heechul laughs, but then stops laughing. "Not true. We still talk."
Victoria enters polite mode and smiles, not showing her teeth, though. Her hands fold together in her lap. Heechul wants to unfold them, and put them with his, or someone to suit her. Not Nichkhun. No. Yes. Heechul doesn't know.
"Don't let him break you."
"What?"
"Nichkhun," Heechul glances sideways at her, one hand on his knee and one hand beside his lap. There's this semi-uncontrollable desire in him to touch her. Just her arm, that's enough for him. It's kind of sick to him, in a vague way. "Don't let him break you. You or your heart."
"I'm fine."
"I didn't ask if you're fine. God, Victoria, you need a better man," Heechul shakes his head.
"He's not my boyfriend."
"On TV," Heechul draws a square with his fingers, "he is. To the fans," he points out her window; there's no one there but pedestrians, minding there own business. Heechul pretends his point is made anyway. "He is. Sort of. At least, to the f(x) fans that aren't the 2pm fans that want to kill you for being near the guy."
"But he's not," she pushes for the truth, not thinking about that last part. He sees in in her face, so he drops it. Normally he wouldn't drop it. Why is he dropping it, again? Oh yeah, because, well, he actually doesn't know at all.
Heechul thinks. "We should go somewhere tonight. After I'm all done."
"Where?"
He hesitates, wants to say 'clubbing, this time we'll bring someone else along' and he would've added Hankyung to that thought, but there's a sea in the way, and legal things. And then emotional things that Heechul could always see in Victoria that he's not so sure he wants to see at all. Still, he does. Even now, he kind of does. "Dinner."
"I haven't fed the girls since before I left last night," she complains.
Is that what her life has come to? Feeding those bandmates who are pretty much her daughters? He doesn't ask anything out loud. "Fine."
It's quiet when Victoria finally comes home. Heechul follows behind, and he's not sure why he's here. He uses the excuse of wanting to see Sulli and doesn't tell Victoria that he saw said teenager two days ago.
Victoria has this ridiculous laugh when she's embarrassed, or nervous. Pretty much every tooth would be in sight. But she isn't laughing right now, he just thinks of it. He remembers seeing her laugh like that on Star King with Mr. Whatever-Country she'd danced with. Heechul smiles at the thought. She'd laughed like that around Hankyung once.
"Looks like she's asleep. Krystal, too," Victoria comes out of what Heechul assumes is Krystal's room. She heads for the living room. "Amber and Luna must've fallen asleep in front of the TV," she sighs. Underneath her pouting face, Heechul knows she's wondering if it's still worth making dinner. She's wondering, probably, if Luna took care of it.
Part of him is eager to apologize. Sorry I got you home so late, but the rest of him clamps an invisible hand over his mouth. He's not built for apologies like that.
"I guess you should probably go back to your dorm," she says.
"I should."
He doesn't want to leave, though. He looks at her and thinks that he doesn't usually do things for girls like take them to a friend's place to sleep well, or change her clothes for her while she's half asleep and all drunk and mouthing at his collarbone-he doesn't think he should tell her about this, she doesn't seem to remember, perhaps that's for the best-or cook breakfast for her, or take her around all day.
Victoria is special. She is a foreigner, she is like him. Him not meaning Heechul. When Heechul sees her, maybe what he sees is an opportunity, one that won't slip out of sight like a ghost. Maybe. He's not sure.
She's gazing at him, expectantly, as she stands by the open door. But it isn't really an expectant look, the meaning is more of a worried one, her eyes get a little bit rounder when this happens. When did he start memorizing her face?
He thinks of when she smiles, really smiles, not the ones she does to say You're annoying, but we're on TV, so I can't say anything. A real one. He thinks of that and suddenly he doesn't see her anymore. That's when things clear up and thoughts arrange themselves where they belong, on the right shelves in his mind. Now would be a better time to apologize to her, he thinks about it and thinks hard enough for his thoughts to show up on his face.
The look on her own face is hard to describe, now that he's standing in front of her, the two of them casting their shadows in the dorm, tall and close to each other. The image of her kissing him last night, her bad aim, comes into the front of his mind. Heechul has better aim.
I'm sorry. I shouldn't have.
Victoria receives the text message at 5:13am. She has no idea why until 5:56am when she finally falls asleep again, eyes wetting her pillow.
//…
I've been really :| and :) but then ;__; lately, so I guess this helped me write it out in a way. Now I must go plug away at my femmebigbang fic before I leave Saturday. Was I too subtle in this or too obvious? Heh ^_^"
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Victoria doesn't love him, he's almost positive.
Word count: 3037
A/N: so I decided to do some f(suju) drabbling, but the second one I wrote (this one) ended up being much longer than I had expected it to, and I kept wanting to build on it, so it became this. Oh, and the random pairing generator which I love and adore gave me: Victoria | Heechul ⇒ nightclubs. Usually I can characterize Heechul better than this, Idk what's wrong with me.
Mistakes Never Made
He asked her to come along under the pretense of having fun.
Just her, just him, to have fun. And they've had fun in other places, too. Her dorm with the girls, his dorm with the guys, out to dinner with Sulli and Hankyung, sometimes others, too. Backstage with their respective groups, messing around. Once, he got hairspray in his eye, and she let him squeeze her hand when the sting really bothered him.
Those were all innocent kinds of fun, because Victoria would only drink so much in front of her dongsaeng and her favorite gege. Heechul hopes for a new kind of fun, something smiling behind his smug face as he watches her drink now, a smile that no one knew could exist. Not even Hankyung.
The lighting is low enough with random flashes of color and loud music, he slips an arm around her shoulders because she must be a little drunk by now and she doesn't seem to mind at all. Heechul only had a few sips of his own drink, and he's almost waiting for her to call him out for it. In that case, he would probably ask her why she agreed to come clubbing with him when she has Nichkhun.
Or at least, it always seems like she 'has' Nichkhun. He could be mistaken. The camera lies.
Victoria has really soft hair. One fourth of her is itching to dance again, and he can tell, but then there's one fourth of Heechul that doesn't want her to leave his side. His arm moves from her shoulders to her waist and suddenly, she's leaning against him. She's warm. So warm.
He can feel her smiling into his shoulder, he can feel her eyelashes against his neck now. Her eyes are closed, he feels. But now she's laughing, too, and he feels like laughing with her. Part of Heechul is worried about bringing her back to her dorm later tonight, probably sometime around 3am, and how drunk she might be. Or how passed out she might be, a body in his arms or on his back. Testing his strength. He checks his own breath and tries to focus his eyes on her shoes, then recalling to himself how he barely drank at all.
"Dance?" she asks.
Heechul feels her hand crawling up his side, tumbling upwards until she's tangled her fingers in his hair. Either Hankyung never taught him this weird Chinese dance, or she could just be too disoriented to realize that her current actions would not constitute dancing. At least, nothing near anything of the wholesome variety.
Her other hand starts sliding around to his back, until her body is flush against him.
"Victoria-" he puts one of his hands against her cheek. Her face is hot, a soft heater against his palm. Before he can do anything, she's gone from a sleepy-looking drunk to a hyper one, taking both his hands and dragging him along onto the dance floor.
The kind of dancing around here looks more like waving your arms around and flailing, and a couple body waves or smooth movements by the few who might actually know what they're doing. That few includes Victoria, and he starts by standing still, standing awkwardly even though her hands are around his neck, and her pretty mouth is open whilst she moves her hips. His hands hover, a centimeter in the air surrounding her waist.
Maybe he isn't drunk enough, because wasn't there a time where he'd be the one to pull someone else out to dance with him? Wasn't there a time where he'd pull Siwon or Hankyung against his will-only slightly-into enduring this feeling he's going through right now? He wants to touch her, but thinks of the cameras Victoria had recently been under, with Nichkhun at her side.
And then he thinks about the way she laughs when they talk about Hankyung. Something burns in his throat. And then he doesn't think at all because Victoria's lips are on his face. Horrible aim.
The sound of him dropping the pan is probably what wakes her. She's not completely sure, but her hair is completely flat on one side, pressed against her scalp when she sits up and rubs her forehead. A headache is brewing just behind her skin. Victoria lifts herself carefully and hears a kettle whistling-more like screaming-and a round of chuckles when someone swears loudly.
He sounds familiar, but she can't be sure. The haze of a hangover is blocking her memory. Even when she's been hearing him laugh since her trainee days, probably. It sounds that familiar, but not the familiar she's actually yearning to hear.
It takes her this long to comprehend the rain splattering against the window like little vendettas. She just wants to sleep into next week, she doesn't feel right.
And why is Siwon standing in the doorway?
Victoria makes a move to cover herself with the blanket that's twisted around her leg, but fails, then looking down and realizing she's dressed perfectly fine. Only she's not in the same jeans and blouse she wore last night. She's dressed in dark green sweatpants tied at its tightest to ensure it could fit her small frame, and a loose t-shirt. White.
She doesn't hold back giving her best confused and slightly appalled look to Siwon, despite the headache that just makes her want to shut her eyes and pretend she's somewhere else.
"Don't look at me, I didn't do anything," he says, raising his hands and hoping to come off as defensively as possible. "Ask the guy who's failing at making breakfast."
Her eyes say what? but her mouth says nothing. Her brain says something, too, but she can't decipher it, it's all in rapid Korean and since when did she know how to think in Korean that quickly?
"I just came in for my watch," says Siwon, collecting something off the nightstand. The watch, probably. "Are you hungry?"
Victoria thinks about nodding, but remembers the state of her head and says, "Yeah."
"Can you tell me what day it is?"
"Huh?"
"Just kidding," he says, sort of laughing as he says it. "Come on, maybe if you try to help, Heechul won't burn everything."
Victoria lets Siwon help her out of the bed, his hand gentlemanly and comforting against her hip, the other one taking her own hand, more fragile in its form. She thinks about his hand, tense in strength against her forearm-but that was long ago, and it had only been for the sake of the video. Look intense, look scared, look like you want her. Three different people, three different expressions and feelings back then. One of those people isn't here to complete the picture.
A lot of things have only been for the camera. Barely anything she really cared about in that way, though. She wants to sigh, but opts not to. Not in front of Siwon. She feels like talking about Hankyung, the want popping out of the blue.
Heechul is pouting over the stove, a sheen of sweat from being busy in the kitchen forming on his forehead. Victoria gets a twisting sensation in her stomach, but not the kind where Siwon would need to hold her hair back for her. Heechul looks out of place, and she wants to hug him.
"Usually Hankyung would be doing this," he complains when he sees Siwon. Victoria is pretty sure he sees Siwon first, anyway. And she's dressed in what she assumes are also Siwon's clothes. Camouflaged perfectly, or not.
"Obviously you are, though," Siwon counters putting Victoria in a chair. He leans over her, and all she sees is his face. "Coffee?"
"Oh, yes, please."
"Anything in your schedule today?"
Victoria decides it's okay to shake her head this time. Siwon is turning to face the coffee maker, but he's still listening to her. "I knew it'd be okay to go out late last night since today's my day off. I don't get a lot of those."
"None of us do," Heechul whines, flipping a pancake. Perfectly. Victoria almost claps for him.
"Just for the record, I offered to make breakfast," Siwon says, to Heechul, she presumes.
"Just for the record, I turned your offer down."
Victoria laughs. So this must be Siwon's place. She recalls Hankyung telling her once that Siwon doesn't live in the dorms with the others. The name Shiyuan passes through her mind, and she bites her lips, her headache getting worse. She leans her forehead against her arms, folded against the table.
A large, warm palm is on her back then, rubbing circles. Siwon. Heechul's hands are a different shape, and she kicks herself for being able to tell the difference so easily.
She isn't one of those kinds of girls.
"I've got some Advil."
Rummaging around in the cupboards, that's what she hears. And then the sound of a bottle hitting the tabletop. Then a plate, and she can smell maple syrup invading her nose. Sweet. Siwon hands her a glass of water when she sits up and takes two pills out of the bottle for herself.
"Why are you guys…being so nice to me?"
Heechul clacks through the cupboards for a glass, loudly, as if waiting for Siwon to give her an answer. As if he's trying to break something, even.
"Why shouldn't we be?" he asks, and it's the perfect answer in a way. Victoria smiles and winces when the sun peeks through the window and catches her in the eye. Flames behind her skull, and she gulps down the Advil she was given, setting the glass down again in preference from some coffee. Heechul drinks from the same glass seconds later, same side.
Five minutes later, Siwon is turning on his radio and Heechul suddenly kisses Victoria on the forehead. He leaves a noticeable ring of syrup. He smiles through breakfast, telling her that she's going with him to his activities, maybe even his radio show.
"What about the girls?" she asks, the first thing on her mind. They don't call her Umma just because she keeps them fed, although that does take up at least half of the title. Growing girls. She's constantly reminded of how much younger they are than her.
"Taken care of," Heechul says when Siwon sits down again, eying the mark on her face that Heechul gave, clearer than lipstick but still obvious to anyone sitting close enough. Across the table. "I called Sulli."
"Tell me about your old boyfriends?"
Victoria fumbles with her hair, just washed and currently drying in recycled car air. She's in one of Siwon's old sweatshirts, too small for him and almost right for her. It's grey, there's a sports logo to the left side of her chest. "I didn't have many," she says. "It was hard to keep a relationship, too busy with the Academy."
"Academy?" he raises an eyebrow.
"Beijing Dance Ac-"
"Oh right. You know Hankyung went there, too."
She nods, but he doesn't see, he's looking outside the taxi window. "Yeah. We talked about it."
"Did you know him when you were there?" Heechul asks.
"Not that I can remember."
Heechul faces her again, eyes neither showing if he was pleased nor displeased. It's hard to tell right now. Most of the time, it is hard to tell what he's thinking. Victoria, on the other hand, worries that she might be an open book. Could Heechul read through her pupils that she might have seen him a few times, caught somewhere in her memory and what she would have liked to have been real? She doesn't remember anymore if her path and Hankyung's past had actually crossed back then. Too long ago, perhaps.
"So anyway. Boyfriends."
Victoria rubs at her forehead with the back of her hand like it's still sticky from syrup and Heechul's mouth. "Um. What do you want to know?"
"Names."
Like a blacklist? "…Why?"
"Curious, of course," he crosses one leg over the other, but it's hard to do that in this cramped space.
"I don't know if I-"
"Fine, never mind," he sighs, leaning his elbow against the window, but not rolling it down. Victoria guesses that he doesn't want to ruin his hair. He did spend a good chunk of their time in front of the mirror before they left Siwon's place. Siwon took a different cab, to head over to the dorms.
Victoria picks at her nails. "Well, there was, um…Kibum-ssi gave me a bracelet. In my trainee days."
Heechul's head snaps towards her again. "What?" he bites the word out. "Oh god, really?"
She nods. "It wasn't much. He kind of…liked me, I guess?"
"Oh," Heechul examines her. "You two would not make a good match. You're with Nichkhun for a reason." What he says is completely different from what he wants, or means. Heechul thinks, for once, that he needs a filter.
"I never wore the bracelet, except for during some rehearsals. Never on stage. Or on camera. We stopped talking."
"Kibum's stopped talking to most of us," Heechul laughs, but then stops laughing. "Not true. We still talk."
Victoria enters polite mode and smiles, not showing her teeth, though. Her hands fold together in her lap. Heechul wants to unfold them, and put them with his, or someone to suit her. Not Nichkhun. No. Yes. Heechul doesn't know.
"Don't let him break you."
"What?"
"Nichkhun," Heechul glances sideways at her, one hand on his knee and one hand beside his lap. There's this semi-uncontrollable desire in him to touch her. Just her arm, that's enough for him. It's kind of sick to him, in a vague way. "Don't let him break you. You or your heart."
"I'm fine."
"I didn't ask if you're fine. God, Victoria, you need a better man," Heechul shakes his head.
"He's not my boyfriend."
"On TV," Heechul draws a square with his fingers, "he is. To the fans," he points out her window; there's no one there but pedestrians, minding there own business. Heechul pretends his point is made anyway. "He is. Sort of. At least, to the f(x) fans that aren't the 2pm fans that want to kill you for being near the guy."
"But he's not," she pushes for the truth, not thinking about that last part. He sees in in her face, so he drops it. Normally he wouldn't drop it. Why is he dropping it, again? Oh yeah, because, well, he actually doesn't know at all.
Heechul thinks. "We should go somewhere tonight. After I'm all done."
"Where?"
He hesitates, wants to say 'clubbing, this time we'll bring someone else along' and he would've added Hankyung to that thought, but there's a sea in the way, and legal things. And then emotional things that Heechul could always see in Victoria that he's not so sure he wants to see at all. Still, he does. Even now, he kind of does. "Dinner."
"I haven't fed the girls since before I left last night," she complains.
Is that what her life has come to? Feeding those bandmates who are pretty much her daughters? He doesn't ask anything out loud. "Fine."
It's quiet when Victoria finally comes home. Heechul follows behind, and he's not sure why he's here. He uses the excuse of wanting to see Sulli and doesn't tell Victoria that he saw said teenager two days ago.
Victoria has this ridiculous laugh when she's embarrassed, or nervous. Pretty much every tooth would be in sight. But she isn't laughing right now, he just thinks of it. He remembers seeing her laugh like that on Star King with Mr. Whatever-Country she'd danced with. Heechul smiles at the thought. She'd laughed like that around Hankyung once.
"Looks like she's asleep. Krystal, too," Victoria comes out of what Heechul assumes is Krystal's room. She heads for the living room. "Amber and Luna must've fallen asleep in front of the TV," she sighs. Underneath her pouting face, Heechul knows she's wondering if it's still worth making dinner. She's wondering, probably, if Luna took care of it.
Part of him is eager to apologize. Sorry I got you home so late, but the rest of him clamps an invisible hand over his mouth. He's not built for apologies like that.
"I guess you should probably go back to your dorm," she says.
"I should."
He doesn't want to leave, though. He looks at her and thinks that he doesn't usually do things for girls like take them to a friend's place to sleep well, or change her clothes for her while she's half asleep and all drunk and mouthing at his collarbone-he doesn't think he should tell her about this, she doesn't seem to remember, perhaps that's for the best-or cook breakfast for her, or take her around all day.
Victoria is special. She is a foreigner, she is like him. Him not meaning Heechul. When Heechul sees her, maybe what he sees is an opportunity, one that won't slip out of sight like a ghost. Maybe. He's not sure.
She's gazing at him, expectantly, as she stands by the open door. But it isn't really an expectant look, the meaning is more of a worried one, her eyes get a little bit rounder when this happens. When did he start memorizing her face?
He thinks of when she smiles, really smiles, not the ones she does to say You're annoying, but we're on TV, so I can't say anything. A real one. He thinks of that and suddenly he doesn't see her anymore. That's when things clear up and thoughts arrange themselves where they belong, on the right shelves in his mind. Now would be a better time to apologize to her, he thinks about it and thinks hard enough for his thoughts to show up on his face.
The look on her own face is hard to describe, now that he's standing in front of her, the two of them casting their shadows in the dorm, tall and close to each other. The image of her kissing him last night, her bad aim, comes into the front of his mind. Heechul has better aim.
I'm sorry. I shouldn't have.
Victoria receives the text message at 5:13am. She has no idea why until 5:56am when she finally falls asleep again, eyes wetting her pillow.
//…
I've been really :| and :) but then ;__; lately, so I guess this helped me write it out in a way. Now I must go plug away at my femmebigbang fic before I leave Saturday. Was I too subtle in this or too obvious? Heh ^_^"