(no subject)
For arina_shinh who requested, "i want a fluffy shihan...maybe some love confession." So sorry it took so long!
Title: Through the Air
Pairing: Shihan
Rating: G-ish
Disclaimer: Not mine, don't sue
Genre: Radio frequencies
Speedy Gonzales beta: gay_lovecompany
Hankyung disliked Korean.
It wasn’t to the point where he hated it per se, but…you know what, he was having this one sided conversation in his head with himself, he could say he hated Korean all he wanted.
So that’s what he did.
Hankyung hated Korean.
It wasn’t that he hated Korea or its inhabitants that rushed through their lives like fast moving ants, but it was the language itself that tortured him so. It was Hangungmal or Hangugeo when he was in school, or Gugeo when he went to the bank, and urimal when he was with certain friends, but if a language having four different names wasn’t enough, what made him want to throw himself off a tallest building on campus was his own inane inability to wrap his tongue around the funny protrusion of the language.
Plus he figured if he was going to go jumping off buildings, at least he had a worthy enough cause to yell bloody rage at before hitting the ground and putting an end to all this misery. And if the final consonants wasn’t enough to die a rage filled death over, well then, the best he could do was not pronounce every final consonant. If he said he knew Bae Ji Yeo nuna instead, someone who knew him well enough was usually there to be able to translate that he really meant Bae Ji Young nuna instead.
They said the older you are, the harder it is to learn a language, and that was the thing. For Hankyung who was so skilled in the fluency and frequency of his own language that it felt like freshly paved ice when he spoke it, when he found himself often tumbling and falling on his ass when trying to navigate around large blunt objects blindfolded that was Korean, it was a blow his ego.
Not that his ego was that particularly big to begin with but a man’s gotta have something you know?
It’s either you got it correctly and passed through or you failed and people made fun of you when you tell them to buy a house to lower the market price and then you yourself go on the web to look at cars. You tried explaining to them that yeah, even though you are saving up to buy your parents a house, but right now, you need to go around a lot.
That’s why Hankyung thought the most ridiculous idea of all was him having his own radio station in Korean.
“It’s not the quantity of your words, it’s the quality.” Leeteuk had told him flashing that blinds like the sun smile at him.
Hankyung nodded slowly to show he understood, but he didn’t trust Leeteuk too much anyway.
During a game that Leeteuk so obviously lost, Hankyung had seen him convince the team that had won that they should serve out the punishment and put on a show consisting of very odd snow white cross dressing for Leeteuk as well as the rest of the members of the losing team.
Hankyung was there himself; even he didn’t understand how Leeteuk did it. Even worst, Leeteuk had somehow wrangled him into doing pushups when Hankyung had sprained his hand only weeks earlier.
Minutes later when Hankyung sat up and was nursing his throbbing hand, he realized with a sinking comprehension that Leeteuk had already snuck away a long time ago.
So maybe for Leeteuk, it was the opposite. Maybe for Leeteuk it wasn’t the quality of his words, but the quantity of it. But then again, Hankyung had seen him manipulate his way around getting more sleeping time and that was done not with the words he said but the way in which he issued them.
Hankyung was giving himself a headache trying to figure this out, and somehow, he found himself acting as a DJ for a radio station while Leeteuk’s shining, happy face reflected back to him from beyond the sound room.
Seeing no possible way out of it that didn’t involve outright manslaughter, and the last thing Hankyung needed was another reason why he had to stay in this country, Hankyung heaved a great sigh of despair that Leeteuk happily ignored and stared at the white sheet in front of him.
If he stared at it hard enough, the words would start to lose their solidarity and if Hankyung tilted his head, they looked like people doing cartwheels and level five yoga positions. But staring at them didn’t make them go away, and if Hankyung didn’t talk, Leeteuk had lots of stories up his sleeve that would make Hankyung grab the mike back and start rambling badly strung together Hangul to get Leeteuk to shut up.
Hankyung heaved another great sigh.
It wasn’t his intention to stay here.
He had came to Korea on a cross culture dance exchange program and had literally stumbled onto Leeteuk while trying to decipher where he had to go for his next class from the campus map.
Leeteuk had been a student DJ in those days and needed something extra to spice up his program.
He had toyed with the idea of visual radio, but he figured he would probably need another partner; enough room to spontaneously break out highly choreographed dance numbers and probably had to provide drinks. And he wasn’t even all that fond of the strawberry milk he currently held in his hands anyway.
In the end, he decided to forgo that idea when he ran into Hankyung.
He knew Hankyung from the smattering of classes they had together and knew the girls like him well enough that they would come and cheer for him whenever he played basketball.
From what Leeteuk could tell, Hankyung was good, but not good enough to cause girls to cheer wildly for him and bring pots to bang on when he showed up on court with nothing more than a white tank top and beanie hat on.
Granted, Hankyung wasn’t as popular as Yesung who moonlighted as the front man to a rock band, but Yesung was the type that if you walked in a couple of minutes late, you’d miss him.
Now Hankyung on the other hand. Not only was Hankyung overly nice, he was more likely to sit still and listen to instructions even if they went against what he thought he should do. Like that time his roommates came back and exploded into a fight behind closed doors, when Hankyung was told to stay still, that’s what he did despite the worry that furrowed his brows. Of course, it had all turned out to be a big prank, but it only proved to show that Hankyung was much easier to convince to go along with your plans as long as you said the right thing.
And Leeteuk always had a way with words.
“Oh! Hankyung!” Leeteuk said as if crashing into him whilst he was carrying all that equipment was a mere accident, and not weeks of careful recon work.
And just as he knew he would, Hankyung bent down to help pick up all the pieces that came flying out of the box and was currently scattered all over the hallway.
”Ah…hyung,” Hankyung began, his Korean soft and slow as though if he spoke slower he could cover up his lack of fluency.
“What is all these things?” Hankyung asked while holding up a piece of equipment with several wires flopping out all over the place.
Leeteuk beamed at him, making sure to smile a little harder than necessary so that his dimple was more prominent and his eyes turned into mere slits of happiness.
“Do you think you can come with me for a second? I really need someone’s help with something, and the guy that was supposed to help me had sudden last minute plans.” Leeteuk said, already answering for Hankyung as he walked down the hall while Hankyung came up behind him carrying the box of supplies in his hands.
When they entered the studio, Leeteuk bade Hankyung to take a seat in front of the mic as he himself bent down to get to the wires underneath the desk.
Of course he was fumbling with nothing since the box of gear that Hankyung so thoughtfully and selflessly carried was a box of car parts Leeteuk had borrowed from Shindong when he wasn’t looking.
“Leeteuk!” Hankyung hissed, dropping his formality as he got the signal from the panicked members from the control box that they were going to live on air soon and oh my god where the hell was Leeteuk?!
“I’m a little busy right now,” Leeteuk muffled voice floated back to him from underneath the desk. “Can you do the opening for me Hankyung?”
At Hankyung’s deadly silence, Leeteuk popped his head up from under the desk and saw him just sitting there, still, unmoving and pale as the newly dead.
“It’s okay,” Leeteuk said as he slid the paper into Hankyung’s still fingers. “It’s really easy. All you have to do is read from the paper here,” he said while placing the headphones over Hankyung’s ears. “I’ll be done in a second,” he said as he slid back under the table.
Leeteuk heard the theme song come to an end and perked up his ears as he heard in Hankyung’s halting Korean, “A-Ahn neyong. I-I mean, ahn neyong haseyo. This is Hankyung here in for Leeteuk who’s a little busy right now. We have a good show for you tonight, but here is HOT’s ‘Outside the Castle Doors.’”
Leeteuk wiggled back into his seat laughing. “That was great Hankyung! You don’t mind filling in for my co-host who has the flu right now, right?”
At Hankyung’s less than amused expression, Leeteuk placed his hands together like a movement of prayer and supplication, “Please Hankyung, I really need your help on this. It’s part of my final project.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Hankyung slowly nodded and Leeteuk acted relieved, happy and whatever impressionable expressions he could throw into his act. He then promised Hankyung that he would treat him to dinner.
He had already finished his final project weeks ago anyway. What’s one little dinner in comparison to that?
***
At first Leeteuk did the first fifteen minutes of the show along with Hankyung. He laughed, made jokes, and introduced new songs beside Hankyung, but as more things in the control box needed his immediate attention, the time Leeteuk spent as the co-dj of the show began to lessen.
But before Hankyung could panic and fret, Leeteuk always made sure that he was in a position in the sound booth where Hankyung could see him. This was the result from the incident when Hankyung turned around from adjusting his earphones and found Leeteuk gone. The opening song to the show was winding down and Leeteuk had to be rushed into the room with the spicy rice cake still hanging in his mouth and slid into the seat next to Hankyung while the producers tried to pretend that the ten minutes of dear air was just a test of the emergency broadcasting signal.
Hankyung could see him, but couldn’t hear Leeteuk of course. Leeteuk was sure that Hankyung would be appalled and completely unwilling if he knew all the grand schemes that Leeteuk had cooked up for him, so he always made double sure that he was smiling when Hankyung turned to look at him.
There was no reason to raise Hankyung’s suspicion alarm. Not that that alarm ever really turned off.
At first, when the listeners got the general idea that Leeteuk was no longer going to be hosting the show, the calls had started to drop off. Leeteuk then had gotten their friends to call the station instead.
“Hankyung hyung,” someone said, with sounds of scuffling and someone shouting, “You idiot!” in the background.
There was the sound of a throat being cleared, and then, “I mean, Hankyung oppa” a high-pitched voice said. “I’m a shy girl, and I’m with my boyfriend right now. I was so shocked when he suddenly became so forward and grabbed my hand. While he was holding it, he told me my hand was so ugly so I told him, ‘Your face too oppa.’ But Hankyung oppa, what should I do? I think he wants to take me to Han River!”
“Well, you’re in the same car with him right now right?”
A meek answer of, “yes” came across the sound waves.
“So can’t he hear you in the car right now too?”
Sounds of muffled laughter and the sound of more scuffling as if someone else was trying to make a grab for the phone and a small fight broke out. Then a different voice, a much deeper voice came across the line and said, “I’m taking her to Han River. She shouldn’t think that oppa is going to do anything bad to her.”
“Then I suggest you cover her mouth first Kibum, Eunhyuk and I had lots of onions in our lunch today.”
He was answered with, “Aww man! I knew it wouldn’t work!”
“That’s because you called him hyung!”
“He IS a hyung what else am I suppose to call him?”
“It doesn’t work if you’re trying to be a girl!”
That was soon followed with, “Oh! So for next time Kibum could say at his age how could he not have done it yet.” “Idiot! Not while we’re still on the air!” and Heechul’s voice cutting clear across the chatter so Hankyung knew he must have gotten a hold of the phone, “Hankyung! I’m hungry! Make me food when you come back!” and the click of the phone being hung up as Hankyung laughing as he introduced the next song concluded that particular adventure.
The next day, he got another phone call.
“Yeoboseyo? I think Hankyung oppa has a really nice voice. It’s so soft and sweet, I rather listen to him talk and give advice than play songs.”
Hankyung raised his eyebrows and gestured wildly to Leeteuk who was sitting in the sound room, asking him who it could possibly be.
With a pitch like that, it might be Ryeowook, but he’d need a lot of convincing to agree to go on air like that, and besides, he had class right now anyway, so that could only mean…
Leeteuk’s bright laugh cut through the radio station as he grabbed the mic. “If you can get twenty more people to listen in tomorrow, then we’ll give Hankyung a longer talking segment.”
Squealing at the other end of the phone came back to them along with promise that she’d do that. The next day with same breathless listener called in to say, “Oppa! I found twenty other listeners!” suddenly found Hankyung the host of his own daily show on the radio.
In Korean no less.
***
“Hyung-ah, the juk is boiling over, what should I do?” Ryeowook’s quiet voice came over the sounds of random banging of what Hankyung hoped were pots and pans in the background.
Despite the pick up in ratings, Hankyung’s friends still used this hour as a call in free for all.
“Remove the cover Ryeowook, and stir it so it doesn’t stick to the bottom of the cooker.”
“Oh okay. Thanks hyung.”
“Is someone sick? Why are you making juk?”
“It’s really cold today and you and Teukie hyung are coming back late. So I thought I’d make you something.”
“Oh.” Hankyung said, a little warmed by Ryeowook’s generosity. Maybe the wild boys he lived with that he had no choice but to call dongsaeng weren’t so bad after all.
“Annnnd Donghae and Eunhyuk might have broken your phone. Okay, bye!” Ryeowook said with shouts of, “Noo! Why did you tell him” heard in the background and, “Hyukjae! I found glue! Maybe we can - ” before Ryeowook hung up.
The line picked up again.
”Lee Donghae, you guys - ”
The sound of someone clearing their throat stopped Hankyung’s train of thought.
“It’s not Donghae.”
No, this person’s voice had the deep rolling quality and natural low pitch that Donghae wouldn’t be able to fake.
“I need your advice on something.”
Oh right. That was what his show was supposed to be about.
“I…like this person…and I…,” the sounds of something crinkling in the background made it difficult for Hankyung to be able to clearly make out all the words that were being spoken.
“Kyuhyun-ah, those chips will spoil your appetite and my eardrums if you keep eating them while calling me.”
Just then Leeteuk tapped on the glass of the control box and looking up, Hankyung saw Kyuhyun walking in to say hi, sans cell phone.
“…You’re not Kyuhyun.”
A slight rumble of a chuckle reached his ears, and “No, I’m not but I seem to have bad interference where I’m standing right now. Let me call you back.”
Hankyung slid the headphones off and mouthed out, “He’s not Kyuhyun” to Leeteuk who just beamed at him and Kyuhuyn whose shit eating grin was rapidly growing into a shit eating laugh.
***
“You mean an actual person called in today? A real honest to goodness person who didn’t just made some high pitch sound that’s supposed to express sounds of excitement and hung up?” Kangin asked as he used his chopsticks to form a barrier around the last piece of pork that Shindong was eyeing.
“We could probably get more of those if you guys stopped calling so often, you know.” Hankyung said while reaching over for another plate on the table.
“But hyung, if we stopped calling, how can we find you?” Ryeowook asked as Hankyung placed another piece of meat on his plate.
“Yeah, and since we still can’t find your phone, physically that is, how else would we be able to contact you?” Sungmin said between mouthfuls of food.
They all had a strange habit of calling each other at odd random times, like the time that they had called him when he was in the middle of doing a head stand, and the crash he heard at the other end of the phone was just Leeteuk falling over while attempting a head stand of his own, Shindong said.
Them calling him to ask what he was doing was still better than having them pound on his door in the middle of the night because they couldn’t find him and calming down and inviting themselves in once they realized he was just taking a shower. Of course having a phone would make this easier, but speaking of phones, Hankyung shot a look down the table where Donghae and Eunhyuk were, who just gave him identical grins before wolfing down another plate of food.
He wasn’t really mad at them really. He knew that somewhere along the line, Donghae and Eunhyuk would feel bad enough to either find and fix his phone or buy him a new one.
After all, they had fixed his MP3 player after they decided they wanted to experiment with gravity and several flights of stairs using his player. And aside from the bulky and sticky duct tape that encircled it, the player still worked mostly fine.
“Who knows,” Leeteuk said from his place at the head of the table, “Maybe this non-Kyuhyun will inspire other people aside from the people who live in this house to call you. Maybe then the radio station will be used not just as a place for Heechul to remind all those without a mirror how great he is.”
***
The next day, an excited Sungmin called and said, “Great news, hyung! Donghae and Eunhyuk found your phone!”
“Where was it?” Hankyung asked.
“Inside the kitty litter.”
“But….we don’t even have a cat.”
“I know that. That’s why it’s so great!”
In the background, Hankyung heard Donghae plaintive voice cry out, “Sungminnie, can you go get that special glue for us? The store won’t allow me and Hyukie back in there after we provided an in store demonstration for them.”
“Oh sorry Hankyung! I have to go!” Before Hankyung could even begin to ask Sungmin to wait, the line had already gone dead.
A couple of hours later, the phone rang again.
“I thought you might want to know that you’ll probably never see your phone again.” Kyunhyun’s droll voice rolled across the line.
“I thought Donghae and Eunhyuk were fixing it?” Hankyung asked, his head tilted quizzically to one side.
“Maybe that was the wrong choice of words. You might not want to use your phone after all this.” Kyuhyun replied, as various loud screams were heard in the background and Hankyung was sure he distinctly heard someone go, “Nooo! You weren’t supposed to stick that together! Teuk is going to be soooo mad when he sees the walls!” before Kyuhyun dropped the line.
But before Hankyung could properly categorize his bafflement, the phone rang again.
“I hope this is the voice of reason Sungmin, since Kyuhyun is now a lost cause.”
A slight cough that sounded a bit too accidental to be any of the boys he knew came across the line.
“My apologies,” a voice started again, low and smooth like slowly melting chocolate on a hot summer day. That is, if slowly melting chocolate had vocal inclinations; Hankyung thought it would probably sound like this.
“I hadn’t expected to be transferred so quickly.”
Damn, he had to keep remembering he had an actual show to host here.
“No need for apologies, caller. Please tell me what I can do for you.” Hankyung answered as he read off the sheet that he miraculously found when he realized that the caller wasn’t Sungmin and thanking Leeteuk for thinking ahead and writing these prompts.
Of course when Hankyung had walked in on Leeteuk hunched over his table and surrounded by the amassing stack of papers, Leeteuk had been laughing manically to himself and Hankyung had choose the option of slowly backing out of the door. But still, he was still glad Leeteuk had written down these prompts for him to follow.
“Ah…there’s this person I like, but I’m unsure of how to approach them” the soft baritone voice told him across the airwaves.
“Mmm” Hankyung replied, nodding sagely as he stalled for time to figure out which was the appropriate thing to say as none of the cues that Leeteuk had so kindly written down for him could be said for his shows current ratings.
“Why don’t you try talking to this person?” He finally came up with after the station manager had pounded on the glass and made, “Dead air! Dead air!” motions with his hands.
That’s because everyone knows the only thing worse than having dead air while on a radio talk show is having someone who can’t speak Korean host a Korean talk show, but Hankyung kept this opinion to himself.
“I can’t…I’m a little shy,” the caller chucked, a mix of humor flavored with a self-depreciating edge.
“You? Shy?” Hankyung asked, already picturing in his head that even if this caller wore a green traditional styled Chinese robe, he’d look mighty fine in it, and all he had to do was open it and wrapped it around Hankyung. Hankyung would then tilt his head to the side to face the camera just so, and sink to his knees and disappear for a little while under the large robe, and…he really had to stop reading Leeteuk’s prompts while he was still on the air with this caller and letting his imagination run away with him. Where did that camera come from anyway?
The caller laughed, and said, “I’m a shy guy.”
Of course Hankyung found this hard to believe, but if Hankyung went into everything he found hard right now, Leeteuk would be out a radio station with all the censorship they’d have to do on that segment.
Hankyung shook his head a little to clear it, but figured he probably couldn’t shake his other head to clear it until later the show, and tried to move onto non-uplifting head inspiring thoughts.
“It doesn’t have to be much,” Hankyung said, “Maybe you could say a hi, or maybe say a single phrase like, ‘Nice weather.”
“Mmm,” the caller low rumble of assessment replied back. “I’ll try that. Thanks Hankyung.”
Hankyung told the caller he was welcome and introduced the song in rotation, making sure to spin his hair away from Leeteuk’s view in the booth.
It was only his name, but as Hankyung put his hands against his hot face, he couldn’t help but wonder how in the world did he managed to supply enough blood for it to flow so freely in both directions. Hankyung blamed it on that voice.
Even the way the caller said his name sounded vaguely obscene like in a red light bulb and cool stain sheets that crinkled against your skin and slid past your fingers when you tried to make a solid grab for it sort of way.
At this rate, he wouldn’t be able to make it the bathroom and back before the commercials ended. Damn it.
***
A week had passed and aside from the calls he got from his sometimes loved, sometimes just mostly tolerated dongsaengs, he had heard almost daily from the love troubled caller.
The caller was starting to get his own fans too.
“Hankyung oppa and caller-shi, hwaiting!”
Sure he still got his usual, “Ya! Oppa! I want to throw my chewed gum in your mouth” odd fan calls but it had gotten to the point where Hankyung had started to expect his caller to talk to him and tell him of the chance encounters with his crush nearly everyday.
From what his caller had imparted to him, Hankyung surmised that his caller’s crush was in a different sect than his caller usually traveled in.
Maybe they were classmates, though Hankyung hardly thought that someone whose voice had the same surprising warmth of dark crushed velvet would still participate in school politics and would need to have a head bobbling assistant serve as his vice president.
But before he could expand on that thread of thought that involved life sized pandas, or at least leaders in a panda costume for a music video, the blinking light on his switch board indicated he had a call.
“Hi, you’re talking to Hankyung”
“Ah, Hankyung-shi, how are you?”
“Caller-shi! How are you today?”
“I’m doing very well, thank you. Nice weather we’re having today aren’t we?”
“Yes, it is very nice. Ah caller-shi, it’s been some days since we first spoke, is there something I could call you besides caller?”
The fact that Leeteuk had scribbled down this suggestion on today’s schedule and then had boxed it and underlined it in bright pink pen and then kicked Hankyung as he slid today’s agenda over to him had nothing to do with Hankyung’s decision really.
“Mm,” the caller said, as he mulled it over. “You can call me Siw…” and here the caller coughed as though he was choking on some unseen food particle, “I mean, Andrew. Please call me Andrew.”
“Ah, what a nice name. Were you able to see your crush today Andrew?” Hankyung asked, savoring the letters of the foreign name in his mouth.
“What if it’s a boy?” Sungmin had asked over dinner one night, referring of course to the caller who phoned in on a near daily basis.
“So what if it is? People adore me all the time and I can’t help that,” Heechul said, motioning to Kibum to pour him more soju.
“Heechul is right though, we don’t know who it is, so keep it as genderless as possible when asking about the crush okay Hankyung?” Leeteuk said arriving late to dinner, and taking off his coat as he strode to his customary seat at the head of the table.
Andrew chuckled, a low-throated thing balanced between heat and amusement.
“No, I didn’t, but the campus is pretty large, I’m not always able to see them. I have to appease myself with the glimpses of them I do happen to catch.”
Sudden crashing noises in the background and the swell of voices broke through the quiet, almost intimate conversation they were having. Andrew quickly said into the receiver, “I’m sorry Hankyung, but I have to go now, my roommates are back.”
Hankyung said he understood and as Andrew hung up, he put the next song in rotation. He spun his chair around to face Leeteuk who had snuck in sometime in the middle of the conversation.
“How many campuses get our radio station signal?” He asked.
“Just this one,” Leeteuk said, smiling so wide that only the bare slits of his eyes were visible.
***
“So you know he goes here,” Yesung said, tapping his chopsticks against his bowl at dinner.
“That’s just an assumption, Yesung. He could be visiting a friend or cousin and over heard the program,” Kibum said without bothering to look up.
Silence reigned over the rest of the table, as this was the first time that Kibum expressed any sort of interest, much less indicated that he was following the affairs of the radio station. He used this time prudently, and choose at that moment to take the last piece of beef while everyone looked on in shock.
“What?” He said raising his eyebrows above the black rim frames of his glasses.
“N-Nothing,” Eunhyuk said, “We just didn’t know you were following the program.”
Kibum just shrugged as Leeteuk came by and hugged the top of his head. “Of course Kibum listens in, how could he miss out on the show that his hyung stars in?” Leeteuk said, laughing and picking the beef off Kibum’s plate and popping it into his own mouth.
“Hyung?” Ryeowook asked stepping on the floppy edges of his socks as he entered the kitchen.
“Mmm?” Hankyung asked as he once again got stuck with dish duty. “But I cooked!” he yelled to the retreating backs of Kangin and Donghae as they slipped into their shoes at the door.
All he got back was laughter. He was really beginning to hate how everything was decided in the house by games.
“Did you not get enough to eat?” Hankyung asked as he placed a plate in the rinse pile. “I could cook you something but that might take a while. Heechul has a hidden stack of choco pies if you’re still hungry.”
“No…” Ryeowook said.
“Then what is it?” Hankyung asked, glancing over his shoulder at Ryeowook.
“Maybe…did you ever think that maybe the caller likes you?”
Hankyung didn’t have an answer for that and that night as he told Heechul what Ryeowook said as he turned on his laptop, Heechul merely snorted and said, “Have you seen who’s on campus? I’m on campus,” and effectively ended the conversation.
Hankyung could only bob his head in agreement as he clicked to open his minihompy to see how many visitors had visited his site.
A couple of minutes later, Heechul broke the quiet with his loud curses about how Kibum and Kyuhyun shouldn’t be allowed to be on the same team in any online games, much less ones where they try to destroy each other through pixilated means.
When Heechul called over Hankyung for help, which really, just meant Hankyung watching the game over his shoulder, Hankyung promptly forgot all about who Andrew’s mysterious crush might be, as Heechul’s character was getting thoroughly beaten as muffled laughter came from the other room.
***
“And this person…that you like, what are they like?” Leeteuk’s happy voice rang out in the radio station when Hankyung got in, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
Hankyung was a little late today, having stayed up late with Heechul who had recruited him in his efforts to bring down Kibum and Kyuhyun. By the time the sun had risen again, they were still unable to carry out their purpose, but a small dialogue box had opened with Kibum’s character in it saying, “Better luck next time hyung ^^” and Heechul had thrown his hands in the air and stomped off to sleep.
“Mmm…” the person on the other line said, but before they got to continue that line of thought any further, Hankyung was already pushing his way towards the seats where Leeteuk had already propped up his feet and was beaming at Hankyung’s rushed actions.
He already knew who it was before he hurriedly sat down and put his ear phones in place before flipping his microphone switch on.
“If you could wait just a moment Andrew,” Leeteuk said laughing. “Hankyung just walked in, I’m sure he’ll be most interested to hear more about this person too.”
Hankyung was just irritated that he was late and just merely upset that he missed his bus today. He wasn’t jealous that Leeteuk who usually sat behind the glass and was generally more than perfectly happy to play recordings of Hankyung singing in the shower on the rare moments that Hankyung was late on the air.
He wasn’t quietly seething that Leeteuk who was sitting in the chair that he hadn’t occupied in the better part of the year was sitting here today talking to Andrew.
No, he wasn’t gritting his teeth in anger that Leeteuk was occupying the one person whom Hankyung looked forward to talking to everyday.
No, no, he was just a little aggravated at Leeteuk who made him wash the dishes last night. Not that it was Leeteuk’s fault that Hankyung bit his tongue in the middle of the game or said dehgi instead of its English equivalent in another animal name game.
No, Hankyung wasn’t mad at Leeteuk’s for being able to speak to Andrew first, nope, not mad or jealous or anything.
He just had to turn his chair away from Leeteuk bright cheery face not because he didn’t want to see it, but because he had stubbed his toe when he kicked the table.
But since Hankyung wasn’t mad or jealous (nope, not at all) where was all this anger coming from anyway?
He wasn’t worried about Leeteuk taking over as DJ, and since he wasn’t resentful because it wasn’t as if he was starting to look forward to talking to Andrew everyday why was he…
A rough kick from his chair from Leeteuk brought him spinning around towards the mic again.
“I’m sorry Andrew, you have to repeat your question to Hankyung again. He just hurt himself when he stubbed his toe.”
“Eh? Is he okay? How did he stub his toe?”
“Well, I think it probably was when he kicked…”
“Hi Andrew,” Hankyung said with a grunt of effort as he kicked Leeteuk’s chair to spin to the other side of the room.
“Good morning Hankyung. How are you today?”
“I’m fine. A little late, but I’m fine. I have to apologize for Leeteuk. He gets a little…wild when he’s left to his own devices.” Hankyung said as he made shooing motions at Leeteuk.
“That’s okay. I like talking to Leeteuk hyung. He’s very nice.”
“I bet.” Hankyung said, a touch darkly.
“What was that?”
“Nothing, nothing. So I think Leeteuk was asking you about that person you like?”
“Yes.” Hankyung could practically hear the smirk in Andrew’s voice.
“Do you mind telling us more about them?”
“No, not at all. They’re really nice and sometimes maybe too nice, as they seem to get taken advantage of one way or another.”
“Oh?” Hankyung said. “How do you know this? Have you spoken to them?”
Silence for a moment, then, “No…not really, but I see them helping others a lot and doing things for others. And they always seem to be the subject of their friends adventures to try out new things like how gravity may or may not work in a staircase.”
”So you have seen your crush recently?”
A laugh. “Not as often as I’d like, but since we’re in different majors, what can you do?”
“Why, what do you study Andrew?”
“Theological studies.”
“And your crush?”
“They major in ballet and traditional dance.”
Sounds of things crashing in the background and Andrew once again apologizing as he had to leave rather abruptly again.
“Hey Hankyung,” Leeteuk’s voice came over the speakers after Andrew had hung up. “Aren’t you a ballet and traditional dance major yourself?”
***
“So have you found out who this person is yet?” Shindong asked as he slid into the seat across from where Hankyung had sprawled with his head down at the lunch table.
“Huh?” Hankyung replied, wearily lifting his head up.
“What they promised on the show?” Shindong prodded.
“What who promised? I’ve been putting together and practicing for my final presentation for the ballet final for two weeks now, and I left Donghae and Eunhyuk to MC the show while I was gone."
Shindong tsked in sympathy at Hankyung fate and patted him on the back.
“While you were away, Eunhyuk and Donghae issued a challenge. They said that if anyone could find out the identity of the caller and the mysterious person he liked, they would win a date with you and they’d get your phone number. They also threw in that if they got the answer before you found out, they’d throw in your phone for free.”
“You mean they finally fixed it?” Hankyung asked suddenly more awake than he’d been for the past two weeks.
Shindong shrugged and patiently waited for Hankyung’s explosive reaction when the rest of his brain caught up.
He wasn’t disappointed.
“WHAT?!” Hankyung practically screeched.
Shindong rubbed his ears a little bit before replying, “Didn’t you see the posters?”
“Too many words.” Hankyung replied quickly detangling his long legs from the bench and grabbing his jacket.
He thought he knew better when he ignored the bright garnish posters that had popped up on campus. He remembered the last time he had spent over an hour trying to decipher a Eunhyuk-Donghae poster with a dictionary in hand when he encountered the posters that lined the way to the dance studio. The sign turned out to be a search party signup sheet designated to look for Yesung’s lost cuteness.
“You better hurry. Last I heard, Leeteuk sounded like he almost convinced Heechul to part with that picture you guys took in the bathroom on his cell phone as a consolidation prize,” Shindong called to Hankyung’s quickly retreating back.
“That poor bastard,” Shindong said, “When will he ever learn?”
As Hankyung came peeling into the hallways of the radio station, he knew he was too late when he saw Donghae happily shaking hands with a tall long legged stranger.
As he hurried towards them, his sneakers making squeaking sounds as he slid along the hallway in his rush, the stranger turned around and smiled.
Hankyung was taken aback. Nobody could be that good looking would still willingly be in cohorts with Eunhyuk and Donghae.
But still, something in that smile and the warm brown eyes beckoned Hankyung to come closer and with two quick steps, Hankyung was within the same breathing space as the guy.
Which incidentally put him in the same breathing distance to Eunhyuk and Donghae.
“Hyung!” Donghae said, practically bouncing as Eunhyuk’s beaming pink gums grinned at him from around Donghae’s shoulders.
“This is the guy! We found him!” Donghae said, inherently proud of himself.
“He found us, idiot,” Eunhyuk corrected, nodding once to show his superior intelligence in this situation.
The stranger stepped forward and smiled again.
“I’m sorry. Let me introduce myself. My name is Siwon.”
This voice sounded so familiar Hankyung thought has he automatically extended his hand to meet Siwon’s outstretched one.
“You might know me as Andrew.”
Hankyung dropped his hand from Siwon-Andrew-Siwon’s grasp and felt his eyes widen in surprise.
Siwon-Andrew-Siwon continued, “I must confess. Andrew isn’t my real name. I mean it is, but it isn’t. I’ll have to explain another time. But,” and here his smile deepened to announce the arrival of two deep dimples. “Since I am the guy, and I’m staring at the person I like, can I take you out on a date now and get your number?”
Hankyung could only stare in bewilderment. Does this mean Andr…Siwon, he mentally corrected, had been talking to his crush all this time? Wait, did this mean Ryeowook was right all along?
“What about his phone?” Donghae asked waving the black taped device in the air.
“Well, he already found out, so I don’t think it counts anymore. But I suppose I can still take my reward in different…forms of payment.”
How did this guy manage to switch from bewitching gorgeous to tonguing double entendres with one sentence?
”It’s okay,” Hankyung said, finally coming out of his stupor. “This payment’s on me,” he said as he leaned in and kissed Siwon.
Title: Through the Air
Pairing: Shihan
Rating: G-ish
Disclaimer: Not mine, don't sue
Genre: Radio frequencies
Speedy Gonzales beta: gay_lovecompany
Hankyung disliked Korean.
It wasn’t to the point where he hated it per se, but…you know what, he was having this one sided conversation in his head with himself, he could say he hated Korean all he wanted.
So that’s what he did.
Hankyung hated Korean.
It wasn’t that he hated Korea or its inhabitants that rushed through their lives like fast moving ants, but it was the language itself that tortured him so. It was Hangungmal or Hangugeo when he was in school, or Gugeo when he went to the bank, and urimal when he was with certain friends, but if a language having four different names wasn’t enough, what made him want to throw himself off a tallest building on campus was his own inane inability to wrap his tongue around the funny protrusion of the language.
Plus he figured if he was going to go jumping off buildings, at least he had a worthy enough cause to yell bloody rage at before hitting the ground and putting an end to all this misery. And if the final consonants wasn’t enough to die a rage filled death over, well then, the best he could do was not pronounce every final consonant. If he said he knew Bae Ji Yeo nuna instead, someone who knew him well enough was usually there to be able to translate that he really meant Bae Ji Young nuna instead.
They said the older you are, the harder it is to learn a language, and that was the thing. For Hankyung who was so skilled in the fluency and frequency of his own language that it felt like freshly paved ice when he spoke it, when he found himself often tumbling and falling on his ass when trying to navigate around large blunt objects blindfolded that was Korean, it was a blow his ego.
Not that his ego was that particularly big to begin with but a man’s gotta have something you know?
It’s either you got it correctly and passed through or you failed and people made fun of you when you tell them to buy a house to lower the market price and then you yourself go on the web to look at cars. You tried explaining to them that yeah, even though you are saving up to buy your parents a house, but right now, you need to go around a lot.
That’s why Hankyung thought the most ridiculous idea of all was him having his own radio station in Korean.
“It’s not the quantity of your words, it’s the quality.” Leeteuk had told him flashing that blinds like the sun smile at him.
Hankyung nodded slowly to show he understood, but he didn’t trust Leeteuk too much anyway.
During a game that Leeteuk so obviously lost, Hankyung had seen him convince the team that had won that they should serve out the punishment and put on a show consisting of very odd snow white cross dressing for Leeteuk as well as the rest of the members of the losing team.
Hankyung was there himself; even he didn’t understand how Leeteuk did it. Even worst, Leeteuk had somehow wrangled him into doing pushups when Hankyung had sprained his hand only weeks earlier.
Minutes later when Hankyung sat up and was nursing his throbbing hand, he realized with a sinking comprehension that Leeteuk had already snuck away a long time ago.
So maybe for Leeteuk, it was the opposite. Maybe for Leeteuk it wasn’t the quality of his words, but the quantity of it. But then again, Hankyung had seen him manipulate his way around getting more sleeping time and that was done not with the words he said but the way in which he issued them.
Hankyung was giving himself a headache trying to figure this out, and somehow, he found himself acting as a DJ for a radio station while Leeteuk’s shining, happy face reflected back to him from beyond the sound room.
Seeing no possible way out of it that didn’t involve outright manslaughter, and the last thing Hankyung needed was another reason why he had to stay in this country, Hankyung heaved a great sigh of despair that Leeteuk happily ignored and stared at the white sheet in front of him.
If he stared at it hard enough, the words would start to lose their solidarity and if Hankyung tilted his head, they looked like people doing cartwheels and level five yoga positions. But staring at them didn’t make them go away, and if Hankyung didn’t talk, Leeteuk had lots of stories up his sleeve that would make Hankyung grab the mike back and start rambling badly strung together Hangul to get Leeteuk to shut up.
Hankyung heaved another great sigh.
It wasn’t his intention to stay here.
He had came to Korea on a cross culture dance exchange program and had literally stumbled onto Leeteuk while trying to decipher where he had to go for his next class from the campus map.
Leeteuk had been a student DJ in those days and needed something extra to spice up his program.
He had toyed with the idea of visual radio, but he figured he would probably need another partner; enough room to spontaneously break out highly choreographed dance numbers and probably had to provide drinks. And he wasn’t even all that fond of the strawberry milk he currently held in his hands anyway.
In the end, he decided to forgo that idea when he ran into Hankyung.
He knew Hankyung from the smattering of classes they had together and knew the girls like him well enough that they would come and cheer for him whenever he played basketball.
From what Leeteuk could tell, Hankyung was good, but not good enough to cause girls to cheer wildly for him and bring pots to bang on when he showed up on court with nothing more than a white tank top and beanie hat on.
Granted, Hankyung wasn’t as popular as Yesung who moonlighted as the front man to a rock band, but Yesung was the type that if you walked in a couple of minutes late, you’d miss him.
Now Hankyung on the other hand. Not only was Hankyung overly nice, he was more likely to sit still and listen to instructions even if they went against what he thought he should do. Like that time his roommates came back and exploded into a fight behind closed doors, when Hankyung was told to stay still, that’s what he did despite the worry that furrowed his brows. Of course, it had all turned out to be a big prank, but it only proved to show that Hankyung was much easier to convince to go along with your plans as long as you said the right thing.
And Leeteuk always had a way with words.
“Oh! Hankyung!” Leeteuk said as if crashing into him whilst he was carrying all that equipment was a mere accident, and not weeks of careful recon work.
And just as he knew he would, Hankyung bent down to help pick up all the pieces that came flying out of the box and was currently scattered all over the hallway.
”Ah…hyung,” Hankyung began, his Korean soft and slow as though if he spoke slower he could cover up his lack of fluency.
“What is all these things?” Hankyung asked while holding up a piece of equipment with several wires flopping out all over the place.
Leeteuk beamed at him, making sure to smile a little harder than necessary so that his dimple was more prominent and his eyes turned into mere slits of happiness.
“Do you think you can come with me for a second? I really need someone’s help with something, and the guy that was supposed to help me had sudden last minute plans.” Leeteuk said, already answering for Hankyung as he walked down the hall while Hankyung came up behind him carrying the box of supplies in his hands.
When they entered the studio, Leeteuk bade Hankyung to take a seat in front of the mic as he himself bent down to get to the wires underneath the desk.
Of course he was fumbling with nothing since the box of gear that Hankyung so thoughtfully and selflessly carried was a box of car parts Leeteuk had borrowed from Shindong when he wasn’t looking.
“Leeteuk!” Hankyung hissed, dropping his formality as he got the signal from the panicked members from the control box that they were going to live on air soon and oh my god where the hell was Leeteuk?!
“I’m a little busy right now,” Leeteuk muffled voice floated back to him from underneath the desk. “Can you do the opening for me Hankyung?”
At Hankyung’s deadly silence, Leeteuk popped his head up from under the desk and saw him just sitting there, still, unmoving and pale as the newly dead.
“It’s okay,” Leeteuk said as he slid the paper into Hankyung’s still fingers. “It’s really easy. All you have to do is read from the paper here,” he said while placing the headphones over Hankyung’s ears. “I’ll be done in a second,” he said as he slid back under the table.
Leeteuk heard the theme song come to an end and perked up his ears as he heard in Hankyung’s halting Korean, “A-Ahn neyong. I-I mean, ahn neyong haseyo. This is Hankyung here in for Leeteuk who’s a little busy right now. We have a good show for you tonight, but here is HOT’s ‘Outside the Castle Doors.’”
Leeteuk wiggled back into his seat laughing. “That was great Hankyung! You don’t mind filling in for my co-host who has the flu right now, right?”
At Hankyung’s less than amused expression, Leeteuk placed his hands together like a movement of prayer and supplication, “Please Hankyung, I really need your help on this. It’s part of my final project.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Hankyung slowly nodded and Leeteuk acted relieved, happy and whatever impressionable expressions he could throw into his act. He then promised Hankyung that he would treat him to dinner.
He had already finished his final project weeks ago anyway. What’s one little dinner in comparison to that?
***
At first Leeteuk did the first fifteen minutes of the show along with Hankyung. He laughed, made jokes, and introduced new songs beside Hankyung, but as more things in the control box needed his immediate attention, the time Leeteuk spent as the co-dj of the show began to lessen.
But before Hankyung could panic and fret, Leeteuk always made sure that he was in a position in the sound booth where Hankyung could see him. This was the result from the incident when Hankyung turned around from adjusting his earphones and found Leeteuk gone. The opening song to the show was winding down and Leeteuk had to be rushed into the room with the spicy rice cake still hanging in his mouth and slid into the seat next to Hankyung while the producers tried to pretend that the ten minutes of dear air was just a test of the emergency broadcasting signal.
Hankyung could see him, but couldn’t hear Leeteuk of course. Leeteuk was sure that Hankyung would be appalled and completely unwilling if he knew all the grand schemes that Leeteuk had cooked up for him, so he always made double sure that he was smiling when Hankyung turned to look at him.
There was no reason to raise Hankyung’s suspicion alarm. Not that that alarm ever really turned off.
At first, when the listeners got the general idea that Leeteuk was no longer going to be hosting the show, the calls had started to drop off. Leeteuk then had gotten their friends to call the station instead.
“Hankyung hyung,” someone said, with sounds of scuffling and someone shouting, “You idiot!” in the background.
There was the sound of a throat being cleared, and then, “I mean, Hankyung oppa” a high-pitched voice said. “I’m a shy girl, and I’m with my boyfriend right now. I was so shocked when he suddenly became so forward and grabbed my hand. While he was holding it, he told me my hand was so ugly so I told him, ‘Your face too oppa.’ But Hankyung oppa, what should I do? I think he wants to take me to Han River!”
“Well, you’re in the same car with him right now right?”
A meek answer of, “yes” came across the sound waves.
“So can’t he hear you in the car right now too?”
Sounds of muffled laughter and the sound of more scuffling as if someone else was trying to make a grab for the phone and a small fight broke out. Then a different voice, a much deeper voice came across the line and said, “I’m taking her to Han River. She shouldn’t think that oppa is going to do anything bad to her.”
“Then I suggest you cover her mouth first Kibum, Eunhyuk and I had lots of onions in our lunch today.”
He was answered with, “Aww man! I knew it wouldn’t work!”
“That’s because you called him hyung!”
“He IS a hyung what else am I suppose to call him?”
“It doesn’t work if you’re trying to be a girl!”
That was soon followed with, “Oh! So for next time Kibum could say at his age how could he not have done it yet.” “Idiot! Not while we’re still on the air!” and Heechul’s voice cutting clear across the chatter so Hankyung knew he must have gotten a hold of the phone, “Hankyung! I’m hungry! Make me food when you come back!” and the click of the phone being hung up as Hankyung laughing as he introduced the next song concluded that particular adventure.
The next day, he got another phone call.
“Yeoboseyo? I think Hankyung oppa has a really nice voice. It’s so soft and sweet, I rather listen to him talk and give advice than play songs.”
Hankyung raised his eyebrows and gestured wildly to Leeteuk who was sitting in the sound room, asking him who it could possibly be.
With a pitch like that, it might be Ryeowook, but he’d need a lot of convincing to agree to go on air like that, and besides, he had class right now anyway, so that could only mean…
Leeteuk’s bright laugh cut through the radio station as he grabbed the mic. “If you can get twenty more people to listen in tomorrow, then we’ll give Hankyung a longer talking segment.”
Squealing at the other end of the phone came back to them along with promise that she’d do that. The next day with same breathless listener called in to say, “Oppa! I found twenty other listeners!” suddenly found Hankyung the host of his own daily show on the radio.
In Korean no less.
***
“Hyung-ah, the juk is boiling over, what should I do?” Ryeowook’s quiet voice came over the sounds of random banging of what Hankyung hoped were pots and pans in the background.
Despite the pick up in ratings, Hankyung’s friends still used this hour as a call in free for all.
“Remove the cover Ryeowook, and stir it so it doesn’t stick to the bottom of the cooker.”
“Oh okay. Thanks hyung.”
“Is someone sick? Why are you making juk?”
“It’s really cold today and you and Teukie hyung are coming back late. So I thought I’d make you something.”
“Oh.” Hankyung said, a little warmed by Ryeowook’s generosity. Maybe the wild boys he lived with that he had no choice but to call dongsaeng weren’t so bad after all.
“Annnnd Donghae and Eunhyuk might have broken your phone. Okay, bye!” Ryeowook said with shouts of, “Noo! Why did you tell him” heard in the background and, “Hyukjae! I found glue! Maybe we can - ” before Ryeowook hung up.
The line picked up again.
”Lee Donghae, you guys - ”
The sound of someone clearing their throat stopped Hankyung’s train of thought.
“It’s not Donghae.”
No, this person’s voice had the deep rolling quality and natural low pitch that Donghae wouldn’t be able to fake.
“I need your advice on something.”
Oh right. That was what his show was supposed to be about.
“I…like this person…and I…,” the sounds of something crinkling in the background made it difficult for Hankyung to be able to clearly make out all the words that were being spoken.
“Kyuhyun-ah, those chips will spoil your appetite and my eardrums if you keep eating them while calling me.”
Just then Leeteuk tapped on the glass of the control box and looking up, Hankyung saw Kyuhyun walking in to say hi, sans cell phone.
“…You’re not Kyuhyun.”
A slight rumble of a chuckle reached his ears, and “No, I’m not but I seem to have bad interference where I’m standing right now. Let me call you back.”
Hankyung slid the headphones off and mouthed out, “He’s not Kyuhyun” to Leeteuk who just beamed at him and Kyuhuyn whose shit eating grin was rapidly growing into a shit eating laugh.
***
“You mean an actual person called in today? A real honest to goodness person who didn’t just made some high pitch sound that’s supposed to express sounds of excitement and hung up?” Kangin asked as he used his chopsticks to form a barrier around the last piece of pork that Shindong was eyeing.
“We could probably get more of those if you guys stopped calling so often, you know.” Hankyung said while reaching over for another plate on the table.
“But hyung, if we stopped calling, how can we find you?” Ryeowook asked as Hankyung placed another piece of meat on his plate.
“Yeah, and since we still can’t find your phone, physically that is, how else would we be able to contact you?” Sungmin said between mouthfuls of food.
They all had a strange habit of calling each other at odd random times, like the time that they had called him when he was in the middle of doing a head stand, and the crash he heard at the other end of the phone was just Leeteuk falling over while attempting a head stand of his own, Shindong said.
Them calling him to ask what he was doing was still better than having them pound on his door in the middle of the night because they couldn’t find him and calming down and inviting themselves in once they realized he was just taking a shower. Of course having a phone would make this easier, but speaking of phones, Hankyung shot a look down the table where Donghae and Eunhyuk were, who just gave him identical grins before wolfing down another plate of food.
He wasn’t really mad at them really. He knew that somewhere along the line, Donghae and Eunhyuk would feel bad enough to either find and fix his phone or buy him a new one.
After all, they had fixed his MP3 player after they decided they wanted to experiment with gravity and several flights of stairs using his player. And aside from the bulky and sticky duct tape that encircled it, the player still worked mostly fine.
“Who knows,” Leeteuk said from his place at the head of the table, “Maybe this non-Kyuhyun will inspire other people aside from the people who live in this house to call you. Maybe then the radio station will be used not just as a place for Heechul to remind all those without a mirror how great he is.”
***
The next day, an excited Sungmin called and said, “Great news, hyung! Donghae and Eunhyuk found your phone!”
“Where was it?” Hankyung asked.
“Inside the kitty litter.”
“But….we don’t even have a cat.”
“I know that. That’s why it’s so great!”
In the background, Hankyung heard Donghae plaintive voice cry out, “Sungminnie, can you go get that special glue for us? The store won’t allow me and Hyukie back in there after we provided an in store demonstration for them.”
“Oh sorry Hankyung! I have to go!” Before Hankyung could even begin to ask Sungmin to wait, the line had already gone dead.
A couple of hours later, the phone rang again.
“I thought you might want to know that you’ll probably never see your phone again.” Kyunhyun’s droll voice rolled across the line.
“I thought Donghae and Eunhyuk were fixing it?” Hankyung asked, his head tilted quizzically to one side.
“Maybe that was the wrong choice of words. You might not want to use your phone after all this.” Kyuhyun replied, as various loud screams were heard in the background and Hankyung was sure he distinctly heard someone go, “Nooo! You weren’t supposed to stick that together! Teuk is going to be soooo mad when he sees the walls!” before Kyuhyun dropped the line.
But before Hankyung could properly categorize his bafflement, the phone rang again.
“I hope this is the voice of reason Sungmin, since Kyuhyun is now a lost cause.”
A slight cough that sounded a bit too accidental to be any of the boys he knew came across the line.
“My apologies,” a voice started again, low and smooth like slowly melting chocolate on a hot summer day. That is, if slowly melting chocolate had vocal inclinations; Hankyung thought it would probably sound like this.
“I hadn’t expected to be transferred so quickly.”
Damn, he had to keep remembering he had an actual show to host here.
“No need for apologies, caller. Please tell me what I can do for you.” Hankyung answered as he read off the sheet that he miraculously found when he realized that the caller wasn’t Sungmin and thanking Leeteuk for thinking ahead and writing these prompts.
Of course when Hankyung had walked in on Leeteuk hunched over his table and surrounded by the amassing stack of papers, Leeteuk had been laughing manically to himself and Hankyung had choose the option of slowly backing out of the door. But still, he was still glad Leeteuk had written down these prompts for him to follow.
“Ah…there’s this person I like, but I’m unsure of how to approach them” the soft baritone voice told him across the airwaves.
“Mmm” Hankyung replied, nodding sagely as he stalled for time to figure out which was the appropriate thing to say as none of the cues that Leeteuk had so kindly written down for him could be said for his shows current ratings.
“Why don’t you try talking to this person?” He finally came up with after the station manager had pounded on the glass and made, “Dead air! Dead air!” motions with his hands.
That’s because everyone knows the only thing worse than having dead air while on a radio talk show is having someone who can’t speak Korean host a Korean talk show, but Hankyung kept this opinion to himself.
“I can’t…I’m a little shy,” the caller chucked, a mix of humor flavored with a self-depreciating edge.
“You? Shy?” Hankyung asked, already picturing in his head that even if this caller wore a green traditional styled Chinese robe, he’d look mighty fine in it, and all he had to do was open it and wrapped it around Hankyung. Hankyung would then tilt his head to the side to face the camera just so, and sink to his knees and disappear for a little while under the large robe, and…he really had to stop reading Leeteuk’s prompts while he was still on the air with this caller and letting his imagination run away with him. Where did that camera come from anyway?
The caller laughed, and said, “I’m a shy guy.”
Of course Hankyung found this hard to believe, but if Hankyung went into everything he found hard right now, Leeteuk would be out a radio station with all the censorship they’d have to do on that segment.
Hankyung shook his head a little to clear it, but figured he probably couldn’t shake his other head to clear it until later the show, and tried to move onto non-uplifting head inspiring thoughts.
“It doesn’t have to be much,” Hankyung said, “Maybe you could say a hi, or maybe say a single phrase like, ‘Nice weather.”
“Mmm,” the caller low rumble of assessment replied back. “I’ll try that. Thanks Hankyung.”
Hankyung told the caller he was welcome and introduced the song in rotation, making sure to spin his hair away from Leeteuk’s view in the booth.
It was only his name, but as Hankyung put his hands against his hot face, he couldn’t help but wonder how in the world did he managed to supply enough blood for it to flow so freely in both directions. Hankyung blamed it on that voice.
Even the way the caller said his name sounded vaguely obscene like in a red light bulb and cool stain sheets that crinkled against your skin and slid past your fingers when you tried to make a solid grab for it sort of way.
At this rate, he wouldn’t be able to make it the bathroom and back before the commercials ended. Damn it.
***
A week had passed and aside from the calls he got from his sometimes loved, sometimes just mostly tolerated dongsaengs, he had heard almost daily from the love troubled caller.
The caller was starting to get his own fans too.
“Hankyung oppa and caller-shi, hwaiting!”
Sure he still got his usual, “Ya! Oppa! I want to throw my chewed gum in your mouth” odd fan calls but it had gotten to the point where Hankyung had started to expect his caller to talk to him and tell him of the chance encounters with his crush nearly everyday.
From what his caller had imparted to him, Hankyung surmised that his caller’s crush was in a different sect than his caller usually traveled in.
Maybe they were classmates, though Hankyung hardly thought that someone whose voice had the same surprising warmth of dark crushed velvet would still participate in school politics and would need to have a head bobbling assistant serve as his vice president.
But before he could expand on that thread of thought that involved life sized pandas, or at least leaders in a panda costume for a music video, the blinking light on his switch board indicated he had a call.
“Hi, you’re talking to Hankyung”
“Ah, Hankyung-shi, how are you?”
“Caller-shi! How are you today?”
“I’m doing very well, thank you. Nice weather we’re having today aren’t we?”
“Yes, it is very nice. Ah caller-shi, it’s been some days since we first spoke, is there something I could call you besides caller?”
The fact that Leeteuk had scribbled down this suggestion on today’s schedule and then had boxed it and underlined it in bright pink pen and then kicked Hankyung as he slid today’s agenda over to him had nothing to do with Hankyung’s decision really.
“Mm,” the caller said, as he mulled it over. “You can call me Siw…” and here the caller coughed as though he was choking on some unseen food particle, “I mean, Andrew. Please call me Andrew.”
“Ah, what a nice name. Were you able to see your crush today Andrew?” Hankyung asked, savoring the letters of the foreign name in his mouth.
“What if it’s a boy?” Sungmin had asked over dinner one night, referring of course to the caller who phoned in on a near daily basis.
“So what if it is? People adore me all the time and I can’t help that,” Heechul said, motioning to Kibum to pour him more soju.
“Heechul is right though, we don’t know who it is, so keep it as genderless as possible when asking about the crush okay Hankyung?” Leeteuk said arriving late to dinner, and taking off his coat as he strode to his customary seat at the head of the table.
Andrew chuckled, a low-throated thing balanced between heat and amusement.
“No, I didn’t, but the campus is pretty large, I’m not always able to see them. I have to appease myself with the glimpses of them I do happen to catch.”
Sudden crashing noises in the background and the swell of voices broke through the quiet, almost intimate conversation they were having. Andrew quickly said into the receiver, “I’m sorry Hankyung, but I have to go now, my roommates are back.”
Hankyung said he understood and as Andrew hung up, he put the next song in rotation. He spun his chair around to face Leeteuk who had snuck in sometime in the middle of the conversation.
“How many campuses get our radio station signal?” He asked.
“Just this one,” Leeteuk said, smiling so wide that only the bare slits of his eyes were visible.
***
“So you know he goes here,” Yesung said, tapping his chopsticks against his bowl at dinner.
“That’s just an assumption, Yesung. He could be visiting a friend or cousin and over heard the program,” Kibum said without bothering to look up.
Silence reigned over the rest of the table, as this was the first time that Kibum expressed any sort of interest, much less indicated that he was following the affairs of the radio station. He used this time prudently, and choose at that moment to take the last piece of beef while everyone looked on in shock.
“What?” He said raising his eyebrows above the black rim frames of his glasses.
“N-Nothing,” Eunhyuk said, “We just didn’t know you were following the program.”
Kibum just shrugged as Leeteuk came by and hugged the top of his head. “Of course Kibum listens in, how could he miss out on the show that his hyung stars in?” Leeteuk said, laughing and picking the beef off Kibum’s plate and popping it into his own mouth.
“Hyung?” Ryeowook asked stepping on the floppy edges of his socks as he entered the kitchen.
“Mmm?” Hankyung asked as he once again got stuck with dish duty. “But I cooked!” he yelled to the retreating backs of Kangin and Donghae as they slipped into their shoes at the door.
All he got back was laughter. He was really beginning to hate how everything was decided in the house by games.
“Did you not get enough to eat?” Hankyung asked as he placed a plate in the rinse pile. “I could cook you something but that might take a while. Heechul has a hidden stack of choco pies if you’re still hungry.”
“No…” Ryeowook said.
“Then what is it?” Hankyung asked, glancing over his shoulder at Ryeowook.
“Maybe…did you ever think that maybe the caller likes you?”
Hankyung didn’t have an answer for that and that night as he told Heechul what Ryeowook said as he turned on his laptop, Heechul merely snorted and said, “Have you seen who’s on campus? I’m on campus,” and effectively ended the conversation.
Hankyung could only bob his head in agreement as he clicked to open his minihompy to see how many visitors had visited his site.
A couple of minutes later, Heechul broke the quiet with his loud curses about how Kibum and Kyuhyun shouldn’t be allowed to be on the same team in any online games, much less ones where they try to destroy each other through pixilated means.
When Heechul called over Hankyung for help, which really, just meant Hankyung watching the game over his shoulder, Hankyung promptly forgot all about who Andrew’s mysterious crush might be, as Heechul’s character was getting thoroughly beaten as muffled laughter came from the other room.
***
“And this person…that you like, what are they like?” Leeteuk’s happy voice rang out in the radio station when Hankyung got in, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
Hankyung was a little late today, having stayed up late with Heechul who had recruited him in his efforts to bring down Kibum and Kyuhyun. By the time the sun had risen again, they were still unable to carry out their purpose, but a small dialogue box had opened with Kibum’s character in it saying, “Better luck next time hyung ^^” and Heechul had thrown his hands in the air and stomped off to sleep.
“Mmm…” the person on the other line said, but before they got to continue that line of thought any further, Hankyung was already pushing his way towards the seats where Leeteuk had already propped up his feet and was beaming at Hankyung’s rushed actions.
He already knew who it was before he hurriedly sat down and put his ear phones in place before flipping his microphone switch on.
“If you could wait just a moment Andrew,” Leeteuk said laughing. “Hankyung just walked in, I’m sure he’ll be most interested to hear more about this person too.”
Hankyung was just irritated that he was late and just merely upset that he missed his bus today. He wasn’t jealous that Leeteuk who usually sat behind the glass and was generally more than perfectly happy to play recordings of Hankyung singing in the shower on the rare moments that Hankyung was late on the air.
He wasn’t quietly seething that Leeteuk who was sitting in the chair that he hadn’t occupied in the better part of the year was sitting here today talking to Andrew.
No, he wasn’t gritting his teeth in anger that Leeteuk was occupying the one person whom Hankyung looked forward to talking to everyday.
No, no, he was just a little aggravated at Leeteuk who made him wash the dishes last night. Not that it was Leeteuk’s fault that Hankyung bit his tongue in the middle of the game or said dehgi instead of its English equivalent in another animal name game.
No, Hankyung wasn’t mad at Leeteuk’s for being able to speak to Andrew first, nope, not mad or jealous or anything.
He just had to turn his chair away from Leeteuk bright cheery face not because he didn’t want to see it, but because he had stubbed his toe when he kicked the table.
But since Hankyung wasn’t mad or jealous (nope, not at all) where was all this anger coming from anyway?
He wasn’t worried about Leeteuk taking over as DJ, and since he wasn’t resentful because it wasn’t as if he was starting to look forward to talking to Andrew everyday why was he…
A rough kick from his chair from Leeteuk brought him spinning around towards the mic again.
“I’m sorry Andrew, you have to repeat your question to Hankyung again. He just hurt himself when he stubbed his toe.”
“Eh? Is he okay? How did he stub his toe?”
“Well, I think it probably was when he kicked…”
“Hi Andrew,” Hankyung said with a grunt of effort as he kicked Leeteuk’s chair to spin to the other side of the room.
“Good morning Hankyung. How are you today?”
“I’m fine. A little late, but I’m fine. I have to apologize for Leeteuk. He gets a little…wild when he’s left to his own devices.” Hankyung said as he made shooing motions at Leeteuk.
“That’s okay. I like talking to Leeteuk hyung. He’s very nice.”
“I bet.” Hankyung said, a touch darkly.
“What was that?”
“Nothing, nothing. So I think Leeteuk was asking you about that person you like?”
“Yes.” Hankyung could practically hear the smirk in Andrew’s voice.
“Do you mind telling us more about them?”
“No, not at all. They’re really nice and sometimes maybe too nice, as they seem to get taken advantage of one way or another.”
“Oh?” Hankyung said. “How do you know this? Have you spoken to them?”
Silence for a moment, then, “No…not really, but I see them helping others a lot and doing things for others. And they always seem to be the subject of their friends adventures to try out new things like how gravity may or may not work in a staircase.”
”So you have seen your crush recently?”
A laugh. “Not as often as I’d like, but since we’re in different majors, what can you do?”
“Why, what do you study Andrew?”
“Theological studies.”
“And your crush?”
“They major in ballet and traditional dance.”
Sounds of things crashing in the background and Andrew once again apologizing as he had to leave rather abruptly again.
“Hey Hankyung,” Leeteuk’s voice came over the speakers after Andrew had hung up. “Aren’t you a ballet and traditional dance major yourself?”
***
“So have you found out who this person is yet?” Shindong asked as he slid into the seat across from where Hankyung had sprawled with his head down at the lunch table.
“Huh?” Hankyung replied, wearily lifting his head up.
“What they promised on the show?” Shindong prodded.
“What who promised? I’ve been putting together and practicing for my final presentation for the ballet final for two weeks now, and I left Donghae and Eunhyuk to MC the show while I was gone."
Shindong tsked in sympathy at Hankyung fate and patted him on the back.
“While you were away, Eunhyuk and Donghae issued a challenge. They said that if anyone could find out the identity of the caller and the mysterious person he liked, they would win a date with you and they’d get your phone number. They also threw in that if they got the answer before you found out, they’d throw in your phone for free.”
“You mean they finally fixed it?” Hankyung asked suddenly more awake than he’d been for the past two weeks.
Shindong shrugged and patiently waited for Hankyung’s explosive reaction when the rest of his brain caught up.
He wasn’t disappointed.
“WHAT?!” Hankyung practically screeched.
Shindong rubbed his ears a little bit before replying, “Didn’t you see the posters?”
“Too many words.” Hankyung replied quickly detangling his long legs from the bench and grabbing his jacket.
He thought he knew better when he ignored the bright garnish posters that had popped up on campus. He remembered the last time he had spent over an hour trying to decipher a Eunhyuk-Donghae poster with a dictionary in hand when he encountered the posters that lined the way to the dance studio. The sign turned out to be a search party signup sheet designated to look for Yesung’s lost cuteness.
“You better hurry. Last I heard, Leeteuk sounded like he almost convinced Heechul to part with that picture you guys took in the bathroom on his cell phone as a consolidation prize,” Shindong called to Hankyung’s quickly retreating back.
“That poor bastard,” Shindong said, “When will he ever learn?”
As Hankyung came peeling into the hallways of the radio station, he knew he was too late when he saw Donghae happily shaking hands with a tall long legged stranger.
As he hurried towards them, his sneakers making squeaking sounds as he slid along the hallway in his rush, the stranger turned around and smiled.
Hankyung was taken aback. Nobody could be that good looking would still willingly be in cohorts with Eunhyuk and Donghae.
But still, something in that smile and the warm brown eyes beckoned Hankyung to come closer and with two quick steps, Hankyung was within the same breathing space as the guy.
Which incidentally put him in the same breathing distance to Eunhyuk and Donghae.
“Hyung!” Donghae said, practically bouncing as Eunhyuk’s beaming pink gums grinned at him from around Donghae’s shoulders.
“This is the guy! We found him!” Donghae said, inherently proud of himself.
“He found us, idiot,” Eunhyuk corrected, nodding once to show his superior intelligence in this situation.
The stranger stepped forward and smiled again.
“I’m sorry. Let me introduce myself. My name is Siwon.”
This voice sounded so familiar Hankyung thought has he automatically extended his hand to meet Siwon’s outstretched one.
“You might know me as Andrew.”
Hankyung dropped his hand from Siwon-Andrew-Siwon’s grasp and felt his eyes widen in surprise.
Siwon-Andrew-Siwon continued, “I must confess. Andrew isn’t my real name. I mean it is, but it isn’t. I’ll have to explain another time. But,” and here his smile deepened to announce the arrival of two deep dimples. “Since I am the guy, and I’m staring at the person I like, can I take you out on a date now and get your number?”
Hankyung could only stare in bewilderment. Does this mean Andr…Siwon, he mentally corrected, had been talking to his crush all this time? Wait, did this mean Ryeowook was right all along?
“What about his phone?” Donghae asked waving the black taped device in the air.
“Well, he already found out, so I don’t think it counts anymore. But I suppose I can still take my reward in different…forms of payment.”
How did this guy manage to switch from bewitching gorgeous to tonguing double entendres with one sentence?
”It’s okay,” Hankyung said, finally coming out of his stupor. “This payment’s on me,” he said as he leaned in and kissed Siwon.