SuJu 100 fics: 059. Calendar, Eeteuk/Eeteuk
Author: Risabet
Title: 059. Calendar, Eeteuk/Eeteuk
Word count: 2397, fic count 11/100
Rating: G, family!love, fluff, feel-good stuff ^^
Disclaimer: I am in no way related to these people, only the story is mine
Summary: Eeteuk reflects over some of the good times ^^
Dedicated to dear_whimsy who cheers me up, inspires me to write, is made of intelligent awesome and deserves not only loads of love but also fiction dedicated to her, even if it’s just my cruddy stuff. ILU <3
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It had become a regular joke, an antic loved by the fans, that Eeteuk was the band umma and he had willingly taken to this, for though they weren’t his children, they weren’t his to begin with, these twelve nearly heavenly creatures, it was with the pride of a mother that Eeteuk watched them. He’d see their chests heave as oxygen filled their lungs, see their pulses beat in perfect unison as they moved and see how they glowed and radiated sheer joy of living, faces flushed the shade of rose petals and he couldn’t help but wonder what could have created something so utterly perfect.
Eeteuk had never mentioned it to any of his boys, keeping it as a silent, motherly quirk of his own, but he remembered the first time he had held each of them.
It had happened what now seemed to Eeteuk a lifetime ago, a humid evening in August, back then there had been no Super Junior, there had been no Eeteuk, only a very confused trainee by the name of Jungsu and another trainee called Heechul, who had marched down the hallway with angry tears pouring down his face and slammed himself against the other boy, clenched fists awkwardly pressed against the warmth of the only available human being in sight.
They were both barely seventeen at the time and Jungsu had never even held a girl, let alone another boy, but something had told him to stay right there, like that, hands hesitantly placed on his friend’s waist, and Heechul had accepted all the clumsy comfort that Jungsu had managed to give. Then, as abruptly as he had arrived, Heechul had stepped back, mumbled a ‘thanks’ and stomped away as if nothing had happened. Neither one of them ever mentioned it again, but Eeteuk would always remember the occasion when he saw Heechul whispering words of encouragement to younger members upon their weak moments.
Some five years ago on an early Sunday morning in late November Eeteuk had woken up to a smell, the smell of something burning and stumbled into the kitchen within seconds, never minding the bruises he’d have the following day, most of them courtesy of a door handle that had unfortunately gone unnoticed in the rush. In the room he had been greeted with a light veil of fading smoke, a ruined saucepan in the sink and a miserable Hankyung sitting on the floor, leaning his back against the refrigerator. Seeing his leader the younger man had gotten up, panic visible in his eyes and at loss of the right Korean words, mangled sentences filled with Chinese words tumbling from his lips. Eeteuk, relieved that nothing was one fire and everyone was safe, had promptly ignored whatever the other one had tried so hard to tell and pulled Hankyung into a tight hug, assuring that they could buy as many saucepans that were necessary, but in case Hankyung wanted to keep up with this new hobby of his he’d have to tell Eeteuk first because he didn’t want to die young of a heart attack. Hankyung, bewildered by the sudden lack of personal space had simply opted to bury his face in Eeteuk’s shoulder and not even try to understand.
Kangin had stormed out of the dorms after a particularly heated row, not even stopping to grab a jacket despite the freezing January wind blowing through town. At first Eeteuk had continued to feel furious, thinking that even the temperature outside wouldn’t be able to bring that hot-headed idiot to his senses, but it hadn’t really taken longer than fifteen minutes for the guilt to kick in. Yongwoon would catch pneumonia, he’d get lost in the dark streets, he’d freeze to death alone and with Jungsu’s malicious words ringing in his ears until he’d no longer hear anything. Miserable, Eeteuk had positioned himself in the corner of the living room sofa, ignoring the fact that he’d have to get up early the next morning. He wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway.
The front door lock hadn’t clicked to signal that the other boy was back until midnight. Jungsu had carefully untangled himself from the blankets he had pulled on as he had waited and waited, eyes following the clock on the wall almost without blinking. Soon enough Kangin had walked into the room and sat next to him, looking pale and unsure.
Six hours later a sleepy Yesung, on his way to the bathroom, had found them curled up together under the blankets, fast asleep, warm and oblivious to the frozen world outside.
Spring wasn’t the time for lovers only; it was also the season of children who were fed up with staying inside during the long winter months and had been driving their parents up the wall for a good couple of weeks before being finally allowed to go outside wearing their lighter jackets and new shoes that would be ruined in the mud within a matter of minutes. Such was it in the Super Junior household as well.
“Fine,” Eeteuk had sighed, “fine. Just go then you two.” The Lee twins had shot past them, a whirlwind of screams and forgotten mittens, April beating in their veins like fever. Heechul had snorted loudly and made a snide remark but Shiwon, always equally good-natured, had shushed the older boy.
“They’re young; it’s only natural to be happy.”
“You’re younger then they are and you’re not romping around like a calf!” Eeteuk had laughed and, after a small inner battle, abandoned the paper work he had been reading through at the kitchen table and followed the happy young pair outside.
This time the wind had been nothing but gentle, soft and soothing as it had brushed the hair from his eyes and the dusty cobwebs from his mind. Squinting in the sunlight he had watched Donghae and Eunhyuk run in circles, playing tag like kindergartners. Suddenly they had spotted their hyung standing by the front door and rushed to him, willing the leader to join their chase. Eeteuk had laughed and wrapped an arm around each Lee, breathing in their smell, knowing that this was one of his happiest days ever and that life simply couldn’t get better.
It hadn’t been until their manager had finally confirmed their upcoming debut in early September that he first hugged Shindong. Eeteuk had danced across the studio alone in the small of the night, unable to calm down and go home, high on pure happiness when Shindong had entered the room, wide grin lighting up his otherwise so tired face.
“We finally did it, Jungsu. No one thought we would but we did.” Eeteuk had still been new to this whole leader business, but what little experience he had made him stop his spinning. He had steadied himself and looked at the young man in front of him, dark shades under his eyes and echoes of bruises brought about by hard training still lingering on the arms.
“Not only us but you as well. You did it, Shin Donghee and I’m extremely proud to be in the same group with you.” Reassurance, Eeteuk had learned that day as he had tightly gripped the back of Shindong’s track jacket, was a form of love on its own.
Hadn’t Eeteuk met Mr. and Mrs. Lee he would have felt compelled to believe that Sungmin had been born out of the very summer itself. What had sparked this feeling was one particular morning in July many a summer ago, the morning of the first of July, Eeteuk’s birthday. He had woken to the feeling that he wasn’t alone in his room though he was fairly sure he should have been. Lifting his head groggily he had seen Sungmin sitting by an open window, looking out and over the rooftops, smiling like there was nothing better in the entire world than being right here right now, black hair haloed by the first rays of light. Seeing that Eeteuk was awake the boy had carefully climbed down from the high windowsill and tiptoed across the room to the bed without making a sound.
“Happy birthday, Jungsu hyung,” he had smiled, a whisper slightly out of breath. Eeteuk had smiled back, and lifted the blankets so that Sungmin was able to slip under them too.
“Thank you, Minnie.”
It was undeniably hard to be the oldest out of thirteen, but sometimes Eeteuk thought that being the fourth oldest was likely a lot harder. You weren’t the oldest nor the youngest, not the one in the middle. Being the fourth oldest was like being given a position that said ”Set a good example for the younger, don’t bother the older, and remain quietly in the middle.” It was a good excuse for being forgotten and ignored. Given all that Yesung did remarkably well, tolerated the niche he had been pushed into without questions, but he too had his inevitable moments. Occasionally he’d cry and curse, allowing his pain to show, other times he’d draw into his shell and distance himself from everyone as well as he could.
The first time the strain had taken its toll had been one of the latter cases. The October rain beating the ground mercilessly outside had made everyone feel tired and cut off from their usual cheerful spirit, but only Yesung had made Eeteuk worry by seemingly disappearing from the face of Earth. No one had an especially tight schedule that week and the members had formed small groups and resolved to laying around the apartment in somewhat uncomfortable piles, like cats waiting for a merrier weather, someone sighing and turning every now and then to find a better position, preferably further away from Hyukjae’s feet. Yesung should have been there, squished between Ryeowook and Sungmin and yet he wasn’t.
“Yesungie?” Eeteuk had gently pushed open one of the bedroom doors to be greeted by shadowy silence. Later on drawn curtains in the middle of the day would never fail to remind Eeteuk of Yesung.
“Yesung?” It had taken a while for him to notice the other boy sitting on the floor between the two beds that took most of the room.
“Is everything alright, Jongwoon?” He had kneeled down to face Yesung and felt so very incompetent at the sight of the eyes desperately searching for something that he knew he didn’t have. They had stared at each other for a good minute or two before Eeteuk had leaned forward to pull the other into an awkward hug, the sharp angles of their bodies pressing together, neither one quite comfortable, but close enough anyway.
Eeteuk hadn’t known Ryeowook longer than a few weeks when he had decided that the other boy was, for the lack of a better word, adorable. What it really came down to was that he never tried to be, but simply was, like it was the most natural thing for anyone. Maybe that’s why their first embrace had had no real settings, no frames to be portrayed against. It had been June, so much Eeteuk could tell, and there had been a distant sense of the sea being somewhere out there and Ryeowook had smelled like sunshine and lemon balm and his hair had felt soft against Eeteuk’s cheek and they hadn’t let go of each other for a long, long time.
“Hyung, do you know why we celebrate Christmas?” Shiwon’s tone had been a bit too neutral to be exactly that and Eeteuk had lifted his eyes from the thick book he had been leafing through, a feeble attempt to educate himself. Something he should have done more often, he had realized, because while he knew - and gave - the obvious answer to Shiwon’s question he couldn’t shake the feeling that there definitely was something more to it.
“Yes,” Shiwon had smiled, “but other than that?” Eeteuk had shaken his head in response. No, he didn’t know, other than that.
“Because people love each other but don’t otherwise get the opportunity to say so often enough.” Ah. Eeteuk had yanked Shiwon’s arm at that and pulled the younger man down onto his lap, using the surprise element of his sudden actions to his advantage.
“Merry December,” he had said softly, brushing his fingers through Shiwon’s hair and trying his hardest not to giggle at the suddenly very red state of the other’s ears, “I love you, too.”
At first no one had been sure what to make out of Kyuhyun who had simply been pushed into their dorm by their manager around the time March had arrived, marking the official end of winter and the beginning of a new era for Super Junior.
Yes, the boy had been happy to join the group and was very grateful for everything. No, he hadn’t needed anything in particular, and yes, it would be okay to sleep alone in the spare bedroom, he was eighteen, not eight.
Eeteuk had woken up in the middle of the night for no obvious reason. Driven by something he couldn’t give a name to (he later came to blame his odd, out of place maternal instinct) he had gently removed Kangin’s arm from his waist, gotten up and crept down the hall to the door behind which he had known the new boy to be.
“Kyuhyun-ah, are you awake?” After maybe half a minute the door had been opened by the magnae, his gaze turned down but not low enough to hide the redness of his eyes. Eeteuk had tentatively held out his hand, allowing the younger boy to step either to or away from him.
On the afternoon of Children’s Day, on the afternoon of May fifth four years ago Kibum had very matter-of-factly told Jungsu that he missed home. He had never said it before, not when Donghae had cried because of homesickness, not when Hankyung had spent yet another hour speaking Chinese on the phone, never before. Knowing how Kibum tended to shy away from physical contact Eeteuk hadn’t dared to do more than wrap a comforting arm around his dongsaeng’s shoulders, only to be pleasantly surprised as Kibum had returned the gesture and allowed Eeteuk to stay close until the others had returned to the apartment.
Eeteuk watched his boys in the cold of February and smiled to himself. They weren’t his but he was theirs.
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Notes: I’m not actually sure if Shiwon really is younger than the twins. I remember reading a profile that had his birth date and his ‘real birth date’ …huh?
Title: 059. Calendar, Eeteuk/Eeteuk
Word count: 2397, fic count 11/100
Rating: G, family!love, fluff, feel-good stuff ^^
Disclaimer: I am in no way related to these people, only the story is mine
Summary: Eeteuk reflects over some of the good times ^^
Dedicated to dear_whimsy who cheers me up, inspires me to write, is made of intelligent awesome and deserves not only loads of love but also fiction dedicated to her, even if it’s just my cruddy stuff. ILU <3
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It had become a regular joke, an antic loved by the fans, that Eeteuk was the band umma and he had willingly taken to this, for though they weren’t his children, they weren’t his to begin with, these twelve nearly heavenly creatures, it was with the pride of a mother that Eeteuk watched them. He’d see their chests heave as oxygen filled their lungs, see their pulses beat in perfect unison as they moved and see how they glowed and radiated sheer joy of living, faces flushed the shade of rose petals and he couldn’t help but wonder what could have created something so utterly perfect.
Eeteuk had never mentioned it to any of his boys, keeping it as a silent, motherly quirk of his own, but he remembered the first time he had held each of them.
It had happened what now seemed to Eeteuk a lifetime ago, a humid evening in August, back then there had been no Super Junior, there had been no Eeteuk, only a very confused trainee by the name of Jungsu and another trainee called Heechul, who had marched down the hallway with angry tears pouring down his face and slammed himself against the other boy, clenched fists awkwardly pressed against the warmth of the only available human being in sight.
They were both barely seventeen at the time and Jungsu had never even held a girl, let alone another boy, but something had told him to stay right there, like that, hands hesitantly placed on his friend’s waist, and Heechul had accepted all the clumsy comfort that Jungsu had managed to give. Then, as abruptly as he had arrived, Heechul had stepped back, mumbled a ‘thanks’ and stomped away as if nothing had happened. Neither one of them ever mentioned it again, but Eeteuk would always remember the occasion when he saw Heechul whispering words of encouragement to younger members upon their weak moments.
Some five years ago on an early Sunday morning in late November Eeteuk had woken up to a smell, the smell of something burning and stumbled into the kitchen within seconds, never minding the bruises he’d have the following day, most of them courtesy of a door handle that had unfortunately gone unnoticed in the rush. In the room he had been greeted with a light veil of fading smoke, a ruined saucepan in the sink and a miserable Hankyung sitting on the floor, leaning his back against the refrigerator. Seeing his leader the younger man had gotten up, panic visible in his eyes and at loss of the right Korean words, mangled sentences filled with Chinese words tumbling from his lips. Eeteuk, relieved that nothing was one fire and everyone was safe, had promptly ignored whatever the other one had tried so hard to tell and pulled Hankyung into a tight hug, assuring that they could buy as many saucepans that were necessary, but in case Hankyung wanted to keep up with this new hobby of his he’d have to tell Eeteuk first because he didn’t want to die young of a heart attack. Hankyung, bewildered by the sudden lack of personal space had simply opted to bury his face in Eeteuk’s shoulder and not even try to understand.
Kangin had stormed out of the dorms after a particularly heated row, not even stopping to grab a jacket despite the freezing January wind blowing through town. At first Eeteuk had continued to feel furious, thinking that even the temperature outside wouldn’t be able to bring that hot-headed idiot to his senses, but it hadn’t really taken longer than fifteen minutes for the guilt to kick in. Yongwoon would catch pneumonia, he’d get lost in the dark streets, he’d freeze to death alone and with Jungsu’s malicious words ringing in his ears until he’d no longer hear anything. Miserable, Eeteuk had positioned himself in the corner of the living room sofa, ignoring the fact that he’d have to get up early the next morning. He wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway.
The front door lock hadn’t clicked to signal that the other boy was back until midnight. Jungsu had carefully untangled himself from the blankets he had pulled on as he had waited and waited, eyes following the clock on the wall almost without blinking. Soon enough Kangin had walked into the room and sat next to him, looking pale and unsure.
Six hours later a sleepy Yesung, on his way to the bathroom, had found them curled up together under the blankets, fast asleep, warm and oblivious to the frozen world outside.
Spring wasn’t the time for lovers only; it was also the season of children who were fed up with staying inside during the long winter months and had been driving their parents up the wall for a good couple of weeks before being finally allowed to go outside wearing their lighter jackets and new shoes that would be ruined in the mud within a matter of minutes. Such was it in the Super Junior household as well.
“Fine,” Eeteuk had sighed, “fine. Just go then you two.” The Lee twins had shot past them, a whirlwind of screams and forgotten mittens, April beating in their veins like fever. Heechul had snorted loudly and made a snide remark but Shiwon, always equally good-natured, had shushed the older boy.
“They’re young; it’s only natural to be happy.”
“You’re younger then they are and you’re not romping around like a calf!” Eeteuk had laughed and, after a small inner battle, abandoned the paper work he had been reading through at the kitchen table and followed the happy young pair outside.
This time the wind had been nothing but gentle, soft and soothing as it had brushed the hair from his eyes and the dusty cobwebs from his mind. Squinting in the sunlight he had watched Donghae and Eunhyuk run in circles, playing tag like kindergartners. Suddenly they had spotted their hyung standing by the front door and rushed to him, willing the leader to join their chase. Eeteuk had laughed and wrapped an arm around each Lee, breathing in their smell, knowing that this was one of his happiest days ever and that life simply couldn’t get better.
It hadn’t been until their manager had finally confirmed their upcoming debut in early September that he first hugged Shindong. Eeteuk had danced across the studio alone in the small of the night, unable to calm down and go home, high on pure happiness when Shindong had entered the room, wide grin lighting up his otherwise so tired face.
“We finally did it, Jungsu. No one thought we would but we did.” Eeteuk had still been new to this whole leader business, but what little experience he had made him stop his spinning. He had steadied himself and looked at the young man in front of him, dark shades under his eyes and echoes of bruises brought about by hard training still lingering on the arms.
“Not only us but you as well. You did it, Shin Donghee and I’m extremely proud to be in the same group with you.” Reassurance, Eeteuk had learned that day as he had tightly gripped the back of Shindong’s track jacket, was a form of love on its own.
Hadn’t Eeteuk met Mr. and Mrs. Lee he would have felt compelled to believe that Sungmin had been born out of the very summer itself. What had sparked this feeling was one particular morning in July many a summer ago, the morning of the first of July, Eeteuk’s birthday. He had woken to the feeling that he wasn’t alone in his room though he was fairly sure he should have been. Lifting his head groggily he had seen Sungmin sitting by an open window, looking out and over the rooftops, smiling like there was nothing better in the entire world than being right here right now, black hair haloed by the first rays of light. Seeing that Eeteuk was awake the boy had carefully climbed down from the high windowsill and tiptoed across the room to the bed without making a sound.
“Happy birthday, Jungsu hyung,” he had smiled, a whisper slightly out of breath. Eeteuk had smiled back, and lifted the blankets so that Sungmin was able to slip under them too.
“Thank you, Minnie.”
It was undeniably hard to be the oldest out of thirteen, but sometimes Eeteuk thought that being the fourth oldest was likely a lot harder. You weren’t the oldest nor the youngest, not the one in the middle. Being the fourth oldest was like being given a position that said ”Set a good example for the younger, don’t bother the older, and remain quietly in the middle.” It was a good excuse for being forgotten and ignored. Given all that Yesung did remarkably well, tolerated the niche he had been pushed into without questions, but he too had his inevitable moments. Occasionally he’d cry and curse, allowing his pain to show, other times he’d draw into his shell and distance himself from everyone as well as he could.
The first time the strain had taken its toll had been one of the latter cases. The October rain beating the ground mercilessly outside had made everyone feel tired and cut off from their usual cheerful spirit, but only Yesung had made Eeteuk worry by seemingly disappearing from the face of Earth. No one had an especially tight schedule that week and the members had formed small groups and resolved to laying around the apartment in somewhat uncomfortable piles, like cats waiting for a merrier weather, someone sighing and turning every now and then to find a better position, preferably further away from Hyukjae’s feet. Yesung should have been there, squished between Ryeowook and Sungmin and yet he wasn’t.
“Yesungie?” Eeteuk had gently pushed open one of the bedroom doors to be greeted by shadowy silence. Later on drawn curtains in the middle of the day would never fail to remind Eeteuk of Yesung.
“Yesung?” It had taken a while for him to notice the other boy sitting on the floor between the two beds that took most of the room.
“Is everything alright, Jongwoon?” He had kneeled down to face Yesung and felt so very incompetent at the sight of the eyes desperately searching for something that he knew he didn’t have. They had stared at each other for a good minute or two before Eeteuk had leaned forward to pull the other into an awkward hug, the sharp angles of their bodies pressing together, neither one quite comfortable, but close enough anyway.
Eeteuk hadn’t known Ryeowook longer than a few weeks when he had decided that the other boy was, for the lack of a better word, adorable. What it really came down to was that he never tried to be, but simply was, like it was the most natural thing for anyone. Maybe that’s why their first embrace had had no real settings, no frames to be portrayed against. It had been June, so much Eeteuk could tell, and there had been a distant sense of the sea being somewhere out there and Ryeowook had smelled like sunshine and lemon balm and his hair had felt soft against Eeteuk’s cheek and they hadn’t let go of each other for a long, long time.
“Hyung, do you know why we celebrate Christmas?” Shiwon’s tone had been a bit too neutral to be exactly that and Eeteuk had lifted his eyes from the thick book he had been leafing through, a feeble attempt to educate himself. Something he should have done more often, he had realized, because while he knew - and gave - the obvious answer to Shiwon’s question he couldn’t shake the feeling that there definitely was something more to it.
“Yes,” Shiwon had smiled, “but other than that?” Eeteuk had shaken his head in response. No, he didn’t know, other than that.
“Because people love each other but don’t otherwise get the opportunity to say so often enough.” Ah. Eeteuk had yanked Shiwon’s arm at that and pulled the younger man down onto his lap, using the surprise element of his sudden actions to his advantage.
“Merry December,” he had said softly, brushing his fingers through Shiwon’s hair and trying his hardest not to giggle at the suddenly very red state of the other’s ears, “I love you, too.”
At first no one had been sure what to make out of Kyuhyun who had simply been pushed into their dorm by their manager around the time March had arrived, marking the official end of winter and the beginning of a new era for Super Junior.
Yes, the boy had been happy to join the group and was very grateful for everything. No, he hadn’t needed anything in particular, and yes, it would be okay to sleep alone in the spare bedroom, he was eighteen, not eight.
Eeteuk had woken up in the middle of the night for no obvious reason. Driven by something he couldn’t give a name to (he later came to blame his odd, out of place maternal instinct) he had gently removed Kangin’s arm from his waist, gotten up and crept down the hall to the door behind which he had known the new boy to be.
“Kyuhyun-ah, are you awake?” After maybe half a minute the door had been opened by the magnae, his gaze turned down but not low enough to hide the redness of his eyes. Eeteuk had tentatively held out his hand, allowing the younger boy to step either to or away from him.
On the afternoon of Children’s Day, on the afternoon of May fifth four years ago Kibum had very matter-of-factly told Jungsu that he missed home. He had never said it before, not when Donghae had cried because of homesickness, not when Hankyung had spent yet another hour speaking Chinese on the phone, never before. Knowing how Kibum tended to shy away from physical contact Eeteuk hadn’t dared to do more than wrap a comforting arm around his dongsaeng’s shoulders, only to be pleasantly surprised as Kibum had returned the gesture and allowed Eeteuk to stay close until the others had returned to the apartment.
Eeteuk watched his boys in the cold of February and smiled to himself. They weren’t his but he was theirs.
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Notes: I’m not actually sure if Shiwon really is younger than the twins. I remember reading a profile that had his birth date and his ‘real birth date’ …huh?