Remedial Skills
Title: Remedial Skills
Pairing: Yekyu
Rating: PG-13
Genre: AU, Drama, Romance
Length: one-shot
Disclaimer: I don't own them, SME does. Plot is mine.
Summary: One always holds a baseball bat and the other always holds a pouch of roses. Feasible? Probably not. Compatible? Just maybe. The underlying reasons are what's most important, anyways, not the content themselves. Right?
Warning: Un-beta'd. Never will get beta'd cause I will never, ever, look at this again. Just sayin'. :)
“What are you doing here?”
“What are you doing here?”
A simple question repeated by two people, each with their own tone - their own voice. Yesung never knew a question could be answered with silence and explain so much more than words themselves could. With a stranger, none the less.
I'm here because I want to be here, is what's likely to be the boys reply.
I'm here because I can be here, is what Yesung would have said if the silence weren't so comfortable.
“My name is Yesung,” he introduces, but he isn't quite sure why he bothers to. It's not as if he would meet this boy again any time soon.
The boy briefly looks up from his book, sitting perched on a bench. “My name is Kyuhyun,” he replies. Yesung stores the name into the back of his mind, deep down in his heart.
“Jongwoon, let's go!”
Yesung waves his wooden baseball bat at his friend in the distance, indicating that he had heard him. He briefly wondered if he should explain that he had two names to Kyuhyun, but decides not to. He does not say goodbye and, when he leaves, Kyuhyun does not greet him - neither does he watch him go.
And Yesung is reluctant to leave - the first time he's ever felt so in his entire life.
For the first time, Yesung hesitates.
-
Kyuhyun liked to preserve things. Yesung enjoyed destroying things.
“Why do you always carry a bag of rose petals around with you?” Yesung asks, but he's only ever seen Kyuhyun at this park, on this bench.
The younger boy gives him a sideways glance. “Why do you always carry a baseball bat around with you?”
They fall into silence again but neither of them are bothered by it. It is calming.
-
“You're really bad at staying away from injuries,” Kyuhyun comments nonchalantly one evening. “That bruise under your eyes looks pretty brutal.”
Obviously, they have warmed up to each other - despite only meeting once every few weeks or so.
Yesung shrugs. “And you're really bad at managing your weight gain; your face looks like it's swollen, not to mention your throat.”
They both laugh it off, as if treating it as a joke, but Yesung notices how Kyuhyun grips his bag of rose petals a little harder, crushing it in his long, slim fingers.
The pouch is not the only thing that feels the pressure.
-
Yesung flinches as Sungmin dabs at the wound on his shoulder with antiseptic, the cotton dampening with his blood; a rosy, red hue. He is reminded of Kyuhyun.
“Damn, you got it good,” Sungmin winces as the gash opens up a little more from Yesung's jolt.
“Oh, shut up,” Yesung groans. “If your idiotic Kibum wasn't so stupid and had to fling his freaking club at the dumb stair rail,” he says, narrowing his eyes at said boy, “knowing full well I was standing right below him, then this crap wouldn't have happened.”
Kibum shrugs. Sungmin frowns, stabbing at the injury just the faintest bit harder.
“You're the genius that insisted we sabotage that piece of junk building,” Eunhyuk reminds him, siding with Sungmin, “you should have expected an accident.”
They all had a thing for giving Yesung a hard time.
Yesung scoffed. “Yeah, I said trash the edifice - not me.”
“Maybe he mistook you as junk,” Kangin smirked.
“That's why I called him an idiot,” Yesung grinned. It only earned him a hard slap of a bandage on his shoulder by Sungmin - a very displeased Sungmin. “You're such a bit-”
Before Yesung could finish his insult, Sungmin took a shirt from Kibum and threw it at his face. “Change into that and get a move on. We don't have all day, you know; cops are fast nowadays,” he grumbled. Kibum laughed, shaking his head, and pulled the grumpy Sungmin into his arms.
It was a dangerous accident. If Yesung had stood just a little bit closer, the railing would have hit him in the head and it could have been fatal. Yesung enjoyed risks - he enjoyed destruction. Would he have relished in pleasure if he had lost his life?
-
“You look tired,” Yesung commented as he approached Kyuhyun at the usual bench, “have you gained weight again?” Kyuhyun raises his eyes from the page of his book with a scowl and, indeed, he does look tired. Yesung raises a brow. “Are you cold?”
Kyuhyun shivered a little and the redness of his skin becomes more obvious, he nodded - just slightly, weakly. “You're limping?”
“Had an accident,” Yesung replied easily. “Are you sick?”
“You could put it that way,” Kyuhyun said.
Yesung notices that the bag of roses is half empty. “What are those for, anyways?” He asks.
Kyuhyun follows the older boys line of sight and lifts the bag mid-air. “Remedy,” he says stoically, “didn't you know?”
“For what?” Yesung questions further.
The younger boy smiles a little and Yesung's breath hitches in his throat. “Unfortunate events,” he says, with finality in his tone that indicates he isn't willing to elaborate further.
Yesung stays silent for the rest of their intervention.
-
The bruise on the corner of Yesung's mouth feels hot; it is stinging. He's drunk and he's kissing, he's kissing a friend - a good friend at that - really hard. “Henry,” he breathes, and his breath is heated. The boy moans into his lips and their bodies are pressed together - raw and hard.
They don't remember how they ended up like this, they don't remember much at all. Henry and Yesung weren't like this - they were friends, platonic friends. Oh, the things alcohol do to you.
It's probably nearing three in the afternoon, but they are already wasted. They are wasted and stranded in a park - a park that is all too familiar to Yesung.
There are footsteps, but they are both too intoxicated to hear them. They don't hear anything but each other until a leaf crackles under someones feet. Yesung finally opens his eyes as Henry pulls away from him, from his lips, and Yesung groans in protest.
“Kyuhyun?” He manages to mutter, but everything is a haze to him because he is incoherent.
Henry slips out of Yesung's lap, lowering himself beside Yesung on the bench, as they both stare up at their new company. “Your friend, hyung?” Henry drawls.
“Yeah,” Yesung mumbles, scratching the back of his neck in frustration - he is deprived and hot and needy, but none of that can be helped right now - “something like that.”
Kyuhyun bites his bottom lip and Yesung immediately regrets his words. “Sorry for interrupting,” Kyuhyun barely whispers, and he turns on his heel to leave.
Henry shoves Yesung off the bench and urges him to chase after the boy, and Yesung is grateful. “I'll make it up to you,” he slurs, “I'll invite Ryeowook to the next wreckage.”
Yesung doesn't forget to laugh obnoxiously over his shoulder when he catches Henry's blush - a blush he's never seen before.
-
“What kind of roses are those?”
Kyuhyun scoots over on the bench to offer Yesung some space as he hands his zip-lock bag over to the older man, as if that were answer enough. Yesung throws the bag back at him and Kyuhyun laughs, catching it in his arms. “Rosa chinensis and other hybrids,” he finally replies.
“And your books?” Yesung asks. “What are they about?”
The corner of Kyuhyun's lips twitch in amusement, his eyes glowing with a gleam of mockery. “Do you care that much about me?”
“Maybe,” Yesung jokes in return.
It isn't until they've already parted that evening that Yesung realizes Kyuhyun never answered his question. He ought to remember to ask again next time.
-
“Your arm is swollen.”
“Your neck is swollen.”
“I'm being serious, Yesung, it's red and white and... you should get that checked.”
Yesung rolls his eyes. “I'm being serious, too. Hell, your throat looks like it could fit my fist down it. Maybe you should get that checked.”
“How do you know I don't?” Kyuhyun mocked.
The older boy snakes his hand to the back of Kyuhyun's head and shifts it so that said boy is facing him, fingers threaded through his wavy hair. “Tell me, Kyuhyun. What's wrong with you?”
“I'm in love,” Kyuhyun smiles - albeit a bit bitterly.
Yesung freezes.
Kyuhyun leans in and presses a soft kiss to the older boys lips.
“Kyuhyun...” Yesung trails off.
The younger boy looks away, slowly unwinding Yesung's fingers from his hair. “Just kidding.”
The redness of Kyuhyun's cheek, the rapid rise and fall of his chest, the way he's shaking nervously, they all proved him to be lying.
Yesung smirks and walks in front of Kyuhyun, leaning forward and bracing him into another kiss - needier, harder, deeper than before. He weaves both his hands into Kyuhyun's hair, tugging is softly to navigate the angles of their kiss to intensify it, to feel more of Kyuhyun. He notices that Kyuhyun's lips, the cavern of his mouth, his tongue - all are rather dry. Perhaps he's dehydrated.
Kyuhyun is left breathless, thoughtless, his pants straining around his slim waist.
Eventually Yesung pulls away. “I'm not.”
They do not realize it, but they are surrounded by fallen petals - broken, stepped on, scattered around them like a field of dried up leaves, of shattered dreams.
Kyuhyun grins.
Yesung feels like he owns the world.
-
Kyuhyun isn't always happy and Yesung can live with that. Everyone has their moments, their ups and downs. The only thing Yesung wished for was for Kyuhyun to be more emotionally stable - not like a fifteen year old, premenstrual female girl. Especially when he's fussing over a stupid rash on his collar bone; it's probably just an allergic reaction to something or something.
He voices his thought and they fight.
The younger boy threatens to break up.
The older one shrugs.
But they don't break up, they never do, and Yesung is alright with that, he guesses.
Then the big problem came: Kyuhyun wanted him to meet the parents.
“Are you nuts?” Yesung scoffed. “You're all goody-goody and I'm a delinquent. Your parents will hate my guts,” he says, “no way.”
Kyuhyun looks away, frowning.
“Do they even know you're gay?” He asks.
Kyuhyun remains silent.
“Kyuhyun, can you not be so childish-”
“I never said to meet them as my... other half,” Kyuhyun scowls, “I just want you to meet them, for them to meet you.”
Yesung raked a hand through his hair, biting his bottom lip. If Kyuhyun hadn't looked so unfeasible right now - so breakable, so fragile - he would have straight up turned him down. He wasn't a people person, let alone a parent person. “Fine,” he grumbled, “just this once.”
Kyuhyun grinned, childishly, and interlocked their hands.
A smile broke unto Yesung's lips.
Kyuhyun isn't always happy, but Yesung is glad to be the one that gives him that smile, that brightness in his eyes. Kyuhyun isn't always happy, but Yesung is okay with that. He's okay with being Kyuhyun's only happiness.
-
“Silent treatment does you no good,” Henry smirks. “So, how was meeting the parents?”
Yesung throws a rock at a quarter-open window, rusty and old. After a ten count, no response and no commotion, Kibum and Sungmin head towards the tattered building first. They were the ones that knew how to fight best - boxing and martial arts and all -, if anything happened they could defend themselves better than the others.
“C'mon, hyung,” Henry nudged Yesung's arm, “spill.”
Kangin shook his head with a laugh. “Jongwoon died inside, that's how scary it was.”
“Did not,” Yesung pursed his lips. “It was fine.”
When Sungmin and Kibum motioned for them to join them at the door, Yesung jumped out from behind the bush with his baseball bat in hand - nearly swatting it against the back of Henry's head. Accidentally, of course.
“When do we get to meet him?” Kibum asks.
Yesung throws him a look. “How did you hear us?”
“You guys were not exactly discreet,” Sungmin replies, “anyone could hear you guys from miles away.”
“I don't know,” Yesung says, ignoring Sungmin, with a glint of playfulness in his eyes, “you boys might scare him away.”
Henry pouts in protest. “I've met him before.”
“Point proven,” Yesung grins.
“Only because you were sucking my face off,” Henry rolls his eyes.
The rest of the boys make a sound of disapproval.
“Oh, shut up,” Yesung sticks out his tongue, “I was drunk. We were drunk.”
“Tell that to Ryeowook's face,” Kangin teases. “He'll ditch Henry for sure.”
Henry's eyes widened as he swung his long, metal rod at a light hanging off the ceiling. The other boys jump away in surprise, scowling at him. Kibum hugs Sungmin close, like a lifeline. “You two wouldn't dare,” he narrows his eyes at Yesung and Kangin.
“You should be nicer to us hyung's,” Kangin shrugs.
Henry relents a little. “...would you?”
Yesung laughs. “I'm not that terrible. I like destroying things, places, not relationships.”
“Trying doesn't hurt,” Sungmin adds from his corner.
Yesung nods comprehensively.
Henry throws Sungmin a glare.
Kibum laughs.
Kangin chokes on dust that scattered from the drawer he just toppled over the ground harshly.
It was a good day - the best any of them had enjoyed in a long while.
Yesung is happy.
-
Yesung is standing at the doorstep to Kyuhyun's house. The resident is large, luxurious. It is warm, settling, relaxing, and almost comforting. It gives Yesung an edge; the urge to tear it down.
“Yesung?” A middle aged lady smiles from behind the door. She has a large scarf wrapped around her neck, holding the ends close to her bosom. “Are you looking for Kyuhyun?”
He nods, entering the house as she steps aside, allowing him entrance, and walks him to Kyuhyun's room. “I haven't heard from him in a while. Just thought I'd check up on him.”
In fact, it's been two weeks since they've last spoken. The longest they'd gone without contact was five days ever since they started being official - well, in the not-so-official sense. Kyuhyun's parents were still in the dark about their relationship. At least, that's what Yesung knows.
Yesung doesn't seem to know much when it comes to Kyuhyun.
“Kyuhyun's been a little down after his surgery,” Mrs. Cho says thoughtfully, “I don't think his voice is ready yet. He's been quite stressed about this-”
“Surgery?” Yesung asks out of his reverie. “He never told me anything about surgery,” he says. Or anything about a health deficit at all, he thinks silently to himself.
Mrs. Cho stops in her steps. “Really? Well, actually, that doesn't surprise me,” she decides with a light smile, “Kyuhyun is a sweetheart and he doesn't like to burden others with his issues. He probably doesn't want to worry you, you know?”
Yesung nods.
“Anyways. His voice is very strained. Don't make him speak too much, alright?”
Yesung nods again. “Is it too imposing to ask what Kyuhyun needed surgery for?”
Mrs. Cho shook her head. “Cancer,” she said, “thyroid cancer. It's not too serious - nothing our family can't afford to treat - but it's really taking a toll on my son. He's had various other treatments, he didn't want to risk losing his voice at first, but none of them worked. Radioactive iodine therapy, external radiation therapy, hormone treatment... his last choices were either chemotherapy or surgery. He chose surgery. I wanted to know why but all he said was 'I don't want to let a certain someone know how sick I am, how much I am beyond repair.' Sometimes I feel like I really don't understand my own child.”
“I'm sorry,” Yesung apologized.
She pat him on the shoulder, squeezing it affectionately. “As long as he's still alive, I'm happy.”
“Me too,” Yesung agreed, “don't worry, Mrs. Cho, Kyuhyun will be fine.”
At that, Kyuhyun's mother left Yesung at the door to Kyuhyun's room and drifted away - down the hall and turning a corner. Yesung watched as she disappeared before knocking and pushing the door open, revealing a lightly dressed Kyuhyun sitting up in his bed, staring at his cell phone.
“Waiting for my text?” Yesung smiled.
Kyuhyun jolted at his presence. “What are you doing here?!” He asked, his voice cracking - as if a dozen threads had just snapped at the same time, like popcorn in a kettle.
Yesung grimaced. “Don't speak.”
Kyuhyun was startled, too. He immediately raised his hands to his throat and gripped it, hiding the bandages from Yesung's sight.
“You don't have to hide it,” Yesung sighed, “I know all about it. Your surgery, I mean.”
There was an awkward silence as Yesung lowered himself beside Kyuhyun on the bed. Kyuhyun rested his head on Yesung's shoulder, closing his eyes.
“Don't worry,” Yesung soothed, running his fingers through the younger boys hair. “You'll be fine. I'll hear you speak again, no doubt in that. It might be days, weeks, maybe months, but it'll happen. Your voice will be back to normal before you know it.”
Kyuhyun nods, stroking the bandage around his throat.
The younger boy seemed fractured, demolished, damaged, and, for the first time in his life, Yesung felt like he wanted to fix something - to heal Kyuhyun's wounds, to piece him back together. So, he does what Kyuhyun cannot. Yesung sings; he hums, low in his throat, and caresses the back of Kyuhyun's hand that's resting in his lap.
Yesung has never learned to sing - he was born and raised to act, to be active - but he figures that this is good enough because Kyuhyun is relaxing to his music, breathing in coordination with his own breath.
There is a smile on Kyuhyun's face and Yesung decides that, yes, this is good enough. Having Kyuhyun beside him, smiling, careless and carefree, is the best thing he could ever ask for. Nothing he could break could bring him such content, nothing he could shatter could bring him such satisfaction. It is only Kyuhyun - Kyuhyun and his smile - that Yesung cares for now.
The pouch of roses lies on the desk on the opposite end of the room and Yesung spots it.
He vaguely sees that the roses are wilting, drying up, but they are a mixture of beautiful colors. Suddenly, their significance has an entirely new meaning; they are not just a handful of nothings that Kyuhyun carries in his hands, they are a radiance of beauty, of life, of everything Kyuhyun has every aspired for - hoped for and longed for.
They are Kyuhyun's dreams, his dreams of being well again in his tattered state of health.
Yesung wants to grant his dream, to make it true.
He wants Kyuhyun to be whole.
-
Kyuhyun gets along with the boys unexpectedly well.
Despite Sungmin's sideways glances, Kibum's calculating gazes, Kangin's measuring looks, and Henry's knowing gestures, Kyuhyun seemed to be able to mix into the group without being too out of place. Of course, there were the moments when he didn't understand what was going on - for instance, when they discuss what location to meet next and what target to beat down - but he decides that understanding only some was better than understanding nothing at all.
“I hope you're feeling better,” Henry says affectionately. “Jongwoon hyung was really worried about you the two weeks you were gone. He almost got killed, like, a hundred times when we were sabotaging several structures out on the countryside.”
Kyuhyun glances over at Yesung, who looks away nervously and kicks Henry in the shin.
“Ouch!”
Kangin coughs up something like a laugh. “Whipped?”
“Not,” Yesung purses his lips, “I just don't need him worrying when he's... ill.”
“Ill-fated is more like it,” Kibum teases, “to end up with someone like you.”
“What's wrong with 'someone like me'?” Yesung scoffs, “I'm awesome.”
Sungmin chuckles. “Right. You know, like pigs can fly and all that jazz.”
“Shut up, Sungmin,” Yesung scowls.
Kyuhyun laughs. “You guys are close,” he manages to whisper.
Yesung slings an arm over Kyuhyun's shoulder, embracing him firmly from behind. “Yeah,” he whispers against Kyuhyun's ears, “all of us.”
A smile creeps to Kyuhyun's lips and he falls back into Yesung's chest, closing his eyes and running several fingers over the scar over his adam's apple. He had long been stripped of the bandages but the scar is still present - faint, but there.
The older boy kisses him on the shoulder.
“This is heart warming,” Kangin mutters. “Jongwoon being affectionate. That's surely a rare sight.”
Henry shows his agreement by vigorous head nodding.
Sungmin and Kibum just shake it off, slumping against a wall side-by-side.
It was a rare sight indeed.
Yesung, the one who likes to destruct. Yesung, the one who likes to break things. Yesung, the one who's hard to predict, hard to open up, hard to get close to. He's like a sadist, inflicting damage to people and things - whether intentional or unintentionally - always resorting to violence, violence, and violence again. Yesung, who's a brute and uses force to rid his stress. Yesung, who resorts to barbaric acts to achieve what he wants.
Falling for Kyuhyun, the only broken thing Yesung has met that makes him feel the need to repair it - even if Kyuhyun thinks that he is savaged beyond restoration.
They are like a rose standing in a flower-field, dying, wilting, and a beast of annihilation that passes by - spotting the disintegrating stem and petals and cradling it in his hands like sweet gold.
They are two worlds apart, connected by a single urge - a feeling; compassion.
Their words are muted by their presence; needing no words, no physical, verbal proof of their existence to one another. They are what they are - a bag of roses and a baseball bat -, sitting in the same room, on the same bed.
And they are content. They are happy. For as long as long lasts.
They are one.
end
-----
Side effects to the treatments mentioned:
★External Radiation Therapy: Tiredness, Redness and dryness of skin.
★Radioactive Iodine Therapy: Swelling throat, painful swallowing. Dry mouth.
★Hormone Treatment: Rash, hair-loss. Self-explanatory? lol. Nah. Just kidding.
★Surgery: Temporary voice-loss, voice problems, one shoulder may be lower than the other from organ and tissue removal and malfunction.
-Rosa chinensis are a collection of different rose species that act as a herbal treatment for Thyroid.
-----
A/N: So, a few weeks ago Nyx gave me three prompts to choose from. Two, of which, were Roses and Sabotage. I decide to use the two together and... ended up with this. Been working on it, on and off, for weeks. What is this, you may ask? I have no idea. =/ Just... yeah. It is what it is, I guess. *sigh*
My half sister's half sister has been diagnosed with Thyroid (not cancer, just a severe case of Thyroid) for years and recently had surgery. I don't know her well, barely ever talk to her, but she inspired this... kind of.
Anyways. Hope the read wasn't treacherous. :) I want to give whoever decided to read this, despite my warning, a big THANKS!!! Thanks for reading! ^-^