Fanfic: Antis, part one.
Title: Antis
Pairing: Henry-centric, mentions of YeWook.
Genre: self-harm? I don't know ANGST!
Rating: R? (language, content, self harm, cutting, depression)
Summary: The results of anti-fans becomes too much for one member of the Super Junior family.
A/N: This is my first posted fic! >< But my second written one--it was easier to divide up than my first fic which I'm still writing. This is over 4,000 words as is and un-beta'd, i just went over by myself. I don't have any confidence in this what so ever, so... be gentle?
If there was anything that Henry Lau knew something about, it was anti-fans. He had so graciously received so many of them, since the minute they made mention of him playing in Super Junior’s comeback song. All he had wanted to do when he came to Korea was dance, play violin, sing. Be a star; the works. But now as the company he had signed with was giving him a chance to shine, the fans-anti-fans-wanted to blacken that out.
‘Maybe if I just show them how good I am, they’ll like me,’ Henry thought at first. He would leave the dorm he shared with another trainee at the time to go to the practice room to do just that: practice. This was before his move into the Super Junior dorms, which they decided would be easier and make more sense, even if they told the public he wasn’t going to be joining Super Junior and he was just a “feature”.
That right there, that statement hurt. ‘Just a feature’. Henry wanted to say to the company, “I left my country, my family, my friends, everything I know, to come here to this country and that’s all I get? A ‘feature’?” But he didn’t say that, because Henry was supposed to be strong, even if he was barely 18 at the time.
Henry began to practice, playing the part he’d been given over and over again until he found himself, as per usual, getting lost in the music. He played and played and played… The only problem was that, well, there was always a problem with what he had played! Something was always wrong, whether it be how his fingers got placed on the fingerboard, how he moved his bow across the strings or the very tuning of the instrument itself. Henry spent hours tuning to make sure his violin was in perfect pitch and then even longer hours playing.
It didn’t get to the point of playing until his fingers bled until after that first live comeback. After that show, Henry just wanted to die-like how so many of the anti’s possibly wanted him to. But an 18 year old boy can still have hope, so he just went and played. He cried and he played.
The first time his fingers bled from playing too hard, Henry felt a moment of bliss. He didn’t even notice the pain until he felt his fingers sticking to the ebony board of his violin. And then the pain set in after realization of what happened. Henry quickly wiped off his violin and packed it away before running upstairs to the bathroom so that he could bandage his fingers in peace. Han Geng had been in the living room reading and Leeteuk and Ryeowook were in the kitchen, though they barely saw him blaze past. Mutterings of, “Who was that?” And, “I think Henli-sshi?” were hardly heard by Henry as he sat on the toilet and just let the water run over his fingers.
The next time that this happened, Henry reveled in the pain and didn’t stop his playing. Not until, once more, the violin became sticky with his blood. So, carefully, Henry set down the instrument, wrapped tissues around his fingers that he’d brought with him and then began to wipe the blood off of his violin. When it was clean again, he stood up and began to play once more. This process was repeated until the towel he was using to clean off his violin was rather soaked.
Allowing this to happen to himself, Henry felt… happier to a degree, and the members saw that Henry was indeed acting more cheerful, on the outside. They had been worried when those chants turned from ‘Only 13’ to ‘Get off the stage’ and even a few, ‘Go back where you came from’ thrown in there. Donghae was probably one of the ones who was happiest since he had his new dancing friend back, next to Ryeowook who had taken to fussing over the young, squishy Canadian.
But this only lasted for so long. Eventually his fingers began to build even harder calluses than what he had before and he couldn’t break them open anymore. Henry was angry, desperate. And people noticed. “He’d been so happy not so long ago, what happened?” The pain, it had become a fix for him. He believed he could release all the tension he had from the anti-fans hating him by having that small moment of endorphin induced bliss to himself.
It wasn’t until the string on Henry’s violin snapped in the middle of practicing and cut him across the fingers that the idea came to him. After running upstairs with blood pouring from his hand, which Ryeowook began to patch up immediately, with a watching on Eunhyuk and Sungmin, he realized that this… This was it.
He had heard people talking about it in school and had seen plenty of kids with the scars because ‘that was cool’ for some reason at the time. Henry never would have figured that he would be the same kind of person, that he would need something like that. But he did; he desperately did.
Henry was scared the first time, because he was sure he’d screw this up just like he had screwed up Super Junior’s ‘Don’t Don’ and coming to Korea in general, but he sat in the bathroom with the knife, holding it over the top of his arm, and just thought. He thought of his pain, nothing more than that and before he knew it Henry had brought the knife down and across his skin. Not super deep but it definitely bled plenty, and Henry destroyed a towel with his bleeding. But the pain he felt in his heart, it was all gone for the moment. Even if there were tears streaming down his cheeks, he was smiling.
The only problem was the placement. Everyone asked him what happened.
“Exposed nail,” Henry lied, “I tripped, fell and cut myself on it; don’t worry, I already fixed the nail so no one has to worry about getting cut again.”
However they still fussed. Ryeowook wanted to take him to the hospital and get him a fresh tetanus shot and stitches because ‘It just looks so deep Henli-sshi!’ but he refused. After awhile, he settled to letting Sungmin and Wookie bandage it themselves, repeating the process every day until it healed.
Henry realized he’d have to either start wearing long sleeves… or cut someplace else.
Cut someplace else it was.
That knife and him were in the bathroom again, about two weeks after the first time; the group had just got back home from another live and he’d locked himself in the bathroom immediately under the guise of ‘washing up real quick’ but instead he had that same knife pressed against his arm. It nearly drew blood too until he remembered what happened the last time. A second passed and Henry threw down his pants and pulled up the leg of his boxers, pressing the blade to his thigh. With tears in his eyes he ran the blade over his flesh and sighed. All of his pain seemed to disappear and warmth replaced it. Warm, just like the blood that began to trickle down his leg.
Henry watched it for a moment at first, doing nothing to stop the red drops-before he saw where they were landing. A towel was grabbed quickly and pressed to his leg, wincing just slightly at how the fabric of the towel scratched at his fresh wound. Funny, how the cut didn’t hurt but that little scratch did.
The knife he used was gently cleaned and tucked away into a drawer and once the bleeding stopped, Henry made quick work of cleaning the make up off of his face. He finished just in time too because Heechul was banging at the door wanting to be let in.
A smile greeted Heechul as Henry walked out of the bathroom with a freshly washed face, which Heechul just scoffed at.
“You still smell considering you were in here for so long.” The comment wasn’t meant to be mean but it still stung in the same way.
“Sorry hyung…” Henry muttered, “It must be the clothes.” Which was a decent excuse considering he hadn’t actually showered.
“Yah, then go change already!” His cheek was given a pinch, because that’s what everyone did to his cheeks, and then Heechul shooed him away.
“All right hyung.” Henry repeated before slinking away from the bathroom. Considering the exchange with Heechul, Henry already felt the need one more, but he couldn’t return to the bathroom since Heechul was in there, so he just went to his room and fell onto the bed.
“Henry-sshi, you should change before going to sleep.” Said Yesung from his bed, since Henry was currently staying in YeWook’s dorm room with them until SMent figured out just what they were going to do with Henry.
“Right… sorry. Thanks hyung.” With a wince, Henry forced himself up from the bed, which was really just a futon on the floor, and headed off to get changed.
When he came back, Henry opened and then shut the door again with wide eyes. “Sorry!” He said loudly before going with a skid to the living room couch to sit.
Ryeowook was the first to come out of the room, though Sungmin peaked out from his room as well at the loud noise but Wookie waved him away.
“Henli-sshi~?” Began the eternal maknae, “Sorry that you saw that,” he shifted awkwardly as he stood there, ringing his hands a bit. At the door to their room, Yesung just waited, feeling just as awkward.
“I-t… It’s okay. I had … had a feeling when I first came here that it… it was like that, but brushed it off just as customs.” When he’d run away from the door he’d slipped and pulled open his cut again, which had barely healed as it was, so he had his back turned to them as he curled up on the couch, afraid that he’d bleed through his sweatpants-not because he was really upset about seeing two guys making out.
“Are… are you sure you’re okay? I don’t like seeing my mochi so upset.” There was a sniffle and a tear in Ryeowook’s voice as he stood there, staring at Henry’s back. Seeing that and not those squishy cheeks upset him more than being caught kissing Yesung.
‘My mochi?’ Henry thought as he turned his head to flash a reassuring smile to Ryeowook. “I’m fine Wookie-sshi.”
That smile brought out Wookie’s own and he reached out to poke Henry’s cheek.
“Okay~!” He replied, bouncing back to the room immediately reassured. Once there Ryeowook grinned at Yesung and took his hand.
Yesung returned Wookie’s smile and then called to Henry on the couch, “Just knock next time.” And pulled Wookie back into the room.
‘Yeah… or ask to be put in a new room,’ thought Henry as he didn’t bother moving from the couch, not wanting to bother YeWook again.
* * *
In the next two months Henry became ridiculously good at wrapping the cuts that he put on his thigh. After every live performance he went to the bathroom and drew the blade over a fresh spot on his thigh-sometimes both if the fans outside of the performance building as well as the dorm were exceptionally bad. The pain was bliss and Henry was convinced that he needed to continue cutting in order to make it through.
It was around the time that SM Entertainment decided to form the sub-group Super Junior-M that Henry’s knife was found in the bathroom.
Kyuhyun came out of the bathroom with a towel around his shoulders, hair wet and spiked with glasses perched on his nose as he held the knife in his hand. Henry had got a new roommate, the latest ‘member’ to be added to the Super Junior family, the Chinese Zhou Mi, and actually had an real bed now. Despite the ‘happiness’ of a bed, Henry still needed to cut. It was starting to become a need for him to ‘feel alive’ since the anti-fan’s comments made him feel so dead inside.
“Hey, look what I found in the bathroom,” Kyuhyun said as he turned the knife over in his hand before setting it on the counter.
“What was that doing in the bathroom?” Ryeowook asked as he picked it up and brought it over to the sink to wash it without thinking at all, though Henry took a deep hard swallow, flipping through his English to Chinese work book with Zhou Mi next to him at the table working on a Chinese to Korean one.
“Did you see the blade hyung?” Kyuhyun said to Wookie who pulled the blade from the water to look at it, “It looks gross.”
“Eew… you’re right!” exclaimed the eternal maknake, making the actual maknae (aside from Henry) laugh. “Maybe we should just throw it away?”
Henry tried not to lurch forward in his seat to grab the knife away from Ryeowook as he carried the knife over to the trash can, but he couldn’t help the instinctive jerk of his body to grab it after it had been tossed in. The two involved with the knife didn’t notice-but Zhou Mi did, as did Sungmin who was at the table as well.
“” Zhou Mi asked him in Chinese, that wonderful Chinese-tongue version of Henry coming out.
“Ah, yeah… I. eer.” Henry paused to try and think for a moment, “” He said in Chinese back, proud of himself for saying it but also desperate at the moment. A quivering Adam’s apple that fell hard as he swallowed in thought of his lost knife was not lost on the two other boys at the table.
“” Zhou Mi said then, returning to his book while Sungmin just looked on, confused and concerned.
“I’m fine Sungmin-hyung.” Henry said to him with a smile, prompting the other two in the room to look at them. “Why does everyone keep looking at me?” Henry’s hands went to his thighs to instinctively touch them as he thought about his cuts, “I said I’m fine.”
“We… didn’t say anything Henli.” Ryeowook said, the same kind of concern dotting his face.
“Oh… right. Sorry.” And Henry bent over his book heavy, trying to keep himself absorbed in it. A little whisper went around the room and then Ryeowook went back to cooking them dinner.
That night, after everyone had gone to sleep supposedly, Henry was desperate and returned to the kitchen to retrieve the knife. He knew that he couldn’t keep it in the bathroom anymore, thanks to sneaky Kyuhyun, but he needed it now.
The second he pulled it out of the trash the light flicked on in the kitchen and Henry stood up with a start.
“Kyu-hyung!” The name of Kyuhyun and hyung automatically smacked together in his frightened state, the knife going behind his back in an attempt to hide it.
“Henry… what are you doing in here this late at night? And digging through the garbage can.” His glasses were pushed up before Kyuhyun opened up the fridge to get a drink.
“Nothing-I-I-I-I thought I threw away some important papers and wanted to see if I could still find them.” The excuse was offered up after Henry’s moment of stuttering, his eyes shifting from side to side since he didn’t dare meet Kyuhyun’s gaze.
“In the dark? You should have turned on the light, babo.” Nothing more was said as he went to walk away. Henry let out a sigh, not even realizing he had been holding his breath at that moment and turned the light off in the kitchen before running back to his room. He was glad that Kyuhyun didn’t press farther-but he’d be not so glad to hear that Kyuhyun told Sungmin, who was also still awake, what he’d seen in the kitchen. Now Min, who had also seen how he had jerked towards the garbage can earlier in regards to the knife, was worried… But maybe it really was some papers. They had gotten a lot of mail that day…
* * *
April: SM Entertainment officially announces SJ-M’s debut and the antis roar up once more when Henry is announced as a member the same day as Kyuhyun was, not to mention even more so on the day that Zhou Mi, who hadn’t even been introduced before to the public, was announced right before their debut on the 8th. What was supposed to be something good for Henry, a chance to actually debut, even if only as a ‘sub-group member’ didn’t turn out that way in his head. All the protests that had happened back in October were more than enough to convince Henry that he honestly wasn’t wanted there in Korea. Even so, he tired and he put his heart and soul into his dancing, playing and not to mention the singing he got to do in ‘U’. Having actual fun for a change, Henry cut less since he didn’t feel the need-that which triggered his cutting was less apparent for the time being.
But once you’re addicted to something it’s really hard to stop.
After his knife was found in the bathroom, Henry turned to using razor blades. They were easier to keep hidden and the cuts were thinner, deeper, bled worse and hurt more; it was a perfect switch. He just had to become even better at his bandages, which wasn’t too much of a problem considering he’d already been doing it for so long.
* * *
Cutting had become a fix, like taking a drink after going on a live performance, so after their first live on the 8th of April, Henry had shut himself in the bathroom of the hotel room he shared with Ryeowook. Thankfully, the eternal maknae was out having a drink with the real maknae of Super Junior and he was left alone, at least that’s what he thought. After the first cut, with the tears falling from the corners of his eyes from the wonderful pain, there was a jiggling of the handle to the bathroom.
“Henli-sshi~? Ahh, are you in there Henli-sshi?” Ryeowook’s voice came from the other side of the door, sounding just slightly desperate. The voice shocked Henry out of the slightly euphoric state that he was in and he jerked from his spot on the toilet.
“Wookie-hyung! Y-yeah… Sorry, did you need the bathroom?” Struggling, Henry made quick work of packing way the razor and pulling out the bandage for his leg.
“Yeh… I really have to pee!” He announced with a giggle in his voice, a bit tipsy from the drinks he had shared with Kyuhyun.
Making quick work of the bandage, the result being poor and sloppy, Henry got up in order to leave the bathroom. The door was unlocked then opened and Ryeowook stared up at him with a shocked face.
“Henli-sshi… were you crying?” Those small hands of Ryeowook’s reached up to the squishy cheeks of Henry to brush away the tears that had still fell as an automatic response from the pain and even more so from the release he got along with it.
“What?” Henry tried to play it off with a laugh, “No. It’s just water in my eyes from washing off the make-up.” He moved away from Wookie’s hands which were still on his face and wiped off his cheeks.
“But you still have make-up on, Henli,” refuted Ryeowook as he looked at the stuff on his hands and then held them up.
“Oh… I must not do a very good job at that either then.” The self deprecating words were said with a gentle knock to his head, even as he felt himself easily bleeding through his shitty bandaging job. “Didn’t you have to go to the bathroom Ryeowook-hyung?” Henry asked before anything else could be said, moving out of the doorway so that his temporary roommate could use it.
“Ah! That’s right!” And he rushed in past Henry, shutting the door after himself. In response, Henry sighed and went over to the bed immediately, his back turned in the direction of where Wookie would come out.
Just as quickly as before, but with more nimble fingers, Henry re-bandaged his leg before settling underneath the covers.
“Heennnllliii-sshi~” came Ryeowook’s singsongy voice as he bounced out of the bathroom and into Henry’s bed. “Are you already going to go to sleep on me?” he asked, kneeling next to Henry’s laying form.
“Uhm… Maybe?” he responded, pulling the covers up to his chin-the move was so adorable that Ryeowook just had to laugh. Was there anything as cute as his mochi?
“Henli~ yer so cute!” Wookie said as he lay down on the bed next to him, giving a kiss to those full cheeks, which were so pale and cool to the touch from his constant blood loss, something no one knew. They just assumed he was paler than most.
“Hyung… You have your own bed,” Henry shifted in the bed, moving away from Ryeowook a bit, still a little uncomfortable with the closeness they all seemed to share with one another. Including that extra bit he’d been unintentionally privy to from time to time-the things that he thought would scar him for life, much like the razor blade to his thigh.
“But your bed is nicer-you’re in it!”
“Hyunggg…” Henry’s tone was a whine, trying to push off Ryeowook who was worse than a koala bear. “Shouldn’t you… wash your face first?” Please, god, anything to get him off of me, his thoughts followed.
“Ooohh~ You’re right!” Wookie jumped up from the bed then and grabbed Henry’s hand, patting it. “Come! I will wash yours for you too!” And he tugged at that hand, trying to get him follow him. Drunk Ryeowook was surprisingly strong, because before he knew it Henry was out of the bed and in the bathroom with him.
“Hyung, you don’t need to do this-I can wash my face myself.” Henry tried to say in his defense, even if his eyes were closed as Ryeowook carefully began to wash Henry’s face for him.
“But.” The sound of an epic pout was coming on, even if Henry had his eyes shut and couldn’t see it-he could HEAR it. “But Henli-sshi… I want to do it. And I’m really good at it!” That chipper voice was back immediately, returning to what he was doing with a swipe of the hand over Henry’s squishy cheeks.
In response Henry just sighed, letting Ryeowook do what he wanted.
By the time he was finished, Henry felt like his face was cleaner than it had been in a long time, which Ryeowook just had to comment on.
“Your skin~ it’s so pretty and pale. You look like a doll, Henli-sshi!” His cheek was gently pinched as Ryeowook said that before just resting his head on his donsaeng’s shoulder. But Henry couldn’t reply to that; though his pink tipped ears said enough for him. Normally his cheeks probably would have heated up too, but that kind of thing just didn’t happen anymore.
“All right! My turn.” The touching moment was over in an instant and Ryeowook tugged at Henry’s arm to get him out of the bathroom, but it didn’t matter. It had already happened and that was enough for Henry. He had felt it; happy, without cutting. Ryeowook’s ridiculously adorable personality, in those few minutes of face washing, had penetrated Henry deeper than his razor blade ever could.
As they stayed in China for a short while to promote their song and the new sub-group, more of those moments with Ryeowook happened and Henry began to think that maybe, maybe he didn’t need to cut. That he was actually worth it, that things could be good and being happy was something he could feel without that pain.
However, nothing good ever lasts forever…
A/N: ;o; I'm sorry I did this to you Henry! I'm sorry of all things I post angst for my first fic! I can't help myself! I don't know if I'll ever get around to finishing it either... I have it written in my head, but getting it onto paper. x_x
Pairing: Henry-centric, mentions of YeWook.
Genre: self-harm? I don't know ANGST!
Rating: R? (language, content, self harm, cutting, depression)
Summary: The results of anti-fans becomes too much for one member of the Super Junior family.
A/N: This is my first posted fic! >< But my second written one--it was easier to divide up than my first fic which I'm still writing. This is over 4,000 words as is and un-beta'd, i just went over by myself. I don't have any confidence in this what so ever, so... be gentle?
If there was anything that Henry Lau knew something about, it was anti-fans. He had so graciously received so many of them, since the minute they made mention of him playing in Super Junior’s comeback song. All he had wanted to do when he came to Korea was dance, play violin, sing. Be a star; the works. But now as the company he had signed with was giving him a chance to shine, the fans-anti-fans-wanted to blacken that out.
‘Maybe if I just show them how good I am, they’ll like me,’ Henry thought at first. He would leave the dorm he shared with another trainee at the time to go to the practice room to do just that: practice. This was before his move into the Super Junior dorms, which they decided would be easier and make more sense, even if they told the public he wasn’t going to be joining Super Junior and he was just a “feature”.
That right there, that statement hurt. ‘Just a feature’. Henry wanted to say to the company, “I left my country, my family, my friends, everything I know, to come here to this country and that’s all I get? A ‘feature’?” But he didn’t say that, because Henry was supposed to be strong, even if he was barely 18 at the time.
Henry began to practice, playing the part he’d been given over and over again until he found himself, as per usual, getting lost in the music. He played and played and played… The only problem was that, well, there was always a problem with what he had played! Something was always wrong, whether it be how his fingers got placed on the fingerboard, how he moved his bow across the strings or the very tuning of the instrument itself. Henry spent hours tuning to make sure his violin was in perfect pitch and then even longer hours playing.
It didn’t get to the point of playing until his fingers bled until after that first live comeback. After that show, Henry just wanted to die-like how so many of the anti’s possibly wanted him to. But an 18 year old boy can still have hope, so he just went and played. He cried and he played.
The first time his fingers bled from playing too hard, Henry felt a moment of bliss. He didn’t even notice the pain until he felt his fingers sticking to the ebony board of his violin. And then the pain set in after realization of what happened. Henry quickly wiped off his violin and packed it away before running upstairs to the bathroom so that he could bandage his fingers in peace. Han Geng had been in the living room reading and Leeteuk and Ryeowook were in the kitchen, though they barely saw him blaze past. Mutterings of, “Who was that?” And, “I think Henli-sshi?” were hardly heard by Henry as he sat on the toilet and just let the water run over his fingers.
The next time that this happened, Henry reveled in the pain and didn’t stop his playing. Not until, once more, the violin became sticky with his blood. So, carefully, Henry set down the instrument, wrapped tissues around his fingers that he’d brought with him and then began to wipe the blood off of his violin. When it was clean again, he stood up and began to play once more. This process was repeated until the towel he was using to clean off his violin was rather soaked.
Allowing this to happen to himself, Henry felt… happier to a degree, and the members saw that Henry was indeed acting more cheerful, on the outside. They had been worried when those chants turned from ‘Only 13’ to ‘Get off the stage’ and even a few, ‘Go back where you came from’ thrown in there. Donghae was probably one of the ones who was happiest since he had his new dancing friend back, next to Ryeowook who had taken to fussing over the young, squishy Canadian.
But this only lasted for so long. Eventually his fingers began to build even harder calluses than what he had before and he couldn’t break them open anymore. Henry was angry, desperate. And people noticed. “He’d been so happy not so long ago, what happened?” The pain, it had become a fix for him. He believed he could release all the tension he had from the anti-fans hating him by having that small moment of endorphin induced bliss to himself.
It wasn’t until the string on Henry’s violin snapped in the middle of practicing and cut him across the fingers that the idea came to him. After running upstairs with blood pouring from his hand, which Ryeowook began to patch up immediately, with a watching on Eunhyuk and Sungmin, he realized that this… This was it.
He had heard people talking about it in school and had seen plenty of kids with the scars because ‘that was cool’ for some reason at the time. Henry never would have figured that he would be the same kind of person, that he would need something like that. But he did; he desperately did.
Henry was scared the first time, because he was sure he’d screw this up just like he had screwed up Super Junior’s ‘Don’t Don’ and coming to Korea in general, but he sat in the bathroom with the knife, holding it over the top of his arm, and just thought. He thought of his pain, nothing more than that and before he knew it Henry had brought the knife down and across his skin. Not super deep but it definitely bled plenty, and Henry destroyed a towel with his bleeding. But the pain he felt in his heart, it was all gone for the moment. Even if there were tears streaming down his cheeks, he was smiling.
The only problem was the placement. Everyone asked him what happened.
“Exposed nail,” Henry lied, “I tripped, fell and cut myself on it; don’t worry, I already fixed the nail so no one has to worry about getting cut again.”
However they still fussed. Ryeowook wanted to take him to the hospital and get him a fresh tetanus shot and stitches because ‘It just looks so deep Henli-sshi!’ but he refused. After awhile, he settled to letting Sungmin and Wookie bandage it themselves, repeating the process every day until it healed.
Henry realized he’d have to either start wearing long sleeves… or cut someplace else.
Cut someplace else it was.
That knife and him were in the bathroom again, about two weeks after the first time; the group had just got back home from another live and he’d locked himself in the bathroom immediately under the guise of ‘washing up real quick’ but instead he had that same knife pressed against his arm. It nearly drew blood too until he remembered what happened the last time. A second passed and Henry threw down his pants and pulled up the leg of his boxers, pressing the blade to his thigh. With tears in his eyes he ran the blade over his flesh and sighed. All of his pain seemed to disappear and warmth replaced it. Warm, just like the blood that began to trickle down his leg.
Henry watched it for a moment at first, doing nothing to stop the red drops-before he saw where they were landing. A towel was grabbed quickly and pressed to his leg, wincing just slightly at how the fabric of the towel scratched at his fresh wound. Funny, how the cut didn’t hurt but that little scratch did.
The knife he used was gently cleaned and tucked away into a drawer and once the bleeding stopped, Henry made quick work of cleaning the make up off of his face. He finished just in time too because Heechul was banging at the door wanting to be let in.
A smile greeted Heechul as Henry walked out of the bathroom with a freshly washed face, which Heechul just scoffed at.
“You still smell considering you were in here for so long.” The comment wasn’t meant to be mean but it still stung in the same way.
“Sorry hyung…” Henry muttered, “It must be the clothes.” Which was a decent excuse considering he hadn’t actually showered.
“Yah, then go change already!” His cheek was given a pinch, because that’s what everyone did to his cheeks, and then Heechul shooed him away.
“All right hyung.” Henry repeated before slinking away from the bathroom. Considering the exchange with Heechul, Henry already felt the need one more, but he couldn’t return to the bathroom since Heechul was in there, so he just went to his room and fell onto the bed.
“Henry-sshi, you should change before going to sleep.” Said Yesung from his bed, since Henry was currently staying in YeWook’s dorm room with them until SMent figured out just what they were going to do with Henry.
“Right… sorry. Thanks hyung.” With a wince, Henry forced himself up from the bed, which was really just a futon on the floor, and headed off to get changed.
When he came back, Henry opened and then shut the door again with wide eyes. “Sorry!” He said loudly before going with a skid to the living room couch to sit.
Ryeowook was the first to come out of the room, though Sungmin peaked out from his room as well at the loud noise but Wookie waved him away.
“Henli-sshi~?” Began the eternal maknae, “Sorry that you saw that,” he shifted awkwardly as he stood there, ringing his hands a bit. At the door to their room, Yesung just waited, feeling just as awkward.
“I-t… It’s okay. I had … had a feeling when I first came here that it… it was like that, but brushed it off just as customs.” When he’d run away from the door he’d slipped and pulled open his cut again, which had barely healed as it was, so he had his back turned to them as he curled up on the couch, afraid that he’d bleed through his sweatpants-not because he was really upset about seeing two guys making out.
“Are… are you sure you’re okay? I don’t like seeing my mochi so upset.” There was a sniffle and a tear in Ryeowook’s voice as he stood there, staring at Henry’s back. Seeing that and not those squishy cheeks upset him more than being caught kissing Yesung.
‘My mochi?’ Henry thought as he turned his head to flash a reassuring smile to Ryeowook. “I’m fine Wookie-sshi.”
That smile brought out Wookie’s own and he reached out to poke Henry’s cheek.
“Okay~!” He replied, bouncing back to the room immediately reassured. Once there Ryeowook grinned at Yesung and took his hand.
Yesung returned Wookie’s smile and then called to Henry on the couch, “Just knock next time.” And pulled Wookie back into the room.
‘Yeah… or ask to be put in a new room,’ thought Henry as he didn’t bother moving from the couch, not wanting to bother YeWook again.
* * *
In the next two months Henry became ridiculously good at wrapping the cuts that he put on his thigh. After every live performance he went to the bathroom and drew the blade over a fresh spot on his thigh-sometimes both if the fans outside of the performance building as well as the dorm were exceptionally bad. The pain was bliss and Henry was convinced that he needed to continue cutting in order to make it through.
It was around the time that SM Entertainment decided to form the sub-group Super Junior-M that Henry’s knife was found in the bathroom.
Kyuhyun came out of the bathroom with a towel around his shoulders, hair wet and spiked with glasses perched on his nose as he held the knife in his hand. Henry had got a new roommate, the latest ‘member’ to be added to the Super Junior family, the Chinese Zhou Mi, and actually had an real bed now. Despite the ‘happiness’ of a bed, Henry still needed to cut. It was starting to become a need for him to ‘feel alive’ since the anti-fan’s comments made him feel so dead inside.
“Hey, look what I found in the bathroom,” Kyuhyun said as he turned the knife over in his hand before setting it on the counter.
“What was that doing in the bathroom?” Ryeowook asked as he picked it up and brought it over to the sink to wash it without thinking at all, though Henry took a deep hard swallow, flipping through his English to Chinese work book with Zhou Mi next to him at the table working on a Chinese to Korean one.
“Did you see the blade hyung?” Kyuhyun said to Wookie who pulled the blade from the water to look at it, “It looks gross.”
“Eew… you’re right!” exclaimed the eternal maknake, making the actual maknae (aside from Henry) laugh. “Maybe we should just throw it away?”
Henry tried not to lurch forward in his seat to grab the knife away from Ryeowook as he carried the knife over to the trash can, but he couldn’t help the instinctive jerk of his body to grab it after it had been tossed in. The two involved with the knife didn’t notice-but Zhou Mi did, as did Sungmin who was at the table as well.
“” Zhou Mi asked him in Chinese, that wonderful Chinese-tongue version of Henry coming out.
“Ah, yeah… I. eer.” Henry paused to try and think for a moment, “” He said in Chinese back, proud of himself for saying it but also desperate at the moment. A quivering Adam’s apple that fell hard as he swallowed in thought of his lost knife was not lost on the two other boys at the table.
“” Zhou Mi said then, returning to his book while Sungmin just looked on, confused and concerned.
“I’m fine Sungmin-hyung.” Henry said to him with a smile, prompting the other two in the room to look at them. “Why does everyone keep looking at me?” Henry’s hands went to his thighs to instinctively touch them as he thought about his cuts, “I said I’m fine.”
“We… didn’t say anything Henli.” Ryeowook said, the same kind of concern dotting his face.
“Oh… right. Sorry.” And Henry bent over his book heavy, trying to keep himself absorbed in it. A little whisper went around the room and then Ryeowook went back to cooking them dinner.
That night, after everyone had gone to sleep supposedly, Henry was desperate and returned to the kitchen to retrieve the knife. He knew that he couldn’t keep it in the bathroom anymore, thanks to sneaky Kyuhyun, but he needed it now.
The second he pulled it out of the trash the light flicked on in the kitchen and Henry stood up with a start.
“Kyu-hyung!” The name of Kyuhyun and hyung automatically smacked together in his frightened state, the knife going behind his back in an attempt to hide it.
“Henry… what are you doing in here this late at night? And digging through the garbage can.” His glasses were pushed up before Kyuhyun opened up the fridge to get a drink.
“Nothing-I-I-I-I thought I threw away some important papers and wanted to see if I could still find them.” The excuse was offered up after Henry’s moment of stuttering, his eyes shifting from side to side since he didn’t dare meet Kyuhyun’s gaze.
“In the dark? You should have turned on the light, babo.” Nothing more was said as he went to walk away. Henry let out a sigh, not even realizing he had been holding his breath at that moment and turned the light off in the kitchen before running back to his room. He was glad that Kyuhyun didn’t press farther-but he’d be not so glad to hear that Kyuhyun told Sungmin, who was also still awake, what he’d seen in the kitchen. Now Min, who had also seen how he had jerked towards the garbage can earlier in regards to the knife, was worried… But maybe it really was some papers. They had gotten a lot of mail that day…
* * *
April: SM Entertainment officially announces SJ-M’s debut and the antis roar up once more when Henry is announced as a member the same day as Kyuhyun was, not to mention even more so on the day that Zhou Mi, who hadn’t even been introduced before to the public, was announced right before their debut on the 8th. What was supposed to be something good for Henry, a chance to actually debut, even if only as a ‘sub-group member’ didn’t turn out that way in his head. All the protests that had happened back in October were more than enough to convince Henry that he honestly wasn’t wanted there in Korea. Even so, he tired and he put his heart and soul into his dancing, playing and not to mention the singing he got to do in ‘U’. Having actual fun for a change, Henry cut less since he didn’t feel the need-that which triggered his cutting was less apparent for the time being.
But once you’re addicted to something it’s really hard to stop.
After his knife was found in the bathroom, Henry turned to using razor blades. They were easier to keep hidden and the cuts were thinner, deeper, bled worse and hurt more; it was a perfect switch. He just had to become even better at his bandages, which wasn’t too much of a problem considering he’d already been doing it for so long.
* * *
Cutting had become a fix, like taking a drink after going on a live performance, so after their first live on the 8th of April, Henry had shut himself in the bathroom of the hotel room he shared with Ryeowook. Thankfully, the eternal maknae was out having a drink with the real maknae of Super Junior and he was left alone, at least that’s what he thought. After the first cut, with the tears falling from the corners of his eyes from the wonderful pain, there was a jiggling of the handle to the bathroom.
“Henli-sshi~? Ahh, are you in there Henli-sshi?” Ryeowook’s voice came from the other side of the door, sounding just slightly desperate. The voice shocked Henry out of the slightly euphoric state that he was in and he jerked from his spot on the toilet.
“Wookie-hyung! Y-yeah… Sorry, did you need the bathroom?” Struggling, Henry made quick work of packing way the razor and pulling out the bandage for his leg.
“Yeh… I really have to pee!” He announced with a giggle in his voice, a bit tipsy from the drinks he had shared with Kyuhyun.
Making quick work of the bandage, the result being poor and sloppy, Henry got up in order to leave the bathroom. The door was unlocked then opened and Ryeowook stared up at him with a shocked face.
“Henli-sshi… were you crying?” Those small hands of Ryeowook’s reached up to the squishy cheeks of Henry to brush away the tears that had still fell as an automatic response from the pain and even more so from the release he got along with it.
“What?” Henry tried to play it off with a laugh, “No. It’s just water in my eyes from washing off the make-up.” He moved away from Wookie’s hands which were still on his face and wiped off his cheeks.
“But you still have make-up on, Henli,” refuted Ryeowook as he looked at the stuff on his hands and then held them up.
“Oh… I must not do a very good job at that either then.” The self deprecating words were said with a gentle knock to his head, even as he felt himself easily bleeding through his shitty bandaging job. “Didn’t you have to go to the bathroom Ryeowook-hyung?” Henry asked before anything else could be said, moving out of the doorway so that his temporary roommate could use it.
“Ah! That’s right!” And he rushed in past Henry, shutting the door after himself. In response, Henry sighed and went over to the bed immediately, his back turned in the direction of where Wookie would come out.
Just as quickly as before, but with more nimble fingers, Henry re-bandaged his leg before settling underneath the covers.
“Heennnllliii-sshi~” came Ryeowook’s singsongy voice as he bounced out of the bathroom and into Henry’s bed. “Are you already going to go to sleep on me?” he asked, kneeling next to Henry’s laying form.
“Uhm… Maybe?” he responded, pulling the covers up to his chin-the move was so adorable that Ryeowook just had to laugh. Was there anything as cute as his mochi?
“Henli~ yer so cute!” Wookie said as he lay down on the bed next to him, giving a kiss to those full cheeks, which were so pale and cool to the touch from his constant blood loss, something no one knew. They just assumed he was paler than most.
“Hyung… You have your own bed,” Henry shifted in the bed, moving away from Ryeowook a bit, still a little uncomfortable with the closeness they all seemed to share with one another. Including that extra bit he’d been unintentionally privy to from time to time-the things that he thought would scar him for life, much like the razor blade to his thigh.
“But your bed is nicer-you’re in it!”
“Hyunggg…” Henry’s tone was a whine, trying to push off Ryeowook who was worse than a koala bear. “Shouldn’t you… wash your face first?” Please, god, anything to get him off of me, his thoughts followed.
“Ooohh~ You’re right!” Wookie jumped up from the bed then and grabbed Henry’s hand, patting it. “Come! I will wash yours for you too!” And he tugged at that hand, trying to get him follow him. Drunk Ryeowook was surprisingly strong, because before he knew it Henry was out of the bed and in the bathroom with him.
“Hyung, you don’t need to do this-I can wash my face myself.” Henry tried to say in his defense, even if his eyes were closed as Ryeowook carefully began to wash Henry’s face for him.
“But.” The sound of an epic pout was coming on, even if Henry had his eyes shut and couldn’t see it-he could HEAR it. “But Henli-sshi… I want to do it. And I’m really good at it!” That chipper voice was back immediately, returning to what he was doing with a swipe of the hand over Henry’s squishy cheeks.
In response Henry just sighed, letting Ryeowook do what he wanted.
By the time he was finished, Henry felt like his face was cleaner than it had been in a long time, which Ryeowook just had to comment on.
“Your skin~ it’s so pretty and pale. You look like a doll, Henli-sshi!” His cheek was gently pinched as Ryeowook said that before just resting his head on his donsaeng’s shoulder. But Henry couldn’t reply to that; though his pink tipped ears said enough for him. Normally his cheeks probably would have heated up too, but that kind of thing just didn’t happen anymore.
“All right! My turn.” The touching moment was over in an instant and Ryeowook tugged at Henry’s arm to get him out of the bathroom, but it didn’t matter. It had already happened and that was enough for Henry. He had felt it; happy, without cutting. Ryeowook’s ridiculously adorable personality, in those few minutes of face washing, had penetrated Henry deeper than his razor blade ever could.
As they stayed in China for a short while to promote their song and the new sub-group, more of those moments with Ryeowook happened and Henry began to think that maybe, maybe he didn’t need to cut. That he was actually worth it, that things could be good and being happy was something he could feel without that pain.
However, nothing good ever lasts forever…
A/N: ;o; I'm sorry I did this to you Henry! I'm sorry of all things I post angst for my first fic! I can't help myself! I don't know if I'll ever get around to finishing it either... I have it written in my head, but getting it onto paper. x_x