Department Store Chapter 10 part 2
Forty minutes, and two cans of hairspray later Kyuhyun was deemed ready to go.
Heechul sized Kyuhyun up, “I don’t think you could get any better than perfection.” He held his two hands up, “These baby’s work miracles.”
Kyuhyun groaned, and pushed Heechul out of his apartment forcibly. There wasn’t much time before he had agreed to meet Zhoumi at his apartment so they could go to the concert together. He had no idea what Heechul was doing, but he wasn’t about to offer the other man a ride to Zhoumi’s apartment so he could see Hangeng. Kyuhyun was so nervous he felt like throwing up.
With his stomach rumbling and his mouth feeling like cotton, Kyuhyun flipped open his phone for the fifth time in two minutes. He didn’t know why he was getting so worked up about meeting Zhoumi, it wasn’t like the two of them hadn’t gone places together before. Last weekend the two of them had went bowling together. Nothing weird about that.
After fixing his hair again, and smoothing down his clothes Kyuhyun went to grab his jacket and keys. As he was locking up his door, he took a last long deep breath to calm his nerves.
The car ride was inevitably silent. Kyuhyun was gripping the steering wheel tighter than normal, but the closer he got to Zhoumi’s apartment the more funny his stomach felt. As in there was a bag of butterflies fluttering about. When he finally pulled up in front, his palms were in a cold sweat. Why am I acting this way…It’s as if it was an actual date, worriedly thought Kyuhyun.
A quick phone call later and Kyuhyun locked his car to meet Zhoumi in his apartment’s lobby. Apparently Zhoumi had brought something large and needed some help putting it in Kyuhyun’s car.
Nervously, Kyuhyun played with his car keys, swinging them two and fro.
“Kui Xian!” Zhoumi called from the elevator, he was dragging along something that appeared to be in a giant pot.
Kyuhyun raised an eyebrow, “What is that?”
“It’s a fern,” said Zhoumi as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“But why do you have one?”
“I’m giving it to you. When I came over to your apartment it was just so sad, and I knew a plant would make it better.”
Kyuhyun didn’t seem too certain, “But I don’t think I’m too good at taking care of things.” Somehow Zhoumi had wiggled a way into his tight circle of trust, and now the man was giving him plants. Was it really wrong of him to have already decided to name it Felicia? The fern just looked so cute and floppy, and his paternal instincts seemed to have been dredged up from the dark abyss he had banished them to.
The thought of babies made him visibly cringe.
“Nonsense,” Zhoumi waved it off, “believe me.” He juggled the pot with the fern, and the two of them made their way to Kyuhyun’s car.
After Zhoumi and Kyuhyun had successfully placed and strapped the plant in the backseat, Zhoumi finally took the time to look over Kyuhyun.
“Oh Kui Xian!” exclaimed Zhoumi happily as he turned Kyuhyun around in a circle, “You are so good looking.”
Kyuhyun felt more confident after the flattery, “Um, you too.” Zhoumi did look very handsome in his black skinny jeans. In fact, they just helped the taller man’s legs look even longer. Something he found very charming and alluring, but he shouldn’t think about things like that.
“I’m glad you decided to wear the outfit we picked out for you,” Zhoumi winked, “you look gorgeous.”
The two settled comfortably in the car, and after a brief period of calm silence Zhoumi began dictating everything that had happened to him that week. Kyuhyun sighed, some things don’t change.
Parking the car in a nearby parking structure, the misfit pair followed the address given to them to the Red Clock Lounge, a bar and dance club known for catering to the rock scene. The club that Yesung’s band was playing at was rather old and grungy looking. But Kyuhyun wasn’t sure if that was just the way it was decorated, or if it really was old. The last concert he had been to be in a different dance bar that was much smaller. This one on the other hand was bigger, and there was a lot more people.
They had arrived too early for Yesung’s band to play, but the music in the club was already pumping loud emo rock through the speakers. Zhoumi and Kyuhyun jostled through the crowd to find the bar where they would find their friends most likely on the way to getting smashed. In his black clothes, Kyuhyun started to feel the heat of the bodies writhing and grinding on the dance floor.
“Hey Zhoumi, Kyuhyun!” Donghae greeted as they sat down on some empty barstools.
Kyuhyun sat down apprehensively on the old barstool, afraid that it might collapse.
Eunhyuk raised his foamy mug, “This place sure is a step up from Yesung’s last gig!”
“How old is this place anyway?” asked Kyuhyun to the bartender as he was ordering his own beer from the tap. He carefully put his hands on the old cracked counter.
The short bartender with the floppy hair and a nametag that read Tablo replied, “Beats me, probably older than the hills.”
Kyuhyun snorted, the place looked well kept enough. The counter was clean, the lights all worked, and the old condom on the floor was - wait a minute, the old condom was what. I wonder how long that’s been there, Kyuhyun thought mildly disturbed. He suddenly became very afraid for his personal hygiene.
“Hey guys, you might want to wash your hands with bleach when -“ Kyuhyun started, but he was interrupted by Tablo handing him his beer and Zhoumi’s own fruity cocktail.
“Here you go boys, drink up!”
Zhoumi grabbed his drink and clinked the glass against Kyuhyuns, “Cheers! To a good night.”
“Cheers,” said Kyuhyun begrudgingly, his beer was probably the cleanest thing in the room. He looked over his left shoulder and caught a glimpse of Heechul and Hangeng performing some kind of sexual act standing up. Yes, definitely time to get drunk.
Kyuhyun held out his hand, “Can I get another one?”
Zhoumi set his glass down loudly on the counter, “But you’re not even done with that one!”
Kyuhyun raised his beer up in the air in a salute to the bartender, “It’s going to be a long night Zhoumi. Let’s enjoy this.”
Tablo set down another beer after an exchange of cash occurred. Even though Zhoumi disapproved of binge drinking, he definitely didn’t feel any remorse when Kyuhyun in a much better mood asked him to go dance. It wasn’t as if Kyuhyun was falling over and puking on his expensive Gucci’s yet.
Kyuhyun led Zhoumi out onto the dance floor. Immediately a wave of heat hit him, along with a sense of something akin to regret. Why on earth had he asked Zhoumi to dance? It wasn’t like Kyuhyun even enjoyed dancing, or even enjoyed Zhoumi’s company.
As they made their way through the crowd Zhoumi instinctively grabbed Kyuhyun’s hand so as to not get separated by the churning bodies. A jolt of heat spread up Kyuhyun’s arm and he almost let go. Zhoumi just gripped harder.
Kyuhyun led them to a relative clear space and turned to face Zhoumi, dropping his hand as he did so. They stared awkwardly at one another for a moment, while the sea of bodies around them continued to move and sway to the beat.
“Um, I’m sorry. But I don’t really know how to dance,” Kyuhyun tried to say over the noise.
“What?” Zhoumi asked loudly. He couldn’t hear a word of what Kyuhyun was saying.
“Me. Dance. No” Kyuhyun shouted, keeping his words short to avoid confusion.
A look of understanding dawned on Zhoumi’s face. “Oh. That’s ok. I’m no good either. Just dance like this!” he said close to Kyuhyun’s ear, causing the hairs on the back of Kyuhyun’s neck to prickle in a not altogether unpleasant way.
Zhoumi began a clearly ridiculous dance. It involved a lot of arm movements and hip shaking.
Kyuhyun laughed outright. Zhoumi cracked a smile. “See the nice thing about a place as crowded as this is that no one cares how you dance. They can’t tell anyways.”
Kyuhyun cast a glance around. It was true, no one seemed to notice Zhoumi’s strange dance. He unsurely tried a few moves of his own, then paused, as if expecting someone to laugh.
Zhoumi chuckled a little, but it wasn’t unkind. Encouraged Kyuhyun began making bolder and bolder movements until he was outright flailing right along with Zhoumi. They both laughed, and Kyuhyun decided that he quite liked the way Zhoumi laughed, with a smile that split his face nearly in two and eyes twinkling.
He was just starting to enjoy himself when the music shut off. There was a murmur of dissent throughout the crowd. Everyone stopped dancing.
Suddenly a voice was heard over the loud speakers saying, “Ladies and Gentlemen I present to you SOU-EL”
Yesung’s band took the stage. Kyuhyun was momentarily thrown by the change in Yesung’s appearance. His hyung was normally soft spoken, wore average clothing, and did nothing with his hair. This Yesung was wearing tight red plaid pants, a black jacket and black combat boots, his hair was styled into an organized mess (Kyuhyun self-consciously patted his own styled hair) and this Yesung was loud. His voice filled the club, shaking the walls with the vibrations of the sound. Kyuhyun idly wondered if the old place would stay up, or if the combination of noise and the rapidly forming mosh pit would literally bring down the house.
“Oh look there’s Henry and the others!” Zhoumi said excitedly. He dragged Kyuhyun over to where the other’s stood near the stage.
Ryewook barely spared them a glance. He was too enraptured by Yesung’s stage presence. Kangin and Leeteuk nodded in greeting. Kyuhyun was amused to see that Leeteuk had gone ahead and ordered something off the website for rocker clothes. His look consisted of red plaid pants with a ridiculous amount of useless zippers, and some kind of black and white printed shirt. It would have worked for the crowd if Kangin hadn’t looked completely normal in his stonewashed jeans and navy tee.
Donghae and Eunhyuk waved from where they were near the edge of the mosh pit skanking along with the best of them, seriously was there a dance they couldn’t do? Heechul and Hangeng were nowhere to be found, but that wasn’t that unusual, they were probably doing it somewhere, thought Kyuhyun with distaste. Kibum and Henry said hello, standing awkwardly next to each other in silence, until they caught sight of Kyuhyun’s shirt.
Henry noticed it first. He stared, did a double take, stared again, then poked Kibum. Kibum looked at Kyuhyun’s shirt for a moment before breaking into a wide smile and then a laugh, Henry joined in.
“What’s so funny?” Kyuhyun demanded. “Have I spilled anything on my shirt?” he looked down at the offending garment, no stains stared back at him, just the strange foreign letters.
“Your shirt,” cackled Kibum, “do you have any idea what it says?”
Kyuhyun looked down at the shirt again. Now that he thought about it, no, he didn’t know what his shirt said. Something in English no doubt, since Henry and Kibum both seemed to understand it.
Kyuhyun had the vaguest recollection of Zhoumi pushing the shirt into his arms and saying, “Kui Xian. No one cares, it’s suggestive.”
“What’s it say?” Kyuhyun was almost afraid to hear the answer. Henry was now laughing so hard that tears rolled down his mochi cheeks.
“You really don’t want to know,” Kibum chuckled.
“No I really think I do-“ began Kyuhyun, Henry cut him off. “Fuck me. Your shirt says ‘Fuck Me’. Kyuhyun are you trying to tell Mimi-ge something?” He dissolved into giggles again.
Kyuhyun rather felt like dying at that moment. His only consolation for the embarrassment was that Zhoumi hadn’t heard. He was too busy chatting away with Sungmin to notice.
“Shut up,” Kyuhyun muttered to Henry and Kibum, aiming a kick for Henry’s shins.
“Ouch what was that for? I never told you to buy the shirt!” Henry protested. Kyuhyun humphed and turned away. He steadily stared at Yesung on the stage ignoring Henry and Kibum’s occasional giggles.
He tried to focus on the music, but it was kind of hard. Screemo wasn’t really his favorite genre, although it was entertaining to see Yesung and the others jump around on stage like a bunch of crazy people.
The crowd kept pushing and surging in all directions, and the two of them repeatedly found themselves pressed together. Zhoumi would think later that this wasn’t how their first kiss was supposed to have happened. The mosh pit surged forwards towards the stage, knocking Zhoumi right into Kyuhyun’s arms, and his head right into contact with Kyuhyun’s own, causing his lips to lightly brush the corner of Kyuhyun’s mouth.
Kyuhyun to his credit couldn’t later recall what had been going through his head apart from disjointed thoughts like “ouch, oh my god, lips, oh.”
And astonishingly in the brief time their lips made contact, Kyuhyun felt like an electrical current had surged through his body. He knew he had never felt anything like this before.
He turned his head slightly to meet Zhoumi’s lips squarely barely aware of what he was doing. Zhoumi made a soft noise from the back of his throat in surprise, his eyes sliding shut.
Kyuhyun felt frozen, his lips uncomfortably attached to Zhoumi’s. Inside, his brain was screaming at him “What are you doing?! This is Zhoumi! You work with him! HIM!”
The music from the club was pounding, but the rhythmic beating of his heartbeat drowned out the outside noise. For the first time Kyuhyun felt time slow around him. Around him, he was aware of how the movement of bodies would bump into him, but all he felt was how Zhoumi’s lips were slightly chapped and dry. For those few precious seconds, he forgot who he was trying to be. Kyuhyun, for the first time in his life, stopped listening to his brain.
He instead focused on Zhoumi’s lips against his, the way the other man tasted sweet like the cocktail he had just consumed, and the way his heart was pounding against his ribs threatening to beat right out of his chest.
As quick as it began, they both regained their balance, and stepped back into awareness of the outside world. Shakily, Kyuhyun brought his hand up to his lips, the feeling of the touch still vividly ingrained into his consciousness.
He untangled his arms from Zhoumi, and tried to pull away from the dance floor. Away from the crowd, away from the noise, and away from what he was becoming. Kyuhyun suddenly felt too young for this; he wanted to slip away into a corner of the club and curl up into a ball like a child. He wanted to just close his eyes and forget this had ever happened. He hoped that Zhoumi would too.
The crowd was too thick; he tried to get through but kept getting pushed around. A dancer turned around to quickly, and knocked Kyuhyun to the ground. Down he fell; there was pain, but all he could think of was that his new clothes were probably getting ruined. Kyuhyun tried to get himself back up with no avail.
Out of nowhere, a strong hand grabbed a hold of his and hauled him off the dirty floor. Kyuhyun looked up gratefully, and his eyes met with the steely gaze of Zhoumi. Before Kyuhyun could try to flee again, Zhoumi pulled him tight against his body, holding Kyuhyun’s face with one hand.
“Kui Xian,” Zhoumi said, his voice barely audible over the crowd. Zhoumi dipped his face down to meet Kyuhyun.
“Zhoumi,” Kyuhyun whispered, voice hoarse. “Zhoumi I’m scared. I-“ He didn’t know how to say it, didn’t know how to express what was going through his head, what he was feeling. Kyuhyun only knew that being this close to Zhoumi made his heart start to race once more.
“Kui Xian. You don’t have to worry. I’m here for you. I’ll always be here for you.” Zhoumi said face still impossibly close to Kyuhyun’s.
“Ok” Kyuhyun whispered senselessly. He pressed his lips to Zhoumi’s once more, savoring the feeling.
“Ok.”
TBC
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