hope was here
Title: hope was here
Fandom: super junior
Pairing sungmin/siwon
Rating pg-13
Summary Pushing Daisies AU. Sungmin has a gift and Siwon is murdered (he gets better).
A/N: For bittersnow, who has been amazing because I've owed her this since before the dinosaurs went extinct. ilu bby!
Sungmin met Siwon for the first time when he was nine years old. He’s sitting on the front step of his house, kicking a rock from side to side when the big white truck pulls up to the house next door. A smaller four door sedan parks on the street and a little boy crawls out of the back. Sungmin perks up.
“Hi,” he says, scrambling over to the hedge that separates the two lawns. The first thing that strikes him is the smile the other boy has, the dimple in his cheek. Sungmin leans over the hedge, ignoring the pricks the branches make in his shirt.
“Mom,” he says three hours later when she calls him in, “I want to go to church with Siwon.”
“Who’s Siwon,” she asks, and the oven creaks when she opens it. Sungmin takes a deep breathe, and holds the cinnamon pumpkin spiced air in his lungs for as long as he can. “Come help me roll the dough,” she says, and Sungmin drags himself up on the chair to reach the countertop.
“My friend,” he tells her, and she hums. The rolling pin is too heavy for him to lift, but she lets him push it, her hands warm and dry under his. Little bits of flour float in the air and settle in white speckles on his fingers.
------------
Sungmin finds out he’s special when he’s ten, playing in the park at dusk. There’s an old dead tree with thick branches by the fence, shaded by the other taller trees. Sungmin watches all the older boys climb it and waits for them to leave before walking over, cautious. He puts one hand on the tree, palm out, and the bark is rough and chipping.
There’s a tug in his gut and Sungmin frowns, but before he can move there’s a rushing in his ears and he falls backwards, stunned, lying in the leaves and the dirt and staring up at streaks of blue sky between the branches. There’s a sharp cracking, and the slow long creaking of wood shifting and splintering. Sungmin sits up to watch, eyes wide, as the tree straightens with a groan, branches flexing like stretching muscles. Sprouts of new leaves bud on the branches, and grow until the tree is leafy and filled out. Sungmin’s fingers tremble.
For a while there’s only the sounds of the wind through the trees, and then there’s soft whisper like crumbling straw, and a ring of brown creeps closer to Sungmin, spreading in a ring, and soon he’s sitting in a circle of dead grass, brown and itchy on his skin.
He runs all the way home.
----------
“Hey,” Heechul says, spinning in a lazy circle on his bar stool.
“I’m busy, hyung,” Sungmin says, and hands him key lime on a blue pie plate, golden honey-brushed crust on a pink paper napkin.
“Can’t I just visit?” Heechul asks, reaching for a shining metal fork.
“No,” Sungmin says, and wipes his fingers on his apron.
“Yeah no,” Heechul agrees through a mouthful of pie, “I wouldn’t do that. When do you get off?”
“It’s Sunday, eight,” Sungmin says, craning his head to peer around the rest of the bakery. “Have you seen Kyuhyun?” Heechul shrugs and pushes his plate to the side so he can lean across the counter and reach the coffeepot. “Stop that,” Sungmin says irritably, swatting at his hands to pour the coffee himself. The main room smells like spiced pumpkin hot chocolate, thick and warm, and mixed fruit, sweet strawberries and limes that twist just right on the tongue. Heechul blows on his coffee lightly, and when he takes a drink of french roasted beans that Sungmin gets up at five in the morning to grind himself, his eyelashes flutter appreciatively on his cheeks.
“Eight, then,” he says sternly, and points his fork at Sungmin for emphasis.
“Hmm,” Sungmin says, and heads into the small back office. Kyuhyun is hunched in one of the chairs, dark head bowed over the laptop and fingers clattering on the keyboard insistently. “Kyuhyun!” he says, and sighs.
“I’m on break,” Kyuhyun answers shortly.
“You’ve been on break for two hours,” Sungmin says, exasperated.
“You’re standing in my light,” Kyuhyun says, and Sungmin rolls his eyes.
-------
Sungmin meets Heechul in his junior year of culinary school, walking home to his apartment in the dark. A shape runs out of the alley and clips Sungmin’s side, sending them both reeling. The man trips over the curb and lands with a sickening crack. Sungmin staggers to his feet and takes a hesitant step towards the man lying on the ground, legs in the street. Another man sprints out of the alley and skids to a halt, squinting at the body on the ground before doubling over, gasping for breath.
Sungmin takes another step closer to the body. “I-” he says, “I think he’s dead.” The other man steps closer and toes the body dubiously.
“Well shit,” he says, and crouches, his fingers slipping under the collar of the man lying prone. “Yup,” he mutters, and stands up, turning to Sungmin and sticking his hand out. “Kim Heechul of YoungKim Investigations.”
“Lee Sungmin,” Sungmin says automatically, but not looking away from the corpse, “what--”
“Great!” Heechul says cheerfully, “help me lift him out of the street.”
“Shouldn’t we call the police?” Sungmin asks doubtfully.
“Let’s not,” Heechul suggests, still smiling widely. “Come on, you don’t want him to be hit by a car, do you?” Sungmin balks, but sighs and grabs the man’s ankles while Heechul hooks his arms about the corpse’s shoulders. “One two three,” Heechul counts, but when Sungmin swings he catches his foot on the curb and stumbles. His fingers slip under the body’s pantleg and he feels a familiar rushing in his ears, like waves crashing against the shore. His vision tilts and he falls.
“Arughh,” the (former) corpse moans, and sits up, blinking.
“Shit,” Sungmin yelps, and throws himself forward, scrabbling at the man’s ankles until he can press his fingertips to skin. A current runs up his arm, and the man slumps to the ground, a corpse again. Sungmin breathes a sigh of relief.
“What.” Heechul says. Sungmin shoves himself to his feet and squares his shoulders.
“I guess he wasn’t dead, huh,” he says, chuckling nervously. Heechul looks back at him, eyes dark in the shadow of the street lamp.
“He was dead,” Heechul says, and kneels, fingers pressing to the man’s neck. “And now he’s dead again.”
“Maybe he wasn’t dead before,” Sungmin suggests desperately. Heechul arches an eyebrow at him.
“His neck was at several severe angles,” he says incredulously. Sungmin coughs. “What did you do,” Heechul demands, and takes a step closer. Sungmin hesitates, and somewhere in the distances a car alarm goes off. They both start.
“Can we just-” Sungmin says, and jumps a little as Heechul crosses the space between them before he can blink.
“I’m hungry,” Heechul says abruptly, and tightens his grip on Sungmin’s arm. “Let’s go eat.”
-------
Sungmin hangs his apron up on his hook and brushes the flour off the front of the fabric, strips off the latex gloves he wears when he bakes. He heads into the office.
Heechul and Kyuhyun are sitting at the desk, computer monitors back to back. “You’re late,” Heechul says without looking up, and his nail clicks as he taps the keypad.
“It’s ten to eight,” Sungmin says, and Heechul rolls a shoulder at him.
“I’m impatient,” he says, and flicks off the monitor. Sungmin snaps a towel at Kyuhyun.
“Go earn your keep,” he says, and Kyuhyun grumbles, grudgingly picking his apron off the back of his chair and fumbling at the strings.
Heechul drives an old two door Volvo that spits and stutters when he tries to accelerate and clacks Sungmin’s teeth together when he takes speed bumps too fast. But his radio doesn’t crackle and the passenger seat is exactly how Sungmin likes it.
“This isn’t the way to the morgue,” Sungmin says after he’s been driving for a few moments.
“We’re not going to the morgue,” Heechul says simply. “This kid wants us to look into the murder of his roommate, some rich kid that left him a load of money. Today’s the funeral viewing-only day we can access the body.”
Sungmin looks down at himself. He’s wearing jeans that hang low on his hips with rips in the back pockets and a blue shirt with fine ground flour in the buttons.
“We’ll go in the back,” Heechul says wryly.
Heechul walks with purpose when he’s on a paying case, and Sungmin quickens his stride to keep up as they duck through the employee entrance of the funeral home until they slip into a small pre-viewing room and stop in front of a simple casket, expensive unadorned wood.
“Choi Siwon,” Heechul announces with a flourish, and Sungmin’s stomach flips.
“What,” he blurts, and shoves Heechul aside to peer into the coffin. Siwon’s face is waxy in death and it takes Sungmin a minute to find the boy he knew in the man’s face. “Siwonnie,” he breathes, and his there’s a feeling in his heart like physical pain. He stumbles backwards, an ache in his chest, his breath knocked right out of him. His legs buckle, and he thinks distantly that he’s going to fall on his ass in a funeral home, but Heechul’s arms hook under his armpits and ease him down, dragging him backwards to sit on a step. The heel of his sneaker catches on the polished floors and his shoe comes partway off his foot. The rubber sole squeaks against the wood panels.
“--Sungmin--” Heechul is saying in his ear, and Sungmin feels his shoulders shake as all the air goes out of him at once, a gasping ache in his chest. Heechul’s fingers bite sharply into his upper arms for a moment, and then Sungmin feels a palm slipping into his hand, long cool fingers against the nape of his neck, guiding his head down to rest on his knees.
“You’re okay,” Heechul says gently, and Sungmin takes a deep breath. The step he’s sitting on creaks, and he feels Heechul settle next to him, the heat from his body warm and comforting. Sungmin leans his head against Heechul’s shoulder, and when Heechul levers himself upright a moment later, Sungmin takes his hand and lets Heechul pull him to his feet.
“We knew each other a long time ago,” Sungmin mutters, walking unsteadily over to peer in the coffin again. Heechul murmurs something too quiet to make out in support, and fumbles for his notebook, pages filled with his oddly pretty scrawl.
“He was murdered on a cruise,” Heechul says, shifting on his feet awkwardly, “something to do with mission work--left a huge fortune to his roommate, who’s the one paying us a very nice fee for the apprehension of the one responsible...” Heechul trails off, and the paper of his notebook rustles. “That’s all I got,” he says. Sungmin jerks his gaze away from the blue tint in Siwon’s lips.
“Us?” he asks, startled. Usually he does his part and doesn’t see Heechul again until he drops by with a check made out to Sungmin for thirty percent of whatever he made. Heechul rolls a shoulder.
“Seems personal to you,” he says, “I could always do with an extra hand, I guess, since Kangin’s left me high and dry. I’ll even go fifty-fifty with you.” Sungmin refrains from pointing out that mandatory army service is hardly abandonment, and instead forces a smile. He lifts a hand and touches Siwon’s hair, stiff with product.
“Thank you,” he says sincerely, and brushes the pad of one finger down Siwon’s cheek. His breath catches in his lungs as a shiver runs down his whole body, every muscle taut.
Siwon comes awake with a gasp, chest heaving and panicked eyes, and the first thing he sees is Sungmin’s face.
--------
Sungmin’s mother cried on Sundays, little hitching sobs that choke out barely audible in between the harsh beeps of the oven timer. Sungmin’s feet leave tiny droplets of bathwater slipping into the cracks between the slats of the woven mats that line the hallway to his bedroom. By the time she comes in to press a kiss to his forehead he’s curled underneath a light yellow blanket with red trim, and she smells like warm cinnamon sugar and crisp crunchy apples, his father’s favourite pie that she makes every Sunday at the same time he left them. He gets the slimmest slice in his lunch on Mondays, just big enough for two apple slices dripping in the sugar sweet syrup that leaves the tips of his fingers sticky. By the time he gets home the rest of the pie is crumpled in the trash, weighing Sungmin’s arm down when he takes the trash out after dinner.
Siwon looks out his window to see Sungmin perched in the apple tree outside his window. The wood of the pane creaks when Siwon throws his body weight against it in order to open it, the ledge pressing against his chest as he leans out.
“Siwonnie,” Sungmin calls affectionately, and tosses an apple at him. Siwon fumbles to catch it, and his ring finger jams painfully against the dip where the stem grows out, curled and sharp.
“What are you doing?” he asks, and shifts up on his tip toes for a better view, his head propped on his arm.
“I need apples for pie,” Sungmin says, “it’s a surprise for my mom.” Siwon can see a small mesh bag hanging on the branch beside him. Siwon frowns, because he tried one of the apples from that tree once, and his whole mouth had shriveled and shuddered at the tart mouthful. Sungmin yanks one off a branch, and the leaves shake against each other. He sniffs it questioningly and a tiny crease appears between his eyebrows. The corners of his lips turn down minutely, and Siwon thinks he’s never seen someone manage to look simultaneously displeased and adorable before..
“I have some in our fridge,” Siwon says, after Sungmin’s face falls and he tosses the apple aside. It bounces hollowly on the grass and rolls to a slow stop. The warm breeze ruffles through Sungmin’s hair like invisible fingers. Siwon’s hands tighten on the windowsill.
“Okay,” Sungmin says, picking his way down the tree, and Siwon carries the apples his mom bought at the open market to Sungmin’s kitchen, where Sungmin shows him how to slip a paring knife just below the skin in long smooth strips and how to press the heels of his palms against the floured-white rolling pin. The heavy oven door creaks when Siwon hauls it open for Sungmin to balance the tin pan on the rack, his hands drowning in scorched black oven mitts.
Sungmin feeds him stripes of apple peels while they sit on the counter and the oven fills the kitchen with warm apple-pie air. Siwon shrugs out of his outershirt, leaving himself in a thin tank top that clings to his skin in the sticky heat. Sungmin shoves the last bit of peel into Siwon’s mouth, laughing, and Siwon’s tongue swipes for an instant against Sungmin’s fingers. Underneath the tacky flour he can taste the faint hint of pie filling, thick and sweet.
------
“Where am I?” Siwon asks, blinking, and Sungmin watches his skin flush with life, going from cold and waxy to a soft brown tan, pink flushing in his lips and the tips of his fingers. “I--” he says, and Sungmin hears his ribs creak with his breath.
“There’s been an accident,” Heechul says, talking quickly, “who’s the last person you remember seeing?” Siwon jerks a hand to his head, and his eyes go so wide Sungmin feels a slightly hysterical giggle bubbling in his throat.
“Did I die?” he almost shrieks, and one hand claws at the white satin lining. Heechul grabs his face and shakes him a little.
“Who’s the last person you remember seeing?” Heechul says in a low voice, that intensity that makes people stop and listen to him.
“No, I--” Siwon is talking, but all Sungmin can hear is the ticking of the stopwatch in Heechul’s palm, counting down. Sungmin remembers the smell of pink and yellow roses, fresh turned dirt under his fingernails.
“--And then I dreamed I was strangled to death with a plastic bag,” Siwon is saying.
“You were strangled to death with a plastic bag,” Heechul says cheerfully, “these things happen.”
“You were my first kiss,” Sungmin blurts. Siwon blinks at him. Heechul looks long-suffering.
“Right,” he says, and taps the face of the watch, “tick-tock,” he says meaningfully, and slips out the door, muttering to himself.
“Do you remember me?” Sungmin asks quietly, “We--”
“Were neighbours,” Siwon says, swinging his legs out of the casket and standing, legs wobbly. He’s tall, a lot taller than Sungmin was expecting, and half his hair sticks up in strange directions from his fingers running through it haphazardly. “Sungmin,” Siwon says softly, smiles. His cheek dimples the same way Sungmin remembers.
“You don’t have long,” Sungmin says, swallowing hard. “Do you uh, do you know who killed you?” Siwon frowns.
“No.” he says simply, and Sungmin scratches at his ear, awkward and unsure. “You were my first kiss too,” Siwon says suddenly, and Sungmin feels warmth flood his cheeks.
“I can be your last too,” he says suddenly, and then checks himself, “no that’s weird. I’m sorry.” Siwon shrugs.
“Might be nice,” he says quietly, “symmetry and all that.”
Sungmin takes a step nearer to him. “Are you scared?” he asks quietly, and Siwon slips a finger under his collar, where a fine chain slithers out and lies prettily against his hand, a tiny silver cross gleaming dully in the soft lighting.
“I have faith,” Siwon says steadily, and closes his hand around the cross. His eyes flutter shut and he smiles. “I missed you,” he says softly.
“I missed you,” Sungmin says, and leans forward. He closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to see the flash of light leaving Siwon’s body, but he relishes that the last thing he sees is Siwon tilting towards him for a kiss.
Siwon opens one eye. “Uh,” he says, and Sungmin feels his watch vibrate against his wrist, one minute gone since he brushed a finger across Siwon’s cheekbone.
“What if you,” Sungmin says, eyes still closed, “what if you didn’t have to be dead?” When he opens his eyes Siwon is closer than he expected, and Sungmin can see the outline of his pupils. Sungmin licks his lips and watches them dilate.
“That would be cool, I guess,” Siwon says, blinking.
“Yeah,” Sungmin says, and he can feel a real smile tugging at his lips.
------
Sungmin’s mother dies for the first time in the kitchen, creasing pork dumplings and setting them aside on a sheet of wax paper to steam later. Sungmin doesn’t see her fall because he’s peering into the oven window, watching the tiny bubbles swell in the top crust of peach-strawberry. He has his hands pressed against the glass and he can still smell the peach on them. There are tiny strawberry seeds caught between his teeth. The thump of her body hitting the ground startles him, and he jumps. His fingers leave streaks on the glass, strings of fruit pulp and faint smears of oil from his skin.
“Mom?” he asks hesitantly. She’s lying very still, and there’s dumpling filling spilled in her hand, a slice of green onion curled around her finger like a ring. Sungmin looks down at her for a long time, and the oven beeps behind him, the one minute reminder until the time runs out. He touches the inside of her wrist, just over her vein, and feels her pulse thump once before he jerks away, his stomach dropping the way it does on roller coasters and water slides.
“Oh,” she says, touching her temple with her fingers, “I had the worst headache.” Sungmin looks down at his hand and curls his nails into his palm. He smiles, and his mother moves past him in a wave of air that smells like piecrust and honeysuckle, humming as she turns the water on to boil. The dumplings make tiny sticking noises as she peels them off the wax paper, and the oven timer makes him jump again, his fingers in his mouth as he sucks peach strawberry off them.
Sungmin thinks suddenly of crackling brown grass as the wind rustles through newly grown leaves on suddenly healthy branches, and freezes, eyes wide. There’s silence, and he exhales in relief. His mother slips on the oven mitts and the door creaks the same way it does when Siwon holds it open for Sungmin.
Next door, Siwon’s mother starts screaming, a long wailing keen of grief and horror.
------
“This is my restaurant,” Sungmin says, leading Siwon to the back.
“I always thought you might be doing this for a living,” Siwon says, and touches the walk-in fridge. Sungmin’s apron is hanging on the hook beside the door, and Siwon tugs on the strings absently. “You were amazing.” Sungmin feels his face heat.
“Do you want to see something cool?” Sungmin asks, and pulls a tray from the fridge. Siwon recoils slightly, because the apples that roll on the tray are spotted, dented, and if he’d pressed a finger against them they would have given to the pressure, soggy and soft. “Watch,” he says, slipping an apple into one gloved hand. He passes his other hand, sans glove, in between Siwon and the apple, brushing his palm against the fruit as it goes by. Siwon jerks comically as the apple twists, filling out, firming, and shining. Sungmin laughs at his face. Siwon takes it from him, cautiously, and laughs suddenly.
“What?” Sungmin asks, frowning. Siwon smiles at him, a real smile, his teeth sinking into his bottom lip.
“I was just thinking about Eve,” Siwon says, and Sungmin heart jumps into his throat.
“Am I the serpent?” he asks lightly, but his knuckles creak on the edge of the countertop.
“No,” Siwon says, suddenly serious. “Sungmin.” Sungmin looks up at him from under his bangs, uncombed and rumpled, one sticking up in an odd cowlick. “You’re blessed,” Siwon says quietly, “I--here.” He pulls something out of his pocket, and smiles a slow sweet smile that makes Sungmin’s toes curl slightly in his shoes. “Hold out your palm,” he says, and Sungmin’s arm comes halfway up before his brain catches on.
“Why,” he says, but stretches out his hand. Siwon dangles something from a finger and then drops it into Sungmin’s palm, the small weight of a silver cross and the tickle of a delicate chain along his lifeline. “No,” he starts, “I can’t--”
“It’s yours,” Siwon says simply, “have faith.” The cross is warm from Siwon’s body, and when Sungmin rolls the chain between his fingers he can feel it cooling in the air. He slips it around his neck and twists his neck awkwardly to look as he fumbles at the clasp.
“Let me--” Siwon says, and reaches for him. Sungmin recoils.
“No!” he says sharply, and Siwon draws back, looking hurt.
“Sorry, I... sorry,” Siwon mutters, and looks down. He’s still wearing the clothes from the funeral home, a crisp cut suit that outlines his shoulders in a way Sungmin really appreciates, and he tugs at the knot of his tie, upset.
“It’s just. The way that this thing works--I’ll show you.” He taps the apple, sitting on the counter where Siwon had placed it to dig in his pocket for the cross that now dangles in the hollow of Sungmin’s collarbone, bouncing against his throat. It shrivels, shrinking in on itself and darkening in ugly spots.
“Oh.” Siwon says.
“Little things like fruit and flowers is okay,” Sungmin says quietly, “but bigger things there’s a sort of balancing effect.” He stops, and shifts uneasily on his feet.
“What?” Siwon asks, and Sungmin takes a deep breath, steeling himself.
“If I don’t send them back in one minute--” He’s cut off as the doors to the main room bang open and Heechul stomps through, in what looks like--
“Nice boots,” Sungmin says. Heechul looks down.
“Yeah, they’re incredibly--no, no, no,” Heechul stabs a finger into Sungmin’s chest, “No. You bastard, I can’t believe you snuck Soomin out of his own funeral service and thought I wouldn’t notice.”
“Siwon,” Siwon interjects helpfully.
“I do not care, deadboy” Heechul snaps, and grabs Sungmin around the wrist.
“We’ll be back,” Sungmin calls. Heechul drags him into the office and kicks the door shut behind him.
“What is wrong with you,” he snarls, and smacks Sungmin over the head with a rolled up newspaper.
“Ow, hyung--” Sungmin says, and takes a step backwards as Heechul hits him again.
“Don’t hyung me, you lying liar liar,” Heechul hisses, and unrolls the newspaper with a snap. It’s the obituary section, and Heechul stabs a finger angrily at the picture of a middle aged man, blurred and pixelated black and white, with a cramped obituary in a slim column below it.
“Who’s that?” Sungmin asks, squinting.
“It’s the funeral director,” Heechul says in a normal voice. “He suddenly dropped dead in the bathroom of the funeral home while we there, Sungmin I don’t suppose you know anything about that.”
“I’m sensing a lot of italics from you,” Sungmin says, but guilt twists in his gut.
“Lee Sungmin.” Heechul says flatly, and Sungmin sighs. He drags a hand through his hair and makes himself look at the notice in the newspaper, Kim Yaengsan, fifty three, no wife no children.
“Yeah,” he mutters, “that was me. It’s kind of a... random proximity thing.” He moves to pick up the newspaper and is forced to duck as Heechul snatches it up, lighting fast, and folds it in half, smacking him twice, once on each side of his head.
“You fucker, I was in proximity!”
“Oh my god, I killed someone again,” Sungmin says, and sinks into one of the roller chairs, slipping backwards and slumps dejectedly.
“Ignoring the again,” Heechul says, and then sighs. “It’s not so bad, Sungmin-ah, I mean, it says here that he was under investigation for stealing valuables from the bodies and selling them on the internet.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better,” Sungmin moans.
“Makes me feel better,” Heechul says off-handedly, and tosses the newspaper into the small metal trashbin. “I mean deadboy clearly hits the gym, but he’s worth all that? Just because you kissed once as pretweens?”
“I also random-proximitied his father on his eleventh birthday,” Sungmin says miserably.
“Oh my god, your gay love is so tragic,” Heechul says, but Sungmin can tell by the way he lounges in the other chair that he’s been forgiven.
“Is that--weird,” Sungmin says, and twirls a pen between his fingers, over and over and around his thumb.
“The gay?” Heechul asks, “No, I’ve always wanted a flamboyantly gay friend.”
“I’m not flamboyant,” Sungmin protests, indignant.
“Your apron is pink, your oven mitts are pink, you drooled over my boots, I’m pretty sure you get regular manicures, you run a pie store and you have a pet rabbit named Mr. Sprinkles. It’s not exactly a shocker.” Heechul flicks on Kyuhyun’s laptop and starts up something that sends bursts of machine gun fire chattering out of the speakers.
“I don’t have a pet rabbit named Mr. Sprinkles,” Sungmin says, blinking.
“Give it time, homo,” Heechul smirks, and Sungmin flicks the pen at his forehead.
------
Sungmin’s mother dies for the last time when she presses a goodnight kiss to his forehead. Sungmin wakes up screaming under her cold dead weight.
Sungmin stands very still during his mother’s funeral, his fingers tucked under the hem of his suit jacket, two sizes too big from the rent-by-the-hour place next to the nail salon where his aunt works. If he squints really hard he can just see over the gentle slope of the hill in the cemetery, through a tree line to where Siwon’s father was buried the day before.
Sungmin’s uncle’s palm is heavy on his shoulder, and when he drops a flower into his mother’s grave he thinks of teaching Siwon how to climb trees and skip rocks, his fingers laced under Siwon’s boot, the weight of a flat rock against his fingers.
Siwon is crying, crouched carefully in the garden during his father’s wake, and the sun falls through the branches of the apple tree falls in dappled shadows as Sungmin picks his way into the space between the trunk and the side of the house. His head still hurts from crying at his mother’s memorial service the day before, but he settles next to Siwon in the dirt and rubs his back as he hiccups quietly.
Sungmin scuffs his formal shoes in the dark dirt, feeling a vague vicious sort of satisfaction at seeing the shine dulled by dust and bits of dead leaves. Siwon swirls a finger in a pile of twigs and leans on Sungmin, his shoulder against Sungmin’s cheek, and Sungmin rolls his neck so the tip of his nose rubs against Siwon’s jacket, warm from Siwon’s body and scratchy against his skin. Siwon wraps an arm around Sungmin’s waist and his palm spans a quarter of his ribcage. His fingers dig in under the bone, and it makes Sungmin’s spine arch painfully. He doesn’t pull away.
-----
Sungmin leaves Siwon on his couch watching bad daytime television and eating a fruit salad Sungmin made in about fifteen seconds that will never spoil, and slips into Heechul’s car to drive to Siwon’s apartment. Something under the hood makes a ripping grinding noise when he parks outside a plain building, painted a dusty off white yellowed with age.
“Your car sucks,” Sungmin says, throwing his shoulder into the door in an effort to latch it.
“Your gay lover sucks,” Heechul snaps, “all that cash and he lives in this dump with a roommate that sounded legit retarded on the phone.”
Siwon’s roommate is Chinese, not retarded, but that doesn’t stop Heechul from copying the way his vowels come out softer and the slur in some of his consonants. Hangeng looks like he doesn’t quite know what to do with that, and Sungmin tunes them out because he’s more interested in the pictures cheap wood frames tacked to the walls, Siwon grinning from polaroids and photobooth strips.
“--may we see his room, Hankyung?” Heechul asks, as Sungmin returns to the couch.
“Hangeng,” Hangeng says politely.
“Hankyung,” Heechul says cheerfully.
“Haaaangeeeng,” Hangeng says slowly, carefully enunciating.
“Hankyung,” Heechul says, and his smile widens. Sungmin thinks this could take a while, and so he slips into the bedroom with the stenciled lettering above the door spelling out Choi Siwon.
His bedspread is a pretty shade of almost-green blue, and his closet door rattles when Sungmin slides it open, revealing laundry-soft shirts and crisply ironed button-downs. There’s a plain makeshift desk made out of an old card table with a wad of paper shoved under one leg to keep it steady, and a blue light blinks from a sleek silver-grey laptop as it charges. Sungmin rifles through the small stack of books on the bedside table, and when he pulls a towel out of the bottom drawer a plain bible thumps on the floor. The cover is plain black and old, the plastic cracked and stiff, and the bit of yellow ribbon is only half sewed into the binding, hanging ragged and limp, the edges frayed.
“Yah,” Heechul calls from the other room, and Sungmin starts, shoving the small book under his hoodie and rolling his shoulders. He presses his arm against his side and tucks his fingers under the hem to obscure the bulge.
Siwon is sprawled in a pair of extra large sweatpants Sungmin had picked up someplace, and they hang low on his frame. Sungmin lets his eyes linger on the way the waistband curves along his hipbones.
“How was Hangeng?” Siwon asks eagerly, and sits up. His toes curl in Sungmin’s rug, and Sungmin likes that he slipped off his indoor slippers to curl on Sungmin’s couch, leather that clings slightly to his skin before peeling away.
“He looked like he’d been crying,” Sungmin says, and Siwon looks pained. Sungmin’s fingers twitch as he stops himself cold in the act of reaching out in comfort.
“Were you guys...” Sungmin trails off, eyes fixed on the framed photograph of a misty lake, the moonlight slipping through the trees and playing silver on the water in one of those pictures people sell at art fairs and museum gift shops. Kyuhyun had bought it for him as a housewarming present. Siwon stands, and Sungmin drags his gaze up Siwon’s torso, the clear definition of his muscles.
“No,” Siwon says, and when Sungmin makes eye contact, he leans close enough that his breath puffs against Sungmin’s cheek.
“You smell like strawberries,” he says, and looks up through his eyelashes. Siwon smiles again, all sharp angles, and his tongue is curling between his teeth when Heechul starts banging on the door.
Sungmin lets him in, rolling his eyes when Heechul slaps a hand over his face and asks dramatically if he’s interrupting sodomy so loudly Sungmin’s elderly neighbour from across the hall gives him a scathingly scandalized look.
Heechul stalks into the living room and folds his knees, flopping ungracefully into a sitting position. “Okay,” he says, “Hankyung said you were delivering some kind of hand-scribed Calvinistic documents from the ass crack of time to a museum.
“Yeah,” Siwon says, “Hangeng convinced me--they offered me the cruise for free to safely deliver the papers.” He stops and looks down at his hands, “he said I needed to relax more.”
“Hankyung got me the police file and the autopsy report,” Heechul says cheerfully, “all that money deadboy left him sure greases all the wheels.” He slaps two files down on the Sungmin’s glass coffee table, and knocks one of Sungmin’s French postcard coasters askew. Sungmin straightens it, frowning.
Siwon tips his head to peer at one of the glossy photographs Heechul is flipping through and abruptly goes three shades paler. He makes an awful choking noise in his throat and lurches for the bathroom.
“Photos of your own autopsy will do that to a person,” Heechul says, “the police report is shitty though. No family left to exert influence, which is fucking annoying because that is basically who always does it. This case went cold faster than your heterosexuality.”
“That doesn’t even make sense,” Sungmin says, carefully not looking at any of the pictures. Heechul hums, and a crease appears in between his eyes, the one that means he’s actually paying attention to the case in front of him. “Do you think I made a mistake?” he asks quietly.
“I think you’re monumentally stupid,” Heechul says, sliding on the black square framed glasses that make his eyes look even larger than usual. “Eventually you’re going to have to deal with the random proximity casualities and the fact that he’s dead and has no income, identification or place to live, not to mention you trip and land on him in the dark and he’ll drop--”
“Okay thanks,” Sungmin says loudly, “I’m good.”
“Cowboy up,” Heechul says, snapping the files shut with a flourish, “we need to talk to whoever gave him the holy whatever the fuck to transport. It always comes down to money and--”
Siwon bursts out of the bathroom, still looking slightly green around the edges, alight with excitement.
“I know who killed me,” he says.
-------
The facts were these:
The travel agent who offered Siwon the cruise never intended the documents to reach their destination. It was easier to slip behind him as he reached into the ice tray and wrap a plastic bag around his face until he stopped breathing.
Choi Siwon’s life ended before he really even felt it begin, and he never felt as good as the day he kissed Lee Sungmin.
-----
Sungmin spends the last day before he’s shipped to boarding school crouched in Siwon’s garden, hands buried in thick dirt, dark and soft and rich against his fingers. Siwon presses his finger into the soil knuckle deep while Sungmin pats the ground flat around it, the packet of seeds rattling in his other hand. Siwon presses deep again, making neat straight rows of tiny holes, and Sungmin looks down to rip the seed packet open.
When he looks up Siwon kisses him, clumsy. His eyes are open and his hands are held at his sides stiffly, but his lips are soft. Sungmin is close enough to see the dirt in the creases of his skin, and their teeth clack against each other, his nose smashed uncomfortably against Siwon’s cheek. Under the dirt and the film and the mud and the gravel, Siwon tastes like the strawberry jello they ate for lunch.
It’s the happiest day of Sungmin’s life.
-----
“So anti-climatic,” Heechul complains when he lets himself into the main kitchen with Sungmin’s check. “Technically all we did was tip the police, but that gay Chinese ballerina is a soft touch.”
“Hangeng,” Sungmin corrects, and squints out the tiny square windows in the double doors leading to the main room. “Where the hell is Kyuhyun.”
“No, Hankyung,” Heechul insists, and slides onto a chair besides the counter, poking with one finger at the crust Sungmin is rolling.
“Hi,” Siwon says quietly from the doorway. He’s wearing Kyuhyun’s apron, and his pad dangles from the pocket. Sungmin can see ink stains from the felt pens they use to take orders on his fingers, soaked and smudged on his skin. Heechul gives Sungmin a soft smile and then an absolutely filthy wink, disappearing into the office and shutting the door firmly behind him. “I decided to help.”
“Siwon,” Sungmin says quietly, “there’s so much--I’m so sorry, I--”
“Hey,” Siwon interrupts, “want to see something cool?” He plucks an apple from the side bowl, the one Sungmin keeps around for snacking, and slips a paring knife out of a hanging holder. “Look,” he says, and slips the blade just under the skin, his thumb on the blunt side of the metal, just the way Sungmin taught him over a decade earlier.
Sungmin can see the pie crust he was rolling earlier from the corner of his eye, and the holes Heechul had poked in it. It reminds him of sunwarm backyard gardens and strawberry jello. Siwon peels the apple in one long stripe and breaks a piece off.
He feeds it to Sungmin, standing close, and is careful to pull his fingers away before they get too close to Sungmin’s skin. “This isn’t right,” Sungmin says stupidly, “you don’t smell like strawberries.” He pulls away, running a hand over his face, and closes his eyes for a deep breath.
When he opens his eyes Siwon kisses him. The plastic clingwrap makes Sungmin’s hair go staticky, and his nose is still pressed uncomfortably against Siwon’s cheek, but he can feel how warm and soft Siwon’s lips are, the gentle pressure of his tongue. He pulls away carefully, and their lips peel away from the wrap in a slide of saliva. Siwon’s eyes are still closed. His hands are trembling where they hold the clingwrap up as the barrier between them. Sungmin tilts his head just so and presses a kiss to Siwon’s cheek. It’s uncomfortable to be leaning over so far, but he slides his face sideways and when Siwon opens his eyes Sungmin kisses him.
Sungmin wants to run his fingers through Siwon’s hair and twist his hands in Siwon’s collar but he can’t, so instead he flings them sideways, smiling into their kiss. He knocks into a cart, upsetting a tray, and dead fruit rain down, bursting into life as they bounce of his arms until his whole world smells like strawberries and Siwon’s skin.
so many thanks to umberela for the last minute beta and helping me find all my typos and BEING AWESOME.
;_; ilu llama unnir
Fandom: super junior
Pairing sungmin/siwon
Rating pg-13
Summary Pushing Daisies AU. Sungmin has a gift and Siwon is murdered (he gets better).
A/N: For bittersnow, who has been amazing because I've owed her this since before the dinosaurs went extinct. ilu bby!
Sungmin met Siwon for the first time when he was nine years old. He’s sitting on the front step of his house, kicking a rock from side to side when the big white truck pulls up to the house next door. A smaller four door sedan parks on the street and a little boy crawls out of the back. Sungmin perks up.
“Hi,” he says, scrambling over to the hedge that separates the two lawns. The first thing that strikes him is the smile the other boy has, the dimple in his cheek. Sungmin leans over the hedge, ignoring the pricks the branches make in his shirt.
“Mom,” he says three hours later when she calls him in, “I want to go to church with Siwon.”
“Who’s Siwon,” she asks, and the oven creaks when she opens it. Sungmin takes a deep breathe, and holds the cinnamon pumpkin spiced air in his lungs for as long as he can. “Come help me roll the dough,” she says, and Sungmin drags himself up on the chair to reach the countertop.
“My friend,” he tells her, and she hums. The rolling pin is too heavy for him to lift, but she lets him push it, her hands warm and dry under his. Little bits of flour float in the air and settle in white speckles on his fingers.
------------
Sungmin finds out he’s special when he’s ten, playing in the park at dusk. There’s an old dead tree with thick branches by the fence, shaded by the other taller trees. Sungmin watches all the older boys climb it and waits for them to leave before walking over, cautious. He puts one hand on the tree, palm out, and the bark is rough and chipping.
There’s a tug in his gut and Sungmin frowns, but before he can move there’s a rushing in his ears and he falls backwards, stunned, lying in the leaves and the dirt and staring up at streaks of blue sky between the branches. There’s a sharp cracking, and the slow long creaking of wood shifting and splintering. Sungmin sits up to watch, eyes wide, as the tree straightens with a groan, branches flexing like stretching muscles. Sprouts of new leaves bud on the branches, and grow until the tree is leafy and filled out. Sungmin’s fingers tremble.
For a while there’s only the sounds of the wind through the trees, and then there’s soft whisper like crumbling straw, and a ring of brown creeps closer to Sungmin, spreading in a ring, and soon he’s sitting in a circle of dead grass, brown and itchy on his skin.
He runs all the way home.
----------
“Hey,” Heechul says, spinning in a lazy circle on his bar stool.
“I’m busy, hyung,” Sungmin says, and hands him key lime on a blue pie plate, golden honey-brushed crust on a pink paper napkin.
“Can’t I just visit?” Heechul asks, reaching for a shining metal fork.
“No,” Sungmin says, and wipes his fingers on his apron.
“Yeah no,” Heechul agrees through a mouthful of pie, “I wouldn’t do that. When do you get off?”
“It’s Sunday, eight,” Sungmin says, craning his head to peer around the rest of the bakery. “Have you seen Kyuhyun?” Heechul shrugs and pushes his plate to the side so he can lean across the counter and reach the coffeepot. “Stop that,” Sungmin says irritably, swatting at his hands to pour the coffee himself. The main room smells like spiced pumpkin hot chocolate, thick and warm, and mixed fruit, sweet strawberries and limes that twist just right on the tongue. Heechul blows on his coffee lightly, and when he takes a drink of french roasted beans that Sungmin gets up at five in the morning to grind himself, his eyelashes flutter appreciatively on his cheeks.
“Eight, then,” he says sternly, and points his fork at Sungmin for emphasis.
“Hmm,” Sungmin says, and heads into the small back office. Kyuhyun is hunched in one of the chairs, dark head bowed over the laptop and fingers clattering on the keyboard insistently. “Kyuhyun!” he says, and sighs.
“I’m on break,” Kyuhyun answers shortly.
“You’ve been on break for two hours,” Sungmin says, exasperated.
“You’re standing in my light,” Kyuhyun says, and Sungmin rolls his eyes.
-------
Sungmin meets Heechul in his junior year of culinary school, walking home to his apartment in the dark. A shape runs out of the alley and clips Sungmin’s side, sending them both reeling. The man trips over the curb and lands with a sickening crack. Sungmin staggers to his feet and takes a hesitant step towards the man lying on the ground, legs in the street. Another man sprints out of the alley and skids to a halt, squinting at the body on the ground before doubling over, gasping for breath.
Sungmin takes another step closer to the body. “I-” he says, “I think he’s dead.” The other man steps closer and toes the body dubiously.
“Well shit,” he says, and crouches, his fingers slipping under the collar of the man lying prone. “Yup,” he mutters, and stands up, turning to Sungmin and sticking his hand out. “Kim Heechul of YoungKim Investigations.”
“Lee Sungmin,” Sungmin says automatically, but not looking away from the corpse, “what--”
“Great!” Heechul says cheerfully, “help me lift him out of the street.”
“Shouldn’t we call the police?” Sungmin asks doubtfully.
“Let’s not,” Heechul suggests, still smiling widely. “Come on, you don’t want him to be hit by a car, do you?” Sungmin balks, but sighs and grabs the man’s ankles while Heechul hooks his arms about the corpse’s shoulders. “One two three,” Heechul counts, but when Sungmin swings he catches his foot on the curb and stumbles. His fingers slip under the body’s pantleg and he feels a familiar rushing in his ears, like waves crashing against the shore. His vision tilts and he falls.
“Arughh,” the (former) corpse moans, and sits up, blinking.
“Shit,” Sungmin yelps, and throws himself forward, scrabbling at the man’s ankles until he can press his fingertips to skin. A current runs up his arm, and the man slumps to the ground, a corpse again. Sungmin breathes a sigh of relief.
“What.” Heechul says. Sungmin shoves himself to his feet and squares his shoulders.
“I guess he wasn’t dead, huh,” he says, chuckling nervously. Heechul looks back at him, eyes dark in the shadow of the street lamp.
“He was dead,” Heechul says, and kneels, fingers pressing to the man’s neck. “And now he’s dead again.”
“Maybe he wasn’t dead before,” Sungmin suggests desperately. Heechul arches an eyebrow at him.
“His neck was at several severe angles,” he says incredulously. Sungmin coughs. “What did you do,” Heechul demands, and takes a step closer. Sungmin hesitates, and somewhere in the distances a car alarm goes off. They both start.
“Can we just-” Sungmin says, and jumps a little as Heechul crosses the space between them before he can blink.
“I’m hungry,” Heechul says abruptly, and tightens his grip on Sungmin’s arm. “Let’s go eat.”
-------
Sungmin hangs his apron up on his hook and brushes the flour off the front of the fabric, strips off the latex gloves he wears when he bakes. He heads into the office.
Heechul and Kyuhyun are sitting at the desk, computer monitors back to back. “You’re late,” Heechul says without looking up, and his nail clicks as he taps the keypad.
“It’s ten to eight,” Sungmin says, and Heechul rolls a shoulder at him.
“I’m impatient,” he says, and flicks off the monitor. Sungmin snaps a towel at Kyuhyun.
“Go earn your keep,” he says, and Kyuhyun grumbles, grudgingly picking his apron off the back of his chair and fumbling at the strings.
Heechul drives an old two door Volvo that spits and stutters when he tries to accelerate and clacks Sungmin’s teeth together when he takes speed bumps too fast. But his radio doesn’t crackle and the passenger seat is exactly how Sungmin likes it.
“This isn’t the way to the morgue,” Sungmin says after he’s been driving for a few moments.
“We’re not going to the morgue,” Heechul says simply. “This kid wants us to look into the murder of his roommate, some rich kid that left him a load of money. Today’s the funeral viewing-only day we can access the body.”
Sungmin looks down at himself. He’s wearing jeans that hang low on his hips with rips in the back pockets and a blue shirt with fine ground flour in the buttons.
“We’ll go in the back,” Heechul says wryly.
Heechul walks with purpose when he’s on a paying case, and Sungmin quickens his stride to keep up as they duck through the employee entrance of the funeral home until they slip into a small pre-viewing room and stop in front of a simple casket, expensive unadorned wood.
“Choi Siwon,” Heechul announces with a flourish, and Sungmin’s stomach flips.
“What,” he blurts, and shoves Heechul aside to peer into the coffin. Siwon’s face is waxy in death and it takes Sungmin a minute to find the boy he knew in the man’s face. “Siwonnie,” he breathes, and his there’s a feeling in his heart like physical pain. He stumbles backwards, an ache in his chest, his breath knocked right out of him. His legs buckle, and he thinks distantly that he’s going to fall on his ass in a funeral home, but Heechul’s arms hook under his armpits and ease him down, dragging him backwards to sit on a step. The heel of his sneaker catches on the polished floors and his shoe comes partway off his foot. The rubber sole squeaks against the wood panels.
“--Sungmin--” Heechul is saying in his ear, and Sungmin feels his shoulders shake as all the air goes out of him at once, a gasping ache in his chest. Heechul’s fingers bite sharply into his upper arms for a moment, and then Sungmin feels a palm slipping into his hand, long cool fingers against the nape of his neck, guiding his head down to rest on his knees.
“You’re okay,” Heechul says gently, and Sungmin takes a deep breath. The step he’s sitting on creaks, and he feels Heechul settle next to him, the heat from his body warm and comforting. Sungmin leans his head against Heechul’s shoulder, and when Heechul levers himself upright a moment later, Sungmin takes his hand and lets Heechul pull him to his feet.
“We knew each other a long time ago,” Sungmin mutters, walking unsteadily over to peer in the coffin again. Heechul murmurs something too quiet to make out in support, and fumbles for his notebook, pages filled with his oddly pretty scrawl.
“He was murdered on a cruise,” Heechul says, shifting on his feet awkwardly, “something to do with mission work--left a huge fortune to his roommate, who’s the one paying us a very nice fee for the apprehension of the one responsible...” Heechul trails off, and the paper of his notebook rustles. “That’s all I got,” he says. Sungmin jerks his gaze away from the blue tint in Siwon’s lips.
“Us?” he asks, startled. Usually he does his part and doesn’t see Heechul again until he drops by with a check made out to Sungmin for thirty percent of whatever he made. Heechul rolls a shoulder.
“Seems personal to you,” he says, “I could always do with an extra hand, I guess, since Kangin’s left me high and dry. I’ll even go fifty-fifty with you.” Sungmin refrains from pointing out that mandatory army service is hardly abandonment, and instead forces a smile. He lifts a hand and touches Siwon’s hair, stiff with product.
“Thank you,” he says sincerely, and brushes the pad of one finger down Siwon’s cheek. His breath catches in his lungs as a shiver runs down his whole body, every muscle taut.
Siwon comes awake with a gasp, chest heaving and panicked eyes, and the first thing he sees is Sungmin’s face.
--------
Sungmin’s mother cried on Sundays, little hitching sobs that choke out barely audible in between the harsh beeps of the oven timer. Sungmin’s feet leave tiny droplets of bathwater slipping into the cracks between the slats of the woven mats that line the hallway to his bedroom. By the time she comes in to press a kiss to his forehead he’s curled underneath a light yellow blanket with red trim, and she smells like warm cinnamon sugar and crisp crunchy apples, his father’s favourite pie that she makes every Sunday at the same time he left them. He gets the slimmest slice in his lunch on Mondays, just big enough for two apple slices dripping in the sugar sweet syrup that leaves the tips of his fingers sticky. By the time he gets home the rest of the pie is crumpled in the trash, weighing Sungmin’s arm down when he takes the trash out after dinner.
Siwon looks out his window to see Sungmin perched in the apple tree outside his window. The wood of the pane creaks when Siwon throws his body weight against it in order to open it, the ledge pressing against his chest as he leans out.
“Siwonnie,” Sungmin calls affectionately, and tosses an apple at him. Siwon fumbles to catch it, and his ring finger jams painfully against the dip where the stem grows out, curled and sharp.
“What are you doing?” he asks, and shifts up on his tip toes for a better view, his head propped on his arm.
“I need apples for pie,” Sungmin says, “it’s a surprise for my mom.” Siwon can see a small mesh bag hanging on the branch beside him. Siwon frowns, because he tried one of the apples from that tree once, and his whole mouth had shriveled and shuddered at the tart mouthful. Sungmin yanks one off a branch, and the leaves shake against each other. He sniffs it questioningly and a tiny crease appears between his eyebrows. The corners of his lips turn down minutely, and Siwon thinks he’s never seen someone manage to look simultaneously displeased and adorable before..
“I have some in our fridge,” Siwon says, after Sungmin’s face falls and he tosses the apple aside. It bounces hollowly on the grass and rolls to a slow stop. The warm breeze ruffles through Sungmin’s hair like invisible fingers. Siwon’s hands tighten on the windowsill.
“Okay,” Sungmin says, picking his way down the tree, and Siwon carries the apples his mom bought at the open market to Sungmin’s kitchen, where Sungmin shows him how to slip a paring knife just below the skin in long smooth strips and how to press the heels of his palms against the floured-white rolling pin. The heavy oven door creaks when Siwon hauls it open for Sungmin to balance the tin pan on the rack, his hands drowning in scorched black oven mitts.
Sungmin feeds him stripes of apple peels while they sit on the counter and the oven fills the kitchen with warm apple-pie air. Siwon shrugs out of his outershirt, leaving himself in a thin tank top that clings to his skin in the sticky heat. Sungmin shoves the last bit of peel into Siwon’s mouth, laughing, and Siwon’s tongue swipes for an instant against Sungmin’s fingers. Underneath the tacky flour he can taste the faint hint of pie filling, thick and sweet.
------
“Where am I?” Siwon asks, blinking, and Sungmin watches his skin flush with life, going from cold and waxy to a soft brown tan, pink flushing in his lips and the tips of his fingers. “I--” he says, and Sungmin hears his ribs creak with his breath.
“There’s been an accident,” Heechul says, talking quickly, “who’s the last person you remember seeing?” Siwon jerks a hand to his head, and his eyes go so wide Sungmin feels a slightly hysterical giggle bubbling in his throat.
“Did I die?” he almost shrieks, and one hand claws at the white satin lining. Heechul grabs his face and shakes him a little.
“Who’s the last person you remember seeing?” Heechul says in a low voice, that intensity that makes people stop and listen to him.
“No, I--” Siwon is talking, but all Sungmin can hear is the ticking of the stopwatch in Heechul’s palm, counting down. Sungmin remembers the smell of pink and yellow roses, fresh turned dirt under his fingernails.
“--And then I dreamed I was strangled to death with a plastic bag,” Siwon is saying.
“You were strangled to death with a plastic bag,” Heechul says cheerfully, “these things happen.”
“You were my first kiss,” Sungmin blurts. Siwon blinks at him. Heechul looks long-suffering.
“Right,” he says, and taps the face of the watch, “tick-tock,” he says meaningfully, and slips out the door, muttering to himself.
“Do you remember me?” Sungmin asks quietly, “We--”
“Were neighbours,” Siwon says, swinging his legs out of the casket and standing, legs wobbly. He’s tall, a lot taller than Sungmin was expecting, and half his hair sticks up in strange directions from his fingers running through it haphazardly. “Sungmin,” Siwon says softly, smiles. His cheek dimples the same way Sungmin remembers.
“You don’t have long,” Sungmin says, swallowing hard. “Do you uh, do you know who killed you?” Siwon frowns.
“No.” he says simply, and Sungmin scratches at his ear, awkward and unsure. “You were my first kiss too,” Siwon says suddenly, and Sungmin feels warmth flood his cheeks.
“I can be your last too,” he says suddenly, and then checks himself, “no that’s weird. I’m sorry.” Siwon shrugs.
“Might be nice,” he says quietly, “symmetry and all that.”
Sungmin takes a step nearer to him. “Are you scared?” he asks quietly, and Siwon slips a finger under his collar, where a fine chain slithers out and lies prettily against his hand, a tiny silver cross gleaming dully in the soft lighting.
“I have faith,” Siwon says steadily, and closes his hand around the cross. His eyes flutter shut and he smiles. “I missed you,” he says softly.
“I missed you,” Sungmin says, and leans forward. He closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to see the flash of light leaving Siwon’s body, but he relishes that the last thing he sees is Siwon tilting towards him for a kiss.
Siwon opens one eye. “Uh,” he says, and Sungmin feels his watch vibrate against his wrist, one minute gone since he brushed a finger across Siwon’s cheekbone.
“What if you,” Sungmin says, eyes still closed, “what if you didn’t have to be dead?” When he opens his eyes Siwon is closer than he expected, and Sungmin can see the outline of his pupils. Sungmin licks his lips and watches them dilate.
“That would be cool, I guess,” Siwon says, blinking.
“Yeah,” Sungmin says, and he can feel a real smile tugging at his lips.
------
Sungmin’s mother dies for the first time in the kitchen, creasing pork dumplings and setting them aside on a sheet of wax paper to steam later. Sungmin doesn’t see her fall because he’s peering into the oven window, watching the tiny bubbles swell in the top crust of peach-strawberry. He has his hands pressed against the glass and he can still smell the peach on them. There are tiny strawberry seeds caught between his teeth. The thump of her body hitting the ground startles him, and he jumps. His fingers leave streaks on the glass, strings of fruit pulp and faint smears of oil from his skin.
“Mom?” he asks hesitantly. She’s lying very still, and there’s dumpling filling spilled in her hand, a slice of green onion curled around her finger like a ring. Sungmin looks down at her for a long time, and the oven beeps behind him, the one minute reminder until the time runs out. He touches the inside of her wrist, just over her vein, and feels her pulse thump once before he jerks away, his stomach dropping the way it does on roller coasters and water slides.
“Oh,” she says, touching her temple with her fingers, “I had the worst headache.” Sungmin looks down at his hand and curls his nails into his palm. He smiles, and his mother moves past him in a wave of air that smells like piecrust and honeysuckle, humming as she turns the water on to boil. The dumplings make tiny sticking noises as she peels them off the wax paper, and the oven timer makes him jump again, his fingers in his mouth as he sucks peach strawberry off them.
Sungmin thinks suddenly of crackling brown grass as the wind rustles through newly grown leaves on suddenly healthy branches, and freezes, eyes wide. There’s silence, and he exhales in relief. His mother slips on the oven mitts and the door creaks the same way it does when Siwon holds it open for Sungmin.
Next door, Siwon’s mother starts screaming, a long wailing keen of grief and horror.
------
“This is my restaurant,” Sungmin says, leading Siwon to the back.
“I always thought you might be doing this for a living,” Siwon says, and touches the walk-in fridge. Sungmin’s apron is hanging on the hook beside the door, and Siwon tugs on the strings absently. “You were amazing.” Sungmin feels his face heat.
“Do you want to see something cool?” Sungmin asks, and pulls a tray from the fridge. Siwon recoils slightly, because the apples that roll on the tray are spotted, dented, and if he’d pressed a finger against them they would have given to the pressure, soggy and soft. “Watch,” he says, slipping an apple into one gloved hand. He passes his other hand, sans glove, in between Siwon and the apple, brushing his palm against the fruit as it goes by. Siwon jerks comically as the apple twists, filling out, firming, and shining. Sungmin laughs at his face. Siwon takes it from him, cautiously, and laughs suddenly.
“What?” Sungmin asks, frowning. Siwon smiles at him, a real smile, his teeth sinking into his bottom lip.
“I was just thinking about Eve,” Siwon says, and Sungmin heart jumps into his throat.
“Am I the serpent?” he asks lightly, but his knuckles creak on the edge of the countertop.
“No,” Siwon says, suddenly serious. “Sungmin.” Sungmin looks up at him from under his bangs, uncombed and rumpled, one sticking up in an odd cowlick. “You’re blessed,” Siwon says quietly, “I--here.” He pulls something out of his pocket, and smiles a slow sweet smile that makes Sungmin’s toes curl slightly in his shoes. “Hold out your palm,” he says, and Sungmin’s arm comes halfway up before his brain catches on.
“Why,” he says, but stretches out his hand. Siwon dangles something from a finger and then drops it into Sungmin’s palm, the small weight of a silver cross and the tickle of a delicate chain along his lifeline. “No,” he starts, “I can’t--”
“It’s yours,” Siwon says simply, “have faith.” The cross is warm from Siwon’s body, and when Sungmin rolls the chain between his fingers he can feel it cooling in the air. He slips it around his neck and twists his neck awkwardly to look as he fumbles at the clasp.
“Let me--” Siwon says, and reaches for him. Sungmin recoils.
“No!” he says sharply, and Siwon draws back, looking hurt.
“Sorry, I... sorry,” Siwon mutters, and looks down. He’s still wearing the clothes from the funeral home, a crisp cut suit that outlines his shoulders in a way Sungmin really appreciates, and he tugs at the knot of his tie, upset.
“It’s just. The way that this thing works--I’ll show you.” He taps the apple, sitting on the counter where Siwon had placed it to dig in his pocket for the cross that now dangles in the hollow of Sungmin’s collarbone, bouncing against his throat. It shrivels, shrinking in on itself and darkening in ugly spots.
“Oh.” Siwon says.
“Little things like fruit and flowers is okay,” Sungmin says quietly, “but bigger things there’s a sort of balancing effect.” He stops, and shifts uneasily on his feet.
“What?” Siwon asks, and Sungmin takes a deep breath, steeling himself.
“If I don’t send them back in one minute--” He’s cut off as the doors to the main room bang open and Heechul stomps through, in what looks like--
“Nice boots,” Sungmin says. Heechul looks down.
“Yeah, they’re incredibly--no, no, no,” Heechul stabs a finger into Sungmin’s chest, “No. You bastard, I can’t believe you snuck Soomin out of his own funeral service and thought I wouldn’t notice.”
“Siwon,” Siwon interjects helpfully.
“I do not care, deadboy” Heechul snaps, and grabs Sungmin around the wrist.
“We’ll be back,” Sungmin calls. Heechul drags him into the office and kicks the door shut behind him.
“What is wrong with you,” he snarls, and smacks Sungmin over the head with a rolled up newspaper.
“Ow, hyung--” Sungmin says, and takes a step backwards as Heechul hits him again.
“Don’t hyung me, you lying liar liar,” Heechul hisses, and unrolls the newspaper with a snap. It’s the obituary section, and Heechul stabs a finger angrily at the picture of a middle aged man, blurred and pixelated black and white, with a cramped obituary in a slim column below it.
“Who’s that?” Sungmin asks, squinting.
“It’s the funeral director,” Heechul says in a normal voice. “He suddenly dropped dead in the bathroom of the funeral home while we there, Sungmin I don’t suppose you know anything about that.”
“I’m sensing a lot of italics from you,” Sungmin says, but guilt twists in his gut.
“Lee Sungmin.” Heechul says flatly, and Sungmin sighs. He drags a hand through his hair and makes himself look at the notice in the newspaper, Kim Yaengsan, fifty three, no wife no children.
“Yeah,” he mutters, “that was me. It’s kind of a... random proximity thing.” He moves to pick up the newspaper and is forced to duck as Heechul snatches it up, lighting fast, and folds it in half, smacking him twice, once on each side of his head.
“You fucker, I was in proximity!”
“Oh my god, I killed someone again,” Sungmin says, and sinks into one of the roller chairs, slipping backwards and slumps dejectedly.
“Ignoring the again,” Heechul says, and then sighs. “It’s not so bad, Sungmin-ah, I mean, it says here that he was under investigation for stealing valuables from the bodies and selling them on the internet.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better,” Sungmin moans.
“Makes me feel better,” Heechul says off-handedly, and tosses the newspaper into the small metal trashbin. “I mean deadboy clearly hits the gym, but he’s worth all that? Just because you kissed once as pretweens?”
“I also random-proximitied his father on his eleventh birthday,” Sungmin says miserably.
“Oh my god, your gay love is so tragic,” Heechul says, but Sungmin can tell by the way he lounges in the other chair that he’s been forgiven.
“Is that--weird,” Sungmin says, and twirls a pen between his fingers, over and over and around his thumb.
“The gay?” Heechul asks, “No, I’ve always wanted a flamboyantly gay friend.”
“I’m not flamboyant,” Sungmin protests, indignant.
“Your apron is pink, your oven mitts are pink, you drooled over my boots, I’m pretty sure you get regular manicures, you run a pie store and you have a pet rabbit named Mr. Sprinkles. It’s not exactly a shocker.” Heechul flicks on Kyuhyun’s laptop and starts up something that sends bursts of machine gun fire chattering out of the speakers.
“I don’t have a pet rabbit named Mr. Sprinkles,” Sungmin says, blinking.
“Give it time, homo,” Heechul smirks, and Sungmin flicks the pen at his forehead.
------
Sungmin’s mother dies for the last time when she presses a goodnight kiss to his forehead. Sungmin wakes up screaming under her cold dead weight.
Sungmin stands very still during his mother’s funeral, his fingers tucked under the hem of his suit jacket, two sizes too big from the rent-by-the-hour place next to the nail salon where his aunt works. If he squints really hard he can just see over the gentle slope of the hill in the cemetery, through a tree line to where Siwon’s father was buried the day before.
Sungmin’s uncle’s palm is heavy on his shoulder, and when he drops a flower into his mother’s grave he thinks of teaching Siwon how to climb trees and skip rocks, his fingers laced under Siwon’s boot, the weight of a flat rock against his fingers.
Siwon is crying, crouched carefully in the garden during his father’s wake, and the sun falls through the branches of the apple tree falls in dappled shadows as Sungmin picks his way into the space between the trunk and the side of the house. His head still hurts from crying at his mother’s memorial service the day before, but he settles next to Siwon in the dirt and rubs his back as he hiccups quietly.
Sungmin scuffs his formal shoes in the dark dirt, feeling a vague vicious sort of satisfaction at seeing the shine dulled by dust and bits of dead leaves. Siwon swirls a finger in a pile of twigs and leans on Sungmin, his shoulder against Sungmin’s cheek, and Sungmin rolls his neck so the tip of his nose rubs against Siwon’s jacket, warm from Siwon’s body and scratchy against his skin. Siwon wraps an arm around Sungmin’s waist and his palm spans a quarter of his ribcage. His fingers dig in under the bone, and it makes Sungmin’s spine arch painfully. He doesn’t pull away.
-----
Sungmin leaves Siwon on his couch watching bad daytime television and eating a fruit salad Sungmin made in about fifteen seconds that will never spoil, and slips into Heechul’s car to drive to Siwon’s apartment. Something under the hood makes a ripping grinding noise when he parks outside a plain building, painted a dusty off white yellowed with age.
“Your car sucks,” Sungmin says, throwing his shoulder into the door in an effort to latch it.
“Your gay lover sucks,” Heechul snaps, “all that cash and he lives in this dump with a roommate that sounded legit retarded on the phone.”
Siwon’s roommate is Chinese, not retarded, but that doesn’t stop Heechul from copying the way his vowels come out softer and the slur in some of his consonants. Hangeng looks like he doesn’t quite know what to do with that, and Sungmin tunes them out because he’s more interested in the pictures cheap wood frames tacked to the walls, Siwon grinning from polaroids and photobooth strips.
“--may we see his room, Hankyung?” Heechul asks, as Sungmin returns to the couch.
“Hangeng,” Hangeng says politely.
“Hankyung,” Heechul says cheerfully.
“Haaaangeeeng,” Hangeng says slowly, carefully enunciating.
“Hankyung,” Heechul says, and his smile widens. Sungmin thinks this could take a while, and so he slips into the bedroom with the stenciled lettering above the door spelling out Choi Siwon.
His bedspread is a pretty shade of almost-green blue, and his closet door rattles when Sungmin slides it open, revealing laundry-soft shirts and crisply ironed button-downs. There’s a plain makeshift desk made out of an old card table with a wad of paper shoved under one leg to keep it steady, and a blue light blinks from a sleek silver-grey laptop as it charges. Sungmin rifles through the small stack of books on the bedside table, and when he pulls a towel out of the bottom drawer a plain bible thumps on the floor. The cover is plain black and old, the plastic cracked and stiff, and the bit of yellow ribbon is only half sewed into the binding, hanging ragged and limp, the edges frayed.
“Yah,” Heechul calls from the other room, and Sungmin starts, shoving the small book under his hoodie and rolling his shoulders. He presses his arm against his side and tucks his fingers under the hem to obscure the bulge.
Siwon is sprawled in a pair of extra large sweatpants Sungmin had picked up someplace, and they hang low on his frame. Sungmin lets his eyes linger on the way the waistband curves along his hipbones.
“How was Hangeng?” Siwon asks eagerly, and sits up. His toes curl in Sungmin’s rug, and Sungmin likes that he slipped off his indoor slippers to curl on Sungmin’s couch, leather that clings slightly to his skin before peeling away.
“He looked like he’d been crying,” Sungmin says, and Siwon looks pained. Sungmin’s fingers twitch as he stops himself cold in the act of reaching out in comfort.
“Were you guys...” Sungmin trails off, eyes fixed on the framed photograph of a misty lake, the moonlight slipping through the trees and playing silver on the water in one of those pictures people sell at art fairs and museum gift shops. Kyuhyun had bought it for him as a housewarming present. Siwon stands, and Sungmin drags his gaze up Siwon’s torso, the clear definition of his muscles.
“No,” Siwon says, and when Sungmin makes eye contact, he leans close enough that his breath puffs against Sungmin’s cheek.
“You smell like strawberries,” he says, and looks up through his eyelashes. Siwon smiles again, all sharp angles, and his tongue is curling between his teeth when Heechul starts banging on the door.
Sungmin lets him in, rolling his eyes when Heechul slaps a hand over his face and asks dramatically if he’s interrupting sodomy so loudly Sungmin’s elderly neighbour from across the hall gives him a scathingly scandalized look.
Heechul stalks into the living room and folds his knees, flopping ungracefully into a sitting position. “Okay,” he says, “Hankyung said you were delivering some kind of hand-scribed Calvinistic documents from the ass crack of time to a museum.
“Yeah,” Siwon says, “Hangeng convinced me--they offered me the cruise for free to safely deliver the papers.” He stops and looks down at his hands, “he said I needed to relax more.”
“Hankyung got me the police file and the autopsy report,” Heechul says cheerfully, “all that money deadboy left him sure greases all the wheels.” He slaps two files down on the Sungmin’s glass coffee table, and knocks one of Sungmin’s French postcard coasters askew. Sungmin straightens it, frowning.
Siwon tips his head to peer at one of the glossy photographs Heechul is flipping through and abruptly goes three shades paler. He makes an awful choking noise in his throat and lurches for the bathroom.
“Photos of your own autopsy will do that to a person,” Heechul says, “the police report is shitty though. No family left to exert influence, which is fucking annoying because that is basically who always does it. This case went cold faster than your heterosexuality.”
“That doesn’t even make sense,” Sungmin says, carefully not looking at any of the pictures. Heechul hums, and a crease appears in between his eyes, the one that means he’s actually paying attention to the case in front of him. “Do you think I made a mistake?” he asks quietly.
“I think you’re monumentally stupid,” Heechul says, sliding on the black square framed glasses that make his eyes look even larger than usual. “Eventually you’re going to have to deal with the random proximity casualities and the fact that he’s dead and has no income, identification or place to live, not to mention you trip and land on him in the dark and he’ll drop--”
“Okay thanks,” Sungmin says loudly, “I’m good.”
“Cowboy up,” Heechul says, snapping the files shut with a flourish, “we need to talk to whoever gave him the holy whatever the fuck to transport. It always comes down to money and--”
Siwon bursts out of the bathroom, still looking slightly green around the edges, alight with excitement.
“I know who killed me,” he says.
-------
The facts were these:
The travel agent who offered Siwon the cruise never intended the documents to reach their destination. It was easier to slip behind him as he reached into the ice tray and wrap a plastic bag around his face until he stopped breathing.
Choi Siwon’s life ended before he really even felt it begin, and he never felt as good as the day he kissed Lee Sungmin.
-----
Sungmin spends the last day before he’s shipped to boarding school crouched in Siwon’s garden, hands buried in thick dirt, dark and soft and rich against his fingers. Siwon presses his finger into the soil knuckle deep while Sungmin pats the ground flat around it, the packet of seeds rattling in his other hand. Siwon presses deep again, making neat straight rows of tiny holes, and Sungmin looks down to rip the seed packet open.
When he looks up Siwon kisses him, clumsy. His eyes are open and his hands are held at his sides stiffly, but his lips are soft. Sungmin is close enough to see the dirt in the creases of his skin, and their teeth clack against each other, his nose smashed uncomfortably against Siwon’s cheek. Under the dirt and the film and the mud and the gravel, Siwon tastes like the strawberry jello they ate for lunch.
It’s the happiest day of Sungmin’s life.
-----
“So anti-climatic,” Heechul complains when he lets himself into the main kitchen with Sungmin’s check. “Technically all we did was tip the police, but that gay Chinese ballerina is a soft touch.”
“Hangeng,” Sungmin corrects, and squints out the tiny square windows in the double doors leading to the main room. “Where the hell is Kyuhyun.”
“No, Hankyung,” Heechul insists, and slides onto a chair besides the counter, poking with one finger at the crust Sungmin is rolling.
“Hi,” Siwon says quietly from the doorway. He’s wearing Kyuhyun’s apron, and his pad dangles from the pocket. Sungmin can see ink stains from the felt pens they use to take orders on his fingers, soaked and smudged on his skin. Heechul gives Sungmin a soft smile and then an absolutely filthy wink, disappearing into the office and shutting the door firmly behind him. “I decided to help.”
“Siwon,” Sungmin says quietly, “there’s so much--I’m so sorry, I--”
“Hey,” Siwon interrupts, “want to see something cool?” He plucks an apple from the side bowl, the one Sungmin keeps around for snacking, and slips a paring knife out of a hanging holder. “Look,” he says, and slips the blade just under the skin, his thumb on the blunt side of the metal, just the way Sungmin taught him over a decade earlier.
Sungmin can see the pie crust he was rolling earlier from the corner of his eye, and the holes Heechul had poked in it. It reminds him of sunwarm backyard gardens and strawberry jello. Siwon peels the apple in one long stripe and breaks a piece off.
He feeds it to Sungmin, standing close, and is careful to pull his fingers away before they get too close to Sungmin’s skin. “This isn’t right,” Sungmin says stupidly, “you don’t smell like strawberries.” He pulls away, running a hand over his face, and closes his eyes for a deep breath.
When he opens his eyes Siwon kisses him. The plastic clingwrap makes Sungmin’s hair go staticky, and his nose is still pressed uncomfortably against Siwon’s cheek, but he can feel how warm and soft Siwon’s lips are, the gentle pressure of his tongue. He pulls away carefully, and their lips peel away from the wrap in a slide of saliva. Siwon’s eyes are still closed. His hands are trembling where they hold the clingwrap up as the barrier between them. Sungmin tilts his head just so and presses a kiss to Siwon’s cheek. It’s uncomfortable to be leaning over so far, but he slides his face sideways and when Siwon opens his eyes Sungmin kisses him.
Sungmin wants to run his fingers through Siwon’s hair and twist his hands in Siwon’s collar but he can’t, so instead he flings them sideways, smiling into their kiss. He knocks into a cart, upsetting a tray, and dead fruit rain down, bursting into life as they bounce of his arms until his whole world smells like strawberries and Siwon’s skin.
so many thanks to umberela for the last minute beta and helping me find all my typos and BEING AWESOME.
;_; ilu llama unnir