100. Regrets [Repair]
Title: Repair
100. Regrets- for the Super Junior 100 fic challenge
Pairing: fixed!HanChul [friendship], fixed!HanHyuk
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don't own Super Junior or any affiliated persons, blah blah blah. If I did, they'd still all be together.
Genre: Angst-ish, fluff
Summary: Sequel to this. [You should probably read this first to understand what happened.] After Hangeng left Super Junior, he finally gains courage to tell Heechul everything he thought about what happened between them. And then he gets a chance to talk to Eunhyuk.
Warning: Other than the slight angst and a little bit of language, there's no warning.
Word count: 1,546
Hangeng woke up with a fever one night, and perhaps that fever had made him delirious, or perhaps it had cleared things up, but either way, he found himself calling Heechul.
He wasn't sure what he was thinking at that moment, and he was sure the man wouldn't answer, but nonetheless, his phone rested against his ear, the ringing playing loudly into the cavern.
Surprisingly, the ringing abruptly stopped and a familiar yet groggy voice answered.
"Hello?"
"Heechul," Hangeng began, preparing his Korean for the conversation. "It's Hangeng."
There was silence on the other end, enough time passing by that Hangeng actually checked his phone to make sure the call hadn't been disconnected. It hadn't been.
When Heechul spoke next, Hangeng expected anger, but what he got instead was an apology.
"Hannie... I'm so sorry," Heechul whispered, his voice cracking with raw emotion.
This time, Hangeng was the silent one. All of the things he had prepared to yell at Heechul in the few seconds before the man answered his phone shot out of his head like a bullet.
"I really am..." Heechul repeated, pure sorrow laced into his words. "And I need to tell you... I do love you. But not in the way you loved me back then. I thought it had been that way at one point, I really did. But I realized it wasn't that way, and I didn't know how to tell you. I didn't want to tell you. I wanted you to be happy, I really did, and I didn't want to ruin what happiness we had had together for that short amount of time. But I only made things worse by not telling you. And I'm sorry. I really, truly am."
Hearing the man's apology almost broke Hangeng's resolve, but then he remembered everything that had happened, and he knew that he had to speak. He had to get everything that had been resting on his chest for months off, and this was his only chance. Now or never.
"Heechul, I know you're sorry, but there are some things that I need to say, whether you are or not. Please, hear me out."
Heechul agreed. "I understand. I deserve whatever you throw at me."
Hangeng collected all of his thoughts, all of the words he needed to speak, took a deep breath, and began to talk.
"I loved you," he said, his voice wavering on the sentence. "I still do. And it hurts to know that all of that was wasted. You didn't say anything, not a single word to me, and I was forced to watch as you slowly faded from my life. I was angry. I thought I hated you. But I didn't. I hated myself for allowing you to slip away, just out of my grasp. And for pushing away the rest of the Super Junior members."
After each sentence, his voice grew stronger, his words empowering him, lifting off this burden he had been carrying for too long.
"You broke me. Not in the, 'I'll never be able to love again,' way, but in the, 'If I ever love again, it won't be the same,' way. And back then, you didn't seem to care. "
"You continuously pushed me away, left me to fend for myself when I needed you most, and continued on your own merry way. You had said you loved me one day, and then suddenly, those words never came from your lips again, and everything in me seemed to die. I ignored it, then I became depressed, not wanting to lose you, then I grew angry, and yet again, I became depressed. I was alone. Again. I knew it that day you looked at me in the kitchen and you still refused to say anything to me."
Both men were quiet, Hangeng taking a pause to prepare the rest, and Heechul holding back the tears that were evident in the way he breathed. But Hangeng was too far gone to care at the moment. It was his turn to hurt in retaliation.
Hangeng took another breath and continued.
"But then... Eunhyuk came along with his gummy smile, his silly ways, and his clumsy body. And I started to get better. Slowly. He helped me in ways that you wouldn't have been able to."
"But then, you managed to mess that up again. But this one I don't exactly blame you for. It's more my fault than anything. There was an accident of sorts..."
A pause.
"And he kissed me."
Heechul's sharp intake of breath on the other line of the phone was enough to let Hangeng know that the man knew what happened next.
"That kiss reminded me of you. Of what I had lost. His kiss, which should have made me happy, only made me think of you and how you had left things. Broken. So I ran."
Now, the older man was crying, his sobs clear through the phone.
"And you know what happened after that. I packed up my things and left. I found a lawyer, sued SM, and never spoke to you guys again. Not even to say goodbye."
"But despite all of that... I don't hate you. I don't regret loving you. I have no regrets in my life. Actually, no, that's a lie. I regret leaving Eunhyuk in the state I had that day. But that's not the point. I don't want you to think I'm mad at you. Because I'm not. I want you to be happy, no matter what the cost."
He let that sink in for a moment.
"Because I do love you,"
Again, he let his words echo into the phone, making sure his point was made.
"Even if you don't love me."
Heechul's crying grew even louder then, and Hangeng felt a twinge of guilt for reducing the man to this state, but he knew this was what had to be done. This was their closure.
He stayed on the phone throughout all of Heechul's sobbing, patiently waiting for the man to talk while an accomplished feeling bubbled up inside his chest.
Eventually, Heechul stopped crying long enough to speak.
"Does this mean you'll come back?" were his first words.
Hangeng chuckled softly and he shook his head, even though he knew the other man wouldn't see it.
"No. Even though this all was the main reason I left, SM is horrible. I don't know how you can stay there."
"Easy. I've got a family."
Hangeng laughed again, surprised at how easy this conversation was coming. "True."
"A family that's missing one of it's members."
Hangeng didn't let the words affect him like they would have before. Instead, he smiled wryly to himself, and replied, "One of the babies has gotten himself all grown up and moved away from appa and umma."
"Yeah, well that grown up baby could visit sometime," Heechul growled. "You act like none of us want to see you, dammit."
"I'll visit some time, I promise. No need to get pissy."
Heechul snorted and it was quiet for a second.
"You know we got a new appa, right?"
After about thirty minutes of Heechul convincing Hangeng, that yes, Kangin was no longer the father of Super Junior because Leeteuk didn't really like him in that way, but Henry was, and they were all doomed because the chipmunk had no fucking clue what he was doing, they started to grow quieter and quieter. It was around this time that Hangeng asked Heechul for a favor.
"Hey... can you put someone else on the phone?"
He didn't even need to say the name for Heechul to know who he was talking about.
"Yeah... hang on. Let me go to his room and wake him up."
Again, it was quiet, the only sound being Heechul's footsteps and a few doors opening and closing. Hangeng could hear him whispering to someone, and then a new voice replaced Heechul's.
"This better not be some lame prank you pulled, Heechul," Eunhyuk muttered darkly into the phone. "Hello?"
"Eunhyuk," Hangeng breathed, the sound of the man's voice sending wave upon wave of relief through him. "How are you?"
There was a split second of silence before everything exploded.
"How am I?! HOW AM I?! You fucking leave me after I kiss you, don't even say goodbye, and five months and twelve days later, you call and ask how I am?! How the hell do you think I am?!"
Hangeng blinked in surprise, the younger man's out of character outburst catching him by surprise.
"Eu-eunhyuk-ah, I'm sorry.. I didn't... I mean.. I just.. I'm sorry." He settled for the apology instead of trying to tell Eunhyuk everything.
Too many seconds passed by and Hangeng opened his mouth to say something, anything, but Eunhyuk murmured into the phone before he could.
"I miss you..."
Hangeng felt his heart start to beat again, and he held the phone closer to his ear.
"I miss you, too, Hyukjae."
"Are you going to visit any time soon?"
"Do you want me to?"
"If you can get on a plane now, I say you should."
A smile cracked across Hangeng's face and he closed his eyes, thankful that he wasn't still upset.
"I'll see what I can do."