Needlework
Title: Needlework
Pairing: KyuSung (Kyuhyun x Yesung)
Genre: Angst, Romance
Rating: PG
Summary: Kyuhyun can’t forget Jongwoon, even though 22 months and 19 days has passed since they broke up.
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A flood of memories comes rushing back as time stands still. Kyuhyun swears he can hear the sound of grains of sand defy gravity and flow upwards in a hypothetical hourglass. He takes in the sight of Jongwoon greedily, like a child that has been offered ice cream on a hot summer’s day. He looks pretty much the same, except he has much shorter hair, and Kyuhyun thinks that he has lost weight from his somewhat bonier appearance. The shirt he wears showcases his accentuated collarbones very nicely and the tight jeans highlight the shape of his thighs. Kyuhyun needs to use all of his willpower to control the urge to run over to him and fling himself at him. He wants to feel Jongwoon’s arms wrap around his body, and the warmth that would engulf him once Jongwoon envelops him. Kyuhyun’s hands tighten into fists, and he stands from a distance, just observing. After all, Jongwoon had broken up with him all those months ago. 22 months and 19 days to be exact.
22 months and 19 days of heartache and longing.
Then again, who was counting? Certainly not Kyuhyun, who has moved on.
Kyuhyun can’t bring himself to watch Jongwoon’s reunion with his family any longer. His happiness of reuniting with his parents and brother is blinding, and Kyuhyun remembers how he once was happy with Jongwoon. He can still remember how gentle those small hands of his are, and how his eye-smile would appear whenever he was smiling genuinely. Those smiles were reserved for those precious moments off-camera, but when fans were lucky at their show they would catch it beautifully. Kyuhyun knows he has only 23 photos of that priceless smile in his laptop, but many many more were stowed away in his memory. He couldn’t bear to delete his folder of photos of Jongwoon, even though Jongwoon had broken up with him. He knows it’s unhealthy to still linger on the past and still go through the photos of Jongwoon he has from time to time, but he can’t help himself. He had fallen in too deep with the man, and it had ended on a painful note. At least he can still remember the good times between them, and not only the painful memories that had been made at the end of their relationship.
Kyuhyun turns around and walks away from Handel and Gretel, away from his ex-boyfriend.
Kyuhyun looks away from the shop and misses the melancholic gaze of Jongwoon looking at him.
“What the hell is that?!”
“Don’t you like turtles? I named this one Ddangkoma. It’s our love turtle!”
“Love turtle?”
“Yeah. Kyu-ah, I love you. Ddangkoma is a symbol of my love for you! You were in China, so I decided to buy a turtle to keep me company while you were gone.”
“Hyung you’re so weird.
“Admit it, you love that about me.”
“If you say so.”
Kyuhyun finds himself in the last place he expects to be. He walks around COEX Aquarium, heading towards where he knows Ddangkoma can be found. Funnily enough, the staff all know Kyuhyun now not as the singer in Super Junior or SM the Ballad, but as the man who is strangely obsessed with Ddangkoma the turtle. He had visited the aquarium on a weekly basis after Jongwoon had joined the army, as he knew that Ddangkoma would be sad when Jongwoon stopped visiting. Kyuhyun knows he shouldn’t care about Ddangkoma, their “love turtle”, but he had secretly adored the fact that Jongwoon had chosen a turtle whose longevity was at least 100 years. Other people used flowers to symbolize their love, but flowers could wilt and die a few days after. Ddangkoma, on the other hand, would survive for a long time. Kyuhyun smiles at how naïve he was to believe that his relationship with Jongwoon would last forever. He chuckled at the irony, as their love had ended long before the end of Ddangkoma’s lifetime.
Suddenly, he feels a tap behind him.
“Oh, hi Jungmin-sshi.”
“Hello Kyuhyun-sshi. Jongwoon-sshi just came by and asked to see Ddangkoma. I told him to wait, figured you might want to leave or want to wait in my office while he’s here.”
“I’ll wait upstairs in your office. Thank you Jungmin-sshi.”
“No problem Kyuhyun-sshi.”
He looks down at the aquarium from Jungmin’s office and spots Jongwoon staring at Ddangkoma lovingly through the glass. Kyuhyun repeatedly reminds himself that the only reason why Jongwoon looks like he’s sad is because he misses Ddangkoma rather than what Ddangkoma embodies. It isn’t possible that he misses what he once had with Kyuhyun…is it? Kyuhyum smiles bitterly, and questions whether or not Jongwoon even remembers that the turtle represents their love. A tear escapes from Kyuhyun’s eye, and he quickly rubs it away. He swore that he wouldn’t shed tears over Jongwoon, and although he somewhat failed at keeping that oath, he doesn’t intend on bawling again at the simple sight of the man. Even though said man looks absolutely delectable. Kyuhyun is on a diet, and he doesn’t want break it. He isn’t allowed to break it. He closes his eyes and breathes in deeply to regain some control over his heart, which continuously tries and persuades him to go down and talk to Jongwoon. Hi, how are you doing? I missed you. Did you miss me?
Kyuhyun shakes his head. He isn’t allowed to do that.
“Kyuhyun-ah, do you know what day today is?”
“April 13th?”
“Yeah…do you know what ELFs call it?”
“What?”
“Well, it’s supposedly our special day because I’m the 4th oldest in Super Junior, and you’re the 13th oldest. So April 13th is YeKyu or KyuSung day.”
“You’ve been reading fanfiction again, haven’t you?”
“So what if I have?”
“Hyung…why are you reading that stuff? Don’t you have better things to do?”
“Well, I just wanted some ideas for…an event I wanted to put on.”
“What event?”
“The event where I told you how much I loved you.”
“Hyung, you’re such a pabo. All you needed to do was tell me simply.”
Once he sees the retreating figure of Jongwoon walking away from the aquarium, Kyuhyun walks down again to talk to Ddangkoma. It was a terrible habit that Jongwoon had forced Kyuhyun to develop. The turtle blinks at him once, twice when he asks him how Jongwoon is when he hears a familiar husky voice behind him.
“Why don’t you just ask me yourself, Cho Kyuhyun?”
Kyuhyun freezes, and turns around slowly. There he is, just like how he’s appeared in Kyuhyun’s dreams for the past months, so close Kyuhyun can touch him. But Kyuhyun restrains himself, and mentally curses himself for having such little self-control. He plasters on a smile.
“Hello Jongwoon-hyung.”
He doesn’t remember how, but he ends up at Handel and Gretel with Jongwoon. Everything seems like a blur. Jongwoon’s parents greet him warmly, as if nothing had changed between them in the past two years, as if they were still together as more than friends. But both of know that within the last two years, everything has changed. It doesn’t stop Jongwoon from attempting to pretend that the two years haven’t been the hardest of Kyuhyun’s life though, not that he knows how much he affected Kyuhyun by leaving. He chats animatedly about his conscription, and how much he has missed his parents, his friends and Seoul but about how happy he was meeting other people, normal people who weren’t idols. He hasn’t been back at the agency yet, but he’s going to go and check-in with them soon as well as reuniting with the other Super Junior members. Hyukjae and Ryeowook went to meet him when he ended his service, but he’s excited to see everyone else. Jongwoon is glad, apparently, that he bumped into Kyuhyun at the aquarium, and he doesn’t stop talking. Kyuhyun unconsciously smiles with Jongwoon - he has always had that affect on him - but at the same time his heart feels as if it is being wrenched out. Jongwoon seems oblivious to the past they once shared, and he thinks bitterly to himself that Jongwoon doesn’t care if he can keep that stupid, distracting smile on that stupid, perfect, flawless face of his. Their relationship didn’t matter to Jongwoon anymore, and it didn’t affect him any longer like the way it affected Kyuhyun. Suddenly, Jongwoon stops talking and stares at Kyuhyun expectantly. Kyuhyun realizes that he’s supposed to answer a question, a question about how he’s been these few years, and he just says that it’s been different, weird that Heechul-hyung, Junsu-hyung and him have been away from Super Junior. He talks about his various variety shows, what it’s been like being casted on We Got Married. He fills Jongwoon in on the new rookie groups and how some of them have become very good friends with him. He mentions the undying support that ELFs have for Super Junior. He talks about how his sister got married and how he’s an uncle now.
What he leaves out is that it’s been like hell, and that he had felt completely empty without Jongwoon by his side.
“Kyu-ah, are you drunk?”
“Hyung. I love you so so much.”
“Yep, you’ve definitely had too much to drink. Where are you? Who are you with?”
“Changmin. But hyung. Listen to me. I love you. You’re like…the light in my darkness. The meaning of my life. If I were a plant, you’d be the carbon dioxide that allowed me to photosynthesize. I love you hyung! I love you!”
“Oh god. I’m so glad I’m recording this. I can’t wait to play this back to you when you’re sober. And Kyu? I love you too.”
“I would hate you if you didn’t.”
“You know I would never give you the chance to do that.”
“I know. Hyung come and pick me up? Changmin’s unconscious and I don’t think I should drive.”
Everyone is overjoyed to have Jongwoon back. It almost feels as if nothing had changed, apart from the distance between Jongwoon and Kyuhyun. Everyone is sitting around the table they moved onto the roof of the dorms, sharing bottles of soju like the old days. Kyuhyun watches Jongwoon from the corner of his eye and sees Sungmin rest his head on his shoulder. Even Sungmin, who supposedly has a very awkward relationship with Jongwoon, is allowed to touch him whereas Kyuhyun isn’t. Kyuhyun would have given anything to be able to rest his head on Jongwoon’s shoulder and lace his fingers with Jongwoon’s again. The irony of the situation hits Kyuhyun, and he starts laughing. A lot of things seemed ironic once Jongwoon had returned. He starts tearing up in laughter, and Shindong suddenly realizes that his joke wasn’t the reason why Kyuhyun was cracking up as such. The others stare at Kyuhyun, thinking that he has gone mad. In a way, they aren’t too far off from the truth. Jungsu takes the alcohol away from Kyuhyun, not allowing him to drink anymore. Siwon stares intently at Kyuhyun, and when Kyuhyun suddenly starts to tear up Siwon suddenly takes him out to the balcony to voice out his concerns.
Is Kyuhyun okay? Kyuhyun isn’t even sure himself. Siwon sighs and hugs Kyuhyun as Kyuhyun allows one tear to accidentally slip out. Something had gotten into his eye. But it hurts to see Jongwoon in such close proximity. When they join the others again, Kyuhyun notices that Jongwoon’s eyes are fixated on Siwon.
“We have to sing a duet song together for the new album!”
“Really? What about Wookie?”
“He has a solo.”
“Wow…”
“Oh Kyu, think about it this way - we get to work together!”
“Why are you so happy?”
“I get to officially release a love duet with you!”
“Hyung…it’s somewhat angsty.”
“So? It’s still a love song. You hold me tight in your arms.”
“And I won’t stray anymore.”
“See! It totally fits us, it describes how we’re tied to each other forever.”
“You’re right I guess, it’s oddly perfect.”
“Let’s go grab a practice room and have some time to ourselves then!”
“Don’t give me that grin. You better keep your hands to yourself. I know what you’re thinking - the answer is no.”
Kyuhyun somehow manages to drag a very drunk Jongwoon into his car. Jungsu had paired up all the drunk with the sober, and somehow Kyuhyun is in charge of an extremely drunk and delirious Jongwoon. Kyuhyun doesn’t even want to think what evil plans Jungsu had in mind when he put the two main vocalists together. Siwon had offered to replace Kyuhyun, but Jungsu had insisted that Siwon was needed to deal with the unconscious Zhou Mi and uncontrollable Henry. Kyuhyun pulls up in front of Jongwoon’s apartment and quickly gets out of the car to help Jongwoon out. Jongwoon leans on Kyuhyun with an arm draped around him. Kyuhyun closes his eyes, allowing himself to indulge in his imagination that he is back in the past when he is allowed to bask in Jongwoon’s warmth. He ignores the reek of alcohol, and closes his eyes. When he opens them again, Jongwoon’s eyes are only a few centimeters away from his own. Kyuhyun quickly closes his eyes again, afraid that he would fall into Jongwoon’s eyes.
A peck on the lips.
Kyuhyun can taste the soju, and quickly pushes Jongwoon off. He drags Jongwoon like a little kid to a nearby playground, constantly repeating to Jongwoon that he needs to sober up. Jongwoon sits on top of the slide like a child, hugging his knees, but he never takes his eyes of Kyuhyun. He stays silent. Kyuhyun is a little unnerved by Jongwoon’s gaze and silence, and keeps convincing himself that Jongwoon is drunk, that he’s delirious and has no idea what he’s doing. Suddenly Jongwoon speaks.
“I was always following your appearances on television, you know.”
Kyuhyun stares at him, startled. He had thought that Jongwoon hadn’t cared at all about him when he had broken their relationship off. Jongwoon starts sobbing, and begins a verbal diarrhea about how handsome Kyuhyun was when he had appeared on all the variety shows, naming them off by heart one by one. When Jongwoon finally gets to Kyuhyun’s appearance on We Got Married, he chokes back a sob. Kyuhyun is staring at Jongwoon dumbfounded as Jongwoon curls up and falls asleep on top of the slide. His last words echo in Kyuhyun’s brain.
“I was happy…to see you so happy.”
Kyuhyun carries Jongwoon back to his apartment, and Jongjin lets him in silently without waking their parents up. Kyuhyun carefully places Jongwoon on his bed, and strokes Jongwoon’s cheek. It is the only time he is allowed to show the affection he feels for the man. He gently pecks Jongwoon on the cheek and leaves. He walks home, forgetting that his car is still parked outside Jongwoon’s house. Jongwoon’s drunken confession replays over and over again in his mind, and he doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know what Jongwoon means by his speech, and he doesn’t know what to make of it. His heart soars as he thinks that Jongwoon cares, actually cares, but he then reminds himself that he’s making too much out of Jongwoon’s drunken state.
Kyuhyun knows one thing for sure though - he only seemed happy, but he actually wasn’t happy. The only time he was happy was when he was with Jongwoon.
“Kyu-ah! We have a free day. Let’s go on a holiday on Jeju Island!”
“What?”
“Spontaneity my love, spontaneity.”
“But...plane tickets, hotel rooms.”
“I’ve booked everything already. Did it a few months ago.”
“What? You’re so sneaky!”
“Hey, it’s our one year anniversary. Of course I had to book everything and make sure everything’s perfect.”
“You were the one who cancelled our schedules for today? Just to go to Jeju?”
“Yep.”
“You’re unbelievable.”
Kyuhyun decides to not do anything about Jongwoon, and just see what happens. He’s still too raw from what happened last night, so when he goes to get his car, he sneaks around the house and stays out of sight from Jongwoon’s room. As he sits in his car, he looks up at Jongwoon’s window and sees the silhouette of Jongwoon. He sits and watches Jongwoon dresses, admiring how toned Jongwoon’s muscles have become. Kyuhyun wonders if his body would become like that after two years of conscription too, or if Jongwoon has just been paying extra attention. His eyes take in the sight of Jongwoon picking up a shirt, and slowly buttoning without paying attention. Jongwoon grimaces from his hangover and Kyuhyun smirks. Serves him right for drinking so much. Kyuhyun decides that he needs to leave before he starts to stalk his ex on a regular basis. Right as he is about to drive away from Jongwoon’s house, his phone rings.
An unknown number.
He picks it up, and hears the husky tonality of Jongwoon’s voice.
“Hi, Kyuhyun? I’m…at Dongdaemun station right now and I can’t find my way to the SM building. Can you give me the directions from here?”
Kyuhyun stares as he sees Jongwoon in his room, tapping nervously on his desk. He masks the emotion that is bubbling up and carefully tells Jongwoon the directions. He sees Jongwoon’s tears spill from his eyes, and he doesn’t know what to make of the situation. Jongwoon sounds cheerful on the phone, but Kyuhyun’s eyes knew that his ears were deceiving him.
He thinks back to when Jongwoon had broken up with him so many months ago. It had gotten to the point where they just kept fighting every single day. Which wasn’t unusual, but it was all more serious than the bickering they normally carried out. Jongwoon wasn’t happy when Kyuhyun had too much skinship with Sungmin, or Siwon. Kyuhyun hated when Jongwoon went out to drink with his friends and got drunk with Kibum and Heechul. Then the news that Kyuhyun was joining We Got Married right before Jongwoon’s enlistment came out, and it had broken something in the elder. It started a whole chain of arguments after arguments, and the relationship between Jongwoon and Kyuhyun had become so broken that neither of them knew how to fix it.
He allows himself to hope that his love for Jongwoon didn’t become one-sided in contrary to what he believed after so long.
“Kyuhyun?”
“Hyung, I’m sorry. I know we’re…over, but you’re leaving tomorrow. I wanted to…”
“It’s okay Kyu. Climb in. I don’t mind cuddling.”
“What happened to us?”
“We outgrew each other.”
“But why? What went wrong?”
“I wish I knew. But I need to leave. And you need to be brave and lead a good life.”
“Hyung…it’s not a permanent goodbye.”
“I know.”
“But I still love you.”
Kyuhyun walks around the practice rooms, and he catches the sound of a voice he hasn’t heard in two years. Subconsciously, his feet bring him closer and closer towards the source of the melody, even though he knows he needs to stay away. He still hasn’t figured out what he wants to do with Jongwoon, and he doesn’t know if he wants to do anything about their relationship. He sits outside Jongwoon’s practice room, and listens to him as he sings. All the memories of the songs Jongwoon used to sing for him come flooding back, and Kyuhyun buries his face into his hands. He’s overwhelmed by all the emotion that Jongwoon can coax out of him with the simple act of singing. Yesung. Artistic voice. His stage name was so perfect for him. Kyuhyun becomes drunk with the memories as he hears their song, Your Eyes, being sung. Jongwoon’s voice sounds like it’s breaking, and there is an awkward silence during Kyuhyun’s parts. His brain barely registers the sound of a door opening, and Jongwoon’s surprised exclamation at finding Kyuhyun outside his practice room.
Time stand still once again as they make eye contact. Kyuhyun’s sight is blurry from the tears, and Jongwoon’s own tears are falling. Kyuhyun starts sobbing - he can’t help himself - and Jongwoon wraps his arms around Kyuhyun.
“Why are we doing this to ourselves?” is the question that neither of them have the answer to.
“Cho Kyuhyun, do you believe in soul mates?”
“I think they do exist. It’s just extremely hard to find your soul mate.”
“Then we’re two very lucky people then.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Isn’t it obvious that among the billions of people on this earth, we found each other?”
“You think we’re soul mates?”
“I don’t think. I know.”
“Well, then I think we’re very lucky indeed.”
The first memories of true love can never be erased. Just like the many, many movies that Jongwoon loves to watch, sequels aren’t normally better than the original. It’s the same concept for love. No matter how hard Kyuhyun searched during 22 months and 19 days, he just couldn’t forget Jongwoon and move on. None of the others have made Kyuhyun as happy as Jongwoon did. And none of the others made Jongwoon as happy as Kyuhyun did.
It's possible to mend broken things through careful needlework and crafted effort.
Luckily for people who make stupid mistakes, second chances exist.
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A/N: I don’t even remember how I spewed this out. It’s the product of boredom at an airport for many many hours with nothing better to do. Inspired somewhat by MBLAQ’s “Hello my EX” and the rest of the other angsty songs on my playlist.
I actually have a lot of other things that I need to write, but I find that I tend to procrastinate more when I'm not writing about KyuSung. So I will (try very very hard to) not to write any other KyuSung/YeKyu until the other stuff has been finished *nods*
Sorry for this. I don't know what's going on either. I'm currently extremely jet-lagged.