Super Junior: far away, I guess you're somewhere under this sky
Title: far away, I guess you're somewhere under this sky
Author: papered
Fandom: Super Junior
Characters/Pairings: Siwon, Sihan
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2190
Summary: AU. dreams come true.
Notes: written listening to Ai Otsuka's Planetarium on repeat. thank you to simply_strange and adevyish for all their help. ♥
part one: greyscale*
一;**
Choi Siwon is a filial son, a model student, a perfect gentleman. He attends the most prestigious private institution in Korea, studies law like his family told him to, kisses his mother on the cheek every morning and greets the girls his father introduces him to with sweeping smiles and impeccable manners.
Siwon thinks that Choi Siwon is the most boring person he’d ever met.
二;
Siwon likes photography. He likes the way moments can be captured, the way time stops, just for a second, and is preserved forever on glossy paper in ink - in different shades and all the colours of the rainbow. (forever is a long long time.)
Everyone knows that Siwon likes photography, but he laughs off their questions and tells them that it’s just a hobby, something to do in his spare time - it’s not like it’s anything serious.
But sometimes, he admits (just to himself) that if he had a choice, he would’ve liked to major in photography.
三;
He doesn’t, of course.
四;
At night, there are dreams.
There are no stars in Siwon’s dreams, no fuzzy impressions or nonsensical plotlines or physical impossibilities. When he wakes, the memory is always vivid and real, a crisp video in his mind.
When Siwon had been eight, he’d dreamed of a fire: bright and hot and stifling in its intensity. He’d run to his parents’ room in the middle of the night, crying, and his mother had gently told him that it was just a nightmare, nothing more, before sending him back to his room.
Three days later, his father had gotten a phone call from the fire department, telling him that his brother’s house had burned down in an accident the night before. There had been no survivors.
His mother had tried to talk to him later that night, but Siwon had shaken his head and insisted that he couldn’t remember anything from his nightmare (or the fact that he’d even had a nightmare). Siwon doesn’t think she quite believes him, but she lets it go anyway.
He never talked about his dreams again after that.
五;
When Siwon had been sixteen, there had been a boy. His name was Heechul, and he was loud, rude, crass - an explosion of colour and temper and vibrancy like a supernova in the sky (everything Siwon wasn’t). No one had liked Heechul because he’d been too forward with his demands, too careless with his language, too honest with his words that could cut hearts into ribbons.
Siwon had been enamored.
Two days before his planned confession, the teacher had announced that Heechul had transferred away to some school in Gangwon-do. Everyone had acted like it was a shame, but suppressed laughter with their hands, lips already gossiping about how knowing Heechul, he’d probably been suspended or expelled, not transferred. By the time a month had passed, no one really remembered Kim Heechul. (the brightest stars always burnt out the fastest, after all.)
Siwon had carefully placed the ripped-up pieces of his letter into a bag and thrown it out with the empty milk cartons and the rest of the trash. (it was love to me)
He never mentioned Heechul again.
六;
The first thing he notices is that there’s an arm slung around his shoulders, warm and comfortable in a way that’s unexpected to Siwon.
When he opens his eyes, he doesn’t recognize his surroundings or the person next to him, but he can’t help but think that there’s something familiar about those features, a nostalgic nursery rhythm in the curve of his cheekbones and a childhood fable etched into the sweep of his brows.
I’m dreaming, aren’t I, Siwon says, more a statement than a question. The other man doesn’t reply, just half-shrugs, but it’s not like Siwon needed an answer anyway.
When he wakes, he makes a sketch on the back of his homework assignment. It’s no masterpiece - his drawing skills leave a lot to be desired, and he much prefers the heavy weight of a camera in his hands - but he folds the paper in half and tucks it into the back of his binder.
七;
It’s you again, he says the second time it happens.
The other’s face is a little too close, the distance between them almost measurable in units of hairwidths, but Siwon doesn’t pull away. Do you understand me?
Of course. The slightly-accented Korean is audible but barely so, just a breath of air against cheek. Siwon can’t help but shiver, feels the hair at the back of his neck rise at the implied intimacy.
I don’t know who you are, he admits, because the other man feels like a stranger who somehow knows Siwon too well.
It’s Han Geng.
When he wakes, Siwon tests the name out on his tongue until the syllables roll like it’s the most natural thing he’d ever said.
八;
The third time, they kiss.
Siwon tastes coffee and sugar and dreams against his tongue, and it’s like all the cities he’d never visited, all the people he’d never dared to love.
Han Geng leans back and laughs against his neck, mouths words in a language Siwon used to know.
(Tell me something. Anything about yourself.
I like to dance.)
Later, he takes out the Mandarin textbooks from his high school language class he’d packed away in the back of his closet. The words are a little rusty in his mouth, but they’re still there, waiting for him.
Between pages 56 and 57, he finds the script for an old play his class had performed for the exchange students from Beijing that year. Siwon had written the ending himself, and there it was, cramped words scribbled out, then painstakingly copied out onto a fresh piece of paper. He distantly remembers practicing the scene with a classmate, and the lines for his part come terrifyingly easily. "我爱你," the boy is supposed to say before presenting the girl with a bouquet of roses. They ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after.
("I love you" in Chinese)
You make me want to believe in fairytales.
九;
The thirty-sixth time they meet, they sit on the rooftop and watch the stars. The shoulder against his own is comforting in ways he can’t name, and Siwon finds himself smiling.
It’s七夕 tonight, Han Geng tells him.
(the night of sevens / chinese valentine's day)
Siwon gives him a confused look, then listens to Han Geng tell the story of the cowherd and the weaver.
(the story of the cowherd and the weaver, ie. magpie bridge)
Oh, he says afterwards, you mean Gyeonwu and Jiknyeo?
Is that what it’s called in Korea? The other man shrugs. It’s always something different in every country.
Siwon frowns a little. I don’t know if I like it though. It’s a sad story.
He’s given a nostalgic smile in response. But the sad things in life are always the most beautiful.
十;
The fifty-second time, the other man is quiet. For some reason, Siwon thinks that Han Geng seems a little sad, and so he leans forward and takes him by the hand, pulls him towards the bed and proceeds to read the words written on his skin in Braille.
十一 ;
The fifty-fourth time, Han Geng looks him in the eye and tells him, 당신을 사랑합니다.
("I love you" in Korean)
The tickle of sunlight on his eyelids takes advantage of his surprise, chooses that moment to pull him back to reality. Siwon panics. Wait, he tries to say, but when he opens his mouth, it comes out as don’t go.
When he opens his eyes, his room is cold.
十二;
He doesn't dream the next night. Or the night after that. (Or the night after that.)
Siwon is still unfailing polite and his grades are still excellent, but his smiles are a little more strained now, his marks, a little less stellar. His parents notices: his father gives him a stern lecture in his study one day about the importance of keeping up with law school, and his mother urges him to go out more, find a girl to date and settle down with.
Siwon wonders how he’s supposed to go back to normal when he’s touched the sky and tasted fire.
十三;
Three wakes later, he makes a decision.
Siwon packs his bags, folds what’s necessary into his smallest suitcase and leaves the rest of his worldly possessions behind.
His parents find out when he walks into the living room one morning, luggage in one hand and a plane ticket in other. His father is furious; his mother, horrified.
Siwon’s sorry, but he knows what he has to do (and for the first time in his life, it’s for himself, not for what his parents said. Han Geng had taught him that.) He presses a last kiss to his mother’s cheeks, walks out the door, and doesn’t look back.
part two: sepia
十四;
Beijing is big and loud and full of people - not much different from Seoul, but with the language barrier, it feels more intimidating than anything Siwon had ever experienced. In the two months that he’d been here, his Mandarin has improved by leaps and bounds, but there are times when it still fails him, just like there are times when, surrounded by people, he’s never felt more alone.
But he doesn’t regret.
十五;
He doesn’t regret until five months in, and even then, it’s not really regret because it’s something more bittersweet and self-righteous than that; (because he knows he’d made the right choice - it just hadn’t led to the right outcome).
Siwon isn’t one to give up easily. He’d picked out every detail he could remember from his dreams, gone down every route he could think of, but without any connections, finding one man in a population of over seventeen million was nearly impossible.
Does love just fade like this?
(When are you going to come home? his mother asks him on the phone when he calls.
I’m sorry, Siwon doesn’t say, and answers I don’t know instead.)
十六;
He doesn’t give up - not exactly, because giving up would mean letting go, and he can’t imagine ever doing that - but his search takes a backseat. All his life, he’d been the good filial son and listened to his parents, let his father pave the way for him. It’s time for a change, he thinks, and decides to settle down, stay in Beijing for now at least, and see what kind of life he can make for himself.
The first thing Siwon does is sign up for photography classes at a local college.
十七;
The first time the professor compliments him on the negative space in photos he’d taken for an assignment, Siwon thinks he can be content like this.
十八;
When are you going to come home? his mother never fails to ask when he calls her (it's become something like a routine now), but she sounds more tired these days, more resigned.
I don’t know, maybe tomorrow, Siwon says, and he’s always a little apologetic (because they both know in the bottom of their hearts that Siwon’s not going back).
十九;
When his professor recommends him to a colleague she knows who works for a large newspaper company and is looking to hire more photographers, Siwon is thrilled. He goes for the interview with his resume in hand, impresses the colleague with his enthusiasm, and gets the job.
When it’s cold at night and the draft blows through his small apartment, he still misses Han Geng’s warmth sometimes, but it’s just a little less painful now.
part three: kodachrome
二十;
a year later.
They meet (by chance, he would later say) in a small café on a street Siwon doesn’t know the name of. It’s raining hard, and the ground, still heavy from the snowfall from three days back, is covered by a deceptively thin sheet of ice. He stumbles into the closest coffee shop he can find, clothing soaked, hair in disarray, shaking water out of his jacket.
"May I help you?" a familiar voice asks, and Siwon’s head whips up, because that wasn’t Mandarin, that was Korean, and it’s been so long since he’s heard his native tongue that he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed it.
Han Geng, he tries to say, but his voice has dried up sometime between walking in and freezing in the doorway. (But it's okay, Siwon thinks, because they don't really need words anyway.)
Their reunion is a little bittersweet. The tears overwhelm him for a second, (because he’s waited for this for so long without knowing if it would even happen). Han Geng mutters apologies his hair, I’m sorrys and forgive mes, but Siwon brushes them aside because it doesn’t matter any more, because this and now is all that’s important.
(Do you believe in fate, he asks the other man later, staring at the ceiling and tracing patterns onto the older man’s arm. Han Geng just smiles into Siwon’s shoulder and presses a kiss against his jaw.)
*title of each part (greyscale, sepia, kodachrome) are based after photography-related terms.
**segments are labeled one through twenty in chinese characters.
(fic started: January 2, 2009)
fic written: January 11, 2009
+ Feedback would be greatly appreciated.
+ Like what you've read? Please friend!
Author: papered
Fandom: Super Junior
Characters/Pairings: Siwon, Sihan
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2190
Summary: AU. dreams come true.
Notes: written listening to Ai Otsuka's Planetarium on repeat. thank you to simply_strange and adevyish for all their help. ♥
part one: greyscale*
一;**
Choi Siwon is a filial son, a model student, a perfect gentleman. He attends the most prestigious private institution in Korea, studies law like his family told him to, kisses his mother on the cheek every morning and greets the girls his father introduces him to with sweeping smiles and impeccable manners.
Siwon thinks that Choi Siwon is the most boring person he’d ever met.
二;
Siwon likes photography. He likes the way moments can be captured, the way time stops, just for a second, and is preserved forever on glossy paper in ink - in different shades and all the colours of the rainbow. (forever is a long long time.)
Everyone knows that Siwon likes photography, but he laughs off their questions and tells them that it’s just a hobby, something to do in his spare time - it’s not like it’s anything serious.
But sometimes, he admits (just to himself) that if he had a choice, he would’ve liked to major in photography.
三;
He doesn’t, of course.
四;
At night, there are dreams.
There are no stars in Siwon’s dreams, no fuzzy impressions or nonsensical plotlines or physical impossibilities. When he wakes, the memory is always vivid and real, a crisp video in his mind.
When Siwon had been eight, he’d dreamed of a fire: bright and hot and stifling in its intensity. He’d run to his parents’ room in the middle of the night, crying, and his mother had gently told him that it was just a nightmare, nothing more, before sending him back to his room.
Three days later, his father had gotten a phone call from the fire department, telling him that his brother’s house had burned down in an accident the night before. There had been no survivors.
His mother had tried to talk to him later that night, but Siwon had shaken his head and insisted that he couldn’t remember anything from his nightmare (or the fact that he’d even had a nightmare). Siwon doesn’t think she quite believes him, but she lets it go anyway.
He never talked about his dreams again after that.
五;
When Siwon had been sixteen, there had been a boy. His name was Heechul, and he was loud, rude, crass - an explosion of colour and temper and vibrancy like a supernova in the sky (everything Siwon wasn’t). No one had liked Heechul because he’d been too forward with his demands, too careless with his language, too honest with his words that could cut hearts into ribbons.
Siwon had been enamored.
Two days before his planned confession, the teacher had announced that Heechul had transferred away to some school in Gangwon-do. Everyone had acted like it was a shame, but suppressed laughter with their hands, lips already gossiping about how knowing Heechul, he’d probably been suspended or expelled, not transferred. By the time a month had passed, no one really remembered Kim Heechul. (the brightest stars always burnt out the fastest, after all.)
Siwon had carefully placed the ripped-up pieces of his letter into a bag and thrown it out with the empty milk cartons and the rest of the trash. (it was love to me)
He never mentioned Heechul again.
六;
The first thing he notices is that there’s an arm slung around his shoulders, warm and comfortable in a way that’s unexpected to Siwon.
When he opens his eyes, he doesn’t recognize his surroundings or the person next to him, but he can’t help but think that there’s something familiar about those features, a nostalgic nursery rhythm in the curve of his cheekbones and a childhood fable etched into the sweep of his brows.
I’m dreaming, aren’t I, Siwon says, more a statement than a question. The other man doesn’t reply, just half-shrugs, but it’s not like Siwon needed an answer anyway.
When he wakes, he makes a sketch on the back of his homework assignment. It’s no masterpiece - his drawing skills leave a lot to be desired, and he much prefers the heavy weight of a camera in his hands - but he folds the paper in half and tucks it into the back of his binder.
七;
It’s you again, he says the second time it happens.
The other’s face is a little too close, the distance between them almost measurable in units of hairwidths, but Siwon doesn’t pull away. Do you understand me?
Of course. The slightly-accented Korean is audible but barely so, just a breath of air against cheek. Siwon can’t help but shiver, feels the hair at the back of his neck rise at the implied intimacy.
I don’t know who you are, he admits, because the other man feels like a stranger who somehow knows Siwon too well.
It’s Han Geng.
When he wakes, Siwon tests the name out on his tongue until the syllables roll like it’s the most natural thing he’d ever said.
八;
The third time, they kiss.
Siwon tastes coffee and sugar and dreams against his tongue, and it’s like all the cities he’d never visited, all the people he’d never dared to love.
Han Geng leans back and laughs against his neck, mouths words in a language Siwon used to know.
(Tell me something. Anything about yourself.
I like to dance.)
Later, he takes out the Mandarin textbooks from his high school language class he’d packed away in the back of his closet. The words are a little rusty in his mouth, but they’re still there, waiting for him.
Between pages 56 and 57, he finds the script for an old play his class had performed for the exchange students from Beijing that year. Siwon had written the ending himself, and there it was, cramped words scribbled out, then painstakingly copied out onto a fresh piece of paper. He distantly remembers practicing the scene with a classmate, and the lines for his part come terrifyingly easily. "我爱你," the boy is supposed to say before presenting the girl with a bouquet of roses. They ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after.
("I love you" in Chinese)
You make me want to believe in fairytales.
九;
The thirty-sixth time they meet, they sit on the rooftop and watch the stars. The shoulder against his own is comforting in ways he can’t name, and Siwon finds himself smiling.
It’s七夕 tonight, Han Geng tells him.
(the night of sevens / chinese valentine's day)
Siwon gives him a confused look, then listens to Han Geng tell the story of the cowherd and the weaver.
(the story of the cowherd and the weaver, ie. magpie bridge)
Oh, he says afterwards, you mean Gyeonwu and Jiknyeo?
Is that what it’s called in Korea? The other man shrugs. It’s always something different in every country.
Siwon frowns a little. I don’t know if I like it though. It’s a sad story.
He’s given a nostalgic smile in response. But the sad things in life are always the most beautiful.
十;
The fifty-second time, the other man is quiet. For some reason, Siwon thinks that Han Geng seems a little sad, and so he leans forward and takes him by the hand, pulls him towards the bed and proceeds to read the words written on his skin in Braille.
十一 ;
The fifty-fourth time, Han Geng looks him in the eye and tells him, 당신을 사랑합니다.
("I love you" in Korean)
The tickle of sunlight on his eyelids takes advantage of his surprise, chooses that moment to pull him back to reality. Siwon panics. Wait, he tries to say, but when he opens his mouth, it comes out as don’t go.
When he opens his eyes, his room is cold.
十二;
He doesn't dream the next night. Or the night after that. (Or the night after that.)
Siwon is still unfailing polite and his grades are still excellent, but his smiles are a little more strained now, his marks, a little less stellar. His parents notices: his father gives him a stern lecture in his study one day about the importance of keeping up with law school, and his mother urges him to go out more, find a girl to date and settle down with.
Siwon wonders how he’s supposed to go back to normal when he’s touched the sky and tasted fire.
十三;
Three wakes later, he makes a decision.
Siwon packs his bags, folds what’s necessary into his smallest suitcase and leaves the rest of his worldly possessions behind.
His parents find out when he walks into the living room one morning, luggage in one hand and a plane ticket in other. His father is furious; his mother, horrified.
Siwon’s sorry, but he knows what he has to do (and for the first time in his life, it’s for himself, not for what his parents said. Han Geng had taught him that.) He presses a last kiss to his mother’s cheeks, walks out the door, and doesn’t look back.
part two: sepia
十四;
Beijing is big and loud and full of people - not much different from Seoul, but with the language barrier, it feels more intimidating than anything Siwon had ever experienced. In the two months that he’d been here, his Mandarin has improved by leaps and bounds, but there are times when it still fails him, just like there are times when, surrounded by people, he’s never felt more alone.
But he doesn’t regret.
十五;
He doesn’t regret until five months in, and even then, it’s not really regret because it’s something more bittersweet and self-righteous than that; (because he knows he’d made the right choice - it just hadn’t led to the right outcome).
Siwon isn’t one to give up easily. He’d picked out every detail he could remember from his dreams, gone down every route he could think of, but without any connections, finding one man in a population of over seventeen million was nearly impossible.
Does love just fade like this?
(When are you going to come home? his mother asks him on the phone when he calls.
I’m sorry, Siwon doesn’t say, and answers I don’t know instead.)
十六;
He doesn’t give up - not exactly, because giving up would mean letting go, and he can’t imagine ever doing that - but his search takes a backseat. All his life, he’d been the good filial son and listened to his parents, let his father pave the way for him. It’s time for a change, he thinks, and decides to settle down, stay in Beijing for now at least, and see what kind of life he can make for himself.
The first thing Siwon does is sign up for photography classes at a local college.
十七;
The first time the professor compliments him on the negative space in photos he’d taken for an assignment, Siwon thinks he can be content like this.
十八;
When are you going to come home? his mother never fails to ask when he calls her (it's become something like a routine now), but she sounds more tired these days, more resigned.
I don’t know, maybe tomorrow, Siwon says, and he’s always a little apologetic (because they both know in the bottom of their hearts that Siwon’s not going back).
十九;
When his professor recommends him to a colleague she knows who works for a large newspaper company and is looking to hire more photographers, Siwon is thrilled. He goes for the interview with his resume in hand, impresses the colleague with his enthusiasm, and gets the job.
When it’s cold at night and the draft blows through his small apartment, he still misses Han Geng’s warmth sometimes, but it’s just a little less painful now.
part three: kodachrome
二十;
a year later.
They meet (by chance, he would later say) in a small café on a street Siwon doesn’t know the name of. It’s raining hard, and the ground, still heavy from the snowfall from three days back, is covered by a deceptively thin sheet of ice. He stumbles into the closest coffee shop he can find, clothing soaked, hair in disarray, shaking water out of his jacket.
"May I help you?" a familiar voice asks, and Siwon’s head whips up, because that wasn’t Mandarin, that was Korean, and it’s been so long since he’s heard his native tongue that he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed it.
Han Geng, he tries to say, but his voice has dried up sometime between walking in and freezing in the doorway. (But it's okay, Siwon thinks, because they don't really need words anyway.)
Their reunion is a little bittersweet. The tears overwhelm him for a second, (because he’s waited for this for so long without knowing if it would even happen). Han Geng mutters apologies his hair, I’m sorrys and forgive mes, but Siwon brushes them aside because it doesn’t matter any more, because this and now is all that’s important.
(Do you believe in fate, he asks the other man later, staring at the ceiling and tracing patterns onto the older man’s arm. Han Geng just smiles into Siwon’s shoulder and presses a kiss against his jaw.)
*title of each part (greyscale, sepia, kodachrome) are based after photography-related terms.
**segments are labeled one through twenty in chinese characters.
(fic started: January 2, 2009)
fic written: January 11, 2009
+ Feedback would be greatly appreciated.
+ Like what you've read? Please friend!