after love
super junior: kibum, kihae
pg, 415 words
it's always been him.
love is like rose-tinted glasses, colouring your world with a vibrancy that makes you wonder how you'd lived in the dark for so long. it's his smile, sweet like cotton candy and warmer than the chicken broth your mother used to make when you were sick as a child, or maybe it’s the way he sighs and melts into your arms when you kiss the laughter out of his mouth and trace half-formed hearts onto his chest with your fingertips. (coming from you, that’s a confession.)
it’s not to say you can't see his faults - it just means you see them, and love him all the more for them. he trusts too easily, eats too little, and some days you worry he’s going to crumble into dust in your palms in the face of this affair with fame, but he always wipes away his tears and stands back up (keeps smiling even when you can’t smile anymore) and that’s what makes him donghae.
"hey," he says, grinning through the exhaustion you can see written on his face, and you wonder what he sees in you.
you wonder what it would have been like if you weren’t kim kibum, super junior member, but plain ordinary kibum and he was just lee donghae, not an idol (but there would’ve been nothing plain or ordinary about him, you’re sure). you know you would have loved him anyway - you just wonder if his laughter would have been brighter, his eyes, less tired.
you wonder if you could have told him the three little words you can’t say now (it won’t do either of you any good, not in this lifetime, because you’re stars and you (hearts and smiles and all) belong not to each other but to the world).
"hey," you say back, memorizing the curve of his lips. even if you can’t fathom why, you’re glad it’s you.
~
love is like rose-tinted glasses, and it’s irrational but it (he) makes you smile at the oddest things. you’re not a hopeless romantic - far from one, in fact - but you love him, will keep loving him even if he’s not yours to love.
when you step onto the stage together (you and him and eleven others who’ve become closer than family), the applause is thunderous. fangirls are screaming, and off in the distance, you see the neon signs flash like heartbeats. 기해영원히.
he catches your hand amidst the cheering, and smiling, you let him lace your fingers (hearts) together.
fic started: September 5, 2009
fic finished: September 5, 2009