Walking On Broken Glass

[ava_lava]

Title: Walking On Broken Glass

Pairing(s): HanChul, side!Han Geng/Victoria, slight!SiChul, side!Khuntoria

Genre(s): Romance, angst

Length: 8517 words

Rating: PG-13, warning!non-con

Summary: When Han Geng decides to get married, his best friend Heechul leaves and cuts off all ties from him.

Inspiration(s): I liked the idea that two broken people can heal when together. Title from Annie Lennox’s song.

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It was not Heechul. It was not Han Geng. Ever since the day the two met each other in their freshman year of high school (“What took you so long?” Heechul had screamed when Han Geng was lining up in the cafeteria), they went from being Heechul and Han Geng to Heechul and Han Geng, inseparable in all ways but one. The two hardly went an hour without being together, and when they weren’t their phone bills skyrocketed. It was a biological phenomenon how they managed to be so close without hating each other. They were like two completely different entities in a pod, so different yet so similar.

Heechul was wild in every sense of the word: there was no telling what he would do until two hours after it happened. The man was androgynous, with a feminine exterior and a masculine mindset, with eyes filled with spirit and a personality as fiery as his red hair. As it was, Heechul’s only form of income was from the odd jobs he held-part-time caterer, part-time cat-sitter for Ms. What’s-His-Name next door, and part-time florist-but despite his menial earnings, he never backed down from outrageous purchases. He was the kind of person who would buy six boxes of shoelaces just because he felt like buying six boxes of shoelaces. He was also the kind of person who had no filter between his brain and mouth. In the general gist of it, there were three types of people in the world: people who hated him, the people who tolerated him, and Han Geng. Those who hated him continually prayed for his slow and painful death. Those who tolerated him continuously wondered how he ever survived as long as he did.

Han Geng, on the other hand, was the quiet one who had a clear head on his shoulders, the one who handed his homework in on time and the one who made his bed every morning. He grew up as the good docile Chinese kid who aced math and sciences and disciplined himself to practice the piano for an hour every day. He worked hard at his studies and was reasonably frugal, and whenever he made appointments he always arrived at least ten minutes early. He dressed in a clean suit to go to work every day, and parted his black hair on the left side of his head (only when he was feeling a bit more adventurous would he part it on the right). He never stood out and had no intention of standing out, feeling perfectly satisfied walking down the streets without being noticed. Han Geng was the guy in the office who always did the paperwork that people gave him and who did not complain whenever the promotion went to somebody else. He was stable and a bit of a doormat, but he lived and that was all that mattered.

But then came twenty-year-old Han Geng’s decision to finally propose to his longtime steady girlfriend of five years, Victoria Song.

Though the decision was forthcoming, Heechul did not take the news very well. “Have you lost your mind?”

“Of course not, Heechul,” Han Geng replied calmly, typing up the last of his work on the computer before pressing Ctrl+S. “I just think that it is time for me to get married.”

“To Victoria?” the redhead screeched. “That bitch?”

Han Geng scowled. “Victoria is not a bitch. She is a wonderful person who holds a respected job, loves children, and is a strict vegan. I think that she will be a great wife and life companion for me.”

“She does not love you!” Heechul screamed. “She does not even know you! Not like I do, at least!”

“Nobody knows me like you do. But I have been dating Victoria for almost five years now, and it’s time.” Han Geng rubbed his tired eyes, sore from staring at the small letters on the computer screen all day. “That’s what most people do when they date for a long time-they take it to the next step.”

Heechul huffed. “Oh yes, the next step. The first day of the rest of your life. You will regret doing it, Han Geng. Think of the monotony of married life! You would come home every evening and say the same honey, I’m home! while your bitch of a wife cooks up the same dinner that you have had for the past week. Then your kid comes running to you, snotty and bratty like all children, and though you take the best care of him he would never say thank you or show any sign of gratefulness. Is that what you want your life to be?”

“Even if I regret getting married,” Han Geng replied levelly, “I will regret not getting married even more. I want to settle down, Heechul. I’m twenty, and I’m tired of being a listless bachelor. At least, if I’m married, I have somebody to fall back on, a built-in support system.”

“That’s what I’m here for!” Heechul shouted. “You can fall back on me, can’t you?”

The Chinese man smiled sadly. “I know, but not forever. We’ve been roommates since I first came to Korea; it’s time that I stand on my own feet.”

There was a silence between the two, and Heechul turned his gaze towards his best friend, revealing glassy eyes and unshed tears. “So what about me? What will I do when you go on and settle down with Victoria?”

“I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

“Do you love her?”

Han Geng stared at his best friend. “Yes, Heechul. I do.”

Heechul threw the nearest glass item across the room and stormed out of their shared apartment. “You can go fuck yourself!”

The next day, Han Geng proposed and Victoria accepted, and three months later they were married. Heechul refused to be best man. In fact, he refused to keep up any communication with his best friend, and Han Geng knew the redhead well enough to know that he was disappearing for good.

But he did nothing about it.

The first major event that happened after their fallout was Han Geng’s depression. It was not too much of a stretch, really, considering how innately somber he was as a person. Without the companionship of a certain redhead, he finally started to notice some things.

The biggest one caught up to him at work.

It was not often that Han Geng actually got his lunch break. There was always somebody rapping at his desk to look over several files, or sign a pile of forms, or balance so-and-so’s checkbook. It was weird how the work was always directed towards him, but Han Geng had never really minded as long as he got no trouble. On top of the fact that when everybody else was out for lunch, he would be able to reply to the millions of texts Heechul sent him while getting through the paperwork.

It just so happened that the lack of such phone companion made for a better hearing range. So one dreary Wednesday, two cubes away, he heard a oh don’t worry, I can get Han Geng to do it for me; if you just tell him that the boss sent it to him, he would do anything.

Not two minutes later, there was a rap on his desk, and Han Geng looked up to find a smiling Kangin with a pile of three-hundred-or-so forms in need of filling out. “Hey, Chinaman, boss just sent these out. They have to be handed in by tonight.” When Han Geng only frowned and stayed silent, Kangin dropped his load with an unceremonious plop. “Well, have fun! Remember, it’s due by tonight at the boss’s office.”

“Okay,” Han Geng found himself saying, much to his dismay. Did he always just answer okay like that?

“Keep up the good work, chap!” Kangin grinned as he made his way to grab his coat from the rack. “The whole office here depends on you!” And he disappeared out the door with a giggly female secretary on his arm.

And Han Geng blankly stared at the pile on top of his desk before slamming his head onto the desk, sighing in defeat.

The next day was the same, with badly hidden whispers behind conspicuous hands, extra files to sign and photocopy and print, and other suspiciously-not-his work to do. He spent his lunch hours meticulously checking over paperwork that needed to be checked over, and spent his evenings typing up the reports that needed to be typed up.

Victoria was a dear the whole time, making sure that there was always warm food when Han Geng came back and that nothing she did would bother her husband when he was working. Any man would have loved having her around to take care of them, but as hard as he tried Han Geng could only force a smile and kiss her cheek before heading up the stairs to his workstation and burying himself in the extra paperwork he was condemned to finish by some blasted deadline. And as every day wore on, Han Geng started to sink deeper and deeper into his weariness until there were days when he would fall onto his bed with Victoria’s hand on his shoulder and pray that he never woke up.

The day he snapped was a Tuesday. As usual, he was weary, with dark bags under his eyes and hollow cheeks, and he honestly did not need to hear Kangin’s haughty voice just around his cube.

“Hey Kangin, are you going to the game on Saturday?”

The handsome fellow shook his head. “No, I have paperwork to finish. Hey wait,” he turned towards Han Geng who was clenching his fists and trying his best to look inconspicuous, “Chinaman will do it for me, won’t you, buddy!”

Maybe it was the smug smile, maybe it was the easiness in his voice. Whatever it was, it made Han Geng do something that he had never even thought of doing before, which was jump out of his rolling chair and lunge at Kangin with such force that they crashed into the photocopying machine and knocked over three sets of monitors.

Han Geng went home that day to a loving-turned-hysteric wife, with a broken nose, two cracked ribs, and no job.

Heechul had no place to stay when he left Han Geng’s apartment, and calling a relative was out of the question. His family consisted of asshole aristocrats bent on making more money, and prostitutes-who were also bent on making more money. He counted himself lucky that he managed to stray from either of the two categories all this time.

So he bought a train ticket on impulse and arrived in The Middle Of Fucking Nowhere with nothing but what was in his suitcase and the money in his pocket.

After spending everything he had left on jewelry and expensive souvenirs, Heechul started to realize that having no money when he most needed it was probably a terrible idea. So he did what he could and took shelter in a public library for a week before the janitor caught him and threw him out. Then after hours of wandering and cursing, he found a church that provided shelter for the homeless where he stayed every night until he managed to earn (and save) enough as a part-time waiter at the restaurant three blocks down to rent a cheap place at a rundown apartment.

The room was small but cozy, and Heechul settled in with his usual manner of settling in-with no sense of staying. His clothes remained folded in his suitcase and he used travel sized shampoo. (Even back when living with Han Geng, he held the attitude that he was on the move, and the people who visited always assumed that Heechul was just that crazy friend of his who was just staying for a weekend before heading to Timbuktu or something equally foreign. It was a habit more than anything, but Heechul knew that deep down inside that he just did not want to be chained. He was the epitome of freedom, adventure incarnate.)

His living arrangement lasted for three months until in one moment of spontaneity when he decided to go on a shopping spree (for only the bare necessities, he had reminded himself as he sifted through hundred-dollar designer shoes), and only afterwards did he realize that he had no way of paying rent, to which the landlord promptly threw him out.

Back to the church it was, then.

Because of his good looks, Heechul, once again in the spur of a moment, decided to try working as a host for a while and actually enjoyed the job because of all the people he met and all the compliments he got. However, he quit before he made enough to get a place of his own when a sketchy coworker decided that it would be funny to try to have surprise sex with him in the back room. It was only thanks to his manager that he left unscathed, and honestly Heechul was too relieved to argue against losing his job.

After recovering from the trauma, Heechul found a job at a fast food restaurant and flipped prosthetic burgers every day from ten in the morning until two in the afternoon. Then one day he suddenly decided that living at a hostel sounded exciting-not to mention practical, since it had a bed and a roof over his head, brilliant! Which was what he did, taking the first open room he found. However, three days after moving in, he was once again sexually assaulted, this time all the way since his molester was in fact his landlord who therefore had the master key. Any attempts at calling the police and pressing charges were in vain. He was raped twice more in the next week, both by different men, and by the third time Heechul decided that he had had enough. So, even after paying a month’s lease, he left the hostel in his third week with no intention of returning.

Heechul could have gotten over rape a lot easier than most people. He was emotionally insensitive, and if he just ranted enough he could have convinced himself that he was just too good-looking for society. But eventually, six weeks later, he was bedridden with a high fever, which was shortly followed by the development of cold sores and ulcers all over his usually pale and spotless body. It did not take long for him to realize that something was terribly wrong and that the rape affected much more than just his physical body.

The minute the doctor told him of the news, he cried for the very first time in his life.

Then he had no choice but to go back to the church, where Siwon, the pastor, welcomed him with open arms and a sad smile on his face, having seen him return one too many times, each time more broken than the next.

And, without knowing it, among all the spontaneous choices and random decisions, Heechul found himself chained to a desolate routine, a routine where he could scream and nobody would hear him.

Looking for another job was a tedious effort, but Han Geng was an expert at tedious efforts. He meticulously sifted through the newspaper ads, highlighting the ones that were interesting and that fit his qualifications in yellow and highlighting the ones that were uninteresting but still fit his qualifications in blue. Thus far, there was a lot of blues while only two yellows, and when he finally got around to phoning the job openings highlighted in yellow, they were already taken and in no need of any more applicants. When he phoned the blue ones and went in for a job interview, however, all of the interviewers asked about Han Geng’s reasons for being laid off from his last job and the Chinaman was pretty much programmed to be the most honest duck in the pond, thereby effectively shooting down his chances of being rehired.

During this time, Victoria, who had a nurse’s license, took up full-time shifts at the local hospital, which left Han Geng to do the housework and brood over the failure that was his life. So whereas his wife went out to take over the role of breadwinner (while doing a much better job than he did, her salary being almost twice his), he broke dishes and dealt with several fruit fly infestations.

It would have been alright, it really would have. It was just that when too many bad things happened at the same time, life became too difficult to face.

Staying in the house all day long was dangerous. A lot more dangerous than most people would believe. Han Geng did not understand how housewives or househusbands did it-stuck in the house with only their thoughts to keep them company. Naturally, his thoughts wandered to less pleasant memories, from the first time he was dumped, to the first grade he received below an A, to the many times in high school he was beaten up for being friends with a certain Kim Heechul.

Ah yes, Kim Heechul. Many of Han Geng’s thoughts revolved around his estranged best friend. He wondered how the redhead was doing, if he was happy, if he had finally settled down instead of barreling through the world like a fiery hurricane. The past drove him mad, but it was the only thing he had. So he held on to the last shred of his sanity, he held on for as long he possibly could.

At least, Victoria had been sympathetic with his sudden lack of will to do anything. “The first few days of being a housewife were the absolute worst of my life,” she laughed. “But you’ll get used to the solitude if you find a way to quiet your mind. After all, it is surprisingly satisfying to take care of the place you live in.” But while Han Geng was great at tedious chores, he was not at quieting his mind.

So he immersed himself into housework, making a routine that consisted of doing the laundry in the mornings, gardening in the afternoons, dusting in the evenings, and preparing dinner for Victoria after her shift. After two months of this, his mind was finally quiet.

But then, one chilly Friday night when Victoria finally returned home from her evening shift, his mind went from quiet to disintegrated. The nurse was on her cellphone when she turned the doorknob and walked in, exhaling sharply as she slipped out of her shoes and stripped herself of her nurse’s uniform.

“I know, I know that I promised you that I would,” she whispered urgently. “But he was just cheated out of his job, Nickhun. He can’t take another bombshell as it is.” Han Geng was just around the corner, and he froze. He really did not want to hear this conversation, he knew that it would be a bad idea to hear this conversation, but no matter how hard he tried his feet just would not move in the other direction. “He’s not strong enough, I know he isn’t, so no matter what happens between us I plan on supporting him until he gets through all this.” Urgent static from the other side of the cellphone. “I know I don’t love him like I love you but that does not mean that I don’t care about him. He’s one of my best friends, and the last thing I want to do is hurt him, especially now that he’s so vulnerable. I’ll file for the divorce once I’m certain that he won’t swallow the first bottle of painkillers he sees. If you love me you’ll understand.”

And just like that, the last of Han Geng’s spirit shattered into millions of pieces.

Because his personality did not allow him to confront his problems straight on, Han Geng only swallowed the lump in his throat and heated up the food he cooked for Victoria once she showered and entered the kitchen.

“You alright?” Victoria asked, genuine worry written all over her face as she took her seat nearest the window. “You look really pale.”

“Yah, I’m fine,” her husband lied, trying to smile. He hated how nice his wife was. “Just a bit tired, after all. The laundry machine broke down this morning.”

The nurse laughed. “Just smack it a couple times and it’ll start running. That’s what I did whenever it malfunctioned.”

And just like that, life went on despite everything, and Han Geng just wanted to cry, and scream, and ask why why why why. But he stayed completely silent because that was just how he was. So he did what he could to cope with the revelation, and before long he started to drink.

And he drank and he drank and he drank and he drank…

Heechul was having that dream again, the one where he could be burning on a pyre in the middle of the street while pedestrians walked by, totally oblivious.

This time, he was in a zoo in a glass cage full of lions. Starved underfed lions with their rib cages hanging out like dead weights. Heechul was screaming, banging his fists against the glass walls for one of those more fortunate people on the outside to hear him, to save him from his bloody fate. But nobody seemed to realize that there was a panic-stricken man standing in the midst of certain death, all of them preferring to press their ugly faces against the glass to have a good look at the Kings and Queens of the Jungle.

So he just kept screaming and kept banging his palms against the walls, all the while dreading the final moment of his life in the jaws of a-

“Heechul, Heechul, wake up.”

The redhead sat up with a start, trembling all over. It was a regular occurrence-so regular that it was almost a routine how he managed to calm the moment he opened his eyes. Siwon, the pastor who woke him up, had those lines furrowed between his expressive eyebrows, concern shining from his face like an obnoxious flashlight. “Bad dream?”

Heechul groaned and rubbed at his eyes. “Something like that. Was I waking up the others again?”

Siwon laughed softly, looking around to see the other homeless people dead to the world. “Apparently not. What did you dream about?”

“The usual,” Heechul breezed with a flip of his hand.

“Want to talk about it?”

“Not particularly.”

Sighing lightly, Siwon made himself comfortable on the floor beside his companion. “Well, let’s talk anyway. We haven’t seen each other for a week. Found a job yet?”

“I work at a shopping mall now, and it’s alright, adequate pay and all. It’s nice working with clothes, but seriously, being surrounded by noisy teenagers does not exactly float my boat.”

“You were an even noisier teenager when you were younger, weren’t you?” Siwon teased.

Heechul bonked him on the head. “Jerk. That still does not mean that I like being surrounded by noisy teenagers.”

“Point taken. Made enough to move out, yet?”

“Almost,” the redhead replied. “I found a really cheap place at an Indian reserve. Quiet and clean and tolerable, I guess. Only problem is that it’s fucking remote.”

Siwon frowned, knowing full well the ulterior meaning behind his friend’s words. They stayed in silence for a while, before the pastor cleared his throat, uneasy. “You know, you could stay with me. I live alone, and it’s not too far from here.”

Heechul smiled. “That’s sweet of you.”

“I mean it, Heechul. I would really like for you to move in with me.” Siwon blushed. “It’s nice having you around.”

Heechul raised an eyebrow and was about to insert a witty comment about crappy roommates and fruit flies before noticing that something was different in Siwon’s eyes.

Something very, very different.

Heechul had always thought that Siwon was a nice guy, his closest friend while on the streets, the person to fall back on when he was in boiling hot water. It would not have been that difficult to take that next step from close friend to beloved, especially since Siwon was just so nice. But as Heechul watched as the pastor leaned in closer, closer, closer, all he could think of was no no no never no! and push his friend away with all the force he could muster, sending him hurling to the floor.

“No!” he yelled, jumping to his feet and sprinting out the church door, knowing full well that one, he just woke up half the church, and two, he was not going to outrun the very fit very athletic Siwon.

And after running a block, of course Heechul felt a warm and familiar hand wrap around his wrist, and of course he would not be able to shake it off, and of course he had no choice but to be embraced and surrounded by tearful I’m sorry, I’m so sorry’s. But though he felt the sincerity in Siwon’s apologies and though he wholeheartedly trusted that Siwon would never hurt him on purpose, Heechul also knew that the desolate routine he had was no longer an option and that the church would never be the safe haven that it used to be.

So despite Siwon’s pleas otherwise, Heechul grabbed his few belongings, packed them in his worn suitcase, and left. He used the rest of his savings to buy a train ticket-any train ticket as long as it got him out of there-and arrived at some station five hours later. He dragged himself and his suitcase out, wandering aimlessly around the streets of downtown and promptly getting mugged and gang-raped by a group of thugs. He then woke up on a bed, his suitcase nowhere to be found with only the note Help yourself to the fridge on the side table. Not wanting to bother a kind stranger, he took nothing and left after finally recovering feeling in his legs. With nothing but himself and his clothing, nightfall came and he brought his knees against his chest and slept on the sidewalk until nightfall. He subsequently picked himself up and wandered some more until a car appeared beside him and its driver lowered the window.

“Hey beautiful,” the man inside grinned greasily. “How much for a night?”

Heechul knew he should have refused and run in the other direction, but he had no money to rent a hotel room, and he never wanted to enter another hostel again. So instead of the default uh no thank you he had in mind, he forced a sexy smile on his face. “Depends on how good you are,” he purred.

Within fifteen minutes, he was in a hotel room with this guy, pretending that he was anywhere but there. It was alright, though. After all, prostitutes ran in his family, and if he stayed out on the streets, he would have been raped again anyway.

Might as well get some money out of it.

If Han Geng thought that there was nothing worse than being depressed, he was wrong because admitting that he was depressed was ten times worse. At least when he was not admitting his depression, he could pretend that everything was fine and dandy.

Victoria would have none of it. As caring and lovely as she was on the outside, she knew how to get her way and all but dragged her husband to her psychiatrist friend Krystal where they sat down with the doctor and held an hour-long discussion on nutrition, behavior, and happy pills.

The sessions started the following week, and Han Geng found Kyrstal irritating, always asking and how do you feel about that? after every other sentence. But eventually he started to talk after realizing that Krystal would keep asking and how do you feel about that? until he finally answered how he felt about that. So he made Krystal swear that nothing he said left the room (“It comes with the package,” she pinky-promised) and from there things started to improve. They worked through the main problems, discussing the reasons why Han Geng lost his job, the main triggers of his bouts of alcoholism, the fact that he knew that his wife was civilly cheating on him, etcetera.

“She’s only staying with me because she pities me,” Han Geng sighed during their fourth month. “And that knowledge hurts even more, since it would have been easier if she had just told me instead of worrying about how I would take it.”

“Yah, well Victoria was always too nice at times,” Krystal replied sympathetically. “That was her weak point back in high school.”

Han Geng laughed, retelling a memory about the high school graduation prank Heechul had pulled (it was a wonder how he actually graduated from high school considering all the missed classes and visits to the principal’s office). “He pinned the blame on me,” he recalled nostalgically, “but by then we had already graduated and the head office couldn’t do anything about it anymore.”

“Tell me about Heechul,” she asked, eyes flashing like those of a news reporter.

Han Geng’s head snapped up. “Heechul, hmm. He’s hard to describe.”

“Start from the beginning,” his psychiatrist suggested. “The very beginning.”

And immediately, a fond look came over Han Geng’s usually sullen face as he thought back to the Golden Years he spent with his ex-best friend.

Heechul was watching himself this time, one of those out-of-body dreams that allowed some sort of perspective in its esoteric dimension. Dream Heechul was on his knees biting down on the mattress sheets, ass up as he screwed his eyes shut while trying in vain to muffle the groans of pain escaping his lips. Behind him was an ugly man with a Hitler mustache and a pot belly (and who apparently was really into sadomasochism), and Dream Heechul cursed his luck at choosing the one guy who actually had a fourteen-inch penis.

Heechul watched, and the more he watched, the harder it became to hold back those tears of resentment. Eventually, after his tear ducts dried out, he started to scream. And he screamed and screamed so hoarsely, praying that the graphic image in front of him would just disappear or that somebody would hear him and take him away. But no matter how loud he screamed, that man never stopped rutting with his fourteen-inch genital, and there was nobody there to cover his eyes. Until somewhere in the back of his mind, he heard an alarm clock ring.

And found himself sprawled on top of a cheap scratchy motel double bed.

Curled up with a smarted cheek and red unwanted marks all over his body, stinking of sex and cigarettes, Heechul wondered how much lower he could sink before he hit rock bottom. Then he laughed emptily, realizing that he was already rock bottom and had started digging, for Christ’s sakes.

He got up after a few hours and took a two-hour shower in hopes of scrubbing off every single sullied skin cell on his body, checking out of the damn place without even bothering to dry his withered red hair. Screw his old prima donna ways: he was thirty years old, and he was earning money by having sex with perverted old men.

So he bought a sandwich from the 7/11 that he ate as he walked, wincing every time he took a step.

Heechul squinted up at the sun and made a random guess that it was Wednesday, July 13th. He had long given up keeping track of what day it was. Heck, he hardly even knew which city he was in anymore: some clients he served had an annoying habit of rendering their prostitutes unconscious with a beer bottle and proceeding to drive them six hours out of town for their business transaction. Without offering them a ride back. Joy.

As he crossed some random street with the Starbucks corner-store, however, he saw a face that he had not seen for over a decade, and the remains of his half-eaten sandwich fell to the ground.

Over the course of the ten or so years they spent apart, Heechul only thought of Han Geng four times. The first was right after he cut off all ties, when he realized that he had no other place to go. The second was when he met Siwon, who he thought would have gotten along with Han Geng stupendously if they ever met. The third time, he was in the godforsaken hostel reminiscing about their favorite bubble tea shop, literally two minutes before the landlord stormed in. The last time was only a fleeting thought, but he was entertaining one of his clients who uncannily had the exact same hands as his ex-best friend.

Totally taken by surprise, Heechul just stood there in the middle of the crosswalk, transfixed as he watched that familiar lean figure walk with a slouched back and bony hands jammed in his trouser pockets. (Heechul always hated it when Han Geng walked like that: “It makes you give out the that emo kid who cuts himself every night because he thinks it’s cool vibe. Stop it.”) In terms of appearance, Han Geng was evidently older, but what made Heechul frown was those sunken cheeks and withered expression that never should be there.

So he followed him. Past the alley where Heechul gave some sketchy-looking guy a hand job, past the garden where he found a stray cat and fed it the rest of his meager dinner, past the place where some old lady gave him a scarf because she felt bad for him.

Until they arrived in front of what he knew was the Alcoholics Anonymous clinic, where Heechul watched his tired friend check in with an equally tired receptionist and get led inside the office.

When they were teenagers, Heechul would have known in an instant how Han Geng was feeling no matter how expressionless his face remained, and the present Heechul was glad to discover that he had not lost this personalized ability in the midst of his descent to Utter Hell. Back in high school, Heechul had appointed himself as the only person who could make Han Geng feel better after a bad day, and despite his scattered brain, Heechul always did his jobs right.

Problem was, it would have been a long shot if Heechul decided to walk up to his former best friend, greet him with a hey, long time no see, I’m a prostitute now!, and expect him to feel better about his crappy excuse of a life. No, Heechul realized that he had to get his own life together first.

He had to get his life together; then and only then would he ever be able to be of assistance to Han Geng.

Throwing his love for spontaneous choices and random decisions aside, Heechul welcomed the imminent routine of honest work and a stable lifestyle, and found himself slowing crawling out of the hole he buried himself in.

The sun felt wonderful on his skin.

“Why do you think Heechul was so averse to you getting married?” Krystal asked.

“Heechul was just like that,” Han Geng shrugged. “His train of thought did not function the same way as others.”

“Can you think up reasons, at least?”

“He hated routine,” the Chinese man listed. “He hated monotony.”

“Did he hate Victoria?”

Han Geng laughed. “Hell no. He and Victoria got along great. They always went shopping together.”

“But you mentioned that he called Victoria a bitch when you told him that you were proposing.”

“He was prone to spewing out things he did not mean.”

Krystal shook her head. “But deep down inside, everything we spew has some truth behind it.”

“True,” Han Geng contemplated. “I guess he was just angry that I was resorting to monotony.”

“Actually, it sounded to me like he was jealous,” Krystal noted.

“Definitely not. Heechul was as straight as a circle, so unless Victoria turned out to be male he would never pursue her in any way.”

“No, I meant for you.”

Han Geng shook his head amusedly. “Heechul and I were always best friends, nothing more. Besides, I wasn’t his type.”

“His type?”

“Yah. He liked the buff popular guys who went along with his impulsive schemes and bought him expensive gifts.”

“Did he ever date during high school?”

“All the time. He refused half of them, though.”

“And how did you feel about that?”

“Indifferent,” Han Geng frowned.

“You expression does not seem indifferent to me.”

“Fine, maybe not indifferent. Annoyed perhaps?”

“Why?”

“Because in the background I was doing his homework and making sure he stayed out of trouble while he went off to have fun with some jock he hardly knew.”

“So you felt betrayed in a sense?”

“Only mildly.”

“Now, I’m going to be very blunt here and ask if you ever have feelings for Heechul during any period of your relationship with him.”

“No!” Han Geng blurted out a bit too quickly. “No, we were only friends. Besides, even if I did, it’s not as if I would have done anything about it.”

A slow smile formed on Krystal’s face. “Exactly.”

“Exactly what?”

“You wouldn’t have done anything about it. That’s a pattern that I have discerned from the problems that you have told me. You never deal with your problems. You let them continue and build up.”

Han Geng lowered his eyes.

Krystal smiled sympathetically. “Now is a good enough time to start fixing that. When you are ready, talk to Victoria and tell her that you know about her and Nickhun. Also write a letter to Heechul describing everything you loved and hated about your friendship. Also, this may be very unprofessional of me, but if you know where he is, I suggest that you start talking to him again.”

Han Geng frowned. “Why? Heechul is long gone; I haven’t seen him in over a decade.”

The psychiatrist grinned. “Whenever you talk about him, you glow.”

Getting one’s life together took a long time. It took Heechul a whole month to get only the basics of his life fixed. It took Heechul almost a year to get himself fully on his feet. He went back to hosting, and made it known that he would not tolerate any nonconsensual touching. He applied for university and got in with a miniature scholarship. He studied, kept drinking to a minimum, and kept clean for the most part. The trips to the doctor's office were frequent and dreary, but he forced himself to go. He had to.

And so, four years later, after he received his final marks-a much-too-high-to-be-true-considering-his-non-existent-study-habits 80% average-he dressed in his cleanest clothes and walked out of his dormitory, red hair combed neatly to the side.

Han Geng’s house was a quaint little thing. Boring, but quaint. Heechul had clandestinely spent many days staring up at the glass windows wondering if he should knock, each time deciding against it as he thought back to his original plan of Getting His Life Together. It was only three months ago when he had emotionally rebounded when one man at his hosting job grabbed his ass, and he almost tore his dorm room into shreds when he got back to the university. He got through it by himself, though, with many breathing exercises and beer bottles.

It was tough, and it was real.

He used to have very real feelings for Han Geng. Deep down inside, he knew he did. At first he had simply brushed them off as simple repercussions of their almost-too-perfect friendship, but after a while he started to wonder if repercussions were supposed to be so strong. It was only in their junior year when he had finally come to terms with it. It was also the year that Victoria came into the picture.

Heechul adored Victoria, he really did. She was as kind and intelligent as she was beautiful, and she was probably the best shopping spree partner he had ever had. Apparently, Han Geng adored her as well, but in a different way. Heechul knew his best friend well enough to know that Han Geng loved and respected Victoria, and despite his raucous personality he was unable to do anything about their budding relationship.

He threw himself into the dating pool because that was what he thought would cure him. He never imagined that he would be so sorely disappointed. There were so many gay men in the world-most of them were closeted but that was beside the point-and there were gay men hundreds of times better looking than Han Geng. There were some who made better conversations, some who understood the crude jokes he made, some who were rich enough to own an entire planet if they wanted to. And yet Heechul wanted none of them. He only wanted Han Geng, the one man he could never have.

That was inevitably why he crashed when he heard of Han Geng’s engagement. He crashed hard and fast and brutally. It was a miracle how he had finally managed to get himself back on his feet after all the years drilled underground.

But now, he was ready, and he raised his hand against the door, took a deep breath, and knocked.

Within a minute, a silhouette appeared from the screened windows surrounding the door, and Heechul held his breath as the hinge was unlocked and the door knob was turned.

The man who answered stared at his visitor a grand total of three seconds before dropping his jaw down in shock. “H-Heechul?”

The redhead conjured up a broken smile. “Hello Han Geng.”

Talking to Heechul after fifteen years of separation was like talking to a ghost. A real live talking breathing ghost. Heechul was as beautiful as before, and like a ghost he seemed to be almost translucent, half there and half not there. His fiery spirit was still intact and his wittiness never faded, but there was a deep darkness in his eyes now. A darkness that seemed to devour him whole.

Han Geng could not take his eyes off of him.

They had walked over to the nearby cafe and awkwardly settled themselves at the corner table, each wondering what to say to get rid of the elephant in the room. Back in the day, Han Geng’s default action would have been to sit there like a wallflower until the other person decided to ask how he felt about the weather. But he had prepared for this with Krystal. He had learned how to take the initiative.

(The first time he did so was when he sat Victoria down and simply said “I know about Nickhun.” After many tears and apologies, they were divorced less than a month later.)

So he knew he needed to take action this time. Clenching his fists, Han Geng cleared his throat, saliva dry in his mouth as he toughened up and did something about the situation. “Y-You seem well,” he started off, voice cracking just slightly. “What do you do now?”

“I am a student,” Heechul replied breezily, taking a sip from his extra-sugary coffee. “Trying to get into law school while working full-time. You?”

“I work at an insurance company.”

“Still?”

“Not the same one.”

Heechul snorted. “I would not have been surprised if you still had the exact same job at the exact same company with the exact same work hours. Were you transferred or something?”

Han Geng shook his head. “No. Fired, actually.”

The redhead widened his eyes. “You? Fired? You were probably the best goody-goody-two-shoes I have ever met. What the fuck happened?”

“I punched a guy in the face,” Han Geng replied, failing to hold back a smile as he watched Heechul’s jaw drop in amazement.

“Awesome!” the redhead whooped amusedly. “Never knew you had it in you!”

And Han Geng smiled, heart almost bursting with pride as they shared their first laugh in years. From there, conversation flowed easily. Even after a decade, Han Geng felt totally at ease with his high school best friend, and it was evident that the other felt the same way. They laughed at memories, talked about current events around the world, and shared their opinions on politics and religion, all the while basking in their renewed companionship. But the past is never buried, and quickly and inevitably conversation veered backwards in time. Han Geng hesitantly retold his story about depression and alcohol abuse and his failed marriage. Heechul, in turn, told him about being a rape survivor and full-time rent boy.

“Looking back, selling myself was just a spur of a moment thing,” Heechul whispered. “I needed money, and doing that was the easiest and quickest way. And they paid you more without a condom. I wanted to find a job, I truly did, but when I found out that I contracted HIV, I just stopped caring. It was bound to happen sooner or later, really. I had crabs several times already.”

Han Geng fought back a grimace, knowing full well that Heechul depended on him not to be judgmental. “Are you okay now?”

The effeminate man thought for a moment before shaking his head. “No. No, I’m not. I haven’t been okay ever since I stormed out of our apartment that day.”

Han Geng nodded. “Me neither.”

They sat in silence. A large pregnant silence amidst the chatter of the cafe.

“I loved you, you know,” Heechul admitted softly, already anticipating the surprised jolt that ran through his best friend’s body. “I used to be crazy for you back in high school.”

The Chinese man froze, and he drew his eyebrows in. “You’re lying.”

“I’m serious, I was fucking pining after you.”

“You couldn’t have been pining after me,” Han Geng looked away, voice low. “Half the time you were out on dates with the most popular guys in the whole school. I knew that I couldn’t compare to them.”

“They were nothing compared to you,” Heechul grimaced. “I used to text you while I went out on dates because they were just so boring. Remember that guy Jay I went out with for two months? He was an absolute moron who only talked about football and beer and sex.”

“He took your virginity.” Han Geng could not hide the bitterness in his voice.

“And it was the worst thing experience of my life.” At Han Geng’s skeptical look, Heechul rolled his eyes and relented. “Okay, fine, the seventeenth worst experience of my life. Point is, I used to love you. And I was too immature back then to be happy for your imminent marriage to Ms. Perfect.” Heechul sunk back into his chair. “So I guess what I’m trying to say is, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for cutting off all ties out of jealousy.”

Han Geng’s jaw tensed. Do something about it. “I’m sorry, too.”

“For what?”

The Chinese man swallowed. “For lying to you.”

“You? Lying?” Heechul scoffed. “Han Geng, I used to worry that you’d tell a mugger your PIN number if he asked you to. Not to mention the fact that-”

Heechul’s words were cut off when Han Geng quickly leaned forward and pecked him on the lips, and for the first time in Heechul’s life he was at a loss to say.

“Krystal, m-my psychiatrist, told me that if I ever saw you again, I had to take the initiative,” Han Geng breathed out, shaking. “Am I too late?”

Heechul’s head started to spin. Saying yes would have been so easy. It would have terminated all of the what ifs poisoning his mind. It would have provided closure to all of the nights he spent wondering if he could have ever been with Han Geng and lived happily ever after with him. Saying yes would have been the reasonable choice that would put an end to his heartache, an end to all the pain he endured.

But Heechul was never a reasonable person-never was, never will be-so he bit his lower lip and held back tears. “No. No, Han Geng. Even if we were both ninety years old and on our deathbeds, you wouldn’t have been too late.”

Hearing those words, Han Geng felt like he was seventeen again. Still the docile Chinese kid in high school and still crazy in love with his crazy best friend.

Victoria remarried, and in some respects Han Geng was touched that she thought him “strong enough” to handle the wedding invitation. Despite their divorce, the two remained very close friends, and Han Geng even managed to befriend Nickhun despite their initial discomfort. Heechul reintegrated into the group very smoothly: Victoria was all hugs and kisses while Nickhun found red hair fascinating.

Han Geng brought Heechul as his date for Victoria’s second wedding, and although he knew he harbored no bitter romantic feelings for her, he still felt that pang of sadness sweep through him when he saw Victoria walk down the aisle in her beautiful white dress to marry another man. But the pang subsided when he realized that once again, he had Heechul by his side-his contrasting other, his second half, his better self.

That was also when he realized that they never really were Han Geng and Heechul. Even when they were separated by time and distance and unfortunate situations, they were always Han Geng and Heechul, inseparable in all ways but one. They were two broken men, both of them almost broken beyond repair with no way of putting themselves back together. And yet they found that when their broken pieces were put together, they fit like adjacent puzzle pieces. They were like two completely different entities in a pod, so different yet so similar.

And when Victoria, eyes glistening with happy tears, said her I dos, Han Geng and Heechul felt their hearts swell with happiness as they intertwined their fingers and applauded the newly wedded couple.

True happiness only lasted ten years.

Han Geng had always taken care of Heechul. It was his job as a person. He took care of Heechul even when the latter was bedridden and in need of a nurse to change his diaper. He even took care of Heechul when he was resting in a black coffin buried several feet underground. He visited him every day, placed fresh flowers over his burial site, and talked to him about how his day went and how his job still required him to sit on his ass for eight hours straight. He kept their one-bedroom apartment clean, cooked food for two people, and spent his evenings talking to a portrait of his late husband.

HIV was a deadly thing. If Han Geng had anything to liken it to, it would be like a little fluffy monster that grew to the size of the dragon and ate everything in sight when the conditions were right.

Heechul was lucky to have lived as long as he did, to be honest. It was not often that an HIV positive man could live for another fifteen years-fifteen years too long. He was forty-five.

Han Geng would not die until he turned sixty-three, and until then he continued with life the only way he knew how. He woke up at six in the morning every day, went to work and finished his quota, visited Heechul’s grave with fresh flowers, went back home with a tender Heechul, I’m home, ate dinner with an empty seat beside him, and went to sleep holding his pillow.

And when he finally did die, he did so willing. With a smile, he took his last breath, knowing that just beyond the wall of sleep was his deceased husband, the beautiful crazy redhead he was head over heels in love with.

What took you so long?

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