No Such Thing (As Too Much Love)
Title: No Such Thing (As Too Much Love)
Pairing(s): HanChul, side!YunJae
Genre(s): Romance, kid!AU
Length: 3837 words
Rating: PG-13
Summary: In which Heechul learns what love is.
Inspiration(s): Sequel to Ask Me Why (I’ll Say I Love You). Written for fyrefox233 who wanted a sequel. Well, ta-da!
Edit (04/10/2011): The very wonderful and beautiful reichiba drew this as a response to the fic. It is so adorable I wanna lay it out on my table and roll on it forever /rolls. Thank you!!!
```
begin
“Daddy, what is love?”
“Love is the most powerful feeling in the world, Heechul.”
“Why?”
“Because without love, the human race would cease to exist.”
“Wow, that is powerful!”
Jaejoong laughed. “Yes, it is.”
--
one
Five-year-old Heechul met the new transfer student on the playground. The other children called him the “Foreign Kid” and made fun of his accent a lot. Heechul also thought that his accent was funny, but his daddy had always told him that making fun of people showed weakness and non-awesomeness. And Heechul was anything but weak and non-awesome, thank you very much!
The Foreign Kid was sitting alone on a swing drinking from his Kool-Aid when Heechul took notice of him. Curiosity was always his strong suit, so little Heechul strutted over and took a seat on the swing beside the Foreign Kid and stuck his chin out. “My name is Heechul,” he stated haughtily. “What’s your name?”
Jumping in surprise, the Foreign Kid looked around before pointing to himself in a silent question.
Heechul frowned. “Who else do you think I’d be talking to? The pole?” The preschooler huffed in impatience. “Hurry up and tell me what your name is!”
The Foreign Kid blinked three times in total before answering. “H-Han Geng.”
“Where are you from?” Heechul asked.
“China.”
“Why are you here?”
“My parents wanted to move here.”
Heechul nodded, accepting the answer. “Why do you have such a funny accent?”
Han Geng wilted, and for a moment he looked like one of those cartoon characters with the raincloud above their heads.
Heechul realized his mistake and huffed. “I’m not making fun of you!” he corrected quickly. “I’m just telling the troof. You have a funny accent. Now, answer my question! Why do you have it?”
The transfer student shrugged. “I don’t speak Korean very well. I speak Chinese at home.”
“Why?”
“It’s my first language.”
“You are so weird. Why isn’t your first language Korean?” Heechul asked, totally perplexed. “I thought everybody’s first language was Korean.”
Han Geng tilted his head. “I-I don’t know. I remember speaking Chinese for my whole life. For me, Korean is really hard.”
“Well, for me, Korean is very easy. I don’t understand what is so hard about.” A light bulb appeared above his head. “Wait, I know, maybe you’re stupid!”
The transfer student wilted again.
“You shouldn’t be feeling bad! I’m only telling the troof!” Heechul retorted. “I never make fun of people. Daddy tells me that making fun of people means that I’m weak and un-awesome. And I am not weak and un-awesome! Uncle Changmin told me so! Han Geng, you are so dumb!”
The Chinese boy widened his eyes. “You don’t make fun of people? Not like the others?”
“Never!”
“Promise?”
“Yup, yup!”
“Pinky swear?”
Heechul confidently held out his hand and their pinkies locked. “Pinky swear. Pinky swear means forever, you know. That means no backing out.” He lifted his chin smugly. “I never back out of pinky swears!”
And then, for the first time since he arrived in Korea, Han Geng had a genuine smile on his face. His two front teeth were missing. “Will you be my best friend, then?”
Heechul tilted his head, pondering on this question. “You know, I’ve never had a best friend before. What do best friends do with each other anyway?”
“My mommy tells me that best friends always partner up whenever there are group projects, and that they always play together on the playgrounds, and that they tell each other everything, even their deepest darkest secrets.”
The boy pondered over the offer and then nodded brusquely. “That sounds fun!”
And Han Geng just grinned with every inch of his tiny five-year-old body. “Cool! What do you want to do now, then?”
Heechul smirked and raised an eyebrow. “I bet you that I can swing the highest. I always win.” Immediately, he started swinging on that tiny black seat, shoulder-length red hair blowing back and forth as he felt himself rise higher and higher and higher.
Beside him, Han Geng started swinging, and they laughed as they soared closer and closer to the sky.
“I can almost touch the clouds!” Heechul shouted, breathless from exhilaration.
Han Geng had gotten so excited that he had accidentally let go of the chain handles, falling face down onto the ground below. It made Heechul laugh and laugh and laugh, and in the back of his mind he noted that the Foreign Kid was not so bad.
two
“Hey, Foreign Kid! I bet you’re so dumb, you can’t say your own name properly!” the bully puffed up his chest with pride as the rest of the students snickered.
Han Geng sat at his desk, head bowed down in shame as he did his best to hold back tears and drown out the malicious laughter that filled the classroom. Maybe he did say his name wrong. Maybe they were right when they said that he was a freak. Maybe he really was an idiot who knew nothing about anything-
“Hey, Cootie Face!” a high-pitched screechy voice bellowed from behind them. “Han Geng can say his name perfectly fine. What about you? Do you know what ni shi yi ge ben dan means?”
The bully folded his arms across his chest. “Of course I do. I’m not stupid.”
Meanwhile, Han Geng was stifling laughter behind his hand.
“I don’t think you know,” Heechul stuck his tongue out. “But just to make you a little bit less stupid, it meant you’re an idiot in Chinese. Han Geng taught me that last week.”
“Why you little-” the bully retracted his arm and was in the middle of plummeting his fist right into Heechul’s perfect little face. Before he could carry out a major concussion, however, the bully was football wrestled down to the ground when Han Geng all but leaped at the attacker (“Don't hurt Heechul!”). Screams of terror and excitement filled the classroom and-
Fifteen minutes later, Heechul was waiting outside of the principal’s office, frowning as he listened to the Let’s Get Along speech being screamed at the two young boys inside. He had never understood the point of that speech. It was not as if yelling would make everybody get along. Heechul pouted. Adults were so weird sometimes, and he hated how they acted like they understood everything when they were probably the stupidest people in the whole wide world.
“And if this ever happens again, very dire measures will be taken, understand?” the principal hollered, the door opening to reveal two bloody and bruised boys. The bully had gotten away with a bruised shin, but Han Geng was not so lucky with his black eye and split lip. “Both of you have detention after school for three weeks and you will be on litter duty every recess time.” The bully groaned while Heechul rolled his eyes.
“Now, you two boys go to the nurse’s, while Heechul, you can go back to class. All of you think about what you have done. Especially you, Han Geng. You are being a disgrace to the school.”
Han Geng had lowered his head, but Heechul’s temper flared. “Han Geng did nothing wrong! It was not his fault!”
“Don’t talk back, Heechul!”
“But-”
“No buts!” the principal shouted. “I’m losing my patience with you.”
Despite the principal’s towering height and beady little eyes, Heechul refused to back down to him. Only cowards backed down, and Heechul was never a coward. “You’re a meanie!” he screeched, stamping his foot down for good measure. “A big fat stupid ugly meanie! Meanie, meanie, meanie!”
Heechul ended up joining in on the three weeks of detention.
(“I’m sorry you got detention,” Han Geng told him later on, hauling a small trash can around as they ambled through the playground on litter duty. “I really didn’t mean to get you into trouble.”
Heechul wrinkled his nose as he daintily picked up a stray plastic bag and threw it into the can. “I didn’t like that big fat bully anyway. And besides, my daddy always told me to fight for what is right. That stupid ugly principal is too grownup to understand what is right and wrong anymore.”
“Thank you for standing up for me.”
“That’s what best friends do, don’t they?”
Han Geng grinned. “Yah.”)
three
Though inherently intelligent and bright, Heechul was a troublemaker by heart and the kind of kid who got detention every other week. But before Han Geng came along he had never noticed how fun detention really was. The teachers basically made them stay in a classroom and do nothing, which gave the two ample amounts of time to talk and laugh together. So while the bully sulked in his chair and stared out the window, Heechul and Han Geng played games and told jokes. Sometimes they laughed so hard that Mr. Jung, Heechul’s favorite homeroom teacher, had to warn them to be quiet lest the principal heard them.
“Hey Heechul, do you want to come over to my house sometime?” Han Geng whispered, pretending to be diligently staring at the blackboard.
“Sure! I have to ask my daddy first, though,” Heechul whispered back, wrinkling his nose. The last time he went to a friend’s house without permission, his father had frantically called the police and searched the whole city before coming back home to a confused Heechul wondering what happened, daddy?. “Otherwise he will cry again.”
Han Geng giggled. “My mommy cries whenever she watches Titanic. But she says that it is not because she is unhappy. But why else would people cry?”
“Well, adults are weird,” Heechul shrugged. “My daddy cries when he cuts up garlic to put in his dumplings.”
“You know, my mommy makes the best dumplings in the whole wide world! You should try them when you come over! They’re the bestest!”
Heechul grinned. “Okay.”
“You can also meet my daddy! He’s not home often, but he’s great too!”
The redhead tilted his head. “You have a mommy and a daddy?”
“Uh huh. Don’t you?”
“Nope. I only have one daddy.” Heechul frowned. “What’s a mommy like?”
Han Geng’s face lit up. “My mommy is the best person in the whole wide world! The best of the best! She reads me bedtime stories every night, and she always buys me chocolates whenever we go grocery shopping together-”
four
They had been best friends for just over a year when Han Geng finally proposed in the secluded corner of the playground. “Heechul, will you marry me?” he asked, innocent eyes wide with sincerity as he bent down on bended knee, presenting an engagement ring made of aluminum foil.
Heechul was, to put it bluntly, confused. “Why are you asking me this? I thought only people who loved each other got married.”
Han Geng wilted like a kicked puppy. “But I do love you, Heechul. I fell in love with you yesterday.”
“Fell in love?” the redhead became even more confused. “What does ‘fell in love’ mean?”
The Chinese student scratched his head and smiled sheepishly. “I don’t really know either. My mommy only told me that people who fall in love grow up and get married and live happily ever after. So I thought that falling in love meant that the person who you first think of when you fall over is the person who you have fallen in love with.”
“So you fell in love with me yesterday?”
“Uh huh. I tripped over a tree branch and you were the very first person I thought of.”
Heechul pouted, trying to imagine the situation. “Your accent is funny again. Use easier words and explain it to me properly.”
Han Geng blushed. “Well, my mommy told me that she fell in love with my daddy when they were very little, so they got married because they would feel lonely without each other. I fell in love with you, and if you fall in love with me, we have to get married because if we don’t we’d be very lonely.”
“Huh,” Heechul nodded, satisfied as he unlocked one of the mysteries of the world. “So that’s how it works.”
“So will you marry me?” Han Geng asked again. “Mommy tells me that people who get married will live happily ever after if they love each other enough.”
Heechul thought for a moment, and then nodded. “Okay. I’ll marry you.”
The transfer student lit up. “Really, you will?”
“But only after my daddy marries the person he loves first.”
“Oh.” Han Geng’s smile faded, and he put his aluminum ring into his pocket. “When will that be?”
“I don’t know,” Heechul shrugged, folding his arms across his chest. “But you say that you will not be lonely if you marry the person you love. Right?”
“Uh huh.”
“Well, my daddy is very lonely,” the redhead asserted, sticking his nose up like an arrogant poodle. “He says he isn’t, but he is. Grownups are so silly that sometimes they do not even know how they are feeling anymore.” Heechul straightened his back. “So I have to help him find the person he loves so that they can marry and live happily ever after and not be lonely.”
“Oh. Okay. I’ll help you!” Han Geng grinned. “What kind of girl does your daddy like?”
Heechul puffed up his cheeks in annoyance. “I don’t know, I have to ask him first! God, Han Geng, why are you so stupid!?”
five
“Daddy told me that he fell in love with a man named Yunho when he was a little bit older than me,” Heechul confided to his best friend the minute they had a chance to talk to each other during recess. “He said that they were in love and were about to get married but then Yunho had to leave to go dancing so they couldn’t get married anymore.”
“Why couldn’t Yunho dance and marry your daddy at the same time?” Han Geng asked.
“That’s what I thought. But Daddy says that it was impossible.” Heechul crinkled his nose. “Daddy is weird sometimes, and Yunho must have been really stupid not to marry my daddy.”
Han Geng sucked his thumb. “Were they engaged, at least?”
“Engaged? What does that mean?” the redhead tilted his head and pouted. He hated not knowing.
“It is basically when you are about to get married but not married yet. My mommy tells me that she and my daddy were betrothed.”
“Betroved? What’s that?”
“They made a promise that they would marry each other and no one else.”
“Oh, so they made a pinky swear!” A light bulb appeared above Heechul’s head. “I get it!”
“Uh huh. And then when everything was ready, they married and lived happily ever after.”
“Really?”
“Uh huh.”
Heechul pouted. “I want my daddy to live happily ever after. Do you know anybody named Yunho?”
Han Geng thought for a moment before shaking his head. “Nope.” But then he widened his eyes, and his thumb slipped out of his mouth with a loud plop. “We can ask Mr. Jung! He knows everything!”
Heechul jumped out of his seat almost immediately and Han Geng followed suit. Together they ran across the playground to where Mr. Jung was supervising, and Heechul all but crashed into his favorite teacher.
“Whoa, whoa, slow down there Heechul!” Mr. Jung laughed, ruffling the boy’s red tuft of hair. As a teacher, he was awfully fond of his students, but Heechul was a special case-but then again, Heechul was always a special case.
“Mr. Jung, do you know a man named Yunho?” Heechul demanded to know, jutting out his lower lip.
Mr. Jung raised his eyebrows, amused. “Why yes, why do you ask?”
“My daddy is in love with a man named Yunho. So do you know where Yunho is right now?”
“What is your daddy’s name?”
“Kim Jaejoong, Mr. Jung,” Heechul answered innocently. “And if I can find Yunho and bring him to my daddy, daddy won’t be so alone anymore. So do you know where he is?”
The amusement on Mr. Jung’s face vanished. “W-What?”
“Mr. Jung, please answer my question first! I have no time to explain!” Heechul quivered in excitement. “Do you know where Yunho is?”
“Your father’s name is Kim Jaejoong?” Mr. Jung’s eyes widened. “And your mother?”
“I never had no mommy,” Heechul shook his head, exasperated at his teacher. Grownups needed so much explaining. “Only me and my daddy. And my daddy says that he fell in love with a man named Yunho a long, long time ago. So do you know where I can find Yunho, Mr. Jung? Do you, do you, do you?”
Mr. Jung froze. “Yah. I know where.”
six
“What happened, Heechul?” Han Geng asked during lunch. “So did you find Yunho after all?”
“Uh huh,” Heechul nodded solemnly. “Mr. Jung was Yunho all along. Mr. Jung is sneaky.”
Han Geng stopped chewing. “So wait, Mr. Jung was the Yunho that your daddy fell in love with?”
“Uh huh.”
“That’s weird”
Heechul scoffed. “Grownups are weird.”
“Are they getting married?”
“I don’t know.” Heechul puffed up his cheeks. “My daddy turned really red when he saw Mr. Jung. Maybe he was really angry. People only turn really red when they are angry. And then he told Mr. Jung to get out of the house.” He wrinkled his nose. “But then, I don’t get it. If he was in love with Yunho, and if Yunho was right there, wouldn’t he be really happy and ask him to stay?”
“I think so,” Han Geng shrugged. “Whenever you come over to my house, I’m very happy to see you and I always wish that you could stay forever.”
Heechul smiled, feeling his cheeks heat up. “Then why isn’t my daddy happy?”
“I don’t know. My mommy didn’t tell me about that part.”
The six-year-old groaned in exasperation. “Adults are so complicated.”
seven
Yunho and Jaejoong married eventually. And the day after their very private but very sweet wedding, Han Geng proposed again, this time with a real ring.
“I got it from the dentist last week when I went to get braces,” he explained, blushing as he held out the plastic red ring on his flat palm. “He was about to give me the blue one but I told him that I wanted the red one because red is your favorite color.”
Heechul accepted without hesitation, and spent the rest of recess time admiring it as it sat around his too-thin finger. “So we are married now?”
“Nuh uh,” Han Geng shook his head. “We’re engaged.”
“Oh yah, we’re betroved, right?”
“Uh huh. So now you can only marry me and I can only marry you.”
Heechul grinned. “I never go back on pinky promises!”
His life after the wedding was for the most part normal. But it was weird at first. Heechul had to break out of the habit of calling Yunho Mr. Jung all the time, and not only that, he had to learn to call him Papa. It was almost too much for his little seven-year-old brain to wrap around!
“It’s stupid,” Heechul scowled. “Grownups want labels and names for everything. Why can’t Mr. Jung be Mr. Jung and Daddy be Daddy? Why does Mr. Jung have to be Papa now?”
“My mommy says that labels and names are good for organization,” Han Geng piped in as he drank his orange juice from a straw. “For example, we put out names on our crayons so that if somebody accidentally mixes up our crayons we know whose is whose.”
“But it’s so complicated!” Heechul grabbed his hair, puffing up his cheeks.
“But you are smart, Heechul!” Han Geng smiled widely, braces glittering under the light. “Nobody can figure things out better than you!”
“I know,” the redhead shrugged. “But I still don’t like it.”
Han Geng giggled. “I love you, Heechul.”
“Everybody loves me.”
“But I love you most, Heechul,” the Chinese boy nodded earnestly, taking his best friend’s hand in his. “I really really do! I want to grow up and be with you forever and ever!”
Heechul smiled, not even caring that the other’s hand was sticky with orange juice and sugar. “I know, Han Geng. I know.”
eight
Like most children, Heechul and Han Geng grew up. They grew out of their little seven-year-old bodies and went to the same high school and graduated from different colleges and got different jobs and merged into the grownup society that they have come to tolerate. New people, new cars, new workplaces, new houses, new household appliances-everything moved on, as fluid as a river. Their lives changed left and right, and eventually the two found themselves in a completely different environment than what they spent their childhood in.
But some things never changed. Heechul grew up to be as arrogant and haughty as he was as a child, while Han Geng never lost his funny accent-not entirely, at least. They continued to be best friends-always partnering up for group projects and telling each other their deepest darkest secrets notwithstanding-and there was an unwritten rule that at least one text message per day should be sent between them.
Not to say that there were no dark times in their relationship. In their first year of high school Heechul suggested dating other people just for the experience, which did not sit well with his best friend. In their second year of university, Han Geng got a serious girlfriend in China who he almost planned on marrying and starting a family with before realizing that he could not share a life with somebody he did not love. When they turned twenty-five, Heechul was involved in a car accident that put him in a coma for three weeks and confined him to a wheelchair for an additional few months; Han Geng had almost driven himself mad.
But amongst all the hardships they faced, Han Geng never stopped loving Heechul-never for even a second. He didn’t think he ever could.
Heechul, in turn, never took off his red plastic engagement ring, even when it became so small that it almost fit too tightly on his fifth finger. And even when Han Geng finally purchased a real engagement ring that fit snugly on his fourth finger, Heechul still kept that little red ring safe in his possession.
He never went back on his pinky promises.
--
“Han Geng, do you take Heechul as your lawfully wedded husband?”
“I do,” the Chinese man replied in a heartbeat, lean and tall and handsome as ever.
“And do you, Heechul, take Han Geng as your lawfully wedded husband?”
Heechul turned his head around his eyes locked with his Daddy who was weeping with joy in the front row. “I do,” he breathed out, and the smile on his face lit up the whole room as he finally married his fiancé of over twenty years.
The rest is history.
end
Pairing(s): HanChul, side!YunJae
Genre(s): Romance, kid!AU
Length: 3837 words
Rating: PG-13
Summary: In which Heechul learns what love is.
Inspiration(s): Sequel to Ask Me Why (I’ll Say I Love You). Written for fyrefox233 who wanted a sequel. Well, ta-da!
Edit (04/10/2011): The very wonderful and beautiful reichiba drew this as a response to the fic. It is so adorable I wanna lay it out on my table and roll on it forever /rolls. Thank you!!!
```
begin
“Daddy, what is love?”
“Love is the most powerful feeling in the world, Heechul.”
“Why?”
“Because without love, the human race would cease to exist.”
“Wow, that is powerful!”
Jaejoong laughed. “Yes, it is.”
--
one
Five-year-old Heechul met the new transfer student on the playground. The other children called him the “Foreign Kid” and made fun of his accent a lot. Heechul also thought that his accent was funny, but his daddy had always told him that making fun of people showed weakness and non-awesomeness. And Heechul was anything but weak and non-awesome, thank you very much!
The Foreign Kid was sitting alone on a swing drinking from his Kool-Aid when Heechul took notice of him. Curiosity was always his strong suit, so little Heechul strutted over and took a seat on the swing beside the Foreign Kid and stuck his chin out. “My name is Heechul,” he stated haughtily. “What’s your name?”
Jumping in surprise, the Foreign Kid looked around before pointing to himself in a silent question.
Heechul frowned. “Who else do you think I’d be talking to? The pole?” The preschooler huffed in impatience. “Hurry up and tell me what your name is!”
The Foreign Kid blinked three times in total before answering. “H-Han Geng.”
“Where are you from?” Heechul asked.
“China.”
“Why are you here?”
“My parents wanted to move here.”
Heechul nodded, accepting the answer. “Why do you have such a funny accent?”
Han Geng wilted, and for a moment he looked like one of those cartoon characters with the raincloud above their heads.
Heechul realized his mistake and huffed. “I’m not making fun of you!” he corrected quickly. “I’m just telling the troof. You have a funny accent. Now, answer my question! Why do you have it?”
The transfer student shrugged. “I don’t speak Korean very well. I speak Chinese at home.”
“Why?”
“It’s my first language.”
“You are so weird. Why isn’t your first language Korean?” Heechul asked, totally perplexed. “I thought everybody’s first language was Korean.”
Han Geng tilted his head. “I-I don’t know. I remember speaking Chinese for my whole life. For me, Korean is really hard.”
“Well, for me, Korean is very easy. I don’t understand what is so hard about.” A light bulb appeared above his head. “Wait, I know, maybe you’re stupid!”
The transfer student wilted again.
“You shouldn’t be feeling bad! I’m only telling the troof!” Heechul retorted. “I never make fun of people. Daddy tells me that making fun of people means that I’m weak and un-awesome. And I am not weak and un-awesome! Uncle Changmin told me so! Han Geng, you are so dumb!”
The Chinese boy widened his eyes. “You don’t make fun of people? Not like the others?”
“Never!”
“Promise?”
“Yup, yup!”
“Pinky swear?”
Heechul confidently held out his hand and their pinkies locked. “Pinky swear. Pinky swear means forever, you know. That means no backing out.” He lifted his chin smugly. “I never back out of pinky swears!”
And then, for the first time since he arrived in Korea, Han Geng had a genuine smile on his face. His two front teeth were missing. “Will you be my best friend, then?”
Heechul tilted his head, pondering on this question. “You know, I’ve never had a best friend before. What do best friends do with each other anyway?”
“My mommy tells me that best friends always partner up whenever there are group projects, and that they always play together on the playgrounds, and that they tell each other everything, even their deepest darkest secrets.”
The boy pondered over the offer and then nodded brusquely. “That sounds fun!”
And Han Geng just grinned with every inch of his tiny five-year-old body. “Cool! What do you want to do now, then?”
Heechul smirked and raised an eyebrow. “I bet you that I can swing the highest. I always win.” Immediately, he started swinging on that tiny black seat, shoulder-length red hair blowing back and forth as he felt himself rise higher and higher and higher.
Beside him, Han Geng started swinging, and they laughed as they soared closer and closer to the sky.
“I can almost touch the clouds!” Heechul shouted, breathless from exhilaration.
Han Geng had gotten so excited that he had accidentally let go of the chain handles, falling face down onto the ground below. It made Heechul laugh and laugh and laugh, and in the back of his mind he noted that the Foreign Kid was not so bad.
two
“Hey, Foreign Kid! I bet you’re so dumb, you can’t say your own name properly!” the bully puffed up his chest with pride as the rest of the students snickered.
Han Geng sat at his desk, head bowed down in shame as he did his best to hold back tears and drown out the malicious laughter that filled the classroom. Maybe he did say his name wrong. Maybe they were right when they said that he was a freak. Maybe he really was an idiot who knew nothing about anything-
“Hey, Cootie Face!” a high-pitched screechy voice bellowed from behind them. “Han Geng can say his name perfectly fine. What about you? Do you know what ni shi yi ge ben dan means?”
The bully folded his arms across his chest. “Of course I do. I’m not stupid.”
Meanwhile, Han Geng was stifling laughter behind his hand.
“I don’t think you know,” Heechul stuck his tongue out. “But just to make you a little bit less stupid, it meant you’re an idiot in Chinese. Han Geng taught me that last week.”
“Why you little-” the bully retracted his arm and was in the middle of plummeting his fist right into Heechul’s perfect little face. Before he could carry out a major concussion, however, the bully was football wrestled down to the ground when Han Geng all but leaped at the attacker (“Don't hurt Heechul!”). Screams of terror and excitement filled the classroom and-
Fifteen minutes later, Heechul was waiting outside of the principal’s office, frowning as he listened to the Let’s Get Along speech being screamed at the two young boys inside. He had never understood the point of that speech. It was not as if yelling would make everybody get along. Heechul pouted. Adults were so weird sometimes, and he hated how they acted like they understood everything when they were probably the stupidest people in the whole wide world.
“And if this ever happens again, very dire measures will be taken, understand?” the principal hollered, the door opening to reveal two bloody and bruised boys. The bully had gotten away with a bruised shin, but Han Geng was not so lucky with his black eye and split lip. “Both of you have detention after school for three weeks and you will be on litter duty every recess time.” The bully groaned while Heechul rolled his eyes.
“Now, you two boys go to the nurse’s, while Heechul, you can go back to class. All of you think about what you have done. Especially you, Han Geng. You are being a disgrace to the school.”
Han Geng had lowered his head, but Heechul’s temper flared. “Han Geng did nothing wrong! It was not his fault!”
“Don’t talk back, Heechul!”
“But-”
“No buts!” the principal shouted. “I’m losing my patience with you.”
Despite the principal’s towering height and beady little eyes, Heechul refused to back down to him. Only cowards backed down, and Heechul was never a coward. “You’re a meanie!” he screeched, stamping his foot down for good measure. “A big fat stupid ugly meanie! Meanie, meanie, meanie!”
Heechul ended up joining in on the three weeks of detention.
(“I’m sorry you got detention,” Han Geng told him later on, hauling a small trash can around as they ambled through the playground on litter duty. “I really didn’t mean to get you into trouble.”
Heechul wrinkled his nose as he daintily picked up a stray plastic bag and threw it into the can. “I didn’t like that big fat bully anyway. And besides, my daddy always told me to fight for what is right. That stupid ugly principal is too grownup to understand what is right and wrong anymore.”
“Thank you for standing up for me.”
“That’s what best friends do, don’t they?”
Han Geng grinned. “Yah.”)
three
Though inherently intelligent and bright, Heechul was a troublemaker by heart and the kind of kid who got detention every other week. But before Han Geng came along he had never noticed how fun detention really was. The teachers basically made them stay in a classroom and do nothing, which gave the two ample amounts of time to talk and laugh together. So while the bully sulked in his chair and stared out the window, Heechul and Han Geng played games and told jokes. Sometimes they laughed so hard that Mr. Jung, Heechul’s favorite homeroom teacher, had to warn them to be quiet lest the principal heard them.
“Hey Heechul, do you want to come over to my house sometime?” Han Geng whispered, pretending to be diligently staring at the blackboard.
“Sure! I have to ask my daddy first, though,” Heechul whispered back, wrinkling his nose. The last time he went to a friend’s house without permission, his father had frantically called the police and searched the whole city before coming back home to a confused Heechul wondering what happened, daddy?. “Otherwise he will cry again.”
Han Geng giggled. “My mommy cries whenever she watches Titanic. But she says that it is not because she is unhappy. But why else would people cry?”
“Well, adults are weird,” Heechul shrugged. “My daddy cries when he cuts up garlic to put in his dumplings.”
“You know, my mommy makes the best dumplings in the whole wide world! You should try them when you come over! They’re the bestest!”
Heechul grinned. “Okay.”
“You can also meet my daddy! He’s not home often, but he’s great too!”
The redhead tilted his head. “You have a mommy and a daddy?”
“Uh huh. Don’t you?”
“Nope. I only have one daddy.” Heechul frowned. “What’s a mommy like?”
Han Geng’s face lit up. “My mommy is the best person in the whole wide world! The best of the best! She reads me bedtime stories every night, and she always buys me chocolates whenever we go grocery shopping together-”
four
They had been best friends for just over a year when Han Geng finally proposed in the secluded corner of the playground. “Heechul, will you marry me?” he asked, innocent eyes wide with sincerity as he bent down on bended knee, presenting an engagement ring made of aluminum foil.
Heechul was, to put it bluntly, confused. “Why are you asking me this? I thought only people who loved each other got married.”
Han Geng wilted like a kicked puppy. “But I do love you, Heechul. I fell in love with you yesterday.”
“Fell in love?” the redhead became even more confused. “What does ‘fell in love’ mean?”
The Chinese student scratched his head and smiled sheepishly. “I don’t really know either. My mommy only told me that people who fall in love grow up and get married and live happily ever after. So I thought that falling in love meant that the person who you first think of when you fall over is the person who you have fallen in love with.”
“So you fell in love with me yesterday?”
“Uh huh. I tripped over a tree branch and you were the very first person I thought of.”
Heechul pouted, trying to imagine the situation. “Your accent is funny again. Use easier words and explain it to me properly.”
Han Geng blushed. “Well, my mommy told me that she fell in love with my daddy when they were very little, so they got married because they would feel lonely without each other. I fell in love with you, and if you fall in love with me, we have to get married because if we don’t we’d be very lonely.”
“Huh,” Heechul nodded, satisfied as he unlocked one of the mysteries of the world. “So that’s how it works.”
“So will you marry me?” Han Geng asked again. “Mommy tells me that people who get married will live happily ever after if they love each other enough.”
Heechul thought for a moment, and then nodded. “Okay. I’ll marry you.”
The transfer student lit up. “Really, you will?”
“But only after my daddy marries the person he loves first.”
“Oh.” Han Geng’s smile faded, and he put his aluminum ring into his pocket. “When will that be?”
“I don’t know,” Heechul shrugged, folding his arms across his chest. “But you say that you will not be lonely if you marry the person you love. Right?”
“Uh huh.”
“Well, my daddy is very lonely,” the redhead asserted, sticking his nose up like an arrogant poodle. “He says he isn’t, but he is. Grownups are so silly that sometimes they do not even know how they are feeling anymore.” Heechul straightened his back. “So I have to help him find the person he loves so that they can marry and live happily ever after and not be lonely.”
“Oh. Okay. I’ll help you!” Han Geng grinned. “What kind of girl does your daddy like?”
Heechul puffed up his cheeks in annoyance. “I don’t know, I have to ask him first! God, Han Geng, why are you so stupid!?”
five
“Daddy told me that he fell in love with a man named Yunho when he was a little bit older than me,” Heechul confided to his best friend the minute they had a chance to talk to each other during recess. “He said that they were in love and were about to get married but then Yunho had to leave to go dancing so they couldn’t get married anymore.”
“Why couldn’t Yunho dance and marry your daddy at the same time?” Han Geng asked.
“That’s what I thought. But Daddy says that it was impossible.” Heechul crinkled his nose. “Daddy is weird sometimes, and Yunho must have been really stupid not to marry my daddy.”
Han Geng sucked his thumb. “Were they engaged, at least?”
“Engaged? What does that mean?” the redhead tilted his head and pouted. He hated not knowing.
“It is basically when you are about to get married but not married yet. My mommy tells me that she and my daddy were betrothed.”
“Betroved? What’s that?”
“They made a promise that they would marry each other and no one else.”
“Oh, so they made a pinky swear!” A light bulb appeared above Heechul’s head. “I get it!”
“Uh huh. And then when everything was ready, they married and lived happily ever after.”
“Really?”
“Uh huh.”
Heechul pouted. “I want my daddy to live happily ever after. Do you know anybody named Yunho?”
Han Geng thought for a moment before shaking his head. “Nope.” But then he widened his eyes, and his thumb slipped out of his mouth with a loud plop. “We can ask Mr. Jung! He knows everything!”
Heechul jumped out of his seat almost immediately and Han Geng followed suit. Together they ran across the playground to where Mr. Jung was supervising, and Heechul all but crashed into his favorite teacher.
“Whoa, whoa, slow down there Heechul!” Mr. Jung laughed, ruffling the boy’s red tuft of hair. As a teacher, he was awfully fond of his students, but Heechul was a special case-but then again, Heechul was always a special case.
“Mr. Jung, do you know a man named Yunho?” Heechul demanded to know, jutting out his lower lip.
Mr. Jung raised his eyebrows, amused. “Why yes, why do you ask?”
“My daddy is in love with a man named Yunho. So do you know where Yunho is right now?”
“What is your daddy’s name?”
“Kim Jaejoong, Mr. Jung,” Heechul answered innocently. “And if I can find Yunho and bring him to my daddy, daddy won’t be so alone anymore. So do you know where he is?”
The amusement on Mr. Jung’s face vanished. “W-What?”
“Mr. Jung, please answer my question first! I have no time to explain!” Heechul quivered in excitement. “Do you know where Yunho is?”
“Your father’s name is Kim Jaejoong?” Mr. Jung’s eyes widened. “And your mother?”
“I never had no mommy,” Heechul shook his head, exasperated at his teacher. Grownups needed so much explaining. “Only me and my daddy. And my daddy says that he fell in love with a man named Yunho a long, long time ago. So do you know where I can find Yunho, Mr. Jung? Do you, do you, do you?”
Mr. Jung froze. “Yah. I know where.”
six
“What happened, Heechul?” Han Geng asked during lunch. “So did you find Yunho after all?”
“Uh huh,” Heechul nodded solemnly. “Mr. Jung was Yunho all along. Mr. Jung is sneaky.”
Han Geng stopped chewing. “So wait, Mr. Jung was the Yunho that your daddy fell in love with?”
“Uh huh.”
“That’s weird”
Heechul scoffed. “Grownups are weird.”
“Are they getting married?”
“I don’t know.” Heechul puffed up his cheeks. “My daddy turned really red when he saw Mr. Jung. Maybe he was really angry. People only turn really red when they are angry. And then he told Mr. Jung to get out of the house.” He wrinkled his nose. “But then, I don’t get it. If he was in love with Yunho, and if Yunho was right there, wouldn’t he be really happy and ask him to stay?”
“I think so,” Han Geng shrugged. “Whenever you come over to my house, I’m very happy to see you and I always wish that you could stay forever.”
Heechul smiled, feeling his cheeks heat up. “Then why isn’t my daddy happy?”
“I don’t know. My mommy didn’t tell me about that part.”
The six-year-old groaned in exasperation. “Adults are so complicated.”
seven
Yunho and Jaejoong married eventually. And the day after their very private but very sweet wedding, Han Geng proposed again, this time with a real ring.
“I got it from the dentist last week when I went to get braces,” he explained, blushing as he held out the plastic red ring on his flat palm. “He was about to give me the blue one but I told him that I wanted the red one because red is your favorite color.”
Heechul accepted without hesitation, and spent the rest of recess time admiring it as it sat around his too-thin finger. “So we are married now?”
“Nuh uh,” Han Geng shook his head. “We’re engaged.”
“Oh yah, we’re betroved, right?”
“Uh huh. So now you can only marry me and I can only marry you.”
Heechul grinned. “I never go back on pinky promises!”
His life after the wedding was for the most part normal. But it was weird at first. Heechul had to break out of the habit of calling Yunho Mr. Jung all the time, and not only that, he had to learn to call him Papa. It was almost too much for his little seven-year-old brain to wrap around!
“It’s stupid,” Heechul scowled. “Grownups want labels and names for everything. Why can’t Mr. Jung be Mr. Jung and Daddy be Daddy? Why does Mr. Jung have to be Papa now?”
“My mommy says that labels and names are good for organization,” Han Geng piped in as he drank his orange juice from a straw. “For example, we put out names on our crayons so that if somebody accidentally mixes up our crayons we know whose is whose.”
“But it’s so complicated!” Heechul grabbed his hair, puffing up his cheeks.
“But you are smart, Heechul!” Han Geng smiled widely, braces glittering under the light. “Nobody can figure things out better than you!”
“I know,” the redhead shrugged. “But I still don’t like it.”
Han Geng giggled. “I love you, Heechul.”
“Everybody loves me.”
“But I love you most, Heechul,” the Chinese boy nodded earnestly, taking his best friend’s hand in his. “I really really do! I want to grow up and be with you forever and ever!”
Heechul smiled, not even caring that the other’s hand was sticky with orange juice and sugar. “I know, Han Geng. I know.”
eight
Like most children, Heechul and Han Geng grew up. They grew out of their little seven-year-old bodies and went to the same high school and graduated from different colleges and got different jobs and merged into the grownup society that they have come to tolerate. New people, new cars, new workplaces, new houses, new household appliances-everything moved on, as fluid as a river. Their lives changed left and right, and eventually the two found themselves in a completely different environment than what they spent their childhood in.
But some things never changed. Heechul grew up to be as arrogant and haughty as he was as a child, while Han Geng never lost his funny accent-not entirely, at least. They continued to be best friends-always partnering up for group projects and telling each other their deepest darkest secrets notwithstanding-and there was an unwritten rule that at least one text message per day should be sent between them.
Not to say that there were no dark times in their relationship. In their first year of high school Heechul suggested dating other people just for the experience, which did not sit well with his best friend. In their second year of university, Han Geng got a serious girlfriend in China who he almost planned on marrying and starting a family with before realizing that he could not share a life with somebody he did not love. When they turned twenty-five, Heechul was involved in a car accident that put him in a coma for three weeks and confined him to a wheelchair for an additional few months; Han Geng had almost driven himself mad.
But amongst all the hardships they faced, Han Geng never stopped loving Heechul-never for even a second. He didn’t think he ever could.
Heechul, in turn, never took off his red plastic engagement ring, even when it became so small that it almost fit too tightly on his fifth finger. And even when Han Geng finally purchased a real engagement ring that fit snugly on his fourth finger, Heechul still kept that little red ring safe in his possession.
He never went back on his pinky promises.
--
“Han Geng, do you take Heechul as your lawfully wedded husband?”
“I do,” the Chinese man replied in a heartbeat, lean and tall and handsome as ever.
“And do you, Heechul, take Han Geng as your lawfully wedded husband?”
Heechul turned his head around his eyes locked with his Daddy who was weeping with joy in the front row. “I do,” he breathed out, and the smile on his face lit up the whole room as he finally married his fiancé of over twenty years.
The rest is history.
end