Keychain Boy (2/2)
Title: Keychain Boy
Pairing(s): QMi, side!HanChul, one-sided!GengMi, slight!KyuMin
Genre(s): Romance, warning!age-gap
Length: ~11k words
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Zhou Mi is a writer with writer’s block and a broken heart. A teenager named Kyuhyun changes all that.
```
Life continued peacefully, or as peacefully as living with Kyuhyun could be. There were some rowdy moments in Zhou Mi’s flat-splashing water at each other while washing dishes, raunchy jokes over the dinner table, random dance-outs in the living room-but all in all they cohabited quite well.
So of course this all changed when Kyuhyun managed to get the wine cabinet lock open.
Zhou Mi should have seen it coming. Apparently Kyuhyun had a knack for picking locks-it was only a matter of time before he found the right tools. So Zhou Mi found Kyuhyun on the floor of his bedroom, halfway through a bottle of his strongest gin, drunkenly giggling at the last page of Zhou Mi’s college journal. “You write like a thirteen-year-old girl,” he hiccupped, face red from inebriation. “Han Geng this, Han Geng that, look at me, Han Geng”-hiccup-“look at me!”
Zhou Mi figured that he should have been furious-that wine was expensive, after all-but all he could think about was how the boy was still underage and how lucky he was to have caught him before alcohol poisoning kicked in. Immediately, he snatched the bottle out of the boy’s hands and hoisted him onto his wobbly feet. Zhou Mi tried not to think too much about how light Kyuhyun was. “How much of this did you drink?” he asked in a dangerously low voice.
Kyuhyun giggled and shrugged cutely. “I don’t know. A lot? I’m not drunk, though, I swear. I can still list the alphabet. A, B, C-golly, what comes after C?”
Zhou Mi groaned. “You’ve had enough. Come on, up you go. Get out of your clothes and into the bed.”
“Are you going to fuck me?” the teenager asked lewdly as he collapsed onto the mattress. “You could, you know. I’ve done it before. I’ll let you fuck me.”
Zhou Mi stiffened. His breath stopped short. “You’re seventeen, Kyuhyun.” He unbuttoned the boy’s jeans and pulled them off of his skinny legs, pointedly ignoring the tent in the boy’s boxers. “I don’t fuck children.”
“I’m not a child,” the teenager slurred petulantly.
“Right, of course not. Get some rest. You’re going to have one hell of a hangover when you wake up. Try not to vomit in my bed or on the carpet.” Zhou Mi hung Kyuhyun’s clothing in his closet and was just about the leave the room when a small voice made him pause at the doorframe.
“I hate you, you know.”
Zhou Mi barely turned around. “Great. Good to know.”
“I hate you, I hate Han Geng, I hate Han Li, I hate Heechul, and damn it all, I hate your goddamn journal. Reading your journal makes me so angry.”
“Why?”
A soft sniffle was masked by a hiccup. “It doesn’t say anything about me in it.”
Zhou Mi felt his face contort but he shook himself and muttered a quick go to sleep, Kyuhyun under his breath before closing the door behind him. He checked his watch and let out a long weary breath: seven o’clock in the evening. Kyuhyun would definitely not sober up in time for Han Geng to pick him up. He groaned and dialed the number he knew by heart. “Hey, Han Geng. Work doing good? Good. Listen, could Kyuhyun sleep over for tonight? He’s fast asleep and I don’t have the heart to wake him up-”
When light shone through the window, the boy began to stir and Kyuhyun woke up wishing he hadn’t. The room was much too bright for his hung-over state and he groaned when he was awake enough to feel the relentless hammering in his head.
Zhou Mi put his book down and stretched his legs. “How’re you feeling?”
“Something died in my mouth and its ghost is trying to kill me.”
The author laughed. “Well, it’s your fault for downing all that alcohol.”
Kyuhyun grunted and threw his arms over his eyes. “What time is it?”
“Around nine in the morning.”
“Shit, I’m late for work.”
“No, you have a day off. I called Sungmin and told him that you were sick. He said he’ll cover for you.”
“My hero. Remind me to give him a hug the next time I see him.”
Zhou Mi nodded and swallowed back something that he did not want to acknowledge. “He’s a decent man. Han Geng speaks highly of him.”
“Well, the guy’s way too nice for his own good.”
“You like him a lot.”
Kyuhyun smirked. “Jealous?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Zhou Mi rolled his eyes, horrified to feel warmth flush up his neck. He stood and pointed to the nightstand. “I got you Tylenol and water. Han Geng will pick you up tonight-don’t get any more ideas before then. I covered for you last night so you owe me that much.” He spun on his heels and walked out of the bedroom, quietly closing the door behind him. His heartbeat was out of control, and his breath was short. He splashed cold water onto his face in the kitchen and pointedly ignored it.
“Have you ever done anything with Han Geng?”
Zhou Mi snorted. “Kyuhyun, we have known each other since we were children. I think we have done almost everything together.”
Kyuhyun raised an eyebrow. “Sexually?”
The author almost spat out his coffee. “Okay, no, I am not having this discussion with you.”
The teenager pursed his lips. “So you did fuck him.”
“No.”
“Oh, so he fucked you?”
“No!” Zhou Mi’s cheeks were flaming and he turned his angry gaze at the boy. “Nothing happened. Ever. He has always only been my best friend. Nothing more, got it?”
Kyuhyun nodded, satisfied. “So have you ever been with anybody else?”
“I dated people in college, but of course you know that already, you prick.”
“You never liked them, though. And you never wrote about anything besides casual movie dates and quick lunches. There must have been some below-the-belt action during that time, though.”
Zhou Mi’s cheeks warmed to an unimaginably high temperature. “That’s none of your business.”
Kyuhyun stared, and stared. And stared. “Oh my god, you’ve never had sex before.”
“Shut up, Kyuhyun.”
“How old are you? Thirty? And you’ve never fucked anybody ever? Seriously?”
“Kyuhyun-”
“How is that even possible in this day and age? Holy shit!” The boy was keeling over laughing, staring wide-eyed at Zhou Mi like he was some freak of nature. “I had no idea that thirty-year-old virgins still existed! How are you even real? What are you waiting for?”
“The right person!” Zhou Mi bellowed, too embarrassed to care what came out of his mouth anymore. Feelings that he thought he had grown out of were rushing back, pent up with a vengeance, leaking out of him like an imminent nuclear accident. “I’m waiting for the right person to share my first time with, okay? I’m sorry if that’s not what’s done nowadays, but I’m a romantic and I’m selfish and I’m a complete fucking mess but I just-” he broke off with a frustrated growl (this was not going to end well, he just knew it), “I just really wanted it to be perfect.”
Deafening silence ensued. Zhou Mi was breathing heavily and the thumping of his heart was so loud that he would not have been surprised if it broke through his rib cage. So much anger and frustration and pure raging feeling that he had smothered for so long-it made his head spin and his heart ache.
“My first time was when I was fifteen,” Kyuhyun’s voice cut through the air, clear but shaky. “He was a senior at the high school I used to attend. I gave him a blowjob behind the dumpster. He punched me in the face and threatened to kill me if I told anybody about what we did. I had a black eye for two weeks and I lied to my mom that it was from a soccer ball.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Kyuhyun shifted in his seat. “Also, I haven’t told Han Geng yet, but Sungmin asked me to go steady a week ago and I said yes. We fucked last night for the first time. It was good.”
Zhou Mi bit his lip and counted to ten, waiting for the spike of hurt that stabbed at his chest to dwindle down. “Sungmin is a nice boy,” he finally settled on saying. “Do you love him?”
“He’s a good boyfriend.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
Kyuhyun smiled sadly. “No, I don’t love him. He knows that but he’s okay with it-tells me that sometimes love comes later in a relationship.”
“Do you think you can grow to love him?”
“I don’t know. Maybe? I’m trying, at least.”
Zhou Mi nodded. He knew the feeling much too well. “Does he love you? Does he take care of you and make you happy?”
“Yes, I think he does.”
“Okay. Good. Sungmin is a good influence on you. You have my blessing.” Zhou Mi stood from his desk, rubbed his eyes, and headed towards the kitchen to make supper, ready to totally and completely forget that the last thirty minutes had ever happened.
Of course, anything that concerned Kyuhyun never went according to plan. “Is that it?” the teenager probed accusingly, jumping to his feet as if he had been struck by lightning.
Zhou Mi frowned, taken aback by the outburst. “Is what it?”
“Were you seriously just going to get up and pretend that everything is okay, that everything is fine? Like you did with Han Geng?”
The author swallowed and started to fill a pot with tap water. “Han Geng has nothing to do with this-”
Kyuhyun violently knocked the pot out of his hands. It fell to the floor with an earsplitting clang. Water splattered Zhou Mi’s jeans and spilled across the kitchen tiles. The boy grabbed Zhou Mi’s wrist with unmitigated strength and pulled him close until his face was inches from his own, so close that he could count every eyelash if he wanted to. “You are a coward,” Kyuhyun hissed with so much venom that his eyes could have turned red.
“I know that already.”
Kyuhyun’s grip tightened, making the author wince. He exhaled sharply. “Kiss me.”
Zhou Mi’s eyes went blank and when he laughed, it was lifeless. “No, Kyuhyun.”
“Kiss me,” the boy demanded more fervently this time. “I know you want to.”
“You’re still a child-”
“I am not a child! I’m seventeen, I’m turning eighteen in less than two months!” Kyuhyun took three long breaths and stubbornly set his jaw. “I know I’m not Han Geng and I never could be, but I’m willing to be a substitute for you-to be honest, I’d take anything at this point. You could pretend I’m him, I don’t care anymore! Do you have any idea how hard it is to compete with my own uncle? Every time I try to do something nice for you, I know that you are comparing me to him.”
Zhou Mi blinked, stunned. “It’s not like that-”
“Then kiss me!”
Zhou Mi could have listed hundreds-scratch that, millions-of reasons why he couldn’t. The problem was that the minute the boy looked at him with those dark wild eyes that held so much strength and love and vulnerability that it physically hurt, he had trouble remembering what they were. He leaned in and felt the first press of chapped lips against his own. Guilt emblazoned every nerve on his body and he wanted to rip them out and stomp on them and stop it all from hurting god, why did everything have to hurt so damn much?
But then Kyuhyun’s hands were on his face, thumbs stroking his temples, an anchor-it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay-and nothing hurt anymore.
Zhou Mi woke up the next morning feeling heavy and relaxed. He breathed in and felt soft curls tickle at his nostrils, and he forced his eyes open to find himself on his side with an arm draped over Kyuhyun’s bare shoulders and his chest pressed against the boy’s shoulder blades. He rolled onto his back and ran a hand over his face. “Oh shit.”
“Good morning to you, too.”
Zhou Mi started. He hadn’t realized that the boy was awake. “Oh shit,” he repeated for the lack of any other words. “What have I done?”
“You’re going to be a prude about this, aren’t you?” Kyuhyun propped himself onto his elbow, letting the blanket slide off his shoulder to reveal a very thin chest and protruding ribs. “Look, I’m not a child, and you are not a pervert. I seduced you. What is the problem?”
“The problem is that you are underage and I am your uncle’s best friend.” Stark realization dawned upon Zhou Mi, and he widened his eyes in horror. “Oh my god, I just slept with my best friend’s underage nephew-”
“And I hope you do again,” Kyuhyun interjected with no trace of insincerity or hesitation. Oh god. “Zhou Mi, I know you, and I know that you would never hurt me. Even if this is just a rebound.” He took a long shaky breath. “Just, don’t ruin this. Don’t say a goddamn word. I’m having a moment here and I will maim you if you ruin it.”
Zhou Mi stared at the boy and despite all his grievances about the wrongness of the whole situation, he felt his muscles turn to liquid and he melted back into the bedspread, spent and angry and just-
Happy. Never in a million years could Zhou Mi have guessed that Kyuhyun would one day be the source of the rib-crushing, heart-stopping happiness he was feeling. The boy was snarky, rude, inconsiderate, brash-and Zhou Mi loved him all the same. It hit him square in the chest, so hard that it physically knocked his tonsils out of him. Lord help him, he was in love with the same snarky, rude, inconsiderate, brash teenager that had once made it his personal mission to make his life a complete nightmare.
Zhou Mi let out a sigh and gathered the boy back into his arms. “You’re not a rebound,” he whispered into his hair.
Kyuhyun let out a sob of relief.
Kyuhyun’s eighteenth birthday was celebrated traditionally-with party hats, streamers, balloons, and an ice cream cake with eighteen candles on top and extra icing. To his credit, the boy-man, Zhou Mi mentally corrected himself, he’s a man now-smiled through the whole damn thing and only once did he cast Zhou Mi a baleful look behind his uncles’ back.
After a microwaved dinner and three choruses of Happy Birthday, Kyuhyun finally blew out all eighteen of his candles and proceeded to down four slices of cake. Even after a grueling ten-hour shift, Han Geng and Heechul never looked happier, both of them wearing identical grins that only longtime couples shared that Zhou Mi used to envy so much.
Zhou Mi smiled. Used to. He let his gaze drift towards the birthday boy-man-and he smiled at the sight of color rushing into Kyuhyun’s cheeks at being caught staring. Zhou Mi’s smile widened. Kyuhyun was staring. At him.
“Han Geng, you alright?” he asked his best friend, casting a secret look Kyuhyun’s way. “You look tired.”
Han Geng chuckled. “Yah, well, work never stops. Worth it, though-I made it back here to celebrate!”
“Well, the night’s still young and Kyuhyun is officially legal. Why don’t I take him out for some drinks and let you guys rest for the night?” From the corner of Zhou Mi’s eyes, he could see Kyuhyun’s eyes light up.
“I think that’s a great idea!” Heechul quipped from the other side of the table. “There is no one who I would trust more than Zhou Mi to get our boy legally plastered!”
Han Geng let out a hearty laugh and raised a conspiring eyebrow. “You should have seen Zhou Mi on his eighteenth birthday, Kyuhyun. He was gone before the second bottle was opened.”
After the table was cleared and the plates nicely stacked in the sink to put in the dishwasher sometime within the next week, Zhou Mi found himself at the door stifling his laughter at the sight of Kyuhyun shrugging into his coat at lightning speed. “Excited, aren’t you?” he teased.
“Shut up,” he replied, leaning in for a kiss.
Heechul appeared from behind the corner and they sprang apart. “Don’t get him alcohol poisoning, and god forbid, please look after him and make sure he isn’t hit on by strangers. I will personally murder you if he doesn’t come back in one piece.”
“I’m a responsible adult, Heechul, you should know that.” Zhou Mi chuckled. “We’ll probably be at the bar for a while. He’ll stay overnight at my place. Is that okay with you?”
“Yah, sure, of course.” Heechul threw his skinny arms over Kyuhyun’s shoulders and pressed a wet kiss onto his cheek. “You have fun now, you understand? But not too much fun because you still have work in the morning.”
They were out the door within minutes, and once they were in the vicinity of Zhou Mi’s car and away from unwanted eyes, Zhou Mi found himself with an armful and tongueful of Kyuhyun. And goddamn, he did not mind one bit.
“We’re not actually going drinking, are we?” Kyuhyun asked in between kisses.
“No, we definitely are. You can’t turn eighteen without getting plastered, not on my watch. We are going drinking, we’re going to take drunken pictures of ourselves drinking, and we are going to drunk-email them to your uncles. While drinking. It’s tradition.”
Kyuhyun whined. “So no sex?”
“I never said that,” Zhou Mi replied coyly, starting the engine.
Kyuhyun had almost totally forgotten about his initial purpose of finding his birth father amidst the commotion of integrating into a domestic lifestyle, fake-smiling at Starbucks customers, and falling in love. In fact, so had Zhou Mi. Both of them had been so caught up in each other and their newfound happiness that they had forgotten that it would clearly come to bite them in the ass eventually.
Han Li took graciously to the fact that he had indeed fathered a child. Or, as graciously as he could. In reality, he took one look at Kyuhyun, flew out the door, came back a few hours later stinking of whisky, vomited in their bathroom, and proceeded to pass out on Han Geng’s couch.
“He’s taking this well,” Han Geng assured when Kyuhyun raised a dubious eyebrow at him. “You should see him during his real slumps.”
To his credit, Han Li was ready for the ominous discussion the next morning, hangover notwithstanding. He straightened in his seat, offered his hand to his teenaged son, and smiled the best he could. “I’m Han Li.”
“I know,” the teenager muttered.
Kyuhyun’s mother was a waitress at the bar Han Li frequented during his short trip to Korea back when he was still an intern. “She was a wonderful woman,” he recalled with a sad smile. “Crazy funny, always knew how to have a good time.” He took a good long look at his son and that sad smile widened minutely. “You have her cheekbones.”
Kyuhyun just frowned, unconvinced. “You still remember what she looks like?”
Han Li grinned. “Your mother was a sight to behold. I don’t think anybody could have forgotten what she looked like if they tried.”
Kyuhyun just folded his arms across his chest. He was terrified-nobody else noticed but Zhou Mi could see it as clear as day. “So what now?” he drawled.
“I’m not quite sure,” Han Li admitted gently. “Family is especially important to me, but my job requires a lot of travelling. I would love to get to know you as a son.”
Zhou Mi’s breath caught and Kyuhyun narrowed his eyes. “Are you asking me to leave with you?” Zhou Mi felt Kyuhyun’s eyes on him but he refused to acknowledge him lest all the fear and heartbreak became too much.
Han Li nodded. “I totally understand if you don’t want to, but I thought a lot about it last night. We’ll be travelling a lot and you’ll be able to see the world. I could hire tutors for your schooling. We’ll only be gone for a year-”
“A year?!” Kyuhyun exclaimed. His gaze involuntarily gravitated towards Zhou Mi, who had the exact same expression on his face.
“Yes, but my business trips usually take longer than that,” Han Li stammered. “I have a tight schedule to abide to. You can still stay in touch with my brother through email and I have an unlimited Skype account-”
“Can I think about this for a day or two?” Kyuhyun interjected crudely.
“Oh yes, of course,” Han Li mumbled, wringing his hands together. “But you only have until next week.”
“I’m not going,” the teenager stated the second they found themselves alone. “And that’s final.”
Zhou Mi kept a steady gaze. “Why not?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“Give yourself some time to think about it.”
“I’ve already made up my mind.”
Zhou Mi swiveled in his chair. “You told me once that it was your dream to travel and explore the world, to go on adventures with your father.”
“That was before I met you,” Kyuhyun said staunchly. “I love you.”
Zhou Mi’s heart clenched. “So you will choose me over your father?”
Kyuhyun opened his mouth, froze in mid-word, and deflated, his stubbornness abruptly replaced by the reality of his decision.
Zhou Mi nodded sadly. “I thought so. Family comes first, Kyuhyun. You of all people would know that.” He smiled. “I’m proud of you.”
“But you are my family now.”
“You have a chance to reconnect with your father. Don’t waste it just because of our silly affair.”
Kyuhyun’s gaze hardened. “’Silly affair’? You think what we had these past few weeks was just a ‘silly affair’?”
Zhou Mi said nothing and walked away.
Two weeks later, Kyuhyun had his belongings packed-one measly little suitcase that was barely three quarters full-and after short unsatisfactory goodbyes, he trod away from what had become his family and made his way towards his birth father into the wide world ahead of him.
To say that Zhou Mi was sad to see him leave was a stark understatement. He was devastated, next to inconsolable. There was this hole in him that deepened with every breath. God, he hurt, and he had nobody to talk to. Han Geng was always the person he approached during an emotional crisis, but under the circumstances this course of action was impossible.
So over three bottles of beer in front of a computer with a shitty fan, Zhou Mi clutched at his keychain-made by Kyuhyun’s bony hands just for him, only him, why, why did he have to leave?-and started to type.
Heechul was a man of action. Zhou Mi used to envy how the redhead just dove headfirst into the world with his devil-may-care attitude and brute fearlessness. He was loud, brash, and eccentric, and he launched into his life with no regrets and no hesitations. It only took two minutes into their first conversation for Han Geng to fall in love with him. And the worst part about it was that no matter how much he wanted to, Zhou Mi could never bring himself to hate Heechul. In fact, Zhou Mi and Heechul became fast friends despite their stark personality differences. It was uncanny how well their relationship worked-it still managed to astound and irritate Zhou Mi when he thought about it too much.
Because Heechul knew what he wanted and how to get it, whereas Zhou Mi knew what he wanted and how to get it but never had the guts to go after it.
A week after Kyuhyun’s departure, the two were seated in the dining room of Zhou Mi’s flat sharing a bottle of beer. “My, how time passes,” Heechul marveled. “It only seems like yesterday when we were being idiots in our dorm room. Look at us now. You’re a successful writer, I’m up for a promotion, and Kyuhyun has grown up to be a fine young man, ready to face the world.”
“Han Li will take care of him. He’s a good guy. A bit odd here and there, but overall a good guy. I see a lot of Han Geng in him despite his oddities.”
“You’ll see him again,” Heechul said, like a promise. “Kyuhyun loves us. He’ll come back eventually, after he has gone on all of his adventures.”
“Don’t get your hopes up,” Zhou Mi chuckled emptily. “You never know with kids these days.”
“Yes, but you love him.”
Zhou Mi winced. “Of course I do. He is an amazing kid.”
“You know what I mean. Look, asshole, in the middle of the room there is an elephant. And guess what, I’m going to poke it and prod it, right now.” Heechul let out a sarcastic laugh. “Did you really think that I wouldn’t notice? Kyuhyun was hardly discreet, and honestly you weren’t any better. You know, he used to stare at you like you were the only person in the room.” A pause. “You had the same look when it came to Han Geng.”
Color rushed into Zhou Mi’s cheeks.
“Of course I knew,” Heechul answered the silent question. “Not immediately. I had no idea how you felt about him until after we had started dating. I only realized after reading the first novel you published. You remember the one-I used to make fun of it for being a modern parody of The Sorrows of Young Werther. It wasn’t hard to make the connection from there.”
Zhou Mi’s hands trembled. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Heechul scoffed. “For not sabotaging my relationship with Han Geng? You had every reason to but you didn’t.”
“You made him happy. I could have asked nothing better for him.”
Heechul exhaled slowly, a pensive look on his pretty face. “Kyuhyun makes you happy, doesn’t he?”
“Heechul-”
“Just answer the question.”
“I don’t need pity just because my best friend found the love of his life-”
“Zhou Mi, you know me well enough to know that I am unable to pity anybody. Pity is for the weak.” Heechul took a swig from the bottle and let out an exasperated sigh. “And despite your melodramatic tendencies, you are anything but weak, so answer my question.”
“It was only a temporary thing,” Zhou Mi muttered. “I knew nothing would come out of it.”
“But you wanted something to come out of it.”
“Doesn’t matter now.” Zhou Mi closed his eyes. “Kyuhyun is off with his father being young and reckless and adventurous-as he should be. He’ll meet someone else, someone who’s right for him.”
“What makes you think you’re not right for him?”
“God, where do I even start?”
Heechul snickered. “You know, that’s the problem with you, Zhou Mi: you think too much. Why don’t you try just letting go of those goddamn emotional restraints you always chain yourself with?”
“What good would that do? Kyuhyun made his choice and left.”
“I know that.” Heechul broke into that beautiful wide all-encompassing grin of his, bitterly reminding Zhou Mi why Han Geng had fallen in love with him in the first place. “But I also know that he’ll be back.”
Sure enough, somewhere on the other side of the world, a young man was making plans.
Kyuhyun adapted well to the life of constant travelling. He loved the constant flow of time as he and his father went from New York to Africa to Brazil to Venice. Places that he had only seen in pictures neatly ripped out from old library books sprang to life right before his very eyes.
He met all kinds of people-from high-class ladies to humble workers to loving parents to careless thugs-and he became well-versed in the many languages of society (his best being ‘Snark & Sarcasm’-he was so fluent he could have taught a graduate school class on it). He learned how to properly use a fork and knife, he knew how to say thank you in twenty different languages, and eventually he even learned that swear words were best used sparsely so as not to devalue their power.
Normally, he would sit on the sidelines in his itchy custom-made suit, watching as his father schmoozed with other business executives and worked his charm. But once in a while, a business executive would go over to talk to him, asking him about his life and future and hopes and dreams and whether he wanted to continue in his father’s footsteps.
Kyuhyun always looked them straight in the eyes, words firm and clear and lacking of any bullshit. “I want to be an editor,” he would say to them, face betraying nothing at their clear expressions of astonished disapproval. “I have been told that I have a knack at knowing what good literature is.”
All in all, his life turned out well, and he was content. But Kyuhyun was selfish, and ‘well’ was not good enough. ‘Well’ was nothing compared to those amazing wonderful few months spent knowing that he loved a man who loved him back just as hard. A man who he still loved, each and every day.
Kyuhyun returned to Korea. In many ways, one could say he never left. The first thing he did was submit his college application to the state university’s admissions office. He was there for the long run. He had seen enough of the world to know it.
His uncles met him at the airport. Heechul was thrilled to see him, Han Geng even more so. Both had requested a day off from their respective jobs to be able to personally welcome their nephew back home. Kyuhyun was embarrassed but touched nonetheless-the fact that they still considered him true family was enough, to be honest.
Once the hugs and kisses and excitement died down, however, Kyuhyun noticed that there was one more person who came to welcome him back, and his mouth went dry.
Zhou Mi had not changed much. He was still tall and elegant and handsome as Kyuhyun had remembered him, with the same brown eyes and perfect hair and long fingers. He had a nervous smile on his face, open and honest and-
Kyuhyun could not stop the face-splitting grin that formed on his face.
(-hopeful.)
epilogue
Kyuhyun swung his backpack over his shoulder and heaved himself off the wooden chairs of the university lecture hall, wincing at the crick in his neck. He made his way out with the other students and bounded out the doors towards his bike.
University was treating Kyuhyun well. He was a smart kid, always had been, and his course load was heavy but manageable. Journalism was indeed a wonderful major, and being an intern at the biggest publishing company in the country certainly did not hurt.
He brushed the hair out of his eyes and stuffed his keys into his pockets. Mounting his bike in one smooth motion, he headed towards town and stopped in front of the bookstore where a placard reading Author Signing was hung. Tilting an eyebrow at the long line-up, he smiled and rummaged through his backpack to pull out his copy of the newly released novel Keychain Boy.
After some unsurprisingly awkward small talk at the airport, it only took two days for Kyuhyun to find the guts to contact Zhou Mi. Unfortunately he only had enough guts to do so via text.
(- still hate teenagers?
- seriously, kyuhyun? you didn’t have the decency to say hi, how are you doing first?
- i’ll take that as a no.
- i hate you)
Zhou Mi made ground rules along the lines of I want to do things right this time, and after breaking the news to Han Geng and Han Li (who, to their credit, took it surprisingly well with the help of a smug-looking Heechul and a bottle of vodka shared between them) they limited themselves to casual lunches and movies nights, doing nothing more than kiss and hold hands.
(Two weeks later, after some obscure moment of truth, they finally looked at each other, made simultaneous fuck thats, and started shagging again. Within that month, Kyuhyun moved into Zhou Mi’s apartment where he promptly made a mess just for old times’ sake.)
The lineup went quickly to Kyuhyun’s relief-he was about to suffocate from the stuffiness of the crowd-and he smiled when the first sight of perfectly combed black hair came into view. There were people all over town who wanted to catch a glimpse of the local celebrity, and Kyuhyun swelled with pride seeing all the young men and women chattering excitedly at the prospect of meeting the successful writer (He’s my boyfriend!, Kyuhyun wanted to scream).
Then an idea overcame him, and he fished out a pen from his pocket.
(A simple I love you was scrawled in small angular writing across the top half of the inner cover page. It made Zhou Mi raise an eyebrow, causing a nervous giggle from Kyuhyun.
After it got signed by the author, there was a reply: I love you, too. But only because you aren’t a teenager anymore. Zhou Mi
Kyuhyun laughed and laughed, and barely managed not to kiss him right there and then.)
Pairing(s): QMi, side!HanChul, one-sided!GengMi, slight!KyuMin
Genre(s): Romance, warning!age-gap
Length: ~11k words
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Zhou Mi is a writer with writer’s block and a broken heart. A teenager named Kyuhyun changes all that.
```
Life continued peacefully, or as peacefully as living with Kyuhyun could be. There were some rowdy moments in Zhou Mi’s flat-splashing water at each other while washing dishes, raunchy jokes over the dinner table, random dance-outs in the living room-but all in all they cohabited quite well.
So of course this all changed when Kyuhyun managed to get the wine cabinet lock open.
Zhou Mi should have seen it coming. Apparently Kyuhyun had a knack for picking locks-it was only a matter of time before he found the right tools. So Zhou Mi found Kyuhyun on the floor of his bedroom, halfway through a bottle of his strongest gin, drunkenly giggling at the last page of Zhou Mi’s college journal. “You write like a thirteen-year-old girl,” he hiccupped, face red from inebriation. “Han Geng this, Han Geng that, look at me, Han Geng”-hiccup-“look at me!”
Zhou Mi figured that he should have been furious-that wine was expensive, after all-but all he could think about was how the boy was still underage and how lucky he was to have caught him before alcohol poisoning kicked in. Immediately, he snatched the bottle out of the boy’s hands and hoisted him onto his wobbly feet. Zhou Mi tried not to think too much about how light Kyuhyun was. “How much of this did you drink?” he asked in a dangerously low voice.
Kyuhyun giggled and shrugged cutely. “I don’t know. A lot? I’m not drunk, though, I swear. I can still list the alphabet. A, B, C-golly, what comes after C?”
Zhou Mi groaned. “You’ve had enough. Come on, up you go. Get out of your clothes and into the bed.”
“Are you going to fuck me?” the teenager asked lewdly as he collapsed onto the mattress. “You could, you know. I’ve done it before. I’ll let you fuck me.”
Zhou Mi stiffened. His breath stopped short. “You’re seventeen, Kyuhyun.” He unbuttoned the boy’s jeans and pulled them off of his skinny legs, pointedly ignoring the tent in the boy’s boxers. “I don’t fuck children.”
“I’m not a child,” the teenager slurred petulantly.
“Right, of course not. Get some rest. You’re going to have one hell of a hangover when you wake up. Try not to vomit in my bed or on the carpet.” Zhou Mi hung Kyuhyun’s clothing in his closet and was just about the leave the room when a small voice made him pause at the doorframe.
“I hate you, you know.”
Zhou Mi barely turned around. “Great. Good to know.”
“I hate you, I hate Han Geng, I hate Han Li, I hate Heechul, and damn it all, I hate your goddamn journal. Reading your journal makes me so angry.”
“Why?”
A soft sniffle was masked by a hiccup. “It doesn’t say anything about me in it.”
Zhou Mi felt his face contort but he shook himself and muttered a quick go to sleep, Kyuhyun under his breath before closing the door behind him. He checked his watch and let out a long weary breath: seven o’clock in the evening. Kyuhyun would definitely not sober up in time for Han Geng to pick him up. He groaned and dialed the number he knew by heart. “Hey, Han Geng. Work doing good? Good. Listen, could Kyuhyun sleep over for tonight? He’s fast asleep and I don’t have the heart to wake him up-”
When light shone through the window, the boy began to stir and Kyuhyun woke up wishing he hadn’t. The room was much too bright for his hung-over state and he groaned when he was awake enough to feel the relentless hammering in his head.
Zhou Mi put his book down and stretched his legs. “How’re you feeling?”
“Something died in my mouth and its ghost is trying to kill me.”
The author laughed. “Well, it’s your fault for downing all that alcohol.”
Kyuhyun grunted and threw his arms over his eyes. “What time is it?”
“Around nine in the morning.”
“Shit, I’m late for work.”
“No, you have a day off. I called Sungmin and told him that you were sick. He said he’ll cover for you.”
“My hero. Remind me to give him a hug the next time I see him.”
Zhou Mi nodded and swallowed back something that he did not want to acknowledge. “He’s a decent man. Han Geng speaks highly of him.”
“Well, the guy’s way too nice for his own good.”
“You like him a lot.”
Kyuhyun smirked. “Jealous?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Zhou Mi rolled his eyes, horrified to feel warmth flush up his neck. He stood and pointed to the nightstand. “I got you Tylenol and water. Han Geng will pick you up tonight-don’t get any more ideas before then. I covered for you last night so you owe me that much.” He spun on his heels and walked out of the bedroom, quietly closing the door behind him. His heartbeat was out of control, and his breath was short. He splashed cold water onto his face in the kitchen and pointedly ignored it.
“Have you ever done anything with Han Geng?”
Zhou Mi snorted. “Kyuhyun, we have known each other since we were children. I think we have done almost everything together.”
Kyuhyun raised an eyebrow. “Sexually?”
The author almost spat out his coffee. “Okay, no, I am not having this discussion with you.”
The teenager pursed his lips. “So you did fuck him.”
“No.”
“Oh, so he fucked you?”
“No!” Zhou Mi’s cheeks were flaming and he turned his angry gaze at the boy. “Nothing happened. Ever. He has always only been my best friend. Nothing more, got it?”
Kyuhyun nodded, satisfied. “So have you ever been with anybody else?”
“I dated people in college, but of course you know that already, you prick.”
“You never liked them, though. And you never wrote about anything besides casual movie dates and quick lunches. There must have been some below-the-belt action during that time, though.”
Zhou Mi’s cheeks warmed to an unimaginably high temperature. “That’s none of your business.”
Kyuhyun stared, and stared. And stared. “Oh my god, you’ve never had sex before.”
“Shut up, Kyuhyun.”
“How old are you? Thirty? And you’ve never fucked anybody ever? Seriously?”
“Kyuhyun-”
“How is that even possible in this day and age? Holy shit!” The boy was keeling over laughing, staring wide-eyed at Zhou Mi like he was some freak of nature. “I had no idea that thirty-year-old virgins still existed! How are you even real? What are you waiting for?”
“The right person!” Zhou Mi bellowed, too embarrassed to care what came out of his mouth anymore. Feelings that he thought he had grown out of were rushing back, pent up with a vengeance, leaking out of him like an imminent nuclear accident. “I’m waiting for the right person to share my first time with, okay? I’m sorry if that’s not what’s done nowadays, but I’m a romantic and I’m selfish and I’m a complete fucking mess but I just-” he broke off with a frustrated growl (this was not going to end well, he just knew it), “I just really wanted it to be perfect.”
Deafening silence ensued. Zhou Mi was breathing heavily and the thumping of his heart was so loud that he would not have been surprised if it broke through his rib cage. So much anger and frustration and pure raging feeling that he had smothered for so long-it made his head spin and his heart ache.
“My first time was when I was fifteen,” Kyuhyun’s voice cut through the air, clear but shaky. “He was a senior at the high school I used to attend. I gave him a blowjob behind the dumpster. He punched me in the face and threatened to kill me if I told anybody about what we did. I had a black eye for two weeks and I lied to my mom that it was from a soccer ball.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Kyuhyun shifted in his seat. “Also, I haven’t told Han Geng yet, but Sungmin asked me to go steady a week ago and I said yes. We fucked last night for the first time. It was good.”
Zhou Mi bit his lip and counted to ten, waiting for the spike of hurt that stabbed at his chest to dwindle down. “Sungmin is a nice boy,” he finally settled on saying. “Do you love him?”
“He’s a good boyfriend.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
Kyuhyun smiled sadly. “No, I don’t love him. He knows that but he’s okay with it-tells me that sometimes love comes later in a relationship.”
“Do you think you can grow to love him?”
“I don’t know. Maybe? I’m trying, at least.”
Zhou Mi nodded. He knew the feeling much too well. “Does he love you? Does he take care of you and make you happy?”
“Yes, I think he does.”
“Okay. Good. Sungmin is a good influence on you. You have my blessing.” Zhou Mi stood from his desk, rubbed his eyes, and headed towards the kitchen to make supper, ready to totally and completely forget that the last thirty minutes had ever happened.
Of course, anything that concerned Kyuhyun never went according to plan. “Is that it?” the teenager probed accusingly, jumping to his feet as if he had been struck by lightning.
Zhou Mi frowned, taken aback by the outburst. “Is what it?”
“Were you seriously just going to get up and pretend that everything is okay, that everything is fine? Like you did with Han Geng?”
The author swallowed and started to fill a pot with tap water. “Han Geng has nothing to do with this-”
Kyuhyun violently knocked the pot out of his hands. It fell to the floor with an earsplitting clang. Water splattered Zhou Mi’s jeans and spilled across the kitchen tiles. The boy grabbed Zhou Mi’s wrist with unmitigated strength and pulled him close until his face was inches from his own, so close that he could count every eyelash if he wanted to. “You are a coward,” Kyuhyun hissed with so much venom that his eyes could have turned red.
“I know that already.”
Kyuhyun’s grip tightened, making the author wince. He exhaled sharply. “Kiss me.”
Zhou Mi’s eyes went blank and when he laughed, it was lifeless. “No, Kyuhyun.”
“Kiss me,” the boy demanded more fervently this time. “I know you want to.”
“You’re still a child-”
“I am not a child! I’m seventeen, I’m turning eighteen in less than two months!” Kyuhyun took three long breaths and stubbornly set his jaw. “I know I’m not Han Geng and I never could be, but I’m willing to be a substitute for you-to be honest, I’d take anything at this point. You could pretend I’m him, I don’t care anymore! Do you have any idea how hard it is to compete with my own uncle? Every time I try to do something nice for you, I know that you are comparing me to him.”
Zhou Mi blinked, stunned. “It’s not like that-”
“Then kiss me!”
Zhou Mi could have listed hundreds-scratch that, millions-of reasons why he couldn’t. The problem was that the minute the boy looked at him with those dark wild eyes that held so much strength and love and vulnerability that it physically hurt, he had trouble remembering what they were. He leaned in and felt the first press of chapped lips against his own. Guilt emblazoned every nerve on his body and he wanted to rip them out and stomp on them and stop it all from hurting god, why did everything have to hurt so damn much?
But then Kyuhyun’s hands were on his face, thumbs stroking his temples, an anchor-it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay-and nothing hurt anymore.
Zhou Mi woke up the next morning feeling heavy and relaxed. He breathed in and felt soft curls tickle at his nostrils, and he forced his eyes open to find himself on his side with an arm draped over Kyuhyun’s bare shoulders and his chest pressed against the boy’s shoulder blades. He rolled onto his back and ran a hand over his face. “Oh shit.”
“Good morning to you, too.”
Zhou Mi started. He hadn’t realized that the boy was awake. “Oh shit,” he repeated for the lack of any other words. “What have I done?”
“You’re going to be a prude about this, aren’t you?” Kyuhyun propped himself onto his elbow, letting the blanket slide off his shoulder to reveal a very thin chest and protruding ribs. “Look, I’m not a child, and you are not a pervert. I seduced you. What is the problem?”
“The problem is that you are underage and I am your uncle’s best friend.” Stark realization dawned upon Zhou Mi, and he widened his eyes in horror. “Oh my god, I just slept with my best friend’s underage nephew-”
“And I hope you do again,” Kyuhyun interjected with no trace of insincerity or hesitation. Oh god. “Zhou Mi, I know you, and I know that you would never hurt me. Even if this is just a rebound.” He took a long shaky breath. “Just, don’t ruin this. Don’t say a goddamn word. I’m having a moment here and I will maim you if you ruin it.”
Zhou Mi stared at the boy and despite all his grievances about the wrongness of the whole situation, he felt his muscles turn to liquid and he melted back into the bedspread, spent and angry and just-
Happy. Never in a million years could Zhou Mi have guessed that Kyuhyun would one day be the source of the rib-crushing, heart-stopping happiness he was feeling. The boy was snarky, rude, inconsiderate, brash-and Zhou Mi loved him all the same. It hit him square in the chest, so hard that it physically knocked his tonsils out of him. Lord help him, he was in love with the same snarky, rude, inconsiderate, brash teenager that had once made it his personal mission to make his life a complete nightmare.
Zhou Mi let out a sigh and gathered the boy back into his arms. “You’re not a rebound,” he whispered into his hair.
Kyuhyun let out a sob of relief.
Kyuhyun’s eighteenth birthday was celebrated traditionally-with party hats, streamers, balloons, and an ice cream cake with eighteen candles on top and extra icing. To his credit, the boy-man, Zhou Mi mentally corrected himself, he’s a man now-smiled through the whole damn thing and only once did he cast Zhou Mi a baleful look behind his uncles’ back.
After a microwaved dinner and three choruses of Happy Birthday, Kyuhyun finally blew out all eighteen of his candles and proceeded to down four slices of cake. Even after a grueling ten-hour shift, Han Geng and Heechul never looked happier, both of them wearing identical grins that only longtime couples shared that Zhou Mi used to envy so much.
Zhou Mi smiled. Used to. He let his gaze drift towards the birthday boy-man-and he smiled at the sight of color rushing into Kyuhyun’s cheeks at being caught staring. Zhou Mi’s smile widened. Kyuhyun was staring. At him.
“Han Geng, you alright?” he asked his best friend, casting a secret look Kyuhyun’s way. “You look tired.”
Han Geng chuckled. “Yah, well, work never stops. Worth it, though-I made it back here to celebrate!”
“Well, the night’s still young and Kyuhyun is officially legal. Why don’t I take him out for some drinks and let you guys rest for the night?” From the corner of Zhou Mi’s eyes, he could see Kyuhyun’s eyes light up.
“I think that’s a great idea!” Heechul quipped from the other side of the table. “There is no one who I would trust more than Zhou Mi to get our boy legally plastered!”
Han Geng let out a hearty laugh and raised a conspiring eyebrow. “You should have seen Zhou Mi on his eighteenth birthday, Kyuhyun. He was gone before the second bottle was opened.”
After the table was cleared and the plates nicely stacked in the sink to put in the dishwasher sometime within the next week, Zhou Mi found himself at the door stifling his laughter at the sight of Kyuhyun shrugging into his coat at lightning speed. “Excited, aren’t you?” he teased.
“Shut up,” he replied, leaning in for a kiss.
Heechul appeared from behind the corner and they sprang apart. “Don’t get him alcohol poisoning, and god forbid, please look after him and make sure he isn’t hit on by strangers. I will personally murder you if he doesn’t come back in one piece.”
“I’m a responsible adult, Heechul, you should know that.” Zhou Mi chuckled. “We’ll probably be at the bar for a while. He’ll stay overnight at my place. Is that okay with you?”
“Yah, sure, of course.” Heechul threw his skinny arms over Kyuhyun’s shoulders and pressed a wet kiss onto his cheek. “You have fun now, you understand? But not too much fun because you still have work in the morning.”
They were out the door within minutes, and once they were in the vicinity of Zhou Mi’s car and away from unwanted eyes, Zhou Mi found himself with an armful and tongueful of Kyuhyun. And goddamn, he did not mind one bit.
“We’re not actually going drinking, are we?” Kyuhyun asked in between kisses.
“No, we definitely are. You can’t turn eighteen without getting plastered, not on my watch. We are going drinking, we’re going to take drunken pictures of ourselves drinking, and we are going to drunk-email them to your uncles. While drinking. It’s tradition.”
Kyuhyun whined. “So no sex?”
“I never said that,” Zhou Mi replied coyly, starting the engine.
Kyuhyun had almost totally forgotten about his initial purpose of finding his birth father amidst the commotion of integrating into a domestic lifestyle, fake-smiling at Starbucks customers, and falling in love. In fact, so had Zhou Mi. Both of them had been so caught up in each other and their newfound happiness that they had forgotten that it would clearly come to bite them in the ass eventually.
Han Li took graciously to the fact that he had indeed fathered a child. Or, as graciously as he could. In reality, he took one look at Kyuhyun, flew out the door, came back a few hours later stinking of whisky, vomited in their bathroom, and proceeded to pass out on Han Geng’s couch.
“He’s taking this well,” Han Geng assured when Kyuhyun raised a dubious eyebrow at him. “You should see him during his real slumps.”
To his credit, Han Li was ready for the ominous discussion the next morning, hangover notwithstanding. He straightened in his seat, offered his hand to his teenaged son, and smiled the best he could. “I’m Han Li.”
“I know,” the teenager muttered.
Kyuhyun’s mother was a waitress at the bar Han Li frequented during his short trip to Korea back when he was still an intern. “She was a wonderful woman,” he recalled with a sad smile. “Crazy funny, always knew how to have a good time.” He took a good long look at his son and that sad smile widened minutely. “You have her cheekbones.”
Kyuhyun just frowned, unconvinced. “You still remember what she looks like?”
Han Li grinned. “Your mother was a sight to behold. I don’t think anybody could have forgotten what she looked like if they tried.”
Kyuhyun just folded his arms across his chest. He was terrified-nobody else noticed but Zhou Mi could see it as clear as day. “So what now?” he drawled.
“I’m not quite sure,” Han Li admitted gently. “Family is especially important to me, but my job requires a lot of travelling. I would love to get to know you as a son.”
Zhou Mi’s breath caught and Kyuhyun narrowed his eyes. “Are you asking me to leave with you?” Zhou Mi felt Kyuhyun’s eyes on him but he refused to acknowledge him lest all the fear and heartbreak became too much.
Han Li nodded. “I totally understand if you don’t want to, but I thought a lot about it last night. We’ll be travelling a lot and you’ll be able to see the world. I could hire tutors for your schooling. We’ll only be gone for a year-”
“A year?!” Kyuhyun exclaimed. His gaze involuntarily gravitated towards Zhou Mi, who had the exact same expression on his face.
“Yes, but my business trips usually take longer than that,” Han Li stammered. “I have a tight schedule to abide to. You can still stay in touch with my brother through email and I have an unlimited Skype account-”
“Can I think about this for a day or two?” Kyuhyun interjected crudely.
“Oh yes, of course,” Han Li mumbled, wringing his hands together. “But you only have until next week.”
“I’m not going,” the teenager stated the second they found themselves alone. “And that’s final.”
Zhou Mi kept a steady gaze. “Why not?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“Give yourself some time to think about it.”
“I’ve already made up my mind.”
Zhou Mi swiveled in his chair. “You told me once that it was your dream to travel and explore the world, to go on adventures with your father.”
“That was before I met you,” Kyuhyun said staunchly. “I love you.”
Zhou Mi’s heart clenched. “So you will choose me over your father?”
Kyuhyun opened his mouth, froze in mid-word, and deflated, his stubbornness abruptly replaced by the reality of his decision.
Zhou Mi nodded sadly. “I thought so. Family comes first, Kyuhyun. You of all people would know that.” He smiled. “I’m proud of you.”
“But you are my family now.”
“You have a chance to reconnect with your father. Don’t waste it just because of our silly affair.”
Kyuhyun’s gaze hardened. “’Silly affair’? You think what we had these past few weeks was just a ‘silly affair’?”
Zhou Mi said nothing and walked away.
Two weeks later, Kyuhyun had his belongings packed-one measly little suitcase that was barely three quarters full-and after short unsatisfactory goodbyes, he trod away from what had become his family and made his way towards his birth father into the wide world ahead of him.
To say that Zhou Mi was sad to see him leave was a stark understatement. He was devastated, next to inconsolable. There was this hole in him that deepened with every breath. God, he hurt, and he had nobody to talk to. Han Geng was always the person he approached during an emotional crisis, but under the circumstances this course of action was impossible.
So over three bottles of beer in front of a computer with a shitty fan, Zhou Mi clutched at his keychain-made by Kyuhyun’s bony hands just for him, only him, why, why did he have to leave?-and started to type.
Heechul was a man of action. Zhou Mi used to envy how the redhead just dove headfirst into the world with his devil-may-care attitude and brute fearlessness. He was loud, brash, and eccentric, and he launched into his life with no regrets and no hesitations. It only took two minutes into their first conversation for Han Geng to fall in love with him. And the worst part about it was that no matter how much he wanted to, Zhou Mi could never bring himself to hate Heechul. In fact, Zhou Mi and Heechul became fast friends despite their stark personality differences. It was uncanny how well their relationship worked-it still managed to astound and irritate Zhou Mi when he thought about it too much.
Because Heechul knew what he wanted and how to get it, whereas Zhou Mi knew what he wanted and how to get it but never had the guts to go after it.
A week after Kyuhyun’s departure, the two were seated in the dining room of Zhou Mi’s flat sharing a bottle of beer. “My, how time passes,” Heechul marveled. “It only seems like yesterday when we were being idiots in our dorm room. Look at us now. You’re a successful writer, I’m up for a promotion, and Kyuhyun has grown up to be a fine young man, ready to face the world.”
“Han Li will take care of him. He’s a good guy. A bit odd here and there, but overall a good guy. I see a lot of Han Geng in him despite his oddities.”
“You’ll see him again,” Heechul said, like a promise. “Kyuhyun loves us. He’ll come back eventually, after he has gone on all of his adventures.”
“Don’t get your hopes up,” Zhou Mi chuckled emptily. “You never know with kids these days.”
“Yes, but you love him.”
Zhou Mi winced. “Of course I do. He is an amazing kid.”
“You know what I mean. Look, asshole, in the middle of the room there is an elephant. And guess what, I’m going to poke it and prod it, right now.” Heechul let out a sarcastic laugh. “Did you really think that I wouldn’t notice? Kyuhyun was hardly discreet, and honestly you weren’t any better. You know, he used to stare at you like you were the only person in the room.” A pause. “You had the same look when it came to Han Geng.”
Color rushed into Zhou Mi’s cheeks.
“Of course I knew,” Heechul answered the silent question. “Not immediately. I had no idea how you felt about him until after we had started dating. I only realized after reading the first novel you published. You remember the one-I used to make fun of it for being a modern parody of The Sorrows of Young Werther. It wasn’t hard to make the connection from there.”
Zhou Mi’s hands trembled. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Heechul scoffed. “For not sabotaging my relationship with Han Geng? You had every reason to but you didn’t.”
“You made him happy. I could have asked nothing better for him.”
Heechul exhaled slowly, a pensive look on his pretty face. “Kyuhyun makes you happy, doesn’t he?”
“Heechul-”
“Just answer the question.”
“I don’t need pity just because my best friend found the love of his life-”
“Zhou Mi, you know me well enough to know that I am unable to pity anybody. Pity is for the weak.” Heechul took a swig from the bottle and let out an exasperated sigh. “And despite your melodramatic tendencies, you are anything but weak, so answer my question.”
“It was only a temporary thing,” Zhou Mi muttered. “I knew nothing would come out of it.”
“But you wanted something to come out of it.”
“Doesn’t matter now.” Zhou Mi closed his eyes. “Kyuhyun is off with his father being young and reckless and adventurous-as he should be. He’ll meet someone else, someone who’s right for him.”
“What makes you think you’re not right for him?”
“God, where do I even start?”
Heechul snickered. “You know, that’s the problem with you, Zhou Mi: you think too much. Why don’t you try just letting go of those goddamn emotional restraints you always chain yourself with?”
“What good would that do? Kyuhyun made his choice and left.”
“I know that.” Heechul broke into that beautiful wide all-encompassing grin of his, bitterly reminding Zhou Mi why Han Geng had fallen in love with him in the first place. “But I also know that he’ll be back.”
Sure enough, somewhere on the other side of the world, a young man was making plans.
Kyuhyun adapted well to the life of constant travelling. He loved the constant flow of time as he and his father went from New York to Africa to Brazil to Venice. Places that he had only seen in pictures neatly ripped out from old library books sprang to life right before his very eyes.
He met all kinds of people-from high-class ladies to humble workers to loving parents to careless thugs-and he became well-versed in the many languages of society (his best being ‘Snark & Sarcasm’-he was so fluent he could have taught a graduate school class on it). He learned how to properly use a fork and knife, he knew how to say thank you in twenty different languages, and eventually he even learned that swear words were best used sparsely so as not to devalue their power.
Normally, he would sit on the sidelines in his itchy custom-made suit, watching as his father schmoozed with other business executives and worked his charm. But once in a while, a business executive would go over to talk to him, asking him about his life and future and hopes and dreams and whether he wanted to continue in his father’s footsteps.
Kyuhyun always looked them straight in the eyes, words firm and clear and lacking of any bullshit. “I want to be an editor,” he would say to them, face betraying nothing at their clear expressions of astonished disapproval. “I have been told that I have a knack at knowing what good literature is.”
All in all, his life turned out well, and he was content. But Kyuhyun was selfish, and ‘well’ was not good enough. ‘Well’ was nothing compared to those amazing wonderful few months spent knowing that he loved a man who loved him back just as hard. A man who he still loved, each and every day.
Kyuhyun returned to Korea. In many ways, one could say he never left. The first thing he did was submit his college application to the state university’s admissions office. He was there for the long run. He had seen enough of the world to know it.
His uncles met him at the airport. Heechul was thrilled to see him, Han Geng even more so. Both had requested a day off from their respective jobs to be able to personally welcome their nephew back home. Kyuhyun was embarrassed but touched nonetheless-the fact that they still considered him true family was enough, to be honest.
Once the hugs and kisses and excitement died down, however, Kyuhyun noticed that there was one more person who came to welcome him back, and his mouth went dry.
Zhou Mi had not changed much. He was still tall and elegant and handsome as Kyuhyun had remembered him, with the same brown eyes and perfect hair and long fingers. He had a nervous smile on his face, open and honest and-
Kyuhyun could not stop the face-splitting grin that formed on his face.
(-hopeful.)
epilogue
Kyuhyun swung his backpack over his shoulder and heaved himself off the wooden chairs of the university lecture hall, wincing at the crick in his neck. He made his way out with the other students and bounded out the doors towards his bike.
University was treating Kyuhyun well. He was a smart kid, always had been, and his course load was heavy but manageable. Journalism was indeed a wonderful major, and being an intern at the biggest publishing company in the country certainly did not hurt.
He brushed the hair out of his eyes and stuffed his keys into his pockets. Mounting his bike in one smooth motion, he headed towards town and stopped in front of the bookstore where a placard reading Author Signing was hung. Tilting an eyebrow at the long line-up, he smiled and rummaged through his backpack to pull out his copy of the newly released novel Keychain Boy.
After some unsurprisingly awkward small talk at the airport, it only took two days for Kyuhyun to find the guts to contact Zhou Mi. Unfortunately he only had enough guts to do so via text.
(- still hate teenagers?
- seriously, kyuhyun? you didn’t have the decency to say hi, how are you doing first?
- i’ll take that as a no.
- i hate you)
Zhou Mi made ground rules along the lines of I want to do things right this time, and after breaking the news to Han Geng and Han Li (who, to their credit, took it surprisingly well with the help of a smug-looking Heechul and a bottle of vodka shared between them) they limited themselves to casual lunches and movies nights, doing nothing more than kiss and hold hands.
(Two weeks later, after some obscure moment of truth, they finally looked at each other, made simultaneous fuck thats, and started shagging again. Within that month, Kyuhyun moved into Zhou Mi’s apartment where he promptly made a mess just for old times’ sake.)
The lineup went quickly to Kyuhyun’s relief-he was about to suffocate from the stuffiness of the crowd-and he smiled when the first sight of perfectly combed black hair came into view. There were people all over town who wanted to catch a glimpse of the local celebrity, and Kyuhyun swelled with pride seeing all the young men and women chattering excitedly at the prospect of meeting the successful writer (He’s my boyfriend!, Kyuhyun wanted to scream).
Then an idea overcame him, and he fished out a pen from his pocket.
(A simple I love you was scrawled in small angular writing across the top half of the inner cover page. It made Zhou Mi raise an eyebrow, causing a nervous giggle from Kyuhyun.
After it got signed by the author, there was a reply: I love you, too. But only because you aren’t a teenager anymore. Zhou Mi
Kyuhyun laughed and laughed, and barely managed not to kiss him right there and then.)