{hankyung/heechul} for you, a thousand times over
for you, a thousand times over
hangeng/heechul | pg
three times a stranger with Heechul, and either you’re in for an eternity in the warm, or out forever in the cold.
for you, a thousand times over
It was four months since Hankyung last cooked for Heechul.
He had almost forgotten just how noisy he was; as he watched Heechul drum his chopsticks against the ceramic bowl with childlike impatience, fan his mouth with both hands after swallowing large mouthfuls of hot soup, and breaking out in fits of broken English, ‘hey man, yo yo, what’s up!’ as they clinked their glasses together.
Hankyung didn’t bother to tell him that ‘cheers’ was all that they needed to say.
*
Eight years back, he never found out what drove Heechul to approach him in the first place.
Of all people, pre-debut Hankyung was still engaging in a crude warfare with the Korean language, struggling to hold back those unmanly tears of physical exhaustion, and all the while trying really hard not to think of his mother.
Maybe Heechul was attracted to insecure people.
Or maybe he really did have some form of x-ray vision behind those huge eyeballs of his, able to peel away Hankyung’s many layers of insecurity like an onion.
Because he came to realise that, in Korea, he was only truly himself when he was with Heechul.
*
He was sitting alone on the stairwell just outside of the dance rooms, peeling a spotted banana, when he first saw Heechul.
Now this was one guy who really didn’t belong, in the loosest possible sense of the term. Just like Hankyung tried, however painstakingly, to follow the latest fashion trends, keep his profile low, speak only when spoken to etcetera, etcetera, Heechul was the mirror opposite.
And his tight purple jeans would have been a major giveaway, if it wasn’t for those bejewelled Judy Garland slippers sparkling on his feet everywhere he walked.
Apart from the minor fact that they were blue, as if he was still clutching onto the tethers of some shaken masculinity.
Truthfully, Hankyung had been trying to avoid him for weeks.
He had a certain inkling in his mind that Heechul was following him around, plus a certain sworn brother of his had explicitly informed him that ‘I know he doesn’t know any Chinese, and he swears a lot, but he’s a nice person, honest.’
But Hankyung knew that Siwon didn’t have enough gut flora to reproach Mussolini’s cat, let alone someone like Heechul.
So he stayed away all the same.
Little did he know that once Heechul had his eye on someone, he stuck to it.
*
So he was just sitting there, innocently peeling away at his banana, daydreaming about the colour of the tiles above his head, when he felt a swish of a large white object with blue feet land with a thump beside him.
He dropped his banana in his haste to run away, the fight or flight reflex inside him at once taking control.
But not before several strands of bony white finger pulled him downwards, forcing him to slip over the dropped banana and slide into a relentlessly uncomfortable box split, even for a professional dancer like himself.
He caught flashes of a side grin, and a soft snigger, before straightening himself out quickly, unsticking the bruised banana from his front.
It must have been the first time he had blushed so hard in front of a man.
If you could call Heechul a man, that is, because he had suddenly burst into fitful giggles and leant in closer to whisper, ‘I’ll let you have my banana, if you want.’
If it was a euphemism for something, Hankyung was in no fit state to know.
*
The next time he saw Heechul, he was going over song lyrics with Eunhyuk.
Doubtless the pair of them entertained skills in the dance department, but singing posed a real challenge. Especially to a foreigner like Hankyung, who still hadn’t managed to shrug his Chinese shoulders off a lost identity.
They were sitting in the cafeteria, trying to sing in tune above the din of metallic scraping against plates and the general aura of food, when Heechul came, as if out of nowhere, to settle his tray down with a clang.
‘Clever of you two to sing where no one can hear you,’ he said, smirking, ‘Or are you practising to lip-synch?’
His eyes were on Hankyung all of the time, but it was Eunhyuk who responded.
‘Is that all you’re eating?’ Eunhyuk was pointing to Heechul’s tray, which consisted of a single lemon. Everybody knew better now than to respond to Heechul’s icy tongue.
Heechul followed his gaze, ‘What? I’m on a diet.’
Hankyung heard the word ‘diet’ and inwardly scoffed, if anyone needed a diet, it wasn’t this skinny man sitting in front of him. So much for ‘you are what you eat’; this man was full to the brim with sour lemons.
His disbelief must have seeped onto his face, because Heechul sliced his lemon in half and offered it to him, ‘Here. Want to try some?’
Shaking his head quickly, Hankyung muttered, ‘No-no, thanks,’ before cursing his incoherent babbling and the heat which was, once again, spread over his face.
He found himself constantly blushing in front of this man; and the more he thought about it, the more embarrassed he became, the more he blushed.
It was always a vicious circle wherever Heechul was concerned.
*
For Heechul, the concept of ‘getting to know someone’ was as alien as wings to a silvertip bear. He saw Hankyung a grand total of three times before he decided to cement their relationship.
Three times a stranger with Heechul, and either you’re in for an eternity in the warm, or out forever in the cold. Because first impressions mattered. A lot.
This time Hankyung was watching a sitcom on the settee with Sungmin, munching loudly on an apple. Since the banana incident, he steered well away from potentially squishable fruits. He decided that bananas were far too pathetic to be termed a real fruit anyway.
Heechul was leaning against the windowsill in the same room, cheek glazed upon the cold glass, watching them watching TV.
Hankyung caught himself glancing towards Heechul every few minutes or so, then catching his eye, glancing away again. They kept this up for almost ten minutes, a forward-backward game of visionary tennis, before Sungmin decided enough was enough.
He stalked over to where Heechul stood, still playacting the forlorn victim through a pane of glass, ‘You’re making him feel uncomfortable.’
Heechul grinned, ‘And you too, I guess.’
‘We’re trying to watch the sitcom.’ Sungmin retorted, arms folded tightly against his chest.
‘It’s a no-brainer. Everybody knows what will happen. She’ll die, and he falls back in love with his old flame.’ He motioned towards Hankyung, ‘He can’t understand half of what’s going on anyway.’
Sungmin pursed his lips, but couldn’t think of anything to say to that, and so stomped back to where Hankyung was discreetly placing an apple core onto the arm of the sofa, leaving Heechul alone with his smirk.
After another twenty minutes or so of withdrawn silence, Heechul stood up, walked briskly over to Hankyung, and grabbed his arm with an amazing composure.
‘I’m going to make you Korean.’
Little did Hankyung know that he really meant ‘I’m going to make you mine.’
*
Eight years later, Hankyung was a man torn between two identities. A Chinese with a Korean past, or a Korean with a Chinese history, he no longer knew which.
But that was okay, because if Heechul taught him one thing in the decade of their friendship, it was that he no longer had to choose.
~*~
so
a huge chocolate brownie
goes to the person who knows
which novel the title of this fic
is alluding to
hangeng/heechul | pg
three times a stranger with Heechul, and either you’re in for an eternity in the warm, or out forever in the cold.
for you, a thousand times over
It was four months since Hankyung last cooked for Heechul.
He had almost forgotten just how noisy he was; as he watched Heechul drum his chopsticks against the ceramic bowl with childlike impatience, fan his mouth with both hands after swallowing large mouthfuls of hot soup, and breaking out in fits of broken English, ‘hey man, yo yo, what’s up!’ as they clinked their glasses together.
Hankyung didn’t bother to tell him that ‘cheers’ was all that they needed to say.
*
Eight years back, he never found out what drove Heechul to approach him in the first place.
Of all people, pre-debut Hankyung was still engaging in a crude warfare with the Korean language, struggling to hold back those unmanly tears of physical exhaustion, and all the while trying really hard not to think of his mother.
Maybe Heechul was attracted to insecure people.
Or maybe he really did have some form of x-ray vision behind those huge eyeballs of his, able to peel away Hankyung’s many layers of insecurity like an onion.
Because he came to realise that, in Korea, he was only truly himself when he was with Heechul.
*
He was sitting alone on the stairwell just outside of the dance rooms, peeling a spotted banana, when he first saw Heechul.
Now this was one guy who really didn’t belong, in the loosest possible sense of the term. Just like Hankyung tried, however painstakingly, to follow the latest fashion trends, keep his profile low, speak only when spoken to etcetera, etcetera, Heechul was the mirror opposite.
And his tight purple jeans would have been a major giveaway, if it wasn’t for those bejewelled Judy Garland slippers sparkling on his feet everywhere he walked.
Apart from the minor fact that they were blue, as if he was still clutching onto the tethers of some shaken masculinity.
Truthfully, Hankyung had been trying to avoid him for weeks.
He had a certain inkling in his mind that Heechul was following him around, plus a certain sworn brother of his had explicitly informed him that ‘I know he doesn’t know any Chinese, and he swears a lot, but he’s a nice person, honest.’
But Hankyung knew that Siwon didn’t have enough gut flora to reproach Mussolini’s cat, let alone someone like Heechul.
So he stayed away all the same.
Little did he know that once Heechul had his eye on someone, he stuck to it.
*
So he was just sitting there, innocently peeling away at his banana, daydreaming about the colour of the tiles above his head, when he felt a swish of a large white object with blue feet land with a thump beside him.
He dropped his banana in his haste to run away, the fight or flight reflex inside him at once taking control.
But not before several strands of bony white finger pulled him downwards, forcing him to slip over the dropped banana and slide into a relentlessly uncomfortable box split, even for a professional dancer like himself.
He caught flashes of a side grin, and a soft snigger, before straightening himself out quickly, unsticking the bruised banana from his front.
It must have been the first time he had blushed so hard in front of a man.
If you could call Heechul a man, that is, because he had suddenly burst into fitful giggles and leant in closer to whisper, ‘I’ll let you have my banana, if you want.’
If it was a euphemism for something, Hankyung was in no fit state to know.
*
The next time he saw Heechul, he was going over song lyrics with Eunhyuk.
Doubtless the pair of them entertained skills in the dance department, but singing posed a real challenge. Especially to a foreigner like Hankyung, who still hadn’t managed to shrug his Chinese shoulders off a lost identity.
They were sitting in the cafeteria, trying to sing in tune above the din of metallic scraping against plates and the general aura of food, when Heechul came, as if out of nowhere, to settle his tray down with a clang.
‘Clever of you two to sing where no one can hear you,’ he said, smirking, ‘Or are you practising to lip-synch?’
His eyes were on Hankyung all of the time, but it was Eunhyuk who responded.
‘Is that all you’re eating?’ Eunhyuk was pointing to Heechul’s tray, which consisted of a single lemon. Everybody knew better now than to respond to Heechul’s icy tongue.
Heechul followed his gaze, ‘What? I’m on a diet.’
Hankyung heard the word ‘diet’ and inwardly scoffed, if anyone needed a diet, it wasn’t this skinny man sitting in front of him. So much for ‘you are what you eat’; this man was full to the brim with sour lemons.
His disbelief must have seeped onto his face, because Heechul sliced his lemon in half and offered it to him, ‘Here. Want to try some?’
Shaking his head quickly, Hankyung muttered, ‘No-no, thanks,’ before cursing his incoherent babbling and the heat which was, once again, spread over his face.
He found himself constantly blushing in front of this man; and the more he thought about it, the more embarrassed he became, the more he blushed.
It was always a vicious circle wherever Heechul was concerned.
*
For Heechul, the concept of ‘getting to know someone’ was as alien as wings to a silvertip bear. He saw Hankyung a grand total of three times before he decided to cement their relationship.
Three times a stranger with Heechul, and either you’re in for an eternity in the warm, or out forever in the cold. Because first impressions mattered. A lot.
This time Hankyung was watching a sitcom on the settee with Sungmin, munching loudly on an apple. Since the banana incident, he steered well away from potentially squishable fruits. He decided that bananas were far too pathetic to be termed a real fruit anyway.
Heechul was leaning against the windowsill in the same room, cheek glazed upon the cold glass, watching them watching TV.
Hankyung caught himself glancing towards Heechul every few minutes or so, then catching his eye, glancing away again. They kept this up for almost ten minutes, a forward-backward game of visionary tennis, before Sungmin decided enough was enough.
He stalked over to where Heechul stood, still playacting the forlorn victim through a pane of glass, ‘You’re making him feel uncomfortable.’
Heechul grinned, ‘And you too, I guess.’
‘We’re trying to watch the sitcom.’ Sungmin retorted, arms folded tightly against his chest.
‘It’s a no-brainer. Everybody knows what will happen. She’ll die, and he falls back in love with his old flame.’ He motioned towards Hankyung, ‘He can’t understand half of what’s going on anyway.’
Sungmin pursed his lips, but couldn’t think of anything to say to that, and so stomped back to where Hankyung was discreetly placing an apple core onto the arm of the sofa, leaving Heechul alone with his smirk.
After another twenty minutes or so of withdrawn silence, Heechul stood up, walked briskly over to Hankyung, and grabbed his arm with an amazing composure.
‘I’m going to make you Korean.’
Little did Hankyung know that he really meant ‘I’m going to make you mine.’
*
Eight years later, Hankyung was a man torn between two identities. A Chinese with a Korean past, or a Korean with a Chinese history, he no longer knew which.
But that was okay, because if Heechul taught him one thing in the decade of their friendship, it was that he no longer had to choose.
~*~
so
a huge chocolate brownie
goes to the person who knows
which novel the title of this fic
is alluding to