[Fic] For Always - 18/24
Title: For Always
Author: Coley Merrin
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Zhou Mi/Kyuhyun and Siwon/Hankyung (with possible additions)
Genre: AU. Drama/Romance/Angst/Fluff/The kitchen sink
Summary: The bookstore called "Soulmate" has been the most important thing in Kyuhyun's life. With it, he has built a fortress of brick and page around himself, one that can only be brought down from the inside -- both with love and with danger.
Hankyung has built a life of meaning, but finds no substance in it and lives in dreams. Dreams that, when they materialize, make him question his ability to reach and hold on when he wants nothing less.
***
Chapter One ** Chapter Two ** Chapter Three ** Chapter Four ** Chapter Five ** Chapter Six ** Chapter Seven ** Chapter Eight ** Chapter Nine ** Chapter Ten ** Chapter Eleven ** Chapter Twelve ** Chapter Thirteen ** Chapter Fourteen ** Chapter Fifteen ** Chapter Sixteen ** Chapter Seventeen ** Chapter Eighteen ** Chapter Nineteen
***
Love you Mom, always.
***
Chapter Eighteen
***
The third time he went to Zhou Mi’s apartment to stay, he was so used to Zhou Mi’s presence beside him that the change in location was greatly diminished. He had no idea how it would be if he had been alone. His second trip to Zhou Mi’s apartment had been still hard, but when he had fallen asleep against Zhou Mi’s chest, he had not woken till morning. They spent at least three nights a week together... Sometimes he thought that Zhou Mi held it to that for a reason. So that they did not wrap themselves up too much to be extracted? But he felt no distance between them. Zhou Mi held him just as tenderly, just as tightly.
He was beginning to feel, though, that three nights a week, four, five... Were not enough. He had caught himself more than once reaching for Zhou Mi in the night, only to find his side of the bed empty and cold. Zhou Mi’s things, a pen, a Chinese reference text, had an odd habit of being left on his bedside table. Gone, but not forgotten. And though they ate together almost more often than they did not, had gone to the movies together, read beside each other in bed... Zhou Mi was not excessive with speaking of his feelings, but there was a gaping hole, every time Zhou Mi said “I love you” and knowing he should be speaking to fill it. It caught, somewhere in his chest, and he knew, beyond a doubt, that Zhou Mi could see it.
So even when he lay in Zhou Mi’s bed, attempting to unwind, it haunted him.
“What’s up with you?” he asked, feeling Zhou Mi’s forehead press hard between his neck and shoulder.
“Nothing... I... You’re sure this isn’t a dream?”
His body seemed to relax as he laughed. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure. Who would have a dream like this?”
Zhou Mi sprang up suddenly. “What about... You told me I was in your nightmare once?”
“Yeah, well. It wasn’t quite as much of a nightmare as I let on.”
“Why are you blushing? Did you have a sexy dream about me?”
He shoved Zhou Mi back. “No! You were just talking.”
“Me talking was a nightmare?”
He scooted over, pressing his lips to Zhou Mi’s ear. “It was when you were talking like this. And saying my name.”
“Ahhh,” Zhou Mi said sagely. “It was a sexy dream. What name was I calling you?”
“The only one you ever do.”
“Mmm. Will you tell me about it?”
“I don’t...” Zhou Mi made some kind of pleading noise and he sighed. It wasn’t that embarrassing... Mostly. “We were laying together,” he said, meeting Zhou Mi’s eyes. “You had your arms around me. You were...behind me. Breathing against my neck, my ear... And saying my name. And I didn’t go back to sleep, because I didn’t want to have it again.”
“Would you...If you could now?”
He thought his eyes must have spoken for him, as Zhou Mi kissed him briefly, moving him, rolling him, until Zhou Mi’s arms wrapped tight around him.
“Like this?” he asked against the back of Kyuhyun’s neck.
“Uh. Yes.” He hadn’t mentioned that, the back of his neck, he hadn’t... He gasped as Zhou Mi pressed a gentle kiss, just there where he had spoke, dragging his lips against Kyuhyun’s skin until they were pressed to the side of his neck.
“Did I do this?” Zhou Mi whispered, placing moist kisses along the arched curve of his neck, slowly, easily inching closer to his ear.
Had he? He wondered hazily, as Zhou Mi’s hand traced firm circles over his chest.
“I...I don’t...” He couldn’t finish speaking, Zhou Mi’s lips closing around the lobe of his ear.
He tried to remain unaffected, unmoved, as the shudder rocketed down his spine, breath caught deep in his chest, as heated air blew gently into his ear, a smooth and sensual voice repeating his name, Kui Xian, Kui Xian, over and over until he could not stand it.
He twisted, cutting that voice off with his mouth, a desperate kiss, quicker, deeper, hotter... Taking Zhou Mi totally off guard as they rolled, one of them groaning, possibly both, as all of Kyuhyun’s weight pressed him down. He had no finesse. What was it that Zhou Mi had called it...eagerness? He had all of that. In buckets. His mind was consumed by it.
He panted down at Zhou Mi’s face, Zhou Mi’s eyes wide as he stared up.
“Um,” he said, feeling utterly self conscious somewhere back behind sheer need. “I think I need to dream about you more often.”
He could feel Zhou Mi’s smile more than he could see it. “Next time I’ll tell you one of mine...”
Zhou Mi very gently extracted them from each other, wrapping himself equally as gently around Kyuhyun, breath stirring the hair against his neck. He had fallen asleep so easily... And Kyuhyun’s body still buzzed. Relaxing was not easy to do when the man who inspired that buzz was wrapped so casually to him. Maybe it was too soon, he reasoned. Zhou Mi had every reason to pull away. Zhou Mi had whispered “I love you” again, before he had slept, and the tingles it caused had ended in his lower back.
A thought that had been nagging at him surfaced as he contemplated Zhou Mi’s soft voice. Was Zhou Mi holding back because he had not returned those words? Perhaps in Zhou Mi’s dreams they merely held hands in fields of tulips. Or maybe in Zhou Mi’s dreams they whispered words of love. It was something else entirely to worry about, this, and not about where he was sleeping.
***
“I want the book.”
He jerked, startled. “What? What book?”
“The one you hid from me. Give it to me, Kui Xian, so I can leave. The only things you love are those books, so I have no reason to stay...”
“Zhou Mi, no, that’s not true!” He tried to turn, struggled against the confines of the blanket as Zhou Mi stood and began to walk away. “Please! I swear it’s not true. I do... I...”
“Kyuhyun, where did you put my books? I told you not to play around.”
He gasped, cowered back, when it was not Zhou Mi who turned, but his father, face twisted in anger.
“You know better, Kyuhyun. Where did you put the book?”
“He’s mine! They’re mine. You can’t do this.” The desperation clawed through him, and he reached for the man who wasn’t there. “Zhou Mi... Zhou Mi! Zhou Mi!”
It was the sound of his own voice that jerked him out of sleep, and he swung to the side of the bed, head in his hands as he tried to find control.
This time it wasn’t panic that caused his heart to race, but fear, and something else entirely.
“Zhou Mi!”
He turned, nearly knocking heads with the sleepy-eyed man.
“Kui Xian? Are you okay? Was it a dream?”
He gasped in air, begging his heart to settle. “You’re still here. You’re still here.”
“Of course I am...” Zhou Mi’s arms slipped around him. “What happened, Kui Xian? Can you tell me?”
“You... You turned into my father. I’m sure there’s something symbolic in that.”
“That I would leave?”
“You were leaving. You wanted the book, and if I told you where it was... You said I...” He couldn’t say it and the words were like bile in his mouth. “You said I cared more for the books than I did for you.”
“Well, then you had to know it was a lie. I would never say that.”
“How can you know what I think?”
Zhou Mi set his chin firmly on Kyuhyun’s shoulder. “I know, because you were calling my name. And when you woke up, you reached for me.”
“Ohh.” He tried to will away the chill from his arms, letting Zhou Mi guide him back under the covers.
“Do I still make you happy?” Zhou Mi asked him, face dim and words serious.
“Yes,” he said, voice tight. “Yes.”
“Then I know. Sleep, Kui Xian. I’ll be here to kiss you when you wake up.”
“Before you brush your teeth.”
“See? We have no secrets from each other.”
Besides the secret of why he could not put voice to his love and why Zhou Mi could not touch him, no. There were no secrets.
***
He woke to Zhou Mi’s groan, flinching as a shaft of sunlight, real sunlight, speared across their faces.
“Who said the clouds could go away?” he asked, grumpily trying to bury his face beneath Zhou Mi’s.
Zhou Mi giggled and scooted them down out of the sun’s path.
“I think the sun did.”
“It can take it back. I get plenty of artificial vitamin D from you. I don’t need that.”
Zhou Mi’s hand was stroking between his shoulder blades, and it was doing little to help him stay conscious. But there was a tension in Zhou Mi that he recognized. He was thinking.
“Do you ever regret this?” Zhou Mi asked softly. “Meeting me?”
His life before Zhou Mi flashed before him. Reading alone in the back room on break. Going upstairs to order food, or to make something, just for himself. Sitting on his two-seater couch to watch TV, alone. Spending hours in front of his computer, alone. Curling for warmth in his bed, alone. The chains that held him there so thick and heavy that he felt there would be no escape.
“How could you ask me that?” he asked, horrified. Did he regret being torn from the comfort of his apathy, thrust out there so far that to look back, look down and see where he had been, seemed to him that he was seeing someone else’s life entirely?
If Zhou Mi could ask him that, did that mean that he was the one regretful? And if not that, then what was he doing wrong, that Zhou Mi would think he regretted this?
“I don’t. Why would you think that?” he asked, keeping his eyes steady on Zhou Mi’s though he wanted to turn, hide, look anywhere else.
“All these things that happened... The fire and break in. Hankyung meeting Siwon. Me barging in, and us starting this. So many things for you to deal with.”
“Who stood next to me for all of that?” he asked, nonplussed. “Maybe we weren’t together, but you were there. If you write yourself out of my life the last few months, would I have been babbling at the walls? Would I have left my bedroom? Maybe I’d have come out of it mostly okay eventually. But you helped me. Even when all you did was be there when I looked through the door. And I did look.”
He leaned his face into Zhou Mi’s hand, breathing for a long moment.
“That sunbeam blinded me because I was laying in it. But who really regrets the sun?”
“It can burn,” Zhou Mi said.
“That’s why it’s precious.” What were they talking about, exactly? “Do you regret me?”
He expected shock or horror. He didn’t really expect tears. They sprang into Zhou Mi’s eyes so quickly that at first he thought he must have imagined them.
“No! No. Is that why you thought I asked? I could never regret you. Do you believe me when I say I love you? You have to believe me, Kui Xian.”
“I do believe you. I can’t not believe you. Please.”
The bed dipped further between them as their bodies came together. He could hear soft sounds from Zhou Mi as they kissed, almost imperceptible whimpers as though he were expressing his sincerity that way somehow. It made him want to smile to hear it, when he realized that he was answering them, tiny sounds that puffed against Zhou Mi’s lips.
He laughed, a full, soul-releasing laugh as Zhou Mi kissed a quick line straight up the ridge of his nose. And his quick hands sent Zhou Mi into spasms against him, laughing as Kyuhyun tickled him. Just that moment was enough. He could see the happiness back in Zhou Mi’s eyes, in his smile as his hair was stroked.
“Look at you, Kui Xian. The only problem I find in you is that no matter how long I’m with you, I want more. More time, more kisses. It scares me sometimes how much I want you. How much I want you to...”
To want him back. To love him back. He did. He did.
“Zhou Mi.” He paused, breathed as he met the still-damp eyes. “I...”
The silence spun out between then.
Zhou Mi kissed him gently. “I know, Kui Xian. I know.”
Did he? Could he? He kissed back, this time not expecting, not asking for, any more than Zhou Mi was willing to offer. He focused instead on the pressure and warmth of Zhou Mi’s fingers against the back of his neck, the glide and give and almost gilded joy the kiss brought.
Until his phone began to buzz, letting them know it was time to get up. He didn’t bother reaching for it, spending just one more moment to sigh against Zhou Mi’s neck.
***
Henry didn’t question when Donghae showed up to class with a duffle bag in addition to his school bag. It was the weekend, two days of relative freedom. The first two days he had off without work or school in.... He tried to remember all through the last five minutes of class, drawing a idle line across the top of his paper as he phased out of the lecture.
The scrape of chairs on the floor was his first indication that class had ended, that and Donghae yanking him up out of his chair.
“Get your stuff together. We have to go!”
He shoved his notebook and pen into his bag, dragged out immediately by the arm.
“Where are we going in such a hurry?”
“The train station...” Donghae said, dumping Henry and all their bags into the back of a taxi clearly waiting just for them.
“What?”
Donghae sighed, relaxing back against the seat as they sped toward their destination. But he grinned.
“We’re going to the ocean.”
Donghae hadn’t been kidding, shuttling him to the ticket counter and to the train (which they caught just minutes before it left).
“Why are we going?” he asked Donghae, who shrugged.
“I wanted to go... Did you have anything else to do?”
It would have been hard to have said yes, considering they were already on the train, and Donghae’s eyes were tinted with sadness.
“I haven’t been the ocean in a long time. I’m excited,” he said.
Donghae’s grin made him feel considerably better. For some reason, he had wondered if they were running from something. If Donghae was in trouble and needed to hide. He considered asking if Donghae’s “uncle” knew where he was going, but decided against it. Donghae seemed very careful in that respect. There was no way he would leave unannounced. Still, it gave him prickles in the back of his neck when he was walking alone, and every time Donghae whispered to him to be safe.
They left their things in a tiny hotel room, walking together to the nearly-deserted beach. The sun was just beginning to sink below the horizon, and their coats were tight around them in protection against any night breezes.
Donghae was quiet, not touching Henry as he usually would have. At least until their shoes sank into the sand, and his hand was gripped tightly.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, frowning as he stared at Donghae’s frozen profile. The low sun sent shadows streaking across the sand, and it lit Donghae’s face.
“I used to come here with my dad,” Donghae said after a moment. “Before he died.”
His chest tightened. It was something that was wrong, but nothing that he could fix. Nothing at all that he could do.
“I’m sorry. Was it... How long ago did you lose him?”
“Two years. Two years today. He was sick for a while. He spent a long time in the hospital, and the bills... The bills were nothing to wanting to see him better.”
He stepped closer, wrapping his arms around Donghae, feeling him lay his head on his shoulder.
“I’m sorry. I’ve never lost someone like that. I can’t imagine what that feels like.”
“Sometimes it’s like there’s a hole in me. But... To be somewhere he loved, to do something he loved. It’s like he’s still with me.”
And Donghae was sharing this here, with him. The memories of his father. The place they had shared.
“Thank you,” he whispered into Donghae’s hair. “Because he was your father, he must have been a good man. I...I love you.”
Donghae squeezed him tighter.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean... I should have told you before we came.”
“You needed this?”
Donghae nodded against him.
“Then it’s okay. We’ll have a good time this weekend, won’t we? He’d have liked that?”
Donghae laughed. “Yes. He’d have loved that.”
They stood together until the sun was almost gone, and Donghae's breathing had calmed.
“Where should we eat?”
“I know a good place,” Donghae said, stepping back to wipe any traces of his tears away. Their hands didn’t part though, not even when they entered the tiny little restaurant, almost hidden from the street. A place he had surely eaten together with his dad, tiny and homey with a kind woman who brought them an almost endless supply of food and sent them away with more.
Donghae told him stories of his childhood, stories of happy times. None of the fights with hospital staff, or sleepless nights, or worries about money touched that celebration dinner.
They froze in the cold ocean water the next morning, spent the afternoon with steaming cups of tea, wrapped together in the hotel spread as they stared over the city skyline. On their last day, the breakfasted in an open air cafe, daring each other to try the most outlandish thing they could imagine. And on their way home, they stopped halfway in a city they had never been, just to say they had.
Probably, if he had to pick, it was one of the best weekends of his life.
***
When he woke, days later, to his second nightmare in a week, he reached for Zhou Mi. But the bed was empty but for him in it. Zhou Mi had shouted hateful things in his dream, pushing him, leaving him. Just hours before, Zhou Mi had kissed him before leaving to go home, and he tried desperately to reconcile the two in his head.
Zhou Mi loved him. Zhou Mi was still with him, even if he wasn’t there.
He heroically tried to relax, grabbing Zhou Mi’s pillow as an anchor. After five minutes of that, he gave in, and reached for his phone.
“Kui Xian!” Zhou Mi sang at him.
“Were you still awake?”
“Yeah! I was using your toothbrush,” Zhou Mi teased.
“You’d better not be,” he said, attempting to be threatening and failing.
“Are you okay? You sound strange.”
“It’s stupid. Another nightmare. I... This is so stupid.”
“Oh. Kui Xian.” Zhou Mi’s voice softened noticeably, and just that began to loosen the knot inside him. “Do you want me to come over?”
“No, I just... Can we just talk a while? I’m not that codependent. I can sleep on my own.”
“Are you... You can talk to me all you want, Kui Xian. Can I just... Can I call you back in a few minutes?”
“Sure. You know, I’m probably okay now. I just...”
“I’ll call you back.”
He all but cradled the phone to the side of his face, waiting for it to ring. It was ridiculous, laying here like this, staring at the empty half of the bed, Zhou Mi’s side of the bed, and feeling it be empty. Before it had just been all that empty space he could sprawl out in. Now he felt like he was intruding. He could just barely, faintly smell something on the pillow. But since Zhou Mi had used his shampoo, it wasn’t much different than smelling his own pillow. Except he knew. Knew Zhou Mi’s head had been there.
He jumped as the phone rang.
“Hey,” he said, smiling as he heard Zhou Mi chuckle.
“Hi,” Zhou Mi said softly, as if he were out of breath. “Did you want to tell me about the dream?”
“It’s stupid. I know you’re still there. At least my father wasn’t in it this time. What am I, five? I haven’t had to be comforted from a nightmare in years.”
“It’s not stupid. You have a lot on your mind, don’t you? I wish you didn’t have to worry about me on top of all of everything.”
“So I’m having nightmares about losing you because I don’t know what else to dream about? Thanks.”
“I guess it’s better than worse things.”
“What could be worse?”
“Oh. Kui Xian.”
Kyuhyun jerked as a loud sound echoed through the phone’s speakers.
“Was that... Was that a car door?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you...?”
He heard Zhou Mi’s breath whoosh out of him, as though he were rapidly climbing stairs.
He fought his way out of the blankets, nearly tripping over a stand on his way to the door.
He hung up the phone as he yanked the door open, and there was Zhou Mi, a sweet smile on his face as he stepped into the apartment.
“Hey.”
Zhou Mi’s coat wasn’t even buttoned, and he was cold from the cool air of the car and the outside.
“You’re in your pajamas,” he said, shocked when he saw the brightly patterned and clearly too thin for the cold pants.
“I thought you needed me more than I needed pants. Besides, who’d see at this hour?”
“At least you have shoes.”
Though he had to grin as he hung up Zhou Mi’s coat, to see he didn’t have socks on with them. Zhou Mi pulled him close, wrapping him tight in his arms.
“I had to hang up long enough to find my car keys and my brain. You told me you didn’t want me to come, but you said it like, well no I didn’t have to, but you’d like it if I did.”
“I could have come to you, you know. If I really needed...”
“You’re not weak to want me close, Kui Xian. I want you to want me close. It makes me happy. It makes me feel really... like I can do something for you. I love you.”
Zhou Mi kissed him, softly, sweetly, and he tasted mint.
“Ah, you really were brushing your teeth when I called.”
“Yeah. But I was using mine, not yours.”
“I don’t care. I really don’t care. You can use mine whenever. I’ll expect compensation.”
Zhou Mi whispered something against his lips.
“What was that?”
“It means...darling.”
“You’ll teach me that, when I’m awake?”
“Of course.”
They warmed themselves together beneath the covers, speaking of Kyuhyun’s nightmare only on Zhou Mi’s insistence. It did not matter that he could not see Zhou Mi well with the light off, but he could feel him, hear him.
He fell asleep with his neck over Zhou Mi’s arm. He woke with the muscles there slightly stiff, but he had slept through the night with a sense of peace.
Darling, he thought, seeing Zhou Mi’s sleeping face. Yes.
He moved in closer, pressing his lips to Zhou Mi’s, nudging into the groan. He stroked Zhou Mi’s neck until he felt him waking, beginning to kiss back. Their legs were tangling, ankles rubbing together.
One kiss dissolved into two, then three, the last so slow and languid...
“Hey,” Zhou Mi said with a pout in his voice. “I know I’m not very interesting, but falling asleep while kissing me is a little much.”
“Sorry,” he said, curling his body closer and pressing open mouthed kisses to Zhou Mi’s face.
The fourth kiss was something neither of them could have slept through, until Zhou Mi pushed back with a laughing gasp.
“I should get going.”
He sent Zhou Mi off moderately dressed, the pants were still just a bit short, but it was better than him wandering home still dressed in his pajamas. And he was uncomfortably aware that Zhou Mi had, again, stopped them before the kissing could get anywhere near out of control, as though there was an “off” switch that he couldn’t get beyond.
***
He spent hours considering it, weighing every smile from Zhou Mi, every touch, every hug. The budding spontaneity of touching was waning slightly, as he wondered if that would be the time that Zhou Mi pulled away even from that.
Zhou Mi had come into the store that morning with a bag, with his clothes, and a hopeful smile. As though Kyuhyun would tell him no.
“I’ll take it up on break,” he said, nodding at the bag. “Good morning.”
“Good morning, Kui Xian.”
Normally, he would have followed Zhou Mi back, asking for a hug, a kiss. It pained him to stand there, staring at his clipboard, imagining Zhou Mi putting down his things.
A throat cleared, and he looked up. Tingles raced over his shoulders, his back, to see Zhou Mi standing in the doorway, a soft smile on his face. The clipboard was put down with a clatter, in Zhou Mi’s arms before they fully made it beyond the door. Zhou Mi walked them back a ways, away from the possibility of any curious eyes.
“Now it’s a good morning,” Zhou Mi said, kissing Kyuhyun’s ear.
He breathed in, nearly shuddered when he caught a whiff of the cologne that had driven him crazy. That cologne. He pressed his nose into the fabric on Zhou Mi’s shoulder to protect himself from it. He swallowed the moan, and backed up.
“That’s about all the time I have for you. Work...”
He let his arms stay limp as Zhou Mi leaned in close to kiss him. He had had coffee before he arrived. He could smell that, too. All he wanted to do was lean forward and kiss him again. But he stepped back.
“See you in a while?” he said, smiling so that Zhou Mi did not think he was mad. He was far from mad.
“Okay.”
“Oh... Want to go out to lunch today?”
The grin was worth a thousand offers.
***
It was not a plan so much as desperation. And even then, he felt very secure in what he was doing. Being discontent to see Zhou Mi leave to go home, seeing how quickly he had come when he thought Kyuhyun needed him... In a perfect place, perhaps they could go on as they had. Zhou Mi had been unwilling to let go of his hand all through lunch, which had been awkward, their hands and arms snaking across the table while they ate. It wasn’t just him. Zhou Mi needed him as much as he needed Zhou Mi. Then why did they keep meeting at odds with each other?
They never talked of Zhou Mi’s plans. How temporary was his research, how quickly might he go.
With a fair amount of squishing and a lot of disregard for comfort, they both managed to be horizontal on Kyuhyun’s small couch at once. Feet and legs dangled awkwardly over one arm, while the other was their pillow. And if they didn’t hold onto each other, then he was the one on the floor.
“Thanks for letting me come to stay tonight,” Zhou Mi told him, nudging their noses together.
He inhaled. Here it was.
“I don’t want you coming here to stay any more,” Kyuhyun told him.
Zhou Mi’s eyes widened in shock. “What? Why? Is it because I didn’t ask to come over last time? I will, Kui Xian. I’m sorry for...”
“No!” he nearly shouted, realizing Zhou Mi had misunderstood him. “I mean, when we stay together... Do you like it better, sleeping at your place? Do you sleep better there?”
“I don’t mind either way… I sleep fine wherever.” He peered at Kyuhyun with a frown. “Why?
“Then I want to stay at your place and not here. I... You know I like sleeping next to you. I like needing that more than needing to be here. It’s different. Means I can change.”
“Oh.” Zhou Mi’s eyes softened. “You’re so strong.”
“Not that again.”
“So you... You’ll come stay with me.”
“If you wanted,” he answered a bit too shyly for comfort. “I don’t know how it’d be, with me, but I’d like to?”
“You are any time welcome!” Zhou Mi rocked them a little bit, arm tight around Kyuhyun. “Ah, Kui Xian in my apartment… The thought makes me happy.”
“Even if you get no sleep?”
“If it means you are there, we’ll try together.”
He smiled in acceptance of that. He had other reasons for wanting to follow Zhou Mi to his place. He wanted that, a tie outside of this room, outside of this building. If it meant that he would sleep at Zhou Mi’s every night, then he would do it. He would exist to Zhou Mi away from the books. Maybe then, he could let himself belong to something else, someone else, as well.
“I’m going to have to buy furniture,” Zhou Mi said suddenly, eyes widening.
“You should take some of mine.”
“I couldn’t... Do you have extra somewhere? What would you use?”
He shrugged, rolling his neck against Zhou Mi’s arm. “I don’t think missing my kitchen table and chairs would kill me.”
“Do you come with them?”
“Do you want me to?” he asked, smiling. Here it was. The question.
Zhou Mi jerked in understanding, nearly sent Kyuhyun toppling off of the cushions.
“I’m not joking, Kui Xian.”
“Neither am I. I’ll get used to staying over really quickly if I’m there all the time...”
Zhou Mi’s face was amazing as the thought trickled in, wide eyed and desperately trying to process. What he saw in Kyuhyun’s face must have convinced him that it wasn’t a joke. It was far from a joke.
“You’ll make me get up early every morning, won’t you?”
“Yeah,” he said against Zhou Mi’s mouth. “But you’ll get used to that, too.”
“I... Didn’t ask you. I didn’t know you would...”
A tiny trickle of apprehension trickled in. Perhaps he liked living alone. Though the sparseness of the apartment showed just how much Zhou Mi had invested in it, so that was a stupid thought, and this was Zhou Mi, when he would ask for nothing else, asked to cuddle. And though he had suggested it, he hadn’t really asked Zhou Mi, after all. Sure, he might seem enthusiastic about it, but...
“Are you okay with it? I mean, I’m okay if you’d rather I just visit, I...”
“No!” Zhou Mi nearly shouted, gripping Kyuhyun’s face with both hands. “You offered. You are not allowed to back out now. I’ll clean out drawers. I’ll move stuff out of the closet.” He paused, eyes glazed. “You’re moving in. With me.”
Kyuhyun laughed as they nearly rolled off of the cushions as Zhou Mi spastically celebrated, flailing like a girl who’d just touched the hand of her idol. “I’ve never see anyone so happy about cleaning out drawers. I just have one demand.”
“What’s that?” Zhou Mi asked, breathless with his enthusiasm. “Anything.”
He crooked his knee, where their legs hung awkwardly over the edge of the armrest.
“We have to buy you a real couch,” he said, and was squeezed as Zhou Mi laughed with him.
“Agreed. I love you, Kui Xian. Thank you for being with me.”
I love you, too, he thought, kissing Zhou Mi instead of answering. And I’m so sorry I can’t tell you, sorry I can’t trust you with that, sorry you don’t know how much I need you.
He wasn’t so broken that he would do anything Zhou Mi wanted just to hold onto him. But the fear was so big, it strangled him.
“Kui Xian?”
“Hm?”
“While I have time... I was hoping to visit my family for a little while.”
“Okay.” That made sense. He hadn’t seen his family, who he was clearly close to, in a while. Would he be able to stay in Zhou Mi’s apartment by himself? The idea was intriguing. He thought that he could. The problem wouldn’t be so much sleeping there alone as it would be missing Zhou Mi. “How long is a little while?”
“A week? Long enough to get a good visit in. Kui Xian...” Zhou Mi stroked his hair, smiling a little. “Would you go with me?”
His lungs expanded with his brain. What? Go to China with Zhou Mi, meet his parents, his grandparents? Be introduced as “Kui Xian, the one with the books I couldn’t get away from.” All the appraising eyes, the unfamiliar language.
“What?” he squeaked out. China?
***
Author: Coley Merrin
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Zhou Mi/Kyuhyun and Siwon/Hankyung (with possible additions)
Genre: AU. Drama/Romance/Angst/Fluff/The kitchen sink
Summary: The bookstore called "Soulmate" has been the most important thing in Kyuhyun's life. With it, he has built a fortress of brick and page around himself, one that can only be brought down from the inside -- both with love and with danger.
Hankyung has built a life of meaning, but finds no substance in it and lives in dreams. Dreams that, when they materialize, make him question his ability to reach and hold on when he wants nothing less.
***
Chapter One ** Chapter Two ** Chapter Three ** Chapter Four ** Chapter Five ** Chapter Six ** Chapter Seven ** Chapter Eight ** Chapter Nine ** Chapter Ten ** Chapter Eleven ** Chapter Twelve ** Chapter Thirteen ** Chapter Fourteen ** Chapter Fifteen ** Chapter Sixteen ** Chapter Seventeen ** Chapter Eighteen ** Chapter Nineteen
***
Love you Mom, always.
***
Chapter Eighteen
***
The third time he went to Zhou Mi’s apartment to stay, he was so used to Zhou Mi’s presence beside him that the change in location was greatly diminished. He had no idea how it would be if he had been alone. His second trip to Zhou Mi’s apartment had been still hard, but when he had fallen asleep against Zhou Mi’s chest, he had not woken till morning. They spent at least three nights a week together... Sometimes he thought that Zhou Mi held it to that for a reason. So that they did not wrap themselves up too much to be extracted? But he felt no distance between them. Zhou Mi held him just as tenderly, just as tightly.
He was beginning to feel, though, that three nights a week, four, five... Were not enough. He had caught himself more than once reaching for Zhou Mi in the night, only to find his side of the bed empty and cold. Zhou Mi’s things, a pen, a Chinese reference text, had an odd habit of being left on his bedside table. Gone, but not forgotten. And though they ate together almost more often than they did not, had gone to the movies together, read beside each other in bed... Zhou Mi was not excessive with speaking of his feelings, but there was a gaping hole, every time Zhou Mi said “I love you” and knowing he should be speaking to fill it. It caught, somewhere in his chest, and he knew, beyond a doubt, that Zhou Mi could see it.
So even when he lay in Zhou Mi’s bed, attempting to unwind, it haunted him.
“What’s up with you?” he asked, feeling Zhou Mi’s forehead press hard between his neck and shoulder.
“Nothing... I... You’re sure this isn’t a dream?”
His body seemed to relax as he laughed. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure. Who would have a dream like this?”
Zhou Mi sprang up suddenly. “What about... You told me I was in your nightmare once?”
“Yeah, well. It wasn’t quite as much of a nightmare as I let on.”
“Why are you blushing? Did you have a sexy dream about me?”
He shoved Zhou Mi back. “No! You were just talking.”
“Me talking was a nightmare?”
He scooted over, pressing his lips to Zhou Mi’s ear. “It was when you were talking like this. And saying my name.”
“Ahhh,” Zhou Mi said sagely. “It was a sexy dream. What name was I calling you?”
“The only one you ever do.”
“Mmm. Will you tell me about it?”
“I don’t...” Zhou Mi made some kind of pleading noise and he sighed. It wasn’t that embarrassing... Mostly. “We were laying together,” he said, meeting Zhou Mi’s eyes. “You had your arms around me. You were...behind me. Breathing against my neck, my ear... And saying my name. And I didn’t go back to sleep, because I didn’t want to have it again.”
“Would you...If you could now?”
He thought his eyes must have spoken for him, as Zhou Mi kissed him briefly, moving him, rolling him, until Zhou Mi’s arms wrapped tight around him.
“Like this?” he asked against the back of Kyuhyun’s neck.
“Uh. Yes.” He hadn’t mentioned that, the back of his neck, he hadn’t... He gasped as Zhou Mi pressed a gentle kiss, just there where he had spoke, dragging his lips against Kyuhyun’s skin until they were pressed to the side of his neck.
“Did I do this?” Zhou Mi whispered, placing moist kisses along the arched curve of his neck, slowly, easily inching closer to his ear.
Had he? He wondered hazily, as Zhou Mi’s hand traced firm circles over his chest.
“I...I don’t...” He couldn’t finish speaking, Zhou Mi’s lips closing around the lobe of his ear.
He tried to remain unaffected, unmoved, as the shudder rocketed down his spine, breath caught deep in his chest, as heated air blew gently into his ear, a smooth and sensual voice repeating his name, Kui Xian, Kui Xian, over and over until he could not stand it.
He twisted, cutting that voice off with his mouth, a desperate kiss, quicker, deeper, hotter... Taking Zhou Mi totally off guard as they rolled, one of them groaning, possibly both, as all of Kyuhyun’s weight pressed him down. He had no finesse. What was it that Zhou Mi had called it...eagerness? He had all of that. In buckets. His mind was consumed by it.
He panted down at Zhou Mi’s face, Zhou Mi’s eyes wide as he stared up.
“Um,” he said, feeling utterly self conscious somewhere back behind sheer need. “I think I need to dream about you more often.”
He could feel Zhou Mi’s smile more than he could see it. “Next time I’ll tell you one of mine...”
Zhou Mi very gently extracted them from each other, wrapping himself equally as gently around Kyuhyun, breath stirring the hair against his neck. He had fallen asleep so easily... And Kyuhyun’s body still buzzed. Relaxing was not easy to do when the man who inspired that buzz was wrapped so casually to him. Maybe it was too soon, he reasoned. Zhou Mi had every reason to pull away. Zhou Mi had whispered “I love you” again, before he had slept, and the tingles it caused had ended in his lower back.
A thought that had been nagging at him surfaced as he contemplated Zhou Mi’s soft voice. Was Zhou Mi holding back because he had not returned those words? Perhaps in Zhou Mi’s dreams they merely held hands in fields of tulips. Or maybe in Zhou Mi’s dreams they whispered words of love. It was something else entirely to worry about, this, and not about where he was sleeping.
***
“I want the book.”
He jerked, startled. “What? What book?”
“The one you hid from me. Give it to me, Kui Xian, so I can leave. The only things you love are those books, so I have no reason to stay...”
“Zhou Mi, no, that’s not true!” He tried to turn, struggled against the confines of the blanket as Zhou Mi stood and began to walk away. “Please! I swear it’s not true. I do... I...”
“Kyuhyun, where did you put my books? I told you not to play around.”
He gasped, cowered back, when it was not Zhou Mi who turned, but his father, face twisted in anger.
“You know better, Kyuhyun. Where did you put the book?”
“He’s mine! They’re mine. You can’t do this.” The desperation clawed through him, and he reached for the man who wasn’t there. “Zhou Mi... Zhou Mi! Zhou Mi!”
It was the sound of his own voice that jerked him out of sleep, and he swung to the side of the bed, head in his hands as he tried to find control.
This time it wasn’t panic that caused his heart to race, but fear, and something else entirely.
“Zhou Mi!”
He turned, nearly knocking heads with the sleepy-eyed man.
“Kui Xian? Are you okay? Was it a dream?”
He gasped in air, begging his heart to settle. “You’re still here. You’re still here.”
“Of course I am...” Zhou Mi’s arms slipped around him. “What happened, Kui Xian? Can you tell me?”
“You... You turned into my father. I’m sure there’s something symbolic in that.”
“That I would leave?”
“You were leaving. You wanted the book, and if I told you where it was... You said I...” He couldn’t say it and the words were like bile in his mouth. “You said I cared more for the books than I did for you.”
“Well, then you had to know it was a lie. I would never say that.”
“How can you know what I think?”
Zhou Mi set his chin firmly on Kyuhyun’s shoulder. “I know, because you were calling my name. And when you woke up, you reached for me.”
“Ohh.” He tried to will away the chill from his arms, letting Zhou Mi guide him back under the covers.
“Do I still make you happy?” Zhou Mi asked him, face dim and words serious.
“Yes,” he said, voice tight. “Yes.”
“Then I know. Sleep, Kui Xian. I’ll be here to kiss you when you wake up.”
“Before you brush your teeth.”
“See? We have no secrets from each other.”
Besides the secret of why he could not put voice to his love and why Zhou Mi could not touch him, no. There were no secrets.
***
He woke to Zhou Mi’s groan, flinching as a shaft of sunlight, real sunlight, speared across their faces.
“Who said the clouds could go away?” he asked, grumpily trying to bury his face beneath Zhou Mi’s.
Zhou Mi giggled and scooted them down out of the sun’s path.
“I think the sun did.”
“It can take it back. I get plenty of artificial vitamin D from you. I don’t need that.”
Zhou Mi’s hand was stroking between his shoulder blades, and it was doing little to help him stay conscious. But there was a tension in Zhou Mi that he recognized. He was thinking.
“Do you ever regret this?” Zhou Mi asked softly. “Meeting me?”
His life before Zhou Mi flashed before him. Reading alone in the back room on break. Going upstairs to order food, or to make something, just for himself. Sitting on his two-seater couch to watch TV, alone. Spending hours in front of his computer, alone. Curling for warmth in his bed, alone. The chains that held him there so thick and heavy that he felt there would be no escape.
“How could you ask me that?” he asked, horrified. Did he regret being torn from the comfort of his apathy, thrust out there so far that to look back, look down and see where he had been, seemed to him that he was seeing someone else’s life entirely?
If Zhou Mi could ask him that, did that mean that he was the one regretful? And if not that, then what was he doing wrong, that Zhou Mi would think he regretted this?
“I don’t. Why would you think that?” he asked, keeping his eyes steady on Zhou Mi’s though he wanted to turn, hide, look anywhere else.
“All these things that happened... The fire and break in. Hankyung meeting Siwon. Me barging in, and us starting this. So many things for you to deal with.”
“Who stood next to me for all of that?” he asked, nonplussed. “Maybe we weren’t together, but you were there. If you write yourself out of my life the last few months, would I have been babbling at the walls? Would I have left my bedroom? Maybe I’d have come out of it mostly okay eventually. But you helped me. Even when all you did was be there when I looked through the door. And I did look.”
He leaned his face into Zhou Mi’s hand, breathing for a long moment.
“That sunbeam blinded me because I was laying in it. But who really regrets the sun?”
“It can burn,” Zhou Mi said.
“That’s why it’s precious.” What were they talking about, exactly? “Do you regret me?”
He expected shock or horror. He didn’t really expect tears. They sprang into Zhou Mi’s eyes so quickly that at first he thought he must have imagined them.
“No! No. Is that why you thought I asked? I could never regret you. Do you believe me when I say I love you? You have to believe me, Kui Xian.”
“I do believe you. I can’t not believe you. Please.”
The bed dipped further between them as their bodies came together. He could hear soft sounds from Zhou Mi as they kissed, almost imperceptible whimpers as though he were expressing his sincerity that way somehow. It made him want to smile to hear it, when he realized that he was answering them, tiny sounds that puffed against Zhou Mi’s lips.
He laughed, a full, soul-releasing laugh as Zhou Mi kissed a quick line straight up the ridge of his nose. And his quick hands sent Zhou Mi into spasms against him, laughing as Kyuhyun tickled him. Just that moment was enough. He could see the happiness back in Zhou Mi’s eyes, in his smile as his hair was stroked.
“Look at you, Kui Xian. The only problem I find in you is that no matter how long I’m with you, I want more. More time, more kisses. It scares me sometimes how much I want you. How much I want you to...”
To want him back. To love him back. He did. He did.
“Zhou Mi.” He paused, breathed as he met the still-damp eyes. “I...”
The silence spun out between then.
Zhou Mi kissed him gently. “I know, Kui Xian. I know.”
Did he? Could he? He kissed back, this time not expecting, not asking for, any more than Zhou Mi was willing to offer. He focused instead on the pressure and warmth of Zhou Mi’s fingers against the back of his neck, the glide and give and almost gilded joy the kiss brought.
Until his phone began to buzz, letting them know it was time to get up. He didn’t bother reaching for it, spending just one more moment to sigh against Zhou Mi’s neck.
***
Henry didn’t question when Donghae showed up to class with a duffle bag in addition to his school bag. It was the weekend, two days of relative freedom. The first two days he had off without work or school in.... He tried to remember all through the last five minutes of class, drawing a idle line across the top of his paper as he phased out of the lecture.
The scrape of chairs on the floor was his first indication that class had ended, that and Donghae yanking him up out of his chair.
“Get your stuff together. We have to go!”
He shoved his notebook and pen into his bag, dragged out immediately by the arm.
“Where are we going in such a hurry?”
“The train station...” Donghae said, dumping Henry and all their bags into the back of a taxi clearly waiting just for them.
“What?”
Donghae sighed, relaxing back against the seat as they sped toward their destination. But he grinned.
“We’re going to the ocean.”
Donghae hadn’t been kidding, shuttling him to the ticket counter and to the train (which they caught just minutes before it left).
“Why are we going?” he asked Donghae, who shrugged.
“I wanted to go... Did you have anything else to do?”
It would have been hard to have said yes, considering they were already on the train, and Donghae’s eyes were tinted with sadness.
“I haven’t been the ocean in a long time. I’m excited,” he said.
Donghae’s grin made him feel considerably better. For some reason, he had wondered if they were running from something. If Donghae was in trouble and needed to hide. He considered asking if Donghae’s “uncle” knew where he was going, but decided against it. Donghae seemed very careful in that respect. There was no way he would leave unannounced. Still, it gave him prickles in the back of his neck when he was walking alone, and every time Donghae whispered to him to be safe.
They left their things in a tiny hotel room, walking together to the nearly-deserted beach. The sun was just beginning to sink below the horizon, and their coats were tight around them in protection against any night breezes.
Donghae was quiet, not touching Henry as he usually would have. At least until their shoes sank into the sand, and his hand was gripped tightly.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, frowning as he stared at Donghae’s frozen profile. The low sun sent shadows streaking across the sand, and it lit Donghae’s face.
“I used to come here with my dad,” Donghae said after a moment. “Before he died.”
His chest tightened. It was something that was wrong, but nothing that he could fix. Nothing at all that he could do.
“I’m sorry. Was it... How long ago did you lose him?”
“Two years. Two years today. He was sick for a while. He spent a long time in the hospital, and the bills... The bills were nothing to wanting to see him better.”
He stepped closer, wrapping his arms around Donghae, feeling him lay his head on his shoulder.
“I’m sorry. I’ve never lost someone like that. I can’t imagine what that feels like.”
“Sometimes it’s like there’s a hole in me. But... To be somewhere he loved, to do something he loved. It’s like he’s still with me.”
And Donghae was sharing this here, with him. The memories of his father. The place they had shared.
“Thank you,” he whispered into Donghae’s hair. “Because he was your father, he must have been a good man. I...I love you.”
Donghae squeezed him tighter.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean... I should have told you before we came.”
“You needed this?”
Donghae nodded against him.
“Then it’s okay. We’ll have a good time this weekend, won’t we? He’d have liked that?”
Donghae laughed. “Yes. He’d have loved that.”
They stood together until the sun was almost gone, and Donghae's breathing had calmed.
“Where should we eat?”
“I know a good place,” Donghae said, stepping back to wipe any traces of his tears away. Their hands didn’t part though, not even when they entered the tiny little restaurant, almost hidden from the street. A place he had surely eaten together with his dad, tiny and homey with a kind woman who brought them an almost endless supply of food and sent them away with more.
Donghae told him stories of his childhood, stories of happy times. None of the fights with hospital staff, or sleepless nights, or worries about money touched that celebration dinner.
They froze in the cold ocean water the next morning, spent the afternoon with steaming cups of tea, wrapped together in the hotel spread as they stared over the city skyline. On their last day, the breakfasted in an open air cafe, daring each other to try the most outlandish thing they could imagine. And on their way home, they stopped halfway in a city they had never been, just to say they had.
Probably, if he had to pick, it was one of the best weekends of his life.
***
When he woke, days later, to his second nightmare in a week, he reached for Zhou Mi. But the bed was empty but for him in it. Zhou Mi had shouted hateful things in his dream, pushing him, leaving him. Just hours before, Zhou Mi had kissed him before leaving to go home, and he tried desperately to reconcile the two in his head.
Zhou Mi loved him. Zhou Mi was still with him, even if he wasn’t there.
He heroically tried to relax, grabbing Zhou Mi’s pillow as an anchor. After five minutes of that, he gave in, and reached for his phone.
“Kui Xian!” Zhou Mi sang at him.
“Were you still awake?”
“Yeah! I was using your toothbrush,” Zhou Mi teased.
“You’d better not be,” he said, attempting to be threatening and failing.
“Are you okay? You sound strange.”
“It’s stupid. Another nightmare. I... This is so stupid.”
“Oh. Kui Xian.” Zhou Mi’s voice softened noticeably, and just that began to loosen the knot inside him. “Do you want me to come over?”
“No, I just... Can we just talk a while? I’m not that codependent. I can sleep on my own.”
“Are you... You can talk to me all you want, Kui Xian. Can I just... Can I call you back in a few minutes?”
“Sure. You know, I’m probably okay now. I just...”
“I’ll call you back.”
He all but cradled the phone to the side of his face, waiting for it to ring. It was ridiculous, laying here like this, staring at the empty half of the bed, Zhou Mi’s side of the bed, and feeling it be empty. Before it had just been all that empty space he could sprawl out in. Now he felt like he was intruding. He could just barely, faintly smell something on the pillow. But since Zhou Mi had used his shampoo, it wasn’t much different than smelling his own pillow. Except he knew. Knew Zhou Mi’s head had been there.
He jumped as the phone rang.
“Hey,” he said, smiling as he heard Zhou Mi chuckle.
“Hi,” Zhou Mi said softly, as if he were out of breath. “Did you want to tell me about the dream?”
“It’s stupid. I know you’re still there. At least my father wasn’t in it this time. What am I, five? I haven’t had to be comforted from a nightmare in years.”
“It’s not stupid. You have a lot on your mind, don’t you? I wish you didn’t have to worry about me on top of all of everything.”
“So I’m having nightmares about losing you because I don’t know what else to dream about? Thanks.”
“I guess it’s better than worse things.”
“What could be worse?”
“Oh. Kui Xian.”
Kyuhyun jerked as a loud sound echoed through the phone’s speakers.
“Was that... Was that a car door?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you...?”
He heard Zhou Mi’s breath whoosh out of him, as though he were rapidly climbing stairs.
He fought his way out of the blankets, nearly tripping over a stand on his way to the door.
He hung up the phone as he yanked the door open, and there was Zhou Mi, a sweet smile on his face as he stepped into the apartment.
“Hey.”
Zhou Mi’s coat wasn’t even buttoned, and he was cold from the cool air of the car and the outside.
“You’re in your pajamas,” he said, shocked when he saw the brightly patterned and clearly too thin for the cold pants.
“I thought you needed me more than I needed pants. Besides, who’d see at this hour?”
“At least you have shoes.”
Though he had to grin as he hung up Zhou Mi’s coat, to see he didn’t have socks on with them. Zhou Mi pulled him close, wrapping him tight in his arms.
“I had to hang up long enough to find my car keys and my brain. You told me you didn’t want me to come, but you said it like, well no I didn’t have to, but you’d like it if I did.”
“I could have come to you, you know. If I really needed...”
“You’re not weak to want me close, Kui Xian. I want you to want me close. It makes me happy. It makes me feel really... like I can do something for you. I love you.”
Zhou Mi kissed him, softly, sweetly, and he tasted mint.
“Ah, you really were brushing your teeth when I called.”
“Yeah. But I was using mine, not yours.”
“I don’t care. I really don’t care. You can use mine whenever. I’ll expect compensation.”
Zhou Mi whispered something against his lips.
“What was that?”
“It means...darling.”
“You’ll teach me that, when I’m awake?”
“Of course.”
They warmed themselves together beneath the covers, speaking of Kyuhyun’s nightmare only on Zhou Mi’s insistence. It did not matter that he could not see Zhou Mi well with the light off, but he could feel him, hear him.
He fell asleep with his neck over Zhou Mi’s arm. He woke with the muscles there slightly stiff, but he had slept through the night with a sense of peace.
Darling, he thought, seeing Zhou Mi’s sleeping face. Yes.
He moved in closer, pressing his lips to Zhou Mi’s, nudging into the groan. He stroked Zhou Mi’s neck until he felt him waking, beginning to kiss back. Their legs were tangling, ankles rubbing together.
One kiss dissolved into two, then three, the last so slow and languid...
“Hey,” Zhou Mi said with a pout in his voice. “I know I’m not very interesting, but falling asleep while kissing me is a little much.”
“Sorry,” he said, curling his body closer and pressing open mouthed kisses to Zhou Mi’s face.
The fourth kiss was something neither of them could have slept through, until Zhou Mi pushed back with a laughing gasp.
“I should get going.”
He sent Zhou Mi off moderately dressed, the pants were still just a bit short, but it was better than him wandering home still dressed in his pajamas. And he was uncomfortably aware that Zhou Mi had, again, stopped them before the kissing could get anywhere near out of control, as though there was an “off” switch that he couldn’t get beyond.
***
He spent hours considering it, weighing every smile from Zhou Mi, every touch, every hug. The budding spontaneity of touching was waning slightly, as he wondered if that would be the time that Zhou Mi pulled away even from that.
Zhou Mi had come into the store that morning with a bag, with his clothes, and a hopeful smile. As though Kyuhyun would tell him no.
“I’ll take it up on break,” he said, nodding at the bag. “Good morning.”
“Good morning, Kui Xian.”
Normally, he would have followed Zhou Mi back, asking for a hug, a kiss. It pained him to stand there, staring at his clipboard, imagining Zhou Mi putting down his things.
A throat cleared, and he looked up. Tingles raced over his shoulders, his back, to see Zhou Mi standing in the doorway, a soft smile on his face. The clipboard was put down with a clatter, in Zhou Mi’s arms before they fully made it beyond the door. Zhou Mi walked them back a ways, away from the possibility of any curious eyes.
“Now it’s a good morning,” Zhou Mi said, kissing Kyuhyun’s ear.
He breathed in, nearly shuddered when he caught a whiff of the cologne that had driven him crazy. That cologne. He pressed his nose into the fabric on Zhou Mi’s shoulder to protect himself from it. He swallowed the moan, and backed up.
“That’s about all the time I have for you. Work...”
He let his arms stay limp as Zhou Mi leaned in close to kiss him. He had had coffee before he arrived. He could smell that, too. All he wanted to do was lean forward and kiss him again. But he stepped back.
“See you in a while?” he said, smiling so that Zhou Mi did not think he was mad. He was far from mad.
“Okay.”
“Oh... Want to go out to lunch today?”
The grin was worth a thousand offers.
***
It was not a plan so much as desperation. And even then, he felt very secure in what he was doing. Being discontent to see Zhou Mi leave to go home, seeing how quickly he had come when he thought Kyuhyun needed him... In a perfect place, perhaps they could go on as they had. Zhou Mi had been unwilling to let go of his hand all through lunch, which had been awkward, their hands and arms snaking across the table while they ate. It wasn’t just him. Zhou Mi needed him as much as he needed Zhou Mi. Then why did they keep meeting at odds with each other?
They never talked of Zhou Mi’s plans. How temporary was his research, how quickly might he go.
With a fair amount of squishing and a lot of disregard for comfort, they both managed to be horizontal on Kyuhyun’s small couch at once. Feet and legs dangled awkwardly over one arm, while the other was their pillow. And if they didn’t hold onto each other, then he was the one on the floor.
“Thanks for letting me come to stay tonight,” Zhou Mi told him, nudging their noses together.
He inhaled. Here it was.
“I don’t want you coming here to stay any more,” Kyuhyun told him.
Zhou Mi’s eyes widened in shock. “What? Why? Is it because I didn’t ask to come over last time? I will, Kui Xian. I’m sorry for...”
“No!” he nearly shouted, realizing Zhou Mi had misunderstood him. “I mean, when we stay together... Do you like it better, sleeping at your place? Do you sleep better there?”
“I don’t mind either way… I sleep fine wherever.” He peered at Kyuhyun with a frown. “Why?
“Then I want to stay at your place and not here. I... You know I like sleeping next to you. I like needing that more than needing to be here. It’s different. Means I can change.”
“Oh.” Zhou Mi’s eyes softened. “You’re so strong.”
“Not that again.”
“So you... You’ll come stay with me.”
“If you wanted,” he answered a bit too shyly for comfort. “I don’t know how it’d be, with me, but I’d like to?”
“You are any time welcome!” Zhou Mi rocked them a little bit, arm tight around Kyuhyun. “Ah, Kui Xian in my apartment… The thought makes me happy.”
“Even if you get no sleep?”
“If it means you are there, we’ll try together.”
He smiled in acceptance of that. He had other reasons for wanting to follow Zhou Mi to his place. He wanted that, a tie outside of this room, outside of this building. If it meant that he would sleep at Zhou Mi’s every night, then he would do it. He would exist to Zhou Mi away from the books. Maybe then, he could let himself belong to something else, someone else, as well.
“I’m going to have to buy furniture,” Zhou Mi said suddenly, eyes widening.
“You should take some of mine.”
“I couldn’t... Do you have extra somewhere? What would you use?”
He shrugged, rolling his neck against Zhou Mi’s arm. “I don’t think missing my kitchen table and chairs would kill me.”
“Do you come with them?”
“Do you want me to?” he asked, smiling. Here it was. The question.
Zhou Mi jerked in understanding, nearly sent Kyuhyun toppling off of the cushions.
“I’m not joking, Kui Xian.”
“Neither am I. I’ll get used to staying over really quickly if I’m there all the time...”
Zhou Mi’s face was amazing as the thought trickled in, wide eyed and desperately trying to process. What he saw in Kyuhyun’s face must have convinced him that it wasn’t a joke. It was far from a joke.
“You’ll make me get up early every morning, won’t you?”
“Yeah,” he said against Zhou Mi’s mouth. “But you’ll get used to that, too.”
“I... Didn’t ask you. I didn’t know you would...”
A tiny trickle of apprehension trickled in. Perhaps he liked living alone. Though the sparseness of the apartment showed just how much Zhou Mi had invested in it, so that was a stupid thought, and this was Zhou Mi, when he would ask for nothing else, asked to cuddle. And though he had suggested it, he hadn’t really asked Zhou Mi, after all. Sure, he might seem enthusiastic about it, but...
“Are you okay with it? I mean, I’m okay if you’d rather I just visit, I...”
“No!” Zhou Mi nearly shouted, gripping Kyuhyun’s face with both hands. “You offered. You are not allowed to back out now. I’ll clean out drawers. I’ll move stuff out of the closet.” He paused, eyes glazed. “You’re moving in. With me.”
Kyuhyun laughed as they nearly rolled off of the cushions as Zhou Mi spastically celebrated, flailing like a girl who’d just touched the hand of her idol. “I’ve never see anyone so happy about cleaning out drawers. I just have one demand.”
“What’s that?” Zhou Mi asked, breathless with his enthusiasm. “Anything.”
He crooked his knee, where their legs hung awkwardly over the edge of the armrest.
“We have to buy you a real couch,” he said, and was squeezed as Zhou Mi laughed with him.
“Agreed. I love you, Kui Xian. Thank you for being with me.”
I love you, too, he thought, kissing Zhou Mi instead of answering. And I’m so sorry I can’t tell you, sorry I can’t trust you with that, sorry you don’t know how much I need you.
He wasn’t so broken that he would do anything Zhou Mi wanted just to hold onto him. But the fear was so big, it strangled him.
“Kui Xian?”
“Hm?”
“While I have time... I was hoping to visit my family for a little while.”
“Okay.” That made sense. He hadn’t seen his family, who he was clearly close to, in a while. Would he be able to stay in Zhou Mi’s apartment by himself? The idea was intriguing. He thought that he could. The problem wouldn’t be so much sleeping there alone as it would be missing Zhou Mi. “How long is a little while?”
“A week? Long enough to get a good visit in. Kui Xian...” Zhou Mi stroked his hair, smiling a little. “Would you go with me?”
His lungs expanded with his brain. What? Go to China with Zhou Mi, meet his parents, his grandparents? Be introduced as “Kui Xian, the one with the books I couldn’t get away from.” All the appraising eyes, the unfamiliar language.
“What?” he squeaked out. China?
***