super junior: black and white
He finds the camera in the attic.
It’s the middle of winter and Kyuhyun has the flu; Sungmin always frets when he’s sick in the winter, always trying to stay home and fuss over him some more. But every time, Kyuhyun says, “You’re not my mother. Go to work,” so Sungmin goes and Kyuhyun stays home alone.
The house is oddly quiet when it’s just him, and Kyuhyun busies himself by poking around the house-even though he and Sungmin have lived here for years, Kyuhyun always finds something new.
In all this time, Kyuhyun hasn’t been up into the attic even once, not since they moved here. It’s packed with boxes, dusty and dark, and in the middle of it all, he finds the supplies-the camera, the old VCRs, the clunky VHS player-still in near-perfect condition, just as it all was the last time he saw them. Kyuhyun squeezes his eyes shut and takes a deep breath as he remembers it, that day-he’d packed it all away in the hopes of maybe not having to face the memories, of maybe being able to dull the sharp pain in his chest that comes whenever he thinks of him-and then he tries to push all of his thoughts away, but it’s hard to forget.
After all, it’s not easy to forget the day of the love of your life’s funeral.
Hands shaking slightly, Kyuhyun lifts one VCR out of the box, blowing the dust off the top, glancing quickly at the label written in handwriting that isn’t his to make sure that it’s the right one. Why is he doing this when he wants to forget?
It doesn’t take long to figure out how to connect the VHS player to the huge plasma screen TV he and Sungmin picked out last week, and when he pushes the VCR in, he goes back to sit on the couch as he watches the screen almost apprehensively before the screen flickers to life.
Kyuhyun remembers it all as clear as day. Sometimes, he wishes he wouldn’t.
Zhou Mi’s face is too close to the lense, and for a moment all that fills the screen is the side of Zhou Mi’s black-and-white nose, the blurry bottom half of his eyes, and it’s all grainy and colorless, like an old movie.
“… Vintage, you know!” Zhou Mi is saying, and his voice isn’t the same, isn’t as clear, but it’s still the voice Kyuhyun remembers. It’s still Zhou Mi. And when he backs away from the camera, beaming at something off-screen-Kyuhyun-as his face comes into focus, it’s hard not to smile a little too (but Kyuhyun’s smile isn’t happy or fond or nostalgic-it’s bitter and sad and regretful). It’s then that the feeling of missing Zhou Mi hits him harder than it ever has before; he misses hearing Zhou Mi’s voice for real, misses seeing Zhou Mi’s face in color, misses seeing Zhou Mi’s bright, bright smile.
“Don’t you just love vintage things?” Zhou Mi says, not bothering to wait for an answer-Kyuhyun never answers those kinds of questions anyways-before going on, “My parents gave this to me for my birthday last week! I’ve had my eye on it since I saw it up for sale online… It’s so great, isn’t it?”
Kyuhyun sees himself walk into the shot. “Yeah, but not as great as my present to you, right?” black-and-white Kyuhyun says jokingly, childishly. Happily. Kyuhyun misses feeling like that. “I think my present was the best out of everything you got.”
Zhou Mi rolls his eyes and smiles, reaching out and pulling Kyuhyun close. “The best,” he tells him, putting his hands on Kyuhyun’s shoulders and holding him out at arm’s length before turning him to face the camera. “Now wave at the camera! Smile!”
“You’re so ridiculous,” the Kyuhyun onscreen grumbles, but does as he’s told. It’s kind of odd, Kyuhyun thinks, looking into his own smiling face. It’s interesting.
He looks happy. They both do. Suddenly it’s so easy to get lost in the memories, to get swept up in the happiness they used to have. Even if it isn’t real anymore.
Kyuhyun keeps on watching; he sees himself saying, “So what was the point of doing this, anyways?” as Zhou Mi wraps an arm around his shoulders, and he can almost feel that arm warm and comforting around him-almost.
“I just wanted to make sure it worked.” Zhou Mi beams into the camera. Kyuhyun doesn’t realize that he’s smiling back until his cheeks start to hurt a little, and then the smile drops and it’s more than his cheeks that are hurting now. “It doesn’t hurt to make more memories either way, right? It’s nice to actually be able to look back on stuff and remember.”
The Kyuhyun that’s next to Zhou Mi (Kyuhyun wishes he were him now, wishes he were there, and he hates him) smiles softly. “I guess so.”
Zhou Mi appears to have an idea, visibly brightening-although Kyuhyun never would’ve thought he could get any brighter-as he waves excitedly at the camera. “Hi, Kyuhyun of the future! And me of the future, I guess. How are you guys? Kyuhyun, say something to your future self!”
“This is the dumbest idea you’ve ever had, Mi,” Kyuhyun’s image snorts.
“Come on,” Zhou Mi pouts, “just do it. In ten years, we’ll look back and watch this and laugh at how stupid we were. It’ll be fun.”
Kyuhyun sighs long-sufferingly and gives the camera another little wave. “To future Kyuhyun, I hope you’re the best Starcraft player in the world by now. If you’re not, I hope you’re disappointed in yourself. And Mimi-hyung, I hope your fashion sense gets better and better, and your pants tighter and tighter!” Zhou Mi laughs at this, and Kyuhyun’s heart clenches a little at the sound; he listens as his old self continues, “Be happy! I love you, Mi!” and waves again, grinning, cheerful and carefree.
“I hope you’re both still doing well,” Zhou Mi adds. Then, in Chinese, he says, “If I’ve been doing my job right, then your Chinese should be about fluent, right, Kui Xian? Congratulations! Unless it’s not. In that case, shame on you both! What have you been doing these last ten years? Ridiculous.”
“I didn’t understand half of that,” Kyuhyun says, turning his head to blink at Zhou Mi. His Chinese is halting, a little hesitant.
“See, this is what I’m talking about,” Zhou Mi tells him, speaking in his accented (cute) Korean again, sighing a little and clicking his tongue. “You’ll get there. Anyway, to myself-don’t forget yourself, especially not me now, because I like myself the way I am now, and don’t forget to always be fashion-forward! It’s important! Don’t let Kyuhyun boss you around so much anymore either. You wouldn’t want to spoil him, would you?”
“Spoil me?” Kyuhyun interjects from beside Zhou Mi. “Am I some kind of child? I’m not going to get spoiled.”
“You may as well be a child. Brat,” says Zhou Mi, and Kyuhyun glares at him petulantly, pouting. That kind of expression would look kind of stupid on him now, he thinks. Really stupid. But maybe it wouldn’t if-
No. He can’t let himself get caught up in the what ifs and the I wishes and the I should’ve-could’ve-would’ves. It’s in the past, it’s too late; there’s no point in it. None.
“Well, anyway,” Zhou Mi is saying, “never forget that you love each other! We’ll always be there for each other, right?” He looks over to Kyuhyun, who nods, clearly struggling to hold back his laughter at Zhou Mi’s pure sappiness. (He’d laugh now, too, but he kind of-no, really misses it. He wishes he could have someone to be sappy with. He wishes he could have someone sappy like Zhou Mi. He wishes-no. No wishing.)
“Always,” past-Kyuhyun giggles, almost like some ridiculous schoolgirl, and Zhou Mi smiles and the screen goes black.
They’d run out of tape at that point, Kyuhyun remembers, but hadn’t noticed and kept going for another hour or so before they realized it wasn’t recording anymore and belatedly stopped before setting everything aside and going to dinner. And Kyuhyun misses that, too. He misses everything.
He removes the VCR from the player, disconnects the player from the TV, heads back up to the attic. Everything goes back the way Kyuhyun found it, and he’s closing the dusty cardboard box again when Sungmin’s voice calls out from somewhere below.
“Kyuhyunnie, I’m home,” he singsongs, and Kyuhyun gets up and heads down to the foyer, where Sungmin is setting his bag down and taking his coat off. “What have you been up to today?”
“Nothing much,” Kyuhyun says, a little uncomfortably, “just poking around like always. There wasn’t anything too interesting.”
“Ah, well,” Sungmin says as he pulls Kyuhyun into a hug like he always does (their life has fallen into a steady routine these last few years, always the same week after week after week), “I missed you.”
“I missed you, too,” Kyuhyun replies, perhaps a little flatly, but Sungmin doesn’t seem to notice.
The house is cold, he realizes, and he wonders why he didn’t think to wear a jacket or sweater this whole time; Sungmin’s embrace is cold, too, maybe from the weather outside, and Kyuhyun wishes for something warmer, like Zh-like a blanket.
Sungmin leans back and looks at him, smiling. “I’ll start cooking in a minute. Let’s just… let’s just stand here for a few moments. It’s comfortable. You’re warm.”
Kyuhyun smiles, too, and he can feel that it doesn’t quite reach his eyes (it never does), but Sungmin doesn’t notice because now his eyes are on Kyuhyun’s lips and he’s leaning closer, whispering, “I love you, Kyuhyun,” before he closes the distance and his lips are on Kyuhyun’s. Kyuhyun kisses him back, like always, but for the first time in years, he finds himself thinking the words that he wants to believe the least.
It’s not the same. It never will be.
It’s the middle of winter and Kyuhyun has the flu; Sungmin always frets when he’s sick in the winter, always trying to stay home and fuss over him some more. But every time, Kyuhyun says, “You’re not my mother. Go to work,” so Sungmin goes and Kyuhyun stays home alone.
The house is oddly quiet when it’s just him, and Kyuhyun busies himself by poking around the house-even though he and Sungmin have lived here for years, Kyuhyun always finds something new.
In all this time, Kyuhyun hasn’t been up into the attic even once, not since they moved here. It’s packed with boxes, dusty and dark, and in the middle of it all, he finds the supplies-the camera, the old VCRs, the clunky VHS player-still in near-perfect condition, just as it all was the last time he saw them. Kyuhyun squeezes his eyes shut and takes a deep breath as he remembers it, that day-he’d packed it all away in the hopes of maybe not having to face the memories, of maybe being able to dull the sharp pain in his chest that comes whenever he thinks of him-and then he tries to push all of his thoughts away, but it’s hard to forget.
After all, it’s not easy to forget the day of the love of your life’s funeral.
Hands shaking slightly, Kyuhyun lifts one VCR out of the box, blowing the dust off the top, glancing quickly at the label written in handwriting that isn’t his to make sure that it’s the right one. Why is he doing this when he wants to forget?
It doesn’t take long to figure out how to connect the VHS player to the huge plasma screen TV he and Sungmin picked out last week, and when he pushes the VCR in, he goes back to sit on the couch as he watches the screen almost apprehensively before the screen flickers to life.
Kyuhyun remembers it all as clear as day. Sometimes, he wishes he wouldn’t.
Zhou Mi’s face is too close to the lense, and for a moment all that fills the screen is the side of Zhou Mi’s black-and-white nose, the blurry bottom half of his eyes, and it’s all grainy and colorless, like an old movie.
“… Vintage, you know!” Zhou Mi is saying, and his voice isn’t the same, isn’t as clear, but it’s still the voice Kyuhyun remembers. It’s still Zhou Mi. And when he backs away from the camera, beaming at something off-screen-Kyuhyun-as his face comes into focus, it’s hard not to smile a little too (but Kyuhyun’s smile isn’t happy or fond or nostalgic-it’s bitter and sad and regretful). It’s then that the feeling of missing Zhou Mi hits him harder than it ever has before; he misses hearing Zhou Mi’s voice for real, misses seeing Zhou Mi’s face in color, misses seeing Zhou Mi’s bright, bright smile.
“Don’t you just love vintage things?” Zhou Mi says, not bothering to wait for an answer-Kyuhyun never answers those kinds of questions anyways-before going on, “My parents gave this to me for my birthday last week! I’ve had my eye on it since I saw it up for sale online… It’s so great, isn’t it?”
Kyuhyun sees himself walk into the shot. “Yeah, but not as great as my present to you, right?” black-and-white Kyuhyun says jokingly, childishly. Happily. Kyuhyun misses feeling like that. “I think my present was the best out of everything you got.”
Zhou Mi rolls his eyes and smiles, reaching out and pulling Kyuhyun close. “The best,” he tells him, putting his hands on Kyuhyun’s shoulders and holding him out at arm’s length before turning him to face the camera. “Now wave at the camera! Smile!”
“You’re so ridiculous,” the Kyuhyun onscreen grumbles, but does as he’s told. It’s kind of odd, Kyuhyun thinks, looking into his own smiling face. It’s interesting.
He looks happy. They both do. Suddenly it’s so easy to get lost in the memories, to get swept up in the happiness they used to have. Even if it isn’t real anymore.
Kyuhyun keeps on watching; he sees himself saying, “So what was the point of doing this, anyways?” as Zhou Mi wraps an arm around his shoulders, and he can almost feel that arm warm and comforting around him-almost.
“I just wanted to make sure it worked.” Zhou Mi beams into the camera. Kyuhyun doesn’t realize that he’s smiling back until his cheeks start to hurt a little, and then the smile drops and it’s more than his cheeks that are hurting now. “It doesn’t hurt to make more memories either way, right? It’s nice to actually be able to look back on stuff and remember.”
The Kyuhyun that’s next to Zhou Mi (Kyuhyun wishes he were him now, wishes he were there, and he hates him) smiles softly. “I guess so.”
Zhou Mi appears to have an idea, visibly brightening-although Kyuhyun never would’ve thought he could get any brighter-as he waves excitedly at the camera. “Hi, Kyuhyun of the future! And me of the future, I guess. How are you guys? Kyuhyun, say something to your future self!”
“This is the dumbest idea you’ve ever had, Mi,” Kyuhyun’s image snorts.
“Come on,” Zhou Mi pouts, “just do it. In ten years, we’ll look back and watch this and laugh at how stupid we were. It’ll be fun.”
Kyuhyun sighs long-sufferingly and gives the camera another little wave. “To future Kyuhyun, I hope you’re the best Starcraft player in the world by now. If you’re not, I hope you’re disappointed in yourself. And Mimi-hyung, I hope your fashion sense gets better and better, and your pants tighter and tighter!” Zhou Mi laughs at this, and Kyuhyun’s heart clenches a little at the sound; he listens as his old self continues, “Be happy! I love you, Mi!” and waves again, grinning, cheerful and carefree.
“I hope you’re both still doing well,” Zhou Mi adds. Then, in Chinese, he says, “If I’ve been doing my job right, then your Chinese should be about fluent, right, Kui Xian? Congratulations! Unless it’s not. In that case, shame on you both! What have you been doing these last ten years? Ridiculous.”
“I didn’t understand half of that,” Kyuhyun says, turning his head to blink at Zhou Mi. His Chinese is halting, a little hesitant.
“See, this is what I’m talking about,” Zhou Mi tells him, speaking in his accented (cute) Korean again, sighing a little and clicking his tongue. “You’ll get there. Anyway, to myself-don’t forget yourself, especially not me now, because I like myself the way I am now, and don’t forget to always be fashion-forward! It’s important! Don’t let Kyuhyun boss you around so much anymore either. You wouldn’t want to spoil him, would you?”
“Spoil me?” Kyuhyun interjects from beside Zhou Mi. “Am I some kind of child? I’m not going to get spoiled.”
“You may as well be a child. Brat,” says Zhou Mi, and Kyuhyun glares at him petulantly, pouting. That kind of expression would look kind of stupid on him now, he thinks. Really stupid. But maybe it wouldn’t if-
No. He can’t let himself get caught up in the what ifs and the I wishes and the I should’ve-could’ve-would’ves. It’s in the past, it’s too late; there’s no point in it. None.
“Well, anyway,” Zhou Mi is saying, “never forget that you love each other! We’ll always be there for each other, right?” He looks over to Kyuhyun, who nods, clearly struggling to hold back his laughter at Zhou Mi’s pure sappiness. (He’d laugh now, too, but he kind of-no, really misses it. He wishes he could have someone to be sappy with. He wishes he could have someone sappy like Zhou Mi. He wishes-no. No wishing.)
“Always,” past-Kyuhyun giggles, almost like some ridiculous schoolgirl, and Zhou Mi smiles and the screen goes black.
They’d run out of tape at that point, Kyuhyun remembers, but hadn’t noticed and kept going for another hour or so before they realized it wasn’t recording anymore and belatedly stopped before setting everything aside and going to dinner. And Kyuhyun misses that, too. He misses everything.
He removes the VCR from the player, disconnects the player from the TV, heads back up to the attic. Everything goes back the way Kyuhyun found it, and he’s closing the dusty cardboard box again when Sungmin’s voice calls out from somewhere below.
“Kyuhyunnie, I’m home,” he singsongs, and Kyuhyun gets up and heads down to the foyer, where Sungmin is setting his bag down and taking his coat off. “What have you been up to today?”
“Nothing much,” Kyuhyun says, a little uncomfortably, “just poking around like always. There wasn’t anything too interesting.”
“Ah, well,” Sungmin says as he pulls Kyuhyun into a hug like he always does (their life has fallen into a steady routine these last few years, always the same week after week after week), “I missed you.”
“I missed you, too,” Kyuhyun replies, perhaps a little flatly, but Sungmin doesn’t seem to notice.
The house is cold, he realizes, and he wonders why he didn’t think to wear a jacket or sweater this whole time; Sungmin’s embrace is cold, too, maybe from the weather outside, and Kyuhyun wishes for something warmer, like Zh-like a blanket.
Sungmin leans back and looks at him, smiling. “I’ll start cooking in a minute. Let’s just… let’s just stand here for a few moments. It’s comfortable. You’re warm.”
Kyuhyun smiles, too, and he can feel that it doesn’t quite reach his eyes (it never does), but Sungmin doesn’t notice because now his eyes are on Kyuhyun’s lips and he’s leaning closer, whispering, “I love you, Kyuhyun,” before he closes the distance and his lips are on Kyuhyun’s. Kyuhyun kisses him back, like always, but for the first time in years, he finds himself thinking the words that he wants to believe the least.
It’s not the same. It never will be.