The Envy of a Billion Stars - Kyuhyun/Donghae - Chapter 2
Title: The Envy of a Billion Stars
Pairings: Kyuhyun/Donghae
Part: Chapter 2 of 13
Genre: Romance, Angst
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Homophobia
Summary: “I don't care what people think. I didn't fall in love with them. I fell in love with you.”
♔ CHAPTER ONE
Chapter two
A week into joining the group, Kyuhyun finds himself a niche in lead vocals.
It doesn’t come as a surprise-most of them were counting on it, considering less than half the group can actually sing, and adding another lead singer is an invaluable asset when it comes to the popularity of the group as a whole. Yesung and Ryeowook welcomed him into the fold with open arms and Sungmin’s unofficially taken him under his wing when it came to learning the lines and getting more confident in his dancing.
This confidence, however, doesn’t come easy for him, because the choreographer gave the group a talking to about chaotic movements when shifting positions and not hitting their marks hard enough, and eventually called them up one by one to tell them what they’re doing wrong. Kyuhyun tries to bear it all with bright eyes, seemingly eager to learn and correct his mistakes, and Donghae almost believes that he’s mature enough to not let the criticism rub him the wrong way (and almost congratulated him on it because he could never cope with failure when he first came into the group) until Kyuhyun walked out one day after getting a particularly stern talking-to when he missed a chunk of choreography and didn’t recover very well. Donghae eventually found him sitting against the wall next to a vending machine a few ways down the building, turning his head and wiping away tears with the back of his hand in an attempt to convince Donghae that nothing’s wrong.
-
Donghae wakes up and looks at his ceiling, trying to blink away the sleep.
It’s still dark, and it doesn’t feel like he slept much because his eyelids are still heavy, demanding sleep, but he’s not tired. Shindong’s snoring away on the bed next to him and it never fails to make him laugh to think how he manages to sleep while sharing a room with someone that sounds like a perpetual vacuum cleaner.
He looks at his watch and sees 1:20 blinking in red, and he rubs his eyes and sits up, letting a yawn escape his lips before jumping to his feet and making his way to the bathroom.
He turns on the tap and lets his hands run under the warm water, and he thinks about how Kyuhyun’s coping with all the sudden changes.
Along with his difficulty to recover when he missed a step, he had trouble adapting to change in choreography, and after a few additions and alterations, which came along easily enough for the other members (which was understandable because they had better sense of how each person worked, unlike Kyuhyun, who could barely remember their names at any given moment, much less where their feet would land next), Kyuhyun manages to piss the choreographer off to the point that he’s yelling for him to take a break and practice the new moves by himself. Donghae watched helplessly as Kyuhyun solemnly drags his feet to the corner while wiping his face with his sleeve, and Donghae’s heart almost cracks in two when he sees Kyuhyun crying to himself for ten whole minutes.
He turns off the faucet and dries off with a the towel hanging against the wall, and he walks over to the kitchen and pulls out the carton of milk. He gives it a shake and discovers it’s halfway empty, and he shrugs and takes a sip directly from the box because he’ll probably finish it anyway and there’s another carton waiting right behind the water pitcher.
Dropping the carton in the trash, he makes his way around the dorm and peers into each member’s rooms to see if anyone’s awake because there’s no chance of him going back to sleep unless he took some of Leeteuk’s pills, but Leeteuk says he counts them and would know if anyone took any, and even though Donghae seriously doubts this (because really, how anal could somebody be that they count ever single pill in a bottle) he doesn’t want to take the chance, and he might become dependent on them. He’s not an insomniac, his brain just wakes him up whenever it wants to.
He shuffles silently into Eunhyuk’s room and he slowly creeps under the covers next to him. Eunhyuk always sleeps on one side of the otherwise large bed because he likes to hang his arm over the edge, so it’s not that difficult to slip in next to him without waking him up. Donghae listens to his snoring for a few minutes before flipping to his side and prodding Eunhyuk’s back. Eunhyuk grunts and shakes in his spot and Donghae waits until he’s calmed down to poke him again.
“Donghae-yah!” Eunhyuk exclaims in his pillow. “Leave me alone and go back to your room.”
“I can’t sleep,” Donghae says.
“That’s your problem. Now go away before I kick your ass.”
Donghae laughs and tries to snatch the pillow from under Eunhyuk’s head, but Eunhyuk bats his hand away and pushes him off the bed, landing on the wooden floor with a loud thud.
Rubbing his behind, he gets to his feet and gives Eunhyuk a slap across the back of his head, and when Eunhyuk jumps from the bed, Donghae laughs and sprints out the room, closing the door behind him and trying to stop the laughter erupting from his chest.
Not having the slightest idea of what to do next, Donghae scratches his head and weighs out his options. Eating would require too much effort and he’d have to wash everything afterwards, not something he wants to do at 2:00 in the morning, plus, he’s not really hungry thanks to the half carton of milk he just downed in one go. Watching television would require him to lower the volume not to wake everyone up, but he doesn’t really watch television often (only watching music shows, really, and some reality shows when he felt like it) and he can’t be bothered to sit up close because he won’t hear anything. There’s only one option left, and he figures he might as well ensure he gets all the new moves down (and really, why does it seem like the choreographer’s hell-bent on making them mess up by making the complicated choreography ten times more difficult) and not get yelled at the next day. Stretching his arms in the air, he lets out a big yawn before making his way out of the dorm and climbling up the fire escape to the roof.
He hears it before he sees it-a voice, deep and rugged, marked with heavy panting and cracking at parts-and when he pokes his head up to see across the edge of the rooftop, he sees Kyuhyun in the center dancing the familiar choreography, the song he’s singing to himself devoid of melody, almost sounding like air being expelled from his lungs, and under the moonlight, Donghae can just see his face dripping with sweat. He debates whether to continue his journey up and join Kyuhyun, thinking it would be beneficial for both of them to practice at the same time so they could point out each other’s mistakes but at the same time not wanting to intrude upon his private practice session and judging by the site he picked to practice, he probably didn’t want to be bothered.
The decision is made for him when Kyuhyun suddenly stops in his tracks and looks at Donghae square in the eyes, “Hyung!” pushing out of his throat in surprise.
“Kyuhyunnie,” Donghae says, playing off his blown cover with a smile and a scratch of his head, and he finishes his journey up the fire escape and plants his feet on the hard, stone surface, and he shoves his hands in his pockets because he doesn’t know what to do with them.
Kyuhyun wipes the sweat from his eyebrows and fans his face and both lock eyes for a moment before Donghae decides to break it and focus his vision on his feet, not really knowing how to explain himself or what he was doing up there. In the silence, he can hear the loud chirping of crickets, and he himself has never actually paid attention to the sound (because they’re just crickets and what’s so special about their chirps?), but listening now, there’s a soothing quality to it, almost like music, and he laughs to himself for thinking about such random, trivial things. He lifts his head up and looks at Kyuhyun again.
“What are you doing up here?” Kyuhyun asks, voice breathy and forced from the sudden pause from activity, and Donghae lifts his shoulders and moves closer. Kyuhyun’s face is glistening now, beads of sweat catching the light from the moon, and against his pale skin, it makes him look like a porcelain doll.
“Couldn’t sleep,” Donghae says, striding over next to Kyuhyun and lowering himself on the asphalt to sit down. “What about you?”
Kyuhyun shrugs and sits down beside Donghae, bringing his knees to his chest and hugging his legs close. “I can’t get the damn choreography right.”
Donghae turns to him and gives him a tiny nudge on the elbow. “Well, don’t kill yourself over it. It’s just dancing.”
Kyuhyun sighs and props his chin in the space between his knees. “I feel like I’m holding the group back.”
HIs voice is soft and fragile, a reflection, Donghae imagines, of how he’s feeling at the moment, and Donghae knits his brows and inches closer. “Why? Everyone messes up sometimes.”
“But that’s the problem,” Kyuhyun says, his voice gaining momentum, and he looks at Donghae with glassy eyes. “I’m messing up all the time. Everytime we fall into formation, I’m always doing something wrong. My footing’s never right or-or I’m always in the wrong spot or-I’m doing something that looks like there’s a simple solution to it but I’m just too stupid to figure it out.”
Donghae sighs when he sees Kyuhyun lifting his hand and pressing the base of his palm against his eye. He moves closer until their shoulders touch and he reaches his arm across his shoulders and pulls him close. “If this is about the choreographer, it’s not your fault. That’s just the way he is. He likes the sound of his voice too much.”
“It’s not that-it’s not that he’s being particularly mean to me or anything,” Kyuhyun defends, his voice shaking now, and he brings up his other hand and rubs his eyes vigorously. “It’s that he’s right and I can’t seem get it right now matter how hard I try and it-it sucks because I’m doing the best that I can and it’s never good enough.”
Donghae watches him with sympathetic eyes and he feels his breath caught in his throat. He’s never been good at these things, never really had much experience with sitting people down and talking to them about their problems and expecting him to say something that would make everything better, and he doesn’t know what to say. He’s thankful Kyuhyun’s too busy trying to stop the tears from flowing to see him biting the inside of his cheeks, drawing his brows together and straining his brain to think of something-anything to say.
“Kyuhyun-ah,” Donghae says softly, bringing his head closer to Kyuhyun’s. “It’s-I know it doesn’t look like it now, but everything will get better. You just wait and see. When you hit that stage for the first time, you’ll forget all about your fears and shortcomings, and pretty soon, you’re going to be having fun with the rest of us. It’s not the end of the world if you get the choreography wrong. It’s all about getting back on your feet and picking yourself up where you left off.”
Kyuhyun tries to swallow his sobs and traps them in his chest before lifting his head up and flashing a wet smile at Donghae, but they break through the barricade all the same and burst out of him like a broken dam, and Donghae grips Kyuhyun’s shoulder tighter and pulls his head to his chest, dampening his shirt in an instant but Donghae doesn’t care.
“Let it out,” Donghae says, letting Kyuhyun dissolve into a heaving, sobbing mess in his arms because he knows he needs it, needs a release before the pressure building up inside of him detonates like a bomb and he can’t bear to see Kyuhyun break like glass in his fingers. “Just let it all out.”
Donghae can feel the wetness spreading on his skin as Kyuhyun sobs deeper and deeper in his chest, as though muffling the sound would drive it out of existence, and it takes him a few minutes to get his breathing back in order and finally look up at Donghae, eyes red. He sniffs and pulls himself out of Donghae’s hold and takes a few deep breaths before drying his face with the front of his shirt. Donghae drops his hands beside him and watches patiently.
“Thank you hyung,” Kyuhyun finally says, echoes of his sobs lining each word, and Donghae only nods, brain failing to come up with anything to say.
Kyuhyun shakes his head with a sniff and turns to Donghae with a loud exhale, and when his eyes drop on the wet spot on Donghae’s shirt, he says, “Oh-sorry about your shirt, hyung.”
Donghae looks down and sees the dark blob just underneath the collar, and he turns back to Kyuhyun with a smile. “It’s just a shirt. Don’t worry about it.”
Kyuhyun manages a smile and turns his face to the stars, and Donghae follows suit and they’re both silent for a while, listening to the crickets and passing cars and the sound of each other’s breathing. Donghae steals glances every now and then, tracing out the outline of Kyuhyun’s profile-his straight nose, full lips, jawline smooth and defined under his skin, acne scars on his cheeks that he hasn’t really seen up until now, this close. Then, out of nowhere, his heart begins to pick up, starting as a slow rumbling in his chest and spreading out against his ribcage until he can feel every beat pulsing in his fingertips, and he turns away when he feels his face starting to burn.
“Alright,” Donghae says suddenly and Kyuhyun looks up with a start. Donghae gets to his feet and motions for him to stand up, and Kyuhyun shoots him a questioning look before grinning and pushing himself off the asphalt.
“What are we doing?” Kyuhyun asks, standing with an awkward hunch and looking at Donghae for further instructions, and Donghae stretches his arms in the air with a low grunt.
“Let’s practice the moves together, okay?” Donghae says, getting down to stretch his legs. Kyuhyun watches on, standing with his arms folded across his chest like he doesn’t know what to do with his body, and Donghae tips his head to tell him to follow him. Kyuhyun laughs and drops down to stretch his legs as well.
“Starting from the top?” Kyuhyun asks after standing up to his full height and stretching his long, skinny arms in the air. Donghae nods and takes a few steps to his right until they’re arm-width apart.
“Start us off.”
Kyuhyun smiles widely and nods back, and they both face the roof of the apartment complext in front of them.
Donghae snaps his fingers three times, and he feels a grin stretching his lips when Kyuhyun begins to sing.
← chapter one ♕ chapter two •
Pairings: Kyuhyun/Donghae
Part: Chapter 2 of 13
Genre: Romance, Angst
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Homophobia
Summary: “I don't care what people think. I didn't fall in love with them. I fell in love with you.”
♔ CHAPTER ONE
Chapter two
A week into joining the group, Kyuhyun finds himself a niche in lead vocals.
It doesn’t come as a surprise-most of them were counting on it, considering less than half the group can actually sing, and adding another lead singer is an invaluable asset when it comes to the popularity of the group as a whole. Yesung and Ryeowook welcomed him into the fold with open arms and Sungmin’s unofficially taken him under his wing when it came to learning the lines and getting more confident in his dancing.
This confidence, however, doesn’t come easy for him, because the choreographer gave the group a talking to about chaotic movements when shifting positions and not hitting their marks hard enough, and eventually called them up one by one to tell them what they’re doing wrong. Kyuhyun tries to bear it all with bright eyes, seemingly eager to learn and correct his mistakes, and Donghae almost believes that he’s mature enough to not let the criticism rub him the wrong way (and almost congratulated him on it because he could never cope with failure when he first came into the group) until Kyuhyun walked out one day after getting a particularly stern talking-to when he missed a chunk of choreography and didn’t recover very well. Donghae eventually found him sitting against the wall next to a vending machine a few ways down the building, turning his head and wiping away tears with the back of his hand in an attempt to convince Donghae that nothing’s wrong.
-
Donghae wakes up and looks at his ceiling, trying to blink away the sleep.
It’s still dark, and it doesn’t feel like he slept much because his eyelids are still heavy, demanding sleep, but he’s not tired. Shindong’s snoring away on the bed next to him and it never fails to make him laugh to think how he manages to sleep while sharing a room with someone that sounds like a perpetual vacuum cleaner.
He looks at his watch and sees 1:20 blinking in red, and he rubs his eyes and sits up, letting a yawn escape his lips before jumping to his feet and making his way to the bathroom.
He turns on the tap and lets his hands run under the warm water, and he thinks about how Kyuhyun’s coping with all the sudden changes.
Along with his difficulty to recover when he missed a step, he had trouble adapting to change in choreography, and after a few additions and alterations, which came along easily enough for the other members (which was understandable because they had better sense of how each person worked, unlike Kyuhyun, who could barely remember their names at any given moment, much less where their feet would land next), Kyuhyun manages to piss the choreographer off to the point that he’s yelling for him to take a break and practice the new moves by himself. Donghae watched helplessly as Kyuhyun solemnly drags his feet to the corner while wiping his face with his sleeve, and Donghae’s heart almost cracks in two when he sees Kyuhyun crying to himself for ten whole minutes.
He turns off the faucet and dries off with a the towel hanging against the wall, and he walks over to the kitchen and pulls out the carton of milk. He gives it a shake and discovers it’s halfway empty, and he shrugs and takes a sip directly from the box because he’ll probably finish it anyway and there’s another carton waiting right behind the water pitcher.
Dropping the carton in the trash, he makes his way around the dorm and peers into each member’s rooms to see if anyone’s awake because there’s no chance of him going back to sleep unless he took some of Leeteuk’s pills, but Leeteuk says he counts them and would know if anyone took any, and even though Donghae seriously doubts this (because really, how anal could somebody be that they count ever single pill in a bottle) he doesn’t want to take the chance, and he might become dependent on them. He’s not an insomniac, his brain just wakes him up whenever it wants to.
He shuffles silently into Eunhyuk’s room and he slowly creeps under the covers next to him. Eunhyuk always sleeps on one side of the otherwise large bed because he likes to hang his arm over the edge, so it’s not that difficult to slip in next to him without waking him up. Donghae listens to his snoring for a few minutes before flipping to his side and prodding Eunhyuk’s back. Eunhyuk grunts and shakes in his spot and Donghae waits until he’s calmed down to poke him again.
“Donghae-yah!” Eunhyuk exclaims in his pillow. “Leave me alone and go back to your room.”
“I can’t sleep,” Donghae says.
“That’s your problem. Now go away before I kick your ass.”
Donghae laughs and tries to snatch the pillow from under Eunhyuk’s head, but Eunhyuk bats his hand away and pushes him off the bed, landing on the wooden floor with a loud thud.
Rubbing his behind, he gets to his feet and gives Eunhyuk a slap across the back of his head, and when Eunhyuk jumps from the bed, Donghae laughs and sprints out the room, closing the door behind him and trying to stop the laughter erupting from his chest.
Not having the slightest idea of what to do next, Donghae scratches his head and weighs out his options. Eating would require too much effort and he’d have to wash everything afterwards, not something he wants to do at 2:00 in the morning, plus, he’s not really hungry thanks to the half carton of milk he just downed in one go. Watching television would require him to lower the volume not to wake everyone up, but he doesn’t really watch television often (only watching music shows, really, and some reality shows when he felt like it) and he can’t be bothered to sit up close because he won’t hear anything. There’s only one option left, and he figures he might as well ensure he gets all the new moves down (and really, why does it seem like the choreographer’s hell-bent on making them mess up by making the complicated choreography ten times more difficult) and not get yelled at the next day. Stretching his arms in the air, he lets out a big yawn before making his way out of the dorm and climbling up the fire escape to the roof.
He hears it before he sees it-a voice, deep and rugged, marked with heavy panting and cracking at parts-and when he pokes his head up to see across the edge of the rooftop, he sees Kyuhyun in the center dancing the familiar choreography, the song he’s singing to himself devoid of melody, almost sounding like air being expelled from his lungs, and under the moonlight, Donghae can just see his face dripping with sweat. He debates whether to continue his journey up and join Kyuhyun, thinking it would be beneficial for both of them to practice at the same time so they could point out each other’s mistakes but at the same time not wanting to intrude upon his private practice session and judging by the site he picked to practice, he probably didn’t want to be bothered.
The decision is made for him when Kyuhyun suddenly stops in his tracks and looks at Donghae square in the eyes, “Hyung!” pushing out of his throat in surprise.
“Kyuhyunnie,” Donghae says, playing off his blown cover with a smile and a scratch of his head, and he finishes his journey up the fire escape and plants his feet on the hard, stone surface, and he shoves his hands in his pockets because he doesn’t know what to do with them.
Kyuhyun wipes the sweat from his eyebrows and fans his face and both lock eyes for a moment before Donghae decides to break it and focus his vision on his feet, not really knowing how to explain himself or what he was doing up there. In the silence, he can hear the loud chirping of crickets, and he himself has never actually paid attention to the sound (because they’re just crickets and what’s so special about their chirps?), but listening now, there’s a soothing quality to it, almost like music, and he laughs to himself for thinking about such random, trivial things. He lifts his head up and looks at Kyuhyun again.
“What are you doing up here?” Kyuhyun asks, voice breathy and forced from the sudden pause from activity, and Donghae lifts his shoulders and moves closer. Kyuhyun’s face is glistening now, beads of sweat catching the light from the moon, and against his pale skin, it makes him look like a porcelain doll.
“Couldn’t sleep,” Donghae says, striding over next to Kyuhyun and lowering himself on the asphalt to sit down. “What about you?”
Kyuhyun shrugs and sits down beside Donghae, bringing his knees to his chest and hugging his legs close. “I can’t get the damn choreography right.”
Donghae turns to him and gives him a tiny nudge on the elbow. “Well, don’t kill yourself over it. It’s just dancing.”
Kyuhyun sighs and props his chin in the space between his knees. “I feel like I’m holding the group back.”
HIs voice is soft and fragile, a reflection, Donghae imagines, of how he’s feeling at the moment, and Donghae knits his brows and inches closer. “Why? Everyone messes up sometimes.”
“But that’s the problem,” Kyuhyun says, his voice gaining momentum, and he looks at Donghae with glassy eyes. “I’m messing up all the time. Everytime we fall into formation, I’m always doing something wrong. My footing’s never right or-or I’m always in the wrong spot or-I’m doing something that looks like there’s a simple solution to it but I’m just too stupid to figure it out.”
Donghae sighs when he sees Kyuhyun lifting his hand and pressing the base of his palm against his eye. He moves closer until their shoulders touch and he reaches his arm across his shoulders and pulls him close. “If this is about the choreographer, it’s not your fault. That’s just the way he is. He likes the sound of his voice too much.”
“It’s not that-it’s not that he’s being particularly mean to me or anything,” Kyuhyun defends, his voice shaking now, and he brings up his other hand and rubs his eyes vigorously. “It’s that he’s right and I can’t seem get it right now matter how hard I try and it-it sucks because I’m doing the best that I can and it’s never good enough.”
Donghae watches him with sympathetic eyes and he feels his breath caught in his throat. He’s never been good at these things, never really had much experience with sitting people down and talking to them about their problems and expecting him to say something that would make everything better, and he doesn’t know what to say. He’s thankful Kyuhyun’s too busy trying to stop the tears from flowing to see him biting the inside of his cheeks, drawing his brows together and straining his brain to think of something-anything to say.
“Kyuhyun-ah,” Donghae says softly, bringing his head closer to Kyuhyun’s. “It’s-I know it doesn’t look like it now, but everything will get better. You just wait and see. When you hit that stage for the first time, you’ll forget all about your fears and shortcomings, and pretty soon, you’re going to be having fun with the rest of us. It’s not the end of the world if you get the choreography wrong. It’s all about getting back on your feet and picking yourself up where you left off.”
Kyuhyun tries to swallow his sobs and traps them in his chest before lifting his head up and flashing a wet smile at Donghae, but they break through the barricade all the same and burst out of him like a broken dam, and Donghae grips Kyuhyun’s shoulder tighter and pulls his head to his chest, dampening his shirt in an instant but Donghae doesn’t care.
“Let it out,” Donghae says, letting Kyuhyun dissolve into a heaving, sobbing mess in his arms because he knows he needs it, needs a release before the pressure building up inside of him detonates like a bomb and he can’t bear to see Kyuhyun break like glass in his fingers. “Just let it all out.”
Donghae can feel the wetness spreading on his skin as Kyuhyun sobs deeper and deeper in his chest, as though muffling the sound would drive it out of existence, and it takes him a few minutes to get his breathing back in order and finally look up at Donghae, eyes red. He sniffs and pulls himself out of Donghae’s hold and takes a few deep breaths before drying his face with the front of his shirt. Donghae drops his hands beside him and watches patiently.
“Thank you hyung,” Kyuhyun finally says, echoes of his sobs lining each word, and Donghae only nods, brain failing to come up with anything to say.
Kyuhyun shakes his head with a sniff and turns to Donghae with a loud exhale, and when his eyes drop on the wet spot on Donghae’s shirt, he says, “Oh-sorry about your shirt, hyung.”
Donghae looks down and sees the dark blob just underneath the collar, and he turns back to Kyuhyun with a smile. “It’s just a shirt. Don’t worry about it.”
Kyuhyun manages a smile and turns his face to the stars, and Donghae follows suit and they’re both silent for a while, listening to the crickets and passing cars and the sound of each other’s breathing. Donghae steals glances every now and then, tracing out the outline of Kyuhyun’s profile-his straight nose, full lips, jawline smooth and defined under his skin, acne scars on his cheeks that he hasn’t really seen up until now, this close. Then, out of nowhere, his heart begins to pick up, starting as a slow rumbling in his chest and spreading out against his ribcage until he can feel every beat pulsing in his fingertips, and he turns away when he feels his face starting to burn.
“Alright,” Donghae says suddenly and Kyuhyun looks up with a start. Donghae gets to his feet and motions for him to stand up, and Kyuhyun shoots him a questioning look before grinning and pushing himself off the asphalt.
“What are we doing?” Kyuhyun asks, standing with an awkward hunch and looking at Donghae for further instructions, and Donghae stretches his arms in the air with a low grunt.
“Let’s practice the moves together, okay?” Donghae says, getting down to stretch his legs. Kyuhyun watches on, standing with his arms folded across his chest like he doesn’t know what to do with his body, and Donghae tips his head to tell him to follow him. Kyuhyun laughs and drops down to stretch his legs as well.
“Starting from the top?” Kyuhyun asks after standing up to his full height and stretching his long, skinny arms in the air. Donghae nods and takes a few steps to his right until they’re arm-width apart.
“Start us off.”
Kyuhyun smiles widely and nods back, and they both face the roof of the apartment complext in front of them.
Donghae snaps his fingers three times, and he feels a grin stretching his lips when Kyuhyun begins to sing.
← chapter one ♕ chapter two •