The KangTeuk Fic I've Been Trying To Post For Days
Title: Currently, I have no idea.
Pairing: KangTeuk. There might be ninja stuff in there, but I have no idea anymore. I think SiMin, HanChul, probably KiHae ('cause it's me).
Rating: G/PG
Genre: I have no frickin' idea. Fluff-ish? Kinda vague-y.
Warnings: None, I am warning-less.
Summary: There is no actual plot, so you get a quote instead where the cut thingy is. It is fluffy and vague and not angsty. Be happy people.
Author's Note: WHY IS THIS SO MUCH WORK. Not the wiritng (though that probably took too long), the posting. LJ hates me, I swear. That said, this is for featherie because she is simultaniously KangTeuk deprived and awesome.
In one of the better parts of Seoul in a room too many floors up, with the blinds drawn and orange lights that change the walls to a funny yellow, sit too many people. Really, far too many. It is a meeting about concepts and schedules and things that have been thought out too many times and it’s unnecessary. There are seven people in total. Two are managers of one of the best known bands in Korea, one is the leader - he has a headache but you wouldn’t know it, one is a PR official of some kind - a so called expert, and the leader doesn’t even recognise the other three. SM people who have too much power and no lives of their own, most likely.
The problem with the end of a season - i.e. Christmas - is that everyone is sort of out of ideas. Every lightbulb that had sparked overhead has flickered and dimmed. Seriously. By the end of January, every single show aired took three times as much work as one aired at any other time of the year. And endless meetings full of endless chatter equal endless headaches. Ow.
The meeting continues, the sun starts going down and his headache pounds away, merrily drilling it’s way into his skull, but he still looks a careful mixture of earnest and professional and strokes a few egos as he tries to manoeuvre them away from the more ridiculous.
By the time the meeting draws to a close (the exact same way the last three did) the moon is high in the sky and the sun nowhere to be seen. The SM bigbodies sod off into their shiny black Mercedes with their uniformed drivers and he can finally slip into a people carrier under the cover of darkness away from screaming girls and grabbing hands.
As business buildings give way to clubs and bars, the city is lit by lights and laughter as the people- carrier rolls through countless streets past countless people. He sits in the back of the car, with panda eyes and just the barest hint of a smile brought on by that beautiful merger of dreams and reality that creates a perfect idyll suspended in silence and movement. Outside the car, there are sounds and noise that pulse and thrum in the air until they take over Average Joe and Average Jane. He leans his head idly against the window and is content to watch. In reality, there is a certain jealousy for Jane and Joe, who can hug and smile and laugh together, but right now it’s removed, not really part of him anymore. It doesn’t really matter.
He slips his phone out of his pocket and holds down the on button. He doesn’t lift his forehead from the glass of the window, the chill soothing to the headache still drumming away, instead he glances down as the device in his hand blinks into life. It takes a moment for the phone to orientate itself, to find missed calls and messages, and he takes the time to go back to watching smiles and laughter. So near, so far. Such casual silliness, it makes him smile.
The phone starts to buzz as the messages pour in, but he doesn’t turn away until it goes completely still. When he looks down, there are six missed calls and four voice mail messages, along with only fifteen messages. Quite a quite night, really.
He flicks idly through the seven from Heechul, which mostly consist of the written equivalent of shrieking and howling about anything and everything (but mostly Siwon, Sungmin and God), combined with more death threats than is probably healthy and random quoted from whichever drama he’s currently enamoured with, deletes the two from Jongwoon which are merely notification of losing and finding various objects in obscure places (including Ddang Koma), half-laughs over the three from Donghae; one a question that has probably been ansared five times already, one that consists only of a little fish emoticon and a smiley (that he probably meant to send to Kibum) and one reporting that he'd finished his schedule for the day, that Kibum has called and sent his love and that Eunhyuk is watching porn again, he laughs again at the one containing Eunhyuk's violent denial, and browses idly through Ryeowook's shopping requirements, Kyuhyun's battery requirements and Han Geng's reminder that Zhou Mi and Henry would be arriving the next day and that Kyu will probably need watching - which isn’t something he really wants to think about because that’s his magnae thank you very much (Henry is never getting a sex life). The last one is the only one he pauses over. The only one that brings out that infamous dimple in his left cheek. Four little characters glaring out for the too-bright screen and a silly little emoticon that warms his heart more than they probably should.
He doesn't shut the phone, instead he lets it rest in his lap, keeping it in his peripheral vision and absently pressing buttons whenever the screen starts to fade, as he watches the world fly by. In a way, it might be a bad idea for him to watch, watch what he doesn't have. It can block out the positives, the joy, the adrenaline, the high of being on a stage, with twelve (or fourteen) people closer than brothers and feeling your heart swell until you could yell or shout or even jump for joy. But at this moment, this instant, it doesn’t really matter. He can smile and laugh with them and just forget the pang that usually haunts his chest. They can go out whenever and go home whenever and he doesn’t envy them. Besides, he’s got a better home to go to.
And if there is a gentle tug in the viscinity of his heart and if it is a negative (such an ugly word), it doesn't rip. It doesn't tear. It doesn't dull the smile on his lips. It’s just a reminder. A reminder that there is still more to strive for, to work for.
The car slows to a stop and there are the dull thuds of cars doors opening and closing. With one last glance at the screen, he slips the phone into his pocket and tugs at the door handle. The door slides open easily - the car is still fairly new - and hops out, ignoring the slam of the door shutting and the shrill beeps of the lock, and wandering into the building.
He doesn’t bother to register the ground floor, with its sticky floors and chipped paint, or the lift with its dodgy smell and tarnished metal. Instead he just stands and revels in having nothing flitting around his head. He knows he should be thinking of something - anything - there is always this to be thought out or that to organise, but he just lets his mind go blank, just for a few more minutes, and watches the numbers as they go up and up and up.
The lift halts with a jerk he barely feels and creaks open in a way that would usually make him nervous, but he just pads out, absently bowing to the manager who lived on the floor above and found himself at the door.
He doesn't think twice about slipping his key into the lock. Silence is nice, silence is peaceful, but he misses the chaos that is about to fray his nerves and worsen his headache.
It is barely ever quiet in the Super Junior dorm. This evening - this night - Heechul is howling at Sungmin who is howling back, Kyuhyun is sat in the middle of the hall with his laptop on his knees and a cable waiting to be tripped over, and Donghae and Eunhyuk are obviously watching something on the television that is making them incredibly over excited. They aren't going to sleep well tonight.
With all the shouting and shrieking and yelling he can already feeling the pounding in his temples magnifying, still, it is home. It feels right, somehow. He steps over Kyuhyun, patting the younger on the head as he passes, and adds batteries, lettuce, several spices he knows nothing about, three more vegetable he wasn't aware he ate, rice and noodles to the list kept in the hall for whichever noona does the shopping, so she doesn't have to negotiate the death trap known as the apartment. He wanders round furniture and dongsaengs, stopping to pick up two books and a play station game, as well as to remind Donghae and Eunhyuk not to stand on the sofa (not that they’ll listen) on his way to the kitchen.
Ryeowook is pattering about, taking things out of cupboards to put in bowls so that they could be mixed with thing taken out of the fridge in a way that obviously means something to the eternal magnae but looks totally random to him, and Siwon and Han Geng are hunched over a laptop in a way that can’t be good for their backs. Still, they sit up when he told them too and Ryeowook gives him a glass of water for the painkiller he takes from the cupboard over the sink. Ryeowook is a good dongsaeng, he reflects, as he returned the hug and gently ruffled the shorter one's hair, but unfortunately, two slightly less well behaved members of his extended family are still trying to verbally annihilate one another and he really can’t let them do that in clear conscience. So with a final, affectionate pat on the head, he disentangled himself and let Ryeowook go back to his cooking.
Heechul and Sungmin are in Heechul and Han Geng's bed room. Neither actually remember what they are fighting about, but apparently they are both highly offended and in need of retribution and serious kowtowing from the other. It doesn’t take much to get them to stop screaming, but it doesn’t stop Sungmin storming off and Heechul throwing himself face down on the bed and sulking. It is nothing new; he'll send Han Geng to pacify Heechul and Siwon to pacify Sungmin. They'll have forgotten it by tomorrow anyway, they always do.
The night passes like it always does - smoother than most, in fact, with Shindong reappearing in good humour from the filming of something or other and dinner passing with relative ease (only three minor arguments and minimal cussing, which is nice). In fact, through one thing or another, he actually managed to keep his mood right the way through to bed time (helped in no small way by Kibum phoning - and therefore distracting - Donghae, and Heechul and Sungmin declaring truce early). In fact, even the pile of paperwork and notes by his bedside that had to be flicked through before bed failed to dislodge the zen currently inhabiting his chest.
The best bit comes when he has changed into sleeping clothes, the only light is from the bedside lamp and a pair of strong arms wrap themselves around his middle. For a minute, he just allows himself to melt backwards, and revel in the feeling of warmth seeping into his back, and hot air puffing over his neck. The voice, when it comes, is deep and mellow, and almost feels like melted chocolate through the buzz in his brain, as his headache melts away.
“Did you get my text?”
He tilts his head back and onto the shoulder behind him to expose more of his neck and smiles. Chapped lips pressed a kiss to his dimple and he just sighed, letting all remaining tension flow from his body until he just flops and allows himself to be picked up and carried. Kangin has apparently already managed to get into his sleeping clothes as he is joined by another person as soon as he’s slid into the bed. He doesn’t need to answer the question, that is one of the beauties of this relationship; Kangin would have known as soon as he’d asked.
Somehow, they end up curled together with the light off and the some of the paperwork waiting and he really can’t care less. It’s nice, lying here, just nice. It doesn’t need to be more. It doesn’t need to be meaningful, just there. Like a comfort blanket against reality.
This won’t last forever. Things will end, like things always do, but if anything, it’s taught him. Taught him that while nothing lasts forever, that absolutely does not mean spending every second waiting for the end. It means grabbing it with both hands and enjoying every moment.
Not just fireworks, not just the best bits. The sad bits, they scary bits, the bits that happen every week, every day. Like right now.
And it’s perfect. Kangin’s breathing, constant and rhythmic at his back and the feel of his breath, still blowing over his neck. He turns, so that they’re face to face. He smoothes a gentle hand over the others cheek and watches, smiling softly, as tired eyes half-open. He nuzzles at the younger’s face gently, and smiles some more when his is nuzzled back. It’s so easy, just to pull himself closer and wrap his arms around the younger. To tuck them close together and just sink into each other.
He’ll have his fireworks later, right now, he’s too happy to move.
So, as my best friend would say, thar you blo. Finis. I am going to sleep nao.