[kyuhyun/sungmin] conundrums
conundrums by catskilt
kyuhyun/sungmin
g; 3051 words
sungmin cries when he cares.
for teexsaurus to her prompt, 'how kyuhyun deals with a crying sungmin'.
conundrums
Colours blend into each other, indistinct shapes, blurry outlines. The world is somewhat vague. Kyuhyun thinks he might be hearing someone crying.
He's not sure, though. His head is fuzzy and it takes too much effort to open his eyes. He wonders if he's at the end of the world. At the bottom of the well. On clouds. In the mud. He wants to sleep.
That crying someone has quieted down. Maybe he was dreaming it, though it makes sense to cry when you're at the end of the world.
He feels like there's something he should be noticing.
It takes too much effort. Colours blur and vanish before his eyes. The sound of crying is gone, almost.
… …
Nights when his throat is scratchy, when he can't quite control the burning in his eyes, Sungmin is usually there to hold him.
It wasn't like that initially. Sungmin, of the doe eyes and chubby cheeks and eternal baby face, so seemingly delicate and vulnerable, doesn't cry. Kyuhyun, watching through blurry eyes as Sungmin smiled his way through their award presentations, couldn't understand how people like Kangin could be crying when Sungmin continued smiling, eyebrows perked, teeth showing.
Sungmin was a conundrum. And while Kyuhyun took kindly to conundrums - look at how easily he'd accepted Heechul's eccentricity - for some reason he didn't want Sungmin privy to his weakness, to him crying when boys don't cry. He was glad when he was given a space in Eeteuk and Ryeowook's room so that he wouldn't have to squeeze with Donghae and Sungmin anymore, wouldn't have to clamp down his homesickness and loneliness because Sungmin didn't seem the type who would be sympathetic to that.
Then they switched dorms, and he ended up with Sungmin again because Donghae couldn't stand anymore pink and couldn't be put with Eunhyuk in the same apartment in case they burned it down, and Ryeowook was the only one who didn't mind rooming with Yesung, and Heechul insisted on having his own room, and so, Eeteuk said, you'll be fine with Sungmin, he'll take good care of you.
I'll take good care of you, Sungmin said, eyebrows perked, teeth showing, and Kyuhyun didn't know what to make of him. They were civil, they got along, Sungmin didn't snore and kept his side of the room tidy, but Kyuhyun found himself going to the 12th floor, sliding into Eeteuk and Donghae's room whenever he needed someone to tell him that it would be alright, don't worry, it's okay to cry.
One night he woke up from a barely remembered dream, shivering and crying, incoherent, unable to understand his tears. He was soaked in cold sweat, his nose was blocked, and he'd never hated himself more when Sungmin flicked on the light and came over to look at him.
I'm sorry, he said, so sorry, hyung, didn't mean to wake you up.
Sungmin left the room and Kyuhyun thought he would get up from bed in a minute, make his way to the bathroom and freshen up a little, stop the shaking. Then Sungmin came back with a warm towel and hot tea and knelt down beside him, wiping his perspiration away, stroking his cheek. Kyuhyun never forgot the softness, stability, of Sungmin's arms that night.
Three years later, he still hasn't forgotten it. Still feels the surprise of how strong Sungmin's arms are when they hold him up.
… …
Eunhyuk's still crying when they return to the dorm, eyes so puffed up that even Ryeowook laughs at him. "Hyung," says Ryeowook, "you're supposed to be happy."
"I am happy," Eunhyuk says huffily. "Do not judge my method of expressing happiness."
Sungmin drapes an arm around Eunhyuk and Kyuhyun feels a momentary pang, a slight, irrational sense of jealousy that Eunhyuk is the only one Sungmin ever shows much affection to. "Leave him be," Sungmin says, poking Eunhyuk's cheek. "It's not every day we win a Daesang. Or every month. Or even every year. Hyukjae has every right to make his nose red."
"Nose is not red," Eunhyuk says indignantly, "am looking glamourous."
Sungmin laughs and abandons him in favour of being the first one in the shower.
"Sungmin hyung never cries," Ryeowook observes. "He's always so strong."
"Don't you believe it," Eunhyuk says, dabbing at his eyes with a kitchen towel. "He cried like a baby the day we found out we were going to debut. Practically wailed."
"Sungmin hyung?" Ryeowook's eyes are huge and Kyuhyun's pretty sure his are just as big.
"Are you sure, hyung?" he says.
"Of course, I was there," Eunhyuk says, walking to his room. "He just doesn't like crying in front of lots of people, that's all." He disappears into his room before anyone can interrogate him further.
… …
Despite all their years rooming together, Kyuhyun has never thought that Sungmin would cry over something like a debut. Sungmin smiles, and smiles, and smiles, and he's a genuinely happy, sunny person, unlike Eeteuk who dimples engagingly on screen and then writes emo messages on his cyworld. Sungmin is always calm and level-headed; if Eunhyuk steals from his store of food, so be it; if Donghae breaks his electronic devices to the point of no return, Sungmin just brings it to the service centre; if he's tired, he takes power naps; if one of them falls sick, or gets injured, or breaks down from stress and lack of sleep, Sungmin makes him hot tea and sits beside him until things get better. Sungmin himself never sobs or rants at the world or throws tantrums with Eeteuk as the punching bag. Sungmin never breaks down, period.
It intrigues Kyuhyun, this other side of Sungmin that he's never seen. It's impossible to broach the subject with Sungmin, though, because it would just be all kinds of awkward to go up to someone and say, "Hey, I hear you cried before, care to share the experience?"
He figures that it would be more conducive to ask Eunhyuk instead, who's nice and sensitive and full of information that Kyuhyun wants.
"Why do you want to know?" Eunhyuk says, tearing open a box of cream biscuits. "That's so weird."
"Because it is interesting, and I am interested in interesting things," Kyuhyun says, propping his legs up on Eunhyuk's bed. "Sungmin hyung's different from you, hyung. You cry all the time; nobody cares to know more about it."
Eunhyuk only looks mildly offended. "My fans say I look beautiful when I cry."
"Well, I'm not your fan," Kyuhyun says. "At least not in that sense. You just look red-nosed to me."
Eunhyuk sulks. "My fans say I have a nice nose too."
"Your fans would say that new zit on your temple is nice. Can we get back on topic please? Hyung? I really want those cream biscuits. You're eating them in front of me and that's not very tactful."
Eunhyuk passes him a packet because he's nice enough not to hold grudges. "Sungmin hyung's just like any other person," he says. "He cries when he feels bad. Or happy. It's the same thing, you know."
"But I've never seen it," Kyuhyun says. "It's been nearly four years and I've never even seen him tear up. Not even when we were watching the King and the Clown. Not even…" he pauses to think. "For that episode on EHB about crying."
Eunhyuk looks mournfully at a cracked cream biscuit. "He cried when we watched One Litre of Tears. Some Japanese drama with the girl dying of some spine disease."
Kyuhyun sputters a little. "See? This is exactly what I mean. You have all these memories of him crying, and I have none at all. And I'm his roommate!"
"I've known Sungmin hyung since we were kids," Eunhyuk says. "Of course I'd remember more about him."
Kyuhyun doesn't say anything for a while. It occurs to him that Sungmin has been sealing off this part from him, that perhaps all the times Sungmin looked a little down-spirited and locked himself in Eunhyuk or Shindong's rooms was because Sungmin hadn't wanted to show sadness in front of him. It's odd thinking of it in that way, that he has somehow, unwittingly, opened himself up to Sungmin over the past three years but the same hasn't happened on Sungmin's side.
"He cried over you before," Eunhyuk says.
"What?"
"When we got into that accident. You were all hooked up to scary-looking things on that bed and you had your leg up and you didn't seem to know anything that was going on. He started crying the minute he saw you. Then when you came back to us, he cried a lot too. Only he did it out of the dorm."
A faint memory teases; blurred colours, indistinct shapes, flickering, someone crying at the end of the world. Kyuhyun remembers how Sungmin had welcomed him back to the dorm; huge smiles and sparkly eyes while Eeteuk and Kangin cried and Donghae refused to talk because of a spasm in his throat. He looks at Eunhyuk, who has ceased hunting for unbroken cream biscuits. "Sungmin hyung cares a lot about you," Eunhyuk says. "You don't have to think that you mean less to him than Donghee hyung or I. He doesn't cry over just anyone, you know."
There's a telling note in Eunhyuk's voice that has Kyuhyun flinging a pillow at him. "You know too damn much."
"I've only lived with you two for four years," Eunhyuk says, far too smug.
… …
"Do you cry when I'm away?" Kyuhyun asks that night, because he can.
"I think you took my Calvin Klein briefs by accident," Sungmin says, poking around suspiciously in Kyuhyun's open suitcase.
"Hyung, stop rifling with my belongings and answer me."
"I'm missing a couple of underwear," Sungmin says explanatorily, peering into the side pockets.
"I didn't take them."
Sungmin sighs, evidently convinced, and leans back on the balls of his feet. "What did you say again?"
Kyuhyun clears his throat. Passing off as a joke a question that is asked once is okay. Doing that to a question that is asked twice is not. "I bet you cry yourself to sleep every night when I'm away," he tries instead.
Sungmin laughs. "What? Why are you suddenly saying that?"
"I think your eyes are red-rimmed whenever I come back."
"Actually, I sleep so much better without your heavy breathing."
He pauses for a moment. Normally he would retort, but he's thinking of faint memories again, and Sungmin's smile when they won the Daesang, and Sungmin now, crouched at his feet grinning at him. He wants to retort, but he's suddenly too lonely for that. "I miss you when I'm away," he says.
Sungmin pulls himself up and wraps his arms around Kyuhyun. "Don't get sappy on me now."
Nose buried in Sungmin's pullover, soft and snuggly and smelling of home, Kyuhyun doesn't want to let go. "Try crying about me tomorrow night."
"I only cry for things that really, really matter," Sungmin says. "Your momentary absence doesn’t quite cut it."
"Yeah?" Kyuhyun says, but he's smiling, stopping himself just in time from saying, but you've cried over me before.
He feels like he should know why that thought makes him so weirdly happy.
… …
Nine days later, Kyuhyun comes back from China to a silent dorm. He hadn't known what to expect, had been dreading it almost, and this silence is worse than anything he'd imagined. The silence is so thick, so suffocating, even the furniture seems blanketed in it. For once, Kyuhyun doesn't stop by Yesung's room to greet him. He goes straight to his own room, opens the door and walks in.
Sungmin is huddled on his bed, a big shapeless blob under the quilt. His eyes are closed, but when Kyuhyun puts down his suitcase, he shifts and mumbles, "Welcome back."
He's smiling, but the smile trembles at the edge of his lips. Kyuhyun sits down by Sungmin's bed. "I'm so tired, hyung."
From somewhere within the depths of the quilt, Sungmin's hand comes out and rests around his neck. "You should take a good rest, Kyuhyunnie."
"I feel like everything's at me…" it feels like words are pushing through his numbed lips, words that he couldn't voice out in China because it would make the situation too shatteringly real. "I don't even know how to feel, or how to react, except that it feels like everything has just ended."
Sungmin's touch is gentle on his neck, reassuring, exactly what Kyuhyun has been yearning for ever since their manager broke the news of Hangeng filing a lawsuit against SM to them. He hadn't known how much he'd yearned for it until he feels it now, Sungmin's silent sympathy that has been his mainstay whenever life felt like it was a little too hard.
After a moment, he gets up and slips under the covers beside his roommate.
… …
It's sometime late at night and he's shivering in Sungmin's arms again, unable to stop the shaking, hurt and apprehension and sadness so oppressive at the back of his throat that he soaks the pillow. Sungmin moves to get up from bed, but Kyuhyun holds on, mindlessly, shamelessly.
"Don't go," he manages to say, "stay with me, hyung."
Sungmin settles back down and holds him closer.
"I don't know what to do," Kyuhyun says. "We were all looking forward to the next album release…Zhou Mi hyung and Henry were so enthusiastic about writing songs for it…we thought we'd get bigger, you know? And then this happens, and we're totally thrown out into…nowhere…and I don't know what to do. I'm so frightened that this is the beginning, slowly everyone will start leaving and we'll just…disintegrate."
A sob chokes him for a moment, and he feels Sungmin's fingers tremble against his shoulder blade. "I'm so scared of losing us," he says softly. "That this is the beginning of the end for Super Junior. I want to stop it, but I don't know how."
Sungmin doesn't say anything. They lie against each other in silence for a long while, a long long while, then Kyuhyun raises his hand to Sungmin's cheek and finds it damp. Sungmin is crying.
Anytime before this, he would probably have been more amazed than anything else. But their grief is so shared, the sense of sadness and loss so strong, that he feels no amazement, only an overpowering rush of love towards Sungmin for caring enough, for trusting him enough to cry with him; understands, too, that Sungmin is crying as much for his pain and apprehension as he is for his own.
"I'm so sorry, Kyuhyunnie," Sungmin whispers, damp fingers seeking out his; "I'm so sorry that this has to happen."
He reaches out and grips Sungmin's hand. Remembers the many times that that hand has made hot tea for him, caressed his cheek, stroked his hair, held him close. Remembers that Kibum might be missing from all their activities, and Kangin might be gone for good, and Hangeng might have elected to leave them for reasons of his own, but Sungmin is here and has always been here and, in the darkness of the night, Kyuhyun finds a deep, solid security in that.
His nose is blocked and he really needs to clear it, but he leans forward to kiss Sungmin instead. Sungmin doesn't pull away, and Kyuhyun's lips hit his softer than anything Kyuhyun could ever have imagined. "Thank you, hyung," he says.
Sungmin makes a sound, thick and unintelligible, and Kyuhyun pulls him close and strokes his hair. Feels the surprise of how strong his arms are when he holds Sungmin up.
… …
Something significant changes about their relationship that night. They've been close for a long time, but Sungmin touches him with more intimacy now, even if it's just a brush of fingers when passing him the milk for breakfast. There's something warm about Sungmin's smile, teasing and playful and loving, and Kyuhyun finds himself responding, feels a desire stronger than any he's ever felt before to pull Sungmin away to some place where they can be alone to enjoy each other.
Sungmin makes him cheesy in ways that he can't explain, and he doesn't blame Yesung for complaining that they're too lovey dovey for his taste and will they please get out of the kitchen already before they spill milk all over the floor with the way they're staring into each other's eyes.
Eunhyuk laughs at them, says he always knew they had a thing for each other. The shadows under his eyes are receding with every night; everyone's are. They're all sleeping better, recovering from the emotional shock, and in the midst of such uncertainty Kyuhyun finds that he's happier than he's been in a long time.
"I love you," he says to Sungmin one afternoon as they linger by an open window in the SM building watching cars passing by on the street below. "It's strange how it took me an emotional crisis to find that out, isn't it?"
"I wasn't very much better," Sungmin says. "I was always waiting for you to make the first move."
"I heard from Hyukjae hyung that you cried by my hospital bed. I did hear you at that time, actually. But I didn't realise it was you. I was so drugged up and woozy that I thought I was at the end of the world. Still, when Hyukjae hyung told me that, I felt like you were hiding something from me. Namely, feelings."
"It was so awful, seeing you lying there rigged up to so many scary-looking electronic hospital things…" Sungmin's voice trails off. "That reminds me, I need to confront Eunhyukkie for disclosing so many of my secrets to you. You were never meant to find out about the One Litre of Tears thing."
Kyuhyun laughs, puts his arm around Sungmin's shoulders. Four years of friendship and an obsession over his lack of tears, Kyuhyun thinks; all that and in the end, Sungmin's smile still moves him most, especially the way he's smiling now, eyebrows perked, teeth showing, laughter and love in his eyes. "Show me that drama one day when we have time," he says. "I'll cry with you."
kyuhyun/sungmin
g; 3051 words
sungmin cries when he cares.
for teexsaurus to her prompt, 'how kyuhyun deals with a crying sungmin'.
conundrums
Colours blend into each other, indistinct shapes, blurry outlines. The world is somewhat vague. Kyuhyun thinks he might be hearing someone crying.
He's not sure, though. His head is fuzzy and it takes too much effort to open his eyes. He wonders if he's at the end of the world. At the bottom of the well. On clouds. In the mud. He wants to sleep.
That crying someone has quieted down. Maybe he was dreaming it, though it makes sense to cry when you're at the end of the world.
He feels like there's something he should be noticing.
It takes too much effort. Colours blur and vanish before his eyes. The sound of crying is gone, almost.
… …
Nights when his throat is scratchy, when he can't quite control the burning in his eyes, Sungmin is usually there to hold him.
It wasn't like that initially. Sungmin, of the doe eyes and chubby cheeks and eternal baby face, so seemingly delicate and vulnerable, doesn't cry. Kyuhyun, watching through blurry eyes as Sungmin smiled his way through their award presentations, couldn't understand how people like Kangin could be crying when Sungmin continued smiling, eyebrows perked, teeth showing.
Sungmin was a conundrum. And while Kyuhyun took kindly to conundrums - look at how easily he'd accepted Heechul's eccentricity - for some reason he didn't want Sungmin privy to his weakness, to him crying when boys don't cry. He was glad when he was given a space in Eeteuk and Ryeowook's room so that he wouldn't have to squeeze with Donghae and Sungmin anymore, wouldn't have to clamp down his homesickness and loneliness because Sungmin didn't seem the type who would be sympathetic to that.
Then they switched dorms, and he ended up with Sungmin again because Donghae couldn't stand anymore pink and couldn't be put with Eunhyuk in the same apartment in case they burned it down, and Ryeowook was the only one who didn't mind rooming with Yesung, and Heechul insisted on having his own room, and so, Eeteuk said, you'll be fine with Sungmin, he'll take good care of you.
I'll take good care of you, Sungmin said, eyebrows perked, teeth showing, and Kyuhyun didn't know what to make of him. They were civil, they got along, Sungmin didn't snore and kept his side of the room tidy, but Kyuhyun found himself going to the 12th floor, sliding into Eeteuk and Donghae's room whenever he needed someone to tell him that it would be alright, don't worry, it's okay to cry.
One night he woke up from a barely remembered dream, shivering and crying, incoherent, unable to understand his tears. He was soaked in cold sweat, his nose was blocked, and he'd never hated himself more when Sungmin flicked on the light and came over to look at him.
I'm sorry, he said, so sorry, hyung, didn't mean to wake you up.
Sungmin left the room and Kyuhyun thought he would get up from bed in a minute, make his way to the bathroom and freshen up a little, stop the shaking. Then Sungmin came back with a warm towel and hot tea and knelt down beside him, wiping his perspiration away, stroking his cheek. Kyuhyun never forgot the softness, stability, of Sungmin's arms that night.
Three years later, he still hasn't forgotten it. Still feels the surprise of how strong Sungmin's arms are when they hold him up.
… …
Eunhyuk's still crying when they return to the dorm, eyes so puffed up that even Ryeowook laughs at him. "Hyung," says Ryeowook, "you're supposed to be happy."
"I am happy," Eunhyuk says huffily. "Do not judge my method of expressing happiness."
Sungmin drapes an arm around Eunhyuk and Kyuhyun feels a momentary pang, a slight, irrational sense of jealousy that Eunhyuk is the only one Sungmin ever shows much affection to. "Leave him be," Sungmin says, poking Eunhyuk's cheek. "It's not every day we win a Daesang. Or every month. Or even every year. Hyukjae has every right to make his nose red."
"Nose is not red," Eunhyuk says indignantly, "am looking glamourous."
Sungmin laughs and abandons him in favour of being the first one in the shower.
"Sungmin hyung never cries," Ryeowook observes. "He's always so strong."
"Don't you believe it," Eunhyuk says, dabbing at his eyes with a kitchen towel. "He cried like a baby the day we found out we were going to debut. Practically wailed."
"Sungmin hyung?" Ryeowook's eyes are huge and Kyuhyun's pretty sure his are just as big.
"Are you sure, hyung?" he says.
"Of course, I was there," Eunhyuk says, walking to his room. "He just doesn't like crying in front of lots of people, that's all." He disappears into his room before anyone can interrogate him further.
… …
Despite all their years rooming together, Kyuhyun has never thought that Sungmin would cry over something like a debut. Sungmin smiles, and smiles, and smiles, and he's a genuinely happy, sunny person, unlike Eeteuk who dimples engagingly on screen and then writes emo messages on his cyworld. Sungmin is always calm and level-headed; if Eunhyuk steals from his store of food, so be it; if Donghae breaks his electronic devices to the point of no return, Sungmin just brings it to the service centre; if he's tired, he takes power naps; if one of them falls sick, or gets injured, or breaks down from stress and lack of sleep, Sungmin makes him hot tea and sits beside him until things get better. Sungmin himself never sobs or rants at the world or throws tantrums with Eeteuk as the punching bag. Sungmin never breaks down, period.
It intrigues Kyuhyun, this other side of Sungmin that he's never seen. It's impossible to broach the subject with Sungmin, though, because it would just be all kinds of awkward to go up to someone and say, "Hey, I hear you cried before, care to share the experience?"
He figures that it would be more conducive to ask Eunhyuk instead, who's nice and sensitive and full of information that Kyuhyun wants.
"Why do you want to know?" Eunhyuk says, tearing open a box of cream biscuits. "That's so weird."
"Because it is interesting, and I am interested in interesting things," Kyuhyun says, propping his legs up on Eunhyuk's bed. "Sungmin hyung's different from you, hyung. You cry all the time; nobody cares to know more about it."
Eunhyuk only looks mildly offended. "My fans say I look beautiful when I cry."
"Well, I'm not your fan," Kyuhyun says. "At least not in that sense. You just look red-nosed to me."
Eunhyuk sulks. "My fans say I have a nice nose too."
"Your fans would say that new zit on your temple is nice. Can we get back on topic please? Hyung? I really want those cream biscuits. You're eating them in front of me and that's not very tactful."
Eunhyuk passes him a packet because he's nice enough not to hold grudges. "Sungmin hyung's just like any other person," he says. "He cries when he feels bad. Or happy. It's the same thing, you know."
"But I've never seen it," Kyuhyun says. "It's been nearly four years and I've never even seen him tear up. Not even when we were watching the King and the Clown. Not even…" he pauses to think. "For that episode on EHB about crying."
Eunhyuk looks mournfully at a cracked cream biscuit. "He cried when we watched One Litre of Tears. Some Japanese drama with the girl dying of some spine disease."
Kyuhyun sputters a little. "See? This is exactly what I mean. You have all these memories of him crying, and I have none at all. And I'm his roommate!"
"I've known Sungmin hyung since we were kids," Eunhyuk says. "Of course I'd remember more about him."
Kyuhyun doesn't say anything for a while. It occurs to him that Sungmin has been sealing off this part from him, that perhaps all the times Sungmin looked a little down-spirited and locked himself in Eunhyuk or Shindong's rooms was because Sungmin hadn't wanted to show sadness in front of him. It's odd thinking of it in that way, that he has somehow, unwittingly, opened himself up to Sungmin over the past three years but the same hasn't happened on Sungmin's side.
"He cried over you before," Eunhyuk says.
"What?"
"When we got into that accident. You were all hooked up to scary-looking things on that bed and you had your leg up and you didn't seem to know anything that was going on. He started crying the minute he saw you. Then when you came back to us, he cried a lot too. Only he did it out of the dorm."
A faint memory teases; blurred colours, indistinct shapes, flickering, someone crying at the end of the world. Kyuhyun remembers how Sungmin had welcomed him back to the dorm; huge smiles and sparkly eyes while Eeteuk and Kangin cried and Donghae refused to talk because of a spasm in his throat. He looks at Eunhyuk, who has ceased hunting for unbroken cream biscuits. "Sungmin hyung cares a lot about you," Eunhyuk says. "You don't have to think that you mean less to him than Donghee hyung or I. He doesn't cry over just anyone, you know."
There's a telling note in Eunhyuk's voice that has Kyuhyun flinging a pillow at him. "You know too damn much."
"I've only lived with you two for four years," Eunhyuk says, far too smug.
… …
"Do you cry when I'm away?" Kyuhyun asks that night, because he can.
"I think you took my Calvin Klein briefs by accident," Sungmin says, poking around suspiciously in Kyuhyun's open suitcase.
"Hyung, stop rifling with my belongings and answer me."
"I'm missing a couple of underwear," Sungmin says explanatorily, peering into the side pockets.
"I didn't take them."
Sungmin sighs, evidently convinced, and leans back on the balls of his feet. "What did you say again?"
Kyuhyun clears his throat. Passing off as a joke a question that is asked once is okay. Doing that to a question that is asked twice is not. "I bet you cry yourself to sleep every night when I'm away," he tries instead.
Sungmin laughs. "What? Why are you suddenly saying that?"
"I think your eyes are red-rimmed whenever I come back."
"Actually, I sleep so much better without your heavy breathing."
He pauses for a moment. Normally he would retort, but he's thinking of faint memories again, and Sungmin's smile when they won the Daesang, and Sungmin now, crouched at his feet grinning at him. He wants to retort, but he's suddenly too lonely for that. "I miss you when I'm away," he says.
Sungmin pulls himself up and wraps his arms around Kyuhyun. "Don't get sappy on me now."
Nose buried in Sungmin's pullover, soft and snuggly and smelling of home, Kyuhyun doesn't want to let go. "Try crying about me tomorrow night."
"I only cry for things that really, really matter," Sungmin says. "Your momentary absence doesn’t quite cut it."
"Yeah?" Kyuhyun says, but he's smiling, stopping himself just in time from saying, but you've cried over me before.
He feels like he should know why that thought makes him so weirdly happy.
… …
Nine days later, Kyuhyun comes back from China to a silent dorm. He hadn't known what to expect, had been dreading it almost, and this silence is worse than anything he'd imagined. The silence is so thick, so suffocating, even the furniture seems blanketed in it. For once, Kyuhyun doesn't stop by Yesung's room to greet him. He goes straight to his own room, opens the door and walks in.
Sungmin is huddled on his bed, a big shapeless blob under the quilt. His eyes are closed, but when Kyuhyun puts down his suitcase, he shifts and mumbles, "Welcome back."
He's smiling, but the smile trembles at the edge of his lips. Kyuhyun sits down by Sungmin's bed. "I'm so tired, hyung."
From somewhere within the depths of the quilt, Sungmin's hand comes out and rests around his neck. "You should take a good rest, Kyuhyunnie."
"I feel like everything's at me…" it feels like words are pushing through his numbed lips, words that he couldn't voice out in China because it would make the situation too shatteringly real. "I don't even know how to feel, or how to react, except that it feels like everything has just ended."
Sungmin's touch is gentle on his neck, reassuring, exactly what Kyuhyun has been yearning for ever since their manager broke the news of Hangeng filing a lawsuit against SM to them. He hadn't known how much he'd yearned for it until he feels it now, Sungmin's silent sympathy that has been his mainstay whenever life felt like it was a little too hard.
After a moment, he gets up and slips under the covers beside his roommate.
… …
It's sometime late at night and he's shivering in Sungmin's arms again, unable to stop the shaking, hurt and apprehension and sadness so oppressive at the back of his throat that he soaks the pillow. Sungmin moves to get up from bed, but Kyuhyun holds on, mindlessly, shamelessly.
"Don't go," he manages to say, "stay with me, hyung."
Sungmin settles back down and holds him closer.
"I don't know what to do," Kyuhyun says. "We were all looking forward to the next album release…Zhou Mi hyung and Henry were so enthusiastic about writing songs for it…we thought we'd get bigger, you know? And then this happens, and we're totally thrown out into…nowhere…and I don't know what to do. I'm so frightened that this is the beginning, slowly everyone will start leaving and we'll just…disintegrate."
A sob chokes him for a moment, and he feels Sungmin's fingers tremble against his shoulder blade. "I'm so scared of losing us," he says softly. "That this is the beginning of the end for Super Junior. I want to stop it, but I don't know how."
Sungmin doesn't say anything. They lie against each other in silence for a long while, a long long while, then Kyuhyun raises his hand to Sungmin's cheek and finds it damp. Sungmin is crying.
Anytime before this, he would probably have been more amazed than anything else. But their grief is so shared, the sense of sadness and loss so strong, that he feels no amazement, only an overpowering rush of love towards Sungmin for caring enough, for trusting him enough to cry with him; understands, too, that Sungmin is crying as much for his pain and apprehension as he is for his own.
"I'm so sorry, Kyuhyunnie," Sungmin whispers, damp fingers seeking out his; "I'm so sorry that this has to happen."
He reaches out and grips Sungmin's hand. Remembers the many times that that hand has made hot tea for him, caressed his cheek, stroked his hair, held him close. Remembers that Kibum might be missing from all their activities, and Kangin might be gone for good, and Hangeng might have elected to leave them for reasons of his own, but Sungmin is here and has always been here and, in the darkness of the night, Kyuhyun finds a deep, solid security in that.
His nose is blocked and he really needs to clear it, but he leans forward to kiss Sungmin instead. Sungmin doesn't pull away, and Kyuhyun's lips hit his softer than anything Kyuhyun could ever have imagined. "Thank you, hyung," he says.
Sungmin makes a sound, thick and unintelligible, and Kyuhyun pulls him close and strokes his hair. Feels the surprise of how strong his arms are when he holds Sungmin up.
… …
Something significant changes about their relationship that night. They've been close for a long time, but Sungmin touches him with more intimacy now, even if it's just a brush of fingers when passing him the milk for breakfast. There's something warm about Sungmin's smile, teasing and playful and loving, and Kyuhyun finds himself responding, feels a desire stronger than any he's ever felt before to pull Sungmin away to some place where they can be alone to enjoy each other.
Sungmin makes him cheesy in ways that he can't explain, and he doesn't blame Yesung for complaining that they're too lovey dovey for his taste and will they please get out of the kitchen already before they spill milk all over the floor with the way they're staring into each other's eyes.
Eunhyuk laughs at them, says he always knew they had a thing for each other. The shadows under his eyes are receding with every night; everyone's are. They're all sleeping better, recovering from the emotional shock, and in the midst of such uncertainty Kyuhyun finds that he's happier than he's been in a long time.
"I love you," he says to Sungmin one afternoon as they linger by an open window in the SM building watching cars passing by on the street below. "It's strange how it took me an emotional crisis to find that out, isn't it?"
"I wasn't very much better," Sungmin says. "I was always waiting for you to make the first move."
"I heard from Hyukjae hyung that you cried by my hospital bed. I did hear you at that time, actually. But I didn't realise it was you. I was so drugged up and woozy that I thought I was at the end of the world. Still, when Hyukjae hyung told me that, I felt like you were hiding something from me. Namely, feelings."
"It was so awful, seeing you lying there rigged up to so many scary-looking electronic hospital things…" Sungmin's voice trails off. "That reminds me, I need to confront Eunhyukkie for disclosing so many of my secrets to you. You were never meant to find out about the One Litre of Tears thing."
Kyuhyun laughs, puts his arm around Sungmin's shoulders. Four years of friendship and an obsession over his lack of tears, Kyuhyun thinks; all that and in the end, Sungmin's smile still moves him most, especially the way he's smiling now, eyebrows perked, teeth showing, laughter and love in his eyes. "Show me that drama one day when we have time," he says. "I'll cry with you."