Fanfiction: Look For A Star [OneShot]

[kitkii]

Look for a Star
Future au, angst | Kibum/Donghae, hinted broken!Hankyung/Heechul, Siwon/Hankyung
It’s one inconsistency that tears his life apart.
2,203 words.

He stood beneath a broken streetlight, staring up at the burnt out lamp high above him. Down the road on either side of him lights shone in a straight line, lighting up roads that lead to other roads that grew into a network that covered the entire planet.

Staring up at the inky darkness, he wondered-if all the lights went out, would the stars shine in the city? He hadn’t seen stars (that weren’t secretly satellites) in years. His hair fell over his shoulders in messy waves, a biting wind sending shards into his skin, making it seem like porcelain. He paid it no mind, standing under the anomaly and feeling as though he’d found one inconsistency in a world of consistent wonder.

Tears froze against his long eyelashes, frozen before they could spill over the tip of his chin and freeze into his scarf. He breathed raggedly, doing nothing but staring at the burnt out light above him and cry with sobs that shook his shoulders.

“Hyung?”

He ignored the hesitant voice behind him. “Hyung come on, you’ll freeze out here.” He ignored the scrawny young man with slumped shoulders, just as defeated as everyone else. He ignored him. Eunhyuk couldn’t see the tears shining against his dark eyes.

“Go away,” Heechul sighed, after a long moment where Hyukjae didn’t move. His voice lacked a certain bite to it. “I don’t want to go inside.” His fingers fumbled with his coat pocket, as he looked for his pack of cigarettes. Finding them, he lit one deftly, hands shaking still.

He hadn’t noticed that Hyukjae had obeyed him until he felt soft hands on him. He opened his eyes, staring at Donghae in slight shock. Eunhyuk’s face hovered out of the light of the next lamp a few meters away.

“Rella,” Donghae’s voice sounded tired in his ear, as the younger boy pulled his cigarette out of his fingers and dropped it to the frozen sidewalk. “Come with me, let’s go home.”

“There is no home,” he snapped, letting himself be dragged back to the dorms. Inside, he dropped onto Donghae’s bed and buried his face in the pillow. The warmth seeped into his bones, his body no longer feeling the need to go on. He took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of his dearest friend.

Donghae crawled in beside him, throwing the covers over their bodies and wrapping his arms around him, pressing against his back in a way that was more comforting than anything else. His dark eyes glanced around the room, sticking on the picture of Donghae and Kibum, together.

“Don’t you ever miss him?” He asked, feeling Donghae’s arms tighten around his waist.

“Yeah,” the younger boy’s breath felt hot-like Hankyung’s had-against his neck. “But I know I’ll see him again.”

“How do you know?” Heechul asked, bitterly.

“Because I have faith in him,” Donghae whispered. “He loves me too much.”

Heechul’s reply came long after the other had fallen asleep. “Then why does he leave if he loves me?” His thoughts were full of accented laughter.

A few press conferences later the group was narrowed down to eleven members. Kibum, to everyone’s surprise, had returned for what was to be the groups final album.. But then a half a year later, Eeteuk and himself were called to the army and Super Junior disbanded for good. When he got out of the army, the first thing he did was buy an apartment overlooking the Han river.

Donghae made a point of coming over every day, just to make sure he hadn’t gone crazy by himself. He told him that Heechul should find himself someone new, but Heechul knew that anyone he found would just walk out on him. He knew they’d all leave eventually. Donghae’s optimism was unprecedented, and he found himself having a few flings here or there-never getting very far before he broke it off.

He stopped eating when Donghae went into the army. Kibum and he happened to be cast in the same movie (he called it fate, he liked to pretend it was like the old days again). Everything was fine, until Heechul fainted in the pool scene the two were filming.

When he woke up, Kibum was slumped over in the seat next to the bed. He frowned at the boy, ever suspicious. Kibum stirred awake a few minutes later, starting to find Heechul up. “Hyung!” The young face gave him a relieved look, his fingers reaching for Heechul’s.

Heechul hid them under the covers, linking his hands together. His eyes stared at Kibum distrustfully. “Why are you here?”

Kibum opened his mouth helplessly. “I just…” he stared at those dead eyes, his heart sinking. “I was worried for you.”

Heechul snorted, flicking his long hair out of his eyes and looking at the wall. “If you cared, you wouldn’t have left.” His gaze burned a hole in the wall, listening to the way Kibum’s breath caught in his throat.

“Hyung, I never left you.” Heechul heard him place something on the table beside his hospital bed. “I was just going after my dream, just like you.” He left the room, and Heechul couldn’t help but notice the way his shoulders were slumped. He felt an empty sense of satisfaction.

Kibum had left him a letter on the table. Opening it, his hands shaking, he dropped it in his lap when he saw the sloppy scrawl of one whom he remembered far too well. Tears stained his cheeks and blurred his vision, making reading impossible. Choking on his own tongue, he tore the letter up and threw it in the garbage, the meters beeping wildly as his heart spluttered from the shock.

Kibum, who had slumped outside the doors, heard the commotion and shouted for the nurse, stopping on the threshold of the room, where he was shoved aside, watching with tear filled eyes as they jumped Heechul’s heart back into the world of the living.

On the phone, later that evening, Kibum took a long drag from the cigarette on his lips as he told Donghae the news. “He had a heart attack, hyung.” The younger boy murmured, scuffing his shoes against the pavement outside the hospital doors. “They said it was the stress of lack of malnutrition mixed with shock and who knows what else.” Guilt bore down on his shoulders. “I should have gone to see him, he seemed fine on set,” he mumbled.

”It’s not your fault, Kibummie.” Donghae’s voice was reassuring from the other end, Kibum could nearly taste the sunny smile. ”Did you give him Hankyung-hyung’s letter?”

“Yeah,” Kibum squished the butt of the cigarette under his heel. “I think that was the shock that gave him the heart attack.”

”Should we tell Hannie?”

“No,” Kibum’s voice was sharp. “If just a letter was enough to do this, the shock would kill him.” Kibum bit his lip. “He thinks he betrayed him.”

Heechul went home a few days later, told to stay away from any strenuous activity and to get lots of rest. In the morning he’d open a fresh pack of the cigarettes the hospital told him to quit, make a pot of coffee, and then waltz down in his pink pajama’s to get the mail. Back in his room, he’d blast Japanese rock from his surround sound all day long, while he smoked his pack and sprawled on the couch watching tv soap operas on mute.

He’d learned that things were more exciting when you could make up your own dialogue.

He avoided the internet. He knew that if he went online he’d look for information on him. Then he’d feel the need to call him, and then he’d trash his apartment in a rage and call Siwon just to call him a jerk. He didn’t go on the internet, but he did call Siwon. When the man tried to ask him how he was, he hung up and threw his phone out the window, laughing maniacally. Then he laid down on the floor and tried to drown himself in his tears.

It never worked.

In the afternoon Kibum would come and make Heechul eat something. He never made it himself, but he would pick up things that he knew Heechul liked. He never got fried rice, though, even when Heechul wanted that more than anything else.

“Hyung,” Kibum chimed up one day, amidst watching the older man scoff down kimchii. “I’m being sent to the army tomorrow.” He seemed to have trouble saying it. Heechul paid him no mind, and Kibum made a sort of pained sound. “Hyung, are you listening?”

Heechul scowled at him. “Yeah, you’re just going away again, I got it.” He scoffed at him, ignoring the shocked, scarred look he received in return.

“You’ll need to feed yourself.” Kibum said, glancing around the apartment. “And clean by yourself.”

“What am I, five? I can take care of myself.” Kibum smiled, but couldn’t help the doubt in his mind.

A few days after Kibum left for the army, Heechul was found near death in his apartment. He was only found because the neighbors were complaining that the Japanese rock music had been on all night. In truth Heechul hadn’t been able to turn it off because he had tried to hang himself in the bathroom. The shower bar broke and he woke up a week later, staring at the white hospital ceiling.

He wasn’t allowed to leave the psych ward until Donghae was discharged from the army. He took his friend home to the apartment and spent nights on his couch. Heechul had stopped talking, but Donghae’s kindness got him to eat. One night, Hankyung called Donghae’s cell phone.

Heechul listened to that soft Chinese accent. He was quiet, shaking so hard that Donghae had to put an arm around him to keep him from bouncing right off the couch. “Why did you do it?” Was the only thing he rasped out, with what seemed like an immense effort.

But he never listened to the answer, because he threw the phone against the wall so violently that the pieces broke apart, the battery flying off and skittering under the bookshelf. Neither one got up to pick it up. Donghae pulled his fingers gingerly though Heechul’s hair, feeling him shake against him.

“Why did you do it?” Donghae murmured after he had calmed him down. Heechul’s breath caught in his throat and he gave a choked sob.

“I stopped believing you were going to come back.” He choked out, voice bitter. “I was going to show you what it was like to be left without stars.”

The next day, Donghae concocted a plan. It took a few weeks for the younger man to plan it, but he kept going to Heechul’s house every day, giving away nothing. Finally, he called Kibum with his new cell phone and told him about it. His boyfriend was in Paris, finally finishing his military duties and now filming for a movie.

The day Kibum returned, he called Heechul and told him to pack some clothes and other essentials into suitcases. Heechul asked him where he was going, but Donghae gave nothing away, just telling him to pack at least a week’s worth of everything.

“You, you’re here.” His face was wrought with a pained surprise, as he took in the slight build and the long hair bound in a messy ponytail. Dead eyes met living onyx, as he backed up from the door, his mouth opening and closing in shock. Kibum closed the distance between them and pulled Heechul into a hug that was warmer than he’d expected.

Heechul had half expected a ghost. “Hyung,” Kibum’s deep voice whispered in his ear, and when the other pulled away, he saw a flash of white teeth. The two looked at each other silently, and then Donghae entered with a beaming smile and light, chocolate eyes. He pulled Heechul into the warmest of hugs and brushed his lips against his cheek.

“Ready?” Donghae asked when he’d withdrawn. Kibum saw the suitcase and the bags resting in front of the entranceway and grabbed them, silently leaving, like the wraith that he was. Heechul curled a thin hand around Donghae’s strong forearm. The younger man locked up Heechul’s apartment and the settled him in the backseat of his small blue car.

It wasn’t until an hour later, after Heechul watched Donghae’s fingers drift from the steering wheel to Kibum’s thigh for the nth time, that he finally licked his lips and cleared his throat, immediately drawing the attention of his kidnappers.

“Where are we going?”

Donghae’s smile beamed at him like sunshine through the rearview mirror. Outside they passed into the wild countryside. Kibum turned his head, onyx eyes showing a life that Heechul had forgotten how to live.

“We’re going to find a star.”

The clouds reflected the light of bright sun, a blue ocean above them and, as the car turned a corner, beside them. Heechul’s laugh was sharp and crisp, sparkling off whitecaps splashing against the surface. Donghae squeezed Kibum’s hand tightly. Heechul was going to return to them-he could taste it.

fin

This is not one I'll be proud of when I wake up in the morning. Sorry if it's inconsistent and incoherent. It's like my mind at the moment, haha. ♥