rhythm of love
rhythm of love
2140 w, pg (younha/kyuhyun)
he can hear her melody through the wall
a/n for my fix exchange w/ hypothermal <3 an awesome writer who really got me into her otp. first time writing kyuha. i hope you like it!
"You need to make new friends."
"What? I have you, Ryeowook. I think that is enough for me."
"No, Kyuhyun, seriously, make new friends. You live in an apartment complex with a bunch of cool guys and attractive girls. Buy a dog if you have to. Just, I don't know, make friends."
He doesn't really remember the day that she moved in.
It might have been three, four weeks ago, but she was small and had big eyes. They looked friendly, the inviting kind that boys fawned over. Girls like her were the type of girls that guys wanted to protect. She was small enough to fit into Kyuhyun's chest, he had calculated, and he would still have enough arm space to huge someone else if need be. She's warm and inviting and she knows who she is even if the whole world around her doesn't. Kyuhyun assumes that she doesn't care about what other people think, definitely not. There's something about her and he just knows she isn't shallow.
She's deep, understanding, and maybe that's just a little too much for someone like him.
He doesn't really remember the day she moved in, but he remembers carrying a box for her.
"Thank you for your help," She says with a light smile, tucking strands of wavy, chestnut hair behind her ear.
Kyuhyun blinks a few times and merely shrugs, putting it down. He offers a sheepish smile, "No problem. You looked like you needed help anyways. This box is almost half your size."
She looks at him for a moment, her brow arched. It only takes a few seconds for her to smile and laugh. Maybe making fun of her height wasn't the best idea, but she smirks anyways, "I'm Younha. Your new neighbor."
He nods, "Kyuhyun."
After that, he doesn't see her again. Sometimes when they're getting the mail, he accidentally makes eye contact. He supposes he forgot to tell her the part in which he's just extremely anti social.
"Make friends," Kyuhyun mumbles to himself absentmindedly, throwing his game controller open in the air and catching it securely in his palm a few seconds later. He is sitting on his couch, his head leaned back against the wall. He can't even feel the rough wallpaper due to the thick locks on his head. Maybe it's time for a haircut. He keeps throwing the controller up and down, the pattern becoming habitual.
It is not until he hears some sweet melody from the other side of the wall that he only offers five percent of effort to the control catching and the rest to the voice reaching his ears. It is probably one of the sweetest things he has heard in a long time, besides the noise of battleships going off. But honestly, the piano rhythm and tune that comes across is something he drops the controller for and finds himself listening to until he falls asleep on the couch that night.
Younha meets Ryeowook one day when she's carrying this bag of groceries back and all the oranges fall out. He leans down to pick them up and hand them over, but instead he ends up helping her carry the whole bag instead. She is unbelievably adorable, he finds. When he glances around the apartment everything looks organized, except for the baby grand piano in the corner, the one really extravagant piece in her living room with papers scattered around it.
"Do you live on this floor?" She cuts off his trail of thought, directing him to set down the bag on the table. "I feel like I've seen you roaming around here."
"Me? Oh no, I live two floors up. I am actually here to visit my friend who conveniently lives right next to you."
"Kyuhyun?" Younha chimes, slightly shocked. Ryeowook looks pretty surprised too, considering the slight parting of his lips that suddenly breaks into a smile.
"Yeah. Do you know him?"
Younha shakes her head in a no, her expression becoming somewhat disappointed. "No, not really. I want to get to know my neighbors. Like Yoobin, she lives right across, and I know Taeyeon who is right down the hall. But I don't see Kyuhyun around much."
Ryeowook just gets it. Typical Kyuhyun. "He doesn't go out much, but he's a nice guy. I'm sure he wouldn't mind if you just stopped on over one day."
She laughs, "Maybe. But thank you for your help! Everyone is this complex is just really nice. It's kind of weird, not going to lie."
He laughs too, "Just a little."
Ryeowook walks into Kyuhyun's door and slaps the guy on the back. Kyuhyun grimaces.
"What now?" He asks, his brows furrowing as he places his fingers on his temples. The older male looks at him with slightly wide eyes, shaking his head as if it the most obvious thing in the world. Kyuhyun doesn't get it.
"Younha? She's .. she's .. she lives right next to you! Didn't I say you need to make friends?" Ryeowook insists, scratching the back of his head in the beginning stages of his upcoming tangent. Kyuhyun can already see it coming so he stops his best friend short.
"Since when do I listen to you? I might need to, but I don't really want to," He complains rather lamely.
Ryeowook frowns, "Stop being shy! She's really nice. Invite her to dinner. Get to know her."
Kyuhyun shakes his head, "I already know what I need to know about her."
"What? Like what? She says she's never even talked to you."
"Her name is Younha," Kyuhyun begins, and suddenly he can hear the piano through the wall again. He glances over at the clock, seeing that it is eight fifteen, the typical time that she starts playing. When she ends? Well, that is usually only hours later.
"And she plays piano."
Ryeowook, needless to say, is slightly confused. He also thinks that Kyuhyun is a bit creepy. "Well, that's a start. But definitely no where near to finish," He sighs. "Invite her to dinner. Just do it."
Because Kyuhyun hates being told what to do, he never does it. Even though he would not have done it anyways, even if Ryeowook didn't tell him, but he just keeps that to himself. It is some random day when he is in the middle of microwaving ramen in a cup and failing at it that he's just so tempted to call Ryeowook over to cook for him and his door buzzes. Kyuhyun is slightly perplexed.
When he opens the door he finds Younha standing there, clad in jeans and a plaid shirt, while he still has his plaid pajama pants on. A pretty grin is painted across her face, a little basket held in front of her stomach.
"Uh, hi."
"Is this a bad time?" She asks. Kyuhyun shakes his head in a no.
"I just made you cookies and stuff. For, uh - well. Neighborly purposes, you know. That and I think it is kind of funny that I've only seen you three times outside of the apartment. I just wanted to make sure you were alive," Younha muses. She's joking of course, but at the same time he can tell she's partially serious. A large part, in fact.
Kyuhyun just moves the little blue napkin from the top of the basket, grabbing a cookie and plopping it into his mouth.
"You just wanted to see me," Kyuhyun says shamelessly in between chews.
She sighs, "Sure, we can go with that too if you want." And they both laugh after that.
"I hear you, you know. Through the wall and stuff," Kyuhyun tells her this one day, one of many days, in which she is sitting on the floor in front of the television, trying to beat his highest starcraft score. She's almost there when he deliberately nudges her with his foot. She loses her last life.
"Hey!" She complains, throwing out her small fist to hit his knee. He snickers.
"Anyways, I hear you and all the shady stuff you do through the wall," Kyuhyun repeats, this time his expression void of any humor.
She rolls her eyes and starts from the beginning of the level, "Yeah, I'm sorry you have to hear that."
It's hard to get her mad, really mad anyways. She's always so calm, chill, all the other adjectives that could describe her almost nonexistent temperament. Younha, in other words, could deal with him. It was a comfort knowing that Ryeowook was not the only one.
He smiles.
"But I hear you play piano. I also hear you sing," Kyuhyun nudges her with his foot again. "You're really good."
Younha doesn't look up from her intent gaze on the television. She feels her cheeks flush red, but says nothing of it. If she doesn't bring it up, he probably won't notice. It's kind of embarrassing that he can hear her.
"Really, really good," Kyuhyun repeats, wanting to get some kind of reaction from her. She debates on his sincerity and decides it is kind of real.
But, before she can respond, he just chuckles, "I'm better though."
She beats his high score.
There is this one night where he has his head leaning against the wall behind his couch, just waiting. This night in particular, he finds that she is playing louder. That she is singing louder.
In the midst of her song, her voice, "And Kyuhyun, I know you are listening!" Younha yells through, banging his wall with a laugh that chimes through afterwards.
Kyuhyun finds himself laughing loudly as well, hoping that he can hear her too.
"I think you have been hanging out with her more than you have been hanging out with me," Ryeowook comments one day while he cooks some fried rice.
"You're always complaining," Kyuhyun mutters informally, earning a glare.
"I was going to congratulate you, actually," A pause, "I think you like her."
Kyuhyun looks at him, slightly incredulous. "What?"
"Well, okay, maybe you don't. But I know she has a crush on you. And it is not like that one time that girl down the other side of the hall had a crush on you because she thought you were mysterious. No, I think she actually likes you. That, and she doesn't just deal with you. She actually knows how to .. well, handle you. And Kyuhyun, not a lot of people know how to do that," Ryeowook is frankly honest.
"Cherish it," Ryewook mumbles.
Kyuhyun stares down at his hands for a minute, inhaling deeply before he looks over.
"I'll listen to you. Just this one time."
Kyuhyun feels like he just knows one day.
He just knows why his heart tends to beat a little faster, occasionally skipping some. He just knows that she's Younha, and he can say that because she isn't like everyone else. Kyuhyun just knows that she gets it, she gets him and his starcraft and his snark and everything else about him that most people just don't.
She's deep and understanding, and maybe that's a little too much for someone like him - someone who has failed to understand anyone else besides himself, but he's willing to take some sort of leap out of his comfort zone. It won't be big, but at the same time, it's on the edge of something.
"Hi," He greets her at her front door this time. Kyuhyun has never been to Younha's apartment, even if it only is six steps away, but it felt like somewhat of a journey. Younha tilts her head with her usual, bright smile. She's happy, always, or just generally passionate. All the emotions she feels are always displayed on the canvas of her face. She's never afraid to hide it.
"Wow, must have taken you awhile to get here," She says. Apart of it makes sense, it really must have taken him awhile to muster up the courage. At the same time though, she just knows too.
it's when they laugh through the walls together, when he sometimes decides to sing back. It's when she comes over and beats his ass at starcraft- it is just there. it just is.
"So, your apartment isn't that bad looking either," Kyuhyun says, looking behind her. "Are you going to let me in?" He asks, "Or do I have to just push you aside?"
Younha rolls her eyes and moves over, his steps are tentative and her fingers are tightly wrapped around the doorknob.
Kyuhyun looks around and his eyes immediately fall into her piano.
"So, this is where you serenade me from?"
Younha laughs, "I guess you could say that."
He doesn't really remember the day she moved in.
But, he does remember the day a few years later when she moves in with him.