#3 [SUPER JUNIOR, MISS A. HEECHUL/JIA]
Fandom: Super Junior, Miss A
Title: How To Save A Life (And You Begin To Wonder Why You Came)
Rating: PG-13
Pairing(s): Heechul-centric (Heechul/Jia, mentions of various Heechul friendships, most notably Heechul/Jay Kim)
Length: 5031w
Summary: Heechul is a huge f-ing mess.
Warnings: Language and mentions of sex, but nothing triggering.
Notes: Yes, the title is from The Fray, LMAO. I really, really liked the original piece, and I thought it was pm perfect, so that, coupled with the fact that I've always found Heechul complex to write, made writing this pretty tough. I hope I did the story justice.
Remixee author: naladot
Title of work you remixed: begins to feel like home
Link to work you remixed: http://naladot.livejournal.com/2555.html
When Sunye first tells him that someone new is going to move into the last, vacant bedroom in the house, Heechul gives her a look that mostly says, what are you telling me for? This is your house.
In the end, he just shrugs and tells her, “Just make sure he or she stays away from my things, and out of my business.”
“She,” Sunye informs him with a smile. “The new bed spacer is going to be a girl.”
Heechul shrugs again. He doesn’t really care.
He actually sees her on the night that she first moves in. He’s outside the house, a few meters from the gate, seated on a plant box, smoking while waiting for his car ride.
Heechul is checking the time on his phone (because Jesus-fucking-Christ, where in the world is Simon, he should have been by at least three cigarette sticks ago), when a car parks in front of the gate. Two girls get off, and he thinks they probably didn’t see him, which is fine by him, never mind that he probably looks like a creep hiding in the shadows.
One of the girls is Min, and he knows she’s the one who got Sunye the new tenant, so he figures that’s who the other one is. She looks Asian, but that doesn’t really surprise Heechul. The Asian community has a tendency to stick together, and he figures she’s probably Korean as well. She has two suitcases, and a backpack, which makes Heechul wonder-he had that much luggage when he used to visit Korea during summer breaks (not that he still does that a lot-the last time he did was probably three to four years ago).
The new girl has dark hair, short and a little shaggy, and Heechul thinks she looks pretty but mostly forgettable. Like some girl next door. Heechul doesn’t really care for girls next door.
They’re ringing the doorbell, and Heechul is so busy studying them that he doesn’t even notice a car pull up across the street until he’s jolted out of his thoughts by the obnoxious sound of a car horn beeping. He puts out his cigarette and runs across the street. The two girls by the gate turn aroun to look, and he catches Min’s eyes right before he enters Simon’s car. She waves at him and gives him a little smile, and he nods back. The other girl just stares.
And then he focuses on scolding Simon for being so fucking late, and by the time they arrive at the bar where the rest of their friends are waiting, he’s completely forgotten about Min and the new girl.
It’s not until the next day that Heechul finally talks to her and finds out that her name is Jia, and that she isn’t Korean, but Chinese.
He’s nursing a major hangover, because while he seldom goes out, when he does, he really goes all out. He remembers that Sunye and Donghae keep the medicine kit in the first floor bathroom, and that’s where he sees her clad just in a tank top and modest cotton panties, bent over the sink, pinkish water going down the drain.
He waits for her to notice him, and when she does, she nearly jumps out of her skin which makes Heechul snort.
“Need help?” He asks, and she just stares at him through the mirror, looking unsure about his presence.
Somehow this still leads to brief introductions and him massaging her scalp, telling her about that time when he tried to dye his hair red.
“I was in my second year of undergrad,” he says. “It was a fucking disaster. Now if I feel like messing with my hair, I just go to professionals.”
She crinkles her nose, and chokes back what to Heechul seems like a laugh.
“What? Is there something wrong with that?” Heechul asks.
“It’s just a waste of money somehow,” Jia shrugs. “Home dye jobs are just all around cheaper.”
“Looks cheaper too,” Heechul says haughtily. “Plus it takes longer since half the time, you’re trying to fix botched-up efforts. Like we're doing now.”
Jia laughs. “Point taken,” she says, wrapping her hair around in a towel like a turban and straightening up.
They stare at each other through the mirror, and Heechul cocks his head, waiting for her to say something more.
“Well, thank you,” is what comes out of her mouth. “I think I’ve got it from here.”
Heechul shrugs and nods at her, exiting the bathroom. He goes back up the stairs and straight to his room. It’s not until he lies down on his bed that he realises he forgot all about the aspirin he was going to get for his headache.
He pulls down the curtains, and sleeps it off for the rest of the day instead.
Later in the night (or maybe it’s morning already, since it might as well be past midnight for all he knows, as he’s been glued to the front of his computer for hours already, caught up in some game), she knocks at his door.
Sunye and Donghae never really disturb him after dinner unless absolutely necessary, so he figures it could only be her. At first he’s a little annoyed because geez, can’t a guy have his alone time around here, but he pauses his game anyway and pulls the door open.
She’s standing there, looking up at him, her hair a cotton candy shade of pink.
“Fixed it, huh?” He gives her a once-over, regarding her appearance carefully.
She smirks at him, “Just thought I’d show you.”
He laughs. “You were hotter before,” he says, not mincing his words. “But this is... I don’t know. Bitchier.”
Heechul likes it better that way.
Heechul still remembers first moving in with Sunye and Donghae.
He sometimes likes saying that Donghae forced him to do it, that he could’ve pulled himself up eventually on his own, but he knows it’s a lie, and he knows that he owes Donghae and Sunye so fucking much.
He’d moved in halfway through his first year of grad school, not that he thinks that time should even count as part of his grad school career. That first semester had been an absolute disaster, and he hadn’t turned in any of his papers on time, and his advisers had no idea who he was because he never showed up for lessons and consultations.
His love life was a mess, and most of his friends from undergrad had moved on, or were moving on, while Heechul felt stagnant, a little left behind, and in general, it was a very low point in Heechul’s life.
Donghae had shown up at his apartment one night, a month after Heechul had more or less vanished from the outside world. He hadn’t wanted to let Donghae in, because he really didn’t want to see anyone. But Donghae had just stood there, one foot through the door, and Heechul just started shouting a string of profanities at him, hoping it will chase the younger man off.
But Donghae just took it all; sweet, little Donghae, who before that had always seemed like a lost little puppy to Heechul, married man or not. Heechul kept screaming until he was hoarse, and he couldn’t anymore, and then he actually cried.
“Hyung, Sunye and me, we need someone to split the rent with,” Donghae simply said once Heechul was done. He even smiled at Heechul. “Come move in with us.”
That’s stupid, Heechul had wanted to say. Why the fuck should I baby-sit newlyweds?
Except they both knew it was going to be the other way around.
“What about Sunye?” Heechul just asked instead.
“This was her idea,” Donghae answered with a reassuring smile.
And by then Heechul had been too exhausted to put up a fight, and a week later, he’d moved all his things to Sunye and Donghae’s house.
But this is a time that Heechul doesn’t really like thinking about, so he always tries to push it out of his head when it starts creeping back in. The only thing he allows himself to think about is how much he owes Donghae and Sunye.
Heechul likes to think that he never leaves debts unpaid.
Heechul starts spending most of his Friday nights with Jia, lounging on the big couch in front of the television in the living room. This used to be a thing he did regularly with just his cats, because Fridays are Sunye and Donghae’s date nights, and they usually don’t get in until around midnight, if not later.
During her first few weeks at the house, Jia was mostly out on Fridays as well, and Heechul doesn’t really think much about her until one Friday night, he walks into the kitchen to get some milk and cereal (what can he say, it’s comfort food, and Smallville is so much easier to stomach for some reason with frosted flakes in hand), and she’s just there, staring at an open fridge.
“What are you doing here?” He asks.
“I’m starving,” Jia answers. “Do you want anything? I might microwave some TV dinners. Or maybe I’ll just reheat the tuna casserole Sunye made the other night. Ideas?”
“No thanks, I’m good,” Heechul says, opening a cupboard and taking out a box of cereal.
“Do you have time confused?” Jia asks, amused. “It’s eight in the evening, not morning.”
“Do you really wanna waste energy thinking about what to eat, and then spend the next thirty minutes preparing food, or should I pour you a bowl?” Heechul throws back, already getting out two plastic bowls.
“Oh, what the hell!” Jia laughs, and grabs the milk carton from the fridge and setting it down in front of Heechul. She leans against the counter, watching as Heechul fills the bowls with cereal and milk. “No plans?” She asks.
“Can ask the same about you,” Heechul points out, handing Jia one of the bowls.
She shrugs. “All the parties tonight suck.”
Heechul quirks an eyebrow and she laughs.
“I’m supposed to finish this paper for Socio due on Monday so I can spend the rest of the weekend worrying about my Lit in Society exam. You should see the stack of readings I have to go through,” Jia whines, stopping short when she realises that that’s what she’s doing. “Sorry,” she says. “I’m just really brain-dead.”
Heechul shakes his head. “Don’t worry too much about it. I’ll be in the living room if you need anything.”
She flops down on the sofa next to him less than ten minutes later, offering him a banana which he accepts wordlessly. They spend the next hour snarking on Clark Kent’s moments of stupidity and debating the merits of introducing a Lois Lane to the show when it meant phasing Chloe out.
Afterwards they catch a Chinese martial arts movie marathon on some obscure cable channel and Jia never gets around to working on that paper she was meant to write.
It’s on one of these Friday nights that Jia jokingly asks him if he doesn’t have any friends.
“It should be date night. Party night. But you’re always at home with ice cream or cereal in a bowl, in front of the TV,” she says. ”Don’t you have friends?”
“I’ll have you know,” Heechul says, in between shoving spoonfuls of avocado ice cream into his mouth, “I’m a very serious graduate student who has no time for dating or partying.”
Jia scoffs. “Right.”
“I do have friends,” Heechul tells her. “And I have vast knowledge concerning the Art of Partying Hard. I just keep low most of the time, so when I grace all the party plebes with my presence they’ll know to bow to the bigwig.”
Jia cracks up. She shakes her head, “You’re so full of it sometimes.”
Heechul grins. “Hey what about you? You’re the one willingly spending all your Fridays with me, eating the same ice cream and cereal as me. Don’t you have friends?”
“College ate them,” Jia retorts.
“Poor you. But don’t worry, it’s alright,” he winks at her, “you have me. I’ll take you out and teach you how to have fun one of these days.”
Jia laughs, but Heechul actually means it.
Friday after that, Heechul drags Jia to some party event one of his friends is apparently throwing. He squeezes her in the backseat between him and big burly guy he calls Mithra. On normal nights he’d call shotgun, but Hongki is already seated at the passenger seat, and Heechul accedes claim because Hongki’s roommate, Jonghun, is the one seated behind the wheel.
“Jungmo says he’ll meet us there,” he tells them, before a quick round of introductions for Jia’s benefit.
She smiles at them all; Hongki turns around to give her a huge grin, while Jonghun just nods at her from the rear-view mirror. Mithra engages her in a conversation, mostly about Heechul that while at first he revels in, he eventually puts a stop to halfway through.
“Stop telling the girl such obvious lies,” he demands.
Jia laughs. “I think I can decide on my own what is fact, and what is fiction,” she says.
Hongki snorts from the front seat, and Heechul gives his backrest a hard kick.
At the party, Jia makes herself comfortable, which amuses Heechul, and makes him feel strangely proud.
“She’s cool,” Jungmo comments.
He just shrugs in response. “She’s okay for a girl. Who you have to live with.”
Jungmo laughs. “That’s very big coming from you.”
They’re both really drunk by the time Jonghun and Hongki drop them off at home around half-past 2AM. Jia is apparently very giggly, not to mention the type who loses any and all sense of balance, when drunk-Heechul has to assist her, even as he clumsily tries to unlock the door with his key.
Somehow they go from that, to falling into bed together.
The falling into bed together ends up happening again and again, even without the help of alcohol. At first they do it mostly on Fridays, when they’re home alone together, and nothing good or remotely interesting is on TV.
They’re bored, it makes sense, Heechul reasons.
And then the number of times keeps piling up, on more spontaneous nights, sometimes mornings, other times even afternoons, and they eventually lose count. They don’t question the sex though, it’s good, it cures boredom, it keeps them occupied, and it keeps their hormones in check and satiated.
It’s during one post-coitus afternoon that Jia suddenly tells him about her ex-boyfriend. He hadn’t really been inquiring, but he did tell her once before that he’s her friend, so he listens.
After she’s done describing him, after telling Heechul about how he basically fucked her up for other boys to properly make a mark in her life (and would you look at that, Heechul thinks, we just might be as fucked up as each other, who would’ve thought), Heechul asks,
“Did you love him?”
It’s a loaded question, but Jia has a ready answer.
“No-but I wanted him to love me.”
Heechul scoffs. And then he laughs, a little bitter.
“You?” Jia asks.
“Define love.”
Jia just shrugs, and then a pregnant silence occupies the room.
“The only person I really love is myself,” Heechul finally says.
This isn’t the complete truth though, and he knows it. It’s just that in life, as he’s learned over and over again, image is what most counts.
Heechul would rather keep his feelings close.
“Have you ever expected someone to love you, and then they didn’t?” he asks her.
“No,” Jia answers with conviction. “I wouldn’t allow myself that.”
Jay used to tell him that he expected too much from people, and Heechul had always argued that this isn’t true, that he actually makes an effort not to expect anything.
But Jay was right, because if he has to make an effort, then that means expecting comes more naturally to him. Jay also used to tell him that for all the distance he kept from people, the truth is that he carried his heart on his sleeve.
Heechul misses Jay, but there’s a reason they don’t see much of each other these days despite still living in the same city-Jay knows him a little too well.
He stares at Jia, who is starting to fall asleep. A part of him wants to kick her out of his bed-they don’t do this, they don’t fall asleep together, but he’s not that much of an asshole. He gets up instead and grabs a bath towel.
“I’m taking a shower,” he tells her.
I’m going to go and get my thoughts straightened out.
He and Jia come up with unspoken rules.
No strings, no talking about the sex they have with each other, but everything else is allowed, up to the dirtiest, kinkiest sex trick they’ve done, as long as it was with other people.
They develop a sort of normalcy, a routine. No complications, because no one really likes complications, despite what Heechul would otherwise normally say.
And then somehow it all goes to the shitter when Sunye’s father dies.
It isn’t even really sudden, because her father has been sick far longer than Heechul has known her, but somehow the world seems to start crashing down anyway. He has no idea what to do, or what to say, as he watches Sunye try to keep it all together but failing miserably.
He feels a little guilty, even though he shouldn’t be, because it’s not like he’s responsible for Sunye’s father’s death. Still, he feels strange, because he wants to do something, for Sunye, who has always been a rock to her, who has always known what to say to him when something needed to be said.
He just stands there, feeling useless, watching Donghae comfort his wife. In the end, he just drags Jia (whose main contribution were mostly awkward pats on Sunye’s shoulder, but even that was more than Heechul could muster) out of the room, saying that the married couple probably needed some time alone together.
They sit together on the patio, Jia choking back light sniffles, which makes Heechul want to snap at her because what the fuck does she have the right to cry about. Halfway through the evening, she hugs him, as if to comfort, but his tears never fall.
Heechul feels more numb than ever. That night he couldn’t fall asleep, and he allows himself to think about all the things he’s been refusing to think about for the last couple of years.
He thinks about Kibum, wondering what kind of bit roles he’s had the chance to play in Hollywood by now. Heechul watches an unhealthy amount of television, and he’s never seen even a glimpse of his old friend in any of them. He wonders if Kibum thinks whatever life he’s living in L.A. now is worth everything he left behind.
He thinks about Geng, who vanished without a single fucking word. Who went back to China without even as much as a “bye see you later.” He was pretty depressed when that happened, and he’d be lying if he said if he wasn’t still a little resentful.
He thinks about Donghae and Sunye, and he wonders what he’s done to deserve friends like them. He thinks about how much stock he actually has left before they finally get fed up with him.
And then he thinks about Sohee, who was, and still is, in his eyes, the perfect female specimen. She was in her last year of high school when he first met her, at Sunye and Donghae’s wedding. They’d started going out on and off as soon as she hit college, mostly because he was a persuasive asshole, refusing to give up on her no matter what she said.
He thinks about how he perfectly fucked that all up, all by himself.
Heechul wonders if the things he does are what pushes people away. Jay used to tell him (motherfucking Jay Kim, who always knows best, much to both Heechul’s joy and disdain, and who has always been in charge of telling Heechul things he doesn’t really want to hear, but needs to) people can’t all like each other, because otherwise the world would be boring as fuck.
Heechul has always agreed, but the thing is, all he really expects is for everyone to like him. After all, no one likes feeling like a loser, like in the end it’s just going to be you, all alone.
Not that he’d tell anyone that. Not even Jay. (Who also used to tell him he can be such a big, spoiled baby.)
The next day, the first thing he notices when he runs across Jia in the hallway is how her hair is now white-blonde.
“Color of mourning,” she says with a shrug.
He doesn’t say anything about it, he just walks past her, pissed off at something, but he has absolutely no clue what.
They drop off Donghae and Sunye at the airport together, with Heechul driving the car. They stay quiet on the ride back home, even after Heechul takes a detour and they end up on the beach together. They sit on the sand, side by side, still not saying a word.
Heechul appreciates that Jia isn’t harassing him for explanations about his surly attitude, and eventually he speaks up.
He tells her about Jay, who he counts as his best friend in the world, even though it pains Heechul to talk to him these days. He talks about Kibum, and Geng, telling her in not so many words about the abandonment he’s irrationally feeling.
Throughout the day, even after they get home, he would come up to her, relating a little something about how he is feeling, until he’s unloaded practically his entire life story to her. He doesn’t do it in one go, because sharing the reality about himself has always been very difficult for him.
He even tells her about Sohee, everymotherfuckingthing about Sohee, but Jia just listens, without judging, for which he is very grateful for. At the end of the day, he tells her,
“Don’t end up like me.”
He figures it’s the best advice he can give her.
He holes up in his room for three days straight. During that period of time, he ends up smoking two entire packs of cigarettes, trying to work on his grad school thesis, before deciding that this isn’t right, it would be better to get out, get some fresh air, maybe get a new environment, even if only for a short time.
He packs his bags, and drives all the way to L.A. He thinks about hunting Kibum down, but he never actually does it.
The first seven days he spends aimlessly walking around the city, going to Disneyland and feeling like a child, going to Planet Hollywood and ordering insane amounts of food that he never finishes, and taking picture with life-sized fake celebrity figures.
It doesn’t fix anything, so the next six days, he spends holed up in his hotel room. On the seventh day, he tries calling Jay to ask if he can drive back to San Diego and crash at his place for a short while-hotels are expensive after all. He ends up pressing 'end call' soon as Jay picks up, and that’s when it really dawns on Heechul that he’s not done running away from all of his problems, and that he’s done nothing but precisely that, and this is why he feels totally useless.
That night he drives back home.
Jia looks genuinely worried about him when she opens the door for him. But it had been an almost four hour drive and Heechul just wants to rest so he ends up snapping at her.
After dinner, he sits by himself at the back patio, enjoying the silence, and the cool breeze. He still doesn’t know what he’s doing with his life, but he’s finally more calm and level-headed.
She comes out, and sits in the silence with him for around an hour. It pains him a little, because he just wants to start talking again, and maybe forget about the brattiness he’s displayed during the last month or so.
“I’m sorry,” he simply says in the end, before getting up, and going back to his room.
He loses himself to video games in his room the rest of the night, and it’s starting to look like it’s going to be no different from the time he spent at the hotel, but at least now he has free video games instead of pay-per-view porn, and the lodging is free.
It’s one in the morning when his bedroom door opens, and Jia struts in, swinging his chair around to face her, and pulling his face towards hers. She kisses him, almost roughly; Heechul realises, and he doesn’t know how or why, but he suddenly realises that he had been expecting this.
He kisses her back, his arms snaking around her back, trying to pull her in, but she moves away instead, pulling him out of his chair and towards his bed. Heechul just follows, for once just going along.
“Are you sure?” He has to ask, even though they are already in the middle of taking off their clothes.
“Don’t be a bitch,” she answers, and that was that.
When they get back home, Sunye looks exhausted, and at least five years older than she did before they left, while Donghae still looks like Donghae, same as ever, trying really hard to be strong for himself and his wife. Heechul wonders exactly when Donghae became such a man.
“I’m glad you two are okay,” Sunye tells Heechul and Jia with a grateful smile. “I was worried.”
It hits Heechul where it hurts, but he swallows it and forces a smile instead. Jia, he notices, refuses to meet his eye.
As far as Heechul is concerned, he and Jia have simply fallen back to their old habits. They don’t talk about the mess that happened while Sunye and Donghae were away, and they have a silent agreement never to let those two know about any of the incidents that occurred during that time.
They spend Friday nights together still, still mostly on the couch, in front of the TV, but Sunye and Donghae have started to make a habit of staying in as well, so Heechul starts taking Jia out to more bars, clubs, and various parties around the city.
He loses her at one of these parties, and that night, he gets more drunk than he ever has been in his entire life. And then one minute his friends are shoving him in the backseat of Simon’s car, and the next he’s heaving and puking all over the bathroom sink at home, with Jia holding his hair back and gently rubbing his back.
They end up fucking on the bathroom floor, and Heechul thinks he must taste disgusting from all that vomiting he just did, but Jia doesn’t say a word.
He hates himself just a little bit more for it.
“Are you okay?” Sunye asks him.
It’s a week after Jia has moved out, and Heechul hasn’t uttered a single word in reference to her since.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he answers, blasting away at the monsters and goons on his computer screen.
Sunye smiles at him, and it always amazes Heechul how Sunye (and Donghae, for that matter), never loses patience with him. He’s the oldest among the three of them, but he can’t help but feel like he’s their child sometimes. A child they feel responsible for-he feels a little guilty for that.
“I’m sorry,” he says suddenly, pausing his game, and swivelling his chair so he can face Sunye.
“About?”
“For always making you guys worry about me,” he says. “For being such a burden.”
“You’re not a burden,” Sunye assures him. “You’re our friend.”
“Still.” Heechul shrugs. He takes a deep breath. “Thank you.”
Sunye laughs, which makes Heechul smile-she hasn’t really laughed a lot since her father died.
“You’re welcome,” she tells him, and it makes Heechul feel really good.
Heechul calls Jay, finally, after months of not talking.
“Glad to know you’re still alive,” Jay says when he answers the phone.
“Shut up and meet me for drinks tonight,” Heechul orders him.
Jay looks better than the last time Heechul saw him. They used to joke around that they became instant friends due to mutual respect for each other’s good looks, but Jay can definitely give Heechul a run for his money these days-he is just that much of a mess. The latter he can admit now, but the first part Heechul would never voice out loud in front of Jay, or anyone else for that matter. He still has some of his pride left intact, thank you very much.
“So.” Jay grins at him.
They hug, and it feels therapeutic already. Heechul thinks maybe he’s been putting off this talk because he was secretly punishing himself for useless shit that he really just wants to purge from himself now.
“It’s okay to need people,” Jay tells him at the end of the night. “And it’s okay to admit that you need people. Why the fuck do you think people say that ‘no man is an island?’ It’s because no man is an island, Heechul. And it’s okay if people leave, but it’s also more than okay to tell them not to go.”
He gets her new address from Sunye, who gets it from Min.
“Be responsible with this,” Sunye warns him before giving him the piece of paper.
Heechul just rolls his eyes as he grabs it from Sunye’s hand.
Donghae laughs, putting an arm around Sunye. “Hyung, I think... I think you look like you’re growing up.”
Heechul scoffs at him and walks out of the room, but secretly, Donghae’s words make him feel lighter inside.
“I’m sorry,” he tells Jia.
He’d been waiting for her to get home for the last hour or so. The nice girl he assumes is now Jia’s roommate had offered to let him in so he can wait there, but he’d refused. Suzy, he thinks that’s what the girl’s name is, at least if he remembers the information from Sunye correctly. He smokes around half a dozen cigarettes before Jia finally showed up.
“I’m really sorry,” he repeats. “But you know, you should really just come home already.”
“Home?” Jia asks, her brows furrowing.
He shrugs. “You know what I mean.”
“No I don’t,” Jia says, firmly. It’s a lie though, they both know she just wants him to say it out loud.
“Don’t be stupid,” Heechul says, taking off his sunglasses, and threading his fingers through his hair. “Come home. I need you, okay?”
“I think I need you too,” are the first words out of Jia’s mouth when she turns up, luggage in tow, at Sunye and Donghae’s house.
His house too, Heechul thinks. And now Jia’s as well.
He smirks at her, and picks up one of her bags, putting one of his hands on her back, gently guiding her in.
“Welcome home.”
Title: How To Save A Life (And You Begin To Wonder Why You Came)
Rating: PG-13
Pairing(s): Heechul-centric (Heechul/Jia, mentions of various Heechul friendships, most notably Heechul/Jay Kim)
Length: 5031w
Summary: Heechul is a huge f-ing mess.
Warnings: Language and mentions of sex, but nothing triggering.
Notes: Yes, the title is from The Fray, LMAO. I really, really liked the original piece, and I thought it was pm perfect, so that, coupled with the fact that I've always found Heechul complex to write, made writing this pretty tough. I hope I did the story justice.
Remixee author: naladot
Title of work you remixed: begins to feel like home
Link to work you remixed: http://naladot.livejournal.com/2555.html
When Sunye first tells him that someone new is going to move into the last, vacant bedroom in the house, Heechul gives her a look that mostly says, what are you telling me for? This is your house.
In the end, he just shrugs and tells her, “Just make sure he or she stays away from my things, and out of my business.”
“She,” Sunye informs him with a smile. “The new bed spacer is going to be a girl.”
Heechul shrugs again. He doesn’t really care.
He actually sees her on the night that she first moves in. He’s outside the house, a few meters from the gate, seated on a plant box, smoking while waiting for his car ride.
Heechul is checking the time on his phone (because Jesus-fucking-Christ, where in the world is Simon, he should have been by at least three cigarette sticks ago), when a car parks in front of the gate. Two girls get off, and he thinks they probably didn’t see him, which is fine by him, never mind that he probably looks like a creep hiding in the shadows.
One of the girls is Min, and he knows she’s the one who got Sunye the new tenant, so he figures that’s who the other one is. She looks Asian, but that doesn’t really surprise Heechul. The Asian community has a tendency to stick together, and he figures she’s probably Korean as well. She has two suitcases, and a backpack, which makes Heechul wonder-he had that much luggage when he used to visit Korea during summer breaks (not that he still does that a lot-the last time he did was probably three to four years ago).
The new girl has dark hair, short and a little shaggy, and Heechul thinks she looks pretty but mostly forgettable. Like some girl next door. Heechul doesn’t really care for girls next door.
They’re ringing the doorbell, and Heechul is so busy studying them that he doesn’t even notice a car pull up across the street until he’s jolted out of his thoughts by the obnoxious sound of a car horn beeping. He puts out his cigarette and runs across the street. The two girls by the gate turn aroun to look, and he catches Min’s eyes right before he enters Simon’s car. She waves at him and gives him a little smile, and he nods back. The other girl just stares.
And then he focuses on scolding Simon for being so fucking late, and by the time they arrive at the bar where the rest of their friends are waiting, he’s completely forgotten about Min and the new girl.
It’s not until the next day that Heechul finally talks to her and finds out that her name is Jia, and that she isn’t Korean, but Chinese.
He’s nursing a major hangover, because while he seldom goes out, when he does, he really goes all out. He remembers that Sunye and Donghae keep the medicine kit in the first floor bathroom, and that’s where he sees her clad just in a tank top and modest cotton panties, bent over the sink, pinkish water going down the drain.
He waits for her to notice him, and when she does, she nearly jumps out of her skin which makes Heechul snort.
“Need help?” He asks, and she just stares at him through the mirror, looking unsure about his presence.
Somehow this still leads to brief introductions and him massaging her scalp, telling her about that time when he tried to dye his hair red.
“I was in my second year of undergrad,” he says. “It was a fucking disaster. Now if I feel like messing with my hair, I just go to professionals.”
She crinkles her nose, and chokes back what to Heechul seems like a laugh.
“What? Is there something wrong with that?” Heechul asks.
“It’s just a waste of money somehow,” Jia shrugs. “Home dye jobs are just all around cheaper.”
“Looks cheaper too,” Heechul says haughtily. “Plus it takes longer since half the time, you’re trying to fix botched-up efforts. Like we're doing now.”
Jia laughs. “Point taken,” she says, wrapping her hair around in a towel like a turban and straightening up.
They stare at each other through the mirror, and Heechul cocks his head, waiting for her to say something more.
“Well, thank you,” is what comes out of her mouth. “I think I’ve got it from here.”
Heechul shrugs and nods at her, exiting the bathroom. He goes back up the stairs and straight to his room. It’s not until he lies down on his bed that he realises he forgot all about the aspirin he was going to get for his headache.
He pulls down the curtains, and sleeps it off for the rest of the day instead.
Later in the night (or maybe it’s morning already, since it might as well be past midnight for all he knows, as he’s been glued to the front of his computer for hours already, caught up in some game), she knocks at his door.
Sunye and Donghae never really disturb him after dinner unless absolutely necessary, so he figures it could only be her. At first he’s a little annoyed because geez, can’t a guy have his alone time around here, but he pauses his game anyway and pulls the door open.
She’s standing there, looking up at him, her hair a cotton candy shade of pink.
“Fixed it, huh?” He gives her a once-over, regarding her appearance carefully.
She smirks at him, “Just thought I’d show you.”
He laughs. “You were hotter before,” he says, not mincing his words. “But this is... I don’t know. Bitchier.”
Heechul likes it better that way.
Heechul still remembers first moving in with Sunye and Donghae.
He sometimes likes saying that Donghae forced him to do it, that he could’ve pulled himself up eventually on his own, but he knows it’s a lie, and he knows that he owes Donghae and Sunye so fucking much.
He’d moved in halfway through his first year of grad school, not that he thinks that time should even count as part of his grad school career. That first semester had been an absolute disaster, and he hadn’t turned in any of his papers on time, and his advisers had no idea who he was because he never showed up for lessons and consultations.
His love life was a mess, and most of his friends from undergrad had moved on, or were moving on, while Heechul felt stagnant, a little left behind, and in general, it was a very low point in Heechul’s life.
Donghae had shown up at his apartment one night, a month after Heechul had more or less vanished from the outside world. He hadn’t wanted to let Donghae in, because he really didn’t want to see anyone. But Donghae had just stood there, one foot through the door, and Heechul just started shouting a string of profanities at him, hoping it will chase the younger man off.
But Donghae just took it all; sweet, little Donghae, who before that had always seemed like a lost little puppy to Heechul, married man or not. Heechul kept screaming until he was hoarse, and he couldn’t anymore, and then he actually cried.
“Hyung, Sunye and me, we need someone to split the rent with,” Donghae simply said once Heechul was done. He even smiled at Heechul. “Come move in with us.”
That’s stupid, Heechul had wanted to say. Why the fuck should I baby-sit newlyweds?
Except they both knew it was going to be the other way around.
“What about Sunye?” Heechul just asked instead.
“This was her idea,” Donghae answered with a reassuring smile.
And by then Heechul had been too exhausted to put up a fight, and a week later, he’d moved all his things to Sunye and Donghae’s house.
But this is a time that Heechul doesn’t really like thinking about, so he always tries to push it out of his head when it starts creeping back in. The only thing he allows himself to think about is how much he owes Donghae and Sunye.
Heechul likes to think that he never leaves debts unpaid.
Heechul starts spending most of his Friday nights with Jia, lounging on the big couch in front of the television in the living room. This used to be a thing he did regularly with just his cats, because Fridays are Sunye and Donghae’s date nights, and they usually don’t get in until around midnight, if not later.
During her first few weeks at the house, Jia was mostly out on Fridays as well, and Heechul doesn’t really think much about her until one Friday night, he walks into the kitchen to get some milk and cereal (what can he say, it’s comfort food, and Smallville is so much easier to stomach for some reason with frosted flakes in hand), and she’s just there, staring at an open fridge.
“What are you doing here?” He asks.
“I’m starving,” Jia answers. “Do you want anything? I might microwave some TV dinners. Or maybe I’ll just reheat the tuna casserole Sunye made the other night. Ideas?”
“No thanks, I’m good,” Heechul says, opening a cupboard and taking out a box of cereal.
“Do you have time confused?” Jia asks, amused. “It’s eight in the evening, not morning.”
“Do you really wanna waste energy thinking about what to eat, and then spend the next thirty minutes preparing food, or should I pour you a bowl?” Heechul throws back, already getting out two plastic bowls.
“Oh, what the hell!” Jia laughs, and grabs the milk carton from the fridge and setting it down in front of Heechul. She leans against the counter, watching as Heechul fills the bowls with cereal and milk. “No plans?” She asks.
“Can ask the same about you,” Heechul points out, handing Jia one of the bowls.
She shrugs. “All the parties tonight suck.”
Heechul quirks an eyebrow and she laughs.
“I’m supposed to finish this paper for Socio due on Monday so I can spend the rest of the weekend worrying about my Lit in Society exam. You should see the stack of readings I have to go through,” Jia whines, stopping short when she realises that that’s what she’s doing. “Sorry,” she says. “I’m just really brain-dead.”
Heechul shakes his head. “Don’t worry too much about it. I’ll be in the living room if you need anything.”
She flops down on the sofa next to him less than ten minutes later, offering him a banana which he accepts wordlessly. They spend the next hour snarking on Clark Kent’s moments of stupidity and debating the merits of introducing a Lois Lane to the show when it meant phasing Chloe out.
Afterwards they catch a Chinese martial arts movie marathon on some obscure cable channel and Jia never gets around to working on that paper she was meant to write.
It’s on one of these Friday nights that Jia jokingly asks him if he doesn’t have any friends.
“It should be date night. Party night. But you’re always at home with ice cream or cereal in a bowl, in front of the TV,” she says. ”Don’t you have friends?”
“I’ll have you know,” Heechul says, in between shoving spoonfuls of avocado ice cream into his mouth, “I’m a very serious graduate student who has no time for dating or partying.”
Jia scoffs. “Right.”
“I do have friends,” Heechul tells her. “And I have vast knowledge concerning the Art of Partying Hard. I just keep low most of the time, so when I grace all the party plebes with my presence they’ll know to bow to the bigwig.”
Jia cracks up. She shakes her head, “You’re so full of it sometimes.”
Heechul grins. “Hey what about you? You’re the one willingly spending all your Fridays with me, eating the same ice cream and cereal as me. Don’t you have friends?”
“College ate them,” Jia retorts.
“Poor you. But don’t worry, it’s alright,” he winks at her, “you have me. I’ll take you out and teach you how to have fun one of these days.”
Jia laughs, but Heechul actually means it.
Friday after that, Heechul drags Jia to some party event one of his friends is apparently throwing. He squeezes her in the backseat between him and big burly guy he calls Mithra. On normal nights he’d call shotgun, but Hongki is already seated at the passenger seat, and Heechul accedes claim because Hongki’s roommate, Jonghun, is the one seated behind the wheel.
“Jungmo says he’ll meet us there,” he tells them, before a quick round of introductions for Jia’s benefit.
She smiles at them all; Hongki turns around to give her a huge grin, while Jonghun just nods at her from the rear-view mirror. Mithra engages her in a conversation, mostly about Heechul that while at first he revels in, he eventually puts a stop to halfway through.
“Stop telling the girl such obvious lies,” he demands.
Jia laughs. “I think I can decide on my own what is fact, and what is fiction,” she says.
Hongki snorts from the front seat, and Heechul gives his backrest a hard kick.
At the party, Jia makes herself comfortable, which amuses Heechul, and makes him feel strangely proud.
“She’s cool,” Jungmo comments.
He just shrugs in response. “She’s okay for a girl. Who you have to live with.”
Jungmo laughs. “That’s very big coming from you.”
They’re both really drunk by the time Jonghun and Hongki drop them off at home around half-past 2AM. Jia is apparently very giggly, not to mention the type who loses any and all sense of balance, when drunk-Heechul has to assist her, even as he clumsily tries to unlock the door with his key.
Somehow they go from that, to falling into bed together.
The falling into bed together ends up happening again and again, even without the help of alcohol. At first they do it mostly on Fridays, when they’re home alone together, and nothing good or remotely interesting is on TV.
They’re bored, it makes sense, Heechul reasons.
And then the number of times keeps piling up, on more spontaneous nights, sometimes mornings, other times even afternoons, and they eventually lose count. They don’t question the sex though, it’s good, it cures boredom, it keeps them occupied, and it keeps their hormones in check and satiated.
It’s during one post-coitus afternoon that Jia suddenly tells him about her ex-boyfriend. He hadn’t really been inquiring, but he did tell her once before that he’s her friend, so he listens.
After she’s done describing him, after telling Heechul about how he basically fucked her up for other boys to properly make a mark in her life (and would you look at that, Heechul thinks, we just might be as fucked up as each other, who would’ve thought), Heechul asks,
“Did you love him?”
It’s a loaded question, but Jia has a ready answer.
“No-but I wanted him to love me.”
Heechul scoffs. And then he laughs, a little bitter.
“You?” Jia asks.
“Define love.”
Jia just shrugs, and then a pregnant silence occupies the room.
“The only person I really love is myself,” Heechul finally says.
This isn’t the complete truth though, and he knows it. It’s just that in life, as he’s learned over and over again, image is what most counts.
Heechul would rather keep his feelings close.
“Have you ever expected someone to love you, and then they didn’t?” he asks her.
“No,” Jia answers with conviction. “I wouldn’t allow myself that.”
Jay used to tell him that he expected too much from people, and Heechul had always argued that this isn’t true, that he actually makes an effort not to expect anything.
But Jay was right, because if he has to make an effort, then that means expecting comes more naturally to him. Jay also used to tell him that for all the distance he kept from people, the truth is that he carried his heart on his sleeve.
Heechul misses Jay, but there’s a reason they don’t see much of each other these days despite still living in the same city-Jay knows him a little too well.
He stares at Jia, who is starting to fall asleep. A part of him wants to kick her out of his bed-they don’t do this, they don’t fall asleep together, but he’s not that much of an asshole. He gets up instead and grabs a bath towel.
“I’m taking a shower,” he tells her.
I’m going to go and get my thoughts straightened out.
He and Jia come up with unspoken rules.
No strings, no talking about the sex they have with each other, but everything else is allowed, up to the dirtiest, kinkiest sex trick they’ve done, as long as it was with other people.
They develop a sort of normalcy, a routine. No complications, because no one really likes complications, despite what Heechul would otherwise normally say.
And then somehow it all goes to the shitter when Sunye’s father dies.
It isn’t even really sudden, because her father has been sick far longer than Heechul has known her, but somehow the world seems to start crashing down anyway. He has no idea what to do, or what to say, as he watches Sunye try to keep it all together but failing miserably.
He feels a little guilty, even though he shouldn’t be, because it’s not like he’s responsible for Sunye’s father’s death. Still, he feels strange, because he wants to do something, for Sunye, who has always been a rock to her, who has always known what to say to him when something needed to be said.
He just stands there, feeling useless, watching Donghae comfort his wife. In the end, he just drags Jia (whose main contribution were mostly awkward pats on Sunye’s shoulder, but even that was more than Heechul could muster) out of the room, saying that the married couple probably needed some time alone together.
They sit together on the patio, Jia choking back light sniffles, which makes Heechul want to snap at her because what the fuck does she have the right to cry about. Halfway through the evening, she hugs him, as if to comfort, but his tears never fall.
Heechul feels more numb than ever. That night he couldn’t fall asleep, and he allows himself to think about all the things he’s been refusing to think about for the last couple of years.
He thinks about Kibum, wondering what kind of bit roles he’s had the chance to play in Hollywood by now. Heechul watches an unhealthy amount of television, and he’s never seen even a glimpse of his old friend in any of them. He wonders if Kibum thinks whatever life he’s living in L.A. now is worth everything he left behind.
He thinks about Geng, who vanished without a single fucking word. Who went back to China without even as much as a “bye see you later.” He was pretty depressed when that happened, and he’d be lying if he said if he wasn’t still a little resentful.
He thinks about Donghae and Sunye, and he wonders what he’s done to deserve friends like them. He thinks about how much stock he actually has left before they finally get fed up with him.
And then he thinks about Sohee, who was, and still is, in his eyes, the perfect female specimen. She was in her last year of high school when he first met her, at Sunye and Donghae’s wedding. They’d started going out on and off as soon as she hit college, mostly because he was a persuasive asshole, refusing to give up on her no matter what she said.
He thinks about how he perfectly fucked that all up, all by himself.
Heechul wonders if the things he does are what pushes people away. Jay used to tell him (motherfucking Jay Kim, who always knows best, much to both Heechul’s joy and disdain, and who has always been in charge of telling Heechul things he doesn’t really want to hear, but needs to) people can’t all like each other, because otherwise the world would be boring as fuck.
Heechul has always agreed, but the thing is, all he really expects is for everyone to like him. After all, no one likes feeling like a loser, like in the end it’s just going to be you, all alone.
Not that he’d tell anyone that. Not even Jay. (Who also used to tell him he can be such a big, spoiled baby.)
The next day, the first thing he notices when he runs across Jia in the hallway is how her hair is now white-blonde.
“Color of mourning,” she says with a shrug.
He doesn’t say anything about it, he just walks past her, pissed off at something, but he has absolutely no clue what.
They drop off Donghae and Sunye at the airport together, with Heechul driving the car. They stay quiet on the ride back home, even after Heechul takes a detour and they end up on the beach together. They sit on the sand, side by side, still not saying a word.
Heechul appreciates that Jia isn’t harassing him for explanations about his surly attitude, and eventually he speaks up.
He tells her about Jay, who he counts as his best friend in the world, even though it pains Heechul to talk to him these days. He talks about Kibum, and Geng, telling her in not so many words about the abandonment he’s irrationally feeling.
Throughout the day, even after they get home, he would come up to her, relating a little something about how he is feeling, until he’s unloaded practically his entire life story to her. He doesn’t do it in one go, because sharing the reality about himself has always been very difficult for him.
He even tells her about Sohee, everymotherfuckingthing about Sohee, but Jia just listens, without judging, for which he is very grateful for. At the end of the day, he tells her,
“Don’t end up like me.”
He figures it’s the best advice he can give her.
He holes up in his room for three days straight. During that period of time, he ends up smoking two entire packs of cigarettes, trying to work on his grad school thesis, before deciding that this isn’t right, it would be better to get out, get some fresh air, maybe get a new environment, even if only for a short time.
He packs his bags, and drives all the way to L.A. He thinks about hunting Kibum down, but he never actually does it.
The first seven days he spends aimlessly walking around the city, going to Disneyland and feeling like a child, going to Planet Hollywood and ordering insane amounts of food that he never finishes, and taking picture with life-sized fake celebrity figures.
It doesn’t fix anything, so the next six days, he spends holed up in his hotel room. On the seventh day, he tries calling Jay to ask if he can drive back to San Diego and crash at his place for a short while-hotels are expensive after all. He ends up pressing 'end call' soon as Jay picks up, and that’s when it really dawns on Heechul that he’s not done running away from all of his problems, and that he’s done nothing but precisely that, and this is why he feels totally useless.
That night he drives back home.
Jia looks genuinely worried about him when she opens the door for him. But it had been an almost four hour drive and Heechul just wants to rest so he ends up snapping at her.
After dinner, he sits by himself at the back patio, enjoying the silence, and the cool breeze. He still doesn’t know what he’s doing with his life, but he’s finally more calm and level-headed.
She comes out, and sits in the silence with him for around an hour. It pains him a little, because he just wants to start talking again, and maybe forget about the brattiness he’s displayed during the last month or so.
“I’m sorry,” he simply says in the end, before getting up, and going back to his room.
He loses himself to video games in his room the rest of the night, and it’s starting to look like it’s going to be no different from the time he spent at the hotel, but at least now he has free video games instead of pay-per-view porn, and the lodging is free.
It’s one in the morning when his bedroom door opens, and Jia struts in, swinging his chair around to face her, and pulling his face towards hers. She kisses him, almost roughly; Heechul realises, and he doesn’t know how or why, but he suddenly realises that he had been expecting this.
He kisses her back, his arms snaking around her back, trying to pull her in, but she moves away instead, pulling him out of his chair and towards his bed. Heechul just follows, for once just going along.
“Are you sure?” He has to ask, even though they are already in the middle of taking off their clothes.
“Don’t be a bitch,” she answers, and that was that.
When they get back home, Sunye looks exhausted, and at least five years older than she did before they left, while Donghae still looks like Donghae, same as ever, trying really hard to be strong for himself and his wife. Heechul wonders exactly when Donghae became such a man.
“I’m glad you two are okay,” Sunye tells Heechul and Jia with a grateful smile. “I was worried.”
It hits Heechul where it hurts, but he swallows it and forces a smile instead. Jia, he notices, refuses to meet his eye.
As far as Heechul is concerned, he and Jia have simply fallen back to their old habits. They don’t talk about the mess that happened while Sunye and Donghae were away, and they have a silent agreement never to let those two know about any of the incidents that occurred during that time.
They spend Friday nights together still, still mostly on the couch, in front of the TV, but Sunye and Donghae have started to make a habit of staying in as well, so Heechul starts taking Jia out to more bars, clubs, and various parties around the city.
He loses her at one of these parties, and that night, he gets more drunk than he ever has been in his entire life. And then one minute his friends are shoving him in the backseat of Simon’s car, and the next he’s heaving and puking all over the bathroom sink at home, with Jia holding his hair back and gently rubbing his back.
They end up fucking on the bathroom floor, and Heechul thinks he must taste disgusting from all that vomiting he just did, but Jia doesn’t say a word.
He hates himself just a little bit more for it.
“Are you okay?” Sunye asks him.
It’s a week after Jia has moved out, and Heechul hasn’t uttered a single word in reference to her since.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he answers, blasting away at the monsters and goons on his computer screen.
Sunye smiles at him, and it always amazes Heechul how Sunye (and Donghae, for that matter), never loses patience with him. He’s the oldest among the three of them, but he can’t help but feel like he’s their child sometimes. A child they feel responsible for-he feels a little guilty for that.
“I’m sorry,” he says suddenly, pausing his game, and swivelling his chair so he can face Sunye.
“About?”
“For always making you guys worry about me,” he says. “For being such a burden.”
“You’re not a burden,” Sunye assures him. “You’re our friend.”
“Still.” Heechul shrugs. He takes a deep breath. “Thank you.”
Sunye laughs, which makes Heechul smile-she hasn’t really laughed a lot since her father died.
“You’re welcome,” she tells him, and it makes Heechul feel really good.
Heechul calls Jay, finally, after months of not talking.
“Glad to know you’re still alive,” Jay says when he answers the phone.
“Shut up and meet me for drinks tonight,” Heechul orders him.
Jay looks better than the last time Heechul saw him. They used to joke around that they became instant friends due to mutual respect for each other’s good looks, but Jay can definitely give Heechul a run for his money these days-he is just that much of a mess. The latter he can admit now, but the first part Heechul would never voice out loud in front of Jay, or anyone else for that matter. He still has some of his pride left intact, thank you very much.
“So.” Jay grins at him.
They hug, and it feels therapeutic already. Heechul thinks maybe he’s been putting off this talk because he was secretly punishing himself for useless shit that he really just wants to purge from himself now.
“It’s okay to need people,” Jay tells him at the end of the night. “And it’s okay to admit that you need people. Why the fuck do you think people say that ‘no man is an island?’ It’s because no man is an island, Heechul. And it’s okay if people leave, but it’s also more than okay to tell them not to go.”
He gets her new address from Sunye, who gets it from Min.
“Be responsible with this,” Sunye warns him before giving him the piece of paper.
Heechul just rolls his eyes as he grabs it from Sunye’s hand.
Donghae laughs, putting an arm around Sunye. “Hyung, I think... I think you look like you’re growing up.”
Heechul scoffs at him and walks out of the room, but secretly, Donghae’s words make him feel lighter inside.
“I’m sorry,” he tells Jia.
He’d been waiting for her to get home for the last hour or so. The nice girl he assumes is now Jia’s roommate had offered to let him in so he can wait there, but he’d refused. Suzy, he thinks that’s what the girl’s name is, at least if he remembers the information from Sunye correctly. He smokes around half a dozen cigarettes before Jia finally showed up.
“I’m really sorry,” he repeats. “But you know, you should really just come home already.”
“Home?” Jia asks, her brows furrowing.
He shrugs. “You know what I mean.”
“No I don’t,” Jia says, firmly. It’s a lie though, they both know she just wants him to say it out loud.
“Don’t be stupid,” Heechul says, taking off his sunglasses, and threading his fingers through his hair. “Come home. I need you, okay?”
“I think I need you too,” are the first words out of Jia’s mouth when she turns up, luggage in tow, at Sunye and Donghae’s house.
His house too, Heechul thinks. And now Jia’s as well.
He smirks at her, and picks up one of her bags, putting one of his hands on her back, gently guiding her in.
“Welcome home.”