Suju Fanfiction Challenge: Henry x Kyuhyun
cereal_strawz , astormisbrewing , and myself have created a challenge amongst the three of us to write a fic for every single Super Junior pairing. That means 40 for each of us. We will be posting all of the stories on our Community bonamana_x so if you would like the master list of all the pairings that have been completed, it will be here. The list will be updated as the stories are posted. My story for the pairing of Siwon x Kibum is already on the site.
So here is my second pairing.
Title: The Little Engine that Could
Pairing: Kyuhyun x Henry
Rating: G
Genre: Extreme Cuteness! (from the words of AStormIsBrewing) friendship
Theme: Train
Summary: Henry muses about the second-youngest and his drive for success.
Henry knows that everyone thinks he is the hardest working member of Super Junior M. During their interviews, Hankyung and the others always comment on how he stays awake practicing when everyone else has gone to sleep. Sometimes, they laugh, he even forgets to shower until the next day.
But as Henry watches Kyuhyun laugh breathlessly and smile through a grimace of pain, he knows that they are wrong. Sometimes, Henry pictures Kyuhyun as the Little Engine that Could. He knows that no one else has any idea who the engine is. He doubts that any of them read the book as a child.
Kyuhyun has gone through a lot since the accident. His back still hurts sometimes, and his legs and everywhere, if he really wants to complain. But he doesn’t like to, because he feels that with everyone else working so hard, it isn’t right for him to slack.
That is why Henry sees him as the Engine that Could. He knows that Kyuhyun would hate to be considered a train. Something cooler, like the Millenium Falcon he would say, and then probably make a Starcfract reference that Henry wouldn’t understand. He would laugh, because he is Kyuhyun and Kyuhyun hates to look weak.
When they practice, Henry watches Kyuhyun. He knows that he should be paying more attention to what he is doing-it is the reason he is always up later practicing when the others sleep, even if they don’t know it-but he can’t help but watch as his hyung struggles inwardly with his injuries.
Sometimes Kyuhyun will stumble in practice like he did when they made the Super Girl video. His leg gets stiff and buckles and he will fall. There is always someone to catch him, but he waves them off, laughing. He is Kyuhyun, the magnae-no matter that Henry is younger-and he can’t bother his hyungs with something so trivial.
Henry can see it in his eyes, flickering through the pain. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can. It works, and Kyuhyun is always back on his feet, straining himself more than necessary because he forces himself to believe it is worth it.
Henry doesn’t think it is worth it, but he doesn’t say anything. He is the youngest, he is new, and he isn’t even Korean. He has no right to tell Kyuhyun what he can and cannot do.
If Kyuhyun is the engine, Henry thinks he may be the caboose. He hangs on the back, the tail-end of their group. He doesn’t serve much of a purpose because he is simply the last car in the train. But Kyuhyun is the engine, a worn out thing that keeps going despite its disrepair.
So Henry thinks that if he can be something besides a caboose, he would like to be a train engineer.
Then, when Kyuhyun breaks down, he can fix him up, good as new.