The Man I Love - Part II, 2007-2009
A story of Kyuhyun and Sungmin, through the years.
Pairing(s): Kyumin, bff!Kyuwook, bff!Eunmin, unrequited!Kyumi, ninja!others
Rated: PG-14 for kissing/romance, a car accident, slight language, slight angst. and possibly so much cuteness you might die.
~
Sungmin hates hospitals.
The walls are blindingly white and the floors scrubbed and sterile, bleached of life and any semblance of sentiment. All the nurses and doctors rushing around look too busy to comfort a poor, lost visitor, and the people waiting anxiously for news from them don’t really look that much better off than how Sungmin feels right now.
He wants to see Kyuhyun, now that the younger boy has been moved to a regular hospital room and the doctors had said he could receive visitors (though he wouldn’t be awake anyway), but at the same time he’s a little afraid, afraid of what he might see. The nurse lets him into the room with a perfunctory warning not to disturb anything in the room, but he barely hears her, his eyes focused on Kyuhyun.
The younger boy seems so small and fragile in the large hospital bed, his black hair fanned out across the pillow and making his skin seem unhealthily pale in comparison. There are IV drips and beeping machines by the bed, numerous wires and tubes crisscrossing Kyuhyun’s arm. Sungmin swallows unevenly at the image, sitting down by the bed and taking Kyuhyun’s hand carefully, something he’d never do if the other boy were awake.
Kyuhyun murmurs something inaudible, still deeply asleep, and shifts closer to Sungmin.
Sungmin feels a bubble of warmth spreading in his chest, and can’t help the small smile that crosses his face.
He comes back to visit whenever he can find time in his busy schedule, waiting for the day when Kyuhyun will wake up and he can finally tell him what he’d meant to tell him a long time ago.
(“Kyuhyun ah...”
“Hmm?”
“I love you.”
“Oh, I love you too.”)
~
So Kangin knows they’re officially (within Super Junior, at least) dating and all, but he definitely didn’t expect to walk in on them making out in the kitchen.
“What the hell,” he bites out, for lack of better words.
Sungmin stops kissing Kyuhyun long enough to smirk at Kangin. “Go play with your Teukie hyung,” he says absently, distracted by the way Kyuhyun’s hands are roaming under his shirt and-
Kangin blinks. “This is our kitchen. You have your own bedroom to do this in.”
Kyuhyun doesn’t even acknowledge him, just caresses Sungmin’s cheek tenderly.
“I’ve already pulled you two apart once today, don’t think I won’t do it again,” Kangin tries threatening.
Sungmin giggles at the reminder. “Hyukkie was upset with you,” Kyuhyun says, laughing. “He wanted a picture.”
Shaking his head, Kangin gives it up as a lost cause. “I’m going to warn Teukie not to come in here until you two are done,” he mutters, making a quick escape.
A few moments later, he sticks his head back into the room, eyes closed. “Kyuhyun ah. You better be good to Sungminnie.”
He doesn’t have to see Kyuhyun’s cheerful smile to know that he doesn’t have to worry.
(“Wait, what do you think is going on with me?”
Naturally, the fans shout something about Leeteuk, and marriage. Kangin smothers a smirk; they have no idea how close they are to the truth.
“You think I’m going to marry Leeteuk?”
A chorus of yes yes yes.
He can’t help snickering quietly, especially when Leeteuk laughs his crazy laugh. “I’m not that type of person, though,” he tries to explain, but wonders if the fans will ever fall for his crazy stupid excuses.
The MC tries to salvage the situation. “After all, Super Junior’s Kangin...”
“You’re wrong, it’s Sungminnie and Kyuhyun who are like that,” he says, and hides a laugh when the fans go crazy. Mission distraction, successful.)
~
The alarm clock goes off at five, and Kyuhyun opens his eyes groggily, reaching out with a practiced hand to silence it. He sits up, rubbing his eyes tiredly, and tries to force himself to get out of bed.
“’m cold,” Sungmin mumbles sleepily next to him, and yanks the covers away from him. Kyuhyun smiles affectionately (that smile he reserves for Sungmin only), and lies down again, wrapping his arms around Sungmin and kissing the soft, perfect skin of his boyfriend’s neck. (Sungmin had pushed their beds together a while back, claiming that he was always lonely in bed by himself.)
Sungmin rolls over, prying Kyuhyun’s hands off his waist. “You need to get up,” he mutters, yawning. “Get up, Kyunnie.”
Kyuhyun sighs; they both know he has a flight to China he needs to catch in an hour and Hankyung will kill him if he makes them late. Reluctantly, he slips out from underneath the covers, shivering as he gets dressed quickly. (Ryeowook, obviously, is already awake, and cooking something downstairs that smells really, really good.)
Sungmin decides he might as well wake up too, and goes downstairs to inspect Kyuhyun’s bags, making sure he hasn’t forgotten anything. He startles when a pair of strong arms wrap around his waist from behind, a chin resting on his shoulder. “Sungmin ah, you should’ve gone back to sleep,” Kyuhyun whispers, his breath ruffling Sungmin’s hair.
Sungmin tips his head back slightly to look at Kyuhyun. “I can’t sleep without you there anyway,” he murmurs.
Kyuhyun sighs unhappily, his arms tightening around Sungmin’s waist as if by doing that, he can keep him there forever. “I’m going to miss you so much, yeobo.”
Sungmin twists slightly in Kyuhyun’s arms so he can kiss him, Kyuhyun’s hand resting comfortably on the back of his neck. He breathes in deeply, trying to memorize the sweet scent that clings to Kyuhyun’s skin. (He’s going to miss this so much for the next however many months.)
Hankyung clears his throat from the hallway, politely averting his eyes.
Reluctantly, Sungmin lets go of Kyuhyun. “Call me, okay?”
~
Fact of life: Sungmin gets jealous very easily.
Fact of life: Kyuhyun seems quite happy in China, and what the hell is going on with him and Zhou Mi.
Fact of life: Sungmin is jealous of Zhou Mi.
In fact, he ignores Kyuhyun’s phone call and subsequent texts of Sungminnie, where are you? T_T but regrets it an hour later and calls him back, fully intending to confront him about Zhou Mi.
Except when Kyuhyun picks up the phone, he forgets about it completely and their conversation consists mostly of I love you and I miss you, please come back soon. Kyuhyun has to hang up when Hankyung reminds him that they have a TV appearance in five minutes so please get off the phone.
Sungmin sighs, staring morosely at his phone and wondering who to talk to about all this. Eunhyuk’s been in a bad mood lately since Donghae’s in China, and Heechul’s even worse because both Hankyung and Siwon are gone and Kibum’s off acting again. No one else really understands, so he goes to look for Yesung.
“Yesungie hyung,” he says, knocking quietly on the door.
“Come in,” Yesung says absently, laboring over a sheet of staff paper when Sungmin steps into the room.
“Hyung, I want a hug.”
Yesung acquiesces without question, patting Sungmin’s back as he pulls both of them over to his bed. “Feel better yet?”
Sungmin shakes his head, sitting down on Yesung’s bed. “Hyung...how are you okay with Ryeowook and Henry...being like that in China?”
Yesung looks at Sungmin, surprised, before it clicks. “This is about Kyuhyun and Zhou Mi, isn’t it?”
Sungmin nods embarrassedly, staring at his hands in his lap.
The room is quiet for a few moments, before Yesung says, “Sungminnie, you know Kyuhyun only loves you.”
When Sungmin just shrugs, Yesung smacks him on the head, ignoring the pout he receives in return. “I’m more or less okay with Henry and Ryeowook being like that,” he says, “because I know Ryeowook thinks of Henry as his only little brother, and because I know Ryeowook loves me. You, my dear,” he taps Sungmin gently on the nose, “need to remember that Kyuhyun has only ever loved you and will only ever love you. He’d never do anything to hurt you.”
~
Kyuhyun is honestly not sure if Zhou Mi is just taking the whole fanservice thing really seriously, or if-God forbid-Zhou Mi actually likes him.
And then Zhou Mi kisses him in the dance room one afternoon when they’re practicing alone for their next music video. He pulls away almost immediately, fear crossing his face. “I-对不-Kuixian, I...I’m sorry.”
Kyuhyun looks up at him, tall, graceful Zhou Mi who probably has always been able to get anything he wanted. He does like Zhou Mi very much, as a friend and bandmate, and he really, really doesn’t want to do this. But he thinks of Sungmin, and how it would destroy him-both of them-if he leads Zhou Mi on any further.
“I’m sorry, Mimi,” he whispers, looking at the floor. “I...already have someone else.”
Zhou Mi doesn’t say anything, just nods in that quiet way of his that makes even Kyuhyun, the impolite snarky maknae, feel guilty. “Can we just be friends then?” the Chinese man offers finally.
And it breaks Kyuhyun’s heart to see that Zhou Mi is trying so hard to make him happy, even at his own expense. “Yes,” he says. “I really am...sorry, Mimi.”
(He wants to say, You’ll find someone better for you, or even, I’m not your other half, but he kind of doesn’t want to say that to the man whose heart he’s just broken.)
Zhou Mi nods, and leaves him alone.
~
Sungmin, actually, never gets around to confronting Kyuhyun about Zhou Mi.
Hankyung sues SM and leaves Korea, and the rumors immediately start flying, so much that they all have to spend time trying to convince their worried fans that no, it’s just Hankyung, not all of us. Heechul punches, actually punches, Leeteuk when their leader tells them that they have to say that (it’s not just Hankyung, damnit!), and nearly breaks Siwon’s arm when the younger man tries to stop him from hurting himself during one of his raging fits. (And Yesung always makes Ryeowook and Henry get out of the dorm when Heechul starts breaking things, because he’s afraid they’ll get hurt).
Sungmin, personally, thinks Heechul’s less frightening when he’s angry and breaking nearly everything in their dorm than when he lies in bed all day and stares blankly at the ceiling, and no amount of coaxing and pleading from Siwon or Kibum or Ryeowook or Donghae can convince him to eat or get up or do anything.
He really hopes that he and Kyuhyun will never end up like that.
Sungmin kind of just lets the whole Zhou Mi issue go. Kyuhyun, now that Zhou Mi doesn’t stay in their dorm, seems perfectly content with kissing Sungmin and sleeping with him, and Sungmin doesn’t exactly want to confront Kyuhyun and have his heart broken if it does turn out that Kyuhyun’s in love with Zhou Mi. He still has a sort of childish selfishness when it comes to Kyuhyun, and he clutches desperately at what he has now.
(Something bad will happen later if it turns out he’s just deluding himself now, and Sungmin knows it, but he doesn’t want to let Kyuhyun go just yet.)
~
Sometimes, Kyuhyun thinks SM really, really hates them.
SM pulls Zhou Mi back from China and Henry back from Canada and sits them all down, all six of them left from the original Super Junior M, and tells them they’re going back to China with two new members.
Kyuhyun smiles, and nods enthusiastically, because that’s how SM expects them to respond, but when he gets home, he shuts himself in the bathroom and stares worriedly at his reflection in the mirror, willing a solution to present itself to him.
Sungmin is going to be in the new Super Junior M, and Kyuhyun really is not sure what he’s going to do when Zhou Mi’s right there with them. Zhou Mi still loves him, and he doesn’t want to hurt him any more than necessary, but no matter what he does, it’s going to hurt Sungmin too.
(He never finds out that Sungmin lies awake for hours that night, wondering if Kyuhyun is going to break up with him because of Zhou Mi.)
Part III