Reunion
[Title] Reunion
[Rating] PG-13 for implied sex and drinking (oh noes)
[Pairing] HankyungxHeechul
[Author's Note] This was written for
arina_shinh on SJFH because my Christmas Ghost fic depressed her and she wanted happy Hanchul :) I did my best to make this one happy, but I had such a difficult time since fluff isn't exactly my specialty. I tried to make it have a happy ending, though, so points for trying? Haha.
“Yonsei University, please,” Hankyung said, situating himself in the backseat of the taxi, ready for a long night of sleep after spending the entire day at four different historical sites for his class. He knew it was his fault for waiting until the last minute to do almost his entire paper, but he had been so caught up with other things that he hadn’t even thought about it until today, and he now only had four days to finish this paper.
A tired breath escaped his lips as he leaned his head against the back of his seat, closing his eyes and savoring the feel of almost being asleep. His eyes burned when he closed them, a sure sign that he needed at least fifteen hours of sleep - he’d be lucky if he’d get six - and he closed them tighter in hopes of getting the burning to stop. Of course it didn’t work, but he tried anyway. For long moments, he kept his eyes shut, but when he started falling asleep in the taxi, he decided to keep them open so at least he wouldn’t make the taxi driver mad because he had to wake him up. He leaned against the door, wondering how much farther they had to go before they would be at the university, when the car pulled to a stop.
“Oh, thank y-”
“We’re not there yet. We got another passenger. Do you mind?” The driver turned in his seat to look inquiringly at Hankyung, though he got the feeling he really didn’t have a say in the matter at all, and Hankyung just nodded. Not a second later the door on the opposite side of the car opened, letting in the cold night air, and a figure in a dark jacket slid into the seat, shutting the door quickly and shivering slightly.
“Hanyang University, please,” the figure said, and it wasn’t the similar destination of a university that caught Hankyung’s attention - it was the new passenger’s voice. Deep and smooth with a hint of a bit of a rasp, slightly coarse; beautiful and haunting. He knew this because it had been haunting his dreams since Hankyung and this man had last spoken five years before, and he honestly never thought he’d hear it again.
Five years ago, Hankyung and Heechul had graduated high school together; graduated as the school’s hottest couple, voted most likely wind up running away together to another city or to China or America or to some remote region of the world where they could be in love with each other and not have to worry about anything. Especially since their parents would definitely not approve of them not following in the family traditions of settling down with a nice girl and having a family.
Five years ago, Hankyung and Heechul had promised to keep in touch forever, to never lose track of each other and one day meet up again and do what their classmates always suspected they’d do and run away together. After graduation, they went back to Hankyung’s little apartment he was staying in for the duration of high school and talked all night about how nothing could tear them apart, how their love would be stronger than anything else in the world. They promised each other, linking their pinkies together and kissing each other, their way of sealing a promise.
Then, five years ago, they fell apart. Heechul went off to University and got too caught up in writing papers, research, and not replying to Hankyung’s e-mails, and Hankyung went back home to China to help his parents in their shop before going to University himself. Since then, he had traveled to many places to complete his International Business degree, including Japan, America, Australia, and England. This semester in Korea was his last semester of school before he could graduate, get a good career, marry his girlfriend, and live the life his parents wanted him to.
But now Heechul sat beside Hankyung, attempting to brush the cold off his jacket and not paying his fellow passenger any mind, and Hankyung wondered what he’d done right recently for fate to lean so amazingly in his direction so as to bring himself and Heechul in the same place at the same time. He almost couldn’t believe it.
He tried talking but found that his voice wasn’t properly working yet, so he cleared his voice, coughing lightly into his hand and trying again. “Ah, e-excuse me.” He looked over at his fellow passenger, hoping beyond hope that it actually was Heechul and that he didn’t just run into someone who happened to sound the same. But at least he could play it off, asking for a few dollars or something if it turned out to be the wrong person.
“Yeah?” he asked, barely glancing Hankyung’s way, and the familiarity of this voice hit him hard and he found that he was slightly breathless from the very few words they’d exchanged.
“A-ah, do you have a few dollars I could borrow?”
“Sure, just a second.” He pulled a wallet out of the pocket of his oversized jacket and pulled out a five and two ones. “Do you need any m-” The man stopped mid-sentence, his eyes caught on Hankyung’s face, and when he saw those wide eyes and that beautiful skin, he knew that he had actually found Heechul and not some sound-alike. “H-Hankyungie?” His voice was barely a whisper, but it was a whisper that Hankyung knew and remembered very well and brought back memories of hiding under the bleachers, sneaking into abandoned classrooms, and staying up late at night while trying not to wake Hankyung’s neighbors.
“Heechulah?”
“What are you doing back?” he asked, his hand dropping to his leg as he continued to stare at the younger boy. “I thought for sure we were never going to see each other again. I thought…I thought you’d never want to come back here.”
“I’m finishing my degree. I had lots of options, but-”
“You came here.” Heechul licked his lips, his eyes never straying from Hankyung’s face, and clenched his fingers. “C-can you take us to a bar, instead?”
Hankyung smiled softly, knowing that his report was going to have to wait just a bit longer to get finished.
____________
“A girlfriend, huh?” he asked, sliding his hand around the drink in his hand that he hadn’t even lifted to his lips. “Someone can capture your heart?” He laughed softly. “Is she pretty?”
Is she as pretty as me is what Heechul was actually asking, but he didn’t need to voice it aloud for either of them to know. “She’s very pretty. I have a few pictures on my phone, if you want to see.” Heechul agreed, probably out of politeness than actual interest, and Hankyung showed him a few pictures they’d taken together in China.
Once the phone was put away, Heechul stayed silent for a few long moments. “She is pretty.” He finally took a drink, his eyes looking straight ahead, and Hankyung knew he was jealous. “I had a girlfriend for a while, but we broke up. My schedule got in the way and we hardly got to see each other.”
She wasn’t you, so I didn’t want her. Maybe he was trying to make Hankyung jealous. Neither one of them knew if it was working or not.
“I see.”
They settled into an awkward silence, and a million questions buzzed through Hankyung’s brain, questions he wanted to ask, wanted to voice aloud, but couldn’t seem to get the words past his throat, so they stayed in his mind. Do you remember when we were together?
“My, uh…my family’s been wondering how you’ve been.” Another attempt at conversation, at breaking the barrier that five years had brought between them. “They don’t believe we stopped talking after high school. We were so inseparable back then.” A flicker of his old smile, reminiscing on the times when they were always together; ‘inseparable.’ It fit. “They think I’m lying about not talking to you anymore.”
Do you remember that one night when we wound up naked in my apartment and couldn’t go anywhere with it because we were both too embarrassed, too unsure?
“Yeah?” A laugh to match Heechul’s, a long draught of alcohol sliding down his throat. “Well, tell them I’m doing alright. A little cold being here after Australia, but I’m alright.” They both laughed, took another drink, fell into another silence.
Do you know that I still want you?
“You should come over sometime. I think my parents would love to see you again. Hell, I think they’d love to see me again. I hardly talk to them anymore with how busy I am.”
Do you remember five years ago when we promised to keep in touch? Do you remember how you stopped responding?
“That sounds good. I’m here until June, so I think we have some time, right?”
Do you know that I still love you?
“Totally. We’ll have to meet up on some weekend and catch up.”
Can’t we catch up now?
__________
“Five years is too long,” the same coarse voice said quietly in the darkness, his lips brushing across Hankyung’s fingers, breath warm and words even warmer. “Do you have to go back to China once the semester’s over?”
Just stay with me, like old times.
Hankyung didn’t have the words to answer. Of course he didn’t want to, not now that he’d found the one person who could make his heart beat like crazy when they were together. But he had a girlfriend, his parents, a career. His life.
“I miss you, Hankyungie.” Breath now on Hankyung’s mouth, replaced quickly by lips tainted with the softest trace of alcohol. Not enough to inebriate, but enough to loosen an already loose tongue. “I love you.”
“Why didn’t you keep in touch?”
It was the older boy’s turn to not have any answers, to be left silent with nothing to say.
“I love you, too.”
“Can we go back to how we were?” Fingers against his cheek, pushing strands of hair back, while eyes stared through the darkness and into the eyes of the other. “I’m lonely without you. Can we be like how we were before?”
“We’re not in high school anymore.”
“But we can still run away together.” A shifting leg, a possessive hand on the Chinese boy’s waist, fingers softly holding fabric between them in hopes of holding on just a bit longer. A breath of a laugh left his throat, flowing warmly over Hankyung’s lips. “We can do what all our classmates thought we would and just run away together.”
I need you more than I care to admit.
“I have to finish my degree.”
“Let me come with you.” A hand working its way up, under the thin material of the shirt covering Hankyung’s chest, thin fingers coaxing tense muscles, hands stronger than how they looked pushing Hankyung onto his back.
Let’s continue where we left off that night.
_______
“Do you really have to go?”
Can we run away together?
“How does America sound?”
[Rating] PG-13 for implied sex and drinking (oh noes)
[Pairing] HankyungxHeechul
[Author's Note] This was written for
arina_shinh on SJFH because my Christmas Ghost fic depressed her and she wanted happy Hanchul :) I did my best to make this one happy, but I had such a difficult time since fluff isn't exactly my specialty. I tried to make it have a happy ending, though, so points for trying? Haha.
“Yonsei University, please,” Hankyung said, situating himself in the backseat of the taxi, ready for a long night of sleep after spending the entire day at four different historical sites for his class. He knew it was his fault for waiting until the last minute to do almost his entire paper, but he had been so caught up with other things that he hadn’t even thought about it until today, and he now only had four days to finish this paper.
A tired breath escaped his lips as he leaned his head against the back of his seat, closing his eyes and savoring the feel of almost being asleep. His eyes burned when he closed them, a sure sign that he needed at least fifteen hours of sleep - he’d be lucky if he’d get six - and he closed them tighter in hopes of getting the burning to stop. Of course it didn’t work, but he tried anyway. For long moments, he kept his eyes shut, but when he started falling asleep in the taxi, he decided to keep them open so at least he wouldn’t make the taxi driver mad because he had to wake him up. He leaned against the door, wondering how much farther they had to go before they would be at the university, when the car pulled to a stop.
“Oh, thank y-”
“We’re not there yet. We got another passenger. Do you mind?” The driver turned in his seat to look inquiringly at Hankyung, though he got the feeling he really didn’t have a say in the matter at all, and Hankyung just nodded. Not a second later the door on the opposite side of the car opened, letting in the cold night air, and a figure in a dark jacket slid into the seat, shutting the door quickly and shivering slightly.
“Hanyang University, please,” the figure said, and it wasn’t the similar destination of a university that caught Hankyung’s attention - it was the new passenger’s voice. Deep and smooth with a hint of a bit of a rasp, slightly coarse; beautiful and haunting. He knew this because it had been haunting his dreams since Hankyung and this man had last spoken five years before, and he honestly never thought he’d hear it again.
Five years ago, Hankyung and Heechul had graduated high school together; graduated as the school’s hottest couple, voted most likely wind up running away together to another city or to China or America or to some remote region of the world where they could be in love with each other and not have to worry about anything. Especially since their parents would definitely not approve of them not following in the family traditions of settling down with a nice girl and having a family.
Five years ago, Hankyung and Heechul had promised to keep in touch forever, to never lose track of each other and one day meet up again and do what their classmates always suspected they’d do and run away together. After graduation, they went back to Hankyung’s little apartment he was staying in for the duration of high school and talked all night about how nothing could tear them apart, how their love would be stronger than anything else in the world. They promised each other, linking their pinkies together and kissing each other, their way of sealing a promise.
Then, five years ago, they fell apart. Heechul went off to University and got too caught up in writing papers, research, and not replying to Hankyung’s e-mails, and Hankyung went back home to China to help his parents in their shop before going to University himself. Since then, he had traveled to many places to complete his International Business degree, including Japan, America, Australia, and England. This semester in Korea was his last semester of school before he could graduate, get a good career, marry his girlfriend, and live the life his parents wanted him to.
But now Heechul sat beside Hankyung, attempting to brush the cold off his jacket and not paying his fellow passenger any mind, and Hankyung wondered what he’d done right recently for fate to lean so amazingly in his direction so as to bring himself and Heechul in the same place at the same time. He almost couldn’t believe it.
He tried talking but found that his voice wasn’t properly working yet, so he cleared his voice, coughing lightly into his hand and trying again. “Ah, e-excuse me.” He looked over at his fellow passenger, hoping beyond hope that it actually was Heechul and that he didn’t just run into someone who happened to sound the same. But at least he could play it off, asking for a few dollars or something if it turned out to be the wrong person.
“Yeah?” he asked, barely glancing Hankyung’s way, and the familiarity of this voice hit him hard and he found that he was slightly breathless from the very few words they’d exchanged.
“A-ah, do you have a few dollars I could borrow?”
“Sure, just a second.” He pulled a wallet out of the pocket of his oversized jacket and pulled out a five and two ones. “Do you need any m-” The man stopped mid-sentence, his eyes caught on Hankyung’s face, and when he saw those wide eyes and that beautiful skin, he knew that he had actually found Heechul and not some sound-alike. “H-Hankyungie?” His voice was barely a whisper, but it was a whisper that Hankyung knew and remembered very well and brought back memories of hiding under the bleachers, sneaking into abandoned classrooms, and staying up late at night while trying not to wake Hankyung’s neighbors.
“Heechulah?”
“What are you doing back?” he asked, his hand dropping to his leg as he continued to stare at the younger boy. “I thought for sure we were never going to see each other again. I thought…I thought you’d never want to come back here.”
“I’m finishing my degree. I had lots of options, but-”
“You came here.” Heechul licked his lips, his eyes never straying from Hankyung’s face, and clenched his fingers. “C-can you take us to a bar, instead?”
Hankyung smiled softly, knowing that his report was going to have to wait just a bit longer to get finished.
____________
“A girlfriend, huh?” he asked, sliding his hand around the drink in his hand that he hadn’t even lifted to his lips. “Someone can capture your heart?” He laughed softly. “Is she pretty?”
Is she as pretty as me is what Heechul was actually asking, but he didn’t need to voice it aloud for either of them to know. “She’s very pretty. I have a few pictures on my phone, if you want to see.” Heechul agreed, probably out of politeness than actual interest, and Hankyung showed him a few pictures they’d taken together in China.
Once the phone was put away, Heechul stayed silent for a few long moments. “She is pretty.” He finally took a drink, his eyes looking straight ahead, and Hankyung knew he was jealous. “I had a girlfriend for a while, but we broke up. My schedule got in the way and we hardly got to see each other.”
She wasn’t you, so I didn’t want her. Maybe he was trying to make Hankyung jealous. Neither one of them knew if it was working or not.
“I see.”
They settled into an awkward silence, and a million questions buzzed through Hankyung’s brain, questions he wanted to ask, wanted to voice aloud, but couldn’t seem to get the words past his throat, so they stayed in his mind. Do you remember when we were together?
“My, uh…my family’s been wondering how you’ve been.” Another attempt at conversation, at breaking the barrier that five years had brought between them. “They don’t believe we stopped talking after high school. We were so inseparable back then.” A flicker of his old smile, reminiscing on the times when they were always together; ‘inseparable.’ It fit. “They think I’m lying about not talking to you anymore.”
Do you remember that one night when we wound up naked in my apartment and couldn’t go anywhere with it because we were both too embarrassed, too unsure?
“Yeah?” A laugh to match Heechul’s, a long draught of alcohol sliding down his throat. “Well, tell them I’m doing alright. A little cold being here after Australia, but I’m alright.” They both laughed, took another drink, fell into another silence.
Do you know that I still want you?
“You should come over sometime. I think my parents would love to see you again. Hell, I think they’d love to see me again. I hardly talk to them anymore with how busy I am.”
Do you remember five years ago when we promised to keep in touch? Do you remember how you stopped responding?
“That sounds good. I’m here until June, so I think we have some time, right?”
Do you know that I still love you?
“Totally. We’ll have to meet up on some weekend and catch up.”
Can’t we catch up now?
__________
“Five years is too long,” the same coarse voice said quietly in the darkness, his lips brushing across Hankyung’s fingers, breath warm and words even warmer. “Do you have to go back to China once the semester’s over?”
Just stay with me, like old times.
Hankyung didn’t have the words to answer. Of course he didn’t want to, not now that he’d found the one person who could make his heart beat like crazy when they were together. But he had a girlfriend, his parents, a career. His life.
“I miss you, Hankyungie.” Breath now on Hankyung’s mouth, replaced quickly by lips tainted with the softest trace of alcohol. Not enough to inebriate, but enough to loosen an already loose tongue. “I love you.”
“Why didn’t you keep in touch?”
It was the older boy’s turn to not have any answers, to be left silent with nothing to say.
“I love you, too.”
“Can we go back to how we were?” Fingers against his cheek, pushing strands of hair back, while eyes stared through the darkness and into the eyes of the other. “I’m lonely without you. Can we be like how we were before?”
“We’re not in high school anymore.”
“But we can still run away together.” A shifting leg, a possessive hand on the Chinese boy’s waist, fingers softly holding fabric between them in hopes of holding on just a bit longer. A breath of a laugh left his throat, flowing warmly over Hankyung’s lips. “We can do what all our classmates thought we would and just run away together.”
I need you more than I care to admit.
“I have to finish my degree.”
“Let me come with you.” A hand working its way up, under the thin material of the shirt covering Hankyung’s chest, thin fingers coaxing tense muscles, hands stronger than how they looked pushing Hankyung onto his back.
Let’s continue where we left off that night.
_______
“Do you really have to go?”
Can we run away together?
“How does America sound?”