Fanfic: Folding Up the Skyline (Siwon/Kyuhyun)
Title: Folding Up the Skyline
Fandom: Super Junior RPF
Characters/Pairing: Siwon/Kyuhyun; Ryeowook (because we need more kickass!Wook in this world)
Rating: PG-13
Warning(s): AU. FLUFFFFFFF.
Word Count: ~10k
Summary: Siwon is a superhero and Kyuhyun is a genius with a mind-reading machine in mind. Inspired by their cosplay in Super Show 4.
Notes: This fic is a birthday gift for bl4ckm4lice! Happy birthday, Cita :DDD Hopefully you'll still enjoy it although this isn't the gangbang... orz And I don't usually write this kind of fic (and it's unedited to boot), so it may be kinda disappointing ;;
The title is taken from a song by Silversun Pickups, "Little Lover's So Polite".
And the awesome banner is not made by me, but by someone who does not wish to be named ;D
folding up the skyline
Cho Kyuhyun is a pale, sickly-looking man with a shock of unruly brown hair and a pair of jaded, cynical eyes behind the most unattractive model of spectacles Siwon has ever seen.
He, in Siwon’s journalistic opinion, certainly fits the description of a moody, antisocial, egotistical genius to a T. The black sweater and faded jeans only strengthen this impression, as well as the brusque, discouraging manner.
It is painfully obvious from the very beginning that Cho Kyuhyun does not regard this 'exclusive' interview as anything other than a colossal waste of time. And after ten minutes of being subjected to indifferent, monosyllabic answers, Siwon has long since been convinced that the result of his weeks of arduous negotiations and clever string-pulling will fill no more than two narrow columns, if any.
At least there’s still the internet, he consoles himself with a heavy sigh after receiving another offhanded reply from his interviewee. The other man barely even spares him a glance from his laptop-on which he seems to be doing a series of formidable, complicated-looking, headache-inducing equations.
It does make Siwon wonder why this acclaimed golden boy of mathematics and computer science bothered to accept his request for an interview in the first place.
“And now, what about your new project, Dr Cho?” he moves on to the next question in his list-which, thankfully, only has two more items left.
Cho Kyuhyun shoots him a cool look which barely masks his boredom. “What about it?”
“There are rumours that you are working on something new. Radical, even.”
The other man snorts. “We're living in a world that lacks imagination. Something new is nearly always considered radical.”
“But what about the threats you have received?”
“What threats?”
Siwon can feel his eyebrow twitch. This man is infuriating. He has to summon every splinter of patience left in him in order to maintain a civil tone. “According to one of our sources, there are groups of people which have shown a particular interest in this new invention of yours, and they are not afraid to use violence to get their hands on it.”
“That is their business, not mine,” Cho Kyuhyun says dismissively. “Are we done?”
Siwon quickly shuts his notebook and puts on a practiced smile on his face. “Yes, thank you so much for your-”
“You can show yourself out,” the other man cuts him off, rising from his chair, and then disappears behind the door from which he came barely twelve minutes ago.
The good thing is, Siwon tells himself as he tries to ignore the urge to kick some doors down, there is very little chance that their paths will cross again in the future.
-
Choi Siwon may be able to fly and lift things normal human beings cannot, but as it turns out, he sucks at trying to predict the future.
“Are you trying to kill yourself?” Siwon manages to ask after he has gotten over his shock of someone literally falling into his arms.
“No.” Kyuhyun’s reply is surprisingly calm-which is totally inappropriate, in Siwon's opinion, for a man who has just jumped from the rooftop of a seventy-story building. If he didn't happen to pass by this area during his aerial patrol tonight, Kyuhyun would be lying dead somewhere on the pavement down below right now.
“Then what do you think you’re doing?”
“Some people were pursuing me and I was trying to escape them.”
“By jumping from a skyscraper?”
“It was the most logical course of action,” Kyuhyun tells him, using a voice which implies that the answer is obvious and his rescuer is a moron.
Siwon can only stare at him for a long moment. The other man raises his gaze and their eyes meet.
“I saw you,” Kyuhyun says again, now looking straight at him. (Siwon narrowly avoids flying into a radio tower as he marvels at the pair of beautiful eyes which he somehow failed to notice during their previous meeting.) “You were heading to my direction. I took an approximate gauge of your velocity during flight and calculated it against the distance between us. Even taking account of the wind's turbulent flow at this altitude and assuming that you could only manage a forty-five degree angle at best, there was still a 68% chance that you would be able to reach me in time. On the other hand, if I had stayed behind, the probability of my avoiding captivity without giving in to their demands wouldn’t have reached even 0.1%. Another significant parameter is that in this case, captivity also means torture, and since I dislike pain, the solution is obvious.”
“You decided to gamble your life on a couple of numbers?” Siwon asks in disbelief.
“They don’t lie,” Kyuhyun declares, eyes and voice both expressionless. “Unlike you, Mr Reporter.”
-
Walking into Cho Kyuhyun’s laboratory is like walking into the crash site of some alien space ship.
The underground facility is vast-vast enough to house an entire football stadium and more. Half-built machines of varying shapes and sizes litter the floor, some of them strange enough to pose as actual alien space ships. Transparent boards boasting a dazzling array of complex diagrams and arcane equations fight for the rest of the space with chipboards, standard laboratory equipment, and, of course, books and papers.
Still in his superhero outfit, Siwon silently follows the other man as they navigate around these odds and ends. That he is feeling severely out of place is such an understatement that he hardly makes any noise.
“Sit over there.” Kyuhyun motions at a stool surrounded by crisscrossing wires and broken plates of metal. Siwon meekly obeys, saying absolutely nothing until the scientist returns with a large hypodermic syringe in hand.
That is when he finally opens his mouth. “What are you doing?” he asks warily, eyeing the sharp, pointy apparatus.
“Taking a sample of your blood. Stay still.”
Siwon is about to give a warning, but before he can so much as open his mouth, Kyuhyun has already jammed the needle into his arm.
Or at least tried to, since said needle snaps into three the moment it tries to pierce his skin.
The pieces fall to the floor with a sharp, tinkling sound. For what feels like an interminably long moment, Kyuhyun only eyes the broken syringe in his hand. Siwon likewise watches him in silence, nervous for reasons beyond his understanding.
When the other man looks up, there is a speculative glint in his eyes.
“Are we of the same genus?”
“What?” Siwon stares back, dumbfounded.
“You’re obviously not human,” the scientist declares, carelessly throwing away the now useless hypodermic. “But your form is humanoid, or at least bipedal-unless you can shift shapes, of which I doubt. So are we of the same genus?”
“I honestly have no idea,” Siwon answers truthfully, earning himself a soft snort from the other man. Clearly Kyuhyun has decided to waste no more word on him and simply take what he wants, which are a few strands of Siwon's hair, sharply pulled off of his scalp.
“These will have to do,” he mutters, completely ignoring Siwon's half-hearted protest. He seals the hair in a plastic bag and then heads to the nearest desk, starting another hunt in the piled-up mess and cluttered drawers.
“How did you recognise me?” Siwon asks after watching the other man tossing random things over his shoulders for several minutes.
“Those things on your face,” Kyuhyun replies impatiently, not even glancing up as he moves to the next desk. “The possibility of two men having that exact pair of hyperbolic paraboloids as facial attributes and living in the same city radius is close to a fraction of thirty billionths.”
It takes Siwon a moment to realise that the other man is talking about his dimples. The explanation makes enough sense, he decides, as long as he ignores all its other less-than-normal aspects.
“You said you were trying to escape from some people earlier,” he tries to strike a new conversation after another uncomfortable stretch of silence. “Who were they?”
“I don’t know, maybe just some people interested in my research,” is Kyuhyun’s offhanded answer.
“And yet you said you didn’t know anything about threats.”
“I really cannot care less.”
Siwon finds himself frowning at the answer. “You should. You've been given a life. Don't treat it so carelessly.”
It earns him a quick, sharp glare from the scientist. “I don't treat it carelessly. Those people did.”
“Still, jumping from the rooftop of-”
“I already told you why,” Kyuhyun interrupts him, coming back this time with his (long and beautiful, another point Siwon failed to notice in their first encounter) fingers wrapped around the hilt of a knife. “Can I stab you?”
“What?”
“A needle has no effect on you, so I want to see if a blade like this can't hurt you either.”
“Yeah, no.” Siwon inches away from the other man. He is, in fact, immune to most weapons the human race has been able to come up with so far, but it doesn't mean that their attempts to hurt him don't hurt.
Kyuhyun frowns. “I’ll only do it once.”
“You can just throw me questions if you want to know more about my body,” Siwon says quickly, “and I’ll tell you the answer.”
“I can, but you’re a liar.”
Siwon scowls. “Just because I’m protecting my identity doesn’t mean that I’m a liar.”
“Then prove it,” Kyuhyun challenges, a glint in his eyes. “Come back tomorrow at ten. If I don’t see you at that hour, then you’re a liar.”
...well, he sure walks into that one.
-
Leading a double life is hard, even for superheroes.
The key, as Siwon has discovered through years of trial and error, is discipline. He arranges his life with clockwork precision, following a well-regulated schedule with just enough free time scattered in between to anticipate any unexpected emergency. His day job isn’t exactly a light one, but it allows him to slip out whenever he needs to and gives him a valid reason to be present at a crime scene. He also patrols the city twice a day and constantly listens in on the police radio in one ear-just to be on the lookout.
The day Siwon forgoes his morning patrol for the first time in seven years is the day after he met Kyuhyun. He spends the precious few hours to dig out everything he can about the man, using every resource and connection in his disposal.
The information he has managed to accumulate by noontime is far from comforting. Cho Kyuhyun has always been a victim to unwanted attention due to his genius and radical researches and inventions, most of which are capable of causing great harm in the wrong hand. Lucrative offers regularly knock on his door, but the man is completely indifferent to them, having inherited the bulk of his parents’ substantial wealth. He does what he wants, helps whom he wants, and as a result, his name tops the target list of many big businesses and underground lords-which in turn attract the attention of other big businesses and underground lords who happen to be their rivals.
And somewhere along these lines, Siwon finds a reason-other than his being psychologically blackmailed-to go back and keep his appointment. He makes up some lies about pursuing a possible news source to his boss and at ten minutes to ten, is already standing in front of the tall building which he has visited twice yesterday.
Siwon is painfully aware that this decision mostly comes from an overwhelming desire to talk with someone who knows.
Maybe they can even be friends in the future.
What happens in the next few seconds or so happens fast. He spots said candidate for a friend walking at the other side of the street with a large paper bag nestled in the crook of his arms. Siwon is just about to wave when a big black car stops right next to the scientist, effectively blocking his view.
Then there is a shout.
He cannot see anything past the black car, nothing but apples rolling on the pavement, and yet it's enough to get his instinct screaming and propel him into action. Shouting, Siwon runs across the street-with more speed than can be considered human-and wrestles Kyuhyun out of the men's grasp-also, with much more strength than can be considered human.
It is very possible that he has just blown his cover with what he just did, Siwon reflects half a minute later, but for some odd reasons, he cannot find it in him to care very much.
“Is this going to happen every time we meet?” he asks with a sigh as they float down to the balcony of Kyuhyun's apartment.
“I’ve run out of apples,” Kyuhyun replies sadly, making no sense whatsoever. Siwon blinks at him.
“Apples?”
“Yes. Buy some for me, will you?”
Later, after a period of reflection and confusion and denial, Siwon will decide that it is quite possible that Kyuhyun has slipped and therefore accidentally pushed him off the ledge-because there is no way it has been done with intent, and of course Kyuhyun isn’t that crazy.
Although he has to admit that it doesn’t sound very convincing.
-
“Who are you and what is your purpose here?”
The question is thrown at his face right after Siwon found himself pushed against the wall with a well-placed arm under his chin and a gun pressed against his stomach. He cannot remember the last time he has been taken by surprise by a human-and this realisation stuns him into silence for the next few seconds.
The young man is short and rather on the thin side, but his posture is exuding so much threat that there is no question about what he can do, size notwithstanding. Siwon gives his name and identity as politely as possible and mentions to the smaller man that he might want to contact Kyuhyun first before deciding to do anything drastic.
Something flickers in his attacker's eyes, who then says, “You’re the superhero.”
Siwon has to wonder if his disguise is so abysmally inadequate that people can simply guess his true identity left and right. But then the young man speaks again, “Kyuhyun told me about you.”
And that is how he comes to know Kim Ryeowook, Kyuhyun’s personal-assistant-slash-bodyguard-slash-chef-slash-major-domo-slash-babysitter. He is also the main reason Kyuhyun can still function like a normal human being most of the time. Despite their rather rough beginning, Siwon finds himself developing an easy friendship with the other man as he begins to spend more time around Kyuhyun (mostly as a test subject).
“He doesn't think like normal people,” Ryeowook says, half in fondness and the other half clearly drowning in exasperation as he puts a bag of ice on the left side of Siwon's temple-which has just been kissed by a large hammer, another experiment Kyuhyun managed to extort out of him. It doesn’t hurt all that much and certainly doesn’t inflict any amount of damage, but one glance at Ryeowook’s distressed face and Siwon discovers that he doesn’t have the heart to refuse.
“Who? Kyuhyun?”
“Yes,” Ryeowook sighs, dabbing around the (nonexistent) bruise. “He follows his own logic. He lives by his own rules. Sometimes I even doubt that he really exists here, in this world, like the rest of us. It’s like he has his own realm of existence.”
Siwon cannot agree more. They have spent barely two weeks in each other’s company, but it has become painfully obvious to him that Kyuhyun lives in a different world. A world of numbers and equations, charts and encryptions. He thinks in algebraic conversions and dreams of mechanical designs beyond anybody else’s ken. He sits for hours in front of an unfinished framework or a massive work station, eating dozens of apples as he tries to untangle a problem which he alone can see and comprehend.
In a way, they are one of a kind. Siwon has never belonged to the human race in the first place, but Kyuhyun’s genius also sets him apart from the rest of his people. This sense of kinship is one of the reasons why he lets Kyuhyun poke holes into him or introduce various dangerous substances to his person.
The other reason makes itself clear when he drops in for a visit one night after his scheduled patrol.
“Hey, I bought some doughnuts. Do you want any?”
Kyuhyun is sitting behind one of the many desks scattered in his laboratory, rocking his chair slowly on its two hind legs. He looks up from whatever he is working on at the mention of doughnuts-and his chair topples backward.
“This feels disturbingly familiar,” Siwon mutters to himself as he helps the other man to his feet. He didn’t react quickly enough to prevent the fall, but Kyuhyun doesn’t seem to care and the smile on his face as he bites into his first chocolate-glazed doughnut only highlights something which Siwon has been suspecting for quite some time.
He, Siwon realises, heartbeat stuttering, wants to protect Kyuhyun.
-
Kyuhyun’s newest radical invention, Ryeowook tells him after they foiled another abduction attempt with each other’s help, is a mind reader.
“Don't ask me how it works,” the smaller man quickly adds (although Siwon is too busy gaping to formulate any question). “No one knows but him and he’s really keeping the secret close. That’s the reason why so many people are incredibly interested in him lately.”
“So he’s building it somewhere down there?” Siwon asks once he has found his voice, recalling all the times he has found Kyuhyun huddled before various strange-looking contraptions-when he isn’t busy trying to find a way to physically damage Siwon-in the vast underground facility below.
“No, he isn’t building it,” Ryeowook replies with a sigh. “He said he had no intention to. But that clearly doesn’t stop them from trying to wrestle the secret from him.”
And it isn’t difficult to know why. Siwon can imagine the innumerable ‘uses’ of such a machine very well, not to mention the obvious monetary gain for anybody in control of one. Luckily for the rest of the world, Kyuhyun has less than zero interest in money.
“Of course there’s a blueprint,” the scientist tells him an hour later while they are sharing a large plate of sandwiches Ryeowook has made.
Siwon stops chewing at once. “There is?” He stares at Kyuhyun. “Where?”
“The best place to hide it,” the other man answers with a shrug.
“You mean,” Siwon throws a wary glance around their cluttered surroundings, “somewhere in this… mess?”
“This isn’t a mess,” Kyuhyun hisses, clearly offended. “I know exactly where everything is.”
“And you’re the only one,” Siwon mutters under his breath, but quickly backtracks when Kyuhyun shoots him an icy glare. “Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing actually. So where do you keep it?”
Kyuhyun rises to his feet, a smile unlike anything Siwon has ever seen before gracing his lips. He looks like a child, one with a big secret that everybody else is dying to learn-one who knows that he has bested all the adults.
“Think of a circle,” he says enigmatically and goes back to whatever he's working on, taking the last two ham-and-cheese sandwiches with him.
-
Siwon stumbles upon the answer three days later-after flying into a flock of migrating birds.
The best place to hide the blueprint of a mind-reader, of course, is inside one's mind. A mind reader cannot be built without the blueprint, but said blueprint, without Kyuhyun's consent, can only be accessed with a mind reader.
The blueprint does exist. In Kyuhyun's mind.
He laughs. Circle indeed.
-
There are two kinds of day in a superhero's life: a very good one and a very bad one.
Siwon considers a day when absolutely nothing happens to be a very good one. Monotony doesn’t bother him and he gets along with boredom just fine. Most of the times, he is simply glad that nothing awful happens to disturb the peace of his beloved city.
But of course there are days when he will have to do something-and sometimes, when the Fates are smiling at him, he gets to do them right.
This is one of those days. A gang war has all the potentials to turn nasty in a blink of an eye and Siwon has experienced enough of them throughout his 'career' to know the kind of chaos they can generate. The fact that the one he dealt with this afternoon has claimed no worse casualties than a few broken bones really puts a grin on his face. No one has died, no property (public or private) has been too badly destroyed, and the bad boys are now safely locked behind bars. All in all, everything is good and well with the world.
He finds Kyuhyun working in the office instead of the laboratory for once. Still swimming in euphoria, Siwon is about to burst into a flood of narration of today's triumph, but the other man has spoken up first.
“I’ve heard.” Kyuhyun nods at the television, which is currently broadcasting the seven o’clock news. Siwon can feel an uncomfortable blush creeping to his face to see his most recent success being heralded with so much fanfare. At the moment, it is replaying a clip of “the people’s hero” dragging one of the gang leaders up into the sky-and therefore saving his life. Several other heroic feats follow, each no less applauded than the one before.
“They always have to make such a big deal out of it,” he mutters, trying to block out all the praises lavished upon his alter-ego by the newscaster.
“You did solve their problems.”
“Still. It’s too much.”
“See it from their point of view,” Kyuhyun replies matter-of-factly, eyes still locked on his laptop screen. “They think that as long as they love and worship you, then you’ll always be there for them and solve their problems. What is there to lose?”
Siwon cannot help the wave of disappointment which suddenly washes over him. “Of course. And nothing’s easier than to love a hero,” he says dejectedly.
That is when Kyuhyun finally looks up and meets his gaze. “You wear the mask of a hero,” he states. “Of course they can only love you as a hero.”
“I suppose so,” Siwon replies with a sigh.
“Why do you care so much anyway?”
“Well, it's silly, but I just want them to like me as... well, me,” he admits, knowing perfectly well that the concept of wanting to be accepted by other people may as well be alien to Kyuhyun, human or not.
The younger man frowns. “No, I mean why do you care about this city and what happens to its people. You’re not even one of us.”
Siwon tries to ignore the slight pang in his chest when he remembers that yes, he is different. Even after all these years, the pain has never quite gone away.
“It’s the right thing to do,” he hears himself say after a long pause.
“From what angle? You don’t owe us anything,”
“I do, actually.” Siwon manages a small smile. “You call me different-and it’s true-but I grew up here. I learned how to live here. This city takes care of me, like a mother to her son, although I’m not one of her own.” He pauses, feeling strangely vulnerable before Kyuhyun's intent, star-bright gaze. “This is the only place I can call home.”
“Home,” Kyuhyun echoes, as if tasting the word on his tongue.
“Yes.” Siwon nods, the air leaving his lungs in a long, quiet sigh-like a prayer. “Home.”
“But that doesn’t explain why you keep coming back here. Why you stay around me.”
Siwon can feel the smile on his face widening into a grin. “No. I have an entirely different reason there.”
“What reason?” Kyuhyun demands.
“Just promise that you won’t hate me after I tell you.”
The younger man's eyes narrow. “What. Reason,” he repeats ominously.
“Just one,” Siwon tells him, tone softening. “It's because you fell out of the sky into my arms.”
The red tinge which has suddenly appeared in Kyuhyun’s cheeks might be a testament of his anger-but Siwon likes to think that it's something else entirely.
-
“What about explosives?”
“No.”
“One explosive? Strapped to your leg if the chest is too dangerous.”
“Kyuhyun,” Siwon begins with what he considers to be his most patient tone of voice, “I know I can stand almost everything you’re planning to throw at me, but there’s bound to be a limit somewhere-and to be honest I don’t want to test that limit that far.”
The scientist frowns at him, hands on his hips. “It’s for the sake of accurate data. Don’t you want to find out just how resilient your physical structure is?”
“No,” Siwon answers decisively. “I’m perfectly happy living on the dark of that.”
Kyuhyun’s lips curl with something very much like contempt. “I see. You’re happy to continue living under this false sense of invincibility-”
“I’m not invincible,” Siwon growls, both offended and disappointed to hear something like that coming from someone he considers a friend. “Fine. You want to know my weakness? I can just tell you-”
“No!” Kyuhyun’s screech renders him silenced at once. The young man has jumped to his feet, eyes blazing and looking really, really angry. His voice, when he speaks again, gains an ominous quality which Siwon has never heard before. “That secret is for you to keep and me to figure out. You’re not going to hand it to me like a cheap, useless trinket just like that!”
“You want to blow me up,” Siwon points out, torn between exasperation and a really irrational desire to simply follow whatever Kyuhyun wishes.
“It’s an experiment,” Kyuhyun mutters, complete with a small pout, arms crossed, and the rest of the ensemble.
“And I want to keep all my limbs intact just as they are, so let me give you a clue so you can figure it out faster.”
The glare sent his way is enough to freeze hell twice over. “No.”
Heaving a deep sigh, Siwon decides to back down-for now. As soon as he gets the chance, however, he grabs the book on superstring theory which Kyuhyun has been reading for the last few days and slips a piece of paper between pages 738 and 739.
What is harmful to you may be harmless to me, but it works the other way around too.
Kyuhyun will probably want to kill him for this tomorrow, but luckily for Siwon, he still can’t hurt him-yet.
-
Winter has come and wrapped its fingers tightly around the snow-dusted city when Siwon realises-really, really realises-that his world has changed.
It has expanded, now containing three people instead of one. Kyuhyun and Ryeowook have become a permanent fixture in his life and Siwon finds himself spending every bit of his free time around them. At one point, he starts telling them the story of his life. The nice couple who took him in and raised him as their own son. The pressure of keeping his secret forever secret. The murder-burglary which had taken his surrogate parents away from him. The vow. The commitment. The lonely life he had led since then.
Soon afterwards, Ryeowook starts inviting him for dinner every night-and sometimes breakfast too, if he happens to stay over. Kyuhyun never says a word or cracks a single expression during any of his stories, but the schedule he has developed for the ‘experiments’ basically requires Siwon to relocate if not in the laboratory, then at least somewhere in the vicinity of the building.
Siwon cannot say that he really minds. If anything, he is glad for the overtures of friendship. The fact that Kyuhyun is still experimenting on him is certainly a convenient pretext, but he is honest enough to admit (at least to himself) that his motives are nowhere near those lines.
The unspoken arrangement he has come into with Ryeowook in order to protect their scientist friend is proof enough. He has counted no less than six abduction attempts in the four months they have known each other, and the trend doesn’t show any sign of declining soon.
“Tell them that you lie about the mind reader,” he says after arriving one night to the news that Ryeowook has just thwarted the seventh attempt.
“They won’t believe me,” Kyuhyun replies nonchalantly as he continues with his next test-which involves something like feeding Siwon every kind of fruit and vegetables grown under the sun (on the minuscule chance that one of them might possess the ever mysterious, ever elusive power to harm him).
“So you just let them think that you have the blueprint.”
“I do have the blueprint.”
“And you let them think that you do have it.”
Kyuhyun frowns. “They can think whatever they want. I’m not responsible for it.”
Siwon stabs a piece of star fruit with his fork and gives up.
-
The solution is obvious.
Or so Ryeowook tells him when they are having breakfast together, complete with a knowing tone and a smile that makes Siwon feel like the rest of the world is laughing at him and he doesn’t have a clue why.
“You’re right, he doesn’t care much about his own life,” the younger man continues when Siwon only maintains a sullen silence and glares. “Maybe something is wrong with the wiring in his head, I don't know. Call it what you want, but there’s no use trying to do anything from that end. He will never change.”
“Then what are you suggesting?”
“It’s the rest of the world that has to change,” Ryeowook declares and pushes his tablet across the dining table toward Siwon. A news article takes up the entire screen, crowned with a picture and two rows of red gigantic letters which make the conspicuous headline.
The People’s Hero and the Genius Geek: Boyfriends?
Siwon’s first reaction is to choke on his coffee.
“Like I said, obvious,” Ryeowook adds, handing him a paper napkin.
Siwon finds himself unable to respond for a long moment. The picture, he recognises upon closer scrutiny as he wipes the front of his shirt with the napkin, is a photo of him carrying Kyuhyun out of what looks like a heap of wreckage. It was a trailer car-if he remembers correctly-one used to keep the scientist captive before Siwon decided to introduce it to his fists.
“I don’t understand,” he says feebly.
“We can’t force him to care about his own safety,” Ryeowook explains with a patient sigh. “So the only course of action left is to get the rest of the world to stop bothering him. How? By exploiting this. You are basically the most feared individual on the planet right now, so if rumours go around that you two are involved, I'd say there’s a good chance that they will leave him alone.
Siwon opens his mouth to deliver a series of remonstrance, but each and every one of them dies a swift, unconditional death as soon as he realises how logical Ryeowook’s line of thought actually is. Of course his increasing presence around Kyuhyun would be noticed; it’s practically inevitable, especially considering how prone Kyuhyun is to accidents and abductions and how often Siwon has to rescue him.
Coincidentally, it’s also the perfect solution-and, as Ryeowook has declared over and over again, obvious.
“Are you sure he won’t mind though?” Siwon hears himself timidly ask. He isn't sure why this ‘scheme’ doesn't bother him as much as it should-or why his face feels suddenly, uncomfortably warm.
Ryeowook’s answering grin can only be described as mischievous. “He, I’m not so sure, but I know you won’t.”
Now his face is definitely on fire.
-
The moment Siwon realises that he is harbouring some not-so-platonic feelings toward Kyuhyun is when he catches himself staring at the other's lips.
They are a beautiful pair of lips, he reasons to himself after spending about ten minutes trying to get over his shock and calm his racing heartbeat. There is no reason why he can't admire them.
But then he starts thinking about running his tongue over those lips-and suddenly there is a voice inside his head (sounding suspiciously like Ryeowook) that laughs at him for even trying to hide behind such a pathetic excuse.
Siwon drags his eyes back to the half-finished article sitting on his laptop screen. Five minutes later and not even a single word added, he chances another glance at Kyuhyun and is promptly awarded with a sight of the younger man's innocently biting his lips, leaving them swollen and red and wet.
Siwon finds himself unable to look away, heat crawling all over his cheeks.
Yes, you have a crush on him, the voice echoes again, complete with a vicious laugh this time.
-
Exactly one week before Kyuhyun’s birthday, Ryeowook casually lets him know that said anniversary is in fact just around the corner.
“In case you want to give him a present or something,” he explains cheerfully, seemingly oblivious to Siwon’s shocked expression.
Siwon spends the entire week cursing the smaller man as he wrecks his brain-and nearly every store in the city-for a suitable gift. Kyuhyun is such an unusual man that all the usual staple birthday presents feel severely lacking somehow. On the other hand, the young genius practically has everything he wants (except the answer to the riddle that is Siwon's weakness, but any attempt to make that answer a birthday present will probably incur such wrath as has never been seen before on earth and Siwon is fond enough of his new home planet to recognise the danger of making genius scientists angry).
After floundering in frustration and despair for seven days, he finally decides that something radical and out-of-the-way is the way to go. Which is why the afternoon of February 3 finds him dragging Kyuhyun to the rooftop of one of the tallest building in the city.
“Why are we here?” the younger man asks, his tone somewhere between annoyed and curious.
“There’s something I want to show you,” Siwon replies as he jumps onto the ledge and offers his hand. “Here. Climb up and you’ll see.”
The look of disbelief thrown his way isn’t entirely unexpected. Siwon grins, adding, “Come on, you know I can save you even if you trip and fall over the edge or something.”
Kyuhyun sighs but reluctantly obeys. Siwon grips his hand firmly, pulling him up, and then carefully manoeuvres him to stand directly on top of his feet, back facing him. The younger man makes a half-surprised, half-protesting sound, which Siwon chooses to ignore.
This is one of those times when his superior power really comes in handy.
Done with the complicated process on so narrow a ledge, he secures his arms around Kyuhyun’s torso and pulls him close, back flush against front.
“Relax. You know you can trust me.”
He can easily picture the scientist’s rolling his eyes, but at least his advice isn't completely ignored. Kyuhyun’s shoulders lose some of their tension and he’s now beginning to relax into Siwon's arms.
Meanwhile, Siwon is busy telling his heart to stop overreacting over their proximity and please just calm the shit down. His plan is simple enough and the process is nowhere as complicated as his usual aerial acrobatics feats-but Kyuhyun’s presence does have the tendency to disturb his concentration to such a degree that accidents just might happen.
Mentally preparing himself, Siwon takes a deep breath.
“Just don’t scream, alright?”
Then he-they-step over the precipice.
-
There is no scream. Kyuhyun’s only reaction is a small gasp, nearly inaudible between loud whistles of the wind as they float in the air, a hundred storeys high
And then there is only silence. Siwon bites his lips and waits, fully aware of how overwhelming the experience can be the first time around. Flying is one thing (and Kyuhyun is familiar enough with it now, thanks to him), but standing with nothing but the weightless wind and a long deadly fall under one’s feet is something else entirely.
But then minutes pass and Kyuhyun still stubbornly cling to the silence and Siwon can feel how the suspense is killing him little by little from the inside. In fact, he is starting to wonder if he has inadvertently murdered his love interest when the younger man finally opens his mouth.
“How do you do this?”
He sounds like he is completely in awe. That, Siwon reflects as relief floods over him, is definitely an encouraging sign.
“It’s just a problem of calculating enough force to nullify the pull of gravity,” he replies, keeping his tone of voice as casual as possible. “Your body doesn't have that mechanism. Mine does.”
“So basically you were born with this ability.”
“In a manner of speaking. I still had to learn it though, just like how you had to learn how to walk or how to drive a car.”
There is another pause, shorter this time, and then Kyuhyun tilts his head slightly to the left to catch his eyes. “I really want to cut you open,” he declares-and means every word, like always.
Siwon cannot help the brilliant smile which seems intent on taking over his face. “Yeah, not much chance there, genius. You can’t even put a scratch on me.”
“Not yet.”
“Whatever you say.” His smile widens and he tightens his arms around Kyuhyun. “So how does it feel?”
The scientist looks away, a thoughtful frown now caressing his brow. “Surreal,” he answers slowly, as if still half in dream.
“Well, you don’t like ordinary things.”
“I don't.”
“Good.” Siwon grins, a large, warm ball of happiness bouncing deep inside him. “Because this is my present for you. Happy birthday.”
Tension sinks into Kyuhyun’s frame and no answer is forthcoming from his mouth for the longest time. Siwon has just convinced himself that he has failed so utterly with his birthday surprise and indeed is starting to contemplate some of the most miserable ways to commit suicide when Kyuhyun finally breaks his silence.
“Really?”
“Yes,” Siwon quickly answers, hope rekindling fast.
“My birthday present?”
“Yes.”
“Then,” Kyuhyun pauses, catching his gaze from the corner of his eyes, “can I spread my arms?”
“You can do anything you want,” Siwon says solemnly, fervently, heart beating a wild, cacophonous symphony in his chest. “I won’t let you fall.”
The answer makes Kyuhyun smile-a tiny, tiny hint of smile, but it’s enough to make Siwon feel so inordinately happy that he almost kisses him. Except his courage fails him at the last second and so he just hides his face in the crook of Kyuhyun’s neck, lips pressed against the soft skin there, and simply tries to breathe normally as the wind sings and streams about them.
There will be next time.
-
Siwon sometimes forgets, but there is actually a third kind of day for superheroes: a downright shitty one.
It doesn’t happen often-which is how he can still survive until now-but every time it does, it never fails to leave him in a wreck and all kinds of broken. (Except in the physical sense, and that makes it worse because here he is in perfect health and yet someone else is dead because he’s apparently invincible but useless.)
This time it is a young woman, barely twenty if a day. She has long beautiful hair and a pair of lips made for smiling and kissing, but his last memory of her is of those lips frozen into a terrified grimace, her body lying on concrete floor, lifeless, the long beautiful hair matted with blood.
“Siwon?”
It’s only when Kyuhyun’s hand touches his cheek that Siwon realises he has been crying. He blinks and tears his gaze away from the television. The words I’m alright are already hovering at the tip of his tongue.
“I’m sorry,” Kyuhyun tells him instead, and the expression on his face is something Siwon has never seen before. “I’m really sorry.”
Siwon can feel something crumble inside him. A sound very much like a whimper rises from his throat and the next thing he knows, he already has his arms around Kyuhyun, holding the younger man tightly.
“I could’ve saved her,” he finds himself repeating the words. They fall dead as soon as they leave his mouth-for news of his recent failure fills the whole room, trumpeted by the newscaster. He was too late, too slow. Too useless.
Kyuhyun never says a word. Which is why it isn’t until later, when Siwon has recovered enough sense to loosen his embrace, that he sees the flowering bruises he has left on Kyuhyun’s body
-
“I’m sorry.”
The bedroom is silent. Siwon knows that he is talking to no one. Kyuhyun is asleep in the middle of the too large bed, his body curled in a foetal position. The bruises, for all their innocent origin, stand stark on pale skin, mute but accusing.
Siwon watches him, eyes still heavy and swollen from crying, and realises that he is in love.
He has known for a long time that Kyuhyun is someone very special to him. What he isn’t prepared to face is the overwhelming self-hate and disgust churning inside him at the sight of those bruises.
You’re in love with him. And you hurt him anyway. That’s the only thing you’re good at. Just like with that girl, you’d fail him in the end.
The thoughts work like poison, slowly but surely.
-
“Happy birthday.”
Siwon gapes at the huge, sprawling digital map before him, littered with crisscrossed lines and blinking colours. “What is this?” he asks, stunned.
“A map of crime,” Kyuhyun answers, pulling him by the hand to stand closer to the display. A map of distribution of crime in Seoul, he continues with the explanation, pointing out different areas and main arteries and landmarks. The different colours indicate different categories of crime, from burglary to public disturbance and terrorism, colour-coordinated and sorted in hues according to degrees of urgency.
“The problem with your method is that you can't monitor too many frequencies at once,” Kyuhyun tells him matter-of-factly. “But with this, you'll get a notification immediately whenever something happens. Besides, I coordinated it with the police database-”
“You hacked the police database?”
“A legal route wastes too much time,” Kyuhyun replies with a dismissive shrug. “Hacking is so much faster. And they don't know anyway, so no one's hurt. It’s just that you've been acting weird for weeks and I really don't like it, so...” Kyuhyun clears his throat and glances away, an embarrassed look on his face. “Anyway, see here. This red pool means a concentration of crime, which isn’t really a surprise considering-”
Siwon doesn’t even know when he pulls the younger man into his arms; all he knows is he does it, and Kyuhyun stiffens, his stream of explanations silenced at once. Siwon holds him close, and this time he does it carefully, like Kyuhyun is the most precious thing in the world for him. Unfamiliar warmth sting his eyes and a flood of thank you’s clog up his throat, and yet he cannot seem to get any of the words out.
“That girl,” Kyuhyun says again after a few moments of silence, his voice awkward but soft, “you couldn't save her because you heard about it too late. With this system, you don’t have to worry about that. So happy birthday.”
Siwon wants to laugh and cry and shout to the whole world that he is in love with this wonderful, wonderful man, but settles for sniffling quietly on Kyuhyun's shoulder, wondering how in the world he could ever deserve such a gift.
-
The day Siwon ruins everything is the day he finally kisses Kyuhyun.
It’s also the day when the thirteenth abduction attempt occurs. The number alone should have sounded warning bells in Siwon’s head, but by the time he’s racing into the sky, Kyuhyun safely ensconced in his arms, he has forgotten just about everything else except the look the younger man is wearing.
Kyuhyun is furious. His cheeks are flushed, his hair is all in disarray, and his glasses sit askew on the bridge of his nose. This is the first time Siwon has ever seen the scientist in rage and he is both afraid and mesmerised.
“Are you a moron?”
He is very tempted to say yes for the sake of curiosity, but wisely refrains from doing so at the last millisecond. The answer will only aggravate his very angry friend.
“The bullets could have hit you.” Kyuhyun’s voice is steadily going lower-and that is definitely not a good sign.
“You know I’m immune to them,” Siwon hears himself mutter something in return. He is more than a little confused by this sudden display of vehemence, but inquiring about it doesn’t seem to be a good idea at the moment.
“No, you’re not!” The volume of Kyuhyun’s voice makes a sudden upsurge to a very uncomfortable number of decibels. “There was a bowl filled with rosewater in the room!”
It takes Siwon around five seconds to stop in mid-flight and switch into a stable floating mode, all the way gaping at the other man. He tightens his hold instinctively, afraid that he will lose his grasp.
“How did you find out?” His mouth has gone dry and his voice is only a whisper.
“It doesn’t matter,” Kyuhyun growls, eyes narrowed irritably. “We’re talking about you and your inability to do anything once you smell roses. So yes, you could have died! Those bullets would’ve killed you if they-”
Siwon kisses him. Only one thought makes sense to his brain at the moment, and it’s the indisputable fact that Kyuhyun’s fear is not for his own life, but for Siwon’s life. And that leaves him perfectly, absolutely happy.
For the short duration of that kiss anyway, because once he pulls back, he can see Kyuhyun’s reaction clearly. It isn’t the struggle and the frantic “put me down!” demands that breaks his heart the most. It’s the fear and panic he can see in Kyuhyun’s eyes.
They land on the rooftop of a nearby building and Kyuhyun immediately runs toward the door, leaving Siwon to pick up the broken pieces of his heart alone.
-
Siwon doesn’t leave his apartment for three days.
He calls in sick (to the astonishment of his boss, who has never seen Siwon take even a day’s leave before) and for the first time in his life, doesn’t make his rounds every morning and night. He doesn’t answer Ryeowook’s messages or return his calls. In those three days, he does nothing but curse his stupidity and wish-in vain-that he could undo the kiss.
The biggest irony, Siwon reflects miserably, is that for someone who is practically immune to bullets, he is clearly not immune to a broken heart.
Ryeowook shows up on his doorstep on the third night, two bags of groceries in hand. He drags Siwon to the bathroom, locks him in, and tells him to take a shower or he’ll personally bathe him out there in the street with whatever kind of water they can find.
Siwon obeys mostly because this is Ryeowook and he has no doubt that Ryeowook will carry out his threat.
Ten minutes later, he steps out of the bathroom wearing fresh clothes and feeling somewhat better. When he looks into the kitchen, he finds dinner already laid out on the table and the smaller man sitting in one of the chairs, glaring at him.
“Eat,” Ryeowook orders sternly. This time, Siwon obeys because he is, to tell the truth, famished.
Ryeowook is watching him intently throughout the meal, but it isn't until Siwon has drunk the last of his soup that he opens his mouth.
“So what's going on?”
Siwon can feel the small satisfaction he just gained from the delicious meal vanishing into thin air. He looks down at his empty plate and mumbles, “He didn't tell you?”
“He barely spoke a word to me until this morning,” Ryeowook answers, frustration evident in his voice, “and that was only to ask about you.”
Siwon whips his head up, hope flickering treacherously inside him. “He asked about me?”
“What do you think?” Ryeowook shoots back, rolling his eyes.
“So he isn’t angry at me anymore?”
“Why don't you find out for yourself?”
Siwon can almost feel his heart jump to his throat. He quickly shakes his head; the idea of seeing Kyuhyun again, so soon after the disastrous kiss, makes his heart race (not in a good way) and turns the food in his stomach into lead. “I can't see him,” he mutters, avoiding the other’s gaze. “Not yet. Maybe next week. Or next month.” Or next year, he adds, but not out loud.
“Fine,” Ryeowook answers with a sigh. “Stay away for now. I won't ask why, but please, please stop moping. And promise me that you’ll take care of yourself.”
Siwon gives him his word.
-
Just like every other promise ever spoken in the history of mankind, it is easier said and done.
Picking up his routine again is by far the easiest part. The morning patrol, the blitz shower, the oatmeal breakfast, the ten-minute bike ride to his office, the helter-skelter chase for news all over the city-all fall into place as naturally as if they have never been interrupted. He has lived and breathed with those routines for years.
The hardest part is dealing with the new sense of loneliness. He used to be fine living a secluded life with no friend close enough to probe his secrets. It was safer. It was logical.
After Kyuhyun and Ryeowook, the idea seems ridiculous, if not completely insane.
Ryeowook still texts him every day and calls him at least three times a week. As time passes (and Siwon stubbornly continues his avoiding act), he becomes more and more persistent. He starts sending him pictures of Kyuhyun-working on his laptop, or asleep on his desk, or bent over his newest experiment. Other times, they are pictures of a full-course dinner or a freshly-baked pie or a tray of colourful cupcakes.
Siwon only smiles sadly and wishes that he has more courage, but he still cannot forget the way Kyuhyun looked at him after the kiss. He needs more time.
It goes on until one day, he runs into a parade of hot air balloons during his evening patrol-and they are filled with roses.
The next time he opens his eyes, he is lying in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room with the smell of roses paralysing his limbs, and very much under the mercy of his captors.
-
Their target is Kyuhyun. Like always.
Except this time, this particular group has fully realised that they have to deal with him first before they can get anywhere near the young scientist. They have also discovered his weakness by chance-Siwon vaguely remembers the few times some thankful, adoring fans tossed bouquets of roses his way and his reaction to them-which makes it possible for them to eliminate him entirely from the equation.
As a matter of fact, they are clearly taking it a step further right now.
“So what do you say, Dr. Cho?”
For a long moment, there is no answer from the other side of the video call. On the laptop screen, Kyuhyun’s face is perfectly expressionless. (Or at least it looks that way, but Siwon doubts that he can trust his currently incredibly blurry eyesight very much.)
He doesn't remember the last time he has felt so humiliated and miserable. Here he is, bound and gagged and completely helpless, and being used as a hostage against the very person he has sworn to protect-all because of those infernal things called roses. They are the only things which have any capability to render him useless and this entire place is covered with roses of all kinds, colours, and arrangements.
“If I say yes, how do I know that you’ll keep your word and won’t hurt him?” Finally Kyuhyun’s voice comes through the speaker.
Siwon feels his heart sink. He tries to make a protest through the gag, but a series of weak unintelligible whimpers are all he can manage. One of his captors glares down at him, and then delivers a sharp kick to his front.
“Trust my word or don’t trust my word,” Siwon hears him speak through the blinding haze of pain. “The choice is yours, Dr. Cho. But do keep in mind that the continuity of your precious superhero boyfriend’s life depends entirely on my mood.”
“Give me five minutes,” Kyuhyun says after a pause, a quiver in his voice.
For the first time in his life, Siwon wishes that he were dead.
-
What actually happens during those five minutes is unclear.
Siwon hears a lot of loud noises-shouting, screaming, guns fired, glasses smashed-but cannot even begin to guess their origins. His two captors are obviously panicking, yelling instructions into their radio transceivers and screaming at the laptop (which no longer hosts Kyuhyun’s face, he notices).
But at the end of five minutes, the commotion dies down and Ryeowook and his team of bodyguards are already standing behind the glass door leading into the room.
Siwon isn’t sure whether to feel dumbfounded, relieved, amazed, embarrassed, or none of the preceding. His two captors are clearly not faring any better, judging from their lack of reaction.
“Don’t worry,” finally one of them says, though his voice is shaky, “that door can stand anything. We're the only one who can open it. Besides,” he pauses, and Siwon can feel something pressed against the back of his head, “we have him.”
Siwon glares at the floor, thoroughly hating himself at the moment.
“Tell him!” the man yells. “If he doesn’t want to see his boyfriend die-”
The threat is left unfinished because suddenly the glass door unlocks itself and slides open. It takes Ryeowook less than ten steps and maybe three seconds to disarm the two captors.
“You can’t win against him, you know,” he says with a sigh, pushing them into a kneeling position as his men storm about them, guns at the ready, “as long as you still rely on any computer system. You just can’t.”
Siwon has barely processed that Ryeowook is actually talking about Kyuhyun when the smaller man suddenly crouches down at his side and helps him to sit up.
“I’m going to give you an injection,” he says, and then proceeds to do just that.
The effect is instantaneous. Siwon blinks as the blurry mist clears from his eyes. To breathe is no longer as painful and his limbs begin to feel like they are at least a part of him again. In a minute or so, he feels strong enough to attempt standing up to his feet.
“Wait,” Siwon hears Ryeowook call out, surprise evident in his voice.
He manages about five steps, and then promptly passes out.
-
The next time Siwon opens his eyes, he is lying in a more familiar bed in a more familiar room-with Kyuhyun sitting in a chair nearby, staring at him.
“You made a serum,” is the first thing that comes out of his mouth.
Kyuhyun’s gaze doesn’t waver. “It was a prototype.” And neither does his voice. “I wasn’t really sure that it would work.”
“It did,” Siwon tells him and slowly rises to a sitting position. His body still aches all over but the pain is dull, a ghost at the periphery of his senses.
The touch of Kyuhyun’s hand on his upper arm burns more.
“It only helped with the symptoms,” Kyuhyun speaks again, not quite looking into his eyes now. “Not exactly a cure.”
Siwon manages a small but sincere smile. “You still saved my life, so thank you.”
“Their real target is me, not you. I’m sorry about that.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Siwon replies, shaking his head. “The fact is, as you can see, I have failed. I’m not good enough to be your protector.”
There is a pause, and then: “What are you saying?”
Siwon heaves a deep breath and meets Kyuhyun’s unreadable gaze. “Just that. I’m not good enough. If I stick around, maybe what happens today will happen again and you definitely don’t need that kind of liability. And I love you.” Siwon bites his lips, heart throbbing crazily; it’s a little painful saying it, so he just laughs, a small, self-depreciating laugh. “I know how you feel about it though. Don’t worry, I’ll remove myself from your vicinity so you don’t have to-”
Something hits him squarely on the face. It takes Siwon more than a few seconds to realise that Kyuhyun has thrown a book at him.
A really thick and heavy book.
“You want to protect me?” Kyuhyun has already risen to his feet, expression ominous and voice steadily going up. “You want to barge in with your costume and your cape and your hell-yeah-no-weapon-can-hurt-me crap? You want to play hero? Guess what. You’re not a hero. Not for me. You’re just… you.”
Siwon can only gape as Kyuhyun continues to rile. “And who the hell are you to talk about failing? They captured you. So what. It isn’t like I couldn’t get you out of there. Why shouldn’t I protect you in return? Is it your pride? You can’t let a weak, lowly, inferior human being to get your back?”
“I thought…” He manages to get a couple of words in when Kyuhyun pauses to catch his breath. “I thought you hated me. I thought- after what I did-”
“Have you ever heard me saying anything of that kind?” Kyuhyun snaps.
“No,” Siwon says weakly. “But you ran away after I’d kissed you.”
“I didn’t know what to do,” the younger man mutters, face pink from either exertion or embarrassment or both. “I had never- I mean, it wasn’t like I did that often… or at all. Someone like me isn’t- but the point is-”
Siwon grins like a madman and kisses him until they are both breathless and the whole universe feels like a wonderful, magical place because he loves Kyuhyun and Kyuhyun, as it turns out, loves him back.
“I love you,” he declares, still peppering Kyuhyun’s lips with small kisses.
“I don’t hate you,” Kyuhyun finally says, cheeks flaming, and it takes Siwon all his willpower not to smother him with a second proper, thorough kiss.
“Does that mean I can stay at your side and protect you?”
“Only if you let me protect you too,” the younger man tells him, a firm note in his voice.
“Of course.” Siwon’s grin widens-although how it is possible is beyond him. Not that he cares at the moment. “Just for the record, I’ve never looked down on you. And after today, I know better than to ever look down on you.”
A pleased smile curves Kyuhyun’s lips. “Good,” he states and lets Siwon pull him closer for another kiss.
-
Despite all the pretty, cheerful endings advertised in many cartoon shows and comic books, the happily-ever-after for superheroes isn’t all sunshine and daisies.
At least this is what happens to Siwon. He is still in love and the universe is still (mostly) a wonderful place, but any romantic notion tends to take the back seat when one is racing against time and gravity to save the love of one’s life from a gruesome death because said love has just jumped from yet another skyscraper.
“You have to stop doing this to me,” Siwon mutters, heart beating madly inside his chest. Kyuhyun, now safe and sound, settles more comfortably in Siwon’s arms and put his hands around Siwon’s neck.
“I believe in you,” he says simply.
“That’s not the point-” Siwon argues but quickly finds the rest of his argument evaporating when Kyuhyun lays his head on his shoulder.
“Thank you for saving me.”
And that definitely shuts him up (although he’s kind of very happy about it).
The End
---
This fic has been translated into Vietnamese here ^^
Fandom: Super Junior RPF
Characters/Pairing: Siwon/Kyuhyun; Ryeowook (because we need more kickass!Wook in this world)
Rating: PG-13
Warning(s): AU. FLUFFFFFFF.
Word Count: ~10k
Summary: Siwon is a superhero and Kyuhyun is a genius with a mind-reading machine in mind. Inspired by their cosplay in Super Show 4.
Notes: This fic is a birthday gift for bl4ckm4lice! Happy birthday, Cita :DDD Hopefully you'll still enjoy it although this isn't the gangbang... orz And I don't usually write this kind of fic (and it's unedited to boot), so it may be kinda disappointing ;;
The title is taken from a song by Silversun Pickups, "Little Lover's So Polite".
And the awesome banner is not made by me, but by someone who does not wish to be named ;D
folding up the skyline
Cho Kyuhyun is a pale, sickly-looking man with a shock of unruly brown hair and a pair of jaded, cynical eyes behind the most unattractive model of spectacles Siwon has ever seen.
He, in Siwon’s journalistic opinion, certainly fits the description of a moody, antisocial, egotistical genius to a T. The black sweater and faded jeans only strengthen this impression, as well as the brusque, discouraging manner.
It is painfully obvious from the very beginning that Cho Kyuhyun does not regard this 'exclusive' interview as anything other than a colossal waste of time. And after ten minutes of being subjected to indifferent, monosyllabic answers, Siwon has long since been convinced that the result of his weeks of arduous negotiations and clever string-pulling will fill no more than two narrow columns, if any.
At least there’s still the internet, he consoles himself with a heavy sigh after receiving another offhanded reply from his interviewee. The other man barely even spares him a glance from his laptop-on which he seems to be doing a series of formidable, complicated-looking, headache-inducing equations.
It does make Siwon wonder why this acclaimed golden boy of mathematics and computer science bothered to accept his request for an interview in the first place.
“And now, what about your new project, Dr Cho?” he moves on to the next question in his list-which, thankfully, only has two more items left.
Cho Kyuhyun shoots him a cool look which barely masks his boredom. “What about it?”
“There are rumours that you are working on something new. Radical, even.”
The other man snorts. “We're living in a world that lacks imagination. Something new is nearly always considered radical.”
“But what about the threats you have received?”
“What threats?”
Siwon can feel his eyebrow twitch. This man is infuriating. He has to summon every splinter of patience left in him in order to maintain a civil tone. “According to one of our sources, there are groups of people which have shown a particular interest in this new invention of yours, and they are not afraid to use violence to get their hands on it.”
“That is their business, not mine,” Cho Kyuhyun says dismissively. “Are we done?”
Siwon quickly shuts his notebook and puts on a practiced smile on his face. “Yes, thank you so much for your-”
“You can show yourself out,” the other man cuts him off, rising from his chair, and then disappears behind the door from which he came barely twelve minutes ago.
The good thing is, Siwon tells himself as he tries to ignore the urge to kick some doors down, there is very little chance that their paths will cross again in the future.
-
Choi Siwon may be able to fly and lift things normal human beings cannot, but as it turns out, he sucks at trying to predict the future.
“Are you trying to kill yourself?” Siwon manages to ask after he has gotten over his shock of someone literally falling into his arms.
“No.” Kyuhyun’s reply is surprisingly calm-which is totally inappropriate, in Siwon's opinion, for a man who has just jumped from the rooftop of a seventy-story building. If he didn't happen to pass by this area during his aerial patrol tonight, Kyuhyun would be lying dead somewhere on the pavement down below right now.
“Then what do you think you’re doing?”
“Some people were pursuing me and I was trying to escape them.”
“By jumping from a skyscraper?”
“It was the most logical course of action,” Kyuhyun tells him, using a voice which implies that the answer is obvious and his rescuer is a moron.
Siwon can only stare at him for a long moment. The other man raises his gaze and their eyes meet.
“I saw you,” Kyuhyun says again, now looking straight at him. (Siwon narrowly avoids flying into a radio tower as he marvels at the pair of beautiful eyes which he somehow failed to notice during their previous meeting.) “You were heading to my direction. I took an approximate gauge of your velocity during flight and calculated it against the distance between us. Even taking account of the wind's turbulent flow at this altitude and assuming that you could only manage a forty-five degree angle at best, there was still a 68% chance that you would be able to reach me in time. On the other hand, if I had stayed behind, the probability of my avoiding captivity without giving in to their demands wouldn’t have reached even 0.1%. Another significant parameter is that in this case, captivity also means torture, and since I dislike pain, the solution is obvious.”
“You decided to gamble your life on a couple of numbers?” Siwon asks in disbelief.
“They don’t lie,” Kyuhyun declares, eyes and voice both expressionless. “Unlike you, Mr Reporter.”
-
Walking into Cho Kyuhyun’s laboratory is like walking into the crash site of some alien space ship.
The underground facility is vast-vast enough to house an entire football stadium and more. Half-built machines of varying shapes and sizes litter the floor, some of them strange enough to pose as actual alien space ships. Transparent boards boasting a dazzling array of complex diagrams and arcane equations fight for the rest of the space with chipboards, standard laboratory equipment, and, of course, books and papers.
Still in his superhero outfit, Siwon silently follows the other man as they navigate around these odds and ends. That he is feeling severely out of place is such an understatement that he hardly makes any noise.
“Sit over there.” Kyuhyun motions at a stool surrounded by crisscrossing wires and broken plates of metal. Siwon meekly obeys, saying absolutely nothing until the scientist returns with a large hypodermic syringe in hand.
That is when he finally opens his mouth. “What are you doing?” he asks warily, eyeing the sharp, pointy apparatus.
“Taking a sample of your blood. Stay still.”
Siwon is about to give a warning, but before he can so much as open his mouth, Kyuhyun has already jammed the needle into his arm.
Or at least tried to, since said needle snaps into three the moment it tries to pierce his skin.
The pieces fall to the floor with a sharp, tinkling sound. For what feels like an interminably long moment, Kyuhyun only eyes the broken syringe in his hand. Siwon likewise watches him in silence, nervous for reasons beyond his understanding.
When the other man looks up, there is a speculative glint in his eyes.
“Are we of the same genus?”
“What?” Siwon stares back, dumbfounded.
“You’re obviously not human,” the scientist declares, carelessly throwing away the now useless hypodermic. “But your form is humanoid, or at least bipedal-unless you can shift shapes, of which I doubt. So are we of the same genus?”
“I honestly have no idea,” Siwon answers truthfully, earning himself a soft snort from the other man. Clearly Kyuhyun has decided to waste no more word on him and simply take what he wants, which are a few strands of Siwon's hair, sharply pulled off of his scalp.
“These will have to do,” he mutters, completely ignoring Siwon's half-hearted protest. He seals the hair in a plastic bag and then heads to the nearest desk, starting another hunt in the piled-up mess and cluttered drawers.
“How did you recognise me?” Siwon asks after watching the other man tossing random things over his shoulders for several minutes.
“Those things on your face,” Kyuhyun replies impatiently, not even glancing up as he moves to the next desk. “The possibility of two men having that exact pair of hyperbolic paraboloids as facial attributes and living in the same city radius is close to a fraction of thirty billionths.”
It takes Siwon a moment to realise that the other man is talking about his dimples. The explanation makes enough sense, he decides, as long as he ignores all its other less-than-normal aspects.
“You said you were trying to escape from some people earlier,” he tries to strike a new conversation after another uncomfortable stretch of silence. “Who were they?”
“I don’t know, maybe just some people interested in my research,” is Kyuhyun’s offhanded answer.
“And yet you said you didn’t know anything about threats.”
“I really cannot care less.”
Siwon finds himself frowning at the answer. “You should. You've been given a life. Don't treat it so carelessly.”
It earns him a quick, sharp glare from the scientist. “I don't treat it carelessly. Those people did.”
“Still, jumping from the rooftop of-”
“I already told you why,” Kyuhyun interrupts him, coming back this time with his (long and beautiful, another point Siwon failed to notice in their first encounter) fingers wrapped around the hilt of a knife. “Can I stab you?”
“What?”
“A needle has no effect on you, so I want to see if a blade like this can't hurt you either.”
“Yeah, no.” Siwon inches away from the other man. He is, in fact, immune to most weapons the human race has been able to come up with so far, but it doesn't mean that their attempts to hurt him don't hurt.
Kyuhyun frowns. “I’ll only do it once.”
“You can just throw me questions if you want to know more about my body,” Siwon says quickly, “and I’ll tell you the answer.”
“I can, but you’re a liar.”
Siwon scowls. “Just because I’m protecting my identity doesn’t mean that I’m a liar.”
“Then prove it,” Kyuhyun challenges, a glint in his eyes. “Come back tomorrow at ten. If I don’t see you at that hour, then you’re a liar.”
...well, he sure walks into that one.
-
Leading a double life is hard, even for superheroes.
The key, as Siwon has discovered through years of trial and error, is discipline. He arranges his life with clockwork precision, following a well-regulated schedule with just enough free time scattered in between to anticipate any unexpected emergency. His day job isn’t exactly a light one, but it allows him to slip out whenever he needs to and gives him a valid reason to be present at a crime scene. He also patrols the city twice a day and constantly listens in on the police radio in one ear-just to be on the lookout.
The day Siwon forgoes his morning patrol for the first time in seven years is the day after he met Kyuhyun. He spends the precious few hours to dig out everything he can about the man, using every resource and connection in his disposal.
The information he has managed to accumulate by noontime is far from comforting. Cho Kyuhyun has always been a victim to unwanted attention due to his genius and radical researches and inventions, most of which are capable of causing great harm in the wrong hand. Lucrative offers regularly knock on his door, but the man is completely indifferent to them, having inherited the bulk of his parents’ substantial wealth. He does what he wants, helps whom he wants, and as a result, his name tops the target list of many big businesses and underground lords-which in turn attract the attention of other big businesses and underground lords who happen to be their rivals.
And somewhere along these lines, Siwon finds a reason-other than his being psychologically blackmailed-to go back and keep his appointment. He makes up some lies about pursuing a possible news source to his boss and at ten minutes to ten, is already standing in front of the tall building which he has visited twice yesterday.
Siwon is painfully aware that this decision mostly comes from an overwhelming desire to talk with someone who knows.
Maybe they can even be friends in the future.
What happens in the next few seconds or so happens fast. He spots said candidate for a friend walking at the other side of the street with a large paper bag nestled in the crook of his arms. Siwon is just about to wave when a big black car stops right next to the scientist, effectively blocking his view.
Then there is a shout.
He cannot see anything past the black car, nothing but apples rolling on the pavement, and yet it's enough to get his instinct screaming and propel him into action. Shouting, Siwon runs across the street-with more speed than can be considered human-and wrestles Kyuhyun out of the men's grasp-also, with much more strength than can be considered human.
It is very possible that he has just blown his cover with what he just did, Siwon reflects half a minute later, but for some odd reasons, he cannot find it in him to care very much.
“Is this going to happen every time we meet?” he asks with a sigh as they float down to the balcony of Kyuhyun's apartment.
“I’ve run out of apples,” Kyuhyun replies sadly, making no sense whatsoever. Siwon blinks at him.
“Apples?”
“Yes. Buy some for me, will you?”
Later, after a period of reflection and confusion and denial, Siwon will decide that it is quite possible that Kyuhyun has slipped and therefore accidentally pushed him off the ledge-because there is no way it has been done with intent, and of course Kyuhyun isn’t that crazy.
Although he has to admit that it doesn’t sound very convincing.
-
“Who are you and what is your purpose here?”
The question is thrown at his face right after Siwon found himself pushed against the wall with a well-placed arm under his chin and a gun pressed against his stomach. He cannot remember the last time he has been taken by surprise by a human-and this realisation stuns him into silence for the next few seconds.
The young man is short and rather on the thin side, but his posture is exuding so much threat that there is no question about what he can do, size notwithstanding. Siwon gives his name and identity as politely as possible and mentions to the smaller man that he might want to contact Kyuhyun first before deciding to do anything drastic.
Something flickers in his attacker's eyes, who then says, “You’re the superhero.”
Siwon has to wonder if his disguise is so abysmally inadequate that people can simply guess his true identity left and right. But then the young man speaks again, “Kyuhyun told me about you.”
And that is how he comes to know Kim Ryeowook, Kyuhyun’s personal-assistant-slash-bodyguard-slash-chef-slash-major-domo-slash-babysitter. He is also the main reason Kyuhyun can still function like a normal human being most of the time. Despite their rather rough beginning, Siwon finds himself developing an easy friendship with the other man as he begins to spend more time around Kyuhyun (mostly as a test subject).
“He doesn't think like normal people,” Ryeowook says, half in fondness and the other half clearly drowning in exasperation as he puts a bag of ice on the left side of Siwon's temple-which has just been kissed by a large hammer, another experiment Kyuhyun managed to extort out of him. It doesn’t hurt all that much and certainly doesn’t inflict any amount of damage, but one glance at Ryeowook’s distressed face and Siwon discovers that he doesn’t have the heart to refuse.
“Who? Kyuhyun?”
“Yes,” Ryeowook sighs, dabbing around the (nonexistent) bruise. “He follows his own logic. He lives by his own rules. Sometimes I even doubt that he really exists here, in this world, like the rest of us. It’s like he has his own realm of existence.”
Siwon cannot agree more. They have spent barely two weeks in each other’s company, but it has become painfully obvious to him that Kyuhyun lives in a different world. A world of numbers and equations, charts and encryptions. He thinks in algebraic conversions and dreams of mechanical designs beyond anybody else’s ken. He sits for hours in front of an unfinished framework or a massive work station, eating dozens of apples as he tries to untangle a problem which he alone can see and comprehend.
In a way, they are one of a kind. Siwon has never belonged to the human race in the first place, but Kyuhyun’s genius also sets him apart from the rest of his people. This sense of kinship is one of the reasons why he lets Kyuhyun poke holes into him or introduce various dangerous substances to his person.
The other reason makes itself clear when he drops in for a visit one night after his scheduled patrol.
“Hey, I bought some doughnuts. Do you want any?”
Kyuhyun is sitting behind one of the many desks scattered in his laboratory, rocking his chair slowly on its two hind legs. He looks up from whatever he is working on at the mention of doughnuts-and his chair topples backward.
“This feels disturbingly familiar,” Siwon mutters to himself as he helps the other man to his feet. He didn’t react quickly enough to prevent the fall, but Kyuhyun doesn’t seem to care and the smile on his face as he bites into his first chocolate-glazed doughnut only highlights something which Siwon has been suspecting for quite some time.
He, Siwon realises, heartbeat stuttering, wants to protect Kyuhyun.
-
Kyuhyun’s newest radical invention, Ryeowook tells him after they foiled another abduction attempt with each other’s help, is a mind reader.
“Don't ask me how it works,” the smaller man quickly adds (although Siwon is too busy gaping to formulate any question). “No one knows but him and he’s really keeping the secret close. That’s the reason why so many people are incredibly interested in him lately.”
“So he’s building it somewhere down there?” Siwon asks once he has found his voice, recalling all the times he has found Kyuhyun huddled before various strange-looking contraptions-when he isn’t busy trying to find a way to physically damage Siwon-in the vast underground facility below.
“No, he isn’t building it,” Ryeowook replies with a sigh. “He said he had no intention to. But that clearly doesn’t stop them from trying to wrestle the secret from him.”
And it isn’t difficult to know why. Siwon can imagine the innumerable ‘uses’ of such a machine very well, not to mention the obvious monetary gain for anybody in control of one. Luckily for the rest of the world, Kyuhyun has less than zero interest in money.
“Of course there’s a blueprint,” the scientist tells him an hour later while they are sharing a large plate of sandwiches Ryeowook has made.
Siwon stops chewing at once. “There is?” He stares at Kyuhyun. “Where?”
“The best place to hide it,” the other man answers with a shrug.
“You mean,” Siwon throws a wary glance around their cluttered surroundings, “somewhere in this… mess?”
“This isn’t a mess,” Kyuhyun hisses, clearly offended. “I know exactly where everything is.”
“And you’re the only one,” Siwon mutters under his breath, but quickly backtracks when Kyuhyun shoots him an icy glare. “Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing actually. So where do you keep it?”
Kyuhyun rises to his feet, a smile unlike anything Siwon has ever seen before gracing his lips. He looks like a child, one with a big secret that everybody else is dying to learn-one who knows that he has bested all the adults.
“Think of a circle,” he says enigmatically and goes back to whatever he's working on, taking the last two ham-and-cheese sandwiches with him.
-
Siwon stumbles upon the answer three days later-after flying into a flock of migrating birds.
The best place to hide the blueprint of a mind-reader, of course, is inside one's mind. A mind reader cannot be built without the blueprint, but said blueprint, without Kyuhyun's consent, can only be accessed with a mind reader.
The blueprint does exist. In Kyuhyun's mind.
He laughs. Circle indeed.
-
There are two kinds of day in a superhero's life: a very good one and a very bad one.
Siwon considers a day when absolutely nothing happens to be a very good one. Monotony doesn’t bother him and he gets along with boredom just fine. Most of the times, he is simply glad that nothing awful happens to disturb the peace of his beloved city.
But of course there are days when he will have to do something-and sometimes, when the Fates are smiling at him, he gets to do them right.
This is one of those days. A gang war has all the potentials to turn nasty in a blink of an eye and Siwon has experienced enough of them throughout his 'career' to know the kind of chaos they can generate. The fact that the one he dealt with this afternoon has claimed no worse casualties than a few broken bones really puts a grin on his face. No one has died, no property (public or private) has been too badly destroyed, and the bad boys are now safely locked behind bars. All in all, everything is good and well with the world.
He finds Kyuhyun working in the office instead of the laboratory for once. Still swimming in euphoria, Siwon is about to burst into a flood of narration of today's triumph, but the other man has spoken up first.
“I’ve heard.” Kyuhyun nods at the television, which is currently broadcasting the seven o’clock news. Siwon can feel an uncomfortable blush creeping to his face to see his most recent success being heralded with so much fanfare. At the moment, it is replaying a clip of “the people’s hero” dragging one of the gang leaders up into the sky-and therefore saving his life. Several other heroic feats follow, each no less applauded than the one before.
“They always have to make such a big deal out of it,” he mutters, trying to block out all the praises lavished upon his alter-ego by the newscaster.
“You did solve their problems.”
“Still. It’s too much.”
“See it from their point of view,” Kyuhyun replies matter-of-factly, eyes still locked on his laptop screen. “They think that as long as they love and worship you, then you’ll always be there for them and solve their problems. What is there to lose?”
Siwon cannot help the wave of disappointment which suddenly washes over him. “Of course. And nothing’s easier than to love a hero,” he says dejectedly.
That is when Kyuhyun finally looks up and meets his gaze. “You wear the mask of a hero,” he states. “Of course they can only love you as a hero.”
“I suppose so,” Siwon replies with a sigh.
“Why do you care so much anyway?”
“Well, it's silly, but I just want them to like me as... well, me,” he admits, knowing perfectly well that the concept of wanting to be accepted by other people may as well be alien to Kyuhyun, human or not.
The younger man frowns. “No, I mean why do you care about this city and what happens to its people. You’re not even one of us.”
Siwon tries to ignore the slight pang in his chest when he remembers that yes, he is different. Even after all these years, the pain has never quite gone away.
“It’s the right thing to do,” he hears himself say after a long pause.
“From what angle? You don’t owe us anything,”
“I do, actually.” Siwon manages a small smile. “You call me different-and it’s true-but I grew up here. I learned how to live here. This city takes care of me, like a mother to her son, although I’m not one of her own.” He pauses, feeling strangely vulnerable before Kyuhyun's intent, star-bright gaze. “This is the only place I can call home.”
“Home,” Kyuhyun echoes, as if tasting the word on his tongue.
“Yes.” Siwon nods, the air leaving his lungs in a long, quiet sigh-like a prayer. “Home.”
“But that doesn’t explain why you keep coming back here. Why you stay around me.”
Siwon can feel the smile on his face widening into a grin. “No. I have an entirely different reason there.”
“What reason?” Kyuhyun demands.
“Just promise that you won’t hate me after I tell you.”
The younger man's eyes narrow. “What. Reason,” he repeats ominously.
“Just one,” Siwon tells him, tone softening. “It's because you fell out of the sky into my arms.”
The red tinge which has suddenly appeared in Kyuhyun’s cheeks might be a testament of his anger-but Siwon likes to think that it's something else entirely.
-
“What about explosives?”
“No.”
“One explosive? Strapped to your leg if the chest is too dangerous.”
“Kyuhyun,” Siwon begins with what he considers to be his most patient tone of voice, “I know I can stand almost everything you’re planning to throw at me, but there’s bound to be a limit somewhere-and to be honest I don’t want to test that limit that far.”
The scientist frowns at him, hands on his hips. “It’s for the sake of accurate data. Don’t you want to find out just how resilient your physical structure is?”
“No,” Siwon answers decisively. “I’m perfectly happy living on the dark of that.”
Kyuhyun’s lips curl with something very much like contempt. “I see. You’re happy to continue living under this false sense of invincibility-”
“I’m not invincible,” Siwon growls, both offended and disappointed to hear something like that coming from someone he considers a friend. “Fine. You want to know my weakness? I can just tell you-”
“No!” Kyuhyun’s screech renders him silenced at once. The young man has jumped to his feet, eyes blazing and looking really, really angry. His voice, when he speaks again, gains an ominous quality which Siwon has never heard before. “That secret is for you to keep and me to figure out. You’re not going to hand it to me like a cheap, useless trinket just like that!”
“You want to blow me up,” Siwon points out, torn between exasperation and a really irrational desire to simply follow whatever Kyuhyun wishes.
“It’s an experiment,” Kyuhyun mutters, complete with a small pout, arms crossed, and the rest of the ensemble.
“And I want to keep all my limbs intact just as they are, so let me give you a clue so you can figure it out faster.”
The glare sent his way is enough to freeze hell twice over. “No.”
Heaving a deep sigh, Siwon decides to back down-for now. As soon as he gets the chance, however, he grabs the book on superstring theory which Kyuhyun has been reading for the last few days and slips a piece of paper between pages 738 and 739.
What is harmful to you may be harmless to me, but it works the other way around too.
Kyuhyun will probably want to kill him for this tomorrow, but luckily for Siwon, he still can’t hurt him-yet.
-
Winter has come and wrapped its fingers tightly around the snow-dusted city when Siwon realises-really, really realises-that his world has changed.
It has expanded, now containing three people instead of one. Kyuhyun and Ryeowook have become a permanent fixture in his life and Siwon finds himself spending every bit of his free time around them. At one point, he starts telling them the story of his life. The nice couple who took him in and raised him as their own son. The pressure of keeping his secret forever secret. The murder-burglary which had taken his surrogate parents away from him. The vow. The commitment. The lonely life he had led since then.
Soon afterwards, Ryeowook starts inviting him for dinner every night-and sometimes breakfast too, if he happens to stay over. Kyuhyun never says a word or cracks a single expression during any of his stories, but the schedule he has developed for the ‘experiments’ basically requires Siwon to relocate if not in the laboratory, then at least somewhere in the vicinity of the building.
Siwon cannot say that he really minds. If anything, he is glad for the overtures of friendship. The fact that Kyuhyun is still experimenting on him is certainly a convenient pretext, but he is honest enough to admit (at least to himself) that his motives are nowhere near those lines.
The unspoken arrangement he has come into with Ryeowook in order to protect their scientist friend is proof enough. He has counted no less than six abduction attempts in the four months they have known each other, and the trend doesn’t show any sign of declining soon.
“Tell them that you lie about the mind reader,” he says after arriving one night to the news that Ryeowook has just thwarted the seventh attempt.
“They won’t believe me,” Kyuhyun replies nonchalantly as he continues with his next test-which involves something like feeding Siwon every kind of fruit and vegetables grown under the sun (on the minuscule chance that one of them might possess the ever mysterious, ever elusive power to harm him).
“So you just let them think that you have the blueprint.”
“I do have the blueprint.”
“And you let them think that you do have it.”
Kyuhyun frowns. “They can think whatever they want. I’m not responsible for it.”
Siwon stabs a piece of star fruit with his fork and gives up.
-
The solution is obvious.
Or so Ryeowook tells him when they are having breakfast together, complete with a knowing tone and a smile that makes Siwon feel like the rest of the world is laughing at him and he doesn’t have a clue why.
“You’re right, he doesn’t care much about his own life,” the younger man continues when Siwon only maintains a sullen silence and glares. “Maybe something is wrong with the wiring in his head, I don't know. Call it what you want, but there’s no use trying to do anything from that end. He will never change.”
“Then what are you suggesting?”
“It’s the rest of the world that has to change,” Ryeowook declares and pushes his tablet across the dining table toward Siwon. A news article takes up the entire screen, crowned with a picture and two rows of red gigantic letters which make the conspicuous headline.
The People’s Hero and the Genius Geek: Boyfriends?
Siwon’s first reaction is to choke on his coffee.
“Like I said, obvious,” Ryeowook adds, handing him a paper napkin.
Siwon finds himself unable to respond for a long moment. The picture, he recognises upon closer scrutiny as he wipes the front of his shirt with the napkin, is a photo of him carrying Kyuhyun out of what looks like a heap of wreckage. It was a trailer car-if he remembers correctly-one used to keep the scientist captive before Siwon decided to introduce it to his fists.
“I don’t understand,” he says feebly.
“We can’t force him to care about his own safety,” Ryeowook explains with a patient sigh. “So the only course of action left is to get the rest of the world to stop bothering him. How? By exploiting this. You are basically the most feared individual on the planet right now, so if rumours go around that you two are involved, I'd say there’s a good chance that they will leave him alone.
Siwon opens his mouth to deliver a series of remonstrance, but each and every one of them dies a swift, unconditional death as soon as he realises how logical Ryeowook’s line of thought actually is. Of course his increasing presence around Kyuhyun would be noticed; it’s practically inevitable, especially considering how prone Kyuhyun is to accidents and abductions and how often Siwon has to rescue him.
Coincidentally, it’s also the perfect solution-and, as Ryeowook has declared over and over again, obvious.
“Are you sure he won’t mind though?” Siwon hears himself timidly ask. He isn't sure why this ‘scheme’ doesn't bother him as much as it should-or why his face feels suddenly, uncomfortably warm.
Ryeowook’s answering grin can only be described as mischievous. “He, I’m not so sure, but I know you won’t.”
Now his face is definitely on fire.
-
The moment Siwon realises that he is harbouring some not-so-platonic feelings toward Kyuhyun is when he catches himself staring at the other's lips.
They are a beautiful pair of lips, he reasons to himself after spending about ten minutes trying to get over his shock and calm his racing heartbeat. There is no reason why he can't admire them.
But then he starts thinking about running his tongue over those lips-and suddenly there is a voice inside his head (sounding suspiciously like Ryeowook) that laughs at him for even trying to hide behind such a pathetic excuse.
Siwon drags his eyes back to the half-finished article sitting on his laptop screen. Five minutes later and not even a single word added, he chances another glance at Kyuhyun and is promptly awarded with a sight of the younger man's innocently biting his lips, leaving them swollen and red and wet.
Siwon finds himself unable to look away, heat crawling all over his cheeks.
Yes, you have a crush on him, the voice echoes again, complete with a vicious laugh this time.
-
Exactly one week before Kyuhyun’s birthday, Ryeowook casually lets him know that said anniversary is in fact just around the corner.
“In case you want to give him a present or something,” he explains cheerfully, seemingly oblivious to Siwon’s shocked expression.
Siwon spends the entire week cursing the smaller man as he wrecks his brain-and nearly every store in the city-for a suitable gift. Kyuhyun is such an unusual man that all the usual staple birthday presents feel severely lacking somehow. On the other hand, the young genius practically has everything he wants (except the answer to the riddle that is Siwon's weakness, but any attempt to make that answer a birthday present will probably incur such wrath as has never been seen before on earth and Siwon is fond enough of his new home planet to recognise the danger of making genius scientists angry).
After floundering in frustration and despair for seven days, he finally decides that something radical and out-of-the-way is the way to go. Which is why the afternoon of February 3 finds him dragging Kyuhyun to the rooftop of one of the tallest building in the city.
“Why are we here?” the younger man asks, his tone somewhere between annoyed and curious.
“There’s something I want to show you,” Siwon replies as he jumps onto the ledge and offers his hand. “Here. Climb up and you’ll see.”
The look of disbelief thrown his way isn’t entirely unexpected. Siwon grins, adding, “Come on, you know I can save you even if you trip and fall over the edge or something.”
Kyuhyun sighs but reluctantly obeys. Siwon grips his hand firmly, pulling him up, and then carefully manoeuvres him to stand directly on top of his feet, back facing him. The younger man makes a half-surprised, half-protesting sound, which Siwon chooses to ignore.
This is one of those times when his superior power really comes in handy.
Done with the complicated process on so narrow a ledge, he secures his arms around Kyuhyun’s torso and pulls him close, back flush against front.
“Relax. You know you can trust me.”
He can easily picture the scientist’s rolling his eyes, but at least his advice isn't completely ignored. Kyuhyun’s shoulders lose some of their tension and he’s now beginning to relax into Siwon's arms.
Meanwhile, Siwon is busy telling his heart to stop overreacting over their proximity and please just calm the shit down. His plan is simple enough and the process is nowhere as complicated as his usual aerial acrobatics feats-but Kyuhyun’s presence does have the tendency to disturb his concentration to such a degree that accidents just might happen.
Mentally preparing himself, Siwon takes a deep breath.
“Just don’t scream, alright?”
Then he-they-step over the precipice.
-
There is no scream. Kyuhyun’s only reaction is a small gasp, nearly inaudible between loud whistles of the wind as they float in the air, a hundred storeys high
And then there is only silence. Siwon bites his lips and waits, fully aware of how overwhelming the experience can be the first time around. Flying is one thing (and Kyuhyun is familiar enough with it now, thanks to him), but standing with nothing but the weightless wind and a long deadly fall under one’s feet is something else entirely.
But then minutes pass and Kyuhyun still stubbornly cling to the silence and Siwon can feel how the suspense is killing him little by little from the inside. In fact, he is starting to wonder if he has inadvertently murdered his love interest when the younger man finally opens his mouth.
“How do you do this?”
He sounds like he is completely in awe. That, Siwon reflects as relief floods over him, is definitely an encouraging sign.
“It’s just a problem of calculating enough force to nullify the pull of gravity,” he replies, keeping his tone of voice as casual as possible. “Your body doesn't have that mechanism. Mine does.”
“So basically you were born with this ability.”
“In a manner of speaking. I still had to learn it though, just like how you had to learn how to walk or how to drive a car.”
There is another pause, shorter this time, and then Kyuhyun tilts his head slightly to the left to catch his eyes. “I really want to cut you open,” he declares-and means every word, like always.
Siwon cannot help the brilliant smile which seems intent on taking over his face. “Yeah, not much chance there, genius. You can’t even put a scratch on me.”
“Not yet.”
“Whatever you say.” His smile widens and he tightens his arms around Kyuhyun. “So how does it feel?”
The scientist looks away, a thoughtful frown now caressing his brow. “Surreal,” he answers slowly, as if still half in dream.
“Well, you don’t like ordinary things.”
“I don't.”
“Good.” Siwon grins, a large, warm ball of happiness bouncing deep inside him. “Because this is my present for you. Happy birthday.”
Tension sinks into Kyuhyun’s frame and no answer is forthcoming from his mouth for the longest time. Siwon has just convinced himself that he has failed so utterly with his birthday surprise and indeed is starting to contemplate some of the most miserable ways to commit suicide when Kyuhyun finally breaks his silence.
“Really?”
“Yes,” Siwon quickly answers, hope rekindling fast.
“My birthday present?”
“Yes.”
“Then,” Kyuhyun pauses, catching his gaze from the corner of his eyes, “can I spread my arms?”
“You can do anything you want,” Siwon says solemnly, fervently, heart beating a wild, cacophonous symphony in his chest. “I won’t let you fall.”
The answer makes Kyuhyun smile-a tiny, tiny hint of smile, but it’s enough to make Siwon feel so inordinately happy that he almost kisses him. Except his courage fails him at the last second and so he just hides his face in the crook of Kyuhyun’s neck, lips pressed against the soft skin there, and simply tries to breathe normally as the wind sings and streams about them.
There will be next time.
-
Siwon sometimes forgets, but there is actually a third kind of day for superheroes: a downright shitty one.
It doesn’t happen often-which is how he can still survive until now-but every time it does, it never fails to leave him in a wreck and all kinds of broken. (Except in the physical sense, and that makes it worse because here he is in perfect health and yet someone else is dead because he’s apparently invincible but useless.)
This time it is a young woman, barely twenty if a day. She has long beautiful hair and a pair of lips made for smiling and kissing, but his last memory of her is of those lips frozen into a terrified grimace, her body lying on concrete floor, lifeless, the long beautiful hair matted with blood.
“Siwon?”
It’s only when Kyuhyun’s hand touches his cheek that Siwon realises he has been crying. He blinks and tears his gaze away from the television. The words I’m alright are already hovering at the tip of his tongue.
“I’m sorry,” Kyuhyun tells him instead, and the expression on his face is something Siwon has never seen before. “I’m really sorry.”
Siwon can feel something crumble inside him. A sound very much like a whimper rises from his throat and the next thing he knows, he already has his arms around Kyuhyun, holding the younger man tightly.
“I could’ve saved her,” he finds himself repeating the words. They fall dead as soon as they leave his mouth-for news of his recent failure fills the whole room, trumpeted by the newscaster. He was too late, too slow. Too useless.
Kyuhyun never says a word. Which is why it isn’t until later, when Siwon has recovered enough sense to loosen his embrace, that he sees the flowering bruises he has left on Kyuhyun’s body
-
“I’m sorry.”
The bedroom is silent. Siwon knows that he is talking to no one. Kyuhyun is asleep in the middle of the too large bed, his body curled in a foetal position. The bruises, for all their innocent origin, stand stark on pale skin, mute but accusing.
Siwon watches him, eyes still heavy and swollen from crying, and realises that he is in love.
He has known for a long time that Kyuhyun is someone very special to him. What he isn’t prepared to face is the overwhelming self-hate and disgust churning inside him at the sight of those bruises.
You’re in love with him. And you hurt him anyway. That’s the only thing you’re good at. Just like with that girl, you’d fail him in the end.
The thoughts work like poison, slowly but surely.
-
“Happy birthday.”
Siwon gapes at the huge, sprawling digital map before him, littered with crisscrossed lines and blinking colours. “What is this?” he asks, stunned.
“A map of crime,” Kyuhyun answers, pulling him by the hand to stand closer to the display. A map of distribution of crime in Seoul, he continues with the explanation, pointing out different areas and main arteries and landmarks. The different colours indicate different categories of crime, from burglary to public disturbance and terrorism, colour-coordinated and sorted in hues according to degrees of urgency.
“The problem with your method is that you can't monitor too many frequencies at once,” Kyuhyun tells him matter-of-factly. “But with this, you'll get a notification immediately whenever something happens. Besides, I coordinated it with the police database-”
“You hacked the police database?”
“A legal route wastes too much time,” Kyuhyun replies with a dismissive shrug. “Hacking is so much faster. And they don't know anyway, so no one's hurt. It’s just that you've been acting weird for weeks and I really don't like it, so...” Kyuhyun clears his throat and glances away, an embarrassed look on his face. “Anyway, see here. This red pool means a concentration of crime, which isn’t really a surprise considering-”
Siwon doesn’t even know when he pulls the younger man into his arms; all he knows is he does it, and Kyuhyun stiffens, his stream of explanations silenced at once. Siwon holds him close, and this time he does it carefully, like Kyuhyun is the most precious thing in the world for him. Unfamiliar warmth sting his eyes and a flood of thank you’s clog up his throat, and yet he cannot seem to get any of the words out.
“That girl,” Kyuhyun says again after a few moments of silence, his voice awkward but soft, “you couldn't save her because you heard about it too late. With this system, you don’t have to worry about that. So happy birthday.”
Siwon wants to laugh and cry and shout to the whole world that he is in love with this wonderful, wonderful man, but settles for sniffling quietly on Kyuhyun's shoulder, wondering how in the world he could ever deserve such a gift.
-
The day Siwon ruins everything is the day he finally kisses Kyuhyun.
It’s also the day when the thirteenth abduction attempt occurs. The number alone should have sounded warning bells in Siwon’s head, but by the time he’s racing into the sky, Kyuhyun safely ensconced in his arms, he has forgotten just about everything else except the look the younger man is wearing.
Kyuhyun is furious. His cheeks are flushed, his hair is all in disarray, and his glasses sit askew on the bridge of his nose. This is the first time Siwon has ever seen the scientist in rage and he is both afraid and mesmerised.
“Are you a moron?”
He is very tempted to say yes for the sake of curiosity, but wisely refrains from doing so at the last millisecond. The answer will only aggravate his very angry friend.
“The bullets could have hit you.” Kyuhyun’s voice is steadily going lower-and that is definitely not a good sign.
“You know I’m immune to them,” Siwon hears himself mutter something in return. He is more than a little confused by this sudden display of vehemence, but inquiring about it doesn’t seem to be a good idea at the moment.
“No, you’re not!” The volume of Kyuhyun’s voice makes a sudden upsurge to a very uncomfortable number of decibels. “There was a bowl filled with rosewater in the room!”
It takes Siwon around five seconds to stop in mid-flight and switch into a stable floating mode, all the way gaping at the other man. He tightens his hold instinctively, afraid that he will lose his grasp.
“How did you find out?” His mouth has gone dry and his voice is only a whisper.
“It doesn’t matter,” Kyuhyun growls, eyes narrowed irritably. “We’re talking about you and your inability to do anything once you smell roses. So yes, you could have died! Those bullets would’ve killed you if they-”
Siwon kisses him. Only one thought makes sense to his brain at the moment, and it’s the indisputable fact that Kyuhyun’s fear is not for his own life, but for Siwon’s life. And that leaves him perfectly, absolutely happy.
For the short duration of that kiss anyway, because once he pulls back, he can see Kyuhyun’s reaction clearly. It isn’t the struggle and the frantic “put me down!” demands that breaks his heart the most. It’s the fear and panic he can see in Kyuhyun’s eyes.
They land on the rooftop of a nearby building and Kyuhyun immediately runs toward the door, leaving Siwon to pick up the broken pieces of his heart alone.
-
Siwon doesn’t leave his apartment for three days.
He calls in sick (to the astonishment of his boss, who has never seen Siwon take even a day’s leave before) and for the first time in his life, doesn’t make his rounds every morning and night. He doesn’t answer Ryeowook’s messages or return his calls. In those three days, he does nothing but curse his stupidity and wish-in vain-that he could undo the kiss.
The biggest irony, Siwon reflects miserably, is that for someone who is practically immune to bullets, he is clearly not immune to a broken heart.
Ryeowook shows up on his doorstep on the third night, two bags of groceries in hand. He drags Siwon to the bathroom, locks him in, and tells him to take a shower or he’ll personally bathe him out there in the street with whatever kind of water they can find.
Siwon obeys mostly because this is Ryeowook and he has no doubt that Ryeowook will carry out his threat.
Ten minutes later, he steps out of the bathroom wearing fresh clothes and feeling somewhat better. When he looks into the kitchen, he finds dinner already laid out on the table and the smaller man sitting in one of the chairs, glaring at him.
“Eat,” Ryeowook orders sternly. This time, Siwon obeys because he is, to tell the truth, famished.
Ryeowook is watching him intently throughout the meal, but it isn't until Siwon has drunk the last of his soup that he opens his mouth.
“So what's going on?”
Siwon can feel the small satisfaction he just gained from the delicious meal vanishing into thin air. He looks down at his empty plate and mumbles, “He didn't tell you?”
“He barely spoke a word to me until this morning,” Ryeowook answers, frustration evident in his voice, “and that was only to ask about you.”
Siwon whips his head up, hope flickering treacherously inside him. “He asked about me?”
“What do you think?” Ryeowook shoots back, rolling his eyes.
“So he isn’t angry at me anymore?”
“Why don't you find out for yourself?”
Siwon can almost feel his heart jump to his throat. He quickly shakes his head; the idea of seeing Kyuhyun again, so soon after the disastrous kiss, makes his heart race (not in a good way) and turns the food in his stomach into lead. “I can't see him,” he mutters, avoiding the other’s gaze. “Not yet. Maybe next week. Or next month.” Or next year, he adds, but not out loud.
“Fine,” Ryeowook answers with a sigh. “Stay away for now. I won't ask why, but please, please stop moping. And promise me that you’ll take care of yourself.”
Siwon gives him his word.
-
Just like every other promise ever spoken in the history of mankind, it is easier said and done.
Picking up his routine again is by far the easiest part. The morning patrol, the blitz shower, the oatmeal breakfast, the ten-minute bike ride to his office, the helter-skelter chase for news all over the city-all fall into place as naturally as if they have never been interrupted. He has lived and breathed with those routines for years.
The hardest part is dealing with the new sense of loneliness. He used to be fine living a secluded life with no friend close enough to probe his secrets. It was safer. It was logical.
After Kyuhyun and Ryeowook, the idea seems ridiculous, if not completely insane.
Ryeowook still texts him every day and calls him at least three times a week. As time passes (and Siwon stubbornly continues his avoiding act), he becomes more and more persistent. He starts sending him pictures of Kyuhyun-working on his laptop, or asleep on his desk, or bent over his newest experiment. Other times, they are pictures of a full-course dinner or a freshly-baked pie or a tray of colourful cupcakes.
Siwon only smiles sadly and wishes that he has more courage, but he still cannot forget the way Kyuhyun looked at him after the kiss. He needs more time.
It goes on until one day, he runs into a parade of hot air balloons during his evening patrol-and they are filled with roses.
The next time he opens his eyes, he is lying in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room with the smell of roses paralysing his limbs, and very much under the mercy of his captors.
-
Their target is Kyuhyun. Like always.
Except this time, this particular group has fully realised that they have to deal with him first before they can get anywhere near the young scientist. They have also discovered his weakness by chance-Siwon vaguely remembers the few times some thankful, adoring fans tossed bouquets of roses his way and his reaction to them-which makes it possible for them to eliminate him entirely from the equation.
As a matter of fact, they are clearly taking it a step further right now.
“So what do you say, Dr. Cho?”
For a long moment, there is no answer from the other side of the video call. On the laptop screen, Kyuhyun’s face is perfectly expressionless. (Or at least it looks that way, but Siwon doubts that he can trust his currently incredibly blurry eyesight very much.)
He doesn't remember the last time he has felt so humiliated and miserable. Here he is, bound and gagged and completely helpless, and being used as a hostage against the very person he has sworn to protect-all because of those infernal things called roses. They are the only things which have any capability to render him useless and this entire place is covered with roses of all kinds, colours, and arrangements.
“If I say yes, how do I know that you’ll keep your word and won’t hurt him?” Finally Kyuhyun’s voice comes through the speaker.
Siwon feels his heart sink. He tries to make a protest through the gag, but a series of weak unintelligible whimpers are all he can manage. One of his captors glares down at him, and then delivers a sharp kick to his front.
“Trust my word or don’t trust my word,” Siwon hears him speak through the blinding haze of pain. “The choice is yours, Dr. Cho. But do keep in mind that the continuity of your precious superhero boyfriend’s life depends entirely on my mood.”
“Give me five minutes,” Kyuhyun says after a pause, a quiver in his voice.
For the first time in his life, Siwon wishes that he were dead.
-
What actually happens during those five minutes is unclear.
Siwon hears a lot of loud noises-shouting, screaming, guns fired, glasses smashed-but cannot even begin to guess their origins. His two captors are obviously panicking, yelling instructions into their radio transceivers and screaming at the laptop (which no longer hosts Kyuhyun’s face, he notices).
But at the end of five minutes, the commotion dies down and Ryeowook and his team of bodyguards are already standing behind the glass door leading into the room.
Siwon isn’t sure whether to feel dumbfounded, relieved, amazed, embarrassed, or none of the preceding. His two captors are clearly not faring any better, judging from their lack of reaction.
“Don’t worry,” finally one of them says, though his voice is shaky, “that door can stand anything. We're the only one who can open it. Besides,” he pauses, and Siwon can feel something pressed against the back of his head, “we have him.”
Siwon glares at the floor, thoroughly hating himself at the moment.
“Tell him!” the man yells. “If he doesn’t want to see his boyfriend die-”
The threat is left unfinished because suddenly the glass door unlocks itself and slides open. It takes Ryeowook less than ten steps and maybe three seconds to disarm the two captors.
“You can’t win against him, you know,” he says with a sigh, pushing them into a kneeling position as his men storm about them, guns at the ready, “as long as you still rely on any computer system. You just can’t.”
Siwon has barely processed that Ryeowook is actually talking about Kyuhyun when the smaller man suddenly crouches down at his side and helps him to sit up.
“I’m going to give you an injection,” he says, and then proceeds to do just that.
The effect is instantaneous. Siwon blinks as the blurry mist clears from his eyes. To breathe is no longer as painful and his limbs begin to feel like they are at least a part of him again. In a minute or so, he feels strong enough to attempt standing up to his feet.
“Wait,” Siwon hears Ryeowook call out, surprise evident in his voice.
He manages about five steps, and then promptly passes out.
-
The next time Siwon opens his eyes, he is lying in a more familiar bed in a more familiar room-with Kyuhyun sitting in a chair nearby, staring at him.
“You made a serum,” is the first thing that comes out of his mouth.
Kyuhyun’s gaze doesn’t waver. “It was a prototype.” And neither does his voice. “I wasn’t really sure that it would work.”
“It did,” Siwon tells him and slowly rises to a sitting position. His body still aches all over but the pain is dull, a ghost at the periphery of his senses.
The touch of Kyuhyun’s hand on his upper arm burns more.
“It only helped with the symptoms,” Kyuhyun speaks again, not quite looking into his eyes now. “Not exactly a cure.”
Siwon manages a small but sincere smile. “You still saved my life, so thank you.”
“Their real target is me, not you. I’m sorry about that.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Siwon replies, shaking his head. “The fact is, as you can see, I have failed. I’m not good enough to be your protector.”
There is a pause, and then: “What are you saying?”
Siwon heaves a deep breath and meets Kyuhyun’s unreadable gaze. “Just that. I’m not good enough. If I stick around, maybe what happens today will happen again and you definitely don’t need that kind of liability. And I love you.” Siwon bites his lips, heart throbbing crazily; it’s a little painful saying it, so he just laughs, a small, self-depreciating laugh. “I know how you feel about it though. Don’t worry, I’ll remove myself from your vicinity so you don’t have to-”
Something hits him squarely on the face. It takes Siwon more than a few seconds to realise that Kyuhyun has thrown a book at him.
A really thick and heavy book.
“You want to protect me?” Kyuhyun has already risen to his feet, expression ominous and voice steadily going up. “You want to barge in with your costume and your cape and your hell-yeah-no-weapon-can-hurt-me crap? You want to play hero? Guess what. You’re not a hero. Not for me. You’re just… you.”
Siwon can only gape as Kyuhyun continues to rile. “And who the hell are you to talk about failing? They captured you. So what. It isn’t like I couldn’t get you out of there. Why shouldn’t I protect you in return? Is it your pride? You can’t let a weak, lowly, inferior human being to get your back?”
“I thought…” He manages to get a couple of words in when Kyuhyun pauses to catch his breath. “I thought you hated me. I thought- after what I did-”
“Have you ever heard me saying anything of that kind?” Kyuhyun snaps.
“No,” Siwon says weakly. “But you ran away after I’d kissed you.”
“I didn’t know what to do,” the younger man mutters, face pink from either exertion or embarrassment or both. “I had never- I mean, it wasn’t like I did that often… or at all. Someone like me isn’t- but the point is-”
Siwon grins like a madman and kisses him until they are both breathless and the whole universe feels like a wonderful, magical place because he loves Kyuhyun and Kyuhyun, as it turns out, loves him back.
“I love you,” he declares, still peppering Kyuhyun’s lips with small kisses.
“I don’t hate you,” Kyuhyun finally says, cheeks flaming, and it takes Siwon all his willpower not to smother him with a second proper, thorough kiss.
“Does that mean I can stay at your side and protect you?”
“Only if you let me protect you too,” the younger man tells him, a firm note in his voice.
“Of course.” Siwon’s grin widens-although how it is possible is beyond him. Not that he cares at the moment. “Just for the record, I’ve never looked down on you. And after today, I know better than to ever look down on you.”
A pleased smile curves Kyuhyun’s lips. “Good,” he states and lets Siwon pull him closer for another kiss.
-
Despite all the pretty, cheerful endings advertised in many cartoon shows and comic books, the happily-ever-after for superheroes isn’t all sunshine and daisies.
At least this is what happens to Siwon. He is still in love and the universe is still (mostly) a wonderful place, but any romantic notion tends to take the back seat when one is racing against time and gravity to save the love of one’s life from a gruesome death because said love has just jumped from yet another skyscraper.
“You have to stop doing this to me,” Siwon mutters, heart beating madly inside his chest. Kyuhyun, now safe and sound, settles more comfortably in Siwon’s arms and put his hands around Siwon’s neck.
“I believe in you,” he says simply.
“That’s not the point-” Siwon argues but quickly finds the rest of his argument evaporating when Kyuhyun lays his head on his shoulder.
“Thank you for saving me.”
And that definitely shuts him up (although he’s kind of very happy about it).
The End
---
This fic has been translated into Vietnamese here ^^