[suju] Less QQ more PewPew. For chrysa
Title: Less QQ more PewPew
Fandom: Super Junior
Author: blahchiharu
Characters/pairing: Kyuhyun/Zhou Mi
Rating: PG
wordcount: ~ 4000
Summary: Bookstore clerk Zhou Mi meets professional gamer Cho Kyuhyun, but neither of them are really who they seem to be. Au for chrysa.
This is the fic I wrote chrysa for our fic trade, in exchange for her lovely green/red fic! She wanted fluffy Qmi with the prompt, "we are all made of stardust," and she wanted it to be au. I'm sorry I couldn't simply write qmi without bringing everyone and their mothers into the fic! Not to mention my blatant misuse of European and Eastern culture at the same time ):! I hope you like it!
lastly, thank you shinigamitabris for beta-ing!
Zhou Mi sees stardust everywhere he goes. It really shouldn’t be as glorious as it sounds, what with the occasional blinding light that comes when happily in love girls cross paths with sunbeams. Yet Zhou Mi can’t help but watch the dust form clusters around each and every living thing, because he sees their happiness and sadness, sees people in their times of glee and times of need. Zhou Mi has no qualms admitting that he’s a bit of a romantic.
“Okay, Cupid, back to work,” Hangeng says when he catches Zhou Mi beaming at a new couple on aisle seven, the girl smiling affectionately while her boyfriend takes a hard cover down from the highest book shelf. “Mi,” Hangeng adds with an exasperated tone when Zhou Mi is undeterred. He nods towards the cart full of shuffled magazines. “Will you at least re-shelve these instead of standing around?”
Zhou Mi laughs and wheels the cart away, towards the back of the antique bookstore. Hangeng should really loosen up more in this day and age; he’s more than five thousand years older than Zhou Mi, after all. When Father had assigned Time to guard the Archive, everyone had known it was done with consolation. Hangeng had always been, after all, too kind hearted for their line of work. He could never bear taking away the youth of those around him and now spends his days watching the pages of the annuals tarnish and fade. Occasionally, other beings come to check up on the state of the Archive, going past the shelves full of human books and into the deepest corner of the back room, where Hangeng stores the scripts and rolls for the higher ups.
When Zhou Mi had first stumbled into the Archive disguised as a small book store, Hangeng had taken one look at the face of Love and asked, “Shouldn’t you be in Paris or something?”
“People don’t need me to fall in love there,” Zhou Mi had said with a smile and then proceeded to peruse through the store’s collection of fashion magazines. Zhou Mi had stayed there since, occasionally helping when business gets too much for Hangeng to handle.
One day a boy with a large scarf comes in, shaking the snow out of his hair as he pulls out a rumpled piece of paper and attempts to decipher the messy scribble written on there. Zhou Mi sits behind the counter and watches as he comes back with two obscure StarCraft strategy guides and an old hard cover by Chekhov.
Hangeng is in the back restocking a shipment of novels, so Zhou Mi helps the boy check out. “We have that in multiple editions, you know.” He actually means the strategy guides, but when the boy looks somewhat interested and picks up Chekhov’s A Bad Business, Zhou Mi is instantly intrigued.
The boy pays in cash and goes, but there’s something about the tilt of his head and the knowing smirk on his face that intrigues Zhou Mi. Even after he leaves, the faint scent of vanilla lingers in the glowing dust he leaves on the counter. Zhou Mi runs his index finger through it and realizes that the boy is loved.
In December, snow invades the streets of Seoul. More and more people take refuge from the weather by flocking inside the book store, a cup of hot chocolate from the popular coffee house next door in hand. A week before Christmas, Hangeng begins clearing out older books for their annual sale, and Zhou Mi is busy pasting the sale flyer on the window when the familiar boy stops behind him, hands tucked into his large winter coat.
Zhou Mi turns to ask something, but the boy cuts him off and says, “Don’t slip on the ice.” Zhou Mi looks down at the patch of frozen snow on the side walk, but when he looks up again, the stranger is already gone. He finds the boy inside of the shop later, sitting in a seat by the window in the nonfiction section, his knees propped against the edge of the coffee table in front of him.
The boy shows up at the counter an hour later while Zhou Mi is finishing wrapping up a book of poems for a nice girl radiating pink. Zhou Mi is not a fan of the cold weather, but he loves the Christmas season, if not only for the love in the air. Sometimes he wonders if December should be his month instead of February. He turns to the boy in time to see a stack of music scores settled on the counter.
“So,” Zhou Mi says while packing away the booklets. “A gamer who sings and also enjoys Russian literature. What are you going to buy next, knitting books?” He swipes the boy’s credit card through the machine and waits for the transaction to go through.
“Well,” the stranger says with a smirk. “Maybe I’ll knit you a sweater so you don’t have to wear road kill anymore.”
“Hey.” Zhou Mi frowns, a hand going towards his scarf protectively. “You should know that this was in Marc Jacobs’s winter collection!”
“Marc Jacobs, the trash man who also does highway clean up?”
“No! The designer!” Zhou Mi pouts. “You’re not very nice. I should charge you extra for these.”
“Too bad I already paid,” the stranger says, effectively snatching his card up from the countertop and putting it back in his wallet. “Nice try, though. Just wondering, do you do holds?”
Zhou Mi makes a pitiful face at him. “Yes, but you know we don’t stock StarCraft, right?”
“Your humor is delightful, I’m laughing right now.” The boy pulls out a piece of paper with ISBN numbers printed on the back, along with a business card. “Can you hold these for me when a new shipment comes in? If you don’t carry these, then please go ahead and put in an order. Here is my contact information.”
“Cho Kyuhyun, professional gamer?” Zhou Mi reads off the card.
“It puts food on the table.” Kyuhyun gives him a wry smile before leaving, his face once again buried in his large scarf.
When Hangeng comes out of the back room, Zhou Mi is still standing behind the counter, gazing at the card. “What’s wrong with you?” Hangeng asks, and Zhou Mi realizes that he is now covered in a layer of light coral fairy dust, none other than his own creation.
Kyuhyun comes back near closing time a week later, and Zhou Mi watches as Kyuhyun goes through the bag full of books and music scores that Hangeng had packed together earlier that week. “The next time you’re looking for something obscure, you may want to try the book outlet a few blocks down,” Zhou Mi says as he prints out the receipt.
“Why?” Kyuhyun raises an eyebrow. “Is my patronage not welcomed here?”
“No.” Zhou Mi makes a face. “It may be easier for you to find what you’re looking for, that’s all. Of course you’re welcomed here.”
“Good,” Kyuhyun says, watching as Hangeng flips the sign hanging by the door, the “CLOSED” side now facing the public. “Then you won’t mind having dinner with me.”
Zhou Mi opens his mouth to complain, but Kyuhyun is already scribbling a time and place on the back of his calling card again. This time the card is a different color with a new font type. When Zhou Mi squints, he can also see a holographic fish swimming under Kyuhyun’s name. He flips the card over, reading the name of a popular Japanese restaurant in the area. “Why do you have different designs for this?”
Kyuhyun shrugs. “I hand out a lot of them. Plus, my assistant has too much free time.”
“You have an assistant?” Zhou Mi gives him a look.
“Well, someone has to make those international business calls.” Kyuhyun is dusting off his jacket now. “So I’ll see you on Saturday?”
“Wait, what-” Zhou Mi tries to say, but Kyuhyun is already halfway out of the door, and Zhou Mi can only watch as Kyuhyun hails a cab and rides off in the January night.
In all of Zhou Mi’s years in Korea, he has never been asked on a date. Even more so, he’s certainly never been asked on a date only to have it cancelled a few days later by someone’s secretary.
“Bookstore-sshi,” the person on the other end says brightly when Zhou Mi picks up the phone at the store one afternoon. “This is Lee Donghae, Cho Kyuhyun’s assistant. I’m calling to reschedule your meeting on the 15th?”
“What?”
“Did I get the date wrong?” Donghae asks, and the sound of pages flipping and furious typing is heard from the other side. “No, it should be on the 15th. Kyu is attending a developer’s conference for Apple on the 16th, and on the 14th he’s going fishing. You know, I don’t know why this is even on his calendar because Kyu fails at being one with nature. Actually, he fails at anything that doesn’t involve singing or a game controller.” Donghae chirps, taking a deep breath. “So, I think the 15th is the right date, or if would have been if he wasn’t going to a conference in Los Angeles. So, when are you free to reschedule?”
“Is this a joke?” Zhou Mi wants to know, watching as a mother comes up to the counter with her toddler son, the little boy holding a stack of coloring books in his arms. “You know, I’m kind of busy, I’ll call you back.”
“Okay!” Donghae says, and if he has any idea that Zhou Mi doesn’t actually know his number, Zhou Mi makes no effort to correct it.
Three days later a bouquet of flowers is delivered to the store. “Thornless roses,” Hangeng says, The Language of Flowers opened to a marked page in his hand, “for love at first sight, how cute. Who’s trying to woo you?”
“Someone with absolutely no regard for other people’s personal space,” Zhou Mi says while arranging the roses and portioning them off into small vases from the storage room. On the roses is a fair layer of coral stardust, for sincerity. Attached to the bouquet is also a small piece of paper.
Sorry, the note reads. They called me away to test some celestial steed that’s being released in a month. The 12 hr flight sucked. Let’s reschedule?
Zhou Mi thinks that he has the right to be difficult after being harassed all day by Tiffany in search of a love potion. Tiffany had been so much easier to stand before her apprenticeship with the Erotes. Zhou Mi blames the Greeks, really, so he ignores the number scribbled on the bottom of the note and goes back to restocking books.
Two days later an arrangement of chrysanthemums comes. Less QQ, more PewPew, the note says this time.
“Slighted love,” Hangeng laughs as he plucks one of the chrysanthemum buds from the bouquet. “He’s funny. Just go on that date already. Why are you playing hard to get?”
Zhou Mi blows his cheeks up like a gold fish. “I am hard to get.”
“Is that all you learned from Venus?” Hangeng asks as he reads through the inventory list for the new shipment of cookbooks. “Are you sure you’re not supposed to be out playing with arrows and love potions?”
“I stopped making that stuff decades ago.” Zhou Mi huffs indignantly. “Plus, it’s more fun to watch.”
“Well, are you going to watch while your suitor turns the Archive into a flower shop?”
“No,” Zhou Mi sighs and finally pulls out the note with Kyuhyun’s personal number.
“You know, most people give in by the roses,” Kyuhyun says when he picks up the call. “But I applaud you for your tenacity.”
“You’ve done this before?” Zhou Mi asks. Upon hearing familiar clicking sounds in the background, he adds, incredulous, “are you gaming right now?”
There’s a pause and then the thud of something light hitting wood. “No.”
“I’ll be free this Friday.” Zhou Mi sighs at last. “Pick me up at the shop at closing time, okay?”
“And tell him to stop sending flowers!” Hangeng calls from the counter.
Kyuhyun is waiting in a sleek black sedan when Zhou Mi closes up shop come Friday. He gets into the passenger seat and watches as Kyuhyun sticks the keys into the ignition. “Where to?”
“Your choice,” Kyuhyun hums, thumping his hand lightly against the steering wheel. A soft ballad is playing quietly on the radio, and when Zhou Mi reaches for the volume knob, Kyuhyun adds, “So I’m glad you’ve finally decided to put out.”
“Who says I’m putting out?” Zhou Mi laughs, watching the traffic lights change around the corner of the block. “Anyways, I know where we’re going,” he says just in time for Kyuhyun to shift the car into drive.
They end up at a small family restaurant, the owner’s wife beaming at Zhou Mi when they walk in. Zhou Mi orders his regular Jajangmyeon and Kyuhyun gets two servings of dumplings. “So did you really go to Los Angeles?” Zhou Mi asks when the waitress, a teenage girl radiating a layer of pearly white dust, comes with their drinks.
“Yeah,” Kyuhyun says absently, busy playing with his chopsticks. “I also had an interview scheduled. Next week I’m flying out to New York for a gaming convention.”
“You play games and get paid for it,” Zhou Mi concludes. “But what else do you do?”
“In my spare time, I like to harass the clerk at this bookstore.” Kyuhyun grins boyishly, and Zhou Mi can’t help but admire the light in Kyuhyun’s eyes. It’s about then that Zhou Mi is attacked with a dust storm, and he has to cough and wipe at his eyes to keep from going blind. God damn, Zhou Mi thinks, foiled by his own invention.
Kyuhyun makes a face of clear amusement but suppresses his laugh with a cough.
They eat a late dinner in an almost empty room, save for a middle-aged businessman with his newspaper three tables down and the owners chatting at an empty booth at the other end of the restaurant. “So,” Kyuhyun says as he watches Zhou Mi slurp at his noodles. “What do you do besides sell books?”
Zhou Mi can’t very well say that he oversees the balance of love in the world, so he settles with, “I’m kind of a homebody.” He doesn’t mention that sometimes he goes to Canada to visit Henry and bring him Hangeng’s newest annuals and that he spent the last four centuries helping Heechul make his own potion formulas while Heechul threw parties that would put even Dionysus to shame.
Kyuhyun makes a comment about working from home, but Zhou Mi’s attention is diverted when a sitcom comes on the television at the corner of the restaurant. Kyuhyun orders soju while they watch a series of mindless yet entertaining late-night line ups, Zhou Mi making origami figures with his napkin while Kyuhyun puts on a five-minute skit between the swan and the frog, set to the music video of a well known girl band blasting in the background.
They leave the restaurant a little past eleven, Kyuhyun pulling out the keys to his car when Zhou Mi says, “It’s okay, I live within walking distance.”
Kyuhyun agrees to let Zhou Mi walk home on the condition that he gets a second date. “We’ll see,” Zhou Mi laughs as he takes Kyuhyun’s cell phone and punches his own number into the contact list.
Kyuhyun seems to spend the majority of his time flying out to conferences and conventions, coming back into the country at odd hours of the night, jet-lagged and bored as he floods Zhou Mi’s phone with pointless yet amusing messages until Zhou Mi agrees to meet him some time in the near future.
They see a movie the weekend Kyuhyun comes back from StarCraft 2’s launch party and spend half an hour arguing over which film to see. In the end they watch both, Kyuhyun sleeping through the majority of Zhou Mi’s romantic comedy while Zhou Mi cringes at Kyuhyun’s choice of weird but entertaining animated film.
On a Wednesday morning, Zhou Mi walks into the book store to find Kyuhyun sitting at his old seat in the nonfiction section. Kyuhyun spends a good hour rearranging the books on the shelves by color and leaving suggestive magazines in the children’s section before Hangeng finally kicks him out, sending Zhou Mi out of the store as well to entertain Kyuhyun.
Sometimes they spend their days lounging around Kyuhyun’s flat, Kyuhyun sitting cross-legged in front of his entertainment system and gaming console while Zhou Mi goes through Kyuhyun’s collection of music scores, seemingly out of place on the shelves next to strategy guides and stacks of comics. Kyuhyun would then make Zhou Mi play combat games with him, always promising to go easy on Zhou Mi but never failing to win by a ridiculous margin.
Day by day, Kyuhyun gets easier to tolerate, and the stardust gets harder to deal with. Zhou Mi spends a whole morning combing bright pink glitter out of his hair while Hangeng watches, amused. “Wow,” Hangeng says when Zhou Mi finally settles on ignoring the glowing sand invading his personal space. “You must really like him.”
Kyuhyun finally kisses Zhou Mi a month into their odd, childlike friendship. Zhou Mi is sitting on the floor, digging through the stack of CDs beside Kyuhyun’s stereo when he looks up and suddenly finds himself with a lapful of Kyuhyun.
“I was wondering when you’d finally kiss me,” Kyuhyun says with a grin, tugging gently at Zhou Mi’s necklace. “But I decided that I don’t need to wait for you because I’ve got game.”
“You’re such a weirdo,” Zhou Mi laughs, but it’s okay because Kyuhyun kisses him again after that.
One day Heechul decides to visit. He gives them absolutely no warning, appearing in front of the counter when Zhou Mi takes a second to look away. “Hey Dumplings,” Heechul says while examining the shelf full of crossword puzzles. “Where’s your workaholic boss?”
“Hyung!” Zhou Mi whines and tries to direct Heechul away from the fashion magazines- Heechul had managed to shop lift a whole year worth of Cece and Vogue Korea the last time he visited. “He’s in the back but asked me not to interrupt.”
Heechul seems to take it as an invitation to interrupt. He glides into the back Archives and returns a few minutes later with a disgruntled Hangeng in tow. “Did you have fun spilling ink on a whole century’s worth of records?” Hangeng is asking when they approach the counter again.
“Causing more trouble for you, while always delightful, is actually not the reason I’m here,” Heechul says, turning towards Zhou Mi. “I wanted to talk to Spring Roll here about something.” Heechul snaps his fingers and the bulletin board full of fliers and ads behind Zhou Mi is suddenly replaced with a hanging red afghan.
“Why is there a blanket on my wall?” Hangeng wants to know.
“Shush,” Heechul waves dismissively at Hangeng’s general direction. “This is the thread chart for Seoul. Impressive, right?”
Considering the fact that when Zhou Mi had last seen it, Heechul’s threads of fate consisted of a wooden frame and five or six measly pieces of red yarn hanging off the side, Zhou Mi is undeniably impressed. “Hyung,” he says. “You’ve been doing work after all!”
Heechul shrugs. “Well, Siwon is, at least. He’s been bitching recently about… actually, I’m not even sure what he’s mad about. Siwon! Get you and your eyebrows in here!” Heechul says suddenly, and after a few seconds of silence, Siwon comes walking through the doors of the bookstore with an unimpressed expression on his face.
“Finally, someone who cares about the sanity of my customers,” Hangeng mumbles.
“Hyung. What is it? You know I’m busy.” Siwon frowns. For all of Heechul’s apathy and inability to take anyone seriously, Zhou Mi finds it ironic that Heechul is the one bringing life to the threads while Siwon guards death’s gates. “Ah, Zhou Mi, I’ve been meaning to ask you about all these knots in our thread chart. Those branches there,” he points at a couple of distinct strings, “they almost look like love knots, but I’m not quite sure.”
“They’re not mine,” Zhou Mi says. “You know I haven’t touched your thread chart in years.”
“Meaning you haven’t been doing your job in years,” Heechul supplies helpfully, spinning a pair of scissors on the tip of his index finger and stepping forward to cut the loose threads off the afghan.
“Hyung!” Siwon cries. “You can’t just go around cutting off people’s life threads!”
“Yes I can.” Heechul gives them a blank look. “In fact, that’s kind of my job.”
“Let’s go back to work, Hyung,” Siwon says, waving slightly at the wall until the afghan disappears. “I’ll just have to ask Kyuhyun about these knots.”
Zhou Mi blinks. “Kyuhyun?”
“Yeah, you know, Cho Kyuhyun? Epiphron’s successor? He comes to examine our chart once in a while and decides who to bestow his amazing gift of wisdom to.” Heechul says, already gravitating towards the magazine stand again. “Although, you know, he hasn’t been doing anything in a while either. You two are both pretty lazy.”
“I don’t think we’re talking about the same person here,” Zhou Mi tries to explain. “The one I know is about this tall-”
“Yeah, with dark hair, the voice of an angel but the smirk of an imp?” Heechul adds.
“But the one I know is mortal!” Zhou Mi says. “He has a job! He’s a professional gamer!”
“Oh. He’s still doing that?” Heechul makes a face. “We all know he only does that for fun, and Donghae is just along for the ride because they’re both slackers. Kyuhyun is kind of a closet nerd.”
Zhou Mi turns to Hangeng. “Did you know?”
“Know what?” Hangeng replies evenly. “That your boyfriend is one of us? Couldn’t you tell by the way he kept on leaving obnoxious glitter everywhere he went?”
“Wait- what?”
“Hold up,” Heechul says, hands in the air. “You are dating Cho Kyuhyun? And you didn’t know? Oh, this is rich. This is seriously rich, all right.”
Zhou Mi doesn’t bother knocking on Kyuhyun’s door this time, opting to appear in the middle of Kyuhyun’s living room while Kyuhyun is sitting on the couch with a DS in his lap. Kyuhyun doesn’t bat an eyelash at Zhou Mi’s entrance, taking a second to go back and save his current game instead. “What a surprise,” he says.
“You knew!” Zhou Mi hisses.
“Knew what?” Kyuhyun tilts his head to the side but pauses. “So, are we not playing the game where we pretend that we’re mortals anymore? ‘Cause that was getting kind of tiresome, even for me.”
“You knew!” Zhou Mi repeats.
“You’ve said that already.” Kyuhyun is up by now, closing in on the distance between himself and Zhou Mi. He laughs when Zhou Mi pouts at him, arm looping around Zhou Mi’s waist as he draws Zhou Mi in. “Why? Are you mad?”
“No, but,” Zhou Mi trails off, ignoring the way Kyuhyun’s hand is traveling up his back. “What about the stardust? It would generate every time you appeared and-”
Kyuhyun grins. “I heard a rumor that you can see love in the form of floating dust, so Donghae gave me a jar of craft glitter to throw around. Okay, fine, that was a mean spirited joke. I’m sorry.” He laughs into the crevice of Zhou Mi’s neck. “Forgive me?”
“But I do like you,” Zhou Mi says, still flustered.
“That’s very nice to know.” Kyuhyun is smirking again, and this time the faint layer of pink dust circling around him is genuine. Pink for admiration and love. “Now when are you going to kiss me?”
“You’re a jerk,” Zhou Mi says.
Kyuhyun smiles. “It’s my job to be one.” And then he kisses Zhou Mi, stardust and all, and Zhou Mi supposes it’s alright.
fin
;A; I HOPE YOU LIKE IT chrysa!!
some notes
Celestial steed: a bizare creature sold on wow. My compsci professor spent a whole lecture goshing about this thing.
Epiphron: the spirit of prudence, shrewdness, thoughtfulness, carefulness and sagacity, according to Greek Mythology.
Red string of fate: think Hercules, the Disney movie :)
Less QQ More PewPew: lol idek why I even know this.
tofupillows also provided the cutest visual aid here! So adorable!
Love it? Hate it? Please leave some feedback, even if it may be a little late. You can also join the community, since I'll be locking up NC17 fics.
Fandom: Super Junior
Author: blahchiharu
Characters/pairing: Kyuhyun/Zhou Mi
Rating: PG
wordcount: ~ 4000
Summary: Bookstore clerk Zhou Mi meets professional gamer Cho Kyuhyun, but neither of them are really who they seem to be. Au for chrysa.
This is the fic I wrote chrysa for our fic trade, in exchange for her lovely green/red fic! She wanted fluffy Qmi with the prompt, "we are all made of stardust," and she wanted it to be au. I'm sorry I couldn't simply write qmi without bringing everyone and their mothers into the fic! Not to mention my blatant misuse of European and Eastern culture at the same time ):! I hope you like it!
lastly, thank you shinigamitabris for beta-ing!
Zhou Mi sees stardust everywhere he goes. It really shouldn’t be as glorious as it sounds, what with the occasional blinding light that comes when happily in love girls cross paths with sunbeams. Yet Zhou Mi can’t help but watch the dust form clusters around each and every living thing, because he sees their happiness and sadness, sees people in their times of glee and times of need. Zhou Mi has no qualms admitting that he’s a bit of a romantic.
“Okay, Cupid, back to work,” Hangeng says when he catches Zhou Mi beaming at a new couple on aisle seven, the girl smiling affectionately while her boyfriend takes a hard cover down from the highest book shelf. “Mi,” Hangeng adds with an exasperated tone when Zhou Mi is undeterred. He nods towards the cart full of shuffled magazines. “Will you at least re-shelve these instead of standing around?”
Zhou Mi laughs and wheels the cart away, towards the back of the antique bookstore. Hangeng should really loosen up more in this day and age; he’s more than five thousand years older than Zhou Mi, after all. When Father had assigned Time to guard the Archive, everyone had known it was done with consolation. Hangeng had always been, after all, too kind hearted for their line of work. He could never bear taking away the youth of those around him and now spends his days watching the pages of the annuals tarnish and fade. Occasionally, other beings come to check up on the state of the Archive, going past the shelves full of human books and into the deepest corner of the back room, where Hangeng stores the scripts and rolls for the higher ups.
When Zhou Mi had first stumbled into the Archive disguised as a small book store, Hangeng had taken one look at the face of Love and asked, “Shouldn’t you be in Paris or something?”
“People don’t need me to fall in love there,” Zhou Mi had said with a smile and then proceeded to peruse through the store’s collection of fashion magazines. Zhou Mi had stayed there since, occasionally helping when business gets too much for Hangeng to handle.
One day a boy with a large scarf comes in, shaking the snow out of his hair as he pulls out a rumpled piece of paper and attempts to decipher the messy scribble written on there. Zhou Mi sits behind the counter and watches as he comes back with two obscure StarCraft strategy guides and an old hard cover by Chekhov.
Hangeng is in the back restocking a shipment of novels, so Zhou Mi helps the boy check out. “We have that in multiple editions, you know.” He actually means the strategy guides, but when the boy looks somewhat interested and picks up Chekhov’s A Bad Business, Zhou Mi is instantly intrigued.
The boy pays in cash and goes, but there’s something about the tilt of his head and the knowing smirk on his face that intrigues Zhou Mi. Even after he leaves, the faint scent of vanilla lingers in the glowing dust he leaves on the counter. Zhou Mi runs his index finger through it and realizes that the boy is loved.
In December, snow invades the streets of Seoul. More and more people take refuge from the weather by flocking inside the book store, a cup of hot chocolate from the popular coffee house next door in hand. A week before Christmas, Hangeng begins clearing out older books for their annual sale, and Zhou Mi is busy pasting the sale flyer on the window when the familiar boy stops behind him, hands tucked into his large winter coat.
Zhou Mi turns to ask something, but the boy cuts him off and says, “Don’t slip on the ice.” Zhou Mi looks down at the patch of frozen snow on the side walk, but when he looks up again, the stranger is already gone. He finds the boy inside of the shop later, sitting in a seat by the window in the nonfiction section, his knees propped against the edge of the coffee table in front of him.
The boy shows up at the counter an hour later while Zhou Mi is finishing wrapping up a book of poems for a nice girl radiating pink. Zhou Mi is not a fan of the cold weather, but he loves the Christmas season, if not only for the love in the air. Sometimes he wonders if December should be his month instead of February. He turns to the boy in time to see a stack of music scores settled on the counter.
“So,” Zhou Mi says while packing away the booklets. “A gamer who sings and also enjoys Russian literature. What are you going to buy next, knitting books?” He swipes the boy’s credit card through the machine and waits for the transaction to go through.
“Well,” the stranger says with a smirk. “Maybe I’ll knit you a sweater so you don’t have to wear road kill anymore.”
“Hey.” Zhou Mi frowns, a hand going towards his scarf protectively. “You should know that this was in Marc Jacobs’s winter collection!”
“Marc Jacobs, the trash man who also does highway clean up?”
“No! The designer!” Zhou Mi pouts. “You’re not very nice. I should charge you extra for these.”
“Too bad I already paid,” the stranger says, effectively snatching his card up from the countertop and putting it back in his wallet. “Nice try, though. Just wondering, do you do holds?”
Zhou Mi makes a pitiful face at him. “Yes, but you know we don’t stock StarCraft, right?”
“Your humor is delightful, I’m laughing right now.” The boy pulls out a piece of paper with ISBN numbers printed on the back, along with a business card. “Can you hold these for me when a new shipment comes in? If you don’t carry these, then please go ahead and put in an order. Here is my contact information.”
“Cho Kyuhyun, professional gamer?” Zhou Mi reads off the card.
“It puts food on the table.” Kyuhyun gives him a wry smile before leaving, his face once again buried in his large scarf.
When Hangeng comes out of the back room, Zhou Mi is still standing behind the counter, gazing at the card. “What’s wrong with you?” Hangeng asks, and Zhou Mi realizes that he is now covered in a layer of light coral fairy dust, none other than his own creation.
Kyuhyun comes back near closing time a week later, and Zhou Mi watches as Kyuhyun goes through the bag full of books and music scores that Hangeng had packed together earlier that week. “The next time you’re looking for something obscure, you may want to try the book outlet a few blocks down,” Zhou Mi says as he prints out the receipt.
“Why?” Kyuhyun raises an eyebrow. “Is my patronage not welcomed here?”
“No.” Zhou Mi makes a face. “It may be easier for you to find what you’re looking for, that’s all. Of course you’re welcomed here.”
“Good,” Kyuhyun says, watching as Hangeng flips the sign hanging by the door, the “CLOSED” side now facing the public. “Then you won’t mind having dinner with me.”
Zhou Mi opens his mouth to complain, but Kyuhyun is already scribbling a time and place on the back of his calling card again. This time the card is a different color with a new font type. When Zhou Mi squints, he can also see a holographic fish swimming under Kyuhyun’s name. He flips the card over, reading the name of a popular Japanese restaurant in the area. “Why do you have different designs for this?”
Kyuhyun shrugs. “I hand out a lot of them. Plus, my assistant has too much free time.”
“You have an assistant?” Zhou Mi gives him a look.
“Well, someone has to make those international business calls.” Kyuhyun is dusting off his jacket now. “So I’ll see you on Saturday?”
“Wait, what-” Zhou Mi tries to say, but Kyuhyun is already halfway out of the door, and Zhou Mi can only watch as Kyuhyun hails a cab and rides off in the January night.
In all of Zhou Mi’s years in Korea, he has never been asked on a date. Even more so, he’s certainly never been asked on a date only to have it cancelled a few days later by someone’s secretary.
“Bookstore-sshi,” the person on the other end says brightly when Zhou Mi picks up the phone at the store one afternoon. “This is Lee Donghae, Cho Kyuhyun’s assistant. I’m calling to reschedule your meeting on the 15th?”
“What?”
“Did I get the date wrong?” Donghae asks, and the sound of pages flipping and furious typing is heard from the other side. “No, it should be on the 15th. Kyu is attending a developer’s conference for Apple on the 16th, and on the 14th he’s going fishing. You know, I don’t know why this is even on his calendar because Kyu fails at being one with nature. Actually, he fails at anything that doesn’t involve singing or a game controller.” Donghae chirps, taking a deep breath. “So, I think the 15th is the right date, or if would have been if he wasn’t going to a conference in Los Angeles. So, when are you free to reschedule?”
“Is this a joke?” Zhou Mi wants to know, watching as a mother comes up to the counter with her toddler son, the little boy holding a stack of coloring books in his arms. “You know, I’m kind of busy, I’ll call you back.”
“Okay!” Donghae says, and if he has any idea that Zhou Mi doesn’t actually know his number, Zhou Mi makes no effort to correct it.
Three days later a bouquet of flowers is delivered to the store. “Thornless roses,” Hangeng says, The Language of Flowers opened to a marked page in his hand, “for love at first sight, how cute. Who’s trying to woo you?”
“Someone with absolutely no regard for other people’s personal space,” Zhou Mi says while arranging the roses and portioning them off into small vases from the storage room. On the roses is a fair layer of coral stardust, for sincerity. Attached to the bouquet is also a small piece of paper.
Sorry, the note reads. They called me away to test some celestial steed that’s being released in a month. The 12 hr flight sucked. Let’s reschedule?
Zhou Mi thinks that he has the right to be difficult after being harassed all day by Tiffany in search of a love potion. Tiffany had been so much easier to stand before her apprenticeship with the Erotes. Zhou Mi blames the Greeks, really, so he ignores the number scribbled on the bottom of the note and goes back to restocking books.
Two days later an arrangement of chrysanthemums comes. Less QQ, more PewPew, the note says this time.
“Slighted love,” Hangeng laughs as he plucks one of the chrysanthemum buds from the bouquet. “He’s funny. Just go on that date already. Why are you playing hard to get?”
Zhou Mi blows his cheeks up like a gold fish. “I am hard to get.”
“Is that all you learned from Venus?” Hangeng asks as he reads through the inventory list for the new shipment of cookbooks. “Are you sure you’re not supposed to be out playing with arrows and love potions?”
“I stopped making that stuff decades ago.” Zhou Mi huffs indignantly. “Plus, it’s more fun to watch.”
“Well, are you going to watch while your suitor turns the Archive into a flower shop?”
“No,” Zhou Mi sighs and finally pulls out the note with Kyuhyun’s personal number.
“You know, most people give in by the roses,” Kyuhyun says when he picks up the call. “But I applaud you for your tenacity.”
“You’ve done this before?” Zhou Mi asks. Upon hearing familiar clicking sounds in the background, he adds, incredulous, “are you gaming right now?”
There’s a pause and then the thud of something light hitting wood. “No.”
“I’ll be free this Friday.” Zhou Mi sighs at last. “Pick me up at the shop at closing time, okay?”
“And tell him to stop sending flowers!” Hangeng calls from the counter.
Kyuhyun is waiting in a sleek black sedan when Zhou Mi closes up shop come Friday. He gets into the passenger seat and watches as Kyuhyun sticks the keys into the ignition. “Where to?”
“Your choice,” Kyuhyun hums, thumping his hand lightly against the steering wheel. A soft ballad is playing quietly on the radio, and when Zhou Mi reaches for the volume knob, Kyuhyun adds, “So I’m glad you’ve finally decided to put out.”
“Who says I’m putting out?” Zhou Mi laughs, watching the traffic lights change around the corner of the block. “Anyways, I know where we’re going,” he says just in time for Kyuhyun to shift the car into drive.
They end up at a small family restaurant, the owner’s wife beaming at Zhou Mi when they walk in. Zhou Mi orders his regular Jajangmyeon and Kyuhyun gets two servings of dumplings. “So did you really go to Los Angeles?” Zhou Mi asks when the waitress, a teenage girl radiating a layer of pearly white dust, comes with their drinks.
“Yeah,” Kyuhyun says absently, busy playing with his chopsticks. “I also had an interview scheduled. Next week I’m flying out to New York for a gaming convention.”
“You play games and get paid for it,” Zhou Mi concludes. “But what else do you do?”
“In my spare time, I like to harass the clerk at this bookstore.” Kyuhyun grins boyishly, and Zhou Mi can’t help but admire the light in Kyuhyun’s eyes. It’s about then that Zhou Mi is attacked with a dust storm, and he has to cough and wipe at his eyes to keep from going blind. God damn, Zhou Mi thinks, foiled by his own invention.
Kyuhyun makes a face of clear amusement but suppresses his laugh with a cough.
They eat a late dinner in an almost empty room, save for a middle-aged businessman with his newspaper three tables down and the owners chatting at an empty booth at the other end of the restaurant. “So,” Kyuhyun says as he watches Zhou Mi slurp at his noodles. “What do you do besides sell books?”
Zhou Mi can’t very well say that he oversees the balance of love in the world, so he settles with, “I’m kind of a homebody.” He doesn’t mention that sometimes he goes to Canada to visit Henry and bring him Hangeng’s newest annuals and that he spent the last four centuries helping Heechul make his own potion formulas while Heechul threw parties that would put even Dionysus to shame.
Kyuhyun makes a comment about working from home, but Zhou Mi’s attention is diverted when a sitcom comes on the television at the corner of the restaurant. Kyuhyun orders soju while they watch a series of mindless yet entertaining late-night line ups, Zhou Mi making origami figures with his napkin while Kyuhyun puts on a five-minute skit between the swan and the frog, set to the music video of a well known girl band blasting in the background.
They leave the restaurant a little past eleven, Kyuhyun pulling out the keys to his car when Zhou Mi says, “It’s okay, I live within walking distance.”
Kyuhyun agrees to let Zhou Mi walk home on the condition that he gets a second date. “We’ll see,” Zhou Mi laughs as he takes Kyuhyun’s cell phone and punches his own number into the contact list.
Kyuhyun seems to spend the majority of his time flying out to conferences and conventions, coming back into the country at odd hours of the night, jet-lagged and bored as he floods Zhou Mi’s phone with pointless yet amusing messages until Zhou Mi agrees to meet him some time in the near future.
They see a movie the weekend Kyuhyun comes back from StarCraft 2’s launch party and spend half an hour arguing over which film to see. In the end they watch both, Kyuhyun sleeping through the majority of Zhou Mi’s romantic comedy while Zhou Mi cringes at Kyuhyun’s choice of weird but entertaining animated film.
On a Wednesday morning, Zhou Mi walks into the book store to find Kyuhyun sitting at his old seat in the nonfiction section. Kyuhyun spends a good hour rearranging the books on the shelves by color and leaving suggestive magazines in the children’s section before Hangeng finally kicks him out, sending Zhou Mi out of the store as well to entertain Kyuhyun.
Sometimes they spend their days lounging around Kyuhyun’s flat, Kyuhyun sitting cross-legged in front of his entertainment system and gaming console while Zhou Mi goes through Kyuhyun’s collection of music scores, seemingly out of place on the shelves next to strategy guides and stacks of comics. Kyuhyun would then make Zhou Mi play combat games with him, always promising to go easy on Zhou Mi but never failing to win by a ridiculous margin.
Day by day, Kyuhyun gets easier to tolerate, and the stardust gets harder to deal with. Zhou Mi spends a whole morning combing bright pink glitter out of his hair while Hangeng watches, amused. “Wow,” Hangeng says when Zhou Mi finally settles on ignoring the glowing sand invading his personal space. “You must really like him.”
Kyuhyun finally kisses Zhou Mi a month into their odd, childlike friendship. Zhou Mi is sitting on the floor, digging through the stack of CDs beside Kyuhyun’s stereo when he looks up and suddenly finds himself with a lapful of Kyuhyun.
“I was wondering when you’d finally kiss me,” Kyuhyun says with a grin, tugging gently at Zhou Mi’s necklace. “But I decided that I don’t need to wait for you because I’ve got game.”
“You’re such a weirdo,” Zhou Mi laughs, but it’s okay because Kyuhyun kisses him again after that.
One day Heechul decides to visit. He gives them absolutely no warning, appearing in front of the counter when Zhou Mi takes a second to look away. “Hey Dumplings,” Heechul says while examining the shelf full of crossword puzzles. “Where’s your workaholic boss?”
“Hyung!” Zhou Mi whines and tries to direct Heechul away from the fashion magazines- Heechul had managed to shop lift a whole year worth of Cece and Vogue Korea the last time he visited. “He’s in the back but asked me not to interrupt.”
Heechul seems to take it as an invitation to interrupt. He glides into the back Archives and returns a few minutes later with a disgruntled Hangeng in tow. “Did you have fun spilling ink on a whole century’s worth of records?” Hangeng is asking when they approach the counter again.
“Causing more trouble for you, while always delightful, is actually not the reason I’m here,” Heechul says, turning towards Zhou Mi. “I wanted to talk to Spring Roll here about something.” Heechul snaps his fingers and the bulletin board full of fliers and ads behind Zhou Mi is suddenly replaced with a hanging red afghan.
“Why is there a blanket on my wall?” Hangeng wants to know.
“Shush,” Heechul waves dismissively at Hangeng’s general direction. “This is the thread chart for Seoul. Impressive, right?”
Considering the fact that when Zhou Mi had last seen it, Heechul’s threads of fate consisted of a wooden frame and five or six measly pieces of red yarn hanging off the side, Zhou Mi is undeniably impressed. “Hyung,” he says. “You’ve been doing work after all!”
Heechul shrugs. “Well, Siwon is, at least. He’s been bitching recently about… actually, I’m not even sure what he’s mad about. Siwon! Get you and your eyebrows in here!” Heechul says suddenly, and after a few seconds of silence, Siwon comes walking through the doors of the bookstore with an unimpressed expression on his face.
“Finally, someone who cares about the sanity of my customers,” Hangeng mumbles.
“Hyung. What is it? You know I’m busy.” Siwon frowns. For all of Heechul’s apathy and inability to take anyone seriously, Zhou Mi finds it ironic that Heechul is the one bringing life to the threads while Siwon guards death’s gates. “Ah, Zhou Mi, I’ve been meaning to ask you about all these knots in our thread chart. Those branches there,” he points at a couple of distinct strings, “they almost look like love knots, but I’m not quite sure.”
“They’re not mine,” Zhou Mi says. “You know I haven’t touched your thread chart in years.”
“Meaning you haven’t been doing your job in years,” Heechul supplies helpfully, spinning a pair of scissors on the tip of his index finger and stepping forward to cut the loose threads off the afghan.
“Hyung!” Siwon cries. “You can’t just go around cutting off people’s life threads!”
“Yes I can.” Heechul gives them a blank look. “In fact, that’s kind of my job.”
“Let’s go back to work, Hyung,” Siwon says, waving slightly at the wall until the afghan disappears. “I’ll just have to ask Kyuhyun about these knots.”
Zhou Mi blinks. “Kyuhyun?”
“Yeah, you know, Cho Kyuhyun? Epiphron’s successor? He comes to examine our chart once in a while and decides who to bestow his amazing gift of wisdom to.” Heechul says, already gravitating towards the magazine stand again. “Although, you know, he hasn’t been doing anything in a while either. You two are both pretty lazy.”
“I don’t think we’re talking about the same person here,” Zhou Mi tries to explain. “The one I know is about this tall-”
“Yeah, with dark hair, the voice of an angel but the smirk of an imp?” Heechul adds.
“But the one I know is mortal!” Zhou Mi says. “He has a job! He’s a professional gamer!”
“Oh. He’s still doing that?” Heechul makes a face. “We all know he only does that for fun, and Donghae is just along for the ride because they’re both slackers. Kyuhyun is kind of a closet nerd.”
Zhou Mi turns to Hangeng. “Did you know?”
“Know what?” Hangeng replies evenly. “That your boyfriend is one of us? Couldn’t you tell by the way he kept on leaving obnoxious glitter everywhere he went?”
“Wait- what?”
“Hold up,” Heechul says, hands in the air. “You are dating Cho Kyuhyun? And you didn’t know? Oh, this is rich. This is seriously rich, all right.”
Zhou Mi doesn’t bother knocking on Kyuhyun’s door this time, opting to appear in the middle of Kyuhyun’s living room while Kyuhyun is sitting on the couch with a DS in his lap. Kyuhyun doesn’t bat an eyelash at Zhou Mi’s entrance, taking a second to go back and save his current game instead. “What a surprise,” he says.
“You knew!” Zhou Mi hisses.
“Knew what?” Kyuhyun tilts his head to the side but pauses. “So, are we not playing the game where we pretend that we’re mortals anymore? ‘Cause that was getting kind of tiresome, even for me.”
“You knew!” Zhou Mi repeats.
“You’ve said that already.” Kyuhyun is up by now, closing in on the distance between himself and Zhou Mi. He laughs when Zhou Mi pouts at him, arm looping around Zhou Mi’s waist as he draws Zhou Mi in. “Why? Are you mad?”
“No, but,” Zhou Mi trails off, ignoring the way Kyuhyun’s hand is traveling up his back. “What about the stardust? It would generate every time you appeared and-”
Kyuhyun grins. “I heard a rumor that you can see love in the form of floating dust, so Donghae gave me a jar of craft glitter to throw around. Okay, fine, that was a mean spirited joke. I’m sorry.” He laughs into the crevice of Zhou Mi’s neck. “Forgive me?”
“But I do like you,” Zhou Mi says, still flustered.
“That’s very nice to know.” Kyuhyun is smirking again, and this time the faint layer of pink dust circling around him is genuine. Pink for admiration and love. “Now when are you going to kiss me?”
“You’re a jerk,” Zhou Mi says.
Kyuhyun smiles. “It’s my job to be one.” And then he kisses Zhou Mi, stardust and all, and Zhou Mi supposes it’s alright.
fin
;A; I HOPE YOU LIKE IT chrysa!!
some notes
Celestial steed: a bizare creature sold on wow. My compsci professor spent a whole lecture goshing about this thing.
Epiphron: the spirit of prudence, shrewdness, thoughtfulness, carefulness and sagacity, according to Greek Mythology.
Red string of fate: think Hercules, the Disney movie :)
Less QQ More PewPew: lol idek why I even know this.
tofupillows also provided the cutest visual aid here! So adorable!
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