Dark Charm Chapter 2

[saya19]

Ugh. I was so bored so I thought that I would try to write some more. It turns out I managed to type out a whole chapter in a couple of hours. Sorry if there are some I's in it. I had a little bit of fun and almost inserted myself into the story. I hope you enjoy. Please remember this is fictional so the facts about them aren't necssarily true. Enjoy I hope.

Title: Dark Charm
Chapter: 2
Pairings: Kyuwook, others (later)

He now realized how Kyuhyun felt these days. He finally let those reluctant words slip from his tongue...


Two

Ryeowook fell in the creases of his bed, his body creating a dip in the springy mattress. The little arms of his clock were nearing the bottom of his clock. He usually wasn’t this late to return home but Kyuhyun had insisted on eating at his favourite Duk boki stand. Ryeowook was just satisfied that his best friend paid back his debt. He turned his head to look at his precious music sheets blending, though scattered, with his piano. It looked like there were beautiful scribbles of notes on the smooth white keys. The boy was tempted to travel over there and play a beautiful melody but his legs disobeyed his mind. He was too tired to do anything right now and he didn’t know why.

He rolled over onto his back as he looked over his white room. It was too bright. It looked empty because of the unity of colour from his stuff. The only things that stood out were his classically black piano, a chair, his textbooks and his backpack. His clothes were mostly dark, or black, but they were hidden within his little, once again, white chest. In a different bigger chest, there were clothes that were brightly coloured pink or yellow. Ryeowook didn’t enjoy wearing them but his mother, who had wanted a girl, saw potential in the cute boy and bought these embarrassing clothes. He liked the colour purple but didn’t give it much thought because he wasn’t confident enough to be able to pull it off.

There was a click of a door from the other side of his wall. Kyuhyun, he presumed, was in his room as well. Ryeowook could hear the springs creek as something fell on Kyuhyun’s bed. He didn’t want to assume that it was Kyuhyun.The springs squeaked even louder this time. Now his best friend had plopped onto his bed. There was silence for a while. Ryeowook peered through the hole in his wall to confirm that it was Kyuhyun.

This was how the best friends had first met. Three years ago, Kyuhyun had been the new guy in town and the Cho family moved into the vacant apartment next to his. Ryeowook hadn’t really noticed this boy at first. Well, Kyuhyun had always been crowded by dozens of people. Guys wanted to stay next to Kyuhyun because the girls were always there fawning over his good looks. Ryeowook had actually tried to stay away from Kyuhyun. He didn’t like getting into that kind of mix.

So for three months, Ryeowook and Kyuhyun took the same bus and same route home in silence. Ryeowook always walked in front even though Kyuhyun had longer legs and seemed more athletic. He always felt like the taller boy was purposely trailing behind him. Sometimes, Ryeowook would check over his shoulder and catch a turning head. Sometimes, he caught those dark eyes on him for a second. It made him more uncomfortable. He would’ve rather had Kyuhyun walk beside him.

Ryeowook got to see part of the true Kyuhyun. The walls between their rooms weren’t the most solid and so Ryeowook knew how Kyuhyun spent his time. The guy was the biggest video game maniac he had ever known. Yet at school, the guy was silent, never talked unless he was asked to. The boy spent most of the night and sometimes early morning, disrupting Ryeowook’s sleep by playing those games. He could just hear the constant groaning or shrieks of excitement from the other side of his wall. Ryeowook swore, once, he heard Kyuhyun’s fist land on the wall beside Ryeowook’s ear. That had terrified him for a while.

Even more surprisingly, Kyuhyun managed to exceed Ryeowook in grades. Ryeowook would study for hours on a test and Kyuhyun would always top him. Ryeowook would be memorizing English vocabulary words for hours while he would hear Kyuhyun stringing a bunch of coined “gaming” terms together. The guy was also a year, or almost, younger than Ryeowook despite being taller and older looking. They were born in different years but they let Kyuhyun move up a grade because he was born early or something. He was also apparently “too smart” for his own grade. Ryeowook can’t really think of a time that Kyuhyun actually studied for a test. This had annoyed Ryeowook so much that he took an immediate disliking to the guy.

Ryeowook couldn’t believe how close they had become in the past few years. Kyuhyun was just a very strange guy and he permanently imprinted himself into Ryeowook’s memories. The tired boy sighed and began to recollect their first true meeting. This was about four months after his arrival.

A loud sound exploded into the sleeping boy’s right ear. He immediately sat up and popped his eyes as wide as he could. Just as he did, his heavy eyes forced themselves shut again in the middle of this havoc. Ryeowook fiercely rubbed his eyes, willing them open. When he managed this, the disturbing sound had stopped. It was still dark outside with glints of gold sparkling in the distance. The sleepy boy slapped his cheeks a couple of times before inhaling some kind of musty air. This produced a few little coughs from him but he managed to get over them and find the true problem.

“What the hell?” His jaw dropped as far down as his eyes popped open. He stared at the gaping hole in his bedroom wall for a few seconds before squealing in panic. He ran his hands frantically into his messy bed hair.

“Oh my god! What happened? My wall! Did I do something to it? Did I punch it? No, that can’t be it. First, if I did, that would hurt. Second, I can’t punch a hole in a wall. I can’t kick it either and I’m rather a quiet sleeper. Oh! That’s all besides the point! How the hell did I get a hole in my wall?”

Then a low yet very familiar voice responded to his anxiety.

“Hello?”

Ryeowook was stunned silent at this. He leaned towards the fist sized hole and peered into it. On the other side was a smiling Kyuhyun. At this point, Ryeowook had been very, very upset. He imagined, optimistically, that there was probably a 1% chance that he could throw his fist into that hole and sock Kyuhyun’s pretty face without harming himself. The angry boy was going to do so when he heard other voices from outside his room.

“Ryeowook? Ryeowook, are you okay? Did something happen?” His mom was calling him, approaching his room from the master bedroom.

“Mom! Oh my god! What is she going to think?”

Ryeowook felt his heart beat speed up exponentially again as his fingers wiggled in the air, trying to find a way to hide the problem. He swiped a bunch of his stuffed animals, bought by his mom, from his closet and aligned them along his wall. He made sure to place the biggest one, a gigantic rabbit half his size, right over the hole.

“Oh wait!” Ryeowook grabbed the rabbit roughly and shot the offender an ungrateful glare, “you! Be quiet or I’ll kill you…er…punish you…somehow…tomorrow!”

Then he pushed the bunny into place and snuggled under his blankets. He made sure to breathe evenly and look cute to distract his mom. When his mom peeked in, she simply admired the scenery of her angelic son and his surrounding furry buddies. Quiet reassured or distracted by this, his mom closed the door again and Ryeowook heard her go back to her room.

Ryeowook ripped the rabbit from his bed and stared into the hole. Kyuhyun was still there, waiting quietly for him with that wickedly lovely smile. Ryeowook took a second to calm himself down and give this person a reason to explain himself. Perhaps, just perhaps, there had been a good reason for this hole.

“Okay, so I can presume…that you made this…hole here.” Ryeowook breathed out unevenly. It was a failed attempt at hiding his anger. “Care to explain to me?”

“Well do you want the long version or the short version?”

“Anything. Start talking.” Ryeowook answered roughly.

“Okay, the short version it is.” Kyuhyun gave him an amused smile. He seemed like he was still wrestling between the two choices but then explained very simply.

“I was bored.”

Ryeowook fell back onto his bed as he felt all the blood drain from his hands into his cheeks. He was just so upset at everything. He couldn’t scream at this cheeky guy or his mom will hear him and he had a stupid hole in his wall.

“Are you kidding me?”

“No.”

Silence.

“Are you mad?”

“Are you kidding me?” Ryeowook growled at him. He wanted so much to pray on that 1% and to ruin this guy’s pretty face at the moment.

“okay, I’ll try the long version.” Kyuhyun began. “I just wanted to be your friend.”

“Is this how you make friends?”

“No, but I haven’t had very many.”

“I see that.” Ryeowook sighed and groaned again. He couldn’t understand how this was happening to him so simply.

“It’s just that you seem like you’re different from all the others. You don’t crowd around me and like go all googly eyes because of my looks. You didn’t try to use me just so you could go on a group date with some hot girls either. I guess that I respected you because you weren’t like them but it wasn't enough for me to just admire you from afar. I wanted to be with your friend.”

“What does that have to with the hole?”

“See! This is what I mean!” Kyuhyun exclaimed excitedly and ignoring Ryeowook’s real question. “If this was any other person, they would probably be like ‘oh, that’s okay Kyuhyun’ and forgive me. They don’t really care about me. I don’t feel like a person around them. I thought that with you, maybe things would be different and I guess I was right.”

“So you were testing me?”

“Well, that’s a bad way to put it?”

“Oh my god! You’re so annoying and absurd.” Ryeowook heard the guy chuckle at this and sat up again. He didn’t know how he should feel anymore, grateful because Kyuhyun thought kindly of him or angry because that stupid hole was still there.

“Thank you. It feels kind of nice hearing that for the first time.” Kyuhyun was smiling that charming smile again. Ryeowook could see why people forgave him and doted on him.

“Okay, so how are you going to get this fixed? And how did you even do this?” Ryeowook asked with disbelief at the last twenty minutes. He found the cylinder chunk of his wall hiding behind some stuffed animal. Ryeowook picked it up in disbelief.

“I just gave that thing a push after using this.” Kyuhyun disappeared for a second and skipped across his room. He picked up some kind of device that looked like a drill and heard the latter groan loudly. He leaned in to shoot Ryeowook another dazzling smile of his. He didn’t think that the confused and angry boy was going to be happy with his next answer.

“And also, I was thinking that we could just keep this here.”

“What? Are you crazy?”

“Well, wouldn’t it be easier to communicate this way.” There was a sheepish, possibly shy, smile after that statement. He pulled his face back so that Ryeowook could see all of its beauty. The infuriated boy didn’t want to see it. It didn’t help him remain angry.

“What about my privacy? Well, and yours.” Ryeowook didn’t want to think that he could be watched at any time. He didn’t like the thought that Kyuhyun could watch him change.

“We’re both guys.”

Ryeowook stared at that shy smile transforming into an impish one.

“I’m just kidding.” He said immediately. “The hole’s not that big. I’m okay with it.”

“Well clearly, you are.” Ryeowook huffed out.

“That’s why I made it.”

Ryeowook took his face into his hands and groaned again. He mumbled angrily at himself. Kyuhyun heard him whisper to himself, “What am I going to do? What am I going to do?”

“With?”

“With you.”

Kyuhyun smiled at this and responded, “Just accept me. Save yourself from some extra work. Then in a little while, you’ll realize that it was worth it.”

And so, Ryeowook did accept the hole. He didn’t want to be the one to tell on Kyuhyun since the offender wasn’t going to turn himself in. This caused him a lot of trouble though. Unluckily, he didn’t have a lock so he had to keep those horridly “cute” plushy animals there. Ryeowook had also taken up volunteering to wash his own sheets personally and making his own bed. His mom had been ecstatic about this sudden decision. Ryeowook had been cursing at Kyuhyun in his mind for the extra labour. It was even more annoying because Kyuhyun had a lock on his door. Ryeowook doesn’t remember why he accepted it until Kyuhyun smiles again.

It took him a longer time to accept Kyuhyun though. Ever since the arrival of the hole, the strange guy was persistent in talking to Ryeowook. It had started out simply with a “good night” before Ryeowook went to sleep since he always slept earlier. It disturbed him that Kyuhyun always knew when he was going to sleep but now he was used to it. It had been weird when Ryeowook woke up mid morning and heard Kyuhyun’s deep breathing. It was weird but it also made him comfortable, in a weirder way, and he would listen to it until he fell back asleep.

Those few words soon progressed to talking about homework and bedtime chatting. Ryeowook learned to stay up an hour later since Kyuhyun would talk to him for that long before allowing the sleepy boy to start dreaming. Kyuhyun had learned to sleep earlier so it became the two lying in their own beds talking rather than one mumbling questions from the computer screen. Yet most of the time, it was Kyuhyun asking Ryeowook about personal stuff like his favourite colour, which he had shyly replied purple. Or sometimes, he was asked who his favourite singers, male and female, to which he only named two of his favourites, Super Junior and Bada. Ryeowook would’ve thought that Kyuhyun would become tired but he never did. He always had a new question every night.

Naturally, their conversations translated to school and they began talking to each other there. This benefited Kyuhyun in two ways. First, their sudden closeness kept away the pestering fan girls and boys from him. Ryeowook naturally made it awkward for them by just standing there staring wide eyed at them. He looked adorably awkward when he did that. Second and more importantly, he got to spend more time with Ryeowook and alone too. They spent their lunches together and had most of their classes together. Ryeowook was starting to open up to him and so was he. Kyuhyun was so happily surprised when Ryeowook began asking him about his own personal interests. Ryeowook had accepted him as a friend.

It had been difficult hiding this hole from his mother but finally after a year, he had a lock installed into his door. His mom had been suspicious of why her son was so demanding for a lock to his room. However she trusted her son when he said that it wasn’t for what she was thinking of or anything of that matter. Ryeowook was a good son for the most part. And just in case, his mom made him promise that he wouldn’t bring home a report card without an above 90% average until he graduated high school. This was so he wouldn’t lose focus on studying. For this, Kyuhyun had caused him so much trouble and annoyance. Ryeowook repeated himself that it was a curse to him that Kyuhyun was so good looking and charming.

“Hey. You there?” Kyuhyun’s low and muffled voice woke up from his thoughts. Ryeowook heard his bedding rustle and knew that Kyuhyun had probably flipped over on his stomach so he could talk more clearly.

“Yeah.” Ryeowook murmured back.

“Do you remember how we first met?”

“I was just thinking about that.”

Ryeowook imagined a nice smile stretch over Kyuhyun’s face at that moment. Even one spread across his too. It was just a nice way of showing how in sync they had become over the years. Ryeowook reminded himself that it was a simple reminder of their friendship.

“I sure caused you a truck load of trouble back then, didn’t I?”

“You think.” Ryeowook liked the sound of his laughter. It was soft and warm and low and humble. He whispered again with a bigger smile, “You still do.”

“I’m glad to hear that.” Kyuhyun chuckled some more, wondering if there could possibly be some other meaning behind that response.

“That makes one of us.”

“Well, I want to ask you something. It’s part of customer service.” The sheets rustled some more and Ryeowook imagined that Kyuhyun was sitting up now with his legs crossed, his hand at his chin, securing holding his head up. It would’ve looked handsome.

“Was it worth it?”

Ryeowook had to think about this for a while. He relaxed from his smile and started thinking. He had often cursed at himself, and Kyuhyun, for having let this completely absurd guy bring him all the little misfortunes in his life. However, this completely absurd guy had grown on him. He began to rely on the quirkiness of his jokes to enlighten him after a brutal math test or even just a reassuring smile to make his anxiety go away. After some deliberation, Ryeowook was finally able to answer.

“Yeah.”

There was some silence.

Ryeowook imagined a very giddy yet silent Kyuhyun as he heard some continual rustling of his sheets and even some creeks. This easily brought another little smile on Ryeowook’s face. The two were connected by some kind of force or string. When one is happy and pulls on that string, the other also becomes happy.

The awkward silence was broken by a now calm Kyuhyun who asked, “Want to study for the English test on Friday?”

Kyuhyun had learned to study occasionally. However he picked up the bad habit of not being able to study unless it was with him. They always studied in Ryeowook’s little cramped room with only his notes since Kyuhyun didn’t bother to take any. He knew everything after all. Ryeowook didn’t mind their studying together. Kyuhyun seemed to understand everything and even cheekily corrects Ryeowook about stuff. The only subject that Ryeowook could proudly correct Kyuhyun in was Math.

The one thing that bothered him a little was that, in all these years, Ryeowook had never been inside Kyuhyun’s room. He had been invited to dinner by Mrs. Cho and his sly sister, Cho Ara. His older sister had taken an early liking to Ryeowook. She appreciated him for being her brother’s true friend. She also admired Ryeowook’s uncontainable cuteness. He had even been in Ara’s room before Kyuhyun’s. Ryeowook’s never worked up the courage to ask him either because he felt that would be rude. So Ryeowook waited for Kyuhyun to reveal his room whenever he felt he was ready. For now, he was stuck with peeking through that little radius of a hole in his wall.

“Yeah. You can come over tomorrow after school.” Ryeowook finally replied, as he lifted himself up onto his elbows. He turned to see Kyuhyun’s intent eyes on him before whispering.

“Okay. I’ve got to go take a shower.”

“Ugh. Kyuhyun, I don’t need to know that. Why can’t you just say like ‘I’ve got to go’ or something normal?” Ryeowook could feel his blood drain from his hands but this time was different from that time.

“Because…” He grinned widely at the blushing boy, causing him to turn a brighter shade of pink. “Your reactions are fun to watch when I say stuff like that.”

“Okay. Just go and this time, please change in the washroom and not in your room.” Ryeowook shouted at him, attempting to protect himself from embarrassment. However, Kyuhyun, once he was on a roll, was unstoppable at what he does best.

“Hey, is it my fault that you were looking?”

Ryeowook, being heated up even more, grabbed his huge bunny and blocked off the hole. He slumped back down onto his bed. He realized why he was so tired. Kyuhyun makes him tired. His witty comments and unstoppable flirting made Ryeowook think too much every day. It felt like Kyuhyun was laying little traps everywhere to catch him. Ryeowook was the little rabbit and Kyuhyun was the big bad wolf. He had to be wary of him at all times. He thought that he wanted them to keep this nice relationship forever.

Ryeowook pulled the bunny aside again and peered into Kyuhyun’s room. He was still there, searching for clothes in his closet. The curious boy took this opportunity to glimpse as much as he could around Kyuhyun’s room. He couldn’t see much because it was dark inside. Unlike his room, Kyuhyun’s room had been painted a dark blue colour and all of his stuff was either black or grey. He thought he noticed some kind of music sheets or lyrics on the floor though. Ryeowook was going to push the rabbit back in place, in fear of being caught, when Kyuhyun called on him again.

“Ryeowook?”

“Yeah.” Ryeowook murmured, trying to sound groggy and sleepy so Kyuhyun wouldn’t turn around. Ryeowook stared at his long thin back, waiting for Kyuhyun to continue.

“Thank you for accepting me. I love being your friend.”

Ryeowook felt his heart speed up again and the words were lingering on the tip of his tongue, as if clinging to stay within him. He couldn’t think properly even though he already had a response for the last statement. Ryeowook felt something drop inside of him; there was a new kind of pressure being felt in his stomach. He felt the urge to suddenly have been there watching his face as he said that line. Ryeowook pulled the rabbit into his arms and rested his non furry head on the furry head. He now realized how Kyuhyun felt these days. He finally let those reluctant words slip from his tongue.

“Yeah. Me too.”