[FIC] Claiming What's Mine, ONE-SHOT
Title: Claiming What’s Mine
Pairing: MiXian (aka QMi)
Rating: PG-13 (language, situation)
Genre: Fraternity!AU, Romance, Comedy, Slight Violence
Type: One-shot
(part of the Protecting What’s Mine!universe - EunHae)
Summary: They meet in a sort of odd chance the first time. The second time is slightly of coincidence. The third time builds them a relationship like no other.
--
Kyuhyun came running home, late. The game of Starcraft made him forget how quickly time flew without even a reminder that he should be home before ten in the evening. His sister must be furious right about now, him missing her birthday party without even a message to excuse himself. This game was seriously a distraction to his priorities. He should really lay-low with it.
Then again, he couldn’t himself, really. Their challengers were tricky, feisty and it had been a while since he had a great play. His teammates were of no help either, egging him to stay a bit more - to a point of five-hour stay actually - to join them and beat their enemies into a pulp. Good game, good game.
He turned to a corner hastily; his messenger bag bouncing at the side of his hip it made him grip the handle and threaded the dark alleyway he was taking for shorter distance. He turned again, inside his head thinking of a ten reasons why he was late excluding gaming. Ahra would have his head in second if he said that, most definitely.
Suddenly he heard loud crashes and punches in the air at the next corner.
He stopped, eyes widening at flying trash bins that hit the brick wall with a noisy clang. No seconds later, a body flew next, landing on the garbage mess below it. Kyuhyun could only make of jeans and shoes, the owner’s face he couldn’t see.
“Hey, are you-” He made a step forward, concerned and shaky. This didn’t look so well.
“Where is Zhou Mi?!”
“Find the motherfucker!!”
“We have to make sure he’s still breathing so leader would know what to do with him!”
Voices of rage and anger made him look at his right, to see an even darker alley and hear running footsteps coming closer. Fear gripped him at the belated realization. He knew of this, in the news and tabloids recently, about territorial fights and bloody brawls.
The limped man coughed and Kyuhyun’s attention went back to him, all thoughts of screaming warning to get away from this dangerous road disappearing like thin air.
“Get out of here.” The stranger rasped, trying to be upright. Kyuhyun immediately took hold of an injured arm and waist to help the man up, wanting to aid instead. He knew he had to help this chased, battered man with diamond pierce on one ear, orange hair and sickeningly white skinned with purple spots all over.
Fights like these could lead to unfortunate death, he read before.
But then harsh gasp blew out from him when the man tossed him behind a larger dumpster and throwing - no, covering - him and his head with a leather jacket, hissing, “Don’t make a sound, don’t even breathe a second. Stay quiet, stay unmoving and you’ll be safe.” A strained breathing, “Thank you.”
Kyuhyun was about to protest at that, wanting to push off the cloth, to demand the hell is that for?! when he heard angrier footsteps closing in and the tight clamp on his shoulder loosening, finally letting go. Shoes scraping the floor indicated the man took off, leaving him.
Covering his mouth, staying still, and huddled next to the shadows, the footsteps now just a few meters away from him finally growing distant. The shouts of the angry mob were faint, then gone and all he could hear was his ragged breathing.
Kyuhyun peeked through the jacket, observing if there was any danger at him, if there were fuming men around or even the injured man still around and found he was as alone as he was earlier.
It looked like he was safe, just what the stranger promised him he would be.
--
“You better not screw up with buying the right shampoo again, alright? Or else I’ll feed your gaming consoles to the washing machine.” Ahra pointed the softly humming laundry machine of now Kyuhyun’s nightmare for his gadgets. This always got him to do better chores whenever his stuffs were threatened. Ahra had ways to edge him, unfortunately.
“Alright, alright. I get it, sheesh.” Snorting, he made his way to the front door, checking the grocery list on one pocket and money on the other. Ahra popped her from the door just behind him.
“And, oh, just so you know, I’d be out. And so are mom and dad so bring your own keys. If you get locked out, I’ll laugh at you so hard.” She smiled, before blowing a flying kiss.
“Ugh. Okay.” Kyuhyun reached little container for his own set of house keys before stepping out. The time on his watch told him it was late afternoon, all the free time he could do to finish grocery and see his gaming friends later for another round.
He had thoughts of coming back to the alley, during daylight just be safer, to look for the stranger who left his jacket to him. The mess of tossed trash cans and few blood stains were still there, dry, from three days ago assault. He had never heard anything again, not even from the police who were on patrol during that time. No one got caught, no reports of recent hospitalization due to beating. Kyuhyun could probably be thankful for that as he clenched the paper list inside his pocket, remembering the event inside his mind like a movie-reeling scene.
These fights were just awful, more often than not pointless. He wondered why the man was chased for, almost battered. Was he bad, was he a criminal? He could be just anyone Kyuhyun could assume him to be.
But he thanked him. The stranger did. Criminals don’t say thank you’s to another person so kindly, do they?
Kyuhyun shook his head, turning his heels to walk to where he was supposed to be, filing the thoughts away. It happened, the stranger would probably be nameless, without identity, and it was like this event had never actually occurred the next days, the next weeks. He’d be on his own gaming-schooling-sleeping-gaming life again, Kyuhyun mused. Back to normal, he thought.
He paid for his groceries two hours later, even treating himself cooked dimsum for dinner to eat at home. Double checking his brought items, he was sure as hell that his gadgets were secured from the grabby hands of his sister. He took a different route this time, to avoid any fishy brawling again.
He made to turn to the next corner, his attention and gaze behind just to keep an eye to anything suspicious that might be coming right at his back when he collided to another incoming object. His grocery bag snapping, broken, and all his stuff tumbling down to the ground one item then another.
“Aw, crap. Sorry about tha- Ah! My dumplings!” Kyuhyun exasperatedly said, swiftly taking hold of the rolling oranges and his falling dinner box when his wrist was caught, seized tightly but not really hurting. “Wha-?”
He looked up, wondering, to see a heaving and tired expression. A familiar face, he wasn’t exactly sure where he had seen it before. But he had seen it. The man was panting, like he had hurried from somewhere and catching his breath - a puff in the cold air - before speaking. “It’s you, again?”
Now he remembered. “Are you-?”
Behind the man, there were people - at least four them - a few meters ahead. Wearing black, mouths covered and seriously looked like trouble. When the men saw them, they pointed, yelling and approaching rapidly. There was no way this was happening to Kyuhyun again.
“Shit.” The taller man groaned and looked confused to where else to run to, head swiveling from one side to another and feet suddenly rooted on the ground.
He moved. Kyuhyun did. Quickly.
Kyuhyun’s hold on the stranger’s hand was fast, without even thinking to just slip fingers into fingers and took off, racing to the nearest maze of the neighborhood with the man at tow. He made sure to hold as tightly as he could, legs swiftly in action and breathing labored. He was never the athletic type, actually. Kyuhyun wouldn’t win in any marathon (if you consider gaming marathon, well, that was a different case) but for now they were ahead, they were escaping through corners and shortcuts and secret passageways he knew of since childhood. Their chasers now completely lost.
They didn’t look behind, not even once. Their grasps on each other’s hand were as tight.
Finally, they were inside Kyuhyun’s house. Safe, unseen, just the two of them with the lock behind the door they slumped against, secured. Groceries where intact, except for the destroyed plastic bag.
“Oh, gosh. I’m never running again.” Kyuhyun exhaled, his head hitting the wood with a soft thud, ready to turn into exhausted goo. Because, well, the only thing Kyuhyun ran for were quick trips to the bathroom between game breaks.
The man heaved next to him, staring at him through his mess of hair tresses. “This is the second time of you. Why do you keep on showing up? Do you want to get pounded?”
“Do I look like I want some of what you’re doing? You’re the one who keeps on popping out from nowhere. You looked like you needed help, with all that wounds on your face and arms. We’re safe here now, I’m sure.” Kyuhyun gestured his home before looking back again at his grocery, his dimsum box now ruined and contorted to blob of mess, and faltered. “Oh, man. There goes dinner.”
“Sorry.” The stranger said, his hand slightly covering the mentioned bruises on his arm.
Silence.
“Whatever. We gotta get you cleaned or something. After this, I don’t care how you’d do it, you better come up with something for me to eat, got it?” Kyuhyun’s palm was opened for the man to take. “I’m Kyuhyun. Awesome gamer you’d ever met. Welcome to my home?”
“Brat.” The stranger chuckled, heaving himself up with the extended hand at him, closing his fingers around it. “Zhou Mi, Chinese, forever chased. I’ve yet to meet with my gang soon. Hopefully.”
“Well, I can see that. You better not bring you scraps here at my home. I’ve got consoles to protect.” Kyuhyun warned, letting go and showing Zhou Mi the way around to the bathroom to clean up and the kitchen to cook. It was shameless to actually request a man he just met to cook but he was too hungry to play courteous. A hungry Kyuhyun was a bossy Kyuhyun.
“Hey, Kyuhyun,” Zhou Mi called just as he was about to step inside the bathroom.
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
Kyuhyun shrugged. “No need to thank me twice.”
--
Ahra quirked a teasing brow; her arms crossed and smile smug. “So, who’s Mister Hottie?”
Kyuhyun quietly ate the remaining Shanghai rolls. “Someone I met in the streets to cook dinner for me.”
He knew she rolled her eyes at him, finally retreating inside the house. “God, you’re weird. I bet he’s one of your geek friends over the internet. You seriously need non-virtual friends.”
“Hnn, maybe I do.”
--
He was knocked out cold before he could save himself, drifting between consciousness and not but still hearing the slight muffled conversation exchanged.
And he was just on his way to a computer shop too, for a quick game.
“Yeah, he knows where the bastard is.”
Kyuhyun awoke to throbbing head and chained hands later. From where he sat, he could see only darkness and the tiny light bulb above him, a poor excuse of luminance. He could barely register what he was seeing.
“Glad you’re awake. Supposedly interrogation would start three hours ago. Took your bloody time to nap, didn’t you?” The voice taunted him, from a direction he wasn’t sure where. It was when another person stepped into view, a man. Muscled, intimidating, everything opposite of his lanky, Starcraft friends.
“Where… Who the hell are you?” Kyuhyun demanded, shaking his wrist free to no luck. “What am I doing here?”
“We’ll make this quick, boy. Tell me, where the fucking hell is Zhou Mi and his gang hiding?”
“Zhou Mi?”
“Yeah, Zhou Mi,” the man repeated, mocking his voice. “Him and his group are dead but they are a bunch of cowards still into hiding and trying to be normal. He, no, them are never normal.”
“Look, I only met Zhou Mi twice. I don’t know where-
Kyuhyun’s head snapped to one side, his tongue tasting blood next.
“You better start cooperating or your pretty face won’t be pretty anymore.” The man advised him and Kyuhyun saw a few more men coming under the light, sneering.
He was chained, he was a sitting duck and no amount of gaming strategies his mind could generate prepared him for the worst - this. Real and happening and dangerous. Could he make a distraction, screaming, Oh, look over there! Women! and run like hell with a buddy chair tied to him? Yeah, that would definitely work.
His thoughts died on him at the slap on his face again, and the man yelling, “Talk!”
“I told you I don’t know!” Kyuhyun yelled back, feeling his throat hoarse all of sudden. “Geez, you’re stubborn. How can I tell when I don’t really know?”
“For a hostage you are too difficult. Do we need to start slicing you up to listen to what our wants are, huh?” The flash of knife from the man’s pocket had Kyuhyun gulping, eyes widening, shock coursing through nerves and bones. This was not good at all. Distraction was definitely not any option anymore.
He thrashed when he felt a slight prick on his chin, the knife finally making contact. Cold, slick and painful. “Fucking talk now.”
“I really don’t-
Kyuhyun yelped in pain, his body contracting in rejection of the sharp wedge trailing down his arms to his hand.
“Do I need to start cutting fingers now?”
Kyuhyun was trembling in tremor, his eyes tightly shut and mouth zipped so he wouldn’t scream more, much to the others’ sick pleasure for his torture. He needed his fingers for gaming… which he thought wasn’t the best time for that. He needed to save himself, his whole body. Him.
Zhou Mi. How the hell he got himself tangled with this mess with only just meeting him two times? He would suppose they were done the moment Zhou Mi left him, waving a hand and assuring him that that would be the last and disappearing down the road. He should’ve had not believed it. If ever he made alive he would find Zhou Mi - would travel the globe if required - and punch his face and distort his big, perfect nose. Kyuhyun really would.
Still, he pleaded, in his mind, for something to happen. Anything. He didn’t want to end like this. Zhou Mi.
The shattering glasses were sounds of salvation, followed by punches and kicks and surprised screaming. The man who was just toying the knife to his skin immediately stood, alert, and just as blind as Kyuhun who couldn’t see with darkness up ahead with little light. He yelled when he hurled from one side, away from Kyuhyun now.
“I’m sorry,” was the first thing he heard from him. Kyuhyun looked up from lidded eyes to see and confirm if the voice belonged to someone he knew of even for a short while. He let out a sigh of relief.
“Zhou Mi.”
Zhou Mi, clad in blue and jeans with slick leather open-finger gloves on him, there and in front of Kyuhyun. Kneeling, so close, face only just an inch away from him. His eyes were worried, sad but still flashed with strength and control. Kyuhyun let himself get drowned looking at those.
“You get into stranger things, don’t you, Kyuhyun?” Zhou Mi tsked.
“I probably do? Stranger like you?”
Zhou Mi snorted.
There was another member about to hurl towards Zhou Mi from the side - Kyuhyun almost jumped to warn him - when Zhou Mi swiftly swung his legs to bring him down, his fist coming in contact with the attacker’s face for a knock out, gloves stretching and smooth.
He failed to notice another attacker from the opposite side, successfully landing his fist on Zhou Mi. In return, with much more finesse and quickness, Zhou Mi kicked his assailant to the ground before punching him to kingdom come.
“Hey, Zhou Mi. Hurry up! The police would be here in no time!” One from the other men in the shadows called. Zhou Mi looked at Kyuhyun next, considering.
“Let’s go,” with the discarded knife within reach, Kyuhyun was finally freed from his restrains to wipe off blood on his mouth, and his legs finally have their feelings back and moving. “Hey, hey, hey, I can-”
“Let me. We’ve got no time.” Zhou Mi said, positioning his arms under Kyuhyun’s knees, hoisting him up. “You said can’t run fast, right?”
Well, Kyuhyun did say that, didn’t he?
“…fine,” he grunted back, huddling against Zhou Mi’s broad chest and hands on his shirt. “But I’m not saying I like this, okay? We could’ve piggy-backed instead.”
Zhou Mi pulled him closer, more sheltered and didn’t say anything before they met up with the others to run out of the building, to the next lighted road.
--
Zhou Mi insisted they would take Kyuhyun back to his place, to at least bring him home safe to his family when Kyuhyun reasoned that it would only make his family go crazy with his injuries. Plus his sudden hours disappearance into the night. It was passed three in the morning.
Kyuhyun swatted Zhou Mi’s hand away on the first aid kit, helping himself with cotton and disinfectant. “Hold still. I could at least do this for you.”
“Alright,” Zhou Mi settled himself comfortable, hands to himself and eyes closed. Kyuhyun made gentle pats on his wounded skin just below his eyes.
“Our fights go like that, kidnapping the persons who are connected to us to hurt us even more. My friend Hyukjae? His step-brother got taken but we got him back.” Zhou Mi told.
“That’s some weird gang fight, alright.” Kyuhyun mused as he continued doing gentle pats on the Zhou Mi’s wound, making sure to clean tiny blood splats. “There, let’s patch it up.”
He was about to reach for the gauze when Zhou Mi took his fingers away, and inspected it closely.
“You have cuts. Those bastards…” Zhou Mi then noticed, upon closer proximity, the cuts on Kyuhyun’s chin. “Gah, even there?”
“I could imagine worst things if you didn’t arrive on time.” Kyuhyun relaxed his tense shoulders, looking at Zhou Mi and his spot of bruise.
“All because of me?”
“You and your gang.” Kyuhyun corrected immediately but there were no signs of anger in there, only relief. He was glad Zhou Mi came for him.
“Let me make it feel better.”
“Ah, it’s okay. I can just put ointment and-oh.”
The lips on his chin weren’t the medicines he was expecting but it kinda did the job. Soft, cool and tingling.
And oh, it was more. Especially Zhou Mi did wonders with his hand cradling his cheek and the other on his chest, his mouth moved upward to nudge it with Kyuhyun’s wounded one. A first kiss he didn’t anticipate. Kyuhyun liked it nonetheless.
And it got deeper.
--
The weeks turned to months of character building and training for self-defense because apparently Zhou Mi concluded that Kyuhyun had no ways to protect himself at all and would only win in virtual fights, which he considered not good training at all.
“You can’t even run a mile without passing out!” Zhou Mi revealed, only to get his nose stuffed with a sweaty palm of gaming.
--
A/N: Awshit. I’m so making PWP my next post. As much as I enjoy writing themes like this, I want to challenge myself to smut. If I weren’t so shy, I’d do it. But I am. *SHAKES FIST* So, well, welcome to the FRAT universe again. In which kidnapping is prominent because we want our OTPs saving their partners and being kick-ass all at the same time. Zhou Mi in his SEMIR ad attire is frikkin’ love that that that that I just had to make him wear it again!
And noisy Kyuhyun is bad hostage Kyuhyun. He could seriously get in trouble for being so snarky! Well, anyway, thank you for those who tolerated this piece of crack. I seriously think it’s crack. Aish.
Please love me, anyway? Me and my convoluted ideas? *OFFERS HUGS* Cakes and cookies are most wonderful too!
- Jiandra
(PS. I need hot hot hot QMi~~~~~ can anyone recommend to some, pretty please? *grabby hands*)