I Don't Know You Anymore
Title: I Don't Know You Anymore
Pairing: Kangteuk (I'm a traditionalist!)
Rating: Pg
Genre: Angst
A/N Inspired by Savage Garden's "I Don't Know You Anymore." Please listen if you haven't heard it. It is a beautiful song. I guess I just felt like writing something. ^-^
I don’t know you anymore
Leeteuk wasn’t sure what had made him pick up the phone and dial the old familiar number. The voice that answered was still the same and for a moment Leeteuk could pretend that nothing had changed, but only for a moment. But in that one sweet blissful moment Leeteuk was happier than he had been in months.
“Yobeseyo?” Said the voice on the other end of the telephone line, the voice that was still the same even though everything else was different.
“Kangin” Leeteuk breathed into the phone, then shaking his head because that wasn’t right. It wasn’t Kangin anymore.
“Youngwoon” He corrected.
A pause.
Then “Jungsu-hyung? Is that you?”
Leeteuk sighed. He could be Jungsu, for Kangin he could. “Yeah it’s me”
Silence hung between them, an unreachable distance and Leeteuk wasn’t sure why he had called.
“Look I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called…”
“No …Hyung…I’m, I’m glad you did.”
Hyung. In the old days it had never been Hyung.
“Don’t!” Leeteuk said it more sharply than he had intentded. He hadn’t meant to reveal so much of himself in one word. In the old days he wouldn’t have been afraid to tell Kangin everything, his joys, his worries, the mundane details of his day, but that was before. He had learned to be cautious now. It was just easier that way.
“Don’t, please don’t call me that.” He said in a more gentle tone.
“O-ok Jungsu” Kangin corrected. “Are you alright?”
No I am not alright. Leeteuk wanted to yell. I am no alright because you left us, you left me, and I don’t know how to pick up the pieces without you.
It had been a year almost two, and Leeteuk still couldn’t figure it out. But instead of saying all the things he wanted to say Leeteuk listened to his instincts for self preservation.
“I’m fine” he answered. “I just…I wanted to hear your voice again.” There wasn’t really a reply Kangin could make to that, and Leeteuk wasn’t really looking for one. There was just one thing more Leeteuk needed to hear.
“I guess…I guess I’m just wondering…if things had gone differently…do you think we would have…?” Leeteuk let the question trail off. They both knew where it was heading anyways, and they both knew it was veering into dangerous territory. The parts they weren’t quite ready to talk about yet.
Leeteuk had learned to deal with it, the constant heartache that was more akin to a soul ache. He had learned to function through the pain until the pain itself had become ordinary. The wounds had been so rough at the beginning, so raw and painful, Leeteuk had slapped on his cheap band-aids, his cobbled together bandages of friends and bandmates. He wasn’t ready to take them off yet. He wasn’t yet ready to face the scars he would be left with. He wasn’t sure Kangin was either.
Again there was a silence on the line.
Finally Kangin sighed, a deep heavy sigh that reminded Leeteuk again of how much they both had changed.
“Yeah Teuk, I really think we would have”
That was all Leeteuk needed.
“Look Jungsu I really should go, I’m kind of in the middle of something.” It was a poor attempt at escape, a hasty retreat but Leeteuk understood.
“Right Yeah, ok. Sorry I called…” Neither one of them was sure how to end it.
“It’s ok.”
“Right Ok, Bye”
“Goodbye Teuk.”
And then there was silence, where ‘I Love You’ used to stand.