[Super Junior M] Sungmin/Henry
when life gives you lemons, burn life's house down
Sungmin, Henry
4000+ words, pg-13, humor, angst
for the kinkmeme prompt: here. Henry thinks he's dating Sungmin.
Sungmin experiences a moment of complete and total disorientation upon waking up. For starters, he's in a bed that he's not entirely sure that he's ever seen before, though something about it borders on familiar, but he's not willing to put much faith into that line of thought until he's more awake. Also, someone has their face pressed against his neck and their legs tangled with his own and, yeah, that's a hand on his hip. If it weren't for the sharp beeps of the alarm clock somewhere to his left, he'd probably ignore all of these things in favor of going back to sleep. He's been around Super Junior and weirdly clingy boys for long enough to be used to the idea of waking up practically welded to another human being.
"Dammit, son of a-" someone says and, okay, that's Henry. Sungmin is sure of it. No one else has the same way with English curses, or at least not this early in the morning. There's another long string of words that sound vaguely threatening and not a little unlike they've just been made up, and then Henry is smashing his hand in the general vicinity of the alarm. There's a louder beep and then that universal sound of your electronic device has died, sorry and the room is quiet again. "Thought I turned it off earlier," he says, rolling back into Sungmin's side. "Sleep."
Sungmin is wide awake. "Henry?" He tries with his most soothing voice, even if it comes out a little hoarse with sleep and maybe an inflection of confusion. "What are you doing here? In my bed? With me?"
"Hmm?" Henry's breath is warm against his neck and his hand is straying up under Sungmin's shirt and his fingers are way too cold. He mumbles something that gets lost between where his mouth is pressed to Sungmin's skin and the open air where sound has a chance to carry. What he said was either I locked the door and no one will notice or rock the fur, I'm wearing a lotus. Admittedly, Sungmin doesn't really believe it's likely to be the second option. He's seen the designs for their new concept, no lotuses are involved.
"Okay, but Henry-" he glances over at the surprisingly still intact alarm clock and does a quick calculation of the time. If he goes to sleep right now he'll have a little over an hour before he has to get up. It's an easy decision.
In the morning they'll talk.
*
In the morning they don't get a chance to talk. By the time consciousness has returned to Sungmin, Henry is gone. On the plus side, however, the room he's in is his own, so he can conclude that at no point was he kidnapped and forced into some strange location. Or, well, stranger. He doesn't think he'll ever get used to the dorm in China where everything is not quite where it should be and no one is around to police Donghae or Kyuhyun the way Eeteuk has learned how to do after so many years of practice.
He goes in search of Henry or food, whichever he can stumble across first, and instead he finds Hyukjae in the hallway, face mashed into the wall, asleep.
"Don't mind him," Donghae says, sticking his head out of the bathroom. He reaches out and pokes Hyukjae's arm with the end of his toothbrush and they both watch as he begins slowly tilting to the side. It's a skill, Sungmin decides for lack of a nicer way to put it, how at no point does Hyukjae give any indication of waking up. "Oops," Donghae sighs, grabbing Hyukjae by the elbow and trying to haul him into the bathroom with him. "He might be safer with me." And if that's not a blatant lie, Sungmin doesn't know what is.
"Have you seen Henry?" Sungmin asks, "Or food?"
"Kitchen," Donghae says, wrestling Hyukjae's body into a propped up position against the wall.
Sungmin leaves before he sees something he would rather avoid. It's a true test of character that when he walks into the disaster zone that used to be the kitchen he doesn't wish he'd stayed back to help Donghae. Because while the orange juice river and whatever that fluffy blue-colored substance clinging to the ceiling is isn't exactly anything he hasn't seen before, and the small fire erupting in the trash been is absolutely nothing new, and, well, really it's more of the same in a new location. The worst part is how used to it he's become.
"A pipe broke," says Henry, mopping up Ryeowook's face with a towel.
"Sometimes I can't tell if we cause these things to happen or if we're only a group of really unlucky people," says Ryeowook. "I got orange juice up my nose trying to avoid getting sprayed with whatever's in the pipes." He sounds miserable and Sungmin wants to do the good hyung thing and give him a hug, but Ryeowook is covered in indefinable liquids. He settles for a companionable pat on the back and tries his hardest to make it seem warm and caring. His hand comes away sticky after contact with Ryeowook's shirt.
It's then that the manager arrives, standing in the doorway. Behind him is Zhou Mi holding a rag and a bottle of cleaning spray. He has a mop tucked into the crook of his arm. Sungmin wonders sometimes, not often but every once in a while, how Zhou Mi manages to remain so willing to be helpful and friendly, like an overeager puppy when he spends so much of his time with Kyuhyun. Kyuhyun is less like a puppy and more like a... dragon? Maybe a human/computer hybrid bent on something not quite as ambitious as world domination. Admittedly, it's an analogy in progress.
"Come on," says Henry, taking hold of Sungmin's wrist and leading him out of the room and into the second unoccupied bathroom. He doesn't say anything when he guides Sungmin to the sink and begins to gently wipe off whatever is was that had transferred from Ryeowook to his hand. "You seemed really tired last night, so I wanted to let you sleep in and maybe bring you breakfast in bed." He ducks his head down and his thumb begins to trace a circle against Sungmin's skin. "I'm such a girl sometimes."
"Henry," Sungmin starts because this is completely new territory and he's really not sure what's going on anymore. His grip on reality as it appears inside the Super Junior dorms is usually tentative, at best, but this feels different. "What's going on?"
Henry looks up and his smile is way too bright. Something like that should be directed at someone else, not Sungmin, he's sure of this. Except then Henry leans over and kisses him. Not a full, soul-searing, cover of Time magazine kiss, but instead a light brush of lips to the corner of his mouth and Henry is still smiling, so happy and bright and Sungmin can't do it. So he says, "No," and "We can't do this," and "I don't want you like that."
The light fades with the color draining from Henry's face. "What do you mean?" He's still holding on to Sungmin's wrist and the room might actually be getting smaller and more confining. "I don't understand what you're saying."
"We aren't," Sungmin doesn't have enough air in his lungs to finish that sentence, even if he had the strength to do so. The look on Henry's face is more the he can take, so he looks down at Henry's fingers where they burn against his skin. "I don't know what you think is going on, but that's... that's not what we are." Carefully he releases himself from Henry's grip and backs out of the room. He's such a coward right now and he wants to hide. Shouldn't he be stronger than this?
"Sungmin?" Henry sounds lost and hurt and Sungmin just can't do anything. It's all too much when he's not even sure how they got here or when. He doesn't run, but only because it's only a few steps back into his bedroom.
"Dammit," he says into the open air.
*
Eventually, Sungmin figures, he's going to have to find out how to be in the same room with Henry again without the room becoming choked with a sense of awkwardness previously only rivaled by him alone in a room with half of the members of their group. Sungmin likes to think it's not him that causes this reaction in people, so he usually ends the thought there.
The problem is, well, there are a few problems. Mostly it's that without Henry he's left alone a lot more than he used to be. Hyukjae has all of his free time taken up by Donghae because at some point Donghae claimed all of Hyukjae's attention and then forgot how to share. Then there's Kyuhyun, but he never quite learned what emotional support is and Sungmin isn't in the mood for anyone's logic at the moment. Especially the kind that comes with a side order of judgment.
So that leaves other people who don't really matter when Siwon corners him outside of the dressing room in a television station. Siwon may or may not have a sixth sense about people in need of a shoulder to lean on, but there haven't been any conclusive tests. Unless, of course, one were to count some of Heechul's theories. Regardless, Siwon finds him and stands between him and the door making sadfaces and gently patting him on the shoulder. Sungmin wavers between telling Siwon to leave him alone, expletives added, or talking about his feelings.
Siwon makes that decision easy. "So," he starts, "you made Henry sad."
"Leave me alone," Sungmin responds, brushing off Siwon's hand. "I am not talking to you about this."
Siwon tries to look disappointed and concerned at once, but the effect is ruined by his eyebrows. Also, after the first year together, Sungmin learned to build up an immunity to most of Siwon's ridiculously high expectations of all the people around him. Not everyone could be perfect all the time, even if it came so easy to some people. "You need to fix him!"
"No, I don't," Sungmin says.
Siwon lets out a breath and steps aside, letting Sungmin reach the door. But of course that's not enough and he always has to have the last word that just gets under your skin until being a better person just feels like the right thing to do. Heechul may have a point with some of his wilder accusations. "You have to talk to him," he says. "Henry cares about you a lot and whatever happened between you... he's taking it pretty badly. I know you care about him too, so fix this."
If they get into a fight right now, Sungmin is almost certain he could take Siwon. For starters, Sungmin is pretty confident in his skills as a would-be assassin if that boyband gig hadn't worked out. And secondly, Siwon would probably let him win just to be nice. That bastard. So Sungmin relaxes his shoulders and doesn't yell and says, "Yeah, okay." It's the most he can promise at the moment.
*
It takes a few days for Sungmin to decide what to say and a few more days to get the opportunity of catching Henry alone. The kid is sneaky and not easy to catch, almost as if he's had practise. Also, he may be getting help from some other people, not to name anyone specific like Ryeowook or Zhou Mi who are just trying to help in their own way.
Finally, however, they're the only ones in the dorm alone, for reasons that have a lot to do with not wanting to follow up dinner with another dinner. There are only so many times in a single day that he can eat and he was never given the bottomless pit in place as a stomach that the others appear to have been granted. No matter the reason, they are alone, or at least mostly alone if they don't count one of the managers taking a nap somewhere, and it's not like anyone ever counts them anyway.
"Henry," Sungmin starts, shutting the door behind him as softly as he can manage. "I think we should talk."
Henry looks up from the piano, but avoids eye contact with Sungmin, instead choosing to stare somewhere over in the corner. "Yeah, maybe." Which is a start and way more than Sungmin had expected.
"So, I wanted-"
"No, wait," says Henry, standing up and making his way over to Sungmin, finally looking at him. "I'm going to talk and you're going to listen."
Sungmin nods slowly. "Okay."
"Right, okay," Henry takes a deep breath. "Maybe I was wrong and we were never anything like, I mean, you know. But I'm not an idiot and I think maybe you are." Which is not at all what Sungmin was expecting, but Henry keeps going when Sungmin tries to form a response. "We are good together and I like you a lot. More than I thought I would because, I mean, it's just that, you know. But I do like you and I think you feel the same and you don't really know it or you do, because you have to know it, and you're just ignoring it. Or something. I can't figure you out sometimes, but I know we're good together. We were good together..."
"Oh," Sungmin says and the look on Henry's face tells him that he picked the wrong answer in the category of Things To Say, but maybe this time it's not his fault. Sungmin may have more skill in English than a lot of other people he knows, but he can only keep up to a certain extent when the person talking to him keeps switching back and forth between languages. He's pretty sure he got the gist of the matter, though. "We weren't together," he says uselessly.
"You can be so stupid," says Henry. He clenches and unclenches his fist a few times. "Just, please leave me alone. I can't do this. I just want to be over you."
Sungmin leaves feeling like the worst person in the world.
*
He manages to get through an entire day after that before he cracks and looks for someone who might be able to give him an answer or tell him how to fix this situation. Whoever that person is, they don't exist or he can't find them. He ends up talking to Hyukjae instead which might not actually be the worst idea he's ever had, probably. Sometimes Hyukjae has insight into things and wisdom or a song lyric or two that also happen to be relevant.
"I want to fix this," Sungmin says, he stretches his arms up above his head and traces patterns onto the wall with his fingertips and stares up at the ceiling.
Hyukjae tucks his toes under Sungmin's thigh to warm them up. "Okay, so fix it."
Sungmin weighs the pros and cons of tossing Hyukjae's own pillow at his face. He ends up deciding against it when it realizes that the only way to do that would involve lifting his head up to move the pillow and really, nothing is worth that kind of effort at the moment. "If I knew how to fix this, I wouldn't have come to you," he says instead.
"You didn't come to me," Hyukjae points out. He taps his pen against the edge of his notebook a few times in a rhythm that Sungmin is sure he'll hear again later. "I just happened to be in my own room when you decided to hide out here."
"I wasn't hiding," says Sungmin, propping himself up on his elbows.
Hyukjae makes some notes on the paper, then scratches them out. "Okay, if you say so."
Sometimes Hyukjae takes all the fun out of an argument by not paying enough attention to get angry or even argue his point. Sungmin retracts his earlier decision and hits Hyukjae in the face with a pillow. It's not as satisfying as it could be, but it's entirely worth it for the look of utter confusion on Hyukjae's face. "I don't know why I talk to you."
Hyukjae shrugs, picks up his pillow, and hits Sungmin on the head with it.
It's how they communicate.
*
They're in the middle of a recording when Sungmin is hit with an entirely inconvenient epiphany. At once, two things become very clear in his mind. One, he misses Henry a lot more than just a friend, and two, because of One he hates the world a little more than he does on any given day. He's just sitting there, uselessly, watching Henry laugh and joke with Zhou Mi and Donghae and somehow there is a cake involved and none of it makes any sense, but still. Henry doesn't laugh and joke with him, and there certainly hasn't been any cake in a long time. He wants that back. Also, he'd like an interpreter who wasn't too busy watching what was happening onstage rather than, you know, interpreting.
His moment of clarity is ruined when Donghae wraps an arm around Henry's shoulders and Sungmin kind of wants to punch someone in the face. Not very hard, but at least a light tap and maybe call them a name or two. He wants another person to feel as bad as he does for a while. He doesn't do that, though, and instead just smiles for a camera that is pointed in his direction and nods along as if he understood even a single thing going on around him. Which he doesn't, at all.
Then someone is talking to him and judging from their large nametag, they probably work there. Whoever they are, their attention on him finally gets the interpreter to turn around and start speaking to him and yay, questions. What is your ideal type, Sungmin, and Where would you take a girl on a romantic date, Sungmin and So you've realized that maybe the funny Canadian boy with a crush on you has a point and you kind of maybe have something for him, too; so now what, Sungmin. Though it's possible no one asked that last one.
And he's still a little sure that he doesn't have a thing for Henry, he just misses their easy friendship and all of that smiling. There were a lot of insanely bright smiles directed at him and even if the intent behind them wasn't what he thought it was, it was still nice to get it every once in a while. It's like that saying he can't remember about having something and then not having it and wanting to go back and kick your past self for giving up this thing in the first place. It could be that that's not a direct quote, but the significance behind it is the same. For the most part, at least.
Sungmin answers the questions as vaguely as possible and goes back to having deep, meaningful thoughts about his life choices.
*
The first step in his one part plan is to talk to Henry and try to get them back together. As friends, because that's all they ever were, in spite of whatever Henry had mistakenly thought. This, unfortunately, is nowhere near as easy as he hoped it would be. Largely due to the fact that Henry avoids him as if Sungmin spends his spare time spreading plague and disease everywhere, which he does not. That sounds more like a fulltime job than a hobby, anyway, and he doesn't have the time for that.
"I'd like to talk to you," he says, cornering Henry near the front door when he walks in.
"No," says Henry. "No, I can't and I don't want to. Talking to you is really hard and I always walk away feeling like it would be nice to spend the rest of the day in my room, alone, with the lights off, listening to whatever sad music I can find. I don't want to do that again, so please. Please, leave me alone."
Sungmin really hates the painful feeling he gets somewhere in the vicinity of his heart when he's around Henry these days. "Oh," he says, "Okay. Sorry."
"Yeah, well," Henry shrugs, then stops over to get his shoes on. "Yeah. I mean, it'll get better, but. Yeah." The level of sadness in his voice does nothing to ease Sungmin's already worn-out conscience.
It's the longest conversation they've had in two weeks.
*
Sungmin doesn't like to think of himself as a quitter, so he waits a day and thinks about trying again. He settles on waiting another day, and then ends up giving into three. He's postponing the inevitable, but it's not his fault that maybe he was wrong and maybe Henry was right and maybe he is sort of an idiot. It's not like anyone ever taught him how to deal with these things. No one ever puts him in charge, even though they probably should. Except for the human aspect of most jobs, he's really very good at being a leader.
"No," he says, grabbing hold of Henry's elbow and dragging him back into the bedroom. "No, we should talk and you should listen to me this time because I'm older and you're supposed to do what I say and I need you to listen to me."
Henry sits on the edge of his bed and doubles over, resting his head in his hands. "Okay, yeah, you're right. I should stop avoiding you."
It's then that it occurs to Sungmin that maybe they're both idiots. It occurs to him again that maybe it's still mostly him if he's only just now figured out that first part. He ignores these things and says, "I miss you," because what else is there to say. Not including all of the other things that he hasn't quite worked out in his mind yet. "You're my friend and I do care about you a lot and I want you with me."
Henry's entire body seems to sag where he's sitting. It's an odd thing to see and Sungmin doesn't like the part where he's really sure he's to blame for a lot of this. "As friends?"
"Well," Sungmin starts, "yeah, that. And, maybe we could try to work up to the other thing. If you're still interested. I care about you more than I think I'm supposed to. The idea of you and me doesn't scare me as much as I thought it did..."
"But?" says Henry looks like he's on the edge of smiling, but holding out for that last little thing to push him over.
"But I'm not sure it's what I want. I think it might be, but I never thought about it before. I thought about you and me and us, but," Sungmin lifts his hands, palms up, "You're you. I love when you smile at me because of me. I want to figure this out with you."
"Wow," says Henry. He's smiling again, though it's not the one Sungmin maybe craves a little, though it's better than what he's had in a long time and he's willing to wait. Maybe not very long, but after all of this he understands that waiting is probably one of those things he'll have to suffer through. "You really want to try this?"
"Yes?" Sungmin nods slowly. "Yes, definitely. It's you and it's me and we can do anything."
"Okay," Henry smiles and Sungmin has the sudden, nearly overwhelming urge to kiss him. It's times like these that Sungmin thinks he must have the strongest willpower in the world because all he does is reach out and take hold of Henry's hand. He's not quite ready for the bigger gestures of affection yet. He still needs some time. But Henry is happy and Sungmin is happy and nervous and terrified and stupid and his outlook on life hasn't been this good in weeks.
Sungmin, Henry
4000+ words, pg-13, humor, angst
for the kinkmeme prompt: here. Henry thinks he's dating Sungmin.
Sungmin experiences a moment of complete and total disorientation upon waking up. For starters, he's in a bed that he's not entirely sure that he's ever seen before, though something about it borders on familiar, but he's not willing to put much faith into that line of thought until he's more awake. Also, someone has their face pressed against his neck and their legs tangled with his own and, yeah, that's a hand on his hip. If it weren't for the sharp beeps of the alarm clock somewhere to his left, he'd probably ignore all of these things in favor of going back to sleep. He's been around Super Junior and weirdly clingy boys for long enough to be used to the idea of waking up practically welded to another human being.
"Dammit, son of a-" someone says and, okay, that's Henry. Sungmin is sure of it. No one else has the same way with English curses, or at least not this early in the morning. There's another long string of words that sound vaguely threatening and not a little unlike they've just been made up, and then Henry is smashing his hand in the general vicinity of the alarm. There's a louder beep and then that universal sound of your electronic device has died, sorry and the room is quiet again. "Thought I turned it off earlier," he says, rolling back into Sungmin's side. "Sleep."
Sungmin is wide awake. "Henry?" He tries with his most soothing voice, even if it comes out a little hoarse with sleep and maybe an inflection of confusion. "What are you doing here? In my bed? With me?"
"Hmm?" Henry's breath is warm against his neck and his hand is straying up under Sungmin's shirt and his fingers are way too cold. He mumbles something that gets lost between where his mouth is pressed to Sungmin's skin and the open air where sound has a chance to carry. What he said was either I locked the door and no one will notice or rock the fur, I'm wearing a lotus. Admittedly, Sungmin doesn't really believe it's likely to be the second option. He's seen the designs for their new concept, no lotuses are involved.
"Okay, but Henry-" he glances over at the surprisingly still intact alarm clock and does a quick calculation of the time. If he goes to sleep right now he'll have a little over an hour before he has to get up. It's an easy decision.
In the morning they'll talk.
*
In the morning they don't get a chance to talk. By the time consciousness has returned to Sungmin, Henry is gone. On the plus side, however, the room he's in is his own, so he can conclude that at no point was he kidnapped and forced into some strange location. Or, well, stranger. He doesn't think he'll ever get used to the dorm in China where everything is not quite where it should be and no one is around to police Donghae or Kyuhyun the way Eeteuk has learned how to do after so many years of practice.
He goes in search of Henry or food, whichever he can stumble across first, and instead he finds Hyukjae in the hallway, face mashed into the wall, asleep.
"Don't mind him," Donghae says, sticking his head out of the bathroom. He reaches out and pokes Hyukjae's arm with the end of his toothbrush and they both watch as he begins slowly tilting to the side. It's a skill, Sungmin decides for lack of a nicer way to put it, how at no point does Hyukjae give any indication of waking up. "Oops," Donghae sighs, grabbing Hyukjae by the elbow and trying to haul him into the bathroom with him. "He might be safer with me." And if that's not a blatant lie, Sungmin doesn't know what is.
"Have you seen Henry?" Sungmin asks, "Or food?"
"Kitchen," Donghae says, wrestling Hyukjae's body into a propped up position against the wall.
Sungmin leaves before he sees something he would rather avoid. It's a true test of character that when he walks into the disaster zone that used to be the kitchen he doesn't wish he'd stayed back to help Donghae. Because while the orange juice river and whatever that fluffy blue-colored substance clinging to the ceiling is isn't exactly anything he hasn't seen before, and the small fire erupting in the trash been is absolutely nothing new, and, well, really it's more of the same in a new location. The worst part is how used to it he's become.
"A pipe broke," says Henry, mopping up Ryeowook's face with a towel.
"Sometimes I can't tell if we cause these things to happen or if we're only a group of really unlucky people," says Ryeowook. "I got orange juice up my nose trying to avoid getting sprayed with whatever's in the pipes." He sounds miserable and Sungmin wants to do the good hyung thing and give him a hug, but Ryeowook is covered in indefinable liquids. He settles for a companionable pat on the back and tries his hardest to make it seem warm and caring. His hand comes away sticky after contact with Ryeowook's shirt.
It's then that the manager arrives, standing in the doorway. Behind him is Zhou Mi holding a rag and a bottle of cleaning spray. He has a mop tucked into the crook of his arm. Sungmin wonders sometimes, not often but every once in a while, how Zhou Mi manages to remain so willing to be helpful and friendly, like an overeager puppy when he spends so much of his time with Kyuhyun. Kyuhyun is less like a puppy and more like a... dragon? Maybe a human/computer hybrid bent on something not quite as ambitious as world domination. Admittedly, it's an analogy in progress.
"Come on," says Henry, taking hold of Sungmin's wrist and leading him out of the room and into the second unoccupied bathroom. He doesn't say anything when he guides Sungmin to the sink and begins to gently wipe off whatever is was that had transferred from Ryeowook to his hand. "You seemed really tired last night, so I wanted to let you sleep in and maybe bring you breakfast in bed." He ducks his head down and his thumb begins to trace a circle against Sungmin's skin. "I'm such a girl sometimes."
"Henry," Sungmin starts because this is completely new territory and he's really not sure what's going on anymore. His grip on reality as it appears inside the Super Junior dorms is usually tentative, at best, but this feels different. "What's going on?"
Henry looks up and his smile is way too bright. Something like that should be directed at someone else, not Sungmin, he's sure of this. Except then Henry leans over and kisses him. Not a full, soul-searing, cover of Time magazine kiss, but instead a light brush of lips to the corner of his mouth and Henry is still smiling, so happy and bright and Sungmin can't do it. So he says, "No," and "We can't do this," and "I don't want you like that."
The light fades with the color draining from Henry's face. "What do you mean?" He's still holding on to Sungmin's wrist and the room might actually be getting smaller and more confining. "I don't understand what you're saying."
"We aren't," Sungmin doesn't have enough air in his lungs to finish that sentence, even if he had the strength to do so. The look on Henry's face is more the he can take, so he looks down at Henry's fingers where they burn against his skin. "I don't know what you think is going on, but that's... that's not what we are." Carefully he releases himself from Henry's grip and backs out of the room. He's such a coward right now and he wants to hide. Shouldn't he be stronger than this?
"Sungmin?" Henry sounds lost and hurt and Sungmin just can't do anything. It's all too much when he's not even sure how they got here or when. He doesn't run, but only because it's only a few steps back into his bedroom.
"Dammit," he says into the open air.
*
Eventually, Sungmin figures, he's going to have to find out how to be in the same room with Henry again without the room becoming choked with a sense of awkwardness previously only rivaled by him alone in a room with half of the members of their group. Sungmin likes to think it's not him that causes this reaction in people, so he usually ends the thought there.
The problem is, well, there are a few problems. Mostly it's that without Henry he's left alone a lot more than he used to be. Hyukjae has all of his free time taken up by Donghae because at some point Donghae claimed all of Hyukjae's attention and then forgot how to share. Then there's Kyuhyun, but he never quite learned what emotional support is and Sungmin isn't in the mood for anyone's logic at the moment. Especially the kind that comes with a side order of judgment.
So that leaves other people who don't really matter when Siwon corners him outside of the dressing room in a television station. Siwon may or may not have a sixth sense about people in need of a shoulder to lean on, but there haven't been any conclusive tests. Unless, of course, one were to count some of Heechul's theories. Regardless, Siwon finds him and stands between him and the door making sadfaces and gently patting him on the shoulder. Sungmin wavers between telling Siwon to leave him alone, expletives added, or talking about his feelings.
Siwon makes that decision easy. "So," he starts, "you made Henry sad."
"Leave me alone," Sungmin responds, brushing off Siwon's hand. "I am not talking to you about this."
Siwon tries to look disappointed and concerned at once, but the effect is ruined by his eyebrows. Also, after the first year together, Sungmin learned to build up an immunity to most of Siwon's ridiculously high expectations of all the people around him. Not everyone could be perfect all the time, even if it came so easy to some people. "You need to fix him!"
"No, I don't," Sungmin says.
Siwon lets out a breath and steps aside, letting Sungmin reach the door. But of course that's not enough and he always has to have the last word that just gets under your skin until being a better person just feels like the right thing to do. Heechul may have a point with some of his wilder accusations. "You have to talk to him," he says. "Henry cares about you a lot and whatever happened between you... he's taking it pretty badly. I know you care about him too, so fix this."
If they get into a fight right now, Sungmin is almost certain he could take Siwon. For starters, Sungmin is pretty confident in his skills as a would-be assassin if that boyband gig hadn't worked out. And secondly, Siwon would probably let him win just to be nice. That bastard. So Sungmin relaxes his shoulders and doesn't yell and says, "Yeah, okay." It's the most he can promise at the moment.
*
It takes a few days for Sungmin to decide what to say and a few more days to get the opportunity of catching Henry alone. The kid is sneaky and not easy to catch, almost as if he's had practise. Also, he may be getting help from some other people, not to name anyone specific like Ryeowook or Zhou Mi who are just trying to help in their own way.
Finally, however, they're the only ones in the dorm alone, for reasons that have a lot to do with not wanting to follow up dinner with another dinner. There are only so many times in a single day that he can eat and he was never given the bottomless pit in place as a stomach that the others appear to have been granted. No matter the reason, they are alone, or at least mostly alone if they don't count one of the managers taking a nap somewhere, and it's not like anyone ever counts them anyway.
"Henry," Sungmin starts, shutting the door behind him as softly as he can manage. "I think we should talk."
Henry looks up from the piano, but avoids eye contact with Sungmin, instead choosing to stare somewhere over in the corner. "Yeah, maybe." Which is a start and way more than Sungmin had expected.
"So, I wanted-"
"No, wait," says Henry, standing up and making his way over to Sungmin, finally looking at him. "I'm going to talk and you're going to listen."
Sungmin nods slowly. "Okay."
"Right, okay," Henry takes a deep breath. "Maybe I was wrong and we were never anything like, I mean, you know. But I'm not an idiot and I think maybe you are." Which is not at all what Sungmin was expecting, but Henry keeps going when Sungmin tries to form a response. "We are good together and I like you a lot. More than I thought I would because, I mean, it's just that, you know. But I do like you and I think you feel the same and you don't really know it or you do, because you have to know it, and you're just ignoring it. Or something. I can't figure you out sometimes, but I know we're good together. We were good together..."
"Oh," Sungmin says and the look on Henry's face tells him that he picked the wrong answer in the category of Things To Say, but maybe this time it's not his fault. Sungmin may have more skill in English than a lot of other people he knows, but he can only keep up to a certain extent when the person talking to him keeps switching back and forth between languages. He's pretty sure he got the gist of the matter, though. "We weren't together," he says uselessly.
"You can be so stupid," says Henry. He clenches and unclenches his fist a few times. "Just, please leave me alone. I can't do this. I just want to be over you."
Sungmin leaves feeling like the worst person in the world.
*
He manages to get through an entire day after that before he cracks and looks for someone who might be able to give him an answer or tell him how to fix this situation. Whoever that person is, they don't exist or he can't find them. He ends up talking to Hyukjae instead which might not actually be the worst idea he's ever had, probably. Sometimes Hyukjae has insight into things and wisdom or a song lyric or two that also happen to be relevant.
"I want to fix this," Sungmin says, he stretches his arms up above his head and traces patterns onto the wall with his fingertips and stares up at the ceiling.
Hyukjae tucks his toes under Sungmin's thigh to warm them up. "Okay, so fix it."
Sungmin weighs the pros and cons of tossing Hyukjae's own pillow at his face. He ends up deciding against it when it realizes that the only way to do that would involve lifting his head up to move the pillow and really, nothing is worth that kind of effort at the moment. "If I knew how to fix this, I wouldn't have come to you," he says instead.
"You didn't come to me," Hyukjae points out. He taps his pen against the edge of his notebook a few times in a rhythm that Sungmin is sure he'll hear again later. "I just happened to be in my own room when you decided to hide out here."
"I wasn't hiding," says Sungmin, propping himself up on his elbows.
Hyukjae makes some notes on the paper, then scratches them out. "Okay, if you say so."
Sometimes Hyukjae takes all the fun out of an argument by not paying enough attention to get angry or even argue his point. Sungmin retracts his earlier decision and hits Hyukjae in the face with a pillow. It's not as satisfying as it could be, but it's entirely worth it for the look of utter confusion on Hyukjae's face. "I don't know why I talk to you."
Hyukjae shrugs, picks up his pillow, and hits Sungmin on the head with it.
It's how they communicate.
*
They're in the middle of a recording when Sungmin is hit with an entirely inconvenient epiphany. At once, two things become very clear in his mind. One, he misses Henry a lot more than just a friend, and two, because of One he hates the world a little more than he does on any given day. He's just sitting there, uselessly, watching Henry laugh and joke with Zhou Mi and Donghae and somehow there is a cake involved and none of it makes any sense, but still. Henry doesn't laugh and joke with him, and there certainly hasn't been any cake in a long time. He wants that back. Also, he'd like an interpreter who wasn't too busy watching what was happening onstage rather than, you know, interpreting.
His moment of clarity is ruined when Donghae wraps an arm around Henry's shoulders and Sungmin kind of wants to punch someone in the face. Not very hard, but at least a light tap and maybe call them a name or two. He wants another person to feel as bad as he does for a while. He doesn't do that, though, and instead just smiles for a camera that is pointed in his direction and nods along as if he understood even a single thing going on around him. Which he doesn't, at all.
Then someone is talking to him and judging from their large nametag, they probably work there. Whoever they are, their attention on him finally gets the interpreter to turn around and start speaking to him and yay, questions. What is your ideal type, Sungmin, and Where would you take a girl on a romantic date, Sungmin and So you've realized that maybe the funny Canadian boy with a crush on you has a point and you kind of maybe have something for him, too; so now what, Sungmin. Though it's possible no one asked that last one.
And he's still a little sure that he doesn't have a thing for Henry, he just misses their easy friendship and all of that smiling. There were a lot of insanely bright smiles directed at him and even if the intent behind them wasn't what he thought it was, it was still nice to get it every once in a while. It's like that saying he can't remember about having something and then not having it and wanting to go back and kick your past self for giving up this thing in the first place. It could be that that's not a direct quote, but the significance behind it is the same. For the most part, at least.
Sungmin answers the questions as vaguely as possible and goes back to having deep, meaningful thoughts about his life choices.
*
The first step in his one part plan is to talk to Henry and try to get them back together. As friends, because that's all they ever were, in spite of whatever Henry had mistakenly thought. This, unfortunately, is nowhere near as easy as he hoped it would be. Largely due to the fact that Henry avoids him as if Sungmin spends his spare time spreading plague and disease everywhere, which he does not. That sounds more like a fulltime job than a hobby, anyway, and he doesn't have the time for that.
"I'd like to talk to you," he says, cornering Henry near the front door when he walks in.
"No," says Henry. "No, I can't and I don't want to. Talking to you is really hard and I always walk away feeling like it would be nice to spend the rest of the day in my room, alone, with the lights off, listening to whatever sad music I can find. I don't want to do that again, so please. Please, leave me alone."
Sungmin really hates the painful feeling he gets somewhere in the vicinity of his heart when he's around Henry these days. "Oh," he says, "Okay. Sorry."
"Yeah, well," Henry shrugs, then stops over to get his shoes on. "Yeah. I mean, it'll get better, but. Yeah." The level of sadness in his voice does nothing to ease Sungmin's already worn-out conscience.
It's the longest conversation they've had in two weeks.
*
Sungmin doesn't like to think of himself as a quitter, so he waits a day and thinks about trying again. He settles on waiting another day, and then ends up giving into three. He's postponing the inevitable, but it's not his fault that maybe he was wrong and maybe Henry was right and maybe he is sort of an idiot. It's not like anyone ever taught him how to deal with these things. No one ever puts him in charge, even though they probably should. Except for the human aspect of most jobs, he's really very good at being a leader.
"No," he says, grabbing hold of Henry's elbow and dragging him back into the bedroom. "No, we should talk and you should listen to me this time because I'm older and you're supposed to do what I say and I need you to listen to me."
Henry sits on the edge of his bed and doubles over, resting his head in his hands. "Okay, yeah, you're right. I should stop avoiding you."
It's then that it occurs to Sungmin that maybe they're both idiots. It occurs to him again that maybe it's still mostly him if he's only just now figured out that first part. He ignores these things and says, "I miss you," because what else is there to say. Not including all of the other things that he hasn't quite worked out in his mind yet. "You're my friend and I do care about you a lot and I want you with me."
Henry's entire body seems to sag where he's sitting. It's an odd thing to see and Sungmin doesn't like the part where he's really sure he's to blame for a lot of this. "As friends?"
"Well," Sungmin starts, "yeah, that. And, maybe we could try to work up to the other thing. If you're still interested. I care about you more than I think I'm supposed to. The idea of you and me doesn't scare me as much as I thought it did..."
"But?" says Henry looks like he's on the edge of smiling, but holding out for that last little thing to push him over.
"But I'm not sure it's what I want. I think it might be, but I never thought about it before. I thought about you and me and us, but," Sungmin lifts his hands, palms up, "You're you. I love when you smile at me because of me. I want to figure this out with you."
"Wow," says Henry. He's smiling again, though it's not the one Sungmin maybe craves a little, though it's better than what he's had in a long time and he's willing to wait. Maybe not very long, but after all of this he understands that waiting is probably one of those things he'll have to suffer through. "You really want to try this?"
"Yes?" Sungmin nods slowly. "Yes, definitely. It's you and it's me and we can do anything."
"Okay," Henry smiles and Sungmin has the sudden, nearly overwhelming urge to kiss him. It's times like these that Sungmin thinks he must have the strongest willpower in the world because all he does is reach out and take hold of Henry's hand. He's not quite ready for the bigger gestures of affection yet. He still needs some time. But Henry is happy and Sungmin is happy and nervous and terrified and stupid and his outlook on life hasn't been this good in weeks.