set the room on fire: v
set the room on fire ; v
super junior | 15 | fem!kyuhyun / donghae
"Okay," Sungmin said exasperatedly, "Spill. I'm sick and tired of this whole, 'ignore Donghae and give practically fucking everyone including my best friend the cold shoulder' act. It's killing me, Kyu."
Kyuhyun gave the cheerful girl beside her an odd glance. "Then go talk to Jessica," she replied easily. "Besides, I'm not putting on any act."
At this, Kyuhyun could practically feel the glare that Sungmin was boring onto the side of her face. If it had been anyone else than Kyuhyun, she would've cracked and started to beg for forgiveness. But she was Cho Kyuhyun, and she knew Sungmin for more than a total of ten years - she knew when Sungmin was happy and sad and angry, and she knew every glare and hug and smile that Sungmin had ever given her.
The downside was, Sungmin knew her just as well, if not even better.
"Don't give me that crap, Cho Kyuhyun," Sungmin fumed. "I've been on the brunt end of Hyukjae's worries! He keeps on talking about how Donghae just shut down, how he won't dance, how he's spacing out lately...and then you go and do the same thing, if not worse. What the fuck happened?"
"Ming," Kyuhyun started wearily, using the familiar nickname she had for Sungmin.
"Don't you Ming me. You better tell your unni everything, and you better do it now. Before I go call someone like Teukie-unni. Do you want me to call Teukie-unni?" Kyuhyun's eyes widened in alarm. Though Sungmin and Kyuhyun were the best of friends and practically attached at the hip, there was always one more person that seemed to seep through their friendship and land a place there. In fact, Leeteuk seemed to do that to everyone, with her angelic smile and naturally caring nature.
"You wouldn't," Kyuhyun choked out, starting to rise from her chair where she was reading and trying to avoid talking to anybody, but Sungmin was faster. With a smirk on her face, she stood up and called out sweetly, "Oh Teukie-unni~? Can you come over here for a second?"
Kyuhyun's face morphed into one of horror as she remembered that Leeteuk worked at the library nearly everyday. She always saw the woman walking around, humming a new song under her breath or chattering happily with someone, but she never actually thought of it much. Kyuhyun jerked and made a move to leave quickly, but then Sungmin grabbed a tight hold on her wrist and murmured darkly, "You try to leave and I will flip you over."
Considering she was a blackbelt in all the types of martial arts that Kyuhyun knew, she stilled immediately, turning pale.
"Sungmin-ah," Kyuhyun tried again, voice pleading, but then Leeteuk had made their way toward them with a bright, happy smile on her face.
"Sungmin-ah, Kyuhyun-ah," Leeteuk greeted. "I haven't seen you guys in a while! How are my favourite dongsaengs doing?"
Sungmin laughed good-naturedly. "I'm doing fine, Teukie-unni. But the thing is...I'm afraid Kyuhyun isn't, and she's just so depressed these days." Sungmin ignored Kyuhyun's urgent whispers of, I'll kill you Sungmin I swear and focused on looking as sad as possible. "I just...I don't know what to do. And I thought that maybe you could help talk to her with me - you know, try to figure out what's wrong?" Her grip on Kyuhyun's wrist tightened as the other girl tried to break free and she leaned forward to whisper sympathetically in Leeteuk's ear, "I thought that a mother figure would help."
Leeteuk's eyes showed understanding when Sungmin pulled back, allowing the other to smile to herself. Leeteuk sat down next to Kyuhyun's seat as Sungmin forcibly shoved her down, something that she made sure Leeteuk herself didn't see.
Kyuhyun couldn't leave now, and she felt a strange sense of foreboding settle in her stomach. When Leeteuk had that look in her eyes, it was never, ever good. It meant a lot of coddling and hugging and sentimental talk.
"Kyuhyun-ah," Leeteuk started, her voice soothing. Kyuhyun felt her shoulders relax, then cursed herself for letting them relax. "What's up?"
"The sky," Kyuhyun replied flatly, looking back to her book. "And when you ask when something's wrong, there's nothing wrong, so save your breath."
"Kyuhyun," Sungmin started, voice tad sharp, "Don't be rude to unni."
Leeteuk laughed. "It's okay, Sungmin-ah." She addressed Kyuhyun again, this time taking Kyuhyun's face in her palms and turning the bewildered girl's face to hers. Kyuhyun's face was paler than usual (something both of them thought couldn't happen) and there was faint circles under her eyes. Leeteuk continued, concerned, "Kyuhyun-ah, I know that there's nothing wrong. But I also know that you're sad...and you're scared, right?" Kyuhyun's eyes flashed, and Leeteuk's brown ones softened. "You can tell me, okay? Nothing will hurt you."
"I'm not..." Kyuhyun started, but only to be cut off by Sungmin's hand on her shoulder. "Kyuhyun," she said, looking at her meaningfully.
Kyuhyun looked into Sungmin's eyes and her heart clenched painfully. Only now did she realize what kind of pain she had been putting Sungmin through. This was her best friend, the girl that she knew since forever, the girl that bandaged up her knees after she climbed a tree and fell, the same girl that followed when Kyuhyun would pull her out at night and skip through the rain, the same girl that always smiled when she sang.
And she realized how much it would've hurt when she suddenly stopped talking, stopped caring, stopped acting like she was alive to the world in the span of one day. How it went on for a week, how she just dropped everything and every single semblance of normalcy for just a stupid crush...a stupid fear, a stupid emotion in her chest that kept beating when she didn't want it to. And Kyuhyun felt so incredibly stupid, so incredibly dense, so incredibly childish. Her eyes became hot without her permission, but she couldn't stop it.
"It was...it was Donghae," she said, trailing off once and then averting her eyes from Sungmin's face. She didn't miss the way that the girl's hand clenched on her shoulder, or the way that Leeteuk's hands moved to her head, her hands threading through the dark locks as if it was completely natural.
"A boy?" Leeteuk guessed, seeing the way that Sungmin's features took on one of seething fury. The other girl nodded tightly. Her eyes narrowed.
"What did he do to you, Kyuhyun?" Sungmin demanded. "Tell me. I'll punch the daylights out of him, my boyfriend's best friend be damned."
"Sungmin-ah," the brunette girl interrupted, "Stay calm. Let Kyuhyun talk first."
Sungmin seemed to do this grudgingly, but Kyuhyun stayed quiet for some time. She opened her mouth many times, just looking for the right words to say: he made me like him, and I don't know if it's like or love or what, and it scares me or he's the greatest friend I've had, just next to you Sungmin, and he's done it in like forty eight hours and I don't think friendship is supposed to be that way and I like him, or do I just like the way he treats me, or what? and I don't want to ruin this friendship oh Sungmin I'm scared.
"I'm scared," she repeated, voice low. "I'm...I'm scared."
"Of what?" Leeteuk's voice was like a lullaby, and Kyuhyun found herself leaning into the older girl's touch. She reminded Kyuhyun of her mother, whom she hadn't seen in a year, and she wondered if Leeteuk just reminded the whole world about their own mother. She was just that kind of person.
"I...Donghae, he kissed me."
Silence. It wasn't as if they were talking very loud in the first place, and there wasn't many people in the library, but the silence seemed much too loud to Kyuhyun all of a sudden. She wanted to plug her ears and squeeze it all out.
"...I thought you liked him, Kyuhyun," Sungmin reminded her silently.
"I liked him as a friend," she croaked out, but the beating of her heart gave her away as a liar. "At least...I thought I did...I only knew him for two days! Two days, and...I don't know...god, this is stupid, I don't, I don't cry and shit..."
"Everyone cries," Leeteuk said firmly. "Just because you're a snarky little dongsaeng doesn't mean that you aren't a person. Human." Leeteuk patted Kyuhyun on the head. "Everyone gets sad in their life, and everyone cries. Just because you think that your personality doesn't make you out as a person who would cry...as a person who wouldn't feel things like love...doesn't mean that you don't feel them anyway."
"I never said anything about love," Kyuhyun choked out, her ears going red on that one word. "Besides, what kind of stupid thinking is that, falling in love with a person you've known for only two days..."
"Can you forget about the two day thing?" Sungmin asked, exasperated. "Does time matter when it comes to feelings? Do you need to know someone for millions of years just to love them?"
"I do."
Sungmin glared at the dark-haired girl. "What is time anyway, Kyu? It's something that mankind's made up to make our lives easier. When to sleep, when to eat, when to go to work. That's all it is. It doesn't count at all about that thing in your brain that makes you love." Sungmin jabbed a manicured finger toward Kyuhyun's temple, making her head bob. "Your brain is telling you that you like Donghae, and your heart is telling you the same thing. That's all it is, right? Why are you so scared?"
Because people don't feel something like I did for a person just like that.
The first time she ever met Donghae, she was aware that there was some sort of attraction between them. Like a north and south pole, they were opposites. They were supposed to be opposites. So why did Kyuhyun see so much of herself in him, see so many of the things she wanted to be, so many things she admired? The fact that they had so much more in common than she originally thought, the fact that whenever she saw him a smile would just pop up, the fact that being with him was warm and electric at the same time scared her.
You don't feel something like that for a person in a snap. But she did, and the way that it was spiraling bigger and farther and out of her control scared her. Lack of control - it scared her, especially when it came to something that was as close as her feelings, something she'd always held close to her chest...except recently.
"I think you're overthinking it," Sungmin assured her. "If Donghae kissed you, that means he likes you back, right?" Sungmin felt more than uneasy when Kyuhyun kept quiet, not answering. Sure, Sungmin was a master of things like love, but when it came to Kyuhyun...that girl was harder to figure out than any couple scrabble.
"Kyu, we can't understand if you don't tell us," Leeteuk brought Kyuhyun's head to her shoulder, ignoring the dark-haired girl's eyes widening in surprise. "Tell Teukie-unni, Teukie-unni will make it all better."
"That's just stupid," Kyuhyun retorted, but her voice was muffled by brunette hair over Leeteuk's shoulder. Oh god, Kyuhyun thought, she even smells like mum.
"How can I like someone so fast?" she said finally, just when Sungmin opened her mouth to try and persuade Kyuhyun to talk. "How can I fall for someone so quickly? Is that how feelings work? My past boyfriend...he never made me feel like this, and I've only known Donghae for -" at Sungmin's glare, she amended, "...and I barely know him."
"Yeah right," Sungmin scoffed. "Why are you trying to delude yourself like this, Kyu? It's obviously hurting you." Her voice quietened. "I don't like it when you're hurt."
Kyuhyun kept quiet again. All she could hear was the thumping of a steady beat, familiar.
"If you're scared because he's your friend," Leeteuk started, taking note of how Kyuhyun tensed slightly, "Don't be. That just proves that you know him better than you think...and it proves that your feelings are real."
Kyuhyun said something, but it was muffled. Then came the irritated answer, "I feel like such a girl."
"You are a girl, stupid," Sungmin muttered. Then she added, "Well, you better be." She got a kick for that comment in return.
"You shouldn't let things like love mess you up, Kyuhyun-ah~!" Leeteuk sang. She brought Kyuhyun's head up, and saw that the girl seemed to have come to a simple conclusion to something by herself. "After all, you wouldn't be you if you weren't your sarcastic and cynical, but lovable self."
Kyuhyun just stared at her. "You know, sometimes I feel like you're the reincarnation of my mum." Leeteuk just laughed.
Sungmin knew her best friend better than anyone. She knew what made her happy (Starcraft, coffee, and music) and she knew what made her sad (being ignored, being left behind) and she knew what made her mad (treated as inferior, losing control, failing at Starcraft, flunking a test, called names, getting in trouble - mostly everything). Sungmin often thought Kyuhyun as the sister she's never had...the person that sometimes could look at her and know everything that she was thinking. Though she liked (possibly loved? It was still a blur) Hyukjae, Kyuhyun would always hold a special position in her heart.
And Sungmin would do anything for Kyuhyun, especially now. Especially when her dongsaeng is in pain, confusion, doubting herself and what she should do. Donghae messed Kyuhyun up, Sungmin put it simply, even if it wasn't all that bad. No, even though being given the cold shoulder hurt (like a bitch) Sungmin wouldn't blame Kyuhyun or Donghae. Kyuhyun was still young, still didn't know how to sort out her feelings. Sungmin knew her cue when it came; Kyuhyun had helped her so much in her life, and now it was Sungmin's turn to return the favour.
She sat in the canteen, her hands around her steaming cup of coffee, pursing her lips. Her shoulders were tense and there were a million things going through her mind at the moment; at particular, what she should say to Donghae when he would get here.
Speak of the devil, Sungmin thought as her eyes caught the familiar figure of Lee Donghae, making his way toward her from the opposite side of the canteen. Her caught her serious eyes and then turned a one-eighty degree, walking toward her table.
"Hyungsoo-nim," Donghae greeted, causing Sungmin to blink in surprise. She opened her mouth just to gape at him for a second, but then he sat down beside her and continued on, "Hyukjae-ah said that you wanted to talk to me."
Sungmin closed her mouth and inspected the other man for a moment. He was slightly paler, and his eyes looked tired. His smile seemed a little strained, and his shoulders slumped. Dear god, Sungmin prayed desperately, please don't tell me I have another dense idiot that's 'scared' on my hands.
"I'll make this quick and blunt," she said succinctly. Levelling her eyes to his, she continued, "Do you like Kyuhyun or not?"
Whatever Donghae was expecting, it certainly wasn't that. It was his turn to gape now, with his mouth slightly open, looking like he was in the middle of answering and not answering at all. Sungmin feared for a second that he would give her some bullshit about just liking Kyuhyun as a friend or whatever, but then she remembered that her best friend had said that Donghae kissed her, not the other way around.
Thankfully, he didn't fail to deliver. "Probably too much for my own good," he admitted.
Sungmin let out a little relieved breath that escaped his notice. "You know, she cried over you the other day." Carefully, she took in his reaction. Though Donghae's expression didn't change, his hand clenched into a visible fist on the table top. "She told us she felt about you. And I'm telling you now, it's pretty much the same."
Donghae seemed to visibly deflate. "Then why'd she run away?" he whispered. "I barely...barely had time to confess, and she just took one wide-eyed look at me and ran out the door." He shook his head. "I left her bag outside your door, but...she never..." Sungmin felt her heart go out for the boy. Jeez, from his point of view, he made it look like Kyuhyun was the one that seemed to reject him, though for her it was an even more complicated matter.
"She was scared," Sungmin told him plainly. "So scared that she couldn't face you. So scared that it took me a week to crack those feelings out of her, and even then I'm not sure what compelled her to tell me. Kyuhyun's a secretive person, Donghae-ssi, and she keeps her heart hidden under her sleeve. But I do know her well enough to tell you one thing, Donghae-ssi. She does like you."
Donghae kept quiet, and Sungmin felt that he didn't really believe her. God Kyuhyun, Sungmin thought irritably, What did you do to this kid?
"Kyuhyun...she's never experienced these kind of feelings before," Sungmin explained slowly. "It's all new to her. Though she's had a relationship before - " here she noticed with satisfaction that Donghae's hand clenched again, " - she's never felt such strong feelings for a person before. Feelings that she has for you."
"What should I do, then?" Donghae asked, voice slightly desperate. "I haven't felt like this before either."
The confession stunned Sungmin for a second. She thought of Donghae as a person who loved easily, who let his heart go fully, but it seemed that it wasn't that way either. "Grab her," she suggested. "Make her listen to you. Then never let her go."
Donghae didn't say anything, but Sungmin knew that he heard anyway. Knowing that her work was done, she got up and threw out her coffee cup in the garbage, her mind easing knowing that she had done something, anything to help those two helplessly-in-love idiots.
...um. Did I make this into a Korean-drama? I think I did.
...Oh well. Should I draw out the story longer or just leave it at Donghae and Kyuhyun having their happy ending? (...Nah, who likes happy endings. Let's just make this a thirty-chaptered novellette, haha.) And you guys, I'm starting to seriously love my Sungmin. She's just so...yeah. I WANT HER AS MY BFF ksljdoijakl;fjlkafa.
Oh, and whoever's watch WGM would know about Donghae's nickname for Sungmin - "hyungsoo-nim", which literally means "the wife of my brother". So he's saying she's his sister-in-law, which temporarily throws off Sungmin. I loved adding that in there.
...and yes, I made Leeteuk a female. Don't deny his omma-tendencies. THEY ARE THERE.
part i | part ii | part iii | part iv | part v | part vi
super junior | 15 | fem!kyuhyun / donghae
"Okay," Sungmin said exasperatedly, "Spill. I'm sick and tired of this whole, 'ignore Donghae and give practically fucking everyone including my best friend the cold shoulder' act. It's killing me, Kyu."
Kyuhyun gave the cheerful girl beside her an odd glance. "Then go talk to Jessica," she replied easily. "Besides, I'm not putting on any act."
At this, Kyuhyun could practically feel the glare that Sungmin was boring onto the side of her face. If it had been anyone else than Kyuhyun, she would've cracked and started to beg for forgiveness. But she was Cho Kyuhyun, and she knew Sungmin for more than a total of ten years - she knew when Sungmin was happy and sad and angry, and she knew every glare and hug and smile that Sungmin had ever given her.
The downside was, Sungmin knew her just as well, if not even better.
"Don't give me that crap, Cho Kyuhyun," Sungmin fumed. "I've been on the brunt end of Hyukjae's worries! He keeps on talking about how Donghae just shut down, how he won't dance, how he's spacing out lately...and then you go and do the same thing, if not worse. What the fuck happened?"
"Ming," Kyuhyun started wearily, using the familiar nickname she had for Sungmin.
"Don't you Ming me. You better tell your unni everything, and you better do it now. Before I go call someone like Teukie-unni. Do you want me to call Teukie-unni?" Kyuhyun's eyes widened in alarm. Though Sungmin and Kyuhyun were the best of friends and practically attached at the hip, there was always one more person that seemed to seep through their friendship and land a place there. In fact, Leeteuk seemed to do that to everyone, with her angelic smile and naturally caring nature.
"You wouldn't," Kyuhyun choked out, starting to rise from her chair where she was reading and trying to avoid talking to anybody, but Sungmin was faster. With a smirk on her face, she stood up and called out sweetly, "Oh Teukie-unni~? Can you come over here for a second?"
Kyuhyun's face morphed into one of horror as she remembered that Leeteuk worked at the library nearly everyday. She always saw the woman walking around, humming a new song under her breath or chattering happily with someone, but she never actually thought of it much. Kyuhyun jerked and made a move to leave quickly, but then Sungmin grabbed a tight hold on her wrist and murmured darkly, "You try to leave and I will flip you over."
Considering she was a blackbelt in all the types of martial arts that Kyuhyun knew, she stilled immediately, turning pale.
"Sungmin-ah," Kyuhyun tried again, voice pleading, but then Leeteuk had made their way toward them with a bright, happy smile on her face.
"Sungmin-ah, Kyuhyun-ah," Leeteuk greeted. "I haven't seen you guys in a while! How are my favourite dongsaengs doing?"
Sungmin laughed good-naturedly. "I'm doing fine, Teukie-unni. But the thing is...I'm afraid Kyuhyun isn't, and she's just so depressed these days." Sungmin ignored Kyuhyun's urgent whispers of, I'll kill you Sungmin I swear and focused on looking as sad as possible. "I just...I don't know what to do. And I thought that maybe you could help talk to her with me - you know, try to figure out what's wrong?" Her grip on Kyuhyun's wrist tightened as the other girl tried to break free and she leaned forward to whisper sympathetically in Leeteuk's ear, "I thought that a mother figure would help."
Leeteuk's eyes showed understanding when Sungmin pulled back, allowing the other to smile to herself. Leeteuk sat down next to Kyuhyun's seat as Sungmin forcibly shoved her down, something that she made sure Leeteuk herself didn't see.
Kyuhyun couldn't leave now, and she felt a strange sense of foreboding settle in her stomach. When Leeteuk had that look in her eyes, it was never, ever good. It meant a lot of coddling and hugging and sentimental talk.
"Kyuhyun-ah," Leeteuk started, her voice soothing. Kyuhyun felt her shoulders relax, then cursed herself for letting them relax. "What's up?"
"The sky," Kyuhyun replied flatly, looking back to her book. "And when you ask when something's wrong, there's nothing wrong, so save your breath."
"Kyuhyun," Sungmin started, voice tad sharp, "Don't be rude to unni."
Leeteuk laughed. "It's okay, Sungmin-ah." She addressed Kyuhyun again, this time taking Kyuhyun's face in her palms and turning the bewildered girl's face to hers. Kyuhyun's face was paler than usual (something both of them thought couldn't happen) and there was faint circles under her eyes. Leeteuk continued, concerned, "Kyuhyun-ah, I know that there's nothing wrong. But I also know that you're sad...and you're scared, right?" Kyuhyun's eyes flashed, and Leeteuk's brown ones softened. "You can tell me, okay? Nothing will hurt you."
"I'm not..." Kyuhyun started, but only to be cut off by Sungmin's hand on her shoulder. "Kyuhyun," she said, looking at her meaningfully.
Kyuhyun looked into Sungmin's eyes and her heart clenched painfully. Only now did she realize what kind of pain she had been putting Sungmin through. This was her best friend, the girl that she knew since forever, the girl that bandaged up her knees after she climbed a tree and fell, the same girl that followed when Kyuhyun would pull her out at night and skip through the rain, the same girl that always smiled when she sang.
And she realized how much it would've hurt when she suddenly stopped talking, stopped caring, stopped acting like she was alive to the world in the span of one day. How it went on for a week, how she just dropped everything and every single semblance of normalcy for just a stupid crush...a stupid fear, a stupid emotion in her chest that kept beating when she didn't want it to. And Kyuhyun felt so incredibly stupid, so incredibly dense, so incredibly childish. Her eyes became hot without her permission, but she couldn't stop it.
"It was...it was Donghae," she said, trailing off once and then averting her eyes from Sungmin's face. She didn't miss the way that the girl's hand clenched on her shoulder, or the way that Leeteuk's hands moved to her head, her hands threading through the dark locks as if it was completely natural.
"A boy?" Leeteuk guessed, seeing the way that Sungmin's features took on one of seething fury. The other girl nodded tightly. Her eyes narrowed.
"What did he do to you, Kyuhyun?" Sungmin demanded. "Tell me. I'll punch the daylights out of him, my boyfriend's best friend be damned."
"Sungmin-ah," the brunette girl interrupted, "Stay calm. Let Kyuhyun talk first."
Sungmin seemed to do this grudgingly, but Kyuhyun stayed quiet for some time. She opened her mouth many times, just looking for the right words to say: he made me like him, and I don't know if it's like or love or what, and it scares me or he's the greatest friend I've had, just next to you Sungmin, and he's done it in like forty eight hours and I don't think friendship is supposed to be that way and I like him, or do I just like the way he treats me, or what? and I don't want to ruin this friendship oh Sungmin I'm scared.
"I'm scared," she repeated, voice low. "I'm...I'm scared."
"Of what?" Leeteuk's voice was like a lullaby, and Kyuhyun found herself leaning into the older girl's touch. She reminded Kyuhyun of her mother, whom she hadn't seen in a year, and she wondered if Leeteuk just reminded the whole world about their own mother. She was just that kind of person.
"I...Donghae, he kissed me."
Silence. It wasn't as if they were talking very loud in the first place, and there wasn't many people in the library, but the silence seemed much too loud to Kyuhyun all of a sudden. She wanted to plug her ears and squeeze it all out.
"...I thought you liked him, Kyuhyun," Sungmin reminded her silently.
"I liked him as a friend," she croaked out, but the beating of her heart gave her away as a liar. "At least...I thought I did...I only knew him for two days! Two days, and...I don't know...god, this is stupid, I don't, I don't cry and shit..."
"Everyone cries," Leeteuk said firmly. "Just because you're a snarky little dongsaeng doesn't mean that you aren't a person. Human." Leeteuk patted Kyuhyun on the head. "Everyone gets sad in their life, and everyone cries. Just because you think that your personality doesn't make you out as a person who would cry...as a person who wouldn't feel things like love...doesn't mean that you don't feel them anyway."
"I never said anything about love," Kyuhyun choked out, her ears going red on that one word. "Besides, what kind of stupid thinking is that, falling in love with a person you've known for only two days..."
"Can you forget about the two day thing?" Sungmin asked, exasperated. "Does time matter when it comes to feelings? Do you need to know someone for millions of years just to love them?"
"I do."
Sungmin glared at the dark-haired girl. "What is time anyway, Kyu? It's something that mankind's made up to make our lives easier. When to sleep, when to eat, when to go to work. That's all it is. It doesn't count at all about that thing in your brain that makes you love." Sungmin jabbed a manicured finger toward Kyuhyun's temple, making her head bob. "Your brain is telling you that you like Donghae, and your heart is telling you the same thing. That's all it is, right? Why are you so scared?"
Because people don't feel something like I did for a person just like that.
The first time she ever met Donghae, she was aware that there was some sort of attraction between them. Like a north and south pole, they were opposites. They were supposed to be opposites. So why did Kyuhyun see so much of herself in him, see so many of the things she wanted to be, so many things she admired? The fact that they had so much more in common than she originally thought, the fact that whenever she saw him a smile would just pop up, the fact that being with him was warm and electric at the same time scared her.
You don't feel something like that for a person in a snap. But she did, and the way that it was spiraling bigger and farther and out of her control scared her. Lack of control - it scared her, especially when it came to something that was as close as her feelings, something she'd always held close to her chest...except recently.
"I think you're overthinking it," Sungmin assured her. "If Donghae kissed you, that means he likes you back, right?" Sungmin felt more than uneasy when Kyuhyun kept quiet, not answering. Sure, Sungmin was a master of things like love, but when it came to Kyuhyun...that girl was harder to figure out than any couple scrabble.
"Kyu, we can't understand if you don't tell us," Leeteuk brought Kyuhyun's head to her shoulder, ignoring the dark-haired girl's eyes widening in surprise. "Tell Teukie-unni, Teukie-unni will make it all better."
"That's just stupid," Kyuhyun retorted, but her voice was muffled by brunette hair over Leeteuk's shoulder. Oh god, Kyuhyun thought, she even smells like mum.
"How can I like someone so fast?" she said finally, just when Sungmin opened her mouth to try and persuade Kyuhyun to talk. "How can I fall for someone so quickly? Is that how feelings work? My past boyfriend...he never made me feel like this, and I've only known Donghae for -" at Sungmin's glare, she amended, "...and I barely know him."
"Yeah right," Sungmin scoffed. "Why are you trying to delude yourself like this, Kyu? It's obviously hurting you." Her voice quietened. "I don't like it when you're hurt."
Kyuhyun kept quiet again. All she could hear was the thumping of a steady beat, familiar.
"If you're scared because he's your friend," Leeteuk started, taking note of how Kyuhyun tensed slightly, "Don't be. That just proves that you know him better than you think...and it proves that your feelings are real."
Kyuhyun said something, but it was muffled. Then came the irritated answer, "I feel like such a girl."
"You are a girl, stupid," Sungmin muttered. Then she added, "Well, you better be." She got a kick for that comment in return.
"You shouldn't let things like love mess you up, Kyuhyun-ah~!" Leeteuk sang. She brought Kyuhyun's head up, and saw that the girl seemed to have come to a simple conclusion to something by herself. "After all, you wouldn't be you if you weren't your sarcastic and cynical, but lovable self."
Kyuhyun just stared at her. "You know, sometimes I feel like you're the reincarnation of my mum." Leeteuk just laughed.
Sungmin knew her best friend better than anyone. She knew what made her happy (Starcraft, coffee, and music) and she knew what made her sad (being ignored, being left behind) and she knew what made her mad (treated as inferior, losing control, failing at Starcraft, flunking a test, called names, getting in trouble - mostly everything). Sungmin often thought Kyuhyun as the sister she's never had...the person that sometimes could look at her and know everything that she was thinking. Though she liked (possibly loved? It was still a blur) Hyukjae, Kyuhyun would always hold a special position in her heart.
And Sungmin would do anything for Kyuhyun, especially now. Especially when her dongsaeng is in pain, confusion, doubting herself and what she should do. Donghae messed Kyuhyun up, Sungmin put it simply, even if it wasn't all that bad. No, even though being given the cold shoulder hurt (like a bitch) Sungmin wouldn't blame Kyuhyun or Donghae. Kyuhyun was still young, still didn't know how to sort out her feelings. Sungmin knew her cue when it came; Kyuhyun had helped her so much in her life, and now it was Sungmin's turn to return the favour.
She sat in the canteen, her hands around her steaming cup of coffee, pursing her lips. Her shoulders were tense and there were a million things going through her mind at the moment; at particular, what she should say to Donghae when he would get here.
Speak of the devil, Sungmin thought as her eyes caught the familiar figure of Lee Donghae, making his way toward her from the opposite side of the canteen. Her caught her serious eyes and then turned a one-eighty degree, walking toward her table.
"Hyungsoo-nim," Donghae greeted, causing Sungmin to blink in surprise. She opened her mouth just to gape at him for a second, but then he sat down beside her and continued on, "Hyukjae-ah said that you wanted to talk to me."
Sungmin closed her mouth and inspected the other man for a moment. He was slightly paler, and his eyes looked tired. His smile seemed a little strained, and his shoulders slumped. Dear god, Sungmin prayed desperately, please don't tell me I have another dense idiot that's 'scared' on my hands.
"I'll make this quick and blunt," she said succinctly. Levelling her eyes to his, she continued, "Do you like Kyuhyun or not?"
Whatever Donghae was expecting, it certainly wasn't that. It was his turn to gape now, with his mouth slightly open, looking like he was in the middle of answering and not answering at all. Sungmin feared for a second that he would give her some bullshit about just liking Kyuhyun as a friend or whatever, but then she remembered that her best friend had said that Donghae kissed her, not the other way around.
Thankfully, he didn't fail to deliver. "Probably too much for my own good," he admitted.
Sungmin let out a little relieved breath that escaped his notice. "You know, she cried over you the other day." Carefully, she took in his reaction. Though Donghae's expression didn't change, his hand clenched into a visible fist on the table top. "She told us she felt about you. And I'm telling you now, it's pretty much the same."
Donghae seemed to visibly deflate. "Then why'd she run away?" he whispered. "I barely...barely had time to confess, and she just took one wide-eyed look at me and ran out the door." He shook his head. "I left her bag outside your door, but...she never..." Sungmin felt her heart go out for the boy. Jeez, from his point of view, he made it look like Kyuhyun was the one that seemed to reject him, though for her it was an even more complicated matter.
"She was scared," Sungmin told him plainly. "So scared that she couldn't face you. So scared that it took me a week to crack those feelings out of her, and even then I'm not sure what compelled her to tell me. Kyuhyun's a secretive person, Donghae-ssi, and she keeps her heart hidden under her sleeve. But I do know her well enough to tell you one thing, Donghae-ssi. She does like you."
Donghae kept quiet, and Sungmin felt that he didn't really believe her. God Kyuhyun, Sungmin thought irritably, What did you do to this kid?
"Kyuhyun...she's never experienced these kind of feelings before," Sungmin explained slowly. "It's all new to her. Though she's had a relationship before - " here she noticed with satisfaction that Donghae's hand clenched again, " - she's never felt such strong feelings for a person before. Feelings that she has for you."
"What should I do, then?" Donghae asked, voice slightly desperate. "I haven't felt like this before either."
The confession stunned Sungmin for a second. She thought of Donghae as a person who loved easily, who let his heart go fully, but it seemed that it wasn't that way either. "Grab her," she suggested. "Make her listen to you. Then never let her go."
Donghae didn't say anything, but Sungmin knew that he heard anyway. Knowing that her work was done, she got up and threw out her coffee cup in the garbage, her mind easing knowing that she had done something, anything to help those two helplessly-in-love idiots.
...um. Did I make this into a Korean-drama? I think I did.
...Oh well. Should I draw out the story longer or just leave it at Donghae and Kyuhyun having their happy ending? (...Nah, who likes happy endings. Let's just make this a thirty-chaptered novellette, haha.) And you guys, I'm starting to seriously love my Sungmin. She's just so...yeah. I WANT HER AS MY BFF ksljdoijakl;fjlkafa.
Oh, and whoever's watch WGM would know about Donghae's nickname for Sungmin - "hyungsoo-nim", which literally means "the wife of my brother". So he's saying she's his sister-in-law, which temporarily throws off Sungmin. I loved adding that in there.
...and yes, I made Leeteuk a female. Don't deny his omma-tendencies. THEY ARE THERE.
part i | part ii | part iii | part iv | part v | part vi