i'm a sunflower
(pinned to his side.)
super junior | g | heechul/hankyung
the first time kim heechul meets hankyung is when he's just been fired from his job, kicked to the curb like any other dog. it makes heechul's teeth grit like mad, makes him want to rip and tear something apart, because for god's fucking sake - no one ignores kim heechul! but they just had, and he was cash-less, and he was cold.
he sees a man, with dark hair and sturdy shoulders, hunched over a small portion of concrete brick on the wall. there's something in his hand, and to distract himself, heechul looks over in wonder and inwardly tries to think what could occupy the other's time so much. it isn't as much of interest as it is simply boredom.
the stranger spots him right away, though, and to heechul's surprise, he just smiles. smiles, and goes on doing what he does.
stranger is handsome with a curved chin and sloping eyes, sun-kissed skin that crinkled at the corners of his lashes when his lips twitch up. he's lean and muscular, quite the opposite of heechul, who's only thin and so pale that women are jealous.
"you could get in trouble for that," heechul says, unable to pass on a piece of advice. "you should stop. it'll get you in trouble."
stranger just stares at him again, with those encompassing eyes, like they know everything, like they can dig up every secret and lonely moment of heechul's existence, every scar and every painful memory of his. he doesn't like it. he doesn't like the way he's left bare so suddenly, inexplicably, but then the stranger smiles - what is up with the fucking smiling - and he turns away again.
heechul turns away from stranger, instead choosing to look at what he's creating. there's a small can of colour in his hands - spray paint - and he's not stopping, even when he faces heechul, his fingers and palms creating messes over the wall. heechul can't fathom how someone can create something like that - but it only seems like black lines and dots in the distance, and heechul wonders if the man is trying to create some sort of morse code. because it wasn't working.
he looks toward the stranger, then back at the lines and dots, and then he walks away.
.
by this time, heechul's already grabbed another job as a waiter. he saw it in the ads this morning then applied just as quickly, scribbling across the front with answers that were more than likely fake. Well, it didn't matter now; they hired him for his looks, like they always do, and he works because of his looks - eats and breathes and sleeps because of it. being beautiful is a part of life.
the hours are long and tedious, and heechul can barely stand after the work is done. he has to be on his feet all day long, going from person to person, putting faces to orders and food to plates and plates to tables. people yell at him - be it his boss or the customers - for his snarky attitude and his cold disposition, the way that he can't really give a fuck. they don't fire him, because he draws in the customers like moths to fire, because something about kim heechul draws people in and everyone - everyone - knows that business is booming because of him.
he leaves when he wants to, barely there before the clock strikes at eleven. he's out the door in his work clothes, knowing that it makes him look good, knowing that everyone turned their eye to seem him anyway.
heechul knows life like this. he knows life like just-there encounters and fleeting goodbyes. it's all he can take, anyway.
on the sidewalk, he trips on a paint can.
heechul curses at the metal, his eyebrows furrowing as he stares at his bloodied hand. stupid gravel. stupid shoes. stupid sidewalk. why couldn't they all leave him alone? why couldn't he go through one day without doing something that he -
he shakes away the thoughts, scowling, and inspects his hand. it's scraped pretty bad, and he lets his fingers ghost over it before wincing; shallow. there was bits of gravel there too, something he'd have to fix once he got home.
heechul just barely stands up before a voice beside him, layered so heavily that the word - yes, a single word - needs to be gone through many times before he can understand it.
"hurt," a man says beside him, pointing to his hand. heechul stares at the familiar face, so different; with almond-shaped eyes and laugh lines. he can't place it in his mind, but it's there, like a lurking force. the man points to his hand again, gripping the wrist this time. "hurt," he repeats, and heechul notices that there's a heavy accent on his light voice.
"it's no big deal," heechul says, ripping his arm away. the touch shoots pleasurable jolts through his skin, like crackling electricity. he doesn't like it because he does. "i'll go home and bandage it up."
but the man stands in front of him, his eyes sad, his lips pulled into a thoughtful frown as he stares at the can and the slightly red gravel beneath their feet. heechul doesn't move, because he honestly doesn't know what to do.
"hurt," the man just says once more. "hurt. need help. i help you."
heechul blinks, piecing together the rest of the broken korean. "i'm good," he says, but by the way the man just frowns deeper, heechul just sighs in an all-defeated way. "okay, fine," the man's head shoots up, surprised. "you can help, if you want it so goddamn much." saves him the time anyway.
the man smiles, and then heechul is hit with epiphany as he remembers where he's seen this man before - the stranger! the man that crouched down beside the dirty walls and drew, painted. dots and lines. dots and lines.
it's that smiling man that heechul thinks doesn't really look korean all that much. and now he has proof.
stranger (he'll dub him stranger forever more) takes him to the same place as before, where the dirtied alley wall meets brick. heechul looks around for a while, then down at his clothes - they're his only spare - but then all thought is forgotten when he sees the space where the black lines and dots used to be, now in their place a beautiful spread of colours. blues and indigos and purples, golds and whites and reds mixing together in a way that it's unrecognizable. it takes heechul a second, but then he realizes that it's the seoul skyline; one that anyone can see on top of a building.
dots and lines. lines, the outline of buildings and curving roads. dots, the start of small windows of light in the distance. it makes sense now, and heechul barely notices when the stranger takes his hand gently and rolls it firmly in a bandage. he only looks down when he feels a small pain, and sees that the wound is clean and the stranger's brows are furrowed.
somewhere inside him, he feels the tiniest bit of pity.
"you know, you don't have to do it," heechul says. "i'm fine, jeez."
the guy looks up, and he stares at heechul in a way that tells him - just tells him - that he understands every word heechul says. "hanzai," he murmurs. "i am chinese. but i know korean. you are hurt. it is partially my fault."
it's more than before, heechul notices, and his eyes widen as the stranger finishes it off with a small knot.
"hankyung," he says.
and, even though he knows it's stupid, he replies: "heechul."
.
hankyung is an artist, he learns. a beautiful artist with beautiful eyes and a beautiful smile. heechul tries to pretend that he doesn't think these thoughts, but goddammit, he's kim heechul and he doesn't like the whole waiting part that's needed, the denial stage. he skips right to the i like you and i wish you'd talk to me more.
they've come to a compromise. hankyung, he's homeless (how such a beautiful person is homeless is beyond him) and he offers him a home, doesn't - can't think of the other man sleeping in cardboard boxes in dirty parts of seoul. he knows that hankyung doesn't know much korean. just enough, he once said, just enought to survive.
"well," heechul says in response, "that's never going to be enough."
so heechul, heechul, even though he's a godawful teacher says that he'll teach hankyung. bring the money in. feed him. clothe him. keep a shelter over his head. heechul's pretty sure that it's the most selfless thing he's done in his life and he - surprisngly - doesn't regret it one bit.
hankyung, one day, asks why. asks why heechul does all this, asks why heechul doesn't question where he goes and why he sometimes doesn't come back, asks why heechul leaves a coffee can out on the table for him when he comes home - he calls the place home - in the middle of the night.
heechul just looks at him with his large, unreadable eyes. "why not?" he says, and then leaves it at that.
hankyung, he's chinese, heechul knows. heechul knows that hankyung likes dancing, likes moving his body. heechul knows that he likes singing, performing, creating art. he likes looking at the world with his fractured eyeglass. he likes to paint dots and lines on the walls and never tell heechul what he's drawing, only speaks with a lilting accent and steady lines of hangul on paper.
he talks to heechul when he's alone, and heechul's pretty sure that he doesn't even know it. heechul is sure that hankyung doesn't know how much he craves the attention, craves the feeling of someone beside him, craves the knowledge that there is someone else beside him in an empty room.
"i want to do something for you in return," hankyung tells him one evening, when the lights above them don't seem to flicker like they usually do. his words are slow and paced, but they've gotten so good at communicating that heechul doesn't need hankyung to talk, just has to look at him. "but i do not know what. how can i repay you for everything...you have done for me?"
heechul doesn't even look at him as he answers. "stay here."
hankyung blinks. heechul, he switches the channel and starts to speak even though his head hasn't turned once. "i've never had a friend before. not once." it's not painful to admit. just empty. "no one ever wanted to talk to me. no one even wanted to try." his switching becomes slower and his eyes fog. "no one wanted to help. and i grew up that way, alone and isolated, something that people were too afraid to touch."
he waits for the words to register in hankyung's head, like he always does, like he always waits. when he knows that hankyung's done, he continues, "you didn't. and i... i don't need anything else but that. so just do as you usually do. sing. paint. dance." stay.
heechul doesn't look at him, but he knows that hankyung's beautiful smile is there. they do not need words.
.
it's six months and four days since they've met, heechul's counted. he doesn't know why, but the number just increases each day, and he doesn't do anything to stop it.
he's fallen into routine; coming home from work early in the morning, seeing that hankyung isn't there. sometimes it's painful, most times it's not as he remembers the older days by himself. the ebb doesn't go away until hankyung comes back in the evening, when heechul's already eaten and showered and now he just sits on the sofa by himself, the glow of the tv against his pallid face. hankyung always comes back at around five, though, heechul always sees that it's so.
when he comes back, they don't do anything but talk. heechul shows him words and pictures and lines, poems and fairytales that he's loved (with the majestic princes that he wished he could be and the pretty princesses that were always saved) since he was a kid, fantasies that he's created in his sodden little reality. but hankyung understands, listens with his legs crossed and eyes glazed over, smile omnipresent on his face. and sometimes he'll sing heechul to sleep after they've talked and learned for hours, his hands running through silky hair.
sometimes hankyung will let heechul sleep through his night shift at work, at that restaurant that's always been so popular. he speaks on the phone to the boss is a soft, polite tone, in a way that no one can say no to. other times hankyung will wake him up by shaking him gently and threatening to draw wrinkles on his face.
and then hankyung watches heechul leave, bumbling around for his things but still managing anyway with the fondest smile on his face. it dims when heechul leaves, but it's not like the other knows. it's not like heechul understands how he can make hankyung's chest pound erratically whenever he laughs, not like he understands how when heechul hugs him (the other is a touchy-feely person, like one whose been craving it all their life) there's electric sparks across his skin.
hankyung knows that these feelings are the type of feelings he should be feeling for some petite, dark-haired, white-skinned girl with big eyes and full lips, but hey - heechul's all that and more. he's a personality, a face that just glows brightly - once, to one person - and hankyung doesn't want to let that go.
he doesn't tell heechul that he goes to the brick mural everyday where they met, painting. he doesn't tell heechul that he lets his hands trail across the other's face while he's in deep sleep, memorizing every bump and soft dip and curve.
he doesn't tell heechul he loves him, because he plans to show him.
.
and when he shows heechul the reds, blues, purples, and yellows of the sunset behind a lit sky of seoul, tall buildings with the faintest hint of lined infrastructure and dotted windows, the han river in between them where they sit on the floor of the bridge with a coffee can between their legs, heechul just smiles in that knowing, soft way that hankyung never sees much anymore.
heechul doesn't look like his poised self in the picture, not his combed hair or his crisp waiter clothes or his lazy look as he has in the restaurant, but has his hair in a small ponytail in the back where strands fall out and frame his face as his stares at hankyung with a sort of admiration that hankyung reciprocates tenfold in the mural.
the sun doesn't shine on the side of the wall, doesn't let an afterglow light up the world like in hankyung's picture. but when heechul kisses him as a thank you, as an i've always accepted you, hankyung murmurs a warbled "saranghae" against his lips and thinks that the world is bright enough anyway.
omg. i wrote a hanchul. be shocked.
i love this pairing a lot, :3 so happy i could write them. part of something I like to call the 'stranger series' - a series of oneshots about my suju otps meeting each other. :3 may include more than one pairing with one person. click on the tag or masterlist for more.