Of Fan Service and Reality.
“Yah! Cho Kyuhyun, you’re lucky that I’m not Sungmin. Otherwise I would have kicked your ass long time ago. Go ask Hankyung what happened to him when I found out about his excessive fan service with Siwon in China!” Heechul barked at Kyuhyun the moment he stepped into the dorm after the Super Junior M members had returned from China.
“Ugh, that Sungmin… I’d have whipped him long ago…” Kyuhyun could hear Heechul mutter under his breath as he walked away to get Hankyung to dish out the Beijing fried rice he missed for the past ten days.
Kyuhyun wasn’t stupid. In fact, he was nowhere near stupid. He knew what Heechul was talking about, and that was the worst part. He hated to admit that Heechul was right.
“Kyuhyun-ah, you’re back!” Kyuhyun turned around to see Sungmin walking towards him. Before he could say anything, he was embraced in a tight hug. He pulled away slightly to press a kiss to Sungmin’s lips as he examined the smaller man in his arms. Sungmin looked the same, his bow-shaped lips formed into a warm smile, large eyes as he remembered, save for the dark circles formed below. Sungmin looked the same, but Kyuhyun knew better. He could feel how worn out Sungmin was; he could see the tiredness hidden behind his smile. Kyuhyun couldn’t help but wonder if he had contributed to any of his exhaustion.
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Back in their room, Kyuhyun sat on their shared bed (the reason why their room has never been revealed on programmes) and watched as Sungmin unpacked his luggage while asking him tons of questions about China.
“Kyuhyun-ah, did you sleep well in China?” “Yes, hyung.” Not as well as I should have, because you weren’t there. “How’s the food? Did you have proper meals?” “Yes, hyung.” But I missed your cooking the most. “Are the fans in China nice?” “Yes, hyung.” Honestly, he didn’t give a fuck whether the fans in China were nice or not, because all he could think of while he was in China, was how he could be somewhere nicer, like in Korea, in their room, with Sungmin.
Sungmin paused, perhaps noticing the robotic slip-short answers he was getting, and turned around and frowned at Kyuhyun. He didn’t say anything, but just simply stared at Kyuhyun. Kyuhyun looked straight into Sungmin’s eyes, as if he were trying to search for something, though he didn’t really know what exactly. He finally gave up and heaved a sigh when he realized that he wasn’t going to get anything out of staring into Sungmin’s eyes. He knew how determined his hyung could be when he was unwilling to reveal any of his emotions.
He paused for awhile and asked, “Hyung, why don’t you ask me about Zhou Mi? Why don’t you ask me about the fanservice?” Sungmin asked him everything about China, but he was clearly avoiding this. Kyuhyun knew better than to continue avoiding the subject, because by simply avoiding something, it did not make it non-existent.
He watched Sungmin change. He heard Sungmin let out a small sigh; he saw how his shoulders slumped slightly. He could see cracks forming on Sungmin’s body; all the hidden emotions of hurt and confusion were breaking out and leaking through those cracks, bit by bit. Kyuhyun thought his heart was about to break too.
He watched as Sungmin sat down at the other end of the bed and pulled his knees to his chest, after which he buried his face in his arms. Kyuhyun knew Sungmin was trying to suppress his inundating emotions, which he seldom revealed. Mostly because Sungmin was a happy person; he radiated happiness that was so infectious it made Kyuhyun happy too.
When Sungmin lifted his head and looked at him with those big, doleful eyes, Kyuhyun felt his heart wrench. “What do you want me to say? What can I say?” Kyuhyun was slightly caught off-guard by Sungmin’s response. Strangely, he had hoped that Sungmin would throw a tantrum (very unlikely, but yeah), or maybe just demand for an explanation about all the fan service in China, anything other than his matter-of-factly reply. Because Kyuhyun had the answers to everything Sungmin asked him, or he wished Sungmin would ask him.
Kyuhyun knew why he allowed his fingers to linger a little longer on Zhou Mi’s hips; he knew why he touched Zhou Mi a little more than fan servicing required; he knew why he smiled at Zhou Mi so much, a little more than he should; he knew he did not love Zhou Mi the way he loved Sungmin (much to the disappointment of the QMi fans). It was childish of him, he knew, but he just wanted to coax a reaction out of Sungmin so badly. The QMi wave had started when Super Junior M had just debuted in China, and for some strange reason or another, some fans loved QMi, which was why the fan service continued this time.
Kyuhyun saw how Hankyung had gotten into a series of unfortunate events (Heechul’s doings) when he returned to Korea after their promotions for the first SJ-M album in China. “You stupid China man! If you love Siwon and China so much, just stay there forever!” he remembered hearing Heechul screech over the phone as Hankyung tried to explain desperately about the SiHan fan service in China. What he could not understand was why Sungmin had an entirely different reaction to the QMi action. QMi was not any less subtle than SiHan, and he was fairly certain that Heechul had made sure that Sungmin found out about the QMi, even if he hadn’t previously. (This was Kim Heechul, if his own boyfriend was ‘cheating’ on him in China, he had to made sure that someone else suffered along too.)
Sungmin had reacted indifferently; more like he had no reaction at all. He treated Kyuhyun just like how he used to, he didn’t ask about the fan service, he didn’t even drop the slightest hints about it, at all. This was the exact reason why Kyuhyun took the initiative to step up on the fan service this time (Zhou Mi had refused vehemently, flailing his arms in the air, “Kui Xian, I don’t want Sungmin hyung coming after me! He’s a martial arts expert, for goodness’ sake!”), just to see whether Sungmin would react differently. He wanted to know whether Sungmin cared that his boyfriend was overly intimate with another man; he wanted to know if Sungmin would do anything about it. He felt imbecilic now, as he saw the hurt in Sungmin’s eyes, and he wondered where the intelligence he was so proud of had disappeared to.
“Hyung…I thought you didn’t care,” Kyuhyun said softly as he clutched onto the hem of his shirt tightly. He didn’t like feeling like this, nervous and uncertain of what was about to happen. At that, Sungmin’s eyes widened and he stared at Kyuhyun with an incredulous expression on his face. Then he laughed. He laughed so hard until tears started rolling down his cheeks, and then he couldn’t stop. That moment, Kyuhyun felt like crying too. Unlike Heechul, Sungmin wasn’t demanding, he’d never scream at Kyuhyun like how Heechul would scream at Hankyung on a daily basis. Sure, he wasn’t as vanilla as everyone thought… but that wasn’t the point. Sungmin hardly ever cried, even if his tears threatened to fall, he’d blink them back and hold them in. When he cried on rare occasions, Kyuhyun was prepared to do everything to stop the tears. But this time, he didn’t know what to do when he was the cause of those tears.
He stood up tentatively and walked over to Sungmin, and gently wrapped his arms around his boyfriend. Sungmin buried his face at the crook of Kyuhyun’s neck, and Kyuhyun could feel the wetness of his tears on his skin. He wished he hadn’t done any fan service with Zhou Mi. He wished he hadn’t gone to China. He wished he hadn’t pressed for an answer. He wished he hadn’t make Sungmin cry. He wanted to tell Sungmin how sorry he was, but being Cho Kyuhyu, the snarky magnae, those words just didn’t come out easily. Instead, he tightened his arms around Sungmin, hoping that his actions would convey his feelings. He hoped that Sungmin would receive the message, because that’s how they functioned. Sungmin wasn’t as gregarious as he seemed on TV: all smiles and bubbly, in fact, he was rather quiet. The both of them didn’t need to communicate through words; they understood each other perfectly well without words and Kyuhyun hoped that it would be the same this time. Having to explain everything he had done was tiring and…somewhat embarrassing. If Heechul got to hear anything about his reasons behind all the excessive fan service, his life would never be the same again. He really wasn’t being a drama queen; it was Kim Heechul after all.
Sungmin understood. Kyuhyun knew he did, when he looked into Kyuhyun’s eyes and said softly, “I love you too much to care, Kyuhyun-ah.” At that, Kyuhyun thought his heart was about to burst. Those words warmed his entire heart, and he felt this bursting sensation, like he wanted to shout out to the whole world and tell them how much he loved Sungmin. And how much Sungmin loved him.
He curled an arm around Sungmin’s waist and gently pulled him down onto the bed. They just lay there in comfortable silence for sometime until Kyuhyun laced their fingers together and brought Sungmin’s hand to his lips. He pressed his lips to the platinum band on Sungmin’s ring finger and whispered, “Hyung… forever means nothing without you.” Sungmin murmured something inaudible, but Kyuhyun wasn’t about to find out, because at that very moment, Sungmin placed his free hand on Kyuhyun’s chest, and Kyuhyun thought Sungmin had just touched his heart.
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Kyuhyun didn’t want to be sappy, but he couldn’t help it as he watched Sungmin drift off to sleep in his arms with a soft smile plastered on his face; he felt like he had the world in his arms. This, he thought, was the difference between fan service and reality. Fan service was nothing more than excessive touching and giggles, but reality was excessive touching, giggles, and so much more.