To Each Man for Himself
to each man for himself
super junior/snsd - kyuhyun/seohyun - pg
3661w~
she likes to refer to it as an innocent love.
a/n: my otp is so deprived oh my goodness. i wrote this in like 3 days so it’s really messy but i hope you guys like it anyways ♥
Seohyun finds herself at the corner of the beach, her toes touching the tip of the water and the cool air blowing around her in wisps. Behind her, eight girls are celebrating their first vacation - their first ever vacation as a group, all together. (except it isn’t really together, with seohyun gone off on her own. she’s always been kind of quiet, though, so it probably doesn’t make a difference anyways.)
She wants to celebrate, but there is something about the ocean in front of her so vast and infinite and… Forever. Nothing is supposed to last forever, and Seohyun doesn’t know who to believe - so she stays outside, too attached.
The waves fall down in massive loops. Almost whole, complete circles until they finally touch the tip of the water, and even when they reach that 360 degree, the salty ocean water still crashes down and breaks what it almost had.
Seohyun imagines it to be a bit like her life. Going in circles to reach the top, and when she finally does - almost does - something happens and her hard work falls back to the bottom, buried deep for her to dig out and start all over again.
Her toes dig into the sand, small and pink compared to the tan dirt surrounding her. She scoops up a handful and watches as it sifts through her fingers. Her fingers catch on something, and as she looks closer, she sees it is a shell. It is curled up, similar to the ones that one would put near their ear, except much smaller. Seohyun brushes away the bit of sand stuck in the creases and notices the strange coloring. While the whole of the shell is black and rusted, there is a light blue color on the inside with scatters of purple dots. It is, in a sense, beautiful.
“Hey!” Seohyun turns around to see Yuri bounding towards her with a glowing expression. Her hair is swinging effortlessly behind her, as if she were shooting a shampoo commercial right then and there. “It’s getting dark, and you still haven’t eaten anything.” She holds out her hand expectantly: “Come on.”
Seohyun stretches her arm out and entwines her awkward fingers with Yuri’s slender ones, sighing to herself. They walk inside together, hand in hand, Yuri with an endless train of thoughts and Seohyun with an eternal ability to listen.
Seohyun doesn’t realize that she’s unconsciously tucked the shell away into her dress pocket, and finds it only when undressing for the night. She zips it into the smallest pocket of her purse and hopes to never come across it.
Seohyun tries not to dwell over the vacation again.
Love stories are seemingly endless. They come and go, some in happiness, but most in broken hearts. Seohyun finds romance in general an unrealistic, falsely portrayed notion that most people in their lives are thriving after when in reality, love is just a physical attraction between two people that in any other case don’t have any serious effect over the other and won’t at all aide in their future. Pessimism is totally different, she tells herself.
In her career, there are so many things restricted, and while sometimes it frustrates her, for the most it is for the better. It is simple, being forced to be perfect.
It doesn’t surprise her that most others don’t see the way she does - not being able to eat what they want, go where they want, be with who they want - but Seohyun is not like most others and she finds it that kind of simple too.
Her first preamble with any sort of romance was in the tenth grade, in the midst of her training under SM. There had been a boy in her geometry class that kept pestering her about being rich, famous, things all high school girls dreamed of (even though this was just seohyun’s boost to one day changing the world).
She had questioned her friends about it, and they had laughed and told her he liked her just for that - one day being rich, famous, things all high school girls dreamed of.
Seohyun never really understood what they had meant until he asked her out the week before she was to fly out to Japan to support the whole of SM’s artists at an award show, and stay there the rest of month in training, when school would have ended and she wouldn’t see any of them again until the recurring autumn.
His face had fallen when she had said she couldn’t, and Seohyun recalls the rejection being like shoving a puppy away that was starting to get on the owner’s nerves.
Though she hadn’t ever liked him more than a friend, she just remembers telling herself to never have suffer through that feeling again. It becomes the reason she uses while pushing away impending futures, people that could have the potential but Seohyun is for some reason still afraid they won’t.
She doesn’t have to encounter the situation again until years later, when she is far into being rich and famous and all things high school girls dreamed of, and when she is far past being one of them and a title of her own.
Cho Kyuhyun, to no one’s astonishment, is exactly like the rest of them - of which by them, Seohyun means the male species, with the exception of a scattered far and few (jinki is the first one that comes to mind, and is followed by ryeowook and donghae and maybe yunho, and all of exo is still teetering on their innocence).
She finds them, in simple terms, incapable, gloriously rude bastards.
Seohyun has nothing against them for it; it just so happens to be that way, simple things in life that appear to her as it is. She has long learned to live with it and pretend like she doesn’t mind until it all blends together.
What she doesn’t understand, however, is Cho Kyuhyun’s pursuit. In that way, he is different. Inconsistent, out of bounds, on unspeakable terms that Seohyun normally does not get through to.
It begins - their bantering, his irritating and hers annoyance - two months before debut, if she is remembering it right, when spring has yet to roll around and Seohyun has no idea who this face is other than a part of the new artist on the block. He teases her, somewhat, and likes to joke around often, and when her stage name has already been decided he still insists on Joohyun, innocent little Seo Joohyun that has a ring to it despite her wanting to admit it.
She tries not to question the turn of life but sometimes it just has to be done and so she questions a higher being, someone up there somewhere, whoever is controlling the very step she takes, and why Cho Kyuhyun, of all people, is always in the way.
There is a hierarchy system indefinitely declared in the company. Most entertainment companies choose not to acknowledge it, or by success rather than length, but SM is SM and so Seohyun ranks towards the bottom of this chain.
Boa is at the top, followed by Kangta, and Trax and TVXQ sit together at three, the latter once upon a time the Five Rising Gods of the East and now just HoMin. Then there is the forever bestowed, slowly decreasing Super Junior, of which two years comes and finally is Seohyun and the rest of her group. SHINee and f(x) come a bit after that, and for now EXO of twelve pools at the bottom, watching and waiting and growing into another prodigy of what has become SMTOWN.
Seohyun thinks the exclusiveness is a bit stupid, actually.
She finds that no one bothers her, still, because of her looks and a smile. She is precious, and belovéd, and of all things pure, and so it is kind of unanimously decided that she will not be pestered as regarded to this. Seohyun comes to appreciate it, and all the little things that come with it (innocent maknae is innocent, as they say), because it means less time trying and more time focusing.
It is an effortless routine that Kyuhyun breaks in a matter of minutes. Seohyun kind of hates him for it.
They have been friends for six years. Seohyun isn’t sure whether he is yet in the we aren’t blood related but I love you section or just sitting in her best friends section. She has it all down to the point, but he still seems to be lying somewhere in between. Seohyun can’t describe it quite well.
One time Yoona asked her if there was ever anything more. It was also the one time where Seohyun considered we aren’t blood related but I love you in different terms and it was just strange, if nothing else.
“No. I don’t think so, at least,” she had answered.
Later that same night, Kyuhyun had called her with this awkward tone, but Seohyun just pretends like she never picked up on it, and that maybe fatigue was just hard at work. “Seohyun, what would you do if I said I liked someone?”
The question doesn’t make sense, and it takes her a while to answer. “Congratulations?” Her voice is shaky, off, but Kyuhyun chuckles anyways. It sounds remorseful.
“Okay then. Good night,” he tacks on, but not before mumbling something about her obliviousness and maybe it wasn’t meant to be or something like that. She begins to ask what it means, but Seohyun decides against it when she hears him sigh, and just holds the thought to herself. There is something a bit disappointing about it, but she can’t explain it just right. It becomes a habit of hers when it comes to Kyuhyun, then.
He calls her again at night a couple of weeks later, in that duration which they have only had two incidents of encounter, both backstage at Music Core where TaeTiSeo are emceeing and he happens to be coincidentally supporting TVXQ the same day. They exchange hi’s and hello’s and Tiffany mentions something being not quite right, but Taeyeon tells her to leave it and Seohyun doesn’t know what either of them are talking about.
“Wanna go on a walk?” he begins. Hyoyeon asks her why her eyes are glowing.
“Right now? It’s almost one,” Seohyun answers, but for some reason she is wishing. The feeling is unfamiliar and it kind of tugs at a remote spot in her chest and Seohyun likes it.
She hears Kyuhyun cough, and then there is a shuffle, and then his voice comes on again. “Yeah. If you can.”
When Seohyun gets outside, she kind of regrets it, even with his blushing cheeks and cartoon t-shirt hidden under a thick winter coat. The air outside is freezing and Seohyun’s teeth are chattering and she realizes if she doesn’t get to sleep in less than an hour, she will have dark circles under her eyes for the whole rest of the next day.
She shoves her hands into her sweatshirt pockets and sighs, because none of this really makes any sense to her. Next to her, Kyuhyun is humming to himself, when she feels him turn around to look at her. Seohyun shivers, and he scoffs. “What?”
“Why are your hands always like that?”
She looks down at her sweatshirt, hands hidden warm and safe in the comfort of the fleece. “Like what?”
“Like in your pockets. Do you know how difficult that makes it?”
Seohyun opens her mouth again - difficult it makes what? she begins to ask - but Kyuhyun has already pulled her hand from inside her sweatshirt pocket, interlacing her fingers into his own, and his fingers are just as cold and even softer.
She looks up at him, but he is looking ahead, whistling the same familiar tune that has suddenly lost itself in her rumbling train of thoughts. When he doesn’t glance back down, Seohyun turns instead to the night lights in front of her, and she isn’t that cold anymore.
Tiffany came up with the nightly tradition towards the beginning of their debut: every Tuesday night, there would be a discussion of inner thoughts. Seohyun can’t remember exactly how Tiffany described it, but that is how she sees it so she sticks to that.
(one time sunny asked why on a tuesday. sooyoung had pushed her and said weekends are busy and tuesdays are the happy days, not as hectic as monday but not as casual as wednesday and thursdays are just awkward. none of them know where this explanation came from but they stick to it anyways.)
The discussion for that week begins with Jessica. “So, I think Jonghyun has a new girlfriend or something.”
Taeyeon opens her mouth, wait, I thought this was supposed to about us- but Yuri leans in and her eyes are twinkling because out of all of them Yuri is a sucker for drama and hopeless romantics. “Really? Who?”
“I don’t know her name, I just saw him texting someone the other day and when I asked who it was, Key said his girlfriend, and then Jonghyun kind of shoved him but he didn’t deny it, and then Minho sighed and Onew sighed too and said he was going to get them all in trouble and Taemin said who cares about getting in trouble this is awesome and Key kind of laughed and then Yoona came in and said I had to go for some schedule.”
Yuri whines and shoves Yoona, who almost falls over. “Hey! How was I supposed to know what they were talking about?” but Yuri has already turned away and back to Jessica, who is admiring her newly painted nails.
Tiffany has her hands clasped together and her eyes are glazed over. Seohyun can’t tell if she is about to cry or it’s just Tiffany being herself. “That is so romantic,” she breathes, and Hyoyeon snorts.
“Romantic my ass. Jonghyun is anything but.” Taeyeon hits her but she is giggling, and Tiffany is ignoring them both. Her hands are now joined with Sooyoung, both of who are the everlasting desperate lovers in the group, and they are relating over relationships and love and something about the heart wants what the heart wants.
Seohyun coughs. “But isn’t that kind of difficult?” she mumbles, but Sunny is looking at her with curious eyes so apparently she did not go ignored.
“What is difficult?”
By then, all the girls are staring at her with bright, gleaming eyes and Seohyun remembers then how much she hates the spotlight. “Dating. Wouldn’t it just be so much easier if everyone’s match was written on their forehead?”
Yuri giggles and throws her arm over Seohyun’s shoulder. “What enjoyment would you get out of that?”
“Half of the fun is just in finding the person,” Tiffany adds, “even if it doesn’t seem like that at the time. That way you know they are the one.”
“Can’t get the pleasure without the pain,” Sunny tells her.
Then Sooyoung is speaking, “Which reminds me…” and suddenly the conversation is directed off of her and to another romance Seohyun doesn’t want to take part of. She sighs to herself and even when she is questioning her unnies, sometimes they are right and it is inevitable to admit so.
She calls him five days later when she can’t take it anymore. “Hey, Kyuhyun?”
“Yeah?” His voice is groggy and she thinks she might have woken him up. There is heavy breathing on the other line, though, so Seohyun decides to go ahead anyways.
“What would you…” She takes a deep breath, but the words aren’t going to come out on their own, so she keeps pushing herself. “What would you say if I told you I liked someone too?”
Seohyun thinks she might have heard him suck in a breath, but it is late and this could all just be a hallucination, and so she decides not to assume anything. Next to her, Hyoyeon shuffles in the bed and pulls the blanket up over her head. “Really? Well, then, congratulations to you too.” He sounds wide awake now. She doesn’t know if she should smile or not.
“Alright. Good night then,” but not before she says to him something about being oblivious and maybe they weren’t meant to be together, a bit more obviously than his own.
Kyuhyun laughs, and then she hears him go, wait, does that mean- but she actually has to go, because the lights are now on in the kitchen, and so she hangs up.
The remote tug is at her heart again. It’s kind of nice.
When the door opens, Seohyun isn’t really sure if she expected whatever was about to happen.
He walks into the practice room, plops down towards a back corner, and pulls out his phone like it has all been rehearsed. He isn’t paying any attention to her, but she finds it suddenly irritatingly difficult to concentrate on the last couple seconds of the dance routine. She feels like a movie star, for some reason.
The music is blasting in Seohyun’s ears and her heart is thumping, thumping, thumping. She focuses on what Hyoyeon had told her earlier, extending her leg to the ground, honing in on audience whose lives are at the tips of your fingertips, as she had described it; out of the corner of her eye, she sees Kyuhyun fidgeting with the keys on his cell and smiles, because it is definitely the other way around in their situation - but, by then, she has lost count and the music is way ahead of her routine.
Seohyun tries standing up from the position, then, but her feet lose their balance under her and she slips and falls to the floor in an awkward mess.
Kyuhyun looks up sharply from his phone, getting up off of the floor. She brushes herself off before he can reach her and stands up on her own. Her hands are shaking and her cheeks are probably burning a bright red and when normally, Seohyun would have attempted to push it off, she can’t and she has all but an idea why. “You okay?” he asks. “That looked like it hurt.”
“I’m fine,” Seohyun answers, but her legs are throbbing and she feels anything and everything except that. “Totally fine.”
He leans over to the side anyways, ignoring her refute. “Are you sure? There’s a bruise forming on-”
“No, no, it’s fine,” Seohyun says as she grabs the jacket hanging off of the balance bar, quickly tying it around her waist. She glances up at him and gives him a quick grin. “Nothing make-up won’t cover.”
Kyuhyun raises an eyebrow. “Whatever you say.” He scratches the back of his head, and she resists asking if he got a haircut, because this probably isn’t the most appropriate time, and if she really could choose to do one thing, it would be erase the situation from their memory so as to never have to bring it up again. “I just, um, I just came in to ask if you wanted to go out for lunch sometime.”
Seohyun blinks. “What?”
Kyuhyun coughs. “Lunch. Sometime.” She blinks again, and he coughs again, and then adds, “If you want, that is.”
She isn’t quite sure when it went from awkward to more awkward, and there it is again, that feeling, and Seohyun has a million thoughts rushing around in her head, and then she wonders when he went from in between to we aren’t blood related but I love you, and then she smiles. “Yeah. Yeah, okay, whenever you’re free.”
He smiles back at her, his teeth kind of uneven and drawn back, but Seohyun thinks he looks nice. Attractive, even, if she could admit that without turning even a brighter red.
Kyuhyun leans down and pecks her awkwardly on the cheek - she isn’t quite sure, then, what keeps her from giggling, because this is nowhere near normal, and suddenly he is gone.
It wasn’t as she had imagined it, if she had ever imagined it at all, but it is still perfect. Seohyun can’t explain it with logic, but she can’t say that she minds. His annoying, his butting in, his ruining of perfect cycles, Seohyun can’t say she minds any of it.
The whole of SMTOWN takes a trip to coastal Japan during their next concert. There is running, dancing, singing, lots of laughing, sometimes hand-holding and quick hugs and awkward kisses too, and Seohyun manages to catch all of it along with her shared vast infinity of the ocean.
The exclusiveness is still kind of stupid, she admits, but it is kind of relaxing in a way too.
Boa and Kangta at the top are doing just fine, the once Five Rising Gods of the East that are now HoMin are doing pretty okay too, TRAX are serving well, the forever bestowed slowly decreasing Super Junior seem to be at the peak of it all, SHINee and f(x) are a continued giggling bunch, and EXO of twelve is happy in their innocence glory. SNSD, too, are pretty awesome, if she can say so herself.
Kyuhyun grabs her hand while they are walking home from the beach when they are all the way at the far back of the group. He does it quickly, and unexpectedly, and whispers something about Changmin watching and Leeteuk can wait to hear about this and Suho and Kris haven’t made relationship lines clear yet, but Seohyun just holds his hand tight anyways.
She thinks beauty exists in all of the weirdest forms, in physical ways and mental ways and emotional ways and all types of ways. There are those feelings that fill her up, that dig their roots into her skin and never let go. They swell, and blow her over - like wind and waves.
And their relationship is nothing short of beautiful.
super junior/snsd - kyuhyun/seohyun - pg
3661w~
she likes to refer to it as an innocent love.
a/n: my otp is so deprived oh my goodness. i wrote this in like 3 days so it’s really messy but i hope you guys like it anyways ♥
Seohyun finds herself at the corner of the beach, her toes touching the tip of the water and the cool air blowing around her in wisps. Behind her, eight girls are celebrating their first vacation - their first ever vacation as a group, all together. (except it isn’t really together, with seohyun gone off on her own. she’s always been kind of quiet, though, so it probably doesn’t make a difference anyways.)
She wants to celebrate, but there is something about the ocean in front of her so vast and infinite and… Forever. Nothing is supposed to last forever, and Seohyun doesn’t know who to believe - so she stays outside, too attached.
The waves fall down in massive loops. Almost whole, complete circles until they finally touch the tip of the water, and even when they reach that 360 degree, the salty ocean water still crashes down and breaks what it almost had.
Seohyun imagines it to be a bit like her life. Going in circles to reach the top, and when she finally does - almost does - something happens and her hard work falls back to the bottom, buried deep for her to dig out and start all over again.
Her toes dig into the sand, small and pink compared to the tan dirt surrounding her. She scoops up a handful and watches as it sifts through her fingers. Her fingers catch on something, and as she looks closer, she sees it is a shell. It is curled up, similar to the ones that one would put near their ear, except much smaller. Seohyun brushes away the bit of sand stuck in the creases and notices the strange coloring. While the whole of the shell is black and rusted, there is a light blue color on the inside with scatters of purple dots. It is, in a sense, beautiful.
“Hey!” Seohyun turns around to see Yuri bounding towards her with a glowing expression. Her hair is swinging effortlessly behind her, as if she were shooting a shampoo commercial right then and there. “It’s getting dark, and you still haven’t eaten anything.” She holds out her hand expectantly: “Come on.”
Seohyun stretches her arm out and entwines her awkward fingers with Yuri’s slender ones, sighing to herself. They walk inside together, hand in hand, Yuri with an endless train of thoughts and Seohyun with an eternal ability to listen.
Seohyun doesn’t realize that she’s unconsciously tucked the shell away into her dress pocket, and finds it only when undressing for the night. She zips it into the smallest pocket of her purse and hopes to never come across it.
Seohyun tries not to dwell over the vacation again.
Love stories are seemingly endless. They come and go, some in happiness, but most in broken hearts. Seohyun finds romance in general an unrealistic, falsely portrayed notion that most people in their lives are thriving after when in reality, love is just a physical attraction between two people that in any other case don’t have any serious effect over the other and won’t at all aide in their future. Pessimism is totally different, she tells herself.
In her career, there are so many things restricted, and while sometimes it frustrates her, for the most it is for the better. It is simple, being forced to be perfect.
It doesn’t surprise her that most others don’t see the way she does - not being able to eat what they want, go where they want, be with who they want - but Seohyun is not like most others and she finds it that kind of simple too.
Her first preamble with any sort of romance was in the tenth grade, in the midst of her training under SM. There had been a boy in her geometry class that kept pestering her about being rich, famous, things all high school girls dreamed of (even though this was just seohyun’s boost to one day changing the world).
She had questioned her friends about it, and they had laughed and told her he liked her just for that - one day being rich, famous, things all high school girls dreamed of.
Seohyun never really understood what they had meant until he asked her out the week before she was to fly out to Japan to support the whole of SM’s artists at an award show, and stay there the rest of month in training, when school would have ended and she wouldn’t see any of them again until the recurring autumn.
His face had fallen when she had said she couldn’t, and Seohyun recalls the rejection being like shoving a puppy away that was starting to get on the owner’s nerves.
Though she hadn’t ever liked him more than a friend, she just remembers telling herself to never have suffer through that feeling again. It becomes the reason she uses while pushing away impending futures, people that could have the potential but Seohyun is for some reason still afraid they won’t.
She doesn’t have to encounter the situation again until years later, when she is far into being rich and famous and all things high school girls dreamed of, and when she is far past being one of them and a title of her own.
Cho Kyuhyun, to no one’s astonishment, is exactly like the rest of them - of which by them, Seohyun means the male species, with the exception of a scattered far and few (jinki is the first one that comes to mind, and is followed by ryeowook and donghae and maybe yunho, and all of exo is still teetering on their innocence).
She finds them, in simple terms, incapable, gloriously rude bastards.
Seohyun has nothing against them for it; it just so happens to be that way, simple things in life that appear to her as it is. She has long learned to live with it and pretend like she doesn’t mind until it all blends together.
What she doesn’t understand, however, is Cho Kyuhyun’s pursuit. In that way, he is different. Inconsistent, out of bounds, on unspeakable terms that Seohyun normally does not get through to.
It begins - their bantering, his irritating and hers annoyance - two months before debut, if she is remembering it right, when spring has yet to roll around and Seohyun has no idea who this face is other than a part of the new artist on the block. He teases her, somewhat, and likes to joke around often, and when her stage name has already been decided he still insists on Joohyun, innocent little Seo Joohyun that has a ring to it despite her wanting to admit it.
She tries not to question the turn of life but sometimes it just has to be done and so she questions a higher being, someone up there somewhere, whoever is controlling the very step she takes, and why Cho Kyuhyun, of all people, is always in the way.
There is a hierarchy system indefinitely declared in the company. Most entertainment companies choose not to acknowledge it, or by success rather than length, but SM is SM and so Seohyun ranks towards the bottom of this chain.
Boa is at the top, followed by Kangta, and Trax and TVXQ sit together at three, the latter once upon a time the Five Rising Gods of the East and now just HoMin. Then there is the forever bestowed, slowly decreasing Super Junior, of which two years comes and finally is Seohyun and the rest of her group. SHINee and f(x) come a bit after that, and for now EXO of twelve pools at the bottom, watching and waiting and growing into another prodigy of what has become SMTOWN.
Seohyun thinks the exclusiveness is a bit stupid, actually.
She finds that no one bothers her, still, because of her looks and a smile. She is precious, and belovéd, and of all things pure, and so it is kind of unanimously decided that she will not be pestered as regarded to this. Seohyun comes to appreciate it, and all the little things that come with it (innocent maknae is innocent, as they say), because it means less time trying and more time focusing.
It is an effortless routine that Kyuhyun breaks in a matter of minutes. Seohyun kind of hates him for it.
They have been friends for six years. Seohyun isn’t sure whether he is yet in the we aren’t blood related but I love you section or just sitting in her best friends section. She has it all down to the point, but he still seems to be lying somewhere in between. Seohyun can’t describe it quite well.
One time Yoona asked her if there was ever anything more. It was also the one time where Seohyun considered we aren’t blood related but I love you in different terms and it was just strange, if nothing else.
“No. I don’t think so, at least,” she had answered.
Later that same night, Kyuhyun had called her with this awkward tone, but Seohyun just pretends like she never picked up on it, and that maybe fatigue was just hard at work. “Seohyun, what would you do if I said I liked someone?”
The question doesn’t make sense, and it takes her a while to answer. “Congratulations?” Her voice is shaky, off, but Kyuhyun chuckles anyways. It sounds remorseful.
“Okay then. Good night,” he tacks on, but not before mumbling something about her obliviousness and maybe it wasn’t meant to be or something like that. She begins to ask what it means, but Seohyun decides against it when she hears him sigh, and just holds the thought to herself. There is something a bit disappointing about it, but she can’t explain it just right. It becomes a habit of hers when it comes to Kyuhyun, then.
He calls her again at night a couple of weeks later, in that duration which they have only had two incidents of encounter, both backstage at Music Core where TaeTiSeo are emceeing and he happens to be coincidentally supporting TVXQ the same day. They exchange hi’s and hello’s and Tiffany mentions something being not quite right, but Taeyeon tells her to leave it and Seohyun doesn’t know what either of them are talking about.
“Wanna go on a walk?” he begins. Hyoyeon asks her why her eyes are glowing.
“Right now? It’s almost one,” Seohyun answers, but for some reason she is wishing. The feeling is unfamiliar and it kind of tugs at a remote spot in her chest and Seohyun likes it.
She hears Kyuhyun cough, and then there is a shuffle, and then his voice comes on again. “Yeah. If you can.”
When Seohyun gets outside, she kind of regrets it, even with his blushing cheeks and cartoon t-shirt hidden under a thick winter coat. The air outside is freezing and Seohyun’s teeth are chattering and she realizes if she doesn’t get to sleep in less than an hour, she will have dark circles under her eyes for the whole rest of the next day.
She shoves her hands into her sweatshirt pockets and sighs, because none of this really makes any sense to her. Next to her, Kyuhyun is humming to himself, when she feels him turn around to look at her. Seohyun shivers, and he scoffs. “What?”
“Why are your hands always like that?”
She looks down at her sweatshirt, hands hidden warm and safe in the comfort of the fleece. “Like what?”
“Like in your pockets. Do you know how difficult that makes it?”
Seohyun opens her mouth again - difficult it makes what? she begins to ask - but Kyuhyun has already pulled her hand from inside her sweatshirt pocket, interlacing her fingers into his own, and his fingers are just as cold and even softer.
She looks up at him, but he is looking ahead, whistling the same familiar tune that has suddenly lost itself in her rumbling train of thoughts. When he doesn’t glance back down, Seohyun turns instead to the night lights in front of her, and she isn’t that cold anymore.
Tiffany came up with the nightly tradition towards the beginning of their debut: every Tuesday night, there would be a discussion of inner thoughts. Seohyun can’t remember exactly how Tiffany described it, but that is how she sees it so she sticks to that.
(one time sunny asked why on a tuesday. sooyoung had pushed her and said weekends are busy and tuesdays are the happy days, not as hectic as monday but not as casual as wednesday and thursdays are just awkward. none of them know where this explanation came from but they stick to it anyways.)
The discussion for that week begins with Jessica. “So, I think Jonghyun has a new girlfriend or something.”
Taeyeon opens her mouth, wait, I thought this was supposed to about us- but Yuri leans in and her eyes are twinkling because out of all of them Yuri is a sucker for drama and hopeless romantics. “Really? Who?”
“I don’t know her name, I just saw him texting someone the other day and when I asked who it was, Key said his girlfriend, and then Jonghyun kind of shoved him but he didn’t deny it, and then Minho sighed and Onew sighed too and said he was going to get them all in trouble and Taemin said who cares about getting in trouble this is awesome and Key kind of laughed and then Yoona came in and said I had to go for some schedule.”
Yuri whines and shoves Yoona, who almost falls over. “Hey! How was I supposed to know what they were talking about?” but Yuri has already turned away and back to Jessica, who is admiring her newly painted nails.
Tiffany has her hands clasped together and her eyes are glazed over. Seohyun can’t tell if she is about to cry or it’s just Tiffany being herself. “That is so romantic,” she breathes, and Hyoyeon snorts.
“Romantic my ass. Jonghyun is anything but.” Taeyeon hits her but she is giggling, and Tiffany is ignoring them both. Her hands are now joined with Sooyoung, both of who are the everlasting desperate lovers in the group, and they are relating over relationships and love and something about the heart wants what the heart wants.
Seohyun coughs. “But isn’t that kind of difficult?” she mumbles, but Sunny is looking at her with curious eyes so apparently she did not go ignored.
“What is difficult?”
By then, all the girls are staring at her with bright, gleaming eyes and Seohyun remembers then how much she hates the spotlight. “Dating. Wouldn’t it just be so much easier if everyone’s match was written on their forehead?”
Yuri giggles and throws her arm over Seohyun’s shoulder. “What enjoyment would you get out of that?”
“Half of the fun is just in finding the person,” Tiffany adds, “even if it doesn’t seem like that at the time. That way you know they are the one.”
“Can’t get the pleasure without the pain,” Sunny tells her.
Then Sooyoung is speaking, “Which reminds me…” and suddenly the conversation is directed off of her and to another romance Seohyun doesn’t want to take part of. She sighs to herself and even when she is questioning her unnies, sometimes they are right and it is inevitable to admit so.
She calls him five days later when she can’t take it anymore. “Hey, Kyuhyun?”
“Yeah?” His voice is groggy and she thinks she might have woken him up. There is heavy breathing on the other line, though, so Seohyun decides to go ahead anyways.
“What would you…” She takes a deep breath, but the words aren’t going to come out on their own, so she keeps pushing herself. “What would you say if I told you I liked someone too?”
Seohyun thinks she might have heard him suck in a breath, but it is late and this could all just be a hallucination, and so she decides not to assume anything. Next to her, Hyoyeon shuffles in the bed and pulls the blanket up over her head. “Really? Well, then, congratulations to you too.” He sounds wide awake now. She doesn’t know if she should smile or not.
“Alright. Good night then,” but not before she says to him something about being oblivious and maybe they weren’t meant to be together, a bit more obviously than his own.
Kyuhyun laughs, and then she hears him go, wait, does that mean- but she actually has to go, because the lights are now on in the kitchen, and so she hangs up.
The remote tug is at her heart again. It’s kind of nice.
When the door opens, Seohyun isn’t really sure if she expected whatever was about to happen.
He walks into the practice room, plops down towards a back corner, and pulls out his phone like it has all been rehearsed. He isn’t paying any attention to her, but she finds it suddenly irritatingly difficult to concentrate on the last couple seconds of the dance routine. She feels like a movie star, for some reason.
The music is blasting in Seohyun’s ears and her heart is thumping, thumping, thumping. She focuses on what Hyoyeon had told her earlier, extending her leg to the ground, honing in on audience whose lives are at the tips of your fingertips, as she had described it; out of the corner of her eye, she sees Kyuhyun fidgeting with the keys on his cell and smiles, because it is definitely the other way around in their situation - but, by then, she has lost count and the music is way ahead of her routine.
Seohyun tries standing up from the position, then, but her feet lose their balance under her and she slips and falls to the floor in an awkward mess.
Kyuhyun looks up sharply from his phone, getting up off of the floor. She brushes herself off before he can reach her and stands up on her own. Her hands are shaking and her cheeks are probably burning a bright red and when normally, Seohyun would have attempted to push it off, she can’t and she has all but an idea why. “You okay?” he asks. “That looked like it hurt.”
“I’m fine,” Seohyun answers, but her legs are throbbing and she feels anything and everything except that. “Totally fine.”
He leans over to the side anyways, ignoring her refute. “Are you sure? There’s a bruise forming on-”
“No, no, it’s fine,” Seohyun says as she grabs the jacket hanging off of the balance bar, quickly tying it around her waist. She glances up at him and gives him a quick grin. “Nothing make-up won’t cover.”
Kyuhyun raises an eyebrow. “Whatever you say.” He scratches the back of his head, and she resists asking if he got a haircut, because this probably isn’t the most appropriate time, and if she really could choose to do one thing, it would be erase the situation from their memory so as to never have to bring it up again. “I just, um, I just came in to ask if you wanted to go out for lunch sometime.”
Seohyun blinks. “What?”
Kyuhyun coughs. “Lunch. Sometime.” She blinks again, and he coughs again, and then adds, “If you want, that is.”
She isn’t quite sure when it went from awkward to more awkward, and there it is again, that feeling, and Seohyun has a million thoughts rushing around in her head, and then she wonders when he went from in between to we aren’t blood related but I love you, and then she smiles. “Yeah. Yeah, okay, whenever you’re free.”
He smiles back at her, his teeth kind of uneven and drawn back, but Seohyun thinks he looks nice. Attractive, even, if she could admit that without turning even a brighter red.
Kyuhyun leans down and pecks her awkwardly on the cheek - she isn’t quite sure, then, what keeps her from giggling, because this is nowhere near normal, and suddenly he is gone.
It wasn’t as she had imagined it, if she had ever imagined it at all, but it is still perfect. Seohyun can’t explain it with logic, but she can’t say that she minds. His annoying, his butting in, his ruining of perfect cycles, Seohyun can’t say she minds any of it.
The whole of SMTOWN takes a trip to coastal Japan during their next concert. There is running, dancing, singing, lots of laughing, sometimes hand-holding and quick hugs and awkward kisses too, and Seohyun manages to catch all of it along with her shared vast infinity of the ocean.
The exclusiveness is still kind of stupid, she admits, but it is kind of relaxing in a way too.
Boa and Kangta at the top are doing just fine, the once Five Rising Gods of the East that are now HoMin are doing pretty okay too, TRAX are serving well, the forever bestowed slowly decreasing Super Junior seem to be at the peak of it all, SHINee and f(x) are a continued giggling bunch, and EXO of twelve is happy in their innocence glory. SNSD, too, are pretty awesome, if she can say so herself.
Kyuhyun grabs her hand while they are walking home from the beach when they are all the way at the far back of the group. He does it quickly, and unexpectedly, and whispers something about Changmin watching and Leeteuk can wait to hear about this and Suho and Kris haven’t made relationship lines clear yet, but Seohyun just holds his hand tight anyways.
She thinks beauty exists in all of the weirdest forms, in physical ways and mental ways and emotional ways and all types of ways. There are those feelings that fill her up, that dig their roots into her skin and never let go. They swell, and blow her over - like wind and waves.
And their relationship is nothing short of beautiful.