Somebody I Used to Know (Kyuhyun-centric)

[warmboys]

Pairing: Kyuhyun-centric (/Sungmin, /Donghae)
Word Count: 2000
Rating: PG
Summary: Kyuhyun makes friends with Donghae, and Donghae knows everyone.

Somebody I Used to Know

When Sungmin walks in, Kyuhyun’s on the computer. Sungmin walks out, makes lunch, and walks back in. Kyuhyun hasn’t moved.

“I’m going to the supermarket. Want anything?”

“No, thanks,” Kyuhyun says without looking at him.

Sungmin stands in the doorway for five more seconds and then turns away.

Donghae is very sweet.

“I really like your avatar,” Donghae says.

“Thanks,” Kyuhyun says.

“Where’d you get it?”

“I made it.”

“You made it! You must be really good at this kind of thing. I’m awful at graphics.”

“It’s easy,” Kyuhyun says. He takes a sip of water. His heart rate has quickened a little. He recognizes this as one of his own weaknesses.

“Can we be friends?” Donghae asks.

“Sure,” Kyuhyun says. “But I’m not very interesting.”

Donghae introduces him to a lot of people. Kyuhyun remembers Eunhyuk, Heechul, and Kibum. Eunhyuk is nice but distracted. Heechul is an elitist. Kibum doesn’t talk much.

“Kyuhyun is really great at Photoshop,” Donghae says. “And he’s only nineteen.”

“You talk like you’re ancient,” Eunhyuk says.

“I’m really good at Photoshop,” Heechul says. “We should have a Shop-off.”

“Haha,” Kyuhyun says. “I’m sure you’d win. Donghae exaggerates.”

“You know me so well!” Donghae says, even though they just met.

“I don’t think they like me very much,” Kyuhyun tells Donghae.

“They love you!” Donghae says. “Have you met Kangin?”

“Do you actually know the entire world?”

“Naw. I’m just . . . I like making new friends?”

September comes and goes. Sungmin raps gently on his door. “Hey, I’m gonna be performing at the park this Monday with Jungmo-think you can make it?”

Kyuhyun tears his eyes away from the screen and lets them come into focus on Sungmin’s face. “You got a haircut.”

Sungmin looks surprised. “Two weeks ago, yeah. My sister did it for me when she was visiting.”

“Oh. Right.”

“It’s growing out again.” Sungmin checks himself in the mirror, tucking in his chin.

Kyuhyun shifts in his seat. He’s forgotten the awkwardness of polite conversation. But he’s known Sungmin since freshman year. This shouldn’t feel how it does.

Maybe Sungmin feels it too.

But he’s smiling. “7 p.m., Monday. I’ll be looking for your greasy head in the audience, okay?”

But Monday is Donghae’s birthday, he remembers later.

“What are you getting him?” Eunhyuk asks one day. Kyuhyun is surprised to be spoken to first.

“I’m still thinking,” Kyuhyun admits. “What about you?”

“I sent him a package yesterday. It’s this voodoo doll bracelet he linked me a while ago-subtle, right?”

Kyuhyun laughs and then covers his mouth, even though no one is watching. “You think he was giving you a hint?”

“Donghae’s a sneaky little bastard,” Eunhyuk says. “Haven’t you noticed by now?”

“I haven’t known him very long, but I like him a lot,” Kyuhyun says.

“We all do,” Eunhyuk says.

Kyuhyun lies on his bed and thinks. It’s unclear how much time passes by but the sky is dark when he gets up again. Shuffling footsteps outside tell him Sungmin’s come home from his night film class.

He turns on his laptop and sets his chin on the back of his fist. He photoshops the faces of all of Donghae’s friends onto fifty different types of Pokemon. He doesn’t have photos for everyone, though, so some of them get text instead of a face.

It’s a rush job, but he hopes it’ll make Donghae laugh. He imagines Donghae laughing, the texture of his voice.

“Thanks so much everyone!!! I really didn’t expect to be showered with gifts like this. . . . Oh my gosh. I’m so touched. Thanks to Eunhyuk for the bracelet-I’m already wearing it!-to Ryeowook for the homemade turtle soup, to Heechul for the cute little e-card-a bleeding heart means you love me, right, hyung?-to . . .”

Kyuhyun tenses, waiting.

“. . . To Kyuhyunnie, for making this AWESOME ‘shopped image of me and everyone I know! I really don’t think I look like Pikachu, but man, I almost fell off my chair laughing when I saw this! You’re officially my new favorite person. Check it out, everyone!”

Kyuhyun smiles. He wonders if Donghae actually fell off his chair. If so, he wishes he’d been there to see it.

“To be honest,” Heechul says. “I’m a little hurt I wasn’t first.”

“C’mon, hyung,” Kibum says.

“You were there, Kibum?” Eunhyuk asks.

“Taking a nap.”

Eunhyuk laughs.

“Why were you hurt?” Kyuhyun asks slowly.

“Because I wasn’t mentioned first. I know Donghae better than all of you here,” Heechul explains.

There is a collective pause.

“You knew him first, hyung, but we’re all friends here,” Eunhyuk starts.

“Are we? How well do you know Kyuhyun?”

Another pause.

“I know he’s got excellent grip on the mouse,” Kibum says. “That’s pretty important, in my book.”

Even Heechul laughs.

“How’s school?” His dad asks.

“It’s good,” Kyuhyun says.

“Are you able to handle the workload?”

“Yes.”

A moment later it’s his mom. “Tell me about your friends.”

He thinks of Donghae. Then he remembers Sungmin. Then he remembers Sungmin’s performance. “Fuck.”

“What did you just say-“

“I’m sorry, mom. I gotta go.”

“It’s not a big deal. Don’t stress out over it,” Sungmin says, folding laundry.

Kyuhyun stands awkwardly with his arms hanging limply by his sides. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands. His height is uncomfortable. His head is too high up above Sungmin’s. They should be at the same level, but he has to look down to talk to Sungmin.

“What song did you play?” He asks after a while.

Sungmin is startled. His eyes flicker to Kyuhyun’s face, scanning for something. Kyuhyun doesn’t know what.

He bursts out laughing, and Kyuhyun still doesn’t know why. He starts laughing a little, too, because it’s contagious.

“‘I Kissed a Girl,’” Sungmin tells him finally. “It sounds great acoustic!”

In an attempt to make it up to Sungmin, Kyuhyun spends the next week following him around like a shadow.

“Dude, I’m not mad at you. This is kind of creepy,” Sungmin tells him at lunch.

“I needed to get out of my room,” Kyuhyun says.

“You’re like my bodyguard or something. Except you’d be totally useless in a fight.”

“My body is the stuff dreams are made of,” Kyuhyun says, remembering something Heechul said once.

Sungmin blinks at him. “I’m alarmed.”

Kyuhyun grins, and it’s almost like freshman year again, suffering through the Shakespeare seminar together. Late night cram sessions, the video games, the popcorn and buffalo wings. Sungmin felt safe, like a well-worn sheet. Kyuhyun wonders when he stopped feeling safe.

“You should come to Jungmo’s thing on Friday,” Sungmin is saying. “Don’t bail on me this time.”

“You can count on me,” Kyuhyun says, even though he doesn’t really know Jungmo. He’s a senior. A nice guy but not someone Kyuhyun can easily talk to. They don’t have much in common.

“I don’t really want to go,” Kyuhyun says.

“Then don’t go,” Donghae tells him. “Stay here and talk to me.”

“But Sungmin will be upset.”

“But you live with him! I miss you, Kyuhyun.”

Kyuhyun stops. Donghae misses him.

No.

“I have to go. Maybe I’ll catch you later?”

Donghae makes a sad face.

He’s halfway in his skinny jeans when he remembers the sad face.

“Ready?” Sungmin calls. He sounds like he’s right outside the door.

Kyuhyun panics. His thumb fumbles over the zipper. He looks over at his laptop, glowing friendly back at him.

“Ugh, I think I ate something bad for lunch, hyung,” Kyuhyun groans as convincingly as he knows how. “You go ahead. I’ll join you later.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I might need to throw up a little.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t be drinking tonight then. Just stay in and rest up, alright? You’ve got that big exam on Monday.”

“No, I want to see Jungmo-hyung and,” he pauses. “-have fun with you guys.”

Sungmin laughs. His voice is muffled against the door. “Don’t worry about it. We can hang out some other time. Feel better, ‘kay?”

“Thanks, hyung.”

“I’m back,” he says.

“Yay!” Donghae yells. “I missed you so much.”

“That was only like, ten minutes.”

“Still,” Donghae insists. “Ten minutes is a long time.”

It was.

“This is disgusting,” Heechul says, and leaves.

“He’s just using you, you know,” Heechul says. “He doesn’t like you best.”

Kyuhyun stares. It’s the first time Heechul’s made the effort to speak to him first.

“Okay,” he says. “What do you mean?”

“He doesn’t like anyone. In real life he’s a loser who sits on his ass all day and fails all his classes.”

“But he wants to be a marine biologist.”

“He wanted to be. That was as a kid. You know nothing about him.”

Kyuhyun swallows the knot in his throat.

“How is he using me?”

Heechul laughs and then is quiet for a while.

“Makes him feel less lonely, I guess. To know there’s someone even more pathetic.”

Kyuhyun is awake when Sungmin comes home. The pattern of his footsteps tells Kyuhyun he is moderately drunk. Kyuhyun considers leaving his room to get him a glass of water.

But he’s thinking about what Heechul said.

“Kyuhyun, are you awake? You should’ve come! It was sooo much fun,” Sungmin slurs through the corridor.

Kyuhyun turns off the desk lamp so it looks like he’s asleep.

“He said what?” Donghae laughs. “You gotta be kidding me. He uses me to make more friends.”

Kyuhyun is silent.

“Seriously, Kyuhyun! Believe me. I couldn’t stand it if you didn’t. It would literally kill me.”

“It wouldn’t kill you,” Kyuhyun says.

“It would! It’d be like impaling myself on one of those swords you showed me the other day.”

Kyuhyun tries to focus. “Don’t change the subject.”

Donghae shuts up.

Thirty seconds go by. He doesn’t hear the ticking, but he counts in his head.

“I don’t know if you noticed, but Heechul is something of a bitch,” Donghae says finally. “Without me half of his friends wouldn’t tolerate him.”

“I’ve noticed,” Kyuhyun starts. But something about this conversation doesn’t feel right.

“He’s really insecure, too. That’s the funny thing. People don’t know, but I know all of his secrets. I love him to death; that’s why I don’t tell anyone. Any other person would’ve spilled a long time ago, trust me. But I love him, I really do, Kyuhyun.”

There is a paper clip on his desk. Kyuhyun takes it between his fingers and unwinds the metal.

“You use that word a lot,” Kyuhyun says.

“What word?”

“‘Love.’”

“Oh,” Donghae laughs. “It’s because I do! I love all of you.”

The calendar on the wall tells him it’s December. It was October yesterday.

He cranes his neck. There’s snow on the ground.

“I don’t think you do,” Kyuhyun says. “I have to go now. Goodbye.”

For Sungmin’s birthday Kyuhyun pulls him inside his room.

He sits Sungmin down on his swivel chair, blindfolded.

“What is this, man?” Sungmin asks, laughing. “I better not be bald when that blindfold comes off.”

“Alright, you can take it off now.”

Sungmin opens his eyes slowly, his left first, and then the right. He’s sitting in front of Kyuhyun’s laptop.

“What-“ he starts when he notices the desktop is nearly bare. “What happened to all your programs?”

“I uninstalled everything except for Microsoft Office,” Kyuhyun says. “It felt like I was spending too much time on the computer.”

Sungmin looks at him before grinning. “But you’re still getting me a real present, right?”

The street is very wide, and everyone is staring at him.

“No one is staring at you,” Sungmin says. “Walk with your back straight.”

Kyuhyun tries. He looks at a girl passing by. She doesn’t meet his gaze.

“No one’s staring at me,” he says.

Sungmin smiles. “Why would they, when I’m standing next to you?”

Kyuhyun elbows him in the side.

He raises his head. The sun hurts his eyes, but he doesn't look away.

i feel like i should write something here XD