I Stay Running (Victoria/Nichkhun)

[warmboys]

Pairing: Victoria/Nichkhun
Rating: PG-13 for some sexual situations
Word Count: 3.3k
Summary: This is a breakup story. Format borrowed from 500 Days of Summer (I know this has been done before, aaaaahh) and this fic. An idea is a dangerous seed!


I Stay Running

(Day 0)

Everyone knows the story of how they met. They meet on a TV show. It’s like an elaborate version of house for grownups, if they can be called that. He’s twenty-two, she’s not much older. He’s supposed to call her noona, but she hates the sound of deference. In this case, anyway. It’s not like she’s a cradle-robber.

But before that was Star King, and this is what they tell people. I already knew her, he says, smiling his eyes into familiar crescents. We sat next to each other, she says, before they ask her to kick her leg over her head.

But even before that:

There’s a really cute Thai guy in 2PM, said Luna.

Oh really? asked Victoria. Is that the band where they do a lot of acrobatics?

Yeah, Luna nodded fervently. That’s the one.

His name was Nichkhun, Victoria found out from a quick Internet search. His full name was Nichkhun Horvejkul. She moved her lips around the characters, wondering how they were supposed to sound. He had two younger sisters and an older brother. He had the look of a natural Peter Pan. In twenty years he would still retain that boyish charm which was beaten out of most Korean men during their army stint.

She was still on the page when Luna walked in. Omo, you’re fast, Luna said, peeping over her shoulder.

Victoria tabbed out quickly. I’m just getting acquainted with our peers in this industry.

Unnie, Luna laughed. You sound like a textbook.

(Days 1-30)

The beginning feels a lot like an introductory Zen class. Neither of them is sure what to do besides stay still. The distance between them is as palpable as a stone, growing heavier with every awkward silence. Nichkhun’s just waiting for the stick to come down on his back. At this point Victoria is, too. They don’t know how to make it better. They call each other -sshi. In an act of bravery she suggests, “Let’s speak informally,” and he visibly cringes. One step forward, one step back. She goes home from filming exhausted, morale depleted.

“Am I really unattractive or something?”

Sulli passes her the mug, steaming with freshly brewed green tea. “Is that even a real question?”

“He treats me like I’m a, one of those animals people don’t ever touch.” Victoria presses her upper lip over the rim and instantly burns herself. “Ouch.”

“A leper,” Luna says. “You’re beautiful. And he knows it, too. This is just the adjustment period. He’s figuring you out, just as you are him.”

Victoria and Sulli both look at her. “You talk like we’re actually married.”

“That’s what you have to believe! How else are you going to convince the rest of Korea?”

(Day 239)

After everything, she’s the one to break it off. He asks her one sugar or two, and she says, “This isn’t going to work.”

His hand looks ridiculously large holding the packets between his thumb and forefinger. “What? Are you on a diet?”

“No,” she laughs, then stops herself. “I mean, yes. I’m always on a diet. But I’m talking about us.”

She waits for it to click. He’s smiling, though, waiting for the punchline. It’s just another girl thing, PMS, or one of her crazy phases. Victoria’s unpredictable like that. Oh, Victoria. Vic. Umma. Baby.

“I don’t get it,” he says. “What about us?”

She takes a step back. The coffee was burning her hand. She rubs her thumb against the condensation. It was the poster of them on that bus earlier, on their way here, that spurred on this revelation. The world looked dark under her shades. She was hardly recognizable in the puffy down coat with the furry hood up, her face outlined in trimming, hair tied back and tucked into the giant handknit scarf Amber sent from California. He looked like he might’ve been balding under his cap, but he looked like himself. They got some stares on the way, and the girls on the table to their left were glancing over suspiciously every now and then.

His glove is gently touching her arm in concern.

“You know I really like you,” she hears herself saying. Thank god for these sunglasses, she’s thinking. And I can’t believe it’s come down to something so trite. “But this could only end in casualties.”

He doesn’t let go of her arm, but his lips curl like he’s about to smile, and it’s one she’s come to recognize. This is what disbelief looks like. This is the shape of forthcoming denial. “You don’t know that,” he says. “We’ll be careful.”

“It’s over once they suspect,” she says. “The cameras-“

“They won’t suspect,” he says, closing his hand over the packets. It’s the first time she’s seen him like this. His gloved fist, the grains of sugar making little scraping sounds against thin paper. He’s frowning, she knows, even though his cap covers his eyebrows. They are furrowed right now. He’s thinking. Not angry at her, but angry. At the circumstances, which have brought them both luck and joy.

It’s temporary, she thinks. She thinks that’s what she’s saying. She says it aloud.

He releases the fist. The packets have torn through themselves. Sugar spills out onto the table. He looks almost apologetic when he says, “How do you know that?”

“Nichkhun,” she starts slowly, because this one is important. If she gets this line right, it’ll all be over. “I think we both knew that from the start.”

He lets go of her arm. His face relaxes, as if he wants to laugh. But of course he doesn’t. He is such a gentleman.

Her lips don’t tremble on the car ride back. They look out opposite windows. He waits until she’s inside before turning back towards the car, walking with his hands in his pockets. She waits until the elevator doors close to let her head fall forward, one hand on the metal walling for support, and begins to sob.

(Day 102)

T.S. : Missin' You - Trey Songz." I can't stop missin' you! Wish I was there with you!" ㅋㅋㅋ
Thu Sep 02 2010 07:52:39 (Eastern Daylight Time) via Twitter for BlackBerry®

“Stop looking at me like that,” Victoria warns the other girls in the car. Luna already looks like she’s going to burst an artery from laughing too much.

Krystal touches her hand. “It’s okay to be happy. It’s okay to scream his name down the street. We’re in L.A. No one will know what you’re saying.”

Victoria does scream then, into Krystal’s ear. It’s the one time she’s ever abused a dongsaeng, but she figures no one will blame her for it.

She turns toward the window and smiles into her sleeve. Her other hand curls around the phone tightly in her jacket pocket.

America is more beautiful than what they say.

(Day 148)

“Are you sure you want to learn Chinese?”

Nichkhun’s eyes are starting to look a lot like tennis balls. He does this to all the girls, she knows that by now. That doesn’t mean it gets any less effective. If anything, he’s had many more chances to perfect his technique. It’s foolproof at this point, and she is only human.

He looks offended. “Why do you doubt me, wife?”

“It’s not that I doubt you-I didn’t say that! But Chinese is hard, or so I hear, since I’ve never had to learn it as a foreigner…”

She trails off when she sees that he’s open-mouthed laughing at her. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” he says, wiping away a tear. “Anyway. Teach me something.”

She adjusts her sitting position. Leaning against the foot of the couch for an hour is doing horrible things to her back. Instinctively he moves an arm to cushion her neck from whatever invisible monster he must have assumed she was wriggling away from.

“What are you doing?” she asks. “I’m fine.”

“Oh,” he looks awkward. “I thought you were uncomfortable.”

The offhanded chivalry, more than anything else, is what propels all those daydreams of ripping his clothes off. Well, there’re other things, too. She’s seen the Cabi commercial more than a few times. Even considered, very briefly, asking Heechul-oppa to superimpose her own face over Yuri’s.

“Thanks,” she says just as awkwardly. “Um, what did you want to know?”

“Wife is ‘lao po,’ right?”

“Right. And ‘lao gong’ is husband.”

“Lao po,” he grins.

“Lao gong,” she grins back.

“How do you say ‘we got married’?”

“Wo men jie hun le,” she says. “But it sounds kind of strange. Like, surprise! We got married!”

He makes a low sound in his throat that sends a flush of heat up her chest and neck. But it’s just him, laughing. “That’s what happened, though!”

“I guess. What else?”

“Lao gong ai lao po,” he says, still grinning.

She raises a hand to cover her mouth. “That’s so-forward.”

“You’re not going to say it back?” He looks disappointed.

“No one says that in real life.”

“What do they say?”

“Just-“ she lowers her eyes to the carpeting. “Wo ai ni.”

When she raises them again, he’s looking at her intently, like he’s trying to figure something out. Figure her out. If there was any moment tonight that anything would happen, it was clearly then.

She makes a motion to get up. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

Two minutes and some hyperventilating texts later, she opens the door to find his worried face behind it. He’s so tall and adorable and ... manly. Maybe she’s had one glass of wine too many. Oh, fuck it.

“Are you okay-“ he starts but the words never quite make it out of his mouth because she leans into him, deliberately slowly, or maybe slowly because of the alcohol haze, or because this is one moment they’ll want to savor, the first one.

He kisses her like a thought unraveling, carefully, because he’s just as afraid of abandon and desire as she is, but the friction between them has gotten too unbearable even for him. There’s want and fear, and there’s him, she realizes with an oh--, hardening against the outline of her panties under the thin cotton dress. He pulls back momentarily, embarrassed.

“Oh shit, I’m sor-“ he starts again, but they’re not finished so she reels him back in, gently pressing up against him in a way designed to torture but also to suggest, a possibility, something to wait for, if he really is in this as much as she suddenly thinks she is.

“Shut up, pabo,” she whispers before she makes him.

(Day 266)

“Please stop listening to that godawful playlist,” Krystal pleads.

“But I like these songs,” Victoria says groggily. The desk is cool and flat against her cheek. She thinks it might be okay if she stays like this for a while.

(Day 149)

“You look like you just had sex,” Krystal observes the next morning.

Victoria glides past her to the coffee maker. She says nothing, but she doesn’t need to.

“Seriously. Post-coital glow, it’s written all over-your everything. Oh my God.”

It takes a while for Victoria to see what’s wrong with this scenario. “Krystal, how do you even know that?”

Krystal smiles and pats her on the back. “I have a sister. So how big was he?”

“We are not talking about this!”

Krystal’s eyes widen. “So there’s something to talk about! I KNEW IT.”

(Day 310)

“Do you still want to continue filming We Got Married?”

Victoria thinks back to the last time they met at a non-filming occasion. He smiled politely at her and then turned away just as quickly. Men were so keen on self-preservation. The girls didn’t call him appa, instead steering her in opposite directions of the room every time they sensed a forthcoming collision. She was the one being mothered then.

“If Nichkhun-sshi doesn’t object, sure,” Victoria says, remembering to smile.

(Day 277)

“I miss you.”

“You’re drunk, Victoria.”

“Not drunk enough. I’m very-very strong.”

“I can’t-look, this is not-you need to stop calling me like this.”

“Why?”

“Think about it from my perspective. You’re the one who wanted to break up.”

“I know! But-I miss you. Am I not a-allowed to miss you?”

“You’re slurring. Just go to bed, please.”

Not now, she tells herself. This is not the time to cry. She closes her eyes, willing herself to make the last of the alcohol in her veins last. It doesn’t work. She’s fucking weak.

“Okay,” she says. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight--“ he says. “Wait.”

“What?”

He’s quiet for a moment. “Don’t forget to take an aspirin and water before you go to sleep.”

She hangs up.

The line goes dead. “I just don’t get it,” he says, turning to Wooyoung.

Wooyoung scratches his eye, wrapped in his own version of drunken stupor. “Girls are cunts.”

“C’mon, don’t say that.”

“You don’t think Hyoyeon likes me?”

“I think it’s Junho. Sorry bro.”

Wooyoung shrugs and turns over on the couch. His butt hangs off the edge precariously. Nichkhun watches for a moment and lets his eyes flicker down to his phone. It’s darkened now, back to neutral waiting mode. He shouldn’t even be waiting. She’ll probably be hungover in the morning. Maybe Luna will be good and make her pancakes. He would if they were still-

Wooyoung lets out a sudden asthmatic snore. Nichkhun snaps out of it. He turns off his phone and heads back to his room.

(Day 315)

Krystal’s frowning at her under her eyelashes. Victoria blinks sleep away before mumbling, “What?”

Krystal’s arms are thin sticks on her hips. “This isn’t right. And I have a plan.”

“Wh-what?”

“Wash your face, unnie,” Krystal says. “You have a date.”

“Zhou Mi,” Victoria says. “This is my date?”

Zhou Mi feigns a look of hurt, presses one hand on the doorway, mimes leaving. “Sorry? I was told to take you shopping.”

Victoria mulls it over. Her face is washed, and he did travel a distance to her dorm. It’s sunny today. This could work.

She hooks her arm in his. “I’d like that.”

There’s comfort in speaking Chinese again. Even if they aren’t close friends, he gets her better than her bandmates ever could-in a way. Language only takes you so far, but it gives you the basis for mutual understanding.

“You talk like an expat,” he says as they’re getting out of the car. He doesn’t offer his hand the way Nichkhun would, and she’s relieved. “Your Chinese almost sounds accented.”

“I know,” she says. “Doesn’t that happen to you, too?”

Zhou Mi turns to her and grins. “Is it happening right now?”

Turns out Zhou Mi has impeccable taste in clothing. Victoria allows herself to be dragged from shop to shop, trying out hats and scarves and thick-rimmed glasses she’d never pull off in real life. They pose for selcas in front of store mirrors and crack up over how ridiculous they look. It’s not even retail therapy. She’s just breathing, talking, having fun again.

He’s buying them ddukbokki from a street vendor, thumbing through his wallet for the right bills, when she places a hand on his shoulder lightly. “Hey. Thanks.”

A haze of confusion momentarily takes over his face, and then it clicks. He smiles. “It’s only a couple thousand won.”

(Day 149)

He’s too nice.

He might be insincere.

He’s not Chinese.

This is make-believe.

He stirs beside her. She pulls the sheet up higher, fisting them over her chest. He lets out a throaty groan. “Mm. What time is it?”

Her cell phone is on the floor, probably. “I think it’s still early,” she says.

“Hey.” His arm comes around her waist, over the covers. “Look at me.”

Slowly, she does.

Half of his face is pillow-marked, but his eyes are steady. It’s the look of a man who knows exactly what he’s doing. Or at least the projection is pretty convincing.

Stop thinking like this, she reminds herself.

“I’m serious about us,” he says.

(Day 315)

Sitting in her room among the bags and bags of new shirts, dresses, pretty monotonic accessorizable pieces that Zhou Mi absolutely insisted she get, is when it hits her.

Every relationship is doomed to failure.

People die. Forced separation.

People cheat. The love fades.

She’s alive.

It hasn’t faded.

Luna walks in five minutes later and stops at the sight of Victoria’s face. She crouches down beside her, frowning. “Hey, what’s going on? Did Zhou Mi-“

“No,” Victoria says quickly, but her voice cracks even through the monosyllable. “He was great. It’s just-oh my God, I can’t fucking find my phone.”

Luna instantly knows.

He picks up after three rings, like he’s had time to think about it. Saw the name flashing and considered leaving it there, on the coffeetable, the dresser, wherever he is right now. “Hello?” he sounds breathy. Maybe he just got out of the gym. Or maybe he was in the middle of something with another girl.

For Christ’s sake.

“I’m totally sober,” she tells him. “Before you start to wonder.”

Normally the silence would be filled by a chuckle. “It’s not even seven,” he points out.

“Some people like to get a head start,” she says. “But that’s not what I wanted to say.”

“Look, I think-“

“No, let me go first.”

He sighs, away from the phone, but she can still hear it. The small resigned exhale of air.

“I lied to you,” she admits. “I didn’t think of us as temporary. We are, though, in the sense that one of us will die before the other-“

“What?”

“-of old age. But I didn’t think of this as, as a fling or anything. I just said that because it was . . . easier. I was-maybe I am-a little terrified.”

“I get it, Victoria. You don’t need to explain anymore. Look, I’ve had a lot of time to think about it, too, and-“

“No,” she interrupts. “Please. Don’t say what you want to say until you’ve heard me out.”

So quiet she can almost hear a clock ticking in the distance. There is no clock, only the kitchen refrigerator. Road construction two blocks down.

“I’m listening,” he says.

“It’s just, you’re really such a great guy. That in itself is terrifying. I didn’t want us to be just a byproduct of… our jobs-you, caught up in being a gentleman, the adrenaline rush from actually being able to hold hands with a girl without it being blown out of proportion in the tabloids-and me, I don’t know, I fell so easily-I’m really,” she pauses. “A simple girl.”

“You seem pretty complicated to me,” Nichkhun says, but she detects something playful in his voice, something forgiving.

They’re laughing.

“I think,” she continues. “I think I ran away, because if this wasn’t real then I didn’t want-it to stop being real, and I thought, I don’t know, I thought it would be easier to stop before anyone got hurt.”

“You got hurt.” He says it like it’s his fault.

“I’m sorry.” Because it’s hers.

“Victoria,” he says after a pause. “I still want you. I never stopped.”

(Day 316)

“Socks, socks,” she reminds him breathlessly, but he’s kissing a trail up her shoulder. One hand slides into her hair, the other fumbles with the back of her bra, like he’s the overeager high school suddenly-jock who secretly played Starcraft and she’s the girl who did ballet all her life and only just learned she was beautiful. “What?” he whispers, and then laughs into the crook of her neck as he remembers some of her strangest pet peeves, no socks during sex, no pillows either, she’s so ridiculous, and strange, and wonderful, and God, all his. He smiles like it’s a bad habit, she’s one he can’t shake, and when their mouths meet he can tell she's smiling, too.