Entry #21 (PART 2)
(PART 1)
The streets are a harsh place at night. It’s a lesson Kyuhyun’s had to learn and learn well in order to survive out here. Someone should make a guidebook really, How To Live On The Streets - not that Kyuhyun could afford it - because it’s hard work, and you never really get used to the blare of sirens when you’re trying to sleep, or the sense that your skin is getting too small to hold your bones in place. It’s just so cold.
Kyuhyun’s sides ache perpetually. That’s the biggest annoyance. Ten minutes inside restaurants, libraries, cafés, any place they won’t kick him out of, and the warm seeps through and his muscles relax, but the cold of the streets. There is no escaping it.
He has to sacrifice all his morals to keep it together. He’s trying to save for an apartment to rent, job-searching all the time, but nobody wants to hire a fifteen-year-old street urchin. Except the whore houses, but Kyuhyun’s not quite desperate enough for that yet. Hasn’t quite reached rock bottom, even if thieving is only one step above whoring.
The wings are perhaps his greatest assets. They allow him to move from city to city frequently without paying for transport. They get him out of the tightest spots imaginable: like shocking some policeman so hard with their sudden appearance that he'd been able to ditch the cop car without being chased, and breaking into windows of houses without a ladder. When he can't afford to rest his head in a crappy motel, he can find the quietest corner of town possible and wrap his wings around himself so tight the chill barely gets in.
He's never had his picture taken or his fingerprints booked once. He's becoming a master of his trade, a master of being a thief, he's the Robin Hood of Seoul/Incheon/Mokpo, so fuck you god, who needs faith when you've got a set-up like this going on.
His wings, on the rare occasion he sees them properly, usually in car window reflections in deserted streets, are almost fully black now, and the fear is so constant he can’t keep his eyes in one place anymore. People walk around at night with guns. Guns suited especially for no-good street dwellers like him (oh how the mighty have fallen) and all the better if they manage to bag themselves a nice pair of wings with it. Nice little earners, wings, Kyuhyun would imagine. Fetch a hefty price in the black market.
At times it's like being paralysed, almost, but inverted. Like Kyuhyun's roaming around and the rest of the world has stopped dead, as though he's a goldfish in a bowl, swimming but never getting anywhere, into the castle and out and it makes no difference because he always ends up knocking against the glass, and life isn't fucking fair, and all goldfish analogies do is make it all an even bigger joke.
God must have had a field day with Kyuhyun. Gave him the rope so he'd hang himself. Set him up to knock him down. Kyuhyun tried so hard not to sin, but God never made it any easier. Kyuhyun isn't fucking Jesus. He may have angels whispering in his ear, but he's just as infallible as the rest of them.
The hunger is easy. After a while, the stomachache gets so intense the endorphins kick in, and then the nausea makes him want to puke at the thought of eating anyway. Kyuhyun's a thief but he's a seller too, and the buyers leave him with nothing but pennies to turn into food. Shitty deals in the cities, really.
Sometimes he wants to give up completely. He sits in the train station, watching people coming and going, what a fucking cliché he’s become, and he wants it all to go away. He's too young for this, too young to feel so old. If someone comes along and offers something better than this, he's going to take it, because it's been seven long months and he's still at the starting line.
When some guy offers him an out, it takes just a moment to make a decision before he's popping the pill. Ecstasy, indeed.
--
The heroin rush is long-gone when the guy sits next to him in the alleyway. He just parks himself unceremoniously next to Kyuhyun and sticks out his hand, never mind that this area might be private property, never mind that someone is already occupying this space. If Kyuhyun weren’t floating right now, he might have something to say to this stranger, but as it is, all he can do is lean his head against the wall and try and open his eyes properly. The Focus is activated, distantly, and Jesus Christ, this man has a blinding Colour, the purest white Kyuhyun has ever seen and he wonders if he’s mentally retarded or something. Kyuhyun squints, eyes in agony, until finally, the Focus settles on vision that’s dimmer the others, and the pain lets up somewhat.
“I’m Zhou Mi,” the guy says, seemingly not noticing any awkwardness as he tucks his hand back into his pocket.
Kyuhyun doesn’t deem to answer him. He’s pretty sure his mouth is working okay now, and he’s usually coherent when the high’s at that long constant stage, but he’s not an idiot. You don’t just give out names around here, not when they could get back to any number of people.
“What are you tripping on?” Zhou Mi says, and Kyuhyun’s head lolls to face him.
“Smack. Laced with something else… I think…” Kyuhyun shuts his eyes, the light starting to get excruciating again. His pupils are way too dilated to be looking at something like this. Burning magnesium - how Kyuhyun’s Colour would look if life had cut him a break somewhere down the line.
Zhou Mi shifts, pulling his knees under him. Kyuhyun ends the Focus to the chagrin of the Voices, lets his eyes travel all over Zhou Mi’s skinny form. Neat, freshly washed hair, smell of raspberries hovering over his spotless skin, clothes that don’t look as if they’ve been passed down ten generations. Kyuhyun frowns. If this guy’s looking for a trick he’s got another thing coming; Kyuhyun funds his habit with crime, not pleasure.
But there’s no lust-red in Zhou Mi.
“Why are you here?”
“I’ve heard about you, and you’re- fuck. You need.” Zhou Mi struggles for the words. “A friend.”
Kyuhyun thinks words like fuck shouldn’t come out of a mouth like Zhou Mi’s.
“Do I look like I need a friend?”
Zhou Mi smiles, gentle, almost sheepish. “Yeah, you do, actually.”
“I had a friend and- and he sold me out. You can take your friendship and shove it up your ass.”
“Not all friends betray you.”
“Got. Got a lot of friends, have you? Rich bitch.”
Zhou Mi just shrugs. “A few. I had to give most of them up when I started- when something happened and my life changed. Some friends will sell you down the river, but how will you know if you don’t give anyone a chance?”
“I can’t afford chances,” Kyuhyun says, curling into the corner, determined to enjoy this trip to the bitter end, even if this Zhou Mi stays there for the rest of the night.
“Drugs aren’t the way out of this.”
Kyuhyun flips around, fixes Zhou Mi with a hazy glare. “Don’t- Don’t you lecture me. You don’t know.” He tries to jab at Zhou Mi’s chest, but his finger ends up landing somewhere above his collarbone. Oh, well. As long as it hurt a little.
“I’m sorry. You’re right, I don’t know. But I look at you, and I know you can cope without this filth in your veins.”
And it’s so easy for Zhou Mi to say with his shiny Colour and his nice clothes and his ideals. Kyuhyun’s resigned to this life, and for a few golden minutes every day he’s happy, and that’s the most important thing. Kyuhyun doesn’t need anyone.
Zhou Mi smiles and it’s even brighter than his Colour. “Let me take you to my house. Get you showered and cleaned up. We’ll see where to go from there.”
Fucking pervert, Kyuhyun thinks, before he remembers.
“I- fuck, yes, okay, yes.”
The Focus doesn’t lie, and Kyuhyun doesn’t have anything to lose anymore.
--
The mirrors in Zhou Mi’s house are like brand new eyes, and Kyuhyun wants to smash them all up into pieces so small they’re unrecognisable as glass. It’s fair to say Kyuhyun looks fucking terrible. Hair so greasy you could cook with it, skin discoloured dirty grey, eyes bloodshot from drugs and lack of sleep and pupils still blown into eclipses.
Kyuhyun feels the tears building up at the back of his eyes and furiously squashes them down. He hasn’t cried since he lost Donghae, he’s not going to blubber like an infant just because he’s looking less than his best.
Zhou Mi’s got one of those power showers, the ones that release hot water in a non-stop flood and Kyuhyun pretty much dies of bliss as soon as he steps in. The water going down the plughole stays murky for ages, darker bursts following as he washes his hair, that raspberry scent filling the shower cubicle. He hasn’t felt so clean in forever: the tautness of oil-free skin, the squeak of his hair against his fingertips, how he smells of absolutely nothing. It’s heaven.
Halfway through the shower, the comedown starts, and Kyuhyun groans, sliding to the floor. He bangs his head against the tiles, overwhelming the pressure pain with physical pain, already craving another shoot-up. That’s the problem with smack: the highs are astronomical, but the comedowns are murder.
“You alright in there?” Zhou Mi calls from outside the door.
“Yeah, I’ll be out now, just give me a second.” Kyuhyun clenches his teeth and finishes soaping himself down. Zhou Mi’s towels are ridiculously fluffy, all high thread counts and comforting laundry detergent scent. Fuck, if there’s one thing Kyuhyun’s missed, it’s long hot showers and soft towels. There’s a fresh set of clothes outside the bathroom door too. Kyuhyun takes them into the bathroom and tugs them on, flapping at the air so the too-long sleeves of the shirt swing round. He rolls them up to his elbows.
Zhou Mi’s made dinner, piles and piles of it, laid out on the dining table like a picnic. The nausea’s pretty intense but Kyuhyun hasn’t eaten in about two days so he swallows it back, stuffs himself so full he can hardly move.
He catches Zhou Mi looking at him out of the corner of his eye and flushes. He knows he’s just been eating like an animal.
“Shut up,” he says.
Zhou Mi’s mouth tilts up at one side. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to. I’m hungry, okay.”
“I know.”
Enough is enough. Kyuhyun sets down his fork and does his best to meet Zhou Mi’s eyes. “What the hell do you want?”
“To help you.”
Kyuhyun snorts. “In my experience, people don’t just want to ‘help you’.”
Zhou Mi pauses for a second. His head lowers, and he bites his lip, then says, hesitant, “I know you can see auras, life forces. I know about the wings, Kyuhyun.”
Kyuhyun flinches. The urge to run is almost overwhelming but the Voices go crazy, you can trust him, you can trust him! Stupid boy, listen to him-before abruptly cutting off. Fucking drugs. Kyuhyun stays seated, but shuffles to the edge of his chair, scrapes it back a bit, ready to bolt at the slightest sign of anything creepy. “How the fuck do you know that?”
“Calm down, Kyuhyun.”
Kyuhyun’s skin crawls he’s so angry - that patronising bastard. “I will not fucking calm down! You know stuff nobody else does! Who the hell are you?” Kyuhyun struggles to find the Focus but it won’t kick in, and shit, he’s never been in a situation he hasn’t been able to fight himself out of before. His wings are itching to burst out of his skin, he can feel them shifting underneath the surface, but he’s not wearing his own clothes. He can’t ruin someone else’s clothes.
“Just hear me out! Please!” Zhou Mi leans forward, eyes burning with what, desperation, concern, kindness? Kyuhyun can’t tell but it makes him want to listen, and then the Focus fires up and Zhou Mi’s Colour has gone supernova, and Kyuhyun knows whatever Zhou Mi says next will be the truth.
“You’re an urban legend, Kyuhyun, I mean, people know who you are in America and Britain, everywhere. They call you Wing-Boy.”
Kyuhyun can’t fight the snigger, even if does come out a bit choked.
“I know it’s lame, the media’s not exactly known for their creativity, are they? God, nobody even knows what you look like, they never released pictures, but the news was buzzing. A boy with wings who could see your soul just by looking at you. Don’t you know any of this?”
Kyuhyun had never had the chance to know. He’d hidden in forests for the first couple of weeks after it had happened, scavenging, barely surviving. The bright lights of the city had lured him in, but he’d figured the newspapers wouldn’t have heard a thing, and he hadn’t so much as glanced at a TV, and hey, that’s showbiz, but…
“I heard them talking, so many of them, about selling you to the government if they ever found you, and we all knew what they had - have - in store for you. I just. I just couldn’t let that happen to you, you were just a kid, and I decided I had to try and find you. I’ve been searching for so long, over a year, so to find you in that alley, in my own city… To see your eyes… It’s fate, Kyuhyun. Fate.”
And maybe Kyuhyun doesn’t believe in fate, but perhaps life’s finally tossing him a bone by sending him Zhou Mi. Zhou Mi has no lust or violence in him, his Colour proves that. Maybe Kyuhyun can be safe with him. Just for a while. Just until he sorts himself out.
“I want you to stay. I want you to detox, I want you to go to school, or teach yourself or whatever works best for you. I want you to be healthy. And happy. I want to keep you away from the people who want to hurt you. You are really too young for this, Kyuhyun.”
Kyuhyun puts his head in his hands, breathes slow and deep. “Okay,” he says. “Okay.”
--
The detoxing is perhaps the worst thing that’s ever happened to Kyuhyun, and that’s saying something. He hadn’t even been on the harder shit for long, preferring to stick to tabs and smoke, but that first needle and he’d been done. Even the puking and the shaking had been worth that oblivion, the most spectacular high he’s ever known, the one he’s been chasing ever since. Three months on smack and he’s a wreck; track marks up and down his arms like someone’s grabbed them and stabbed him sporadically with purple pen; ugly circles under his eyes; hair gone lank and lifeless.
Zhou Mi fusses and worries, clutches at his own hair when Kyuhyun screams at him to untie him because I need it, I fucking need it, what are you doing to me? He soothes the sweat off Kyuhyun’s forehead with damp towels, adjusts the ropes to stop Kyuhyun’s wrists getting too chafed, ignoring the scratch wounds he gets for his efforts. He gives him water through a straw and keeps a vigil at his bedside every night in case Kyuhyun has nightmares. He’s had to clean up more vomit than any human should in a lifetime, endured far more abuse than he deserves, and it’s not until it’s over that Kyuhyun clings to him and whispers his thanks in his ears again and again.
“You’re so brave,” Zhou Mi says, stroking Kyuhyun’s hair. “Fuck, how are you so brave?”
But Kyuhyun’s not brave, because brave people don’t turn to the needle, don’t try and delete their fucked-up lives with more shit.
“I’m not.”
“I think you’re the bravest person I’ve ever met.”
“Can’t have met many people then.” His words end up muffled into Zhou Mi’s shoulder.
“There is just no winning with you, Kyuhyun. You’re-“
“So brave, whatever. Can we get some food please, Zhou Mi? I feel hungry for the first time in forever.”
Zhou Mi pulls away, ruffling Kyuhyun’s hair. “I’ll order takeout right now.” Kyuhyun smoothes his hair down, watches Zhou Mi leave the room.
Zhou Mi enrols him into an online school, buys all the material he needs, even assigns him a personal tutor to fill in the gaps in his knowledge. Kyuhyun wonders how he affords all this, because although Zhou Mi works at some company during the day, surely it’s not enough to cover his huge apartment and his constant purchases and his clothes. Kyuhyun nearly has a fit when he sees the size of Zhou Mi’s wardrobe, so used to squalor that the blatant money splurging comes as a shock.
“Got a sugar daddy?” he says, half-joking.
“Got a real daddy,” Zhou Mi says, not looking up from his computer screen, reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. “I earn an okay wage, but he insists on sending me cheques every month. He pays the rent for this place too, and I’m not quite altruistic enough to look a gift horse in the mouth, you know?”
“I know.” Kyuhyun slips into the wardrobe, moving so deep he’s completely covered by clothes. An outraged noise makes its way through the fabric. “Do you actually have the same outfit in different colours?”
Zhou Mi opens his mouth, then pauses. “No?”
“You should sell these to the homeless, oh mighty charity worker.”
“You touch my designer labels and I’ll have to physically maim you.”
“Shut up, I’m changing.”
A few seconds of rustling later and Kyuhyun emerges from the wardrobe, dressed to the nines in a tracksuit with legs miles too long and a medallion around his neck. He plucks at it. “Zhou Mi, why do you even own this?”
Zhou Mi glances up and then creases over, laughing like an idiot, and Kyuhyun frowns. “Dude, what’s wrong?”
“You look like a really shitty gangster!” he wheezes, clutching at his stomach.
“Zhou Mi! These are your clothes!” says Kyuhyun, indignant.
Zhou Mi calms down somewhat. “I don’t know what possessed me to buy them. I’m taking them to the charity shop first thing in the morning.”
“You’re going to give the medallion to a homeless guy, aren’t you?”
“Homeless guys need solid gold medallions too.”
Later that night, his mind turns to Donghae: the way they had bantered like that, only harsher, the way only the closest friends could. The little things. Picking cake crumbs from between his sheets and always being the one to erase the doodles on the Etch-A-Sketch. How Donghae had smiled at him, and the taste of it-
Kyuhyun rolls over onto his stomach and smothers his head in his pillows. He misses Donghae. It’s been years and it’s still so fucking painful to think about him, like this little bomb in his brain that goes off whenever he catches a scent, or hears a voice that sounds a bit too familiar. Nobody’s ever going to be quite as special as Donghae.
Zhou Mi has a really pretty laugh though.
--
In what feels like no time at all, Zhou Mi becomes the centre of Kyuhyun’s universe. It’s Zhou Mi he turns to when the heroin cravings gnaw at his brain, and Zhou Mi will hold him for hours, trapping him in his arms so Kyuhyun can’t run to the next dealer, whispering again and again that it’s okay, that the day will come when the need won’t be there at all anymore.
Kyuhyun wants to attach himself to Zhou Mi’s side sometimes, sew himself on so Zhou Mi doesn’t ever leave. It’s really only a matter of time before Zhou Mi gets sick of him, want his old life back, whatever that entailed, and Kyuhyun’s not sure how he’s going to deal with that.
The cooking and the housework are all taken care of by Zhou Mi, until Kyuhyun puts his foot down and insists he helps out. It’s not just feeling like an ungrateful little shit - although he does - it’s getting to spend time with Zhou Mi, even if it’s just standing next to him, the washer to his dryer, or the one who tests his food.
Zhou Mi is his one constant in a world often overwhelmed with Voices and Colours, the man who gives him the biggest bedroom so he can stretch his wings out at night, who’d sacrifice it all for Kyuhyun in a second, so Kyuhyun doesn’t get why he’s so insecure about him.
Zhou Mi’s not going to be another Donghae, in a number of ways, so why can’t he take the good along with the bad? The loyalty along with the difference in chemistry?
--
“Come on,” Zhou Mi says, giving Kyuhyun a little push in the small of his back. “The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and you need to get out of this house!”
“Mi,” Kyuhyun says, folding his arms, breeze ruffling his fringe. “I am not leaving this doorway. I am not going to a club and enjoying the atmosphere, and I am not dancing like my heart’s gonna stop either. Weirdo.”
Zhou Mi starts begging with his eyes. “It’ll be good for you. You never get out of the house. I worry about you. You need friends that aren’t me. Maybe even a girlfriend or boyfriend.”
Kyuhyun’s stomach twists a little, and he purses his mouth into a moue. “Trying to get rid of me?”
Zhou Mi rolls his eyes and Kyuhyun wants to Focus to see his Colour, but he has to be careful with that outside. It wouldn’t take an idiot to put two and two together, and Kyuhyun’s been paranoid that his freaky eyes would automatically give him away as Wing-Boy.
“Of course not, you moron.” Kyuhyun sticks out his tongue as Zhou Mi flicks him across the head. “You know I love you to pieces, but you have to make your own way.” Zhou Mi mock sniffles. “Gotta see the big wide world.”
“You’re an embarrassment to the male race,” Kyuhyun says, hiding a smile up his sleeve. “Fine, I’ll go and socialise for you. Might even say hello to an actual real-life girl.”
“That’s my boy.”
As it turns out, talking to girls is harder than it looks. Kyuhyun sits at the bar, trying not to look awkward as he sips a beer but he’s not sure he’s pulling it off. Stupid fucking snobs on the dance floor, thinking they’re so awesome because they can grind like sluts. Kyuhyun’s not into that shit anyway.
Four beers later, and a girl says, “Wanna fuck out back?” pushing her chest out, glossy pink mouth pouted out.
Kyuhyun wobbles off the bar stool. “H-hell, yeah.”
He doesn’t say ‘Donghae’ or ‘Zhou Mi’ when he comes inside the condom, but he’s fucking thinking about them. Bastards.
--
Kyuhyun kisses Zhou Mi.
It’s nothing like he plans. He’s played it out in his mind a hundred times and it always involves either shitloads of alcohol or some elaborate love declaration on Kyuhyun’s part. There are a few variations every time, but the outcome never changes: Zhou Mi feels the same and there is making out and maybe sex. But yeah, requited love.
When Kyuhyun kisses Zhou Mi, he’s watching him vacuum the house, dancing around and playing with the cord, and Kyuhyun just walks up to him and plants one right on his mouth. Half on his chin really, but who’s looking, and it’s nice, and it feels safe.
“What was that?” Zhou Mi’s fingers come up to touch his lips.
“I kissed you. Because I love you.”
“Kyuhyun…”
“Don’t say it.”
Zhou Mi takes a step forward. Kyuhyun takes a step back.
“I do love you, just-“
Kyuhyun interrupts. “Not in that way. I know.”
“I’m not- I don’t-“
Kyuhyun snorts a laugh, harsh out of his nose. “I know that too. I managed to fall in love with the only asexual in Korea.”
“China too, probably.” Zhou Mi’s hand moves round to the back of his head and he scratches roughly.
Kyuhyun swallows. “Zhou Mi.”
Zhou Mi doesn’t speak, choosing to fold Kyuhyun into his arms instead. Kyuhyun rests his head on Zhou Mi’s shoulder, the humming of the vacuum loud in his ears. He fucking knew it would happen like this.
It’s not exactly awkward after that, but it’s not quite the same either. Kyuhyun meets Zhou Mi’s eyes so hard he’s not blinking - see, I’m looking at you, everything’s fine - and Zhou Mi doesn’t hug him as often as he used to.
Trying not to lead him on.
It’s when Kyuhyun notices Zhou Mi’s Colour fading that he consults the Voices. They’re divided, some of them telling him it’s for the best, some of them insisting he stay with Zhou Mi, where it’s safe. Even God’s angels are undecided on this one, the sixty-four thousand dollar question, so Kyuhyun makes his own decisions for once; takes control for the first time. There’s always been someone else with their hands on the wheel: his parents, the government, even sweet, perfect Zhou Mi. Donghae was his only equal, and he’s long-gone now.
He finds a job in an office, Zhou Mi’s education plans paying off, picks up creative writing and Science courses on the side, feeling Zhou Mi slip away all the while, until they’re like two ghosts occupying the same house.
They’re watching TV, room completely silent except for the clock ticking and the clichéd dialogue onscreen. Kyuhyun thinks it’s only the shittiest irony that he’s about to make a clichéd little speech of his own, but he can’t wait anymore. He takes the remote off Zhou Mi’s lap and the TV switches off.
“I think it’s about time I moved out.”
Zhou Mi’s face twists up and Kyuhyun hurries on before he can look at it too much.
“Stop mooching off you. Give you your space back, you know. Get a life of my own.”
Zhou Mi lurches forwards, pulls him into a hug, holds on so tight Kyuhyun can’t breathe from where his head is pressed against Zhou Mi’s chest. When Zhou Mi speaks his voice is rough. “I wanted to cling to you,” he says, Colour flaring navy.
Navy for sadness, Kyuhyun thinks, and the wings come out of their own accord for the first time in years, smashing against the back of the sofa, weight so heavy now Kyuhyun falls backwards, out of Zhou Mi’s arms. There’s a crash as a vase falls off an end table, spilling flowers over the floor, and holy fuck, his wings must be twenty feet in diameter now, maybe more. Scraps of material rain confetti-like on his and Zhou Mi’s heads, settling in their hair, and Kyuhyun’s shirt hangs off him in tatters.
Zhou Mi gapes, laughing at Kyuhyun’s shell-shocked expression. “They’re not nearly as black anymore.” With great effort he pulls Kyuhyun up again. Kyuhyun’s half-tempted to just lay there and fold his wings around himself, a cosmic shield; instead he heaves himself up and enfolds Zhou Mi, holding his slim frame close to his own body.
“I think I’ll wake up with them blue tomorrow,” he says.
Zhou Mi smiles, the corners of his mouth just turning up. Kyuhyun can feel it against his skin. “They’ll go white again, Kyuhyun. I guess you can afford a bit of black and red though.”
“Nobody’s perfect,” Kyuhyun says. Except Zhou Mi.
He buries his head in the crook of Zhou Mi’s neck, inhales the familiar scent of raspberry shampoo. If there’s one thing Kyuhyun knows, will make sure of, is that this won’t be the last time he’s hugging Zhou Mi like this.
--
At the age of twenty-two, Kyuhyun would describe his life as average, and he wouldn’t have it any other way. He works a job in a different office now, one that offers better wages and paid holidays, he writes shitty novels in his spare time about anguish and doomed love affairs in purple-prose, has a string of failed relationships and his fair share of one-night stands tucked under his belt, and worries about adult things like paying the bills and making sure the cupboards aren’t bare.
Zhou Mi comes around once a week or so, bringing books to read and a ton of food, putting casseroles and desserts in the fridge, yelling about humans not being able to survive on ready noodles and bread. They talk about inconsequential things like new boybands and the general asshole-ness of bosses. Zhou Mi leaves him cheques in places like the cookie jar and the compartment in the washing machine you put the powder in, and Kyuhyun sends them back in the mail and they don’t talk about it.
Kyuhyun doesn’t tend to get phone calls on the house phone, so when he does, he expects it to be some guy trying to sell him double-glazing, or a childish twat prank-calling him.
“Kyuhyun.”
Kyuhyun’s heart jams up his windpipe and into his mouth. He knows that voice - higher-pitched and less jaded, he’s heard it in his dreams almost every night since he was fourteen years old and tossing and turning on a forest floor at the beginning of autumn.
“How did you get this number?”
“From the phone directory, but that’s not-“
“Don’t-don’t you fucking ring me back, Lee Donghae.” Kyuhyun slams the phone down, ripping the cord out the wall for good measure. He walks into the kitchen, flicks the switch on the kettle and puts a teabag in a cup. He fills the cup with water, takes the milk out the fridge, pours a drop into the tea, then puts the milk into the cupboard. Realising his mistake, he puts the milk back in the fridge and drains the cup, not caring that the tea is burning his mouth.
He rests his head on the worktop, feeling the heat work its way down his oesophagus.
Fuck.
He slides to the kitchen floor and pulls his cell phone out of his jeans pocket, dialling the only number aside from work he has in his contact list.
Four rings and Zhou Mi picks up.
“Donghae just called me.”
“I’ll be right round.”
Kyuhyun makes Zhou Mi remove his number from the phone directory, despite Zhou Mi’s protests that maybe Donghae deserves another chance.
A fat lot of good it’ll do anyway. Donghae already has his goddamn number.
--
Kyuhyun’s doorbell rings just as he’s about to leave for work, shirt neatly pressed, tie haphazard, already running late. Sighing, put-upon, he rests his briefcase against the stairs, jumping slightly as his phone buzzes in his pocket.
He opens the door, and Jesus fucking Christ, it’s Donghae, looking so grown-up, and so beautiful, and there’s his goddamn Focus, and the wings, way too wide for his cramped hallway. He folds them in, drinks in the sight of Donghae, his Colour still that deep ocean blue frayed with red and black, tributes to his imperfections, and Kyuhyun can’t believe his eyes.
You, he wants to say. I still love you. I need you.
Instead he says, “Taken up stalking now?”
Donghae forces his way into the house and backs Kyuhyun into the wall, careful not to crush his wings. “Looks like it.” He grabs Kyuhyun’s face and kisses him, harsh and needy, and it’s like that heroin high, that special little glow Kyuhyun’s only just stopped chasing, made all the better because it’s Donghae, and it’s always been Donghae, always.
Kyuhyun doesn’t resist, lets Donghae take his hand and pull him up the stairs, banging open random doors until Kyuhyun says, “It’s that one, fuck, open it,” and crawls onto his hands and knees on his bed, tossing Donghae condoms and lube from under his pillow. He lets Donghae fuck him hard, tugging and stroking his wings until he comes with his dick untouched, still making helpless noises as Donghae swears and finishes.
He forgets to be furious at Donghae for a few wonderful seconds, finds himself tucked against a hard chest, feeling so much love for him it’s as though he’s going to sink through his ribcage at any second.
“I’m so sorry,” Donghae says, and it’s ruined.
“Get out.”
“Please-“
“I said, get out!”
And Donghae rolls out of the bed and puts his clothes on, slowly, as if Kyuhyun might change his mind, and when he leaves he makes sure to send Kyuhyun a pleading glance. Kyuhyun ignores it, hears the front door slam a few seconds later, then opens his mouth and screams into his pillow.
Donghae is too much of a liability to allow back into his life.
--
The thing Kyuhyun hates most about himself is that he can’t bring himself to regret fucking Donghae. It’s always been the same: every moment with him was special, even just sitting next to him playing Sonic and sharing a can of coke. As a kid he’d associated days with Donghae as Good Days. It’s a habit he can’t seem to shake even now.
He glances at the phone; it’s looking more and more tempting as the day goes on. After about six hours in which Kyuhyun attempts to distract himself by cleaning the house, writing, sitting down with the next book on his reading list and surfing the internet, he caves and dials Donghae’s number, phone pressed so hard to the side of his face it’s going to leave an imprint.
“Hello?” Donghae says, and Kyuhyun can’t talk, just breathes down the line. “Kyuhyun? Kyuhyun, is this you? Please don’t hang up-“ But it’s too late and Kyuhyun’s already pressing the button to end the call, and Jesus fucking Christ, nobody said things like this were so hard.
“I think you’ve made a huge mistake,” says Zhou Mi over a steaming cup of tea. He crosses his legs, putting the cup down and looking at Kyuhyun over steepled fingers. “How many years has it been? Oh yeah, eight. Eight years, Kyuhyun. You hold grudges like a girl.”
“Eight years since he told his parents about my wings, when he promised he wouldn’t.” Kyuhyun puts his own drink down in protest, coffee splashing over the sides onto the table. Zhou Mi tsks at him. “He knew how religious people reacted to them, and his parents were just as dogmatic as mine… I ended up on the streets because of him. Taking fucking heroin.”
Zhou Mi frowns. “Donghae wasn’t the one who put the needle in your veins; you did that. Man up and take responsibility for your own actions, for fuck’s sake.”
Kyuhyun gets up and fetches a cloth from the kitchen, mops up the stain on the table. By the time he’s sitting back down again, he’s calm. “I know he wasn’t, okay. I know I was a stupid prick. But he was the one person I trusted and he betrayed that trust.”
He closes his eyes, feels his hand being held in Zhou Mi’s. “Did you know I was in love with him, Mi?”
“Retard,” Zhou Mi says, fondly. “You never fell out of love with him.”
His words feel a little like absolution, and they don’t talk about it for the rest of the day. Kyuhyun can’t deny the feelings for Zhou Mi are still there, even years later, and maybe he’s just the type of person to cling onto love for as long as possible. Donghae’s rarely stopped haunting his thoughts, and though the vision had never changed, static fourteen-year-old kid with too-big eyes in a too-small face, seeing him again was like no time had passed at all. The desire for him still burns under Kyuhyun’s skin, not as frantic as when he was a teenager with freshly surging hormones, more constant. Steady. He wants Zhou Mi too, perfection in human form, or as close as anyone will ever get to it, and he knows Zhou Mi would welcome him back into his life, throw open the doors both metaphorically and literally, but there won’t ever be anything more with him.
Kyuhyun has to choose between the most perfect person he’s ever known, and all of humanities imperfections wrapped into a beautiful package, shiny bow on top and everything.
There’s no contest really.
--
Kyuhyun gives himself a week to mourn for Zhou Mi, to flush his feelings down the toilet, or attempt to. He’s pretty sure even ten years down the line he’ll look upon Zhou Mi with a nostalgic sort of love, thinking of what ifs and what could have beens, but that’s okay. Zhou Mi’s not the type to look down at things like love. He really is just too perfect.
There are pages of poetry littered all over Kyuhyun’s house that he can’t even remember writing. He throws it out with no small amount of shame at the sheer amount of emo scrawled across the paper, and wishes, not for the first time, that he wasn’t such a pussy about these things.
He calls Donghae on the weekend, invites him over for what he calls a ‘catch-up’, then wants the ground to swallow him for his lame. “Just friends,” he says, and Donghae agrees. Kyuhyun tries not to enjoy the note of excitement in his voice too much.
Barely ten minutes pass before his doorbell rings, twice, accompanied by a series of fast knocks against the wood, and Kyuhyun’s fingernails dig into his palms. He almost doesn’t want to let Donghae in. He could sit here and watch TV for the rest of the day. Daytime soaps or teleshopping. He could eat alone, maybe enjoy a cold beer for one. Light a candle like a girl so his living room smells of vanilla.
Before he can stop himself, he’s got the door wide open, and Donghae’s standing there, biting his lip and staring at the wall and Kyuhyun knows he’s thinking about how he pushed Kyuhyun against it only a week or so ago.
“Café!” Kyuhyun says, bustling out the door, grabbing Donghae’s wrist and half-dragging him away from the house, pretty sure he’s not going to be able to tear his mind away from sex if they stay in there.
“Hello?” Donghae smiles, unresisting. “Where are you taking me?”
“Coffee shop. I’ve got a caffeine craving the size of the earth.”
“When we were kids, you hated coffee.”
Kyuhyun gives Donghae a considering look. “Things change.”
Donghae says, “I hope they have.”
Kyuhyun looks around for a distraction, holds back the sigh of relief when the coffee shop comes into view. “Here it is, come on.”
He orders an espresso, black, thinking, holy shit, I might need this, and Donghae gets a can of coke, buys a swirly straw to drink it with. They don’t talk for long minutes, the only sounds Kyuhyun sipping at his coffee and the sputtering of the straw as it runs out of liquid to suck up.
“So,” Donghae says finally, leaning forward, “where did you go? That night, I mean. You destroyed your parents’ house. Nobody could find you. The KSEU took us all in for questioning-“
“You babble as much as ever.” Kyuhyun straightens up as the coffee buzz hits, enjoying the energy boost. “I flew to these forests in the countryside, then flew again to Seoul. Survived from day to day, before I met Zhou Mi, and he… saved me from myself.”
Donghae fiddles with the straw. “Zhou Mi? That your boyfriend?” Trust him to focus on that out of everything Kyuhyun had said. One-track minded idiot.
“No.” And doesn’t it hurt to admit that.
“Oh.”
“So, did my parents’ house ever get fixed?”
Donghae laughs. “Your mother went batshit and kicked up a huge fuss and the government paid for the repairs. Not that it mattered anyway; they moved not long after you ran away. Your mother couldn’t get over losing you. I have their new address though.”
You don’t know what you have until it’s gone. Even now, Kyuhyun can’t bring himself to forgive his parents, not really. Some wounds don’t heal, and the total fuck-up of his childhood is a wound he’s sure is going to fester for a long, long time.
“Got a job?”
“I’m still at university. Law. I work in a library on the weekends.”
Law? Library? All the years Kyuhyun had known Donghae, he’d never thought this was how he’d end up. Then again, Kyuhyun’s own plans had never turned out right. Most of the time, it’s better not to have expectations when you’re Cho Kyuhyun. Things tend to work out better that way.
“How about you?” Donghae continues.
“Doing the 9-to-5 at an office, can you believe that?” Kyuhyun shakes his head. “All I ever wanted to do was fly all the time when I was a kid; this is pure confinement.”
Donghae’s mouth twists up, bitter. “I ruined that for you.” He darts his hand forward, steals Kyuhyun’s espresso. “Dude, this shit is gross.”
“That’s mine, you greedy fuck!”
They both pause, before snorting in amusement, sniggers becoming stomach-cramping laughter.
“You know, some things never change, do they?” Donghae chokes out, and Kyuhyun can’t help but be glad for it.
--
After that, Kyuhyun can’t stay away. His phone beeps 24/7, texts containing random thoughts and suggestions to meet up and, once or twice, song lyrics, and what the fuck is that about? Donghae’s only gotten weirder as he’s grown older, even if he tries to hide it behind his law books and his tidy little social life. He leaves post-it notes on Kyuhyun’s fridge that say things like, ‘You’ve run out of milk again, douche bag, sort it out’ and ‘Okay, okay, I drank it all behind your back, I’m sorry’. He doodles smiley faces and hearts at the bottom and Kyuhyun has to wonder when Donghae became such a girl.
At first, Kyuhyun replies like, ‘I’ll get some next time I go out’ and ‘It’s okay’ but he can’t keep that up for long. Pretty soon his messages consist of swearing and insults and once he even draws a heart without thinking before he scribbles it out, ripping off the bottom of the post-it for good measure.
It had taken a while for Kyuhyun to even let Donghae in the house again. He’d almost caved and washed the Sex Wall, as he’s dubbed it in his head, just to purify it or something, the Voices agreeing that it would be cleansing and a new start, but whatever, they’ve never exactly approved of Donghae. It’s okay now anyway, because he doesn’t want Donghae like that, even if his gaze sometimes falls to the curve of his throat and the flick of his tongue over his lips and- well, the wall doesn’t need cleaning. Walls don’t carry memories.
They spend their evenings watching movies or playing video games, or rather Kyuhyun plays video games while Donghae watches, and if Donghae’s arm slides over his shoulders, who’s there to see? Zhou Mi has a fit down the phone at him, all “He’s courting you, this is like one of those old-fashioned romance novels,” and Kyuhyun has to hang up on his ramblings eventually.
Donghae makes Kyuhyun feel like a teenager, like touching fingers in the popcorn bowl and not wanting to be the one to put down the phone, which Kyuhyun sort of likes. They’re settling into their friendship again, but Kyuhyun has these feelings, and he’s not sure if Donghae feels quite the same. Maybe he just wants sex. Friends with benefits like when they were kids. Kyuhyun’s not sure he can deal with that.
Being with Donghae is like sliding back into a rhythm, the proverbial beaten path. Kyuhyun’s really the victim here, because Donghae is basically just a horrible vortex and Kyuhyun keeps getting sucked in and he can’t stop himself. Can’t really tell if he even wants to stop himself anymore.
It doesn’t take long until Kyuhyun finds Donghae’s stuff starting to mix with his. Little things at first, like the DVD they’d watched together, or a CD Donghae had recommended and brought over, but pretty soon it gets a bit out of hand. Kyuhyun finds Donghae’s jacket hanging in the hall as he’s searching for his raincoat, mutters, “The fuck?” under his breath, then goes to the kitchen to see Donghae’s strawberry milkshake powder next to his coffee.
“Jesus.”
It was only a matter of time before Donghae tried it on again. They’re sitting side by side on the sofa, flicking through music channels, and Kyuhyun is acutely aware of the heat of Donghae’s thigh pressed against his, the drum of his fingers on Kyuhyun’s wrist. He realises he hasn’t listened to the past five songs because he’s been listening to Donghae’s breathing instead.
And then Donghae is looking at him, eyes soft and adoring, and he’s leaning in, and Kyuhyun thinks, oh hell no, but he doesn’t draw back and then Donghae’s mouth is covering his and even though Kyuhyun was expecting it, he can’t hold back the startled intake of breath.
It’s slow at first; mouths fitting together seamlessly, careful glide of lips, like rediscovery, only they’ve never kissed quite like this before. Kyuhyun tries to pull away, out of instinct, or fear, but Donghae makes a dissatisfied humming noise, cupping the back of Kyuhyun’s head and pushing his tongue in his mouth and he’s pretty much lost from there. He’s liquid in Donghae’s arms, kissing never dissolving him before, but Donghae’s hands drop to his waist and Kyuhyun breaks the kiss.
“Let’s not,” Kyuhyun says, turning his face to the side. “Not. Not yet.”
Donghae tilts Kyuhyun’s face back to the front. “Okay,” he says, dropping a chaste kiss on Kyuhyun’s lips. “Okay.”
He stands, pulling Kyuhyun up with him. “I should go.” Kyuhyun frowns, and Donghae kisses him again, and Kyuhyun melts into it and holy fuck, why is he even trying to resist this? “I’ll see you tomorrow. Cinema?”
The corners of Kyuhyun’s mouth quirk up. “Are you asking me on a date?”
Donghae taps his mouth with a finger. “Maybe?”
“Pick me up at eight, and don’t be late, bitch.”
“Wouldn’t dare to. Bye, Kyuhyun.” One last kiss and he leaves the room, and Kyuhyun waits for the door to slam before leaning against the wall, legs just a little weak. He really needs a beer; his nerves are frayed.
There’s a note on the fridge and it says, ‘Had your last beer when you went to the bathroom earlier. Buy some more for the next time I come over. Which will be after our date? <3 :D xxxxx’
Kyuhyun laughs into the empty room. “And they say romance is dead.”
--
“You’re perfect together,” Zhou Mi says after Kyuhyun’s recounted the entire night. “Seriously perfect.”
“Nobody’s perfect.” Kyuhyun bites into his slice of chocolate cake and spills crumbs down his shirt as if to prove his point. “We’d be a swirling typhoon of red and black.”
“Two imperfects make a perfect,” Zhou Mi insists. “Some people are just meant to be.”
Kyuhyun raises an eyebrow. “How are you so lame?”
“Shut up and let me enjoy my real life soap opera.” Zhou Mi stands up only to fall into a false swoon and sprawl over the sofa. “You and Donghae keep my days interesting.”
“Loser.”
There’s a pause in which Zhou Mi finishes his cake and Kyuhyun goes crazy, eventually snapping.
“What the fuck am I going to wear?”
--
Donghae is picking him up in ten minutes and Kyuhyun has paced his living room so much he swears the wood flooring is more scuffed than it used to be. All the pacing makes him sweaty so he dives up the stairs, changing his shirt and dousing himself in deodorant. He sort of wants to throw up, just a little bit, and it’s, god, it’s fucking ridiculous. They’ve already fucked, for Christ’s sake, and kissed, and oh yeah, known each other for nearly fifteen years.
Kyuhyun’s stomach hurts.
The doorbell ringing sets his teeth on edge, but he straightens his back, puts on his game face and does his best to look like a fully functioning member of the human race when he steps out the door.
“Dude, calm down.” Donghae puts his arm around his shoulders, guides him to the car. “It’s not like I’m taking you to see the President.”
“Shut up,” Kyuhyun says, accompanying his words with a punch to Donghae’s arm, and Donghae makes a wounded face. Kyuhyun’s shoulders relax slightly.
“So abusive.” Donghae pouts and then pokes Kyuhyun in the cheek.
“If you weren’t so annoying…” Kyuhyun glares and rubs at the sore spot, forgetting to be mad when Donghae leans up and catches his mouth in a kiss. “Stop that, will you? It makes me forget my rage.”
“Now I know, it will be my most frequently-used weapon,” Donghae says, sounding just a little smug.
“One day it’ll backfire on you.”
“Discord keeps the relationship hot, right?”
“Been looking at those girly magazines again, Donghae?” he says, feeling their earlier awkwardness melting away.
“That was one time!”
The film is terrible, some B-rated director trying to make it big, but instead the dialogue falls flat and the plot doesn’t live up to the hype. The characters are clichéd, and their attempts at humour make Kyuhyun cringe in his chair, and if the lead female screams like that one more time, he’s going to have to throw something at the screen.
Still, he gets the whole teenaged date business: the arm around shoulders with yawn excuse, drinking out the same straw, Christ, their hands touch in the popcorn box. Donghae even offers to buy him sweets before Kyuhyun gives him an incredulous look and says, “I’m not a girl, you freak.”
Donghae puts a hand to his mouth, bites his thumbnail. “Sorry, I just. Haven’t done this with a guy before.” He leans back, sliding his eyes over to Kyuhyun. “Haven’t done this with you before.”
There’s a million sappy things Kyuhyun wants to say to this.
“Wanna make out instead of watching this shit?”
Donghae grins. “Dear God, please.”
It’s quite late by the time they’re at Kyuhyun’s doorstep, and fuck, Kyuhyun has work in the morning.
“I was just joking,” Donghae says. “You know, in the note. I don’t-“
“Yeah,” says Kyuhyun. “But I fancy some coffee, and I know there’s been milkshake popping up mysteriously around my kitchen. We could do that. I’m not-“
“Yeah.” Donghae’s eyes curve slightly. “I’ll steal your coffee and mock you for drinking it.”
“I’ll call you a child for wanting that strawberry shit.”
“Sounds better than sex, if you ask me.”
--
“He said that? He said some witty banter and a nice cold beverage was better than sex?” Zhou Mi’s sitting cross-legged with his elbows on his knees, hands propping his chin up. His eyes go round, and he blinks a few times. “Fat fucking liar, that boy.”
Kyuhyun laughs. “Yeah, but, he had the best of intentions.”
There’s a long pause, broken only by the sound of the rain against the windowpanes.
“Kyuhyun, when the hell did I become your fag hag?”
--
Kyuhyun makes him wait so long that Donghae actually starts to whine about it.
“It’s been five looooong months since I’ve had sex.” Donghae writhes fully clothed on the bed, flinging himself all over the place. “My right hand is so tired it’s gonna drop off. My left hand can’t get me off, Kyuhyun, don’t do this to me.”
“I’m working.”
“Forever?” Donghae pulls just about the saddest face Kyuhyun has ever seen. It’s hilarious.
“Stop fucking laughing, Kyuhyun! I’m desperate here!”
After a while, Kyuhyun manages to bring himself under control, aftershocks of laughter finally dissipating. “First of all, when we have sex, it’s not going to be after you’ve bitched about having to jerk off, dude, let’s get that straight for starters.”
Donghae nods, contrite.
“Second… I sort of want to try something. If you don’t mind.”
“Is it going to be kinky?” Donghae asks. “I mean, kinky can be okay, but if it involves anything unusual, I’m going to have to make my excuses.”
Kyuhyun abandons his work, just to walk to the bed and hit Donghae upside the head. “No, you idiot, it’s not kinky.” He sprawls out next to Donghae, rests his head on the pillow. Donghae crawls up and lies across from him. “Do you remember when we were kids, and I was trying to see what your Colour felt like?”
Understanding dawns over Donghae’s face. “Yeah, I remember. Why, you want to try it again?”
Kyuhyun thinks of the closeness, of touching Donghae’s Colour while Donghae’s touching his wings and how beautiful it would all be, and yeah. Fuck.
“I want to.”
Donghae shimmies over, cups the back of Kyuhyun’s neck with his hand. “Hey,” he whispers. “Can we ignore the first bit you said?”
Kyuhyun’s eyes close as Donghae’s face comes closer, and he finds himself talking against his mouth. “Can you make it worth my while?”
Donghae kisses him, slow and chaste, turning wet and messy, and Kyuhyun’s nerves flare, shifting over so he’s on top, Donghae’s hands fumbling at the buttons of his shirt. Pants off and his breaths come out shaky, Donghae wide-eyed and trusting beneath him.
“Do it, Mister Magic,” he says and the Focus, oh god, there’s the Focus and for once the Voices are quiet, Kyuhyun catching the odd whisper but they, fuck, they’re letting him do this. Donghae’s Colour is blue fire, streaks of black and red like Kyuhyun’s swiped up it with a paintbrush, and the wings break free, edges brushing the ceiling.
With trembling fingers, he reaches out, fingertips sinking in and it’s like touching spider webs, strands breaking dreamlike against his hands, and Donghae’s emotions pour up his arm into his head, and Kyuhyun drowns in apologies and regrets and love.
“I forgive you,” Kyuhyun breathes, moving his fingers into the red, and Donghae cries out, hips rolling, head tossing. Kyuhyun can’t seem to draw in any air as he prepares himself, hyper-aware of Donghae’s eyes on him, until he’s sinking down on Donghae’s cock and Donghae’s moaning, stroking his fingers through Kyuhyun’s wings, and fuck. Fuck.
Kyuhyun lets his hands glide through Donghae’s Colour, foreign emotions overwhelming him, and Kyuhyun can’t imagine feeling like this ever again. “Wish you could have this.”
“We h-have time-“ Donghae starts, but Kyuhyun leans down and presses their mouths together and Donghae gasps and moans into his mouth, coming and tugging at the wings and Kyuhyun’s coming too, all over their stomachs, and the Colours swirl and clash until there’s no distinction anymore.
And then Donghae’s holding Kyuhyun close, and the wings come around and envelop them both, and they’re hidden away from the world.
The end.
The streets are a harsh place at night. It’s a lesson Kyuhyun’s had to learn and learn well in order to survive out here. Someone should make a guidebook really, How To Live On The Streets - not that Kyuhyun could afford it - because it’s hard work, and you never really get used to the blare of sirens when you’re trying to sleep, or the sense that your skin is getting too small to hold your bones in place. It’s just so cold.
Kyuhyun’s sides ache perpetually. That’s the biggest annoyance. Ten minutes inside restaurants, libraries, cafés, any place they won’t kick him out of, and the warm seeps through and his muscles relax, but the cold of the streets. There is no escaping it.
He has to sacrifice all his morals to keep it together. He’s trying to save for an apartment to rent, job-searching all the time, but nobody wants to hire a fifteen-year-old street urchin. Except the whore houses, but Kyuhyun’s not quite desperate enough for that yet. Hasn’t quite reached rock bottom, even if thieving is only one step above whoring.
The wings are perhaps his greatest assets. They allow him to move from city to city frequently without paying for transport. They get him out of the tightest spots imaginable: like shocking some policeman so hard with their sudden appearance that he'd been able to ditch the cop car without being chased, and breaking into windows of houses without a ladder. When he can't afford to rest his head in a crappy motel, he can find the quietest corner of town possible and wrap his wings around himself so tight the chill barely gets in.
He's never had his picture taken or his fingerprints booked once. He's becoming a master of his trade, a master of being a thief, he's the Robin Hood of Seoul/Incheon/Mokpo, so fuck you god, who needs faith when you've got a set-up like this going on.
His wings, on the rare occasion he sees them properly, usually in car window reflections in deserted streets, are almost fully black now, and the fear is so constant he can’t keep his eyes in one place anymore. People walk around at night with guns. Guns suited especially for no-good street dwellers like him (oh how the mighty have fallen) and all the better if they manage to bag themselves a nice pair of wings with it. Nice little earners, wings, Kyuhyun would imagine. Fetch a hefty price in the black market.
At times it's like being paralysed, almost, but inverted. Like Kyuhyun's roaming around and the rest of the world has stopped dead, as though he's a goldfish in a bowl, swimming but never getting anywhere, into the castle and out and it makes no difference because he always ends up knocking against the glass, and life isn't fucking fair, and all goldfish analogies do is make it all an even bigger joke.
God must have had a field day with Kyuhyun. Gave him the rope so he'd hang himself. Set him up to knock him down. Kyuhyun tried so hard not to sin, but God never made it any easier. Kyuhyun isn't fucking Jesus. He may have angels whispering in his ear, but he's just as infallible as the rest of them.
The hunger is easy. After a while, the stomachache gets so intense the endorphins kick in, and then the nausea makes him want to puke at the thought of eating anyway. Kyuhyun's a thief but he's a seller too, and the buyers leave him with nothing but pennies to turn into food. Shitty deals in the cities, really.
Sometimes he wants to give up completely. He sits in the train station, watching people coming and going, what a fucking cliché he’s become, and he wants it all to go away. He's too young for this, too young to feel so old. If someone comes along and offers something better than this, he's going to take it, because it's been seven long months and he's still at the starting line.
When some guy offers him an out, it takes just a moment to make a decision before he's popping the pill. Ecstasy, indeed.
--
The heroin rush is long-gone when the guy sits next to him in the alleyway. He just parks himself unceremoniously next to Kyuhyun and sticks out his hand, never mind that this area might be private property, never mind that someone is already occupying this space. If Kyuhyun weren’t floating right now, he might have something to say to this stranger, but as it is, all he can do is lean his head against the wall and try and open his eyes properly. The Focus is activated, distantly, and Jesus Christ, this man has a blinding Colour, the purest white Kyuhyun has ever seen and he wonders if he’s mentally retarded or something. Kyuhyun squints, eyes in agony, until finally, the Focus settles on vision that’s dimmer the others, and the pain lets up somewhat.
“I’m Zhou Mi,” the guy says, seemingly not noticing any awkwardness as he tucks his hand back into his pocket.
Kyuhyun doesn’t deem to answer him. He’s pretty sure his mouth is working okay now, and he’s usually coherent when the high’s at that long constant stage, but he’s not an idiot. You don’t just give out names around here, not when they could get back to any number of people.
“What are you tripping on?” Zhou Mi says, and Kyuhyun’s head lolls to face him.
“Smack. Laced with something else… I think…” Kyuhyun shuts his eyes, the light starting to get excruciating again. His pupils are way too dilated to be looking at something like this. Burning magnesium - how Kyuhyun’s Colour would look if life had cut him a break somewhere down the line.
Zhou Mi shifts, pulling his knees under him. Kyuhyun ends the Focus to the chagrin of the Voices, lets his eyes travel all over Zhou Mi’s skinny form. Neat, freshly washed hair, smell of raspberries hovering over his spotless skin, clothes that don’t look as if they’ve been passed down ten generations. Kyuhyun frowns. If this guy’s looking for a trick he’s got another thing coming; Kyuhyun funds his habit with crime, not pleasure.
But there’s no lust-red in Zhou Mi.
“Why are you here?”
“I’ve heard about you, and you’re- fuck. You need.” Zhou Mi struggles for the words. “A friend.”
Kyuhyun thinks words like fuck shouldn’t come out of a mouth like Zhou Mi’s.
“Do I look like I need a friend?”
Zhou Mi smiles, gentle, almost sheepish. “Yeah, you do, actually.”
“I had a friend and- and he sold me out. You can take your friendship and shove it up your ass.”
“Not all friends betray you.”
“Got. Got a lot of friends, have you? Rich bitch.”
Zhou Mi just shrugs. “A few. I had to give most of them up when I started- when something happened and my life changed. Some friends will sell you down the river, but how will you know if you don’t give anyone a chance?”
“I can’t afford chances,” Kyuhyun says, curling into the corner, determined to enjoy this trip to the bitter end, even if this Zhou Mi stays there for the rest of the night.
“Drugs aren’t the way out of this.”
Kyuhyun flips around, fixes Zhou Mi with a hazy glare. “Don’t- Don’t you lecture me. You don’t know.” He tries to jab at Zhou Mi’s chest, but his finger ends up landing somewhere above his collarbone. Oh, well. As long as it hurt a little.
“I’m sorry. You’re right, I don’t know. But I look at you, and I know you can cope without this filth in your veins.”
And it’s so easy for Zhou Mi to say with his shiny Colour and his nice clothes and his ideals. Kyuhyun’s resigned to this life, and for a few golden minutes every day he’s happy, and that’s the most important thing. Kyuhyun doesn’t need anyone.
Zhou Mi smiles and it’s even brighter than his Colour. “Let me take you to my house. Get you showered and cleaned up. We’ll see where to go from there.”
Fucking pervert, Kyuhyun thinks, before he remembers.
“I- fuck, yes, okay, yes.”
The Focus doesn’t lie, and Kyuhyun doesn’t have anything to lose anymore.
--
The mirrors in Zhou Mi’s house are like brand new eyes, and Kyuhyun wants to smash them all up into pieces so small they’re unrecognisable as glass. It’s fair to say Kyuhyun looks fucking terrible. Hair so greasy you could cook with it, skin discoloured dirty grey, eyes bloodshot from drugs and lack of sleep and pupils still blown into eclipses.
Kyuhyun feels the tears building up at the back of his eyes and furiously squashes them down. He hasn’t cried since he lost Donghae, he’s not going to blubber like an infant just because he’s looking less than his best.
Zhou Mi’s got one of those power showers, the ones that release hot water in a non-stop flood and Kyuhyun pretty much dies of bliss as soon as he steps in. The water going down the plughole stays murky for ages, darker bursts following as he washes his hair, that raspberry scent filling the shower cubicle. He hasn’t felt so clean in forever: the tautness of oil-free skin, the squeak of his hair against his fingertips, how he smells of absolutely nothing. It’s heaven.
Halfway through the shower, the comedown starts, and Kyuhyun groans, sliding to the floor. He bangs his head against the tiles, overwhelming the pressure pain with physical pain, already craving another shoot-up. That’s the problem with smack: the highs are astronomical, but the comedowns are murder.
“You alright in there?” Zhou Mi calls from outside the door.
“Yeah, I’ll be out now, just give me a second.” Kyuhyun clenches his teeth and finishes soaping himself down. Zhou Mi’s towels are ridiculously fluffy, all high thread counts and comforting laundry detergent scent. Fuck, if there’s one thing Kyuhyun’s missed, it’s long hot showers and soft towels. There’s a fresh set of clothes outside the bathroom door too. Kyuhyun takes them into the bathroom and tugs them on, flapping at the air so the too-long sleeves of the shirt swing round. He rolls them up to his elbows.
Zhou Mi’s made dinner, piles and piles of it, laid out on the dining table like a picnic. The nausea’s pretty intense but Kyuhyun hasn’t eaten in about two days so he swallows it back, stuffs himself so full he can hardly move.
He catches Zhou Mi looking at him out of the corner of his eye and flushes. He knows he’s just been eating like an animal.
“Shut up,” he says.
Zhou Mi’s mouth tilts up at one side. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to. I’m hungry, okay.”
“I know.”
Enough is enough. Kyuhyun sets down his fork and does his best to meet Zhou Mi’s eyes. “What the hell do you want?”
“To help you.”
Kyuhyun snorts. “In my experience, people don’t just want to ‘help you’.”
Zhou Mi pauses for a second. His head lowers, and he bites his lip, then says, hesitant, “I know you can see auras, life forces. I know about the wings, Kyuhyun.”
Kyuhyun flinches. The urge to run is almost overwhelming but the Voices go crazy, you can trust him, you can trust him! Stupid boy, listen to him-before abruptly cutting off. Fucking drugs. Kyuhyun stays seated, but shuffles to the edge of his chair, scrapes it back a bit, ready to bolt at the slightest sign of anything creepy. “How the fuck do you know that?”
“Calm down, Kyuhyun.”
Kyuhyun’s skin crawls he’s so angry - that patronising bastard. “I will not fucking calm down! You know stuff nobody else does! Who the hell are you?” Kyuhyun struggles to find the Focus but it won’t kick in, and shit, he’s never been in a situation he hasn’t been able to fight himself out of before. His wings are itching to burst out of his skin, he can feel them shifting underneath the surface, but he’s not wearing his own clothes. He can’t ruin someone else’s clothes.
“Just hear me out! Please!” Zhou Mi leans forward, eyes burning with what, desperation, concern, kindness? Kyuhyun can’t tell but it makes him want to listen, and then the Focus fires up and Zhou Mi’s Colour has gone supernova, and Kyuhyun knows whatever Zhou Mi says next will be the truth.
“You’re an urban legend, Kyuhyun, I mean, people know who you are in America and Britain, everywhere. They call you Wing-Boy.”
Kyuhyun can’t fight the snigger, even if does come out a bit choked.
“I know it’s lame, the media’s not exactly known for their creativity, are they? God, nobody even knows what you look like, they never released pictures, but the news was buzzing. A boy with wings who could see your soul just by looking at you. Don’t you know any of this?”
Kyuhyun had never had the chance to know. He’d hidden in forests for the first couple of weeks after it had happened, scavenging, barely surviving. The bright lights of the city had lured him in, but he’d figured the newspapers wouldn’t have heard a thing, and he hadn’t so much as glanced at a TV, and hey, that’s showbiz, but…
“I heard them talking, so many of them, about selling you to the government if they ever found you, and we all knew what they had - have - in store for you. I just. I just couldn’t let that happen to you, you were just a kid, and I decided I had to try and find you. I’ve been searching for so long, over a year, so to find you in that alley, in my own city… To see your eyes… It’s fate, Kyuhyun. Fate.”
And maybe Kyuhyun doesn’t believe in fate, but perhaps life’s finally tossing him a bone by sending him Zhou Mi. Zhou Mi has no lust or violence in him, his Colour proves that. Maybe Kyuhyun can be safe with him. Just for a while. Just until he sorts himself out.
“I want you to stay. I want you to detox, I want you to go to school, or teach yourself or whatever works best for you. I want you to be healthy. And happy. I want to keep you away from the people who want to hurt you. You are really too young for this, Kyuhyun.”
Kyuhyun puts his head in his hands, breathes slow and deep. “Okay,” he says. “Okay.”
--
The detoxing is perhaps the worst thing that’s ever happened to Kyuhyun, and that’s saying something. He hadn’t even been on the harder shit for long, preferring to stick to tabs and smoke, but that first needle and he’d been done. Even the puking and the shaking had been worth that oblivion, the most spectacular high he’s ever known, the one he’s been chasing ever since. Three months on smack and he’s a wreck; track marks up and down his arms like someone’s grabbed them and stabbed him sporadically with purple pen; ugly circles under his eyes; hair gone lank and lifeless.
Zhou Mi fusses and worries, clutches at his own hair when Kyuhyun screams at him to untie him because I need it, I fucking need it, what are you doing to me? He soothes the sweat off Kyuhyun’s forehead with damp towels, adjusts the ropes to stop Kyuhyun’s wrists getting too chafed, ignoring the scratch wounds he gets for his efforts. He gives him water through a straw and keeps a vigil at his bedside every night in case Kyuhyun has nightmares. He’s had to clean up more vomit than any human should in a lifetime, endured far more abuse than he deserves, and it’s not until it’s over that Kyuhyun clings to him and whispers his thanks in his ears again and again.
“You’re so brave,” Zhou Mi says, stroking Kyuhyun’s hair. “Fuck, how are you so brave?”
But Kyuhyun’s not brave, because brave people don’t turn to the needle, don’t try and delete their fucked-up lives with more shit.
“I’m not.”
“I think you’re the bravest person I’ve ever met.”
“Can’t have met many people then.” His words end up muffled into Zhou Mi’s shoulder.
“There is just no winning with you, Kyuhyun. You’re-“
“So brave, whatever. Can we get some food please, Zhou Mi? I feel hungry for the first time in forever.”
Zhou Mi pulls away, ruffling Kyuhyun’s hair. “I’ll order takeout right now.” Kyuhyun smoothes his hair down, watches Zhou Mi leave the room.
Zhou Mi enrols him into an online school, buys all the material he needs, even assigns him a personal tutor to fill in the gaps in his knowledge. Kyuhyun wonders how he affords all this, because although Zhou Mi works at some company during the day, surely it’s not enough to cover his huge apartment and his constant purchases and his clothes. Kyuhyun nearly has a fit when he sees the size of Zhou Mi’s wardrobe, so used to squalor that the blatant money splurging comes as a shock.
“Got a sugar daddy?” he says, half-joking.
“Got a real daddy,” Zhou Mi says, not looking up from his computer screen, reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. “I earn an okay wage, but he insists on sending me cheques every month. He pays the rent for this place too, and I’m not quite altruistic enough to look a gift horse in the mouth, you know?”
“I know.” Kyuhyun slips into the wardrobe, moving so deep he’s completely covered by clothes. An outraged noise makes its way through the fabric. “Do you actually have the same outfit in different colours?”
Zhou Mi opens his mouth, then pauses. “No?”
“You should sell these to the homeless, oh mighty charity worker.”
“You touch my designer labels and I’ll have to physically maim you.”
“Shut up, I’m changing.”
A few seconds of rustling later and Kyuhyun emerges from the wardrobe, dressed to the nines in a tracksuit with legs miles too long and a medallion around his neck. He plucks at it. “Zhou Mi, why do you even own this?”
Zhou Mi glances up and then creases over, laughing like an idiot, and Kyuhyun frowns. “Dude, what’s wrong?”
“You look like a really shitty gangster!” he wheezes, clutching at his stomach.
“Zhou Mi! These are your clothes!” says Kyuhyun, indignant.
Zhou Mi calms down somewhat. “I don’t know what possessed me to buy them. I’m taking them to the charity shop first thing in the morning.”
“You’re going to give the medallion to a homeless guy, aren’t you?”
“Homeless guys need solid gold medallions too.”
Later that night, his mind turns to Donghae: the way they had bantered like that, only harsher, the way only the closest friends could. The little things. Picking cake crumbs from between his sheets and always being the one to erase the doodles on the Etch-A-Sketch. How Donghae had smiled at him, and the taste of it-
Kyuhyun rolls over onto his stomach and smothers his head in his pillows. He misses Donghae. It’s been years and it’s still so fucking painful to think about him, like this little bomb in his brain that goes off whenever he catches a scent, or hears a voice that sounds a bit too familiar. Nobody’s ever going to be quite as special as Donghae.
Zhou Mi has a really pretty laugh though.
--
In what feels like no time at all, Zhou Mi becomes the centre of Kyuhyun’s universe. It’s Zhou Mi he turns to when the heroin cravings gnaw at his brain, and Zhou Mi will hold him for hours, trapping him in his arms so Kyuhyun can’t run to the next dealer, whispering again and again that it’s okay, that the day will come when the need won’t be there at all anymore.
Kyuhyun wants to attach himself to Zhou Mi’s side sometimes, sew himself on so Zhou Mi doesn’t ever leave. It’s really only a matter of time before Zhou Mi gets sick of him, want his old life back, whatever that entailed, and Kyuhyun’s not sure how he’s going to deal with that.
The cooking and the housework are all taken care of by Zhou Mi, until Kyuhyun puts his foot down and insists he helps out. It’s not just feeling like an ungrateful little shit - although he does - it’s getting to spend time with Zhou Mi, even if it’s just standing next to him, the washer to his dryer, or the one who tests his food.
Zhou Mi is his one constant in a world often overwhelmed with Voices and Colours, the man who gives him the biggest bedroom so he can stretch his wings out at night, who’d sacrifice it all for Kyuhyun in a second, so Kyuhyun doesn’t get why he’s so insecure about him.
Zhou Mi’s not going to be another Donghae, in a number of ways, so why can’t he take the good along with the bad? The loyalty along with the difference in chemistry?
--
“Come on,” Zhou Mi says, giving Kyuhyun a little push in the small of his back. “The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and you need to get out of this house!”
“Mi,” Kyuhyun says, folding his arms, breeze ruffling his fringe. “I am not leaving this doorway. I am not going to a club and enjoying the atmosphere, and I am not dancing like my heart’s gonna stop either. Weirdo.”
Zhou Mi starts begging with his eyes. “It’ll be good for you. You never get out of the house. I worry about you. You need friends that aren’t me. Maybe even a girlfriend or boyfriend.”
Kyuhyun’s stomach twists a little, and he purses his mouth into a moue. “Trying to get rid of me?”
Zhou Mi rolls his eyes and Kyuhyun wants to Focus to see his Colour, but he has to be careful with that outside. It wouldn’t take an idiot to put two and two together, and Kyuhyun’s been paranoid that his freaky eyes would automatically give him away as Wing-Boy.
“Of course not, you moron.” Kyuhyun sticks out his tongue as Zhou Mi flicks him across the head. “You know I love you to pieces, but you have to make your own way.” Zhou Mi mock sniffles. “Gotta see the big wide world.”
“You’re an embarrassment to the male race,” Kyuhyun says, hiding a smile up his sleeve. “Fine, I’ll go and socialise for you. Might even say hello to an actual real-life girl.”
“That’s my boy.”
As it turns out, talking to girls is harder than it looks. Kyuhyun sits at the bar, trying not to look awkward as he sips a beer but he’s not sure he’s pulling it off. Stupid fucking snobs on the dance floor, thinking they’re so awesome because they can grind like sluts. Kyuhyun’s not into that shit anyway.
Four beers later, and a girl says, “Wanna fuck out back?” pushing her chest out, glossy pink mouth pouted out.
Kyuhyun wobbles off the bar stool. “H-hell, yeah.”
He doesn’t say ‘Donghae’ or ‘Zhou Mi’ when he comes inside the condom, but he’s fucking thinking about them. Bastards.
--
Kyuhyun kisses Zhou Mi.
It’s nothing like he plans. He’s played it out in his mind a hundred times and it always involves either shitloads of alcohol or some elaborate love declaration on Kyuhyun’s part. There are a few variations every time, but the outcome never changes: Zhou Mi feels the same and there is making out and maybe sex. But yeah, requited love.
When Kyuhyun kisses Zhou Mi, he’s watching him vacuum the house, dancing around and playing with the cord, and Kyuhyun just walks up to him and plants one right on his mouth. Half on his chin really, but who’s looking, and it’s nice, and it feels safe.
“What was that?” Zhou Mi’s fingers come up to touch his lips.
“I kissed you. Because I love you.”
“Kyuhyun…”
“Don’t say it.”
Zhou Mi takes a step forward. Kyuhyun takes a step back.
“I do love you, just-“
Kyuhyun interrupts. “Not in that way. I know.”
“I’m not- I don’t-“
Kyuhyun snorts a laugh, harsh out of his nose. “I know that too. I managed to fall in love with the only asexual in Korea.”
“China too, probably.” Zhou Mi’s hand moves round to the back of his head and he scratches roughly.
Kyuhyun swallows. “Zhou Mi.”
Zhou Mi doesn’t speak, choosing to fold Kyuhyun into his arms instead. Kyuhyun rests his head on Zhou Mi’s shoulder, the humming of the vacuum loud in his ears. He fucking knew it would happen like this.
It’s not exactly awkward after that, but it’s not quite the same either. Kyuhyun meets Zhou Mi’s eyes so hard he’s not blinking - see, I’m looking at you, everything’s fine - and Zhou Mi doesn’t hug him as often as he used to.
Trying not to lead him on.
It’s when Kyuhyun notices Zhou Mi’s Colour fading that he consults the Voices. They’re divided, some of them telling him it’s for the best, some of them insisting he stay with Zhou Mi, where it’s safe. Even God’s angels are undecided on this one, the sixty-four thousand dollar question, so Kyuhyun makes his own decisions for once; takes control for the first time. There’s always been someone else with their hands on the wheel: his parents, the government, even sweet, perfect Zhou Mi. Donghae was his only equal, and he’s long-gone now.
He finds a job in an office, Zhou Mi’s education plans paying off, picks up creative writing and Science courses on the side, feeling Zhou Mi slip away all the while, until they’re like two ghosts occupying the same house.
They’re watching TV, room completely silent except for the clock ticking and the clichéd dialogue onscreen. Kyuhyun thinks it’s only the shittiest irony that he’s about to make a clichéd little speech of his own, but he can’t wait anymore. He takes the remote off Zhou Mi’s lap and the TV switches off.
“I think it’s about time I moved out.”
Zhou Mi’s face twists up and Kyuhyun hurries on before he can look at it too much.
“Stop mooching off you. Give you your space back, you know. Get a life of my own.”
Zhou Mi lurches forwards, pulls him into a hug, holds on so tight Kyuhyun can’t breathe from where his head is pressed against Zhou Mi’s chest. When Zhou Mi speaks his voice is rough. “I wanted to cling to you,” he says, Colour flaring navy.
Navy for sadness, Kyuhyun thinks, and the wings come out of their own accord for the first time in years, smashing against the back of the sofa, weight so heavy now Kyuhyun falls backwards, out of Zhou Mi’s arms. There’s a crash as a vase falls off an end table, spilling flowers over the floor, and holy fuck, his wings must be twenty feet in diameter now, maybe more. Scraps of material rain confetti-like on his and Zhou Mi’s heads, settling in their hair, and Kyuhyun’s shirt hangs off him in tatters.
Zhou Mi gapes, laughing at Kyuhyun’s shell-shocked expression. “They’re not nearly as black anymore.” With great effort he pulls Kyuhyun up again. Kyuhyun’s half-tempted to just lay there and fold his wings around himself, a cosmic shield; instead he heaves himself up and enfolds Zhou Mi, holding his slim frame close to his own body.
“I think I’ll wake up with them blue tomorrow,” he says.
Zhou Mi smiles, the corners of his mouth just turning up. Kyuhyun can feel it against his skin. “They’ll go white again, Kyuhyun. I guess you can afford a bit of black and red though.”
“Nobody’s perfect,” Kyuhyun says. Except Zhou Mi.
He buries his head in the crook of Zhou Mi’s neck, inhales the familiar scent of raspberry shampoo. If there’s one thing Kyuhyun knows, will make sure of, is that this won’t be the last time he’s hugging Zhou Mi like this.
--
At the age of twenty-two, Kyuhyun would describe his life as average, and he wouldn’t have it any other way. He works a job in a different office now, one that offers better wages and paid holidays, he writes shitty novels in his spare time about anguish and doomed love affairs in purple-prose, has a string of failed relationships and his fair share of one-night stands tucked under his belt, and worries about adult things like paying the bills and making sure the cupboards aren’t bare.
Zhou Mi comes around once a week or so, bringing books to read and a ton of food, putting casseroles and desserts in the fridge, yelling about humans not being able to survive on ready noodles and bread. They talk about inconsequential things like new boybands and the general asshole-ness of bosses. Zhou Mi leaves him cheques in places like the cookie jar and the compartment in the washing machine you put the powder in, and Kyuhyun sends them back in the mail and they don’t talk about it.
Kyuhyun doesn’t tend to get phone calls on the house phone, so when he does, he expects it to be some guy trying to sell him double-glazing, or a childish twat prank-calling him.
“Kyuhyun.”
Kyuhyun’s heart jams up his windpipe and into his mouth. He knows that voice - higher-pitched and less jaded, he’s heard it in his dreams almost every night since he was fourteen years old and tossing and turning on a forest floor at the beginning of autumn.
“How did you get this number?”
“From the phone directory, but that’s not-“
“Don’t-don’t you fucking ring me back, Lee Donghae.” Kyuhyun slams the phone down, ripping the cord out the wall for good measure. He walks into the kitchen, flicks the switch on the kettle and puts a teabag in a cup. He fills the cup with water, takes the milk out the fridge, pours a drop into the tea, then puts the milk into the cupboard. Realising his mistake, he puts the milk back in the fridge and drains the cup, not caring that the tea is burning his mouth.
He rests his head on the worktop, feeling the heat work its way down his oesophagus.
Fuck.
He slides to the kitchen floor and pulls his cell phone out of his jeans pocket, dialling the only number aside from work he has in his contact list.
Four rings and Zhou Mi picks up.
“Donghae just called me.”
“I’ll be right round.”
Kyuhyun makes Zhou Mi remove his number from the phone directory, despite Zhou Mi’s protests that maybe Donghae deserves another chance.
A fat lot of good it’ll do anyway. Donghae already has his goddamn number.
--
Kyuhyun’s doorbell rings just as he’s about to leave for work, shirt neatly pressed, tie haphazard, already running late. Sighing, put-upon, he rests his briefcase against the stairs, jumping slightly as his phone buzzes in his pocket.
He opens the door, and Jesus fucking Christ, it’s Donghae, looking so grown-up, and so beautiful, and there’s his goddamn Focus, and the wings, way too wide for his cramped hallway. He folds them in, drinks in the sight of Donghae, his Colour still that deep ocean blue frayed with red and black, tributes to his imperfections, and Kyuhyun can’t believe his eyes.
You, he wants to say. I still love you. I need you.
Instead he says, “Taken up stalking now?”
Donghae forces his way into the house and backs Kyuhyun into the wall, careful not to crush his wings. “Looks like it.” He grabs Kyuhyun’s face and kisses him, harsh and needy, and it’s like that heroin high, that special little glow Kyuhyun’s only just stopped chasing, made all the better because it’s Donghae, and it’s always been Donghae, always.
Kyuhyun doesn’t resist, lets Donghae take his hand and pull him up the stairs, banging open random doors until Kyuhyun says, “It’s that one, fuck, open it,” and crawls onto his hands and knees on his bed, tossing Donghae condoms and lube from under his pillow. He lets Donghae fuck him hard, tugging and stroking his wings until he comes with his dick untouched, still making helpless noises as Donghae swears and finishes.
He forgets to be furious at Donghae for a few wonderful seconds, finds himself tucked against a hard chest, feeling so much love for him it’s as though he’s going to sink through his ribcage at any second.
“I’m so sorry,” Donghae says, and it’s ruined.
“Get out.”
“Please-“
“I said, get out!”
And Donghae rolls out of the bed and puts his clothes on, slowly, as if Kyuhyun might change his mind, and when he leaves he makes sure to send Kyuhyun a pleading glance. Kyuhyun ignores it, hears the front door slam a few seconds later, then opens his mouth and screams into his pillow.
Donghae is too much of a liability to allow back into his life.
--
The thing Kyuhyun hates most about himself is that he can’t bring himself to regret fucking Donghae. It’s always been the same: every moment with him was special, even just sitting next to him playing Sonic and sharing a can of coke. As a kid he’d associated days with Donghae as Good Days. It’s a habit he can’t seem to shake even now.
He glances at the phone; it’s looking more and more tempting as the day goes on. After about six hours in which Kyuhyun attempts to distract himself by cleaning the house, writing, sitting down with the next book on his reading list and surfing the internet, he caves and dials Donghae’s number, phone pressed so hard to the side of his face it’s going to leave an imprint.
“Hello?” Donghae says, and Kyuhyun can’t talk, just breathes down the line. “Kyuhyun? Kyuhyun, is this you? Please don’t hang up-“ But it’s too late and Kyuhyun’s already pressing the button to end the call, and Jesus fucking Christ, nobody said things like this were so hard.
“I think you’ve made a huge mistake,” says Zhou Mi over a steaming cup of tea. He crosses his legs, putting the cup down and looking at Kyuhyun over steepled fingers. “How many years has it been? Oh yeah, eight. Eight years, Kyuhyun. You hold grudges like a girl.”
“Eight years since he told his parents about my wings, when he promised he wouldn’t.” Kyuhyun puts his own drink down in protest, coffee splashing over the sides onto the table. Zhou Mi tsks at him. “He knew how religious people reacted to them, and his parents were just as dogmatic as mine… I ended up on the streets because of him. Taking fucking heroin.”
Zhou Mi frowns. “Donghae wasn’t the one who put the needle in your veins; you did that. Man up and take responsibility for your own actions, for fuck’s sake.”
Kyuhyun gets up and fetches a cloth from the kitchen, mops up the stain on the table. By the time he’s sitting back down again, he’s calm. “I know he wasn’t, okay. I know I was a stupid prick. But he was the one person I trusted and he betrayed that trust.”
He closes his eyes, feels his hand being held in Zhou Mi’s. “Did you know I was in love with him, Mi?”
“Retard,” Zhou Mi says, fondly. “You never fell out of love with him.”
His words feel a little like absolution, and they don’t talk about it for the rest of the day. Kyuhyun can’t deny the feelings for Zhou Mi are still there, even years later, and maybe he’s just the type of person to cling onto love for as long as possible. Donghae’s rarely stopped haunting his thoughts, and though the vision had never changed, static fourteen-year-old kid with too-big eyes in a too-small face, seeing him again was like no time had passed at all. The desire for him still burns under Kyuhyun’s skin, not as frantic as when he was a teenager with freshly surging hormones, more constant. Steady. He wants Zhou Mi too, perfection in human form, or as close as anyone will ever get to it, and he knows Zhou Mi would welcome him back into his life, throw open the doors both metaphorically and literally, but there won’t ever be anything more with him.
Kyuhyun has to choose between the most perfect person he’s ever known, and all of humanities imperfections wrapped into a beautiful package, shiny bow on top and everything.
There’s no contest really.
--
Kyuhyun gives himself a week to mourn for Zhou Mi, to flush his feelings down the toilet, or attempt to. He’s pretty sure even ten years down the line he’ll look upon Zhou Mi with a nostalgic sort of love, thinking of what ifs and what could have beens, but that’s okay. Zhou Mi’s not the type to look down at things like love. He really is just too perfect.
There are pages of poetry littered all over Kyuhyun’s house that he can’t even remember writing. He throws it out with no small amount of shame at the sheer amount of emo scrawled across the paper, and wishes, not for the first time, that he wasn’t such a pussy about these things.
He calls Donghae on the weekend, invites him over for what he calls a ‘catch-up’, then wants the ground to swallow him for his lame. “Just friends,” he says, and Donghae agrees. Kyuhyun tries not to enjoy the note of excitement in his voice too much.
Barely ten minutes pass before his doorbell rings, twice, accompanied by a series of fast knocks against the wood, and Kyuhyun’s fingernails dig into his palms. He almost doesn’t want to let Donghae in. He could sit here and watch TV for the rest of the day. Daytime soaps or teleshopping. He could eat alone, maybe enjoy a cold beer for one. Light a candle like a girl so his living room smells of vanilla.
Before he can stop himself, he’s got the door wide open, and Donghae’s standing there, biting his lip and staring at the wall and Kyuhyun knows he’s thinking about how he pushed Kyuhyun against it only a week or so ago.
“Café!” Kyuhyun says, bustling out the door, grabbing Donghae’s wrist and half-dragging him away from the house, pretty sure he’s not going to be able to tear his mind away from sex if they stay in there.
“Hello?” Donghae smiles, unresisting. “Where are you taking me?”
“Coffee shop. I’ve got a caffeine craving the size of the earth.”
“When we were kids, you hated coffee.”
Kyuhyun gives Donghae a considering look. “Things change.”
Donghae says, “I hope they have.”
Kyuhyun looks around for a distraction, holds back the sigh of relief when the coffee shop comes into view. “Here it is, come on.”
He orders an espresso, black, thinking, holy shit, I might need this, and Donghae gets a can of coke, buys a swirly straw to drink it with. They don’t talk for long minutes, the only sounds Kyuhyun sipping at his coffee and the sputtering of the straw as it runs out of liquid to suck up.
“So,” Donghae says finally, leaning forward, “where did you go? That night, I mean. You destroyed your parents’ house. Nobody could find you. The KSEU took us all in for questioning-“
“You babble as much as ever.” Kyuhyun straightens up as the coffee buzz hits, enjoying the energy boost. “I flew to these forests in the countryside, then flew again to Seoul. Survived from day to day, before I met Zhou Mi, and he… saved me from myself.”
Donghae fiddles with the straw. “Zhou Mi? That your boyfriend?” Trust him to focus on that out of everything Kyuhyun had said. One-track minded idiot.
“No.” And doesn’t it hurt to admit that.
“Oh.”
“So, did my parents’ house ever get fixed?”
Donghae laughs. “Your mother went batshit and kicked up a huge fuss and the government paid for the repairs. Not that it mattered anyway; they moved not long after you ran away. Your mother couldn’t get over losing you. I have their new address though.”
You don’t know what you have until it’s gone. Even now, Kyuhyun can’t bring himself to forgive his parents, not really. Some wounds don’t heal, and the total fuck-up of his childhood is a wound he’s sure is going to fester for a long, long time.
“Got a job?”
“I’m still at university. Law. I work in a library on the weekends.”
Law? Library? All the years Kyuhyun had known Donghae, he’d never thought this was how he’d end up. Then again, Kyuhyun’s own plans had never turned out right. Most of the time, it’s better not to have expectations when you’re Cho Kyuhyun. Things tend to work out better that way.
“How about you?” Donghae continues.
“Doing the 9-to-5 at an office, can you believe that?” Kyuhyun shakes his head. “All I ever wanted to do was fly all the time when I was a kid; this is pure confinement.”
Donghae’s mouth twists up, bitter. “I ruined that for you.” He darts his hand forward, steals Kyuhyun’s espresso. “Dude, this shit is gross.”
“That’s mine, you greedy fuck!”
They both pause, before snorting in amusement, sniggers becoming stomach-cramping laughter.
“You know, some things never change, do they?” Donghae chokes out, and Kyuhyun can’t help but be glad for it.
--
After that, Kyuhyun can’t stay away. His phone beeps 24/7, texts containing random thoughts and suggestions to meet up and, once or twice, song lyrics, and what the fuck is that about? Donghae’s only gotten weirder as he’s grown older, even if he tries to hide it behind his law books and his tidy little social life. He leaves post-it notes on Kyuhyun’s fridge that say things like, ‘You’ve run out of milk again, douche bag, sort it out’ and ‘Okay, okay, I drank it all behind your back, I’m sorry’. He doodles smiley faces and hearts at the bottom and Kyuhyun has to wonder when Donghae became such a girl.
At first, Kyuhyun replies like, ‘I’ll get some next time I go out’ and ‘It’s okay’ but he can’t keep that up for long. Pretty soon his messages consist of swearing and insults and once he even draws a heart without thinking before he scribbles it out, ripping off the bottom of the post-it for good measure.
It had taken a while for Kyuhyun to even let Donghae in the house again. He’d almost caved and washed the Sex Wall, as he’s dubbed it in his head, just to purify it or something, the Voices agreeing that it would be cleansing and a new start, but whatever, they’ve never exactly approved of Donghae. It’s okay now anyway, because he doesn’t want Donghae like that, even if his gaze sometimes falls to the curve of his throat and the flick of his tongue over his lips and- well, the wall doesn’t need cleaning. Walls don’t carry memories.
They spend their evenings watching movies or playing video games, or rather Kyuhyun plays video games while Donghae watches, and if Donghae’s arm slides over his shoulders, who’s there to see? Zhou Mi has a fit down the phone at him, all “He’s courting you, this is like one of those old-fashioned romance novels,” and Kyuhyun has to hang up on his ramblings eventually.
Donghae makes Kyuhyun feel like a teenager, like touching fingers in the popcorn bowl and not wanting to be the one to put down the phone, which Kyuhyun sort of likes. They’re settling into their friendship again, but Kyuhyun has these feelings, and he’s not sure if Donghae feels quite the same. Maybe he just wants sex. Friends with benefits like when they were kids. Kyuhyun’s not sure he can deal with that.
Being with Donghae is like sliding back into a rhythm, the proverbial beaten path. Kyuhyun’s really the victim here, because Donghae is basically just a horrible vortex and Kyuhyun keeps getting sucked in and he can’t stop himself. Can’t really tell if he even wants to stop himself anymore.
It doesn’t take long until Kyuhyun finds Donghae’s stuff starting to mix with his. Little things at first, like the DVD they’d watched together, or a CD Donghae had recommended and brought over, but pretty soon it gets a bit out of hand. Kyuhyun finds Donghae’s jacket hanging in the hall as he’s searching for his raincoat, mutters, “The fuck?” under his breath, then goes to the kitchen to see Donghae’s strawberry milkshake powder next to his coffee.
“Jesus.”
It was only a matter of time before Donghae tried it on again. They’re sitting side by side on the sofa, flicking through music channels, and Kyuhyun is acutely aware of the heat of Donghae’s thigh pressed against his, the drum of his fingers on Kyuhyun’s wrist. He realises he hasn’t listened to the past five songs because he’s been listening to Donghae’s breathing instead.
And then Donghae is looking at him, eyes soft and adoring, and he’s leaning in, and Kyuhyun thinks, oh hell no, but he doesn’t draw back and then Donghae’s mouth is covering his and even though Kyuhyun was expecting it, he can’t hold back the startled intake of breath.
It’s slow at first; mouths fitting together seamlessly, careful glide of lips, like rediscovery, only they’ve never kissed quite like this before. Kyuhyun tries to pull away, out of instinct, or fear, but Donghae makes a dissatisfied humming noise, cupping the back of Kyuhyun’s head and pushing his tongue in his mouth and he’s pretty much lost from there. He’s liquid in Donghae’s arms, kissing never dissolving him before, but Donghae’s hands drop to his waist and Kyuhyun breaks the kiss.
“Let’s not,” Kyuhyun says, turning his face to the side. “Not. Not yet.”
Donghae tilts Kyuhyun’s face back to the front. “Okay,” he says, dropping a chaste kiss on Kyuhyun’s lips. “Okay.”
He stands, pulling Kyuhyun up with him. “I should go.” Kyuhyun frowns, and Donghae kisses him again, and Kyuhyun melts into it and holy fuck, why is he even trying to resist this? “I’ll see you tomorrow. Cinema?”
The corners of Kyuhyun’s mouth quirk up. “Are you asking me on a date?”
Donghae taps his mouth with a finger. “Maybe?”
“Pick me up at eight, and don’t be late, bitch.”
“Wouldn’t dare to. Bye, Kyuhyun.” One last kiss and he leaves the room, and Kyuhyun waits for the door to slam before leaning against the wall, legs just a little weak. He really needs a beer; his nerves are frayed.
There’s a note on the fridge and it says, ‘Had your last beer when you went to the bathroom earlier. Buy some more for the next time I come over. Which will be after our date? <3 :D xxxxx’
Kyuhyun laughs into the empty room. “And they say romance is dead.”
--
“You’re perfect together,” Zhou Mi says after Kyuhyun’s recounted the entire night. “Seriously perfect.”
“Nobody’s perfect.” Kyuhyun bites into his slice of chocolate cake and spills crumbs down his shirt as if to prove his point. “We’d be a swirling typhoon of red and black.”
“Two imperfects make a perfect,” Zhou Mi insists. “Some people are just meant to be.”
Kyuhyun raises an eyebrow. “How are you so lame?”
“Shut up and let me enjoy my real life soap opera.” Zhou Mi stands up only to fall into a false swoon and sprawl over the sofa. “You and Donghae keep my days interesting.”
“Loser.”
There’s a pause in which Zhou Mi finishes his cake and Kyuhyun goes crazy, eventually snapping.
“What the fuck am I going to wear?”
--
Donghae is picking him up in ten minutes and Kyuhyun has paced his living room so much he swears the wood flooring is more scuffed than it used to be. All the pacing makes him sweaty so he dives up the stairs, changing his shirt and dousing himself in deodorant. He sort of wants to throw up, just a little bit, and it’s, god, it’s fucking ridiculous. They’ve already fucked, for Christ’s sake, and kissed, and oh yeah, known each other for nearly fifteen years.
Kyuhyun’s stomach hurts.
The doorbell ringing sets his teeth on edge, but he straightens his back, puts on his game face and does his best to look like a fully functioning member of the human race when he steps out the door.
“Dude, calm down.” Donghae puts his arm around his shoulders, guides him to the car. “It’s not like I’m taking you to see the President.”
“Shut up,” Kyuhyun says, accompanying his words with a punch to Donghae’s arm, and Donghae makes a wounded face. Kyuhyun’s shoulders relax slightly.
“So abusive.” Donghae pouts and then pokes Kyuhyun in the cheek.
“If you weren’t so annoying…” Kyuhyun glares and rubs at the sore spot, forgetting to be mad when Donghae leans up and catches his mouth in a kiss. “Stop that, will you? It makes me forget my rage.”
“Now I know, it will be my most frequently-used weapon,” Donghae says, sounding just a little smug.
“One day it’ll backfire on you.”
“Discord keeps the relationship hot, right?”
“Been looking at those girly magazines again, Donghae?” he says, feeling their earlier awkwardness melting away.
“That was one time!”
The film is terrible, some B-rated director trying to make it big, but instead the dialogue falls flat and the plot doesn’t live up to the hype. The characters are clichéd, and their attempts at humour make Kyuhyun cringe in his chair, and if the lead female screams like that one more time, he’s going to have to throw something at the screen.
Still, he gets the whole teenaged date business: the arm around shoulders with yawn excuse, drinking out the same straw, Christ, their hands touch in the popcorn box. Donghae even offers to buy him sweets before Kyuhyun gives him an incredulous look and says, “I’m not a girl, you freak.”
Donghae puts a hand to his mouth, bites his thumbnail. “Sorry, I just. Haven’t done this with a guy before.” He leans back, sliding his eyes over to Kyuhyun. “Haven’t done this with you before.”
There’s a million sappy things Kyuhyun wants to say to this.
“Wanna make out instead of watching this shit?”
Donghae grins. “Dear God, please.”
It’s quite late by the time they’re at Kyuhyun’s doorstep, and fuck, Kyuhyun has work in the morning.
“I was just joking,” Donghae says. “You know, in the note. I don’t-“
“Yeah,” says Kyuhyun. “But I fancy some coffee, and I know there’s been milkshake popping up mysteriously around my kitchen. We could do that. I’m not-“
“Yeah.” Donghae’s eyes curve slightly. “I’ll steal your coffee and mock you for drinking it.”
“I’ll call you a child for wanting that strawberry shit.”
“Sounds better than sex, if you ask me.”
--
“He said that? He said some witty banter and a nice cold beverage was better than sex?” Zhou Mi’s sitting cross-legged with his elbows on his knees, hands propping his chin up. His eyes go round, and he blinks a few times. “Fat fucking liar, that boy.”
Kyuhyun laughs. “Yeah, but, he had the best of intentions.”
There’s a long pause, broken only by the sound of the rain against the windowpanes.
“Kyuhyun, when the hell did I become your fag hag?”
--
Kyuhyun makes him wait so long that Donghae actually starts to whine about it.
“It’s been five looooong months since I’ve had sex.” Donghae writhes fully clothed on the bed, flinging himself all over the place. “My right hand is so tired it’s gonna drop off. My left hand can’t get me off, Kyuhyun, don’t do this to me.”
“I’m working.”
“Forever?” Donghae pulls just about the saddest face Kyuhyun has ever seen. It’s hilarious.
“Stop fucking laughing, Kyuhyun! I’m desperate here!”
After a while, Kyuhyun manages to bring himself under control, aftershocks of laughter finally dissipating. “First of all, when we have sex, it’s not going to be after you’ve bitched about having to jerk off, dude, let’s get that straight for starters.”
Donghae nods, contrite.
“Second… I sort of want to try something. If you don’t mind.”
“Is it going to be kinky?” Donghae asks. “I mean, kinky can be okay, but if it involves anything unusual, I’m going to have to make my excuses.”
Kyuhyun abandons his work, just to walk to the bed and hit Donghae upside the head. “No, you idiot, it’s not kinky.” He sprawls out next to Donghae, rests his head on the pillow. Donghae crawls up and lies across from him. “Do you remember when we were kids, and I was trying to see what your Colour felt like?”
Understanding dawns over Donghae’s face. “Yeah, I remember. Why, you want to try it again?”
Kyuhyun thinks of the closeness, of touching Donghae’s Colour while Donghae’s touching his wings and how beautiful it would all be, and yeah. Fuck.
“I want to.”
Donghae shimmies over, cups the back of Kyuhyun’s neck with his hand. “Hey,” he whispers. “Can we ignore the first bit you said?”
Kyuhyun’s eyes close as Donghae’s face comes closer, and he finds himself talking against his mouth. “Can you make it worth my while?”
Donghae kisses him, slow and chaste, turning wet and messy, and Kyuhyun’s nerves flare, shifting over so he’s on top, Donghae’s hands fumbling at the buttons of his shirt. Pants off and his breaths come out shaky, Donghae wide-eyed and trusting beneath him.
“Do it, Mister Magic,” he says and the Focus, oh god, there’s the Focus and for once the Voices are quiet, Kyuhyun catching the odd whisper but they, fuck, they’re letting him do this. Donghae’s Colour is blue fire, streaks of black and red like Kyuhyun’s swiped up it with a paintbrush, and the wings break free, edges brushing the ceiling.
With trembling fingers, he reaches out, fingertips sinking in and it’s like touching spider webs, strands breaking dreamlike against his hands, and Donghae’s emotions pour up his arm into his head, and Kyuhyun drowns in apologies and regrets and love.
“I forgive you,” Kyuhyun breathes, moving his fingers into the red, and Donghae cries out, hips rolling, head tossing. Kyuhyun can’t seem to draw in any air as he prepares himself, hyper-aware of Donghae’s eyes on him, until he’s sinking down on Donghae’s cock and Donghae’s moaning, stroking his fingers through Kyuhyun’s wings, and fuck. Fuck.
Kyuhyun lets his hands glide through Donghae’s Colour, foreign emotions overwhelming him, and Kyuhyun can’t imagine feeling like this ever again. “Wish you could have this.”
“We h-have time-“ Donghae starts, but Kyuhyun leans down and presses their mouths together and Donghae gasps and moans into his mouth, coming and tugging at the wings and Kyuhyun’s coming too, all over their stomachs, and the Colours swirl and clash until there’s no distinction anymore.
And then Donghae’s holding Kyuhyun close, and the wings come around and envelop them both, and they’re hidden away from the world.
The end.