Title: Listen : Whispers
Chapter: [4/?]
Characters: Kyuhyun, Heechul, Yesung, Siwon, Donghae, Hangeng, Eunhyuk other SJ members might join in soon
Pairings: KyuChul, YeWook, past!HanChul, KyuSung_friendship, SiChul_friendship, Kihae and more to come soon
Rating: R
Genre: AU, Supernatural, Drama, Angst
Type: Multi-Chapter
Word Count : 2,437
Warning : Character death, ghostly apparitions?
Disclaimer : I own many things, but unfortunately Super Junior isn't one of them.
Summary:
After the whole ‘ghost’ incident with Heechul, Kyuhyun thought he would be free from all of the craziness and go back to his normal life as a university student. But when he starts to hear whispers again, nothing is as he expects...especially when so much more is at stake this time.
Listen (Part 1) - in Masterlist Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4
“Welcome, Sir. A table for-?”
The waitress with a high ponytail and round face greeted him as he approached the restaurant door apprehensively, clasping and unclasping his hands anxiously. Yesung hurriedly bowed slightly and timidly gestured his index finger. “Uh- just one, please. Thanks.”
He wiped the cold sweat off his brow as he placed his bag pack down beside him in the long seat at the table he was shown to and shuddered in relief from the warmth in the restaurant. He regretted not putting on a scarf before coming here, but he was in a rush this morning. This was more urgent anyway.
He checked his cell phone nervously and another pang of regret crawled on him just as the waitress brought him a heavy, black leather-bound menu. What if Ryeowook wasn’t working today? What if he gets mad at Yesung for stalking him at his work place? If only that Heechul would at least supply him some clue about the smaller-framed boy then he wouldn’t have to come here.
Find out yourself if you really care, or so he said. Yesung gulped, he knew the haughty man was right. He needed to hear it from Ryeowook’s own mouth too. He shook his head rather vigorously at his train of thoughts only to realize that the waitress was staring at him with a rather puzzled expression.
“You don’t want any drinks, sir?”
“Uh, water is fine, thanks.” He paused hesitantly. “Hey, um, is there a chef-in-training here named Kim Ryeowook?” Yesung gulped as he said the name.
The waitress’ eyes widened in surprise. “Ryeowook-ssi? Oh, uh-are you his close friend?” she whispered.
Yesung nodded timidly with a small smile. The waitress let out a sigh. “Ryeowook-ssi just quit this morning after being scolded by the head chef. He’s not been himself lately, making a lot of mistakes in the orders. We’ve had several complaints from the customers because of him this week. The boss was pretty mad at him.”
Yesung was gripping the menu so tightly his knuckles turned white. His heart sickly skipped a beat; something was just so wrong with Ryeowook. He knows how much he loves his job and wouldn’t simply jeopardise it for something trivial. The menu slipped and fell with a small thud onto the table, causing the waitress to look at him with a puzzled expression.
“Are you alright?”
Yesung nodded apologetically, placing the menu back onto the table.
“Do you know what’s wrong with him? Please look after Ryeowook-ssi if you can. All the noonas, hyungs and dongsaengs here are really concerned about him. We could tell that he has a bright future in the kitchen here. It’s really such a waste if he just quits like that,” the waitress said, leaning in closer and pretending to recommend some dishes to him. From afar the supervisor was keeping an eye on her for taking so long on one customer. Yesung nodded yet again, handing the menu back to her.
“Get me whatever you think is good, alright? And do you think you could help me sneak into the kitchen to see your head chef?” The waitress straightened up in surprise after seeing the strong determined look in the frizzy-haired boy’s single-lidded eyes that wasn’t there before.
She pursed her lips and smiled. “Yes, sure, Sir. The washroom is this way, please.”
---
Kibum furrowed his brows as he watched the boy push his food around with a fork, a small pout forming on the innocent face. If he didn’t know better, he would have thought he had fallen for a five-year old boy.
“What’s wrong, Donghae-hyung? You can leave the fish aside if you don’t want to eat it,” he offered, sitting opposite the boy at the table most hidden at the inside of the small cosy café where anyone barely passes by except for the waiters and waitresses. Donghae knew Kibum valued privacy very much; each time they met up for lunch the sombre-looking boy would pick tables like this. Today he had sneaked off from work ten minutes earlier to meet up with Kibum again, thanks to Minho’s help. He should really treat Minho-ssi to lunch sometime soon.
Donghae shook his head with a small smile as he twisted his fork on the plate, cheesy strands of spaghetti twirling around into a messy spiral. “It’s not that, Kibummie.”
“What is it then, Fishy-hyung? Something’s bothering you.” He folded his arms and narrowed his eyes at Donghae who let out a sigh.
“It’s Ryeowook, my apartment-mate and dongsaeng. He’s going through a really difficult time now. I really want to help him but I feel like I can’t do anything to cheer him up. Usually it’s him who cheers us up with food if anyone in the apartment is upset.” He placed the fork down with a clank and propped up an elbow on the table, resting his chin on it.
“I see...but there’s really nothing you can do about the situation, isn’t it? Not eating is definitely not going to solve his problem,” Kibum said bluntly.
“Kibum-ah, I know but I just feel really bad about it. Ryeowook’s my best friend and he sleeps with me every night-uh, he’s only my roommate, Kibum-ah!” Donghae added exasperatedly when he saw the displeased look on Kibum’s face at the mention. The other boy shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly.
“Maybe sometimes just being there would do the trick. Maybe he already knows what to do about it, but he just needs time to think things over. I’m sure Ryeowook-ssi already knows that you mean good.”
Donghae nodded his head slowly. “I guess so…Heechul-hyung and Siwon are also trying to help cheer him up, but you know how my hyung is. He’s not very good at consoling people and that Siwon only knows how to talk about his religion. There’s this Yesung-ssi that Wookie’s really close to, I hope he knows how to comfort him…” Kibum nodded back before reaching for the fork. “I’m sure that Yesung-ssi will know what to do about Ryeowook-ssi…Just like me and you. Now can you eat already? It’s getting mouldy.”
Donghae jerked his head backwards slightly and peered down at the fork with spaghetti dangling neatly from it. He smiled before opening his mouth and sucked the strands in happily. “Don’t worry, Kibummie. I will finish it because we’re not supposed to waste food, right? Kim Umma taught me and Heechul-hyung not to take anything for granted. Are you sure you don’t want to it? It’s delicious.” Donghae grinned, sucking the spaghetti in with a loud sound. Kibum shook his head before giving him a playful little push on the forehead. “Yah! Kibum-ah!” Donghae exclaimed loudly with a small laugh before falling silent again with a pout.
“What’s wrong again?” Kibum asked.
The boy shook his head yet again and casted a look downwards. “There’s one more thing…I feel bad.” He paused as Kibum peered at him with concern. “I feel bad because while my dongsaeng is going through a difficult time, I’m feeling so happy….with you.”
Kibum flashed his rare signature smile, covering it with the back of his hand shyly. Inside he was going mad with pleasure. “Eat now, hyung…What’s that?” he said, noticing a colourful pamphlet that Donghae had brought in with him just now.
“Oh yeah!” the boy exclaimed, reaching for it and passing it to Kibum. “It’s a new dance academy just down the street! A really nice and funny guy named Eunhyuk was handing these pamphlets to passersby just now; he gave me one on my way here. He said that I had the talent to dance! I don’t know why they named it “All Rice Dance Academy though…” he said happily, continuing to eat his food.
“Really?” Kibum toyed hesitantly with the pamphlet before flipping it over; the boy on the cover with brown hair was doing a handstand and at the top it read ‘All Rise Dance Academy’. Even from upside down Kibum noticed the more than usual amount of gums shown in the grin. He placed the pamphlet face down and crossed his arms before Donghae continued talking about how the guy demonstrated a break dance just for him.
“Are you sure you don’t want to eat, Kibummie?” Donghae offered the last mouth of spaghetti to the younger boy. “Nope.” Kibum pulled the glass of coke a little too roughly and spilled some onto the pamphlet.
“Oops, I’m sorry about that.”
---
Kyuhyun furrowed his eyebrows and tightened his scarf around his neck as he trudged off the bus that late autumn day, hugging his backpack with frustration heaving in his chest.
One more word and his head was really going to explode.
“You’ve got to help me, please, I need that lottery ticket!”
“I need you to go take back my cat from that stupid husband of mine! EX-husband!”
“Stop ignoring us, you brat! You can hear us, we know it!”
And many more voices that came and went and wouldn’t leave him alone for so many days now since the day at the beach. Some were pretty demanding, with all sorts of requests thrown in his way. Some were just plain annoying, saying stupid things like “The water gun inside your locker is mine, give it back” or “talk to me, talk to me, talk to me”. But some were just inaudible whispers in the background that he couldn’t seem to make out at all.
He wished he could filter it all out with just a snap of his fingers. He was starting to lose sleep again, knowing the fact that at least one of them was hanging around in his apartment and that he would probably start the day by having some of them flooding his head very soon after. He had the decency to be polite at first, or at least he tried. But after a few sleepless nights he really felt like he could not take it anymore. And with his Yesung-hyung being all moody and singing sad, angsty love songs during the evenings at their apartment didn’t help lower his irritability. He really felt sorry for not being able to help Yesung like how he said he would, but that Heechul wouldn’t spill anything at all about why the younger boy was acting so strange and no one can do anything about that.
The voice of one pitiful spirit in need was one thing, but a whole bunch of them was really getting too much. His hair was in a tousled mess this morning and he was practically running late again for class in the cold breezy morning.
And then he wondered…how did that Heechul manage to keep it to himself and bear with it for so long? Hearing voices was already driving him up the wall; wouldn’t seeing them everywhere be ten times worse? Maybe it was what that had driven him to be the way he is now, or maybe it takes someone like Kim Heechul to handle such ability. Cho Kyuhyun? What did he do to deserve this? Unless being a maths Olympiad during middle school had anything to do with it, he still hadn’t got a clue to why he can hear them in the first place. He sighed, feeling his lips crack from the dryness.
“Why don’t you just stop and listen?” One of them was yelling at him. And he didn’t like being yelled at, especially when he was in a bad mood. That was it, he decided.
“Bu hao yi si, uh, excuse me?”
“I’m not your bitch! Now go away!” he turned back and snapped suddenly, like a time bomb finally let off.
A smug smile formed slowly on his chapped lips as white crystals of breath evaporated in front of him. Silence had never felt more victorious. But after a while it became awkward as he realized a dozen pairs of eyes or so staring at him curiously before hurrying away to the university gates.
He let out a puff of cold breath and closed his eyes resignedly for a moment. This was definitely not new to him. Whispers, from living ones this time, about how he was the weird kid from the writing course circulated around him instead. He certainly did feel like one. He shook his head and glared at them for a second before trudging off to the entrance as well, politeness and manners all left aside.
“You look like crap.”
Someone said from behind. For a moment he was about to turn and scream again but stopped when his heart began to thump loudly on recognition of the voice. He was just about to turn down the corridor where the class was being held.
Heechul was standing in front of him, draped nicely in a navy blue sweater and wearing a pair of oversized shades that made it hard to see his face, bag slung casually over his shoulders, arm sling gone. Despite that, Kyuhyun was surprised to see the older man looking as tired as him despite the shades. The face looked pale and the usually pink lips (he shuddered at the thought) were looking pale with the signature smirk. But somehow the smirk looked a little different today, a little more drooped to the side, like it was making an effort to stay.
“So do you. What happened to you?” Kyuhyun knitted his eyebrows curiously, feeling a strange pang in his heart.
“Aish, never mind you, kid.” Heechul said, brushing past his face lightly. “Meet me later after your class.”
“What, really? Where are we going this time?” Kyuhyun exclaimed, stumped by the fact that he was going to say that too, despite the fact that he was actually going to phrase it more politely then the older man. “I really need to talk to you too -uh, hyung!” he added hurriedly, earning a glare from the older man whose hair was curling slightly below the ears. He peered at his watch hastily. “But I’m late for class now!”
Heechul’s face crumpled up in annoyance. “Aish, didn’t I say ‘later’? You’re so troublesome. Just come meet me after your class and you’ll know when we get there. See you after your class,” he said while nodding to a chattering group of passersby. Kyuhyun frowned and nodded obediently anyway.
Kyuhyun stood stumped for a moment as he watched the man walk away. He was wondering what the man wanted with him this time when a small smile formed unexpectedly on his lips. Figuring that he must have lost his mind, he sprinted to class hurriedly.
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A/N : Sorry for the super late update! All three pairings in this chapter~ hope you enjoyed it! XD