[Fic] For Always - 10/24
Title: For Always
Author: Coley Merrin
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Zhou Mi/Kyuhyun and Siwon/Hankyung (with possible additions)
Genre: AU. Drama/Romance/Angst/Fluff/The kitchen sink
Summary: The bookstore called "Soulmate" has been the most important thing in Kyuhyun's life. With it, he has built a fortress of brick and page around himself, one that can only be brought down from the inside -- both with love and with danger.
Hankyung has built a life of meaning, but finds no substance in it and lives in dreams. Dreams that, when they materialize, make him question his ability to reach and hold on when he wants nothing less.
***
Chapter One ** Chapter Two ** Chapter Three ** Chapter Four ** Chapter Five ** Chapter Six ** Chapter Seven ** Chapter Eight ** Chapter Nine ** Chapter Ten **
Chapter Eleven
***
Later than I expected due to Life and Writing Things I Wasn't Supposed To. Now, hopefully back on some sort of schedule.
***
Chapter Ten
***
***
Hankyung woke up the next morning feeling as though he had been dragged into some life that wasn’t his. He didn’t have a gorgeous man wanting him, after all. That was someone else. Which was how he spent five minutes opening his phone to stare at the picture of the two of them together, only to grin and snap it shut. And then opening it all over again. Siwon, he thought. My Siwon. Mine. He thought he ought to be cackling in some overlord-type way when he thought about it like that.
He blew gently on his tea as he settled onto the window seat, smiling down at his empty sidewalk. He had first seen Siwon there. Siwon had seen him. Two lonely people caught up in the aloneness of the other. It sounded better than subtle stalking. Siwon wasn’t jogging when he came into Hankyung’s line of sight, but walking, eyes fixed on Hankyung’s window. He resisted the urge to wave like a demented fan. He could feel the intensity of that stare as Siwon passed by. And then his heart thudded as Siwon broke into a run, racing up the stairs toward Hankyung’s door. They reached it at approximately the same time, and were wrapped around each other without any hesitation. Siwon’s grin was bright against his mouth.
“I can’t stay,” Siwon told him, breathing still slightly ragged from his impromptu sprint. “I just wanted to say good morning.”
“Good morning,” he said, pulling Siwon back for another kiss.
There was regret as Siwon pulled away, hand stroking Hankyung’s face.
“Thanks for the tea,” Siwon said, a bit wicked as he edged out the door. “I’ll see you at lunch.”
“Any time,” Hankyung told him, and watched from there, propped against the frame until Siwon was out of sight.
After their lunch date, Siwon had nearly begged him to come over again that night, to eat with him and Yunjee. It had not taken much convincing. Especially not as Siwon had held him in the shadows beside the studio, kissing him in such a way that he was loathe to deny Siwon anything. He could feel their knees bumping together, Siwon’s hand on his as they ate, all through class.
Siwon was waiting for him as he walked out of the dance studio after classes. Not only that, but with steaming cups of warm and spicy tea, like he’d read Hankyung’s desire. One hand was warmed by the cup, the other by Siwon’s hand.
“How was it?” Siwon asked as they walked.
“Oh, fine. Nothing bad,” he said, not used to really discussing classes.
“Is that all?”
“I’m sure the details of classes aren’t very interesting.”
“I think everything about you is interesting,” Siwon said, everything that was earnest in his voice.
Heat rushed into his cheeks.
“How do you do that?” he wondered out loud.
Siwon chuckled. “I can be a realist when I need to be. I mean, I have a child It’s hard to say things like that when she is burning with fever. But with you, I just...”
He dragged Hankyung quickly around the corner of the building they were passing, trapping him against the wall with his body.
“It’s like this,” he said. “I can’t resist.”
He nearly dropped his tea as Siwon’s teeth closed around his bottom lip before kissing him gently.
“I think about doing this just about every moment I’m awake,” Siwon murmured. “And probably some I’m not.”
“Yeah, I probably do, too,” Hankyung said, trying for nonchalance.
“Charmer,” Siwon teased, and Hankyung ducked his head.
“Hey don’t get shy on me,” Siwon said.
He lifted his head, pressing his lips to Siwon’s firmly. “Resisting you would be like saying no to a million dollars.”
“I definitely wouldn’t trade you for anything.”
He grinned. “Me either. We should go before Yunjee thinks you aren’t coming.”
“See...” Siwon said, petting his cheek. “You asked what made me want you. That, Geng. That.”
They had still made it before Yunjee’s school let out, even after Siwon had kissed him again.
They had played games that night, Yunjee on his lap, a team playing against Siwon. They had heckled Siwon mercilessly, and he had turned so many shades of red as Hankyung grinned at him. It had been a worthy race, but Siwon had been defeated... And he was reaping the spoils, curled to Siwon’s side, legs over his as they sat in the silent apartment.
“I’ve been looking forward to this all day,” Siwon whispered against his cheek.
“Mm, me too,” he said, still so warm and amazed. Siwon had kissed him so longingly when they had first sat down, but in such a sweet way. Siwon’s control was...He hardly even knew. He wanted to nibble the man, but somehow Siwon’s restraint kept him in line. He brushed his lips against Siwon’s chin.
“It’s so strange...” Siwon began. “When you start dating someone, there’s this giddy... Wanting to know? So scared of making a fool of yourself, but still wanting to be close. Kind of awkward, too, right? Like, not really sure who to be...” Hankyung closed his eyes as Siwon’s finger brushed the bridge of his nose, the curve of his cheek. “And I feel some of that, the giddiness. You’re here, I mean... You’re with me, and... I feel like I’ve found something I knew I was missing, but never knew what to look for,” Siwon said.
“I know,” he breathed. It felt as though he had been wandering, and found the entrance to some sort of water slide, down, down, there was no turning back, no escape,no stopping, and yet he did not fear what came at the end.
“I have... I need to tell you something, Geng. I can’t keep it any more. It’s too fast, I know it’s too fast, but...”
Siwon’s words tapered off as Hankyung smiled. How easy now, now that he wasn’t closing himself off, refusing to see... How easy it was to read this man.
“I love you, Siwon.”
“I... Oh. Geng, I love you.”
He chuckled against Siwon’s neck as he was squeezed tightly.
“I wanted to tell you all of yesterday,” Siwon continued. “But I thought, no, he’ll think I’m crazy and clingy, and run away...”
“I feel like I’ve known you all my life.”
“Yes,” Siwon said with a sigh. “Yes, that’s it exactly. I think this is where we make out.”
Hankyung smirked against Siwon’s mouth. “Is it? Okay.”
But Siwon rested his head against Hankyung’s chest, and he let his fingers trail through the soft hair, nuzzling it. He knew what Siwon had been trying to say. Where there should have been strangeness between them, some facade to show each other only their best, he found only a sense of home. But that in no way erased the need.
They sat that way, curled together, until he had to leave, basking in each other’s presence. He never, ever felt like that around anyone else, some sort of tangled need and contentment. He was so aware of the lines of Siwon’s body, the muscles of his upper arm, the press of his thigh. Even like this they were getting to know each other, likes, dislikes, how to touch... Siwon, even curled close as he was, had found a couple of ticklish spots already, and muffling his laughter into the arm of the couch had been...well. Wonderful did not seem to quite explain it, listening to Siwon’s naughty chuckles and feeling every bit of contentment flash hotly into desire just at the sound. It was no accident the way that Siwon stroked his stomach through his shirt, fingers and nails waking nerves all along his sides. But he was aware, as Siwon was, of the child sleeping just beyond the door.
When he whispered that he should leave, Siwon pulled him to his feet, but held him tight, knee to knee, heart to heart. Siwon’s hand was tucked just so to his lower back as they kissed, not quite as innocently as before, but just as satisfying. He nudged Siwon’s lips with his own, felt the smile, reveled in the taste of him, the feel of him.
Biting the inside of his cheek let him know that yes, he really was awake.
“I hate to see you go...” Siwon kissed him sweetly, words of love repeated in whispers against each other’s lips.
“I wish I didn’t have to,” he said with a sigh. But knew he couldn’t. Too many questions from a wide eyed little girl. Still, he wondered what it would be like to sleep beside Siwon, wake beside him. “I’ll call you tomorrow when I’m finished with classes, okay?”
“Okay. Sleep well. Be safe!”
He blew Siwon a kiss with a cheeky grin before bounding down the stairs.
***
Kyuhyun raised an eyebrow as Siwon held the door open for Hankyung and entered behind him, holding a bag that was half as tall as he was. He knew Hankyung was bringing Siwon, they had discussed it earlier. But they had enough stuff between them that it looked like they were about to move in instead of coming over to spend the evening. Actually, instead of resenting Siwon’s presence on their formerly “just the two of them and sometimes Ryeowook and Henry” get-together night, he was looking forward to seeing them both together when he wasn’t tempted to beat them both over the head for stupidity.
Dressed to leave for the day into the cold, Zhou Mi emerged from the back just in time for Siwon to push him back into the room. Siwon was speaking low and pleasant Mandarin as the two disappeared, as if anyone needed to understand him.
He fixed Hankyung with a questioning stare.
“I know you were planning on bringing dinner, but that looked like a little bit much.”
“We brought drinks and stuff to do, too...”
“Why did Siwon just kidnap Zhou Mi?”
He had a feeling, kind of in the way that Hankyung was smiling and not meeting his eyes. He had been dating someone five whole days, and already felt the need to spread the joy?
There was some sort of protest being waged as Siwon appeared in the doorway and made frantic movements.
“What’s going on?” he asked Siwon, as Hankyung disappeared with haste behind him.
“We’re just setting up food. We brought a lot, so we though Zhou Mi could stay too.”
“Then why does it sound like he’s being strangled back there?”
He peered over Siwon’s shoulder in time to see Hankyung stalking away with Zhou Mi’s coat, who was standing with his hands on his hips.
“Really subtle, guys,” he said, rolling his eyes at Siwon. “Ryeowook and Henry send their regrets... I got to them too late, I guess. Ryeowook is visiting his parents, and Henry is doing Henry things.”
“Doesn’t want to spend the evening with a bunch of old guys like us, huh?” Hankyung asked.
Kyuhyun snickered. “Hey, look who’s talking.”
“Is he still hanging out with that kid from his class? The one who knocked him over?”
“Sounds like. He kind of clams up every time the subject is brought up.”
“Are they...dating?”
“Not yet, but really wouldn’t surprise me. Yunjee is with your parents?” he asked Siwon.
“Yep. She was a little put out that she couldn’t come and hang out at the store after hours, but my parents just got some new fish, so she was okay after that.”
“Usurped by fish? Oh no!” He looked between the two of them. With Yunjee taken care of. “Are you sure you two don’t want to just do something on your own?”
“You and I had plans!” Hankyung said, waving away Kyuhyun’s concern. “So we’re good with it. But Yunjee...”
Hankyung nearly opened his mouth to say something else before stopping, and Siwon frowned at him affectionately.
“Yunjee was worried if she was left out, that Geng would only want to keep me and not her. I don’t think I can compete with my daughter for a man.”
Hankyung looked away a little bashfully as Siwon brushed his cheek with his fingers, laughing softly.
This amused Kyuhyun. “How does a conversation like that go? I like boys, and Geng likes boys, and apparently you like boys too. Now you need to find a boy who likes...girls?”
Siwon laughed. “No... She ended up telling me she didn’t really want to date him, but just wanted to make sure he stayed around.”
“So I told her you can love someone without dating them, and she seemed okay with that,” Hankyung finished for him. “She’s really sweet.”
“Yeah,” Siwon said, agreeing apparently without listening as they smiled at each other, a conversation of epic proportions being passed between their eyes alone.
That was...the tiniest bit awkward, knowing Zhou Mi was standing beside him, seeing the exact same thing. The bad thing was, he was sure that they had no idea they were being that disgustingly cute with each other.
“...Okay, then. Are we eating or making out?”
“What, we have options?” At Kyuhyun’s glare of death, Hankyung cleared his throat, looking around at what they had set out. “Could we use the glasses and plates from the kitchen?”
“Sure.” He waved Zhou Mi over before entering the kitchen.
“Seriously...” he said, opening cupboards and trying to keep the conversation light. “I can’t blame Siwon, so Hankyung gets it all. Was he going to tie you to the table if you had somewhere else to be?”
Zhou Mi laughed as he took the glasses. “It seemed like it.”
“And you didn’t need to be somewhere?”
“No. I didn’t want to interrupt, though.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” he said, grinning as he picked up the plates. “If those two get too kissy with each other, at least I’ll have someone to talk to.”
Stunned silence followed him, before he heard, “Well, I’m glad I can be of some use.”
For some reason, his mood had risen as if he’d just sucked in sugar. He was laughing for nearly no reason as he put down the plates.”
They chatted easily, more comfortably than he might have imagined. Hankyung’s classes, Siwon’s work, Yunjee, Zhou Mi’s progress with the books... Zhou Mi was particularly vague, but considering he had never asked outright about Zhou Mi’s progress, he had nothing with which to gauge it against.
“Have you told your mom yet?” Kyuhyun asked Hankyung.
“We did... I emailed her a picture that Siwon took of us. When she called my phone, I had Siwon answer,” Hankyung said, the memory tickling him still apparently.
“I didn't really understand what she said. But it was happy!” Siwon said.
“It was beyond happy.”
“Your mom knew he was perfect for you after one meeting,” Kyuhyun mused.
“Would she have given me up and kept you and Yunjee?” Hankyung asked Siwon.
“Never. She can’t do without you, just like we can’t.”
Hankyung laughed at that, looking Siwon in the eye. “I guess I have to keep you so she doesn’t blame me for the rest of my life.”
“I like that idea,” Siwon said, kissing his cheek.
Keep him, Kyuhyun thought. As in forever. They had five days of meals and stolen moments, and already there was forever? But they also had all the times before. And in Hankyung’s case, months before that. Forever was an appealing word, but even on that there were limits. He shied away from Zhou Mi’s eyes when he realized they had been looking at each other.
And then there were the games that had been brought. They passed over formal board games, moving straight into stacking little wooden blocks on other little wooden blocks until they all came crashing down.
Siwon was a very studious block-pusher, brows deep in concentration, the tip of his tongue amusingly waggling out of the corner of his mouth. Hankyung had chortled at that every time, poking it to get him to put it back in his mouth to both of their amusement. He caught Zhou Mi’s eye and rolled his eyes at the two across from them. As soon as Siwon’s turn was over, Siwon’s arm immediately went to Hankyung’s shoulders, occasionally kissing his cheek or petting his hand while Zhou Mi studied and hummed and considered every angle.
“Hurry up, would you? The wood is going to decompose before you get a block out of it,” he complained to Zhou Mi. The man was infuriatingly slow, and he was the only one conscious enough of the outside world to realize it.
He poked out a finger to try and get the man moving, and caught the edge of the game instead, watching with horrified eyes as it tipped and tottered straight into Zhou Mi’s lap.
“Ah! Kui Xian!”
“Hey, it wasn’t my turn!” He got his shoulder pushed in retaliation, but helped Zhou Mi by picking up the blocks that had fallen to the floor. Kyuhyun mocked his pout, and Hankyung, seeing the trouble there, suggested they move into a card game instead.
The trouble with cards? They leant themselves to cooperative playing, even when the game didn’t call for it. Only someone who knew Hankyung would have caught it, the slyness in his eyes as he glanced at Siwon. That in and of itself wasn’t damning, but for the fact that Siwon’s eyebrows gave away the whole charade. And he was not at all fluent in SiBrow-ese. What he was fluent in was...
“Cheaters,” he said, staring balefully over his cards at the two of them.
The innocent expression on Hankyung’s face was mostly convincing, but he knew better. “What?” Hankyung said. “We’re just playing.”
“And I am secretly a girl.” He stood and Zhou Mi stared after him as though he were going to go raging out of the room. His position behind Zhou Mi’s chair gave him perfect view of the now stiffly held cards.
“Play that one,” he said, pointing.
“Um...”
“If we’re going to play in teams, we might as well actually play in teams,” Kyuhyun said, letting his forearms lightly rest on Zhou Mi’s shoulders. “Why aren’t your cards organized, anyway? You can’t even tell what you have...”
He rearranged Zhou Mi’s cards, brooking no arguments, and the game continued on. He could have seen Zhou Mi’s cards equally as well from beside him. But they had a method going on, him handing a card to Zhou Mi, who played it for him. And he got to touch, feeling those shoulders jerk as Zhou Mi laughed, shifting with Kyuhyun’s weight. He could see the part in Zhou Mi’s hair, could almost smell it as he leaned close, laughing, nearly burying himself in Zhou Mi’s shoulder to keep himself upright as Hankyung let out a very exasperated cry. He gave Zhou Mi a kind of backward high five.
“Haha! Legitimate team wins!”
Hankyung couldn’t stay disgruntled for long, not with a grinning Siwon leaning against him.
“Time for ice cream then?” Siwon asked.
“We brought two kinds,” Hankyung said, looking speculatively at the two of them.
“Hankyung is a chocolate fiend,” Kyuhyun told Zhou Mi. “He’ll fight to the death for it.”
“Says plain vanilla guy,” Hankyung said, raising a judgmental eyebrow at Kyuhyun.
“I like vanilla,” Zhou Mi interjected. “What? I do!” he said when all of them stared.
“You are on the right side of the table then,” Hankyung said.
Zhou Mi stared at the table as laughter rolled.
“Good, more for us then,” Kyuhyun said. He tugged on Zhou Mi’s sleeve. “Come help.”
He waited for Zhou Mi to join him, putting out bowls and spoons and leaning against the counter nearest the freezer.
“What are you waiting for?” Zhou Mi asked, leaning gingerly beside him.
“For those two to be done. I’m sure they were joined at the lip the second we turned the corner.”
“Oh.” He paused. “How will we know when to go back?”
“Hankyung will get impatient waiting for his chocolate. Siwon hasn’t filled that spot in him yet, I don’t think.”
Zhou Mi chuckled, and managed to barely jerk as Kyuhyun’s head met his shoulder.
“I’ll just nap until that happens,” Kyuhyun said. It took only a long minute for his prediction to come true.
“Hey, you’re not making it in there, I know, cause it was made when we brought it!” Hankyung called.
He grinned at Zhou Mi and opened the freezer.
***
Zhou Mi had begged off, leaving as soon as the bowls were back in the kitchen. He touched Kyuhyun’s arm before he left, smiling as he thanked him.
“I wasn’t the one who hijacked you,” he said, attempting a grumble but missing by a pretty wide margin.
They stood a bit awkwardly after that before saying goodnight. What did one do after a night like this...? Hug? More so than the night at the restaurant, this had turned out like a double date. He wondered if that was what Zhou Mi had thought, when there were only the two of them unattached. He thought he would have had just as good a time if it had been just the three of them... Siwon was pleasant to talk to, and unexpectedly boisterous at times. But he would have missed hearing laughter beside his own...
“He’s pretty good about not undressing you with his eyes,” Hankyung said when he when he’d sat back down, sending a rather significant look at Kyuhyun.
Kyuhyun snorted. “He wouldn’t.”
“He did. Did you see when he was looking Kyuhyun during dessert?” he asked Siwon.
Siwon blinked. “Huh?”
“Zhou Mi? You know, the other guy who was here with us?”
A smile began to spread across Siwon’s face. Kyuhyun was bemused as Hankyung covered Siwon’s mouth with his hand.
“Oh, don’t mind this,” Hankyung said. “He was just going to say something like, “Oh you mean there was someone here besides you?” or something like that.”
Siwon’s eyes had all but disappeared with humor as he brought Hankyung’s hand down to hold. “He knows me too well. But Zhou Mi does look at you.”
“And I think you both need your eyesight checked. Is this like, hyper acuity or something? He likes me, I get it.”
Wisely they said nothing of Kyuhyun watching Zhou Mi as well. He had caught himself more than once. Zhou Mi himself had caught him at least once, the smile in his eyes glittering brightly.
It wasn’t like they could make him tell them anything.
***
Kyuhyun ran his fingers over the lid of the box he carried. He had been waiting for this since the night of the fire, this one last thing to show Zhou Mi. Would he be surprised that the books in the closet were not the only ones he owned? Maybe not. This book, it was the worth of everything there and more. It was the last book his father had acquired. He had never intended to show it to Zhou Mi, had expected him to be gone far before now. This book, this capstone, was the pinnacle of the research Zhou Mi was doing. He was sure of that now. It could very well be the key to him needing Kyuhyun, the books, the store, no longer. He could be setting Zhou Mi free.
Zhou Mi smiled, such a blindly happy smile when he entered. So bright, he wondered how he could have considered any of the others to be as happy as it got.
It was somewhat eerily familiar a scene, as he pushed the archival box toward Zhou Mi, a twin to those many weeks ago when Zhou Mi has slid a different box, a different book, toward him.
“What’s this?” Zhou Mi asked, opening the box at Kyuhyun’s gesture.
He knew when Zhou Mi had seen it, understood what it was. The shocked pleasure on his face was so blatantly obvious.
“Oh. Oh, Kui Xian...”
“The only two people in the universe who know about this book are my father and I. I’ve… never shown it to anyone else. It was the last one he bought before he left.”
At that confession, Zhou Mi was looking at him very peculiarly.
“You and your father? You’re... You’re very sure about that?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. I was young when he left, but I wasn’t that young. He bought it from a British man. That’s all I know.”
“I’ve dreamed of seeing this book. I came, hoping...” Zhou Mi stopped, staring down at the box. “I didn’t expect to stay this long... I thought I’d get a few weeks of research and move on. When I heard what a find your collection was, I didn’t really expect it to live up to the reputation.”
He’d stayed longer than he’d expected. He was building up to say he was leaving. Kyuhyun could almost hear him saying the words.
“I didn’t realize that I’d been directed here by someone who had actually seen your collection. He told me of this one and a few others...”
“Then you’ll leave once you’ve finished with this one?”
“What? No, that’s not what I’m saying. I’ve been to the others already,” Zhou Mi said, seemingly having trouble gathering his thoughts.
Zhou Mi had left after researching the others. And come here, and with this book, as Kyuhyun had thought, could leave again. He nearly started to back away.
“So when you’re finished with it, leave! Everyone leaves when they’re finished with the books. I’m tired of waiting. So will you please just go?”
He was frozen. He wanted to turn, to leave, to go anywhere. But where could he go? Even as he tried to turn, Zhou Mi stopped him.
“Kui Xian, no! I’m trying to tell you...”
He struggled petulantly. Zhou Mi was stronger than he looked, snaking one long arm around him, pulling until he staggered, until his knees straddled Zhou Mi and the chair, chest light against Zhou Mi’s, cheek against his shoulder, but face turned away. He was here under protest, held like a child. He did not plan to be comforted like one. And yet it felt so good to be close...
He was shaking and he hated it. He was finished feeling like this. This raw feeling where even the sensation of Zhou Mi’s breath stirring his hair left him contorted, doing everything in his power to hold back tears. He had no need for tears. Even knowing the book was the final step, bracing and building himself up... Couldn’t he have held strong against that smile for just a little longer?
“Kui Xian…”
“Stop. Don’t talk to me.”
Zhou Mi sighed. And said something Kyuhyun was not expecting.
“I think I met your father.”
He could feel his whole body tighten as the words, the meaning of them, sank into him.
“What?” he asked softly, daring Zhou Mi to repeat himself.
“I didn’t know it then. And I didn’t know when I came here, and not till today.. I wouldn’t have kept that from you. But I heard of you… from him. I knew he was Korean, but I never knew his name. He was a dealer in rare books, and people called him that, Mr. Book. I had only met him a few times when he told me of you, as if you were a secret. Someone with a collection I would be interested in studying. He never called you his son, but when you asked me how I had heard of you, that almost no one knew, I just assumed he was one of those few.”
He wanted to laugh. His father, the first person who had left him, had sent him someone else who would leave? It was perfect irony.
“He told me of this book your brought me today... When I didn’t find it in the catalogue, I assumed you had sold it... He called me several times after I arrived to ask if I had seen it. He even pointed me toward the book that I brought you. But if he was the only one who would have known... Then I’m sure he was your father.”
“Let me go.”
Zhou Mi did the opposite, clutching him tighter.
“If you were forced to choose between your books and your friends, which would you choose?”
Kyuhyun waited a moment, unsure if he wanted to answer.
“The books are not worth more than people.”
“I agree. Kui Xian… I could have been finished with your books over a month ago. You see… they do not mean that much to me, either.”
He pushed back, and Zhou Mi’s arms released him immediately, gripping Kyuhyun’s forearms to steady him as he stood. And he stared down as Zhou Mi lightly held his hands.
He steeled himself as he looked up. Zhou Mi’s mouth, set and sober. Zhou Mi’s eyes, dark.
“Kyuhyun.”
The sound of his name, his real name, trembled through him. A prayer, a plea, a telegraph he could not even comprehend, more said in the uttering of his name... That name, as Zhou Mi said it, was loved. It had been loved before.
He drew a breath. Then another. And opened his mouth to speak.
“I’m sorry,” he breathed.
Zhou Mi’s mouth quirked, but not with humor.
Every day that passed by, he would wonder, he knew. He had damned them before they ever could begin.
He slid his hands from Zhou Mi’s easily.
“I’m sorry.”
He ran blindly, closing doors only on instinct as he raced up his stairs. The tears did not begin until his hand was on the doorknob, twisting it even as a sob wracked him.
He moaned as he sank onto his couch, the sound feeling like it came from somewhere inside of him that pulsed and throbbed and seemed to cry along with him. He did not know it was possible. He had protected his heart so dearly that he had just broken it himself. His father had sent Zhou Mi. Zhou Mi and the books.
He ached to be held, and the one person he had begun to turn to he had just turned away.
His head was heavy when he woke the next morning. The emotional weight of those tears had completely knocked him out. He was not someone given to tears... In fact he avoided them studiously. He had not even cried when his mother had left.
Could he even avoid leaving his apartment? He had tried to hide before and failed. Hankyung had a key anyway. Even if he were able to leave, where could he go?
He hadn’t locked up the store. Hadn’t asked anyone to. But all was locked up when he went down. His eyes skidded over the empty worktable. It was silent and empty. It would be 20 minutes before Ryeowook would arrive, and an hour before Henry.
Another hour beside that before Zhou Mi usually walked in the door. He had no decided what to do if Zhou Mi actually showed up. He could turn him away…. It was a nice thought. Locking the back room. Selling the books.
Or ignoring him. If he wanted to sit back there, fine. If he wouldn’t leave, fine. There were his friends to help him eject the man. Maybe he could come not to care if he was there or not.
***
Ryeowook and Henry arrived on schedule, Ryeowook clearly worried but not breaching the wall that Kyuhyun had put up. He did not realize he was looking for Zhou Mi until the door chimed, and he looked up, heart suddenly taking a hard turn in his chest. But the person was too short, too wide, very much not Zhou Mi.
He seemed to grow wearier as the day wore on, nerves fraying with each customer that came and went, each cup of coffee that he brewed. Tense as Hankyung came and went. He took his break as he had always expected, in his chair, chewing on the edge of his thumb as he stared at the empty table, the empty room. There was no voice reading to him, talking to him. No eyes glinting in humor, smiling despite everything Kyuhyun had said.
He took a deep breath, leaning his head back as a thought occurred to him for the tenth time that day. If Zhou Mi had stayed because of him, if he had lingered and had been rejected, what reason did he have to return? Why should Zhou Mi come back to a store full of books no longer useful to him? All there was left was Kyuhyun, and he had no value left himself. He could feel the ache of it in his neck, his shoulders.
He flipped open his phone, scrolling to the entry in the address book. “Zhou Mi (Anytime).” Accidentally running past that had made him smile more than once. Zhou Mi had meant it, too. He remembered knowing that quite clearly. The phone slipped closed with a quiet thud. His break was over.
He locked up, sending Ryeowook off with a smile that neither of them believed. Ryeowook was a patient comforter, and for that he was glad. He needed time, badly.
He sat on the floor of the book closet for ten minutes, eyes tracing spines, words he could not read. They had been dusted. They were pristine. As though he had never been there. As though Zhou Mi had never been there. As if his father...
“I want to do my best to make sure they’re remembered,” Zhou Mi had said that first day, standing here beside him, so eager to see these shelves and bits of pulp and leather. In the end the books would be remembered, as it should have been from the beginning.
He locked up the back door, skin contracting from the cold. It must have been the cold that distracted him, because he was nearly to the top before he noticed the man huddled beside his door. His heart took a quick beat of alarm before recognition sank through.
“I’m not here for the books, Kui Xian.”
His breath froze in his lungs.
“There are some in my apartment, too.”
“They aren’t you.”
“Are you making a point in giving yourself pneumonia?” he asked, shoving his key roughly into the lock. “Is criminal stupidity going to make me want you… an icicle, if I leave you here to freeze?”
Zhou Mi stood stiffly from where had been crouched, bag clutched in both hands. “Then let me in.”
He hissed. Into his apartment, or…? “Why are you here?”
“Because you are. I may not be out here every night, but I’ll still be here. I won’t promise you something I can’t keep.”
He stood, caught between the freezing wind and the warm interior. Between more than that.
“You’re letting in the cold,” he said, and stepped inside.
He stripped his coat, hanging it on the free-standing hanger, hearing Zhou Mi set down his bag and remove his own coat.
He heard Zhou Mi sneeze behind him, a loud startling sound that had him pausing before he entered the kitchen.
“Are you sick?”
“No, just cold.”
“Then sit by the heater, idiot. You don’t come into the store, and then you sit in the cold. I don’t get it.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t come in today,” Zhou Mi said, settling close to the kitchen heater behind him. “I had errands and a meeting and it went longer than I expected. And… I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
“You’re not required. The world revolves without you there just as smoothly as it does with you.”
The pan hit the burner a little harder than he intended. What a lie.
“I thought of you all day,” Zhou Mi said. “I... Would you have let me back if I had come today?”
He stared at the ramen packet in his hands.
“I guess we’ll never know, since you didn’t come.”
He heard Zhou Mi slip up beside him, and turned his head away, just slightly, staring at the windowsill with blank eyes. And there, just where he had put them were the puppy and the owl. What would he have done, if he had come up tonight, if Zhou Mi had not been waiting for him? He would have come in here, and looked at his window, and nothing would have made him feel less alone, especially not seeing these two figures with their cute features pressed together. They had never been together in his apartment when both the owl and puppy had been there, and now they were. Maybe it was some kind of sign. Maybe he had made it one. But Zhou Mi was here, close enough to touch. He had nearly closed his eyes, ready to sag with relief, when movement outside the window sharpened them. Little drifting movements against the light...
He bolted from Zhou Mi’s side. “Snow!”
He barely noted that Zhou Mi followed, opening the locks with excitement as he bounded out into the frozen air. The snow fell in puffy gusts, swirling around him as he danced to keep his feet warm.
“You don’t have any shoes on,” Zhou Mi said, scandalized.
“I won’t die from a few minutes in the cold. It’s snow!”
And it was fluttering down to rest on Kyuhyun’s face, melting in rivulets down his skin and crowning him in white on his hair as he stood wide open as if daring the sky to send more.
“Or a coat,” Zhou Mi said, and he couldn’t have cared less. The cold was tangible. And he seemed to hesitate, as if wondering if he walked up, if Kyuhyun would let him wrap his arms around him.
He did, and Kyuhyun leaned back against him immediately, feeling the stress of the day roll from him, as if falling with the snow. He rested his head back on Zhou Mi’s shoulder, as he smiled up at the sky and blinked snow off of his eyelashes.
“It’s so… It starts something new.” A different sort of a sign entirely.
“White Christmas,” Zhou Mi said in English.
Kyuhyun laughed, drawing in great, greedy lungfuls of the frigid air.
“Yes!”
The cold was seeping into his feet rather harshly a minute later and he shook his head as he stepped inside to rid himself of the remaining snow. He checked the boiling soup, pointing Zhou Mi to the kitchen table, and returned with warmer, dryer socks.
“Ramen, for what ails you,” he said, deadpan as he set down a filled bowl for Zhou Mi. He hesitated, slipping a mug onto the table. “Hot chocolate, because... It’s the first snow, and you have to.”
How many times as a child had he sat at that table, drinking hot chocolate and watching the snow though the kitchen window?
He could feel Zhou Mi’s eyes on him as he stood at the counter and ate his ramen. He tweaked the handle of his mug, finally sitting opposite Zhou Mi at the tiny table.
“You should say here tonight. To sleep. It’s going to get nasty out there, even if you called a cab.”
“I shouldn’t,” Zhou Mi said. “I’ll be fine getting home. It’s not too bad yet.”
“Don’t be stupid. All of your research is here, isn’t it?”
“I have no clothes?”
“You can borrow pajamas,” Kyuhyun said, dismissing that immediately. “I’m sure I can find you a shirt. Stop being stubborn.”
“I’m not. I just don’t know if it’s a good idea for me to...stay.”
Kyuhyun raised his chin. “Then you shouldn’t have come at all.”
What were they speaking of, exactly? Kyuhyun wondered, as he watched Zhou Mi’s eyes narrow in contemplation. Did he understand the challenge there was far greater than it sounded?
“You want me to stay?” Zhou Mi questioned as Kyuhyun stood.
“That’s why I offered. You can sleep with me.” His mind screamed before the clarification could be uttered. “In my bed. There isn’t any place else.”
Zhou Mi’s face was oddly expressionless, and Kyuhyun wondered if he saw the same redness reflected there that he felt in his own face. Nothing he said possibly in his entire life... Could he kick Zhou Mi out now, so he didn’t have to feel so stupid? No. As Zhou Mi stepped closer, he breathed, and the smile on Zhou Mi’s face was soft. No contact, not a hand moved, nor an arm, and yet that smile that was filled with warmth too heated to touch still touched him.
“I’ll stay. I’m glad you aren’t making me take the couch.”
Kyuhyun laughed. He would be picking up pieces of a broken Zhou Mi in the morning if he had to sleep on the short, two-seater couch.
“You would need to be several feet shorter to accomplish that, and I don’t have a wheelchair ramp.”
“Have you ever slept there?”
Kyuhyun felt his smile slip. “Only as a child.”
“You... Grew up living here?”
“Yes. It seems I never really left. I’ll find you pajamas.”
He turned, the specter of his childhood, the place he was tied to with chains he had never broken, suddenly altered with the wonder on Zhou Mi’s face.
Clothes ended up being less of a problem than Zhou Mi must have thought. The newsprint-patterned pajama bottoms were a little short, but he couldn’t help that he wasn’t more of a beanpole. The shirt was fine... One of the endless supply of humorous t-shirts gifted to him as the owner of a bookstore. The little figure on it was in danger of being smashed by a teetering stack of books... And the words “You can never have too many books” were emblazoned on it. Zhou Mi held the shirt out from his chest and grinned as he sat on the bed opposite Kyuhyun
“This is too true. Have you ever been crushed by books?”
“I almost had a bookshelf fall on me once,” he mused as he set his watch on the bedside table. “I was stupid, stepped up on one of the shelves to get something off of the top when I felt the whole thing come away from the wall. It was pure luck that it didn’t come all the way.”
“Was there anything it would have been stopped by to keep it from falling on you?”
“Not really It would have been me against bookshelf.” He grinned wryly. “I’d have lost. I’ve made sure the brackets are secure on all of them now.”
“Good. I’ve dropped books on my head before... Who knew books could be dangerous?”
Kyuhyun studied the blanket as Zhou Mi gently touched the hair in front of his ear. Just a little further and he would be touching Kyuhyun’s cheek and he wondered... Would he lean into the touch? Breathing against the gentle fingers... He ducked, heard Zhou Mi suck in a breath, and buried his face in his pillow. Oh, the pretense of being tired, such a time-honored excuse.
“If you touch me during the night, you’re dead,” he said, muffled, feeling a bit absurd as Zhou Mi chuckled.
He told himself it was no different than when Hankyung stayed over. But it was. Zhou Mi was taller, and there was just more of him. He could feel it without even seeing it. Hankyung breathed like he talked, very soft, and Zhou Mi sounded as though he were trying to gather half of the oxygen from the room. What would it be like, to be held like this in the dark....
“What are you thinking?” Zhou Mi asked, turning slightly.
His brain stumbled.
“You don’t snore, do you?”
Zhou Mi laughed. “I don’t think so. You’ll have to tell me.”
“Probably with a pillow over your face.”
“Please write on my stone that I deserved it.”
“You don’t have to pout,” he said, amused.
“I’m just saying…”
“Good night.”
“Good night… Sleep well, Kui Xian.”
He told himself he probably wouldn’t.
But he did.
***
Author: Coley Merrin
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Zhou Mi/Kyuhyun and Siwon/Hankyung (with possible additions)
Genre: AU. Drama/Romance/Angst/Fluff/The kitchen sink
Summary: The bookstore called "Soulmate" has been the most important thing in Kyuhyun's life. With it, he has built a fortress of brick and page around himself, one that can only be brought down from the inside -- both with love and with danger.
Hankyung has built a life of meaning, but finds no substance in it and lives in dreams. Dreams that, when they materialize, make him question his ability to reach and hold on when he wants nothing less.
***
Chapter One ** Chapter Two ** Chapter Three ** Chapter Four ** Chapter Five ** Chapter Six ** Chapter Seven ** Chapter Eight ** Chapter Nine ** Chapter Ten **
Chapter Eleven
***
Later than I expected due to Life and Writing Things I Wasn't Supposed To. Now, hopefully back on some sort of schedule.
***
Chapter Ten
***
***
Hankyung woke up the next morning feeling as though he had been dragged into some life that wasn’t his. He didn’t have a gorgeous man wanting him, after all. That was someone else. Which was how he spent five minutes opening his phone to stare at the picture of the two of them together, only to grin and snap it shut. And then opening it all over again. Siwon, he thought. My Siwon. Mine. He thought he ought to be cackling in some overlord-type way when he thought about it like that.
He blew gently on his tea as he settled onto the window seat, smiling down at his empty sidewalk. He had first seen Siwon there. Siwon had seen him. Two lonely people caught up in the aloneness of the other. It sounded better than subtle stalking. Siwon wasn’t jogging when he came into Hankyung’s line of sight, but walking, eyes fixed on Hankyung’s window. He resisted the urge to wave like a demented fan. He could feel the intensity of that stare as Siwon passed by. And then his heart thudded as Siwon broke into a run, racing up the stairs toward Hankyung’s door. They reached it at approximately the same time, and were wrapped around each other without any hesitation. Siwon’s grin was bright against his mouth.
“I can’t stay,” Siwon told him, breathing still slightly ragged from his impromptu sprint. “I just wanted to say good morning.”
“Good morning,” he said, pulling Siwon back for another kiss.
There was regret as Siwon pulled away, hand stroking Hankyung’s face.
“Thanks for the tea,” Siwon said, a bit wicked as he edged out the door. “I’ll see you at lunch.”
“Any time,” Hankyung told him, and watched from there, propped against the frame until Siwon was out of sight.
After their lunch date, Siwon had nearly begged him to come over again that night, to eat with him and Yunjee. It had not taken much convincing. Especially not as Siwon had held him in the shadows beside the studio, kissing him in such a way that he was loathe to deny Siwon anything. He could feel their knees bumping together, Siwon’s hand on his as they ate, all through class.
Siwon was waiting for him as he walked out of the dance studio after classes. Not only that, but with steaming cups of warm and spicy tea, like he’d read Hankyung’s desire. One hand was warmed by the cup, the other by Siwon’s hand.
“How was it?” Siwon asked as they walked.
“Oh, fine. Nothing bad,” he said, not used to really discussing classes.
“Is that all?”
“I’m sure the details of classes aren’t very interesting.”
“I think everything about you is interesting,” Siwon said, everything that was earnest in his voice.
Heat rushed into his cheeks.
“How do you do that?” he wondered out loud.
Siwon chuckled. “I can be a realist when I need to be. I mean, I have a child It’s hard to say things like that when she is burning with fever. But with you, I just...”
He dragged Hankyung quickly around the corner of the building they were passing, trapping him against the wall with his body.
“It’s like this,” he said. “I can’t resist.”
He nearly dropped his tea as Siwon’s teeth closed around his bottom lip before kissing him gently.
“I think about doing this just about every moment I’m awake,” Siwon murmured. “And probably some I’m not.”
“Yeah, I probably do, too,” Hankyung said, trying for nonchalance.
“Charmer,” Siwon teased, and Hankyung ducked his head.
“Hey don’t get shy on me,” Siwon said.
He lifted his head, pressing his lips to Siwon’s firmly. “Resisting you would be like saying no to a million dollars.”
“I definitely wouldn’t trade you for anything.”
He grinned. “Me either. We should go before Yunjee thinks you aren’t coming.”
“See...” Siwon said, petting his cheek. “You asked what made me want you. That, Geng. That.”
They had still made it before Yunjee’s school let out, even after Siwon had kissed him again.
They had played games that night, Yunjee on his lap, a team playing against Siwon. They had heckled Siwon mercilessly, and he had turned so many shades of red as Hankyung grinned at him. It had been a worthy race, but Siwon had been defeated... And he was reaping the spoils, curled to Siwon’s side, legs over his as they sat in the silent apartment.
“I’ve been looking forward to this all day,” Siwon whispered against his cheek.
“Mm, me too,” he said, still so warm and amazed. Siwon had kissed him so longingly when they had first sat down, but in such a sweet way. Siwon’s control was...He hardly even knew. He wanted to nibble the man, but somehow Siwon’s restraint kept him in line. He brushed his lips against Siwon’s chin.
“It’s so strange...” Siwon began. “When you start dating someone, there’s this giddy... Wanting to know? So scared of making a fool of yourself, but still wanting to be close. Kind of awkward, too, right? Like, not really sure who to be...” Hankyung closed his eyes as Siwon’s finger brushed the bridge of his nose, the curve of his cheek. “And I feel some of that, the giddiness. You’re here, I mean... You’re with me, and... I feel like I’ve found something I knew I was missing, but never knew what to look for,” Siwon said.
“I know,” he breathed. It felt as though he had been wandering, and found the entrance to some sort of water slide, down, down, there was no turning back, no escape,no stopping, and yet he did not fear what came at the end.
“I have... I need to tell you something, Geng. I can’t keep it any more. It’s too fast, I know it’s too fast, but...”
Siwon’s words tapered off as Hankyung smiled. How easy now, now that he wasn’t closing himself off, refusing to see... How easy it was to read this man.
“I love you, Siwon.”
“I... Oh. Geng, I love you.”
He chuckled against Siwon’s neck as he was squeezed tightly.
“I wanted to tell you all of yesterday,” Siwon continued. “But I thought, no, he’ll think I’m crazy and clingy, and run away...”
“I feel like I’ve known you all my life.”
“Yes,” Siwon said with a sigh. “Yes, that’s it exactly. I think this is where we make out.”
Hankyung smirked against Siwon’s mouth. “Is it? Okay.”
But Siwon rested his head against Hankyung’s chest, and he let his fingers trail through the soft hair, nuzzling it. He knew what Siwon had been trying to say. Where there should have been strangeness between them, some facade to show each other only their best, he found only a sense of home. But that in no way erased the need.
They sat that way, curled together, until he had to leave, basking in each other’s presence. He never, ever felt like that around anyone else, some sort of tangled need and contentment. He was so aware of the lines of Siwon’s body, the muscles of his upper arm, the press of his thigh. Even like this they were getting to know each other, likes, dislikes, how to touch... Siwon, even curled close as he was, had found a couple of ticklish spots already, and muffling his laughter into the arm of the couch had been...well. Wonderful did not seem to quite explain it, listening to Siwon’s naughty chuckles and feeling every bit of contentment flash hotly into desire just at the sound. It was no accident the way that Siwon stroked his stomach through his shirt, fingers and nails waking nerves all along his sides. But he was aware, as Siwon was, of the child sleeping just beyond the door.
When he whispered that he should leave, Siwon pulled him to his feet, but held him tight, knee to knee, heart to heart. Siwon’s hand was tucked just so to his lower back as they kissed, not quite as innocently as before, but just as satisfying. He nudged Siwon’s lips with his own, felt the smile, reveled in the taste of him, the feel of him.
Biting the inside of his cheek let him know that yes, he really was awake.
“I hate to see you go...” Siwon kissed him sweetly, words of love repeated in whispers against each other’s lips.
“I wish I didn’t have to,” he said with a sigh. But knew he couldn’t. Too many questions from a wide eyed little girl. Still, he wondered what it would be like to sleep beside Siwon, wake beside him. “I’ll call you tomorrow when I’m finished with classes, okay?”
“Okay. Sleep well. Be safe!”
He blew Siwon a kiss with a cheeky grin before bounding down the stairs.
***
Kyuhyun raised an eyebrow as Siwon held the door open for Hankyung and entered behind him, holding a bag that was half as tall as he was. He knew Hankyung was bringing Siwon, they had discussed it earlier. But they had enough stuff between them that it looked like they were about to move in instead of coming over to spend the evening. Actually, instead of resenting Siwon’s presence on their formerly “just the two of them and sometimes Ryeowook and Henry” get-together night, he was looking forward to seeing them both together when he wasn’t tempted to beat them both over the head for stupidity.
Dressed to leave for the day into the cold, Zhou Mi emerged from the back just in time for Siwon to push him back into the room. Siwon was speaking low and pleasant Mandarin as the two disappeared, as if anyone needed to understand him.
He fixed Hankyung with a questioning stare.
“I know you were planning on bringing dinner, but that looked like a little bit much.”
“We brought drinks and stuff to do, too...”
“Why did Siwon just kidnap Zhou Mi?”
He had a feeling, kind of in the way that Hankyung was smiling and not meeting his eyes. He had been dating someone five whole days, and already felt the need to spread the joy?
There was some sort of protest being waged as Siwon appeared in the doorway and made frantic movements.
“What’s going on?” he asked Siwon, as Hankyung disappeared with haste behind him.
“We’re just setting up food. We brought a lot, so we though Zhou Mi could stay too.”
“Then why does it sound like he’s being strangled back there?”
He peered over Siwon’s shoulder in time to see Hankyung stalking away with Zhou Mi’s coat, who was standing with his hands on his hips.
“Really subtle, guys,” he said, rolling his eyes at Siwon. “Ryeowook and Henry send their regrets... I got to them too late, I guess. Ryeowook is visiting his parents, and Henry is doing Henry things.”
“Doesn’t want to spend the evening with a bunch of old guys like us, huh?” Hankyung asked.
Kyuhyun snickered. “Hey, look who’s talking.”
“Is he still hanging out with that kid from his class? The one who knocked him over?”
“Sounds like. He kind of clams up every time the subject is brought up.”
“Are they...dating?”
“Not yet, but really wouldn’t surprise me. Yunjee is with your parents?” he asked Siwon.
“Yep. She was a little put out that she couldn’t come and hang out at the store after hours, but my parents just got some new fish, so she was okay after that.”
“Usurped by fish? Oh no!” He looked between the two of them. With Yunjee taken care of. “Are you sure you two don’t want to just do something on your own?”
“You and I had plans!” Hankyung said, waving away Kyuhyun’s concern. “So we’re good with it. But Yunjee...”
Hankyung nearly opened his mouth to say something else before stopping, and Siwon frowned at him affectionately.
“Yunjee was worried if she was left out, that Geng would only want to keep me and not her. I don’t think I can compete with my daughter for a man.”
Hankyung looked away a little bashfully as Siwon brushed his cheek with his fingers, laughing softly.
This amused Kyuhyun. “How does a conversation like that go? I like boys, and Geng likes boys, and apparently you like boys too. Now you need to find a boy who likes...girls?”
Siwon laughed. “No... She ended up telling me she didn’t really want to date him, but just wanted to make sure he stayed around.”
“So I told her you can love someone without dating them, and she seemed okay with that,” Hankyung finished for him. “She’s really sweet.”
“Yeah,” Siwon said, agreeing apparently without listening as they smiled at each other, a conversation of epic proportions being passed between their eyes alone.
That was...the tiniest bit awkward, knowing Zhou Mi was standing beside him, seeing the exact same thing. The bad thing was, he was sure that they had no idea they were being that disgustingly cute with each other.
“...Okay, then. Are we eating or making out?”
“What, we have options?” At Kyuhyun’s glare of death, Hankyung cleared his throat, looking around at what they had set out. “Could we use the glasses and plates from the kitchen?”
“Sure.” He waved Zhou Mi over before entering the kitchen.
“Seriously...” he said, opening cupboards and trying to keep the conversation light. “I can’t blame Siwon, so Hankyung gets it all. Was he going to tie you to the table if you had somewhere else to be?”
Zhou Mi laughed as he took the glasses. “It seemed like it.”
“And you didn’t need to be somewhere?”
“No. I didn’t want to interrupt, though.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” he said, grinning as he picked up the plates. “If those two get too kissy with each other, at least I’ll have someone to talk to.”
Stunned silence followed him, before he heard, “Well, I’m glad I can be of some use.”
For some reason, his mood had risen as if he’d just sucked in sugar. He was laughing for nearly no reason as he put down the plates.”
They chatted easily, more comfortably than he might have imagined. Hankyung’s classes, Siwon’s work, Yunjee, Zhou Mi’s progress with the books... Zhou Mi was particularly vague, but considering he had never asked outright about Zhou Mi’s progress, he had nothing with which to gauge it against.
“Have you told your mom yet?” Kyuhyun asked Hankyung.
“We did... I emailed her a picture that Siwon took of us. When she called my phone, I had Siwon answer,” Hankyung said, the memory tickling him still apparently.
“I didn't really understand what she said. But it was happy!” Siwon said.
“It was beyond happy.”
“Your mom knew he was perfect for you after one meeting,” Kyuhyun mused.
“Would she have given me up and kept you and Yunjee?” Hankyung asked Siwon.
“Never. She can’t do without you, just like we can’t.”
Hankyung laughed at that, looking Siwon in the eye. “I guess I have to keep you so she doesn’t blame me for the rest of my life.”
“I like that idea,” Siwon said, kissing his cheek.
Keep him, Kyuhyun thought. As in forever. They had five days of meals and stolen moments, and already there was forever? But they also had all the times before. And in Hankyung’s case, months before that. Forever was an appealing word, but even on that there were limits. He shied away from Zhou Mi’s eyes when he realized they had been looking at each other.
And then there were the games that had been brought. They passed over formal board games, moving straight into stacking little wooden blocks on other little wooden blocks until they all came crashing down.
Siwon was a very studious block-pusher, brows deep in concentration, the tip of his tongue amusingly waggling out of the corner of his mouth. Hankyung had chortled at that every time, poking it to get him to put it back in his mouth to both of their amusement. He caught Zhou Mi’s eye and rolled his eyes at the two across from them. As soon as Siwon’s turn was over, Siwon’s arm immediately went to Hankyung’s shoulders, occasionally kissing his cheek or petting his hand while Zhou Mi studied and hummed and considered every angle.
“Hurry up, would you? The wood is going to decompose before you get a block out of it,” he complained to Zhou Mi. The man was infuriatingly slow, and he was the only one conscious enough of the outside world to realize it.
He poked out a finger to try and get the man moving, and caught the edge of the game instead, watching with horrified eyes as it tipped and tottered straight into Zhou Mi’s lap.
“Ah! Kui Xian!”
“Hey, it wasn’t my turn!” He got his shoulder pushed in retaliation, but helped Zhou Mi by picking up the blocks that had fallen to the floor. Kyuhyun mocked his pout, and Hankyung, seeing the trouble there, suggested they move into a card game instead.
The trouble with cards? They leant themselves to cooperative playing, even when the game didn’t call for it. Only someone who knew Hankyung would have caught it, the slyness in his eyes as he glanced at Siwon. That in and of itself wasn’t damning, but for the fact that Siwon’s eyebrows gave away the whole charade. And he was not at all fluent in SiBrow-ese. What he was fluent in was...
“Cheaters,” he said, staring balefully over his cards at the two of them.
The innocent expression on Hankyung’s face was mostly convincing, but he knew better. “What?” Hankyung said. “We’re just playing.”
“And I am secretly a girl.” He stood and Zhou Mi stared after him as though he were going to go raging out of the room. His position behind Zhou Mi’s chair gave him perfect view of the now stiffly held cards.
“Play that one,” he said, pointing.
“Um...”
“If we’re going to play in teams, we might as well actually play in teams,” Kyuhyun said, letting his forearms lightly rest on Zhou Mi’s shoulders. “Why aren’t your cards organized, anyway? You can’t even tell what you have...”
He rearranged Zhou Mi’s cards, brooking no arguments, and the game continued on. He could have seen Zhou Mi’s cards equally as well from beside him. But they had a method going on, him handing a card to Zhou Mi, who played it for him. And he got to touch, feeling those shoulders jerk as Zhou Mi laughed, shifting with Kyuhyun’s weight. He could see the part in Zhou Mi’s hair, could almost smell it as he leaned close, laughing, nearly burying himself in Zhou Mi’s shoulder to keep himself upright as Hankyung let out a very exasperated cry. He gave Zhou Mi a kind of backward high five.
“Haha! Legitimate team wins!”
Hankyung couldn’t stay disgruntled for long, not with a grinning Siwon leaning against him.
“Time for ice cream then?” Siwon asked.
“We brought two kinds,” Hankyung said, looking speculatively at the two of them.
“Hankyung is a chocolate fiend,” Kyuhyun told Zhou Mi. “He’ll fight to the death for it.”
“Says plain vanilla guy,” Hankyung said, raising a judgmental eyebrow at Kyuhyun.
“I like vanilla,” Zhou Mi interjected. “What? I do!” he said when all of them stared.
“You are on the right side of the table then,” Hankyung said.
Zhou Mi stared at the table as laughter rolled.
“Good, more for us then,” Kyuhyun said. He tugged on Zhou Mi’s sleeve. “Come help.”
He waited for Zhou Mi to join him, putting out bowls and spoons and leaning against the counter nearest the freezer.
“What are you waiting for?” Zhou Mi asked, leaning gingerly beside him.
“For those two to be done. I’m sure they were joined at the lip the second we turned the corner.”
“Oh.” He paused. “How will we know when to go back?”
“Hankyung will get impatient waiting for his chocolate. Siwon hasn’t filled that spot in him yet, I don’t think.”
Zhou Mi chuckled, and managed to barely jerk as Kyuhyun’s head met his shoulder.
“I’ll just nap until that happens,” Kyuhyun said. It took only a long minute for his prediction to come true.
“Hey, you’re not making it in there, I know, cause it was made when we brought it!” Hankyung called.
He grinned at Zhou Mi and opened the freezer.
***
Zhou Mi had begged off, leaving as soon as the bowls were back in the kitchen. He touched Kyuhyun’s arm before he left, smiling as he thanked him.
“I wasn’t the one who hijacked you,” he said, attempting a grumble but missing by a pretty wide margin.
They stood a bit awkwardly after that before saying goodnight. What did one do after a night like this...? Hug? More so than the night at the restaurant, this had turned out like a double date. He wondered if that was what Zhou Mi had thought, when there were only the two of them unattached. He thought he would have had just as good a time if it had been just the three of them... Siwon was pleasant to talk to, and unexpectedly boisterous at times. But he would have missed hearing laughter beside his own...
“He’s pretty good about not undressing you with his eyes,” Hankyung said when he when he’d sat back down, sending a rather significant look at Kyuhyun.
Kyuhyun snorted. “He wouldn’t.”
“He did. Did you see when he was looking Kyuhyun during dessert?” he asked Siwon.
Siwon blinked. “Huh?”
“Zhou Mi? You know, the other guy who was here with us?”
A smile began to spread across Siwon’s face. Kyuhyun was bemused as Hankyung covered Siwon’s mouth with his hand.
“Oh, don’t mind this,” Hankyung said. “He was just going to say something like, “Oh you mean there was someone here besides you?” or something like that.”
Siwon’s eyes had all but disappeared with humor as he brought Hankyung’s hand down to hold. “He knows me too well. But Zhou Mi does look at you.”
“And I think you both need your eyesight checked. Is this like, hyper acuity or something? He likes me, I get it.”
Wisely they said nothing of Kyuhyun watching Zhou Mi as well. He had caught himself more than once. Zhou Mi himself had caught him at least once, the smile in his eyes glittering brightly.
It wasn’t like they could make him tell them anything.
***
Kyuhyun ran his fingers over the lid of the box he carried. He had been waiting for this since the night of the fire, this one last thing to show Zhou Mi. Would he be surprised that the books in the closet were not the only ones he owned? Maybe not. This book, it was the worth of everything there and more. It was the last book his father had acquired. He had never intended to show it to Zhou Mi, had expected him to be gone far before now. This book, this capstone, was the pinnacle of the research Zhou Mi was doing. He was sure of that now. It could very well be the key to him needing Kyuhyun, the books, the store, no longer. He could be setting Zhou Mi free.
Zhou Mi smiled, such a blindly happy smile when he entered. So bright, he wondered how he could have considered any of the others to be as happy as it got.
It was somewhat eerily familiar a scene, as he pushed the archival box toward Zhou Mi, a twin to those many weeks ago when Zhou Mi has slid a different box, a different book, toward him.
“What’s this?” Zhou Mi asked, opening the box at Kyuhyun’s gesture.
He knew when Zhou Mi had seen it, understood what it was. The shocked pleasure on his face was so blatantly obvious.
“Oh. Oh, Kui Xian...”
“The only two people in the universe who know about this book are my father and I. I’ve… never shown it to anyone else. It was the last one he bought before he left.”
At that confession, Zhou Mi was looking at him very peculiarly.
“You and your father? You’re... You’re very sure about that?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. I was young when he left, but I wasn’t that young. He bought it from a British man. That’s all I know.”
“I’ve dreamed of seeing this book. I came, hoping...” Zhou Mi stopped, staring down at the box. “I didn’t expect to stay this long... I thought I’d get a few weeks of research and move on. When I heard what a find your collection was, I didn’t really expect it to live up to the reputation.”
He’d stayed longer than he’d expected. He was building up to say he was leaving. Kyuhyun could almost hear him saying the words.
“I didn’t realize that I’d been directed here by someone who had actually seen your collection. He told me of this one and a few others...”
“Then you’ll leave once you’ve finished with this one?”
“What? No, that’s not what I’m saying. I’ve been to the others already,” Zhou Mi said, seemingly having trouble gathering his thoughts.
Zhou Mi had left after researching the others. And come here, and with this book, as Kyuhyun had thought, could leave again. He nearly started to back away.
“So when you’re finished with it, leave! Everyone leaves when they’re finished with the books. I’m tired of waiting. So will you please just go?”
He was frozen. He wanted to turn, to leave, to go anywhere. But where could he go? Even as he tried to turn, Zhou Mi stopped him.
“Kui Xian, no! I’m trying to tell you...”
He struggled petulantly. Zhou Mi was stronger than he looked, snaking one long arm around him, pulling until he staggered, until his knees straddled Zhou Mi and the chair, chest light against Zhou Mi’s, cheek against his shoulder, but face turned away. He was here under protest, held like a child. He did not plan to be comforted like one. And yet it felt so good to be close...
He was shaking and he hated it. He was finished feeling like this. This raw feeling where even the sensation of Zhou Mi’s breath stirring his hair left him contorted, doing everything in his power to hold back tears. He had no need for tears. Even knowing the book was the final step, bracing and building himself up... Couldn’t he have held strong against that smile for just a little longer?
“Kui Xian…”
“Stop. Don’t talk to me.”
Zhou Mi sighed. And said something Kyuhyun was not expecting.
“I think I met your father.”
He could feel his whole body tighten as the words, the meaning of them, sank into him.
“What?” he asked softly, daring Zhou Mi to repeat himself.
“I didn’t know it then. And I didn’t know when I came here, and not till today.. I wouldn’t have kept that from you. But I heard of you… from him. I knew he was Korean, but I never knew his name. He was a dealer in rare books, and people called him that, Mr. Book. I had only met him a few times when he told me of you, as if you were a secret. Someone with a collection I would be interested in studying. He never called you his son, but when you asked me how I had heard of you, that almost no one knew, I just assumed he was one of those few.”
He wanted to laugh. His father, the first person who had left him, had sent him someone else who would leave? It was perfect irony.
“He told me of this book your brought me today... When I didn’t find it in the catalogue, I assumed you had sold it... He called me several times after I arrived to ask if I had seen it. He even pointed me toward the book that I brought you. But if he was the only one who would have known... Then I’m sure he was your father.”
“Let me go.”
Zhou Mi did the opposite, clutching him tighter.
“If you were forced to choose between your books and your friends, which would you choose?”
Kyuhyun waited a moment, unsure if he wanted to answer.
“The books are not worth more than people.”
“I agree. Kui Xian… I could have been finished with your books over a month ago. You see… they do not mean that much to me, either.”
He pushed back, and Zhou Mi’s arms released him immediately, gripping Kyuhyun’s forearms to steady him as he stood. And he stared down as Zhou Mi lightly held his hands.
He steeled himself as he looked up. Zhou Mi’s mouth, set and sober. Zhou Mi’s eyes, dark.
“Kyuhyun.”
The sound of his name, his real name, trembled through him. A prayer, a plea, a telegraph he could not even comprehend, more said in the uttering of his name... That name, as Zhou Mi said it, was loved. It had been loved before.
He drew a breath. Then another. And opened his mouth to speak.
“I’m sorry,” he breathed.
Zhou Mi’s mouth quirked, but not with humor.
Every day that passed by, he would wonder, he knew. He had damned them before they ever could begin.
He slid his hands from Zhou Mi’s easily.
“I’m sorry.”
He ran blindly, closing doors only on instinct as he raced up his stairs. The tears did not begin until his hand was on the doorknob, twisting it even as a sob wracked him.
He moaned as he sank onto his couch, the sound feeling like it came from somewhere inside of him that pulsed and throbbed and seemed to cry along with him. He did not know it was possible. He had protected his heart so dearly that he had just broken it himself. His father had sent Zhou Mi. Zhou Mi and the books.
He ached to be held, and the one person he had begun to turn to he had just turned away.
His head was heavy when he woke the next morning. The emotional weight of those tears had completely knocked him out. He was not someone given to tears... In fact he avoided them studiously. He had not even cried when his mother had left.
Could he even avoid leaving his apartment? He had tried to hide before and failed. Hankyung had a key anyway. Even if he were able to leave, where could he go?
He hadn’t locked up the store. Hadn’t asked anyone to. But all was locked up when he went down. His eyes skidded over the empty worktable. It was silent and empty. It would be 20 minutes before Ryeowook would arrive, and an hour before Henry.
Another hour beside that before Zhou Mi usually walked in the door. He had no decided what to do if Zhou Mi actually showed up. He could turn him away…. It was a nice thought. Locking the back room. Selling the books.
Or ignoring him. If he wanted to sit back there, fine. If he wouldn’t leave, fine. There were his friends to help him eject the man. Maybe he could come not to care if he was there or not.
***
Ryeowook and Henry arrived on schedule, Ryeowook clearly worried but not breaching the wall that Kyuhyun had put up. He did not realize he was looking for Zhou Mi until the door chimed, and he looked up, heart suddenly taking a hard turn in his chest. But the person was too short, too wide, very much not Zhou Mi.
He seemed to grow wearier as the day wore on, nerves fraying with each customer that came and went, each cup of coffee that he brewed. Tense as Hankyung came and went. He took his break as he had always expected, in his chair, chewing on the edge of his thumb as he stared at the empty table, the empty room. There was no voice reading to him, talking to him. No eyes glinting in humor, smiling despite everything Kyuhyun had said.
He took a deep breath, leaning his head back as a thought occurred to him for the tenth time that day. If Zhou Mi had stayed because of him, if he had lingered and had been rejected, what reason did he have to return? Why should Zhou Mi come back to a store full of books no longer useful to him? All there was left was Kyuhyun, and he had no value left himself. He could feel the ache of it in his neck, his shoulders.
He flipped open his phone, scrolling to the entry in the address book. “Zhou Mi (Anytime).” Accidentally running past that had made him smile more than once. Zhou Mi had meant it, too. He remembered knowing that quite clearly. The phone slipped closed with a quiet thud. His break was over.
He locked up, sending Ryeowook off with a smile that neither of them believed. Ryeowook was a patient comforter, and for that he was glad. He needed time, badly.
He sat on the floor of the book closet for ten minutes, eyes tracing spines, words he could not read. They had been dusted. They were pristine. As though he had never been there. As though Zhou Mi had never been there. As if his father...
“I want to do my best to make sure they’re remembered,” Zhou Mi had said that first day, standing here beside him, so eager to see these shelves and bits of pulp and leather. In the end the books would be remembered, as it should have been from the beginning.
He locked up the back door, skin contracting from the cold. It must have been the cold that distracted him, because he was nearly to the top before he noticed the man huddled beside his door. His heart took a quick beat of alarm before recognition sank through.
“I’m not here for the books, Kui Xian.”
His breath froze in his lungs.
“There are some in my apartment, too.”
“They aren’t you.”
“Are you making a point in giving yourself pneumonia?” he asked, shoving his key roughly into the lock. “Is criminal stupidity going to make me want you… an icicle, if I leave you here to freeze?”
Zhou Mi stood stiffly from where had been crouched, bag clutched in both hands. “Then let me in.”
He hissed. Into his apartment, or…? “Why are you here?”
“Because you are. I may not be out here every night, but I’ll still be here. I won’t promise you something I can’t keep.”
He stood, caught between the freezing wind and the warm interior. Between more than that.
“You’re letting in the cold,” he said, and stepped inside.
He stripped his coat, hanging it on the free-standing hanger, hearing Zhou Mi set down his bag and remove his own coat.
He heard Zhou Mi sneeze behind him, a loud startling sound that had him pausing before he entered the kitchen.
“Are you sick?”
“No, just cold.”
“Then sit by the heater, idiot. You don’t come into the store, and then you sit in the cold. I don’t get it.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t come in today,” Zhou Mi said, settling close to the kitchen heater behind him. “I had errands and a meeting and it went longer than I expected. And… I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
“You’re not required. The world revolves without you there just as smoothly as it does with you.”
The pan hit the burner a little harder than he intended. What a lie.
“I thought of you all day,” Zhou Mi said. “I... Would you have let me back if I had come today?”
He stared at the ramen packet in his hands.
“I guess we’ll never know, since you didn’t come.”
He heard Zhou Mi slip up beside him, and turned his head away, just slightly, staring at the windowsill with blank eyes. And there, just where he had put them were the puppy and the owl. What would he have done, if he had come up tonight, if Zhou Mi had not been waiting for him? He would have come in here, and looked at his window, and nothing would have made him feel less alone, especially not seeing these two figures with their cute features pressed together. They had never been together in his apartment when both the owl and puppy had been there, and now they were. Maybe it was some kind of sign. Maybe he had made it one. But Zhou Mi was here, close enough to touch. He had nearly closed his eyes, ready to sag with relief, when movement outside the window sharpened them. Little drifting movements against the light...
He bolted from Zhou Mi’s side. “Snow!”
He barely noted that Zhou Mi followed, opening the locks with excitement as he bounded out into the frozen air. The snow fell in puffy gusts, swirling around him as he danced to keep his feet warm.
“You don’t have any shoes on,” Zhou Mi said, scandalized.
“I won’t die from a few minutes in the cold. It’s snow!”
And it was fluttering down to rest on Kyuhyun’s face, melting in rivulets down his skin and crowning him in white on his hair as he stood wide open as if daring the sky to send more.
“Or a coat,” Zhou Mi said, and he couldn’t have cared less. The cold was tangible. And he seemed to hesitate, as if wondering if he walked up, if Kyuhyun would let him wrap his arms around him.
He did, and Kyuhyun leaned back against him immediately, feeling the stress of the day roll from him, as if falling with the snow. He rested his head back on Zhou Mi’s shoulder, as he smiled up at the sky and blinked snow off of his eyelashes.
“It’s so… It starts something new.” A different sort of a sign entirely.
“White Christmas,” Zhou Mi said in English.
Kyuhyun laughed, drawing in great, greedy lungfuls of the frigid air.
“Yes!”
The cold was seeping into his feet rather harshly a minute later and he shook his head as he stepped inside to rid himself of the remaining snow. He checked the boiling soup, pointing Zhou Mi to the kitchen table, and returned with warmer, dryer socks.
“Ramen, for what ails you,” he said, deadpan as he set down a filled bowl for Zhou Mi. He hesitated, slipping a mug onto the table. “Hot chocolate, because... It’s the first snow, and you have to.”
How many times as a child had he sat at that table, drinking hot chocolate and watching the snow though the kitchen window?
He could feel Zhou Mi’s eyes on him as he stood at the counter and ate his ramen. He tweaked the handle of his mug, finally sitting opposite Zhou Mi at the tiny table.
“You should say here tonight. To sleep. It’s going to get nasty out there, even if you called a cab.”
“I shouldn’t,” Zhou Mi said. “I’ll be fine getting home. It’s not too bad yet.”
“Don’t be stupid. All of your research is here, isn’t it?”
“I have no clothes?”
“You can borrow pajamas,” Kyuhyun said, dismissing that immediately. “I’m sure I can find you a shirt. Stop being stubborn.”
“I’m not. I just don’t know if it’s a good idea for me to...stay.”
Kyuhyun raised his chin. “Then you shouldn’t have come at all.”
What were they speaking of, exactly? Kyuhyun wondered, as he watched Zhou Mi’s eyes narrow in contemplation. Did he understand the challenge there was far greater than it sounded?
“You want me to stay?” Zhou Mi questioned as Kyuhyun stood.
“That’s why I offered. You can sleep with me.” His mind screamed before the clarification could be uttered. “In my bed. There isn’t any place else.”
Zhou Mi’s face was oddly expressionless, and Kyuhyun wondered if he saw the same redness reflected there that he felt in his own face. Nothing he said possibly in his entire life... Could he kick Zhou Mi out now, so he didn’t have to feel so stupid? No. As Zhou Mi stepped closer, he breathed, and the smile on Zhou Mi’s face was soft. No contact, not a hand moved, nor an arm, and yet that smile that was filled with warmth too heated to touch still touched him.
“I’ll stay. I’m glad you aren’t making me take the couch.”
Kyuhyun laughed. He would be picking up pieces of a broken Zhou Mi in the morning if he had to sleep on the short, two-seater couch.
“You would need to be several feet shorter to accomplish that, and I don’t have a wheelchair ramp.”
“Have you ever slept there?”
Kyuhyun felt his smile slip. “Only as a child.”
“You... Grew up living here?”
“Yes. It seems I never really left. I’ll find you pajamas.”
He turned, the specter of his childhood, the place he was tied to with chains he had never broken, suddenly altered with the wonder on Zhou Mi’s face.
Clothes ended up being less of a problem than Zhou Mi must have thought. The newsprint-patterned pajama bottoms were a little short, but he couldn’t help that he wasn’t more of a beanpole. The shirt was fine... One of the endless supply of humorous t-shirts gifted to him as the owner of a bookstore. The little figure on it was in danger of being smashed by a teetering stack of books... And the words “You can never have too many books” were emblazoned on it. Zhou Mi held the shirt out from his chest and grinned as he sat on the bed opposite Kyuhyun
“This is too true. Have you ever been crushed by books?”
“I almost had a bookshelf fall on me once,” he mused as he set his watch on the bedside table. “I was stupid, stepped up on one of the shelves to get something off of the top when I felt the whole thing come away from the wall. It was pure luck that it didn’t come all the way.”
“Was there anything it would have been stopped by to keep it from falling on you?”
“Not really It would have been me against bookshelf.” He grinned wryly. “I’d have lost. I’ve made sure the brackets are secure on all of them now.”
“Good. I’ve dropped books on my head before... Who knew books could be dangerous?”
Kyuhyun studied the blanket as Zhou Mi gently touched the hair in front of his ear. Just a little further and he would be touching Kyuhyun’s cheek and he wondered... Would he lean into the touch? Breathing against the gentle fingers... He ducked, heard Zhou Mi suck in a breath, and buried his face in his pillow. Oh, the pretense of being tired, such a time-honored excuse.
“If you touch me during the night, you’re dead,” he said, muffled, feeling a bit absurd as Zhou Mi chuckled.
He told himself it was no different than when Hankyung stayed over. But it was. Zhou Mi was taller, and there was just more of him. He could feel it without even seeing it. Hankyung breathed like he talked, very soft, and Zhou Mi sounded as though he were trying to gather half of the oxygen from the room. What would it be like, to be held like this in the dark....
“What are you thinking?” Zhou Mi asked, turning slightly.
His brain stumbled.
“You don’t snore, do you?”
Zhou Mi laughed. “I don’t think so. You’ll have to tell me.”
“Probably with a pillow over your face.”
“Please write on my stone that I deserved it.”
“You don’t have to pout,” he said, amused.
“I’m just saying…”
“Good night.”
“Good night… Sleep well, Kui Xian.”
He told himself he probably wouldn’t.
But he did.
***