Super Junior AU; Kyumin; Important in the Grand Scheme of Things
Title: Important in the Grand Scheme of Things
Fandom: Super Junior AU (High School)
Pairing: Kyuhyun/Sungmin
Word count: 5,232
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Truth be told, Sungmin didn’t really give a second look at the new boy who transferred into his class halfway through middle school.
A/N: This was so hard to write, and I really don’t know why. It’s not as though I don’t like this, but I think it’s come out quite differently to the Kangteuk one, and the Yehwook one is coming out differently again, but whatever. Different couples, I suppose, so different styles?
Truth be told, Sungmin didn’t really give a second look to the new boy who transferred into his class halfway through middle school, when Sungmin was ten. Said boy was tall and slim and looked as though a strong wind would knock him over. There was a distinct lack of pink around his person (Sungmin would have even settled for something fluffy) and that was just plain suspicious in Sungmin’s mind.
The boy was put next to Ryeowook, who had lost his seating partner at the very start of the year when he’d transferred out, and Sungmin had been unable to change seats to sit with him. Sungmin himself was sat next to a pretty girl, who had the added benefits of also being popular, and who giggled a lot: by all accounts, the two should have gotten along famously, but there was only room for one attention grabber in the class, and Sungmin was determined to be it. There had been various arguments since the two had been put together, and there was one going on, over who had the prettier rubber, while Kyuhyun or whatever he was called sat down nervously next to Ryeowook, who smiled pleasantly at him.
That was, perhaps, the start of a very close friendship, but Sungmin hadn’t really been paying attention.
“This is Kyuhyun,” said Ryeowook, as he shoved the boy onto the picnic table that they ate at everyday. Everyone, barring Eeteuk, glanced up, mumbled a hello, and then went back to their lunch, because that was far more interesting. Only Eeteuk actually greeted the boy, with a wide smile, and offered a place at the table, like the rather mature eleven year old that he was. Kyuhyun took it nervously, slipping down next to Sungmin, who still barely even looked at him, choosing instead to carry on his more interesting conversation with Shindong as to whether it was possible to own too many soft toys.
To begin with, Kyuhyun was quiet - he barely ever spoke, which just made him even more suspicious in Sungmin’s mind, who saw him as something to be tolerated because Ryeowook liked him. He couldn’t quite work that one out, but he figured that Ryeowook was just plain weird and didn’t really pick his friends that well (after all, Ryeowook liked Yehsung, and Sungmin agreed with Heechul when it came to Yehsung)
The two didn’t ignore each other, and if you asked either one, they’d say that they were friends, but Sungmin never saw enough of Kyuhyun to be able to make his mind up. He grew almost ridiculously tall as the years passed, and the boy still didn’t seem to have any kind of personality. Sungmin still had more interesting things to think about.
Because of this, he was the only one who was shocked to discover that Kyuhyun had a sarcastic, biting sense of humour, masked with hidden smiles and an innocent expression that could have put Sungmin to shame. A witty comment about his soft toy collection left Sungmin speechless one dinner time, as everyone laughed and Sungmin spluttered, unable to think of a come-back. Kyuhyun grinned at him, laughingly, and Sungmin just stared.
“You’re supposed to be one of the younger ones who are quiet and shy,” he said after while, in a miserable sulking tone of voice. “Like Ryeowook. You’re not supposed to be anything like Kibum.”
Ryeowook snorted with laughter. “Kyuhyun’s about as quiet and nice as you are,” he said, pointing at Sungmin with his chopsticks. “His sense of humour rivals Heechul’s in sheer sarcasm.”
Kyuhyun cocked his head the side and stuck his hand out to Sungmin. “Hi,” he said, in a joking sort of voice. “I’m Cho Kyuhyun, I don’t think we’ve met.”
“No,” said Sungmin slowly. “I don’t think we have actually met,” and he took the hand and shook it.
Everyone laughed at that, laughed at the way that they acted out a whole new meeting, but Sungmin honestly felt as though he had really just met Kyuhyun in that moment. The boy that he’d thought Kyuhyun was for the past two years was actually nothing like who he actually was. One of Sungmin’s biggest faults was that he stuck with his first impressions, and if he thought someone was something that they actually weren’t, then it took him a while to realise that.
Kyuhyun had a very weird sense of humour, which Sungmin found really quite hilarious, but at the same time he wasn’t nasty with it; he was witty, humorous, self-deprecating. He helped Sungmin play pranks on people - he was a fairly decent actor, and could charm the rest of the group, who fell for it every time. If Sungmin had attempted it, they would have seen straight through him, but Kyuhyun mixed a perfect amount of innocence with serene youth and had them eating out of the palm of his hands.
“My birthday is in April,” said Sungmin one day, as Kyuhyun ate next to Ryeowook. Both boys looked up: Kyuhyun tipped his head to the side in confusion, while Ryeowook grinned and went back to his meal. “Put it in your calendar,” commanded Sungmin, pointing imperiously at Kyuhyun, who just looked plain confused now.
“What?”
“Just do it,” said Ryeowook, nudging Kyuhyun in the side. “Sungmin’s birthday is important, you can’t forget it.”
"Oh,” said Kyuhyun, as Sungmin nodded sagely. “Oh, okay.”"
Sungmin wouldn’t have said that they became best friends (he had Shindong for that, and Kyuhyun had Ryeowook), but they did seem to understand each other, on a base level. Sungmin accepted that Kyuhyun was a tall, fairly quiet boy with a large amount of wit brewing under the surface; Kyuhyun accepted that Sungmin liked pink and fluffy things and was fairly important in the large scheme of things. He marked Sungmin’s birthday into his calendar dutifully, didn’t question why, and bought things for him when the day came around. It took Sungmin another year before he returned the favour, but he did so, and Kyuhyun grinned at him when he did.
For all the rest of the group joke about it, in reality Sungmin did not wake up and decide to go after Kyuhyun that day. It took him a while, actually, to work out why he was just happy whenever Kyuhyun was around, and why his heart sped up whenever Kyuhyun touched him. He was never in denial: he just didn’t know what this feeling was. He was only thirteen, after all. Puberty had hit, raging hormones and all that; he watched as his classmates paired off and then split up again, rumours spreading like wildfire, such-and-such is dating such-and-such, such-and-such has broken up with such-and-such, and while he took pleasure in gossiping with the girls in his class, he never really wanted to join in with that. He didn’t particularly want to walk down the street holding some girl’s hand. Sometimes, when he walked down the street with Kyuhyun, their hands brushed, and Sungmin thought that maybe he wouldn’t mind holding Kyuhyun’s hand, but he didn’t really dwell on it.
Kyuhyun’s birthday passed in January, and Sungmin’s in April approached, and Sungmin still wasn’t sure as to why he kept watching Kyuhyun’s mouth when he spoke, or why he smiled whenever he entered the room. Eeteuk probably knew, because Eeteuk knows everything, and Heechul certainly knew, because looking back, a few of the comments he made were rather close to the knuckle.
Perhaps that had been the weirdest thing: not knowing that you were falling completely in love with someone; not understanding why they made you happy, just knowing that they did. As romances went, it was probably everything Sungmin had ever thought it would be, fluttering and flashing by, lost in smiles and the feeling of puppy love. Back then, that’s what it was. A crush, to be grown out of, without even realising that it was one.
Of course, the minute he realised that the feelings of joy and butterflies in his stomach were just from an unsubstantial crush, it all changed and Kyuhyun smiled at him more and touched him more, and Sungmin became fourteen and all Sungmin was aware of was a sort of dazed feeling and maybe a yearning for more. He started to dwell on things - they kept him awake at night, thinking about Kyuhyun’s mouth and voice; the way he’d like Kyuhyun to take his hand; the way he wanted hear someone say didn’t you hear, Kyuhyun from Class B is going out with Sungmin from Class C.
And while the others joke about him, saying that he never had to go through what they did, never had to struggle with his sexuality, in truth he was terrified by it all. He liked pink and soft toys and cute animals, but he’d never really thought that he was actually gay - he also never thought that he’d go for someone in his group of friends. They were close-knit, remain so to this day, and he didn’t want to ruin that. Selfish he may be, but he’s not stupid. So that fear of ruining something was always there, present in the back of his mind, even when he did begin to flirt horribly with Kyuhyun. It made Yehsung mime throwing up, Eeteuk and Heechul grinned knowingly at him, and Kyuhyun just smiled and flirted back. And that was the scariest thing.
Eeteuk’s secret came out - no one expected that, and no one expected Ryeowook’s secret to come out just as quickly. Did Kyuhyun know? Sungmin asked himself when it was revealed, and one glance told him that the boy didn’t know; shocked, wide eyes and a bitter twist to his mouth. Somehow, Sungmin’s found his and squeezed it tightly for a moment, a vague attempt at comfort that went unnoticed. Sungmin didn’t really care about that.
Kyuhyun is protective of Ryeowook, became so after that. Yehsung loves Ryeowook, would do anything for him, but Kyuhyun is exactly the same, and Sungmin felt slightly guilty for loving him all the more for that. It wasn’t right, he felt, to think like that, but maybe he was just making the best out of a bad situation.
Kyuhyun liked to sing, and sometimes, when he did, Sungmin felt tears prick at the back of his eyes, because there was nothing else in the world to Kyuhyun at that moment, nothing at all, and Sungmin loved that; he would settle for bits and pieces of Kyuhyun, because Kyuhyun was Kyuhyun when he sang, and he would never be able to hold all of that.
Was there ever a time when Kyuhyun’s father wasn’t hanging over everyone’s head? It seemed like he’d always been there, in the background, a force to be reckoned with. He stopped Kyuhyun from coming out some weekends - he stopped Kyuhyun from singing somewhere along the line, and Sungmin hated him, hated the man with every fibre of his being, a foreign emotion to him, but true nonetheless. He hated him, and he’d never met him. Everyone hated him. He wasn’t the odd one out this time.
Maybe he was odd when he thought that the little bits of Kyuhyun that he got were fine; the flirtatious smile he was given; the slight touches on the shoulder and waist as Kyuhyun brushed past; the teasing comments and laughing jokes. Everyone grinned knowingly at the two of them, but Sungmin just accepted it, didn’t ask for anything more, and didn’t really expect anything more. Kyuhyun, at least, wasn't gay.
It was the summer after Sungmin’s fifteenth birthday, and it was hot, and Kyuhyun was dressed in loose fitting shorts, and Sungmin couldn’t be bothered to do anything but laze about in his front garden as Kyuhyun muttered something about perhaps we should go inside where there’s air conditioning. Maybe they should have, but as it was Sungmin just waved him off with a casual hand and continued to lie on his back on the grass, breathing in the scent and relishing the feeling of the sun on his face. If he closed his eyes, he could block out the sound of the cars in the street beyond his short fence, and the laughter coming from the back garden, where Jaymin was splashing in a little pool set up by his father; he couldn’t hear anything except the rush on his blood in his ears and perhaps a little of the wind rustling through the trees and grass.
When he opened his eyes again, Kyuhyun’s face was hovering over his, his hand held close to his forehead as if to brush his hair from his face or something like that. For a few seconds, they stared at each other. Countless movies and romance novels were not suitable for preparing himself for the actual moment, when it was make or break time. Kiss him and lose that friendship forever - miss this chance and never know what could have happened. It was a choice that Sungmin could not make; Sungmin has no talent for easy choices. He prefers to deliberate over everything, making sure of every last thing before he decides, and in that moment, he couldn’t decide, and he closed his eyes again and hoped that when he re-opened them, Kyuhyun would be gone and he could pass it all off as a dream, brought on by too much sun and a little delirium.
Kyuhyun made the decision for him by kissing him softly, as if he was testing the waters, and for a moment, Sungmin was almost annoyed that his first kiss had been taken when he wasn’t even looking, and it certainly seemed like a pathetic first kiss. It wasn’t fireworks or flashing lights or anything; it wasn’t even firm, it was more like a brush.
He convinced himself that it was a dream (Kyuhyun, kissing him in real life? Had to be a figment of his imagination), and as such, he could say whatever he wanted to dream-Kyuhyun without him getting annoyed, and without Sungmin making a fool of himself.
“Call that a kiss?” Sungmin mumbled, without even opening his eyes back up. “I’ve had better kisses from Jaymin.”
“Sorry,” said Kyuhyun, a hint of sarcasm and laughter in his voice, and he leant back down and kissed Sungmin again, a little harder, and while he still didn’t see fireworks or anything like that, it was still really nice and he let his hand slide onto Kyuhyun’s waist and rest there, as Kyuhyun’s fingers brushed along his jaw. It was, in fact, very nice indeed, and when he opened his eyes after Kyuhyun pulled away, he said, softly, “I like dreams, I get to french-kiss with Kyuhyun in them.”
“Dream?” Kyuhyun asked, a confused expression on his face, a crease between his eyebrows that Sungmin reached up and smoothed out with his thumb.
“Yes,” he said, matter-of-factly. “A very nice dream, but a dream nonetheless.”
“This isn’t a dream,” said Kyuhyun, laughing slightly.
“Don’t laugh at me,” said Sungmin, annoyed at dream-Kyuhyun for ruining something that had been perfectly nice. “If this was real life, Kyuhyun wouldn’t be lying on my grass with me kissing me.”
“Oh,” said Kyuhyun, and his hand brushed across Sungmin’s cheek and brushed his hair from his face. “Sungmin,” he said, exasperated now. “The only way I could have been more obvious about how I felt was if I’d started making out with you in the school corridor.”
“That would have been nice,” mumbled Sungmin as Kyuhyun kissed him again.
The others all made conscious decisions to hide their relationship, spanning from fear of the consequences to not really being bothered if anyone found out, but Sungmin never once even thought about hiding what he had with Kyuhyun. They went on three dates that summer, which could have been passed off as two friends out messing around together if someone had found out, but Sungmin was so happy to have finally got what he’d wanted that somehow he found Kyuhyun’s hand as they walked into school, and Kyuhyun just smiled at him, and it didn’t seem like that much of a deal to have everyone know. Sungmin wanted everyone to know; the knowledge that everyone knew how happy he felt was potent when mixed with attention.
The boys in his class viewed him with some suspicion, but they’d all known he was gay anyway. He hadn’t made a secret of it - it was as obvious as Heechul, and he had suffered some of the same bad effects that had been inflicted on Heechul. People thought he was easy, someone to have a bit of fun with - he has been groped more times that he is willing to count, and it was hard to convince some people that, no, just because he liked the same sex, he did not, in fact, fancy them. He could never quite work out whether fear or arrogance made people believe this. By the time it came out that he was dating Kyuhyun (helped along on the very first day back by Sungmin announcing it at dinner), all the boys in his class were used to him and his ways, and just accepted it with a long-suffering sighs and grins.
Sungmin did not make a secret of the fact that he loved Kyuhyun, either. It took him approximately three days to tell Kyuhyun, and he hung up before Kyuhyun could say anything, such as an awkward okay, and Sungmin floated around on cloud nine for the rest of the night, happy to have finally said it. Kyuhyun, for the record, didn’t say “I love you” until they had been dating for three months, two weeks and three days (Sungmin had the dates marked on his calendar), but that didn’t bother Sungmin. He knew how he felt, and Kyuhyun knew how he felt - there was nothing more to it. To be honest, he didn’t need Kyuhyun to tell him that he loved him every five minutes, and mostly, when Sungmin says it now, he’s jokingly doing it to embarrass the rest of the group. True outbursts of affection are rare now, assigned to quiet moments together, when Sungmin can’t think of anything else to say; when there isn’t anything else to say.
The only blip in their relationship, and the only one that is still there today, was Kyuhyun’s father, someone that Sungmin had never met and who wanted nothing more than to make Kyuhyun’s life hell. “It’s because I was ill a lot when I was younger,” explained Kyuhyun. “I was close to my mother, and he didn’t like her that much either. He thinks women are weak, and I think the only reason he married her was because it was an arranged marriage. I take after her, you see.”
Kyuhyun’s father terrified Sungmin for reasons that he could quite put into words; possibilities and chances that kept him awake at night, thinking about it over and over until the sun was literally coming up and he couldn’t remember anything. The world that Kyuhyun lived in was so different from his own, full of strange concepts, like duty and honour and fathers who mentally attacked their sons for not being what they had wanted them to be. Sungmin was not what his father had wanted, but he accepted him as he was. Kyuhyun’s father tried to change Kyuhyun, forced him to have self-defence lessons, which did nothing but prove that Kyuhyun was not gifted in martial arts or anything of the like. Sungmin didn’t believe that it mattered if Kyuhyun was strong physically, when he was strong mentally. He was strong to be able to live with his father.
Kyuhyun’s father ignored Sungmin’s very existence for the first year that they dated. Kyuhyun was introduced to Sungmin’s own parents casually, because they already knew him, and Jaymin adored him, which was enough for all parties anyway. Sungmin spent some time at Kyuhyun’s house, which was absolutely enormous, and made him feel slightly embarrassed about his own house, until Kyuhyun said, without looking at him, that he couldn’t wait to leave for something smaller. Sungmin, to be perfectly honest, would have loved something as big as what Kyuhyun had - his own set of rooms, with a soft bed and a large television sounded like heaven to him, but he supposed that it depended who you lived with.
Kyuhyun had a lot of video games, and they played them together. Sometimes they studied together, Kyuhyun pointing out something that he’d missed and helping him through concepts that seemed completely foreign to Sungmin. Sometimes they watched films, sitting together as they laughed at stupid storylines or jumped at tension filled horrors. Sometimes they just sat and listened to music and talked together. The point was that they were alone, and tongues in Kyuhyun’s house wagged. Even as Kyuhyun moved into his fifteenth year, it wasn’t sex that kept them together - thinking about it was different from actually doing the deed, but to Kyuhyun’s brother, who enjoyed making his younger brother’s life hell, the fact that they were alone for so long so often was evidence enough, and he told his father.
Sungmin met Kyuhyun’s father for the first time one Saturday afternoon in October, when Sungmin was sixteen, and to him, Kyuhyun’s father was one of the most terrifying sights of his life. This was not a man who could be played with - he would not be swayed by cuteness and childish charm, which had led Sungmin through most of his life. This man was surrounded by hardened criminals, and he wasn’t impressed by the girly face presented to him. Clearly, if his son was going to be gay, then he should at least be gay for someone stronger than him.
“Is this it?” He asked, peering down his nose at Sungmin, as Kyuhyun stood up and wiped his hands on his trouser legs. The video game that they had been playing was paused, the car that Kyuhyun had been driving smashed into pieces, from where he had jumped and lost control when the man had walked in. It was rather a long nose, thought Sungmin, with a feeling of vague panic. He was far too tall - was that just because Sungmin was sitting down?
“This is Sungmin, if that’s what you mean,” said Kyuhyun, and while his words were slightly aggressive, his tone was unfailingly polite and respectful.
“That’s what I said,” said his father, looking Sungmin up and down with an unreadable expression. Sungmin shifted in his chair uncomfortably.
“You called him an ‘it’” said Kyuhyun coolly.
“I believe in calling things as I see them,” said his father, in the same tone of voice. “And play-things don’t deserve to be regarded as human.”
Sungmin jerked back as if he’d been slapped. That seemed low, and he hadn’t been expecting anything nice anyway. Kyuhyun, on the other hand, didn’t seem to react at all, and just kept his even stare and tone of voice.
“Sungmin isn’t a play-thing,” he said after a couple of seconds.
“What is he then?” His father looked completely amused, as if the only thing that could have been funnier was if Kyuhyun had been shouting at him. “A girly thing like that isn’t good for anything. He couldn’t even fight his way out of a plastic bag.”
Sungmin blinked, and rather felt like he had stumbled into an alternative universe or something like that. Kyuhyun clenched his fist, and then relaxed his hands again.
“Don’t call Sungmin that, please,” he said calmly, his hand brushing over the leather of the back of Sungmin’s sofa. His father just laughed.
“I knew you were stupid,” he said, “but I didn’t think you were that stupid. I supposed you think that you’ve fallen in love with this thing.”
“And suppose I have?” Kyuhyun asked coldly, his fingers gripped Sungmin’s shoulder.
His father’s eyebrows narrowed at him. “I don’t like your tone,” he said, a dangerous hint to his voice. “I would not be impressed if you had. An ugly thing like that is not worth even one fuck - not that he looks like he’d be any good at it. What would be the point of falling in love with something like that?”
Sungmin jerked back again, but he didn’t feel as though he was able to move at all in order to say something; he felt as though he was frozen to his seat, stuck in time, the hatred on the man’s face burnt into his memory forever.
"Don’t-” said Kyuhyun roughly, falling over his words. “Don’t say - things - like that about Sungmin.”
“I don’t mind if you just use him for sex,” said his father, the corner of his lips twitching at Kyuhyun’s anger.
“Like you used mother, then?” Kyuhyun snapped, and the room seemed to go cold, as he stared at his father, and his father stared back. Sungmin sensed that Kyuhyun hadn’t meant to say that - that the subject was something that Kyuhyun never spoke about. It seemed like it was almost a taboo subject.
“Don’t talk about that woman in this house,” hissed his father, and Kyuhyun flinched at the tone. Sungmin’s fingers brushed over his hand.
“I don’t know what hyung has told you,” said Kyuhyun after a couple of tense-filled minutes, “but I’m not just using Sungmin for sex, and I’m not going to dump him just because you tell me to.”
“Fine,” said his father, and picked up his suit jacket as if to leave. “I’m disappointed in you, Kyuhyun. More so than usual. Pets shouldn’t be held above family.” And he walked out, letting the door slam behind him.
“Um,” said Kyuhyun, and his fingers tightened around Sungmin’s. “Can I stay at your house until I can be certain he won’t kill me in my sleep?”
Heechul said that Sungmin made him sick in the days following the incident, and maybe Sungmin did go on about it for too long, and brought it up too often, but that was only because he was completely in awe of Kyuhyun. The man had terrified Sungmin, enough to cause his hands to shake and to make him glad that he had been sitting down for fear his knees would have done the same. Kyuhyun had stood up to that, and the fact that he’d done it for Sungmin made it all the more impressive. Kyuhyun didn’t show affection as easily as Sungmin, but that had been a way to let Sungmin know exactly how he felt. That had felt - not nice, something more, something that made his chest ache. The only thing Sungmin could do was to stand by him and comfort him against the comments and insults directed his way by the people who only saw his weakness and not his strength. He took up karate, too. Just in case.
They didn’t actually sleep together until after Kyuhyun’s sixteenth birthday, just before they started at the same high school as everyone else. Everyone joked about Donghae and Kibum, and Sungmin felt that everyone thought that they had done ‘it’, but it hadn’t seemed particularly important at the time - it wasn’t as though it was going to define their relationship. Sungmin liked the way he could hang his arms over Kyuhyun’s shoulders when he was seated; he liked the exasperated sigh Kyuhyun gave when he complied with one of his ridiculous requests; he liked kissing Kyuhyun very much, but sex wasn’t that high on his agenda - at least, not then. It almost felt as though by having sex, they would be proving all the people who said that that was what it was about right.
But they decided to do it (“It feels right,” murmured Kyuhyun one night, and even Sungmin recognised the cliché in that), and the first thing that they did wrong was to try to plan it out, which just proved that they had no idea about what they were doing. “Get this and this,” and when the time actually came, Sungmin was so worked up about it that it didn’t actually work and they had to give up. Kyuhyun had laughed at that, Sungmin had felt embarrassment for the first and only time in his life, and they pushed the whole incident to the back of their minds as something to be forgotten.
When the time really came, it was totally unexpected; they had made out on Kyuhyun’s bed plenty of times before, but this time had been slightly different and before long Kyuhyun was scrambling around in his bedside cabinet for a condom, and afterwards Sungmin had drifted off to sleep curled up along his side, Kyuhyun breathing softly. Suddenly, having sex seemed like the greatest thing they had ever decided to do.
Kyuhyun sang sometimes, when they were alone, something that Sungmin cherished, that voice in his ears as Kyuhyun ran his fingers through his hair soothingly and lulled him to sleep. Kyuhyun still caught cold easily, and Sungmin liked to look after him when that happened, because Kyuhyun would let him fuss over him, something that never would be allowed if he was well. Kyuhyun loved his little sister and didn’t mind if she tagged along on their dates, be it to the shopping center or just watching a film in Sungmin’s room. Kyuhyun could reduce him to jelly with a carefully placed hand and suggestive whisper, but he didn’t do it in public, because he preferred to keep such things for private. Kyuhyun didn’t mind if Sungmin announced that they were going to have sex over lunch or something because he knew Sungmin better than Sungmin knew himself, and he knew that he was only joking, even if they actually were. Kyuhyun knew him.
“I hope new boy is hot,” mused Sungmin, as he sat in Kyuhyun’s room the evening before they went back to school the next day. “It’ll be such a shame if we’ve got to put up with him for two weeks and he was repulsive to look at.”
“Do you have to judge everyone by outer appearances?” Kyuhyun asked, as he looked over Sungmin’s maths homework for him. “You’ve done this wrong.”
“Yes,” said Sungmin simply, and ignored the correction. “I still think it’s unfair that we’re not in the same class anymore though,” he said, when his ‘new-boy-theory’ failed to get any response, and he returned to a grievance that had been plaguing him since they had first joined the high school.
“I can,” said Kyuhyun, with a grin, as he put the book down and wrapped his arms around Sungmin’s waist. “They wanted to give me some time off from you. It’s terribly hard work, you know.”
“I thought we agreed that you’d keep your sparkling sense of humour for use on things other than me,” mumbled Sungmin against his lips, his hands slipping up to rest on Kyuhyun’s shoulders as he let himself be pushed back on the sofa.
“You find it hot,” said Kyuhyun, with a smile against Sungmin’s neck, and Sungmin didn’t disagree.
Fandom: Super Junior AU (High School)
Pairing: Kyuhyun/Sungmin
Word count: 5,232
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Truth be told, Sungmin didn’t really give a second look at the new boy who transferred into his class halfway through middle school.
A/N: This was so hard to write, and I really don’t know why. It’s not as though I don’t like this, but I think it’s come out quite differently to the Kangteuk one, and the Yehwook one is coming out differently again, but whatever. Different couples, I suppose, so different styles?
Truth be told, Sungmin didn’t really give a second look to the new boy who transferred into his class halfway through middle school, when Sungmin was ten. Said boy was tall and slim and looked as though a strong wind would knock him over. There was a distinct lack of pink around his person (Sungmin would have even settled for something fluffy) and that was just plain suspicious in Sungmin’s mind.
The boy was put next to Ryeowook, who had lost his seating partner at the very start of the year when he’d transferred out, and Sungmin had been unable to change seats to sit with him. Sungmin himself was sat next to a pretty girl, who had the added benefits of also being popular, and who giggled a lot: by all accounts, the two should have gotten along famously, but there was only room for one attention grabber in the class, and Sungmin was determined to be it. There had been various arguments since the two had been put together, and there was one going on, over who had the prettier rubber, while Kyuhyun or whatever he was called sat down nervously next to Ryeowook, who smiled pleasantly at him.
That was, perhaps, the start of a very close friendship, but Sungmin hadn’t really been paying attention.
“This is Kyuhyun,” said Ryeowook, as he shoved the boy onto the picnic table that they ate at everyday. Everyone, barring Eeteuk, glanced up, mumbled a hello, and then went back to their lunch, because that was far more interesting. Only Eeteuk actually greeted the boy, with a wide smile, and offered a place at the table, like the rather mature eleven year old that he was. Kyuhyun took it nervously, slipping down next to Sungmin, who still barely even looked at him, choosing instead to carry on his more interesting conversation with Shindong as to whether it was possible to own too many soft toys.
To begin with, Kyuhyun was quiet - he barely ever spoke, which just made him even more suspicious in Sungmin’s mind, who saw him as something to be tolerated because Ryeowook liked him. He couldn’t quite work that one out, but he figured that Ryeowook was just plain weird and didn’t really pick his friends that well (after all, Ryeowook liked Yehsung, and Sungmin agreed with Heechul when it came to Yehsung)
The two didn’t ignore each other, and if you asked either one, they’d say that they were friends, but Sungmin never saw enough of Kyuhyun to be able to make his mind up. He grew almost ridiculously tall as the years passed, and the boy still didn’t seem to have any kind of personality. Sungmin still had more interesting things to think about.
Because of this, he was the only one who was shocked to discover that Kyuhyun had a sarcastic, biting sense of humour, masked with hidden smiles and an innocent expression that could have put Sungmin to shame. A witty comment about his soft toy collection left Sungmin speechless one dinner time, as everyone laughed and Sungmin spluttered, unable to think of a come-back. Kyuhyun grinned at him, laughingly, and Sungmin just stared.
“You’re supposed to be one of the younger ones who are quiet and shy,” he said after while, in a miserable sulking tone of voice. “Like Ryeowook. You’re not supposed to be anything like Kibum.”
Ryeowook snorted with laughter. “Kyuhyun’s about as quiet and nice as you are,” he said, pointing at Sungmin with his chopsticks. “His sense of humour rivals Heechul’s in sheer sarcasm.”
Kyuhyun cocked his head the side and stuck his hand out to Sungmin. “Hi,” he said, in a joking sort of voice. “I’m Cho Kyuhyun, I don’t think we’ve met.”
“No,” said Sungmin slowly. “I don’t think we have actually met,” and he took the hand and shook it.
Everyone laughed at that, laughed at the way that they acted out a whole new meeting, but Sungmin honestly felt as though he had really just met Kyuhyun in that moment. The boy that he’d thought Kyuhyun was for the past two years was actually nothing like who he actually was. One of Sungmin’s biggest faults was that he stuck with his first impressions, and if he thought someone was something that they actually weren’t, then it took him a while to realise that.
Kyuhyun had a very weird sense of humour, which Sungmin found really quite hilarious, but at the same time he wasn’t nasty with it; he was witty, humorous, self-deprecating. He helped Sungmin play pranks on people - he was a fairly decent actor, and could charm the rest of the group, who fell for it every time. If Sungmin had attempted it, they would have seen straight through him, but Kyuhyun mixed a perfect amount of innocence with serene youth and had them eating out of the palm of his hands.
“My birthday is in April,” said Sungmin one day, as Kyuhyun ate next to Ryeowook. Both boys looked up: Kyuhyun tipped his head to the side in confusion, while Ryeowook grinned and went back to his meal. “Put it in your calendar,” commanded Sungmin, pointing imperiously at Kyuhyun, who just looked plain confused now.
“What?”
“Just do it,” said Ryeowook, nudging Kyuhyun in the side. “Sungmin’s birthday is important, you can’t forget it.”
"Oh,” said Kyuhyun, as Sungmin nodded sagely. “Oh, okay.”"
Sungmin wouldn’t have said that they became best friends (he had Shindong for that, and Kyuhyun had Ryeowook), but they did seem to understand each other, on a base level. Sungmin accepted that Kyuhyun was a tall, fairly quiet boy with a large amount of wit brewing under the surface; Kyuhyun accepted that Sungmin liked pink and fluffy things and was fairly important in the large scheme of things. He marked Sungmin’s birthday into his calendar dutifully, didn’t question why, and bought things for him when the day came around. It took Sungmin another year before he returned the favour, but he did so, and Kyuhyun grinned at him when he did.
For all the rest of the group joke about it, in reality Sungmin did not wake up and decide to go after Kyuhyun that day. It took him a while, actually, to work out why he was just happy whenever Kyuhyun was around, and why his heart sped up whenever Kyuhyun touched him. He was never in denial: he just didn’t know what this feeling was. He was only thirteen, after all. Puberty had hit, raging hormones and all that; he watched as his classmates paired off and then split up again, rumours spreading like wildfire, such-and-such is dating such-and-such, such-and-such has broken up with such-and-such, and while he took pleasure in gossiping with the girls in his class, he never really wanted to join in with that. He didn’t particularly want to walk down the street holding some girl’s hand. Sometimes, when he walked down the street with Kyuhyun, their hands brushed, and Sungmin thought that maybe he wouldn’t mind holding Kyuhyun’s hand, but he didn’t really dwell on it.
Kyuhyun’s birthday passed in January, and Sungmin’s in April approached, and Sungmin still wasn’t sure as to why he kept watching Kyuhyun’s mouth when he spoke, or why he smiled whenever he entered the room. Eeteuk probably knew, because Eeteuk knows everything, and Heechul certainly knew, because looking back, a few of the comments he made were rather close to the knuckle.
Perhaps that had been the weirdest thing: not knowing that you were falling completely in love with someone; not understanding why they made you happy, just knowing that they did. As romances went, it was probably everything Sungmin had ever thought it would be, fluttering and flashing by, lost in smiles and the feeling of puppy love. Back then, that’s what it was. A crush, to be grown out of, without even realising that it was one.
Of course, the minute he realised that the feelings of joy and butterflies in his stomach were just from an unsubstantial crush, it all changed and Kyuhyun smiled at him more and touched him more, and Sungmin became fourteen and all Sungmin was aware of was a sort of dazed feeling and maybe a yearning for more. He started to dwell on things - they kept him awake at night, thinking about Kyuhyun’s mouth and voice; the way he’d like Kyuhyun to take his hand; the way he wanted hear someone say didn’t you hear, Kyuhyun from Class B is going out with Sungmin from Class C.
And while the others joke about him, saying that he never had to go through what they did, never had to struggle with his sexuality, in truth he was terrified by it all. He liked pink and soft toys and cute animals, but he’d never really thought that he was actually gay - he also never thought that he’d go for someone in his group of friends. They were close-knit, remain so to this day, and he didn’t want to ruin that. Selfish he may be, but he’s not stupid. So that fear of ruining something was always there, present in the back of his mind, even when he did begin to flirt horribly with Kyuhyun. It made Yehsung mime throwing up, Eeteuk and Heechul grinned knowingly at him, and Kyuhyun just smiled and flirted back. And that was the scariest thing.
Eeteuk’s secret came out - no one expected that, and no one expected Ryeowook’s secret to come out just as quickly. Did Kyuhyun know? Sungmin asked himself when it was revealed, and one glance told him that the boy didn’t know; shocked, wide eyes and a bitter twist to his mouth. Somehow, Sungmin’s found his and squeezed it tightly for a moment, a vague attempt at comfort that went unnoticed. Sungmin didn’t really care about that.
Kyuhyun is protective of Ryeowook, became so after that. Yehsung loves Ryeowook, would do anything for him, but Kyuhyun is exactly the same, and Sungmin felt slightly guilty for loving him all the more for that. It wasn’t right, he felt, to think like that, but maybe he was just making the best out of a bad situation.
Kyuhyun liked to sing, and sometimes, when he did, Sungmin felt tears prick at the back of his eyes, because there was nothing else in the world to Kyuhyun at that moment, nothing at all, and Sungmin loved that; he would settle for bits and pieces of Kyuhyun, because Kyuhyun was Kyuhyun when he sang, and he would never be able to hold all of that.
Was there ever a time when Kyuhyun’s father wasn’t hanging over everyone’s head? It seemed like he’d always been there, in the background, a force to be reckoned with. He stopped Kyuhyun from coming out some weekends - he stopped Kyuhyun from singing somewhere along the line, and Sungmin hated him, hated the man with every fibre of his being, a foreign emotion to him, but true nonetheless. He hated him, and he’d never met him. Everyone hated him. He wasn’t the odd one out this time.
Maybe he was odd when he thought that the little bits of Kyuhyun that he got were fine; the flirtatious smile he was given; the slight touches on the shoulder and waist as Kyuhyun brushed past; the teasing comments and laughing jokes. Everyone grinned knowingly at the two of them, but Sungmin just accepted it, didn’t ask for anything more, and didn’t really expect anything more. Kyuhyun, at least, wasn't gay.
It was the summer after Sungmin’s fifteenth birthday, and it was hot, and Kyuhyun was dressed in loose fitting shorts, and Sungmin couldn’t be bothered to do anything but laze about in his front garden as Kyuhyun muttered something about perhaps we should go inside where there’s air conditioning. Maybe they should have, but as it was Sungmin just waved him off with a casual hand and continued to lie on his back on the grass, breathing in the scent and relishing the feeling of the sun on his face. If he closed his eyes, he could block out the sound of the cars in the street beyond his short fence, and the laughter coming from the back garden, where Jaymin was splashing in a little pool set up by his father; he couldn’t hear anything except the rush on his blood in his ears and perhaps a little of the wind rustling through the trees and grass.
When he opened his eyes again, Kyuhyun’s face was hovering over his, his hand held close to his forehead as if to brush his hair from his face or something like that. For a few seconds, they stared at each other. Countless movies and romance novels were not suitable for preparing himself for the actual moment, when it was make or break time. Kiss him and lose that friendship forever - miss this chance and never know what could have happened. It was a choice that Sungmin could not make; Sungmin has no talent for easy choices. He prefers to deliberate over everything, making sure of every last thing before he decides, and in that moment, he couldn’t decide, and he closed his eyes again and hoped that when he re-opened them, Kyuhyun would be gone and he could pass it all off as a dream, brought on by too much sun and a little delirium.
Kyuhyun made the decision for him by kissing him softly, as if he was testing the waters, and for a moment, Sungmin was almost annoyed that his first kiss had been taken when he wasn’t even looking, and it certainly seemed like a pathetic first kiss. It wasn’t fireworks or flashing lights or anything; it wasn’t even firm, it was more like a brush.
He convinced himself that it was a dream (Kyuhyun, kissing him in real life? Had to be a figment of his imagination), and as such, he could say whatever he wanted to dream-Kyuhyun without him getting annoyed, and without Sungmin making a fool of himself.
“Call that a kiss?” Sungmin mumbled, without even opening his eyes back up. “I’ve had better kisses from Jaymin.”
“Sorry,” said Kyuhyun, a hint of sarcasm and laughter in his voice, and he leant back down and kissed Sungmin again, a little harder, and while he still didn’t see fireworks or anything like that, it was still really nice and he let his hand slide onto Kyuhyun’s waist and rest there, as Kyuhyun’s fingers brushed along his jaw. It was, in fact, very nice indeed, and when he opened his eyes after Kyuhyun pulled away, he said, softly, “I like dreams, I get to french-kiss with Kyuhyun in them.”
“Dream?” Kyuhyun asked, a confused expression on his face, a crease between his eyebrows that Sungmin reached up and smoothed out with his thumb.
“Yes,” he said, matter-of-factly. “A very nice dream, but a dream nonetheless.”
“This isn’t a dream,” said Kyuhyun, laughing slightly.
“Don’t laugh at me,” said Sungmin, annoyed at dream-Kyuhyun for ruining something that had been perfectly nice. “If this was real life, Kyuhyun wouldn’t be lying on my grass with me kissing me.”
“Oh,” said Kyuhyun, and his hand brushed across Sungmin’s cheek and brushed his hair from his face. “Sungmin,” he said, exasperated now. “The only way I could have been more obvious about how I felt was if I’d started making out with you in the school corridor.”
“That would have been nice,” mumbled Sungmin as Kyuhyun kissed him again.
The others all made conscious decisions to hide their relationship, spanning from fear of the consequences to not really being bothered if anyone found out, but Sungmin never once even thought about hiding what he had with Kyuhyun. They went on three dates that summer, which could have been passed off as two friends out messing around together if someone had found out, but Sungmin was so happy to have finally got what he’d wanted that somehow he found Kyuhyun’s hand as they walked into school, and Kyuhyun just smiled at him, and it didn’t seem like that much of a deal to have everyone know. Sungmin wanted everyone to know; the knowledge that everyone knew how happy he felt was potent when mixed with attention.
The boys in his class viewed him with some suspicion, but they’d all known he was gay anyway. He hadn’t made a secret of it - it was as obvious as Heechul, and he had suffered some of the same bad effects that had been inflicted on Heechul. People thought he was easy, someone to have a bit of fun with - he has been groped more times that he is willing to count, and it was hard to convince some people that, no, just because he liked the same sex, he did not, in fact, fancy them. He could never quite work out whether fear or arrogance made people believe this. By the time it came out that he was dating Kyuhyun (helped along on the very first day back by Sungmin announcing it at dinner), all the boys in his class were used to him and his ways, and just accepted it with a long-suffering sighs and grins.
Sungmin did not make a secret of the fact that he loved Kyuhyun, either. It took him approximately three days to tell Kyuhyun, and he hung up before Kyuhyun could say anything, such as an awkward okay, and Sungmin floated around on cloud nine for the rest of the night, happy to have finally said it. Kyuhyun, for the record, didn’t say “I love you” until they had been dating for three months, two weeks and three days (Sungmin had the dates marked on his calendar), but that didn’t bother Sungmin. He knew how he felt, and Kyuhyun knew how he felt - there was nothing more to it. To be honest, he didn’t need Kyuhyun to tell him that he loved him every five minutes, and mostly, when Sungmin says it now, he’s jokingly doing it to embarrass the rest of the group. True outbursts of affection are rare now, assigned to quiet moments together, when Sungmin can’t think of anything else to say; when there isn’t anything else to say.
The only blip in their relationship, and the only one that is still there today, was Kyuhyun’s father, someone that Sungmin had never met and who wanted nothing more than to make Kyuhyun’s life hell. “It’s because I was ill a lot when I was younger,” explained Kyuhyun. “I was close to my mother, and he didn’t like her that much either. He thinks women are weak, and I think the only reason he married her was because it was an arranged marriage. I take after her, you see.”
Kyuhyun’s father terrified Sungmin for reasons that he could quite put into words; possibilities and chances that kept him awake at night, thinking about it over and over until the sun was literally coming up and he couldn’t remember anything. The world that Kyuhyun lived in was so different from his own, full of strange concepts, like duty and honour and fathers who mentally attacked their sons for not being what they had wanted them to be. Sungmin was not what his father had wanted, but he accepted him as he was. Kyuhyun’s father tried to change Kyuhyun, forced him to have self-defence lessons, which did nothing but prove that Kyuhyun was not gifted in martial arts or anything of the like. Sungmin didn’t believe that it mattered if Kyuhyun was strong physically, when he was strong mentally. He was strong to be able to live with his father.
Kyuhyun’s father ignored Sungmin’s very existence for the first year that they dated. Kyuhyun was introduced to Sungmin’s own parents casually, because they already knew him, and Jaymin adored him, which was enough for all parties anyway. Sungmin spent some time at Kyuhyun’s house, which was absolutely enormous, and made him feel slightly embarrassed about his own house, until Kyuhyun said, without looking at him, that he couldn’t wait to leave for something smaller. Sungmin, to be perfectly honest, would have loved something as big as what Kyuhyun had - his own set of rooms, with a soft bed and a large television sounded like heaven to him, but he supposed that it depended who you lived with.
Kyuhyun had a lot of video games, and they played them together. Sometimes they studied together, Kyuhyun pointing out something that he’d missed and helping him through concepts that seemed completely foreign to Sungmin. Sometimes they watched films, sitting together as they laughed at stupid storylines or jumped at tension filled horrors. Sometimes they just sat and listened to music and talked together. The point was that they were alone, and tongues in Kyuhyun’s house wagged. Even as Kyuhyun moved into his fifteenth year, it wasn’t sex that kept them together - thinking about it was different from actually doing the deed, but to Kyuhyun’s brother, who enjoyed making his younger brother’s life hell, the fact that they were alone for so long so often was evidence enough, and he told his father.
Sungmin met Kyuhyun’s father for the first time one Saturday afternoon in October, when Sungmin was sixteen, and to him, Kyuhyun’s father was one of the most terrifying sights of his life. This was not a man who could be played with - he would not be swayed by cuteness and childish charm, which had led Sungmin through most of his life. This man was surrounded by hardened criminals, and he wasn’t impressed by the girly face presented to him. Clearly, if his son was going to be gay, then he should at least be gay for someone stronger than him.
“Is this it?” He asked, peering down his nose at Sungmin, as Kyuhyun stood up and wiped his hands on his trouser legs. The video game that they had been playing was paused, the car that Kyuhyun had been driving smashed into pieces, from where he had jumped and lost control when the man had walked in. It was rather a long nose, thought Sungmin, with a feeling of vague panic. He was far too tall - was that just because Sungmin was sitting down?
“This is Sungmin, if that’s what you mean,” said Kyuhyun, and while his words were slightly aggressive, his tone was unfailingly polite and respectful.
“That’s what I said,” said his father, looking Sungmin up and down with an unreadable expression. Sungmin shifted in his chair uncomfortably.
“You called him an ‘it’” said Kyuhyun coolly.
“I believe in calling things as I see them,” said his father, in the same tone of voice. “And play-things don’t deserve to be regarded as human.”
Sungmin jerked back as if he’d been slapped. That seemed low, and he hadn’t been expecting anything nice anyway. Kyuhyun, on the other hand, didn’t seem to react at all, and just kept his even stare and tone of voice.
“Sungmin isn’t a play-thing,” he said after a couple of seconds.
“What is he then?” His father looked completely amused, as if the only thing that could have been funnier was if Kyuhyun had been shouting at him. “A girly thing like that isn’t good for anything. He couldn’t even fight his way out of a plastic bag.”
Sungmin blinked, and rather felt like he had stumbled into an alternative universe or something like that. Kyuhyun clenched his fist, and then relaxed his hands again.
“Don’t call Sungmin that, please,” he said calmly, his hand brushing over the leather of the back of Sungmin’s sofa. His father just laughed.
“I knew you were stupid,” he said, “but I didn’t think you were that stupid. I supposed you think that you’ve fallen in love with this thing.”
“And suppose I have?” Kyuhyun asked coldly, his fingers gripped Sungmin’s shoulder.
His father’s eyebrows narrowed at him. “I don’t like your tone,” he said, a dangerous hint to his voice. “I would not be impressed if you had. An ugly thing like that is not worth even one fuck - not that he looks like he’d be any good at it. What would be the point of falling in love with something like that?”
Sungmin jerked back again, but he didn’t feel as though he was able to move at all in order to say something; he felt as though he was frozen to his seat, stuck in time, the hatred on the man’s face burnt into his memory forever.
"Don’t-” said Kyuhyun roughly, falling over his words. “Don’t say - things - like that about Sungmin.”
“I don’t mind if you just use him for sex,” said his father, the corner of his lips twitching at Kyuhyun’s anger.
“Like you used mother, then?” Kyuhyun snapped, and the room seemed to go cold, as he stared at his father, and his father stared back. Sungmin sensed that Kyuhyun hadn’t meant to say that - that the subject was something that Kyuhyun never spoke about. It seemed like it was almost a taboo subject.
“Don’t talk about that woman in this house,” hissed his father, and Kyuhyun flinched at the tone. Sungmin’s fingers brushed over his hand.
“I don’t know what hyung has told you,” said Kyuhyun after a couple of tense-filled minutes, “but I’m not just using Sungmin for sex, and I’m not going to dump him just because you tell me to.”
“Fine,” said his father, and picked up his suit jacket as if to leave. “I’m disappointed in you, Kyuhyun. More so than usual. Pets shouldn’t be held above family.” And he walked out, letting the door slam behind him.
“Um,” said Kyuhyun, and his fingers tightened around Sungmin’s. “Can I stay at your house until I can be certain he won’t kill me in my sleep?”
Heechul said that Sungmin made him sick in the days following the incident, and maybe Sungmin did go on about it for too long, and brought it up too often, but that was only because he was completely in awe of Kyuhyun. The man had terrified Sungmin, enough to cause his hands to shake and to make him glad that he had been sitting down for fear his knees would have done the same. Kyuhyun had stood up to that, and the fact that he’d done it for Sungmin made it all the more impressive. Kyuhyun didn’t show affection as easily as Sungmin, but that had been a way to let Sungmin know exactly how he felt. That had felt - not nice, something more, something that made his chest ache. The only thing Sungmin could do was to stand by him and comfort him against the comments and insults directed his way by the people who only saw his weakness and not his strength. He took up karate, too. Just in case.
They didn’t actually sleep together until after Kyuhyun’s sixteenth birthday, just before they started at the same high school as everyone else. Everyone joked about Donghae and Kibum, and Sungmin felt that everyone thought that they had done ‘it’, but it hadn’t seemed particularly important at the time - it wasn’t as though it was going to define their relationship. Sungmin liked the way he could hang his arms over Kyuhyun’s shoulders when he was seated; he liked the exasperated sigh Kyuhyun gave when he complied with one of his ridiculous requests; he liked kissing Kyuhyun very much, but sex wasn’t that high on his agenda - at least, not then. It almost felt as though by having sex, they would be proving all the people who said that that was what it was about right.
But they decided to do it (“It feels right,” murmured Kyuhyun one night, and even Sungmin recognised the cliché in that), and the first thing that they did wrong was to try to plan it out, which just proved that they had no idea about what they were doing. “Get this and this,” and when the time actually came, Sungmin was so worked up about it that it didn’t actually work and they had to give up. Kyuhyun had laughed at that, Sungmin had felt embarrassment for the first and only time in his life, and they pushed the whole incident to the back of their minds as something to be forgotten.
When the time really came, it was totally unexpected; they had made out on Kyuhyun’s bed plenty of times before, but this time had been slightly different and before long Kyuhyun was scrambling around in his bedside cabinet for a condom, and afterwards Sungmin had drifted off to sleep curled up along his side, Kyuhyun breathing softly. Suddenly, having sex seemed like the greatest thing they had ever decided to do.
Kyuhyun sang sometimes, when they were alone, something that Sungmin cherished, that voice in his ears as Kyuhyun ran his fingers through his hair soothingly and lulled him to sleep. Kyuhyun still caught cold easily, and Sungmin liked to look after him when that happened, because Kyuhyun would let him fuss over him, something that never would be allowed if he was well. Kyuhyun loved his little sister and didn’t mind if she tagged along on their dates, be it to the shopping center or just watching a film in Sungmin’s room. Kyuhyun could reduce him to jelly with a carefully placed hand and suggestive whisper, but he didn’t do it in public, because he preferred to keep such things for private. Kyuhyun didn’t mind if Sungmin announced that they were going to have sex over lunch or something because he knew Sungmin better than Sungmin knew himself, and he knew that he was only joking, even if they actually were. Kyuhyun knew him.
“I hope new boy is hot,” mused Sungmin, as he sat in Kyuhyun’s room the evening before they went back to school the next day. “It’ll be such a shame if we’ve got to put up with him for two weeks and he was repulsive to look at.”
“Do you have to judge everyone by outer appearances?” Kyuhyun asked, as he looked over Sungmin’s maths homework for him. “You’ve done this wrong.”
“Yes,” said Sungmin simply, and ignored the correction. “I still think it’s unfair that we’re not in the same class anymore though,” he said, when his ‘new-boy-theory’ failed to get any response, and he returned to a grievance that had been plaguing him since they had first joined the high school.
“I can,” said Kyuhyun, with a grin, as he put the book down and wrapped his arms around Sungmin’s waist. “They wanted to give me some time off from you. It’s terribly hard work, you know.”
“I thought we agreed that you’d keep your sparkling sense of humour for use on things other than me,” mumbled Sungmin against his lips, his hands slipping up to rest on Kyuhyun’s shoulders as he let himself be pushed back on the sofa.
“You find it hot,” said Kyuhyun, with a smile against Sungmin’s neck, and Sungmin didn’t disagree.