Super Junior AU; Various Pairings; Love/War
Title: Love/War (11/?)
Fandom: Super Junior AU (Mafia)
Pairings: Siwon/Hankyung/Heechul (Hankyung/Heechul), Kyuhyun/Zhou Mi, Kibum/Donghae, Yehsung/Ryeowook, Kangin/Eeteuk, Tablo/Eunhyuk
Pairings in Chapter: Tablo/Eunhyuk, Hankyung/Heechul
Word Count: 3,288
Rating: PG-13
Summary: The Kim family and the Choi family are the two oldest families in Seoul: where other families have been born, grown, and then fell apart, they remain strong. Unfortunately, they are mortal enemies, and where one lives alongside the law, the other is beyond any control. It's up to the new generation of members to destroy the violence between them - even if it means destroying one family in the process.
A/N: I'm afraid that updates will be fewer :(. I'm still in the process of writing this and I thought it would be a good idea to add in an extra chapter between 12 and 13 so yeah :|
Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 / Chapter 6 / Chapter 7 / Chapter 8 / Chapter 9 / Chapter 10 / Chapter 11
Henry has the very definite knowledge in his mind that in the Kim family, he is a bit of an outsider. It doesn’t bother him much, because he knows why, and it’s not like they ever make him feel like that, it’s just what he himself feels. He hasn’t been there as long as the others, he doesn’t speak Korean, and they don’t speak Chinese or English. It’s as hard for them as it is for him, because he knows that they want to be able to trust him with more, but they simply can’t. He knows that Eunhyuk, Kangin, Yehsung - they get frustrated when they can’t understand him, or when they can’t make themselves understood. He imagines that it must be similar to how it was with Zhou Mi when he first came, but where Zhou Mi found it fairly easy to pick up Korean, Henry finds it so difficult as to be impossible.
What he does appreciate about the Kim family is the same thing that Hankyung and Zhou Mi appreciate the most - that they were willing to take him. They didn’t have to, that day, when he rang. They could have turned him away, they didn’t have to take Hankyung’s family loyalties into account (because they had ceased to exist, really, the day Hankyung was disowned); and yet, they had.
Hankyung was lounging in bed on his free day when his mobile rang, vibrating against the wood of the table as the stubbornly Korean song sang out across the room. He reached lazily over for it, flipped it open and held it to his ear with a casual flick of the wrist. “Hello?” he said.
“Ge?”
“Xian Hua?” Hankyung sat up, suddenly paying attention to the conversation. Henry never rang him - Hankyung was always the one to call up Henry, it was how it had to be. “Why are you calling?”
“Ge, they found out - they found out that I was still in contact with you.”
It was the worst feeling in the world; like plunging un-expectantly into ice cold water that burnt with pins and needles even as it froze your very bones. “Fuck,” he choked out, and then; “Xian Hua, what happened?”
“Dad, he - I don’t know how he knew, he just got someone to search my room and found your latest letter. I hadn’t gotten around to burning it yet. They - he rang me when I was on my way back from school and said that he needed to see me. And then someone shouted in the background, about how they were going to get me, the traitor.” Henry took a long shuddering breath; he sounded on the verge of tears. “Ge, I couldn’t - what do I do? They’re looking for me. They’re going to kill me.”
“They aren’t going to kill you,” said Hankyung soothingly, though he could not be sure. His father was ruthless when crossed, he had proven that when Hankyung had ‘betrayed’ him. He only hoped that should Henry be caught, that his father chose to be lenient. He usually was, with his youngest son from what Hankyung had heard, but he couldn’t be certain under the circumstances. “Listen, Xian Hua, where are you?”
“I’m at a friend’s house,” said Henry, voice hushed. “But I can’t stay here for long, ge, if they find out who helped me-”
He broke off - Hankyung didn’t need him to say.
“Listen,” he said. “Just - Xian Hua, just stay there for a while. I’ll - just give me sometime, okay? I’m going to sort something out.” He was halfway towards the bedroom door, snatching up a t-shirt as he went, when he said; “Ring me, if anything happens.”
“Okay,” said Henry, and hung up. Hankyung tried not to think that that could be the last time he’d ever hear from him.
He met Heechul as he was running down the hall to Kangin and Eeteuk’s office - he had clearly just come back in after a meeting. “Hello,” said Heechul with a smirk, reaching out to take hold of his wrist. “I was hoping I’d find you in bed.”
“Not now, Heechul,” said Hankyung, and threw Heechul’s hand off him, before he carried on down the hallway. He didn’t need to look back to know that Heechul would be scowling and following on behind to get an explanation, and possibly to punch him in the shoulder, but he didn’t care, and he didn’t look back. He barely even waited for Kangin or Eeteuk to call him in before he pushed the door to their office open.
“You seem in a rush,” said Kangin, glancing up from his work with a frown.
“I need you to help me,” said Hankyung desperately. “It’s my brother, you know him, I’ve told you about him, he’s been caught in contact with me, and they’re going to - he’s in real trouble and I need you to-”
He stopped when he realised that both Eeteuk and Kangin were staring at him blankly. “I’m sorry,” said Eeteuk eventually. “I didn’t get a word of that.”
“But - it was Korean,” said Hankyung, nonplussed. He knew it was Korean; Chinese felt different in his mouth.
There was a nudge at his side. “Your pronunciation gets really fucked up when you’re stressed or flustered,” said Heechul softly. He glanced towards Kangin and Eeteuk. “He said that his brother is in trouble and needs our help.”
“Xian Hua?” Eeteuk put his pen down, looking shocked. “What’s wrong?”
Hankyung took a deep breath, and focused on getting the elocution of his words right. “They found out that he’s still in contact with me,” he said.
“So?” asked Heechul, sincerely confused.
“He’s in contact with a traitor to the family,” said Hankyung. “It would be like if one of us was in secret contact with a Choi, only, unlike us, they’re going to shoot first and ask questions later.”
“They’d kill him?” Eeteuk sounded disbelieving.
“I’d hope not,” said Hankyung quietly. “But I know them. It’s enough of a possibility to be serious. They’re brutal.”
“But Xian Hua’s only sixteen,” said Eeteuk, as if this should have made a difference. Hankyung just shook his head helplessly - his age didn’t matter.
“What do you want us to do?” asked Kangin.
Hankyung suddenly realised that his hands were shaking; he clenched them by his sides. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “We - we need to get him out of China. Quickly - before they close the airports.”
“I have a man in China,” said Kangin. “A friend, who’s studying at Beijing University. Find out from Xian Hua where he currently is, and I’ll get my friend to pick him up and take him to the airport.”
“But if the airport is closed-” began Heechul.
“We’ll get to that if it comes,” said Eeteuk, standing up, one hand already passing Kangin the telephone. “Just find out where he is, and we’ll take it from there.”
Henry’s father, it turned out, hadn’t thought to block the flights leaving China - while he knew that his youngest son had been in contact with the son that he had abandoned two years previous, he wasn’t aware of the extent of that contact, and hadn’t thought that it stretched to contact through telephone. As such, he focused all his attention on actually finding the boy who was quickly smuggled out of China.
Henry has only been with the family for a year - it’s not enough to have learnt Korean, and he can never make himself understood. Like Hankyung, he is now an outlaw - his father doubled his efforts when he realised that he had been betrayed by both his sons, and now their sources indicated a few months back that he had sent feelers out towards the Choi family in order to ask for their help in finding them. It was hard now - all the more harder for Henry, who had not thought he would ever be heir, hadn’t wanted to take over the family after Hankyung’s defection, and now he is on the run from a father who he had never loved.
He glanced across at Siwon in the driver’s seat. He wondered how much of his story Siwon knew, and briefly thought about asking him, but if Siwon didn’t know, he would then have to relay the story, and he couldn’t work out which tongue to attempt it in.
They sat in silence. Henry wasn’t too sure whether it was awkward or not, not from the way Siwon was smiling.
***
Donghae kicked miserably at a stone in the road. Sungmin reflected that he had never looked less like a member of one of the most influential families in all of Asia, and never more like an upset child. “Hyung,” he said quietly. “If Eunhyuk is - what does it mean?”
“I don’t know,” said Sungmin. He sighed heavily. “It could - if no one found out then, I suppose, it wouldn’t mean anything.”
“But-” Donghae twisted his mouth. “This is big, hyung. And we-”
“We have to tell someone,” said Sungmin.
“But you just said-”
“Hae, we can’t keep this from Kangin and Eeteuk.” Sungmin stopped and lay against the wall behind him. “This isn’t just something that we can ignore. Eunhyuk is in a relationship with a police officer. Something like that - it could be dangerous.”
“But it’s Eunhyuk,” said Donghae. “I don’t understand why we can’t-”
“Because it could bring up bias where we don’t want it!” said Sungmin, pushing off the wall to look pleadingly at him. “It could lower our reputation; make us look like we’re trying to influence things to work in our favour instead of trying to do our best for the people we’re supposed to look after.”
“No other family does that,” said Donghae angrily. “Hankyung-hyung’s family, they rule with an iron fist! And the Choi-”
He stopped, looking stricken. Sungmin hissed in recognition and hugged him; Donghae was tense. “I know what they’re like,” said Sungmin softly. “Please, Donghae, that’s why we have to tell. We can’t become like them.”
“But it’s Eunhyuk,” said Donghae, sounding like he was almost on the verge of tears. “He’s - he’s our family, Sungmin. And he looked so happy, we can’t-”
“We have to,” said Sungmin, chest aching. “We have to.”
***
Hankyung met Henry off the plane that he had quickly been bundled onto, without anything other than his school uniform and his bag of school things to his name. He had lost all of his other clothes, all the things that he considered precious - letters from friends in Canada, photographs of his mother whom he had left behind, his music and mobile telephone, everything. He was sixteen years old, and although he did not mourn the loss of his life as an heir, he mourned the loss of his life as he had known it.
The reunion between the two brothers was muted, which was considerable in the circumstances. They had not seen each other for three years, though they had been in communication, but Henry found it hard to be upbeat or pleased to see Hankyung when he knew that the only reason he could do so was because he was now an outcast like his older half-brother.
Hankyung didn’t speak when Henry met him from the plane - instead, he silently led him to a black car, with tinted windows and leather seats inside. In fact, Hankyung didn’t speak until they were well out of sight of the airport, at which point he turned with a grin and hugged Henry close.
“Are you okay?” he asked, hands on Henry’s shoulders, grinning so wide that for a short while Henry pretended that this was just a visit and that soon he would be going back home - home to Canada or back to China where he wasn’t stuck being the heir, or learning how to run a family that he didn’t feel a part of.
“I’m fine,” said Henry, smiling back. “I - we are - are you-”
“You understand, don’t you?” Hankyung interrupted his stuttering quietly. “What this means?”
“Yeah,” said Henry, suddenly cold. “Yeah, I do.”
Hankyung hugged him again - at one point Henry would have complained about being too old for that sort of thing, but now he just hugged back, fingers clutching desperately at the material of Hankyung’s jacket. “I need some clothes,” he said, voice slightly hoarse, forehead on Hankyung’s shoulder.
“We’ll get you some,” reassured Hankyung. “I think Sungmin will be happy to go with you.”
“Sungmin?”
The man who was driving suddenly spoke up, sounding slightly annoyed. Henry looked at him in confusion - he had spoken in Korean, and Henry didn’t know any Korean other than “hello” and “I love you” - neither of which were any good in this situation. Henry knew that Hankyung spoke Korean, but he was still slightly shocked to hear him answer the other man in what seemed to Henry’s ears as perfectly fluent Korean. The other man tutted at whatever Hankyung had said.
“This is Heechul,” said Hankyung, waving his hand carelessly in the direction of the man. “He’s - well.”
“Hello,” said Henry in Korean, nodding his head. The man glanced at him in the rear view mirror and smirked. He said something; Henry turned to Hankyung.
“He said that your Korean sucks,” said Hankyung, struggling to hold back a smile. Henry frowned.
“Sorry?” He was a little unsure as to what to say, to be honest - did the man want him to actually apologise? And how was he able to base his judgement on one word? Heechul said something, Hankyung made an exasperated noise in the back of his throat.
“He says it’s fine; my Korean sucked too when I first came here.”
It didn’t take long for Henry to work out what Heechul really was to Hankyung. He was shocked, yes, but there was something else - an unsure feeling, a strange, almost childish feeling of no longer being that person that his brother thought of first. For all that they had lived on opposite sides of the world, Henry still considered them to be close. When Hankyung had defected, Henry had been hurt - more than hurt, he felt as though it was a personal betrayal. If Han Geng didn’t want to be part of the Han family, then it was likely that he didn’t want to be the brother of Han Xian Hua, the second son of the Han family.
Until Henry saw Hankyung in Korea, this feeling had remained in his mind, even after Hankyung had re-established contact. It wasn’t until he saw Han Geng as Hankyung, member of the Kim family, lover of Kim Heechul, happy, needed, content - to some extent - with his life in Korea, that Henry realised - just because Han Geng had become Hankyung, that didn’t mean that he was someone different. And so, in a similar way, Han Xian Hua stopped being the second son of the Han family, and became Henry Lau, his English nickname, his mother’s maiden name - himself.
Henry looked at Siwon again. The last time he had seen someone smile like that, it had been Hankyung, when he thought about Heechul.
***
“Eunhyuk? Can I talk to you?”
Eunhyuk glanced up from his hand-held game, nodded, and then switched it off. He smiled as Sungmin came into the room, sitting up on the bed and crossing his legs. Sungmin smiled back weakly.
“I need to-” Sungmin stopped, choking a little on his tongue. After talking it out with Donghae, they had decided that perhaps going straight to Kangin and Eeteuk with what they knew was not the best thing they could do - not for their cousin, who was, after all, a blood relative. They had decided that they would talk to Eunhyuk, and see what happened from there. “I saw you, today.”
“Hmm?” Eunhyuk frowned a little. “Where?”
“In - the center.”
Eunhyuk was never any good at hiding his emotions, and so the apprehensive fear showed all over his face at Sungmin’s words. He was silent, simply staring at Sungmin with wide eyes. “You were with a man,” continued Sungmin.
“I wasn’t,” said Eunhyuk, a hint of desperation in his voice. “I wasn’t there with anyone, hyung.”
“You were,” said Sungmin sadly. “Donghae and I saw you.”
“I wasn’t,” said Eunhyuk. “Please, hyung, don’t do this-”
“Don’t lie,” said Sungmin, fists clenched. “We saw you! We aren’t stupid. We know who he is.”
“You don’t,” shouted Eunhyuk, scrambling off the bed to stand with his feet apart, his fists also clenched. “Please, hyung - did you spy on me, is that it?”
“We followed you,” said Sungmin, chin thrust in the air. “We thought that you were keeping a girl from us.”
“Well, wasn’t that a nice surprise for you?” said Eunhyuk bitterly. “You followed me, spied on me, and look at what you got for your trouble.”
“You can’t do this, Eunhyuk,” said Sungmin, relaxing his hands. “You can’t - see that man.”
“Why?” asked Eunhyuk, playing innocent. Sungmin stared - he had never seen Eunhyuk like this, so distant, so horribly out of character - so determined to get his own way. “What’s wrong with him?”
“He’s a police officer, Eunhyuk!” said Sungmin disbelievingly. “You know as well as I do what that means!”
“It means nothing!” Eunhyuk kicked at the bedside cabinet in frustration. “It’s just his job!”
“He has a duty to complete,” said Sungmin. “And he can’t do that job properly if he’s thinking about your interests, the Kim family interests. He can’t be unbiased.”
“He can,” protested Eunhyuk. “Please, hyung-”
“He has a duty,” said Sungmin, closing his eyes for a second. “And you - you’re part of this family, Eunhyuk. You can’t - you can’t do it, Hyuk!”
“I know I can’t,” shouted Eunhyuk. “I know that! But I never asked for this! I never asked to be part of this family! We were - hyung, we were supposed to be part of the Lee family!”
“And the Lee family betrayed us!” Sungmin shouted back. “They sold us when they had no need for us physically, only need for what we could bring in financial terms! Look at what they did to Donghae-”
“The Lee family didn’t do that!”
“They might as well have done it! They were the ones who allowed it to happen - fuck, Hyuk, we don’t even know what happened to Donghae! Don’t act like this. Don’t blame the fact that you can’t be with that person on the fact that you’re part of the Kim family.”
“Don’t - he has a name!”
“I don’t want to know!” yelled Sungmin, and then blinked, taken aback. “I don’t want to know,” he repeated softly. “I understand how you feel, Eunhyuk. I get it. But you can’t - it’s not professional, it’s not the best for the family.”
“Screw the family,” said Eunhyuk, angry tears in his eyes. “What about what’s best for me?”
“Don’t, Eunhyuk,” said Sungmin, feeling like he was about to cry himself. “It’s not - you’ve got to understand, this isn’t what’s right for you.”
“Only because I’m part of this fucking family!” Eunhyuk sat down heavily on the bed. “I love this family, I would do anything for it, just like they did everything for me - but I love him, hyung.”
“Stop,” said Sungmin, reigning in all of his emotion to be as cold as he could. Eunhyuk looked at him with a shocked expression; it broke Sungmin’s heart. “You can’t love him, Eunhyuk, so stop it right now.”
“Fuck, hyung-” began Eunhyuk angrily, rising to his feet again, but Sungmin just shook his head and opened the bedroom door.
“Break it off,” he said. “One week, Eunhyuk, or I’ll be forced to tell Eeteuk and Kangin.”
“I won’t,” whispered Eunhyuk, and kicked the table again.
Fandom: Super Junior AU (Mafia)
Pairings: Siwon/Hankyung/Heechul (Hankyung/Heechul), Kyuhyun/Zhou Mi, Kibum/Donghae, Yehsung/Ryeowook, Kangin/Eeteuk, Tablo/Eunhyuk
Pairings in Chapter: Tablo/Eunhyuk, Hankyung/Heechul
Word Count: 3,288
Rating: PG-13
Summary: The Kim family and the Choi family are the two oldest families in Seoul: where other families have been born, grown, and then fell apart, they remain strong. Unfortunately, they are mortal enemies, and where one lives alongside the law, the other is beyond any control. It's up to the new generation of members to destroy the violence between them - even if it means destroying one family in the process.
A/N: I'm afraid that updates will be fewer :(. I'm still in the process of writing this and I thought it would be a good idea to add in an extra chapter between 12 and 13 so yeah :|
Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 / Chapter 6 / Chapter 7 / Chapter 8 / Chapter 9 / Chapter 10 / Chapter 11
Henry has the very definite knowledge in his mind that in the Kim family, he is a bit of an outsider. It doesn’t bother him much, because he knows why, and it’s not like they ever make him feel like that, it’s just what he himself feels. He hasn’t been there as long as the others, he doesn’t speak Korean, and they don’t speak Chinese or English. It’s as hard for them as it is for him, because he knows that they want to be able to trust him with more, but they simply can’t. He knows that Eunhyuk, Kangin, Yehsung - they get frustrated when they can’t understand him, or when they can’t make themselves understood. He imagines that it must be similar to how it was with Zhou Mi when he first came, but where Zhou Mi found it fairly easy to pick up Korean, Henry finds it so difficult as to be impossible.
What he does appreciate about the Kim family is the same thing that Hankyung and Zhou Mi appreciate the most - that they were willing to take him. They didn’t have to, that day, when he rang. They could have turned him away, they didn’t have to take Hankyung’s family loyalties into account (because they had ceased to exist, really, the day Hankyung was disowned); and yet, they had.
Hankyung was lounging in bed on his free day when his mobile rang, vibrating against the wood of the table as the stubbornly Korean song sang out across the room. He reached lazily over for it, flipped it open and held it to his ear with a casual flick of the wrist. “Hello?” he said.
“Ge?”
“Xian Hua?” Hankyung sat up, suddenly paying attention to the conversation. Henry never rang him - Hankyung was always the one to call up Henry, it was how it had to be. “Why are you calling?”
“Ge, they found out - they found out that I was still in contact with you.”
It was the worst feeling in the world; like plunging un-expectantly into ice cold water that burnt with pins and needles even as it froze your very bones. “Fuck,” he choked out, and then; “Xian Hua, what happened?”
“Dad, he - I don’t know how he knew, he just got someone to search my room and found your latest letter. I hadn’t gotten around to burning it yet. They - he rang me when I was on my way back from school and said that he needed to see me. And then someone shouted in the background, about how they were going to get me, the traitor.” Henry took a long shuddering breath; he sounded on the verge of tears. “Ge, I couldn’t - what do I do? They’re looking for me. They’re going to kill me.”
“They aren’t going to kill you,” said Hankyung soothingly, though he could not be sure. His father was ruthless when crossed, he had proven that when Hankyung had ‘betrayed’ him. He only hoped that should Henry be caught, that his father chose to be lenient. He usually was, with his youngest son from what Hankyung had heard, but he couldn’t be certain under the circumstances. “Listen, Xian Hua, where are you?”
“I’m at a friend’s house,” said Henry, voice hushed. “But I can’t stay here for long, ge, if they find out who helped me-”
He broke off - Hankyung didn’t need him to say.
“Listen,” he said. “Just - Xian Hua, just stay there for a while. I’ll - just give me sometime, okay? I’m going to sort something out.” He was halfway towards the bedroom door, snatching up a t-shirt as he went, when he said; “Ring me, if anything happens.”
“Okay,” said Henry, and hung up. Hankyung tried not to think that that could be the last time he’d ever hear from him.
He met Heechul as he was running down the hall to Kangin and Eeteuk’s office - he had clearly just come back in after a meeting. “Hello,” said Heechul with a smirk, reaching out to take hold of his wrist. “I was hoping I’d find you in bed.”
“Not now, Heechul,” said Hankyung, and threw Heechul’s hand off him, before he carried on down the hallway. He didn’t need to look back to know that Heechul would be scowling and following on behind to get an explanation, and possibly to punch him in the shoulder, but he didn’t care, and he didn’t look back. He barely even waited for Kangin or Eeteuk to call him in before he pushed the door to their office open.
“You seem in a rush,” said Kangin, glancing up from his work with a frown.
“I need you to help me,” said Hankyung desperately. “It’s my brother, you know him, I’ve told you about him, he’s been caught in contact with me, and they’re going to - he’s in real trouble and I need you to-”
He stopped when he realised that both Eeteuk and Kangin were staring at him blankly. “I’m sorry,” said Eeteuk eventually. “I didn’t get a word of that.”
“But - it was Korean,” said Hankyung, nonplussed. He knew it was Korean; Chinese felt different in his mouth.
There was a nudge at his side. “Your pronunciation gets really fucked up when you’re stressed or flustered,” said Heechul softly. He glanced towards Kangin and Eeteuk. “He said that his brother is in trouble and needs our help.”
“Xian Hua?” Eeteuk put his pen down, looking shocked. “What’s wrong?”
Hankyung took a deep breath, and focused on getting the elocution of his words right. “They found out that he’s still in contact with me,” he said.
“So?” asked Heechul, sincerely confused.
“He’s in contact with a traitor to the family,” said Hankyung. “It would be like if one of us was in secret contact with a Choi, only, unlike us, they’re going to shoot first and ask questions later.”
“They’d kill him?” Eeteuk sounded disbelieving.
“I’d hope not,” said Hankyung quietly. “But I know them. It’s enough of a possibility to be serious. They’re brutal.”
“But Xian Hua’s only sixteen,” said Eeteuk, as if this should have made a difference. Hankyung just shook his head helplessly - his age didn’t matter.
“What do you want us to do?” asked Kangin.
Hankyung suddenly realised that his hands were shaking; he clenched them by his sides. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “We - we need to get him out of China. Quickly - before they close the airports.”
“I have a man in China,” said Kangin. “A friend, who’s studying at Beijing University. Find out from Xian Hua where he currently is, and I’ll get my friend to pick him up and take him to the airport.”
“But if the airport is closed-” began Heechul.
“We’ll get to that if it comes,” said Eeteuk, standing up, one hand already passing Kangin the telephone. “Just find out where he is, and we’ll take it from there.”
Henry’s father, it turned out, hadn’t thought to block the flights leaving China - while he knew that his youngest son had been in contact with the son that he had abandoned two years previous, he wasn’t aware of the extent of that contact, and hadn’t thought that it stretched to contact through telephone. As such, he focused all his attention on actually finding the boy who was quickly smuggled out of China.
Henry has only been with the family for a year - it’s not enough to have learnt Korean, and he can never make himself understood. Like Hankyung, he is now an outlaw - his father doubled his efforts when he realised that he had been betrayed by both his sons, and now their sources indicated a few months back that he had sent feelers out towards the Choi family in order to ask for their help in finding them. It was hard now - all the more harder for Henry, who had not thought he would ever be heir, hadn’t wanted to take over the family after Hankyung’s defection, and now he is on the run from a father who he had never loved.
He glanced across at Siwon in the driver’s seat. He wondered how much of his story Siwon knew, and briefly thought about asking him, but if Siwon didn’t know, he would then have to relay the story, and he couldn’t work out which tongue to attempt it in.
They sat in silence. Henry wasn’t too sure whether it was awkward or not, not from the way Siwon was smiling.
***
Donghae kicked miserably at a stone in the road. Sungmin reflected that he had never looked less like a member of one of the most influential families in all of Asia, and never more like an upset child. “Hyung,” he said quietly. “If Eunhyuk is - what does it mean?”
“I don’t know,” said Sungmin. He sighed heavily. “It could - if no one found out then, I suppose, it wouldn’t mean anything.”
“But-” Donghae twisted his mouth. “This is big, hyung. And we-”
“We have to tell someone,” said Sungmin.
“But you just said-”
“Hae, we can’t keep this from Kangin and Eeteuk.” Sungmin stopped and lay against the wall behind him. “This isn’t just something that we can ignore. Eunhyuk is in a relationship with a police officer. Something like that - it could be dangerous.”
“But it’s Eunhyuk,” said Donghae. “I don’t understand why we can’t-”
“Because it could bring up bias where we don’t want it!” said Sungmin, pushing off the wall to look pleadingly at him. “It could lower our reputation; make us look like we’re trying to influence things to work in our favour instead of trying to do our best for the people we’re supposed to look after.”
“No other family does that,” said Donghae angrily. “Hankyung-hyung’s family, they rule with an iron fist! And the Choi-”
He stopped, looking stricken. Sungmin hissed in recognition and hugged him; Donghae was tense. “I know what they’re like,” said Sungmin softly. “Please, Donghae, that’s why we have to tell. We can’t become like them.”
“But it’s Eunhyuk,” said Donghae, sounding like he was almost on the verge of tears. “He’s - he’s our family, Sungmin. And he looked so happy, we can’t-”
“We have to,” said Sungmin, chest aching. “We have to.”
***
Hankyung met Henry off the plane that he had quickly been bundled onto, without anything other than his school uniform and his bag of school things to his name. He had lost all of his other clothes, all the things that he considered precious - letters from friends in Canada, photographs of his mother whom he had left behind, his music and mobile telephone, everything. He was sixteen years old, and although he did not mourn the loss of his life as an heir, he mourned the loss of his life as he had known it.
The reunion between the two brothers was muted, which was considerable in the circumstances. They had not seen each other for three years, though they had been in communication, but Henry found it hard to be upbeat or pleased to see Hankyung when he knew that the only reason he could do so was because he was now an outcast like his older half-brother.
Hankyung didn’t speak when Henry met him from the plane - instead, he silently led him to a black car, with tinted windows and leather seats inside. In fact, Hankyung didn’t speak until they were well out of sight of the airport, at which point he turned with a grin and hugged Henry close.
“Are you okay?” he asked, hands on Henry’s shoulders, grinning so wide that for a short while Henry pretended that this was just a visit and that soon he would be going back home - home to Canada or back to China where he wasn’t stuck being the heir, or learning how to run a family that he didn’t feel a part of.
“I’m fine,” said Henry, smiling back. “I - we are - are you-”
“You understand, don’t you?” Hankyung interrupted his stuttering quietly. “What this means?”
“Yeah,” said Henry, suddenly cold. “Yeah, I do.”
Hankyung hugged him again - at one point Henry would have complained about being too old for that sort of thing, but now he just hugged back, fingers clutching desperately at the material of Hankyung’s jacket. “I need some clothes,” he said, voice slightly hoarse, forehead on Hankyung’s shoulder.
“We’ll get you some,” reassured Hankyung. “I think Sungmin will be happy to go with you.”
“Sungmin?”
The man who was driving suddenly spoke up, sounding slightly annoyed. Henry looked at him in confusion - he had spoken in Korean, and Henry didn’t know any Korean other than “hello” and “I love you” - neither of which were any good in this situation. Henry knew that Hankyung spoke Korean, but he was still slightly shocked to hear him answer the other man in what seemed to Henry’s ears as perfectly fluent Korean. The other man tutted at whatever Hankyung had said.
“This is Heechul,” said Hankyung, waving his hand carelessly in the direction of the man. “He’s - well.”
“Hello,” said Henry in Korean, nodding his head. The man glanced at him in the rear view mirror and smirked. He said something; Henry turned to Hankyung.
“He said that your Korean sucks,” said Hankyung, struggling to hold back a smile. Henry frowned.
“Sorry?” He was a little unsure as to what to say, to be honest - did the man want him to actually apologise? And how was he able to base his judgement on one word? Heechul said something, Hankyung made an exasperated noise in the back of his throat.
“He says it’s fine; my Korean sucked too when I first came here.”
It didn’t take long for Henry to work out what Heechul really was to Hankyung. He was shocked, yes, but there was something else - an unsure feeling, a strange, almost childish feeling of no longer being that person that his brother thought of first. For all that they had lived on opposite sides of the world, Henry still considered them to be close. When Hankyung had defected, Henry had been hurt - more than hurt, he felt as though it was a personal betrayal. If Han Geng didn’t want to be part of the Han family, then it was likely that he didn’t want to be the brother of Han Xian Hua, the second son of the Han family.
Until Henry saw Hankyung in Korea, this feeling had remained in his mind, even after Hankyung had re-established contact. It wasn’t until he saw Han Geng as Hankyung, member of the Kim family, lover of Kim Heechul, happy, needed, content - to some extent - with his life in Korea, that Henry realised - just because Han Geng had become Hankyung, that didn’t mean that he was someone different. And so, in a similar way, Han Xian Hua stopped being the second son of the Han family, and became Henry Lau, his English nickname, his mother’s maiden name - himself.
Henry looked at Siwon again. The last time he had seen someone smile like that, it had been Hankyung, when he thought about Heechul.
***
“Eunhyuk? Can I talk to you?”
Eunhyuk glanced up from his hand-held game, nodded, and then switched it off. He smiled as Sungmin came into the room, sitting up on the bed and crossing his legs. Sungmin smiled back weakly.
“I need to-” Sungmin stopped, choking a little on his tongue. After talking it out with Donghae, they had decided that perhaps going straight to Kangin and Eeteuk with what they knew was not the best thing they could do - not for their cousin, who was, after all, a blood relative. They had decided that they would talk to Eunhyuk, and see what happened from there. “I saw you, today.”
“Hmm?” Eunhyuk frowned a little. “Where?”
“In - the center.”
Eunhyuk was never any good at hiding his emotions, and so the apprehensive fear showed all over his face at Sungmin’s words. He was silent, simply staring at Sungmin with wide eyes. “You were with a man,” continued Sungmin.
“I wasn’t,” said Eunhyuk, a hint of desperation in his voice. “I wasn’t there with anyone, hyung.”
“You were,” said Sungmin sadly. “Donghae and I saw you.”
“I wasn’t,” said Eunhyuk. “Please, hyung, don’t do this-”
“Don’t lie,” said Sungmin, fists clenched. “We saw you! We aren’t stupid. We know who he is.”
“You don’t,” shouted Eunhyuk, scrambling off the bed to stand with his feet apart, his fists also clenched. “Please, hyung - did you spy on me, is that it?”
“We followed you,” said Sungmin, chin thrust in the air. “We thought that you were keeping a girl from us.”
“Well, wasn’t that a nice surprise for you?” said Eunhyuk bitterly. “You followed me, spied on me, and look at what you got for your trouble.”
“You can’t do this, Eunhyuk,” said Sungmin, relaxing his hands. “You can’t - see that man.”
“Why?” asked Eunhyuk, playing innocent. Sungmin stared - he had never seen Eunhyuk like this, so distant, so horribly out of character - so determined to get his own way. “What’s wrong with him?”
“He’s a police officer, Eunhyuk!” said Sungmin disbelievingly. “You know as well as I do what that means!”
“It means nothing!” Eunhyuk kicked at the bedside cabinet in frustration. “It’s just his job!”
“He has a duty to complete,” said Sungmin. “And he can’t do that job properly if he’s thinking about your interests, the Kim family interests. He can’t be unbiased.”
“He can,” protested Eunhyuk. “Please, hyung-”
“He has a duty,” said Sungmin, closing his eyes for a second. “And you - you’re part of this family, Eunhyuk. You can’t - you can’t do it, Hyuk!”
“I know I can’t,” shouted Eunhyuk. “I know that! But I never asked for this! I never asked to be part of this family! We were - hyung, we were supposed to be part of the Lee family!”
“And the Lee family betrayed us!” Sungmin shouted back. “They sold us when they had no need for us physically, only need for what we could bring in financial terms! Look at what they did to Donghae-”
“The Lee family didn’t do that!”
“They might as well have done it! They were the ones who allowed it to happen - fuck, Hyuk, we don’t even know what happened to Donghae! Don’t act like this. Don’t blame the fact that you can’t be with that person on the fact that you’re part of the Kim family.”
“Don’t - he has a name!”
“I don’t want to know!” yelled Sungmin, and then blinked, taken aback. “I don’t want to know,” he repeated softly. “I understand how you feel, Eunhyuk. I get it. But you can’t - it’s not professional, it’s not the best for the family.”
“Screw the family,” said Eunhyuk, angry tears in his eyes. “What about what’s best for me?”
“Don’t, Eunhyuk,” said Sungmin, feeling like he was about to cry himself. “It’s not - you’ve got to understand, this isn’t what’s right for you.”
“Only because I’m part of this fucking family!” Eunhyuk sat down heavily on the bed. “I love this family, I would do anything for it, just like they did everything for me - but I love him, hyung.”
“Stop,” said Sungmin, reigning in all of his emotion to be as cold as he could. Eunhyuk looked at him with a shocked expression; it broke Sungmin’s heart. “You can’t love him, Eunhyuk, so stop it right now.”
“Fuck, hyung-” began Eunhyuk angrily, rising to his feet again, but Sungmin just shook his head and opened the bedroom door.
“Break it off,” he said. “One week, Eunhyuk, or I’ll be forced to tell Eeteuk and Kangin.”
“I won’t,” whispered Eunhyuk, and kicked the table again.