Super Junior AU; Various Pairings; Love/War
Title: Love/War (15/?)
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: Hankyung/Heechul, slight Kibum/Donghae
Word Count: 3,318
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 have over half of chapter 18 written \o/ Perhaps it's time to start writing something actually related to the plot :|
Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 / Chapter 6 / Chapter 7 / Chapter 8 / Chapter 9 / Chapter 10 / Chapter 11 / Chapter 12 / Chapter 13 / Chapter 14 / Chapter 15
Hankyung paced slowly up and down the length of the bedroom, hands clenching and unclenching, restless, his mind racing. The scene kept playing over and over in his mind; the way Siwon had looked at them, the sound that had been made as he was knocked unconscious, and above all - that plea, that desperate plea for them to trust him. Hankyung was having serious trouble working it out - the pieces didn’t seem to fit in any way or order. The link in the middle, the thing that helped him get from leaving Siwon in the kitchen an hour earlier to Siwon being dragged, kicking and screaming, into the limousine of Choi Sikyu, was missing.
He could take it no longer - he had to know what was going on. He knew enough to know that he would not have been allowed into the office while Kangin told Heechul about whatever had happened, but he couldn’t wait any more. He threw open the door, but only took a few steps down the hall before Heechul came around the corner.
His hair was messed as though he had pushed his hand through it more times than strictly necessary, his clothes rumpled, his eyes tired. Hankyung felt slightly confused - it had only been ten minutes ago since he had left him, right?
“What’s happened?” he called out. Heechul glanced up; his eyes darkened with bitterness and anger at the sight of Hankyung. He remained silent, up until he had walked far enough to have met Hankyung in the corridor - then he pushed him back, up against the door that Hankyung had closed behind him, and kissed him deeply.
With Heechul’s fingers pressed to his jaw, Hankyung almost forgot that there was situation occurring, that he wanted to know what had happened. He felt Heechul shudder against him, hand shaking for a second. Hankyung wrenched away. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “What happened?”
“Just-” Heechul pressed closer, eyes half shut, focusing on Hankyung’s lips. “Please,” he said, and Hankyung froze at that tone of pleading in Heechul’s voice. “I need to make sure that you’re still you.”
Hankyung kissed him softly, frowning. “What about Siwon?” he asked quietly.
To his surprise, Heechul’s eyes grew dark with anger again, and he reached out to push past Hankyung’s into the bedroom. The empty bottle of wine from a couple of nights ago was still on the coffee table: Heechul picked it up and threw it across the room. It hit the wall and shattered, pieces flying out. Heechul then picked up one of the glasses that had been next to the bottle and made to throw that, too.
“Whoa!” Hankyung darted forward and grabbed hold of his wrist. Heechul struggled to throw it, before eventually dropping it and trying to get out of Hankyung’s hold altogether. Hankyung span him around and wrapped his arms around his shoulders to hold him still.
“Tell me what happened!” he demanded.
“We’ve been harbouring a fucking traitor, Hankyung,” spat Heechul. “Siwon - he’s a fucking liar. He’s a Choi.”
Hankyung’s fingers tightened around his shoulders - he pulled away to stare at him. “W-what?”
“You heard me,” said Heechul, and he wrenched his wrist from Hankyung’s suddenly slackened grip. “He’s not Han Siwon, or whatever he told us he was - he’s Choi Siwon, eldest son of Choi Sikyu, and heir to the Choi family.”
“But we met his mother!” Hankyung shook his head, torn between disbelief and a rather strange wonderment as to whether Heechul had gone completely mad. “We’ve seen his birth certificate!”
“It’s a fake, Hankyung!” Heechul kicked out at the dresser, the fact that he was barefoot apparently counting for nothing. He seemed to feel no pain. “Everything - it’s been a lie.”
“I don’t understand.” Hankyung reached out and took hold of Heechul around the top of his arm; Heechul turned on him, the force of his anger now too much to keep within.
“There was a meeting with Choi Sikyu today!” he screamed, hair wild. “Siwon walked in on it, he wasn’t supposed to, and I suppose he certainly didn’t want to. It was - Choi Sikyu knew who he was, was shocked and angry at seeming him there - and he revealed that Siwon was actually his son.”
“What-”
“Siwon ran, Hankyung. Okay? He ran. He didn’t try to deny it or protest, he just ran. That’s explanation enough, okay?”
“But how?” Hankyung shook his head again; it was too much to take in. “How would he have managed that, Hankyung? We met his mother.”
“So he got her to lie for her! It’s just some woman that he knows, no doubt. Blackmailed her, maybe, I don’t know how his mind works anymore! We - fuck, Hankyung, we invited him into our bed.”
“We invited him into the family,” said Hankyung, his understanding coming to him as slowly as the words left his mouth. “We met him in Choi territory, and he - found out about us, and he lived at home some days-”
“Probably so his father didn’t grow too suspicious about where he was all the time,” said Heechul bitterly. “He always was out, wasn’t he? It seems like Siwon was missing so often that his father simply didn’t notice when he joined up.”
“But Heechul, I trusted him,” said Hankyung, frowning in confusion. “I looked at him and trusted him.”
“Your instincts,” said Heechul with a sneer. “Well, they served you well, didn’t they?”
“Hey,” said Hankyung sharply. “Don’t blame this on me, you’re the one who wanted him to join in the first place.”
“No,” said Heechul silkily, and it was like ice water dumped over Hankyung at hearing that tone in his voice. “You’re only the one who kissed him.”
“That’s got nothing to do with it!” said Hankyung loudly. “Fuck, Heechul - you wanted it too!”
“Oh, this is pointless!” Heechul turned around and began pacing up and down the bedroom, much like Hankyung had done a short while earlier. Hankyung sat down at the desk, and laid his head in his arms.
“But I trusted him,” he said. “I don’t understand - everything was telling me to trust him.”
“Seriously,” said Heechul in a low voice. Hankyung looked up; he had one hand on the door handle and was pulling it open as he spoke. “Fuck you, and fuck your instincts.” And then he left.
***
Hankyung found him in a bar not far from the estate, the third one he looked in. He had expected Heechul to have gone to the one that they had taken Siwon to, but Heechul apparently wasn’t in the mood for the memories. The second bar was the one that offered an extensive range of the kinds of girly drinks that Heechul seemed to enjoy ordering, but Heechul also apparently wasn’t in the mood for messing around. Hankyung found him in the corner of the third bar drinking soju with one of the highest alcohol contents Hankyung had ever seen.
“Hi,” he said, standing a little off the table. Heechul glanced up, and then blinked.
“Hi,” he said, and kicked the chair opposite him out with his foot. “Sit down, get drunk, it’s a fucking party.”
“Party?” Hankyung took the seat, peering at the bottle Heechul held in one hand and raising an eyebrow at the percentage.
“Yeah,” said Heechul, pushing a glass towards him. “We’re celebrating us being utter morons.”
“It’s not our fault, Heechul.”
“I know,” said Heechul, throwing the glass back, contents down his throat. He shook his head slightly at it. “Nothing’s ever my fault. You know that, Hankyung.”
Hankyung was silent. He picked up his glass and sniffed at it, before gasping back. “Stop being a wimp,” said Heechul without looking up. “Just fucking drink it and get drunk with me.”
“I’m a traitor too, Heechul.”
The statement was quiet, heartfelt - it was something that Hankyung had never wanted to bring up again. It was the one thing that they never spoke about to one another, Hankyung’s past, because it brought up concepts and feelings that they didn’t want to live with. Heechul was so fiercely loyal to Hankyung, the idea of Hankyung being the innocent party in it, the right party, that Hankyung had never told him that sometimes he wondered if he would betray the Kim family too, if he thought that it was the right thing to do.
Heechul looked up sharply, his gaze strangely focused for someone who had drank almost a full bottle of strong soju (and Hankyung didn’t know if there had been any previous bottles before he had found him). “That’s different, Hankyung,” he said in a low voice, anger creeping in. “You’ve never betrayed me.”
Hankyung inclined his head in agreement. “It is different. But still, I know what it is like to betray your family. Most likely, he won’t have made the decision lightly.”
“You’re under the mistaken impression that he’s betrayed his family,” muttered Heechul. “It’s us who’s in the shit, Hankyung.”
“But Choi Sikyu didn’t know about it,” said Hankyung. “Right?”
Heechul nodded. “Apparently he was as surprised and angry as Kangin and Eeteuk were.”
“So how would he be betraying us if his father knew nothing about it?”
Heechul rolled his eyes. “I don’t know, Hankyung,” he said, voice full of almost-amusement. “Don’t ask me to work out how that man’s mind works.”
“He doesn’t have a name now,” noted Hankyung.
Heechul looked him directly in the eye. “No,” he said. “He doesn’t.”
“It just makes no sense to me,” said Hankyung. “I mean, he fed us information, Heechul. Remember? He said that he’d overheard a Choi member talking in a bar, talking about that auction we crashed two weeks ago. Why would he have told us about it?”
“I don’t know!” snapped Heechul. “God, what am I supposed to be, a mind reader?”
“It just makes no sense to me,” said Hankyung heavily.
“Nothing ever does,” said Heechul, taking a sip. “Look, can we not talk about this? You’re ruining my attempt at oblivion.”
“Come on,” said Hankyung with a sigh. “I’m taking you home.”
“Who the fuck are you?” asked Heechul, with a half-hearted sneer. “My boyfriend?”
“Oh, for the love of god.” Hankyung picked the bottle up and held it out of Heechul’s reach. “You think I’m not pissed off at this?”
“At my drinking?” Heechul asked in mock amazement.
“At Siwon. I - I mean, we - you know how I feel.”
“Yeah,” said Heechul softly. “Yeah, I do. But there’s nothing we can do.”
“I know.” Hankyung put the bottle back down, and pulled Heechul up by the hand. “Come on. I want to get you home while you’re still capable of walking.”
“You should have a drink too,” said Heechul insistently. “It numbs everything, fucking fantastic.”
“One glass of that, and I won’t be able to drive,” said Hankyung.
“We’ll walk,” said Heechul with a shrug. “It’s how I got here.”
Hankyung rolled his eyes at him, and then stopped, as suddenly the memory of Siwon’s fingers tangled in his as Siwon kissed Heechul jumped into his mind, the recollection drowning him as it filled his mind and throat and heart. Quickly, he picked up the glass that he had left, completely full, on the table and drank it in one, heart-stopping, throat burning gulp.
Heechul cheered him on in the background; it made Hankyung feel like crying.
***
Donghae knocked softly on the office door, and waited for the call of allowing entrance. It came quickly, and when he pushed the door open, Kibum looked up and smiled softly at him; Donghae was just pleased to note that his fingers were shaking only a little. “I made some tea,” he said, holding up the cup he held in his hands. “I made some for you, if you wanted it?”
“Oh,” said Kibum, staring at him a little. “Yeah, that’s - thank you.”
Donghae walked into the room and put the cup softly on the desk, peering curiously at the paperwork on Kibum’s desk. Kibum didn’t stop him or make any sort of movement other than moving his pen over the paper, fearful that doing so would shatter the awkward truce that Donghae had apparently decided on that day.
“What are you working on?” asked Donghae curiously. He hardly ever did paperwork; they had found out the hard way during the first few weeks of his time there that he was terrible at it, and tended to get distracted by pretty butterflies or tree motions outside the window - once he had simply went to get some coffee and never came back to the office. Shindong had sent Ryeowook to go find him, and he had been found in Eunhyuk’s room playing a video game.
“It’s some of Siwon’s stuff,” said Kibum quietly. “I’m trying to work out if any of it is actually genuine.”
“That must be harder than it looks,” said Donghae, sitting down on a spare seat. “If it was enough to fool Eeteuk and Kangin.”
“They didn’t know what they were looking for,” said Kibum, distractedly, and then he glanced up at Donghae, who wasn’t looking at him, but rather at his feet, biting his bottom lip. “Are you okay?” Kibum asked, concerned.
Donghae jumped a little. “Yeah,” he said, stammering a little, fingers pushing into the material on his trousers. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
Kibum sighed inwardly, and then turned back to his paperwork. Donghae had taken to doing this recently, making a concerted effort to be around Kibum, trying to get over whatever was holding him back from being normal around him. On the one hand, Kibum felt like he should be pleased that Donghae was trying it - after a year and a half, he was now desperate for Donghae to at least be normal with him. On the other hand, he was annoyed that Donghae even had to attempt it, that he had to push himself to do it.
It hadn’t always been like that - once, at the start, Donghae had been friendly, almost frantic to be friends with someone, anyone, to have that safety net. In those early days, Kibum had been there for the horrible mood swings, the glaringly bright happiness morphing too quickly into deep melancholy (the likes of which seems to have disappeared almost completely from Donghae’s life now and it’s the almost completely that always plays on Kibum’s mind) during which it was impossible to get anything out of Donghae. He was there when Donghae slept, while the night terrors overtook him. Only Heechul had seen Donghae like that, body taut with spasms before his limbs flung out, screaming as he attempted to fight off whatever haunted him in his sleep. Only Heechul has seen that, because it was Kibum’s job to look after Donghae, and he didn’t trust anyone else to do it in his place when he needed it.
He knew that Donghae still has the dreams - Eeteuk put him the room directly next door to Sungmin, so that the two were together, with Eunhyuk just down the hallway, and Sungmin had come to Kibum a few times asking for advice on sleeping pills, for Donghae, to give him at least one night’s sleep. Kibum had done the best he could, and he thought that they worked to some extent - Donghae doesn’t look so tired, now.
But those early days, those days when Kibum could talk to Donghae like a normal person, when he could look after him with the older boy slipping to a silent husk, without him being that worn-out thing that had come to them - those days were when Kibum had fallen in love. Those moments when Donghae’s smile came through the clouds of his depression, Kibum had fallen in love with that. And then it snapped in Donghae’s mind, and he retreated into himself whenever Kibum was around.
Kibum didn’t want Donghae-the-servant, or Donghae-the-fucking-slave. Kibum wanted Donghae, the one who played games with Eunhyuk and teased Ryeowook and was constantly hounding Henry for English lessons. That was the Donghae that Kibum wanted, and he wasn’t sure, however hard Donghae tried, however hard Kibum tried to help, that he could have it.
“Donghae,” he said, the thought suddenly striking him. “You were pretty friendly with Siwon, right?”
“Yeah?” Donghae seemed unsure as to whether he should be admitting to it.
“Do you know whether any of these are likely to be real?” Kibum picked up the collection of education certificates, showing them to Donghae. “I mean, they’ve got his fake name on, but I was wondering whether Siwon actually did have all these things.”
“I don’t know,” said Donghae, taking them from him and flicking through them. “He was pretty clever, so they could be, but I never spoke to him about education.”
Oh, thought Kibum, wincing. Sungmin had told him that the Lee family hadn’t been thorough with their education, and when the decline set in, there had been no money to pay the tutors or school fees. Sungmin had always seemed a bit annoyed about that, and while Donghae never seemed bothered either way, much like Eunhyuk, Kibum still didn’t like to bring up the subject in front of him.
“Why don’t you ask Hankyung or Heechul?” Donghae handed the papers back. Kibum was careful to not let their fingers touch, but Donghae added, “If you want to,” in a respectful tone afterwards anyway.
“I can’t,” he said, with a bittersweet smile. “Both of them got drunk after last night, I don’t think either of them are even awake right now - and I wouldn’t want to be around Heechul when he wakes up anyway.”
Donghae put the sheets back on the table and stood up suddenly. “I want to hate him,” he said softly. Kibum didn’t say anything, he just looked at him levelly. “I want to hate him because he lied to us, and because of what he’s done to Heechul-hyung and Hankyung-hyung. I really want to hate him.”
“But you don’t,” said Kibum; it was a statement, it was obvious that Donghae didn’t hate Siwon.
“I should hate him,” said Donghae. “He’s a Choi, and I know better than anyone what they’re capable of. I’ve suffered at their - hands, and I - he’s different, to the other Choi members.”
“It may just be that he’s a good actor,” said Kibum, shrugging.
“You can’t fake that,” said Donghae. “The way he acted - it was sincere. I’ve been around Choi members, Sungmin has too, we’ve known what they’re like - and Siwon, he isn’t a typical member.”
Kibum shrugged again. “I understand what you’re trying to say, and I feel like I’m just playing devil’s advocate, but we can’t over-look the fact that he lied to us. The fake name, the fake family - it was all just an elaborate ploy, and we don’t even know why, Donghae.”
“I don’t know if I hate him, and I don’t know if I can forgive him, if we do get a reason.” Donghae shook his head. “You know as well as I what sort of a relationship he had with Heechul-hyung and Hankyung-hyung. He’ll have - ruined them. They trusted him with more than any of us trusted him with.”
Kibum stood up and walked around to stand in front of him. “I know,” he said, and then made the mistake of putting his hand on Donghae’s shoulder.
Fuck, thought Kibum, as Donghae’s eyes widened for a split second, before growing dull as he pulled in that feeler of friendship, the bodily contact, limited though it was, too much for him to handle. Kibum took a step back and lowered his hand as he noticed how Donghae’s face became strained.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. Donghae’s eyes remained lowered to the floor as he shook his head wordlessly. Kibum could only watch in dismay as Donghae quickly left the room; shoulders hunched down as if trying to not be noticed.
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: Hankyung/Heechul, slight Kibum/Donghae
Word Count: 3,318
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 have over half of chapter 18 written \o/ Perhaps it's time to start writing something actually related to the plot :|
Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 / Chapter 6 / Chapter 7 / Chapter 8 / Chapter 9 / Chapter 10 / Chapter 11 / Chapter 12 / Chapter 13 / Chapter 14 / Chapter 15
Hankyung paced slowly up and down the length of the bedroom, hands clenching and unclenching, restless, his mind racing. The scene kept playing over and over in his mind; the way Siwon had looked at them, the sound that had been made as he was knocked unconscious, and above all - that plea, that desperate plea for them to trust him. Hankyung was having serious trouble working it out - the pieces didn’t seem to fit in any way or order. The link in the middle, the thing that helped him get from leaving Siwon in the kitchen an hour earlier to Siwon being dragged, kicking and screaming, into the limousine of Choi Sikyu, was missing.
He could take it no longer - he had to know what was going on. He knew enough to know that he would not have been allowed into the office while Kangin told Heechul about whatever had happened, but he couldn’t wait any more. He threw open the door, but only took a few steps down the hall before Heechul came around the corner.
His hair was messed as though he had pushed his hand through it more times than strictly necessary, his clothes rumpled, his eyes tired. Hankyung felt slightly confused - it had only been ten minutes ago since he had left him, right?
“What’s happened?” he called out. Heechul glanced up; his eyes darkened with bitterness and anger at the sight of Hankyung. He remained silent, up until he had walked far enough to have met Hankyung in the corridor - then he pushed him back, up against the door that Hankyung had closed behind him, and kissed him deeply.
With Heechul’s fingers pressed to his jaw, Hankyung almost forgot that there was situation occurring, that he wanted to know what had happened. He felt Heechul shudder against him, hand shaking for a second. Hankyung wrenched away. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “What happened?”
“Just-” Heechul pressed closer, eyes half shut, focusing on Hankyung’s lips. “Please,” he said, and Hankyung froze at that tone of pleading in Heechul’s voice. “I need to make sure that you’re still you.”
Hankyung kissed him softly, frowning. “What about Siwon?” he asked quietly.
To his surprise, Heechul’s eyes grew dark with anger again, and he reached out to push past Hankyung’s into the bedroom. The empty bottle of wine from a couple of nights ago was still on the coffee table: Heechul picked it up and threw it across the room. It hit the wall and shattered, pieces flying out. Heechul then picked up one of the glasses that had been next to the bottle and made to throw that, too.
“Whoa!” Hankyung darted forward and grabbed hold of his wrist. Heechul struggled to throw it, before eventually dropping it and trying to get out of Hankyung’s hold altogether. Hankyung span him around and wrapped his arms around his shoulders to hold him still.
“Tell me what happened!” he demanded.
“We’ve been harbouring a fucking traitor, Hankyung,” spat Heechul. “Siwon - he’s a fucking liar. He’s a Choi.”
Hankyung’s fingers tightened around his shoulders - he pulled away to stare at him. “W-what?”
“You heard me,” said Heechul, and he wrenched his wrist from Hankyung’s suddenly slackened grip. “He’s not Han Siwon, or whatever he told us he was - he’s Choi Siwon, eldest son of Choi Sikyu, and heir to the Choi family.”
“But we met his mother!” Hankyung shook his head, torn between disbelief and a rather strange wonderment as to whether Heechul had gone completely mad. “We’ve seen his birth certificate!”
“It’s a fake, Hankyung!” Heechul kicked out at the dresser, the fact that he was barefoot apparently counting for nothing. He seemed to feel no pain. “Everything - it’s been a lie.”
“I don’t understand.” Hankyung reached out and took hold of Heechul around the top of his arm; Heechul turned on him, the force of his anger now too much to keep within.
“There was a meeting with Choi Sikyu today!” he screamed, hair wild. “Siwon walked in on it, he wasn’t supposed to, and I suppose he certainly didn’t want to. It was - Choi Sikyu knew who he was, was shocked and angry at seeming him there - and he revealed that Siwon was actually his son.”
“What-”
“Siwon ran, Hankyung. Okay? He ran. He didn’t try to deny it or protest, he just ran. That’s explanation enough, okay?”
“But how?” Hankyung shook his head again; it was too much to take in. “How would he have managed that, Hankyung? We met his mother.”
“So he got her to lie for her! It’s just some woman that he knows, no doubt. Blackmailed her, maybe, I don’t know how his mind works anymore! We - fuck, Hankyung, we invited him into our bed.”
“We invited him into the family,” said Hankyung, his understanding coming to him as slowly as the words left his mouth. “We met him in Choi territory, and he - found out about us, and he lived at home some days-”
“Probably so his father didn’t grow too suspicious about where he was all the time,” said Heechul bitterly. “He always was out, wasn’t he? It seems like Siwon was missing so often that his father simply didn’t notice when he joined up.”
“But Heechul, I trusted him,” said Hankyung, frowning in confusion. “I looked at him and trusted him.”
“Your instincts,” said Heechul with a sneer. “Well, they served you well, didn’t they?”
“Hey,” said Hankyung sharply. “Don’t blame this on me, you’re the one who wanted him to join in the first place.”
“No,” said Heechul silkily, and it was like ice water dumped over Hankyung at hearing that tone in his voice. “You’re only the one who kissed him.”
“That’s got nothing to do with it!” said Hankyung loudly. “Fuck, Heechul - you wanted it too!”
“Oh, this is pointless!” Heechul turned around and began pacing up and down the bedroom, much like Hankyung had done a short while earlier. Hankyung sat down at the desk, and laid his head in his arms.
“But I trusted him,” he said. “I don’t understand - everything was telling me to trust him.”
“Seriously,” said Heechul in a low voice. Hankyung looked up; he had one hand on the door handle and was pulling it open as he spoke. “Fuck you, and fuck your instincts.” And then he left.
***
Hankyung found him in a bar not far from the estate, the third one he looked in. He had expected Heechul to have gone to the one that they had taken Siwon to, but Heechul apparently wasn’t in the mood for the memories. The second bar was the one that offered an extensive range of the kinds of girly drinks that Heechul seemed to enjoy ordering, but Heechul also apparently wasn’t in the mood for messing around. Hankyung found him in the corner of the third bar drinking soju with one of the highest alcohol contents Hankyung had ever seen.
“Hi,” he said, standing a little off the table. Heechul glanced up, and then blinked.
“Hi,” he said, and kicked the chair opposite him out with his foot. “Sit down, get drunk, it’s a fucking party.”
“Party?” Hankyung took the seat, peering at the bottle Heechul held in one hand and raising an eyebrow at the percentage.
“Yeah,” said Heechul, pushing a glass towards him. “We’re celebrating us being utter morons.”
“It’s not our fault, Heechul.”
“I know,” said Heechul, throwing the glass back, contents down his throat. He shook his head slightly at it. “Nothing’s ever my fault. You know that, Hankyung.”
Hankyung was silent. He picked up his glass and sniffed at it, before gasping back. “Stop being a wimp,” said Heechul without looking up. “Just fucking drink it and get drunk with me.”
“I’m a traitor too, Heechul.”
The statement was quiet, heartfelt - it was something that Hankyung had never wanted to bring up again. It was the one thing that they never spoke about to one another, Hankyung’s past, because it brought up concepts and feelings that they didn’t want to live with. Heechul was so fiercely loyal to Hankyung, the idea of Hankyung being the innocent party in it, the right party, that Hankyung had never told him that sometimes he wondered if he would betray the Kim family too, if he thought that it was the right thing to do.
Heechul looked up sharply, his gaze strangely focused for someone who had drank almost a full bottle of strong soju (and Hankyung didn’t know if there had been any previous bottles before he had found him). “That’s different, Hankyung,” he said in a low voice, anger creeping in. “You’ve never betrayed me.”
Hankyung inclined his head in agreement. “It is different. But still, I know what it is like to betray your family. Most likely, he won’t have made the decision lightly.”
“You’re under the mistaken impression that he’s betrayed his family,” muttered Heechul. “It’s us who’s in the shit, Hankyung.”
“But Choi Sikyu didn’t know about it,” said Hankyung. “Right?”
Heechul nodded. “Apparently he was as surprised and angry as Kangin and Eeteuk were.”
“So how would he be betraying us if his father knew nothing about it?”
Heechul rolled his eyes. “I don’t know, Hankyung,” he said, voice full of almost-amusement. “Don’t ask me to work out how that man’s mind works.”
“He doesn’t have a name now,” noted Hankyung.
Heechul looked him directly in the eye. “No,” he said. “He doesn’t.”
“It just makes no sense to me,” said Hankyung. “I mean, he fed us information, Heechul. Remember? He said that he’d overheard a Choi member talking in a bar, talking about that auction we crashed two weeks ago. Why would he have told us about it?”
“I don’t know!” snapped Heechul. “God, what am I supposed to be, a mind reader?”
“It just makes no sense to me,” said Hankyung heavily.
“Nothing ever does,” said Heechul, taking a sip. “Look, can we not talk about this? You’re ruining my attempt at oblivion.”
“Come on,” said Hankyung with a sigh. “I’m taking you home.”
“Who the fuck are you?” asked Heechul, with a half-hearted sneer. “My boyfriend?”
“Oh, for the love of god.” Hankyung picked the bottle up and held it out of Heechul’s reach. “You think I’m not pissed off at this?”
“At my drinking?” Heechul asked in mock amazement.
“At Siwon. I - I mean, we - you know how I feel.”
“Yeah,” said Heechul softly. “Yeah, I do. But there’s nothing we can do.”
“I know.” Hankyung put the bottle back down, and pulled Heechul up by the hand. “Come on. I want to get you home while you’re still capable of walking.”
“You should have a drink too,” said Heechul insistently. “It numbs everything, fucking fantastic.”
“One glass of that, and I won’t be able to drive,” said Hankyung.
“We’ll walk,” said Heechul with a shrug. “It’s how I got here.”
Hankyung rolled his eyes at him, and then stopped, as suddenly the memory of Siwon’s fingers tangled in his as Siwon kissed Heechul jumped into his mind, the recollection drowning him as it filled his mind and throat and heart. Quickly, he picked up the glass that he had left, completely full, on the table and drank it in one, heart-stopping, throat burning gulp.
Heechul cheered him on in the background; it made Hankyung feel like crying.
***
Donghae knocked softly on the office door, and waited for the call of allowing entrance. It came quickly, and when he pushed the door open, Kibum looked up and smiled softly at him; Donghae was just pleased to note that his fingers were shaking only a little. “I made some tea,” he said, holding up the cup he held in his hands. “I made some for you, if you wanted it?”
“Oh,” said Kibum, staring at him a little. “Yeah, that’s - thank you.”
Donghae walked into the room and put the cup softly on the desk, peering curiously at the paperwork on Kibum’s desk. Kibum didn’t stop him or make any sort of movement other than moving his pen over the paper, fearful that doing so would shatter the awkward truce that Donghae had apparently decided on that day.
“What are you working on?” asked Donghae curiously. He hardly ever did paperwork; they had found out the hard way during the first few weeks of his time there that he was terrible at it, and tended to get distracted by pretty butterflies or tree motions outside the window - once he had simply went to get some coffee and never came back to the office. Shindong had sent Ryeowook to go find him, and he had been found in Eunhyuk’s room playing a video game.
“It’s some of Siwon’s stuff,” said Kibum quietly. “I’m trying to work out if any of it is actually genuine.”
“That must be harder than it looks,” said Donghae, sitting down on a spare seat. “If it was enough to fool Eeteuk and Kangin.”
“They didn’t know what they were looking for,” said Kibum, distractedly, and then he glanced up at Donghae, who wasn’t looking at him, but rather at his feet, biting his bottom lip. “Are you okay?” Kibum asked, concerned.
Donghae jumped a little. “Yeah,” he said, stammering a little, fingers pushing into the material on his trousers. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
Kibum sighed inwardly, and then turned back to his paperwork. Donghae had taken to doing this recently, making a concerted effort to be around Kibum, trying to get over whatever was holding him back from being normal around him. On the one hand, Kibum felt like he should be pleased that Donghae was trying it - after a year and a half, he was now desperate for Donghae to at least be normal with him. On the other hand, he was annoyed that Donghae even had to attempt it, that he had to push himself to do it.
It hadn’t always been like that - once, at the start, Donghae had been friendly, almost frantic to be friends with someone, anyone, to have that safety net. In those early days, Kibum had been there for the horrible mood swings, the glaringly bright happiness morphing too quickly into deep melancholy (the likes of which seems to have disappeared almost completely from Donghae’s life now and it’s the almost completely that always plays on Kibum’s mind) during which it was impossible to get anything out of Donghae. He was there when Donghae slept, while the night terrors overtook him. Only Heechul had seen Donghae like that, body taut with spasms before his limbs flung out, screaming as he attempted to fight off whatever haunted him in his sleep. Only Heechul has seen that, because it was Kibum’s job to look after Donghae, and he didn’t trust anyone else to do it in his place when he needed it.
He knew that Donghae still has the dreams - Eeteuk put him the room directly next door to Sungmin, so that the two were together, with Eunhyuk just down the hallway, and Sungmin had come to Kibum a few times asking for advice on sleeping pills, for Donghae, to give him at least one night’s sleep. Kibum had done the best he could, and he thought that they worked to some extent - Donghae doesn’t look so tired, now.
But those early days, those days when Kibum could talk to Donghae like a normal person, when he could look after him with the older boy slipping to a silent husk, without him being that worn-out thing that had come to them - those days were when Kibum had fallen in love. Those moments when Donghae’s smile came through the clouds of his depression, Kibum had fallen in love with that. And then it snapped in Donghae’s mind, and he retreated into himself whenever Kibum was around.
Kibum didn’t want Donghae-the-servant, or Donghae-the-fucking-slave. Kibum wanted Donghae, the one who played games with Eunhyuk and teased Ryeowook and was constantly hounding Henry for English lessons. That was the Donghae that Kibum wanted, and he wasn’t sure, however hard Donghae tried, however hard Kibum tried to help, that he could have it.
“Donghae,” he said, the thought suddenly striking him. “You were pretty friendly with Siwon, right?”
“Yeah?” Donghae seemed unsure as to whether he should be admitting to it.
“Do you know whether any of these are likely to be real?” Kibum picked up the collection of education certificates, showing them to Donghae. “I mean, they’ve got his fake name on, but I was wondering whether Siwon actually did have all these things.”
“I don’t know,” said Donghae, taking them from him and flicking through them. “He was pretty clever, so they could be, but I never spoke to him about education.”
Oh, thought Kibum, wincing. Sungmin had told him that the Lee family hadn’t been thorough with their education, and when the decline set in, there had been no money to pay the tutors or school fees. Sungmin had always seemed a bit annoyed about that, and while Donghae never seemed bothered either way, much like Eunhyuk, Kibum still didn’t like to bring up the subject in front of him.
“Why don’t you ask Hankyung or Heechul?” Donghae handed the papers back. Kibum was careful to not let their fingers touch, but Donghae added, “If you want to,” in a respectful tone afterwards anyway.
“I can’t,” he said, with a bittersweet smile. “Both of them got drunk after last night, I don’t think either of them are even awake right now - and I wouldn’t want to be around Heechul when he wakes up anyway.”
Donghae put the sheets back on the table and stood up suddenly. “I want to hate him,” he said softly. Kibum didn’t say anything, he just looked at him levelly. “I want to hate him because he lied to us, and because of what he’s done to Heechul-hyung and Hankyung-hyung. I really want to hate him.”
“But you don’t,” said Kibum; it was a statement, it was obvious that Donghae didn’t hate Siwon.
“I should hate him,” said Donghae. “He’s a Choi, and I know better than anyone what they’re capable of. I’ve suffered at their - hands, and I - he’s different, to the other Choi members.”
“It may just be that he’s a good actor,” said Kibum, shrugging.
“You can’t fake that,” said Donghae. “The way he acted - it was sincere. I’ve been around Choi members, Sungmin has too, we’ve known what they’re like - and Siwon, he isn’t a typical member.”
Kibum shrugged again. “I understand what you’re trying to say, and I feel like I’m just playing devil’s advocate, but we can’t over-look the fact that he lied to us. The fake name, the fake family - it was all just an elaborate ploy, and we don’t even know why, Donghae.”
“I don’t know if I hate him, and I don’t know if I can forgive him, if we do get a reason.” Donghae shook his head. “You know as well as I what sort of a relationship he had with Heechul-hyung and Hankyung-hyung. He’ll have - ruined them. They trusted him with more than any of us trusted him with.”
Kibum stood up and walked around to stand in front of him. “I know,” he said, and then made the mistake of putting his hand on Donghae’s shoulder.
Fuck, thought Kibum, as Donghae’s eyes widened for a split second, before growing dull as he pulled in that feeler of friendship, the bodily contact, limited though it was, too much for him to handle. Kibum took a step back and lowered his hand as he noticed how Donghae’s face became strained.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. Donghae’s eyes remained lowered to the floor as he shook his head wordlessly. Kibum could only watch in dismay as Donghae quickly left the room; shoulders hunched down as if trying to not be noticed.