I Will Always Love You; Minho/Kyuhyun; PG [1/3]
Title: I WIll Always Love You [1/3]
Author royalwisteria
Rating: PG
Pairing/Focus: Minho/Kyuhyun
Summary: Minho wants everything to be okay, no matter how unrealistic that is.
WC: 7248
If you want to listen to music while reading, I suggest this Mate playlist. It's what I listened to while writing and it goes along well <3
The smell of freshly-cut grass is strong, so strong it is almost nauseating. Sweeping the back of his hand across his forehead in a gesture that is to either get the sweat or get his hair, Minho stares across the soccer field. The white lines delineating the parts are stark against the bright green. It is a beautiful summer’s day, but then again every summer day is beautiful.
Closing his eyes, he inhales deeply. This almost-nauseating smell is like heaven to him. It roots him, gives him the fullest sense of his being possible. It’s like he’s stuck in one spot, yet he’s so flexible the sense is hardly there.
He feels like he can do anything.
He blinks as a sweat drop rolls down the side of his face. It’s a beautiful, hot summer’s day and merely standing there is causing him to sweat. He isn’t on a run or anything, as his casual clothes can attest to. He is walking back from a convenience store, with microwaveable jajamyeong in a bag. Minho’s grip on the seemingly-fragile plastic handle tightens and he moves away from the field.
----
Classes seem interminably long. That is all that crosses Minho’s mind as he stares at his teacher from his seat somewhere near the back. Being so tall, and the nice guy he is, he’d switched seats with some short fellow. He’d begged Minho to please, please, please switch spots with him. He can’t see the board, he’s short-sighted you know. He would own Minho a big one. A huge one! In fact, he would treat Minho to noraebang! (as though it’s some prize, some special gift, and not a place where you go to sing, which he can’t do. doesn’t this guy know that? hasn’t he attested to Minho’s lack of singing capabilities and the way his voice only sounded okay whenever he spoke normally?)
Minho shrugs, smiles then nods at him. Then he packs his stuff up (he doesn’t leave much in his desk, so it doesn’t taken him very long) and moves to the second-to-last row. On one side is a guy who spends the entire school day drawing inappropriate things that can almost make Minho blush, if Minho blushes. On the other is a boy who seems intensely interested in whatever the teacher says. Minho can hardly comprehend such dedication towards the subject at hand or what’s on the board.
He’s never really cared for school, academics, grades and all that nonsense. It doesn’t really appeal to him the way running down the field, a soccer ball at the mercy of his skilled feet, does. The very thought of English makes him want to dunk his head into a bucket of cold water. At least it would clear his mind. This stuff just confuses him more.
And let’s not even go into calculus. That’s practically an entirely different planet. It makes him want to scream at the teacher and run and run and run and never look back.
The bell rings and Minho slouches in his seat from relief. It’s lunch. He reaches into his bag to pull out his home-made lunch, before he realizes his mistake. His throat tightens and stares at his hand. He flexes it, trying to make his fingers straight and stares at the lines that stand up on the back of his hands.
His hands look powerful, like they can do anything. Like they are in charge of the world and that nothing is ever going to stop them. No injuries, no lack of money, no nothing. His hands don’t take no for an answer. Really, most of his body had been trained for this sort of response. He excels in PE and can easily beat most of the boys in the school in any sort of race.
Now that he thinks about it, PE is probably the only class he gets A’s in. When his umma sees this, she smiles at him, reaches over and ruffles his hair, and say just how much like his father he is.
“No lunch?” The Guy-Who-Draws said the customary line and Minho gives him a smile and a shrug. If he remembered correctly, his name is Donghae. Though he really just knew that from the speech bubbles Donghae gives to his naked drawings.
“Yeah, I usually buy.” And then there was his customary line. It’s said nonchalantly, as though this is oh-so-normal. As though the words that came out of his mouth aren’t a lie, as though he really has for the past three years spent all that money on buying lunches from the cafeteria that never had enough spice.
As he stands up, there’s a sound from the boy on his other side. The studious one, the one who never looks away from the teacher or the comprehensive notes he takes. Glancing over, Minho is surprised to see the look on the boy’s face. There’s shock, surprise and then a sudden terror.
“What’s wrong?” He can’t help but say the line. He hadn’t really intended to speak to this guy, because really, what can they talk about? What do they have in common? He looks like he hardly goes outside and Minho is sure he could easily beat him in any race or test of strength. They are on two different sides of entirely separate universes. Their two types do not mix.
“They’re gone.”
“What?”
“My notebooks,” the guy says, looking at Minho with a desperate sort of look. “They’re gone.”
Puzzled, Minho raises an eyebrow. “What do you mean, gone?”
“What do you think I mean,” he says, Studious says, sarcasm lacing his tone. “That they decided to go and take a nice stroll around the park? My notebooks are gone. They’re not here.”
Minho isn’t quite sure how to take this. So maybe they aren’t from entirely separate universes if he is capable of such a tone and such words. “Um, are you sure you looked everywhere?”
From the look the guy gives him, Minho thought that maybe he went down to the intelligence level of a caterpillar in his esteem. Well. He clears his throat, in an attempt to do something (like what? try and repair his standing in the guy’s eyes? try and sound smarter than he is? what does it even matter?), but Studious is clearly done with him.
But really. Minho should know his name. What is with giving him an adjective and making that a proper noun? It is terrible. Really. But he has other things to worry about.
Like lunch. If he doesn’t move his ass right now, he isn’t going to get anything half-way decent (going by the cafeteria’s standards) and the lines will be hard to get through. Of course, being an athlete, it won’t be that difficult, just unnecessarily annoying.
When he gets back to the classroom, there is some sort of revolt going on. Minho doesn’t really want to get into it, but the guy, Studious (he should learn his name) is standing at the front of the classroom, standing tall with arms crossed. His face is stony, and he’s probably just pretending not to care about the way his hair falls carelessly in front of his face.
His hair is a pretty color. It shines in the sun and looks like some sort of flower that Minho had seen in some field. It is an ambiguous color, one that’s unnameable, but one that he will now always associate with him.
“None of us took your notes, Kyuhyun,” one guy says, his tone bored but the line of his body is tense. There’s a ball in his hand and he’s playing with it. Minho isn’t sure if it’s a tennis ball or a baseball. Either way, he is sure he doesn’t like the mere fact that it is in his hand. Something in his gut is telling him that something was going to to go downhill soon if he isn’t careful.
Downhill for who though? Not for him, certainly. This doesn’t involve him, though he feels bad for the guy (Kyuhyun? his name’s Kyuhyun?). His notes were clearly important to him, and Minho is sure that they could probably sell for a bit of money to some of those kids who cram last minute.
But it’s none of his business. Settling down with his tray of soup, rice and various side-dishes, he picks his chopsticks up in preparation to eat.
“If that’s the case, Siwon,” Kyuhyun says (Minho can’t help but pay attention to the unfolding drama. it’s not like he has anything better to do (other than study)). “Do you propose that fairies came and took them away?” The tone is mocking and acidic. Siwon isn’t really that bad of a guy. Minho remembers playing soccer with him while growing up and the way Siwon would team up with him and the way they dominated on the field.
The fist tightens on the ball and the body seems to obtain even more tension. Oh no, Minho is not going to get involved. He doesn’t have the energy to deal with this. He doesn’t have the care or the emotional responsibility to stand up and try and calm the situation down.
So he decides that he’s going to study. Rifling through the items in his desk, he pulls out his notebooks. He is going to study now (and ignore the looks Donghae is giving him, the looks telling him he’s crazy to be missing out on the nerd cracking). Might as well. It’s hard studying at home, though that is partially because of the reminders that surround him. They’re everywhere.
No. No. No no no no nononononono. No. N o. No.
He won’t think of it. He can’t think of it.
Everything is fine.
Until he realizes that the notebook he’s going through is not his. He swallows. No way. This is not funny. Fate must be playing some sort of trick on him. These are not his notes. They’re Kyuhyun’s. How they got in his desk is beyond him though.
Kyuhyun and Siwon are holding some sort of staring contest when Minho stands. It’s his duty to do this, really. He’s widely known as a nice, good guy and should stop this now, especially since the notebooks are in his possession. It’s not like he can just surreptitiously put them in Kyuhyun’s desk, especially since Kyuhyun would blow a fuse at how they had somehow appeared there and eye everyone in the class with suspicion.
The tension is already freakishly high. The saying ‘so thick you could cut it with a butter knife’ or whatever had never made sense to him, because tension is hard. It’s hard with a flinty surface that can never be cut with a butter knife. Tension is hard to break, because it always rebounds and hits the person who does so with a vengeance.
The tension is so high that everyone’s avoiding looking and not-looking at what’s going on. It’s weird. And then everyone’s eyes move to look at him, including Kyuhyun’s. They flicker to him, and Minho feels like freezing. He loses any sort of strength he has. He wants to go now, go and run away. He doesn’t want to stand up and say that he has the notebooks and deal with scorn. He wants to go to a corner, curl up and sleep for five years.
In five years, he’ll be done with university and would have a steady-paying job. He’ll be living on his own (what is living by himself anyways?) and he’ll be liked by his colleagues because he is just a likable guy.
(Or so he dreams. He’s not sure about being able to go to university, but he’s being pressured to go by all his teachers. They say he can get an athletic scholarship, but Minho doubts that he can get the scholarship if he doesn’t play any sports in school.)
“I found your notebooks,” Minho whispers and there he is, that butter knife scratching at the surface of the rock. The tension only grows higher.
Siwon laughs, loudly and raucously. It echoes a little and Minho tries not to wince. “Soccer boy found them, so go sit your ass back down.”
At that Minho does wince. Soccer boy? Is that how he is known in the class? Is this how Siwon remembers him? (when’s the last time he played? when’s the last time he put on his shinguards, when’s the last time he laced up his cleats or wore his soccer uniform or even gone out on a run? when when when?)
“Where did you find them Minho?”
(He registers a moment of surprise that Kyuhyun knows his name.)
He swallows. The look in Kyuhyun’s eyes is not friendly. It’s cold, fierce and unyielding. They are strong eyes, the eyes of someone who works hard for everything they have. Minho used to have those eyes.
“They were in my desk.”
The silence bothers him. Why is the entire class paying attention to him? Why can’t they pay attention to the way Donghae endlessly draws naked women in suggestive poses, or the way Jinki constantly trips and hurts himself, or the way Yesung has pictures of turtles over everything? Why are they looking at him now? Why did they never do anything at the right time? Some people will need an intervention, like the way Kibum tries not to let the harsh comments he receives bother him but it really does and Minho can tell by the scars on his skinny arms that he tries to hide. They make him want to do something spontaneous, but anything he would try to do for him would be rejected with a flat stare from eyeliner-lined eyes.
“Why were they there?”
“I don’t know.”
Kyuhyun is still staring at him. Those heavy eyes, those eyes that suddenly seem to look through him. They’re dark, a dark brown that almost seems like black from this far away. He’s not sure whether to be happy or upset that he’s in the back now. If he’d been in the front, Kyuhyun wouldn’t have looked so terrifying, but then he would’ve been closer. Which to choose which to choose.
He then steps away from the teacher’s desk and looks a bit defeated. It’s not obvious, but Minho can see the way his shoulders seem to slacken. He’d hoped to pin something on the class, as though in revenge for not caring about their grades, as though in revenge for not caring about him or his feelings or his wants or needs. (Or maybe that’s Minho projecting.)
“Next time, think before you accuse,” Siwon’s voice taunts as he tosses the (what Minho can see now is a) baseball up and down. Since when does Siwon play baseball? He clearly remembers playing soccer with him and the giddy smiles they’d had as they won a childhood tournament. Where did time go, where did their childhood go?
He wills Kyuhyun not to say anything, but from the little he’s finally experienced of Kyuhyun, he doubts that’s going to happen.
“Next time don’t silently intimidate me with a ball and grow a pair of your own.”
Someone whistles lowly, almost below their breath (Minho thinks it was the short guy who offered noraebang for his seat) as Kyuhyun passes by Siwon (too close too close too close) and then Siwon is moving and Minho tries to be faster and get there before Siwon, hitting his desk and upsetting his food tray onto the floor (at least it wasn’t onto the notebooks), but he’s too late and Kyuhyun is hit.
----
How is he going to go home like this? The mirror in the nurse’s office is said to take off ten pounds, but Minho doesn’t need ten pounds taken off his tall, lithe (skinny?) frame. He needs a mirror that will take the bruises off his face and the blood stain on his shirt away.
Kyuhyun’s lying in a bed somewhere behind him and Siwon is in the principal’s office without treatment first. He can somewhat imagine the pain Kyuhyun is going through, but Minho supposes that he had a higher pain tolerance than Kyuhyun did. It was just a guess, a good guess from the way the other had flinched so heavily when Siwon first moved and had groaned low and deep from his throat when first punched. It had been a good one, coming from the right as was Siwon’s tendency. It’s Siwon’s strength.
His jaw hurts, and there are various bruises along his body. Or so he guesses. Looking at his face, he is positive. There has to be at least five on his torso, if his memory of the tussle is correct. Five because Siwon is always clever enough not to throw as many at a face because that’s far more incriminating. Minho’s just the type to throw a low punch, so Siwon’s face had been mostly untouched (there had been a stray attempt by Kyuhyun and he was just lucky to have actually hit his nose. that’s where the blood on his shirt was from, Siwon’s bleeding nose).
Fingers trembling a little from exhaustion (fighting is so tiring), he unbuttons his shirt with as much care as he could (what’s the point of being careful? moving caused pain, unbuttoning a shirt with less care will hardly make a difference).
And he grimaces. He’s right. The fight had happened maybe twenty minutes ago, and there are already several ripe bruises on his torso. There’s one on the lower-right side of his ribcage, one a little higher closer to the center on the left, and he didn’t want to look anymore.
But then he takes his shirt off to see how his back is. Did he get bruises on his back? It’s a masochistic need to know. He wants to see it. There isn’t a bruise from a punch, but he clearly remembers being pushed over a desk and the edge of the desk cutting into his skin in a way that makes him think he might have gotten a cut.
There’s a red line that has that look of having been almost-scratched. There are a few flakes of skin lifting up and he can feel the tenderness of it.
“That looks like it hurts.”
He can see Kyuhyun in the mirror, peering at him with one eye half-shut and a split lip. Siwon hadn’t been as clever with him, but then again Minho isn’t sure if that was from Siwon hitting him or from Kyuhyun’s own flailing in the debacle.
“At least I gave as good as I got,” Minho shot back as he pulls his shirt back on. The movement causes him to grimace as his bruises received what was clearly unwanted attention.
And Kyuhyun just whistles, a low sound that mimicked the pleasant pitch of his voice. “You have more spunk then I had given you credit for,” he says, a small smirk gracing his features. Minho shot him a look and then does a double take.
He looks weird. Well, it’s not that his face is weird, because it really isn’t (in fact it’s kind of pretty with a nice oval shape that has a slightly square chin, but in a good way), but the current placement of his body is. He’s still on one of the beds and has the curtains pulled tight around his face.
“What are you doing?” He asks, and Minho can’t really keep the amusement from his tone. He really should be annoyed, because the entire situation is annoying (why had the notebooks been in his desk and why had he jumped up when Kyuhyun was jumped? Was it from some sense of duty or loyalty or respect towards the classroom and the classroom unity?).
Minho can tell Kyuhyun shrugs by the way the curtains bunch up. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Minho doesn’t know what to say to that, so he doesn’t say anything. He just finishes buttoning up his shirt, his long fingers making quick work of easy work. Then, without looking at Kyuhyun again (he has a feeling that he doesn’t want to be involved in whatever Kyuhyun would get him involved with. it’s not like he thinks he’s a gangster or anything, but it’s more the idea of what he is and what he stands for that has Minho backing away cautiously because he isn’t sure if he can handle it if he can deal with it), he leaves the nurse’s office.
There’s a sound of some sort of tussle going on behind him and some swearing. He pauses for a moment, curious, but then berates himself. No. He is going to look forward and walk in that direction. There’s no looking back for him, no pausing on his road.
The hallways seem long. Longer than his classes, longer than his soccer field. His sturdy, black, leather shoes make that sound they did when he walks on the linoleum floor and the lockers gleam with that dim, dull blue. They seem long despite the long strides his long legs can make.
“Hey, wait a second!”
He doesn’t want to, but he decided to be polite and give a cursory glance over his shoulder. Just to see who it is.
It’s Kyuhyun, racing towards him, only two buttons done on his shirt and the ends flying up and down with the movement of his gait. He’s wincing as he makes his way towards Minho, clearly in pain. He wonders about the bruises Kyuhyun might have on him, but the question is unnecessary. He can see a nasty one, already colored a blue purple on his stomach. Minho remembers the first punch hitting him there, which makes sense. The first punch probably had the most velocity and therefore power.
“Do you need something?”
Is that his voice? He sounds unnaturally cold. His voice is usually warm, nice and people say that he has the sort of voice they wanted to hear telling them stories when they die.
But Kyuhyun doesn’t seem to notice. Or maybe he doesn’t mind or doesn’t care.
“Y-you, you didn’t give me.... the time...” he says, panting. His words are a bit incomprehensible so Minho raises his hand to pause him.
“Take your time.” Take your time? He doesn’t have time. He has to go home and then leave for work (because he has to work work work to pay for things like his lunches and he wonders how other people manage to get by).
Kyuhyun gives him a look that terrifies Minho because it’s a look that seems to read his mind.
“I just wanted to say thanks.”
Minho shrugs, wishing he can cross his arms and take his customary pose. Legs slightly apart, arms crossed and looking a little down at everyone, because there aren’t really that many people that are taller than him (at least that were his age). “For having your books?”
There’s a lifted eyebrow and it’s the one on his right side, so it goes up into his fringe. The fringe that must be annoying, or at least it seems to Minho because he liked keeping his hair a medium-short length and his hair never falls into his eyes the way this guy’s does.
“That and for getting Siwon off me.”
“It’s nothing you should thank me for,” he says, and he isn’t quite sure why he is saying these things. He can be nice and just say thanks and walk away, none the worse (or better). But he doesn’t. “It’s not like I could let him punch the crap out of you. Which,” he adds, putting emphasis on these words, “he would have,” the emphasis indicating just how weak he thinks Kyuhyun is.
It he’s on the level of a caterpillar in Kyuhyun’s eyes, then Kyuhyun’s on the level of a kitten in Minho’s eyes.
He is just a fluffy creature with fluffy hair. Just that.
“Let me get this straight then,” the tone’s wry and Minho isn’t sure he likes it, “you pulled Siwon off me and fought him because you thought he would have beaten the crap out of me. An you thought it’d be better if he beat the crap out of both of us.”
Minho feels a little embarrassed when it’s put in those terms. “He could have done a lot worse.” He remembers a time when Siwon broke someone’s leg in soccer. It had been an accident, or so he had said, but Minho remembers the vicious look in Siwon’s eyes, the way he seemed pleased with the replacement and the rearrangement of their positions.
Siwon is no idle character, waiting for the right moment. He decides what the right moment is and he seizes it with everything he has, with every molecule of strength he has (which is a lot). If Siwon had wanted to beat Kyuhyun to a pulp, with his face hardly recognizable underneath the bruises and a broken nose, he would have. Minho had saved Kyuhyun, but he had saved him on principle. He wasn’t going to let someone beat another person up over something as stupid as what had happened.
It had all been on principle.
“His biceps are rather large.”
Minho lets out a snort. “Maybe you should have realized that before you said he had no balls.”
He smiles and Minho is captivated by the way it seems tilted in one direction and the slight show of teeth. “He makes it too easy.”
“That doesn’t mean you should actually say it,” he says, with a slight shake of his head as he stares at those lips and that smile.
The smile on Kyuhyun’s face broadens and Minho doesn’t know what he’s going to do with himself.
“I don’t think we’ve been formally introduced. I’m Cho Kyuhyun.”
Minho stares at the hand. The fingers are long and tapered and it seems almost too skinny. He wonders who has the larger hands, or rather who has the longer fingers. He’d always prided himself on how he has nice hands, but Kyuhyun’s almost seem to blow his out of the water.
He sticks his hand out and grasps Kyuhyun’s firmly. “Choi Minho.”
The smile is Cheshire-like. “I know.”
And Minho smiles back.
----
Minho doesn’t know what to make of the strange relationship-friendship they then strike up. Kyuhyun hardly talks to him in class, but he accompanies Minho to the cafeteria and makes degrading remarks about the food, the people and the color of the walls. He tries to hold back his snickers, especially when Kyuhyun makes comments about people he knows, but he can’t help it (then he feels bad when they give him looks because they used to be friends, some of them used to be on the soccer team with him. he can hear their voices in his head ‘why won’t he stand up for them? people sure do change, huh’).
And then Minho doesn’t find it so funny and he shuffles away so he doesn’t feel like he’s being accused (and it’s not just for not standing up for them).
But it’s great. Minho feels like he’s getting comfortable and settling down once again. He still eyes Siwon in case of some sort of comeback, but he remains with his buddies (Leeteuk and Heechul and Kangin) and doesn’t approach either of them. The bruises on all of their faces fade away although Kyuhyun’s take a bit longer to heal. They had been the worst ones given after all.
Minho’s ribs still hurt and he will bet anything that the bruise on Kyuhyun’s stomach hurts every time he breaths and every time he moves. But the smirky little smile he usually has on his face whenever he’s around Minho never fades or dims or goes away. He’s not sure how to understand this. Was being around Minho that great? Was it that nice, that amusing?
These thoughts tend to plague him, but then Kyuhyun would say some snarky thing or raise his eyebrow that hides behind his hair and Minho doesn’t want to think about it anymore because he feels somewhat happy.
Kyuhyun even lends Minho his notes. (Properly this time.)
----
He passes by the soccer field every day on the way to and from school and he pauses each time. Today there are people out there playing and today he’s not alone. Kyuhyun, standing on his other side, pauses when Minho does and looks across the field.
“I bet they fail their tests,” he says, and he says it more like it’s a statement of truth than anything else.
Minho doesn’t say anything (because it’s mostly true, they don’t do well on their tests) and they go to noraebang (the short guy, Jonghyun, pays for them). He tries to sing but he prefers to just sit and rest while Kyuhyun sings.
His voice is magical, a lovely tenor bass that makes him think of when he was five and would run through the field across the street. And he watches Kyuhyun who clearly enjoys singing and knows, just knows, that he will go wherever he wants. He has the intellect and a voice that is extraordinary.
A voice that heals.
----
They don’t go out very often and Minho never tells Kyuhyun why he prefers to leave the moment school ends. He doesn’t tell Kyuhyun about the part-time job he has, nor does he ever invite him to his house, even though Kyuhyun has invited him over a few times.
He finds out that Kyuhyun loves gaming. They sit down and go through all of the games he owns to find the few that were capable of multiplayer. He is given the option and without a thought he chooses the soccer one. It’s a mistake, but he tries as hard as he can to look as though this sort of thing is normal for him. As though playing a game through the screen is enough for him, as though he’s never really played soccer with all his might and all his joy and had thrown his entire self into playing.
They usually go out to noraebang or just walk around the city, peering into shop windows and checking out girls in the subway.
They don’t talk much beyond the surface. They speak of class, weather, a shop, how short that skirt is and Kyuhyun loves talking of how Siwon is such a brute.
They don’t talk of their families (though Minho has met Kyuhyun’s. his sister is in university and she had been in a rush, carrying a violin and his parents are lovely and polite) and they don’t talk of anything important.
Yet what they do say somehow is important. It makes him think of the future that stretches in front of them and how he wishes that everyone he knows will be okay in the end. He hopes that Donghae will become less childish and learn that he really should be doing something constructive with his time, that Jinki will be able to use his natural clumsiness to his advantage and that Yesung will stop putting pictures of turtles on his notebooks and folders and giving them as birthday presents. No one wants them.
He finds Kibum one day in the bathroom, though he bets that he hadn’t wanted to be found. The stall door didn’t lock properly and it’s accidental he finds him slumped over and unconscious.
Minho almost panics, but then calms his mind down enough to go and get the nurse. Kibum’s fine and it’s an issue of not eating enough. But it’s enough to remind Minho of things he spends long amounts of time trying to put in a corner of his mind and forget.
----
“Um, Minho.”
It’s lunch and he’s going over some notes for the calc test they had next period with Kyuhyun. Minho isn’t sure how well the studying’s going because he had been greatly distracted by how into the math Kyuhyun seems. It absorbs him in a way that Minho aches to feel. In fact, Minho almost didn’t want to tear his eyes away from the way Kyuhyun slowly blinks as he’s torn from the calc.
It’s adorable.
But the person who’s asking for his attention is Kibum and Minho doesn’t know how to deal with this. He stares at Kibum, who clearly seems nervous, and feels his own stomach start to move and feels nauseous and like puking his lunch. This isn’t the end he had wanted for helping him. He prefers Kibum leaving him alone and pretending that nothing had ever happened.
Minho’s happier just keeping a quiet watch on him and hoping that no new scars will appear and that he won’t have to think that Kibum had attempted suicide.
“Something wrong?” He asks, trying to keep his tone light and as though nothing had happened. Because nothing had happened.
“I wanted to, you know, reassure you.” Kibum is twisting his hands and Minho feels his heart sink further and further. He can feel Kyuhyun’s eyes on him, his attention now completely away from the math in front of him.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Minho says and regrets the slightly desperate tone in his voice. It’s bound to hurt Kibum in some fashion, which it does if the slight flicker in his eyebrows is any indication. And then Kibum walks away, his back stiff.
He doesn’t meant to hurt him. He really doesn’t. Kibum is hurting enough as is without Minho adding to the pile of shit that’s on his plate. He hates hurting people and he hates the way Kyuhyun is now looking at him, with a look in his eye that somehow seems to be able to convey the world and just how disappointed he is in him, because Minho will never be enough and he needs to try harder and harder and harder until he can’t try anymore. Only then will he be proud of Minho.
“That was unusual.”
Minho shrugs. “Yeah, Kibum and I don’t really know each other very well.”
Kyuhyun’s eyes seem to be even more disappointed with Minho. He doesn’t want to see that so he looks down at the calculus and tries to think about something else.
“I was talking about you. You’re not usually so cruel.”
Minho flinches and he knows it’s because Kyuhyun is absolutely right. But he pretends he doesn’t hear what he says and asks a question about the work in front of them.
Kyuhyun lets it go, though Minho feels this sinking pit in his stomach at the thought of just where he is in Kyuhyun’s esteem now.
----
After school, Minho doesn’t leave straight-away. His job starts in half an hour, so he’ll have a bit of time in which he can talk with Kibum. Because he really does feel bad, and if he leaves it like this he’ll regret it. He’ll regret it like he regrets so many other things.
But when Kibum sees him, he’s ignored. He moves past him and grabs his stuff as though Minho isn’t standing right there by them. Minho remembers that he hates being treated like he’s invisible. (Though, oddly enough, that’s happening more and more often lately.)
“Kibum,” he says and Kibum pauses in his actions and gives Minho a blank look. “I’m sorry.”
“About what?”
He swallows and it’s like he’s reaching out and trying to strangle his pride. “I did know what you were talking about.”
“Ah, is that so.”
Kibum is clearly not going to make this easy for him, but Minho doesn’t mind. This is like penance for him. Kibum’s blazer rides just a bit above his wrist and Minho remembers the scars he’s seen there and higher up. He remembers the way that Kibum can be careful, so so careful about moving his arms in certain ways and Minho is certain that when he does so it’s because there are fresh cuts. He knows why Kibum likes wearing lots of bracelets during the summer despite how doing so is against school regulations. He knows and remembers but he never does anything. He never ever does anything.
“I’m sorry for not being a good person and not trying.”
This is not what Kibum expects and Minho can read the surprise in his eyes and in the way his mouth parts slightly.
“I’m sorry that I can’t do anything for you.”
They stand there, Minho feeling awkward and wishing he hadn’t done this (even though he knows this was the right thing to do and that he’d been raised to do the right thing and apologize when he does something bad) and with Kibum staring at him.
Then he leaves.
Kibum joins Minho and Kyuhyun during lunch the next day and helps them out with their English homework.
----
Minho’s sister gets a boyfriend and he’s sure he should be upset or ask more about it or something be something be the older brother he’s supposed to be but he. just. can’t. work up the emotion anymore.
It’s her life.
She didn’t even tell him. He just looks out their front window one day and sees her with some guy. She’s smiling and he remembers the last time she smiled like that was when they were children. Minho would chase her around the kitchen for fun and she would trip and then cry, but she would be all right in the end. And he would hug her and apologize and she would smile brilliantly while telling him that it was all right.
He wishes she would smile more.
----
Exams pass and Minho is pleasantly surprised when he finds out he got an A in math. In celebration he, Kyuhyun and Kibum go out shopping and they somehow make Minho buy clothes (apparently he doesn’t own enough). He wonders if he can actually afford what he’s being pressured to buy.
With a childish smile that sort of sends thrills down Minho’s spine and with the lights of the city reflecting in his dark eyes, Kyuhyun hands over some matching phone charms he had bought at a store they had passed by earlier. A disco ball for Kibum, a baseball for himself and a soccer ball for Minho.
He doesn’t know how to interpret the smile that Kyuhyun is giving him and doesn’t know what to do with the small, leather soccer ball that represents a past he’s trying to distance himself from.
Kyuhyun probably got him the soccer ball because of Siwon’s comment and the game he had chosen. (Both events seem like so long ago, but they had only been a few or a couple months ago.)
Later, after Kibum had left, Kyuhyun gives him something else. It’s a bag with tissue paper, concealing the contents, and Minho can’t think of why he’s receiving such a present. He says his thanks as a question and Kyuhyun looks puzzled before laughing and saying goodbye.
The laugh is so carefree and light it makes Minho’s heart ache.
----
After going to his room (and turning the lights off in every room so he doesn’t have to see), Minho carefully empties the bag. There’s a card and a mini gumball machine. Puzzled, he opens the card and reads it.
Minho
I know this is a few days late, but I thought it’d be best to put it off until you found out about your test results.
Happy belated birthday! I hope you have many, happy years in the future.
Kyuhyun
(there are 50 gumballs in there right now and is refillable. apparently they sell them at convenience stores. when you run out, buy them yourself)
He doesn’t even realize he’s crying until a tear rolls off the edge of his chin and lands on the letter. Sniffing and insisting that this isn’t unusual, that this is normal, he wipes his face and folds the letter back up reverently.
How had Kyuhyun even known when his birthday is when everyone else (including Minho himself) forgot?
----
At school, Minho soon becomes unsure on how to face Kyuhyun. His heart will inexplicably start beating faster and during class his head will be turned slightly to his left to stare at Kyuhyun as he takes down his notes.
He takes this precious time to note down details he might forget.
Like how Kyuhyun holds his pen tightly, the shape of the glasses he sometimes wore and the slight dip in his forehead when he doesn’t understand what the teacher is talking about. The small dimple that shows fleetingly when he glances over at Minho and smiles.
Just the entire air Kyuhyun has. It’s mesmerizing and so, so addicting.
----
He is one of those few people that truly enjoy winter. He likes the way the snow will make him put on five extra layers and wear boots that have spikes for the ice and he even likes the dirty mush that the snow turns into. It’s all a natural cycle, so there’s no reason to hate it.
He likes the way it smells outside. So crisp and cold it makes him feel like he’s breathing ice that scratches up his throat. It’s always what he wants and what he needs.
He hates the spring. He hates the way the flowers will start to bloom and then are killed by a frost that came late. He hates the way the trees change from their starkness and that the grass will appear and act as though nothing had happened.
Because something had happened. Something has happened and it’s pretending like it’s fine, as though nothing was wrong.
He hates it.
----
Christmas and then New Year’s pass. Over the holidays, Minho stays at home and makes his little sister help clean the place up (instead of sneaking out for a date with her ‘secret’ boyfriend). There’s dust everywhere and certain rooms and items of furniture haven’t been touched in months, if not years. That haven’t even been looked at in years.
Although the Choi family is Christian, there is no celebration. There are no presents, no tree, no holiday cheer of any sort. Minho’s jealous of the picture Kyuhyun sends him of the tree his family has and the happy picture his family is.
He’s jealous that Kyuhyun can be so fine without him when Minho has started relying on him for making him smile and a comment that will lift his spirits and make him feel like everything can be alright.
He wants Kyuhyun to need Minho just as much as Minho needs Kyuhyun.
----
Minho wants the days of late autumn back. The days when he doesn’t have to think about graduation, the days when he was so sure that he was straight. Because now all he can think of is Kyuhyun’s smile, the way he bites his lips and hold his pencil to his lips as he listens to their teacher, his laugh, how he is always exactly where Minho needed him when he needs him.
Minho wants the days where he knew exactly who he was back. The days where he knew what he wanted. (Though those days are farther away then the autumn.)
But he’s pretty sure that, no matter how far back he goes, he will still fall in love with Kyuhyun.
But all that is pointless. There is no going back.
Minho knows that very well.
A/N: ahhh, this is my first time writing a kpop fic, much less posting something in a community, so sorry if I did tags/formatting wrong D: I'll try to fix it.
I wrote this for a friend who saw this video and absolutely loved it and requested a Kyuho fic (so named by myself). this is going to be a fic in three parts and I hope the second part will be done within the next week (for those who liked it) and pleae comment, give c/c!
pt 2 pt 3
Author royalwisteria
Rating: PG
Pairing/Focus: Minho/Kyuhyun
Summary: Minho wants everything to be okay, no matter how unrealistic that is.
WC: 7248
If you want to listen to music while reading, I suggest this Mate playlist. It's what I listened to while writing and it goes along well <3
The smell of freshly-cut grass is strong, so strong it is almost nauseating. Sweeping the back of his hand across his forehead in a gesture that is to either get the sweat or get his hair, Minho stares across the soccer field. The white lines delineating the parts are stark against the bright green. It is a beautiful summer’s day, but then again every summer day is beautiful.
Closing his eyes, he inhales deeply. This almost-nauseating smell is like heaven to him. It roots him, gives him the fullest sense of his being possible. It’s like he’s stuck in one spot, yet he’s so flexible the sense is hardly there.
He feels like he can do anything.
He blinks as a sweat drop rolls down the side of his face. It’s a beautiful, hot summer’s day and merely standing there is causing him to sweat. He isn’t on a run or anything, as his casual clothes can attest to. He is walking back from a convenience store, with microwaveable jajamyeong in a bag. Minho’s grip on the seemingly-fragile plastic handle tightens and he moves away from the field.
----
Classes seem interminably long. That is all that crosses Minho’s mind as he stares at his teacher from his seat somewhere near the back. Being so tall, and the nice guy he is, he’d switched seats with some short fellow. He’d begged Minho to please, please, please switch spots with him. He can’t see the board, he’s short-sighted you know. He would own Minho a big one. A huge one! In fact, he would treat Minho to noraebang! (as though it’s some prize, some special gift, and not a place where you go to sing, which he can’t do. doesn’t this guy know that? hasn’t he attested to Minho’s lack of singing capabilities and the way his voice only sounded okay whenever he spoke normally?)
Minho shrugs, smiles then nods at him. Then he packs his stuff up (he doesn’t leave much in his desk, so it doesn’t taken him very long) and moves to the second-to-last row. On one side is a guy who spends the entire school day drawing inappropriate things that can almost make Minho blush, if Minho blushes. On the other is a boy who seems intensely interested in whatever the teacher says. Minho can hardly comprehend such dedication towards the subject at hand or what’s on the board.
He’s never really cared for school, academics, grades and all that nonsense. It doesn’t really appeal to him the way running down the field, a soccer ball at the mercy of his skilled feet, does. The very thought of English makes him want to dunk his head into a bucket of cold water. At least it would clear his mind. This stuff just confuses him more.
And let’s not even go into calculus. That’s practically an entirely different planet. It makes him want to scream at the teacher and run and run and run and never look back.
The bell rings and Minho slouches in his seat from relief. It’s lunch. He reaches into his bag to pull out his home-made lunch, before he realizes his mistake. His throat tightens and stares at his hand. He flexes it, trying to make his fingers straight and stares at the lines that stand up on the back of his hands.
His hands look powerful, like they can do anything. Like they are in charge of the world and that nothing is ever going to stop them. No injuries, no lack of money, no nothing. His hands don’t take no for an answer. Really, most of his body had been trained for this sort of response. He excels in PE and can easily beat most of the boys in the school in any sort of race.
Now that he thinks about it, PE is probably the only class he gets A’s in. When his umma sees this, she smiles at him, reaches over and ruffles his hair, and say just how much like his father he is.
“No lunch?” The Guy-Who-Draws said the customary line and Minho gives him a smile and a shrug. If he remembered correctly, his name is Donghae. Though he really just knew that from the speech bubbles Donghae gives to his naked drawings.
“Yeah, I usually buy.” And then there was his customary line. It’s said nonchalantly, as though this is oh-so-normal. As though the words that came out of his mouth aren’t a lie, as though he really has for the past three years spent all that money on buying lunches from the cafeteria that never had enough spice.
As he stands up, there’s a sound from the boy on his other side. The studious one, the one who never looks away from the teacher or the comprehensive notes he takes. Glancing over, Minho is surprised to see the look on the boy’s face. There’s shock, surprise and then a sudden terror.
“What’s wrong?” He can’t help but say the line. He hadn’t really intended to speak to this guy, because really, what can they talk about? What do they have in common? He looks like he hardly goes outside and Minho is sure he could easily beat him in any race or test of strength. They are on two different sides of entirely separate universes. Their two types do not mix.
“They’re gone.”
“What?”
“My notebooks,” the guy says, looking at Minho with a desperate sort of look. “They’re gone.”
Puzzled, Minho raises an eyebrow. “What do you mean, gone?”
“What do you think I mean,” he says, Studious says, sarcasm lacing his tone. “That they decided to go and take a nice stroll around the park? My notebooks are gone. They’re not here.”
Minho isn’t quite sure how to take this. So maybe they aren’t from entirely separate universes if he is capable of such a tone and such words. “Um, are you sure you looked everywhere?”
From the look the guy gives him, Minho thought that maybe he went down to the intelligence level of a caterpillar in his esteem. Well. He clears his throat, in an attempt to do something (like what? try and repair his standing in the guy’s eyes? try and sound smarter than he is? what does it even matter?), but Studious is clearly done with him.
But really. Minho should know his name. What is with giving him an adjective and making that a proper noun? It is terrible. Really. But he has other things to worry about.
Like lunch. If he doesn’t move his ass right now, he isn’t going to get anything half-way decent (going by the cafeteria’s standards) and the lines will be hard to get through. Of course, being an athlete, it won’t be that difficult, just unnecessarily annoying.
When he gets back to the classroom, there is some sort of revolt going on. Minho doesn’t really want to get into it, but the guy, Studious (he should learn his name) is standing at the front of the classroom, standing tall with arms crossed. His face is stony, and he’s probably just pretending not to care about the way his hair falls carelessly in front of his face.
His hair is a pretty color. It shines in the sun and looks like some sort of flower that Minho had seen in some field. It is an ambiguous color, one that’s unnameable, but one that he will now always associate with him.
“None of us took your notes, Kyuhyun,” one guy says, his tone bored but the line of his body is tense. There’s a ball in his hand and he’s playing with it. Minho isn’t sure if it’s a tennis ball or a baseball. Either way, he is sure he doesn’t like the mere fact that it is in his hand. Something in his gut is telling him that something was going to to go downhill soon if he isn’t careful.
Downhill for who though? Not for him, certainly. This doesn’t involve him, though he feels bad for the guy (Kyuhyun? his name’s Kyuhyun?). His notes were clearly important to him, and Minho is sure that they could probably sell for a bit of money to some of those kids who cram last minute.
But it’s none of his business. Settling down with his tray of soup, rice and various side-dishes, he picks his chopsticks up in preparation to eat.
“If that’s the case, Siwon,” Kyuhyun says (Minho can’t help but pay attention to the unfolding drama. it’s not like he has anything better to do (other than study)). “Do you propose that fairies came and took them away?” The tone is mocking and acidic. Siwon isn’t really that bad of a guy. Minho remembers playing soccer with him while growing up and the way Siwon would team up with him and the way they dominated on the field.
The fist tightens on the ball and the body seems to obtain even more tension. Oh no, Minho is not going to get involved. He doesn’t have the energy to deal with this. He doesn’t have the care or the emotional responsibility to stand up and try and calm the situation down.
So he decides that he’s going to study. Rifling through the items in his desk, he pulls out his notebooks. He is going to study now (and ignore the looks Donghae is giving him, the looks telling him he’s crazy to be missing out on the nerd cracking). Might as well. It’s hard studying at home, though that is partially because of the reminders that surround him. They’re everywhere.
No. No. No no no no nononononono. No. N o. No.
He won’t think of it. He can’t think of it.
Everything is fine.
Until he realizes that the notebook he’s going through is not his. He swallows. No way. This is not funny. Fate must be playing some sort of trick on him. These are not his notes. They’re Kyuhyun’s. How they got in his desk is beyond him though.
Kyuhyun and Siwon are holding some sort of staring contest when Minho stands. It’s his duty to do this, really. He’s widely known as a nice, good guy and should stop this now, especially since the notebooks are in his possession. It’s not like he can just surreptitiously put them in Kyuhyun’s desk, especially since Kyuhyun would blow a fuse at how they had somehow appeared there and eye everyone in the class with suspicion.
The tension is already freakishly high. The saying ‘so thick you could cut it with a butter knife’ or whatever had never made sense to him, because tension is hard. It’s hard with a flinty surface that can never be cut with a butter knife. Tension is hard to break, because it always rebounds and hits the person who does so with a vengeance.
The tension is so high that everyone’s avoiding looking and not-looking at what’s going on. It’s weird. And then everyone’s eyes move to look at him, including Kyuhyun’s. They flicker to him, and Minho feels like freezing. He loses any sort of strength he has. He wants to go now, go and run away. He doesn’t want to stand up and say that he has the notebooks and deal with scorn. He wants to go to a corner, curl up and sleep for five years.
In five years, he’ll be done with university and would have a steady-paying job. He’ll be living on his own (what is living by himself anyways?) and he’ll be liked by his colleagues because he is just a likable guy.
(Or so he dreams. He’s not sure about being able to go to university, but he’s being pressured to go by all his teachers. They say he can get an athletic scholarship, but Minho doubts that he can get the scholarship if he doesn’t play any sports in school.)
“I found your notebooks,” Minho whispers and there he is, that butter knife scratching at the surface of the rock. The tension only grows higher.
Siwon laughs, loudly and raucously. It echoes a little and Minho tries not to wince. “Soccer boy found them, so go sit your ass back down.”
At that Minho does wince. Soccer boy? Is that how he is known in the class? Is this how Siwon remembers him? (when’s the last time he played? when’s the last time he put on his shinguards, when’s the last time he laced up his cleats or wore his soccer uniform or even gone out on a run? when when when?)
“Where did you find them Minho?”
(He registers a moment of surprise that Kyuhyun knows his name.)
He swallows. The look in Kyuhyun’s eyes is not friendly. It’s cold, fierce and unyielding. They are strong eyes, the eyes of someone who works hard for everything they have. Minho used to have those eyes.
“They were in my desk.”
The silence bothers him. Why is the entire class paying attention to him? Why can’t they pay attention to the way Donghae endlessly draws naked women in suggestive poses, or the way Jinki constantly trips and hurts himself, or the way Yesung has pictures of turtles over everything? Why are they looking at him now? Why did they never do anything at the right time? Some people will need an intervention, like the way Kibum tries not to let the harsh comments he receives bother him but it really does and Minho can tell by the scars on his skinny arms that he tries to hide. They make him want to do something spontaneous, but anything he would try to do for him would be rejected with a flat stare from eyeliner-lined eyes.
“Why were they there?”
“I don’t know.”
Kyuhyun is still staring at him. Those heavy eyes, those eyes that suddenly seem to look through him. They’re dark, a dark brown that almost seems like black from this far away. He’s not sure whether to be happy or upset that he’s in the back now. If he’d been in the front, Kyuhyun wouldn’t have looked so terrifying, but then he would’ve been closer. Which to choose which to choose.
He then steps away from the teacher’s desk and looks a bit defeated. It’s not obvious, but Minho can see the way his shoulders seem to slacken. He’d hoped to pin something on the class, as though in revenge for not caring about their grades, as though in revenge for not caring about him or his feelings or his wants or needs. (Or maybe that’s Minho projecting.)
“Next time, think before you accuse,” Siwon’s voice taunts as he tosses the (what Minho can see now is a) baseball up and down. Since when does Siwon play baseball? He clearly remembers playing soccer with him and the giddy smiles they’d had as they won a childhood tournament. Where did time go, where did their childhood go?
He wills Kyuhyun not to say anything, but from the little he’s finally experienced of Kyuhyun, he doubts that’s going to happen.
“Next time don’t silently intimidate me with a ball and grow a pair of your own.”
Someone whistles lowly, almost below their breath (Minho thinks it was the short guy who offered noraebang for his seat) as Kyuhyun passes by Siwon (too close too close too close) and then Siwon is moving and Minho tries to be faster and get there before Siwon, hitting his desk and upsetting his food tray onto the floor (at least it wasn’t onto the notebooks), but he’s too late and Kyuhyun is hit.
----
How is he going to go home like this? The mirror in the nurse’s office is said to take off ten pounds, but Minho doesn’t need ten pounds taken off his tall, lithe (skinny?) frame. He needs a mirror that will take the bruises off his face and the blood stain on his shirt away.
Kyuhyun’s lying in a bed somewhere behind him and Siwon is in the principal’s office without treatment first. He can somewhat imagine the pain Kyuhyun is going through, but Minho supposes that he had a higher pain tolerance than Kyuhyun did. It was just a guess, a good guess from the way the other had flinched so heavily when Siwon first moved and had groaned low and deep from his throat when first punched. It had been a good one, coming from the right as was Siwon’s tendency. It’s Siwon’s strength.
His jaw hurts, and there are various bruises along his body. Or so he guesses. Looking at his face, he is positive. There has to be at least five on his torso, if his memory of the tussle is correct. Five because Siwon is always clever enough not to throw as many at a face because that’s far more incriminating. Minho’s just the type to throw a low punch, so Siwon’s face had been mostly untouched (there had been a stray attempt by Kyuhyun and he was just lucky to have actually hit his nose. that’s where the blood on his shirt was from, Siwon’s bleeding nose).
Fingers trembling a little from exhaustion (fighting is so tiring), he unbuttons his shirt with as much care as he could (what’s the point of being careful? moving caused pain, unbuttoning a shirt with less care will hardly make a difference).
And he grimaces. He’s right. The fight had happened maybe twenty minutes ago, and there are already several ripe bruises on his torso. There’s one on the lower-right side of his ribcage, one a little higher closer to the center on the left, and he didn’t want to look anymore.
But then he takes his shirt off to see how his back is. Did he get bruises on his back? It’s a masochistic need to know. He wants to see it. There isn’t a bruise from a punch, but he clearly remembers being pushed over a desk and the edge of the desk cutting into his skin in a way that makes him think he might have gotten a cut.
There’s a red line that has that look of having been almost-scratched. There are a few flakes of skin lifting up and he can feel the tenderness of it.
“That looks like it hurts.”
He can see Kyuhyun in the mirror, peering at him with one eye half-shut and a split lip. Siwon hadn’t been as clever with him, but then again Minho isn’t sure if that was from Siwon hitting him or from Kyuhyun’s own flailing in the debacle.
“At least I gave as good as I got,” Minho shot back as he pulls his shirt back on. The movement causes him to grimace as his bruises received what was clearly unwanted attention.
And Kyuhyun just whistles, a low sound that mimicked the pleasant pitch of his voice. “You have more spunk then I had given you credit for,” he says, a small smirk gracing his features. Minho shot him a look and then does a double take.
He looks weird. Well, it’s not that his face is weird, because it really isn’t (in fact it’s kind of pretty with a nice oval shape that has a slightly square chin, but in a good way), but the current placement of his body is. He’s still on one of the beds and has the curtains pulled tight around his face.
“What are you doing?” He asks, and Minho can’t really keep the amusement from his tone. He really should be annoyed, because the entire situation is annoying (why had the notebooks been in his desk and why had he jumped up when Kyuhyun was jumped? Was it from some sense of duty or loyalty or respect towards the classroom and the classroom unity?).
Minho can tell Kyuhyun shrugs by the way the curtains bunch up. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Minho doesn’t know what to say to that, so he doesn’t say anything. He just finishes buttoning up his shirt, his long fingers making quick work of easy work. Then, without looking at Kyuhyun again (he has a feeling that he doesn’t want to be involved in whatever Kyuhyun would get him involved with. it’s not like he thinks he’s a gangster or anything, but it’s more the idea of what he is and what he stands for that has Minho backing away cautiously because he isn’t sure if he can handle it if he can deal with it), he leaves the nurse’s office.
There’s a sound of some sort of tussle going on behind him and some swearing. He pauses for a moment, curious, but then berates himself. No. He is going to look forward and walk in that direction. There’s no looking back for him, no pausing on his road.
The hallways seem long. Longer than his classes, longer than his soccer field. His sturdy, black, leather shoes make that sound they did when he walks on the linoleum floor and the lockers gleam with that dim, dull blue. They seem long despite the long strides his long legs can make.
“Hey, wait a second!”
He doesn’t want to, but he decided to be polite and give a cursory glance over his shoulder. Just to see who it is.
It’s Kyuhyun, racing towards him, only two buttons done on his shirt and the ends flying up and down with the movement of his gait. He’s wincing as he makes his way towards Minho, clearly in pain. He wonders about the bruises Kyuhyun might have on him, but the question is unnecessary. He can see a nasty one, already colored a blue purple on his stomach. Minho remembers the first punch hitting him there, which makes sense. The first punch probably had the most velocity and therefore power.
“Do you need something?”
Is that his voice? He sounds unnaturally cold. His voice is usually warm, nice and people say that he has the sort of voice they wanted to hear telling them stories when they die.
But Kyuhyun doesn’t seem to notice. Or maybe he doesn’t mind or doesn’t care.
“Y-you, you didn’t give me.... the time...” he says, panting. His words are a bit incomprehensible so Minho raises his hand to pause him.
“Take your time.” Take your time? He doesn’t have time. He has to go home and then leave for work (because he has to work work work to pay for things like his lunches and he wonders how other people manage to get by).
Kyuhyun gives him a look that terrifies Minho because it’s a look that seems to read his mind.
“I just wanted to say thanks.”
Minho shrugs, wishing he can cross his arms and take his customary pose. Legs slightly apart, arms crossed and looking a little down at everyone, because there aren’t really that many people that are taller than him (at least that were his age). “For having your books?”
There’s a lifted eyebrow and it’s the one on his right side, so it goes up into his fringe. The fringe that must be annoying, or at least it seems to Minho because he liked keeping his hair a medium-short length and his hair never falls into his eyes the way this guy’s does.
“That and for getting Siwon off me.”
“It’s nothing you should thank me for,” he says, and he isn’t quite sure why he is saying these things. He can be nice and just say thanks and walk away, none the worse (or better). But he doesn’t. “It’s not like I could let him punch the crap out of you. Which,” he adds, putting emphasis on these words, “he would have,” the emphasis indicating just how weak he thinks Kyuhyun is.
It he’s on the level of a caterpillar in Kyuhyun’s eyes, then Kyuhyun’s on the level of a kitten in Minho’s eyes.
He is just a fluffy creature with fluffy hair. Just that.
“Let me get this straight then,” the tone’s wry and Minho isn’t sure he likes it, “you pulled Siwon off me and fought him because you thought he would have beaten the crap out of me. An you thought it’d be better if he beat the crap out of both of us.”
Minho feels a little embarrassed when it’s put in those terms. “He could have done a lot worse.” He remembers a time when Siwon broke someone’s leg in soccer. It had been an accident, or so he had said, but Minho remembers the vicious look in Siwon’s eyes, the way he seemed pleased with the replacement and the rearrangement of their positions.
Siwon is no idle character, waiting for the right moment. He decides what the right moment is and he seizes it with everything he has, with every molecule of strength he has (which is a lot). If Siwon had wanted to beat Kyuhyun to a pulp, with his face hardly recognizable underneath the bruises and a broken nose, he would have. Minho had saved Kyuhyun, but he had saved him on principle. He wasn’t going to let someone beat another person up over something as stupid as what had happened.
It had all been on principle.
“His biceps are rather large.”
Minho lets out a snort. “Maybe you should have realized that before you said he had no balls.”
He smiles and Minho is captivated by the way it seems tilted in one direction and the slight show of teeth. “He makes it too easy.”
“That doesn’t mean you should actually say it,” he says, with a slight shake of his head as he stares at those lips and that smile.
The smile on Kyuhyun’s face broadens and Minho doesn’t know what he’s going to do with himself.
“I don’t think we’ve been formally introduced. I’m Cho Kyuhyun.”
Minho stares at the hand. The fingers are long and tapered and it seems almost too skinny. He wonders who has the larger hands, or rather who has the longer fingers. He’d always prided himself on how he has nice hands, but Kyuhyun’s almost seem to blow his out of the water.
He sticks his hand out and grasps Kyuhyun’s firmly. “Choi Minho.”
The smile is Cheshire-like. “I know.”
And Minho smiles back.
----
Minho doesn’t know what to make of the strange relationship-friendship they then strike up. Kyuhyun hardly talks to him in class, but he accompanies Minho to the cafeteria and makes degrading remarks about the food, the people and the color of the walls. He tries to hold back his snickers, especially when Kyuhyun makes comments about people he knows, but he can’t help it (then he feels bad when they give him looks because they used to be friends, some of them used to be on the soccer team with him. he can hear their voices in his head ‘why won’t he stand up for them? people sure do change, huh’).
And then Minho doesn’t find it so funny and he shuffles away so he doesn’t feel like he’s being accused (and it’s not just for not standing up for them).
But it’s great. Minho feels like he’s getting comfortable and settling down once again. He still eyes Siwon in case of some sort of comeback, but he remains with his buddies (Leeteuk and Heechul and Kangin) and doesn’t approach either of them. The bruises on all of their faces fade away although Kyuhyun’s take a bit longer to heal. They had been the worst ones given after all.
Minho’s ribs still hurt and he will bet anything that the bruise on Kyuhyun’s stomach hurts every time he breaths and every time he moves. But the smirky little smile he usually has on his face whenever he’s around Minho never fades or dims or goes away. He’s not sure how to understand this. Was being around Minho that great? Was it that nice, that amusing?
These thoughts tend to plague him, but then Kyuhyun would say some snarky thing or raise his eyebrow that hides behind his hair and Minho doesn’t want to think about it anymore because he feels somewhat happy.
Kyuhyun even lends Minho his notes. (Properly this time.)
----
He passes by the soccer field every day on the way to and from school and he pauses each time. Today there are people out there playing and today he’s not alone. Kyuhyun, standing on his other side, pauses when Minho does and looks across the field.
“I bet they fail their tests,” he says, and he says it more like it’s a statement of truth than anything else.
Minho doesn’t say anything (because it’s mostly true, they don’t do well on their tests) and they go to noraebang (the short guy, Jonghyun, pays for them). He tries to sing but he prefers to just sit and rest while Kyuhyun sings.
His voice is magical, a lovely tenor bass that makes him think of when he was five and would run through the field across the street. And he watches Kyuhyun who clearly enjoys singing and knows, just knows, that he will go wherever he wants. He has the intellect and a voice that is extraordinary.
A voice that heals.
----
They don’t go out very often and Minho never tells Kyuhyun why he prefers to leave the moment school ends. He doesn’t tell Kyuhyun about the part-time job he has, nor does he ever invite him to his house, even though Kyuhyun has invited him over a few times.
He finds out that Kyuhyun loves gaming. They sit down and go through all of the games he owns to find the few that were capable of multiplayer. He is given the option and without a thought he chooses the soccer one. It’s a mistake, but he tries as hard as he can to look as though this sort of thing is normal for him. As though playing a game through the screen is enough for him, as though he’s never really played soccer with all his might and all his joy and had thrown his entire self into playing.
They usually go out to noraebang or just walk around the city, peering into shop windows and checking out girls in the subway.
They don’t talk much beyond the surface. They speak of class, weather, a shop, how short that skirt is and Kyuhyun loves talking of how Siwon is such a brute.
They don’t talk of their families (though Minho has met Kyuhyun’s. his sister is in university and she had been in a rush, carrying a violin and his parents are lovely and polite) and they don’t talk of anything important.
Yet what they do say somehow is important. It makes him think of the future that stretches in front of them and how he wishes that everyone he knows will be okay in the end. He hopes that Donghae will become less childish and learn that he really should be doing something constructive with his time, that Jinki will be able to use his natural clumsiness to his advantage and that Yesung will stop putting pictures of turtles on his notebooks and folders and giving them as birthday presents. No one wants them.
He finds Kibum one day in the bathroom, though he bets that he hadn’t wanted to be found. The stall door didn’t lock properly and it’s accidental he finds him slumped over and unconscious.
Minho almost panics, but then calms his mind down enough to go and get the nurse. Kibum’s fine and it’s an issue of not eating enough. But it’s enough to remind Minho of things he spends long amounts of time trying to put in a corner of his mind and forget.
----
“Um, Minho.”
It’s lunch and he’s going over some notes for the calc test they had next period with Kyuhyun. Minho isn’t sure how well the studying’s going because he had been greatly distracted by how into the math Kyuhyun seems. It absorbs him in a way that Minho aches to feel. In fact, Minho almost didn’t want to tear his eyes away from the way Kyuhyun slowly blinks as he’s torn from the calc.
It’s adorable.
But the person who’s asking for his attention is Kibum and Minho doesn’t know how to deal with this. He stares at Kibum, who clearly seems nervous, and feels his own stomach start to move and feels nauseous and like puking his lunch. This isn’t the end he had wanted for helping him. He prefers Kibum leaving him alone and pretending that nothing had ever happened.
Minho’s happier just keeping a quiet watch on him and hoping that no new scars will appear and that he won’t have to think that Kibum had attempted suicide.
“Something wrong?” He asks, trying to keep his tone light and as though nothing had happened. Because nothing had happened.
“I wanted to, you know, reassure you.” Kibum is twisting his hands and Minho feels his heart sink further and further. He can feel Kyuhyun’s eyes on him, his attention now completely away from the math in front of him.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Minho says and regrets the slightly desperate tone in his voice. It’s bound to hurt Kibum in some fashion, which it does if the slight flicker in his eyebrows is any indication. And then Kibum walks away, his back stiff.
He doesn’t meant to hurt him. He really doesn’t. Kibum is hurting enough as is without Minho adding to the pile of shit that’s on his plate. He hates hurting people and he hates the way Kyuhyun is now looking at him, with a look in his eye that somehow seems to be able to convey the world and just how disappointed he is in him, because Minho will never be enough and he needs to try harder and harder and harder until he can’t try anymore. Only then will he be proud of Minho.
“That was unusual.”
Minho shrugs. “Yeah, Kibum and I don’t really know each other very well.”
Kyuhyun’s eyes seem to be even more disappointed with Minho. He doesn’t want to see that so he looks down at the calculus and tries to think about something else.
“I was talking about you. You’re not usually so cruel.”
Minho flinches and he knows it’s because Kyuhyun is absolutely right. But he pretends he doesn’t hear what he says and asks a question about the work in front of them.
Kyuhyun lets it go, though Minho feels this sinking pit in his stomach at the thought of just where he is in Kyuhyun’s esteem now.
----
After school, Minho doesn’t leave straight-away. His job starts in half an hour, so he’ll have a bit of time in which he can talk with Kibum. Because he really does feel bad, and if he leaves it like this he’ll regret it. He’ll regret it like he regrets so many other things.
But when Kibum sees him, he’s ignored. He moves past him and grabs his stuff as though Minho isn’t standing right there by them. Minho remembers that he hates being treated like he’s invisible. (Though, oddly enough, that’s happening more and more often lately.)
“Kibum,” he says and Kibum pauses in his actions and gives Minho a blank look. “I’m sorry.”
“About what?”
He swallows and it’s like he’s reaching out and trying to strangle his pride. “I did know what you were talking about.”
“Ah, is that so.”
Kibum is clearly not going to make this easy for him, but Minho doesn’t mind. This is like penance for him. Kibum’s blazer rides just a bit above his wrist and Minho remembers the scars he’s seen there and higher up. He remembers the way that Kibum can be careful, so so careful about moving his arms in certain ways and Minho is certain that when he does so it’s because there are fresh cuts. He knows why Kibum likes wearing lots of bracelets during the summer despite how doing so is against school regulations. He knows and remembers but he never does anything. He never ever does anything.
“I’m sorry for not being a good person and not trying.”
This is not what Kibum expects and Minho can read the surprise in his eyes and in the way his mouth parts slightly.
“I’m sorry that I can’t do anything for you.”
They stand there, Minho feeling awkward and wishing he hadn’t done this (even though he knows this was the right thing to do and that he’d been raised to do the right thing and apologize when he does something bad) and with Kibum staring at him.
Then he leaves.
Kibum joins Minho and Kyuhyun during lunch the next day and helps them out with their English homework.
----
Minho’s sister gets a boyfriend and he’s sure he should be upset or ask more about it or something be something be the older brother he’s supposed to be but he. just. can’t. work up the emotion anymore.
It’s her life.
She didn’t even tell him. He just looks out their front window one day and sees her with some guy. She’s smiling and he remembers the last time she smiled like that was when they were children. Minho would chase her around the kitchen for fun and she would trip and then cry, but she would be all right in the end. And he would hug her and apologize and she would smile brilliantly while telling him that it was all right.
He wishes she would smile more.
----
Exams pass and Minho is pleasantly surprised when he finds out he got an A in math. In celebration he, Kyuhyun and Kibum go out shopping and they somehow make Minho buy clothes (apparently he doesn’t own enough). He wonders if he can actually afford what he’s being pressured to buy.
With a childish smile that sort of sends thrills down Minho’s spine and with the lights of the city reflecting in his dark eyes, Kyuhyun hands over some matching phone charms he had bought at a store they had passed by earlier. A disco ball for Kibum, a baseball for himself and a soccer ball for Minho.
He doesn’t know how to interpret the smile that Kyuhyun is giving him and doesn’t know what to do with the small, leather soccer ball that represents a past he’s trying to distance himself from.
Kyuhyun probably got him the soccer ball because of Siwon’s comment and the game he had chosen. (Both events seem like so long ago, but they had only been a few or a couple months ago.)
Later, after Kibum had left, Kyuhyun gives him something else. It’s a bag with tissue paper, concealing the contents, and Minho can’t think of why he’s receiving such a present. He says his thanks as a question and Kyuhyun looks puzzled before laughing and saying goodbye.
The laugh is so carefree and light it makes Minho’s heart ache.
----
After going to his room (and turning the lights off in every room so he doesn’t have to see), Minho carefully empties the bag. There’s a card and a mini gumball machine. Puzzled, he opens the card and reads it.
Minho
I know this is a few days late, but I thought it’d be best to put it off until you found out about your test results.
Happy belated birthday! I hope you have many, happy years in the future.
Kyuhyun
(there are 50 gumballs in there right now and is refillable. apparently they sell them at convenience stores. when you run out, buy them yourself)
He doesn’t even realize he’s crying until a tear rolls off the edge of his chin and lands on the letter. Sniffing and insisting that this isn’t unusual, that this is normal, he wipes his face and folds the letter back up reverently.
How had Kyuhyun even known when his birthday is when everyone else (including Minho himself) forgot?
----
At school, Minho soon becomes unsure on how to face Kyuhyun. His heart will inexplicably start beating faster and during class his head will be turned slightly to his left to stare at Kyuhyun as he takes down his notes.
He takes this precious time to note down details he might forget.
Like how Kyuhyun holds his pen tightly, the shape of the glasses he sometimes wore and the slight dip in his forehead when he doesn’t understand what the teacher is talking about. The small dimple that shows fleetingly when he glances over at Minho and smiles.
Just the entire air Kyuhyun has. It’s mesmerizing and so, so addicting.
----
He is one of those few people that truly enjoy winter. He likes the way the snow will make him put on five extra layers and wear boots that have spikes for the ice and he even likes the dirty mush that the snow turns into. It’s all a natural cycle, so there’s no reason to hate it.
He likes the way it smells outside. So crisp and cold it makes him feel like he’s breathing ice that scratches up his throat. It’s always what he wants and what he needs.
He hates the spring. He hates the way the flowers will start to bloom and then are killed by a frost that came late. He hates the way the trees change from their starkness and that the grass will appear and act as though nothing had happened.
Because something had happened. Something has happened and it’s pretending like it’s fine, as though nothing was wrong.
He hates it.
----
Christmas and then New Year’s pass. Over the holidays, Minho stays at home and makes his little sister help clean the place up (instead of sneaking out for a date with her ‘secret’ boyfriend). There’s dust everywhere and certain rooms and items of furniture haven’t been touched in months, if not years. That haven’t even been looked at in years.
Although the Choi family is Christian, there is no celebration. There are no presents, no tree, no holiday cheer of any sort. Minho’s jealous of the picture Kyuhyun sends him of the tree his family has and the happy picture his family is.
He’s jealous that Kyuhyun can be so fine without him when Minho has started relying on him for making him smile and a comment that will lift his spirits and make him feel like everything can be alright.
He wants Kyuhyun to need Minho just as much as Minho needs Kyuhyun.
----
Minho wants the days of late autumn back. The days when he doesn’t have to think about graduation, the days when he was so sure that he was straight. Because now all he can think of is Kyuhyun’s smile, the way he bites his lips and hold his pencil to his lips as he listens to their teacher, his laugh, how he is always exactly where Minho needed him when he needs him.
Minho wants the days where he knew exactly who he was back. The days where he knew what he wanted. (Though those days are farther away then the autumn.)
But he’s pretty sure that, no matter how far back he goes, he will still fall in love with Kyuhyun.
But all that is pointless. There is no going back.
Minho knows that very well.
A/N: ahhh, this is my first time writing a kpop fic, much less posting something in a community, so sorry if I did tags/formatting wrong D: I'll try to fix it.
I wrote this for a friend who saw this video and absolutely loved it and requested a Kyuho fic (so named by myself). this is going to be a fic in three parts and I hope the second part will be done within the next week (for those who liked it) and pleae comment, give c/c!
pt 2 pt 3