submission #2 (part a)
Title: Feudal System
Characters/Pairings: Hankyung/Heechul, Kyuhyun/Sungmin, Kibum/Donghae
Rating: R
Warnings (if any): AU, violence, swearing
Word count: 12,066
He taps a rhythm out against the desk with a drumstick that he'd stolen from the music room earlier that day. It's a Wonder Girls song but he gives it a rock twist, so that no one really recognises it. He's sure that it wouldn't do much for his reputation if it was known that he was a Wonder Girls fan, even if he does think they're fucking fierce. Most people think there nothing more than a girlband, but he knows better. He thinks they're art. Still, they're enough of a girlband to stop him from claiming to be a fan.
Sungmin slips into the chair next to him, shoving a piece of paper out of sight into his Math book. "So Hot?" he murmurs, head turned to where the teacher is preparing to start the class.
"Nobody," Heechul says, and darts forward to snatch the piece of paper back. It's a telephone number, as usual. A bunch of digits then Sunny in English, cursive handwriting. She's a year below them, petite but with a figure far beyond her years. He waves the paper vaguely in the air. "So will you call her?"
"Probably," says Sungmin, taking it from him and putting it back in the book for safekeeping. Math is Safekeeping, Biology is Ew No. English is Eh, Maybe, If I Was Bored. Heechul smirks and returns to tapping against the desk, now with his hand as well as the drumstick. The teacher glares at him, waiting to start, but Heechul ignores that and continues, because he wants to finish the song. And then he stops, dead, because oh my god, was that a person or a wet dream who just walked into the classroom?
It's the blonde hair that tips him off. In this school, the only people who have blonde hair are the ones that Heechul says can have blonde hair. This kid must be new. No matter, it just means that Heechul is going to have to teach him, and he kind of thinks that he's fine with that.
Sungmin's laughter sounds beside him, soft and knowing. "Careful," he says. "You're practically drooling."
"Why hello there," says Heechul, raking his eyes down past the blonde hair to an open shirt, black wife-beater, no tie. Long legs. He walks to the teacher with a strange form of grace, he's either a gymnast or a dancer. He'll be flexible. Heechul taps the drumstick against the table again, not really playing anything this time, just to distract himself from staring.
"I'm late, I'm sorry. I got lost."
The drumstick slips from his hand and clatters to the floor; a couple pairs of confused eyes turn towards him and then quickly away to avoid being caught looking. "Oh my god," he whispers hoarsely. "He's foreign."
"You're in trouble," says Sungmin, and Heechul would agree except he doesn't consider it as being in trouble so much as incredibly lucky. He likes foreigners, he has a thing for accents. Really, it's a harmless kink to have; better that than a masochistic streak. No, Heechul much prefers being sadistic.
The teacher points to a desk for the new boy and Heechul decides that he probably shouldn't be caught looking and leans over to the side to pick the drumstick back up. He's just about to sit back up when a pair of legs stop in his peripheral vision. He looks up at the face belonging to the legs -- and maybe pauses his eyes on the crotch of newboy -- and smirks.
"Hey," he says.
"Hi." The new boy blinks. "Could I be past?"
Heechul sits up but before the boy can move past, he sticks his arm out and rests his hand against the opposite desk. Another blink, the beginnings of a frown. "Nice hair," says Heechul. The boy's hair is actually a lot more white than Heechul's, like it's somehow been stripped of all colour. The boy looks at Heechul's hair -- ice blonde -- and then across at Sungmin -- honey blonde -- and grins.
"Thanks," he says. "You too."
Heechul lets him through, ignoring the knowing looks that Sungmin is giving him. Lessons in this school and the heiracy weren't right for the moment, he'll find another time to inform the boy of the rules and regulations. He does note, however, that when he sits down a couple of rows along, that the people around him either look at him with awe, possibly because he has blonde hair and apparently just got away with it, or they shy away from him. That does strike odd.
"Come on, then," he says as they leave the classroom. "New boy, who is he?"
Sungmin, who usually knows everything about everyone, shakes his head. "I actually have no idea. I'd have told you if I'd known there was a new boy wandering around with blonde hair." Then he smiles sweetly. "But I know who will know. Siwonnie!"
Their class president turns his head at the call of his name and Sungmin runs up to him and latches onto his arm. This is why Heechul is friends with Sungmin, despite the fact that they argue a lot. Sungmin is an evil mastermind. He knows how to inject just the right amount of masculinity to have all the girls hanging off his every word, and knows how to flutter his eyelashes to have every guy transfixed. It didn't take long for Sungmin to have Siwon wrapped around his little finger, and now Sungmin knows school secrets before anyone else, and Heechul gets away with practically everything because all Sungmin has to do is pout and Siwon agrees to let Heechul off whatever he's done.
"The new boy?" Siwon looks thoughtfully. "His name is Hankyung. Transferred here from a high school in Beijing. Something about a fresh start for his family."
"Oh, I love China," says Heechul. Siwon wrinkles his nose at him.
"I don't know, hyung, apparently he's dangerous."
"So am I, Siwon," says Heechul, patting him on the shoulder. "So am I."
Siwon is deeply niave. Mostly he refuses to believe that any of the rumours surrounding Heechul and Sungmin are true. This is because Sungmin never shows half of the whore that he is in front of Siwon, choosing instead to act cute and giggly, and because Heechul likes Siwon and so is fairly pleasant to him. Siwon therefore thinks that they need protecting, somehow.
"No, hyung," he says sincerely. "You don't understand. Apparently he got involved in a gang back at his old high school and was expelled after he set fire to the school gym. Our school was the only one who would take him. That's what I mean about a new start."
"A bad boy," says Heechul, thrilled to his very bones. "Oh my god, he just gets better and better."
Siwon gives him up as a lost cause. It's a few years too late for Heechul to be bothered by it.
---
"Could we have the drumstick back?" Kyuhyun from the year below looks bored out of his brains, standing with one hand held out in expectation.
"No," says Heechul, and he twirls it in his fingers like a professional. He practised last night. An eyebrow is raised in challenge. Sungmin suddenly comes out of nowhere and waggles his fingers at Kyuhyun.
"Hi, Kyuhyunnie," he trills.
Kyuhyun completely ignores him, instead shrugging at Heechul and turning around and walking away. Sungmin sighs in a happy way. Heechul rolls his eyes and then shouts Kyuhyun's name. When Kyuhyun turns back, Heechul throws the drumstick at him. "Blonde hair tomorrow!" he shouts.
"No," Kyuhyun shouts back and continues on his way.
"How sad," says Sungmin, with mock unhappiness.
"I'll get him one day," says Heechul.
Kyuhyun missed the entire first semester of his freshman year because of a car accident the summer beforehand. By the time he'd come back, everyone else had already formed off into cliques and groups. Now he spends most of his time sitting at the back of classrooms writing music compositions or playing handheld games. He was the only person to not be completely terrified of Heechul, in fact seeming kind of bored with his antics. That first time Heechul plucked his game straight out of his hands, Kyuhyun had just calmly asked for it back and when Heechul refused, had just shrugged and took out a book. Heechul has been trying to recruit him ever since.
Kyuhyun refuses every time. This is doubly tragic, because not only is Heechul missing an opportunity to know someone just as snarky as he is, Sungmin also thinks Kyuhyun is positively gorgeous and wants to get to know him better too.
---
Heechul first talks to the new boy, Hankyung the Chinese bad boy, around the back of the school gym. Hankyung has a cigarette in his hand and smoke issuing from his mouth. Heechul pauses, surprised to see him there, and then leers. Hankyung smiles blandly. Oh, he's stupid. He's hot, foreign and dumb enough to do whatever Heechul tells him. He feels slightly faint.
"Hi," he says, sauntering up. "Hankyung, right?"
"That's me," says Hankyung. "You're -- nice hair, or something?"
"Heechul. Kim Heechul." He preens a little inside that Hankyung still remembers him, even though that's stupid because everyone remembers Heechul. He wonders what those arms would look like holding him up against a wall, and then drags himself back to the matter at hand.
"Hey, so, Hankyung. I know you're new but there are some things you should know."
"About what?" Hankyung blows out another fog of smoke. Heechul is once against forced to stop daydreaming, this time about those lips blowing something else.
"About the school, in general. About your hair."
"Oh, I've already been told." Hankyung smiles at him again. He looks like the confused Chinese kid that he is. "Something about blonde hair being your trademark?"
"Something like that," says Heechul. Good, he already seems to understand. That's going to stop this from being awkward. "You see, in this school, blonde hair means that you're one of mine. Someone I like. A friend."
"There's only two of you."
"Three actually. Donghae didn't look good as a blonde. And besides, I'm picky." This is true. Heechul, in general, dislikes people, especially the masses in this school. "The fact remains that you have blonde hair despite not being one of my friends."
There's a flicker of something in Hankyung's eyes beyond the dumb confusion and he rolls his shoulders back. "So?"
"So you need to change it." Heechul leans back against the wall, scraping his elbow against the stone and jerking it back. "Black, red, blue, I don't care, so long as it's not blonde." Then he leans forward a little, looking up at Hankyung through strands of his air. "Give me a drag?"
"No," says Hankyung. He drops the cigarette to the floor and crushes it beneath his combat boot, snuffs it out with a callousness that makes Heechul's mouth drop open. Then Hankyung walks away without a sound, without even waving back. Heechul watches him go, and then stomps off in the other direction.
---
"He's still got blonde hair!"
Heechul's explosion happens during third period Biology the next day. Sungmin is greeted by a Heechul who is feeling overwhemingly angry, whose anger is making him kind of violent. For Kyuhyun to ignore his instructions is one thing, but for some new kid who isn't even from this country to refuse to do as he says -- the offence is unforgiveable.
Sungmin, sitting on a lab stool, blinks at him. "Who, Hankyung?"
"Yes!" Heechul throws himself down on his own stool, looking a bit like a teenage girl; melodramatic and too over the top. "He's swaggering around looking like I didn't just tell him that it's not allowed."
"He's new," Sungmin soothes. "He'll get it in a couple of days. Just give him time."
"I'm going to have to talk to him again," Heechul decides, a little feverishly. "He needs to understand." Heechul is going to make him understand.
---
Sitting on the bench right at the bottom of the school gives him a good view of the buildings and people. There's a few girls screaming at a bench a little way from him, a couple of boys kicking a football around, the sun hot on his face. Looking over at the school entrance, he sees a flash of gold and recognises the boy who is apparently Heechul's friend. He's laughing with a couple of girls, one of his arms around the waist of the taller one. Then Heechul comes out, shielding his eyes against the sun, talking to a girl with long, orange hair. As he watches, Heechul pats her condescendingly on the head and she shakes him off with a smile.
He'd liked Heechul well enough until that incident behind the gym. He'd been attracted, he wasn't going to lie; Heechul was hot. Hankyung, however, wasn't going to do with Heechul said just to please him. That was what had gotten him into trouble in China. He was over being part of that kind of grouping, of following the crowd and doing what other people said. It may have been easy enough to change his hair colour, but he was stubborn. It would stop conflict, but he didn't want to be seen to be conforming to whatever idiotic claptrap Heechul had peddled around the school.
---
"Look, I know you're new, but you really do need to understand some things."
"You're right, I am new. That means that I don't have to do what you say."
---
"I own this school."
Hankyung is getting really sick of getting stopped in the hallway. His excuse of "I'm new, I got lost" ran out of credit last week and at this rate, he's going to be late for his Chinese class. Anyway, he doesn't believe for one second that what Heechul is saying is correct. His skepticism must show on his face because Heechul snarls at him and then puts out a hand to stop the freshman who was about to go past. The freshman looks at the hand, then at Heechul. "Two coffees, one with cream, the other with two sugars," he says.
"Music classroom," Heechul says, and the boy nods and runs off to his class. Hankyung blinks in confusion.
"What was that?"
"Every underclassman in this school knows what I take in my coffee."
"What does that prove?"
"It proves that I'm important in this school."
"And you make them get you coffee? That doesn't prove you're important, that just proves you're a dick."
---
Heechul's angry gesture is so over the top that he almost spills his coffee-with-two-sugars over himself. "Just who the fuck does he think he is? How dare he call me a dick?"
"I know," soothes Sungmin, who is really more interested in his drink than the conversation.
"No, you don't know," snaps Heechul. "He doesn't understand and I need to squash him like a bug."
"Why don't you just have sex with him and get it over with?" Sungmin pulls out his mobile phone and begins to check his messages. Heechul splutters at him and Sungmin just rolls his eyes. Then Heechul falls silent, sullenly sipping his coffee. He can't deny, even now, that he does still want to jump Hankyung's bones. That's the really annoying thing about it.
Kyuhyun walks into the classroom, rolls his eyes when he sees the two of them there. They've taken to hanging in the place that he usually haunted, and while he doesn't welcome them there, neither has he told them to go away or found somewhere else to be by himself.
"What's up with him?" He nods at Heechul, who is muttering under his breath, something about blonde hair and fucking accents. Sungmin shrugs, smiling winningly.
"He's just pissed at the new boy." Kyuhyun takes the seat next to him, gaze focused on his music. Sungmin leans over to look at it and Kyuhyun jerks it away from his eyes. Sungmin pouts. Kyuhyun ignores him. Sungmin practically sits in his lap to see. Kyuhyun sighs but doesn't push him away.
Next to them, Heechul mutters something about how everyone just ignores him.
---
Hankyung has the desk four in front of Heechul in History class. He's already sitting there when Heechul enters the classroom, his textbook and notepad out on his desk. As Heechul passes, he puts out a hand and knocks the two books to the floor and then carries on without apologising. When he sits down regally at his own desk, Hankyung is picking them up and looking back to glare at him. Heechul's lip curls upwards.
---
Walking down the corridor chatting to Sungmin, something suddenly bangs into his shoulder and makes him stumble to the side, falling into Sungmin. Outraged, he looks for the culprit and sees an eyebrow raised under white-blonde hair. He narrows his eyes before stalking back off like nothing had happened, like no one had seen (and oh, everyone had seen). This is war.
---
The coffee is lukewarm at best but it still shocks when it goes spilling all over Hankyung's legs. He yelps and jumps up; looks up to a smirk and eyes alight with amusement. "So sorry," drawls Heechul, and then shakes the coffee cup so that even the very last drops go splashing over Hankyung's shirt. Then he tosses the cup into the bin a foot away from him and walks off, nose in the air. Hankyung is forced to spend the rest of the day with damp clothing. The twitching eyebrow stops anyone from commenting on it.
---
Heechul stops dead in the doorway, which means that Sungmin walks bang into the back of him. "What was that for?" Sungmin asks, pushing past him to go into the room, rubbing his nose with a cutely disgruntled expression on his face. Then he, too, stops dead at the sight of Kyuhyun, his blonde head bent over a music sheet. He's gone for white blonde of Hankyung rather than anything like the shades of Heechul and Sungmin. When he looks up, Heechul sees that he called this correctly; he looks good. He also looks insanely smug.
"Hey, hyung," he says, and Heechul flicks him straight in the middle of his forehead as reward for finally doing what he says. Then he folds into a chair and blows on his coffee.
"Sungmin," he says, without even looking at him. "Either stick your tongue down his throat, or get out of the doorway."
Sungmin, true to form, chooses to go with the first choice, taking his usual place in Kyuhyun's lap and kissing him firmly, open-mouthed and so dirty that Heechul says, "Ew," and puts a hand over his eyes. Then he turns, and looks out of the window. Blonde hair catches his attention, and he scowls.
"Either stick your tongue down his throat," mutters Sungmin, so quiet that Heechul can't hear it, "or stop fawning."
---
Hankyung knows that he isn't popular. He didn't come to the school looking to be popular, but now that he's entered into this conflict with Heechul, everyone is avoiding him like he's got the plague. Actually, it's more like he's going to gut them if they look at him for more than two seconds. His policy had been to lay low. Thanks to Kim Heechul, he's been noticed.
---
Heechul hates gym class. He's got better things to do, and besides, sweat makes your hair disgusting. In particular, he hates football. It's the most pointless sport in the world, chasing a ball around and kicking it places only for it to end up back when it began. If Sungmin had been in his class, they'd have skived off, gone up to one of the music classrooms and -- Heechul scowls -- talked about how they were going to get back at Hankyung.
Only, of course, Sungmin would have laughed at him. "I know sexual tension when I see it," Sungmin had said last time, and no amount of arguing from Heechul had persuaded him that sexual tension was the last thing causing this conflict. No, this whole problem had been caused by Hankyung refusing to do what Heechul said. Heechul ruled the school. Hankyung had to do what he said.
He wasn't denying that he once thought that Hankyung was attractive, maybe even thought about his body a little too often. That, however, was all before he realised that Hankyung was a complete prat who was so stupid that he didn't even know how to act at a new high school in a new country. You did as the people there told you. Just because Hankyung was really, really hot didn't mean that Heechul could forget about all the slights and offences.
He does wonder two things though. First of all, why is Hankyung in his gym class? And second, why does he have to look so good in the regulation black shorts?
Normally, Heechul would stand at the side of the pitch, watching in a bored fashion as his team either won or lost. Today, however, he's spent fifteen minutes staring at Hankyung's legs before realising that he was going to have to distract himself somehow. He is about to just turn around and leave when Hankyung scores a goal against Heechul's team. He is grinning. Anger washes over Heechul. Hankyung is not supposed to be happy. He is supposed to be broken. Why won't he break?
Heechul takes to the pitch. He doesn't quite understand the game or quite what to do, but he has a viciousness that can almost be viewed as enthusiasm. The teacher is so overjoyed to see Heechul actually taking part that he lets Heechul off with a lot of his fouls. Heechul, however, doesn't take the risk and waits until the teacher's back is turned before sticking his foot out and causing Hankyung to go flying to the ground.
There is a long moment where everyone around them seems to go silent and Hankyung stays still. Then he rolls over and gets slowly to his feet. The hatred in his eyes is somehow exciting. "What the hell is your problem?" he asks in a low, dangerous voice.
"My problem?" Heechul's voice is cool, calm, almost innocent. "I could ask you the same thing."
"Why is my hair colour such a big deal to you?"
"It's got nothing to do with the hair colour." That's the truth, at least. "It's everything to do with the fact that you won't just do as I say."
"Why the heck should I do as you say?" Hankyung's voice is getting louder. "You're just a petty high school kid who seems to think that you have some sort of authority. You don't, you can't make me do jack shit."
"This is my school."
"It is not your school. It is no one's school."
"It is my school!" Heechul practically shrieks. His anger overflows and he spits out the only thing he can think of, makes use of the only information that he has on Hankyung. "This isn't your territory, you don't have the protection of your fucking gang back in China over here!"
It happens so fast that Heechul isn't sure exactly what happened. One minute he's glaring at Hankyung, the next Hankyung's fist is closing around his collar, pulling him up a little at the chest. His other hand is clenched by his side, and shaking. Heechul is surprised by the violence of the reaction but he just looks Hankyung in the eye, insolent, defiant. He practically turns his jaw in invitation. Hankyung's face is a lot closer than he realised; their lips almost brush with his movement. He wants Hankyung to hit him, because that opens the gateway. Heechul has been enjoying the petty pranks but oh, how he wants to be able to hurt Hankyung.
"You know fuck all about what happened in China," Hankyung hisses, and oh wow, China Boy can swear. Heechul smirks and pulls back a little.
"Go on then," he says. "Go on and lose." And Hankyung's fist does raise a little.
Then Siwon is pulling him back, looking shocked by what has just happened. There was no doubt that Hankyung almost lost control there and hit Heechul. Their teacher is yelling, something about detention for both of them, but Heechul can barely even hear, he's still holding eye contact with Hankyung. Hankyung shakes Siwon off and turns away, a sneer on his face, almost as though he's decided Heechul isn't worth it. Heechul is disappointed. Somehow, he wants to be worth it.
He spits at Hankyung's feet and storms off the pitch.
---
It turns out that they do have detention that night, but before then they have to get through their afternoon classes. Heechul informed Sungmin of what had happened during lunch -- though it had taken him a while to drag Sungmin away from Kyuhyun's mouth -- and now they put up a united front during seventh period Maths. Or, at least, that was the idea. A couple of minutes beforehand, Sungmin decides that actually, this is Heechul's problem and as far as he's concerned, a good make-out session would solve everything. One day, Heechul was going to pull every hair out of his head. Like a form of torture. That would be satisfying.
This means that when Hankyung comes into the classroom, everyone goes silent apart from Sungmin, who is chatting to Sooyoung on his mobile. Everyone has heard about what happened in gym class fourth period. Everyone is expecting some sort of confrontation. Instead, Hankyung completely ignores him, going up one aisle along from him and cutting across to his seat. Heechul is left outraged; how is he supposed to show Hankyung that he doesn't care what he thinks about him if Hankyung doesn't look at him? The class is left feeling bereft; a good fight is so hard to come across nowadays.
---
well, this is tense
Heechul glares at Sungmin's note.
shut the fuck up, you are no help
---
Detention is even worse. It's just those two and a kid from the second year who cheeked a teacher. Even he seems kind of intimidated the tension. The teacher is doing his best to ignore it and gives them lines. Heechul has to write "I will respect my fellow students and not initiate fights". He scrawls it lazily one hundred times, not meaning it any time he writes it. When their time is up, he sweeps out of the room before Hankyung has even thought about packing up his stuff.
He just wants to get home. He needs to focus, regroup. He really, really needs a cigarette. Maybe, if he calls Sungmin, they can go to a bar, get pissed, who gives a damn if they have school the next day? He needs to relax and forget about the fucked up rivalry he's got going on with the Chinese student. He sweeps his books into his bag indiscriminatingly, slams his door shut, and jumps; Hankyung is standing on the other side.
"Fuck off," says Heechul, and goes to leave. Hankyung reaches out and takes hold of his arm tightly and pulls him back. Heechul rounds on him. "What?" he snarls. Hankyung lets go but his fingers trail a little down Heechul's skin beforehand; it tingles through his body and makes him even angrier.
"You know," Hankyung says, in a mock thoughtful way. "I don't understand why you're the supposed ruler of this school. You aren't good at sports, in fact, you're terrible. You don't do well in school. Your grades are worse than mine and I'm not even from this country." As he speaks, he slowly circles Heechul; he comes around the back and his arm brushes Heechul's hip and Heechul fights down a shiver. Revulsion, he tells himself. "You aren't in any clubs, you don't take part in any art classes, you hang around the music rooms but you don't play an instrument and you aren't in the choir."
Heechul is beginning to feel a little claustrophobic, as Hankyung's voice drops and he whispers in his ear, "What makes Kim Heechul so special?"
He's been thoroughly thrown. His mind is just a buzz of white noise. God, he's so angry he could just scream: how can Hankyung make him feel like this? He's usually so calm, so in control, when it comes to things like this. He opens his mouth to say something and his voice doesn't come. He can see a hint of a smirk playing around Hankyung's mouth. "I'll tell you what," he says. "Nothing. Kim Heechul is nothing special."
Lies! is his first thought, but then something speaks up in the back of Heechul's mind, a little voice which agrees with Hankyung. He remembers being back in elementary school, being the loner, the one who was never noticed. Why else did he want to befriend Kyuhyun? He saw some of himself in the younger boy; someone who pretends like he doesn't care what people think, the one who tries to convince himself that he's fine with just video games and solitude, but who is really just kidding himself. Hankyung has brought back all those old insecurities.
When his knuckles connect with Hankyung's jaw, he realises that he's the one who has lost. He's let himself be goaded. Worse than that is the irrefutable proof that he had nothing on Hankyung. When he hits him, Hankyung's head jerks back, but he doesn't hit the floor, doesn't seem to be hurt in any sort of a way. He has no chance. He can't beat Hankyung in a fight.
One still moment passes, in which his knuckles sting.
Then Hankyung's fists are closing around his collar again, both sides, and his back is slamming against his locker. It's like back in gym class except this time, he can barely breathe. Hankyung stares at him, his eyes completely unreadable. Heechul lifts his chin, and Hankyung's knuckles turn white before suddenly, amazingly, he's kissing Heechul.
His hold softens. His hands come up to cup Heechul's jaw, left thumb rubbing gently at his cheek. After a moment of complete confusion, Heechul's hands grasp the material at Hankyung's hips and pulls him forward. Hankyung's tongue presses against his, his hands tipping Heechul's head back, and Heechul moans.
The noise causes a change in Hankyung; he presses Heechul against the locker with his body, the kiss becoming hard and frantic and obscene. He tastes like cigarette smoke and a hint of something minty, as if he's been chewing gum to try to hide the smell. Heechul pushes his tank top up to feel the skin at his sides and Hankyung practically whimpers.
---
Hankyung thinks he's dying, the taste of stale smoke and bitter coffee filling his mind, mingled with some sort of chapstick, fruit. Heechul tastes like a kid trying to grow up too soon. God, what an idiot he's been. This is all he's wanted to do since he first laid eyes on him.
---
"You can keep the blonde hair."
"Yeah, I figured so."
---
The next morning brings first period History. The class is waiting for some sort of incident when Heechul enters to find Hankyung already sitting there, he can practically feel the other students holding their breath in anticipation.
He puts a hand out to knock the books to the floor, but the split second he touches them, Hankyung's fingers loop around his wrist. A collective intake of breath from the class. Heechul smirks, and as Hankyung slides his chair back, he straddles him around the waist and kisses him, open-mouthed, hands on Hankyung's chest.
There's deafening silence when they break apart. Hankyung chuckles. "Don't you do anything other than drink coffee?"
"Drink the still warm blood of infants," mutters Heechul, standing up and stroking his hand along Hankyung's jaw and down his throat. He feels Hankyung's laughter against his fingers. He smirks and continues on his way.
---
Sungmin is sitting in Kyuhyun's lap again. "So is that all you're doing?"
Heechul isn't sure what he means, or why he seems so annoyed. "Eh?"
"Making out. Kissing. Is that all you're doing?"
Heechul rolls his eyes. "Well, I haven't managed to get him into a bed yet, so yeah, so far we've only kissed."
"That is not what I mean!" Kyuhyun is actually reading a gaming magazine over Sungmin's shoulder, but Sungmin hasn't seemed to have noticed that his attention isn't focused on the conversation at hand. "You aren't even dating?"
"Sungmin, I don't even like him."
That throws Sungmin for a loop. He blinks. "You don't? But you made out with him!"
Heechul snorts. "Just because I find him attractive doesn't mean that I like him. He's still a prick. He's just a prick who happens to be a good kisser."
"You ruin my life," says Sungmin mournfully.
---
The rest of the school seems to think they're dating but this feeling only lasts until the end of the next day. The only time they're seen together is during classes, and they don't do any of the normal things that couples in the school do; there is no holding hands or eating lunch together or sneaking kisses in the hallway. They don't even talk for most of the remaining two days of school, and when they do, it's to arrange to meet up in the Math classroom during the latter half of lunch break, where Hankyung pushes Heechul up against the blackboard and kisses him furiously.
So neither of them discuss the weekend and therefore they both get a shock when they spot each other at a party that Saturday night.
Heechul shoves his drink in Donghae's hand and storms over, tapping Hankyung on the shoulder. "What are you doing here?"
Hankyung stares at him. "I know Zhou Mi from the extra Korean classes at cram school, he invited me."
"Seasoning did?" Heechul looks over at Zhou Mi, who is talking to Kyuhyun. Not someone who goes well with jealousy, Sungmin has apparently picked up on the friendship between them and is glaring in a sweetly sick way. Heechul turns back to Hankyung. "Wait, you go to cram school?"
"Every Tuesday and Thursday, just to improve my Korean. You know Zhou Mi?"
"I know everyone here." Heechul motions around, at the crowd of people. "Just because I don't have many people at school doesn't mean I don't know a lot of people."
"None of them have blonde hair?"
"That's a school thing. Most of these graduated or dropped out."
Heechul is bored of taking, because it's not what he and Hankyung do. He's also more than a little drunk because he, Sungmin and Kyuhyun got here quite early to help Kibum (early graduation, by about three years) set up. Sungmin and Kyuhyun were so into each other that all Heechul had done was drink with Kibum, until Donghae had arrived, at which point he had drunk by himself. Then he had to play host because Kibum didn't reappear until half an hour after the party had officially started. Playing host had meant getting even more drunk.
He drapes his arm over Hankyung's shoulder and notices that Hankyung's irises are wide, his mouth slightly damp. He's drunk too. "Perfect," Heechul purrs, and five minutes later they're crashing into one of the bedrooms upstairs, mouths barely together as they collapse onto the double bed. It's one of the fastest fucks Heechul has ever experienced. Hankyung smells like alcohol, Heechul can still taste it at the back of his throat, and as he wraps his legs around Hankyung's waist and arches up, he thinks oh my fucking god.
---
He strokes the hair at the back of Hankyung's neck and moans, low, in his throat. Hankyung's fingers bruise his hips, bruises that stay there for three days. He feels some form of regret when they disappear.
---
A note is passed forward during Math. My house, after school?
---
Hankyung's bed has dark blue covers; Heechul likes it because it's double and it gives them more room. His mother always asks them if they want something to eat, sociable and friendly, and Hankyung always makes sure to lock his door before he pulls Heechul down on top of him, hands gripping his waist and thigh. Heechul straddles his waist and kisses him, hair falling down either side of their faces.
At Heechul's place, he doesn't need to lock his bedroom door because his parents are never around until late at night, working all hours as lawyers. Heechul pulls Hankyung down onto the sofa and fists his hands in Hankyung's hair. Afterwards he tries to make them some dinner and burns the omlettes. Hankyung stares at the blackened mess that he tips angrily into the bin.
"Are your parents ever around?" he asks.
"No," says Heechul, a little defensively. Sure, he's a latch-key kid, but that's the only life he's ever known.
"So how do you eat?"
"Take-out. Ramen. I eat at other people's houses a lot, Sungmin's mother likes to feed me and Ryeowook is always happy to feed other people whenever."
"Ryeowook?" Hankyung is looking in his cupboards.
"He was at the party, you probably didn't see him. Short, high cheekbones. He goes to another school and lives with Yehsung in an apartment. Yehsung works in music, he's -- hey, what are you doing?"
"I'm hungry," says Hankyung, from where he's standing holding a frying pan and a packet of rice. "I was going to make us something."
Ten minutes later, they're eating some sort of Chinese rice dish. Heechul doesn't care about the name so long as it tastes good and by god, it tastes good. Eventually he realises that Hankyung is simply staring at him. "What?" he asks, guarded.
"You look like you haven't eaten all day."
Heechul smiles and avoids his eyes.
---
Heechul seems to remember that he came to this hair salon because it was supposedly upper class. The magazine that he's reading is now one month out of date, so perhaps it's gone downhill. Next to him, Kyuhyun's handheld games console is beeping incessantly. Sungmin, sitting in a chair with his dye soaking in, has a look on his face that lets Heechul know he's going to get a Talking To.
"You're still only having sex with him?"
Ah, it's started.
"Yes." Heechul sounds utterly bored.
"Don't you want something more?"
"No, I'm perfectly happy just having sex with him."
Sungmin's stylist looks scandalized.
"How can you sleep with someone and not like them?"
"Easily enough. Did you like everyone you've slept with?"
Sungmin looks nervously at Kyuhyun but is forced to admit, "No."
"But you found them all attractive?"
"Yes."
"Exactly."
"But they were, well, the equivalent of one-night stands. Nothing regular, like you." A covert glance is sent in Kyuhyun's direction. "I've never slept with someone I didn't like more than once."
Heechul shrugs. "I'm not you."
"Just talk to him. Maybe he wants something different out of the arrangement than you, and it's not fair on him to string him along."
---
"Just so you know, I don't like you."
"Wha -- Heechul, this is so not the fucking time!"
"I just thought you should know."
"Not when your mouth is around my dick!"
"I don't like you."
"I don't like you either, especially not when you start talking in the middle of sucking me off."
"Okay, good."
"Nugh."
---
"So did you talk?"
"Sure, of course."
---
Hankyung is standing at the corner of the corridor, hands tucked into his pockets. Even though they've realised that they aren't dating, the rest of the school still seems to regard him as Heechul's property and that makes him even more terrifying; they are giving him a berth of around three feet.
Yellow comes down the corridor towards him. He expects Heechul to just smirk at him and continue on his way. Instead, a body slams into his and he hits the locker behind him with a mouth pressed to his. He gasps, breathless, when Heechul's lips slowly pull away. "What the hell?" he says hoarsely.
"Nice chain," says Heechul, and drags his hand over the chain hanging at Hankyung's waist, dangerously close to his crotch.
"Nice face," says Hankyung.
"I thought so," says Heechul, and with a waggle of his fingers, saunters away.
"Asshole," says Hankyung with a bark of laughter.
---
Heechul, holding a cardboard holder with three take-out coffee cups in it, pauses in the doorway, staring. "What is he doing here?" he shrieks.
Sungmin beams at him. "I invited him!"
"Hi," says Hankyung, waving a pair of chopsticks at him. and Heechul ignores him.
"Why would you do that?" he demands, glaring at Sungmin.
"He looked lonely when I passed him on the field," explains Sungmin. There is the beginning of a pout on his face. "I thought, since you and him are, you know, he should be eating with us."
"We're not anything," protests Heechul, and rounds on Hankyung. "Are we?"
Hankyung just shrugs his shoulders up and down, peeling the lid off a plastic container. "It was going to rain," he simply says.
Kyuhyun groans. His head is on the desk. Sungmin had moved it from the keyboard next to him when they'd first come into the music room. Kyuhyun had been awake all night engaged in a fierce battle with some guy on Starcraft and the coffee that Heechul bought for him earlier is utterly black. He plonks it down next to Kyuhyun's head and Kyuhyun just about manages to lift his head up to take a sip.
Sungmin accepts his coffee with a grateful smile, but Heechul is pissed at him for inviting Hankyung to eat lunch with them and huffs a little as he sits down. Then he reaches into his bag and passes a tuna salad sandwich to Sungmin, and then throws the noodles at Kyuhyun. They hit Kyuhyun on the head and he groans again, which means that Sungmin glares at Heechul. Heechul is beginning to feel that Hankyung is the only person worth talking to, and they don't talk.
Hankyung has a homemade lunch, rice and breaded meat and Chinese leaves in some sort of dressing. "Not eating?" he asks Heechul, looking surprised.
"Not hungry," Heechul says, and holds his coffee up to his lips, blowing on it in a vain attempt at cooling it down. He drinks it slowly, and despite his words, he can't stop his eyes from drifting back to Hankyung's meal and can't hide the desire in his eyes.
The next day, Hankyung is back in the music room. Heechul just ignores him and starts talking to Kyuhyun about a new game that is set to come out that Saturday. A tupperware box is pushed across the desk towards him, and he looks up to see Hankyung looking carefully at him.
"What's this?" he asks.
"Lunch," says Hankyung.
"But I'm not--"
"It's just some of that rice dish that I made when I was over. Leftovers from last night."
"Oh." Heechul makes the mistake of opening the box and then can't deny that he wants it. He eats it slowly as Sungmin fiddles around with his phone. Then a text message comes through on his own phone. Dinner at my place tonight, Eeteuk-hyung and Kangin-hyung are coming too :D! It's Ryeowook, and Heechul has a feeling Sungmin has something to do with it, but at least it means that Heechul eats two full meals in a day.
---
When the door opens, he waves his fingers in Hankyung's face. Hankyung grins and moves his hand out of the way. "So I hear you're home alone," Heechul says. He knows this because Hankyung texted him half an hour ago telling him that his parents were out for most of the afternoon and night.
"You heard right," says Hankyung.
"I thought about bringing some alcohol and calling a party." Heechul realises that Hankyung's fingers are still around his wrist. "But I thought I'd prefer whatever you had in mind."
Hankyung pulls him forward and crushes his mouth to his, before he tangles their fingers together and begins to pull Heechul up the stairs. Heechul stares at their clasped hands for a couple of seconds, but eventually just accepts it.
---
He's breathless, light headed, coming down from the high, his head against Hankyung's chest. He does it without thinking. He turns his head and kisses Hankyung's chest.
His mouth is still pressed against skin when he realised what a mistake he's just made. When he raises his head, Hankyung has lifted his own and is staring at him. Heechul swallows. That wasn't supposed to happen. That's not what they have. It's intimate, stupidly intimate, and that is not what they have. What they have is sex, not intimacy. There is a whole gulf of difference. He feels himself blush, neck up, and begins to stutter a little.
Then he stops himself. He clambers off the bed and starts to pull his clothes on, frantic, almost falling over putting his leg into his pant leg. Hankyung sits up. "Heechul," he says heavily.
"Bye," says Heechul, and practically runs out of the house.
part 2
Characters/Pairings: Hankyung/Heechul, Kyuhyun/Sungmin, Kibum/Donghae
Rating: R
Warnings (if any): AU, violence, swearing
Word count: 12,066
He taps a rhythm out against the desk with a drumstick that he'd stolen from the music room earlier that day. It's a Wonder Girls song but he gives it a rock twist, so that no one really recognises it. He's sure that it wouldn't do much for his reputation if it was known that he was a Wonder Girls fan, even if he does think they're fucking fierce. Most people think there nothing more than a girlband, but he knows better. He thinks they're art. Still, they're enough of a girlband to stop him from claiming to be a fan.
Sungmin slips into the chair next to him, shoving a piece of paper out of sight into his Math book. "So Hot?" he murmurs, head turned to where the teacher is preparing to start the class.
"Nobody," Heechul says, and darts forward to snatch the piece of paper back. It's a telephone number, as usual. A bunch of digits then Sunny in English, cursive handwriting. She's a year below them, petite but with a figure far beyond her years. He waves the paper vaguely in the air. "So will you call her?"
"Probably," says Sungmin, taking it from him and putting it back in the book for safekeeping. Math is Safekeeping, Biology is Ew No. English is Eh, Maybe, If I Was Bored. Heechul smirks and returns to tapping against the desk, now with his hand as well as the drumstick. The teacher glares at him, waiting to start, but Heechul ignores that and continues, because he wants to finish the song. And then he stops, dead, because oh my god, was that a person or a wet dream who just walked into the classroom?
It's the blonde hair that tips him off. In this school, the only people who have blonde hair are the ones that Heechul says can have blonde hair. This kid must be new. No matter, it just means that Heechul is going to have to teach him, and he kind of thinks that he's fine with that.
Sungmin's laughter sounds beside him, soft and knowing. "Careful," he says. "You're practically drooling."
"Why hello there," says Heechul, raking his eyes down past the blonde hair to an open shirt, black wife-beater, no tie. Long legs. He walks to the teacher with a strange form of grace, he's either a gymnast or a dancer. He'll be flexible. Heechul taps the drumstick against the table again, not really playing anything this time, just to distract himself from staring.
"I'm late, I'm sorry. I got lost."
The drumstick slips from his hand and clatters to the floor; a couple pairs of confused eyes turn towards him and then quickly away to avoid being caught looking. "Oh my god," he whispers hoarsely. "He's foreign."
"You're in trouble," says Sungmin, and Heechul would agree except he doesn't consider it as being in trouble so much as incredibly lucky. He likes foreigners, he has a thing for accents. Really, it's a harmless kink to have; better that than a masochistic streak. No, Heechul much prefers being sadistic.
The teacher points to a desk for the new boy and Heechul decides that he probably shouldn't be caught looking and leans over to the side to pick the drumstick back up. He's just about to sit back up when a pair of legs stop in his peripheral vision. He looks up at the face belonging to the legs -- and maybe pauses his eyes on the crotch of newboy -- and smirks.
"Hey," he says.
"Hi." The new boy blinks. "Could I be past?"
Heechul sits up but before the boy can move past, he sticks his arm out and rests his hand against the opposite desk. Another blink, the beginnings of a frown. "Nice hair," says Heechul. The boy's hair is actually a lot more white than Heechul's, like it's somehow been stripped of all colour. The boy looks at Heechul's hair -- ice blonde -- and then across at Sungmin -- honey blonde -- and grins.
"Thanks," he says. "You too."
Heechul lets him through, ignoring the knowing looks that Sungmin is giving him. Lessons in this school and the heiracy weren't right for the moment, he'll find another time to inform the boy of the rules and regulations. He does note, however, that when he sits down a couple of rows along, that the people around him either look at him with awe, possibly because he has blonde hair and apparently just got away with it, or they shy away from him. That does strike odd.
"Come on, then," he says as they leave the classroom. "New boy, who is he?"
Sungmin, who usually knows everything about everyone, shakes his head. "I actually have no idea. I'd have told you if I'd known there was a new boy wandering around with blonde hair." Then he smiles sweetly. "But I know who will know. Siwonnie!"
Their class president turns his head at the call of his name and Sungmin runs up to him and latches onto his arm. This is why Heechul is friends with Sungmin, despite the fact that they argue a lot. Sungmin is an evil mastermind. He knows how to inject just the right amount of masculinity to have all the girls hanging off his every word, and knows how to flutter his eyelashes to have every guy transfixed. It didn't take long for Sungmin to have Siwon wrapped around his little finger, and now Sungmin knows school secrets before anyone else, and Heechul gets away with practically everything because all Sungmin has to do is pout and Siwon agrees to let Heechul off whatever he's done.
"The new boy?" Siwon looks thoughtfully. "His name is Hankyung. Transferred here from a high school in Beijing. Something about a fresh start for his family."
"Oh, I love China," says Heechul. Siwon wrinkles his nose at him.
"I don't know, hyung, apparently he's dangerous."
"So am I, Siwon," says Heechul, patting him on the shoulder. "So am I."
Siwon is deeply niave. Mostly he refuses to believe that any of the rumours surrounding Heechul and Sungmin are true. This is because Sungmin never shows half of the whore that he is in front of Siwon, choosing instead to act cute and giggly, and because Heechul likes Siwon and so is fairly pleasant to him. Siwon therefore thinks that they need protecting, somehow.
"No, hyung," he says sincerely. "You don't understand. Apparently he got involved in a gang back at his old high school and was expelled after he set fire to the school gym. Our school was the only one who would take him. That's what I mean about a new start."
"A bad boy," says Heechul, thrilled to his very bones. "Oh my god, he just gets better and better."
Siwon gives him up as a lost cause. It's a few years too late for Heechul to be bothered by it.
---
"Could we have the drumstick back?" Kyuhyun from the year below looks bored out of his brains, standing with one hand held out in expectation.
"No," says Heechul, and he twirls it in his fingers like a professional. He practised last night. An eyebrow is raised in challenge. Sungmin suddenly comes out of nowhere and waggles his fingers at Kyuhyun.
"Hi, Kyuhyunnie," he trills.
Kyuhyun completely ignores him, instead shrugging at Heechul and turning around and walking away. Sungmin sighs in a happy way. Heechul rolls his eyes and then shouts Kyuhyun's name. When Kyuhyun turns back, Heechul throws the drumstick at him. "Blonde hair tomorrow!" he shouts.
"No," Kyuhyun shouts back and continues on his way.
"How sad," says Sungmin, with mock unhappiness.
"I'll get him one day," says Heechul.
Kyuhyun missed the entire first semester of his freshman year because of a car accident the summer beforehand. By the time he'd come back, everyone else had already formed off into cliques and groups. Now he spends most of his time sitting at the back of classrooms writing music compositions or playing handheld games. He was the only person to not be completely terrified of Heechul, in fact seeming kind of bored with his antics. That first time Heechul plucked his game straight out of his hands, Kyuhyun had just calmly asked for it back and when Heechul refused, had just shrugged and took out a book. Heechul has been trying to recruit him ever since.
Kyuhyun refuses every time. This is doubly tragic, because not only is Heechul missing an opportunity to know someone just as snarky as he is, Sungmin also thinks Kyuhyun is positively gorgeous and wants to get to know him better too.
---
Heechul first talks to the new boy, Hankyung the Chinese bad boy, around the back of the school gym. Hankyung has a cigarette in his hand and smoke issuing from his mouth. Heechul pauses, surprised to see him there, and then leers. Hankyung smiles blandly. Oh, he's stupid. He's hot, foreign and dumb enough to do whatever Heechul tells him. He feels slightly faint.
"Hi," he says, sauntering up. "Hankyung, right?"
"That's me," says Hankyung. "You're -- nice hair, or something?"
"Heechul. Kim Heechul." He preens a little inside that Hankyung still remembers him, even though that's stupid because everyone remembers Heechul. He wonders what those arms would look like holding him up against a wall, and then drags himself back to the matter at hand.
"Hey, so, Hankyung. I know you're new but there are some things you should know."
"About what?" Hankyung blows out another fog of smoke. Heechul is once against forced to stop daydreaming, this time about those lips blowing something else.
"About the school, in general. About your hair."
"Oh, I've already been told." Hankyung smiles at him again. He looks like the confused Chinese kid that he is. "Something about blonde hair being your trademark?"
"Something like that," says Heechul. Good, he already seems to understand. That's going to stop this from being awkward. "You see, in this school, blonde hair means that you're one of mine. Someone I like. A friend."
"There's only two of you."
"Three actually. Donghae didn't look good as a blonde. And besides, I'm picky." This is true. Heechul, in general, dislikes people, especially the masses in this school. "The fact remains that you have blonde hair despite not being one of my friends."
There's a flicker of something in Hankyung's eyes beyond the dumb confusion and he rolls his shoulders back. "So?"
"So you need to change it." Heechul leans back against the wall, scraping his elbow against the stone and jerking it back. "Black, red, blue, I don't care, so long as it's not blonde." Then he leans forward a little, looking up at Hankyung through strands of his air. "Give me a drag?"
"No," says Hankyung. He drops the cigarette to the floor and crushes it beneath his combat boot, snuffs it out with a callousness that makes Heechul's mouth drop open. Then Hankyung walks away without a sound, without even waving back. Heechul watches him go, and then stomps off in the other direction.
---
"He's still got blonde hair!"
Heechul's explosion happens during third period Biology the next day. Sungmin is greeted by a Heechul who is feeling overwhemingly angry, whose anger is making him kind of violent. For Kyuhyun to ignore his instructions is one thing, but for some new kid who isn't even from this country to refuse to do as he says -- the offence is unforgiveable.
Sungmin, sitting on a lab stool, blinks at him. "Who, Hankyung?"
"Yes!" Heechul throws himself down on his own stool, looking a bit like a teenage girl; melodramatic and too over the top. "He's swaggering around looking like I didn't just tell him that it's not allowed."
"He's new," Sungmin soothes. "He'll get it in a couple of days. Just give him time."
"I'm going to have to talk to him again," Heechul decides, a little feverishly. "He needs to understand." Heechul is going to make him understand.
---
Sitting on the bench right at the bottom of the school gives him a good view of the buildings and people. There's a few girls screaming at a bench a little way from him, a couple of boys kicking a football around, the sun hot on his face. Looking over at the school entrance, he sees a flash of gold and recognises the boy who is apparently Heechul's friend. He's laughing with a couple of girls, one of his arms around the waist of the taller one. Then Heechul comes out, shielding his eyes against the sun, talking to a girl with long, orange hair. As he watches, Heechul pats her condescendingly on the head and she shakes him off with a smile.
He'd liked Heechul well enough until that incident behind the gym. He'd been attracted, he wasn't going to lie; Heechul was hot. Hankyung, however, wasn't going to do with Heechul said just to please him. That was what had gotten him into trouble in China. He was over being part of that kind of grouping, of following the crowd and doing what other people said. It may have been easy enough to change his hair colour, but he was stubborn. It would stop conflict, but he didn't want to be seen to be conforming to whatever idiotic claptrap Heechul had peddled around the school.
---
"Look, I know you're new, but you really do need to understand some things."
"You're right, I am new. That means that I don't have to do what you say."
---
"I own this school."
Hankyung is getting really sick of getting stopped in the hallway. His excuse of "I'm new, I got lost" ran out of credit last week and at this rate, he's going to be late for his Chinese class. Anyway, he doesn't believe for one second that what Heechul is saying is correct. His skepticism must show on his face because Heechul snarls at him and then puts out a hand to stop the freshman who was about to go past. The freshman looks at the hand, then at Heechul. "Two coffees, one with cream, the other with two sugars," he says.
"Music classroom," Heechul says, and the boy nods and runs off to his class. Hankyung blinks in confusion.
"What was that?"
"Every underclassman in this school knows what I take in my coffee."
"What does that prove?"
"It proves that I'm important in this school."
"And you make them get you coffee? That doesn't prove you're important, that just proves you're a dick."
---
Heechul's angry gesture is so over the top that he almost spills his coffee-with-two-sugars over himself. "Just who the fuck does he think he is? How dare he call me a dick?"
"I know," soothes Sungmin, who is really more interested in his drink than the conversation.
"No, you don't know," snaps Heechul. "He doesn't understand and I need to squash him like a bug."
"Why don't you just have sex with him and get it over with?" Sungmin pulls out his mobile phone and begins to check his messages. Heechul splutters at him and Sungmin just rolls his eyes. Then Heechul falls silent, sullenly sipping his coffee. He can't deny, even now, that he does still want to jump Hankyung's bones. That's the really annoying thing about it.
Kyuhyun walks into the classroom, rolls his eyes when he sees the two of them there. They've taken to hanging in the place that he usually haunted, and while he doesn't welcome them there, neither has he told them to go away or found somewhere else to be by himself.
"What's up with him?" He nods at Heechul, who is muttering under his breath, something about blonde hair and fucking accents. Sungmin shrugs, smiling winningly.
"He's just pissed at the new boy." Kyuhyun takes the seat next to him, gaze focused on his music. Sungmin leans over to look at it and Kyuhyun jerks it away from his eyes. Sungmin pouts. Kyuhyun ignores him. Sungmin practically sits in his lap to see. Kyuhyun sighs but doesn't push him away.
Next to them, Heechul mutters something about how everyone just ignores him.
---
Hankyung has the desk four in front of Heechul in History class. He's already sitting there when Heechul enters the classroom, his textbook and notepad out on his desk. As Heechul passes, he puts out a hand and knocks the two books to the floor and then carries on without apologising. When he sits down regally at his own desk, Hankyung is picking them up and looking back to glare at him. Heechul's lip curls upwards.
---
Walking down the corridor chatting to Sungmin, something suddenly bangs into his shoulder and makes him stumble to the side, falling into Sungmin. Outraged, he looks for the culprit and sees an eyebrow raised under white-blonde hair. He narrows his eyes before stalking back off like nothing had happened, like no one had seen (and oh, everyone had seen). This is war.
---
The coffee is lukewarm at best but it still shocks when it goes spilling all over Hankyung's legs. He yelps and jumps up; looks up to a smirk and eyes alight with amusement. "So sorry," drawls Heechul, and then shakes the coffee cup so that even the very last drops go splashing over Hankyung's shirt. Then he tosses the cup into the bin a foot away from him and walks off, nose in the air. Hankyung is forced to spend the rest of the day with damp clothing. The twitching eyebrow stops anyone from commenting on it.
---
Heechul stops dead in the doorway, which means that Sungmin walks bang into the back of him. "What was that for?" Sungmin asks, pushing past him to go into the room, rubbing his nose with a cutely disgruntled expression on his face. Then he, too, stops dead at the sight of Kyuhyun, his blonde head bent over a music sheet. He's gone for white blonde of Hankyung rather than anything like the shades of Heechul and Sungmin. When he looks up, Heechul sees that he called this correctly; he looks good. He also looks insanely smug.
"Hey, hyung," he says, and Heechul flicks him straight in the middle of his forehead as reward for finally doing what he says. Then he folds into a chair and blows on his coffee.
"Sungmin," he says, without even looking at him. "Either stick your tongue down his throat, or get out of the doorway."
Sungmin, true to form, chooses to go with the first choice, taking his usual place in Kyuhyun's lap and kissing him firmly, open-mouthed and so dirty that Heechul says, "Ew," and puts a hand over his eyes. Then he turns, and looks out of the window. Blonde hair catches his attention, and he scowls.
"Either stick your tongue down his throat," mutters Sungmin, so quiet that Heechul can't hear it, "or stop fawning."
---
Hankyung knows that he isn't popular. He didn't come to the school looking to be popular, but now that he's entered into this conflict with Heechul, everyone is avoiding him like he's got the plague. Actually, it's more like he's going to gut them if they look at him for more than two seconds. His policy had been to lay low. Thanks to Kim Heechul, he's been noticed.
---
Heechul hates gym class. He's got better things to do, and besides, sweat makes your hair disgusting. In particular, he hates football. It's the most pointless sport in the world, chasing a ball around and kicking it places only for it to end up back when it began. If Sungmin had been in his class, they'd have skived off, gone up to one of the music classrooms and -- Heechul scowls -- talked about how they were going to get back at Hankyung.
Only, of course, Sungmin would have laughed at him. "I know sexual tension when I see it," Sungmin had said last time, and no amount of arguing from Heechul had persuaded him that sexual tension was the last thing causing this conflict. No, this whole problem had been caused by Hankyung refusing to do what Heechul said. Heechul ruled the school. Hankyung had to do what he said.
He wasn't denying that he once thought that Hankyung was attractive, maybe even thought about his body a little too often. That, however, was all before he realised that Hankyung was a complete prat who was so stupid that he didn't even know how to act at a new high school in a new country. You did as the people there told you. Just because Hankyung was really, really hot didn't mean that Heechul could forget about all the slights and offences.
He does wonder two things though. First of all, why is Hankyung in his gym class? And second, why does he have to look so good in the regulation black shorts?
Normally, Heechul would stand at the side of the pitch, watching in a bored fashion as his team either won or lost. Today, however, he's spent fifteen minutes staring at Hankyung's legs before realising that he was going to have to distract himself somehow. He is about to just turn around and leave when Hankyung scores a goal against Heechul's team. He is grinning. Anger washes over Heechul. Hankyung is not supposed to be happy. He is supposed to be broken. Why won't he break?
Heechul takes to the pitch. He doesn't quite understand the game or quite what to do, but he has a viciousness that can almost be viewed as enthusiasm. The teacher is so overjoyed to see Heechul actually taking part that he lets Heechul off with a lot of his fouls. Heechul, however, doesn't take the risk and waits until the teacher's back is turned before sticking his foot out and causing Hankyung to go flying to the ground.
There is a long moment where everyone around them seems to go silent and Hankyung stays still. Then he rolls over and gets slowly to his feet. The hatred in his eyes is somehow exciting. "What the hell is your problem?" he asks in a low, dangerous voice.
"My problem?" Heechul's voice is cool, calm, almost innocent. "I could ask you the same thing."
"Why is my hair colour such a big deal to you?"
"It's got nothing to do with the hair colour." That's the truth, at least. "It's everything to do with the fact that you won't just do as I say."
"Why the heck should I do as you say?" Hankyung's voice is getting louder. "You're just a petty high school kid who seems to think that you have some sort of authority. You don't, you can't make me do jack shit."
"This is my school."
"It is not your school. It is no one's school."
"It is my school!" Heechul practically shrieks. His anger overflows and he spits out the only thing he can think of, makes use of the only information that he has on Hankyung. "This isn't your territory, you don't have the protection of your fucking gang back in China over here!"
It happens so fast that Heechul isn't sure exactly what happened. One minute he's glaring at Hankyung, the next Hankyung's fist is closing around his collar, pulling him up a little at the chest. His other hand is clenched by his side, and shaking. Heechul is surprised by the violence of the reaction but he just looks Hankyung in the eye, insolent, defiant. He practically turns his jaw in invitation. Hankyung's face is a lot closer than he realised; their lips almost brush with his movement. He wants Hankyung to hit him, because that opens the gateway. Heechul has been enjoying the petty pranks but oh, how he wants to be able to hurt Hankyung.
"You know fuck all about what happened in China," Hankyung hisses, and oh wow, China Boy can swear. Heechul smirks and pulls back a little.
"Go on then," he says. "Go on and lose." And Hankyung's fist does raise a little.
Then Siwon is pulling him back, looking shocked by what has just happened. There was no doubt that Hankyung almost lost control there and hit Heechul. Their teacher is yelling, something about detention for both of them, but Heechul can barely even hear, he's still holding eye contact with Hankyung. Hankyung shakes Siwon off and turns away, a sneer on his face, almost as though he's decided Heechul isn't worth it. Heechul is disappointed. Somehow, he wants to be worth it.
He spits at Hankyung's feet and storms off the pitch.
---
It turns out that they do have detention that night, but before then they have to get through their afternoon classes. Heechul informed Sungmin of what had happened during lunch -- though it had taken him a while to drag Sungmin away from Kyuhyun's mouth -- and now they put up a united front during seventh period Maths. Or, at least, that was the idea. A couple of minutes beforehand, Sungmin decides that actually, this is Heechul's problem and as far as he's concerned, a good make-out session would solve everything. One day, Heechul was going to pull every hair out of his head. Like a form of torture. That would be satisfying.
This means that when Hankyung comes into the classroom, everyone goes silent apart from Sungmin, who is chatting to Sooyoung on his mobile. Everyone has heard about what happened in gym class fourth period. Everyone is expecting some sort of confrontation. Instead, Hankyung completely ignores him, going up one aisle along from him and cutting across to his seat. Heechul is left outraged; how is he supposed to show Hankyung that he doesn't care what he thinks about him if Hankyung doesn't look at him? The class is left feeling bereft; a good fight is so hard to come across nowadays.
---
well, this is tense
Heechul glares at Sungmin's note.
shut the fuck up, you are no help
---
Detention is even worse. It's just those two and a kid from the second year who cheeked a teacher. Even he seems kind of intimidated the tension. The teacher is doing his best to ignore it and gives them lines. Heechul has to write "I will respect my fellow students and not initiate fights". He scrawls it lazily one hundred times, not meaning it any time he writes it. When their time is up, he sweeps out of the room before Hankyung has even thought about packing up his stuff.
He just wants to get home. He needs to focus, regroup. He really, really needs a cigarette. Maybe, if he calls Sungmin, they can go to a bar, get pissed, who gives a damn if they have school the next day? He needs to relax and forget about the fucked up rivalry he's got going on with the Chinese student. He sweeps his books into his bag indiscriminatingly, slams his door shut, and jumps; Hankyung is standing on the other side.
"Fuck off," says Heechul, and goes to leave. Hankyung reaches out and takes hold of his arm tightly and pulls him back. Heechul rounds on him. "What?" he snarls. Hankyung lets go but his fingers trail a little down Heechul's skin beforehand; it tingles through his body and makes him even angrier.
"You know," Hankyung says, in a mock thoughtful way. "I don't understand why you're the supposed ruler of this school. You aren't good at sports, in fact, you're terrible. You don't do well in school. Your grades are worse than mine and I'm not even from this country." As he speaks, he slowly circles Heechul; he comes around the back and his arm brushes Heechul's hip and Heechul fights down a shiver. Revulsion, he tells himself. "You aren't in any clubs, you don't take part in any art classes, you hang around the music rooms but you don't play an instrument and you aren't in the choir."
Heechul is beginning to feel a little claustrophobic, as Hankyung's voice drops and he whispers in his ear, "What makes Kim Heechul so special?"
He's been thoroughly thrown. His mind is just a buzz of white noise. God, he's so angry he could just scream: how can Hankyung make him feel like this? He's usually so calm, so in control, when it comes to things like this. He opens his mouth to say something and his voice doesn't come. He can see a hint of a smirk playing around Hankyung's mouth. "I'll tell you what," he says. "Nothing. Kim Heechul is nothing special."
Lies! is his first thought, but then something speaks up in the back of Heechul's mind, a little voice which agrees with Hankyung. He remembers being back in elementary school, being the loner, the one who was never noticed. Why else did he want to befriend Kyuhyun? He saw some of himself in the younger boy; someone who pretends like he doesn't care what people think, the one who tries to convince himself that he's fine with just video games and solitude, but who is really just kidding himself. Hankyung has brought back all those old insecurities.
When his knuckles connect with Hankyung's jaw, he realises that he's the one who has lost. He's let himself be goaded. Worse than that is the irrefutable proof that he had nothing on Hankyung. When he hits him, Hankyung's head jerks back, but he doesn't hit the floor, doesn't seem to be hurt in any sort of a way. He has no chance. He can't beat Hankyung in a fight.
One still moment passes, in which his knuckles sting.
Then Hankyung's fists are closing around his collar again, both sides, and his back is slamming against his locker. It's like back in gym class except this time, he can barely breathe. Hankyung stares at him, his eyes completely unreadable. Heechul lifts his chin, and Hankyung's knuckles turn white before suddenly, amazingly, he's kissing Heechul.
His hold softens. His hands come up to cup Heechul's jaw, left thumb rubbing gently at his cheek. After a moment of complete confusion, Heechul's hands grasp the material at Hankyung's hips and pulls him forward. Hankyung's tongue presses against his, his hands tipping Heechul's head back, and Heechul moans.
The noise causes a change in Hankyung; he presses Heechul against the locker with his body, the kiss becoming hard and frantic and obscene. He tastes like cigarette smoke and a hint of something minty, as if he's been chewing gum to try to hide the smell. Heechul pushes his tank top up to feel the skin at his sides and Hankyung practically whimpers.
---
Hankyung thinks he's dying, the taste of stale smoke and bitter coffee filling his mind, mingled with some sort of chapstick, fruit. Heechul tastes like a kid trying to grow up too soon. God, what an idiot he's been. This is all he's wanted to do since he first laid eyes on him.
---
"You can keep the blonde hair."
"Yeah, I figured so."
---
The next morning brings first period History. The class is waiting for some sort of incident when Heechul enters to find Hankyung already sitting there, he can practically feel the other students holding their breath in anticipation.
He puts a hand out to knock the books to the floor, but the split second he touches them, Hankyung's fingers loop around his wrist. A collective intake of breath from the class. Heechul smirks, and as Hankyung slides his chair back, he straddles him around the waist and kisses him, open-mouthed, hands on Hankyung's chest.
There's deafening silence when they break apart. Hankyung chuckles. "Don't you do anything other than drink coffee?"
"Drink the still warm blood of infants," mutters Heechul, standing up and stroking his hand along Hankyung's jaw and down his throat. He feels Hankyung's laughter against his fingers. He smirks and continues on his way.
---
Sungmin is sitting in Kyuhyun's lap again. "So is that all you're doing?"
Heechul isn't sure what he means, or why he seems so annoyed. "Eh?"
"Making out. Kissing. Is that all you're doing?"
Heechul rolls his eyes. "Well, I haven't managed to get him into a bed yet, so yeah, so far we've only kissed."
"That is not what I mean!" Kyuhyun is actually reading a gaming magazine over Sungmin's shoulder, but Sungmin hasn't seemed to have noticed that his attention isn't focused on the conversation at hand. "You aren't even dating?"
"Sungmin, I don't even like him."
That throws Sungmin for a loop. He blinks. "You don't? But you made out with him!"
Heechul snorts. "Just because I find him attractive doesn't mean that I like him. He's still a prick. He's just a prick who happens to be a good kisser."
"You ruin my life," says Sungmin mournfully.
---
The rest of the school seems to think they're dating but this feeling only lasts until the end of the next day. The only time they're seen together is during classes, and they don't do any of the normal things that couples in the school do; there is no holding hands or eating lunch together or sneaking kisses in the hallway. They don't even talk for most of the remaining two days of school, and when they do, it's to arrange to meet up in the Math classroom during the latter half of lunch break, where Hankyung pushes Heechul up against the blackboard and kisses him furiously.
So neither of them discuss the weekend and therefore they both get a shock when they spot each other at a party that Saturday night.
Heechul shoves his drink in Donghae's hand and storms over, tapping Hankyung on the shoulder. "What are you doing here?"
Hankyung stares at him. "I know Zhou Mi from the extra Korean classes at cram school, he invited me."
"Seasoning did?" Heechul looks over at Zhou Mi, who is talking to Kyuhyun. Not someone who goes well with jealousy, Sungmin has apparently picked up on the friendship between them and is glaring in a sweetly sick way. Heechul turns back to Hankyung. "Wait, you go to cram school?"
"Every Tuesday and Thursday, just to improve my Korean. You know Zhou Mi?"
"I know everyone here." Heechul motions around, at the crowd of people. "Just because I don't have many people at school doesn't mean I don't know a lot of people."
"None of them have blonde hair?"
"That's a school thing. Most of these graduated or dropped out."
Heechul is bored of taking, because it's not what he and Hankyung do. He's also more than a little drunk because he, Sungmin and Kyuhyun got here quite early to help Kibum (early graduation, by about three years) set up. Sungmin and Kyuhyun were so into each other that all Heechul had done was drink with Kibum, until Donghae had arrived, at which point he had drunk by himself. Then he had to play host because Kibum didn't reappear until half an hour after the party had officially started. Playing host had meant getting even more drunk.
He drapes his arm over Hankyung's shoulder and notices that Hankyung's irises are wide, his mouth slightly damp. He's drunk too. "Perfect," Heechul purrs, and five minutes later they're crashing into one of the bedrooms upstairs, mouths barely together as they collapse onto the double bed. It's one of the fastest fucks Heechul has ever experienced. Hankyung smells like alcohol, Heechul can still taste it at the back of his throat, and as he wraps his legs around Hankyung's waist and arches up, he thinks oh my fucking god.
---
He strokes the hair at the back of Hankyung's neck and moans, low, in his throat. Hankyung's fingers bruise his hips, bruises that stay there for three days. He feels some form of regret when they disappear.
---
A note is passed forward during Math. My house, after school?
---
Hankyung's bed has dark blue covers; Heechul likes it because it's double and it gives them more room. His mother always asks them if they want something to eat, sociable and friendly, and Hankyung always makes sure to lock his door before he pulls Heechul down on top of him, hands gripping his waist and thigh. Heechul straddles his waist and kisses him, hair falling down either side of their faces.
At Heechul's place, he doesn't need to lock his bedroom door because his parents are never around until late at night, working all hours as lawyers. Heechul pulls Hankyung down onto the sofa and fists his hands in Hankyung's hair. Afterwards he tries to make them some dinner and burns the omlettes. Hankyung stares at the blackened mess that he tips angrily into the bin.
"Are your parents ever around?" he asks.
"No," says Heechul, a little defensively. Sure, he's a latch-key kid, but that's the only life he's ever known.
"So how do you eat?"
"Take-out. Ramen. I eat at other people's houses a lot, Sungmin's mother likes to feed me and Ryeowook is always happy to feed other people whenever."
"Ryeowook?" Hankyung is looking in his cupboards.
"He was at the party, you probably didn't see him. Short, high cheekbones. He goes to another school and lives with Yehsung in an apartment. Yehsung works in music, he's -- hey, what are you doing?"
"I'm hungry," says Hankyung, from where he's standing holding a frying pan and a packet of rice. "I was going to make us something."
Ten minutes later, they're eating some sort of Chinese rice dish. Heechul doesn't care about the name so long as it tastes good and by god, it tastes good. Eventually he realises that Hankyung is simply staring at him. "What?" he asks, guarded.
"You look like you haven't eaten all day."
Heechul smiles and avoids his eyes.
---
Heechul seems to remember that he came to this hair salon because it was supposedly upper class. The magazine that he's reading is now one month out of date, so perhaps it's gone downhill. Next to him, Kyuhyun's handheld games console is beeping incessantly. Sungmin, sitting in a chair with his dye soaking in, has a look on his face that lets Heechul know he's going to get a Talking To.
"You're still only having sex with him?"
Ah, it's started.
"Yes." Heechul sounds utterly bored.
"Don't you want something more?"
"No, I'm perfectly happy just having sex with him."
Sungmin's stylist looks scandalized.
"How can you sleep with someone and not like them?"
"Easily enough. Did you like everyone you've slept with?"
Sungmin looks nervously at Kyuhyun but is forced to admit, "No."
"But you found them all attractive?"
"Yes."
"Exactly."
"But they were, well, the equivalent of one-night stands. Nothing regular, like you." A covert glance is sent in Kyuhyun's direction. "I've never slept with someone I didn't like more than once."
Heechul shrugs. "I'm not you."
"Just talk to him. Maybe he wants something different out of the arrangement than you, and it's not fair on him to string him along."
---
"Just so you know, I don't like you."
"Wha -- Heechul, this is so not the fucking time!"
"I just thought you should know."
"Not when your mouth is around my dick!"
"I don't like you."
"I don't like you either, especially not when you start talking in the middle of sucking me off."
"Okay, good."
"Nugh."
---
"So did you talk?"
"Sure, of course."
---
Hankyung is standing at the corner of the corridor, hands tucked into his pockets. Even though they've realised that they aren't dating, the rest of the school still seems to regard him as Heechul's property and that makes him even more terrifying; they are giving him a berth of around three feet.
Yellow comes down the corridor towards him. He expects Heechul to just smirk at him and continue on his way. Instead, a body slams into his and he hits the locker behind him with a mouth pressed to his. He gasps, breathless, when Heechul's lips slowly pull away. "What the hell?" he says hoarsely.
"Nice chain," says Heechul, and drags his hand over the chain hanging at Hankyung's waist, dangerously close to his crotch.
"Nice face," says Hankyung.
"I thought so," says Heechul, and with a waggle of his fingers, saunters away.
"Asshole," says Hankyung with a bark of laughter.
---
Heechul, holding a cardboard holder with three take-out coffee cups in it, pauses in the doorway, staring. "What is he doing here?" he shrieks.
Sungmin beams at him. "I invited him!"
"Hi," says Hankyung, waving a pair of chopsticks at him. and Heechul ignores him.
"Why would you do that?" he demands, glaring at Sungmin.
"He looked lonely when I passed him on the field," explains Sungmin. There is the beginning of a pout on his face. "I thought, since you and him are, you know, he should be eating with us."
"We're not anything," protests Heechul, and rounds on Hankyung. "Are we?"
Hankyung just shrugs his shoulders up and down, peeling the lid off a plastic container. "It was going to rain," he simply says.
Kyuhyun groans. His head is on the desk. Sungmin had moved it from the keyboard next to him when they'd first come into the music room. Kyuhyun had been awake all night engaged in a fierce battle with some guy on Starcraft and the coffee that Heechul bought for him earlier is utterly black. He plonks it down next to Kyuhyun's head and Kyuhyun just about manages to lift his head up to take a sip.
Sungmin accepts his coffee with a grateful smile, but Heechul is pissed at him for inviting Hankyung to eat lunch with them and huffs a little as he sits down. Then he reaches into his bag and passes a tuna salad sandwich to Sungmin, and then throws the noodles at Kyuhyun. They hit Kyuhyun on the head and he groans again, which means that Sungmin glares at Heechul. Heechul is beginning to feel that Hankyung is the only person worth talking to, and they don't talk.
Hankyung has a homemade lunch, rice and breaded meat and Chinese leaves in some sort of dressing. "Not eating?" he asks Heechul, looking surprised.
"Not hungry," Heechul says, and holds his coffee up to his lips, blowing on it in a vain attempt at cooling it down. He drinks it slowly, and despite his words, he can't stop his eyes from drifting back to Hankyung's meal and can't hide the desire in his eyes.
The next day, Hankyung is back in the music room. Heechul just ignores him and starts talking to Kyuhyun about a new game that is set to come out that Saturday. A tupperware box is pushed across the desk towards him, and he looks up to see Hankyung looking carefully at him.
"What's this?" he asks.
"Lunch," says Hankyung.
"But I'm not--"
"It's just some of that rice dish that I made when I was over. Leftovers from last night."
"Oh." Heechul makes the mistake of opening the box and then can't deny that he wants it. He eats it slowly as Sungmin fiddles around with his phone. Then a text message comes through on his own phone. Dinner at my place tonight, Eeteuk-hyung and Kangin-hyung are coming too :D! It's Ryeowook, and Heechul has a feeling Sungmin has something to do with it, but at least it means that Heechul eats two full meals in a day.
---
When the door opens, he waves his fingers in Hankyung's face. Hankyung grins and moves his hand out of the way. "So I hear you're home alone," Heechul says. He knows this because Hankyung texted him half an hour ago telling him that his parents were out for most of the afternoon and night.
"You heard right," says Hankyung.
"I thought about bringing some alcohol and calling a party." Heechul realises that Hankyung's fingers are still around his wrist. "But I thought I'd prefer whatever you had in mind."
Hankyung pulls him forward and crushes his mouth to his, before he tangles their fingers together and begins to pull Heechul up the stairs. Heechul stares at their clasped hands for a couple of seconds, but eventually just accepts it.
---
He's breathless, light headed, coming down from the high, his head against Hankyung's chest. He does it without thinking. He turns his head and kisses Hankyung's chest.
His mouth is still pressed against skin when he realised what a mistake he's just made. When he raises his head, Hankyung has lifted his own and is staring at him. Heechul swallows. That wasn't supposed to happen. That's not what they have. It's intimate, stupidly intimate, and that is not what they have. What they have is sex, not intimacy. There is a whole gulf of difference. He feels himself blush, neck up, and begins to stutter a little.
Then he stops himself. He clambers off the bed and starts to pull his clothes on, frantic, almost falling over putting his leg into his pant leg. Hankyung sits up. "Heechul," he says heavily.
"Bye," says Heechul, and practically runs out of the house.
part 2