Entry #1
Title: Dropped from Great Heights Lovingly
Pairing: Kyuhyun/Zhou Mi, Henry/Shindong
Rating/Genre: PG-13, mostly crack
Summary: Kyuhyun gets (unwanted) help with life.
The first time Kyuhyun noticed Zhou Mi was when he rolled loudly into class in a wheelchair, limped to a seat in the front on crutches (the girl previously sitting there guiltily shifting to the right to allow room for him, the handicapped), took a tape recorder from his bag, and pressed the tiny red button with fingers that were attached to the arm that wasn’t in a cast. The left one.
Computer science was the one class that Kyuhyun could never stay awake in, as fascinating as he found the subject matter. It was just that he had it at 2:30 pm, his last class of the day, by which time he was already exhausted from rushing around campus and wanted only to crawl back into bed and stay there for another thirty-six hours. He arrived at the building, which was up “science hill,” uncharacteristically late, climbed six flights to his classroom, and slipped inconspicuously into a seat in the back which offered him a clear view of everything below, as the chairs were situated on an incline auditorium-style. It was the prime location for nap-taking.
Kyuhyun had fallen half-asleep when his head hit the desk behind him and he was jolted awake to the mumblings of a kid next to him who rested the side of his face on the desk, a small pool of drool collecting by his cheek. Kyuhyun yawned and turned his attention below, where the professor was fiddling with the projector. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a misshapen figure approaching the door to the classroom.
It was a guy in a wheelchair. With an arm cast. More athletes had been showing up in crutches of late but what sport did this guy play? How he managed to cripple three of his four limbs was a wonder to Kyuhyun, who rarely wondered about sports injuries. In fact the thought had already left his mind by the time he dotted his mental question mark.
Forty minutes later, he skipped down the steps two at a time towards the front of the classroom to grab the latest graded problem set and bolt out the door when he heard a voice call his name very clearly. A mellifluous, not entirely unpleasant sort of tone. He turned around to see the wheelchair boy struggling to get out of his seat.
“God, what happened to you,” Kyuhyun muttered aloud without thinking.
The boy offered a smile, although it was no smiling matter. “I was trying to jump from the roof of a building to a tree to save this girl’s kitten.”
Kyuhyun couldn’t tell if he was being serious. “You had a rough landing.”
“Yeah, haha.” His “haha” was very strongly accented.
“Wait, are you Korean?” Kyuhyun asked suddenly.
“No, I’m an a-an international student,” the boy said, almost nervously, as he settled into a precarious position with one crutch under an armpit. The other crutch fell by Kyuhyun’s foot and hesitantly he bent over to pick it up.
“I’m actually, uh, here to tutor you. And stuff,” the boy continued, taking the other crutch from Kyuhyun and placing it under his unoccupied armpit. He looked like he was having a hard time, so Kyuhyun placed a hand on his back to steady the poor guy.
Only then did the words float through his eardrum and make contact with neurons. “What? I don’t need tutoring. This class is an easy A.”
The boy sighed as he hobbled a couple steps towards the door. “From what I heard, you need a lot of tutoring. You’re failing right now, Kyuhyun.”
“Uh, who are you?”
“Zhou Mi,” Zhou Mi replied instantly, as if he’d been waiting to introduce himself all this time. His grin was disproportionately wide for his narrow and long face.
“I’m not failing this class.”
“Oh, yes, you are,” Zhou Mi assured him eagerly. “You’re failing more than that. But it’s okay, I’ll help you.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I’ve taken this class before.”
“Then why are you taking it again.”
“I had to drop it. Unforeseen circumstances.”
At that moment Kyuhyun wanted intensely to headdesk, but he reminded himself that this was the real world and in the real world people didn’t *headdesk*. He ransacked his lexicon for an appropriate phrase before settling on
“What the crap.”
Zhou Mi healed pretty quickly for someone who crashed into a tree and then again into concrete. The next time Kyuhyun saw him his cast was gone and so were the crutches. But he hadn’t made a complete recovery, Kyuhyun realized as Zhou Mi limped excitedly towards him from the other side of the cross-campus lawn. He thought briefly of making a run for it but abandoned the idea out of guilt-“hey, let’s race against the cripple!” He heaved a sigh and started heading in Zhou Mi’s direction.
“You heal fast,” he remarked when they met halfway on the green, Zhou Mi panting in exhaustion.
“Yeah, it’s a handy trait,” Zhou Mi replied automatically. “But let’s talk about the next problem set. Have you started it yet?”
“No. I have a paper and a midterm before then.”
“Oh.” Zhou Mi’s face fell noticeably, and Kyuhyun almost felt guilty, but then he remembered that he had no reason to.
“Hey, who told you to be my tutor anyway? I never signed up for one, and I’m sure there are kids in more dire need of your expertise.”
“Oh, you know. The guys up there.”
“Like, the professor?”
“Uh, yeah,” Zhou Mi agreed quickly. “Look, if you’re busy with other classes, I can help you out and do this problem set for you. You know, whatever works for you.”
Kyuhyun was stunned. Did this guy just agree to do his homework? “That’s against the rules, isn’t it?”
Zhou Mi grinned his mile-long grin. “It’ll be a secret between us.” Then his face turned serious. “No, really. Don’t tell anyone.”
People say you don’t choose your family but neglect to mention that sometimes you don’t choose your friends either. Especially when they follow you around like a stray puppy with a lame leg. Sometimes Kyuhyun wished he could send Zhou Mi to the pound.
One such moment was when he got back his latest problem set and it contained red marks all over and a giant double-underlined note from the teaching assistant who graded it: “WHAT HAPPENED.”
Kyuhyun was known among his small but intimate circle of friends as the levelheaded gamer who managed for the most part to sit through a couple rounds without sounding like a truck driver. His fellow gamers admired him for his capacity for silence and concentration even when he was being murdered alive by his opponents. They called him the Washing Machine. You know it’s going but when you flip open the cover--nothing. A quiet assassin. Badass, like him.
But upon seeing the “43” on the graded homework, after the initial suspicion that he had received someone else’s paper back, he realized that the only words running through his mind were four letters long and rhymed with “duck” and “zit.” Next thing he knew he was scrolling with lightning-fast thumbs (well-trained, furious thumbs) through his cellphone for a certain foreign name before remembering that he had entered Zhou Mi as “That Annoying Kid in CS.”
After four rings, the call went straight to voicemail: “Hello! You have reached the mailbox of Z-H-O-U SPACE M-I. I am not here right now, because I am probably out saving kitties or doggies from high-reaching places. But do call back, and maybe we can get a cup of tea, or-“
Kyuhyun hung up, because the last thing he wanted to do was have tea with this [duck]ing [zit]faced [gas]hole who [duck]ed up his [duck]ing GPA. Goodbye, job offer from Microsoft. Goodbye law school, not that he wanted to be a lawyer but had been planning on keeping his options open. Goodbye, summa cum laude. Hello, McDonalds. How can I take your order today?
“Oops” was the first thing Zhou Mi said at the next class when Kyuhyun held up the piece of paper that looked like it had been mauled by a bear. Because over the course of the past forty-eight hours Kyuhyun had crumpled it up, smoothed it out, crumpled it up again, and then smoothed it out again, etc., until finally reading over exactly what ridiculous answers Zhou Mi had given, only to find that for question number 1, which asked how to create an applet, he had written
And under the second question, which was about remote method invocation,
Zhou Mi grabbed the paper back and looked it over carefully. He groaned. “Oh, not again. They’re gonna kill me.”
“The losers who hired you? Yeah, I hope they do.”
Zhou Mi gave Kyuhyun a meaningful look, the meaning of which Kyuhyun could not grasp, and opened his mouth as if to make a correction but closed it abruptly. “Well,” he started, his tone cheerful now. “We all make mistakes.”
Kyuhyun made a strangled sound in his throat. He conjured up images of bunnies and pandas sneezing to calm himself. Deep breaths, he told himself. “Listen, Zhou Mi. Up until you arrived, I had a 99 average in this class. Now I need to factor in a 43 into my grade. I told you I didn’t need a tutor, and you didn’t believe me. I don’t even know where you came from. And you said I was failing the class, which was obviously a lie. I don’t know where you got that info from, but now I’m much closer to failing than I ever was before.”
“But you are failing!” Zhou Mi wailed. “That’s what they told me!”
“WHO ARE ‘THEY.’ I’ll go down and ask Professor Jung right now if I’m failing this class-“
“Wait-“ Zhou Mi said, a slight note of panic in his voice. He broke out the winning grin Kyuhyun was already sick of seeing by now. “Let me clarify. The exact phrase was ‘failing at life.’”
Kyuhyun opened his mouth but the professor cleared his throat and glowered in their direction. Venting could wait. With the help of some breathing exercises.
Fifty minutes later, Zhou Mi had clearly forgotten that they were in the middle of an argument and instead insisted that they fill their stomachs with something that didn't t taste like eraser stubs.
“The food isn’t that bad,” Kyuhyun shrugged, successfully distracted by Zhou Mi’s diversion tactics.
Zhou Mi’s slanty eyes became less slanty as they struggled to express surprise. “You can’t be serious, Kyuhyunnie! If you only knew the quality of the food I’m used to…” His eyes grew almost watery at the mention of this wonderful luxurious food he was apparently missing out on at college.
Kyuhyun listened halfheartedly to Zhou Mi describe fish sticks that tasted like cotton candy clouds, plucking fresh berries from trees upside down-what did that even mean?-water like honey that dripped from the bosom of Mary herself… when he realized that over the course of the past week he had transformed into “Kyuhyunnie.” He shot Zhou Mi a belatedly dirty look, but the guy was too absorbed in his longwinded descriptions of food to notice. He was even gesticulating now, wildly with long fingers that reminded Kyuhyun of tree branches in horror movies. “Kyuhyunnie,” Kyuhyun replayed over in his head. Just the sound of it made him want to puke a little in his mouth.
But when he repeated it to himself later in the privacy of his dorm, he found that the desire to hurl had significantly decreased. In fact it was almost, almost, endearing how quickly Zhou Mi had managed to attach himself to someone who didn’t care.
Kyuhyun realized with horror that he was staring into his laptop blankly while the corners of his lips threatened to pull his face apart. What was this smiling while thinking about stupid guy who just singlehanded crushed all his hopes and dreams with a couple references to Shakespeare in a comp sci problem set? There would be no smiling, no. He shook his head. For all he knew, Zhou Mi could be a dangerous foe from the internet trying to sabotage his real life in order to overthrow his game. The cast, the wheelchair, they could’ve been mere props, employed to win over Kyuhyun’s sympathy. The innocent-looking ones were always the deadliest.
Kyuhyun knew. They didn’t call him the badass Washing Machine for nothin’.
Zhou Mi caught Kyuhyun walking into class the next day and grabbed his arm. “Hey!”
One foot in the door, Kyuhyun gave him a suspicious sidelong look. “What do you want?”
“I feel bad,” Zhou Mi said slowly, apparently fascinated by a speck of dust on the floor. “So I thought I’d give you this.” He held out a ziplocked bag in both hands and offered it to Kyuhyun.
“What is this?” Kyuhyun asked, eyeing the long brown things inside warily. He held the ziplock between his thumb and forefinger, minimizing the square footage of contact.
“The best fishsticks in the world,” Zhou Mi explained, excitement creeping back into his voice. “I had a hard time contacting my supplier and having them delivered here, which explains why they’re kinda soggy and stuff.”
“Um, okay.”
“But really, they’re great!” Zhou Mi looked as though he were beside himself with delight, and Kyuhyun wondered if these “fishsticks” contained arsenic or something.
He would feed them to the cat first.
When his roommate’s cat Heebum appeared to be alive and well after two hours, Kyuhyun carefully unzipped the plastic bag and removed a fishstick. It was moist in a way that fishsticks should never be. It drooped.
He stuffed it in his mouth quickly to get the deed over with and was about to swallow when the strangest sensation came over him.
This was delicious.
And the nonsense Zhou Mi had spewed about cotton candy and clouds and feeling light as a bird (the metaphors could go on forever, really)-it was all true. He felt like he was chewing on air. If air could taste like fish.
Kyuhyun fell asleep at his desk and dreamed that night that he was a seahorse playing underwater tag with Zhou Mi, who magically developed wings. Soggy wings.
By the second week it was clear that Zhou Mi had given up on tutoring Kyuhyun, but he was still tailing him like a shadow. He had also moved on to asking Kyuhyun personal questions.
“Hey,” Zhou Mi whispered in Logic, another class that they magically had in common, even though he hadn’t shown up for the first two weeks. “What do you think about Ji Eun?”
“Who?” Kyuhyun had his head on the desk and refused to move it.
But Zhou Mi was all about compromise, so he lowered his own until his cheek was pressed up against the wooden surface of the desk and his eyes were lined up with Kyuhyun’s. “The girl two rows down, in the fuzzy yellow cardigan.”
Kyuhyun strained to see from where he was without moving. His eyeballs hurt. “I can’t see.”
But he could see Zhou Mi, and how the weight of his face was unbalanced now and rested mostly on the cheek in contact with the desk. Even stick figures could look fat thanks to gravity.
But Zhou Mi was already getting up and nudging him and pointing. “That one, isn’t she cute? I think you two would make a good couple.”
Kyuhyun grudgingly straightened his spine and looked in the direction of Zhou Mi’s long index finger. He could only make out the side of the girl’s face, which was covered with little red bumps.
The realization dawned on him instantly. “Are you saying that because we both have acne issues?”
“No!” Zhou Mi insisted in the loudest whisper he could manage. “Although that adds a nice touch to the picture.”
“What the-“ Kyuhyun threw his hands up in the air, drawing startled glances from a few students in the row behind. A couple stopped making out to stare at him. “So our offspring can be equally blemished?”
“No, no,” Zhou Mi hushed him. “I know for a fact that your offspring have the potential to be beautiful and unblemished, with the help of some facial scrubs.”
“What?”
Zhou Mi slapped his hand over his mouth. His humongous hand, which took over his entire face. “Um, nothing. Forget I said that. Anyway!” He whispered into Kyuhyun’s ear, “I hear she has a thing for game arcades.”
And then he wiggled his eyebrows. It was amazing how taut his skin was, Kyuhyun noticed, and how smooth. Even with all that wiggling the skin around his eyes barely moved.
Kyuhyun thought Zhou Mi had dropped the subject of girls when the latter proceeded to follow him out of class and into the university cafeteria. “What would you say is your type, Kyuhyunnie? Nerdy? Brainy? Good at video games?”
Kyuhyun picked up an orange from the fruits rack and contemplated throwing it at Zhou Mi’s big fat curious face. He might as well have asked, Pasty skin from staying in under florescent lighting for too long? “No.”
Zhou Mi grabbed an apple and placed it on Kyuhyun’s tray. “Your treat,” he said, “in exchange for my heavenly fishsticks.”
Kyuhyun wondered at Zhou Mi’s choice of adjectives. “Uh, I thought you were giving those to me because you messed up my problem set.”
Zhou Mi frowned, as if trying to remember his own motives were too difficult of a task. “Oh, right. Well, I have no earthly coins on me.”
Kyuhyun stared at him and then shook his head. There was no point in asking.
“So,” Zhou Mi persisted when they were seated at a small table in the back. “You were describing the girl of your dreams. Go on.”
Kyuhyun picked at his Caesar salad with a fork and wrinkled his nose. “I wasn’t.”
“But you were on the verge of beginning! I can feel it! Do go on. Does she have long hair or short hair? A round face? A-“
“Jesus Christ--" (Zhou Mi seemed to wince at the phrase) "--give me a chance to think,” Kyuhyun interrupted. He picked up a carefully cut up square of lettuce and looked at it thoughtfully. “I like longer faces, I guess.”
“Mmmhmmm.” Zhou Mi was now looking at him intently, all rapt attention and intense concentration. He leaned forward in his seat and rested his face on the bases of his two palms. “I see.”
“Long things in general,” Kyuhyun added as an afterthought. “Long… legs.”
“So you like taller girls. 168 centimeters? 170?”
“I’ve never thought about it in terms of numbers,” Kyuhyun said dryly.
“What about her other measurements? Chest size? 36DD? Or do you like them flat-chested?”
Kyuhyun tried to envision breasts, but Zhou Mi’s big smile kept getting in the way. “I don’t know! Boobs are just boobs. What purpose do they serve other than lactation?”
The girls sitting next to them, previously engrossed in conversation, shot him a dirty glance and moved their trays one seat down.
Zhou Mi was nodding his head up and down, up and down, very slowly. “I see,” he said, with a maniacal look in his eyes, and Kyuhyun felt a chill pass over his skin.
Somewhere up above, very high above, two people were getting bored.
People. Or divine entities.
“Dude, this is not working,” said the cherub with fat pinchable cheeks. “He’s not getting it. He’s gonna ruin this kid’s life.”
“I told you to be more specific than ‘Go save this kid. He’s failing at life,’” said cherub #2, who was fat and pinchable everywhere. He lay on a cloud lazily but still careful to distribute his weight evenly over the flimsy white mass. Cherub #2 had suffered through several falls already, and all of the other cherubs were trying to convince him to lay down on the fishsticks.
“Well, what would you have me say? ‘Get this kid laid and you can get your wings’? I thought we weren’t allowed to tell him exactly what to do. The whole point is for him to figure it out, yadda yadda?”
“Ever so eloquent, Henry-cherub.” Cherub #2 smirked, rolling over on his back and letting out a loud yawn.
Henry-cherub rolled up a ball of cloud and threw it at his partner, but a light breeze picked it up and carried it in another direction. He watched it dissipate into tiny shriveling wisps and sighed, puffing out his cheeks. He and Shindong-cherub were in charge of the final stage of cherub-training: assigning each trainee one human and giving them vague instructions as to how to help said human improve his or her life. The definition of “improve” pretty much rested on Henry and Shindong’s whims, and they took many liberties with it. But to be honest, many of these humans didn’t really have all that much to complain about. Take Cho Kyuhyun, for instance. He was pretty much perfect. This kid came from a stable family, had a perfect GPA (well, up until now), could draw a sizeable audience with his singing in the shower, and wasn’t bad-looking to top it off. The only problem was that he had literally no social life outside of his small group of gamer friends. He was twenty and had never touched a boob, except for that one time during rush hour on the train. The girl had screamed and he dropped his backpack and quickly scurried out the door. Shindong-cherub had seen it all happen in real-time, chuckling and munching on some unhealthy heavenly snack as if Cho Kyuhyun’s life were a comedy for viewing. Not a romantic comedy, because he wasn’t getting any.
So it was Shindong’s idea to turn Kyuhyun’s life into a romantic comedy.
It was supposed to be easy. Someone decently attractive like Kyuhyun could easily get a girl, Henry reasoned, if he wanted. In fact, it was odd that he hadn’t ever touched a vagina in all his twenty years of life. Or “fucking weird,” as Henry put it.
It was supposed to be easy. That’s what they thought until they were assigned that clueless gawky mess of a trainee Zhou Mi, fresh-faced out of a plane crash. “I almost made it to shore!” Zhou Mi had chirped his whole life story to them eagerly. “But then I drowned.”
Zhou Mi had passed the previous stages by impressing the other cherubs with his insistence on attempting to rescue various animals from high places. Tall people thought they could do everything, Henry whined.
In spite of himself, Henry wanted Zhou Mi to pass this stage as well. Henry wasn’t an unreasonable cherub. He liked to see the trainees do well and then become fine, distinguished cherubs like himself. It wasn’t that he didn’t want Zhou Mi to pass. It was just that. Well.
Zhou Mi hadn’t exactly succeeded in rescuing those kittens and puppies.
“That poor kid,” Shindong said idly, flipping through his monthly subscription of Gluttonous Goods. Henry didn’t have to ask to know he meant Cho Kyuhyun.
When pimply-faced Ji Eun showed up at the door of Kyuhyun’s apartment, dressed in an orange turtleneck and denim overalls and fidgeting with her tweed purse, Kyuhyun looked at her blankly before the realization sunk in.
“Um, thanks for inviting me on a date, Kyuhyun-sshi. I thought it was cute that, um, you got your friend to do it,” she said awkwardly, tucking a strand of hair behind an ear.
“I,” was all he managed to say before she linked her arm in his and pulled him out of the doorway and smashed her face against his.
“I’ve wanted to do this for so long, Kyuhyun-sshi,” she gasped into his mouth. “You’re-you’re superwashingmachine15, aren’t you?”
She took his silence as a yes. She bit on his lower lip and let out a low moan. “Omg you’re so fucking sexy, I get off when I watch you pwn all those other bitches online-“
That was when he extricated his lips from hers and pushed her off, as gently as he could. “Ji Eun-sshi. There’s been a misunderstanding.”
For the first time in his life he felt nervous. “I’m… gay.”
“What?” She fell a couple steps backwards.
“WHAT.” Henry shrieked into the clouds below. A couple meters underneath him, Donghae-cherub awoke with a start. “Sorry man,” Henry apologized shortly over the edge of his cloud, before turning around to nudge Shindong, who was sprawled on his stomach doing nothing in particular.
A couple seconds of instant replay later, Shindong sat up and echoed Henry’s sentiments.
“WHAT?!” He bellowed, spewing chunks of fish out and downwards. Below, Donghae-cherub seemed to be delighted that it was raining food.
“We need to stage a divine intervention. Or at least inform Zhou Mi,” Shindong declared.
But Henry was deep in thought. “Wait a sec, man.”
When Shindong looked at him again, Henry’s eyes had turned into large cinnamon swirls. Something demonic was in the works.
“No, Shindong… This is perfect. This is great. Let’s… not do anything, okay? Let our boy Zhou Mi figure it all out… heh heh heh.”
Shindong frowned, but his face wasn’t used to the motion, so he shrugged it off. Henry-cherub usually knew what he was doing. Usually. Canadians were nothing if not dependable.
Kyuhyun spent the next week blissfully at ease. He woke up, ate, went to class, came home, fiddled around on his computer for a couple of hours, did homework, slept. He also found himself checking his phone every half hour for messages, although it wasn’t like anyone important ever called. He didn’t even know what he was waiting for. Maybe his mom? He hadn’t talked to her in a couple weeks. In fact, he’d been meaning to ask her to ship over some homemade dak jorim. He also found that he would fall asleep randomly at his desk and start dreaming about the strangest things. Like lanky long-legged boys with pale skin and almond eyes that didn’t crinkle at the corners even when they smiled.
And then he would go to class and expect a tap on the shoulder or a warm touch of breath in his ear but the seat next to him remained empty.
On the fifth day he took the last fishstick, still preserved in the same ziplock bag, from the freezer and just looked at it. Little ice crystals had formed on its exterior so that it resembled an oddly shaped porcupine. Kyuhyun gave it a poke.
Where was that stupid foreigner.
When Zhou Mi finally reappeared, something about him seemed different. He looked haggard.
Kyuhyun tried to keep calm when the guy slipped into the seat beside him in the cafeteria and mumbled a hello. “So,” he began casually. “Where’ve you been?”
Zhou Mi looked up at him, and he clearly hadn’t slept much in the past week. “I’ve been thinking about… you.”
Kyuhyun hadn’t been expecting that response.
“Your situation, I mean. I’ve been trying to figure out how to save you, Kyuhyun,” Zhou Mi explained.
“Okay, I wouldn’t go that far. ‘Save’ is a pretty strong word.”
“No, listen, Kyuhyun,” Zhou Mi said, and his voice was serious in a way that it had never been before.
Kyuhyun nodded.
“I …” Zhou Mi paused, as if looking for the right word. Or hesitating to say the one he already chose.
“You what?” Kyuhyun gulped.
“I booked us a VIP room at this gay club. This Saturday at 11pm.”
That was how Kyuhyun found himself that weekend-in silver spandex hot shorts and a black wifebeater that showed off nothing because he had nothing to show (plunking away at a keyboard all day didn’t exactly produce a sea of rippling muscles), and surrounded by dozens of half-naked sweaty men pulsing to techno, and a Long Island Iced Tea in his hand. The drink was gross and left a bitter aftertaste; he considered washing his mouth with the fruity handsoap he discovered in the bathroom earlier. But he had also made several other discoveries in the bathroom, each more traumatizing than the last, and now preferred not to return there unless absolutely overtaken by the burning desire to urinate.
At the very least, Zhou Mi looked like he was having fun. He leaned over the counter, chatting up one of the bartenders, while Kyuhyun stood against a relatively less crowded wall as inconspicuously as he could manage. But even walls weren’t safe here. A meter away two guys were sucking each other’s faces off, and now one of them was maneuvering downwards…
Kyuhyun looked away quickly and shifted his gaze back to Zhou Mi. Maybe it was the alcohol, but his eyes were having a hard time focusing on Zhou Mi, even though he was the only thing in the club worth looking at. Not that he was so good-looking. Well, he wasn’t bad-looking either. Something in the slant of his eyes did make Kyuhyun’s heart skip a beat every now and then, the way his fingers curled around his glass, fingers should never be that long and-
Zhou Mi was making his way over, and Zhou Mi was right next to him, resting those same fingers on his shoulder. “Hey, are you having a good time?”
Kyuhyun nodded, but it was a blatant lie, he’d much rather be at home blasting monsters’ brains out. Although right now, this moment, maybe wasn’t so bad.
Zhou Mi smiled, and his teeth glowed under the blacklight. “Anyone you’re interested in?” He winked and nudged Kyuhyun in a way that reminded him of corny uncles at family reunions. Which was not a comparison he wanted to be making at the moment, so he let his eyes wander down Zhou Mi’s shirt-a very nice, plain white shirt that revealed just the right amount of skin, just a tad, and a chest broader than he remembered.
“Yeah,” Kyuhyun breathed. His throat felt incredibly dry, so he downed the rest of his drink.
Which was probably not a very wise idea, because the last thing he remembered was Zhou Mi’s eyes widening as he pulled him in and then-
Puked all over Zhou Mi’s very nice white shirt.
Kyuhyun opened his eyes to find that he was on the fluffiest bed he’d ever lain on his entire life and that Zhou Mi was naked.
Well, from the waist up.
He let out a croak and instantly Zhou Mi rushed over, sitting down on the bed beside him, and propping him up with pillows. “Are you feeling better?? I was so worried…”
He nodded, but the alcohol hadn’t left his system entirely, because things were still moving in slow motion. He found it easier to focus on one thing at a time.
Like nipples.
“I had to, um, take off my shirt,” Zhou Mi explained after following Kyuhyun's line of vision.
“Mmhm.”
“Um.” Zhou Mi brought up his arms and crossed them over his very smooth and hairless chest. “So. Did you have a good time? Up until the… puking, I mean.”
“Not really,” Kyuhyun admitted.
“Oh.” Zhou Mi looked disappointed, and Kyuhyun had the sudden desire to wrap him up in blankets and hold him closely. But that would’ve been weird.
Instead he buried himself in blankets. “It would’ve been better if it had just been the two of us.”
Zhou Mi’s voice was muffled through the blanket filter. “What do you mean?”
“I mean.” It was completely dark where Kyuhyun was, and he felt the air grow heavy and hot with his own breathing. “I like just hanging out with you.”
The room was quiet. With momentous courage Kyuhyun lowered the blanket until it fell just below his eyes. Zhou Mi was smiling at him.
“Of course! I like hanging out with you too,” Zhou Mi assured him with a pat on the head.
Kyuhyun wanted to tear his hair out, but there wasn't that much of it to begin with. “No! Jesus Christ-“ (Zhou Mi seemed to cringe here) -“that’s not what I meant. I mean I like you, okay? I LIKE YOU.”
And then he pulled Zhou Mi’s bewildered face in for real this time and didn’t puke on it.
“Wait, wait! We can’t do this! I’m an-an---“
“An international student, I know. It’s okay. Not all Koreans are racist.”
“No, that’s not-I’m-I’m an-an ANGEL. In training, that is-“ but Kyuhyun pressed his lips over Zhou Mi’s mouth and shut him up.
It was only the next morning that Kyuhyun realized Zhou Mi hadn’t been lying.
They’d fallen asleep with their arms around each other, but Kyuhyun was woken up by something soft brushing against his arm, something tickly. The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was the curve of Zhou Mi’s nose, large as always. He realized now that over the course of the night he’d hogged up all the blankets and Zhou Mi was now not only half-naked but also shivering. Light streamed into the room and fell cleanly on Zhou Mi’s hair and the side of his face. Kyuhyun smiled despite himself and drew up the blanket to cover the other boy’s shoulders.
But he couldn’t, because something was stopping him. Something soft and, at the same time, pliable. A barricade of feathers. Just below the back of Zhou Mi’s neck, behind the shoulderbone.
With a start Kyuhyun got up and crawled on top of Zhou Mi’s sleeping body to get a closer look.
“WHAT THE FUCK.”
“YES! YES! WE DID IT!” Henry-cherub was dancing his victory dance up above.
“WE DID!” Shindong-cherub joined him, making deep indents in his cloud. The two chest-thumped and fist-pounded and then took turns blowing raspberries into each other’s stomachs.
“Ew, I can’t believe we just did that,” Henry said, after they’d calmed down.
“Yeah, whatever. Any fishsticks left in the Oven?” Shindong smacked his lips and Henry smacked his head.
Pairing: Kyuhyun/Zhou Mi, Henry/Shindong
Rating/Genre: PG-13, mostly crack
Summary: Kyuhyun gets (unwanted) help with life.
The first time Kyuhyun noticed Zhou Mi was when he rolled loudly into class in a wheelchair, limped to a seat in the front on crutches (the girl previously sitting there guiltily shifting to the right to allow room for him, the handicapped), took a tape recorder from his bag, and pressed the tiny red button with fingers that were attached to the arm that wasn’t in a cast. The left one.
Computer science was the one class that Kyuhyun could never stay awake in, as fascinating as he found the subject matter. It was just that he had it at 2:30 pm, his last class of the day, by which time he was already exhausted from rushing around campus and wanted only to crawl back into bed and stay there for another thirty-six hours. He arrived at the building, which was up “science hill,” uncharacteristically late, climbed six flights to his classroom, and slipped inconspicuously into a seat in the back which offered him a clear view of everything below, as the chairs were situated on an incline auditorium-style. It was the prime location for nap-taking.
Kyuhyun had fallen half-asleep when his head hit the desk behind him and he was jolted awake to the mumblings of a kid next to him who rested the side of his face on the desk, a small pool of drool collecting by his cheek. Kyuhyun yawned and turned his attention below, where the professor was fiddling with the projector. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a misshapen figure approaching the door to the classroom.
It was a guy in a wheelchair. With an arm cast. More athletes had been showing up in crutches of late but what sport did this guy play? How he managed to cripple three of his four limbs was a wonder to Kyuhyun, who rarely wondered about sports injuries. In fact the thought had already left his mind by the time he dotted his mental question mark.
Forty minutes later, he skipped down the steps two at a time towards the front of the classroom to grab the latest graded problem set and bolt out the door when he heard a voice call his name very clearly. A mellifluous, not entirely unpleasant sort of tone. He turned around to see the wheelchair boy struggling to get out of his seat.
“God, what happened to you,” Kyuhyun muttered aloud without thinking.
The boy offered a smile, although it was no smiling matter. “I was trying to jump from the roof of a building to a tree to save this girl’s kitten.”
Kyuhyun couldn’t tell if he was being serious. “You had a rough landing.”
“Yeah, haha.” His “haha” was very strongly accented.
“Wait, are you Korean?” Kyuhyun asked suddenly.
“No, I’m an a-an international student,” the boy said, almost nervously, as he settled into a precarious position with one crutch under an armpit. The other crutch fell by Kyuhyun’s foot and hesitantly he bent over to pick it up.
“I’m actually, uh, here to tutor you. And stuff,” the boy continued, taking the other crutch from Kyuhyun and placing it under his unoccupied armpit. He looked like he was having a hard time, so Kyuhyun placed a hand on his back to steady the poor guy.
Only then did the words float through his eardrum and make contact with neurons. “What? I don’t need tutoring. This class is an easy A.”
The boy sighed as he hobbled a couple steps towards the door. “From what I heard, you need a lot of tutoring. You’re failing right now, Kyuhyun.”
“Uh, who are you?”
“Zhou Mi,” Zhou Mi replied instantly, as if he’d been waiting to introduce himself all this time. His grin was disproportionately wide for his narrow and long face.
“I’m not failing this class.”
“Oh, yes, you are,” Zhou Mi assured him eagerly. “You’re failing more than that. But it’s okay, I’ll help you.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I’ve taken this class before.”
“Then why are you taking it again.”
“I had to drop it. Unforeseen circumstances.”
At that moment Kyuhyun wanted intensely to headdesk, but he reminded himself that this was the real world and in the real world people didn’t *headdesk*. He ransacked his lexicon for an appropriate phrase before settling on
“What the crap.”
Zhou Mi healed pretty quickly for someone who crashed into a tree and then again into concrete. The next time Kyuhyun saw him his cast was gone and so were the crutches. But he hadn’t made a complete recovery, Kyuhyun realized as Zhou Mi limped excitedly towards him from the other side of the cross-campus lawn. He thought briefly of making a run for it but abandoned the idea out of guilt-“hey, let’s race against the cripple!” He heaved a sigh and started heading in Zhou Mi’s direction.
“You heal fast,” he remarked when they met halfway on the green, Zhou Mi panting in exhaustion.
“Yeah, it’s a handy trait,” Zhou Mi replied automatically. “But let’s talk about the next problem set. Have you started it yet?”
“No. I have a paper and a midterm before then.”
“Oh.” Zhou Mi’s face fell noticeably, and Kyuhyun almost felt guilty, but then he remembered that he had no reason to.
“Hey, who told you to be my tutor anyway? I never signed up for one, and I’m sure there are kids in more dire need of your expertise.”
“Oh, you know. The guys up there.”
“Like, the professor?”
“Uh, yeah,” Zhou Mi agreed quickly. “Look, if you’re busy with other classes, I can help you out and do this problem set for you. You know, whatever works for you.”
Kyuhyun was stunned. Did this guy just agree to do his homework? “That’s against the rules, isn’t it?”
Zhou Mi grinned his mile-long grin. “It’ll be a secret between us.” Then his face turned serious. “No, really. Don’t tell anyone.”
People say you don’t choose your family but neglect to mention that sometimes you don’t choose your friends either. Especially when they follow you around like a stray puppy with a lame leg. Sometimes Kyuhyun wished he could send Zhou Mi to the pound.
One such moment was when he got back his latest problem set and it contained red marks all over and a giant double-underlined note from the teaching assistant who graded it: “WHAT HAPPENED.”
Kyuhyun was known among his small but intimate circle of friends as the levelheaded gamer who managed for the most part to sit through a couple rounds without sounding like a truck driver. His fellow gamers admired him for his capacity for silence and concentration even when he was being murdered alive by his opponents. They called him the Washing Machine. You know it’s going but when you flip open the cover--nothing. A quiet assassin. Badass, like him.
But upon seeing the “43” on the graded homework, after the initial suspicion that he had received someone else’s paper back, he realized that the only words running through his mind were four letters long and rhymed with “duck” and “zit.” Next thing he knew he was scrolling with lightning-fast thumbs (well-trained, furious thumbs) through his cellphone for a certain foreign name before remembering that he had entered Zhou Mi as “That Annoying Kid in CS.”
After four rings, the call went straight to voicemail: “Hello! You have reached the mailbox of Z-H-O-U SPACE M-I. I am not here right now, because I am probably out saving kitties or doggies from high-reaching places. But do call back, and maybe we can get a cup of tea, or-“
Kyuhyun hung up, because the last thing he wanted to do was have tea with this [duck]ing [zit]faced [gas]hole who [duck]ed up his [duck]ing GPA. Goodbye, job offer from Microsoft. Goodbye law school, not that he wanted to be a lawyer but had been planning on keeping his options open. Goodbye, summa cum laude. Hello, McDonalds. How can I take your order today?
“Oops” was the first thing Zhou Mi said at the next class when Kyuhyun held up the piece of paper that looked like it had been mauled by a bear. Because over the course of the past forty-eight hours Kyuhyun had crumpled it up, smoothed it out, crumpled it up again, and then smoothed it out again, etc., until finally reading over exactly what ridiculous answers Zhou Mi had given, only to find that for question number 1, which asked how to create an applet, he had written
- mass = 5.6 kg
a = 4.5 m/s^2
Therefore F = ma = 5.6 * 4.5 = 25.2 N :)
And under the second question, which was about remote method invocation,
- Juliet did not know that Romeo was still alive, or obviously she would not have killed herself. Wait, she did not in fact kill herself. She killed herself temporarily. It can be argued that she had a natural impulse for suicide; all men do. By “men” I am speaking for mankind, of course. Even after death, some of us think about dying. Some say dying is the best part of life. I personally think the moment before you die is pretty stellar, too. Because afterwards--
Zhou Mi grabbed the paper back and looked it over carefully. He groaned. “Oh, not again. They’re gonna kill me.”
“The losers who hired you? Yeah, I hope they do.”
Zhou Mi gave Kyuhyun a meaningful look, the meaning of which Kyuhyun could not grasp, and opened his mouth as if to make a correction but closed it abruptly. “Well,” he started, his tone cheerful now. “We all make mistakes.”
Kyuhyun made a strangled sound in his throat. He conjured up images of bunnies and pandas sneezing to calm himself. Deep breaths, he told himself. “Listen, Zhou Mi. Up until you arrived, I had a 99 average in this class. Now I need to factor in a 43 into my grade. I told you I didn’t need a tutor, and you didn’t believe me. I don’t even know where you came from. And you said I was failing the class, which was obviously a lie. I don’t know where you got that info from, but now I’m much closer to failing than I ever was before.”
“But you are failing!” Zhou Mi wailed. “That’s what they told me!”
“WHO ARE ‘THEY.’ I’ll go down and ask Professor Jung right now if I’m failing this class-“
“Wait-“ Zhou Mi said, a slight note of panic in his voice. He broke out the winning grin Kyuhyun was already sick of seeing by now. “Let me clarify. The exact phrase was ‘failing at life.’”
Kyuhyun opened his mouth but the professor cleared his throat and glowered in their direction. Venting could wait. With the help of some breathing exercises.
Fifty minutes later, Zhou Mi had clearly forgotten that they were in the middle of an argument and instead insisted that they fill their stomachs with something that didn't t taste like eraser stubs.
“The food isn’t that bad,” Kyuhyun shrugged, successfully distracted by Zhou Mi’s diversion tactics.
Zhou Mi’s slanty eyes became less slanty as they struggled to express surprise. “You can’t be serious, Kyuhyunnie! If you only knew the quality of the food I’m used to…” His eyes grew almost watery at the mention of this wonderful luxurious food he was apparently missing out on at college.
Kyuhyun listened halfheartedly to Zhou Mi describe fish sticks that tasted like cotton candy clouds, plucking fresh berries from trees upside down-what did that even mean?-water like honey that dripped from the bosom of Mary herself… when he realized that over the course of the past week he had transformed into “Kyuhyunnie.” He shot Zhou Mi a belatedly dirty look, but the guy was too absorbed in his longwinded descriptions of food to notice. He was even gesticulating now, wildly with long fingers that reminded Kyuhyun of tree branches in horror movies. “Kyuhyunnie,” Kyuhyun replayed over in his head. Just the sound of it made him want to puke a little in his mouth.
But when he repeated it to himself later in the privacy of his dorm, he found that the desire to hurl had significantly decreased. In fact it was almost, almost, endearing how quickly Zhou Mi had managed to attach himself to someone who didn’t care.
Kyuhyun realized with horror that he was staring into his laptop blankly while the corners of his lips threatened to pull his face apart. What was this smiling while thinking about stupid guy who just singlehanded crushed all his hopes and dreams with a couple references to Shakespeare in a comp sci problem set? There would be no smiling, no. He shook his head. For all he knew, Zhou Mi could be a dangerous foe from the internet trying to sabotage his real life in order to overthrow his game. The cast, the wheelchair, they could’ve been mere props, employed to win over Kyuhyun’s sympathy. The innocent-looking ones were always the deadliest.
Kyuhyun knew. They didn’t call him the badass Washing Machine for nothin’.
Zhou Mi caught Kyuhyun walking into class the next day and grabbed his arm. “Hey!”
One foot in the door, Kyuhyun gave him a suspicious sidelong look. “What do you want?”
“I feel bad,” Zhou Mi said slowly, apparently fascinated by a speck of dust on the floor. “So I thought I’d give you this.” He held out a ziplocked bag in both hands and offered it to Kyuhyun.
“What is this?” Kyuhyun asked, eyeing the long brown things inside warily. He held the ziplock between his thumb and forefinger, minimizing the square footage of contact.
“The best fishsticks in the world,” Zhou Mi explained, excitement creeping back into his voice. “I had a hard time contacting my supplier and having them delivered here, which explains why they’re kinda soggy and stuff.”
“Um, okay.”
“But really, they’re great!” Zhou Mi looked as though he were beside himself with delight, and Kyuhyun wondered if these “fishsticks” contained arsenic or something.
He would feed them to the cat first.
When his roommate’s cat Heebum appeared to be alive and well after two hours, Kyuhyun carefully unzipped the plastic bag and removed a fishstick. It was moist in a way that fishsticks should never be. It drooped.
He stuffed it in his mouth quickly to get the deed over with and was about to swallow when the strangest sensation came over him.
This was delicious.
And the nonsense Zhou Mi had spewed about cotton candy and clouds and feeling light as a bird (the metaphors could go on forever, really)-it was all true. He felt like he was chewing on air. If air could taste like fish.
Kyuhyun fell asleep at his desk and dreamed that night that he was a seahorse playing underwater tag with Zhou Mi, who magically developed wings. Soggy wings.
By the second week it was clear that Zhou Mi had given up on tutoring Kyuhyun, but he was still tailing him like a shadow. He had also moved on to asking Kyuhyun personal questions.
“Hey,” Zhou Mi whispered in Logic, another class that they magically had in common, even though he hadn’t shown up for the first two weeks. “What do you think about Ji Eun?”
“Who?” Kyuhyun had his head on the desk and refused to move it.
But Zhou Mi was all about compromise, so he lowered his own until his cheek was pressed up against the wooden surface of the desk and his eyes were lined up with Kyuhyun’s. “The girl two rows down, in the fuzzy yellow cardigan.”
Kyuhyun strained to see from where he was without moving. His eyeballs hurt. “I can’t see.”
But he could see Zhou Mi, and how the weight of his face was unbalanced now and rested mostly on the cheek in contact with the desk. Even stick figures could look fat thanks to gravity.
But Zhou Mi was already getting up and nudging him and pointing. “That one, isn’t she cute? I think you two would make a good couple.”
Kyuhyun grudgingly straightened his spine and looked in the direction of Zhou Mi’s long index finger. He could only make out the side of the girl’s face, which was covered with little red bumps.
The realization dawned on him instantly. “Are you saying that because we both have acne issues?”
“No!” Zhou Mi insisted in the loudest whisper he could manage. “Although that adds a nice touch to the picture.”
“What the-“ Kyuhyun threw his hands up in the air, drawing startled glances from a few students in the row behind. A couple stopped making out to stare at him. “So our offspring can be equally blemished?”
“No, no,” Zhou Mi hushed him. “I know for a fact that your offspring have the potential to be beautiful and unblemished, with the help of some facial scrubs.”
“What?”
Zhou Mi slapped his hand over his mouth. His humongous hand, which took over his entire face. “Um, nothing. Forget I said that. Anyway!” He whispered into Kyuhyun’s ear, “I hear she has a thing for game arcades.”
And then he wiggled his eyebrows. It was amazing how taut his skin was, Kyuhyun noticed, and how smooth. Even with all that wiggling the skin around his eyes barely moved.
Kyuhyun thought Zhou Mi had dropped the subject of girls when the latter proceeded to follow him out of class and into the university cafeteria. “What would you say is your type, Kyuhyunnie? Nerdy? Brainy? Good at video games?”
Kyuhyun picked up an orange from the fruits rack and contemplated throwing it at Zhou Mi’s big fat curious face. He might as well have asked, Pasty skin from staying in under florescent lighting for too long? “No.”
Zhou Mi grabbed an apple and placed it on Kyuhyun’s tray. “Your treat,” he said, “in exchange for my heavenly fishsticks.”
Kyuhyun wondered at Zhou Mi’s choice of adjectives. “Uh, I thought you were giving those to me because you messed up my problem set.”
Zhou Mi frowned, as if trying to remember his own motives were too difficult of a task. “Oh, right. Well, I have no earthly coins on me.”
Kyuhyun stared at him and then shook his head. There was no point in asking.
“So,” Zhou Mi persisted when they were seated at a small table in the back. “You were describing the girl of your dreams. Go on.”
Kyuhyun picked at his Caesar salad with a fork and wrinkled his nose. “I wasn’t.”
“But you were on the verge of beginning! I can feel it! Do go on. Does she have long hair or short hair? A round face? A-“
“Jesus Christ--" (Zhou Mi seemed to wince at the phrase) "--give me a chance to think,” Kyuhyun interrupted. He picked up a carefully cut up square of lettuce and looked at it thoughtfully. “I like longer faces, I guess.”
“Mmmhmmm.” Zhou Mi was now looking at him intently, all rapt attention and intense concentration. He leaned forward in his seat and rested his face on the bases of his two palms. “I see.”
“Long things in general,” Kyuhyun added as an afterthought. “Long… legs.”
“So you like taller girls. 168 centimeters? 170?”
“I’ve never thought about it in terms of numbers,” Kyuhyun said dryly.
“What about her other measurements? Chest size? 36DD? Or do you like them flat-chested?”
Kyuhyun tried to envision breasts, but Zhou Mi’s big smile kept getting in the way. “I don’t know! Boobs are just boobs. What purpose do they serve other than lactation?”
The girls sitting next to them, previously engrossed in conversation, shot him a dirty glance and moved their trays one seat down.
Zhou Mi was nodding his head up and down, up and down, very slowly. “I see,” he said, with a maniacal look in his eyes, and Kyuhyun felt a chill pass over his skin.
Somewhere up above, very high above, two people were getting bored.
People. Or divine entities.
“Dude, this is not working,” said the cherub with fat pinchable cheeks. “He’s not getting it. He’s gonna ruin this kid’s life.”
“I told you to be more specific than ‘Go save this kid. He’s failing at life,’” said cherub #2, who was fat and pinchable everywhere. He lay on a cloud lazily but still careful to distribute his weight evenly over the flimsy white mass. Cherub #2 had suffered through several falls already, and all of the other cherubs were trying to convince him to lay down on the fishsticks.
“Well, what would you have me say? ‘Get this kid laid and you can get your wings’? I thought we weren’t allowed to tell him exactly what to do. The whole point is for him to figure it out, yadda yadda?”
“Ever so eloquent, Henry-cherub.” Cherub #2 smirked, rolling over on his back and letting out a loud yawn.
Henry-cherub rolled up a ball of cloud and threw it at his partner, but a light breeze picked it up and carried it in another direction. He watched it dissipate into tiny shriveling wisps and sighed, puffing out his cheeks. He and Shindong-cherub were in charge of the final stage of cherub-training: assigning each trainee one human and giving them vague instructions as to how to help said human improve his or her life. The definition of “improve” pretty much rested on Henry and Shindong’s whims, and they took many liberties with it. But to be honest, many of these humans didn’t really have all that much to complain about. Take Cho Kyuhyun, for instance. He was pretty much perfect. This kid came from a stable family, had a perfect GPA (well, up until now), could draw a sizeable audience with his singing in the shower, and wasn’t bad-looking to top it off. The only problem was that he had literally no social life outside of his small group of gamer friends. He was twenty and had never touched a boob, except for that one time during rush hour on the train. The girl had screamed and he dropped his backpack and quickly scurried out the door. Shindong-cherub had seen it all happen in real-time, chuckling and munching on some unhealthy heavenly snack as if Cho Kyuhyun’s life were a comedy for viewing. Not a romantic comedy, because he wasn’t getting any.
So it was Shindong’s idea to turn Kyuhyun’s life into a romantic comedy.
It was supposed to be easy. Someone decently attractive like Kyuhyun could easily get a girl, Henry reasoned, if he wanted. In fact, it was odd that he hadn’t ever touched a vagina in all his twenty years of life. Or “fucking weird,” as Henry put it.
It was supposed to be easy. That’s what they thought until they were assigned that clueless gawky mess of a trainee Zhou Mi, fresh-faced out of a plane crash. “I almost made it to shore!” Zhou Mi had chirped his whole life story to them eagerly. “But then I drowned.”
Zhou Mi had passed the previous stages by impressing the other cherubs with his insistence on attempting to rescue various animals from high places. Tall people thought they could do everything, Henry whined.
In spite of himself, Henry wanted Zhou Mi to pass this stage as well. Henry wasn’t an unreasonable cherub. He liked to see the trainees do well and then become fine, distinguished cherubs like himself. It wasn’t that he didn’t want Zhou Mi to pass. It was just that. Well.
Zhou Mi hadn’t exactly succeeded in rescuing those kittens and puppies.
“That poor kid,” Shindong said idly, flipping through his monthly subscription of Gluttonous Goods. Henry didn’t have to ask to know he meant Cho Kyuhyun.
When pimply-faced Ji Eun showed up at the door of Kyuhyun’s apartment, dressed in an orange turtleneck and denim overalls and fidgeting with her tweed purse, Kyuhyun looked at her blankly before the realization sunk in.
“Um, thanks for inviting me on a date, Kyuhyun-sshi. I thought it was cute that, um, you got your friend to do it,” she said awkwardly, tucking a strand of hair behind an ear.
“I,” was all he managed to say before she linked her arm in his and pulled him out of the doorway and smashed her face against his.
“I’ve wanted to do this for so long, Kyuhyun-sshi,” she gasped into his mouth. “You’re-you’re superwashingmachine15, aren’t you?”
She took his silence as a yes. She bit on his lower lip and let out a low moan. “Omg you’re so fucking sexy, I get off when I watch you pwn all those other bitches online-“
That was when he extricated his lips from hers and pushed her off, as gently as he could. “Ji Eun-sshi. There’s been a misunderstanding.”
For the first time in his life he felt nervous. “I’m… gay.”
“What?” She fell a couple steps backwards.
“WHAT.” Henry shrieked into the clouds below. A couple meters underneath him, Donghae-cherub awoke with a start. “Sorry man,” Henry apologized shortly over the edge of his cloud, before turning around to nudge Shindong, who was sprawled on his stomach doing nothing in particular.
A couple seconds of instant replay later, Shindong sat up and echoed Henry’s sentiments.
“WHAT?!” He bellowed, spewing chunks of fish out and downwards. Below, Donghae-cherub seemed to be delighted that it was raining food.
“We need to stage a divine intervention. Or at least inform Zhou Mi,” Shindong declared.
But Henry was deep in thought. “Wait a sec, man.”
When Shindong looked at him again, Henry’s eyes had turned into large cinnamon swirls. Something demonic was in the works.
“No, Shindong… This is perfect. This is great. Let’s… not do anything, okay? Let our boy Zhou Mi figure it all out… heh heh heh.”
Shindong frowned, but his face wasn’t used to the motion, so he shrugged it off. Henry-cherub usually knew what he was doing. Usually. Canadians were nothing if not dependable.
Kyuhyun spent the next week blissfully at ease. He woke up, ate, went to class, came home, fiddled around on his computer for a couple of hours, did homework, slept. He also found himself checking his phone every half hour for messages, although it wasn’t like anyone important ever called. He didn’t even know what he was waiting for. Maybe his mom? He hadn’t talked to her in a couple weeks. In fact, he’d been meaning to ask her to ship over some homemade dak jorim. He also found that he would fall asleep randomly at his desk and start dreaming about the strangest things. Like lanky long-legged boys with pale skin and almond eyes that didn’t crinkle at the corners even when they smiled.
And then he would go to class and expect a tap on the shoulder or a warm touch of breath in his ear but the seat next to him remained empty.
On the fifth day he took the last fishstick, still preserved in the same ziplock bag, from the freezer and just looked at it. Little ice crystals had formed on its exterior so that it resembled an oddly shaped porcupine. Kyuhyun gave it a poke.
Where was that stupid foreigner.
When Zhou Mi finally reappeared, something about him seemed different. He looked haggard.
Kyuhyun tried to keep calm when the guy slipped into the seat beside him in the cafeteria and mumbled a hello. “So,” he began casually. “Where’ve you been?”
Zhou Mi looked up at him, and he clearly hadn’t slept much in the past week. “I’ve been thinking about… you.”
Kyuhyun hadn’t been expecting that response.
“Your situation, I mean. I’ve been trying to figure out how to save you, Kyuhyun,” Zhou Mi explained.
“Okay, I wouldn’t go that far. ‘Save’ is a pretty strong word.”
“No, listen, Kyuhyun,” Zhou Mi said, and his voice was serious in a way that it had never been before.
Kyuhyun nodded.
“I …” Zhou Mi paused, as if looking for the right word. Or hesitating to say the one he already chose.
“You what?” Kyuhyun gulped.
“I booked us a VIP room at this gay club. This Saturday at 11pm.”
That was how Kyuhyun found himself that weekend-in silver spandex hot shorts and a black wifebeater that showed off nothing because he had nothing to show (plunking away at a keyboard all day didn’t exactly produce a sea of rippling muscles), and surrounded by dozens of half-naked sweaty men pulsing to techno, and a Long Island Iced Tea in his hand. The drink was gross and left a bitter aftertaste; he considered washing his mouth with the fruity handsoap he discovered in the bathroom earlier. But he had also made several other discoveries in the bathroom, each more traumatizing than the last, and now preferred not to return there unless absolutely overtaken by the burning desire to urinate.
At the very least, Zhou Mi looked like he was having fun. He leaned over the counter, chatting up one of the bartenders, while Kyuhyun stood against a relatively less crowded wall as inconspicuously as he could manage. But even walls weren’t safe here. A meter away two guys were sucking each other’s faces off, and now one of them was maneuvering downwards…
Kyuhyun looked away quickly and shifted his gaze back to Zhou Mi. Maybe it was the alcohol, but his eyes were having a hard time focusing on Zhou Mi, even though he was the only thing in the club worth looking at. Not that he was so good-looking. Well, he wasn’t bad-looking either. Something in the slant of his eyes did make Kyuhyun’s heart skip a beat every now and then, the way his fingers curled around his glass, fingers should never be that long and-
Zhou Mi was making his way over, and Zhou Mi was right next to him, resting those same fingers on his shoulder. “Hey, are you having a good time?”
Kyuhyun nodded, but it was a blatant lie, he’d much rather be at home blasting monsters’ brains out. Although right now, this moment, maybe wasn’t so bad.
Zhou Mi smiled, and his teeth glowed under the blacklight. “Anyone you’re interested in?” He winked and nudged Kyuhyun in a way that reminded him of corny uncles at family reunions. Which was not a comparison he wanted to be making at the moment, so he let his eyes wander down Zhou Mi’s shirt-a very nice, plain white shirt that revealed just the right amount of skin, just a tad, and a chest broader than he remembered.
“Yeah,” Kyuhyun breathed. His throat felt incredibly dry, so he downed the rest of his drink.
Which was probably not a very wise idea, because the last thing he remembered was Zhou Mi’s eyes widening as he pulled him in and then-
Puked all over Zhou Mi’s very nice white shirt.
Kyuhyun opened his eyes to find that he was on the fluffiest bed he’d ever lain on his entire life and that Zhou Mi was naked.
Well, from the waist up.
He let out a croak and instantly Zhou Mi rushed over, sitting down on the bed beside him, and propping him up with pillows. “Are you feeling better?? I was so worried…”
He nodded, but the alcohol hadn’t left his system entirely, because things were still moving in slow motion. He found it easier to focus on one thing at a time.
Like nipples.
“I had to, um, take off my shirt,” Zhou Mi explained after following Kyuhyun's line of vision.
“Mmhm.”
“Um.” Zhou Mi brought up his arms and crossed them over his very smooth and hairless chest. “So. Did you have a good time? Up until the… puking, I mean.”
“Not really,” Kyuhyun admitted.
“Oh.” Zhou Mi looked disappointed, and Kyuhyun had the sudden desire to wrap him up in blankets and hold him closely. But that would’ve been weird.
Instead he buried himself in blankets. “It would’ve been better if it had just been the two of us.”
Zhou Mi’s voice was muffled through the blanket filter. “What do you mean?”
“I mean.” It was completely dark where Kyuhyun was, and he felt the air grow heavy and hot with his own breathing. “I like just hanging out with you.”
The room was quiet. With momentous courage Kyuhyun lowered the blanket until it fell just below his eyes. Zhou Mi was smiling at him.
“Of course! I like hanging out with you too,” Zhou Mi assured him with a pat on the head.
Kyuhyun wanted to tear his hair out, but there wasn't that much of it to begin with. “No! Jesus Christ-“ (Zhou Mi seemed to cringe here) -“that’s not what I meant. I mean I like you, okay? I LIKE YOU.”
And then he pulled Zhou Mi’s bewildered face in for real this time and didn’t puke on it.
“Wait, wait! We can’t do this! I’m an-an---“
“An international student, I know. It’s okay. Not all Koreans are racist.”
“No, that’s not-I’m-I’m an-an ANGEL. In training, that is-“ but Kyuhyun pressed his lips over Zhou Mi’s mouth and shut him up.
It was only the next morning that Kyuhyun realized Zhou Mi hadn’t been lying.
They’d fallen asleep with their arms around each other, but Kyuhyun was woken up by something soft brushing against his arm, something tickly. The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was the curve of Zhou Mi’s nose, large as always. He realized now that over the course of the night he’d hogged up all the blankets and Zhou Mi was now not only half-naked but also shivering. Light streamed into the room and fell cleanly on Zhou Mi’s hair and the side of his face. Kyuhyun smiled despite himself and drew up the blanket to cover the other boy’s shoulders.
But he couldn’t, because something was stopping him. Something soft and, at the same time, pliable. A barricade of feathers. Just below the back of Zhou Mi’s neck, behind the shoulderbone.
With a start Kyuhyun got up and crawled on top of Zhou Mi’s sleeping body to get a closer look.
“WHAT THE FUCK.”
“YES! YES! WE DID IT!” Henry-cherub was dancing his victory dance up above.
“WE DID!” Shindong-cherub joined him, making deep indents in his cloud. The two chest-thumped and fist-pounded and then took turns blowing raspberries into each other’s stomachs.
“Ew, I can’t believe we just did that,” Henry said, after they’d calmed down.
“Yeah, whatever. Any fishsticks left in the Oven?” Shindong smacked his lips and Henry smacked his head.