mostotherthings (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mostotherthings) wrote2012-01-14 09:20 pm
mostotherthings) wrote2012-01-14 09:20 pm
[KPOP] Love is Sweet
Love is Sweet (新年快乐)
Kyuhyun / Zhou Mi (Siwon / Hangeng in the background)
4035 words
Summary: Kyuhyun goes to music school in Beijing and meets Zhou Mi, who begins to worm into his life and become a pretty sticky presence. Not that Kyuhyun minds, of course. AKA just a stupid love story.
A/N: So, erm, Super Junior M on repeat. So. I BLAME THIS ON THE SONG, EVERYTHING ON THE SONG IT SAYS THAT LOVE IS SWEET SO HAVE SOMETHING SWEET. I disclaim myself from kidney failure or diabetes. Oh, and Happy Lunar New Year! (an early one!)
If you asked, Kyuhyun couldn’t tell you exactly how he ended up in China. It wasn’t just how his father had not agreed with his career path and insisted that he study something worthwhile. Being only twenty, Kyuhyun did not quite know how to rebel against his father and was in the midst of an mathematical engineering degree that he excelled in but thought was ridiculously easy (much to the chagrin of his classmates) when Siwon went to China.
No, it wasn’t just Siwon going to China. Siwon went to China to look for his true love.
Kyuhyun wasn’t a romantic. He didn’t believe in forever ever after, in flowers, in love at first sight. He’d had one relationship, or two, if you counted the girl he went out with for two dates and realised she was ridiculously not his type and it had ended with her giving him some choice words and a trip to the police station.
Kyuhyun didn’t quite understand why Siwon had gone to China. So when Siwon called, weeks after and spoke about the school that his one true love was going to- Kyuhyun decided for some strange reason…
To go to China too. Beijing, to be exact.
The language barrier was the worse.
When Henry first came to Korea, he complained to no end about how nobody but Siwon could understand him, how difficult it was to even get something to eat. In his first month in China, Kyuhyun understood all of that.
The course work wasn’t as easy as he thought it was either. Being able to sing well in church didn’t automatically make you a good singer, Kyuhyun realised. People telling you how you had a voice of an angel didn’t make a different when you were in a show-down with your Vocal II teacher, who kept telling you to hold your emotions in, control your voice, and you had problem understanding because the Chinese vocabulary he was using was just out of your limited knowledge.
Six weeks after he arrived in China, Kyuhyun wondered if he had done the wrong thing and should go home.
“I don’t know,” Hangeng, Siwon’s true love (yes, the one he went to Beijing to chase after) said, one evening when they were sprawled in the couch of Siwon’s apartment, watching a Korean drama that Kyuhyun had downloaded. “But you wanted to sing, didn’t you?”
Kyuhyun sighed. “I just didn’t know it was going to be this hard, hyung,” he confessed.
Hangeng tapped the edge of his chin thoughtfully. “When I first went to Korea,” he said, speaking slow because his Korean was still shit and had become worse since his return to China. “I thought having the talent was enough to stay there. But in the end, it wasn’t just about talent. It’s about how you… how you…” he frowned, searching for the right word to say. “Fit in? Togetherness?”
“Assimilate,” Kyuhyun said, and Hangeng nodded.
“Maybe,” Hangeng said, sitting up with a grin on his face. “Maybe I can bring you out to the next meeting I have. With my friends.”
“Oh no, hyung, I don’t know if it’s the right…”
“Come, Kyuhyun-ah,” Hangeng said, taking Kyuhyun’s hand and squeezing it. “You’d be upset if you go home now. I think your future self will kick the person you are now for wanting to give up.”
Kyuhyun thought for a long moment before he nodded. “Okay. What’s the harm in it?”
Hangeng was part of a club- or just, belonged to a group of people who liked to come together to share ideas, to dance and to sing. When Siwon first described it, Kyuhyun likened it to a mutual admiration society- it was just a group of people who had no one else who were interested to see them sing or dance, so they got together to sing and dance for each other.
Hangeng introduced him to the people in the group- a good mix of boys and girls, and sat Kyuhyun down with another two girls who were also from his school before going off to look for his dance friends.
Kyuhyun was smiling through a terribly awkward conversation, at which he thought one of the girls was trying to ask him if Korean men liked Chinese women, when a commotion at the door caused all of them to look up. Then, one of the girls squealed, “Mi!”
The newcomer, a tall lanky boy in a ridiculously tight pair of jeans laughed and said hello, and the girl shot out of her seat and went to give him a hug.
“Zhou Mi, come meet our newest friend. He’s Hangeng’s friend,” the girl said (or at least, it was what Kyuhyun deciphered), and she pulled him over to Kyuhyun. “Kyuhyun,” she said, and Kyuhyun winced inwardly at the way she was mangling his name. “This is Zhou Mi. He’s one of our vocal seniors. Just graduated.”
“Hi,” Zhou Mi said, with a big wide smile that made even Kyuhyun’s toes tingle. He cursed his traitorous body; he wasn’t ready to lose his emo-outlook in life yet and that tingle was definitely something that felt like excitement. Heaven forbid. “My name is Zhou Mi.”
“Hello,” Kyuhyun said carefully. “My name is Zhao Kui Xian.”
Kyuhyun missed the next club meeting, and when he arrived two weeks later, Zhou Mi was sitting at the door laughing at something one of the dancers said.
“Oh! Kui Xian!” Zhou Mi said happily, taking his arm and pulling him in. “Wawa said she heard you sing in school the other day, and that you were great. You must sing for us today.”
Kyuhyun started shaking his head. “No, no,” he stammered. He didn’t understand half of what Zhou Mi said, but the “sing for us” was hard to miss. “I, not good. Only listen.”
“Nonsense. We’re here for this purpose,” Zhou Mi rattled on, pulling Kyuhyun further into the room towards the piano. Kyuhyun shuffled his feet as Zhou Mi took a seat, rummaging through the box of scores. He finally surfaced with one he was happy with and looked up, giving Kyuhyun another one of his million watt smiles as he spread the score out on the piano.
Zhou Mi had nice, long fingers, Kyuhyun noticed, before he forced himself to pull his mind out of… whether it was heading to. Because wherever it was, Kyuhyun didn’t like where it was going. He started to play, and after two bars looked up at Kyuhyun to see if he recognised the music.
“Ah,” Kyuhyun nodded, and Zhou Mi grinned as he continued to play. Kyuhyun started to sing- softly at first, but buoyed by Zhou Mi’s eyes widening a little as soon as he started, sang a little louder.
When the song ended, the rest of the group who had crowded around them broke into applause, and Zhou Mi’s eyes were shining with something…
“Are you… cry? Tears?” Kyuhyun laughed, mimicking the action of tears running down his cheeks.
“Shut up,” Zhou Mi laughed, but a tear escaped his eye as he did so. “Good singers do that to me.”
And Kyuhyun suddenly thought that maybe he did have a chance after all.
Six months later, Kyuhyun was doing better in school, could order food confidently in a restaurant and had a Zhou Mi sticky by his side. He had no idea when it happened, but every time Kyuhyun looked up from whatever he was doing Zhou Mi was around.
“Kui Xian… let’s go out to play,” Zhou Mi whined, as Kyuhyun tried to concentrate on his game.
“Not interested,” Kyuhyun muttered, moving his troops. He really wanted to win this game. “Just go out yourself. Find someone else. What about Wawa?”
“Wawa’s gone with her boyfriend to Qingdao for the weekend. It’s just my lonesome self… and you,” Zhou Mi continued. “Please.”
Kyuhyun frowned, making a mistake of looking out of the corner of his eye to see Zhou Mi stretched out on his bed, all long limbed and he had hooked his arm over the back of his head, letting out a soft yawn…
He turned back to the screen to see that his opponent had attacked his home base, and there was no way he was going to be able to save this game.
“What the heck,” Kyuhyun frowned, pushing away from his laptop and grabbing his jacket. “You want to go out? Let’s go out.”
Zhou Mi jumped out of his bed and clapped his hands in glee. “I know just the perfect place!”
This was awkward.
Scratch that. He didn’t belong here. He turned and was about to go but Zhou Mi managed to catch him just before he could. “Don’t go! Since we’re here, we should go in.”
“It’s not… I’m not going in there,” Kyuhyun said.
“Please? Just for a while. It’d be fun!” Zhou Mi gave Kyuhyun the puppy-dog eyes and seriously who can resist? It would be like stabbing a rainbow, and that gave Zhou Mi enough time to pull Kyuhyun into the club before he could say anything else. “Let’s dance,” he grinned, before dragging Kyuhyun out onto the dance floor.
Kyuhyun had two left feet and had a friend who once broadcasted his attempts at dancing through the school system, so he did not want to dance. But Zhou Mi’s easy smile and arm around his shoulders made him a little more comfortable about it, and following Zhou Mi’s lead was easier.
“See? No pressure,” Zhou Mi grinned, as they swayed with the slow song that was playing.
Kyuhyun was trying to understand why the club was playing a slow song, but was also very distracted by the smell of Zhou Mi’s cologne and the warmth that was spreading from the middle of his back where Zhou Mi’s hand was resting. He resisted the urge to lean on Zhou Mi’s shoulder- it would be too… too what? He searched his brain for the answer. Too obvious? Too stupid?
He sucked in a deep breath and made himself turn away. They were the only two men dancing together on the floor like this, but no one else seemed to care.
Then, the song ended and the music switched to an Elva Hsiao dance hit and Zhou Mi let out a loud whoop and began to really dance. Kyuhyun rolled his eyes up at the ceiling and hoped for the best.
“Kui Xian,” Zhou Mi sang, and Kyuhyun looked up from the keyboard. He was trying to finish up his homework for music theory, and Zhou Mi had let himself into the dorm three hours ago and helped himself to Kyuhyun’s bed.
“Kui Xian,” Zhou Mi said again, noting that he had Kyuhyun’s attention. “Are you close friends with Shi Yuan?”
“We go to the same church. Since we were six,” Kyuhyun explained as he tinkled with a few keys. “We’ve been friends for a long time.”
“Is that why you came to Beijing?” Zhou Mi flipped so he was lying with his stomach down on the bed, legs kicking up in the air behind him. Kyuhyun used to get freaked out by that, but now he knew that nobody was as girly as Zhou Mi. Once he understood that, nothing freaked him out. Not even Zhou Mi’s eyelash crimper.
“No,” Kyuhyun said, before he paused. “Yes. Maybe.”
Zhou Mi nodded. “You two are really close, huh?”
“I guess,” Kyuhyun said. “Why are you asking me these questions anyway?”
“Are you ever sad? Because of Geng?” Zhou Mi asked.
He had that open, earnest look on his face, Kyuhyun thought. That face he had whenever he was being nice and attentive and a good friend and listening and oh my god.
“OH MY GOD,” Kyuhyun repeated out loud, getting up.
“Kui…”
“You thought, you… you…” Kyuhyun stammered, pacing around in front of the window before he stopped and turned to Zhou Mi. “You thought… I was… you thought I came here because of Shi Yuan-ge?”
“Yes!” Zhou Mi jumped up, sitting cross-legged on the bed. “I mean, you two are really close!”
“That’s because we’re close, you idiot!” Kyuhyun burst into laughter, walking over to the bed and sitting down next to Zhou Mi. “Mi, you… crazy… Hyung, I mean, Shi Yuan-ge and I, we’re like brothers. I’m happy he’s with Geng-ge, because trust me, Shi Yuan-ge was pinning so hard for him I was getting sick of it. Shi Yuan-ge came to China to look for his true love,” Kyuhyun made a face when he said that, and Zhou Mi had to laugh. “I guess I thought… maybe I thought that if I came here, I’d be able to fulfil my dreams, like Shi Yuan-ge had. No matter how cheesy it is. And now you have to swear never to tell him what I told you or I will have to kill you.”
“Oh. Oh,” Zhou Mi grinned. “I… I made a fool of myself, didn’t I?”
“It’s okay, you’re a cute fool,” Kyuhyun pinched his cheek before getting up and walking back to the keyboard.
“So…” Zhou Mi whispered in a quiet voice. “You don’t like boys?”
Kyuhyun sat down on the keyboard and looked up at Zhou Mi, who was biting his lower lip, clenching and unclenching his fists. He just picked up his headphones.
During the Chinese New Year vacation of his last year, Hangeng invited Kyuhyun to his hometown so he wouldn’t have to spend the holidays alone. Siwon was especially nervous before they left, and Hangeng had to stop him from buying the entire stock of ginseng and dried scallops the store had.
“My mom likes you,” Hangeng smiled. “She’s happy you’re going to visit her. So don’t worry okay?”
Siwon had given Hangeng one of his stupid, melty smiles, and Kyuhyun had mimicked the act of gagging to Zhou Mi, who was watching them from the back.
Hangeng’s family genuinely did like Siwon, Kyuhyun thought during the first day of Chinese New Year where the living room of the family was jammed pack with people. Kyuhyun didn’t have a clue who they were and he found himself wishing that Zhou Mi was with him even as complete strangers pressed red packets in his hands. Money, he was told, for good luck in the New Year.
That night, Zhou Mi called and Kyuhyun told him about how Siwon had charmed one of Hangeng’s cousins so much that Hangeng had almost showed his claws. Zhou Mi chatted about his little cousins and how they were stringing flower garlands in the yard and the adults were playing with sparklers.
“There’d be firecrackers tomorrow, Geng-mama promised,” Kyuhyun said, letting out a loud yawn.
“That’s great.”
“Wish you were here though. Want to see you jump from fright when they set them off,” Kyuhyun grinned.
“Kuiiii Xiiiaannn,” Zhou Mi whined, and Kyuhyun chuckled, closing his eyes. “Oh, I have to go. That’s my mom.”
Kyuhyun tried not to let his disappointment show as he replied, “Yea. Right. I’ll… see you back in Beijing.”
“Yes,” Zhou Mi said, and Kyuhyun swore he could hear Zhou Mi’s smile from over the phone. “Good night, Kui Xian. 新年快乐.”
“新年快乐,” Kyuhyun returned, and Zhou Mi hung up. Kyuhyun let out a loud sigh as he heard a chuckle coming from his door. He jumped up, and Siwon was smiling.
“Don’t say it, hyung,” Kyuhyun said.
“I’m not. Han-mama has red bean soup. She asked me to come get you,” Siwon said. “I didn’t want to interrupt… if it was anything important.”
“You’re not,” Kyuhyun said, getting up and walking over to the door. “You… were not.”
“No don’t take those those are the…” Kyuhyun cried out but it was too late as he watched Zhou Mi fall forward with the box. “Books.”
Zhou Mi just grinned and shook himself off. Kyuhyun had some paperwork issues with the dorm for his last semester, so Zhou Mi had asked him if he would like to move in with him. Kyuhyun, being too desperate to choose, decided this was his only option. “What are they?” Zhou Mi asked as he picked up the books that had spilled out of the box.
“My old textbooks,” Kyuhyun said, tossing two books on electric circuits into the box.
“Why did you bring them?” Zhou Mi said, wincing at the diagrams in one of the books he was flipping through. “You don’t need them now.”
Kyuhyun shrugged. “I’m not quite sure,” he confessed, as they finished packing the books and lifted the box up together. “Maybe I thought if singing didn’t work out I could go back to engineering.”
Zhou Mi chuckled. “Oh that’s silly.”
“How so?” Kyuhyun panted as they finally arrived at Zhou Mi’s door. Zhou Mi wrote commercial jingles and sang for some projects. It gave him enough money to get by, but not enough for an apartment in a building that had a lift.
“You wouldn’t have give up singing,” Zhou Mi huffed as they put the box down with the rest of Kyuhyun’s stuff. “You came all the way here even if it’s against your father’s wishes, right? You’re not a quitter.”
Kyuhyun laughed. “Okay. That’s a nice thing for you to say.”
“And now you’re here, half a year to graduation,” Zhou Mi smiled, getting up and brushing the dust off his jeans. “You’ll be going home when this ends, right?” Zhou Mi asked softly. “You always talk about how there isn’t a decent Korean restaurant anywhere here.”
“Yes,” Kyuhyun nodded. “I… at least I have to go back, and try again there.”
“You should… it isn’t right to have unfinished business,” Zhou Mi nodded as he turned to walk out of the door, back down to get the last few boxes of Kyuhyun’s stuff.
Kyuhyun looked around him, and wondered if this was, in the future going to be “unfinished business” too.
Zhou Mi came for Kyuhyun’s graduation. Kyuhyun’s flight back to Seoul was two days after. They smiled and took pictures with all the friends that Kyuhyun had made since coming to Beijing and with Hangeng and Siwon, who had come for his graduation too.
They all went out for drinks after, and Kyuhyun felt a certain amount of sadness as he watched his friends laugh over drinks, telling funny stories about the things that had happened in the last three years. He looked forward to going home for the first time since coming to China, but he felt sad about leaving.
He had friends here. He now spoke Chinese like a native. He wanted to stay because of Zhou Mi.
Zhou Mi, Kyuhyun thought, looking up at the person in question who was laughing at a joke Wawa was making. He probably would miss Zhou Mi most of all.
That night, they went back to Zhou Mi’s apartment. Zhou Mi made tea, and they sat out on the couch for two hours without saying a word.
Then Kyuhyun went to bed, drawing the covers over himself. He was just about to go to sleep when he felt movement next to him and he cracked open an eyelid, blinking up at the tall shadow of Zhou Mi that was getting into bed next to him.
“What time is it?” he mumbled.
“Twelve fifty,” Zhou Mi’s voice whispered. Kyuhyun let out a soft grunt and leaned his head against Zhou Mi’s shoulder (not as boney as he thought it was) and went back to sleep.
Zhou Mi wasn’t coming to send him off.
I might cry, Kui Xian. Good luck when you get home. I hope your father will understand you more now.
Kyuhyun sat at the waiting area for the plane, fighting every urge he had to walk back out through the airport and head back into Beijing. He got up, needing to make a trip to the bathroom when he felt something hard jab him from his jacket pocket. He frowned, reaching into the pocket and wondering what it was that he had forgotten…
It was a card, and Zhou Mi had written in Korean…
보고 싶을 거야
and on the other side,
사랑해
Kyuhyun wondered when Zhou Mi picked up Korean.
Ara smothered him at the airport with a hug, and his mother was close behind. His father had not come.
“He had a meeting today, it really was quite important,” Kyuhyun’s mother said, as they hooked arms and walked out to Ara’s car. “He’d be home for dinner tonight. I’m so glad we’re all together again.”
Kyuhyun was not sure what he was going to do. He had a degree from one of the most prestigious music school in Beijing, some experience doing back up vocals, but he wasn’t sure what to answer if his father were to ask him what he was going to do now.
To his surprise, his father didn’t ask. They sit together for dinner, and Kyuhyun told stories about Beijing- about Wawa, about Geng, about Siwon. His father did not say a word during dinner; just ate and listened. Kyuhyun was surprised, and Ara smiled, giving him a light kick under the table.
“Don’t go running off again, Kyuhyun-ah,” Ara whispered to him after dinner when he walked her out to her car. “Appa’s proud of you. He kept all the clips of your performances that you sent to umma. I think he even showed off one or two of them to his colleagues”
Kyuhyun nodded.
“I think he’s sorry he never listened to you when you told him what you really wanted to do you’re your life. But now, I’m sure he’ll support you in whatever you want to do. So… you’re staying for good, aren’t you?” Ara asked. “You want to?”
“I want to,” Kyuhyun said. His family was here, in Korea, and he had already lost three years with them because he was too stubborn, and so he tried not to think of Zhou Mi too much. “I will.”
Seven months after returning to Korea, Kyuhyun worked in the day as a Math tutor and sang in a pub at night. He had gotten the attention of one patron who was a manager in one of the smaller entertainment companies. She asked him if he was interested in signing up as a trainee with their company and taking lessons to debut in the future.
Kyuhyun was still trying to digest the fact that he might had just been offered a record deal and almost missed the fact that someone was standing at his door.
When he saw who it was, he dropped his bag.
Zhou Mi turned around, grinning when he saw Kyuhyun. “Kui Xian!” he cried cheerfully, running over to give him a hug. “I got hopelessly lost! Everything’s so weird! They told me there’d be words I can understand but I think someone lied, and the Korean lessons didn’t help at all because everyone here talks so fast and…”
Kyuhyun reached his arms around Zhou Mi and hugged him back, and silenced him with a kiss.
“Oh,” Zhou Mi whispered, once Kyuhyun let him go. “I… wow,” he laughed. “I… wasn’t expecting that.”
“What… what were you expecting?” Kyuhyun asked, swallowing the lump that was in his throat. He wasn’t going to cry. No, he wasn’t going to cry, because Zhou Mi was here, here after he had left him a stupid message in his jacket pocket like the hopeless romantic that he was and made Kyuhyun wonder every day what would have happened if he had not gotten on the plane that day.
“Erm… maybe some anger? I am turning up unannounced,” Zhou Mi shrugged.
“So why didn’t you call me?” Kyuhyun asked, still not willing to let him go.
Zhou Mi grinned. “Oh Kui Xian. Because I’m here for my true love,” he said. “That’s you. In case you didn’t know.”
Kyuhyun rolled his eyes. “Should I gag?”
“You wouldn’t,” Zhou Mi gasped, and then paused. “Well, Shi Yuan said you wouldn’t. Would you?”
Kyuhyun sighed. “No. I guess I won’t,” he whispered, hugging Zhou Mi tight.
A/N:
新年快乐 – Happy New Year
보고 싶을 거야 – I Will Miss You
사랑해 – I Love You (of course)
Kyuhyun / Zhou Mi (Siwon / Hangeng in the background)
4035 words
Summary: Kyuhyun goes to music school in Beijing and meets Zhou Mi, who begins to worm into his life and become a pretty sticky presence. Not that Kyuhyun minds, of course. AKA just a stupid love story.
A/N: So, erm, Super Junior M on repeat. So. I BLAME THIS ON THE SONG, EVERYTHING ON THE SONG IT SAYS THAT LOVE IS SWEET SO HAVE SOMETHING SWEET. I disclaim myself from kidney failure or diabetes. Oh, and Happy Lunar New Year! (an early one!)
If you asked, Kyuhyun couldn’t tell you exactly how he ended up in China. It wasn’t just how his father had not agreed with his career path and insisted that he study something worthwhile. Being only twenty, Kyuhyun did not quite know how to rebel against his father and was in the midst of an mathematical engineering degree that he excelled in but thought was ridiculously easy (much to the chagrin of his classmates) when Siwon went to China.
No, it wasn’t just Siwon going to China. Siwon went to China to look for his true love.
Kyuhyun wasn’t a romantic. He didn’t believe in forever ever after, in flowers, in love at first sight. He’d had one relationship, or two, if you counted the girl he went out with for two dates and realised she was ridiculously not his type and it had ended with her giving him some choice words and a trip to the police station.
Kyuhyun didn’t quite understand why Siwon had gone to China. So when Siwon called, weeks after and spoke about the school that his one true love was going to- Kyuhyun decided for some strange reason…
To go to China too. Beijing, to be exact.
The language barrier was the worse.
When Henry first came to Korea, he complained to no end about how nobody but Siwon could understand him, how difficult it was to even get something to eat. In his first month in China, Kyuhyun understood all of that.
The course work wasn’t as easy as he thought it was either. Being able to sing well in church didn’t automatically make you a good singer, Kyuhyun realised. People telling you how you had a voice of an angel didn’t make a different when you were in a show-down with your Vocal II teacher, who kept telling you to hold your emotions in, control your voice, and you had problem understanding because the Chinese vocabulary he was using was just out of your limited knowledge.
Six weeks after he arrived in China, Kyuhyun wondered if he had done the wrong thing and should go home.
“I don’t know,” Hangeng, Siwon’s true love (yes, the one he went to Beijing to chase after) said, one evening when they were sprawled in the couch of Siwon’s apartment, watching a Korean drama that Kyuhyun had downloaded. “But you wanted to sing, didn’t you?”
Kyuhyun sighed. “I just didn’t know it was going to be this hard, hyung,” he confessed.
Hangeng tapped the edge of his chin thoughtfully. “When I first went to Korea,” he said, speaking slow because his Korean was still shit and had become worse since his return to China. “I thought having the talent was enough to stay there. But in the end, it wasn’t just about talent. It’s about how you… how you…” he frowned, searching for the right word to say. “Fit in? Togetherness?”
“Assimilate,” Kyuhyun said, and Hangeng nodded.
“Maybe,” Hangeng said, sitting up with a grin on his face. “Maybe I can bring you out to the next meeting I have. With my friends.”
“Oh no, hyung, I don’t know if it’s the right…”
“Come, Kyuhyun-ah,” Hangeng said, taking Kyuhyun’s hand and squeezing it. “You’d be upset if you go home now. I think your future self will kick the person you are now for wanting to give up.”
Kyuhyun thought for a long moment before he nodded. “Okay. What’s the harm in it?”
Hangeng was part of a club- or just, belonged to a group of people who liked to come together to share ideas, to dance and to sing. When Siwon first described it, Kyuhyun likened it to a mutual admiration society- it was just a group of people who had no one else who were interested to see them sing or dance, so they got together to sing and dance for each other.
Hangeng introduced him to the people in the group- a good mix of boys and girls, and sat Kyuhyun down with another two girls who were also from his school before going off to look for his dance friends.
Kyuhyun was smiling through a terribly awkward conversation, at which he thought one of the girls was trying to ask him if Korean men liked Chinese women, when a commotion at the door caused all of them to look up. Then, one of the girls squealed, “Mi!”
The newcomer, a tall lanky boy in a ridiculously tight pair of jeans laughed and said hello, and the girl shot out of her seat and went to give him a hug.
“Zhou Mi, come meet our newest friend. He’s Hangeng’s friend,” the girl said (or at least, it was what Kyuhyun deciphered), and she pulled him over to Kyuhyun. “Kyuhyun,” she said, and Kyuhyun winced inwardly at the way she was mangling his name. “This is Zhou Mi. He’s one of our vocal seniors. Just graduated.”
“Hi,” Zhou Mi said, with a big wide smile that made even Kyuhyun’s toes tingle. He cursed his traitorous body; he wasn’t ready to lose his emo-outlook in life yet and that tingle was definitely something that felt like excitement. Heaven forbid. “My name is Zhou Mi.”
“Hello,” Kyuhyun said carefully. “My name is Zhao Kui Xian.”
Kyuhyun missed the next club meeting, and when he arrived two weeks later, Zhou Mi was sitting at the door laughing at something one of the dancers said.
“Oh! Kui Xian!” Zhou Mi said happily, taking his arm and pulling him in. “Wawa said she heard you sing in school the other day, and that you were great. You must sing for us today.”
Kyuhyun started shaking his head. “No, no,” he stammered. He didn’t understand half of what Zhou Mi said, but the “sing for us” was hard to miss. “I, not good. Only listen.”
“Nonsense. We’re here for this purpose,” Zhou Mi rattled on, pulling Kyuhyun further into the room towards the piano. Kyuhyun shuffled his feet as Zhou Mi took a seat, rummaging through the box of scores. He finally surfaced with one he was happy with and looked up, giving Kyuhyun another one of his million watt smiles as he spread the score out on the piano.
Zhou Mi had nice, long fingers, Kyuhyun noticed, before he forced himself to pull his mind out of… whether it was heading to. Because wherever it was, Kyuhyun didn’t like where it was going. He started to play, and after two bars looked up at Kyuhyun to see if he recognised the music.
“Ah,” Kyuhyun nodded, and Zhou Mi grinned as he continued to play. Kyuhyun started to sing- softly at first, but buoyed by Zhou Mi’s eyes widening a little as soon as he started, sang a little louder.
When the song ended, the rest of the group who had crowded around them broke into applause, and Zhou Mi’s eyes were shining with something…
“Are you… cry? Tears?” Kyuhyun laughed, mimicking the action of tears running down his cheeks.
“Shut up,” Zhou Mi laughed, but a tear escaped his eye as he did so. “Good singers do that to me.”
And Kyuhyun suddenly thought that maybe he did have a chance after all.
Six months later, Kyuhyun was doing better in school, could order food confidently in a restaurant and had a Zhou Mi sticky by his side. He had no idea when it happened, but every time Kyuhyun looked up from whatever he was doing Zhou Mi was around.
“Kui Xian… let’s go out to play,” Zhou Mi whined, as Kyuhyun tried to concentrate on his game.
“Not interested,” Kyuhyun muttered, moving his troops. He really wanted to win this game. “Just go out yourself. Find someone else. What about Wawa?”
“Wawa’s gone with her boyfriend to Qingdao for the weekend. It’s just my lonesome self… and you,” Zhou Mi continued. “Please.”
Kyuhyun frowned, making a mistake of looking out of the corner of his eye to see Zhou Mi stretched out on his bed, all long limbed and he had hooked his arm over the back of his head, letting out a soft yawn…
He turned back to the screen to see that his opponent had attacked his home base, and there was no way he was going to be able to save this game.
“What the heck,” Kyuhyun frowned, pushing away from his laptop and grabbing his jacket. “You want to go out? Let’s go out.”
Zhou Mi jumped out of his bed and clapped his hands in glee. “I know just the perfect place!”
This was awkward.
Scratch that. He didn’t belong here. He turned and was about to go but Zhou Mi managed to catch him just before he could. “Don’t go! Since we’re here, we should go in.”
“It’s not… I’m not going in there,” Kyuhyun said.
“Please? Just for a while. It’d be fun!” Zhou Mi gave Kyuhyun the puppy-dog eyes and seriously who can resist? It would be like stabbing a rainbow, and that gave Zhou Mi enough time to pull Kyuhyun into the club before he could say anything else. “Let’s dance,” he grinned, before dragging Kyuhyun out onto the dance floor.
Kyuhyun had two left feet and had a friend who once broadcasted his attempts at dancing through the school system, so he did not want to dance. But Zhou Mi’s easy smile and arm around his shoulders made him a little more comfortable about it, and following Zhou Mi’s lead was easier.
“See? No pressure,” Zhou Mi grinned, as they swayed with the slow song that was playing.
Kyuhyun was trying to understand why the club was playing a slow song, but was also very distracted by the smell of Zhou Mi’s cologne and the warmth that was spreading from the middle of his back where Zhou Mi’s hand was resting. He resisted the urge to lean on Zhou Mi’s shoulder- it would be too… too what? He searched his brain for the answer. Too obvious? Too stupid?
He sucked in a deep breath and made himself turn away. They were the only two men dancing together on the floor like this, but no one else seemed to care.
Then, the song ended and the music switched to an Elva Hsiao dance hit and Zhou Mi let out a loud whoop and began to really dance. Kyuhyun rolled his eyes up at the ceiling and hoped for the best.
“Kui Xian,” Zhou Mi sang, and Kyuhyun looked up from the keyboard. He was trying to finish up his homework for music theory, and Zhou Mi had let himself into the dorm three hours ago and helped himself to Kyuhyun’s bed.
“Kui Xian,” Zhou Mi said again, noting that he had Kyuhyun’s attention. “Are you close friends with Shi Yuan?”
“We go to the same church. Since we were six,” Kyuhyun explained as he tinkled with a few keys. “We’ve been friends for a long time.”
“Is that why you came to Beijing?” Zhou Mi flipped so he was lying with his stomach down on the bed, legs kicking up in the air behind him. Kyuhyun used to get freaked out by that, but now he knew that nobody was as girly as Zhou Mi. Once he understood that, nothing freaked him out. Not even Zhou Mi’s eyelash crimper.
“No,” Kyuhyun said, before he paused. “Yes. Maybe.”
Zhou Mi nodded. “You two are really close, huh?”
“I guess,” Kyuhyun said. “Why are you asking me these questions anyway?”
“Are you ever sad? Because of Geng?” Zhou Mi asked.
He had that open, earnest look on his face, Kyuhyun thought. That face he had whenever he was being nice and attentive and a good friend and listening and oh my god.
“OH MY GOD,” Kyuhyun repeated out loud, getting up.
“Kui…”
“You thought, you… you…” Kyuhyun stammered, pacing around in front of the window before he stopped and turned to Zhou Mi. “You thought… I was… you thought I came here because of Shi Yuan-ge?”
“Yes!” Zhou Mi jumped up, sitting cross-legged on the bed. “I mean, you two are really close!”
“That’s because we’re close, you idiot!” Kyuhyun burst into laughter, walking over to the bed and sitting down next to Zhou Mi. “Mi, you… crazy… Hyung, I mean, Shi Yuan-ge and I, we’re like brothers. I’m happy he’s with Geng-ge, because trust me, Shi Yuan-ge was pinning so hard for him I was getting sick of it. Shi Yuan-ge came to China to look for his true love,” Kyuhyun made a face when he said that, and Zhou Mi had to laugh. “I guess I thought… maybe I thought that if I came here, I’d be able to fulfil my dreams, like Shi Yuan-ge had. No matter how cheesy it is. And now you have to swear never to tell him what I told you or I will have to kill you.”
“Oh. Oh,” Zhou Mi grinned. “I… I made a fool of myself, didn’t I?”
“It’s okay, you’re a cute fool,” Kyuhyun pinched his cheek before getting up and walking back to the keyboard.
“So…” Zhou Mi whispered in a quiet voice. “You don’t like boys?”
Kyuhyun sat down on the keyboard and looked up at Zhou Mi, who was biting his lower lip, clenching and unclenching his fists. He just picked up his headphones.
During the Chinese New Year vacation of his last year, Hangeng invited Kyuhyun to his hometown so he wouldn’t have to spend the holidays alone. Siwon was especially nervous before they left, and Hangeng had to stop him from buying the entire stock of ginseng and dried scallops the store had.
“My mom likes you,” Hangeng smiled. “She’s happy you’re going to visit her. So don’t worry okay?”
Siwon had given Hangeng one of his stupid, melty smiles, and Kyuhyun had mimicked the act of gagging to Zhou Mi, who was watching them from the back.
Hangeng’s family genuinely did like Siwon, Kyuhyun thought during the first day of Chinese New Year where the living room of the family was jammed pack with people. Kyuhyun didn’t have a clue who they were and he found himself wishing that Zhou Mi was with him even as complete strangers pressed red packets in his hands. Money, he was told, for good luck in the New Year.
That night, Zhou Mi called and Kyuhyun told him about how Siwon had charmed one of Hangeng’s cousins so much that Hangeng had almost showed his claws. Zhou Mi chatted about his little cousins and how they were stringing flower garlands in the yard and the adults were playing with sparklers.
“There’d be firecrackers tomorrow, Geng-mama promised,” Kyuhyun said, letting out a loud yawn.
“That’s great.”
“Wish you were here though. Want to see you jump from fright when they set them off,” Kyuhyun grinned.
“Kuiiii Xiiiaannn,” Zhou Mi whined, and Kyuhyun chuckled, closing his eyes. “Oh, I have to go. That’s my mom.”
Kyuhyun tried not to let his disappointment show as he replied, “Yea. Right. I’ll… see you back in Beijing.”
“Yes,” Zhou Mi said, and Kyuhyun swore he could hear Zhou Mi’s smile from over the phone. “Good night, Kui Xian. 新年快乐.”
“新年快乐,” Kyuhyun returned, and Zhou Mi hung up. Kyuhyun let out a loud sigh as he heard a chuckle coming from his door. He jumped up, and Siwon was smiling.
“Don’t say it, hyung,” Kyuhyun said.
“I’m not. Han-mama has red bean soup. She asked me to come get you,” Siwon said. “I didn’t want to interrupt… if it was anything important.”
“You’re not,” Kyuhyun said, getting up and walking over to the door. “You… were not.”
“No don’t take those those are the…” Kyuhyun cried out but it was too late as he watched Zhou Mi fall forward with the box. “Books.”
Zhou Mi just grinned and shook himself off. Kyuhyun had some paperwork issues with the dorm for his last semester, so Zhou Mi had asked him if he would like to move in with him. Kyuhyun, being too desperate to choose, decided this was his only option. “What are they?” Zhou Mi asked as he picked up the books that had spilled out of the box.
“My old textbooks,” Kyuhyun said, tossing two books on electric circuits into the box.
“Why did you bring them?” Zhou Mi said, wincing at the diagrams in one of the books he was flipping through. “You don’t need them now.”
Kyuhyun shrugged. “I’m not quite sure,” he confessed, as they finished packing the books and lifted the box up together. “Maybe I thought if singing didn’t work out I could go back to engineering.”
Zhou Mi chuckled. “Oh that’s silly.”
“How so?” Kyuhyun panted as they finally arrived at Zhou Mi’s door. Zhou Mi wrote commercial jingles and sang for some projects. It gave him enough money to get by, but not enough for an apartment in a building that had a lift.
“You wouldn’t have give up singing,” Zhou Mi huffed as they put the box down with the rest of Kyuhyun’s stuff. “You came all the way here even if it’s against your father’s wishes, right? You’re not a quitter.”
Kyuhyun laughed. “Okay. That’s a nice thing for you to say.”
“And now you’re here, half a year to graduation,” Zhou Mi smiled, getting up and brushing the dust off his jeans. “You’ll be going home when this ends, right?” Zhou Mi asked softly. “You always talk about how there isn’t a decent Korean restaurant anywhere here.”
“Yes,” Kyuhyun nodded. “I… at least I have to go back, and try again there.”
“You should… it isn’t right to have unfinished business,” Zhou Mi nodded as he turned to walk out of the door, back down to get the last few boxes of Kyuhyun’s stuff.
Kyuhyun looked around him, and wondered if this was, in the future going to be “unfinished business” too.
Zhou Mi came for Kyuhyun’s graduation. Kyuhyun’s flight back to Seoul was two days after. They smiled and took pictures with all the friends that Kyuhyun had made since coming to Beijing and with Hangeng and Siwon, who had come for his graduation too.
They all went out for drinks after, and Kyuhyun felt a certain amount of sadness as he watched his friends laugh over drinks, telling funny stories about the things that had happened in the last three years. He looked forward to going home for the first time since coming to China, but he felt sad about leaving.
He had friends here. He now spoke Chinese like a native. He wanted to stay because of Zhou Mi.
Zhou Mi, Kyuhyun thought, looking up at the person in question who was laughing at a joke Wawa was making. He probably would miss Zhou Mi most of all.
That night, they went back to Zhou Mi’s apartment. Zhou Mi made tea, and they sat out on the couch for two hours without saying a word.
Then Kyuhyun went to bed, drawing the covers over himself. He was just about to go to sleep when he felt movement next to him and he cracked open an eyelid, blinking up at the tall shadow of Zhou Mi that was getting into bed next to him.
“What time is it?” he mumbled.
“Twelve fifty,” Zhou Mi’s voice whispered. Kyuhyun let out a soft grunt and leaned his head against Zhou Mi’s shoulder (not as boney as he thought it was) and went back to sleep.
Zhou Mi wasn’t coming to send him off.
I might cry, Kui Xian. Good luck when you get home. I hope your father will understand you more now.
Kyuhyun sat at the waiting area for the plane, fighting every urge he had to walk back out through the airport and head back into Beijing. He got up, needing to make a trip to the bathroom when he felt something hard jab him from his jacket pocket. He frowned, reaching into the pocket and wondering what it was that he had forgotten…
It was a card, and Zhou Mi had written in Korean…
보고 싶을 거야
and on the other side,
사랑해
Kyuhyun wondered when Zhou Mi picked up Korean.
Ara smothered him at the airport with a hug, and his mother was close behind. His father had not come.
“He had a meeting today, it really was quite important,” Kyuhyun’s mother said, as they hooked arms and walked out to Ara’s car. “He’d be home for dinner tonight. I’m so glad we’re all together again.”
Kyuhyun was not sure what he was going to do. He had a degree from one of the most prestigious music school in Beijing, some experience doing back up vocals, but he wasn’t sure what to answer if his father were to ask him what he was going to do now.
To his surprise, his father didn’t ask. They sit together for dinner, and Kyuhyun told stories about Beijing- about Wawa, about Geng, about Siwon. His father did not say a word during dinner; just ate and listened. Kyuhyun was surprised, and Ara smiled, giving him a light kick under the table.
“Don’t go running off again, Kyuhyun-ah,” Ara whispered to him after dinner when he walked her out to her car. “Appa’s proud of you. He kept all the clips of your performances that you sent to umma. I think he even showed off one or two of them to his colleagues”
Kyuhyun nodded.
“I think he’s sorry he never listened to you when you told him what you really wanted to do you’re your life. But now, I’m sure he’ll support you in whatever you want to do. So… you’re staying for good, aren’t you?” Ara asked. “You want to?”
“I want to,” Kyuhyun said. His family was here, in Korea, and he had already lost three years with them because he was too stubborn, and so he tried not to think of Zhou Mi too much. “I will.”
Seven months after returning to Korea, Kyuhyun worked in the day as a Math tutor and sang in a pub at night. He had gotten the attention of one patron who was a manager in one of the smaller entertainment companies. She asked him if he was interested in signing up as a trainee with their company and taking lessons to debut in the future.
Kyuhyun was still trying to digest the fact that he might had just been offered a record deal and almost missed the fact that someone was standing at his door.
When he saw who it was, he dropped his bag.
Zhou Mi turned around, grinning when he saw Kyuhyun. “Kui Xian!” he cried cheerfully, running over to give him a hug. “I got hopelessly lost! Everything’s so weird! They told me there’d be words I can understand but I think someone lied, and the Korean lessons didn’t help at all because everyone here talks so fast and…”
Kyuhyun reached his arms around Zhou Mi and hugged him back, and silenced him with a kiss.
“Oh,” Zhou Mi whispered, once Kyuhyun let him go. “I… wow,” he laughed. “I… wasn’t expecting that.”
“What… what were you expecting?” Kyuhyun asked, swallowing the lump that was in his throat. He wasn’t going to cry. No, he wasn’t going to cry, because Zhou Mi was here, here after he had left him a stupid message in his jacket pocket like the hopeless romantic that he was and made Kyuhyun wonder every day what would have happened if he had not gotten on the plane that day.
“Erm… maybe some anger? I am turning up unannounced,” Zhou Mi shrugged.
“So why didn’t you call me?” Kyuhyun asked, still not willing to let him go.
Zhou Mi grinned. “Oh Kui Xian. Because I’m here for my true love,” he said. “That’s you. In case you didn’t know.”
Kyuhyun rolled his eyes. “Should I gag?”
“You wouldn’t,” Zhou Mi gasped, and then paused. “Well, Shi Yuan said you wouldn’t. Would you?”
Kyuhyun sighed. “No. I guess I won’t,” he whispered, hugging Zhou Mi tight.
A/N:
新年快乐 – Happy New Year
보고 싶을 거야 – I Will Miss You
사랑해 – I Love You (of course)