[FIC] Making you smile

Title: Making you smile
Characters: Hyukjae, Sungmin, Jongwoon
Rating: G
Wordcount: 1.200 & 1.666
Summary: Sungmin's been way down lately and Hyukjae wants to change that.
A/N: I had a rough start on it as the idea grew out of a conversation I had with another one of my dongsaengs, but the inspiration was kind of lacking that day and so was time. Then in the following days there was no time or will to write, but because of some events and fanfics I read from my unnies, I managed to write this.

- - - - -

It was a nice, cosy, free afternoon for Hyukjae that rainy Sunday in may. He had no schedule and there was no training since the Super Junior M members were off to China that weekend. He decided that the best way to spend such a lovely afternoon was to plop down on the couch and enjoy some good old TV-watching. Yet the moment he switched on the television and focused his eyes on the colourful images displayed, a door was opened and the head of his friend popped out of the doorway.

“Hyukkie, are you doing anything interesting?” he asked, showing a rather adorable pout. But Hyukjae had seen it too often already, so it didn’t move him much anymore. He kept his eyes on the television, sighing a little as he tried to ignore the continuous stare. “Hyukkie..”

“Ah, chinja! I just want to watch some TV without being disturbed every two seconds. Is that really so hard to achieve?” he boomed, frowning a little himself at how harsh his own words sounded. He didn’t have to look to see how all happiness disappeared from the other one’s face, yet he didn’t take back his words. A long silence followed, before the door was slowly closed again. When he looked up, he could just see Sungmin’s hand softly pull the door closed behind him. Hyukjae sighed as he turned his eyes back towards the television.

About thirty minutes later the door opened again and Sungmin walked out. It was when he disappeared in the kitchen without saying a word, that the feeling of guilt exploded inside of Hyukjae. He managed to keep watching the television for a total of ten more seconds, before he got up and followed his friend. He walked into the kitchen, dragging his unwilling body towards the other who was taking water out of the fridge. The moment he reached the elder, he let his arms slip around Sungmin’s chest and rested his chin on the other one’s shoulder.

There was a short moment in which Sungmin froze in shock, before he pulled away from the sudden touch. As he turned around, he locked eyes with the other and sighed when he realised who it was. His eyes flashed from Hyukjae’s face to the open door behind him and back to his friend. The question was evident on his face, even though he didn’t say anything. His whole expression was practically wondering: ‘What about watching TV without being disturbed?’ When there came no reply from the younger, however, he frowned.

“I thought it was Jongwoon hyung.” he then mumbled, turning around again to continue with pouring water into a glass. Hyukjae wrapped his arms around his friend’s chest again and returned to his earlier position, peaking over Sungmin’s shoulder at the glass of water as if it was something very interesting to see. The elder did nothing anymore to stop him, but he did turn his head for a moment to look at him. “Hyuk-ah..?” he wondered without adding any more.

“I’m sorry for getting annoyed at you, Minnie.” Hyukjae mumbled in reply, softly nudging the other one’s head with his own. “Are you alright? Was there something you wanted to ask me?” he then added to his previous words. He noticed the shadow of a smile that appeared on Sungmin’s face because of his words and felt good at this rare accomplishment. Sungmin rarely ever had smiled anymore in the past weeks. It saddened Hyukjae to realise that, but it saddened him even more that he didn’t even know the reason.

“I’m alright, Hyuk-ah.” the elder said, but it was obvious that he wasn’t doing good. Not at all. “There’s nothing I wanted to say or ask. Don’t worry.” But of course Hyukjae should worry. For there was this hint of hidden sadness in Sungmin’s voice and a lack of liveliness in his eyes. And while watching his friend drink, with his own arms still clutched around the other’s chest, Hyukjae realised that he would have to do something about this. He would make Sungmin smile, even if it meant sacrificing his free afternoon for it. That’s why, when Sungmin put down the empty glass again, Hyukjae immediately dragged him out of the kitchen.

“Hyuk what the hell?” Sungmin called out when he almost fell down because he was dragged away by his friend. He tried to wriggle out of Hyukjae’s grip, but the younger was holding on too tightly. “Hyuk? Let go of me! What are you doing? Hyuk?” he kept on complaining, but his words reached deaf ears. When he was tackled onto the couch, with Hyukjae landing on top of him, he cursed under his breath. “Damn it Hyuk, what the hell are you doing?” His hand seemed to move on its own, flying towards the other’s head and hitting it with a good amount of strength.

“Ouch! Minnie!” the younger exclaimed, showing an adorable pout. “That hurt.” He let go of his friend with one hand to rub his head and then poked Sungmin’s side. “You’re evil, Minnie! Evil, I tell you! You spend too much time with that maknae! He’s totally corrupting your innocent self.” He huffed as he rested his head down. “I wanted to be nice for once and then you hit me!”

“What’s nice about dragging your friend to the living room and throwing him on the couch to then land on top of him?” Sungmin retorted, disbelieving, turning his head to be able to look at the younger. Right at that moment, Jongwoon walked out of his room as well, but froze in his tracks as he saw his fellow dorm members. He eyed the bunch of tangled limbs and the close faces for a moment before his eyes widened and he cleared his throat.

“Err.. I’m sorry for disturbing you two.” he mumbled, turning around and quickly walking back into his room.

The two boys eyed the closed door for a moment, before turning to each other again. There was a moment of silence, before Hyukjae chuckled. He decided to take use of the situation to try and brighten up Sungmin. “Hello sweety.” he therefore said teasingly. “How about some Hyukmin today? Forget that Kyu of yours, he’s not worth anything anyway.”

A wide grin was on his face, but it faltered when his words did not have the intended effect. Instead of making Sungmin laugh, they earned him a poisonous glare and he was pushed out of the couch, ending up on the ground next to it. As he lay there, pouting, Sungmin sat up in anger.

“Ugh, Hyuk, you’re gross! Don’t you have some Eunhae fanservice to prepare?” he asked disgusted, getting up from the couch and storming away. He stampeded back into his room, throwing the door closed behind him after which he dropped down on his bed and grabbed a pillow. He landed a few good punches on it, before sighing and closing his eyes as he rested his head on the thing. There was a deafening silence around him that made his anger flow away just as quickly as it had come and soon the numbing sleep took over.

- - - - -

He woke up feeling like someone had hammered on his head with a ten ton truck. He let out a tired groan as he opened his eyes, wincing from the sudden light. He looked around, trying to find the cause of his waking, when his eyes locked on another pair of familiar brown ones. He froze in his place and his heart skipped a beat in surprise. Only seconds later, however, the first shock had faded and his body relaxed again. His friend was lying three metres away, on the bed of his roommate, looking at him with a pout on his face.

“You don’t even smile when you sleep.” the other one told him, showing him an even more sad face. He frowned at this lame notion. Not that it wasn’t true, on the contrary, but it was lame nonetheless. Because who did smile while asleep anyway? “And now you’re even frowning!” Hyukjae continued, shaking his head with a thoughtful expression, obviously talking more to himself than to his only just awoken friend. “This is obviously not working..” Sungmin frowned more upon hearing those last words.

“What isn’t?” he wondered out loud, getting up to be able to give his friend a closer look. When he did so, however, he noticed the fabric all around the two of them. His eyes widened in surprise as he took in all the white around him and the seemingly sudden closeness of the walls. “What’s this?” he asked in shock, resting his eyes on Hyukjae again.

“It’s a blanket fort. Don’t you like it?” the younger replied, pouting even more as he eyed his own creation. He had basically robbed everyone’s bed from their sheets and brought them to make a blanket fort with Sungmin. But when he had entered his friend’s room, the elder had already been asleep. After twenty minutes of waiting for his friend to wake up, Hyukjae had decided to get to building the blanket fort by himself. He would then do something else inside of the blanket fort with his friend when the latter woke up. What exactly he would do had been problems for later.

Yet later had now arrived. In the form of a stunned, shocked and confused Sungmin who stared at the sheets draped all around them. There were two sheets being used as roof for their blanket fort and four as walls. The two beds were both included in the fort, but everything else was left out. It felt like a cosy little room that only held their two beds and nothing else but white. When he finally realised exactly what the other had done, Sungmin averted his eyes from all the white and looked back at Hyukjae.

“What is this for?” he asked, sitting up a little better. This action was immediately nullified again when Hyukjae jumped up from the bed he was lying on and ran over to Sungmin’s bed, basically pouncing on the other and pushing him back down.

“It’s for having a personal space where I can keep asking you annoying questions until you finally answer them, because I can’t take this any longer!” Hyukjae then exclaimed, his eyes piercing into his friend’s. After those words, the questions just poured out. “Why are you not smiling like you used to? Why are you not enjoying every moment anymore like you used to? Why is there never that sparkle in your eyes that I know from earlier times? Why do you look like a zombie most of the time? Why do you cry all by yourself in the bathroom when you think everyone else is sleeping?” Sungmin stared at his younger friend for a moment, dumbfounded.

“Oh..” he finally mumbled, blinking a few times before continuing. “You noticed that?” The obvious surprise in his voice was what made Hyukjae stare at him in shock. And suddenly all pieces of the puzzle seemed to come together in the younger’s mind.

“Minnie..” he said, disbelieving, his hands resting at both sides of Sungmin’s shoulders as he kept himself upright like that. He shook his head a little and sighed. “You must be kidding me, right? Are you depressed because you think we don’t notice you?” Sungmin fretted a moment, trying to look anywhere but at his friend’s eyes, but after a few moments of silence, he had no other choice anymore, as Hyukjae brought his face closer, eyebrows raised in wonder. When the younger started poking his face as well, Sungmin finally snapped.

“Yes I am, okay?” he exclaimed, pushing Hyukjae away from him again. “No one ever notices me. And why should they? I’m not a great singer like Yesung hyung or Ryeowook or even Kyuhyun. I don’t dance as well as you or Shindong or Donghae. Even Leeteuk hyung is better at dancing than me sometimes. And I also don’t have any entertainment skills, acting skills or good looks to make up for my lacking singing and dancing like Heechul hyung and Siwon. All I can do is use a sweet voice and make cute faces. Like that is of any use!”

At first he had managed to stay calm, but somewhere halfway through his explosion, the emotions became too strong and his voice broke, making him half whine the last words to his friend. Yet every thought of having to keep up appearances had left him the moment he snapped, so he simply glared at his friend who was still lying on the ground. His eyes were puffy and red, filled with tears that wouldn’t spill over his cheeks, but he didn’t care about that. There was a short silence in which the two just looked at each other, before Hyukjae slowly crawled upright and spread his arms. It took Sungmin another two seconds to slid off the bed as well and hide in the other’s arms.

“Minnie.. Our dear Sungminnie..” Hyukjae mumbled softly, stroking the elder’s back and making soft hushing sounds. “You are a very good dancer and you know it. Maybe your singing isn’t perfect, but neither is mine or Donghae’s or even Ryeowook’s for that matter. Maybe you don’t have entertainment skills or acting skills, although I think you do, but you have so many other skills too. No one can play the guitar like you can, you make the best pumpkin soup from the fifteen of us, you are an awesome sportsman, you put your best into everything you do.. Hell, Minnie, you can even throw pizzas around for crying out loud!” He patted the elder’s back and rested his head against Sungmin’s. “And Minnie, of course we notice you. Everyone notices you. Everyone has seen how you grow less happy with every passing day. We just thought it was a phase and that you would eventually tell us yourself what was wrong.”

The silence that followed his words was an expectant one, yet it was not interrupted by the elder. Instead, the two of them just sat there hugging, holding each other tightly. Neither of them was crying, but Sungmin was on the brink of tears, still refusing to let them out. Hyukjae just held his long-time friend, stroking through his hair in a gentle movement that showed his care. After a few minutes of sitting like that, he pulled back a little and rested his forehead against Sungmin’s.

“You’re not worthless, Minnie.” he said. “I know that’s what you’re convinced of, but you’re wrong. Without you Super Junior is not Super Junior anymore. Without you, I would not be me anymore. You are our fellow member and, most importantly, our friend. We don’t want you to feel bad, so smile for us more often, will you?” Before Sungmin could respond, someone flipped open the ‘door’ of their blanket fort.

“Hey Min what are all the shee- Oh. Err.. I’m sorry for disturbing you two.” Jongwoon said, raising an eyebrow at the sight of his two dongsaengs. He let go of the fabric so that the sheet dropped down again and blocked his view on them, but it took him another second before he managed to turn around to walk away. He was stopped by the two people he had ‘interrupted’ for a second time that day, however.

“Hyung.” Hyukjae said, waiting for Jongwoon to pop his head back through the sheets before continuing. “You’re not disturbing us. Please feel free to enter our blanket fort and enjoy the freedom of doing anything you want together with us.” The eldest let his eyes skim the surroundings, before eyeing his still tightly hugging dongsaengs. He hesitated a moment before speaking up.

“Do I have to take part in this make-out session?” he asked worried. His words earned him a full-out laugh from Hyukjae, but more importantly, they also caused Sungmin to chuckle softly. Upon hearing this, Hyukjae immediately looked at his friend in surprise, pushing him back a little to look at Sungmin’s face, that was coloured with a smile. When he saw this fact, he immediately let go of his friend to jump up and glomp Jongwoon. Because this was unexpected for the elder, they both ended up falling on the ground, dragging down half of the ‘walls’ of the blanket fort. They lay sprawled on the ground for a moment, before realising what had really happened.

“Yah! Hyukjae-ah! I don’t swing your way! Get off of me!” Jongwoon immediately shrieked, trying his best to push the younger off him, which was made almost impossible by the heap of sheets they were tangled in. Hyukjae tried his best to crawl of the elder as well, not really fancying the position they were in either, but was also discovering how annoying sheets could be. As they struggled to get away from each other, there was something that caught their attention, making them both freeze in their movements and listen with a smile on their face.

From somewhere underneath the heap of sheets, Sungmin’s muffled but sincere laughter could be heard.