[FIC] Soulmates: Selene

Title: Soulmates: Selene
Characters: Eunhyuk, Jo Kwon, SJ, 2AM, OC
Rating: PG
Chaptercount: 20/22
Summary: One unexpected yet scheduled meeting brings with it the start of so much more.
A/N: The first story I wrote with Super Junior in it lol. I was a bit of a fan at that time and Hyukjae was the first member of Super Junior I knew. I gradually learned more about them as I wrote this story so if some things don't add up at all, don't blame me lol.

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It was d-day. She was going to die. She was sure of it. Fans probably brought guns and what not to kill her and they would not be afraid to use them. Her life was going to end that very day. She comforted herself with the idea of coming back as a ghost anyway, but that reassurance was overshadowed by the realization that she would be living by Jo Kwon’s side then and not Hyukjae’s. She swallowed a few times as she stared at the wall in front of her without seeing it. The screams were deafening, while Hyukjae had only just set foot on the stage. Her heartbeat sped up to what must be at least two hundred beats per minute and she was starting to feel less sure every second.

She had been in Korea again for a week. Even though the company had not been happy when finding out about Hyukjae’s relationship with her, it had already been far too late to do anything about it by then, so they had agreed with the conference. However, they had also said that if the fans responded negatively and wanted him to break up, he would have to do so or he would be kicked out of the group. Everything depended on the reaction of the fans now and that reaction was something Selene dreaded most of all. In less than twenty minutes, she would have to get up on that stage as well and face the fans and press who had come to find out about this infamous girlfriend everyone had been talking about.

In the last two months, Selene had been happy to be in different countries. Korean news had been flooded by articles about Hyukjae’s relationship and all kinds of options about who this lucky girl might be. She had comforted herself with the knowledge that none of the options had been her, but still. As the weeks had passed, the commotion had lessened, especially when it became clear that there would be a formal announcement during a conference. Everyone had calmed down, waiting for that specific day. A day that had now come.

That morning, all her friends had arrived in Korea as well. Everyone had been given a room in the company building and even her mother and father were there to support her, something she couldn’t appreciate more. They had given her words of encouragement. Kana, Chinatsu, Kasumi, Sakura and Afreya were even sitting with her now, holding her hands or glancing at her face in worry from time to time, but all she could focus on was the dimmed sounds coming from the large conference hall. Her courage was slowly leaving her as she heard the screams rise in strength. That meant Hyukjae had now brought her up and she had almost no time left. Her friends all hugged her and said words of encouragement. She didn’t hear them. It was only when the door opened and K’Ae walked in that she averted her eyes from the wall.

“It’s time now, Selene.” K’Ae spoke softly. She reached out a hand. Feeling more like a zombie than a living and breathing person, Selene got up and walked towards the ghost girl. Right before she walked out of the room, she glanced back at her friends, who all showed her a thumbs up. Swallowing once again, she did the only thing she knew to do in her situation. She turned off her brain and blindly followed K’Ae towards the stage. At the stairs, they stopped, and K’Ae turned to look at her. A compassionate smile appeared on her face and she gently stroked the younger girl’s cheek. “Don’t worry. I’ve walked through the audience a bit. Although they’re not thrilled, they are not intending to kill you either.” Selene took a deep breath and turned to the stage. She didn’t answer, knowing that if she did, she would lose control and start crying or run away.

“So as promised, I will reveal the identity of my girlfriend today. I hope E.L.F will show her as much love as you have shown Super Junior, because she is very dear to me.” Hyukjae’s words reached her ears, but she did her best not to think about their meaning. His voice sounded assured and calm, so she tried finding courage in that. The occasional screams that had sounded before all died away and the conference hall was left in complete silence. Selene felt how her heartbeat suddenly slowed and how everything in her head seemed to go as silent as the hall. Then Hyukjae’s shape appeared at the end of the stairs and he slowly walked halfway down, reaching out a hand to her. As in a dream, she walked up to take his hand. He covered his microphone with his free hand and pulled her close in a short hug. “Aishiteru.” he whispered, before letting go and walking back up the stairs.

She stood there like frozen for a few seconds, letting the meaning of the one word sink in. When he reached the last step of the stairs, she moved like a robot. One step higher, another one, another one, the last one and after that out on the open stage. The silence was not interrupted while she made her way towards the seats on the stage. All the Super Junior members were sitting there in two rows, the fifteen of them, to show their support for their member’s decision. Hyukjae took his place on the front row and, with a strange calm that felt almost like numbness, she slowly sat down on the chair next to him. Someone pressed a microphone in her hand that she accepted with numb fingers. She took one deep breath, closed her eyes for a second and lifted her head to look at the audience.

“Annyeonghaseyo.” she said, letting her gaze wander over the black nothingness where she expected lots of fans to be hidden. “My name is Selene Miyake.” The sudden noise that followed her words almost made her jump up in surprise. Immediately the earlier calm left her and her heartbeat sped up again. She grabbed the arm of her chair and squeezed as hard as she could to at least let out a little bit of the stress. As the screams of fans became more organized, she could distinguish two kinds of screaming. Encouraging screams and screams of anger. To her great surprise, the first kind of screams were much louder. As she started to get used to the bright lights of the stage, she also started to recognize shapes in the black nothingness and soon she could see the vastness of the audience. There must be more than a thousand fans and press people present.

Hyukjae calmly waited for the noise to die away and none of the other members made any move to silence the fans either. Selene felt worries come up again. How much would they hate her for ‘stealing’ their Hyukjae? Would she leave the conference alive? How would she have to act? If she would clearly state that she was his girlfriend, they would probably think her arrogant, yet if she said she would accept the fans wishes, they might think she didn’t want to fight for him. They might see her as someone who simply wanted his money. She closed her eyes shortly again, deciding to just be honest. It wouldn’t do to make promises she wouldn’t be keeping anyway, so she would just be honest and be herself. With that decision made, she waited what seemed like an eternity until the fans slowly became less loud and in the end became completely silent again. She made the smile reappear on her face just in time for the first question.

“Where are you from?” one of the reporters asked. She was surprised that the question was addressed to her instead of Hyukjae. Apparently, she had been accepted as being a person too.

“I’m Japanese.” she answered, clutching the microphone like it was her only reassurance of safety.

“How did you two meet?” the next question immediately followed.

“We met in Germany when Hyukjae was on vacation there.” The rumour in the hall became a little louder as people mumbled to each other how weird it was for a Korean and a Japanese person to meet in a country so far away as Germany.

“You look familiar, Selene-ssi, are you famous in your country or something like that?”

“No, I’m not really famous. But 6 months ago I appeared on Star King together with my friend. We were the two interpreters.” She had to swallow a few times to release herself from some of the stress. There was no getting away from this anymore.

“Eunhyuk-ssi..” someone else asked. “Can you tell us the whole story?” Hyukjae smiled and nodded, showing a very relaxed and uncaring attitude that made her feel all the more like the odd one out. The other fourteen members were just sitting around them, probably feeling a little bored. Selene bit her lower lip and averted her eyes from the audience to Hyukjae, to see what he would tell them.

“Like Selene already said, we met in Germany. I encountered her on the streets and she helped me to find my hotel. Later on, we realized that we actually had to meet one another for business purposes. She had been assigned to give me a short introduction of the things I could do in Germany on that first day and from then on I would be on my own again. Yet the next day Leeteuk came to visit me and she had also been assigned by the company to accompany him to the hotel where he would surprise me. We then spend the whole day together before the three of them, Leeteuk and the two girls, went back to Korea. Because I was already intrigued by her from that first day, I asked for her number before she left, but we didn’t really contact each other until I suddenly got a text from her.” Hyukjae turned to look at her, making it clear that he wanted her to continue. She swallowed once again, before turning back to the audience and going on.

“Well, my friend, Afreya, had also exchanged numbers with Leeteuk and Hyukjae, and she had kept some sort of contact, texting with Leeteuk from time to time. When she told me about this, I felt like contacting them again as well, just to see how they were doing. Because of that, I texted Leeteuk the next time I was in Korea, but he had a very busy schedule that day, so he told me to contact Hyukjae. He asked me to come over to their dorm for some tea and after that we kept meeting occasionally whenever I was in Korea to have a drink and talk a little. That went on for quite some months and we became quite good friends.”

“For me it was more than friendship.” Hyukjae butted in at that point. “I really liked her personality and soon found myself in love with her. I didn’t tell her at first, as I thought it was probably just puppy love, but after a couple of months, I realized it was more, so one day I simply decided to tell her my feelings. She was in Korea at that time, so I called her and told her I would meet her in her hotel. Even though she kept insisting she didn’t have much time and would meet me later that day, I just went and once she let me in, I blurted out the words like that.” Selene smiled when she remembered that day. The stress had slowly lessened while talking and because of Hyukjae’s careless attitude, she felt less careful as well.

“To be honest, I was quite surprised. He had called me, saying he had to meet me and would come over. Because he sounded very urged, I thought something had happened, so I was very worried. I had expected a lot of things, like he would tell me one of the members had gotten an accident or something like that, but I never considered he would confess to me. At first I even thought he was doing a hidden camera prank on me or something, but it soon became clear he was dead serious about it.” she sketched the situation with an amused feeling. Thinking back to it really made it all look so funny. She even chuckled a little at the end of her explanation. Suddenly, she felt a hand being put on her shoulder and surprised, she stiffened in her chair. Immediately she remembered her place and that she had to be careful with what she said because of all the fans listening. The person gave a soft, reassuring squeeze in her shoulder, thereby telling her she was doing a good job. She looked back at the person, immediately getting six smiles from the members in her sight. She couldn’t keep herself from smiling as well while turning back to the audience. Meanwhile Hyukjae had continued the story.

“Selene was a little confused at first, but I somehow convinced her to go on a date with me, telling her that if it didn’t feel right to her, she could still refuse me after. She accepted after some debating and I took her to Han River the same evening. Of course there was a great risk of being recognized, but I really wanted to have a real date instead of always meeting at our dorm or her hotel. On a side note, I want to apologize to the three girls who actually did recognize me there for lying to them, but because it was our first date, I wanted it to be like any other person’s first date.” He left a short silence before finishing the story. “It was not that day, but about a month later that we actually really became a couple. We have been together ever since.”

“So when that famous Star King kiss happened, you two were already together?” a reporter verified. Both Selene and Hyukjae nodded at the same time, looking at each other and smiling upon realizing it. That little action, the first sign they had given of actually knowing each other, made the fans in the back burst out in screams again. Immediately the tensed feeling returned and Selene’s smile faded away as she averted her eyes to the ground. After a few more very random questions from the reporters about her age, the amount of members in her family, the job of her parents and stuff like that, it was time for the fans to ask their questions. A time Selene had dreaded the most. Even though there had been only a select group of fans allowed to attend the conference, it was a very big select group and she already knew that not all were happy about her. That’s why she tightened her grip on the microphone even more when the first question came.

“You said you texted Leeteuk first instead of Eunhyuk, does that mean you were more interested in him at first?” a fan asked. Her speech was formal and respectful, so Selene figured she was younger than her. However, even the respectful tone could not hide the sharpness of the question.

“No. I texted him first because my friend had told me Hyukjae did not answer her texts, but Leeteuk always answered very fast, so I guessed I would have more luck texting him first. I planned on asking him to ask Hyukjae to come along if he would have had the time.” she replied with the same kind of formal speech, trying her best not to sound too loose about it, but also to not be too formal and show her nervousness that way. She let her eyes wander over the audience, to the next fan who got up to ask a question.

“Do you guys fight a lot?” she asked. Her speech was much less formal and she also looked older, so Selene made sure to be respectful when she answered.

“We did not fight that much, actually. We’ve been together for a bit more than a year now and we maybe had three or four slight discussions. We don’t see each other that often, of course, so that might be a reason for that.” she explained. She felt a little guilty for lying when thinking back to the few major outbursts of her temper, but the fans didn’t have to know everything. A little smile appeared on her face as she added: “Actually, I fight a lot more with Heechul-ssi than with Hyukjae.” The comment made a few fans laugh and Selene felt more reassured upon hearing that sound.

“Selene-ssi.” the next fan standing up said. The soft sound of the voice made Selene look for this girl in surprise. “Eunhyuk-ssi.” When her eyes found the speaker, Selene felt a knot in her stomach. She recognized the girl, but had no idea where she knew her from, yet it felt like something important that she should know. Staring at the girl who was standing at quite a distance, she suddenly felt a click, as if something turned in her brains and she suddenly realized who the girl was.

“You’re one of the fans at Han River.” she exclaimed, hardly able to keep herself from jumping up in surprise. Hyukjae gave her a weird look, before leaning closer towards the girl, as if that meter would make him able to see her clearer while she was standing at least twenty meters away. The girl smiled, something that Selene could hear in her voice when she spoke again.

“Yes I am. It surprises me that you still recognize me. Especially from so far away.” The girl left a short silence before continuing. “I just want to say that I accept your apologies and I’m sure my friends will too, although I cannot speak for them. I also want to wish you both the best of luck and hope you will become happy.” Selene felt strangely touched by this stranger’s words. Probably because she now knew that there at least was someone who didn’t oppose to her being Hyukjae’s girlfriend. In fact, it mattered a lot to her. That fact was proven by the tears starting to form in her eyes, but she quickly blinked them away. “If I could ask one thing..” the fan softly said.

“Of course.” Hyukjae replied with a friendly smile, thereby encouraging the girl to feel free to ask anything. “But.. What is your name?”

“My name is Lee Haneul.” the girl answered. Selene could see her bow slightly while saying that. “And I wonder why you two are not even looking at each other. At first I thought this was just a joke because you two didn’t even look at each other once. Now I think it’s because you’re trying not to make too much fans angry or something. This might just be my humble opinion, but I think you should at least hug once or something like that and if I’m not mistaken there are others who think like me as well.” Haneul said, sounding very calm and unafraid of what other fans might think. Her words caused more than half of the group of fans to scream in agreement. Selene flinched by the sudden sound, instinctively moving backwards. She was luckily stopped by the person sitting behind her or she would have fallen off her chair. Panic rose in her and she turned to Hyukjae in hopes that he would tell her what to do, but he was still looking at Haneul.