Title: I want you to stay forever
Characters: Kibum/Leeteuk
Rating: G
Wordcount: 791
Summary: Forever is a rather abstract measure for time
A/N: So, well, finally I wrote something again. This thing actually marks my 101st finished Suju fic (collab and non-collab) and with that Memories actually becomes my 100th finished SJ fic (I never really counted). It's been a nice year and a half-ish so far in this fandom (or well, writing in this fandom since honestly, this fandom needs some work) and I'm glad to have got to know the boys and their music. I'm going to leave it at this and roll of to go do something completely non-SJ-related because I have no reason not to. I hope you enjoy this.
- - - - -
It’s about time for the biggest stage of their career as of yet. Kibum is huddled in between the other members, not exactly sure what he’s doing there, not exactly feeling like he belongs just yet, but it’s alright, he figures, because he doesn’t think any of them feels that way. They’re all nervous for sure, some are a little pale around the nose, others lean more towards a greenish colour and then there’s Jungs- Leeteuk who’s probably worst off of them all but shows nothing of those feelings on the outside.
The leader of the group, supposed to lead them through all these things without fail, supposed to make sure they’ll make it to the top. He’s not particularly sure that’s how it’ll work out. The job definitely sounds easier than it is. Getting the most spotlight and speaking time, sure, but also working the hardest, trying the best, caring the most,.. Leeteuk will be carrying all their burdens together all by himself and he doesn’t think this frail kid can take that.
They’re all kids, really, even though some are in their twenties already. They’re young and pretty much inexperienced except for some training of which the time span varies from person to person. This stage is like the beginning of everything, but somehow it feels more like it’s the end of something he’s not quite sure he wants to say goodbye to yet. But the pressure is there and so is the painful reality that this is really it. They’re going to be big things after this. Or at least that’s what they hope the outcome will be, that’s what they’ve been told.
“This is our moment,” Leeteuk says, glancing around the group shortly. “We’ve been training hard for this, it’s been long days and short nights, but we’re ready for this.” He smiles then and it brings some of the youthfulness back to his face where before there was only worry and exhaustion. They smile back at him, it feels almost automatically to Kibum, as if he’s no longer the one controlling his own expression. When there’s a need to smile you do so, no questions asked, just the brightest one you possibly can without looking fake.
“We’re here to show that Super Junior can remain together,” Leeteuk continues after a moment of silence, his words coming out faster since the time left before they have to get up on stage is ticking away. “We’re here to show that we are not a group that should be rotated to remain popular or up-to-date. We’re here to show them that we are. And that simple fact cannot just be taken away from us. So let’s give them our very best and keep doing so in the future.”
Leeteuk reaches out a hand and everyone does the same until they have one big pile of hands in the middle of their group. Twelve people huddled together, the same determination in all their hearts. Or almost all, perhaps, as Kibum almost hesitantly chimes in with the rest as they exclaim what appears to have become their battle cry. They stick as closely for a bit longer and Leeteuk takes use of the opportunity to say something more.
“I want Super Junior to last,” he says in a calm tone, as if completely sure of not only himself but them as well and the rest of the world just the same, really. “I want us to last in the hearts and minds of those that listen to us or watch us. Let’s do our very best to become the big thing we all dreamed of being at one point.” His expression grows more serious at the end and he eyes them all one by one. “But mostly,” he says then. “I want us to keep being ourselves. Let’s not change because of the industry. In the end I want you to be able to say that you’re still you no matter what happened in between. I want you to stay forever. Let’s help each other by being there forever.”
Kibum can’t help but smile bitterly upon hearing the words. As the group dissembles into several individuals and some duos making their way over to the side of the stage, he tells himself that the things he has just heard are real and that he’ll be able to last forever. He convinces himself of this and sends a determined nod to Leeteuk when the elder glances at him. Super Junior will become the next big thing. They will last forever.
But when he takes his first steps onto the stage and puts on the brightest smile he can manage just for their fans, he wonders how long exactly this forever will last.
Showing posts with label kibum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kibum. Show all posts
Sunday, 6 November 2011
Tuesday, 30 August 2011
[FIC] What's in a name: Kibum
Title: What's in a name: Kibum
Characters: Kibum
Rating: G
Wordcount: 560
Summary: Keep the faith and don’t let them get you down.
A/N: I wrote the first drabble (which was Leeteuk's) on the 8th of May and since then have gradually written the others as well. It is one drabble a member. There are no plotlines, this is basically my positive fangirl view on what goes on in their minds I guess, and I just really enjoyed writing these out, although it sometimes was a major battle.
- - - - -
Keep the faith and don’t let them get you down.
It was important for people like him to have that idea in life. When there were decisions to make that others might not like - most especially when there were lots of those others who rise or fell together with those decisions - one couldn’t just hop around carelessly. He had known that when he started in the acting world, he had known that when he debuted as a singer and he had known that when he finally decided to give acting his full attention. He knew there would be people going against his decision, but he also knew that it was the best thing to do. He was not someone to be pushed into a direction that he didn’t feel completely comfortable with just because a horde of others thought it was the best for him to do.
Bearing the consequences was the harder part. Spending all his time with acting meant giving up on the idol life, for a while at least. He could never have imagined how difficult his choice would be. Seeing his friends winning awards and shows without being able to stand by their side was always hard. Only being able to say he was sorry that he couldn’t be there with them, without being able to change that fact was even harder. Yet the company had made it clear; when he focused on acting, he’d have to give up on the group for a while, because the movie bosses wanted all his attention; and when he focused on singing, then acting would be a dream he should forget about, because recordings, practices and promotional shows took most of his time. Getting that news, he was forced to choose.
Unlike many of his fans and other random people seemed to believe, however, he didn’t go over it lightly. He suffered, being unable to stand by his friends’ sides. He got lonely at times and would mostly only be able to call them, maybe hop by once every four months. At times when he was free, often they were not, and the other way around happened as well. Every visit to them made him feel the strong friendship again, but it was always accompanied by another heartbreaking goodbye. The problem was that he couldn’t really take that. He never was one to say goodbye, he rather left silently or didn’t leave at all, but being with his friends made leaving again harder every time. Even he didn’t really know how he managed to keep holding on to his decision.
Maybe there would be a time when they could be together again. He hoped there would be. For his friends, his members, the fourteen people who had supported even his decision to temporarily leave them, were too precious to him. He would never be able to just leave them behind. He would never be able to just let them go. He would forever be a part of Super Junior and he was proud to be one. No matter what decision he had made, no matter what others seemed to think of him, he was convinced that he had acted to his best interest and he would not let anyone tell him differently. As long as those important to him supported him, he didn’t need anyone else’s approval.
Characters: Kibum
Rating: G
Wordcount: 560
Summary: Keep the faith and don’t let them get you down.
A/N: I wrote the first drabble (which was Leeteuk's) on the 8th of May and since then have gradually written the others as well. It is one drabble a member. There are no plotlines, this is basically my positive fangirl view on what goes on in their minds I guess, and I just really enjoyed writing these out, although it sometimes was a major battle.
- - - - -
Keep the faith and don’t let them get you down.
It was important for people like him to have that idea in life. When there were decisions to make that others might not like - most especially when there were lots of those others who rise or fell together with those decisions - one couldn’t just hop around carelessly. He had known that when he started in the acting world, he had known that when he debuted as a singer and he had known that when he finally decided to give acting his full attention. He knew there would be people going against his decision, but he also knew that it was the best thing to do. He was not someone to be pushed into a direction that he didn’t feel completely comfortable with just because a horde of others thought it was the best for him to do.
Bearing the consequences was the harder part. Spending all his time with acting meant giving up on the idol life, for a while at least. He could never have imagined how difficult his choice would be. Seeing his friends winning awards and shows without being able to stand by their side was always hard. Only being able to say he was sorry that he couldn’t be there with them, without being able to change that fact was even harder. Yet the company had made it clear; when he focused on acting, he’d have to give up on the group for a while, because the movie bosses wanted all his attention; and when he focused on singing, then acting would be a dream he should forget about, because recordings, practices and promotional shows took most of his time. Getting that news, he was forced to choose.
Unlike many of his fans and other random people seemed to believe, however, he didn’t go over it lightly. He suffered, being unable to stand by his friends’ sides. He got lonely at times and would mostly only be able to call them, maybe hop by once every four months. At times when he was free, often they were not, and the other way around happened as well. Every visit to them made him feel the strong friendship again, but it was always accompanied by another heartbreaking goodbye. The problem was that he couldn’t really take that. He never was one to say goodbye, he rather left silently or didn’t leave at all, but being with his friends made leaving again harder every time. Even he didn’t really know how he managed to keep holding on to his decision.
Maybe there would be a time when they could be together again. He hoped there would be. For his friends, his members, the fourteen people who had supported even his decision to temporarily leave them, were too precious to him. He would never be able to just leave them behind. He would never be able to just let them go. He would forever be a part of Super Junior and he was proud to be one. No matter what decision he had made, no matter what others seemed to think of him, he was convinced that he had acted to his best interest and he would not let anyone tell him differently. As long as those important to him supported him, he didn’t need anyone else’s approval.
[FIC] It's Complicated
Title: It's Complicated
Characters: Kibum, OC, SJ
Rating: PG
Chaptercount: Epilogue
Summary: Soojin meets a guy who turns her world upside down but then there's a few dozen others as well.
A/N: This is one of my most beloved novels (not that I wrote THAT many, but still) and I think I will forever cherish the characters in this. This story also helped me shape my view on the different members and is the first of few stories in which I used first person.
- - - - -
A sudden click made me look up from the book I had been reading in the park and I froze in place upon noticing the one person I had never expected to see in Japan.
“What are you doing here?” I whispered in disbelief.
“Taking pictures. You are, after all, my exclusive model, remember?” the reply came. “No matter what happens, you said. I’m making you keep that promise.”
Characters: Kibum, OC, SJ
Rating: PG
Chaptercount: Epilogue
Summary: Soojin meets a guy who turns her world upside down but then there's a few dozen others as well.
A/N: This is one of my most beloved novels (not that I wrote THAT many, but still) and I think I will forever cherish the characters in this. This story also helped me shape my view on the different members and is the first of few stories in which I used first person.
- - - - -
A sudden click made me look up from the book I had been reading in the park and I froze in place upon noticing the one person I had never expected to see in Japan.
“What are you doing here?” I whispered in disbelief.
“Taking pictures. You are, after all, my exclusive model, remember?” the reply came. “No matter what happens, you said. I’m making you keep that promise.”
[FIC] It's Complicated
Title: It's Complicated
Characters: Kibum, OC, SJ
Rating: PG
Chaptercount: 36/36
Summary: Soojin meets a guy who turns her world upside down but then there's a few dozen others as well.
A/N: This is one of my most beloved novels (not that I wrote THAT many, but still) and I think I will forever cherish the characters in this. This story also helped me shape my view on the different members and is the first of few stories in which I used first person.
- - - - -
It was on the day that I got my results, not having heard from or seen Kibum in a whole month, that I decided I would move on - or maybe move out was a better way of saying it. I asked Yumiko to ask her parents if they knew some places where I could rent a nice place that was not too expensive in order for me to go live in Japan and finish my last year of studies there. She frowned at my question, admitting that she had no intention of going back to Japan yet. She had decided to finish her shool in Korea and had thereby finally chosen to really stick with Sungmin, because Zhou Mi was going back to China anyway.
Although the news was not enjoyable, it was great to know she had finally picked her favourite and that she had some kind of future plan. I, however, did not have the same luxury, so I pleaded her to ask her parents anyway. She agreed of course, promising me to call her mother. I told my plans to my parents only after that and, when Yumiko and her mother managed to find me a little studio for rent, to my friends as well.
The reactions were shocked. There were people asking me why I was leaving, others wanting to know if I got sick of them, and a very observant Hyukjae wondering if running away from everything was my way of coping with a heartbreak. I had to admit it probably was, because obviously retreating from all social life to game the time away was one of the most clear examples of running away. He sighed, patted my back, then turned to introduce me to Xim Aera; Donghae’s girlfriend.
Aera was a pretty girl. Not that you’d see everyone gawking at her because of her looks, but she was just generally pretty. She greeted me with a smile, a bow and another smile, and her friendly face was the reason it took me twenty minutes to figure out why she looked so familiar. She was a girl from Zhou Mi’s class, the one who had walked along with him to the soccer field the first time I was there too; and with that the one who had glared at me back then.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out that she had probably sported a crush on Donghae since before that day already and had just been slightly jealous of me, not at all having something against me personally, as I thought at the time. On our second meeting, she was all smiles and friendly friendliness, treating me like one would treat a friend of her boyfriend. I was happy for her and Donghae, really, and when I mentioned to Hyukjae that at least someone’s love story had a happy end, he snorted amused.
Since my friends realized there was no keeping me in Korea – they all had to agree too that Japan was a good opportunity – they decided to have a different go at things; throwing me a goodbye party. Hangeng and Heechul rented the place where it would happen and everyone I knew and even some I didn’t know came, bringing girlfriends, sisters and all that along. The party was held the evening before my departure, I went to Japan soon after deciding I would so that I’d have the time to adjust to the new country before going to school again.
I arrived there at half past nine in the evening, being picked up by Heechul who asked if he could get me drunk that day since he wouldn’t be around to see me graduate. I agreed just because I wanted to have fun and forget about boundaries for once in my life. So the first drink they put in front of me was something sticky, sweet and filled with alcohol. I drank it down in one go, causing the few people around me to frown in surprise. After that it was dance time. I lost all my restraints as I walked onto the dance floor, and as people kept passing me drinks, I lost all my conscious thinking as well.
To be honest, I remember nothing from that evening. Somewhere in the middle of dancing my memories end and there is nothing than a big black hole, except for flashes of things that I recreated with what they told me. All I know is what others told me later. I might have puked on someone’s nicest suit or dress but I wouldn’t know anymore because they didn’t tell me. What they DID tell me wasn’t all that much better, however.
Apparently I drank and danced the night away until somewhere around one. That was when a certain Kim Kibum decided to appear at the party too. He had had a few glasses of alcohol himself before coming, and therefore greeted our friends with a wide smile as he made his way to me and took hold of my hand. He pulled me outside along with him, making me stumble after him. In Heechul’s words: I smiled at him like the drunk retard I was as I followed him outside and almost crashed into him when he stopped to close the door behind us.
What happened between us outside is only known to me because Zhou Mi was concerned - he had after all seen the amount of alcohol Kibum had drunk - and decided to follow us a little to see where Kibum planned on taking me. Well, wherever that was, we didn’t get there, because the moment my boyfriend-or-maybe-not-anymore turned to look at me, I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him plain on the mouth, to which he responded by immediately slipping his arms around my middle and kissing back. That was the view Zhou Mi got when he opened the door, so he decided to just close it again and leave us alone.
We entered the party again mere minutes later, sticking close for the rest of the time we were there, or so Yumiko let me know the next day. I danced with him and we sat together talking too, although everyone I asked - namely Hangeng, Heechul, Zhou Mi and Yumiko - all said that judging from how drunk I was and how distracted by staring at me he seemed, our conversation probably didn’t hold many important topics.
At the end of the party - I left at four, having five more hours left to sleep that way - Kibum was the one guiding me out. I waved at everyone, gave hugs to people and left. Apparently we got home safely, because the first thing I remember from the next day is waking up safe and sound to my alarm clock with a major headache and no one else in the room. I remembered nothing at that moment and my headache was way too prominent to really care, so I decided to care about possible happened events later and took a shower first, before gathering my packed bags.
My parents had said goodbye to me the previous day before I went to the party, since they both had to get up early and leave for work on the day of my flight, and because Yumiko stayed over at Sungmin’s place - the guy lived in a little studio in the center of the city - I was home alone. I enjoyed it, though, as I took my time to shower and stuff something in my mouth for breakfast. After that, I got out with my bags to catch a bus to the airport.
When I reached it, a bunch of my friends were there again to my surprise, looking sleepy and groggy and vowing to go back to bed the moment they got home. When I asked why they had gotten up in the first place to say goodbye to me once again, the reply came from Ryeowook, one of the few people who had stayed sober, as he sent me a smile. “I just thought it would be nicer saying goodbye when you actually know what I’m saying and don’t tell me I’d make a good male barbie doll.” The comment brought laughter, but I felt my face flush.
“Well you would.” I murmured, after which I hugged him, then moving on to everyone present again. Aside from Ryeowook, the people there were Heechul, Hangeng, Donghae, Hyukjae, Zhou Mi - he had to take his own plane an hour later than me -, Jungsoo, Haerin, Nana, Sungmin and Yumiko. They all hugged me and wished me luck, slowly trickling back home after that. The Chinese twins stayed last, Zhou Mi waiting at the sidelines as I was pulled into another hug by Heechul. He just held me, and held me, and kept holding me, until I was the one to pull back and look at him worriedly. He smiled, but I felt a twinge of pain when I realised his smile lacked something. To me he was a friend and one I’d like to keep for a long time, so it was painful and awkward to be leaving.
“I’ll talk to you online a lot.” I told him with a smile of my own. “I’ll make a blog about my stay in Japan, so that you can tell exactly what goes on in my life to everyone who wants to know how I’m doing.” I smiled at him, then smiled at Hangeng, before turning to my bags. As I picked them up and turned to Zhou Mi, the twins told me goodbye once more and Hangeng demanded to be notified the moment I had arrived safely in my new apartment in Japan. I promised to text him, then really left.
Zhou Mi and I calmly walked on to the check in area, where we let our bags be taken away and got our tickets validated. Since we both still had quite a while before our plane set off, we sat down in a cafeteria together and had something to drink. Zhou Mi took a cup of coffee, but I drank a simple glass of water to soothe my still messed up head. We chatted a bit about random things - what he was going to do once he arrived home and what places I was going to visit once I reached my apartment.
Around an hour after I reached the airport, I got on my plane, turning off my phone just like they asked me to. Somehow I felt a bit sad that even though I was leaving and all his friends knew, Kibum did not even show up once. It was only half a day later, when I was settled in my house, that Yumiko called me to check how I was doing and I found out about all the events from the previous day. Another hour after that conversation, I got a call from Haerin, who told me that according to Jongwoon, Kibum had tried calling me, but my phone had been off. It was then that I realized that he HAD tried to stop me, but had just been that tad bit too late.
For Kibum to keep me from leaving was probably one of the very few things in my life that I had really been hoping for, yet it was exactly the one thing that didn’t work out. Saying that I was devastated was a lie, however. I had made up my mind about going to Japan already anyway and had somehow hardened myself against the idea of not going to see Kibum anymore for a year at least. So when that actually became true, it didn’t crush me as much as it would have done about a month earlier. That was the reason I didn’t call him back and since he didn’t try a second time either, nothing changed about my plans.
That’s how I started a new chapter of my life. Living in a new country, planning to make new friends, do new things and give the events that had happened in the previous year a place in my memories without letting them influence my future too much. Well, of course I couldn’t just leave everything behind, because I got a weekly e-mail from Heechul, inquiring after my wellbeing and a monthly call from him and Hangeng toputting it in their words make sure I didn’t forget my Korean.
All in all, I never regretted my decision to leave for Japan to finish my school there.
Characters: Kibum, OC, SJ
Rating: PG
Chaptercount: 36/36
Summary: Soojin meets a guy who turns her world upside down but then there's a few dozen others as well.
A/N: This is one of my most beloved novels (not that I wrote THAT many, but still) and I think I will forever cherish the characters in this. This story also helped me shape my view on the different members and is the first of few stories in which I used first person.
- - - - -
It was on the day that I got my results, not having heard from or seen Kibum in a whole month, that I decided I would move on - or maybe move out was a better way of saying it. I asked Yumiko to ask her parents if they knew some places where I could rent a nice place that was not too expensive in order for me to go live in Japan and finish my last year of studies there. She frowned at my question, admitting that she had no intention of going back to Japan yet. She had decided to finish her shool in Korea and had thereby finally chosen to really stick with Sungmin, because Zhou Mi was going back to China anyway.
Although the news was not enjoyable, it was great to know she had finally picked her favourite and that she had some kind of future plan. I, however, did not have the same luxury, so I pleaded her to ask her parents anyway. She agreed of course, promising me to call her mother. I told my plans to my parents only after that and, when Yumiko and her mother managed to find me a little studio for rent, to my friends as well.
The reactions were shocked. There were people asking me why I was leaving, others wanting to know if I got sick of them, and a very observant Hyukjae wondering if running away from everything was my way of coping with a heartbreak. I had to admit it probably was, because obviously retreating from all social life to game the time away was one of the most clear examples of running away. He sighed, patted my back, then turned to introduce me to Xim Aera; Donghae’s girlfriend.
Aera was a pretty girl. Not that you’d see everyone gawking at her because of her looks, but she was just generally pretty. She greeted me with a smile, a bow and another smile, and her friendly face was the reason it took me twenty minutes to figure out why she looked so familiar. She was a girl from Zhou Mi’s class, the one who had walked along with him to the soccer field the first time I was there too; and with that the one who had glared at me back then.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out that she had probably sported a crush on Donghae since before that day already and had just been slightly jealous of me, not at all having something against me personally, as I thought at the time. On our second meeting, she was all smiles and friendly friendliness, treating me like one would treat a friend of her boyfriend. I was happy for her and Donghae, really, and when I mentioned to Hyukjae that at least someone’s love story had a happy end, he snorted amused.
Since my friends realized there was no keeping me in Korea – they all had to agree too that Japan was a good opportunity – they decided to have a different go at things; throwing me a goodbye party. Hangeng and Heechul rented the place where it would happen and everyone I knew and even some I didn’t know came, bringing girlfriends, sisters and all that along. The party was held the evening before my departure, I went to Japan soon after deciding I would so that I’d have the time to adjust to the new country before going to school again.
I arrived there at half past nine in the evening, being picked up by Heechul who asked if he could get me drunk that day since he wouldn’t be around to see me graduate. I agreed just because I wanted to have fun and forget about boundaries for once in my life. So the first drink they put in front of me was something sticky, sweet and filled with alcohol. I drank it down in one go, causing the few people around me to frown in surprise. After that it was dance time. I lost all my restraints as I walked onto the dance floor, and as people kept passing me drinks, I lost all my conscious thinking as well.
To be honest, I remember nothing from that evening. Somewhere in the middle of dancing my memories end and there is nothing than a big black hole, except for flashes of things that I recreated with what they told me. All I know is what others told me later. I might have puked on someone’s nicest suit or dress but I wouldn’t know anymore because they didn’t tell me. What they DID tell me wasn’t all that much better, however.
Apparently I drank and danced the night away until somewhere around one. That was when a certain Kim Kibum decided to appear at the party too. He had had a few glasses of alcohol himself before coming, and therefore greeted our friends with a wide smile as he made his way to me and took hold of my hand. He pulled me outside along with him, making me stumble after him. In Heechul’s words: I smiled at him like the drunk retard I was as I followed him outside and almost crashed into him when he stopped to close the door behind us.
What happened between us outside is only known to me because Zhou Mi was concerned - he had after all seen the amount of alcohol Kibum had drunk - and decided to follow us a little to see where Kibum planned on taking me. Well, wherever that was, we didn’t get there, because the moment my boyfriend-or-maybe-not-anymore turned to look at me, I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him plain on the mouth, to which he responded by immediately slipping his arms around my middle and kissing back. That was the view Zhou Mi got when he opened the door, so he decided to just close it again and leave us alone.
We entered the party again mere minutes later, sticking close for the rest of the time we were there, or so Yumiko let me know the next day. I danced with him and we sat together talking too, although everyone I asked - namely Hangeng, Heechul, Zhou Mi and Yumiko - all said that judging from how drunk I was and how distracted by staring at me he seemed, our conversation probably didn’t hold many important topics.
At the end of the party - I left at four, having five more hours left to sleep that way - Kibum was the one guiding me out. I waved at everyone, gave hugs to people and left. Apparently we got home safely, because the first thing I remember from the next day is waking up safe and sound to my alarm clock with a major headache and no one else in the room. I remembered nothing at that moment and my headache was way too prominent to really care, so I decided to care about possible happened events later and took a shower first, before gathering my packed bags.
My parents had said goodbye to me the previous day before I went to the party, since they both had to get up early and leave for work on the day of my flight, and because Yumiko stayed over at Sungmin’s place - the guy lived in a little studio in the center of the city - I was home alone. I enjoyed it, though, as I took my time to shower and stuff something in my mouth for breakfast. After that, I got out with my bags to catch a bus to the airport.
When I reached it, a bunch of my friends were there again to my surprise, looking sleepy and groggy and vowing to go back to bed the moment they got home. When I asked why they had gotten up in the first place to say goodbye to me once again, the reply came from Ryeowook, one of the few people who had stayed sober, as he sent me a smile. “I just thought it would be nicer saying goodbye when you actually know what I’m saying and don’t tell me I’d make a good male barbie doll.” The comment brought laughter, but I felt my face flush.
“Well you would.” I murmured, after which I hugged him, then moving on to everyone present again. Aside from Ryeowook, the people there were Heechul, Hangeng, Donghae, Hyukjae, Zhou Mi - he had to take his own plane an hour later than me -, Jungsoo, Haerin, Nana, Sungmin and Yumiko. They all hugged me and wished me luck, slowly trickling back home after that. The Chinese twins stayed last, Zhou Mi waiting at the sidelines as I was pulled into another hug by Heechul. He just held me, and held me, and kept holding me, until I was the one to pull back and look at him worriedly. He smiled, but I felt a twinge of pain when I realised his smile lacked something. To me he was a friend and one I’d like to keep for a long time, so it was painful and awkward to be leaving.
“I’ll talk to you online a lot.” I told him with a smile of my own. “I’ll make a blog about my stay in Japan, so that you can tell exactly what goes on in my life to everyone who wants to know how I’m doing.” I smiled at him, then smiled at Hangeng, before turning to my bags. As I picked them up and turned to Zhou Mi, the twins told me goodbye once more and Hangeng demanded to be notified the moment I had arrived safely in my new apartment in Japan. I promised to text him, then really left.
Zhou Mi and I calmly walked on to the check in area, where we let our bags be taken away and got our tickets validated. Since we both still had quite a while before our plane set off, we sat down in a cafeteria together and had something to drink. Zhou Mi took a cup of coffee, but I drank a simple glass of water to soothe my still messed up head. We chatted a bit about random things - what he was going to do once he arrived home and what places I was going to visit once I reached my apartment.
Around an hour after I reached the airport, I got on my plane, turning off my phone just like they asked me to. Somehow I felt a bit sad that even though I was leaving and all his friends knew, Kibum did not even show up once. It was only half a day later, when I was settled in my house, that Yumiko called me to check how I was doing and I found out about all the events from the previous day. Another hour after that conversation, I got a call from Haerin, who told me that according to Jongwoon, Kibum had tried calling me, but my phone had been off. It was then that I realized that he HAD tried to stop me, but had just been that tad bit too late.
For Kibum to keep me from leaving was probably one of the very few things in my life that I had really been hoping for, yet it was exactly the one thing that didn’t work out. Saying that I was devastated was a lie, however. I had made up my mind about going to Japan already anyway and had somehow hardened myself against the idea of not going to see Kibum anymore for a year at least. So when that actually became true, it didn’t crush me as much as it would have done about a month earlier. That was the reason I didn’t call him back and since he didn’t try a second time either, nothing changed about my plans.
That’s how I started a new chapter of my life. Living in a new country, planning to make new friends, do new things and give the events that had happened in the previous year a place in my memories without letting them influence my future too much. Well, of course I couldn’t just leave everything behind, because I got a weekly e-mail from Heechul, inquiring after my wellbeing and a monthly call from him and Hangeng to
All in all, I never regretted my decision to leave for Japan to finish my school there.
[FIC] It's Complicated
Title: It's Complicated
Characters: Kibum, OC, SJ
Rating: PG
Chaptercount: 35/36
Summary: Soojin meets a guy who turns her world upside down but then there's a few dozen others as well.
A/N: This is one of my most beloved novels (not that I wrote THAT many, but still) and I think I will forever cherish the characters in this. This story also helped me shape my view on the different members and is the first of few stories in which I used first person.
- - - - -
I tensed up,having no way out of his grip, because right in front of me was the door and behind me there was him. Sighing slightly, I put my hands on his and tried to pry his arms from around me. Now Heechul isn’t the world’s strongest guy out there, but he apparently wasn’t that weak either, because despite my tugging at his arms, he didn’t even budge.
“Snipe..” he said softly. “Relax..” And for some reason I did, letting myself lean against him and closing my eyes with a deep, deep sigh. He smiled, resting his chin on my head. “Now..” he then continued. “First of all I’m sorry for kissing you. If I could do things over, I’d probably do it again, just a lot sooner. I know it wasn’t exactly good timing now, so I’m sorry. I never wanted to make you this unhappy.”
I let out a breath I didn’t realise I had been holding and he tightened his embrace around me for a moment. “Secondly..” he then started, but I didn’t let him continue that sentence.
“Heechul..” I instead mumbled, not able to make my voice much stronger than that. I had another try at getting loose, and that time he did budge, letting go of me and taking a step back so I could turn around to look at him. “You should have started with the second thing, because nothing you’re going to say now can outshine an apology from Kim Heechul.” I joked, a soft smile on my face as I sidestepped him and walked up to my desk, where I sat down on the chair. His laughter boomed through my room and he walked up to me again to ruffle my hair. I gave him a slight smile.
“Well, Snipey, sorry to disappoint, but I’m going to tell you anyway.” he grinned, before his face turned serious and he added rather solemnly: “Secondly, no matter how much I want to keep you for myself like this, I’ll make things right again between you two, even if I have to grab Kibum’s collar and stuff his face against yours. And believe me, if it doesn’t work any other way, I WILL do that.” I felt a soft blush appear on my face as I looked at him, knowing he meant every word he said. His words made me feel all protected and somehow safe, like having his word for that assured me it would happen. I cleared my throat before being able to answer.
“I take back what I said. Your apology was outshone.” I muttered. His grins was wide and happy as he ruffled my hair once more before walking to my bed and taking a seat there. We sat like that, just looking at each other for a while, until I finally sighed. “I forgive you.” I then said. “But only because I want to enjoy your sister’s cooking for a long, long time still after today.”
He laughed again, the sound bringing a smile on my own face as well and causing me to sit up a little. That evening, he stayed until it was long past normal bedtime, not caring that we both had important exams coming up. At around midnight, we moved downstairs to hog the television, earning surprised looks from my parents. I didn’t care, not even when I realised I’d have to undergo a crossfire of questions the moment Heechul went home.
By the time he did, it was close to three in the morning and I said goodbye to him with a hug, something we didn’t really do usually. He didn’t mention it, however, giving me a smile and ruffling my hair once more as he left. I watched him get into the car and drive away, after which I closed the door with a sigh, turning around to the expectant faces of both my parents and Yumiko - Zhou Mi had long left by then.
I told them about my day that evening, then went ahead and told them about everything that had happened before. They were shocked to hear about Heechul and Donghae kissing me - Yumiko not as much because she had heard about it before, albeit not as detailed - and even though they had expected it already, they were also surprised hearing about Kibumkind-of-but-not-completely breaking up with me. By the time I had finally spilled the contents of my heart, it was 4 AM.
Somehow that day changed my lifestyle again. The next morning brought a lot of stuying to keep up with my studying schedule and it took me well over ten hours to cram all the Japanese I had to learn into my head. Strangely enough it went well, easier than all the things I had already done before. The next day, my Japanese exam was probably one of my best, which others later ‘blamed’ on the fact that I had a Japanese exchange student to practice with. Yumiko and I knew better - we conversed mostly in Korean.
Throughout the rest of my exams - some week and a half of them was left - I slowly merged myself among my friends again. It started with Jongwoon - who had seen me at Heechul’s place and thereby knew I was talking to people again - walking up to me when we happened to be at school together after my Japanese exam. He took Nana along and, upon noticing I was actually talking back, she immediately invited me to get out for a drink. I could do nothing else but agree, feeling slightly sorry towards my friends for having ignored them for so long.
When I showed up the next Friday in the café she told me to be, I found her sitting there with both Minji, Mi Cha and, to my big surprise, Haerin, Eunhee and Sanghee as well. The moment they saw me, I was drowned in hugs, happy waves, smiles and lots of greetings. After squishing me, they all took their seats again and I was pulled along to cosily sit in between Haerin and Nana, who barely had the patience to wait until my drink arrived before they assaulted me with questions - Where I had been, why I suddenly disappeared, and other stuff like that. I let all their questions rain down on me, preparing my explanation in my mind as I did so. When they finally stopped talking, I took a deep breath.
“I’m sorry for disappearing on you guys. I had some reasons, though, however futile they might be. You see, I was together with Kibum..” My words were interrupted by squeals from all sides but Sanghee’s. The girls exclaimed things like ‘You and Kibum look so cute together!’ , ‘I thought you and Heechul had something going on?’ , ‘How come we never noticed?’ and a rather bright Haerin put her hand on my leg and stated; ‘”You were? He broke up with you?” I sighed and nodded, which caused the squeals to turn into sounds of sad sympathy and Nana wrapped her arms around me in a comforting gesture.
“So yeah..” I continued with a sad smile, trying to remember my good day with Heechul to stay happy. “..I’m sorry for suddenly disappearing on you, but I needed time for myself. Honestly, if Heechul had not dragged me out of my house, I would still have been inside there playing computer games right now.” I fumbled with a napkin, then took a sip of my drink.
“Why did he break up with you?” Mi Cha softly asked, sounding slightly worried. I sighed, frowned, tried to think of a good way to say it and in the end decided to stay vague.
“It’s hard to talk about it, but it was completely my own doing. He had reasons to and I can’t blame him for doing so.” I sighed, massaging my temples to relieve the stress in my head. There were again arms hugging me and I smiled because of the touch, but I pulled free from the grip and sat up. “It’s okay. I’ll live.” I mumbled, taking another sip from my drink and controlling my emotions again. “So what happened to you guys in the meantime?” I then asked.
Once again, the question helped with clearing the atmosphere as they all set off in a gathered briefing of the few weeks I had missed. Apparently I had missed the time of my life seeing Kyuhyun and Donghae dance the three bears song on Jungsoo and Haerin’s one year anniversary. That was kind of disappointing me, honestly, but Eunhee grinned widely and told me she had filmed it so not everything was lost to me. I smiled, but then apologised to Haerin for missing her one year anniversary. She waved me away, saying that I needn’t worry about it and the conversation continued.
I spent a nice Friday evening with the girls before going home. The next day, when I went to wake up Sanghee before Heechul arrived - her parents turned out to be very nice people, letting me in almost immediately - she easily convinced me to go play basketball with the others. So my Saturday was spent playing ball, getting patted on the back by the guys and being squished in a hug by Heechul when we won. That last one was enough to make me speechless for a good ten minutes, while everyone in my group told me they had missed meor mostly winning because of me. I was not used to Heechul’s touchiness and it was rather strange experiencing his closeness, especially when everyone else also seemed to eye it in surprise.
My uncomfortable feeling grew even more when the girls started asking me if Heechul and I were together now, so I took him apart on a free moment to ask him about it. He simply smiled at me and told me that he was using the opportunity while it was still there, because the moment Kibum and I got back together he probably couldn’t do it anymore. That was the second time he rendered me speechless since we started talking again and I felt that it had been a good thing for him to almost kick in my door, because I would have lost a good friend by ignoring him any longer.
After the basketball we all went home respectively, but Heechul convinced me to go out with the group a few hours later after having showered and all that. I agreed after throwing some comments at his head about the last time I did that and not wanting to have any of the events repeated this time. He flashed me his signature grin, ruffled my hair and told me not to worry, because he had learned his lesson. I huffed, yet had to admit that that might just be some very true words.
So that evening I went out again for the first time in weeks and I soon forgot about all bad things when Hangeng pulled me out onto the dancefloor. We almost literally danced the night away, the beat of the music chasing all thoughts out of my head while I let free all my emotions through dancing - or more moving my body to the constant beat of the music, because my dancing couldn’t really be called real dancing - and Hangeng showed off some real dancing skills, meanwhile also keeping the annoying boys away from me.
I went home at five in the morning. It took the whole of my Monday to catch up on studying, because that Sunday I was invited over at Youngwoon’s again, together with my father and mother. After that, my schedule changed and I had a rather hard time studying enough with the amounts of invites I got from friends and couldn’t refuse. Yet somehow I managed. I even managed to get good grades or at least not bad ones for all my exams and successfully passed on to the next year. So did all my friends, although some of them took a few bad grades on to the next year.
Characters: Kibum, OC, SJ
Rating: PG
Chaptercount: 35/36
Summary: Soojin meets a guy who turns her world upside down but then there's a few dozen others as well.
A/N: This is one of my most beloved novels (not that I wrote THAT many, but still) and I think I will forever cherish the characters in this. This story also helped me shape my view on the different members and is the first of few stories in which I used first person.
- - - - -
I tensed up,having no way out of his grip, because right in front of me was the door and behind me there was him. Sighing slightly, I put my hands on his and tried to pry his arms from around me. Now Heechul isn’t the world’s strongest guy out there, but he apparently wasn’t that weak either, because despite my tugging at his arms, he didn’t even budge.
“Snipe..” he said softly. “Relax..” And for some reason I did, letting myself lean against him and closing my eyes with a deep, deep sigh. He smiled, resting his chin on my head. “Now..” he then continued. “First of all I’m sorry for kissing you. If I could do things over, I’d probably do it again, just a lot sooner. I know it wasn’t exactly good timing now, so I’m sorry. I never wanted to make you this unhappy.”
I let out a breath I didn’t realise I had been holding and he tightened his embrace around me for a moment. “Secondly..” he then started, but I didn’t let him continue that sentence.
“Heechul..” I instead mumbled, not able to make my voice much stronger than that. I had another try at getting loose, and that time he did budge, letting go of me and taking a step back so I could turn around to look at him. “You should have started with the second thing, because nothing you’re going to say now can outshine an apology from Kim Heechul.” I joked, a soft smile on my face as I sidestepped him and walked up to my desk, where I sat down on the chair. His laughter boomed through my room and he walked up to me again to ruffle my hair. I gave him a slight smile.
“Well, Snipey, sorry to disappoint, but I’m going to tell you anyway.” he grinned, before his face turned serious and he added rather solemnly: “Secondly, no matter how much I want to keep you for myself like this, I’ll make things right again between you two, even if I have to grab Kibum’s collar and stuff his face against yours. And believe me, if it doesn’t work any other way, I WILL do that.” I felt a soft blush appear on my face as I looked at him, knowing he meant every word he said. His words made me feel all protected and somehow safe, like having his word for that assured me it would happen. I cleared my throat before being able to answer.
“I take back what I said. Your apology was outshone.” I muttered. His grins was wide and happy as he ruffled my hair once more before walking to my bed and taking a seat there. We sat like that, just looking at each other for a while, until I finally sighed. “I forgive you.” I then said. “But only because I want to enjoy your sister’s cooking for a long, long time still after today.”
He laughed again, the sound bringing a smile on my own face as well and causing me to sit up a little. That evening, he stayed until it was long past normal bedtime, not caring that we both had important exams coming up. At around midnight, we moved downstairs to hog the television, earning surprised looks from my parents. I didn’t care, not even when I realised I’d have to undergo a crossfire of questions the moment Heechul went home.
By the time he did, it was close to three in the morning and I said goodbye to him with a hug, something we didn’t really do usually. He didn’t mention it, however, giving me a smile and ruffling my hair once more as he left. I watched him get into the car and drive away, after which I closed the door with a sigh, turning around to the expectant faces of both my parents and Yumiko - Zhou Mi had long left by then.
I told them about my day that evening, then went ahead and told them about everything that had happened before. They were shocked to hear about Heechul and Donghae kissing me - Yumiko not as much because she had heard about it before, albeit not as detailed - and even though they had expected it already, they were also surprised hearing about Kibum
Somehow that day changed my lifestyle again. The next morning brought a lot of stuying to keep up with my studying schedule and it took me well over ten hours to cram all the Japanese I had to learn into my head. Strangely enough it went well, easier than all the things I had already done before. The next day, my Japanese exam was probably one of my best, which others later ‘blamed’ on the fact that I had a Japanese exchange student to practice with. Yumiko and I knew better - we conversed mostly in Korean.
Throughout the rest of my exams - some week and a half of them was left - I slowly merged myself among my friends again. It started with Jongwoon - who had seen me at Heechul’s place and thereby knew I was talking to people again - walking up to me when we happened to be at school together after my Japanese exam. He took Nana along and, upon noticing I was actually talking back, she immediately invited me to get out for a drink. I could do nothing else but agree, feeling slightly sorry towards my friends for having ignored them for so long.
When I showed up the next Friday in the café she told me to be, I found her sitting there with both Minji, Mi Cha and, to my big surprise, Haerin, Eunhee and Sanghee as well. The moment they saw me, I was drowned in hugs, happy waves, smiles and lots of greetings. After squishing me, they all took their seats again and I was pulled along to cosily sit in between Haerin and Nana, who barely had the patience to wait until my drink arrived before they assaulted me with questions - Where I had been, why I suddenly disappeared, and other stuff like that. I let all their questions rain down on me, preparing my explanation in my mind as I did so. When they finally stopped talking, I took a deep breath.
“I’m sorry for disappearing on you guys. I had some reasons, though, however futile they might be. You see, I was together with Kibum..” My words were interrupted by squeals from all sides but Sanghee’s. The girls exclaimed things like ‘You and Kibum look so cute together!’ , ‘I thought you and Heechul had something going on?’ , ‘How come we never noticed?’ and a rather bright Haerin put her hand on my leg and stated; ‘”You were? He broke up with you?” I sighed and nodded, which caused the squeals to turn into sounds of sad sympathy and Nana wrapped her arms around me in a comforting gesture.
“So yeah..” I continued with a sad smile, trying to remember my good day with Heechul to stay happy. “..I’m sorry for suddenly disappearing on you, but I needed time for myself. Honestly, if Heechul had not dragged me out of my house, I would still have been inside there playing computer games right now.” I fumbled with a napkin, then took a sip of my drink.
“Why did he break up with you?” Mi Cha softly asked, sounding slightly worried. I sighed, frowned, tried to think of a good way to say it and in the end decided to stay vague.
“It’s hard to talk about it, but it was completely my own doing. He had reasons to and I can’t blame him for doing so.” I sighed, massaging my temples to relieve the stress in my head. There were again arms hugging me and I smiled because of the touch, but I pulled free from the grip and sat up. “It’s okay. I’ll live.” I mumbled, taking another sip from my drink and controlling my emotions again. “So what happened to you guys in the meantime?” I then asked.
Once again, the question helped with clearing the atmosphere as they all set off in a gathered briefing of the few weeks I had missed. Apparently I had missed the time of my life seeing Kyuhyun and Donghae dance the three bears song on Jungsoo and Haerin’s one year anniversary. That was kind of disappointing me, honestly, but Eunhee grinned widely and told me she had filmed it so not everything was lost to me. I smiled, but then apologised to Haerin for missing her one year anniversary. She waved me away, saying that I needn’t worry about it and the conversation continued.
I spent a nice Friday evening with the girls before going home. The next day, when I went to wake up Sanghee before Heechul arrived - her parents turned out to be very nice people, letting me in almost immediately - she easily convinced me to go play basketball with the others. So my Saturday was spent playing ball, getting patted on the back by the guys and being squished in a hug by Heechul when we won. That last one was enough to make me speechless for a good ten minutes, while everyone in my group told me they had missed me
My uncomfortable feeling grew even more when the girls started asking me if Heechul and I were together now, so I took him apart on a free moment to ask him about it. He simply smiled at me and told me that he was using the opportunity while it was still there, because the moment Kibum and I got back together he probably couldn’t do it anymore. That was the second time he rendered me speechless since we started talking again and I felt that it had been a good thing for him to almost kick in my door, because I would have lost a good friend by ignoring him any longer.
After the basketball we all went home respectively, but Heechul convinced me to go out with the group a few hours later after having showered and all that. I agreed after throwing some comments at his head about the last time I did that and not wanting to have any of the events repeated this time. He flashed me his signature grin, ruffled my hair and told me not to worry, because he had learned his lesson. I huffed, yet had to admit that that might just be some very true words.
So that evening I went out again for the first time in weeks and I soon forgot about all bad things when Hangeng pulled me out onto the dancefloor. We almost literally danced the night away, the beat of the music chasing all thoughts out of my head while I let free all my emotions through dancing - or more moving my body to the constant beat of the music, because my dancing couldn’t really be called real dancing - and Hangeng showed off some real dancing skills, meanwhile also keeping the annoying boys away from me.
I went home at five in the morning. It took the whole of my Monday to catch up on studying, because that Sunday I was invited over at Youngwoon’s again, together with my father and mother. After that, my schedule changed and I had a rather hard time studying enough with the amounts of invites I got from friends and couldn’t refuse. Yet somehow I managed. I even managed to get good grades or at least not bad ones for all my exams and successfully passed on to the next year. So did all my friends, although some of them took a few bad grades on to the next year.
[FIC] It's Complicated
Title: It's Complicated
Characters: Kibum, OC, SJ
Rating: PG
Chaptercount: 34/36
Summary: Soojin meets a guy who turns her world upside down but then there's a few dozen others as well.
A/N: This is one of my most beloved novels (not that I wrote THAT many, but still) and I think I will forever cherish the characters in this. This story also helped me shape my view on the different members and is the first of few stories in which I used first person.
- - - - -
As I got into his car, I noticed his expression and therefore immediately started a conversation with him the moment he sat down as well.
“What?” I asked him with a slight frown. “Why are you looking at me like that?” He sighed and shook his head.
“Nothing, just thinking of how useless you can be.” he then retorted. I huffed, pushing his shoulder and turning my face away from him offendedly.
“Says he who doesn’t even know how to throw a ball in a goal.” I snapped back. He chuckled.
“I missed that.” he suddenly confessed rather unexpectedly. I frowned.
“Missed what?”
“You being your Snipe self. No one can insult me like you do.” he explained with an amused smile on his face. I shot him a disbelieving look.
“Well no one can destroy a relationship like you do.” I then scoffed, but the only thing I got out of it was him laughing out loud.
“Ah, but that was not solely my fault. Besides, if it wasn’t for me, you two might never have met!” he protested, grinning happily. I could only stare, dumbstruck. When I finally regained my composure, I cleared my throat.
“We have been in the same class ever since kindergarten.” I deadpanned. Heechul pursed his lips at that revelation, his eyes shooting to mine.
“Oh..” he then mumbled, before his eyes widened a little in surprise. “Since kindergarten!? Why did you never talk before?”
I grinned at him. “Who says we didn’t? Now hurry up and drive, I’m hungry and you don’t want to keep unnie waiting.”
He took my advice for granted, turning on the engine and calmly setting off to his home. It was strange yet awfully familiar to walk into the castle that was his house. Yet I didn’t get much of a chance to be marvelled by it all, because mere seconds after the front door closed again behind us, Hangeng suddenly appeared out of nowhere and gave me a big hug. Needless to say he almost made me jump in surprise coming out of nowhere like that.
If ever I felt more welcomed than at that moment, I at least don’t remember it. It was like coming home to family after some absence. The moment we walked into the living room and Heeyoung unnie saw me, she jumped up and came over to hug me. To my surprise, mere moments later, Jongwoon walked into the room as well, stopping with a surprised expression as he noticed me.
“Oh.. Soojin.. I didn’t expect you to be here.” he said, smiling at me immediately after and coming up to ruffle my hair. “Haven’t really seen you around lately.” He eyed me accusingly, but the smile still playing around his lips showed me he wasn’t really that discontent. I blushed and looked away.
“Busy with uh.. exams.” It was half a lie, and I could see Heechul’s frown as he heard it, but I hid my face behind my hair, so Jongwoon wouldn’t to notice anything.
“Ah yes, these exams.” he muttered, shaking his head disapprovingly. “Bummie suddenly doesn’t have time for anything but work and studying either.” The mention made my heart clench, causing me to get tears in my eyes, but once again I managed to repress them before looking up so that no one would notice a thing. I managed to escape the seemingly never ending hugs and touches after only five minutes.
Instead of just sitting down on the couch, we all moved to the dining room, taking our seats at the table so that we could get to eating. Heechul took the spot next to me, and Heeyoung and Jongwoon sat down opposite of us, so when Hangeng came in with the food, he could pick between the two heads of the table. He settled for sitting down at my left, which was also his noona’s right. The food was some specialised Chinese recipe according to Hangeng and I really enjoyed it. As we started eating, I decided to not let an awkward silence settle, and therefore spoke up.
“So what happened these last weeks?” I wondered, trying for a light atmosphere. My words immediately caused them to launch into a bunch of talking about the previous weeks; how both Hangeng and Heechul were in the middle of exams like I was, how Jongwoon was juggling studying and working to be able to have some spare money for the holidays and how Heeyoung had finally left the company to her co-workers, now trying to find a job more to her liking.
As they talked, I kept watching the couple, noticing how they were still as close as in the beginning, the occasional exchange of loving glances, the soft touching of hands or shoulders in a sign of ‘I’m here for you’ and more of the cheesy stuff that gives couples the right to be called couples. I felt my heart clench at that idea, but right before I could think deeper into the whole couple thing and how happy they should be, a hand touched my own and I turned to see Heechul smiling knowingly at me.
“Don’t go that way, Snipe.” he mumbled while Jongwoon was still in the middle of talking about his job in his father’s garage. As he gave my hand a soft squeeze, I managed to smile back at him, glad to have been jerked away from the thoughts that would have probably sent me off into a depression again.
When Jongwoon finished and they asked me after my life, I managed to quite happily tell them about having gamed and my mother going crazy over it, about Yumiko still living with us, having only two weeks left until she would have to leave, about my father planning to take a week of holidays to take my mother somewhere and all kinds of other general things, never ones trailing to the subject of Kibum.
They listened, making some comments to what I said and keeping up a nice conversation for quite a long amount of time. In the end it was Heechul who noticed the time, asking me if I had to go home. Even though I had enjoyed the day and their company, I still agreed on leaving, because I didn’t want to risk suddenly bursting out into tears in front of them after all. So we said goodbye to Heeyoung, Jongwoon andafter convincing him he really did not need to come along Hangeng.
Their lack of questions about Kibum had made me wonder if and how they knew we had broken up, but possibly the two of us never being together anymore might have had something to do with that as well, or maybe they were just not talking about him because I was obviously avoiding the subject at all costs. That’s when I realised something; How did Heechul find out I was no longer together with Kibum? Yet I felt quite sure that I wouldn’t want to know the answer to that question, so I never asked it.
Some twenty minutes after leaving Heechul’s place, we reached my house, where everyone seemed to be home again already as well. Normally I would just get out, tell him goodbye and walk away, but for some reason I couldn’t that day. He had been giving me so much support and warmth throughout the day, and it had been so long since I had actually spent some time with someone, that instead of getting out, I turned to him.
“Heechul..” I mumbled, not sure how to put my thoughts into words. He merely smiled at me, however, turning off the engine and unbuckling his seatbelt.
“Of course I’d like to come in.” he said, flipping hismeanwhile black again hair out from his eyes’ view and opening his door to get out. I got out as well with a smile on my face, surprised that he knew what I was going to ask before I had even said it myself. He walked around the car to the pavement, where I was waiting for him to walk up to the house. Right as he reached me, however, someone called out to him.
“Oppa!” it sounded and as I turned around I saw my neighbour Sanghee coming towards us. She immediately leaned into him upon reaching us and pressed her cheek against his, while he shortly put his arms around her middle. I looked at their greeting in surprise, wondering when they had started to get this close. Probably, I answered my own question, while I was hiding away from the world.
“Hey Sanghee-ssi.” I greeted the girl, who turned to me with a smile.
“Soojin-ssi!” she told me happily. “How have you been? I didn’t see you for a long time!”
“Been good. Yourself?” I replied, smiling lightly. She seemed to be in a very good mood that day and somehow her happiness was infecting me as well. So when she grinned widely at me as she replied, I allowed myself to give her an almost equally wide grin in return.
“Good too. I took your advice and found that Heechul oppa is a very nice guy. So now I have a lot of friends and a lot of jealous high school girls.” she piped, patting Heechul’s lower arm. The guy seemed to be very happy with the compliments he was getting, having a satisfied smile on his face. She suddenly turned to him as she continued talking. “But oppa, I’ll let you go inside. I just wanted to ask when I had to be at the sports complex this Saturday, so I won’t be too late.”
Heechul sent her a reassuring smile. “That’s okay. I’ll come pick you up.” he told her.
“Oh.. Sure.. But then what time? That way I can make sure I am up and ready when you get here.” she kept pushing anyway, making me stifle a chuckle.
His grin grew wider as he looked at her. “I don’t know yet what time. But don’t worry, I’m great at waking people up.” He told her, turning to wink at me. “Snipe knows all about it.”
I chuckled. “Yeah, don’t worry, Sanghee, I’ll come wake you before he does. No one deserves waking up to the horrible image of Kim Heechul’s face.” I expected Heechul to be offended, but instead he was giving me a hopeful look.
“Are you going to come along too?” he wondered, making me freeze.
“I don’t know. Lots to study. Ask me again on Saturday.” I evaded the question. “Anyway, I have to go inside. See you around, Sanghee.. If not during the week, then you’ll see me bursting in this Saturday.” With those words, I quickly fled the scene, walking up the few steps to my front door and getting out my key. I heard Heechul say a quick goodbye to my neighbour, following me inside and closing the door behind us.
My mother came almost immediately, probably to ask me out about leaving, but when she noticed I had a visitor, she fell silent and merely welcomed me home and had some small talk with Heechul. Our next obstacle was Yumiko, who came running out of her room and caught me at the top of the stairs, completely not caring that Heechul was around as she squished me in her arms. Looking past her, into her room, I saw Zhou Mi sitting on a pillow against the wall. Having seen her with Sungmin only earlier that day, I immediately realised Yumiko still hadn’t picked yet.
Zhou Mi raised a hand and waved at me, sending me a friendly smile. Part of me was happy to see me, the part that made me raise my own hand and wave back with an equally friendly smile, even though I was still being squished, yet another part wanted to close my eyes and run, because seeing Zhou Mi reminded me of the one he was sharing an apartment with and it took all my self-control not to ask how he was doing and if there was a slight possibility that he was missing me.
The red-haired Chinese seemed to understand, however, because his expression got slightly sympathetic and he mouthed an ‘He’s okay.’ to me, shrugging lightly as if to apologise for not being able to tell me any more than that. I closed my eyes for a moment before pulling out of Yumiko’s grip, putting on a seemingly unaffected expression as I looked at her.
“Not that I’m not happy to be home, Yumi, but I see you everyday, is this your new way of greeting people?” I asked her, sending her an amused smile. Of course she saw through my pretence as if it was nothing and she sent me a smile back.
“No, I was just playing truth or dare with Zhou Mi and he dared me to run out and hug the first person I saw, which happened to be you.” she retorted, and I knew she was lying for my sake, causing a soft smile appear on my face. She retreated back into her room and I walked on to mine, letting Heechul enter after me before locking the door. The moment the key turned and the lock clicked into place, I felt his arms slip around my middle and his head rested against mine, his breath warm on my skin.
Characters: Kibum, OC, SJ
Rating: PG
Chaptercount: 34/36
Summary: Soojin meets a guy who turns her world upside down but then there's a few dozen others as well.
A/N: This is one of my most beloved novels (not that I wrote THAT many, but still) and I think I will forever cherish the characters in this. This story also helped me shape my view on the different members and is the first of few stories in which I used first person.
- - - - -
As I got into his car, I noticed his expression and therefore immediately started a conversation with him the moment he sat down as well.
“What?” I asked him with a slight frown. “Why are you looking at me like that?” He sighed and shook his head.
“Nothing, just thinking of how useless you can be.” he then retorted. I huffed, pushing his shoulder and turning my face away from him offendedly.
“Says he who doesn’t even know how to throw a ball in a goal.” I snapped back. He chuckled.
“I missed that.” he suddenly confessed rather unexpectedly. I frowned.
“Missed what?”
“You being your Snipe self. No one can insult me like you do.” he explained with an amused smile on his face. I shot him a disbelieving look.
“Well no one can destroy a relationship like you do.” I then scoffed, but the only thing I got out of it was him laughing out loud.
“Ah, but that was not solely my fault. Besides, if it wasn’t for me, you two might never have met!” he protested, grinning happily. I could only stare, dumbstruck. When I finally regained my composure, I cleared my throat.
“We have been in the same class ever since kindergarten.” I deadpanned. Heechul pursed his lips at that revelation, his eyes shooting to mine.
“Oh..” he then mumbled, before his eyes widened a little in surprise. “Since kindergarten!? Why did you never talk before?”
I grinned at him. “Who says we didn’t? Now hurry up and drive, I’m hungry and you don’t want to keep unnie waiting.”
He took my advice for granted, turning on the engine and calmly setting off to his home. It was strange yet awfully familiar to walk into the castle that was his house. Yet I didn’t get much of a chance to be marvelled by it all, because mere seconds after the front door closed again behind us, Hangeng suddenly appeared out of nowhere and gave me a big hug. Needless to say he almost made me jump in surprise coming out of nowhere like that.
If ever I felt more welcomed than at that moment, I at least don’t remember it. It was like coming home to family after some absence. The moment we walked into the living room and Heeyoung unnie saw me, she jumped up and came over to hug me. To my surprise, mere moments later, Jongwoon walked into the room as well, stopping with a surprised expression as he noticed me.
“Oh.. Soojin.. I didn’t expect you to be here.” he said, smiling at me immediately after and coming up to ruffle my hair. “Haven’t really seen you around lately.” He eyed me accusingly, but the smile still playing around his lips showed me he wasn’t really that discontent. I blushed and looked away.
“Busy with uh.. exams.” It was half a lie, and I could see Heechul’s frown as he heard it, but I hid my face behind my hair, so Jongwoon wouldn’t to notice anything.
“Ah yes, these exams.” he muttered, shaking his head disapprovingly. “Bummie suddenly doesn’t have time for anything but work and studying either.” The mention made my heart clench, causing me to get tears in my eyes, but once again I managed to repress them before looking up so that no one would notice a thing. I managed to escape the seemingly never ending hugs and touches after only five minutes.
Instead of just sitting down on the couch, we all moved to the dining room, taking our seats at the table so that we could get to eating. Heechul took the spot next to me, and Heeyoung and Jongwoon sat down opposite of us, so when Hangeng came in with the food, he could pick between the two heads of the table. He settled for sitting down at my left, which was also his noona’s right. The food was some specialised Chinese recipe according to Hangeng and I really enjoyed it. As we started eating, I decided to not let an awkward silence settle, and therefore spoke up.
“So what happened these last weeks?” I wondered, trying for a light atmosphere. My words immediately caused them to launch into a bunch of talking about the previous weeks; how both Hangeng and Heechul were in the middle of exams like I was, how Jongwoon was juggling studying and working to be able to have some spare money for the holidays and how Heeyoung had finally left the company to her co-workers, now trying to find a job more to her liking.
As they talked, I kept watching the couple, noticing how they were still as close as in the beginning, the occasional exchange of loving glances, the soft touching of hands or shoulders in a sign of ‘I’m here for you’ and more of the cheesy stuff that gives couples the right to be called couples. I felt my heart clench at that idea, but right before I could think deeper into the whole couple thing and how happy they should be, a hand touched my own and I turned to see Heechul smiling knowingly at me.
“Don’t go that way, Snipe.” he mumbled while Jongwoon was still in the middle of talking about his job in his father’s garage. As he gave my hand a soft squeeze, I managed to smile back at him, glad to have been jerked away from the thoughts that would have probably sent me off into a depression again.
When Jongwoon finished and they asked me after my life, I managed to quite happily tell them about having gamed and my mother going crazy over it, about Yumiko still living with us, having only two weeks left until she would have to leave, about my father planning to take a week of holidays to take my mother somewhere and all kinds of other general things, never ones trailing to the subject of Kibum.
They listened, making some comments to what I said and keeping up a nice conversation for quite a long amount of time. In the end it was Heechul who noticed the time, asking me if I had to go home. Even though I had enjoyed the day and their company, I still agreed on leaving, because I didn’t want to risk suddenly bursting out into tears in front of them after all. So we said goodbye to Heeyoung, Jongwoon and
Their lack of questions about Kibum had made me wonder if and how they knew we had broken up, but possibly the two of us never being together anymore might have had something to do with that as well, or maybe they were just not talking about him because I was obviously avoiding the subject at all costs. That’s when I realised something; How did Heechul find out I was no longer together with Kibum? Yet I felt quite sure that I wouldn’t want to know the answer to that question, so I never asked it.
Some twenty minutes after leaving Heechul’s place, we reached my house, where everyone seemed to be home again already as well. Normally I would just get out, tell him goodbye and walk away, but for some reason I couldn’t that day. He had been giving me so much support and warmth throughout the day, and it had been so long since I had actually spent some time with someone, that instead of getting out, I turned to him.
“Heechul..” I mumbled, not sure how to put my thoughts into words. He merely smiled at me, however, turning off the engine and unbuckling his seatbelt.
“Of course I’d like to come in.” he said, flipping his
“Oppa!” it sounded and as I turned around I saw my neighbour Sanghee coming towards us. She immediately leaned into him upon reaching us and pressed her cheek against his, while he shortly put his arms around her middle. I looked at their greeting in surprise, wondering when they had started to get this close. Probably, I answered my own question, while I was hiding away from the world.
“Hey Sanghee-ssi.” I greeted the girl, who turned to me with a smile.
“Soojin-ssi!” she told me happily. “How have you been? I didn’t see you for a long time!”
“Been good. Yourself?” I replied, smiling lightly. She seemed to be in a very good mood that day and somehow her happiness was infecting me as well. So when she grinned widely at me as she replied, I allowed myself to give her an almost equally wide grin in return.
“Good too. I took your advice and found that Heechul oppa is a very nice guy. So now I have a lot of friends and a lot of jealous high school girls.” she piped, patting Heechul’s lower arm. The guy seemed to be very happy with the compliments he was getting, having a satisfied smile on his face. She suddenly turned to him as she continued talking. “But oppa, I’ll let you go inside. I just wanted to ask when I had to be at the sports complex this Saturday, so I won’t be too late.”
Heechul sent her a reassuring smile. “That’s okay. I’ll come pick you up.” he told her.
“Oh.. Sure.. But then what time? That way I can make sure I am up and ready when you get here.” she kept pushing anyway, making me stifle a chuckle.
His grin grew wider as he looked at her. “I don’t know yet what time. But don’t worry, I’m great at waking people up.” He told her, turning to wink at me. “Snipe knows all about it.”
I chuckled. “Yeah, don’t worry, Sanghee, I’ll come wake you before he does. No one deserves waking up to the horrible image of Kim Heechul’s face.” I expected Heechul to be offended, but instead he was giving me a hopeful look.
“Are you going to come along too?” he wondered, making me freeze.
“I don’t know. Lots to study. Ask me again on Saturday.” I evaded the question. “Anyway, I have to go inside. See you around, Sanghee.. If not during the week, then you’ll see me bursting in this Saturday.” With those words, I quickly fled the scene, walking up the few steps to my front door and getting out my key. I heard Heechul say a quick goodbye to my neighbour, following me inside and closing the door behind us.
My mother came almost immediately, probably to ask me out about leaving, but when she noticed I had a visitor, she fell silent and merely welcomed me home and had some small talk with Heechul. Our next obstacle was Yumiko, who came running out of her room and caught me at the top of the stairs, completely not caring that Heechul was around as she squished me in her arms. Looking past her, into her room, I saw Zhou Mi sitting on a pillow against the wall. Having seen her with Sungmin only earlier that day, I immediately realised Yumiko still hadn’t picked yet.
Zhou Mi raised a hand and waved at me, sending me a friendly smile. Part of me was happy to see me, the part that made me raise my own hand and wave back with an equally friendly smile, even though I was still being squished, yet another part wanted to close my eyes and run, because seeing Zhou Mi reminded me of the one he was sharing an apartment with and it took all my self-control not to ask how he was doing and if there was a slight possibility that he was missing me.
The red-haired Chinese seemed to understand, however, because his expression got slightly sympathetic and he mouthed an ‘He’s okay.’ to me, shrugging lightly as if to apologise for not being able to tell me any more than that. I closed my eyes for a moment before pulling out of Yumiko’s grip, putting on a seemingly unaffected expression as I looked at her.
“Not that I’m not happy to be home, Yumi, but I see you everyday, is this your new way of greeting people?” I asked her, sending her an amused smile. Of course she saw through my pretence as if it was nothing and she sent me a smile back.
“No, I was just playing truth or dare with Zhou Mi and he dared me to run out and hug the first person I saw, which happened to be you.” she retorted, and I knew she was lying for my sake, causing a soft smile appear on my face. She retreated back into her room and I walked on to mine, letting Heechul enter after me before locking the door. The moment the key turned and the lock clicked into place, I felt his arms slip around my middle and his head rested against mine, his breath warm on my skin.
[FIC] It's Complicated
Title: It's Complicated
Characters: Kibum, OC, SJ
Rating: PG
Chaptercount: 33/36
Summary: Soojin meets a guy who turns her world upside down but then there's a few dozen others as well.
A/N: This is one of my most beloved novels (not that I wrote THAT many, but still) and I think I will forever cherish the characters in this. This story also helped me shape my view on the different members and is the first of few stories in which I used first person.
- - - - -
After that, my life slowly turned back into the dull, gray every day the same thing that it had been before that school year. There was nothing pulling me out of my house anymore. Yumiko tried a few times, but gave up soon when she realised it was no good. My mother only sighed and had meanwhile resigned to the fact that I had gone back to be an all-day-long gamer, because she knew she wouldn’t be able to change my mind. I doubted things would become exciting again anytime soon, because I did not want to take the risk of losing it all again like I did then.
I knew that it was all my own fault, but that didn’t make it less painful. It had only been a month that I really was together with Kibum, but I had already gotten so used to having him being there for me, taking care of me, that it was hard to imagine life without him again. So I buried myself in hours of game-playing, studying and doing exams. It was difficult for me to concentrate, but I tried my best, because the last thing I wanted was doing my exams over or being stuck in that school for one year longer than I had to. Everything reminded me of him there, and my own betrayal hurt me more every day.
So as time passed and exams went by, I had started to occasionally find myself wondering what I would do after I finished my studies the next year. There was no one really caring about me anymore, so I simply did as I thought was best and struggled through the days. But of course I should have known that a school year spent on making friends and spending a lot of time with them couldn’t just be forgotten like that. Especially not when one of those friends is named Kim Heechul.. And that was exactly the one who was knocking on my bedroom door like crazy two weeks after everything ended for me.
“Snipe, open up this door or I’ll kick it in.” he told me and I sighed deeply, but got up from my chair anyway after closing my game. I put my hand on the door handle, taking a deep breath before opening the door. Immediately there was a hand grabbing mine and Heechul’s face was so close to mine that I instinctively backed away from it.
“And what do you think you have been doing, young lady?” he lectured me, poking his finger against my chest. “Hiding away from me and ignoring my calls like I’m just some kind of person you met once in a bar and hope to never see again because he was boring the hell out of you with his stupid talks about how he has been drinking too much too often and throwing up against a wall with friends, constantly interrupting you with that story as if it’s something very interesting and important.”
I stared at him for a while, not really knowing what to say about his ramble of words that reminded me so much of our first meeting, where I told him about those things. It surprised me that he still remembered all that. I felt my breath getting caught in my throat and I had to do my best to not tear up so that I could come up with an answer. Yet before I could reply there suddenly were two arms wrapped tightly around me and a head resting against my own, with a voice talking softly next to my ear.
“I missed you, you know that? You’re a moron to think you can just run away from me. I’m your friend, you shouldn’t even think about leaving me just like that. It’s not because things with Kibum went wrong that you should ignore me as well.” he mumbled to me and I felt my heart skip a beat because of those words, a strange warmth filling up a little of the emptiness inside.
“Maybe not, but you kissed me, Heechul. You were part of the reason why things went wrong with.. With him.” I replied, still unable to speak Kibum’s name out loud.
“That is..just a minor detail. Silly Snipe.” he said, giving my side a little squeeze. I shrieked and jumped away from his touch, but couldn’t stop a smile from forming on my face. He grinned widely seeing that. “This is the face I missed. Now come on, I have some people who’d love to see you.” he exclaimed, taking my hand and dragging me along. I quickly pulled free again.
“Heechul, I don’t want to meet anyone right now, okay. There’s too much been going on with me and I don’t know if I can take seeing them again just yet. Besides, even if I would, I am wearing my pyjamas.” I quickly said, cowering back into my room, towards my desk chair and computer, but he lunged forward and grabbed my wrist again.
“Oh no you don’t. No going back to your computer. But you do have a point. I believe I was supposed to either get you very drunk or wait until you pass your final year of exams before you’d come out in your cute pyjamas with me.” he said, grinning like a happy little kid, before getting serious again. “Don’t worry so much. I’m not planning on making you see everyone again at once. Just two people who are dying to hear from you, because they’ve missed you lately. Why don’t you trust me?”
“You KISSED me.” I stressed the words by giving him a deadly glare, which caused him to sigh.
“Are we back to that? I told you that’s a minor detail. Now come on, let’s get you dressed. Your next exam is tomorrow, so I don’t have all day.” he then said, smiling lightly. And of course that was how it was done.
He picked out a nice outfit for me, nearly forced me to get changed and then dragged me out of the house, calling out to my mother that he was borrowing me for a while. Once outside we walked into Yumiko, whose eyes almost fell out when she saw me getting out of the house while I wasn’t having any school, and Sungmin, who nodded lightly to us, giving me one of his special happy smiles. I could only smile back, realising how long it was since I had actually been around them while fully realising it.
Heechul dragged me further towards his car and basically stomped me inside, on the passenger seat, taking the driver’s seat himself. He started the car and we drove away, leaving behind Yumiko and Sungmin at my house’s door, who were still staring at the car like they had seen a ghost. I couldn’t help but smile, especially over Yumiko’s shocked face. But then we turned around the corner and they were out of my sight. I pointed my eyes on the road, wondering where Heechul was taking me and who he wanted me to meet. Probably Hangeng was one of them, but I had no idea who the second one might be.
My questions went unanswered, however, as Heechul just drove, keeping his eyes on the road and ignoring me completely. I sighed and pushed his shoulder, but still he didn’t react, so I remained silent as well, waiting for us to arrive at wherever he was taking me. We did so about twenty minutes after leaving my house and when Heechul opened the door and I got out of the car, I realised exactly where we were. My feet led me towards the front door of the house in no time and when I pushed the bell, I found myself wondering why I hadn’t thought of going to the place myself.
It took about a minute for the people inside to get to the door, find the keys and then finally open it, but when the person behind the door was revealed, I immediately lunged forward and wrapped my arms around his waist, resting my head against his chest and closing my eyes tightly. I felt his arms being wrapped around me as well and a soft rumble against my chest made me realise that he was talking to me, but I didn’t understand him since I was pressed against his body too tightly. The tears came up in my eyes and soon I found myself crying my heart out, releasing all the sadness that I had tried to run from for two weeks already.
I faintly realised that I was being picked up by strong arms and carried into the house. I heard voices, but they were not understandable above my own wild breathing as I still cried my heart out. Soon there was a hand stroking my back and a very calm-sounding voice speaking words to me that I didn’t understand anyway. Yet it helped, as my cries slowly died away and I got back to my senses after a while. When I cleaned the tears off my face with my sleeve, someone handed me some tissues and as I looked up, I saw it was Heechul who did so. I then also realised that he was the one who had sat next to me as I was crying.
Mere moments later I found myself with my arms tightly clasped around his neck, on the verge of breaking out into tears again. Yet somehow his presence calmed me down and I sighed as I clean the rest of my face with the tissues handed to me. When I regained my composure, or at least a little of it, I let go of him, sat up and looked at the two people sitting in the couch across from me, giving me worried looks. I tried for a slight smile and immediately got two smiles back.
“It’s been a while.” Seoyeon said softly and I could only nod, because she was right.
“I missed you.” Youngwoon then added and I nodded again, because I missed him too.
“We missed you.” Seoyeon corrected her boyfriend then, swatting his leg as to reprimand him. He gave her one of his happy, boyish grins and she gave him a kiss on his cheek in return. I smiled at this show of their obvious love and happiness, scooting closer towards Heechul, who wrapped his arms around me again. Somehow it comforted me, so I didn’t push him away.
“I missed you too.” I finally mumbled, before the ramble starts. “I’m sorry that I haven’t visited you two more often, I know I should have. I should have helped with the garden shed more often. I bet you finished it without me now, right? What name have you given it? You said you’d give it a nice name that has a happy ring to it. Did you do so?”
“Soosoo..” my cousin interruptted me and I turned to look at him.
“I’m sorry, I was rambling.” I immediately apologised, but both of them smiled softly.
“That’s not it. He wants to say that we named it Soosoo.”Seoyeon then told me, the smile on her face widening a little. “Because it sounds happy and you are usually so full of joy as well. Maybe we’ll name our child Soosoo if it’s a girl.”
“You are getting a baby!?” I exclaimed in surprise, the rest of her words went past me as if she had never said them. My words made them both look at each other and laugh.
“No! Oh dear, no we don’t. I meant if we once should have a daughter.” my cousin-in-law then exclaimed, still laughing. I sighed, before suddenly remembering her other words.
“You named the shed Soosoo? What a terrible name. Couldn’t you have come up with something better?” I then said, adding enough irony to my words. That made us all chuckle a bit.
“Hey, are you saying you don’t like the name I gave you? ” my cousin boomed, jumping up from his couch and raising a finger in threat. I found myself grinning like an idiot at that comment, getting up as well to walk towards him and give him a hug, something that he gladly accepted. Moments later Seoyeon was near us as well, making a group hug out of it. She was a little overenthusiastic, however, and soon after we nearly fell down because we were basically tripping over each other’s feet.
It was like that that my good mood slowly returned to me and a slight smile remained plastered on my face for the rest of the three hours that we spent with my cousin and Seoyeon. After that, Heechul and I took our leave, with a promise to my family that I would visit again soon. A promise I intendd to keep that time. As we got into the car, Heechul asked me if I wanted to accompany him to his home, since Hangeng and Heeyoung had been wanting to see me too. Unable to deny the simple yet heartfelt request, I agreed, and after a short call to my mother to tell her I wouldn’t be home for dinner, we set off towards his house as well.
Characters: Kibum, OC, SJ
Rating: PG
Chaptercount: 33/36
Summary: Soojin meets a guy who turns her world upside down but then there's a few dozen others as well.
A/N: This is one of my most beloved novels (not that I wrote THAT many, but still) and I think I will forever cherish the characters in this. This story also helped me shape my view on the different members and is the first of few stories in which I used first person.
- - - - -
After that, my life slowly turned back into the dull, gray every day the same thing that it had been before that school year. There was nothing pulling me out of my house anymore. Yumiko tried a few times, but gave up soon when she realised it was no good. My mother only sighed and had meanwhile resigned to the fact that I had gone back to be an all-day-long gamer, because she knew she wouldn’t be able to change my mind. I doubted things would become exciting again anytime soon, because I did not want to take the risk of losing it all again like I did then.
I knew that it was all my own fault, but that didn’t make it less painful. It had only been a month that I really was together with Kibum, but I had already gotten so used to having him being there for me, taking care of me, that it was hard to imagine life without him again. So I buried myself in hours of game-playing, studying and doing exams. It was difficult for me to concentrate, but I tried my best, because the last thing I wanted was doing my exams over or being stuck in that school for one year longer than I had to. Everything reminded me of him there, and my own betrayal hurt me more every day.
So as time passed and exams went by, I had started to occasionally find myself wondering what I would do after I finished my studies the next year. There was no one really caring about me anymore, so I simply did as I thought was best and struggled through the days. But of course I should have known that a school year spent on making friends and spending a lot of time with them couldn’t just be forgotten like that. Especially not when one of those friends is named Kim Heechul.. And that was exactly the one who was knocking on my bedroom door like crazy two weeks after everything ended for me.
“Snipe, open up this door or I’ll kick it in.” he told me and I sighed deeply, but got up from my chair anyway after closing my game. I put my hand on the door handle, taking a deep breath before opening the door. Immediately there was a hand grabbing mine and Heechul’s face was so close to mine that I instinctively backed away from it.
“And what do you think you have been doing, young lady?” he lectured me, poking his finger against my chest. “Hiding away from me and ignoring my calls like I’m just some kind of person you met once in a bar and hope to never see again because he was boring the hell out of you with his stupid talks about how he has been drinking too much too often and throwing up against a wall with friends, constantly interrupting you with that story as if it’s something very interesting and important.”
I stared at him for a while, not really knowing what to say about his ramble of words that reminded me so much of our first meeting, where I told him about those things. It surprised me that he still remembered all that. I felt my breath getting caught in my throat and I had to do my best to not tear up so that I could come up with an answer. Yet before I could reply there suddenly were two arms wrapped tightly around me and a head resting against my own, with a voice talking softly next to my ear.
“I missed you, you know that? You’re a moron to think you can just run away from me. I’m your friend, you shouldn’t even think about leaving me just like that. It’s not because things with Kibum went wrong that you should ignore me as well.” he mumbled to me and I felt my heart skip a beat because of those words, a strange warmth filling up a little of the emptiness inside.
“Maybe not, but you kissed me, Heechul. You were part of the reason why things went wrong with.. With him.” I replied, still unable to speak Kibum’s name out loud.
“That is..just a minor detail. Silly Snipe.” he said, giving my side a little squeeze. I shrieked and jumped away from his touch, but couldn’t stop a smile from forming on my face. He grinned widely seeing that. “This is the face I missed. Now come on, I have some people who’d love to see you.” he exclaimed, taking my hand and dragging me along. I quickly pulled free again.
“Heechul, I don’t want to meet anyone right now, okay. There’s too much been going on with me and I don’t know if I can take seeing them again just yet. Besides, even if I would, I am wearing my pyjamas.” I quickly said, cowering back into my room, towards my desk chair and computer, but he lunged forward and grabbed my wrist again.
“Oh no you don’t. No going back to your computer. But you do have a point. I believe I was supposed to either get you very drunk or wait until you pass your final year of exams before you’d come out in your cute pyjamas with me.” he said, grinning like a happy little kid, before getting serious again. “Don’t worry so much. I’m not planning on making you see everyone again at once. Just two people who are dying to hear from you, because they’ve missed you lately. Why don’t you trust me?”
“You KISSED me.” I stressed the words by giving him a deadly glare, which caused him to sigh.
“Are we back to that? I told you that’s a minor detail. Now come on, let’s get you dressed. Your next exam is tomorrow, so I don’t have all day.” he then said, smiling lightly. And of course that was how it was done.
He picked out a nice outfit for me, nearly forced me to get changed and then dragged me out of the house, calling out to my mother that he was borrowing me for a while. Once outside we walked into Yumiko, whose eyes almost fell out when she saw me getting out of the house while I wasn’t having any school, and Sungmin, who nodded lightly to us, giving me one of his special happy smiles. I could only smile back, realising how long it was since I had actually been around them while fully realising it.
Heechul dragged me further towards his car and basically stomped me inside, on the passenger seat, taking the driver’s seat himself. He started the car and we drove away, leaving behind Yumiko and Sungmin at my house’s door, who were still staring at the car like they had seen a ghost. I couldn’t help but smile, especially over Yumiko’s shocked face. But then we turned around the corner and they were out of my sight. I pointed my eyes on the road, wondering where Heechul was taking me and who he wanted me to meet. Probably Hangeng was one of them, but I had no idea who the second one might be.
My questions went unanswered, however, as Heechul just drove, keeping his eyes on the road and ignoring me completely. I sighed and pushed his shoulder, but still he didn’t react, so I remained silent as well, waiting for us to arrive at wherever he was taking me. We did so about twenty minutes after leaving my house and when Heechul opened the door and I got out of the car, I realised exactly where we were. My feet led me towards the front door of the house in no time and when I pushed the bell, I found myself wondering why I hadn’t thought of going to the place myself.
It took about a minute for the people inside to get to the door, find the keys and then finally open it, but when the person behind the door was revealed, I immediately lunged forward and wrapped my arms around his waist, resting my head against his chest and closing my eyes tightly. I felt his arms being wrapped around me as well and a soft rumble against my chest made me realise that he was talking to me, but I didn’t understand him since I was pressed against his body too tightly. The tears came up in my eyes and soon I found myself crying my heart out, releasing all the sadness that I had tried to run from for two weeks already.
I faintly realised that I was being picked up by strong arms and carried into the house. I heard voices, but they were not understandable above my own wild breathing as I still cried my heart out. Soon there was a hand stroking my back and a very calm-sounding voice speaking words to me that I didn’t understand anyway. Yet it helped, as my cries slowly died away and I got back to my senses after a while. When I cleaned the tears off my face with my sleeve, someone handed me some tissues and as I looked up, I saw it was Heechul who did so. I then also realised that he was the one who had sat next to me as I was crying.
Mere moments later I found myself with my arms tightly clasped around his neck, on the verge of breaking out into tears again. Yet somehow his presence calmed me down and I sighed as I clean the rest of my face with the tissues handed to me. When I regained my composure, or at least a little of it, I let go of him, sat up and looked at the two people sitting in the couch across from me, giving me worried looks. I tried for a slight smile and immediately got two smiles back.
“It’s been a while.” Seoyeon said softly and I could only nod, because she was right.
“I missed you.” Youngwoon then added and I nodded again, because I missed him too.
“We missed you.” Seoyeon corrected her boyfriend then, swatting his leg as to reprimand him. He gave her one of his happy, boyish grins and she gave him a kiss on his cheek in return. I smiled at this show of their obvious love and happiness, scooting closer towards Heechul, who wrapped his arms around me again. Somehow it comforted me, so I didn’t push him away.
“I missed you too.” I finally mumbled, before the ramble starts. “I’m sorry that I haven’t visited you two more often, I know I should have. I should have helped with the garden shed more often. I bet you finished it without me now, right? What name have you given it? You said you’d give it a nice name that has a happy ring to it. Did you do so?”
“Soosoo..” my cousin interruptted me and I turned to look at him.
“I’m sorry, I was rambling.” I immediately apologised, but both of them smiled softly.
“That’s not it. He wants to say that we named it Soosoo.”Seoyeon then told me, the smile on her face widening a little. “Because it sounds happy and you are usually so full of joy as well. Maybe we’ll name our child Soosoo if it’s a girl.”
“You are getting a baby!?” I exclaimed in surprise, the rest of her words went past me as if she had never said them. My words made them both look at each other and laugh.
“No! Oh dear, no we don’t. I meant if we once should have a daughter.” my cousin-in-law then exclaimed, still laughing. I sighed, before suddenly remembering her other words.
“You named the shed Soosoo? What a terrible name. Couldn’t you have come up with something better?” I then said, adding enough irony to my words. That made us all chuckle a bit.
“Hey, are you saying you don’t like the name I gave you? ” my cousin boomed, jumping up from his couch and raising a finger in threat. I found myself grinning like an idiot at that comment, getting up as well to walk towards him and give him a hug, something that he gladly accepted. Moments later Seoyeon was near us as well, making a group hug out of it. She was a little overenthusiastic, however, and soon after we nearly fell down because we were basically tripping over each other’s feet.
It was like that that my good mood slowly returned to me and a slight smile remained plastered on my face for the rest of the three hours that we spent with my cousin and Seoyeon. After that, Heechul and I took our leave, with a promise to my family that I would visit again soon. A promise I intendd to keep that time. As we got into the car, Heechul asked me if I wanted to accompany him to his home, since Hangeng and Heeyoung had been wanting to see me too. Unable to deny the simple yet heartfelt request, I agreed, and after a short call to my mother to tell her I wouldn’t be home for dinner, we set off towards his house as well.
[FIC] It's Complicated
Title: It's Complicated
Characters: Kibum, OC, SJ
Rating: PG
Chaptercount: 32/36
Summary: Soojin meets a guy who turns her world upside down but then there's a few dozen others as well.
A/N: This is one of my most beloved novels (not that I wrote THAT many, but still) and I think I will forever cherish the characters in this. This story also helped me shape my view on the different members and is the first of few stories in which I used first person.
- - - - -
The next day came sooner than expected or wanted, and 1 PM found me faithfully sitting at one of the tables of the pancake house, waiting for my boyfriend. Throughout the five hours I had been up and running, there had already been an equal amount of people asking me if everything was alright with me, one of them being a customer. I gave them all the same answer -that I was feeling slightly sick, but no, I didn’t want to take the day off, because I would be fine- and escaped their presence as soon as I could.
There was no way of escaping Henry, however, so he kept inquiring after my health and feelings all the way until Kibum came strolling in at exactly 1 PM. I got up from my seat to greet him and he sent me a slight smile, as if unsure what to think of the whole situation. When he reached me, however, he pulled me into a short hug, before tugging me outside with him. I followed, after telling Henry I would take a break, softly prying my wrist out of Kibum’s grip and trying my best to keep a cool and composed expression, while on the inside I felt like dying right there and then. He kept walking until we were at the part of the garden that was furthest away from the house, which was here he stopped and turned around to look at me.
“There’s something you’re not telling me.” he then stated, immediately cutting to the core of the problem. There was not a single bit of accusation in his voice, but the way he lovingly took my hand and the solely worried expression on his face made me feel worse than any other emotion could have done. I just looked at him for a long time, not knowing what to say, until he seemed to realise that I was not going to speak. “We can’t be like this, Jinnie. Something’s wrong and you’re trying to avoid me because of it. I want to know what’s going on, because your behaviour worries me. Is it something I said or did?”
“No, Kibum.. It’s not you. It definitely isn’t you.” I quickly replied, not wanting him to think it was for any part whatsoever his fault. He sighed at the short answer, but seemed glad I was finally talking.
“Then tell me, Jinnie, what IS wrong?”
An even longer silence than the first one ensued. In my mind, I was going over all the possible things I could tell him that might make the situation take a turn for the better, but ever single option was discarded, because to make things sound less bad I would have to lie to Kibum and that was something that I didn’t want to ever do. Yet the truth was also not something I would like to tell him.. As the silence grew longer, the more the emotions seemed to get sucked out of his face. After ten long minutes he seemed to give up, turning around and starting to walk away.
“Please wait!” I called out, making him stop and look back.
“Why?” he replied. “You won’t tell me anything, so I have no reason to be here.”
“It’s.. Complicated.” I sighed. Because, really.. How do you tell your boyfriend that you kissed with two other guys in one week’s time without really meaning to? He turned around so that he was fully facing me again and took a step closer towards me, taking my hands in his and looking me right in the eyes.
“Tell me, Jinnie, please..” he almost pleaded and I felt my heart clench at the desperation in his voice.
“Fine. I will.” I gave in. “But I just don’t want to lose you.” He frowned at those words, but I merely motioned him to sit down on the little wall as I did so myself. He sank down next to me, letting his eyes trail my face in what was probably the hope to find something there. I meanwhile sorted out my thoughts and took a deep breath, deciding to just tell him the straight out truth without sugar-coating anything. I kept my eyes pointed at the ground as I started talking.
Ten minutes later I finished explaining it all to him, not knowing what reaction to expect. I told him about the drunk Heechul suddenly kissing me and the just as unexpected kiss with Donghae. I made sure to stress the fact that Donghae hadn’t known about him and me, because in reality, he had done nothing wrong, so I didn’t want to create a fight between friends who shouldn’t be fighting at all. When the silence dragged on, I sighed, being the first to break through the long minutes of nothingness.
“I’m sorry.” I repeated for the twenty millionth time in the past ten minutes. “I still do love you, Kibum, and I really don’t want to lose you, but I realise that these things… I’m just really sorry, Bummie.” It took me a lot of willpower to keep the tears from rolling down my cheeks, but somehow I managed, because I didn’t want him to think I was trying to convince him to stay with my tears. But still nothing came in reaction to my words. Kibum was staring blankly ahead, not giving a single sign of life. He didn’t even seem to be breathing. It was only after a few more minutes that he suddenly took a deep breath.
“I guess I should have expected this.” he mumbled, still staring rather blankly ahead. “When things seem too good to be true, they mostly are. I guess in the end it wasn’t me who was meant for you. So then this is the end, don’t you think?” I had to swallow the lump in my throat to be able to reply to that.
“I don’t know. You’re the one making the decisions and I’m the one following.” I choked out. He smiled a sad smile at those words. “But please don’t..” I desperately continued. “Please don’t make this the end. If I could do it over I would have spent every single day by your side and never even once looked at Heechul or Donghae or anyone..” My voice slowly died away as it became harder not to cry and when Kibum slowly turned to look at me at the end of my speech, my words got completely lost in the deep pool of hurt and disappointment that were his eyes.
“I..” he started and it was the way he averted his eyes to something behind me that told me whatever he was going to say next would not be good. “I need time to think this over, Jinnie.” I felt my heart plummet right down into my stomach at those words and all life seemed to be sucked out of my face as I turned a very white shade of pale, but all I could really do was nod, because I had no right to hold him back when he stood up. He sent another look my way that was filled with so many different emotions that I felt a twinge of pain in my abdomen, caused by the feeling of guilt.
I had realised the cold truth that I had lost Kibum over my own stupidity. There were tears to cry, but they didn’t fall, and words to say that I couldn’t form. Kibum’s look changed as he watched me and despite having said he needed time, he was obviously still sad to see my hurt expression. His hand twitched slightly, as if wanting to touch me, but he pulled away last minute and took a small step back.
“I’ll see you around, I guess.. I’ll call you about this, okay?” he mumbled, before turning around and walking away. I stared after him, knowing I would probably never get a call at all, but unable to go after him nonetheless. I knew that whatever he was thinking were probably bad things about me that I had more than deserved, so there was no point in me running after him, futilely trying to change his mind. Yet still I couldn’t keep his name from rolling off my lips, but it was nothing more than a whisper and he was already way too far to hear it.
I don’t really remember what things crossed my mind as I sat on the wall, or maybe I just wasn’t thinking at all, but by the time Henry came searching for me, slightly worried because of my sudden absence, I had already replayed the scene a million times in my head, trying to find anything that assured me of the fact I was really going to get a call. I found nothing. Kibum had no reason whatsoever to forgive me. After all, I had broken his trust -and his heart- and nothing lose to what I had done could change or heal that. It was that kind of desperation Henry saw when he walked around the corner and found me.
The moment he saw my face, he was by my side in no time, sitting down next to me and putting an arm around my shoulders. I sighed slightly, but let myself be pulled against him anyway. He fussed a little over me, stroking my upper arm and mumbling some nonsensical but soothing words to me, and despite being older than him, I felt protected in his ams. It was a nice change on the utter and completely lost feeling I had before he came by, but it still didn’t make things any better. He rocked me back and forth a little, making me smile a sad smile. I missed the worry on his face when he looked at my beat expression.
I stayed in his embrace for a while, until the time started pressing and we both remembered the customers. In the end, I rubbed my hands over my face, trying to wake myself up and getting my feet back on the ground. We walked back through the garden, into the house, and I took up my job again. After delivering a few orders to the wrong table, Henry ordered me to stay in the kitchen. I did burn a few pancakes, but it was better than throwing pancakes, sugar or ice cream on one of the customers.
It was a strange and fluctuant day, an amount of unplanned events happening while I was going through the day like a zombie. By the time I got home, I had almost been responsible for two accidents on the road and part of my still working brain told me it would be better not to go out with my car anymore when I was upset. I got out of my car as a dishevelled heap of human, staggering to the door and getting into the house with much difficulty.
My mom’s questioning went by unanswered as I crossed the distance from the front door to the back one, disappearing into our small yard. I kicked a stone that randomly lay on my path and started fuming, letting out a few occasional cries of discontent, until a sudden amused laugh made me freeze and look up...and up. In the end, my gaze came to rest on a girl sitting in our neighbour’s tree house.
“Who are you?” I wondered surprised, because I had never seen her before. She chuckled as I fired a second question. “And what are you doing in my neighbour’s tree?” The girl’s face brightened as a wide grin pulled up the corners of her mouth.
“I AM your neighbour.” she replied. It was then that I realised our neighbours had changed as the new ones had moved in mere weeks before. I felt kind of stupid not having realised this earlier and I opened my mouth to apologise for my stupidity. She continued before I could, however, as if she knew what I thought and wanted to prevent me from saying anything to the likes of that. “Rough day?”
I looked at her for a moment longer, before sighing. “Something like that.” I then agreed and she smiled sourly.
“I hear you.” she replied, shrugging a little. “I just got here a week and a half ago and already I find myself wanting to go back.” There was a smile on her face. “Nice neighbourhood but no people to talk to whatsoever at school – or anywhere else for that matter.” I huffed at her words.
“You’re going to university already, right?” I wondered, making her nod shortly so I immediately continued, my voice turning into some kind of sneer. “You should look around. There are near a thousand people walking around there, just walk up to one and start talking. You should try the one called Kim Heechul from the last year of medical studies. He seems to be very friendly with people.”
“Sounds like he’s your best buddy.” she replied, chuckling. “My name is Yoon Sanghee, nice to meet you.” I couldn’t help but smile slightly back at her.
“Kang Soojin.” I introduced myself. “Nice to meet you too. Please excuse me as I go slaughter people to feel better.” I turned around and walked back into the house, not caring if I was being rude or whatever, but merely wanting to escape to a whole other world so I wouldn’t have to think about the harsh reality of having lost my boyfriend. I wasn’t given that chance, however, as Yumiko intercepted me halfway up the stairs, not letting me go until I told her everything.
Characters: Kibum, OC, SJ
Rating: PG
Chaptercount: 32/36
Summary: Soojin meets a guy who turns her world upside down but then there's a few dozen others as well.
A/N: This is one of my most beloved novels (not that I wrote THAT many, but still) and I think I will forever cherish the characters in this. This story also helped me shape my view on the different members and is the first of few stories in which I used first person.
- - - - -
The next day came sooner than expected or wanted, and 1 PM found me faithfully sitting at one of the tables of the pancake house, waiting for my boyfriend. Throughout the five hours I had been up and running, there had already been an equal amount of people asking me if everything was alright with me, one of them being a customer. I gave them all the same answer -that I was feeling slightly sick, but no, I didn’t want to take the day off, because I would be fine- and escaped their presence as soon as I could.
There was no way of escaping Henry, however, so he kept inquiring after my health and feelings all the way until Kibum came strolling in at exactly 1 PM. I got up from my seat to greet him and he sent me a slight smile, as if unsure what to think of the whole situation. When he reached me, however, he pulled me into a short hug, before tugging me outside with him. I followed, after telling Henry I would take a break, softly prying my wrist out of Kibum’s grip and trying my best to keep a cool and composed expression, while on the inside I felt like dying right there and then. He kept walking until we were at the part of the garden that was furthest away from the house, which was here he stopped and turned around to look at me.
“There’s something you’re not telling me.” he then stated, immediately cutting to the core of the problem. There was not a single bit of accusation in his voice, but the way he lovingly took my hand and the solely worried expression on his face made me feel worse than any other emotion could have done. I just looked at him for a long time, not knowing what to say, until he seemed to realise that I was not going to speak. “We can’t be like this, Jinnie. Something’s wrong and you’re trying to avoid me because of it. I want to know what’s going on, because your behaviour worries me. Is it something I said or did?”
“No, Kibum.. It’s not you. It definitely isn’t you.” I quickly replied, not wanting him to think it was for any part whatsoever his fault. He sighed at the short answer, but seemed glad I was finally talking.
“Then tell me, Jinnie, what IS wrong?”
An even longer silence than the first one ensued. In my mind, I was going over all the possible things I could tell him that might make the situation take a turn for the better, but ever single option was discarded, because to make things sound less bad I would have to lie to Kibum and that was something that I didn’t want to ever do. Yet the truth was also not something I would like to tell him.. As the silence grew longer, the more the emotions seemed to get sucked out of his face. After ten long minutes he seemed to give up, turning around and starting to walk away.
“Please wait!” I called out, making him stop and look back.
“Why?” he replied. “You won’t tell me anything, so I have no reason to be here.”
“It’s.. Complicated.” I sighed. Because, really.. How do you tell your boyfriend that you kissed with two other guys in one week’s time without really meaning to? He turned around so that he was fully facing me again and took a step closer towards me, taking my hands in his and looking me right in the eyes.
“Tell me, Jinnie, please..” he almost pleaded and I felt my heart clench at the desperation in his voice.
“Fine. I will.” I gave in. “But I just don’t want to lose you.” He frowned at those words, but I merely motioned him to sit down on the little wall as I did so myself. He sank down next to me, letting his eyes trail my face in what was probably the hope to find something there. I meanwhile sorted out my thoughts and took a deep breath, deciding to just tell him the straight out truth without sugar-coating anything. I kept my eyes pointed at the ground as I started talking.
Ten minutes later I finished explaining it all to him, not knowing what reaction to expect. I told him about the drunk Heechul suddenly kissing me and the just as unexpected kiss with Donghae. I made sure to stress the fact that Donghae hadn’t known about him and me, because in reality, he had done nothing wrong, so I didn’t want to create a fight between friends who shouldn’t be fighting at all. When the silence dragged on, I sighed, being the first to break through the long minutes of nothingness.
“I’m sorry.” I repeated for the twenty millionth time in the past ten minutes. “I still do love you, Kibum, and I really don’t want to lose you, but I realise that these things… I’m just really sorry, Bummie.” It took me a lot of willpower to keep the tears from rolling down my cheeks, but somehow I managed, because I didn’t want him to think I was trying to convince him to stay with my tears. But still nothing came in reaction to my words. Kibum was staring blankly ahead, not giving a single sign of life. He didn’t even seem to be breathing. It was only after a few more minutes that he suddenly took a deep breath.
“I guess I should have expected this.” he mumbled, still staring rather blankly ahead. “When things seem too good to be true, they mostly are. I guess in the end it wasn’t me who was meant for you. So then this is the end, don’t you think?” I had to swallow the lump in my throat to be able to reply to that.
“I don’t know. You’re the one making the decisions and I’m the one following.” I choked out. He smiled a sad smile at those words. “But please don’t..” I desperately continued. “Please don’t make this the end. If I could do it over I would have spent every single day by your side and never even once looked at Heechul or Donghae or anyone..” My voice slowly died away as it became harder not to cry and when Kibum slowly turned to look at me at the end of my speech, my words got completely lost in the deep pool of hurt and disappointment that were his eyes.
“I..” he started and it was the way he averted his eyes to something behind me that told me whatever he was going to say next would not be good. “I need time to think this over, Jinnie.” I felt my heart plummet right down into my stomach at those words and all life seemed to be sucked out of my face as I turned a very white shade of pale, but all I could really do was nod, because I had no right to hold him back when he stood up. He sent another look my way that was filled with so many different emotions that I felt a twinge of pain in my abdomen, caused by the feeling of guilt.
I had realised the cold truth that I had lost Kibum over my own stupidity. There were tears to cry, but they didn’t fall, and words to say that I couldn’t form. Kibum’s look changed as he watched me and despite having said he needed time, he was obviously still sad to see my hurt expression. His hand twitched slightly, as if wanting to touch me, but he pulled away last minute and took a small step back.
“I’ll see you around, I guess.. I’ll call you about this, okay?” he mumbled, before turning around and walking away. I stared after him, knowing I would probably never get a call at all, but unable to go after him nonetheless. I knew that whatever he was thinking were probably bad things about me that I had more than deserved, so there was no point in me running after him, futilely trying to change his mind. Yet still I couldn’t keep his name from rolling off my lips, but it was nothing more than a whisper and he was already way too far to hear it.
I don’t really remember what things crossed my mind as I sat on the wall, or maybe I just wasn’t thinking at all, but by the time Henry came searching for me, slightly worried because of my sudden absence, I had already replayed the scene a million times in my head, trying to find anything that assured me of the fact I was really going to get a call. I found nothing. Kibum had no reason whatsoever to forgive me. After all, I had broken his trust -and his heart- and nothing lose to what I had done could change or heal that. It was that kind of desperation Henry saw when he walked around the corner and found me.
The moment he saw my face, he was by my side in no time, sitting down next to me and putting an arm around my shoulders. I sighed slightly, but let myself be pulled against him anyway. He fussed a little over me, stroking my upper arm and mumbling some nonsensical but soothing words to me, and despite being older than him, I felt protected in his ams. It was a nice change on the utter and completely lost feeling I had before he came by, but it still didn’t make things any better. He rocked me back and forth a little, making me smile a sad smile. I missed the worry on his face when he looked at my beat expression.
I stayed in his embrace for a while, until the time started pressing and we both remembered the customers. In the end, I rubbed my hands over my face, trying to wake myself up and getting my feet back on the ground. We walked back through the garden, into the house, and I took up my job again. After delivering a few orders to the wrong table, Henry ordered me to stay in the kitchen. I did burn a few pancakes, but it was better than throwing pancakes, sugar or ice cream on one of the customers.
It was a strange and fluctuant day, an amount of unplanned events happening while I was going through the day like a zombie. By the time I got home, I had almost been responsible for two accidents on the road and part of my still working brain told me it would be better not to go out with my car anymore when I was upset. I got out of my car as a dishevelled heap of human, staggering to the door and getting into the house with much difficulty.
My mom’s questioning went by unanswered as I crossed the distance from the front door to the back one, disappearing into our small yard. I kicked a stone that randomly lay on my path and started fuming, letting out a few occasional cries of discontent, until a sudden amused laugh made me freeze and look up...and up. In the end, my gaze came to rest on a girl sitting in our neighbour’s tree house.
“Who are you?” I wondered surprised, because I had never seen her before. She chuckled as I fired a second question. “And what are you doing in my neighbour’s tree?” The girl’s face brightened as a wide grin pulled up the corners of her mouth.
“I AM your neighbour.” she replied. It was then that I realised our neighbours had changed as the new ones had moved in mere weeks before. I felt kind of stupid not having realised this earlier and I opened my mouth to apologise for my stupidity. She continued before I could, however, as if she knew what I thought and wanted to prevent me from saying anything to the likes of that. “Rough day?”
I looked at her for a moment longer, before sighing. “Something like that.” I then agreed and she smiled sourly.
“I hear you.” she replied, shrugging a little. “I just got here a week and a half ago and already I find myself wanting to go back.” There was a smile on her face. “Nice neighbourhood but no people to talk to whatsoever at school – or anywhere else for that matter.” I huffed at her words.
“You’re going to university already, right?” I wondered, making her nod shortly so I immediately continued, my voice turning into some kind of sneer. “You should look around. There are near a thousand people walking around there, just walk up to one and start talking. You should try the one called Kim Heechul from the last year of medical studies. He seems to be very friendly with people.”
“Sounds like he’s your best buddy.” she replied, chuckling. “My name is Yoon Sanghee, nice to meet you.” I couldn’t help but smile slightly back at her.
“Kang Soojin.” I introduced myself. “Nice to meet you too. Please excuse me as I go slaughter people to feel better.” I turned around and walked back into the house, not caring if I was being rude or whatever, but merely wanting to escape to a whole other world so I wouldn’t have to think about the harsh reality of having lost my boyfriend. I wasn’t given that chance, however, as Yumiko intercepted me halfway up the stairs, not letting me go until I told her everything.
[FIC] It's Complicated
Title: It's Complicated
Characters: Kibum, OC, SJ
Rating: PG
Chaptercount: 31/36
Summary: Soojin meets a guy who turns her world upside down but then there's a few dozen others as well.
A/N: This is one of my most beloved novels (not that I wrote THAT many, but still) and I think I will forever cherish the characters in this. This story also helped me shape my view on the different members and is the first of few stories in which I used first person.
- - - - -
Donghae got out the soccer ball again and toyed a little with it in his hands as we took a seat on the bleachers. I sat down next to him, remaining silent as I wondered why exactly he stayed behind with me. I didn’t need to wait long for him to start a conversation, though, which was expected from an overactive guy like him.
“You’ve been spending a lot of time with us lately.” he said, looking up at me. “And now your other friends came to join us even. Did something happen between you and the other guys?” I was able to look back for four seconds before I averted my eyes to the ground.
“No, nothing happened. I just like spending time with you.” I replied, feeling a sting inside because of lying about nothing having happened. I heard a soft sound next to me and when I looked up, I saw he was smiling a particularly happy smile.
“That’s nice. We like to spend time with you too, but now we at least have a chance to do so.” he chuckled. I smiled back at him.
“Yes. Apparently I am a widely demanded product.” I joked, causing him to laugh. His full-out laugh was very loud and carefree, a sound that seemed to make me feel a bit happier as well. I looked at him with a smile on my face, until I felt the urge to say something more. “Can I have a hug?” My question caught him off guard and he stared at me for a long moment, before recovering and smiling brightly again.
“Of course! Why do you even ask! Hugging is even better than chocolate!” he exclaimed. I couldn’t help laughing softly at the comparison.
“It’s just that some people are not that fond of sudden physical contact. Like the first time I came here and you hugged me out of nowhere. That kind of surprised me.” I explained to him. He grinned sheepishly, looking away from me as well in embarrassment.
“Oh.. Well.. Sorry.. I’m an easy hugger.” he then apologised, scratching the back of his head, a move that made me chuckle.
“Don’t worry. I got over being assaulted by some random dude a long time ago already.” I said in a joking tone, trying to ease his uncomfortable feeling. It seemed to work, because he sent me a happy grin and opened his arms in an obvious invitation. I scooted a little closer and gave him a short hug, letting go again already after a few seconds. He gave me a pout, which caused me to frown in surprise.
“Is that all I get?” he asked me with a slightly amused expression. I should’ve been smart then and taken my distance, but I didn’t, and before I knew it, he had closed the distance between us and kissed me. It was a soft pressing of lips against lips, sweet and so different from kissing Heechul; no cigarettes or alcohol, no strange positions, just an enjoyable kiss. Enjoyable.. Kiss.. With Donghae.. The moment the still conscious part of my brain followed up on that trail of thoughts, I realised what I was doing; kissing someone who was not my boyfriend.
I pulled away immediately, eyes wide in shock as the hard truth of the whole event carved itself into my brain. I saw flashes of my memories about Heechul kissing me and I could already imagine Kibum’s disappointed and hurt expression when I told him about both events - because obviously I could not keep something like that from him any longer, it would be downright evil. As I jumped up from the bleachers, looking around to find a reason for me to pull away so suddenly, Donghae just gave me a surprised look, obviously wondering what had gotten into me all of a sudden. I panicked slightly, but then realised that I should just tell him the truth, so I turned to him and tried to compose myself before speaking.
“Donghae, I’m so sorry, but I can’t..” I started rattling. “I have a boyfriend, actually, and I know I should have told you, but instead I just kept giving you the wrong signals. I’m very sorry. I really like you and I feel attracted to you, but I should never have let it gotten this far. I should have told you from the start. Please don’t think this is your fault. I’m very sorry. I will leave first.” I quickly turned around, grabbed my bag and fled the soccer field as fast as I could. I wasn’t able to run far, though, because before I reached the edge of the field, he had caught up with me, putting a hand on my shoulder to hold me back.
“Jin.” he said, coming to stand in front of me. “Please don’t run away. I am very sorry. If I had known you had a boyfriend, I would never have tried to get closer to you. You didn’t give the wrong signals, because I never thought you saw me as more than just a friend, but I just had to give it a shot.” He let go of me and took a step back. “Let’s just forget about all this and go on like nothing happened. Can we do that? I don’t want you to lose more friends because of me.”
He was looking at me with a pleading look and all I could do was nod, fighting hard against the tears that threatened to flood my eyes. I swallowed a few times and nodded again, just to not look like a complete idiot. Before Donghae could say more, I sidestepped him and started walking again, not really knowing where I was going to. He caught my wrist in his grip after I had only taken two steps and sent me an unsure smile. “I’ll bring you home?”
The walk to the car and the whole drive to my house went by in an awkward silence. I was thinking about how to explain both events to my boyfriend, and Donghae was probably waiting for me to talk to him first, so no one said a word. Once at my house, I said goodbye with a short ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Hae.’ and then left. I spent the rest of the evening pondering and trying to find a way to undo the past six days, but of course there was no such thing, so I went to bed with the crappy feeling that I had a terrible confession coming up, because there was nothing I could do or say to make things better.
The next day already brought up the unwanted subject, signalling the beginning of the end. I had fled from Kibum for far too long by then, of course, so that Friday, I was almost immediately caught in his embrace the moment I got out of my car. He told me he missed me, which first made me smile warmly, but then brought the intense feeling of guilt back again. I managed to pry myself out of his grip with the excuse that I needed to get to class, but he didn’t let me leave until I had promised to spend some time with him after classes.
Because of that, my day passed in another haze of guilt and what-should-I-do-now. I did spend some time with the soccer game again in between my few classes, but even though Donghae acted like nothing had happened between us -except for maybe keeping a slight bit more distance- I didn’t feel comfortable anymore - which was mostly because I was simply feeling uncomfortable in general. Yet anything was better than having to face Kibum, of course, but sadly enough that was also inevitable.
So there I was, at around 4 PM that Friday, sitting at the side of the basketball court, with Kibum’s arms around my middle. We shared some dilly-dallies and sat quietly snuggled together, sharing a quite peaceful moment together, which had really been a long time ago. I tried my best to stay unsuspicious and normal, but was having a hard time trying to keep smiling and receiving his love without cringing away from it. At a certain moment, I decided to pop the question that had been occupying my mind for a while by then.
“I want to ask you something.” I mumbled, looking up at him. He looked down at me as well and smiled.
“Ask away.” he then said. “You know I’ll try to answer everything truthfully.”
“That girl Jongwoon told us about.. The one you liked about a year ago.. Did anything ever happen between you two? Did you confess to her?” I hesitated a little as I talked, but decided in the end to ask it anyway.
“I did.. But only after a long time.” he replied, immediately catching on to what I was talking about. I was glad he didn’t feel awkward talking about her, because I was pretty sure that talking about a previous love with your current one must be rather hard.
“Did she.. I don’t know.. Accept your confession?” I wondered. He smiled a bright smile and nodded. I bit my lower lip, wondering if I should ask my question or not. In the end I decided I couldn’t back down at this point, so I went straight on with it. “How long were the two of you together?” A soft chuckle came from Kibum and he pulled me a little closer against him.
“Actually I don’t know.” he said, sounding amused.
“You don’t know? How can you not know how long you were together with your girlfriend?” I blurted out in shock. He laughed, making me frown and eye him suspiciously. He obviously was up to something. He leaned in to press a soft kiss on my cheek before replying, however, which caused a flash of guilt to surge through me and make me bite my own tongue to keep myself from running away.
“Because we haven’t broken up yet.” he said. I immediately snapped my head towards him and stared at him with big eyes.
“You have two g-” I started, but then the meaning of his words got through to me. “That was me?” I therefore changed my question, pointing a finger at myself and staring at him in disbelief. He chuckled and then pulled me closer so he could muzzle his nose against my cheek.
“Silly Jinnie.” he whispered, causing me to feel an icy coldness take over my body. The feeling of having betrayed him grew in me and I almost couldn’t stand acting like I deserved his arms around me. I felt horrible, the images of Heechul and Donghae flashing through my mind. Apparently I tensed up and Kibum noticed, because he moved away from me a little and shot me a questioning look. “Is something wrong?” he asked surprised. I quickly shook my head.
“No. It’s just.. It’s so.. Unexpected. You liked me since.. So long.. It’s just..” I said, taking the opportunity to pull free from his arms and get up. He followed me with his eyes, the pain visible in his expression, and I almost felt my heart clench seeing how I hurt him, but how could I stay so close to him if he loved me like this -for who knows how long- and I just went around kissing other people? It wasn’t fair towards him, nor was it something he deserved. ‘Not telling him is even more unfair towards him.’ something in the back of my mind told me, making me feel even more guilty. I quickly grabbed my bag and looked at him. “I’m sorry, I have to go to work.” I mumbled, before leaving.
I was near tears the whole drive to the pancake house and when I arrived there, I almost broke down and cried, but there were customers and Henry just came out of the kitchen that instant, so somehow I managed to keep my head up. That was until my phone beeped and I got a text from Kibum, causing me to sink down on a chair in the kitchen for a moment as I read it with a heavy heart.
‘We need to talk. Tomorrow, 1 PM at the pancake house. x’
I could really hang myself. Kibum had liked me a year ago already, which meant that he might have loved me even before that. Me, who had taken all those sincere feelings of him for granted and threw them away carelessly.. And now it was time for me to go and tell the sweetest guy the world had ever seen that he had hooked up with the most selfish and stupid girl ever. It sucked and I was not feeling good about it, for sure.
Somehow I managed to work my shift without looking suspicious, though, but when I went to bed without having had dinner, it caused Yumiko to come in and ask a million questions about ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ and ‘Did something happen between Donghae and you?’ When I refused to talk, she left me alone again to go out with Zhou Mi and the group I normally also hung out with on Friday evenings. Yet after the whole course of events, I didn’t really look forward to spending time in a close proximity with Kibum, and judging from his text, he had expected that.
Characters: Kibum, OC, SJ
Rating: PG
Chaptercount: 31/36
Summary: Soojin meets a guy who turns her world upside down but then there's a few dozen others as well.
A/N: This is one of my most beloved novels (not that I wrote THAT many, but still) and I think I will forever cherish the characters in this. This story also helped me shape my view on the different members and is the first of few stories in which I used first person.
- - - - -
Donghae got out the soccer ball again and toyed a little with it in his hands as we took a seat on the bleachers. I sat down next to him, remaining silent as I wondered why exactly he stayed behind with me. I didn’t need to wait long for him to start a conversation, though, which was expected from an overactive guy like him.
“You’ve been spending a lot of time with us lately.” he said, looking up at me. “And now your other friends came to join us even. Did something happen between you and the other guys?” I was able to look back for four seconds before I averted my eyes to the ground.
“No, nothing happened. I just like spending time with you.” I replied, feeling a sting inside because of lying about nothing having happened. I heard a soft sound next to me and when I looked up, I saw he was smiling a particularly happy smile.
“That’s nice. We like to spend time with you too, but now we at least have a chance to do so.” he chuckled. I smiled back at him.
“Yes. Apparently I am a widely demanded product.” I joked, causing him to laugh. His full-out laugh was very loud and carefree, a sound that seemed to make me feel a bit happier as well. I looked at him with a smile on my face, until I felt the urge to say something more. “Can I have a hug?” My question caught him off guard and he stared at me for a long moment, before recovering and smiling brightly again.
“Of course! Why do you even ask! Hugging is even better than chocolate!” he exclaimed. I couldn’t help laughing softly at the comparison.
“It’s just that some people are not that fond of sudden physical contact. Like the first time I came here and you hugged me out of nowhere. That kind of surprised me.” I explained to him. He grinned sheepishly, looking away from me as well in embarrassment.
“Oh.. Well.. Sorry.. I’m an easy hugger.” he then apologised, scratching the back of his head, a move that made me chuckle.
“Don’t worry. I got over being assaulted by some random dude a long time ago already.” I said in a joking tone, trying to ease his uncomfortable feeling. It seemed to work, because he sent me a happy grin and opened his arms in an obvious invitation. I scooted a little closer and gave him a short hug, letting go again already after a few seconds. He gave me a pout, which caused me to frown in surprise.
“Is that all I get?” he asked me with a slightly amused expression. I should’ve been smart then and taken my distance, but I didn’t, and before I knew it, he had closed the distance between us and kissed me. It was a soft pressing of lips against lips, sweet and so different from kissing Heechul; no cigarettes or alcohol, no strange positions, just an enjoyable kiss. Enjoyable.. Kiss.. With Donghae.. The moment the still conscious part of my brain followed up on that trail of thoughts, I realised what I was doing; kissing someone who was not my boyfriend.
I pulled away immediately, eyes wide in shock as the hard truth of the whole event carved itself into my brain. I saw flashes of my memories about Heechul kissing me and I could already imagine Kibum’s disappointed and hurt expression when I told him about both events - because obviously I could not keep something like that from him any longer, it would be downright evil. As I jumped up from the bleachers, looking around to find a reason for me to pull away so suddenly, Donghae just gave me a surprised look, obviously wondering what had gotten into me all of a sudden. I panicked slightly, but then realised that I should just tell him the truth, so I turned to him and tried to compose myself before speaking.
“Donghae, I’m so sorry, but I can’t..” I started rattling. “I have a boyfriend, actually, and I know I should have told you, but instead I just kept giving you the wrong signals. I’m very sorry. I really like you and I feel attracted to you, but I should never have let it gotten this far. I should have told you from the start. Please don’t think this is your fault. I’m very sorry. I will leave first.” I quickly turned around, grabbed my bag and fled the soccer field as fast as I could. I wasn’t able to run far, though, because before I reached the edge of the field, he had caught up with me, putting a hand on my shoulder to hold me back.
“Jin.” he said, coming to stand in front of me. “Please don’t run away. I am very sorry. If I had known you had a boyfriend, I would never have tried to get closer to you. You didn’t give the wrong signals, because I never thought you saw me as more than just a friend, but I just had to give it a shot.” He let go of me and took a step back. “Let’s just forget about all this and go on like nothing happened. Can we do that? I don’t want you to lose more friends because of me.”
He was looking at me with a pleading look and all I could do was nod, fighting hard against the tears that threatened to flood my eyes. I swallowed a few times and nodded again, just to not look like a complete idiot. Before Donghae could say more, I sidestepped him and started walking again, not really knowing where I was going to. He caught my wrist in his grip after I had only taken two steps and sent me an unsure smile. “I’ll bring you home?”
The walk to the car and the whole drive to my house went by in an awkward silence. I was thinking about how to explain both events to my boyfriend, and Donghae was probably waiting for me to talk to him first, so no one said a word. Once at my house, I said goodbye with a short ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Hae.’ and then left. I spent the rest of the evening pondering and trying to find a way to undo the past six days, but of course there was no such thing, so I went to bed with the crappy feeling that I had a terrible confession coming up, because there was nothing I could do or say to make things better.
The next day already brought up the unwanted subject, signalling the beginning of the end. I had fled from Kibum for far too long by then, of course, so that Friday, I was almost immediately caught in his embrace the moment I got out of my car. He told me he missed me, which first made me smile warmly, but then brought the intense feeling of guilt back again. I managed to pry myself out of his grip with the excuse that I needed to get to class, but he didn’t let me leave until I had promised to spend some time with him after classes.
Because of that, my day passed in another haze of guilt and what-should-I-do-now. I did spend some time with the soccer game again in between my few classes, but even though Donghae acted like nothing had happened between us -except for maybe keeping a slight bit more distance- I didn’t feel comfortable anymore - which was mostly because I was simply feeling uncomfortable in general. Yet anything was better than having to face Kibum, of course, but sadly enough that was also inevitable.
So there I was, at around 4 PM that Friday, sitting at the side of the basketball court, with Kibum’s arms around my middle. We shared some dilly-dallies and sat quietly snuggled together, sharing a quite peaceful moment together, which had really been a long time ago. I tried my best to stay unsuspicious and normal, but was having a hard time trying to keep smiling and receiving his love without cringing away from it. At a certain moment, I decided to pop the question that had been occupying my mind for a while by then.
“I want to ask you something.” I mumbled, looking up at him. He looked down at me as well and smiled.
“Ask away.” he then said. “You know I’ll try to answer everything truthfully.”
“That girl Jongwoon told us about.. The one you liked about a year ago.. Did anything ever happen between you two? Did you confess to her?” I hesitated a little as I talked, but decided in the end to ask it anyway.
“I did.. But only after a long time.” he replied, immediately catching on to what I was talking about. I was glad he didn’t feel awkward talking about her, because I was pretty sure that talking about a previous love with your current one must be rather hard.
“Did she.. I don’t know.. Accept your confession?” I wondered. He smiled a bright smile and nodded. I bit my lower lip, wondering if I should ask my question or not. In the end I decided I couldn’t back down at this point, so I went straight on with it. “How long were the two of you together?” A soft chuckle came from Kibum and he pulled me a little closer against him.
“Actually I don’t know.” he said, sounding amused.
“You don’t know? How can you not know how long you were together with your girlfriend?” I blurted out in shock. He laughed, making me frown and eye him suspiciously. He obviously was up to something. He leaned in to press a soft kiss on my cheek before replying, however, which caused a flash of guilt to surge through me and make me bite my own tongue to keep myself from running away.
“Because we haven’t broken up yet.” he said. I immediately snapped my head towards him and stared at him with big eyes.
“You have two g-” I started, but then the meaning of his words got through to me. “That was me?” I therefore changed my question, pointing a finger at myself and staring at him in disbelief. He chuckled and then pulled me closer so he could muzzle his nose against my cheek.
“Silly Jinnie.” he whispered, causing me to feel an icy coldness take over my body. The feeling of having betrayed him grew in me and I almost couldn’t stand acting like I deserved his arms around me. I felt horrible, the images of Heechul and Donghae flashing through my mind. Apparently I tensed up and Kibum noticed, because he moved away from me a little and shot me a questioning look. “Is something wrong?” he asked surprised. I quickly shook my head.
“No. It’s just.. It’s so.. Unexpected. You liked me since.. So long.. It’s just..” I said, taking the opportunity to pull free from his arms and get up. He followed me with his eyes, the pain visible in his expression, and I almost felt my heart clench seeing how I hurt him, but how could I stay so close to him if he loved me like this -for who knows how long- and I just went around kissing other people? It wasn’t fair towards him, nor was it something he deserved. ‘Not telling him is even more unfair towards him.’ something in the back of my mind told me, making me feel even more guilty. I quickly grabbed my bag and looked at him. “I’m sorry, I have to go to work.” I mumbled, before leaving.
I was near tears the whole drive to the pancake house and when I arrived there, I almost broke down and cried, but there were customers and Henry just came out of the kitchen that instant, so somehow I managed to keep my head up. That was until my phone beeped and I got a text from Kibum, causing me to sink down on a chair in the kitchen for a moment as I read it with a heavy heart.
‘We need to talk. Tomorrow, 1 PM at the pancake house. x’
I could really hang myself. Kibum had liked me a year ago already, which meant that he might have loved me even before that. Me, who had taken all those sincere feelings of him for granted and threw them away carelessly.. And now it was time for me to go and tell the sweetest guy the world had ever seen that he had hooked up with the most selfish and stupid girl ever. It sucked and I was not feeling good about it, for sure.
Somehow I managed to work my shift without looking suspicious, though, but when I went to bed without having had dinner, it caused Yumiko to come in and ask a million questions about ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ and ‘Did something happen between Donghae and you?’ When I refused to talk, she left me alone again to go out with Zhou Mi and the group I normally also hung out with on Friday evenings. Yet after the whole course of events, I didn’t really look forward to spending time in a close proximity with Kibum, and judging from his text, he had expected that.
[FIC] It's Complicated
Title: It's Complicated
Characters: Kibum, OC, SJ
Rating: PG
Chaptercount: 30/36
Summary: Soojin meets a guy who turns her world upside down but then there's a few dozen others as well.
A/N: This is one of my most beloved novels (not that I wrote THAT many, but still) and I think I will forever cherish the characters in this. This story also helped me shape my view on the different members and is the first of few stories in which I used first person.
- - - - -
Once I came back out, I simply had lunch with the two after which Zhou Mi left to meet up with some friends. I spent another hour or so with Kibum after that, mostly just cuddling on the couch in front of the TV but also telling him about Heechul almost driving into a lantern pole and Hangeng happily celebrating after I told them about the two of us being together. At around 2 PM, he gave me a ride home. Once there I told my still way too interested mother and an always listening Yumiko about my evening out -wisely leaving out the kiss with Heechul-, before I went up to lock myself in my room and think things over.
But once there, I suddenly found myself slumping into an unexpected surge of guilty. I had spent an entire night and half of the day over at Kibum’s, he had been like the most sweet and attentive boyfriend I could have wished for, and yet I didn’t even once mention the fact that Heechul was drunk and had kissed me. I had been given so many opportunities to confess and it wasn’t like Kibum would hate me for it, because it wasn’t even my fault, but somehow I felt that if it was nothing anyway, it might be safer not to tell him. I didn’t mention any of that evening’s events to him, yet he never asked me why I had wanted to spend the night over at his place, when my own house was just as far away from Heechul’s as his was.
I really did feel bad for not telling Kibum, but the guilt soon turned into anger towards Heechul for kissing me. Anger I had not used the previous day when I was with him still. Unable to do anything with the anger, I started up my computer to play some and hopefully kill some people to ease my feelings. Yet when the computer started up my messenger started as well, and there was Heechul himself, online. I almost growled at my computer screen and quickly opened up a conversation with him so I could release my anger on that so-called good friend of mine.
Snipe says: Kim Heechul! >.>
(*) Hee Cee is in the house (H) Yo touch me man what’s up says: Snipey! :D Here you are! :D I was looking for you!
Snipe says: Why?
(*) Hee Cee is in the house (H) Yo touch me man what’s up says: Well I vaguely remembered that you brought us home and all, but when I woke up, you were nowhere to be seen and Hannie told me you went back home yesterday, but when I called Yumiko, she said you weren’t around there either, so we got a little worried. D:
Snipe says: Worried? You? Don’t make me laugh, please. 8-)
(*) Hee Cee is in the house (H) Yo touch me man what’s up says: What!? :O Of course I worry about you! You’re my friend! <3 Where were you anyway and why do I have the feeling you’re angry at me?
Snipe says: Where I was is none of your business, Chul. And let me think.. Oh.. Maybe because I AM angry at you. >.>
(*) Hee Cee is in the house (H) Yo touch me man what’s up says: Angry? At me? O_o How is that possible? I never do anything wrong! D:
Snipe says: Oh no? I wouldn’t call your actions right, though.
(*) Hee Cee is in the house (H) Yo touch me man what’s up says: My actions? I believe you lost me.. Did something happen yesterday, Soojin? :S
For a moment I was stunned, because he used my real name. I faintly realised that he was really worried that he had done something bad and my anger slowly dimmed to a less life-threatening stage. I felt slightly sorry for bitching at him when he didn’t even know what he had done, so I calmed myself down and tried to answer him as detailed as possible while still remaining composed myself.
Snipe says: I was going to stay over, but when I was trying to find out from you where I could find a sleeping bag to use, you just pulled me to you and kissed me. On my mouth. Then you lay back down and fell asleep.
(*) Hee Cee is in the house (H) Yo touch me man what’s up says: … Did I really?
Snipe says: Yes. You did.
(*) Hee Cee is in the house (H) Yo touch me man what’s up says: Oh.. Well.. What are you complaining about then? ^^ Gosh, Snipe, you shouldn’t overreact all the time. It was just a kiss. :D
Snipe says: What? O_o
(*) Hee Cee is in the house (H) Yo touch me man what’s up says: I mean.. It’s kind of funny that you tell me this, actually. :P I’ve been wanting to do that for so long now.. I can’t believe that I finally did it, but then was so drunk that I forgot all about it. What a stupid way to waste a first kiss. x”D
Well, so far for my feeling sorry for him. He seemed to feel nothing whatsoever hearing about what he had done and appeared to be rather amused by the whole situation. Well maybe he did feel something; regret that he couldn’t remember his own actions anymore. If he had been around at that time, I would probably have thrown something at himpossibly even my computer or given him a good kick, but all I could do as stare at my screen in anger. And then the bomb burst inside of me.
Snipe says: You are seriously the most selfish and annoying guy I’ve ever met. All you ever think about is yourself and you always do things without even wondering how others would feel about that. I hope that you’ll rot in hell for an eternity. Don’t even think about talking to me in the following fifty years, you got that!?
(*) Hee Cee is in the house (H) Yo touch me man what’s up says: What? Snipe, you have to understand..
Please just go die somewhere says: And cut the whole Snipe thing. My name is Soojin and you would do good remembering that in case you miraculously develop brains and decide to say something that makes sense again. Goodbye.
With those last words, I blocked him and then proceeded to throw him out of my contact list. If the idiot wanted to act like that, he could do it on his own, I thought. Yet mere minutes later I was already feeling slightly sorry for my huge outburst. So I added Heechul back into my list, yet left him blocked for the time being. It wouldn’t do to unblock him just to throw some more insults at him, so it was best for the both of us. Instead, I finally opened up my game and spent the rest of my day sniping, earning myself another fifty headshots for the counter by doing so.
Sadly enough, the memory of the kiss didn’t disappear just like that, and I kept feeling guilty every time I thought of Kibum. When I saw him the next day in school it was like a renewal of the whole scene in my head. I tried my best to continue living like I did before, but that didn’t work out. Even without planning to, I found myself making up excuses every time Kibum asked me out, and as soon as I saw Heechul somewhere, I turned around and walked in another direction. Avoiding my two previous companions of course caused me to spend most of my time with the soccer group but obviously that wasn’t the best idea ever either.
In order to have a legal excuse to escape spending time with anyone, I went to the pancake house and begged asked Henry if he didn’t have a part-time job for me so I could work for him after school hours. It didn’t take me that much convincing, because apparently he had wanted some more time for himself and had been asking his parents to hire someone else for a long time now. We basically did each other a favour by making me the new employee. So every day after classes or even during free hours, I went straight to the pancake house to work.
Like that, I managed to professionally avoid Heechuland Kibum for three days before Yumiko started to ask questions. On Thursday, Mi Cha also came by and wondered why I was never with them anymore, and even Jungsoo and Jongwoon came asking me surprised questions. I made up a lame excuse about having had enough of Heechul’s antics and then just left them standing, hurrying to one of my classes or to my car. But of course my friends didn’t let it end like that. So when I walked towards my car on Thursday evening, suddenly Minji, Mi Cha, Namin and Yumiko appeared at my side.
Before I could protest or anything, both my arms were grabbed by Yumiko and Minji respectively, after which they proceeded to drag me into a complete opposite direction than my car’s. Namin meanwhile told me that I was not going to work, they had arranged a replacement for me, and Mi Cha added that we were now going to have some fun together because I had been running away from good old spending time with friends long enough already. When they brought me to the soccer field, I gave them a surprised look, after which they explained that if I didn’t want to spend time with Heechul anymore, they would just spend time with me when he wasn’t around. I felt grateful for that, so I didn’t even once tried to go back to my car, trusting their word for having found a replacement for me.
The boys’ soccer practice that day turned into one big soccer game between all the girls and Sungmin against the rest of the boys, that being Donghae, Hyukjae, Ryeowook and Siwon. Even though it hurts my pride to say this, but we got our butts kicked badly, which wasn’t really a surprise as we were playing against what were probably the school’s best soccer players. We did have Sungmin on our team, but he wasn’t able to make up for the dreadful soccer skills of Minji, Mi Cha, Namin, Yumiko, Sung Yeon and myself.
We still had loads of fun, though. Especially when Sung Yeon started blackmailing Siwon by saying that if he didn’t let her pass by him, she’d never kiss him again. It did work, but sadly enough Ryeowook came running and style the ball from her before she could advance more than two metres past Siwon, and there was no getting the maknae to do what we wanted, because no one had something to blackmail him with. The game ended with a surprising score of 10 against 1 -the one point made by Sungmin of course- and when Minji’s father called to find out where she was, we decided to end the match, all dropping down on the bleachers exhaustedly.
I was the only one to lay down in the grass, closing my eyes and letting my thoughts carry me far away from the soccer field and the soft talking of the others. By the time someone came to sit next to my head, a lot of time had already passed, because when I opened my eyes everyone was gone except for the one sitting next to me. I realised I had fallen asleep, so I quickly jerked upright, waiting a moment to let my body recover from the sudden movement and then looking back at the person sitting next to me.
Donghae sent me a friendly smile. When I asked where everyone else was, he told me they had all gone home as it was nearing dinner time. He proceeded to explain that when they found out I had fallen asleep, he had told Yumiko he would bring me home, so the girl had taken my car and Hyukjae had gotten a ride from Siwon. By the end of his explanation I was feeling rather uncomfortable, like my subconscious was warning me that it was not a good situation for me to be in, but I merely sat up a little better and smiled at him.
Characters: Kibum, OC, SJ
Rating: PG
Chaptercount: 30/36
Summary: Soojin meets a guy who turns her world upside down but then there's a few dozen others as well.
A/N: This is one of my most beloved novels (not that I wrote THAT many, but still) and I think I will forever cherish the characters in this. This story also helped me shape my view on the different members and is the first of few stories in which I used first person.
- - - - -
Once I came back out, I simply had lunch with the two after which Zhou Mi left to meet up with some friends. I spent another hour or so with Kibum after that, mostly just cuddling on the couch in front of the TV but also telling him about Heechul almost driving into a lantern pole and Hangeng happily celebrating after I told them about the two of us being together. At around 2 PM, he gave me a ride home. Once there I told my still way too interested mother and an always listening Yumiko about my evening out -wisely leaving out the kiss with Heechul-, before I went up to lock myself in my room and think things over.
But once there, I suddenly found myself slumping into an unexpected surge of guilty. I had spent an entire night and half of the day over at Kibum’s, he had been like the most sweet and attentive boyfriend I could have wished for, and yet I didn’t even once mention the fact that Heechul was drunk and had kissed me. I had been given so many opportunities to confess and it wasn’t like Kibum would hate me for it, because it wasn’t even my fault, but somehow I felt that if it was nothing anyway, it might be safer not to tell him. I didn’t mention any of that evening’s events to him, yet he never asked me why I had wanted to spend the night over at his place, when my own house was just as far away from Heechul’s as his was.
I really did feel bad for not telling Kibum, but the guilt soon turned into anger towards Heechul for kissing me. Anger I had not used the previous day when I was with him still. Unable to do anything with the anger, I started up my computer to play some and hopefully kill some people to ease my feelings. Yet when the computer started up my messenger started as well, and there was Heechul himself, online. I almost growled at my computer screen and quickly opened up a conversation with him so I could release my anger on that so-called good friend of mine.
Snipe says: Kim Heechul! >.>
(*) Hee Cee is in the house (H) Yo touch me man what’s up says: Snipey! :D Here you are! :D I was looking for you!
Snipe says: Why?
(*) Hee Cee is in the house (H) Yo touch me man what’s up says: Well I vaguely remembered that you brought us home and all, but when I woke up, you were nowhere to be seen and Hannie told me you went back home yesterday, but when I called Yumiko, she said you weren’t around there either, so we got a little worried. D:
Snipe says: Worried? You? Don’t make me laugh, please. 8-)
(*) Hee Cee is in the house (H) Yo touch me man what’s up says: What!? :O Of course I worry about you! You’re my friend! <3 Where were you anyway and why do I have the feeling you’re angry at me?
Snipe says: Where I was is none of your business, Chul. And let me think.. Oh.. Maybe because I AM angry at you. >.>
(*) Hee Cee is in the house (H) Yo touch me man what’s up says: Angry? At me? O_o How is that possible? I never do anything wrong! D:
Snipe says: Oh no? I wouldn’t call your actions right, though.
(*) Hee Cee is in the house (H) Yo touch me man what’s up says: My actions? I believe you lost me.. Did something happen yesterday, Soojin? :S
For a moment I was stunned, because he used my real name. I faintly realised that he was really worried that he had done something bad and my anger slowly dimmed to a less life-threatening stage. I felt slightly sorry for bitching at him when he didn’t even know what he had done, so I calmed myself down and tried to answer him as detailed as possible while still remaining composed myself.
Snipe says: I was going to stay over, but when I was trying to find out from you where I could find a sleeping bag to use, you just pulled me to you and kissed me. On my mouth. Then you lay back down and fell asleep.
(*) Hee Cee is in the house (H) Yo touch me man what’s up says: … Did I really?
Snipe says: Yes. You did.
(*) Hee Cee is in the house (H) Yo touch me man what’s up says: Oh.. Well.. What are you complaining about then? ^^ Gosh, Snipe, you shouldn’t overreact all the time. It was just a kiss. :D
Snipe says: What? O_o
(*) Hee Cee is in the house (H) Yo touch me man what’s up says: I mean.. It’s kind of funny that you tell me this, actually. :P I’ve been wanting to do that for so long now.. I can’t believe that I finally did it, but then was so drunk that I forgot all about it. What a stupid way to waste a first kiss. x”D
Well, so far for my feeling sorry for him. He seemed to feel nothing whatsoever hearing about what he had done and appeared to be rather amused by the whole situation. Well maybe he did feel something; regret that he couldn’t remember his own actions anymore. If he had been around at that time, I would probably have thrown something at him
Snipe says: You are seriously the most selfish and annoying guy I’ve ever met. All you ever think about is yourself and you always do things without even wondering how others would feel about that. I hope that you’ll rot in hell for an eternity. Don’t even think about talking to me in the following fifty years, you got that!?
(*) Hee Cee is in the house (H) Yo touch me man what’s up says: What? Snipe, you have to understand..
Please just go die somewhere says: And cut the whole Snipe thing. My name is Soojin and you would do good remembering that in case you miraculously develop brains and decide to say something that makes sense again. Goodbye.
With those last words, I blocked him and then proceeded to throw him out of my contact list. If the idiot wanted to act like that, he could do it on his own, I thought. Yet mere minutes later I was already feeling slightly sorry for my huge outburst. So I added Heechul back into my list, yet left him blocked for the time being. It wouldn’t do to unblock him just to throw some more insults at him, so it was best for the both of us. Instead, I finally opened up my game and spent the rest of my day sniping, earning myself another fifty headshots for the counter by doing so.
Sadly enough, the memory of the kiss didn’t disappear just like that, and I kept feeling guilty every time I thought of Kibum. When I saw him the next day in school it was like a renewal of the whole scene in my head. I tried my best to continue living like I did before, but that didn’t work out. Even without planning to, I found myself making up excuses every time Kibum asked me out, and as soon as I saw Heechul somewhere, I turned around and walked in another direction. Avoiding my two previous companions of course caused me to spend most of my time with the soccer group but obviously that wasn’t the best idea ever either.
In order to have a legal excuse to escape spending time with anyone, I went to the pancake house and begged asked Henry if he didn’t have a part-time job for me so I could work for him after school hours. It didn’t take me that much convincing, because apparently he had wanted some more time for himself and had been asking his parents to hire someone else for a long time now. We basically did each other a favour by making me the new employee. So every day after classes or even during free hours, I went straight to the pancake house to work.
Like that, I managed to professionally avoid Heechul
Before I could protest or anything, both my arms were grabbed by Yumiko and Minji respectively, after which they proceeded to drag me into a complete opposite direction than my car’s. Namin meanwhile told me that I was not going to work, they had arranged a replacement for me, and Mi Cha added that we were now going to have some fun together because I had been running away from good old spending time with friends long enough already. When they brought me to the soccer field, I gave them a surprised look, after which they explained that if I didn’t want to spend time with Heechul anymore, they would just spend time with me when he wasn’t around. I felt grateful for that, so I didn’t even once tried to go back to my car, trusting their word for having found a replacement for me.
The boys’ soccer practice that day turned into one big soccer game between all the girls and Sungmin against the rest of the boys, that being Donghae, Hyukjae, Ryeowook and Siwon. Even though it hurts my pride to say this, but we got our butts kicked badly, which wasn’t really a surprise as we were playing against what were probably the school’s best soccer players. We did have Sungmin on our team, but he wasn’t able to make up for the dreadful soccer skills of Minji, Mi Cha, Namin, Yumiko, Sung Yeon and myself.
We still had loads of fun, though. Especially when Sung Yeon started blackmailing Siwon by saying that if he didn’t let her pass by him, she’d never kiss him again. It did work, but sadly enough Ryeowook came running and style the ball from her before she could advance more than two metres past Siwon, and there was no getting the maknae to do what we wanted, because no one had something to blackmail him with. The game ended with a surprising score of 10 against 1 -the one point made by Sungmin of course- and when Minji’s father called to find out where she was, we decided to end the match, all dropping down on the bleachers exhaustedly.
I was the only one to lay down in the grass, closing my eyes and letting my thoughts carry me far away from the soccer field and the soft talking of the others. By the time someone came to sit next to my head, a lot of time had already passed, because when I opened my eyes everyone was gone except for the one sitting next to me. I realised I had fallen asleep, so I quickly jerked upright, waiting a moment to let my body recover from the sudden movement and then looking back at the person sitting next to me.
Donghae sent me a friendly smile. When I asked where everyone else was, he told me they had all gone home as it was nearing dinner time. He proceeded to explain that when they found out I had fallen asleep, he had told Yumiko he would bring me home, so the girl had taken my car and Hyukjae had gotten a ride from Siwon. By the end of his explanation I was feeling rather uncomfortable, like my subconscious was warning me that it was not a good situation for me to be in, but I merely sat up a little better and smiled at him.
[FIC] It's Complicated
Title: It's Complicated
Characters: Kibum, OC, SJ
Rating: PG
Chaptercount: 29/36
Summary: Soojin meets a guy who turns her world upside down but then there's a few dozen others as well.
A/N: This is one of my most beloved novels (not that I wrote THAT many, but still) and I think I will forever cherish the characters in this. This story also helped me shape my view on the different members and is the first of few stories in which I used first person.
- - - - -
My boyfriend was rather surprised to have me calling him. Mainly because it was two in the morning and I was supposed to be either out with Heechul and Hangeng or at home and then I would have been able to chat with him online. He was slightly grumpy at first because I had apparently called him out of bed, but the moment he recognised my voice, he brightened up a bit. I smiled at no one in particular hearing his voice and stopped walking to lean against a lantern pole for a bit.
“I’m sorry if I woke you up, oppa.” I apologised, but he immediately discarded that saying it was okay and wondering if there was something wrong. I smiled even wider at the worry in his voice, but then my expression darkened when I remembered what exactly was wrong. “Well I don’t feel like going home right now, but I didn’t want to stay over at Hangeng’s either..” I explained, telling the truth but leaving out a lot of details. “Would you mind if I came over?” There was a short silence in which I feared my question seemed too much to him - it was, after all, the first time I would be in his house after 11 PM - but then he replied.
“Yeah, sure, if you’re okay with that, sure.” His repeated words made me chuckle softly and I could hear the smile in his words as he continued. “Do you need me to come and pick you up? Where are you right now anyway?” he asked. I could hear some rumbling on his side, as if he was getting up, so I was quick to decline his offer.
“I’m two blocks away from Hangeng’s place, but it’s okay, you don’t have to come pick me up. I’ll walk over there, don’t worry. It’s not that far, no need to get up for me. If you just leave the door open or something you can just as well go back to bed and I’ll settle on the couch, that’s no problem.” After my words there was a few seconds silence, before he laughed shortly.
“You’re so strange, Jinnie.” he then told me amusedly. “I’ll see you in twenty minutes.” Before I could ask him what he meant by that - it was after all at least forty minutes walking from where I was to Kibum’s apartment - he had hung up. I gave my phone a surprised look, before shrugging, closing it and putting it away. I then pushed myself from the lantern pole and started walking again.
About fifteen minutes later, Kibum’s car pulled over right next to me. By then I had only walked maybe a quarter of the road to his house. He motioned me to get in, which I did without a second thought. One glance at his outfit showed me that he at least didn’t come pick me up in his pyjamasthat would be more of a Heechul thing to do anyway but had normal clothes on.
Once seated, I closed the door and then leaned in for a quick kisswhich turned out to be a not so quick one, after which Kibum ran a hand through my hair and let his eyes scan my appearance. He didn’t say so, but I knew he was checking if everyone was alright with me, so I sent him a reassuring smile as I let my body relax into the seat. He smiled back, one of those composed smiles that made my heartbeat go in overdrive, before turning back to the road and driving off.
By car it took us only ten minutes to get to his place. At the door of the apartment, he told me to keep it down, because Zhou Mi was asleep already, but I didn’t really need his reminder, as I had figured out as much. We took off our shoes and then tiptoed through the living room and into his room, which was on the opposite side of the apartment as Zhou Mi’s room. He motioned me to sit down on his bed after closing the door, walking up to the wardrobe and opening it.
“Do you want one of my big T-shirts to sleep in?” he asked as he rummaged through the stuff. I nodded, but realised he couldn’t see that so I vocally confirmed it as well. Not that much later he pulled out a blanket and put that next to me on the bed, after which he rummaged a little more and then handed me a large black shirt. He then crouched down next to the bed and pulled a spare pillow from underneath. Even though he tried cleaning it, it still looked rather dusty, so he looked from the pillow at me and back. “If you want you can use my pillow and I’ll sleep on this.” he then offered, making me smile.
“I would like that, yes.” I replied, reaching out to take the pillow from the head end of his bed and pulling it against my chest. He chuckled.
“Okay. I’ll get a new pillowcase for it then.” he chuckled, but I quickly pressed the pillow even closer to my chest and avidly shook my head.
“No. I like it like this.” I protested, cradling the pillow in my arms as if it were something precious.
“Oh you do?” he replied, eyeing me amusedly. I nodded. “And why is that then?”
“Because now it still smells like you.” I mumbled, cherishing the fact that everything around me smelled like Kibum. The mocking expression on his face melted into a warm smile and he reached out a hand to me. When I took it, he easily helped me up from the bed, pulling me into his arms. I wrapped my arms around his middle, thereby squeezing the pillow in between us so that it wouldn’t fall to the ground, and leaned in for a kiss. He didn’t need to think as he closed the rest of the distance to kiss me, causing me to chuckle against his lips.
“I love you.” he mumbled to me, resting his forehead against mine and closing his eyes shortly. I pressed another short kiss on his lips before replying to that.
“You know.. I might not have said this often - only some five hundred times or so - but I love you too. I really do.” I replied with a smile, earning myself another kiss. I then rested my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes, savouring the moment. He softly stroked my back, but after a while it started tickling, so that’s when I slowly let go of him and took hold of the pillow again. The action earned me another smile from him and he gently poked my nose with his finger.
“You’re so silly.” he then told me, causing me to spontaneously blush a bright red, which made him laugh. “And cute.” he then added, running a thumb over my cheek. I captured his hand with my own and tugged him to the bed.
“That’s all very nice and sweet, but I believe I called you out of bed, so I would feel very bad if I would now also keep you up longer than needed. The couch is in the living room, I’ll change in the bathroom, so no need to stay up for me. Goodnight Bummie dear.” I told him, kind of forcing him to sit down. Of course that only worked because he let me.
“Can I have a goodnight kiss?” he pleaded, looking up with a sweet smile and a questioning expression that made me melt immediately.
“Another one? You already got five kisses!” I protested half-heartedly, causing him to pout and cross his arms in front of his chest.
“Five is so little. I should get at least five more.” he said, sulking a little. I laughed and leaned down to press a kiss on his nose.
“Fine then. That was one.” I told him, before giving a kiss on each cheek. “Two and three.” I then gave him a kiss on his forehead. “And four.” After that, I got up, grabbed the shirt and the blanket and walked towards the door.
“Hey, what about the fifth one?” Kibum protested from behind me. I stopped at the door and looked back.
“You’ll get that one when you’re nicely lying in bed under your blanket, and I’m changed.” I replied, giving him a bright smile before walking out of the room. I dumped the blanket and pillow on the couch, after which I tiptoed towards the bathroom. It was right next to Zhou Mi’s room, so I tried to change as silently as possible, splashing a little bit of water in my face and neck to get rid of the sticky feeling I had ever since Heechul had kissed me. Doing that brought back the memory, however, so I cringed in front of the mirror and proceeded to stare at my own face for at least five minutes, trying to see if it was noticeable that he had done so.
Of course I did not see anything bad, except for my own tired face and the huge bags under my eyes, so I sighed and left the bathroom, leaving my clothes nicely folded on top of the laundry basket. I snuck into Kibum’s room again, where I found the owner already in bed again, eyes closed and not moving at all except for his steady breathing. I walked over to the side of the bed as silently as possible and slowly leaned in, pressing a short kiss on his lips. He did not respond at all, making me realise how tired he must really have been to have fallen asleep so quickly again. I smiled slightly and then walked out of his room, whispering a quick ‘Goodnight’ when I was at the door and then leaving for my own improvised bed, where I soon fell asleep myself.
I woke up the next morning - well it was almost noon, but that’s just a minor detail - in a completely foreign room. Looking around, I felt like I faintly recognised the place but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I pushed the blanket off of me and swung my legs over the edge of the single bed, starting to feel a little uncomfortable with the unknown surroundings. As I got up, however, I suddenly noticed a picture on the night table and I almost sighed in relief when I recognised Zhou Mi on it with two people I guessed were his parents.
Realising that I was in Zhou Mi’s room still didn’t make things any less strange, though, as I had no idea how or why I had gone there. For that reason, I got up from the bed and walked out of the room. In the living room, I was greeted with the sight of a completely empty room. Frowning over this, I walked on to the kitchen. There I finally found some life, a happily scurrying Zhou Mi who was obviously busy with preparing lunch. When he noticed me he smiled brightly.
“Good morning sunshine. Are you having lunch with us or should I only cook for two?” he asked me, stroking the silky, reddish hair out of his eyes and focusing back on his pans again. I chuckled.
“You can cook for only two. That’ll still be enough for me to eat along as well.” I told him with a smile, walking over to the fridge to pull out the carton of orange juice. Before I could even walk to the right cupboard, Zhou Mi had already handed me a glass, so I could easily pour myself some juice. “How did I..?” I started asking, looking up at him, but he interrupted me.
“End up in my room? Well, when I woke up at seven I found this unexpected visitor in the couch, which kind of surprised me. This person was still soundly asleep and so was her dearly beloved boyfriend, however, so in order not to wake her up with all my running around in the kitchen and the living room I picked her up and put her in my own bed.” he told me with this dramatic cinema-trailer kind of voice, meanwhile still focusing on his cooking. He then looked up at me and grinned. “I hope you don’t mind. You didn’t respond at all when I tried waking you, so I figured I’d just carry you over to my newly-made bed that is so much more comfortable than the couch.”
“Of course I don’t mind. I slept wonderfully. Thanks for letting me borrow your bed.” I replied, laughing softly. Meanwhile I put the juice back in the fridge, after which I took another sip from my glass. “Where is Kibum, though? Don’t tell me he’s still asleep as well, because that would be like the shock of the century.” I nodded as to give my words more power. Right at that moment, however, two arms were slipped around my middle and said person rested his chin on my shoulder.
“I’m here, Jinnie.” the most beautiful voice in the world sounded next to my ear.Yes, that’s very cliché, so what? It’s also very true. I smiled and turned my head a little to look at him, which earned me a kiss on my cheek and the chance to smell his freshly washed skin and his lemon-scented shower gel. I turned around in his arms and stole a kiss from his lips, which made him smile. I took in the sight of my boyfriend clad in only a comfortable looking jeans and his hair still half wet, and smiled brightly.
“You look good today.” I told him. He grinned and ruffled my hair.
“You look sleepy today. Or better you look like you only just woke up.” he replied, before cocking his head to the side. “Oh.. What a coincidence.. You DID just wake up!” he then exclaimed in mock surprise, making me swat his shoulder.
“You’re so evil to me this early in the morning.” I complained, pulling away from his grip and walking to Zhou Mi to sulk a little to him. Kibum laughed.
“It’s almost noon, you should not complain so much. You called me out of bed at three in the morning, so I feel like I deserve to annoy you at least this tad bit.” he then retorted, making me sputter in search for a reply, but eventually I gave up and sighed.
“Fine. You win. I’m going to get dressed.” I resigned, my shoulder slumping. Mere moments later I was all happy and myself again, though, sending them both a bright smile. “Is it okay if I take a quick shower?” The both of them chuckled and nodded their heads almost in sync, making me giggle and set off skipping to the bathroom.
Characters: Kibum, OC, SJ
Rating: PG
Chaptercount: 29/36
Summary: Soojin meets a guy who turns her world upside down but then there's a few dozen others as well.
A/N: This is one of my most beloved novels (not that I wrote THAT many, but still) and I think I will forever cherish the characters in this. This story also helped me shape my view on the different members and is the first of few stories in which I used first person.
- - - - -
My boyfriend was rather surprised to have me calling him. Mainly because it was two in the morning and I was supposed to be either out with Heechul and Hangeng or at home and then I would have been able to chat with him online. He was slightly grumpy at first because I had apparently called him out of bed, but the moment he recognised my voice, he brightened up a bit. I smiled at no one in particular hearing his voice and stopped walking to lean against a lantern pole for a bit.
“I’m sorry if I woke you up, oppa.” I apologised, but he immediately discarded that saying it was okay and wondering if there was something wrong. I smiled even wider at the worry in his voice, but then my expression darkened when I remembered what exactly was wrong. “Well I don’t feel like going home right now, but I didn’t want to stay over at Hangeng’s either..” I explained, telling the truth but leaving out a lot of details. “Would you mind if I came over?” There was a short silence in which I feared my question seemed too much to him - it was, after all, the first time I would be in his house after 11 PM - but then he replied.
“Yeah, sure, if you’re okay with that, sure.” His repeated words made me chuckle softly and I could hear the smile in his words as he continued. “Do you need me to come and pick you up? Where are you right now anyway?” he asked. I could hear some rumbling on his side, as if he was getting up, so I was quick to decline his offer.
“I’m two blocks away from Hangeng’s place, but it’s okay, you don’t have to come pick me up. I’ll walk over there, don’t worry. It’s not that far, no need to get up for me. If you just leave the door open or something you can just as well go back to bed and I’ll settle on the couch, that’s no problem.” After my words there was a few seconds silence, before he laughed shortly.
“You’re so strange, Jinnie.” he then told me amusedly. “I’ll see you in twenty minutes.” Before I could ask him what he meant by that - it was after all at least forty minutes walking from where I was to Kibum’s apartment - he had hung up. I gave my phone a surprised look, before shrugging, closing it and putting it away. I then pushed myself from the lantern pole and started walking again.
About fifteen minutes later, Kibum’s car pulled over right next to me. By then I had only walked maybe a quarter of the road to his house. He motioned me to get in, which I did without a second thought. One glance at his outfit showed me that he at least didn’t come pick me up in his pyjamas
Once seated, I closed the door and then leaned in for a quick kiss
By car it took us only ten minutes to get to his place. At the door of the apartment, he told me to keep it down, because Zhou Mi was asleep already, but I didn’t really need his reminder, as I had figured out as much. We took off our shoes and then tiptoed through the living room and into his room, which was on the opposite side of the apartment as Zhou Mi’s room. He motioned me to sit down on his bed after closing the door, walking up to the wardrobe and opening it.
“Do you want one of my big T-shirts to sleep in?” he asked as he rummaged through the stuff. I nodded, but realised he couldn’t see that so I vocally confirmed it as well. Not that much later he pulled out a blanket and put that next to me on the bed, after which he rummaged a little more and then handed me a large black shirt. He then crouched down next to the bed and pulled a spare pillow from underneath. Even though he tried cleaning it, it still looked rather dusty, so he looked from the pillow at me and back. “If you want you can use my pillow and I’ll sleep on this.” he then offered, making me smile.
“I would like that, yes.” I replied, reaching out to take the pillow from the head end of his bed and pulling it against my chest. He chuckled.
“Okay. I’ll get a new pillowcase for it then.” he chuckled, but I quickly pressed the pillow even closer to my chest and avidly shook my head.
“No. I like it like this.” I protested, cradling the pillow in my arms as if it were something precious.
“Oh you do?” he replied, eyeing me amusedly. I nodded. “And why is that then?”
“Because now it still smells like you.” I mumbled, cherishing the fact that everything around me smelled like Kibum. The mocking expression on his face melted into a warm smile and he reached out a hand to me. When I took it, he easily helped me up from the bed, pulling me into his arms. I wrapped my arms around his middle, thereby squeezing the pillow in between us so that it wouldn’t fall to the ground, and leaned in for a kiss. He didn’t need to think as he closed the rest of the distance to kiss me, causing me to chuckle against his lips.
“I love you.” he mumbled to me, resting his forehead against mine and closing his eyes shortly. I pressed another short kiss on his lips before replying to that.
“You know.. I might not have said this often - only some five hundred times or so - but I love you too. I really do.” I replied with a smile, earning myself another kiss. I then rested my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes, savouring the moment. He softly stroked my back, but after a while it started tickling, so that’s when I slowly let go of him and took hold of the pillow again. The action earned me another smile from him and he gently poked my nose with his finger.
“You’re so silly.” he then told me, causing me to spontaneously blush a bright red, which made him laugh. “And cute.” he then added, running a thumb over my cheek. I captured his hand with my own and tugged him to the bed.
“That’s all very nice and sweet, but I believe I called you out of bed, so I would feel very bad if I would now also keep you up longer than needed. The couch is in the living room, I’ll change in the bathroom, so no need to stay up for me. Goodnight Bummie dear.” I told him, kind of forcing him to sit down. Of course that only worked because he let me.
“Can I have a goodnight kiss?” he pleaded, looking up with a sweet smile and a questioning expression that made me melt immediately.
“Another one? You already got five kisses!” I protested half-heartedly, causing him to pout and cross his arms in front of his chest.
“Five is so little. I should get at least five more.” he said, sulking a little. I laughed and leaned down to press a kiss on his nose.
“Fine then. That was one.” I told him, before giving a kiss on each cheek. “Two and three.” I then gave him a kiss on his forehead. “And four.” After that, I got up, grabbed the shirt and the blanket and walked towards the door.
“Hey, what about the fifth one?” Kibum protested from behind me. I stopped at the door and looked back.
“You’ll get that one when you’re nicely lying in bed under your blanket, and I’m changed.” I replied, giving him a bright smile before walking out of the room. I dumped the blanket and pillow on the couch, after which I tiptoed towards the bathroom. It was right next to Zhou Mi’s room, so I tried to change as silently as possible, splashing a little bit of water in my face and neck to get rid of the sticky feeling I had ever since Heechul had kissed me. Doing that brought back the memory, however, so I cringed in front of the mirror and proceeded to stare at my own face for at least five minutes, trying to see if it was noticeable that he had done so.
Of course I did not see anything bad, except for my own tired face and the huge bags under my eyes, so I sighed and left the bathroom, leaving my clothes nicely folded on top of the laundry basket. I snuck into Kibum’s room again, where I found the owner already in bed again, eyes closed and not moving at all except for his steady breathing. I walked over to the side of the bed as silently as possible and slowly leaned in, pressing a short kiss on his lips. He did not respond at all, making me realise how tired he must really have been to have fallen asleep so quickly again. I smiled slightly and then walked out of his room, whispering a quick ‘Goodnight’ when I was at the door and then leaving for my own improvised bed, where I soon fell asleep myself.
I woke up the next morning - well it was almost noon, but that’s just a minor detail - in a completely foreign room. Looking around, I felt like I faintly recognised the place but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I pushed the blanket off of me and swung my legs over the edge of the single bed, starting to feel a little uncomfortable with the unknown surroundings. As I got up, however, I suddenly noticed a picture on the night table and I almost sighed in relief when I recognised Zhou Mi on it with two people I guessed were his parents.
Realising that I was in Zhou Mi’s room still didn’t make things any less strange, though, as I had no idea how or why I had gone there. For that reason, I got up from the bed and walked out of the room. In the living room, I was greeted with the sight of a completely empty room. Frowning over this, I walked on to the kitchen. There I finally found some life, a happily scurrying Zhou Mi who was obviously busy with preparing lunch. When he noticed me he smiled brightly.
“Good morning sunshine. Are you having lunch with us or should I only cook for two?” he asked me, stroking the silky, reddish hair out of his eyes and focusing back on his pans again. I chuckled.
“You can cook for only two. That’ll still be enough for me to eat along as well.” I told him with a smile, walking over to the fridge to pull out the carton of orange juice. Before I could even walk to the right cupboard, Zhou Mi had already handed me a glass, so I could easily pour myself some juice. “How did I..?” I started asking, looking up at him, but he interrupted me.
“End up in my room? Well, when I woke up at seven I found this unexpected visitor in the couch, which kind of surprised me. This person was still soundly asleep and so was her dearly beloved boyfriend, however, so in order not to wake her up with all my running around in the kitchen and the living room I picked her up and put her in my own bed.” he told me with this dramatic cinema-trailer kind of voice, meanwhile still focusing on his cooking. He then looked up at me and grinned. “I hope you don’t mind. You didn’t respond at all when I tried waking you, so I figured I’d just carry you over to my newly-made bed that is so much more comfortable than the couch.”
“Of course I don’t mind. I slept wonderfully. Thanks for letting me borrow your bed.” I replied, laughing softly. Meanwhile I put the juice back in the fridge, after which I took another sip from my glass. “Where is Kibum, though? Don’t tell me he’s still asleep as well, because that would be like the shock of the century.” I nodded as to give my words more power. Right at that moment, however, two arms were slipped around my middle and said person rested his chin on my shoulder.
“I’m here, Jinnie.” the most beautiful voice in the world sounded next to my ear.
“You look good today.” I told him. He grinned and ruffled my hair.
“You look sleepy today. Or better you look like you only just woke up.” he replied, before cocking his head to the side. “Oh.. What a coincidence.. You DID just wake up!” he then exclaimed in mock surprise, making me swat his shoulder.
“You’re so evil to me this early in the morning.” I complained, pulling away from his grip and walking to Zhou Mi to sulk a little to him. Kibum laughed.
“It’s almost noon, you should not complain so much. You called me out of bed at three in the morning, so I feel like I deserve to annoy you at least this tad bit.” he then retorted, making me sputter in search for a reply, but eventually I gave up and sighed.
“Fine. You win. I’m going to get dressed.” I resigned, my shoulder slumping. Mere moments later I was all happy and myself again, though, sending them both a bright smile. “Is it okay if I take a quick shower?” The both of them chuckled and nodded their heads almost in sync, making me giggle and set off skipping to the bathroom.
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