CHAPTER THREE

For all they knew of each other and all they didn´t know, there were still a few truths that existed between them that both took for granted because they just were. There was never an explanation, never a mention of them. They were the things that happened nearly every day between them that never faltered or changed.

Almost daily, Kyuhyun would get so lost in his work, in his wheel or sculpture or kiln, that he wouldn´t notice Siwon stopping his own work to click his camera in his direction. Almost daily, Siwon would take a break during which he´d lie on his back near Kyuhyun´s feet, letting the whirl of his wheel hum him to sleep. Almost daily, Kyuhyun would move his left foot ever so slightly so it would rest against Siwon´s shoulder as he slept a half hour away while Kyuhyun let the clay spin and form in his hands. Almost daily, Siwon would ask Kyuhyun a random and completely unnecessary question simply to hear him speak.

They had their schedule and their routine, which was so ingrained in them that they never even noticed they had one until Victoria would make fun of them or point out what they were doing.

Siwon would cuss her out, and Kyuhyun would laugh and try to break up the moment by turning to Junjae to swing him about by his hands, his childish giggles obliterating the moment when things got too close to truth.

“I know you hate them, but do you ever stop to look at what the s all look like?” – Victoria asked as she and Kyuhyun went on a shopping trip to fill Siwon´s nearly empty fridge.

They had left Junjae behind to hopefully drive Siwon insane.

“Why would I bother looking at them? They´re always gone before I have a chance.”

“Except the ones who aren´t, the ones that make you pick up the phone and me out like I´m supposed to do something about it.”

“You should be able to, you know.”

“Should be able to do what?”

“Talk some sense into him.”

“Sense and Siwon do not go hand in hand. Besides, what makes you think I´d have any influence over him?”

“Because you´ve known him longer. You know how he is.”

“So do you. And that is bull about me knowing him better just because I´ve been cursed with knowing him the longest. You knew more about him in a month than I did the entire three years I worked for him.”

“But you´re Victoria.”

“Meaning?”

“He´d listen to you.”

“That´s the dumbest thing I´ve ever heard.”

“Hello! Look who you´re talking to – Kyuhyun said emphatically as he waved his hands in front of her face – It´s me, Kyuhyun, the dumbest things say-er!”

“Say-er isn´t a word.”

“See! Dumb! I just proved my point!”

“So what am I supposed to do? Go, ‘Hey Siwon, would you mind not ing the boys so Kyuhyun isn´t thrown into a tizzy?’ because I´m sure that would work and make everything all right.”

“But you could talk to him and explain how these one-night stands aren´t doing him any good and they never will. He´s never going to find what he´s looking for if he keeps up with the s. They don´t know him; they don´t care about him; all they know is that people in this city know his name and his pictures are in magazines and galleries. They´re ing groupies…literally, ing groupies. They´re just going to drag him down. He´s already lonely enough. He needs someone who will be there in the middle of the night, someone who will make him get out of his little self-imposed prison. He needs someone to look after him.”

“Like you do.”

“Exactly, he needs...”

“You.”

“Yes…No! I mean, yes, he does, but not like that. We´re just friends, and he needs me as a friend. A friend. What he needs is someone to take care of him as more than a friend. He needs someone that will love him because he´s amazing and strange and beautiful, because he´s…Siwon, not because they like the sound of their name said after his. He doesn´t need hangers-on, he needs something true, something real.”

Victoria stared at Kyuhyun´s reddening face as he stuttered out his ramblings, and when he was finished, said: “You are infuriating, Kyuhyun.”

“Why? What did I do?”

“Everything. You do everything and you are everything to him, and both of you know it, but neither of you will see it. You´re both so ing stupid and infuriating that I want to stab the two of you in the head sometimes. You´re absolutely ing perfect for each other because you´re the only person I know that could possibly tolerate him for more than a fifteen-minute interval of time, and he´s the only one that understands everything that comes out of your mouth; he´s the only one that understands and speaks fluent Kyuhyun, yet neither one of you will see it!”

Kyuhyun looked completely flabbergasted.

“We´re not like that! Siwon doesn´t think of me as anything more than a friend. I mean, why would he have all his s if he wanted to be with me?”

“He has his s to try to make you jealous, you stupid . To counteract all your ridiculous boyfriends that you parade around in front of him, you´re lucky you don´t see more of his s than you do.”

“You´re seeing things, Vic, or you´re seeing what you want to see.”

“Fine, you know what I see? I see a man who has one-night stands so randomly as to be laughable until you see what they look like. Have you not noticed what they all look like?”

“I´m not checking them out…they´re not my type.”

“Well, I should hope not or you´d be completely narcissistic!”

“The ?”

“They all look. Like. You. Every single one of those s that you despise so much looks exactly like you. They´re carbon copies of one another…tall, lean, dark curly hair, brown eyes, big smile. They´re all you. Why do you think they´re so random? Why do you think you can never figure out when he´s going to one? Because he doesn´t either, not until he sees what they look like. He´s trying to get as close to you as he can, and the reason none of them stay around longer than a night is because that´s all it takes him to realize they´re a poor substitute for you. But he keeps trying to find an acceptable substitute, because the real thing is too ing dense to figure it out.”

Kyuhyun looked at Victoria with what could only be fear in his eyes. He shook his head violently.

“No. no way. If he really felt that way about me…if he…if he loved me, I wouldn´t… wouldn´t know what to do. Everything would be thrown out of whack. I wouldn´t know him anymore…I mean, I wouldn´t know what was going on in his head, and I´ve always known that. I don´t want to not know what he´s thinking. I´d lose him.” – he said in panic.

Victoria reached out to grab hold of one of his wrists as he paced back and forth in front of her.

“You´ll lose him eventually if you don´t figure this out, and I´m telling the same thing to him. You´ll lose each other, and then where will you be? Don´t use that as a cop-out, Kyuhyun, because you know damn well if you ever lost him, he´d find his way back to you, but if you both lose your way, then you´re just lost.”

Kyuhyun pulled his wrist out of Victoria´s grip and started walking down the sidewalk again.

“I´ve got to go get Siwon´s food…it´s a long list and will take forever. You don´t want him locking Junjae in a closet before we get back, do you?”

Victoria started following him, reaching out with her hands as if to strangle him before shouting “Aaahhh!” and running her hands through her hair instead.

Once Siwon realized Kyuhyun knew exactly what to say to him when e called in the middle of the night, he came to depend on it, and when he wasn´t there to say the things that needed to be said, when he wasn´t there, Siwon would get out of bed and go in search of him. He´d throw a jacket over his pajama pants and slip his feet into his shoes and walk toward Kyuhyun until he spotted a cab that would take him there faster.

Kyuhun had given him a set of keys to his place, which Siwon kept on his keychain next to his own house keys.

Once the taxi dropped him off in front of Kyuhyun´s building, he´d look up to the sixth floor and the windows on the right to see if there were any lights on. If there were, he´d sit on the curb and press the button for Kyuhyun on his cell phone and wait until he answered. If he answered, he´d turn right around and start walking back toward his place in search of a cab that would take him back home. If he didn´t answer, Siwon would let himself in with his key, kick off his shoes, drop his jacket in a pile on the floor, and crawl under the cover of Kyuhyun´s bed. Even if Kyuhyun wasn´t there to tell him so, Siwon would know Kyuhyun had been there, and it would only be a matter of time before he was back there again. So Siwon would wait. Until Kyuhyun was back again.

The door slammed open as Kyuhyun was pushed through it by the most recent of his phases, Joon.

He stumbled backward until his back slammed against the wall as Joon barreled into him. It was all tangled limbs and heated kisses from Joon, and Kyuhyun was trying to focus, trying to bring himself to participate wholeheartedly, when the voice that was the source of all his distraction called sleepily from the corner of the room.

“Flip?” – Kyuhyun instantly pulle