Chapter 10
What Family Means
The next day it rained. All day it fell steadily, bouncing high off of the pavement. There was no barrier to separate the day from the night. It was dark in the morning when the sun never rose and it stayed that way as the hours stretched on.
No one dared to venture outside who had the choice to be inside.
Heechul pushed himself back another inch, seeking any kind of shelter from the storm under the overhang of the building. There was a little awning covering the window above him that provided a meager source of protection, but it wasn’t much.
He brushed his drenched bangs out of his eyes and clenched his jaw to stop his teeth from chattering. There were plenty of ways he could have escaped the rain storm. There were plenty of places he could have gone but he wanted to be here. He wanted to huddle on the ground in the darkness, overtaken by the water, trying to drown.
Part of him knew it hadn’t always been like this. There had been better days. He wished he could remember them now. He wished a lot of things. He wished he’d never been orphaned, or put into foster care. He wished he’d never been adopted: It hadn’t lasted very long, anyway. More than anything he wished he didn’t care.
He couldn’t tell if he was crying or if it was just the water steaming off of his hair down his face.
He felt ashamed. He knew he could do so much more than this. At one time, he’d been the kind of brave person who protected those weaker than him. He’d been the kind of person who made people laugh. He’d stood up for the right thing when no one else dared to. He’d talked someone down. He’d talked himself down. And it all meant nothing in the eyes of the storm.
Dropping his head into his arms, he tried to imagine he was nothing: tried to imagine he didn’t exist. It wasn’t that hard.
He heard footsteps.
Picking his head up off of his arms, he saw a pair of white tennis shoes coming to rest in front of him. He traced his eyes up until he met the gaze of the blonde man looking back down at him. The blonde was drenched and blinking rapidly as water dripped into his eyes, but he looked at Heechul like he’d found home.
Leeteuk crouched down, trying to resist the urge to pull the other man into a hug. “I’ve been looking for you,” he said above the sound of the rain, his voice pinched with raw emotion.
Heechul tried to shoot him a withering glance but didn’t find he had the energy or the desire. He hated the part of him that fought Leeteuk at every turn but he didn’t want to be let down again. He couldn’t allow himself be at risk of being abandoned. He didn’t want to give someone the power to hurt him again.
Unsure how to take Heechul’s silence, Leeteuk studied the other man with worry, looking for any sign that he was hurt or sick. He looked worn out, perhaps a little pale, but he seemed unharmed. He was shivering though.
Shaking slightly himself out of relief, Leeteuk started to shrug off his jacket. “Here,” he offered, “it’s freezing out.”
Still not saying a word, Heechul refused the offered jacket with a wave of his hand. Leeteuk wasn’t having it and threw the jacket around his shoulders, adjusting it by pulling on either side of the collar. Even when the jacket was sitting right he didn’t let go, holding tight onto the sides of the jacket and looking Heechul in the eyes.
“Why did you leave?” he demanded, feeling all the fear running out through his veins. His hands were gripping the jacket collar like a vice. He had found him; he wasn’t going to let him go now. “I was terrified,” he continued, trying to check his tone, “I thought something was going to happen to you.”
“What do you care?”
Breathing out in disbelief, Leeteuk said, “I care about you. I care about what happens to you.”
“Don’t.” The word was a suggestion, a command, a plea all in one.
Unable to stop the emotions flying through him, Leeteuk shook Heechul slightly, pulling on the collar of the jacket. “I searched for you for two days! Don’t you get that? Kangin even went out looking for you!”
That was enough to make Heechul finally meet Leeteuk’s eyes. “He did what?”
Loosening his grip on the jacket, Leeteuk nodded, calming his breath and becoming aware of the sound of the rain that was still falling over him. “He went out looking for you last night. He cares, Heechul. I care.”
“I’m not going to thank you for it.”
“You don’t have to. Just understand that I mean it.”
Rolling his eyes, Heechul said, “I don’t know what you want from me.”
“We want you to come home.”
Leeteuk watched as a spark flickered in Heechul’s dead eyes. His heart wrenched at the hurt hiding there.
“I don’t have a home,” Heechul said bitterly, still fighting the aching desire to just let himself believe what Leeteuk was telling him. “You need a family for that.”
Tilting his head, eyes softening with warm attentiveness, Leeteuk said, “Sometimes friends are the only family we have left.”
Heechul turned his head away but kept looking at Leeteuk, a war waging inside of his heart. He wanted to lash out and tell Leeteuk he was being stupid and cliché. He wanted to push the other man away, get up, and run. He wanted to throw a desperate fit and stop the tears from spilling out his eyes, but it was too late.
He looked up at Leeteuk and with every ounce of meaning left inside of him he said, “I really want to believe you.”
Leeteuk made a small sympathetic noise as Heechul broke down, desperately trying to hold himself together but failing as years of misery and pain overtook him at once. Shifting so that he was kneeling next to Heechul, Leeteuk wrapped his arms around the shaking man and pulled him close, resting his chin against the top of his head.
Heechul turned into the hug and Leeteuk squeezed him tighter, swallowing hard to stop himself from crying. “I know,” he soothed, looking up at the small light illuminating the alleyway.
Heechul cried desperately and Leeteuk sat with him as the rain continued to fall.
When Heechul’s sobs died away an eternity later, Leeteuk looked down at him and asked in a voice that didn’t fully mask his failed attempt not to cry, “Are you going to come home now?”
A single breath of laughter escaped Heechul, his face still buried in Leeteuk’s soaking wet sleeve.
“I’m going to take that as a yes,” Leeteuk said. He felt Heechul shake silently in his arms. “You’re not crying again are you?”
“No,” came Heechul’s muffled reply.
Trying not to smile, Leeteuk said, “Good, cause it doesn’t suit you.”
Heechul mumbled something Leeteuk couldn’t decipher. “I’m sorry, what?”
The man turned his head to the side. “I said you better not tell Kangin about this.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
The rain had slowed to a drizzle and Leeteuk just barely loosened his hold on his friend as he
said, “You know, if you come back, you can choose what game we play on game night.”
“We have a game night now?” Heechul wondered, his voice slightly hoarse.
“Oh yes.”
“God help us all. . . Can we play Twister?”
“Board game,” Leeteuk reiterated, happy to see the old Heechul returning.
“There’s a board in Twister.”
Leeteuk grinned and glanced down at Heechul, pleased to see his smile returning. The other man’s dark hair was plastered against his face, a few loose ends curling in odd directions.
“And, you know,” the blonde continued, “I don’t care what you look like. You can make your entire wardrobe Lady Gaga chic and dye your hair pink for all I care.”
“Don’t tempt me, Teuk,” Heechul responded jokingly, clearing his throat which was still sore from crying.
Smiling a laugh, Leeteuk went on, “And don’t worry about getting a job or me buying you stuff because I’m taking revenge against my father for dying by spending all of his money.”
Now it was Heechul’s turn to laugh and the action seemed to energize him. He pulled away from Leeteuk’s embrace, adjusting himself so that he was sitting up straight and said seriously, “You know, I don’t understand why you’re putting so much effort on my behalf. You don’t really know me. You don’t owe me anything. If you’re need someone to help I’m sure there are plenty of other me’s out there.”
“Well, we both know that last parts a lie,” Leeteuk grinned. “But it’s not about me, really. You just fit. Ah, that sounds weird. I mean that you…no, that’s it…you fit. I can’t think of a better way to say it. It’s like you’re supposed to be in our family.”
“You call yourself and that domesticated bear living in an apartment together a family?” Heechul laughed weakly.
“No, I call a flawless, y, angelic man, a domesticated bear, and a man who formerly resembled John Lennon in an apartment together family.”
“That’s not a family.”
“What do you call a family?” Leeteuk said in all seriousness.
As he pondered this question, Heechul suddenly looked serious. “Not very much. I think I might have considered a few of my foster siblings family. There was one nice couple who had, like, 6 kids already and I called them my family for a while. I tried calling the folks who adopted me family but it didn’t seem…”
“To fit,” Leeteuk finished.
Frowning, Heechul complained, “Do you always have to be right?”
“It’s not that I have to be. It just so happens that I am.”
Heechul looked at his shoes for a moment then over at Leeteuk. “Can we go home now?”
Breathing a smile, Leeteuk said, “I thought you’d never ask.”
“So you can be wrong.”
Pushing Heechul jokingly, Leeteuk stood and offered the other man his hand. He pulled Heechul to his feet and threw his arm around the other’s shoulder as they turned as one toward the apartment and home.
A/N I almost forgot the authors note. Ah....so? Um... Yeah, that's that. What do you think? -holds breath in anticipation only to have the moment ruined by the words: "I'm so curious, yeah!"-
Comments or subscribe or carrier pidgeon or just, keep doing what you're doing! All my love <3
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