My velveteen rabbito

Pairing: kyumin

Genre: fluffy fluff AU!kid Kyuhyun

Rating: G

Warning: random, unbeta’d

Summary:   the story of a stuffed rabbit and his quest to become real through the love of his owner. Based from children’s novel written by Margery Williams.

HERE was once a velveteen rabbit, a fat and chubby one. He is really splendid that his coat has spots of white and pink, he has real thread whiskers and his ears were lined with pink sateen. Not only that, he has an incredible smell of strawberry when hugged tightly and can almost knock the one who’s going to smother him into a blissful moment of cloud nine. His tail is shaped like a ball of fur and there is a sprig of holly between his paws.

Despite his very cute and charming appearance, the stuffed rabbit was never a stand out among the pile of gifts safely tucked under the Christmas tree. There were other things under that bright and colourful tree such as nuts and oranges and a toy engine, and chocolate almonds and a clockwork mouse, but the Rabbit wasn’t quite the best of all. He was there simply wrapped with a ribbon perched atop his ears, a tag loosely dangling around his paws as he was placed beside by a very gigantic doll. For at least two hours, he sat there with too much excitement but with a tinge of worry also. He was winding his mind up until he saw a boy coming towards him or rather bouncing towards the pile of them under the tree. After an hour of pinching his cheeks and words of “I’ll get you...” or “you are so cute that I’m sure you’ll be my favourite...” from that boy, suddenly their cute moment was interrupted when the Aunts and Uncles came to dinner. And there was a great rustling of tissue paper and unwrapping of parcels, and in the excitement of looking at all the new presents the Velveteen Rabbit was forgotten.

He was forgotten.

For a long time he lived in the toy cupboard or on the nursery floor, and no one thought very much about him. He was naturally shy, and being only made of velveteen, some of the more expensive toys quite snubbed him. The mechanical toys were very superior, and looked down upon every one else; they were full of modern ideas, and pretended they were real. The model boat, Zhou min, who had lived through two seasons and lost most of his paint, caught the tone from them and never missed an opportunity of referring to his rigging in technical terms. The Rabbit could not claim to be a model of anything, for he didn't know that real rabbits existed; he thought they were all stuffed with sawdust like himself, and he understood that sawdust was quite out-of-date and should never be mentioned in modern circles. Even Donghae, the jointed wooden fish, who was made by the disabled soldiers, and should have had broader views, put on airs and pretended he was connected with Government. Between them all the poor little Rabbit was made to feel himself very insignificant and commonplace, and the only person who was kind to him at all was the Skin Horse.

“How I wish I can be Barbie...” He breathed out with less astonishment when his great insecurities had decided to bug him.

“yah..rabbitto !”

His ears quickly stood up the moment he heard someone’s talking. He whipped his head sideways waiting for another voice to come up but felt disappointed afterwards when he realized it was he and his imagination.

“yah it’s me~  Skin horse but you can call me Siwon.”

The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.

The rabbit abruptly hoisted up his cute hind legs and tried to balance his cute and chubby body. He hasn’t been walking for days and he is still isn’t sure if he can manage to walk again, not after hearing another voice.

And there is the Skin Horse or rather Siwon as how he wanted to be called, standing meekly behind, smiling ear to ear as if he is willing to divulge something that contains all the answers of all the secrets of the forgotten toys.

---

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Ryeowook came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

He asked that question after seeing Ryeowook, the house cleaner, busily attending things while puffing out particles of dust from the other things around them.

"Real isn't how you are made," said Siwon. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Siwon, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.

"The Boy's Uncle made me Real, his name is Heechul" he said. "That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always."

The Rabbit sighed. He thought it would be a long time before this magic called Real happened to him. He longed to become Real, to know what it felt like; and yet the idea of growing shabby and losing his eyes and whiskers was rather sad. He wished that he could become it without these uncomfortable things happening to him.

One evening, when the Boy was going to bed, he couldn't find the china dog named Hangeng that always slept with him. Ryeowook was in a hurry, and it was too much trouble to hunt for china dogs at bedtime, so he simply looked about him, and seeing that the toy cupboard door stood open, he made a swoop.

"Here," he said, "take your old Bunny! He'll do to sleep with you!" And he dragged the Rabbit out by one ear, and put him into the Boy's arms.

That night, and for many nights after, the Velveteen Rabbit slept in the Boy's bed. At first he found it rather uncomfortable, for the Boy hugged him very tight, and sometimes he rolled over on him, and sometimes he pushed him so far under the pillow that the Rabbit could scarcely breathe. And he missed, too, those long moonlight hours in the cupboard, when all the house was silent, and his talks with the Skin Horse. But very soon he grew to like it, for the Boy used to talk to him, and made nice tunnels for him under the bedclothes that he said were like the burrows the real rabbits lived in. And they had splendid games together, in whispers, when Ryeowook had gone away to his supper and left the night-light burning on the mantelpiece. And when the Boy dropped off to sleep, the Rabbit would snuggle down close under his little warm chin and dream, with the Boy's hands clasped close round him all night long.

And so time went on, and the little Rabbit was very happy–so happy that he never noticed how his beautiful velveteen fur was getting shabbier and shabbier, and his tail becoming unsewn, and all the pink rubbed off his nose where the Boy had kissed him.

Spring came, and they had long days in the garden, for wherever the Boy went the Rabbit went too. He had rides in the wheelbarrow, and picnics on the grass, and lovely fairy huts built for him under the raspberry canes behind the flower border. And once, when the Boy was called away suddenly to go out to tea, the Rabbit was left out on the lawn until long after dusk, and Ryeowook had to come and look for him with the candle because the Boy couldn't go to sleep unless he was there. He was wet through with the dew and quite earthy from diving into the burrows the Boy had made for him in the flower bed, and Ryeowook grumbled as he rubbed him off with a corner of his apron.

Spring time

"You must have your old Bunny!" he said. "Fancy all that fuss for a toy!"

The Boy sat up in bed and stretched out his hands.

"Give me my Bunny!" he said. "You mustn't say that. He isn't a toy. He's REAL!"

“he even has a name!”

“name?” the bunny asked his self if what is a name, then he remembered Skin Horse telling him that Siwon is his name.

The boy faced the rabbit while carefully kissing his pink nose again. He mouthed words he didn’t understand. The small rabbit even felt emotions he didn’t know how to comprehend, and all he remembered were the boy’s words- “I will name you...a very special name...

“min.”

When the little Rabbit heard that he was happy, for he knew that what the Skin Horse had said was true at last. The nursery magic had happened to him, and he was a toy no longer. He was Real. The Boy