Rating : G
Genre: AU, Romance
Length : part 02 – 2500+ words
Notes: un-beta-ed.

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Sungmin woke up startled when something very cold touched his cheek. He groaned softly because at that instant he also felt pain on his neck. He looked up to find Hyukjae’s gummy smile.

“Hyukkie?” he blinked, and straightened up. He had fallen asleep on the audience seat almost immediately after he watched the director start to brief all the crews; and he had slept in such uncomfortable position that his neck was slightly hurting now.

“Why are you so early? What time did you get here?” Hyukjae sat down on the red velvet seat beside Sungmin and handed him the can of strawberry-flavored soda that he had pressed to Sungmin’s cheek earlier to wake him up.

“Uh, I came when Director Shin started briefing the crew… but I fell asleep right after that,” Sungmin answered after he took the cold can. “Thanks for this. Um, what time is it?” he looked around and realized that the crews were already positioned in their respective spots and the assistant director’s booming instructions to adjust this and that could be heard through the speaker. Sungmin scanned every corner of the room, noticed a few people he knew, but not that particular man…

“It’s almost ten,” Hyukjae answered belatedly and reach out a hand to give Sungmin’s stiff neck a little massage. He noticed Sungmin’s attention wasn’t completely on him. “Are you looking for someone?”

“…Huh? Yeah. It’s Kyuhyun… I wonder if you know him…” Sungmin stretched and yawned. Lately he felt almost constantly sleepy because of the tight schedule of the rehearsal.

Hyukjae withdrew his hand and shook his head. “Kyuhyun who? I don’t think I’ve ever heard you mentioning him before. Your new friend?”

Sungmin nodded and chuckled at how Hyukjae responded to his words. Lee Hyukjae was his best friend since junior high, and he knew almost all of Sungmin’s close friends since then. He was also a performer, a professional dancer. He also happened to be the assistant choreographer for this musical production.

“Are you sure you never heard of Kyuhyun? He’s one of the run crew; I don’t know exactly what he does, though… Uh, what was his first name again… I forgot…” Sungmin mumbled, still scanning the room for said person while he started to sip on his soda. Memory of Kyuhyun’s voice floated back into his mind and he absentmindedly said again, “Come to think about it again, maybe he’s one of the sound technician… his voice is so beautiful, you should hear him talk. Hmm, I wonder if he sings at all,”

“You have a weird logic. Having a good voice doesn’t mean he’s a sound technician, or you would have become one,” Hyukjae frowned. “You should just ask him what he does next time if you’re so curious,”

“I will. We’re having coffee this afternoon,” Sungmin giggled to himself. Hyukjae raised an eyebrow and turned to observe Sungmin’s expression closely.

“Sungmin-hyung,” he said cautiously, “What’s wrong with you?”

Pink blush started to creep up Sungmin’s cheeks when he realized that he had just acted and talked like a teenage girl who was thinking about her crush. Crush? I... Kyuhyun?Crush? Sungmin’s eyes widened as that thought crossed his mind. He fanned his face with his free hand, feeling like the room’s temperature had suddenly gone up a couple of degrees. It was not working. He then intentionally pressed the cold can to his cheek again, but he could still feel the heat dominating his whole head.

“Hyukkie,” he whispered, eyes still wide and a little horrified, and then he echoed Hyukjae’s words, “What’s wrong with me?”

Hyukjae could only roll his eyes.

+

The actors and actresses were already on and offstage in their respective positions; the tech rehearsal with the complete casts had started an hour before. Kyuhyun enjoyed staring openly at all the actors, especially Sungmin, of course. Well, it was not like other people weren’t staring at Sungmin, too. He was simply too mesmerizing to be ignored. His singing voice was so angelic and full of emotion. Kyuhyun felt like closing his eyes to purely lose himself in the sweet sound that was Sungmin’s voice; but of course he couldn’t. He needed to open his eyes wide to do his job properly.

Sungmin leapt to the center of the stage, looked around and started calling out a name; his lover’s name (his character’s lover’s name, Kyuhyun corrected his own thought). There was no response. The whole stage was empty save for Sungmin with the single spotlight moved smoothly following his every movement. The pale white light made Sungmin’s skin seem to glow in the middle of the darkness surrounding him. He looked like an angel. A broken angel. Sungmin cried out desperately again and fell on his knees, eyes glassy and voice deliberately cracking. Even from the distance Kyuhyun could clearly see the pearly substance finally trickle down Sungmin’s cheeks, expressing his sorrow for the loss of his beloved.

Kyuhyun felt some kind of numb pain in his heart seeing Sungmin like that. He seemed so fragile, and Kyuhyun suddenly wished he could run to his side and take him into his embrace. He was so absorbed in the scene that he unconsciously bit his lower lip, fighting the urge to just leave his assigned spot and rush to Sungmin to calm him down. However, he was brought back into reality when assistant director Park’s screeching voice was heard from his earpiece, making him wince a little and he quickly adjusted whatever it was that the AD told him to.

After some major adjustments, they had to repeat the whole part of the play, and when Sungmin once more broke down in front of his eyes, Kyuhyun felt that familiar twinge of pain again, even though he had seen that scene for so many times. He couldn’t help feeling that he wanted to protect Sungmin, to keep him away from sadness. He didn’t think he would be able to stand seeing Sungmin cry if it ever happened in real life.

Suddenly realizing what he was thinking about, Kyuhyun almost chuckled to himself. It amazed him, how he could feel such a strong emotion for this man whom he barely knew anything about. And to think that he was in the middle of work! He was lucky he didn’t completely space out and did a stupid mistake, or he would have been scolded.

Kyuhyun let out a relieved exhalation once the scene was over and the director said he was satisfied with that scene. They moved on to the next scene, a scene consisting of a not-so-broken-anymore Sungmin; and Kyuhyun couldn’t be more thankful. It was a mental battle for him to keep focusing on work while Sungmin was crying his heart out over and over again in front of his eyes.

Some strenuous hours after that, the director finally announced the end of their rehearsal that day and Kyuhyun wiped the sweats from his face with his sleeve yet again. He was honestly very tired. It was his first time participating in a tech rehearsal, because it was also his first time to be a member of the run crew. His exhaustion dissipated into thin air, though, as soon as he noticed Sungmin standing on the edge of the stage looking around as if he was looking for someone. Kyuhyun grinned proudly to himself because he was almost a hundred percent sure he knew who this certain someone Sungmin was looking for. He watched amusedly as Sungmin pouted to no one in particular, seemingly giving up on finding him amongst the crowd of crews, and stomped his feet before he disappeared into the stage wing. Kyuhyun finally lost his self control and he let out a triumphant laugh. He couldn’t wait to proceed to his next schedule, which was his self-proclaimed first date with Lee Sungmin.

+

Sungmin mentally slap himself. Now what should he do? The rehearsal had finished yet he still couldn’t spot Kyuhyun anywhere. He should have given Kyuhyun his number, or asked for Kyuhyun’s number so he could contact him. He was all sweaty and he wanted to shower so badly, but he forgot he didn’t bring any change of clothes because he thought his apartment was close and he could just go straight home after the rehearsal. He didn’t expect to meet and talk to Kyuhyun in the middle of his morning jog, and he most definitely didn’t expect to be invited for coffee by said guy.

Now he was completely at loss of what to do. He couldn’t just go home to shower and change. He couldn’t risk Kyuhyun searching for him and giving up because he was nowhere to be found in the theater. If he was being honest with himself, he had to say that he wanted this ‘coffee time with Kyuhyun’ so much. So much he would give up his shower just to wait for Kyuhyun to find him. Even though he only talked to him for a few minutes this morning, there was something, something about Kyuhyun that Sungmin couldn’t quite pinpoint, that made Sungmin feel incessantly giddy.

He had tried asking some of the crews about Kyuhyun, but he was at disadvantage. He didn’t remember Kyuhyun’s surname and he also had no idea what division the man was working in. So he just sat there in front of the actors’ dressing room, fanning himself with a piece of paper rather frantically in hope of drying his sweats before Kyuhyun actually found him.

“Sungmin hyung,” Hyukjae approached him.

“Oh, Hyukkie,” Sungmin acknowledged the younger man. “Going home?”

Hyukjae shook his head, “I’m going for a drink with some of the guys. You coming with us?” However, before Sungmin could answer, Hyukjae laughed out loud and patted Sungmin’s shoulder, “I forgot you’re still waiting for this Kyuhyun guy, huh?”

Sungmin nodded hesitantly, “I… I don’t know how to contact him,”

“…so now you’re waiting for him to find you.” Hyukjae finished his sentence for him.

Sungmin nodded again.

Hyukjae chuckled, “It’s been a long while since I last saw you like this,”

Sungmin grimaced. He didn’t have to ask what Hyukjae meant with ‘like this’. It had been quite some years since he last felt anything special for anyone, and Hyukjae knew this fact very well. He waved Hyukjae goodbye as the latter excused himself and threw him an understanding look.

A couple of minutes later, some of his co-stars exited the dressing room one by one. Some asking why he was still there, asking if he wanted to join them for dinner, and the rest just waved him goodbye without any question. Sungmin started to feel even more restless. Where was Kyuhyun? Why wasn’t he coming to find him in the dressing room? Did Kyuhyun also realize that he couldn’t contact Sungmin and just give up?

“Hyung, if he’s already gone it would all be your freaking fault!” a frantic voice could be heard down the damp and rather shady corridor and Sungmin stood up so fast he might have cracked some of his backbones in the process. He knew that voice.

“Okay okay I’m sorry but it was so fun to tease you I just couldn’t stop!” Sungmin heard another familiar voice that sounded like it was close to laughing. The steps were getting louder. They were getting closer and Sungmin wanted to call out to check if his hearing was correct, but his voice died in his throat as the two figures finally showed up.

“But you made me— Sungmin-sshi!“ Kyuhyun saw Sungmin standing in front of the dressing room’s door, and looked as if he was about to throw his arms around Sungmin but managed to control his limbs in the last moments.

“Kyuhyun-sshi,” Sungmin nodded at him, beaming. “Producer Kim,” he bowed a little to the producer.

“Because he’s still here, I take back my apology,” Heechul ruffled Kyuhyun’s hair and stepped closer to give Sungmin a friendly pat on the shoulder. “Have fun you two, but I don’t want to hear any of you coming late for tomorrow rehearsal, okay?”

Sungmin grinned at Heechul and nodded, even though his mind was still a bit reeling with the fact that Kyuhyun was actually closely related with the producer. Well, indeed, Heechul was the one who introduced the two of them to each other, but Sungmin never thought they were that close.

Heechul walked away, cackling in a very un-professional way, but Sungmin couldn’t care less. He stared at Kyuhyun’s ruffled hair. He looked so cute like that. So cute that Sungmin just wanted to reach out and touch it with his own hands. He suddenly wanted to know how it would feel to run his fingers through Kyuhyun’s fluffy hair. Kyuhyun noticed Sungmin’s stare and he quickly tried to fix his hair while he awkwardly cleared his throat.

“I’m sorry about that. I… I’m sorry I’m late. Did you wait long?” he asked.

Sungmin shook his head and smiled, “Not really. I was just confused about how to contact you, and whether I should wait here or somewhere else,”

“Oh,” Kyuhyun swallowed. Sungmin could see that he wasn’t the only one feeling nervous about this whole coffee thing. It boosted his confidence a little. “So, umm… shall we go?” Kyuhyun pointed his thumb to the exit and started to walk slowly once Sungmin nodded his approval.

Sungmin adjusted his pace to walk beside Kyuhyun, “Where are we going?”

“Do you have any preference? Or we could go to this nice restaurant for dinner just around the corner. They serve awesome food and the price is good,”

“Restaurant? Dinner?” Sungmin asked, a bit surprised. “I thought we’re just having coffee?”

Kyuhyun spluttered and Sungmin wanted to laugh out loud when he realized Kyuhyun walked much faster and he started to talk randomly, making up excuses.

“I know I asked you for coffee… but it’s late and I’m hungry, it’s time for dinner anyway. And the food is great I mean you can order almost anything there, kimchi, steak, spaghetti, jajangmyeon, just everything, and I mean— well, if you don’t want to, just coffee would be fine, but—“

Sungmin had to jog lightly to keep up with Kyuhyun’s suddenly rapid steps (and hey, Kyuhyun’s legs were a lot longer, no one could blame Sungmin). They were almost at the exit door and Sungmin reached out, pulling at Kyuhyun’s sleeve to slow him down.

“Kyuhyun-sshi,” Sungmin said, chuckling at Kyuhyun’s anxious expression, “Dinner is alright. I’m glad it’s not just coffee,” he said truthfully.

Kyuhyun’s face broke into a wide childish grin. He opened the exit door, holding it in place for Sungmin to pass first. “Dinner it is, then,” he said with a happy laugh.

Sungmin felt that wave of electricity again at the sound of Kyuhyun’s laugh and he stepped out of the theater quickly, completely excited about their dinner and the prospect of knowing more about Kyuhyun; his sweaty clothes be damned.

As Kyuhyun closed the door behind them, Sungmin turned around and asked the first thing he had been dying to ask ever since he waited for Kyuhyun backstage, “Kyuhyun-sshi, what’s your surname?”

And he was answered by another series of deep and melodious laughter.

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To be continued.

a/n:

I’m sorry there’s not much progress in this part. Hehehe. I hope you still enjoyed it, though. Tell me what you think?  Comments and criticism are very welcomed. <33