CHAPTER TWO

Even though Siwon appeared calmer and sane than Kyuhyun, actuality he was as insane; and Kyuhyun knew it. Right from the beginning. Right from the moment Siwon looked at him for all two seconds and said, “That one. I want that one.”

Kyuhyun had gone into the whole situation with a surprisingly light heart. He´s had no idea why a weirdo young photographer who never even bothered to interview him, much less ask him if he knew anything at all about photography or how to be an assistant, would trust him enough to ask him into his home.

He just had a good feeling about it and went with it like he did everything else in his life. Usually his penchant for never thinking things through and trusting his gut landed him in a e-load of trouble, bt this thing with Siwon, this job, this friendship, so far had not led him astray. It was one of the few things in Kyuhyun´s life that he had managed not to up by being random and careless. Because he found that, with Siwon, he could be random and arbitrary, but never careless. Never careless.

He found Siwon to be rather fragile beneath his gruff and highly irritating exterior. He was brilliant and amazing at what he did. He was strong and bold in his studio, in his world; but take him out of that world and he was uncertain, almost shy.

Kyuhyun could never understand how someone could be so in control of their world, their own little environment, but be so out of control in the bigger world.

Siwon very rarely left his apartment, and when he did, he never ventured far. Sometimes Kyuhyun would be able to cajole him into a walk in the park with Harold, sometimes even a lunch or dinner out. It was like Siwon was afraid he´s get lost and never be able to find his way back.

Whenever they were out walking anywhere, he was constantly looking at the landmarks surrounding them, taking them in like his own version of breadcrumbs that would show him the way back.

Kyuhyun would always grin at him, hook his arm through Siwon´s and say, “No worries, Mozart, I know the way home.” But still Siwon would usually leave only if he knew his destination or had a purpose for leaving. Or if Kyuhyun was with him. Otherwise he was content to stay in his studio.

Kyuhyun could never figure out how someone could be so content just to stay in one place, to have such a small world. He had always craved being somewhere else, because somewhere else had to be better than the somewhere he was at.

He wanted to see every place in the world and devour everything in those places. Swallow them whole.

He realized his own restlessness and was completely aware of it; he just didn´t know where it came from exactly or why it had come into being at all. He always figured his restlessness would collide and crash into Siwon´s contentment with tragic results. Instead, as Siwon´s studio and apartment became more of a home than any place he´s called that word previously, he became less and less restless.

He didn´t quite know why that was, either. He just knew that, for some reason, curling up into a ball in one of Siwon´s window seats and falling asleep with his face pressed against the window as rain fell down in streaks along it was often more appealing to him than the idea of flying to far-off places that were wild and beautiful and more than a little bit like a dream.

He also found out that everything Victoria had told him about Siwon was true. Siwon did make odd requests, but Kyuhyun sometimes suspected he only did it to test him, to see if he could trust him, to see if he cared enough to actually do what he was asked.

He suspected that Siwon was so scare of people not caring that he invented crazy and unusual requests or missions simply to reassure himself that there was at least one person in this great big lonely city who cared whether he had fortune cookies from the right corner market or had dish soap that didn´t smell too ‘dish soapy’.

Siwon did try to run everything in his life, but again, Kyuhyun suspected it was because Siwon found everything outside of his world so massive and unrestrained that he needed some sort of way to manage the things and the people inside his universe.

Siwon did get in a strop over the littlest things, but all Kyuhyun ever needed to do was look at him and say “stop it”, and he would. Simple as that.

Victoria stared at him in amazement the first time he did it and later told him that it took her almost a year to figure out to just tell him to stop. Kyuhyun figured it out in three days.

Siwon did, in fact, call him in the middle of the night. Sometimes at three, sometimes at four, sometimes at midnight. Kyuhyun was never sure when it would be; there was no set schedule in that regard, but he was always sure Siwon would. He´d maybe do it once every week or two or sometimes every night for a week straight.

Whenever Kyuhyun would pick up the phone and grunt, since he was fairly incapable of speaking when woken from a deep sleep, much to Siwon´s amusement since he insisted that Kyuhyun was incapable of not speaking during his waking hours, Siwon would seem confused, as if he wasn´t quite sure why he had called in the first place.

The first few times it happened, Kyuhyun had thought Siwon might have been drunk or high and had mercilessly about it; but after getting to know Siwon better, Kyuhyun knew he wasn´t drunk and would never be high, so it was something else altogether.

As time went on and calls coincided with Siwon´s foul moods, his odd-request moods, Kyuhyun came to realize he only really needed to do one thing. Whenever the phone rang and he grunted his version of hello, Siwon would say hello in a small quiet voice, and Kyuhyun would simply say, “I´m still here.” And Siwon would say, “Okay.” And Kyuhyun would ask, “Can you sleep now?” and Siwon would reply, “Yes, now I can.” And then the phone would click, and Kyuhyun would fall back to sleep again.

Sometimes he wasn´t even sure the next morning if Siwon had really called or if it had been a dream, sometimes the only indication was the phone still clenched in his hand because he had been too tired to place it back on its receiver after Siwon clicked off.

Instead of being irritated with those late-night calls, Kyuhyun came to expect them, and although they would wake him from sleep, they never caused him restless nights. In fact, he sometimes wondered if maybe he didn´t need the reassurance as much as Siwon did, that Siwon calling to make sure he was still there actually made Kyuhyun be there.

He sometimes worried that if Siwon stopped calling to make sure he was somewhere out there, maybe he would cease to be there entirely. Without a trace. Gone in the night like he had never been there at all. So he welcomed the calls and made sure to tell Siwon he was still there, because by doing so, Kyuhyun reassured himself he was still there as well.

Their working relationship was another thing that was alternately wonderful