Next to Nothing

Hankyung honestly cannot remember the last time he had beside him a true friend – a brother at arms. Heechul was that – a friend he could rely on, a brother he could have whenever he needed it. When he’d first arrived at Korea, Heechul was the first one who’d treaded on the awkward and had started teasing him – but then the teases had changed and had become silly little jokes, and after time that too had changed into more civilized conversation. Though to the eyes of the masses, civilized would only look amusing, for this was Heechul, and Hankyung has always noted how Heechul can’t seem to separate himself from what truly lies beneath him – something deeper.

He honestly didn’t understand what the fuss was all about – his Korean wasn’t the best, he didn’t at it, but why were they all staring at him like that? It must’ve been because he was new, he noted, but there was the younger ones who seemed more out of place in the group than him. In the end, Hankyung would realize that not a single one of them was out of place. No, all of them complimented each other.

Sitting in the little table in the apartment room he shared with Heechul – five years, two weeks from now would be the official mark of the five – he stared at his fingers, those thin yet extremely soft and gentle fingers wove around the mug he held in his hands. A sigh left him as he lifted it up to his mouth – the edge just grazing his lips but never fully entering.

He felt like that with Heechul – always on the surface and nothing more. The cute little gestures, the inside jokes, even the touching...They were for the fans, were they not? But something about the insistent cuteness and then the demand of his attention away from the camera would get to him. Why would Heechul seek solace in just sitting in front of him and not saying anything for five minutes? Because Heechul filled himself with the prescence of Hankyung – he wouldn’t know, because he’d always thought that Hankyung thought of him more as a brother, but in fact, what he thought of Hankyung was what the man thought of him.

The silly little requests Heechul would make would not go undone. Hankyung would always do it. Even the ones where Heechul would ask for tea – always ‘You’re so annoying...Okay...Okay...’. He’d do it in the end – complain for five minutes and then do it. Heechul would never force.

Just like the time when Heechul stepped out of the bathroom, camera phone in one hand and his towel fisted in the other. He looked at Hankyung then and with that manic smile of his, lifted his camera.

“Let’s take pictures,” he said. At the obvious lack of clothing, Heechul just shrugged and stepped back into the bathroom while Hankyung followed – no, he was not left with his clothes. He had a mighty lot of lacking for the thing now that he was in the bathroom with Heechul.

The only thing Hankyung had said then was – “If I see this on your minipage or anywhere else on the Internet, I’m sending you to China in a box.” Of course, he was gentle with it, but the threat was still there. Heechul smiled sheepishly and kissed Hankyung on the cheek – another playful gesture in which the other man just shrugged off, he wiped the back of his palm against his cheek and smacked Heechul with it – softly, of course.

But at the raising of the camera he felt Heechul’s arms wound around his shoulders and draw him closer.

Every touch, every small body contact – it felt, for Hankyung, like fiery electric wires sent out to shock him senseless.

The pictures never reached the internet, Hankyung was thankful for that.

But Heechul, in all his secret, had kept his phone close to him – but not for the fact that he had countless photos of himself there, no, but because he had a picture with Hankyung. He panicked, almost cried when he thought he’d lost it – because people would see that picture and would think what? Would think differently.

Hankyung admires how Heechul has always carried himself – maybe that’s why he stuck with Super Junior for so long, and maybe that’s the one sole reason that he felt completely sad and disappointed when he’d been assigned to Super Junior-M. Chinese, of course, but then Heechul would not be with him – and what was the purpose of Super Junior if he would not always be performing with Kim Heechul?

Next to nothing, he would put.