Title: Little Things

Pairing: Kyuhyun/Sungmin

Genre: Angst, Slice of Life, Romance

Rating: PG

Summary: It was his life, and he wanted more.

Prompt: To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all. -Oscar Wilde

Narrator's POV

It is not apparent but somewhere deep inside us; we all know that we are same but different in some ways. We share common humanity, possesses human bodies, minds, thoughts and feelings.

However, no two people are truly identical – each a flower of its own, or as some claim, we’re limited editions.  Never can you meet two people who have the same experience of life; the same mind.

If you look hard enough, somewhere between our common humanity and our distinctive self, lay a little thing known as dreams.

Dreams; what exactly comes to mind when we hear the word dreams? When we were three, most of us thought, oh, I want to be an astronaut or I want to be a princess. Then the dream gets bigger each year, as we grow older and wiser.

The thing about dreams is that it is a funny little thing. It comes in all shape and sizes. It changes just like night and day – nobody would mind, because it is fundamentally the norm.

However, there are some who dreams higher than the others. There are some who merely dream of something so small; something that is an everyday life to another being. Are they lower ranked than them then? No, they are not.

When we were born, we weren’t given the right to judge someone else’s life – or in this case, dream. That right could never be earned because even if we do not realize it, everyone lives a different life. Everyone believes in different things (each a flower of its own).

It doesn’t matter if you dream much, much smaller than anyone else. It matters most that you have something to live for – that your dream must be fulfilled before you die.

:::

Lee Sungmin is a nineteen year old. He had never dreamt of being a president. He had never thought of becoming a rock star. But he has dreams, and those dreams are dear to him, those dreams are something that he holds close to his heart.

His dreams are simple. He wants happiness, he wants to be able to find a place in this world and he wants to be able to find love.

Horrible, some might say. Those are not dreams, the other would say. But those people would be the people who don’t know Sungmin, who don’t bother to understand his story.

Sungmin was born into a family of abusive parents, uncaring siblings and ignorant neighbors. People like him do exist. It is scary because not everyone realizes that.

When he was five, the doctors at the hospital already knew his name. He was beaten, abused, and stripped away of his childhood. The light in his eyes were never given the chance to grow and see the world.

When he was ten, he grew numb, or to simply say, he accepted his life – the only life he was taught.

However, when he fifteen, the world found him.

He was whimpering on the cold ground of his backyard after a long session with the hard end of a baseball bat. He was found by a new neighbor who moved in a few days prior that week.

Sungmin had never wondered, for whatever reason, that the neighbor had peeked over the fence that connected both their houses together. He was grateful, yes, that he was seen, that he was finally seen when he was curled up into a ball- weak and shivering.

How Sungmin was brought into his house, he had no idea. But the next day, when he was finally conscious enough to take in his surroundings, he realized he wasn’t in the care of his family any more. “They’re not going to hurt you any more,” were the first words that were whispered to his young ears.

They? He was confused. He didn’t prod on the situation though, having being brought up to always stay silent. Introvert, he was then. Now, when he looks back, he could vaguely remember the blank faces of his parents as they entered the court room. He could vaguely remember their dark eyes staring straight into his naïve soul as they were dragged away. He could vaguely remember how uncaring he was that they were being taken away from him. He could vaguely remember how he was forced to live with the other kids back in the foster home. He could vaguely remember how he made the decision to leave the foster home as soon as he was legally eighteen.

“Where would you go?” those words, he could remember clearly. They were directed to him as he packed his bag.

“I need to go,” he started softly without bothering to turn around and face the speaker. “I need to find myself.”

“Sungmin,” the speaker said. Her voice was gentle, soothing. “What is it?”

This time Sungmin turned around; a small smile lingering on his lips. “Happiness,” he muttered. “I want to find happiness. I want to see where in this world, I belong in. I want to be able to love again.”

The speaker then grew speechless just for a moment. “If those are your dreams,” the speaker spoke up after a minute of silence. “-then I have no right to get in your way.”

Small hugs and lazy goodbyes were given after he finished packing his bag. Again, he could vaguely remember how he settled into a small, cramp yet cozy apartment downtown. He remembered though, how one day, he, shivering and cold from the rain was forced to take shelter in a small, homey café. Sapphire Hopes was the café’s name.

“How may I help you?” a tender voice sounded as he entered and he spun around to look at the speaker. Their eyes met. Sungmin remembers the clink and clank of the rain in the background, he remembers how they ignored it and ignored that they were being stared at.

Hello, he remembers saying. He was given a soft smile in return.

“Hot chocolate?” the boy suggested, gentle eyes raking his shivering figure.

“Yes, please,” he answered.

“Take a seat,” the boy muttered (Sungmin's heart fluttered). “I’ll be back.”

Somehow, he knew that they were no longer talking about the hot chocolate. The jittery in his heart felt foreign. The store wasn’t grand, but it sent warmth to the tips of his hair and made him smile. He took a seat, palms rubbing together in a gentle caress.

His hot chocolate was brought to him in mere minutes. The boy was back. “Thank you,” he whispered. He stared, for a moment as the mug was held out to him and laughed a small laugh.

If he had looked up, he would have probably seen the shine in the boy’s eyes at the beautiful sound. Their fingers brushed as the mug was passed to him. Time seemed to have frozen over that millisecond and their eyes simultaneously found each other.

“Cho Kyuhyun,” the boy murmured; his eyes deep and penetrating. “My name is Cho Kyuhyun.”             

Sungmin tilted his head, a small smile lying gently on his plump lips. “Lee Sungmin,” he uttered. “Nice to meet you, Kyuhyun…sshi.”

“You too,” Kyuhyun whispered before tearing his eyes away hastily and turning around to tend to the other customers, cheeks tinted pink.

:::

Their story was simple, nothing that came out of a fairytale book. The fluttering in his heart would not die down no matter how hard he tried and Sungmin, inexperienced and naïve, constantly came back to the store. He wanted to figure it out, wanted to know what made Kyuhyun so special that he could invade his sleep every night.

Somehow, destiny pulled a little string, fate gave an opening, and Sungmin took it. He landed a job in the cozy café. He made friends, real friends who care and he was close to Kyuhyun. The boy was younger than him, he found out later- by a year, three months and two days.

“If you keep waiting,” someone muttered beside him one night as he was waiting for the bus to arrive. It was Heechul, his co-worker. “If you keep waiting, for whatever reason you’re waiting for, you just might lose him.”

Sungmin looked up, eyes wide and innocent. “Society be damned,” Heechul whispered, turning his head back towards Sungmin as he boarded his bus. “Love has no boundaries. Special people like us are still human. Don’t keep him waiting.”

Sungmin stared as the older male boarded his bus and continued staring as the bus roared away. Confused, he sincerely was. However then, another voice, more tender this time sounded beside him. “Going home?”

His head spun to the side, a smile instinctively making its way onto his lips. “Kyuhyun,” he greeted softly.

Kyuhyun smiled warmly. “Hello,” he muttered.

“What are you doing here? Your home’s that way,” Sungmin said, pointing to the opposite side of the road.

“I want send you off,” Kyuhyun whispered.  Sungmin was aware that his cheeks were pink, and well aware that it wasn’t because of the cold. “It’s dangerous at night.”

He laughed. “I can take care of myself.”

“But I want to take care of you.”

The silence that drape above them wasn’t painful. Sungmin took a deep breath and peeked up to take a look at the younger boy. His hands were tugged deeply into the pockets of his coat.

“Kyu,” he breathed.

Kyuhyun hummed. His voice was deep, sensual.

“I have three wishes in life, dreams if you may,” he whispered, vaguely seeing Kyuhyun nodding his head by the corner of his eyes, urging him on. “Is it really possible that I found them all in one person?”

Kyuhyun froze for a quarter of a second before his eyes looked up, forcing Sungmin to meet his warm gaze. “What are those three dreams?” he asked.

“I was looking for happiness,” he muttered. His eyes shone brightly as they looked at Kyuhyun. “I was searching for a place where I could fit in, a place where I could be myself, where I could love.”

There was fleeting silence before the tips of Kyuhyun's lips twitched. His smile was breathtaking, something reserved for Sungmin himself. It was warm, it made him feel safe.

“Do you think it’s possible, Min?”

Sungmin looked at Kyuhyun, looked at his shining face and the crinkle between his nose. Those little things, those features stared back at him beautifully and it rendered him speechless and took his breath away.

“Yeah…” he whispered in a small voice. “Yeah, I think it is.”

There was a soft shuffling after he spoke those words and the next moment, a warm hand intertwined itself with his. He stared as Kyuhyun brought their hands deep into his coat – for safe keeping.

He giggled.

“I’ll be fine now, right, Kyu?”

Kyuhyun smiled at him, small and reassuring. “Yeah, you’ll be fine.”