Title: Painting Pavements
Pairing: Hangeng-centric, (friend)Hanchul
Genre: Fluffy angst
Rating: G
Warnings: none

Summary: A child's imagination is something to marvel at.

As his feet met the pavement, he smiled, feeling a drop of rain hit his neck, and before he could even look up, the heavens opened above him; a month of drought being washed away. 

He didn’t quicken his pace, though; even as passers by covered their heads with jackets, and a group of teenage girls squealed and squawked, giggling as they ran for shelter. Rather, he slowed down, and he looked up at the sky; dark, almost black, but the sun shone through blindingly, each droplet glistening as it fell to the Earth. 

He tucked his hands deep into his jean pockets, and strolled leisurely down the road. He loved this kind of weather, the summer rain. The way it made the pavements glow and how the sky painted the puddles small children jumped in, creating ripples in the clouds. He loved it, even if it made his heart feel heavy. Even if it made him think of him, made him remember.

Because it was good to remember, he didn’t want to forget.

It reminded him of being young, when life was just too short. When simply seeing the sun peek out from behind grey clouds could make him feel warm and content inside.

Walking along, he passed the first school he ever went to, though it was derelict now. He could still remember the smell of that old, unfamiliar building. He was ten, and it was his first day of school in Korea. He couldn’t understand the language well enough to mix with the other kids, instead finding a deserted room on the top floor of the building. 

He remembered standing there, watching them laugh and play in the sunshine through the dusty, scratched window. It smelt of wood and old books in that room, maybe it used to be a little library. A small, worn out leather chair sat before the old window, as if someone had been there before. 

He’d watched as droplets of rain dotted the concrete below, slowly at first, and then coming down faster, the children all running inside, laughing and screaming as their clothes started to get soaked. The rain quickly covered the window, running down in rivers, and he felt lonely all of a sudden. He was never much of an extrovert, he preferred to watch people have fun rather than join in, but now there was nothing to watch, and he felt alone and cold in that empty, forgotten room.

He felt something touch his hand, something warm, and the next thing he knew there were fingers tightly interlaced with his own and a pretty, cheeky face smiling up at him; big, brown eyes twinkling.

‘Where’s the fun in watching the rain alone?’

Yes, how could he forget the day he met Kim Heechul. Of course, he’d found him terrifying at first; he just appeared from nowhere and moved into his life. Heechul was patient with him, taught him things. He kept him company when his father had to go away for weeks on end, and helped him look after his sick mother. Yet he knew nothing about him. Hankyung didn’t even know where he lived, or where his family were. Heechul was mysterious like that.

He walked closer to the rusty, grey gate surrounding the school and gripped the rails tightly, hoisting himself up and over, narrowly missing the spikes as his hands slipped, and dropped down onto the concrete, his shoes squelching as they met the ground. He was surprised he could still do things like that, he wasn’t as fit as he used to be.

The markings on the playground had faded over time, the dips in the playground turning into little pools as the water splashed and rushed into them. The kids used to laugh and jeer at him when he played with Heechul outside, and he stopped going out after a while; preferring that little room at the top of the school.

Because nobody else could see Heechul. The mind of a child is something to be marvelled at, Heechul was his way of coping with the stress of moving, of being alone. An imaginary friend. Though, most people grew out of these things once they reached adolescence, but Heechul stayed for so long, so long that Hangeng couldn’t forget him. 

He made his way through the school, the walls all cracked with time and each classroom empty, silent. He came here, even after he’d left for another school, and snuck into the building whenever it rained, just to see if Heechul was still there. One day he was gone, and he never came back.

Maybe his mind had finally grown, or maybe he’d simply forgotten him after he’d made real friends.

His shoes tapped against the steps, echoing down the stairwell as he reached the attic. He stepped into the dusty, damp room, ducking down to avoid hitting his head on the low ceiling. The room used to be so much bigger when he was little, but now it was tiny, a box.

Water trickled through a crack in the roof, thudding against the sodden floorboards in a slow rhythm, matching his heartbeat. The window he used to watch the rain through was cracked and dirty, and a small vase sat on the windowsill, withered flowers hanging limply over the rim, petals cracked and dry all around the base. The flowers he brought last year.

He sat back on the worn out leather armchair behind him, feeling a spring stick in his back. He was used to it, though, because he came here every year to watch the rain, on the day he first met Heechul.

The boy who never was.