Dry Spell

            There was a knock on the apartment door and Ryeowook jogged over from the kitchen and answered it, knowing that Kyuhyun had run to the store to pick up a couple ingredients for him and wasn’t back yet.  The moment he opened the door, the two people on the other side of it quit talking together and plastered wide smiles across their faces. 

            “Wookie!” Victoria exclaimed, stepping into the apartment and hugging Ryeowook.  With her high heels on, she towered over him—in all fairness, she was dating Changmin and he was a giant, so she almost had to wear sky-high heels if she wanted to remotely be on eye level with him—but it made Ryeowook feel a little awkward and he was relieved when she slipped them off.  Changmin pat Ryeowook on the back after he closed the door and the couple followed him into the kitchen so he could continue cooking dinner.

            “Vic, how have you been?  I can’t think of the last time I saw you,” Ryeowook told her, smiling as he checked the pots on the stove.

            “Wonderful.  Busy, of course,” she said.  “Changmin forgets he shares the apartment with me sometimes, I think, because I’m never there.”

            “I thought one of my crazy fans was breaking in one night and I almost called the police,” he teased, grabbing a soda from the fridge. 

            Victoria smacked him in the arm, furrowing her brows.  “You did not!  Quit making up stories!”

            Changmin laughed and wrapped his arm around his girlfriend.  “Well, I wouldn’t put such things past my crazy fans.  Then I’d be in for a world of trouble, if they discovered I had a live-in girlfriend.  Or rather, Vic would be in trouble.  They’d hunt her down and slander her name and everything else.”

            Victoria cringed.  “That’s probably true.  It’s always the woman that pays in these events.”

            “That makes me wonder though,” Changmin said, tilting his head to the side.  “If a gay couple got caught living together, which one of them would take the brunt of the blame?  Or would that be completely acceptable because of how popular gay ships are?”

            “Speaking of which,” Victoria said, breaking away from Changmin and heading over to the cupboard to grab a coffee mug down, “how are you and Kyu doing?  Is everything okay between you two?”

            “Huh?  What are you talking about?” he asked.  Ryeowook’s mind was half on what he had to do next in the kitchen, so her question came from out of the blue.   

            “Well,” she said, shrugging and pouring herself some coffee, “I happened to notice that there’s almost no pictures of you guys together lately.  It’s normal for a couple like me and Changmin because we rarely work together, but you two are in more than one group together, so it seems like a big deal when a long stretch goes by and you’re not spotted together.  Usually you’re sitting together at award shows or walking together in the airport or something.”

            Ryeowook just looked at her for a moment, dumbfounded.  “No, everything’s fine.”  Then he looked over at Changmin.  “Why?  Did Kyuhyun say anything weird to you?”

            Changmin waved his hands in front of him.  “She’s not getting any of this from me.  Kyuhyun’s always saying wonderful things about you and complains that you’re not home enough.  But he always says that.”

            “Oh, I don’t bother relying on Changmin to know what’s going on between you and Kyu.  Men are so unreliable in these matters.  That’s why I asked you directly.  Where is Kyu, by the way?” she asked, looking around.

            “He just ran to the store to get me a couple things we ran out of.  He’s always such a sweetheart like that,” Ryeowook said, feeling the need to validate their harmonious relationship.  “He’s always asking me if we need anything or if he can go get anything for me.”

            “That’s because you do all the cooking.  He wants to get fed and he wants it to taste good,” Changmin pointed out.

            Ryeowook sighed.  “Well, at any rate, everything is going fine between us.  We don’t feel the need to sit by each other all the time because we’ve been together for so long now.  Besides, the company gets a little peeved when we act too obvious.”

            “And you care what they think?” Changmin asked.  “You two being together is like the biggest secret that isn’t.  Everyone in the industry knows already.  Only the public is in denial…and they really need to come to their senses and just own up to the truth already.”

            Victoria looked at Ryeowook steadily for a moment.  “So things are okay between you and Kyu then?”

            “Yes!  Everything’s fine, I promise!” Ryeowook swore.  “Just because we haven’t been pictured together lately doesn’t mean there’s anything weird going on.”

            Victoria just leaned against the counter and watched Ryeowook finish cooking their dinner.  And Ryeowook felt newly flustered and self-conscious because Victoria was questioning how things were going between him and his husband, when he had been rather relaxed before she began questioning his relationship with Kyuhyun.  Just because they’d not been pictured together in public recently!  What a thing to let sway a person into thinking something was wrong!  Ryeowook began to pull pots off the burners and pour the contents into serving dishes when he finally heard the front door open and sighed in relief. 

            Kyuhyun walked into the kitchen with a brown paper bag, smiling at seeing their company there already, and set the groceries on the table.  “Sorry it took so long.  They moved a couple things around in the store and I had to finally ask where the hell they were.”

            Ryeowook walked over and pecked his husband in the lips.  “That’s okay.  Thanks for running to the store at the last minute.”

            Kyuhyun looked a little stunned at the display of affection in front of Changmin and Victoria, but said nothing and began putting away the items that needed to go in the refrigerator.  Ryeowook picked out the couple items he needed right away and brought them back to the counter with him and Kyuhyun eventually made his way over to Victoria and hugged her tight. 

            “How have you been?”

            “Good, but you’re squishing me!”

            Kyuhyun laughed and released her before reaching in the cupboard for a mug for coffee as well.  He poured himself a cup and then refilled her mug and Ryeowook’s before returning the pot to the coffee maker.

            “I thought you’d pop open a bottle of wine,” she pointed out.  “I’m a little disappointed.  I know that you keep some treasures in that collection of yours.  I was hoping to try one out.”

            “I will later.  I need to wake up first.  We were up late last night and I had to get up early for rehearsal for Singin’ in the Rain, so I need something to wake me up a little first,” he informed her.  “I’ll open up a bottle with dessert, I promise.”

            “Why did you stay up so late when you knew you had dinner guests coming the next night?” she asked them.

            “We can’t help it,” Kyuhyun defended himself.  “Ryeonggu works until midnight during the week.”

            “And you can’t go to bed early without him?” she teased.

            Kyuhyun smiled at her poking fun at him.  “I’m afraid of the dark.”

            “Is that it?” she asked, winking.

            “See?” Ryeowook said, elbowing her as he passed by.  “Nothing wrong after all.”

            “Nothing wrong with what?” Kyuhyun asked, watching as Ryeowook brought dishes out to the dining room.  Then he turned to Changmin for an explanation as Victoria began helping Ryeowook carry their dinner out to the table. 

            “Victoria asked Wookie if there was anything going on with you two lately…since she hadn’t seen any pics of yo