4.

Kyuhyun woke up from his black, senseless state, and he blinked a few times before he could be fully aware of what was happening. Moving his limbs, he realized that he lay sprawled, and that his lover was just inches from his body, in a sitting position, looking down at him.

Kyuhyun peered at the elder with weak sight – relieved that the lights weren’t – and observed his cute smile as Sungmin leaned down and pecked the other’s forehead quickly.

“Happy birthday.”

The younger snapped his head up a bit hearing those words, and his glance searched for a clock. Sungmin stilled his head with his hand, and Kyuhyun gave out a breathy, silent huff, supposed to be a laugh.

“Why thank you!” Kyuhyun mumbled in his mixed of sleepy and joyful state. Sungmin handed him a hot cup and a tiny cookie, and the younger laughed at the gesture.

“Whyy?” Sungmin pouted as Kyuhyun sat up a bit. “I didn’t feel like you’d appreciate a big fat cake in the middle of the night.”

The younger pursed his lips; not giving up until Sungmin had leaned in and responded to his wish. The raven head watched his lover eat the cookie in peace and sip on the hot milk. Kyuhyun didn’t seem disturbed; although he would sometimes close his eyes and look as if he was about to fall asleep in a second. Sungmin didn’t blame him the least.

Sungmin ended up lying on his stomach, head in his hands while observing the other finish the little treat.

Kyuhyun didn’t mind his lover being like that either. To Kyuhyun, Sungmin was perfect in every aspect and barely anything he did could possibly be disturbing. The younger drank up his hot milk, and right after that, his head fell back on the pillow.

The older raised an eyebrow at the sudden happening; Kyuhyun had plopped back down, and was holding the cup on his stomach. So Sungmin reached to take it, a negative ring of thought echoing in his mind. But the hand grabbing his wrist proved him otherwise immediately.

“Now I’m even more tired”, the younger smiled below the cover he had drawn up to his mouth, and pulled Sungmin’s body down along with his arm. The elder smiled watching his lover’s eyes sparkle at the contact. Kyuhyun’s cute moments, something that happened seldom already, Sungmin had the hap to see even rarely – a tiny shine within the maknae that tinged when he let go of the shell that was holding him back.

He couldn’t change.

He wouldn’t change.

You can disturb the waves, but you cannot stop them from flowing. Sungmin knew he had to stand steadily on two feet to be able to handle the unacceptable and painful thoughts occupying his mind every now and then.

No concert was the same. Not even the photo shoots or the practices; all suddenly felt more like something Kyuhyun just did to have something to consider a life. And every time he thought about it, a pain in his chest would make him wince inside.

After the concert they made on his birthday, he felt nothing. The concert had been a success, their fans had sung him the birthday song and he had successfully gotten cake in his hair. But all he really wanted was to go to bed, wishing for the day and night to be over.

Everybody kept joking with him, teasing him with scenarios and asking if his wishes had come true, completely unaware that their conceited maknae took those things in another light. They didn’t know that Kyuhyun hoped to believe in miracles, that behind those determined eyes, there was a dreamer.

But Kyuhyun wouldn’t really admit it unless people were really interesting in getting to know. There were just his parents, his sister, Sungmin, and Ryeowook; people that had showed the most genuine types of interest Kyuhyun had ever known.

The members were blowing balloons when Kyuhyun came back out from the bathroom, highly unprepared for some event for his birthday. Sungmin would come home in two hours and maybe; maybe Kyuhyun would have realized what he really wanted by then.

Because he had never been so prepared to see Sungmin, so he faltered without him by his side.

“Happy birthday, our maknae!” Siwon yelled, obviously in surprise. Apparently, the members’ hadn’t planned this thoroughly, Kyuhyun figured, but still enjoyed to watch their confused faces as they realized that the birthday child already was with them.

A pouting Donghae scratched his neck when he noticed Kyuhyun.

“We were supposed to surprise you, not the opposite!”

To which, the members laughed. Kyuhyun’s gaze fell upon them all, the six people who didn’t have schedules at that moment.

Although his gaze fixed upon a particular person, there was still someone Kyuhyun missed to see.

Two hours. Two hours, and they would fall asleep together.

Two hours that would turn to three, four, and ten. They would fall asleep, wake up, and everything would be like it should.

Excusing himself for a little while, Kyuhyun walked into his and Sungmin’s shared dorm room. He shuffled to the bed and plopped down beside his laptop that was open, screen lit with the music of his favorite computer game ringing from the headphones. He turned off the game with an unwilling hand and removed the computer from its place. He could hear someone beside him just as he put the object down on a table.

“What are you doing?”

He turned to see his best friend eyeing him. As much as Ryeowook looked casual, Kyuhyun didn’t feel casualty radiating from him.

“I was just turning off my game.” Kyuhyun answered and flashed a little smile, however, deeply distracted by the same sentence in his mind.

Two hours.

“Okay.”

Ryeowook was quiet for a short while, and Kyuhyun pulled a hand through his hair, feeling how the beats of his heart had already increased and how silence would not do anything well for his sanity.

Then Ryeowook smiled.

“I’ve got something for you!” He soon chirped like he had just come in, and the maknae’s lids both fluttered in anticipation and total, inner chaos.

But when Ryeowook handed him a box – long sides but low height – that would be pretty fitting for a book, Kyuhyun told himself to not be so delusional.

He took the box, and found that it was light. It was also very easy to open; Ryeowook hadn’t bothered too much on the cover. Kyuhyun pulled the lid off with ease.

And it seemed like the box somehow represented himself.

Inside, there was a gray sketchpad, and a package of belonging pencils. Kyuhyun was too busy being surprised because he hadn’t expected a sketchpad, that he forgot the fact that he hadn’t expected anything from the beginning.

Ryeowook was looking at him with anticipation, something Kyuhyun couldn’t understand the reason for.

He had never touched a sketchpad since he was little.

“I thought you should try out something new”, the older – and Kyuhyun’s best friend since long – smiled when the maknae pursed his lips. He wondered if he would ever make anything out of the things he had received.

He nevertheless decided to let it go for now and be happy that Ryeowook had gotten him a present.

“Thank you, Ryeo- , hyung.” He sent a glance towards Ryeowook, and the latter looked proud. “I really can’t draw at all.”

“Pfft, just draw some lines and smiley faces; whatever comes to mind. It doesn’t have to be perfect you know, since it’s just yours.”

Kyuhyun looked down at the sketchpad again.

“It can be a way to pass time…” Ryeowook kept pondering. “…Or release emotions…”

Kyuhyun’s heart started beating quicker again.

Emotions.

It was the very thing he didn’t want to feel.

It was the thing that had pestered him for months.

It was the thing that made his head start pounding at that very moment.

He couldn’t lose focus now.

There would be two more hours and everything would be fine again.

He would fall asleep, wake up, and it would have been just a dream in a dream.

Without thinking it through, although somehow intending it, the maknae took a step forward and brought his arms around Ryeowook.

But there couldn’t be another time than then.

You’ll never know without trying.

He was hurt; dragged down, tortured, and left to wither away, and that way he was already helpless. The need to know was like an itching wound on his body.

Putting one hand behind the slightly shorter man’s head, Kyuhyun pulled it towards his neck, breathing because he had to and not because it came naturally.

Ryeowook hugged him back.

The seconds passed, and so did Kyuhyun’s mind.

He couldn’t think, yet he could.

But he was still surprised when he found himself locking lips with his best friend.