I. 

Leeteuk tries cutting himself a few months after Kangin leaves and he succeeds. The blade does slide across his skin to open up a red sea of blood just like Onew told him. What Onew never told him was what to do when the blood overflows onto the carpet for Ryeowook to complain about for the next 2 weeks. He never even thought a person could ever bleed this much. And that night Leeteuk shakes with his fingers digging into the wound, begging softly for it to stop bleeding, stop bleeding, stop bleeding because he doesn’t want to die.

Not yet.

It was never about dying – never has been about dying. Leeteuk knows he needs to be here, needs to still be breathing, needs to still be leading Super Junior. Leeteuk knows the repercussions if ELFs found out, knows what would happen if everyone knows he’s going crazy. He knows because he feels like his dad and everyone looks like the wide eyed child he once was that didn’t understand why they were being ignored by the one person that was supposed to love them. He doesn’t want to be like his dad because he swore he would never be but Leeteuk is slowly slipping.

Sometimes he dreams about losing grip on a cliff and when he wakes up, he can’t really separate dream from reality at all.

It was never about dying, because he already knows he is. A rotting piece of flesh with the faith of so many people cupped in his hands that he wished he could crush into powder.

                                                                                                  

II. 

He doesn’t know exactly when he fell in love with Kangin.

He knows when exactly he realized he liked boys – in middle school when just the voice of his desk partner made his heart beat faster than any of the girls could no matter what they did, or he did.

But when he fell in love with Kangin is a blurred memory, and whenever he thinks about it between bottles of soju, the best he can come up with is unclear, like looking at himself through frosted glass.

Leeteuk doesn’t love Kangin the second he sees him, but the way Kangin smiles and relaxes with the people he’s familiar with, the way Kangin shoves him jokingly, the way he looks out for him the way no other member can – Leeteuk has never loved anyone more than he loves Kangin.

The relationship has never been easy. It’s hard to keep a love so sharp, so jagged, so fresh under safety blankets. The members ended up knowing, then the managers, then the company. Everyone involved felt something – more shock and disapproval than happiness, but somehow, just somehow, they made it. It felt like brushing past death by a few inches, felt like having a car swerve out of the way.

And that’s just how they were. That’s just how their love was.

Off promotion days mean holding hands tighter, mean more kisses snuck in between schedules. Everything was perfect and it never felt wrong at all. Kangin could never make him feel wrong.

He tried getting at angry at Kangin once after the scandal broke out, told himself that he didn’t care anymore, ed Kyuhyun for two weeks straight, but nothing made him love Kangin any less. Not even pulling out everything Kangin had ever done wrong, not even reading articles over and over again.

All the hate he felt melted away every time Kangin knelt before him, begging for forgiveness. All Leeteuk was after the accident was sour and bitter but Kangin followed him every day like a lost puppy, like there was no one in the world for him but Leeteuk. Kangin wanted him so much, he didn’t even get angry at him for ing the maknae. Kangin cries, cries every night, begging for another chance with Leeteuk.

The worst part is Leeteuk loved him for that even if he didn’t say anything. Maybe loved him even more.

 

                                                                                                     III. 

Leeteuk doesn’t try cutting again because he’s too cowardly, too scared, and too afraid of what Kangin might think of him. Yet despite himself, he buys a blade the night before Kangin’s discharge and he sits by the Han River for hours just giving himself another slash for every bottle of beer he downs.

He really, really hopes the fans don’t find him because he can’t afford another mistake. Another mistake and he might just crush 8 – no, 14 other boys’ dreams to powder.

He pulls down his sleeve every time he does a quick slash – almost like going through the motions – lying to himself that it’s just so no one sees him bleeding but secretly he knows that he doesn’t want to see his arm cut up like a ham. It’s ugly, disgusting, wrong.

Him. He’s disgusting.

Leeteuk stares at the murky black river and he wishes that somehow a vortex would appear and thinks about how nice it would be if he could just jump in with rocks tied to his shoelaces. He feels like he’s drowning anyway so what’s the point if he actually does.

The thought feels so real that Leeteuk has to pinch himself, break blood vessels, stare at the bruise with an ugly fascination that he still has a team to lead.

The loneliness is too much to bear right now and Kangin – he really needs Kangin. The thought makes him want to cry but he doesn’t. Until now, he still has trouble with people not seeing him smile.

It’s not that he’s necessarily unhappy or anything, but Kangin has been gone for the longest time and the loneliness of not having anyone to love him makes his ears ring. Maybe after Kangin comes back tomorrow, everything will be alright. Maybe after tomorrow, he won’t have to do this anymore, won’t have to keep convincing himself that Kangin wants to see him alive.

But after tomorrow, it’s one more day to his own enlistment.

His hands start to shake again and he finds leverage in his neck, grabbing onto himself to keep everything from falling apart.  

 

IV. 

“I missed you,” Kangin mumbles into the basin of Leeteuk’s clavicle. “Wanted to see you for so long.”

Leeteuk bends his head back with a sigh, letting a “Me too.” slip through the gaps of his teeth. He runs his hands down Kangin’s back and notes how much more muscular the younger man is and Leeteuk feels like he could anchor himself onto him for the rest of his life. But of course –

Leeteuk grips harder, holding on to Kangin’s skin with the pad of his fingertips, the crevices of his fingerprints. Kangin presses kisses down his neck and then he feels the flat of Kangin’s tongue running down his collarbone gently – too gently.

Leeteuk liked Kangin’s manliness, liked his impulsiveness, and maybe a part of him was in with this relationship with Kangin because Kangin would hurt him just enough during for him to forget that he’s Leeteuk. Leader. Son. Idol. Nothing.

Leeteuk s Kangin’s stupid, stupid army pants with trembling fingers, pushing them away from him and Kangin cooperates, slipping out of his briefs at the same time. Leeteuk pulls his own briefs down, and the both of them are , the heat radiating from the other person enough to make their vessels course with blood so hot it could burn.

“You’re so impatient,” Kangin whispers, spreading Leeteuk’s legs open and pressing butterfly kisses down the middle of his chest until both their lips are touching, fighting, drowning in the months of not being with each other, the feelings of ache and pain and hurt and love all at the same time.

“K – Kangin.” Leeteuk moans and Kangin pushes the hair out of Leeteuk’s eyes. “I need you.”

“Okay.”

Kangin always gives Leeteuk what he wants and Leeteuk loves him for that, but he hates himself for receiving so much without ever giving. But the feelings of guilt subside as Kangin s him, as he digs his fingernails into Kangin’s shoulders, as he screams Kangin when he comes and this is what he misses the most.

Kangin heals him. Kangin makes him not feel dead.

Kangin. Kangin. Kangin.

 

V. 

Leeteuk wakes up the next morning with Kangin huddling behind him, a protective arm draped across his waist, and warm, swollen lips pressing softly into the base of his skull. The scene is cute, Leeteuk decides, until he realizes that his cut up arm is in full view.

Leeteuk, being stupid, thinking that Kangin wouldn’t be awake to see it for whatever reason, tries to hide it under the thin futon but of course Kangin sees. Of course Kangin notices. He always does.

“I saw,” Kangin states. It’s not a question. “Show me.” Once again, not a question.

“I don’t want to.” Leeteuk shifts and moves and turns so he’s facing Kangin.

“Why?”

“What do you mean why?” Leeteuk hisses and shuts his eyes. The black pools in Kangin’s eyes spell disappointment and Leeteuk doesn’t want to see it. Doesn’t want to see anything. “They’re ugly.”

“I don’t mean why, why.” Kangin smooths out the tense muscles between Leeteuk’s forehead with two fingers. “I mean why, why you did it.”

Leeteuk finally forces his eyelids to open and Kangin stares back earnestly at him. He runs his eyes over Kangin’s face but he can’t decide if Kangin looks older, more mature, or just like a totally different person altogether.

“I just missed you.” Leeteuk doesn’t want to hear anything else so he pushes his lips against Kangin’s, slipping his tongue through Kangin’s teeth and biting on Kangin’s lip as punishment for being away for so long. Kangin doesn’t mind, though, he never does, and just lets Leeteuk do what he wants.

The kiss is suffocating and Leeteuk is trying to figure out why when he notices his pillow is wet. His eyes burn from the tears and he breathes in but can’t because of his blocked nose so he pulls away. He’s crying so hard and he doesn’t even know why.

“Please stay with me,” Leeteuk says, throat tight and voice rough like sandpaper. “Please. I miss you. I miss you.”

Leeteuk holds tighter onto Kangin’s shirt because it’s the only way he knows how to stop him from just getting up and leaving.

“I’m not going to go anywhere.” Kangin consoles as Leeteuk feels fingers brushing his hair out of his eyes and then lingering on the cartilage of his ears. Leeteuk loves that. “I have nowhere to go.”

But he’s crying, sobbing harder now and he doesn’t even know why.

 

VI. 

Leeteuk brushes the tears off the end of his eyelids after he’s done crying and burying his face into Kangin’s chest because he still has to work.

The day is tiring and stressful and most of the time he finds himself unable to catch any of the jokes the seniors throw at him because really, he’s just concentrated on hiding his cuts. Kangin squeezes his shoulders whenever he can or when Leeteuk looks far away but Kangin – Kangin doesn’t speak up anymore. He doesn’t want to be heard over Hyukjae or Kyuhyun and it scares Leeteuk so much, he’s shaking and in tears again by the end of the day.

“I don’t want to leave.” Leeteuk suddenly feels gross, nervous to the very bottom of his stomach. He knows he shouldn’t have done this, shouldn’t have not kept it to himself, shouldn’t have said anything about enlistment because now it’s true, it’s true, it’s real, it’s happening.

He’s purposely kept this ing enlistment things behind his lips for so long and now that he has said it, it’s real and there’s nothing he can do to stop it. Not even Kangin can stop it.

“Hey, hey.” Kangin holds Leeteuk’s hands in his, feels the tremors running up to his shoulders from his fingertips like lightning – electricity. “Don’t be scared. It’s – It’s not that hard.”

“Don’t lie. Just don’t lie, please. I don’t need this right now,” Leeteuk warns, his heart in his throat. “It was hard enough sending you off and now that you’re back you haven’t even said anything the entire day and you used to say so many dumb things and you’ve changed so much and you won’t even crack a joke anymore what – what if I come back and you don’t love me anymore – I don’t know what to do – Kangin help me help me help me –”

Kangin pulls Leeteuk in for a hug because he has never been good with words, has never been good with an upset Leeteuk. The contact washes over Leeteuk like a wave on the shoreline and slowly his hands start to slow down, his head starts to stop hurting.

“Stop crying, alright?” Kangin slots his hand into Leeteuk’s hair, massaging his scalp. “Army really isn’t that bad hyung, I just didn’t know how to listen to people. It just made me a lot more… pliable.”

“That sounds so bad. You choose words really badly.” Leeteuk doesn’t mean it as a joke but Kangin laughs anyway, pulling Leeteuk along with his warped humor, and not before long, the both of them are laughing. Leeteuk’s laugh is tired, part of it not genuine, but the feeling of a huge hole in his chest ebbs away slowly. Kangin presses his lips onto Leeteuk’s like Leeteuk is honey and Kangin is always greedy. (The truth isn’t much far away from that anyway)

Leeteuk wraps his legs around Kangin’s waist and lets everything go. Before Kangin, he was struggling so hard not to fall into nothing, to tread water and keep his head above the quicksand but Kangin is here. He’s solid and real and here. Leeteuk lets himself get pulled under because he knows that there’s someone waiting to catch him.

Waiting to catch him today, and tomorrow, and every single day for years to come.

Leeteuk doesn’t think it’s a bad idea. Leeteuk likes it, likes it more than Kangin probably knows, likes it more than Kangin could ever imagine.

“It’s going to be okay.” Kangin says, calloused hands wrapping firmly around the back of Leeteuk’s neck.

And as long as Leeteuk can try hard enough to keep Kangin with him, to keep Kangin awake, everything would be okay.

 

---

 

 

much love, 

luneboy x