Fear Won't Wait for the Storm to Pass

It's been raining the whole day.

Yesung watched the blurred city lights through the window. It was pouring so hard he could barely make out the shapes of neighboring buildings. The lights were only visible because it was already nighttime. If the sun had still been up in the sky, his view would have been nothing but a mess of blended colors. The whole day TV stations had been going on about how it was the worst storm to hit Seoul in a decade, but it’s not like anyone who looked outside their window could think otherwise. A flash of lightning lit the sky.

Yesung sighed, but the thunder drowned out the noise. He scratched the top of Ddangkkoming’s head and took his gaze away from the window. The weather was affecting his mood. It made him feel like staring at the ceiling and listening to sad songs until the rain stopped. In actuality, he had tried that, but had gotten bored pretty quickly and had opted to amuse himself by playing with his turtles instead. Considering how late it was, he had nothing better to do anyway. And even if it wasn’t pitch-black outside, rain would have gotten in the way of things he wanted to do. The downpour was horrible.

“Hyung~”

He turned his head in the direction of the voice and found Donghae crouching on the floor next to him. Reflexively, his hand moved to ruffle the younger’s hair.

“What are you doing hyung?”

“I’m trying to play with Ddangkkoming and Ddangkkomaeng,” he frowned, “but they don’t seem to be in a very playful mood.” They seemed more interested in walking away from him. Again.

He felt Donghae’s snickers vibrate against his body as the younger snuggled into him. He adjusted his position a little so he could continue running his fingers through his hair comfortably.

“I know how you feel hyung.”

He smiled at the pout in Donghae’s voice. With his free hand he got a lettuce leaf, the kind he knew Ddangkkomaeng liked, and tried to entice it into coming closer by waving it in front of its face.

“Kyuhyun had made me promise to play games with him tonight, but in the end he’s the one that didn’t show up.”

“Eh, is that so?”

The younger turtle seemed to have spotted the treat Yesung was dangling in front of it and was now slowly making its way to its owner.

“Neh,” Donghae nodded against him. “He still hasn’t come back from his schedules.”

The leaf in Yesung’s had stopped moving, as did the fingers in Donghae’s hair. Blood rushed to his ears and his heartbeat became unusually loud. His mind went blank.

“Kyuhyu-Kyuhyun hasn’t come back from his schedules yet?”

His voice trembled just a little as he untangled himself from Donghae. Ddangkkomaeng started to turtle-sprint towards the dropped treat.

“Neh. I think he had a recording at the KBS tonight-“

Yesung drowned out the rest of Donghae’s rambling as he shakily got up to his feet. Kyuhyun wasn’t back yet. It was raging outside and Kyuhyun, Kyuhyun who had almost died twice, Kyuhyun whose driving skills weren’t exactly stellar, was out there. In the storm. Alone.

He hasn’t come back yet.

“I’m sorry Donghae-yah, I-I have to go. Take care of Ddangkkoming and Ddangkkomaeng for me.”

His shaky legs led him to the entranceway where he put on his shoes, grabbed his jacket and ran out of the door. It slammed shut behind him, cutting off Donghae’s shouts.

It was only when he ran out into the rain, cursing himself for not taking an umbrella (not that it would have been of much use in this weather), that he realized he could have taken his car. He abolished the thought almost as soon as it appeared. He felt safer on his feet. Keeping his forearm above his eyes to at least try and shield his vision, he rushed towards the subway station.

By the time he’d made it to the KBS building, he was a wet shivering mess. His disheveled appearance startled a member of the staff that was rushing somewhere with her arms full of papers.

“Yesung-ssi?! What happened to you?”

She took a tentative step towards him, making sure to keep the papers as far away as possible. He’d already made a small lake in the lobby.

“Kyuhyun,” he rasped out, “Is Kyuhyun here?”

“Kyuhyun-ssi?” she looked confused. “I don’t think so. I think he left when the recording finished with-“

Yesung didn’t wait for her to finish her sentence and ran out, back into the storm. He knew he should have been more polite, but his mind couldn’t process anything other than Kyuhyun. Kyuhyun who was still missing. Kyuhyun who still hadn’t come back. Kyuhyun who was still out there somewhere.

Oh God, Kyuhyun.

“Kyuhyun-ah!” the yell left him without him even realizing it. He stopped for a second, realizing he had no idea where he was since everything looked the same, but then concern and panic kicked in again and his feet were moving.

It was pouring and no one knew where Kyuhyun was.

“Kyuhyun-ah!”

He turned at a corner, mindlessly running around. He had to be here somewhere. He had to.

“Kyuhyun-ah!!”

His voice was starting to break and he could barely hear himself over the wind and thunder, but he couldn’t stop.

“Kyuhyun-ah!!”

A strong gust of wind almost blew him off, and he had to fight to keep himself on his feet. Rain was blurring his vision and his legs hurt from all the running. His chest constricted painfully with every breath he took.

I won’t give up. I won’t. I can’t.

He was about to open his mouth to yell again when, in a miraculous absence of thunder, he heard a “hyung” come from his left. His head turned.

God, it was dark, and rain definitely wasn’t helping his vision, but there seemed to be a figure standing behind the glass door of a nearby building.

Kyuhyun-ah.

He rushed over.

He almost cried out of relief when he got closer and saw that the figure hadn’t been a mirage, and that yes, it was his snarky maknae that was standing there, shielded from the rain, safe and sound. He had to stop his shaking hands from reaching out and touching Kyuhyun face when the maknae opened the door and got in an arm’s distance. He itched to confirm with something other than his eyes that Kyuhyun in front of him was real.

“What the hell happened to you, hyung? You look like a drowned rat.”

Yesung’s eyes prickled with tears. In normal circumstances he would have hit the brat for such a remark, but as it was he just wanted to hug the life out of him.

“, hyung! Get inside before even your intestines turn into water.” Closing the door behind them, Kyuhyun led them deeper into the building. “I think I’ve got some spare clothes in my bag.”

Looking around himself as he followed, Yesung noticed that he was inside some kind of a restaurant.

“We went for a bite after the show, but then the storm got worse and electricity went out. Others quickly scattered home, but as I didn’t think I’d enjoy running back to the KBS in this rain just to get to my car, I stayed. Don’t worry I wasn’t lonely, there are still some personnel in the back.”

Yesung glared at him for his bad attempt at brightening the mood, but Kyuhyun just laughed. His glare wasn’t very impressive when he was soaked to his bones and leaving behind a river as he walked.

“Aish, you brat”

They got to the booth where Kyuhyun had left his things and Kyuhyun quickly pulled out a wrinkled t-shirt and some sweatpants for Yesung, who had, in the meantime, gotten himself rid of his jacket, shoes and socks, which he’d placed on a chair away from the booth. No sense in getting into dry clothes only to be forced to swim to get outside. He accepted the dry clothes with a small smile and proceeded to peel off the clothes that he still had on.

Kyuhyun, who had turned his gaze away to give his hyung some privacy, yelped when small and cold hands suddenly materialized on his cheeks.

“You’re okay. You’re really okay.”

Thank God.

“Hyung?”

“It was raining so hard Kyuhyun-ah, and then Donghae mentioned that you hadn’t come back yet, so I panicked. I thought that maybe you’d...”

Kyuhyun took one of the cold hands off his face and into his own, warm ones, the same way he’d done before when his hyung would get nervous and his habit of biting his nails threatened to show up.

“It’s okay, hyung,” his voice softened, “I’m here.”

Yesung intertwined their fingers.

“Yes. Yes you are.”

He seemed relieved, but his voice was still shaking, and not just from the cold. His whole behavior was a bit panicky.

Tugging at their joined hands, Kyuhyun settled them into the booth, draping his coat around them. With his free hand he fished out his phone and headphones, and offered Yesung an earpiece. The elder looked confused, but accepted nonetheless. Putting the other piece into his ear, Kyuhyun quickly put together a playlist and let the soothing music wash over them. Having done that, he put the phone away and took both of Yesung’s hands into his own.

They sat there for a while, enjoying the music. With each song that passed, Kyuhyun felt more tension leaving his hyung’s body until he was completely relaxed against him.

“You didn’t freak anyone else out, did you hyung?”

“Ah,” Yesung made a face, “I may have run out on Donghae”

“You can be really stupid sometimes hyung,” Kyuhyun sighed as he typed a short message to Donghae, informing him they were both alright and would be coming back to the dorms as soon as the weather let up.

Yesung pinched his side in retaliation. Kyuhyun only smiled and held his hand a little tighter.

In the end, Donghae ended up coming to pick up both them and Kyuhyun’s car a couple of hours later. While the weather had calmed, Kyuhyun had fallen asleep and Yesung didn’t have the heart to wake him up, so he had called Donghae who was more than happy to come and pick them up. He found them in the booth where they had settled, still holding hands, Kyuhyun asleep with his head on Yesung’s shoulder, Yesung playing on his phone.

Hearing his footsteps, Yesung looked up at him and smiled. Donghae chuckled and shook his head.

“Aish. Really you two.”

Yesung’s smile widened.

“Did you have any problems getting here, Donghae-yah?”

Donghae shook his head negative as he took a seat beside him and peered over his shoulder to see what Yesung was doing on the phone. He was losing a game of Tetris pretty badly.

“The subway was practically empty as were the streets. Kyuhyun’s spare key was along with all the others, so I didn’t have to go through his room to get it.”

Yesung pouted as he lost the game.

“That’s good, Donghae-yah.”

“Should we go then, hyung?”

“Neh,” Yesung nodded as he exited the game and typed at the screen “but let’s take a picture first”

Donghae shook his head at his hyung’s antics, but complied nevertheless.

“Smile!”

It turned out that cannons could have been firing outside and Kyuhyun wouldn’t have woken up. They’d managed to move him, his bag and Yesung’s wet clothes into the car, without any reaction from him whatsoever. Yesung had settled into the backseat with him, letting Donghae drive them back. He would have offered, but the dancer had looked like he really wanted to do it, so he’d let him. Streets were completely empty so he figured even Donghae could drive them back safely. Besides, he had no complaints about being in the back with the maknae.

Brushing some fringe from his forehead, a soft smile played on Yesung’s lips. He really couldn’t have wished for a more precious person to love. Nestling Kyuhyun’s head against his shoulder, he pulled out his phone and uploaded his latest picture on twitter.

Survived the storm with my dongsaengs ^^ Hope everybody stayed safe~

word count: 2051