Uncharted Territory

            When Leeteuk was released from his mandatory military service, he went to visit his mother first.  His father and grandparents had died tragically less than a year before and he wished to tend to her first.  Once he was ready to head back to the Super Junior dorms, Heechul insisted on picking him up and Leeteuk did not argue with him.  It was refreshing not to have a crowd of people right away.  That would come eventually.

            “How is everything?” Leeteuk asked, nervously sitting in the passenger seat as Heechul weaved through traffic.  “Am I walking into a mess?”

            “Of course not!” Heechul said, sounding offended.  “I told you I’d take care of everything until you got back.  Didn’t I?  Yesung’s a little homesick, so when he calls next he’ll probably want to talk to you a long time.”

            Leeteuk nodded, not surprised.  “We’ve been emailing each other.”

            “Everyone is thrilled that you’re coming back, but I told them that we weren’t going to suffocate you.  So it’s just going to be a little dinner tonight to let you readjust,” Heechul informed him.

            “No suffocating?  What do you call that greeting of yours outside my mother’s apartment?  If you wouldn’t have let go when you did, I would have passed out,” he said, chuckling to himself.

            “You know the rules never apply to me.  I missed you most,” he explained.

            “Kangin claims he did,” Leeteuk informed him.  “Perhaps you should arm wrestle for the title.”

            “I’d still win.  He’s afraid of me and he’d let me win.”

            “I’d pay to see that.  Who’s cooking dinner?”

            “Ryeowook, of course,” Heechul said.  “I wouldn’t insult you by letting anyone else cook it.  Only the best for you!”

            “So Kyuhyun will be there and who else?”

            “Eunhyuk, Kangin, and us.”

            “You did keep the group small,” Leeteuk said, his brows rising.

            “Most of the others had a schedule, to be honest.  We’re all going to get together on Saturday night and eat together someplace to welcome you back properly, but I think it will be better if you have a little time to settle in first.”

            “Very thoughtful of you,” he said.  “Do you still stay in the dorm much or do you spend most of your time at Gunhee’s apartment?”

            “Up until now I’ve split my time between the two, but I told him I’d be here more once you got back,” Heechul admitted.

            “He wasn’t upset?”

            “I was gone for almost two years and he survived.  He’ll live.”

            “What about you?”

            “I’ll probably gain weight from eating too much of Ryeowook’s cooking again, but otherwise I’ve missed being around you all.  I’m glad your home…I feel more at ease when you’re here,” Heechul admitted.  “I hate being in charge and, honestly, I don’t know how the hell you do it sometimes.”

            Leeteuk only smiled.  “Was that some kind of warped way of complimenting me or are you telling me I’m crazy?”

            “Both.”

            “I couldn’t agree more,” Leeteuk said, looking out at the dark streets of Seoul.  “But I wouldn’t trade it for the world.  I’ve been just as uneasy as you’ve been and now that I’m back and I can check on everything, I’ll feel steady again.”

            I thought I was being quiet as I snuck into the kitchen and grabbed another appetizer off the tray on the table, but Ryeowook must have eyes in the back of his head.

            “Cho Kyuhyun!  Don’t you dare eat another one of those!” Ryeowook warned, raising his voice.

            I sighed, setting down the snack, and walked over to him.  I wrapped my arms around him from behind and leaned forward to kiss his cheek.  “I was just testing to see if you were paying attention.”

            “You’re testing my patience.  That’s what you’re testing,” Ryeowook said, stirring the pot full of sizzling meat and vegetables in front of him. 

            “Well, I wouldn’t want to do that,” I said, continuing to kiss him.

            “Stop that,” Ryeowook whined—sounding suspiciously more like a moan—and smacked me in the arm with his free hand.

            I smiled against his skin and began to laugh.  “I will if you let me have another one.”

            “No!” Ryeowook stubbornly refused.  “They’re for Leeteuk’s dinner party.”

            “Then I’m not going to stop,” I warned, beginning to kiss down his neck.

            “You are the naughtiest maknae ever!  They are going to walk in and see us like this!” Ryeowook told me.

            “This isn’t,” I said, pausing to kiss him more, “the worst thing…they’ll have caught us doing.”

            “And that’s never happening again!” Ryeowook exclaimed, turning around in my arms.  He planted his palms on my chest and tried to push me away, but he had no success.  I simply tightened my grip on him instead.  “I’ve never been as embarrassed in my entire life.”

            “Really?  Because you say that about some of the pictures of you from back when we first started.  That hair!  Those clothes!”

            “Shush!  As if getting caught doing it in the living room wasn’t bad enough, getting lectured by Leeteuk for an hour the next day was the peak of humiliation.  So you can just tone it down.  This is the last thing he wants to walk into and I certainly don’t want another lecture like that ever again,” Ryeowook argued.

            “That was six years ago!” I said, rolling my eyes.  “There’s no way in hell he’d bother to lecture us now.”

            “He still doesn’t want to walk in and see us kissing,” Ryeowook claimed.

            “Heechul just text me and said they won’t be here for another fifteen minutes.  I only planned on eating a damn appetizer and I’m settling for kissing you instead, but we could still do it quick and be done and dressed again before he got here without him being any wiser, if you really wanted to.  I can be flexible like that.”

            Ryeowook slapped my chest.  “No, I don’t want to, you ert!  And Heechul would know.  He always does.”

            I smiled and leaned in to kiss Ryeowook’s cheek again.  “You’re probably right, but it was Leeteuk I was thinking of, admittedly.”

            “You can have your kiss and then get the hell out of my kitchen so I can finish dinner,” Ryeowook insisted.

            I kept one arm firmly wrapped around him and brought the other up to cup his face.  Then I bent my head and kissed him slowly, savoring the sweet taste of his lips that had clearly been taste testing the strawberries he’d recently cut for desert.  I on his bottom lip and slid my hand into his soft hair, tangling my fingers in his locks.  Finally, I angled my head more and the seam of his mouth and he opened his lips for me.  Ryeowook moaned against my lips as my tongue dove into his mouth and began to slide against his. 

            His fingers grasped the fabric of my shirt as I deepened the kiss and then began to glide up my chest until he finally wrapped his arms around my neck, pulling me closer.  He grasped my nape, tickling my skin with his fingers until I began to shiver from his touch.

            I forgot all about the dinner party.  I forgot we were even in the kitchen until I suddenly heard a loud creaking noise from beside us and I broke my lips away from Ryeowook and looked over.  Hyukjae was sitting on top of the counter, recording us making out with his phone.

            “Damn,” he softly cursed.

            “What the hell are you doing?” I demanded.

            “I thought I’d record the reason why Ryeowook burned our dinner for Leeteuk,” Hyukjae confessed, getting off the counter and hitting the stop button.

            Ryeowook yelped and spun around.  He quickly began to stir the food before he proceeded to me out for distracting him and kicked us both out of the kitchen.

            “Thanks a lot.  Now I don’t get any food or love,” I complained, following him into the living room.

            Hyukjae opened his arms wide.

            I scrunched up my face and waved him off.

            “Don’t say I didn’t offer.”

            “You’re too tall for me,” I explained.

            “I heard that!” Ryeowook hollered from the kitchen.

            “He’s so touché some days,” I whispered, sitting down on the couch and reaching for the remote.

            Hyukjae grabbed the remote from me.  “Ryeowook said we’re not allowed to watch television while Teuk’s here.”

            “Well, he isn’t here yet.  Is everything off limits?” I asked, getting moody.

            “Sing me something instead,” Hyukjae said, moving the remote across the room from me.

            “Sing something?  What are you, a baby that I have to sing lullabies for?” I questioned.

            “Please?” he asked, sitting down on the couch and sticking out his lower lip.

            “What would you like to hear?”

            Hyukjae thought about this a while and then finally answered, “My Love, My Kiss, My Heart.” 

            “As a solo?”

            “I’ve heard you sing it before around the apartment,” Hyukjae pointed out.

            “Very well,” I answered.  I began to hum a little of the music preceding the first lines of the song and then I started up.  Not surprisingly, by the time I got to the chorus of the song, Ryeowook had come to the doorway of the kitchen and sang it with me.  He is one of the main vocalists that sing that part, after all.  I let him sing his own part near the end as well and we sang the end together.  Hyukjae clapped for us when we were done and Ryeowook bowed before heading back into the kitchen.

            “Aren’t you a spoiled thing,” I said, shaking my head.  “People pay good money to hear me sing in hot, crowded arenas and you get to request whatever song you’d like in your own living room for a private impromptu concert.”

            “People pay good money to see me sing, too.”

            “No,” I said, smirking.  “They pay to see you take off your clothes and dance.”

            Hyukjae grabbed the closest thing he could find and launched it at me.  Thankfully, it was a pillow.  In time to prevent any further damage to my person, the door opened, and in walked Heechul and Leeteuk.  I immediately jumped to my feet and called for Ryeowook before running for the front entrance.  The moment I reached Leeteuk, I practically tackled him.  Of course, he’s stronger than me, so there was no damage done and he just smiled and laughed.

            “Kyuhyun!”

            “I missed you,” I said, wrapping my arms around his neck.

            “So did I,” he said, letting out a deep breath and patting my back.

            “When you have a chance to talk alone later, I have a few things I’d like to chat about with you,” I told him, trying to stay quiet enough so Heechul wouldn’t hear me or he’d demand to be part of it as well.

            “Sure,” Leeteuk said, pulling away enough to look at me.  “Is anything wrong?”

            I looked him straight in the eyes, so he’d know I was telling the truth.  “Nothing at all.”

            “Later tonight then,” he promised.

            I nodded as Ryeowook finally made it to the doorway and I moved out of the way for him, blocking Hyukjae so he’d have to wait.  Hyukjae smacked me in the back and I turned to look at him and stuck out my tongue.

            “Brat,” he muttered, pouting.

            “Kyuhyun used to sing Eunhyuk lullabies when he was a baby, you know,” Amara told one of their visitors to the room after watching Kyuhyun sing to his friend.

            “He did?” she asked.

            “Before Kyuhyun was sent back to Earth, he would go visit his friend.  If he found him fusing, he’d sing him to sleep.  Sometimes I thought Eunhyuk just started fusing the moment he spotted Kyuhyun just to hear him sing,” Amara explained.  “I guess you never outgrow some things.”

            “I guess not.”

            Ferrand rolled his eyes and walked back to his seat.  He knew what a theater was now.  Ever since Kyuhyun had lived through the car accident, their room was a frequent stop for people to visit since no one knew what was going to happen next.  This initially put the elders on edge.  Kyuhyun could easily start racking up bad karma and have to be sent back for another life.  What if fame went to his head?  But many years had passed at this point and it was clear that Kyuhyun was going to continue to work hard, love his friends and relatives, stay a devoted boyfriend, and be generous with his money.  His songs brought smiles to peoples’ faces and neither fame nor money hadn’t ruined him.

            “Do you think he’s going to do it now that Leeteuk’s back?” Malina asked Matthew.

            “Maybe.  Perhaps that’s what he was waiting for all along,” Matthew said.  “If that’s the case I’ve got to get ahold of a few people.  They’re going to want to see what this conversation is about.”

            Youngja laughed.  “Isn’t this refreshing?  Watching a life where you’re not entirely sure what’s going to happen next?” she asked Pedro.

            “It’s exhausting.  I haven’t left the viewing room in weeks.  The man barely sleeps!”

            “Well, he only has this last life to live.  Why waste it sleeping?” she questioned.

***One more chapter after all, I guess...***