j_gabrielle | Fic: Not running, Not walking either (Reply)

Title: Not running, Not walking either.
Pairing: Eunhae, EunhyukOCs, DonghaeOC
Rating: PG
Summary: Eunhyuk travels the world after leaving Korea, and Donghae behind. But the numbness in him just doesn't fade, even with all the distance between them. Set after the events of Leaving you, Finding me Still for kimonochi if she would have it. :D

There’d been this girl in Paris. Annabelle. She was tall, cute with freckles and danced circles around him. They'd met when he saw her dance in wild turns on the street. She had long tresses of red curls that shimmered gold when the sun filtered through the window. Her eyes were wide like dolls and her lips red. Everything about her... Was fire, danger, life, and sex.

Yes. They’d fuck and it’d been great and he’d been satiated for days. Eunhyuk didn’t generally understood what she said when they were awake, his English was crapshit on a normal basis, but in bed he was good in interpreting the moans, gasps, soft curves instead of flat planes, and rakes of sharp nails. She’s the first-ever person after Donghae. And he knows he feels something, but something in him is just too numb to find out what.

He knows what they are, where he stands. New York had held him for a month before he’s off again. Paris holds him for two, before they screw around for the last time; her clinging to him like a lifeline, him breaking into pieces he can’t give away.

Somehow he finds himself in the English countryside next. The locals have a hard time pronouncing his name, and keep thinking he’s Chinese. It feels like he’s stepped into a new world. He gets a post teaching dance to the teens at the local community centre, doesn’t get paid much, but the kids who come make it worth the time. And besides, he’s a former Super Junior member. He’s pretty much set for life.

England meets him with Tom whose dad owns corporate businesses in downtown London and who stays in the mansion that looms beyond the lane of his own little place. Who is also the other Asian in the whole fucking English countryside. Tom is all firm and tone muscles, drives a blue Porsche, flies him out to Greece for a weekend on his yacht, treats him to dinners in five-star restaurants, buys him the latest fashion and holds him close as they make out under the stars. He smiles like a movie star with dimples, reminds him of Siwon, fills him soo full, like he’s about to spill. Eunhyuk realises that he might’ve loved him a little in his own broken way when he packs up to leave after three months. He calls Leeteuk to tell him. The bastard merely chuckles.

In Fiji he sees the lavender coral reefs. And he meets this girl with coconut shells for bikini tops (he never realised people still wore them that way) who almost convinces him to stay. Almost.

In Tibet he sees the temples and watches the sun rise from the valley.

In Spain he drinks the water in Madrid, watches a bull fight and dances in Ibiza. Calls Donghae’s name when he comes, long and hard into some guy’s mouth in the dirty toilet of the club.

In Canada, he meets Yesung and Ryeowook. They’re both fine, although they cast worried glances at him when they meet up for dinner. Ryeowook, ever the mother, fusses over his lack of nourishment (he did not look like a hobo!) and the way his clothes seem all worn and frayed. He assures them that he’s fine when they part. Leeteuk asks him when he is coming back when he calls from the airport.

He slips back into Korea to see his mum and slips back out before he even registered on anyone’s radar.

In China he meets someone who looks like Zhoumi and turns out to be Zhoumi. It was pure coincidence, really. He’d never gotten the hang of Mandarin despite knowing a native speaker for more than two decades. So he meets Zhoumi then. And somehow they end up rolling on the sheets of his hotel room. Zhoumi gives him this look afterwards that he couldn’t make out the meaning of. Sungmin calls the next day, two hours after Zhoumi leaves the room. How he got his number is beyond him.

“Hyuk? Hyuk! Is that you? Where are you? Where’ve you been? It’s been a fucking year, you son of a bitch!” It’s not always he gets to hear sweet Sungmin cuss like a tattooed sailor, so he treads carefully. “What the hell did you fucking think you were doing?!”

“China, hyung. I assume you got the information from Zhoumi, correct?” The silence he gets from the other end of the line is a confirmation. “Did you call him?”

“Hyuk-ah...”

“Did you?” Eunhyuk is off his bed now, dragging his luggage out, throwing things into his bag.

“He’s on the first flight out. Hyuk-ah, stop running ok?” He doesn’t answer. He hangs up and get dressed. He’s out of the place within the hour. Out of China by the evening. Threw away his sim card after he sees a familiar ID flashing on his screen.

Running. He doesn’t see it as running. More like... Evading. Avoiding confrontation. He's not running.

The next place he ends up is Sarawak. Some place he never even knew existed. It’s a nice quiet place, slow paced and enough to do to keep him occupied for a span of two weeks before he gets jittery and calls Leeteuk.

“So he found you?” Teuk’s amused voice is clear over the line. “Everyone was in a frenzy trying to hunt you down. Their words not mine.”

He chuckles, “I manage to hightail out of China. Sorry for making you worry, hyung. I’ll make it up to you when I get back.”

“That’s elusive. When exactly is your return date?” He doesn’t answer, merely swirls the tuak around in his glass.

“I don’t know.”

They sit in silence, listening to the soft crackles of static. Leeteuk breaks it by telling him that Junsu’s been looking for him. So that’s where he ends up next. Los Angeles.

Junsu welcomes him at the airport and it seems like the fact that they’d been out of touch for quite some time has been swept under the rug. He sleeps in the guestroom of his apartment and Junsu has said that he was welcomed to stay any length of period he wants. That night they hit the town, club hopping, dancing up a sweat. Eunhyuk has men and women coming up to him, dancing up to him and touching him. And the next thing he knows, he’s up against the wall of the alley behind the club and someone who looks like Donghae is thrusting hard into him. But this guy feels smaller in him, his shoulders a bit too wider, hair too short. It’s not Donghae, he knows that. But he’s too drunk to care, to broken to yearn for the real thing.

He sees Jaejoong and Yoochun the next day at the breakfast table with a bowl of haejangguk waiting for him when he sits down. He thanks Jaejoong who had obviously made it and laughs at Junsu’s dishevelled state when he sits down. Eunhyuk can’t remember the last time he’d sat down with these men for a meal. Judging by the looks of things, a very, very long time. Junsu takes him out to the beach later in the afternoon. They laze on the sand with a cooler of root beer between them.

“Very American.” Eunhyuk says when they clink their bottles together.

“So.”

“So?”

“Heard there’s a little manhunt out for you. Before you jump into conclusions, no one from Super Junior told me. Jaejoong heard it in the grapevine.”

Eunhyuk snorts, “Grapevine? What are you? Gangsters now?” Junsu merely smiles and takes a swig of his root beer.

They watch the late summer crowd around them. It’s been too long, Eunhyuk thinks when he reaches his third bottle, since he’d been this relax and comfortable. “Donghae was here three months ago.”

He startles at that. Looking over at his childhood friend, he watches him squint in the sun. “He was looking for you. I don’t know what he was playing at thinking you were here when the rest of you lot didn’t even know where you were.” When Eunhyuk stays silent, he listens as Junsu continues. “He looked like shit, Hyuk. What the hell were you thinking?” It’s said so soft, so sad that he feels a pang in his chest. “Did you say goodbye?”

“No. Didn’t think I could leave if I did. And I had to leave.” He traces the rim of the bottle. “It was... Getting too much. I am a coward aren’t I?” He adds without humour.

“I wouldn’t say that, but yeah. You are. He stayed for a week, just looking around. When he left... Hyuk, when he left, I think I saw a part of him die. He needs you, you know that? I don’t think he’s happy.”

“What are you trying to say, Su? That I should go back?” He sits up and hugs his knees to his chest. “I can’t. I don’t want to. I left to make sure that I never have to make him choose. I don’t want to make him choose between me or his family.”

“Idiot.” His best friend knocks him on the head with the butt of his bottle. “You were always the idiot.”

That night he books his flight to Argentina. And it’s also the night that Junsu looks at him and says, “I’m sorry” as he helps him into bed after a drink on his balcony. When Eunhyuk wakes up the next morning, he swears he’s going to kill the little shit ball when he gets his hands on him.

Because sitting on the foot of his bed is Lee Donghae; more handsome, more perfect, more sad than he could ever imagine or remember.

“Hello Hyuk.”

A/N: I took liberties with this one. Review?