jewelledhours | [super junior] butterfly steps

butterfly steps by

catskilt
heechul-centric, bandfic
g; 3073 words
heechul leaves the dorm after a quarrel.
inspired by what heechul said on strong heart.

butterfly steps

It's Siwon who calls him first, phone lines flickering, masking the sound of his uncertainty though Heechul has known him long enough to detect the hesitance in his voice. Siwon has always played the peacemaker, despite him not living in the dormitory with them; or perhaps because of it, because Siwon isn't privy to how bitter anger on Jungsu's face can be or how scathing Shindong can make his tone or how violent – Heechul is nothing if not honest – Heechul himself can be when he gets angry; smashed up furniture, bits and pieces of kitchenware on the floor; Hyukjae and Donghae had been the last ones to clean up the shrapnel of his fury. Siwon knows all that, but knowing is different from experiencing, and so Siwon calls him with only uncertainty and not trepidation.

"Come back, hyung," he pleads. "Teukie hyung isn't as angry anymore, and I'm sure they all want you back."

"It's only been six days," Heechul says. "I need more time away from everybody."

That saddens Siwon. He likes to think that everyone in Super Junior likes to be with everyone all the time, which is ironic because he's the one who lives permanently apart from them; he doesn't know how stifling it can be living with nine other guys all climbing on top of each other. Siwon is the typical happy-endings everybody-gets-along type and it makes Heechul sick to the gut sometimes, all these rainbows and flowers and happy thoughts when Kyuhyun can say silky words that hurt and Hyukjae can say nothing but look everything.

"Just give me more time," Heechul says, and refrains from adding that it's a given he'll be back eventually; in this business they can't be apart from each other for too long, they're all thrown together and they can't stay away. He tunes out the pleading in Siwon's voice and hangs up a bare minute later. In his blackest moments, he thinks he understands why Kibum left, why Hangeng left. In his blackest moments, he doesn't understand why Youngwoon wants so badly to come back.

… …

Quarrels in Super Junior don't happen in a flash; those disagreements that flare out of nowhere and involve fists on shoulders (not on faces, never on faces) and loud hasty words are called arguments, to be fought and yelled over and forgotten in the next half hour; just a necessary letting out of steam, Jungsu says. Quarrels are altogether different. They simmer and build and intensify and manifest themselves in days of alternate cold silence and violent outbreaks, shouts so loud that Donghae covers his ears with the sofa cushions and Jongwoon appears at their door telling them to shut up and play nice. Sometimes they shut up, but they never play nice, at least not until something else takes over and the quarrel is pushed to the backburner.

Heechul always wants to scoff when fans think that Jungsu's the quiet one, the mediator, when Jungsu gives as good as he takes whenever a quarrel between the two of them happens. He knows, of course he does, that nobody else can really shout at him, Jungsu's the only one with the appropriate seniority and Heechul would be unfair to claim that he doesn't deserve a bit of shouting now and then, but knowing it doesn't make it any less frustrating. He hates how Jungsu is always seen as the moral centre of Super Junior, the paragon of all that's good and the final judgment in all disagreements, and he wants to lash out that Jungsu knows nothing about what it feels like to be so divided between individual projects that you actually want to do and group projects that you're emotionally obliged to do. Jungsu doesn't know the struggle. He has never been through it. His whole life revolves around Super Junior; he doesn't know what it is to not want to sing with the others, to not want to learn the dance routines; and more often than not Heechul does lash out, does say those exact words, and Donghae cries and Jungsu says get out, stop bringing this bad blood into the team.

And then Heechul hates him even more, because bad blood is not what he has ever wanted to bring into the team and such misunderstanding beggars belief, makes him think that maybe this isn't the place for him after all, because there's no way people can love you and yet misunderstand you to such an extent.

And that's when he moves out, to find out what it's like to be away from those people.

… …

Donghae calls next, because Donghae is Donghae and he never holds grudges for too long, something which Heechul both admires and considers a weakness. Grudges are good. Grudges keep you strong. Grudges help you to stay away from what you know has the potential to destroy you, emotionally or otherwise.

And yet if Donghae could hold grudges Heechul knows that he would be one most grudged against, because who cleans up after his mess time and again when his anger has turned to destruction? One of his earliest memories of their quarrels involve Donghae on his hands and knees in the aftermath, painstakingly picking up the broken pieces of glass and vacuuming the floor so that nobody scratches their feet. Heechul had told himself then that he would learn self-control, because Donghae on the kitchen floor caused such a pain in his heart that if he could have carved out that violent side of himself he would have done so right then, but contriteness is weaker than anger and it's always only after the anger that he's contrite.

"Hyung, I miss you," Donghae says, and Heechul has always found it hard to battle the sincerity in Donghae's voice – goddamn, why must the kid be so goddamn pure? "I know that you're probably still angry with us but, you know, just come back? Maybe we can find a way to resolve it. Jungsu hyung hasn't slept much since you left."

"Donghae," Heechul begins, and he hates himself for this, but it has to be said, "Jungsu hyung and I are having a quarrel. We're not going to forgive each other just because we spent a few days living apart."

Donghae is quiet for a moment, and Heechul's about to say something again when "Why don't you leave Super Junior then?" cuts into his ears and silences him out of sheer amazement.

"What?" he sputters.

"Why don't you leave?" Donghae's voice is stronger now, louder, and Heechul realises that saying this is taking a lot out of Donghae; "if you refuse even to come back and talk out the matter, then isn't it better to just stay away permanently? We're making you so unhappy. We're keeping you away from what you want to do. In that case you should just leave, shouldn't you?"

Heechul tries to speak, but his voice is dry and he can't. He thinks of Donghae's wide smile, how long it took him to grow, how he used to send Donghae to school every morning because Donghae was young and lonely and liked having him around; Donghae likes having him around, Donghae truly loves him. And that, Heechul knows, is something you don't give up even when you want to because someone who truly loves you is a not a random someone you can trip over any day.

"You can't, can you?" Donghae continues after Heechul doesn't say a word. "You don't want to leave us. Well then. You better come back."

Day seven is always when Heechul starts to feel lonely, and it's not a coincidence that day seven is always when Donghae decides to call.

… …

Heechul knows that some of it is his fault, some of it is Jungsu's, and a lot of it is the pressure they're living under, a pressure brought on by the company and the media and the fans, who want them to be one big happy family where disagreements occur in pleasant little disputes that have everyone snuggling and laughing at the end. He has never wanted to be a singer, and there are actual reasons for this; in Super Junior he's not going to out-sing Kyuhyun or Jongwoon or Ryeowook or Sungmin; he just doesn't have the amount of natural talent that they do, and more importantly he hasn't clocked in as many hours of vocal training. He doesn't want to be a dancer either, because he might practice till his bones shattered and laid on the floor in pieces and he would still not move as fluidly as Hyukjae or Donghae or Shindong; he would still not be able to immerse himself so much into the beat of a song that he knows how to move along with it.

He's good at variety shows, and at creating shock factors with his image, and at seducing a public that loves witticisms and quick tongues, but one can't live off variety shows and shock factors if one has no desire to be a comedian. Heechul doesn't want to be a comedian. He enjoys whatever of Teuk Academy that he gets to watch and occasionally he feels jealous that they're getting so much attention and praise for their gags, but he doesn't want to join them. He wants to be a MC, a serious one, the type that hosts popular primetime talkshows; he wants to be an actor, mostly, one that can make people cry (so much easier than laughing) and laugh (so much harder than crying) and feel (so much harder than crying or laughing).

It's just that acting isn't in the game plan of Super Junior and it's something you're supposed to do on the side, something called a solo project, and Heechul has been given a lot of leeway in what he wants to do but he knows that his first priority is supposed to be Super Junior, because they're the ones who gave him his springboard into show business and they're the ones who carried him when he was sick and filled in for him when he was too busy with his solo projects to join them in performances.

It's just that beyond Super Junior there's a life, and all of them know it, some of them choose not to see it, but it's there regardless and Heechul knows that if you want to act you have to start early, get the fanbase and the good drama scripts, because a young debuted artist is infinitely more touching than an old one who gets stuck with parental roles. He knows what he wants and he knows how to get it and the only thing that's standing in his way is the one thing that he can't abandon, no matter how much Hyukjae believes that he does.

Sometimes it's not Jungsu's vehement words or Kyuhyun's silky sarcasm or Shindong's blustery fury that hurts him most, but Hyukjae's unhappy, apprehensive looks because Hyukjae is the type who believes the best of everyone and it hurts to be the one person that Hyukjae doesn't know how to trust.

… …

By the time Ryeowook calls, Heechul's struggling with a pile of laundry he can't figure the origins of and a washing machine he doesn't quite know how to operate. He's also tired to the death of instant noodles and store-bought food, because the managers aren't free enough to pick up proper food for him and drive all the way to his friend's rented apartment to deliver it to him.

You want to live apart, you get to live apart, an irate manager hyung told him. You don't get to have your cake and eat it too.

"I'll come help you with it, hyung," Ryeowook says, and forty minutes later he's at the door, holding grocery bags.

Ryeowook is one of the members who stays out of quarrels when they happen, who prefers to let the older members tear each other's heads off while he stays out of the battle fray and hopes that nobody gets injured enough to stamp out with wounded feelings. Ryeowook has no problem with priorities; he loves the group and he looks up to Jungsu and he's lucky that Super Junior does exactly what he wants to do; sing. Singing with Super Junior gives him more exposure, paves the way to solo singing offers from recording companies.

Heechul wants to nurse annoyance towards Ryeowook too, for never taking a side, never supporting or defending and always avoiding, but Ryeowook doesn't have any reason to step into a battle that doesn't involve him directly and Heechul knows that there's enough conflict in the group already, they don't need one more. His wants slink away, ashamed, when Ryeowook hoists a pot onto the stove and proceeds to cook kimchi jiggae for him with spicy rice cakes.

"I'll take care of the laundry when I'm done with this," he says cheerfully. "It figures that you don't know how to work the washing machine, hyung. You've never touched the one in the dorm except to pick out your clothes, right?"

"It is a very advanced, modern washing machine, unlike the dinosaur we have at home," Heechul says, sitting at the dining table. "There are functions in that thing that aren't humane."

Ryeowook just laughs, and Heechul finds himself so comforted by his presence, so at home somehow, that when the stew is cooked he's fast asleep on the table, dreaming of Donghae's smelly socks and Jungsu's laughter when someone does something silly and Sungmin's guitar strumming, all the noises that have somehow come to make up the general picture of home to him. And home's a place you sometimes want to be away from, but where you always want to come back to.

… ….

Times aren't bad, on a whole. There are good times, excellent ones even, times when they sack out in the living room together and sing karaoke on the karaoke machine or watch horror movies to see who recoils first. Times when he and Sungmin attempt to play a duet together on a piano and mess up spectacularly with fingers clashing into each other's and notes so mismatched that Jungsu begs them to stop before they deafen his old ears.

Times when Jungsu sleepwalks his way to the toilet and crashes into a wall on his way back, when Hyukjae and Donghae put weird things into Jongwoon's bed and laugh like crazy people when Jongwoon yells in shock, when Youngwoon calls and they put him on speaker phone and crowd around because everyone has something to say and so little time in which to say it.

It's crowded in the dorm, messy and chaotic and at best slightly invasive, but Heechul's grown addicted to it, to the atmosphere of hectic love that shows itself in actions as well as words. It's why he can't stay away, he thinks, because while solo projects and stone-clad careers are important, so too is friendship and brotherhood and family, and he's old enough to know that one can survive alone, but it's so much easier surviving with others.

The day that Kyuhyun sends him an email linking to an article about how old people with larger networks of friends live longer than their friendless compatriots is the day that Heechul thinks maybe he should go back (if you want a longer life, as Kyuhyun puts it).

After all, Kibum and Hangeng didn't leave because of this, and Youngwoon wants to come back because of this, and it's stupid to stay away from it when the anger is diminished and the pride is saying, give me up, you dumb bastard, before you let me overtake you.

… …

Jungsu is the only one in the apartment when he comes back, lugging his backpack with the remainder of the instant noodles (no point leaving them in an empty apartment) and laundry that Ryeowook didn't manage to finish (it took Ryeowook some time to figure out how to work the washing machine, too. Heechul feels vaguely pleased by that).

They've known each other forever and they're not the awkward type, but when Jungsu silently takes the backpack from him and unpacks the odds and ends of his rebellion, Heechul finds himself fighting for words because apologies are fucking awkward, especially when you're apologizing to someone who was yelling at you only two weeks ago.

Jungsu solves the problem for him. "I know I should have said this before," he says, putting down Heechul's T-shirt and looking up at him. "I know I was out of line that day. I shouldn't have told you to get out. It's not something that we should be saying to each other. I know that you try your best for the group, and that you care for all of us, and it's not your fault that we run into problems. I'm sorry."

This is why Jungsu's the leader, Heechul thinks, why he's the moral centre, the one they all listen to, because he's one of the special few people who hold back from saying sorry until they mean it, and when they mean it, they aren't afraid of saying it. He looks into Jungsu's clear eyes and breathes for what feels like the first time in a very long while. "I'm sorry, too," he says.

Jungsu smiles, and just like that, Heechul knows that the quarrel is over.

They spend the rest of the evening cooking an edible dinner as an elaborate apology to the rest of the members.

… …

Things are not going to be perfect. Quarrels are going to happen again. They're going to lash out at each other, and they're going to say bitter things, and they're going to wish that they were someplace else. But Heechul knows that he'll never leave again, not until the company declares Super Junior defunct and pulls him out of the apartment by his ears (or your disgusting hair, Jungsu says. I still don't like the dye.)

He'll not give Kyuhyun another opportunity to be sarcastic against him, and he won't let Donghae clean up the mess alone next time, and he'll play the piano with Sungmin for as long as Sungmin wants, and he'll regain Hyukjae's trust, a step and an action at a time.

And he thinks, out of all these grand resolutions, at least one of them will have to work.

end