KiHae: Boxing (#2)

This is part of an unofficial 100-word challenge that I've given myself, so don't hold anything against me if I don't make it to a hundred. =)

Again, I'm still fairly new to SuJu fanfiction, so please let me know if I'm doing a good or bad job, if I've got characters portrayed nicely, etc.!

Title: Boxing (#2)
Word Count: 1456
Rating: PG(-13, to be safe)
Started/Finished: 12.04.09 / 12.04.09
Music Muse: Super Junior, "Happiness"
Description: Boxing helps KiBum cope.

Boxing

He didn't notice it at first. He was too absorbed to notice anything, really. He threw fist after fist at the punching bag before him, and with each impact a loud echo reverberated through the room. Perhaps it was because of this that KiBum had missed hearing his phone ring, though the boy had been gone enough in his own world to blame the deed on his concentration.

Thankfully the unknown caller was persistent, as it had taken KiBum a good fifteen minutes to realize that someone was calling him. He allowed himself to catch his breath for several seconds and to take off his gloves before walking over to his phone, but his heart rate immediately quickened once more at the sight of the Caller ID.

이동해

KiBum was at a loss of emotions. On one hand, the man had not called him for almost a week now, and so KiBum was near thrilled that DongHae finally had the time to touch base with him. Yet on the other hand, DongHae would surely be able to note the frustration and unease in his voice when they talked, and KiBum already knew how much of a pain it was to deal with a worrisome DongHae.

Gulping down his uncertainties he flipped open his phone to answer the call, only to find that he had missed the call. A mixed feeling of guilt and relief swept over him, but the latter was overrun when he'd noticed the number of calls he'd missed since last checking his phone. If he hadn't felt guilty previously he certainly did now; KiBum was almost impressed that DongHae had bothered to call him thirty-one times in a span of fifteen minutes, except now he was fearful that DongHae might've actually had a reason to call to begin with.

Before KiBum could decide what to say when he returned the call, his phone began blaring its "U" ring tone once more. Though he didn't know how to apologize to DongHae for thirty-one missed calls, he did know missing a thirty-second was no good. And so, even if he didn't have the words ready in his mouth, he nevertheless flipped open his phone once more and spoke.

"Ah... hyung," he began, failing to hide his lack of grandiloquence. "Sorry for the missed calls, I was busy sparring."

"Figured," was the simple reply on the other side. KiBum frowned; why had there been no "KIBUMMIE I MISSED YOUUU!" or "SORRY FOR NOT CALLING FOR SO LONG KIBUM-AH, I WAS BUSYYY!" ? Or at least, that was usually how their long-distance calls had started....

KiBum always understood, though, when DongHae said he was busy with his schedule. He was somewhere in China doing things with Super Junior M, after all, and KiBum was sure they were all about business. Sometimes he wondered late into the night what DongHae was doing and how everyone else was treating him, and in those moments he would get jealous of everyone who got to be in his physical presence; all the way in America, there were no Super Junior members to keep him company.

He spent most of these days sparring with the punching bag, as was the case today. It was a suitable release for him, and nowadays it seemed he needed a lot of it. His mother's illness did not help any, and the lack of good news always led to KiBum's knuckles bleeding from working out too much. But there were other reasons for his sparring, reasons he would never let anyone but his own conscience hear....

"Kibum-ah," DongHae's voice rang suddenly, a hint of irritation in his tone; "I didn't call thirty-two times to listen to you space out."

"Ah, sorry, hyung." Then, on a more comedic note, KiBum added: "Wait, you counted?"

"Yeah. I lost count at around sixteen though, but my phone reminded me."

Another wave of guilt washed through KiBum. "Sorry...."

"Ah, Kibummie!" Donghae said with a laugh. "I didn't stay up this late to listen to your apologies!"

"What time is it there?" KiBum asked, not in the mood to do the time zone calculations himself."

"About two in the morning?"

"Hyung!" exclaimed KiBum, who was now searching the room for a chair to settle into. "You have a schedule tomorrow, you need to sleep!"

"Counterproductive," DongHae said quietly. In the distance KiBum found his target and began picking up his feet towards the chair. "I wouldn't have fallen asleep anyway," the man added.

KiBum frowned. "Why not?"

"Because I wanted to talk to you." KiBum found no response to give in return. In a way he was touched, that even amidst his events and schedules in China DongHae still thought about him. But he was also struggling to keep his mind strictly to the spoken words, in an attempt to prevent his imagination from departing on trains of wishful thought....

"Kibum-ah," DongHae said again, "stop spacing out. If I'm not spacing out, you shouldn't either."

"Sorry," KiBum said, though he quickly realized his mistake and added, "Ah, sorry for the sorry."

"We're getting nowhere," DongHae said with a laugh, and KiBum was sure he could hear DongHae jump onto a nearby mattress. At first he felt sorry for the person who'd been sleeping innocently on that bed previously, but then he began to wonder who that person was... and before KiBum could stop himself he began to feel pangs of jealousy for the person sharing that bed with DongHae....

"How's your mother?" asked Donghae in a serious tone, effectively changing the conversation topic and distracting KiBum from his torturous thoughts.

"Not well." The two talked for a while after that. Their conversation stayed on KiBum's mother for a good five or ten minutes, but KiBum quickly found the conversation veering towards other matters. Soon they were talking about Super Junior M's successes and plans for the future, KiBum's expected return to Korea, when exactly the two would get to see each other....

"KiBummie, I miss you. Don't forget, okay?"

"Yeah," KiBum mumbled. He wanted to return the favor, to tell his hyung that he felt the same way about the distance between them, perhaps more than DongHae himself felt. But he couldn't find the words to say it, even knowing that "I miss you too" would have sufficed. But it was more than that; he just didn't know a word that was stronger than simply missing him.

Loving him.

No. I could never tell him that.

"You don't miss me, Kibum-ah?" asked DongHae, as if having read his mind. And despite all of KiBum's internal protests, despite KiBum's desire to express something more meaningful to his friend to illustrate to him what exactly it was he felt... instead, he'd said "I do, hyung."

Their conversation ended shortly afterwards. DongHae had wished him sweet dreams, even though it wasn't time to sleep where KiBum was. Yet he couldn't help but to cringe at the remark, unable to make the suitable response he wanted to. DongHae had probably been too sleepy by then to wait for a goodbye, but long after the line went dead KiBum felt pathetic enough to mutter "Saranghae, DongHae" into his phone.

He sat motionless for several moments, but in the end wishful thinking and his emotions got the best of him. He got up and returned to the punching bag, placing the gloves back over his knuckles. He struck hard this time, letting out every drop of voice in a concentrated roar of frustration. He was angry, saddened, emotionally unstable.

In his mind, a picture of DongHae and him, caught in mid-laughter.
A fist into the punching bag, and the picture faded.

In his mind, a picture of DongHae holding onto him, watching the sun set in the distance.
Another fist, and it was gone.

In his mind, a future with DongHae.
One strike and it shattered to a thousand pieces.

The pain in his heart was beginning to numb. His mother's illness plagued him only minimally in this state. Even the pain DongHae brought was now only a slight prickly feeling. But DongHae was still there, as was his mother's illness.

As of late, boxing was KiBum's way of coping. Coping never got rid of the problem, but it wasn't what KiBum was after. He was letting free his anger over his uselessness in his mother's illness so that later he could accept her state and move on to other things, like being there for her, as her strong son.

By that wind, KiBum was allowing himself to vent his anger now.
So that later, he could accept that a future with DongHae surely could not exist.

END
KiHae: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16]
(SuJu Archive)

(gets bricked for angsty ending)

The weird thing is that I was listening to "Happiness" while writing this. What a terrible contrast, if I do say so myself.

J. Armstrong.