Dancing In The Rain (Part 1)

Title: Dancing in the Rain
Pairing: Kangin, Sungmin, Kangmin
Word Count: 4k. Wow.
Warnings: AU
Genre: Fluff, AU
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the people I mention. The plot and story however, are all mine.
And this is going to be a two shot (as in two parts so the second part is linked to at the end of this one)

Summary: Kangin was successful, he had the money, he had the job. He couldn't have been completely happy though, otherwise where's the story. Enter Sungmin, who brings the happiness with him.

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The yellow numbers told Kangin that it was 12 am. He drummed his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel as he tried to keep the angry red glare of the traffic light from irritating his headache. The only thing he hated about his job was the hours. He was heading back early today by comparison, sometimes he didn't even come home; he just slept at his table.

Not that he had anyone to blame but himself for his working hours.  Two years out of college, he was the youngest ever editor of one of the biggest magazines in South Korea. He could, if he wanted to, make one of his subordinates stay back late to perfect the layout and re-check the articles but he didn't. He didn't get the same satisfaction from making others work that he did when he did it himself.

The heavy rain made it impossible to see anything that was more than a foot away from the front of his car, even with the windshield wipers on in the highest possible setting. It was freezing cold outside, Kangin was grateful for the warmth of his car. His GPS told him it was about 2 degrees Celsius outside, he thought that it might be snowing tomorrow morning.

It was almost miraculous that he noticed him then, the young man standing near the bus stop. There were many others at the bus stop, huddled together in the dry space, wrapped in padded jackets and coats, holding umbrellas that were dripping water. This man, however, was standing in the middle of the footpath in a thin white shirt with his arms spread wide open and his face turned up towards the sky.

The traffic light turned yellow, then green. It was only when the cars behind him began to honk angrily that he finally tore his eyes away from that man and drove forward.

A few minutes later, he was headed in the opposite direction from his flat. His GPS directed and redirected his route at least twenty times before the noise began to annoy him and he switched it off. He didn't know why he was driving back to that bus stop but he knew he had to. Maybe that man had got on the next bus, maybe he was still there. All he knew was that he needed to go back there.

His phone was lying on the passenger's seat, it began to buzz angrily. He looked at the lit up screen and saw 'Lee Ha Ni.' He knew he's have a lot of explaining to do later but he ignored the call. Ha Ni was not his girlfriend, just a close friend. He knew she was interested in him but he hadn't ever resisted or encouraged her advances. He just maintained an air of indifference, hoping she'd understand without him having to hurt her. Because no matter how much you sugar coat it, a bitter pill stays a bitter pill.

The phone buzzed some more. When it stopped, he leaned over and switched it off. Now he'd have even more to explain but he didn't care about it at the moment. He didn't stop to think about what he was doing, he knew that if he did, he would turn around and go back to his apartment.

The rain had reduced to a slight drizzle. He parked the car on the side and walked towards the bus stop. He couldn't explain the way his heart leaped with joy at the sight of a person in a white shirt sitting at the bench. He subconsciously began to walk faster, coming to an abrupt halt when he was a few steps behind the man because it was only then that he recognized him.

"Sungmin?"

The man turned around. "Oh. Youngwoon-sunbae! It's been a long time!"

His whole face lit up in a smile, he was just as cute as Kangin remembered him to be. Then he noticed that Sungmin was dripping wet and shivering slightly.

"Why are you wet?"

He laughed, "Oh, I was waiting for the bus when it started to rain, and all of a sudden I wanted to be dancing in the rain so I did."

Kangin laughed and sat down on the bench next to him, taking off his jacket and handing it to him. He shook his head, "I'm just going to get it wet."

"Where are you headed anyway?"

"I and a few friends are living outside the dorms in a flat but we couldn't get anywhere close. So we're living at the ABC flats? Yeah, two stops away. And I got held up with a project so my flat mates left."

"Oh."

They sat there in silence for a while, and then Kangin realized Sungmin was still freezing cold.

"Hey Sungmin, you'll catch a cold if you try to get back home. Come over to my place, it’s not very far away." I stood up and gestured over to where my car was.

He looked up at me, once again, his smile lighting up his whole face, "You sure it's okay?"

"Yeah, come on."

***

They reached Kangin's apartment after Sungmin fussed around for a while making sure that he wouldn't drip water on Kangin's seats.

Kangin took something clean out of his cupboard for Sungmin to wear while he showered, and then, though he would usually have slept without dinner, searched his fridge for something that could be turned into a decent dinner. Then they sat down to dinner on Kangin's couch, eating off the plates Kangin found in the back of a cupboard. He had never had company at his apartment; he was home only at the oddest of hours.

Sungmin was a friend from college. Not as much of a friend than a junior he was friendly to. Kangin was in his senior year when among the new batch of freshmen there was an exceptionally cute boy. Kangin's best friend, and head of the ragging patrol, Leeteuk was the one who pointed him out to Kangin.

"Yah! Youngwoon-ah! Get your ass off that chair, let's go!"

It was a few years ago, it might have been that or something along those lines that Leeteuk told Kangin that evening after dinner.

Kangin was in the cafeteria, it had been a long day and that made him incredibly lazy, so it was almost inaudible when he grunted his reply, "Why?"

"Look at that cute one... Must think of himself as some kind of kkotminam. Let's see how long he holds up."

Kangin had looked up but not seen anything special. The usual crowd of freshmen, some of them looking scared, some of them cocky, but he knew that by the end of the night they'd be terrified of Leeteuk.

Then he noticed the guy Leeteuk was talking about. A white hoodie, blue jeans, black hair that fell to his eyes, eyes that sparkled when he laughed.

Kangin shook his head, poor kid, he had thought. Wonder if he'd smile like that when Teukie was done with him.

Leeteuk had everything played out to his advantage. He had kind eyes, a youthful face and a skinny physique. Even if somebody complained, none of the teachers would believe it. Because he was Leeteuk, the perfect student. Sometimes when he was drunk he'd tell Kangin why he did it.

"The need to experience it you know," he'd say, beer splashing out of his bottle and onto the floor, "and some of the other guys wouldn't know when to stop. To know how to stand up for themselves and all that crap. At least I wouldn't rape them."

Kangin thought he had a twisted sense of right and wrong but didn't complain. Besides, he was sloshed too, he couldn't say for sure if Leeteuk really said it.

Anyway, that night Sungmin was the only one who didn't break down during that night's event. Leeteuk had thought up a boxing competition between the first years, unlike the usual cursing or stripping. What Leeteuk didn't remember the next day, (he was always sloshed on initiation day) was that Sungmin had not only beaten all the new kids but managed to land a few punches on Leeteuk and some of the other guys as well. Somehow Sungmin earned Leeteuk's respect. And that's how they became friends.

Kangin snapped out of his reverie when Sungmin said, "Youngwoon hyung? You okay?"

"Yeah Sungmin-ah, sorry. You were telling me about Hyesun-nuna."

Hyesun was an old girlfriend of Kangin's. Somehow it seemed she was still in contact with Sungmin. Kangin was in contact with no one. Not even Leeteuk.

Sungmin was always a noona's boy. The senior girls fawned over the new addition to Leeteuk's crew. Kangin was sure that he would have had a fan club even if he wasn't Leeteuk's friend. That was just how Sungmin was.

People mistook him for some kind of playboy. So did Kangin, before he got to know him. He just had that sort of a personality, the one that made women adore him. Heechul once said that he could fall into Sungmin's eyes, they were that deep. Sungmin had laughed and batted his eyelashes at Heechul, promptly earning a slap from the hyung.

After dinner, Sungmin offered to do the dishes and Kangin didn't protest, he went to try and find an extra blanket.

Later when Kangin fell asleep, he was happy. He didn't know whether it was because he had a proper dinner after a long time, or because he had heard stories about so many people who were once his genuine friends unlike the guys he shook hands with nowadays at business meetings. Maybe it was because he felt like he had a friend. A friend to fight with about who sleeps on the couch and who sleeps on the bed. Or maybe, just maybe, he was happy for no reason at all.

***

It was about a month later that they met again. They'd kept in touch in the time in between, texting whenever they were free and talking on the phone sometimes while Kangin was making dinner and Sungmin was outside a bar he didn't want to be at in the first place, late at night or sometimes in the early hours of the morning.

Sungmin was, Kangin told himself, like a little brother he never had. Someone to annoy, someone to advice, and someone to protect. Sungmin was, Kangin then told himself, the best friend he'd lost since college. Someone to call up in the middle of the night when he was bored, someone to talk to about work and the annoying coworkers, someone to miss, someone to love.

But that was all Sungmin was.

Sungmin sometimes slept over at Kangin's house. When he was late from college and was too tired to go home. When he and his friends went out drinking and he was too drunk to drive home. It was easier for Sungmin that way, Kangin's flat was closer to the campus and their favorite drinking haunts. But those nights he never met Kangin.

Kangin left a spare key under his welcome mat just in case Sungmin wanted to stop by. Whenever Sungmin came Kangin either wasn't home or he was already asleep. Sungmin found water to drink and fell off to sleep on Kangin's couch.

When Sungmin woke up it was always on the bed. He'd turn over to find Kangin on the other end. Kangin never woke up when Sungmin was there. But when he did wake up, he'd know Sungmin had been there. The dishes that had piled up in the sink the past week would all be washed. The laundry Kangin had washed but piled up on his chair to save the trouble of folding them would all be folded, kept in his cupboard even.

"It’s like having a wife, only he doesn't keep wanting stuff" laughed Heechul when they met, narrowly avoiding a blow to the head from Kangin, "Yah! Youngchoon-ah, you've got yourself a little wife!" They had met for the first time in two years and the reason was that Sungmin set them up on a 'blind date' of sorts. He'd asked them both to turn up at a cafe, saying it was an emergency, but when they both did get there, Sungmin was nowhere to be seen. When they met each other, they realized Sungmin really had no plans of meeting them there after all. Kangin couldn't explain why he felt disappointed.

The day they met for the first time was a Tuesday, Kangin remembers. The day they met after a month, was also a Tuesday.

Kangin liked to call it 'his' magazine, though it wasn't really his brainchild. He didn't like to brag so nobody really knew whether it was true that he was the reason the magazine narrowly escaped a financial breakdown. He revamped everything about it, from a daily it went to a weekly, hired new designers, he was even picky about which articles he let be published. That earned him criticism from some of the older staff, especially since he was so young. His redeeming quality was how hard he worked. There was never a time when he left earlier than midnight on a Tuesday before the magazine went to the printers on Wednesday. The criticism ceased to muted mutters.

He was done surprisingly early that Tuesday. When he opened the door to his apartment, he found himself being welcomed by the smell of sizzling meat. He walked into the kitchen to find Sungmin, who had managed to procure a meat grill from somewhere, setting two plates with grilled vegetables and meat.

“Oh hyung! You’re home early!” Sungmin smiled up at Kangin.

Kangin felt a little confused. Then again, he thought, he hadn’t ever explicitly mentioned that Sungmin couldn’t have friends over. He tried not to get mad, “So, who does the other plate belong to?”

Sungmin’s face reflected the concentration with which he was turning the last piece of meat over on the grill, making sure it was cooking evenly. Kangin wondered why he felt hurt that Sungmin appeared to have a dinner date. You stupid fool, you got used to the idea of having a little wife didn’t you? It was only after that last piece of meat was on one of the plates that Sungmin looked up, “Which other plate?”

Kangin fought to maintain his cool. “The plate other than the one for you. Is it someone special?”

Sungmin looked up at him and smiled, “Yeah. Very special. Go wash up and join me.”

Kangin did as he was told but was astounded. How could that little punk still be acting cute and ordering him around at a time like this? Didn’t he realize it was wrong to invite girlfriends to his friend’s apartment?

It was only about twenty minutes later that Kangin calmed down and asked Sungmin why his friend hadn’t arrived although they were halfway through their meal. Sungmin smiled and said his friend had already arrived. Kangin muttered something inaudible and looked down at his plate. Sungmin had laughed and pushed plate with the extra meat towards him. Kangin couldn’t explain why Sungmin’s words and his laugh gave him a fluttery feeling in the pit of his stomach. He tried to tell himself that it was just because he was eating meat on a stomach that had been empty for several hours. He wasn’t very convinced.

Kangin remembers that night. They were both tired and for once, they didn’t fight about who slept on the bed and the couch. They climbed into bed, spoke for a few minutes, then Sungmin smiled said ‘Goodnight hyung’ and turned over and fell asleep. Kangin wondered why it affected his heart rate so much to watch Sungmin’s slender body rise and fall with every breath.

***

Kangin remembers that night, though it was a long time ago. Just because he hasn’t met Sungmin since then.

It’s not that Sungmin had been coming over and the only thing Kangin saw was the folded laundry and washed dishes. Sungmin hadn’t been coming over at all. Kangin noticed on the second day.

Though he had been coming after work to an empty apartment for almost three years now, his apartment felt lonely now. His thoughts seemed to bounce off the walls and the echoes began to suck him into an odd sort of depression.

Work seemed extremely boring, but he still tried to finish up before coming home each night. He wondered if he should drop by the college campus; try to bump into Sungmin that way. Procrastination is a terrible thing.

He tried not to notice Sungmin’s absence, folding the laundry and washing the dishes himself, so that when he woke up in the morning he could console himself by saying that Sungmin had come over and fallen asleep on the couch. There was no change because everything had already been cleaned.

Kangin tried to believe it. He didn’t. Not one bit.

****





AN: I hope you like it so far. And you can find Part 2 here.