Heechul caught up with Sungmin. "We are not done talking to you." He turned Sungmin around to face him.
"I really am going to b-be late." Sungmin was sticking to the I have a class story.
"Man up for once and face me. This is how you lost Kyuhyun in the first place and you have the gal to actually mourned his loss. Frack you, Sungmin and you lack of b*lls! What the frack do you think I was doing in New York? Your geddem ex calls me in the middle of the night, he says that he got the chance to be in a musical but he wants to go home. And home is not South Korea, no it wasn't, it was you. He wanted to come home to YOU."
"He left me. Why is it my fault now?" Sungmin started to hiccup.
"Because when the person you love more than anyone in the world tells you that they are leaving you, you don't let them." the anguish in Heechul's voice made Sungmin's tears stop. He looked at the haunted face of his friend and realized that perhaps he was not the only one to have suffered pain.
"You...and Kyuhyun...IG..." hiccups made sentences difficult for him.
"Ee babuya. Why would I harass someone who was clearly crazy about someone else?" Heechul hit Sungmin on the back of his head.
"Then who is that person that you love?" Sungmin was curious now, not hurt.
Heechul winked and put on a smirk. "It's for me to know and you never to find out. You caught Kyuhyun's disease." they meant that the person could not keep a secret.
"Heechul..." Sungmin didn't know what to say to his friend. "I'm sor-"
"Stop apologizing and tell me why the heck you ran off like that?" Heechul was dragging him by the collar and Sungmin had to maneuver to get free.
"My students might see us!" He wiped the tears from his cheeks with his sleeves.
"And you think running away crying like a woman would help your reputation?" Heechul took out a colorful silk handkerchief and used it instead to dry Sungmin's tears. "Such a baby."
"I'm not!" Sungmin pouted. Heechul was so close and still wiping when a group of female students walked by. Sungmin heard the shrieking when they recognized Heechul.
"Heechul, oppa!" Heechul blocked their view so that it was only his back that they saw and not Sungmin.
"He said you didn't want people to know about the two of you. I wouldn't want to start rumors about us." Sungmin looked up while he was still in Heechul's arms. His embrace was protective but it was that of an older brother, family not at all like Kyu's embrace which was always playful and tight. It was not like Tao’s which made his heart feel free.
Heechul kissed Sungmin's forehead. "We need to fix you up. You're a mess. The rest of the guys took a couple of days off. They will be here till Sunday. You need to get a replacement to teach your Friday class because you are coming with us." Sungmin shook his head.
Heechul pushed him but he still held him by the shoulders "You know what happens when people refuse me, right?" Sungmin swallowed because of the murderous look on Heechul's face.
"There just isn't any replacement that can be asked to take over my class." Sungmin was being shaken now because Heechul was rightfully upset. "I-re-lee-don't-hav-a-rep-lace-ment!"
"What kind of second-grade university is this? Are you a slave? What if you get sick? What happens then?" Heechul was beet red in anger and concern.
"I don't really miss work or get sick...so that has never happened before. And I don't miss work. I have...I have nothing else to do...even when I was drunk I still tried to sober up to go to work." Then a bright idea came to him "How about you guys come to my classes. I only have two tomorrow. And they are both music classes in the morning. You can do a demo."
"And sing unpaid, no no no." Heechul was a professional singer now and didn't want to do it.
"Heechul-ah~" there was that pout again.
"Only if you tell me why you broke up with Kyu." Heechul repeated.
"He broke up with me. I didn't break up with him..." Sungmin looked at his shoes.
"Why didn't you go with him to America?" Heechul asked again, confusing Sungmin.
"I didn't know I had that choice." Sungmin looked at Heechul like he was completely baffled.
"He would have taken you if you wanted to." Heechul was getting pissed off. Sometimes explaining things to an innocent was just painfully difficult.
"As what? I wouldn't be able to work there. My work is here." Heechul slapped his hand on his forehead.
"As his husband, you closeted fool!" Sungmin almost choked when Heechul said that.
"But..."
"Yeah. That but got us here." Heechul walked towards the restaurant again.
"Heechul..."
"Time to go back to where you belong, pumpkin professor." Sungmin took Heechul's hand and smiled, genuinely this time. The feeling of going back home no longer a surreal feeling.
TAO wiped the tears that he allowed to fall. The end of his sleeves were both wet from all the tears that he's wiped off. He didn't know if it was because Sungmin was back together with his lover or but because he was happy that his gyo-soh-nim would now have no reason to seek his help or let him ask for his help. He's saved him and Tao now needed to save himself.
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