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The camera flashes once, twice, three times, and then hyunjin blinks. Almost sorry for his eyes that he never quite got used to the sting. At the very least it’s better here than the endless shutter clicks and blinding flashes waiting for him outside. In here, with the sterile white sheet behind him and a handful of magazine editors, stylists, and the camera man in front of him, he’s a professional. It doesn’t matter if he feels out of place here. It helps even, to feel disconnected from the absolute lack of charm and personality that covers every inch of the room, because then he’s not baring himself out to be picked apart by vultures, chained to a fate that he cannot escape. In here he puts on a front, takes up a role that is so far away from him that any stink eyes aimed at him fall uselessly like wooden arrows hitting a metal shield. The photographer looks through the pictures in his viewfinder. Hyunjin does not join him. He stays rooted to his spot until the editor takes a look too and nods at the cameraman, then turns to the staff and with one resounding clap she declares the shoot is successful. Then, he moves. Looking at the bigger screen where they are displaying his pictures, he gives his curt, critical opinions as is expected of him. He doesn’t ask for any pictures to take back home personally, he stopped doing that a long time ago. He even holds his tongue when he wants a certain picture deleted, because he knows how that goes, and he doesn’t want to deal with it. If luck is on his side, the editor thinks it’s a shitty picture and doesn’t publish it in the magazine. If lady luck fails him, well he was running out of scrap paper to use to clean his glass table anyway. As the staff start breaking apart the equipment to pack up and go home, he wanders back to the dressing room to break down his layers too. He sheds the ironed fabrics, surrenders the heels that have been digging into his skin the whole day, and beheads the jewellery that adorn his neck. His manager, seungmin, brings him coffee as he takes hyunjin’s bag off him to carry to their car. War awaits him, but he’s rid himself of all his weapons. All, except one. He keeps his full face of makeup on, but covers every part of himself otherwise. Draws his oversized hood over his head, ties the strings to his sweatpants a little too tight. And then he’s in front of the door. Fifteen seconds. That’s how long it takes to get him from the door to the car. He read that the state of the art cameras nowadays can click twenty pictures per second. His vision is instantly blinded by violent flashes of white as the door opens and seungmin leads him out. The ticks and clicks and smacks of the camera shutter don’t stop for a millisecond, there’s so much light and sound immediately breaching his barriers that he can’t even tell how many people are in front of him, he’s holding onto seungmin’s sleeve desperately, there’s another flash, and another, and another, and he’s ducking his head and another and another and another and he’s quickening his pace and another and another and another and he’s sticking close to seungmin and theres another flash and they’re yelling his name, his full name, and they’re calling and shouting and praising and scolding and disowning and disgracing and denouncing and- His hand is being violently pulled back. He loses his grip on seungmin, and his hood drops to his neck, and he is wide eyed in the face of danger. The flashes never stop, neither do clicks and especially not the yelling. But his ears are ringing, his heart is thudding away against his feeble ribcage, and his hand hurts. He yanks it back, not even really seeing who had so rudely stepped into his space, dared not only to touch him but hurt him too. Only, in the process of snatching his hand back, his watch catches on the person’s unrelenting grip and snaps right off his wrist and clatters to the ground. The sound pierces the ringing in his ears, crescendos over the yells and flashes. Seungmin is back by his side and shoving the assaulter away, while hyunjin’s eyes stayed fixed on the watch. As soon as his wits reunite with his shocked body, he is bending down and gathering the watch, frantically looking around the point of impact if there’s any parts that broke off and fell alongside it. He doesn’t care about his hood being down or how unflattering he looks on his knees in the dirt floor as he’s feeling around the earth with his bare palms to catch any small parts, glass shards, or metal pieces, even though he doesn’t see any signs of them. Seungmin has to grab him by the shoulders and hoist him up, drowning his protests out by hastily pulling his hood back over his head, almost covering his eyes in the process, and pushing him to sprint to their car. In the car, he pays no mind to the manager putting up the screen on his window despite the glass being tinted. Instead he turns the watch over in his hands, examining closely with his racing heartbeat shaking his core with every pulse, making his fingertips quake and quiver. Assessing the damage done, it seems like there’s a crack on the glass but it’s not broken. The gold plate surrounding the circular frame is jostled a little to the left, but hanging on. There’s scratches on multiple places and while it does irk him, they’re not his main concern. The clock hands have flown off their hinges within their glass containment and the mechanics don’t work anymore, or are at least trying to but failing under the conditions they’re in. There’s a small gear within the display too, which used to be beautiful to look at as it turns slowly with time, but now it’s come loose and spins uncontrollably as hyunjin turns the watch. A sense of grief settles over him as the realisation slowly sinks in, the watch is broken. There’s no telling time on it anymore, and it almost feels offensive to wear it in its tattered state when the original was so gorgeous. He would be making a mockery of it. And besides, he already gets flack for wearing an old fashioned watch around. He can’t imagine the names they’d give him and all the articles that’ll be published about his shabby accessories if he continued to wear a broken one. It is squeezing his heart tight, the overwhelming feeling of loss. Wrapping its vines around his flimsy muscle, constricting him. If only he wasn’t so clumsy, if only he was more careful. There’s no way to fix this now. He’ll just have to accept it and keep the watch somewhere deep inside his closet where every time he catches a glimpse of it would be a reminder of his shame. “Would you like me to get it fixed?” seungmin’s voice clears the vignette of his vision.Hyunjin blinks, “it can be fixed?”“Of course,” seungmin nods earnestly, his stature oh so believable “I can take it to the horologist my family knows.” Seungmin extends his hand, waiting for hyunjin to agree and drop the watch into his palm. Hyunjin pulls it closer to his body instead. It can’t be fixed, there’s no way. Seungmin is his manager, and friend, yes. But would he trust this ‘horologist his family knows’ ? Hyunjin doesn’t even know what a horologist is. The idea of a friend of a friend of a friend he has never met fixing his watch for him when he isn’t present- “No, it’s okay. I know someone who can fix it for me” lies, “thank you seungmin” a smile to soften the blow. To his credit, seungmin doesn’t push. “Okay, tell me if you need anything” and his broad shoulders are reassuring and his hand is back by his side where it belongs and his mind is off the conversation, but hyunjin’s isn’t. He feels… rude. Stuck up, even. Refusing the kind hand that feeds him. Putting up walls where they don’t have to be. The car pulls up to the dark parking lot of his high rise apartment complex, and he’s getting out of the sleek black car and bowing a good night to his manager and driver. He trudges up the stairs after opening the ID-locked gate, and he bows again to the security guard, always upholding politeness, never dropping courtesy. The elevators start on the first floor, for whatever reason. He would usually take the stairs to avoid being seen by whoever resides on the first floor, the peepholes his constant enemy, but today he hears some chatter and the noise of footsteps descending from the stairs. He punches the button on the elevator and bounces on his heel to get rid of the anxiety of being perceived and hopes the lift is faster than the footsteps. As soon as it opens with a ding he is inside and pressing the close doors button before he even presses the one to his floor. His reflection in the polished double doors is as cowardly as him as it refuses to meet his eyes. He enters his flat, and sighs at how absolutely unrelieved he feels. Bitterness swallows him whole at the emptiness and lack of anything that’s not furniture and lights that came with the flat. He has his own decor, lines and lines of paintings and cute plant pots and quirky little show pieces that serve no purpose than give him character, make the place lively. But they’re all in boxes, still packed away from his last move and still rotting while he can’t get himself to unpack any of them. Every day is worse than the last, and every day he lives he has less time, and when he finally convinces himself to unpack and live he is forced to move to a new place for whatever reason [Contracts, new locations, stalkers - you name it]. So it’s not even worth the effort. He just succumbs to living through boxes. He enters his bathroom to be met with still air and the scissors and hair dryer he had left on the counter this morning. He’s long since grown used to the absolute silence of it all, he’s an enjoyer of quiet solitude. And yet he can’t help the distinct sadness that settles in his bones at the reminder of his loneliness at his age. His friends - they all have partners. Some are starting a family. Those who aren’t, are starting business ventures. Expanding their career, building something for themselves. And here hyunjin is, constantly scrutinised, constantly on the move, constantly alone. He isn’t happy. Anyone could tell, but if anyone did tell, he’d grab those shiny professional hair scissors he had bought and never used and cut the withering string that attached them to him. Quickly doing the least he can to wash up, he settles down on his sofa with the watch in hand. Not that long after sitting down he stands up again, going to one of the boxes and frantically looking for something. His hands move faster and faster, picking up random stuff he had packed with no organisation at all and shoving them onto the floor only to be faced with disappointment and put them all back in again. He huffs when beads of sweat start rolling down his face, countless boxes not bringing him any fruit. He stands up and paces around his flat, wondering where the hell he put those. And when wracking his brain doesn’t give him an answer, he turns to the one thing he knows he kept safe. In his bedroom, he finds the glass frame of a couple photos he has kept with him over the years, resting carefully on a shelf that had a few spare candles too. “Grandpa” he whispers, grabbing the glass covered picture, reverently running his hand along it. Along the watch that adorned the man’s wrist. “I’m sorry…” He turns the picture around, wishing for a scenic moment of epiphany, foolishly hoping there was someone looking out for him even beyond the grave, imagining a scribbling of secrets behind the picture that seems to mean a lot more to him than it ever really mattered, but… nothing. For a man so alone, whom even spirits don’t seem to enjoy being around, why does he feel so haunted by shadows?
It is currently 2am, that same night. He’s skipped dinner, eaten a poor excuse of a snack to not collapse tomorrow morning when he will inevitably skip breakfast, and he’s spent the last hour clicking any link he can find on antique watch repair shops and horologists, as seungmin had mentioned. He finds out that there’s actually a handful of them in the more suburb-y parts of town, where people care less about money minting and latest grade apple watches, and more about preserving history. He learns that while horologists and watch makers do exist, the business is dying down. Or, well, it would be better to call it an art form, with the way they talk about it so passionately and aren’t doing it for money. Unfortunately for him that also means there’s less people who go to them and leave reviews online. He scoured every website and google location he could find, and checked which streets seem to have a shady reputation, and which shops look shady from the pictures, and if there were any reviews at all under their listings already. He even looked through reddit. He ends up with two promising looking places, one with great pictures and one with actual reviews. He immediately bookmarks and closes any other tab he had open, needing the space and focus to fix on one of these two. Then he’s listing the pros and cons in his head, mentally checking if one outweighs the other. The shop that has pictures listed looks very promising, but he realises it’s also a popular street and a lot of bars are littered around the place. He doesn’t necessarily mind the stench of alcohol, but… it’s the people he’s afraid of. He’s a slim tall guy with a recognisable face especially among locals of the city who love to tear him down every chance they get. Not to mention drunk people are even worse with boundaries. He shivers. The other one, is located next to a railroad. It’s open both during the day and night hours, and has a surprising amount of reviews. The actual listing doesn’t have any description or phone number or even pictures, which means the owners hadn’t put in anything, which would flag as low effort and dodgy, but… the reviews honestly say otherwise? Hyunjin’s eyebrows raise as he reads about the friendly staff and peaceful atmosphere. It’s more an antique shop than a watch maker place, but the thing that brought him to this is google recognising the ‘watch repair’ in his search and matching it with one of the reviews. After scrolling through a bunch mentioning this apparently adorable and disciplined day time employee who chit chats away about antique items and remembers every customer’s name, he lands on one particular review. ‘I came here during the day to fix my clock’ watch, in hyunjin’s case, but he reads on ‘i was told to come back during night shift hours because the employee who works them is the one who does clock and watch repairs. I was a little concerned, but agreed and came back, and I’m so glad I did! He was really friendly and easy going, kept up conversation so well I didn’t even notice he had already fixed my clock! This shop was my last resort, any other place I went to told me it just can’t be fixed and sent me home with a pitiful pat on the shoulder. But skyfall antiques saved me. My clock has been running perfectly ever since, and I couldn’t help but share my happiness here in case someone else is in need. If you’re looking for places to fix something old of yours, trust me, I was in your position. If you are the type to risk a leap of faith at a stranger’s good review online, then please, give them a chance. It is 2am. The place is open all night. It is half an hour away by car. He doesn’t have one of those, but he does have a bicycle. He hasn’t gone out cycling in a while, but he’s sure he can make it in forty five minutes if he pushed himself. He still contemplates if he wants anyone to be touching his watch, and he decides… he can experiment. He digs through his boxes to find another old watch that had stopped working a long time ago, but one that he had just… never really worn. No sentiments to get attached to. The idea is getting his adrenaline pumping. With the energy zipping through his veins and carrying his imbs, he is putting the test watch in his bag, shutting his computer and grabbing his phone and keys, throwing on another jacket for protection against the cold wind, pulling up his hood and mask, and running out the door. He has half a mind to not look suspicious. Putting his phone in the little handle he had installed for it on the bike’s basket, he sets up maps to navigate for him. And then, he’s off.
Arriving at the store, he didn’t expect the place to look so… barren around it. Sure there’s streetlights and a few residential buildings scattered a few roads down from the place, but the shop is within eyesight of a railroad, and he almost feels like he has entered a liminal space with how infinitely it seems to stretch. He doesn’t even know if a train runs on those tracks nowadays. He’s sure it’ll look much livelier during the day, with the greenery of trees and bushes surrounding the area and a clear sky and distant chatter from all the families going about their day. But currently, it resembles a chilling found footage film. The shop itself seems a lot more welcoming to its credit. If he was running away from a monster in this stretch of emptiness, he’d definitely seek shelter in the warmly lit building with sturdy walls and a gate that protects the thick wooden door. The signboard above it reads skyfall antiques, like the review. The door pushes a bell chime as he pushes it open, and he feels entirely different to how he felt outside. Entirely different to any place he’s been, if he’s being honest. The first thing he notices is a soft jazzy song being played. There’s wood and paper and precious metals everywhere, theres intricate designs etched into the shelves and walls and ceiling that he’s forgotten can be crafted by human hands, and there’s a sense of homey atmosphere despite this being his first visit. It feels whimsical, so full of magic in a world devoid of it, so undeserving of being tainted by hyunjin’s presence. He would walk out of it, if it didn’t embarrass him immensely and he wasn’t already too far down this rabbit hole to go back. “Welcome to skyfall! How may I help you?” a voice far too kind for this ungodly hour brings his attention to the worker at the counter, leaning on his elbows and offering him a dimply smile. He smiles back out of forced habit, before realising it wouldn’t even be visible beyond his mask. He clears his throat before speaking, “i heard you um… repair watches?”“Mhm!” the guy agrees happily, “sure I do. You got one you need fixed?” Hyunjin just nods and walks closer to the counter, retrieving his experiment from his bag, and presenting it to the guy. He takes it from his hands easily and starts to examine it, humming as he turns it around. “This will be pretty easy! You have ten minutes to spend? I can fix it up for you right now and you can take it home right away!” he concludes, looking expectantly at hyunjin for an answer.Hyunjin just shrugs, “don’t really have anywhere to be at this hour, you know… please, go ahead.” He chuckles awkwardly. As the guy gets to work, pulling out tools from random places, he observes the shop a little bit more. A lot of things catch his eye, and if he was a better person and less locked in himself all the time, he would look around the shelves and buy some of these to give them a home. The wooden showpieces are carved with such careful hands, he can tell. The small clay sculptures hold a thousand love stories, and the gold engravings speak of artisans he could only dream of learning from. There’s candles already lit on the counter, which he assumes are more for scent than for showing, but there are more wax sticks on the selves as well. There’s a wall full of clocks of different kinds, going back years hyunjin can’t even dream of. There’s a grandfather clock on one side and a few cuckoo clocks of different sizes too. On the opposite wall, he sees a bunch of mirrors. Any and all shapes, lining the wall from top to bottom, side to side. He’s used to seeing reflections of himself, but it makes him slightly uncomfortable to be faced with so many at once. Suddenly he feels as if theres a chilling breeze on his neck despite his hood, and he remembers that with age and stories come lingering energies. Resentment, happiness, anger, love. The worker comes back to the counter, setting down his tools alerting hyunjin to look back, and he’s onto fixing the watch. Hyunjin stays quiet, eyes trained on the man. Apart from hyunjin, he’s ironically the only other thing that doesn’t seem to fit the whimsical world the shop promises. He’s wearing a black leather jacket, a pair of black ripped jeans that hyunjin got a glance at when he was gathering his tools from the back, a couple bracelets and a nose and lip piercing but no rings on his hands, a lone necklace dangling over his chest, red streaks in his hair that covers his forehead upto his eyes, and he can peek the edges of a tattoo on his arm. Somehow, hyunjin feels seen. He feels relatable, he feels like he found someone like him, who doesn’t belong. “So, care to tell me why you want to fix a watch that doesn’t seem to have been worn at all?” the worker says lowly, suddenly all upbeat kindness gone from his tone, and hyunjin feels like he’s been thrown onto the cold train tracks. He suddenly feels too visible. Like the guy hasn’t just seen him but seen through him. Like he’s made of glass. And he doesn’t like it. His mind is recalling the words of the review in picturesque quality, blaring alarms in front of him while the words friendly and easy going mock him. He feels lied to. “What-” he chokes on his word, attempting to hide it behind another awkward chuckle that clearly doesn’t land, “what do you mean?” “There’s barely any scratches on this thing, and no oil deposits in the joints either. Which would usually be seen after one of these babies sits on someone’s skin for long periods of time.” He is screwing and unscrewing random parts as he speaks, apparently able to hold this conversation without a hitch as he works. “And the clock gears just stopped working from being dry, the lubricant dried up. That happens with time, and for how long that takes, you’d expect a watch to be well-worn by then.” He slides in a bottle of what appears to be lubricant, applying it to the tiny gears with skilled precision. He’s simply doing his job, but hyunjin feels wronged somehow. By all means, he is right. If hyunjin is remembering correctly, it’s a watch his… friend - once upon a time - had given him. He had never worn it because it was too expensive to not burn his skin, and then it just served to remind him of the person he doesn’t speak to anymore.
And yeah, hyunjin doesn't make a habit of wearing his failures.
Why did he still keep the watch all these years? He doesn’t know. He feels a sudden wave of goosebumps erupt over his skin under his clothes, and he hasn’t eaten and it’s incredibly late, so his mind may be playing tricks on him. But he feels a sense of way too many eyes looking at him, prickling up his spine and causing him to snap his head to the mirrors, only to be met with his dumb face looking back at him.
“It was a gift” he says as an answer, looking back at the worker and blurting out a truth without context as if it would make sense “didn’t want them to feel bad that I broke it” he forces a laugh. A half-truth, now. The guy doesn’t call him out on how anyone would find out the watch wasn’t working anymore if he never wore it.
“Okay, all done!” the guy smiles at him like the previous conversation didn’t happen, and hands him the watch. He goes over to the typewriter on the counter that hyunjin had honestly assumed was just another item up for sale, but it seems it wasn’t. Colour hyunjin surprised when the worker starts typing on it, apparently ringing him up. He pays and leaves the shop with the feeling of all knowing eyes on his back. Outside, he is faced with the darkness he had forgotten. Inside the shop feels like an island floating in time and space, disconnected from the modern world outside somehow. Against his best judgement, he looks into the stretching darkness that covers the railroad, but before his mind has the time to play with him again, he is rushing to get on his bike and get going.
Hyunjin hates waiting. The ticking clock never goes slower than when he has the anxious feeling of the wait thrumming right beneath his skin. A chasm of uncertainty filling his hollow chest as his heart hops like a desperate rabbit trying not to fall down the hole. The unfortunate circumstances of his life have him in this vegetative waiting stage a lot more often than he’d like. All the way on his ride back home and the days following his visit to skyfall he had been tossing and turning his interaction with the clerk over in his head. Wondering why a worker was being so crude to a customer, asking for something that might have personal reasons as an answer so bluntly, as if he deserved to know. As if hyunjin was committing a crime by not wearing that damned watch. So what if he wasn’t? It doesn’t leave his mind. He keeps going back to it like a dumb moth to a flame, getting burned time and time again when each remembrance of it makes his stomach emptier, his fingers colder. It lingers above his head like a raincloud, raining on any thought he has that doesn’t involve the interaction. Raining on his real life conversations outside of his head. He’s quiet to avoid being snappy, because he knows he doesn’t have more energy to actually talk to anyone when he’s been repeating the one line from the antique shop like a binding curse in his mind. Anytime he tries to stray from the thought he ends up back at the antique shop anyway, picturing the things he saw there that he couldn’t really memorise in the moment. Trying to remember if it was actually even real, but the ticking watch on his dining table speaks for itself. If he recalled the counter correctly, he saw the typewriter. He knows the position of it for sure. Next to it, from the corner of his eye, he saw a record player. One of those old ones with a golden sound horn. He didn’t know if the disk was spinning, but he imagines it might have been where the ambient music was coming from. He remembers walking past a stand of old newspapers and magazines before the mirrors started to creep him out. What was that even about, anyway? He remembers there were bookshelves too, but the spatial map in his head is getting a little muddy trying to place it. The spines didn’t have any titles on them. He remembers the racks and racks of antique curiosities, which he wishes he spent more time browsing and running his fingers through. The wooden carvings reminded him of his childhood home at first, his eyes gravitated towards the three legged table whose legs were designed to look like horse heads. He remembers an almost replica of the table distinctly in his memories, the one clear thing in the mess of fuzziness that surrounds his childhood. It brought him comfort, like light through a fog. But the rest of the items in that store were so far away from even hyunjin’s wildest imaginations, promising him stories that he’d never get to hear the end of. They felt so grounded, so connected to the earth, so very authentic and real. So vividly different from him and his detached, floating life. The place was hauntingly serene. Somehow, even the thoughts that leave him in a whimsical land far far away, end up straying back to the worker in the leather jacket. The gritty, rough image of his appearance is a puzzle piece that doesn’t fit in the elegant jigsaw that is skyfall. He wonders, how he ended up working there. If he was just trying to make ends meet, if he was there because of inheritance, if he actually liked being there and what made him pick that path. What events of his life led him to that position, what were the small insignificant incidents that led to their meeting on his side? He mulls over it, whether he wants to go back and get his actual problem fixed at skyfall or just suck it up and go to the other shop he saw. It would be the equivalent of retreating with his tail between his legs if he did that. It would be a lot more convenient, and he could simply never visit that weird place again, but he also has the pride of a ruler with a gold encrusted crown. A pretty diamond that he stole from a civilisation long gone sitting in the centre of it. He has to go finish the job. He’s in too deep already, and he can’t back out now. He’d also have to start over if he went to a different place, and in his balance scales he magically has in his brain, it would need more energy to do that than to sit through the long haul of figuring out what it is about the store and the clerk that puts him so on edge before entrusting his watch with him.All or nothing. Once he sinks his toes, he has to drown. Despite constantly thinking about it, he basically forgets that he must do something for it to even happen. For him to gain any progress, he needs to put his thought into action. He figured he’d wait a couple weeks to see if the watch he got fixed continues to work in such good conditions, before he goes back for the real deal. But… the more he thinks about it, the less he wants to give the worker his precious watch. Now that he knows he’ll get asked unnecessary questions, and his infuriating people pleasing tendencies will kick in before his protective instincts, he would end up oversharing a part of himself he isn’t even ready to deal with yet. He needs another test subject. He thinks back to the alarm clock he bought and forgot to get new batteries for, it has lost its backing cover and he needs the sound of the bell changed too. It’s far too shrill for his liking and with the amount of times it repeats before he switches it off, it only gets shriller. He figures that would be a good second test. He mentally notes to take it out of the box and keep it ready for his visit every day, but by the time he’s home after long days of work it slips his mind entirely. He only really remembers it when seungmin reminds him of his broken watch. He really wishes he hadn’t done that, though. Or at least, not at the time he decided to do it. They were at an after-party of sorts, social dinner would be more accurate. He’s got lee felix and han jisung flanking him on either side, and lee minho sits opposite him with seungmin and the two idols’ manager. There’s a few household names attending the party, but they’re far too engrossed in their conversations with themselves to give a damn about hyunjin. Occasionally someone comes up to their table, only to talk to the idols on his side or say hi to minho, and then awkwardly exchange greetings with him before leaving. “Did you manage to get the watch fixed?” seungmin had asked innocently, with well intentions. It still manages to put the spotlight on him and drag his convulsing bleeding body into the centre stage to be stabbed and prodded again. “What watch?” felix asks, bubbly as ever, voice not betraying for even a second that he’s accusing hyunjin of something. He sounds genuinely curious, just as much as han’s eyes hold genuine curiosity as he looks at hyunjin. But there’s no way felix is not remembering the watch he gifted him so many years ago, right? “My grandfather’s watch” hyunjin hopes his strained smile doesn’t look half as uncomfortable as he feels sharing this information with the two. “It kinda, caught onto someone’s arm when the tried to snatch my hand or something a few weeks ago” he supplies them with the details he knows are easily available to find. “What” jisung gasps, “someone tried to grab you!? Like a crazed fan or a pap?” he asks, eyes wide with innocence that hyunjin wishes he still had and wonders how han has got any left after all these years being in the industry. “Some asshole, definitely not a fan” seungmin says in his stead, and even though he speaks an unbiased truth it sets off a nerve deep within hyunjin. “But yeah they grabbed him while we were returning home from a shoot. I took care of the legalities and we’re in the process of suing them. But anyway, what happened to the watch?” Hyunjin’s eye twitches. “I haven’t had the time to go” he smiles, saccharine. “You know I only get home at midnight seungminnie, I basically crash after that.” “If you need anything-”“I know, I know” he waves him off casually, “he’s overly reliable sometimes” he says to jisung beside him, like he would share the sentiment, like he was sharing a little treat. “He’s caring,” felix inputs, and hyunjin clamps his mouth shut like an admonished child, “that’s a good thing! I hope you get your watch fixed hyunjinnie.” He finishes with his signature smile, with a blinding force that rivals the sun. Hyunjin is scorching. He remains silent for the rest of the dinner, letting the effervescent duo take his place in conversation, taking his place at the table as he leaves.
Hyunjin doesn’t believe in superstition, but he’d still… rather not be at the creepy little railroad at 3am. Just like how he’s careful about breaking mirrors, or walking under ladders. Better be safe than sorry. Unfortunately that doesn’t leave him with a big window of time. His two options are either go there early, around midnight, and spend the accursed hour riding back to his place all alone or go there after the witching hour has passed and sacrifice a whole night’s sleep. Not like he sleeps much anyway. He waits until a day where he knows he ends work early, and bids his goodbye to seungmin, and then waits about half an hour to make sure there’s absolutely no way his manager is camping outside spy-in-a-car style to check on hyunjin’s whereabouts, and then he’s off. He’s at the store at midnight exact, and he waits outside for it to turn 12:01 just in case he seems a little too eager. It would be weird to show up at exactly midnight, right? He wishes his eyes didn’t gravitate to the void shrouding the rail tracks, but… they do. And he ends up huffing and leaning on his bike, staring deep into what seems to be a black nothingness. If there was something out to get him, at least he’d see it coming. He enters the shop at 12:02. He’s stepped through a portal. He still has his mask on, even today, but he’s ditched the hood. His hair falls on his face and the back of his neck, unruly from the wind playing with it during his journey. He frankly, does not care enough to fix it. He runs a hand through the front. At least the front. No one cares what the back would look like, right? Skyfall has not changed in its allure at all. Not a single item has moved even a centimetre since he last saw it, which begs the question, how do they get enough profit to stay afloat around here? There was a certain stillness to it all, frozen in time like a picture. Like a game hyunjin walked out of, and every time he walks back in he hits resume. Something in his heart desperately reaches out for it, threatening to break skin and rip out of his very chest cavity to envelop around the peace of it all, to keep it locked away in a little bubble. At the same time he’s covered with goosebumps and nightmares, the unexplainable feeling lingering in the air, hanging like invisible grapevines, extending their tendrils to his neck and cementing him to his spot. Willing his legs to move, he walks to the front counter, where the worker was wiping down some sort of vintage camera with a dry cloth. He wears a simple black tee this time around, his sleeves ending early enough for hyunjin to get a look at the full sleeve of tattoos he has on one arm. Hyunjin can make out a big wolf head spanning about three quarters of his arm, and then a bunch of smaller tattoos surrounding it that blend into the design, engraved into the wolf just as much as they are in his skin. He doesn’t stare too much at it, not wanting to seem rude. “Welcome to skyfall- oh, hi! It’s you!” the worker greets, recognising hyunjin even with his mask on.“Yeah” hyunjin chuckles, “it’s me.” He rubs his palms into his sleeves. Something about being recognised always puts him on edge. It’s almost like once someone realises he’s the same person, they start studying him. Putting him under a microscope ready to dissect with their scalpels. Keeping track of everything he ever does from that point on and measuring him by it, judging him by it. He prefers first meetings to go according to his plans, so he can set up the perfect image of him that he knows the other person wants to see. And then he can keep playing the role, keep pretending to be someone he’s not. Because it’s a lot easier to be judged for a shallow representation far removed from himself than to let someone look into his psyche and realise he’s fucked up. It would hurt a lot less to have someone say they hate him, and the version of him they’re talking about was purely curated for them. They don’t hate hyunjin. They hate the idea of hyunjin he crafted with his hands and presented to them. He doesn’t know what kind of image to sell in here. “You did really well on my watch earlier, thought I’d get something else I needed fixed too.” He starts off nice, eyes trained on the worker’s fingers diligently assembling the camera. He doesn’t miss a single beat, hyunjin wonders how his fingers don’t shake. He wonders how it feels to do something and not have the fangs of hesitation sink into him. “Of course! Give me one minute!” the clerk responds, emphasising on the ‘one’. He continues to tinker with the camera, playing with tiny pieces of metal and wood and glass like they were extensions of his hands. “This baby is from the 1930s, a twin lens reflex.” He seems to have noticed hyunjin’s focus on it. Even though hyunjin was initially more interested in his ministrations than the camera, the little factoid evokes a sense of curiosity within him as he slots it into his mental timeline. “It was roughed up, no doubt. But I’m surprised it has survived this long. A sweet old man came by to drop it earlier, saying he was the last of his kin, and he’d rather let the camera live on than die with him. He even dropped a few old films!” he places the camera down, bending to pick up what looks like a letterbox filled with more pictures than hyunjin could count. Hyunjin does not know why he’s showing them to him, or even telling him about the camera, but he doesn’t mind. The worker tilts the box sideways onto the counter, spilling over the waterfall of pictures that perfectly land as one-photograph-thin staircases. Letting hyunjin get a peek into some stranger’s life. “They’re fascinating to look at. The earliest of these were between the two wars, taken in broad daylight with puppies and butterflies surrounding the kids as they picnicked.” He starts pointing towards specific pictures where, to hyunjin’s surprise, he saw the clerk’s exact words visualised.“Some are during the second war. These are a lot darker, presumably taken in bunkers. If you look closely you could tell that they started taking these pictures as a ray of hope, to keep themselves happy even during treacherous times. But eventually… it almost looks like the intentions switched to documenting the horrors instead.” He points towards the other side of the stack, where pictures were significantly duller, and the subjects of the images shifted to injuries and dreary candids of empty plates, bowls lying on the floor, items scattered everywhere. Hyunjin feels uneasy looking at them, and to look away he ends up looking at the worker’s face, who seems entirely unfazed by it. If anything, he looks deeply engrossed in telling hyunjin his findings, his warm tone completely contrasting the harrowing details he is bringing to hyunjin’s attention. “You can’t sell these though, right?” hyunjin asks. The guy looks at him like he’s hearing a different language. Blinking dumbly until something clicks.“Ah, yeah, you’re right. I wasn’t really thinking of that…” his eyes seem distant as he looks in hyunjin’s direction. Like hyunjin just happens to be a convenient target for his eyes to rest on while his mind is somewhere else. The silence following that barely lasted a few seconds, but long enough to make hyunjin feel like a shallow, materialistic piece of shit. The guy catches himself, blinking again and dropping his heavy gaze onto the photographs. “That’s okay, these will just go in the chest of trinkets we have.” A chest. Hyunjin feels so foreign. “Lots of people drop off things we can’t sell, actually. We keep it all stored safely, because they deserve love even if they’re not going back to a warm home with a new family.” The way he talks about these - inanimate objects - as if they have emotions, as if they share tumultuous and celebratory stages of life with humans, as if they hold value linked directly to the stories attached to them… makes hyunjin pause. And think about the pictures that are still lying on the counter. He scans the visible ones with his eyes, going over different locations to subjects. He doesn’t get it, the personifying. The pictures are… well, just pictures to him. But he does recognise the sheer amount of humanity captured in them. Anger, pain, sadness, grief, misery, uncertainty clearly weave their way into every picture, thinner in some and a thick blanket in others. Each picture promises a story that he doesn’t want to hear particularly, but they also showcase the raw essence of being human. Being flawed. Having the audacity to have hope in a hopeless situation. It’s surreal, to be able to look back at the past so freely. “Anyway, let’s get this over with” the clerk pushes all the photographs back into the box, keeping it aside along with the camera. He straightens up and huffs through his nose, dusting off his palms by clapping and rubbing them together. “Alrighty, what did you have that you needed fixed?” “Oh,” hyunjin pretends he ever forgot his intensions, “right. I have an alarm clock that uh, doesn’t work anymore? I’m not sure why, honestly.” Oh, he knew. He had sleepily knocked it off his desk one time. He reaches into his bag and pulls the item out, placing it carefully on the counter in front of the worker. As he is examining it, hyunjin’s eyes fall to his tattoos again. At first he thought there was an eye hovering on top of the creature, watching intently. But the more he looks, the more he discovers that it’s not just one eye. There’s multiple eyes completely surrounding the wolf, blending into the dark lines that resemble fur or forest trees. It’s hard to tell which one, the wolf almost seems like it’s part of the forest behind it. Where one ends and one begins is unclear, but once hyunjin has seen the eyes, it’s impossible for him to unsee them. They make his whole sleeve look a lot more gritty and feral than before, all the eyeballs pointing directly at the creature. He looks lower, towards the wrist, and finds the first tattoo he could actually understand. “The hands seem to be stuck because there’s no batteries, they’ll start working again once you put new ones in.” The clerk informs him, eyes trained on the clock. Hyunjin’s own snap up to his face. “The actual alarm however, a screw seems to have come loose on the inside and lodged itself into the bell.” Hyunjin wonders if every horologist narrates their findings to customers. “Would you like me to put in some batteries and replace the hatch?” he asks, looking right at hyunjin.“That would be great, please. And thank you.” Hyunjin bows slightly to denote his gratitude. As much as he would like to watch the worker fix his stuff again, he’s inexplicably drawn to the camera. He contemplates for a few seconds, every cell in his body tense between indecision, until he gives up and throws caution to the wind. He inches towards the camera, kept on the side of the counter that was closer to the wall of mirrors than he’d like. He doesn’t dare look directly, but makes sure he is aware of any movement in his peripheral as he delicately holds the camera in his hands. He’s been in front of these all his life. They’re a cheap replica of eyes - entirely soulless, hollow boxes that used to make him feel like he was bathing in affection, every flash of light a little coin thrown into his hat, a clap from the audience, a sign of holding someone’s attention. But now they only bring contempt. They make his skin crawl. They make him feel whorish. He can’t pinpoint when that transition happened. It was less of a switch flip and more a slow, excruciating death with rose thorns piecing through his body. And yet, he chased it. Chased the feeling of velvet petals on his scarred skin, but the only thing that covered his vision in crimson was his own blood. Hyunjin never learns. He holds the weapon of his destruction in his hands like it is a precious gem, sharp and heavy but beautiful to behold. He wonders, not for the first time, how it must be to be on the other side. To be an observer. To immortalise moments of time for other people, leaving behind no trace of himself other than his artistic touch. To be a ghost. He looks through one of the lenses. There is a vignette that came with age, and a slight grain in certain spots. It makes the shop look more like a specimen from the past than it already did, tinting the brown hues a mellowed out grey. The wood seems lighter, the gold a lot brighter, and as hyunjin momentarily turns the camera to different spots of the store he forgets to contain his excitement and lands on the mirrors. The guy is looking right at him. Through one of the mirrors. He gets so spooked he has to lower the camera instantly and stare with his stupidly wide eyes, mouth clamped shut and air stuck in his throat. Eyes locked with the guy in the mirror. He doesn’t dare look away. “Those bad boys are really quiet” the guy tells him with a slight smile, not sensing hyunjin’s discomfort in the slightest - or completely ignoring it to tell him whatever he was telling him. “The shutters were the quietest at the time, barely audible. Very good advantage to have when you’re running bunker to bunker, trying to stay low and not get yourself killed while escaping reality and avoiding insanity by a hair’s breadth.” Hyunjin is too afraid to blink. A rock settles in the pit of his stomach. He had forgotten the grave circumstances the camera must have lived through. What are the chances it was held by bloody hands? What does he mean it was quiet, why did camera shutters have to be made quieter? Did they want people to get away with taking pictures without consent? If this was from the 1930s- cameras nowadays have to have a lot more improvements than he can even imagine. Are they all to help his career, or stalkers? What if- “Try taking one!” the clerk whispers temptation into his ear, and hyunjin is compelled to follow. He sinks his teeth into temptation, into his lips under his mask, bordering on breaking skin and drawing blood. His sacrifice. He pulls up the camera back to his eyes and captures a shot. Without moving from his spot, still facing the mirrors, uncaring of the composition. He half expects to see a demon in the film, half expects the worker to have mysteriously vanished. But, the film has to be developed, and until then he’s met with silence and the dark emptiness of the undeveloped photograph. He returns the camera and photo to the counter, distantly noting that not only did he barely hear the shutter even with his proximity to the camera, but it didn’t shake his hand one bit. It felt like an extension of his arm, weightless and soundless. “Your clock is ready!” the guy is leaning on his elbows over the counter, dimpled smile softly contrasting his tattooed arms flexing to keep his weight up. Hyunjin wants to get out of there. He pays up, the typewriter not even phasing him this time. He thanks the worker and offers him a good night just to not be rude as he practically bolts out of the store. He’s too on edge to even bother looking at the creepy rails, beelining it to his bike and pedalling away without looking back. He was orpheus without a lover, no eurydice to look back to. Only pits of hell.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
A text from both of his parents is not what he wants to see on any good morning, but a text followed by han jisung is something he’s even more unprepared for. Hyunjin groans and locks his phone, rubbing his face with his palms. He is a horizontal plank on his twin size bed, muscles sore and air pockets residing between his bones waiting for him to crack. He has about twenty minutes until seungmin will come knocking on his door to pick him up for the day’s schedules. He needs to get up or he’ll be late. He contemplates sleeping through the day and never showing up for work ever again… He trudges to the bathroom and brushes his teeth. His hair’s a mess and he’s got oil all over his nose and forehead. His hands feel heavy as he grabs his wet wipes and skin care kit. Theres iron blocks around his wrists weighing him down. He doesn’t bother looking into the mirror to wipe his face clean and apply his creams. Then he changes into something appropriate, and settles on the couch. Finally grabbing his phone to look at his texts and socials. Eomma:
Baby are you going to come back home this weekend? You have a holiday right.
Appa:
Need to pay this month’s installment
Don’t forget to take the receipt and keep it with u
Hanji:
Hey, are you free for lunch?
Hyunjin blinks. He’d have to ask seungmin. But he doesn’t have any plans most of his lunch time anyway, usually eating his takeout food by himself in an empty stairwell he finds wherever his job takes him.
Should be.
Hanji:
Great! Let’s catch up, what place works for you? Is 1pm okay?
1pm is fine. You can pick the restaurant
Hanji has sent you a location
Hanji:
See you there, it’s on me!
Hyunjin clicks on the link, looking at the travel time. A brick solidifies itself in his mental calendar right at 1pm. Seungmin is at his door, and he is grabbing his bag that he never unpacks, his hat and his well worn mask and heading out. He keeps reminding himself, lunch with han. Lunch with han. Lunch with han. Throughout the morning. He’s running on three hours of sleep and two cups of coffee. He knows he’ll be sporting a headache by noon. He only hopes han doesn’t get on his nerve. He doesn’t hate han. No, far from it. Him and han were friends, good ones even. Great ones, back in the day. Best friends, almost. Once upon a time. But things change, and people change, and hyunjin somehow always feels like a stagnant integer rather than an algebraic variable. He’s rooted to his spot like a tamarind tree while the world changes around him. Han is a striking reminder of that change every time he sees him. Gone are the days where hyunjin could squish his round cheeks and coo at how cutely it made his lips pout. When hyunjin felt protective of him - this scared, stressed, socially awkward teenager. He was a walking ball of anxiety and hyunjin would have done anything for him. He’d have shed his skin to stitch together a cloak to cover han’s shivering body if he wanted it. Now, the same han jisung commands the attention of crowds full of people at once, a master of his craft. He thrives on stage, and hyunjin could tell that from the first time he met the guy, but the first video he ever saw of him after his and felix’s debut really cemented the fact. He didn’t need hyunjin at some point, after he started to make his own friends and started to exclude hyunjin. Hyunjin tried not to take it to heart. He always knew han was bigger than him. Bigger than life. At least he looks back to his memories of them together with fondness, and han hasn’t done anything to antagonise him. He’s been the same, sweet understanding lovable han, whenever they do meet. Hyunjin just doesn’t like pretending nothing has changed when it so clearly has. He can’t say the same for all of his friends however... He enters the restaurant han had sent him the location to, a couple minutes earlier than planned thanks to his paranoid mantra never leaving his head and seungmin being a fantastic schedule planner. It was a quaint little pan-asian place with a bar, erring on the hotter side a little bit. They relied on the windows and fans more than air conditioning, it seems. There were neatly cropped drapes and red lanterns on the ceiling for decoration, and it was a feast for the eyes visually altogether, with vibrant colours and boldface typing on the walls. A couple don quixote quotes in frames for whatever reason hyunjin couldn’t really decipher. Overall looked like someone speedran a tour through east asia, ate up any fabric and paper they came across, and threw up all over the restaurant. Han is, unsurprisingly, running a little late. The waiter has already seated hyunjin and given him a glass of water, and routinely looks in his direction waiting for him to order. It is awkward since hyunjin vehemently pretends he doesn’t notice it as he waits for han’s arrival. “Sorry I’m late!!” han scurries to him, and hyunjin smiles at the sight. Something familiar, a respite. He stands up to greet him, and they share a quick hug before seating themselves at the table again. The waiter brings them two menus. “So, how are you? I know we met the other week, but you left without saying goodbye!” Hyunjin chokes out an awkward laugh, “yeah… I was pretty beat, had a long day. I just wanted to go home and crash to be honest.” He laughs more genuinely at that. Han huffs amusedly, joining him with a smile. “That’s so real of you honestly, I was so tired after that I fell asleep in the car on the way back. I may have also drank too much of the alcohol they were serving…” he pauses to look around conspiratorially, bending his body so his chest is closer to the table, wide eyes glancing around the restaurant before landing on hyunjin and his hand coming up to cover the side of his mouth as he whispers a secret. “Never give up on free alcohol.” It sends hyunjin into a fit of laughter, and for a moment it feels nice. Hyunjin knows the man sitting across the table from him. His antics are just as childish and carefree as ever, taking any of hyunjins worries from the raincloud over his head with his bare hands and wringing them out like a wet towel. Hyunjin feels at ease. That is, until he sees the ink. He jolts forward onto the table, hooking his finger onto han’s collar and pulling down swiftly. “You got a tattoo!?” Han laughs, all excited. Hyunjin feels his gut wrench. “Yeah dude!” his smile reaches his eyes, and hyunjin really does not wanna be the one to spoil that. Han deserves to be happy, even if a parasite is eating away at hyunjin’s intestines. “I have three!” three parasites. “I was so excited oh god, the fans have been going crazy too. They’re detectives I swear.” The fans. The fans knew before him. What world is he living in? “Why didn’t you tell me!?” hyunjin plasters on a smile, gently hits the side of han’s shoulder to pretend he’s pretending to be mad, when really the feeling of hurt thrums deep inside his veins. “Not cool!” “I was busy! And we hadn’t met each other face to face casually in a while.” “You could have texted me!” hyunjin wouldn’t have responded. “Or even videocalled!” hyunjin detests video calls. “I wanted to tell ya in person! There’s so much for us to catch up on, I wanted you to see it for yourself!” The waiter interrupts them asking for their orders, and they briefly pause their conversation to pick out something to eat. Nothing on the menu particularly catches hyunjin’s eye, but he’s considering the chicken pho. The description doesn’t make him wretch like a lot of the other items do, but it is on the more expensive side… which would mean he’d probably get a serving size that he couldn’t finish… “We can do a 1 by 2 for that one, they’ll split it into two for us. I’ll just get a starter along with that. Oh! And, a sushi plate, thank you!” the waiter dutifully jots down their orders and leaves. “You like sushi?”“Who doesn’t like sushi?”Hyunjin shrugs one shoulder, “eh, I could name a few.” He likes sushi. He just doesn’t have the appetite for it as a lunch meal especially with work afterwards. “So yeah, anyway, I got three tats! I got em all on the same day actually, didn’t wanna risk being seen in the place multiple times. And its funny cause the tattoo artist was a fan! I’m so surprised she kept her mouth shut about the tattoo for so long, but also really glad she did.” “So long?” hyunjin raises an eyebrow. “How long have you been hiding this from me, han jisung?” he points the fork he was fiddling with at han, accusatory. Han plays along and raises up his hands in surrender, “guilty as charged. It’s been three months.” “Three months!? You didn’t tell your best friend for three months???” the words feel bitter on his tongue, they taste like lies. He knows he lost the title of best friend a long time ago when it comes to han, or felix, or minho for that matter. Not of his own accord, never his intention, but it happened nonetheless. “Surprise?” han cringes at his own words, sighing and his shoulders slump along with the exhale of air. “Look, I had tour! I was busy. And I did really want you to see it in person. You know we always talked about getting tattoos when we were younger.” Yeah, they did. Matching ones. Hyunjin hates that he wants to lift up han’s shoulders, hates that he fears tainting the atmosphere, infringing his mood onto this casual conversation. Nothing has to change, why is hyunjin being so ridiculous? He has no right to feel this hurt. Its not a big deal. “It’s okay, I get it really. I’m pretty sure I was out of the country three months ago too, fashion week and all.” His lies are whiter than the teeth they slip past. Fashion week was half a year ago. “Haha yeah it’s wild, man. We’re not bored kids anymore, we actually have real jobs and responsibilities now. How crazy is that.” Han runs a hand through his hair, and hyunjin is glad the lie slips between the cracks as easily as water. “So, what have you been upto? I haven’t heard from your side either!” “Oh, same old. Shoots, magazines, the occasional runway. Haven’t really done anything different in months to be honest.”“Wow. You are way too humble.” Han deadpans.“What are you talking about?” hyunjin kicks his shin under the table.“Versace, man!! Global ambassador!? That’s insane, hyunjin!” he stretches across the table to lightly punch hyunjin’s chest with his balled fist.Hyunjin chuckles, and the air around them is clear again. They slip right back into their practiced dance. Hyunjin shares a few details of his work, nothing too personal, leaves most of it out. He’s become a master of sharing just enough info to make it seem like you know him, but he’s always a careful arms length away, ready to bolt when the need arises. He’s feeling light, for the first time in a while. He loves connecting with people. Craves it, even. Han is rambling about tour stories, telling him about any and all gossip he gathered, by being, as he likes to call himself, a ‘fly on the wall’. He doesn’t realise that hyunjin knows he’s being too modest. People gravitate towards han naturally, he’s got the charm and personality that makes everyone in the room want to be closer to him. His friendliness, his goofy demeanor, his non-judgemental mindset. They all contribute to making people feel like he’s a safe spot, a checkpoint. Anyone within his vicinity would want to spill all of their secrets to him, and hyunjin knows this first hand. He also knows how han keeps his own secrets, locked away in his chest. He learnt his methods from han, after all. He’s not nearly as good as him, even after all these years. Jisung has this innate ability to feel stripped down, entirely an open book to read, without actually being one. What you’re getting is a sparknotes summary, that you read the night before your exam so you retain practically nothing of it. Not the entire novel with annotations. The art of withholding information, for the benefit of oneself. Their food arrives, and hyunjin nervously eyes the starter and sushi. He knows he’ll barely be able to scrape through his bowl of pho in the first place, too much for his weak stomach even halved. And then, like the universe heard his worries, like it loves to make a joke of him, it sends him an answer in the form of lee felix. “Lixie! Over here!” han beckons his other half. Hyunjin is confused, until he looks over his shoulder and sees felix walking over to their table. Ah. So that’s why they have sushi. He would like to pretend it’s not the case, but a block of ice falls from his head right into the pits of his stomach, crushing his heart on its way down. Of course, felix is here too. Why wouldn’t he be? Han and him are attached at the hip. And hyunjin is both of their friend. “Oh wow, a reunion. Is minho coming too?” he jests, but his tone falls flat.“Oh, no. Sorry did I not mention it?” han asks, and hyunjin is unsure what part he’s referring to.“Hi hyunnie!” the nickname slips out of felix’s mouth, but why does hyunjin’s own tongue flood with sourness? “Sorry I didn’t text you myself, I had an interview. I told hannie to tell you I’d be here late. Did he not mention it?” No, no he did not. He did not even mention felix being part of this whole ordeal. And to his credit, it doesn’t look like it was intentional, either. Which somehow makes hyunjin feel more queasy than it would if it was intentional. Hyunjin hasn’t responded to felix’s texts in months. He’s always coming up with an excuse, even giving him an on the spot one during the dinner last week, it’s so very easy to feign being too busy to check his phone. And since han and felix well, live together. Work together. Spend every second of everyday together, he was sure han knew about it. He feels like he’s been thrown to the wolves, a little bit. Felix pulls up a chair, actually pulls a chair from a neighbouring table, because the one they’re sitting at is a table for two, and fits himself right between hyunjin and han. Hyunjin would rather cut off his arm than disrupt his surroundings. Hyunjin is not felix. And perhaps that is the crux of his complicated feelings when it comes to the blonde. Felix launches into a rant of his own, slipping in a handful of ‘i missed ya’s and ‘what have you been upto?’s in there. Hyunjin gives him basically the same rundown he gave han. He would have given him less, if it wasn’t for the fact it would be obvious to han. Hyunjin is tense all over, his muscles aching from being on edge. His neck is so stiff he can feel the crick coming a mile away, and his left shoulder hikes up a bit with how he curls into himself ever so slightly. He’s talking about fashion week, and oh, how hyunjin wishes he wasn’t reminded that an idol can do his job “better than him”. How an idol is loved to the heavens and back for breathing, for doing a job that is not his, for cosplaying a runway model. For the same job that hyunjin gets called a slut for. The same job that grants hyunjin permanent access to death threats for breathing the same air and walking the same runway. The same job that never fails to remind hyunjin that he is a vessel, an object, a mere doll for people to dress up prettily and then rip apart limb by limb. For his image to forever be ostracised as shallow, as an easy whore who has no talents. Who slept his way to his position, who doesn’t deserve his fame for “selling his body”, who could never dream of being in felix’s shoes. Felix gets to go home after the runway and add the pin to his belt, to say he’s going on sidequests, that he’s so good at his own job that he could be doing five other jobs, that he could steal jobs of people like hyunjin. Felix gets to be celebrated for having a personality. He gets to sleep without the black mark of the “model” label staining his life. Hyunjin does not. Hyunjin will never be seen as anything apart from the prejudices against him. And hyunjin wishes it didn’t affect their friendship. He really does. In a kinder world he could have been his best friend “Oh, you know I met taemin last week! He filmed some dance challenges with us. It was such an honour!”Taemin… was one of hyunjin’s idols. He introduced felix to his music, back in the day. Hyunjin aspired to be like the senior idol, and he still keeps up with his releases. He sees a kind of soul in his artistry that hyunjin identifies with, and it’s so deeply personal to hyunjin. “Oh..” His breath leaves him in one fell swoop, and he catches himself and trains his face to be more appropriate. “Wait, what? Really?” “Yep!” felix smiles wide, his signature toothy grin squishing his beautiful freckles and lighting up his face. Completely unaware to hyunjin’s turmoil. If he shifted his eyes a little to the left, he’d see that han is a little less oblivious, a sombre carefulness dances in his eyes as he watches hyunjin. Hyunjin refuses to look at him. “Tell me all about it, what the heck!” he can act. He can act. He’s been doing it all his life. Smile, straighten up, jump in your seat a little. Take felix’s hand in your own, shake it like you’re excited, widen your eyes. Never let your smile slip. And every detail leaves another gash across hyunjin’s heart. He wishes it was him. He desires what felix has, so, so badly. It is an ugly feeling. He is entirely aware. He’s so ashamed that he’s such a vile creature, capable of feeling jealousy towards someone who is kinder than he deserves. So deplorable, he hates himself. But his traitorous heart lurches defensively, tendrils of black ooze slipping out aiming to stab their target. “Oh I wish you were there!” felix says, and it’s the final nail in the coffin, really. Hyunjin looks at his phone, asks seungmin to call him urgently, and pretends he has somewhere to be and his manager is summoning him. Hyunjin wishes he was there, too. Not like he chose this fate for himself. They were trainees together, all four of them. Him, minho, han, felix. A friend group, a few years ago. Hyunjin’s first real circle of friends. But there was never enough space for hyunjin. They wanted an idol duo, they had an image set for the pair they wanted to debut already, and hyunjin did not fit it, no matter what he did. He would break his back trying to practice dance all hours of his evening and night, forfeiting sleep for improvement, and he’d take vocal lessons during his lunch time at school. He was trying his damnedest, to prove that he deserved to be there. But he always fell short. Han was a born genius. He had skills that the other three lacked, even at the time. He made up for a lot of their flaws. There was no doubt that he would debut. As for the rest of them, they were all too prideful of their dance. Somewhere along the way, it became a fierce competition, and he fought with both minho and felix. But even back then, he knew that if anyone deserved to debut for their dance skills, it would be minho. And then felix was announced as han’s partner, his second half of the now iconic and well known duo, and hyunjin just… broke. He didn’t understand. He had accepted that minho would get it, and he was ready to congratulate the older, accepting the fact that minho had experience, years of it, that neither of them did. That minho would always be two steps ahead of them. But he was not expecting to lose to felix. He doesn’t know to this day, why he didn’t even stand a chance. Felix barely even spoke korean back then, couldn’t rap or sing despite his shockingly captivating voice. What went wrong with hyunjin? Maybe it’s not the matter of skill, or language. Maybe it’s just that hyunjin was hyunjin, and he simply would never measure up to felix. He was just the broody, full of himself, too blunt teenager who would forever remain in the shadows of the literal star that is felix. In a way, he’s glad they have different personalities. If they were mirror reflections of each other, he’d have to forever live with the fact that he was not good enough. That no amounts of effort and dedication on his end would put him an inch above felix. Since they are intrinsically different, polar opposites, he has more leverage. They just saw through to his rotten soul, he tells himself, nobody would want hyunjin. Hyunjin belongs in the abhorrent industry he is a part of now. Of course he could never be the same as eternal happiness felix, who brings brownies to sets and asks every person how their day’s been and gives free massages with a happy smile. Of course he’s never going to be as attractive as felix is, and even in his attempts to explore his gender identity he would always feel envious of felix’s natural androgyny. Hyunjin gets it. “Oh, we’ll walk you out!” Unfortunately, han and felix are done with their meals too. They walk out together after paying for their meal, han keeping his word and paying for all of them. They’re all in varying degrees of covered up, with all of them sporting hats, felix and han are wearing masks, and han has sunglasses. Hyunjin has sunglasses as well but he can’t cover his face much other than that because of brand deal obligations. He needs the hat and glasses to be seen with their logo visibly attached to his face. They drop him off at his car where seungmin is diligently waiting for him, and bid him goodbye.
Appa:
Has your sister messaged you recently?
Send this to her.
Appa has sent you an attachment
Hyunjin flops onto his bed after an evening full of executive meetings with him and his agency. It’s been a few hours since his lunch, and he really should get something sorted for dinner but he doesn’t feel like getting up right away. He just wants to rot. His bones feel tired. If he had to lift another muscle again today he’d die. He groans and turns onto his back, taking his phone and checking notifications. The screen’s light floods into his bedroom and he immediately regrets it, lowering his brightness to the minimum. The message he sees makes him want to throw his phone away. He opens a different contact.
Can you send your dues this month
He’s being annoying again
You sent an attachment
Idk what that is but he asked me to send it to you
I can’t be bothered to check, this is your shit to deal with
Yeji
Just ignore him
I’ll send you the amount for this month.
Sorry you have to deal with that, hyunjin
Just a few more months and it’ll be over, I’m almost done repaying everything.
Then you can get them out of your hair
Hyunjin reads the messages a few times, mulling over the words. It’s not that simple, being in his shoes. He wishes he could just cut them off, like yeji had. But his parents… they tried their best for him. Or, well. At least his mom did. Despite all the hurt they’ve caused, they raised him. His mom has had to face adversities far worse than hyunjin could imagine to get him to where he is now. He can’t just, vanish one day. No matter how badly he wants to. He’ll always be tethered to them. And it’ll break him, but he was made to be broken.
It’s ok
I don’t like being between you two
But I’ll do it for you.
Take care yeji
Hope ryujin is doing good
He locks his phone, sighs and gets up to go check his cabinets and fridge for something to eat. There’s cup ramen, and he settles for it. Quickly heating up some water on the stove, he pours it into the pack and grabs a pair of chopsticks. He heads to his living room, placing the cup on one handle of the sofa and turning on the tv to quickly go to spotify. He needed music, constantly, or he’d be consumed by his own thoughts, and that was never a fun time. As he waits for the ramen to get ready, he grabs his phone from the bedroom again. Settling back down on the couch, he opens up twitter. Waits for the app to refresh to newer stuff. Scrolls a little, pointless think pieces and random kdrama tweets fill up his timeline. There's a few anime ones, he notes the new seasons coming out of shows he loves, and keeps scrolling. Something catches his eye, and he goes scrolls back a little to find it. It’s a picture… of him. Of him and felix. From today. Han is in it too, he knows han was there because he lived the moment, he remembered it, but he’s so perfectly aligned with hyunjin that he’s not seen in the picture. Felix’s long blonde hair is way too recognisable even with his mask and hat on. From the looks of it, it’s a stalker account. He’s so used to it that he’s about to scroll past until he notices the words at the bottom:
Lee felix hanging out with controversial model?
He blinks. Controversial? Since when is he controversial? He’s stayed out of any sort of scandal for years now… there has really only been one persisting one in his life, and it was so unfair and he hates thinking about it, and people refuse to just. Let it go. He expands the tweet, going to the article linked in the reply. Expecting them to call him a woman beating bully. But what he gets is so much worse than made-up lies on his name.
Lee felix, one half of JYPE’s hit idol duo 1415, was seen leaving a restaurant on xxxx with model hwang hyunjin.
Netizens have speculated for a long time that hwang hyunjin was rejected by jype from joining the duplet’s debut. This is due to old pictures resurfacing of when the idol duo were trainees. The pictures are taken in the mirror of jype’s practice room, and hwang hyunjin is visible in the background.
Picture attached
Netizens also criticize hyunjin for his handling of situation with sasaengs earlier this month.
Video attached
Hyunjin clicks the video, and it is a surprisingly high quality clip of him when the creep had snatched his arm and broken his precious watch. He just stills when the watch clatters to the ground, and then he’s on his knees gathering the pieces of it. Seungmin pulls him up and moves him to his car and the video ends there. What could they possibly hate about this video? Against his better judgement, he scrolls through the comments of the article.
55. Why is he encouraging the sasaeng? Any normal person would have pushed them and told them off
56. Yah get this whore away from my felix. Seriously he is such an attention seeker
57. It seems all he cares about is felix’s fame. Look at him making sure his ugly face is fully visible while felix is trying to cover his face
>>I bet the sasaeng is one of his. Like model like fan ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ 58. I bet he was going to let that sasaeng sleep with him ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ that’s why he stood there like an idiot until manager-nim came to collect him
59. Hyunjin is a bully and a gold digging slut. He uses his famous friends like felix to stay relevant, I mean come on I don’t think felix even wants to be there.
>>Jype is known to remove trainees with terrible personality. No wonder he got rejected ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ >>>Seriously. They should stop sending felix to do these charity cases ㅋㅋㅋ
>>>>He failed being a trainee and he failed to debut, now he’s hovering around felix and jisung like a pest
>>>>>He doesn’t even have any talent ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ according to his profile he likes dancing. Not a single tiktok challenge with felix
He knew what he was dealing with when it came to the “bullying” scandal. He knew people were like stone walls unwilling to have any sort of common sense and find common ground, standing tall and proud of being wrong. But it always hurt a little too close to his bleeding heart when people brought in his lost passion for dance into it. He knew they were baseless, but they struck a chord of insecurity that ran straight through his spine, crushing him inwards from head to tow, every vertebrate cracking as it curled and stabbed his organs.
It wasn’t his idea to give up on dancing. If he had the quill that wrote his destiny in his hands, he would have become a dancer. But he just wasn’t good enough to make the idol cut, and he had just started to learn dance properly back then, awkward limbs and boring facial expressions and all. But he was dedicated. He could see a life for himself, down that path. But even he knew that what he was at the time was not good enough. He had a lot to make up for, and apparently han and felix were simply better than him. He could have become a choreographer, like minho, who stayed with jype but works more on the behind-the-scenes choreography stuff for the pair and many other idols under the company. But that would take time. He wasn’t good enough to debut as an idol. He had a long way to go before he could even dream of becoming a choreographer. Where minho had talent and experience, han had talent and connections. His father was in a rock band, the music is in his blood. He was born to be a star, and living in malaysia had wracked up a decent amount of connections for him over there. Where han had connections, felix had money. His family was rich. Not to say that he paid his way to get to where he is, because that is definitely far from the truth, but it meant that his parents could afford the expensive long and strenuous training that idol companies require. A privilege that hyunjin did not have. With crippling debt already falling on his shoulders by the time he was 18 thanks to his dad, and a runaway sister who cut off all communications with their parents, hyunjin had no choice but to step up to be their breadwinner. To do what every adult in his life had failed to do for him, and raise his family back up from the mud. He was offered a modelling contract, and he took it. Why was that one single decision of his life judged to hell and back, condemning him to burn for his sins as if survival was ever a crime?He can’t ever win. Even in this situation, he gets flack for just being in a picture with felix, while felix gets to live blissfully unaware of the carnage his existence causes in hyunjin’s life. He distantly realises his noodles are all cold now. He’s lost his appetite anyway, he keeps them in his fridge to heat and eat tomorrow. He makes the mistake of opening his phone again, and is met with an email from his agency.
Sub: termination of contract
Hyunjin’s heart falls to the floor and shatters into a million pieces. He opens the email immediately, reading it with panicked eyes and shaky fingers. He doesn’t even get any of the words in, just a few random ideas here and there - something about scandals, something about agency reputation, and something about too many chances - all bullshit, but to his frenzied brain they feel like daggers of truth stabbing him repeatedly. They’re letting him go. They’re firing him. Hyunjin’s world stops spinning. He wants to cry. He wants to go to his balcony and jump off. He wants to dig up every piece of blackmail he has on the company and use it to sue them. He ends up rocking back and forth in the foetal position on his cold, tiled floor, tears streaming down his face and sobs escaping his lips at a volume that has left him deaf to his own noises. He gets up and paces a few times only to drop back down to his knees painfully, forehead slamming onto the ground, begging, praying, to any god out there to spare him his misery. To have mercy on him. Nobody listens.
Felix has sent you a message [1]
Felix has sent you a message [2]
Felix missed call [1]
Once he’s gathered himself enough to get off the floor and clean up his tears, he messages seungmin. Seungmin is, again, his friend. Also his personal manager. Not company assigned. So when they’re firing him… they’re inadvertently also firing seungmin. Hyunjin feels guilt bubble up in his stomach. Seungmin reassures him that it’s okay, they have enough money saved up to last them a long time, but he also suggests looking for another agency or becoming a freelance worker. Hyunjin doubts any agency would want him right after his very public drop from his old one [they posted it to their socials with terrible wording and without asking for hyunjin’s consent. Which seungmin called bullshit on too, and said he could sue them for not cross checking with him first before posting that announcement. But hyunjin was tired.] “It’s okay, you still have your versace deal. Donatella loves you.” Hyunjin… had not even thought that far. Oh dear, now the fear of being a disappointment to such an internationally renowned designer is paralysing him. The thing is, donatella loves him. The whole of versace’s team does. And he isn’t sure why. He basically just existed around them, and they all hurl snowballs of love and affection at him anytime they see him. And it isn’t shallow love either, they weren’t supporting him because of his face bringing them profit, he could tell. He could tell it by the way they gifted him a high quality professional grade paintbrush set for his last birthday, and in their personalised invites for him, and in allowing him to roam the versace mansion freely for a whole day, and the museum tickets they gifted him, and all the encouraging messages donatella sends him. As thoughtful and as gut wrenchingly sweet those gifts are, it makes hyunjin feel endlessly guilty because they dug for that info. Hyunjin didn’t really give it to them freely. He’s always avoiding personal conversations, keeping them at an arm’s length, trying his best to stay on the outskirts of every afterparty donatella has ever invited him to. He feels the need to put that “professional” wall between them. He doesn’t really know why. Maybe it’s because he’s never really learnt unconditional love without something to gain. That wouldn’t be true exactly… since he did love his friends, all his little toddling companions all the way upto han, felix and minho. But then he rethinks it, maybe he was looking for something out of them. He wasn’t friends with every trainee in jype... Matter of fact, he was only friends with those three and a couple seniors. He mostly mingled with people he thought were on equal or higher standing to him, in his messy little power scale in his head. So maybe he was looking for some sort of personal gain out of them. Who knows. Regardless, the point stands that hyunjin feels undeserving of all the love versace gives him, when he gives peanuts back in comparison. Sometimes he wishes he didn’t block himself from reaching out to them. He fears his cold, dry responses on text and flustered stuttering, saying a whole lot of nothing in person would drive them away from him. Make him seem ungrateful, and not worth all that effort. At some point, you have to get tired of throwing stuff at a wall hoping it’ll stick, right? “I’ll look for some freelance stuff for you, and short term contracts or projects for the time being. Rest well, hyunjin. Sorry this is happening to you.” Seungmin’s voice brings him out of his brief melancholic spell. He hangs up, and hyunjin - tired, sleepy, dehydrated from his tears hyunjin - opens his text conversation with donatella.
Please don’t drop me.
And he promptly passes out.
He doesn’t remember opening his eyes. He’s back in his childhood home. Ah, this again. They moved out of there when his dad went bankrupt when he was 14. He was in his room. The one he moved into once yeji had moved out. He never really used his own room, the blue walls always freaked him out for some reason. And it was always cold. And yeji had left her life-sized doll in there one time and never bothered to pick it up. He hates dolls. He doesn’t feel the blue room. He can see the brown walls of the room he’s in. He can feel the staircase, metal and black tile, right outside the wall to his right. He can feel the red carpet and one of the 3 sofas from the set they had in the living room up there. He can feel the floor downstairs, it exists. But it doesn’t. Not really. He can feel the balcony. He spent a lot of time there. If he walked out he’s sure he would be able to see it. Maybe even clearer than his room. But if he had to get to it he’d have to cross the blue room. Hyunjin waits for the dream to play out. He isn’t particularly interested in finding out what his brain has cooked up this time. Anything to do with this place was always nauseating. He knows the layout of this room, in his head. Knows where the bed goes and where the closet goes and where that one world map that yeji had put up with her favourite cities circled in bright red lies on the wall. And they are there. He can feel it. He just, doesn’t see them. He can’t make out the edges. They’re hazy. Unclear. He isn’t sure where he’s standing even. Or sitting. Is he on the bed? Oh. His dad. He feels his dad. Sitting on the far end of the sofa. Now there’s the entire sofa set. And his desk behind it. And the balcony is still strong. He knows his dad is peering into his room through the door. He can’t see him. There’s a wall. But he knows. He feels the evil radiating off of him. Far more than real life. When his defences are down he can actually feel the dread of the thoughts weighing down on him. His dad reeks. His mom? … His mom isn’t here. He can’t feel her. That’s interesting. The doorbell rings. He doesn’t move. The door is downstairs. He can’t feel it. He doesn’t move. Hyunjin has always been able to lucid dream. It’s just normal to him. Comes as easy as breathing. He doesn’t even have the big epiphany moment of realising it’s a dream. He just knows. And its always muddled and never complete unless its a vision. He hates those. He’s only ever had two. Nobody really believes him, or even if they do, he doesn’t think they grasp the utter horror of reliving the same thing twice. The thing about visions - they don’t show you what you’re having for breakfast next morning. They show you the pivotal moment your life changes, the crest right before the avalanche. They show you your demise, your powerlessness to change it. They’re a little toy for destiny. A way for fate to dangle a dead mouse in front of your face, bringing it ever so closer to your mouth, while you’re strapped in a chair that has wheels on it. Your mouth held wide open by metal claws as it feeds you the rotten corpse of your philosophy. Watching the disgust and distraught wash over your face as a form of entertainment. And then you wake up and there's a dead mouse on your plate. Hyunjin hates those. Those are the only dreams he has where he’s unable to do anything of his own volition. But his normal dreams aren’t all rainbows and sunshine either. His brain knows he can do whatever the hell he wants. So it compensates. Adapts, to make his life harder. He can never change the dreamscapes, unless he physically runs out of them. He can never use technology, they all glitch and act out. He can summon people into his dreams - people he knows from real life, fictional characters - if he concentrates hard enough. But he can’t make them do things. He can’t break a rule of the dreamscape, no matter how hard he tries. Every dream has different rules. It seems in this one he can’t ignore the doorbell. He’s suddenly in front of the wooden front door. Consciously, he knows there’s supposed to be the kitchen to his right, a little in front of him, and the main living room and his mom’s room a little behind that. The stairs connect the two living rooms. But he can only feel the door and the stairs in-dream. He’s facing the door. He opens the door. He’s met with the same white fog that covers the places he can’t see. There is no fog. It’s all up in his head. It feels like fog, or maybe static. Or maybe clouds. Yeah, clouds is more apt. There’s nothing there, but it isn’t empty. And before he knows it there’s an argument. He’s yelling. His mom has appeared, somewhere in his periphery. And he’s yelling. He hates yelling. He hates anger. He’s yelling at his dad. And then it changes. His sight is a lot clearer. He’s in the bathroom of the training facility under jype. He’s 16. He knows.He knows it’s the Bathroom, but it looks nothing like it. He can’t see outside of it, so really, it shouldn’t be the bathroom he’s thinking of, but he knows. On instinct. It’s the jype training building. There’s rows and rows of sinks. And taps. And mirrors. No toilet stalls, just hand wash stations. All jammed together with barely any space between them. It goes longer than he could even see the end of. And there’s writing on the pipes and the few patches of wall peeking out. It’s in black. Thick, like written with tar using a big flatbrush. The pipes are painted white aside from the tar. The tiles are there but they… hover. He blinks and felix is in front of him. Hyunjin doesn’t move. He lets the details fill into him. He always has a plot for these. There’s always an objective. And he somehow always knows it without being told. Han. Han appears beside felix. Well. That’s a no then.
The other trainees.
He knows. There’s something happening - a curse. Someone is playing hide and seek. Someone they do not want to meet. The trainees are scattered somewhere in the premises. He has to find them. Something is amiss, he needs to figure out what happened to the place, who’s behind the black paint on the walls. He needs to find the trainees. And then han disappears. The sinks start overflowing, red liquid spilling all onto the floor. Felix freaks out. Hyunjin doesn’t really catch most of it. The pipes break, blood starts spraying now. They coat felix’s face. His clothes. Ruined. He was wearing all white. His hair was platinum. All red now. Hyunjin stands, untouched by the blood. Felix tries to drag him out, shouting something along the lines of “come on we need to leave!” but he can’t make hyunjin move. Only hyunjin can make hyunjin move. He’s fascinated. He wants to stay in this room. Whose blood is that? It looks like the perfect shade of red. Will it flood the room? Felix lets go, and he wakes up. Groaning at the boring black that covers his eyelids now, he turns over and grasps the retreating edges of sleep tightly. With his iron clad grip, he claws it back into himself, forcefully entering the land of his dreams once again. He’s back in the bloody bathroom. Felix is gone, presumably left him when he realised hyunjin wasn’t budging. He walks up to a mirror, there’s no reflection. He looks down, his pants are stained upto his knee and his palms are dirty with dried blood. The flooding has stopped, but the stain remains. He knows he should probably leave, he has an objective, and he’s sure whatever was chasing the trainees would come find him soon. But he doesn’t want to. He runs his hands over the sink, noting the cracks. It cracks more, even wider, as soon as he touches it. Intrigued, he touches the mirror in front of him. It shatters. And then he’s awake again. He could go back, he has two more tries before he’s too awake to balance on the thin line between his dream and reality, but he has a feeling that dream was gonna be short lived anyway. In a sense, his dreams are like his memory. Hazy, foggy, never as clear as reality. He can see things, but they’re never detailed or accurate. He knows what’s happening, and how people should react to it, but he’s apathetic at best. Watching the things happen to and around him like he’s in a movie theatre rather than on screen. He doesn’t feel anything unless it is one of the rules set by his brain. He was yelling, earlier. He wouldn’t usually, he doesn’t really talk much in his dreams, but the words were tumbling out of his mouth at a volume he could not adjust, and that told him it was the way his brain had planned the dream, and his body had no choice but to follow it. He’s watched a lot of weird things happen in his dreams. He’s watched things crawl out of his skin, he’s watched sky scrapers melting, he’s watched a teapot never run out of tea, he’s watched loved ones get murdered, he’s watched his own death. And nothing really phases him. Sure, he should be scared. He should wake up with a start, and have his heart in his throat, and sweat run down his temples, and fear embrace him. But he feels normal, he wakes up in bed the same way he would every other day. Maybe it’s because he’s aware it’s not real. He doesn’t know. He hopes it’s that, because the only other option is that he’s just indifferent by nature, and he doesn’t particularly like the sound of that. The indifference is common to his memories, however. Or maybe it’s detachment. He doesn’t know. When he recalls his past, his current self is a whole separate being by itself. His 24 year old self is what he feels and sees now. His emotions, he identifies with. His 23 year old self is a whole different human. In his mind, they’re entirely separate. Him now, could never feel and think the way he used to a year ago. That’s not even him. He doesn’t identify with that version of himself. And it happens every year. A cycle. His 23 year old self is different from his 22 year old self, and that is different from him at 21, and at 20, and 19, and so on and so forth. In a year from now, he’s not gonna be able to recall how he felt now. 25 year old hyunjin will look back at 24 year old hyunjin like he was an anomaly. Like he was a robot programmed to do what he did, and 25 year old hyunjin will never be able to unlock the key to the part of his heart that stores 24 year old hyunjin’s feelings. Some nights, that thought alone is enough to send him down a spiral. Who is he, really? If he never identifies with his past, and his future never identifies with him, is there anything concrete and constant to hyunjin at all? Is there anything that makes him, him? Is there anything that attaches him to himself? What is the point of it all if he doesn’t even understand himself? Why are those feelings lost? Why can’t he remember how he felt back then? It frustrates him to no end, being unable to recall a lot of his childhood and knowing that he’ll forget a lot of his present. Sometimes, he used to be extra paranoid, extra vigilant when he was having a good day. Trying to commit every single detail to his memory, trying his best to get out of his head and be in the moment, especially if he had friends around. Trying so hard to tell his brain : this is special. Keep it. And in his efforts to do so he would always be doomed to fail. He only has the outlines of events. Its never really filled in. Reminds him of those chocolate shells people make. You fill in the mould with velvety chocolate all the way to the brim and let it sit, make it believe it’s gonna solidify into a beautiful whole piece of sweet, sweet delicacy. And then you flip it and let all the core contents fall out, leaving the cold shell that had only just started to relax. Usually, these are filled with cream, or pastries, or some sort of surprise. Whoever made him forgot to fill him in. He has never known the feeling of being whole.
Donatella 💜
We would never, hyunjin
Are you alright?
Our doors are always open for you, contract or not.
You can always re-sign it with us.
You can be an official versace model too, if you’d like.
Everyone loves you, you’ll do great
Don’t worry my prince, you always shine the brightest in my eyes.
Felix has sent you a message [3]
Felix has sent you a message [4]
Felix missed call [2]
Hyunjin doesn’t know why he’s here again. The loneliness must have gnawed holes into his brain and all he had left was his body and the yearning for… freedom. For the bizarre feeling he gets every single time he’s at skyfall, every nerve singing from the minute he enters the store to the minute he leaves. At least he was feeling something other than numb. His feet brought him here without him remembering a single second of the journey. Skyfall is a remote island in his mind. Oceans of nothingness surrounding it, not letting him see past the mysterious fog, letting him be blissfully unaware of the woes of mainland for the short amount of time he visits the store. It always has a sense of otherworldly charm as well as an unnerving chill, like you wake up one day and everything has shifted an inch to the left. He feels drawn to it. On this night, the bell chimes loudly as he enters. He looks straight ahead at the counter, to… nothing. There’s no one there. He blinks, looking around for any hints of life. Finding nothing within his sight that would clue him into where the worker he had grown familiar with had disappeared off to, he walks to the counter and looks over it. Still nothing. He peeks into the door leading to the back of the place, and he can’t really make sense of all the boxes and items stacked on shelves there, so he resigns. He walks around the store, looking at the trinkets and curiosities kept neat and tidy. He’s impressed at the amount of organisation for objects that don’t necessarily fit any pattern. There’s almost never a duplicate of anything, every single piece unique to itself. Glancing at the door to the back over and over doesn’t provide him any of the answers he’s looking for. He leans on the counter and waits. He could plug in his headphones and listen to music, but then his attention would be split and he wouldn’t be ready for when someone finally walks back into the store. So he waits in silence. Silence, and the unnervingly synchronised ticks of a thousand clocks. Okay, maybe not a thousand. Hyunjin doesn’t want to count. They freak him out, okay? All hung up on the wall and staring right at him, reminding him of every second he wastes. He could face one. One would be the perfect amount of reminders he can ignore. But a wall full of them? He turns away. Well. He might have forgotten the other side held something far worse. Metallic silver lined glasses mosaic his face all over the wall he’s facing now. Eyes, eyes everywhere. Maybe he shouldn’t have come here. His fingers are icy cold from the wind blowing his uncovered skin throughout his journey to the shop, and usually he enjoys it. Enjoys the bite. The little prickle of his skin every time it whips against him in a bruising kiss. The tingle in the back of his skull, the grin that etches itself onto his clattering teeth. But now, he feels trapped under the surface of an ice lake, seconds away from hypothermia claiming his lifeless body. All from his own stony stare. He gets up and walks, with paranoia gripping his every step. He walks right out of the store, the solitude sinking into his heart like sharp venomous fangs of a snake. He needs to find someone. Anyone. He looks at the railway track, and he feels an inexplicable magnetic force pulling him in. He is a puppet on a string, his fate written out for him by his puppeteer from the very beginning. His limbs don’t feel like his own as they take him towards the depths of the abyss he was so used to staring at from afar and promising himself to never risk entering. The grass crunches under his feet, the metal rails are cold and endless. The air lays thick on his shoulders as he goes deeper into the path surrounded by trees. The terrain never falters, just as flat as it is quiet, making hyunjin’s breathing echo back into his own ears and his heartbeat reverberate around his chest. Soon the air turns dense enough for a light fog, not only hindering his visibility but also lining his skin with a ghastly cold touch. For how open his surroundings are, every single particle feels empty to the point of suffocation. There is evidence of life, in the swaying branches and fallen leaves and faded footprints, and yet the landscape is utterly devoid of it. Like he’d unknowingly crossed a border somewhere along the way, leaving behind the land of the living as he knows it and instead encroaching a territory he did not belong in, and nature itself detected his presence and was retaliating against him like a blood cell to a pathogen. Where, pray tell, would the living be unwelcome? Everything outside screams at him to retreat, if he valued his life. And yet, something deep within compels him to find the end, to discover. To uncover. He doesn’t know how far he’s walked. He takes another step, and another, and another, just as hesitantly as the last. There is no weight of his own to him. He has no confidence. He is an empty shell of a wooden marionette beaten and bruised trying to find his purpose. Mind numbed in this perpetual pendulum of his feet, finding nothing new for who knows how many steps now, hyunjin is walking in what seems to be a loop. His body refuses to stop and go back. As if on a self destructive autopilot, his limbs continue to totter, while his brain stays locked on to the idea that he’s come too far. That he’s committed himself to something he cannot finish, and as punishment, he must finish. He hears the footsteps approaching him, and his own steps abruptly halt in his tracks. They’re not the sound of dried grass underneath the soles of someone’s shoe like hyunjin’s, but the tell-tale crunch of gravel being forcefully crushed against the floor without an escape. Hyunjin had carefully avoided the remnants of it that were spilling along the sides, always careful to not make noise, always vowing to exist in silence. But the owner of these strides cared naught for stealth, announcing its presence with unwavering stomps that overflowed with a sense of familiarity one gets from traversing the thin border like it was the staircase to a childhood home. There is only one place in this stretching path that has gravel. Between the sleepers. Who in their right mind would walk in the centre of the rail, taunting death with a big red dot on their head like a shooting target? A bone chilling sense of dread overtakes him, mind, body and soul. Something that doesn’t fear death was a state he was familiar with, once. He vividly recalls letting the cruel, unrelenting monsters get ahold of him and contaminate his life, drop by viscous drop. He would give anything to never go back to it. Tendrils of fear unfurl in his gelatinous bone marrow, shutting down any movement he could make. He can’t run, and there’s nothing but an open path surrounding him for many, many minutes. If he can hear whatever is walking towards him, it can hear him running away. He could try his luck with hiding in the trees, but the acidic slurry oozing from his terror has corroded away his nerve endings and took his motor functions along with them. He stands there, accepting that whatever comes next, will be his fate. Soon enough, he is face to face with the worker from skyfall. Right in the centre of the train tracks. Not what hyunjin was expecting to see, but relief does not grant him the grace of her presence. Perplexity tingles on the tip of his cold nose, drains his cheeks of colour. The man stands ten feet away, and holds a short shovel. His skin is muddied, and nothing better can be said about his clothes. His once grungy well put-together style is now a wrinkled mess, littering his oversized pants with sharp, narrow lines. Hyunjin’s mind provides him the image of claws dragging him down from underneath, back into the pits of hell from wherein he came, from the looks of it. Apart from the wind that whistles away from them, like whatever ghost was haunting hyunjin through his journey was fleeing at the mere sight of the clerk, there is an eerie silence stretching between them. Hyunjin can’t tell what’s real anymore, and if there really was something inhuman about the guy who fixes clocks, that cleared the fog around him, or he was simply imagining things in his delirium. Like all the weight of the dense air that burdened hyunjin’s shoulders was sucked out of the vicinity, like the man could command the void at his fingertips. The air being lighter doesn’t help the sudden cold that has settled over hyunjin, and he realises that in his haste, he hadn’t worn a mask this time. The man’s own face was the only reason hyunjin even recognised him. It was too dark to spot his tattoos, but hyunjin recognises those shiny eyes and glimmering piercings, the way his lips curl around his dimple in a lopsided grin in the attempt to make himself look friendly. And hyunjin knows that it works. It had worked on the commenter that led hyunjin to abandon sleep that night and race to skyfall, and it had worked on hyunjin when his first impression left him unarmed, made him lower his guard. With the face of charm and the voice of temptation standing across from him, hyunjin refuses to be the one to speak first. He gulps, his apprehension going down his throat in a dry, painful lump. How long ago had he had some water? “I know this looks wrong…” the worker’s voice pierces through the thin, brittle air. It is just as gravelly as the rubble beneath him, and it sands down hyunjin’s walls particle by insufferable particle. “But you have to trust me. I was helping a client.” Helping a client. Sure, sounds believable enough. Helping a client bury a body, perhaps? “Actually, it was in the stack of pictures from last time!” his voice climbs up in pitch, like he just realised his ace card, his portal to the overworld. “One of the pictures, it came with a note. On the back. It was a picture of this man taken by his lover… he was a soldier… the note said that they wanted to be buried together.” The man, rambling about this so called note, looked so much bigger than hyunjin at that moment. Hyunjin had failed to realise just how much muscle he had on him, and despite him being an inch shorter than hyunjin himself, he seems to have an overpowering presence. His entire being drowns out hyunjin’s. There is no light for a long distance from them, but hyunjin can almost see the flickering shadow of a wolf-like beast emerging from his back. Snarling, aggressive, blood thirsty. “I had no way of knowing if they did end up buried together…” he continues, barrelling through the one sided conversation, prying the night open with his bare hands and gouging out the heart from its carcass. “But I could bury their pictures together. The note wished for their album to be buried with them, and I thought I could grant them one last wish, a century later…” When hyunjin remains still as a rock - unblinking, every muscle in his body tense and drawn taut like a bowstring, in the perfect centre of fight and flight, resulting in a perfect freeze - the man sighs and his shoulders slump. “Please, trust me.” And for a second all hyunjin sees is the shadow of a kicked puppy. Hyunjin blinks then. “I don’t even know your name.” Hyunjin whispers softly, his tone sombre. The wind carries his words to the worker’s ears as delicately as a bunny in a wolf’s den. Holding onto the childish fantasy that if he knew the man, he wouldn’t hurt him. “I won’t hurt you” he said, as if reading hyunjin’s mind. “I’m chan. Bahng chan. Or chris, if you prefer that.” Every word he utters lessens the threat in hyunjin’s brain, soothing him out of his adrenaline induced shock. A waterfall of warmth covering his ice burned skin. “I’ll leave the shovel here.” He offers, kindly. And follows through by dropping it at his feet. “Let’s go back to the store, shall we? I apologise for my shabbiness, I wasn’t expecting someone today. I should have at least left a note…Would you like some tea?” he raises his hands towards hyunjin, similarly to coaxing a wounded animal, and only then does hyunjin realise he was holding the shovel with his tattooed hand. With the wrist that adorned the semicolon. Chan no longer looks like a wolf, nor a puppy. He looks human. And hyunjin could use some company tonight. The walk back to the store was, comically awkward. More comical the longer they took. There was nothing inherently funny about any of it, but hyunjin couldn’t help the disbelieving giggle that escaped him. Here he was - top korean model, freshly dropped by his agency, avoiding all family, unimportant to any friend - walking on one side of the dark empty railroad as the dark sky eclipses him, joined by the mysterious antique shop worker who he just can’t seem to crack. Chan walks alongside him, just on the other side of the rail. Keeping a respectful distance between them, which hyunjin is grateful for even though it makes him feel lonely. What has his life come to? He steps on a twig, somewhere along halfway through their return, and it startles chan enough for a noise to escape him at such a high octave that it sends hyunjin into another giggling fit. Chan joins him that time. Nature no longer condemns him. As they arrive at skyfall, hyunjin realises he’s grown fond of the quaint treasure trove. In all its cold and mystique, it embraces him as he comes in and lets him go just as easy when it’s time to leave. Chan opens the door for him, and entering the place doesn’t change his body temperature much at all, just as he’d expected. Cool, hauntingly serene skyfall. At least, until chan notices his paleness and turns up the heating in the shop. “Tea?” chan repeats the question, all the gravel in his voice replaced with honey. Hyunjin nods, and mumbles a small thank you as he leans on the counter. He didn’t really bring anything broken, in need of fixing this time around. He can’t hide behind excuses anymore. Chan disappears into the back of the store, and hyunjin idly lets his thoughts cancel each other out, the train left behind on the railway. A bubble of silence envelops him, keeps him safe. All the clocks on that wall couldn’t make hyunjin count the minutes to chan’s return, because in his comfort the concept of time slips through the cracks of his fingers like sand grains. Chan has washed off his hands and tidied up his appearance as he comes back to hyunjin with two hot cups of tea. He places them both on the counter and stands at the opposite side from hyunjin. “I’m sorry if I spooked you earlier…” chan sounds genuinely apologetic, and hyunjin may be the stupidest man on earth because he doesn’t sense a shred of danger being around him. “I swear I was just… trying to honour the last wishes of someone, in any way I could. You know?” Hyunjin lets his body weight topple, spilling himself over the counter and onto chan. Unable to hold his cracked shell back together for now. Thanks to the distance between them courtesy of the counter, his forehead lands right below chan’s collarbone with a soft thump. He closes his eyes, wishing chan could absorb the heaviness of his mind. “It’s okay.” He whispers, not entirely sure if it was loud enough for chan to hear. “I’m tired.” Of everything. Chan’s hand raises up slowly, finds its way to his hair, and pets his head with the kind of care that he craved so deeply but was so deprived of. He fights the tears that spring up immediately. “That’s okay.” Chan soothes him more than people he’s known for years, more than he himself can, and it simultaneously brings him insurmountable relief and terrifies him to no end. “You can be tired. You can rest. There is time.” “Please,” chan is so close yet too far away from him. Hyunjin hasn’t felt the warmth of an undemanding touch in so long that it burns him, embers licking the base of his neck. And yet, he is a simple minded moth. He flaps his dusty wings too fast to let his pattern be seen, and falls right into the inviting flame. He craves it. He needs it. “Please, come over here.” He is in no position to demand the fire to come to him, cruelly beckoning his own demise to consume him whole, but he does it anyway. That’s what this shop does to him - brings out the twisted, sneering demon that resides in the crevices of his bones, in the hole of his heart, and bares it out open for all to see. Chan slides to him as easy as breathing. Embraces him like he’s friends with the devil. Makes him feel like he doesn’t have to have an explanation. Sometimes he can just exist, in his convoluted form. Without the counter between them he can feel the flame wrap itself around his back, pillow his head and gently die down into a simmer as he’s lowered to the floor. They’re both kneeling on the hardwood floor, and hyunjin now has to bend to maintain his spot on chan’s thumping chest. It’s bound to get painful relatively soon, but something about the way his cold skin invites chan’s warmth into him, percolating into his veins from the point of contact, makes him melt like a tall white candle right onto red carpet. Even the shop seems to be stealing some of chan’s heat just so it can give It back to hyunjin, with how the air around him starts to lift. Eventually, it reaches equilibrium. Chan is hyunjin, hyunjin is chan, they are both skyfall. And it would have stopped there, it should have stopped there, maintaining peace and harmony as the scales balance perfectly on the tip of a needle, but hyunjin is greedy. He is selfish and petty, and he holds grudges like no other, and he lets the heat of hatred fuel him through his daily life. He destroys everything he ever touches. Equilibrium, until backwards reaction. Everything bottled up was buried so deep within him that the pressure melted his core, made his emotions molten. Floating as magma right below his crust, a ticking timebomb waiting for the first disturbance to jump at the excuse, waiting for the perfect time to inflict carnage onto everything above. And as the minute hands of every clock behind him struck 6, he let it engulf him. Let them erupt into a volcanic landslide that wreaked havoc on everything unfortunate enough to be in its path. He sobbed, and wailed, and probably dug his nails into chan’s skin through his clothes as he tried to claw out his pain. It flowed down his cheeks, onto chan’s shirt, and didn’t stop. Skyfall was trying her best to console him, cool wind creeping in through the window to undo the spell of warmth she had placed on him, and he feels bad, making her work like that. But the gates have opened already, and he can’t snap them shut. Chan pulls him closer, lets him set his skin ablaze as a thanks for sharing warmth, and holds him through the whole thing. Once the lava has claimed the land, covered it in the thick scorching sludge of hyunjin’s entrails, it dries. Regurgitating all of the good, bad, and ugly parts of the land that once was, and replacing it with something new, something solid. As it dries it cools, and hyunjin is brought back to himself in all his cold blooded glory. He comes to his senses and jerks back from chan, instantly trying to build back the walls he lost. “Sorry,” he wipes his tears and stands up “didn’t mean to cry all over you like that” he laughs weakly. “No worries” chan flashes him a reassuring smile, and doesn’t let him dwell on it as he gets off the floor too. He turns away from hyunjin, fetching the two glasses of lukewarm tea. “Would you like me to heat it up for you?” Hyunjin takes the cup from his extended hand gratefully. “No, its okay. I don’t like scalding drinks anyway.” There is a hint of surprise on chan’s face as his smile blooms into the valleys of his dimple, “me too!” As hyunjin replenishes the lost oceans within him, his mind wanders freely on its own. Chan brings forth a stool for him, and he lets his weight fall on it and rests his elbows on the counter. His eyelids are heavy, and his chest falls faster than it rises. The lights in the place are dimmed to a pale yellow, tinting all the wood around him with a golden glow. Chan returns to his place behind the counter, not directly in front of hyunjin but within his line of vision, within his reach. “Are you allowed to leave the store unattended like that?” he swirls the liquid inside his cup.“Well…not exactly… but it was just a quick trip and I honestly was not expecting any customers. Our usual clientele are either the elderly letting go of possessions, or the rich youth trying to get rid of something they don’t find value in anymore. Both kinds tend to show up during the day.” “What about thieves? You didn’t lock the place up. Someone could have easily stolen something off the shelves.” Chan laughs “nobody wants to steal these antiques, trust me. The more valuable ones are kept inside our lockers at the back, these are more enriched in memories than fortune. Even if someone does steal them, they’d want to sell it for money and we are one of the biggest antique shops around this area, word echoes back to us quick. We’re connected to the market across the city too, so it would flag with certainty if they try to sell it anywhere within the city.” Hyunjin blinks. Somehow finding out more about the store is laying bricks around it in his mind, building bridges to places underneath, places he doesn’t want to be. He doesn’t like it, it’s losing the glamour and charm as more strings are attaching it to reality. Then he sees the way a haze envelops chan’s irises, the way his shiny perfect reflection becomes a milky brown, opaque and unseeing, or maybe seeing somewhere beyond as he says “These things tend to find themselves back where they want to be.” And as if to prove his point, to really drive it home, the candle flames crackle and the wind tickles his neck. He was foolish, truly, to even consider that a place so cryptic would be likened to mediocrity. The intrigue is back. “And the off chance you have a customer? Isn’t it bad to keep a customer waiting, chan? Aren’t you afraid of losing them?” “Well, I have time. The night is young, it’s not gonna run away from me. I can make it up to them, and I’m sure they’d wait. You waited.” Time. Chan keeps saying that. He has time. There is time. Maybe in chan’s realm of life, there is. Chan seems to speak of it as an endless supply instead of a precious resource. Like he has access to the fountain of youth, like it rests in his garden. Hyunjin is always running out of time. Chan seems to have no fear of losing his. “Although I do have to apologise for it, it was very unprofessional of me. I’m sorry about that.”“Don’t worry about it.”“So, did you need something fixed?” Me, hyunjin’s traitorous mind screeches, fix me. “Um, no…? I had, something but I forgot to get it and I was already here by the time I realised…” he’d be concerned with how easy lies come to him if it wasn’t how he managed to survive this long. His lies are so deeply imbibed into hyunjin’s life that he suspects he cannot be extracted from the elaborate tapestry he has spun for himself. “That’s okay! You can come back during the day or just come tomorrow night, or whenever you’re free!”“You’re open all day?”“Yep! 24/7.” Hyunjin doesn’t see the need for such a store to be open at all times, he’s sure the electricity bills and energy used to keep the place open at night would be far greater than any profit they get in that time. “Our day-shift worker will be here until 6pm, then we have our evening volunteers - teenagers, they’re little rascals but they have passion - and then I’m in here from 9pm onwards. If you need clock fixing, it’d be best to come to me.” Hyunjin drains his cup of tea. Chan takes the empty vessel from his hands, returning to the back to keep it and his own cup away. When he returns, hyunjin has not moved an inch, and he doesn’t feel particularly inclined to end his visit either. Something keeps him here, something anchors him here. And chan seems to notice. “Would you like to look around instead? Maybe you’ll find something you can buy.” Good idea. Hyunjin has a lot of money that he never spends. He should commemorate the day he learnt chan’s name by buying an object from his shop. Is it his shop? Hyunjin isn’t sure. He’ll find out eventually, his curiosity has waned off. The beast within him has had its fill for tonight. “I’ll do that, thank you.” He says politely, keeping his head down. Looking around the shelves, hyunjin finds many pieces he’d love to have. Ceramics and china that would have fit perfectly in his fantasy home that he never had the chance to dream up. Paintings he’d excitedly hang up on the walls if he took enough time to even hang up his own first. Gold plates, glass show pieces, and coins and stamps and clocks and mirrors that all make him run a reverent hand over their varnished, galvanised, polished surfaces and sigh in disappointment when the nerves that connect his brain to his spine lash out and curl around his neck, preventing him from even thinking about buying any of them. Trauma, he supposes. Grow up poor with the wrong adults around you, and reap the benefits of guilt the rest of your life. Hey, at least hyunjin can boast his ridiculous savings. He’s just about to give up, when something catches his eye from the periphery. There’s a tiny hourglass, barely ten centimetres. It has purple sand, and wooden pillars that perfectly cage the glass that in turn holds the sand hostage in a continuous loop of pointless meandering. Perfect. It’s small, and probably wouldn’t even put a scratch in hyunjin’s savings, and it’s wildly entertaining. Trance inducing, even. Numbs his exhausted brain instantaneously. He takes it to the counter. Chan smiles at his pick, and doesn’t launch into an excited ramble about how old the wood in the piece was or how it was carved, and hyunjin is almost disappointed in not hearing his lovely voice explain mundane facts that hyunjin is going to forget eventually. What he did expect to see was him tip-tapping away on his typewriter, which chan does, and it makes a comforting warmth bloom in his chest. Only when he zones in on chan’s hands hovering over the keys does he realise that he has no idea what chan types, he just assumed it’d be a record of all the things he sells, like a bill of sorts. A receipt. But he never gave hyunjin one, and hyunjin never asked so that’s probably on him, but he also does not know hyunjin’s name. He isn’t rude and mannerless enough to lean over to the other side of the counter to check what he typed in though. Soon enough chan was handing him his hourglass and hyunjin completed the transaction. Before he turns to leave, he wants to rectify one thing. “I’m-” hyunjin starts, the words choking up his throat because his voice is as shot as his reddened eyes. He clears his throat and tries again, “I’m hyunjin. Thank you, for tonight chan.” He has no energy left to show any emotion besides honesty, and he hopes the gratitude shows on his face more than his voice. He smiles at chan, genuinely, without a mask or any pretences for the first time. “I’ll see you soon.” He promises to chan, to skyfall, before he lets the night carry him away again.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Thank you so much, I’m so grateful.
I’m alright, thank you for asking.
Hope you have been well, donatella. Sorry for
sending that message out of the blue, you must
have been worried…
I really cannot express how much it means to me
that you and the team still want to work with me.
Felix has sent you a message [5]
Felix missed call [3]
Hyunjin absentmindedly flicks through the job listings seungmin had sent him. He’ll admit, it’s a little weird not having to be somewhere on a weekday. He even had enough time to actually do his full skin care routine today, and thus, he didn’t do it. He sits on the couch in his shorts and oversized shirt slipping off his shoulders, messy bed hair still pointing off in different directions despite it being half past noon already, food lying cold on his table, and a myriad of clothes on the floor. Give him an inch and he takes a mile. Seungmin told him to rest for a couple days before picking up easy jobs. Preferably simple advertisements over runaways for a collection or magazine shoots. He’s been rotting in bed for 5 days.
Eomma has sent you a link
Is this true?? Why didn’t you tell me?
That’s the issue with hyunjin. He despises routine. It absolutely stifles him. But he needs it to function, or he’d end up with his skin melding into the poor couch as it is doing now, uncomfortable sweat acting like glue while his body feels like it weighs as much as ten elephants. His limbs are unable to listen to his brain no matter how hard it yells at them.
Appa
Pick up my call
Appa missed call [2]
He’s just about to skim the fifth casting call for an advertisement for an online clothing store when his phone dings with a name he doesn’t feel like ignoring. He flies off the couch only to retrieve his device from the table and immediately falls back into the plush softness that has since been indented thanks to his weight.
Seungmin
I have an in-person interview lined up for you, kissmodels sent me an email. They’d like to meet tomorrow to discuss the terms with you.
He’s relieved he doesn't have to sift through the listings anymore. What a mundane monotonous task it was, something that drives hyunjin insane on a good day. He hates being told what to do, but… having his schedule pre-set for him by someone that’s not him does wonders. It keeps him on track, gives him the stakes he needs to get up and show up and complete a task. Without the risk of failure, nothing can get the cement in his joints to move.
sure, sounds good
He replies, then realises he sounds far too robotic for someone who should be grateful that seungmin did his job for him, 3 days after hyunjin was supposed to and didn't. so he adds,
thank you
Felix has sent you a message [6]
Felix has sent you a message [7]
Seungmin
Oh, and one more thing.
Hyunjin’s eyes fall to the new notification, filtering out the ones above it automatically.
Yeah?
Seungmin
I know you don’t want to go there, but jype has requested a meeting with you too.
The air in his lungs escapes him all at once, replaced with hollow dread. Why would jype ever want to meet with him? The last time they called him into office, it was to fire him. Well, trainees don’t really get fired as much as they get told to scram out of there and never come back because they’re not good enough and never will be, but close enough.
Why?
Do I have to go?
Seungmin
They didn’t tell me the details, so I don’t know.
And yes, you have to go
Hyunjin groans out loud, rolling his neck to get rid of some of the stiffness that had settled into his bones. He was about to turn his phone off and leave it to catch dust on the table for the rest of the day, but another message from seungmin pops up.
Seungmin
Felix requested it, not their team.
So yes you have to go, and unfortunately I can’t come with you
What do you mean you can’t come with?
You’re my manager?
Seungmin
Yes, but it’s not an official summon. This is your friend asking to meet you at his workplace, hyunjin.
And besides, since the agency dropped us we aren’t really on a ‘manager-model’ basis in the company’s eyes. Everyone who knows you knows I’m your manager, but on paper our contract tying us to each other was under the agency’s name. Until we sign a new contract some companies will take this as an opportunity to contact you directly, bypassing me entirely.
If this was such a friendly invitation why did he go to you instead?
Seungmin
Well, according to him you’ve been ignoring his texts and calls for the better part of the last few months.
Hyunjin feels muddy embarrassment slide down his legs, and he feels the need to defend himself despite knowing he’s at fault. Seungmin knows about his trainee period, of course he does. He knows about most of hyunjin’s life events, the major ones at least. He tried to get hyunjin to crack, to let him into his inner circle earlier on, the first year they worked together. Tried to ask him about his passions, and interests, and pastimes, even about yeji and his parents. But he stopped asking once he realised he was talking to a wall. So he knows about his friendship with the idols, and hyunjin is sure he also is distantly aware of the brewing resentment he feels towards them, because the awkwardness between them could be cut through with a steak knife and seungmin was always there to witness it. But he never asked about it directly.
So he doesn’t know that hyunjin is a petty little bitch holding onto a grudge from six years ago.
Seungmin
Hyunjin, I’m not gonna judge you for who you choose to talk to, or not talk to in this case, but I’d like you to at least inform me about who you don’t want to be around before they start messaging me asking about your schedule and when you’d be free next.
Well, yeah okay that’s my bad.
But you could have said no
Seungmin
Can you say no to felix?
There it was. The trap.
Seungmin
We met him not that long ago for the dinner. I didn’t know you weren’t talking to him, so I told him you will be free tomorrow aside from the meeting with kissmodels before he told me you were ignoring him.
He seemed like he missed you.
Fine. I’ll go. You’re picking me up after, at least?
Seungmin
Will be there. We’ll go to your interview right after, so be at the company whenever you want to, but leave by 3:15.
You got it, boss.
He doesn’t wait to see seungmin’s reply to that. The rest of his day is spend wallowing in self pity on his couch where his sweat makes him feel as disgusting as his insides felt at the prospect of going to that hell hole again. But he doesn’t get up to shower, instead he turns on screamo music to live his dreams of screaming his lungs out vicariously through the singer’s vocal fries.
He enters the jype building, immediately feeling buckets of dread swirling around in his stomach. His discomfort weighs as heavy on him as the sky on atlas. His footsteps lack grace, entirely controlled by the need to leave. He promised himself he’d never set foot in this place again, after the harsh slap of rejection had marred his skin.
Curse seungmin and his aptitude for persuasion. The fella makes one hell of a convincing argument. He had woken up early precisely to nag at his manager, to whine in his ear about how badly he doesn’t want to go over the phone despite simultaneously getting ready to do just that. If he was gonna be mildly irritated for the rest of the day, he’s going to make sure someone else was too. Except seungmin had listened to all of his whining with utmost patience and then told him he can leave whenever he wants since it wasn’t an official summon and he could go back to ignoring felix. And that seungmin would get him coffee right after, and it had convinced him.
The shiny glass windows and sparkling floors and air conditioned cafeterias [plural] which look more like all-you-can-eat buffets only serve to irritate him more. Back when he was blessed with the ticket to enter this building at dead hours of night for practice, it had one shoddy practice room that would barely fit ten trainees, no windows, and one sad looking vending machine serving lukewarm sodas thanks to the cooling system never working. Look at the place now. He gets shown one of the meeting rooms by a staff member, whom he thanks before entering. It’s a wide room with a circular wooden table, rotating chairs all around. He sighs as he settles into one, checking his surroundings anxiously. He’s wearing casual-formal attire, a simple shirt covered by one of his looser blazers and some slacks. As on guard as he could get away with being. He’d have shown up in a hoodie and covered his face and hair with a mask and beanie if it was his own agency- well, former agency, the words still leave a dull, disappointed ache - but he’d given jype the satisfaction of walking all over him once. He’s not about to do that again. After ten whole minutes of bouncing his heel onto the annoyingly polished floor - or maybe it wasn’t ten minutes, he doesn’t know. Touching his phone to check the time felt like cheating, somehow. What rule was he breaking? He didn’t have a clue. But he’d also rather not split his attention right now, even for a second. Anyway, after soothing himself with rhythmic taps for who knows how long, the door opens and in comes his biggest regret.
Lee felix.
In all his blonde haired, doe eyed, freckled glory. He’s dressed like, well, an idol. Trendy, chic, popular with the kids. Ripped, wide legged blue jeans and a simple white tee. His appearance screams of someone who’s familiar with his surroundings, and hyunjin has to remind himself that he is. These are the halls he walks in, the tables he sits at, the cafeterias he eats in, the practice rooms he dances in, his second home he always has access to. Him, han, and minho. He’s also wearing his smile. The very same one that many a person would die for. The same one hyunjin would have died for, once upon a time. Now it only serves to kill him while he tries to run. “Hi hyunjinnie!” that nickname again. “Thank you for agreeing to meet!” he walks in, followed shortly by someone wearing a black shirt and jeans. Hyunjin eyes the man, felix’s manager, not that hard to put two and two together. He internally scoffs at the thought of this being prefaced as a “friendly meeting”. Now he wishes he had just dragged seungmin by the hair to go with him. “Seungmin told me to.” He answers, curtly. There’s not really a point in niceties today, or any day when he’s summoned to these headquarters. He’d only be giving felix leeway if he gave even a hint of the impression that he wants to be here. He needs to seem completely happy with his life, entirely confident in his decisions that led him here, definitely not jealous of felix’s standing. He’d dig himself a grave with his bare hands and bury himself alive before he lets anyone think he’s jealous of felix, or han, or minho for that matter. The embarrassment would burn him hotter than any fire could. Felix takes a seat, opposite hyunjin, and the manager hovers near the door like a guard dog. He seems unbothered by hyunjin’s presence, but he knows better. He’s here for surveillance, he’s here to make sure hyunjin doesn’t step out of line, and he’s here to make sure whatever happens in these four walls stays in these four walls. Felix himself seems to be looking at him with apprehension in his eyes, trying to gauge if hyunjin has any sore spots today that he might accidentally - or purposefully, depending on his agenda here - step on. It pisses hyunjin off. He’s gonna have a headache by the time he gets home, he just knows it. “I hope you’re doing okay, I heard the news… about your contra-”“Cut to the chase, felix.” He interrupts, making sure his eyes are devoid of any emotion. Felix is not going to get the pleasure of speaking to hyunjin, his friend who spent countless nights shedding tears and sweat in the practice rooms with him, no. He lost that privilege years ago. Felix is going to get the adult, professional, business minded hyunjin who has no time for personal ties. Felix intakes a surprised gust of air, but his face shows pity. Annoying. “Okay, well, ideally you’d have a meeting with the head of our division and minho after this.” Hyunjin raises his eyebrow at that. “We have an offer for you, if you’d like to listen.” Like a rabbit in a trap sprung out on him, hyunjin’s foot is caught by the snare and all he can do is simply nod his head, letting felix continue. Felix sits tall at the cue, straightening his back, and hyunjin watches in real time as his friendliness slips away and gives way to something more idol-like. Perfect, poised, professional. Good, now they’re on even playing ground. “There’s an upcoming project, collaborative between jype, hybe, sm, and studio choom. It’s aiming to put a spotlight on the professional dancers in the companies who work behind the scenes as choreographers. Each dancer picked is allowed to invite one other person as part of their team.” All sounds fine and dandy so far, not sure why hyunjin was supposed to be listening to this. He would have heard about it through the internet and watched the stupid ordeal while wishing he had the chance to appear on such shows in the comfort of his thick blankets. Why does he need to know now? “Minho was picked to appear in the project, and after much consideration, he’s inviting you to be his partner. Minho will choreograph the piece, and there’ll be filming based around the creation of it, and practice sessions, and then you both would perform it in studio choom for a performance video, and then do a couple stages.” Without even realising it, hyunjin’s tolerance had snapped in half. Felix had broken it right over his knee. The wording of it- it seemed all wrong. After much consideration? He doesn’t know if he should be thankful that minho still keeps him in his mind somewhere, or be offended that he needs to think before calling on hyunjin to be his other half, or be indignant about the fact minho has the absolute gall to think he has the right to call hyunjin after all this time. “Excuse me?” “I mean,” the professional mask slips right off felix’s face, and hyunjin isn’t surprised. He was always the one forced to hide between the two. “Hyunjin, this is the perfect opportunity for you!” he continues with his back curling forward but his arms raising up, like he’s trying to make himself seem smaller, cuter, more helpless, so hyunjin would agree. That won’t work. Hyunjin wants to see him beg. And even then, he’d walk out of there with the satisfaction of having rejected the lee felix to his face after he got down to his knees and grovelled. Sweet, sweet retribution. “You’re no longer obligated to work in modelling exclusively, and you’ve been practicing all these years, I know you have, you could totally take this opportunity and kill it! It’d just be a trial, testing the waters type thing if you don’t want to commit to anything. Just you and minho, you know, like old times?” Hyunjin can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of him at that, all viscous and acidic, straight from a cauldron instead of a bathtub. What does felix know about old times? When was it ever just him and minho? It was them four. Hyunjin barely managed to stick on, but he did, and it was them four. It was never two and two, it was never meant to be han and felix. Minho, hyunjin, and felix all whittled away in the dance practice rooms while jisung was off somewhere writing songs and taking vocal lessons. When they had dinner, minho would cook for them and they’d settle into tired conversation as a table of four. “Are you being serious right now.” Hyunjin didn’t even have to try to make his tone disillusioned, it naturally dripped with every word. Does felix know how hurtful it is? Does he know that the knife that digs into his heart was sharpened by the three of them? Way to grip the handle and twist, referring to this as a trial. That’s all he ever is, to them, huh. An experiment. Something to be played with and discarded. A fun little lesson, meanwhile hyunjin’s life is on the line. Do they even realise how many vile, venomous narratives this would summon? Felix and jisung get their fair share of hate, nothing compared to hyunjin, but even they’d be better equipped to handle it. Thrusting minho into the spotlight after he vehemently denied any chance of being under it for so many years, only to do it with hyunjin of all people? Nobody forgets his past, true or not. They’re opening the doors to hell and welcoming the demons into their home. Felix looks hopeful. Hyunjin needs to empty his stomach. “If you are, I never thought you’d get this cruel.” Hyunjin lets his own mask fall away, professional indifference parting to give rise to personal vendetta. His eyes turn cold, his mouth sneering as he spits out his words with every drop of resentment he had stored away in his blood. “What do you think you’re doing here, exactly? Charity? Do you thing it’s that easy, for me to just accept another contract just after getting out of a shitty one, and entirely uproot my current lifestyle and future plans to, I don’t know, change career paths? Are you aware of the money I’d lose?” his argument is unfounded, but felix chose to step on one of the sorest spots he could find. Hyunjin is distantly aware of the manager still listening in, but a fault line has been created, and nothing can stop his tectonic plates of anger from violently crashing into themselves, molten, red hot hatred flowing from underneath. “Do you enjoy dangling this ‘treat’ over my head like I’m a pathetic starving dog? ‘Trial’ you say, what happens after? Are you willing to take responsibility for the backlash? What if I want to keep doing it? Is minho gonna want to abandon being a choreographer and shove his face into mainstream media attached to my face for the world to scrutinise? I know this place doesn’t want me to work solo, unrestricted” he makes it a point to glare at the manager, sending a clear message with his fiery words and pointed stare. “Besides,” he looks back at felix, a smirk slowly creeping up onto his face at the sight of the wide eyed idol, “where is he anyway. Why’d they send you? Does my future partner despise me so much he couldn’t grace me with his presence?” “No- I- hyunjin, please, listen-” it was a glorious sight, watching felix fumble with his words. Hyunjin dreamed of the day he’d get to see this. “It’s not like that. I wanted- they were gonna call you to the head office, I wanted to break the offer to you myself first because- I thought it’d be nice, you know” hyunjin snorts, and felix loses his footing once again, not expecting hyunjin’s unbridled rudeness. He takes a breath again, and steadies his speech. “I thought it’d be nice to have a familiar face offer it to you. Minho is busy, and he’d be here if he could, but he’s out of country at the moment and the show is on a tight schedule so I had to be here myself today. It’s a good offer, hyunjin. I know you’ve always wanted this, and-” Hyunjin loathes when someone speaks on his behalf, like they know him, especially when they’re being so obtuse. “My answer is no, please tell minho to find another partner. I have somewhere to be, I’ll get going now.” He pushes the chair back, making sure it screeches painfully against everyone’s ears. If felix can be obtuse, hyunjin can be pretentious. He gathers his phone and bag, and walks out the door without sparing another glance at felix or his little guard dog. Before he’s fully out of earshot, he hears felix say, “why do you always think the world is against you…” What does felix know.
Seungmin picks him up at the dot, and he puts on his headphones in the car to tune out every emotion other than rage. Seungmin doesn’t try to ask him how it went, thankfully. He plays his favourite angry rock playlist, scrolling until he finds a song to fit the exact hateful mood he’s in. Turning the volume all the way up, he lets his emotions fester into the welts of his heart, simmering and slowly cooking the tender meat until the voice cracks and the guitar strains and the drums blare, making the volatile solution overflow from within. It makes him loose track of time, it makes the constant nagging in his brain of youregonnabelateyouregonnabelateyouregonnabelate a little bit easier to ignore. Knowing that his meeting before this was scheduled and seungmin picked him up right on time makes it more bearable too, but the voice in his head never really shuts up. Kissmodels looks… like the exact place hyunjin does not want to be at right now. Or anytime ever, preferably. He can’t explain it really, in retrospect there’s nothing wrong with the pure white building with accented hot pink interiors and the carpeted floors. Sure, the perfume suffocates him within a second of entering, but it’s customary with these types of establishments. None of it screams run, except that’s the exact impression he’s getting. The vibes… that’s the only way he can explain it, the vibes are off. “Well I can’t really cancel your meeting for that reason, hyunjin…” seungmin helpfully supplies from next to him. Hyunjin sighs. “I know.” They’re seated on leather sofas in the middle of a grand office with floor to ceiling glass windows overlooking the city. He’s glad he wore something that covers him entirely, that leather would be a sensory nightmare on his bare skin. The clock on one of the walls ticks annoyingly loudly, and there’s synthetic flowers in a vase too big for them on the desk in front of them. They quiet down, both aware of the cameras surveilling the room, and wait for the recruiter to show up. Unsurprisingly, it was a tall, broad man with an ironed black suit. His hands were rough to shake, and his smile was controlled under business. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Hwang”“Please, hyunjin is fine.”They settled on opposite sides of the table. The meeting was as stale and boring as any other, typical questions about his past and passion and experience. Just because he’s used to it doesn’t mean he’s calm, though. Nervousness grasps his throat from behind his head, slinks its hands down onto his chest, digs a hole straight through his sternum. “The contract period will be for three months, no pressure to sign right now. Please feel free to take it home and read through all the terms.” Hyunjin puts aside the contract to do just that. “When am I expected to start? What’s the pay you’re offering?”“If everything is according to your liking in the contract, you can start as soon as next week. If you need more time than that, don’t fret. You have plenty of time. Our current workshop ends in two months, and then we will start the nude project.” “The what project?” hyunjin balks. The bricks in the wall are starting to crumble. One by one, they thump to the floor from the very tippy top of the room, giving way to the void that surrounds his periphery.“The nude project. You’re going to be doing a nude photoshoot, you do know that, right?” Hyunjin looks at seungmin, who looks just as taken aback as him. “This was not what we discussed, Mr. Soo.”“Well, I’m certain we posted our job listing with all the accurate details. It was mentioned the model would be expected to do five nude photoshoots and five magazine covers. Are you sure you read the entire post, Mr. Kim?”“Your outreach head emailed me directly.” Hyunjin lets seungmin take the reigns of this conversation, he’s afraid his voice won’t come out even if he tried. He’s shell shocked, lost all his wits and maybe even his soul has started to drift away from him. “He did not mention any nude photoshoots.” “Im sorry Mr. Kim, but that is the job being offered. I’m sure hyunjin wouldn’t have any trouble with that.” Hyunjin deeply regrets telling him to use his first name now. “He’s got experience, right?” experience!? “Excuse me?” he blurts out, a little too loud. Shock still numbing all the other emotions contained in his voice. More bricks crumble to the floor, disturbed by his presence in the conversation.“I don’t understand what the issue is, you’re a seasoned model. You don’t seem to care about modesty too much, and you’d earn about fifty thousand won.” What the hell? Just because hyunjin loves dipping into the more sensual side of things, loves exploring his desires through the lens of a camera, sees the composition and posing as a form of art too and uses it to his advantage, does not mean he’s down to expose himself in such a crude manner. And this man wants him to lay his body bare for prying eyes to see, all for the whopping price of fifty grand? He gets paid that much for one shoot. His reputation precedes him, sure, but he is only as hated as he is popular. He’s not an amateur. His face sells. He does not live a life of misery hating his own face for it to only earn him fifty grand, let alone his whole body. “I think this is a great opportunity for you, hyunjin.” The man takes hyunjin and seungmin’s shocked silence as a cue to continue, and hyunjin really wishes he hadn’t, because his next words have the room closing in on him and the bricks piercing through his gut in one bloody strike. “Please, think about it Mr. Kim. This is the kind of work that hyunjin is suited for, and I understand it may be a shock if you’ve never done it before, but we can be a great start to get into that side of the industry.” Seungmin immediately stands up. “We will not be thinking about it, don’t bother contacting us again. Have a good day, Mr. Soo.” Hyunjin hasn’t heard his manager speak so coldly before, but he doesn’t have the time to dwell on it as he is being dragged up by his wrist and ushered to the door. Seungmin may have dug his hand through the static-y cotton fuzz surrounding him, but he cannot remove the weight of the room in hyunjin’s core. He feels suffocated by the very existence of it. “What’s the harm in getting naked for a photo! You guys are shutting down a good deal! Don’t tell me hyunjin doesn’t love stripping for the camera-” The man has the gall to call after them, and seungmin is about to storm away while mumbling about what an unprofessional asshole he is, but hyunjin abruptly stops. He whips around, quick enough to make Mr Soo’s mouth clamp shut, only for an infuriating smirk to creep up his face instead. Hyunjin hardens his glare, swallowing the shame and that coats his oesophagus to replace it with all the venomous courage he could muster, collecting every single drop of hatred in his cells and borrowing some from the depths of hell to ensure his voice cuts through the air like a death knell. “I don’t do nude shoots. You’ll only see me naked in your dreams, Mr. Soo.” And with that, he gave him his most saccharine smile, dripping with burnt molasses, and left.
Seungmin has a protective hand on his back the entire way to the car, and while hyunjin greatly appreciates the gesture it doesn’t provide him with the comfort he’s seeking. It only makes him feel dirty. His thoughts are a cage of vulgarity, spikily aimed everywhere. Towards him, towards the world, towards seungmin. He doesn’t want seungmin to touch him, because then his thoughts would transfer to seungmin like an electrical signal through a closed circuit, instant and unstoppable, and seungmin doesn’t deserve that. He doesn’t deserve the disgust hyunjin feels. He still lets seungmin open his door for him, help him into the car, and secure his seatbelt, because he needs the pillar of strength regardless. He stares at the back of the seat in front of his face, wishing he could simply let the growing pit beneath his feet swallow him whole. Seungmin enters the car shortly after closing his door, and then they’re off. To wherever. Hyunjin doesn’t care. He wants to go home. “I’m so sorry hyunjin, that was incredibly rude of him. I didn’t know they did nude modelling, or that he’d be such an asshat.”
The kind of work that hyunjin is suited for?
The bricks that he carried outside with him fall to his stomach, and his muscles coil around the weight. Constricting them, nauseating him. He feels sick. He can’t breathe. “I’m going to blacklist any of their company subsidiaries from your list, you won’t have to deal with them ever again, I’m so sorry. I should have checked.” Seungmin is already tapping away at his phone, his short black hair not doing anything to cover his panicked eyes. His lips are drawn together in a frown as he concentrates, and he seems less composed than hyunjin is used to seeing him. He wishes he could tell him it’s okay, but he can’t get the words out. It wouldn’t be true. It’s not okay. He knows it’s not seungmin’s fault, the concoction of negative emotions in his stomach shouldn’t be aimed at him. They’re his bricks to deal with. Seungmin couldn’t have known the weirdo would be so crude, so disrespectful and uncaring of hyunjin’s boundaries. He had no responsibility to suffer the consequences of someone else’s opinion of hyunjin. But hyunjin couldn’t help but feel that seungmin allowed it. Allowed it to happen to him. He appreciates seungmin sticking up for him, for being his voice when he lost his own, and he can’t thank him enough for getting angry on his behalf, for not disappointing hyunjin. His rage soothes hyunjin’s burns, makes him feel less crazy. But still, he wishes that seungmin had done more. He was always calm and collected, always choosing to be the bigger person, never stooping down to someone else’s level. It infuriated hyunjin, because some atrocities don’t deserve to get shoved under the rug. No, hyunjin does not want to ignore it and be the bigger person for his peace of mind. His peace comes from putting people in place. He wishes seungmin had fought back, had been just as unprofessional as Soo was, had ripped that smirk off his face to stomp on it along with his pride. It’s not fair to seungmin, hyunjin knows. So he keeps his mouth shut and lets the concrete build up. He can’t shut down the voices in his head, and they scream different parts of the meeting back to him. Like an echo chamber blaring a purge alarm. He can’t escape it, and it’s loud and red and blurs his vision as it rattles his brain. Suddenly he needs to empty his stomach. “Hey, seungmin, can you drop me off somewhere else?”Seungmin looks slightly confused, or at least hyunjin thinks he does… he isn’t really looking. He takes the pause as confusion. “Sure, where exactly do you want to go?” “So, there’s this um… store” hyunjin doesn’t know why he’s explaining. He can just tell seungmin the location and go back to being quiet. But the ever looming threat of leaving a tangled up string in someone’s hands makes his own intestines twist. “I’ve been visiting it here and there, at night-” “At night? Alone?” seungmin cuts in, and if his concern wasn’t already evident in his voice, the interruption was a clear indicator by itself. Seungmin was a good listener, it was one of the many qualities hyunjin really admired in his manager. If hyunjin wasn’t already spiralling, he’d get annoyed at the instant interruption here, the silence in that hot pink walled office a mockery in comparison. “Yeah, listen- it was for the watch, it’s a place I know, don’t worry. And it’s not near the city central so it’s really quiet and I don’t get recognised, I just- want to see a friend. Please?” Hyunjin turns to look at him, hoping his desperation is evident on his face. He sees seungmin hesitate, likely holding himself back from going mother hen mode and asking him more questions about it. He sees the tension seep out of his shoulders with the defeated sigh, “okay. Where is it?” Hyunjin pulls up the address on his phone and wordlessly hands it to seungmin. He’s quiet for the rest of the ride. When they arrive at the quaint store, seungmin eyes the area apprehensively. The railroad indeed does not look as suspicious under the light of the sun, even though it is setting by the very second, casting an orange glow onto the metal. he asks hyunjin when he should pick him up, and hyunjin tries to usher him to just go back without him, only to remember he doesn’t have his bicycle, and it’s still a lot earlier than his usual visit time. “I don’t know, minnie” he finally sighs, completely drained. “I’ll just call you when I want to go home.” Before seungmin has a chance to respond, he’s walking into the store. Thankfully with a mask this time, although his neatly ironed suit does stand out in this part of town.
Eomma
*Deleted message*
*Deleted message*
Yeji
Is everything okay?
She has been blowing up my phone
Skyfall is a lot brighter during the day, but he still feels the now familiar air of transcendental wonders surround him. The wood is still heavy, the glass is still brittle, the candles continue to burn, and even though the ticking of the clocks are drowned out by murmurs of other customers in the shop, and the mirrors aren’t reflecting a sea of black anymore, hyunjin feels the spirit of the shop fill in his hollow body. Customers. He looks to the counter, and finds who seems to be the day shift worker talking to a buff looking young guy. His eyes rest on the worker first, it had slipped his mind that chan wouldn’t exactly be here at this hour. The boy looks slightly younger, his smile also dimples his cheeks, and his ginger hair frames his fox like eyes perfectly as he bows to the customer and thanks him for visiting.Adorable and disciplined, his mind supplies. The customer himself seems to be closer to hyunjin’s age, a lot more muscular than he could dream to be, and he has a loud presence and an even louder voice. He’s wearing a black skintight shirt and some track pants, but his hat is a bright pink and he carries a cute little pink wallet that he slips into his bag. Hyunjin makes his way to the front, not really sure what to do now that he’s here. Being in the shop itself has eased some of his nerves, curved the very edges, smoothened the folds with its bare hands. If it was night time, and he had his creepy little worker to keep him company, he’s certain the folds would be ironed out. Being in his little bubble with chan and skyfall keeping them company always made him forget about any of his real life struggles, and he desperately needed that fix right now. Those few minutes he gets to live his fantasy of being someone unimportant in a world where he doesn’t understand the fundamentals, he doesn’t get the bigger picture, he’s as insignificant and helpless as an ant walking on a busy street of seoul, fill him with serenity. He can finally let go of all his possessions, all the chains anchoring him to things he can’t change, all the labels slapped onto his forehead, and just be human. Weak, dumb, silly little human. He awkwardly hovers beside the two, pretending to look at things. He notices the muscle man turn to him, his eyes resting on hyunjin’s figure for a second too long for hyunjin’s paranoid brain, and then turning back to continue his conversation with the worker. “Hyung please, let me attend to a real customer” the fox-eyed boy laughs.“You wound my heart innie, am I not your best customer?” the man responds with a gasp, placing his hand onto his chest.“I think your chest would stop any attempt I make at hurting your heart, changbin-hyung.” ‘Innie’ replies. He walks over from where he was stood in front of muscle-man and walks two steps towards hyunjin’s side, ignoring the man’s indignant whines and cries for his attention. “Hi! How may I help you?” “Um…” hyunjin feels like the biggest idiot alive. What is he gonna say? Would asking for chan be too damning? He remembers the way chan had held him without questions the other night, and it seems silly now when other people are in the same area as that whole debacle - he can almost see a hologram of himself lying pathetically on the floor if he looked a little to the right - but it had anchored him, tilted his axis back into the right alignment when hyunjin couldn’t do it himself, stopped his brain from going haywire and spiralling into nothingness. It had been what he needed, and in a life where he himself doesn’t know what he needs, chan had been like a blessing sent to him from heaven above. Fuck it. His head is throbbing in pain and he can’t afford to worry about appearances right now. “When does chan’s shift start?” he cringes at how choppy and rude sounding that question came out, he didn’t really think it through, but before he could stumble over his own tongue in an attempt to correct himself, the man beside him speaks up. “You know channie-hyung?” he did. He knew what time his shift started too, he remembered every word chan had uttered to him in all of their interactions. But he wasn’t gonna admit to it now. Hyunjin shifts his gaze to him, just as ‘innie’ admonishes, “changbin-hyung! Don’t be rude!” The man turns to ‘innie’, “i wasn’t being rude! It was a genuine question, innie.” He pouts, and his whole look is comical to say the least. The buffest man hyunjin has seen with his own eyes, sporting a pout with sparkly eyes. Hyunjin’s eyes flicker away from his face for a second, distracted by the stack of magazines on the counter, and his blood runs cold at seeing the cover. Vogue. The specific edition that he remembers being in. He wasn’t on the cover, but he knows there’s a full page spread of him buried between the pages and a full length interview recorded in the columns for the whole world to see. Paragraphs of his own words scroll through his mind like a badly made movie’s credit scene in 2x speed, reminding him of every single lie that slips past his lips, every façade he’s ever put on, and every single embarrassment he’s brought upon himself. And then he realises these magazines are in skyfall. They might have been in the racks containing newspapers and other stuff hyunjin had paid no attention to, like always, and that means they’ve always been here. Chan. Chan had seen these? What are the chances he’d have read them. They were in his shop, he had to have put them there. And even if he hadn’t read every word maniacally like hyunjin does, reading every single letter like it was a portal to his soul, judging himself upon scales so unfair even Eris would pity him - even if he hadn’t done that, he must have skimmed through the magazines. Hell, the fact they were on the counter made him jump to even more conclusions, made him even more sure that he had been found out. His chances of being anonymous, being a mysterious dude who just walked into skyfall one night, his chances of chan not knowing who he was from the get go are becoming slimmer and slimmer, and he doesn’t like it in the least bit. Every muscle in his body is stunned while his mind sprints at a speed where he can’t even hear his own thoughts anymore, well beyond mach 3. He had zoned out for so long he hadn’t noticed both ‘innie’ and ‘changbin’ looking at him, exchanging worried glances when he stopped responding. The buff guy’s voice breaks him out of his thought loop, crashing waves onto him while he struggles to breath. “Are you-” “I nee- sorry, I need to go” he interrupts, not wanting to hear the rest of his sentence. He’s been found out. He’s been found out, and chan knew he was nothing but a lowly model who sells his looks for money, and skyfall sours all his bones until he can taste the revulsion on his teeth, and he needs to get out. He turns abruptly and leaves, not looking back at the two in the store, not looking back at skyfall herself, not looking back at the railroad. He just runs. Runs in a direction he finds the most empty, running away from the bustling markets and restaurants and into some residential blocks, runs until his feet hurt. When he needs to refill his lungs with the air he lost, he comes to a stop near a tree and lets his head hand low between his shoulders. His panting is loud, and his hands are heavy on his knees, and he wants to erase his entire existence. He looks up and realises he is a stranger to his surroundings, and that thought brings him a little comfort before it starts to terrify him. What if he gets murdered? He shakes his head. He’s always been a paranoid person, but he can’t be inviting it to himself now. His need to not be perceived clashes with his paranoia and he finds himself debating between slinking away into a dark alley and calling seungmin, or trusting his abhorrent sense of direction and google maps to lead him home… He tucks himself into an alley. Not even two rings in, and seungmin is picking up the phone. Hyunjin could cry of relief. “Seun-” his voice comes out high and brittle, he clears his throat and tries again. “Seungmin, can you pick me up, please? Did you go home?” “I didn’t go home I’m just at a restaurant near the shop I dropped you at. I can pick you up, yes. Are you still there?” “N-no, not at the shop. I’ll, uh- send you my location. I’m not sure where exactly I am-” “Are you safe?” A pang of warmth shot through hyunjin’s heart. He expected to be reprimanded. “I- well yes, for now?” his voice hikes up in pitch as the latter end of his sentence turns into a question, “I’m kinda in an alley. There’s no one around tho so I’m fine.” He hears the faint noise of a chair screeching against the floor in the background. “Okay, send me your location. I’ll be there as fast as I can.” Seungmin hangs up, and hyunjin stares at his screen in sheer disbelief at how smoothly that went. He’d always had to fight for things he needed, explain himself to people who could give them to him, and still be denied anyway. He… he’s been friends with seungmin for a good chunk of time, and he knows the only reason his manager would deny him something is when the agency had rules against it… but it hadn’t clicked in his head that maybe, just maybe… seungmin was on his side? While he waits for his… friend, to arrive, he has nothing to do but think. Think, and whip his head around every two seconds to check for anyone creeping up on him, but think nonetheless. The thoughts at the forefront of his mind get barrelled out of the way, to be replaced by the avalanche of new ones flooding him. He’s aware of the very recent memories of skyfall hovering in the distance, with the earlier memories of her and chan right above them, and he’s had a broken record replaying the interview in a different corner of his mind which he can pretty much ignore now. At the very front: his memories of seungmin and him. All the greenrooms and uncomfortable interviews he’d been in where seungmin had subtly looked out for him. All the times he’d stayed back late hours into the night just to make sure hyunjin got home safe. All the times he had made sure to update hyunjin on his schedules exactly at the right time to not overwhelm him - something hyunjin still can’t figure out how he does. All the times he’d brought him coffee right after scolding him to eat well and take care of himself more. Hyunjin had thought seungmin had stopped caring, stopped trying to care about him as a friend when he backed off with the personal questions and left him to have his personal space. But he’s starting recognise the wisps of affection in the reprimands, the traces of care in the pre-planning, and the basis of friendship between them. Seungmin had learnt to love - or at the very least, care about - hyunjin in the way he wanted to be. In the only way he’d allow himself to accept it. Subtle, even to his own eyes. So delicately placed that it slips under his own radar, enough for him to not push it away. Seungmin had done all that for him, and he had reciprocated with nothing. He feels gutted. He should be putting in more effort. He should be meeting him halfway. He barely has any friends, any real ones that he spends time with or talks to, anyway. What’s making him so occupied that he can’t just play nice? Why can’t he just, loosen his knots and let the strings to their job? Let them bring in the people he should have close to him, and then nourish the threads until they form ropes? Why can’t he just do that? The image of skyfall flashes in front of his eyes, briefly leaving it’s resting place in the back of his mind to perpetually remind him of its existence. Chan comes to mind along with, and he slumps against one of the alley walls, snuffing out the light of his phone to sigh as the thought overcomes him. Chan had been kind and patient, like seungmin was, he had given hyunjin what he wanted, what he would have accepted, when he held him without question and never made his tears feel like droplets of crime trickling down his cheeks. He didn’t make him feel wrong for being tired. But he also had been curious, and blunt, and accusatory in the way that hyunjin knew he needed. He needed to be questioned, he needed to be examined, he needed to be loved just as deeply as he did quietly, subtle on the outside but bone deep in its roots. He needed an anchor that let him fly. And as much as chan was the anchor, skyfall was the stratosphere. And now, his stratosphere was polluted. Acid rain fell down on his anchor, tainting it yellow. His memories of chan were locked into a cage, whose guard dog was the fresh memory of the magazine. It drooled around its sharp canines and snarled at hyunjin when he so much as looked in its direction. He kicked a rock idly to expend some of his energy and occupy his mind the rest of the wait. He noticed the cement lined walls having scratches and gashes, and there was definitely some old undergarment lying in a corner all muddied and gray, but there were no windows near him. He looked at the sky, and back down, and waited some more. It was getting a little chilly, but he believed seungmin would arrive before he caught a cold. And he did. He pulled up with the same car that had been used to drop hyunjin off at skyfall, surprising him a little. “I thought you might need me, so I stayed in the area.” Was the explanation seungmin had given him on their way home when he voiced his question, and hyunjin couldn’t help the quirk of his lips upwards as the familiar warmth of his friend enveloped the concrete in his gut. Not enough to melt the heavy feelings, but enough to keep him warm. Less lonely. Less cold.
He comes home exhausted and wanting to do nothing but seep into his bed. Seungmin comes up to drop him off, clearly sensing the nerves still radiating off of hyunjin. Hyunjin appreciates it. He appreciates more that seungmin leaves him be right after, not encroaching on any more mental space than hyunjin was capable of providing at the time. Before letting him go, hyunjin stops him to say thank you, while looking in his eyes, with the sincerest expression he could bring himself to make. He tells him they’ll talk, about skyfall, about this awful day, some other time. For now, he needs seungmin to know he’s seen, and appreciated, and hyunjin isn’t gonna be ungrateful about his presence in his life. The door clicks shut and hyunjin locks it, turns on the lights only to pull the blinds lower and turns them back before going to his bedroom. Shedding his clothes onto the floor and picking out looser fitting pajamas off of the pile of washed clothes at the foot of his bed, he changes in the bathroom. By the time he’s done washing his face and returning to his bed, he doesn’t even have energy to stand. Flopping onto the bed, he reaches for his phone that he had thrown onto the pillows earlier. Notifications flood his screen, and he swipes them off one by one. Some random emails, an ad from his app for groceries, notifications for instagram and twitter, some messages from his family, the usual. He keeps swiping, promising to himself to return to the important ones and reply later. He’s about to clear everything, until a particular one makes him pause.
Minho
You didn’t have to be mean to felix, you know.
You could have handled that with far more grace, instead you were being aggressive to someone who’s stressed and busy as is.
He was being nice inviting you in my stead since I was busy.
When you get your head out of you ass, come talk to me.
He can’t believe his eyes. He scrolls up and down his notification bar, to make sure they are not deceiving him. He turns off his phone and turns it back on, to see if he was hallucinating.
Aggressive?
So it doesn’t matter that his pride was fished out of him like tender crab meat out of its shell and crushed between jype’s teeth. All that matters is that poor, poor felix was stressed. It’s always been this way, with minho. He’s always been fiercely protective of the younger ones… except hyunjin. Whatever hyunjin must have done to him in his previous life, minho seems keen on not forgetting nor forgiving. He’s always held out a hand for felix and han when they made mistakes in choreography, and pushed hyunjin to limits he wished he didn’t have. He’d bring extra lunch for felix, someone who could afford to get his own meal, but chose not to for the sake of practice. And he’s slap hyunjin’s hand away from the bento box, when hyunjin was the one forgoing buying the jype food coupons because he had to be saving money for his transport, and his family’s medication, and anything that is not as easily forgettable as food. He’d let han sleep on the dance room floor, and tell hyunjin off when he so much as slumped against his shoulder after an exhausting choreo. He’d not let a single person walk all over his star dongsaengs, making sure they’d regret ever trying to. But he’d always held hyunjin to a different standard. Always made hyunjin feel like he has to be more mature, more put together, the bigger person among the four of them. Hyunjin tried to understand him, one time. One lonely night when he had just received similar messages from minho, telling him off about how he was in the wrong for han ignoring him. How he should have coddled the younger and understood his plight, instead of minho trying to understand hyunjin’s. Hyunjin had cried, tossed and turned and been unable to sleep. He felt unfairly accused and held accountable for a crime he didn’t commit. He was already hurt by being ignored. Whatever problem han had with him he just wished to talk it out face to face. And when he said that to him han cowered behind his hyung and cried about how rude and scary hyunjin was being. They were young, and han has since apologised, but minho glossed over it. Either ways, he was expecting consolation, some sort of warmth from the older, for all the hurt he had been going through already. What he got was being dragged by the ear to go apologise for han’s mistakes. And he’d thought about it, maybe minho did hold him to a different standard. Maybe he saw himself in hyunjin, maybe he saw a younger version of himself, and maybe that had overriden some sort of filter in his brain that made him treat hyunjin how he’d treat himself if he could. All the pushing to do better, the unfair accusations, it seemed like what minho would expect a younger version of himself to do. In a sense hyunjin understands. If hyunjin meets the 17 year old version of himself, he would have no respect for him either. But hyunjin is not minho and minho is not hyunjin. That theory made less sense the more he thought about it, anyway. The letting people walk over hyunjin but not letting him rest or stand up for himself… it just didn’t add up. Of course it’s the same this time. Of course his sweet little felix could do no wrong in his eyes, and hyunjin is who has to bend over backwards to accommodate for his pure angel’s whims and fancies. It’s laughable how minho hasn’t even asked hyunjin himself about the dance that he supposedly wants to do with him. And as hyunjin scrolls up in their chat, he realises just how little minho has ever asked about him. It’s always hyunjin’s now embarrassing attempts at keeping conversation, before the chunks of missing months and curt greetings or article exchanges, when they were talking on a regular basis. Hyunjin’s always the one asking about minho’s day, and whereabouts, and projects, and his moods. Hyunjin hates how kind he was being. He would always ask first, and when minho was happy they’d have a somewhat normal conversation, until minho would say he’s busy with choreographing for the idols, and leave hyunjin without bothering to ask how or what hyunjin was doing. And when he wasn’t happy? Oh boy, when minho wasn’t happy.
Are you okay?
Minho
mh
mh?
Minho
Work
Been a lot
Oh, im sorry… is there anything I can do?
Minho
No
I’ll go sleep after work
Maybe a bath would help?
Minho
Where exactly would I do that, the jype bathroom?
Well, no, you could go home and take a relaxing bath
It’d help with the stress
Minho
I’ll just sleep.
And then he’d left the conversation at that, for three days. Hyunjin scrolls up further.
I saw the paps crowd you three on the tabloids
Are you all okay?
Minho
Yeah, yeah, don’t worry.
They caught han’s elbow tho, those bastards.
It was a private schedule, so they were more sasaengs than paps
Well… paps can be stalkerish too.
Thats so infuriating tho, ugh grabbing han like that?
What the hell.
Minho
Yeah well.
That’s not on han, the assholes are to blame
Obviously? The audacity of these people is getting insane.
Hope hannie isn’t too hurt
Minho
Idk why you’re telling me that
I can’t do anything, I’m not the bad guy here and I can’t make han’s injury go away
…? I know?
I wasn’t aiming anything at you? Or expecting you to fix it?
Are you okay?
Minho
I think the incident has shaken me up a little bit.
I’ll talk to you later hyunjin
And just like that, he had vanished again. Not a word about hyunjin’s well being, or wishing hyunjin to be careful, or even updating hyunjin about han’s health afterwards. Minho hadn't even been nice enough to ask him about his stalker incident a few weeks ago. Hyunjin was always catering to minho’s moods, and not once had minho cared enough to ask about his. It stung, when he was waiting, anticipating his hyung to look out for him, ask him about his well being like he used to. Phone in his hand, reading every line of text minho sent and watching every typing bubble that popped up, wishing that the next message would be asking hyunjin about his life, so he could launch into a rant of his own complaining about the ins and outs of an industry they both would understand, but it never came. Even back in their training period, minho had always been the one friend hyunjin was always on edge around. Hyunjin was deathly afraid of doing something wrong, and minho’s volatile moods more often than not left him feeling like he had. And since he was so often wondering what the hell he did to upset minho, he could simply never express his own emotions. He had to bear the burden of both his feelings and minho’s, and it crushed him under its boot unforgivingly. Minho hadn’t even graciously taken up the role of being the oldest - he was distant, and self sufficient, and wholly did not bother with the responsibility of the other three teens’ actions falling on his shoulders. He didn’t coddle anyone, and with the lack of warmth that presented in their circle, hyunjin took up that role. He was exceptionally good at perceiving just what han and felix needed, and happy to provide, as the ‘i love you’s and ‘come rest on me’s were his only outlet of emotion. He liked being needed. He liked being helpful. And it was fine, for a long time. Until one random day he felt like he had missed a step, and the three of them had run forward without him, choosing each other. Somewhere along the line their roles had switched, and minho became irresistibly fond of the twins, and hyunjin became a husk of who he once was. And so, since hyunjin always asked, and minho never reciprocated, hyunjin’s hurt was left to fester. Those terrible, awful days when hyunjin was also sad, at the same time as minho, instead of getting a shoulder to cry on or a mutual pat of comfort on the back, hyunjin was forced to walk on eggshells to make sure he doesn’t upset minho even more. He was forcibly made to sit against a stony wall, with the corners cutting into his back and legs, while a wounded cat with untrimmed claws sat perched on his lap, precariously sleeping. He had to make sure his pain went unnoticed, lest the cat lashed out and left his perfectly normal thighs bleeding. He can’t be bothered. He doesn’t give minho the satisfaction of knowing hyunjin read his texts, just leaves him on delivered and goes to sleep.
I haven’t spoken to her in a bit, but she seems fine.
Yeji
Okay. Take care, I gotta run to work
Monotonous days of staying home and flicking through job listings start rolling into one long stretch of time fabric, messing with hyunjin’s head even more. He doesn’t notice the turn of seasons, winds switching directions to go back to where they came from slowly but surely. He doesn’t even realise that autumn is blending into winter, fallen leaves starting to dry up and crunch as the air starts its descent into the negatives. He only notices when seungmin is dragging him out of the house towards a coffee shop, and the smell of pumpkin spice invades his senses immediately. He does not get pumpkin spice, he decides on hot cocoa. Seungmin and him sit down at one of the tables far enough in a corner that he feels relatively comfortable taking off his mask and chatting. There aren’t many customers around, the mad man had bombarded hyunjin’s phone at ass o’clock in the morning asking him to hurry up and get ready before the morning rush hour. Hyunjin got little to no explanation until they were entering the cafe’s doors. He got friend kidnapped. Friendnapped? He got abducted, by someone he considers a friend now. How rude. “I didn’t abduct you, I informed you beforehand you had no choice” Hyunjin blinks at him from across the table, slow, purposeful. “And that is better, how exactly?” Seungmin shrugs, “better than putting a bag over your head.” “You know seungmin, you worry me sometimes…” “I get that a lot” seungmin got an iced americano… in this weather… Hyunjin simply nods, sips his cocoa while watching seungmin from above the rim of his cup. Steam clouds his vision and he has to blink it away again. Overall, it feels nice to be out. Hyunjin forgets how much he enjoys a casual outing until he is on one. Staying home is usually what he prefers, but it drives him insane sometimes. Too much space and time to be locked into his own brain. “Thank you, for bringing me out.” “Don’t thank me for that, I wanted to meet my friend. It’s been a while. And I know we talk to each other everyday about work, but that is, well, work. I just wanted to spend time with you outside of that. See how you were doing.”
My friend
Hyunjin smiles, warmth blooming in his chest. “I was clearly struggling,” hyunjin laughs, “i do have to thank you for getting me out of that den of mine. I think I was already going into a slump, if I stayed inside any longer I’d have started spiralling in approximately…” hyunjin pretends to check his watch, “five minutes.” Seungmin laughs at the joke, but his eyes catch on hyunjin’s empty wrist. He doesn’t ask, but hyunjin also catches the little flick of his gaze, and hyunjin feels like he deserves to know. He was gonna talk to seungmin about this, anyway. “My watch, I actually still have it in my closet. It isn’t fixed.” Seungmin hums curiously, giving him the cue to continue. “The shop you dropped me off at the other day, skyfall, they have a horologist but he only works night shifts. I… got it recommended from someone, and I wanted to check for myself if they were good, you know? The watch is just… too important to me. Not that I don’t trust you or your family friend- it’s just-” “Hyunjin, that’s okay. I understand. You wanted to see through it yourself, yes? You’re allowed to want that. It’s okay.” Hyunjin wills his tears to go back into his eye sockets. He takes a breath. “Yeah-yes, that. I wanted to supervise, and make sure nothing is missing by the time it was fixed. It would just give me peace of mind… thank you, for understanding.” Seungmin smiles at him, and doesn’t add more input, sensing that hyunjin still has more to say. “So I’ve been going to skyfall, trying to see if the worker can fix my watch. I’ve been there a few times, and I go on my bicycle usually after midnight. It’s probably risky, but… I make sure to wear my hood and it’s a good forty five minute bike ride from here…” Seungmin hums, “i would have liked to know, so I can make sure you’re safe, but at the very least you’re taking precautions… it still worries me, hyunjin…” “I know, I know” hyunjin sighs. Seungmin is right, his little outings are quite dangerous for someone as recognisable on these streets as him. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know what it is about that place. I just keep getting drawn back to it.” “Hm. I assume you don’t want to be chauffeured to the place?” “No, please, it’d be too late into the night and I don’t want to keep you up or have you babysit me…” “Well, you could at least let me know when you go there and send me your live location. And text me again when you reach, and repeat when you’re leaving for home. Forty five minutes, you said?” “Well.. Yes, but that’d still be keeping you up-” “I stay up regardless. Just do that for me, please. I don’t want a dead friend.” “… Okay.” “So, tell me about the place. What draws you to it?” “Oh my, thanks for asking thought you never would. So-” Two hours and a cold cup of cocoa later, seungmin knew about the hourglass he bought that he keeps on his shelf along with his art supplies, and the railroad beside skyfall, and who chan was and his peculiar behaviour. He also knew the day shift worker was probably called ‘innie’ or some variation of, and he knew the mirrors freak hyunjin out. He knew that hyunjin hasn’t visited in a handful of days, because of his last visit and how badly it freaked him out. But he also knew that hyunjin knows that he was already on edge, and he wants to go back not only to get his watch actually fixed, but also because he misses skyfall. Misses the escape it provided him. Seungmin listened, and provided hmms and ahs when reactions were necessary, and actual comments when hyunjin paused, and agreements and advice when hyunjin faltered. His eyes held understanding kindness when hyunjin talked about the need for escape, for freedom, for detachment from everything him in his life. They went home that day with a parting hug. Hyunjin felt lighter than he has felt in weeks.
He has been toying with the idea of going back to skyfall for a while. He had grown fond of the place, and didn’t want to let his last visit taint his connection to it. He knows that he could go back anytime to find the same creepy railroad and the same weird[ly comforting] chan, nestled between wooden treasures of time and a hundred mirrors. He knows he’d always be attracted to the shop like he was a mere iron filing being pulled up by a magnet. And he knows it would still provide him much more relief than his caged in life at home. The talk with seungmin had also eased some of his general nerves, and made him miss his visits to his whimsical bubble even more. And getting some fresh air and exercise would be good for his mind and body. He knows. But still, he feels the ramifications of last visit tug at his throat, choking him every time the thought crosses his mind. He was on edge before even entering the shop, and the worker was kind enough. It really wasn’t anyone’s fault he freaked out over the magazines. And yet, the thought of the magazines’ existence itself weighs heavy in his brain. It sits in a dark corner, emanating a rancid odour directly into his lungs. With a clearer head, he can deduce that it probably wasn’t chan who kept them there, considering chan wasn’t there during the day to begin with. Even if chan did read them, he hadn’t mentioned it once to hyunjin that he recognised him. And even if he did, he’s sure chan has other responsibilities and customers he has to deal with and save mental capacity for. It’s been a couple weeks since he last saw chan, the seasons have started to change, and there’s no reason for him to occupy any more of chan’s memory than an annecdote told in passing to coworkers one day and then forgotten about. For some reason hyunjin still feels like he spilled coffee on a book page. After one particularly lonely day and more commitments he was avoiding, he decides he needs to get up off his ass and do something. His first thought leading to skyfall doesn’t surprise him in the least. He messages seungmin, as promised, a little sorry because it’s just past midnight. After sharing his location, he waits a couple minutes to see if he’d get a response. He smiles when a thumbs up emoticon pops up, and starts to gather his bearings to leave. He packs his grandfather’s watch in his bag, unsure still if he’s going to be getting it fixed today, but just in case. The ride to skyfall is as liberating as ever. The railroad is an empty comfort now, despite the edges of fear that still creep into his being. He looks at skyfall before entering. Really, takes her in. He does so little of that nowadays - taking in his surroundings, the world as a whole. His field of vision was narrowed down to a pointed finger one time, and since then, it seems like all he does is keep it narrow. He has perfect 20/20 vision that he wastes on the stretch of his hands, keeping his visual intake to the radius of one full arm. Anything beyond that is danger. It is overwhelm. What that leaves him with is vague recollections of the world around him. To know, he has to force himself to stand still and look. Look, take in, commit to memory. He knows it’ll always be faulty, he’ll never remember an exact replica of what he can see and touch and feel, but it’ll at least soothe his heart a little. Skyfall is gorgeous. The wooden sign shines yellow under the incandescent lights, with pyrography that’s clearly done by hand. The building itself is oddly shaped, a little bulbous semi circle making up half the front and the right side, while the rest looks plain ol’ rectangular. The edges are not sharp. The shop is surrounded by a low wall, and a metal gate that lacks modernity in its design. There are spikes up top, and thin rails that look like cage bars, but it fits within its scenery. There are drapes covering some areas, the shop doesn’t have a second story but it does extend further back. There are vines and leaves snaking over some parts, there’s a large window to the left through which he can’t really see much because it is frosted all over. He enters the shop still feeling a little nervous. What he doesn’t expect to see, is chan fussing around a sleeping figure. He blinks and walks further in, and notes the sleeping figure was none other than the polite boy from his previous visit. The day shift worker. ‘Innie’ if he remembered correctly, but he had never asked his name. Chan looks at hyunjin, muttering a swift ‘sorry, give me a minute!’ before he continues to rummage around the counter, the desk behind it, and the shelves behind that. Hyunjin watches the man, moving things around with his shirt sleeves rolled up to reveal his tattoos, and a few chains clinking as he does so. His hair is curly and messy covering his face, and in the brief glimpses hyunjin gets as he turns and walks to a different shelf to search, he notes chan is tonguing at his lip piercing. “Aha!” chan exclaims triumphantly, getting up from his spot on the floor where he had crouched to look in the cabinets under the desk, holding onto a folded blanket. He unfolds it and drapes it across the boy sleeping soundly on the counter. “He fell asleep right at the tail end of his shift” chan sighs. “I’ll take him home in the morning, I can’t leave my shift to drop him home since his parents know I work the night shifts alone. They’d end up scolding him.” Despite the exasperated tone of his voice, chan has a fond smile on his face. “Do you…” hyunjin starts hesitantly, unsure of where the boundaries lie. “Hm?” chan whips his head up to look at hyunjin, and his curls bounce so endearingly that hyunjin almost matches the smile chan directs at him. His open expression makes hyunjin gather the courage to suggest, “Do you have his address? I can take him home, if you want.” He doesn’t know how, but chan’s already big eyes widen even more, gain even more sparkle and shine as surprise colours his face. “Oh! Well I could never ask a customer to work like that-” “I don’t mind. Please, let me help?” “No, no-” “As a thank you for last time?” not really his intention, he just wanted to help. He had to come up with a white lie of an explanation to make his random urge to help make sense to others. But it seems to work, as hyunjin sees chan hesitate at that. There’s recognition in his face, but he blinks in still-present confusion. The stunned silence makes hyunjin realise he had offered no context whatsoever, and while he assumes it’d be easy to pick up based on the clues, he still hates when things are up in the air. So he shouldn’t put chan in the situation, either. “I mean, you really helped me last time chan. Letting me just cry all over you like that - thank you, and I’m sorry for throwing that onto you again - let me help you in return?” He sees the confusion melt away in real time, and relief sags his shoulders. But chan still seems hesitant as he eyes the sleeping boy. “He was up all night studying yesterday, from what his brother told me.” Chan whispers. And when hyunjin himself takes a peek at the boy, he can make out the signs of exhaustion. His ginger hair, previously perfectly straight and tamed the last time hyunjin saw him, now lays messy and angular, almost like dried branches. His cheek is smushed cutely into his forearm where his head rests onto his hand on top of the counter, and his eyes sport eyebags and the faintest hints of dark circles. His breath comes in deep and leaves swiftly. He’s wearing a black hoodie, whose hood is halfway drawn onto his head. “He works too hard. He’s diligent, but I worry sometimes… I do think he’d benefit from sleeping in his warm bed at home instead of our counter…” Hyunjin perks up, “well, I can take him there.” Chan’s eyes return to hyunjin. “Are you sure…?” “Yep” hyunjin nods, allowing himself to smile this time. “I don’t mind at all. As I said, consider it a thank you. I’ll come back here afterwards.” “Okay” chan finally agrees, “i’m really sorry for making you work, still. He lives two blocks down from here, ten minutes by foot.” He writes down the directions to his place into a tiny notebook - forest green, or maybe a little darker, with pink flowers rising up on one side and gold japanese lettering near the spine - and tears out the paper to give to hyunjin. “Oh, that’s not far. I’ll return in a jiffy!” Hyunjin memorises the directions and then tucks the paper into his pocket. Chan helps a sleeping innie perch onto hyunjin’s back, and hyunjin secures his legs while he tries to wrap the boy’s arms around hyunjin’s neck, failing spectacularly and just letting his arms dangle over his shoulders instead. With that, he’s off to drop the kid home. He does not look at the rails, the directions leading to the opposite side where the residential buildings line up the streets. The cold of the night is momentarily chased away by the warmth of the body on his back, and he doesn’t really mind it. It gives him time to get back into his routine, to reconnect with the delicate dance he performs every time he skirts into and out of skyfall. To get used to the idea of touching this bubble with his bare, coffee-stained hands once again. The wind blows his hair out of his face, but his back stays warm. The streets are calm and quiet, leaves occasionally rustling and his quiet footsteps being the only sounds embracing the starry sky. The moonlight shines on the areas unilluminated by the sparse streetlights, and he avoids potholes and ditches the city is unbothered to fix. It feels so open and empty, with no lights in the windows of the houses he passes by, that his mind is emptied along with. A quiet hum overtakes his thoughts, and his tongue rests in its bed behind his teeth, not strained or ready for battle, just resting. His body follows suit, his breathing matching the sleepy boy’s and his blinks slowing down. He keeps his limbs tensed and working, in order to not drop the boy and fulfil his goal, but his heart slows to a beat familiar to the tides the moon coaxes out of the ocean. Warm breath tickled his neck, but he didn’t mind it. He was halfway to his destination, when a mumble startled him enough to abruptly stop in his tracks. “Y’u smell good” It is barely a whisper, muttered directly into his neck, and hyunjin’s heartbeat skyrockets. “Holy shit, you scared me! Why’d you wake up?” hyunjin has to remind himself to keep moving and not look like an idiot standing stock still in the middle of the street. “Mmh. Are you going to murder me?” is the next mumble, a little clearer than the last, and he feels lips moving against his nape as the words are spoken. Hyunjin barks a surprised laugh, immediately remembering he should be quiet at this time of night and piping down. “No, silly. I’m taking you home.” “Hmm hm. Last time one of channie hyung’s friend took me home he almost squeezed me to death…” hyunjin blinks. He notes the sleep slowly slipping out of the boy’s voice, and he’d feel bad about it if he wasn’t thoroughly entertained by the stuff he’s saying. He also hears a quieter whisper of “changbin hyung really does not play about the gym” “I’m not gonna murder you, innie. Although the last time I saw your channie hyung, I thought he was gonna murder me too.” Hyunjin chuckles amusedly, trying to keep up conversation while carrying the boy home. It was just a couple more streets away according to the directions chan gave him. “M’jeongin. But you can call me innie. Its ok. You’re channie hyung’s friend and you smell good.” Channie hyung’s friend. Jeongin saying that so matter-of-fact-ly has him wondering if it really was that easy. Are him and chan friends? He’d still call them strangers who met under peculiar circumstances, but he’s starting to realise he does not know a lot about friendship, judging from his epiphanies with seungmin earlier. “Changbin hyung smells like a sweaty gym.” Innie’s added remark breaks him out of his reverie once again, and he snorts. “You seem to make a habit of sleeping on the job.” Hyunjin teases, a smile easing its way onto his face. Jeongin whines, buries his face into hyunjin’s neck even more, and rubs his already messy hair all over him. “You’re a good kid, jeongin. Don’t worry your hyungs too much, okay?” “… Are you my hyung too? Why should I listen to you hmm? How old are you?” Hyunjin sees the off-white two story house with a white gate chan had mentioned approaching closer. “Hmmm I’m 24, dear innie.” “Fuck.” Hyunjin barks out another laugh. Soon enough, hyunjin drops jeongin off at his door. His parents scold him lightly, but turn to hyunjin to thank him when innie tells them he’s chan’s friend again. They let him go relatively soon, considering it’s past midnight already, but they do offer him to stay the night if he doesn’t have transport, which he kindly declines. On his way back to skyfall, he runs. He runs, and cackles as the wind hits his face and cradles his hair. He feels free for the first time in a long while. He’s going to enjoy the momentary happiness. He made a human connection, with someone normal, completely out of the loop of media and fame and the absolute terror of the modelling industry. And he didn’t feel like his chest was constricting or that he was going to be crucified tomorrow. Without realising it, innie had lifted a huge weight off his chest. He doesn’t feel so burdened by his existence anymore, when he doesn’t have to carry the title of hwang hyunjin the model. In this night he is just channie hyung’s friend who smells good. He is nothing. He feels elated. In retrospect it wasn’t really a good idea running all the way back, because he is panting as he enters skyfall again and chan looks at him concernedly, apologies waiting at the tip of his tongue. Hyunjin waves him off, offers him the sincerest smile he has to date, and giggles at the expression chan offers in return. Once he’s got his breathing back under control, chan offers him something to drink and pulls up a stool for him to sit on again. While chan goes back to fetch a drink, he notes the guitar pick he left. He doesn’t realise it, but the clock ticks and mirror reflections have completely blended into the background, not even encroaching on his mood in that moment. “Do you have guitars in here, too?” he asks as soon as chan returns, smoothly passing a cold glass bottle of coke to him. He nods his head towards the guitar pick. “Oh! Well not for sale, I keep some in the back ‘cause I play!” Hyunjin takes a refreshing sip, hisses at the carbonated drink hitting his throat, and puts the bottle down on the counter. “That’s cool! I can’t really play but… I love music!” Chan’s eyes lit up like a christmas tree. “I love music too. You wanna come see the stuff in the back?” “Are you allowed to take me? Is it not employee-only?” hyunjin teases, starting to get comfortable in his skin and around chan. His joke is received well, high-pitched giggles tumble out of chan. “Wanna see a little secret? For my favourite night time client?” chan whispers conspiratorially, leaning forward and putting a hand next to his mouth like he’s sharing an actual secret. “Shhh don’t let our daytime customers know.” “Ah yeah, the oldies and the goldies. A lot of competition I have, hmm?” the teasing somehow flows naturally between them, and hyunjin finds his steps lighter and his soul brighter. Chan beckons him to follow with another giggle, and follow he does. The room at the back is significantly darker than the lobby. There are still enough lights to see everything, it just looks more like an old timey bar or a rockstar’s greenroom. The front is well-lit and warm. This room has a crisp, cool scent to it. Like air conditioner. There is a black leather couch, and a maroon-red carpet occupying a large part of the floor. The walls scream personality right at him, and he’s fascinated at the amount of decor along with boxes presumably for storage that fills the room. He notes a chest, the one chan was talking about before, near the foot of the sofa. There’s enough space between them to pull up his legs onto it, or use it as a table for drinks and snacks. Theres shelves and metal racks in the corner that have crates and boxes, containing wooden and glass ornaments and trinkets. The wall is almost the same shade of maroon as the carpet, with a black accent wall to his right. On the wall to his left there are five guitars hung up in a line, and another one leaning against the couch. They range between polished and matte, big and small, electric and acoustic. The other walls have vinyls and albums and posters of bands and musicians from different eras, places, and genres. “This is… All yours?” Chan plops onto the sofa, raising his legs to rest on the chest like hyunjin had imagined. “Mhm! All my teenage and adolescence summed up. Except for those boxes over there, they’re all duplicate antiques and broken pieces.” “Hm, is this like a storage room you turned into this, or…?” “Kinda! This place wasn’t really meant to be a shop, you know. Before I found it, the owner was this sweet old lady who ran a rest stop here for the workers who built the rail tracks outside. She’d provide tea and snacks, occasionally a bed, for the tired builders. And then it was built and she still got a handful of visitors, the builders came back from time to time to thank her for her kindness and some passengers would rest here before going to the station.” Chan looked so… animated, when he talked. His hands moved around in gestures that matched not only his words but also his tone, and he seemed engrossed in telling hyunjin the story. His eyes held fondness and a smile was etched onto his face. He seemed so different from the last time hyunjin had seen him. Or maybe hyunjin hadn’t seen him. Maybe he was seeing the version of chan he wanted to see. “And then they stopped coming, and she became lonely, and eventually sick.” Chan pouted at that, his eyebrows furrowing and a sad look overtaking his features. “She went back to live with her family. And then a few years later after this place had been collecting dust, I found it while looking for places I could start over. Something easy, far away from the busy city and something peaceful. I looked for the owner’s contact and eventually found hers, and she was happy to sell it to me for practically nothing, all she wanted was for the place to live on, for someone else to love it like she did.” He grabs the guitar next to his thigh, and starts tuning it as he speaks. “Anyway, so, basically this was where she kept the beds. The lobby was where she served them snacks and drinks. So I could have used this room as storage, but I didn’t want to make it boring after this place has been through so much. Plus, I was moving places anyway, so all of these things were lying around in boxes. And before innie and our volunteers, I was here all the time. Why not make the place I spend most my time in, somewhere I actually wanna be?” “You really love music, huh. You weren’t kidding. This is awesome!” “Yeah! I was aiming to be a producer, to be fair. I missed that career field by a hair’s breadth, but music is in my blood.” As if to prove his point, he strums a perfectly tuned guitar. He did it by ear, and he immediately starts up a chord progression that floats through the cold night air like the smell of warm waffles would waft through the morning breeze. A smile broke on hyunjin’s face. “I would say the same. I love dancing, have been ever since I was a teen, but even before that… I was just always drawn to music, you know? I always had headphones on wherever I went, and I stole my sister’s ipod when I didn’t have one of my own.” “Hm, you dance? What style do you do?” Hyunjin hesitated. “Well, not anymore- not as much. It used to be my life, back then. I was practicing more hours a day than I was eating and sleeping. I always liked lyrical contemporary, or contemporary-jazz, they seemed very emotional? Both of those styles let you experience the song more than dance to it. And I don’t know, I think I always attached my feelings to music. I don’t think I was ever a casual listener to anything” he chuckles as his voice tapers off. “I get that. I always put on music to process something, or feel like I was less alone. The whole ‘listening to sad music when you’re sad’ thing rings true for me” chan laughs, too. His giggles are lighter, airier than hyunjin’s laden breath. “Shuts down thoughts” hyunjin mumbles, looking away. “It’s amazing you can express music in your own way through dance, though. It’s just so fascinating, isn’t it? Someone like me could make music, a form of art, and then someone like you can transform it into a visual performance, another form of art. Art inspires art.” Chan sounds enthralled, absolutely in love with the idea of inspiring and being inspired, and hyunjin gets it. He’s an artist, at his core. And it seems chan is, too. There is one thing he doesn’t get though. “Why didn’t you pursue music, then?” “Well… it just didn’t work out?” chan rubs the back of his neck, a little sheepish. “See I’m the oldest of three siblings, and with my parents both sorta being out of commission - they’re not dead, don’t worry, just not entirely financially capable - I had to think of more practical ways to get money than a pipe dream. I resorted to odd jobs along with university, and when that got too much I quit my masters degree to work full time. Somehow, my sister is doing music now, and she does quite well on her own, so I’m happy to sit back and watch her thrive. And then I found this place and it just, felt right.” Hyunjin once again, sees himself reflected in chan, but he doesn’t feel like a mirror. He feels like… water, the surface of it clear and see through. Water that clear should be as reflective as narcissus’ pond, but hyunjin could see through instead. Could see the face of chan, floating under the surface entirely unblinking, unmoving, not even breathing. Chan speaks of his lost ambitions, his stolen dreams so casually. Speaks of his sister who gets to live out his passion instead of him without an ounce of envy in his voice. Hyunjin understands the glaringly empty feeling of having a dream so close you can feel it only for it to be cruelly ripped away from you, and hence he does not understand the casualty with which chan speaks of his own. He seems to hold none of the grief hyunjin feels in his own heart, and he just cannot understand. In all his visits, he’s never seen chan talk with so much passion. Back when he was rambling about cameras and wars, back at his panicked explanation at the railroad, not even back during his first visit. Chan is skilled at his job, even someone as clueless as hyunjin can tell that much. He is meticulous, and knowledgeable, and his hands don’t shake. But he never has that sparkle in his eye, that tinkle in his voice, the excitement in his posture. It angers hyunjin. “Why not chase it, now that you can? Why are you wasting the passion you have?” he blurts out, and he isn’t even aware of how rude he sounds. “I’m happy where I am.” Chan replies, continuing to lazily strum his light tune onto his guitar that lays across his lap. Hyunjin’s eye twitches. “But you could have so much- you could have the fame and money I have, and you’d actually be talented for it.” Chan raises an eyebrow at him, and he realises immediately where he messed up. “I- I mean… I know you recognise me…”“And how are you certain of that?”“You had… this sounds… you had my magazine- not my magazine, I mean the magazine my interview was in…”“Courtesy of changbin, yeah. I don’t read those magazines.”“But. You do know who I am, don’t you? I mean… almost everyone I’ve met has something sour to say about me” he laughs self deprecatingly.“I don’t. I don’t know who you are, hyunjin.” Upon noticing hyunjin’s half surprised, half sceptical expression, chan sighs. “I’ve heard your name enough to know you’re not an ordinary twenty-something year old, and I know from changbin’s rants that you work as a model. Neither of those facts define who you are as a person. So no, I don’t know you, actually.” Hyunjin sits, speechless, mouth gaping, all his anger drained out of him like chan unplugged a sink and all the water in it whirlpool-ed its way down. Chan continues to strum. “And to answer your question, I’m not wasting anything. My passion is mine to experience and enjoy, not for commercialising and profiting off of. It is as present and real now, in this ol’shop in the middle of the night with nothing but two pairs of ears to witness it, as it would have been if the whole world was listening. Measuring up something that is yours by numerical standards, by material and non-permanent possessions, by foreign opinions, will only leave you feeling worthless and unable to tap into said passion.” “But-” hyunjin had to scramble. Chan was making too much sense, he was being too right, and he was pointing out hyunjin’s wrongs, and so hyunjin had to scramble to find a stone to throw into his glass house somehow. “But your sister- she does music?” “Mhm. She has passion of her own and pursues it, that is a choice she made.” The stone doesn’t land, the glass doesn’t break. He throws another. “Don’t you ever wish it was you, instead?” When chan looks at him, stony face and dimples hiding, he feels so small and yet so visible. He wants to go hide, himself. He wishes he could undo it, but his words are out there already. “No. She deserves the happiness she gets from her hard work being acknowledged. I’m no one to take that away from her and wish it was me instead. I’ll always support her choices. Besides, I don’t regret mine. Sure, I could have gone down that path and my life would look a lot different than it does now. But I made the choice to look after my siblings, and I made the choice to stay here, and I regret neither of those. I stand by my decisions. I am happy where I am.” When hyunjin has nothing to say, when he’s run out of pebbles to grab in his muddy hands, when silence stretches over them far too long, chan does not strum again. He looks at hyunjin, contemplative, curious. “Tell me, hyunjin. Are you happy?” Hyunjin blinks, almost laughs at how reminiscent this is to his first visit, and yet so distinctly different. “Are you implying models can’t be happy, chan?” he smirks, convinced he finally has an edge over chan. “No, I’m asking. Are you happy, hyunjin?” Something about the way chan’s eyes hold him place, force him open and grab his vocal cords to rip them out. He can’t lie. He can barely even speak, but he can’t lie. “I… don’t know.” Chan hums, and continues to strum. Like he didn’t just pry open hyunjin’s rib cage like it was a fishbone and filet him onto the maroon carpeted floor. “That’s okay. You’ll know when you get there. But since you asked me this question, and your answer differs from mine, I’m gonna toss it right back at you. What’s stopping you from pursuing what you want to?” “You know, chan, you’re staring to sound a lot like a therapist.” Chan laughs, shaking his head. His curls jostle cutely. “Far from it. Were you gonna offer me a therapy session when you asked?” Hyunjin smiles, “no. Was just curious.” “Then you must understand, I am dying to know.” The well-natured sarcasm in chan’s voice cracks his smile even further up his cheeks. “I don’t know, chan. I’ve never really stopped to think.” Hyunjin thinks a lot. He just avoids thinking about certain things, things relating to his career, for example. He just autopilots it. “Similarly to you, I had to take up this line of work because it provided the financial stability my family was lacking at the time. And I guess I’ve just kept up the routine all these years because they need me.” “Hm. Surely you could venture out now, you must have saved enough through the years, no?” chan leans back leisurely. He looks up at the ceiling, asking the question to the air as if the universe would reply to him. “Its… complicated.” Hyunjin grimaces. “Well, when you think about it, make sure you don’t regret your choice. Getting to a place where you’re comfortable being happy is hard, and the journey is rocky, but never follow a path you regret.” His tone is serious, sagely in a way someone older and experienced would be. And he breaks the atmosphere by looking back down at hyunjin with a grin, only to add: “and you should tell me about whatever you end up doing. Maybe I could make music for you to dance to.” Hyunjin allows himself to imagine it, and a shot of serotonin shoots directly through his spine and into his skull. Not the scenario itself, but the thought of someone looking out for him, wanting to be with him, wanting to create art for and with him. He’s… never had that. Even back in his trainee days. He’s always fought alone. He doesn’t want to fight, though. Not like that. “That sounds… lovely,” he speaks gently, smile returning to his face “but I don’t think I want to be in the spotlight anymore. Who knows where I’ll end up, I might pick back up the paint brush once again. I love art, too. Maybe someday I could make a cover art for one of your songs.” They share smiles, and hyunjin finally lets his muscles relax. He leans his head onto the back of the couch and raises his own legs to join chan’s on the chest in front of them. Listening to chan’s guitar while he closes his eyes. He doesn’t know how much time passes, a lull between the different melodies chan plays, but when he opens his eyes the darkness is starting to lift a little. “I should get going.” He pops their comfortable bubble as gently as he can, still failing at holding back the roughness in his voice. “But… you know, chan, you’re not too bad. I’d like to stay in touch. Maybe I will find enough courage to do something about my confusion. Who better to know about it first than you?” he passes chan his phone in what he hopes comes off as a nonchalant cue to add his number instead of the desperate plea for human connection. “Oh! Of course, hyunjin! I’d love to stay in touch. Do you want my number, or my socials?” “Whatever is comfortable for you!” Chan punches in his number, and hyunjin thanks him for his advice, and leaves skyfall as the sun rises. The shop really looks adorable in daylight. Hyunjin beams. He realises he spent so long in the shop that seungmin must be awake by now, and unwilling to let go of his good mood and let the night end, he texts him to meet at the coffee shop they went to last time. He arrives thirty minutes later, and seungmin is already waiting for him with his hot cocoa order in hand, and a comment of “you look like shit.” Which hyunjin cackles at. “And like you haven’t slept in ages.” Hyunjin snorts so hard his cocoa goes up his throat and into his nasal cavity. Seungmin has to pat his back aggressively and let onlookers know he’s okay. They don’t chat much after that, happy to just enjoy the company and their hot drinks. Seungmin drops him home afterward, hyunjin having to cram his cycle into his trunk on seungmin’s insistence.
He’d let his guard down. Things were going so terribly, then his one night of escape at skyfall where he got to meet innie and get chan’s number clouded his judgement with a false sense of security, and he’d made the dumb mistake of believing the hard parts were behind him. He’d gotten complacent. It was the trait his mom always berated him for, although she would word it more as “lazy”, and he’d always ignore it, in one ear and out the other. He really wishes he could just hear her scolding again instead of being stuck in an elevator with a hooded, masked figure very clearly keeping tabs on him. He was so caught up on his happy little rush from skyfall, that he hadn’t even noticed anything until he was in the elevator. He curses himself for never being aware of his surroundings. The cold night that he loves traversing shouldn’t be inviting. The goosebumps all over his body should have been a sign, some sort of warning his body gave him for something that he himself couldn’t see. A sixth sense. Or maybe if he’d just checked his bicycle properly he’d notice the broken gear, and maybe if he’d looked back instead of hop, skip and jumping his way to his apartment he’d notice his shadow was a lot longer than any person’s should be. Now he realises in dreadful silence that it is late, he is alone, the security guard was fast asleep on his way in, there isn’t a soul apart from him and the hooded figure for god knows how big of a radius around the building. He’s suddenly aware that even though he can run pretty fast he has horrendous stamina, and there aren’t any public areas at this time of night within running distance of the fancy apartments. It’s a maze of concrete walls surrounding him for a good while. Seungmin had just dropped him off. Maybe he could call seungmin. Would he be risking his safety doing that? Would he be breaking some unspoken rule? Why had he not worn his mask today? Why was he so stupid? He despises how his muscles freeze up and his bones become powdered dust when he enters his ‘hesitation mode’. Lingering between his choices like a lost duckling, cold and lonely and stumbling across a cliff. His body not only refuses to listen to him, but stops receiving signals from his brain altogether. His mind, reeling and trapped within his unmoving body, panics at a speed so high it leaves his eyes hot and burning. His fear turns his whole body ice cold starting from the back of his neck, his vertebrates follow, and soon his limbs feel detached from him altogether. He wonders if he could die from hypothermia purely instigated by fear. He wonders if that would be a better outcome than whatever is waiting for him. He knows his sweat and the quiver in his fingers will betray him soon enough. He has merely seconds to take advantage of his perceived cluelessness, and he needs to act now. He gasps dramatically, fetching his phone from his pocket. Praying his act is half as good as it was with han and felix. He calls seungmin, cursing himself for never learning how to set up favourite numbers or speed dials. Every ring rolls down his spine like a dreadful edge of a knife. Seungmin picks up, and hyunjin immediately breathes into his screen, “I forgot my watch!” the first thing his mind could think of. “I’m coming back.” And he slams the button to the next floor up, and stays the fuck on call. “Wait, wait, I think I know where I left it. Drive me back there?” as soon as the elevator doors are open, he bolts out of there and straight towards the staircase. It takes a handful of seconds, but he hears footsteps run after him. Immediately, his physical limits are pushed to the back of his mind. He runs faster than he ever has in his life. He isn’t even sure where he gained the strength from after not even a getting a wink of sleep all night, but he’s not going to question it. “Minnie, minnie come pick me up!!” he pants into the phone, panicked and frantic, and wishes his heart wasn’t thudding so loudly in his ear so he could hear his chaser more clearly and discern whether he needed to run faster. As soon as he reaches the stairs, he jumps onto the railing and slides down. He crashes hard onto his knees on the tiled floor of the intersection, but he uses that momentum to roll up and jump onto the next railing. His phone is by his side now, not near his ear, but seungmin is still on the line. He can’t hear him though. He crashes a couple more times, but gets the hand of it by the time he’s reached the first floor, and none of the pain registers in his adrenaline induced state as he slides onto the last set of railings and runs for his life. Bursting through the gated apartment complex, he sees seungmin pull up and instantly he grabs and throws open the door, flinging himself inside. Seungmin drives away before he even has the chance to close it, but he is so thankful he did as he witnesses the masked man run towards them. Hyunjin jumps back up and rushes to pull the door closed, and seungmin speeds off. “Are you okay!?” “Yeah- well, no, I don’t know! Who was that!?” “I can’t believe a stalker figured you out already.” Seungmin comments, and hyunjin can see the stress in his face, in the vein popping on his temple, and the white-knuckled grip he has on the steering wheel, but hyunjin is wounded. “How is that my fault, seungmin!?” “It isn’t. But I’m gonna need you to lay low for a bit. I’m taking you somewhere safe while I deal with this, we don’t have agency backing anymore, hyunjin. We’ll have to go about this very carefully.” Hyunjin wants to cry. “Well- where are you taking me?” “Your parent’s house.” Oh, no.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Coming back here will always make hyunjin gloomy. Typically he loves gloomy weather, grey skies and petrichor, but this? His hair standing up like a scared kitten, waiting for his predator, was never fun. “Here” wasn’t even concrete in the first place. His parents move houses as much as he does. For some reason or the other. Mostly his dad’s whims, because he’s a numbskull with no caution or forethought. However, his mother has occasionally dragged him to a different place to live too, packing his stuff into bags in a stressful rush the night before.[Which always leaves him a few things short, every time, and he can never tell what he’s lost until he starts to miss them.] Anger flares through him as he approaches doors he hasn’t seen before, and the urge to yell expands his lungs. Subsequently it constricts his throat, and he has to remind himself he is still a person standing outside a building in a residential area. He’d look like a psycho. He swallows his rage and it congeals in his chest, becoming a solid rock that pulls his skin inwards. It makes him stumble, and he has to catch himself like he always does.His head throbs as he blinks away random memories flashing in front of his eyes. Yeji doesn’t even know this place. Hasn’t known the last three. Seungmin very kindly offered to come explain the situation to his parents so hyunjin didn’t have more on his plate to deal with, especially when he’s already so emotionally distressed, but hyunjin declined. He knows he’s about to be put on the block like a flailing chicken ready to be beheaded. The interrogation that’s about to ensue behind those doors already has him wanting to dig six feet down. He’d rather not drag seungmin down with him, or have him bear witness to the shameful behaviour. Seungmin also had a lot to deal with, something that affects hyunjin will also affect seungmin. Not just because his livelihood depends on hyunjin, but because they’re friends. And he hates burdening anyone, but even more so his friends. He takes a steadying breath, prepares for the inevitable heartache, and rings the doorbell. It is an obnoxious tune, loud and grating on his ears, and droning on for far longer than necessary. His muscles tense up in anticipation. The itch to be jittery - to crack his knuckles, bounce his foot, scratch his arms - is in a battle with his freeze response, and he is left with the feeling of static buzzing through every atom of his being, paralysing him. The door opens, and he is faced with the woman he was raised by. She looks… frail. But surprised to see him, nonetheless. She’s fussing over him immediately, bringing him close to her chest in a hug that once used to envelop him in warmth. It feels like an empty, hollow thing now. There’s just so much distance between them, that will never be bridged even with physical proximity. Even if hyunjin was to climb back into her birth canal, claw his way into her heart, they would never understand each other. He has made his peace with that, she hasn’t. So he has to keep up the delusion. He mumbles what he thinks would be appropriate replies to her preliminary questions, and before she can dig deeper he takes them both inside the place. He needs to sit down to have this conversation. He doesn’t even take a proper look at the house, his eyes trained to the marbled floor in front of him. He sits down in who knows what room on who knows what kind of sofa, eyes closing shut as he slumps forward with his elbows resting on his knees. “Where is he?”“Your dad?” his nostril twitches. “He’s in the restroom, I’ll call him. Are you okay, aegi? What happened? Is something wrong? Are you hurt?”Hyunjin raises a hand to stop her barrage of questions, eyes still closed. “Let him come here, I’ll tell you both at once.”He doesn’t look at her. He hears her fading footsteps, and waits. His body does not grant him relaxation, still as tightly wound into itself as it was the moment he walked in. He waits, and waits, and starts to bounce his foot aggressively against the carpet that covers the marble. When he glances at it he realises it’s one that he recognises, red and beige and old.His parents both come back into the room, his mom settling down next to him while his dad stays at a distance. A shiver curls around his spine, he’s familiar with that distance."Hm, hyunjinnie, why are you here?” his dad speaks up, never bothering to smoothen his rough edges, never bothering to cover up any accusation.“That’s what I’m going to explain, to both of you. So-”“Did you pay the installment this month?”Hyunjin tries not to snap. Of course that’s the thing his dad is worried about. It is early in the morning, his son has just come home looking roughed up and distressed, he is sure some parts of his clothes have dust and tears thanks to all the rolling around he did on the stairs, and yet. And yet. “Yes. I did. Now will you let me speak?”“Hyunjin-ah.” His mother admonishes, which he is having none of.“No. Listen to me, I’m not here because I want to be.”He snaps at her without meaning to, and regret percolates into his pores before he’s even finished the sentence. He’s always been harsher on her, and always loathes himself for treating his mother that way, but she has a talent of crossing exactly the wires in his brain that should not be crossed and pouring water over them. All hyunjin can do is electrocute himself over and over, taking her down with him when she tries to touch again. As much as he tries to undo it, the mother’s curse is bigger than him, it is stronger than him, and has claimed more lives than years he’s lived. He sees it happen in front of his eyes. The curse is a creeper, it’s a crawler, it is not as kind or graceful as a reaper would be. It is far crueler, far more vindictive. It kills slowly: takes away tiny chunks of the soul until a shell is all that remains. He sees it, the light dulling in his mother’s eyes. The concern dropping from her frown to make way for sadness, the soul being chopped up into another tiny piece to feed to the curse. And he is the one who chanted the spell. “Sorry.” He states, to soothe no one but himself, and continues to force words out of his throat without a break. “I’m here because it’s not safe where I live right now.” He raises both his hands again, already anticipating his parent’s shock and outrage. They keep quiet for a bit, seeing his gesture. “I was on my way home, and there was a stalker on the lift with me. I ran out as fast as I could and seungmin picked me up and dropped me off here. This is the safest place I have right now.”“He dropped you off? Why did you not invite him in?”“This is why I told you, you need to take up self defence classes. Punch them when they come for you.”Hyunjin’s head aches at the priorities of his parents. “Yes. He dropped me off here, and I did invite him in” lie “but he had to leave, to go file a report” truth. He ignores his dad’s comment altogether.“Oh, aegi, are you okay darling? Are you hurt?” his mom takes it into her own hands to answer her question, her hands traversing hyunjin’s shoulders and arms, over his jacket and under his mask. He gently pushes her hands away. Despite being calm enough for a conversation, he’s still shaken up by the whole ordeal and hasn’t slept all night. He doesn’t want to be touched.“I’m… fine. I am a little hurt yeah because I jumped off the railings while I was running down the stairs. But seungmin took me to the hospital right before coming here, there’s nothing serious but it does… hurt. A little. I’m supposed to rest for a few days.”He expected the shocked gasp from his mom when he mentioned the stairs. Then their raining questions pelt him like hailstones falling atop him, and he has to cover his head.“Can… can I stay here for a few days?” he asks, eyes distant and not focused on either of them.“What kind of question is that? Of course.” His mother starts fussing all over again, checking his injuries and chastising him on his clothing and hair, on how little he takes care of himself. He tunes it all out, especially the concerned trail of scoldings. She tries to move his limbs, to check for herself if her baby is okay. He wishes she didn’t make such a big deal out of everything. He’s… tired. He wants to rest. But he knows his mom, so he lets her poke and prod without putting in much effort to lift his heavy arms and legs. He looks around a little bit, finally taking in the place while she continues chattering. It’s… certainly strange. A new place to him, a weird feeling of not belonging in here covers his heart. He knows the people, he knows some of the objects lying around - the carpet, the showpieces and awards racked up over the years, the weird little three legged golden frog his mother had bought - but he doesn’t know the room. The house. The home. This isn’t home. He doubts his parents will live here long anyway, they’re still on rent. They haven’t bought a damn place yet, no matter how much hyunjin insists they should. The tiled floor peeks out between the myriad of carpets and mats in narrow strips of marbled white, and the walls are off-putting in the way they are entirely off-white. Like an old man’s teeth. There’s a new tv, and a table for it to stand on, and a few old photo frames kept next to it. Then there’s old shelves and new shelves lined with random glass show pieces, some he recognises and some he doesn’t. There’s his high school graduation picture framed and hung, along with the paintings he had made back then. He cranes his neck a little to see into the rest of the house, and his eyes fall on a wide corridor. Well, the grandfather clock in the wide corridor specifically. His eyes pause and his ears tune out everything else. He’s stopped tapping his foot, which he was unaware he was still doing, and his breathing quietly switches to autopilot so he doesn’t hear his own ragged breaths anymore, leaving his whole basin of attention to focus on the old wooden clock. His vision narrows to the reddish wood box with the golden pendulum. He remembers it well. It’s probably been with them longer than he has. No, he knows it has been with their family longer than he has. He’s seen it in album pictures from many years before he was born. It mutes his heartbeat and the ringing in his ears too. The comfort he finds in watching the familiar ridges, familiar wood grain, the consistent height. The constant. He’s lost a lot of things over the years; all the different moves from rental apartment to rental apartment, from remote flat to big independent house, from a two floor villa to a shoebox sized room shared between three people made it impossible to keep all of his little belongings. As a child, and as a teen. Anything he ever wanted would be lost, or taken away from him. Snatched in a power struggle or forgotten due to time’s spell. Even now, as an adult, he does’t have an anchor. There’s no place for him to call home. He hovers, floats from one place to another, desperately searching for something to keep him from losing himself too. He has no origin. He has no “return to”. And thus, he’s forced to linger within the journey. Within the rocky road, with no respite for his sore, bleeding feet. His parents’ house is a cruel reminder of that. A reminder that he has never had stability in his life, he has never truly belonged anywhere, and he never will no matter how much he deceives himself. How can any place, person or thing mean as much to him as an origin would mean to anyone else? How can he look felix in the eye, and say seoul is to hyunjin what sydney is to him? He can’t. He was just born here, and then shifted apartments so often that he never even got attached to any locality. How can he look han in the eye, and say dancing is to hyunjin what music is to him? He. Can’t. He only started to learn dance when he realised it was a possibility, which was already too late. He was in his teens, being scouted by jype for his fucking face, and meanwhile han had music imbibed into his bloodstream from his birth. It would be an insult to compare the two. He was robbed of the opportunity to direct his passion and love into something that could frame his character. Something that could be a descriptor rather than an add on, that could be associated with his very name as soon as it is uttered, that could link him to a matter or concept that isn’t him so he could make it him, to keep him tethered. And he thinks back to chan, how he had been so confident in his quiet devotion to music. How he didn’t need his love validated by foreign eyes on him. How all those eyes are etched onto the skin of his arm instead. Hyunjin needs it. He craves it. He is not satisfied with quietly loving dance, or art, or quietly hating being a model. He needs the world to hear, he needs to scream it at the top of his lungs, he needs to be seen by what he chooses to love or hate, so that he can make up for his atrocious origin - or lack thereof. But he also hates the thought of it. He needs to love and hate quietly, just as much as he needs to love and hate loudly. He needs to have autonomy, to be able to dictate what stays in his heart and what others get to see. What composes the sacred little chamber locked away in his chest, making him the flawed but loved human that he is, versus what his treacherous brain and traitorous muscles host in them. The parasitic, self sacrificial, superficial acts of love that he never truly expects a return from. The eyes can see that, they are not invoked from his loyalty, but rather, a brief spontaneity. Is that how the wolf feels? Is that why the eyes are all blended into the trees, all seeing but not all knowing? They see the wolf, unsuspecting or not, from the back and from the shadows. The wolf stands proud regardless, knowing all they see is the path he’s already walked. The afterimage of the creature he was a second ago, and the second before that, and so on. The present is what he chooses to do, and what lies ahead is something he can traverse without having the eyes foresee his next steps, or notice his wicked toothy grin, or rain judgement upon his tender beating heart underneath his spine. Chan never explained why he has all those eyes on his body, permanently inked as a part of his being. And then hyunjin remembers that he never asked. A cold, rough hand on his head breaks him out of his reverie. The illusion shatters into tiny shards, falling into his lap right as his vision zooms back out and the sounds all return to his ear as sudden as screeching tires of a car crash. The ringing, the heartbeat pounding into his ears make him disoriented. He freezes in place, noting that his mother’s hands are now gone. She still sits beside him, but has made a little space for his father to lay his hand on him. The cold seeps into his skin and he feels dirty. He needs to wash it off his skin immediately. He needs it to stop. “You sure you okay? What is this?”Hyunjin hums his agreement without even looking at what spot he was pointing out. He doesn’t care. His dad could point to an open wound and ask if he wants help and he would say no. He’s completely fine. Other than his skin crawling at being touched by the man. He needs out. His already tense body is now taut, highly strung like a violin string about to snap. He has no rhyme or reason, not one he could ever voice out to his parents and have them understand at least. But the knowledge of who his father is, who the man that brought him into this wretched world truly is underneath - not even underneath all that, because he is as blatant as any other shameless man who gets away with it. His moral standings disgust hyunjin on their own, so distinctly different and narcissistic, egotistical, selfish to a fault. On top of that his treatment towards hyunjin’s mother and his own kids over the years, the neglect, the alcohol abuse, the… it should be enough to warrant hyunjin’s reaction. But what shakes him to his core is that one text message yeji had found and sent him screenshots of, when she was 18. She probably shouldn’t have, considering he was only 12 and his mind and body were too small and frail to handle the heavy weight of the emotions it invoked. But he understands. She was distressed. Distraught, even. At finding not only text conversations that clearly indicated their father cheating on their mother, but also with a girl younger than yeji. Maybe they both could have pretended it was an awful nightmare and never talked about it, pretend yeji never cried in hyunjin’s weak arms, the siblings never had their world shatter in front of their eyes. But even if they tried to, even if they let their hands get cut onto the many shards of their broken souls as they tried to piece themselves back together, even if they held the weight of their family on their shoulders as they pressed the ripped tapestry back onto the crumbling wall… it was all for naught when their mother found out shortly after, along with a lot more instances of cheating. It was never just one. And that, is why the pictures lining these four walls and filling up their family albums have a tear between the married couple, caused by a grieving wife, a depressed mother. That is why hyunjin always feels on edge around them, and why he feels the need to wash off any sin that his own blood committed, especially when a connection is formed between them in the form of a cold, rough hand on his head. That is why he wonders if he was a child born out of coercion. He wonders for himself and for yeji too. He’s never talked about it with her, or with his mom… but the fact his mother was only 17 when she had yeji, and then came out to hyunjin as asexual when he was 20… while also telling him she never really had sex ed, growing up in a traditional, conservative asian household… raises some red flags in his head. If his father was a nice person, a kind husband and caring father, then he wouldn’t be having these vicious worms eating away at his grey matter. But he knows the cards he’s been dealt, and a full house was never gonna be his hand. Maybe it’s good that he can’t be traced back to his origins. He’d probably tear apart his own skin if he was to resemble his father. And every day he lives it feels like an inevitability, with all the rage and hatred he has stored within his human shell. With his father’s blood running through his veins. If he was born out of assault, not love, then it makes sense why his insides are all deformed, mutilated and ugly. He doesn’t usually let that thought wander, lest he ends up on the spiral downwards again, waiting to let the jaws of gravity consume him at the end of his fall like a crocodile in water. Gnarly teeth and all. Maybe they’d be yellow, like the walls of this house. The walls of this house that he and his father are in. His father that he needs to get away from. “I’m fine, just really tired. Can I sleep somewhere?” he murmurs, chewing up half his words. “What?” his father prompts, not having heard him. This is standard for him, his declining hearing always wedging itself between hyunjin and his plans of not talking to him for a second longer than necessary. And hyunjin always has to repeat himself, louder, much louder than he ever wants to be. “I’m fine, just tired. Can I sleep?” he repeats, and his father still mishears something.“I’m tired. Can I sleep?” hyunjin hates it. Hates his voice. Hates how loud he’s being. Hates it hates it hatesit. His words echo in his brain. He hates himself. He needs to shut up. He needs it gone, he needs everything gone, he needs to blip out of existence quietly. He wants silence. He wants to be left alone. “Huh?” he can’t. HeCantHeCantHeCantHeHatesItHeHatesItHeHatesItHeCantMakeItStopMakeItStopMakeItStopMakeItStopTakeTheHandAwayTakeTheHandAwayMakeItStopMakeItStopMakeItSto-“He wants to sleep. Let him go sleep, he’s tired.” His mother finally decides to intercept, and he breathes in relief, feeling like pins fill his lungs as he does. The hand is taken off his head, finally.“Let me make your room, aegi. There’s no sheets on the guest bed. Do you want extra pillows?” Hyunjin zones out the rest of that conversation until he is standing in the guest room. He inhales a steeling breath, finally left alone after lord knows how long. Like his spirit was finally returning to his body, he is able to absorb information about his surroundings again.The room is relatively big, with lots of storage that’s currently occupied by boxes that are labelled either hyunjin or yeji. More of yeji than hyunjin, since he took all his stuff when he moved out. He didn’t have a suitcase weight limit, since he never left to live outside of korea. Yeji’s stuff was handed down to him, and eventually put into boxes. The room looks weird to him - decorated as if it was meant to be some kid’s childhood room. Baby pictures, his school awards, his certificates, paintings, old clothes, and stacks of used notebooks and novels that he did not put here. But they’re all arranged in a way someone would arrange a mousetrap. Imitating a naturally occurring piece of food on the floor... Except all of this was meticulously planned and placed. He sighs, feeling too tired for this, plops onto the bed and very quickly falls into a deep, dreamless slumber.
Hyunjin’s whole head feels like it weighs ten bricks when consciousness returns to him. He keeps his eyes closed, concentrating on the thrumming pain of his knees and back. Turning around a little, he slips in and out of sleep for another hour. When the heat prickles his skin, he throws off the blanket he didn’t remember putting on. He opens his eyes with several blinks, adjusting to the sting of dryness. Rolling onto his back, he stretches his limbs and neck a little. Then he stares at his ceiling. Not a thought in his head, because even his loud brain doesn’t know what to make of his situation. He just lets the mental silence envelop him, feeling like he’s right under the surface of water. It felt calming while simultaneously being unnerving. A brief spell of stillness amid chaos. As long as he was in this room, under the boring ceiling and dusty ceiling fan, as the sun set beyond his window, he was fine. After a while of soaking in his lethargy, he fetches his phone.
Yeji
I heard the news, are you okay??
?
Seungmin
You’re probably gonna be asleep now, but text me when you wake up Or call, we need to discuss how to go about this Hope you’re faring well. I’m always one call away.
Hanji
Hey, hyunjin, are you okay??
Please respond whenever you see this, I’m worried for you.
If you need a place to stay at, you know my door is always open for you
Hyunjin blinks. He should probably mute yeji while he’s here. He quickly responds to her, and mutes her chat since he knows his parents will go snooping even when his phone is locked. He isn’t even sure what the tabloids have published on him online at this point, already hungry to get the last bite, but he replies without looking it up anyway. He can’t be bothered.
Yeah,
Well. No, but don’t worry
Nothing too serious
There was some creep waiting at my apartment complex,and I ran down the stairs to get to seungmin.
He brought me to their place tho…
So I’m here for a while, I guess.
He honestly was not expecting han’s text, but his heart does feel lighter at reading his offer. Han… has always wanted to help, even back when he was a reactionary, angsty teenager. He means well. But hyunjin’s heart turns back to lead when he sees no messages from felix [honestly, deserved after his last interaction with him] or minho [less deserved, but expected]. He thinks of responding to han, but he can’t really think of anything that doesn’t either sound dramatic as fuck [he was fine, its not like he’s sobbing and crying and admitted in the hospital for his wounds.] or ungrateful [a simple “thank you for the offer” feels dry] and so hyunjin stalls replying, arguably the worst option of the three but the easiest. Instead he opens his contacts, and types out a message to a freshly saved number. He checks the time, its around half past six. Perfect. Chan’s night shift starts at 9pm, from what he remembers.
Hi
Hyunjin here
He doesn’t really have time to cringe at his greeting as the reply comes almost instantly.
Weird skyfall worker [?]
Oh hi hyunjin!
How are you?
Hyunjin hesitates.
Im, well. I could be better
Weird skyfall worker [?]
Hm, yeah I figured…
Changbin was here earlier and was fuming about what happened with you
I’m so sorry you had to go through that, I hope you’re safe now.
Do you have arrangements to stay somewhere?
Yeah, staying with my parents for the timebeing.
Weird skyfall worker [?]
That’s good! Be safe!
lmao, not really good. Dysfcuntional family club and all that jazz
Hyunjin snorts. He never really hid that from anyone.
Weird skyfall worker [?]
Haha, I get it. Pretty much the same over here
Hope it’s still safe, though?
A warm, genuine smile spreads over hyunjin’s face.
Yeah, dysfunctional but not psycho
…
Well, debatable
Chan sends an image of three wolves cackling as a response, and hyunjin can’t help the giggle that tumbles out of him. He presses some buttons, switches some apps, returns to the chat.
So, what are you upto?
Chan skyfall :]
Oh, I’m in the booth
The booth?
Chan skyfall :]
Yeah! The sound booth. I work at this local theatre during the day haha
Do you get any sleep at all?
Chan skyfall :]
Good question, next question.
jk haha I do, just after working the shop, I come home and crash for idk about 6 hours?
Still leaves me enough time during the day to go do something else
Besides, I may sneak in some naptime at the shop too :P
*Gasp* scandalous, Mr. Chan. Workplace misconduct?
I expected better from you.
Chan skyfall :]
Lol, who’s gonna stop me? :P
Nah, there’s barely any customers at night. I think you’re probably our only regular who visits during my shift. Innie handles most of the customers unless they need clocks fixed, and I do the good ol boring paperwork and maintenance.
Some nights I get some time to myself and end up dozing off on the couch
Regular. Hyunjin hadn’t realised it, but chan is right. Hyunjin has become a regular customer - or at least, visitor, since he doesn’t always seek to buy or repair something - at skyfall.
Hmm I will catch you slacking someday, bahng.
:)
Chan skyfall :]
Oh, will you now?
I’d like to see you try, hwang.
Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough ;)
Hyunjin refuses to admit the foolish grin and heat rising into his cheeks. He bites his lips, getting more comfortable on the bed.
Dont you think I’ve already got you, bahng?
Youre texting me.
Shouldnt you be working?
Chan skyfall :]
Nah ah, good try but it’s intermission time.
Youre using your break to talk to me?
Chan skyfall :]
It seems I am
Did you have something to eat or drink?
Chan skyfall :]
Had three bowls of ramyun before coming here, I’m good.
Although it seems seonghwa has somehow roped hongjoong into buying us all desserts.
Different kinds.
They’re passing them along like a sushi belt hahaha I might just join, theres always room for dessert! Hyunjin finds it super endearing that chan talks about these people whom hyunjin doesn’t even know, has never met, so casually. Giving him pieces of chan’s life, making hyunjin feel like a little bat on his shoulder, clinging to him and trying to see how it would look like to live as chan even with his very limited vision.
Damn, now I want dessert too.
Chan skyfall :]
They actually do this more often, usually it’s a joint effort to pay for every dessert on the menu of whatever restaurant they end up going to for dinner after the shows.
It’s like a tradition they have.
They?
Chan skyfall :]
Ah, yeah, because I usually leave immediately after the plays end to get to skyfall for my shift there haha
But I’ve been to one or two dinners here and there.
When we did phantom of the opera and somehow got the fire department and OSHA to authorise the chandelier drop, It was such a huge success that they dragged me to the celebratory dinner Afterwards haha. I closed skyfall for that night.
Chan skyfall :]
We had an original play last year, it took us quite a long time to get prepared for.And let me tell you, there is no bigger bond than 5am rehearsal where we all just pass around a basket of fruit ‘cause no one had brekkie.
It sounds so fun T~T
Id love a bonding fruit sharing experience
Honestly it could fix me ;P
Chan skyfall :]
They’re def a chaotic bunch.
I mean, theatre kids. There’s gotta be something going on somewhere at any given point of time or I fear they’d all wither away.
You can come visit sometime! Watch a play, or I can get you backstage.
The sound booth lowkey has the best view. You can see everything.
Wait, really?
I mean, youd let me come watch?
Backstage even??
Chan skyfall :]
A’course, why not?
I’ll get you tickets if you wanna sit and watch up front,
but it’s a lot more fun hanging backstage ;)
Id love to
But I honestly don’t know if I can…
At least, not right now.
Im not sure when it’ll be safe to go out in public again…
Chan skyfall :]
Ah, right :/
Are you going to take legal action?
Im… not really sure?
I’ll have to talk to seungmin about it
My manager
.
And friend.
But I honestly just dont feel safe going out rn
Chan skyfall :]
Valid, that’s understandable.
I’m sorry the asshole caused you harm :/
Not your fault, chan
Chan skyfall :]
Still.
You’re a human too, and deserve to be treated as such.
Well, regardless, it’s okay if you can’t make it anytime soon.
The offer is open! Whenever you want, just ask.
Thank you, I’ll keep it in mind :>
Chan skyfall :]
We’re currently playing wicked for like, two weeks.
And then we’ll have a couple weeks off before coming backto prepare for our next play.
Chan skyfall :]
Seonghwa is playing elphaba
That is actually how he got hongjoong to pay for all our desserts hahaha
? Wdym?
Chan skyfall :]
Hongjoong got semi permanent dye instead of body paint.
So now hwa is green for the foreseeable future.
It’s really funny actually, but I can’t laugh or he’ll make me pay next
Chan skyfall :] has sent an attachment
Hyunjin laughs quietly at the display. Theres a man, relatively tall, with a very pretty short bob cut, pointing one of his green stained fingers at another shorter man. The second man looks like he’s feverishly trying to defend himself, and the picture itself is shaky, slightly blurry, as if the cameraman was trying [and failing] to hold back laughter.
LMAO
Chan skyfall :]
For the sake of completion, here’s wooyoung who plays glinda
Chan skyfall :] has sent an attachment
This picture shows a man with probably the prettiest cheek bones hyunjin has seen. He’s laughing at [who hyunjin assumes to be] hongjoong’s misery as the latter looks dejectedly at his wallet. He looks mischievous, it makes hyunjin laugh again.
Youre not up on stage, though?
Chan skyfall :]
Oh, nah.
How come?
Chan skyfall :]
I don’t know, never really had an urge to become an actor?
I love singing and dancing on stage, but I’m def more suited for just messing around and doing whatever I want while I’m on hahaAudio engineering is like second nature to me since I’ve been doing it since I was 13, so I enjoy being on this side of the booth too.
I make most of our soundtracks, actually!
That, is really impressive.
Does it fill your desire for music tho?
Chan skyfall :]
Does it fill the void?
No.
But it’s fun, and a separate thing from what could have been.
So I don’t mind at all.
Any experience is worth more than one you’ve never had
Hyunjin stares at the messages for a long time. He lets chan’s words sink into him. He will forever wonder how chan is so… effervescent yet grounded. He has so many aspects to him that all feel disconnected from each other in a way that it should leave behind a roughed up, aggressive, spiteful soul like hyunjin’s. But instead chan is brimming with mystery, with gentle kindness and with a certain uncanny charm that hyunjin can’t place.
I cant say youre wrong on that.
Im glad youre having fun though, really.
Chan skyfall :]
Thank you!
Have you ever considered stage play acting?
mmmm well… I had one play in school
And that’s about my experience with stage plays lol
But I think I’m more suited for acting in film
Or, well, dancing if I’m on stage.
Chan skyfall :]
You’d really enjoy musicals, then.
If you ever want to give it a try, I’m sure I can getyou an audition at the theatre
The rest is upto you and your magic hehe.
Dont be disappointed when I dont get in and you have to sneak me backstage lmao
Chan skyfall :]
Nonsense, I’m sure you’d make it.
Honestly I think you were born to be on stage
Oh?
Youve never seen me on stage
What are you hiding from me, bahng?
Chan skyfall :]
A true magician never reveals his secrets ;)
…
Ok no, wait, that sounded creepy.
I swear I don’t stalk you
That sounds worse oh god
Hyunjin giggles at the typing bubbles that keep popping up as chan sends message after message, adorably panicking about his words catching up to him after he’d already sent them.
Chan skyfall :]
Changbin plays some videos while hanging around the store sometimes
And I’ve seen a couple of the trainee showcases?
I dont even know what year or company tbf but I remember seeing you.
Oh, dear. That was forever ago.
I was a lanky kid back then with no coordination in my limbs TT
Pls erase them from your memory
Chan skyfall :]
Pls. I’ve seen plenty of dancers in my life, hyunjin
Being surrounded by music and all.
And I can tell you were just meant to dance, to be on stage.
And I’ve seen your versace campaigns!
You’ve got some groovy moves!
There’s something mesmerising about your videos, It’s like you let the music flow directly through your veins.
Letting it guide you instead of dancing on top of it.
Anytime I pass by a billboard with your ad where you’re kinda spinning with this versace hood on, I have to stop and admire it. With each message filling up his screen, tears filled hyunjin’s waterline. He paused, closing his eyes and letting his hand holding the phone fall onto the mattress. It’s been a while since someone has seen him do anything and compliment him on something other than his face. It has been even longer since his dance skills were genuinely recognised and praised. He’s been feeling so down in the dumps the whole day, so this cute little interaction with chan plays a beautiful melody with his heartstrings. He tries to string together words to reply to chan, his heart melting and slipping out of his ribcage and salty water springing up in his eye sockets after his weak liquified muscle seared his emotions. The words pop up in his head completely out of order, and he has to play a strategy game with himself to string them together in a coherent manner. He’s got a basic idea of what he wants to convey, and he opens his eyes again, bringing his phone back up to his face. His efforts for a heartfelt message are swiftly [but gently] put aside, when he sees the barrage of new messages chan had sent.
Chan skyfall :]
Ah, shit. I just realised how that isn’t helping my case.
I sound even more like a creep now.
Sorry if that makes you uncomfortable!
Please let me know if it does.
I promise I’ll diligently look down at the ground whenI pass by another billboard if it does.
Oh, I’ve scared you away haven’t I TT
Out of all their interactions, hyunjin finds it funny that chan thinks this is what makes him seem strange or, “creepy”, in his own words.
AhahahHAHA no no, dont worry!
I just got distracted for a sec
Zoned out, you know how it goes.
But anyway, thank you so much chan!
Your words are truly so kind. I’m honoured to have your attention <3
It doesnt make me uncomfortable at all!
In fact, next time you see one send me a pic
Preferably a selfie ;)
Before he has the chance to see how his messages are received, his mother enters the room without so much as knocking beforehand. He turns off his phone immediately, looking at her. He realises it is significantly darker outside than before. The sun has set a long time ago, and he had completely lost track of time. “Oh, you’re awake aegi. Come on, get up and wash your face. I’ve prepared dinner.” Hyunjin hums his agreement, and rises up from the bed like a corpse. Groaning and moaning as his bones crackle and pop. He waits for her to turn and leave the room before opening up chan’s chat again,
I have to go. Being summoned for dinner
I’ll ttyl!
He follows her out, taking a detour to the bathroom first before joining them for dinner.
It feels odd, sitting at a dining table with his parents. Firstly, there is an empty chair next to him, reminding them of a fourth person. And secondly, while hyunjin was growing up they never ate together at the dinner table. Sure, he remembers eating at the same time on the sofa, and he remembers some summer nights the four of them would sprawl out onto cold tiled floor while his mom fed the three of them. But they only ever sat at the dining table when they had guests over. Which was a rare occasion. Suffice to say it is quite awkward. He can only bear so much of the silence from his mom as she serves them all while his dad’s phone dings every other second with a poker chip notification as he lets the device idly sit on the table, the red tinted screen reflecting cards up onto the ceiling, before hyunjin opens his own phone to play some music to fill the gaps. The only good thing about coming back home, is getting to eat his mother’s food again. He genuinely forgets how much he misses her food until he has a taste of it in his mouth again. Traditional korean stew and a generational recipe of kimchi that he never really had the time to learn, coats his tongue in the flavour of a childhood. Not his childhood, thankfully. But enough experience and sentiment infuses the dishes with a sense of nostalgia, craving for a sweet past of naiveté. After two times of having to pause his music to hear what rhetorical, stupidly invasive question his parents have to ask him, he simply stops the music altogether on the third, suppressing an annoyed sigh that lodges itself in his throat. “Have you spoken to yeji recently?” Ah, yes. Hwang yeji: the perfect poster child.Grew up with anything and everything she wanted right at the tip of her fingers, provided for and spoiled by first time parents and relatives alike. Excelled in everything that hyunjin couldn’t, and reached even bigger heights in everything that hyunjin could. That’s why it cut such a deep, distinct wound for their parents when she essentially disappeared off the face of the earth. Or at least, so goes the illusion. To his parents, yeji hasn’t contacted any of them for over four years now. To hyunjin, yeji stays in touch and checks up on him, and vice versa, once or twice a month. She tried to keep in touch with their parents, and had varying degrees of success over the first few years after she touched ground in america. She’d gotten the best of the best of everything, including her education. Hyunjin was the only one among them forced to fend for himself and his parents. He doesn’t hold it against her, though. She’s a gem. She deserves to experience her own happiness. Which is why hyunjin would never hold it against her for leaving, or for cutting their parents off. He does wish she’d be more considerate of him being right in the middle of them all, forced to fill his mouth with bitter lies in situations like this though. “No.”“Not on facebook? Or instagram? Don’t you have her kakaotalk?”“No, she hasn’t replied to me anywhere.”“You messaged her?”“Yes. She hasn’t replied.”“When was the last time you spoke to her”“…” Hyunjin pretends the lies don’t burn his tongue and the nerves don’t prickle at his flesh while he pretends to recollect his last interaction with yeji. “I don’t really remember, it’s been years…” “Why is she like this. This is why we should have never let her get married, we told her not to get lured by all this ‘lgbt’ stuff. Look at where her wife has got us. She doesn’t want to live with her family, so she won’t let yeji either?” his mother scoffs, her face scrunching into an ugly scowl. “She took money for that marriage and her ring, too. Why can’t she just reply to me?” There they go again. Hyunjin’s parents toss nasty comments about his sister, their own daughter, back and forth between them. A handful of insults towards ryujin, yeji’s wife, too. Hyunjin’s heart folds in on itself, the muscle turning grey and sore at the sour sadness that fills it. He loves yeji with his entire heart, and yeji loves ryujin, so by extension hyunjin has place in his heart for her too. It hurts him to hear them being badmouthed, but he simply can’t voice his opinion lest he blew his and yeji’s cover. He can’t even be seen publicly with her when he visits america, for the fear of his parents finding out is crippling. He tunes out the conversation, not wanting to hurt himself further by being unable to defend someone he loves. He idly picks at the food with his chopsticks, somewhere between losing his appetite entirely and wanting to devour his plate but having to wait till his parents are done with their whining and complaining. “-she didn’t even have the courtesy to send you a housewarming gift! You sent her the address, right?” “Even baek-ssi said she’d send you a bouquet! And who is she to us? She’s just the grandma down the street. Your own sister couldn’t do that much?” Hyunjin’s ears pick up a part of the conversation, and he frowns. “Baek-ssi? She said she’d send me flowers?”“Yes. Did you get them?”“No, but how would she send them? You didn’t give her my address, did you?”His father had turned back to his online gambling, while his mother at least had the decency to look a little guilty. “But I was telling her my son lives in gangnam, and she didn’t believe me! So I showed her pictures of your apartment that I took when I visited you.”“You showed her pictures!?”“Not just her, the ahjummas and aunties in the neighbourhood all wanted to see.” Hyunjin dropped his chopsticks with a clang. “Ma! You showed them pictures of my apartment?? From the outside as well as inside? Why would you do that!?”“Why not!? It’s something to be proud of, hyunjin! You’re living in gangnam! Only the successful people live there.”“Well, not anymore after this! You don’t even know those people! How many people did you tell?” he had his head in his hands, rubbing his temple at the stress rising from his stomach all the way to the back of his skull.“I don’t know…. Ten?” “Ten!?!?” “What’s wrong with that? Don’t shout. I told my sister and her old colleagues too, they were all proud of you.” His dad adds fuel to the scorching fire with his infuriating tone, acting like he’s chastising an ungrateful brat. “What do you mean what is wrong with that!?” hyunjin abruptly stands, his palms flat on the table to push himself up while his chair screeches loud against the tile. “You do realise why I’m here? I have a stalker. I’m a public figure. You both can’t be showing my house to people! No pictures, especially no address, in fact don’t even mention that I live in gangnam! Are you both this dense?? You don’t realise your words have consequences!?” “What if he had stabbed me, huh? What if you air out my address to everyone in the neighbourhood and someone decides they don’t like me and want me dead? Huh?? Ever thought about that?” He grabs his phone, not bothering to hear what his parents have to say. One look at his mother’s eyes that refuse to meet him and his father’s face that is swollen and red like a pumpkin is enough for him to know this conversation is going to go nowhere. “I need to talk to seungmin. I’m not hungry, you can eat without me.”
He’s still being haunted by paranoia, so he doesn’t dare go outside. He simply goes to his designated room and closes the door before calling seungmin. He’s pacing in a semi-circle around the bed, going faster each step until he has to pause to account for the dizziness. As it rings three times, he drops his ass onto the foot of the bed, breathing heavily with the viscid hands of dread crawling up from his stomach to his throat to strangle him slowly. “Seungmin!” he whispers harshly into the phone as soon as the line connects.“Hey- hyunjin, are you okay?”“Forget that, I don’t think I can return to my apartment. To live, I mean.” Seungmin is silent for a couple seconds, enough time for hyunjin to stand up and start pacing again. Then he hears a sigh on the other end of the line, and he has no idea what to make of hit. His heart jumps to his already constricting throat. “Okay… well… I was going to tell you the options we have as of right now, but… you can go first, what happened? Why do you not want to live there, if we hypothetically got better security systems?” “It’s not want, seungmin. I can’t live there. This is not going to be a one-off incident. My parents leaked my address and pictures of my house to the whole neighbourhood. Who knows how many people know exactly how to break in now. I was already not leaning towards staying there after yesterday, but there’s no way I’m going to live in a place that unsafe now.” “Your parents…” he hears the brief intake of air before seungmin slips effortlessly into his calm, assessive, problem-solving mode. “Okay, that’s fine. We can look for other places then. That knocks out one of our options.” And it really is that easy, with seungmin. But hyunjin’s feelings exist, and persist, and the knots of dread don’t untie themselves despite knowing he will be fine. They pool in hyunjin’s stomach and drag it down to his feet, pathetically unable to digest any of his own emotions, since they’re far too big and heavy to be warranted. “So first… let me just update you on the situation.”Seungmin waits for hyunjin’s approval before continuing, “i went to the police, but there’s not much we can do. The person in your apartment was covering their face, and it seems they knew exactly where the security cameras were. I went back and asked your building manager to show me the feeds and his face isn’t seen in any of them. And you as a witness also didn’t see anything other than a mask right?” Hyunjin hums, already disliking his odds. “So a witness testimony can’t help in recognising them either. And they didn’t steal anything or hurt you or any other resident, so… there’s really not much we can do. The police will not take action based on such little info and evidence.” “So… there’s only a few options we have. The first was going to be to hold the security accountable for his negligence, he’s probably going to get fired but well… he slept on the job. And then you could get an enhanced security for your own flat, but it seems we’ve already crossed off that option. Although I still suggest taking up the security with the building manager and the landlords, so this doesn’t happen again to anyone living there.” Hyunjin listens diligently, seungmin’s calm voice soothing the rabbits pace at which his heart is beating. He’s still expecting the worst of the worst. “So, then the next option is finding a whole new place for you. But you’re going to have to come house hunting with me.” “…do I have to?” hyunjin groans. “Hyunjin, this is your living situation, not mine. You need to like where you’re going to live, and feel safe in it.” They both stay silent for a while, hyunjin sitting back down onto the bed and pouting at the wall. “But… I trust you? ToMakeTheDecisionForMe?” he squeaks out. “No, you’re going to have come see the places for yourself.” Seungmin pauses again, and then softens his tone just a little. “I can do initial visits for you and check the basics… electricity, water, road safety and space… but all that’ll do is give you good options that I’ve approved of, you’ll still have to visit and finalise which one you like.” “That’s great seungminnie!” hyunjin perks up suddenly, half the weight of the task lifted off his shoulders. “Thank you, you’re the best!” “I’m not done.” “Oh?” “So. That’s the second option, finding a whole new place. But beware that it might take some time to find a place that’s to your liking as well as safe, because now I’ll also have to check the security systems. Your third option is to just… move back in with your parents…” “Absolutely not.” Hyunjin’s tone turns dark instantly, an air of finality in his voice as he puts his foot down with a loud stomp. “Thought so. So that’s two options crossed off. Lastly, you could move in with me - but I live with my family, so there’ll be three other people in the house besides you and me - or move in with a trusted friend of yours.” His brain immediately fires signals to flash han’s text messages in front of his eyes, and he hesitates. “I’ll… need to think about it. It’s not like I have that many people to ask” he laughs, all decrepit and hollow. “Well, take your time to decide and get back to me. We’ll need to get your stuff, though. I can go myself, hire a moving company to go and pack up all your shit from the flat one day and be there to oversee them, if you don’t want to go back there.” “Oh, seungminnie, you don’t have to do that please don’t exert yourself.”“It’s literally my job to manage you.”“You wound me, I thought we were friends now. More than the job, you know?”Seungmin huffs, “we’ve always been friends, dumbass. But anyway, the movers will be paid directly from your paycheck not mine so. Thanks friend!”Hyunjin’s jaw drops at hearing the playful quip. “Seungmin! You little con artist!”“Not a con if I’m telling you.”“Yeah yeah, whatever. But still. Don’t hire movers, I’ll go back and pack it my stuff on my own. I need it all to be packed a certain way and I need to know where everything is put.”“Hmm, well okay. But I’ll still join you and help. And don’t even try to go on your own, it’s not safe. Strength in numbers, don’t forget that.”“Okay, professor.”“Go to sleep.” Hyunjin smiles, feeling his tight worries slip away little by little and sleepiness taking its place. “Thank you, for everything seungmin. Please take care of yourself too! I’ll talk to you maybe tomorrow.” “Yeah, don’t worry about me. Text or call if you need anything, I’ll start looking for houses regardless of your decision, I’m practically as jobless as you are right now.” They share a twisted snicker between them. “Good night, hyunjin.” “Good night, seungmin.”
Hey hannie.
I’m fine, physically at least.
Thank you for checking up on me
And your kind offer. I’m currently at my parents’ place,
but I’ll think about it and get back to you,
if the offer still stands by then.
Hanji
Oh, thank gosh you’re okay. I was really worried.
Of course the offer will stand, hyunjin!
My door is always open for you.
Take care, okay? I’m here.
Hey, sorry for disappearing earlier.
I got summoned for dinner.
Chan skyfall :]
Oh, don’t worry about it at all!
Whatcha have for dinner?
Well, more like didn’t have
I didn’t have much of it lol
Chan skyfall :]
Why not?
Just, had to deal with stuff.
Lost my appetitie
Chan skyfall :]
Awh :( is there anything I can help with?
Its okay, the situation is under control
Still pisses me off that my parents casually
leaked my address tho.
Chan skyfall :]
Oh, geez. That’s terrible???
To be fair it wasn’t on purpose
But they really have no sense of
self preservation
Chan skyfall :]
Ah I get it. Slipped out in conversation?
I wouldn’t say slip. They were trying to boast.
Chan skyfall :]
Oof. You said you have it under control, though?
Yeah seugmin and I just spoke, we’re looking into what to do with my living situation
Chan skyfall :]
You absolutely do not have to accept this, and I know how weird this probably sounds since we barely know each other, but if you ever need anything hyunjin, a shoulder to cry on or a couch to crash at, or even a place to stay since I have an empty guest bedroom at my place that’s currently only occupied by random instruments, I’m always here, yeah?
Just one text or phone call away.
I don’t want to make you uncomfortable though, so I’m not pressuring,
but if push comes to shove, know that I will always be an option.
I…
Thank you, chan. That is very kind of you
I truly appreciate your offer.
I’m still unsure of how to go about it, tbh.
I’ll keep you updated though, if you’d want that?
Chan skyfall :]
Of course! Please do.
But back to dinner, are you gonna sleep on an empty stomach?
Well I did have a little
But I guess I am
Chan skyfall :]
Do you have any snack or drink you could have instead?
You’re gonna feel terrible tomorrow if yousleep on an empty stomach…
Did you have food the rest of the day?
No…
Chan skyfall :]
Right. A snack is in order, then!
Okayyyy fineeee
I think there’s some chips and juice in the kitchen
Chan skyfall :]
Perfect! I’m gonna get some juice too.
Changbin keeps energy drinks and protein shakes in the fridge
But I’m in the mood for some pineapple juice hehe
Okay wish me luck to sneak into the kitchen
Chan skyfall :]
Good luck, agent hyunjin.
The mission depends on you now o7
Hyunjin manages to drag himself up a long five minutes after the last text. He tiptoes to the door, slowly opening it and hoping it doesn’t creak. Luck is not on his side, but it doesn’t fully abandon him just yet as the hinges creak only slightly. Then he’s off to the kitchen, trying to soften his footsteps as much as possible. He gets to the fridge and opens the door to look at its contents, the white lie had slipped so easily past his fingertips, but he doesn’t actually know what’s in the pantry or the fridge. His mom used to keep stock of snacks for him and yeji, but he doesn’t think she’d buy those anymore since neither of them live here. He does find juice, though. After taking a couple sips directly from the bottle, he thinks of taking a glass to his room. But he’d have to turn on the light, and rummage through the cabinets to find a mug, and then have to return the empty cup back to the kitchen after he’s done since he’s not fond of being bitten by ants throughout the night, and he abandons that thought. He’s about to place the bottle of juice back into the fridge when he’s joined by another presence.“What are you doing here?”He looks at his mother, standing in her night gown in the blue light of the fridge, her face unreadable.“Drinking juice.” He says, unimpressed by her show of crossing her arms over her chest.“There’s food in the plate for you. Are you not going to eat?”“No.” Hyunjin closes the fridge door, effectively drowning out the little light in the kitchen. He stands there for a minute to let his eyes get used to the darkness once again, not wanting to bump into anything on his way back. His mother doesn’t move. “I made that for you. I stood for so long with my aching back in front of the stove, and you’re just not gonna eat it?”He tries to ignore her and move, but she starts to raise her voice in rage.“Yeah, I’m just here to cater to you, huh? Coming here after any problem so I can feed you and service you, and then not even eating what I prepare?”“Who do you think caused the problem?” hyunjin snaps back, his father’s snoring in the distance a reassurance for him to voice his frustration.“I wouldn’t be here if you weren’t parading around pictures of my house. Stalkers find out crucial information from very little, ma. And you gave them a whole key.”He side steps her, ignoring any more grumbling and accusations thrown at him.“I’m going to sleep.” He finally says, tone flat and tired, to get her off his back.“You don’t have to speak so rudely, hyunjin.” He doesn’t look back at her as he shuts the door to his room.
I got my juice
Didnt find snacks though
Chan skyfall :]
Aw, but its okay! Juice is good!
I’m still a little full from the desserts earlier
But a sugar rush will always help get through a boring night
Are you not gonna sleep?
Chan skyfall :]
Hyunjin…
I have to work haha
Skyfall is calling my name
AH, right, right.
Sorry I’m forgetful
Chan skyfall :]
Hahaha no worries
Tbf I would be concerned if someone else was consuming three desserts and juice just before bed
But alas, my bed time isn’t for hours from now
Experiencing insomnia all by yourself, handsome?
Chan skyfall :]
Nah, you’re keeping me company aren’t ya?
Unless you wanna sleep, in which case, go to bed!
I never really asked but always wondered why you visit Skyfall at night.
Do YOU get enough sleep?
Eh, sleep is for the weak
I manage with whatever I get
My schedule is usually chaotic so Im not always booked in the morning
Well im not really booked at all, lately
Chan skyfall :]
Mhm I see
Time to get in lots of rest then!
Yeah, forceful rest lmao
I guess I come to skyfall at night because itsthe only time no one will see me?
Like, no one from my life I mean.
But I also did visit during the day one time
Chan skyfall :]
You did!?
Why did innie not tell me?
Probably because I ran out lmao
I freaked out a little when I saw the magazines I knew I was in
Very self centred, I know. But it is what it is
Chan skyfall :]
I don’t think you’d take this from me, but I don’t think you’re self centred at all hyunjin.
I’m sure there's an understandable reason for your reaction
Do the magazines freak you out, still?
I can remove them when I start my shift
Oh, no no!
Please don’t be doing all that just for me
And my inability to control my emotions lmao
Its fine, chan. I was just having an awful day
And that tipped me over the edge
Chan skyfall :]
Hmm, okay, but if you ever find anything that makes you
Uncomfortable, don’t hesitate to tell me, okay?
It’s really easy to just take it back, out of sight.
Hmmm
I think I’m getting sleepy
I’m gonna head to bed, at a reasonable hour for once
Chan skyfall :]
Okie! Good night hyunjin! Sweet dreams!
Good luck with your shift chan, good night!
Hyunjin does not immediately go to sleep after that. He spends a good amount of time scrolling back and re-reading his entire conversation with chan, repeating the parts that touched his heart with the simple kindness that chan offered over and over until it imprinted onto his heart. He sounds out the words in his head, imagines chan typing them out, chan saying them to him, and he can’t help the two conflicting feelings that arise. The warmth of being cared for, of being important enough to someone to occupy their mind even when he’s not there [He also looks at han’s texts, and gets a similar warmth bubbling in his chest]. To be offered nice words and well wishes and kindness without needing to prove himself deserving of it. And the lingering question of why? Why did he receive such kindness without doing anything? Why him? Is it just chan’s altruism towards everyone, that he happened to cross paths with, or is it directed towards him specifically because he needs to be handled gently? Why would chan even bother replying to him, an acquaintance at best, someone with so little to offer outside of his pretty face, someone who wasn’t even leading the conversation, someone who just trauma dumped on him? He repeats the messages in his head until he can quiet down the questions, telling himself it is not his duty to find the answers. If chan [and han, and seungmin] chose to offer him care and attention, then that is entirely his [their] choice to make, and his [their] to regret later on. Hyunjin will simply accept the momentary lightness of his heart as he succumbs to sleep.
Hyunjin is conscious without opening his eyes. If he wasn’t tight lipped, he would sigh. Unfortunately no sound escapes him. He finds himself, once again, in his childhood home. He’s at his study table, this time. His back faces his own empty blue room, and he checks behind himself in the dimly lit hall to be faced with absolute darkness beyond the door to the room he despised. He stares at it long enough for spots to start swimming in his vision, and then his attention is caught by a sensation of something wet spilling out of his leg. He diverts his gaze onto his ankle, pulling up his leg to have a closer look, expecting blood. What he finds instead, is a colony of tiny black eggs nestled right under his skin. They have mucous surrounding them, and bulge out slightly, stretching the top layer of his skin around them in a disgusting manner. The eggs cluster together making them almost seem like holes, with a distinct gelatinous border surrounding each one. They’ve completely honeycombed the skin of his ankle, and he feels the immediate urge to puke. His stomach turns itself inside out. But he doesn’t move. He’s unsure if he’s entranced by the grotesque image himself, or if it’s one of his dreams rules. He doesn’t know which would be worse. But he can’t stop staring. Looking at the slimey, shining globs of what he assumes to be some sort of insect’s eggs under his skin, making him their host, making a home within his flesh. He has the urge to rip it out, claw his skin until all that’s left is bones, but he doesn’t do that either. He simply stares. Both his urges mix into a concoction of grisly nausea while he’s paralysed by morbid curiosity. Then the eggs start to move, start to spill out of his skin, rupturing it into many little holes that leave such a distinct image in his head that he feels the bile rise directly to his throat, and he tries to scream, but he is still tight lipped. And then he wakes up. But does he? This isn’t his bed. It is the bed he fell asleep in, yes. He remembers that. He fell asleep on the spare mattress in his parents’ place. This is indeed that spare mattress. But his vision is still clouded. He still, cannot speak. He tries to will himself to wake up, achieving a little bit of success when his vision dims enough for his eyes to fall shut on their own. Only to wake up in the same place, but in a different position. The wet feeling is back, but on his arm. He foolishly looks at it once more. He regrets it immediately. Instead of insects buried beneath his epidermis, there is a coin sized hole on his forearm. It doesn’t go all the way through, but it also doesn’t show him his bone. It is a big, black hole in his arm that he knows leads inside but not out, and it has a bordering ring that sticks up, protruding from his skin to highlight the missing flesh. It isn’t a wound, like the one on his ankle. It looks like a fully intentionally created hole, which has since healed over, judging by the layer of skin that forms a basin as far as he can see into it. The wetness he was feeling was dirty oil seeping out of the hole, the kind of residue that remains after frying food in a deep frier. Stained, filled with burnt remains. And once again, he is unable to look away. He keeps staring as the oil slowly turns milky, and slowly starts oozing out of his hand altogether. It’s sticky, viscous and thick, and it looks like condensed milk. Just a lot dirtier. He blinks, regaining some sort of lucidity when he realises the position he’s laying in makes the milky substance fall directly onto his stomach. He flips himself around, not having any energy for doing more, and presses the ring-bordered-hole into the mattress. And then he zones out. When he blinks back into the dreamscape, he finds a pool of the ooze right under his arm. He lifts it, whacks his arm onto the mattress a couple more times to get rid of anything remaining, and before he has the chance to look at the hole again he’s awake.
He loses the mental battle with himself and checks his arm and ankle right after waking up to the real world. He knows it was a dream, dreams are practically his playground, after all. He shouldn’t be shaken up by them, ever. He has control over his dreams. And he’s aware they’re not real.
But the image has been etched into his mind, and now he feels insects crawling up his leg and missing flesh on his arm
He sighs, steeling himself and checking his phone instead. It’s well past noon, and he has a handful of texts he doesn’t feel upto replying right now. He eventually gets up, off his bed, and goes to the bathroom to start his dreary day. He autopilots most of it, stuffing food into his mouth that he doesn’t really want to eat, washing it down with lots of water, and regurgitating practiced responses when his parents talk to him. It all goes fine, easy enough to pretend to be okay, until his mother asks him to go take a shower. “I will, later. Right before I sleep.” He responds absentmindedly, already having his task planned out at a certain time, fitting very precariously into the puzzle of his day. It makes complete sense in his head.“You sleep at 3 o clock in the morning.” His mother sounds the exact same as she did back when he was 14.“Yeah, so I’ll shower at 2.”“Hyunjin-ah, who showers at 2? You should get to bed by 10pm, and shower well before 6pm. What is wrong with you?”“There’s nothing wrong with showering at night, it has health benefits, even” he replies, not looking at her, mumbling half his words.“Why can’t you just do it now? You’re just sitting here!” “The bathroom is wet.”“So?”“I don’t like wet floors.”“It’s going to get wet when you shower anyway, what is your issue?”“I just told you, I don’t like wet floors.”His mom grumbles away, going to the kitchen while cursing him under her breath. He’s heard it all, he tunes out her grumbling. But then she’s returning to him with a plate of fruit. He looks at the peeled tangerines, something he usually enjoys wholeheartedly, but all he sees are the bulging pockets of fluid underneath a membrane, and he is instantly deep in his head again, the image of his foot flashing before his eyes. He turns away in disgust, begging his mom to take away the plate. “Why are you making that face!? Give some respect to your food, hyunjin-ah. Ungrateful little…”“I don’t want any, not right now, please.” He tries to push away the plate himself, but she isn’t budging. She takes a piece in her hand and raises it to his lips, at which point he sees black. He shoves her hand away and stands up, deaf to the world as he races back into his temporary refuge, wishing so badly he was at skyfall and not in his parents’ spare room. He feels his breakfast trying to climb back up and out of his food pipe, and he has to close his eyes and ground himself before he moves again lest he falls apart at the seams. If he can’t go to skyfall, at least he can talk to chan. Yeah, he can reach out. He knows how to. Of course he can. Chan told him he was a text away. It’s too daunting to call, but he can text. So why does he spend three hours oscillating between his text conversation with chan, and social media where he knows he’s not going to find any of the respite he needs? He stares at his chat with chan, reading some of their texts from yesterday and then scrolling back down to try and type in what he feels, with his heartbeat pumping right in his neck, his emotions forming a lump he can’t push down no matter how much he swallows, but he simply can’t find the words. What is he even feeling? Pain, hurt?Grief, sorrow?Disgust, distraught?Shaken up, traumatized? All of those feel too dramatic. He types in “upset” only to delete it, because he is not upset. However he cannot decipher what he is feeling. It looms above him, covering his frail body with its engorged body, freakishly blue and black and distorted, limbs not resembling hands at all but still gripping onto him tightly, consuming his every atom and molecule. It combines itself with him, indistinguishable from his pinkish muscle, from his white bone. Fuses its slithering tentacles with his veins, pumping darkness directly into his bloodstream that slowly turns black as he corrupts himself. He doesn’t know how to explain, that he is having far too big of an emotional reaction for something that should be mild annoyance at best. He doesn’t know how to articulate what he feels, even though he knows why. The only thing he can articulate, is his needs. He knows what he wants. He wants the same attention and care that chan always gives to him, he wants to be coddled and handled delicately, wants to feel special instead of corrupted. He wants to feel the buzz under his head, the tingling happiness that attaches itself to his spine, he wants to tuck himself in somebody’s strong arms so they can protect him from the world and from himself, while he cries and finally, finally lets his brain win. He can type all that out, he actually has the words for it, and he does. But then he reads it over and realises just how much he’s demanding from chan, and he feels even more insane. Chan doesn’t owe him anything, and he seems like a weak pathetic little thing begging to be treated like a tiny helpless animal while he is anything but. He is capable of so much harm, has caused so much pain, his very existence is troublesome to many. And here he is, letting all that grief go to waste as he succumbs to something that should barely cause a scratch. He’s weak. And tainted. And dirty. He doesn’t deserve the coddling. He hadn’t even replied to the message chan had sent this morning, asking him to eat and rest well, but he sees another pop up right before his eyes.
Chan skyfall :]
You know skyfall is a little empty at night
And I was starting to think it’s lonely without you, b ut it seems I’m not the only one who thinks that Hyunjin is glad to have a topic other than his melancholy to talk about. Especially with chan, his words and presence alone are enough to take hyunjin’s heavy emotions off his shoulders.
Aww you miss me.
And what do you mean by that?
Chan skyfall :]
Innie just asked me why you haven’t visited in a while
He got attached to you within your first meeting…
What have you done to my kid, hyunjin?
Lmao, not murder him?
According to him changbin squeezed the daylights out of him when he dropped him off
Also innie is adorable
Chan skyfall :]
That he is
Changbin is here too, he’s been chewing my ear out asking if you’re okay even though I already told him you’re fine and away from the public eye for now.
Oh, that’s sweet of him though.
Not to sound ignorant but I forget that some people actually worry for me when shit like this happens
Chan skyfall :]
He’s nagging more than worrying.
He’s also asked me for your number, like three times now
And every time I decline he pouts all cute
LMAO well I mean… why does he want my number?
Chan skyfall :]
No idea
He acts like he’s going to shoot his shot.
He’s been a fan of yours for a while after all
But knowing who he is as a person, he’s probably only
wanting to check up on you and offer his “guns” (his biceps) as protection
That’s… sweet… in a funny way
I probably should apologise to him and innie
I did kinda run out on both of them
Chan skyfall :]
Nah they’re both really understanding, dw
Plus innie already loves you it seems
jsdkfhs
If you vouch for your friend keeping my details safe, I don’t mind if you share my number
Chan skyfall :]
Are you sure?
You really don’t have to, changbin is mostly joking.
He knows you’re probably more scared of leaks now and he’d totally understand if you didn’t want to share.
I trust you
And by extension I trust your judgement
I’m fine with it if you want to share.
Also none of you three have gone yapping to a media outlet about how I have “nightly outings” to your store or whatever, so I think I’m in good hands.
Chan skyfall :]
We would never, we value our customers’ privacy
But more importantly because friends wouldn’t do that.
Anyway, whatcha upto? How has your day been?
This is his chance, his opening to spill his guts about how he’s been feeling… the thought itself chokes him, his heart back to thudding loudly, while his thermoregulation takes a nosedive. He feels shivers wracking his bones and goosebumps erupting all over his body, while his blood rushes with such force that his chest burns. The catastrophic feeling he was experiencing earlier implodes on itself, a failed supernova. He becomes a white dwarf and his chest aches, his heart weeps. He doesn’t want to experience that feeling, he doesn’t want to extend it and stretch it over time more than it already has. He enjoyed the light, airy conversation they were having. He wants to keep that. So he shoves his plight back into its cage, swallowing whole any residual pain, and cooks up a lie.
It was okay.
Uneventful, mostly.
I miss skyfall too :(
It was always the most interesting part of my day.
Chan skyfall :]
Skyfall will always be here, waiting for you to visit.
Do you wanna see innie and changbinnie clowning each other?
We can video call, maybe that’ll help the missing feeling.
You can keep the camera off if you don’t wanna show yourself <3
You know that doesn’t sound too bad
Okay, show me skyfall and your two idiot friends then
Chan skyfall :]
Only I get to call them idiot friends!
You gotta befriend them first hehe
Incoming video call from Chan skyfall :]
Hyunjin covers his camera with his thumb as he picks up, keeping it covered until he can turn off the camera altogether. His screen is filled with the familiar scene of skyfall, only from chan’s point of view from across the counter this time. The camera is pointed towards changbin and jeongin, who are trying to make an origami plane fly, and failing miserably. “See, hyung! I told you, you folded it wrong!” jeongin points at changbin, snatching the very vibrant pink piece of paper from said hyung’s hands. “You chose the fucking glossed paper, innie! Nobody said it had to be pink.” “Of course it has to be pink, it has to match your whole aesthetic.” Changbin grabs the younger’s head and lodges it between his bicep and forearm, making the younger laugh and smack his hand to get out of the chokehold. After a couple seconds of flailing around, changbin takes pity on him and lets him go. Chan’s giggles fill hyunjin’s ears as they both watch the other two, and hyunjin lets the playful happiness radiating from his screen envelop him. It evokes a sense of peace that drives away the monster that was hanging over him, and he finds himself giggling along with chan, their harmonious laughter filling his heart just as much as his ears.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Everything is different
Yeji
I see
Be careful, buy new locks and install security cameras if you haven’t already
Hm I’m staying with mom and dad for a bit
And I’m gonna move apartments.
Not staying there when there is such
high risk of someone breaking in again
Yeji
I hope they’re not giving you too much trouble
Just the usual
How are you, though? How is ryujin?
Yeji
I’m working odd jobs to make ends meet.
My research will take a few more months
and in the meantime I’m trying my best to
hold up three jobs to get by and anything
I can find in between those. America is brutal.
Ryujin and I are not doing well though.
We’re going through a rough patch…
I think she might want to separate.
Oh.
Um.. Why, what happened?
Yeji
We just haven’t been giving each other enough time.
We both have a lot of work, and our world views don’t
align perfectly. It wasn’t an issue in the past when we
were both students and new to our relationship, we talked
through a lot. But now it’s just been difficult for both of us.
That’s unfortunate :(
I hope everything works out for you, ye
I did really like you two together
I thought you’d make it
Yeji
So did I, kid.
Gotta run now though, take care.
Tell me if you need money or anything.
Hyunjin locks his phone and stares at the guest room ceiling. It’s the next day, he had showered in the middle of the night as he promised himself, right after getting off his call with chan. The happy buzz stayed with him and let him get a peaceful night’s rest, he was knocked out cold as soon as his body hit the mattress. It is now past noon the next day, and he definitely has to get up and face the horrors, but he stays locked in his bed for a couple hours. Unable to move, unable to rest his mind. He sighs, frustrated that such a nice night leads to such a trifling morning. He is left nothing but his thoughts, as they tumble and roll, chattering away in his skull. He thinks of how silly yeji is, in still thinking he needs money. That she needs to take care of him. That he hasn’t grown into a whole adult man with his own money now, and will always be yeji’s younger brother to her. She’ll always want to instinctively take care of him. He feels warm, but he also wishes he could lessen the burden on her shoulders. Make her see that he is indeed capable now. He isn’t the child crying into her arms when one of their parents yelled at him. He can be her rest stop, if she needs one now. He can give back.
Paler, purer
Seungmin
What kind of place do you want,
if you have any preferences?
Any no go’s and requirements,
let me know so I can find an appropriate place
If I’m being honest minnie any place
would work with me
As long as it isn’t a shoebox
Just make sure it has enough
space and a good shower
Seungmin
Floor? Ventilation? Do you want it furnished?
Do you want an independent or a flat again?
Um
Well I don’t really care what floor
Seungmin
Don’t complain to me about climbing then.
You need the exercise anyway
Yah! :[
I don’t care about the rest though.
Pick whatever you like minnie, I trust your decision
I’m gonna be checking them anyway
And uh… is it better for security if I choose an
independent place over a flat?
I honestly don’t know?
Seungmin
This probably sounds hard to believe after your scare
And that’s understandable, really
But flats are generally more safer.
If you wanna live in an independent place
you’d have to get your own security systems
And it might isolate you even more, I don’t
think that’s the best option, jinnie.
Hm, okay that makes sense.
As long as I have a bedroom, a living room, a bathroom
and a kitchen I’m fine with anything minnie.
Seungmin
Well, ok. What about budget?
0_0
Um.
You have access to my account.
Seungmin
Want me to set a budget for you
according to your savings?
…is that too much of an ask?
Seungmin
No, I can do that. Just checking, are you sure?
Maybe I should do it myself
What kind of adult can’t plan their funds haha
Seungmin
Hyunjin, it’s ok. You usually do it yourself
but you’ve been overwhelmed lately, that’s
valid. I can take care of it for you, I don’t
mind. I’m just making sure you know
you’re giving me access to your personal
info, especially finance related.
Minnie you’ve always had access to it
You just don’t use it because you’re a nice person
But yes, I trust you, please take care of it for me
I know I’m being a useless potato right now
I swear I’ll make it up to you , I really
appreciate the help
Seungmin
Put it on the spreadsheet
The spreadsheet??
Seungmin
Yeah. The ‘things hyunjin and seungmin
will do together to account for hyunjin’s
guilt’ spreadsheet.
…
Seungmin
It’s three years strong hyun, catch up.
You owe me a day full of listening to IU and day6 :)
Thats… thats it?
Seungmin
I’m an easy man
i..
Well..
Idk what to say
I’m honestly shell shocked at that
being a spreadsheet
Seungmin
With a guilt complex like yours
How could it not exist
I update it every time you say “i’ll make it up to you”
Anyway, I’ll start looking at houses now.
Make sure to at least scroll through the pictures
I send you if you don’t click every link.
If you like any place I’ll put it on our list for visiting.
Okay
Thank you again
Even the children’s laughter
You have siblings, right?
Chan skyfall :]
Yep
Two, both younger
Both of them are little rascals but
I love them dearly haha
Of course, as expected from siblings
Chan skyfall :]
Do you have any?
Yes actually :]
An older sister
Chan skyfall :]
Ooh I see, you’re the baby then!
Hyunjin feels a warmth spread over his sternum, at being referred to as a baby. He hadn’t been seen as a kid in so long, except if to demean him. He had to be an adult in every situation that adults failed him, and he’s had to do it for so long he forgets his own place sometimes when he’s not being ‘the mature one’ or ‘the problem solver’. The only time people would ever see him as a kid, is when they were invalidating his opinions and needs, presenting it as ‘just a phase’ or ‘you haven’t experienced life yet’. He was just happy he gets to talk about yeji to chan, but the simple line of acknowledgement somehow has him… tearing up. He sniffles and gathers himself back together, continuing their text conversation.
Yes hehe :3
I love her though. We have a little bit
of a wide age gap
Not the worst, but not the
typical year or two that most
siblings have
Chan skyfall :]
Oh, yeah honestly me too.
How many years are between you and your sister?
6 years
Chan skyfall :]
Omg, me and my younger
sister are 6 years apart, too!
Really!?
Chan skyfall :]
Yeah, give or take.
And then my younger brother is two years
younger to her as well
So like 8 years between me and him.
Oh, wow. Thats quite a bit
Chan skyfall :]
Yeah haha it’s surprising isn’t it
But we’re close
Or at least I try to be there for them.
Lucas seems to be going through a rough phase
Puberty I think… but don’t tell him I said that
xD
Lmao. Well that’s the thing
Most people hear about my age gap with
yeji and think we wouldnt be close
But she’s my rock. We might not?
Always talk to each other as much?
But I’ve always admired her and always will.
She’s such a great person and older sister.
Chan skyfall :]
Wow
I hope my younger ones talk about me like that hahaha
That’s honestly so good to hear hyunjin!
Siblings make our lives worth living honestly :)
Couldnt agree more
But dont worry, I bitch about her once
in a while to balance it out :P
Like the time she pulled me off the sofa by my feet.
Letting my head land onto the tiled floor
With a distinct crack
Chan skyfall :]
Oh my god were you okay?
I’m kidding I didnt crack my skull
But the rest of it is true
Although sometimes I touch the back of my
head and think maybe that DID give me
permanent damage
The back of my head feels flat on some days
Chan skyfall :]
LOL you’re funny ahahaha
I hope your skull is okay
But that’s just older sibling stuff.
Gotta make you little ones’ lives
difficult every once in a while
Right, right, of course.
And slander us every chance you get
Chan skyfall :]
Deserved
Hey!
Chan skyfall :]
Jokes, jokes LOL
Mostly xD
-_-
Not funny
Chan skyfall :]
Haha sorry, but I am happy you are
close with your sister
Sometimes I feel hannah and lucas are closer
to each other than me
Especially with how I was out of the
house for work a lot, so I wasn’t really
with them for most of their school years :(
Oh,that’s rough…
But I’m sure they appreciate what
youve done for them even more
Trust me, coming from a younger sibling :)
Chan skyfall :]
I appreciate that hyunjin, thank you!
You said your sister does music?
Chan skyfall :]
Yep!
She’s a solo artist, has her own record label
with her manager
She’s always been independent and gutsy haha
No keeping her in a box, that’s for sure.
What about your sister?
What does she do?
Oh, she went to school for performing arts.
She took a bunch of dance courses and theatre,
and then pursued dancing further in america.
Nowadays she seems to teach her own
classes although im not sure,
havent asked her in a hot minute
She’s just so busy lately
Chan skyfall :]
That’s so cool though!
Dancing is great. I see it runs in the family?
When did she go to america?
Hm like when I was 15 if I remember correctly
She was 21
And yeah, my mom was a
dancer in her youth too
Chan skyfall :]
That’s great! Really diligent and
successful might I add
I’m sure you miss her though.
Oh, dearly.
You have no idea
The silence haunts me sometimes
The house was so lively with her around
She used to blast music randomly, get weird
songs stuck in all of our heads.
Ever heard of chocolate rain?
Chan skyfall :]
Of course. The legendary masterpiece
Ugh. You’re right, all you elder
siblings are the same huh
I abhor that song.
Chan skyfall :]
HAHAHAH it’s a fun song. Don’t be a hater
Sure.
Well she’d get those weird songs from lord
knows where and play them on her
speakers, or she’d be playing her dance
recital music, or she’d just be making some
sort of noise constantly herself.
She had to be singing or humming or
counting beats, or attempting beatboxing
or she’d wither away.
Chan skyfall :]
Hannah is like that too
Constantly humming and singing
It’s endearing to see
Unless I want silence, investing in noise
cancelling doesn’t work when the noise
is only cancelled by other noise TT
And with lucas around, they both get so loud
Haha me and yeji quarrelled like no tomorrow
But that’s what makes us closer hehe
We share secrets nobody else knows
Sibling’s oath
Chan skyfall :]
Of course. Strongest bond,
promises that can’t be broken O7 haha
Hyunjin couldn’t help the smile that etched itself onto his face, making his cheeks hurt and his heart warm. He really loved siblings, watching how their bonds forge and develop like a strong chain link. His and his sisters, other people and their siblings. He simply enjoyed the inexplicable closeness, protective instinct that arises from having the same origin.
Yep.
I miss her
Chan skyfall :]
Aw, I get it.
Do you talk to her often?
Yes and no
I cant really call whenever I want to
Because she’s busy but also because she doesnt
have the best relationship with our parents yk
Chan skyfall :]
Ah I see. That’s rough :/
Yeahh… but its fine, I text her whenever I can
We still talk to each other
I just miss seeing her face and getting to
whack her when she teases me
Chan skyfall :]
Lol me with hannah
She’s really the best sister I could ever ask for,
but she also knows best how to get on my nerves
and absolutely takes advantage of that
Lucas is still a little shy but I think being around
hannah more than being around me has rubbed
off the annoying onto him >_>
Sjhfdks well Im sure he picks up a
lot from you, too.
Half of my personality is thanks
to yeji, honestly.
She got me into dancing, and
pushed me to go audition.
The shows, anime, and music she
showed me growing up are such a
big part of me today, especially since
we were both sheltered a lot so I didnt
really venture out of my comfort zone
on my own unless it was with her
Chan skyfall :]
I try not to let my likes and dislikes
influence them too much
But I’m very touched when they want
to learn something new I show them :)
Yeji sounds lovely
She is!
I’d never trade her for the world
I really admire her, you know
Chan skyfall :]
I can see that :)
That’s endearing.
She also is a lot bolder and more
experimental than me
She dabbled in a little bit of music production
back in the day haha when she had extra time on
her hands and wanted to make her own dance track
Chan skyfall :]
Oh?? That’s cool! What did she use?
Do you have the track?
Just garageband lmao
We were both kids, she used whatever
she had freely available and threw together
a bunch of samples pre-installed in
garageband to make a new track.
And then I bugged her to let me
do it too and came up with hot garbage
and she had to fix my track for me JSDHFKS
But I think I have both of those, hold on!
You sent two attachments
Chan skyfall :]
Both of these are great??
Using resources available to you in whatever
way you can is the basis of creativity!
I love both of them, I can def see the first one playing at a rave
And the second one sounds a lot like your vibe :)
LOL is it that obvious which ones mine haha
Chan skyfall :]
Not obvious
Just an educated guess
You vibe delicate piano and violin
Does she still make music?
Hm I dont know I’ll have to ask her
Although her music taste has probably taken a 180 turn
Chan skyfall :]
Oh? Well music tastes differ as
time passes, but a full turn?
She does swing dancing with her partner now
So the playlists she sends me now are all like
80s jazz or swing dance music lmao
Chan skyfall :]
She dances with her partner?
That’s romantic
I KNOW.
She for real has a disney romance
Met her partner through dance, asked her
out on a date, and two years later
now she’s married, she has a wife!!
I have a sister in law!!
Chan skyfall :]
Woah, I didn’t expect that. Married?
So happy for her!
Yep I know, me too
Her wife keeps in touch with
me from time to time too.
Chan skyfall :]
Hyunjin approved, then?
Definitely. I love her and her wife
Chan skyfall :]
xD
Great, hope you get to meet her
and her wife again soon!
Me too
What about you? Do you get to
see your siblings often?
Chan skyfall :]
Not as much as I’d like to
Hannah is usually on the go,
She travels to a lot of places for work
Her studio is in america too, but she
alternates between going back home to australia,
coming here to korea to visit me or her friends,
going to her studio in america or
vacationing in europe
Australia??
Chan skyfall :]
Oh, yeah. I’m australian
Didn’t notice the accent?
….no?
Im sorry, I dont really… pay
attention to these things
Chan skyfall :]
Haha no worries don’t apologise
Yeah I’m from australia, my parents still live
there and lucas lives with them
So I don’t get to see him that often either
Oh I see
Why are you alone in korea then?
Chan skyfall :]
Well I first moved here to try and break
into the music industry as a producer
It didn’t exactly work out, as you can
see, but other things started lining up
one by one and I decided to just stay and work here.
Few years down the line and I found skyfall
and fell in love with the place, and now I’m
glad I stayed, if only to find it and people like you :)
Asjkdfhks
Oh you dont have to say that,
im nothing special
Chan skyfall :]
I think you’re plenty special.
I also am glad I stayed so hannah can
have a place to come to, if she was here yk.
I worry about her a lot. She’s so young,
and navigating a place as hostile as the
music industry all alone. She doesn’t let
me dote on her as much as I want to,
‘cause then I’ll end up coddling her and
she’ll call me weird haha and she likes
being independent, but I still want her
to have a safe space any time she needs it.
You really are a wonderful elder brother
I think your siblings are glad to have you,
like I am glad to have yeji
I have to go now though, Im being summoned
for what I assume is lunch
Chan skyfall :]
Thank you for saying that :)
Enjoy your food hyunjin!
A little disaster
His parents probably think they drew a curtain to last night’s shit show, but hyunjin can see the thinly veiled tension still gripping the threads between them like cracks in a glass table all too visible under the transparent, plastic table cloth. They aren’t fooling anyone. But hyunjin has to play pretend, rest his elbows tentatively on the glass like he isn’t aware one wrong move will shatter it. If he brought it up himself, the cracks would disappear. Giving way to entire holes cut out of the glass, in the guise of a predetermined “design”, no matter how much hyunjin tries to save it. So he doesn’t. His mom serves him food, after his father, and doesn’t even take any for herself until they both start digging in and hyunjin forces her to serve herself. She was all too content to watch them both eat, ignoring her own needs, always playing the role of a good mother and wife. It pissed hyunjin off. They ate in charged silence, save for the stray questions they’d ask hyunjin which he provided one word, curt answers to. Unfortunately they never got the hint and kept asking him questions sporadically. He tries to finish his plate, fails to wipe it clean and has to face the pointed stares and recycled lectures of his parents. He tunes them all out, soft foam between his ears and their voice, muffling it to a static that brings black and white grit into his mind. He instead looks at the grandfather clock, as he sits with his mom and waits for her to finish her own meal that she had kept aside to serve his father again. The clock doesn’t tick, and he hadn’t quite noticed that before this very second. His eyes slide to the corridor leading to his father’s room, eyeing the bathroom door that’s shut and making sure he’s out of earshot. “Does the clock not work?” he speaks, adjusting his volume to fit the quiet tension. His mom hums, a little confused, and he deciphers her like he always has, asking for clarification. He points to the big wooden box, standing in the corridor like it is a divider. “The grandfather clock, is it working?”“Oh, no dear. That thing stopped working a few years ago.”“Hm. Why haven’t you gotten it fixed?”“Your father said nobody fixes those things nowadays. And if they do, they charge a lot. You know how he is, doesn’t like shelling out money for these things.” The way she says it matter-of-factly, like she’s listing today’s weather conditions off to him, makes hyunjin pause. He has to take a step back to not throw in an incredulous exclamation at her. He doesn’t understand why she doesn’t seem to have a mind of her own in this house. “And you never checked? If there’s anyone who fixes it?”“Oh no, I did,” that’s more like it. That’s who raised hyunjin. “But he said no to all of them.” Hyunjin’s eye twitches. “Why?”“Because they’re all men. And they have to come here to fix it.” His mother sighs, like she’s accepted her fate. Her husband has dug her a grave and she is ready to lie in it. “And why does that matter?” hyunjin presses, absolutely not connecting the dots that his father seems to connect. He knows they exist, he knows how the connections are made, but it’s so backward and futile that nobody but a donkey with a blindfold would connect them that way. He awaits his mother’s answer, looking her dead in the eye when she tries to make do with a pointed look, not accepting it as an answer. Despite the clock out of commission hyunjin hears the phantom ticks of seconds passing by in his ears. They’re dampened like they exist on a different plane of reality, and only unsettle him more. “You know how he is.” His mom concludes, looking back down to her food. Hyunjin sighs. “What happened to the three headed horse glass table we had?”It takes a minute for recognition to click on his mom’s face. “Oh, I don’t know? I think we sold it, or your aunt must have taken it with her during one of the moves.” “Ma.” He levels. She looks at him, curious and concerned all at once. “We don’t have anything from the past. Nothing here is from my early childhood except that clock. And you want to let it just sit there?” “Well… I was thinking of selling it.” “Absolutely not.” Hyunjin gets up from his chair, leaving no room for argument in his tone. “And what, put the money in his pocket? No. I know a horologist, he’s a friend of mine. I’ll ask him if he can fix it for us. We are keeping the clock. I don’t care what he has to say.” He makes sure that her plate is empty, that he is not leaving her in the middle of a meal, and then turns around and returns to his cage without looking back.
The past is in ashes
Hey can I ask you a favour?
Chan skyfall :]
Of course, go right ahead!
Do you fix grandfather clocks at all?
Chan skyfall :]
Well isn’t that a rare request in this part of town
But yes! I do actually!
Got one you need fixed?
Yes
It’s at my parents’ place, I would…
get it to the shop, but… I dont
think me carrying a six foot clock
is inconspicuous at all when im
avoiding the public eye
Chan skyfall :]
Oh, don’t worry about it!
I can do house visits too.
But you’ll have to wait a bit, hyune :/
I’m occupied with the theatre during
the day when I usually get time to do
house visits, and I can’t leave my shift
at the store. Innie’s exams are coming
up right before his winter break, but
I’d never let him work the night shift
regardless, kid needs sleep.
I can do it after our current shows, though!
I’ll be all yours in two weeks time.
Oh, no worries!
I dont know whether I’ll find a
new place to move into in two
weeks but even if I do I’ll come
back here to show you the place
and stay until you fix the clock.
Chan skyfall :]
Okie dokie! Sorry you have to wait!
That clock is really important to you?
Hmm not as much as the watch
It’s just that its an heirloom weve
had from before I was born, and
I dont think we have had anything
else that long, I want to preserve it yk?
Chan skyfall :]
The watch you brought in the first time?
Oh ahah
Yeah that watch
Sorry forgot to elaborate silly me
Chan skyfall :]
Don’t worry about it! That makes sense
though, I’ll do my best to help preserve
your heirloom :]
Thank you chan :)
So how’s that play going?
Chan skyfall :]
It’s a little over an hour to showtime,
we’re in the middle of soundcheck.
??? Why are you texting me then?
Chan skyfall :]
Oh, binnie is here today, he’s helping out
so I have some spare minutes.
He works there too?
Chan skyfall :]
Yeah, not exactly full time cause he’s
actually a producer, he makes tracks for
the k-rap and hiphop scene. But he
enjoys theatre, when I introduced him
to this place he immediately integrated
himself into the team haha.
He helps out from time to time.
When he’s here I let him take the reigns,
I can catch some rest from these kids lol
Oh, I didn’t know he’s a producer
Chan skyfall :]
He is! Quite skilled at that, too.
I think he’s the only one I trust with
music work hahaha
Ooo high praise
So what’s goin on out there?
I’ve never been to a sound booth
I think the closest would be the recording
studio at jype but I wasn’t there long
either lmao
Chan skyfall :]
It’s different to a recording studio,
I’ll show you around sometime!
But currently binnie is checking the
actors’ mics with them.
They’re all on stage, wooyoung is whining
about third wheeling hwa and joong again
Oh! And yunho came by earlier, he gave
me my pineapple candy!
Your candy?
Chan skyfall :]
Yeah haha I really like pineapple juice,
and yunho noticed that my bottle always
has it so he started giving me pineapple
flavoured candy right before each show, lol.
It’s basically a ritual now.
That’s so cute T-T
Chan skyfall :]
He’s a sweet guy. We all have our own pre-show
rituals. Most of the actors form a circle to do a
quiet cheer, everyone working on sound does
a clap and a half, yunho comes up to me to
give me my candy, Wooyoung kisses the
stage director’s [yunho’s] cheek, and
seonghwa kisses hongjoong.
Ooh interesting, I thought the cheer
was the only pre-show ritual
What about you? Do you have your own?
Chan skyfall :]
The candy!
But isn’t that yunho’s?
Chan skyfall :]
Oh
Hm I guess you’re right?
It IS his ritual, huh.
Well then I don’t really have one of my own
I do the clap and a half with the sound guys though
You should make one :]
That sounds forced lmao sorry
it was light hearted!
Chan skyfall :]
Oh don’t worry about it!
I should, honestly. These lil rituals are fun
But idk what I could do
Not keen on the kissing that those four
have going on, lol
You’ll figure it out
Chan skyfall :]
Mhm
Well now yunho is running around the stage
making sure all their makeup and clothes are right
He might need the candy more than me LOL
Chan skyfall :] has sent an attachment
Hyunjin opens the video, chan’s muffled giggles are heard from behind while his camera is pointed at the stage. There’s four actors up front and centre, two of them lost in their own world while the third sits on a wheelchair. The final actor is doing his best to cling to a fifth person on stage, who isn’t in any costume, so hyunjin assumes it’s yunho. He’s a little taller than the actor clinging to him, but the added height gives him no advantage in escaping the confines of the actor’s arms.“Wooyoung-ah!” a familiar, but loud voice blares from the right. Chan pans the camera back into the sound booth, where changbin sits with his hair tucked into a hat and thick black glasses on his nose. “Stop messing with yunho, we need to check your mic!” Chan giggles again and the video ends there.
Changbin looks stressed lmao
Chan skyfall :]
Typical side effect of working with wooyoung
You wouldn’t be able to tell they’re the best of
friends if you watched them work together LOL
It looks like he wants to jump him fr
Chan skyfall :]
Sorry hyune but I gotta go now
Duty calls
I’ll talk to you later though!
That’s okay, good luck with the show!
Thank you for agreeing to fix my rackety
old clock again!
Chan skyfall :]
Don’t thank me for that, silly.
I’ll let you know when I’m free again for
house visits
Okay byee
Bye chan!
Its just the old grief chapter
Hyunjin has time to spare, and so his brain has time to marinate in the cesspool of thoughts. He doesn’t exactly follow the threads, but one thing leads to another and he ends up thinking about his old life and his old friends again. He’s usually thankful for his fastpaced life, it doesn’t give him the chance to ever let anything sink in deep enough for it to hurt when it goes away… except he’s only fooling himself with that ideology. All he’s doing is stalling the inevitable landslide of feelings like nostalgia and missing someone or something. At least he doesn’t get to think about how much he misses things often. But once he does, he’s realising how many chapters of his life have closed without him noticing. Life flips the pages on him, and he can do nothing but continue bleeding ink onto the next page and the next, not given the chance to take in his own words until the entire book is over or he has hit a block in the road. He misses the meals he used to have with han, felix and lee know. He misses how han used to share a part of his meal with him, especially on days he couldn’t afford to buy any lunch. He misses how carefree they once were, walking together as a group to the convenience store down the street from the old jype building, getting a pack of ramen and a pack of rice balls to share between them after hours of gruelling training. He misses the view of the stars from the terrace of the dorms. He misses having to run directly from the company to the train station to catch his train to school on nights that he stayed to practice even more. But the worst part of it all, is that he misses all these things that he cannot have.He’ll never sit at a table with the other three and belong there ever again, not in their home, or a dingy old dorm with flickering lights and cold floors. He’ll never get to share food with han again because they can both just, buy their own, they aren’t poor teenagers anymore. He will never get to see the twinkling stars with the imprint of concrete on his palm from where he rested on the roof of the dorm, because he does not have access to the place anymore. Even if he did, things would never feel the same. When it happened, he didn’t realise he was losing this much. But looking back now, he wishes he could have memorised all those feelings and sights, smells and sounds, that he can’t have again and that have started to fade in his memories. More than that, he wishes time could have stopped, even if just for a little while, when he was laughing at a silly face han made, and minho had pat his head to stop him from hitting the shelf, and felix had tumbled into his side with laughter of his own. He wonders if things could be the same if he tried. Was he at fault for not reaching out?
Hey
How’s things for you?
Hanji
Hi hyunjin!
Is something wrong?
Hyunjin frowns. Since when does he only text when something is wrong? Did he give off that impression? His heart sours at the thought of it. Maybe he wasn’t trying hard enough, maybe it was his fault, after all.
No, no. Just wanted to check in
with you…I miss you, you know?
Hanji
Aw, I miss you too :(
Things are getting pretty busy actually
It’s winter, but it’s also end of year…
So award show season and year end shows,
we’re busy with rehearsals and learning
new performances. Lots of stages lined
up back to back honestly its a little overwhelming
Right. Hyunjin realises why he doesn’t in fact text han and felix all that much.As much as he tries to keep the envy out, trying not to give the ugly jealousy a place in his soul, it always lingers regardless. No matter how much he tries to be happy for them, and succeeds at it, there’ll always be a screeching banshee in his head telling him it should have been him instead. And when happiness and pride for his friends are such soft, gentle, airy emotions, like a dollop of whipped cream, the screeching shower of salt from the banshee overpowers them easily. And his life is nothing in comparison, anyway. The simple fact that while jisung is getting ready for a full two or more months of stages that the whole world will have eyes on, hyunjin is unemployed and in his parent’s spare room - goes to show that no matter how good it gets for him, his happenings are never worth sharing anyway. He eats his words before he even gets the chance to type them out most of the time, and they are an unfulfilling meal even for him.
Oh good luck! That does sound hectic
Are there any you’re excited for?
hanji
Thank you!
Hmm well mama is always a
big performance I suppose,
but personally I’m looking forward
to the AAAs cuz we get to do collision!
Oh SWEET I can’t wait to see it!
Hanji
Mhm :D
I have to go practice now tho
I’ll ttyl, feel free to text if u need
anything hyune!
Okay
Good luck again hannie
Bye bye
Everything is different now
Unknown number
Hey hyunjin
Hope you are doing alright
This is changbin, btw. Sorry
if this is weird, I just wanted
to check up on you and see if
you needed anything
Oh, hi changbin
I’m safe now, at my parents’ place
Thank you for checking up on me,
it’s really sweet of you
Changbin
Of course
Also, forgive me if I’m overstepping,
but it was a stalker situation that
led to the incident right?
The incident itself was a stalker
situation, yes.
I didn’t even know I had a
stalker until then tbh
Changbin
I see I see
You don’t know who it was, then?
Not a clue
Changbin
Are you looking into taking legal action?
Yeah, well my manager tried. But
since I didn’t see his face and
there isn’t much physical evidence
of a break-in there’s practically
no way to find him :/
Changbin
You know, I can probably help you with that?
My mom is a lawyer, I can get you in touch
with her
Oh, that’s nice but I don’t see how
speaking with her would help me
when like I said, I don’t have evidence
Changbin
Trust me, she’s handled cases that seemed
hopeless before. And besides, even if there’s
no hope on that front, there’s a lot of other
things you could get fairly compensated for.
Your old agency, their public post about you
leaving had a lot of legal holes in it, I’m
assuming you didn’t get informed in advance
about the notice, even if it was a clause
in your contract?
That
Is exactly what happened, actually
Wow, how’d you know??
Changbin
Lawyer’s kid
I learn to observe these things, and
studying contracts is fun. There’s
always loopholes everywhere.
We can get you help with that, trust me.
Either financial compensation, or you
could sue them for defamation with how
they’ve worded this, and even if you don’t
want to go to court, I think a conversation
about your privacy and security would
really help you right now. And I’m not
exactly the expert in that, but my mom
is. Well, unless the expertise you’re looking
for is how to knock the wind out of someone.
Because I can definitely be your personal
trainer if you wanted that.
Ahahah I appreciate the offer but I’m def not
built for the gym LOL
But I think I will take up your other offer,
please let me know when your mom can
meet me? I’ll have to run it by my manager,
but I’m free anytime from now to the
foreseeable future.
Changbin
Okay, will do!
Thank you!
Changbin
But seriously, I think you’d do
great with a little more muscle training.
Your deltoid muscle would shine even more.
Ahahajfdhk please no, I can’t work out
if my life depended on it
Changbin
I’ve seen your dances!! That is definitely not
someone who doesn’t work out!!
Well I do the typical warm up stretches
for dance, nothing more ahah
The rest is all just from dancing
Changbin
Then you’re born perfect, damn. Those muscles
are really good despite no muscle training
according to you
It’s the truth
And please, they’re nothing great
Changbin
I literally do this for a living!!
I would know!!
I thought you were a producer?
Changbin
Ok no I don’t get paid for personal training
You’re right
But like, in spirit, I do this for a living
Ahahah you’re funny, changbin
Changbin
You can just call me binnie, all my friends do
Oh, didn’t know we were friends
already LOL
Changbin
Of course we are
Unless you don’t want to be,
I understand if you don’t
No no I don’t mean that
Anyway, how was the play?
Heard you were working hard in
the booth today
Changbin
Oh, from channie hyung?
It went well! You should come watch
the play sometime!
Ahah yeah channie suggested that too,
I’ll surely come watch someday
Changbin
I can get you tickets!
Oh, not right now tho, sorry binnie :(
I’m still careful about where I go
And I’ll just ask chan for tickets don’t worry
Changbin
Right, right, that makes sense
No worries!
Thank you for the offer though
And for checking up on me, again
Changbin
Don’t mention it!
I love your work, seriously
Oh
Ahaha thank you!
Although I don’t really do much
Changbin
No like seriously. You’re so beautiful!
And perfect! Like, you look good
AND you can dance and speak so
eloquently! Idk how you do it.
You’re literally an angel.
Come on, that’s just flattery now
I’m not all that
Changbin
You are!
It’s not flattery. I’m honest, you are such a star
I love watching you just move, you know?
Ah thank you
Changbin
❤️
The past is a basket, it catches all that’s tragic
Family reunions are the most unrealistic thing ever in hyunjin’s life. His two aunts on his mom’s side despise each other and fight like street cats any time they’re within each other’s vicinity. His uncle is usually off by himself doing lord knows what. And he hasn’t even met his dad’s siblings save for one aunt. So when he’s face to face with all his cousins at once, and his mom’s siblings all gathered together, and civil, he knows it’s a dream. He goes along with it, only cringing the minimal amount when one of them does something affectionate to anyone else. He doesn’t exactly know where they are, it looks like an open, grassy field but also like an enclosure at the same time. He feels a watchful gaze over them all, like they are the wildlife being kept in a sanctuary. He makes sure to not let it show that he is aware in how he behaves though. Few gruelling scenes of idle chit chat and family activities later, the scenery around them shifts, and they are now at what appears to be a registration counter. Someone bumps into his side. “Yeji!” he exclaims, having power over his voice. He doesn’t hear what she has to say, but he hugs her tight. There’s more conversation, but now everything sounds like he’s underwater. He doesn’t catch much of it, content to let it slip off his skin as he latches onto his sister. He missed her. All too soon his dreamscape changes again and they are all back outside, yeji included. His aunt is saying something. He needs to listen. The dream isn’t progressing, it keeps repeating her muffled sentence. So he assumes its a dreamscape rule, or an important ‘plot point’. He concentrates harder, and only manages to catch her sentence after five loops. “The entry is 11 million won, and only teams of ten can go. We have 14 million, I can pay for you all, but not all of us will get to go in.” “Hyunjin, you’re going” “I’m taking yeji with me” “…” “Okay” And before he even sees the money, his surroundings change again and there’s ten of them in a large room with a small podium? Stand? In the centre. Yeji is with him, thankfully. But so are his annoying cousins. The room is blueish grey and very modern. He doesn’t get the chance to take in much else as him and yeji are dropped into another room. The floor is a circle, and it spins on top of another floor. The more weight they put on one end the more likely it is to flip or make them fall off it. There are triangular gaps in the circular floor, and it’s all wooden. There’s a handle in the centre, much like a rotating teacup attraction. Hyunjin’s mission rings in his head without being told anything within the dream. Find the scroll, solve the puzzle, escape the room. Him and yeji meet at the centre, where the scroll is. Easily, the first task is done. But then the floor starts shifting, and the gaps in the wood start looking more like sigils, and a valve is opened somewhere. Thick, black oil starts dripping down the walls and settling below the gaps in the floor. They need to get out of there, now. He tries to run forward, towards the open exit where all his useless cousins are watching the siblings. Only to be thrown off balance when the floor starts tilting. He then realises the floor is not only a two piece sliding on each other, but they are on a flimsy wooden floorboard that is in turn balancing on huge metallic balls that fill the space between it and the solid floor below. He looks back, only to find yeji struggling to keep herself upright as well. He tried to walk back to the centre to regroup only to slip and fall onto his chest. He tries crawling, and he sees yeji run towards him. “No! Run to the centre!” She does, and the tipping of the floor dangerously towards him stops. Then he painstakingly crawls to her. Once arrived, he shakily stands up and notes the oil covering his pants near the ankle. He looks at yeji, silently communicating with her, and they both make a run for it. Yeji was always faster than him in real life. In dream, they manage to run neck and neck. Just as they reach the border between the flooding room and the modern tiles of a safer, more stable floor, the fluorescent lighting melts away into a red blaring alarm. It rings two times and his cousins panic in the chaos, and then the scene changes again. They are back outside, but the sky looks fake. The grass is dull, and the timing is off. “We didn’t win” his aunt says. “ᴳᵁₑˢₛ ᵦᴱₜᵀₑᴿ ᴸᵤᶜₖ ₙᴱₓᵀ ᵀᵢᴹₑ” Hyunjin blinks. “Huh?” “ɘ҉༙྇ q҉༙྇ ɒ҉༙྇ ɔ҉༙྇ ƨ҉༙྇ ɘ҉༙྇ Ɉ҉༙྇ '҉༙྇ n҉༙྇ b҉༙྇ i҉༙྇ b҉༙྇ υ҉༙྇ o҉༙྇ γ҉༙྇ “ Static starts infiltrating his ears, everyone around him speaks although he hears none of it. He starts looking for yeji, trying desperately to hold her hand for comfort again. “y͍ͧ_̵̶͚̜̳̩̙̠͇̝͂̓̔̎̽ͣ̈́͑̕_̸̢̪̙̤̥̞͍̥̟͍ͮͪ̍͗͆̐̿͘͡͞o̵̴̬̤̠̱̯̗̘̺͎͉͍͐̂ͨ́̑̉̓̍ͨ͑ͩ͋͆̏̕̚͟ư̥̯̦̗̌̐ͪ̉̐_̧̧͎̝̬̯̺͙ͨͫ̐͐͐ͩ͐͗͂͠ f̴̧̧̛̤̬͎̣͇͖̲̳̼͉͛̎̉͛̿ͮ̀ͬͭ̈́̔̇̓̈͜͢͡ͅͅą̸̵̡̧̪͓̙͓͈̗͍ͯͤ̆̃̇ͥ͟_̨̟͈͓̺ͬ̍͝i̋̂l͍̚͜_̧̙͚̻ͫͤͦe̷̯̦̤͎̙̗̗̬͔ͤ͒͗̿̏ͫ̔̇͊ͤ͑͌d̶̍ͣ̔̾̋ͨ͜” “ȳ̪̲̽ͩͣ̚ô̸̢̧̪̹̝̻̣̥̹̪̫ͯ͒̔̿ͣͣ̐ͭ̀͘̚u fͣa͚͎̳̣͚̝͙̞̖̲̹̘ͯ̆ͫͤ̿̎̅ͭ͑͒͋ͨ̓̐͒͘i͖̜l̷̡͍̪̜̹̝̗͉͚͚̝͖̗͎͕̝̿͒̽ͬ̑͛̀̓ͧ̀ͦͫ͂̕͢͟͡͝e̸̟̯̩̓ͮ̍̀̈́ͪ́̉ͨ̚͡ḓ̺͒ͯ̔̑” As soon as he finds his sister, the world cracks in two between them. She is forcefully pulled away from him as her half of the dreamscape repels itself from his half like two like poles of a magnet. Increasingly fast, the distance between them widens. He was so close, his hand brushed the tip of her fingers only for a deep dark void to form between them. “YEJI!” he yells, running and crying, trying his best to reach her to no avail. The dreamscape changes again, and he is met with a perfectly robotic world. He is at a table, with his family while a robot serves them coffee. “Where’s yeji?” “Who?” his aunt looks at him, puzzled. Entirely unaware. An incredulous laugh bubbles out of him. “My sister. Yeji. Where is she?” “You don’t have a sister?” Hyunjin calms himself down, the hurt pangs in his chest regardless of him knowing it’s all a dream. “Who am I?” he tests. “Are u ok? What a silly question.” “Well, answer it then.” His aunt squints at him suspiciously, and he feels cracks forming in the dreamscape once again. “Who am I?” he pushes. “Hyunjin, of course. Hwang hyunjin. The only child my sister ever had?” And just like that, his soul is yanked back into his body, pulling him back into consciousness.
I could hear the signs calling out from the bottom of the fire
Seungmin has sent you a message [10]
Hey jinnie these are all in…
Eomma has sent you a message [1]
Youtube,com/wjek09w3j8…
Chan skyfall :] has sent you a message [4]
Innie came to the show toda…
I am like a torch flickering in the wind, as the saying goes
Seungmin has sent you a message [8]
Keeping in mind yesterday’s chat I…
Eomma has sent you a message [1]
Youtube,com/wjek09w3j8…
Chan skyfall :] has sent you a message [6]
My phone died on me sorry for…
Changbin has sent you a message [4]
My mom’s schedule
Changbin has sent an attachment
Lost all my precious
Seungmin has sent you a message [6]
Found the modern style you wante…
Eomma has sent you a message [1]
Youtube,com/wjek09w3j8…
Chan skyfall :] has sent you a message [3]
For you to wake up to :]
Chan skyfall :] has sent you an attachment
Changbin has sent you a message [5]
Ahahah sorry about that! I was dru…
Rage ate me up
Seungmin has sent you a message [5]
The first landlord is unreachable, I t…
Eomma has sent you a message [1]
Youtube,com/wjek09w3j8…
Channie :] has sent you a message [1]
Had a dream today, and it was…
Changbin has sent you a message [2]
Oh no worries! Thanks for telling m…
Endless forlornness has made me numb
Seungmin has sent you a message [12]
I also found a freelance gig if you…
Eomma has deleted a message [1]
Channie :] has sent you a message [6]
Vintage isn’t as old as people thi…
Changbin has sent you a message [7]
There was a cat on the side of the ro…
I’d rather rise from here
Seungmin has sent you a message [20]
The first set of apartments are off lis…
Eomma has deleted a message [1]
Channie :] has sent you a message [4]
Almost done with first week shows!…
Changbin has sent you a message [3]
Hope you have a great day angel…
Or should I hold on to my past?
Seungmin has sent you a message [21]
Are you okay?
Eomma has deleted a message [1]
Channie :] has sent you a message [8]
Might get dragged by the crew to cele…
Changbin has sent you a message [4]
We have another day at the theatre to…
Yeji [2]
do you promise to not freak out…
They’ve burnt to ashes
Hyunjin forgets that he had yeji on mute, and it is by luck that he caught her message from just three hours before he woke up. He makes sure he is alone before opening it.
Yeji
do you promise to not freak out and keep
something a secret between us?
My friends know but I’d like you to
not tell anybody else.
Yeah?
You’re scaring me… is it
something bad?
He knows the likelihood of her being up at this hour isn’t very high considering their polar opposite timezones, but he can’t help but stare at his chat with her for a few minutes, praying for the typing bubble to pop up to ease his nerves. When it doesn’t even after he’s refreshed the app thrice, he sighs and accepts defeat. He spends the majority of his day behind the slightly ajar door of his parents’ guest room, avoiding talking with them as long as possible despite knowing it’s only a matter of time. He tunes out most of their chatter and noise, but once the voices start escalating he tentatively looks towards the door. He ignores it, but only for a couple minutes as they only get louder. When he peeks out of his room, his father is yelling something hyunjin doesn’t catch the entirety of before leaving the room altogether. He looks towards the couch, where his mother sits with a solemn expression. “What happened?” “He’s mad yeji isn’t picking up his calls.” Hyunjin raises an eyebrow. His guards are back up and he is now extra careful of the steps he takes, his body language, and the words he speaks, to ensure his elaborate lies to cover yeji don’t get exposed. “So why is he yelling at you?” His mother sighs, looking at her phone screen instead of hyunjin. “Apparently she’s like this because I raised her to be like this. He thinks my parenting on you both was too soft.” Hyunjin’s eyebrows furrow at her response. “Well he wasn’t even home most of the time so what room does he have to speak?” “That’s right. I will admit I was lenient on you both, but I never taught you to abandon family like she has. I was trying my best to avoid being controlling. I’ve never controlled either of you-” Hyunjin begs to differ on that, he has felt like his mother’s puppet directly or indirectly his whole life. She probably doesn’t even realise the amount of emotional manipulation she’s capable of doing on a good day. “-but maybe I should have. Sometimes I think I gave you both too much freedom.” Hyunjin laughs, lighter than the mood deserves. “I’d have turned out a rebel if you had tried to control me.” His mom huffs out an echo of a laugh. “Yeah, you’ve never listened to me, have you.” Another untrue statement, but hyunjin wasn’t in the mood to argue. “Can I ask you something?” he steers the conversation away from yeji as un-suspiciously as he is able to. “Hm?” “Why are you still with him? You know I make enough money to take care of you now, right? Why not leave him?” Immediately a blanket of cold covers the atmosphere between them. Any motherly warmth drains from her face, and her dark circles look deeper than before, her skin sags more tiredly than a minute ago, and her eyes dim to a sad degree. “Your grandpa’s last dying wish was for me to take care of his lousy son. And unlike your sister, he did a lot for me and my family. They took care of me when my mom was sick, and they paid her hospital bills when she was dying from cancer. I can’t disrespect a dead man’s wish hyunjin-ah.” It strikes a nerve in hyunjin, how she has always held him and yeji to impossibly high standards while letting all other adults around them get away with heinous things. Why does her husband get to be forgiven, while yeji is talked about as if she were the devil? “Why are you more attached to your promise to someone who has passed over your very much living, breathing daughter?” “I don’t have a daughter anymore. She abandoned us, hyunjin-ah.” “Your husband has done far worse things!” “Your father” “No, your husband.” “Listen, even if he has done all that, he also helped my family when we were in need. I can’t ignore all of that and just call him a bad guy.” “He has literally done more bad than- you know what? Nevermind. Stay with him, I don’t care anymore. Nothing gets through to your head, does it?” He doesn’t wait to hear his mother’s “don’t speak so rudely to your mother, hyunjin-ah!”. He’s retreating to his designated room and grabbing his headphones to drown out any noise for the rest of the day. He checks his notifications once again and realises he should probably text seungmin back.
Hi, sorry minnie I’ve just been
super tired the past couple of days.
I’ll look into what you sent
me now and get back to you,
give me some time.
Seungmin
That’s okay, I’m glad you’re okay but if
you need anything don’t hesitate to ask me.
The rest of his evening goes by in a blur, he looks at too many house listings and goes through too many links for his tired mind. He has a back and forth with seungmin on many of the flats and adds a bunch to their house visit list, for the upcoming week. Seungmin has been incredibly efficient, as usual, and hyunjin is immensely relieved he doesn’t have to do this alone. He still would avoid the visits as long as he can, though. His fear of being seen outside again still grips him, so seungmin sets a date way later than he probably should, giving hyunjin most of next week to mentally prepare himself. By the time he sneaks to the kitchen for a quick meal around midnight and returns to his den, there’s messages from yeji waiting for him.
Yeji
I tried to take my life 10 days ago
Hyunjin’s breath catches in his throat, and before he can even take in more air to keep himself breathing, he hurriedly reads the rest of yeji’s message with his heart falling below his feet, further below onto sea level and even more until it burns with the earth’s core at a rapid speed.
Yeji
I’m doing better now so please don’t
freak out. But you deserve to know.
Don’t bother telling our parents though.
I’m not in a headspace to deal with them
right now.
A dark, gloomy weight settles on his chest and refuses to let him breathe still. His only source of oxygen is in the air pockets between his tears that he has eaten, the tears that clog up his throat, forming the lump in it. His mind empties out like a drain, only feeling of fear and hurt remaining. He wants to sob, but the cry doesn’t bubble out of him. He is encased by ice, in a glass box through which he cannot see anything other than his watery reflection. People scream, cry, and die in his surroundings, but he remains oblivious, caught up in his own dystopia. He curses himself, teeth chattering and tear-stained, curses himself for being ever so complacent. He should have known better. He reads the message over and over, and it doesn’t make it any easier than the last. The pain washes over him again, and again, and each time it Is rejuvenated like varnish on an old piece of wood. Crystal clear quality, his own personal show of torment. He knows what it feels like, he wishes he could hug yeji, he wishes he didn’t need words to convey his heart to her, because lord, does she own half of it. He falls inadequately short every time he even tries to express himself, and he is awkward and uncaring, apathetic and rude, and his words will never account for or convey the true depths of his emotions. All of a sudden, images of a life without yeji cross his mind’s eye. Flashes of a funeral, black coats and dresses, flowers and rain. He pushes them aside, trying his best to stomp the thought out like snuffing out a candle flame with his fingers. They only move from distinct flashes to background flashes though, and in their place comes a new set of false memories, half based in truth. The skii accident yeji had gone through, years ago when hyunjin was still in the single digits. Their whole family thought they’d lose her that day, but miraculously she survived with plenty of stitches and scars to tell the tale. The images flip from his real memories to re-imaginings of the situation where yeji ended up not making it. The black void of his mind flashes between the memories, getting weaker and weaker each time until hyunjin opens his eyes back up. He hadn’t even realised when he’d closed them, but he needed to stop the thoughts from manifesting as complete threads, and instead think of a reply to yeji. His vision swims with black spots and he has to clutch the wall next to him to make sure he doesn’t black out completely. His insides have an ice burn with the way his fear frosts into his bloodstream. Breath after breath, his mind turns blanker and he feels himself slipping away from his body. He refuses to let it happen now, not when yeji needs him. No. He let her down already, by not keeping an eye on her, not letting her know that she is cherished and wanted and needed by him, that he loves her, that she has a home with him no matter how estranged the rest of their family becomes to them. No matter how much they’re ostracised. He gathers his phone with shaking fingers and begins to type a message back to her.
i dont know what to say... it hurts being
so far away that i cant see you in person
and talk to you
i know how it feels to struggle with
that and i really wish you didnt have to :(
Hyunjin tries to articulate himself concisely, but he doesn’t think anything he can say would come across how he wants it to. And he doesn’t want to burden yeji with his feelings when she’s already dealing with her own. He doesn’t know what he’s allowed to ask anymore, and it pains him that he feels that way with his own sister.
His twitching thumbs type out the next message and he hovers over the send button for two minutes before deciding, that he needs to know.
can i ask what pushed you to resort to that
Immediately guilt grips him by the throat, and so he needs to make his intentions clear. He needs to soften the blow of his question.
please remember that i am always
here for you to fall back on if you
feel like there's no one else that can
understand i may not be able to help
practically but i know i can understand
you and be here for you in other ways
don't worry about being the elder sibling
or whatever cuz i dont care, let me be
here for you
Can I call you tomorrow?
Hyunjin feels tears prickling up in his eyes, as he is reduced to the twelve year old trembling child hiding in yeji’s arms once again. He wishes he could be the one holding his sister now. Never has he felt the distance between them as much as he does now. He doesn’t know what to do, and so he turns to the one person he can expect no judgement from. He can’t turn to his parents for obvious reasons, just the mere thought of it makes spiders crawl up his throat. He can’t burden seungmin with this, he barely even knows yeji and he’s already busy helping hyunjin get his life together. He doesn’t have anyone else besides han, felix and minho, out of whom only han is a feasible option currently. Even then, han has just told him he’s busy, and even though han had technically heard about yeji a lot more back in the day, it still feels too personal of a secret to share with him. It feels sensitive, and him knowing already taints the secret. Yeji had told him not to tell anyone, and he unfortunately always keeps his word with yeji even if he was on his last dying breath. He can accept failing anyone in the world, but he can never fail yeji. And so he is conflicted on what to do with how heavily his heart weighs, and how the monster looming above him has returned but only stronger, more suffocating, more poisonous this time. He needs to tell someone, needs to have the weight taken off him even if just a gram of it, for just a second. He needs to feel human for just a second. And chan has always made him feel human. He doesn’t need to know it was yeji. Yeji doesn’t need to know he told chan, a total stranger to her. Her attempt may not be his story to tell, but his sorrow and hurt are, and he knows when to reach out and ask for help. He knows. Even if it hurts him, even if he feels a part of his soul wither with the mental betrayal to his sister, he has to keep himself breathing. He has to. For her.
Hey chan, I’m sorry to do this but
I just got some news and I really
need to vent to someone because
I just feel so… hollow..? And
confused…
Channie :]
Are you okay?
Go right ahead hyunjin, I’m here to listen
No, but I’m not the priority right now.
I’m sorry for this, it’s a dark topic
But I’ve been… in the deep end before,
and even with all those passive suicidal
thoughts i did not think of what i would
do or how it would feel like to have
someone i know actually attempt
Typing that out makes him realise how fucked up it must have been for his friends, for people around him, to go through that period of time with him. When he didn’t care whether he lived the next day, when he didn’t put himself into danger but also didn’t take himself out of it. He was so, so selfish.
But then he catches himself on that thought, he can’t call himself that. He doesn’t think of yeji as a selfish person. Not now, not ever. If yeji isn’t selfish, he isn’t selfish for wanting the same thing either. He just wishes he could prevent her from feeling that awful feeling.
i just felt cold shivers and now everything
feels so...distant and numb what am i
supposed to do even
thankfully they're okay but...
Hyunjin can’t fathom how yeji hadn’t thought of him, thought about her sibling back home. Did she not know that losing her would break him? Or had he not made it clear enough?
Channie :]
They're ok but it changes a lot and everything
is just... a lot now
i just, how do i even reach them like
how do i say what they need cuz
i dont KNOW why or how or even how
much leverage i have but i NEED to do
something even if they say theyre better
i dont even know how i would
get myself out of it so how am
i supposed to help i just want to
make sure they know im here
And I hate the fact that I had a
weird dream about losing them
a week ago. I hate it so much,
I don’t want this dreadful feeling
of premonition.
Channie :]
I’m so sorry hyune 🫂
I know it's probably overwhelming
and I can only imagine how bad it
must feel. Can you send them a message?
Just to let them know you care and are
here for them? I know you said you
don't even know how to approach.
But just a "I'm glad you're ok"?
i did
i need to talk to them on call but i
cant rn
ugh
Channie :]
You can set a time for them tomorrow?
So they know you mean it when you
say you want to talk?
Hyunjin doesn’t even get to see chan’s message in its entirety before his fingers carry him away, typing fast and focused. His eyes never leave the keypad, his hand shakes and trembles even more and his vision is narrowed to his phone screen.
i wish i could give them some of
my mental fortitude cuz idk how
else to help it sucks because i KNOW
how it feels and i dont have a solution.
im constantly in passive suicidal ideation,
it never went away so i dont KNOW how
to make it go away and i dont know how
to make ACTIVE suicidal ideation go
away which is worse cuz it feels like im
watching a ticking timebomb
Channie :]
Not gonna lie, I don't know if suicide
is a topic where, even with training,
people really know how to deal with
helping a close one. Especially if you're
close to the idealation yourself. I don't
think there's anything you can really
do like I know you want to other than
be there. I know that's probably frustrating for you
Channie :]
I've read many attempts happen really fast
from the moment someone decided to carry
on with the attempt even if there has been
previous idealation. Typically around
10 minutes. So I think one of the best things
you can do right now is make plans for the
Immediate future at least for a few days?
Like I'll call you tomorrow at XYZ. Or
something similar? I don't know if that helps at all?
im gonna try my best
i asked them if i could call tomorrow
if they dont reply ima just call anyway
i know people get hung up on the
"what if they had succeeded" when it comes
to these situations but ive always been, it
doesnt matter now cuz theyre here
now and they didnt succeed so think
of what to do next but i dont know
what to do next
Channie :]
I think that's a start
Before chan has the chance to type in further messages, hyunjin is already sending his frenzied texts, his body and mind completely manic with the need to scream and be heard.
i need to talk to them like really badly.
i know i will know what to say when
i hear why and their thoughts and i
know my experience wont go to
waste cuz ive done way too much
work on myself to let all that progress
go to waste i just need them to talk to me
it feels awful knowing they didnt
come to me before attempting
but i understand why...
Channie :]
Yeah I think a failed attempt is not
always so much a "what if" but
more a "I'm sorry you feel like that.
How do we not have it happen again?
What do you need help with"
Channie :]
I know you know this, but it's not your
fault you weren't able to prevent it.
And it's valid to be feeling a little
hopeless and desperate. Like I said,
I know you know, but just wanted
you to hear it, yeah? You're trying now.
Hyunjin releases a breath he wasn’t aware he was holding, and wipes away tears he hadn’t noticed had wet his cheeks. His eyes betray him and only spring up more tears. As his heart weeps at being acknowledged with what he needed to hear. Taking a mental step back, he realises he was so close to a spiral staircase.
yeah... yeah thank you for saying that
i think i was just starting to spiral
into 'i should have done better'
so thank you for stopping that
Channie :]
It's one of those: I know, but right now
my brain doesn't care.
Channie :]
If you need to panic go ahead, I'll be here,
but It's not your fault
i hope i have enough strength for the both of us
to find reasons to go on i really really hope
i can pull this off
Channie :]
Please take care of yourself as well.
I believe in you, I’m rooting for you
Thank you, chan, truly from the bottom of
my heart. I’m sorry again for springing
this onto you, it’s such a dark topic but
I had nowhere else to go.
Channie :]
Never apologise for something like this.
I’m always here if you need me
Get some rest now okay?
Yeah, I think I will actually.
Thank you again
Channie :]
Anytime<3
The tears and spiralling really broke him down to bare bones tired enough that his eyes slipped shut as soon as he read the last message from chan and he was out like a light.
Faded to grey
Seventeen dread filled, paranoid hours later comes her response.
Yeji
Yeah, in an hour if you’re free
Yeah! Yes, that works!
Hyunjin has never gotten out of bed and gotten ready faster in his life. His parents find it suspicious, and he couldn’t care less. He plans on going to a cafe, two blocks down from here, a place he found on google maps right before he sat down for his excuse of a breakfast. It’s in a corner away from all the main streets, perfect for his needs. His parents probably don’t know the place despite living here because they tend to go for the flashy places over the cozy ones, and they’re both really bad at spotting hole in the wall places, and he doubts he’ll get recognised in a random corner cafe.
“I’m going to meet a friend” is what he says when asked. “I don’t know how long I’ll be out, and my friend is planning where to go so don’t ask me” he adds, when pressed.
As he’s putting on his shoes and checking his bag for his charger and his mask, his mother rounds the corner with a spoon. Yoghurt and sugar, reminding him of when he was a stressed, sleep deprived student running late to his exams. He gives her a questioning look.
“Isn’t this for exams?”
“It’s for protection. Now open up, aaa”
“I don’t need-”
“Hyunjin-ah.”
Hyunjin sighs and obeys. He tunes out whatever else she has to say, and awkwardly goes through the hugs with both of his parents before bolting out the door in what he hopes is the least suspicious looking manner possible.
He walks in the opposite direction of the cafe first, to get rid of any stragglers. Looking like he’s waiting for a friend, or lost his way. Playing dumb. When he doesn’t feel the lingering eyes on him anymore, he finally runs to the cafe, hiding in the shadows of the trees. Moving like a serpent.
Once in the cafe, he orders a bagel before taking a seat. Opening his laptop, he immediately video calls yeji.
Her face fills the screen within ten seconds, between the evening grain and the grey of her hoodie.
“Yeji.” He breathes out in a relieved whisper, slightly horrified at the aspect of his subconscious being afraid of ever seeing her alive again. But mostly relieved. Mostly happy. He smiles.
She looks okay. She’s certainly tired, and it shows in the dirt brown irises of hers, devoid of her usual spark, and underlined by heavy bags of an autumn once lost. But she looks okay. Alive. Well. Breathing.
Hyunjin has missed her face so much.
“I missed you. Seeing you, too.”
She laughs. “Yeah, it’s been a while.” Hyunjin’s whole world lights up warm. Her voice is a warm cup of tea in the middle of a rainstorm. Crackling and distinct, but comforting in a way he can’t explain. God, he really missed her. He needs to keep her.
“It’s nice to see you smile, noona” he says, unable to stop, his heart dictating his words. There’s no point in holding back now, is there? Not when he knows one day he could lose yeji, in the blink of an eye while he’s blissfully unaware of her suffering, too caught up in his own whirlwinds and tornadoes to notice his own sister calling out for help. He’d rather have her know he tried, he loves her, and oh, how he cherishes her.
She just smiles wider, knowingly, pained. His heart cracks a little.
“So, I’m uh. At a cafe. I got myself a bagel, but I don’t know what drink to get. Do you wanna choose for me?”
“Oh, sure!” she perks up, coming closer to the screen to look at the menu hyunjin holds up for her, and liquid gold seeps into hyunjin’s cracked heart and solidifies it anew. He rattles off the pieces on the menu she can’t see, before realising he’s listing off half of it because his shitty mobile data hotspot is dying on him already, and he asks the barista for the free wifi connection.
Once on a [slightly] better connection, his breath gets taken away once again at just seeing his sister exist in her own space. Her hair frames her small face, and she has the ugly double chin she doesn’t bother hiding with him as she looks down towards her camera, and she never got rid of the habit of fidgeting, just like him. Always playing with her rings, or biting the skin of her nailbed, or shaking her legs enough so the camera shakes along with, before realising what she’s doing and going back to fidgeting with her fingers instead. She’s so yeji. She’s so alive.
She asks him how the weather is, to decide the perfect temperature of a drink to get. It is cold outside, as fall turns to winter and the air goes crisp, and she debates between giving him a hot chocolate or a frappé to make him suffer. At the end of the day, she will always remain his insufferable sister, and always find new ways to make hid life mildly inconvenient, and use the power he bestowed upon her to teach him a lesson to never trust her again. He trusts her with his life.
He orders the frappé right as the barista brings his bagel to him.
“So,” he says evenly, finally breaching the topic he has been carefully avoiding so far. “What happened?”
Yeji sighs. “Before I say anything, I’m fine now”
“I know, but I want to know what happened.”
Yeji shifts the camera so she can sit more comfortably, leaning her back on a pillow, and he can still see her. “Just, a lot of things going wrong at once.”
“Hm, go on, I’m listening. I have time. I came out here for this reason, so we could talk without our parents listening in. And I can stay until whenever, I don’t exactly have a job right now” he laughs deprecatingly, “so I’m all ears.”
“Right. Hope you’re okay, too, you know?”
“Yes, I’ll update you about me and my ‘tragic’ life in a bit, I want to hear you though. Please, go on. I’m here to listen.”
“Okay… it’s just,” she sighs again, clearly struggling to let go of the image of a snot nosed tear stained ten year old hyunjin clinging to her and following her everywhere as everything in the world was big, bad, and scary. Hyunjin was a big boy, now. He had sturdy shoulders and was taller than yeji, and he could carry her pain just as well as he carried his own, and he knows in yeji’s eyes he will never be anything other than her younger brother.
“Things started to feel like there was no fixing them, like they wouldn’t get better at all. They kept getting worse, and at some point it didn’t seem worth it anymore.”
“I lost my job, my research paper was rejected, I lost my housing so now I’m couch surfing and staying with friends until I can find a new place, and ryujin… ryujin wants a divorce. Or, well, she wants a ‘temporary separation slash break’, but it is definitely heading towards divorce than getting back together. And there’s these dark bands on the underside of my nails, near the tip of my finger. I need to get that checked with the doctor, make sure they’re not cancerous.”
“Oh, yeji-noona. I’m so sorry, that is definitely… a series of very unfortunate events. I’m glad you’re still here.”
“Yeah, my friend found me and well… here I am.” He wants to ask, so badly. He wants to know how she tried, so he can imagine more accurately her pain and the what ifs in case she didn’t make it. Did she overdose on pills? Was there an empty bottle in her hand as she convulsed on the floor, and she was rushed to the hospital? Did she slit her wrists and lie in a puddle of her own blood until her friend found her? Did she try jumping off a high place, only to suffer broken bones as her body refused to let her die?
But he doesn’t. Because it’ll only serve to hurt him more.
“I’m glad, you know? I’m really sorry things felt that hopeless, that you were driven to that extreme… but I’m glad you’re here. I love you. You are more important to me than you even know. I am only the person I am today because of you, noona.”
“I wish I could do more for you, hyunjinnie. Everyday I think of you and miss you, you have no idea. I talk about you to everyone I know. Ryujin knew you as her own brother almost. I wish I could have been a better sister to you.”
“Yeji, you are the best sister I could have ever asked for. When you were back here, and now. I mean it, breathing is easier for me knowing that I will always have you looking out for me, even from afar.”
“It’s just… survivor’s guilt, I guess. I feel awful I left you there, abandoned to fend for yourself and deal with them.”
“It’s not your fault, never was. The adults in our lives failed us, and I’ll never expect you to take the blame, you know? You were struggling too, you had to fend for yourself too. And still, you took care of me. You made sure I didn’t end up in the wrong hands, you showed me I could live even under such conditions. You didn’t abandon me, you did everything in your power to make sure I was safe, and I saw it then and I see it now. You are the only good thing in this family for me.”
“You too, hyunjinnie. You’re the only one in this family I care about.” A tiny smile graces her face. “You’re really mature for your age, you know. I never thought like this when I was your age.”
Hyunjin laughs. “I’m twenty-four, ye. I’ve had plenty of time for introspection.”
“Still, I was trying to get my hands on the cheapest booze to get through my day at that age and avoiding my friends.”
Hyunjin chuckles bitterly. “I am avoiding mine, too.”
Yeji narrows her eyes, perceptive in that oh so very big sister way of hers. “Why? Having trouble?”
Hyunjin sighs. “Kinda. It just overwhelms me how much they expect from me, you know? Always expecting me to reach out to them when they don’t reach out to me, and when they do, they’re… not really considerate about my situation? And feelings? I try not to burden them with it, but that doesn’t mean I’m not troubled by my own issues. It’s not like I’m silent about it, they’ve known me for years now, they know how it is back home. But… they just… I don’t know. I feel like I’m always in a transition period of sorts, where nothing is constant”
he’s thinking about felix, and minho, and to a certain extent han. He’s thinking of felix’s constant texting and checking up on him, putting him back into that toxic headspace of jealousy and offering him a return to his worst nightmare on a whim. He’s thinking of minho’s attitude when hyunjin doesn’t text back in the exact wording he wants to hear, when hyunjin is nothing like a sweet little doll replica of minho for minho to get his validation out of and then leave used on the sidewalk until next time. He’s thinking of han always being so far away for hyunjin to ever reach when he is the only one hyunjin wants to hear from.
“Hmm. Well, how many of them do you see staying in your life five years from now?”
Hyunjin bursts into a surprised cackle, the unexpected bluntness of his sister catching him off guard. “I- yeji!”
“What? It’s how life is. How many of your childhood friends do you still talk to consistently?”
“None…”
“See? If they cared, they’d understand and give you time. And you are in a transition period, you’re looking for jobs and a new place to stay, aren’t you?” hyunjin feels inexplicable warmth at someone finally keeping in mind his own situation, despite yeji having so much shit to deal with of her own. “If they don’t look at how you’re doing things that keep you busy that’s good for your own future and expect you to drop everything for them, I say you cut them off. Or at least, leave them be. Do what’s good for you, hyunjin. You’re the one who matters at the end of the day, take care of yourself first. Friends will come and go. The people who choose to stick by you when you are trying to better yourself are the real friends you must keep. The rest can fall away on their own, you don’t even have to do anything.”
“I guess you’re right… but I’m also to blame sorta…” he takes a bite of his bagel before continuing, giving himself time to gather his words. “I feel like my life is so boring in comparison, you know? Hannie and lix have all these big stages they go on, they’re proper idols now. And minho is a way better dancer than I’ll ever be. And I don’t really keep in touch with my colleagues from the industry. I don’t go out of the house unless it’s for work, and my only form of contact with the outside world is that and seungmin… I feel like, even if I did reach out, I’d have nothing worthwhile to tell them. To update them about my life, I mean. It’s all so boring.”
“Are you only eating a bagel?”
“Hm ? There’s chips with it, but yeah”
“You should eat healthy. I can send you the money if you don’t have enough to buy good groceries.”
Hyunjin laughs, “ye, I have enough money of my own. I should be the one offering you. Do you need any? Besides, it’s not the money. I just can’t care enough to set aside a time to plan what I’m going to eat during the day. Seungmin takes care of where I have lunch when I have work outside, and that’s pretty much it. I can’t gain weight for work anyway.”
“No no, I don’t need money hyunjin. I can send you meal plans that are easy to follow, though. You really should start taking care of your body at your age, you’ll be glad you did in the future when your bones aren’t weak and frail.”
“Hmm, I’ll think about it.”
“But anyway, you are doing a lot more and are way more conscious about yourself and the people around you than I was. Even more than people I know who are my age, actually. You are doing well, keep going okay? Your hard work will show up in your success. It just takes a while to get there. I believe in you. If there’s anyone I believe can do what they dream of doing, it’s you.”
Hyunjin presses his lips together, bitterly. “Yeah, well I wanted to be an idol but that didn’t work out.”
“You’ll find your way. Not everything is meant for everyone. You have a chance now, jinnie. You can pursue what your heart desires, and I know you can do it if you really want it with your whole being. Whatever it is, whatever you feel a calling to, follow it. Don’t do something others push you into only to regret it years down the line, it’s not worth it. Life is short.”
“Yeah, it is, isn’t it.” He didn’t mean his wistful whisper to be pointed, but the look in yeji’s eyes is sombre.
“It is. Make the most of it, yeah?”
“Mhm. I’ll try. So where are you right now?”
“At a friend’s place. They know about you, actually. I was playing a game with them and ran away to accept your call.”
“You left your friends for me?”
“Of course, you’re important hyunjin-ah. What a silly question. It’s not everyday I get to talk to my baby brother.”
Hyunjin shares a moment with her, just smiling warmly and appreciating each other’s presence in their lives. Hyunjin is so glad to have her back, smiling, not a lost concept in his mind, not a forgotten memory anymore. He was starting to forget her voice. He is going to memorise it, today.
He catches her up on his life, she tells him about her new dance, her new commitments, her therapy session and how she’s doing a lot better. They talk for hours, talk about new shows and anime they are currently watching, new game releases they heard about, the books hyunjin has waiting in his audible library that he hasn’t touched in months, and he tells her about the silly things he sees online and their parents’ new interests.
“She’s not given that up, has she?”
“What, the religious talk? No, but I haven’t had to hear it in the past week of being home, so she’s at least reduced it”
“That’s a surprise,” yeji looks genuinely surprised at their mother’s lack of preaching. “She’s always shoved it down my throat. Her behaviour is almost cult-like.”
“Hm, yeah I know. She almost had me joining some of those rituals too.”
“Geez. Be careful, yeah? I know you like still holding onto some form of faith for comfort, but it is a dangerous line.”
“Yeah… honestly I’ve lost my rose tinted glasses on that with time. I’ve just… been through so much, that I feel like if there was a god out there they’d be a cruel one. And that thought is scarier than not having anyone looking out for me. And also, I always hated the notion of having my destiny predetermined for me. I want autonomy over my own life, you know?”
“Hmm I see. That’s an interesting take, I didn’t expect that coming from you. But you’re right, at least, in my perspective.”
“Yeah I know you’re a staunch atheist” hyunjin giggles. “I honestly just think the gods are stand-ins for things that we humans can’t control, in a universe that doesn’t care and people who do.”
Yeji nods, her hair slipping out from behind her ear and settling on her cheek. She looks wise, well beyond her own years, tired and experienced all in one. “Yeah… it’s always been our fear of the unknown… people who keep faith… I think they’d break by the thought of them being all alone in this world with nothing that’s looking out for them. They can’t accept that we aren’t special, that we just happened by chance. A product of statistics, really.”
She seems to be hesitating, looking away from the screen to debate whether she wants to say whatever she has in mind. Hyunjin just waits, letting her take the silence as she pleases, not pressuring her to share but leaving his presence be a reminder that he’s here to listen.
“But I’m a hypocrite, in that sense. I used to be excited, about the universe. Remember our telescope?” hyunjin remembers. It is one of the things he lost, in one of the many moves. It is one of the things he mourns most. All the precious memories he had attached to it, especially with his sister, as they gazed at the beautiful night sky on nights when they didn’t have the weight of it on their shoulders. When they could look up and see light, instead of the unending bouts of darkness. “We loved watching interstellar. We loved the martian, and even educational documentaries. Mom used to laugh at us getting excited about watching a documentary instead of spending our friday nights outside. But it was fun, and I loved it so much, the universe intrigued me. But… the more I grow, the more I realise none of it matters, and I am left less excited about the universe and more horrified by my inability to affect it…”
“Hm…” hyunjin ponders how to reply to that. His heart screams out to him, tell her she matters, but he knows those words will hold no weight. They will fall like blunt darts that don’t stick to their target. He needs to hit bullseye, and he has one chance to do it.
“But you know… I think that’s the beautiful part. The universe doesn’t care about us, but we are here to witness it. And we share this experience. Why care about whether you matter to the universe, in the grand scheme of things when you know we don’t? We matter to each other, and people around us. As long as we are here, I think giving each other our all, being true to ourselves and offering kindness is all that matters. The universe won’t remember you, ye. But I will. People who love you will.”
Yeji smiles, a full proud smile for the first time in that whole conversation. “When did you get all grown up, hm?”
Hyunjin feels his cheeks heat up. “Oh shush, one of us have to have all the wisdom. Clearly it’s me.”
Yeji snorts. It’s an ugly sound, and it’s music to hyunjin’s ears. There’s his sister. He was afraid he lost her, for a while. “You wish, froggie.”
“Will you stop calling me froggie!”
Returned to the earth
Hey, I just wanted to update you,
I talked to the person on call. It went
well! They’re looking healthy and
better, and we made plans to call
weekly so I can keep a check on them sorta,
you know?
Anyway, thank you so much for
yesterday and hearing me out as
well as comforting me.
It means a lot.
Channie :]
Oh I’m so glad they and you are okay!
Don’t mention it, I’m here anytime.
Minnie, there’s a week and a half of
november left.
We’re not having luck finding a good
place but I don’t want to pay another
month of rent in the old place when I don’t even
stay there…
I’ll either go back, or we need to get
all my stuff here.
Seungmin
No, you’re not going back there hyune
I don’t trust their security at all.
Did you talk to changbin’s mother?
She’s been busy this week. Her only
opening is in two weeks, or she invited
me to like… their place. For dinner.
But I said I want to pay her properly,
and not you know… intrude in their space,
when I’m practically a stranger. She only
invited me cuz apparently binnie’s been a
huge fan for years and idk it just feels a
little too much a little too soon.
Seungmin
I can see that.
So I can come help you pick up your stuff
tomorrow or whenever you want to then.
Hm I’ll ask chan when he’s coming here to
fix the clock, and we can get the stuff after that.
Cuz I don’t want the place to be a mess and
I can’t be bothered packing and unpacking
stuff when I’ll eventually move again,
so I don’t want guests to see just a pile of boxes.
Seungmin
Okay, just let me know.
Okay, thank you! Hope you’re doing well,
I know it’s a stressful time for you, too.
Seungmin
I like looking after you, so don’t worry.
Even if I’m stressed it calms me to have
something to do and take care of so you’re
not adding to my plate, if anything you’re helping.
You’re really important to me.
Thank you<3
Seungmin
:) Of course.
<3
Changbin
Sorry did I spam too much?
Oh, no sorry! I didn’t see your texts
I just had a lot to do today
Changbin
No worries
Lmk if its too much, okay?
I’ll try not to spam lol
No no you can it’s okay I don’t mind
I just get caught up doing other stuff
Yk parents my sister yk how it is
Changbin
Yeah, I get it!
Take your time no worries ❤️
Hi channie, sorry for bothering you again w
this but does next week work for the clock?
Channie :]
Don’t apologise!
Yes the theatre should wrap up like by
the end of this week, I can come visit as
soon as monday to take a look at your clock!
Sweet, thank you. I’ll send you the
location a day before okay?
Channie :]
Yep yep, that’s perfect.
Yes, it’s meant to be
A week goes by in a blur. Hyunjin spends most of his time answering more texts, looking at more flats only to be left disappointed [ugh, househunting. The bane of his existence, right after job hunting], and avoiding most conversations with his parents. There is however a simmering feeling in his stomach, a coil of dread wrapped around the squishy organ, screaming at him that something is wrong.
He’s been ignoring something for far too long and it will soon bring his world crashing down around him, but he cannot for the life of him figure out what exactly it is or what he needs to do to fix it. So he ignores it and goes about his day, while it slowly constricts his stomach day by day, enough to have the bile rise up to his throat every time he tries to sleep.
But chan is literally five minutes away, and he cannot deal with that sinking feeling right now anyway. Despite the tension in the house between him and his parents, he plasters on a gentle face, a demeanour of calm and a tight smile as he greets the clockworker at the door.
“Hi, come in! The place is a little messy, courtesy of me, sorry about that.”
“Don’t worry about it!” chan has his usual dimple etched into his cheek, his curls fall freely over his eyes, and he sees the exhaustion from the two weeks of rigorous theatre work but also the satisfaction of a job well done on his face. He knows all about how the play went, has spoken to chan through each day either through texts or a phone call near the end of the night where they both stay silent, just two souls seeking company and finding it in each other.
And yet, hyunjin feels once again like a fish out of the pond, when faced with chan in real life. It feels… oddly uncanny. To see him outside the confines of skyfall and the railroad. To see him in hyunjin’s territory- well, not exactly territory, but in hyunjin’s sphere of life. He absolutely does not belong. And hyunjin loves it. As much as it puts him on edge.
He knows his parents are eyeing the bike chan has left in their porch, and the leather jacket, and the tattoos and piercings. He knows his mother is going to have a snide comment or ten about it when he’s gone, or if she’s shameless enough, right in front of chan.
Hyunjin briefly introduces chan to them, stating in no uncertain terms that he is a friend, the undertone of ‘you better not disrespect him’ clear as day to him but probably bouncing off his parents’ heads, knowing them.
Either ways. Him and chan are currently in the corridor, in front of the clock. His dad is somewhere in the living room, and his mom is in the kitchen, making tea despite both hyunjin and chan denying the offer. He knows they’ll probably eavesdrop, so he’s being careful with what he says.
Even without the need to be careful, the mystique that surrounds chan suddenly finds its way back into hyunjin’s lungs, and he breathes anew as if he was missing oxygen for the last couple of weeks. When he stares at the large expanse of chan’s back, slumped over as he crouches in front of the big clock, setting up his tools, he feels the prickle of uncertainty jab at him again.
Should he speak? It was so easy, to talk to chan and spill his guts over text. But now, with chan two feet in front of him, the very notion of putting his voice between them for words as useless as him, thoughtlessly and carelessly conjured up by his racing mind, makes him want to stitch his mouth shut.
The golden rays of sunset peek in and illuminate the corridor, casting a beautiful glow around them. But hyunjin feels as cold and blue as the day on the railroad, a feeling just as foreign and alien engulfing him as he watches chan tinker with his tools, moving so effortlessly smooth. So all-knowing, so wise. So capable. All things hyunjin never knew how it felt to embody.
He wonders, not for the first time, how it must be to live as chan. Sure, he knows glimpses of his life through their shared texts, and knows the person behind the shady skyfall worker label in his head. But part of him still feels like chan is an enigma, a mystery he can’t solve, a case he can’t crack. No matter how bubbly and full of care chan seems for people and objects around him, he has this air of… loneliness. Surrounding him, and it’s so thick and blankets him so completely, that even hyunjin who stands two feet away is suffocated by it.
There’s a story, in there. There’s a reason chan works the way he works, moves the way he moves, breathes the way he breathes. There’s a story behind his tattoos and piercings, and a reason his heart keeps beating. Hyunjin recognises one of his kin, he knows the look of desperation, of perpetual loneliness and forced acceptance. He knows the look of a young boy forced to grow up far too soon, he knows the weight of family falling on one’s shoulders.
And he wants so badly to get to know it himself. He is curious to the point of hanging off the cliff if it meant his answers were at the foot of it. He craves the answers, given to him in the distinct voice of chan and not through text. But texts feel easier, more open. But over text he gets bubbly chan.
God, this is confusing.
He has an intrinsic desire to know, to understand. It is a selfish thing, because he seeks no responsibility of it afterwards. He wants to know just to know, just to fulfil his curiosity. He doesn’t want the consequences or the expectations that come along with knowledge, because he can barely keep himself up. He doesn’t want to be expected to remember, change, adapt to this new information. He wants things to stay as they are, only with him knowing everything that lies between.
He can’t ask, he can’t reach out and touch, because he fears he’ll break himself if he does. He’s barely scraping by himself, keeping his broken parts close in an attempt to seem whole, trembling hands fearing where the next slip will be, where the next fall will be, where the next hit will be. He doesn’t know if he can handle another person’s loneliness on top of his own.
That’s the thing with loneliness, too, isn’t it? Stacking it up doesn’t negate it. It doesn’t double it either. It just makes a distinct space for it, makes one aware it exists, and then it refuses to meld together into one big pot of melancholy. Instead it takes up space, exists separately, uses energy to keep itself separate. One cannot exist in another’s loneliness in hopes of it going away. Even if you join it, you are a whole separate entity. It is invincible, and you must live with it.
Hyunjin can barely live with his own.
“Did you know these weren’t always called grandfather clocks?”
Chan breaks the silence stretching between them, with a perfectly quiet, perfectly smooth voice. How he manages to read the room so accurately, hyunjin doesn’t know, but he’s not only done that but also managed to get a verbal response out of hyunjin immediately. Shortened the pathway between his brain and his mouth in an instant.
“Huh? Really?”
Chan doesn’t look back, focused entirely on unlocking the glass door to the base of it. [Hyunjin is sure there are names for each part, but hyunjin is also not a clock expert. Or bothered enough to look it up beforehand, which he now slightly regrets]
“Mhm. They were originally called longcase clocks. Yanno, for how long they are” chan huffs through his nose, and hyunjin guesses that is basically the equivalent to a giggle when he’s this concentrated on his work. He opens the glass door, and whistles lowly when he sees what’s inside.
“Whew. Lots of debris, this hasn’t been cleaned for a while, I assume?”
Hyunjin burns with shame. “Y-yeah um… I guess nobody thought to clean the inside between all the moving…”
“It’s more common than you think, don’t worry. People tend to clean the outside and forget about the inside. But cleaning out debris is important, just as much as oiling the gears and taking care of the pendulum and weights.”
“Right, right” hyunjin nods, the gravity of chan’s statement entirely escaping him. He still pretends he gets it, though.
As chan gets to cleaning out the ‘debris’, hyunjin stays frozen to his spot behind him. He continues his explanation, because apparently he wasn’t done. “It got the name because of a song, actually. It was called ‘grandfather’s clock’, written in 1876 I believe, and it’s sung from the perspective of a grandchild talking about his grandfather’s clock. Hence the name.”
“It’s a pretty good song to remember what to do with your clock, actually” he chuckles as he grabs something from his toolkit, something that hyunjin doesn’t pay attention to as he is immersed completely in the story and chan’s voice. “The clock was purchased exactly when the grandfather was born, and it worked perfectly for ninety years, requiring only that it had to be wound every week. That’s basically it, a weekly maintenance is enough, and probably a bi-monthly cleaning. And these babies will run like they’re new.”
Hyunjin hums thoughtfully, he’s sure his mom can add it to her cleaning routine if he informs her about it.
“The clock almost had a mind of its own…” chan’s head is practically halfway into the case, as he tinkers with the weights and [hyunjin guesses] fixes the pendulum length, and his voice comes out gritty and with a slight wooden echo. He is less excitedly rambling now, and more narrating a story with pauses, intonation, and a documentary style tone. “It knew when there were good things happening in the house, it knew when there were bad things happening in the house… and most importantly, it stopped working exactly the day that the grandfather died.”
“That’s… a little creepy.” Hyunjin blurts out, unable to form any other thought, and as the sunrays go dimmer, and chan’s back grows wider as he pulls his head out of the casing, he feels like a prey again. The railroad is so far away, but he can hear the wheels on the tracks. They sound like chan’s laughter.
“I guess, but it’s logical it would stop working after the caretaker dies” he laughs again. “But it could also be creepy, as you said, because it should have still run for, at most, a week after that. But well… I guess the clock knew its owner and wanted to leave with him. It’s kinda sweet.”
“You said he had the clock his whole life?” hyunjin asks.
“Mhm. Birth to death. The clock saw him marrying his wife, and bringing in kids and grandkids into the world. It saw everything. I think that’s sweet.”
Hyunjin hums, thinking distantly about how he’s known the clock since his birth, but it hasn’t stayed with him. Maybe he should take it with him, maybe he can give it a new life. Maybe it can be his companion on cold lonely nights.
“I’ve heard more horror stories about clocks than sweet ones…”
“Like what?”
“Oh, I don’t exactly remember… there was some show on the tv I watched as a child, it had this grandfather clock that ticked past midnight and onto the 13 th hour, and it would open up a portal in its… glass case. I don’t remember the rest of it, but I can guess the portal lead to demons or something. And oh, there was another one where there was this clown doll hanging from the clock instead of a pendulum and anyone who saw it….. Something bad happened, I don’t remember again” hyunjin laughs nervously. “You know, all these horror stories basically are the same. Something bad happens, you die, you get tortured. I only remember the creepy parts before the torture.”
Chan’s laugh and lack of further response only make hyunjin even more antsy, with a need to prove himself for some reason. He doesn’t even know what he’s proving.
“And I mean, there’s always the case of clocks ticking without being wound or without a battery. That one is creepy, it plays too much into my paranoia. It has kept me up countless nights when I thought I could hear ticking in a room where I didn’t even have a clock.”
Chan stands up, seemingly done with his work in the time hyunjin was rambling, and he turns around to face him. The sun has set, and theres about a handful of minutes before his mother turns on the tubelights, but in the darkness, he can see the bottomless pits of chan’s eyes. It’s a mirror that doesn’t reflect. The air is dry, and the sounds of the kitchen and the tv filter out to white noise as his world is once again, reduced to chan.
His body has a fight or flight instinct dedicated to chan, but he can’t figure out what it is. Chan can pull him out of his escapism bubble, make hims see reality in high definition, but at the same time chan drowns out everything else in his line of sight. He is his salvation, but he comes in the form of a drug. Hyunjin is scared, he will get addicted.
“So you like the prospect of something horrifying, some big terror looming just beyond the horizon, more than you like the horror itself?”
Hyunjin blinks. “I… I guess I do…?”
“You like the thrill. The kickstart of adrenaline that fear brings, and you like letting your imagination run wild, because nothing real would ever compare to the horrors of the mind.”
Once again, he has read hyunjin like a book. He doesn’t know if he should close himself or let chan find out the ending.
Thankfully, his mother interrupts them with a tray of tea and biscuits.
“Oh, you’re done already channie?”
“Yes ma’am. I’ll be on my way now.”
“Oh, no! Please have tea, and it’s late too, have you had food?”
“No ma’am.”
“Stop it with the ma’am, you can just call me auntie or miss hwang.”
“Oh, okay, thank you for asking auntie, but I’ll eat on my way home.”
“Nonsense, please stay for dinner. I’ll have the food ready in a bit, until then you can go with hyunjin to his room, okay?”
Without giving him a chance to protest, she shoves the tray into hyunjin’s hands with a pointed look, and then subtly pushes chan to follow him. Hyunjin obediently takes chan to the guest room he has been occupying.
Uncertain flame of hope I found
“It’s more messy than the rest of the house, sorry.” Hyunjin says as he sets down the tray on his desk, passing a cup of tea to chan.
“Nah nah, that’s the charm of it. It adds personality. Thank you.” Chan takes the teacup, blowing on it before turning his attention to the pictures and trophies in the room.
“Is that you? And… your sister?” he points at a picture in a glass frame, one of him sitting on yeji’s lap as a baby while she wears sunglasses that are way too big for her tiny toddler head.
Hyunjin snorts. “Yes. She’s always been a dumbass.”
Chan laughs, sipping his tea and looking at all the other childhood pictures hyunjin’s parents keep displayed for some reason before speaking again, “it’s cute. You were a cute baby.”
“I was chubby. And I hated walking, I always made someone carry me.”
Chan’s smile is warm, and if he was the embodiment of the cold railroad at the corridor outside, right now he feels as warm as the lights in skyfall.
“Can I keep this one? It’s so cute!” he points at a picture of baby hyunjin alone on a sofa, surrounded by two of his uncle’s puppies, pure white balls of fluff. Hyunjin has a wide, dimpled smile in it, and even hyunjin must admit it’s cute. But he’s a little shocked at chan wanting to keep the picture. He barely knows hyunjin, and it’s… a little weird…
But hyunjin bends over backwards to never inconvenience or disappoint people, so even if his mind is blaring alarms at him his answer is a hesitant “sure… if you want to… I don’t know why you’d want to keep that… oh, but not that one. There’s a copy in an album somewhere, I’ll get you that one instead.”
How that hesitant acceptance to chan’s request devolved into him telling chan his embarrassing childhood stories and the scar yeji gave him on his foot, while chan giggled and cooed over the album of his baby pictures, he doesn’t know. They lose track of time until hyunjin’s mom finds them again and calls them back out for dinner.
Will you lead me back on the right track?
There’s rice and kimchi stew, with a side of home cooked meat waiting for them at the table. Hyunjin goes along with it, pretending that they always eat at the table and not that tonight is an odd instance, just because of their guest.
The undercurrent of tension between him and his parents never went away, and hyunjin tries his best to bury it beneath him on the floorboards and ignore any pointed looks they shoot at chan’s tattoos and piercings once again. Especially more now that he has removed his leather jacket and they are in the open.
Chan is a charmer, it seems. His parents, despite their prejudices, are already warming up to his talkative kindness and his extensive knowledge on random things they mention. He compliments hyunjin’s mother’s cooking, and makes sure to finish his plate and ask for seconds, like the good son that they wish hyunjin was. Hyunjin still moves around his meat on his plate.
Hyunjin feels it, though. He feels the lonely cloud surrounding chan shape itself into spikes and stab his heart repeatedly. This feels so polished, so fake. He’s already feeling nauseous, he can’t eat more.
And then the conversation shifts to careers, and while he is all in favour of chan speaking about his dreams and what he does, when he starts talking about skyfall a part of hyunjin wants to lash out and shut him up, like chan was opening the door to his heart in front of people hyunjin didn’t want to have access to. He needed to shut the door, and lock it with chains. Skyfall was his, it was his haven, it was his resting spot. His parents did not need to know about it.
But he stays quiet, letting chan play his role to a T. And then when the conversation inevitably shifts to hyunjin, and his miserable pathetic life, he really tries to keep his claws to himself. He does pretty well, going through the topic of what happened, how he lost his job, what he is doing now [nothing] and how the house hunting and job hunting is going. He even sits through his parents boasting about him once again, as if his rotten career is anything to hold a torch to.
He tries to keep it in, he really does. He hates humiliating himself in front of people.
“You can try! Why are you limiting yourself? You can do anything. You can do everything, I know you can! Why do you keep pushing yourself down? You’re the only one in your way. You could be doing so much, hyunjin!” But his parents always knew what buttons to push to provoke his worst reactions. “You think I haven’t tried? You think I was just sitting prettily on my ass and clicking pictures all these years?” he snaps. “You could easily get into dancing! You have such a good voice too, just get in a studio and make a little demo. You could even get into acting! You used to do those little commercials, right? Why not just audition!” his mom and his dad ping pong the conversation between them, both adding fuel to the burning forest fire that is hyunjin’s rage. “You really think it’s that simple, huh? Why do you think I didn’t make it despite training two years in jype? I’m simply not cut out for it. The professional dance world is cutthroat, even moreso the music industry. They’re not going to want some washed up model who hasn’t trained in any form of dance. This is all your fault.” “Hyunjin-ah, you are not ‘washed up’. You have talent, you’re just wasting it. Look at how much you could be doing, instead of sitting on your ass at home? Look at channie, he produces music for his theatre! Why don’t you look into dancing somewhere again? You can even get another agency to sign you immediately, you have so much in your portfolio, what are you waiting for?” his mother uselessly adds.“I know someone who can get you back into it, if you send me your portfolio. You are so miserable lying at home doing nothing, you don’t even go walk and exercise. Look at you.” His father chimes unhelpfully. The string snaps, the tension was too high and now he sounds like a broken violin as he screeches louder than the chair screeching against the floor as he stands. “ You are the reason I’m stuck, I’m miserable because of you. You made me this way. I wouldn’t be here if you both weren’t absolutely useless. You think I wanted to have people call me a whore? You think I wanted to be hated by half the country? You think I wanted a stalker to hurt me? You think I really wanted people to think I sell my body for a living, constantly have people come onto me thinking I slept my way to the top?”
“No. This is all your fault. I wanted to dance. I wanted to paint. I wanted to show people my art. But neither of you could be the breadwinners at your big age, and all I have now is my body. Now you want to take that away from me ? You don’t get to tell me what I can and can’t do, not anymore. I moved out because you are like this. You don’t get it. I never had a choice. And now that I do, you want to take that away from me too? No. I’m gonna stay exactly where I am, I’m gonna be miserable, and I’m gonna make you witness every second of every misery I have because you deserve to know that you put me here. Yeah. Let that thought torment you as much as your decision torments me.”
This is not what he wants. He doesn’t want to stay miserable, he doesn’t even want his parents to see him. He doesn’t want to wither and rot in his tragic sadness, he doesn’t want to let the demons win. But he is spiteful, and he is petty, and the rage that had been brewing underneath his skin all this time, all these years, has finally reached its peak. He is fed up and he has less of a point to prove and more of a desire to watch the people that made him suffer, suffer along with him. Even at the cost of his own well being.
He knows the route is a slippery slope straight to hell, but if the demons want him so bad, they can have him. He will rule them. He will command them, taking the throne like they had been begging him to, but only he will be their tyrant not their king. They will know no peace.
He storms out of the kitchen, out of the hall, straight out the main door and out the gate. His plate left half empty, his phone in his pocket but everything else back in his room, and nothing else on him except the weight of his anger. He doesn’t even care anymore that chan was witness to it all. He can simply never see chan again, forget that skyfall ever existed, and go on his merry way of making his parents miserable by being a useless child himself.
He doesn’t know how far he walks, but not long after there’s a pair of headlights next to him. He stops in his tracks, turning his head to see the leather clad man remove his helmet while his thighs stretch to keep him balanced on his bike.
“Hyunjin,” chan states, devoid of any judgement. “There’s a helmet in the back, take it and get on.” He lifts his other hand, showing him his own bag, the one he carried to his parents’ place, the same one he carries to skyfall. “I got some stuff I thought you might need.”
Hyunjin doesn’t move. His face is calm and stony, but his mind is a storm of emotions.
“Where would we go?”
“I’ll take you out of here, even if just for a little bit. Come on, let’s go.”
Hyunjin, for once, tired and spent with rage… takes the hand offered to him.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Chan’s bike was sleek. Black, like his leather jacket. And his jeans, and his helmet, and his gloves. Hyunjin thinks he probably looks like a shadow, a creature born from the dark. A grim reaper or a necromancer, if he wanted to be stereotypical. He would perfectly blend into the shade of the concrete infrastructure of seoul, occasionally overcast by leaves of the few remaining trees, if it weren’t for hyunjin sitting on the slightly elevated back of his bike, with his grey sweats and white tee, standing out like a firefly on a raven’s back. He had the muted navy blue puffer jacket chan had so kindly picked up for him from his parents’ place, but even that was too bright compared to the living void in front of him. He doesn’t usually get on bikes.He’s certain the last time was with yeji, on her white and red model that had a similar silhouette as chan’s but a lot less smooth. She was well loved and had the scratches to prove it. Hyunjin loved letting yeji take him to whatever place her heart desired while he let the wind whip his hair as he looked up. It usually landed them in a dead end, and they’d laugh and giggle all the way back home. It was simple, back then. Freedom was at the tip of his fingers for those few minutes.Now, he looks up and instead of seeing sun rays breaching through branches, he sees a dark sky with barely visible stars. His head is covered by a helmet, so his hair sticks uncomfortably to the back of his neck. And his heart has lost touch with its free spirit years ago. It sits heavily in his chest, straining his diaphragm with a weight it wasn’t meant to carry, cutting his every breath short.His hands rest on his knees in a knuckle white grip around the bone, trying their best to keep him balanced without encroaching on chan’s personal space. There’s an air bubble in his spine he needs to crack, he’s sure it’s filled with regret, but he can’t take up more space than he already has. Chan already went out of his way to take hyunjin with him, spending his precious free time babysitting hyunjin’s childish self. He could be relaxing after work, spending the little free time he has before his shift at skyfall doing something worthwhile. But instead he’s been nothing but the patient pillar hyunjin desperately needs right now, and he’s barely asking anything in return.Hyunjin has already occupied too much of his time and space. Trying to crack his bones would sound to his ears like a shout in an echo chamber, he simply cannot disturb the carefully curated peace between them, silence only interrupted by the whirring wind. Even if it leaves an unfortunate crick in his back.Chan is exceptionally smooth with his turns and swerves, not letting hyunjin feel like he’s in danger even for a split second. Navigating the streets of seoul with a practiced ease that hyunjin is envious of, they pass by the unicorn horn and enter a long stretch on the right bank of cheonggyecheon stream. It’s only the first week of december, but the stream is already ornamented with lights all the way across. It’s a long strip of water, running through many neighbourhoods. Hyunjin doesn’t visit often, but then again, he doesn’t visit a lot of places in the city often. He’s usually shackled to work or his flat. But it is a gorgeous sight, hyunjin almost wishes he had his camera to capture the beauty of it all. He wonders how it would look through a twin lens. He wonders if chan would let him borrow it for one night.After passing the temple themed lights, the extremely premature ‘happy new years’ signs, the neon blue lights and a red waterfall under the first bridge, chan pushes his body forward, chest nearing the bike’s gas tank and speeding up significantly. Hyunjin is subconsciously bending down to match his height, hiding behind chan’s back like a scared kid.
Hyunjin gets lost in his thoughts, and it isn’t until chan is pulling back up, slowing down and turning the bike into one of the breakaway streets that hyunjin snaps back into his body. The tyres roll and then halt as chan pulls the breaks, and they’re now parked on the edge of a side-street, with the stream behind them. He takes it as his cue to get off, and he removes his helmet before chan even has the chance to straighten up himself.
Holding it awkwardly until chan takes it from him, hyunjin is silent all the way while chan leads them towards the stream on foot. He has questions filling his head, they’re begging to escape out into the open but he holds his tongue, sharply bringing down the guillotine on his thoughts.
Just before they step out of the shade of the lane, chan makes a soft noise of realisation and holds him by the arm. Hyunjin looks back at him. He brings his hands back towards himself, then back and around his head to untie the scarf that he was using as a mask. Even in the dark, his face is as easy to find as a beacon.
“Here, take this” he’s handing hyunjin the cloth, making sure to invert the fold so the triangular piece isn’t the same as the patch that was touching his own lips. Hyunjin tilts his head confusedly. Sure, he doesn’t usually go out without the added protection of a mask, and he always wears one to skyfall, but if he didn’t have one on him it’s not like the world would end.
“You don’t wanna get recognised, right?”
Oh.
The imminent danger he was in had completely slipped his mind in his blind rage.
“Are you sure?”“one hundo percent. You need it more than I do, take it.”
Chan had brought him his hair ties and his puffer jacket to cover his shoulder length black hair with the hood, leaving his wavy bangs that couldn’t fit into either to frame his face. Hyunjin thought he wouldn’t need a mask when he was covered as much as he could be, but then again, hyunjin also never thought he’d be stalked all the way to his flat. And here he is now.
He takes the scarf with a whispered thank you, and they continue their short journey to the stream.
It’s a beautiful sight, hyunjin loves the neon blue lights they passed by but the area they’re in right now has a lot more trees, and the branches are all decorated with standard yellow fairy lights, nothing intricate but beautiful nonetheless. It casts a golden glow on the otherwise dark water, new sparkles appearing on the surface with every ripple like pixie dust. Tinkerbell herself graced the stream with her magic, and hyunjin can almost hear the wind chimes and bells.
The waves pulse and ripple like they have a quality of life to them, like they are breathing the same air as hyunjin. And maybe they are. Maybe the rivulet had a life of its own. Maybe it had its own anger, just like hyunjin. Maybe it was born out of love, just like hyunjin. Maybe every wave that crashed against its banks was a ragged sigh escaping from its bruised lips. And maybe it hated the depths of darkness it seemed to contain.
It’s not always dark. During the day, it’s clear liquid crystal. It shows off the shimmery rocks it houses along with its lively fishes. The moss thrives and smiles at people instead of trying to slip them into their deaths. The sun sparkles against the water and bounces off to form a rainbow over the bridge.
It is a thing of wonder, a beauty one can’t look away from. Hyunjin wonders whether the stream likes people looking at it.
Within the brief spells of stillness lay reflections of the fairies that filled the water with the stars that the sky lacked.
They walk side by side for a while, neither of them speaking. Hyunjin figures chan only brought him here for some fresh air and he’ll drop him off back home soon, so he does his best to slow his step, to make the peace last longer.. He’s cold even with the jacket, and while the cloth covering his mouth does its best at keeping the warmth trapped, his fingertips are freezing cold. He glances at chan, who isn’t even shivering despite his lack of warm clothes, his only layers being a leather jacket over a somewhat thick shirt. He seems perfectly normal, only a little pale, but that’s chan’s usual complexion.
He’s not complaining, though. He loves the bite of cold, it keeps him feeling like he’s alive. I reminds him that his blood is warm and he owes it to his body to keep it that way. It reminds him that no mater how cod and lonely his heart gets, the world will welcome his winter as he welcomes the snow on his skin. It’s too early in december for the first snow, but he always had a weak spot in his heart for winter miracles.
The leaves crunch under their feet as hey approach yet another bridge, white stone crossing over the dark liquid beneath, surrounded by trees covered in lights. There’s only a few people around, mostly couples whispering to themselves and keeping far apat from each other. The bridge isn’t big but it’s empty, which makes hyunjin more confident in stepping onto it when chan pulls him along.
They stop at a little over halfway across, not dead centre to draw too much attention and not too close to the edge to risk striking up a conversation with one of the other visitors.
Hyunjin looks around at the sparkling strings stretching across branches and slithering onto the stone railings of the bridge, his movements stiff and awkward. He settles to lean his elbows on the rail and watch the ripples of the water beneath them. He knows this is supposed to clear his head, but ironically enough he isn’t even thinking about his parents anymore. All he can think about is how close chan is beside him, how neither of them has said a word to each other, what he should be behaving as, and how this night is going to end.
His muscles refuse to relax while he tries to solve the puzzle of an appropriate thing to say in this situation, or how his body should look. Should he face chan? Should he slump as he’s doing now, or roll his shoulders and straighten his back? Should he release the tension in his legs, ready to push him to run but also keeping him locked in place?
“Are you hungry?”
“Huh?” hyunjin snaps his head towards his right, where chan is leaning his back on the same railings, his elbows resting on either side of his torso as he casually tilts his head to look up at the sky. The lights frame his face in such a pretty, soft glow that reflects right off his cheekbone and jaw. Hyunjin has to blink and look away before chan even has the chance to clarify.
“You didn’t finish your food earlier, are you hungry?” hyunjin can still see him in his periphery, and he has not moved to look his way. He continues to stare up. “There may be some food stalls around here, if you want street food.”
“Oh, no it’s okay, I… lost my appetite.” Another white lie slips past his lips. Another regret added to his list. His stomach is revolting, screaming at him to feed it, to nourish his body. But he simply can’t get anything past his throat, the emptiness of it pulling in his trachea to collapse in on itself. anything he consumes seems like it would come right back up. Painfully.
“Hmm if you’re sure. There’s some rice and snacks at skyfall, if you’d wanna have those.”
“Skyfall?” hyunjin’s eyes find their way back to chan like magnets. He had no reason to tag along with chan to his shift. If anything he’d be a hindrance.
“Yeah, you’re coming with me. Unless you want to go back home?” chan takes this moment to tilt his head to the side, his neck hiding away as his eyes land on hyunjin, with a raise to his brow like a challenge ready to be fought. The curly bangs shadow his irises and his nose slopes over his face as smooth as a marble statue. Hyunjin has too tear his eyes away again, the wires in his brain all crossing over, unable to conjure up an appropriate response.
“No, I’ll come with you.” He stares at the water for two more seconds before adding, “thank you.”
“It’s all good. We still have half an hour before we should start heading to the shop.”
“I really missed visiting, you know.” Hyunjin is leaning on his elbows again, they’re crossed over the railing and his chin pokes into his arm as he bends to rest his head on them. He’s pointedly not looking at chan, choosing to stare at one spot in the water. His claim is barely a soft whisper, and he’d be totally fine with it going unheard.
Unfortunately for him, chan seems to be attuned to hearing him no matter how small he makes himself.
“She missed you too. Skyfall feels empty without your visits at questionable hours.”
Hyunjin snorts at that.
“What? It’s true” chan whines, and its such a cute noise coming out of such a grim looking man. “I’ve told you before, no one really visits during the night shifts. And while peace and quiet and alone time are nice, your presence was nicer.”
A warmth blooms so fast in hyunjin’s chest that it bursts his emotions into vapour, that rise to the roof of his lungs and fall back down as bitter, unreceptive denial. It all happens so fast that his mouth is moving before his brain can catch up, an impossible game of deflection being mastered very early in his career. “You wanna keep me locked up in there, bahng?”
Chan huffs, amusement evident in the small noise. “As if you wouldn’t like being locked up in skyfall.”
Hyunjin has never felt heat rise up to his face faster. To save his dignity, he keeps quiet.
“How’s the house hunting going?” chan diverts, whether because he just wants to keep hyunjin talking to distract him as much as he can or whether he’s genuinely curious, hyunjin doesn’t know.
“Terrible. Something or the other is always a deal breaker. If it’s not the location it’s the size, if it’s not the size it’s the amenities, if it’s not the amenities it’s the security. I feel bad for seungmin having to look for so many places and have my picky ass deny all of them.” Hyunjin watches the yellow tint that dances over the surface of the river.
“Hmm and the case with changbin’s mom?”
“There is no case” hyunjin sighs heavily, “the stalker is a lost cause, there’s nothing I can do about someone I dont remember or recognise. I did talk to her about the agency though, and while everything she said seemed promising, sueing them and either settling after a couple rounds of negotiation or taking it to court…”
“Too much?”
“Too much. I don’t have the energy for that. I could definitely get some from settling with them, but the hassle of going through all the paperwork first, and risk them blacklisting me or sabotaging me somehow… job hunting is going as swimmingly as house hunting right now, and by that I mean they are both drowning to their miserable deaths.” Hyunjin sighs again, but it turns into a smirk as he hears chan’s attempt at stifling his laughter.
“So while I look for jobs, I don’t want to accidentally sabotage myself by going after them, you know?” chan makes an affirmative hum, to let hyunjin know he’s still following along. “And taking them to court is even more work. Plus it’ll be all over the tabloids. I’m sick of the media, I don’t want to deal with all that. Especially as I’m trying to find a place to live.”
“You know the offer still stands, right?”
“Hm?”
“I have a spare room, you could stay over for a bit while you find a new place, or you could just stay for however long you need.”
Hyunjin had thought about it. Obsessively. Not about taking chan’s offer, because he’d cut off his own arm before even allowing himself to take such kindness and take advantage of chan. But he had thought endlessly about why chan had offered, if it was a spur of the moment kind of thing, if he regretted telling hyunjin that.
Han said the same thing. The offer is open. Neither of them have rescinded their words, and it only serves to confuse hyunjin more.
“Thank you, but I wouldn’t wanna intrude like that…”
“Nonsense” chan tuts disapprovingly. “You wouldn’t be intruding at all. I live alone, the extra room was for friends whenever they decide to stay overnight if they visit.”
“I’ll… think about it.” Hyunjin feels as if he has something to make up for, like he’s losing points by being so closed off. So he adds, “if anything, I’ll probably visit the store more often during christmas week… if you’re open.”
“Oh, that’s perfectly fine. I don’t have family in seoul to visit so… I usually keep it open on christmas, I send jeongin home though.” Hyunjin doesn’t like the holidays. The cold feels entirely too different around that time. Instead of merging with his soul, it backs him into a corner. The holiday spirit merrily skips over him in its quest to distribute happiness, and watching everyone have familial joy and celebration makes him feel like an outsider. Even if he doesn’t go out, if he wallows away in his puddle of self pity and isolation, he is consumed by the overwhelming feeling of unbelonging. He’s put into a tiny girl’s body, watching through glass windows, while he holds a basket of matches that don’t bring him any warmth unlit.
The fake veil of celebration his parents muster up every year are the useless wooden sticks in his basket. They hold no importance without being lit with the fire of unconditional love, they don’t burn without being covered from the winds of hardship. He’s left to wither away in the cold.
“If you don’t mind a deadweight as company for the holiday…” hyunjin meant for it to come off as humorous, but his voice tapers off as he hears himself sound a little too sincere. He sighs and slumps further into the railing.
Chan turns around to face the water too. He is fiddling with something outside of hyunjin’s periphery, and then he is pulling out the picture he took from hyunjin’s album. Hyunjin looks at him through the corner of his eyes, still not facing him directly. Chan is looking at the picture, running his finger over it gently.
“You were an adorable child.”
Hyunjin huffs out half a laugh. “Yeah, it’s all the cheek fat talking. I was a chubby baby.”
He senses chan turn to him, and curiously, he turns his body too. The photograph is between them, only an arms distance and a piece of paper separating them. Chan’s eyes are trained on the photo as he brings it up right next to hyunjin’s face.
Hyunjin watches as his sparkly eyes slowly roll over the picture, over the two dimensional boundary, crossing over into reality as they land on hyunjin’s actual face. Even with the makeshift mask that chan gave him, he feels see through.
Chan’s movements are smooth and delicately slow. His hand lifts up to reach behind hyunjin’s ear, to tug at the scarf, to let it fall away into his palm as he reveals hyunjin’s face. Hyunjin doesn’t move an inch, rooted to his spot as he lets chan take the cloth away, lets him angle the picture and his hand and his broad shoulders to cover as much of hyunjin as he can to make up for the security he lost with the cloth. The anticipation thrums under his skin.
Chan’s palm rests on his cheek, warmth emanating from his body onto hyunjin’s face. He immediately feels safer, wanting to dig into the warmth and make a home there, and the thought scares him deeply but he stays put. Stays put as chan’s thumb rubs gently over his cheekbone, hiking a little higher to stroke his eyelid with utmost care. His eyes close of their own accord, merely a brainless puppet willing to follow chan’s lead. He opens them again when chan’s thumb returns to his cheek. All the while his palm has been cupping his face, making it difficult for hyunjin to not grab onto his arm and sink into his side to leech all the warmth away from him.
Like this, he can’t avoid looking at chan, and how he looks back at him. Chan’s eyes are incredibly soft as they gaze at him, glazed over with yellow reflections and an emotion hyunjin can’t place. His bare face is open too, free of judgement and honey tinted. It’s his lips and jaw that are set in a tight, tense, almost-grimace. His eyebrows furrow in a matching worry-stance, and hyunjin can’t deny that he looks attractive.
Chan has always seemed too cool for him, an anomaly he can’t figure out, and within that lies his delicate yet authoritative appearance. Hyunjin hasn’t let himself dwell on it before, but here, under the blue-black night and with yellow fairy lights reflecting a golden glow onto his sharp features, hyunjin literally cannot escape the pull in his heart. The string ties itself tight around the muscular organ and pulls with every twitch of chan’s brows, with every frown thrown hyunjin’s way, but especially with every smile he shares with hyunjin. It yells at hyunjin : ‘he’s beautiful. Do something.’
But hyunjin doesn’t know what to do with himself, let alone chan. What does one do when presented with beauty of this standard? Touching it would only taint it. Hyunjin wants to blink his eyes and take a photograph of this exact moment, to keep it permanently in his head to look back on whenever he wants to relive it. Hyunjin wants to pick up a pencil and set an easel on the side of this bridge and draw chan for days. Hyunjin wants to break apart his every bone and make jewellery out of them to gift to chan.
As he realises how insane his thoughts sound, he also comes to the startling realisation that while he is staring at chan, chan is staring at him. No matter the pretty sight that hyunjin’s eyes are privy to, he has no idea what idiotic expression he must have been making this whole time, that chan has a clear view of. His self awareness always slips along with his mask, and he immediately tries to get a smidgen of his control back.
Chan senses his shift in demeanor, and tenses his hand on his face, holding hyunjin tighter, preventing him from slipping away. Keeping his eyes locked on chan’s.
“Don’t.”
Hyunjin’s brain shuts down at the simple command.
Right before booting back up and sending him multiple error messages and shifting him to crisis mode immediately. He listens, though. He relaxes his body, lets his mask slip further and further away from him, lets chan see the gears of his mind turn as clear as day on his face. The way his scattered consciousness is forced back into his body, clarity crashing down on him with the weight of his existence. Chan’s palm is warm on his cheek. Hyunjin doesn’t know the face he’s making.
He wants the warmth to expand. He wants it snaking across his shoulders and slithering down to his waist, he wants it pressed against him, making him curl up like he was a wispy strand of hair in a curler. He wants it within his chest, he wants the warmth to hold his chipping frozen edges together. He wants more, he wants to take and take and take.
He doesn’t even risk a light nuzzle.
He shouldn’t want to take. They don’t know each other like that.
It feels like he’s holding his breath for a lifetime, just waiting for chan’s next move. Not knowing what chan is thinking, wishing desperately he could swap bodies so he’d know chan’s perspective. Is hyunjin too cold? Is he too slow? Too boney? Too prudish? Too pessimistic, perhaps? Too cowardly?
He’s looking at hyunjin as if he can see him, for all he is, not for this moment. He doesn’t see the hyunjin at eight forty p.m under the yellow-lit tree over the railing of a bridge, he doesn’t see the hwang hyunjin runaway model on his tenth catwalk of the year, he doesn’t see hyunjin who can’t wake up unless seungmin drags him out of his bed by calling him twenty times. He sees hyunjin, the one who was born, the one forced to exist.
And he finds himself feeling bad for him. He finds that hyunjin maybe, didn’t deserve all that he went through. He sees a human that’s hurting and he thinks he should help. He wants to help. And then hyunjin remembers that he shouldn’t.
Chan shouldn’t want to help him, he barely knows him. Yeah, chan doesn’t know hyunjin. Just like hyunjin doesn’t know him. Hyunjin doesn’t know him. Hyunjin doesn’t know him. Hyunjin doesn’t kno-
“The cold winter’s aged the soft of your face” chan breathes the words between them, barely a whisper, so soft and warm it would float above clouds. His hand still cradles hyunjin's face like a delicate little thing.
The breath gets knocked out of him in a shaky exhale at hearing chan’s words. His eyelids flutter in an effort to not look away or tip over the reservoir of tears they store. His jaw unhinges itself from the tense clench it had previously rested in. Chan is looking at him, and he can’t look away, and chan has the look of understanding in his eyes, and his eyebrows furrow slightly where they meet his forehead, his curls still frame his face beautifully, his lip juts out in a small pout. There is an undercurrent of hurt beneath the understanding. And hyunjin doesn’t know what he did wrong.
Chan looks too real as he says it, too present and kind and all-knowing. He radiates this sweet, gentle sadness as if he’s hurt by what he’s saying himself. His cheeks, usually stretched in a lazy smile, or puffed up adorably, are solemnly straight. His features maintain the softness of his heart, but the spark in his eye is replaced by the dying embers of empathy.
And hyunjin realises that chan does know him. Chan knows his job, his lack thereof, he knows about his stalker incident, about seungmin and him hunting for houses, about his conversation with changbin’s mom, about his parents back home, about his lost dreams. Chan does know him.
Hyunjin still doesn’t know chan. He doesn’t know him. He doesn’t know him.
I don’t know him.
Not in the way chan knows you, no.
He told me about his job, and his dreams, and his siblings-
Do you remember them all?
I- n-no I-
You don’t know him.
I don’t know him.
You should, though.
I should. Why don’t I know him?
You’re in your head
I’m in my head
You don’t care, no.
I d-
No, no… no you don’t care. Not about yourself, even less about him.
I, yeah, I don’t- I don’t care…
You don’t remember, because you don’t bother to.
…
All it takes is a little effort.
…
Effort that he can’t afford!!
He can remember things you tell him.
You can’t.
You don’t put in the effort.
You don’t want to.
He physically can’t!!
Stop it!!
N-no, I can’t. I want to, I can’t-
Why can’t you?
You don’t have a job.
Because it’s not upto him
what his memory keeps
But I-
You don’t know him.
That’s a lie
I want to
No you don’t.
Stop.
…
He knows you though.
He knows me
You don’t want him to.
Stop.
Why? Why don’t I want him to?
You don’t want him to.
…
He knows you.
You don’t know him.
I don’t know him.
But he knows you.
But he knows me
I don’t know him but he knows me
STOP.
Threat.
I don’t know him. I don’t know him. I don’t know him. I don’t know him. I don’t know him. I don’t know him. I don’t know him. I don’t know him. I don’t know him. I don’t know him. I don’t know him. I don’t know him. I don’t know him. I don’t know him. I don’t know him. I don’t know him. I don’t know him. I don’t know him. I don’t know him. I don’t know him. I don’t know him. I don’t know him. I don’t know him. I don’t know him. I don’t know him. I don’t know him. I don’t know him. I don’t know him. I don’t know him. I don’t know him. I don’t know him. I don’t know him. I don’t know him. IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
Hyunjin blinks.
He raises a shaky hand to grab chan’s palm in his own, wrist feeling like an iron weight is strapped to it. He gives up holding his stiff neck upright and lens into chan’s palm, closing his eyes and hoping to the stars above them that a tear doesn’t slip out.
“My mind is away.” He breathes just as quietly as chan had, filling the distance between them with vapour carrying his exhaustion.
“How long have you been gone?”
Chan’s voice filters through the vapour like a ship coming to shore, and hyunjin opens his eyes halfway to see look at the man. He doesn’t move closer. Only lifts his other hand to pet the crown of hyunjin’s head. It’s such a tender act that hyunjin’s ribcage is stuttering in attempts to bring in more oxygen.
“I can’t move on.” Hyunjin, shackled to himself, bringing about his own doom.
Chan doesn’t give him the chance to step away, or turn around. He wraps his arm around hyunjin’s shoulder like hyunjin had wished for, and brings him in to a devastatingly delicate embrace. The hand on his cheek slips onto the back of his head, and hyunjin has such a slumped posture by default that he’s already half melted into chan’s arms. Letting himself go comes easy.
He doesn’t cry this time. Not when chan tightens the hug when he wraps his own hands around him, not when he can smell vanilla musk in chan’s throat, not when he can feel the paper of his childhood photo digging into his shoulder, not when chan whispers into his ear.
“Linger on. You don’t have to move on. Stay, hyunjin. Linger.”
“I want to go home.”
Hyunjin only feels like he is able to breathe normally again when the yellow lights of the shop come into his line of sight. Chan lets him get down when they reach the side of it, and hyunjin stands still in the cold night breeze as chan parks his bike. As if the sky granted his one stray wish, a delicate snowflake befalls his cheek. The first snow.
The yellow lights reflect onto the metal of the rails next to the shop and back onto hyunjin’s face. The pebbles soften the glow and the blades of grass cut through the whistling wind so it’s lighter on his ear. The signboard of the shop tilts to greet him, the vines and drapes flutter in a wave, the windows seem clearer as he gets closer. The cold of his skin is nothing against the warmth he feels within.
Chan returns to his side as they enter skyfall. Something slots into place.
The candles burn a honey and cinnamon scent in the shop today, he gets a wiff of it as soon as he passes the door and gets hit by a gust of warm air, like he’s stepped through a portal. The flames grow taller as the door shuts behind them. He is naturally pulled towards the counter to lean his elbows on it as chan puts in another jazzy disk into the gramophone. The notes fill his ear like maple syrup on a waffle, and he almost swears he hears little creaks of wood matching the thrum of the song.
He closes his eyes, taking in the shop that has made a space for him in this bubble dimension far away from his worries and far away from anyone he wants to avoid. The warmth envelops him like a crayon melting in beeswax. His body drowns in the molten candles as they drip honeydew into his veins.
Cracking his eyes open, he tilts his head to the right, watching the endless reflections of himself on the wall of mirrors. Chan has gone somewhere to the back, faint noises of him moving around reach hyunjin’s ears. Hyunjin looks a mess, but it is the least he’s been scared of looking at himself in this shop out of all his visits. He seems stripped of his dignity, tired eyes carrying big bags and sunken cheeks, hair whipped all around his face from the wind, a red nose on his pale face from the cold outside. In extremely casual clothes that he honestly should have thrown out years ago but kept for some inexplicable reason.
He’s spent, completely exhausted and whatever stripped him of his dignity took his fear and practically every other emotion along with it. Left him an empty canvas ready to be marked anew. And skyfall, it seems, was indeed waiting for him, true to chan’s words.
No longer is he afraid of the clocks ticking in tandem with the beat of his heart. No longer do the mirrors seem scrutinising when they reflect his face back to him tenfold. No longer is the air crisp and empty around him, hanging like a ghost above his head, no.
The wood protects him from the invisible signals outside, the candles keep him warm, the mirrors remind him that he is simply a human, the clocks are… still a little creepy but at least they’re trying. He’s almost forgotten it isn’t a quaint little fairytale, the antiquities’ trinkets falling to a corner of his mind. All the weight of human suffering and love and grief and anger he felt steeped within the atmosphere of the shop before, is nowhere to be found now.
Maybe it isn’t that skyfall has changed, maybe it’s him. Maybe its the permission to just, be. Maybe he finally exhausted the labyrinth of his mind and has nothing else to do but step out of it, stumbling out of the exit with twigs and leaves in his hair. Forced to look outside of his all consuming self for a moment, and realise that all he felt was all he made up, in his ridiculous quest for something more from his life. Maybe skyfall has always been warm and welcoming, a place for old souls to feel at home and youngsters to find money, a place to find a dimpled curly haired man ready to solve all your time-related problems, a place that isn’t a mysterious cove - cold and unwelcoming.
Maybe it was all hyunjin, and his projections. Hologrammed images of his prudish self painted over the surface of everything he saw in a shallow attempt at protecting himself.
Chan returns with tea, and another wave of comfort glides over his windpipe from the smell of fresh lavender. They settle down in the back, on the couch. Hyunjin deliberately makes an effort to not remember their last conversation here. Hyunjin’s eyes get heavier the longer he holds the warm cup.
“Do you want to stay the night here?”
Chan’s voice drifts into his peaceful bubble, a warm ray of sunlight peeking through the leaves.
“Hm?” hyunjin blinks. He turns his head to chan, who mirrors him cradling his cup of tea, “don’t you have to work?”
Chan smiles at him. It is warmer than the liquid in his hands. “You seem tired, you can sleep here while I work if you’d like. I’ll wake you up in the morning?”
It takes a minute for the question to register in his mind, but once it does, it’s like an immediate switch. Whatever spell of anti-gravity the shop had on his feelings vanishes, and he feels as though the ground is swallowing him whole again. If his thoughts had corporeal forms, they would have been floating around a second ago, only to abruptly thud to the floor noisily. It is cold. The wind blows through the windows. Skyfall senses his paranoia.
Is he allowed to sleep here? Is it safe? His visits to skyfall had gotten him on the stalker’s radar in the first place, is he aware of this place? Was he still following hyunjin? Was he waiting for a chance to find him alone? Is it safe to sleep while chan works? Is it safe to sleep with chan in the other room? Was he going to regret this?
With each question, a shard of ice prickled at his limbs until they were numb and paralysed. His heart was losing the battle to keep him warm. He hadn’t come here with the intention to sleep over, either. He was unprepared. There was no slot in his head that had ‘sleep at skyfall’ written down for today, or anytime really, and it was distressing. He would have to make space for it, and to do that he needed to be safe. He needed to be sure.
“I- uh, let me just text my manager…” he needed guidance. He needed another opinion. He needed to know he is safe.
Minnie
I left my parents house
Seungmin
???
Are you safe? Where are you?
Im at skyfall
Chan brought me here
Seungmin
Oh, then it’s okay.
But that’s the thing
Idk if Im safe
Seungmin
You don’t know if it’s safe? Did he do something to you?? No no no omg Chan would never Well at least I think he would never… But I meant, the stalker?
Seungmin
The stalker… hyunjin, if you’re with chan you’ll be fine. And the stalker knows you’ve seen him and likely reported to the police Even if he was stupid enough to still be around you, he’d lay low for a while.
You’re safe to be at skyfall, don’t worry.
Oh
So I can fall asleep?
And nothing will happen?
Seungmin
Yes you can sleep there… did something happen between you and your parents?
You’re awfully perceptive
Seungmin
I’ve known you long enough
Hey!
Seungmin
Long enough to know your tells So, did something happen? Well… not rly just an argument. I kinda blew off on them. Chan was there to see it all, kinda embarrassing. But even more embarrassing to go back, so I think I’ll just sleep here.
“Okay, I’ll stay here for tonight… if it isn’t a bother to have me here during your shift” hyunjin puts his phone away and responds to chan, who waves his hand dismissively.
“Never a bother. Here, lift your legs a bit.”
Hyunjin does as asked, all the while watching curiously as chan got up and bent towards the leg of the sofa. He hears a couple clicks, and then the bottom half swings up to make an extended, pillowed platform. A mini bed.
“Get all the beauty sleep you want.” Chan grins at him.
The uncomfortable air bubble in his spine is what wakes him up, far beyond any hour he had hoped to be awake. His eyes open to an unfamiliar ceiling, and he blearily shuts them again, half thinking he’s in a dream.
The familiar smell of old wood reboots his senses and brings back the memory of crashing at skyfall to the forefront of his brain, and he snaps his eyes open again. Hyunjin groans as he twists his body to try and find his phone, not certain where he’d left it as he fell asleep to the blue light from his screen he had read is terrible for his health. His spine cracks a couple times in the process, and he releases a relieved sigh when the discomfort leaves his body right as he finds the cellular device.
As soon as he opens it, he’s greeted with the time. 12:04pm. What the fuck.
He stands up and tries to smooth out any wrinkles on his clothes and pat his hair down. He wishes he could find a mirror… in here. He knows there are plenty outside, in the main area, but he also hears faint talking and music, so he assumes there are people here. And he needs to look human, to present himself to them, not like a raccoon that had just braved through a hurricane.
He tries his best to make it work, opening his phone camera to check if there’s drool running down his chin. There isn’t. His hair isn’t particularly interested in listening to him, but he makes it look… acceptable. At the very least.
He walks out with full intent to offer greetings and then leave, but as soon as his eyes land on the person behind the counter, his cheeks split into a grin and he feels lighter on his feet, completely forgetting his initial goal.
"Innie!” he exclaims through his teeth. The boy in question, stops cleaning some sort of contraption, hyunjin is not paying attention to it to notice what exactly, and beams at the sight of hyunjin.
“Hyunjin hyung! You’re awake! Did you sleep well?”
“Mhm, like a log. Don’t remember a thing of my dreams.” Hyunjin’s smile doesn’t slip off his face as he approaches the younger, pulling him in and ruffling his hair. Jeongin whines about it, but doesn’t push him away.
He brings out the stool and hyunjin easily slips onto it, sitting in front of the counter across from jeongin who goes back to cleaning - as hyunjin takes note now - a porcelain toy shaped like a carousel. Innie’s laugh tinkles like a fork against a wineglass. “It seemed like it, you wouldn’t even wake up through channie hyung’s morning cleaning. That’s an achievement!”
A trickle of embarrassment bubbles in his chest and heats up his cheeks. He pays no mind to it. “He cleans in the morning?” he asks instead, leaning his cheek onto one hand.
“Every morning, like clockwork. Hyung says he does it for me since I like keeping clean, but I know it’s because he’s a neatfreak” jeongin wrinkles his nose with a smile that clearly says his jab is light hearted. Hyunjin watches him place the carousel on a shelf, and then walk towards the back. While innie is out of sight, he blinks his eyes for long moments, hoping that adjusting his vision would somehow make his brain catch up to the events of last night.
“Here,” innie slides a plate in front of him, putting down a glass of coffee right after. He does it with minimal noise, as if approaching a baby that has just awoken, trying not to startle. Hyunjin looks at him before he looks down at the plate, and he wears his easy smile. The kind that people who have nothing to gain from you wear. Someone who has no reason to smile at him, other than simply wanting to. Out of their own heart.
Waffles and chicken. Hyunjin doesn’t usually like mixing his sweet and savoury. The dish looks homey, made by careful hands, and presented behind a smile. He can’t possibly deny it.
It tastes warm. Sweet. But fulfilling. Maybe he shouldn’t have written off combining the flavours without trying. He’ll have to ask chan if he cooked this himself later.
“So, where is chan anyway?”
Innie had gone back to tending to the showpieces on the shelves. There isn’t anyone in their immediate vicinity, but hyunjin hears changbin’s voice murmuring somewhere in the store. If he turns he’d probably catch sight of something pink. He doesn’t turn, waiting for innie’s answering hum.
“He’s at the theatre, they have clean up and budget meetings after each successful event.” Tiny specks of dust fly near innie’s already ginger hair. He doesn’t really look at hyunjin as he answers, but the silhouette of his smile remains.
“Hm… he goes for those meetings?”
“Mhm! Hyung is an executive board member. He helps organise theatre activities too.”
“This theatre is run like a… club?” hyunjin feels ridiculous even saying it, he knows that’s not the right term. He feels it in his bones. But all he’s known are magazine shoots and contract meetings with his agency, he has never seen nor felt part of a group like chan and his theatre.
Innie laughs, but there’s no bite to it. The wine glass still tinkles without condensation. “Honestly, hyung, you’re not that far off. It’s a small community, and they put on shows for the rest of the town who want something else to do than stare at the same tar roads and concrete walls.”
Community.
Hyunjin thinks it’s a foreign concept to him. Maybe once upon a time when he was a trainee, he could feel some semblance of community with his three friends. Maybe the stranger who offered him lunch coupons when he ran out of his own was community. Maybe the way seungmin picked him up at the alley was community. But why is it that he only finds a moment of respite and kinship with the precursor of tragedy? Why can’t he have a group of people that create something with him, something to be proud of? Why don’t people enjoy spending time with him, and celebrate him? Why is it that people only seem to notice he needs attention and care only when he’s hurting?
“Hwang hyunjin!” a voice bellows behind him, and hyunjin winces as he’s forced out of his thoughts.
“Just hyunjin is fine…” changbin magically has another stool with him, which he puts down next to where hyunjin is seated. He is clad in all black, but has a pink fuzzy keychain attached to his phonecase.
“How have you been? I missed you” he has a cheery nature to him, his cheeks round themselves out even more due to his small smile. Something that hyunjin cannot decipher, why it’s aimed at him. Especially when changbin had only met him once before, when he ran out of here.
Oh, right.
He still has to apologise for that.
“Missed you too” he chirps instead. “I’ve been… okay, how about you?”
“Splendid now that you’re here” the sincerety and lack of hesitation makes hyunjin chuckle awkwardly. Changbin, undeterred though, continues on. “I heard you met my mom! How did it go?”
“Yeah, just virtually though. She’s really sweet, and she obviously knows what she’s doing but I don’t think we can do anything about the stalker right now.”
“Ah, bummer. You didn’t get force fed her kimchi. It’s the best in the whole city.”
Hyunjin blinks. “Maybe next time..” Theres a hint of a laugh in his voice, he can’t hold it back thanks to how incredulous he feels at where this conversation is headed.
“Of course, the whole situation is frustrating too, I’m sorry. But if you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask okay? These bad boys are at your service anytime.” On cue, changbin starts flexing his arms, showing off his clearly fit, beefy muscles. Hyunjin has to admit, they look pretty dependable. Not necessarily his type, but if he needed someone to put up a shelf for him, he’d think of this exact instance in skyfall.
“So, when did you start dancing?”
Hyunjin falters from the unexpected question, but answers regardless. There’s customers at the front, and innie walks away from the two to help them. “I don’t exactly remember, I think I’ve always been moving, ever since I was a baby” he laughs, “my mom tells me she could never stand still as a child. But I only started taking it seriously a little bit before I joined jype to become a trainee. I couldn’t pass their standards with just the random swaying. I had to learn professional techniques, so I guess maybe when I was around 15 or so?”
“How come you didn’t become a dancer then?”
“Ah… we needed money, and trying to dance didn’t pay the bills. I was too underdeveloped to debut with jisung and felix, so I just… took the opportunity that presented itself to me. Dancing was too unconventional of a career for a stable salary anyway.”
Changbin hums, “and modelling isn’t?”
Hyunjin shifts uncomfortably in his seat, looking at his wrists that rest on the counter instead of changbin’s face. “Well, no, but it got me booked and busy faster than the other route would have.”
“How were you sure this would be the case back then? Before you made your decision?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” hyunjin has an incredibly self depracating, hopeless twist to his laugh. “Sex sells, after all.”
Changbin tilts his head, he can see it in his periphery. “While that may be true… that’s not what you’re doing, though?”
“Hm maybe not entirely, but I am still selling my face and body, aren’t I? At a certain degree I’m even selling the fantasy of having sex with me. And people buy into it, of course, evidenced by the stalker.” He waves his hand dismissively. Still a little tense.
His discomfort is only amplified by changbin’s following silence. He doesn’t offer his opinion on the matter, which is somewhat strange. It is welcome, the silence, but it brings with it an itch to be filled. Hyunjin isn’t sure with what, so he keeps his mouth shut, and switches his legs so one is sitting atop the other.
“Have you thought of picking it up now, since you have an established career though?”
Hyunjin bristles, “It’s not that simple. Getting a gig would need auditions and well practiced pieces, I am so out of shape that no one would want to hire me over a practiced dan-”
“No, not as a career. I mean, as a hobby, have you returned to it? When was the last time you danced for yourself?”
“I-… I don’t know, it’s been a while…”
Changbin lets another silence envelope them, but a shorter, more contemplative one this time. He studies the side of hyunjin’s face as he still refuses to look anywhere apart form his hands.
“You know…” he speaks again, gentler, less curious, more open. “There’s a dance studio nearby the theatre as well.”
Before he even has the chance to reply, innie slips back behind the counter, chiming in himself. “Chan hyung could take you, he goes there every so often.”
Hyunjin raises his eyebrow, “does he, now? Where does he find the time?”
That earns a hearty laugh from both of them, seemingly a question they all ask themselves. “Trust me, if I knew how that man managed to do everything I would do the same. But he’s just like that, he does anything he can, anything he wants to. There’s nothing he can’t do, especially once he’s set his mind to it. The time management is the real magic.”
There’s nothing he can’t do.
“Oh, and if you do visit the studio, say hi to heeseung for me!” innie smiles wide, “he’s my friend, he can show you around too, if you’d like!”
Do you think it’d be okay if I stayedhere a couple more days?
Seungmin
At skyfall?
Yeah, I kinda wanna avoid my parents…
Seungmin
Hm, well I wouldn’t suggest runningaway from them like that…
I didn’t run away Technically…
Seungmin
Let me finish I wouldn’t suggest going awol, you should probably let them know where you are. But after that I don’t see why not
Wait, really?
Seungmin
Yes?
What about, yk, safety?
Seungmin
You slept there fine last night, didn’t you
Well yes but
Seungmin
And there’s doors and a lock over there?
And it’s gated, yes
Seungmin
And you’ll have a muscly dude to run to when you need help fighting off the voices in your head
SEUngmin!?>?!?>$E
Seungmin
What? Is chan not ripped
Well I mean- Wait how do you know that And that’s not the only part of your message I take offence to!?!?
Seungmin
You laid heavy emphasis on that part when you were describing him and the shop to me, dumbass. And I don’t care what you take offence to
RUDE??
Seungmin
Point being you’re safe, right? And you have somewhere to sleep over there?
Yes >.>
Seungmin
:) There you go.
You suck
Seungmin
You’re welcome
Hey hannie
Hanji
Hi hyune what’s up?
Eh nothing Just texted to say good luck withpreparations for your stages Also, do you have any holidays near christmas?
Hanji
Oh thank you bby Unfortunately this year doesn’t look that good for holidays :( Have to perform at the jtbc christmas special And then we have to head back to the company for prerecording some content for new years But that means we get new year’s to ourselves tho!
The way han casually uses ‘we’ makes hyunjin feel even more detached, far removed from the pair. From all three of them, really.
Ahh I see, that sucks I’m sorry… I was hoping we could meet up again Or idk, spend christmas together… I don’t really feel like spending it at home
Hanji
Ah damn, that’s a bummer. But you could still come over! Lix n I will be out of the house until night time but you can make yourself at home, my cabinet is at your disposal to raid if you need anything to eat. Ahh thank you but I’d rather not stay over when you’re not home
Feels intrusive
Hanji
Nonsense, it’s you. You’re always welcome
Its okayy, enjoy your christmas alright? Maybe I’ll see y’all for new years :)
Against his better judgement, hyunjin decides to tack on something impulsively. When he checked his notifications earlier, and everyday before, he didn’t find a particular name. And it was irking him, even though he should probably be the one to text first.
Is felix okay? Haven’t heard fromhim for a while
He’s used to going long spurts of time without talking to his friends, especially old ones, from a different chapter of life. But felix had always managed to keep in touch somehow, touching the string connecting them at all times in any capacity. Making sure the light doesn’t flicker away no matter how much it dims. While hyunjin did nothing to nurture the thread like he did. He was raising and nurturing a connection alone, and he knew that, but hyunjin pushed him a little too much, a little too far out of reach to bleed his light into the thread. But still, hyunjin feels justified in his reaction, so he refuses to reach out first.
Hanji
He’s sulking next to me But he’s okay yeah He did tell me you blew up on him, but he won’t tell me about what exactly. That’s probably because he knows he was in some parts in the wrong about whatever you two fought about, but I’m leaving that upto you both to resolve. You knew felix and I weren’t on good terms and you still offered me to stay at your place?
Hanji
Yeah? Like I said, whatever happened is between you two. Why wouldn’t I help you if you need help? It’s just, the whole twinz thing… didn’t think you’d ever pick me over felix for anything
Hanji
It’s not…
Listen, it’s not picking one over the other. Yes felix is incredibly important to me, and if I thought you had actually hurt him I wouldn’t have offered. But I know he’s just sulking over it and will probably reach out to you eventually, or even if he doesn’t, if it hurt him and he thought it was unfair he’d have told me about it already. And I’ll be honest, even though I know we haven’t been the best of friends lately and we have inevitably drifted a little as the years have passed, you’re still a friend. If you need a roof over your head, I’ll let you stay without question.
Somehow, the admission of authenticity makes it feel more fake. Not his kindness, but the small talk from before. The admittance of distance between them feels like a cold slap to the face, especially after exchanging pleasantries. Why even bother pretending to be nice, and ignore the rift, if you’re aware of the rift?
Thank you, hannie You’re a lovely friend I’ll still pass on christmas though, enjoy with felix after your stages :)
There’s still some of your stuff in their place, btw.
Do you want me to take it with me when I move?
Yeji
If you can, that’d be great. Also, what do you want for christmas? What was that novel series you were reading? Are there new books in the series? Ye, that was years ago. You bought me all the books in that series already. And besides, weren’t you struggling for money? >.>
Yeji
Not enough to not spoil my baby brother. Tell me what you’d like and I can send something I’ll need your address though. Hah. Jokes on you you can’t send me anything Since I’m currently living in the mother’s basement™ like an incel
Yeji
Hm, well. Whenever you move send me the address okay?
Whyyyyy
Yeji
Shush, don’t talk back to your elders :P
>_>
>:P
I can’t stay here till christmas tho
Thats too far away
And I don’t have my stuff
Clothes, mostly lmao
Seungmin
Hm do you want me to go get your stuff for you?
No no, it’d just be weird if I sent you
And they’d start interrogating you
And they’d probably get mad I didn’t go myself
Seungmin
No, I mean, from your flat
Oh
No, it might be dangerous… We can go together once I have a newplace to move into so we only have to be in there one time. Plus idk where ive put things in that mess I need to be there to find things
Seungmin
Hm, if you say so Then what about staying with a friend? So you can borrow clothes for a bit? Just asked hannie, he’s away for christmas. I dont wanna stay at his place when he’s not home
Seungmin
You could stay with me
I mean this in the most genuine way possible I don’t want your family to see me, who’s basically your boss, in such a shabby state
And I’m not really the best guest either
Seungmin
They know you’re my friend before my boss tho But okay, I get not wanting to cause trouble (even though you won’t) What about chan then? Does he live nearby the shop? Well… idk where he lives but he did offer me to stay at his place if I ever needed to.
Seungmin
Have you been to his place?
No
Seungmin
Why not ask him to show you, then?
Do you think I could do that?
Seungmin
Hyunjin… he offered. Why wouldn’t he show you the place Idk I just didn’t realise I was allowed to take that offer
Seungmin
Offers are made to take, jinnie. not just for show.
You know that’s not how it works in my sphere, minnie. You know what happens behind the scenes with model friendships. I’m not used to words having meaning
Seungmin
Hm you’re right.
But chan is a regular human, and they don’t operate by the same rules. You can ask him to take you to his place and see if you like it and are okay to spend the next few weeks sleeping there, and then tell me what you decide. Okay Thank you minnie
When chan returns it is already quite dark outside. The navy blue sky provides a pretty canvas for skyfall’s yellow lights. Hyunjin is sitting on the inside of the counter, letting the rhythmic puffs of jeongin’s cloth duster dictate the silence between them. The conversation naturally died down a while ago, and hyunjin had gone back to hiding in the back room like a hermit crab while innie continued to hold down the fort at the front. He had noticed hyunjin walking out of the room fifteen minutes ago, but had chosen not to speak and instead just offer him a friendly smile and nod as he walked towards the shelves to dust them off.
Hyunjin was mindlessly looking out the window at the way the sky darkened by the minute, until the door opens. Chan is, comically, like a video game character with 3 skins. His skyfall outfit, as hyunjin dubs it, with his leather jacket and tight ripped jeans, his piercings on display but his tats mostly covered, and his red streaked curly hair resting on his forehead, messy from him evidently running his hands through it, is what he’s wearing once again. Not to be confused with his biker skin, where he has the added accessories of gloves, helmet, the bike itself, and an un-ripped pair of jeans. And hyunjin gives him the benefit of the doubt, maybe he has another skin that hyunjin has yet to unlock. A christmas skin? A new years skin? An at-home-and-comfy skin?
“Hi hyunjin!” chan smiles at him, and any worries he had beforehand evaporate from his mind. His returning smile is natural.
“Hey channie. Where’d you been?” hyunjin knew, but he wanted to hear it from chan’s mouth. For a reason he can’t place.
“Oh I was just at the theatre” chan places his bike keys on the keyholder than hyunjin had frankly never noticed until now, and picks up a lighter from one of the tables. He starts making his way towards hyunjin while lighting all the candles between them. Hyunjin doesn’t urge further than an encouraging hum, knowing chan would continue his explanation.
“We have meetings after every successful show week, just taking stock of our budget and turn out and all that jazz. It’s usually boring so binnie usually sits them out” chan laughs. He’s looking at the candlewicks, his face illuminated more every time the flame licks into a new candle. “We also discuss the new projects, and I think you might like the next one!” he straightens up as he finishes, looking at hyunjin.
“Oh?” neither of them drop their smiles, and the way the distant candlelights flicker in chan’s gaze leaves hyunjin’s response breathy.
“We mostly do plays, but every once in a while, like once or twice a year, the dance studio coordinates with us to put up a ballet, or we host a ball together. This time, they want to do the nutcracker since christmas is around the corner and all. Have you been to a ballet before?” chan sits across the counter, leaning onto his elbows. Their faces are relatively close, as hyunjin was already slouching where he stood, resting his weight on his forearms.
“Hmm no, I don’t think so… I’ve trained in ballet back when I was at the academy- er, sorry, not academy. I mean, back when I was at jype, it was required to get our high school degree, and I ended up taking dance classes at SOPA. But it’s been years since then, and I only trained for like… two years? But no, I haven’t seen a ballet otherwise.”
“Oh I used to train in ballet, too! But like, long ago, when I was way younger. Ten, maybe” chan chuckles, his eyes shine with mirth, and hyunjin finds his reflection in them warmer than the thousand mirrors to the left. His smile turns lopsided, a teasing tilt to it. “Would you wanna come watch? I did promise you special backstage passes, after all.”
“Sure, It’s not like I am busy anytime soon anyway. When is it?”
“In two weeks. Right before christmas eve.”
“Hyung-ah” innie calls, magically appearing beside chan in the time hyunjin hasn’t been paying attention, “miss yoon had called. She wants her wristwatch fixed, she’ll probably come here around 10pm”
Hyunjin watches as the tilted smile on chan’s face eases into a more neutral one, but the sparkle in his eyes never dull even as he looks away from the candles and towards innie. “Ah, miss yoon, I know her. She’s the one with the gold wrist watches every time…”
As the two engage in conversation, hyunjin zones out to focus on his wonder at chan remembering details of random customers. He wonders what his defining trait would have been, in chan’s mind. He wasn’t particularly pretty in his first visit- in most of his visits, to be honest. But he’s also incredibly jealous at the amount of info chan seems to store in his head. He makes it seem so easy, so natural to remember people, and things, and how they relate. What connects them.
It’s like his mind has a map that he can follow easily, with colour coded symbols and lines, dots and dashes, labels for every destination, and directions for easy travel. Hyunjin wishes his brain was like that, and not a cobweb of tangents- messy, flimsy, easily destructible.
His restless hands find the switchboard without him thinking about it, and he flicks on the light switch, illuminating the store with the signature artificial lights besides the few candles chan had lit.
“…-yah and this is why hyunjin hyung is my favourite!” he tunes back into their conversation at the mention of his name, letting our an involuntary confused “hm?” at being referred to.
“And why is that, innie?” chan shoots back, with a grin on his face. Jeongin stands with his duster pointed at chan’s chest, still a whole foot away from touching him though, and his other hand on his hip.
“He’s nice, doesn’t interrupt me, he keeps quiet when I don’t feel like talking, and he doesn’t try to squeeze me while I’m working!”
“Hey, hey, I backed off when you told me to stop doing that!” chan lifts his hands up, in mock surrender.
“Pinching my cheeks is still a distraction while I work! And embarrassing in front of our customers!”
“Would I still be your favourite hyung if I pinched your cheeks?” hyunjin asks, an impulsive train of thought escaping his mouth. Innie groans, extending his hand and aggressively pointing his duster at chan.
“See! You’ve given him ideas now, you even corrupt my favourite hyung!”
Chan laughs with his belly at that, echoing around the shop as the windows creak to let the cool december air in, laughing along with him as the candlelights flicker. Hyunjin feels a chill rise up his spine, and he turns around, leaving the two to their squabble to close the windows. When he turns back, chan has somehow attained jeongin’s duster. He’s ushering the younger to go grab his things and go home.
As jeongin is leaving, he calls back, “oh, and how many times have I told you to turn the lights on when it gets dark?”
Chan throws his head back with the force of his laughter, and hyunjin finds the scene quite amusing too. Innie, half foot out the door, half a sleeve of his coat put on, looks as serious as a parent scolding their child for staying up too long, as opposed to their actual ages.
“I’ve told you yennie, my shift my rules!”
And jeongin promptly turns around and walks out with a faint mumble of “this edgy hyung…”
Hyunjin had returned to the couch in the back while chan fixed miss yoon’s watch. He had told chan specifically that he didn’t want anyone to see him, which chan had understood and most of all respected, giving him drinks and snacks before closing the door so he had some privacy. Chan had remembered to grab hyunjin’s phone charger last night from his parents’ place as well, so he had plenty of entertainment to occupy himself with.
And still, he was more interested in striking up conversation with chan. Or being near chan. He gravitated towards the door several times, only to back off when the air carried chan and miss yoon’s voice through the door, engaged in amicable conversation. They were barely murmurs through the thick wood, but hyunjin heard them nonetheless.
If he really let himself linger, he could almost extract his existence from the room and place it on a plane where he could somehow see the phantom images of the outside lobby. Vague, not entirely spatially accurate renditions of the shelves and counter and candles in his mind, tinged blue like a three dimensional blueprint, along with scratchy replicas of chan and the customer. He imagines chan’s laugh, as he stands behind the counter, and tinkers with the - golden, he remembers - watch the woman would have given him. Hyunjin doesn’t know how the watch looks, but it’s a bright beacon of gold in this other plane between all the blue. He imagines the woman animated in conversation with chan, and he imagines her walking around when the murmurs increase or decrease in volume.
He is restlessly bored, he needs to go out. Going on his phone right now feels like an impossible task, something he shouldn’t be attempting anyway. It’s just a quick watch fix, he doesn’t have the time to finish any of his tasks - looking at new houses, replying to texts - or enough time to leisurely entertain himself. What good would it do to put on a video essay, or his current anime, when he probably won’t have the time to finish it? He knows there aren’t cameras inside here, but what if they look at him and see how he rewinds every few minutes to relive the parts that made him laugh? He can’t do anything apart from wait, tense, until the customer leaves and he can crawl out of his cave.
In the meantime he ponders whether he should simply take up on chan’s offer. Seungmin did tell him to just see his place first, but it would be terribly inconsiderate, rude, and abrasive of him to do all that and then deny chan’s offer, wouldn’t it? He’d seem like a snobby prick at worst, indecisive at best, and he’d be so embarrassed he’d have to stop visiting chan for a while or forever. He doesn’t really want to stop visiting skyfall…
How bad could it be? As far as he knows, chan’s a bachelor, has siblings but lives alone, is capable of paying his bills and taking care of himself on top of working two jobs, and has a spare room. If he was struggling for money he probably wouldn’t have a spare room, and if it wasn’t habitable enough for a person to sleep there for multiple days he most likely wouldn’t have offered. Does hyunjin really need to check it out first? Wouldn’t it be knightly of him to simply accept the kind offer and take his place in the spare room, without any complaints?
He hears the voices slowly die down, and then it goes from two to one, and then none. He stands frozen in front of the door, hand raised between it and his body, his leg hanging low in an almost step towards it, his fingers twitching to grip the handle and pull. He’s locked between the choice of going out and staying and waiting some more, unsure of whether the customer has truly left, and unsure of whether he’s allowed to.
As he’s contemplating his fate, the door creaks open and chan pokes his head inside. His features morph to pleasant surprise, clearly not expecting hyunjin to be standing near the doorway.
“I was just-” hyunjin gestures vaguely towards him, towards the door, with his hand that’s still raised. He leaves his sentence unfinished, not knowing himself what he was going to do or say.
Chan just smiles warmly and opens the door further, the rest of his body coming into sight. “Heading out?”
“Yeah, I mean- not out as in out but you know-”
“No one’s there anymore, but… why go out there when it’s comfier here?” chan asks, smile still painted on his face and sincerity in his voice.
“I’ve been here all day…”
Chan hums, “stuffy?”
“No, no! I’m just… restless.”
“Okay, let’s go hang out in the front then. Oh! Have you had food?”
Hyunjin is slightly taken aback by the question, and he belatedly realises food had slipped his mind entirely. He shakes his head, no. He wonders if he could just find a restaurant nearby… but it seems risky. Even though seungmin said he should be fine now…
“Okay, there are a few brochures for delivery food in the drawer somewhere, or we could order online. I would offer to cook for you, but I kinda know only a grand total of three dishes and I can’t serve you an amateur chef’s work so get your pretty head to the front and we’ll decide, okay?”
Hyunjin tilts his head “that’s three more than me. What can you cook?”
For the first time since he’s met the man, chan actually seems shy, bashful almost. He avoids eye contact immediately, choosing to look at the hardwood floor instead, his hand rising to rub his thumb against his rapidly reddening ear, and then pushed back to his nape.
“Uhm well… I usually do bibimbap, and seaweed soup-”
“Seaweed soup!” hyunjin’s ears and mind work very hard to keep his tunnel vision crystal clear. He hears what he likes, and he’s instantly excited like a cat with yarn. Chan doesn’t seem to mind the interruption, his eyes snapping back to hyunjin’s bouncing figure, shyness melting away to give space to endearment and matching excitement on his face.
“You like seaweed soup?”
“Of course! Oh channie, please make me some?”
Chan hums with his smile, pretending to consider it, weighing his options. He winks one eye as he looks around, stretching the silence between them. He tilts his body towards the doorway, and then hyunjin remembers that he is technically on duty. After that, hyunjin is re-listening to his own voice on loop in his head, asking chan to cook for him, and he feels like he’s stepped over a boundary somehow, some invisible line he shouldn’t cross. His black smokey tendrils escape from beneath him and spill all over the room, encasing the floor in his unsightly presence. Even if there was a visible line, hyunjin has diffused himself to every part of the room, and he feels awful about taking up so much space uninvited.
“I mean- you don’t have to. I’m not hungry anywa-”
“I’m messing with you” chan giggles, and any sense of discomfort in his body language hyunjin was picking up on earlier magically dissipates, further confirming that he was indeed, just joking. Hyunjin’s heart that had dropped two seconds ago flies back up to its spot in his ribs, and the beating is so intense he can almost feel it at his throat. “Of course I’ll cook for you hyunjinnie!” he continues, through his giggles.
Despite feeling like he ran ten marathons adrenaline wise, his tendrils slip back into him in an instant. Through the blurry haze he notes that skyfall had tendrils when he first came here, too. Skyfall does have her own shadowy slippery appendages. They embrace him all the time. Tickle his stomach, lick his calves, pet his hair. They linger, despite his own retreating. He wasn’t crossing any boundary. He wasn’t imposing.
“Just seat yourself in the front or stay here on the couch, let me know if you hear customers okay? I’ll be back before you know it with your soup. Come now, settle down.” Chan has somehow obtained a pillow in his hands, that he places gently on the couch and pats down, making hyunjin’s seat ready for him. Before he’s even sat, chan turns around and heads towards the fridge, taking out the ingredients he needs while crouching down. Hyunjin has no idea where the kitchen is in here, but he’s not going to ask.
Only when their bowls are empty, and he’s sufficiently thanked and praised chan, does he allow himself to awkwardly bring up the subject of visiting chan’s home. He stutters out a “so um-” before having to clear his throat to attempt again, as it came out like a record scratch more than a human voice.
“I hate to ask, but um… is the offer still up? You know, to stay over yours for a while?” he can’t phrase it. He can’t put in the words exactly how he means them, because it sounds too demanding. Who is hyunjin to outright ask someone, hey, you said I could sleep at your place until I get over my little tantrum about my parents, are you still ok with that or no? No no no no, that’s way too accusatory. It’s entitled, and read off almost like he remembers things solely to his benefit. He has to walk on eggshells to get what he wants, but it’s a good thing he’s trained to do that all the time now.
“Yeah of course! You can come have a look in the morning after my shift, and if you think the guest room is habitable enough you can bring your stuff whenever!”chan replies without hesitation, and hyunjin’s carefully crafted plan to ease chan into the idea of letting him visit first gets washed off his hands in front of his very eyes. Well…. Okay then.
“Oh, that would be great! Thank you so much!”
“Of course, no problem! You should probably get some sleep though, we’ve still got a few hours to kill and it’s a little bit of a walk.”
“Ah, I mean I can try, but with my non-existent sleep schedule I don’t think I’ll find much success…”
“It’s okay, you can just rest your eyes even if you don’t sleep. I’ll be up front if you need anything, okay?” chan graciously takes his bowl for him, and offers him some water or a [non alcoholic] drink before making his way back to the front. Hyunjin submerges himself in the quiet waves of the air. Something so unique to skyfall.
There’s no rhyme or reason why skyfall feels special. Otherworldly at times, and warm when it shouldn’t be, yet cold always. It’s like… an ideal version of what he would want to be. Just a sentient place in time, shelter to those who seek it, home to those who stay. Eerie in the inexplicable way.
Chan resembles skyfall much more than he probably knows. There’s a touch of magic in both of them, the kind that you’ll miss if you aren’t looking carefully enough, but once you notice it you can’t ever go back to missing it. It sticks with you, sparkles like glitter in an elbow, exists in spaces it shouldn’t exist in, remains beyond your scope of imagination… but it changes you.
The entire day, there was a nagging thought at the back of hyunjin’s mind.
Chan is okay with a stranger being in his shop without supervision? What if I stole something?
And he hadn’t given it more than a second’s attention at a time, but it stayed. And he knows it holds no water - he won’t steal anything, and he’s not a stranger - but he can’t help the train of thought from branching into a metropolitan system.
Chan is awfully trusting. He seems to be able to hold his own very well, considering living in a whole different country from his birthplace and still making ends meet, working two jobs in the outskirts of town, having a way to get himself around places. And yet he sees in hyunjin something worth keeping around. Someone who is simply crashing his couch, because he had a fight with his parents and walked out like a teenager, is currently jobless, and doesn’t have anything to his name except the pretty face he sells.
The windows and floorboards that creak as they watch hyunjin sink further into the couch are reminiscent of chan’s little squeak at the tail end of his laughter. The lights as he looks up towards the ceiling are less harsh on his eyes than the sky outside, they remind him of chan’s eyes. When he hates everyone’s eyes on him, he finds he didn’t mind chan looking. Not now, not back at the river, not at his childhood photos, not even the first time they met. He was startled, and didn’t know what to make of someone like chan, but he realises now that the man is far gentler than he expected. All he does is seek understanding. All his questions are out of curiosity, and they were that first night too. The shop smells of chan, or chan smells of skyfall, he couldn’t tell. Where does one end and the other begin?
The air itself is different here. Less suffocating. Even with the weight of memories attached to the antiques, he feels at peace knowing they have a resting place. Knowing they’ll be taken care of well. Knowing they’ll find another home. Maybe hyunjin can, too. He’s old enough to be considered vintage, antique is not far off… he hopes.
He catches himself on that dangerous ledge. Hope. Something he had never dreamed of letting himself have again. You see, hyunjin and hope have a hate-hate relationship. They’re mutually bad for each other. Opposite of symbiotes. They aren’t even parasitic, there is nothing beneficial from being in a room together for either party. Hyunjin gets nothing but crushing defeat when he holds on to hope, and what could hope ever obtain from a measly little boy?
Besides, hyunjin hadn’t even thought he’d make it past twenty. Twenty four is already pushing it, what does he think he’s doing imagining himself as an antique item??
He sighs and breaks himself out of his reverie, waves rippling around him at the disturbance of him getting up. His legs carry him back to the lobby, back to where chan is. He figured he could just watch him work or look around the shop a little.
However, chan doesn’t seem to be the kind of quiet worker than innie was, at least, not tonight. Tonight he strikes up conversation between hyunjin that sits as delicately and smoothly as the layers of butter in a croissant. With practiced ease he weaves in and out of topics, directing the tone and trajectory of the conversation like a maestro. With no customers, and a never-ending conversation, time slips by hyunjin despite the many clocks on the wall.
Before he knows it, chan is taking his keys and guiding him out of the shop with a palm on the small of his back. As soon as he steps one foot outside the gates of skyfall, it’s like the real world comes crashing down on him, bringing with it shivers and icy air. It was cold within skyfall, too, but not a fear inducing, unrelenting cold. It was the cold hands of a lover returning home, the cold tip of one’s nose, waiting to be kissed, red and cute. Not the hollow mist of the dawn that now greets him.
When chan joins his side and a flicker of warmth breaches his heart, he finds that it’s not all that bad.
“I’m used to it, but it might be a long walk for some people. Do you mind walking?”
“Hm? Oh, no worries I don’t mind at all.” Hyunjin stuffs his hands into the pockets of the long coat chan had given him before leaving skyfall. He doesn’t know how chan conjures up all these things that hyunjin might need exactly when he needs them, but he’s not going to complain. The snow has settled overnight, a shallow coat of white over the rails and gravel like powdered sugar on a doughnut. They barely leave footprints, moreso melt the snow as they walk. It’s a little odd not hearing the static-y crunch of leaves beneath his feet.
As chatty as chan was back in the shop, he stays quiet now. There’s nothing but the cyclic sounds of breathing and soft, cushioned footsteps reaching hyunjin’s ear. That, and aeons of fog and mist. Everything is so gray-white, so dull. And still, hyunjin doesn’t mind. Not all that much anyway.
It’s a different kind of dull to the white marbled tiles and foggy glass windows in his [previous] pristine apartments or hotel rooms. It’s not sterile. It’s so far from. There’s a sense of life thrumming underneath it all, like the earth itself is watching as he traverses her. But it’s so distant, so beyond hyunjin’s reach, that he cannot help but think it’s an echo of the past. A lingering presence. A place that once had many visitors and people who needed it, now only to be walked upon by hyunjin and chan.
He looks at chan, and he finds himself so, so lost. Chan looks... like a regular tired human after a full night shift. He has the inklings of a dark circle forming underneath the one eye hyunjin can see from his side, and his cheek droops ever so slightly, and his hair is hidden beneath a beanie while his mouth hides behind a scarf. Not a mysterious shadow of the night, not an all-knowing clock clerk, not anyone out of hyunjin’s dreams. Anything hyunjin knew about chan, always fell so short to who he really was.
Every time hyunjin witnessed chan, he found something new, he learnt a new truth about the universe, he uncovered another secret about himself. And somehow, he feels as if it doesn’t add up.
Why is one person, able to do so much? And why is hyunjin able to exist in the same space as them, unable to comprehend how they exist?
Chan works skyfall, chan walks home, chan works at the theatre, chan attends board meetings at the theatre, because he is part of the board, chan sends innie home early, chan does house visits sometimes when his customers need him, hyunjin wouldn’t be surprised if chan worked at the dance studio innie mentioned as well.
“Is there something on my face?”
Hyunjin doesn’t answer, letting chan’s curious side eye roll off his skin as naturally as the snow melting beneath their feet. Instead, he poses a question of his own.
“Do you work with the dance studio too?” hyunjin’s eyes are narrowed, trying to figure out chan.
Chan blinks and turns to look at him properly, still keeping the pace he had set for them at the beginning. “dance studio…?” he furrows his eyebrows, a frown etching itself onto his face in his seemingly authentic confusion. Hyunjin isn’t sure how one can be confused in such a scenario. If he worked at a dance studio- hell, if he worked at a theatre, or a kfc, or anything that was near his place, and someone mentioned it, he would immediately know what they were referring to. Unless he worked at two kfc’s. Well… hyunjin would probably also feign confusion, to be certain of the other person’s intent with the question. Is chan feigning his confusion?
“oh!” a look of realisation dawns his face, and hyunjin thinks, there’s no way he faked that, or he must be one hell of an actor. “you mean the dance studio next to the theatre?” he chuckles at the tail end of his sentence, and hyunjin sees the cloud of warm vapour escape his mouth, and hyunjin mourns the body heat getting lost into thin air. “how did you even know the dance studio is next to the theatre?”
“innie told me.” hyunjin doesn’t let his questions distract him from getting his own answers. “and you mentioned them earlier, when you said they collaborate with the theatre sometimes. If innie hadn’t told me it was close by i’d have assumed it was near enough just by what you said.”
Chan hums with a lift to his cheek, a hidden smile hyunjin itches to see crinkling his eyes. “analytical, are we?”
Hyunjin’s cheeks have the gall to betray him, reddening at the praise. He finally tears his narrowed eyes away from chan’s figure to fix his gaze down to the powdered sugar-snow. “just curious…”
The snow covering the tracks and trees feels like a soundproof chamber, absorbing their hushed voices instead of echoing them, and the mist doesn’t particularly help visibility, so hyunjin lets himself imagine they’re in a cloud. Two charged particles in a cloud, one negative, one positive. Hyunjin is always drawn to chan, hangs off his every last word, like an electron to a proton. Not nearly even touching each other, always a chasm of void between them, but hyunjin lays in his orbit, never being able to escape the pull chan has on him.
However, electrons are unstable. Protons stick together, stay in the centre, keeping their peace. Electrons are restless, jumpy, skittish little things. They scamper from one point of high energy to another, always looking for something new, something uncharted, something to take over. And then they get bored and jump to the next best thing. So on, and so forth. It is that skittish nature of electrons that gets them in trouble up in the clouds. It is that very thing that prevents them from falling as delicate snow, from forming proper water molecules and letting the temperature guide them into the earth.
Some of them, anyway. Hyunjin wouldn’t put it past his luck to be one of the unfortunate ones. The unfortunate ions, start infighting. Causing waves of electric sparkle between themselves, between the clouds, and heating things up to a degree they shouldn’t be, only to manifest in a state of matter that shouldn’t exist, and strike down the earth in sky shattering bouts of lightning.
They fell trees, they kill beings, and they bring nightmares.
Chan falls as delicately as snow. Hyunjin strikes the ground in hot searing plasma.
“i don’t work there, not really. I do know the people who do, though! I visit often enough, and sometimes they drag me out to one of their dance classes so i’m familiar with the dance crew.” chan answers his question regardless, and hyunjin can’t see him, doesn’t trust his peripheral vision enough, and can’t gather the courage to look up. He resigns to imagining chan is not looking at him, for his own sake mostly. The smell of wet wood wafts through the air.
His answer, surprisingly, does not alleviate any of hyunjin’s curiosities about him. How did chan just… manage? Running in so many circles, having so many contacts, simply keeping up with all of them? How does he, owner of skyfall, board member of the theatre, innie’s and his siblings’ hyung and his parents’ son, friend to all, have the time right now to be walking hyunjin home?
Wait, no. Walking hyunjin to his place. Why is chan even entertaining hyunjin? Not even from a self depracating perspective, even though hyunjin has enough of those stances, but from a genuine inability to understand how one singular human ever has so much time and mental capacity. If hyunjin was in chan’s shoes, he’d have left the strange model who keeps secrets and doesn’t open up to fend for himself and find housing the hard way, like everyone else has to. Because it’s none of hyunjin’s business. He doesn’t need to worry himself with other people’s issues, especially when he has his own, however, if he had a friend circle as vast and reliable as chan’s…
If him and han still went on weekly lunches, if him and minho still practiced together every evening, if him and felix still went on self care dates… he’d have enough on his plate, with his friends’ lives that he needs to stay updated on because he wants to be a good friend…. that he wouldn’t even consider taking another person under his wing, another person with so. Much. Baggage.
“why do you ask? Do you wanna join them?”
Hyunjin whips his head to chan’s side profile. “join them!? what do you mean, join them?”
“you said you loved dancing, right? And you’ve been trained for a while too, you’d make a lovely addition to the crew if i’m being honest. You don’t have to be present all the time or anything, you can just join some of their classes that interest you, if you see a choreographer you wanna learn from, or they have a bunch of different low pressure options for adults with other jobs, you could give it a try!”
Hyunjin looks at chan like he’d grown two heads. “chan… don’t be ridiculous now, why would i join a random dance studio?”
“do you need to be born into a dance studio?” chan finds humour in this situation, humour that hyunjin cannot see. “a recommendation letter? I could write you one, if you want. ‘hyunjinnie, the best dancer in the world, you won’t regret letting him join your prestigious studio’.” he laughs.
“no- i just- i don’t see why? I didn’t have any plans of dancing soon, chan. I’m already househunting and jobhunting. Where would i find the time to commit to dancing again?” hyunjin flails around his arms aimlessly, his frustration rising with how incredulous he finds the suggestion.
“you don’t have to commit, though. You could just visit and see how it feels, or rent it out just for yourself for an hour, let your bones loose a little. I know you miss dancing, why not just try, when there’s a studio really accessible to you if you’re gonna stay a while?” chan, although his words taken straight out of a salesman pitch, sounds a lot like… a friend. Suggesting something. Like the time hannie suggested getting tattoos together, like the time felix suggested a hair dye brand, like the time minho suggested a work out. To hyunjin’s benefit.
“did you forget the part where i said i don’t have time?” hyunjin laughs as well, but his ugly expulsion of air lacks any humour. It’s a wicked, evil self soothing mechanism. Designed only to protect him from demons that do not exist. His shackles raised high.
“Were you doing anything in your parents’ place besides laying around?” chan shoots back, with less venom in his voice. Hyunjin is astonished by the call out, and entirely befuddled upon how to respond. The truth, would only affirm chan’s notion, that he was in fact free. Seungmin did all the vetting for the houses before him, and he only took about two hours sending in emails and job applications before his brain completely fried itself after passing through a cheese grater, so the majority of his time nowadays went to oversleeping and rotting in his unmade bed.
“you can spare an hour, i think. It’ll be good, hyunjinnie, trust me.”
Hyunjin stops abruptly, bubbles of uncertainty and frustration starting to simmer beneath his skin. Chan halts in his tracks as well, staring at hyunjin with an open, honest expression. It’s so easy for him. “I can’t.”
Chan tilts his head, an otherwise endearing gesture, only serving to make hyunjin’s frustration overshadow his uncertainty. “Why not? You miss it, don’t you?”
“I, yes, I miss it, but-” hyunjin tries to reiterate what only he can understand, “i don’t have the energy. The job and house hunting saps all of it away and, I’ve been so out of practice for so many years that I’d just absolutely suck at it.”
“Hm, who says you need to be good?”
“Me” hyunjin wails, desperation seeping into his tone as clear as day “i say, I will hate myself if I’m not good at it. If I can’t compare to my own past self.”
Chan blinks at him, choosing not to say anything as he continues to stare. His eyes aren’t sharp like hyunjin’s were, he doesn’t seem like he’s trying to figure something out. The something being whatever is wrong with hyunjin. But still, hyunjin feels scrutinised. Inspected. Like he has a particular threshold he needs to hit to ‘pass’ whatever the fuck kinda social test this was. And then chan shrugs lightly and turns back to the trail, continuing to walk forward in the snow, leaving hyunjin confused.
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, hyunnie. But we can visit because I wanna show you the place anyway, it’s a nice spot to hang out even if you don’t wanna dance. They have a churro stall outside the building!”
Hyunjin stays silent this time, falling in step a little behind chan. The thoughts whirl within his brain, all the times he’s never measured up, to himself, to minho, to han, to felix. To the random dancer online that he spite-follows, the one who he shared one class with back at SOPA, the one who went ahead to fulfil all of his dreams, being in royal family, touring the world as a dancer… the itch to pick up his legs, to push his bones into a beautiful arch that would astound even his shrewdest ballet teacher, to work himself to exhaustion out of spite, to prove everyone wrong as he snatches the dance career he always wanted, it burns in his chest. It makes his muscles twitch, and he has to take a calming breath to realise he isn’t a revenge machine.
“It’s the saddest feeling ever…” he murmurs beneath his breath, not even sure if chan was hearing him or not. He just wanted to speak his pain out loud. “To be a dancer and have heavy feet…”
Chan hums just as quietly, tilting his head a little but not directly looking at him, and that’s all hyunjin needs to be spurred into another rant. Another explanation, another excuse, another time he feels the need to validate his feelings to someone, to make it make sense, so he can be sure they know that it wasn’t his fault.
“Feeling like the weight of your emotions, your worries, your exhaustion… feeling all of those pile onto your heels.” He stares at the ground as he continues to walk, keeping the two step distance between him and chan, starting to feel the strain on his own feet as he’s explaining the sheer tiredness he feels. “Going from being light on your feet, airy, flowy, this weightless bird… to a sack of rubbish hauled over one’s shoulder and thrown into the dark alley. To feel like the weight of the world doesn’t rest on your shoulders, but your feet. Not being able to take another step, let alone twirl around and jump like you used to… because every step forward is a drag, thanks to the heaviness shackled to your ankles.”
He looks up, at the back of chan’s head, and speaks louder than he has the whole way, eyes looking at a different plane of existence altogether, staring at something beyond chan’s beanie, but the conviction in his voice bleeding with pain. “You don’t know how sad it feels, chan. To be so ‘full of potential’, that anything anyone ever sees come out of you is disappointment. To have a body built for dance and spend years training, only to always fall short because somehow, everyone else manages to get rid of their pooling emotions. Somehow I will never match up to the ‘potential’ everyone sees in me, no matter how hard I break myself trying to.”
Chan looks back then, a mere tilt of his head, with a smile that’s more understanding than pitying. “I may know a thing or two.” His smile only holds warmth behind it, no sadness or bitterness. He turns back to the trail as he continues, a gentle airiness to his tone. “Besides, it doesn’t matter what other people see in you. It’s you who has to live the life you build for yourself.”
Hyunjin has heard it all before, believe in yourself, they’d say, don’t listen to other people’s opinions. He can never explain how despite him not giving into peoples’ demands of him, their words still feel like a cage to him. He’s about to retort, but chan beats him to the punch, continuing his own little monologue.
“It doesn’t seem like you’re very happy with where you are now, though. Even though you speak of dancing so sadly, I can hear your yearning, you know? I can feel your desire to be better, not for all that ‘potential’ bullshit people see in you, but because dancing makes you happy.”
Hyunjin’s response dies on his tongue. Withers away like burnt paper, leaving powdery ashes in his mouth. Chan nails the lid of the coffin shut with his next line, which entirely fills hyunjin’s vision with the rays of sunlight that he was missing in his dawn.
“And what else in life is worth pursuing, than one’s own happiness?”
He’s just… speechless, really. Sure, the rebel spirit in him is begging him to deny, to defend his scornful point of view on it all, but how can he do that, when chan is smiling so brightly, talking to him like he’s on equal grounds, always so gentle and soft yet not an inch patronizing? How can he do that, when he knows chan is right?
It’s not gonna be that easy, hyunjin knows. He’s gonna have to fight himself over and over to allow himself to pursue that happiness. But he’ll never find it if he doesn’t try.
Chan makes him want to try.
Chan’s house is in the neighbourhood that sits on the other side of the railroad. They pass the theatre to get to their destination, but chan quickly shows him the building and promises to bring him back when they’re both fully rested. The house itself, is a decently sized independent building in a relatively empty street. The blocks they passed by were filled with modern homes packed without an inch of air between them, but this road was secluded almost, and chan’s place had a rustic exterior, with stone bricked accent walls and a slanted roof with dark shillings.
Hyunjin didn’t particularly care for the exterior of houses as much as he nosedived into interior decoration, but he was inexplicably drawn to more gothic style architecture. Chan’s place had just enough nods to it with the arched entryway and stained glass windows, but not too overbearing as to look like it was a straight up cathedral or castle.
Inside the actual place, it was more modern and sleek than the impression from outside would make you believe. It was clear there had been renovations done to the interior, and everything was kept in surprisingly crisp condition. There’s mini steps from the patio to the living room which hyunjin adores, and there’s a wide open kitchen and a dining area. There’s plenty of space to move around, and despite the surplus of well-chosen furniture, it didn’t feel suffocating in the least.
Everything was meticulously placed, and hyunjin could feel the vibe, the underlaying energy and thought process of someone who lives here, someone who made the place their own. Something so distinctly different from hyunjin’s own flat. He has a bunch of soft rugs, a pair of home slippers that he offers hyunjin but himself goes barefoot [and lowkey, hyunjin wants to feel the soft rug under his skin too, but he’ll be polite and take the slippers], a lot of air fresheners in every room, a lot of wooden decor pieces and some that seem like they belong right in skyfall, and a ton of shelves with random collections of objects.
There’s one near the television that has rows and rows of awards and medallions. There’s one in the dining room that has a handful of plants and vines, there’s two in his bedroom that have lines of figurines ranging from pokemon to genshin impact, and a full shelf of plush toys as well. There’s a wii and switch underneath the tv stand, and hyunjin can already tell chan is a huge fan of games. His bedroom has mood lighting, which he shows hyunjin excitedly and tells him he can change it to any colour, but usually keeps it a mix of pink and blue. The bathrooms are spacious, one has a bathtub and shower while the other has a simple shower. They’re white tiled, and very clean.
Apart from all of that, there’s albums, vinyls, instruments and random wires at any corner of the place. CDs and records decorate few walls, guitars lean onto their side, and the guest room - hyunjin’s designated room, for the next few weeks - is filled with music related items. There’s a keyboard and a drum set, a bass guitar, an electric guitar, a violin that chan says is more for when hannah visits, a device that hyunjin does not know the name of but apparently chan uses to mix his tracks, and a big desk that has chan’s laptop and a huge monitor on it, showing a music program that hyunjin is entirely too fascinated by. There’s a small couch fitted behind the desk too.
“This is basically a home studio, wow”
Chan rubs the back of his neck sheepishly, the lights are pretty dim here and he has blackout curtains everywhere, despite the beautiful stained glass windows hyunjin saw from the outside. “Yeah, kinda…”
“Are you sure you want me to take this room? It would be a pain moving all of this, I could just crash on your couch outside, you know…”
“No, no! No couch surfing for you, pretty. I’ll enlist changbin’s help and move all this stuff in a jiffy, don’t you worry!”
“Where would you put everything?”
“The desk can go in my room, there’s plenty of space, the guitars and violin too, the drum and keyboard can go in the living room or I can put them in skyfall’s storage room. The rest of these are small items I can fit into places, don’t worry. Oh! And I have a spare mattress, I’ll get that set up here instead of the couch.”
Apart from all of that, hyunjin has to stop and stare when he realises there are many paintings hanging on chan’s walls. Almost every room has at least one, save for chan’s bedroom. They’re all masterfully painted, hyunjin can tell that much. Professional paintings that aren’t run of the mill decor bought from a furniture shop, but actual art gallery pieces picked up directly from the source.
None of them have faces, or much of any object really. They’re mostly abstract impressions, not shapes and lines but brush strokes that resemble a concept vaguely enough to let the viewer’s mind wander. Something that draws hyunjin’s attention deep into the piece, makes him submerge himself in this pigmented fantasy.
There’s a lot of red and blue. The red ones are raw and guttural, demanding attention immediate and sharp. They host a kind of rage hyunjin has only ever found in the depths of his heart late into the night, completely drowned in the belly of the beast. The screams that never leave his throat. The anger directed towards the rest of the world. Rough brush strokes, even rougher texture, almost no negative space in the background. All consuming red. The softer pieces could almost tumble into passion territory, the longer he stares at them the more he can feel the smooth texture of paint on raw skin. Red, thick, marked.
And then the blue paintings have softer strokes, are gentle in their weaving of structures and themes into the full piece, and yet they haunt him more. They hide something, beneath the pretty colour and serenity of ocean waves, they hide deep rooted melancholy that he cannot place. Secrets waiting to be uncovered beneath the vast negative space present in these, black vignettes surrounding blue.
He spends long enough staring at them that chan notices.
“Do you recognise the paintings?”
Hyunjin doesn’t stop looking at the one ridge of elevated, dried blue paint that makes it look like stems of a flower. “No, but I paint sometimes. I like looking at paintings.”
“Really? Wow, you hide a lot of talents beneath your sleeve, dontcha?” chan sounds really excited to uncover this new factoid about hyunjin, and if hyunjin had turned around he’d have noticed how chan was biting his finger in anticipation of a response, bouncing slightly on his heels.
“It’s more of a hobby…”
“I’d love to see some of your work sometime.” Hyunjin can hear chan’s smile, and he can’t help the flutter in his chest at having someone be interested in him. In a way that isn’t even for one’s own advantage.
“I have some paintings at my flat, maybe I can get some here, you can add a couple to your walls, hm?” hyunjin has an earnest smile, and he finds that he really means it. Often times, hyunjin offers up pieces of himself to people in hopes that they’ll keep him safe, that they’ll appreciate it and understand that hyunjin is a genuine person, to prove that he isn’t materialistic. And often times, he doesn’t truly want to do what he offers. But he doesn’t have an ounce of regret in his statement to chan.
Especially when chan’s eyes widen and a grin takes over his features, showing hyunjin his beautiful teeth and dimple. He shakes his hand next to his face, “really? You’re sure??”
“Mhm, I have a few lying around that don’t get shown off anyway, you might like some of them.”
The studio, as it turns out, is a building with four total dance rooms. The promised churro stand also greeted them at the entrance, a metal trolley with a glass viewing pane and a purple awning. A signboard that read ‘original churros’ was at the front, with a tiny trail of crumbs that hyunjin followed with his eyes until it led to a yellow pacman drawing. Underneath the trail and header was the menu, written in white chalk on the blackboard. Hyunjin was almost tempted to detour to the shop and spend his savings on some delicious treats, just because he’d never had them before and the aroma was enticing. But he didn’t want to cause more of a disturbance than he already was just by being here, so he simply followed chan inside the building.
Chan did say the stall is open all day and that it is an absolute must try on their way out, so hyunjin is holding onto that.
The building itself is very down to earth. Literally. It has potted plants of various sizes in ever nook, the floor is all wood - which, to be fair, is not too outlandish for a dance studio, but hyunjin wasn’t expecting the lobby to have wooden floorboards as well - and there’s a fresh scent, resembling petrichor. It’s super calming, and he instantly gets why chan said this is a nice place to hang out. He almost feel the refreshing air in the lobby relaxing sore muscles of a dancer stumbling out of one of the rooms after hours of dancing. It has a reception desk, a small semi circle that’s also mahogany brown, and a total of three comfy looking couches. To the side is a water purifier and dispenser, along with a coffee machine, and the other side has a vending machine as well as a peculiar instant ramen stand.
To the left and right have two corridors, and peeking into them lets hyunjin know that each side probably has two of the four dance rooms. Chan walks up to the desk, behind which a woman with shoulder length black hair with the tips dyed purple is standing, ready to greet him. She looks pretty tired, like she hadn’t gotten enough sleep before being forced to show up to her job, but she has a rather welcoming energy, especially as she converses with chan.
“Oh, welcome back channie! You’re here quite early today.” Her eyes flit to hyunjin behind him, and she offers him a tired smile as well. “Hi there, welcome!”
Hyunjin offers a small hi and a wave, before letting chan take the reigns over the interaction. He sees from the corner how chan’s lips wear a beautiful smile, and how easily he carries the conversation, a sense of familiarity flowing between them. Hyunjin doesn’t feel left out though, as they both keep him in the loop regardless of him meeting this girl for the first time, and being a new face in the studio.
“Hey sumi!” chan laughs, “it’s like, ten o clock. What do you mean early? You didn’t sleep well last night, did you?” he has a teasing tilt to his question, and it’s so similar to how he spoke to innie back at the shop, this ‘i-know-you-too-well-to-make-this-a-rhetorical-question’ kind of intonation. This gentle older friend looking out for you kind of vibe that chan has around innie as well. It’s honestly cute to witness.
“You work night shift and instead of sleeping, you’re out here reprimanding me about my sleep? At least I got five hours, channie. How many did you get? Ten milliseconds?” sumi raised her eyebrow as punctuation, really hitting her point home. He sees chan roll his eyes with his smile still plastered to his face.
“Youngsters these days, no respect for your elders.”
“I’m so sorry, ahjussi.”
“Yah!”
Sumi smiles in triumph, “did you come here to bore me and your friend or did you need something?”
Chan squints his eyes at her, sticking his tongue out like a petulant little kid, and it unlocks yet another side of chan in hyunjin’s brain. After mocking her sentence, he grabs hyunjin by the elbow and brings him to his side.
“This is hyunjin. Hyunnie, this is sumi. She’s a handful.”
“Rather be a handful than a doormat, ay? Hi! It’s nice to meet you. I dunno how this old man managed to pull someone as pretty as-”
“Sumi!” chan groans, and she blinks at him before laughing with realisation.
“Oh, it’s like that. Well, welcome to the mugunghwa dance studio, if you need anything I’m at this desk, most times. If I’m not I’ll be at the ramen machine probably.”
“Thank you, finally.” Chan breathes out, he has his fingers pressing either side of his nose bridge right under his eyebrows, and while hyunjin definitely thinks he’s missing something that went unsaid between them, he still finds the scene very amusing, so he chuckles along with sumi as he eyes them both.
“I just wanted to show hyunjin around, he likes dance studios.” He likes dance studios.
While hyunjin definitely longs to be boasted about every now and again, he appreciate’s chan’s wording more than chan probably knows. He hates people knowing things about him, especially people he doesn’t know, and even when he himself is the cause of this by oversharing, he feels the need to crawl into a hole and never see the person again right after the interaction. Chan mentioning that he likes studios and not dancing itself, is a barrier between his real personality and reasons and the mask presented to the outside world. Besides, hyunjin would find it insincere if chan had said hyunjin is good at dancing, or any of that sort. Even if he had called him a dancer. Because in his head, chan hasn’t seen him dance, not in real life even if he had seen the advertisements he’d done, and that takes away the credibility from that sentence being uttered from his lips.
That’s why he never believed in any one of changbin’s praises. While he deeply appreciates the gesture and kindness, he simply can’t internalise it when he cant rationalise changbin having a reason to say all those nice things to and about him.
Chan, on the other hand, has never said anything he doesn’t mean, and it’s always so daunting to try and defy his words because of how much truth they hold.
“Oh, of course! Do you want me to tag along?”
“No” chan says immediately, but he says it so playfully that it reads like an older brother making fun of his little sister. “Give me the keys sumi, you can sleep on your desk or whatever you do during the day”
“Some of us actually work during the day, asshole” she retorts but tosses the keys at him nonetheless, which chan catches with ease. With a cute little thank you, he properly hooks his arm into hyunjin’s elbow and dragging him into the corridor to the left.
“You both seem to know each other?” hyunjin muses as they walk.
“Mhm, I come here after theatre sometimes, and like I said, it’s fun to hang out here. She’s fairly new though, she’s only been working here for about two years.” They approach the end of the corridor, and theres a door to each side. Chan unlocks the door to the right and leads him into a room.
“She’s really young. Just twenty one, younger than innie even.” That explains why their interaction felt so similar. Hyunjin walks around, the wooden floorboards seem squeaky clean and sturdy. The ceiling to floor mirrors are lined on two adjacent walls instead of just one, and there’s a speaker system in the corner. The lights are bright white on the ceiling in lines, and theres an air conditioning system in the middle of it. He stays quiet as chan explains further.
“But she has a lot of passion, she reminds me of you, you know.” That piques his interest as he turns to look at chan, silently urging him to continue. “She couldn’t afford to go to a performing arts university, so she found some choreographers who took her in as an apprentice free of cost at seventeen, like a dance intern, and then one of them owns this studio and had an opening for a job here, and she jumped at the opportunity. She practices late at night once even the night owls are out of here.” Chan smiles as he looks back at hyunjin, his eyes soft. “It’s nice, to see her not give up on her dreams entirely. I’m proud of her.”
They hold the stare, the deeper meaning behind chan’s words not lost on either of them, but not outright enough for hyunjin to address it directly. It should offend him, but he finds… solace. He too, is proud of this random stranger he met just today, for braving the tragedy that befell him as well.
The room opposite to this one is similar, but with a mirrored layout. And the lights on the ceiling are a bright yellow. The speaker system is the same too. They don’t talk much, but they linger longer in this room. It feels… nice, to be in one of these dance rooms again. But free of all the trainees, of the cutthroat competition, the agitation brewing beneath it all.
As they exit the room and enter the corridor again, hyunjin remembers something.
“Do you know a heeseung?”
“Hm?”
“Innie said there’s someone called heeseung at the studio, and he asked me to say hi for him.”
“Oh, yeah! Heeseung and his boyfriend should be here, actually. They might be in the big one. I’ll take you to that after the last empty one, but the dance crew is usually in the bigger one when they’re not practicing individually.”
“Okay.”
They pass by sumi’s desk again, and she is magically missing, to which chan shakes his head and rolls his eyes fondly. The corridor to the right has two rooms as well.
The last empty one, as it turns out, is hyunjin’s favourite so far. It has blackout curtains on one wall, a soundproofing board behind them, and one mirror filled wall, but the lights are running along the lines of the ceiling and walls. They were blue when they entered, but chan quickly lets him know the colour can be changed. He likes it blue, although the red is equally as tempting. The floor is a lighter coloured wood than the rooms before. The speakers are sleek black, and sit on either corner of the mirrored wall. It’s slightly larger than the previous rooms too but not noticably so.
Hyunjin stretches his arms as he looks in the mirror, swaying a bit naturally, but keeping his legs close to himself. Still aware of chan watching him, and his muscles not being stretched. The last time he danced without stretching, he pulled a muscle in his shoulder. But this room calls to him, he has images filling his vision of all the different choreographies he could try, of the blue [or red, depending on the mood] lights lighting his silhouette in pretty shapes.
Eventually, they exit the room and chan opens the last dance room, the only one he didn’t require to use the key for. Hyunjin is impressed by the soundproofing of the place, because as soon as they enter he hears music blasting but it was pin drop silence outside. He doesn’t hear the telltale stomps of footwork though, instead there’s giggles filling his ear, and he locates the source in one corner of the room, in front of [one of] the mirror[s].
The room itself is massive, very obviously the biggest dance room in the whole studio, it has black soundproofed walls and a sleek varnished wooden floor, as well as two mirrored walls and a giant speaker as well as a wallmount TV. The lights are dim, but he sees a thermostat as well as fancy switches he assumes that control the lights just like the previous room. The lights themselves are shaped like flowers on the ceiling. There’s a coffee and water dispenser within this room itself, and a trash and recycle bin, and a long slim sofa lining one non-mirrored wall.
All that space, and yet, there’s two figures huddled into one corner of the room in front of the mirror, in their own bubble sharing laughter that sounds tinkling and sweet even to hyunjin’s foreign ears. The taller one, has reddish-purple hair, and is slumping his head onto his arm which is placed on the shoulder of the shorter one. His face is hidden, and hyunjin and chan are quite a distance from them, but hyunjin can see the side of his face, his cheeks straining in an obvious grin, and his ears bright red. The shorter one, in front of him, facing the mirror, has blonde hair that covers his head and neck and falls over his eyes in bangs, making him look like a blonde boba pearl.
He is stood in an awkward pose, with his legs spread wide on either side of his hips, and his arms held to his side like a T pose but bent at his elbows. He is popping his chest in time with lolling his neck from side to side while keeping his head upright, making a clearly ridiculous image that the taller one was probably laughing at.
Blondie’s eyes meet hyunjin’s through the mirror, and he turns around, unfazed by the fact he was seen doing something embarrassing by a stranger. The taller one’s arms comically stay in the same position, so now his face is hidden in the blonde’s chest, his posture slumping even more.
“Oh, hey channie hyung!” blonde says. The taller one finally ceases giggling and gathers himself before making himself upright. When he turns to face the two of them, he has a pleasantly surprised spark in his eyes. Chan probably doesn’t bring new people here often.
“Hi wonie! stop being all lovey dovey over there and come here you two, I have to introduce you to someone.” The taller blushes at the callout, but the shorter seems completely nonchalant about it as he strides towards them. The other follows shortly behind.
“This is hyunjin, my new friend. Hyunjin, this is jungwon” chan points at the blonde kid, “and this is heeseung.” They both smile at him, and heeseung holds out his hand to shake.
“It’s nice to meet you. I’ve heard about you from jeongin, he told me to say hi.” Jungwon extends his hand next and hyunjin shakes his too.
“Oh, innie! I think I know you!”
Hyunjin blinks in surprise, taking a step back to be closer to chan again. “You know me?”
“Yeah, innie talks about you sometimes. You dropped him home that one night on your back, right?”
“Um, yeah?”
“Yeah, he just refers to you as channie hyung’s friend.” Channie hyung’s friend, again. “But yesterday he called you his favourite hyung when we were talking on the phone after his shift.” Heeseung eyes chan, clearly finding what he just said amusing.
Chan rolls his eyes and jungwon laughs at that. Heeseung has a quiet, sweet voice, but jungwon is clearly boyish. He seems young. He has a really pretty face and the biggest pair of eyes hyunjin has seen on anyone, cat-like in their shape, and yet when he laughs and speaks, there’s just the sense of young boy, must protect in hyunjin’s head.
“Damn channie hyung, you lost your spunk and your favourite dongsaeng so fast.” Jungwon snickers. Heeseung watches him with the fondest expression, and huffs out a laugh of his own.
“The disrespect I face every time I come here, yah. What is with you kids? First sumi and now you…”
“We keep you on your toes, hyung. You should thank us for keeping you fit.”
“All you do is give me headaches.”
“Alright, alright, let’s break it up now…” heesung’s gentle voice stops them both from bickering further, “hyung, did you come to dance?”
Chan puts his hands in his pockets, “no, actually. I came to show hyunjin around.”
“Oh, is he moving in close by?”
“No”
“Yes”
Chan and hyunjin speak at the same time. Their heads snap to each other, and both blink in surprise. They stare at each other, while jungwon and heeseung’s gaze goes back and forth between them rapidly.
Heeseung whistles, while jungwon whispers his comment “awkwarddd…”
Hyunjin turns to them first, still feeling chan’s surprised stare on his side profile. “I’m gonna stay with channie hyung for a few days, maybe weeks… so I’m kinda moving in closeby…”
“Right, right…” chan blinks out of his stupefied daze and turns to the other pair too.
“Anyway, where’s the rest of your troupe?”
“Kyujin and jiwoo have classes, tomoya and so geon are running late because they stopped for breakfast.” Jungwon answers.
Chan turns to hyunjin, focusing his attention on him. Somehow it has hyunjin’s skin warming up despite the air conditioning. “Do you want to stay and watch them, or go to one of the other rooms, or just go back home?”
“Umm..” Hyunjin, like every single time he’s faced with any decision, is so unsure that his mind goes entirely blank. He tries weighing his options, comparing the pros and cons of each mentally, but with every second passing he feels the expectation of his answer rise from the other three present in the room, and he feels too much pressure to make a rational decision.
After a handful of seconds, he blurts out “i think we can stay and watch, if thats okay?” he regrets it immediately but turns to the pair in front of them.
“Mhm, of course that’s okay hyunjin-ssi” heeseung agrees without a hitch, but the way he refers to hyunjin feels too off-putting.
“Oh, uhm… you can call me hyung, its okay. Are you innie’s age?”
“Oh okay! Yes, I’m twenty three. Wonie is twenty.”
“You can sit on the sofa or on the floor or drag a chair hyung, whatever you feel comfy with. The chairs are in the back there” jungwon points towards a corner that has a stack of plastic chairs.
“Okay, thank you for letting us stay!”
Heeseung and jungwon were two members of a local dance crew that did performances at small gigs, busking on the busy seoul streets, and occasional kpop covers, hyunjin finds out. They’re dancers in the ballet that chan mentioned too, as well as the kids in sumi’s ballet class [he finds out, as well, that sumi teaches ballet to kids under eighteen].
He wasn’t gonna make them do a full ballet routine, so he asked them to just do what they felt confident in, wherever the vibe took them.
He did initially think they’d show him their dances separately, but that thought is quashed in record speed as they ready their positions at the same time. They move entirely in sync with each other it’s almost uncanny. The fact they’re different heights doesn’t even hinder the way they act like a singular body, two parts of a whole. When one pulls, the other extends. Like a rope pulled taut, invisible between their limbs.
Heeseung looks at chan, a silent signal which chan immediately catches. From his spot next to hyunjin on the floor [because hyunjin will never visit a dance studio and not lie on the cold wood floor, and chan will never let hyunjin do something alone, apparently] chan opens his phone, shuffles through files all the while hyunjin tries not to appear as if he’s peering in. And soon enough, there’s a track playing through the speakers.
The dancers move before he even has the time to register the first synth.
The track itself has a longing feeling to it, filled with synths and a deep cello, ebbing and flowing like the tides yearn to reach the moon. Unexpectedly, there are three gunshot sounds every now and then, and suddenly the tides are blood red in hyunjin’s mind.
Heeseung and jungwon mostly move complimentary to each other, but there seems to be missing pieces to the choreography… no, there seems to be missing people. Hyunjin picks up on it, and he’s almost certain this is meant to be performed with more people. Maybe the whole crew.
Regardless, they do seem extremely skilled. Jungwon’s joints seem to turn into wobbly jelly, his body lines becoming strikingly fluid and yet he maintains a tight control over where his limbs are going. Heeseung looks like he embodies the music, like the choreography lives within him. He is clean and precise with his moves, hitting the right angles with the appropriate amount of power. They both have an innate musicality that hyunjin can sense already, with the textures and stylistic choices he can catch glimpses of between practiced choreography.
And then the synths are pulled back, letting the cello fill entirety of the empty space left behind, and the two quickly get into position, back to back. Somehow, despite the rest of the dance feeling tilted slightly - off-balance in the way there’s weight on one side of the see-saw, missing members that hyunjin hadn’t even met - this part feels whole. It feels complete with just the two of them, and its noticeable to hyunjin’s eyes how their auras shift. The air of confidence, the energy going from practiced to natural, the way they are commanding attention just onto the two of them.
Back to back, the symbolism isn’t lost on hyunjin as he watches them perform a mirrored dance sequence, jungwon’s face, heeseung’s back. Their arms going up diagonally, twirling their wrists to the centre, covering their faces. Jungwon walks two steps forward, heeseung walks two steps back. Then they’re pivoting, turning elbow first, shoulder next, then the neck. Now they’re face to face with each other, but only showing their sides to hyunjin.
They gracefully raise their palms, laying them flat against each other’s next to their face, and hyunjin’s breath is stuck in his throat as he watches their other arms raise up to pet the other’s faces, a gentle caress of their fingertips on their cheeks, like a lingering kiss. First one side, then cross over to the other.
Then they spin and they’re back to back again.
Hyunjin tries to pay attention to the rest of their dance, but mentally he is stuck at the mirrored sequence. Something… something about it, makes his blood run warm.
“You guys are great!” he praises while clapping, listing off enthusiastically all the parts he found cool. A compliment to jungwon’s body lines, one to heeseung’s angles, plenty to their control and stamina, and a special one for their mirrored sequence that had them both beaming and flushed. Seems hyunjin wasn’t wrong about it holding an inner meaning.
“Thank you so much!” jungwon beams, and hyunjin has an urge to ruffle his hair because of how cute he looks. “You have a really good understanding of dance principles, do you dance as well?”
Hyunjin can’t even be cautious about his answer when those big shiny eyes are staring at him with such intense curiosity. “I used to be a trainee, but I don’t dance as much anymore..”
“Hyung, why didn’t you put your song?” he hears heeseung talking to chan beside them, and it catches both his and jungwon’s attention. Chan shrugs his shoulders in response, simply smiling and waving his hand as if to say ‘eh, don’t bother’.
But hyunjin wasn’t gonna let that go so easily. “Your song?” he asks pointedly, stepping a little closer, using his height to his advantage for the first time and crowding chan’s vision as he maintains eye contact. “What song, hyung?”
“He makes tracks for the dance crew from time to time, and he recently made one we all loved, we used it while busking last week!”
“Is that so…” hyunjin doesn’t relent, he wants to hear it directly from chan. He doesn’t know what’s come over him, but he feels like coaxing out the answer from chan’s mouth. Like pulling a thread through a stitch. “What song, hyung?” he repeats.
Chan sighs, closing his eyes for a couple seconds before giving him his answer, “you’re not gonna give this one up, are you?” hyunjin doesn’t even need to reply, chan is already moving on rightfully convinced that hyunjin won’t back down.
“Are you two gonna listen or you want to show him the dance too?”
While chan’s attention is divided, hyunjin is focused solely on him. He doesn’t care about jungwon’s sly grin as he tells chan him and heeseung are heading out for a break, he doesn’t see heeseung’s bashful matching smile, he doesn’t even register the teasing words chan throws at them as they leave with receding footsteps because they weren’t directed at him.
And when chan’s attention is finally on him again, when those somehow-always-sparkly eyes shine in his direction, when those dimples poke out to greet him, his soul sings. The smile that spreads on his face is natural, something he cannot fight even if he tried. Besides the gentle warmth enveloping him at having chan focus solely on him again, having this moment tucked into his pocket like a secret only meant for him, he’s also excited to hear one of chan’s tracks.
Sure, he’s heard chan play the guitar live right next to him. But he’s never heard a full produced and polished song by him. And music to chan is what dancing is to hyunjin- his one that got away. A dream he couldn’t fulfil. Hyunjin feels privileged to be able to hear chan’s work. He selfishly thinks he’s the only one who understands the gravity of how important it is to chan.
He is glad they’re alone.
“It’s not one of my own tracks, I made the song yes, but it was with the group’s dance style and colours in mind. My own personal stuff sounds different than this, just so you know.” Chan prefaces while searching for the file, and hyunjin wonders how long it’ll take until he can unlock chan’s personal tracks as well. He’s dying to. Suddenly, he wants to know everything about this man.
“If you ever want to share those, I’d love to listen as well…” he murmurs, hoping he put in enough nonchalance into his attitude to not make it come off like he’s prying or pressuring chan in any way. Although if he could voice his desires freely, he’d be begging until chan gave him what he wanted. But thankfully for him and his dignity, his pride is too headstrong for that.
“Maybe someday” chan says, and hyunjin holds onto that promise.
The new track fills the room through the speakers, like an aroma spreading through air. It reaches hyunjin’s ears with a delicate electric piano melody first, morning dew. A synth pulls it out and as it fades, a steady snare drum kicks in for the beat - woodsy. The synth is muted in the back while the drum carry the beat for a good few seconds, until it abruptly stops and is replaced solely by… a harp? Yes, a harp continues the melody started by the piano earlier, and it’s white jasmine in hyunjin’s nose. Just as fast as it smoothed into the track, it fades out to be hit by consecutive snares and a bass guitar that brings the grittiness of gravel into the mix. And all of that within thirty seconds.
It just goes on and on, the song taking unexpected turns, the melody coming in and out, the drums and bass bouncing around, picking up energy near the end. It’s playful, experimental, while still being elegant. It paints a picture of a bright full moon on a breezy night with a meteor shower gracing the sky in hyunjin’s mind.
It’s way too short for hyunjin’s liking. As soon as it ends, he feels like he’s breathing for the very first time. He looks at chan with what he can only name as elation, he feels the quality of the song within his body. Chan’s effort is audible, and while it may not be his personal work that means something to him, hyunjin still recognises the soul in it.
“Holy shit- channie, this is incredible!?” and before chan has the chance to deny it - because hyunjin sees the telltale signs, from the bashful side glance to his ears tinting red, his arm already raising to wave hyunjin off, his tongue rolled to offer some excuse to undermine himself, all the signs hyunjin knows within himself - he continues, “like, actual professional quality track! I can’t really catch a lot of details on my first listen of things, but even after missing probably half of it, I can tell it has layers, intentionally placed sounds.”
“Please, play it again?”
Hyunjin ends up asking chan to send him the file after chan has had to press replay for the fifth time. Chan was still, mighty shy about it all. He almost didn’t give hyunjin the win, saying he has a lot of other things he’d rather show him, that he wishes this wasn’t his first impression of chan’s music because it isn’t even a personal song, but hyunjin was having absolutely none of it. Hyunjin is nothing if not stubborn. He is an ant climbing a mountain, he wasn’t going to back down, and by the time heeseung and jungwon returned along with the rest of their dance crew, hyunjin had achieved success in convincing a very red chan to send him that damn file.
The crew had six members in total, but only two more joined them that day. The girls - kyujin and jiwoo were their names - had classes to attend, but two more young boys showed up along with jungwon and heeseung.
“Hi! I’m tomoya! It’s nice to meet you” tomoya had dirty orange hair, which surprisingly suited him well, and a very trendy fit that exaggerated the length of his legs.
“This is so-ken” he pointed to his friend, who waved shyly. His friend was slightly taller than him, and also had a trendy fit that exaggerated his legs, but he had dark brown hair that fell in his face as straight bangs. The two of them were of japanese descent, and had grown up in seoul where they chase their dreams of becoming dancers. Apparently they attend SOPA, which caught hyunjin off guard at first, but he finds he quite likes reminiscing about his high school.
It’s a place he can’t go to anymore, not only because he’s a graduate but his unfortunate high profile attracts a lot of unwanted buzz, despite the school also having idol alumni. It’s a lot better the more famous ones don’t go near the place again for the sake of the kids still attending the school, keeping them safe is of higher importance than a little meet-n-greet of popular alumni. So it’s nice hearing from these kids how the place is now.
He watches from afar, a little sleepy thanks to his stellar decision making skills and insomnia, the rest of their dance session. Thankfully they leave him and chan be in their little floor-corner. While mulling over his interactions throughout the morning, he finds that the usual tension of being around professional dancers… isn’t plaguing him as much anymore.
That’s not to say these kids aren’t highly skilled and naturally talented in equal parts, but moreso referring to his comfort level. The constant fear of judgement as well as the comparisons and trying to measure up to his peers was just… absent. It was refreshing. To not feel like every small movement of his would be analysed under hawk-eye esque surveillance. To simply exist in a space he enjoys without feeling the need to prove himself. He lets the squeaky shoes and the smell of dry air conditioned room lull him into peace.
He watches heeseung and jungwon go over detailed parts of their choreography in the same way minho would go over them with his friends, other professional choreographers. And then he sees them break the ice with a lingering touch, with trusting smiles, and his heart warms for them. He sees tomoya guiding so-ken through a particularly challenging move, never reprimanding him in a way that would tear down his confidence.
He sees them all stumble throughout the little practice session and none of them make a big deal out of it, some fails even making him laugh along with them. He realises then, that none of these kids have the cutthroat standards that the idol industry shoved onto his back for him to carry for the rest of his life, and he’s glad.
Maybe he could join a class or two, after all.
He feels chan’s gaze on him for most of the practice, but he doesn’t do anything to acknowledge it. Soon enough the kids are gathering their stuff while huffing and puffing, sweat trailing down their neck and wetting their shirts, hair sticking up in various directions. And he thinks back about his image of tired dancers hanging out in the lobby. Despite not dancing himself, he finds the relief in the four exhausted kids’ bodies as they exit the room and pile into the lobby palpable. He sighs along with them as the scent of petrichor hits his nose.
Tomoya and so-ken rush to the ramen stand, and sumi is lounging on one of the couches. She looks up and smiles at them, then goes back to whatever she was doing on her ipad.
Chan has other plans for hyunjin. “Come on, we still have to try the churro stand!”
“Oh! Hyung, hyung, will you buy me some too?” jungwon pleads, jumping excitedly on the balls of his feet, widening his already large eyes to try and disarm chan into agreeing.
“Doesn’t heeseung feed you enough sweets?” chan snickers, but clearly has no intention of denying as he leads the way outside to the churro stand. Jungwon grins and loops his arm in heeseung’s elbow, dragging him along as well.
Once they’re outside, the chilly air sends shivers up their spines, and they subconsciously huddle closer for warmth. Jungwon tucks himself to heeseung’s side, and hyunjin sticks a little closer to chan’s back. The churro stand has a heater next to the hot chocolate, which hyunjin gladly hogs.
“Hi! Can we have four churros, please?” chan orders for them all, fetching his wallet to pay, and hyunjin notes the worker behind the stall has brown, curly hair and a pretty graphic eyeliner design. She smiles at them and takes the order, serving them four generous plates along with four cups of steaming hot chocolate.
Whatever hyunjin was expecting when he heard churros, this was not it. They tasted absolutely divine and kept them all warm in the weather, yes, but it wasn’t the stick shaped fried dough treat he had seen online. It was a circular spiral shaped, almost funnel cake looking sweet, and it was huge. Hyunjin doesn’t think he can have more than one at once. And while it was probably easier to dip a stick into hot chocolate, he didn’t mind breaking off pieces of it while resting the hot chocolate on a bench they found nearby.
He was only a little jealous of seeing jungwon getting handfed pieces of [heeseung’s] churro from across their bench, only a little. [And if he kept looking from his peripheral vision at how heeseung affectionately wiped the chocolate off the side of his mouth only to smear it on the tip of his nose and immediately kiss it off, no one had to know.]
“He’s like, super neat. I’d almost say he’s a neatfreak” hyunjin walks out of his bedroom carrying a box filled with his years old art supplies, stretching his neck over the top to make sure he doesn’t stumble. “The whole place is like, organised in alphabetical order.”
“What does that even mean?” Seungmin, who is putting all his steel utensils into a box because hyunjin refused to let him touch his bedroom, doesn’t even lift his gaze away from his task as he responds, unamused. “How does one organise their house in alphabetical order?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying!” hyunjin lifts his arms in a wide gesture as soon as he puts the box down. “You can’t. And somehow he’s managed to! Like, why are all your shoes in a row in a shoe rack above which you keep your keys above which there’s a shelf for your jackets and right beside it is a coat hanger above which you keep your hats!?”
Seungmin looks at him then, an unimpressed frown on his face. “Hyunjin, that’s entirely normal.”
“No it’s not!”
“Well at least one of you will be organised…” seungmin comments as he picks up a wooden rolling pin from between the steel forks, as if proving his point. Hyunjin doesn’t catch the drift.
“And he has- surprisingly good taste in interior decor, actually. The paintings are all thoughtfully picked and he’s clearly kept walk flow in mind while arranging his furniture, and the guest room is quite large, too. The only thing that was questionable was that he had blackout curtains everywhere.” Hyunjin moved between his bedroom and the hall where they had gathered most of his items together, uncaring whether he was actually audible to seungmin or not, just trusting that his friend would hear him regardless. “Like, it was as dark as a cave when we entered. He told me he likes to keep them drawn and he isn’t home most of the day anyway, and when he is he just sleeps. Which, makes sense why he’d have the curtains drawn, but man, does he get any natural sunlight?”
They were in hyunjin’s flat, packing the remaining of his belongings to take to his parents’ house before christmas. He didn’t want to pay the rent for this place another month come january, but he also didn’t want to make seungmin work over the holidays, so they’re here mid december to get all his stuff out of here so hyunjin only has to hand over his keys on the first. He still doesn’t want to spend the holidays over his parents’ place, and his heart has already decided to take up chan’s offer, but he was “debating” his options with seungmin, in truth to convince him [and justify, to himself] that chan’s place was his best bet.
“Speaking of light, get this: he has bisexual cat ear lights in his bedroom.”
“He has bisexual what now?”
“Cat ear! Lights! In his bedroom! He even had an extra pair, that he offered me to just take, and he said he’d set it up in the guest room if I liked them.”
Seungmin tapes the utensils box shut with brown tape, already done with three while hyunjin had been throwing random things into five open boxes, completing about seventy percent of them all but not filling any of them entirely. “And what did you say?”
“I said yes, obviously! They were cute!”
Seungmin raised his eyebrow, stopping at the dinner table to watch as hyunjin threw the last of his fairy lights into a box full of posters.
“And he said they were meant to be wolf ears. I don’t believe him, they’re cat ears to me.”
“So… what you’re saying is, you’re spending the holidays at chan’s house, yes?”
Hyunjin freezes, looking up to meet seungmin’s questioning gaze with a sheepish look, very much a deer caught in headlights. He chuckles awkwardly, putting down whatever he was holding into whichever box is in front of him.
“Aha..ha… well… you see, hannie and felix have their year end promotions- wait no, not promotions-” fuck, “year end stages. All the way until christmas, and they probably won’t be home on the day of, either. I told you this already, didn’t I? I don’t want to be there when they’re not, you know? It feels invasive.”
“Uh huh… and chan isn’t doing anything for the holidays?”
“His family live abroad, and he told me he has no plans, so no.”
Seungmin hums thoughtfully, before returning to the kitchen to finish off packing. While he walks away, he comments “you sure know a lot about chan, don’t you?”
Not enough, hyunjin’s mind screams. “Well, I mean, it’s been months since we met… and it would only be stupid of me not to ask him at least his christmas plans if I’m gonna stay at his place for, you know, christmas.”
They work without talking for the most part after that, just hyunjin’s billie eilish playlist on in the background. When they finally gathered all the boxes and transported them to seungmin’s family van down the stairs, it was already late evening. As they were locking up the flat for the last time, hyunjin felt a nervous chill. There were just too many what if’s on loop in his head.
“Hey minnie…”
“Hm?”
“Do you think he’s really given up?”
Seungmin stays silent, and hyunjin doesn’t look at him. He’s focused on one spot of the door, but his vision is blurred as his thoughts are elsewhere. “What if he was waiting for me to be alone again, and follows me to chan’s place? What if he follows us to my parents’ house?”
Seungmin’s hands rest on hyunjin’s shoulders, giving him a reassuring squeeze and some much needed grounding. “Hyunjin, you’ll be fine.”
“How do you kn-”
“You saw him, he’s not gonna risk you seeing his face, and you’ll not be alone. It’s only for the holidays, you could just rest and stay in until new years. I’ve alerted the police about someone with his build, and we put out a statement saying we will be taking legal action, that should scare him off enough. If you’re still worried, we can get you a bodyguard.”
“No, no I don’t need a bodyguard… but I might go out still, to skyfall or the dance studio near chan’s place…”
“Make sure you’ll have chan with you and you’ll be fine. I promise. Keep a pepper spray or something on you, if anything happens you can use it.”
It takes a long minute of hyunjin searching seungmin’s face for reassurance for him to finally accept it. Seungmin waits patiently, having the confidence and strength that hyunjin needed in the moment. Hyunjin finally lets out a shaky breath and relaxes his shoulders, seungmin’s palms sliding off them easily.
“Okay.”
Standing in front of his parents’ gate again, with seungmin in tow this time, hyunjin is just as ill prepared. No amount of excuses he can think of bypass his parents’ interrogation in his imagination, and he decided to just rip the bandaid off.
His mom greets him at the door again, and instead of relief and hugs, he is met with narrowed eyes and expectations.
“Where had you been?”
“At a friend’s place”
His mom eyes seungmin behind him. “And I’ll be at a friend’s place until I get a new one, I came to drop off some stuff. I’ll pick it up after I sign the papers for a new flat.”
“You think this place is a dumpster for you?” his mom hisses.
He has to take a deep breath to not meet her in the middle. “I can’t leave it in the old one, I’ll have to pay rent for a whole month without using the place if I do. You have a spare room here, you were already housing me, I’ll just keep my stuff and see you after winter break-”
“Why not spend christmas here?”
“…”
“Sorry to interrupt, but he got an invitation in person to attend an event, ma’am.” Seungmin, reading the room, decides to interject and save hyunjin. Hyunjin sends him silent thanks in his head.
“What is this event?” his mother’s interrogation continues.
“That’s confidential, ma’am. Strictly on a work contract and NDA, even I don’t know what it is.”
“That seems…”
“Can I just leave my things and go, it’s getting cold and dark outside.”
His mom holds his stare for an uncomfortable amount of time, and when hyunjin doesn’t back down she finally relents, sighing and opening the door wider to let them through.
While getting most of his boxes in, he constantly passes the grandfather clock that chan had fixed. It seems to be working perfectly.
“You have to clean it and oil it every two weeks, chan had said.” He informs his mother.
Hyunjin even tidies up some of yeji’s stuff and keeps it next to his boxes so he can take them all with him when he finally has a place of his own. As they’re leaving, all within an hour, thankfully, his mom calls out behind him.
“Your dad won’t like that you aren’t staying here for the holidays…”
“I’m twenty four, he can go cry about it.”
Hyunjin slams the door of the van shut, and seungmin starts the engine without any further comments. He’s dropping him off at skyfall, where chan will then meet him and help move the couple boxes he kept to take to his place.
He sees a notification that catches his interest as he scrolls through his phone looking for music to play on the aux, though.
Donatella 💜
Hello hyunjin
Hope you’re doing well, my child.
Paris fashion week is fast approaching, and I’d like to know your schedule so we can make appropriate fitting appointments.
You’ll have to fly out to paris in january, my dear.
Looking forward to styling you in my best dresses once again 💜