to: jaebum
Minyeon (Lee Minki the actor and Kim Jiyeon (Kei) from Lovelyz) with the prompt "one night stand on New Years Day"
love,
minseok mun c:
first snow in a city had a magical power, the millions of tiny droplets slowed everything down like a frame-by-frame video and all the lights in the city seemed that much brighter, illuminating strange faces even as the sky above remained dark.
this is the day jiyeon found herself huddling inside the foggy glass doors of a strange shop, holding her pumps in one hand and rubbing her bare feet against the entrance carpet. now normally, she enjoyed winter--when it didn't bite at her toes and claw at her dress--but the first snowfall of the season would make this one of the longest nights of her life.
"do me a favor and don't tell hana what happened last night?"
she chided herself now for the way she stared, wide-eyed, and nodded as an unfamiliar numbness overtook her. she still felt the tendrils of that sensation skimming lightly up the back of her neck and hated that anyone--let alone minki, of all people--could make her feel like that.
she considered letting him have it, haunting him for a while and cutting off her ties so she'd never have to think about those words again. don't tell hana.
do me a favor. her face burned at the memory. she knew there was no reason to feel ashamed; it barely mattered if hana knew, but there was a sick feeling in jiyeon's stomach as she thought of going back to the institute to face her friend, knowing she had slept with her ex.
she stepped into her heels and out of the shop, dead-set on her direction.
tox lay still on his bed, holding his palms against his eyes and trying to will his hangover away. he had not bothered to change the sheets all day, hadn't bothered to do anything except wait. it was difficult to say what he was waiting for exactly, and if he had known better he would say it was more of a consistent dread after the events of last night.
it seemed, as a brotherhood member, mistakes and regret were more than a rite of passage, they were a way of life. nothing could quite explain why he had chosen precisely this day or precisely this girl, with whom he had no intention of having any sort of contact, to complicate his life. hana would be angry, jiyeon would be angry, and tox supposed that worst come to worst, he could just kill anyone he's ever had contact with and avoid the thing altogether but that sounded like too much work to do with a hangover.
he sat up and ran his hands over the covers to find the edge of the slip, all the while trying not to remember soft skin and fingers gripping at his hair. laundry was out of the question but at least he could get these bedsheets out of the way in the meantime. it was while he was trying not to get entangled in the fitted sheet, that a knock came at his door.
"it better be a fucking pizza," he muttered to himself, though he had not ordered one, and padded across the floor in just a shirt and boxers.
"let me in or i'll just go right through it, minki, i mean it" jiyeon said, impatient on the other side of the door. she straightened herself up as a familiar mop of hair peeked out from behind and barged in to his living room.
"you can't tell me not to tell hana, my friendship with her is not your property," she said, "and most of all would it kill you to be a little more romantic? i'm not asking you to marry me, but i'm not buying the vip ticket to self-loathing and self-sabotage."
tox groans and opens his mouth to cuss at her and kick her out but she giggles instead, and this just makes him more pissed off.
"why the fuck did you even come back, i was trying to avoid a problem not make you one," he growled, "and what is so fucking funny?"
she hides her smile behind a hand and he notices, not for the first or last time, how lovely her smile is. jiyeon points between them and notices she's wearing the same clothes she had on when she left this morning, he hadn't changed except to take off his pajama bottoms, and the apartment was in complete disarray.
"well this is quite a mess," jiyeon said, voice softer than before. and yeah, tox agreed with that but in a rare moment of self-awareness he realized that the mess was contained to only his apartment.
"how do you know about seven?" and rain, for that matter. does minseok know about chanyeol, too? chanyeol never wanted him to find out, was always afraid that the other would hate him for it but the humans had to pay and chanyeol was alone and seven was the only one who knew how to fix everything.
seven is the only one who’s ever really known what to do.
and chanyeol doesn’t know about pawns or chess or games but he’s pretty sure the reality they’re in right now isn’t one of them.
chanyeol is not a pawn. to be a pawn, he would have to have some use, right? but here is nothing, less than a pawn, less than the air he is breathing.
"maybe you aren’t real," he whispers,mostly to himself and uncrosses his legs slowly. it makes sense that minseok isn’t really here because chanyeol’s the only one who’s ever had to pay for his sins. granted, his sins may be a little more extreme than others, but he’s never seen divine intervention on anyone else’s life. "maybe this is my punishment."
he slides off the pool table slowly, the weight of knives on pressing against his skin a reminder of the pain he’s caused. his wooden lifeline is still in his hands, his eyes still on minseok.
"you’re not here." he says firmly, stepping into a stance more acquainted with violence.
he laughs, short and timid. this isn't real. chanyeol was the one person he could trust, the one person that had his back. he pushes aside the incomplete feeling, he pushes aside the doubt because now there's nothing except this reality. nothing but chanyeol clinking with weaponry every time he moves and pointing one right at him.
"you're the snitch aren't you," minseok whispers. and he almost can't believe it, but everything makes sense. chanyeol doesn't have the us-against-the-world vision that minseok did. chanyeol is a survivor, he makes it through life doing only what's convenient for him. all the pieces are falling together.
all he's missing is a reason. he needs a reason.
"are you high? i know seven" he grits his teeth, "because he fucking murdered gram. he had her killed, chanyeol, don't you fucking care?" he raises his voice, trying to snap him out of his daze.
"i thought we were leaving here together, i thought that was the plan," he says, "we still can, we can make it out of this and bring him down."
he never wanted to face chanyeol, it had never been an option except maybe for the training fights rain had them do during the week. but they were fun, sparring among friends, equals in their desire to revolt against the big bad.
"you're not stuck here, you're barely here," he says, jaw tense.
"good for this?" he repeats back a few seconds later, tightening his grip on his only lifeline, "what is there to be good for?"
and part of him means what the fuck is going on but a lot of him means what the fuck is the point. they will either get out of the blood soaked nightmare or they will die and chanyeol finds that he doesn’t really feel inclined to either side.
"what the fuck is going on, minseok?"
he doesn’t need a nap, he needs his fucking poolstick and a goddamn juice box because neither of those things have ever gone haywire on him before.
his eyes search the olders, desperate for an answer, desperate for something to hold onto that won’t break down each of his bones, desperate for relief.
when he speaks again he isn’t upset or frazzled or scared, just empty like the walls he’s been confined to.
"here?" his frown deepens. he's scared now, actual honest to god scared of the way chanyeol is acting.
"we're at rain's?" he says, almost like a question, like don't you remember chanyeol? why don't you know what the fuck is going on? but now minseok is unsure, like some cosmic joke where his brain starts to doubt reality. staring at chanyeol is making him feel like there's something he's missing here. some big goddamn clue.
"i don't know what the fuck is going on. seven is here and i guess he just wants to fuck with us for plotting against him. we have to fight back, we're not some pawns in his game."
he doesn't touch the pool stick, he just keeps staring at chanyeol.
"do we need a snack? let's go get a snack or something get you a fucking snickers, i don't know." he walks forward a little bit, expecting chanyeol to follow him, but he turns around to wait when he doesn't.
without hesitation, chanyeol will do what minseok asks of him even if he doesn’t know what it is.
the sound of minseoks voice pulls him from both song and some serious life evaluating. he looks down at his lap to find hands read with pressure and wood shavings. there’s another poolstick-turned-spear beside him and he tries to remember getting through the first.
"what?" he says dumbly, voice rough with the lack of use.
minseok looks angry and sweaty and chanyeol wonders what part of this empty prison holds so much resentment for such a tiny man.
the word motherfucker implies that there is someone responsible and catch implies they can catch him. chanyeol doesn’t really find truth in either of these implications. in fact, chanyeol isn’t even really sure minseok is real.
"when did you get here?" he asks cautiously, casually shifting his own wooden weapon into his palms.
there must be better weapons around here other than a wooden stick, the kitchen has knives and utensils but the armory's where it's at. if they're going to fight with the mafia they're going to need big kid weapons.
that has to be their first step. next step would be to actually find the rat. but how would they make him reveal themselves. how to find him without attracting anyone else's attention. handing him over is not an option. the guy's dead meat no matter who's got him, but minseok needs to do the job himself.
"just got here," he says, and frowns. "you doing ok? i need you to be good for this."
chanyeol looks out of it, like he's not really there. it's strange. nothing ever seems to fuck him up this badly. nothing except the memory of his father. if that's what's screwing with him then there's no way to get him out of it until chanyeol calms the fuck down.
minseok steps closer to him, meeting his eyes.
"i'm here, ok? i've always been here." he puts down the pool stick, and slowly reaches for the one in chanyeol's hands. "let's put this shit down and move to the couch ok. you can take a nap or something."
he takes the briefcase, and the shotgun, and he gets in the car. the barrel of a loaded nine millimeter grazes lightly against the side of his head.
"now do as we say, so you and your grammy can live happily ever after, alright?"
he nods, if he reaches for the shotgun now, he'll be dead before he could even get a hold of it. maybe he can circle back home once he's sure they're not tailing him anymore and get his grandma. maybe he'll have to shoot someone to get her but that's par for the course.
he starts the car.
"this is some class a bullshit," he yells. the announcement set his blood on fire. they had a good thing going here, a good chance at getting revenge, not just for himself. seven needed to be brought down, and no twitchy little rat was going to make that impossible.
playing right into seven's hand was not his plan, but if someone wasn't on their side, they needed to be eliminated. now.
he barrels down the stairs, weeding through the faces of his peers that he no longer trusted, except one. just one little shit that he trusts more than anyone in the world.
chanyeol.
he finds in the game room, sharpening a pool stick and he doesn't need to grill him or come up with a plan.
"pass me one of those," he says, and catches the rod that chanyeol throws to him.
age: 16, sentence: 50 to life, will be transferred to high security prison at the age of 18.
The way he tells it, he was framed, a victim of someone else's crime. It's almost believable with his baby cheeks and the soft black hair framing his face. Until you ask him who did it, and then his mouth shuts, his body stiffens. He says it's no one's fucking business, especially not some snotty brats doing time for stealing a pack of skittles.
He led the police in a three-hour car chase down highway 56. They caught him with a stolen shotgun in the passenger's seat. Conspiracy to commit murder, until they found the body of his grandmother in the basement of his parent's home.
The details were murky at best during the trial but it was his dna on the crime scene, on the shotgun, him in the car. Getting a conviction was easier than catching him.
chanyeol stares at the bottle intensely, a frown forcing its way onto his lips. it looks remarkably like the bottle his father is so often found clutching between sweaty fingers, like the bottle chanyeol often has to step around in order to get to the kitchen or his room or the bathroom or the front door.
"you shouldn’t be drinking that," he says after a while, in all of his ten-year-old wisdom. minseok has already sat down a pot of noodles in front of them, and chanyeol’s been mulling this over in his mind.
he doesn’t want to seem nerdy or weird or something in front of his too-cool-minseok-hyung but at the same time, the thought of his father and minseok becoming the same person almost makes him loose his appetite.
almost, because he really is hungry.
but he doesn’t touch the food, because past experience has taught him that correcting someone often leads to punishment and chanyeol fully expects to be sent home.
"it’s just… it’s really hurtful," he bites his lip, "it seems to make my dad really sick all the time." he adds, convinced that relating it to personal experience might make minseok more afraid of the bottle and maybe even let chanyeol eat too.
shit. he forgot. he always forgets. minseok stays silent, but places the bottle on the counter behind him instead of opening it up. it's not his fault chanyeol's father is a dick and a half but minseok tends to make things worse like it's his job.
"how was school?" he asks, sliding chanyeol's bowl closer to serve him some noodles. "what are you learning now?"
distractions help, he's learned. school may be a distraction for chanyeol but at least he's good at it--better than minseok can ever hope to be. ten years old is too young to smother with vicarious dreams, yet there they are.
"is mr. jung teaching you now? he doesn't get you in trouble, right? i remember that asshole, he loves sending kids to the principal's office." minseok says and tries to shove all his noodles into his mouth.
chanyeol can hear the metal riffs from the others earbuds even as minseok makes his way into the kitchen. chanyeol often wishes he could be that cool. but he can’t, not really, because he’s chanyeol and he has really big ears and a problem with number.
"woosung," he says readily, toeing his shoes off and leaning his backpack against the front door, because chanyeol knows everyone who comes to minseoks out. chanyeol knows everything.
woosung comes mostly for grams though, not really for minseok.
actually, chanyeol doesn’t really know anyone who comes for minseok besides himself. grams just happens to be a really nice benefit.
"what’re you doing?" curious, and already towering over his hyung, chanyeol’s head cocks to the side, staring into the cabinet minseok is so contentedly rifling through.
"i'm feeding you, what does it look like?" minseok grumbles and steps away. chanyeol's height just irks him. he runs a hand through his hair and regrets it because he hasn't showered today. grimacing, he rubs the grease on his shorts and reaches into the closet where he usually sees gram rummaging. it pays off--his knuckles tap against glass and it almost tips over when his excited fingers snatch it up from its resting place. it's a jug of what smells like cheap soju, and that suits minseok just fine.
"want some?" he asks, briefly forgetting chanyeol's age. he offers and pulls back in the same motion, regarding the other boy softly. he hates that he offered but now he can't bring himself to take it back. he puts the bottle on the table between them, like he really doesn't care if chanyeol does or doesn't.
four cabinets later, and he's managed to scrounge up half a bottle of peanut butter, some kimchi with crusty edges, and a packet of ramyun with no seasoning. twenty minutes and he has something that looks more like a real meal--kimchi noodles and little peanut butter crackers.
minseok sits at the table, putting the pot down in front of them.
kicking at the wood beneath his feet, chanyeol stares expectantly at minseoks door. backpack stationed firm on his back, hanging off his shoulder because that’s how minseok does it.
he’s already knocked three times twice, and he’s worried if he does it anymore minseok will be upset, or worse. his grandmother will open the door with a frown.
but a glance at the driveway tells him that grams isn’t home.
"hyung! minseok-hyung, open the door!" he calls, knocking on the door with his foot and then immediately feeling guilty for it. he can only imagine what his parents would say if they saw him disrespecting someone else’s property like this. "hyung, please! i brought my trading cards! and all three seasons of pokemon!"
chanyeol can’t help but feel kind of pathetic.
he leans his head on the door carefully, sighing out softly. “hyung, please?”
minseok stuffs his headphones into his ears as soon as he gets home, deep enough to puncture his eardrums. he changes out of his dingy uniform in his room and relishes in his time spent home alone. gram doesn't tell him where she goes, and if she does he never listens--she takes the car in the afternoons and maybe it's to go out and make some money but he doesn't know how.
in the pauses between the songs, minseok hears his own breathing hissing in his ears, he hears the occasional thud of his own footsteps down the stairs above the metal guitar riff of velvet revolver. he thrashes into the kitchen, imitating the lead guitar and swinging his bright red hair left and right. it's stupid but at least no one is around to see him dancing in his ratty pajamas.
when the song ends, he hears what sounds like an animal whining at the front door. stray dogs don't come up to the porch--unless gram starts to feed them, which is a problem because minseok already has enough fleas--so he stalks over to see who it is.
"what the hell are you doing here?" he laughs at himself when he sees chanyeol, he had already been expecting some dirty bum.
"weren't you in cram school?" the sun is still out, so it can't have ended yet. "no wait, that's the other kid, isn't it. woo-something?" he shakes his head and looks in the cabinets for anything alcoholic or edible whichever comes first.
Everyone knows he’s gay. The whispers carry through the aisles, through the folds of the bridesmaid’s dresses, murmured into the flask that rests in the inner pocket of the best man’s tux. It’s a scandal, as much of a scandal as anyone can make it—and you can bet your ass it’s a contest.
It starts with Minseok’s grandmother. She’s frail, wiry knuckles turning white with rage, but she’s loud, and defensive. She screams and jabs the tennis ball at the end of her cane into a waiter’s stomach. Minseok is called out from the back of the church and he manages to talk her down—shout her down, because there’s no other way to deal with someone as obstinate as she.
Thirty minutes later, the bride’s mother faints from the news. They all know he gets violent, a little too handsy—they’ve been against him from day one, fingers hovering over the 9-1-1 on their cell phones. How dare he make a fool of her daughter, and it takes three of Yoonjo’s cousins to subdue her with a margarita.
But if you walk down the soft, silver carpet, open the hand-carved, wooden, double doors at the end of the aisle, two lovers stand hand in hand. She’s embarrassed because she doesn’t usually wear this much make-up, he feels a little stifled in his suit and he’s been grumpy because of it.
"I love you," she says, gently but not out of fear (at least not anymore) she knows he’s here to stay. She trusts him.
"Love you, too," he says, because even now he can’t be the first one to say it, but they’re working it out. They’re working everything out.
"i did love you." he pulls the words from his cracked lips, mingled with his own acidic breath of bile and cigarette smoke. her frame crushes in on itself, a brilliant aluminum casing dented, twisted, imploding in on itself as he drives it sixty miles per hour over the speed limit. "it’s not an excuse," he says, still circling her wrist with his hand, "i just want you to know."
she breathes, closes her eyes, but doesn’t fight the touch. she’s been in love, too much love, too many expectations; she’s been wrong. from the moment he lingered in the ocean on their first meeting, waves crashing over unstable legs; and he reached out to her.
"so you’re leaving again," she laughs, tender, forgiving—forgiven. minseok could choke on her bittersweet voice, drown in the smell of her coconut-scented shampoo, die electrified against the soft skin of her palm. he’s leaving her with her life, a better one without him. without his gloom and bitterness, a dark swirl he sees reflected back through her shining eyes.
"yeah," he whispers, and drops the cigarette finally. she doesn’t like the smell, doesn’t like the taste of second-hand. she shouldn’t like him.
"oops," he whispers, "sorry. i d-didn’t," he tries a little bit louder but stops because minseok is scowling at him and jongdae thinks he might die tonight.
there's no note in the bassinet, no address or a name--that's not how it happens in movies.
"it's despicable," grandma says, and minseok can say that it is pretty messed up. babies should have names, but names cause attachment; it's harder to let go of someone when you can call to them, draw them near, know them even at the shallow level of a word your parents assigned to you. come morning, this baby will be gone. it will not stay in this house past the thunderstorm because no one here is strong enough to care for it.
the baby coughs and there's a clatter-clunk at the stairs and minseok stiffens. he stares at his grandmother and she doesn't even greet the new presence in the kitchen until he starts approaching
"ah yes, we have company," she says like she'd forgotten for a moment but it means that she already knew. minseok's blood runs cold and he feels like a fourth grader caught smoking behind the school's phys. ed. building. she cleans the baby's mouth with a damp towel, pats it's forehead with another and frowns deeply.
"he's got a fever," she says. and minseok barely knows what that means.
"just a sec, gram," minseok says and he grabs a bony elbow on his way into the living room--just a thin paper wall away from the most important woman in his life.
"what the fuck do you think you're doing?" minseok growls, "first you pretend to be asleep, that's fine whatever--i don't care if you need a place to crash for a night but you do not fucking try to introduce yourself to my family."
his grip tightens and he shoves jongdae towards the door. there's no way he's staying after that. it's only now that he notices that the boy is wearing his sweater, but it doesn't matter. he can have it.
the baby cries in the kitchen and his grandmother calls for him. "be right there, gram." he turns back to jongdae, and a wave of distrust crashes against him. this one night, the one night minseok finally lets loose--his brain doesn't finish the thought. jongdae's not too young to have a child, not too young to be a single father with nowhere else to go except the nice neighborhood grandmother who takes care of everyone who crosses her path.
♡ : Our characters are soul-bonded (and probably don't want to be) c:
"what the fuck, hyung."
"nonono, wait." minseok tries to stand but he slips on a sock and falls back on the pile. "ok hear me out, right, i’ve been up for days or like 173 cups of coffee," that’s not a time measurement, "i know what’s happening ok i figured it out it all makes sense simple arithmetic, chanyeol."
"hyung?" he asks weakly. minseok’s never had obsessive tendencies. chanyeol’s eyes trail along the red clothing line strung up across the room with pictures and notes paper-clipped to different sections. the room looks like one of those laser security systems in spy movies—or maybe like a timeline refracted along the walls of minseok’s master bedroom.
"this is like a flashback waiting to happen,"chanyeol says jokingly. minseok’s face lights up, chanyeol’s stomach spirals into his small intestine.
"right!" minseok says, more than a little crazed. "look it all started when-"
1-
the newborn baby coos softly among the worn blankets and it’s adorable. the whole family smiles and it smiles and minseok stands on his tip-toes to see it.
"grammy there’s a rat in my bed."
the adults go into a frenzy. oh my god minseok his parents are here—that’s a baby—why don’t you go outside—oh you know how kids can be—
"it’s really ugly." and it is. and minseok is two but that’s one of his only memories right after playing peekaboo with his father.
2-
the playground is full kids are yelling and screaming and pushing each other face first into dog doodoo—minseok is calm, minseok is seven and for all accounts he is a Big Boy, basically a grown-up ya know. but he has to take of his stupid little five year old neighbor with the floppy ears and the bowl cut. he wants to play with kids his own age and he’s stuck in the playpen for some godforsaken reason.
"hyung i’m gonna climb up here!" chanyeol says, and it’s a big adventure for him, he’s going to climb up and up and it’ll be cold and snowing when he finally reaches the top of the rocking horse.
minseok kicks out with his leg and the rocking horse shakes. chanyeol sways violently and he catches minseok’s eyes in the air, just before he hits the ground—eyes that whisper hyung why have u betrayed me.
3-
come lunchtime at sangwon junior high, minseok is the cool kid.
he sneaks off, red hair splayed out at odd ends with a pack of cigarettes he stole from the teacher’s confiscation drawer and walks 7 flights of stairs up to the rooftop. because he’s the cool kid. and he’s winded by the time he gets up there but that doesn’t matter.
it also doesn’t matter that his junior high is also an elementary school. black beady eyes stare innocently at him in their pristine uniforms, washed, bleached, and pressed by diligent mothers. he has a cigarette in his mouth, hand still propping the door open and all five mouths split into a smile when they see him like perfectly timed robots with greedy expressions, moaning out the word hyuuuunnggg. high pitched like devils disguised as sweet angelic children and they’re fucking coming for him.
minseok runs.
"hyung!" he hears down the corridor and he nearly splits chanyeol in two out of fear.
"oh thank g-" he starts until he sees chanyeol eyeing the pack sticking out of his pants pocket. he sighs and hands it over.
4-
as adults they sometimes do stupid shit. they fight a lot. actually they’re angry at each other most of the time, and they avoid each other like the plague. it’s for the best really, neither of them needs the elevated blood pressure.
but avoiding things drives minseok crazy. so he calls. and he texts. and one day when he’s given up because he’s still too cool for anything, he walks into a bar like some boring joke and chanyeol is at the counter. probably not alone.
"channie," he says as he sits down next to him, the seats are oddly slippery. chanyeol looks genuinely surprised. they sit in silence for what seems like a long time.
"hyung," he pauses, "someone threw up in that chair."
—
"so you see," minseok says, flipping his hair and the cheap purple dye is dripping down his forehead—and chanyeol hopes it’s seeping into his brain and that it’ll be a quick death. "it’s all connected!"
no it’s not, chanyeol thinks. nothing is connected because there’s nothing weird about two neighbors spending time together or seeing each other often.
"why are you here?" minseok asks. and chanyeol opens his mouth to say well why else would i be here but he remembers that he actually came to hang out with gram until she forced him to go upstairs. it’s normal. there’s nothing weird. nothing at all. no cosmic forces.
