Ngayong gabi, ako ang sundalo mo.

Past Midnight

hipslip — Wed, 30 Nov 2016 21:05:40 GMT

rating: PG
genre: AU
pairing: minseok/suho
length: drabble
word count: ~1.7k wc
summary: in which minseok is a recovering alcoholic.

Past Midnight
A story by Yoonis

Minseok will admit to being an alcoholic, but he'll be fucking damned if he was going to admit to being a cliché.

That said, he was kicking snow banks left and right on the sidewalk in front of a shawarma deli at 2 – no, 3 am? Oh, and he was also trying to convince himself that the beer he had earlier at the bar was enough to get him intoxicated. Minseok crept along the line that sliced the sidewalk into even squares, toe to heel, arms abducted at his sides. He folded one arm closer to poke the side of his nose then released and did the same with the other finger – a standard sobriety test that he was passing with flying colors. If the colors were just black, white, and the occasional grey. Sobriety was kind of lonely. He should know, having spent a month under its influence for a change.

Minseok missed the step where the sidewalk ended and lost his balance, nearly breaking his neck had he not caught himself, a hand on the parking meter poll. Looking up, his gazed locked with someone else's from across the road, just a pair of owlish eyes resting between half flushed cheeks and an oversized, deep orange scarf that swallowed half his face. Between the twin telescopes he used for eyes and the color of his scarf against the dimly lit street, he wasn't that difficult to miss.

"I'm fine!" Minseok said even when the stranger didn't ask. Maybe he was about to in the 7 seconds that he just stood there, staring. Anyway, it was good that he knew in case he was wondering. The more he remained unmoving in the distance, the more he seemed like a life size cardboard display. "Can I help you?"

The boy looked over his shoulder then back up at Minseok. He pinched the front of his scarf and tugged it down just enough to show his mouth while his chin was still buried in the fabric. "No, sorry." He sounded embarrassed. "For a second, I thought I recognized you. You look like this kid I went to school with."

"Did he also just get out of rehab?" Sure, it was a personal matter that he probably shouldn't have offered just like that. But just a month ago, he stepped in front of a bunch of drunks and said that he was one of them. At least to this guy, he was an ex-drunk.

"No," The guy replied. He looked over his shoulder again.

"If you're with someone, you don't have to stay here and keep me company. I'm fine. I just -"

"What were you in for?" The guy said over him.

"Oh, uh, alcoholism."

The guy had equally thick eyebrows to frame his eyes, and they furrowed at the mention of alcoholism. Minseok was automatically defensive for that split second. Then the guy asked, "but didn't you just come from that bar?"

Minseok, slightly taken aback, glanced at the bar he just walked out of, two stores down from where he was stood. "You were watching me?"

"Yeah, but not on purpose." He drew his shoulders up, hands dug deep in the front pockets of his jacket. "I look at a lot of people."

I bet, Minseok thought as he nodded. "Yeah, I had one beer."

"So you... are off the wagon?"

"Well, no. I just haven't quit cold turkey. I have these chips and a schedule that spaces out my alcohol consumption. Plus I picked up a few hobbies to take my mind off it and got two jobs," Minseok exhaled a thin cloud of breath. "It's a whole thing."

"What hobby did you pick up?"

"Huh?"

"You said you picked up a few hobbies."

Minseok supposed that they were really doing it; they were having an impromptu conversation with a quiet road in between them. This was how he was going to end his first night out of rehab, on a Wednesday. "Right. Crocheting."

"No shit." He sounded genuinely pleased. "Are you any good?"

"You tell me." Minseok held up his hand where he wore his attempt at fingerless gloves. It was unfinished, and only three of his fingers were poking through the knitted holes. The rest left his hand bare and with the amount of stray yarns, it was a mystery that it was even hugging his hand at all.

"So that's a no."

Minseok grinned, looking over his shoulder at nothing in particular. He supposed he needed a taxi, but he was sort of okay with the peaceful, empty end of the street. It was like there wasn't a sign of life for miles away. He looked back at the stranger. He was looking back at him, curious. Minseok averted his gaze to the lamp post to his right. He'd cower behind it but he knew he wouldn't be invisible, even then. "Gambling and smoking have been the most effective."

"Are you kidding?"

"Yeah." Minseok answered instantly. "I don't have enough money to gamble."

"Do you have some on you right now?"

"I never have money. Now or tomorrow."

He heard the other honest-to-god chuckle. "No, I meant a cigarette."

Minseok patted the front of his coat. "Yeah, do -"

The guy was crossing the street when Minseok looked up again. It was so odd; it was as though he was watching this guy step out of a computer screen. Which has been his main non-alcoholic related human interaction in the past month – just texts on a screen.

"Hey," he said as soon as he was closer. "Can I bum one?"

"Sure." Minseok offered him the pack.

"I'm Junmyeon, by the way."

Minseok was learning so much already. His name was Junmyeon. He smoked. And he had long ass, pale ass fingers that slipped out of his navy blue gloves. He took long drags of his cigarette as though he was making the most of it and his lips looked like they needed to learn the benefits of proper hydration.

"I'm Minseok."

"I thought it was No Longer An Alcoholic." He was funny too. Offensive funny.

"You smoke a lot?"

"Oh, excuse you."

"No," Minseok smiled. "I was asking."

"Oh," Junmyeon said in a way that made Minseok realize that he knew what he meant pre-explanation. "I used to. I'm trying to quit."

"Story of my life."

"So what did you learn?" Junmyeon asked while Minseok lit a cigarette for himself. "In rehab."

"That I have an addictive personality."

"A little conceited. Thinking that your personality is addictive."

"That's your worst one yet." Minseok shook his head.

"Yeah." Junmyeon agreed. "How do you cure an addictive personality?

"You don't." Minseok tilted his head to the side slightly as he observed Junmyeon try to sweep the snow back into the formation they once were before Minseok came around. "You just topple your old, bad addiction with a new, healthier one."

"Smoking is bad for you," Junmyeon said.

"So is talking to strangers. You could be a fucking con artist for all I know."

Junmyeon smiled at that. "Aw, you think I could pass for a con artist?"

"That's a tricky question."

"I'm not offended."

"That's not what I meant." Minseok took a couple of last puffs from his cigarette and killed it under his boots before flicking it wherever. "I meant that aren't you supposed to not look like a con artist to be a good con artist?"

Junmyeon squinted. "So you're saying I look lowkey devious?"

"I don't know." Junmyeon was maybe just an inch shorter than he was but it was a debatable discrepancy, so Minseok wasn't about to bring that up, even casually. Junmyeon seemed like the type to argue something until his throat gave in. "You look nice."

Minseok had only really ever had one serious relationship, and he slit its neck and let it die slowly and terribly. He thought about his ex when he was in bed with random one night stands though; mostly things like "he would have hated that there," or "we'd be watching a rerun of Friends by this hour." His ex was also just slightly smaller when he stood next to him, much like Junmyeon, but they looked nothing alike. With that thought, he felt himself leaning in.

"I have a boyfriend," Junmyeon said quietly, more to Minseok's lips, it seemed like.

Junmyeon's breath reeked of tobacco. "Oh?"

"He's here."

Minseok took a step back. "Oh."

"In there." He gestured vaguely at one of the three restaurants cramped together from his former side of the street.

"Can he see us?"

"Obviously not."

"He doesn't like you smoking?"

Junmyeon shook his head. "I think he'd be more alarmed by me kissing a stranger though."

"Right, yeah. That would suck." Minseok laughed. "For him."

Minseok didn't know where to go from there. He'd be embarrassed but he felt as though he'd already done and said far more embarrassing things just within that hour. Junmyeon offered him another smile, but he couldn't read this one. He had to promptly remind himself that he didn't read people very well anyway. A second ago, he thought Junmyeon liked him.

"I need to head back." Junmyeon finally said. He stuck his cigarette, head first, on the tip of the snow bank he recreated, like the main ornament on top of a Christmas tree. "Thank you for the cigarette."

"Don't mention it."

"Good luck with crocheting."

"You too." Minseok immediately regretted that as he said it because what the fuck. "I mean -"

"No, I know what you mean." Junmyeon waved his comment off like a stray fly.

He padded off the opposite side of the road, disappearing inside the door of the middle restaurant. Minseok lit another cigarette and stood in the cold for a few more minutes, just breathing both corrupted and cold air. He was half convinced to call a buddy of his and see if he could crash at their place for the night, but decided against it when he imagined his buddy's fridge stocked with beer. He was fine, just a work in progress. And this work in progress preferred to sleep in an alcohol-free space for now.

He flicked his cigarette away and was about ready to leave. A few steps forward and he paused, spun on his heel and headed back to snap a picture of the snow bank with the cigarette on it. It didn't photograph well, but he could fix that.

a/n: this is pretty tl;dr so feel free to skip. this fic is heavily inspired by shameless, season 7. apart from being in love with lip, i've been kind of in a rut lately. if you've been a long time reader of mine, you'd probably think that i'm out of the fandom by now. you're not totally wrong. one thing i'm still v much in is writing. i'm just stuck, i think. i'm trying to get back into it and i've been working on something monsterous, but it's with original characters. i'm trying my hand at this thing called "originality." i know. i'm insane. that said, any advice on writer's block annihilation will be much appreciated. discussions in the comment section is welcome. i'll be around. c"

SHINEEBIGBANG2016 MASTERPOST

hipslip — Wed, 03 Aug 2016 23:54:11 GMT

( note: don’t forget to send the authors some love :3 happy reading! )

I'm on a radio talk show -- this & other updates on why I'm a piece of shit

hipslip — Thu, 17 Mar 2016 23:38:08 GMT

Getting this out of the way because I am excited about this project and would love for you all to join me.

It's called Just The Mouth. And it goes a little something like this:

In which Kaug and Eunice talk about gay rights.

!FOLLOW! twitch.tv/kaugustus - to hear us live and shit.
!WHEN! Friday and Sunday, Midnight EST (more or less)
!CREATE A TWITCH ACCOUNT! to join our chat and to chat with us and shit. it'll take 2 seconds. and if it takes more than that, TELL US ABOUT IT IN CHAT.
!SUBSCRIBE! for highlights and shit.
!THUMBS UP! because you like us and shit.

O T H E R S T U F F

Where have you been? being a functional member of society via work and writing outside of fanfic. takes up a lot more time than one would think.

So emerged from said responsibilities just so you could plug this radio show? yes and no. But mostly yes. Don't hate me.

Wait so you mentioned writing...? that's because I am still doing that. just more original stuff this time. I'm working on trying to get my "writing" together. the less I talk about it, the better.

Will you be posting fic any time soon? yes. And SBB 2016 FOR SURE.

Where can we talk to you? here is fine? you can also follow me on tumblr and twitter and we can be friends and talk and shit. there's also the radio show. not to push that on your face way too many times but... yanno.

With this, I bid you guys a temporary adieu. I hope to see you all on Just The Mouth!

How They Are ii

hipslip — Mon, 21 Sep 2015 00:52:09 GMT

rating: NC - 17 (overall)
genre: au, romance
pairing: minho/key
length: chaptered
word count: ~2k wc
summary: in which minho and key fall in and out of love.

How They Are
A story by Yoonis

How they met

Minho reached for the stack of plastic cups the same time Kibum did. With his hand curled fully around Kibum’s fingers, he earned himself a smile from the then stranger. Minho remembers that day as though he read it or saw it in a movie.

He doesn’t remember the color of his contacts or the kind of shoes he had on, much to Kibum’s dismay. What he remembers most is how he felt. Rather, how Kibum made him feel.

--

Kibum interrupted Minho with a quick, “Wait.”

Minho squinted. “What.”

“That’s not how we met.”

Minho sighed. “Oh, you want the full version?”

Naeun nodded immediately. Minho, at any other time, would have appreciated the enthusiasm. For instance, if it were from Kibum. “What’s the full version?”

--

How they met (full version)

As kids, they were kind of romantic.

What that meant was that seven year old Minho made it his full time job to turn every empty shoebox into a snail safe haven for all the snails he could find in the area around his school, while six year old Kibum wrote what few words he could spell correctly on the back of Minho’s hand. Minho wanted to save the world. Kibum was a poet.

If either of them were to be asked about how they met, they’d tell you two different stories. This was Minho’s.

Well, more of like this was Minho’s mother’s version. Minho was a year old when they first stood outside of Kibum’s house (Minho tried to stand, but wobbled mostly, refusing to give in to societal norms, normal development, and just plain old gravity). The talk of the neighborhood was that the newcomers that moved into that house were just an attractive woman, her sister, and her only son. At the time, things like divorce and single parents were unheard of in Minho’s town. So they were talked about a lot. Minho’s mom rarely paid attention to that kind of stuff, so walking over to their house with Minho was borne out of the intention of being a friendly neighbor. It was also partly convenience, since their house was adjacent to theirs.

Their moms became instant best friends, setting their own friendship on default. When Kibum and Minho were around 11, their idea of spending time together was sitting quietly in front of the TV and not trying not to laugh out loud. Kibum did sometimes. Most of the time, they just sat there. Truthfully, Minho just didn’t trust the kid. His mom would call him an “odd little fellow” each time Kibum and his mother would retrieve back into their own bubble and for most of his childhood, Minho took that to heart. He didn’t want to be associated with the odd little fellow. he didn’t want to be associated with anything or anyone really. But the time that they became actual friends was after Minho had his 12th birthday party. This was one of the earliest memories Minho had of Kibum. What had happened was that Kibum hadn’t left after the last person left and the last slice of cake was kept in the fridge, and it was soon made clear to the both of them that it was because Kibum was going to sleep over.

“I am?”

“He is?” Both boys asked at the same time -- in Minho’s memory, it was the same time -- and both their mothers were looking at them, confused. As far as they were concerned, Minho and Kibum were the bestest of friends. In spite of the fact that Minho and Kibum went to different schools, spent 6 hours a week together and knew virtually nothing about each other - other than the fact that Kibum enjoyed cartoons that had more verbals jokes in them, whereas Minho was more of a slapstick kid himself.

Minho was blowing up the inflatable mattress inside his room when a freshly showered Kibum walked in, towel drying his hair. He sat on the foot of Minho’s bed, pulling the leg pants of the pajamas he borrowed from Minho up.

“We live right in front of you but somehow, getting me my own pair of sleeping clothes would have been too much trouble.” At first, Minho didn’t know if that was an open to a conversation. It would be the first one that they’d have that had some sort of potential to last more than 30 seconds.

Minho’s foot kept bouncing on the pedal of the inflator. “I guess borrowing my clothes makes the bonding experience more effective?”

Kibum’s brows drew together. “Does that make sense to you?”

Minho smiled, answering, “It really doesn’t,” the corners of his smile stretching his lips out further as Kibum replied quickly, “of course, it doesn’t.”

Kibum stood up and stretched his arms over his head, taking in the decor of Minho’s room. “They think we’re girls.” He browsed the blue wall paper with baseballs on it patterned like polkadots.

“Why do they think we’re girls?”

“Because they’re girls,” Kibum answered. “And they were friends right away. So they try to make their sons friends too, just like they would if we were their daughters. Like using each other’s clothes, slumber parties…”

Gradually, Minho’s foot paused on the pedal. “This is a sleepover.”

“They think it’s a slumber party.” Kibum fiddled the medal piece hanging from one of Minho’s trophies.

“Do you think it’s a slumber party?”

“Is this for baseball?” Comes the non answer from Kibum. Kibum pulls the medal from the neck of the trophy and wears it, looking down at his chest to admire the gold.

“It’s for soccer.” Minho pulled the nozzle of the inflator from the tube of the mattress and closed it immediately.

Confused, Kibum asked, “Then why do you have a baseball wallpaper?”

“They ran out of soccer balls.”

“Of course.” Kibum scoffed, pulling himself up until he was perched on Minho’s dresser. “There are a lot of you out there.”

Minho glanced at the clock above his desk when they didn’t say anything after that. The minute recorded the same number as when they began speaking. He pulled a sheet over the mattress and looked at the clock again when he was done. It increased a minute higher. How time flies.

Minho walked to his closet where he grabbed pillows that his mother had set aside for Kibum. While he did that, Kibum was choosing from the pillows on Minho’s bed without even consulting him first. He fluffed them and hugged them, deeming only two of Minho’s precious four pillows worthy of cradling his head for at least six hours. Minho watched him with his lips slightly parted, eyebrows low toward his lids. He was frowning almost, but he was mostly curious as to how Kibum could act the way that he did. He asked for no one’s permission and just did as he pleased, now plopping down on his inflatable mattress, turning his body side to side as he tested it for comfort. Minho placed the pillows he gathered on his own bed, neatly leaning them against the headboard.

“It’s too hard. There’s too much air.” Kibum stood up and located the tube, releasing the cap, his other hand pushing on the mattress slightly to release some air.

A thank you would have been nice. Minho thought. Then he did a double take when Kibum pointed a glare at him, blowing his fringe out of his eyes. “Excuse me?”

“Did I just say that out loud?”

Kibum managed to make the seconds feel like the longest kinds of infinities each time he just stood there without saying a word. It was around the 2nd or 3rd lifetime that passed through Minho (it honestly felt that way) that Kibum laughed, hugging his stomach, his little body leaning against the wall for support. “Oh my God, you’re an idiot.”

Minho frowned. “Hey, you can’t -”

Kibum sniffed, tripping over the excess fabric of his borrowed pajamas as he tried to stand back up. He quickly regained balance, palm still planted on the wall. “You wanna sneak in a beer?”

“What?”

“Beer.” Kibum was already heading to the door. “Where does your dad keep it?”

“Wait, wait,” Minho’s mind was moving much faster than his body or his mouth, but still miles behind Kibum as he opened the door. He looked over his shoulder, index finger pressed to his lips to silence Minho. He signaled Minho to follow him into the corridor. Minho was crouched over, his arm and hip pressed to one wall, progressing like a cat burglar behind Kibum who walked coolly, knuckles of his fingers grazing along the wall.

“Do you even know where you’re going?” Minho whispered.

Kibum shook his head, “Not a clue.”

Minho circled him the closer that they got to the kitchen. Minho pointed at the cabinet below the sink. “In there.”

It was difficult to make out Kibum’s expression through the dark. There was some light making it through the window, but it easily surrendered to the night. “Why would they keep it right there?”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s so easy for you to take it it.”

“They trust me?”

Kibum tilted his head to the side. “Odd.”

The cabinet’s hinges creaked slightly and each time it did, Minho folded into himself as though he were being punched in the stomach. Kibum took out a bottle and quickly, the pair made it back to Minho’s room.

“1987. Shit, this is some good stuff.”

Minho was locking his door while Kibum sat on his bed. His heart was racing. He pressed his ear to the door, lips parted. What if they had heard him? They would take away his X-box and his freedom and not to mention his -

“You want some?” Kibum was holding out the opened bottle to him. There was a part of Minho that had rehearsed saying no to Kibum since the moment he proposed to steal alcohol from his parents. That part of him was getting smaller by the second. He proceeded toward the bottle, leaning in to sniff the mouth. “What are you doing?”

“Smelling it,” Minho explained simply.

“How does that help at all?”

Minho took the bottle. “It’s half the pleasure.”

“God, you’re weird.”

At first, Minho just tilted the bottle enough for the liquid to touch his lips. He licked them and couldn’t really gather anything from that. So he took a bigger sip this time, cringing when the alcohol hit his tongue and remains there.

That seemed to spike Kibum’s amusement. “Was that your first time drinking?”

“That stuff? Pretty much.” Minho walked to the bed and sat beside Kibum. Kibum easily made himself comfortable, resting on his side on the bed, taking another sip from the bottle.

“Do you not know what this is?”

“Not know what that is?” Minho pointed at the bottle. “The alcohol?”

“Yeah, but what’s it called?”

“Alcohol…?”

Kibum’s cheeks were flushed. Minho felt his getting warm too when Kibum smiled at him. “It’s wine.”

“Call it whatever you want. I still don’t like it.”

Kibum shrugged. “That’s what I thought too when I first had it.”

Minho brought his legs up and sat Indian style on the bed, leaning back against his palms. “How come you know so much about this stuff?”

“I lived in Europe for a bit when I was young.”

Minho squinted at Kibum. “You’re 11.”

“Younger then,” Kibum’s thumb traced the mouth of the bottle. “You want some more? You should have some more.”

Kibum had thrust the bottle into Minho’s hands that were mostly there to politely refuse the offer. Next thing he knew, he was dizzy and warm, and the wine tasted sweeter each sip he took. Minho wouldn’t remember much after that, just a lot of laughing and warmth. The following day wasn’t as amicable, especially when they both had to hop out of Minho’s bed in surprise when Kibum’s mom’s voice was coming through the door. Kibum tossed the empty wine bottle to Minho, who then tossed it back to Kibum.

“What are you doing?” Kibum panicked while they basically volleyballed the wine bottle back and forth across the bed.

“i can’t hold onto that!”

“Keep your voice down!” Kibum moved forward until his knees hit the side of the bed. “Just keep it under the bed for now. I’ll help you get rid of it tomorrow after school.”

“Huh?”

“I’ll see you then.”

Kibum walked to the mirror to check his reflection, shouting back to his mom, “Just a second!”

Minho’s brain was lost somewhere. It probably fell through his bed and hid next to wherever his sanity was. He chucked the bottle under the bed much too harshly, allowing the bottle to roll past the other side. Minho rounded the bed and kicked it light back under the bed just a split second before Kibum opened the door.

“Minho! Sorry to wake you boys, but we have to get to church.”

“It’s wine. Fine. Sorry. It’s fine.” Minho smiled. Was his room always this bright in the morning?

Kibum rolled his eyes and tugged on his mother’s hand. “Can we go now? I need to change.”

“Of course, baby. Minho, do you mind if Kibum returned this later instead. I’ll have it washed.”

“No problem at all,” Minho said, hands behind his back.

“Thank you. Alright, Kibum. We should be going. Bye, Minho.”

“Bye, Minho.” Then when his mom wasn’t looking, Kibum pressed his index finger to his lips like last night and winked.

*masterficlist | tumblr | twitter | comment here to be added

-- for linnhe, who has always been supportive of me and my writing. <3

How They Are i

hipslip — Wed, 16 Sep 2015 21:32:02 GMT

rating: PG
genre: au, romance
pairing: minho/key
length: chaptered
word count: ~1k wc
summary: in which minho and key fall in and out of love.

How They Are
A story by Yoonis

How they sort of argue

Minho had an itch between his shoulder blades that he couldn’t reach in the duration of his drive home from the office. Finally, as he kicked off his shoes by the door, one palm pressed to the wall, he was free to scratch as he pleased. There was struggle. At first, it was the debate of whether to attack the itch from the south or the north. Just seconds into it, he decided that he didn’t give a fuck that he looked as though he were swatting off an invisible bee that had a penchant for the valley of his shoulder blades. He sighed when he made contact; nails on fabric on skin.

He couldn’t reach far enough. Just beyond his reach was the source, the ultimate itch if you will. Luckily, Minho didn’t have to suffer long as a spare hand was helping him out, the owner of said hand, already tilting his head to the side slightly. “Idiot. You could have called me.”

Kibum’s breath was warm. Minho craned his neck just enough to smile at Kibum with his profile. “I thought you were busy.”

“It’s a back-scratch, Minho. Not a heart operation.”

“You do those too?”

Kibum pinched the skin on his back. Funny how an act of comfort could easily dissolve into something of malice. Kibum did so swiftly, wearing a smile that bore no semblance of remorse. “You forgot the wine, didn’t you?”

“What wine?”

“Minho.” Kibum undid the apron where it knotted around his back, walking back to the kitchen.

He was pissed. Minho could tell by the way he said his name just then. Also, in the recent years of their marriage, Kibum had been short with him. Minho’s memory flashed a text message to him that he got earlier while in the car, too concentrated on the stupid itch on his back. “Fuck. I forgot. I’ll get it now.”

Kibum walked around the island counter that divided the kitchen and the dining area. When they first moved in, Kibum had said it was his favorite part of the house. Minho was only a little jealous that he was in competition with an inanimate object for his husband’s affection. When he had mentioned the notion, Kibum laughed - more like guffawed. He had looked at Minho then as though he were a petulant child, Kibum’s favorite one.

“They’re coming in like ten minutes,” said Kibum.

“That’s plenty of time,” Minho was already putting his shoes back on. “If I’m not back then, you can start without me.”

“Don’t be stupid. We can’t start without the wine.”

Again, Minho was only a little pissed. His husband just knocked him a few pegs lower than a bottle of wine, but whatever. Kibum talked out of his ass a lot of the time. He didn’t mean it like that.

--

With gum stuck to his shoe and sweaty underarms, Minho managed to make it back in the house just in time to freshen up and look less, as Kibum lovingly put it, homeless.

By the time Minho was fixing his hair and buttoning up the collar of his shirt, he heard the front door open from the bedroom, soon followed by Taemin’s voice. He was bringing his new girlfriend over and according to Kibum, she was awfully sweet; possibly much too much for a boy of Taemin’s stature. “He’d tire of her in a month, tops.”

Minho wanted to keep a bit more faith. His cousin, Taemin, had a reputation for going through girls as often as he did shirts, but he knew his intentions. Plus, with the way things were nowadays with dating and the younger generation, it really was hit or miss. Taemin just knew what he wanted.

Minho joined the exchange of pleasantries, finally introduced to Taemin’s girlfriend. “Hi! I’ve heard so much about you.”

“Same,” she said in response.

“Son Naeun, was it?”

She nodded, holding out a Tupperware of food. Minho took it with both hands because he knew that Kibum wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole while in full astronaut gear. Kibum didn’t enjoy food in plastic containers, just one of his many charming qualities. “It’s sweet rice cakes. My mom owns a store of them back in Korea.”

Both Minho and Kibum weren’t particularly fond of the dish, but Minho bowed and smiled because he appreciated the gesture. Taemin supplied, “they’re really good,” just to knee Minho’s conscience in the balls. “I’m sure they are, Naeun-sshi. Please, come in. I’ll put these in the fridge for now.”

“Thank you. I love your loft, by the way.”

Minho answered as he walked to the kitchen. “Thanks! Kibum bought all of the art.”

“And put everything up,” Kibum added.

Taemin’s eyes landed on the biggest painting of the inside of a cathedral posted above the couch. The fault was that Minho knows Taemin so well, and he knows that what caught Taemin’s attention was mostly the frame. Minho brought out the wine and four glasses.

--

“Is this your first time in New York?” Minho asked as he cut into his steak.

Naeun skipped the wine (the tips of Minho’s ears might have turned red earlier and perhaps Kibum smiled too, and those might have been two separate things) and opted for water. Taemin drank enough for the both of them. He was always a good drinker, and he drank anything alcoholic, no matter how soft or strong.

“It is, yeah,” Naeun answered. “I really like it so far.”

“I take it that Taemin has showed you to all the tourist spots already?”

Taemin laughed, but it was a surface-level one that was more to echo Naeun’s polite one. “Twine already.”

Kibum cocked a brow. “Twine?”

Naeun, embarrassed, placed her fork on the plate and covered her mouth as she chewed and spoke at the same time, “I meant to say twice. Sorry, I must have wine on the mind.”

“There’s still more,” Minho offered.

“I really shouldn’t.”

“I insist. You’ll take a cab home anyways.”

“No, I…” Naeun paused.

While Taemin rubbed the pad of his thumb along the dull end of the knife, he said simply, “She’s pregnant.”

The way they went silent after that, he might as well had told them that she was dying. Minho might have considered both one and the same. Luckily, he didn’t have to lead in with a lackluster “Wow” - he hadn’t even managed to put his hand down, still frozen from where he was supposed to pour wine into Naeun’s glass. Kibum stood up and walked over to her, giving her a hug.

Minho aimed a betrayed glance at Taemin, who wasn’t meeting it, instead distracted by Naeun crying tears of relief in Kibum’s shoulder.

--

“I haven’t gone to the doctor yet so I don’t know when I’m due, but…”

They were sat on two couches, divided by a coffee table. Naeun saddled up to Taemin, and what space should have been between them was seated between Kibum and Minho on the opposite couch.

“So this is the big news.” Kibum crossed his legs, attention bouncing between the two. “I’m so happy for you.”

“Thanks, hyung,” Taemin said. “That’s actually not all of it. I wanted to ask you both to be my best men.”

“For what?” That question earned Minho a glare from Kibum.

“For my - well, our wedding.” Taemin placed an arm around Naeun’s shoulders. She smiled up at him.

Kibum spoke before Minho could, “We’d love to!”

Love was a strong word. Just as strong as hate.

Suddenly, all eyes were on Minho. Minho smiled and nodded, crossing his arms across his chest. “You’ve set a date?”

“I was thinking next year. A summer wedding,” Naeun tucked her hair behind her ear, and Taemin smiled at the gesture. “I want something small.”

Kibum said the same thing too, Minho thought. “That sounds good. Also, Taemin,” Minho added, unable to stop himself, “I don’t think you can have two best men.”

“Says who?”

“Tradition, law? God?” Minho looked to Kibum for agreement.

Kibum shook his head. “I think it’s fine? It’s his wedding.”

“Exactly,” Taemin agreed. “Besides, I can’t think of anyone other than the two of you to be there with me.”

“Really.” Minho said, dubious.

That made Taemin laugh. “It’s true. Yours is the kind of marriage that I want to have.”

“Really?” Minho wished that Kibum didn’t sound as surprised as he really was.

“He talks so highly of the both of you,” Naeun said. “He tells me about you all the time. That’s mostly why I wanted to meet you.”

Minho saw Kibum’s stare crawl to the bottom of the coffee table. There, beneath magazines was a leatherette accordion case that housed divorce papers. Relationships were fragile in that they could all end in writing -- the ghost of heart skipping a beat. Kibum met Minho’s eyes. He wasn’t going to say anything tonight. Neither was Minho.

“If you don’t mind,” Naeun said, “ could I ask how you two met?”

“He saw me, he fell in love with me. That’s basically it.” Kibum answered.

Minho almost pulled off looking insulted.

“Taemin said the same thing.” Naeun’s hands were folded over each other on her lap. “He also said that I should just ask you.”

“Didn’t you meet at a coffee shop?” Taemin asked.

“Party, actually.” Belatedly, Minho realized what Taemin just did. By then, Taemin was already grinning, Naeun was attentive, and Kibum was leaning back into the couch. He almost looked worried, nipping at his thumbnail.

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-- for linnhe, who has always been supportive of me and my writing. <3

SHINEE BIGBANG IS BACK

hipslip — Wed, 08 Apr 2015 15:08:43 GMT

rules // sign up

Come Find Me

hipslip — Tue, 27 Jan 2015 01:54:15 GMT

rating: pg
genre: au, romance
pairing: minho/key
length: chaptered
word count: ~1k wc
summary: in which minho and key fall in and out of love.

Come Find Me
A story by Yoonis

The last thing Jinki remembered was the taste of her lipstick. Funny thing was that it didn’t really taste like anything fruity or the way Jinki imagined it to taste like from numerous pieces of writing and internal narratives spewed in movies.

It just tasted like powder or something inorganic like that. Her lips were dry, too - way too chapped, but Jinki tried to associate it to something romantic. All he could come up with was the gravel of his childhood house where he scraped his knees one too many times. That’s why his knees were dented and drawn with darker and lighter skin. He hated his knees.

Then he was gone.

He woke up with a pounding headache localized to the right side of his head, coincidentally, the same side of his face that was lying flat on the cold floor. He couldn’t pry that eye open yet, so he had to make do with his left one.

It took a few beats for his eyesight to make sense of the cloudy shapes. He counted to five: one, a red door that looked like it weighed more than him. Two, gray brick walls. Three, uneven cemented floors, prickling his cheek with invisible cold needles, as well as the backs of his hands and the front of his feet, a little bit of his lower stomach, basically everything of him that was in direct contact with it. Four, distant sounds of... a door closing? Footsteps? Jinki would be worried, except he could feel eyes on him. Five, he’s not alone.

The second presence in the room came into Jinki’s view as a boy who couldn’t be older than 19, back against the wall as he slid slowly to the side. He was watching Jinki like he had every right to be petrified of the unarmed, poisoned (and probably battered) being lying helplessly on the floor. Jinki figured he had a little fight in him, and he could probably take this guy if he had to. He might not have ever had sex before - which explained his enthusiasm at the thought of a woman interested in renting her body out to him for a night. He blinded himself from the fishy qualities that probably would not have gone unnoticed even by a by-stander a mountain away - but Jinki had been in a few fights before. Yeah, he could take this kid down. He just needed a few seconds or something.

Fuck, Jinki thought as soon as his competitor gradually progressed closer to him. There was one light that dangled above them. The close the stranger got, the more lit his face was. Jinki didn’t understand it. He was a lot ganglier than Jinki suspected, but he inspected him with a curiosity that made him aware of every hair on his body.

“Wha-“ Jinki croaked. He was parched. “Who, where-“ Jinki didn’t know what to ask first. It didn’t matter. The kid was on the move and out of sight.

--

2 years ago

Jinki was in his twenties when he moved from the city to a small town just a little bit outside of where his mother grew up. He thought he would feel more at home there. He never felt like he fit in the city. That was when it started, when he couldn’t help the feeling that he was being watched.

Weird, he thought. When he was troubled by the task of finding someone to be with, he never really felt alone. It wasn’t just on his way to work or when he built a routine throughout the day, he also felt that way when he was at home despite living by his lonesome.

Some nights, Jinki couldn’t sleep. He shut the blinds, hid under his covers. It helped sometimes. If it didn’t, he turned the TV on and watched whatever was on and kept him from thinking.

--

It was when the kid tried to turn Jinki’s body to lie on his back that the older boy realized that he probably had a few broken ribs. That was totally unnecessary. He groaned, but he didn’t fight it. The cold felt better on his back than on his front. Besides, lying on his stomach was close to grinding the cement with how turned on he was.

--

1 year and 6 months ago

After the first six months, Jinki gave in. Whatever it was, whoever it was, it wore him down. He didn’t notice that he began to choose and pick his clothes now, that he started to care that shirt didn’t go with those pants. Also, his pants could stand to be a little tighter.

There were times when Jinki thought he began to see someone in his periphery. This was mostly when he was out. At home, it was dead silent. One night, Jinki left the blinds open as he slipped out of his clothes. He was hard even before the garter of his boxers slid from his waist. He stood by his window and looked out into the darkness while the TV played in the background. The news was on, and it was reporting the same thing it did since Jinki moved to town; something about heavy rain, something about a sick cannibalistic beast out on the loose, something about cute dogs performing cute tricks - it didn’t matter.

What mattered to Jinki was that he wanted this person to watch him fuck his own hand. Jinki wanted this person to know that he was ready. He showed it in the speed of his hand pumping himself, the way he strained his eyes open and fogged the glass of his window with his breath, the way he left the glass moist with spin and sweat and fingerprints and maybe a little bit of cum. He’d bite his lip until it bled. For some reason, he thought his admirer would like that.

--

3 months ago

Jinki was part frustration, part determination. He quit his job and dedicated the rest of his time and effort to his quest to find the eyes in the darkness. Many times, it just felt like he was chasing a ghost.

He wrote love letters on his window glass, left an extra key under the mat, cooked dinner for two, all for a guest that never came.

--

2 months ago

By the next month, Jinki was all desperation. It was then that the clues began to manifest.

Jinki followed the trail led by his sixth sense, asked around, found the right people, and eventually found himself in the company of a woman that got him just one degree away. He was ready. He fattened himself up a bit with only the best produce and meat. Only the best for his beloved.

--

Jinki’s feet were being bound together by the ankles. Seconds later, he was being hauled up, upside down. God, he was so fucking hard. He wished to be bitten, touched, anything. He would take anything.

Jinki spun a bit and was given a brief tour of the room from the center. A wave of jealousy crashed over him at the thought of the others who had been here before him. They probably just stumbled into the arms of his beloved, unwilling, while Jinki groomed himself for months to be just right.

He felt a touch by his calf and he felt as though it was enough to make him explode in his jeans. Jinki whimpered. He had expectations, and he knew his beloved knew of them too, from the many messages he left. He wiggled and thrust his hips as best he could in the position he was in. The younger grinned at Jinki and his smile lit up the cellar like a million floodlights.

“Okay, my sweet,” he said, and Jinki likened his voice to velvet. He grazed his knuckles over Jinki’s groin just enough for him to know he was there, but not nearly enough to satisfy him. “I’ll have this first.”

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Untitled #1

hipslip — Sun, 25 Jan 2015 15:19:49 GMT

rating: pg
genre: au
pairing: onew/key
length: drabble
word count: ~200wc
summary: in which jinki kills a man but he doesn't do it for key.

Untitled #1
A story by Yoonis

In hindsight, Jinki supposes that he did do it for a boy.

And it’s that same boy who walked in the very second Jinki noticed the life in the man’s eyes leave him. The same boy who screamed in horror at the sight before him; it’s all bloody and tense and the night reeks of revenge. Revenge smells like a murder sneaked into a 9 o’clock schedule of sitting in front of the couch like a comatose slob, that routinely old thing that Kibum is used to seeing after a long day at work.

He must have come home thinking that he’d sneak in a hot bath after enduring the drunken debates that usually end with Kibum back into a corner with a bruise painted across his cheek and one on his stomach. He wasn’t expecting this. He wasn’t ready for this. For frail, gentle, bespectacled Jinki from the park to be standing over the corpse of the man Kibum thought was both life and death personified.

He bought dinner and wine and bath salts and while both were meant for separate containers, they all fell to the floor before Kibum’s feet as his hands flew to his mouth. It muffled his screams, but only just.

“I didn’t...” Jinki began, “mean... to...”

Key stopped him. “Don’t say it.”

“He was charging after me,” Jinki continued, “so fast. Like it was either me or him -“

“We have to hide this.” Kibum didn’t need that. He needed to think. They needed to move.

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“But, Key...”

Kibum was already walking over bath salts and noodles to get to the kitchen. They needed plastic bags, something to get rid of the smell, gloves, more plastic bags.

“I didn’t mean to.”Jinki was by the door, back to his meek self. Kibum didn’t think he had it in him. He didn’t think that it would work. The months of talking on the phone, in dingy bars, in the back of his car, it all finally came to fruition.

“I know, Jinki.”

“I didn’t... do it for you.”

They both knew it was a lie but Key figured that it was enough of a price to pay. If Jinki had to live with blood on his hands, Key would have to live with the dots on his just the same.

*masterficlist | tumblr | twitter | comment here to be added

Youth Is Wasted On The Young

hipslip — Fri, 10 Oct 2014 13:50:52 GMT

rating: pg
genre: au, highschool
pairing: jonghyun/onew
length: drabble
word count: ~800wc
summary: in which jonghyun and jinki have a teenage conversation on a rooftop

Youth Is Wasted On The Young
A story by Yoonis

“Stop that.”

“Stop what?”

Jonghyun pushed his lips out and directed them at Jinki’s nail biting. “It’s gross.”

“Fuck you.” Jinki stopped anyway. His ring finger was moist at the tip, nail slightly longer and flimsier from when he was nipping at it.

“Fuck you,” Jonghyun replied.

They weren’t the most eloquent of friends. Maybe that was why they hung out a lot. They didn’t have much to say to each other nor did they count on each other. They were young and they understood how that worked by not understanding anything and being okay with the limitations of it.

Jinki rubbed his hands together. It made the same sound two pieces of sandpaper made when they were rubbed together. Jinki cringed.

Jonghyun watched as Jinki looked at both of his palms with dismay. “Dude,” Jonghyun began, whipping his head to the side to keep the tips of his fringe from touching his eyelids, “you have my dad’s hands.”

“You mean old?”

“Rough. Dry. Probably from jerking off all the time.”

“I got high with your dad last night.”

“Fuck off, no you didn’t.”

“Except I did.”

From this high up, there wasn’t much else to deal with apart from the night air. The point of view from Jonghyun’s apartment was the same as God’s, Jinki thought. Being here made it easier to imagine that he didn’t exist. The traffic of the main road was a distant noise, cars cut down to size in comparison to their bright lights, red and yellow. Time wasn’t stopping for the people below Jonghyun and Jinki. From this height, Jinki could imagine stomping on their tiny heads with his feet. His shoe was gargantuan—a fucking evil giant shoe created to clean the earth of weak human earthlings. He kicked his foot back and forth in the air, ankles hitting the brick ledge they occupied.

“My dad doesn’t get high.”

Jinki shrugged. “He gets high with me. I think he likes me.”

“Wouldn’t be surprised. You guys get along with everything. Since we went out golfing and I introduced you two, he would not shut up about you.”

“No, man. I think he really likes me.”

Jonghyun took a long sip of his beer. When he swallowed, a little bit of liquid filmed his lips. It reminded Jinki of Luna’s lips right after re-applying her lipgloss when she’d finished blowing him. “You mean, more than me; his own son?”

“I mean, more than your mom; his own wife.”

“That’s not,” Jonghyun scoffed, “that’s not fucking funny.”

“I’m not kidding.” Jinki took the bottle from Jonghyun and took a swig as well. “He sat really close to me and told me he liked my hair.”

“So?” Jonghyun’s tone changed. It was a bit more defensive.

“He asked me what product I used and shoved his hands in my hair. Like that would help him figure it out.”

“My dad’s not fucking gay.”

“Okay, chill the fuck out. I wasn’t saying that he was gay.”

Jonghyun’s voice raised a notch, “you’re saying that he came on to you.”

“Doesn’t make him gay. Maybe I’m just really attractive.”

“Are you gay?”

Jinki shrugged and took another sip from Jonghyun’s bottle. It tasted gross now-- warm and stale. “I don’t know.”

Jonghyun cringed as he took the bottle back. “Do you like my dad?”

Jinki half-coughed, half-laughed. He shook his head.

“So he’s not good enough for you?” Jonghyun was smiling again, back to his regular self.

“If we get caught fucking, you’ll have no dad,” Jinki said. “You should be thanking me.”

“Fuuuuuuuck, gross.” Jonghyun shoved Jinki much harder than he intended.

Just as Jinki was about to lose his balance, Jonghyun replaced the beer bottle in his hands with friend’s arm. Sure, he didn’t think it would be a big difference whether Jinki was with him right now or not, but he’d rather not have Jinki’s blood on his hands. Even if it was on accident.

The pair scampered out of sight even before they hear it break. They pressed their backs against the cement, the cold transferring from the concrete, past their clothes and on their skin.

Jonghyun went on his knees then balanced his weight on both feet, crouching to peek at the ground below. He settled back next to Jinki, relieved. “I don’t think we killed anyone.”

Jinki watched Jonghyun’s Adam’s apple bob while he gulped air. His lips went from moist and shiny to dry and cracked in seconds.

“We should get back inside.”

“Do you think your parents are back?”

“Afraid you’ll run into your lover?”

“It’ll get really awkward.”

Jonghyun pulled a face. Part of Jinki thought that maybe it was because he wasn’t fully convinced yet. Either that of Jonghyun just moved on that quickly—his emotions developing and changing as rapid as the way his body reacted to certain scenarios.

Jinki followed Jonghyun back to his apartment, biting his nails the whole time.

*masterficlist | tumblr | twitter | comment here to be added

The Wasteland Chronicles ii

hipslip — Sat, 02 Aug 2014 16:21:19 GMT

rating: r (overall)
genre: au, highschool
pairing: amber/krystal, amber/min, key/chanyeol, onew/min, (and others)
length: chaptered
word count: 1363wc
summary: in which youth is wasted on the young, via drugs, sex, alcohol, rebellion, and love, of course.

The Wasteland Chronicles
A story by Yoonis

ii. Onew

Onew was blessed with the face of an angel. And, fuck, did he wear that face well.

The thing was, Onew had been able to convince himself that he was the best friend and person to have graced anyone’s life with his presence. Unfortunately, the only thing he ever managed to convince his friends and family of was that he belonged to himself. Onew was kind of like the sun—to most, he was blinding and inviting, while to his friends, those who stood too close, he was nothing but a ball of fire that could swallow them and everyone else in flames if he wanted to.

Onew strut down the second floor hallway, stacks of flyers resting in his arm while his other hand posted them on lockers, bulletin boards, doors, fire extinguisher cases, and the like. The flyer was for a party that was under the guise of an audition for a play called “He Who Denied It Supplied It,” something Onew saw on a bumper sticker.

Even when Onew was a kid, he knew that people liked to look at him. He imagined that they all saw him in their own versions of what was desirable. He quite liked the idea of a shapeshifter taking the form of everyone’s hidden desire, and he prided himself in thinking that he kind of was one. And in his own way, he made sure to make it clear to as many as people as possible that he belonged to them.

He was pretty sure that the cheerleading squad thought he was the funniest guy alive. All he had to do was show up in his tightest uniform pants and pop his gum and they’d all be fucking laughing their heads off. Strange.

He licked his thumb and picked up a singular flyer from his stack, passing it to the cheerleading captain. “Nine-thirty, yeah? One bottle of alcohol per person to get in.”

“On a school night?” Asked one of the shorter girls in the squad. Subin did this thing when Onew was around—this thing where she made him feel as though she saw him on a level no lower than scum. Onew suspected that she tried hard, but not hard enough, and that even the mere sight of his shadow made her wet.

“There’s a lot of space on my bed if it gets too late, Subin-ah.” Even when Subin insisted that they speak formally, Onew didn’t see the point. Should she have been totally bothered by the entire thing, she would have reported him by now. But, of course, she didn’t.

Subin rolled her eyes, tucking her chin back against her neck while focusing on the flyer in her captain’s hand.

Onew could have stayed there making her more uncomfortable each time, but Amber was somewhere in his periphery, and the way he was being glared at by her unmistakable irritation was too much to pass up.

Onew excused himself from the pack of girls and made his way up the levels of bleachers, long legs easily stepping over the seats where typical legs would have to use the spaces in between that linked the seats, front and back. It had been a couple of days or so since the night Amber claimed she had had it with Onew and his “antics.” Onew thought it was all hilarious, and frankly, some of the best entertainment he’s had in a while that wasn’t on TV.

Onew saw how, at first, Amber was making an effort to stuff the empty packs of her lunch back in her bag. Onew knew Amber to be disorganized—unchanged from when they were kids-- and to own bags that served more purpose as receptacles for her trash than her books. This time, Amber’s haste was clear in Onew’s eyes as he approached her, and he was certain that she wasn’t packing her trash like that due to her excitement for recycling. She still hated him. Onew made a bet with himself that he could change that in five minutes.

He slung an arm around her shoulder that she casually rejected with a shrug.

“I’ve got a party tonight.”

“Good on you.” Amber’s tone and body language said she wasn’t having of it.

“You’re invited.”

“How polite. I think I’ll skip this one.” She took out her headphones and slung them around her neck, and Onew took it as a threat that he had N minutes to speak to her before she stopped listening. Onew suspected that she didn’t even bring her iPod. She usually forgot it.

“Why?”

“I have plans.”

Onew snorted. “Doing what?” He followed her swiftly, one level up the bleachers while she strode on the lower one, shrugging her arms into both straps of her bag.

“Onew, even if I didn’t have any plans—(“Which you do not,” Onew continued over her.)—there is a long list of things that I’d rather do than go to your party.”

“Like?”

“Like shooting an arrow right up my cunt.”

“That’s not even physically possible.”

“I’ll figure it out.”

Onew jumped off the seat of the bleachers and stood between Amber’s way and the stairs proceeding down the exit of the field. “Don’t be this way over a girl. It doesn’t suit you.”

“You’re not seriously turning this around and making me seem like the unreasonable one, are you?”

“I didn’t call you unreasonable. But if you feel that way—“

“Fuck off.” Amber shouldered him right as she forced her way past.

Onew spun around, following her every step. “I’ll see you at eight, then?”

Onew paused and smiled proudly at the backwards flip off that Amber aimed at him, remembering how he taught her how to do that. Maybe he should extend his bet to himself to three hours. Give or take.

--

Onew swooped in between Key and Chanyeol during break. He walked with the couple down the hallway with an arm distributed on either’s shoulders.

“Have you given out all the flyers, boys?”

Key adjusted his hat some when the accessory threatened to slip from his head on account of Onew gracelessly making an entrance between them. “All gone.”

Chanyeol was all smiles, just like Onew always expected him. He reached over behind Onew to help Key with his hat. “Hey, Onew? Why didn’t you just post the party information online? Like, on Facebook? A lot of people are thinking it’s an actual play. One student asked me for the script.”

Onew squeezed Chanyeol’s shoulder. “Chanyeol, it’s all about rebellion and doing everything right under the noses of authority. And getting as close to their nostrils without them actually noticing. It’s quite amusing, you see—how easily manipulated people are here. Sometimes you have to make challenges for yourself. It’s the challenges that help you grow.”

While Chanyeol nodded and listened intently, Key rolled his eyes. “Have you talked to Amber yet?”

“Yeah, about that.” Onew slipped his arms from their shoulders and walked ahead, spinning around to face them both. “I think you should talk to her.”

“You said you’d take care of it.”

“She’s being much more difficult than anticipated.”

“We’ll talk to her.” Chanyeol proposed, with his smiley smile, all smiley and shit. Onew loved this guy.

“What?” Key brushed his fringe to the side, as though his eyes weren’t bulging and contradicting enough from beneath it.

Chanyeol was unfazed. “She listens to you better, babe.”

“Okay, first of all,” Key planted both hands on his hips, “what did I say about calling me ‘babe?’”

Chanyeol replied like a toddler being lectured, “not to do it?”

“That’s right. And what did you do just then?”

“I did it. It felt right.”

Key shook his head. “You get two more strikes.” Then he turned to Onew, “I can’t promise you anything.”

Onew snapped his fingers, already walking backwards, “that’s all I needed to hear, Key.”

“She still might not come.”

Jinki was already jogging down the hall—“I believe in you!”—while he vaguely heard Chanyeol say something similar to, “man, that guy’s awesome,” and Key clearly enumerating the many ways in which Onew was an awesome pain in the ass.

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--so i've been watching a lot of 'skins' lately, and this is the result. this is chaptered, and the other couples will be determined throughout the fic.
i will be TAGGING THIS FIC so check the TAGS if you're interested in UPDATES. you also have to the option to TRACK THE TAG, so you're notified in you INBOX every time i post a new chapter to this story. :)

The Wasteland Chronicles i

hipslip — Mon, 07 Jul 2014 08:16:36 GMT

rating: r (overall)
genre: au, highschool
pairing: amber/krystal, amber/min, key/chanyeol, onew/min, (and others)
length: chaptered
word count: 1538wc
summary: in which youth is wasted on the young, via drugs, sex, alcohol, rebellion, and love, of course.

The Wasteland Chronicles
A story by Yoonis

i. Amber

For the fifteenth time during lunch, Amber’s phone vibrated in her pocket. And for the fifteenth time, she ignored it. She had to admit, Onew had always been persistent, even when they were kids. For the same amount of time that they knew each other—which meant practically all of their lives—Onew was also always the first to apologize. But that was because he was always fucking up.

So, there she was, stuck in a stuffy back aisle of the library, smoking her cigarette while coughing and waving away the cloud of cancer gathering around her. The smoke mixed with the dust, and Amber’s eyes were watering a bit, but it was just the dust. It was just the fucking smoke and dust. It had nothing to do with Onew and his fucking stunts. Then her phone vibrated for the sixteenth time and Amber just wanted some peace and quiet. So when she answered her phone, she said exactly that, “can’t I just have some peace and fucking—“

“It’s me, bitch.”

“Key.” There wasn’t really anyone like Key. Key called everyone bitch, but you could tell the difference between the way he called her bitch and the way he called everyone bitch. That one word alone and the intonation of it also dictated 90% of his mood 100% of the time. The ‘bitch’ that he just said implied that he was sick of this whole thing between her and Onew because it was the same shit as last time and could Amber just pick up Onew’s calls so that they could talk and have this over and done with so that Key wouldn’t be wedged between them like a child of divorce? “I can’t deal with him right now.”

“He said he didn’t mean it.”

“He never means it.”

“He said it was dark. He thought he was kissing Jia, not Min.”

“Why does he need a second pair of lips to spew his lies?”

“Because you won’t listen to his first pair.” Key added, “bitch.”

Amber flinched when the ember from her cigarette kissed the space between her index and middle finger. She dropped what remained of her cigarette, frustrated because it was from the pack she was saving for occasions like this. She blamed Onew for that, too. She grabbed the book closest to her and dropped it on the cigarette to kill it. If she was going to burn anything down, she’d rather go to jail for committing arson on Onew. Just his room, though. His parents didn’t have to die for creating such a monster. “I’m not the one being difficult here.”

Amber clipped the phone between her shoulder and cheek, listening to what she could of Key’s response, some of it lost in white noise because of the poor reception. “—you know how Onew is.”

“I do know how he is. And he knew that I liked Min.”

“He said it isn’t his fault if Min tricked him. He thinks Min liked him better anyway.”

Amber stood up, back pressed against the wall, brows drawn together. “Key, you fucker, is Onew there?”

“What.”

“Is Onew listening to this?”

There was bickering, and perhaps the sound of something hitting something, and then a poorly executed imitation of Key’s voice saying, “no, bitch,” who was clearly Onew, and Amber wanted to knock their heads together. Except she didn’t want to see either of them, let alone touch them. Unfortunately, she was a student and they all planned their schedules to match one another because they were friends forever and all that bullshit. “Amber, I told you she was bad news, didn’t I?” Onew seemed to have given up on the ruse, choosing to speak as himself.

Amber dropped the call and turned it off, taking the battery out and distributing both pieces to either side of her uniform skirt pockets. Her hair was already unruly from having raked at it more times than the characters of The OC did, and she could not believe that she just compared her life to a prepubescent drama on a network that she could no longer remember because it had been a while since she moved to Korea from America. And for fucking what.

“… for my friends…” Amber answered herself pathetically, stare trained at the spine of a book that read Hypnotism: How To Trick Your Mind And Not The Other Way Around. Amber pulled the book out, deciding that she was going to hypnotize herself into forgetting about them, but as she rounded the corner of the aisle, she slipped into the next one, remembering that she didn’t just have Key and Onew. She wandered to the center of the aisle, fitting the battery back in her phone and activating it.

After the ignoring the first three messages, she scrolled through her contacts list and realized that yeah, she had a fuckload of acquaintances that she would much rather prefer hanging out with than the company she had now. There was Chanyeol, who was cool as long as he wasn’t sleepy or hungry or with Key, but the problem was that he was always with Key because they were going out. And connected at the hip. And probably at the crotch. “Ew,” Amber remarked, scrolling down once again.

Jonghyun. “Probably training.” Amber sighed, scrolling again.

“Taemin,” she read and pressed the call button.

“Josephine!” Taemin chirped from the other line. Amber scowled. Taemin insisted that Amber go by her second name Josephine because, according to him, it was a lovely name, and it was in The Bible. Suddenly, Amber was reminded why she never called Taemin.

“Hey, Taem.”

“You getting all your ducks in a row?”

“What?”

“You know. We talked about this the other night at the party.”

Drunken flashes clobbered Amber’s sobriety with excerpts of their conversation. She was stoned, Taemin was stoned, Amber needed a drink, Taemin said she needed Jesus, something like that. During that party, Onew kissed the girl Amber was supposed to ask out, so her conversation with Taemin was the last thing on her mind. But she went on like it was the first because he sounded so sweet. “Right. Kind of. Except Onew fucked all my ducks.”

“Woah, Josephine. Language. I’m in a chapel, for Chrissakes.”

Amber remembered that though Taemin was a youth for Christ, he didn’t agree with using the lord’s name in vain being an especially punishable sin. He thought that it was an honor to God to use his son’s name in times of despair, and in turn, times of absolute happiness and euphoria. Like winning the lottery or during an orgasm.

“Sorry. Wait, you aren’t here? At school?”

“I have practice.”

“Will you be here for Psychology?”

“Can’t—“ Taemin stopped speaking and Amber heard him send a muffled greeting to someone who must have been passing him by. “I have choir.”

“All day?”

“No, after this, I have dance.”

“Do you ever go to school?”

“When God clears up my schedule and permits it, yeah.”

Not that Taemin’s attendance could tarnish his spotless class standing. He was pretty much in competition with Onew for the top of the class. That quarter of the school year, however, Amber remembered it was Luna.

“So, what’s this thing about Onew and your ducks?”

“Usual. He’s such an anus, Taemin.” Amber turned the hypnotism book in her hands. “I’m thinking about forgetting all about him.”

“Has he spoken to you?”

“He tried calling me several times, but I don’t wanna talk to that prick. Let’s go out later, when you’re done.”

“Okay, I’ll call you. We could meet at…”

Amber barely heard the rest of what Taemin was saying when she turned her head, thinking that someone was watching her. Her eyes landed on a girl with straight, raven hair that ended at the small of her back. It was parted like twin curtains at the center to frame her small face, pale, gradually adopting a flush across her cheeks. Amber had never seen her before. And judging by the way she wore her uniform so proper, she was either running for student council or she was new. Amber favored the latter.

The girl continued to stare at Amber over her shoulder even when they were both clearly discomfited by each other’s stare and presence. What did this girl want from her? Did she have a question? Was something in Amber’s short bob or in her teeth? Should Amber check?

“Krystal.” A separate voice from the opening end of the aisle snapped both of them out of their staring contest. The raven haired girl snapped her head around and faced another female also in uniform, and there was a resemblance between them both that Amber immediately distinguished, except the other looked just slightly older, and her hair was blonde.

“Let’s go,” the blonde commanded in English.

Krystal, at least Amber assumed that was her American name, complied with her head down, hair further hiding her face. In a matter of seconds, she was at the blonde’s side and they were out of sight.

“Josephine? You there?”

Amber was still concentrated on the girl’s wake, blinking. “There was a girl…”

“A what?”

“She was beautiful.”

*masterficlist | tumblr | twitter | comment here to be added

SHINEEBIGBANG REMINDER

hipslip — Tue, 01 Jul 2014 11:13:27 GMT

so i think all of the long fics for shineebigbang 2014 are up.

the majority of the fics average at 20k words *_* so yeah, please check them out when you have the chance. ^^

UPDATE: this is not gonna be a pretty update

hipslip — Fri, 20 Jun 2014 16:09:27 GMT

my laptop died after a thorough reformat. and with its death, several of my fics in progress (as well as ones that i haven't completed, edited, posted yet) died with it because i'm the idiot who still doesn't back my shit up with a hard drive.

the following fics will possibly not be updated any longer or will take forever to complete:

only if it's worth it
blackfish
camp 22
infitine
graceless

this is basically an apology update for being negligent. i'm pretty upset, too. for personal reasons. i just thought i'd be able to get my laptop up and running again as i have done so before, many times. but it's truly run it's course now, after 7 or so years.

i do have a laptop right now that i'm borrowing from my aunt, which i will be using for work and writing in the mean time.

AS FOR THE (kind of) GOOD NEWS:

i am participating in sbb this year (fics will be posted after june 22, i think) and i saved that fic on google drive so i was able to rewrite half of it (bc, again, i only managed to save half of what i had already typed out, idk what's wrong with me, ugh)

so, that's my sad story, bro.
again, i really am sorry. :(

-y

They Were Not Friends

hipslip — Wed, 22 Jan 2014 21:55:01 GMT

rating: pg
genre: high school!au
pairing: kai/do
length: oneshot
word count: ~4k w
summary: It all started when Jongin was seven and Kyungsoo was five.

They Were not Friends
A story by Yoonis

It all started when Jongin was seven and Kyungsoo was five. Jongin was new to the neighborhood and made it very clear that he didn’t need any help rolling his bicycle from the truck to the garage, and Kyungsoo just could not take a hint. And Jongin’s dad was of no help either, saying that Kyungsoo was just being friendly. Ever since then, Jongin didn’t trust Kyungsoo or his eyes or his dimples when he smiled or the sweaters he wore with parrots printed on the front even in the middle of summer. He didn’t trust Kyungsoo one bit.

They were not friends.

--

Kyungsoo was just always around.

He knocked on Jongin’s door more than the actual people who lived in his new house—which he was still trying to convince his dad of being evil and needed exorcimismsm, or whatever the adults called it so that he could move back to their old apartment in the city.

Kyungsoo visited every day, never without a toy or food in his hands, and he’d ruin Jongin’s pristinely made bed or touch his things and Jongin. Didn’t. Like it. And he asked too many questions, “hyung, do you like scary movies?” and then answer them himself, “I don’t.”

He would chase Kyungsoo out, only to have the kid come back the next day. It was like having a little brother that he never asked for.

--

When they were older, Jongin teased Kyungsoo about puberty only taking heed of his eyes because they seemed to be the only thing about him that was growing. Kyungsoo tried tape, his mother’s eyeliner, even cold spoons, but none would hinder the owlish nature of his eyes.

He told his mother, “If my eyes don’t get smaller, Jongin will never like me!”

And when his mother merely smiled and said that that could not be far from the truth, Kyungsoo drew more thick black under his eyes and said, “You don’t understand.”

--

When Jongin entered high school, everyone started calling him Kai. Kyungsoo wasn’t sure if he liked Kai very much. Kai was a cruel freshman who laughed at his sneakers and hid his bag just to impress his friends. He took every opportunity he could to make Kyungsoo’s remaining middle school years hell, and he didn’t know how to stop it. He knew that he always had the option to battle Jongin with intimate details that he knew about him, like how he wet the bed well into his teens, and that he still had the same bed sheets as he did when they were children, but he kept quiet and just avoided Jongin instead.

So Kyungsoo didn’t stop by his house anymore.

They were never really friends anyway.

--

When Kyungsoo was finally a freshman in high school and Kai was a junior, he tried to sit by his hyung’s side during lunch. He thought that maybe now, they were on some sort of middle ground, and he was no longer chasing after Kai.

Kai let the first time slide. But he didn’t speak to Kyungsoo even when he tried to make conversation. He didn’t even look at his friends when they snickered behind their hands every time Kyungsoo spoke. He knew that Kyungsoo didn’t belong anywhere that he was, and he didn’t want Kyungsoo to fool himself into thinking that he was.

It was the happiest that Kyungsoo had ever been in a while. Even better than the time his parents got him his first guitar. It was the first time that he had been in the same room with Jongin in a long time, and he noticed all of the subtle changes. Jongin wore his hair differently now, with observably more product, and he switched his cologne to something similar to what his dad wore.

“You look different now, hyung.”

Jongin gave his parrot sweater a look, rolled his eyes and sipped his water. “You didn’t age at all.”

He thought about it all day, Jongin’s cologne. He thought about the places on his body where Kyungsoo could smell it the most. There was a lot on his neck, Kyungsoo thought. Maybe somewhere behind his ear. He wondered if Jongin was still sensitive in that area. If when he sprayed cologne there, did he flinch or make a face. He smiled at the mental image, thinking that he probably did.

--

The next day, when Kyungsoo tried to sit down with Kai and his friends, Kai rolled his eyes and told him to eat somewhere else. To this, Kyunsoo was confused. “Did I do something wrong?”

“Just go over to that table, Kyungsoo. No one’s sitting there, see?”

“But… I want to sit with you.”

Kai’s friends mimicked his weak voice, laughed when he didn’t say anything against it and just walked off. Kai didn’t want anything to do with him, and he knew all of that from the very beginning. He just wondered how much of Jongin really meant all of those things.

--

Jongin didn’t see Kyungsoo around much after the previous day. Not even during lunch. He wasn’t worried or anything. It’s just that his mom and Kyungsoo’s mom were friends since they first moved, and he sometimes hears their conversation on the phone when he happens to pick it up by complete accident.

Kyungsoo wasn’t doing very well, apparently. He was eating less and he slept most of the day. His mother was worried. And so was Jongin’s mother.

When Jongin’s mom knocked on his door that same night, he thought that Kyungsoo had said something about the other day and that he was in trouble. But all his mother said was, “Jongin, would you mind spending some time with Kyungsoo during the weekend. I know you might have plans, but his mother is worried that he isn’t doing well in school. He’s such a nice kid. Maybe you could talk to him and find out why he’s been acting distant.”

Jongin even surprised himself when he just nodded and turned back to face his laptop.

--

Jongin had never been inside Kyungsoo’s house before, he realized as he was shown to his room by his mom. She knocked on Kyungsoo’s door, not getting a response. This must have been a normal occurrence recently because all she did was knock again and say that Jongin was there to see him.

Suddenly, Kyungsoo’s muffled voice could be heard from the other side. “Jongin hyung?”

His mother confirmed, and minutes later Kyungsoo opened the door in another one of his hideous parrot sweaters.

“I’ll leave you two to it, then.” Kyungsoo’s mother walked off before either of them could protest. Jongin saw the look of terror on Kyungsoo’s face, and it was evident that he was both shocked and horrified to be in the same space as Jongin again.

“Why are you here?” Kyungsoo asked.

“My mom made me come,” was Jongin’s immediate response.

“Oh.” Kyungsoo sounded disappointed. “That’s nice of her. You can let her know I’m okay.”

Jongin used his hand to stop the door when Kyungsoo was about to close it. “Hey.”

“What, hyung.”

Jongin had never heard him speak so flatly, like he was finally tired. Jongin should have been happy about this because he had accomplished what he had set out to do since he was seven, which was to get Kyungsoo off of his back. “I wanted to apologize.”

“It’s fine.”

“No. No, it’s not fine. My friends are jerks. I’m a jerk.”

Kyungsoo looked down at his feet. He wanted to deny it, like he did many times when he was defending Jongin to the students who would say that he was a jerk. But he also agreed with it right now, and he had no desire to lie to Jongin. “Why do you hang out with those guys?”

“When I was younger, I thought they were funny,” was the best reply Jongin could give him.

Kyungsoo didn’t want to keep him and be even more of a bother. For a while, Kyungsoo was certain that he didn’t mind being a bothersome thorn in Jongin’s life, thinking that maybe he’d come around one day. But he didn’t want this at all. He didn’t want pity. “Okay, well. Thank you for coming.”

“What is that?” Jongin kept his hands behind his back the whole time, except for when he pointed at the box that he saw over Kyungsoo’s shoulder.

“I ordered a series of old comic books. They’re for my English. And so that I could read comic books while studying.”

“Good call.” Jongin smiled.

It made Kyungsoo’s face feel warm. “Would… would you like to see?”

Jongin just blinked for a few beats after that. And just when Kyungsoo was ready to lie and say he was just kidding and that Jongin should head home, he stepped inside Kyungsoo’s room and shut the door behind him.

--

Suddenly, it was nearly dinner time, and Jongin already said that he’d stay for dinner. Even when they have had three bags of chips too many, and Jongin was getting crumbs everywhere as he sat on Kyungsoo’s bed, sketching him the younger boy while he read his comic books out loud. Jongin wore the first parrot sweater that he saw Kyungsoo in when he was seven and the other was five.

It was tight and shrunken on Jongin, but he didn’t mind that it showed his belly and looked like a quarter sleeve nap shirt. It was hilarious. Kyungsoo thought so, too.

“I’m done.”

Kyungsoo stopped reading when Jongin turned over his artwork. And Kyungsoo quickly balled the sketch and threw it at Jongin’s laughing face when all he saw were two golf ball-sized eyes drawn on a very small face, and nothing else.

Jongin and Kyungsoo were stuck doing the dishes after dinner. As Kyungsoo walked past to the dish rack, he blew lightly at the back of Jongin’s ear.

The older boy made a face paired with an ack that reverberated off the tiles of the kitchen. He twisted the dish rag and whipped Kyungsoo with it. “What’s wrong with you?”

Kyungsoo merely laughed and continued to help him.

--

Kyungsoo was still worried when he went to school the next day. He had a great time with Jongin last weekend, but lord knows that his hyung was unpredictable.

He was on his way to the library, head tilted down. Something grazed the tip of his nose, two fingers lightly gliding along the slope. That made Kyungsoo stop in his tracks. He spun on his heel, in search of the perpetrator.

He didn’t have to look far. Because just a few feet away, Jongin spun around, too, walking backwards as he beamed at Kyungsoo and waved.

Kyungsoo couldn’t stop smiling for the entire day.

--

Kyungsoo thought that if Jongin just knew how they were meant to be friends, and how they would have so much fun together, he’d finally be satisfied. He was greatly mistaken.

Because the closer they got, the more Kyungsoo familiarized himself with the longing he felt in his chest. And it revolved around one very simple form of release: a kiss. He wanted to kiss Jongin. He wanted to kiss the living shit out of Jongin. He wanted to kiss Jongin until they were both out of breath and had forgotten their names. He wanted to kiss Jongin everywhere, all the time, and it was evolving into inconvenient levels.

Because Jongin would sleep over and change clothes in front of him, and Kyungsoo would get red in the face and iffy in the pants and he felt like he was betraying Jongin’s trust. There were times when he would think that he was okay. He would give himself a pep talk every morning in the mirror, or hours before Jongin showed up to hang out, and he’d tell himself that he didn’t want those things, that he was confused and lost and that Jongin was just growing up to be a very beautiful man.

Really. Beautiful.

Like, a lot.

--

And just when Kyungsoo thought that this could not possibly get any worse, Jongin came to his house one day and chirped, “I finally made it on the team!”

“Huh?”

“Soccer team! Go Black Hawks!”

“First string?”

“First string!”

Kyungsoo was ready for a handshake. He was not ready for a full on body hug with body shaking and being lifted off the floor and thrown on the bed. So, of course, Jongin just had to do the latter. It was so much worse than Kyungsoo thought, too. Because Jongin was just so close that Kyungsoo could smell something garlic-y in his breath and mint from his hair and sweat from his pores all at once.

He kicked Jongin off of him and off the bed. Jongin fell on the floor with a resounding thud, laughing when he shot up, “Why’d you do that? Do you wanna die?”

In your arms, yeah… Kyungsoo hated his own thoughts, hated himself, hated Jongin. He kicked his knee and marched downstairs, leaving his best friend to limp after him with promises of Kyungsoo’s murder.

--

And it got even worse when Jongin began playing soccer. Not just because the sight of Jongin determined and glistening in sweat was sweet, sweet, torture, but because Jongin was visibly getting darker. His skin was adopting a caramel shade that drove Kyungsoo up the walls. Everything he did was just adding to the masterpiece that he already was. And every time it was all too much, Kyungsoo just took to kicking Jongin’s knee. And all of this time, Jongin thought it was because he did something that was too dorky even for Kyungsoo, and dubbed the kick well-deserved.

He had no idea what those kicks entailed, how they were more from the bottom of Kyungsoo’s heart than anything that he had ever done or said.

--

It was confusing, to say the least. There were days when Kyungsoo was convinced that Jongin belonged with him. Not in an obsessive kind of way. He didn’t want Jongin as a boyfriend, he didn’t want to force Jongin into committing, not when he belonged to everyone who was ever friendly to him.

His smile wasn’t difficult to acquire, and his company wasn’t something he deprived of people. Jongin was friends with everyone and everyone was in love with him. Maybe not in the way Kyungsoo was, but in some capacity, they were. He was beyond Kyungsoo’s reach. To dream of him was to dream of something far greater than eternal fame or wealth. Kyungsoo didn’t dare to dream.

There came a time, in the blur of their friendship, in which it became painful just to be around him. He never understood what it meant to be so close yet so far from someone at the same time until he met Jongin.

Kyungsoo decided that a little distance would do them both some good. He started small. Pillows placed between them when they would sleep in one bed. Jongin didn’t question it, he didn’t mind. From there, he began making up excuses to not hangout. He didn’t run out. The one advantage of school was being able to use it as a reason for isolation.

Again, Jongin let it go. He was getting busy, too, now that he was a senior. Then, Kyungsoo just stopped returning his texts. And instant messages online. And gradually, he was able to find ways to avoid him in school.

It wasn’t easy for him either. Especially when he would sometimes peek at the corner of the hallway and find Jongin waiting at his locker for him. He was a jerk, too, when he wanted to be.

--

One thing that Kyungsoo didn’t think through was the school fair.

He had been staying in school until eleven at night helping with the decorations as well as the preparations for the haunted house, and the lack of sleep had gotten to him, created a chink in his plan.

When Jongin came marching into the classroom where Kyungsoo was guarding the ticket station for the haunted house, he did try to hide. But he was much too late. He made a quick escape into the darkened haunted house, thinking that he’d dodge Jongin, not at all considering the fact that Jongin could just walk in and follow him.

“Where have you been?”

“What? What do you mean? I’ve been guarding the ticket booth.”

Even in the darkness, as the students passed between them, Kyungsoo could detect his grimace. “Why are you lying to me?”

Since when was Kim Jongin this insightful? “I really was busy. And still am.”

“But that’s not all,” Jongin paused when another set of students had to pass by them to enter the haunted house, which he wanted to compliment Kyungsoo on for the job well done, but didn’t want to lose his train of thought, “and I know there’s something else. Sehun saw you the other night at the mall.”

“So?”

“So, I called you that night asking to come over, but you said you’d be in school.”

“I… I was going to go to school. I was on my way.”

“Stop lying to me. What am I missing here?”

Kyungsoo, also getting deeply frustrated because he was being squeezed dry, held his arms open as though saying that he had nothing else to give. Which was partly true. He had watched Jongin grow and had loved every stage of the metamorphosis and he hadn’t slept properly in weeks, and he was just shutting down. “I don’t know what else you want to hear.”

“I still know you’re lying to me.”

Kyungsoo dropped his hands, weak and worn out. He shook his head, out of words, so afraid that he’d either faint or admit the truth, both prospects looking dim and unappealing.

“So that’s it? After all of these years, you just drop me out of your life? It’s that easy?”

Kyungsoo stopped talking, merely staring at Jongin now as he wore his hurt just as beautifully as everything else.

“You were nothing like I thought you were. I don’t understand any of this, but I hope that whatever it is that you’re not telling me is worth all of this. Because I tried, Kyungsoo. And I’m glad I did. I like being your friend. But I sure as hell am not taking your shit anymore.”

That had Kyungsoo’s blood rushing to his face, anger bubbling. “My shit? What about me have you ever had to put up with that kept you up at night?”

“This! This—whatever this is! This makes you a bad person. Who does this? Do you even know what you did to me?”

Kyungsoo’s voice was just a bit higher in comparison. “Do you know what you did to me?!”

And Jongin matches it, veins etched along the sides of his neck. “No! Because you won’t tell me!”

Kyungsoo charged after him and shoved him hard. Which earned him a shove right back. To which he retaliated with another shove, pushing Jongin to the wall where the toy spiders dangled by thin threads. Kyungsoo threw the first punch, hard enough to knock Jongin to the side where he had to cling to the black curtains that weren’t supported as well as they should have. Everything came crashing down.

--

Jongin had an even fatter lip by the time they were seated outside of the prefect of discipline’s office. He pressed a cold bag to the side of his mouth while Kyungsoo stared blankly at the clock, exhaustion weighing heavy on his body, even when his head was light, like it was disembodied and floating away.

Jongin dropped the cold bag on his lap, breathing raggedly, his left leg bouncing up and down as they waited. He wasn’t mad anymore and neither was Kyungsoo.

After a heavy exhale, Jongin ventured, “I just… need to know why—“

“I’m in love with you,” Kyungsoo said without blinking, “but I’m working on it. So don’t worry about it.”

The prefect came out of her office and called Kyungsoo inside. Just as Kyungsoo stood up, he felt as though the weight of those words left him the moment he said it, and transferred to Jongin who could only blink at the chair he sat in.

--

Kyungsoo wore a sign around his head that read “No Talking” in red ink as he kneeled on one side of the empty hallway of the school on a beautiful Saturday morning. He had his arms outstretched, and two books stacked on top. He had just a few more minutes left out of his forty minutes of the first half of his punishment.

He was reading the cover of the book over and over when he heard footsteps heading his way. He quickly snapped his gaze back up, assuming the proper position that his teacher asked him to do so he wouldn’t be given any more time.

Kyungsoo exhaled in relief when he saw that it was just Jongin who stopped beside him to check up on him. He crouched to level with Kyungsoo, taking out a bottle of power ginseng from his bag and settling it next to his knee.

“Mrs. Cho told me that you took all the blame.”

Kyungsoo bumped his chest out a bit to point out the sign that he was wearing.

Jongin grinned. “Yeah, that actually works well for me.”

Jongin took out the books from Kyungsoo’s arms one by one, ignoring the look of dread on his face. With his arms outstretched, it didn’t take much effort for Jongin to maneuver them into a hug. Kyungsoo, true to his punishment, didn’t move. He was breathing with a lot of effort and his heart rate was going higher the longer they hugged.

But then, Jongin did something amazing. He leaned back, searched Kyungsoo’s face, and before Kyungsoo could warn him off, Jongin planted one kiss each on both his eyes before pressing his bruised lips gently against Kyungsoo’s dry ones. It was awkward, inexperienced, unsure, but it was enough to get Kyungsoo to wrap his arms around Jongin’s waist and close his eyes. It was even better when he cut out the other senses. When he couldn’t see, or hear, or smell, his sensations were dominant.

By the time Jongin leaned back again, Kyungsoo took a big gulp of air, looking like he was ready to faint.

“I’ll see you when you get home.” Jongin stood up, helped Kyungsoo’s arms back into position so that he could stack the books on top again, a small smile on his swollen lip. While Kyungsoo could only allow him to guide him whichever way he wanted because he could only stare in awe.

He watched Jongin walk to the end of the hall and disappear around the corner. He dropped the books then, breathed deep with his palms on the floor.

“Do Kyungsoo, that’s five more minutes.” He hadn’t realized that the teacher was right on the other end of the hall, watching pointing at him accusingly.

“What, no, I—“

“Wanna make it ten?”

He shook his head, fighting back a laugh when he placed the books over his arms, failing the first time, and stared straight ahead.

*masterficlist | tumblr | twitter | comment here to be added

--Some fluff for you guys. i just had this image of them hugging in the middle of
an empty hall and felt compelled to turn it into a fic.

Noir

hipslip — Tue, 21 Jan 2014 19:05:44 GMT

rating: pg
genre: humor, au
pairing: kai/chanyeol
length: one-shot
word count: 7k~ w
summary: kai gets dumped.

Noir
A story by Yoonis

“So, what do you want?” It was a simple question asked by a simple waiter who wore a hat that didn’t really fit the rest of his service-work-related, black on black ensemble.

When Jongin looked up for the first time, the guy was kind of leering over him with his humungous fucking eyeballs. He looked baffled and ready for an answer, but Jongin was far from ready to give it to him. He was busy debating whether the guy was doing that on purpose with his eyes or if he was truly half bug, half human.

“Sir?” The waiter said again. Jongin noticed he was tall in a rather unhelpful fashion. It didn’t help Jongin because he had to look up at an angle wider by a quarter inch compared to if he were addressing—or failing to address—an average human of reasonable height, and it didn’t help the waiter because of reasons that Jongin wasn’t so certain of at the moment. “Sir, uh, would you be needing some time to think about what you want?”

It was mainly because it was called The Break Up Café that Jongin decided it was a place worth dining at. It was dark and cold out, and he just got dumped. He wanted sympathy that didn’t come in the form of a friend constantly vying for a silver lining, a lap dance, or alcohol.

“What’s your name?” Jongin asked.

“Park Chanyeol,” he offered without hesitance.

“I want a lot of things, Chanyeol.”

Tall Chanyeol seemed taken aback by this sudden show of familiarity. As though he had yet to encounter a customer on a level curved from normal or passive aggressive.

Jongin thought it was fine to introduce him to this side of the graph. “I want to travel. I want to go to Angola, a specific part in South Africa because just saying Africa, according to some people, sounds racist. Did you know that some people think Africa is a country? Who do you think failed there?”

Chanyeol, unsure if he was being asked an actual question, parted his lips and squinted. Or Jongin wasn’t even certain if he was squinting. His eyes were still pretty much the same fucking size.

“I want to own a business,” Jongin continued. “Something profitable—obviously. Just the thing that my kids would want to inherit. When I have kids, I mean. Because when my dad died, all I got was his collection of electric fans and a van that would take months and thousands to repair to even call it decent. It doesn’t even have air-conditioning. Maybe I should stick one of the fans in there.

“I want this blister on my foot to fuck off already. I’ve had it for more than a month now. I tried to pop it, but my girlfriend said that if I did, it would get an infection. Well, ex-girlfriend. Which brings me to my next point; I want a relationship that doesn’t have an expiration date earlier than the healing time of my fucking blister, which I popped. I did. It was literally feeling like a pebble in my shoe, and there was a time when I started limping from it? My coworkers thought I slammed my foot on something and sprained it. Jinki, that’s my boss, even concocted that I hurt myself while on the treadmill even when it wasn’t on. Like a loser. But if Minho, also from work, started limping out of nowhere, they would just assume that he pulled something during sex because all the girls think he’s sexy. But he’s a lowlife. I know. I peed next to him one time and he tried to show me how deep he was in the girl he banged last night and he was complaining that he didn’t get much more than the tip in, reason being; either she was too tight or he was too big. What the fuck is that?”

That time, even Jongin was unsure whether he was expecting some sort of answer. In the next second, while Chanyeol thought that it was safe to blink—and did so about five times—Jongin just wanted him to say anything. Jongin wanted a reaction, a shred of concern, something. As pathetic as it would seem to a third party perspective looking in, he was feeling very human and frail at the moment and he couldn’t keep himself from showing it to whoever was available to listen—service employee or not.

And in the next second, Jongin realized that he’d rather not hear anything at all if the waiter was just going to repeat the same question as though he hadn’t made an effort to reach out. “A hot chocolate. Please.”

Chanyeol backed away from the table without listing his order down. Not that he needed to. It didn’t require a pen and paper to remember a hot chocolate, did it? He looked pretty petrified though, Jongin thought. Like he couldn’t wait to get away from the guy who expressed his active effort to not be racist and longing for a life partner that surpassed the longevity of a skin lesion.

Jongin palmed his face, rubbed hard at his eyes with the heels. It reminded him of his girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend. How she couldn’t rub her eyes at all because it would mess up her eyeliner. And how she never left the house without eyeliner, and sometimes even wore it indoors when it was particularly sunny.

It was the sound of leather and the smell of warm chocolate goodness that had Jongin looking up again, and into the bulging eyes of Chanyeol, who was trying to scoot into the chair opposite his. While their eyes met, and Jongin was still pretty much trying to understand why he suddenly had company, Chanyeol said: “Angola is in Central Africa, not South.”

“What,” Jongin replied dumbly. He looked around at the cozy café, not sure if he was looking for the manager to see if this would cause a problem, or anyone else who was watching them who might be thinking that Jongin just picked up a waiter.

“I looked it up on my phone,” Chanyeol said.

“Why are you sitting down with me?”

Chanyeol smiled at him in way that was both stupid and all-knowing. “You looked like you needed a friend.”

“You don’t think I have someone that I could call?”

“From what I’ve gathered, you can’t call your girlfriend anymore because—“

“Ex-girlfriend.” Jongin corrected him the way his own mind corrected him.

“… yes, because of that,” Chanyeol said while tugging the basket of condiments and sweeteners closer. “And if you had friends to call, you would have called them by now and told them that you wanted to go to Central Africa for a safari joyride. Sugar?”

Was this guy for real? “No. And it’s not for a joyride. I want to make a difference.”

“What kind of difference.”

“I don’t know.”

Chanyeol scoffed. “Yeah, you seem like you really thought this through. Like you didn’t just spin a globe and pointed with your eyes closed.”

“Man, look at me. Do I look like I have my life together?”

“All the self-deprecation isn’t exactly going to help you.”

“I’m a realist.”

That made Chanyeol smile wider and Jongin frown harder. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

“About what?”

“The reason for your breakdown?”

“Break—hey, I’m not having a breakdown.” And just as Jongin said that, he burned his finger tips on the hot chocolate mug, forgetting that it was too hot to touch despite its namesake. “Fuck!”

“I’ll get you some water.”

“No. No, I’m fine.” Jongin placed his hand on the glass of the window, sighing when the cool combatted the burn and tried to restore normalcy.

Chanyeol only had to stare at him for a few more beats. With eyes that loud he didn’t have to say shit for Jongin to understand him.

“I got broken up with today,” Jongin spoke first, palm still pressed to the glass. “She said I changed. That she no longer knew who I was.”

“Are you bipolar?”

“What?”

“Nothing,” Chanyeol immediately responded. “So, you thought to wallow in misery at The Break Up Café?”

“I’ve done worse.”

“Tch, thanks. Do you think it’s true?”

“Do I think what’s true?”

“Her reason for breaking up with you.”

Jongin took a second to process that. “Well… yeah. Why wouldn’t it be?”

“She could have cheated on you.”

Jongin didn’t know what to say to that, dumbfounded.

“And just blamed you for the failure of the relationship by saying you changed and she tried. But you changed.”

“Is this supposed to make me feel better?”

Chanyeol shrugged. “It’s a new way to look at it. She might have been a bitch. And you’re better off.”

“Fuck you, man. You don’t even know her.”

“No, I don’t. But how did you change? What did she mean by it?”

“She said stuff. Like, how it seemed like I was vacant around her, no longer listening to her, no longer paying attention to her.”

“And it’s all true?”

Jongin wanted to say yes, but his honesty betrayed him, made him open and close his mouth a couple of times with the intention of lying but not wanting to. “I don’t know.”

Chanyeol’s smile faded, the rest of his features complementing the shift in emotion. He just looked apologetic. He looked so genuine, too. He accompanied the look with a soft, “I’m sorry.”

“About what?”

“That you won’t be finding closure yet.”

Jongin didn’t want to go full-on pathetic, just like how you should never go full retard, but maybe he did so without noticing. Or maybe Chanyeol was just one of those people who could sense loneliness from three feet away. Which was basically what he did. And though Jongin wanted sympathy, he had no conception of the amount he would be receiving the moment he asked for it in his mind and its human manifestation that sat a table’s width from him.

The full realization that he was being so transparent during the first meeting of what could potentially—or could have potentially blossomed into a friendship made his heart beat faster and his stomach coil. He didn’t like it. With that, he took some folded bills out of his pocket and placed it beside his untouched mug of hot chocolate, ready to leave.

“Do you smoke?” Chanyeol asked, still seated comfortably in the booth.

“I quit months ago.”

Chanyeol bit his bottom lip and squinted. “No, you didn’t.”

Jongin didn’t understand how he did that. “A couple of weeks.”

“You could always quit again.” Chanyeol stood up, looking as though he was about to walk out with Jongin.

“Don’t you have work?”

“My shift ended when I served you your chocolate.”

“Oh.”

--

Chanyeol had a cigarette stuck between his ear and his head. Jongin only noticed when he slipped it out and tapped the butt of the cigarette on his lighter. He said he had a full pack in his pocket and that Jongin should help himself to it. Chanyeol jutted his hip out so that Jongin would understand that he had to fish the pack out from Chanyeol’s pocket himself.

Jongin didn’t know which was easier; to question Chanyeol’s motives for talking to him or even just giving him the time of day or to just damn it all to hell and take it for what it was. If he ever turned out to be a homicidal maniac of sorts, Jongin reckoned he could take him. He thought so. Chanyeol was tall, but he didn’t have much meat on him. Not that he was all bones, but Jongin could be quick and sneaky if he wanted to. He could totally take him. Hundred percent.

They walked aimlessly, sans murder, and the fact that Chanyeol definitely wasn’t trying to kill him was comforting at best. Sure, he liked the guy well enough, but he didn’t know him. They’d been walking around and talking, but anyone could be pleasant in an hour.

They were currently talking about the future, and in the midst of that discussion, Jongin thought to ask, “Are you not in school anymore?”

To which Chanyeol simply answered: “Nope.”

“Why not?”

“No use when I’m dying tomorrow. And I don’t agree much with the education and its location-limited learning. Field trips are okay, but there are only so many museums.”

“Yeah,” Jongin said mindlessly. Until the gravity of Chanyeol’s words finally caught up with him and he had to stop in his tracks and take a second. “What?”

“What.” Chanyeol whirled around to face his newfound friend, and he looked pretty much the same as he did a second ago, except entirely different in a way that Jongin couldn’t comprehend.

“What did you say?”

“The education system really is a joke.”

“Not that. You know I didn’t mean that.”

“Oh, about the death thing?”

Jongin was near screaming, “Yes, the death. Thing.”

“Well. Not really much else to it, is there?”

Jongin didn’t know where to begin. “You can’t just say something like that and expect me to let it go. Unless you’re kidding. Are you kidding? You sick fuck.”

Chanyeol laughed in a nearly unattractive way. You could see all his teeth, and from a low angle, his tonsil. He was clapping his hands like a seal and spilled rich, thick volumes past his tunnel-sized mouth. It was nearly unattractive. “I’m not, but your face right now. It’s like all the color ran from your cheeks.”

“How else am I—“ Jongin groaned mid-sentence. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“What?”

“You made me go on and on about my girlfriend—“

“Ex-girlfriend—“

“—shut up! Even when you… wait, why are you… are you sick?”

“Yeah.”

“With what?”

“That’s personal.”

“Oh, now it’s too personal.”

“Yup.” Chanyeol flicked his cigarette butt to the side and Jongin imagined that it landed on a line of gas on the pavement that led back to him and blew him to nothing but ripped flesh. “The line has been drawn.”

“What is it?” Jongin pried. “Heart disease? Cancer?”

“Why? Did your dad die of cancer?”

“No.” Jongin never learned how to flick a cigarette butt so his dropped his on the pavement and crushed it with his heel. “You’re really not gonna tell me, are you?”

Jongin stared at Chanyeol, evaluating the taller boy’s face, thinking he looked healthy, then realized that he just judged a book by its cover. “You’re lying. You’re not dying.”

“Because lying about it would benefit me how?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know you. I don’t know what you get your kicks out of.”

“Why is it so hard to believe?”

“Because of… why aren’t you with your family? Friends? Why are you spending your last night with me?”

“Woah,” Chanyeol pushed both his hands forward. “Someone needs to get over themselves. I didn’t map this out. You were there, I was there, you were sad, I don’t wanna go home yet.”

“I can’t believe this.”

“Believe it. Now come on.” Chanyeol tried to beckon Jongin closer. “Get your phone out.”

Jongin, still mindfucked by the entire situation, pushed air past his lips, confused.

“Your phone, Jongin. Get it out.”

“Why?”

“You’re gonna call your boss and you’re going to quit your job.”

Jongin had to look down at the ground to make sure it wasn’t about to break open and swallow him because for some reason he felt as though tonight was the night that everything reliable in his life was about to fail him. “What makes you think I’m going to do that?”

Like nothing was simpler, Chanyeol replied: “Because you hate it.”

“I never said I hated my job. I just don’t like the people in it. It’s not the same thing.”

“These people don’t respect you. They undermine you. And those are just the things that they say to your face. This isn’t high school. You’re not bound to them. You can make a big decision right now to show them that they need you and they should have treated you better.”

“I really don’t… I don’t think that’s—“

Chanyeol yanked him out of his thought process, and also literally as he tugged him into the nearest bar, just a few more steps ahead on the sidewalk. It was loud and not Jongin’s usual Saturday night scene. He didn’t like crowds of people whose inhibitions had left them, just ignoring all sense of awareness for personal boundaries. Chanyeol was a pro at squeezing through to get them both to the bar. He signaled a bartender for two shots of something that looked like crystal piss.

“Here’s the deal,” Chanyeol shouted into Jongin’s ear over the music. “We’re gonna drink ten shots of this.”

“No, no, I can’t.”

“No, Jongin, listen, listen. We’re gonna drink this. We are going to drink ten shots of it straight, don’t fight it. And once I pay the bartender, the first one to jog back to the café wins.”

At this point, Jongin was confused and frustrated. “Win? Win what?”

“If you win, you go home, you’re free. If I win, I get three wishes.”

“Chanyeol, please. Can you just hold the fuck up?! I’m still trying to understand what you told me earlier!”

“Stop thinking about it!”

“Yeah, thanks, that helps a bunch!”

“Jongin, I’m serious. Stop overthinking this and just have a drink with me!”

“This is too fast! It’s too fast! I just met you and now I know that you might not be here tomorrow, it’s…”

“What should I do? Should we rewind and start over? Oh, fuck! That’s right! We can’t do that!”

Jongin thought that that was his cue to leave. He didn’t appreciate sarcasm, and he couldn’t have hated it any more than he did that time. He marched out of that club, somewhat aggressively pushing people to the side as he made his way through, leaving Chanyeol by the bar.

In haste, and with his luck, of course he fucking knocked into someone who knocked into someone else, who knocked into this big guy in a tight-fitted V-neck, who only had to look at Jongin and near him. V-neck made it clear that he wasn’t very happy with the fact that Jongin just knocked over his girlfriend and her friend and that he should apologize, and behind him, he could hear both girls chewing gum while glumly and expectantly staring at him.

Just as Jongin was about to half-ass an apology to the two chewing gum chewing factories, Chanyeol tapped V-neck on the shoulder. Once V-neck spun around with all of him, because a body that big would only require that his entire body follow his head, Chanyeol punched him so hard that Jongin heard some serious skin cracking.

But not hard enough to knock V-neck out.

And although Chanyeol threw Jongin a look that screamed “RUN” he was still a millisecond too late to react, therefore pretty much accepting the blow of V-neck’s girlfriend’s fist across his face.

--

Jongin had never been dragged out of an establishment by security before. He never thought he’d see the day, if he were to be completely honest. He wasn’t necessarily the scrawniest kid, but in a line of guys he would hardly stand out as the one who had hands itching for trouble.

Security pretty much left them alone as soon as they were on the sidewalk. Turned out, V-neck was a loved member of the bar, hence the forced exit of Jongin and Chanyeol, and not his highness V-neck and his party of scantily clad two. Chanyeol continued to tempt one of the security members by getting in his face and saying: “What are you gonna do about it? What?” as though he had any means to back it up. He was faking it, Jongin knew. But apart from that, he wasn’t sure of much else.

He began to walk off in the direction of taxi cab. Chanyeol caught up in time, laughing hysterically. “Where to next?”

“I’m going home.” Jongin’s answer mirrored none of Chanyeol’s amusement.

“Okay. Are we gonna take a cab?”

“No, I’m taking a cab to my house. You go… do something else.”

“What? So it’s over? Just like that?”

“What’s over? I don’t even know you.”

“Sure, you do!” Chanyeol pointed at Jongin, “Heart broken—“ then pointed at himself, “Dying.”

“See, that’s not funny.” Jongin stopped, tried as best as he could to seem threatening from at least two inches lower. “I don’t know what you’re on, why you think I’d be cool and passive about whatever stunt you’re trying to pull.”

“I’m not trying to pull anything other than what I’ve already told you.”

“But what you’re telling me is…” –there wasn’t any other word for it other than– “crazy! You’re either lying to me or you’re telling the truth. Either way, it’s fucking with my insides and I don’t like it!”

“Can we just go back to the point here? Quit your job.”

“Why do you even care about me and my life, you don’t even know me!”

“You don’t know me either, but you care about mine.”

“What you admitted is very different compared to what you know about me. I am dealing with something that I can easily get over, and I know for a fact that other people are dealing with this on a daily basis, just like me. What you have is either a really fucked up lie or a really fucked up truth.”

“Well, until tomorrow, there’s no other way for me to make you believe it. I will get over it once I’m dead. And I’m probably not the only one dying tomorrow. People, pets, plants die every day.” Chanyeol shrugged to stress his point. “It’s not that different.”

That shut Jongin up. He didn’t know what else there was to say at this point. He was exhausted, body and mind, but Chanyeol still looked lively enough to lift a fucking truck.

“Sometimes,” Chanyeol began, pensive, “the answers are yet to be uncovered, sometimes they’re clear as day, and sometimes they’re quietly understood.”

Jongin felt as if he were straddling the lines of all three, though highly impossible, even in a figurative sense. He hadn’t washed his hair in a while. And as he scratched a particularly oily part of his hair, his cellphone felt heavy in his pocket. He took it out, reluctant, but comforted by the smiles he earned from Chanyeol. He searched his phonebook for his boss’s number. It was late—around something o’ clock—and to even be calling at this hour would already put him in an unprofessional light.

On the first ring, Jongin panicked. What would he do after this? Where would he go? What kind of recommendation letter was he trying to earn himself here? What if they badmouthed him? What if he regretted this soon after hanging up?

On the second ring, Jongin told himself that he could still turn back. That he could look away from Chanyeol right now and just run. Run back to his safe apartment, under his familiar bed, and continue to live peacefully with about thirty electric fans in his apartment, and a van parked outside that was only worth the memories it served him when he was growing up. He was getting by, he was okay, he didn’t need change.

The third ring was interrupted by a groggy, “Hello.” Instantly, Jongin was reminded of his hellish days at work, the undermining, the coffee breath, the way his boss stared at his girlfriend when she visited his office last Thursday. Ex-girlfriend. They flirted. Jongin wanted to punch him. And maybe her, but he’d never hit a woman.

“I’m quitting.”

“Jongin?” His boss went on. “Jesus, why are you calling me—“

“Did you hear me? I said, I quit.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.” Jongin hung up right as he heard his boss about to say something that was probably a punch to his self-esteem.

Maybe it was the adrenaline from being thrown out of the club or the mildly violent reason that caused him to be thrown out or the sting on his cheek because of it or the matching bruise Chanyeol sported proudly while he smiled at him. Maybe it was all of these things. Maybe it was none of them. But it helped keep him on his feet even when he wanted to faint.

--

“You’re gonna break it.”

“Shhh, trust me.”

It started snowing again while they were skipping toward the park. White littered the sidewalk, and they littered the snow with footsteps.

Occasional traffic blurred into white noise when Jongin started concentrating on the sound of the chains of the swings, looking up while Chanyeol pushed him around so that they were knotted.

“You know, I could have done this on my own.”

“But you wouldn’t get it all the way because your feet would slip.” Chanyeol was serious, concentrating deadly hard on twisting the two chains into one braided metal. Beyond it were all dots of light; man-made fluorescents in office buildings, and natural ones in the night sky.

Chanyeol stopped at a point that Jongin couldn’t distinguish from where he was sitting. He held Jongin steady by the shoulders. “I’ll let go on three. One, two…”

Jongin spun back around when the chain forced itself out of the twist, taking him around and around, turning the surroundings into blurred paint smeared across a black canvas. When Jongin stopped spinning, Chanyeol was no longer standing where he last saw him. And the absence pulsed his awareness, until he heard a lighter being sparked on the swing beside him.

He found Chanyeol lighting a cigarette, his hat dusted with snow like confectioner’s sugar over a dark pastry, for added sweetness and visual appeal. He looked so peaceful and winter-y. Jongin’s lips twitched at the senseless comparison before looking straight ahead, appreciating the night as though he had been blind to it all this time.

“Is it midnight yet?” Chanyeol’s question followed a cloud of smoke.

“I think so.” Jongin tried twisting the swing again, but he only made it to three spins before he was being reverted to his original position, unable to adhere his shoes firmly to the ground. “I think you might be on to something when you said that my girlfriend—“

“Ex-girlfriend?”

“Yeah. That she might have been a—well, a bad person, let’s just say that.”

“You think so?”

Jongin nodded. “We dated for… three months and two weeks. I told everyone about her because she was beautiful. And I wanted her to think I was proud of her.”

“You showed her off because she was beautiful?”

“Yes. Not… just that. She wasn’t vapid. She could also hold a conversation. And she was very reliable. And there were times when I was convinced that she knew everything. She always smelled nice, too. Her perfume or cologne or natural scent—I don’t really know—it wasn’t invasive or fruity or fake. It kind of smelled like… it smelled like this… like a really fancy bathroom.”

Chanyeol snorted.

“No, I’m serious. It was nice. And she told me once, she said ‘Jongin, you could be so much more than this.’”

Jongin turned his swing around so that he was facing Chanyeol, kicking snow over his shoes.

“In the beginning, it felt good. To have someone see the potential in you. Later on, it was as if that was all she was seeing. Me as a work in progress and not me… as me. Like she was always waiting for that day that I would turn out to be exactly who she speculated me to be. And she always, always reminded me when I wasn’t being that person. Like when I didn’t agree with her ideas or say I didn’t like one of her friends. Or when I forgot to get her shoes fixed. She’d look me straight in the eye and say: ‘You’re not being a good boyfriend.’ And when I would try to explain how a good boyfriend is subjective and that when you love someone, you should learn to take the bad with the good, they were all petty excuses to her. Excuses for not… getting… her shoes repaired.”

Chanyeol let that set in. It was the first time that Jongin was saying all of these things out loud and it was as if Chanyeol knew that he needed a moment to let himself marinade in these thoughts.

After a pause, Chanyeol spoke. “Was the break up bad?”

“Earlier?”

“Yeah.”

“Not really. Well… maybe a little bit. There wasn’t any screaming or violence, the lamps are all fine. And all of my clothes are fine. She cried. I cried. It was very wet. A wet break up.” And just as Chanyeol smirked, about to say something that Jongin knew would ruin the moment, he held his finger up and nipped it in the bud. “Don’t you dare.”

“Wasn’t gonna say anything.”

“Shut up.”

Chanyeol laughed, going back to his cigarette. “If you ever need a rebound.” He puckered his lips and closed his eyes.

Jongin, in response, twisted his swing to face forward, seemingly disgusted, “I don’t like boys.”

“Yes.” It was Chanyeol’s turn to twist his swing. “But do you like me?”

Jongin made the same face that he would if Chanyeol said that he had four stomachs. “I’m sorry, are you above all genders?”

“You tell me, lover.” Chanyeol inched his way closer, trapping Jongin’s waist and swing between his crab-legs. Jongin had never fought to free himself or laugh so hard in a long time.

“Please, I’ve realized that I like you a lot. Blister and all.”

“Get off me!”

--

When Chanyeol said that he knew a place where they could get warm, Jongin didn’t think that that would entail them getting in touch with an employee of a motel that Chanyeol used to work in, and illegally acquire the keys to the bathhouse so that they could use the sauna to their heart’s desire.

Jongin had thought they were going to a warm restaurant or share a fire with the homeless people under a bridge or something to that extent. He wasn’t complaining, though.

They were back to back when they began to undress. Jongin was taking his shoes off when he noticed the long scar down Chanyeol’s back, following the length of his spine. Instinctually, he would have wanted an explanation for the scar. However, Chanyeol made it very clear that he wouldn’t entertain any questions related to his health or anything connected to what might happen to him tomorrow or later, since it was past midnight.

Also, at this point, Jongin didn’t think that he cared anymore if Chanyeol was telling the truth or not. Whether he would be dying a few hours from that moment or not, he wasn’t going to spend what limited time they had evaluating it. He was finally breathing again and seeing things in a slightly brighter fashion. He wanted to hold onto that, even if it meant disregarding Chanyeol’s state of well-being altogether. Or respecting him enough to not bring it up again.

The cold tiles had Jongin jumping around by the time he was down to his underwear. Chanyeol tossed him a flimsy set of motel slippers, and Jongin groaned, grateful.

After hanging their clothes, and deciding that they would ultimately enjoy the hot tub more, they opted for that instead of the sauna, while Jongin admitted, “I’ve never been in a hot tub before.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“No, seriously.” He sank lower and lower into the water, relaxing even more when he was sat. “I thought it’d be bubblier.”

“I could turn that on, if you want. It’s very relaxing.”

“It’s okay, I like it like this. Just quiet and warm.”

“How have you never been in a hot tub before?”

“I’ve been in a tub filled with warm water. I have that experience.” Jongin smiled when Chanyeol did a slow clap for him. “Thank you. Yeah, but not really an actual hot tub. Opportunity never knocked on my door, nope.”

“Then you’re welcome.”

Jongin let his legs float freely underwater. “I don’t see what the big deal is, though. It doesn’t feel much different to being in a normal tub filled with warm water.”

“Don’t weaken the experience, just enjoy it.”

“I am, I am.” Jongin adjusted his position, sinking slightly lower so his shoulders were submerged. “Are there hot tub rules that I should be aware of?”

“Just one; no peeing,” Chanyeol laughed.

“You don’t do that in pools either.”

“No, but some people do.”

“By some people, do you mean you?”

“Not gonna lie, there have been moments.”

Jongin he laughed as soon as he was done yawning.

“But I make sure to be at a distance, a safe distance, from the rest of the people.”

“What if someone were to swim to where you just peed?”

“You mean on the same spot after I’m done?”

“Yeah,” Jongin nodded, moving his left leg back in when he accidentally hit Chanyeol’s knee.

“That’s on them, that’s beyond my control. But in a hot tub, proximity is pretty much unavoidable. And even when conditions are sort of perfect since there wouldn’t be a temperature change to the water if I were to pee, that’s when ethics kick in.”

“Well, I’m not planning on peeing in here.”

“I would rather not make any promises.”

Jongin pinched his side, causing a disturbance in the water when Chanyeol laughed and shoved him.

“You got my hair wet!” Jongin recovered rather quickly, shaking water out of his hair.

“You’ll live.”

Jongin yawned again. “I could fall asleep here.”

“Don’t.”

“I don’t mind the pruniness.”

“But what if you get cooked?”

“That’s disgusting.”

Chanyeol sniffed, adopting the infectious act of yawning. “Great, now you got me doing it.”

The water felt like it was at room temperature a little later, like the warmth was normal and no other temperature of water existed. Jongin loved closing his eyes with his body in the water. It made him feel even more weightless, like he could float away anywhere, end up in the ocean somewhere.

“I think I might go to Angola.” Jongin felt his arms floating up. Chanyeol connected the tips of their fingers mindlessly.

“How?”

“I don’t know. I don’t have enough money. But if I did, I would.”

“You should sell your dad’s fans.”

“I can’t do that, he left them with me.”

“How many do you have?”

Jongin counted silently in his head. “Maybe thirty?”

“Yeah, you need to sell as least twenty of those. And then maybe the van, too. If you have no use for it.”

“No one’s gonna buy that van.”

“You could sell it for parts,” Chanyeol suggested, his pinching one of Jongin’s fingers. It felt nice. “If you do that later, you could book a ticket and be in Angola before the end of the week.”

It wasn’t the worst plan. And it was definitely doable. He could look up buyers online as soon as he went home. But he was in no rush to get there. For one, his apartment didn’t have a hot tub.

“Yeah, I’ll think about it.”

“You have really nice hands.” When Chanyeol mentioned his hands, he realized that he was getting a free hand massage underwater, almost.

“I never understood the whole thing with hands. And feet. They all look the same to me.” Jongin tried pulling his hand away, but Chanyeol kept his grip firm. He lifted their hands and fitted them together, palm to palm, showing Jongin as he spoke.

“They’re not all the same, though. Yours is so much smaller than mine. Flatter, too.”

Jongin looked dubious.

“It’s pretty.” Chanyeol let him go, dropping his own hand back in the water. “There are a lot of fine details that people miss because they go through days just looking in one direction.”

“What do you mean?”

“You either look straight ahead or down at the ground. As if you’re afraid that both those things could betray you. Your job or school or wherever you’re headed, it will always be there. The ground will always be there. It’s the things around you that change. Those are the things that deserve more notice because you never know when they’ll be replaced.”

“Being replaceable makes them valuable?”

Chanyeol nodded, trying to cup water in his hands. “The less time they have, the more beautiful they are. Don’t you think so?”

Jongin stare accidentally dropped to Chanyeol’s neck, the bumps on his skin reminding him that if he could take notice of them, he was probably too close. “I never thought of it before.”

--

Jongin woke up rather uncomfortably with a flashlight shining on his face, legs freezing as he fell off the slim bench he so delicately tried to fit himself in just hours before. When he did, whoever was telling him to get up moved back so that Jongin could roll over and collect his senses.

He was barely conscious when he stood up on weak legs and realized that he was wearing Chanyeol’s hat. And a rather revealing hotel robe that wasn’t tied together at the front. The draft pretty much woke him up for good. He looked around, trying to find his clothes and Chanyeol. He only found the former, and when he tried to ask the guard for the latter, he wasn’t being given the time of day.

After he was at least granted time to change back into his clothes, he was escorted out of the hotel—after the manager took his ID and documented his information, stating that he was banned from the premises for breaking and entering—and into the early morning. He tugged the hat lower over his face and made his way home.

Jongin went online as soon as he got home, fueled with a new sense of motivation. He hadn’t realized how much he wanted out of this town, how useless he felt until last night. He went on various websites, taking pictures of the electric fans he owned, and posting them online. When he was done, he prayed to his father. He prayed for forgiveness, but also for gratitude. “I didn’t mean it when I said they were useless. I’m sorry.”

When he fell back on his bed, it was as though he had been gone for months. That felt like the proper separation of time between who he was yesterday and who he was today. But he still loved his power naps.

He woke up again around lunch, went on his laptop with a cup of coffee and wore a smile that could not fit his face when he collected a couple of responses for his ad. He decided that the best buyer would be the woman asking for a fair price since she’d be using the fans for her restaurant. It was a humble establishment that catered to lovers of traditional Korean food. Jongin chose her for two reasons; his fans would go well with the theme that was going on in the restaurant, and it had his father’s favorite dish.

He sold all of his father’s fans except for one; a green and black one that only reached his knees. Even then, he made enough money to make up for what he didn’t have for a plane ticket. Suddenly, it just all made sense now. He was young and his time was now. And he should do things now to make now a story he would like to tell over and over. He’d make enough stories that he wouldn’t even have time to mention the people he meant very little to. Or maybe he still would.

He made a quick trip to the café again, just hours before his flight. It was busier this time around. Jongin didn’t even mind the stares he garnered on his way to the ordering station as he carried the electric fan around in the middle of winter.

“Hello,” Jongin greeted the girl at the cashier, “I’m looking for Chanyeol. I have something to give him.”

“Sorry?”

“Chanyeol? I met him here last night.”

The girl blinked.

“Oh, are you new? I’m looking for an employee here.”

“No, sir. I’ve been working here for a year now.”

“Oh, then Chanyeol must be new. Excuse me.” Jongin stopped the manager from his side of the counter when he saw her walking past. “Sorry to bother you. I’m looking for an employee here named Chanyeol.” Jongin pointed at his hat. “He was wearing this hat last night.”

The manager mirrored the same look as the first girl. “I’m sorry, but we don’t have anyone working here by that name.”

It was Jongin’s turn to look baffled. “Are you sure? He’s a really tall guy, big eyes, he wore your uniform—“ and just as he mentioned it, it dawned on him that none of the employees on duty now were wearing black on black.

“Sir?”

“Huh?” Jongin had his lips parted. He had to touch the hat on his head, just to make sure it was there, that he didn’t just dream last night.

“Sir, I’m going to have to hurry you. Our menu is posted on the board. Is there anything that you want?”

Jongin carried his fan and shook his head. “No. No, thank you. I have everything.” He walked out of the café, looking down both sides of the sidewalk where he walked with Chanyeol, where their footsteps had melted away when the snow did.

--

The fan looked smaller when it was back in his apartment, sitting atop the coffee table. Just hours ago, when he decided that he was going to give it away, it seemed much bigger, harder to handle and carry around. It was nothing compared to his luggage, and it looked rather defeated where it was posted, unused.

When Jongin came back from his trip, whenever that may be, he knew that the fan would still be there, waiting exactly where he left it. This fan, this apartment, it would be his last stop after he had done everything that he set out to do. Until then, he was going to appreciate what was around him.

*masterficlist | tumblr | twitter | comment here to be added

-- Thank you once again to my beta, linnhe.
i hope everyone else enjoys figuring this out. ^^

i wrote an article

hipslip — Tue, 19 Nov 2013 05:59:56 GMT

so i recently got an article published for this lgbtqzine here in the philippines and i'm sharing it on every account i have because it's my first one, and apart from some minor grammatical errors that were missed (I CAUGHT THEM ALL AND FEEL REALLY INSECURE NOW) i'm still quite proud of it. ^O^

tl;dr stuff below:
i've been working on some real life things that aren't all that interesting, and a story in my head that really needs to be written, and that's taking up all of my time. i wish i could concentrate more on this journal and spend hours on fics like i used to because i did enjoy it in the time that i was active on here. i hope to do so again soon. i know i keep promising fics and even tried updating, but even those stories are left in the back burner because of the number of things that i want to write. OTL

to the new people here who just got added, welcome. i have tons of fics on here anyways so please fill your time with that for now :D

Blackfish; Chapter 1

hipslip — Fri, 13 Sep 2013 13:17:32 GMT

rating: pg - 13 to r
genre: psychological, humor
pairing: onew/taemin
length: chaptered
word count: ~2k w
summary: a deconstructed coming of age story that features two boys; one who sticks out by default while the other is invisible to the radar by choice.
warnings: (as the chapters progress) disturbing themes, violence, blood
a/n: as a whole, this is very character driven and dialogue heavy, transit feel. just letting you know why the summary is so vague. ^^

Blackfish

Chapter 1

Taemin jiggled the lock on his bike twice, heard the snap, slid his key inside, then jiggled it some more until it came undone. Everything had an otherworldly method when you were broke.

"Are you coming to UbSubs later?" Jongin was next to him, standing with his weight on one leg, stare wandering toward the girl whose uniform skirt was being made victim to a light breeze. He was still grinning when Taemin stood up to hold his bike steady.

"I fucking hate it when you call it that." Taemin didn't even bother to search for the object of Jongin's greasy smirk. He snatched Jongin's lit cigarette and flicked it wherever, his long time friend's nostrils flaring in dismay. "The club is called Urban Suburban. No one calls it UbSubs."

"That was my last cigarette."

"It would have been if you were caught. We're still on school grounds."

"We’re in the parking lot-- or no, a parking lot. That's right next to a Seven Eleven. This parking lot could pretty much be theirs."

"That franchise belongs to the school."

"Stop, shut up, are you going or what?"

"Can't. I'm gonna get started on my history paper."

"That's not due for another week, Taemin."

"Early bird." Taemin crouched down to tuck the ends of his pants in his socks.

"Get the fuck out," Jongin scoffed. "My band's playing."

"I'll catch the next one." Taemin stood up, swung a leg over his bicycle, taking a seat and holding it steady with his feet planted on the ground, sitting with a slouch as he placed his helmet on. "You'll be performing again next year, right?"

Jongin struck his arm. Taemin cackled. Then he heard a faint, "See you tomorrow Jinki oppa!", his attention kidnapped by the sound.

In the distance, by the gate of the school stood Pyramid Head, plugging his ears with his earphones, his backpack dangling off of one shoulder by a lone strap.

"Man," Jongin sighed, "what I would give to have a private driver pick me up every day."

"His parents don't pick him up?"

"His mom died a few years back."

"And his dad?"

Jongin shook his head, disapproving.

"What."

"Man, I hear--" Jongin even took the time to look left and right to make sure no one was in earshot. "-- I hear his dad is in on some shady shit."

Jongin had a large everything; nose, mouth, head, hair, ears, chest, arms, dick. Perfect storages for the information he had about everyone in the school. He knew about the Arabian guard who sold hash and a fuckload of this shitty alcohol called Sadiqui. He knew about how the same guard supplied not only to students, but to faculty members and members of the PTAC. He knew about the girls who were pregnant, probably even before they themselves knew that they were. And if that last gauntlet of information implied that Jongin hung around girls' bathrooms and snooped around in their garbage, that was none of Taemin's concern. Sure, Jongin was his friend, and probably the only friend he had that didn’t stay with him just to mooch off his test papers, but every relationship had its limits.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, people say his dad is in stocks and trade and whatever shit that if explained, can't really be explained, you know? If you ask me, that's just a cover up for what he really does. And what he really does is dirty work. And he gets paid well for it. He funded the indoor gymnasium of this school, did you know that?"

"Hold. Hold it." Taemin had to wave his hands so that Jongin would back off. He was coming too close to Taemin's face, which meant he could smell every cigarette he had smoked since lunch. "So what does his dad really do?"

Jongin half shrugged. "Beats me. But he's supposed to be this big deal. Or so my sources say."

Taemin was almost tempted to ask who his sources were, but he could respect the privacy of what his friend chose to do or who he chose to hang out with during his time alone. Besides, if he pried he might lose his privileges to Jongin's vast knowledge of the information that dirtied the school and the people in it. Which Taemin would not have cared about until today.

A car pulled over to where Lee Jinki was waiting, all black, from the paint job to the tinted windows. The Arabian guard of the school pulled the car door open for him, as though it was imperative that this kid's hands weren't utilized fully by the time he got home. Lee Jinki bowed before stepping into his car and sped off.

Taemin smiled to himself.

"What?"

"I think I might have done something stupid."

"What did you do?"

"I, uh." Taemin couldn't get it out in one full sentence because he was smiling so hard. "I spritzed him with vodka from my water gun."

"The Pyramid Head? Where?"

"Like underneath the bleachers during P.E."

"No, I meant where on his--" Jongin gestured at his body.

"On his chest, I think."

"You fucker."

Taemin laughed while scratching his cheek, feeling a little nervous.

"Then what? Did he totally give you a red slip? You know he's the hall monitor for the whole week, right? He could totally send you to detention."

"I know, I know. He didn't say anything. And I just walked away."

"Good. Keep walking away."

∞

Taemin liked to think he was an organized person in a chaotic manner. He lived within the boundaries set for him and created his own definitions, cutting around corners but never so much that it'd be noticeable.

He lived in a small town, went to one of the three schools that existed in the district, cohabitating peacefully with his parents and his eleven year old sister and he liked it. He understood kids his age who were fueled with rebellion, talking about nothing but wanting to leave this town because there was something out there, something better, but Taemin didn't have similar desires.

There were very few things that Taemin truly cared about; his water gun, his vodka, being challenged academically, his family, and maybe Jongin. He often found that people were fascinated with the constant need for more, this never-ending search for a better version of everything. Though evolution had admittedly come a long way, basic human nature hadn’t changed one bit.

He often dreamt about tornados-- massive and relentless ones. Jongin once told him about how that could signify change, but Taemin didn't understand how to interpret anything past that. Should he expect change or was it already happening? Jongin said some pretty stupid shit too, so it was probably best to take that with a grain of salt.

Home for Taemin was a humble space slotted in the midst of an apartment complex, closer to the sky than it was to the ground, or so it seemed. Taemin hopped off his bike, allowing a mother and her daughter to exit the building before he went in. It was a good thing that the elevator was finally fixed around mid December last year. People were suspecting Taemin of having an eating disorder, when really it was all the stair climbing that had him dropping more weight than if he were to actually commit to a gym subscription.

He rolled his bike with him, hands on the handle bars while he walked beside it, sidestepping a few people to get into the heavy duty elevator with it, now only a minute or so away from his bed.

The pebbles that comprised the entire outer part of the building were a gradient color of browns, but blended together looked just as gray as the cement that adhered everything in place, some bits chipped and frayed from old age and faulty maintenance, and everything around him in this open hallway reeked of muddy rain even in the summer.

He ran into a girl who lived next door, Insoo. She had crazy curly hair, horribly uneven teeth, and was the same age as his sister. She lived in the same building for months now and in the majority of that stay-- unbeknownst to herself since she thought she was being very subtle-- she made it clear through her actions that she was in love with everything that Taemin was and chose to be. They went to different schools and her classes ended earlier, leaving her hours to bounce on her heels outside of her door and wait for Taemin to walk past. Taemin granted her the same mechanical smile on his way to his apartment, always keeping his bike as a barrier.

Taemin's mother, a nurse at a hospital a train-ride away in the morning, two busses away by dawn, was usually at work or on her way to work. With the hours that she gone, Taemin only had one image of her, and that was of her busy in the kitchen in the morning, then finally calm when her children inhaled her usual dishes. Outside of that kitchen, he couldn't remember the way she looked. His sister was much younger, but equally as smart, and she looked a great deal like Taemin, was even the same height as him, and that often lead to the misconception that they were twins.

"I'm home," Taemin said, leaving his bike leaning on the wall adjacent to the door. He held onto to the TV, standing on one foot before his sister as he yanked his socks off and freed the ends of his pant legs. His sister, Hana, gave him a small smile, something that had a reply dangling by the corner, something snarky like, "I know, you're standing right there."

"Have you eaten?" she asked instead, eyes never leaving the television screen. She sat upside down on the couch, legs propped up with her ankles pasted on the wall, watching TV in a way that his mother would have suggested would be terrible for her eyesight in the future. She proceeded with, "I think there's potato salad in the fridge."

"Mom made it?"

"No, Insoo brought it over for lunch. She says hi."

Didn't matter either way. It wasn't as if his mother was an excellent cook.

∞

"Here." Hana offered her fingers, clumped together inside thecircle of her other palm, challenging her brother to pick out her middle finger just by staring at the identical tips from the angle she provided. It was a game that they had played when they were little, that had stuck with them until they grew up. Honestly, when Taemin was doing his homework, like tonight, he wasn’t in any mood for such games.

But he knew how it meant a lot to his sister when he played with her. With their mother always away, it didn't leave Taemin with much of a choice but to be the adult she played with. He picked a fingertip with the same hand he was using to write. His sister rejoiced when she freed her fingers and showed him that he chose her index finger once again.

"Your turn, oppa."

"Okay." Taemin hid both hands from her, darting the tip of his tongue out of the corner of his mouth to feign concentration when really he already had his hand squeezed in their original position.

He offered his hands to her, and she rubbed her palms together, squinting.

They both came to halt when the door slammed open hard enough that it knocked into Taemin's bike. A man with Taemin's eyes and lips proceeded into the apartment, smirking at them, not bothering to take his shoes off, tracking dirt on the floor.

Taemin and Hana remained silent as they watched the man go straight for the kitchen, towards the freezer where their mother kept their savings. He uncapped an empty ice cream container and claimed the roll of bills, leaving the freezer door open as well as the container on the floor when he made his way out of the kitchen.

He gave Taemin and Hana a bit of his attention, and for the first few seconds Taemin was certain that he would try something like last time. He mentally cursed at himself for leaving his water gun inside his bag; he could have used it this time around. But all the man did was pull out a ten thousand won bill from the wad of money in his hand, crumpling it to a ball and chucking it at Taemin's head. His sister whimpered, boring holes into Taemin's collar with her stare.

He smirked again, that drunken, obnoxious smirk, then dragged himself out of the apartment, slamming the door back in the frame.

Taemin let out a big breath, loosening the grip he had on his clumped together fingers. He watched the blood return to his fingers, counting down the seconds until he could say, "Not it!" with Hana. But he said it a nanosecond too late this time. "Fuck!"

Hana stood up, "Your turn to break it to mom."

"How should I say it?"

"Like it is," Hana shrugged, on her way to the main door, "Dad came in and took her money again. And we need a new lock."

*masterficlist | tumblr | twitter | comment here to be added

-- Thank you once again to my beta, linnhe.

Blackfish ; Prologue

hipslip — Tue, 27 Aug 2013 19:15:46 GMT

BLACKFISH
A Story By Yoonis

Prologue
black sheep by metric

Growing up, Jinki never really had to beg for anything.

It wasn't just because his family was rich. It also had to do with his devotion. The thing about Jinki was that when he committed to something, he did so with every fiber of his being. Which is why he rarely ever did.

Jinki was thirteen when he killed a deer for the first time. Right between the eyes, he got it, and not even a second later, it collapsed onto the forest floor. His father, the natural born hunter, shook Jinki so hard that his muffler slid off and he couldn't pick it up because it was right next to the deer's head.

The worst of it all was coming home and finding the head mounted on his wall, right above his desktop computer, directly in front of his bed.

"It'll be the last thing you see before you go to bed, and the first thing you see when you wake up. Good job, Jinki." His father had said.

And while everyone in his house slept soundly, Jinki kept his rifle close to his chest as he watched the deer's head during the first night it hung on his wall, fearing that it would come alive and eat him.

He slept during Home Ec and stayed awake all night, just staring into the onyx eyes of what was once a deer, now reduced to some prize that Jinki had originally thought was worth it. All he wanted was a head pat, and that hat his father wore.

∞

Jinki wore that hat when his mother passed. It was a month after his 15th birthday, justdays after the new year. He spoke about his last words to his mother without shedding a tear, his head held high, a boy in a black suit and a red hunting cap, waiting to be stricken down by emotion through his own words.

He stood behind the podium, reading off of his cue cards what he had wanted to say to his mother if she were still alive, enumerated the things in his life that she would never witness and, in the pauses he made, he wondered if he ever truly loved her.

He wanted to understand why the death of a deer scarred him in ways he couldn’t even explain in comparison to his mother dying from a freak accident. His mother suffered more, possibly a greater deal of pain. And she was capable of hoping, of expectations-- that slither of what if.

She gave birth to him, clothed him, fed him, made sure he had nothing but the best because that was how she showed her love, and in return, Jinki couldn't even surrender just one fucking tear.

His dad was this expressionless man in the crowd, and maybe it was just Jinki's imagination, but he might have even seemed more frustrated than he was distraught. And when people shook his hand, he bowed instead and walked away.

Jinki didn't know half the people that came to his mother's funeral, didn't know what right they had to cry before him, but they did. And Jinki felt worse.

In his last seven minutes with his mother --still freshly buried beneath the dry dirt-- he pictured a scenario wherein his mother's fist would break the earth from beneath, and she'd rise from her grave, claiming victory over death while doves flew overhead.

Then he reasoned that the doves might have been overkill. And that he should not be thinking about words related to death. He should have mentally prepared better adjectives for himself.

∞

What movies fail to capture in moments of tragedy are the bits in between. That quiet ride homefrom the funeral would have been cut and tossed, even when it proposed something more honest than any face covered in tears.

Jinki couldn't even turn on the radio. It wasn't that he was too weak, but he didn't want music to deafen that human noise; the sound of him and his father breathing out of sync, rough palms on the rubber of the steering wheel, aggravated exhales when another car raced past without any decent notice beforehand. Jinki agreed with a grind of his teeth that that driver should have at least given them a honk.

They had just lost a family member.

Jinki contemplated whether he truly understood death and love. People talked about life and love much too often. Maybe because death and love were simple and only went one way. When you love someone and they die, you will be sad. You will mourn. Was there such a thing as crying subconsciously? Or a deeper level of devastation, something beyond tears.

He decided to turn the radio on anyway and left it on the first station that greeted him.

∞

After her death, his father began speaking about his work more to him. Jinki listened with dull interest, a head nod here, perhaps some eye contact. Each time, it sounded like conversationsthat had beencramped into their daily lives, a filler. When Jinki sat in front of his father during dinner, did he see this boy who was just dying to know about what he did at work today?

No. Jinki would have been fine just listening to them live. He would have been okay with watching them both spiral into a heavy dose of depression, and allowing themselves to be sad because they were. But Jinki felt like he had some faulty wires, and the only good one he had was linked with his mother. And she took that and everything with her when she died, just yanked herself free from him without a proper goodbye. Because of her permanent absence, he felt betrayed. He felt wronged, as though she had no right to die just like that.

Jinki saw a lot of his mother's belongings the day he helped his father move them to the attic instead of making the maids do it. While they boxed her jewelry, her clothes, her shoes, even the sheets that she last slept on before she died, Jinki's dad was talking about a support group that they could attend.

"We could go together. It's only during the weekends. Or what about you come with me to the firing range? Practice your shooting. It might help."

"Yeah, maybe," Jinki absentmindedly spoke, tracing a black velvet box in his hand which he later found out was his mother's engagement ring.

"Would you like to keep it?"

Jinki pocketed the box and the ring immediately, glad he didn't have to ask. He thought it felt cold in his pocket as though it wasn't a right fit at all, but he knew his mother would have wanted him to have it. His dad said so.

When his father took him hunting again, he killed two ducks. His father roasted them and they had the best dinner that they have had in a while. And when Jinki slept, he dreamed that his mother's head was mounted on his wall in replacement of the deer.

He woke up sweating, finally thankful to see the deer's head on his wall.

Jinki went up the attic that night on his own, searched for the bed sheets she last slept on, and took them to his room to wrap the black box in.

∞

It wasn't until Jinki was seventeen that he began to fully appreciate guns.

While kids his age developed an affinity for tiny cellphones or each other, Jinki tried to see how fast he could assemble a fully oiled and cleaned semi-automatic pistol.

He had stubby fingers that worked against him, so he could never hit that one minute mark exactly. The magazine was trickier to slide in than people expected when you were in a hurry, and when Jinki was in a hurry, he panicked on the inside, hearing himself, his human noises in chorus with a repetitive why is that smaller this time.

His father had an arsenal of firearms, larger guns that Jinki had yet to master. And when his father had time, they'd go to the firing range together, trying to carve their initials on the target with bullet holes.

There was a week when Jinki managed to beat his father by an average of four to five seconds. His dad patted his head where he wore the hunting cap he never washed, askinghim if he wanted a new one.

Jinki shook his head. "This is fine."

∞

Jinki had no idea if it was a regular routine, to just check his body in the mirror. He did it sometimes, testing the way he looked without a shirt and just a pistol in his hand. His shoulders were broader now that he'd enjoyed puberty's visit, dark hairs under his arms… and in other places.

He thought that maybe he should try smiling more now that he was eighteen and he was growing pit hair. He wanted people to see that he was okay with puberty coming inlater, and the way to do that was with a smile.

He smiled at his reflection.

∞

"I will not be the hall monitor this week, I will not be the hall monitor this week." Once again Jinki was talking to his reflection, the morning of his first day as a senior in high school. He practiced his stance, his new smile, straightening out the hunting cap on his head that did not go with his navy blue uniform at all. Or maybe it should be slightly to the side to make me seem cooler. He tugged one side down. "I don't think I should be the hall monitor for this-- no."

He straightened the hunting cap on his head again.

The driver was waiting for Jinki by the time he exited the wooden double doors of his house, engine on, radio set to 89.9 FM, the same station Jinki woke up to that morning.

He settled in the back seat and greeted Jongguk, the driver, good morning by tossing a pack of animal crackers his way. Jongguk accepted them gratefully, winking at him through the rear view mirror.

I will not be the hall monitor for this week.

∞

Naturally, Jinki was assigned the hall monitor the moment he stepped into campus because as it turned out, he couldn't refuse the principal even if he wanted to. He pinned the hall monitor badge on, and wore the armband to go with it, feeling like a Nazi on his first day.

There were six hundred students in his school that needed looking after, and as far as the fourth floor was concerned, Jinki had it guarded. His duties were to make sure that the halls were empty of students loitering, during the hour after the bell rang in the morning and after lunch, and before the bell rang at night. Considering he’d been doing this more than he remembered being in class, it earned him the nickname "Pyramid Head", afterthe Silent Hill game.

Physical Education was exempted from such restrictions, obviously. Jinki walked to the football field at his own pace as he watched lower classmen in one line, ready to jump overthetire rubbers laid down on the grass just so they could kick the waitingsoccer balls into the net.

He sat downon the lowest part of the bleachers, feeling unevenness where his butt should be touching a flat surface.

When he stood up, he found shoes, soles up, hanging from the edges where the space between the seats were. His brows furrowed in wonder, trying to distinguish how they were doing that, when suddenly they parted from the edge of the seat one by one and he realized he just sat on someone's feet.

He hopped down the stands and jogged lightly to the end, where he could enter the cave formed by the bleachers. It took him a minute to distinguish whether he was looking at a girl or a boy all thanks to the low ponytail. However, he didn't have an unfamiliar face, Jinki knew he saw this person around before.

"You can't be here," were the first words out of Jinki's mouth.

The person smirked, revealing a small black water gun.

Jinki smiled back without realizing it, repeating himself: "I'm serious, you can't be here." His name started with a T, T something.

The boy raised his gun, aiming it at Jinki when the latter tried to come closer. Jinki stopped in his tracks, even though he knew the worst the gun could do was stain his clothes.

They just stood there for a few seconds, the boy making Jinki guess whether he would pull the trigger or not. Jinki betted that he wouldn't.

A few breaths after that, he found out that he was wrong. The boy shot straight at his chest, squirting clear liquid along hisblazer, the line darker than the rest of his clothes.

Jinki looked down at the spot, blinking at it, while the boy tucked the gun's head in the garter of his sweatpants, covering the rest with his two-sizes-too-big shirt.

He casually made his way past Jinki, whispering something suspiciously similar to nice hat, Pyramid Head.

Jinki looked over his shoulder, following the boy with his stare, watching as he jogged back to the soccer field and placed himself at the very end of the line.

*masterficlist | tumblr | twitter | comment here to be added

-- Thank you to linnhe for beta-ing this monstrosity and holding my hand through it all ;;

8:39 pm

hipslip — Mon, 26 Aug 2013 04:56:37 GMT

rating: pg - 15
pairing: d.o./kai
length: one shot
word count: ~2k w

8 :39 pm

Minsan kasi parang gago 'tong si kuya Joon, eh. Diba iinom siya, eh di hinahayaan ko na lang. Ang kaso, napakalakas umabuso sa alkohol, tangina, ginagawang tubig. Gabi naman ah, hindi na mainit, ayan electric fan; number three, may tubig naman sa bahay. Pero hindi, inom kung inom ang gago.

Hindi pa masabihan ang tarantado. Siyempre, susubukan kong awatin yan. Sasabihin ko, "Kuya, nakakailang balde ka na ng Tanduay. Hinga hinga rin!"

"Pwede ba, Kungfu. Doon ka muna. Ang laki-laki ng mata mo, nalulula ako."

Nga pala, hindi Kungfu pangalan ko. Kyungsoo. Do Kyungsoo. Pero pag nalalangsing si kuya, bumabaluktot yung dila na parang hindi mo maintindihan. Baluktotin ko kaya etits nito.

Sure, sige. Ako na malaki ang mata. Ako na yung mata na may lalaki na nakakabit. Aminado ako malaki mata ko, pero the girls like it. And I like them, so no problemo mata ko.

Minsan, hindi ko din naman masisi si kuya Joon. Mahirap mabuhay ngayon kapag wala kang gimik, walang pera. And masaklap, medyo hindi nakaka-proud yung gimik naming ni kuya Joon. Ang totoo nyan, nagbebenta kami.

Hindi pirated CDs, hindi secondhand na cellphone. As in marijuana. Ang mahiwagang berde, ladies and gents. Magbuhat noong nawalan na ng trabaho si mama, natigil pag-aaral ko. Si kuya Joon naman, naglayas-- eh basta, magulo. Ang punto ng lahat, nakatira ngayon sa amin si kuya Joon, tapos magkakasama kami doon nila mama, yung kapatid kong mas bata, si Patrice (kinse anyos, buntis) tsaka yung boyfriend niya, si Tao. Sitaw tawag ko doon minsan, kasi kasing payat siya ng Sitaw, tsaka ayaw ko ng sitaw.

Diba and saya? Parang deconstructed, fucked up version of the Brady Bunch lang. Malaki yung bahay namin, hindi naman kami siksikan, kaso nakasangla na kasi nga wala nang pera. Si Sitaw, tumutulong naman sa kuryente, si Patrice walang ginawa kung hindi manood ng TV pero nagwawalis naman siya minsan kapag hindi nadadaanan ng sumpong, tapos kami ni kuya Joon nagbebenta ng marijuana.

Mayroon kaming top 3 locations na pinagbebentahan. Sa tatlong lokasyon kasi na 'yun, hindi mahigpit, o kaya protektatdo kami, o kaya naman kilala na kami doon. Kaya madali na lang magbenta. Bihira lang kami magbenta na hiwalay ni kuya Joon. Bago bago lang kasi ako sa pagbebenta. Sinimulan ko lang pagkatapos kong tumigil sa pagaaral. Siguro mga ilang months lang nakalipas mula noon. Hindi ko na mabilang.

Feeling ko nga nagbago talaga ako nung nagsimula ako magbenta pero hindi ko na lang sinasabi yun kay kuya Joon kasi alam ko na kahit gago siya, nakokonsensya pa rin siya sa ginawa niya. Hindi yung paglayas, pero yung pagsama sakin sa kagaguhan niya. Malaki respeto niya sa nanay ko, ayaw na ayaw niya na nagsisinungaling. Kaya maglasing na lang.

"Kungfu, ba't di ka na umiinom?" Tanong sa akin ni kuya Joon.

Nakatulala na lang kasi ako. "Ayoko na kuya. Sakit na ng ulo ko."

"Hina mo."

"Gago, malakas ka lang uminom."

"Bakit ba ang init-init ng ulo ma sa 'kin ngayon?"

Lagi mainit ulo ko sa'yo kapag ganyan ka. Ang baho ng hininga mo. "Gusto ko na umuwi."

"Mauna ka na sa 'kin."

"Ha?" Parang sira talaga 'toh. "Sabay na tayo!"

"Hindi pa nga ako tapos. Hindi ka na rin naman umiinom, umiinit lang upuan mo eh. Uwi ka na."

"Dito ka na matulog," biglang bigkas ni kuya Kai pagkalabas nya sa screen door ng bahay, may dala-dalang Boy Bawang na nakakalat sa plato. "Dali, Kyungsoo, dun ka sa kwarto ko. On mo yung aircon."

"Hindi naman ako makakatulog dito…"

"Arte nito," may kasama pang ngisi yung pagsabi ng lasing.

"Nangingilala katawan ko, hindi ako makakatulog sa kama ng iba."

"Malinis naman kama ko." Umupa si kuya Kai sa harapan ko, sabay dukot ng Boy Bawang sa kamay niya.

"Malinis man o ano, hindi ako sanay matulog sa ibang bahay kuya, pasensya na."

"Tsk, halika." Tumayo siya ulit habang pinapagpag yung kamay niya sa jersey shorts nyang mukang sa bewang na lang niya nakakapit. "Pakita ko sayo."

Hindi nga ako tumayo. "Huwag na, kuya Kai. Okay na ko."

"Dali na." Hinila niya ko pataas. Hindi ko dati nahalata na ang lakas pala ng payatot na 'toh, laki pa ng kamay. Malamang kaya niyang kumapit ng basketball ng isang kamay lang.

Malaki bahay ni kuya, puro gamit lang kaya mukang maliit. Nagiisa siyang anak tapos madalas niyang kasama sa bahay mama niya lang. Hindi kami ganoon ka-close, pero matagal na daw sila magkakilala ni kuya Joon… nakalimutan ko na kung paano o bakit. Sa mga kwento ni kuya Joon, alam ko mayaman si kuya Kai, medyo tahimik, pero mabait. Dapat noong una, dito siya kina kuya Kai tutuloy kasi madalas wala naman magulang nila, pero nag-insist mama ko na doon na lang siya sa 'min kasi hindi niya masyadong gusto kung paano pinalaki si kuya Kai. Kasi nga daw walang guidance, walang tagabantay, mahirap daw yung ganoon sabi ng mama ko.

Tinulak ni kuya Kai yung pintuan nang pabukas gamit pwet niya, tapos binuksan yung ilaw. "Oh ha? Ganda noh. Pasok ka."

Ang bango ng kwarto niya. Amoy bahay, tapos puro puti, malinis nga. Binuksan niya na rin yung aircon.

"Ganito," sabi ni kuya Kai. "Yan yung aparador ko. Hiram ka na lang damit. Yung isang pintuan ng aparador ko-- halika pakita ko sa'yo."

Sama naman ako. Ngayon ko lang kasi narinig na nagsalita ng todo si kuya Kai. Madalas pag nagiinuman sila, tahimik lang siya, o kaya naman tumatawa lang.

Pagkabukas niya ng kanang pintuan ng aparador niya, putek muntikan na ko madapa, kasi imbis na damit, tangina, entrance sa banyo!

"Ayos noh?" Sabi niya. "Parang Narnia lang."

"CR ba yung Narnia?" Patawa kong tinanong. Tawa din naman siya.

"Basta CR mo yan. Tapos… kung gusto mong hinaan yung aircon, pihitin mo lang yung nasa gitna, ayan oh. Parang electric fan lang."

Umo-oo na lang ako. Parang naman akong mang mang nito.

"Sige, baba na ko."

"Sige kuya, salamat."

"Oo, sige lang."

--

Ang tahimik sa loob ng kwarto niya.

Siyempre, hindi ako makatulog. Alam ko naman na hindi talaga ako makakatulog dito, pero malamig naman tsaka mabango kaya hayaan na. Tumayo ako sa kama, suot suot paren yung kanina kong damit. Nahihiya ako gumamit ng gamit niya, parang feeling ko madudumihan ko.

Pero sa kadahilanan na medyo may pagka pakialamero ako, may nahanap akong shoe box sa ilalim ng kama niya. May mga pictures na iba't ibang klase, kinunan sa iba't ibang lugar. Si kuya Kai tsaka mga tao yung nasa picture, tapos meroon din isa na nasa may parang mataas na lugar siya, tapos may snow. Nakakainggit.

--

Maya-mayang onti, may naririnig na akong paakyat ng hagdanan. Bago ko pa maitago yung pictures sa shoe box, pumasok na kaagad si kuya Kai, halos buhat-buhat si kuya Joon na parang batang tulog na nakakapit sa kanya.

"Wala na…" hirap na sinabi ni kuya Kai. "Basag na 'toh. Tulungan mo naman ako na ibaba 'toh sa kama."

"'Wag na. Hagis mo na lang yan." Tawa kami.

"Dali na, Kyungsoo!"

--

Tinulungan ko magligpit ng bote ng beer tsaka baso si kuya Kai sa baba kasi tulog na daw si manang. Habang ako, sobrang naka-concentrate sa pagpulot ng bote-- seryoso, ang dami nila nainom--biglang sabi ni kuya Kai, "Medyo pakialamero ka, noh?"

Muntikan ko na mahulog yung isang bote ng lapad nun. "Ha?"

Nakangiti naman siya habang inaayos niya yung upuan. "Tagong-tago kaya yung shoe box ko na 'yun."

"Hindi kaya," basta pag kinakabahan ako, natural na sa 'kin na idaan na lang sa biro. "Nakausli nga yung puwet sa may bukana."

"Sinungaling." Tawa siya.

"Ang dami mo na pala napuntahan."

"Sakto lang," sabay punas siya ng pawis sa anit niya. "Yung business kasi nila mama naka-base sa Hong Kong. Tapos si dad nasa Dubai. Eh, madalas, yung dad ko yung pinapapunta sa ibang bansa para makipagmeet sa kung sinu-sino. Kaya 'yun."

"Sama ka naman."

"Kung libre, bakit hindi?" Sabi niya na may ngiti.

"Yung parents mo…"

"Magkahiwalay sila. Dati pa, bata pa ko. Ikaw?"

"Hindi sila hiwalay pero wala na papa ko, bata pa lang ako."

"Ah, sorry."

Hindi ko alam kung ano yung tamang response doon kaya madalas tumatahimik na lang ako.

"Uy, may apelido pa!" Sabi ni kuya Kai sabay inaabot sa akin yung bote ng beer na may natira pang onting alak.

"Ayoko nyan."

"Arte mo," sabi niya. Ininom niya rin naman.

--

Napasarap kwentuhan naming ni kuya Kai kaya hindi ko na namalayan yung oras. Hindi ko nga alam kung paano ba ako nagising bigla. Kani-kanina lang grabe antok ko. Pero nadidilat ko talaga mata ko kasi parang kailangan ko pakinggan si kuya Kai, eh. Importante 'tong sinasabi niya sa 'kin.

"Alam mo ba," sabi niya, "Nung bata ako nanghuhuli ako ng tutube habang tulog ako?"

"Ha? Parang sleep walking? Ganoon?"

"Oo."

"Paano mo nakikita yung tutube kung tulog ka?"

"Hindi, walang tutube. Sa panaginip ko lang, ang dami. Pero wala talaga. Ang gagawin ko, kukuha ako ng stik, tapos lalagyan ko ng Colgate yung dulo, tapos lalabas ako para manghuli ng tutube."

Habang ako tumatawa na ng grabe kasi tangina yung itsura niya, tuloy pa niyang sinabi, "Hindi, Kyungsoo, seryoso. Sinasabi ko sa'yo. Tumatalon pa 'ko."

"Mukha kang tanga."

"'Yan din sabi ng crush ko 'nun. Nahuli niya ko isang gabi. Magkapitbahay lang kasi kami noon."

"Ah…" Biglang nangati yung ulo ko. "Pinagtawanan ka niya?"

"Oo."

"Pahiya ka tuloy."

"Siya napahiya, hinalikan ko lang siya tahimik na siya."

Natahimik din naman ako. Parang sira lang.

"Ikaw, naranasan mo na?"

"Ha?"

"Alam mo na…" Nagkunwari siya na may hinahalikan siya, sabay ngiti.

"Ako? Siyempre naman. Tanda ko na eh."

"Talaga lang ha."

"Oo. Galing ko nga eh. Walang ngipin." Tumawa na lang ako kasi natawa rin naman siya, pero kinakabahan na talaga ako, hindi ko lang alam kung bakit.

"Tinanggal mo pustiso mo?"

"Oo." Tawa ulit kami.

Tapos… siguro kasi lasing siya. O nakainom siya. Kasi ganito, nakahawak na talaga siya sa batok ko, minamasamasahe niya, ganoon. Hindi naman ako umalma kasi siyempre gusto ko close kami. Tsaka ano naman sasabihin ko? Pare, wag naman, may kiliti ako sa batok?

Kaya hinayaan ko lang nung una, tapos ang huli kong naaalala, iniisip ko parin yung itsura niya na nanghuhuli ng tutube habang tulog, tapos yun na. Hinalikan niya ko.

Siya talaga nagsimula… pero… sa bagay… halikan na rin naman pinaguusapan naming bago mangyari 'to. Pero ganito rin naman kami ni kuya Joon, ni minsan hindi ko pinangarap labi niya. Wala na rin akong magawa, nandito na ko, hindi rin naman ako makagalaw… tsaka ang kapal ng labi niya…

Hindi naman yung kapal na nakakalunod. Tamang kapal lang… lasang alak lang. Tsaka sigarilyo.

Nang matapos niya akong halikan, hindi pa rin ako makagalaw. Kahit alam ko na nakatingin na lang siya sa 'kin, kahit alam ko na medyo na natatawa na siya sa mukha ko. Sana man lang sinabihan niya ko na balak siya na ilaglag puso ko sa tabi ng bituka ko para kahit papaano, nakapaghanda ako. Ang sarap niyang suntukin sa totoo lang. Ang sarap niyang murahin.

Pagkadilat ko, hindi naman siya tumatawa pero nakatitig siya sa 'kin habang dahan-dahang ngumingiti.

Nagbuntod hininga ang gago, sabay bigkas, "Sinungaling ka talaga."

Ang naramdaman ko nun, parang akong isa sa mga tutubeng hinuhuli niya sa panaginip niya, pero imbis na Colgate, labi at alak gamit niya.

"May trabaho ka ba bukas?" Bigla niya ako tinanong na parang walang nangyari. Akala niya siya lang marunong magkunwari?

"Mayroon. Bakit?"

"Wala lang."

"Ah…"

"Hindi, ano kasi. Pag nauwi na natin si Joon, baka gusto mong kumain."

"Libre mo?" Ang hirap na lagging kinakabahan, parang kang nakatungtong sa pinakamataas na gusali, naghihintay lang kung itutulak ka ba o ano.

"Sige, mayaman naman ako eh."

"Yabang nito."

"Gusto mo ng libre o ayaw mo?"

"Gusto po."

Nagkwento pa siya pagkatapos nun eh, tapos biglang nagising si kuya Joon. Akala ko maingay kami, ayun pala umaga na. Nung umaga na yun, kahit ilang beses niya akong tawaging Kungfu, natatawa na lang ako. Nung nasa bahay na kami, tapos nahalata ni kuya Joon na hindi ako umaalma sa kagaguhan niya, tinanong niya ako kung bakit parang naka-stapler yung ngiti ko sa mukha ko.

Sabi ko na lang, "Wala, hindi ko lang akalain na may mapapala ako sa pagiinom mo."

*masterficlist | tumblr | twitter | comment here to be added

-- Tagalog fic. This is my first time writing in tagalog. Unbeta'd. I'm sorry.

SHINEEBIGBANG 2013

hipslip — Sat, 29 Jun 2013 17:45:12 GMT

hi lovers,

so this is late as fuck. but shineebigbang is nearing the end of the voting period.

read quality long fic if you wanna. one of those is mine.

here are my favorites from this year:

deciduous
eye of the beholder

happy reading. sorry this was so late. go vote. i love you.

♥ yoonis

The Monologue

hipslip — Fri, 28 Jun 2013 22:03:07 GMT

rating: pg - 15
pairing: girl!onew/jonghyun
length: drabble
word count: ~800 w

The Monologue

When Eunsook is naked, she's skin and bones and hips and lips, and she likes that.

Not many girls can say that about themselves, and Eunsook certainly doesn't get it. Mirrors don't lie, do they? Not this full-length one in front of her right now. She doesn't see a lie.

She sees shapely thighs connected to a wide set of hips, the curves outlining playfully under her palms. A birthmark resembling an isolated island from the map of the Philippines discolors a patch of skin right before the beginning of her right inguinal fold, the trail triangularly bordering the hairs in her pubic region, sparse and scattered. She even likes that barely visible valley from her navel to where her breats meet at the base. Or where they're supposed to meet.

Without a bra, her breasts aren't as perky. They drop centimeters lower from where the garter of her bra circles the upper half of her torso, but they're a healthy set of Cs so she isn't complaining.

She cups the left one, the bigger one, says, "You must be the daddy."

Then her right cups the other, "And you're the baby."

With both breasts cradled on either hand, she wiggles one, then the other, and soon her nipples shrink to attentive buds.

"The only reason you're bigger," Eunsook's smaller voice explains, gently shaking the right one, "is because you greedily absorb all the nutrients when she eats."

Of course, the left one retaliates in a lower register, "Well you could easily be mistaken for a B cup, how about that?"

Naturally, the baby boob is greatly affected by this. "You take that back!"

"You're a waste of perfectly good C space. You should just submit to my offer."

"To merge with you? Ha! Never. I'd rather stay this size than be a united boob with you. They won't even make underwear designed for us!"

"No one can say that I didn't try to reason with you!" The left one aggressively tries to stick with the right one, with a few pushes from Eunsook's hand and twist of her waist.

"No! Stop! Get away! This is my side of the chest!"

"You surrendered you rights to your side the moment you decided to stop developing at fifteen!"

In a pitiful fashion, the baby boob supplies, "How dare you bring that up! I'm a late bloomer! There is such a thing!"

"I am so fed up with your excuses. Just--"

And so begins the struggle between daddy boob and baby boob; one side determined to conquer, while the other decidedly vying for liberty. It all makes sense in Eunsook's mind, but to Jonghyun, who is just about sleepily popping his head from beneath the sheets at the foot of the bed, this all looks pretty disturbing.

"What in the actual fuck," Jonghyun hoarsely demands.

Eunsook spins on her heel, hands still nestling her breasts. "What."

"It's like two in the morning, what the fuck are you doing?"

Eunsook squeezes her boobs together, "My breastesses are at war."

Jonghyun smiles a lazy smile. With her breasts creating a pretty magnificent cleavage, disturbing just turned interesting. "Why is that?"

"One wants to create a uni-boob with the other one."

Jonghyun cringes, "Jesus Christ, which boob?"

"The left one." Eunsook gets on all fours and crawls to Jonghyun, slow enough for him to study every movement with progressively piquing interest. "It's the bigger one."

She sits on the carpet, back on her calves, an arm's length away from Jonghyun.

She cups the daddy boob again, thumbing her nipple. "This one."

"They look the same size to me."

"All you ever do is fondle and lick them so of course you can't tell."

Jonghyun scoffs. "Fine." He sticks his arms out, yawning while curving both palms over her breasts. Eunsook hums a little at the warmth, gasping and nearly backing away when he tightens his grip slightly.

"They're the same size," he finalizes, retrieving his hands.

"What do you know, you're not a bra."

"Life is unfair like that."

"Even if I had one boob, I don't think you'd notice."

Jonghyun laughs soundlessly, "If you had one boob, I'd still love you as if you had two."

"What if I had three?"

Jonghyun cocks a brow. "That depends."

"On what?"

"Where would the third one be?"

Eunsook flicks his forehead then gestures at her chest, "At the center, obviously."

Jonghyun rubs his forehead, the spot cautiously reaching a faded pink shade that almost makes Eunsook guilty. "I thought you might say something weird, like, on your foot."

"Ow."

"I know," Jonghyun agrees. "Would it be the same size as Jong and Hyun?"

Eunsook can't figure out how to respond to that properly. "You named my breasts after you?"

Jonghyun simply nods. "The third one will be named Kim. In case you were wondering."

"I wasn't."

"Question: will Kim be more or less sensitive than the other two? Because you never know with the middle children."

"Fuck you, I'm going back to bed."

Jonghyun laughs loudly this time, but not without protesting with a similar conundrum involving a second penis.

*masterficlist | tumblr | twitter | comment here to be added

-- i don't even know.

It's been a while!

hipslip — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 10:12:43 GMT

Hi,

So, to everyone who has been waiting for me to update any of my existing fics (or just update in general), I suppose I owe you all an apology/explanation? Maybe I don't, but I've been feeling guilty for being inactive recently and I just want it to be clear to everyone who still follows my updates that I have every intention of updating in the future.

I have some stuff in stored-- mostly drabbles, and perhaps some two-shots-- however, I have yet to complete my chaptered fics. And the explanation for my disappearance is irrelevant and boring. The point is that I'm still alive, and summer break is coming in a few weeks, so maybe, just fucking MAYBE I'll be posting again by then.

That is all. ^^;

Yoonis.

Here's Where it's Wrong

hipslip — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 17:50:10 GMT

pg // onew/taemin // ~500 w
-- inspired by a scene from why stop now.

The reason why Jinki has to practice his piece for his audition-- by drumming his fingers on his knees, as opposed to a piano-- in the dealer's poorly ventilated living room is because his mom can't get into rehab lest she dirties her urine with drugs.

The drug dealer, he goes by Tommy, but Jinki has seen him in school with his ripped pants and blonde hair, hands pocketed from sight. In school, they called him Taemin.

"What is that?" Tommy is calloused and young and a little flimsy around the edges. He crosses his legs and points at Jinki's hands. "Is that a nervous tick?"

Jinki's hands freeze. "No. I have an audition later."

"You a singer?"

Jinki makes a noise lodged at the base of his throat. He clears it down, "Pianist."

"You have an audition for piano school?"

When Tommy says it like that, the university that holds all of Jinki's dreams loses its grace. As though it were a school meant for students who wanted to build pianos, never play them. "Sure."

"That explains the tie." Tommy puffs a cigarette from the side of his lips.

"It also explains why I'm in a hurry."

"Cocaine won't calm your nerves."

"It's not for me. It's for my mother." It used to pain Jinki to say it: My mother is a crack head. People were evil is why. People made him ashamed of his mother.

"Who's your mother?"

The woman who couldn't come down here herself because she still owes you money. "That's neither here nor there. Let's just make this transaction happen so that I may be on my way."

"Well, shit." Tommy coughs through his exhale of smoke. "Don't get all fancy on me now." He stands up, corners a dresser and pulls out a drawer. Who keeps drugs in such a haphazardly placed storage? "How much do you need?"

Jinki takes out what's left of his allowance, rolled up in a rubber band. "However much this gets me."

Tommy kills his cigarette on the ashen surface of the dresser, drags himself over and takes the money. He uncoils the rubber band, wears it on his wrist while he counts, black lining the underside of the tips of his nails as so meticulously and uselessly observed by Jinki. Tommy whistles by the time he's done counting. "You want your mother to get this high?"

"It's a long story."

"Maybe we can smoke a joint and you can tell me about it."

Jinki is positive that he's joking. Still, though, "I'd rather go to my audition as sober as possible, thanks."

"Suit yourself." Tommy replies with a half smirk and comes back with a bag of white powder.

Jinki reaches for it immediately, gets on his feet just to make clear that he has no intentions of dawdling through a murky attempt at small talk. "Thank you. I'll let myself out." Jinki pockets the drugs and plays his piece in his mind.

"Good luck with your audition." Tommy gets the door for Jinki anyways. "You'll probably make it. Your tie looks lucky."

Jinki doesn't even know what to say to that. He walks out, head down.

"I'll see you Monday, Jinki." Even without seeing the smile on Tommy's face, Jinki knows it's there. He hears it, imagines it, dreads it.

But when he turns around, all he's faced with is the door.

*masterficlist | tumblr | *new* twitter | comment here to be added

-- i didn't make it to jinki's bday! FAIL.
still. belated happy birthday fic for onew.
may your thighs prosper and your fail
expand and your jeans grow impossibly
tighter. i love you.

suzy's anthology

hipslip — Sun, 18 Nov 2012 16:34:42 GMT

r // amber/suzy // ~4k w
-- this is the product of lykke li on repeat
and a lot of concentrated feelings during the
hours of 12-6 am.

music: unrequited by lykke li

When you are a girl and you go against the grain, wear old hand me downs from your older brother who is now in the army, have your hair chopped in all the wrong places, and have the coordination and grace that rhyme with awkward, the only friends that you can expect from high school are the lockers.

Why?

You get run into them so much, that bang of shoulder joints and metal is what truly wakes you up in the morning. You can take Amber's word for it.

Permanent bruise on her right arm, book bag strap hanging low by the crook of her elbow, her math homework glued to the dried soda on the marble floor framed by her other belongings, just another Monday morning. The first stop through the cycle of being shoved against under-maintenance school facilities by high and holy rollers from one class to the next-- they all looked the same to her now. Muscle memory worth of four years assists Amber in not glaring as the kids watch her pick up her things while they walk backwards. Because the cool kids have eyes on the back of their heads or something mystical like that.

They cheer for the extra effort Amber has to put in everyday just to get to class, the way she has to peel her papers off the floor, notebooks pressed face down… she rolls her eyes, huffs a breath and stands up.

"Ehem," Oh, great, a follow up.

Amber spins around to face the source of the sound, head already tilted up only to be met with a head of black hair. Amber directs her stare lower, now faced with soft eyes and cheeks, a careful smile blooming across bare lips.

"Is this yours?" She holds out Amber's wallet. She must have missed it.

"Yes." Amber answers back, monotonous. She takes it with one hand; this girl could not possibly be older than her anyway. "Thank you."

"It slipped from your back pocket." She explains further, not that Amber suspected her of attempting to commit theft on school grounds. "Have a nice day."

It is kind of odd, though, how when she dips her wallet back in her pocket, it sinks all the way to the bottom snugly.

∞

The subconscious mind is quite amazing. It makes you realize how you're looking someone by making it directly equivalent to how much you take note of their absence. One does not always have to equal the other, but in Amber's case, it's been a week, and she hasn't seen that girl yet.

∞

Hours always feel like months when it's Friday.

While some prepare themselves for a weekend of liver debauchery by binge drinking, and unprotected, premarital sex, Amber gets comfortable in a squeaky, booger green chair. The cotton of the seat has absorbed more dust than a vacuum, and it's been around for ages from the look and sound of it, just as old as the desk in front of Amber, yet ostensibly the same age as the head librarian. This is all purely empirical, of course.

It's her first day after a dreadfully mind-numbing discussion yesterday with Mrs. Ross, the head librarian, about the card catalog. Amber didn't like learning about it in first year English, she sure as hell didn't like it yesterday.

As expected, Fridays at the library is an uneventful affair, and playing Bejeweled on her cellphone can only entertain her for so long. Amber considers wandering about the books; maybe pick one out to read since it celebrates the basis of the establishment that she works in. Instead, she goes through the curious boxes of lost and found items beneath the desk, digs out a yoyo and conjures the perfect yoyo championship tournament this world has ever seen.

After some minutes of being locked in her head, she's about to propel her yoyo into a victorious, never before done trick, a swift play of string and physics and flashy hand motions when someone taps the bell on the desk.

Amber's concentration is compromised; the yoyo develops a mind of its own and somehow manages to fling itself right between her eyes. "MOTHER FU--"

"Ehem," it's clipped, familiar.

While nursing the spot on her forehead, she regains focus and faces the same girl from a week ago. The pretty thief.

"Hi." She says it informally like they're friends. Like Amber would care enough to correct her. Seeing Amber in such an embarrassing position doesn't allow for instant friendship, though. Especially when there's mirth in the girl's eyes. Amber feels defensive, imagines herself running off a cliff.

She doesn't bother with a reply, just a brief smile that doesn't reach her eyes. Amber goes straight to business, takes the book from the girl's hand… dumbly stares at it.

"Uhm." The girl is smiling now, not bothering to hide it. The nerve. Amber hasn't seen her in days and this is how she chooses to reappear, during Amber's weakest! "I'm returning it."

"Return. Right." Amber scurries for the drawers casing the library cards. What is she looking for? Amber shakes her head, looks back at the girl, smiles, then looks at the book, flips to the back page and finds the card where her name is… "Suzy."

"Yes?" She sounds expectant.

"Oh, oh, no. I just. That's your name." Amber points at the book.

"Yeah?" Even if she didn't say, "So?" it still came off that way.

"Yeah." Amber directs her attention back at the library cards, replaying those two seconds of terrible mismatched conversation, mentally calls herself deficient.

She finally finds Suzy's card, plucks it out, using her elbow to shut the drawer back. Amber takes out the record book, a pen caught between the pages, book spine cracking with old age when she flips it open. "Just sign here."

It's odd. Amber wants the girl-- Suzy-- gone. She counts down the seconds it takes for her to sign, but when Suzy meets Amber's gaze, she stops counting. Suzy has the smile of bunnies, two front teeth prominent in comparison to the others. Her smile screams, "Look! Look at how cute I am!" and look Amber does because she's a complex person who can't even understand herself. But Suzy's smile is simple. Maybe all it really wants is a smile in return.

Amber smiles, but only because it would be rude not to.

Amber borrows the same book home, reads it from cover to cover in bed. It’s a collection of poems, the type that reads easy, about love and the fine line between love and unhealthy fixation. And soon, Amber's attention span favors sleep. She flips through the remaining pages, notices an orange glow in one of them, holds a palm over the book to flatten it down. A paragraph is highlighted in orange:

My clear bones take shape in the mouth of glassblower with asthma
for there is no perfection in me
but maybe clarity.

∞

Cafeteria lunch is terrible on its own. To have mini balls of chewed up tissue propelled from a straw into Amber's synthetically concocted egg during lunch, that's just plain overkill. Courtesy of the group of guys seated a couple of table's down, of course. Amber must admit, the guy's got a good aim.

She plucks out as much of the tissue balls as she can with her chopsticks, when a brown paper bag sits on the table. Amber frowns at the object she suspects has fallen from the ceiling, crawls her stare upward, gets reacquainted with Suzy's soft eyes.

"Can I join you?"

Amber, instead of gracing her with even a typical "I don't know, can you?", finds herself tilting her head to the side to inspect the tissue ball throwing table. They've gone silent; the one guy puts his straw down slowly like a weapon being surrendered during battle.

Suzy doesn't wait for a response. She joins Amber without a moment's notice, already unrolling the crumpled mouth of the paper bag. "He's my step brother. He won't do anything while I'm here. I'm Suzy, by the way."

"I didn't need you to do that."

Suzy only smiles brighter, producing two foiled sandwiches from the bag. "You're welcome." She offers the second sandwich to Amber.

Amber is left dubious.

"It's not rat poison, it's peanut butter and bread." Amber still doesn't respond, goes back to filtering her lunch of spit balls. Suzy sighs, pushing Amber's tray of food to one side, making a show of unwrapping the sandwich she was offering earlier and tearing a piece for her to bite. "See? Still alive."

Suzy lays the sandwich before Amber, concentrates on consuming her own.

"What's your name?" Suzy asks moments later when Amber begins to take a liking to the sandwich. If only Suzy cut the crusts off.

"Amber."

"You work at the library." She concludes more than questions.

"Fridays and Saturdays."

"And you checked out my book."

"What?" Amber sees Suzy through her lashes, blinks.

"Not my book, obviously, I can't write for shit. The book I borrowed. Born in the Year of the Butterfly Knife? You borrowed it, too."

Amber does a half-shrug. What says nonchalance more than half-assing a gesture that literally means you don't care? "It's public property."

Suzy nods, doesn't say much else afterwards.

∞

Suzy visits the library during Fridays to not study.

She picks out different books, never borrows them, and instead decides that Amber needs more vocalized literature in her life.

While Amber spins herself around the squeaky booger chair, Suzy perches atop the aged desk, swinging her legs to and fro, and reads aloud conversations, brutal murder scenes, passionate love affairs, and the gaps she fills in with her thoughts. And Amber sits there, begrudgingly inching into Suzy's world, watches closely as the strands of Suzy's hair slide from the tuck behind her ear because she constantly rakes her fingers from forehead to nape. Suzy talks with her hands, reads with emotions playing in her eyes, gasps dramatically at plot twists she has read before.

In the following weeks, Amber has learned that Suzy is only willing to die for two things: Peanut butter and poetry.

Out of curiosity, Amber finds herself asking, "What would you kill for?"

Suzy applies a posh accent, "Love, darling. What else is worth killing for?"

∞

There are times when Suzy can just come off a bit strong. Like when she invites herself to Amber's house, goes through Amber's not so impressive selection of Agatha Christie novels and Japanese Manga that Suzy cannot pronounce the title of even if her precious bunny smile depended on it.

Their third bag of chips has gone stale, soda flat, by the time they start watching Ginger Snaps. Call it delusion, but Amber identifies a lot with embellished representations of the puberty rhetoric. Also, she gets a kick out of fake blood and superficial screams, but her attention span only allows her such amusement for half an hour.

And then she notices… that Suzy breathes really loud. Or was that her?

Or maybe it's just that they're seated thigh to thigh in the suburbs, in Amber's room where all signs outside of her door scream do not disturb to her loving parents. And Amber is aware of how incredibly alone they are. How it should be uncomfortable, but it isn't. Now she's going back to the memory of her first kiss, mentally panics because what the fuck does that mean?

The word dances in her head, taunts her: Kiss, kiss, kiss, playing on loop in her douchebag brain. Her eye roll is cut short by the crunch of the chip bag, Suzy's hand blindly reaching over to Amber's lap where the bag rests.

Amber grinds her teeth together, fails to concentrate on the movie which sucks because this is her favorite part. Suzy's hand cranes chips to her mouth, tilts her head back, munches with tiny coarse crystals of salt sticking to her cheek. Suzy gets the bits off with the back of her hand.

Amber places the bag on Suzy's lap. "I don't want anymore."

Suzy accepts the chips, fixated on the screen. "Would you ever do that?"

"Do what?"

"Cut your own tail?"

"What?"

"Like Ginger." Suzy tears her gaze away from the horrid demonstration on the screen that inspired her question.

Amber notices how even the side of her right leg is pressed to Suzy's, yet she doesn't remember who inched closer to whom. "I don't have a tail."

"Okay." Suzy seems to deflect a DUH in favor of proceeding with the topic. "Let's say you had a tail. Would you cut it off just to be accepted?"

"Accepted by whom? Your step brother?"

"Tsk." She pinches Amber's side, regains the connection of their thighs touching, now they're also joined by the shoulders.

"I don't know. When I was little, I'd pull my own teeth out."

"What." She laughs freely, mouth wide open that Amber can almost smell the hint of preservatives and coke in her breath.

"Yeah. You know. When you can push a loose tooth back and forth? That first sign of weakness, I attack it with my tongue for the first few days. And then when it's good and loose, I pull it out myself."

"With your hands?"

"Yeah." Amber nods, makes a gesture of it, clicks her tongue to sound the removal of her tooth. "Just like that."

Suzy cringes, looks more like a bunny with her nose scrunched up.

"Why? Would you cut off your tail?"

Suzy shakes her hair off her shoulders. "No. I'd wear it proudly. Then I'd stab anyone who called me a freak behind my back." She adds further in case she was unclear earlier. "With my tail. I'd stab them with my tail."

Amber tries to figure out if she's serious. Most times, she can't tell at all. "That's harsh."

Suzy grins. "When in doubt, freak them out." She winks.

∞

Amber gradually realizes that maybe, just maybe, she's the tail that Suzy likes to wear proudly. It sounds ridiculous at first, but why else would she hangout with Amber?

Saturdays, Suzy and Amber wander around town, tire their feet out and get frozen yoghurt from a shop they would like to think is theirs because no one they know ever goes there. Their conversations stir from skin deep to obnoxiously philosophical in a matter of heart beats.

Every week, Suzy reads Amber's palm. She thinks that the lines change as you grow older. Amber's neither superstitious nor stupid. Suzy's making that shit up. Amber doesn't know what she finds more comforting: the fact that Suzy can only say great things about what's to come, or the warmth of Suzy's palm beneath hers.

∞

But then there are days when Suzy doesn't speak at all. She ignores Amber, drifts off in her own world, walks through the halls of school like she doesn't know Amber.

Suzy would disappear for alternating days and then the next time she'd see her, she'd be all bunny smiles and palm reading and telling Amber about how all of Edgar Allan Poe's poems are about death-- "How tedious."

Suzy goes to school one day, circles under her eyes, colorless and expressionless. Amber leans on the locker next to Suzy's, grins at her, "You look like an Edgar Allan Poe poem."

She misses the bunny smile. It's no secret to her and she doesn't plan on keeping it a secret from Suzy. But Suzy looks beaten down, like her heart is broken, like she doesn't believe in anything anymore.

"Suzy?"

Suzy slowly wraps her arms around Amber's waist, in the middle of the hallway, in the midst of students who are giving them side stares. Amber can barely register anything else. This time she drops her bag and her things on her own accord to return Suzy's hug.

∞

"What." Suzy's standing in the threshold of her house, tapping her foot impatiently at Amber who still can't find it in herself to step inside.

"I should go home."

"Shut up." Suzy latches both hands on Amber's wrist and tugs her inside the house.

It's like walking inside a tree. Everything is wood, a gradient of browns and maroons, with the exception of figurines, the carpets, curtains, picture frames of Suzy and her step brother from past to present.

Suzy doesn't let go of Amber's hand when they pass by the living room where she sees Suzy's step brother with his friends, halting what seemed like a heated game of Black Ops to gape at Suzy with her tail.

"Suzy, the fuck are you bringing into my house?"

"Stop talking like you have a mortgage." Suzy mumbles, continuing up the stairs with Amber in tow. "In here." Amber steps in Suzy's room first, all of the walls hidden beneath a collage of magazine clippings and torn up posters.

"Woah."

The moment Suzy shuts the door in place, Cody barges in with a steroid-juiced lemming behind him. Like they need an army.

"Damnit, Cody!"

"What the fuck is that thing doing here?" Cody darts a finger at Amber over Suzy's head, the giant that he is.

Amber thinks that if she's fast enough, which she is, she can duck under Cody's muscular arm, push the lemming over, dash for the door and she'd be out in less than a minute. She's rooted to her spot, though, stands there just sort of transfixed at the spit that flies from Cody's mouth, worries that it'll hit Suzy's hair.

"None of your fucking business, get out of my room!"

"You think you can just waltz in here?"

"Do you want me to call mom?!" Suzy takes out her cellphone from her pocket and begins to dial.

"Suzy, seriously! People are starting to talk!"

Suzy defiantly activates the loud speaker, lets Cody hear the ringing on the other line.

"This is your fucking grave you're digging, remember that." He's already walking back, taking his friend with him.

"Get out!" Suzy slams the door in his face, spins and leans back on it. "Loser."

"I told you I should have gone home."

"And put all that effort to waste?" Suzy's smiling again. She pushes away the pillows and stuffed toys by the headboard of her bed. "Sit down."

Amber lies back, relaxes a bit. She twists around on her stomach while Suzy rummages through her drawers for something. Suzy pulls out a plastic bottle and a toolbox, comes back and hops on the bed, a switch blade caught between her lips.

Mesmerized, Amber rolls to her side, leans up on her elbow and watches as Suzy's brows furrow in concentration. She pulls out the blade, slices the paper wrapped around the bottle, uncaps it, lays the switch blade down on her lap to get a pen from her pocket, extracting the everything from the pen until it's just the plastic casing left.

"What are you doing?" Amber asks, voice low because she doesn't want Suzy to stop.

Suzy doesn't. "You'll see."

She sticks the tip of the blade as far into the plastic mouth of the pen as she can, skins it around to loosen the circumference. She blows the dusted plastic scraped from the plastic mouth of the pen, opens the tool box and holds out the mini funnel of the socket wrench, tests the fit in the plastic pen by joining the two piece, stem in mouth. "Bellissima!"

Amber smirks, moves a bit closer.

Suzy proceeds with the plastic bottle, pulls out a nail from the toolbox and pokes a hole about an inch and half up from the butt of the bottle. She carves the hole wider with the blade, connects the pen casing to it by sticking it in the hole, and wraps a rubber band around and under the pen so it's lifted upward.

"Tada!" Suzy tosses her creation to Amber. It lands and hits Amber's stomach.

"A bottle bong?"

"One of my many talents." She grabs the bottle bong back, stands up and jumps off the bed.

"What did you make the bong for?" Amber asks dumbly.

"So we can smoke baby food." Suzy laughs, skips her way to the bathroom and comes back with the bottle filled with an inch or so of water. She grabs a lighter on the dresser. "Hold these."

Suzy grabs her bag, unzips the pocket in front and produces a ziplock plastic bag of weed.

"Aren't you going to lock the door?" Amber asks as soon as Suzy gets back on the bed, sits down Indian style.

"I don't have a lock." She ties her hair up in a bun, settles the bottle bong on her lap and pinches a ball of weed from the bag, inserting it into the metal socket. She sparks up the lighter, caps the mouth of the makeshift bong with her lips and inhales the same time that she closes the distance between the flame and the socket. The water bubbles up while she sucks in the smoke forming inside the bottle, her eyes half lidded.

Amber can't deny how she is inexplicably enthralled by Suzy's every move, how she can't, even for a second, tear her gaze away from Suzy's actions. She locks her stare on Suzy's lips, watches the smoke take the shape of circles shifting to nothing by the time Suzy starts giggling.

She offers the bottle to Amber wordlessly. Amber sits up, mimics Suzy's actions, keeps her eyes open the entire time because Suzy is watching her now, and she wants to come off as someone who knows what she's doing.

The only other time Amber's ever tried weed was about a year ago in the van of some kid she met through her former best friend. Who owned that van, up to this day, she still doesn't know. She has never taken a hit from a bong before, in front of someone that she direly wants to impress.

Alas, the smoke hits her throat like sandpaper, scratching her esophagus dry. The first cough she takes is followed by an array of heaves. Suzy laughs at her, as expected, sits up and takes the bong from her hands before she spills the weed water everywhere.

"Pussy." Suzy grins over the bong before her second hit. Amber's still trying to survive her first one.

"Burn--" Cough. "Burnout."

"Bitch." Suzy lets the smoke flow easy from her mouth.

"Attention whore." Amber seethes, looking her up and down.

"Cunt."

"Skank."

Suzy narrows her eyes. "Dyke."

They both go silent. Amber feels headless.

Then Suzy is hurriedly getting up on her knees. Amber does the same. She's able to swiftly settle the bong on the floor before Suzy clashes their lips together, urgently tasting Amber's lips, slipping her tongue in, chasing smoke. Suzy's palms are firm against Amber's stomach, sliding up beneath the lapels of Amber's jacket to slip it off her shoulders.

She weighs down on Amber until she has to lie on her back, hands learning the juncture of Suzy's back to her buttocks. "Wait, what if… someone walks in?"

Suzy works a hand inside Amber's shirt. "They won't. Trust me."

Amber pictures the lines on her palm changing.

∞

In class, Amber perches her chin atop her hand to keep her head straight. Gradually, her teacher's voice drawls into white noise. When she loses her grip on her pen and it hits her knuckles, her eyelids shoot up. Now she has a cramp in her neck.

She tilts her head back, alternately shrugging her shoulders to fight the tension in her muscles. Like clockwork, her eyes land on Suzy by the time she's satisfied with her stretching.

Suzy's already looking over her shoulder, seated a couple of seats ahead in the row to Amber's right, a wary smile teasing one corner of her lips.

While the entire class writes down the teacher's dictation, Amber engages in a staring contest with Suzy. The tip of Suzy's tongue peeks from one corner, slowly dragging along her upper lip, Amber's gaze helplessly trailing the motion. Amber can almost taste the seam of her mouth, subconsciously bites her own lower lip.

Suzy smirks in response, Amber does the same, and then she turns back around, sets time back in motion.

Amber likes this secret language. She likes how naturally fluent she is in it. And Suzy is just as beautiful as sin.

Later, Suzy raises her hand, "May I be excused?" while Amber is taking down notes.

She only notices Suzy when the other girl grazes a finger along her forearm as she passes by. Amber's concentration goes haywire.

Amber counts to 16, and then asks to be excused, too.

∞

Cody doesn't go after Amber as much anymore. They've moved on to other victims in school, leaving Amber in peace. His power over Amber has been reduced to a sneer that he often does when Suzy takes her home.

∞

Suzy doesn't come to the library like she promised. After months, Amber's more than used to her inconsistencies.

But then Suzy doesn't show up for weeks. The first time that Suzy tries to contact her through text, "Cody is missing." everything falls into place.

She shows up at Suzy's doorstep anxiously, ringing the doorbell a few more times.

Suzy opens the door, her eyes swollen, a hitch in her breath when she stutters, "I don't… I don't know…"

Amber snatches her by the waist, calms her down by rubbing her back. It helps with the breathing, but she doesn't stop crying.

They share a cigarette by the steps outside, watch the sun slowly being cradled in its descent.

"The police left an hour ago. All I know is that he was out drinking a few days ago and that was the last I saw of him. He would always go out, though. So when he didn't come home for the next few days I didn't think much of it."

Amber takes a puff, bellows smoke out. "What about your mom."

"Tch. She's always in one country or another, busy with work, I don't fucking know anymore. I lost track since 2010."

"But your brother's missing."

"Step brother." Suzy snaps.

Amber lets it go, flicks cigarette ash on the ground. "That's a pretty shitty thing to do."

"She's a pretty shitty parent."

Amber studies Suzy's profile, the anger in her eyes. She finishes off the cigarette and tosses the butt. "Come on. Let's go to bed."

Amber keeps an arm circled around Suzy's waist as they enter the house. She makes sure to lock the door before proceeding up the stairs.

"I'm gonna take a shower first." Amber kicks her shoes off when he follows Suzy inside the room. She acknowledges Amber with a nod, drops on her bed like deadweight.

Amber walks into bathroom, almost slips on the wet tiles. She grabs the rim of the sink for balance, cautiously undressing and then stepping into the shower.

She has her eyes screwed shut while lathering her face with soap, when she hears a dip in the puddle on the tiles. "Suzy?"

Arms wrap around her waist from behind, every swell and curve of Suzy's naked body pressing onto her back.

She's shaking, breath warming up Amber's shoulder blades. "Don't speak.

Amber rinses her face, rubs her eyes and just stands there. Her stomach flips, gaze dropping to Suzy's hands locked against her stomach.

"He broke my lock. He would come in at night. He would tell me he loved me."

Amber blinks as the water runs down her lashes.

"It didn't matter at first. Until I you."

Amber's breathing struggles to keep up with the riot in her chest. "Suzy…"

"I wanna show you something."

∞

"You'd be surprised…" Suzy explains while pulling the chain of the backdoor of the library apart. "at how easy it is to break in here."

A chill drifts down Amber's spine. She never thought she had intuition or anything remotely ESP, but tonight all of her senses were awake as she trekked after Suzy in the darkened backroom. She takes out a flashlight, twists it on and clamps it in her mouth as she releases a bobby pin from her hair, shaking her fringe away from her eyes. She picks the lock.

And only then does it occur to Amber how terrifyingly dexterous Suzy is. When the lock comes apart, Suzy opens the door to the main library. She keeps her flashlight on because even with the shine from the streetlights outside, it's still fairly dark with the looming shelves.

She stops at the poetry section, something that Amber somehow predicted. Suzy turns to face Amber, her bunny smile shining through the dark, while walking backwards to the middle of the aisle.

She shines the light on Amber's knees, the light glowing enough for both of them to be seen. Amber focuses her stare on Suzy so hard that it's only her that she sees.

"Do you love me, Amber?"

Bile crawls up Amber's throat. She gulps it down. "Yes."

Suzy smiles, shyly nibbling on her bottom lip. "Then don't look up."

Amber frowns in confusion when a drop of bright red falls on Suzy's cheek. Suzy doesn't make an effort to wipe it off. She allows it to trickle down to her jaw, her smile not as simple as Amber thought it was.

"Don't look up."

*masterficlist | tumblr | *new* twitter | comment here to be added

-- i don't even know how to apologize
for posting something so pathetic after
an unexpected hiatus. regardless, i am
just glad to be writing again and retracking
old fics. tbh, when i first started writing
this months ago, i had very little in store
for the progression of it. and this is
how it turned out. :|

KPOP RP ON FACEBOOK: COME ONE, COME ALL!

hipslip — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 04:06:44 GMT

Hello Everyone! SO Yoonis and Ellie have done the unimaginable (read: impulsive): made facebook roleplay accounts! \o/

It started off with Ellie doing it for kicks to use as an outlet for her irl pseudo-love with Jay, but it's expanding -YAY! Point being - you guys should definitely join us :D As the experience is and will be fun, cute, squishy, cute, and just indulgent k.

( read more... )