It's the Sound of Love.
Title: It's the Sound of Love
Rating: R
Pairing: Junhyung/Hyunseung
Word Count: 3,477
Summary: Junhyung can't even hear his own breathing, but there's a faint soft melody that keeps him going, a faint soft melody that helps him learn to change for the better.
A/N: this has been collecting dust in my documents for almost 3 weeks now, but i had no confidence to post it, until kueteel forced encouraged me. thanks for everything, i love you 8D
They say you have to experience love to truly understand it. Junhyung doesn’t agree. He’s never been in love, yet he sure as hell understands it. Or else why would all these people constantly come ask him for love advice?
“Juuuuuuuunnnnniieeeee~” he silently curses in his head as he hears the oh-too-familiar squeal. It was his current girlfriend, and his 4th of the year. It was only May.
She was definitely a beauty: small, cute and delicate, with long dyed blonde hair and a nice S line body.
He gave her a sloppy kiss and let her cling onto him as they made their way to class, or rather, as they made their way to skip class. Junhyung doesn’t bother with school, because it’d get him nowhere in life. School won’t get him his motorcycle, school won’t get him the latest technology, school won’t get him fancy clothes, but his parents sure will and that’s all that’s enough.
Honestly, Junhyung doesn’t know what he wants in life. He sits on the rooftop of the school, puffing on his cigarette, staring out at the clouds rolling along, wasting seconds, minutes, as they tick by. He laughs, because he’s high and there’s nothing to laugh about, but he laughs anyways. His life is a wreck, his whole entire existence is a wreck, but heck, he doesn’t give a fuck.
He puts out his cigarette and makes his way home, proud that for once, he doesn’t smell like cheap perfume. He passes by the tattoo parlour and something must have caught his eye, because the next thing he knows, there’s a needle under his skin and black words start to appear on his forearm. It hurts so damn much, but Junhyung decides he likes it, that he likes the pain and gets another one on his collarbone.
“Yong Junhyung, where have you been? Your principal called and told me you weren’t in class again today. You smell like smoke and what is that on your arm?! You better answer me, young man!”, he hears his mother say as he walks through the door but he’s too indifferent and tired to care.
“Answer me!”
“Oh, so why do you care so much now? It’s too late for that mom, go put your hopes on someone else.”
He turns around and leaves the house again, letting the door slam shut behind him as he ignores his mother’s calls for him. He just needs to get away. He grabs the keys from his pocket and lets the motorcycle start with a loud roar of the engine.
He can’t even see straight anymore as everything zooms pass him like a blur of colours and lines. He’s driving at 190 km/h and fuck was it ever thrilling.
And then there were screams and he’s lying on the floor, the colours disappear and now it’s only a mixture of red and gray. The screams get louder and louder and he thinks he hears sirens in the background, but his head hurts so damn much that he doesn’t know what’s what anymore. All he knows is that the floor he is lying on is extremely comfortable and he wants to take a nap right there. There are people walking towards him and he hears the clack of their footsteps, clack, clack, clack, and that’s the last thing he hears.
He wakes up, and it’s silent. It’s white and it’s silent, and he doesn’t remember what happened last. It feels like a hangover, but he doesn’t remember drinking and he’s not at home or in some girl’s bed.
He tries to get up, but his body aches and he can’t, so he just lies there and stares at the ceiling. He doesn’t know where he is, but it was too silent for his liking, and he’d rather be at a club, dancing away to the blasting music. It was too quiet to be a rave, it was too quiet to be school, it was too quiet to be his house, it was too quiet to be anywhere really, so he forces himself up to look around. He sees people talking, but it’s silent. He sees machines that should be beeping, but it’s silent. He sees high heels making contact with the floor, but it’s silent.
He screams, screams so loud that his throat hurts and his lungs are running out of air, but he continues screaming, because he can’t hear a thing.
He sees people running up to him in concern, but he looks around and he can’t recognize anyone. He keeps screaming until he sees a doctor run in, along with his mom. She looks different, different than what he remembered she looked yesterday; her hair is short and she looks older, and Junhyung gets confused.
She’s crying as she hands him a letter, she’s crying so much she can’t even stay in the room and leaves, and Junhyung opens the letter. He reads it over, once, twice and chucks it at the wall.
He was involved in a car accident 3 years ago, where he almost lost his life. They managed to save him, but he’s been lying in a coma since. His dad, unable to handle seeing his son like this, had a heart attack and died and his mom’s been living in a world of debts. He’s still alive, but he’s never going to hear again, forever living in silence. He can’t even hear his own breathing and he’s not quite sure he’s going to make it though.
His life is still a wreck, but that’s just the way he likes it.
They meet at a bar and Junhyung is drunk. He doesn’t know why he’s there because he can’t hear the music anyways, but he’s drunk and is now in the middle of the dance floor, letting the closest women grind up on him. Soon, he gets tired and goes back to his table, calling some random waiter to get him another glass.
It must have been something in his drinks because when the waiter arrives again, he’s gorgeous and Junhyung’s pulling him towards himself. Their lips crash together for a rough kiss and Junhyung loses the last of his control and drags the waiter to the closest washroom. The door was barely closed and locked but Junhyung already had the other boy slammed against it. Junhyung’s rough and though he feels the resistance, he’s determined to make the waiter want him just as bad. Needy lips travel down the other’s neck, biting, licking, sucking, and Junhyung doesn’t know what he’s thinking when his hands slip up the other’s shirt.
For a second, Junhyung’s surprised that his hands aren’t met by soft full breasts, but honestly, it kind of turns him on more than it should. His hands run over the other’s toned body, letting his fingers pause slightly when it reached the sensitive tip of the boy’s nipples, enjoying the way the waiter’s body tenses at the touch. He slides his hands out of his shirt and fumbles with the buttons. He fails, and he blames the alcohol, when his hands move farther down to tug at the boy’s belt instead. He’s needy and he rolls his hips against the other’s, because he wants the friction, he wants the contact so bad.
Junhyung looks up at the waiter and in that same second he regrets it, because the boy has tears running down his face and he’s crying, crying so hard that Junhyung’s heart breaks and he stops. He’s needy, and he’s drunk, but he stops and lets the boy go and he runs, runs away from Junhyung so fast, he feels his heart sink a little. Junhyung leaves too, calling a taxi home, because he wasn’t in the mood to have more fun anymore. He wakes up the next day with a pounding headache and he regrets drinking so much.
They don’t see each other again until it turns to December. It’s cold, the streets are empty, and it’s silent as usual. There is the occasional car that passes by, and the occasional couple walking together, bundled up together to share as much body heat as possible. He’s walking through the streets, liking the way he can see his breath because it reminds him that he’s still breathing, that he’s still alive.
And that’s when he first hears it. A faint, soft melody and Junhyung doesn’t understand. He follows it and ends up in front of a dance studio and so he peers from outside the window. There’s a boy there, a boy in a black beanie, a wife beater and sweatpants. Junhyung can see his face reflect off the mirrors, and he’s gorgeous, with his dark brown hair falling over his eyes.
The melody continues and the boy starts to dance, his body moving in a way like no other. Junhyung just stares because he’s amazed, and he continues to stare when he remembers the boy at the bar, the boy slammed against the door, the boy he ran his hands over. Junhyung continues to watch, because damn the boy can dance. And then he smiles, because the melody is just as beautiful as the boy and he can actually hear it. He doesn’t quite understand it, but he can hear it and that’s all that’s enough.
The boy stops suddenly and turns around to face Junhyung and his face is marked with horror. Perhaps he recognized him, and Junhyung runs. He runs because maybe he’s scared, scared that he doesn’t know what to do and how to deal with the boy. He runs because maybe he’s a coward and only knows how to run away from his problems, to run away and get high.
Junhyung doesn’t know why he’s back outside the dance studio the next day, and the next, and the next, but he’s there and the melody still plays on. The boy starts to relax as he realizes that Junhyung wasn’t going to do anything to him this time, that he’s only there to watch him dance from outside the window. The melody gets stronger and louder with each passing day. It’s amazing, completely indescribable, and Junhyung smiles.
But one day, it’s silent again. The streets are quiet and Junhyung doesn’t hear a thing. The boy’s not there.
Junhyung waits. He waits and waits, but the boy doesn’t return. He waits and waits, but he doesn’t hear the melody anymore, and Junhyung returns to his old life, because he doesn’t know how to do anything else.
Time ticks by and Junhyung is wasting his life away but he couldn’t care less. He’s drunk or high most of the time, and when he’s not, he’s hung over and wishing life would be over. He tries to replay the melody in his head, but he can’t, he just can’t. It’s been too long, and Junhyung gives up.
He wakes up one summer morning with a pounding headache, and damn he should be used to it by now, yet it still throbs and bothers Junhyung like crazy. He throws on some random clothes, probably the ones he wore yesterday, and goes downstairs. He needs a coffee so bad but he can’t get the machine to work. He’s too lazy and tired to try to fix it, so he heads for the nearest coffee shop.
He walks by a stage, and it could have been a festival or a performance, but Junhyung doesn’t know nor care. Normally, he probably wouldn’t have given it a second glance, but he thinks he hears something faint in the background. Something so familiar, but so lost in his memories, and it’s beautiful. Junhyung looks around, forgetting about his headache, and that’s when he spots him again.
He’s a backup dancer, dancing and sweating up there on stage and Junhyung stares, because that’s the only thing that he’s capable of doing right now. All his memories fly back to him, the night in the bar, the cold winter day with the melody, the dance studio, and waiting, waiting for someone that never returned.
Whatever that was going on must have been finished, because all the backup dancers leave the stage, and Junhyung runs, again back to running, but this time, not away. He’s running towards the boy.
He grabs him by the wrist, and pulls him away, not knowing where he’s going to take him, all he knows is that he needs to get away, away from this place. He doesn’t know if the other boy is yelling at him to get him to stop, because to Junhyung, he’s not, because he can’t hear anything and his back is on the boy, making him unable to lip read.
Junhyung keeps pulling the boy away, not wanting to turn around to face him, because he’s scared. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do, or why he did it, but it was all too late for that now.
He stops, and the boy yanks his arm away roughly, not caring if it would hurt himself. Junhyung doesn’t want to see the boy’s face, because he knows it’d be full of anger and disgust and pain, and seeing it like that would make Junhyung’s heart sink.
He turns around as slow as he can, he’s right, and Junhyung feels his breath stuck in his throat.
“I’m sorry...” He manages to cough out and he’s surprised it came out so easily.
The boy’s lips don’t move, so Junhyung continues.
“That night at the bar, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. I don’t really know why I got that carried away, and I know you didn’t want it, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry if I seemed like a stalker watching you dance. I’m sorry I’m here and I’m sorry dragged you away. I’m sorry I’m like this when I’m usually not. I’m just-”
He stops midway through his sentence when he feels the boy’s finger on his lips.
“It’s okay. I’m fine, I’ve gotten over it”, Junhyung manages to make out, and he smiles weakly back at the boy, because he doesn’t know if he’s just playing strong. “Now may I ask my stalker for his name?”
“Junhyung. Yong Junhyung.”
The boy smiles back at him, and Junhyung’s stomach does flips. “I’m Hyunseung.”
Hyunseung’s extremely understanding, and Junhyung doesn’t get drunk that night. They meet again the next day, because Hyunseung agreed to let Junhyung make it up to him.
Summer fades to fall, and despite all that happened between them, they managed to become good friends. Junhyung knows everything about Hyunseung and Hyunseung knows everything about Junhyung. The only thing Junhyung didn’t tell him was that he can’t hear. Whenever Hyunseung would tell him that a certain song on the radio sounds good, or the birds were chirping really loudly in the morning, all Junhyung could do is stupidly agree.
Junhyung hates having to lie to Hyunseung. It hurts him, sometimes to the point where he doesn’t want to be near the other boy, and those are the times he wants to say it so badly. But he’s scared, scared that Hyunseung would leave him if he found out. He doesn’t know why, but the thought of Hyunseung leaving scares him, and maybe it’s the melody, or maybe he’s grown attached to the boy. Junhyung is intoxicated by the melody, by him, and so he decides that tomorrow he’ll say it.
But tomorrow passes by, and it’s still left unsaid. He’d like to say it was because the moment wasn’t right, but he knows that it’s a lie, an excuse for his pathetic self.
He finds himself at the bar again after a long month, and he wants to get drunk and run away from his problems, even if it’s just for a while. So he chugs one glass after another, it’s more bitter than he remembers, but just as addictive and he loses count of how much he has.
He doesn’t know if it’s because he’s drunk, but he hears the melody playing around in his head. He figures it must be impossible since it only plays when Hyunseung is around, and he won’t be here since he made him quit his waiter job all those months ago. So he brushes it aside and continues drinking.
The next thing he knows, he sees a blur that resembles Hyunseung, and it probably is Hyunseung because he’s carrying him away. Junhyung sees his lips moving, so he knows he’s talking, but what exactly is he saying? He sees his lips moving and god damn it, he wants to kiss them so bad, because they look so good and soft and just so damn inviting, but even in his drunken state, he knows he shouldn’t, that he can’t.
He has his arm around Hyunseung and he’s leaning on him, while the other boy is trying to hold him up. They are in front of Junhyung’s apartment, and Hyunseung’s going through his pocket for his keys. Junhyung feels it, and he knows he should help, but he’s too dizzy to. He’s incoherent and he can’t think straight.
He’s lying on his bed, and he sees Hyunseung turning to leave. His body reacts without him telling it to, and he reaches out to grab Hyunseung’s wrist. He doesn’t want the boy to leave.
“Hyunseung-ah.... d-don’t go.... don’t ever leave me... I really like you... so... so I’m sorry I didn’t tell you... that I’m... that I’m deaf... I just didn’t want you to leave... don’t go...”
And then the alcohol fully kicks in and he blanks out.
The next morning, he’s surprised. He remembers drinking a lot, but his head doesn’t pound as much as it usually does. He reaches up to touch his forehead and he feels something wet and soft instead. It must have been a towel, but whatever it was, it felt nice and soothing.
He sits up and looks over to his right, seeing Hyunseung asleep on a chair next to his bed. Junhyung smiles. Hyunseung probably stayed and taken care of him last night, and he looks adorable when he’s asleep. Last night. What exactly happened last night though? Junhyung remembers wanting to kiss him, and then passing out on his bed. He thinks and thinks and thinks, but it just doesn’t come to him. He prays that he didn’t say anything that was supposed to be kept to himself.
Hyunseung wakes up and yawns. As he looks over to Junhyung and realizes that he was awake too, he smiles.
“You’re finally up? Feeling better?”
Junhyung nods.
“Um, you were really drunk last night... um, I’ll go make you breakfast, it’d be good for you.”
As he turns to leave, Junhyung grabs his wrist. Damn, this feels like déjà vu.
“Um.. I.. I didn’t say anything weird last night, did I?”
“Well, umm, you..” Hyunseung started, with a blush creeping up his face. “You might have told me that you couldn’t hear, and that... you liked me...”
Junhyung winced. “Fuck. Ah, well, look ahh... It’s true, and if it scares you away you can just go. I wasn’t planning on telling you like th-”
He was stopped short by the pair of softest lips ever, and he felt like he was in heaven. Butterflies were fluttering in his stomach, and there were mini fireworks going off in his heart. It was exactly like the first kiss type of kiss that he never had. He was kissing Hyunseung, and it was better than anything he could ever imagine.
When they finally pulled away for air, they were both flush with big silly grins on their faces. There was a silence, but it more like a comfortable silence, because neither wanted to ruin the perfect moment.
“Ah, um, I’ll go make you breakfast!” Hyunseung was still completely red when he jumped up to go leave, and Junhyung laughs.
So maybe he does regret how his life turned out even if he would never openly admit it, but if he only got to meet Hyunseung because his life was a wreck, then he doesn’t regret anything, because it was namely the best thing that happened in his life.
Maybe it had to take the melody, beautiful melody that Junhyung needs like the air he breathes, the beautiful melody that he can hear, the beautiful melody that only he can hear, to realize that there are better things that life could offer. Even though he can’t hear now, and perhaps he never really could, he’s going to try to make up for everything and start over, with Hyunseung right by his side to be his ears and to guide him
And even if maybe he can’t hear his own breathing, or the sound of his heart beating, he knows that if Hyunseung is there, he’s going to make it through.
Rating: R
Pairing: Junhyung/Hyunseung
Word Count: 3,477
Summary: Junhyung can't even hear his own breathing, but there's a faint soft melody that keeps him going, a faint soft melody that helps him learn to change for the better.
A/N: this has been collecting dust in my documents for almost 3 weeks now, but i had no confidence to post it, until kueteel forced encouraged me. thanks for everything, i love you 8D
They say you have to experience love to truly understand it. Junhyung doesn’t agree. He’s never been in love, yet he sure as hell understands it. Or else why would all these people constantly come ask him for love advice?
“Juuuuuuuunnnnniieeeee~” he silently curses in his head as he hears the oh-too-familiar squeal. It was his current girlfriend, and his 4th of the year. It was only May.
She was definitely a beauty: small, cute and delicate, with long dyed blonde hair and a nice S line body.
He gave her a sloppy kiss and let her cling onto him as they made their way to class, or rather, as they made their way to skip class. Junhyung doesn’t bother with school, because it’d get him nowhere in life. School won’t get him his motorcycle, school won’t get him the latest technology, school won’t get him fancy clothes, but his parents sure will and that’s all that’s enough.
Honestly, Junhyung doesn’t know what he wants in life. He sits on the rooftop of the school, puffing on his cigarette, staring out at the clouds rolling along, wasting seconds, minutes, as they tick by. He laughs, because he’s high and there’s nothing to laugh about, but he laughs anyways. His life is a wreck, his whole entire existence is a wreck, but heck, he doesn’t give a fuck.
He puts out his cigarette and makes his way home, proud that for once, he doesn’t smell like cheap perfume. He passes by the tattoo parlour and something must have caught his eye, because the next thing he knows, there’s a needle under his skin and black words start to appear on his forearm. It hurts so damn much, but Junhyung decides he likes it, that he likes the pain and gets another one on his collarbone.
“Yong Junhyung, where have you been? Your principal called and told me you weren’t in class again today. You smell like smoke and what is that on your arm?! You better answer me, young man!”, he hears his mother say as he walks through the door but he’s too indifferent and tired to care.
“Answer me!”
“Oh, so why do you care so much now? It’s too late for that mom, go put your hopes on someone else.”
He turns around and leaves the house again, letting the door slam shut behind him as he ignores his mother’s calls for him. He just needs to get away. He grabs the keys from his pocket and lets the motorcycle start with a loud roar of the engine.
He can’t even see straight anymore as everything zooms pass him like a blur of colours and lines. He’s driving at 190 km/h and fuck was it ever thrilling.
And then there were screams and he’s lying on the floor, the colours disappear and now it’s only a mixture of red and gray. The screams get louder and louder and he thinks he hears sirens in the background, but his head hurts so damn much that he doesn’t know what’s what anymore. All he knows is that the floor he is lying on is extremely comfortable and he wants to take a nap right there. There are people walking towards him and he hears the clack of their footsteps, clack, clack, clack, and that’s the last thing he hears.
He wakes up, and it’s silent. It’s white and it’s silent, and he doesn’t remember what happened last. It feels like a hangover, but he doesn’t remember drinking and he’s not at home or in some girl’s bed.
He tries to get up, but his body aches and he can’t, so he just lies there and stares at the ceiling. He doesn’t know where he is, but it was too silent for his liking, and he’d rather be at a club, dancing away to the blasting music. It was too quiet to be a rave, it was too quiet to be school, it was too quiet to be his house, it was too quiet to be anywhere really, so he forces himself up to look around. He sees people talking, but it’s silent. He sees machines that should be beeping, but it’s silent. He sees high heels making contact with the floor, but it’s silent.
He screams, screams so loud that his throat hurts and his lungs are running out of air, but he continues screaming, because he can’t hear a thing.
He sees people running up to him in concern, but he looks around and he can’t recognize anyone. He keeps screaming until he sees a doctor run in, along with his mom. She looks different, different than what he remembered she looked yesterday; her hair is short and she looks older, and Junhyung gets confused.
She’s crying as she hands him a letter, she’s crying so much she can’t even stay in the room and leaves, and Junhyung opens the letter. He reads it over, once, twice and chucks it at the wall.
He was involved in a car accident 3 years ago, where he almost lost his life. They managed to save him, but he’s been lying in a coma since. His dad, unable to handle seeing his son like this, had a heart attack and died and his mom’s been living in a world of debts. He’s still alive, but he’s never going to hear again, forever living in silence. He can’t even hear his own breathing and he’s not quite sure he’s going to make it though.
His life is still a wreck, but that’s just the way he likes it.
They meet at a bar and Junhyung is drunk. He doesn’t know why he’s there because he can’t hear the music anyways, but he’s drunk and is now in the middle of the dance floor, letting the closest women grind up on him. Soon, he gets tired and goes back to his table, calling some random waiter to get him another glass.
It must have been something in his drinks because when the waiter arrives again, he’s gorgeous and Junhyung’s pulling him towards himself. Their lips crash together for a rough kiss and Junhyung loses the last of his control and drags the waiter to the closest washroom. The door was barely closed and locked but Junhyung already had the other boy slammed against it. Junhyung’s rough and though he feels the resistance, he’s determined to make the waiter want him just as bad. Needy lips travel down the other’s neck, biting, licking, sucking, and Junhyung doesn’t know what he’s thinking when his hands slip up the other’s shirt.
For a second, Junhyung’s surprised that his hands aren’t met by soft full breasts, but honestly, it kind of turns him on more than it should. His hands run over the other’s toned body, letting his fingers pause slightly when it reached the sensitive tip of the boy’s nipples, enjoying the way the waiter’s body tenses at the touch. He slides his hands out of his shirt and fumbles with the buttons. He fails, and he blames the alcohol, when his hands move farther down to tug at the boy’s belt instead. He’s needy and he rolls his hips against the other’s, because he wants the friction, he wants the contact so bad.
Junhyung looks up at the waiter and in that same second he regrets it, because the boy has tears running down his face and he’s crying, crying so hard that Junhyung’s heart breaks and he stops. He’s needy, and he’s drunk, but he stops and lets the boy go and he runs, runs away from Junhyung so fast, he feels his heart sink a little. Junhyung leaves too, calling a taxi home, because he wasn’t in the mood to have more fun anymore. He wakes up the next day with a pounding headache and he regrets drinking so much.
They don’t see each other again until it turns to December. It’s cold, the streets are empty, and it’s silent as usual. There is the occasional car that passes by, and the occasional couple walking together, bundled up together to share as much body heat as possible. He’s walking through the streets, liking the way he can see his breath because it reminds him that he’s still breathing, that he’s still alive.
And that’s when he first hears it. A faint, soft melody and Junhyung doesn’t understand. He follows it and ends up in front of a dance studio and so he peers from outside the window. There’s a boy there, a boy in a black beanie, a wife beater and sweatpants. Junhyung can see his face reflect off the mirrors, and he’s gorgeous, with his dark brown hair falling over his eyes.
The melody continues and the boy starts to dance, his body moving in a way like no other. Junhyung just stares because he’s amazed, and he continues to stare when he remembers the boy at the bar, the boy slammed against the door, the boy he ran his hands over. Junhyung continues to watch, because damn the boy can dance. And then he smiles, because the melody is just as beautiful as the boy and he can actually hear it. He doesn’t quite understand it, but he can hear it and that’s all that’s enough.
The boy stops suddenly and turns around to face Junhyung and his face is marked with horror. Perhaps he recognized him, and Junhyung runs. He runs because maybe he’s scared, scared that he doesn’t know what to do and how to deal with the boy. He runs because maybe he’s a coward and only knows how to run away from his problems, to run away and get high.
Junhyung doesn’t know why he’s back outside the dance studio the next day, and the next, and the next, but he’s there and the melody still plays on. The boy starts to relax as he realizes that Junhyung wasn’t going to do anything to him this time, that he’s only there to watch him dance from outside the window. The melody gets stronger and louder with each passing day. It’s amazing, completely indescribable, and Junhyung smiles.
But one day, it’s silent again. The streets are quiet and Junhyung doesn’t hear a thing. The boy’s not there.
Junhyung waits. He waits and waits, but the boy doesn’t return. He waits and waits, but he doesn’t hear the melody anymore, and Junhyung returns to his old life, because he doesn’t know how to do anything else.
Time ticks by and Junhyung is wasting his life away but he couldn’t care less. He’s drunk or high most of the time, and when he’s not, he’s hung over and wishing life would be over. He tries to replay the melody in his head, but he can’t, he just can’t. It’s been too long, and Junhyung gives up.
He wakes up one summer morning with a pounding headache, and damn he should be used to it by now, yet it still throbs and bothers Junhyung like crazy. He throws on some random clothes, probably the ones he wore yesterday, and goes downstairs. He needs a coffee so bad but he can’t get the machine to work. He’s too lazy and tired to try to fix it, so he heads for the nearest coffee shop.
He walks by a stage, and it could have been a festival or a performance, but Junhyung doesn’t know nor care. Normally, he probably wouldn’t have given it a second glance, but he thinks he hears something faint in the background. Something so familiar, but so lost in his memories, and it’s beautiful. Junhyung looks around, forgetting about his headache, and that’s when he spots him again.
He’s a backup dancer, dancing and sweating up there on stage and Junhyung stares, because that’s the only thing that he’s capable of doing right now. All his memories fly back to him, the night in the bar, the cold winter day with the melody, the dance studio, and waiting, waiting for someone that never returned.
Whatever that was going on must have been finished, because all the backup dancers leave the stage, and Junhyung runs, again back to running, but this time, not away. He’s running towards the boy.
He grabs him by the wrist, and pulls him away, not knowing where he’s going to take him, all he knows is that he needs to get away, away from this place. He doesn’t know if the other boy is yelling at him to get him to stop, because to Junhyung, he’s not, because he can’t hear anything and his back is on the boy, making him unable to lip read.
Junhyung keeps pulling the boy away, not wanting to turn around to face him, because he’s scared. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do, or why he did it, but it was all too late for that now.
He stops, and the boy yanks his arm away roughly, not caring if it would hurt himself. Junhyung doesn’t want to see the boy’s face, because he knows it’d be full of anger and disgust and pain, and seeing it like that would make Junhyung’s heart sink.
He turns around as slow as he can, he’s right, and Junhyung feels his breath stuck in his throat.
“I’m sorry...” He manages to cough out and he’s surprised it came out so easily.
The boy’s lips don’t move, so Junhyung continues.
“That night at the bar, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. I don’t really know why I got that carried away, and I know you didn’t want it, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry if I seemed like a stalker watching you dance. I’m sorry I’m here and I’m sorry dragged you away. I’m sorry I’m like this when I’m usually not. I’m just-”
He stops midway through his sentence when he feels the boy’s finger on his lips.
“It’s okay. I’m fine, I’ve gotten over it”, Junhyung manages to make out, and he smiles weakly back at the boy, because he doesn’t know if he’s just playing strong. “Now may I ask my stalker for his name?”
“Junhyung. Yong Junhyung.”
The boy smiles back at him, and Junhyung’s stomach does flips. “I’m Hyunseung.”
Hyunseung’s extremely understanding, and Junhyung doesn’t get drunk that night. They meet again the next day, because Hyunseung agreed to let Junhyung make it up to him.
Summer fades to fall, and despite all that happened between them, they managed to become good friends. Junhyung knows everything about Hyunseung and Hyunseung knows everything about Junhyung. The only thing Junhyung didn’t tell him was that he can’t hear. Whenever Hyunseung would tell him that a certain song on the radio sounds good, or the birds were chirping really loudly in the morning, all Junhyung could do is stupidly agree.
Junhyung hates having to lie to Hyunseung. It hurts him, sometimes to the point where he doesn’t want to be near the other boy, and those are the times he wants to say it so badly. But he’s scared, scared that Hyunseung would leave him if he found out. He doesn’t know why, but the thought of Hyunseung leaving scares him, and maybe it’s the melody, or maybe he’s grown attached to the boy. Junhyung is intoxicated by the melody, by him, and so he decides that tomorrow he’ll say it.
But tomorrow passes by, and it’s still left unsaid. He’d like to say it was because the moment wasn’t right, but he knows that it’s a lie, an excuse for his pathetic self.
He finds himself at the bar again after a long month, and he wants to get drunk and run away from his problems, even if it’s just for a while. So he chugs one glass after another, it’s more bitter than he remembers, but just as addictive and he loses count of how much he has.
He doesn’t know if it’s because he’s drunk, but he hears the melody playing around in his head. He figures it must be impossible since it only plays when Hyunseung is around, and he won’t be here since he made him quit his waiter job all those months ago. So he brushes it aside and continues drinking.
The next thing he knows, he sees a blur that resembles Hyunseung, and it probably is Hyunseung because he’s carrying him away. Junhyung sees his lips moving, so he knows he’s talking, but what exactly is he saying? He sees his lips moving and god damn it, he wants to kiss them so bad, because they look so good and soft and just so damn inviting, but even in his drunken state, he knows he shouldn’t, that he can’t.
He has his arm around Hyunseung and he’s leaning on him, while the other boy is trying to hold him up. They are in front of Junhyung’s apartment, and Hyunseung’s going through his pocket for his keys. Junhyung feels it, and he knows he should help, but he’s too dizzy to. He’s incoherent and he can’t think straight.
He’s lying on his bed, and he sees Hyunseung turning to leave. His body reacts without him telling it to, and he reaches out to grab Hyunseung’s wrist. He doesn’t want the boy to leave.
“Hyunseung-ah.... d-don’t go.... don’t ever leave me... I really like you... so... so I’m sorry I didn’t tell you... that I’m... that I’m deaf... I just didn’t want you to leave... don’t go...”
And then the alcohol fully kicks in and he blanks out.
The next morning, he’s surprised. He remembers drinking a lot, but his head doesn’t pound as much as it usually does. He reaches up to touch his forehead and he feels something wet and soft instead. It must have been a towel, but whatever it was, it felt nice and soothing.
He sits up and looks over to his right, seeing Hyunseung asleep on a chair next to his bed. Junhyung smiles. Hyunseung probably stayed and taken care of him last night, and he looks adorable when he’s asleep. Last night. What exactly happened last night though? Junhyung remembers wanting to kiss him, and then passing out on his bed. He thinks and thinks and thinks, but it just doesn’t come to him. He prays that he didn’t say anything that was supposed to be kept to himself.
Hyunseung wakes up and yawns. As he looks over to Junhyung and realizes that he was awake too, he smiles.
“You’re finally up? Feeling better?”
Junhyung nods.
“Um, you were really drunk last night... um, I’ll go make you breakfast, it’d be good for you.”
As he turns to leave, Junhyung grabs his wrist. Damn, this feels like déjà vu.
“Um.. I.. I didn’t say anything weird last night, did I?”
“Well, umm, you..” Hyunseung started, with a blush creeping up his face. “You might have told me that you couldn’t hear, and that... you liked me...”
Junhyung winced. “Fuck. Ah, well, look ahh... It’s true, and if it scares you away you can just go. I wasn’t planning on telling you like th-”
He was stopped short by the pair of softest lips ever, and he felt like he was in heaven. Butterflies were fluttering in his stomach, and there were mini fireworks going off in his heart. It was exactly like the first kiss type of kiss that he never had. He was kissing Hyunseung, and it was better than anything he could ever imagine.
When they finally pulled away for air, they were both flush with big silly grins on their faces. There was a silence, but it more like a comfortable silence, because neither wanted to ruin the perfect moment.
“Ah, um, I’ll go make you breakfast!” Hyunseung was still completely red when he jumped up to go leave, and Junhyung laughs.
So maybe he does regret how his life turned out even if he would never openly admit it, but if he only got to meet Hyunseung because his life was a wreck, then he doesn’t regret anything, because it was namely the best thing that happened in his life.
Maybe it had to take the melody, beautiful melody that Junhyung needs like the air he breathes, the beautiful melody that he can hear, the beautiful melody that only he can hear, to realize that there are better things that life could offer. Even though he can’t hear now, and perhaps he never really could, he’s going to try to make up for everything and start over, with Hyunseung right by his side to be his ears and to guide him
And even if maybe he can’t hear his own breathing, or the sound of his heart beating, he knows that if Hyunseung is there, he’s going to make it through.