whoever brought me here will have to take me home; minsoo; 2/2
~
Fighting sequences are, surprisingly, Minseok's favorite. Kyungsoo prefers... he's not sure what he prefers, but he's not specifically partial to the fights. Dialogue is okay. Does he even know what he's talking about? He supposes he likes when the camera pans in or pans out at the start or the end of a scene. It tends to be pretty. The sense of space and all is good too.
But maybe he likes this scene somewhat - at the end, Matt's holding this kid and taking him to safety. He's completely blind, Kyungsoo re-realizes. He knows it, of course, that's a pretty big thing about Daredevil, but it gets underlined and highlighted and enveloped by exclamation marks - not when he's dodging knives and blows, but when, like right now, he's moving carefully, at a normal pace, like any regular civilian. In a superhuman, anything is believable, so anything is taken for granted. It's all in the set notation, or the Venn diagram. Whichever's easier to picture. But strip it down to human, and every aspect gets magnified. At least, that's the way it is to Kyungsoo. Anyway, he really likes this part of the scene.
"See," Minseok says, sounding self-assured, "Told you you'd like it."
"Never said I wouldn't," Kyungsoo replies, no real heat to it. "So, how many episodes again?"
"Like. Fourteen. I think. I torrented the entire thing without actually looking at the files. It had the most seeders and leechers, so I just clicked."
Kyungsoo hums, attention back on the laptop screen.
They're on the floor of Minseok's room. It's cozy, bigger than Kyungsoo's, and there's a soft rug that Kyungsoo almost likes more than his own bed. He's spread eagled on it now, lying on his stomach. Minseok's sitting up against the wall, knees to his chest. They're silent until the episode ends.
"Amazing," Kyungsoo mumbles. He misses the half-fond, half-amused look Minseok throws him as he gets up and stretches.
"We should try heightening our senses," Minseok grins. "It'll be awesome."
Kyungsoo's spine gives a resounding crack, and he sits quickly back down. "Yeah?" Kyungsoo scratches the back of his head, considering. "It would be."
-
The idea doesn't really leave him, and the next week, when Minseok drops by after his 8 p.m. class is over with, he's been sitting cross-legged on his bed for the past hour, blindfold tied neatly over his eyes, meditating. Trying to meditate. Same thing.
"Hey, so I was thinking," Minseok's saying as he opens the door, and then he stops short. Kyungsoo's nowhere near as radioactively sensitive to the world as Daredevil, but he's sure Minseok sucks in a breath.
Kyungsoo tilts his head. "Hey."
"Jeez. Jesus," Minseok mutters. "What's this, now?"
Kyungsoo grins, raising his arms in a this is exactly what it looks like gesture. "Heightening my senses," he says.
There's a smacking sound. Probably Minseok slapping his forehead.
Kyungsoo frowns. "Look, it's not like I'm gonna chop up the furniture with my hands. Or like, at all, even, I just--" he starts to explain, but Minseok laughs.
"Yeah," he says, sounding... strange. "Yeah, I know."
"So, a magnificent idea," Kyungsoo swings his legs and his feet hit the floor. "Blindman's buff?"
"Gosh," Minseok lets out a disbelieving little laugh. "Okay. Okay, let's see how you do, Matthew Murdock." He pronounces it Muhdock, and Kyungsoo tsks.
"Murr, dock. Get the r out, hyung."
"No," Minseok sounds stubborn; Kyungsoo's sure he's folded his arms over his chest.
"Okay," Kyungsoo relents, spreading his arms in front of him and taking a tentative step forward.
His desk is on his right, bed to the back, shelf to the far left. Chair... damn, he's not sure if his chair is by the desk or the shelf. Minseok can't have moved far from the door - that's up ahead. Precariously, Kyungsoo takes another step.
Minseok tries to swallow a snort, but it isn't a very successful attempt. Kyungsoo jerks towards the direction of the sound.
"No, you don't," Minseok warns, and when Kyungsoo reaches out, his hand swipes air. So he straightens up and tries in another line. Long enough, Kyungsoo guesses, and Minseok will just give in.
Kyungsoo couldn't have been more wrong. After ten minutes and falling over his own feet out of sheer clumsiness twice, with Minseok somehow always frustratingly just out of reach, Kyungsoo's the one close to calling it a day. But then his hands graze over something, something like a nose, and he pauses. "Minseok," he calls out, and sure enough, when Minseok replies, "Yeah?" he can feel Minseok's breath on his hand. Maybe they'd both given up at the same time.
Kyungsoo keeps his hand there for a bit, wondering at Minseok's exhales, before he feels slightly foolish and moves it.
He doesn't move it away, just hovers it around where he's sure Minseok's face is millimeters away. This must be his forehead, his hair, his ear. He lowers his hand, passing right over Minseok's neck, surely -
And then he hears Minseok stepping away. "You're supposed to say tag, you're it," Minseok calls out - from the bed, Kyungsoo guesses. "Or at least gotcha." Kyungsoo walks towards the sound with dogged determination, bumps his knee against the bed, and sits down.
Now, much closer, he knows for sure when Minseok's breath catches.
"Relax," Kyungsoo grins. "Just a game."
The weight next to him on the bed dips a little more. Had Minseok's shoulders had sagged? His arms would fall heavier at his sides if he did, and the dip would make sense. He probably did it out of relief.
"And I didn't, in fact, say tag you're it. So I lose." Kyungsoo tugs his blindfold off with a little smile, blinking to get used to the light. The scarf he'd used was thick.
Minseok's staring at his feet, and he looks - Kyungsoo feels instinctively that he shouldn't be looking. This isn't something Minseok would want him to see. And even if Kyungsoo did see, even if he did ask, Minseok would never answer him. Not honestly, at least.
Minseok's eyes are a bit brighter that they usually are, brighter than they should be for a harmless little game. Kyungsoo wants to take it all back. Anything, everything, whatever he did wrong, dammit.
There's a tear on an eyelash and before Kyungsoo can register what he's doing, he's already leaning forward. He picks the tear up on his little finger, and Minseok looks up at him, startled.
Kyungsoo grins, bold as he can muster. He raises the little finger to his mouth, and kisses the tear. He sees Minseok pale, hears him hiccup, sees his Adam's apple bob. "There," he says, with confidence he doesn't feel. "All gone."
And it's juvenile, but it works. Minseok drops his head with an easy, embarrassed laugh. The rule stays unbroken. They're back to normal, except Kyungsoo's lips still have a wet spot from the tear, and the taste of salt eventually makes its way to the inside of his mouth, sudden and fleeting.
~
"I hate graphs," Sooyoung smiles guiltily, by way of explanation. "And I just, stare uselessly at them. Nothing ever happens."
"They won't draw themselves like that," Kyungsoo agrees, taking the book extended towards him. "Have a seat," he says.
His mother's been a bit upset with the way her set ups have all gone down the drain: blind dates with girls, introductions to boys from different school's math clubs, various part time job interviews - Kyungsoo has successfully managed to disinterest them all. "Minseok's a good friend," she accedes. "But there's more people, Kyungsoo, there's more to friendship than just one person besides family in your entire life." Kyungsoo usually tunes her out after that, so last week he missed out the new addition to her speech, where she announced that she'd told her friends he was available for math tutoring in the coming months, grades five to nine.
He's not sure how this goes, but Sooyoung's already sitting next to him their living room table, nervously tugging the hem of her skirt as far as it'll go, and he'll have to wing it. At least she's not here with fifth grade fractions, he consoles himself, and casts about for something appropriate and witty to say. As usual, nothing comes, so he swallows and opens the book. "Graphs, did you say?"
"Yes," Sooyoung looks him askance. "I hate them," she adds, again, and Kyungsoo smiles. He reaches Chapter 8: Graphs and Lines, and the first page has a picture of a man on a treadmill, and then a graph of his heart's activity against time. His mind clicks. Something occurs to him.
"Ever heard about the different, um, love stories? About graphs? And lines?"
She wrinkles her nose, but she leans in the tiniest bit. He takes it as a good sign. A little interest goes a long way. "They have love stories?"
"Sure," he clears his throat. "Let's start from the, ah, beginning." He turns the page, and, sure enough, lands on 8.1 Different Types of Graphs and Lines. "Know them apart?"
"Nah," she says, easily. "Never bothered. They're just lines."
"Everything," and, well, when did his mouth catch up with his brain and his brain with the times? "Has some kind of meaning. Its own brand of purpose. Think hard enough, and a line can have a life of its own, a constant journey from point A --"
"To point B," she finishes. Some more interest, although there's still some skepticism with how she continues to look at him.
"Right. You draw a line, brand new on paper, but the line was always there. You just made it visible. Chance, chaos theory, fate, whatever you want to have it as. The entire world. Full of these lines. Dots, points in space, connections. Planes. The whole system we live on." Maybe he's getting carried away here, but at least he knows what he's talking about. It's comfortable, and Kyungsoo's a sucker for comfort. He shucks it on like a jacket and keeps going.
"But just like there's all these people with different paths headed different ways, in infinitesimal directions, imagine the lines."
"Except they are the paths."
"Not necessarily, not in their perspective," he breaks off, thinking about how to continue. "You study biology?" he pulls up her notebook, flips to the last page.
She blinks at the change of topic. "Um. Yeah?"
"So there's cells? Nuclei? Tissue, organs, the whole deal?" He holds his hand out expectantly, and she gives him a pencil, a little hesitant.
"In lots of detail."
He begins to sketch a rough body. "Good. So you have, let's say, you. Yourself. First name Sooyoung, last name..."
"Park. Park Sooyoung."
He writes her name on the head, and starts drawing dotted lines and scrawling stuff inside it. "Park Sooyoung. As an entity. Made up of limbs, and then muscle, and then the skeleton, and skin tissue, and on and on. You're a mixplate. A compounded entity. What's the basic building block of it all?" He punctuates it with drawing a single, small circle in "Park Sooyoung"'s shoulder.
"Oh, you mean like that. A cell?"
He labels the circle. "Correct. And now this cell, it has a brain, the nucleus. It has all these limbs inside it, all these different - what were they called again - organelles?"
She nods, and he's relieved that she's beginning to get seriously into the discussion now. Or monologue. Whatever it is that he's talking. Her attention makes him feel better; he's getting good at saying the right things now, regardless of the emotional importance of the words or the timing. He's getting there. Wherever there is.
"Mitochondria, powerhouse. Take that as the stomach. Stomach digests, helps us give back what we just ate. And then ribosomes, and all those building-protein things and breaking-down protein things. Parts of digestion? Respiration? And then the membrane's the skin and the lungs all at once. Lets things in, out. You get it." He pauses, insecure for a flash, "Right?"
"I get it," she nods again, more impatiently this time. "Go on."
Relief. "So, we," he circles the entire body here, "We perceive the cells as just cells. But the cells have their own minds, their own nuclei. What if they're so intent on doing what they're doing, and they don't see us at all? What if we don't matter? What if we don't exist, and all they see is other cells, and cell functions, and the reason that they themselves exist?"
She starts to frown, like she's almost there.
"See, it all depends on perspective. Macro, or micro. Cosmic, cellular. Each thing has its own universe at its own entire level. There's organization there, talk about chaos or creation or humanity as a failed alien kid's science project or whatever you will, but there's organization. And the lines, they have their own point of view. They're too busy getting to their destination to care about whether or not they're being drawn, or if they're being walked on, or considered as paths by other beings. Humans are irrelevant."
Sooyoung opens her mouth to say something, and he can guess it's a rebuttal from the look on her face, so he raises his hand to stop her, smiling. "Or at least, for convenience, let's imagine it all to be so. We still have to get to the love story bit."
She laughs, head close to his, hair a solid curtain that hides her from view, and he smiles wider.
They move onto asymptotes (she knows perpendicular lines).
"Here, see," he taps at the graph. "They start out at opposite ends - by opposite I just mean any sector that isn't the sector the first one's in. The first one's up to you, you can choose whichever. And anything else will be on the opposite, just by its direction. And then the two keep getting closer, and closer, and closer, and cl--"
"I get it," she interrupts, bumping her foot impatiently against his. He tells himself not to stiffen, but his back draws itself up anyway.
"Right," he clears his throat. "Okay, so, they basically never meet. Just not meant to happen."
"That's worse than the parallel lines," she pouts. "They get close."
"I know, right? Tangent lines are terrible. Here, see, this circle is a function, here. This graph. And this line actually gets to touch - just touch, not really interact, or anything. Touchdown and takeoff. One second of superficial contact with the circle, and it's alone forever, before and after."
"That's the tangent line?" Sooyoung points.
"Yeah. That's the one."
She's disappointed about parabolas, probably because they're just single curved lines, so he makes up their affair with the axes. That makes her tremendously pleased. When she tries to coax something out of him for trigonometric functions, and he refuses just to rile her up, he thinks he can enjoy these two hours.
“What do you think,” she asks, rummaging in her bag for a bar of chocolate. “Is sadder? Tangents or parallels or asymptotes?”
“Won’t tell you before you classify which is a line and which is a graph.” He doesn’t want to answer, really. Parallels or asymptotes? Tangents have a lot to be grateful for. If he was one, he’d get to touch. He’d get to feel and know, for however short a time. And that would be enough to tide him over forever.
“Never mind,” Sooyoung says, hastily, and bites her chocolate. “Next lesson, please.”
They're laughing together at some joke he's cracked, when the door opens, and Minseok calls out, "Honey, I’m home!" It's all pretty fast - the front door closes before they can react, and then Minseok's walking into the living room, freezing when they freeze.
Kyungsoo isn't sure, but he feels out of place. Maybe caught out in something he shouldn't have been caught out in. Which is ridiculous; there's nothing wrong with what he's doing, and he owes nothing about this to Minseok. This is him, he thinks frantically, getting something of his own. Or something. He can't think straight all of a sudden.
"Hey," Minseok says at length, suddenly completely at ease. "Didn't know there'd be guests over. Sorry."
He steps back, nods once, and swivels on his heels. The sneakers squeak loudly, and Kyungsoo's sure they all wince at the sound. Then there's just light padded steps up the stairs, Kyungsoo's door opening, closing, and then silence.
"Your brother?" Sooyoung asks, after a while. Kyungsoo chokes, attention snapping from the now-empty doorway to her slightly surprised face. "Oh, um, no. My friend." Then he adds, "Best friend."
"Ah," her face is still surprised, probably by his reaction to her question. "That explains it."
What exactly it is that his answer explains, he doesn't ask, doesn't dare to, and they wrap up the class after he tests her on the first previously banal lesson of the chapter. He gives her homework: research and provide scenarios in real life where these graphs pop up, read through the next lesson.
"Same time next week?" she asks, as she prepares to leave. She's wearing bright red heels, he notices, and consoles himself at the sight of them. No wonder she was almost taller than him. His ego's had enough of a beating around other guys as it is.
"Uh," he says intelligently, as she waits for his answer.
"Was I a terrible student?" she asks, frowning sadly. "Perhaps I am just to be a tangent to your scholarly mathematical wisdom, touching once, never to return?"
He bursts out laughing, relieved that she wasn't serious. She'd had him for a moment there. "Maybe," he replies. "Maybe not. We'll see. I'll call you up and tell you tomorrow."
She frowns, for real this time. "How d'you have my number?"
"My mom's a great PR manager," he grins. "She has everyone's number."
He watches her go, waving back when she waves, and closes the door with a sigh.
Minseok's reading one of Kyungsoo's old textbooks when he comes up. "Hey," Kyungsoo says, tentative.
Minseok looks up. "Hey. Sorry about the whole," he waves his hand, "You know. The thing."
"No!" Kyungsoo hates how awkward they sound, as if they aren't comfortable with each other, as if they haven't known each other for years. "No, that was, that was okay. No problem. I'm sorry I didn't tell you someone was coming over. And," he rushes, "It's just tuition. Mom cooked some new plan up."
"It's okay," Minseok shrugs, turning back to the book. It's upside down, and he clears his throat and turns the right way around before flipping the page. "I don't mind." But the line in his shoulders has eased, so Kyungsoo lets his own back curl in as well.
"What's so fascinating about..." Kyungsoo sits down and leans over Minseok's shoulder. His chin just brushes the fabric of his shirt. Minseok smells of strawberries. "About," he repeats, mind going a little hazy with the distraction. He squints at the title. Excerpts From the Diary of Anne Frank. "Okay," he amends. "Never mind, that's plenty serious."
"Mhm," Minseok says, and for a wild second Kyungsoo thinks he's going to break their unsaid rule, that Minseok's going to lean back against him, leave no space between them. But Minseok just shifts, ever so careful, and cracks his neck. Sighs, goes onto the next page.
~
There are cons, and then there is a pro, to not paying attention to where he's going.
The plural cons: Kyungsoo is now, predictably, lost. He has wasted time getting from one place to another, the latter of which he didn't want to end up at. Trying to get back to wherever he was coming from would waste even more time.
The singular pro: Kyungsoo is staring up at the poster in front of him, which is inspiring a plan that is being made inside his head. Sundays and Wednesdays, it says. 4 to 5 p.m. Creative Writing 101. The small text says that the class is opening applications to students looking for extra credit. Light program, it reads on, 2 hours of study a week. There's some crappy Microsoft Word clip art from the third century B.C on the sides, stuff about pens and stick figures running on a globe, presumably the earth. Kyungsoo wrinkles his nose in distaste.
Clip art aside, he could sign up. It'd be a welcome change to study something that isn't history, math or quantum mechanics. The extra credit could get him to skip a sociology exam, even. Probably. He'll have to check.
He takes out his phone, starting to note down the TA's name and email, when an incoming call interrupts.
"Crap," Kyungsoo mutters, considering ignoring it, but the caller ID flashes Park Sooyoung. He figures he should be somewhat professional, so he answers.
"Kyungsoo speaking."
"Ah, hello! It's me, Sooyoung." She sounds slightly nervous. "I just wanted to tell you that I can't come on Mondays anymore. I, um, got some extra currics added to my schedule, so..."
"Okay," Kyungsoo hitches his satchel higher on his shoulder, thinking. He's not sure what other day he could do. Sunday 4 to 5 p.m. is this class, anyway - he glances up at the poster again to make sure.
"How about," Sooyoung begins, slowly, and there's the sound of something being shuffled around. "Thursday? Noon?"
"We'll have to cut the time to an hour and a half," he says. "That okay? I have a lecture to attend at two, and it takes a while to get to campus."
"Sure," she agrees. "No problem. And if I get another day with better time, I'll let you know."
"Uh huh," he says, already thinking about the poster again. "You do that."
"See you."
"And you."
-
Minseok's chewing with his mouth open. Kyungsoo scowls, typing louder to mask the noise, but it's kind of difficult when Minseok's leaning over his shoulder.
"How are you real," Kyungsoo mumbles. He's filling in the introductory online survey to the writing class, and Minseok's obstructing his damn thought process.
"What's that there?" Minseok says, ignoring his complaint, or possibly choosing to take it as a compliment. Either was equally probable.
"Creative writing. Figured why not, y'know?"
"Why not," Minseok nods, agreeably. Then, after he finishes his sandwich, he brushes his hands on his jeans. "Mind if I join, too?"
Kyungsoo looks up in surprise, almost clicking Reset instead of Submit. "Really? You would?"
Minseok shrugs. "Sounds fun. And we haven't really shared a class."
"Human Behavior," Kyungsoo says, frowning.
"I dropped it after three lectures," Minseok snorts. "Seven in the morning? Really? God, and the way she taught. You know what I mean. Joonmyun's an early bird whacko and he used to fall asleep."
Kyungsoo tries not to laugh. "Kim Joonmyun, sleeping in class?"
"Snoring," Minseok informs, gravely. "Front row, snorkeling, like he's in the Bahamas and visiting dolphin nests." He crouches forward suddenly, jaw slack in imitation. His nose twitches, and then a sound like a woodpecker manages to leave his mouth.
"Dolphins don't have nests," Kyungsoo's getting tears in his eyes from laughing.
Minseok opens his eyes and grins. "Whatever. And anyway, that was an auditorium. Like five hundred people attended. This'll be a class! We might get desks next to each other!"
"Hey," Kyungsoo smiles, "I wasn't saying not to join. I was just saying we'd shared before."
Minseok's grin widens. It throws Kyungsoo off how happy Minseok seems with the prospect. Minseok probably catches onto something, because he rolls his eyes. "Are you thinking too much? Again?" He sounds like he's saying, after all this time, you're still afraid?
"Yep," Kyungsoo answers, to both.
-
"I can't believe you're falling asleep," Kyungsoo whispers, taking down notes.
Minseok's drooping head jerks up in surprise as he snorts a snore.
"This isn't even in the morning," Kyungsoo hisses.
"Karma," Minseok croaks loudly, and the entire class of ten people - professor included - turns to look at him.
"Very good!" the lady beams. "That is indeed an interesting concept to go with. I'll be looking forward to your assignment."
Minseok pales. "What the fuck." He turns to Kyungsoo.
"Identity," Kyungsoo calls, instead, and the professor nods approvingly.
"This'll be an exciting turnout," she comments. "Joohyun, what about you?"
Kyungsoo pushes his notebook forward. Choose an abstract concept as a main theme and write a 500-600 words story on it.
"Shit," Minseok groans, as they head out. "Karma? Really?"
Kyungsoo shrugs, snickering. "Just talk about Joonmyun, but like, with a fictional name."
"Whatever," Minseok sighs, and throws an arm around Kyungsoo's neck.
-
The board has 15 mins scrawled across it. Everyone's bent over their notebooks, except Minseok, who has written three sentences and apparently given up.
Kyungsoo glares at him, but Minseok's just staring up at the ceiling. Probably counting the rafters, or whatever it is the ceiling's made up of.
Huh. He glances up at it as well, just out of curiosity. It's cement. Or concrete. Kyungsoo never did figure out the difference. He gets back to his essay.
The assignment had been to write a scene, with the sunset as the main focus. "Descriptive or narrative," she'd said, "Either is okay. So long as you get the sunset across."
"I got the sunset across. Stop glaring at me," Minseok whispers, still staring up.
"You're going to fail," Kyungsoo whispers back, head down, scribbling seriously.
"'S okay. It's extra credit, and I just wanted to be around you more, anyway."
Kyungsoo freezes mid sentence (the thrum of traffic and construction so loud, it seemed like the sky --) for a second, before forcing himself to relax and continue. Another glance, this time back at Minseok, and thankfully he's still fixated on the ceiling.
"Your academic focus is inspiring," Kyungsoo says, drily. He write two more sentences and finishes up, firmly ignoring the last part of what Minseok had said. Some things are too good to be true. He folds the memory and puts it in a drawer in his head, anyway. It's not a sin to let himself get happy about it later.
"Time's up," the professor taps on the board with her chalk. "Let's read them out!"
-
"That was really good," Minseok says, later. They're in the car, heading home, and Kyungsoo's pushed his seat back a bit.
"Mhm," he mumbles, drowsy. "It was." He opens his eyes a crack, in time to see Minseok turn his head to smile at him for a second before he turns back to the road.
"You write a lot?" Minseok asks. "And pseudonymous novels I should know of?"
Kyungsoo groans, trying not to blush. "I wanna sleep," he says. "And no. Math's enough, thanks."
Minseok laughs obnoxiously, the pain that he is. "Karma," he says. And then, earnestly, "It was really good. I knew you were good with numbers, but words, too? That was new."
Maybe it should sting, that Minseok hadn't known with 'words' because Kyungsoo mostly tried his best to use them as little as possible, but it doesn't. Not really. This was improvement, right?
"Hmm," he says. Then realizes he should say thank you to a compliment. "Thank you," he adds.
When they reach Kyungsoo's place, Minseok brakes, slowly, and says, "If anything gets famous --"
Kyungsoo opens his eyes again, half cranky, half questioning.
"Like, I mean, for an exhibition, or a magazine. You do write ups for me?"
"Like I said," Kyungsoo sighs, sitting up. "Math's enough for me." He unlocks the door and opens it, putting his feet out onto the road. "But for you?" Kyungsoo turns to look at him, smiling. "Sure, hyung. I'd do write ups."
~
Minseok has always been the decidedly more outgoing one of the two - he has his own group of friends, his college society activities, his TA duties. He’s better at talking, starting and ending conversations tactfully, making friends. Kyungsoo’s sure the list goes on and on.
And yet Minseok doesn’t really use his own words to tell Kyungsoo about it, when the letter comes.
He’d definitely told Kyungsoo that he was applying abroad for a transfer program, but Kyungsoo had always thought of it as far away, something always in the sky but never setting down to touch the horizon.
Now, Minseok shows him the envelope. He slides it gingerly over the rug to him, like it’s some sort of secret, something he wishes he didn’t have to go through with.
Dear Mr. Minseok Kim,
It is our pleasure to inform you that you have been accepted…
“It’s in English,” Kyungsoo stays stupidly.
“Yeah.” Minseok’s face is carefully blank. Kyungsoo knows what it means - that Minseok’s preparing for the worst, and that he hates what’s happening right now.
So what’s happening right now? Kyungsoo thinks, around the sudden dizziness and how he wants to lie down and throw up simultaneously. He keeping thinking and thinking, doubling over on the floor, waiting for the answer.
“Kyungsoo?” Minseok sounds alarmed.
The answer: I’m having some kind of weird breakdown, I think.
So he tells himself, well then, stop it right fucking now.
“Hey,” Kyungsoo forces out, unfolding slowly. It does not stop right fucking now. He feels like he’s going to start shaking any second. “I’m okay.”
He takes a deep breath. “But you!” He stretches his lips wide, shows his teeth, but feels more like a grimace than anything else. His lower lip is trembling too, so he bites hard into his cheek. Curls his left hand into a fist so his nails bite into his palm, and sits on it so Minseok doesn’t see. “You’re going to Spain.”
Something flashes across Minseok’s face. It’s for the shortest time, just a flickering in his eyes that’s fast gone - not even a camera could have caught it. It scares Kyungsoo. That Minseok can hide from him so well.
“Yeah,” Minseok shakes his head, like he still can’t believe it. “I guess. I am.”
-
Kyungsoo remembers thinking you’re never going to leave me, remembers feeling so sure. That day, he goes home, locks himself up in his bedroom, and stares at the sky from his window.
He doesn’t move, doesn’t so much as stir for hours. He falls asleep sitting up, cheek presses to the glass panes.
He wakes up at eleven, and the first thing he sees is the moon, shying behind puffs of cloud. The phone in his lap is buzzing. Minseok hyung says the caller ID. In a second, he remembers it all, and lets his throat close up for a second, before forcing down a deep breath.
He answers the call.
“I was thinking,” Minseok says, without preamble. “You wanna drive around for a bit?”
Kyungsoo takes another deep breath. “Sure.”
-
All the hours they’d sat in silence before - Kyungsoo regrets that silence. Regrets all the things he hadn’t said. He doesn’t know what to say, even now, but he starts anyway.
“Hello,” he tries, and shit, his voice is wavering.
Minseok nods, tapping the wheel. There’s going to be a time where Minseok will be tapping his fingers, of course there will, because Minseok’s fingers have a damned language of their own, and Kyungsoo will be thousands of miles away, unable to see it happen. Kyungsoo tries not to dwell.
“Remember how we were going to buy a car together?”
That flicker in his eyes again - but this time Kyungsoo recognizes something in it. A glimpse of sadness there. Nothing but sadness.
“Absolutely. You’ve thwarted me on it time and time again.”
I wish I hadn’t now. “Let’s get one today.”
“Today,” Minseok repeats, then smiles, glancing at him sideways. “Well, there’s only an hour of today left. Where to?”
“That old junk yard,” Kyungsoo shrugs, propping his feet up on the dash and sticking his arm out the window. He spreads his fingers wide, and the wind kisses the spaces between them.
“It was agreed to get a fancy car,” Minseok splutters.
“We’re broke, hyung,” Kyungsoo deadpans, slumping back in his seat. “Eat it. Besides, I’ve wanted to explore that place for ages.”
He gets the last say; dutifully, Minseok pulls up at a few minutes past midnight. “Today’s over,” he shakes his head solemnly. “Thwarted, again.”
Kyungsoo rolls his eyes. “It’s gonna be ages when we get back,” Kyungsoo says, stepping out of the car.
Minseok bangs his own door shut after him. “We’ve been out til later.”
The gate to the yard’s closed, but not locked. They push it open, trying to look everywhere at once. There’s piles of tires and mountains of cars, trolleys, television sets, sofas, broken bicycles, spare engine parts, a washing machine, blow dryers and even, Kyungsoo spies, a swing set in the far corner.
“Fibonacci,” Minseok says, unexpectedly, right behind his ear. Kyungsoo starts and looks around. Minseok’s smiling quietly, and that sadness is there again. His eyes are on the swings too.
“It’ll just be two years, right?” Kyungsoo asks, suddenly unsure. His heart sinks as he says. Just two years. As if Minseok’s just going home for lunch, will be back in time for dinner.
Minseok’s sucks in a breath, eyes closed. “Maybe a year more, maybe - maybe I’ll get a job.”
Kyungsoo feels his pulse rush. freeze, then go on as usual in his ears, in one furious second.
“Right,” he says. Then, “Come on, let’s go to the swings. And you’re telling me what you remember.”
“Okay,” Minseok says, quietly. He reaches out and tangles their fingers together. Scarlet, Kyungsoo thinks, and tugs Minseok closer. Minseok obliges, or maybe Minseok was already going to crowd into his space like he owned it.
“C’mere,” Minseok says, “I’ll push you.”
Kyungsoo takes it. Kyungsoo takes what he can get, whatever he’s given. Never more, not that he knows of, and may Minseok forgive him if he has.
“I’m sorry,” he says, when Minseok catches him and pushes a second time, just like he used to.
“Nothing to be sorry for,” Minseok replies, before getting on his own swing. The chains creak under their combined weight, and Minseok laughs at the sound, so Kyungsoo joins in. It makes him want to cry, really, so he laughs even louder, like defiance.
“I remember,” Minseok says, “Happy primes, sad numbers. You love it all because it’s an entire world by itself. Prime number theory, functions, decimals. The scope of mathematics changing because the scope of primes changed --”
“Landscape, I think I said,” Kyungsoo sighs, staring at the sky. Inky blue and velvety, stars lining every cosmic fold.
“And you said you’d tell me about Fibonacci later.”
“I did.”
Minseok stands up, and the metal frame sighs scratchily in relief. “Come on,” he says, hand out. “We’ll buy cars and you’ll tell me about it.”
Kyungsoo takes it, will always take whatever Minseok puts forward to him, and grasps, tight.
“It’s a sequence,” Kyungsoo starts, “Of numbers. Before it just started with one, but now it can start with either one or zero.”
“A sequence has a pattern, right?” Minseok swings their hands together, and Kyungsoo lets himself get carried away with it; closes his eyes and breathes deeply, as if this is the way it had been and would stay forever.
“Right. And this one has each new number as the sum of the two numbers before it. So it’s zero plus one, third number one. One plus one, fourth number two. Two plus one --”
“Fifth number three, sixth number five?”
“Yeah. And these numbers - this sequence, along with another thing called the Lucas series - they’re part of this huge phenomenon called the golden ratio.”
Kyungsoo doesn’t have a way with words when he talks, but he'll try tonight anyhow.
Minseok's leaving.
It occurs to him, in the middle of a sentence, that nothing he comes up with - no matter how fantastical, how worth listening - Minseok will still leave. It makes him pause, in the middle of his sentence.
Minseok glances up at him, and Kyungsoo looks - really looks - at his eyes again, and keeps talking. It doesn't matter. Kyungsoo isn't the only one who doesn't want this to happen. Minseok may have thought about going away, may have wanted it, but with the regret written all over his face, he hadn't wanted it to go like this.
Kyungsoo keeps talking.
-
Somewhere, after Fibonacci and happy primes and Newtonian physics, and in the middle of, maybe Euclid, maybe the last emperor of China - Kyungsoo isn't too sure, afterwards - Minseok asks, "You know what I've always wanted to photograph most?"
In that second Kyungsoo knows the answer before Minseok says it, all the pictures flashing through his mind, but he can't believe it, it isn't possible -
"You," Minseok says.
And it's cold, who knows what past three in the morning and neither of them thought this through, really, because they're just in T-shirts and jeans and shivering, and -
Minseok asks, "May I?" Dips his head close, waiting, and if Minseok wants to take then Kyungsoo will give everything. "Kyungsoo," Minseok whispers, and the wind blows from the west, so Kyungsoo smells strawberry, again, and nervousness, and the slightest hint of oncoming rain. Kyungsoo licks his lips, stares at Minseok's mouth, and that's all the answer either of them needs.
Minseok leans in, arms on either side of Kyungsoo, and this first feather kiss between them is soft and quick and already too much. Kyungsoo's head bumps against
something. Minseok's hands come up behind to cushion him. "Sorry," Minseok mumbles against his mouth, and Kyungsoo winds his arms tentatively over Minseok's shoulders.
"Don't be," he breathes back. And then, "Come on."
Minseok kisses him again, thumbs rubbing against his scalp, and Kyungsoo doesn't know anything except for the taste of Minseok's mouth, sugar and overchewed chewing gum, the feel of him, everywhere they touch - his fingers behind Kyungsoo's head, every space between their bodies burning and making Kyungsoo want to crash against him, the way he's smiling into Kyungsoo's mouth, how they're both shaking in the cold but so, so warm.
"Wanted this," Kyungsoo gasps, after Minseok cups his jaw and leans away reluctantly. "So long."
"Yeah," Minseok drops his head to Kyungsoo's shoulder. "Me too, Soo." They stand like that, wind whistling through all the scrap, cool metal at Kyungsoo's back.
Then their exchange sinks in, and Kyungsoo has never been more indignant.
"You too?" he starts, shrill, glaring down at Minseok. Minseok tilts his head to look at him, tired and confused. "What d'you mean, you too? Have I actually been held out on for who knows how --"
Kyungsoo should have expected this. Minseok takes a liking to something, he sticks to it; Minseok kisses him mid sentence. Thoroughly, for half a minute, before Kyungsoo breaks off, red-faced and breathless.
"Uh," he says, and Minseok's fingers graze down his arm.
"So," Minseok says, "I was thinking."
"Yeah?" Kyungsoo says, staring unabashedly at how red Minseok's mouth is, red and wet and kissed, and perfect for more kissing, and -
"Pretty fancy car, here."
He doesn't give Kyungsoo a chance to answer, just goes in again, kissing his forehead, his temple, down his jaw, under his ear. He nuzzles into Kyungsoo's neck, bites into his collarbones and sucks into the skin, until Kyungsoo can barely stand, his eyes fluttering shut.
"I - what?" he manages, as Minseok blows over his neck. It's a euphoric sense of danger when Kyungsoo feels Minseok scrape his teeth over Kyungsoo's pulse point. He feels Minseok smile into his skin.
"The car behind you," Minseok says, looks up at him slyly. The hands at his waist turn him around, and, oh. It's a little Volkeswagen, bronze and a little dusty, and Kyungsoo can't process more than that. Minseok's fingers are skidding up his sides, and Kyungsoo's hot and cold. The way Minseok keeps breathing his name, how Minseok's body braces his, Minseok kissing the side of his mouth, it all melts into a tightness, a coiling good, so strong it's almost painful. It flares up from his stomach to his throat, settles down and burns.
"It's a nice --" Kyungsoo starts to say, but one hand on him slides down to the front of his jeans, and the other's fingers graze over his nipple.
"Nice, ah, c-car," Kyungsoo chokes out.
"Yeah?" Minseok says, and then, "God, Soo." He gets Kyungsoo back around to face him abruptly, pushes him against the door. Then Minseok's crowding into his space and kissing him, tongue flicking over his teeth, tip curling under the roof of Kyungsoo's mouth.
He slots his leg between Kyungsoo's thighs, and pushes. Kyungsoo clings to him, breath stopping for a second before it stutters to a start, and he grinds down.
"Jesus," Minseok groans. "You're so - fucking --"
"Not too --" Kyungsoo grins, breath coming short -- "Ah, bad yourself."
Minseok growls, grinding back and fuck, that's, Minseok's so hard it makes Kyungsoo's mouth water. Minseok's hands get on his ass and squeeze, pull him closer, closer, as close as possible, and they're pushing against each other, knees and thighs, hands flicking and tangling and tugging.
"Want you," Minseok whispers, and it sounds like he's fighting back a sob of desperation.
"Take it. Have me." And it feels so good, like an ache, like gold in his veins. Kyungsoo throws his head back, Minseok claiming his neck in kisses at once, chaste little butterfly touches over every inch of it, and its the gentleness of it that - he squeezes his eyes shut and takes a deep, shuddering breath, muscles locking - makes it all burst into color.
Minseok's hand comes down over his jeans again, fingers dragging slowly through the denim, and Kyungsoo mashes their mouths together artlessly.
"Wish I could see you," Minseok says, voice shaky, "Properly. This moon is shit."
"It's okay," Kyungsoo murmurs, slumping forward in exhaustion, satisfaction, and kisses Minseok's pretty neck, experimentally drags his tongue over the Adam's apple.
Minseok's hands curl into his shirt.
"Remember those infinite truths?" Kyungsoo says, looking at Minseok's face best as he can. Minseok's sheened over in sweat, brows furrowed, mouth hanging open.
"Imagine me any way you like." He rides his knee up between Minseok's legs, and Minseok's thighs clamp down on it, shaking and desperate.
"I've got you," Kyungsoo whispers, and Minseok's forehead knocks clumsily against his, entire body stiffening. Kyungsoo can feel the heat, the sudden damp through their jeans. He wraps his arms around Minseok, holds him as close as possible, close as he can.
"Lovely car, really," Minseok mumbles, eventually, hands coming up to tangle in Kyungsoo's hair.
Kyungsoo grins into Minseok's shoulder.
"Shall we buy it?" Minseok continues.
"Couldn't not, if we tried."
The drive home, Kyungsoo curls up on his seat, Minseok holding his hand, Kyungsoo staring at Minseok instead of out the window.
"Was it --" Kyungsoo starts, then grips Minseok's hand tighter. "Just for this once?"
"Today," Minseok says. "And for tomorrow, and the day after --"
"And when you leave?"
"And for when I leave. And for when I come back."
~
Kyungsoo doesn't see him off at the airport. His mother's long since stopped trying to support new friends, or public etiquette, but she asks him, with a pained expression, if he's feeling alright. When he says he's fine, she seems like she's about to ask another question, but decides against it.
He's grateful.
-
Kyungsoo isn't sure what he'd been expecting. A letter? An email? A text? But it never comes. He waits a week, a month, almost asks for Minseok's new number from his mother on his birthday. He stops himself though, and instead buries into even more work than before.
He restarts tuitions, reads up on theses in his spare time. Happy primes are, somewhat fittingly, a thing of the past. He's working on quantized algebras, and Voronoi percolation. He works through exercises and tries out postulates on Saturdays, sitting on the bonnet of the Cressida that got left behind. (He'd avoided it at first, just sat in the backseat of all those memories, to breathe in the smell. Eventually, he'd started driving lessons to put the car to use.)
The feeling of the wind through his hair is second best only to solving an equation right after twenty pages of effort, in sophomore year.
His grades land him on the Dean's list, and his batchmates have already started a bet on who'll be valedictorian - Do Kyungsoo, or Byun Baekhyun. Kyungsoo isn't one to care, but he always smiles nervously at Baekhyun after he hears about it. The guy must pick up on Kyungsoo's apprehension, because one day he comes over to Kyungsoo's desk after the lecture's finished, where Kyungsoo's still putting his pens away.
"Hey," he says. "You and I share all the same classes, so I know you're free after this."
Kyungsoo pauses, blinks. "okay?"
Baekhyun begins to look unsure of himself. "I mean. So we could have lunch. There's this great little place I know. Unless you, uh, have other plans. Then that's totally okay. Or if you just don't want to at all. That, too, is totally okay."
Kyungsoo thinks about the new book on Numerical Analysis, 9th Edition and shrugs. 'Sure. I could do with some food."
Quick as light, Baekhyun's easy, confident grin is back: rectangular and shiny white. It's his trademark. "Believe me," he says, hopping backwards to sit on a desk as he waits for Kyungsoo to finish packing. "This is not just some food. This is sweet baby Jesus level manna."
Kyungsoo's too surprised to suppress his snort. "Some kind of modern Samaritan?" he asks, and not to be ironic but God it feels good to talk like this again.
"Just a believer," Baekhyun slides off the desk, hands in finger guns. "In really good food."
-
The second half of sophomore year is better than the first half. He doesn't go on long drives with Baekhyun, he doesn't have to create rules to hold himself back from anything when he invites Baekhyun to his room, and all they ever watch is cooking show reruns, Korea's Next Top Model and tragedy. Baekhyun cries every damned time at those.
"God," he says, choked up and blotchy-nosed, and even though Kyungsoo's on the verge of crying himself, looking at Baekhyun like that always cracks him up. At first he'd been scared that he'd hurt the guy's feelings, but then he learnt that Baekhyun loves making people laugh. ("And if it's a close friend that laughs at me, it's cool," Baekhyun had admitted, cheerfully. "I just have to exact my revenge later."
Close friend, Kyungsoo had thought, and hid a smile behind his textbook. Baekhyun tried to spin a pencil between his fingers, after that, and couldn't. It made Kyungsoo feel warm for some reason. "You can laugh at me, too," he had said, later, so Baekhyun had laughed at him.
"I know, idiot.")
-
Third year, Kyungsoo almost treats the car as if it was never anyone else's. Almost; he gets the seats done and the hinges oiled and the dents in the bumpers smoothed out, but he doesn't upholster the dashboard. Curiously, no one - not even Baekhyun, the biggest nitpick - seems to complain, or even point it out. Maybe he's reading too much into it and they're just polite. But Kyungsoo feels content.
Baekhyun leaves for an exchange program in the fall, and Sooyoung enters her first year.
He doesn't notice, really, until she's knocking at the door of his cramped TA office. Her hair's short and bright red, so it takes him a moment to recognize her shrewd, pretty face.
“You!” he exclaims, finally, and she laughs.
“Me, indeed. Glad we aren’t tangents after all,” she teases. “I signed up for class and saw you’re a TA, so… here I am! Engineering awaits!” She sits down across the table from him, without further ado. “First, my questions. Then you give me your Skype, and we catch up.”
“Forgot how forward you were,” Kyungsoo smiles, taking the file she hands him.
“Careful there,” she pretends to mind. “You’re making me sound awful.”
“It’s a good thing,” he says, lightly, and flips through the pages. “Graphs, again?” He’s incredulous.
“I never stopped muddling them,” she confesses. “You remember, I practically failed the test. Then you helped and I got a C on that chapter. I never did get above a C afterwards.”
“Jesus,” Kyungsoo closes his eyes. “Okay, let’s go. Tensile strength, is it?”
-
“I’m glad I registered for this course,” Sooyoung bursts out, randomly.
Kyungsoo looks up in surprise from his papers. On his laptop screen, Sooyoung is pulling a face, her way of expressing sincerity and embarrassment.
“Well,” Kyungsoo says. “I guess I am, too.”
“You looked terrible,” she goes on. “I literally chose you over the cute girl I’d rather have spent time with --”
“Thanks,” Kyungsoo cuts in.
“-- because you were miserable and it’s sad seeing you like that.”
Kyungsoo swallows. “Thank you,” he says, more heartfelt. Then he coughs, and goes back to marking papers. Sooyoung smiles and goes back to her sketching.
-
Fourth year. Thesis year. Kyungsoo forgets the concept of sleep, except on holidays, when he remembers so hard that even monsoons don’t wake him up.
“Dude,” Baekhyun comments. “I never thought I’d say this to anyone, but the way you sleep is hardcore.”
Kyungsoo flashes him the rock sign without looking from his work.
Baekhyun sighs. “Yeah. Okay.”
It’s on Labor Day that Kyungsoo actually takes a break that doesn’t consist of mindlessly inhaling microwaved food, or sleeping fifteen hours at a time.
He’s headed towards the supermarket, umbrella up in case of rain. The grocery list tucked in his pocket is full of cake ingredients, and he’s anticipating a good round of baking and dessert for himself, when he looks up and almost drops the umbrella.
This can’t be his brain, tricking him, because the Minseok that Kyungsoo remembers, that Kyungsoo imagines, is the Minseok that left. Curly hair short, stubble and easy, soft clothes that have been washed too many times and are starting to fray at the linings.
This Minseok has the same face, the same eyes, the same height. But he’s got a little ponytail, denim jacket slung over one shoulder, camera around his neck, a fresh button-up so crisp that the collar looks uncomfortable from across the street. His jeans are dark, no rips in them anymore. His shoes, though, are the same; white sneakers, muddied over with every kind of dirt imaginable. He’s on his phone, frowning at something and looking so impossibly far away, fantastical and unreal, so different from what Kyungsoo remembers.
But then Minseok raises his head, and after an instant of shocked recognition - those eyes are the same, so startling, so sharp and soft at once - he waves.
And this Minseok, this Minseok is exactly how Kyungsoo remembers him.
Kyungsoo takes a deep breath and steps forward.
They’re standing still on the same pavement now, inches apart, and people mill all around them.
Nobody’s looking, Kyungsoo realizes, once again. Nobody cares. But Minseok’s just standing there, calm and taking it all in and Minseok cares. This time, there’s a thrill, and nothing else. Kyungsoo reaches forward and grabs Minseok’s hand in both of his.
~
This right here; this hold on his wrist a homestead, these shoulders the most welcome curve for his chin, this chest the hearth, this heartbeat the thrill of living.
"Hey."
This is what it takes, for Kyungsoo to smile first, for him to say the first word, to twist their hands around until he's holding Minseok's: one word, and all these ebbing months, these long, winding years.
fin.
#1 thanks to j, who rec’d me the solitude of prime numbers, which brought this about, to ren (of course), who rec’d me one hundred years of solitude and left me with no choice but to read j’s rec asap. thanks to reeza, for being the moon in my rather stubborn negativity-induced darkness; to t, z and m, e, y and madcap for the sprints. thanks to td, for fibonacci. to ri, i miss you. and thanks always to f&a.
#2 madeleine l’engle’s a wind in the door also kind of had a small role here (i say, as if it didn’t have a big role in my life). if you’ve read it, take a guess! :D
# cut texts from lion by years & years. who, btw, awesome band. pls listen.