15; infinite; time stops for you, too
time stops for you, too | r for mature themes (spoiler: inexplicit sex, suicide)
woohyun/sunggyu
2.6k words
oneshot
it gets happier at the end. unless you read the chronological version. i suggest reading this one first. c:
Woohyun rewinds, and Sunggyu comes to life in his eyes. He presses play and almost tastes him again; sweet, with a bit of coffee.
Sunggyu buys a shiny glass vial one day, made of corners and triangle-shaped planes. He places it on the dining table, corked and empty, next to their thin, half-filled glass vase. They match.
Woohyun reminds himself to change the flowers. Maybe something colorful would be nice, something light indigo, like the color that was in Infinite’s seventh logo. It has to stand out from the rest of the room; when Sunggyu pauses in his song-writing and looks around for inspiration, Woohyun wants the flowers to be the first thing he sees, and it has to be a bright color that’ll remind Sunggyu of everything. Maybe something red, like what Sunggyu’s hair was when he first started solo promotions.
The next day, Woohyun sees the vial filled with a pretty shade of red, just as he places the new flowers into the vase. They match.
time stops for you, too
Sunggyu writes lyrics in the downtime between their schedules. He doesn’t admit it, doesn’t like admitting it either, but he writes them just about everywhere-in his cellphone’s memo, on printed set lists, between notes on their music sheets.
Woohyun watches when Sunggyu writes. Sunggyu tries to shoo him away the first few times, but he gives up since Woohyun always sticks around long enough for him to finish anyway.
“Why are you always looking,” Sunggyu grumbles as he’s scribbling on the company cafeteria’s tissue, low and more to himself than anything.
“You forget where you put them if I don’t remind you,” Woohyun half-jabs in reply, swallowing a bite of lettuce. “Do you even remember leaving your phone on the bathroom sink last night?”
“I-no. You have it? Gimme.” Sunggyu stretches out his free hand over the table and sighs. “Did you read anything?”
“Yes, it’s in my bag. No, I didn’t read anything.” Woohyun claps his hand onto Sunggyu’s palm, lets the temperatures of their fingers mix before letting go. Still no phone. “Just kidding, for both questions.”
“Nam Woohyun,” Sunggyu says in warning.
Woohyun grins and pulls the phone out from his pocket. “The lyrics sound good. I can imagine it already,” he clears his throat, “Sixty seconds is all I need for this story-”
Sunggyu grabs his phone with an embarrassed flush, and Woohyun laughs.
Woohyun sets up the camera himself. It’s not difficult, what with Myungsoo’s patient-enough teaching the day before, but it’s harder today for some reason. It feels like his hands are trying not to shake.
“It’s your first interview in years,” since you left us, Woohyun leaves in the air. “Since you decided to become a composer-songwriter.”
“Has the interview started already?” Sunggyu glances up from his notebook as the camera fits onto the tripod with a click. “And, yeah, years.”
“Hasn’t started yet. I’m just warming you up.” Woohyun bends down and peers through the lens. Sunggyu is seated at the table, notebook and pencil in front of him, framed on either side by a steaming mug of coffee, his milk and liquid sweetener in glass vials, a vase with muted red flowers. The sunlight hits Sunggyu perfectly. “Are you sure you’re fine with having the interview at your home?”
“With only you?”
Woohyun turns the camera on, expecting the warm curl in Sunggyu’s voice to straighten-but no.
Sunggyu sips from his coffee. “It’s easier, like this. Close company is comfy.”
“It’s recording,” Woohyun calls out, slipping onto his seat opposite Sunggyu’s. He smiles. “You’re being called Nell’s successor nowadays for your emotional lyrics and touching compositions. You’re also considered mysterious for never revealing your identity, but all our viewers are curious about who you are. Please introduce yourself.”
It’s the first time Sunggyu has left his house after leaving Infinite. He’s phoning Woohyun from a music store, gushing about electric guitars and how he can walk around the streets freely-no one recognizes him anymore, he says, laughing. It sounds forced, but maybe that’s just really Sunggyu’s voice now, scarred by surgery.
Woohyun tells him to stay where he is, then arrives at the same store several minutes later.
“It’s Nam Woohyun,” people gush from outside. “From Infinite,” and it sounds even louder.
Sunggyu’s hand stills where it is in the air, reaching out for a guitar next to the window.
Woohyun catches Sunggyu’s wrist and steers him into a deeper corner of the store. No one follows, nor do voices. The grateful, shaky smile Sunggyu gives him is all he needs to hug Sunggyu in reply.
Sunggyu destroys his voice after Infinite releases their ninth album, in the middle of one of their world tours. It’s from his special solo stage, singing the kind of music he’s always wanted to sing, with the band he never had. With notes in a texture his voice was never trained for.
He gets emergency surgery and tries to join the concert the next day, but his voice never gets better.
Woohyun wants to blame him for being an idiot, being stupid, wants to curse at him, wants to punch him until all the hoarseness in Sunggyu’s voice gets knocked away. (Of course, no one wants to admit that if they’d never tied him down into a genre he never wanted in the first place, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.)
Woohyun,
I wonder how pitiful I looked then, that you even hugged me for no reason At some point, I started wondering why I was still living.
This will sound stupid cheesy like something you’d say, but I think I lasted this long because of you. Thank you. Sorry. I think I was like a leech, clinging to you all the time. Sorry. I’ll miss you guys. Sorry for being a bad leader, too. Thank you.
Thank
I love you.
Legs tangled with legs and sheets, Woohyun asks him as they’re about to fall asleep. It’s three in the morning.
“Another one of the songs you wrote got first yesterday.” He has a tired hand on Sunggyu’s neck, and he moves it up to card through the downy locks of Sunggyu’s hair. “People want an interview with the genius who keeps churning out these hits.”
It’s a joke that hangs uneasy in the air, but thankfully, Sunggyu doesn’t laugh or frown. Instead, he tightens his arm around Woohyun’s chest and settles deeper into his pillow. “I’m tired and sore,” he mumbles. “Talk tomorrow.”
There’s a bit of haggling on the couch the morning later, Sunggyu sprawled on his stomach and across Woohyun’s lap. Sunggyu eventually agrees.
Neatly, they manage to avoid conversation about the group that Sunggyu was once in. It’s what they always do anyway, so whether there’s a camera or not, it doesn’t really make much of a difference.
When out of the blue-
“You’re much better at being an emcee now,” Sunggyu says fondly, pouring himself a bit more coffee. “I don’t think I’ve seen you throw a single heart once.”
“I’m not the focus of the interview, stop talking about me,” Woohyun whines. Behind the camera, though, he makes a heart with his hands, and Sunggyu bodily recoils with an exaggerated jerk. Woohyun can’t help a laugh. “But thanks.”
“So how are the others?”
Woohyun’s foot stops tapping on the floor. “E-excuse…”
Sunggyu makes a face at him; that don’t play dumb look he used to give whenever he found chocolate wrappers deep in Woohyun’s drawers. “Start with Dongwoo and Hoya.” His hand hovers over the vial of milk before moving to the one next to it, filled with a pretty red color. Liquid sweetener. He pours it into his coffee. “I heard they’re making a new album.”
“Ah. Yeah, they are.” Woohyun slightly lowers his chin, hiding the nervous bob of his throat. “Sungyeol and Myungsoo are doing well with acting. Sungjong’s focusing on his business.”
After a sip of his coffee, Sunggyu nods. “That’s good. You?”
There’s a pause. “Me?”
Sunggyu makes that face again, massaging his temples, and Woohyun smiles. He tries to keep it on his face as Sunggyu continues speaking. “I know you host a program or two now. Are you still singing?”
“I… yeah. Last single’s doing okay. Ballad and R&B fusion.” Woohyun leans back into his chair, suddenly feeling like the camera’s on the both of them, with the whole of Korea watching and the rest of Infinite’s members at the front seats. “We all still sing sometimes, sometimes as Infinite. Sometimes in a unit, like what Hoya and Dongwoo are doing right now.”
With a content hum, Sunggyu finishes his coffee, setting his mug back down on the coaster. He shuts his notebook and slides it over to Woohyun’s side of the table, and the air of finality is cemented with his smile.
Woohyun can’t help it-the vial next to the vase is cut like a gem and sparkles nicely in the light, filled with what looks like four seasons juice. His favorite, like the juice he’s drinking now. He still watches Sunggyu as he writes, but Sunggyu’s just writing in his journal anyway, and Woohyun’s eyes occasionally stray to the vial on the center of the table.
After a few moments, Sunggyu stretches up from his notebook and rolls his shoulders. “Just keep it, if you want. I have two other containers anyway.”
“Do you?” Woohyun makes a disbelieving noise, fingers playing across the patterns etched on his glass of juice. “You’re just saying that.” To make me happy.
“You’re like a cat sometimes; you like shiny things, and you like things other people already own.” Sunggyu exhales a small laugh, standing up and heading to his kitchen. “Just keep it.”
So Woohyun takes it. It feels heavy in his palm, diluted red liquid swishing around in glass, and Sunggyu returns with two similar containers. Sunggyu holds up the one filled with translucent red liquid as well. “I only ever add two things to my coffee, anyway.”
Woohyun ends up running his fingers over the vial the entire time it’s in his hands; while talking to Sunggyu about the news, about music, while kissing him goodbye, on his bed in his own home. He holds it up against the bedroom’s dim light, uncorks it to have a small taste, and sweetener, Woohyun realizes. It’s liquid sweetener.
“Are you okay?” Sunggyu asks, dropping his pencil in a rare moment of open concern. He immediately stands up to approach as Woohyun removes his shoes, but Woohyun shakes his head, dropping down onto the chair across him. Sunggyu pauses and follows suit.
Leaning back with a rushed, angry breath, Woohyun presses a hand to his forehead. “Just… woke up with a headache, then the whole day turned into shit. God, I thought we were hard to teach, back when we were still seven, but these trainees are-”
Still seven. No.
Woohyun stills and winces.
Sunggyu puts on a small smile, eyebrows slanting in a sympathetic look. “Come on, it’s not taboo or anything. Actually, I’ve,” and he lowers his head, as if to return his attention to his notebook, but Woohyun knows that Sunggyu’s trying to gather words, “been remembering a lot, too.” He picks up his pencil and his fingers take too long to hold it upright. “I miss it.”
“Sorry,” Woohyun says anyway, and he winces again. As if it changes anything.
He lets his breaths and thoughts even out for a moment, and Sunggyu returns to writing. But Sunggyu’s the one looking up from time to time, now, instead of the other way around, and Woohyun finds it cute; he makes it a game to meet Sunggyu’s gaze each time, and Sunggyu steadily flushes up to his cheeks.
“My day got better already,” Woohyun says, grinning, once Sunggyu’s ears are a bright pink.
“That was fast,” Sunggyu mumbles, low and more to himself than anything. It feels familiar.
Then things go back to normal. Woohyun watches as always, the soft curve of Sunggyu’s fingers, hair, relaxed shoulders. Relaxed with him. The occasional shutting of eyes in thought, unguarded. Sunggyu’s thoughts and words, and Woohyun is here, trusted to them.
It feels good. “What are you writing?”
“Writing about you guys,” Sunggyu replies in half-answer. The corners of his eyes lift. “Biography, kind of. I’m writing everything.”
Woohyun stretches up from his chair languidly, limbers over to Sunggyu’s side of the table to look over Sunggyu’s shoulder. Sunggyu only shuts his notebook and turns around, shortening the distance between their gazes into centimeters. “No, it’s a secret.” He reaches up and flicks Woohyun’s nose. “I’ll give the notebook to you when I’m done.”
Whining from his throat is something Woohyun hasn’t done in a while, and when Sunggyu laughs, Woohyun ends up laughing with him, embarrassed. Nostalgic. It feels good.
He watches the interview video the moment he gets home. Sunggyu’s movements are smooth and relaxed, confident in a muted way, like a leader should be. Woohyun leans back into his own dining chair and laughs at all his favorite parts; Sunggyu’s disgruntled faces, his blushes, his sudden jabs and dry jokes and wit. The conversations where they accidentally get sidetracked and the interview disappears from view.
But always, Woohyun’s fingers shake in anticipation for something else. His eyes always zoom into that part and make it longer than the agonizing twenty-seven seconds it actually is; Sunggyu drinks from his coffee, pupils dilating moments later. His shoulders and syllables soften. His gaze swerves like a car about to crash, and he massages his temples, eyes screwing shut. Dying right in front of Woohyun’s eyes.
He hands Woohyun his notebook and smiles.
Woohyun rewinds. Sunggyu’s pouring the sweetener into his coffee. It’s definitely sweet, Woohyun remembers from the smell, and from the little he had tasted on Sunggyu’s lips. (Maybe antifreeze, the investigator had said. Maybe arsenic.)
He looks at the mug of coffee on his table, then at the gem-like vial next to it, thoughtful. His vision’s blurring again. Like it always does, when he watches this video. Everyday.
Three days after the interview, they find Sunggyu inside his house, sitting slumped against the front door. He’s apparently been like that for seventy-two hours.
Two months later, on the last page of a notebook, Woohyun finds the letter he’s always been looking for.
The interview ends without incident. There’s a lot to cut out, but Woohyun’s sure no one will mind if he does it himself.
“Can’t I stay?” he pleads once he’s dismantled the camera, trying for the puppy eyes he had years ago.
Sunggyu only laughs at his efforts, lightly pushing Woohyun to the front door. He leans against the doorway once Woohyun is out, smiling brightly, and Woohyun leans forward without a second’s thought. Sunggyu meets him halfway.
“Sweet,” Woohyun says when they break for air. He leans in again but Sunggyu beats against his chest with weak fists, voice back to its old, nagging quality. It’s the first he’s heard it in years, and it’s a tone he misses.
“Stop, I need to sleep early today.” Sunggyu takes a step back into his house, eyebrows furrowed, eyes glazed, and cheeks slightly flushed.
Woohyun beams, impish and triumphant.
Although Sunggyu rolls his eyes, he smiles back a few moments later, moving forward. He rests his forehead against Woohyun’s shoulder, and then the rest of them fits together wordlessly, seamlessly, like their breaths and their fingers. “Take care of the other members,” Sunggyu whispers. I love you.
Love you too. Woohyun presses one last kiss into Sunggyu’s hair. Running a hand through the locks and strands, he breathes in and smiles.
- masterlist + requests - watch - join -
chronological version will answer your questions, if any. (promise... maybe.) otherwise, feel free to ask. c:
- inspired by Nell's lovely song + music video, The Day Before. not said at the beginning because huge spoiler l o l.
- woohyun got a headache because he tried the poison. yeah, it's poison. :c
- also i never want this to happen to sunggyu, of course ;; or to anyone, for that matter.
leave a comment? <3
woohyun/sunggyu
2.6k words
oneshot
it gets happier at the end. unless you read the chronological version. i suggest reading this one first. c:
Woohyun rewinds, and Sunggyu comes to life in his eyes. He presses play and almost tastes him again; sweet, with a bit of coffee.
Sunggyu buys a shiny glass vial one day, made of corners and triangle-shaped planes. He places it on the dining table, corked and empty, next to their thin, half-filled glass vase. They match.
Woohyun reminds himself to change the flowers. Maybe something colorful would be nice, something light indigo, like the color that was in Infinite’s seventh logo. It has to stand out from the rest of the room; when Sunggyu pauses in his song-writing and looks around for inspiration, Woohyun wants the flowers to be the first thing he sees, and it has to be a bright color that’ll remind Sunggyu of everything. Maybe something red, like what Sunggyu’s hair was when he first started solo promotions.
The next day, Woohyun sees the vial filled with a pretty shade of red, just as he places the new flowers into the vase. They match.
time stops for you, too
Sunggyu writes lyrics in the downtime between their schedules. He doesn’t admit it, doesn’t like admitting it either, but he writes them just about everywhere-in his cellphone’s memo, on printed set lists, between notes on their music sheets.
Woohyun watches when Sunggyu writes. Sunggyu tries to shoo him away the first few times, but he gives up since Woohyun always sticks around long enough for him to finish anyway.
“Why are you always looking,” Sunggyu grumbles as he’s scribbling on the company cafeteria’s tissue, low and more to himself than anything.
“You forget where you put them if I don’t remind you,” Woohyun half-jabs in reply, swallowing a bite of lettuce. “Do you even remember leaving your phone on the bathroom sink last night?”
“I-no. You have it? Gimme.” Sunggyu stretches out his free hand over the table and sighs. “Did you read anything?”
“Yes, it’s in my bag. No, I didn’t read anything.” Woohyun claps his hand onto Sunggyu’s palm, lets the temperatures of their fingers mix before letting go. Still no phone. “Just kidding, for both questions.”
“Nam Woohyun,” Sunggyu says in warning.
Woohyun grins and pulls the phone out from his pocket. “The lyrics sound good. I can imagine it already,” he clears his throat, “Sixty seconds is all I need for this story-”
Sunggyu grabs his phone with an embarrassed flush, and Woohyun laughs.
Woohyun sets up the camera himself. It’s not difficult, what with Myungsoo’s patient-enough teaching the day before, but it’s harder today for some reason. It feels like his hands are trying not to shake.
“It’s your first interview in years,” since you left us, Woohyun leaves in the air. “Since you decided to become a composer-songwriter.”
“Has the interview started already?” Sunggyu glances up from his notebook as the camera fits onto the tripod with a click. “And, yeah, years.”
“Hasn’t started yet. I’m just warming you up.” Woohyun bends down and peers through the lens. Sunggyu is seated at the table, notebook and pencil in front of him, framed on either side by a steaming mug of coffee, his milk and liquid sweetener in glass vials, a vase with muted red flowers. The sunlight hits Sunggyu perfectly. “Are you sure you’re fine with having the interview at your home?”
“With only you?”
Woohyun turns the camera on, expecting the warm curl in Sunggyu’s voice to straighten-but no.
Sunggyu sips from his coffee. “It’s easier, like this. Close company is comfy.”
“It’s recording,” Woohyun calls out, slipping onto his seat opposite Sunggyu’s. He smiles. “You’re being called Nell’s successor nowadays for your emotional lyrics and touching compositions. You’re also considered mysterious for never revealing your identity, but all our viewers are curious about who you are. Please introduce yourself.”
It’s the first time Sunggyu has left his house after leaving Infinite. He’s phoning Woohyun from a music store, gushing about electric guitars and how he can walk around the streets freely-no one recognizes him anymore, he says, laughing. It sounds forced, but maybe that’s just really Sunggyu’s voice now, scarred by surgery.
Woohyun tells him to stay where he is, then arrives at the same store several minutes later.
“It’s Nam Woohyun,” people gush from outside. “From Infinite,” and it sounds even louder.
Sunggyu’s hand stills where it is in the air, reaching out for a guitar next to the window.
Woohyun catches Sunggyu’s wrist and steers him into a deeper corner of the store. No one follows, nor do voices. The grateful, shaky smile Sunggyu gives him is all he needs to hug Sunggyu in reply.
Sunggyu destroys his voice after Infinite releases their ninth album, in the middle of one of their world tours. It’s from his special solo stage, singing the kind of music he’s always wanted to sing, with the band he never had. With notes in a texture his voice was never trained for.
He gets emergency surgery and tries to join the concert the next day, but his voice never gets better.
Woohyun wants to blame him for being an idiot, being stupid, wants to curse at him, wants to punch him until all the hoarseness in Sunggyu’s voice gets knocked away. (Of course, no one wants to admit that if they’d never tied him down into a genre he never wanted in the first place, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.)
Woohyun,
I wonder how pitiful I looked then, that you even hugged me for no reason At some point, I started wondering why I was still living.
This will sound stupid cheesy like something you’d say, but I think I lasted this long because of you. Thank you. Sorry. I think I was like a leech, clinging to you all the time. Sorry. I’ll miss you guys. Sorry for being a bad leader, too. Thank you.
Thank
I love you.
Legs tangled with legs and sheets, Woohyun asks him as they’re about to fall asleep. It’s three in the morning.
“Another one of the songs you wrote got first yesterday.” He has a tired hand on Sunggyu’s neck, and he moves it up to card through the downy locks of Sunggyu’s hair. “People want an interview with the genius who keeps churning out these hits.”
It’s a joke that hangs uneasy in the air, but thankfully, Sunggyu doesn’t laugh or frown. Instead, he tightens his arm around Woohyun’s chest and settles deeper into his pillow. “I’m tired and sore,” he mumbles. “Talk tomorrow.”
There’s a bit of haggling on the couch the morning later, Sunggyu sprawled on his stomach and across Woohyun’s lap. Sunggyu eventually agrees.
Neatly, they manage to avoid conversation about the group that Sunggyu was once in. It’s what they always do anyway, so whether there’s a camera or not, it doesn’t really make much of a difference.
When out of the blue-
“You’re much better at being an emcee now,” Sunggyu says fondly, pouring himself a bit more coffee. “I don’t think I’ve seen you throw a single heart once.”
“I’m not the focus of the interview, stop talking about me,” Woohyun whines. Behind the camera, though, he makes a heart with his hands, and Sunggyu bodily recoils with an exaggerated jerk. Woohyun can’t help a laugh. “But thanks.”
“So how are the others?”
Woohyun’s foot stops tapping on the floor. “E-excuse…”
Sunggyu makes a face at him; that don’t play dumb look he used to give whenever he found chocolate wrappers deep in Woohyun’s drawers. “Start with Dongwoo and Hoya.” His hand hovers over the vial of milk before moving to the one next to it, filled with a pretty red color. Liquid sweetener. He pours it into his coffee. “I heard they’re making a new album.”
“Ah. Yeah, they are.” Woohyun slightly lowers his chin, hiding the nervous bob of his throat. “Sungyeol and Myungsoo are doing well with acting. Sungjong’s focusing on his business.”
After a sip of his coffee, Sunggyu nods. “That’s good. You?”
There’s a pause. “Me?”
Sunggyu makes that face again, massaging his temples, and Woohyun smiles. He tries to keep it on his face as Sunggyu continues speaking. “I know you host a program or two now. Are you still singing?”
“I… yeah. Last single’s doing okay. Ballad and R&B fusion.” Woohyun leans back into his chair, suddenly feeling like the camera’s on the both of them, with the whole of Korea watching and the rest of Infinite’s members at the front seats. “We all still sing sometimes, sometimes as Infinite. Sometimes in a unit, like what Hoya and Dongwoo are doing right now.”
With a content hum, Sunggyu finishes his coffee, setting his mug back down on the coaster. He shuts his notebook and slides it over to Woohyun’s side of the table, and the air of finality is cemented with his smile.
Woohyun can’t help it-the vial next to the vase is cut like a gem and sparkles nicely in the light, filled with what looks like four seasons juice. His favorite, like the juice he’s drinking now. He still watches Sunggyu as he writes, but Sunggyu’s just writing in his journal anyway, and Woohyun’s eyes occasionally stray to the vial on the center of the table.
After a few moments, Sunggyu stretches up from his notebook and rolls his shoulders. “Just keep it, if you want. I have two other containers anyway.”
“Do you?” Woohyun makes a disbelieving noise, fingers playing across the patterns etched on his glass of juice. “You’re just saying that.” To make me happy.
“You’re like a cat sometimes; you like shiny things, and you like things other people already own.” Sunggyu exhales a small laugh, standing up and heading to his kitchen. “Just keep it.”
So Woohyun takes it. It feels heavy in his palm, diluted red liquid swishing around in glass, and Sunggyu returns with two similar containers. Sunggyu holds up the one filled with translucent red liquid as well. “I only ever add two things to my coffee, anyway.”
Woohyun ends up running his fingers over the vial the entire time it’s in his hands; while talking to Sunggyu about the news, about music, while kissing him goodbye, on his bed in his own home. He holds it up against the bedroom’s dim light, uncorks it to have a small taste, and sweetener, Woohyun realizes. It’s liquid sweetener.
“Are you okay?” Sunggyu asks, dropping his pencil in a rare moment of open concern. He immediately stands up to approach as Woohyun removes his shoes, but Woohyun shakes his head, dropping down onto the chair across him. Sunggyu pauses and follows suit.
Leaning back with a rushed, angry breath, Woohyun presses a hand to his forehead. “Just… woke up with a headache, then the whole day turned into shit. God, I thought we were hard to teach, back when we were still seven, but these trainees are-”
Still seven. No.
Woohyun stills and winces.
Sunggyu puts on a small smile, eyebrows slanting in a sympathetic look. “Come on, it’s not taboo or anything. Actually, I’ve,” and he lowers his head, as if to return his attention to his notebook, but Woohyun knows that Sunggyu’s trying to gather words, “been remembering a lot, too.” He picks up his pencil and his fingers take too long to hold it upright. “I miss it.”
“Sorry,” Woohyun says anyway, and he winces again. As if it changes anything.
He lets his breaths and thoughts even out for a moment, and Sunggyu returns to writing. But Sunggyu’s the one looking up from time to time, now, instead of the other way around, and Woohyun finds it cute; he makes it a game to meet Sunggyu’s gaze each time, and Sunggyu steadily flushes up to his cheeks.
“My day got better already,” Woohyun says, grinning, once Sunggyu’s ears are a bright pink.
“That was fast,” Sunggyu mumbles, low and more to himself than anything. It feels familiar.
Then things go back to normal. Woohyun watches as always, the soft curve of Sunggyu’s fingers, hair, relaxed shoulders. Relaxed with him. The occasional shutting of eyes in thought, unguarded. Sunggyu’s thoughts and words, and Woohyun is here, trusted to them.
It feels good. “What are you writing?”
“Writing about you guys,” Sunggyu replies in half-answer. The corners of his eyes lift. “Biography, kind of. I’m writing everything.”
Woohyun stretches up from his chair languidly, limbers over to Sunggyu’s side of the table to look over Sunggyu’s shoulder. Sunggyu only shuts his notebook and turns around, shortening the distance between their gazes into centimeters. “No, it’s a secret.” He reaches up and flicks Woohyun’s nose. “I’ll give the notebook to you when I’m done.”
Whining from his throat is something Woohyun hasn’t done in a while, and when Sunggyu laughs, Woohyun ends up laughing with him, embarrassed. Nostalgic. It feels good.
He watches the interview video the moment he gets home. Sunggyu’s movements are smooth and relaxed, confident in a muted way, like a leader should be. Woohyun leans back into his own dining chair and laughs at all his favorite parts; Sunggyu’s disgruntled faces, his blushes, his sudden jabs and dry jokes and wit. The conversations where they accidentally get sidetracked and the interview disappears from view.
But always, Woohyun’s fingers shake in anticipation for something else. His eyes always zoom into that part and make it longer than the agonizing twenty-seven seconds it actually is; Sunggyu drinks from his coffee, pupils dilating moments later. His shoulders and syllables soften. His gaze swerves like a car about to crash, and he massages his temples, eyes screwing shut. Dying right in front of Woohyun’s eyes.
He hands Woohyun his notebook and smiles.
Woohyun rewinds. Sunggyu’s pouring the sweetener into his coffee. It’s definitely sweet, Woohyun remembers from the smell, and from the little he had tasted on Sunggyu’s lips. (Maybe antifreeze, the investigator had said. Maybe arsenic.)
He looks at the mug of coffee on his table, then at the gem-like vial next to it, thoughtful. His vision’s blurring again. Like it always does, when he watches this video. Everyday.
Three days after the interview, they find Sunggyu inside his house, sitting slumped against the front door. He’s apparently been like that for seventy-two hours.
Two months later, on the last page of a notebook, Woohyun finds the letter he’s always been looking for.
The interview ends without incident. There’s a lot to cut out, but Woohyun’s sure no one will mind if he does it himself.
“Can’t I stay?” he pleads once he’s dismantled the camera, trying for the puppy eyes he had years ago.
Sunggyu only laughs at his efforts, lightly pushing Woohyun to the front door. He leans against the doorway once Woohyun is out, smiling brightly, and Woohyun leans forward without a second’s thought. Sunggyu meets him halfway.
“Sweet,” Woohyun says when they break for air. He leans in again but Sunggyu beats against his chest with weak fists, voice back to its old, nagging quality. It’s the first he’s heard it in years, and it’s a tone he misses.
“Stop, I need to sleep early today.” Sunggyu takes a step back into his house, eyebrows furrowed, eyes glazed, and cheeks slightly flushed.
Woohyun beams, impish and triumphant.
Although Sunggyu rolls his eyes, he smiles back a few moments later, moving forward. He rests his forehead against Woohyun’s shoulder, and then the rest of them fits together wordlessly, seamlessly, like their breaths and their fingers. “Take care of the other members,” Sunggyu whispers. I love you.
Love you too. Woohyun presses one last kiss into Sunggyu’s hair. Running a hand through the locks and strands, he breathes in and smiles.
- masterlist + requests - watch - join -
chronological version will answer your questions, if any. (promise... maybe.) otherwise, feel free to ask. c:
- inspired by Nell's lovely song + music video, The Day Before. not said at the beginning because huge spoiler l o l.
- woohyun got a headache because he tried the poison. yeah, it's poison. :c
- also i never want this to happen to sunggyu, of course ;; or to anyone, for that matter.
leave a comment? <3