"Hey..." [One-shot]
Title: “Hey…”
Pairing: Minho/Jinki
Genre: Romance, angst, fluff, slice-of-life
Rating: PG
Summary: In which Minho misses a call from a wrong number, and finds out how sometimes, some things can only be said over the phone. And of those times, some things can only be said when you think no one is listening.
[A/N: I’ll quote a disclaimer’s note first. There are lyrics embedded inside the paragraphs of the fic that come from Bruno Mars ‘The Lazy Song’ and a song called ‘Nee’ ‘sung’ by Hatsune Miku (which this fic is actually inspired by). Lyrics belong to their own respective owners. Anything else, I cite artistic license?
And really… I should be studying for my exam tomorrow…]
~*~
ねぇ こんなに遅くに ごめんね
ねぇ あなたに 伝えたい事があるの
~*~
“Hey…”
It’s one of those days. The type that Bruno Mars sings of in ‘The Lazy Song’. That sort of day where it’s already a quarter to eight in the evening and Minho still doesn’t feel like doing anything, just wanting to lie in bed; Didn’t feel like picking up his phone, so leave a message at the tone, because he swore today he wasn’t doing anything.
He stares at the phone as it rings. Once. Twice.
Gaze impassive, the thrill tone of his phone that normally would cause his heart to beat faster, indicating panic that releases electric signals to the brain to send him fumbling, grabbing, fingers pressing the too small ‘receive’ button and a breathless voice to answer as if to show he’d tried his best to answer even before the first ring.
But today, he was just going to lie on his bed, staring at the ceiling fan. Because it was his day off today, and there is no way he’d stand for listening to his boss’ frantic voice over some ‘emergency’ or another.
Then, there is a beep for a voice message, and Minho groans, because maybe he would have to listen anyway. But instead, of his boss’ whiny (an adjective whispered around the water cooler in absolute confidentiality) voice, the voice that sounds over mysterious workings of optic fiber, is one that he’s never heard before.
“I know it’s late… so, sorry. But, hey… there’s something I really have to say to you.”
Minho blinks, sitting up at the unexpected words. And he wonders for a moment, anything of any sort he’s done to deserve such a call and words.
“I don’t want to break up.”
His eyelids have developed some sort of muscle spasm, because his brain freezes in absolute bewilderment at the words. Someone wants to break up with him? But how could they when Minho hasn’t been attached for a least a one and sixteen months?
“Hey… are you there? Why aren’t you picking up the phone? Are you really that sick of me… But I don’t want it to end.”
The voice goes on and on, and Minho listens to that pain filled voice, and he’s stuck between the awkward choice of the embarrassment of listening to something he shouldn’t, and the embarrassment of the thought of telling someone they’d gotten the wrong number in the middle of such an emotional tirade. Either way, he loses, and he’s stuck in indecision, all the way until the unknown calling on the other side of the line decides to make his decision for him.
"Hey… I’m sorry… I just want to see you. Call me, alright?”
“Good night.”
The dial tone sounds, and it reminds eerily of a silent heartbeat in a hospital; both tones of termination. And for the rest of the day, the voice of that unknown calling haunts his mind even as he lies in his bed the whole day.
~*~
“Hey… do you even remember the times we had together? Those hours we spent on moonlit walks? You called me a hopeless romantic, and maybe I am, because all I can remember when I think of you is all the good times and not the bad.”
It’s been several days since the start of the calls. And Minho hasn’t told anyone about them yet. After all, what is he going to say? That some creep had suddenly started calling his number, thinking he’s his ex-boyfriend and unloading emotional blackmail on him?
Because that isn’t the case. This guy isn’t a creep - he’s just desperate, sad - maybe, lonely - definitely. And Minho couldn’t judge, for if he called the guy a creep, then it’d just be a case of the pot calling the kettle black, since he was just as much a creep for listening into someone else’s obviously private affairs.
He knows he should let that poor soul on the other side of the line know - he could call back, or actually pick up those periodic calls, or even interrupt in the middle of the message, picking the phone up. But somehow, he doesn’t.
The reason isn’t clear and he can’t exactly consult anyone. But there are several reasons Minho has short-listed while continuing the troubling debate in his head. It could be the practical reasons of Minho’s apparent shyness syndrome that his friends kept harping on him about, or it could be maybe secretly Minho thought the calls would stop one day by their own without him needing to do anything. Or maybe, and he thought this might be the most likely - he was actually crazy to be even debating about this, and was, unknown to even himself, a closet creep.
"Hey… it’s getting late… Uhm… I’m… actually kind of glad you didn’t answer tonight… I think I would cried, thinking about that time under the stars. And I can’t bear the thought of crying in front of you."
Or maybe, it was that. Just that. That inexplicable relief that Minho heard in that voice whenever it came to the goodbye. As if the person on the other end would have lost courage to say whatever it does if he knew someone was listening. And Minho doesn’t want that - he doesn’t want whoever was on the other side of the line to pent his feelings up until they could be sold as bottled concentrate because of things unsaid. And Minho knows how painful that is. Because he’s that sort of person too.
Maybe that’s why he doesn’t pick up. He thinks, a two-penny drama unfolding in the back of his mind, that maybe if he does pick up and tells the voice that he isn’t the person he’s thought to be, two months down the line, the voice will be another headliner in the news: man found dead in _______, police says it’s just another suicide.
“Hey… I’m going to sleep now. Sorry, and good night.”
~*~
And the next day, it repeats
~*~
And again…
~*~
And again…
~*~
And again… until Minho has memorized the voice in his mind, and he goes to sleep with the voice wishing him goodnight.
“Hey… thank you… and good night.”
~*~
But one day, when Minho is at home, having formed the habit of coming back before the phone rings, it doesn’t.
The hands of his clock tick away, and Minho stares at the phone as if it’s mutated with purple hands and devilish horns, but the phone remains resolutely silent even when Minho picks the phone up and hears the dial tone on the other end.
He shrugs it away, although mildly disturbed, rationalizes. Maybe the mysterious caller is caught up at work, caught in a jam. Anything, something, among a hundred thousand reasons. Minho shouldn’t bother.
~*~
The first day is easy enough to rationalize away, so is the second. But the third and the fourth or not so easy. And on the fifth, Minho’s over-active imagination has many varied and colourful scenes in his head, most of them born out of fear and frustration and made no absolutely no sense. But they are they in his head anyway, feeding the accelerated thumping of his heart.
~*~
By the fifth, he’s a distracted mess. His friends all wonder why he keeps on drifting out of conversations, and as he drops the file in his hands for the hundredth time that day, his (at least health-concerned) boss sends him home early.
Rest is supposed to be the agenda. But how can he rest when he’s a bunch of nerves imagining a faceless guy bleeding on the street, crying, because he hadn’t been able to reach the person he needed to talk to and it was all Minho’s fault.
It’s a quarter to eight, and the phone rings. A couple of minutes as Minho has set, then the voice message beep sounds.
“Hey…”
“Hello?”
The silence is almost deafening, and frankly, Minho understands why it is. He’d been too excited to hear that voice again, too relieved. So much that his body moved faster than his brain and reason and he’d picked up the phone.
The voice sounds as amazed as he feels.
“Eh…? This line isn’t disconnected…? There’s someone there?”
That’s when his amazement turns into confusion.
“Erm…”
~*~
“…I thought it was common sense that if a line is disconnected, they’d get an official message rather than a voice mail prompt.”
The man across him blushes yet again and ducks his head, embarrassed. And Minho shakes his head for the fifth time since they’ve met up to clear up the rather embarrassing situation between them.
The voice has a person and name to him - a Lee Jinki. Works as a librarian. Older than Minho by three years. Shy disposition. Good looking underneath those thick glasses - with them even, if that’s what you were into. Rather clumsy, judging from the way he’d nearly tripped over three times on the way to where Minho was seated from the door.
Broke up with his boyfriend three months ago.
“I’m really sorry for leaving such… embarrassing messages.” Jinki repeats again and Minho shakes his head, somewhat admiring the red cheeks that matched the scarf Jinki had worn in. Then, his attention sharpens as Jinki looks away, and the tone of voice changes to something more serious. “I… I usually don’t do things like that. Calling people up in hopes of a reunion. I’d be irritated if someone did that to me… so I usually don’t… but those few weeks back… I just suddenly felt… I don’t know…”
Jinki trails off, and Minho sees sadness in the man’s eyes. “I’m sorry. I’ve bothered you, I won’t call again.”
“I didn’t mind.”
“Eh?” Jinki looks up, startled when Minho grabs Jinki’s arm, a strange kind of expression on his face. Not quite nothing, but not quite anger either.
“I didn’t mind you calling me. All those messages, I was glad that you left them.” Minho looked away, saying softly - so soft that if Jinki wasn’t paying attention it would have been lost in the clutter of conversation and noise. “I… the reason I didn’t pick up and tell you that you’d gotten the wrong number was because you seemed like you needed to do it. Keeping it all inside isn’t healthy.”
“You’re always welcome to call again.” Minho says as he bows, and he stands, taller than Jinki had first thought him to be. He puts a bill onto the table before he leaves. A ten. More than enough for the coffee he ordered. “You have my number after all.”
~*~
But the next day, it’s a quarter to eight and Jinki doesn’t call. But Minho tells himself he hadn’t really been expecting it. You can’t expect to lecture someone like that, and they immediately call back without thinking you’re some kind of weirdo or creep.
Nothing can stop the disappointment though, as Minho looks back down where he’d paused in his work. And he tries to bury himself in it, so much till he nearly doesn’t hear the ringing and then the tell-tale beep.
“Hey…”
Minho looks up in stunned surprise, and his finger goes to his ear, as if he isn’t sure if it’s playing tricks on him.
“Sorry… I’m a little late today. I hesitated to call again, but you asked me to… so I did… Uhm… I don’t know if you didn’t answer on purpose… or if you’re… actually not there. But I’ll just say what I need to anyway.”
A deep breath that’s a rustling of static over the phone. Then a revelation Minho never saw coming.
“I knew I’d gotten the wrong number.”
“You see… my old boyfriend. He isn’t the sort to let things drag like that. Cuts ties clean and nice… which is good in a way. If he’d heard the message, I’d have gotten back from him pretty quick. But I didn’t. So I figured out that he probably changed his number, or I remembered it wrong…”
“But… it was such a relief to talk like that, that I couldn’t stop calling back. I didn’t really call in hopes that someone would listen. Instead I called because I was hoping no one would listen. But I guess, I was too naïve, because someone did listen… You did, Minho-sshi.”
There’s silence, as if Jinki’s struggling to get his thoughts to settle on a single perch. Then finally, a sigh, almost of relief and a rueful self-admonishment.
“I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for listening, even though don’t know me at all. And I’m glad you did, because maybe, although I tell myself I don’t want anyone to know how rotten I feel inside, maybe in all actually, I do.”
Another pause, but this one’s more natural. And without knowing it, Minho has gravitated to the phone, one hand over the receiver, as if Jinki can feel him from the other side.
“Hey… it’s getting late…”
Those familiar words, so familiar, and an apt closure to everything.
“…Thank you. And good bye.”
The message rolls to an end, the hiss of recording tape rolling, then a beep. Like a curtain closure, and the orchestral end.
But everyone knows that an end is only a new beginning. So Minho picks up the phone and searches the memory base, and presses the most recent number that has just called.
The phone rings. Once. Twice. Then the recording to leave a message, and Minho speaks into the receiver with the hopes that someone’s listening.
“Hey, I know it’s late, so, sorry, but there’s something I really want to say to you…”
~*~
ねぇ ありがとう ごめんね
おやすみ。
~*~