[infinite] smart bomb (4/7)
smart bomb
infinite, hoya/sungyeol, yoonhye/hoya (this part)
pg-13; ongoing
ao3 mirror
pink is the colour (october 2008)
Yoonhye rings the doorbell 20 minutes after Sungyeol texts to say his mom has finally left the apartment. When Sungyeol opens the door, he sees Hoya standing slightly behind her, carrying a full backpack on one shoulder. He scowls.
“Hey, you’re not part of this,” he says. He pushes with one hand against Hoya’s shoulder as Hoya tries to come in the door behind Yoonhye, attempting to block him. “I forbid you. What are you doing here, anyway?”
Hoya easily shrugs off Sungyeol’s hand. “Yoonhye didn’t know where your place was, so I figured showing was better than telling.”
Sungyeol snorts and lets Hoya walk past him before he shuts the door. “Just admit it, you’re jealous.”
“You caught me,” says Hoya. “I’m done with being a man, I want to be a woman too.” Sungyeol throws a lazy, long punch at him that he sidesteps easily. Hoya sets the backpack down and slips off his shoes beside Yoonhye’s small black ones. Yoonhye’s standing nearby, looking around at the apartment. Sungyeol hands her a pair of purple slippers and she takes them with a smile and puts them on.
“Your apartment’s nice,” she says.
“Thanks,” says Sungyeol. “C’mon, this way.” He walks past them and goes to his bedroom. On his bed is a pile of fabric, all the clothes he’d managed to pull from his mom’s closet between the door closing behind her and opening for Yoonhye and Hoya. When Hoya walks in he stands in the corner and Yoonhye stands by him, her eyes darting around the room. Sungyeol had tried to tidy it up a bit. She was one of the only girls he knew; he didn’t want to scare her away.
Hoya had told him a month ago, like he was talking about what the cafeteria had for lunch that day, “I’m dating Jung Yoonhye now.” Still, Sungyeol had nearly fallen off his chair and pulled his textbook with him.
“Since when?”
“Since a week ago.”
Sungyeol balked, his head bobbing forward and back like a chicken’s. “But you’ve already seen everything.”
“So what? It’s not like a movie where it spoils it if you already know how it goes,” said Hoya with a grin.
“I’ve already seen everything.”
Hoya snorted. “Is that supposed to make me jealous?”
“Asshole,” grumbled Sungyeol, but more than irritation at Hoya he was irritated at himself for having said anything in the first place.
Yoonhye sits down on the edge Sungyeol’s bed, next to the pile of clothes. “Your parents aren’t home?” she asks, and it’s innocent but Sungyeol still feels his neck growing hot. His eyes dart to Hoya and Hoya’s already looking at him, his expression neutral but set.
He shrugs and makes a face, and taps his fist against the wall, trying to look somewhere else. “As far as my mom knows, we’re running a waffle cart at the school festival and that’s what we’re meeting about. Otherwise I’d be studying.”
“Why are you even doing it if you’re so scared your mom’s gonna find out?” asks Hoya.
“I’m not scared,” replies Sungyeol, rolling his eyes. “Are you kidding? If she found out, she’d probably make me a costume herself.”
Hoya picks up the backpack he’d brought in and carries it to Yoonhye. “I still think it’s weird,” he says. “Dressing up as a girl so all the guys will vote for you?”
“Girls vote too, Howon-ah,” says Yoonhye as she sorts through the pile of clothes on the bed.
“Exactly,” says Sungyeol. He picks up a scarf from the bed and wraps it around his shoulders extravagantly. “Girls love that shit for some reason.”
“Because it means the guy has a sense of humour,” explains Yoonhye. She watches Sungyeol swaying his hips back and forth and her lips twitch up into a smile. “And because it’s pretty.”
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Hoya gets up and Sungyeol stops mid-sway. “Let’s make you pretty.”
They start with the clothes. Sungyeol’s mother’s clothes are a bit small on him, “and a bit…” says Yoonhye, holding up a ruffled paisley-print shirt.
“A bit what?” says Sungyeol, his head half in a turtleneck that won’t go on the rest of the way. “A bit what?” Yoonhye glances sideways at Hoya.
“Here,” she says instead, and she pulls a black dress out of her backpack and holds it out. The fabric is soft and thick in Sungyeol’s hand, and a little slippery. “This should fit.”
Sungyeol abandons the turtleneck, his hair sticking up in all directions, and he pulls the dress on over his t-shirt and jeans. It’s a bit of a stretch around the chest, but the full skirt pours down the rest of his body and ends just above his knees. “How is it?” he asks, looking up.
“Well, it’s hard to tell with the rest of you,” says Yoonhye, “but it looks nice.” She turns to Hoya. “Howon-ah, what do you think?”
Hoya doesn’t reply. He’s staring as Sungyeol twists on the spot, watching the gentle swing of the skirt, and Sungyeol thinks he looks angry, almost. In response he shakes his hips and strikes a pose. “I’m gonna be like Marilyn Monroe up there.”
Hoya snorts at that and rolls his head away. “Don’t be weird.”
“This is yours?” Sungyeol asks Yoonhye. “It must be huge on you if it fits me.”
“It’s an old dress,” says Yoonhye, glancing down. She rifles through her bag and pulls out a wig. “Here, this is for you. I don’t know if it’s the one you were thinking of.”
“The BoA wig?” Sungyeol walks over and takes it, then tosses it around a few times in his hands. It’s light brown, long and wavy, and smoother than real hair. “Not exactly.”
“Try it,” says Yoonhye. “I think it’ll be nice.”
“Help me, then,” Sungyeol replies. Yoonhye glances at Hoya, then shuffles over on her knees to where Sungyeol has sat down on the floor and sits up behind him.
She smooths his hair back carefully with both hands. “Sorry, I don’t have a hairnet,” she says.
Sungyeol shrugs one shoulder - he doesn’t know what that means. “It doesn’t matter. I just want to see what it looks like.”
Yoonhye’s hands are firm and certain and Sungyeol wishes the back of his neck wouldn’t tingle in response when Hoya’s there looking right at him, his expression too blank for Sungyeol to read as anything but displeased. She pulls the wig on over Sungyeol’s head and comes around in front of him and fiddles with the cap, then she leans back. “Oh my God,” she says, and a smile spreads on her face. She glances over her shoulder at Hoya.
“I wanna see,” says Sungyeol, getting up. He picks up a hand mirror from his dresser and holds it up. In the mirror, he can recognize his face, but it’s also suddenly a girl’s face, with full lips and cute cheeks framed by her long, sleek hair. Sungyeol momentarily forgets to breathe.
“Do you like it?” asks Yoonhye.
Sungyeol pulls a section of the wig back from the girl’s face and pats down her bangs. “I like it,” he says, though he isn’t sure. It’s a bit too creepy. He stares at the mirror for another beat, then turns around suddenly. “But wait. Does Hoya like it? That’s the real question.”
“How--” Hoya starts, but he has to clear his throat before he can continue. “Why am I supposed to have an opinion on that?”
“It’s your vote, isn’t it?”
He stands and stares Hoya down, and Hoya stares somewhere below his gaze, and for a few seconds neither of them speaks. Then Hoya says, “I think,” and Sungyeol feels his blood rush around his head and torso nervously all of a sudden. “I think it’d be better with makeup on.”
The nervous feeling subsides a little but doesn’t go away entirely. “Full makeup? Now?” Sungyeol stutters. He looks over at where Yoonhye is leaning against Sungyeol’s bed, hoping she’ll save him.
But she only shrugs. “Makes sense,” she says. “Maybe not full makeup, but this way we won’t waste time on the actual day deciding what to do.” She goes to her backpack and takes out a makeup bag, which rattles. “What kind of look, do you think?”
“Um.” Sungyeol fiddles with the dress, smoothing it down over his body. He’s sucking in his stomach a little; he hadn’t noticed. He adjusts. “Something that will make me look good, I guess.”
“Pretty?”
Sungyeol presses his lips together. The word sounds so loaded all of a sudden. “Yeah.”
“Good luck,” says Hoya, and Sungyeol reaches out to hit him, more of a symbolic gesture than a real attempt.
He kneels in front of Yoonhye again. “Have you ever put makeup on before?” she asks him. Sungyeol snorts in response.
“What do you think I am?” he replies. Hoya laughs at that. “Shut up.”
“Ignore him,” says Yoonhye. She uncaps a pencil and bends forward. “Try not to blink too much, okay? Look up.”
“Don’t hurt me,” says Sungyeol, but he rolls his eyes up and keeps them wide. The pencil touches the corner of his eye and he twitches, making her exclaim in dismay. “Sorry, sorry,” he says. “I’m not used to being stabbed in the eyeball.”
“Well, just put up with it this once.”
Sungyeol has to chew the inside of his lip to keep from flinching away, and his eyes are starting to water, but her second attempt is successful. She draws under his eye, then makes him close his eyes and draws along his upper eyelashes, the pencil a blunt, soft pressure against his eyelid. Her hand lotion smells like white chocolate. When she pulls away, Sungyeol flutters his eyes open to see her looking at him intently, with Hoya just behind her. He half expects Hoya to be making faces, but he looks just as fascinated.
“That wasn’t so bad,” says Yoonhye.
“I want to try,” says Hoya, and both Yoonhye and Sungyeol snap their heads in his direction.
“No way,” says Sungyeol. “I want to keep both my eyeballs.”
“Tch. You should trust me. I got good marks in art.” Hoya takes the pencil from Yoonhye, who surrenders it without a word.
“Stop him.”
“Trust me,” Hoya repeats. He and Yoonhye switch places so he’s now in front of Sungyeol. “Close your eyes.”
Sungyeol only closes his left eye, keeping the right one wide and trained on Hoya as he adjusts his grip on the eye pencil. Then Hoya pushes the pencil against his eyelid, and Sungyeol’s head jerks. “Don’t fuck around,” says Hoya.
“You try it,” retorts Sungyeol, but then Hoya brings his other hand up under Sungyeol’s jaw to keep his head steady and the entire contents of Sungyeol’s stomach flip. He wants to say something, or slap Hoya’s hand away, but he’s paralyzed as Hoya carefully draws over Sungyeol’s eyelid. When Hoya’s done he keeps his hand under Sungyeol’s chin and examines his work. Sungyeol opens both eyes and stares back at him, but their eyes don’t meet. Hoya’s eyes dart lower, looking at Sungyeol’s body in Hoya’s girlfriend’s dress, his hands folded in his lap.
“Well?” says Sungyeol after a while. He’s too aware of his heartbeat, too aware of his eyelashes and the itch of the wig on his head. “Are you gonna vote for me or make out with me or what?”
His voice is loud, so loud, and Yoonhye is right there but he doesn’t know what she’s doing or thinking, and he swears Hoya’s eyes go wide for a second before they narrow down and Sungyeol can’t read them anymore.
Hoya squeezes Sungyeol’s jaw roughly and then lets go. “I’ve got a girlfriend, thanks.”
“It looks good, Sungyeol,” Yoonhye offers. Her voice sounds small and far away. “You hardly even need lipstick. I’m jealous.”
Sungyeol staggers to his feet. His body feels bad. He tells himself it’s because he got up so quickly. “Then I’m gonna take this off, if that’s everything.”
“That’s everything,” says Yoonhye.
Sungyeol glances out his bedroom door into his empty apartment. “Let’s get out of here before my mom gets home. I want ddeokbokki.”
“Don’t forget to change,” says Hoya, and something about that stings.
“I’m not gonna do it here, pervert,” Sungyeol snaps. He goes out into the hall and into the bathroom, closing the door firmly behind him. His head feels like it’s glowing, like an incandescent bulb.
He takes off the wig, scratches his head throughoughly with both hands, then looks at himself in the mirror. His hair is short and wild and the makeup on his face looks weird. He’s too broad to be a girl, really, even if Yoonhye’s spare clothes do fit him. His chest and his limbs feel emptied out, spent. He takes one more look at himself, then he grabs a towel and starts to scrub his face, until it’s bare.
<< >>
notes:
- this wasn't what i initially wanted to write for the song so hopefully they still work together >___>
- thank you for your patience with this series and with my slowness and bad habit of starting things i can't finish.
- also, i have an ask.fm where you can leave questions, comments or prompts (if you have a lot more patience)!
infinite, hoya/sungyeol, yoonhye/hoya (this part)
pg-13; ongoing
ao3 mirror
pink is the colour (october 2008)
Yoonhye rings the doorbell 20 minutes after Sungyeol texts to say his mom has finally left the apartment. When Sungyeol opens the door, he sees Hoya standing slightly behind her, carrying a full backpack on one shoulder. He scowls.
“Hey, you’re not part of this,” he says. He pushes with one hand against Hoya’s shoulder as Hoya tries to come in the door behind Yoonhye, attempting to block him. “I forbid you. What are you doing here, anyway?”
Hoya easily shrugs off Sungyeol’s hand. “Yoonhye didn’t know where your place was, so I figured showing was better than telling.”
Sungyeol snorts and lets Hoya walk past him before he shuts the door. “Just admit it, you’re jealous.”
“You caught me,” says Hoya. “I’m done with being a man, I want to be a woman too.” Sungyeol throws a lazy, long punch at him that he sidesteps easily. Hoya sets the backpack down and slips off his shoes beside Yoonhye’s small black ones. Yoonhye’s standing nearby, looking around at the apartment. Sungyeol hands her a pair of purple slippers and she takes them with a smile and puts them on.
“Your apartment’s nice,” she says.
“Thanks,” says Sungyeol. “C’mon, this way.” He walks past them and goes to his bedroom. On his bed is a pile of fabric, all the clothes he’d managed to pull from his mom’s closet between the door closing behind her and opening for Yoonhye and Hoya. When Hoya walks in he stands in the corner and Yoonhye stands by him, her eyes darting around the room. Sungyeol had tried to tidy it up a bit. She was one of the only girls he knew; he didn’t want to scare her away.
Hoya had told him a month ago, like he was talking about what the cafeteria had for lunch that day, “I’m dating Jung Yoonhye now.” Still, Sungyeol had nearly fallen off his chair and pulled his textbook with him.
“Since when?”
“Since a week ago.”
Sungyeol balked, his head bobbing forward and back like a chicken’s. “But you’ve already seen everything.”
“So what? It’s not like a movie where it spoils it if you already know how it goes,” said Hoya with a grin.
“I’ve already seen everything.”
Hoya snorted. “Is that supposed to make me jealous?”
“Asshole,” grumbled Sungyeol, but more than irritation at Hoya he was irritated at himself for having said anything in the first place.
Yoonhye sits down on the edge Sungyeol’s bed, next to the pile of clothes. “Your parents aren’t home?” she asks, and it’s innocent but Sungyeol still feels his neck growing hot. His eyes dart to Hoya and Hoya’s already looking at him, his expression neutral but set.
He shrugs and makes a face, and taps his fist against the wall, trying to look somewhere else. “As far as my mom knows, we’re running a waffle cart at the school festival and that’s what we’re meeting about. Otherwise I’d be studying.”
“Why are you even doing it if you’re so scared your mom’s gonna find out?” asks Hoya.
“I’m not scared,” replies Sungyeol, rolling his eyes. “Are you kidding? If she found out, she’d probably make me a costume herself.”
Hoya picks up the backpack he’d brought in and carries it to Yoonhye. “I still think it’s weird,” he says. “Dressing up as a girl so all the guys will vote for you?”
“Girls vote too, Howon-ah,” says Yoonhye as she sorts through the pile of clothes on the bed.
“Exactly,” says Sungyeol. He picks up a scarf from the bed and wraps it around his shoulders extravagantly. “Girls love that shit for some reason.”
“Because it means the guy has a sense of humour,” explains Yoonhye. She watches Sungyeol swaying his hips back and forth and her lips twitch up into a smile. “And because it’s pretty.”
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Hoya gets up and Sungyeol stops mid-sway. “Let’s make you pretty.”
They start with the clothes. Sungyeol’s mother’s clothes are a bit small on him, “and a bit…” says Yoonhye, holding up a ruffled paisley-print shirt.
“A bit what?” says Sungyeol, his head half in a turtleneck that won’t go on the rest of the way. “A bit what?” Yoonhye glances sideways at Hoya.
“Here,” she says instead, and she pulls a black dress out of her backpack and holds it out. The fabric is soft and thick in Sungyeol’s hand, and a little slippery. “This should fit.”
Sungyeol abandons the turtleneck, his hair sticking up in all directions, and he pulls the dress on over his t-shirt and jeans. It’s a bit of a stretch around the chest, but the full skirt pours down the rest of his body and ends just above his knees. “How is it?” he asks, looking up.
“Well, it’s hard to tell with the rest of you,” says Yoonhye, “but it looks nice.” She turns to Hoya. “Howon-ah, what do you think?”
Hoya doesn’t reply. He’s staring as Sungyeol twists on the spot, watching the gentle swing of the skirt, and Sungyeol thinks he looks angry, almost. In response he shakes his hips and strikes a pose. “I’m gonna be like Marilyn Monroe up there.”
Hoya snorts at that and rolls his head away. “Don’t be weird.”
“This is yours?” Sungyeol asks Yoonhye. “It must be huge on you if it fits me.”
“It’s an old dress,” says Yoonhye, glancing down. She rifles through her bag and pulls out a wig. “Here, this is for you. I don’t know if it’s the one you were thinking of.”
“The BoA wig?” Sungyeol walks over and takes it, then tosses it around a few times in his hands. It’s light brown, long and wavy, and smoother than real hair. “Not exactly.”
“Try it,” says Yoonhye. “I think it’ll be nice.”
“Help me, then,” Sungyeol replies. Yoonhye glances at Hoya, then shuffles over on her knees to where Sungyeol has sat down on the floor and sits up behind him.
She smooths his hair back carefully with both hands. “Sorry, I don’t have a hairnet,” she says.
Sungyeol shrugs one shoulder - he doesn’t know what that means. “It doesn’t matter. I just want to see what it looks like.”
Yoonhye’s hands are firm and certain and Sungyeol wishes the back of his neck wouldn’t tingle in response when Hoya’s there looking right at him, his expression too blank for Sungyeol to read as anything but displeased. She pulls the wig on over Sungyeol’s head and comes around in front of him and fiddles with the cap, then she leans back. “Oh my God,” she says, and a smile spreads on her face. She glances over her shoulder at Hoya.
“I wanna see,” says Sungyeol, getting up. He picks up a hand mirror from his dresser and holds it up. In the mirror, he can recognize his face, but it’s also suddenly a girl’s face, with full lips and cute cheeks framed by her long, sleek hair. Sungyeol momentarily forgets to breathe.
“Do you like it?” asks Yoonhye.
Sungyeol pulls a section of the wig back from the girl’s face and pats down her bangs. “I like it,” he says, though he isn’t sure. It’s a bit too creepy. He stares at the mirror for another beat, then turns around suddenly. “But wait. Does Hoya like it? That’s the real question.”
“How--” Hoya starts, but he has to clear his throat before he can continue. “Why am I supposed to have an opinion on that?”
“It’s your vote, isn’t it?”
He stands and stares Hoya down, and Hoya stares somewhere below his gaze, and for a few seconds neither of them speaks. Then Hoya says, “I think,” and Sungyeol feels his blood rush around his head and torso nervously all of a sudden. “I think it’d be better with makeup on.”
The nervous feeling subsides a little but doesn’t go away entirely. “Full makeup? Now?” Sungyeol stutters. He looks over at where Yoonhye is leaning against Sungyeol’s bed, hoping she’ll save him.
But she only shrugs. “Makes sense,” she says. “Maybe not full makeup, but this way we won’t waste time on the actual day deciding what to do.” She goes to her backpack and takes out a makeup bag, which rattles. “What kind of look, do you think?”
“Um.” Sungyeol fiddles with the dress, smoothing it down over his body. He’s sucking in his stomach a little; he hadn’t noticed. He adjusts. “Something that will make me look good, I guess.”
“Pretty?”
Sungyeol presses his lips together. The word sounds so loaded all of a sudden. “Yeah.”
“Good luck,” says Hoya, and Sungyeol reaches out to hit him, more of a symbolic gesture than a real attempt.
He kneels in front of Yoonhye again. “Have you ever put makeup on before?” she asks him. Sungyeol snorts in response.
“What do you think I am?” he replies. Hoya laughs at that. “Shut up.”
“Ignore him,” says Yoonhye. She uncaps a pencil and bends forward. “Try not to blink too much, okay? Look up.”
“Don’t hurt me,” says Sungyeol, but he rolls his eyes up and keeps them wide. The pencil touches the corner of his eye and he twitches, making her exclaim in dismay. “Sorry, sorry,” he says. “I’m not used to being stabbed in the eyeball.”
“Well, just put up with it this once.”
Sungyeol has to chew the inside of his lip to keep from flinching away, and his eyes are starting to water, but her second attempt is successful. She draws under his eye, then makes him close his eyes and draws along his upper eyelashes, the pencil a blunt, soft pressure against his eyelid. Her hand lotion smells like white chocolate. When she pulls away, Sungyeol flutters his eyes open to see her looking at him intently, with Hoya just behind her. He half expects Hoya to be making faces, but he looks just as fascinated.
“That wasn’t so bad,” says Yoonhye.
“I want to try,” says Hoya, and both Yoonhye and Sungyeol snap their heads in his direction.
“No way,” says Sungyeol. “I want to keep both my eyeballs.”
“Tch. You should trust me. I got good marks in art.” Hoya takes the pencil from Yoonhye, who surrenders it without a word.
“Stop him.”
“Trust me,” Hoya repeats. He and Yoonhye switch places so he’s now in front of Sungyeol. “Close your eyes.”
Sungyeol only closes his left eye, keeping the right one wide and trained on Hoya as he adjusts his grip on the eye pencil. Then Hoya pushes the pencil against his eyelid, and Sungyeol’s head jerks. “Don’t fuck around,” says Hoya.
“You try it,” retorts Sungyeol, but then Hoya brings his other hand up under Sungyeol’s jaw to keep his head steady and the entire contents of Sungyeol’s stomach flip. He wants to say something, or slap Hoya’s hand away, but he’s paralyzed as Hoya carefully draws over Sungyeol’s eyelid. When Hoya’s done he keeps his hand under Sungyeol’s chin and examines his work. Sungyeol opens both eyes and stares back at him, but their eyes don’t meet. Hoya’s eyes dart lower, looking at Sungyeol’s body in Hoya’s girlfriend’s dress, his hands folded in his lap.
“Well?” says Sungyeol after a while. He’s too aware of his heartbeat, too aware of his eyelashes and the itch of the wig on his head. “Are you gonna vote for me or make out with me or what?”
His voice is loud, so loud, and Yoonhye is right there but he doesn’t know what she’s doing or thinking, and he swears Hoya’s eyes go wide for a second before they narrow down and Sungyeol can’t read them anymore.
Hoya squeezes Sungyeol’s jaw roughly and then lets go. “I’ve got a girlfriend, thanks.”
“It looks good, Sungyeol,” Yoonhye offers. Her voice sounds small and far away. “You hardly even need lipstick. I’m jealous.”
Sungyeol staggers to his feet. His body feels bad. He tells himself it’s because he got up so quickly. “Then I’m gonna take this off, if that’s everything.”
“That’s everything,” says Yoonhye.
Sungyeol glances out his bedroom door into his empty apartment. “Let’s get out of here before my mom gets home. I want ddeokbokki.”
“Don’t forget to change,” says Hoya, and something about that stings.
“I’m not gonna do it here, pervert,” Sungyeol snaps. He goes out into the hall and into the bathroom, closing the door firmly behind him. His head feels like it’s glowing, like an incandescent bulb.
He takes off the wig, scratches his head throughoughly with both hands, then looks at himself in the mirror. His hair is short and wild and the makeup on his face looks weird. He’s too broad to be a girl, really, even if Yoonhye’s spare clothes do fit him. His chest and his limbs feel emptied out, spent. He takes one more look at himself, then he grabs a towel and starts to scrub his face, until it’s bare.
<< >>
notes:
- this wasn't what i initially wanted to write for the song so hopefully they still work together >___>
- thank you for your patience with this series and with my slowness and bad habit of starting things i can't finish.
- also, i have an ask.fm where you can leave questions, comments or prompts (if you have a lot more patience)!