ISS 2014: for myungsoopermans
Title: start (of something new)
Rating: PG
Pairing(s): Myungsoo/Sungyeol
Length: 3140 words
Summary: With the help of post-Sooneung stress and some beer, Myungsoo takes a leap of faith and picks up the microphone again to sing with a complete stranger. (inspired by High School Musical)
Notes: Dearest recipient, I hope this is to your liking! I had a lot of fun exploring this world a bit c: And as always, to C, many thanks for the beta and the hand-holding!
To: myungsoopermans
From: Your Secret Santa
The last year of high school is sort of a mixbag of tricks for Myungsoo. On one hand, Sooneung's finally over. It means less late nights - sleepless nights - and less books to go through, less of his mother's doting and his father asking him every five minutes if he's already studied everything he has to for the night. On the other hand, there's very little to look forward to after the rigorous testing season. When you're made to pour your life and soul into just one thing and made to forget your other dreams, you tend to lose sight of meandering paths just beyond the landmark. You concentrate everything you have into that face of a dream, and you're left with nothing but the ghost of your goals once Sooneung has taken your thirst for life away.
So when Woohyun says, "There's a party later at my place. Apgeu, you remember that, right? Wanna come?" Myungsoo's first reaction is to shrug and say, "Why the hell not?"
The reason not to attend, Myungsoo soon discovers, is that Woohyun invited nearly the entire senior population. From the buffet table, Myungsoo can make out a few familiar faces - Lee Howon and Jang Dongwoo from the dance club, Lee Sungjong from the cooking club (spiking the drinks, from the looks of it. His eyesight is shit so he can't be completely sure). Kim Sunggyu, president of the student council and active member of the drama club, is helping Woohyun set up some big jukebox-looking thing on stage. Woohyun's tapping the microphone every so often, testing if there's any reception and-
"Mic test, one, two-" A shit-eating grin, and then, "Okay, karaoke time!"
The crowd erupts into cheers and Myungsoo turns around, just in time for him to take the soup being offered to him by one of the servers. He asks for a huge lump of kimchi, some kimbap and mandu. "And quiet time, if you even offer that," he mumbles loud enough for the server to catch.
The server looks at him with wide eyes. He gets a bottle of beer, instead.
It isn't so bad, he realizes fifteen minutes after, with a tiny piece of kimchi stuck between his teeth. Woohyun's not a bad singer - predictable, because he's the president of the drama club (a.k.a. he has the most drama among the batch). Sunggyu's voice goes well with Woohyun's, as well. At one point, they even did a duet and Myungsoo might have found himself singing along, but then it could've just been the work of alcohol. He's never had the best tolerance, after all, and when you're fresh from a nine-hour exam, fatigue and alcohol is never a good combination.
"Whoa, careful there, buddy-" comes a voice from beside him. He looks to his side, and only then does he realize that he has his beer tilted at a dangerous angle. A tiny twist and he might have already spilled alcohol on Woohyun's expensive couch. He sets the bottle on the table nearby, then, and focuses on dissecting his kimbap, instead. "You alright?"
"That's a loaded question," Myungsoo says. He gives up halfway through and takes the spoon and fork that he was given, then scoops the kimbap ingredients in one go to pop them in his mouth. "In the context of this situation, I'll say 'yeah'."
The stranger chuckles. "I can sense a bit of doubt there. You could've said 'yes' but instead you're saying 'yeah'."
Myungsoo snorts. "You'd be an okay linguist or psychologist." Or maybe someone who specializes in meddling with people who just want to eat their kimbap this way. Myungsoo reaches for his beer and takes another swig. "I hope those courses are part of your consideration."
There's a wave of silence for a while, broken only by Woohyun's voice when the mic catches it as he moves across the room. He's looking for someone to sing, coaxing people to get on stage. Telling them to, "Come on, let loose! Just relax and have fun with the music. Sooneung's long over, you hard-working people!" It almost sounds enticing. With the college entrance exams finally over and graduation just around the corner, nobody will care about image anymore. And Myungsoo really can't be assed about his image anymore.
There's just one thing.
"They actually are," the stranger replies. He chuckles. "Guess I'm not the toughest cookie to crack, huh? You figured me out in, what, a sentence?"
Myungsoo rolls his eyes. "It wasn't hard," he mumbles, then shifts in his seat so that he's facing the stranger. "And I got lucky. Half of that was a guess and-"
And the warm lighting just beyond the stranger's shoulder is extremely flattering. Light filters from above, passing through the man's short eyelashes and casting soft shadows on his cheeks. The bridge of his nose is a nice, subtle slope. And oh, there's a faint mole there, where the highlights fade into shadows. Sharp lines define the cut of his jaw. His eyebags aren't the size of craters. For a moment, Myungsoo thinks, this is unfair, but half of him is still stuck in the part where he can't recognize this face. He has the entire senior population memorized by face because that's part of his job. Recording people's facial expressions, every quirk of the lip or the eyebrow - that's what he's know for. And he does not know this person.
The furrow of his eyebrows is different, discerning, and his bottom lip it jutted out as if in question, or maybe in interest - what do you mean you just got lucky? This is it, Myungsoo muses, the type of face photographers find themselves getting drawn to. That one face that can-
"And you're zoning out," the stranger says, snapping his fingers in front of Myungsoo. Myungsoo jerks back, resurfacing, at the same time that the stranger pushes his bottle towards him with his fist. "You need help, kiddo. You can't even hold your beer upright."
"I'm not a kid. It's just-" Your face. "The lights." He narrows his eyes when the spotlight passes them on its way to scan the area. "It's blinding."
"Yeah, it is," the stranger says. Myungsoo looks up, searching for the man's gaze; he isn't even looking at the lights.
The next thing he knows, he's met with the same bright light he'd seen earlier, just over the stranger's shoulder. He gulps hard. He should've seen this coming. His entire high school life, Woohyun had been trying to coax him into joining the drama club, but to no avail. Academics over extra-curriculars, he'd always tell Woohyun. What he meant was his sanity above everything else.
"I'm gonna kill Woohyun," the stranger groans under his breath. He keeps the smile intact, though, like he's trying to see the brighter side of the situation. The one that doesn't scream NAM WOOHYUN IS AN ASSHOLE in big, bold letters. "You know how to sing?"
He does. He used to sing for a small band back in his hometown. He hasn't been to Gangwon-do in years. "A bit. I can hold a note."
"Great. At least you can save us," says the stranger. He pushes himself off the couch and picks himself up, then extends his hand in Myungsoo's direction. "C'mon, you're not gonna leave me alone there to suffer, are you?"
There are a number of ways to answer the question, but Myungsoo's brain summarizes them all in three letters - yes. He doesn't owe this guy anything. They just happened to sit beside each other while eating and Myungsoo just happened to be there when the spotlight hit the man's back. They don't have to do this 'thing' together. What they can do, if the man insists to jump into the hellhole together, is to make a run for it, past the doors of Woohyun's fancy house in Apgeujong and down the cold streets of Gangnam. Nevermind that his coat is somewhere in Woohyun's study; the cold never bothered him, anyway.
"Yes, I am."
"No," says the stranger. He tilts his head down, still holding Myungsoo's gaze. A sizzle of heat crawls down Myungsoo's abdomen. "We're doing this together. Just for fun. We don't even have to sing the whole song. We can say 'watermelon' if we don't know the lyrics."
"I haven't sung in years."
"Then we can change that tonight-" The man's lips hang parted, and then he's asking, "I'm sorry, I… didn't get your name. What-"
"Myungsoo. Kim Myungsoo." He shrugs off the crease on his polo and sets his plate down on the table. Takes a long swig of his beer, too, before moving two steps forward and eluding the perimeter of the man's hand. "If I sing with you once, will you stop bugging me?"
"I promise," the man begins, then flashes him a smile. There it is again - the spotlight, the bright lights that blind him. This time, it catches on the bow of the man's lips, the gentle swell of his bottom lip. It smoothens the tight corners of his mouth. "And if you're wondering, my name is Sungyeol. Lee Sungyeol. I'm one of Hyun's friends from somewhere."
'Somewhere' sounds ominous, much like stepping on stage and singing in front of a crowd. "You take the first verse," is all that Myungsoo says, and then he's walking past Sungyeol. Sungyeol's faint giggle doesn't escape his ears, though, and he holds onto the confidence in that laughter. Counts on it to get him through this singing test.
As soon as they're center stage, Woohyun keys in the code for a song that he's picked, himself. The title isn't familiar, but then that's the case with most songs - you forget the banner words, the important ones, because you get so lost in the melody. It's a mix of good and bad, Myungsoo muses, but his thoughts are soon cut off by the opening beats of the song. It sounds familiar, like a melody at the back of his head or something that he's heard in passing. Probably in one of those plays that Woohyun was in that the entire school population was forced to watch.
"Your hands are shaking," Sungyeol whispers beside him.
"Stop talking. You're singing first."
"Cool," Sungyeol replies, but the light tremble of his lips isn't lying. Myungsoo hasn't spent years studying people through images, studying the way people move and react and the message in the slightest shift of their muscles, to miss something like this. So he gives Sungyeol a light nudge with his foot, a tap on the shoe, hoping he can ease the nervousness somehow. "Relax. I won't let you down."
'For fun,' the words ring in Myungsoo's ears. The music soars high above the thumping in his chest, the pulse at the back of his ears. He takes one look at Sungyeol - poised to sing - and takes a deep breath.
"You're not a shabby singer."
Sungyeol shrugs, but takes two bottles of beer with shaking hands. He mutters something under his breath, but he goes for the save when he manages to steady his hold on the beer. Myungsoo takes one of them, gives him a curt not in acknowledgement. Good duets are supposed to be celebrated a high-five; really good duets should be celebrated with alcohol.
"I used to do theatre," Sungyeol answers. He sinks back into the couch, then folds his legs and sits on them. "Back in elementary. Hyun and I did a lot of plays before I moved somewhere south and studied there up until high school."
So he's not from the same school. It makes sense. Myungsoo's pretty sure he has the faces of all the people memorized down to the last detail, the tiny mole north of the upper lip or the pimple on the left side of the cheek. It makes sense, too, for Woohyun to invite people he knows even outside school. He has a wide network of friends, after all. Heck, he and Myungsoo don't even talk outside those times he's tried to get Myungsoo to sign up for drama club and yet Myungsoo is here.
Myungsoo shifts in his seat. He contemplates on copying Sungyeol's position but changes his mind halfway through. The result: one leg folded under his weight and the other dangling from the edge of his seat. "So you're just visiting Gangnam?"
"Sort of?" Sungyeol rubs the tip of his nose, then takes a sip of his beer. He seethes, and his body gives a tiny shiver. Lightweight, Myungsoo thinks. He sets his bottle down on the table. "I'll be moving again after high school, though. I don't think I can do three, four hours of travel everyday just to get to school. It sounds so-"
"Taxing," Myungsoo finishes. He laughs a little. "I commute from Ilsan to Gangnam everyday. A two-hour train ride is already torture, as it is."
"Everyday, two hours of your life-" Sungyeol shakes his head. There it is, Myungsoo muses, the beginnings of laughter - the slight parting of Sungyeol's lips as he shakes his head then tilts it, the way the corners of his mouth tug up and down then up again. "Man, how do you manage? That's around… an extra hour of sleep if you lived closer to school!"
Myungsoo shrugs. "I'm used to it. Travel will be longer after high school. Seokgwan's farther away from Ilsan than Gangnam is."
"Seokgwan-dong?" Sungyeol furrows his eyes for a bit. "You're… You'll be studying in K-ARTS?"
Myungsoo parts his lips to answer but never gets to it, because the next thing he knows Woohyun is pulling him in the direction of the stage again. So he looks up at Sungyeol, looks at him in the eye, and holds out his hand, counting down to the seconds when Sungyeol reaches out to link their fingers together.
Sungyeol remains seated, both a question and something else written in the quirk of his mouth.
Myungsoo unlocks his fingers and pulls away. Sungyeol reaches out just in time to catch him by the pads of his fingers.
He doesn't get the chance to talk to Sungyeol after the number. He does get to sing a few more songs with Sungyeol, though - trot, pop, a ballad, and a couple more whose genres escape Myungsoo's memory. Their duets aren't anything stellar, but something about the sincerity in Sungyeol's voice gets through him, gets him in all the right places. Sort of makes him want to pick up his guitar again and sing.
He doesn't.
When he gets home that night, he stares at the guitar case near his door. Sungyeol's voice is the one he falls asleep to at three in the morning.
Twenty years of age and the concept of having to meet new people still scares him. Old habits die hard, people say, but for Myungsoo it's more of having to recalibrate himself to know how he can relate with people. Connect with them on a different level. He spent his first year in high school just dissecting people's personalities and knowing what makes them click. It wasn't until second year that he was able to really make friends. There was Do Kyungsoo from the science club and Huang Zitao from his P.E. class, but somehow those weren't enough. Like he couldn't establish a connection with them that he could easily and, without a doubt, call them his friends.
He laughs to himself. Get over yourself, a voice at the back of his mind says. He fixes the strap of his bag and makes his way to the College of Multimedia building.
K-ARTS isn't the most difficult campus to navigate, but its sheer size is so intimidating that it's easy to get lost. It's just as easy to find one's way back, though - there are signages around the area, after all. So he follows the signages, looks around as he searches for a building that matches the one in the picture in his print out.
Instead, he finds something more familiar just a few feet away from a tall, white building. A lankly frame and easy confidence in the way he tilts his head, and the beginnings of laughter in the way a corner of his lips, just one corner, tugs up while the rest remains pressed in a thin line.
"Hey," Sungyeol says, voice barely above a whisper.
Myungsoo chuckles. He bites the inside of his cheek to keep more from spilling from his lips. "Hey."
Sungyeol stares at him, just stares at him for a few good seconds, like he wants to say something. Like he wants to say a lot of things. He opens his mouth, closes it, then opens it again until Myungsoo snaps his fingers right in front of him.
"You're zoning out," Myungsoo says. He looks around, then cranes his neck to check the signage near the white building. "You're not lost, are you?"
Sungyeol leans back, tilts his head just so, and lets the rest of his mouth curve up to a smile. There it is again, Myungsoo thinks, the sunshine casting a warm glow on Sungyeol's face, lighting up his half-lidded eyes, lifting some of the fatigue in the his eyebags. Breathing color into his cheeks and coaxing his lips open into a bigger smile. Sungyeol hums for a while, a tune familiar enough that Myungsoo can continue it even with his eyes closer, until he settles on the words he's supposed to say.
"Nah, I'm good," Sungyeol answers. A heartbeat, then, "But maybe you are."
Myungsoo laughs a little. He unfolds the paper in his left hand and mumbles, "Caught me."
Myungsoo gives the campus one quick look. If he cranes his neck, he'll be able to spot the building he's looking for just beyond Sungyeol's shoulder. He's not in a rush, though. It's eight in the morning and his first class isn't until ten. He's a few feet away from his destination. He isn't in a foreign place.
"You know where the College of Multimedia building is?"
Something in Sungyeol's eyes flickers. A blink of an eye and then it's gone, replaced instead with a more familiar look, one that Myungsoo has seen that night, months ago, at the end of Sooneung. Then Sungyeol extends his hand, as if in invitation. He's just helping out, Myungsoo tells himself, but something about the way Sungyeol's fingers curl at the tips makes a familiar sizzle of heat roll down his spine.
He reaches out until the pads of his fingers touch Sungyeol's hands. Sungyeol laughs, but pulls Myungsoo closer. They start walking.
They don't look back.