Title: White Pages (when stray cats trip you, don't expect a soft landing!)
Genre: Crack, Comedy, Low Fantasy, Romance
Summary: On the thirteenth day, Changmin leaves his house. For escape or for inspiration, it all depends which-or who- he finds first.
Author's Notes:
I'm not sure if younger readers are aware of what the
White Pages are (or were, since even I haven't seen one for a long time now), but just in case: it's a directory which contains a listing of all telephone subscribers in a particular area and their respective numbers, distributed annually by the telephone companies These are thick and heavy books which could easily kill an unsuspecting cockroach when dropped, but that’s not what it’s made for!
Warning: Prologue may be headache-inducing. Read at your own risk. Rest assured that what happens in the prologue, stays in the prologue and will hopefully not be repeated in the next chapters.
Prologue: Firsts are usually crazy!
The first time Changmin encountered the name Jung Yunho was on the White Pages, the letters of it fitted snugly in between two other Jungs whose first names he forgot almost immediately -and would likely remain irrelevant to his life like that odd lint stuck on his landlord’s coat hung by the doorway, but that one’s a story for another day. The name was the product of a lazy afternoon spent in the streets downtown where he had walked around, aimlessly manoeuvring through the maze of food carts, thrift shops and just… usual noisy market folk, in hopes of curing himself of his writer’s block.
Thirteen days before that, he had opened a new word document, the cursor in it daring him to begin writing for his next deadline in three weeks. Twelve days later, the neat white sheet and the blinking line was starting to look seductive, almost as seductive as one of the tenants down the hall, so wickedly smooth and fair, and winking at him every time he passed by. He has not once talked to that neighbor; similarly, he has not typed a single letter on that word file. When that night’s dream involved editors butchering writers and empty documents, he knew he had to get out of the house. For escape or for inspiration, he wasn't sure; it all depended on which he‘d manage to find first.
So Changmin found himself taking the train to downtown.
Downtown, however, was only five stations from his place. There’s not even a need to change trains. Changmin had admitted to himself right after he got out of the station that it was possibly his second worst escape plan, next only to pretending to be injured and greeting his editor in a wheelchair, to which his editor had quickly replied that his work does not require a working pair of legs and how the hell did he manage to cart himself three stories up with his notorious asocial behaviour? (It was during this time that Changmin swore to himself that editors were Satan’s representatives on earth and must at all costs not be allowed to go forth and multiply)
In case you’re wondering, the third worst idea was renting the flat next to his and getting a carpenter to install a connecting door behind the closet, a failed attempt at a personal Narnia when, during construction, his editor decided a surprise visit was in order-which proved to him once again that they were indeed hell spawns.
So far this is shaping up to be a messy narrative (as messy as that book shop, Changmin thinks).
Ah yes, that book shop near one of the downtown intersections. That was a great experience, wasn’t it. Well, since we’re already here and it’s already messy, it probably won’t hurt to discuss further the events that transpired in that book shop.
So let’s present it as a mini-story in this story.
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Stray Cats and Crown Jewels
Summary: Changmin and the Peanut Gallery go on a Field Trip
One would think that at the speed people are going digital, intellectually-stimulating reads would start piling up at secondhand stores to make knowledge more accessible to the lesser fortunate. Alas, it seems intellectuals still prefer to hold on to their papers for -how did they call it again, the “tactile aspect”? The books lining up the shelves of this book shop were either highly idealized romances or pre-digital age instruction manuals -or both, what with How to Date a Tamagotchi. Changmin curses when he sees three sets of the entire Twilight series on the upper shelves and decides that enough is enough.
He’s almost outside when a cat starts clawing at his trousers, madly hissing like he had stepped on its tail.
Scratch that. He is stepping on it.
Luckily the cat’s as easily appeased as it is angered; it walks off soon after Changmin lifts his foot, with its thin, wiry tail swishing tall and proud as it leaves. Changmin mouths an apology to the animal nonetheless, nevermind that it probably doesn’t understand nor care now that it’s all over. He moves closer toward the exit when he stumbles and falls face first without any drop of grace into the cement floor.
Changmin’s mind is shrieking. "Nothing is going right in this world!"
“Something will. Eventually.” A voice in his head whispers.
Now Changmin’s your average isolated writer so he has his own Peanut Gallery of Voices, but this, this is one he hasn’t heard before.
"Hello? Who are you?" Changmin asks.
It doesn’t respond.
Of course it won’t, because it’s all inside his head.
Changmin knocks his forehead on the floor.
"D-do you know how f-f-filthy the floor is?” the neatfreak inside him asks, before wailing like a burning banshee and losing consciousness.
This is just great. He doesn’t have a single letter in his manuscript to show and he’s pretty sure his editor’s out in a cult meeting with her fellow demons, dancing around a bonfire in some secluded basement, and wow, now, he’s taken the leap from desperation to insanity by talking to himself.
He needs a drink. Preferably an ice-cold can of beer served on top of his neighbour, the one living down the hall.
He turns his head to the left, and the cat whose tail he previously stepped on is still there, now sitting on top of a small stack of books, watching him with an obviously judgmental gaze. Nevermind that Changmin is a dog-person and has zero experience with cats; that look is a judging look, and he won't accept anyone telling him otherwise.
Changmin notes its grayish fur, which was likely as white as cotton before the cat decided that hanging out with the downtown gangster cats was its calling in life. A single stripe of carroty orange runs from the tip of its nose to the end of its tail, the stripe so neatly out of place with the rest of its grayed fur that it wouldn’t be surprising if it happened to be painted on by a drunkard who had nothing better to do with his life.
Changmin narrows his eyes at the cat in an attempt to appear judgmental himself, but the cat appears to be cool -and more mature than him- and isn’t swayed. Changmin doesn’t give up and tries to up his game by narrowing his eyes further, until he can only see a sliver of the cat and not the fact that he absolutely looks dumb right now, lying on the floor with half-opened eyes. Finally, he sticks his tongue out and the cat draws its head back, appearing thoroughly offended, before turning around and scampering away. Boo yeah.
“Ahjussi.”
Changmin waits until he can no longer see a trace of the defeated cat anymore before looking up. It’s a teenage boy chewing on what seems to be gum, staring down at him, holding a familiar porn mag Changmin recognizes to be last year’s March issue. He had one copy of it in the bathroom and another under his bed, because. Practicality, right? And now the centrefold of both copies is permanently... folded.
Changmin recalls him to be the shopkeeper sitting by the counter earlier. The boy’s nostrils flare with each chew of the gum, and really, this view of a hormone-fuelled, sex-deprived boy from an angle below will probably leave him scarred for his entire life. Or at least a decade.
“What do you want?” Changmin asks him, irritated.
“Ha!” The boy breathes out, and Changmin is surprised how much larger his nostrils flare, “What do I want? Look at this freakshow here asking me what I want,” he tilts his head up and points the porn mag at him, and the nostrils disappear from Changmin’s view.
What replaces it is the boy’s crown jewels instead, after he takes a step forward in an attempt to appear intimidating.
"Oh my god he’s not wearing anything under those shorts?" A voice from the Peanut Gallery asks. It’s that pre-teen girl who joined the party two months ago.
"Wearing? He doesn’t have anything at all! It’s a girl!" Another voice. It’s that guy, the infamous fault-finder.
"No you fool, it’s just… small. Oh dear." The sympathetic aunt says.
At this point Changmin can practically hear everyone in his head heckling, howling, and crying. As for him, he just wants to pour a vat of acid into his eyes because this time around he’s so sure that the image won’t leave him and he’s most definitely going to be scarred for life.
“Get up,” the boy tells him, face as intimidating as a kicked puppy’s.
Changmin rises, rubbing his hands together then patting his trousers to remove any dirt before looking at him. Or to put it more specifically, looking down at him, because Changmin is taller than average and the boy is smaller than average. Huh, will you look at that.
He stares him in the eye and scoffs, “It’s small.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing,” he says, and moves to leave.
He’s stopped by a hand barely on his shoulder, “Not so fast.”
“What?”
“You can’t just leave without buying anything, not after that doormat stunt you did.”
“Are you kidding me. Your books are shit, I’m not buying any of it.”
The boy sidesteps to Changmin’s front and puts on his best stern face, although it doesn't come out as stern as he intended. Changmin thinks the boy looks constipated instead but he doesn't dare mention it.
He considers his options on how to best escape this situation: a) he can carry the boy like a sack of rice and dump him on his seat by the counter then run, b) he can also kick the crown jewels to the fourth base then run, or c) he can just charge out like a bull, body slamming into the boy in the process.
Or d) he can buy a book and bolt. No physical contact required.
“Fine,” Changmin looks around; he’s just going to buy anything and get out of here. He scans the shelves to his left and sees one of the Twilight seri -he turns his head so fast he almost gets whiplash- then skims the shelves to his right from top to bottom.
Nope, not buying any of this shit.
He looks at the boy in front of him again and then at the bookshop’s counter, reconsidering Option A.
The counter’s height is up to his waist, and with its width Changmin can probably haul him over without giving him a concussion -though that is a tempting idea in itself. The cash register is placed on one end by the window, and on the other, just before a magazine rack, is a stack of White Pages.
That’s it.
Changmin points a finger to the stack, “How much is it for the White Pages?”
The boy gives him a look that says, Really? and rolls his eyes, “That’s not for sale.”
“Then I’m leaving.”
“It’s from thirteen years ago!”
“It says 2001. Of course it’s from thirteen years ago, you dumb kid. You think I can’t count too?”
“It’s not for sale!”
"Yeah I heard you the first time. Do you need a dictionary?"
"But it's not-"
“Shut up, I’m either buying that or nothing. So go on, get your ass to the register and ring it up,” Changmin flips open his wallet and takes out ten bucks, “do it in this second or I’m leaving.”
In one minute Changmin has three books of White Pages in hand and is pushed out of the shop.
He looks at his purchase and sighs, unable to believe he had spent ten bucks on a wad of useless paper.
Well. He’ll find some use for it later. Hopefully.
End
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So that's what happened in the book shop.
Changmin had trudged around the downtown marketplace for sometime longer after that, eager to blur the horrifying images in his memory, before it occurred to him that maybe, the more he dwelt on things the more it'd get stuck in his head. And so, armed with this brilliant epiphany, he had decided to go back to his flat, but not before taking a small detour to the wishing fountain a few blocks away and tossing a 500-won coin into it, with the request that his editor not be waiting for him on his couch at home. And also for her car to get nicked, if possible.
It was on his fifth can of beer when the afternoon's purchase crossed his mind once again, and he came up with the superb and highly original idea of drunk-dialing strangers.
He was a bit smashed, therefore a bit more sociable, so why the hell not, right?
Right. So he went ahead and took one of the books, along with a pen from his desk. Just to reassure himself and get a little pumped up, he had yelled, “Yolo!” before he dropped the red felt pen on a random page.
The first victim of the pen was a Cho, but then it turned out that the number was busy, then a Kim whose line was already dead, then a Lee, who was disconnected, then a Park, also disconnected, then a Go, then another Cho, then…
Changmin had smashed the phone to its cradle after the seventeenth number, which was again unable to connect. But a drunk Changmin was an even more persistent Changmin than its sober counterpart, and the frustration had numbed before it even had a chance to let itself be known. So, with his eighth can of beer in hand, Changmin tried for the eighteenth time, going a hundred pages back and letting his fate hang by the red felt pen.
It landed on Jung Yunho.
Changmin sniggered at that odd name and howled it like some stoned wolf as he pressed the numbers, “Jung Yunho~ Pick up thy phone, Yunho~”
For the first time that night, the call connected. Changmin fell to the floor in celebration and did a victory dance which resembled a dying tadpole, then went on to sing the Star Wars theme while he waited for Jung Yunho to answer.
It was on the twelfth ring when the other line picked up.
“Changmin? You finally called!”
But by then Changmin was already fast asleep.
---
That was how Changmin first encountered the name Jung Yunho.
---
The second time Changmin encounters the name Jung Yunho is on a business card, the letters of it bold, gilt, and shining under the light of his front door. He narrows his eyes on the man it came with, sunshine smile too bright for the morning grouch that Changmin is, especially when he hasn’t taken his first piss for the day yet.
Changmin scratches his stubble and reads the card again. Turns out he read it right the first time; the card did indicate Museum Curator beneath the name, but that's not what he heard when the man introduced himself a minute ago.
"What did you say you were again?"
"Your inspiration!"
Changmin slams the door in his face.
A/N:
More of Yunho in the next chapter!
...should this even get a next chapter? ahahahA /runs away
If anyone wants to be my beta, please message me! :3