between the flames [d]
between the flames.
chansoo.
pg-13.
~2k words.
for my lovely jay for the chansoonet exchange! i hope this is somewhat okay omg ;___; <3 <3
There are flames licking at his feet as Chanyeol gallops away from the scene, matches still in his hand and a smile torn across his badly sewn-together face. His fingers are twitching as he flees the place, relishing in the thoughts of causing fear and chaos in the remains of his destruction. The Taker.
There are rumors that the Taker was, in his young and early days, a “flower boy” of some sort. The ones with pretty eyes, seductive voices, fingers that knew just where to touch you until you were shuddering with pleasure.
Chanyeol does have a deep voice, although it has evolved over years. What was once a honey-deep voice full of romantic viscosity is now a hardened, grating voice that sends shivers down your spine; what was once a beautiful set of eyes is now an uneven set--one permanently half opened and the other staring widely, directly into your soul. On his left cheek is a scar, six inches long, from the bottom of his eye to the edge of his chin. It’s pink and ragged, and if you were able to touch it (though no one but one person has ever touched it before), you’d feel soft, vulnerable tissue.
The Taker is some sort of a legend in the gambling world, but his name has leaked through the underground bars, the illegal trading sites, to the real world, the open world. People whisper on the streets about the Taker--is he going to take something today? There was a fire yesterday--was it the Taker? Will he take my son? Will he take my daughter?
The Taker makes his presence known in two forms, two kinds of red. One kind of red is confined, restricted to rules, made of plastic. It backs the forty eight Hwatu cards used for Gostop, a dangerously addictive gambling game. The other kind is reckless, uncontrollable, a pure element of unpredictability and chaos. It is the roaring flames of fire, the satisfaction of watching manmade structures burn to a crisp, burn to the point of perfect, beautiful destruction.
The Taker takes characteristics from both of his two favorite pastimes. From gostop he takes the impulsivity of gambling, and from fire he takes the unpredictability of the flames. From both he takes the fury of the game--the game of cards and the game of nature, both ruled by inexplicable elements beyond human fathom--something in between luck and pattern.
But as much as there is known about the Taker, he is still an unknown mystery to most people. In fact, all but one. He is a mask, a figure, a name--never a person. Only four eyes have ever seen Park Chanyeol as the Taker, and two of those are his own.
Then who is the owner of the other pair? Who is the person who has seen Chanyeol as the Taker, the person who has touched the scar on his face, breathed intimate words into his ear, touched the nape of his neck so tenderly, bit his lips so aggressively in passionate moments of love?
“You’re late,” is Kyungsoo’s flat voice as Chanyeol dives into the car. In milliseconds, the nondescript car is zooming out of the estate. Chanyeol throws his backpack into the back of the car and breathes out a sharp sigh.
“Shut up. That’s the last one this month.”
Kyungsoo makes a sharp turn into a back road. What did you get?”
“A credit card and a stack of money. Chill out, okay? We’re covered for the next few months.”
Kyungsoo doesn’t answer. The rest of the car ride goes by in silence.
They swerve into the motel at one in the morning. It’s a sketchy place and the motel sign isn’t even working (it says “MTEL” because the light for the letter O must have gone out). They’re not even served a proper breakfast, but “it would do,” as Kyungsoo had said.
Kyungsoo slams the door. “If you hadn’t been so irresponsible last time, we could have a much better place to stay, you know.”
“Shut up, alright? Just shut up.” Chanyeol snaps around. “All you can do is juggle around your obsessive compulsive tendencies.”
Kyungsoo remains silent. He walks into the motel. The air outside is quiet. Chanyeol listens to the sorrowful chirps of crickets before he enters the building.
It’s 2 in the morning. Chanyeol leaves the shower and glances at Kyungsoo crouched over his bed, squinting into a book. As Chanyeol slowly walks over, he notices Kyungsoo’s neck tense. He’s not reading the book, Chanyeol knows. He’s waiting for me.
Chanyeol sits beside him on the bed. The mattress sinks under his weight, and he places his hands down.
“I’m sorry,” Chanyeol whispers. He moves closer to Kyungsoo, who refuses to look up from the book. “I’m sorry.”
They stay like that, close together, Kyungsoo looking down, probably reading the same sentence over and over and over again, Chanyeol bending his head into the crook of Kyungsoo’s neck.
It takes five minutes before Kyungsoo snaps the book shut, puts it beside him, takes Chanyeol’s head in his hands, lifts them up to look at his face, and then says, “I accept your apology.”
They stare at each other, face to face, noses centimeters away from each other.
Kyungsoo breaks the gaze. He turns around, takes his glasses off, and lays down in his bed, his back to Chanyeol.
In the morning, Chanyeol wakes up to the sound of the water running. Kyungsoo is taking a shower. He had probably woken up early in the morning. While Chanyeol is a deep sleeper, Kyungsoo is sensitive to every sound. Almost always, Kyungsoo is awake before him.
“We can stay here today,” Kyungsoo says when he’s done. He closes the bathroom door behind him. There is a towel draped around his neck. His glasses are off, his eyes are wide open with its empty beauty, and Chanyeol can see his figure beneath the thin clothing.
Kyungsoo sits down beside Chanyeol, their thighs touching. Chanyeol reaches his hand out and places it on Kyungsoo’s lap. He feels Kyungsoo tense beneath his clothes. Quietly, Chanyeol drums his fingers against Kyungsoo’s thigh, one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four.
“We can stay here,” Chanyeol repeats softly, turning to examine the details of Kyungsoo’s face. So close. So far. Everything is in between.
Slowly, Kyungsoo turns around to meet his gaze. They stare, and with hesitation, and as if with some sort of guilt or regret, they lean in for a careful kiss. Another kiss. Chanyeol lifts his hand to grip Kyungsoo’s ear. He ignores the visible flinch in Kyungsoo’s reaction. They continue. The day passes and they remain in bed, springs creaking and groans escaping their lips in moments of hot fury, confusion, love--something.
The day passes like that, taking love for granted, speaking no words outside of what is necessary.
When they begin their road trip to another state (Chanyeol wants to try Arizona--”I want to breathe air that breathes fire even when it’s a clear day”), it’s quiet for the first hour. Kyungsoo drives and Chanyeol sits, fiddling with Kyungsoo’s phone, looking through his contacts, through his messages, checking for any irregular conversations (any smiley faces, amiable expressions?), then switching to his gallery to look for any photos of other people. None. He gets bored and plays a chess game that Kyungsoo had seemingly downloaded recently.
“Didn’t know you play chess,” Chanyeol says, breaking the silence at the end of the first hour.
“I don’t.”
“It’s downloaded on your phone,” Chanyeol comments. He tries to remove any implications from it. It’s just a statement--no emotional charge.
Kyungsoo doesn’t reply. It takes two minutes before he finally says, “When I’m bored.”
Chanyeol makes a few more moves. He gets checkmated by the program, turns the phone off, and then looks at Kyungsoo. He stares.
Kyungsoo keeps looking forward unflinchingly. Eventually, he says to the road, “You shouldn’t stare at me like that.”
“Why not?”
Pause.
“The Taker,” Kyungsoo says under his breath. They’re driving through a poorly paved road in what seems like an abandoned farmland.
“What?”
“That’s what they call you.”
“They,” Chanyeol repeats. “They?”
He laughs.
“Who cares about them?” Chanyeol shakes his head. He clicks the phone on and off. On and off. 11:45. Blank. 11:45. Blank.
“Who do you care about?”
Chanyeol swallows. He drums his fingers against his thigh.
“No one.”
Kyungsoo’s fingers curl tightly around the steering wheel. Chanyeol pretends not to notice.
Kyungsoo checks into a motel. Chanyeol is wearing a facemask, tapping his foot quietly behind Kyungsoo. With the white cloth covering his scar, Kyungsoo can see how Chanyeol used to be a looker in his earlier days; even with the beaten-up left eye, his eyelashes are long and his right eye still maintains some sort of allure.
“For two,” comes Kyungsoo’s mild voice. It’s always mild. Chanyeol has never seen Kyungsoo emote. Or scream. Or laugh. Or cry.
“Alright, then. Right this way. Do you have any luggage?” The young boy eyes the two of them curiously.
“None,” replies Kyungsoo dryly. Chanyeol merely follows.
“I’m going to go out,” Kyungsoo says when they arrive at their room on the second floor. Chanyeol nods and flops into his bed, throwing off his facemask.
When Kyungsoo returns, his phone is in Chanyeol’s hands. Chanyeol watches as Kyungsoo places two paper cups of coffee onto the table.
“Who’s KJI?”
“What?”
“You’ve saved him here as KJI. It’s in your contacts. You have all of his information--his phone number, his email, his address, everything. But there’s no call log. No messages exchanged. You’ve obviously deleted all evidence of your contact with him.”
Kyungsoo stares at Chanyeol for a few seconds before he calmly walks over and takes the phone out of his hands. He pockets it silently.
“I bought dark coffee.”
“Why do you stay with me?”
“What?”
“You’re a perfectionist. You’re quiet. You love being in peaceful places. It’s been two fucking years and you’re still here. I run around everywhere, fucking people up, starting fires and losing tons of money at a time, and yet you still follow me around.”
Kyungsoo doesn’t say anything, as usual. He sits down and takes a sip of coffee.
“I don’t really know,” he says eventually, and for the rest of the day, they don’t say anything more of much importance.
What Chanyeol doesn’t know, however, is that Kyungsoo stays with Chanyeol for a specific reason.
Chanyeol is snoring in a bed beside him. He checks his phone as it lights up the time. 3:30am. He stares at the ceiling, lit up by the blue screen of his phone. It disappears in exactly thirty seconds (Kyungsoo counts all thirty). He listens to Chanyeol’s breathing.
Why do you stay with me?
Kyungsoo is something of a personal manager for Chanyeol. If he had been some sort of celebrity (god forbid, a musical talent or idol of some sort), Kyungsoo would have been the person sitting beside him, behind the scenes, always following him around and reminding him of his priorities, his new schedules, what to do, what not to do. Without him, Chanyeol might trip up, make mistakes, end up in places he wouldn’t want to be.
Chanyeol doesn’t know, but Kyungsoo keeps invisible strings around his steps to map out his chaos. What people perceive as the Taker’s unpredictability is actually a calculated randomness, a careful strategy of something in between luck and pattern. He reigns in Chanyeol’s psychopathic tendencies when they’re too dangerous, lets them go at other times when it’s okay to let him loose.
I’m your handler. Your guardian. Your manager. Your puppeteer. You just don’t know it. I don’t love you, you don’t love me. We stay together because that’s all there is left to do.
Kyungsoo closes his eyes.
And I guess I don’t mind it much.
i wrote this really quickly and it's really bad buT I PROMISE I WILL CONTINUE THIS WEEPS.. THIS IS JUST SORT OF A SKETCH. i'm going to expand this more in the future...i hope T___T i'm sorry this is so poopy as of now omg omgomgomgomogmomg T____T
SCREAMS BYE
chansoo.
pg-13.
~2k words.
for my lovely jay for the chansoonet exchange! i hope this is somewhat okay omg ;___; <3 <3
There are flames licking at his feet as Chanyeol gallops away from the scene, matches still in his hand and a smile torn across his badly sewn-together face. His fingers are twitching as he flees the place, relishing in the thoughts of causing fear and chaos in the remains of his destruction. The Taker.
There are rumors that the Taker was, in his young and early days, a “flower boy” of some sort. The ones with pretty eyes, seductive voices, fingers that knew just where to touch you until you were shuddering with pleasure.
Chanyeol does have a deep voice, although it has evolved over years. What was once a honey-deep voice full of romantic viscosity is now a hardened, grating voice that sends shivers down your spine; what was once a beautiful set of eyes is now an uneven set--one permanently half opened and the other staring widely, directly into your soul. On his left cheek is a scar, six inches long, from the bottom of his eye to the edge of his chin. It’s pink and ragged, and if you were able to touch it (though no one but one person has ever touched it before), you’d feel soft, vulnerable tissue.
The Taker is some sort of a legend in the gambling world, but his name has leaked through the underground bars, the illegal trading sites, to the real world, the open world. People whisper on the streets about the Taker--is he going to take something today? There was a fire yesterday--was it the Taker? Will he take my son? Will he take my daughter?
The Taker makes his presence known in two forms, two kinds of red. One kind of red is confined, restricted to rules, made of plastic. It backs the forty eight Hwatu cards used for Gostop, a dangerously addictive gambling game. The other kind is reckless, uncontrollable, a pure element of unpredictability and chaos. It is the roaring flames of fire, the satisfaction of watching manmade structures burn to a crisp, burn to the point of perfect, beautiful destruction.
The Taker takes characteristics from both of his two favorite pastimes. From gostop he takes the impulsivity of gambling, and from fire he takes the unpredictability of the flames. From both he takes the fury of the game--the game of cards and the game of nature, both ruled by inexplicable elements beyond human fathom--something in between luck and pattern.
But as much as there is known about the Taker, he is still an unknown mystery to most people. In fact, all but one. He is a mask, a figure, a name--never a person. Only four eyes have ever seen Park Chanyeol as the Taker, and two of those are his own.
Then who is the owner of the other pair? Who is the person who has seen Chanyeol as the Taker, the person who has touched the scar on his face, breathed intimate words into his ear, touched the nape of his neck so tenderly, bit his lips so aggressively in passionate moments of love?
“You’re late,” is Kyungsoo’s flat voice as Chanyeol dives into the car. In milliseconds, the nondescript car is zooming out of the estate. Chanyeol throws his backpack into the back of the car and breathes out a sharp sigh.
“Shut up. That’s the last one this month.”
Kyungsoo makes a sharp turn into a back road. What did you get?”
“A credit card and a stack of money. Chill out, okay? We’re covered for the next few months.”
Kyungsoo doesn’t answer. The rest of the car ride goes by in silence.
They swerve into the motel at one in the morning. It’s a sketchy place and the motel sign isn’t even working (it says “MTEL” because the light for the letter O must have gone out). They’re not even served a proper breakfast, but “it would do,” as Kyungsoo had said.
Kyungsoo slams the door. “If you hadn’t been so irresponsible last time, we could have a much better place to stay, you know.”
“Shut up, alright? Just shut up.” Chanyeol snaps around. “All you can do is juggle around your obsessive compulsive tendencies.”
Kyungsoo remains silent. He walks into the motel. The air outside is quiet. Chanyeol listens to the sorrowful chirps of crickets before he enters the building.
It’s 2 in the morning. Chanyeol leaves the shower and glances at Kyungsoo crouched over his bed, squinting into a book. As Chanyeol slowly walks over, he notices Kyungsoo’s neck tense. He’s not reading the book, Chanyeol knows. He’s waiting for me.
Chanyeol sits beside him on the bed. The mattress sinks under his weight, and he places his hands down.
“I’m sorry,” Chanyeol whispers. He moves closer to Kyungsoo, who refuses to look up from the book. “I’m sorry.”
They stay like that, close together, Kyungsoo looking down, probably reading the same sentence over and over and over again, Chanyeol bending his head into the crook of Kyungsoo’s neck.
It takes five minutes before Kyungsoo snaps the book shut, puts it beside him, takes Chanyeol’s head in his hands, lifts them up to look at his face, and then says, “I accept your apology.”
They stare at each other, face to face, noses centimeters away from each other.
Kyungsoo breaks the gaze. He turns around, takes his glasses off, and lays down in his bed, his back to Chanyeol.
In the morning, Chanyeol wakes up to the sound of the water running. Kyungsoo is taking a shower. He had probably woken up early in the morning. While Chanyeol is a deep sleeper, Kyungsoo is sensitive to every sound. Almost always, Kyungsoo is awake before him.
“We can stay here today,” Kyungsoo says when he’s done. He closes the bathroom door behind him. There is a towel draped around his neck. His glasses are off, his eyes are wide open with its empty beauty, and Chanyeol can see his figure beneath the thin clothing.
Kyungsoo sits down beside Chanyeol, their thighs touching. Chanyeol reaches his hand out and places it on Kyungsoo’s lap. He feels Kyungsoo tense beneath his clothes. Quietly, Chanyeol drums his fingers against Kyungsoo’s thigh, one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four.
“We can stay here,” Chanyeol repeats softly, turning to examine the details of Kyungsoo’s face. So close. So far. Everything is in between.
Slowly, Kyungsoo turns around to meet his gaze. They stare, and with hesitation, and as if with some sort of guilt or regret, they lean in for a careful kiss. Another kiss. Chanyeol lifts his hand to grip Kyungsoo’s ear. He ignores the visible flinch in Kyungsoo’s reaction. They continue. The day passes and they remain in bed, springs creaking and groans escaping their lips in moments of hot fury, confusion, love--something.
The day passes like that, taking love for granted, speaking no words outside of what is necessary.
When they begin their road trip to another state (Chanyeol wants to try Arizona--”I want to breathe air that breathes fire even when it’s a clear day”), it’s quiet for the first hour. Kyungsoo drives and Chanyeol sits, fiddling with Kyungsoo’s phone, looking through his contacts, through his messages, checking for any irregular conversations (any smiley faces, amiable expressions?), then switching to his gallery to look for any photos of other people. None. He gets bored and plays a chess game that Kyungsoo had seemingly downloaded recently.
“Didn’t know you play chess,” Chanyeol says, breaking the silence at the end of the first hour.
“I don’t.”
“It’s downloaded on your phone,” Chanyeol comments. He tries to remove any implications from it. It’s just a statement--no emotional charge.
Kyungsoo doesn’t reply. It takes two minutes before he finally says, “When I’m bored.”
Chanyeol makes a few more moves. He gets checkmated by the program, turns the phone off, and then looks at Kyungsoo. He stares.
Kyungsoo keeps looking forward unflinchingly. Eventually, he says to the road, “You shouldn’t stare at me like that.”
“Why not?”
Pause.
“The Taker,” Kyungsoo says under his breath. They’re driving through a poorly paved road in what seems like an abandoned farmland.
“What?”
“That’s what they call you.”
“They,” Chanyeol repeats. “They?”
He laughs.
“Who cares about them?” Chanyeol shakes his head. He clicks the phone on and off. On and off. 11:45. Blank. 11:45. Blank.
“Who do you care about?”
Chanyeol swallows. He drums his fingers against his thigh.
“No one.”
Kyungsoo’s fingers curl tightly around the steering wheel. Chanyeol pretends not to notice.
Kyungsoo checks into a motel. Chanyeol is wearing a facemask, tapping his foot quietly behind Kyungsoo. With the white cloth covering his scar, Kyungsoo can see how Chanyeol used to be a looker in his earlier days; even with the beaten-up left eye, his eyelashes are long and his right eye still maintains some sort of allure.
“For two,” comes Kyungsoo’s mild voice. It’s always mild. Chanyeol has never seen Kyungsoo emote. Or scream. Or laugh. Or cry.
“Alright, then. Right this way. Do you have any luggage?” The young boy eyes the two of them curiously.
“None,” replies Kyungsoo dryly. Chanyeol merely follows.
“I’m going to go out,” Kyungsoo says when they arrive at their room on the second floor. Chanyeol nods and flops into his bed, throwing off his facemask.
When Kyungsoo returns, his phone is in Chanyeol’s hands. Chanyeol watches as Kyungsoo places two paper cups of coffee onto the table.
“Who’s KJI?”
“What?”
“You’ve saved him here as KJI. It’s in your contacts. You have all of his information--his phone number, his email, his address, everything. But there’s no call log. No messages exchanged. You’ve obviously deleted all evidence of your contact with him.”
Kyungsoo stares at Chanyeol for a few seconds before he calmly walks over and takes the phone out of his hands. He pockets it silently.
“I bought dark coffee.”
“Why do you stay with me?”
“What?”
“You’re a perfectionist. You’re quiet. You love being in peaceful places. It’s been two fucking years and you’re still here. I run around everywhere, fucking people up, starting fires and losing tons of money at a time, and yet you still follow me around.”
Kyungsoo doesn’t say anything, as usual. He sits down and takes a sip of coffee.
“I don’t really know,” he says eventually, and for the rest of the day, they don’t say anything more of much importance.
What Chanyeol doesn’t know, however, is that Kyungsoo stays with Chanyeol for a specific reason.
Chanyeol is snoring in a bed beside him. He checks his phone as it lights up the time. 3:30am. He stares at the ceiling, lit up by the blue screen of his phone. It disappears in exactly thirty seconds (Kyungsoo counts all thirty). He listens to Chanyeol’s breathing.
Why do you stay with me?
Kyungsoo is something of a personal manager for Chanyeol. If he had been some sort of celebrity (god forbid, a musical talent or idol of some sort), Kyungsoo would have been the person sitting beside him, behind the scenes, always following him around and reminding him of his priorities, his new schedules, what to do, what not to do. Without him, Chanyeol might trip up, make mistakes, end up in places he wouldn’t want to be.
Chanyeol doesn’t know, but Kyungsoo keeps invisible strings around his steps to map out his chaos. What people perceive as the Taker’s unpredictability is actually a calculated randomness, a careful strategy of something in between luck and pattern. He reigns in Chanyeol’s psychopathic tendencies when they’re too dangerous, lets them go at other times when it’s okay to let him loose.
I’m your handler. Your guardian. Your manager. Your puppeteer. You just don’t know it. I don’t love you, you don’t love me. We stay together because that’s all there is left to do.
Kyungsoo closes his eyes.
And I guess I don’t mind it much.
i wrote this really quickly and it's really bad buT I PROMISE I WILL CONTINUE THIS WEEPS.. THIS IS JUST SORT OF A SKETCH. i'm going to expand this more in the future...i hope T___T i'm sorry this is so poopy as of now omg omgomgomgomogmomg T____T
SCREAMS BYE