→ y u p u t k a
changmin wakes up as a disaster.
there’s the sound of someone screaming in the background and outside, the wind is brewing up a storm so great that surely, no one is to survive. to him, the world is grey, and as he sits up with a hand against his forehead, he thinks of tornados. he’s certain that the sobbing from outside his window is only just an angel’s tantrum though.
he stands up from the floor (he’s grown accustomed to sleeping on it) and stares at his own reflection in the window. from all around him, there are people talking: the soft whispers and shushing for the breathing to quiet down, children murmuring, a low hum of adults’ mindless chatter. it’s dark outside so he can’t see himself much, but he swears he sees the shadow of eyelashes that fall over a cheekbone so sharp, it cuts through the darkness like a knife, especially when the light has half his face glowing. his hair is soft but it covers his eyes so changmin closes them. when he opens them again, the window is open, and he’s just about to fall. the storm gets excited and whirls around and around and around faster, faster, like a whirlwind or a tornado or something like that and it doesn’t stop for anything not anyone only just spins and spins and spins in the mocking movement of the world and the hinges are being torn off of doors and toilets and the faucets are ripped from sinks and changmin can hear everything and see everything and
and when he opens his eyes, he’s drenched in water. it’s even darker outside since he can’t see any color, but the boy that runs around in his ribcage has long since stopped asking for something more than the bleached shade of paper in the world he sees. changmin wonders where the child has gone. he misses him, just a little bit. he walks around for a while, though sometimes, the wind is too strong; it would grab him by his bones and push him back despite his halfhearted attempts to resist so he goes wherever it wants him to go, his body soft and pliant.
it’s funny because he has no bones.
when changmin opens his eyes again, he’s laying down on a bed. there’s white all around him but he’s used to it already. his mouth is dry and tastes of medicine, his throat burning and scratchy and hoarse. it feels like there’s still vomit lingering on his tongue and it’s so disgusting that he decides to simply take his mind off of it and look around instead. his wrists are strapped to the bed, ankles cuffed by some kind of strong fabric. he sees a stray thread and thinks that it looks like a worm; suddenly there are worms crawling all over him and he squirms uncomfortably. at least he knows what’s restricting him are only just worms, though. worms are easy to kill. at least, that’s what changmin’s thinking, before a worm crawls into his throat and starts shrieking.
grimacing, the sound hurts his ears but it calls people over- at least, he thinks they’re people. they should be, but their heads are made of clouds. changmin thinks of cotton candy and the worms flop all over him. empty headspace, he thinks, and closes his eyes. his book always ends whenever he closes his eyes; it’s like he dies every time, and whenever his lashes flutter open again, he swears that he’s living a new life. he’s breathing the same air, and he’s still underneath the same sky, but his mind has changed and everything around him is different, too. the people with clouds for heads stick needles into him and inject some kind of liquid that he doesn’t recognize. changmin doesn’t resist, but there are these things that extend from his shoulderblades that push and shove; there are thin growths at the very end that tear and scratch and rip, and from the very back of his mind, he hears the sound of creaking.
it sounds like metal.
something happens to him and he has to close his eyes this time. his eyes are brown and gentle because nothing hard has ever touched them, but when he looks at himself in the mirror, he thinks they look empty. whenever he looks at his mother’s eyes, they’re always so full with something, like a sphere ready to burst; whenever he looks at his father’s eyes, they’re usually just about to spill over the brim with emotion. whenever he looks at himself in the mirror and he stares at his own eyes, he only sees himself. it kind of makes sense, he thinks, because he’s hollow, too, so if he sees himself in the reflection of his eyes, then what he sees everywhere else must also be made up of him. every last inch of skin, every last increment of flesh and bone and muscle is what he decides the whole world is built by.
for the next week, changmin sees skeletons and raw meat walking around him. it’s a little scary, but he gets used to it after the first day. if he doesn’t, then he might just end up dying, and his mind knows as good as he does that that can’t be what happens.
there’s a spider entangling him in a web of lies and to placate it, changmin stays still. he’s wrapped up in a cocoon and he’s about to be eaten; he’s the bait. the legs crawl towards him and he looks away. it’s unsettling to know that he’ll be torn apart, ripped from limb to limb, and he’d rather keep his mind free of those kinds of mental images no matter how bad his nightmares always are whenever he goes to sleep (he doesn’t do that often). it doesn’t matter that this happens to him every day.
one day, changmin wakes up to the sound of construction just outside his window; it sounds like there are gunshots and bullets lining up to one side of a metal door, and he wonders if it’s not an attack. he sits up in bed, back against the headboard, and pulls the blankets over his thighs. it’s a little cold in the room, sort of. there’s snow surrounding him after all and the wind blows against him in soft wisps of white and grey. he can’t differentiate between colors but he thinks that he doesn’t have to; everything is within the spectrum of his vision and it is all as it should be. the sound of creaking gets louder in the back of his mind. he leans forward and dips his hand into the snow and watches as it swallows his fingers, drinks in the blood at his wrists and slits his veins so it can feed off of his energy.
a small, wistful smile plays on his face.
“you’re the only one that doesn’t mind that i’m bad,” he says, and laughs a little.
the rustling of leaves play in the background before the ticking of a clock returns. his only response is the murmuring of angels; meanwhile, the pendulum swings, and the sound of the ticking gets louder and louder with each step he takes. boom. boom. boom. it’s like a bomb, he thinks, but by the time he’s far away from home, his head is just about ready to explode; it’s too filled by the sound of his thoughts and the ticking is starting to resemble less of a ticking and more of a pounding, like strings being pulled too far apart, the tension increasing and increasing and nothing gives in and it pulls at his nerves tugs at his arteries frustration stringing apart the strands to his jugular and the whispering returns the whispering is back again and in the background he hears the creaking of metal, it has to be metal and he’s certain that it’s metal like something is swinging and swinging and swinging and in the distance he swears he hears the sound of someone calling for him it’s like it’s like it’s like a muffled voice calling his name over and over and over again changmin changmin changmin changmin but he only hears what he wants to listen to and the creaking tastes like copper
when he looks up, he sees a ferris wheel. everything vanishes around him. it’s dark outside -- maybe it’s night? -- and there is no one around, so the little boy that used to live in the treasure-chest where changmin has his heart tucked in escapes regardless of the key and lock that it’s encaged by. the little boy used to compose symphonies against the knots of changmin’s spine, he realizes, because those are the songs the boy sings as he clambers onto the seats of the ferris wheel. changmin stands back and lets him have fun, but when he looks up, he sees a man with a beautiful smile and lips the color of pink corals.
everything goes silent. the whole world stops spinning and changmin stops breathing. nothing moves. it’s completely silent and the ferris wheel doesn’t creak anymore. not even the rise and fall of his chest dares to make any sound in the tension of this -- this lack of everything -- and it’s wonderful, honestly.
it’s funny though. changmin shouldn’t be seeing colors.
the next day, changmin paints. he takes his brush and soaks it in any color because it doesn’t matter to him; in the end, even the shade of a thing is a label that’s been slapped upon it. he’s content with seeing what he sees. in his mind, there’s a smile and a mouth that tastes like mint and he leans forward into the canvas, brush stroking against the white expanse. he uses what colors are available and cares naught for any reasoning; to him, metal tastes bland, anyway, and so he makes sure to take care of even the most minuscule and minute of details. a morsel of the snack he had forgotten to eat is pushed around his mouth by his tongue as he picks up the paintbrush and dips it in white.
the man had white teeth. changmin knows at least that much. from the back of his mind, the ferris wheel swings back and forth, back and forth, and he’s hypnotized.
changmin has an accident. he hadn’t meant to swallow all those pills, honest to god; he just had a headache so he grabbed whatever was closest. that’s what he told the people with no faces on, anyway. they had flowers withering wherever they walked. leaning down, he reaches to pick up one of the dead thistles by its stem and watches it carefully, spinning it ‘round and ‘round against his fingertips. it’s not black, but it’s close to the color of the night, and as changmin watches it spin, everything changes around him. suddenly he’s in a carnival or something, hands dropping the thistle to grab onto the steering wheel instead, the teacup going around and around and around in circles. there’s no one else around him, just teacups twirling on their own, but when changmin finally steps out a little dizzy, his feet stumbling, he hears the creaking again.
it’s a little frustrating because he doesn’t know where it’s coming from. the sound of the circus is a lively, jolly jingle and he hums it softly underneath his breath. people laugh from around him but he can’t see them at all; maybe it’s because they’ve become more like monsters than the humans he once thought he knew. but he’s never known anything at all, so it shouldn’t matter. the heels of his shoes click against the ground as he strolls down the venue, hands in his pockets; looking around, there are only the normal attractions of a theme park, but as he looks up ahead, there’s a tent. when he enters through the flap, he swears that no one’s in the audience but the moment he starts walking down the stairs, there are things around him. they all look scary.
they have eyes in the wrong places and mouths that don’t close, and their breath soaks up the whole place because it smells so strongly of dead people; their bodies are sloppy and slimy and changmin hurries down, down, down, but it’s like he’s tumbling, like he’s falling -- but then, he’s onstage. there’s a man next to him who has his hand on the small of changmin’s back and changmin looks up at him, eyes wide and soft and doelike. the man looks down at him and smiles.
changmin recognizes the lips and the teeth, and for that quick moment as he gazes at the other, he swears he can see some kind of brownish hue flickering in those eyes, and he can see himself. so perhaps this man is made up of him, too. that’s alright; it’s the first time changmin’s ever created anything so beautiful.
are you afraid of dying?
changmin is surprised. they shouldn’t be talking to him. they shouldn’t be able to talk. they shouldn’t be speaking at all. why is that man saying anything? who is that man?
no, he says. his voice is shaking.
good, the man murmurs, my name is yunho.
changmin’s neck is placed against a blade. it’s a guillotine. blood comes roaring into the tent and it drowns them all; yunho only smiles as changmin tries to get out, his throat scratching and scratching and scratching as he drowns in his own blood but it’s either his blood, or more blood -- it doesn’t occur to him then -- and soon his skin scrapes off his neck but now that he’s begun he can’t stop he can’t stop and his flesh tears away and yunho’s just staring at him with that fucking smile like nothing’s going on like
(the creaking gets louder and louder. it stops.)
changmin wakes up with tears in his eyes and the taste of blood in his mouth. his hand flies to brush over his throat but it’s still intact, along with the rest of his neck, and his lungs aren’t caving in. granted, his bones are still nonexistent, but at least the rest of him can still be considered something.
it’s a good day outside so he gets dressed and steps out in a pair of brand new loafers. the sun shines down on him and he squints, his hand hovering over his eyes like a visor. his neighbors all look at him strangely but he does the same back to them; they have eyes like bugs, large and enormous, swarming this way and that before shrinking again. he’s only just a normal pedestrian now.
changmin beams. he’s a normal pedestrian. that’s right. there’s nothing wrong with him, not in his own book, not in anyone’s book. he’s not a patient in anything, not listed under anything, and no diagnosis, either; there can’t be, not when he’s only just a normal pedestrian. he grins, walking in large strides as the sun beats down against him and beads of perspiration trail down the side of his face. his chest quickens, heart tightening, and everything around him is as normal as he’s ever known it to be.
there’s still a subtle hint of a creaking, but changmin thinks that he’s reached the end. this is all there has to be for him to endure, for him to struggle with. a long walk should solve everything so he takes the time to admire what’s surrounding him. to his left, there is a small garden of flowers but half of the dandelions are no longer intact; either their seeds have been blown away, or frisky teenagers have decided that dandelion wishes work just as much as plucking the petals from roses do. there are no daisies, changmin speculates, but the colors of all the flowers are invisible to him so he loses interest rather abruptly. instead he looks to his right.
he sees water, a bridge, an arch, and a circle. the creaking starts to come back and suddenly, when changmin blinks, there’s a ferris wheel balanced on the glass surface of the river. his walk ends there. he turns and grips onto the railing, his eyes bright and shining; there he is. it’s the man -- yunho -- it’s that one! excited, the little boy does somersaults in his stomach before crawling out of the holes left in his chest from too many years of not knowing how to run away.
the little boy leaps across the ocean and flies right into yunho’s arms. changmin watches wistfully. he feels as though that’s his soul being cradled by the man and it’s violating to watch. he feels naked. exposed. maybe he doesn’t like this so much, after all. biting at his bottom lip, changmin looks around, but it’s not the afternoon anymore; he doesn’t know how long he has spent staring out the river, or how long he’s spent just walking, but night has fallen (or maybe he’s just failed to see day). the sun is gone and in its replacement, the stars breathe life into the sky.
changmin turns around and walks back home. he’s frightened by yunho now. those eyes are dark and the mouth is stained with blood. those lips aren’t pure and yunho is dirty, and changmin is frightened so when he goes home, he walks into his room and takes out all the crumpled letters that he has ever written to himself and burns it to pieces. he watches the fire lick at the flimsy paper, eating it as the corners curl in, blacken, then fall to ashes; the sound of crackling is hot and changmin has to move away so he wouldn’t get burned. the fire is greedy. it eats away at the paper as though it is the only meal it’ll ever receive, but changmin knows that’s not true; flames, even when smoldered, will always feed. the carpet catches on fire and he nearly ends up burning his whole house down to the ground, leaving only the smell of cooking flesh.
the only reason why changmin isn’t dead is because yunho had taken the fire extinguisher and put the fire out for him.
{ part two }