(no subject)
Title: Heal
Author: jongmalai
Pairing: Jonghyun-centric, army fic.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: mentions of Jonghyun/randomgirls. nothing explicit.
written to Y Si Fuera Ella (혜야)
The forecast is sunny with a slight cloud cover. It’s raining by the time he has his things packed, clothes pressed neatly together, memories and hopes packed up into a satchel.
His thumbs rub together slowly, lip rolling uncertainly between his teeth, feet tapping to a candypop beat.
It’s still raining when he lays down to sleep. It stops by the time he finally drifts off.
-----
Taemin’s eyes are downcast, and Jonghyun knows he’s trying hard not to let the waver in his voice show. He gives each of the members hugs because - they may not be his family, nor his closest friends, but he’ll miss them like they are. They’re his companions, them and the fans that are crying for him on the sidelines, his life for the past few years.
“I’ll come back so much cooler,” He jokes, drumming Minho on the back playfully. The girls scream when he waves at them.
It’s sunny.
-----
There’s a cloud overhead, two or three wisps across the horizon when he finally arrives. The first thing they do is shave his head with a buzzing razor. It takes two seconds, it seems, for his face to grow harsher and the ridges in his skull to surface; the barber is humming one of his songs.
It’s not only dark, but now he can feel the wind against his scalp and his neck. The stubs tickle at the base, brown and plain and itchy as he rakes his fingers through them.
He tugs at them, face stony, when he’s lying on the hard pallet of his bunk.
It’s light by the time he falls asleep, red and orange strands webbing across the horizon, hands still tangled in his pillowcase.
-----
He’s unfortunate; he’s been placed on the front lines, where the camps are dirty and the morale even worse. There are a few soldiers playing cards on the table when the door breaks down and two of them are shot to the floor, screaming and bleeding. He grabs his gun and reacts on reflex, instinct, finger tugging the trigger on autopilot and the man at the door reeling backward in the same instant. The recoil burns against his shoulder and his hand, but hardest against where his heart seems to have stopped thumping.
His lungs are in his throat. There’s blood in the doorway. Someone’s shouting, and the medics are carrying away the man on a stretcher - there are more of them, so many more, when he steps out of the room and into the yard, he sees them sprawled on the ground. The dirt is dark, the eyes of the soldiers equally so. The cacophony is a little much for his ears, a little loud and bright and unbea
One of the other soldiers kicks a wounded enemy in the side, nudging Jonghyun along.
It’s noon.
The grass isn’t nearly as pretty as the sky, even less so with the contents of his lunch in it.
-----
He smokes his second cigarette while he’s sitting on the ground near a tent. There’s a ring of other soldiers around him - hey, my sister really likes you - smoke clouding his face and sinking into his lungs. It numbs the skin a little bit, but races through his blood like gaseous energy. He nods silently, pens a few autographs, snickers along with the teases they toss his way. He pilfers a cigarette from the pocket of someone sitting next to him, lighting it quickly; he’s a fast learner with an even better memory. The grip remains familiar in his fingers from years ago.
The smoke plumes against the horizon, grey explosion against the cornflower sky.
He burns himself digging it into the ground, but reaches for another one anyway.
-----
Jonghyun keeps a few papers of lyrics tucked into his pockets, only the ones he really likes, tossing the old ones as they start to get better and better. Occasionally he’ll keep one in his back pocket - where he never reaches, never touches, saves for the prying eyes of his heart. Those are the ones he writes when he sits up in bed at night and scribbles half-legible characters in the dark. Those are the ones for his family, his members, his closest friends; he only sings those when he’s yearning for the smell of Key’s shampoo, for his sister’s smile.
-----
It’s hard to keep from the subject of sex when he’s in a camp made up entirely of young, virile men. He has sex for the first time since enlisting with a girl he meets as they go through a city. She’s beautiful enough to model (probably is, he would know). He doesn’t know what she sees in him, short and bright-eyed and smiling widely, because she has no idea who he is. nor does she care. The rest of the camp wolf whistles as he slides into his bunk in the middle of the night, with her perfume on him and bruises scattered across his collarbones. They ask him how it was -
He promises to tell them later, resolves to never fulfill that promise. It sickens him to think of her, alone in her bed and breathing softly. The spot next to him feels cold.
He pulls out a sheet of paper, rubbing his eyes sleepily and crumpling it into his back pocket when the dawn light creeps halfway across the floor and the rest of the company rouses itself.
He takes a morning smoke, and reaches for another one - the one he's given is torn, wrapper dirty and cigarette mangled. He slips a note from his pocket and wraps it together.
It tastes different.
-----
Jonghyun makes a couple good friends at camp; they’re a little on the stupid side, but then again so is Jonghyun sometimes. Everyone has their moments.
He has one of his in the middle of an international crisis, when the leaders of both Koreas are going head-to-head in an air conditioned room somewhere and he’s doing the same with the barrel of another soldier’s gun underneath the blazing sun. One of these good friends has his moment, too, the last moment, when his hand comes into contact with Jonghyun’s ribs and the bullet with his temple.
It must be a momentous day for everyone, a momentous hour-minute-second, as the North Korean’s cheek meets with Jonghyun’s fist repeatedly and his cheek with the muzzle of Jonghyun’s dirt-streaked weapon. The day is not perfect, Jonghyun guesses, because the bullet never speeds down the barrel.
His eyes are beady, scared, and Jonghyun just can’t find it in himself to pull the trigger when the sunlight shines off of them.
-----
He can feel himself waning day by day, like the blisters on his hands the first week.
The sun sets, rises, and there are fewer sessions of nighttime lyricizing, less tolerance for his moments. They start to stop in towns more often, he notices, and the faces of the girls and their smells, the cigarettes and the guilt start to blend together.
No one else meets the same fate as the first friend, but the second friend finishes out his enlistment and Jonghyun is alone again. He makes a couple newer friends but it’s never the same; old friends are best friends.
The faces around him become more drawn and dirty, but the eyes no less bright. He can’t say the same for himself.
-----
The day he returns is overcast.
There are a scant few waiting for him, but he only sees four.
-----
The sun shines lazily over Key’s head, haloing him and Minho as they stand together with backpacks mounted on their shoulders.
Onew smiles softly, shakes Key’s hand and pulls him into a hug as the younger man tries to pull away.
Minho stares at Jonghyun, shoulders tense. He shifts from one foot to the other, tight, taut, broad angle of his back eclipsing the light.
Jonghyun smiles at him and his posture snaps like a string, vibrations echoing in the shell of Jonghyun's ear, firing back an awkward grin in return and tugging the older man into a reluctant embrace. Taemin smiles up at them softly.
They’re innocent; Minho, Key, Taemin, as Onew and Jonghyun look on from the opposite side of a seemingly tangible wall;
there aren’t yet the indents of crow’s feet chasing their eyelashes.
-----
The sun sets on his first night alone, the wind echoing around him, light drawing slants on the wall.
For the first time in little over a year he fishes those notes out of his back pocket and lays them out on the desk, flattens them, feels the years of wear and pencil dust floating across his fingertips. They meld together in his mind, intermingling, until he feels full enough to burst.
Sleep, sleep isn’t his companion tonight.
Just like old times.
-----
The first time his fingers touch the piano, again, a shiver goes through his system and the itch of cigarettes disappears.
It's warm outside.
Everyone is watching.
-----
The morning sun greets his reflection in the mirror. It’s much too bright; much too shiny, he notes, and can quite easily trace the outline of his own eyes past the glare, almost sees the notes flow around his head.
It’s good to be home.
---
end
a/n: okay yeah, so i was just in a meh mood. surry. hope you enjoyed ^^
heal: because to me, and i'm sure to a lot of people, music is a coping mechanism. it helps me realize what i feel, helps me get through a lot of things. i wanted to use this as an example of how music can help you through things, how it can help you come back to yourself, and the weather was just idk i like weather alright. there's a correlation that i can't really explain eloquently.
prz to be commenting bbs.
Author: jongmalai
Pairing: Jonghyun-centric, army fic.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: mentions of Jonghyun/randomgirls. nothing explicit.
written to Y Si Fuera Ella (혜야)
The forecast is sunny with a slight cloud cover. It’s raining by the time he has his things packed, clothes pressed neatly together, memories and hopes packed up into a satchel.
His thumbs rub together slowly, lip rolling uncertainly between his teeth, feet tapping to a candypop beat.
It’s still raining when he lays down to sleep. It stops by the time he finally drifts off.
-----
Taemin’s eyes are downcast, and Jonghyun knows he’s trying hard not to let the waver in his voice show. He gives each of the members hugs because - they may not be his family, nor his closest friends, but he’ll miss them like they are. They’re his companions, them and the fans that are crying for him on the sidelines, his life for the past few years.
“I’ll come back so much cooler,” He jokes, drumming Minho on the back playfully. The girls scream when he waves at them.
It’s sunny.
-----
There’s a cloud overhead, two or three wisps across the horizon when he finally arrives. The first thing they do is shave his head with a buzzing razor. It takes two seconds, it seems, for his face to grow harsher and the ridges in his skull to surface; the barber is humming one of his songs.
It’s not only dark, but now he can feel the wind against his scalp and his neck. The stubs tickle at the base, brown and plain and itchy as he rakes his fingers through them.
He tugs at them, face stony, when he’s lying on the hard pallet of his bunk.
It’s light by the time he falls asleep, red and orange strands webbing across the horizon, hands still tangled in his pillowcase.
-----
He’s unfortunate; he’s been placed on the front lines, where the camps are dirty and the morale even worse. There are a few soldiers playing cards on the table when the door breaks down and two of them are shot to the floor, screaming and bleeding. He grabs his gun and reacts on reflex, instinct, finger tugging the trigger on autopilot and the man at the door reeling backward in the same instant. The recoil burns against his shoulder and his hand, but hardest against where his heart seems to have stopped thumping.
His lungs are in his throat. There’s blood in the doorway. Someone’s shouting, and the medics are carrying away the man on a stretcher - there are more of them, so many more, when he steps out of the room and into the yard, he sees them sprawled on the ground. The dirt is dark, the eyes of the soldiers equally so. The cacophony is a little much for his ears, a little loud and bright and unbea
One of the other soldiers kicks a wounded enemy in the side, nudging Jonghyun along.
It’s noon.
The grass isn’t nearly as pretty as the sky, even less so with the contents of his lunch in it.
-----
He smokes his second cigarette while he’s sitting on the ground near a tent. There’s a ring of other soldiers around him - hey, my sister really likes you - smoke clouding his face and sinking into his lungs. It numbs the skin a little bit, but races through his blood like gaseous energy. He nods silently, pens a few autographs, snickers along with the teases they toss his way. He pilfers a cigarette from the pocket of someone sitting next to him, lighting it quickly; he’s a fast learner with an even better memory. The grip remains familiar in his fingers from years ago.
The smoke plumes against the horizon, grey explosion against the cornflower sky.
He burns himself digging it into the ground, but reaches for another one anyway.
-----
Jonghyun keeps a few papers of lyrics tucked into his pockets, only the ones he really likes, tossing the old ones as they start to get better and better. Occasionally he’ll keep one in his back pocket - where he never reaches, never touches, saves for the prying eyes of his heart. Those are the ones he writes when he sits up in bed at night and scribbles half-legible characters in the dark. Those are the ones for his family, his members, his closest friends; he only sings those when he’s yearning for the smell of Key’s shampoo, for his sister’s smile.
-----
It’s hard to keep from the subject of sex when he’s in a camp made up entirely of young, virile men. He has sex for the first time since enlisting with a girl he meets as they go through a city. She’s beautiful enough to model (probably is, he would know). He doesn’t know what she sees in him, short and bright-eyed and smiling widely, because she has no idea who he is. nor does she care. The rest of the camp wolf whistles as he slides into his bunk in the middle of the night, with her perfume on him and bruises scattered across his collarbones. They ask him how it was -
He promises to tell them later, resolves to never fulfill that promise. It sickens him to think of her, alone in her bed and breathing softly. The spot next to him feels cold.
He pulls out a sheet of paper, rubbing his eyes sleepily and crumpling it into his back pocket when the dawn light creeps halfway across the floor and the rest of the company rouses itself.
He takes a morning smoke, and reaches for another one - the one he's given is torn, wrapper dirty and cigarette mangled. He slips a note from his pocket and wraps it together.
It tastes different.
-----
Jonghyun makes a couple good friends at camp; they’re a little on the stupid side, but then again so is Jonghyun sometimes. Everyone has their moments.
He has one of his in the middle of an international crisis, when the leaders of both Koreas are going head-to-head in an air conditioned room somewhere and he’s doing the same with the barrel of another soldier’s gun underneath the blazing sun. One of these good friends has his moment, too, the last moment, when his hand comes into contact with Jonghyun’s ribs and the bullet with his temple.
It must be a momentous day for everyone, a momentous hour-minute-second, as the North Korean’s cheek meets with Jonghyun’s fist repeatedly and his cheek with the muzzle of Jonghyun’s dirt-streaked weapon. The day is not perfect, Jonghyun guesses, because the bullet never speeds down the barrel.
His eyes are beady, scared, and Jonghyun just can’t find it in himself to pull the trigger when the sunlight shines off of them.
-----
He can feel himself waning day by day, like the blisters on his hands the first week.
The sun sets, rises, and there are fewer sessions of nighttime lyricizing, less tolerance for his moments. They start to stop in towns more often, he notices, and the faces of the girls and their smells, the cigarettes and the guilt start to blend together.
No one else meets the same fate as the first friend, but the second friend finishes out his enlistment and Jonghyun is alone again. He makes a couple newer friends but it’s never the same; old friends are best friends.
The faces around him become more drawn and dirty, but the eyes no less bright. He can’t say the same for himself.
-----
The day he returns is overcast.
There are a scant few waiting for him, but he only sees four.
-----
The sun shines lazily over Key’s head, haloing him and Minho as they stand together with backpacks mounted on their shoulders.
Onew smiles softly, shakes Key’s hand and pulls him into a hug as the younger man tries to pull away.
Minho stares at Jonghyun, shoulders tense. He shifts from one foot to the other, tight, taut, broad angle of his back eclipsing the light.
Jonghyun smiles at him and his posture snaps like a string, vibrations echoing in the shell of Jonghyun's ear, firing back an awkward grin in return and tugging the older man into a reluctant embrace. Taemin smiles up at them softly.
They’re innocent; Minho, Key, Taemin, as Onew and Jonghyun look on from the opposite side of a seemingly tangible wall;
there aren’t yet the indents of crow’s feet chasing their eyelashes.
-----
The sun sets on his first night alone, the wind echoing around him, light drawing slants on the wall.
For the first time in little over a year he fishes those notes out of his back pocket and lays them out on the desk, flattens them, feels the years of wear and pencil dust floating across his fingertips. They meld together in his mind, intermingling, until he feels full enough to burst.
Sleep, sleep isn’t his companion tonight.
Just like old times.
-----
The first time his fingers touch the piano, again, a shiver goes through his system and the itch of cigarettes disappears.
It's warm outside.
Everyone is watching.
-----
The morning sun greets his reflection in the mirror. It’s much too bright; much too shiny, he notes, and can quite easily trace the outline of his own eyes past the glare, almost sees the notes flow around his head.
It’s good to be home.
---
end
a/n: okay yeah, so i was just in a meh mood. surry. hope you enjoyed ^^
heal: because to me, and i'm sure to a lot of people, music is a coping mechanism. it helps me realize what i feel, helps me get through a lot of things. i wanted to use this as an example of how music can help you through things, how it can help you come back to yourself, and the weather was just idk i like weather alright. there's a correlation that i can't really explain eloquently.
prz to be commenting bbs.