a sequence of eight peculiar nothings (1/2)
a sequence of eight peculiar nothings
vixx; n/ravi, hongbin/hyuk, ot6, also park hyoshin idk; 14 500 words; pg
the apartment building at 6 vixx street has the misfortune of being inhabited by a wide variety of unusual residents. there's sanghyuk, the part-time doorman who is infatuated with an oblivious model named hongbin who is infatuated with a man named park hyoshin who only vaguely notices he exists. there's jaehwan, the entomology professor who terrifies everyone with mutant insects, and taekwoon, the possible serial killer who terrifies them even more. there's hakyeon and wonsik, who are maybe possibly a lot bit in love, but hakyeon is an idiot so no one is really quite sure. together, they ensure that the seventh floor of the helpless building is doomed. also, there are lemon squares.
% apparently i write for vixx now
% there's about a billion notes at the end of the fic
% what am i doing with my life anymore. we just don't know
% now crossposted to ao3!
I.
Objectively, the apartment building at 6 Vixx Street is a very nice place.
Of course, there's the lift that occasionally gets stuck somewhere between the third and fifth floor and refuses to budge until several hours after its unlucky occupant has failed to show up at whatever very important place they were meant to be. There are the intermittent power outages, which are especially fond of occurring in the dead of winter or the hottest days of summer. There's the mouse infestation in the mail room, which requires bringing a broom or a sacrificial piece of cheese on each trip to pick up bills or packages. There are a few small drawbacks.
But the fact of the matter is, it's hard to find a reasonable selection of spacious flats positioned near a working train at a price that doesn't require selling various body parts on the black market. Vacancies in the building never last long, and those who manage to fill them consider themselves lucky. There's something different about the place; something about the atmosphere that makes it quite unlike anywhere they've lived before.
However, it's not any of those things that makes the 6 Vixx Street building what it is. It's not the broken lift or the unreliable power or the colony of mice. It's not the floor plan or the location or the cost. These aren't the things that give it the difference in the atmosphere. What does that is the strange and unusual assortment of residents.
II.
Jaehwan does not read the newspaper. To Jaehwan, the newspaper is nothing but an unnecessarily crinkly stack of information he does not for any reason want or need. The newspaper, to him, has no apparent merit. But every day except Saturday and Sundays, Jaehwan heads down to the lobby of the apartment building to pick up a copy of the daily newspaper. There's always a stack of them perched on the coffee table in the small lounge area, and judging by the size of the stack, the only ones who ever pick up a copy of the newspaper are Jaehwan and a man named Park Hyoshin who lives on the second floor. At no point during his trip back up to his seventh floor room does Jaehwan unfold the newspaper, flip through it or even so much as glance at it. The reason for this routine is not immediately apparent, but every day except Saturdays and Sundays, this is how it occurs.
When Jaehwan re-enters his flat, he carefully takes the newspaper over to one of the many large glass cages placed strategically around the room. Very carefully, he opens one of the cages, takes out its contents and replaces another day's newspaper at the bottom of it with the current day's. Satisfied, he returns the contents of the tank to it, closes it back up and tosses the old newspaper into the recycling.
At this point, the reason for the routine becomes apparent. Inside the tanks are a wide variety of many insects, most common amongst them various species of flies and mosquitoes. This is because Jaehwan is an entomology professor at the nearby university, and because they wouldn't allow him to keep his insects inside his office, he instead petitioned them to fund a home laboratory. Despite the many escapes of several of the more sinister bugs, Jaehwan sees no problem with the location of his studies. Of course, the part-time doorman Sanghyuk has given him many warnings related to the removal of the creatures. However, Jaehwan really pays no mind.
Jaehwan does not read the newspaper. But, in his humble opinion, it should be regularly provided for his insects in the event that they wish to broaden their minds.
Hongbin also goes down to the lobby lounge every morning except Saturdays and Sundays to obtain one of the precious free commodities available inside it. But since Hongbin doesn't read the newspaper either, he instead makes himself a cup of the boiling hot coffee that is always strategically placed between the hours of six AM and noon on a table nearby the stack of newspapers. However, Hongbin doesn't do this because of a love of coffee; in fact, Hongbin doesn't like coffee much at all. He does this for the sole reason of interacting with Park Hyoshin, the only other person in the building to pick up a copy of the daily newspaper. Hyoshin does this on his way to work every day at approximately seven AM, and although this is practically the crack of dawn for Hongbin, he dutifully trudges his way downstairs from the seventh floor about three minutes before Hyoshin is scheduled to appear. By the time Hyoshin appears, Hongbin is usually stirring half a cup of cream and ten sugars into his coffee as subtly as possible.
"Good morning," he tells Hyoshin, with his usual work-of-art smile that leaves lesser mortals nearly swooning at his feet. "Nice day, isn't it?"
"Good morning," Hyoshin replies, as he bends down to pick up the newspaper and skims over the front page. "A very nice day."
No matter what the weather, this is always their exchange. Rain, sleet, snow, hail, tornado, blizzard, they always carry out this exact conversation. Once, it happened during a hurricane as a tree in front of the building was blown over in front of their very eyes. However, every weekday, Hongbin never fails to show up to participate in this ritual.
Upon completion of this routine, Hyoshin gives him a small wave and a medium-sized smile and dashes out the door to catch his train. Hongbin wriggles gleefully, chokes down the cup of coffee and practically glows for the rest of the day.
Unbeknownst to Hongbin and Hyoshin, there is always a witness to their exchange. This witness is the part-time doorman, Sanghyuk, who is entirely displeased about the whole affair. Sanghyuk resides on the seventh floor of the building as well, and in exchange for his rent, he reluctantly suffers through the duties of this job. Thus he sits behind the front desk every day from six AM to noon, the same length of time as the coffee, and positively glowers around the hour of seven AM. This is because he is one of the lesser mortals that nearly swoons at the sight of Hongbin's work-of-art smile, and also nearly swoons at the sight of Hongbin in general. However, the most attention Hongbin ever pays him is occasionally a brief chat, which does not conclude with Hongbin glowing the same way Hongbin's ten-second conversations with Hyoshin do. Perhaps it's because they got off to a rough start when Sanghyuk dropped several heavy stacks of magazines on Hongbin's foot and accidentally shoved him into a wall, or perhaps it's because of said Hyoshin, but Hongbin never wriggles gleefully about the presence of Sanghyuk.
Because of this, seven AM is one of the least enjoyable parts of Sanghyuk's six-hour shift. It's less enjoyable than the times he has to chase down Jaehwan through a swarm of cicadas and thoroughly reprimand him for their presence. It's less enjoyable than the times he has to let the unnecessarily loud roommates Wonsik and Hakyeon back into their flat because Hakyeon lost the key for the ninety-fifth time. It's less enjoyable than the brief instances he catches sight of his next-door neighbour, Taekwoon, who he thinks might possibly be a serial killer. And those are all very unenjoyable situations.
After Hongbin makes his departure, cringing as he gulps down the coffee on his way into the lift, Sanghyuk takes a few moments to briefly sulk as he comes to terms with the fact that Hongbin will probably never wriggle and glow about him the same way he does about Hyoshin.
No one knows much about Taekwoon. But really, this is probably for the best. Not only does Taekwoon not really want anyone to know much about him, but he is also too objectively terrifying for anyone to find out any of those things. He only leaves his flat perhaps four times a week, and no one is quite sure where he goes, but he returns in the dark of night looking quite suspicious indeed.
The only one who dares approach Taekwoon is Hakyeon, and this is probably because Hakyeon is decidedly obnoxious and devoid of foresight. Wonsik theorises that perhaps Hakyeon just enjoys taking his life into his hands and casually juggling it.
Sanghyuk, despite being Taekwoon's next door neighbour and also the part-time doorman, doesn't see much more of Taekwoon than anyone else. One time, Sanghyuk mentions to Hakyeon that perhaps he should at least try to have an interaction with Taekwoon that consists of more than Taekwoon staring blankly at Sanghyuk until Sanghyuk awkwardly scuttles away. The next day, he wakes up to find a note slipped under his door. It reads, in handwriting that is distinctly Hakyeon's, "My name is Taekwoon. I'm the serial killer who lives next door. See you tomorrow, hyung. Don't forget!"
Hakyeon and Wonsik are not originally roommates when they move into the building. Originally, Wonsik lives on the sixth floor and Hakyeon lives on the seventh with the rest of them. They move in around the same time, with Hakyeon enthusiastically introducing himself to Wonsik in the lift as one of the dozens of boxes he's hauling upstairs promptly bursts at the seams and sends hundreds of multi-coloured skin care products rolling all over the floor. They get to know each other gradually through a series of extremely cliché coincidences: Wonsik finding a dropped eight-thousand-dollar credit card bill belonging to Hakyeon and thoughtfully returning it, Hakyeon knocking on Wonsik's door to borrow a bottle of mustard powder, Wonsik accidentally picking up Hakyeon's wallet when they both somehow drop theirs at the same time, Hakyeon calling Wonsik to get Sanghyuk to help him when he gets stuck in the lift. Eventually Hakyeon invites Wonsik round his place for dinner, and then proceeds to irreparably burn a pot of spaghetti. As soon as Wonsik gets a look at it, they go out for fried chicken instead. The day after that, Wonsik puts his room up for sale and moves into Hakyeon's on the floor above his. They stick a welcome mat outside the door, buy a set of nice blue silk sheets, and that's that.
They couldn't be more different. Wonsik is an easy-going high school calculus teacher with a love of hip-hop, and Hakyeon is a high-maintenance part-time beauty consultant who does back-up dancing for obnoxiously mindless pop music videos. Hakyeon violently pounces things and snuggles them, and Wonsik does not. Hakyeon aggressively throws shade and bitch at approximately seventy-five percent of everything he encounters, whilst Wonsik prefers to peacefully co-exist with it. Upon spotting the budding attraction between the two of them, Jaehwan and Hongbin and Sanghyuk and several of the other building residents set up a betting pool about how long their seeming compatibility will last.
To this very day no one is quite sure about the exact nature of their relationship status, but no one is rude enough to breach social etiquette and ask. For all intents and purposes it would seem that they're dating, except for the fact that sometimes a neighbour will walk down the hall and see Wonsik grumpily sitting on the welcome mat outside his and Hakyeon's flat, where there is an argyle-patterned sock on the doorknob. There's also the fact that Hakyeon seems quite insistent on attempting to cling to and kiss everything that moves, even Taekwoon, who seems closer and closer to strangling Hakyeon to death each day. However, they are clearly inseparable. They go furniture shopping together. Hakyeon clings possessively to Wonsik's hand at every possible moment. Wonsik drapes his jacket over the woefully unprepared Hakyeon when it rains. They can frequently be found cuddling on one of the lobby lounge's sofas, Hakyeon happily and repeatedly kissing Wonsik's cheek as Wonsik swats at him and grumbles. Perhaps most telling of all is that Wonsik actually tolerates Hakyeon for more than two hours without giving in to some uncontrollable urge to fling him forcefully out a window.
The general consensus amongst the contributors to the betting pool is that Hakyeon and Wonsik are completely in love, but Hakyeon is also kind of a dumbass. The average estimate on how long they'll last is approximately three months and fourteen days.
III.
One weekend, Wonsik goes out of town to visit some member of his extended family that he's not seen in at least eight months. As soon as it gets dark outside, Hakyeon knocks incessantly on Hongbin's door and demands that Hongbin come stay overnight with him.
"You've lived alone before," Hongbin sighs, with the kind of expression that indicates he's begun to resign himself to the inevitable fate that awaits him.
"But I will not live alone tonight," says Hakyeon, and shuts Hongbin's own door in his face.
Within fifteen minutes, Hongbin finds himself perched atop Hakyeon's kitchen counter amongst his confusingly large assortment of cereal boxes. He's never known Hakyeon to eat cereal, and he's fairly certain Wonsik doesn't like it either. He swings his legs back and forth, nudging a box of granola bars to the side when it falls on him. "What are we going to do tonight?" Hongbin asks, and tilts his head. "Are we having a sleepover?"
"We could paint each other's nails and talk about boys," says Hakyeon, in a scathingly sarcastic tone, and then shrugs. "I don't know."
What ends up happening is that Hongbin gives into the irresistible urge to clean Hakyeon's flat whilst Hakyeon goes through his unnecessarily complicated facial moisturising routine. Hakyeon can be horrifically messy sometimes, and Wonsik isn't exactly a housemaid either. Therefore, Hongbin stacks up shoes and folds shirts and sweeps floors until Hakyeon decides it's time to go to bed. There's no sofa - Hakyeon and Wonsik saw no need for one - so Hakyeon grabs Hongbin by the wrist and drags him into the bedroom. Hakyeon and Wonsik also saw no need for more than one bed. Wonsik only left nine hours ago. Hongbin eyes the bed with apprehension.
"I washed the sheets." Hakyeon rolls his eyes. "Besides, it isn't like you've not been between them before."
Hakyeon has a point. Hongbin has indeed been in Hakyeon's bed - about eight times, actually, and as recently as last Thursday. There was an argyle-patterned sock hanging off the doorknob for at least three hours. With no further protesting, Hongbin crawls atop the mattress, slips his legs between the glorious silk sheets and wiggles his feet. It's like rolling around in the feathers of an angel. He likes it.
"Good night," Hakyeon murmurs in Hongbin's ear, as he clings a bit too tightly to Hongbin's back and nuzzles his face into Hongbin's shoulder. Hongbin doesn't bother protesting that either. Hakyeon can be like glue sometimes - impossible to peel off, with plenty of pain involved. Instead he lets the silky goodness of the sheets lull him to sleep, oblivious to the fact that Hakyeon did not, in fact, wash them.
The next night, Hongbin sleeps over at Hakyeon's place again. But this time, they're not yet halfway to sleep when someone knocks on the door. The vicious growl coming from Hakyeon's throat is enough to tell Hongbin that he'd better get to the door first and warn whoever's on the other side to sprint away as fast as possible.
Hongbin reaches the door simultaneously with Hakyeon, who is wearing noticeably less clothing than Hongbin. The person they open the door to turns out to be Jaehwan, who doesn't look the least bit bothered that Hakyeon's entire torso is visible.
"Have you seen my beetle?" Jaehwan politely inquires, and Hakyeon screeches.
"Why would your beetle be in here? Did you sneak in and let it loose or something? It better not be in here -"
"We've not seen it," says Hongbin, and silently wishes that Wonsik was here to shut Hakyeon up with a hand over his mouth because Wonsik is the one that doesn't get smacked for doing that.
"If you've not seen it, it's not here." Jaehwan nods, quite definitively, with a bright smile that doesn't match the gravity of the situation. "It's … very big. You would notice." Ignoring Hakyeon's look of abject horror and Hongbin's nervous fidgeting, he shrugs. "I was going to teach a class on the beetle tomorrow. But since I can't find it, I guess I can teach more about how mosquitoes form friendships."
Under normal circumstances, Hongbin wouldn't invite Jaehwan into Hakyeon's home. Actually, he wouldn't invite Jaehwan much of anywhere at all. But Hongbin doesn't catch bugs, and Hakyeon doesn't even get close to bugs, so the fact of the matter is that if the beetle is indeed hiding somewhere inside their flat, they're going to need Jaehwan to deal with it. After exchanging a brief silent-glance-based communication with Hakyeon, Hongbin tentatively smiles at Jaehwan. "Would you like to come in for a while?"
Jaehwan agrees, much too cheerfully. They give him a bowl of blueberry cereal with some nearly-expired milk and awkwardly sit at the coffee table across from him as he eats it. The only noise in the room is the loud crunching of the cereal and the occasional clinking of his spoon against the side of the bowl. It is at this point that it becomes more and more apparent that, despite living down the hall from Jaehwan for several months, they know extremely little about him.
"So … you teach," says Hakyeon, after half the cereal is gone. In his defence, Jaehwan is gulping it down at a rather quick pace.
"About bugs," says Hongbin, very slowly.
"Yes," says Jaehwan, and his eyes light up. "Would you like to learn about them?"
After several minutes of a strange lesson that involves some combination of a sketched diagram on a napkin, enthusiastic hand-waving and also singing a ballad, Jaehwan receives a furious phone call from Sanghyuk. Sanghyuk isn't even on duty at this time of night, but was still dispatched by the landlord to capture and retrieve Jaehwan's beetle, which was found clinging aggressively to one of the second floor hallway's ceiling lights by Hyoshin. According to Sanghyuk, he's got the thing in a plastic grocery bag and Jaehwan has five minutes and thirty seconds to come retrieve it or it will never scuttle again. Hongbin waves vaguely as Jaehwan jumps up from the floor, abandoning the last few pieces of milk-soaked cereal, and races to the door. "We'll see you around," he says, in a tone entirely devoid of enthusiasm, as Jaehwan jams his feet into the wrong shoes and bangs open the door and sprints down the hallway.
"He didn't even close the door behind him," says Hakyeon, with an expression of utter repulsion and disgust. "Now I have to get up. And move. Was he raised in a barn?"
"Maybe an observation tank," Hongbin suggests, as he closes the door for Hakyeon.
The last night of Hongbin's stay, he goes home to get clean clothes and comes back to find Hakyeon laying on the floor of the hallway eating chocolate. A crumb of what appears to be peppermint fudge breaks off the edge of the candy bar he's holding and lands unceremoniously on the hideous maroon paisley-patterned carpet. Hongbin considers not even asking for an explanation, but he gets the feeling Hakyeon will insist on telling him anyway, so he nudges Hakyeon's side lightly with his foot. "The floor is dirty. What are you doing?"
"Watching." Hakyeon taps Hongbin's ankle, and points down the hallway. Most of the fluorescent hallway lights have fizzled out, as usual, and he has to squint through the darkness of the entirely-too-humid hall to see what Hakyeon's finger is directing his eyes towards.
At the end of the hallway, tucked halfway out of sight behind a fake plastic potted palm tree, there has always been a leather bench. It's been there as long as any of them can remember, including Jaehwan, who's been in the building for almost a year. No one really knows who put it there, for what reason it was put there or why it has five uneven and unsteady legs. No one really knows either why it's never been fixed or disposed of or at least fully moved behind the plant where no one can see it in all its pitiful glory. But what Hakyeon is pointing at isn't the bench. It's not the tree. He's pointing at what is seated atop the bench, nearly concealed by the crinkled palm fronds.
He's pointing at Taekwoon.
Really, Hongbin thinks, it makes perfect sense that Taekwoon's pajamas would have cloth spikes all over the arms. It also makes sense that his aura of do not come near me and I might possibly hurt you is just as strong at any time of day. What doesn't make sense is why Taekwoon is crouching barefoot on a five-legged bench behind a fake tree in plaid pajama pants at eleven PM. What doesn't make sense either is why Taekwoon is actually outside his flat, in an area that could potentially put him in the vicinity of other human beings. According to Sanghyuk, he's already been out of his room four times this week.
"He hasn't moved yet," whispers Hakyeon, "But it's only a matter of time."
Hongbin is struck with the sudden and frightening realisation that, at this moment, Hakyeon is actually creepier than Taekwoon. Nevertheless, he takes a seat on the ugly carpet beside Hakyeon, carefully avoiding any contact between his backside and the fallen pieces of chocolate. Absently, he snaps a piece off of Hakyeon's peppermint fudge bar and sticks it in his mouth. It's disgustingly sweet.
"Let's go inside. This is weird."
"Not yet. I'm going to approach him."
"He's going to push you down the stairs. I'm going inside."
Hongbin takes another piece of Hakyeon's chocolate, despite Hakyeon's whine of protest, and gets to his feet. He chews it slowly as he shuts the door behind him, and then grimaces. It really is repulsively sweet, and this is coming from the guy who puts ten sugars in his coffee. It'll probably rot Hakyeon's soul. Then again, a rotted soul might not cause much of a noticeable difference in Hakyeon's behaviour. Hongbin considers leaving him out there to suffer whatever consequences his interaction with Taekwoon might have, but Hongbin isn't very good at lying. Therefore, when Wonsik comes home and asks him where Hakyeon is, Hongbin will instantly end up implicated in his disappearance. So, with great resignation, he swallows the fudge and cracks the door open just a bit to peer outside.
Down at the end of the hallway, Hakyeon has managed to perch his awkwardly tall form on the misshapen bench alongside Taekwoon. His arm is draped around Taekwoon's shoulders as he chatters incessantly in Taekwoon's ear. Though Hongbin is entirely certain that Taekwoon could shove Hakyeon off and fling him halfway down the hallway if he wanted to, for some reason, Taekwoon is only lightly pushing at Hakyeon's chest and vaguely glowering. After a few minutes Taekwoon gets up and, without a backwards glance, returns to his room. Hakyeon is left in one piece. It's strange, Hongbin thinks. Very strange.
"We're friends now," Hakyeon announces, quite proudly, when he returns to the flat and shuts the door behind him. "Yes, our Taekwoon is now my friend."
Hakyeon kicks his shoes off without paying the slightest bit of attention to where they land. They knock into the side of the carefully arranged shoe pile Hongbin spent a half-hour setting up by the door, sending the whole thing toppling down into scattered mess of trainers and loafers and fuzzy pink slippers all around Hakyeon. Hakyeon doesn't notice. Hongbin closes his eyes and counts to ten inside his head, then guides Hakyeon away from the disaster that the area that the large radius around the front door has become. Hakyeon reeks of peppermint chocolate.
"We are going to sleep," Hongbin announces, and is secretly grateful that tomorrow he gets to go home.
The next morning, Wonsik returns. Hongbin has just emerged from the shower, and he's standing in the middle of Hakyeon and Wonsik's bedroom with a fluffy red towel wrapped around his waist when Wonsik walks in and drops his oversized duffel bag by the door. Hakyeon, who is trying to convince Hongbin to remove that towel, immediately stops his persuasions.
"Hello," says Wonsik, and Hongbin replies by turning such a deep shade of red that he can actually feel the colour of his face changing. He can pinpoint the exact moment that the shade of his skin becomes literally indistinguishable from the towel. He can see his discarded pajamas lying only a short way away, folded on the middle of the bed, and he lunges to grab them; in the process the towel nearly falls, and he has to make a desperate snatch for it to keep it from revealing things that should be left entirely to the imagination. "Is this a bad time?"
"It's perfectly fine," says Hakyeon, the literal incarnation of the devil, and kindly holds out Hongbin's pajamas to him. Hongbin hurriedly re-ties the knot in the towel and then takes them, clutching them to his chest to cover whatever else the towel doesn't. "I think Hongbin was on his way home."
It's partially true. Hongbin was indeed on his way home. However, he was hoping to pack his things first. Perhaps have a bowl of the blueberry cereal, which turned out to be surprisingly quite good. Have a short conversation with Hakyeon, probably (or most definitely) related to the strange phone call he received earlier this morning from Sanghyuk. Or at least put on some clothing before any human being that isn't Hakyeon laid eyes upon him. However, as Hakyeon ushers Hongbin's hungry and confused and towel-clad form towards the door, it becomes quite clear that none of those things will be happening this morning. What will be happening is that he will be locked outside Hakyeon and Wonsik's bedroom with a pair of pajamas clutched to his naked chest and no breakfast food in his mouth. Sure enough, this subsequently occurs.
"Don't worry," Hongbin hears Hakyeon say, followed by the sound of something landing heavily on the bed. "I washed the sheets."
Hongbin, who crawled out of those sheets only twenty-five minutes ago, can testify to the fact that Hakyeon did not, in fact, wash them. Suddenly, something in Hongbin's brain clicks together about his own arrival three days prior, and he yells in protest. However, he gets the feeling that barging into the bedroom right now to express his displeasure with Hakyeon would not be the smartest idea. The smartest idea, he thinks, would probably be to put some clothing on in the relative privacy of the kitchen and then exit the vicinity as fast as he can. Therefore, this is exactly what he does.
The next time Wonsik goes out of town, Hongbin thinks, he's going out of town as well. To another country. On an island. For at least a week. Returning at the end of that week will be optional.
IV.
At eleven forty-five AM on the morning of Hongbin's last day with Hakyeon, Sanghyuk nervously calls Hongbin's phone. He tries to tell himself that his palms are slightly clammy because of another terrifying encounter with one of Jaehwan's possibly mutated centipedes, but of course that's not it. That doesn't fully explain away the small quiver in his voice, either.
"Hello, Hongbin. It's Sanghyuk. Your - your neighbour. The doorman."
The last part feels a bit unnecessary, but he figures he'd better add it in case of the rather embarrassing event that Hongbin really overlooked him enough not to be aware of his name. It's true that his uniform does include a shiny badge on the left side of the chest that says SANGHYUK, and the name card on the desk in front of him when he's on duty also says SANGHYUK, but better safe than sorry.
"Sorry to bother you, but I have something to tell you and it's important and I need to tell it to you by two PM this afternoon. I could tell you now, but it's better to tell you in person because important reasons. Okay, have a nice day, and -"
It's at this moment that Sanghyuk realises he has absolutely nothing to say after that and, but he's already said it and now he can't take it back. He panics and hangs up the phone, then mentally punches himself in the face about seventeen times. It mentally hurts quite a lot. And, he mouths to himself, then thumps his head down onto the desk in front of him and swears.
Unbeknownst to Sanghyuk, up on the seventh floor Hongbin is facing a dilemma. One of the possessions he was unable to gather up when he was unceremoniously removed from Hakyeon and Wonsik's room about fifteen minutes ago was his phone. On one hand, he feels he shouldn't leave it there too long because within a half-hour it will probably get lost somewhere in the mess of their residence and take several years to excavate from the rubble. On the other hand, he gets the feeling that the coast is not yet clear for him to return and retrieve it. And so he files that errand in his mind for later, in the meantime dashing out the door for a Very Important Appointment around twelve-oh-eight PM. Hongbin arrives downstairs only ten minutes after the end of Sanghyuk's shift his subsequent departure from the area.
This is why Sanghyuk never gets to give Hongbin the news that, at two PM this afternoon, Park Hyoshin is moving out of the building.
The thing is, when it comes to Park Hyoshin, Hongbin is a little bit insane. He has three pictures of Hyoshin on his phone, despite the fact that he never asked to take any of them. When asked if he's got his eye on anyone special, he smiles softly despite the fact that he's never spent more than fifteen minutes in Hyoshin's company. He sent Hyoshin flowers for his birthday, despite the fact that the only words he says to Hyoshin on a regular basis are Good morning. Nice day, isn't it? He also did this despite the fact that there is no non-creepy way for him to have found out when Hyoshin's birthday is.
Considering all that, Sanghyuk thinks, maybe he doesn't really want to be the one to break the news to Hongbin. Maybe this communication mishap is the universe's way of trying to save him from a terrible fate. Upon further reflection, he doesn't want to be associated with the moment that Hongbin's world shatters around him.
And so, when Hongbin coincidentally bumps into Sanghyuk at three-twenty PM with his phone in his hand and inquires about the news, Sanghyuk just shakes his head and tells him it really wasn't that important after all.
Hongbin will eventually figure it out himself, Sanghyuk thinks. It shouldn't take more than a week. The next morning is a Tuesday, and right on schedule, Hongbin appears at seven AM to shuffle over to the coffeepot on the lounge table and grab a white styrofoam cup. He fills about half the cup and sets the coffeepot back down, then dumps into the other half a repulsive amount of sugar and cream. Sanghyuk cringes from a combination of the creation of the concoction and the way the side of the cup cracks and leaks a few boiling hot drops of the stuff onto Hongbin's hand.
By seven-ten AM, when Hongbin's already drank half of the mixture and refilled the emptied space with more sugar and cream, Hyoshin still is not there. Hongbin sighs almost imperceptibly, then approaches the front desk with tiny and hesitant steps. His eyes are fixed on the floor, his posture small and dejected. It's a pitiful sight.
"Has Hyoshin come down yet?"
"Not today," says Sanghyuk, and does not comment any further. Hongbin thanks him without any real expression of gratitude, and then slumps off towards the lift with the styrofoam cup tilting dangerously in his hand. The coffee-scented sugar cream sludge sloshes over the top of it and splatters the floor beside him with each step. Sanghyuk eyes the trail of mess with a feeling of great weariness, knowing it's going to be his job to clean it up as soon as Hongbin leaves.
When it's no longer avoidable, Sanghyuk looks around to make sure no one is watching before he kneels on the ground with a handful of paper towels and begins to scrub at the coffee syrup. He didn't lie, per se, but he can't keep from wondering if this is the universe's way of punishing him for not telling Hongbin the entire truth. Although, really, the sight of Hongbin's big sad eyes was punishment enough.
Two more days go by in a similar fashion. And then, on the third day, Hongbin doesn't come downstairs. It's a Friday, and a very nice morning indeed; seven AM comes and goes without Hongbin to comment on it. Eight AM comes and goes as well, and so does nine, until finally it's noon and Sanghyuk is forced to leave his position at the front desk and head back upstairs to rid himself of his uncomfortably stiff doorman uniform. The little hat keeps slipping over his eyes, and he lets it. Maybe it will hide the shame in them from the harsh, judging outside world.
In the painfully slow lift, Sanghyuk taps his foot against the shiny floor and fiddles uncomfortably with the metal buttons on his sleeve and pointedly does not meet his own gaze in the mirrored walls. He also debates the relative merits of going to check on the possibly heartbroken Hongbin or just avoiding him for the rest of his life. On one hand, hiding from his problems seems very attractive. But on the other hand, Hongbin also seems very attractive. As improbable as it is, Sanghyuk still holds some vague hope that Hongbin will notice him and they will have some sort of deep conversation and somehow this will lead to them wearing matching sweaters and adopting a fluffy white cat with a grumpy face. Besides, he might maybe possibly feel a tiny bit guilty about the idea of Hongbin suffering alone. Possibly.
By the time the lift finishes its snail-speed ascent to the seventh floor, Sanghyuk has resolved that he will check on Hongbin. Nothing too detailed, of course; nothing that will implicate him in the breaking of Hongbin's heart. Just perhaps a small acknowledegment of Hongbin's misery and a well-wish that the pain will fade in the future. He decides very resolutely that he will not back out of this before he can knock on Hongbin's door, because that is an embarrassingly common occurrence for him.
However, Sanghyuk doesn't get the chance to avoid the confrontation. This is because, due to the positioning of their flats, Sanghyuk has to pass Hongbin's door in order to get to his own. And Hongbin is slumped on his doorstep, clutching a familiar FOR SALE sign to his chest with an expression of such devastation that Sanghyuk can't find it in his heart to pass him by. So he kneels next to Hongbin and tentatively puts a hand his shoulder.
"Are … are you okay?"
This is possibly a stupider conversational manoeuvre than ending the exchange with and. Actually, considering the circumstances, it almost certainly is. But slowly, Hongbin nods. "I'll be alright," he says, in a quiet whisper that carries strong undertones of I will never experience joy again. "I'll be fine."
Sanghyuk inches a bit closer, wrapping his arm around Hongbin. Hongbin sighs softly, wrapping his own arms tighter around the FOR SALE sign, but doesn't move away. Sanghyuk could almost swear - but not quite - that he feels Hongbin's body shake as he muffles a soft sob. Poor Hongbin. This must be a lot to take in. And he didn't even get his coffee this morning -
"Hold on," says Sanghyuk, as a sudden idea strikes him. "Wait here. I'll be right back."
Despite the fact that it's the ideal time for the sadistic lift to freeze up, it miraculously carries Sanghyuk down to the ground floor without even the slightest stutter. Quickly, he sprints down the street to the small café at the end of the block. The place is run by two other building residents, green-haired Hojoon and silver-haired Xero, and they give him a sizeable discount on the order he breathlessly stammers out for half a cup of coffee, strongly caffeinated. Like he's seen Hongbin do a million times, he dumps ten packets of sugar into it and pours in several layers of thick, rich cream. The drink nearly spills about a billion times as he dashes back to the building and into the lift, which somehow repeats the miracle and deposits him on the seventh floor landing within three minutes. Regaining his breath and as much of his composure as possible, Sanghyuk runs a hand through his wildly tousled hair and smooths down his wrinkled jacket before heading down the dimly-lit hall to where Hongbin is still slumped in front of his door with the sign. As casually as possible, Sanghyuk sits down in front of him and holds out the coffee. Only the smallest amount has managed to splash out of the hole on the top of the black plastic lid, and he subtly wipes it away.
"I brought you something."
Hongbin's look of hurt and confusion slowly morphs into a look of broken gratitude as he understands what Sanghyuk's handing him. He sets the sign to the side and takes the cup, sipping it slowly; Sanghyuk can tell from the face Hongbin makes that he's burnt his tongue, but he perseveres. After a moment, the tiniest of smiles comes across Hongbin's face as he realises Sanghyuk has made it just the way he likes it - ten sugars and nearly a carton of cream.
"Thank you. I appreciate it."
And Sanghyuk smiles back as he watches Hongbin finish the cup, oblivious to the fact that Hongbin doesn't even like coffee.
V.
Wonsik's interactions with Taekwoon have been quite minimal. Admittedly, everyone's interactions with Taekwoon have been minimal, but Wonsik even more so than the others. This is a bit bizarre, considering that half of Taekwoon's flat was unknowingly furnished by Wonsik.
It happens something like this: Soon after Wonsik moves in, when he first begins to fall in love with Hakyeon, Taekwoon steals Wonsik's kitchen table. The two incidents aren't related, of course - well, tangentially related through the fact that Wonsik does very stupid things for Hakyeon. For example, once Hakyeon manages to detach one of Hongbin's windowpanes in a very strange series of events and Wonsik helps him glue it back into its proper place in the fifteen minutes before Hongbin gets back from feeding the fish of Hojoon and Xero on the third floor. Another time, a streetlight pole falls on Hakyeon on his way to a music video filming for a Very Important Pop Star and Wonsik rushes all the way from a dentist's appointment on the other side of the city to help pry him out from under it. Yet another time, Hakyeon falls asleep in Wonsik's lap in the middle of the hallway and Wonsik sits there for three hours without shoving him off because it's two in the morning and Hakyeon is drunk and the floor really isn't as uncomfortable as one might think. And then, this time, he's decided to lend Hakyeon a kitchen table.
It starts when they get stuck in the lift together after another chance meeting in the laundry room. Somewhere along the line, Hakyeon mentions in passing that he hasn't got a kitchen table and that this is a very inconvenient situation because this weekend he's having ten people over for dinner and they're all going to have to sit on the living room floor. At the time Wonsik just laughs, because it's freezing cold in the lift and Hakyeon's decided to bundle himself up in an enormous fuzzy blue blanket from his laundry basket until Sanghyuk manages to get them out. All that's visible of him is his pouting face, and it's pouting quite ferociously indeed. But once they've been freed and parted ways when the lift doors open at the sixth floor, Wonsik begins to think.
Every year, there is an educational conference held for high school teachers of sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics. Wonsik, being a calculus teacher, always attends. This year, the conference just so happens to be taking place on Saturday and Sunday on the other side of the country. Therefore, this weekend, Wonsik will not be using his kitchen table. Since he will have no need for it, and Hakyeon will, Wonsik somehow concludes that the logical solution is to lug the thing up the stairs leading from the sixth floor to the seventh floor using brute strength and sheer power of will. When Wonsik reaches Hakyeon's door, the legs of the table dragging noisily on the carpet behind him, Hakyeon invites him in for a drink and he leaves the table outside. When they open the door again five minutes later, the table is gone.
They spend the whole rest of the day searching the building for Wonsik's kitchen table. They search hallways and stairways and alcoves and the lift. They knock on doors, inspect rooms and question innocent passersby in the most serious tones possible. They check the lobby and the mail room and the laundry room and the balcony on the roof. They look behind the five-legged bench and the potted tree at the end of the seventh floor hall, and they look next to the bizarrely shaped abstract art sculpture at the end of the sixth floor one. Wonsik misses his train out of town, and doesn't end up actually leaving the city until after midnight, when they give up and begin to seriously doubt that the table will ever be found. Hakyeon searches for it the whole rest of the weekend, to no avail. His ten dinner guests all sit on the floor.
The next weekend, Wonsik brings Hakyeon with him to pick out a new table. When they finally get it carried home and hauled up the stairs and situated properly in Wonsik's living room, a task that nearly ends in dismemberment several times, they head upstairs to Hakyeon's place to eat the leftover Italian food Hongbin dropped off there earlier in the morning. However, they only make it halfway down the hall before Hakyeon notices a strange discrepancy.
"Taekwoon's door is open."
"You think he's in?"
Tentatively, they creep forwards and peer into Taekwoon's flat. There's no sign of Taekwoon inside, but then again, it's hard to tell; the heavy black curtains are all drawn over the windows, and it's nearly pitch-dark. Taekwoon doesn't seem to own any type of lamp. Actually, Taekwoon doesn't seem to own anything at all - well, besides from one large and extremely conspicuous piece of furniture sitting right in the middle of the room.
"Wonsik … is that your table?"
"I … Yes. I think it is."
Wonsik and Hakyeon exchange a look. It's a brief look that doesn't communicate all that much, but it really doesn't need to. Slowly, and in perfect unison, they close the door and begin to back away. They proceed down the hallway in this awkward and unorthodox fashion until they're safely inside Hakyeon's flat, at which point they exchange a much longer look that communicates many different types of startled and confused. When they break the eye contact, no real conclusion has been reached.
In the end, they don't eat the Italian food. Hakyeon also does not own a refrigerator, and they'd rather not take the chance of consuming Shrimp Linguine Alfredo that's been sitting out on the counter for approximately seven hours. Instead, they go out for fried chicken. Wonsik thinks briefly of offering to lend Hakyeon his refrigerator - but then again, Taekwoon might want one of those too.
Taekwoon steals Wonsik's coffeepot as well. He also takes a set of dishes and several coat hangers. Unsurprisingly, he eventually steals a lamp. At first, Wonsik's mind does not immediately jump to the involvement of Taekwoon; he assumes the disappearances are just a natural part of the constant shuffle of things back and forth between his place and Hakyeon's, which is also kind of his (though they aren't actually living together, at least not officially, they've come to an unspoken agreement to share Hakyeon's flat). It makes sense, Wonsik thinks, that things are bound to get lost in the many round trips. It's the lamp, however, that makes him realise Taekwoon is behind this. Only Taekwoon would have the skills and the necessity to snatch a lamp out from literally right behind his back.
Wonsik procrastinates on confronting Taekwoon about this. This is because still none of them are sure if Taekwoon is a serial killer, and he'd rather not find out firsthand. But when a rice cooker and an umbrella also go missing, Wonsik decides that something must be done.
Taekwoon answers his door on the third knock. Wonsik figured Taekwoon wouldn't open it at all, but he does. Taekwoon's hair is shaggy and unkempt down to his shoulders, and the circles under his sunken eyes are dark and deep. He's as pale as a sheet and as thin as a board; it's a bit worrying to Wonsik, who's never got a good look at him before, but at least it's an indication that Taekwoon is probably not a cannibal. He'd look less malnourished if he was.
"Uh, hey. I'm Wonsik, your neighbour. Just wanted to know if you've seen any of the items on this list?"
Wonsik hands Taekwoon a piece of crinkled notebook paper. On the back, there's one of his student's homework on constant coefficient differential equations. On the front, there's a list of his missing home furnishings that fills approximately half of the page. Taekwoon looks at it for several moments, and then nods just once.
"Yes."
"Can I … have them back?"
"Yes."
Wonsik watches with a severe sense of confusion as Taekwoon disappears inside his flat for several moments, then returns with Wonsik's coffeemaker. Taekwoon sets it down on the floor in front of Wonsik, and then heads back inside. He repeats the process for several more trips until piled up on the ugly paisley hallway carpet around Wonsik is the set of chipped blue dishes, the bent wire coat hangers, the floor lamp, the semi-functional rice cooker and the crooked umbrella. As pitiful quality as they are, Taekwoon gazes at them with a deep wistful sorrow as he leaves them sitting there surrounding Wonsik and turns to retrieve the last item from inside his lair.
"Wait -" Wonsik reaches out to catch Taekwoon's arm, but pulls his hand back (he's still not sure if Taekwoon is dangerous, after all). "It's okay. Keep the kitchen table." Taekwoon looks back at him with great hesitancy, beginning to shake his head, but Wonsik insists. "I've already got another one. Besides, I've been needing to replace it for a while. So you can have it."
Taekwoon pauses for a very long moment, and then nods. "Okay." His voice is nearly a whisper, but he gives Wonsik the tiniest hint of something that could almost be classified as a smile when he says, "Thank you."
It's not true at all. It was a very nice table. Wonsik had bought it right before he moved in, and he'd spent a good deal of time picking it out. But, for reasons Wonsik can't explain, he felt incredibly guilty at the sadness in Taekwoon's eyes as Taekwoon parted with all his hoarded plunder. The feeling just grows stronger as Wonsik wonders exactly why it is that the only thing Taekwoon owns is a pilfered kitchen table.
Wonsik doesn't see Taekwoon again until a Saturday morning much, much later, when he finds Taekwoon in the lobby having a minor breakdown over a small plastic container of warm cream cheese.
In the meantime, Wonsik makes eighty-three more trips back and forth between his and Hakyeon's flat without anything disappearing. He even moves in with Hakyeon, dragging the entire contents of his living space upstairs to the seventh floor. Without the ability to purloin anything, Wonsik assumes, Taekwoon has probably been skulking under his kitchen table in the dark confines of his lair, unmoving for days as he plans something nefarious (at least Wonsik knows it's not cannibalism). Since still no one really knows what Taekwoon does, this seems like the most accurate assumption.
But Wonsik does see Taekwoon again. It happens because, yet again, Hakyeon has locked him out. This happens at least three times a week. Hakyeon has this habit of losing his key, borrowing Wonsik's without informing him and then heading off to some important dance practice or urgent errand where Wonsik cannot retrieve it. Wonsik, upon returning to the flat after some brief excursion, will fumble around in the pocket of his jacket and find his keychain completely empty. On these frequent occasions, he'll head down to the lobby and slump up to the front desk to reluctantly plead with Sanghyuk to let him back into his own home. But on this particular occasion, before he finds Sanghyuk, he finds Taekwoon.
On Saturday mornings, the building provides breakfast for its occupants. No one is certain whether the food is set out due to the goodness of the landlord's heart or in some sort of elaborate scheme to lure in whichever of Jaehwan's insects is still roaming free through the halls, but nonetheless, the residents greatly appreciate the weekly appearance of the bagels and cream cheese and small assortment of fruit. It always disappears within an hour. This is suspected mostly to be the fault of Taekwoon; Sanghyuk once told Wonsik in strictest confidence that Taekwoon always materialises out of the shadows the moment the food has been set out, and then waits until he thinks no one is looking before snatching up ten bagels and several apples and vanishing away into the distance again. Strange - but perhaps not so strange, Wonsik thinks, considering the amount of things Taekwoon has snatched up from him himself.
Today, Wonsik arrives downstairs about an hour and a half after the provision of the breakfast to humbly beg for Sanghyuk's assistance. However, as he makes a short detour into the lounge to perhaps pick up a cup of coffee, he smacks directly into the back of someone who he discovers with utmost horror is Taekwoon. He prepares to stutter out a series of apologies - though he knows Taekwoon's not a cannibal, he still doesn't know about that serial killer thing - but he gets no reaction. Actually, Taekwoon doesn't seem to have noticed him at all. Taekwoon's attention is completely fixated on the breakfast tray, which is empty save for one lone package of cream cheese. Taekwoon's face is as blank and expressionless as usual, but when Wonsik looks closer, he sees Taekwoon's eyes are filled with the same wounded longing as when Wonsik politely requested him to return all Wonsik's belongings. There's a hint of panic and despair mixed in. Wonsik does not understand.
As Wonsik watches, still without the slightest hint of comprehension, Taekwoon slinks over to the coffeepot. With a look that can only be described as mournful, he begins to fill cup after cup with coffee. No sugar, no cream, just as much caffeine as he can possibly gather. He stops after the tenth cup and then begins to pick them up, slowing down as he reaches the fifth cup and tries to precariously balance it trapped between his arm and his side. The fragile styrofoam begins to bend under the pressure; it's only a matter of time before it cracks, and that would indeed be quite a waste.
Taekwoon's mournful look becomes even more mournful. He looks back and forth between the five cups of coffee in his arms and the five left on the table with a still blank and expressionless face, but something in his eyes that resembles distress. Confused as he is, for reasons he doesn't understand Wonsik finds himself stepping in to help. Removing the package of cream cheese from the tray, he begins to transfer the five coffees on the table to it. Slowly, so as not to startle Taekwoon, Wonsik takes three of the cups that are wobbling dangerously close to tumbling out of his grasp and places those on the tray as well. Taekwoon, after several long moments, sets the other two down beside the others.
"Try this instead," Wonsik says, with a smile.
Just once, Taekwoon nods. Reaching over the table, he places the cream cheese back in the middle of the tray and then picks it up. His hands tremble just a bit. "Thank you," he says, his voice barely audible, and then suddenly he's gone. Wonsik blinks. Sanghyuk really wasn't exaggerating about Taekwoon's ability to disappear into the shadows.
"Did anything interesting happen today?" Hakyeon asks, when he returns home from the very important dance practice he departed for with Wonsik's key about seven hours ago. He's scrolling through something on his phone, which means he's probably devoting about 90% of his attention to news of the activities of some female idol group and only 10% of his attention to whatever Wonsik's answer will be. This isn't entirely unusual.
Wonsik, who was forced into assisting Sanghyuk into breaking up a pillow and water gun fight between six guys on the fifth floor in exchange for Sanghyuk letting him back into his flat, is too tired to try to forcefully get any more of Hakyeon's attention. "Nothing much," he says, and doesn't ask Hakyeon's opinion on what exactly about a small plastic container of cream cheese might've upset Taekwoon so much. Most likely, the world will never know.
part two
vixx; n/ravi, hongbin/hyuk, ot6, also park hyoshin idk; 14 500 words; pg
the apartment building at 6 vixx street has the misfortune of being inhabited by a wide variety of unusual residents. there's sanghyuk, the part-time doorman who is infatuated with an oblivious model named hongbin who is infatuated with a man named park hyoshin who only vaguely notices he exists. there's jaehwan, the entomology professor who terrifies everyone with mutant insects, and taekwoon, the possible serial killer who terrifies them even more. there's hakyeon and wonsik, who are maybe possibly a lot bit in love, but hakyeon is an idiot so no one is really quite sure. together, they ensure that the seventh floor of the helpless building is doomed. also, there are lemon squares.
% apparently i write for vixx now
% there's about a billion notes at the end of the fic
% what am i doing with my life anymore. we just don't know
% now crossposted to ao3!
I.
Objectively, the apartment building at 6 Vixx Street is a very nice place.
Of course, there's the lift that occasionally gets stuck somewhere between the third and fifth floor and refuses to budge until several hours after its unlucky occupant has failed to show up at whatever very important place they were meant to be. There are the intermittent power outages, which are especially fond of occurring in the dead of winter or the hottest days of summer. There's the mouse infestation in the mail room, which requires bringing a broom or a sacrificial piece of cheese on each trip to pick up bills or packages. There are a few small drawbacks.
But the fact of the matter is, it's hard to find a reasonable selection of spacious flats positioned near a working train at a price that doesn't require selling various body parts on the black market. Vacancies in the building never last long, and those who manage to fill them consider themselves lucky. There's something different about the place; something about the atmosphere that makes it quite unlike anywhere they've lived before.
However, it's not any of those things that makes the 6 Vixx Street building what it is. It's not the broken lift or the unreliable power or the colony of mice. It's not the floor plan or the location or the cost. These aren't the things that give it the difference in the atmosphere. What does that is the strange and unusual assortment of residents.
II.
Jaehwan does not read the newspaper. To Jaehwan, the newspaper is nothing but an unnecessarily crinkly stack of information he does not for any reason want or need. The newspaper, to him, has no apparent merit. But every day except Saturday and Sundays, Jaehwan heads down to the lobby of the apartment building to pick up a copy of the daily newspaper. There's always a stack of them perched on the coffee table in the small lounge area, and judging by the size of the stack, the only ones who ever pick up a copy of the newspaper are Jaehwan and a man named Park Hyoshin who lives on the second floor. At no point during his trip back up to his seventh floor room does Jaehwan unfold the newspaper, flip through it or even so much as glance at it. The reason for this routine is not immediately apparent, but every day except Saturdays and Sundays, this is how it occurs.
When Jaehwan re-enters his flat, he carefully takes the newspaper over to one of the many large glass cages placed strategically around the room. Very carefully, he opens one of the cages, takes out its contents and replaces another day's newspaper at the bottom of it with the current day's. Satisfied, he returns the contents of the tank to it, closes it back up and tosses the old newspaper into the recycling.
At this point, the reason for the routine becomes apparent. Inside the tanks are a wide variety of many insects, most common amongst them various species of flies and mosquitoes. This is because Jaehwan is an entomology professor at the nearby university, and because they wouldn't allow him to keep his insects inside his office, he instead petitioned them to fund a home laboratory. Despite the many escapes of several of the more sinister bugs, Jaehwan sees no problem with the location of his studies. Of course, the part-time doorman Sanghyuk has given him many warnings related to the removal of the creatures. However, Jaehwan really pays no mind.
Jaehwan does not read the newspaper. But, in his humble opinion, it should be regularly provided for his insects in the event that they wish to broaden their minds.
Hongbin also goes down to the lobby lounge every morning except Saturdays and Sundays to obtain one of the precious free commodities available inside it. But since Hongbin doesn't read the newspaper either, he instead makes himself a cup of the boiling hot coffee that is always strategically placed between the hours of six AM and noon on a table nearby the stack of newspapers. However, Hongbin doesn't do this because of a love of coffee; in fact, Hongbin doesn't like coffee much at all. He does this for the sole reason of interacting with Park Hyoshin, the only other person in the building to pick up a copy of the daily newspaper. Hyoshin does this on his way to work every day at approximately seven AM, and although this is practically the crack of dawn for Hongbin, he dutifully trudges his way downstairs from the seventh floor about three minutes before Hyoshin is scheduled to appear. By the time Hyoshin appears, Hongbin is usually stirring half a cup of cream and ten sugars into his coffee as subtly as possible.
"Good morning," he tells Hyoshin, with his usual work-of-art smile that leaves lesser mortals nearly swooning at his feet. "Nice day, isn't it?"
"Good morning," Hyoshin replies, as he bends down to pick up the newspaper and skims over the front page. "A very nice day."
No matter what the weather, this is always their exchange. Rain, sleet, snow, hail, tornado, blizzard, they always carry out this exact conversation. Once, it happened during a hurricane as a tree in front of the building was blown over in front of their very eyes. However, every weekday, Hongbin never fails to show up to participate in this ritual.
Upon completion of this routine, Hyoshin gives him a small wave and a medium-sized smile and dashes out the door to catch his train. Hongbin wriggles gleefully, chokes down the cup of coffee and practically glows for the rest of the day.
Unbeknownst to Hongbin and Hyoshin, there is always a witness to their exchange. This witness is the part-time doorman, Sanghyuk, who is entirely displeased about the whole affair. Sanghyuk resides on the seventh floor of the building as well, and in exchange for his rent, he reluctantly suffers through the duties of this job. Thus he sits behind the front desk every day from six AM to noon, the same length of time as the coffee, and positively glowers around the hour of seven AM. This is because he is one of the lesser mortals that nearly swoons at the sight of Hongbin's work-of-art smile, and also nearly swoons at the sight of Hongbin in general. However, the most attention Hongbin ever pays him is occasionally a brief chat, which does not conclude with Hongbin glowing the same way Hongbin's ten-second conversations with Hyoshin do. Perhaps it's because they got off to a rough start when Sanghyuk dropped several heavy stacks of magazines on Hongbin's foot and accidentally shoved him into a wall, or perhaps it's because of said Hyoshin, but Hongbin never wriggles gleefully about the presence of Sanghyuk.
Because of this, seven AM is one of the least enjoyable parts of Sanghyuk's six-hour shift. It's less enjoyable than the times he has to chase down Jaehwan through a swarm of cicadas and thoroughly reprimand him for their presence. It's less enjoyable than the times he has to let the unnecessarily loud roommates Wonsik and Hakyeon back into their flat because Hakyeon lost the key for the ninety-fifth time. It's less enjoyable than the brief instances he catches sight of his next-door neighbour, Taekwoon, who he thinks might possibly be a serial killer. And those are all very unenjoyable situations.
After Hongbin makes his departure, cringing as he gulps down the coffee on his way into the lift, Sanghyuk takes a few moments to briefly sulk as he comes to terms with the fact that Hongbin will probably never wriggle and glow about him the same way he does about Hyoshin.
No one knows much about Taekwoon. But really, this is probably for the best. Not only does Taekwoon not really want anyone to know much about him, but he is also too objectively terrifying for anyone to find out any of those things. He only leaves his flat perhaps four times a week, and no one is quite sure where he goes, but he returns in the dark of night looking quite suspicious indeed.
The only one who dares approach Taekwoon is Hakyeon, and this is probably because Hakyeon is decidedly obnoxious and devoid of foresight. Wonsik theorises that perhaps Hakyeon just enjoys taking his life into his hands and casually juggling it.
Sanghyuk, despite being Taekwoon's next door neighbour and also the part-time doorman, doesn't see much more of Taekwoon than anyone else. One time, Sanghyuk mentions to Hakyeon that perhaps he should at least try to have an interaction with Taekwoon that consists of more than Taekwoon staring blankly at Sanghyuk until Sanghyuk awkwardly scuttles away. The next day, he wakes up to find a note slipped under his door. It reads, in handwriting that is distinctly Hakyeon's, "My name is Taekwoon. I'm the serial killer who lives next door. See you tomorrow, hyung. Don't forget!"
Hakyeon and Wonsik are not originally roommates when they move into the building. Originally, Wonsik lives on the sixth floor and Hakyeon lives on the seventh with the rest of them. They move in around the same time, with Hakyeon enthusiastically introducing himself to Wonsik in the lift as one of the dozens of boxes he's hauling upstairs promptly bursts at the seams and sends hundreds of multi-coloured skin care products rolling all over the floor. They get to know each other gradually through a series of extremely cliché coincidences: Wonsik finding a dropped eight-thousand-dollar credit card bill belonging to Hakyeon and thoughtfully returning it, Hakyeon knocking on Wonsik's door to borrow a bottle of mustard powder, Wonsik accidentally picking up Hakyeon's wallet when they both somehow drop theirs at the same time, Hakyeon calling Wonsik to get Sanghyuk to help him when he gets stuck in the lift. Eventually Hakyeon invites Wonsik round his place for dinner, and then proceeds to irreparably burn a pot of spaghetti. As soon as Wonsik gets a look at it, they go out for fried chicken instead. The day after that, Wonsik puts his room up for sale and moves into Hakyeon's on the floor above his. They stick a welcome mat outside the door, buy a set of nice blue silk sheets, and that's that.
They couldn't be more different. Wonsik is an easy-going high school calculus teacher with a love of hip-hop, and Hakyeon is a high-maintenance part-time beauty consultant who does back-up dancing for obnoxiously mindless pop music videos. Hakyeon violently pounces things and snuggles them, and Wonsik does not. Hakyeon aggressively throws shade and bitch at approximately seventy-five percent of everything he encounters, whilst Wonsik prefers to peacefully co-exist with it. Upon spotting the budding attraction between the two of them, Jaehwan and Hongbin and Sanghyuk and several of the other building residents set up a betting pool about how long their seeming compatibility will last.
To this very day no one is quite sure about the exact nature of their relationship status, but no one is rude enough to breach social etiquette and ask. For all intents and purposes it would seem that they're dating, except for the fact that sometimes a neighbour will walk down the hall and see Wonsik grumpily sitting on the welcome mat outside his and Hakyeon's flat, where there is an argyle-patterned sock on the doorknob. There's also the fact that Hakyeon seems quite insistent on attempting to cling to and kiss everything that moves, even Taekwoon, who seems closer and closer to strangling Hakyeon to death each day. However, they are clearly inseparable. They go furniture shopping together. Hakyeon clings possessively to Wonsik's hand at every possible moment. Wonsik drapes his jacket over the woefully unprepared Hakyeon when it rains. They can frequently be found cuddling on one of the lobby lounge's sofas, Hakyeon happily and repeatedly kissing Wonsik's cheek as Wonsik swats at him and grumbles. Perhaps most telling of all is that Wonsik actually tolerates Hakyeon for more than two hours without giving in to some uncontrollable urge to fling him forcefully out a window.
The general consensus amongst the contributors to the betting pool is that Hakyeon and Wonsik are completely in love, but Hakyeon is also kind of a dumbass. The average estimate on how long they'll last is approximately three months and fourteen days.
III.
One weekend, Wonsik goes out of town to visit some member of his extended family that he's not seen in at least eight months. As soon as it gets dark outside, Hakyeon knocks incessantly on Hongbin's door and demands that Hongbin come stay overnight with him.
"You've lived alone before," Hongbin sighs, with the kind of expression that indicates he's begun to resign himself to the inevitable fate that awaits him.
"But I will not live alone tonight," says Hakyeon, and shuts Hongbin's own door in his face.
Within fifteen minutes, Hongbin finds himself perched atop Hakyeon's kitchen counter amongst his confusingly large assortment of cereal boxes. He's never known Hakyeon to eat cereal, and he's fairly certain Wonsik doesn't like it either. He swings his legs back and forth, nudging a box of granola bars to the side when it falls on him. "What are we going to do tonight?" Hongbin asks, and tilts his head. "Are we having a sleepover?"
"We could paint each other's nails and talk about boys," says Hakyeon, in a scathingly sarcastic tone, and then shrugs. "I don't know."
What ends up happening is that Hongbin gives into the irresistible urge to clean Hakyeon's flat whilst Hakyeon goes through his unnecessarily complicated facial moisturising routine. Hakyeon can be horrifically messy sometimes, and Wonsik isn't exactly a housemaid either. Therefore, Hongbin stacks up shoes and folds shirts and sweeps floors until Hakyeon decides it's time to go to bed. There's no sofa - Hakyeon and Wonsik saw no need for one - so Hakyeon grabs Hongbin by the wrist and drags him into the bedroom. Hakyeon and Wonsik also saw no need for more than one bed. Wonsik only left nine hours ago. Hongbin eyes the bed with apprehension.
"I washed the sheets." Hakyeon rolls his eyes. "Besides, it isn't like you've not been between them before."
Hakyeon has a point. Hongbin has indeed been in Hakyeon's bed - about eight times, actually, and as recently as last Thursday. There was an argyle-patterned sock hanging off the doorknob for at least three hours. With no further protesting, Hongbin crawls atop the mattress, slips his legs between the glorious silk sheets and wiggles his feet. It's like rolling around in the feathers of an angel. He likes it.
"Good night," Hakyeon murmurs in Hongbin's ear, as he clings a bit too tightly to Hongbin's back and nuzzles his face into Hongbin's shoulder. Hongbin doesn't bother protesting that either. Hakyeon can be like glue sometimes - impossible to peel off, with plenty of pain involved. Instead he lets the silky goodness of the sheets lull him to sleep, oblivious to the fact that Hakyeon did not, in fact, wash them.
The next night, Hongbin sleeps over at Hakyeon's place again. But this time, they're not yet halfway to sleep when someone knocks on the door. The vicious growl coming from Hakyeon's throat is enough to tell Hongbin that he'd better get to the door first and warn whoever's on the other side to sprint away as fast as possible.
Hongbin reaches the door simultaneously with Hakyeon, who is wearing noticeably less clothing than Hongbin. The person they open the door to turns out to be Jaehwan, who doesn't look the least bit bothered that Hakyeon's entire torso is visible.
"Have you seen my beetle?" Jaehwan politely inquires, and Hakyeon screeches.
"Why would your beetle be in here? Did you sneak in and let it loose or something? It better not be in here -"
"We've not seen it," says Hongbin, and silently wishes that Wonsik was here to shut Hakyeon up with a hand over his mouth because Wonsik is the one that doesn't get smacked for doing that.
"If you've not seen it, it's not here." Jaehwan nods, quite definitively, with a bright smile that doesn't match the gravity of the situation. "It's … very big. You would notice." Ignoring Hakyeon's look of abject horror and Hongbin's nervous fidgeting, he shrugs. "I was going to teach a class on the beetle tomorrow. But since I can't find it, I guess I can teach more about how mosquitoes form friendships."
Under normal circumstances, Hongbin wouldn't invite Jaehwan into Hakyeon's home. Actually, he wouldn't invite Jaehwan much of anywhere at all. But Hongbin doesn't catch bugs, and Hakyeon doesn't even get close to bugs, so the fact of the matter is that if the beetle is indeed hiding somewhere inside their flat, they're going to need Jaehwan to deal with it. After exchanging a brief silent-glance-based communication with Hakyeon, Hongbin tentatively smiles at Jaehwan. "Would you like to come in for a while?"
Jaehwan agrees, much too cheerfully. They give him a bowl of blueberry cereal with some nearly-expired milk and awkwardly sit at the coffee table across from him as he eats it. The only noise in the room is the loud crunching of the cereal and the occasional clinking of his spoon against the side of the bowl. It is at this point that it becomes more and more apparent that, despite living down the hall from Jaehwan for several months, they know extremely little about him.
"So … you teach," says Hakyeon, after half the cereal is gone. In his defence, Jaehwan is gulping it down at a rather quick pace.
"About bugs," says Hongbin, very slowly.
"Yes," says Jaehwan, and his eyes light up. "Would you like to learn about them?"
After several minutes of a strange lesson that involves some combination of a sketched diagram on a napkin, enthusiastic hand-waving and also singing a ballad, Jaehwan receives a furious phone call from Sanghyuk. Sanghyuk isn't even on duty at this time of night, but was still dispatched by the landlord to capture and retrieve Jaehwan's beetle, which was found clinging aggressively to one of the second floor hallway's ceiling lights by Hyoshin. According to Sanghyuk, he's got the thing in a plastic grocery bag and Jaehwan has five minutes and thirty seconds to come retrieve it or it will never scuttle again. Hongbin waves vaguely as Jaehwan jumps up from the floor, abandoning the last few pieces of milk-soaked cereal, and races to the door. "We'll see you around," he says, in a tone entirely devoid of enthusiasm, as Jaehwan jams his feet into the wrong shoes and bangs open the door and sprints down the hallway.
"He didn't even close the door behind him," says Hakyeon, with an expression of utter repulsion and disgust. "Now I have to get up. And move. Was he raised in a barn?"
"Maybe an observation tank," Hongbin suggests, as he closes the door for Hakyeon.
The last night of Hongbin's stay, he goes home to get clean clothes and comes back to find Hakyeon laying on the floor of the hallway eating chocolate. A crumb of what appears to be peppermint fudge breaks off the edge of the candy bar he's holding and lands unceremoniously on the hideous maroon paisley-patterned carpet. Hongbin considers not even asking for an explanation, but he gets the feeling Hakyeon will insist on telling him anyway, so he nudges Hakyeon's side lightly with his foot. "The floor is dirty. What are you doing?"
"Watching." Hakyeon taps Hongbin's ankle, and points down the hallway. Most of the fluorescent hallway lights have fizzled out, as usual, and he has to squint through the darkness of the entirely-too-humid hall to see what Hakyeon's finger is directing his eyes towards.
At the end of the hallway, tucked halfway out of sight behind a fake plastic potted palm tree, there has always been a leather bench. It's been there as long as any of them can remember, including Jaehwan, who's been in the building for almost a year. No one really knows who put it there, for what reason it was put there or why it has five uneven and unsteady legs. No one really knows either why it's never been fixed or disposed of or at least fully moved behind the plant where no one can see it in all its pitiful glory. But what Hakyeon is pointing at isn't the bench. It's not the tree. He's pointing at what is seated atop the bench, nearly concealed by the crinkled palm fronds.
He's pointing at Taekwoon.
Really, Hongbin thinks, it makes perfect sense that Taekwoon's pajamas would have cloth spikes all over the arms. It also makes sense that his aura of do not come near me and I might possibly hurt you is just as strong at any time of day. What doesn't make sense is why Taekwoon is crouching barefoot on a five-legged bench behind a fake tree in plaid pajama pants at eleven PM. What doesn't make sense either is why Taekwoon is actually outside his flat, in an area that could potentially put him in the vicinity of other human beings. According to Sanghyuk, he's already been out of his room four times this week.
"He hasn't moved yet," whispers Hakyeon, "But it's only a matter of time."
Hongbin is struck with the sudden and frightening realisation that, at this moment, Hakyeon is actually creepier than Taekwoon. Nevertheless, he takes a seat on the ugly carpet beside Hakyeon, carefully avoiding any contact between his backside and the fallen pieces of chocolate. Absently, he snaps a piece off of Hakyeon's peppermint fudge bar and sticks it in his mouth. It's disgustingly sweet.
"Let's go inside. This is weird."
"Not yet. I'm going to approach him."
"He's going to push you down the stairs. I'm going inside."
Hongbin takes another piece of Hakyeon's chocolate, despite Hakyeon's whine of protest, and gets to his feet. He chews it slowly as he shuts the door behind him, and then grimaces. It really is repulsively sweet, and this is coming from the guy who puts ten sugars in his coffee. It'll probably rot Hakyeon's soul. Then again, a rotted soul might not cause much of a noticeable difference in Hakyeon's behaviour. Hongbin considers leaving him out there to suffer whatever consequences his interaction with Taekwoon might have, but Hongbin isn't very good at lying. Therefore, when Wonsik comes home and asks him where Hakyeon is, Hongbin will instantly end up implicated in his disappearance. So, with great resignation, he swallows the fudge and cracks the door open just a bit to peer outside.
Down at the end of the hallway, Hakyeon has managed to perch his awkwardly tall form on the misshapen bench alongside Taekwoon. His arm is draped around Taekwoon's shoulders as he chatters incessantly in Taekwoon's ear. Though Hongbin is entirely certain that Taekwoon could shove Hakyeon off and fling him halfway down the hallway if he wanted to, for some reason, Taekwoon is only lightly pushing at Hakyeon's chest and vaguely glowering. After a few minutes Taekwoon gets up and, without a backwards glance, returns to his room. Hakyeon is left in one piece. It's strange, Hongbin thinks. Very strange.
"We're friends now," Hakyeon announces, quite proudly, when he returns to the flat and shuts the door behind him. "Yes, our Taekwoon is now my friend."
Hakyeon kicks his shoes off without paying the slightest bit of attention to where they land. They knock into the side of the carefully arranged shoe pile Hongbin spent a half-hour setting up by the door, sending the whole thing toppling down into scattered mess of trainers and loafers and fuzzy pink slippers all around Hakyeon. Hakyeon doesn't notice. Hongbin closes his eyes and counts to ten inside his head, then guides Hakyeon away from the disaster that the area that the large radius around the front door has become. Hakyeon reeks of peppermint chocolate.
"We are going to sleep," Hongbin announces, and is secretly grateful that tomorrow he gets to go home.
The next morning, Wonsik returns. Hongbin has just emerged from the shower, and he's standing in the middle of Hakyeon and Wonsik's bedroom with a fluffy red towel wrapped around his waist when Wonsik walks in and drops his oversized duffel bag by the door. Hakyeon, who is trying to convince Hongbin to remove that towel, immediately stops his persuasions.
"Hello," says Wonsik, and Hongbin replies by turning such a deep shade of red that he can actually feel the colour of his face changing. He can pinpoint the exact moment that the shade of his skin becomes literally indistinguishable from the towel. He can see his discarded pajamas lying only a short way away, folded on the middle of the bed, and he lunges to grab them; in the process the towel nearly falls, and he has to make a desperate snatch for it to keep it from revealing things that should be left entirely to the imagination. "Is this a bad time?"
"It's perfectly fine," says Hakyeon, the literal incarnation of the devil, and kindly holds out Hongbin's pajamas to him. Hongbin hurriedly re-ties the knot in the towel and then takes them, clutching them to his chest to cover whatever else the towel doesn't. "I think Hongbin was on his way home."
It's partially true. Hongbin was indeed on his way home. However, he was hoping to pack his things first. Perhaps have a bowl of the blueberry cereal, which turned out to be surprisingly quite good. Have a short conversation with Hakyeon, probably (or most definitely) related to the strange phone call he received earlier this morning from Sanghyuk. Or at least put on some clothing before any human being that isn't Hakyeon laid eyes upon him. However, as Hakyeon ushers Hongbin's hungry and confused and towel-clad form towards the door, it becomes quite clear that none of those things will be happening this morning. What will be happening is that he will be locked outside Hakyeon and Wonsik's bedroom with a pair of pajamas clutched to his naked chest and no breakfast food in his mouth. Sure enough, this subsequently occurs.
"Don't worry," Hongbin hears Hakyeon say, followed by the sound of something landing heavily on the bed. "I washed the sheets."
Hongbin, who crawled out of those sheets only twenty-five minutes ago, can testify to the fact that Hakyeon did not, in fact, wash them. Suddenly, something in Hongbin's brain clicks together about his own arrival three days prior, and he yells in protest. However, he gets the feeling that barging into the bedroom right now to express his displeasure with Hakyeon would not be the smartest idea. The smartest idea, he thinks, would probably be to put some clothing on in the relative privacy of the kitchen and then exit the vicinity as fast as he can. Therefore, this is exactly what he does.
The next time Wonsik goes out of town, Hongbin thinks, he's going out of town as well. To another country. On an island. For at least a week. Returning at the end of that week will be optional.
IV.
At eleven forty-five AM on the morning of Hongbin's last day with Hakyeon, Sanghyuk nervously calls Hongbin's phone. He tries to tell himself that his palms are slightly clammy because of another terrifying encounter with one of Jaehwan's possibly mutated centipedes, but of course that's not it. That doesn't fully explain away the small quiver in his voice, either.
"Hello, Hongbin. It's Sanghyuk. Your - your neighbour. The doorman."
The last part feels a bit unnecessary, but he figures he'd better add it in case of the rather embarrassing event that Hongbin really overlooked him enough not to be aware of his name. It's true that his uniform does include a shiny badge on the left side of the chest that says SANGHYUK, and the name card on the desk in front of him when he's on duty also says SANGHYUK, but better safe than sorry.
"Sorry to bother you, but I have something to tell you and it's important and I need to tell it to you by two PM this afternoon. I could tell you now, but it's better to tell you in person because important reasons. Okay, have a nice day, and -"
It's at this moment that Sanghyuk realises he has absolutely nothing to say after that and, but he's already said it and now he can't take it back. He panics and hangs up the phone, then mentally punches himself in the face about seventeen times. It mentally hurts quite a lot. And, he mouths to himself, then thumps his head down onto the desk in front of him and swears.
Unbeknownst to Sanghyuk, up on the seventh floor Hongbin is facing a dilemma. One of the possessions he was unable to gather up when he was unceremoniously removed from Hakyeon and Wonsik's room about fifteen minutes ago was his phone. On one hand, he feels he shouldn't leave it there too long because within a half-hour it will probably get lost somewhere in the mess of their residence and take several years to excavate from the rubble. On the other hand, he gets the feeling that the coast is not yet clear for him to return and retrieve it. And so he files that errand in his mind for later, in the meantime dashing out the door for a Very Important Appointment around twelve-oh-eight PM. Hongbin arrives downstairs only ten minutes after the end of Sanghyuk's shift his subsequent departure from the area.
This is why Sanghyuk never gets to give Hongbin the news that, at two PM this afternoon, Park Hyoshin is moving out of the building.
The thing is, when it comes to Park Hyoshin, Hongbin is a little bit insane. He has three pictures of Hyoshin on his phone, despite the fact that he never asked to take any of them. When asked if he's got his eye on anyone special, he smiles softly despite the fact that he's never spent more than fifteen minutes in Hyoshin's company. He sent Hyoshin flowers for his birthday, despite the fact that the only words he says to Hyoshin on a regular basis are Good morning. Nice day, isn't it? He also did this despite the fact that there is no non-creepy way for him to have found out when Hyoshin's birthday is.
Considering all that, Sanghyuk thinks, maybe he doesn't really want to be the one to break the news to Hongbin. Maybe this communication mishap is the universe's way of trying to save him from a terrible fate. Upon further reflection, he doesn't want to be associated with the moment that Hongbin's world shatters around him.
And so, when Hongbin coincidentally bumps into Sanghyuk at three-twenty PM with his phone in his hand and inquires about the news, Sanghyuk just shakes his head and tells him it really wasn't that important after all.
Hongbin will eventually figure it out himself, Sanghyuk thinks. It shouldn't take more than a week. The next morning is a Tuesday, and right on schedule, Hongbin appears at seven AM to shuffle over to the coffeepot on the lounge table and grab a white styrofoam cup. He fills about half the cup and sets the coffeepot back down, then dumps into the other half a repulsive amount of sugar and cream. Sanghyuk cringes from a combination of the creation of the concoction and the way the side of the cup cracks and leaks a few boiling hot drops of the stuff onto Hongbin's hand.
By seven-ten AM, when Hongbin's already drank half of the mixture and refilled the emptied space with more sugar and cream, Hyoshin still is not there. Hongbin sighs almost imperceptibly, then approaches the front desk with tiny and hesitant steps. His eyes are fixed on the floor, his posture small and dejected. It's a pitiful sight.
"Has Hyoshin come down yet?"
"Not today," says Sanghyuk, and does not comment any further. Hongbin thanks him without any real expression of gratitude, and then slumps off towards the lift with the styrofoam cup tilting dangerously in his hand. The coffee-scented sugar cream sludge sloshes over the top of it and splatters the floor beside him with each step. Sanghyuk eyes the trail of mess with a feeling of great weariness, knowing it's going to be his job to clean it up as soon as Hongbin leaves.
When it's no longer avoidable, Sanghyuk looks around to make sure no one is watching before he kneels on the ground with a handful of paper towels and begins to scrub at the coffee syrup. He didn't lie, per se, but he can't keep from wondering if this is the universe's way of punishing him for not telling Hongbin the entire truth. Although, really, the sight of Hongbin's big sad eyes was punishment enough.
Two more days go by in a similar fashion. And then, on the third day, Hongbin doesn't come downstairs. It's a Friday, and a very nice morning indeed; seven AM comes and goes without Hongbin to comment on it. Eight AM comes and goes as well, and so does nine, until finally it's noon and Sanghyuk is forced to leave his position at the front desk and head back upstairs to rid himself of his uncomfortably stiff doorman uniform. The little hat keeps slipping over his eyes, and he lets it. Maybe it will hide the shame in them from the harsh, judging outside world.
In the painfully slow lift, Sanghyuk taps his foot against the shiny floor and fiddles uncomfortably with the metal buttons on his sleeve and pointedly does not meet his own gaze in the mirrored walls. He also debates the relative merits of going to check on the possibly heartbroken Hongbin or just avoiding him for the rest of his life. On one hand, hiding from his problems seems very attractive. But on the other hand, Hongbin also seems very attractive. As improbable as it is, Sanghyuk still holds some vague hope that Hongbin will notice him and they will have some sort of deep conversation and somehow this will lead to them wearing matching sweaters and adopting a fluffy white cat with a grumpy face. Besides, he might maybe possibly feel a tiny bit guilty about the idea of Hongbin suffering alone. Possibly.
By the time the lift finishes its snail-speed ascent to the seventh floor, Sanghyuk has resolved that he will check on Hongbin. Nothing too detailed, of course; nothing that will implicate him in the breaking of Hongbin's heart. Just perhaps a small acknowledegment of Hongbin's misery and a well-wish that the pain will fade in the future. He decides very resolutely that he will not back out of this before he can knock on Hongbin's door, because that is an embarrassingly common occurrence for him.
However, Sanghyuk doesn't get the chance to avoid the confrontation. This is because, due to the positioning of their flats, Sanghyuk has to pass Hongbin's door in order to get to his own. And Hongbin is slumped on his doorstep, clutching a familiar FOR SALE sign to his chest with an expression of such devastation that Sanghyuk can't find it in his heart to pass him by. So he kneels next to Hongbin and tentatively puts a hand his shoulder.
"Are … are you okay?"
This is possibly a stupider conversational manoeuvre than ending the exchange with and. Actually, considering the circumstances, it almost certainly is. But slowly, Hongbin nods. "I'll be alright," he says, in a quiet whisper that carries strong undertones of I will never experience joy again. "I'll be fine."
Sanghyuk inches a bit closer, wrapping his arm around Hongbin. Hongbin sighs softly, wrapping his own arms tighter around the FOR SALE sign, but doesn't move away. Sanghyuk could almost swear - but not quite - that he feels Hongbin's body shake as he muffles a soft sob. Poor Hongbin. This must be a lot to take in. And he didn't even get his coffee this morning -
"Hold on," says Sanghyuk, as a sudden idea strikes him. "Wait here. I'll be right back."
Despite the fact that it's the ideal time for the sadistic lift to freeze up, it miraculously carries Sanghyuk down to the ground floor without even the slightest stutter. Quickly, he sprints down the street to the small café at the end of the block. The place is run by two other building residents, green-haired Hojoon and silver-haired Xero, and they give him a sizeable discount on the order he breathlessly stammers out for half a cup of coffee, strongly caffeinated. Like he's seen Hongbin do a million times, he dumps ten packets of sugar into it and pours in several layers of thick, rich cream. The drink nearly spills about a billion times as he dashes back to the building and into the lift, which somehow repeats the miracle and deposits him on the seventh floor landing within three minutes. Regaining his breath and as much of his composure as possible, Sanghyuk runs a hand through his wildly tousled hair and smooths down his wrinkled jacket before heading down the dimly-lit hall to where Hongbin is still slumped in front of his door with the sign. As casually as possible, Sanghyuk sits down in front of him and holds out the coffee. Only the smallest amount has managed to splash out of the hole on the top of the black plastic lid, and he subtly wipes it away.
"I brought you something."
Hongbin's look of hurt and confusion slowly morphs into a look of broken gratitude as he understands what Sanghyuk's handing him. He sets the sign to the side and takes the cup, sipping it slowly; Sanghyuk can tell from the face Hongbin makes that he's burnt his tongue, but he perseveres. After a moment, the tiniest of smiles comes across Hongbin's face as he realises Sanghyuk has made it just the way he likes it - ten sugars and nearly a carton of cream.
"Thank you. I appreciate it."
And Sanghyuk smiles back as he watches Hongbin finish the cup, oblivious to the fact that Hongbin doesn't even like coffee.
V.
Wonsik's interactions with Taekwoon have been quite minimal. Admittedly, everyone's interactions with Taekwoon have been minimal, but Wonsik even more so than the others. This is a bit bizarre, considering that half of Taekwoon's flat was unknowingly furnished by Wonsik.
It happens something like this: Soon after Wonsik moves in, when he first begins to fall in love with Hakyeon, Taekwoon steals Wonsik's kitchen table. The two incidents aren't related, of course - well, tangentially related through the fact that Wonsik does very stupid things for Hakyeon. For example, once Hakyeon manages to detach one of Hongbin's windowpanes in a very strange series of events and Wonsik helps him glue it back into its proper place in the fifteen minutes before Hongbin gets back from feeding the fish of Hojoon and Xero on the third floor. Another time, a streetlight pole falls on Hakyeon on his way to a music video filming for a Very Important Pop Star and Wonsik rushes all the way from a dentist's appointment on the other side of the city to help pry him out from under it. Yet another time, Hakyeon falls asleep in Wonsik's lap in the middle of the hallway and Wonsik sits there for three hours without shoving him off because it's two in the morning and Hakyeon is drunk and the floor really isn't as uncomfortable as one might think. And then, this time, he's decided to lend Hakyeon a kitchen table.
It starts when they get stuck in the lift together after another chance meeting in the laundry room. Somewhere along the line, Hakyeon mentions in passing that he hasn't got a kitchen table and that this is a very inconvenient situation because this weekend he's having ten people over for dinner and they're all going to have to sit on the living room floor. At the time Wonsik just laughs, because it's freezing cold in the lift and Hakyeon's decided to bundle himself up in an enormous fuzzy blue blanket from his laundry basket until Sanghyuk manages to get them out. All that's visible of him is his pouting face, and it's pouting quite ferociously indeed. But once they've been freed and parted ways when the lift doors open at the sixth floor, Wonsik begins to think.
Every year, there is an educational conference held for high school teachers of sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics. Wonsik, being a calculus teacher, always attends. This year, the conference just so happens to be taking place on Saturday and Sunday on the other side of the country. Therefore, this weekend, Wonsik will not be using his kitchen table. Since he will have no need for it, and Hakyeon will, Wonsik somehow concludes that the logical solution is to lug the thing up the stairs leading from the sixth floor to the seventh floor using brute strength and sheer power of will. When Wonsik reaches Hakyeon's door, the legs of the table dragging noisily on the carpet behind him, Hakyeon invites him in for a drink and he leaves the table outside. When they open the door again five minutes later, the table is gone.
They spend the whole rest of the day searching the building for Wonsik's kitchen table. They search hallways and stairways and alcoves and the lift. They knock on doors, inspect rooms and question innocent passersby in the most serious tones possible. They check the lobby and the mail room and the laundry room and the balcony on the roof. They look behind the five-legged bench and the potted tree at the end of the seventh floor hall, and they look next to the bizarrely shaped abstract art sculpture at the end of the sixth floor one. Wonsik misses his train out of town, and doesn't end up actually leaving the city until after midnight, when they give up and begin to seriously doubt that the table will ever be found. Hakyeon searches for it the whole rest of the weekend, to no avail. His ten dinner guests all sit on the floor.
The next weekend, Wonsik brings Hakyeon with him to pick out a new table. When they finally get it carried home and hauled up the stairs and situated properly in Wonsik's living room, a task that nearly ends in dismemberment several times, they head upstairs to Hakyeon's place to eat the leftover Italian food Hongbin dropped off there earlier in the morning. However, they only make it halfway down the hall before Hakyeon notices a strange discrepancy.
"Taekwoon's door is open."
"You think he's in?"
Tentatively, they creep forwards and peer into Taekwoon's flat. There's no sign of Taekwoon inside, but then again, it's hard to tell; the heavy black curtains are all drawn over the windows, and it's nearly pitch-dark. Taekwoon doesn't seem to own any type of lamp. Actually, Taekwoon doesn't seem to own anything at all - well, besides from one large and extremely conspicuous piece of furniture sitting right in the middle of the room.
"Wonsik … is that your table?"
"I … Yes. I think it is."
Wonsik and Hakyeon exchange a look. It's a brief look that doesn't communicate all that much, but it really doesn't need to. Slowly, and in perfect unison, they close the door and begin to back away. They proceed down the hallway in this awkward and unorthodox fashion until they're safely inside Hakyeon's flat, at which point they exchange a much longer look that communicates many different types of startled and confused. When they break the eye contact, no real conclusion has been reached.
In the end, they don't eat the Italian food. Hakyeon also does not own a refrigerator, and they'd rather not take the chance of consuming Shrimp Linguine Alfredo that's been sitting out on the counter for approximately seven hours. Instead, they go out for fried chicken. Wonsik thinks briefly of offering to lend Hakyeon his refrigerator - but then again, Taekwoon might want one of those too.
Taekwoon steals Wonsik's coffeepot as well. He also takes a set of dishes and several coat hangers. Unsurprisingly, he eventually steals a lamp. At first, Wonsik's mind does not immediately jump to the involvement of Taekwoon; he assumes the disappearances are just a natural part of the constant shuffle of things back and forth between his place and Hakyeon's, which is also kind of his (though they aren't actually living together, at least not officially, they've come to an unspoken agreement to share Hakyeon's flat). It makes sense, Wonsik thinks, that things are bound to get lost in the many round trips. It's the lamp, however, that makes him realise Taekwoon is behind this. Only Taekwoon would have the skills and the necessity to snatch a lamp out from literally right behind his back.
Wonsik procrastinates on confronting Taekwoon about this. This is because still none of them are sure if Taekwoon is a serial killer, and he'd rather not find out firsthand. But when a rice cooker and an umbrella also go missing, Wonsik decides that something must be done.
Taekwoon answers his door on the third knock. Wonsik figured Taekwoon wouldn't open it at all, but he does. Taekwoon's hair is shaggy and unkempt down to his shoulders, and the circles under his sunken eyes are dark and deep. He's as pale as a sheet and as thin as a board; it's a bit worrying to Wonsik, who's never got a good look at him before, but at least it's an indication that Taekwoon is probably not a cannibal. He'd look less malnourished if he was.
"Uh, hey. I'm Wonsik, your neighbour. Just wanted to know if you've seen any of the items on this list?"
Wonsik hands Taekwoon a piece of crinkled notebook paper. On the back, there's one of his student's homework on constant coefficient differential equations. On the front, there's a list of his missing home furnishings that fills approximately half of the page. Taekwoon looks at it for several moments, and then nods just once.
"Yes."
"Can I … have them back?"
"Yes."
Wonsik watches with a severe sense of confusion as Taekwoon disappears inside his flat for several moments, then returns with Wonsik's coffeemaker. Taekwoon sets it down on the floor in front of Wonsik, and then heads back inside. He repeats the process for several more trips until piled up on the ugly paisley hallway carpet around Wonsik is the set of chipped blue dishes, the bent wire coat hangers, the floor lamp, the semi-functional rice cooker and the crooked umbrella. As pitiful quality as they are, Taekwoon gazes at them with a deep wistful sorrow as he leaves them sitting there surrounding Wonsik and turns to retrieve the last item from inside his lair.
"Wait -" Wonsik reaches out to catch Taekwoon's arm, but pulls his hand back (he's still not sure if Taekwoon is dangerous, after all). "It's okay. Keep the kitchen table." Taekwoon looks back at him with great hesitancy, beginning to shake his head, but Wonsik insists. "I've already got another one. Besides, I've been needing to replace it for a while. So you can have it."
Taekwoon pauses for a very long moment, and then nods. "Okay." His voice is nearly a whisper, but he gives Wonsik the tiniest hint of something that could almost be classified as a smile when he says, "Thank you."
It's not true at all. It was a very nice table. Wonsik had bought it right before he moved in, and he'd spent a good deal of time picking it out. But, for reasons Wonsik can't explain, he felt incredibly guilty at the sadness in Taekwoon's eyes as Taekwoon parted with all his hoarded plunder. The feeling just grows stronger as Wonsik wonders exactly why it is that the only thing Taekwoon owns is a pilfered kitchen table.
Wonsik doesn't see Taekwoon again until a Saturday morning much, much later, when he finds Taekwoon in the lobby having a minor breakdown over a small plastic container of warm cream cheese.
In the meantime, Wonsik makes eighty-three more trips back and forth between his and Hakyeon's flat without anything disappearing. He even moves in with Hakyeon, dragging the entire contents of his living space upstairs to the seventh floor. Without the ability to purloin anything, Wonsik assumes, Taekwoon has probably been skulking under his kitchen table in the dark confines of his lair, unmoving for days as he plans something nefarious (at least Wonsik knows it's not cannibalism). Since still no one really knows what Taekwoon does, this seems like the most accurate assumption.
But Wonsik does see Taekwoon again. It happens because, yet again, Hakyeon has locked him out. This happens at least three times a week. Hakyeon has this habit of losing his key, borrowing Wonsik's without informing him and then heading off to some important dance practice or urgent errand where Wonsik cannot retrieve it. Wonsik, upon returning to the flat after some brief excursion, will fumble around in the pocket of his jacket and find his keychain completely empty. On these frequent occasions, he'll head down to the lobby and slump up to the front desk to reluctantly plead with Sanghyuk to let him back into his own home. But on this particular occasion, before he finds Sanghyuk, he finds Taekwoon.
On Saturday mornings, the building provides breakfast for its occupants. No one is certain whether the food is set out due to the goodness of the landlord's heart or in some sort of elaborate scheme to lure in whichever of Jaehwan's insects is still roaming free through the halls, but nonetheless, the residents greatly appreciate the weekly appearance of the bagels and cream cheese and small assortment of fruit. It always disappears within an hour. This is suspected mostly to be the fault of Taekwoon; Sanghyuk once told Wonsik in strictest confidence that Taekwoon always materialises out of the shadows the moment the food has been set out, and then waits until he thinks no one is looking before snatching up ten bagels and several apples and vanishing away into the distance again. Strange - but perhaps not so strange, Wonsik thinks, considering the amount of things Taekwoon has snatched up from him himself.
Today, Wonsik arrives downstairs about an hour and a half after the provision of the breakfast to humbly beg for Sanghyuk's assistance. However, as he makes a short detour into the lounge to perhaps pick up a cup of coffee, he smacks directly into the back of someone who he discovers with utmost horror is Taekwoon. He prepares to stutter out a series of apologies - though he knows Taekwoon's not a cannibal, he still doesn't know about that serial killer thing - but he gets no reaction. Actually, Taekwoon doesn't seem to have noticed him at all. Taekwoon's attention is completely fixated on the breakfast tray, which is empty save for one lone package of cream cheese. Taekwoon's face is as blank and expressionless as usual, but when Wonsik looks closer, he sees Taekwoon's eyes are filled with the same wounded longing as when Wonsik politely requested him to return all Wonsik's belongings. There's a hint of panic and despair mixed in. Wonsik does not understand.
As Wonsik watches, still without the slightest hint of comprehension, Taekwoon slinks over to the coffeepot. With a look that can only be described as mournful, he begins to fill cup after cup with coffee. No sugar, no cream, just as much caffeine as he can possibly gather. He stops after the tenth cup and then begins to pick them up, slowing down as he reaches the fifth cup and tries to precariously balance it trapped between his arm and his side. The fragile styrofoam begins to bend under the pressure; it's only a matter of time before it cracks, and that would indeed be quite a waste.
Taekwoon's mournful look becomes even more mournful. He looks back and forth between the five cups of coffee in his arms and the five left on the table with a still blank and expressionless face, but something in his eyes that resembles distress. Confused as he is, for reasons he doesn't understand Wonsik finds himself stepping in to help. Removing the package of cream cheese from the tray, he begins to transfer the five coffees on the table to it. Slowly, so as not to startle Taekwoon, Wonsik takes three of the cups that are wobbling dangerously close to tumbling out of his grasp and places those on the tray as well. Taekwoon, after several long moments, sets the other two down beside the others.
"Try this instead," Wonsik says, with a smile.
Just once, Taekwoon nods. Reaching over the table, he places the cream cheese back in the middle of the tray and then picks it up. His hands tremble just a bit. "Thank you," he says, his voice barely audible, and then suddenly he's gone. Wonsik blinks. Sanghyuk really wasn't exaggerating about Taekwoon's ability to disappear into the shadows.
"Did anything interesting happen today?" Hakyeon asks, when he returns home from the very important dance practice he departed for with Wonsik's key about seven hours ago. He's scrolling through something on his phone, which means he's probably devoting about 90% of his attention to news of the activities of some female idol group and only 10% of his attention to whatever Wonsik's answer will be. This isn't entirely unusual.
Wonsik, who was forced into assisting Sanghyuk into breaking up a pillow and water gun fight between six guys on the fifth floor in exchange for Sanghyuk letting him back into his flat, is too tired to try to forcefully get any more of Hakyeon's attention. "Nothing much," he says, and doesn't ask Hakyeon's opinion on what exactly about a small plastic container of cream cheese might've upset Taekwoon so much. Most likely, the world will never know.
part two