let all of your victories taste of this
Title: let all of your victories taste of this
Pairing: Go Nam Soon/ Han Young Woo (NamWoo?), hint of Go Nam Soon/Park Heung Soo (HeungSoon?)
Drama: School 2013 (Hakgyo 2013/학교 2013)
Rating: PG
Notes: I should be writing everything else but... I can't let this couple go. Spoilers through ep 7 except not really as this is kind of AU/retelling.
Summary: Heung Soo demanded that Nam Soon give up his most precious thing. Nam Soon complied.
“Come to the playground and I’ll show you my most precious thing. And then I’ll throw it away in front of you,” the message read.
Half an hour later, Heung Soo sat at the edge of the rubber-floored play area, hands in his pockets to keep the cold out, waiting for Nam Soon to appear. It was this playground where the two used to play when they were kids, scraping their hands and screaming as loud as they could as they swung from the metal bars or pushed each other down the slide.
He wondered why it had to be here, but then there was a shuffle of footsteps and muted voices coming from the far side of the play structure. Heung Soo straightened slightly, expecting Nam Soon, so he was surprised when another student wearing the Seungri High School uniform walked around the slide.
The guy looked familiar, and Heung Soo struggled to place him for a second before the bowl-cut and unfortunate glasses gave him away. It was Han Young Woo, the ‘special’ kid that all the other students seemed to pick on, especially that idiot punk, Oh Jung Oh.
Young Woo didn’t appear to see him, eyes on the ground, and Heung Soo wondered what he was doing here, in Heung Soo’s neighborhood park, so late at night. Maybe Nam Soon had sent him- but no, cowardly though Nam Soon might have been, he had never sent someone else to do his dirty work. The second the thought crossed his mind, someone else rounded the play structure: Nam Soon.
Heung Soo sat up fully, leaning forward on the bench, and that slight movement seemed like enough to catch Nam Soon’s gaze, so serious already. His eyes flicked to Heung Soo briefly, before turning back to Young Woo, who had stopped on the close side of the slide and was looking up at Nam Soon. His back, with only the dark blue fabric of the uniform jacket stretched across it, despite the obvious chill in the air, was to Heung Soo, but he could see Nam Soon’s troubled expression clearly.
Young Woo reached up and tapped Nam Soon lightly on the chest and said something too quietly for Heung Soo to hear, though it made a tentative smile spread over Nam Soon’s lips. The atmosphere between the two was odd, even from afar- too intimate for Nam Soon’s personality, which had never seemed to serve the romantic as far as Heung Soon had known. But the way the two stood so close together, closer than friends would stand and the tender look on Nam Soon’s face, seemed to suggest a secret that Nam Soon had kept far better than Heung Soo expected of him.
Even though whatever was about to happen was obviously a show put on for him, Heung Soo felt awkward at the strange atmosphere, and resisted the urge to squirm on the seat. He wanted to watch- needed to know what Nam Soon thought was so important, what was soccer to him- and what Heung Soo wanted more than anything to rip from Nam Soon’s heart.
Revenge, he reminded himself, but the concept was already bitter and hollow, even then. It was almost too late for something like this.
Nam Soon lifted a hand to the side of Young Woo’s face, fingers curling around the nape of his neck. Young Woo tilted his head back and there was a soft sound- the start of a word, or a question- that was cut off short when Nam Soon leaned down and kissed Young Woo on the mouth.
Heung Soo stilled on the park bench, gone rigid in surprise which almost immediately turned to anger. Was Nam Soon fucking around with him, pretending something when he seemed like he was so serious about apologizing? Before, Nam Soon was never even interested in girls, never wanted anything to do with love or affection, so what the fuck was he doing now, kissing some boy in front of Heung Soo as if it was supposed to prove something? Heung Soo’s stomach twisted, in anger or humiliation or disappointment, he didn’t know.
Nam Soon’s eyes, on him almost since the beginning of the kiss, closed. Strangely, Young Woo didn’t push Nam Soon away, didn’t seem surprised despite his overwhelmingly quiet nature, but instead shuffled closer, hands gone flat on Nam Soon’s chest and head tilted as if this were something he did all the time.
Maybe he does, Heung Soo thought with an abrupt drop of his heart. Maybe it is tr-
And Nam Soon’s hands cupped the back of Young Woo’s head, fingers disappearing into the dark hair as he drew Young Woo closer to him, into the curve of his body until he was almost entirely enveloped. They kissed for a long time, every second stretching longer than itself for Heung Soo, who couldn’t move or look away as his ex-best friend wrapped his arms around another boy’s shoulders and kept him close in his embrace, seemingly oblivious to the world.
Finally, Nam Soon pulled back, eyes opening, though this time his gaze didn’t stray from Young Woo. There was pain in his expression, the corners of his eyes glimmering in the light of the streetlamp, even as his lips seemed redder than before. Asking to be pressed up against another mouth, Heung Soo thought with a visceral jolt all over his body. Quickly, Nam Soon leaned back down and pressed a firm kiss to Young Woo’s lips, and then another, his expression grown more and more devastated each time he pulled away. Finally, thumbs tilted Young Woo’s head up towards him and he pressed one last, soft kiss to Young Woo’s mouth.
Then he looked down at Young Woo and said, in a voice loud enough for Heung Soo to hear the trace of tears in, “I can’t be with you anymore.”
Almost immediately, Young Woo stumbled back a step from Nam Soon’s embrace, and Heung Soo knew Nam Soon well enough to realize that he had to restrain himself from following, hands fallen into fists by his sides.
Young Woo asked something in that quiet voice of his, arms coming to cross over his stomach, grabbing the thick fabric of his jacket and stretching it tight across his back.
Nam Soon just shook his head, expression bordering on grief and frustration. “It’s not that. It’s just-” he closed his eyes and rubbed at his cheek before he looked back at Young Woo. “I can’t let this continue. Please, just-” Nam Soon took a deep breath, shoulders shuddering, and even though his words were telling Young Woo to leave, everything else- the look he gave Young Woo, his voice, the way his body tried to sway closer- was saying don’t, please, don’t listen.
“Please, just accept what I say,” Nam Soon said, voice barely discernible, before his lips pressed tightly together. It hurt to watch, even though there was a part of Heung Soo that didn’t believe it, not fully. The way that Nam Soon acted, though, was almost real. Almost.
Young Woo’s next words were just loud enough to be heard, and there was an recognizably-resigned lilt to them as he said, “- you don’t love me anymore.” It sounded like he was repeating a fact.
Nam Soon opened his mouth to say something, but shut it before he could, looking away. His jaw worked, eyes on a far-off point as he obviously struggled not to say anything. In the silence, Young Woo wilted, shoulders bowing and neck curling downwards. A hand abandoned its grip on his side and touched at his face, though whether it was to adjust his glasses or wipe something away, Heung Soo couldn’t see.
Nam Soon looked back at Young Woo, pain evident in every movement. Only then did Heung Soo think that maybe he didn’t want it like this, someone innocent getting hurt instead, just because Nam Soon had never gotten rid of his bad habit of letting people follow him around. He really shouldn’t have cared for them, really shouldn’t have done anything to encourage their affection, Heung Soo thought as he saw Young Woo sidestep Nam Soon and walk, footsteps even and shoulders trembling, off of the playground. Nam Soon reached up, briefly, just as he was about to pass, hand inches away from his sleeve, but he didn’t stop him.
He stood there, considerable height cowed somehow by the events, a man defeated.
Heung Soo watched him, not moving, until Nam Soon obviously gathered himself well enough together to look over at Heung Soo.
His gaze, so bitterly angry, still seemed limned with sadness, the downward quirk of his mouth too prominent. He didn’t even need to say the words- come here, you bastard- for Heung Soo to heave himself up and come to stand in front of him, hands clenched in his pockets.
Nam Soon was silent, stance rigid, as if he were frozen in place and a single touch would bring forth an overwhelming flood of energy or cause him to collapse. His breath puffed out through his nose, fast and uneven, the edge of his jaw trembling. From the gaze that pinned him where he stood, Heung Soo felt compelled to speak.
“You expect me to believe that,” Heung Soo prodded, the words obviously hollow even to himself.
Nam Soon’s gaze brightened, jaw a tense line across his neck. “I gave up my most precious thing,” he replied, tone low but words clear, no trace of the emotion so obvious on his face. “For you. Now, keep your promise.”
Heung Soo let out a little laugh, entirely inappropriate in the strange mood. He didn’t even know where it came from, and could catch the very edge of hysteria in it. He didn’t want to believe, couldn’t believe that Nam Soon was- and now he was saying- another laugh bubbled in his throat, but he closed his mouth before it could form and make something else- tears, or some weird, unnameable emotion, escape.
At the laugh, Nam Soon startled.
“He’s your most precious thing?” Heung Soo said, disbelief clear in his tone.
“Yes,” Nam Soon said, a thread of emotion rising in his voice.
“Since when?” Heung Soo questioned, and the ugly feeling that had curled in his stomach before, now grabbed with sharp fingers at his heart, seeming to tear at the muscle with all of its strength. Jealousy. “Before, you never-”
“Of course not,” Nam Soon cut him off, his gaze drifting away and Heung Soo wanted nothing more than to grab his chin and drag his eyes back to him, make Nam Soon look him in the face as he fell apart. Heung Soo had to do it alone, pain in every step for months reminding him, but that was no reason that Nam Soon had to. The thread of emotion in Nam Soon’s voice tightened, some realization of his pain breaking through to his words, “I couldn’t- before. But, for a long time- for Young Woo, I…”
But he seemed unable to finish, clearing his throat around the final words and falling silent.
“For him?” Heung Soo demanded, selfishly wanting what Nam Soon couldn’t say. Say you love him, you bastard. Say you love him more than me. Say that I hurt you more than you hurt me. “That’s your most precious thing? Just him?”
Nam Soon turned his eyes up to Heung Soo. There was a look on Nam Soon’s face that Heung Soo had never seen before, save once. When he had gone running, scared, from the hospital steps. When he had looked up at Heung Soo in the window, their eyes catching through the pane of glass. There was a moment where he had looked overwhelmed by grief he was about to be crushed by it, so utterly hopeless that a flash of sympathy, of suppressed concern, had flared up in Heung Soo’s chest and pushed back the sickening swell of anger that had consumed him for days. He had wanted to protect Nam Soon from whatever caused that look, regardless of how he had been hurt.
But he knew better now, because the reason behind that look was clear- it was Heung Soo, himself. He was the only person who had stripped away whatever was holding Nam Soon up, and he had done it a second time, so willingly. If there were anything that could prove that Heung Soo was the most important thing to Nam Soon, even now, after everything, it was Nam Soon choosing to let him do this again. It was proving that, no matter what Nam Soon said, he had chosen Heung Soo over everything, everyone else, chosen to keep whatever bare thread of their friendship that still existed, alive, by sacrificing anything else close to his heart.
“I gave him up,” Nam Soon said, still not looking at Heung Soo, and he wondered if Nam Soon could ever forgive him for this or if the same hollow desire for revenge would make it impossible. “It’s fine if you don’t believe me, because it’s the truth. That's it. So, come to school.”
Nam Soon turned and walked away, leaving Heung Soo alone in the playground, the taste of victory bitter in his mouth.
Pairing: Go Nam Soon/ Han Young Woo (NamWoo?), hint of Go Nam Soon/Park Heung Soo (HeungSoon?)
Drama: School 2013 (Hakgyo 2013/학교 2013)
Rating: PG
Notes: I should be writing everything else but... I can't let this couple go. Spoilers through ep 7 except not really as this is kind of AU/retelling.
Summary: Heung Soo demanded that Nam Soon give up his most precious thing. Nam Soon complied.
“Come to the playground and I’ll show you my most precious thing. And then I’ll throw it away in front of you,” the message read.
Half an hour later, Heung Soo sat at the edge of the rubber-floored play area, hands in his pockets to keep the cold out, waiting for Nam Soon to appear. It was this playground where the two used to play when they were kids, scraping their hands and screaming as loud as they could as they swung from the metal bars or pushed each other down the slide.
He wondered why it had to be here, but then there was a shuffle of footsteps and muted voices coming from the far side of the play structure. Heung Soo straightened slightly, expecting Nam Soon, so he was surprised when another student wearing the Seungri High School uniform walked around the slide.
The guy looked familiar, and Heung Soo struggled to place him for a second before the bowl-cut and unfortunate glasses gave him away. It was Han Young Woo, the ‘special’ kid that all the other students seemed to pick on, especially that idiot punk, Oh Jung Oh.
Young Woo didn’t appear to see him, eyes on the ground, and Heung Soo wondered what he was doing here, in Heung Soo’s neighborhood park, so late at night. Maybe Nam Soon had sent him- but no, cowardly though Nam Soon might have been, he had never sent someone else to do his dirty work. The second the thought crossed his mind, someone else rounded the play structure: Nam Soon.
Heung Soo sat up fully, leaning forward on the bench, and that slight movement seemed like enough to catch Nam Soon’s gaze, so serious already. His eyes flicked to Heung Soo briefly, before turning back to Young Woo, who had stopped on the close side of the slide and was looking up at Nam Soon. His back, with only the dark blue fabric of the uniform jacket stretched across it, despite the obvious chill in the air, was to Heung Soo, but he could see Nam Soon’s troubled expression clearly.
Young Woo reached up and tapped Nam Soon lightly on the chest and said something too quietly for Heung Soo to hear, though it made a tentative smile spread over Nam Soon’s lips. The atmosphere between the two was odd, even from afar- too intimate for Nam Soon’s personality, which had never seemed to serve the romantic as far as Heung Soon had known. But the way the two stood so close together, closer than friends would stand and the tender look on Nam Soon’s face, seemed to suggest a secret that Nam Soon had kept far better than Heung Soo expected of him.
Even though whatever was about to happen was obviously a show put on for him, Heung Soo felt awkward at the strange atmosphere, and resisted the urge to squirm on the seat. He wanted to watch- needed to know what Nam Soon thought was so important, what was soccer to him- and what Heung Soo wanted more than anything to rip from Nam Soon’s heart.
Revenge, he reminded himself, but the concept was already bitter and hollow, even then. It was almost too late for something like this.
Nam Soon lifted a hand to the side of Young Woo’s face, fingers curling around the nape of his neck. Young Woo tilted his head back and there was a soft sound- the start of a word, or a question- that was cut off short when Nam Soon leaned down and kissed Young Woo on the mouth.
Heung Soo stilled on the park bench, gone rigid in surprise which almost immediately turned to anger. Was Nam Soon fucking around with him, pretending something when he seemed like he was so serious about apologizing? Before, Nam Soon was never even interested in girls, never wanted anything to do with love or affection, so what the fuck was he doing now, kissing some boy in front of Heung Soo as if it was supposed to prove something? Heung Soo’s stomach twisted, in anger or humiliation or disappointment, he didn’t know.
Nam Soon’s eyes, on him almost since the beginning of the kiss, closed. Strangely, Young Woo didn’t push Nam Soon away, didn’t seem surprised despite his overwhelmingly quiet nature, but instead shuffled closer, hands gone flat on Nam Soon’s chest and head tilted as if this were something he did all the time.
Maybe he does, Heung Soo thought with an abrupt drop of his heart. Maybe it is tr-
And Nam Soon’s hands cupped the back of Young Woo’s head, fingers disappearing into the dark hair as he drew Young Woo closer to him, into the curve of his body until he was almost entirely enveloped. They kissed for a long time, every second stretching longer than itself for Heung Soo, who couldn’t move or look away as his ex-best friend wrapped his arms around another boy’s shoulders and kept him close in his embrace, seemingly oblivious to the world.
Finally, Nam Soon pulled back, eyes opening, though this time his gaze didn’t stray from Young Woo. There was pain in his expression, the corners of his eyes glimmering in the light of the streetlamp, even as his lips seemed redder than before. Asking to be pressed up against another mouth, Heung Soo thought with a visceral jolt all over his body. Quickly, Nam Soon leaned back down and pressed a firm kiss to Young Woo’s lips, and then another, his expression grown more and more devastated each time he pulled away. Finally, thumbs tilted Young Woo’s head up towards him and he pressed one last, soft kiss to Young Woo’s mouth.
Then he looked down at Young Woo and said, in a voice loud enough for Heung Soo to hear the trace of tears in, “I can’t be with you anymore.”
Almost immediately, Young Woo stumbled back a step from Nam Soon’s embrace, and Heung Soo knew Nam Soon well enough to realize that he had to restrain himself from following, hands fallen into fists by his sides.
Young Woo asked something in that quiet voice of his, arms coming to cross over his stomach, grabbing the thick fabric of his jacket and stretching it tight across his back.
Nam Soon just shook his head, expression bordering on grief and frustration. “It’s not that. It’s just-” he closed his eyes and rubbed at his cheek before he looked back at Young Woo. “I can’t let this continue. Please, just-” Nam Soon took a deep breath, shoulders shuddering, and even though his words were telling Young Woo to leave, everything else- the look he gave Young Woo, his voice, the way his body tried to sway closer- was saying don’t, please, don’t listen.
“Please, just accept what I say,” Nam Soon said, voice barely discernible, before his lips pressed tightly together. It hurt to watch, even though there was a part of Heung Soo that didn’t believe it, not fully. The way that Nam Soon acted, though, was almost real. Almost.
Young Woo’s next words were just loud enough to be heard, and there was an recognizably-resigned lilt to them as he said, “- you don’t love me anymore.” It sounded like he was repeating a fact.
Nam Soon opened his mouth to say something, but shut it before he could, looking away. His jaw worked, eyes on a far-off point as he obviously struggled not to say anything. In the silence, Young Woo wilted, shoulders bowing and neck curling downwards. A hand abandoned its grip on his side and touched at his face, though whether it was to adjust his glasses or wipe something away, Heung Soo couldn’t see.
Nam Soon looked back at Young Woo, pain evident in every movement. Only then did Heung Soo think that maybe he didn’t want it like this, someone innocent getting hurt instead, just because Nam Soon had never gotten rid of his bad habit of letting people follow him around. He really shouldn’t have cared for them, really shouldn’t have done anything to encourage their affection, Heung Soo thought as he saw Young Woo sidestep Nam Soon and walk, footsteps even and shoulders trembling, off of the playground. Nam Soon reached up, briefly, just as he was about to pass, hand inches away from his sleeve, but he didn’t stop him.
He stood there, considerable height cowed somehow by the events, a man defeated.
Heung Soo watched him, not moving, until Nam Soon obviously gathered himself well enough together to look over at Heung Soo.
His gaze, so bitterly angry, still seemed limned with sadness, the downward quirk of his mouth too prominent. He didn’t even need to say the words- come here, you bastard- for Heung Soo to heave himself up and come to stand in front of him, hands clenched in his pockets.
Nam Soon was silent, stance rigid, as if he were frozen in place and a single touch would bring forth an overwhelming flood of energy or cause him to collapse. His breath puffed out through his nose, fast and uneven, the edge of his jaw trembling. From the gaze that pinned him where he stood, Heung Soo felt compelled to speak.
“You expect me to believe that,” Heung Soo prodded, the words obviously hollow even to himself.
Nam Soon’s gaze brightened, jaw a tense line across his neck. “I gave up my most precious thing,” he replied, tone low but words clear, no trace of the emotion so obvious on his face. “For you. Now, keep your promise.”
Heung Soo let out a little laugh, entirely inappropriate in the strange mood. He didn’t even know where it came from, and could catch the very edge of hysteria in it. He didn’t want to believe, couldn’t believe that Nam Soon was- and now he was saying- another laugh bubbled in his throat, but he closed his mouth before it could form and make something else- tears, or some weird, unnameable emotion, escape.
At the laugh, Nam Soon startled.
“He’s your most precious thing?” Heung Soo said, disbelief clear in his tone.
“Yes,” Nam Soon said, a thread of emotion rising in his voice.
“Since when?” Heung Soo questioned, and the ugly feeling that had curled in his stomach before, now grabbed with sharp fingers at his heart, seeming to tear at the muscle with all of its strength. Jealousy. “Before, you never-”
“Of course not,” Nam Soon cut him off, his gaze drifting away and Heung Soo wanted nothing more than to grab his chin and drag his eyes back to him, make Nam Soon look him in the face as he fell apart. Heung Soo had to do it alone, pain in every step for months reminding him, but that was no reason that Nam Soon had to. The thread of emotion in Nam Soon’s voice tightened, some realization of his pain breaking through to his words, “I couldn’t- before. But, for a long time- for Young Woo, I…”
But he seemed unable to finish, clearing his throat around the final words and falling silent.
“For him?” Heung Soo demanded, selfishly wanting what Nam Soon couldn’t say. Say you love him, you bastard. Say you love him more than me. Say that I hurt you more than you hurt me. “That’s your most precious thing? Just him?”
Nam Soon turned his eyes up to Heung Soo. There was a look on Nam Soon’s face that Heung Soo had never seen before, save once. When he had gone running, scared, from the hospital steps. When he had looked up at Heung Soo in the window, their eyes catching through the pane of glass. There was a moment where he had looked overwhelmed by grief he was about to be crushed by it, so utterly hopeless that a flash of sympathy, of suppressed concern, had flared up in Heung Soo’s chest and pushed back the sickening swell of anger that had consumed him for days. He had wanted to protect Nam Soon from whatever caused that look, regardless of how he had been hurt.
But he knew better now, because the reason behind that look was clear- it was Heung Soo, himself. He was the only person who had stripped away whatever was holding Nam Soon up, and he had done it a second time, so willingly. If there were anything that could prove that Heung Soo was the most important thing to Nam Soon, even now, after everything, it was Nam Soon choosing to let him do this again. It was proving that, no matter what Nam Soon said, he had chosen Heung Soo over everything, everyone else, chosen to keep whatever bare thread of their friendship that still existed, alive, by sacrificing anything else close to his heart.
“I gave him up,” Nam Soon said, still not looking at Heung Soo, and he wondered if Nam Soon could ever forgive him for this or if the same hollow desire for revenge would make it impossible. “It’s fine if you don’t believe me, because it’s the truth. That's it. So, come to school.”
Nam Soon turned and walked away, leaving Heung Soo alone in the playground, the taste of victory bitter in his mouth.