In Silence
Title: In Silence
Rating: PG
Length: 2k
Side pairings: Suho/Chen
Notes: I want to apologize to my recipient/prompter for straying so much from the prompt; the Persuasion quote is mostly from Jongin's point of view (with a bit of Minseok) and the obstruction to the marriage is not the parents but rather Minseok's personal crisis.
Thank you so much to L for being an amazing last-minute beta ♡, as well as A for being super encouraging. And of course S, the supreme human ☆彡
Summary: After 8 years Minseok returns home, but things are not what he expects.
As the last notes of Chopin's Étude in E minor faded into the air, Minseok lifted his fingers from the black and ivory keys and looked around the room. Eyes looked back at him: expectant, bored, adoring, pleased, satisfied.
Satisfied.
He was a canary in a gilded cage and they were slowly plucking his feathers one by one.
Until I can't fly.
He dropped his fingers on the keys with a discordant clang - the shock and surprise on the faces surrounding him were strangely gratifying.
"I can't do this anymore."
He was speaking to his parents, to his grandparents, to his friends, but his eyes flicked over to a face sitting by the window.
Jongin.
My fiancé.
The young man who sat frozen, left palm trembling inches above his leg, as Minseok stood up abruptly, piano bench scraping the ground, and walked out of the room.
He left on the train that day for the continent.
•••---•••
"Are you sure about this?"
Junmyeon's voice over the telephone wasn't crackly with poor reception. It was painfully clear, a past suddenly far too close for Minseok's comfort.
"You haven't been back in...five years?"
"Eight." Minseok sighed. "And no, I haven't been back. Not since I left. But this is important."
Junmyeon and he had been close in high school, and he was the only contact Minseok had kept with home over the long years away.
"Of course I'm coming for your wedding."
But his stomach twisted in knots at the thought.
Junmyeon cleared his throat awkwardly before adding, "Jongin will be there too..."
There was a thick silence over the line, and Minseok could hear his heart thumping in his ears.
"That's okay," he reassured his friend, but it really wasn't, and they both knew it.
•••---•••
"I'm so glad you could come!"
Junmyeon had been delayed by a fitting or another of a million last-minute things, so his fiancé Jongdae had come to meet Minseok at the train station instead. He felt awkward about the trouble, after all he'd only really spoken to the young man over the phone in passing, but he was still glad of the company.
"Thanks for taking the trouble to meet me." He smiled at Jongdae's enthusiasm.
"I'm just really glad you could come!" Jongdae grinned. "I was really surprised when Junmyeon said he was friends with a famous concert pianist like you, and then that you were coming to the wedding too...he won't tell you but he's over the moon about it."
Minseok smiled over the unease twisting in his chest.
That's why I'm doing this.
He would only face his old demons for this.
•••---•••
The wedding was gorgeous, Italian-cut suits and white poppies in buttonholes, Minseok's fingers dancing over the white and black keys as eager feet walked up the aisle.
"...as long as we both shall live."
Junmyeon and Jongdae kissed to happy applause as Minseok looked on from his place behind the piano, smiling crookedly.
That could have been me.
Glancing around the audience, he saw a familiar face and froze.
It's him.
He was laughing, facing away from the piano, talking to someone Minseok couldn't see, the late afternoon sun glowing in his hair.
He was glowing.
"Do you know him?" Minseok didn't know the person sitting by the window, the frame casting thick shadows over his unfamiliar form. He nodded, once.
"We all thought he'd inherit his father's bookstore but he's a big graphic novelist in the city now." The stranger nodded once before moving off.
The sun hung low in the sky, burning the water below.
•••---•••
Minseok bumped into his mother as starched-suited waiters served the hors-d'œuvres. She looked older, hair fading at the temples, eyelids soft, a rose tucked into her chignon, but she still looked very much the same.
Hand shaking around the stem of a mimosa in a crystal flute, Minseok braced himself for -
She turned, and he could see the recognition dawning on her face. He waited for the inevitable disappointment to follow. Instead he staggered back against a table, nearly over-balancing a tray of canapés, as he found himself enfolded in his mother's arms, tears soaking through his jacket.
"I'm so happy to see you dear," she sobbed, dabbing at her eyes with an embroidered handkerchief. "Why didn't you ever call or even write?"
Minseok opened his mouth and closed it again. I thought you were disappointed in me - that I had let you down...You always talked about my life as if it was planned out and engraved in the stone like the epitaph on Grandfather's grave: I would become a piano teacher and teach the neighbourhood children, Jongin would take over his father's bookstore and we would get married and adopt two children and live happily ever after...and I ruined all of that. I ruined everything. He didn't know what to say.
"I'm so proud of you!" his mother exclaimed, beaming through her tears. "You don't know how happy your father and were when we heard about your first concert. We even went to the one last spring when we were on holiday, but you looked really busy so we left without saying hello." Her voice trailed off. The tiny lines around her eyes were sad.
Minseok clutched at the table behind him as his world shifted, histories realigning as everything he thought was true crumbled around his feet.
"You don't hate me?" The curtains hanging in the open window flapped in the breeze, and for a moment everything was white.
"Of course not!" His mother sounded shocked. "How could we?" She frowned, the expression pulling at her skin.
The small knot of thorns, that he'd been carrying around lodged in his chest all these years, loosened. The sound of waves crashing against the rocks outside filled his ears. He unclenched his hand.
"Have you spoken to Jongin yet?" There was a note of hesitation in her voice - the knot of thorns was looser but that only meant that the sharp points were stabbing into his chest with every breath. I forgot how much it hurt when I left. Distance and music were the only things that could numb the ache.
He shook his head, backing into the table - the tower of canapés collapsed and he escaped in the resulting fuss.
•••---•••
There was dancing, the soft piano and rise and fall of strings to accompany the ocean - Minseok drifted around the shore of the dance floor, catching glimpses of Jongin. He looks so different. And yet he was the same in every way. His smile, the edges of his bones beneath his skin, the way he moved - everything was more precise than Minseok remembered, fingers running over phantom skin. Everything hurt more.
He watched, the thorns growing and winding around his heart, feelings pooling red on the floor. I left him. All of a sudden, he couldn't forgive himself for sacrificing Jongin for freedom. I was never as trapped as I thought. And now he would never be free of this.
The sun sank into the ocean with a final flash of red.
•••---•••
Champagne and stronger things by starlight; Junmyeon was hiding away from the crowd so Minseok joined him on the pier. The waves washing against the pillars were black.
"Minseok?" Junmyeon sounded hesitant. He swirled the champagne flute between two fingers, eyes fixed on the liquid, luminous by the light of the moon.
Minseok downed another drink. Why did I come back?
"Have you talked to Jongin?" Junmyeon's voice trailed off. They both watched the crashing waves.
"I can't," he finally replied, when the silence had stretched too thin and was threatening to snap back into his face.
"But -"
"He hates me. He has to. I told him I loved him, that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him, but then I left without even once looking back." Minseok's voice rose with each word that fell from his lips until he was throwing the sounds against the night, the wind swallowing his regret.
"Minseok, you really need to talk to him because -" Junmyeon's voice was urgent but Minseok wasn't listening, the sound of the ocean drowning everything else out, a grand fugue to mark the end. The water looks cold tonight.
He pushed his way back into the throng of wedding guests, guilt sitting heavy in his stomach. The bar at the other end of the hall caught his eye.
"Minseok -"
He could hear the faint call of his name over the waves of sadness washing through his head - is that Jongdae? - it didn't matter anyway.
The bartender couldn't pour his first drink fast enough. The ocean faded with every gulp of fire trickling down his throat. Ashes to ashes.
•••---•••
He was cold, frozen, air trickling over his skin and a crackling pain circling his head like icicles stabbing into the skin. The thorns in his heart pierced tender flesh.
"Are you awake?" Even the soft words split his head apart. He groaned. What's happening?
"I'm sorry, but you'll feel better if you take this."
He couldn't bear to open his eyes, even in the dimness of the cold room, but warm arms cradled him into a seated position and gave him something to drink. The pain started to fade after a while. Why does that voice sound so familiar?
He opened his eyes, and immediately wished he hadn't.
Jongin. The internal scream was so loud that even the familiar yet unfamiliar face looked startled.
"Are you okay?" He sounded hesitant now, almost hurt, and Minseok felt worse than before. How could this have happened?
"How did I - when - what happened?" Minseok didn't even know what to ask, but he couldn't help admiring the fall of light over Jongin's collarbones. His fingers trembled, long buried memories of skin against skin surfacing in the cold morning light.
"You were passed out at the bar and I didn't want Junmyeon to have to take you home so...I volunteered?" Jongin's voice was strange, pinched - He's regretting this, I know he is... Minseok curled his fingers in unconsciously, pressing them against the ache in his chest.
"But...don't you hate me?" The question was barely a breath of air over Minseok's aching vocal chords.
A shadow flickered over Jongin's face, clouds dulling the reflection of the sun on the waves.
"How can you even say that?" His eyes were glassy now, angry tears disturbing the calm surface.
"But I left you..." Minseok was confused. I ruined everything.
"But I was waiting!" Jongin rubbed at his eyes with balled fists - Minseok gasped as he was thrown back into the deep waters of the past, a petulant Jongin crying, following him around, grasping at his shirt tails. But instead of feeling trapped, it was only affection that remained. Affection and sadness.
A few years ago, the futility of Jongin's gesture would have infuriated him, but now the thorns only dug deeper.
"But how did you even know I was ever coming back?"
"I believed in you." Jongin's voice was firm but his bottom lip trembled slightly. "I knew you were feeling trapped so I let you go. I let you go and I tried to fix myself."
Minseok didn't know if he wanted to cry or scream. He took a deep breath in to - I don't even know what - but the salty air caught in his throat and he choked.
Jongin only sat on the bed, sea breeze parting furrows in his hair, a small, sad shadow of the glowing man from the party. This is what I do to you. Minseok had ruined all the good things in his life.
"I have to go," he finally said when he could breathe again. He left Jongin for the second time, a crumpled figure blending in with the sheets.
I don't want to ruin your life.
•••---•••
The train was slowly approaching, fighting against the sudden ocean gales pushing it away - "don't leave, Minseok, don't leave me here alone" - but he had to.
I don't deserve someone like you. The thorns wound in tightly.
He could hear the waves crashing against the cliffs as they drowned out everything else. Everything is simpler when you let it go.
He sent a message to Junmyeon: "Thanks for inviting me to your wedding and I'm sorry I'm leaving so soon. Please don't ask..." Another person who won't forgive me.
The train finally pulled up, Minseok leaning down to pick up his small leather satchel - this is goodbye - when a sudden tide swept him over.
"No."
Minseok found himself skull to the ground, elbows skinned through his thin sweater, a fine ocean mist clouding his eyes.
"I've made up my mind."
It was Jongin. Minseok blinked the water out of his eyes. It wasn't the crumpled Jongin on the sheets this morning. It wasn't the glowing beauty from yesterday's sunset. And it definitely wasn't the boy who sat in the corner as the piano cover slammed down with a harsh crash and watched him go.
This Jongin was crushingly real, and terrifyingly furious.
"I'm not going to let you break my heart this time." His voice wasn't loud but it still drowned out the world.
Minseok opened his mouth but -
"And you don't have any say in the matter." Jongin was adamant, covering Minseok's mouth with a shaking hand.
Water dripped out of his eyes to meet the ocean welling in Minseok's gaze.
Jongin slowly lifted his hand, curling it up towards his beating heart - Minseok could hear it over the waves - but he reached out and caught it instead, bringing it down again to his mouth.
Jongin's skin was soft against his lips. His heart sang, to be able to touch him again.
"I'm okay with that."
The sun came out, shining into the strangled depths of his heart, the thorns unwinding themselves and sprouting a single, hopeful rose, face to the light.
Rating: PG
Length: 2k
Side pairings: Suho/Chen
Notes: I want to apologize to my recipient/prompter for straying so much from the prompt; the Persuasion quote is mostly from Jongin's point of view (with a bit of Minseok) and the obstruction to the marriage is not the parents but rather Minseok's personal crisis.
Thank you so much to L for being an amazing last-minute beta ♡, as well as A for being super encouraging. And of course S, the supreme human ☆彡
Summary: After 8 years Minseok returns home, but things are not what he expects.
As the last notes of Chopin's Étude in E minor faded into the air, Minseok lifted his fingers from the black and ivory keys and looked around the room. Eyes looked back at him: expectant, bored, adoring, pleased, satisfied.
Satisfied.
He was a canary in a gilded cage and they were slowly plucking his feathers one by one.
Until I can't fly.
He dropped his fingers on the keys with a discordant clang - the shock and surprise on the faces surrounding him were strangely gratifying.
"I can't do this anymore."
He was speaking to his parents, to his grandparents, to his friends, but his eyes flicked over to a face sitting by the window.
Jongin.
My fiancé.
The young man who sat frozen, left palm trembling inches above his leg, as Minseok stood up abruptly, piano bench scraping the ground, and walked out of the room.
He left on the train that day for the continent.
•••---•••
"Are you sure about this?"
Junmyeon's voice over the telephone wasn't crackly with poor reception. It was painfully clear, a past suddenly far too close for Minseok's comfort.
"You haven't been back in...five years?"
"Eight." Minseok sighed. "And no, I haven't been back. Not since I left. But this is important."
Junmyeon and he had been close in high school, and he was the only contact Minseok had kept with home over the long years away.
"Of course I'm coming for your wedding."
But his stomach twisted in knots at the thought.
Junmyeon cleared his throat awkwardly before adding, "Jongin will be there too..."
There was a thick silence over the line, and Minseok could hear his heart thumping in his ears.
"That's okay," he reassured his friend, but it really wasn't, and they both knew it.
•••---•••
"I'm so glad you could come!"
Junmyeon had been delayed by a fitting or another of a million last-minute things, so his fiancé Jongdae had come to meet Minseok at the train station instead. He felt awkward about the trouble, after all he'd only really spoken to the young man over the phone in passing, but he was still glad of the company.
"Thanks for taking the trouble to meet me." He smiled at Jongdae's enthusiasm.
"I'm just really glad you could come!" Jongdae grinned. "I was really surprised when Junmyeon said he was friends with a famous concert pianist like you, and then that you were coming to the wedding too...he won't tell you but he's over the moon about it."
Minseok smiled over the unease twisting in his chest.
That's why I'm doing this.
He would only face his old demons for this.
•••---•••
The wedding was gorgeous, Italian-cut suits and white poppies in buttonholes, Minseok's fingers dancing over the white and black keys as eager feet walked up the aisle.
"...as long as we both shall live."
Junmyeon and Jongdae kissed to happy applause as Minseok looked on from his place behind the piano, smiling crookedly.
That could have been me.
Glancing around the audience, he saw a familiar face and froze.
It's him.
He was laughing, facing away from the piano, talking to someone Minseok couldn't see, the late afternoon sun glowing in his hair.
He was glowing.
"Do you know him?" Minseok didn't know the person sitting by the window, the frame casting thick shadows over his unfamiliar form. He nodded, once.
"We all thought he'd inherit his father's bookstore but he's a big graphic novelist in the city now." The stranger nodded once before moving off.
The sun hung low in the sky, burning the water below.
•••---•••
Minseok bumped into his mother as starched-suited waiters served the hors-d'œuvres. She looked older, hair fading at the temples, eyelids soft, a rose tucked into her chignon, but she still looked very much the same.
Hand shaking around the stem of a mimosa in a crystal flute, Minseok braced himself for -
She turned, and he could see the recognition dawning on her face. He waited for the inevitable disappointment to follow. Instead he staggered back against a table, nearly over-balancing a tray of canapés, as he found himself enfolded in his mother's arms, tears soaking through his jacket.
"I'm so happy to see you dear," she sobbed, dabbing at her eyes with an embroidered handkerchief. "Why didn't you ever call or even write?"
Minseok opened his mouth and closed it again. I thought you were disappointed in me - that I had let you down...You always talked about my life as if it was planned out and engraved in the stone like the epitaph on Grandfather's grave: I would become a piano teacher and teach the neighbourhood children, Jongin would take over his father's bookstore and we would get married and adopt two children and live happily ever after...and I ruined all of that. I ruined everything. He didn't know what to say.
"I'm so proud of you!" his mother exclaimed, beaming through her tears. "You don't know how happy your father and were when we heard about your first concert. We even went to the one last spring when we were on holiday, but you looked really busy so we left without saying hello." Her voice trailed off. The tiny lines around her eyes were sad.
Minseok clutched at the table behind him as his world shifted, histories realigning as everything he thought was true crumbled around his feet.
"You don't hate me?" The curtains hanging in the open window flapped in the breeze, and for a moment everything was white.
"Of course not!" His mother sounded shocked. "How could we?" She frowned, the expression pulling at her skin.
The small knot of thorns, that he'd been carrying around lodged in his chest all these years, loosened. The sound of waves crashing against the rocks outside filled his ears. He unclenched his hand.
"Have you spoken to Jongin yet?" There was a note of hesitation in her voice - the knot of thorns was looser but that only meant that the sharp points were stabbing into his chest with every breath. I forgot how much it hurt when I left. Distance and music were the only things that could numb the ache.
He shook his head, backing into the table - the tower of canapés collapsed and he escaped in the resulting fuss.
•••---•••
There was dancing, the soft piano and rise and fall of strings to accompany the ocean - Minseok drifted around the shore of the dance floor, catching glimpses of Jongin. He looks so different. And yet he was the same in every way. His smile, the edges of his bones beneath his skin, the way he moved - everything was more precise than Minseok remembered, fingers running over phantom skin. Everything hurt more.
He watched, the thorns growing and winding around his heart, feelings pooling red on the floor. I left him. All of a sudden, he couldn't forgive himself for sacrificing Jongin for freedom. I was never as trapped as I thought. And now he would never be free of this.
The sun sank into the ocean with a final flash of red.
•••---•••
Champagne and stronger things by starlight; Junmyeon was hiding away from the crowd so Minseok joined him on the pier. The waves washing against the pillars were black.
"Minseok?" Junmyeon sounded hesitant. He swirled the champagne flute between two fingers, eyes fixed on the liquid, luminous by the light of the moon.
Minseok downed another drink. Why did I come back?
"Have you talked to Jongin?" Junmyeon's voice trailed off. They both watched the crashing waves.
"I can't," he finally replied, when the silence had stretched too thin and was threatening to snap back into his face.
"But -"
"He hates me. He has to. I told him I loved him, that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him, but then I left without even once looking back." Minseok's voice rose with each word that fell from his lips until he was throwing the sounds against the night, the wind swallowing his regret.
"Minseok, you really need to talk to him because -" Junmyeon's voice was urgent but Minseok wasn't listening, the sound of the ocean drowning everything else out, a grand fugue to mark the end. The water looks cold tonight.
He pushed his way back into the throng of wedding guests, guilt sitting heavy in his stomach. The bar at the other end of the hall caught his eye.
"Minseok -"
He could hear the faint call of his name over the waves of sadness washing through his head - is that Jongdae? - it didn't matter anyway.
The bartender couldn't pour his first drink fast enough. The ocean faded with every gulp of fire trickling down his throat. Ashes to ashes.
•••---•••
He was cold, frozen, air trickling over his skin and a crackling pain circling his head like icicles stabbing into the skin. The thorns in his heart pierced tender flesh.
"Are you awake?" Even the soft words split his head apart. He groaned. What's happening?
"I'm sorry, but you'll feel better if you take this."
He couldn't bear to open his eyes, even in the dimness of the cold room, but warm arms cradled him into a seated position and gave him something to drink. The pain started to fade after a while. Why does that voice sound so familiar?
He opened his eyes, and immediately wished he hadn't.
Jongin. The internal scream was so loud that even the familiar yet unfamiliar face looked startled.
"Are you okay?" He sounded hesitant now, almost hurt, and Minseok felt worse than before. How could this have happened?
"How did I - when - what happened?" Minseok didn't even know what to ask, but he couldn't help admiring the fall of light over Jongin's collarbones. His fingers trembled, long buried memories of skin against skin surfacing in the cold morning light.
"You were passed out at the bar and I didn't want Junmyeon to have to take you home so...I volunteered?" Jongin's voice was strange, pinched - He's regretting this, I know he is... Minseok curled his fingers in unconsciously, pressing them against the ache in his chest.
"But...don't you hate me?" The question was barely a breath of air over Minseok's aching vocal chords.
A shadow flickered over Jongin's face, clouds dulling the reflection of the sun on the waves.
"How can you even say that?" His eyes were glassy now, angry tears disturbing the calm surface.
"But I left you..." Minseok was confused. I ruined everything.
"But I was waiting!" Jongin rubbed at his eyes with balled fists - Minseok gasped as he was thrown back into the deep waters of the past, a petulant Jongin crying, following him around, grasping at his shirt tails. But instead of feeling trapped, it was only affection that remained. Affection and sadness.
A few years ago, the futility of Jongin's gesture would have infuriated him, but now the thorns only dug deeper.
"But how did you even know I was ever coming back?"
"I believed in you." Jongin's voice was firm but his bottom lip trembled slightly. "I knew you were feeling trapped so I let you go. I let you go and I tried to fix myself."
Minseok didn't know if he wanted to cry or scream. He took a deep breath in to - I don't even know what - but the salty air caught in his throat and he choked.
Jongin only sat on the bed, sea breeze parting furrows in his hair, a small, sad shadow of the glowing man from the party. This is what I do to you. Minseok had ruined all the good things in his life.
"I have to go," he finally said when he could breathe again. He left Jongin for the second time, a crumpled figure blending in with the sheets.
I don't want to ruin your life.
•••---•••
The train was slowly approaching, fighting against the sudden ocean gales pushing it away - "don't leave, Minseok, don't leave me here alone" - but he had to.
I don't deserve someone like you. The thorns wound in tightly.
He could hear the waves crashing against the cliffs as they drowned out everything else. Everything is simpler when you let it go.
He sent a message to Junmyeon: "Thanks for inviting me to your wedding and I'm sorry I'm leaving so soon. Please don't ask..." Another person who won't forgive me.
The train finally pulled up, Minseok leaning down to pick up his small leather satchel - this is goodbye - when a sudden tide swept him over.
"No."
Minseok found himself skull to the ground, elbows skinned through his thin sweater, a fine ocean mist clouding his eyes.
"I've made up my mind."
It was Jongin. Minseok blinked the water out of his eyes. It wasn't the crumpled Jongin on the sheets this morning. It wasn't the glowing beauty from yesterday's sunset. And it definitely wasn't the boy who sat in the corner as the piano cover slammed down with a harsh crash and watched him go.
This Jongin was crushingly real, and terrifyingly furious.
"I'm not going to let you break my heart this time." His voice wasn't loud but it still drowned out the world.
Minseok opened his mouth but -
"And you don't have any say in the matter." Jongin was adamant, covering Minseok's mouth with a shaking hand.
Water dripped out of his eyes to meet the ocean welling in Minseok's gaze.
Jongin slowly lifted his hand, curling it up towards his beating heart - Minseok could hear it over the waves - but he reached out and caught it instead, bringing it down again to his mouth.
Jongin's skin was soft against his lips. His heart sang, to be able to touch him again.
"I'm okay with that."
The sun came out, shining into the strangled depths of his heart, the thorns unwinding themselves and sprouting a single, hopeful rose, face to the light.