[infinite] landed; dongwoo/hoya
Title: Landed
Pairing: Hoya-centric. minor Dongwoo/Hoya
Rating: PG-13 (language)
Length: Oneshot
Summary: After two years in a relationship with a controlling girlfriend, Howon is finally free. Based around lyrics from "Landed" by Ben Folds.
Originally Posted: August 2011 @ yuutong
we'd hit the bottom / i thought it was my fault / and in a way i guess it was
i'm just now finding out / what it was all about
The suitcase dropped onto the floor next to the bed with a thud, the noise echoing through the abnormally quiet house. Howon grabbed a pair of jeans off the bedspread and shoved them haphazardly into the bag, following them up with some half-heartedly folded tee shirts.
Across the room, Howon’s closest friend in this city - his only friend in this city - was methodically pulling books off their shelves and neatly placing them into boxes. The window next to him was slightly ajar, and a breeze swept through the room, making the curtains flutter. The strips of fabric, a hideous shade of pale orange that his girlfriend had insisted on, caught Howon’s eye, and he paused his work long enough to give them a contemplative look.
“Hey, Sungyeol? Put those curtains in the trash.”
Howon’s friend gave him a half amused, half concerned look, but left the books for a moment and did as he was asked. The curtains came down and flopped into the already overflowing garbage can. Howon regarded them for a moment longer, then sighed and continued shifting clothes from the bed to the suitcase.
“You’re really leaving, huh?” Sungyeol asked rhetorically, more because the silence was starting to become suffocating than because he actually wanted an answer.
Howon hummed in response, zipping the suitcase shut and hauling it upright. He started to lug it towards the door, but stopped when Sungyeol spoke again.
“Why now? You put up with her for so long, why are you suddenly leaving now?”
“I guess I just got tired,” Howon replied, running a hand through his short auburn hair. Tired of taking the blame for everything, when the only thing he was really guilty of was humoring her for too long.
“So, basically, you finally realized that she’s a controlling bitch?”
Howon’s mouth pulled into a small smile; Sungyeol had called Howon’s girlfriend a controlling bitch ever since they had first met, a year and a half before. The name had always angered Howon, and once he had even gotten into a fistfight with Sungyeol over it. Now, though, he just laughed lightly and mumbled, “Yeah.”
Sungyeol grinned and turned back to the box he was packing.
“It’s about fucking time.”
moved to the west coast / away from everyone
she never told me that you called
back when i was still / i was still in love
Howon had never really questioned why she wanted to move to Gwangju. He’d gotten a job offer out there anyway, although he hadn’t seriously considered it until she expressed an interest in moving there.
“It will be a nice change,” she said.
Like always, he had agreed.
He hadn’t questioned when she bought them new cell phones, either. It seemed logical: new area, new phone plan.
“It will be cheaper this way,” she said.
Once again, he had agreed.
Howon had bent over his phone, eyes intent on the screen. He was accustomed to his old touch screen phone, and the keys on this new phone had kept messing him up. He had frowned as he made yet another typo.
“What are you doing?” his girlfriend had asked, leaning her chin on his shoulder so she could get a better look at his phone.
“Just texting my friends to let them know my new number.”
In a flash the phone had gone skidding across the floor, spinning out of control until it came to a rest under the TV stand.
“You see? This is why I wanted you to get a new number,” she had screeched, jumping to her feet. “You’ll send them your new number, and then they’ll distract you at work or some shit like that. You know I’ve never gotten along with your friends, but even though I’m trying to do what’s best for you, you would go and ruin it all.”
Howon had stood up too, placing a hand on her shoulder.
“I wasn’t trying to do anything like that,” he had said desperately. “I just wanted to let them know in case there’s an emergency or something, or in case Dongwoo hyung -”
“Dongwoo hyung,” her voice had hitched in disgust. “Dongwoo hyung, Dongwoo hyung, Dongwoo hyung. All you ever think about is your precious Dongwoo hyung. I’m your girlfriend but you care more about your shithead friends than you do about me.”
“No, that’s not -”
Her fist had collided with his chest, tears streaming from her eyes and leaving greasy black lines of mascara down her cheeks. Howon had quickly wrapped his arms around her, wincing slightly as she continued to pummel his chest, and tightened his hug while whispering reassurances of love into her ear. His words had been sincere, genuine.
It wasn’t until much later that he realized they were also worthless.
“Just use your old phone to give them our home number,” she had said after she calmed down. “I work from home anyway, so if they call while you’re out I’ll just let you know and you can call them back.”
Yet again, Howon had agreed.
Not surprisingly, whenever he asked she told him that no one had called.
until i opened my eyes and walked out the door / and the clouds came tumbling down
and it's bye-bye, goodbye, i tried
and i twisted it wrong just to make it right / had to leave myself behind
i've been flying high all night
so come pick me up / i've landed
Even though a week had passed, Howon could still clearly remember the sound of glass shattering against the wall; the way water and flower petals and fragments of vase had scattered across the floor.
He still wasn’t sure how he’d managed to duck in time.
“I worked so hard for everything, for us,” she had yelled, breath coming in heaving gulps. “And what thanks do I get? You want to break up?”
“Worked hard for what? For this?” Howon had gestured towards where the broken vase lay leaking the remnants of its water supply onto the hardwood floor. “I’m tired of it all. I’m tired of us, I’m tired of you. I’m tired of spending my time trying to fix everything you’ve screwed up, only to make things worse in the process. I’m tired -”
That time he hadn’t ducked quickly enough, and the TV remote had collided with his cheek. He’d flinched backward, a hand reflexively coming up to cradle his throbbing face.
“Fuck you. Just fuck you!”
Time had seemed to stand still for Howon, fingers still delicately tracing his cheekbone, while she stormed into the bedroom and packed her bags. He had felt as if he had lost himself somewhere - or maybe he had lost himself months before and was, in that moment, managing to find himself again.
She had passed by him again in a whirl of expensive perfume and high heels, lugging two suitcases and a purse with her. After flinging the front door open with a resounding bang she had turned back long enough to say, “I hope you know that I’m never coming back. I never want to see your fucking face again.”
“Good,” Howon had said simply, then slammed the door shut in her face.
Later that night Howon had gone around the house, methodically collecting all the pictures of them together and putting them in a box to take out to the trash. He had murmured an apology to each frame as he took it down.
“Sorry.”
“Goodbye.”
“I tried.”
the daily dramas she made from nothing / so nothing ever made them right
she liked to push me and talk me back down / until I believed I was the crazy one
and in a way / i guess i was
“Remember that time she called the cops on me because I refused to leave after saying that her cooking sucked?”
Howon grinned and rolled down the window of Sungyeol’s car, letting the smoggy city air rush past his face.
“Yeah. You deserved that.”
“Hey!” Sungyeol protested indignantly, sending Howon a dirty look. “I did not. And roll your window up, I have the AC on.”
Ignoring his friend’s request, Howon reached his hand out and let his fingers slice a pathway through the wind. That fight had been particularly nasty, but there had been smaller ones too, almost every single day. Honestly, in his head the conflicts had all just blurred into one continual drama.
“I started to think that I was the crazy one,” Howon suddenly said, leaning back in his seat and closing his eyes. “That everything was my fault.”
“None of that shit was your fault,” Sungyeol replied evenly. He tapped his fingers against the steering wheel, eyes intent on the traffic around them.
“Sure it was.” Howon’s voice was light, only slightly tinged with bitterness. “I put up with her, didn’t I?”
Sungyeol’s eyes flickered to the rearview mirror, catching sight of the suitcases sitting in the backseat.
“Yeah, you did. But not anymore.”
if you wrote me off i'd understand it / ‘cause i've been out on some other planet
so come pick me up / i've landed
Howon pulled out his phone - his familiar old iPhone, with a spider web of cracks along the bottom of the screen - and scrolled through his contacts. He paused at the most familiar one and hesitated for a second, finger poised over the screen. Then he took a deep breath, pushed “send,” and held the phone up to his ear.
The hip hop caller tone blared for long enough that Howon started to fear it would cut to voicemail, and his call would be ignored, and -
“So you finally decided that I was worthy of a phone call?”
Howon winced, shying away from the hurt and betrayal evident in the voice from across the phone line. He took another shaky breath, swallowed the guilt stabbing through his chest, and forced himself to speak.
“I’m going to be in Seoul in about an hour.”
Silence, and then a quiet, “Oh.”
More silence as the implications of Howon’s words sank in, and then another, more emphatic, “Oh.”
“I’m going to need someone to pick me up at the airport,” Howon said, tongue nervously darting across dry lips. He knew that he didn’t deserve such hospitality, and that if their roles were switched he’d probably turn down the request. He thought he would have to wait for the other to consider, but the reply came quickly.
“Oh, yeah. Sure. I’ll be there.”
Howon sighed in relief.
“Thanks, Dongwoo hyung.”
“Yeah, no problem.”
and you will be so / happy to know
i've come alone / it's over
Howon’s fingers tapped against the airplane window, keeping beat with the music from his iPod. All the possessions he’d wanted to keep were either jammed into his suitcases or shipped off in the mail. He had spoken to his landlord about leaving, and paid the hefty fine for terminating the contract early. All the furniture had been left for the next tenants to deal with as they pleased.
Everything was squared away, so why did he still feel nervous?
Part of it was probably because after more than two years of being in a relationship, traveling alone felt strange. The last time Howon had been back to Seoul had been for Christmas, eight months ago. He could still remember the looks of annoyance on his family’s faces when they’d seen that his girlfriend had come along too.
This time, though, it was just him. Only him. Alone.
“It’s over,” he said quietly to himself, eyes fixed on the slight reflection in the glass.
He turned his iPod up louder and tried to force himself to sleep.
but i opened my eyes and walked out the door / and the clouds came tumbling down
and it's bye-bye, goodbye i tried
down comes the reign of the telephone czar / it's ok to call
now i'll answer for myself
His phone started vibrating in his pocket and Howon pulled it out, briefly checking the caller ID before picking up.
“Hello?”
“Hi, I’m almost there.”
“Ok, thanks.”
Howon was about to hang up, but froze when Dongwoo spoke again.
“It’s really nice to actually be able to get a call through to you again.”
Even though he wasn’t quite sure exactly what the other meant, Howon could feel dread sinking into the depths of his stomach, and he figured he could probably at least field a guess. He opened his mouth to reply, only to find that the line had already gone dead.
Sighing, Howon slipped his phone back into his pocket and manhandled his suitcases out of the main stream of traffic. Around him everything was chaos: people getting in and out of cars, airport employees in blinding orange vests trying to direct traffic, cars honking, people yelling. He leaned back against the wall and tried not to inhale too much smoke from the small horde of nicotine-addicts around him. For the first time in almost five years he craved a cigarette.
He stood there, back to concrete, for another five minutes or so, until he noticed a familiar car approaching. An unconventional shade of green and slightly dented in a couple of places, the vehicle cut through the crowd and ignored the traffic directors’ frantic gestures, pulling up to the curb with a splutter. Suddenly Howon remembered just how erratic Dongwoo’s driving skills were, and wondered if maybe he should have called Sunggyu or Myungsoo instead.
Then a door slammed and a blond figure bounded across the sidewalk in order to wrap him in a tight hug, and Howon was too busy trying to remember how to breathe to worry about his car ride home.
It wasn’t the manly thing to do, and there were some people giving them curious looks, but Howon wrapped his arms around Dongwoo too and clung to the other as if he were a lifeline.
“I fucking missed you,” the shorter man mumbled into Howon’s shoulder, making the latter pull away with a laugh.
“I missed you too,” he said, letting go of Dongwoo and reaching over to pick up his suitcase. “A lot,” he added a couple seconds later, for good measure.
Dongwoo laughed too, his wide-mouthed, squinty-eyed laugh that was utterly contagious and purely Dongwoo. He grabbed the second suitcase and started wheeling it back to the car. Oblivious to the dirty looks from the traffic directors he had ignored earlier, he opened the trunk and shoved the suitcase in. Howon handed him the other bag, then got into the passenger seat. He inhaled deeply and glanced around, taking everything in. There was the same fake leather dashboard, the same glove department filled with rap CDs, the same dinosaur toy hanging from the rearview mirror.
“Welcome home,” Dongwoo said, climbing in behind the wheel and closing the door behind him.
Howon looked around one more time and smiled.
“I’m home.”
so come pick me up / i've landed
Pairing: Hoya-centric. minor Dongwoo/Hoya
Rating: PG-13 (language)
Length: Oneshot
Summary: After two years in a relationship with a controlling girlfriend, Howon is finally free. Based around lyrics from "Landed" by Ben Folds.
Originally Posted: August 2011 @ yuutong
we'd hit the bottom / i thought it was my fault / and in a way i guess it was
i'm just now finding out / what it was all about
The suitcase dropped onto the floor next to the bed with a thud, the noise echoing through the abnormally quiet house. Howon grabbed a pair of jeans off the bedspread and shoved them haphazardly into the bag, following them up with some half-heartedly folded tee shirts.
Across the room, Howon’s closest friend in this city - his only friend in this city - was methodically pulling books off their shelves and neatly placing them into boxes. The window next to him was slightly ajar, and a breeze swept through the room, making the curtains flutter. The strips of fabric, a hideous shade of pale orange that his girlfriend had insisted on, caught Howon’s eye, and he paused his work long enough to give them a contemplative look.
“Hey, Sungyeol? Put those curtains in the trash.”
Howon’s friend gave him a half amused, half concerned look, but left the books for a moment and did as he was asked. The curtains came down and flopped into the already overflowing garbage can. Howon regarded them for a moment longer, then sighed and continued shifting clothes from the bed to the suitcase.
“You’re really leaving, huh?” Sungyeol asked rhetorically, more because the silence was starting to become suffocating than because he actually wanted an answer.
Howon hummed in response, zipping the suitcase shut and hauling it upright. He started to lug it towards the door, but stopped when Sungyeol spoke again.
“Why now? You put up with her for so long, why are you suddenly leaving now?”
“I guess I just got tired,” Howon replied, running a hand through his short auburn hair. Tired of taking the blame for everything, when the only thing he was really guilty of was humoring her for too long.
“So, basically, you finally realized that she’s a controlling bitch?”
Howon’s mouth pulled into a small smile; Sungyeol had called Howon’s girlfriend a controlling bitch ever since they had first met, a year and a half before. The name had always angered Howon, and once he had even gotten into a fistfight with Sungyeol over it. Now, though, he just laughed lightly and mumbled, “Yeah.”
Sungyeol grinned and turned back to the box he was packing.
“It’s about fucking time.”
moved to the west coast / away from everyone
she never told me that you called
back when i was still / i was still in love
Howon had never really questioned why she wanted to move to Gwangju. He’d gotten a job offer out there anyway, although he hadn’t seriously considered it until she expressed an interest in moving there.
“It will be a nice change,” she said.
Like always, he had agreed.
He hadn’t questioned when she bought them new cell phones, either. It seemed logical: new area, new phone plan.
“It will be cheaper this way,” she said.
Once again, he had agreed.
Howon had bent over his phone, eyes intent on the screen. He was accustomed to his old touch screen phone, and the keys on this new phone had kept messing him up. He had frowned as he made yet another typo.
“What are you doing?” his girlfriend had asked, leaning her chin on his shoulder so she could get a better look at his phone.
“Just texting my friends to let them know my new number.”
In a flash the phone had gone skidding across the floor, spinning out of control until it came to a rest under the TV stand.
“You see? This is why I wanted you to get a new number,” she had screeched, jumping to her feet. “You’ll send them your new number, and then they’ll distract you at work or some shit like that. You know I’ve never gotten along with your friends, but even though I’m trying to do what’s best for you, you would go and ruin it all.”
Howon had stood up too, placing a hand on her shoulder.
“I wasn’t trying to do anything like that,” he had said desperately. “I just wanted to let them know in case there’s an emergency or something, or in case Dongwoo hyung -”
“Dongwoo hyung,” her voice had hitched in disgust. “Dongwoo hyung, Dongwoo hyung, Dongwoo hyung. All you ever think about is your precious Dongwoo hyung. I’m your girlfriend but you care more about your shithead friends than you do about me.”
“No, that’s not -”
Her fist had collided with his chest, tears streaming from her eyes and leaving greasy black lines of mascara down her cheeks. Howon had quickly wrapped his arms around her, wincing slightly as she continued to pummel his chest, and tightened his hug while whispering reassurances of love into her ear. His words had been sincere, genuine.
It wasn’t until much later that he realized they were also worthless.
“Just use your old phone to give them our home number,” she had said after she calmed down. “I work from home anyway, so if they call while you’re out I’ll just let you know and you can call them back.”
Yet again, Howon had agreed.
Not surprisingly, whenever he asked she told him that no one had called.
until i opened my eyes and walked out the door / and the clouds came tumbling down
and it's bye-bye, goodbye, i tried
and i twisted it wrong just to make it right / had to leave myself behind
i've been flying high all night
so come pick me up / i've landed
Even though a week had passed, Howon could still clearly remember the sound of glass shattering against the wall; the way water and flower petals and fragments of vase had scattered across the floor.
He still wasn’t sure how he’d managed to duck in time.
“I worked so hard for everything, for us,” she had yelled, breath coming in heaving gulps. “And what thanks do I get? You want to break up?”
“Worked hard for what? For this?” Howon had gestured towards where the broken vase lay leaking the remnants of its water supply onto the hardwood floor. “I’m tired of it all. I’m tired of us, I’m tired of you. I’m tired of spending my time trying to fix everything you’ve screwed up, only to make things worse in the process. I’m tired -”
That time he hadn’t ducked quickly enough, and the TV remote had collided with his cheek. He’d flinched backward, a hand reflexively coming up to cradle his throbbing face.
“Fuck you. Just fuck you!”
Time had seemed to stand still for Howon, fingers still delicately tracing his cheekbone, while she stormed into the bedroom and packed her bags. He had felt as if he had lost himself somewhere - or maybe he had lost himself months before and was, in that moment, managing to find himself again.
She had passed by him again in a whirl of expensive perfume and high heels, lugging two suitcases and a purse with her. After flinging the front door open with a resounding bang she had turned back long enough to say, “I hope you know that I’m never coming back. I never want to see your fucking face again.”
“Good,” Howon had said simply, then slammed the door shut in her face.
Later that night Howon had gone around the house, methodically collecting all the pictures of them together and putting them in a box to take out to the trash. He had murmured an apology to each frame as he took it down.
“Sorry.”
“Goodbye.”
“I tried.”
the daily dramas she made from nothing / so nothing ever made them right
she liked to push me and talk me back down / until I believed I was the crazy one
and in a way / i guess i was
“Remember that time she called the cops on me because I refused to leave after saying that her cooking sucked?”
Howon grinned and rolled down the window of Sungyeol’s car, letting the smoggy city air rush past his face.
“Yeah. You deserved that.”
“Hey!” Sungyeol protested indignantly, sending Howon a dirty look. “I did not. And roll your window up, I have the AC on.”
Ignoring his friend’s request, Howon reached his hand out and let his fingers slice a pathway through the wind. That fight had been particularly nasty, but there had been smaller ones too, almost every single day. Honestly, in his head the conflicts had all just blurred into one continual drama.
“I started to think that I was the crazy one,” Howon suddenly said, leaning back in his seat and closing his eyes. “That everything was my fault.”
“None of that shit was your fault,” Sungyeol replied evenly. He tapped his fingers against the steering wheel, eyes intent on the traffic around them.
“Sure it was.” Howon’s voice was light, only slightly tinged with bitterness. “I put up with her, didn’t I?”
Sungyeol’s eyes flickered to the rearview mirror, catching sight of the suitcases sitting in the backseat.
“Yeah, you did. But not anymore.”
if you wrote me off i'd understand it / ‘cause i've been out on some other planet
so come pick me up / i've landed
Howon pulled out his phone - his familiar old iPhone, with a spider web of cracks along the bottom of the screen - and scrolled through his contacts. He paused at the most familiar one and hesitated for a second, finger poised over the screen. Then he took a deep breath, pushed “send,” and held the phone up to his ear.
The hip hop caller tone blared for long enough that Howon started to fear it would cut to voicemail, and his call would be ignored, and -
“So you finally decided that I was worthy of a phone call?”
Howon winced, shying away from the hurt and betrayal evident in the voice from across the phone line. He took another shaky breath, swallowed the guilt stabbing through his chest, and forced himself to speak.
“I’m going to be in Seoul in about an hour.”
Silence, and then a quiet, “Oh.”
More silence as the implications of Howon’s words sank in, and then another, more emphatic, “Oh.”
“I’m going to need someone to pick me up at the airport,” Howon said, tongue nervously darting across dry lips. He knew that he didn’t deserve such hospitality, and that if their roles were switched he’d probably turn down the request. He thought he would have to wait for the other to consider, but the reply came quickly.
“Oh, yeah. Sure. I’ll be there.”
Howon sighed in relief.
“Thanks, Dongwoo hyung.”
“Yeah, no problem.”
and you will be so / happy to know
i've come alone / it's over
Howon’s fingers tapped against the airplane window, keeping beat with the music from his iPod. All the possessions he’d wanted to keep were either jammed into his suitcases or shipped off in the mail. He had spoken to his landlord about leaving, and paid the hefty fine for terminating the contract early. All the furniture had been left for the next tenants to deal with as they pleased.
Everything was squared away, so why did he still feel nervous?
Part of it was probably because after more than two years of being in a relationship, traveling alone felt strange. The last time Howon had been back to Seoul had been for Christmas, eight months ago. He could still remember the looks of annoyance on his family’s faces when they’d seen that his girlfriend had come along too.
This time, though, it was just him. Only him. Alone.
“It’s over,” he said quietly to himself, eyes fixed on the slight reflection in the glass.
He turned his iPod up louder and tried to force himself to sleep.
but i opened my eyes and walked out the door / and the clouds came tumbling down
and it's bye-bye, goodbye i tried
down comes the reign of the telephone czar / it's ok to call
now i'll answer for myself
His phone started vibrating in his pocket and Howon pulled it out, briefly checking the caller ID before picking up.
“Hello?”
“Hi, I’m almost there.”
“Ok, thanks.”
Howon was about to hang up, but froze when Dongwoo spoke again.
“It’s really nice to actually be able to get a call through to you again.”
Even though he wasn’t quite sure exactly what the other meant, Howon could feel dread sinking into the depths of his stomach, and he figured he could probably at least field a guess. He opened his mouth to reply, only to find that the line had already gone dead.
Sighing, Howon slipped his phone back into his pocket and manhandled his suitcases out of the main stream of traffic. Around him everything was chaos: people getting in and out of cars, airport employees in blinding orange vests trying to direct traffic, cars honking, people yelling. He leaned back against the wall and tried not to inhale too much smoke from the small horde of nicotine-addicts around him. For the first time in almost five years he craved a cigarette.
He stood there, back to concrete, for another five minutes or so, until he noticed a familiar car approaching. An unconventional shade of green and slightly dented in a couple of places, the vehicle cut through the crowd and ignored the traffic directors’ frantic gestures, pulling up to the curb with a splutter. Suddenly Howon remembered just how erratic Dongwoo’s driving skills were, and wondered if maybe he should have called Sunggyu or Myungsoo instead.
Then a door slammed and a blond figure bounded across the sidewalk in order to wrap him in a tight hug, and Howon was too busy trying to remember how to breathe to worry about his car ride home.
It wasn’t the manly thing to do, and there were some people giving them curious looks, but Howon wrapped his arms around Dongwoo too and clung to the other as if he were a lifeline.
“I fucking missed you,” the shorter man mumbled into Howon’s shoulder, making the latter pull away with a laugh.
“I missed you too,” he said, letting go of Dongwoo and reaching over to pick up his suitcase. “A lot,” he added a couple seconds later, for good measure.
Dongwoo laughed too, his wide-mouthed, squinty-eyed laugh that was utterly contagious and purely Dongwoo. He grabbed the second suitcase and started wheeling it back to the car. Oblivious to the dirty looks from the traffic directors he had ignored earlier, he opened the trunk and shoved the suitcase in. Howon handed him the other bag, then got into the passenger seat. He inhaled deeply and glanced around, taking everything in. There was the same fake leather dashboard, the same glove department filled with rap CDs, the same dinosaur toy hanging from the rearview mirror.
“Welcome home,” Dongwoo said, climbing in behind the wheel and closing the door behind him.
Howon looked around one more time and smiled.
“I’m home.”
so come pick me up / i've landed