the voice of a distant star
title the voice of a distant star
fandom kpop, shinee, f(x)
pairing minho x soojung
word count 1376
rating pg
the voice of a distant star.
"in the midst of winter, i found there was,
within me, an invincible summer"
(note: this oneshot is a parody of the voice of a distant star manga)
He feels the vibration in his pocket, he ignores it until it stops and hesitates to pull the little machine out, but he pulls it out anyway. He looks at the beeping screen and his heart is tugging at the message played throughout the screen. It's laughable at how she never fails to send texts, and he never replies. But he's always, always, always waiting for them. He keeps them all in a file inside his computer, so he can read, re-read and re-read them when he misses her.
“Not so long ago, I took it for granted that 'in my world', I could get in contact with anyone easily. But now, as I travel further and further away from you, I'm doubting every thing I used to believe in”
“How did all this happen?” Minho asks the sky, it only gives floating clouds as response.
Soojung is always sitting alone at the benches after school, reading a book during physical education. Always. “Hey” He says, standing about a feet away from her and watches her eyes flutter up before finding his. “You talking to me?” She asks, and he nods. The next thing that happens (he doesn't know how it does) is that Minho always fetches Soojung home. “Can we drop by a convenience store today?”
Minho agrees, because it's not like it's that far away. He hops onto his bicycle, Soojung behind him, and they set off with the sea breeze in their faces, their smiles radiating through the orange beams of the sunset. It takes less than ten minutes when they reach the convenience store, Minho finds it funny when Soojung buys ice-cream for two because she never, eats sweet things. Never.
“So let's go home?” He asks questionably, as he takes the cone from her frail fingers. Soojung looks far away for a moment, caught between smiles and laughter, she finally says, “Let's go to the beach”. It's not like Minho has anything to do, so he agrees. They finish their ice-cream between gossips and a sharp wind blows from the east, they see the spaceship emerging from the mountains.
Soojung looks indifferent, “That's the mother spaceship of Earth”
Minho nods, “Yeah I know”. Soojung tugs on Minho's sleeve and they hop onto his bicycle. He cycles down the road slow enough for a little rabbit to catch up, hers arms encircle his slim waist. There is another strong blast of wind from above, the two of them look up and Minho stops the bicycle. “That's a Tracer” Soojung says, as if teaching Minho what the skyscraper-size robot above them was.
“Um, it's a robot to track down the Tarsian's, right?” Minho says blankly as he watches the Tracer fly across the sky in absolute freedom. Soojung nods as the Tracer flies further away. They hop back onto the bicycle, the wind much calmer than a second ago. Soojung places her thin hands onto Minho's shoulders, leans in and whispers.
“I'm going to fly one of those”
He's in a daze when he walks down the stairs, the football that slips off his arm goes unnoticed. He notices it about a minute later when Jinki smacks him on the shoulder, “Hey. You dropped this”. He says it with concern scribbled over his entire face, Minho understands the invincible words Jinki is trying to say and mumbles, “I'm okay, hyung”.
Jinki's eyebrows furrow even harder, “You drop your football down the stairs and you don't notice it, that's funny, Minho. Is it because Soojung left? You guys were dating!”. Minho chuckles as he takes his football from Jinki's hands, “You've got that wrong. We're friends. Just, friends”. Jinki freezes on the spot as he watches Minho's back retreat further and further. He shouts out, “Then ask her out!”. Minho turns around and in the most solemn voice, he replies:
“She's not even on this planet anymore”
Soojung slumps into her Tracer seat, it's comfortable. She whips out her phone and just holds it. She doesn't know what to type. She does type, but she presses the delete button exactly a second later. She makes up her mind, takes a little breath of courage and lets her fingers fly across the little keypads of the mobile phone.
“Hey, Minho. How are you? It's been a week and I'm finally getting used to the Tracer. It's a little hard driving it, but I managed to land on the Moon. I hope you're doing fine”
She presses the 'send' button before she changes her mind. There is a little icon of a letter being put into an envelope and a little box pops up on the screens of her mobile:
Estimated time for delivery: 4 hours, 28 minutes and 56 seconds.
She doesn't know whether the message might reach Minho or not, but she only hopes when she receives orders to move her Tracer to Mars. She's moving further and further away from her homeland, from time and from the world. Exactly eight hours later, Soojung gets a reply. Her cheeks flush in glee and her face brightens up on the land of the red moon.
“Hello, Soojung. I'm fine, just the usual boring school. Driving the Tracer sounds like a hard job to do. I had a passing thought. I want to put the universe on my bedroom walls, that way, you'd only fly around in my room. But that's not possible, of course. Eat well and stay healthy, since I'm not there to tend to you”
It's the first reply Soojung had ever gotten from Minho, and also the last.
“I've lost track of the time. It's always dark here, so I'm not sure whether it's morning or night anymore. I've made a few new friends, and they're all really friendly so you don't have to worry! Are you studying for your entrance exams? Work hard, because I know you always do! I've passed my Tracer training yesterday with flying colors, it made me so happy”
Estimated time for delivery: 1 day, 8 hours, 48 minutes and 7 seconds.
“Minho-oppa, I'm on Saturn now. It's amazing, they look exactly like those Honey Star cereals we eat. I can't say much because I have to go soon for a meeting. I just got my new Tracer uniform today. It's such a cute skirt! A fellow Tracer colleague gave me a hair cut, it's beautiful!”
Estimated time for delivery: 4 days, 10 hours, 35 minutes and 28 seconds.
“Not so long ago, I took it for granted that 'in my world', I could get in contact with anyone easily. But now, as I travel further and further away from you, I'm doubting every thing I used to believe in”
Estimated time for delivery: 2 weeks, 1 day, 23 hours, 19 minutes and 45 seconds.
“I don't know where I am right now, because there's a planet that's not in our system. But I'm further away from home and my messages are taking longer to reach you. This is a sixteen year old Soojung, to a seventeen year old Minho. I miss home, I miss you”
Estimated time for delivery: 1 year, 2 weeks, 5 days, 18 hours, 8 minutes and 3 seconds.
Minho reads her texts, even though they take forever to reach. But he doesn't reply, because he doesn't want to be given a false hope of waiting for something that will never come. He doesn't want it. He's eighteen, and he expects a text, but it doesn't come. It never did. It probably never will because he doesn't know whether Soojung is dead or floating somewhere in space, or maybe even sucked into a black hole. He doesn't know.
He's twenty-five and still single. What is he waiting for, he doesn't know. But the messages from Soojung kept in his computer has gone into the trash, gone from his life. He adjusts his tie and gets ready for work. As he steps out of his house, just as if on cue, his phone rings in his pockets. He fishes it out. (A tiny ray of hope that it's from Soojung) His eyes grow wide, his mouth drops open and he was probably waiting for this in all these eight years.
“I'm coming home. From a seventeen year old Soojung, to a twenty-five year old Minho"
Estimated time for delivery: 8 years, 0 weeks, 0 days, 0 hours, 0 minutes and 0 seconds.
fandom kpop, shinee, f(x)
pairing minho x soojung
word count 1376
rating pg
the voice of a distant star.
"in the midst of winter, i found there was,
within me, an invincible summer"
(note: this oneshot is a parody of the voice of a distant star manga)
He feels the vibration in his pocket, he ignores it until it stops and hesitates to pull the little machine out, but he pulls it out anyway. He looks at the beeping screen and his heart is tugging at the message played throughout the screen. It's laughable at how she never fails to send texts, and he never replies. But he's always, always, always waiting for them. He keeps them all in a file inside his computer, so he can read, re-read and re-read them when he misses her.
“Not so long ago, I took it for granted that 'in my world', I could get in contact with anyone easily. But now, as I travel further and further away from you, I'm doubting every thing I used to believe in”
“How did all this happen?” Minho asks the sky, it only gives floating clouds as response.
Soojung is always sitting alone at the benches after school, reading a book during physical education. Always. “Hey” He says, standing about a feet away from her and watches her eyes flutter up before finding his. “You talking to me?” She asks, and he nods. The next thing that happens (he doesn't know how it does) is that Minho always fetches Soojung home. “Can we drop by a convenience store today?”
Minho agrees, because it's not like it's that far away. He hops onto his bicycle, Soojung behind him, and they set off with the sea breeze in their faces, their smiles radiating through the orange beams of the sunset. It takes less than ten minutes when they reach the convenience store, Minho finds it funny when Soojung buys ice-cream for two because she never, eats sweet things. Never.
“So let's go home?” He asks questionably, as he takes the cone from her frail fingers. Soojung looks far away for a moment, caught between smiles and laughter, she finally says, “Let's go to the beach”. It's not like Minho has anything to do, so he agrees. They finish their ice-cream between gossips and a sharp wind blows from the east, they see the spaceship emerging from the mountains.
Soojung looks indifferent, “That's the mother spaceship of Earth”
Minho nods, “Yeah I know”. Soojung tugs on Minho's sleeve and they hop onto his bicycle. He cycles down the road slow enough for a little rabbit to catch up, hers arms encircle his slim waist. There is another strong blast of wind from above, the two of them look up and Minho stops the bicycle. “That's a Tracer” Soojung says, as if teaching Minho what the skyscraper-size robot above them was.
“Um, it's a robot to track down the Tarsian's, right?” Minho says blankly as he watches the Tracer fly across the sky in absolute freedom. Soojung nods as the Tracer flies further away. They hop back onto the bicycle, the wind much calmer than a second ago. Soojung places her thin hands onto Minho's shoulders, leans in and whispers.
“I'm going to fly one of those”
He's in a daze when he walks down the stairs, the football that slips off his arm goes unnoticed. He notices it about a minute later when Jinki smacks him on the shoulder, “Hey. You dropped this”. He says it with concern scribbled over his entire face, Minho understands the invincible words Jinki is trying to say and mumbles, “I'm okay, hyung”.
Jinki's eyebrows furrow even harder, “You drop your football down the stairs and you don't notice it, that's funny, Minho. Is it because Soojung left? You guys were dating!”. Minho chuckles as he takes his football from Jinki's hands, “You've got that wrong. We're friends. Just, friends”. Jinki freezes on the spot as he watches Minho's back retreat further and further. He shouts out, “Then ask her out!”. Minho turns around and in the most solemn voice, he replies:
“She's not even on this planet anymore”
Soojung slumps into her Tracer seat, it's comfortable. She whips out her phone and just holds it. She doesn't know what to type. She does type, but she presses the delete button exactly a second later. She makes up her mind, takes a little breath of courage and lets her fingers fly across the little keypads of the mobile phone.
“Hey, Minho. How are you? It's been a week and I'm finally getting used to the Tracer. It's a little hard driving it, but I managed to land on the Moon. I hope you're doing fine”
She presses the 'send' button before she changes her mind. There is a little icon of a letter being put into an envelope and a little box pops up on the screens of her mobile:
Estimated time for delivery: 4 hours, 28 minutes and 56 seconds.
She doesn't know whether the message might reach Minho or not, but she only hopes when she receives orders to move her Tracer to Mars. She's moving further and further away from her homeland, from time and from the world. Exactly eight hours later, Soojung gets a reply. Her cheeks flush in glee and her face brightens up on the land of the red moon.
“Hello, Soojung. I'm fine, just the usual boring school. Driving the Tracer sounds like a hard job to do. I had a passing thought. I want to put the universe on my bedroom walls, that way, you'd only fly around in my room. But that's not possible, of course. Eat well and stay healthy, since I'm not there to tend to you”
It's the first reply Soojung had ever gotten from Minho, and also the last.
“I've lost track of the time. It's always dark here, so I'm not sure whether it's morning or night anymore. I've made a few new friends, and they're all really friendly so you don't have to worry! Are you studying for your entrance exams? Work hard, because I know you always do! I've passed my Tracer training yesterday with flying colors, it made me so happy”
Estimated time for delivery: 1 day, 8 hours, 48 minutes and 7 seconds.
“Minho-oppa, I'm on Saturn now. It's amazing, they look exactly like those Honey Star cereals we eat. I can't say much because I have to go soon for a meeting. I just got my new Tracer uniform today. It's such a cute skirt! A fellow Tracer colleague gave me a hair cut, it's beautiful!”
Estimated time for delivery: 4 days, 10 hours, 35 minutes and 28 seconds.
“Not so long ago, I took it for granted that 'in my world', I could get in contact with anyone easily. But now, as I travel further and further away from you, I'm doubting every thing I used to believe in”
Estimated time for delivery: 2 weeks, 1 day, 23 hours, 19 minutes and 45 seconds.
“I don't know where I am right now, because there's a planet that's not in our system. But I'm further away from home and my messages are taking longer to reach you. This is a sixteen year old Soojung, to a seventeen year old Minho. I miss home, I miss you”
Estimated time for delivery: 1 year, 2 weeks, 5 days, 18 hours, 8 minutes and 3 seconds.
Minho reads her texts, even though they take forever to reach. But he doesn't reply, because he doesn't want to be given a false hope of waiting for something that will never come. He doesn't want it. He's eighteen, and he expects a text, but it doesn't come. It never did. It probably never will because he doesn't know whether Soojung is dead or floating somewhere in space, or maybe even sucked into a black hole. He doesn't know.
He's twenty-five and still single. What is he waiting for, he doesn't know. But the messages from Soojung kept in his computer has gone into the trash, gone from his life. He adjusts his tie and gets ready for work. As he steps out of his house, just as if on cue, his phone rings in his pockets. He fishes it out. (A tiny ray of hope that it's from Soojung) His eyes grow wide, his mouth drops open and he was probably waiting for this in all these eight years.
“I'm coming home. From a seventeen year old Soojung, to a twenty-five year old Minho"
Estimated time for delivery: 8 years, 0 weeks, 0 days, 0 hours, 0 minutes and 0 seconds.