IMB/IBB 2013: But An All Time Love
Title: but an all time love
Length: 5,100 words
Pairing: Kim Sungkyu/Nam Woohyun
Rating: R
Warning: I decided not to give a warning because it will be a big spoiler so I'm apologizing in advance.
Summary: Breathed in, breathed out, counted to five; you opened your eyes and outside it looked like it was going to rain. You breathed in and breathed out again, then counted to twenty, fifty, hundred. (or after the accident, they coped.)
A/N: Thank you so much, pixy_polly, for helping with the beta. I love you, girl.
∞
Breathed in, breathed out, counted to five; you opened your eyes and outside it looked like it was going to rain. You breathed in and breathed out again, then counted to twenty, fifty, hundred.
This was it. This was everything. When it came down to it, this was all there was.
The soft warm puffs of inhaling, exhaling at the back of your neck didn't surprise you as much as it used to last month, or the month before, or maybe it should never have and should never will. You counted another hundred; the first drop of dirty rain came splattering upon the bedroom floor, blowing in from the opened windows, the almost unnoticeable tiny little invisible drop of wetness that landed on his (no, you corrected yourself, on your both) pristine parquet: one drop, two drops, then three, and four, and five...
Sungkyu stirred and you almost missed the sixth drop and then he nuzzled at the back of your neck and you counted to ten and realized you had lost count somewhere between twelve and thirty. You slumped back to the warmth, feeling a bit disorientated. His arms, thrown haphazardly sometime between twilight and dawn, tightened, and Sungkyu inhaled, exhaled, purred; and you reached for the photo frame on the bedside table and smashed it to the ground.
Breath hitched, Sungkyu sat up gingerly, rubbing the sleepiness from his eyes; you stared at him staring at the mess on the floor, and inside you felt like hearing somebody laughed. But Sungkyu just sighed, and you felt like crying instead.
This was it. This was everything. When it came down to it, this was all there was.
'I'm sorry,' you mumbled softly and started counting from eighteen.
∞
Sungkyu brought you breakfast in bed and, despite your lack of explanation, didn't prod for any answer; instead he carefully arranged the food tray in your lap, pressed the spoon in your grasp, and silently crouched down beside the bed and started picking up the shattered glasses-- the frame was broken beyond repair but the photo was still bright and shiny, like something undestroyable, like something that would last. You felt the unknown source of sharp pang in your chest so you just looked down at your awkward hands and the silver spoon and counted to three, five, nine, eleven, ten thousands.
Sungkyu touched your pale left ankle, a light contact of his finger tip to the smallest of your skin; and your heart skipped. You stared harder at your hand, seeing your extorted reflection starring right back from the curve of your spoon, and in your head you heard somebody sighing in resignation, like the fact that you allowed the contact at all was so disappointing. You couldn't make out the edge of your reflection, only the eyes were wide and hollow, impossibly black like coal. You started counting from ten.
'Woohyun,' Sungkyu pried the spoon off of your dead grip, and you had no choice but to look at him, at the hollow of his throat, at the patch of stubble he missed this morning, 'what do you want to do today?'
Sungkyu looked tired, but hopeful, like he always did, like he hoped one day you would magically wake up and remember to be you again. You tried to recall the pictures from the old photo albums he gave you, tried to recall the right expression you should be giving him right now, and you smiled, with the exact same amount of affection you saw in the photos and with the exact same shape of a mouth set into a sharp line with gleaming white teeth and answered, 'can we go to the lake?'
Sungkyu nodded, relief settling between his shoulder blades as he seemed to shred today's weight off his back. Like he was glad you were willing to play along today, which perplexed you because you had been playing along with him all the time, always. Sungkyu kissed you, so softly you almost thought you had imagined the whole thing, and three skipped to two hundred, and you stopped counting.
You didn't remember how to be you anymore, but at least you'd got to try. Trying was all you could do.
∞
It was an accident. An unfortunate incident on the highway no. 65, somewhere along the route from Seoul to Chuncheon, and your whole life had abandoned you in one single swift of a turned-over vehicle. Sungkyu told you with flickering eyes and light voice that you were on your way to the set (though you had no recollection of what set it was supposed to be, you pretended to understand anyway. You noticed you had been doing that a lot lately. Pretend.), and the other car came straight at you with the speed that could cave the whole house. He was a journalist (a paparazzi?), the driver who crashed into you, returning from an interview with the source (chasing after you for a scoop?), pumped up with caffeine and adrenaline, not much older and apparently none the wiser, and he died, instantly, Sungkyu said, he died at the scene. Sungkyu said that a lot lately, too, that he died, over and over again.
This was it. This was everything. When it came down to it, this was all there was.
You remembered the blankness when you first opened your eyes to the white sanitized ceiling of a hospital and wished you hadn't woken up at all. You felt like your whole body was the little pieces of the broken toy glass glued together with the burning tar. The only thing stayed behind your eyelids before you succumbed into the unconscious blackness again was a deep frown on a strangerSungkyu's face, his scrutinizing stare, the shadow he casted on a grey wall. When you came to again, respiratory aids detached, you felt like the inside of your head was nothing but this giant emptiness edged with silence and you told as such. Common was the word the doctor described. Common was the first word you heard, remembered and understood.
"It is common for a patient having been through this kind of an accident to experience memory lost." You heard the doctor said to Sungkyu. "It either comes back in times, or..." and you lost interest in it.
Everything after was a blurry swift sort-of-motion-not-motion of incomprehensible madness; people tried talking to you-- legal representatives, company agencies, police officers, everyone, but you just sat there on your bed blinking, eyes unfocused.
Who is that again? What are you talking about? I'm not- I don't- Why?
Then the yelling started; some woman came and screamed at you, eyes bloodshot red; a nurse outside tried to console her, Mrs. Nam, please, this isn't going to change anything, please stop. And then came the crying; surprisingly it was Sungkyu who came into your room and cried while sitting in that small uncomfortable miserable excuse of a chair. Sungkyu came in and cried every day and you couldn't understand why so you let him be and counted nine, five, six, while waiting for the next and the next and the next sobs to come.
'It's really strange,' you told him one day when he managed not to cry too hard, 'when others talk, nothing makes sense. It's like there's something in my brain that is broken, you know, but you...', you smiled a little, Sungkyu seemed to stop, seemed to still, breaths ceased, held, and paused: the frozen picture forever captured in time.
'You make sense to me.' You mumbled softly and Sungkyu let out a huge choke of air, eyes wet but shining with something foreign you had never seen before.
'You.' His voice was hoarse, you realized, and surprised that you remembered what his voice was supposed to sound like. You remembered. 'Do you even know your own name?' And you stopped breathing all together. Because, no, you didn't. You didn't, couldn't, wouldn't remember. Anything. At all. And the thought made you cringed at your own incompetence, made the cold sweat broke across your back, and made your hands trembled. Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one...
'Woohyun-ah,' Sungkyu said slowly, moving closer to you, so impossibly close, and you tried the syllables out carefully, Woohyun, and decided that you liked it. Sungkyu didn't smile, but his eyes were warmer and the set of his mouth softer and his hand gripped your arm so impossibly tight that your skin had bruised purple long after.
'Woohyun, let's fix you.' Sungkyu whispered softly in your ear. It was by all means a hopeful statement but somehow, to you, it sounded so absolute like an order. Sungkyu didn't smile, but his eyes shone bright like a falling star.
And you believed he would. Fix you. Fix everything.
This was it. This was everything. When it came down to it, this was all there was.
Sungkyu told you that the trial was canceled because how could they judge someone who was not there anymore, and you had to ask, 'they aren't even going to do anything about the dead driver?', and though Sungkyu was a forever strong pillar, so strong like nothing could have affected him, you felt almost as if you saw him flinched, eyes became wide, like being slapped across the cheek.
'Yes. You're right.' Sungkyu exhales slowly, 'they can't put him on trial because he's gone now', and inside you felt like hearing somebody screamed. If you could remember the name of the feeling coiled tight inside your stomach, you would say it might be hatred. But you weren't quite sure to whom it was directed at: you or the driver. He was a reckless sonofabitch who destroyed everything Nam Woohyun and the thought made your skin crawled for all the different reasons, but weren't you also at fault for being so broken afterward? You thought it was probably hatred, but at the same time, the twisted sense of anticipation also hit you out of nowhere. It must be because of the crash, you tried reasoning yourself; you couldn't even quite manage the emotion properly.
'Let's get you out of here, Woohyun-ah,' and you nodded while inside you kept counting sixty-five over and over again.
∞
You didn't go out much because you had this ugly scar stretching from behind your left ear to the hollow point of your right collarbone, and another one right below your left eyes: another unfortunate souvenirs from being thrown across the car window. Sungkyu assured you it was nothing to be ashamed of, that they weren't all that noticeable (such a poor liar, that Sungkyu). But you had no way of knowing for sure though since you never saw them yourself. Sungkyu made it to the point that they had no mirror or any reflective surface at all in the house. You didn't know whether to be grateful or terrified, but you thanked him anyway when he first brought you here, straight from the hospital, and he looked relieved when you kissed the corner of his mouth and muttered the word home.
Sungkyu left behind the hoard of adoring fans and the life of an idol. You left behind nothing because you had nothing left anymore in the first place. You thought it was ironic when you went through the old footages of your first concert, seeing how much you used to want to live that life but felt nothing now when you hadn't anymore. Even your voice sounded different. Having your head almost cut off could do that to your vocal cords, you pondered as you traced your fingers along the scar tissue. You couldn't sing anymore.
You hated those scars.
Somebody called Dongwoo called everyday but Sungkyu let it went to the voicemail, and sometime between you counting idly from ninety-nine thousand to seventy million, the calls stopped coming. Somebody called Myungsoo and Sungyeol tried to force their way in a couple of times but Sungkyu wouldn't open the door, and somebody called Sungjong said somebody called Howon went to the States through a very brief phone call that Sungkyu actually picked up.
You remembered those names and tried to associate them with the faces you saw in an old Japanese interview from some TV Asahi's program you couldn't read the name. Those unfamiliar faces came with heavy accents and awkward pronunciation. They looked happy though. Dongwoo, Myungsoo, Sungyeol, Sungjong, Howon. You and Sungkyu. They looked happy and a little stupid. You wondered if they were still happy now.
I just got you back, Sungkyu said when the phone kept ringing and ringing and ringing, I just got you back and I can't go through that again. He held on to you so tight you had problem breathing but you said nothing because he looked so impossibly sad you had to bury you face in the hollow of his neck to stop him from trembling.
You learned later while going through the newspaper that you weren't supposed to go to the filming that day. It was scheduled to happen two days later but the news said nothing about why you went there that day in the first place. Sungkyu looked troubled, shoulders sagged and head bowed, like a man standing in front of his own execution, but he answered your question with a quiet voice.
'We got into a big fight.' Sungkyu laughed dryly, eyes blank. 'It was nothing out of the ordinary though. All we did lately was arguing.' His voice sounded hollow you almost didn't recognize it. 'No wonder why you walked out that day.'
Sungkyu lifted his head and he looked you square in the eyes. 'You went there early because you were angry at me for being an inconsiderate bastard, your words, and you needed space to cool you head. We'd been so busy since last year and we hardly saw each other anymore and-' Sungkyu's voice was steady, but his eyes reflected everything he didn't say: It was my fault. I made you go. I'm sorry. 'You went there that day because you wanted to be rid of me.'
Because you didn't want me anymore.
And Sungkyu broke so thoroughly, so beautifully, so completely that you couldn't help climbing on to his laps, resting your head on his stiff shoulder, rocking back and forth as if you were consoling a small child. It's okay, you said, it's gonna be all right, hyung. It's gonna be fine. And Sungkyu shuddered and his arms holding on to you tight felt like a cage you willingly let yourself in, so you exhaled slowly and counted sixty-five, sixty-six, sixty-seven, eighty thousand...
This was it. This was everything. When it came down to it, this was all there was.
Sungkyu said it was all in the past now. You wondered if it was true. He still tried to make you into the same old you and you still kept not getting it, still couldn't remember the right reaction and the right way to throw hearts and the right aegyo. You wondered will you ever get yourself back.
You paused the screen to the still of you and Sungkyu hugging, laughing, being in love, and wondered if you could get that back too.
Sungkyu would have loved that.
∞
The lake was beautiful, the serene picture you could always count on when life had failed you in general. Sungkyu had a loose hold of your hand, as if he was afraid you would flutter away like a falling leaves. You could hardly blame him. You would have done the same if you were in his position. Spring had come and gone like a heartless bitch it usually was, and now autumn had seeped its way in without any ounce of announcement. You started counting forty-eight, forty-nine, five hundreds, and stopped only when Sungkyu hugged you from behind and said to you softly.
'We came here too when we finished our concert tour for our fourth anniversary,' you tilted your head back to look at Sungkyu's side profile, his distant look to the past you had no recollection of but eager to listen to anyway. 'You nagged and nagged and nagged me to steal Gonam-hyung's car because hyung took all of our keys, and Dongwoo made this reckless drive in the middle of the night. I swear Myungsoo almost had an aneurism.' Sungkyu laughed a little. You both didn't go anywhere by car anymore unless it was absolute necessary. You could hardly blame him either.
'I can nag now,' you said, trying out the teasing tone you saw in yesterday's choice of an old behind-the-scene, 'if you want,' before giving him a smile you noticed make Sungkyu's shoulders looked a bit less stiff when being asked offensive questions on screen. You put an extra effort in mimicking the chuckles to match the one you saw in one of the Weekly Idol episode you almost heard the old phantom voice chuckling back: the Nam Woohyun Special.
Sungkyu blinked slowly, like he was just woken up from a hazy slumber, and his embrace on you tightened and he let out a sigh (a sob?) as if he was about to cry. You panicked and tried to turn into his firm grip, tried to turn to face him, to put your hands on his cheeks and kiss away any trace of tears. But Sungkyu's hold was too tight and his face was too far away for you to see even though you tried turning your head as much as you could. He hid his head where the base of your skull met the beginning of your spine and cried silently. Hot tears soaked through your wool shirt.
'Hyung, what's wrong?' You asked a little hysterical. 'What did I do? Did I say something wrong?'
And Sungkyu laughed suddenly, hot tears spilling down your neck, and whispered fiercely into your ear, 'No, Woohyun-ah,' he nibbled your earlobe softly, breath warm and tickling, 'you did exactly right.'
You felt yourself settling back into this weird suspended state of being, and you gave Sungkyu's arm a squeeze. Twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one...you counted until the orange sun had disappeared from the sky, until there was nothing but darkness to envelop the both of you.
∞
It was hot, scorching hot like fire licked its way across from the tips of your fingers to the back of your thigh, spreading everywhere until you were sure there was nothing left of you but burnt ashes. It wasn't always like this though, but somehow Sungkyu's touch felt extra sharp today.
Sungkyu's skin was hot to the touch; his tongue was even hotter, wet and iron-edged with blood, your blood. 'Hyung,' you heard yourself said in that perfect voice, and Sungkyu shot his hand out, eager, desperate, hungry in a way that you didn't understand at first but kind of got used to now. Sex with Sungkyu always had this sense of urgency, that hard and fast pace that left you raw and breathless and-
Sungkyu bit the point of your collarbone, blood rising beneath the skin, and you jerked so hard you almost knocked your head right into the headboard, arousal pooled between your legs. Sungkyu bit harder, and you ached, moaning, rubbing yourself against Sungkyu, unable to stop yourself and unable to even want to. 'God. Hyung.'
You reached between you and Sungkyu, fingers closing tight around his cock. 'Hyung, come on', you belted out, sharp and all you, restless edges that sliced through Sungkyu like a razor, and Sungkyu looked at you in contemplation, eyes squinted, piercing stare watching right back at your very core. You let out this embarrassing needy sound and it seemed to snap Sungkyu out of his trance. He slowly dragged his tongue from the dip of your collarbone to the fat lobe of your ear, tracing the line your scar pointed towards to, and bit hard, smiled like he finally got what he wanted.
'Woohyun,' Sungkyu said slowly, heat flaring up your spine as he slid his slick fingers down your back, digging into the small of your ass as you grinded up, need breaking through the heat of pure lust, 'I'm going to fuck you now.'
And you groaned, breathless, and promptly lost count of every number inside of your head.
∞
Sungkyu always went into town on Wednesday. He went there every week to buy you both the supplies and necessary household items. You suggested one day to just have them delivered to the house, seeing how reluctant Sungkyu was about leaving you to your own devices, like I'm some sort of a child who can't look after himself, you complained. But Sungkyu steadfastly refused because he was more reluctant to let anyone come into the proximity of the house. You know how the internet works, he said. Once anything is up there, there's no way of taking it down. I don't want some crazy ahjumma camping outside our house, trying to glimpse their way into our living room, kay? And that was the end of it.
He took you with him once though, by your request (pestering), of course; then you asked him to never take you into town ever again. Sungkyu let you stay behind in the park while he went into the butcher's to buy some meat. The weather is so nice, hyung. So he indulged you because, come on, you had asked so nicely. However, you overheard the old lady buying flowers talking to her daughter-in-law about a man in an auto-accident and a washed-out idol who lived with him. They live like hermits, never going anywhere, it's so creepy, you heard she said. Her daughter spat out the driver's name like it was a curse, I was Sungkyu-oppa's fan once, honestly, but now he just went and- you started to shake so bad until Sungkyu came back and crouched down beside you on the asphalt, your head in his laps, his hands in your hair, and soothing words in your ears.
He ruined your life, you whimpered, I hate him. Hyung, I hate him so much.
I know, Sungkyu murmured hoarsely, I hate him, too but I've got you back now. Sungkyu's eyes were dry, but you knew inside, he was crying too. I'm not going to lose you again.
Today was a Wednesday. As Sungkyu was preparing to leave, you silently edged closer and gave him a back hug-- the one you saw yourself giving him in the Idol sport event's fan camera, 'Don't forget to buy samgyubsal. I need my daily meat diet.' You read somewhere in the magazine it was your favorite food.
Sungkyu laughed, 'Okay, Woohyunie,' and kissed your forehead before closing the front door behind him. Lately, he didn't look so sad anymore. You wondered how long you could keep doing it: make Sungkyu smiled. His smile, you thought, was what held you together, like those strings of a marionette guiding you through the aftermath. You continued to count the falling leaves outside: ninety-five, ninety-nine, a hundred and one...
Suddenly the doorbell rang. You looked away from the opened window, annoyed because counting was important, and wondered whether to answer the door or not. Sungkyu hated visitors, scared even. You could easily count the times when he actually answered the door, because it was none. But Sungkyu was not here, and you didn't think you were the kind to back away from the threat easily. You kind of had a vague idea who this sudden visitor might be; there had been so many phone calls lately to the point that Sungkyu decided to rip the phone out of the wall and threw it off the window.
You carefully opened the door, and on the other side, it was Sungjong.
'Sungjong-ah,' you greeted him in the same pitch you once heard yourself calling out the maknae's name: the same vibration of the s and the same length of the drawn out ah. You knew it was perfect; you practiced all of their names in the secret of the bathroom every morning. 'Come on in. You must be cold.' The younger looked a bit suspicious as he stepped inside, looking around your living quarter with the undisguised interest. You didn't remember him to be this small though. But you weren’t supposed to remember a lot of things so you let it slide.
'I'm gonna be brief since hyung might be coming back at any second,' Sungjong said, hatred evidenced in his eyes. 'I want you to stop whatever you're doing with Sungkyu-hyung. I know he's the one who kind of started this but you can stop, really, you've got to. He needs help-'
'Sungjong-ah,' you interrupted in the same placate manner you saw yourself using when you tried to indulge the members, 'it's nothing to be worried about. Honestly. It's just Sungkyu-hyung being Sungkyu-hyung. You know how he is,' and gave the maknae the same smile you always plastered on your face, the same one you often threw at your fans, teeth white and eyes crescent. 'I'm sure when he finally realizes I'm really here he will stop worrying too much and just be.' And Sungjong recoiled, stepped back, like he just saw a ghost. You guessed you finally managed that perfect drawl at the end of the sentence you hadn't been able to do all those weeks ago.
'This- this is wrong,' Sungjong whispered, voice fierce, eyes shining like wet stars. 'I didn't want to believe all those things Dongwoo-hyung said at first but this? This isn't right! You're not supposed to be like this. You're not supposed to-'
And you laughed at his remarks, laughed at his naiveté, and laughed at the absurdity of it all. 'Not supposed to what?' you asked, voice cutting like you were supposed to, like when you were mad on the footage of the dance practice, voice hoarse with the exact same hint of edge you heard in the radio interview when being asked something too personal. 'Being crazy?' Being you?
You laughed, long and breathy, as you stepped closer, murmuring softly, like when you were still a trainee and Howon captured a candid footage of you trying to show your support for the maknae. 'It's gonna be all right, kiddo,' you whispered so so softly. 'He fixed me so I can make everything all right again.'
Sungjong stepped back, hand grabbing blindly at the front door's handle. He didn't understand, Sungkyu made everything possible for both of you now. He became everything you ever needed. Your guide. Your propriety. Your resolution. You had nothing left ever since the crash; you lost your family, your friends, your life, even your name. The driver was gone, and he left you raw on the sidewalk, a clean state. You remembered nothing and everything. You remembered you.
'I'm gonna be the best me he's ever had.' And you bumped your forehead with Sungjong, like what you saw in the fan camera taken in Taiwan when you wanted to assured the maknae it was going to be all right even when their Chinese sucked. 'I'm gonna be the best hyung you have ever had.' And Sungjong fled, door slammed so hard the whole house shook with its force.
You guessed maybe you couldn't please everyone.
∞
Later that night as you folded into Sungkyu's embrace, head resting above his heart, you tried recounting to him the incident you saw from the Thailand airport footage. Sungkyu murmured the affirmation once in a while, letting you trace some absent-minded patterns all over his shoulder blade. Other than that he just let you talk, like he finally got used to your voice that didn't sound like you but talked like one.
'I love you,' you said, trying to imagine how you would say it before the accident. These words weren't on any footage, any interviews, or any radio shows, not being said like how you meant it a minute ago though, but you were quite sure you got it right. You were so familiar with yourself now you could almost be you without having to consciously acting it out all the time. Woohyun was natural now. If you kept at it, Woohyun would be here to stay.
Sungkyu's soft warm puffs of inhaling, exhaling at the back of your neck became something of a soothing, and he said as he nuzzled the back of your neck, 'I love you, too, Woohyun-ah.'
And you knew that you finally got it right, that you finally passed the final test at having your life back--Nam Woohyun's life back--and you couldn't help the smile forming on your lips. This way Sungkyu would have no choice but be yours, too.
'By the way, Sungjong dropped by this afternoon.' You told Sungkyu and felt him jolted so abruptly.
'Wha-? Did he come in? Did he see you?' You chuckled softly while trying to force him to lay back down on the bed.
'Of course not, hyung. You told me not to open the door, remember?' You felt Sungkyu slowly relaxed. 'But I don't think he'll be coming back here anymore, though.' Well, maybe the next one will be Sungyeol, you mused while snuggling closer to get some warmth.
'Promise me you won't talk to anyone, Woohyun-ah.' Sungkyu's palm cupping softly on you face slowly made its way to the back of your neck, his thumb tracing a circular motion over and over on your cheekbone. And you promised him, like all those times you said yes. You promised him everything. If only the time you had a talk with Dongwoo ended up as successful as Sungjong's. You guessed you had to try harder with the rest of them, then. Otherwise your Sungkyu might be taken away forever.
You sighed contently while hugging Sungkyu's body closer and were glad that you both were happy now, as much as you both could. Sungkyu finally got you and you finally found you. Everything was finally right in the world. Sungkyu tightened his arms on your torso, humming softly the song he once sang on Immortal Song 2; you remembered, you listened to it all the time. 나 그대에게 드릴말 있네 오늘밤 문득 드릴말 있네... You smiled and started counting one, two, three, four, five; realized that the numbers were endless, infinite.
This was it. This was everything. When it came down to it, this was all there was.
You didn't remember how to be you anymore, but at least you could always try; because you knew no longer how to be anyone else.
Started: 130303
Finished: 130523
A/N: Ummmm....I'm sorry? ;______;
Length: 5,100 words
Pairing: Kim Sungkyu/Nam Woohyun
Rating: R
Warning: I decided not to give a warning because it will be a big spoiler so I'm apologizing in advance.
Summary: Breathed in, breathed out, counted to five; you opened your eyes and outside it looked like it was going to rain. You breathed in and breathed out again, then counted to twenty, fifty, hundred. (or after the accident, they coped.)
A/N: Thank you so much, pixy_polly, for helping with the beta. I love you, girl.
∞
Breathed in, breathed out, counted to five; you opened your eyes and outside it looked like it was going to rain. You breathed in and breathed out again, then counted to twenty, fifty, hundred.
This was it. This was everything. When it came down to it, this was all there was.
The soft warm puffs of inhaling, exhaling at the back of your neck didn't surprise you as much as it used to last month, or the month before, or maybe it should never have and should never will. You counted another hundred; the first drop of dirty rain came splattering upon the bedroom floor, blowing in from the opened windows, the almost unnoticeable tiny little invisible drop of wetness that landed on his (no, you corrected yourself, on your both) pristine parquet: one drop, two drops, then three, and four, and five...
Sungkyu stirred and you almost missed the sixth drop and then he nuzzled at the back of your neck and you counted to ten and realized you had lost count somewhere between twelve and thirty. You slumped back to the warmth, feeling a bit disorientated. His arms, thrown haphazardly sometime between twilight and dawn, tightened, and Sungkyu inhaled, exhaled, purred; and you reached for the photo frame on the bedside table and smashed it to the ground.
Breath hitched, Sungkyu sat up gingerly, rubbing the sleepiness from his eyes; you stared at him staring at the mess on the floor, and inside you felt like hearing somebody laughed. But Sungkyu just sighed, and you felt like crying instead.
This was it. This was everything. When it came down to it, this was all there was.
'I'm sorry,' you mumbled softly and started counting from eighteen.
∞
Sungkyu brought you breakfast in bed and, despite your lack of explanation, didn't prod for any answer; instead he carefully arranged the food tray in your lap, pressed the spoon in your grasp, and silently crouched down beside the bed and started picking up the shattered glasses-- the frame was broken beyond repair but the photo was still bright and shiny, like something undestroyable, like something that would last. You felt the unknown source of sharp pang in your chest so you just looked down at your awkward hands and the silver spoon and counted to three, five, nine, eleven, ten thousands.
Sungkyu touched your pale left ankle, a light contact of his finger tip to the smallest of your skin; and your heart skipped. You stared harder at your hand, seeing your extorted reflection starring right back from the curve of your spoon, and in your head you heard somebody sighing in resignation, like the fact that you allowed the contact at all was so disappointing. You couldn't make out the edge of your reflection, only the eyes were wide and hollow, impossibly black like coal. You started counting from ten.
'Woohyun,' Sungkyu pried the spoon off of your dead grip, and you had no choice but to look at him, at the hollow of his throat, at the patch of stubble he missed this morning, 'what do you want to do today?'
Sungkyu looked tired, but hopeful, like he always did, like he hoped one day you would magically wake up and remember to be you again. You tried to recall the pictures from the old photo albums he gave you, tried to recall the right expression you should be giving him right now, and you smiled, with the exact same amount of affection you saw in the photos and with the exact same shape of a mouth set into a sharp line with gleaming white teeth and answered, 'can we go to the lake?'
Sungkyu nodded, relief settling between his shoulder blades as he seemed to shred today's weight off his back. Like he was glad you were willing to play along today, which perplexed you because you had been playing along with him all the time, always. Sungkyu kissed you, so softly you almost thought you had imagined the whole thing, and three skipped to two hundred, and you stopped counting.
You didn't remember how to be you anymore, but at least you'd got to try. Trying was all you could do.
∞
It was an accident. An unfortunate incident on the highway no. 65, somewhere along the route from Seoul to Chuncheon, and your whole life had abandoned you in one single swift of a turned-over vehicle. Sungkyu told you with flickering eyes and light voice that you were on your way to the set (though you had no recollection of what set it was supposed to be, you pretended to understand anyway. You noticed you had been doing that a lot lately. Pretend.), and the other car came straight at you with the speed that could cave the whole house. He was a journalist (a paparazzi?), the driver who crashed into you, returning from an interview with the source (chasing after you for a scoop?), pumped up with caffeine and adrenaline, not much older and apparently none the wiser, and he died, instantly, Sungkyu said, he died at the scene. Sungkyu said that a lot lately, too, that he died, over and over again.
This was it. This was everything. When it came down to it, this was all there was.
You remembered the blankness when you first opened your eyes to the white sanitized ceiling of a hospital and wished you hadn't woken up at all. You felt like your whole body was the little pieces of the broken toy glass glued together with the burning tar. The only thing stayed behind your eyelids before you succumbed into the unconscious blackness again was a deep frown on a strangerSungkyu's face, his scrutinizing stare, the shadow he casted on a grey wall. When you came to again, respiratory aids detached, you felt like the inside of your head was nothing but this giant emptiness edged with silence and you told as such. Common was the word the doctor described. Common was the first word you heard, remembered and understood.
"It is common for a patient having been through this kind of an accident to experience memory lost." You heard the doctor said to Sungkyu. "It either comes back in times, or..." and you lost interest in it.
Everything after was a blurry swift sort-of-motion-not-motion of incomprehensible madness; people tried talking to you-- legal representatives, company agencies, police officers, everyone, but you just sat there on your bed blinking, eyes unfocused.
Who is that again? What are you talking about? I'm not- I don't- Why?
Then the yelling started; some woman came and screamed at you, eyes bloodshot red; a nurse outside tried to console her, Mrs. Nam, please, this isn't going to change anything, please stop. And then came the crying; surprisingly it was Sungkyu who came into your room and cried while sitting in that small uncomfortable miserable excuse of a chair. Sungkyu came in and cried every day and you couldn't understand why so you let him be and counted nine, five, six, while waiting for the next and the next and the next sobs to come.
'It's really strange,' you told him one day when he managed not to cry too hard, 'when others talk, nothing makes sense. It's like there's something in my brain that is broken, you know, but you...', you smiled a little, Sungkyu seemed to stop, seemed to still, breaths ceased, held, and paused: the frozen picture forever captured in time.
'You make sense to me.' You mumbled softly and Sungkyu let out a huge choke of air, eyes wet but shining with something foreign you had never seen before.
'You.' His voice was hoarse, you realized, and surprised that you remembered what his voice was supposed to sound like. You remembered. 'Do you even know your own name?' And you stopped breathing all together. Because, no, you didn't. You didn't, couldn't, wouldn't remember. Anything. At all. And the thought made you cringed at your own incompetence, made the cold sweat broke across your back, and made your hands trembled. Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one...
'Woohyun-ah,' Sungkyu said slowly, moving closer to you, so impossibly close, and you tried the syllables out carefully, Woohyun, and decided that you liked it. Sungkyu didn't smile, but his eyes were warmer and the set of his mouth softer and his hand gripped your arm so impossibly tight that your skin had bruised purple long after.
'Woohyun, let's fix you.' Sungkyu whispered softly in your ear. It was by all means a hopeful statement but somehow, to you, it sounded so absolute like an order. Sungkyu didn't smile, but his eyes shone bright like a falling star.
And you believed he would. Fix you. Fix everything.
This was it. This was everything. When it came down to it, this was all there was.
Sungkyu told you that the trial was canceled because how could they judge someone who was not there anymore, and you had to ask, 'they aren't even going to do anything about the dead driver?', and though Sungkyu was a forever strong pillar, so strong like nothing could have affected him, you felt almost as if you saw him flinched, eyes became wide, like being slapped across the cheek.
'Yes. You're right.' Sungkyu exhales slowly, 'they can't put him on trial because he's gone now', and inside you felt like hearing somebody screamed. If you could remember the name of the feeling coiled tight inside your stomach, you would say it might be hatred. But you weren't quite sure to whom it was directed at: you or the driver. He was a reckless sonofabitch who destroyed everything Nam Woohyun and the thought made your skin crawled for all the different reasons, but weren't you also at fault for being so broken afterward? You thought it was probably hatred, but at the same time, the twisted sense of anticipation also hit you out of nowhere. It must be because of the crash, you tried reasoning yourself; you couldn't even quite manage the emotion properly.
'Let's get you out of here, Woohyun-ah,' and you nodded while inside you kept counting sixty-five over and over again.
∞
You didn't go out much because you had this ugly scar stretching from behind your left ear to the hollow point of your right collarbone, and another one right below your left eyes: another unfortunate souvenirs from being thrown across the car window. Sungkyu assured you it was nothing to be ashamed of, that they weren't all that noticeable (such a poor liar, that Sungkyu). But you had no way of knowing for sure though since you never saw them yourself. Sungkyu made it to the point that they had no mirror or any reflective surface at all in the house. You didn't know whether to be grateful or terrified, but you thanked him anyway when he first brought you here, straight from the hospital, and he looked relieved when you kissed the corner of his mouth and muttered the word home.
Sungkyu left behind the hoard of adoring fans and the life of an idol. You left behind nothing because you had nothing left anymore in the first place. You thought it was ironic when you went through the old footages of your first concert, seeing how much you used to want to live that life but felt nothing now when you hadn't anymore. Even your voice sounded different. Having your head almost cut off could do that to your vocal cords, you pondered as you traced your fingers along the scar tissue. You couldn't sing anymore.
You hated those scars.
Somebody called Dongwoo called everyday but Sungkyu let it went to the voicemail, and sometime between you counting idly from ninety-nine thousand to seventy million, the calls stopped coming. Somebody called Myungsoo and Sungyeol tried to force their way in a couple of times but Sungkyu wouldn't open the door, and somebody called Sungjong said somebody called Howon went to the States through a very brief phone call that Sungkyu actually picked up.
You remembered those names and tried to associate them with the faces you saw in an old Japanese interview from some TV Asahi's program you couldn't read the name. Those unfamiliar faces came with heavy accents and awkward pronunciation. They looked happy though. Dongwoo, Myungsoo, Sungyeol, Sungjong, Howon. You and Sungkyu. They looked happy and a little stupid. You wondered if they were still happy now.
I just got you back, Sungkyu said when the phone kept ringing and ringing and ringing, I just got you back and I can't go through that again. He held on to you so tight you had problem breathing but you said nothing because he looked so impossibly sad you had to bury you face in the hollow of his neck to stop him from trembling.
You learned later while going through the newspaper that you weren't supposed to go to the filming that day. It was scheduled to happen two days later but the news said nothing about why you went there that day in the first place. Sungkyu looked troubled, shoulders sagged and head bowed, like a man standing in front of his own execution, but he answered your question with a quiet voice.
'We got into a big fight.' Sungkyu laughed dryly, eyes blank. 'It was nothing out of the ordinary though. All we did lately was arguing.' His voice sounded hollow you almost didn't recognize it. 'No wonder why you walked out that day.'
Sungkyu lifted his head and he looked you square in the eyes. 'You went there early because you were angry at me for being an inconsiderate bastard, your words, and you needed space to cool you head. We'd been so busy since last year and we hardly saw each other anymore and-' Sungkyu's voice was steady, but his eyes reflected everything he didn't say: It was my fault. I made you go. I'm sorry. 'You went there that day because you wanted to be rid of me.'
Because you didn't want me anymore.
And Sungkyu broke so thoroughly, so beautifully, so completely that you couldn't help climbing on to his laps, resting your head on his stiff shoulder, rocking back and forth as if you were consoling a small child. It's okay, you said, it's gonna be all right, hyung. It's gonna be fine. And Sungkyu shuddered and his arms holding on to you tight felt like a cage you willingly let yourself in, so you exhaled slowly and counted sixty-five, sixty-six, sixty-seven, eighty thousand...
This was it. This was everything. When it came down to it, this was all there was.
Sungkyu said it was all in the past now. You wondered if it was true. He still tried to make you into the same old you and you still kept not getting it, still couldn't remember the right reaction and the right way to throw hearts and the right aegyo. You wondered will you ever get yourself back.
You paused the screen to the still of you and Sungkyu hugging, laughing, being in love, and wondered if you could get that back too.
Sungkyu would have loved that.
∞
The lake was beautiful, the serene picture you could always count on when life had failed you in general. Sungkyu had a loose hold of your hand, as if he was afraid you would flutter away like a falling leaves. You could hardly blame him. You would have done the same if you were in his position. Spring had come and gone like a heartless bitch it usually was, and now autumn had seeped its way in without any ounce of announcement. You started counting forty-eight, forty-nine, five hundreds, and stopped only when Sungkyu hugged you from behind and said to you softly.
'We came here too when we finished our concert tour for our fourth anniversary,' you tilted your head back to look at Sungkyu's side profile, his distant look to the past you had no recollection of but eager to listen to anyway. 'You nagged and nagged and nagged me to steal Gonam-hyung's car because hyung took all of our keys, and Dongwoo made this reckless drive in the middle of the night. I swear Myungsoo almost had an aneurism.' Sungkyu laughed a little. You both didn't go anywhere by car anymore unless it was absolute necessary. You could hardly blame him either.
'I can nag now,' you said, trying out the teasing tone you saw in yesterday's choice of an old behind-the-scene, 'if you want,' before giving him a smile you noticed make Sungkyu's shoulders looked a bit less stiff when being asked offensive questions on screen. You put an extra effort in mimicking the chuckles to match the one you saw in one of the Weekly Idol episode you almost heard the old phantom voice chuckling back: the Nam Woohyun Special.
Sungkyu blinked slowly, like he was just woken up from a hazy slumber, and his embrace on you tightened and he let out a sigh (a sob?) as if he was about to cry. You panicked and tried to turn into his firm grip, tried to turn to face him, to put your hands on his cheeks and kiss away any trace of tears. But Sungkyu's hold was too tight and his face was too far away for you to see even though you tried turning your head as much as you could. He hid his head where the base of your skull met the beginning of your spine and cried silently. Hot tears soaked through your wool shirt.
'Hyung, what's wrong?' You asked a little hysterical. 'What did I do? Did I say something wrong?'
And Sungkyu laughed suddenly, hot tears spilling down your neck, and whispered fiercely into your ear, 'No, Woohyun-ah,' he nibbled your earlobe softly, breath warm and tickling, 'you did exactly right.'
You felt yourself settling back into this weird suspended state of being, and you gave Sungkyu's arm a squeeze. Twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one...you counted until the orange sun had disappeared from the sky, until there was nothing but darkness to envelop the both of you.
∞
It was hot, scorching hot like fire licked its way across from the tips of your fingers to the back of your thigh, spreading everywhere until you were sure there was nothing left of you but burnt ashes. It wasn't always like this though, but somehow Sungkyu's touch felt extra sharp today.
Sungkyu's skin was hot to the touch; his tongue was even hotter, wet and iron-edged with blood, your blood. 'Hyung,' you heard yourself said in that perfect voice, and Sungkyu shot his hand out, eager, desperate, hungry in a way that you didn't understand at first but kind of got used to now. Sex with Sungkyu always had this sense of urgency, that hard and fast pace that left you raw and breathless and-
Sungkyu bit the point of your collarbone, blood rising beneath the skin, and you jerked so hard you almost knocked your head right into the headboard, arousal pooled between your legs. Sungkyu bit harder, and you ached, moaning, rubbing yourself against Sungkyu, unable to stop yourself and unable to even want to. 'God. Hyung.'
You reached between you and Sungkyu, fingers closing tight around his cock. 'Hyung, come on', you belted out, sharp and all you, restless edges that sliced through Sungkyu like a razor, and Sungkyu looked at you in contemplation, eyes squinted, piercing stare watching right back at your very core. You let out this embarrassing needy sound and it seemed to snap Sungkyu out of his trance. He slowly dragged his tongue from the dip of your collarbone to the fat lobe of your ear, tracing the line your scar pointed towards to, and bit hard, smiled like he finally got what he wanted.
'Woohyun,' Sungkyu said slowly, heat flaring up your spine as he slid his slick fingers down your back, digging into the small of your ass as you grinded up, need breaking through the heat of pure lust, 'I'm going to fuck you now.'
And you groaned, breathless, and promptly lost count of every number inside of your head.
∞
Sungkyu always went into town on Wednesday. He went there every week to buy you both the supplies and necessary household items. You suggested one day to just have them delivered to the house, seeing how reluctant Sungkyu was about leaving you to your own devices, like I'm some sort of a child who can't look after himself, you complained. But Sungkyu steadfastly refused because he was more reluctant to let anyone come into the proximity of the house. You know how the internet works, he said. Once anything is up there, there's no way of taking it down. I don't want some crazy ahjumma camping outside our house, trying to glimpse their way into our living room, kay? And that was the end of it.
He took you with him once though, by your request (pestering), of course; then you asked him to never take you into town ever again. Sungkyu let you stay behind in the park while he went into the butcher's to buy some meat. The weather is so nice, hyung. So he indulged you because, come on, you had asked so nicely. However, you overheard the old lady buying flowers talking to her daughter-in-law about a man in an auto-accident and a washed-out idol who lived with him. They live like hermits, never going anywhere, it's so creepy, you heard she said. Her daughter spat out the driver's name like it was a curse, I was Sungkyu-oppa's fan once, honestly, but now he just went and- you started to shake so bad until Sungkyu came back and crouched down beside you on the asphalt, your head in his laps, his hands in your hair, and soothing words in your ears.
He ruined your life, you whimpered, I hate him. Hyung, I hate him so much.
I know, Sungkyu murmured hoarsely, I hate him, too but I've got you back now. Sungkyu's eyes were dry, but you knew inside, he was crying too. I'm not going to lose you again.
Today was a Wednesday. As Sungkyu was preparing to leave, you silently edged closer and gave him a back hug-- the one you saw yourself giving him in the Idol sport event's fan camera, 'Don't forget to buy samgyubsal. I need my daily meat diet.' You read somewhere in the magazine it was your favorite food.
Sungkyu laughed, 'Okay, Woohyunie,' and kissed your forehead before closing the front door behind him. Lately, he didn't look so sad anymore. You wondered how long you could keep doing it: make Sungkyu smiled. His smile, you thought, was what held you together, like those strings of a marionette guiding you through the aftermath. You continued to count the falling leaves outside: ninety-five, ninety-nine, a hundred and one...
Suddenly the doorbell rang. You looked away from the opened window, annoyed because counting was important, and wondered whether to answer the door or not. Sungkyu hated visitors, scared even. You could easily count the times when he actually answered the door, because it was none. But Sungkyu was not here, and you didn't think you were the kind to back away from the threat easily. You kind of had a vague idea who this sudden visitor might be; there had been so many phone calls lately to the point that Sungkyu decided to rip the phone out of the wall and threw it off the window.
You carefully opened the door, and on the other side, it was Sungjong.
'Sungjong-ah,' you greeted him in the same pitch you once heard yourself calling out the maknae's name: the same vibration of the s and the same length of the drawn out ah. You knew it was perfect; you practiced all of their names in the secret of the bathroom every morning. 'Come on in. You must be cold.' The younger looked a bit suspicious as he stepped inside, looking around your living quarter with the undisguised interest. You didn't remember him to be this small though. But you weren’t supposed to remember a lot of things so you let it slide.
'I'm gonna be brief since hyung might be coming back at any second,' Sungjong said, hatred evidenced in his eyes. 'I want you to stop whatever you're doing with Sungkyu-hyung. I know he's the one who kind of started this but you can stop, really, you've got to. He needs help-'
'Sungjong-ah,' you interrupted in the same placate manner you saw yourself using when you tried to indulge the members, 'it's nothing to be worried about. Honestly. It's just Sungkyu-hyung being Sungkyu-hyung. You know how he is,' and gave the maknae the same smile you always plastered on your face, the same one you often threw at your fans, teeth white and eyes crescent. 'I'm sure when he finally realizes I'm really here he will stop worrying too much and just be.' And Sungjong recoiled, stepped back, like he just saw a ghost. You guessed you finally managed that perfect drawl at the end of the sentence you hadn't been able to do all those weeks ago.
'This- this is wrong,' Sungjong whispered, voice fierce, eyes shining like wet stars. 'I didn't want to believe all those things Dongwoo-hyung said at first but this? This isn't right! You're not supposed to be like this. You're not supposed to-'
And you laughed at his remarks, laughed at his naiveté, and laughed at the absurdity of it all. 'Not supposed to what?' you asked, voice cutting like you were supposed to, like when you were mad on the footage of the dance practice, voice hoarse with the exact same hint of edge you heard in the radio interview when being asked something too personal. 'Being crazy?' Being you?
You laughed, long and breathy, as you stepped closer, murmuring softly, like when you were still a trainee and Howon captured a candid footage of you trying to show your support for the maknae. 'It's gonna be all right, kiddo,' you whispered so so softly. 'He fixed me so I can make everything all right again.'
Sungjong stepped back, hand grabbing blindly at the front door's handle. He didn't understand, Sungkyu made everything possible for both of you now. He became everything you ever needed. Your guide. Your propriety. Your resolution. You had nothing left ever since the crash; you lost your family, your friends, your life, even your name. The driver was gone, and he left you raw on the sidewalk, a clean state. You remembered nothing and everything. You remembered you.
'I'm gonna be the best me he's ever had.' And you bumped your forehead with Sungjong, like what you saw in the fan camera taken in Taiwan when you wanted to assured the maknae it was going to be all right even when their Chinese sucked. 'I'm gonna be the best hyung you have ever had.' And Sungjong fled, door slammed so hard the whole house shook with its force.
You guessed maybe you couldn't please everyone.
∞
Later that night as you folded into Sungkyu's embrace, head resting above his heart, you tried recounting to him the incident you saw from the Thailand airport footage. Sungkyu murmured the affirmation once in a while, letting you trace some absent-minded patterns all over his shoulder blade. Other than that he just let you talk, like he finally got used to your voice that didn't sound like you but talked like one.
'I love you,' you said, trying to imagine how you would say it before the accident. These words weren't on any footage, any interviews, or any radio shows, not being said like how you meant it a minute ago though, but you were quite sure you got it right. You were so familiar with yourself now you could almost be you without having to consciously acting it out all the time. Woohyun was natural now. If you kept at it, Woohyun would be here to stay.
Sungkyu's soft warm puffs of inhaling, exhaling at the back of your neck became something of a soothing, and he said as he nuzzled the back of your neck, 'I love you, too, Woohyun-ah.'
And you knew that you finally got it right, that you finally passed the final test at having your life back--Nam Woohyun's life back--and you couldn't help the smile forming on your lips. This way Sungkyu would have no choice but be yours, too.
'By the way, Sungjong dropped by this afternoon.' You told Sungkyu and felt him jolted so abruptly.
'Wha-? Did he come in? Did he see you?' You chuckled softly while trying to force him to lay back down on the bed.
'Of course not, hyung. You told me not to open the door, remember?' You felt Sungkyu slowly relaxed. 'But I don't think he'll be coming back here anymore, though.' Well, maybe the next one will be Sungyeol, you mused while snuggling closer to get some warmth.
'Promise me you won't talk to anyone, Woohyun-ah.' Sungkyu's palm cupping softly on you face slowly made its way to the back of your neck, his thumb tracing a circular motion over and over on your cheekbone. And you promised him, like all those times you said yes. You promised him everything. If only the time you had a talk with Dongwoo ended up as successful as Sungjong's. You guessed you had to try harder with the rest of them, then. Otherwise your Sungkyu might be taken away forever.
You sighed contently while hugging Sungkyu's body closer and were glad that you both were happy now, as much as you both could. Sungkyu finally got you and you finally found you. Everything was finally right in the world. Sungkyu tightened his arms on your torso, humming softly the song he once sang on Immortal Song 2; you remembered, you listened to it all the time. 나 그대에게 드릴말 있네 오늘밤 문득 드릴말 있네... You smiled and started counting one, two, three, four, five; realized that the numbers were endless, infinite.
This was it. This was everything. When it came down to it, this was all there was.
You didn't remember how to be you anymore, but at least you could always try; because you knew no longer how to be anyone else.
Started: 130303
Finished: 130523
A/N: Ummmm....I'm sorry? ;______;