Walking Through Pipes [trax/snsd; jungmo/tiffany]
Walking Through Pipes
jungmo/tiffany
pg-13, romance, angst, 1412 words
It's just another thing Jungmo can't get right.
(written with this on a continuous loop, think of it as a playlist for the story! but only with one song... okay, maybe not a playlist. but it's my official jungfany song. also using this picture as a reference point.)
Jungmo lives life quietly making music amongst the shadows. Once upon a time he’d lust for nothing less than kaleidoscopic lights and thunderous applause, but as his fingers brush against the dusty guitar strings, an off-tune key reverberating throughout the practice room, he realises that at twenty three and already years behind, it’s best to plan for an attainable future instead.
Jungmo gives up then and decides that he’ll simply be a musician.
“Musician,” Tiffany says the word slowly, and he savours the way it rolls off her tongue. “Jungmo the musician - but weren’t you always one?” she asks.
He basks in the endearment of Tiffany’s ignorance and strums a short tune on his guitar, “No, I wasn’t,” he says, “I wanted to be appreciated for being Kim Jungmo, now I want to be appreciated for being a guitarist.”
Tiffany forms an ‘O’ with her glossy pink lips, indented and spotty from being bitten in anxiety, “Well… can’t you be known for being Jungmo the guitarist?”
Jungmo strums another small tune; one Tiffany recognises and sings along to. Clapping her hands and gracing him with one of her staple eye smiles.
“Nope,” Jungmo says, cradling the guitar carefully as he drags its case towards him with his foot. The spongy insulation was stained with grime and black coffee, and he places his guitar atop of the creased and yellowing sheet music lining the hollow. “For example, you will always be known as ‘Tiffany’, but never as ‘a singer’ or ‘Tiffany the singer’; it’s not a mutually exclusive thing. Well, it can be, but not for us.”
“But, I am a singer,” Tiffany insists, her voice bordering on a pathetic squeak.
Jungmo looks up at her and notices the sudden guardedness she was exuding, lip thinned and unamused. Musicians are honest, Jungmo thinks, to both themselves and others. “Fany, your newest song is-“
“Topping the charts,” she interrupts.
“I’m pretty sure forty percent is your actual voice and sixty percent is autotune. You’re successful but let’s be real,” he stands up and puts his hands on her quivering shoulders, the tips of her ornate tendrils shaking glitter onto his fingers. Jungmo’s assurance stutters and he backs away slowly, stopping when his heel knocks against the guitar case. “You’re not going to cry are you? I mean, it’s not anything bad. I mean it’s not just you-“
“Taeyeon is a ‘singer’ right?” Tiffany asks, head bowed low.
“Yeah, but that’s different,” Jungmo lamely excuses, his mind reeling with plans to backpedal from the emotional rut he’d dug himself.
“Whatever, I’ve heard enough,” Tiffany breathes deeply, swinging her bag over her shoulder, the pink straps slipping against her skinny white arms. She stalks towards the exit, purposefully treading over the pile of sheet music Jungmo had strewn over the floor, before opening the door a fraction and hesitating.
She turns around, expression solemn, but a small fire blazing in the depths of her irises.
“Just so you know though, I will make you eat your words so hard that you’ll throw up a dictionary,” Tiffany takes a shackled breath before shaking her head and running down the hall.
Jungmo runs his fingers through his inky hair, rolling his eyes at the fluorescent lights flickering overhead. “Women,” he mutters, bending down and collecting the papers imprinted with Tiffany’s heels and slinging his guitar case over his back. Musicians lived life lonely, anyway.
The irony of the musical’s name isn’t lost on Jungmo, as he carefully rubs the cotton ball over the apples of his cheeks. He brushes it over his t-zone and eyelids, until the soft white fibres are tainted with the garish colours of stifling stage makeup. He splashes a handful of cold water over his face, gulping for air as the remnants of foundation trickle from his pores.
The corridor is empty and his footsteps are hollow as he paces through the performance hall, all the other actors and stage hands having left within three hours of the end of the performance. Jungmo decided to remain behind, spending an excess two hours against the wooden shafts overlooking the theatre, amongst the cracks and moss bleeding through the damp timber ceiling. It was one of his quirks, spending long periods of time in isolation and counting the number of things in his head that he could have done differently. Something about the stage lights and the way they tended to highlight opportunities Jungmo let slip through his fingers made him want to scour his mind for past transgressions, just so he could convince himself that he’s made worst mistakes.
“Why are you still here, Oppa?”
Jungmo closes his eyes and bends his neck towards the ceiling, relishing in the bitter irony of the fact everything he tries to run away from always runs back to him.
Tiffany still has most of her makeup on, the glitter clumped near the corner of her eyes, sunglasses perched on her head, hair failing straight over a red leather jacket. His eyes subconsciously linger on her lips, the pale tears and coarseness smothered with cherry rid lipstick. Her mouth moves again, and Jungmo realises she’s just asked him a question.
“Sorry what?” he asks, blinking.
“Why are you still here?” Tiffany questions again, stepping closer towards him. The scent of sour lilac follows her, and Jungmo steps back awkwardly, bumping into the tinted glass exit.
“I was practicing,” Jungmo lies, hoping Tiffany hadn’t noticed the hall’s eerie silence for the last two hours. “What about you?” he shoots back.
Tiffany shrugs, “Practicing,” she answers simply. Jungmo’s shoulders relax, and he leans away from the door. Tiffany approaches him and slowly, tentatively, pushes his silver bangs up from his forehead. Glazed with nervous perspiration and hot from being curtained by his metallic fringe.
“You’re hot from over-practicing,” Tiffany comments, biting her bottom lip. Sure. From practicing. Sure. “Don’t over-exert your voice, okay?” Tiffany lifts her hands, and for one brilliant second, Jungmo thinks she’s about to trail those delicate and tired fingers over his throat to prove her point. Instead she lets them hang limply at her side.
“I have to,” Jungmo swallows; hoping with all his might his sagging bangs would hide the apprehension exuding from his irises. “I’m not a singer,” he asserts.
“Neither am I, apparently,” Tiffany says, grimacing. She pulls her sunglasses down over her eyes, and Jungmo mourns the loss of eye contact. “I should go now,” she dismisses, pushing Jungmo to the side and opening the door. As soon as the slight flutter of cold night air infiltrates through the crack, he can hear the shrill screams and shutter of cameras. Tiffany pushes the door completely open and steps out, putting on her dubbed “public smile”, grinning and waving. World star indeed, Jungmo thinks.
The wind shuts the door, and Jungmo looks through the dark tinted glass as Tiffany makes her way through the avid throng, one hand on her head to prevent free strands of hair from flying. Everyone is turned her way, all eyes frantically searching for a glimpse. Despite being separated by thick glass and a good few metres, during moments like these Jungmo feels like he's just one of the crowd.
Something about the stage lights and the way they tended to highlight opportunities Jungmo let slip through his fingers…
Stagehands were crouched behind the curtains ready to change the props and dab Jungmo with a towel when he came running back with palpitations from the performance rush. At least one hundred pairs of eyes were looking on enthralled, leaning in their seats, disregarding the suffocating and stale atmosphere of the theatre. Jungmo looks straight ahead, and he prays no one notices how he’s more than just superficially invested in this scene, how he holds more emotion than what’s required. When the cold and chapped lips meet his own, his shoulders tighten and he shuts his eyes on reflex. He counts until he can breathe freely again and looks straight ahead to the side of the stage. Tiffany claps slowly, purposefully, and although she’s shrouded in shadows, the stage light casts a subtle glow on all the right features. The crinkle near her eyes, the slight downturn of her smile. The audience’s applause rings through his ears as an alarm, jerking his eyes away and to where they were meant to be.
The next act was starting and Jungmo’s time in the limelight is over.
a/n: yeah, written only because i wanted to see if i could write things beyond 'saucy'. obviously i can't. also written because i shipped jungmo/tiffany from way back during oppa band, where mo-bb was all needy and jealous.
jungmo/tiffany
pg-13, romance, angst, 1412 words
It's just another thing Jungmo can't get right.
(written with this on a continuous loop, think of it as a playlist for the story! but only with one song... okay, maybe not a playlist. but it's my official jungfany song. also using this picture as a reference point.)
Jungmo lives life quietly making music amongst the shadows. Once upon a time he’d lust for nothing less than kaleidoscopic lights and thunderous applause, but as his fingers brush against the dusty guitar strings, an off-tune key reverberating throughout the practice room, he realises that at twenty three and already years behind, it’s best to plan for an attainable future instead.
Jungmo gives up then and decides that he’ll simply be a musician.
“Musician,” Tiffany says the word slowly, and he savours the way it rolls off her tongue. “Jungmo the musician - but weren’t you always one?” she asks.
He basks in the endearment of Tiffany’s ignorance and strums a short tune on his guitar, “No, I wasn’t,” he says, “I wanted to be appreciated for being Kim Jungmo, now I want to be appreciated for being a guitarist.”
Tiffany forms an ‘O’ with her glossy pink lips, indented and spotty from being bitten in anxiety, “Well… can’t you be known for being Jungmo the guitarist?”
Jungmo strums another small tune; one Tiffany recognises and sings along to. Clapping her hands and gracing him with one of her staple eye smiles.
“Nope,” Jungmo says, cradling the guitar carefully as he drags its case towards him with his foot. The spongy insulation was stained with grime and black coffee, and he places his guitar atop of the creased and yellowing sheet music lining the hollow. “For example, you will always be known as ‘Tiffany’, but never as ‘a singer’ or ‘Tiffany the singer’; it’s not a mutually exclusive thing. Well, it can be, but not for us.”
“But, I am a singer,” Tiffany insists, her voice bordering on a pathetic squeak.
Jungmo looks up at her and notices the sudden guardedness she was exuding, lip thinned and unamused. Musicians are honest, Jungmo thinks, to both themselves and others. “Fany, your newest song is-“
“Topping the charts,” she interrupts.
“I’m pretty sure forty percent is your actual voice and sixty percent is autotune. You’re successful but let’s be real,” he stands up and puts his hands on her quivering shoulders, the tips of her ornate tendrils shaking glitter onto his fingers. Jungmo’s assurance stutters and he backs away slowly, stopping when his heel knocks against the guitar case. “You’re not going to cry are you? I mean, it’s not anything bad. I mean it’s not just you-“
“Taeyeon is a ‘singer’ right?” Tiffany asks, head bowed low.
“Yeah, but that’s different,” Jungmo lamely excuses, his mind reeling with plans to backpedal from the emotional rut he’d dug himself.
“Whatever, I’ve heard enough,” Tiffany breathes deeply, swinging her bag over her shoulder, the pink straps slipping against her skinny white arms. She stalks towards the exit, purposefully treading over the pile of sheet music Jungmo had strewn over the floor, before opening the door a fraction and hesitating.
She turns around, expression solemn, but a small fire blazing in the depths of her irises.
“Just so you know though, I will make you eat your words so hard that you’ll throw up a dictionary,” Tiffany takes a shackled breath before shaking her head and running down the hall.
Jungmo runs his fingers through his inky hair, rolling his eyes at the fluorescent lights flickering overhead. “Women,” he mutters, bending down and collecting the papers imprinted with Tiffany’s heels and slinging his guitar case over his back. Musicians lived life lonely, anyway.
The irony of the musical’s name isn’t lost on Jungmo, as he carefully rubs the cotton ball over the apples of his cheeks. He brushes it over his t-zone and eyelids, until the soft white fibres are tainted with the garish colours of stifling stage makeup. He splashes a handful of cold water over his face, gulping for air as the remnants of foundation trickle from his pores.
The corridor is empty and his footsteps are hollow as he paces through the performance hall, all the other actors and stage hands having left within three hours of the end of the performance. Jungmo decided to remain behind, spending an excess two hours against the wooden shafts overlooking the theatre, amongst the cracks and moss bleeding through the damp timber ceiling. It was one of his quirks, spending long periods of time in isolation and counting the number of things in his head that he could have done differently. Something about the stage lights and the way they tended to highlight opportunities Jungmo let slip through his fingers made him want to scour his mind for past transgressions, just so he could convince himself that he’s made worst mistakes.
“Why are you still here, Oppa?”
Jungmo closes his eyes and bends his neck towards the ceiling, relishing in the bitter irony of the fact everything he tries to run away from always runs back to him.
Tiffany still has most of her makeup on, the glitter clumped near the corner of her eyes, sunglasses perched on her head, hair failing straight over a red leather jacket. His eyes subconsciously linger on her lips, the pale tears and coarseness smothered with cherry rid lipstick. Her mouth moves again, and Jungmo realises she’s just asked him a question.
“Sorry what?” he asks, blinking.
“Why are you still here?” Tiffany questions again, stepping closer towards him. The scent of sour lilac follows her, and Jungmo steps back awkwardly, bumping into the tinted glass exit.
“I was practicing,” Jungmo lies, hoping Tiffany hadn’t noticed the hall’s eerie silence for the last two hours. “What about you?” he shoots back.
Tiffany shrugs, “Practicing,” she answers simply. Jungmo’s shoulders relax, and he leans away from the door. Tiffany approaches him and slowly, tentatively, pushes his silver bangs up from his forehead. Glazed with nervous perspiration and hot from being curtained by his metallic fringe.
“You’re hot from over-practicing,” Tiffany comments, biting her bottom lip. Sure. From practicing. Sure. “Don’t over-exert your voice, okay?” Tiffany lifts her hands, and for one brilliant second, Jungmo thinks she’s about to trail those delicate and tired fingers over his throat to prove her point. Instead she lets them hang limply at her side.
“I have to,” Jungmo swallows; hoping with all his might his sagging bangs would hide the apprehension exuding from his irises. “I’m not a singer,” he asserts.
“Neither am I, apparently,” Tiffany says, grimacing. She pulls her sunglasses down over her eyes, and Jungmo mourns the loss of eye contact. “I should go now,” she dismisses, pushing Jungmo to the side and opening the door. As soon as the slight flutter of cold night air infiltrates through the crack, he can hear the shrill screams and shutter of cameras. Tiffany pushes the door completely open and steps out, putting on her dubbed “public smile”, grinning and waving. World star indeed, Jungmo thinks.
The wind shuts the door, and Jungmo looks through the dark tinted glass as Tiffany makes her way through the avid throng, one hand on her head to prevent free strands of hair from flying. Everyone is turned her way, all eyes frantically searching for a glimpse. Despite being separated by thick glass and a good few metres, during moments like these Jungmo feels like he's just one of the crowd.
Something about the stage lights and the way they tended to highlight opportunities Jungmo let slip through his fingers…
Stagehands were crouched behind the curtains ready to change the props and dab Jungmo with a towel when he came running back with palpitations from the performance rush. At least one hundred pairs of eyes were looking on enthralled, leaning in their seats, disregarding the suffocating and stale atmosphere of the theatre. Jungmo looks straight ahead, and he prays no one notices how he’s more than just superficially invested in this scene, how he holds more emotion than what’s required. When the cold and chapped lips meet his own, his shoulders tighten and he shuts his eyes on reflex. He counts until he can breathe freely again and looks straight ahead to the side of the stage. Tiffany claps slowly, purposefully, and although she’s shrouded in shadows, the stage light casts a subtle glow on all the right features. The crinkle near her eyes, the slight downturn of her smile. The audience’s applause rings through his ears as an alarm, jerking his eyes away and to where they were meant to be.
The next act was starting and Jungmo’s time in the limelight is over.
a/n: yeah, written only because i wanted to see if i could write things beyond 'saucy'. obviously i can't. also written because i shipped jungmo/tiffany from way back during oppa band, where mo-bb was all needy and jealous.