let me touch your lips with mine; myungyeol
try my love
wip/drabble; romance, drama
In which Sungyeol is a stripper who can't afford to care.
i swear i wanted to finish this fic. i wanted to write sungyeol as a stripper and myungsoo as this hopeless college boy who couldn't get over him. it almost happened, at least.
Sungyeol likes his best friend so much, but not really when he’s being an obnoxious shit like now.
“Look who just walked in,” Woohyun says with a good-natured snicker. “Actually, I don’t think you have to look. He’ll probably walk over to let you know he’s here.”
Closing his eyes and praying for patience, Sungyeol fingered the hem of his leather jacket, one that he’ll have to strip later in his performance. “Shut up and give me something really strong,” he snaps at Woohyun, also the bartender.
Woohyun shrugs and leaves him alone in favor of preparing him a drink. True to form though, someone taps Sungyeol on the shoulder not long after he’s left alone.
When he looks up, Sungyeol is not surprised. “Wow, you’re here. I’m surprised.”
“No, you’re not.” Myungsoo narrows his eyes and adds matter-of-factly, “I’m an adult now. I’m 20 today.”
“No shit. I can’t believe I forgot that you’re turning twenty today, despite your countdown since 300 days ago,” Sungyeol says sarcastically, downing a shot of tequila that Woohyun silently placed in front of him. He doesn’t forget. His boss is actually letting him off early tonight because of this.
“Yeah, and I’m taking you tonight.”
Sungyeol isn’t really ashamed of his job, nor is he proud of it. It’s just what he does to make a living, it’s not what he is, and it’s all good. He hears whispering around his neighborhood, his old so-called friends who abandoned him the first chance they get, everywhere, but he learns that he doesn’t care. As far as he knows, he’s not hurting anybody. He doesn’t even let anyone bed him because one way or another someone is going to get hurt in that scenario - a wife, a husband, a girlfriend, a boyfriend, the client, or him.
That goes well until exactly a year ago, when a certain lanky boy stumbled in the bar for a bet and took a liking to him. Myungsoo had said it was love at first sight, but Sungyeol seriously couldn’t care less what it was. It didn’t matter because he’s not interested in jailbait and certainly not tainting him. This innocent minor who has a lot of promise in his eyes deserves someone better than a stripper with no care for anyone or anything besides himself.
Apparently, Myungsoo doesn’t care either, because ever since that night that he laid eyes on Sungyeol, he never missed a day watching him dance.
“You promised me you’ll go out with me when I turn 20. I’m 20 now so we’re going out after your shift.” Myungsoo sounds different tonight, Sungyeol notes to himself. Usually, he’s this kid who’s always too enthusiastic for his own good, but now… now he’s too calm and too composed. It’s like he’s trying too hard to act like an adult. The thought amuses Sungyeol; he smiles.
Myungsoo smiles hugely, and then remembers that adults probably don’t look too excited after seeing someone smile, so he composes his face into a stoic look again. “That smile means yes, right?”
Sungyeol shakes his head. “It means you’re too stubborn.” He stands up and goes directly to the stage, working the pole while trying to shake the thought of finally going out with Myungsoo.
Myungsoo is a nice kid who comes to the bar even before it opens to the public. Sungyeol doesn’t know how he does it, but the bouncer at the line always lets him in even though they’re still closed and he’s a minor. He asked Myungsoo once, only to receive a shrug and a nonchalant, “I’m paying; I’m a customer.”
To be honest, if the circumstances between the two of them were not the way they are, and they met in a slightly different situation, Sungyeol could possibly like him and care for him as much as the younger likes him. Myungsoo isn’t hard to like, he’s good looking and smart and thoughtful.
But things are not different and they didn’t meet differently. Sungyeol is a stripper and Myungsoo is a responsibility that he can’t keep.
fin.
finding you is a good thing
wip/drabble; angst, romance
Based on the movie adaptation of It's Kind of a Funny Story.
If I decided to finish this fic, I was hoping it'll be like that one. But I haven't, so now it's just like a hopeless depressed story. Also, depression is a huge deal, if you think I downplayed it in any way, I did not intend to. I wrote it as how I saw it was depicted in the movie and how I understood the experience to be like from how it was described in my course's textbook.
One innocent morning, Myungsoo wakes up feeling that something is off. Everything is how it should be, nothing is really different as his feet hit the floor and he starts gettin ready for school.
But something is off. Myungsoo opens his blinds and closes it again.
At breakfast, his mom serves his favorite food of the month - udon - with refrained disapproval. He should be glad because he really really likes udon now but he doesn't feel like eating anything.
“Myungsoo, why aren't you eating?” his mom asks while fussing over Moonsoo’s stained uniform, “Moonsoo, go change fast. You two are going to be late. Myungsoo, eat.”
He tries, the feeling of his hands holding the chopsticks foreign, but when the food is touching his lips he can’t open his mouth and take it in. he breathes through his mouth heavily.
“Mom, I’ll go ahead.”
And then he runs out of the house, not waiting for his brother.
Myungsoo and his brother go to school together, unless Moonsoo refuses to let go of his blanket or takes too long in the shower.
Unless Myungsoo feels so weird and different and troubled that he doesn’t want to wait for anything.
He’s a pretty happy person, sometimes a little quiet because he prefers looking at people and things and engraving them in his mind for the future when he wants to see them again. But he makes jokes, he laughs. He likes his life.
Now, out of the blue, he feels like everything is made of nothing. Myungsoo feels like he’s living a life where no one wins anything at the end of the line.
It has been months since the morning Myungsoo wakes up with the feeling of nothingness churning in his guts. He has tried to act normal because maybe it was just something he ate, something he watched, something he heard. It’ll go away, it’ll all be okay.
But it doesn’t go away. He’s not okay because in every passing day, Myungsoo feels his will to breathe slipping away.
Another sleepless night when he refuses to close his eyes because he will just sleep another dreamless sleep, he searches about it online, the way he’s feeling. There might be other people like this, right? He can’t be the only one. He can’t be the only one who doesn’t want to sleep because even his mind might have given up on imagining good things for him. He can’t be the only one who doesn’t want to open his eyes in the mornings (after a sleep that fatigue brings, not a willing mind) because it’s just another day of breathing air, moving, talking, pretending.
There are articles and blogs and forums about it, actually, and Myungsoo clicks on all of them. He doesn’t understand why this is happening to him, and he thinks maybe he's starting not to care. He has to do it now while he still feels something.
It’s an ugly feeling. Everything seems to be in black and gray only it’s worse because this is his life and it’s real. It’s getting scary, because Myungsoo is getting tired of even breathing.
He sees a reply in a forum with the same problem on a different context. It says he must get professional help before it gets worse. Myungsoo thinks the person means before you do something you shouldn’t do.
He decides he’s going to try anything he needs to do to help himself, knowing that despite whatever his brain is telling him, somewhere in this world, there’s a purpose. He just needs help to see that again.
It’s sometime around midnight and he really shouldn’t be out because it’s late and it’s a school night, but Myungsoo thanks the stars when he reached the institution that was indicated in the forum and sees the lights in the entrance open. When he left the house he didn’t even consider the possibility of it being closed, but it’s not and that’s what matters.
He thinks maybe he should be nervous about this because he did just ride his bicycle all the way across the city to get here and it’s an institution but he feels nothing. Not calm, just nothing.
He walks to the reception desk where a middle-aged woman is talking on the phone, hands in his sweater pockets because he doesn’t know where else to put them.
He clears his throat.
The woman looks at him, murmurs somethig in the phone before hanging up. “Yes, dear? Is there a problem? Should you be here at this time?”
That is a peculiar question, Myungsoo thinks. No one should be here at any time of the day unless there’s a problem. Maybe when they visit someone, too.
“I’d like to have myself checked please?” he replies, unsure. “I’ve been feeling really weird for the past few days, and... and..”
The woman raises an eyebrow. “I am guessing your parents don’t know you’re here? Can we call them? How old are you?”
“I’m... eighteen. Do they have to know I’m here? They were sleeping, I didn’t want to wake them. I just need someone to tell me what’s wrong with me and how I can make it go away, please?”
The other sighs, this is not a usual occurence, but it happens. Teenagers and adults alike who don’t know what’s happening to themselves wind up in the institution willingly. “Okay, sit down. Good thing a doctor is always in.”
Myungsoo is then herded to a waiting room, head muddled for some reason as he stares into nothing. He tries to think why he doesn’t need this. He can’t.
A door opens and a man with a face that seems to only know how to smile comes out, sees Myungsoo and smiles wider. His greeting is warm and Myungsoo feels at ease.
They talk, and Myungsoo briefly wonders how the doctor can do this with energy as if his day has just begun. Maybe it’s just the beginning of his shift.
The doctor asks him a lot of questions, all of which he answers as truthfully as he can manage, especially the questions that asks him how he feels about the whole thing.
“Tired. And scared. I’m a little scared because I’m getting tired of everything. I just want to let go of all these. I can’t make myself care about anything because I feel like I’ve had enough of these things, but I know I should? I know I can stop existing and it won’t make a difference. I'm just tired maybe. And scared.”
He knows that doesn’t make sense because even in his own head, his explanation seems all wrong wrong wrong. But Dr. Jungyeop nods. Maybe his job description includes to understand.
A whole lot of questions and a signed voluntary consent later, Myungsoo is committed to the hospital’s Mental Health Treatment Facility with nothing but his keys and the clothes on his back.
After the nurse took his belt, keys, and shoelaces, he proceeds to another waiting area with a window. The sky is turning lighter, and it would have been beautiful, except beauty is in the eye of the beholder and Myungsoo can’t make himself see the beauty of a new day. Sunrise happens all the time, but only the numbers on the calendar change.
“Hey, rough night?”
He hears a voice and without thinking about it, he turns at the guy who sits beside him on the only couch in the room. Myungsoo nods.
The guy nods, too, as if he knows. Maybe he does, wearing a lab coat and scrub suit underneath, he must be a doctor. His expression is really curious for Myungsoo, his eyebrows crunched in together like he’s in deep thought.
Myungsoo is staring, and neither notice.
“Who talked to you?” he asks. “If it’s Dr. Jungyeop, you’re in good hands. He’ll fix you up in no time.”
Myungsoo just hums. His eyes drift to the stranger’s hands and notices a cup of coffee.
His gaze is noted, if the same cup of coffee being offered to him is anything to go by. “Here. Get better, okay?”
The guys is gone before Myungsoo can nod. He takes a sip, remembers that he doesn’t drink coffee when he winces. Americano.
fin.
wip/drabble; romance, drama
In which Sungyeol is a stripper who can't afford to care.
i swear i wanted to finish this fic. i wanted to write sungyeol as a stripper and myungsoo as this hopeless college boy who couldn't get over him. it almost happened, at least.
Sungyeol likes his best friend so much, but not really when he’s being an obnoxious shit like now.
“Look who just walked in,” Woohyun says with a good-natured snicker. “Actually, I don’t think you have to look. He’ll probably walk over to let you know he’s here.”
Closing his eyes and praying for patience, Sungyeol fingered the hem of his leather jacket, one that he’ll have to strip later in his performance. “Shut up and give me something really strong,” he snaps at Woohyun, also the bartender.
Woohyun shrugs and leaves him alone in favor of preparing him a drink. True to form though, someone taps Sungyeol on the shoulder not long after he’s left alone.
When he looks up, Sungyeol is not surprised. “Wow, you’re here. I’m surprised.”
“No, you’re not.” Myungsoo narrows his eyes and adds matter-of-factly, “I’m an adult now. I’m 20 today.”
“No shit. I can’t believe I forgot that you’re turning twenty today, despite your countdown since 300 days ago,” Sungyeol says sarcastically, downing a shot of tequila that Woohyun silently placed in front of him. He doesn’t forget. His boss is actually letting him off early tonight because of this.
“Yeah, and I’m taking you tonight.”
Sungyeol isn’t really ashamed of his job, nor is he proud of it. It’s just what he does to make a living, it’s not what he is, and it’s all good. He hears whispering around his neighborhood, his old so-called friends who abandoned him the first chance they get, everywhere, but he learns that he doesn’t care. As far as he knows, he’s not hurting anybody. He doesn’t even let anyone bed him because one way or another someone is going to get hurt in that scenario - a wife, a husband, a girlfriend, a boyfriend, the client, or him.
That goes well until exactly a year ago, when a certain lanky boy stumbled in the bar for a bet and took a liking to him. Myungsoo had said it was love at first sight, but Sungyeol seriously couldn’t care less what it was. It didn’t matter because he’s not interested in jailbait and certainly not tainting him. This innocent minor who has a lot of promise in his eyes deserves someone better than a stripper with no care for anyone or anything besides himself.
Apparently, Myungsoo doesn’t care either, because ever since that night that he laid eyes on Sungyeol, he never missed a day watching him dance.
“You promised me you’ll go out with me when I turn 20. I’m 20 now so we’re going out after your shift.” Myungsoo sounds different tonight, Sungyeol notes to himself. Usually, he’s this kid who’s always too enthusiastic for his own good, but now… now he’s too calm and too composed. It’s like he’s trying too hard to act like an adult. The thought amuses Sungyeol; he smiles.
Myungsoo smiles hugely, and then remembers that adults probably don’t look too excited after seeing someone smile, so he composes his face into a stoic look again. “That smile means yes, right?”
Sungyeol shakes his head. “It means you’re too stubborn.” He stands up and goes directly to the stage, working the pole while trying to shake the thought of finally going out with Myungsoo.
Myungsoo is a nice kid who comes to the bar even before it opens to the public. Sungyeol doesn’t know how he does it, but the bouncer at the line always lets him in even though they’re still closed and he’s a minor. He asked Myungsoo once, only to receive a shrug and a nonchalant, “I’m paying; I’m a customer.”
To be honest, if the circumstances between the two of them were not the way they are, and they met in a slightly different situation, Sungyeol could possibly like him and care for him as much as the younger likes him. Myungsoo isn’t hard to like, he’s good looking and smart and thoughtful.
But things are not different and they didn’t meet differently. Sungyeol is a stripper and Myungsoo is a responsibility that he can’t keep.
fin.
finding you is a good thing
wip/drabble; angst, romance
Based on the movie adaptation of It's Kind of a Funny Story.
If I decided to finish this fic, I was hoping it'll be like that one. But I haven't, so now it's just like a hopeless depressed story. Also, depression is a huge deal, if you think I downplayed it in any way, I did not intend to. I wrote it as how I saw it was depicted in the movie and how I understood the experience to be like from how it was described in my course's textbook.
One innocent morning, Myungsoo wakes up feeling that something is off. Everything is how it should be, nothing is really different as his feet hit the floor and he starts gettin ready for school.
But something is off. Myungsoo opens his blinds and closes it again.
At breakfast, his mom serves his favorite food of the month - udon - with refrained disapproval. He should be glad because he really really likes udon now but he doesn't feel like eating anything.
“Myungsoo, why aren't you eating?” his mom asks while fussing over Moonsoo’s stained uniform, “Moonsoo, go change fast. You two are going to be late. Myungsoo, eat.”
He tries, the feeling of his hands holding the chopsticks foreign, but when the food is touching his lips he can’t open his mouth and take it in. he breathes through his mouth heavily.
“Mom, I’ll go ahead.”
And then he runs out of the house, not waiting for his brother.
Myungsoo and his brother go to school together, unless Moonsoo refuses to let go of his blanket or takes too long in the shower.
Unless Myungsoo feels so weird and different and troubled that he doesn’t want to wait for anything.
He’s a pretty happy person, sometimes a little quiet because he prefers looking at people and things and engraving them in his mind for the future when he wants to see them again. But he makes jokes, he laughs. He likes his life.
Now, out of the blue, he feels like everything is made of nothing. Myungsoo feels like he’s living a life where no one wins anything at the end of the line.
It has been months since the morning Myungsoo wakes up with the feeling of nothingness churning in his guts. He has tried to act normal because maybe it was just something he ate, something he watched, something he heard. It’ll go away, it’ll all be okay.
But it doesn’t go away. He’s not okay because in every passing day, Myungsoo feels his will to breathe slipping away.
Another sleepless night when he refuses to close his eyes because he will just sleep another dreamless sleep, he searches about it online, the way he’s feeling. There might be other people like this, right? He can’t be the only one. He can’t be the only one who doesn’t want to sleep because even his mind might have given up on imagining good things for him. He can’t be the only one who doesn’t want to open his eyes in the mornings (after a sleep that fatigue brings, not a willing mind) because it’s just another day of breathing air, moving, talking, pretending.
There are articles and blogs and forums about it, actually, and Myungsoo clicks on all of them. He doesn’t understand why this is happening to him, and he thinks maybe he's starting not to care. He has to do it now while he still feels something.
It’s an ugly feeling. Everything seems to be in black and gray only it’s worse because this is his life and it’s real. It’s getting scary, because Myungsoo is getting tired of even breathing.
He sees a reply in a forum with the same problem on a different context. It says he must get professional help before it gets worse. Myungsoo thinks the person means before you do something you shouldn’t do.
He decides he’s going to try anything he needs to do to help himself, knowing that despite whatever his brain is telling him, somewhere in this world, there’s a purpose. He just needs help to see that again.
It’s sometime around midnight and he really shouldn’t be out because it’s late and it’s a school night, but Myungsoo thanks the stars when he reached the institution that was indicated in the forum and sees the lights in the entrance open. When he left the house he didn’t even consider the possibility of it being closed, but it’s not and that’s what matters.
He thinks maybe he should be nervous about this because he did just ride his bicycle all the way across the city to get here and it’s an institution but he feels nothing. Not calm, just nothing.
He walks to the reception desk where a middle-aged woman is talking on the phone, hands in his sweater pockets because he doesn’t know where else to put them.
He clears his throat.
The woman looks at him, murmurs somethig in the phone before hanging up. “Yes, dear? Is there a problem? Should you be here at this time?”
That is a peculiar question, Myungsoo thinks. No one should be here at any time of the day unless there’s a problem. Maybe when they visit someone, too.
“I’d like to have myself checked please?” he replies, unsure. “I’ve been feeling really weird for the past few days, and... and..”
The woman raises an eyebrow. “I am guessing your parents don’t know you’re here? Can we call them? How old are you?”
“I’m... eighteen. Do they have to know I’m here? They were sleeping, I didn’t want to wake them. I just need someone to tell me what’s wrong with me and how I can make it go away, please?”
The other sighs, this is not a usual occurence, but it happens. Teenagers and adults alike who don’t know what’s happening to themselves wind up in the institution willingly. “Okay, sit down. Good thing a doctor is always in.”
Myungsoo is then herded to a waiting room, head muddled for some reason as he stares into nothing. He tries to think why he doesn’t need this. He can’t.
A door opens and a man with a face that seems to only know how to smile comes out, sees Myungsoo and smiles wider. His greeting is warm and Myungsoo feels at ease.
They talk, and Myungsoo briefly wonders how the doctor can do this with energy as if his day has just begun. Maybe it’s just the beginning of his shift.
The doctor asks him a lot of questions, all of which he answers as truthfully as he can manage, especially the questions that asks him how he feels about the whole thing.
“Tired. And scared. I’m a little scared because I’m getting tired of everything. I just want to let go of all these. I can’t make myself care about anything because I feel like I’ve had enough of these things, but I know I should? I know I can stop existing and it won’t make a difference. I'm just tired maybe. And scared.”
He knows that doesn’t make sense because even in his own head, his explanation seems all wrong wrong wrong. But Dr. Jungyeop nods. Maybe his job description includes to understand.
A whole lot of questions and a signed voluntary consent later, Myungsoo is committed to the hospital’s Mental Health Treatment Facility with nothing but his keys and the clothes on his back.
After the nurse took his belt, keys, and shoelaces, he proceeds to another waiting area with a window. The sky is turning lighter, and it would have been beautiful, except beauty is in the eye of the beholder and Myungsoo can’t make himself see the beauty of a new day. Sunrise happens all the time, but only the numbers on the calendar change.
“Hey, rough night?”
He hears a voice and without thinking about it, he turns at the guy who sits beside him on the only couch in the room. Myungsoo nods.
The guy nods, too, as if he knows. Maybe he does, wearing a lab coat and scrub suit underneath, he must be a doctor. His expression is really curious for Myungsoo, his eyebrows crunched in together like he’s in deep thought.
Myungsoo is staring, and neither notice.
“Who talked to you?” he asks. “If it’s Dr. Jungyeop, you’re in good hands. He’ll fix you up in no time.”
Myungsoo just hums. His eyes drift to the stranger’s hands and notices a cup of coffee.
His gaze is noted, if the same cup of coffee being offered to him is anything to go by. “Here. Get better, okay?”
The guys is gone before Myungsoo can nod. He takes a sip, remembers that he doesn’t drink coffee when he winces. Americano.
fin.