(no subject)
belladonna
junhyung/gikwang. pg.
maybe monsters are as real as nightmares.
{ i read too much stephen king. this doesn't really make sense, sorry. }
BELLADONNA
are you awake, are you
there's a ghost in the basement. something quiet and solemn that speaks only when the rain is too loud outside. gikwang sits in his room, listens hard because he wants to catch the words rattling through old pipes that sprawl from the basement. gikwang isn't afraid of ghosts, not any more but he still remembers the whitehot fear of things behind closet doors, underneath his bed. that monstrous it. he's thirteen now and ghosts are more an object of interest than terror.
(except for that little dark place of the back of his mind where it's always midnight.)
i'm the joker, it begins. it speaks with the kind of stilted mirth of someone who knows too much but says too little. did you hear my name?
there's a movie gikwang watched as a child and canibalistic clowns grin inside his head at the word 'joker'. teeth sharp and yellow, offering multi-coloured balloons and a home in the sewers. he thinks it's the same modus operandi and he sleeps with the lights on when rainstorms hit the city, that voice going 'j-j-joker' inside his head.
the basement gets flooded one day. gikwang comes home from school and his father mentions it in passing.
"don't go down there," he says, shaking out the day's newspaper. "we'll get it fixed."
it's silent that night. gikwang takes shelter in bright fluorescent and the tight wrap of blankets; protection of fools. it rains rains rains in his dream until he's knees-deep in water and he has balloons sweeping just over his head, strings swaying in a tandem of impatient nooses. he screams but the world has lost its voice and gikwang doesn't notice the boy until it's too late.
you're here. the balloons nods, multi-coloured faces a gleeful pantomime. he wears a slanted smile that hitches enough to reveal sharp canines. i've been waiting for you.
he doesn't look like a clown. he looks like a boy, like something normal that comes to gikwang in dreams instead of nightmares. the water turns a deeper shade of red, coagulates thick enough that it feels like hands slathering over the hidden part of his legs. gikwang doesn't even try to move and the boy reaches out, curls fingers over gikwang's cheeks. it's a gesture intimate and pervasive, trailing frostbites from skin to skin.
welcome home.
gikwang wakes up with screams scratching at his throat. sunlight jerks him away from the last syllables of horror and he stumbles from the bed, eyes ringed with residual shadows from a nightmare that he can't quite remember. he sits at the edge of his writing desk, where the sun sweeps warm and reassuring. his hand shakes when he runs it through his hair.
"it's just," he says to the empty room. it hums a repertoire of silence in response. "just a nightmare."
balloons crowd in his head. balloons and welcome home and someone who isn't who he's supposed to be (but much, much worse because gikwang can't remember).
the basement remains locked for the rest of the year, men in dirty overalls coming and going in intervals. they cease their visits somewhere in june and gikwang imagines things rotting down there; newspapers dated years ago, old clothes in black trashbags and maybe. something with fingers and a face and a smile. the doctor prescribes tiny white pills when he gets too scared to sleep (his father's face pulled into a tight mask of disapproval on the way to the pharmacy).
gikwang sinks into a darkness so complete he forgets how to dream.
they move to another city following his father's promotion when he turns fifteen, into a house without a basement and voices travelling through unseen pipes. gikwang crunches his pills instead of swallowing them (he forgets why he's taking them but he still does), between watching videos of choreographers and duplicating the moves in a dancing studio a few blocks away. school uniforms in a pile of black and whites at one corner of walls lined with mirrors, and everything else fall into their own neat, little places.
(for a while.)
doojoon introduces the boy with a flourish of grins and lighting-bright eyes.
it's a french word.
"guys, this is junhyung."
it's a french word and gikwang can't recall what it is. an overlap of memories; the present being mistaken for the past (or something like that; he isn't as smart as dongwoon). junhyung moves across their little semi circle, shakes yoseob's hand and dongwoon's, exchanges brief words with hyunseung before he stops in front of gikwang.
"hey."
gikwang smiles, more out of habit than anything else. his face feels like a roll of plasticine punched into shape by a five year old. "i'm gikwang."
doojoon laughs at something in the background and the others join in after a few seconds, garbled words in between music from the speakers. they are loud enough that when junhyung takes a step closer to gikwang, it goes unnoticed.
junhyung tilts his head, eyes dark and warm. "i know."
gikwang's fingernails brand half-moons into his palms but he doesn't look away. it's irrational (bordering ridiculous) fear but he knows he would be eaten if he looks away.
"i've been searching for you."
i've been waiting for you.
deja vu. that's the word. deja vu.
junhyung grins that familiar slanted, hitched grin. "i'm here to bring you home."
welcome home, gikwang.
END