02. myheart.com (jinyoung/sandeul)

Dec 14, 2011 15:04

Sandeul is not a robot.

Dongwoo gives Jinyoung a music box for his birthday, but it’s not quite a music box.

“Um,” he says, stepping away from the gigantic wrapped box that reaches up to the top of his head and is about about as wide as he is. “What is this?”

“If you think I’m going to tell you, I wouldn’t have bothered wrapping it. Open it!”

He has to stand on tiptoe to reach the top and he peels back the wrapper carefully, not just because he knows he’ll hear Dongwoo exhale impatiently behind him, but because this is how he unwraps presents: carefully, because he’s watched movies and gone to parties where people rip the wrapping paper off so quickly becomes more like confetti and it makes him a little bit sad.

Jinyoung manages to unwrap his present perfectly until he’s about a quarter of the way down and he realises he’s staring at a face inside a box - a perfect human face, eyes closed with long eyes lashes and pretty, smooth skin and his hand slips as he falls to the ground in shock, the rip echoing throughout his living room.

“What is this--”

“This,” Dongwoo says, tearing away the rest of the wrapping paper unceremoniously before pulling open the front of the box, like opening a book, and the thing in the box opens his eyes and blinks, looking almost confused. “Is a music box. You told me you wanted something that plays music, right? This doesn’t just play you a song, it can sing you any song you want!”

“...I didn’t mean I wanted a robot,” Jinyoung sighs, exasperated, and Dongwoo looks at him as though to say, When you get a present you thank the person, not bitch like there is no tomo-- “But thank you anyway. It’s really...unique.”

Dongwoo softens into a smile. “His name’s Sandeul,” he says, pointing to the boy, who is walking around his living room as he peers curiously at the photo frames and his book shelf, like he’s one of those stuffed bears that come with certificates. “Happy birthday.”

“So, what can you sing?”

Sandeul just looks at him with those large eyes.

“Do you...speak Korean?”

“Of course,” he replies calmly. “I’ve been programmed to understand Korean, along with almost ten thousand songs in both Korean and English.”

It’s Jinyoung’s turn to blink. “Uh, Chris Brown’s With You?”

“With You,” he says and he pauses for a millisecond, as though to process the request, and then he breaks out into song, voice full and rich (but there’s no emotion behind the words--an inherent flaw of a music box) and by the end of three and a half minutes, Jinyoung can’t look away and his breathing is shallow and when Sandeul ends with a smile, Jinyoung forgets to breathe completely.

Sandeul is not a robot (“I’m not a robot,” he says later, after Jinyoung calls Chansik and tells him about his new music box) but whatever he is, he is not human.

“You can sleep in the guest room,” Jinyoung says, standing at the door frame of his spare room and Sandeul makes a sound at the back of his throat. It sounds like a bubble of laughter but Sandeul clears his throat and the moment passes and he shakes his head.

“I don’t need to sleep. I just need to be charged.”

“...Oh.” Dongwoo did not mention anything about a manual or a charger. Figures.

Sandeul puts a palm on on top of his chest, on the left and a few inches below his collar bone. “People have hearts. We have batteries.”

Jinyoung thinks it’s a figment of his imagination that he hears a trace of wistfulness in Sandeul’s voice. “What about food? Drinks?”

Sandeul shrugs. “I can eat, but there’s not much point. It’s the batteries that keep me functioning.”

“What would you do during the nights?”

“I could learn more songs? To improve myself.” Sandeul’s eyes are bright but they’re not lit from the inside so they’re not really bright at all.

It’s not his imagination - Sandeul is wistful and Jinyoung makes him sing a bubbly, happy song (“Do you know the song OK?” “Of course.”) and it’s for the both of them.

(But really, more for Sandeul)

Jinyoung thinks he sings better than Sandeul, sometimes, but listening to your own voice when it’s the only thing you ever hear gets tiring. It’s not the same as looking into a mirror; it’s different and Jinyoung would try to define it, but no one ever asks.

He’s in the shower one day, singing some song he’s heard on the radio, rinsing the suds from his hair and when he turns the water off, wraps a towel around his waist and step outside, into his bedroom, Sandeul is sitting on his bed, humming along to the song.

Jinyoung almost trips over his own feet and falls back into the bathroom, towel slipping dangerously low. “What are you doing in here!”

“I heard you singing. I thought you wanted a duet,” Sandeul says, speaking to his feet to preserve whatever modestly Jinyoung has left.

His cheeks burn. “Don’t just assume, Sandeul.”

“I’m sorry,” he says mechanically and Jinyoung closes the door to tighten the knot around his waist. The silence is deafening.

“Sing me an apology!” Jinyoung shouts, just to hear something other than his drumming heart and as he stares into the mirror, patting cold water onto his face, Sandeul begins to sing an acoustic version of Sorry Sorry, almost as though he means it.

Sandeul was human once.

“What do you mean you got him at a discount?”

“You know how expensive these music boxes can be,” Dongwoo says, past the receiver, “and I have a friend who can get them at less than half the price. I knew how much you wanted one, so I got Sandeul for you.”

“Is he illegal or something?”

There’s a pause. “You know how these types of music boxes are created, right?”

“No.”

“Oh.” There’s a longer pause. “You know what trainees are, right? Boys and girls who want to make it big as an idol? And the reality is not everyone who sets out to become an idol makes it. That’s where these extra trainees go. My friend got Sandeul straight from the source--the entertainment company itself and we didn’t have to go through an agent.”

Jinyoung feels his stomach clench in dread. “They become products?”

“It’s not like idols aren’t manufactured products in the first place,” Dongwoo replies quietly and Jinyoung looks up at Sandeul, eyes closed and body stiff and flat, plugged to the wall. Charging, he calls it but he every time he speaks about it, there is something a lot like disappointment in his voice.

He ends the call abruptly and he walks over to Sandeul, turning off the power source and shaking his shoulders. “Sandeul,” he says. “Sandeul,” he repeats, over and over until Sandeul opens his eyes and Jinyoung is looking at what used to be a boy with big dreams and an even bigger voice. “What’s your name?”

“Sandeul.”

“No, I mean your real name, your name before you became a trainee.”

“Password protected.”

Jinyoung’s fingers tighten around his shoulder and it’s hard enough mark skin but Sandeul cannot bruise. “What?”

“That information is password protected, I’m sorry. Would you rather me sing you a song? That I can do.”

They’re standing close, so close their foreheads are almost touching and it’s not too close. Jinyoung licks his lips. “How do I find the password?”

Sandeul’s eyes are trained on Jinyoung’s mouth. “I don’t know.”

“1234.”

Sandeul blinks and then blinks some more. “...I don’t know that song.”

“It’s not a song. It’s a password.”

“Oh.”

“Well, did it work? What’s your real name, Sandeul?”

“Password protected.”

“q-w-e-r-t-y.”

Sandeul shakes his head. “Give me a song to sing.”

“There’s more to you than just your ability to sing, you know.”

A shrug. Jinyoung doesn’t think Sandeul understands.

Come to think of it, he doesn’t think he understands either.

Sandeul does not need to eat but Jinyoung cooks for two anyway, because he can and company at the dining table is a pleasant change. Sandeul does not make for good conversation, but he eats his food with a slow sort of wonderment and Jinyoung likes watching him eat almost as much as listening to him sing.

“Is this kimchi?”

The nation’s national food and a staple in every meal. “Yeah,” Jinyoung says instead.

“I don’t remember it tasting like this,” he says, chewing steadily and Jinyoung does not know what to say. He just pushes his own bowl of kimchi towards Sandeul before resting his elbows on the table, watching wordlessly.

Why does my heart feel so funny, he thinks.

It’s been almost five months and one day, when Sandeul is in the middle of an old, Korean ballad, he stops singing suddenly and Jinyoung looks up from his newspaper.

“What’s wrong?”

Sandeul’s eyes are wide and shock is plainly visible - this is the most emotion he’s seen Sandeul exhibit. “I can’t remember the rest of the lyrics.”

“I charged you long enough, didn’t I?”

“It’s not a battery problem.” Sandeul sounds strange. He puts a hand on where his heart should be. “I think I'm burning up, from the inside out.”

If Jinyoung could fast forward things, he would skip right to the part after Sandeul shuts down (Overheated battery, the person who takes him away for proper disposal says, and then: I've never seen anything like before) because that would mean he wouldn’t need to live through the moments watching a music box (his best friend) breaking down. Sandeul is not robot but not quite human either, and the last few weeks are marked with a constant look of fear across his usually expressionless features.

“I’m not singing out of tune, right?” Sandeul would ask, in between forgotten lyrics, and Jinyoung would arrange his face into a kind smile.

“Of course not.”

Other times, Jinyoung has to lock himself in his own bedroom because there are tears running down his face and it’s taking him all he has not to beg Sandeul to stop singing, because it breaks his heart to watch all that anger and frustration and confusion weave itself into the song.

“I’m sorry, hyung. I hope you know I’m trying my best.” This is the first time he has called Jinyoung hyung. It does not sound wrong.

“Of course,” he says, and he pats Sandeul gently on the shoulder even though there’s so much more he can (wants to) do.

For his next birthday, Dongwoo gets him a small music box, all heavy lacquered wood.

“His real name was Junghwan,” Dongwoo says.

Oh. “What was the password?”

“‘Your love’.”

His breath catches in his throat. “My love?”

“No, the password were the words, ‘your love’.”

He exhales and the possibilities of what could have been are expelled as well. It makes Jinyoung think of princesses and fairytale endings, where a kiss fixed everything. Could it have fixed anything, in this case? But that's not important now.

Jinyoung opens the box and a clear tinkering fills the place. It’s one-dimensional and not good enough, compared to what he had before. “I miss him,” Jinyoung says, turning the box over in his hands but the music is sharp enough to drown him out.

f: b1a4, r: g, p: jinyoung/sandeul

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