[wip dump] things which i probably will not finish
su!fbb; hyunsoo/jihyuk
Hyunsoo may be brash, but he’s not a traitor.
When the Witch offers him a solo contract, a month after Eye Candy’s second single, he coldly rejects it on the spot, just like he did with Yerim’s duet. Truthfully, it could’ve easily been a different story-a month ago, with the aftermath of Byunghee’s death, Jihyuk’s constant fuck-all attitude towards their official duties as Eye Candy, and the necessity of his paycheck for his sister’s operation, his heart had been swaying. It’s tempting, and Hyunsoo’s human, but all the same, he swallows his traitorous desires and sends an icy glare back at the Witch for her proposal before making his way out of the room, fists clenched.
It’s true. Hyunsoo wants fame. He wants recognition. He wants to make his parents proud. He wants it all-but he also loves his band more, and just that for his friends is not a sacrifice he’s willing to make. More than fame, more than money, more than being played stupidly by the dirty hands of higher-ups, he values his unbudging loyalty towards his band, and, hard-admitted, he values Jihyuk.
“You okay?” Jihyuk asks when Hyunsoo walks back into their room. Hyunsoo sits on the bottom bunk and lies down, hands behind his head.
“Yeah.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Hyunsoo feels Jihyuk’s eyes fixating on him, regarding him with a steady gaze. Hyunsoo sighs and turns around so he’s facing the wall, hidden from Jihyuk’s intense inspection. It really couldn’t be that easy, fooling Jihyuk. They’d known each other the longest, understood each other the most (at least, until Byunghee), and there are no lies kept between them-there are no lies that can be kept between them.
Lies glared like neon signs on dark nights.
su!fbb; hyunsoo/jihyuk
Hyunsoo and Jihyuk have always been together. It was just a rule, unspoken, but preserved through small actions and wordless gestures. They're best friends, but sometimes, Hyunsoo thinks, their actions blur and they’re treading the fine line between just friends and something more.
“Yo, let’s go for a game of soccer,” Hyunsoo would say to Jihyuk, who’d always nod and follow Hyunsoo out with a grin and his sleeves rolled up.
But one day, Jihyuk doesn’t come out to play. Hyunsoo calls him, at two on a Saturday afternoon, to ask him to head to the arcade games and play a few rounds of Tekken or Initial D, but Jihyuk doesn’t pick up.
Jihyuk’s a bit strange recently, Hyunsoo notices. He’s slightly jumpy, fleeting guilty looks flashing over his face whenever Hyunsoo asked him about his weekend plans.
Hyunsoo has a baby sister to look after. His parents were never the best role models, but at least they tried, and managed to keep a roof over their heads, no matter how tinny, unstable, dirty the house was. They’re parents, and parents are there, just like he’s there for them.
He has a baby sister to look after, and a school to attend, guitar playing to perfect -- and a friend to grab onto so he doesn’t lose him completely.
infinite; disbandment; sunggyu-centric
Idol groups come, and idol groups go.
Some stick around for longer than others. Some have internal conflicts, disband, or the members leave one by one to pursue solo activities. Sometimes, they just don’t make it big enough, and they’re ripped apart and reformed, restructured, until they make it or break it.
Infinite is one of the lucky ones. Seven solid years of promotion, thirteen first-place wins on music shows, and eleven albums. In the entertainment industry, just lasting seven years as a group is kind of an achievement in itself.
Until one day, they find themselves aging, getting older, and they’re no longer the shining, youthful idols that graced national television screens seven years ago. Their earnestness and the boundless energy their rookie mindset gave them are lost amongst the years.
In one aspect, while being a sunbae group means they know the ropes, their once-fanatic fans are growing up with them and growing out of them. The demographics of the idol consumer audience always hovered around the teenage girls, frozen at the same age, and they went for the flashier, newer, younger idol groups.
Woollim decides that it’s too taxing to milk a dry cow -- so they turn their attentions on Infinite’s younger sister group instead. And just like that, Infinite is left high and dry.
“The group clause in your contracts are coming to a close,” they’re informed, “it’s been great having you with us, but Infinite’s no longer marketable at a profit. We can’t use you anymore.”
They’re all shocked initially, but deep down inside they know this is inevitable.
For Woohyun, who’s the one most adapted to the idol life and the most consistent singer out of them all, this is only a minor hiccup. He quickly moves companies and pursues a solo career -- after all, he’s the one who understood and wanted idol life the most. Howon and Dongwoo are disappointed, but both re-sign their contracts, this time as dance teachers, guide vocals and choreographers for Woollim’s upcoming boyband. Myungsoo lands an acting job in Japan. Sungjong continues with his radio show while enrolling in a late media production degree at university, and Sungyeol secures a few drama roles and works as an MC for a couple of music shows here and there. He has connections and smarts to warrant that he won’t be dropped that easily, and that slyness is a definite plus.
Then, it’s just Sunggyu.
In a way, Sunggyu’s glad that his stint as an idol is over. He hates pop music, hates the fakeness of it all. The sole reason he chose Woollim entertainment to sign with in the first place was because he admired Nell and wanted to pursue his own style of music -- and with idol-dom behind him, he could do exactly that.
Or so he wants to believe.
Sunggyu resigns his contract with Woollim (because it has to be Woollim), with an exclusive clause stating that he would be able to choose and produce the music that he likes. Finally, he thinks, maybe the years of singing songs on stage that aren’t exactly his style have paid off.
The problem is that Sunggyu is no longer the boy who rashly quit school and joined a band to pursue his love for music. He’s tasted the bitterness of reality, knows the harsh relentless push of the industry -- it also means he’s scared to take the chances his idealistic past self would have jumped on without a second thought. Seven years have made a big difference.
Another problem is that his fanbase is composed solely of women (once girls, they were, but now women), who followed idol groups more for their looks and variety skills than good music. And Sunggyu, without his members beside him to compensate for his lack of interaction, people lost interest, fast.
Two full albums and a digital single later, his sales are dwindling. He has a small, select group of fans who still buy his albums, but the rest of them quickly got bored of his lack of stage presence and stuttering interviews. It’s something he should’ve fixed long ago, but he hasn’t.
Two years on, and he’s in the midst of crashing and burning.
infinite; myungsoo/woohyun; myungsoo has a special ability
When Myungsoo is five, he notices that he's a bit unique.
"Miss, why does that girl have pink strings floating on her head?" he asks, but he's quickly told that he has an overactive imagination and that he "shouldn't make things up because lying is bad for little children".
"But I really see it," he protests.
“You’re a liar,” a boy in his class repeats gleefully at him during recess one day, “liar, liar, pants on fire!” He gives up and resigns himself to muted silence.
He just sits alone during lunchtimes and watches.
He sees wisps of green, waves of blue and dots of red. He doesn't like how the reds or the oranges act. Too loud, too emotionally intense -- too fast to get into playground fights. The blues and greens are more peaceful and easygoing. He thinks he would like them if he got to know them. He rarely sees browns or purples, but when he does, he just somehow knows they're reliable people. No one’s taught him, he just, knows.
It's the blacks and greys that scare him. Black is death and depression. He doesn’t feel anything from the greys. Grey’s just a big, huge void of nothing.
When Myungsoo is eleven, the colours start to fuse. The reds entwine with the greens, blues with the purples.
There’s a boy in his class called Lee Sungyeol. He’s always smiling on the outside, always joking around and playing games and pranks on the other classmates, but the colours surrounding him don’t match his bright expression. The sparks of yellow when he starts one of his pranks are perpetually overshadowed with dots and swirls of murky grey and pinpricks of black.
“You’re not happy,” he mutters to the boy one day, when they’re alone at the back of the classroom on cleaning duty. “I can see it, the colours tell me.”
Lee Sungyeol freezes up and throws his cleaning rag to the ground. A wave of black dots surge up at him.
“You’re not normal,” the boy spits viciously at him after an elongated silence, and there’s a little pang of hurt in Myungsoo’s chest. “I don’t want you in my head, Kim Myungsoo. Don’t ever talk to me again.”
Myungsoo never talks to the boy again. He stops talking to people in general. He observes and silently assesses, every day from his corner of the playground under the shade of the trees. On the day his teacher compliments the girl next to him on her assignment, saying it was “excellent, much better than anything I would expect from someone your age”, suspicious greys and blacks flicker into sight ever so slightly. When the class captain’s puppy dies, a cloud of blue envelops him. The blues turn shades darker until the wisps of colour around his body are navy and dense, like a thundercloud.
He doesn't like seeing so much. It feels intrusive. Unintentional, but much too intrusive, and he can’t shut it off.
When Myungsoo is sixteen, he meets Nam Woohyun.
It's the first day of semester, and Myungsoo's resigned himself to the back corner of the room, sitting alone at the lab desk, preparing to sleep on his chemistry textbook again. Around him the guys are throwing paper aeroplanes and making a ruckus, and the girls are gathered in groups. Their shrieks of laughter hurt his ears.
“Okay class, settle down please, and take your seats,” the chemistry teacher walks in, a timid cloud of pale blue floating over her head, and Myungsoo sighs a little. She’s a pushover.
Everyone grumbles, but they find a free spot at the labs and sit down. Myungsoo’s the only one without a partner. As usual, he thinks wryly, and lays his head down on an open page.
But then a boy walks in through the classroom door, grinning stupidly, and Myungsoo’s world does a little tumble turn.
He lifts his head up from his book and gapes stupidly as the boy bows to the teacher. He's never seen so many different radiant colours, and it makes his breath hitch in his throat. This boy is not simply a red, or orange, or yellow, or blue or green or anything. He’s not the two or three colours all the others are. He shines in technicolour.
“Latecomer, can you sit there, at the back?” The chemistry teacher points to the empty seat beside Myungsoo, and Myungsoo’s heart jolts in his chest from surprise.
“Yes ma’am, sorry.” The boy’s voice is sort of deep. The colours ripple.
He slides into the seat next to Myungsoo, and the heat from the yellows and oranges emanating from his body makes Myungsoo’s skin tingle.
“Hey,” the boy whispers and grins, extending a hand. Myungsoo stares at the fiery red encapsulating it, and reaches out to take it tentatively.
“My name’s Woohyun. Uh, I guess we’re lab partners for this semester. What’s your name?”
For Myungsoo, people are predictable. The colours tell him. It’s much too easy for him to see the ones who wear masks, the ones who play sugar sweet but would stab backs in an instant, the patient unsuspecting ones brimming with silent anger, hate and sometimes, scarily, intense killing intent.
Woohyun isn’t any of these things. He isn’t anything. Myungsoo doesn’t know what he is, and it’s both terrifying and exhilarating.
“Myungsoo,” he answers simply. “Kim Myungsoo.”