white walls; [onew/jonghyun]
white walls
onew/jonghyun; pg-13
2,839 words
Summary: Jonghyun loses his voice, and other faculties. (WARNING: there is death and general fuckery ahead). For pinkweather. I'm sorry, this just turned out... weird. :\
Jonghyun loses his voice midway through singing in the shower. One minute he's belting out the latest from the Brown Eyed Girls, complete with a loofa as a makeshift mic, and the next he's clutching his throat and choking on air and water.
He turns the water off with trembling fingers, closes his eyes, counts to ten in his head and tries not to slip as he steps out of the tub. He hurriedly towels off, and when the fluffy cloth touches the curve of his neck he tries to breathe out words, any mundane thing that came to mind - radiation, hello, G clef, bicycle, replay replay replay - and then a burning sensation rapidly devours the muscles of his throat, working its way up his tongue until he can taste the acidity of nothing.
He lets the towel fall to the floor, grips the edge of the sink until his knuckles turn bone white. Every muscle in his body shrinks, all the energy rushing to his hands. The walls are still white. His knees wobble. His eyes sting. He is changing and mutating and digging half-moons on his palm and fucking what is happening.
The walls are still white.
He pushes his lungs to the limit. He is screaming, long gusts of air that bounce off the tiles. He pounds fists on his stomach, hoping to stimulate his diaphragm. Then he tries hopping around like a lunatic until he's about to collapse from lack of air. After he's done catching his breath, he tries saying "Help," but nothing comes out. His last resort is to sit on the toilet and scratch angry red lines down from his jaw to his collarbone.
An hour passes, and Kibum barks curses from the other side of the door - "Jonghyun, what the hell? Get out, it's my turn!". He's stuffed a wash cloth into his mouth because it's all red and raw and disgusting now and Kibum will tease him later about it. The annoying shrieking won't stop until he opens the door, so he does, finally.
"What took you so... long..." The words die on Kibum's lips, and his change of clothes falls to the floor.
Kibum reaches out with a hand on his mouth, touches the jagged lines down his neck, and he flinches, backs away. Kibum's eyes are wide and teary, and he calls for Jinki and Taemin and Minho to come quick, please, quickly, hurry up, jesus fuck.
Behind them, nothing has changed. The walls are still white.
-
He expects nothing less from Jinki, who attends to him with careful hands and a steady gaze. The lines are still raw and the rubbing alcohol does nothing to soothe the scorching feeling, but the smoothness of Jinki's fingers is enough to keep him comfortable.
"Jjong, you don't have to worry," Jinki is murmuring, bringing the blankets up to his chest as he climbs into his bed, "Maybe this is just your voice's way of telling you that it's tired. It'll come back soon."
He trains a blank gaze on Jinki, and Jinki drops the cloth. He has the most pitiful look on his face, one that Jonghyun has seen far too often to not recognize. Jonghyun nods, and tries on a tiny smile for size.
Jinki's smile is bigger and fits him better. "The doctor will probably tell you it's some weird allergy." He leans forward and stage whispers, "You can tell me if you have break out in hives over Kibummie's shampoo and this is a side effect. I promise I won't tell. I'll just throw it out in secret - oh, don't give me that look. I can totally do it. Don't you know I'm a government spy? This is what we do all the time. Singer by day, spy --"
He hits Jinki with a pillow. Jinki tries to duck but gets hit square on the face instead. In a matter of seconds, he goes from assaulting Jinki with his pillow to being trapped underneath him, arms above his head and Jinki's knee between his legs. He scrunches his face in protest, furrows his brows as deep as he can in order to convey his displeasure, and it must look grotesquely funny as Jinki blinks in surprise, then laughs as he comes closer, breath warm on his cheek.
"I'm not used to the quiet," Jinki says, rolling onto his side, running fingers through his hair. Then Jinki's there again, invading his bubble just so, like he's always been inside without him knowing. "But it's kind of nice."
There is normally nothing special about the fall of Jinki's shoulders, nothing worth looking at in the slope of his arms. But under the dim light of their room, under the silence blanketing the air, the feel of his lips is enough to wake the deadened senses, unclench the tightly wound knots in his body. When they pull apart, his hand is fisted in front of Jinki's sweater, and he's living in a fairytale, he opens his mouth to say -
Air and bits of saliva dry on Jinki's mouth.
He remembers: Jinki is no prince on a white steed, and fairytales are for girls.
-
Four doctors in a week and they all say the same thing: there is nothing wrong with him. Outwardly they all tell him different things - possible allergies, fatigue, extreme case of sore throat, a foreign object lodged in his throat which can disappear through surgery. His members all balked at the last one, but he remained indifferent. He knew he wasn't suffering from allergies or soreness, and there certainly was nothing unusual in his throat, and if they performed x-ray tests on him, they'd know he was right.
He is perfectly okay, except for the fact that his voice is missing.
Their manager sends everyone else in for check-ups in a fit of panic, thinking that whatever he has is contagious. Minho has a small cough and Kibum is nursing a mild burn from when he got too close to the glue gun during an accessory-making session, but otherwise everyone is in tip-top condition.
"You can still dance?" Their manager looks down at him, and he tries not to squirm as he nods. "Then I have a solution to the live problem."
He mouths lipsync and tilts his head to underline the query.
"Yes, that." Their manager is pacing now, feet shuffling impatiently on the carpet. "Your voice will be back by the time you record the new mini-album at least." I hope hangs unsaid, and Jonghyun swallows his spit for the nth time in the last thirty minutes since he's been called inside the office.
Their manager fishes his cellphone out of his pocket and tells him to stay put as he goes outside and makes a call to the main office.
He sits back and tries to hum. Still nothing. He stares at the walls. If he looks hard enough without blinking, the neon spots in his eyes fade to white.
-
He becomes stagnant after one month. Management is up in arms over his condition, calling it some rare form of virus. The press is suspicious and the gossip blogs are eating it all up - could he have gotten a girl pregnant? Did he get into a fight with the other members? However, the company is always one step ahead and has managed to hide it for so long by making up the best of excuses - he's sick with the swine flu, and he's gone back to his parents.
In reality, he's only under house arrest in their own apartment. When he is really bored he'd mouth the lyrics to their own songs as he danced by himself in the living room. And when he is bored enough to count the flakes of paint on the ceiling, he'd pretend the armchair is Taemin and he'd dodge and turn around it while trying to remember the formation. The fruit bowl is Kibum, and he would mouth insults as he peeled off fruit skins - yellow doesn't suit you, try being purple, he'd say to a banana. Minho would be the random magazine on the table top, meaning hidden beneath unassuming covers. And Jinki -
Jinki is the cushion, warm and comfortable and easing him into a state of relaxed calm. Sometimes the foam would dip and he'd slide until his head is inches from the floor, and he didn't know until then that a cushion could fail as much.
Thank you, he'd say, mouth moving against ridges of stiff thread.
-
The walls aren't so white anymore because of them.
They sing to him sometimes. Not the other guys, no, but the people in his head. They whisper to him in pretty voices, telling him which channel to go to, what song to play on his iPod next. He recognizes them as the lurking shadows in his dreams, but he finds that they're gentle and soothing at the right moments. They told him what to say, how to twist his face in order to convey the right emotion he's trying to get across. They stand in for what he's lost. Poor replacements, but it's better than nothing.
The bad thing is they played with his head often, teasing and taunting him when he was alone, imitating his singing. In those moments, he'd tell himself that they weren't real.
The dullness inside him is getting too heavy and thick, warning him that something is about to happen, raging and fuming and coming at him. Figments of his imagination. Right. Yes.
Even if imaginary, they're still enough to ward off his sleep. It's 3 AM and he's leaning against the counter drinking cold milk when a shadow passes by his feet. His milk spills off the rim as he jerks backward. In the safety of his mind he's shrieking out prayers his mother whispered to him as she sat at the foot of his bed, when he was young and small and had dreams about candyfloss and toy cars.
You lie with me in bed. You hide under my sheets. You sleep with me. You touch my dreams. Leave me alone, he says, and it comes out of him in short, quick gasps, molding his words in the cold, dark air.
"Jonghyun? Why are you awake?" It's Jinki, and he's crossed the room, arms outstretched until they wind around his back. "You're shivering. Cold?"
He shakes his head. He doesn't dare look at Jinki.
He's guided out of the kitchen and into Jinki's bed. He sits bolt upright, even as he nods when Jinki makes him promise to go to sleep - don't worry, I'm right here, it'll be back soon, don't go looking for it, it'll be back when you least expect it.
He wants to wake Kibum and Taemin and Minho up. He wants to squeeze into all of their beds, wants all of them to squeeze into Jinki's bed until limbs dangle off the edges. He wants to wake them all up and demand that they talk to him, sing to him even in their sleep, anything to be reminded of -
Once (and once feels so long ago), he was - is - was alive.
-
He flings a glass of water on the wall the first time he hears their new song. Their new song without him.
"Hyung, calm down -" Minho's arms are wrapped around his waist, and Taemin is avoiding his gaze as he sweeps the bits of glass off the floor. Kibum is shaking him by the shoulders and yelling at him to come to his senses.
"Just because you can't talk doesn't give you the right to lose it." Kibum's eyes glitter, lower lip quivering. He swipes his thumb over the corner of his eyes and brings it away glistening. "Y-you're not out of the group just because you're... like this."
"SHINee is not SHINee without you," Minho adds, and he's in danger of suffocating from the tight hold.
"Always us five, or nothing. Okay?" Kibum says, and Jonghyun knows that it all it takes now for him to break down into itty-bitty pieces is a single poke. "Do you get me, Jjong?"
Jonghyun doesn't really understand. Like a code to decipher from a person who thought he spoke clearly. Jonghyun knows better. How could it be shining SHINee, always forever eternity and a day, when they did a song - an entire goddamned album - without him? He's missed his mark on history, it shot past him and vanished in a flicker.
You could have waited for me, he says.
Acid spit burns holes on his tongue, knawing at his cheek. It should have been the same for Kibum, but he just recoils in surprise and wipes it off his cheek.
-
He goes back to his parents in the end. It's been two months, and the company has tweaked its tune - he's taking a six-month break to 'recuperate.' Gifts and get well soon cards litter their doorstep every morning, and he's used to seeing colorful construction paper and flowers every morning during breakfast.
"Your fans are so loving," his mother remarks, sighing dreamily as she sifts through the cards for him. "Now you concentrate on getting better so you'll give all of them a good show when you make your comeback." She passes him a bowl of bulgogi and vegetables as she wraps a rubber band around stacks of cards.
He furiously scribbles on a whiteboard with his right hand as he spoons soup into his mouth with his left - I don't think I'm gonna get better, mom.
His mother slaps him upside the head gently. "Nonsense! Your father and I pray every night, Jonghyunnie. Every night. Do you even pray anymore? Maybe that's why it's taking longer for you to recover, young man."
He turns away. Any idiot can pray. Any idiot can rub a lamp and wish for a genie to come out of smoke.
That night, he kneels at the foot of his bed, stares up at the cross plastered on the wall.
He's never noticed before how white his walls are.
-
Jinki comes to visit a week after he's moved back.
"I'm sorry, Jonghyun-ah," he says, soft and apologetic, "Taemin, Kibum and Minho are busy with a radio show today. They're coming tomorrow, though. Do you want us to bring anything?"
He's misplaced his wishes somewhere in between loving Jinki and generally loathing him and all of the others. Instead of a proper reply, he seizes Jinki by the waist and kisses him, hard and fast, as he tries to imprint every moment in his memory: Jinki's noise of surprise at the back of his throat, his hands clutching onto his scalp, clinging onto the soft fabric of his shirt. The air crackles with possibility. There is nothing and everything between them.
I'm sorry, he breathes against Jinki's lips. Today, the arteries leading to his heart are wound around Jinki's finger.
I'm sorry, Jinki says, shivering as he trails soft kisses down his neck. Tomorrow, Jinki will trip across his desire on the doormat of their apartment.
He strokes his fingers over Jinki's lips, rubbing imprints on Jinki's skin until he's certain it can't be rubbed away.
Today, he's alive.
Jinki sings to him hours later. He sounds clear and beautiful and it reminds him of chapel bells caroling in foreign towns. His eyes shine like impossible little stars - Jonghyun thinks he can't ever see the world though his eyes; there's too much light in them and he'd go blind in addition to being mute.
Shadows dance on the walls, towering beyond them, conspiring to instruct his response.
He springs forward, fingers locking around Jinki's neck. As Jinki opens his mouth in a wordless cry, he echoes it, a parody of Jinki's pain. He swears he hears both their screams, ripped from their centers.
Jinki's face matches the stark pale of the walls, lips gray when he wrenches his fingers away.
He waits, counts along with the ones in his head.
And then -
Ah, there he is.
Want me to sing another song?" Jink says, and his smile makes him blush.
I'm in the mood for Romeo + Juliette today. He grins. Think you can handle that?
Jinki laughs. You don't need to ask.
Everyone is quiet today. Special occasion, they hiss cheekily, before disappearing into the recesses of some unknown abyss.
Jinki's song rises above the noise, and finally, finally he can sleep.
onew/jonghyun; pg-13
2,839 words
Summary: Jonghyun loses his voice, and other faculties. (WARNING: there is death and general fuckery ahead). For pinkweather. I'm sorry, this just turned out... weird. :\
Jonghyun loses his voice midway through singing in the shower. One minute he's belting out the latest from the Brown Eyed Girls, complete with a loofa as a makeshift mic, and the next he's clutching his throat and choking on air and water.
He turns the water off with trembling fingers, closes his eyes, counts to ten in his head and tries not to slip as he steps out of the tub. He hurriedly towels off, and when the fluffy cloth touches the curve of his neck he tries to breathe out words, any mundane thing that came to mind - radiation, hello, G clef, bicycle, replay replay replay - and then a burning sensation rapidly devours the muscles of his throat, working its way up his tongue until he can taste the acidity of nothing.
He lets the towel fall to the floor, grips the edge of the sink until his knuckles turn bone white. Every muscle in his body shrinks, all the energy rushing to his hands. The walls are still white. His knees wobble. His eyes sting. He is changing and mutating and digging half-moons on his palm and fucking what is happening.
The walls are still white.
He pushes his lungs to the limit. He is screaming, long gusts of air that bounce off the tiles. He pounds fists on his stomach, hoping to stimulate his diaphragm. Then he tries hopping around like a lunatic until he's about to collapse from lack of air. After he's done catching his breath, he tries saying "Help," but nothing comes out. His last resort is to sit on the toilet and scratch angry red lines down from his jaw to his collarbone.
An hour passes, and Kibum barks curses from the other side of the door - "Jonghyun, what the hell? Get out, it's my turn!". He's stuffed a wash cloth into his mouth because it's all red and raw and disgusting now and Kibum will tease him later about it. The annoying shrieking won't stop until he opens the door, so he does, finally.
"What took you so... long..." The words die on Kibum's lips, and his change of clothes falls to the floor.
Kibum reaches out with a hand on his mouth, touches the jagged lines down his neck, and he flinches, backs away. Kibum's eyes are wide and teary, and he calls for Jinki and Taemin and Minho to come quick, please, quickly, hurry up, jesus fuck.
Behind them, nothing has changed. The walls are still white.
-
He expects nothing less from Jinki, who attends to him with careful hands and a steady gaze. The lines are still raw and the rubbing alcohol does nothing to soothe the scorching feeling, but the smoothness of Jinki's fingers is enough to keep him comfortable.
"Jjong, you don't have to worry," Jinki is murmuring, bringing the blankets up to his chest as he climbs into his bed, "Maybe this is just your voice's way of telling you that it's tired. It'll come back soon."
He trains a blank gaze on Jinki, and Jinki drops the cloth. He has the most pitiful look on his face, one that Jonghyun has seen far too often to not recognize. Jonghyun nods, and tries on a tiny smile for size.
Jinki's smile is bigger and fits him better. "The doctor will probably tell you it's some weird allergy." He leans forward and stage whispers, "You can tell me if you have break out in hives over Kibummie's shampoo and this is a side effect. I promise I won't tell. I'll just throw it out in secret - oh, don't give me that look. I can totally do it. Don't you know I'm a government spy? This is what we do all the time. Singer by day, spy --"
He hits Jinki with a pillow. Jinki tries to duck but gets hit square on the face instead. In a matter of seconds, he goes from assaulting Jinki with his pillow to being trapped underneath him, arms above his head and Jinki's knee between his legs. He scrunches his face in protest, furrows his brows as deep as he can in order to convey his displeasure, and it must look grotesquely funny as Jinki blinks in surprise, then laughs as he comes closer, breath warm on his cheek.
"I'm not used to the quiet," Jinki says, rolling onto his side, running fingers through his hair. Then Jinki's there again, invading his bubble just so, like he's always been inside without him knowing. "But it's kind of nice."
There is normally nothing special about the fall of Jinki's shoulders, nothing worth looking at in the slope of his arms. But under the dim light of their room, under the silence blanketing the air, the feel of his lips is enough to wake the deadened senses, unclench the tightly wound knots in his body. When they pull apart, his hand is fisted in front of Jinki's sweater, and he's living in a fairytale, he opens his mouth to say -
Air and bits of saliva dry on Jinki's mouth.
He remembers: Jinki is no prince on a white steed, and fairytales are for girls.
-
Four doctors in a week and they all say the same thing: there is nothing wrong with him. Outwardly they all tell him different things - possible allergies, fatigue, extreme case of sore throat, a foreign object lodged in his throat which can disappear through surgery. His members all balked at the last one, but he remained indifferent. He knew he wasn't suffering from allergies or soreness, and there certainly was nothing unusual in his throat, and if they performed x-ray tests on him, they'd know he was right.
He is perfectly okay, except for the fact that his voice is missing.
Their manager sends everyone else in for check-ups in a fit of panic, thinking that whatever he has is contagious. Minho has a small cough and Kibum is nursing a mild burn from when he got too close to the glue gun during an accessory-making session, but otherwise everyone is in tip-top condition.
"You can still dance?" Their manager looks down at him, and he tries not to squirm as he nods. "Then I have a solution to the live problem."
He mouths lipsync and tilts his head to underline the query.
"Yes, that." Their manager is pacing now, feet shuffling impatiently on the carpet. "Your voice will be back by the time you record the new mini-album at least." I hope hangs unsaid, and Jonghyun swallows his spit for the nth time in the last thirty minutes since he's been called inside the office.
Their manager fishes his cellphone out of his pocket and tells him to stay put as he goes outside and makes a call to the main office.
He sits back and tries to hum. Still nothing. He stares at the walls. If he looks hard enough without blinking, the neon spots in his eyes fade to white.
-
He becomes stagnant after one month. Management is up in arms over his condition, calling it some rare form of virus. The press is suspicious and the gossip blogs are eating it all up - could he have gotten a girl pregnant? Did he get into a fight with the other members? However, the company is always one step ahead and has managed to hide it for so long by making up the best of excuses - he's sick with the swine flu, and he's gone back to his parents.
In reality, he's only under house arrest in their own apartment. When he is really bored he'd mouth the lyrics to their own songs as he danced by himself in the living room. And when he is bored enough to count the flakes of paint on the ceiling, he'd pretend the armchair is Taemin and he'd dodge and turn around it while trying to remember the formation. The fruit bowl is Kibum, and he would mouth insults as he peeled off fruit skins - yellow doesn't suit you, try being purple, he'd say to a banana. Minho would be the random magazine on the table top, meaning hidden beneath unassuming covers. And Jinki -
Jinki is the cushion, warm and comfortable and easing him into a state of relaxed calm. Sometimes the foam would dip and he'd slide until his head is inches from the floor, and he didn't know until then that a cushion could fail as much.
Thank you, he'd say, mouth moving against ridges of stiff thread.
-
The walls aren't so white anymore because of them.
They sing to him sometimes. Not the other guys, no, but the people in his head. They whisper to him in pretty voices, telling him which channel to go to, what song to play on his iPod next. He recognizes them as the lurking shadows in his dreams, but he finds that they're gentle and soothing at the right moments. They told him what to say, how to twist his face in order to convey the right emotion he's trying to get across. They stand in for what he's lost. Poor replacements, but it's better than nothing.
The bad thing is they played with his head often, teasing and taunting him when he was alone, imitating his singing. In those moments, he'd tell himself that they weren't real.
The dullness inside him is getting too heavy and thick, warning him that something is about to happen, raging and fuming and coming at him. Figments of his imagination. Right. Yes.
Even if imaginary, they're still enough to ward off his sleep. It's 3 AM and he's leaning against the counter drinking cold milk when a shadow passes by his feet. His milk spills off the rim as he jerks backward. In the safety of his mind he's shrieking out prayers his mother whispered to him as she sat at the foot of his bed, when he was young and small and had dreams about candyfloss and toy cars.
You lie with me in bed. You hide under my sheets. You sleep with me. You touch my dreams. Leave me alone, he says, and it comes out of him in short, quick gasps, molding his words in the cold, dark air.
"Jonghyun? Why are you awake?" It's Jinki, and he's crossed the room, arms outstretched until they wind around his back. "You're shivering. Cold?"
He shakes his head. He doesn't dare look at Jinki.
He's guided out of the kitchen and into Jinki's bed. He sits bolt upright, even as he nods when Jinki makes him promise to go to sleep - don't worry, I'm right here, it'll be back soon, don't go looking for it, it'll be back when you least expect it.
He wants to wake Kibum and Taemin and Minho up. He wants to squeeze into all of their beds, wants all of them to squeeze into Jinki's bed until limbs dangle off the edges. He wants to wake them all up and demand that they talk to him, sing to him even in their sleep, anything to be reminded of -
Once (and once feels so long ago), he was - is - was alive.
-
He flings a glass of water on the wall the first time he hears their new song. Their new song without him.
"Hyung, calm down -" Minho's arms are wrapped around his waist, and Taemin is avoiding his gaze as he sweeps the bits of glass off the floor. Kibum is shaking him by the shoulders and yelling at him to come to his senses.
"Just because you can't talk doesn't give you the right to lose it." Kibum's eyes glitter, lower lip quivering. He swipes his thumb over the corner of his eyes and brings it away glistening. "Y-you're not out of the group just because you're... like this."
"SHINee is not SHINee without you," Minho adds, and he's in danger of suffocating from the tight hold.
"Always us five, or nothing. Okay?" Kibum says, and Jonghyun knows that it all it takes now for him to break down into itty-bitty pieces is a single poke. "Do you get me, Jjong?"
Jonghyun doesn't really understand. Like a code to decipher from a person who thought he spoke clearly. Jonghyun knows better. How could it be shining SHINee, always forever eternity and a day, when they did a song - an entire goddamned album - without him? He's missed his mark on history, it shot past him and vanished in a flicker.
You could have waited for me, he says.
Acid spit burns holes on his tongue, knawing at his cheek. It should have been the same for Kibum, but he just recoils in surprise and wipes it off his cheek.
-
He goes back to his parents in the end. It's been two months, and the company has tweaked its tune - he's taking a six-month break to 'recuperate.' Gifts and get well soon cards litter their doorstep every morning, and he's used to seeing colorful construction paper and flowers every morning during breakfast.
"Your fans are so loving," his mother remarks, sighing dreamily as she sifts through the cards for him. "Now you concentrate on getting better so you'll give all of them a good show when you make your comeback." She passes him a bowl of bulgogi and vegetables as she wraps a rubber band around stacks of cards.
He furiously scribbles on a whiteboard with his right hand as he spoons soup into his mouth with his left - I don't think I'm gonna get better, mom.
His mother slaps him upside the head gently. "Nonsense! Your father and I pray every night, Jonghyunnie. Every night. Do you even pray anymore? Maybe that's why it's taking longer for you to recover, young man."
He turns away. Any idiot can pray. Any idiot can rub a lamp and wish for a genie to come out of smoke.
That night, he kneels at the foot of his bed, stares up at the cross plastered on the wall.
He's never noticed before how white his walls are.
-
Jinki comes to visit a week after he's moved back.
"I'm sorry, Jonghyun-ah," he says, soft and apologetic, "Taemin, Kibum and Minho are busy with a radio show today. They're coming tomorrow, though. Do you want us to bring anything?"
He's misplaced his wishes somewhere in between loving Jinki and generally loathing him and all of the others. Instead of a proper reply, he seizes Jinki by the waist and kisses him, hard and fast, as he tries to imprint every moment in his memory: Jinki's noise of surprise at the back of his throat, his hands clutching onto his scalp, clinging onto the soft fabric of his shirt. The air crackles with possibility. There is nothing and everything between them.
I'm sorry, he breathes against Jinki's lips. Today, the arteries leading to his heart are wound around Jinki's finger.
I'm sorry, Jinki says, shivering as he trails soft kisses down his neck. Tomorrow, Jinki will trip across his desire on the doormat of their apartment.
He strokes his fingers over Jinki's lips, rubbing imprints on Jinki's skin until he's certain it can't be rubbed away.
Today, he's alive.
Jinki sings to him hours later. He sounds clear and beautiful and it reminds him of chapel bells caroling in foreign towns. His eyes shine like impossible little stars - Jonghyun thinks he can't ever see the world though his eyes; there's too much light in them and he'd go blind in addition to being mute.
Shadows dance on the walls, towering beyond them, conspiring to instruct his response.
He springs forward, fingers locking around Jinki's neck. As Jinki opens his mouth in a wordless cry, he echoes it, a parody of Jinki's pain. He swears he hears both their screams, ripped from their centers.
Jinki's face matches the stark pale of the walls, lips gray when he wrenches his fingers away.
He waits, counts along with the ones in his head.
And then -
Ah, there he is.
Want me to sing another song?" Jink says, and his smile makes him blush.
I'm in the mood for Romeo + Juliette today. He grins. Think you can handle that?
Jinki laughs. You don't need to ask.
Everyone is quiet today. Special occasion, they hiss cheekily, before disappearing into the recesses of some unknown abyss.
Jinki's song rises above the noise, and finally, finally he can sleep.