Game Theory
Title: Game Theory
Fandom: Super Junior
Pairing: Yesung/Ryeowook
It begins with a runaway. It begins with Ryeowook knocking on Yesung's door and Yesung opening it, expecting to see Ryeowook three years later, but all he can see is Ryeowook, young and lonely and not yet twenty in his eyes.
"Annyeong," Yesung says, pressing his fingers to his forehead, the faint thrum of a headache coming to life.
"Annyeong," Ryeowook says, crossing his arms over his chest, and Yesung steps aside to let him in.
"There are cockroaches in the attic," Ryeowook announces after he emerges from the shower, dressed in Yesung's clothes.
"I'm sorry," Yesung finally says after five minutes of Ryeowook trying to burn a hole into the book in his hand, "what were you saying?"
"There are cockroaches in the attic," Ryeowook repeats, "and I'm tired, and I want to go to sleep."
"You're welcome to take the couch," Yesung offers, turning his attention back to his book -- male aggression is regulated by testosterone, and is linked to sympathetic nervous system reactivity and hostility*, maybe Ryeowook has too much of it locked up tight somewhere in his bones -- and sparing Ryeowook the resigned sigh threatening to escape from his lips. Ryeowook scuffs the heel of his -- Yesung's -- slipper on the ground.
"You used to be nicer to me," Ryeowook says, taking a few steps forward, and Yesung turns the page.
"Let's play a game, hyung," Ryeowook says on the seventh day, dimpled smile, throaty laughter, fingers clenched around the grip of the revolver pointed to Yesung's head, and Yesung blinks, blearily, hearing the soft sound of a click.
He knows more than feels that he should be scared.
Annyeong, Yesung yawns, going back to sleep, and Ryeowook sends a prayer to mask his disappointment.
It's not hate, no. More like, indifference.
Which is the worst?
Observation is the first step, above all things. But Yesung can make room for allowances, can turn to qualitative methods, when he feels like it.
"It's funny, when I was a kid they never left me alone," Ryeowook says, turning his palms over, as if checking for something that doesn't exist, "but I think I don't trust a lot of people, now."
Yesung doesn't ask if Ryeowook trusts him or not. It has no meaning when you sit in the dining table eating breakfast made by a person who tried to kill you hours before. Instead, Yesung continues smoking and staring out of the window, and Ryeowook waits, patiently, for him to speak.
"We broke hearts for a living," Yesung says, grinding the cigarette on the surface of the table; it's expendable enough, "we broke hearts because we didn't know how to do anything else."
Was that what singing meant for you, Ryeowook's smile asks, and Yesung stretches his legs and thinks of wiping the smile off his face.
He reads about an experiment with a wire mother and a cloth mother and a baby monkey and he remembers thinking of attachment and what it means to him. Ryeowook might have loved him, once, but for his sake, it isn't so true now.
"Did you tell Kyuhyun you loved him, too?" Yesung asks, picking dirt out of his fingernails. Just a little more and maybe he could pull out the hangnail, too, only a little --
"Lots of times," Ryeowook says, resting his head on the armrest of the sofa, "I said it to Sungmin, too, when I felt like it."
"I didn't see you in the funeral," Yesung says, expression neutral, and he bites down into his skin, tearing it with force.
It's bleeding now. Oh dear.
Yesung is, by nature, a gambler.
Week two and it's Ryeowook who wakes up with the same gun to his head. Ryeowook counts the seconds between Yesung's breaths, but gives up when he realizes he can't hear Yesung, not when he's always been good at keeping himself hidden when he wanted to be invisible.
"I'm just playing your game," Yesung says, and on Ryeowook the words sound so helpless, so close-ended, but with Yesung, it's like it's the simplest thing in the world.
It scares him, but only a little.
This is a vicious cycle.
Hypothesis number 2759: the tongue is the most sensitive part of the body.
Yesung tests this out by pressing his lips against Ryeowook's, not quite registering the whiteness of Ryeowook's knuckles, the defiant set of his jaw. It's a fault he has yet to conquer; there is no room for imagination in this part of the method, no room for things he fancies as affection, not this time. He'll leave it to hermeneutics to define the tenderness in Ryeowook's mouth, the small permission he allows. What he needs to observe now is the texture of finality, and, most of all, he tastes --
Nothing.
The disappointment rises in his gut like well-wishing demons. Expectations fall short; experiments fail. It is inconclusive.
"Did you get what you were looking for?" Ryeowook asks, calmly, letting Yesung wipe away the trace of spit past the edge of his lips with the of his shirt, and Yesung shakes his head, watching the hair on Ryeowook's flesh stand when he breathes on his skin.
Better kisses could be gained for much less.
The assumption is that we are all rational beings. Yesung discards this long before Ryeowook appears on his doorstep, but rationality sometimes means less of logic, and more of self-interest.
The probability of self-preservation in Yesung's home is higher, but more for whom, Yesung wonders. Certainly not for himself, not when he knows too many things and Ryeowook would come to suspect but in the end all he can say, if Ryeowook asks, is that Kyuhyun committed suicide and so did Sungmin and that is the only things he knows, honest.
It's easier, that way.
Yesung falls in love three times before he realizes it is impossible, improbable, for it to even matter, not with dead men and difficult ones.
There is Kyuhyun and there is Sungmin and it could have been Ryeowook, once, but Yesung doesn't remember anymore. Some things, some memories get lost in the years of no communication, and after so long he thinks he can live without love, without intimacy. The idea behind it is vulnerability, and it never fits Yesung. He doesn't want to try.
All his loves are lost, in the end.
There goes week number three, in the softness of Ryeowook's skin, the quiet imprecations Yesung whispers into his deaf ears.
Spare the rod; he'll have his vengeance later.
The end of February. All things come to an end. Twenty eight days of nothing and now, finally, a break in four years. It will be enough to help him remember.
"I think if I told you I loved you," Ryeowook begins as he nurses a cup of coffee in the balcony, looking like the loneliest man in the world, "we would never have come to this point."
"No," Yesung says, approaching him quietly, "You would have been dead, long ago, and two people would still be alive."
What makes you think I would have let you kill me? Ryeowook's eyes narrow, irritated. "How long have you known?" Ryeowook asks, fingering the rim of the mug, and Yesung shrugs.
"A year. Two. I'm not a recluse, after all," Yesung says, "I still watch TV, read the news. Hear things from Heechul."
I've misjudged you, the slump of Ryeowook's shoulders say, and Yesung fiddles with the phone in his hand, staring at Ryeowook's bony fingers, calloused and worn.
"Did they ever realize you were never joking?" Yesung asks, watching Ryeowook with careful eyes as Ryeowook sets his mug down on the nearest table.
"Never," Ryeowook confesses, and Yesung thinks this is all a game, every single thing.
The similarity between games and experiments is that you can still control the variables in it, to an extent. If it gets out of hand, Yesung doesn't know if it even makes a difference.
So let him try to add an independent variable in it. Let him call it mercy. Ryeowook doesn't deserve it, but --
"You can still get out," Yesung says, "there's still an option."
"You would have let me run, three years ago," Ryeowook laughs, a short bark, and nothing more, and Yesung thinks of Kyuhyun and Sungmin and of justice and of how everything has no purpose and how everyone always leaves and feels a migraine coming, too slow, too sharp.
The world is clearer when there is no silence. He can't think.
"That doesn't mean a thing," Yesung says, pressing the revolver into Ryeowook's palm, old-fashioned games that kill when they least expect it to but maybe it was fate, maybe they were leading up to this point, after all.
"Annyeong," Ryeowook says, and hears the sharp click of a gun, and then there's not a sound.
"I think I," he begins, and someone places a hand over his heart, saying, "no, you don't."
Out of sight, out of mind.
*Santrock, J. (2003). Psychology 7. NY: McGraw-Hill.
Fandom: Super Junior
Pairing: Yesung/Ryeowook
It begins with a runaway. It begins with Ryeowook knocking on Yesung's door and Yesung opening it, expecting to see Ryeowook three years later, but all he can see is Ryeowook, young and lonely and not yet twenty in his eyes.
"Annyeong," Yesung says, pressing his fingers to his forehead, the faint thrum of a headache coming to life.
"Annyeong," Ryeowook says, crossing his arms over his chest, and Yesung steps aside to let him in.
"There are cockroaches in the attic," Ryeowook announces after he emerges from the shower, dressed in Yesung's clothes.
"I'm sorry," Yesung finally says after five minutes of Ryeowook trying to burn a hole into the book in his hand, "what were you saying?"
"There are cockroaches in the attic," Ryeowook repeats, "and I'm tired, and I want to go to sleep."
"You're welcome to take the couch," Yesung offers, turning his attention back to his book -- male aggression is regulated by testosterone, and is linked to sympathetic nervous system reactivity and hostility*, maybe Ryeowook has too much of it locked up tight somewhere in his bones -- and sparing Ryeowook the resigned sigh threatening to escape from his lips. Ryeowook scuffs the heel of his -- Yesung's -- slipper on the ground.
"You used to be nicer to me," Ryeowook says, taking a few steps forward, and Yesung turns the page.
"Let's play a game, hyung," Ryeowook says on the seventh day, dimpled smile, throaty laughter, fingers clenched around the grip of the revolver pointed to Yesung's head, and Yesung blinks, blearily, hearing the soft sound of a click.
He knows more than feels that he should be scared.
Annyeong, Yesung yawns, going back to sleep, and Ryeowook sends a prayer to mask his disappointment.
It's not hate, no. More like, indifference.
Which is the worst?
Observation is the first step, above all things. But Yesung can make room for allowances, can turn to qualitative methods, when he feels like it.
"It's funny, when I was a kid they never left me alone," Ryeowook says, turning his palms over, as if checking for something that doesn't exist, "but I think I don't trust a lot of people, now."
Yesung doesn't ask if Ryeowook trusts him or not. It has no meaning when you sit in the dining table eating breakfast made by a person who tried to kill you hours before. Instead, Yesung continues smoking and staring out of the window, and Ryeowook waits, patiently, for him to speak.
"We broke hearts for a living," Yesung says, grinding the cigarette on the surface of the table; it's expendable enough, "we broke hearts because we didn't know how to do anything else."
Was that what singing meant for you, Ryeowook's smile asks, and Yesung stretches his legs and thinks of wiping the smile off his face.
He reads about an experiment with a wire mother and a cloth mother and a baby monkey and he remembers thinking of attachment and what it means to him. Ryeowook might have loved him, once, but for his sake, it isn't so true now.
"Did you tell Kyuhyun you loved him, too?" Yesung asks, picking dirt out of his fingernails. Just a little more and maybe he could pull out the hangnail, too, only a little --
"Lots of times," Ryeowook says, resting his head on the armrest of the sofa, "I said it to Sungmin, too, when I felt like it."
"I didn't see you in the funeral," Yesung says, expression neutral, and he bites down into his skin, tearing it with force.
It's bleeding now. Oh dear.
Yesung is, by nature, a gambler.
Week two and it's Ryeowook who wakes up with the same gun to his head. Ryeowook counts the seconds between Yesung's breaths, but gives up when he realizes he can't hear Yesung, not when he's always been good at keeping himself hidden when he wanted to be invisible.
"I'm just playing your game," Yesung says, and on Ryeowook the words sound so helpless, so close-ended, but with Yesung, it's like it's the simplest thing in the world.
It scares him, but only a little.
This is a vicious cycle.
Hypothesis number 2759: the tongue is the most sensitive part of the body.
Yesung tests this out by pressing his lips against Ryeowook's, not quite registering the whiteness of Ryeowook's knuckles, the defiant set of his jaw. It's a fault he has yet to conquer; there is no room for imagination in this part of the method, no room for things he fancies as affection, not this time. He'll leave it to hermeneutics to define the tenderness in Ryeowook's mouth, the small permission he allows. What he needs to observe now is the texture of finality, and, most of all, he tastes --
Nothing.
The disappointment rises in his gut like well-wishing demons. Expectations fall short; experiments fail. It is inconclusive.
"Did you get what you were looking for?" Ryeowook asks, calmly, letting Yesung wipe away the trace of spit past the edge of his lips with the of his shirt, and Yesung shakes his head, watching the hair on Ryeowook's flesh stand when he breathes on his skin.
Better kisses could be gained for much less.
The assumption is that we are all rational beings. Yesung discards this long before Ryeowook appears on his doorstep, but rationality sometimes means less of logic, and more of self-interest.
The probability of self-preservation in Yesung's home is higher, but more for whom, Yesung wonders. Certainly not for himself, not when he knows too many things and Ryeowook would come to suspect but in the end all he can say, if Ryeowook asks, is that Kyuhyun committed suicide and so did Sungmin and that is the only things he knows, honest.
It's easier, that way.
Yesung falls in love three times before he realizes it is impossible, improbable, for it to even matter, not with dead men and difficult ones.
There is Kyuhyun and there is Sungmin and it could have been Ryeowook, once, but Yesung doesn't remember anymore. Some things, some memories get lost in the years of no communication, and after so long he thinks he can live without love, without intimacy. The idea behind it is vulnerability, and it never fits Yesung. He doesn't want to try.
All his loves are lost, in the end.
There goes week number three, in the softness of Ryeowook's skin, the quiet imprecations Yesung whispers into his deaf ears.
Spare the rod; he'll have his vengeance later.
The end of February. All things come to an end. Twenty eight days of nothing and now, finally, a break in four years. It will be enough to help him remember.
"I think if I told you I loved you," Ryeowook begins as he nurses a cup of coffee in the balcony, looking like the loneliest man in the world, "we would never have come to this point."
"No," Yesung says, approaching him quietly, "You would have been dead, long ago, and two people would still be alive."
What makes you think I would have let you kill me? Ryeowook's eyes narrow, irritated. "How long have you known?" Ryeowook asks, fingering the rim of the mug, and Yesung shrugs.
"A year. Two. I'm not a recluse, after all," Yesung says, "I still watch TV, read the news. Hear things from Heechul."
I've misjudged you, the slump of Ryeowook's shoulders say, and Yesung fiddles with the phone in his hand, staring at Ryeowook's bony fingers, calloused and worn.
"Did they ever realize you were never joking?" Yesung asks, watching Ryeowook with careful eyes as Ryeowook sets his mug down on the nearest table.
"Never," Ryeowook confesses, and Yesung thinks this is all a game, every single thing.
The similarity between games and experiments is that you can still control the variables in it, to an extent. If it gets out of hand, Yesung doesn't know if it even makes a difference.
So let him try to add an independent variable in it. Let him call it mercy. Ryeowook doesn't deserve it, but --
"You can still get out," Yesung says, "there's still an option."
"You would have let me run, three years ago," Ryeowook laughs, a short bark, and nothing more, and Yesung thinks of Kyuhyun and Sungmin and of justice and of how everything has no purpose and how everyone always leaves and feels a migraine coming, too slow, too sharp.
The world is clearer when there is no silence. He can't think.
"That doesn't mean a thing," Yesung says, pressing the revolver into Ryeowook's palm, old-fashioned games that kill when they least expect it to but maybe it was fate, maybe they were leading up to this point, after all.
"Annyeong," Ryeowook says, and hears the sharp click of a gun, and then there's not a sound.
"I think I," he begins, and someone places a hand over his heart, saying, "no, you don't."
Out of sight, out of mind.
*Santrock, J. (2003). Psychology 7. NY: McGraw-Hill.