ISS 2011: FOR YEOLBEAR
To: yeolbear
From: Your Secret Santa
Title: Personalized Labels
Pairing/Focus: Myungsoo/Sungyeol
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 6700+
Summary: He slips in and out of names trying to find the one that finally fits him.
He decides to test uncharted territory the week after he turns 17. He lets himself get lost in the middle of downtown and stops to sample an appetizer and then has dessert in another shop simply to explore. It's all fairly cheap, something he had not entirely expected when his father had gone on about the price of a lunch during the rush of the afternoon breaks. As he keeps looking for something to pique his interest he comes upon a tiny door with an ad taped over the peephole. The red door is wedged between a cutely themed frozen yogurt shop with pastels and stripes and an accessories shop with dozens of boxes filled with bracelets and phone charms.
The ad is bright, eyes watering at the reflection of neon greens and yellow on black background. It shouts out at him of hookahs and natural medicine that can cure it all. He reads it as pipes and pot.
His own reading is what makes him take up the dark hallway with the flickering blue light making his shoes light up with his every step.
When he opens another door at the top of the stairs, a short melodic set of beeps calls someone out to greet him.
No one comes so he takes to walking around. A part of him had expected shrunken heads, bongs or something off and attractive, like a collection of storybooks about fetishes. He is almost disappointed when the shelves show nothing but packets of packaged herbs with small stickers and labels describing use and prices. The kid in his quickly scans for the easily identifiable drugs but he makes it down to the second row of dried plants when he hears someone clear his throat.
"Nee' help?"
The man who offers help is leaning over the black counter with a spoon in hand. His meal was interrupted. It had been hard enough to understand him; he had probably been interrupted mid-chew.
He comes around the counter and a sticker with childish scrawling labels him as 'Thunggyu' (quotation marks included) with a tiny drawing of smiley face with the shortest of lines for eyes.
"Just looking around."
Thunggyu nods his head and warmly smiles at him before retreating back to the counter. He keeps staring however. The clink of the spoon hitting a glass plate echoes in the medium sized room with how low the nameless indie track plays. "What do I have to smoke to cure perpetual boredom?"
The question makes Thunggyu laugh, exaggerated and ugly with an open mouth and no sound. What people play at to get sales.
Thunggyu responds but it is everything short of intelligible. He tries again, slowly, and only a handful of words come through.
"You really need to stop being a baby and use your tongue already. I doubt it hurts that much."
Another man steps into the room with smile just as enthusiastic and bright as Thunggyu's. He comes from behind a thick tarp set as a door. Thunggyu is not amused and flips him off before returning his attention to his food. He attempts to eat secretly before the newcomer checks out his meal and laughs, also ugly but at least there's sound. "Baby food? Are you serious hyung?"
The insulted man leaves with his pureed fruits and heads behind the tarp, indistinguishable mutterings leaving the room with him. The new smile in the room has another sticker like 'Thunggyu' before him, this one with set of sharp teeth eating messy Korean text. "Dongwoo," he provides when it's obvious the name is too messy to read.
"You're gonna have to excuse the baby," he smiles while he closes a thick book of laminated pages that appear like tattoo stencils, "he got a tongue piercing earlier in the week." He makes sure to practically shout the baby part so everyone can hear, whether present in the room or not.
"You look young kid, looking for a fake id or something?"
It hadn't crossed his mind, a fake id. "That's cool. How much?"
"How much older do you want to be?"
He thinks quickly just how big the number can go and still be believable. "How old do I look?"
Dongwoo stares at him for a second and raises a brow. "You're still in high school probably. But that mean bitch face of yours could argue for at least 19."
Mean bitch face is sadly enough one of the nicer compliments his features have gotten as of late. Nineteen sounds old enough for him to live a little.
Dongwoo seems to already have accepted his silent musings as a yes when he pulls the curtain aside to call his customer deeper into the store. Thunggyu is there, sipping at a drink with a bendy straw. He ignores their entrance and gives them their back as he returns to books that are laid out in front of him.
After a few minutes, nineteen year old Kim Myungsoo walks out into the streets, smirk in place.
He loiters the avenue for a bit, mind trying to wrap itself around this new identity he holds in his back pocket tucked between a prepaid credit card and his ex girlfriend's school picture. By the time the sun is setting and the cold is beginning to seep past his thin sweater, Myungsoo sits down at a tented food stand and waits to begin a meal. He takes out his wallet to see how much he has, little if he still wants to have bus fare to get home. A boy comes around and begins to unload all of the small banchan plates in front of him. The waiter's eyes peek into the quickly closing wallet and he sighs.
"Yah," he waits until he has Myungsoo's attention. "If you don't have enough money, then you should leave. You're not going to eat all the banchan and binge on water to then try to escape without actually ordering something."
Myungsoo tucks his wallet away and his face unconsciously hardens, "I'll have fish cake skewers."
The waiter turns to leave, before Myungsoo barks at him that he bring soju as well. The other turns around with a smile, ready to burst the kid's bubble. "Can I see some identification please?"
The sad nearly empty wallet is brought out once again and Myungsoo provides his new card out for inspection. The waiter looks at it. Then he squints to scrutinize the card. When he finds nothing wrong with it, he holds it back out and leaves without another word. Myungsoo lets out the breath he had no realized he had been holding. Dongwoo either knew what he was doing, or the waiter had poor vision.
After his small meal and the few bottles of soju, Myungsoo finally feels his boredom slipping from him. His chopsticks continue to gently prod and move the small bits of meat left on his plate as his eyes kept to a single form. The waiter smiles gently as he goes from table to table picking up dirty dishes and delivering steaming plates, but his face falls on every trip he has that brings him closer to Myungsoo's table. It was entertaining how Myungsoo's simple blank stares could ruin the other's disposition within seconds. "Anything else?"
"Still eating," Myungsoo speaks in a flat voice, oddly appropriate for the persona of the older boy he now carries in his back pocket. Bowing in apology, the waiter leaves once again and heads to the back to continue working. Another few hours pass and with the placement of Myungsoo's table, the only person who knows that he is still there when the handful of waiters begin to clean tables and stack chairs is his waiter.
He comes to pick up the dirty plates in front of Myungsoo without another word, foregoing the questions of whether he wanted anything else or he was done like he had been doing for the past few hours to receive a dry 'no' as reply. Myungsoo keeps his chopsticks in hand and his fingers tighten impossibly when the waiter attempts to pluck them out of his hand. "Yah, I have things to do and I don't want to stay here another hour waiting for you to drink yourself stupid."
Myungsoo quirks an eyebrow and he slowly stands, hands flat on the table for leverage. "You're one to talk."
"That doesn't even make sense."
It's his first time drinking and he is alone, without any money and drunk out of his mind. He never would have found himself in this predicament, but Kim Myungsoo does. Myungsoo has all the freedom he has never had. "Are you going to make me home or not?"
"W-what?"
Teetering and on the brink of falling even as he stands still, Myungsoo looks up and concentrates on the waiter. "God, you were so much shorter when I was sober." Myungsoo swallows the pool of saliva that has miraculously appeared in his mouth. "You think I wasted my bus fare and sat here for hours for nothing?"
"Let's get you home. I'll even pay for the taxi."
He helps Myungsoo up, slowly to avoid a fresh coat of soju and fish cakes on him. Myungsoo attempts to keep his attention focused on walking alone, the feat of putting one foot flat against the other demanding all his thoughts. He might end up in an alley or a trash can tomorrow, but it feels nice to be taken seriously for once.
He hasn't attended school for the better part of a week. He picks up a few bills from his mother's bag and then tends to loiter around soju tents. She had noticed the missing money when he had decided to be brave and flat out empty her purse of big bills though. No one had suspected him the slightest bit.
"Oh, you're back?"
Myungsoo has to almost smile because Dongwoo does look a bit shocked to see him in his little shop again. "I doubt you want a tongue piercing?" He teases with a loud smile.
"I need to be someone else. Better than Kim Myungsoo."
Dongwoo's eyebrow raises in question. "That sounds like something you and a psychiatrist have to take care of, kid. I don't think I can help."
"You already did once," Myungsoo explains as he holds up the fake id. Myungsoo had held it in his hands for days, the identity that had brought him the past few days of excitement. "I'm finally living and it feels amazing."
He puts the id in front of Dongwoo and he gently pushes it towards him. "I want more, bigger."
The shop owner has little idea of what the kid keeps going on about; at most he figures that he's high. It sure wouldn't be the first time a patron enters already high as a kite looking for some indistinguishable item or another. "I'll see what I can do, stay here for a minute."
It only takes another well doctored picture and less than half an hour before L walks out of the shop.
"Are these yours?"
His mother holds open a pack of cigarettes, lighter neatly tucked into the box between two sticks. L stares at her, face appearing more bored than anything else.
"Unless you changed your brand, then I guess they must be."
She closes them with her other well manicured hand and sighs at her son's reply. "You're seventeen years old Myungsoo."
L twitches at the name calling. Was she really going that low? He looks up from the electronics magazine he had swiped from his brother's bag but continues to leaf through to the next page. "Anything else you'd like to ask about?"
He returns his attention to the magazine and shrugs at the too expensive tablets and unnecessarily small computers. His mother is calling his attention but he figures she is probably still going on about the cigarettes. She needed to shut up; he was already nineteen after all. A thought pops up in his head when the thinnest threat of sanity reminds him that he technically isn't.
His eyes scan the items on the next page and a camera catches his eye. He can immediately think of a few purses and wallets that can live without a few bills.
L is silent.
Everyone realizes this quickly when he doesn't reply to any requests or comments on his mini hompy. His pictures are brooding and his face is that of perpetual boredom, high school girls thrive on it. He broods day in and out and he has his new camera as an accessory where ever he go to have the lively city as backdrop to his sour mood.
The only emotion that seems to get across other than the neutral face that has become his normal face is something like amusement. He doesn't smirk or even smile when he sees all the visits to his page and the enthusiastic comments to his pictures. What these people see as alluring in a few squints and hiding behind his bangs is beyond him. He has yet to even see the supposed devilish twinkle his eyes emit that sets panties ablaze, but apparently it is present and potent. He has neither female friends nor male ones to try its potency on so he takes it at whatever face value his fans give it.
Camera in hand, he tours the cities and hops on buses, stopping and climbing off whenever a specific sound or another triggers him into moving. Half the time he has no idea where he is, it's those moments when L feels he really exists.
His phone rings and for a second, he panics. The electronic reproduction of some instrumental sounds foreign. He is unable to remember the last time he received a phone call from anyone, Myungsoo's family included. The last message he had gotten was a spam message alerting him of some club opening later on that month.
"Are you here to get me fired again?"
L looks up from his cell phone and realizes that he has stopped in front of a karaoke place. Standing off to the other side of the small walkway was the waiter from a few nights ago. L doesn't remember much but he remembers his face, feeling short, and the other's attitude.
So he walks up to him.
He sits down on one of the white seats that the open cafe have set outside for the better days and he looks up at the other. "Not gonna sit down?"
"Store policy, chairs are for customers."
L looks into the store and sees two of its female attendees watching him to see if he gives off any inkling that he intends to stay and order. He waves them over with a raised hand and within seconds, a soft spoken girl is at his side presenting a perfectly white with simple text menu. L looks over it and while many of the terms are foreign to his ears, he simply points at whatever seems to have the most sugar content. "And you," he asks the waiter standing across him and holds a corner of the menu to show he look over it.
"An Americano, please."
The girl bows gently and leaves their small table. "We've ordered something now, are you going to sit down?"
"Are you going to ever pay me the money I had to give for your meal and cab fare Kim Myungsoo?"
He still stands and the obscene height difference makes L uncomfortable, not that his features show it. "Sit."
Thankfully, he listens and pulls the chair out at and sits. “Well?”
L looks at the other with hopefully confusion coming from his eyes because his face refuses to mold itself into the state of mind. Has the waiter said something without his hearing him? “What?”
“Are you going to pay me back? It was bad enough I had to walk a bit of the way home because I didn’t have the money to ride the bus to the train, but you have the nerve to show up-””
“What’s your name?” L drops in the middle of the other’s tirade.
“What?”
“Your name. You know I’m L, I should know your name too.”
The look on the waiter’s face is frozen solid for a bit and he only blinks back into normalcy when their earlier orders are brought out. L looks at the neat leaf design atop his drink and dips the tip of his finger a few times on the design as it distorts into odd shapes. “So what is it?”
“Kim Sungyeol,” he hears mixed into a sigh along with the clink of the small cup leaving and returning to the dish under it.
Neither of them says anything after that and idly sip at their drink before L leans back and checks if he has any missed calls on his phone to keep his hands busy once he puts his cup down. “You never answered my question.”
Sungyeol is tipping his head back to get the last few drops of his coffee and L can almost taste the grinds on the tip of his tongue. While he had added even more sugar to his sweet whatever foreign named thing he was drinking, Sungyeol had added next to nothing and had enjoyed his drink. At least L figures he did because he never let the cup fully go. L stays quiet and only looks up at Sungyeol as he shifts in his chair, eyes darting quickly to the entrance of the karaoke bar he works for.
“When will you pay me back.”
“When will you take me back home with you like I asked you to?”
The conversation dies for a second and then they explode.
Sungyeol loses his job when his boss comes out and tells him that bathroom breaks were not longer than five minutes or so and they certainly were not for getting into fist fights in front of his establishment.
L straightens the collar of his neatly pressed shirt and pretends to miss the way Sungyeol looks at him with anything but hatred as he storms off in the direction he had come from. The two waitresses from inside the cafe are looking to make sure he stays civilized and he motions they bring him the check.
He has places to go, people to meet, someone to become.
L makes his way up the streets of downtown, easily recognizing the landmarks and not finding them as interesting as they had been the first time. He finds the red door without a problem and skips up the narrow stairway with ease.
The small shop looks the same as it did on his first few visits. He has never seen anyone in the store at the same time that he has been getting his new ids, but he is sure that someone other than him pays the store visits. Dongwoo and Sunggyu are not the seemingly financially stable type if the kind of store they handled sold only medicinal herbs. Their handing out fake ids was proof of it, L smiles.
“Dongwoo?” He calls out when he realizes that no one had come to tend to him despite the chimes over the door still clanking. Staying quiet to hear any movement, he is disappointed when he hears none. “Not much to steal from here as is, of course they’d leave it open to the public.”
“You.”
’Thunggyu’ walks out from behind the backroom, hands crossed in front of him. His face is set with a grim line as he takes in L. “I’m starting to think you’re looking for something more than a fake id?”
“Hm, your piercing is healed. I’m sure Dongwoo is overjoyed that you can talk again. I know I sure missed that baby garble the last time I was here.”
L gets only a smirk in reply. Once the other is comfortably sitting behind the desk, he dramatically places his chin in his hands and peers up at L. “What can I do for you, dear customer?”
Today, his name reads as Sunggyu on the sticker placed on his chest. L strolls over with his hands burrowed into his coat pockets and shrugs his shoulders. Sunggyu nods, because he already knows what the other is here for. Dongwoo thankfully, isn’t the only one who can forge a fake id.
“Your usual,” Sunggyu asks with a grin that L thinks would have made an exceptional addition to one of his few expressions. It could have doubled his website hits with another asshole-ish face like that one. “Wanna go big like last time?”
Sunggyu begins to tap at his cheek as if deep and thought and then looks over to L once he has come up with something. He gets up to return to the backroom, but finds that L has taken a hold of him by his wrist. He raises a brow in question at the other’s action.
“Whatever you have in mind, go bigger.”
Sunggyu smiles and then L returns with his version of a friendly smile, a wry grin that makes Sunggyu laugh his ugly soundless laugh again. The grin drops to L’s neutral face as the ugly face heads into the backroom.
"Do I get a discount if I'm dating an employee?"
Sungyeol stiffens as he hears it yet again, the last sound before getting fired. He knows it is in his best interests to get rid of Myungsoo as fast as he can before he causes a commotion that leaves him unemployed. When he finishes cleaning the small table and turns to confront Myungsoo he finds himself losing the small lecture he had prepared. "What is that, if I may ask?"
Myungsoo smiles, which is even more disturbing than the pink dress and the white unbuttoned sweater he is wearing. Sungyeol takes a good look at him, a real good look and finds he is unable to stop smiling. The wig that ends just past his shoulders in soft dark waves compliments his features oddly enough.
"I don't remember asking you out." He returns to cleaning the table, mind still alert to the girl that had come to visit his workplace.
Myungsoo sits down in the seat closest to Sungyeol and places the small purse atop the table. He motions that Sungyeol bring him a menu. He always has time available, especially when Sungyeol is working on someone else’s hours. Myungsoo crosses his legs with a smirk and the skirt of the dress threatens to slide up along smooth thighs. Sungyeol grabs a menu and opens it to only lay it flat on her lap.
"This," he motions to everything from the other's attire to the smile that Sungyeol might go out on a limb and call saucy," is just..." A throat clears behind them and both of their eyes land on Sungyeol's manager. Myungsoo has no money on him and Sungyeol is too new an employee to mess up in anyway.
Sungyeol tells Myungsoo to wait a minute. He walks towards the back of the small cafe and comes out a moment later with his bag, sans the uniform apron. Grabbing Myungsoo's wrist, he pulls them out of the small cafe and in the direction of the subways.
"Did you get your break?"
"You're not in full character today? Where's the oppa in that line?" He ignores the question as he sneaks a look at the other's get up.
The younger smiles at the comment, face hurting from smiling for such extended periods when it was used to nothing but neutral and bored expressions.
"Oppa?" She tries and while it feels weird on the tongue, it doesn't feel as awkward as she had imagined. The loud smile that breaks Sungyeol's face makes it feel more appropriate. It reminds her of another boy but she can't place a name.
"Now that I have no job, yet again," Sungyeol begins as he pays for their subway fare and pulls her along to beat the impending rush and aim for seats on the train. He sits her down and claims the seat between her and another guy their age. "I can't treat you to another meal so well have to make something ourselves."
She nods her head in understanding. Sungyeol does not seem as upset about losing another job as he had the first two Myungsoo and L had made him lose. He grabs at her purse and he looks through it until he comes across her new identification card. He holds up the picture with Myungsoo's short hair.
"Letting your hair grow out Myungja?"
He nudges her side and fixes the purse contents before handing it back to her. Not another word is offered about the change and Myungja is glad for that. L had gotten more questions and yet it had been less of a dramatic change.
The names of the stations are called at every stop and Myungja feels the smallest bit of panic when she realizes she does not recognize the last two that have just passed. She was leaving the comfort of her city but Sungyeol pats her naked knee gently to have her getting ready for the approaching stop. It is not meant to comfort her, if anything to alert her, but it comforts her still.
"I've never been this far away from the center of the city." Myungja offers softly to Sungyeol as she bows her head to an older woman sitting across from them.
The subway slows and Sungyeol stands then. Myungja copies almost immediately and thankfully, she doesn't lose him as dozens of others exit the subway car with them. "You better start learning the route then. Oppa doesn't want to have to go all the way into the city on his days off just to see you."
"Hm," she grins and tugs him along through the less condensed exit stairs, "I don't recall you asking me out."
"Of course you don't. Myungja is an angel. Myungsoo was a bit of an ass, getting drunk and demanding I take him home."
Her grip tightens without her knowing and she only lets go when Sungyeol tugs his hand away from her hold. When they reach his neighborhood and head up in the elevator, Myungja is sure the apprehension is falling off him like wilting leaves.
"Stay here," Sungyeol tells her softly once they are outside his apartment door. He tells her that he wasn't expecting company ever and he has to hide the dead body he has rotting on his couch. She bites her lips to not laugh, sharp edges of her teeth stealing some of the pink from her lips. He slips in through a crack and closes the door behind him. Outside, Myungja sighs softly in thought.
Sunggyu had really fucked her- him, over. It had been easier to pretend to be older and a bit of a dick as Myungsoo and as L, but Myungja... It felt nice to finally be able to just show up and be whisked away instead of having to bicker and pay conversations off of Sungyeol. And yet, it was even harder still to stay as solely Myungja.
The only thing of his that he could bring into Myungja was Sungyeol, the one thing he didn't want to lose in either identity or lifestyle. The door opens suddenly. Sungyeol leans against the door frame in what Myungja is certain is supposed to be an enticing position.
"So... I guess this is our first meeting scene two Kim Myungsoo?"
"Myungja." She clips at him and her face almost resembles L's, she can feel the expression even.
Sungyeol nods his head as he steps aside to let her in, "right. With Myungja."
She comes up particularly close and presses forward to kiss him. To her shock he pulls back. "Whoa, maybe I've been giving you the wrong ideas Myungja, I'm gay."
His fingers come up to stroke at the seemingly natural hair that slides in and out of the line of her sweater. It feels nice to have her personal space invaded in the subtle way Sungyeol was doing it. She almost felt alive. Shaking those thoughts from her head she takes a firm hold to his wrist and pulls him in the direction of the corpse free couch.
"Let me try to convert you before we can consider you a lost cause."
Myungja wakes up a good half hour before dawn. She is a lighter than normal sleeper as of late and it had been difficult keeping asleep with heat at her side. While the house was barely lit by natural light and excessively quiet, Myungja strolled around the small apartment taking the view in.
The last words she remembers speaking the night before are correcting Sungyeol at the door. Her throat feels ticklish but she puts it aside figuring she is just hoarse and will be fine with water. Turning on a small lamp near a couch, she sits down and hoists her feet up on the arm rest. Sungyeol's pants are at the foot of the couch and with careful maneuvering, she brings it closer to her to look through the pockets.
He had not been joking when he said he wouldn't be able to afford another meal. A few sorry wrinkled bills are jammed into the wallet between calling cards for agencies and his id card. L had been the thief, Myungja was just curious.
Flipping the card between her fingers, she compares it to her own information. Sungyeol is twenty years old and with the fading pictures and calling cards neatly organized on one side of the wallet it's obvious that Sungyeol wants to be someone.
She doubts he is going through the same process he is.
He already knows about Myungsoo, L and Myungja even. But he has done that all on his own through their interactions. He doesn't know about him.
"Myungsoo?"
Her heart drops to her stomach and she bolts upright to look at Sungyeol standing outside his bedroom door. It isn’t the name calling that has alerted her, Sungyeol having found her at all puts her on her toes. She lets his card fall onto the couch and makes a silent walk back into the bedroom. He only stares down at her and mimics the silence as they both climb into bed with intentions to feign sleep for the next few hours.
Neither is very good at pretending so they fill in the void.
"What are you training for?"
She turns to look at him, face still a blur of lighter darkness than the rest of the room. She hums in confusion at his question. "You're a method actor right? You've been in all these different characters so I'm guessing you have something coming up. I'd like to check it out when it's on."
Myungja sighs then. "I'm not acting. This is who I am now."
"I want to be an actor too," Sungyeol changes the topic of conversation easily as he tends to do too often. He goes on and on about auditions and how it was harder to break into even a minimal role without connections these days. "I got a few modeling jobs here and there, but no big names or anything."
The silence returns. "Are you going to go out to look for another job tomorrow?"
Myungja can hear laughter and possibly the white of Sungyeol's smile. "Not tomorrow. I have a lunch date in the late afternoon."
It takes a few more hints but they both come to understand that he is asking her out, then.
When she wakes in Sungyeol's bed the second consecutive night that week, Sungyeol is already up if the noise in the kitchen is any indicator. She is greeted by sunlight and the too loud beeping of a machine as she steps outside of the dimmer room. Coffee and a foreign blend of spices assault her senses immediately. There is nothing in her coffee that much is obviously immediately at the too black of the drink.
She sits quietly with smile in front of him and places both her hands at her chin to prop her head upon them. Myungja has no idea what suits her face and can only hope that a sleep bloated face is still somewhat pretty by Sungyeol’s standards.
He silently finishes his drink and turns to place it in the sink behind him. Then he turns again and tosses the small purse Myungja had been carrying along with her in on the counter.
"So, when were you going to tell me that you’re actually seventeen?"
Panic suddenly overpowers the nasty bitter coffee she had only taken the smallest sip of. A bit of L returns to her and she manages to control herself and calmly reaches out for her purse and opens it. Her wallet is there and nothing is missing, but it’s obvious to see that the identification cards had all been found out, the three doctored ones and his original.
“Oppa-”
“You mean hyung.”
Myungsoo does not see the real trouble that Sungyeol is trying to start between them. So he had a fake id, lots of kids had them. “Hyung,” Myungja manages to say after a rather dry gulp, “they’re just fake ids.”
“Which is the real one? I couldn’t even tell who you were? Well, at least not Myungja because that certainly was a dick.” He motions in the general area of Myungja’s crotch which is covered by some clothing Sungyeol had lent him from the night before.
“Sungyeol, they are all real. You met most of them even.”
Sungyeol scoffs and stands up straight to simply glare indecorously at whomever it was Myungsoo wanted to be that day. He is clearly unable to understand what the hell theory the other was aiming at.
“Myungsoo, if that even if your name, I think you should get your things and go home.”
The mental twitch that usually goes through his mind to correct him does not occur. What is he supposed to correct him with? Myungja had become L and he couldn’t function around Sungyeol without some of the charm Myungsoo happened to exude in insane quantities.
“Sungyeol, it’s not that bad.” He offers in L’s generally stoic tone. No matter who he tries to think up an explanation as, nothing sounds as elementary and inexcusable and he hopes for.
The warm cup of coffee seems to be the only comfort present in the room so he lets his fingers circle the thick rim. Sungyeol sees reluctance, both to say anything else and to make move to leave, so he takes it upon himself to pick up the few things that he clearly knew were not his. He approaches with the skirt jumper and the blouse he had met him with and puts it on the counter next to the still hand still toying with the coffee cup.
He refuses to meet Sungyeol’s eyes as he slides off of the chair and dresses, movements slowing as he pulls the skirt up to his hips. Grabbing the purse with a sigh, he leaves Sungyeol’s apartment.
Myungja seems to have stayed tucked away in bed waiting for Sungyeol to slink back under the sheets. He fidgets as he fixes his skirt, his all of a sudden too short skirt. Why did it not occur to him to ask Sungyeol to save him face and lend him a pair of pants to make his way home? He isn’t a woman to be dressing in skirts with pretty matching small heels.
Technically, he wasn't female, Myungja was.
Unlike the carefree luck that Myungsoo or L had where they could hop on and off buses and end up in perfectly located areas, he has to actually listen to the stops and hope to recognize locations for a change. Sungyeol lives more than a handful of stops away and he does not have the fare to take the much faster subway home.
He has nothing on him but her purse with the ids. “A lot of good those did,” he mumbles to himself as he looks at an older woman boarding the bus. The seats are mostly taken and without much thought, he gets up and directs her to sit down. She smiles at him and delicately pats his helping hand.
Myungsoo sighs then, feeling all of the pressure from the previous days immaterialize. Sungyeol is the only bit of living he has allowed himself no matter who he was.
He has to go even bigger now if he wants to get anywhere and live a little.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
His ass is sore from sitting in the same position for the past few hours, but Myungsoo dashes up in a hurry once he hears Sungyeol’s voice. His sitting position had been rather warm and as he stands, the chill of the evening finally begins to seep through his uniform. He can tell that it was dark outside of the complex with how cold it had become, but without a watch he could only guess two hours or so past sundown. If he had known that Sungyeol would not be home earlier in the day, he might have thought to bring a thicker coat.
Sungyeol slows his every step as if attempting to delay coming any closer to Myungsoo as it is. He is clearly tired, bags under his eyes and shoulders sagging under the pressed line of his suit. Myungsoo has never seen him this dressed up so his curiosity jumps the gun before him as he asks the other for the reason. “Are you being arranged for marriage or something?”
“Or something,” Sungyeol humors Myungsoo for a moment. He shrugs off the leather gloves, fingers suddenly too warm and sweaty. “And you,” he asks as he motions to Myungsoo’s unusual get up, “pretending to be a school boy today? How old are you now? Sixteen, fifteen, thirteen maybe?”
Myungsoo stays quiet because he knows he deserves it. Sungyeol has been nothing but honest about himself and his personality since their meeting. He on the other hand, was a different person each and every time.
“I’m seventeen. I have a brother who just turned fifteen. I’m about to fail out of life if I don’t get my grades up, but I can’t concentrate. I’m really sorry about what happened, but you should know that I never lied to you about anything.
“Except my age,” he adds on quickly to correct himself.
As silent as Sungyeol seems, Myungsoo can only hope that he accepts that as the truth. The older man opens the door to his apartment and he steps in and takes off his shoes before sliding them to the side with a nudge from his socked foot. He begins to unbutton his coat giving Myungsoo his back.
Myungsoo can take a hint. He dusts off his bottom from having sat on the floor, waiting in the cold hallway for the other to return. After he fixes his coat and is about to head in the direction of the elevator, he hears Sungyeol clear his throat behind him.
“Not coming in?”
Slowly turning, Myungsoo’s brows raise to make sure he heard correctly. When Sungyeol doesn’t offer anything other than a pleasant soft smile, Myungsoo makes hurried steps back to the front of the apartment door and kicks off his shoes, like a boy his age does. They both finish removing the heavier clothes silently and Myungsoo only follows Sungyeol into the home silently as if a new guest to the home.
Myungsoo fixes his shoes in the same fashion Sungyeol had before him and slips his feet into a pair of the provided house slippers. While making sure his shoes are perfectly arranged and in proper placement next to Sungyeol’s shoes, Myungsoo can hear the other going on about how he still had to pay him back and he had to help him on his job search, the third one since meeting him. Despite their only having been in the home for less than a minute, it felt loads warmer.
“So we meet for the... first time, Something Something shi.” Sungyeol turns to him, hands on his hips as he finally assesses the oddly unfamiliar face he has seen too many times in the past month or so. He smiles easily, smile broadening when Myungsoo smiles in return, a soft smile he hasn’t seen on any of the previous people Myungsoo had been before him.
“Myungsoo is fine.”
From: Your Secret Santa
Title: Personalized Labels
Pairing/Focus: Myungsoo/Sungyeol
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 6700+
Summary: He slips in and out of names trying to find the one that finally fits him.
He decides to test uncharted territory the week after he turns 17. He lets himself get lost in the middle of downtown and stops to sample an appetizer and then has dessert in another shop simply to explore. It's all fairly cheap, something he had not entirely expected when his father had gone on about the price of a lunch during the rush of the afternoon breaks. As he keeps looking for something to pique his interest he comes upon a tiny door with an ad taped over the peephole. The red door is wedged between a cutely themed frozen yogurt shop with pastels and stripes and an accessories shop with dozens of boxes filled with bracelets and phone charms.
The ad is bright, eyes watering at the reflection of neon greens and yellow on black background. It shouts out at him of hookahs and natural medicine that can cure it all. He reads it as pipes and pot.
His own reading is what makes him take up the dark hallway with the flickering blue light making his shoes light up with his every step.
When he opens another door at the top of the stairs, a short melodic set of beeps calls someone out to greet him.
No one comes so he takes to walking around. A part of him had expected shrunken heads, bongs or something off and attractive, like a collection of storybooks about fetishes. He is almost disappointed when the shelves show nothing but packets of packaged herbs with small stickers and labels describing use and prices. The kid in his quickly scans for the easily identifiable drugs but he makes it down to the second row of dried plants when he hears someone clear his throat.
"Nee' help?"
The man who offers help is leaning over the black counter with a spoon in hand. His meal was interrupted. It had been hard enough to understand him; he had probably been interrupted mid-chew.
He comes around the counter and a sticker with childish scrawling labels him as 'Thunggyu' (quotation marks included) with a tiny drawing of smiley face with the shortest of lines for eyes.
"Just looking around."
Thunggyu nods his head and warmly smiles at him before retreating back to the counter. He keeps staring however. The clink of the spoon hitting a glass plate echoes in the medium sized room with how low the nameless indie track plays. "What do I have to smoke to cure perpetual boredom?"
The question makes Thunggyu laugh, exaggerated and ugly with an open mouth and no sound. What people play at to get sales.
Thunggyu responds but it is everything short of intelligible. He tries again, slowly, and only a handful of words come through.
"You really need to stop being a baby and use your tongue already. I doubt it hurts that much."
Another man steps into the room with smile just as enthusiastic and bright as Thunggyu's. He comes from behind a thick tarp set as a door. Thunggyu is not amused and flips him off before returning his attention to his food. He attempts to eat secretly before the newcomer checks out his meal and laughs, also ugly but at least there's sound. "Baby food? Are you serious hyung?"
The insulted man leaves with his pureed fruits and heads behind the tarp, indistinguishable mutterings leaving the room with him. The new smile in the room has another sticker like 'Thunggyu' before him, this one with set of sharp teeth eating messy Korean text. "Dongwoo," he provides when it's obvious the name is too messy to read.
"You're gonna have to excuse the baby," he smiles while he closes a thick book of laminated pages that appear like tattoo stencils, "he got a tongue piercing earlier in the week." He makes sure to practically shout the baby part so everyone can hear, whether present in the room or not.
"You look young kid, looking for a fake id or something?"
It hadn't crossed his mind, a fake id. "That's cool. How much?"
"How much older do you want to be?"
He thinks quickly just how big the number can go and still be believable. "How old do I look?"
Dongwoo stares at him for a second and raises a brow. "You're still in high school probably. But that mean bitch face of yours could argue for at least 19."
Mean bitch face is sadly enough one of the nicer compliments his features have gotten as of late. Nineteen sounds old enough for him to live a little.
Dongwoo seems to already have accepted his silent musings as a yes when he pulls the curtain aside to call his customer deeper into the store. Thunggyu is there, sipping at a drink with a bendy straw. He ignores their entrance and gives them their back as he returns to books that are laid out in front of him.
After a few minutes, nineteen year old Kim Myungsoo walks out into the streets, smirk in place.
He loiters the avenue for a bit, mind trying to wrap itself around this new identity he holds in his back pocket tucked between a prepaid credit card and his ex girlfriend's school picture. By the time the sun is setting and the cold is beginning to seep past his thin sweater, Myungsoo sits down at a tented food stand and waits to begin a meal. He takes out his wallet to see how much he has, little if he still wants to have bus fare to get home. A boy comes around and begins to unload all of the small banchan plates in front of him. The waiter's eyes peek into the quickly closing wallet and he sighs.
"Yah," he waits until he has Myungsoo's attention. "If you don't have enough money, then you should leave. You're not going to eat all the banchan and binge on water to then try to escape without actually ordering something."
Myungsoo tucks his wallet away and his face unconsciously hardens, "I'll have fish cake skewers."
The waiter turns to leave, before Myungsoo barks at him that he bring soju as well. The other turns around with a smile, ready to burst the kid's bubble. "Can I see some identification please?"
The sad nearly empty wallet is brought out once again and Myungsoo provides his new card out for inspection. The waiter looks at it. Then he squints to scrutinize the card. When he finds nothing wrong with it, he holds it back out and leaves without another word. Myungsoo lets out the breath he had no realized he had been holding. Dongwoo either knew what he was doing, or the waiter had poor vision.
After his small meal and the few bottles of soju, Myungsoo finally feels his boredom slipping from him. His chopsticks continue to gently prod and move the small bits of meat left on his plate as his eyes kept to a single form. The waiter smiles gently as he goes from table to table picking up dirty dishes and delivering steaming plates, but his face falls on every trip he has that brings him closer to Myungsoo's table. It was entertaining how Myungsoo's simple blank stares could ruin the other's disposition within seconds. "Anything else?"
"Still eating," Myungsoo speaks in a flat voice, oddly appropriate for the persona of the older boy he now carries in his back pocket. Bowing in apology, the waiter leaves once again and heads to the back to continue working. Another few hours pass and with the placement of Myungsoo's table, the only person who knows that he is still there when the handful of waiters begin to clean tables and stack chairs is his waiter.
He comes to pick up the dirty plates in front of Myungsoo without another word, foregoing the questions of whether he wanted anything else or he was done like he had been doing for the past few hours to receive a dry 'no' as reply. Myungsoo keeps his chopsticks in hand and his fingers tighten impossibly when the waiter attempts to pluck them out of his hand. "Yah, I have things to do and I don't want to stay here another hour waiting for you to drink yourself stupid."
Myungsoo quirks an eyebrow and he slowly stands, hands flat on the table for leverage. "You're one to talk."
"That doesn't even make sense."
It's his first time drinking and he is alone, without any money and drunk out of his mind. He never would have found himself in this predicament, but Kim Myungsoo does. Myungsoo has all the freedom he has never had. "Are you going to make me home or not?"
"W-what?"
Teetering and on the brink of falling even as he stands still, Myungsoo looks up and concentrates on the waiter. "God, you were so much shorter when I was sober." Myungsoo swallows the pool of saliva that has miraculously appeared in his mouth. "You think I wasted my bus fare and sat here for hours for nothing?"
"Let's get you home. I'll even pay for the taxi."
He helps Myungsoo up, slowly to avoid a fresh coat of soju and fish cakes on him. Myungsoo attempts to keep his attention focused on walking alone, the feat of putting one foot flat against the other demanding all his thoughts. He might end up in an alley or a trash can tomorrow, but it feels nice to be taken seriously for once.
He hasn't attended school for the better part of a week. He picks up a few bills from his mother's bag and then tends to loiter around soju tents. She had noticed the missing money when he had decided to be brave and flat out empty her purse of big bills though. No one had suspected him the slightest bit.
"Oh, you're back?"
Myungsoo has to almost smile because Dongwoo does look a bit shocked to see him in his little shop again. "I doubt you want a tongue piercing?" He teases with a loud smile.
"I need to be someone else. Better than Kim Myungsoo."
Dongwoo's eyebrow raises in question. "That sounds like something you and a psychiatrist have to take care of, kid. I don't think I can help."
"You already did once," Myungsoo explains as he holds up the fake id. Myungsoo had held it in his hands for days, the identity that had brought him the past few days of excitement. "I'm finally living and it feels amazing."
He puts the id in front of Dongwoo and he gently pushes it towards him. "I want more, bigger."
The shop owner has little idea of what the kid keeps going on about; at most he figures that he's high. It sure wouldn't be the first time a patron enters already high as a kite looking for some indistinguishable item or another. "I'll see what I can do, stay here for a minute."
It only takes another well doctored picture and less than half an hour before L walks out of the shop.
"Are these yours?"
His mother holds open a pack of cigarettes, lighter neatly tucked into the box between two sticks. L stares at her, face appearing more bored than anything else.
"Unless you changed your brand, then I guess they must be."
She closes them with her other well manicured hand and sighs at her son's reply. "You're seventeen years old Myungsoo."
L twitches at the name calling. Was she really going that low? He looks up from the electronics magazine he had swiped from his brother's bag but continues to leaf through to the next page. "Anything else you'd like to ask about?"
He returns his attention to the magazine and shrugs at the too expensive tablets and unnecessarily small computers. His mother is calling his attention but he figures she is probably still going on about the cigarettes. She needed to shut up; he was already nineteen after all. A thought pops up in his head when the thinnest threat of sanity reminds him that he technically isn't.
His eyes scan the items on the next page and a camera catches his eye. He can immediately think of a few purses and wallets that can live without a few bills.
L is silent.
Everyone realizes this quickly when he doesn't reply to any requests or comments on his mini hompy. His pictures are brooding and his face is that of perpetual boredom, high school girls thrive on it. He broods day in and out and he has his new camera as an accessory where ever he go to have the lively city as backdrop to his sour mood.
The only emotion that seems to get across other than the neutral face that has become his normal face is something like amusement. He doesn't smirk or even smile when he sees all the visits to his page and the enthusiastic comments to his pictures. What these people see as alluring in a few squints and hiding behind his bangs is beyond him. He has yet to even see the supposed devilish twinkle his eyes emit that sets panties ablaze, but apparently it is present and potent. He has neither female friends nor male ones to try its potency on so he takes it at whatever face value his fans give it.
Camera in hand, he tours the cities and hops on buses, stopping and climbing off whenever a specific sound or another triggers him into moving. Half the time he has no idea where he is, it's those moments when L feels he really exists.
His phone rings and for a second, he panics. The electronic reproduction of some instrumental sounds foreign. He is unable to remember the last time he received a phone call from anyone, Myungsoo's family included. The last message he had gotten was a spam message alerting him of some club opening later on that month.
"Are you here to get me fired again?"
L looks up from his cell phone and realizes that he has stopped in front of a karaoke place. Standing off to the other side of the small walkway was the waiter from a few nights ago. L doesn't remember much but he remembers his face, feeling short, and the other's attitude.
So he walks up to him.
He sits down on one of the white seats that the open cafe have set outside for the better days and he looks up at the other. "Not gonna sit down?"
"Store policy, chairs are for customers."
L looks into the store and sees two of its female attendees watching him to see if he gives off any inkling that he intends to stay and order. He waves them over with a raised hand and within seconds, a soft spoken girl is at his side presenting a perfectly white with simple text menu. L looks over it and while many of the terms are foreign to his ears, he simply points at whatever seems to have the most sugar content. "And you," he asks the waiter standing across him and holds a corner of the menu to show he look over it.
"An Americano, please."
The girl bows gently and leaves their small table. "We've ordered something now, are you going to sit down?"
"Are you going to ever pay me the money I had to give for your meal and cab fare Kim Myungsoo?"
He still stands and the obscene height difference makes L uncomfortable, not that his features show it. "Sit."
Thankfully, he listens and pulls the chair out at and sits. “Well?”
L looks at the other with hopefully confusion coming from his eyes because his face refuses to mold itself into the state of mind. Has the waiter said something without his hearing him? “What?”
“Are you going to pay me back? It was bad enough I had to walk a bit of the way home because I didn’t have the money to ride the bus to the train, but you have the nerve to show up-””
“What’s your name?” L drops in the middle of the other’s tirade.
“What?”
“Your name. You know I’m L, I should know your name too.”
The look on the waiter’s face is frozen solid for a bit and he only blinks back into normalcy when their earlier orders are brought out. L looks at the neat leaf design atop his drink and dips the tip of his finger a few times on the design as it distorts into odd shapes. “So what is it?”
“Kim Sungyeol,” he hears mixed into a sigh along with the clink of the small cup leaving and returning to the dish under it.
Neither of them says anything after that and idly sip at their drink before L leans back and checks if he has any missed calls on his phone to keep his hands busy once he puts his cup down. “You never answered my question.”
Sungyeol is tipping his head back to get the last few drops of his coffee and L can almost taste the grinds on the tip of his tongue. While he had added even more sugar to his sweet whatever foreign named thing he was drinking, Sungyeol had added next to nothing and had enjoyed his drink. At least L figures he did because he never let the cup fully go. L stays quiet and only looks up at Sungyeol as he shifts in his chair, eyes darting quickly to the entrance of the karaoke bar he works for.
“When will you pay me back.”
“When will you take me back home with you like I asked you to?”
The conversation dies for a second and then they explode.
Sungyeol loses his job when his boss comes out and tells him that bathroom breaks were not longer than five minutes or so and they certainly were not for getting into fist fights in front of his establishment.
L straightens the collar of his neatly pressed shirt and pretends to miss the way Sungyeol looks at him with anything but hatred as he storms off in the direction he had come from. The two waitresses from inside the cafe are looking to make sure he stays civilized and he motions they bring him the check.
He has places to go, people to meet, someone to become.
L makes his way up the streets of downtown, easily recognizing the landmarks and not finding them as interesting as they had been the first time. He finds the red door without a problem and skips up the narrow stairway with ease.
The small shop looks the same as it did on his first few visits. He has never seen anyone in the store at the same time that he has been getting his new ids, but he is sure that someone other than him pays the store visits. Dongwoo and Sunggyu are not the seemingly financially stable type if the kind of store they handled sold only medicinal herbs. Their handing out fake ids was proof of it, L smiles.
“Dongwoo?” He calls out when he realizes that no one had come to tend to him despite the chimes over the door still clanking. Staying quiet to hear any movement, he is disappointed when he hears none. “Not much to steal from here as is, of course they’d leave it open to the public.”
“You.”
’Thunggyu’ walks out from behind the backroom, hands crossed in front of him. His face is set with a grim line as he takes in L. “I’m starting to think you’re looking for something more than a fake id?”
“Hm, your piercing is healed. I’m sure Dongwoo is overjoyed that you can talk again. I know I sure missed that baby garble the last time I was here.”
L gets only a smirk in reply. Once the other is comfortably sitting behind the desk, he dramatically places his chin in his hands and peers up at L. “What can I do for you, dear customer?”
Today, his name reads as Sunggyu on the sticker placed on his chest. L strolls over with his hands burrowed into his coat pockets and shrugs his shoulders. Sunggyu nods, because he already knows what the other is here for. Dongwoo thankfully, isn’t the only one who can forge a fake id.
“Your usual,” Sunggyu asks with a grin that L thinks would have made an exceptional addition to one of his few expressions. It could have doubled his website hits with another asshole-ish face like that one. “Wanna go big like last time?”
Sunggyu begins to tap at his cheek as if deep and thought and then looks over to L once he has come up with something. He gets up to return to the backroom, but finds that L has taken a hold of him by his wrist. He raises a brow in question at the other’s action.
“Whatever you have in mind, go bigger.”
Sunggyu smiles and then L returns with his version of a friendly smile, a wry grin that makes Sunggyu laugh his ugly soundless laugh again. The grin drops to L’s neutral face as the ugly face heads into the backroom.
"Do I get a discount if I'm dating an employee?"
Sungyeol stiffens as he hears it yet again, the last sound before getting fired. He knows it is in his best interests to get rid of Myungsoo as fast as he can before he causes a commotion that leaves him unemployed. When he finishes cleaning the small table and turns to confront Myungsoo he finds himself losing the small lecture he had prepared. "What is that, if I may ask?"
Myungsoo smiles, which is even more disturbing than the pink dress and the white unbuttoned sweater he is wearing. Sungyeol takes a good look at him, a real good look and finds he is unable to stop smiling. The wig that ends just past his shoulders in soft dark waves compliments his features oddly enough.
"I don't remember asking you out." He returns to cleaning the table, mind still alert to the girl that had come to visit his workplace.
Myungsoo sits down in the seat closest to Sungyeol and places the small purse atop the table. He motions that Sungyeol bring him a menu. He always has time available, especially when Sungyeol is working on someone else’s hours. Myungsoo crosses his legs with a smirk and the skirt of the dress threatens to slide up along smooth thighs. Sungyeol grabs a menu and opens it to only lay it flat on her lap.
"This," he motions to everything from the other's attire to the smile that Sungyeol might go out on a limb and call saucy," is just..." A throat clears behind them and both of their eyes land on Sungyeol's manager. Myungsoo has no money on him and Sungyeol is too new an employee to mess up in anyway.
Sungyeol tells Myungsoo to wait a minute. He walks towards the back of the small cafe and comes out a moment later with his bag, sans the uniform apron. Grabbing Myungsoo's wrist, he pulls them out of the small cafe and in the direction of the subways.
"Did you get your break?"
"You're not in full character today? Where's the oppa in that line?" He ignores the question as he sneaks a look at the other's get up.
The younger smiles at the comment, face hurting from smiling for such extended periods when it was used to nothing but neutral and bored expressions.
"Oppa?" She tries and while it feels weird on the tongue, it doesn't feel as awkward as she had imagined. The loud smile that breaks Sungyeol's face makes it feel more appropriate. It reminds her of another boy but she can't place a name.
"Now that I have no job, yet again," Sungyeol begins as he pays for their subway fare and pulls her along to beat the impending rush and aim for seats on the train. He sits her down and claims the seat between her and another guy their age. "I can't treat you to another meal so well have to make something ourselves."
She nods her head in understanding. Sungyeol does not seem as upset about losing another job as he had the first two Myungsoo and L had made him lose. He grabs at her purse and he looks through it until he comes across her new identification card. He holds up the picture with Myungsoo's short hair.
"Letting your hair grow out Myungja?"
He nudges her side and fixes the purse contents before handing it back to her. Not another word is offered about the change and Myungja is glad for that. L had gotten more questions and yet it had been less of a dramatic change.
The names of the stations are called at every stop and Myungja feels the smallest bit of panic when she realizes she does not recognize the last two that have just passed. She was leaving the comfort of her city but Sungyeol pats her naked knee gently to have her getting ready for the approaching stop. It is not meant to comfort her, if anything to alert her, but it comforts her still.
"I've never been this far away from the center of the city." Myungja offers softly to Sungyeol as she bows her head to an older woman sitting across from them.
The subway slows and Sungyeol stands then. Myungja copies almost immediately and thankfully, she doesn't lose him as dozens of others exit the subway car with them. "You better start learning the route then. Oppa doesn't want to have to go all the way into the city on his days off just to see you."
"Hm," she grins and tugs him along through the less condensed exit stairs, "I don't recall you asking me out."
"Of course you don't. Myungja is an angel. Myungsoo was a bit of an ass, getting drunk and demanding I take him home."
Her grip tightens without her knowing and she only lets go when Sungyeol tugs his hand away from her hold. When they reach his neighborhood and head up in the elevator, Myungja is sure the apprehension is falling off him like wilting leaves.
"Stay here," Sungyeol tells her softly once they are outside his apartment door. He tells her that he wasn't expecting company ever and he has to hide the dead body he has rotting on his couch. She bites her lips to not laugh, sharp edges of her teeth stealing some of the pink from her lips. He slips in through a crack and closes the door behind him. Outside, Myungja sighs softly in thought.
Sunggyu had really fucked her- him, over. It had been easier to pretend to be older and a bit of a dick as Myungsoo and as L, but Myungja... It felt nice to finally be able to just show up and be whisked away instead of having to bicker and pay conversations off of Sungyeol. And yet, it was even harder still to stay as solely Myungja.
The only thing of his that he could bring into Myungja was Sungyeol, the one thing he didn't want to lose in either identity or lifestyle. The door opens suddenly. Sungyeol leans against the door frame in what Myungja is certain is supposed to be an enticing position.
"So... I guess this is our first meeting scene two Kim Myungsoo?"
"Myungja." She clips at him and her face almost resembles L's, she can feel the expression even.
Sungyeol nods his head as he steps aside to let her in, "right. With Myungja."
She comes up particularly close and presses forward to kiss him. To her shock he pulls back. "Whoa, maybe I've been giving you the wrong ideas Myungja, I'm gay."
His fingers come up to stroke at the seemingly natural hair that slides in and out of the line of her sweater. It feels nice to have her personal space invaded in the subtle way Sungyeol was doing it. She almost felt alive. Shaking those thoughts from her head she takes a firm hold to his wrist and pulls him in the direction of the corpse free couch.
"Let me try to convert you before we can consider you a lost cause."
Myungja wakes up a good half hour before dawn. She is a lighter than normal sleeper as of late and it had been difficult keeping asleep with heat at her side. While the house was barely lit by natural light and excessively quiet, Myungja strolled around the small apartment taking the view in.
The last words she remembers speaking the night before are correcting Sungyeol at the door. Her throat feels ticklish but she puts it aside figuring she is just hoarse and will be fine with water. Turning on a small lamp near a couch, she sits down and hoists her feet up on the arm rest. Sungyeol's pants are at the foot of the couch and with careful maneuvering, she brings it closer to her to look through the pockets.
He had not been joking when he said he wouldn't be able to afford another meal. A few sorry wrinkled bills are jammed into the wallet between calling cards for agencies and his id card. L had been the thief, Myungja was just curious.
Flipping the card between her fingers, she compares it to her own information. Sungyeol is twenty years old and with the fading pictures and calling cards neatly organized on one side of the wallet it's obvious that Sungyeol wants to be someone.
She doubts he is going through the same process he is.
He already knows about Myungsoo, L and Myungja even. But he has done that all on his own through their interactions. He doesn't know about him.
"Myungsoo?"
Her heart drops to her stomach and she bolts upright to look at Sungyeol standing outside his bedroom door. It isn’t the name calling that has alerted her, Sungyeol having found her at all puts her on her toes. She lets his card fall onto the couch and makes a silent walk back into the bedroom. He only stares down at her and mimics the silence as they both climb into bed with intentions to feign sleep for the next few hours.
Neither is very good at pretending so they fill in the void.
"What are you training for?"
She turns to look at him, face still a blur of lighter darkness than the rest of the room. She hums in confusion at his question. "You're a method actor right? You've been in all these different characters so I'm guessing you have something coming up. I'd like to check it out when it's on."
Myungja sighs then. "I'm not acting. This is who I am now."
"I want to be an actor too," Sungyeol changes the topic of conversation easily as he tends to do too often. He goes on and on about auditions and how it was harder to break into even a minimal role without connections these days. "I got a few modeling jobs here and there, but no big names or anything."
The silence returns. "Are you going to go out to look for another job tomorrow?"
Myungja can hear laughter and possibly the white of Sungyeol's smile. "Not tomorrow. I have a lunch date in the late afternoon."
It takes a few more hints but they both come to understand that he is asking her out, then.
When she wakes in Sungyeol's bed the second consecutive night that week, Sungyeol is already up if the noise in the kitchen is any indicator. She is greeted by sunlight and the too loud beeping of a machine as she steps outside of the dimmer room. Coffee and a foreign blend of spices assault her senses immediately. There is nothing in her coffee that much is obviously immediately at the too black of the drink.
She sits quietly with smile in front of him and places both her hands at her chin to prop her head upon them. Myungja has no idea what suits her face and can only hope that a sleep bloated face is still somewhat pretty by Sungyeol’s standards.
He silently finishes his drink and turns to place it in the sink behind him. Then he turns again and tosses the small purse Myungja had been carrying along with her in on the counter.
"So, when were you going to tell me that you’re actually seventeen?"
Panic suddenly overpowers the nasty bitter coffee she had only taken the smallest sip of. A bit of L returns to her and she manages to control herself and calmly reaches out for her purse and opens it. Her wallet is there and nothing is missing, but it’s obvious to see that the identification cards had all been found out, the three doctored ones and his original.
“Oppa-”
“You mean hyung.”
Myungsoo does not see the real trouble that Sungyeol is trying to start between them. So he had a fake id, lots of kids had them. “Hyung,” Myungja manages to say after a rather dry gulp, “they’re just fake ids.”
“Which is the real one? I couldn’t even tell who you were? Well, at least not Myungja because that certainly was a dick.” He motions in the general area of Myungja’s crotch which is covered by some clothing Sungyeol had lent him from the night before.
“Sungyeol, they are all real. You met most of them even.”
Sungyeol scoffs and stands up straight to simply glare indecorously at whomever it was Myungsoo wanted to be that day. He is clearly unable to understand what the hell theory the other was aiming at.
“Myungsoo, if that even if your name, I think you should get your things and go home.”
The mental twitch that usually goes through his mind to correct him does not occur. What is he supposed to correct him with? Myungja had become L and he couldn’t function around Sungyeol without some of the charm Myungsoo happened to exude in insane quantities.
“Sungyeol, it’s not that bad.” He offers in L’s generally stoic tone. No matter who he tries to think up an explanation as, nothing sounds as elementary and inexcusable and he hopes for.
The warm cup of coffee seems to be the only comfort present in the room so he lets his fingers circle the thick rim. Sungyeol sees reluctance, both to say anything else and to make move to leave, so he takes it upon himself to pick up the few things that he clearly knew were not his. He approaches with the skirt jumper and the blouse he had met him with and puts it on the counter next to the still hand still toying with the coffee cup.
He refuses to meet Sungyeol’s eyes as he slides off of the chair and dresses, movements slowing as he pulls the skirt up to his hips. Grabbing the purse with a sigh, he leaves Sungyeol’s apartment.
Myungja seems to have stayed tucked away in bed waiting for Sungyeol to slink back under the sheets. He fidgets as he fixes his skirt, his all of a sudden too short skirt. Why did it not occur to him to ask Sungyeol to save him face and lend him a pair of pants to make his way home? He isn’t a woman to be dressing in skirts with pretty matching small heels.
Technically, he wasn't female, Myungja was.
Unlike the carefree luck that Myungsoo or L had where they could hop on and off buses and end up in perfectly located areas, he has to actually listen to the stops and hope to recognize locations for a change. Sungyeol lives more than a handful of stops away and he does not have the fare to take the much faster subway home.
He has nothing on him but her purse with the ids. “A lot of good those did,” he mumbles to himself as he looks at an older woman boarding the bus. The seats are mostly taken and without much thought, he gets up and directs her to sit down. She smiles at him and delicately pats his helping hand.
Myungsoo sighs then, feeling all of the pressure from the previous days immaterialize. Sungyeol is the only bit of living he has allowed himself no matter who he was.
He has to go even bigger now if he wants to get anywhere and live a little.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
His ass is sore from sitting in the same position for the past few hours, but Myungsoo dashes up in a hurry once he hears Sungyeol’s voice. His sitting position had been rather warm and as he stands, the chill of the evening finally begins to seep through his uniform. He can tell that it was dark outside of the complex with how cold it had become, but without a watch he could only guess two hours or so past sundown. If he had known that Sungyeol would not be home earlier in the day, he might have thought to bring a thicker coat.
Sungyeol slows his every step as if attempting to delay coming any closer to Myungsoo as it is. He is clearly tired, bags under his eyes and shoulders sagging under the pressed line of his suit. Myungsoo has never seen him this dressed up so his curiosity jumps the gun before him as he asks the other for the reason. “Are you being arranged for marriage or something?”
“Or something,” Sungyeol humors Myungsoo for a moment. He shrugs off the leather gloves, fingers suddenly too warm and sweaty. “And you,” he asks as he motions to Myungsoo’s unusual get up, “pretending to be a school boy today? How old are you now? Sixteen, fifteen, thirteen maybe?”
Myungsoo stays quiet because he knows he deserves it. Sungyeol has been nothing but honest about himself and his personality since their meeting. He on the other hand, was a different person each and every time.
“I’m seventeen. I have a brother who just turned fifteen. I’m about to fail out of life if I don’t get my grades up, but I can’t concentrate. I’m really sorry about what happened, but you should know that I never lied to you about anything.
“Except my age,” he adds on quickly to correct himself.
As silent as Sungyeol seems, Myungsoo can only hope that he accepts that as the truth. The older man opens the door to his apartment and he steps in and takes off his shoes before sliding them to the side with a nudge from his socked foot. He begins to unbutton his coat giving Myungsoo his back.
Myungsoo can take a hint. He dusts off his bottom from having sat on the floor, waiting in the cold hallway for the other to return. After he fixes his coat and is about to head in the direction of the elevator, he hears Sungyeol clear his throat behind him.
“Not coming in?”
Slowly turning, Myungsoo’s brows raise to make sure he heard correctly. When Sungyeol doesn’t offer anything other than a pleasant soft smile, Myungsoo makes hurried steps back to the front of the apartment door and kicks off his shoes, like a boy his age does. They both finish removing the heavier clothes silently and Myungsoo only follows Sungyeol into the home silently as if a new guest to the home.
Myungsoo fixes his shoes in the same fashion Sungyeol had before him and slips his feet into a pair of the provided house slippers. While making sure his shoes are perfectly arranged and in proper placement next to Sungyeol’s shoes, Myungsoo can hear the other going on about how he still had to pay him back and he had to help him on his job search, the third one since meeting him. Despite their only having been in the home for less than a minute, it felt loads warmer.
“So we meet for the... first time, Something Something shi.” Sungyeol turns to him, hands on his hips as he finally assesses the oddly unfamiliar face he has seen too many times in the past month or so. He smiles easily, smile broadening when Myungsoo smiles in return, a soft smile he hasn’t seen on any of the previous people Myungsoo had been before him.
“Myungsoo is fine.”