oscillations (and everything else)
oscillations (and everything else)
woohyun-centric, woohyun/sunggyu, pg, general
woohyun learns to talk.
for deasyellow's birthday :3 i hope it isn't completely shitty .__.
Did you know people used to speak, Woohyun says. His fingers fly over the keyboard.
That was a long time ago, Sunggyu replies.
I know, Woohyun answers, a sigh in his throat, but nothing conveys over written speech. Woohyun knows Sunggyu does not hear the sigh. He does not hear Woohyun’s curiosity.
It’s a small sigh, anyway, and it disappears down Woohyun’s throat when a notification pops up on the right hand corner of Woohyun’s screen, from Mom, telling him to go down for dinner.
---
Woohyun looks up speaking after dinner. There is scant information on all the search engines, and a search on his personal encyclopedia draws a blank as well. There is only one hit on one search engine, a scientific paper almost a century and a half ago, about the vibrations in the vocal folds of the human larynx that produce sound. There is no need for research on how humans (used to) speak; the segue to the virtual world is voluntary. Woohyun knows he has made a sound before, as a baby when motor skills are not yet advanced enough to work a keyboard, screams and sobs and other unintelligible noises, but he’s been typing into a keyboard to communicate for as long as he can remember. Everyone has.
He raises two hesitant fingers to his larynx, tracing his fingers over the bump. Evolution has not caught up yet; human beings are still born with the mechanism that allows them to produce sounds. Woohyun wonders what it’s like to hear yourself speak.
He does know what a human voice sounds like; some public figures like politicians still use their voices for the personal touch. Entertainers still sing. Some of his lessons involve a recorded human narrator. But Woohyun doesn’t know what his voice sounds like, what Sunggyu’s voice sounds like. He can barely remember his parents’ voices.
I wonder what I sound like, Woohyun tells Sunggyu. They have their webcams on, and Woohyun can see Sunggyu frown a little.
You sound like a nice guy. Sunggyu replies hesitantly, as though he doesn’t know what Woohyun’s trying to get at. The little pixel-composed pencil moves across the screen more slowly than usual.
I meant, my voice, Woohyun says. His lips are set with a hint of exasperation, and he knows Sunggyu can see it.
Why are you talking about that again? Let’s play Warcraft or something, Sunggyu asks.
Nah, I’m tired. Woohyun touches his larynx again. He can see Sunggyu’s eyes dart to Woohyun’s fingers on his larynx, but Sunggyu doesn’t say anything.
Are you okay? Sunggyu’s eyelids lift a little, with his eyebrows.
Yes, Woohyun nods. I think I’m going to sleep
Okay, Sunggyu replies. Bye
Bye, Woohyun says, and logs off.
His fingers keep running over his larynx, that foreign, mystifying part of himself, even when he’s lying on his bed that night, staring up at the ceiling.
---
Woohyun tries when he’s in the shower the next day, the faucet on so his mother wouldn’t be able to hear him. He opens his mouth, just slightly, cautiously, and exhales through his mouth. The air at the back of his throat is warm.
No sound comes out of his throat. The faucet continues running.
His hand flies to his larynx, and he tries the same thing again. He can feel his throat moving inwards and upwards, slightly, the hollow between his collarbones filling up, but he hears nothing.
He tries again, harder, forcing the air out of his throat now, and all he hears is the rushing of air. It is not a voice at all.
---
Woohyun figures something out when he gets a cold a week later. He’s been touching his larynx a lot, and when he’s trying to clear his throat of phlegm at the same time he’s got his fingers over the familiar bump, he feels a vibration right under his fingers, so thrillingly foreign that his fingers tingle a bit. He clears his throat again, and there it is.
He forces the sound out over and over, trying his best to ignore the phlegm, till his throat is red and raw. The doctor advises him to keep swallowing fluids. Woohyun obeys and swallows the sounds.
---
Woohyun tries again when he’s better. It takes several tries, but Woohyun’s a fast learner. He works out how to cut out the bubbling in his throat to make the start of a cough and go straight into the vibrations in his larynx instead, elongating the back of the sound till he runs out of breath.
The back of his throat is prickling a little with all the forcing he’s doing, but he just takes a gulp of water and finds a video of the Deputy Prime Minister’s recent speech. He plays it, picking up on the way words are formed with the shaping of a mouth. Woohyun’s good at picking up movements in faces, facial cues. They all are.
My, he watches the Deputy Prime Minster say. He imitates him, opening his mouth in a rounded circle, then dropping his upper jaw. He doesn’t manage to do the movement at the same time he makes his larynx vibrate on his first try, but he catches on.
“My,” he voices it over and over, “my.” His spine is tingling at his amazement, this thrilling experience of hearing himself and he lets his voice pour through his ears and fill him up.
People years ago might have called the way Woohyun can’t seem to do anything else speechless, but Woohyun is anything but, in the truest sense of the word.
---
It takes Woohyun a week to be able to read a paragraph out loud in one go. His throat hurts with the exertion he’s subjecting it to, but he cannot stop. The way words wiggle their way out of his throat and roll off his tongue is mesmerizing. He discovers the difference in intonation. He can put his sighs into his speech. A breathy I know is not the same as a steady one.
Fingers shaking with excitement, he logs on and pings Sunggyu.
I learnt to talk, Woohyun says - types, he corrects himself mentally.
What? Sunggyu types back.
Can you meet me? I want to talk to you, Woohyun types quickly. Sunggyu is his best friend, and he’s never been in Sunggyu’s physical presence before (nor for a lot of people he knows, either). They’d been in the same online community since elementary school, and one day Sunggyu’d been demonstrating an answer on the Math chat when Woohyun noticed a glaring error and private-messaged him. They’ve been friends ever since.
Sunggyu takes a while to answer. Meetings between people are rare and usually reserved only for family. Woohyun is decidedly not.
Uh, Woohyun sees Sunggyu’s reply.
Can I come and meet you, then? Where do you live? Woohyun types. He wants to show someone how he can talk, now, and Sunggyu is really the only person he can show, besides his parents. His father would call him absurd.
Maybe we can meet at the park near the mall. Do you know where that is? Sunggyu types. This response is a lot quicker than the one before.
Yes, see you in twenty minutes, Woohyun types back, and logs off. He leaves his mother a notification that reads I am going for a run, and slips out of the house. The wind on his face is vaguely familiar - they don’t really leave the house much. There is no point. Food delivers everywhere, everybody works from home.
He paces the entrance of the park when he reaches there, too excited to stay still. He tests out the words he’s perfected - “hello”, “Woohyun”, “Sunggyu”. They slide out of his throat and dance on the tip of his tongue.
Sunggyu approaches Woohyun slowly, his eyes guarded. Woohyun can see his arms folded over his chest. Sunggyu offers a tentative smile.
Woohyun grins and walks right up to Sunggyu. “Hello.”
Sunggyu jerks back a little, his fingers clutching his tablet - the tablet everyone carries out - tightly.
“Sunggyu,” Woohyun says proudly.
Sunggyu’s body is frozen stiff. He stares at Woohyun, eyebrows knitted, but Woohyun can see his head jerk a fraction of an inch, angling his right ear towards Woohyun. Sunggyu doesn’t seem to have noticed this.
“My name is Woohyun,” Woohyun says, feeling his voice bubble out of his throat. He’s stopped feeling his larynx now. Voices are auditory, not somatosensory.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” Sunggyu doesn’t move, but his eyes fall to his feet.
“Sunggyu. Sunggyu!” Woohyun tries out. Sunggyu looks Woohyun sharply with the second word, the one Woohyun put more force, more enthusiasm into. Woohyun knows Sunggyu can hear the difference.
Sunggyu, Woohyun types on his tablet, and shows it to Sunggyu.
“It’s different, right?” He says, smiling. Sunggyu’s eyes shift to something else, no longer shock and caution, something softer. Comprehension.
How? Sunggyu types.
Woohyun smiles and brings Sunggyu’s hand to his larynx. Sunggyu’s fingers are stiff beneath his, and he pauses for a second. Physical contact is something new to the both of them as well. Sunggyu’s hand is soft, but firm. It is warm, nothing like the inanimate objects Woohyun is used to. He wants to keep his hand there, but he’ll leave that for another time, he thinks. One step at a time. He retracts his hand slowly.
He clears his throat, like he had started out. “Try it.”
Sunggyu clears his throat as well. Woohyun sees his fingers sink against his larynx when he does.
“Do you feel it?” Woohyun asks. Sunggyu nods, clearing his throat again.
(Months later, when they finally get to it, Woohyun thinks Sunggyu’s laughter is the prettiest thing he’s ever heard.)
woohyun-centric, woohyun/sunggyu, pg, general
woohyun learns to talk.
for deasyellow's birthday :3 i hope it isn't completely shitty .__.
Did you know people used to speak, Woohyun says. His fingers fly over the keyboard.
That was a long time ago, Sunggyu replies.
I know, Woohyun answers, a sigh in his throat, but nothing conveys over written speech. Woohyun knows Sunggyu does not hear the sigh. He does not hear Woohyun’s curiosity.
It’s a small sigh, anyway, and it disappears down Woohyun’s throat when a notification pops up on the right hand corner of Woohyun’s screen, from Mom, telling him to go down for dinner.
---
Woohyun looks up speaking after dinner. There is scant information on all the search engines, and a search on his personal encyclopedia draws a blank as well. There is only one hit on one search engine, a scientific paper almost a century and a half ago, about the vibrations in the vocal folds of the human larynx that produce sound. There is no need for research on how humans (used to) speak; the segue to the virtual world is voluntary. Woohyun knows he has made a sound before, as a baby when motor skills are not yet advanced enough to work a keyboard, screams and sobs and other unintelligible noises, but he’s been typing into a keyboard to communicate for as long as he can remember. Everyone has.
He raises two hesitant fingers to his larynx, tracing his fingers over the bump. Evolution has not caught up yet; human beings are still born with the mechanism that allows them to produce sounds. Woohyun wonders what it’s like to hear yourself speak.
He does know what a human voice sounds like; some public figures like politicians still use their voices for the personal touch. Entertainers still sing. Some of his lessons involve a recorded human narrator. But Woohyun doesn’t know what his voice sounds like, what Sunggyu’s voice sounds like. He can barely remember his parents’ voices.
I wonder what I sound like, Woohyun tells Sunggyu. They have their webcams on, and Woohyun can see Sunggyu frown a little.
You sound like a nice guy. Sunggyu replies hesitantly, as though he doesn’t know what Woohyun’s trying to get at. The little pixel-composed pencil moves across the screen more slowly than usual.
I meant, my voice, Woohyun says. His lips are set with a hint of exasperation, and he knows Sunggyu can see it.
Why are you talking about that again? Let’s play Warcraft or something, Sunggyu asks.
Nah, I’m tired. Woohyun touches his larynx again. He can see Sunggyu’s eyes dart to Woohyun’s fingers on his larynx, but Sunggyu doesn’t say anything.
Are you okay? Sunggyu’s eyelids lift a little, with his eyebrows.
Yes, Woohyun nods. I think I’m going to sleep
Okay, Sunggyu replies. Bye
Bye, Woohyun says, and logs off.
His fingers keep running over his larynx, that foreign, mystifying part of himself, even when he’s lying on his bed that night, staring up at the ceiling.
---
Woohyun tries when he’s in the shower the next day, the faucet on so his mother wouldn’t be able to hear him. He opens his mouth, just slightly, cautiously, and exhales through his mouth. The air at the back of his throat is warm.
No sound comes out of his throat. The faucet continues running.
His hand flies to his larynx, and he tries the same thing again. He can feel his throat moving inwards and upwards, slightly, the hollow between his collarbones filling up, but he hears nothing.
He tries again, harder, forcing the air out of his throat now, and all he hears is the rushing of air. It is not a voice at all.
---
Woohyun figures something out when he gets a cold a week later. He’s been touching his larynx a lot, and when he’s trying to clear his throat of phlegm at the same time he’s got his fingers over the familiar bump, he feels a vibration right under his fingers, so thrillingly foreign that his fingers tingle a bit. He clears his throat again, and there it is.
He forces the sound out over and over, trying his best to ignore the phlegm, till his throat is red and raw. The doctor advises him to keep swallowing fluids. Woohyun obeys and swallows the sounds.
---
Woohyun tries again when he’s better. It takes several tries, but Woohyun’s a fast learner. He works out how to cut out the bubbling in his throat to make the start of a cough and go straight into the vibrations in his larynx instead, elongating the back of the sound till he runs out of breath.
The back of his throat is prickling a little with all the forcing he’s doing, but he just takes a gulp of water and finds a video of the Deputy Prime Minister’s recent speech. He plays it, picking up on the way words are formed with the shaping of a mouth. Woohyun’s good at picking up movements in faces, facial cues. They all are.
My, he watches the Deputy Prime Minster say. He imitates him, opening his mouth in a rounded circle, then dropping his upper jaw. He doesn’t manage to do the movement at the same time he makes his larynx vibrate on his first try, but he catches on.
“My,” he voices it over and over, “my.” His spine is tingling at his amazement, this thrilling experience of hearing himself and he lets his voice pour through his ears and fill him up.
People years ago might have called the way Woohyun can’t seem to do anything else speechless, but Woohyun is anything but, in the truest sense of the word.
---
It takes Woohyun a week to be able to read a paragraph out loud in one go. His throat hurts with the exertion he’s subjecting it to, but he cannot stop. The way words wiggle their way out of his throat and roll off his tongue is mesmerizing. He discovers the difference in intonation. He can put his sighs into his speech. A breathy I know is not the same as a steady one.
Fingers shaking with excitement, he logs on and pings Sunggyu.
I learnt to talk, Woohyun says - types, he corrects himself mentally.
What? Sunggyu types back.
Can you meet me? I want to talk to you, Woohyun types quickly. Sunggyu is his best friend, and he’s never been in Sunggyu’s physical presence before (nor for a lot of people he knows, either). They’d been in the same online community since elementary school, and one day Sunggyu’d been demonstrating an answer on the Math chat when Woohyun noticed a glaring error and private-messaged him. They’ve been friends ever since.
Sunggyu takes a while to answer. Meetings between people are rare and usually reserved only for family. Woohyun is decidedly not.
Uh, Woohyun sees Sunggyu’s reply.
Can I come and meet you, then? Where do you live? Woohyun types. He wants to show someone how he can talk, now, and Sunggyu is really the only person he can show, besides his parents. His father would call him absurd.
Maybe we can meet at the park near the mall. Do you know where that is? Sunggyu types. This response is a lot quicker than the one before.
Yes, see you in twenty minutes, Woohyun types back, and logs off. He leaves his mother a notification that reads I am going for a run, and slips out of the house. The wind on his face is vaguely familiar - they don’t really leave the house much. There is no point. Food delivers everywhere, everybody works from home.
He paces the entrance of the park when he reaches there, too excited to stay still. He tests out the words he’s perfected - “hello”, “Woohyun”, “Sunggyu”. They slide out of his throat and dance on the tip of his tongue.
Sunggyu approaches Woohyun slowly, his eyes guarded. Woohyun can see his arms folded over his chest. Sunggyu offers a tentative smile.
Woohyun grins and walks right up to Sunggyu. “Hello.”
Sunggyu jerks back a little, his fingers clutching his tablet - the tablet everyone carries out - tightly.
“Sunggyu,” Woohyun says proudly.
Sunggyu’s body is frozen stiff. He stares at Woohyun, eyebrows knitted, but Woohyun can see his head jerk a fraction of an inch, angling his right ear towards Woohyun. Sunggyu doesn’t seem to have noticed this.
“My name is Woohyun,” Woohyun says, feeling his voice bubble out of his throat. He’s stopped feeling his larynx now. Voices are auditory, not somatosensory.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” Sunggyu doesn’t move, but his eyes fall to his feet.
“Sunggyu. Sunggyu!” Woohyun tries out. Sunggyu looks Woohyun sharply with the second word, the one Woohyun put more force, more enthusiasm into. Woohyun knows Sunggyu can hear the difference.
Sunggyu, Woohyun types on his tablet, and shows it to Sunggyu.
“It’s different, right?” He says, smiling. Sunggyu’s eyes shift to something else, no longer shock and caution, something softer. Comprehension.
How? Sunggyu types.
Woohyun smiles and brings Sunggyu’s hand to his larynx. Sunggyu’s fingers are stiff beneath his, and he pauses for a second. Physical contact is something new to the both of them as well. Sunggyu’s hand is soft, but firm. It is warm, nothing like the inanimate objects Woohyun is used to. He wants to keep his hand there, but he’ll leave that for another time, he thinks. One step at a time. He retracts his hand slowly.
He clears his throat, like he had started out. “Try it.”
Sunggyu clears his throat as well. Woohyun sees his fingers sink against his larynx when he does.
“Do you feel it?” Woohyun asks. Sunggyu nods, clearing his throat again.
(Months later, when they finally get to it, Woohyun thinks Sunggyu’s laughter is the prettiest thing he’s ever heard.)