[54] let me listen to you
Let Me Listen To You
fandom: SHINee
rating: G
relationship: Jinki/Minho
word count: 1.6k
author's note: written for challenge 20 at shawol_haven (quote: "A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words." ~Bernard Meltzer) voting ends the 20th thx :3
Some people think there’s something wrong with you because you don’t speak enough. The funny thing is those same people think there’s something wrong with me because I speak too much. (We both know it’s more like the stuff I say is too weird.) It can’t be spelled out with letters, but the laughter that tumbles from between your lips means more to me than any word in any language ever could. (It helps that I’m the only person who can make you laugh, because I am, right?)
I’ve never understood why people have never understood that you’re not really meant to be listened to. You’re meant to be watched, looked at in anticipation and wonder. Everything you can or want or need to say is there in the way your nostrils flare and your shoulders stiffen lopsidedly and your eyeballs roll up to the left for at least a dozen or so seconds (those mean that you’re sleepy, your back itches someplace you can’t reach, and you want to eat ddukbokki but don’t want to pay so you expect me to, respectively).
You’re a book, not a song, and you write yourself in a language that no one aside from me has ever tried to translate. And maybe I speak what everyone else does, but you’re the only person who really knows what I say and more importantly what I mean. I bet we could write dictionaries for each other. We could write multilingual poems and bibles and treaties, and we’d be the only ones in the universe who would understand.
Would you translate Lee-Jinki-an for everyone else? To be honest, I don’t think I would ever translate Choi-Minho-nese for anyone else. (Unless, of course, you needed rescuing from under a pile of rubble but I figure you’d actually be yelling instead of doing your usual alien body language which would probably get you even more crushed, and even then you wouldn’t need to yell real words, just make a lot of noise, but I hope nothing like that ever happens. I mean, why would you be near a building at risk of crumbling in the first place?)
But sometimes even we don’t understand each other. Granted, it’s only because we’re doing it on purpose. We’re just sitting beside each other reading manhwa (because you scratched the shell of your right ear) or sharing a bucket of fried chicken that you actually paid for (because you graciously offered by knitting your brows and sticking out your tongue), and we use whatever body part is the easiest to reach as slates to pass notes. Letter by letter, you’ll write something that’s your definition of silly and I’ll write something that’s my definition of serious and something always gets lost in translation because fingertips don’t make the best writing utensils. (Skin, though, is by far the easiest medium to erase invisible scribbles from, I’m sure you’d agree with a squinted left eye.) And because you tickle easily.
But sometimes even I wish I could hear your voice string syllables together more often, even if not into proper coherent sentences-toothpaste-shiny shoes-poop-Jinki-melted ice cream sandwich-camel-doorknob-hyung-clogged drain-Jinki, Jinki, Jinki-
I used to think maybe you were afraid or ashamed of your voice. But now I know you just use words sparingly. You treat them like something precious the way no one ever does anymore, because the words you choose are always the best ones. I hope you don’t think I take words for granted, because I certainly don’t, and because now those words spoken with your voice are the most precious things in the world to me.
I used to keep a log of them in my head until I realized you speak quite a bit more than I give you credit for. I realized I’m not the greatest of listeners (or maybe just not a great remember-er). And that’s when I started filling the jar that I keep hidden in the back of my closet with receipts and napkins and corners from magazine covers or math quizzes with anything and everything you would say to me scribbled in my desperation to keep them for myself.
don’t hate your haircut, okay?
thank you for the eggroll
you better have to better come over
The jar’s almost full and it’s really like you and your words that I’ve had the privilege of receiving have become a book and all that’s missing are the bindings and page numbers. And if I could actually sew without turning my fingers into finger-shaped Swiss cheese, I would stitch the scraps together. I would turn those postcards and newspaper clippings and takeout menus into a flip book. But instead of seeing something move or grow I’d be able to hear your voice again.
i hope your mom wasn’t too mad about the vase
rain smells good
why are your hands so cold?
It wouldn’t be nearly as good as the real thing, of course. It would probably be airy, the way flip books actually sound. So my only hope is that it’ll never need a back cover, that it’ll never end. (Maybe I would put in an index though, just so I could find certain things more easily.) I hope there’ll always be cheat sheets or used envelopes or flyers to add because that’ll mean you’re still speaking to me, because the thought of never hearing you say
i made the team
or
those shoes are awesome
or even
are you sure you’re getting taller?
would make my world seem both too quiet and too noisy.
It’s funny, huh? How your careful, hushed, pensive murmurs become all that I hear? Then again, it’s only fair since I’m always forcing rambled nonsense and imitations of people (or animal sounds) on you. I wouldn’t be overly surprised if I’ve mistaken your peering down to the right while the corners of your mouth twitch so your dimples play peekaboo with me as you caring or at least paying attention when all along they’ve meant you were ignoring me and only pretending to care (or at least pay attention).
But at the same time, I know that isn’t true. I know you really do pay attention and you really do care because there are times when even I have nothing to say. Those times when I’m too upset (never at or by you, of course) and all I can manage are grunts or less. Those are the times when your finger slows down on my thigh or shoulder blade and your finger-writing gets clearer with
that really wasn’t fair to you
or
i’ll listen whenever you’re ready
or
do you want me to beat them up?
but always, once you’ve finally gotten a hug out of me (how is that fair, I’m the one in a bad mood but you coerce me into hugging you?), you’ll throw in a
i really want to hear you sing
and no matter how bad of a mood I may have been in, I always listen (though, would a ‘please’ hurt you, Minho-yah, geeze). I never ask anymore what kind of song because you always say (half-shrug and blink rapidly) that it doesn’t matter. What matters is my mouth is open too often for too long. So instead I press my lips firmly together and hum. Sometimes it’s a melody from a real song, but usually I just make the songs up. Little ditties and jingles that don’t need harmonies or percussion or lyrics because the way your eyelashes flutter once or twice against your cheeks before your eyes finally drift shut and the way your fingertips dance in tiny circles against whatever part of my body you ended your sentence on and the way my heart doesn’t speed up but grows to twice its size with every beat against my ribs makes it seem like we’re waltzing to a giant orchestra. Even if we’re just sitting still, just the two of us.
(I doubt I can really waltz anyway.)
I wonder. Do you keep my rare silences and improvised scores in a jar? How would you keep and preserve them? Are the silences like negative matter that take away from the songs already in there? Or maybe a different kind of air. One that’s a bit denser so it sinks through the humming like water through oil. And maybe they’re even different colors-singing and silence-so you could see exactly where the layers kiss. Would you ever fish out my voice and my silence? Would you use a net or a spoon? Knowing you, you’d just stick your hand in there. Would you ever shake the jar so the layers of sound and no-sound get mixed up, air that carries notes and air that’s muted coming together to make a new color.
Because whenever I shake the jar I use to keep your voice that I’ve turned into ink and letters, I don’t hear the rustling of paper, I hear your voice saying words you’ve yet to say but have always meant.
So if you do, could I maybe see it one day? I think I’d like to press my ear to the glass or hold it up to the sun to watch the light filter through. Because even though there are no real words in there, that collection spells out the words I’ve yet to sing but have always meant.
I wonder.
Which of us will share first?
-----
eta: yay :3 thanks to all who voted~
fandom: SHINee
rating: G
relationship: Jinki/Minho
word count: 1.6k
author's note: written for challenge 20 at shawol_haven (quote: "A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words." ~Bernard Meltzer) voting ends the 20th thx :3
Some people think there’s something wrong with you because you don’t speak enough. The funny thing is those same people think there’s something wrong with me because I speak too much. (We both know it’s more like the stuff I say is too weird.) It can’t be spelled out with letters, but the laughter that tumbles from between your lips means more to me than any word in any language ever could. (It helps that I’m the only person who can make you laugh, because I am, right?)
I’ve never understood why people have never understood that you’re not really meant to be listened to. You’re meant to be watched, looked at in anticipation and wonder. Everything you can or want or need to say is there in the way your nostrils flare and your shoulders stiffen lopsidedly and your eyeballs roll up to the left for at least a dozen or so seconds (those mean that you’re sleepy, your back itches someplace you can’t reach, and you want to eat ddukbokki but don’t want to pay so you expect me to, respectively).
You’re a book, not a song, and you write yourself in a language that no one aside from me has ever tried to translate. And maybe I speak what everyone else does, but you’re the only person who really knows what I say and more importantly what I mean. I bet we could write dictionaries for each other. We could write multilingual poems and bibles and treaties, and we’d be the only ones in the universe who would understand.
Would you translate Lee-Jinki-an for everyone else? To be honest, I don’t think I would ever translate Choi-Minho-nese for anyone else. (Unless, of course, you needed rescuing from under a pile of rubble but I figure you’d actually be yelling instead of doing your usual alien body language which would probably get you even more crushed, and even then you wouldn’t need to yell real words, just make a lot of noise, but I hope nothing like that ever happens. I mean, why would you be near a building at risk of crumbling in the first place?)
But sometimes even we don’t understand each other. Granted, it’s only because we’re doing it on purpose. We’re just sitting beside each other reading manhwa (because you scratched the shell of your right ear) or sharing a bucket of fried chicken that you actually paid for (because you graciously offered by knitting your brows and sticking out your tongue), and we use whatever body part is the easiest to reach as slates to pass notes. Letter by letter, you’ll write something that’s your definition of silly and I’ll write something that’s my definition of serious and something always gets lost in translation because fingertips don’t make the best writing utensils. (Skin, though, is by far the easiest medium to erase invisible scribbles from, I’m sure you’d agree with a squinted left eye.) And because you tickle easily.
But sometimes even I wish I could hear your voice string syllables together more often, even if not into proper coherent sentences-toothpaste-shiny shoes-poop-Jinki-melted ice cream sandwich-camel-doorknob-hyung-clogged drain-Jinki, Jinki, Jinki-
I used to think maybe you were afraid or ashamed of your voice. But now I know you just use words sparingly. You treat them like something precious the way no one ever does anymore, because the words you choose are always the best ones. I hope you don’t think I take words for granted, because I certainly don’t, and because now those words spoken with your voice are the most precious things in the world to me.
I used to keep a log of them in my head until I realized you speak quite a bit more than I give you credit for. I realized I’m not the greatest of listeners (or maybe just not a great remember-er). And that’s when I started filling the jar that I keep hidden in the back of my closet with receipts and napkins and corners from magazine covers or math quizzes with anything and everything you would say to me scribbled in my desperation to keep them for myself.
don’t hate your haircut, okay?
thank you for the eggroll
you better have to better come over
The jar’s almost full and it’s really like you and your words that I’ve had the privilege of receiving have become a book and all that’s missing are the bindings and page numbers. And if I could actually sew without turning my fingers into finger-shaped Swiss cheese, I would stitch the scraps together. I would turn those postcards and newspaper clippings and takeout menus into a flip book. But instead of seeing something move or grow I’d be able to hear your voice again.
i hope your mom wasn’t too mad about the vase
rain smells good
why are your hands so cold?
It wouldn’t be nearly as good as the real thing, of course. It would probably be airy, the way flip books actually sound. So my only hope is that it’ll never need a back cover, that it’ll never end. (Maybe I would put in an index though, just so I could find certain things more easily.) I hope there’ll always be cheat sheets or used envelopes or flyers to add because that’ll mean you’re still speaking to me, because the thought of never hearing you say
i made the team
or
those shoes are awesome
or even
are you sure you’re getting taller?
would make my world seem both too quiet and too noisy.
It’s funny, huh? How your careful, hushed, pensive murmurs become all that I hear? Then again, it’s only fair since I’m always forcing rambled nonsense and imitations of people (or animal sounds) on you. I wouldn’t be overly surprised if I’ve mistaken your peering down to the right while the corners of your mouth twitch so your dimples play peekaboo with me as you caring or at least paying attention when all along they’ve meant you were ignoring me and only pretending to care (or at least pay attention).
But at the same time, I know that isn’t true. I know you really do pay attention and you really do care because there are times when even I have nothing to say. Those times when I’m too upset (never at or by you, of course) and all I can manage are grunts or less. Those are the times when your finger slows down on my thigh or shoulder blade and your finger-writing gets clearer with
that really wasn’t fair to you
or
i’ll listen whenever you’re ready
or
do you want me to beat them up?
but always, once you’ve finally gotten a hug out of me (how is that fair, I’m the one in a bad mood but you coerce me into hugging you?), you’ll throw in a
i really want to hear you sing
and no matter how bad of a mood I may have been in, I always listen (though, would a ‘please’ hurt you, Minho-yah, geeze). I never ask anymore what kind of song because you always say (half-shrug and blink rapidly) that it doesn’t matter. What matters is my mouth is open too often for too long. So instead I press my lips firmly together and hum. Sometimes it’s a melody from a real song, but usually I just make the songs up. Little ditties and jingles that don’t need harmonies or percussion or lyrics because the way your eyelashes flutter once or twice against your cheeks before your eyes finally drift shut and the way your fingertips dance in tiny circles against whatever part of my body you ended your sentence on and the way my heart doesn’t speed up but grows to twice its size with every beat against my ribs makes it seem like we’re waltzing to a giant orchestra. Even if we’re just sitting still, just the two of us.
(I doubt I can really waltz anyway.)
I wonder. Do you keep my rare silences and improvised scores in a jar? How would you keep and preserve them? Are the silences like negative matter that take away from the songs already in there? Or maybe a different kind of air. One that’s a bit denser so it sinks through the humming like water through oil. And maybe they’re even different colors-singing and silence-so you could see exactly where the layers kiss. Would you ever fish out my voice and my silence? Would you use a net or a spoon? Knowing you, you’d just stick your hand in there. Would you ever shake the jar so the layers of sound and no-sound get mixed up, air that carries notes and air that’s muted coming together to make a new color.
Because whenever I shake the jar I use to keep your voice that I’ve turned into ink and letters, I don’t hear the rustling of paper, I hear your voice saying words you’ve yet to say but have always meant.
So if you do, could I maybe see it one day? I think I’d like to press my ear to the glass or hold it up to the sun to watch the light filter through. Because even though there are no real words in there, that collection spells out the words I’ve yet to sing but have always meant.
I wonder.
Which of us will share first?
-----
eta: yay :3 thanks to all who voted~