someday i'll be a real boy [ fic ]
the pinocchio folk
gd/top | r, 5172 words, au
jiyong's blind, seunghyun's an ass.
you're the colour, you're the movement and the spin
never could it stay with me the whole day long.....
CONSEQUENCE/THE NOTWIST
92037 is told he was born on a stormy Sunday in the middle of November. He doesn't remember much of it - except for a distant pounding noise that he later learns is the sound water droplets make when hitting solid objects - but he does end up with a weird affinity for rain, which Seunghyun attributes to the conditions of his birthday.
For two amazing hours, he is alive and perfect and marveling (with the limited means he has) at his face and his arms, his stomach, and just the thought of himself lying on a conveyer belt and breathing, aware. He can feel things, taste things, hear things - in that order, as hands and a tongue and ears are fitted onto various parts of him - and it's all so fantastic that he doesn't even realize he's broken until a buzzer sounds somewhere in the distance. Instead of getting packed into a box and shipped off to his new life, he is pulled out of the assembly line and tossed down a chute.
He lands in a large box full of crooked limbs and twisted bodies, all sighing noises without any meaning because none of them have learned language. A sudden lurching movement and a squeaking noise below him signify that they, in the box, are moving; then after a while, they stop. He is untangled from the others, pulled to his feet, and given a ticket stub with a number he can't read.
"Don't worry," he hears. "You'll be fixed soon."
It takes 92037 a while to walk from his bunk to the mechanics, so he always gets up a little earlier than the early morning rush of bodies so he can take his time to get there. By the way he continually bumps into the wall - even with his hand pressed against it - makes him think he might not be an early bird by choice. And then he thinks, I must be getting better at this if I'm blaming it on lethargy instead of my eyes.
Despite extra efforts, there's always already a line when he arrives. Most of these puppets will be more severely handicapped, like him, the ragamuffin procession made up of ones with only half a leg, or no bones in the left side of their body, or hair that feels more like needles. They all clutch tickets in their hands, told they're going to be fixed soon, don't worry. 90237 doesn't know why it only takes a few hours to put them together the first time, but if something's wrong, why it takes infinitely longer to fix. (Or what they're even going to do with the girl whose body hair can poke through things.)
90237 stops at his usual spot on the ledge, pulling the unreadable ticket from his back pocket, and listens to the other puppets around him talk, most of them still riding on the high of learning how to even pause for breath.
"Can I sit here?"
92037 tilts his head in what he hopes is the right direction. Unfortunately, he's not too good at figuring out which way sound comes from yet, which - in the best case scenario - makes him look a little like a curious puppy.
"Uh - I mean, sorry," he - whoever he is - says, "it's just everywhere else is kinda taken," and 92037 realizes he's interpreted his hesitation as a reluctance to share the space.
"You can sit," 92037 says. He quickly scoots over, sees the few shadows he can shift as the stranger eases down next to him.
"Thanks," the other puppet says, and wastes no time by proceeding with, "so what's wrong with you?"
This is the conversation everybody has when they first meet. Because only the broken ones are left here.
"Eyes," 92037 says. "Can't see. Apparently that's not right." And he's not yet entirely convinced that that's true, but what does he know? He's only about five days old. "You?"
"My heart doesn't work or something. Insert obvious joke here. I didn't really pay attention to the specifics." The other puppet doesn't sound all that concerned. "So you can't see, like, anything? What about how many fingers I'm holding up?"
"Seven," 92037 picks at random.
"Nah. How about now?"
"Thirteen," 92037 says. He stopped playing the finger game two days ago after he realized there wasn't really a point except to amuse someone else.
As if on cue, the other puppet laughs. It's a nice sound, cracked and smooth at once, different from his gravelly voice; it somehow makes him less like a douchebag, 90237 decides.
"Sorry, that was dumb. What's your name?"
"I don't have one," 92037 frowns. "I thought our humans name us."
"Well, I named myself," and the stranger sounds way too smug about it. "Seunghyun. Nice to meet you." He takes 92037's hand from his lap and shakes it rather jerkily a few times.
"Hi," 92037 says. The other puppet's hand is cold - but physical contact is something 92037 has been fascinated with since birth - so he doesn't pull away immediately.
"So they just call you 92037, right?" Seunghyun says, and 92037's eyebrows knot.
"How'd you know that?"
"Your brand," Seunghyun says, like it's obvious. When 92037 doesn't respond, Seunghyun makes a noise of impatience. "The one on your neck? What, you haven't seen - I mean - oh wait, shit," he stammers, and backtracks. "We, um - sorry. What I mean is - we all have our serial numbers on our necks. Right here," he says, and then his cold fingers are on the right side of 92037's neck, grazing just against his collarbone.
"Oh," 92037 says, and suddenly feels, under the goosebumps where Seunghyun's fingers touch, supremely stupid. He should have known - it's why the mechanic always holds something to his neck after every exam - why the lady in the mess hall always greets everybody by number when they get their food. He'd always thought she just had a spectacular memory.
"Wow, hey, I'm sorry," Seunghyun says, genuinely sounding it even through his laugh. "I'm just messing up all over the place."
92037 just shrugs, because he's been taught that's one of the more polite gestures in awkward situations.
Seunghyun lapses into silence. 92037 concludes that he's made the situation sufficiently sad enough for Seunghyun too look for somebody less nerve wracking to talk to, so he stops paying attention.
Then, Seunghyun snaps his fingers.
"Jiyong," he says decisively, like it's some genius idea. "I'm gonna call you Jiyong."
Weird. "Why?"
"Because," Seunghyun says, and brushes his entire hand through 92037's mess of hair - one side that won't stay flat, peach-fuzz scalp on the other. "Your hair makes you look like a dragon." A pause. "It's kind of lame," he adds as an afterthought. "But I'm not that creative yet. Sorry."
92037's stomach drops; he pulls away as far as he can - until his head bumps against the wall on the other side. "They had to shave some of it off to get to my eyes." He mutters. "I don't really like it."
Vanity makes no sense considering he can't even see himself, but he has it. Maybe it's something his human requested, though he doesn't know why they would - but he feels - he's felt - significantly lopsided, which is the last thing someone in his current situation needs.
"Oh," Seunghyun says (mumbles).
92037 can practically hear the cogs in his brain turning as he grasps for something else to say instead of 'I'm sorry' for the fourth time in ten minutes. "Well, it looks really badass," he finally offers. "Almost like you meant it."
90237 manages to make some sort of - what he hopes is a - comforting noise come out of his throat. They stop talking for good after that, but Seunghyun stays with him until 92037's ticket number is called. Then he pulls 92037 up from the ledge and walks him over to the door, even, and 92037 goes at least thrice as fast as he normally does on his own. He feels a bit like he might throw up, and at the same time, a little like he's flying.
A few more days, a few more eye exams, and 92037's sight is elevated to the point where he can see enough shapes to walk around (slowly) without clutching to the walls like a lifesaver. But he still manages to bump into Seunghyun. Of all the gin joints in the world, and all that.
But it's his fault - he must not have been paying attention - because he hits him head-on and rebounds off onto the wall, and he still doesn't realize who it is until Seunghyun speaks.
"Jiyong," he says, sounding surprised, "Hey, it's me! Don't tell me you forgot my face already."
He stops himself with a horrified, "aw, shit," at about the same time 92037 says, "you're really good at accidentally being an asshole."
Seunghyun recovers quickly. "I don't know why this happens with you. I'm not usually this bad. I'm so bad I'll probably tell you about the movie I just watched," he says, and in the next instant, trails off lamely. "I won't, though. Because I'm not an asshole."
"It's okay," 92037 says, and for once, it is. He's wanted to know what movies and television are ever since he learned the words, but is too vain - there it is again - to fumble around with the equipment by himself. Concepts like pictures and lights and colors he understands on a logical basis, but he supposes that the full perks only come with vision. As comfortable as he is in the dark, he can't help but be curious.
"So uh, I think I'll go," Seunghyun says, after a second. "Like, before I accidentally insult you again. Because I think I used up my quota for the day." He pauses when 90237 doesn't say anything. "You okay, space cadet?"
"I want to see a movie," 92037 tells him.
Seunghyun blinks. "Well, I'm sure when you're better--"
"Now," 92037 says. "Now is good."
He stretches out his hand and waits for Seunghyun to take it. And after a minute, the other puppet does indeed, his fingers cold as ever.
"So," Seunghyun says, once he's helped 92037 settle into his seat and pick a movie - which in itself takes way too long because Seunghyun keeps asking what 92037 wants to watch and 92037 has to keep saying he doesn't care, he just wants to watch something. "Are you just gonna... listen to it?"
"I can kinda see," 92037 says, not even bothering to be defensive anymore. At this point, he figures that, with Seunghyun, everything out of his mouth really is just purely accidental. He looks at the dark shape hovering over him that is Seunghyun and feels like an invalid. "So, you don't have to stay. I'm sure you have stuff to do."
Music starts playing, and 92037 draws his knees up to his chest, focusing on a light gray square he deduces is the screen, the way it keeps on flickering. A man with a rough voice - kind of like Seunghyun's, actually - starts to talk. And then 92037 realizes he has no idea what he's talking about or who he's talking to, except that it has to do with the wind, or something. But he pretends to be okay with the fact that it's twenty seconds in and he's already lost.
A few minutes slog by, and then Seunghyun sighs and mutters, "crap," and sits down.
"Okay, you're looking at some teenagers sitting on top of their cars. They're drinking beer, which means they're kinda drunk. You know what drunk is?"
92037 nods. "Okay, so they're all drunk, and they're making this other kid climb up an oil tower - you know, like, an initiation thing - wait, do you know what initiation is? This is hard," Seunghyun complains.
"Nope. You should probably stop now," 92037 says, though he does actually know what initiation is (although he isn't sure which definition Seunghyun is talking about. The dictionary downloaded into his head tells him there are a lot.)
Seunghyun manages to stay quiet for a full 34 minutes - until a part in the movie where 92037 apparently doesn't have the right audience reaction for - over which he gets frustrated enough to start up his running narration again. He doesn't bother keeping his voice down this time, and 92037 doesn't bother to actually follow what he's saying, though that means he can't follow the movie anymore, either. He imagines that other puppets in neighboring movie booths must be this close to raging into theirs and punching Seunghyun's lights out.
Or maybe the other booths are all empty. Maybe, this afternoon, it's just them.
Nobody in 92037's bunk ever goes to sleep early. Mostly, they're too fascinated with being alive to fall unconscious - and those who have working vocals and mouths spend the quiet hours murmuring quietly about the mess hall food, how their mechanic appointments went, the weird lipstick color the nurse was wearing, their humans.
"I wonder how much we cost," says 33495 (the puppet with no left arm). He currently only has half the bones reattached to that shoulder, and they glow a bleached white in the darkness.
"Probably a lot," the puppet with three eyes, (19028) says from somewhere across the room. "I heard it costs extra for us, too, since we're broken."
92037 hears bedsprings creak as 33495 rolls over in his bunk. "Wow. All that to get somebody to love, huh." The sound of bedsprings as he rolls over; a sigh. "Hope we're worth it.... Hell, hope they're worth it."
"Well, it's not like we have a choice." 19028 says.
The shadows in his eyes gradually become shapes with softened edges, and the shades of gray become interlaced with sepia, and 90237 starts to think the world isn't as small as when it was dark.
"Have you ever been outside?" Seunghyun asks him one morning, after he taps 92037 on the shoulder and has to introduce himself all over again. They are sitting at the ledge, 92037 kicking his feet out in scissor motions to feel the funny shiver that goes up his heels when it bumps against the hard walls.
92037 shakes his head full of uneven hair, and Seunghyun says, his voice sounding rather surprised, "Why not?"
"I'll miss my appointment," 92037 says in a small voice. It's a mound of transparent lies, but that's his story and he's sticking to it.
"Liar," Seunghyun says (damn, 92037 thinks). "They don't call your number until exactly four thirty every afternoon. And anyway," he says, "it's fun out there. There's fresh air, not this filtered shit. And we can lie on the grass. And sometimes it rains. It's been raining a lot lately."
"I'm good," 92037 says. He just wants Seunghyun to leave him alone - but on the other hand, he's dreamed about what rain feels like ever since he heard it when he was being put together on the assembly line. Damn. Finally, when the other puppet hops off the ledge and extends his hand, 92037 sees enough of it to take it and follow him around winding hallways to a door that Seunghyun opens in a rather dramatic fashion.
"This is the world," Seunghyun says, and steps back to point to the space behind him. "Take a good long look. I mean - crap."
But 92037 doesn't even hear his profuse apologies, because there is a bright streak of white shining in through his soft-brown haze, and then prickly-soft things are tickling his feet, and wind sounds loud in his ears and blows a smattering of cool water onto his face and arms. The sound of rain is soft but consistent on the ground.
He doesn't know how long he stands there until Seunghyun, as always, interrupts things.
"Good, right?" He says. 92037 can hear the smile in his voice.
He smiles too.
"Yea," he answers, and takes his first step forward, out of the Factory and into the real (the real!) world.
"I spy a battleship.".
92037 squints at the clouds drifting above them, but they all look the same: bright things in a brighter expanse that resemble nothing but cotton balls. "I give up," he says. Seunghyun pokes him.
"Don't quit, you were doing great," He says. 92037 glares at him through the tall stalks of grass.
"Getting one right out of seven is not great," he corrects, annoyed at his lack of progress. The mechanic says his eyesight should be nothing less than perfect in about a week's time, but with how things look - or don't look, rather - 92037 doesn't exactly believe the man.
"Better than nothing. Battleship," Seunghyun repeats, and 92037 sighs, frustrated, and concentrates on the sky above him, biting his lip.
"That one?" he tries, and points. "The big one... on the left... next to the three smaller ones."
"The ones that look like mice?" 90237 squints. "No." Seunghyun chews his lip for a minute. "Then no," he finally admits, and 92037 sits up.
"The grass is making my head itch. I'm going inside," he says, but when he makes to stand up, Seunghyun's cold grip yanks on his fingers.
"Don't be such a Johnny Raincloud, Jiyong," he says. "And you love the grass. You're kind of a shitty liar."
92037's scowl deepens, but he flops back down on the field and feels Seunghyun gently nudge his side. "Battleship."
"This isn't fun," 92037 informs him. Seunghyun squeezes his fingers.
It takes 92037 another two tries (and by then there aren't a lot of other cloud formations to pick) to get it right, but when he does, Seunghyun crows over it so much that he can't help but grin, too. Seunghyun props himself up on his elbows.
"Hey," he comments, "you're smiling."
92037 feels his face heat up. He's suddenly aware that Seunghyun hasn't let go of his hand yet, either. "Oh," he says, a little unsure of where to go in this situation. "Yea?"
"I mean, I like it," Seunghyun says, "And I keep meaning to tell you, but I always forget. But I like it."
"You said that already," 92037 mumbles. He's heard the other puppets talk about things like this - and it all seems to lead down a kind of confusing, messy path involving third parties and unwanted babies and really he'd just rather not even poke the thing with a ten-foot pole. And, it makes no sense when they're supposed to save it for their humans, not each other.
"I have a pretty good smile too," Seunghyun says suddenly. "That's what the lunch lady says, anyway. You'd like it. Can you see?"
92037 blinks. "Uhh," he says, and runs his eyes over the blurry face in front of him: black hair that bleeds into the top of it in messy strands, two streaks of pink to signify lips. It looks like a messy watercolor painting. "Not really."
"What about if I do like this?" And Seunghyun uses his elbows to drag himself up to eye level and then roll onto his side above 92037, leaning closer to 92037's face. Dark eyes and long lashes swim in and out of view. His hair grazes 92037's forehead. "Now?"
Except 92037 can't really breathe anymore. So he stays silent and prays that Seunghyun can't hear his heart pounding from where he is, that he doesn't choose now to make some really stupid joke.
"Wow, you really are blind," Seunghyun says cheerfully, a little breathless from supporting his weight on one elbow for so long.
And then his tone changes, almost a whisper with a tilt of his head as he asks, "Can I kiss you?"
92037's mouth opens and closes, and he doesn't actually know what happens next, but something must've happened, because then Seunghyun's head is dipping down and their lips are together, and Seunghyun's breath is hot on his cheek. His hand cups his jaw, thumb softly stroking his cheek, and his other hand is still holding 92037's. Maybe that's what makes it okay.
This is kissing, 92037 thinks. This is kissing. The idea of what they're doing comes across as a little funny, makes him kind of want to laugh - but when Seunghyun pulls away 92037 is reeling instead and he doesn't even know if his eyes are open or closed anymore because all he sees are stars.
"I think we've made a breakthrough, Helen Keller," Seunghyun says. He manages to tactfully catch himself a moment later, lips pursing with guilt. "...Too soon for that one?"
They spend the rest of their afternoon with interlaced fingers and counting the birds that fly overhead until 92037's appointment.
And 92037 can almost read children's books, the ones with the bigger sized font, by the time they lie on his bed facing each other and 92037 knows exactly what Seunghyun smells like (toothpaste and oranges - the real kind, not the processed imitations they get in the cafeteria - and grass) and Seunghyun is running slow hands through 92037's hair.
"We should just run," 92037 says.
Seunghyun raises an eyebrow, kind of beautiful. It wasn't until a few days ago 92037 discovered things about Seunghyun he likes to keep, like he is rather pleasant looking, and he stands almost a full head taller than him, and his own serial number on his neck reads 19073.
"We can just leave," 92037 says. He tugs on Seunghyun's wrist lying by his chin like an incentive.
"Okay, Stevie Wonder. Why do you want to leave?" Seunghyun asks. "Your eyes aren't all the way done yet."
"Because when they are," 92037 says, "I'm going to be sent to my human." To live a life he isn't sure he wants, just like he wasn't so sure he was broken in the first place until somebody told him no, you're supposed to see. Except he predicts no happy reconsiderations for this one.
"And you don't want to meet your human." Seunghyun deduces. His curved finger traces down 92037's machine-crafted nose, to his lips, down his chin and across his jaw.
92037 ignores the shivers in his spine and stares him in the eyes. "Do you want me to?"
The way Seunghyun doesn't answer makes 92037 think that this is precisely the reason he even said hello, why he even sat down next him and ran his hands through his hair and named him Jiyong.
Everything will be okay. They'll figure something out.
Seunghyun kisses him, long and hard and until 92037 can't breathe, and when he pulls away, 92037 is sure he'll say yes and pull him up and run like hell out of the Factory, two fugitives with brands on their necks.
Instead, Seunghyun says, "You're not mine, Jiyong. Someone else wanted you, and they made you, paid for you. You'll probably break their heart."
Well.
92037 draws back on the bed, blinking, bewildered. "What - what?" He says. "You want me to make someone else happy? What about me?"
"You might be happy too. Happier. Don't you want that?" Seunghyun's tone is so carefully neutral that suddenly 92037 knows what he's doing. He's pulling this stupid thing he's seen in some of the romance movies they watched that never works - it's called self-sacrifice, when the leading role lets the person he loves just go because he doesn't think he's good enough for them or something equally ridiculous - and 92037 wants to hit something.
"I just want to be Jiyong," 92037 says. Angry, embarrassed tears threaten to spill over and 92037 bites his cheek, especially at the pitying look Seunghyun gives him after he says it. "Why did you name me, anyway?"
"I'm bad with numbers." Seunghyun says.
"You're an asshole," 92037 corrects. He drags his hand roughly across his eyes, pulls Seunghyun's shirt over his head instead of his own on accident, and walks out of the bunks, forgetting he can see now and almost crashing into a puppet with elephant ears on the way out as consequence.
There are humans in the Factory.
Apparently it's a new thing they're trying out for the people who got too impatient to wait for their broken puppets to be fixed.
Maybe it's not so bad to love one of these humans who will travel across the world for something put together by machines.
Jiyong watches them in the main hall from the observation deck, forehead pressed to the glass and blinking every so often as his eyes start to blur. The humans look almost exactly the same as the puppets - save for the lack of numbers tattooed on their necks.
He watches the puppet with three eyes sitting across a table from a fidgety girl with blond hair; the puppet with no left arm attempting to hide the naked bones of his hand from a balding man; the puppet with needles for body hair, every so often accidentally pricking the guy she's with.
His eyes start to hurt and he feels like he's blind again, but he keeps them open in a last-ditch effort to understand how he can love his human too. Maybe he could.
Dinner comes and goes. Jiyong doesn't move, hands wrapped around his tucked-in knees and a little scared that his human is somewhere in that crowd and will find him and take him to a home he doesn't want to belong in.
It shouldn't actually be that bad, he thinks, because maybe he'll get somebody really fun, and disgustingly beautiful, and who doesn't call him by every single famous blind person's name in the history of man.
It probably wasn't even love, anyway. He shouldn't be latching onto the first person who ever reached for him - but maybe that's how puppets are made to be, because maybe their makers expects the first person to show them interest to be their humans.
Damn Seunghyun. Jiyong hopes he ruined him back.
His eyes have been fixed one hundred percent since this morning, but he still feels broken, worse than ever before because now he can't pinprick what needs to be mended.
It starts raining outside. He can see the raindrops bouncing off the windowpanes with his new eyes.
"Hey, Ray Charles," somebody says, soft.
Jiyong swivels around.
Seunghyun is standing at the door with his hands in his pockets, Jiyong's shirt stretched too tight across his chest. He shuffles inside and keeps his eyes on the floor. "So, um. I think I might've lied to you once or twice," he says. The numbers on his neck look smudged.
"You think?" Jiyong says blankly.
Seunghyun takes a few more steps forward, until he's crouching down at eye level, arms crossed over his knees. "Well, see, I'm not really a puppet with a heart problem," he says; "I'm actually a human. Are you going to hit me?"
And god it takes Jiyong a few minutes to speak. "A human?" He says. "Are you somebody else's, or are you my human, or - "
"I'm your human," Seunghyun interrupts at once, and his face breaks into a wide smile at Jiyong's expression.
"If you could see your face right now," Seunghyun says. He seems to realize something after a minute of just staring at Jiyong with the stupid satisfied grin plastered on his face, and then suddenly adds, "And the best part about that is, you can see your face now! That's not funny," Seunghyun says hastily. "But I wanted to make sure you wanted to be with me because you wanted to, and not because some weird Factory chip told you to. And I know that's really stupid," he says, scuffing the toe of his shoe on the floor, "but you can't trust corporations."
Seunghyun grows a little impatient when Jiyong still doesn't talk, and he takes his hand. His fingers feel familiar, like ice. "So hey, I know this isn't as great as fighting the system and running away with your puppet boyfriend and being pioneers and stuff, but things don't always have to be that hard, right? Like, humans, we're not that hard to love, right?"
Jiyong finally unclamps his mouth. "I think you were better as a puppet," he says.
And that's when Seunghyun starts laughing, when he pulls Jiyong close and presses his lips to Jiyong's forehead. And maybe it's the storm outside, and maybe it's just the rain inside his head, but suddenly it feels like things are a little more cleared away and for the first time, Jiyong can finally, really, see.
note: stemmed from brainstorming for theme of 'handicap'. seunghyun was supposed to be snarky and cool and instead he came out awkward and kind of a trainwreck, but an earnest one. oh well!
gd/top | r, 5172 words, au
jiyong's blind, seunghyun's an ass.
you're the colour, you're the movement and the spin
never could it stay with me the whole day long.....
CONSEQUENCE/THE NOTWIST
92037 is told he was born on a stormy Sunday in the middle of November. He doesn't remember much of it - except for a distant pounding noise that he later learns is the sound water droplets make when hitting solid objects - but he does end up with a weird affinity for rain, which Seunghyun attributes to the conditions of his birthday.
For two amazing hours, he is alive and perfect and marveling (with the limited means he has) at his face and his arms, his stomach, and just the thought of himself lying on a conveyer belt and breathing, aware. He can feel things, taste things, hear things - in that order, as hands and a tongue and ears are fitted onto various parts of him - and it's all so fantastic that he doesn't even realize he's broken until a buzzer sounds somewhere in the distance. Instead of getting packed into a box and shipped off to his new life, he is pulled out of the assembly line and tossed down a chute.
He lands in a large box full of crooked limbs and twisted bodies, all sighing noises without any meaning because none of them have learned language. A sudden lurching movement and a squeaking noise below him signify that they, in the box, are moving; then after a while, they stop. He is untangled from the others, pulled to his feet, and given a ticket stub with a number he can't read.
"Don't worry," he hears. "You'll be fixed soon."
It takes 92037 a while to walk from his bunk to the mechanics, so he always gets up a little earlier than the early morning rush of bodies so he can take his time to get there. By the way he continually bumps into the wall - even with his hand pressed against it - makes him think he might not be an early bird by choice. And then he thinks, I must be getting better at this if I'm blaming it on lethargy instead of my eyes.
Despite extra efforts, there's always already a line when he arrives. Most of these puppets will be more severely handicapped, like him, the ragamuffin procession made up of ones with only half a leg, or no bones in the left side of their body, or hair that feels more like needles. They all clutch tickets in their hands, told they're going to be fixed soon, don't worry. 90237 doesn't know why it only takes a few hours to put them together the first time, but if something's wrong, why it takes infinitely longer to fix. (Or what they're even going to do with the girl whose body hair can poke through things.)
90237 stops at his usual spot on the ledge, pulling the unreadable ticket from his back pocket, and listens to the other puppets around him talk, most of them still riding on the high of learning how to even pause for breath.
"Can I sit here?"
92037 tilts his head in what he hopes is the right direction. Unfortunately, he's not too good at figuring out which way sound comes from yet, which - in the best case scenario - makes him look a little like a curious puppy.
"Uh - I mean, sorry," he - whoever he is - says, "it's just everywhere else is kinda taken," and 92037 realizes he's interpreted his hesitation as a reluctance to share the space.
"You can sit," 92037 says. He quickly scoots over, sees the few shadows he can shift as the stranger eases down next to him.
"Thanks," the other puppet says, and wastes no time by proceeding with, "so what's wrong with you?"
This is the conversation everybody has when they first meet. Because only the broken ones are left here.
"Eyes," 92037 says. "Can't see. Apparently that's not right." And he's not yet entirely convinced that that's true, but what does he know? He's only about five days old. "You?"
"My heart doesn't work or something. Insert obvious joke here. I didn't really pay attention to the specifics." The other puppet doesn't sound all that concerned. "So you can't see, like, anything? What about how many fingers I'm holding up?"
"Seven," 92037 picks at random.
"Nah. How about now?"
"Thirteen," 92037 says. He stopped playing the finger game two days ago after he realized there wasn't really a point except to amuse someone else.
As if on cue, the other puppet laughs. It's a nice sound, cracked and smooth at once, different from his gravelly voice; it somehow makes him less like a douchebag, 90237 decides.
"Sorry, that was dumb. What's your name?"
"I don't have one," 92037 frowns. "I thought our humans name us."
"Well, I named myself," and the stranger sounds way too smug about it. "Seunghyun. Nice to meet you." He takes 92037's hand from his lap and shakes it rather jerkily a few times.
"Hi," 92037 says. The other puppet's hand is cold - but physical contact is something 92037 has been fascinated with since birth - so he doesn't pull away immediately.
"So they just call you 92037, right?" Seunghyun says, and 92037's eyebrows knot.
"How'd you know that?"
"Your brand," Seunghyun says, like it's obvious. When 92037 doesn't respond, Seunghyun makes a noise of impatience. "The one on your neck? What, you haven't seen - I mean - oh wait, shit," he stammers, and backtracks. "We, um - sorry. What I mean is - we all have our serial numbers on our necks. Right here," he says, and then his cold fingers are on the right side of 92037's neck, grazing just against his collarbone.
"Oh," 92037 says, and suddenly feels, under the goosebumps where Seunghyun's fingers touch, supremely stupid. He should have known - it's why the mechanic always holds something to his neck after every exam - why the lady in the mess hall always greets everybody by number when they get their food. He'd always thought she just had a spectacular memory.
"Wow, hey, I'm sorry," Seunghyun says, genuinely sounding it even through his laugh. "I'm just messing up all over the place."
92037 just shrugs, because he's been taught that's one of the more polite gestures in awkward situations.
Seunghyun lapses into silence. 92037 concludes that he's made the situation sufficiently sad enough for Seunghyun too look for somebody less nerve wracking to talk to, so he stops paying attention.
Then, Seunghyun snaps his fingers.
"Jiyong," he says decisively, like it's some genius idea. "I'm gonna call you Jiyong."
Weird. "Why?"
"Because," Seunghyun says, and brushes his entire hand through 92037's mess of hair - one side that won't stay flat, peach-fuzz scalp on the other. "Your hair makes you look like a dragon." A pause. "It's kind of lame," he adds as an afterthought. "But I'm not that creative yet. Sorry."
92037's stomach drops; he pulls away as far as he can - until his head bumps against the wall on the other side. "They had to shave some of it off to get to my eyes." He mutters. "I don't really like it."
Vanity makes no sense considering he can't even see himself, but he has it. Maybe it's something his human requested, though he doesn't know why they would - but he feels - he's felt - significantly lopsided, which is the last thing someone in his current situation needs.
"Oh," Seunghyun says (mumbles).
92037 can practically hear the cogs in his brain turning as he grasps for something else to say instead of 'I'm sorry' for the fourth time in ten minutes. "Well, it looks really badass," he finally offers. "Almost like you meant it."
90237 manages to make some sort of - what he hopes is a - comforting noise come out of his throat. They stop talking for good after that, but Seunghyun stays with him until 92037's ticket number is called. Then he pulls 92037 up from the ledge and walks him over to the door, even, and 92037 goes at least thrice as fast as he normally does on his own. He feels a bit like he might throw up, and at the same time, a little like he's flying.
A few more days, a few more eye exams, and 92037's sight is elevated to the point where he can see enough shapes to walk around (slowly) without clutching to the walls like a lifesaver. But he still manages to bump into Seunghyun. Of all the gin joints in the world, and all that.
But it's his fault - he must not have been paying attention - because he hits him head-on and rebounds off onto the wall, and he still doesn't realize who it is until Seunghyun speaks.
"Jiyong," he says, sounding surprised, "Hey, it's me! Don't tell me you forgot my face already."
He stops himself with a horrified, "aw, shit," at about the same time 92037 says, "you're really good at accidentally being an asshole."
Seunghyun recovers quickly. "I don't know why this happens with you. I'm not usually this bad. I'm so bad I'll probably tell you about the movie I just watched," he says, and in the next instant, trails off lamely. "I won't, though. Because I'm not an asshole."
"It's okay," 92037 says, and for once, it is. He's wanted to know what movies and television are ever since he learned the words, but is too vain - there it is again - to fumble around with the equipment by himself. Concepts like pictures and lights and colors he understands on a logical basis, but he supposes that the full perks only come with vision. As comfortable as he is in the dark, he can't help but be curious.
"So uh, I think I'll go," Seunghyun says, after a second. "Like, before I accidentally insult you again. Because I think I used up my quota for the day." He pauses when 90237 doesn't say anything. "You okay, space cadet?"
"I want to see a movie," 92037 tells him.
Seunghyun blinks. "Well, I'm sure when you're better--"
"Now," 92037 says. "Now is good."
He stretches out his hand and waits for Seunghyun to take it. And after a minute, the other puppet does indeed, his fingers cold as ever.
"So," Seunghyun says, once he's helped 92037 settle into his seat and pick a movie - which in itself takes way too long because Seunghyun keeps asking what 92037 wants to watch and 92037 has to keep saying he doesn't care, he just wants to watch something. "Are you just gonna... listen to it?"
"I can kinda see," 92037 says, not even bothering to be defensive anymore. At this point, he figures that, with Seunghyun, everything out of his mouth really is just purely accidental. He looks at the dark shape hovering over him that is Seunghyun and feels like an invalid. "So, you don't have to stay. I'm sure you have stuff to do."
Music starts playing, and 92037 draws his knees up to his chest, focusing on a light gray square he deduces is the screen, the way it keeps on flickering. A man with a rough voice - kind of like Seunghyun's, actually - starts to talk. And then 92037 realizes he has no idea what he's talking about or who he's talking to, except that it has to do with the wind, or something. But he pretends to be okay with the fact that it's twenty seconds in and he's already lost.
A few minutes slog by, and then Seunghyun sighs and mutters, "crap," and sits down.
"Okay, you're looking at some teenagers sitting on top of their cars. They're drinking beer, which means they're kinda drunk. You know what drunk is?"
92037 nods. "Okay, so they're all drunk, and they're making this other kid climb up an oil tower - you know, like, an initiation thing - wait, do you know what initiation is? This is hard," Seunghyun complains.
"Nope. You should probably stop now," 92037 says, though he does actually know what initiation is (although he isn't sure which definition Seunghyun is talking about. The dictionary downloaded into his head tells him there are a lot.)
Seunghyun manages to stay quiet for a full 34 minutes - until a part in the movie where 92037 apparently doesn't have the right audience reaction for - over which he gets frustrated enough to start up his running narration again. He doesn't bother keeping his voice down this time, and 92037 doesn't bother to actually follow what he's saying, though that means he can't follow the movie anymore, either. He imagines that other puppets in neighboring movie booths must be this close to raging into theirs and punching Seunghyun's lights out.
Or maybe the other booths are all empty. Maybe, this afternoon, it's just them.
Nobody in 92037's bunk ever goes to sleep early. Mostly, they're too fascinated with being alive to fall unconscious - and those who have working vocals and mouths spend the quiet hours murmuring quietly about the mess hall food, how their mechanic appointments went, the weird lipstick color the nurse was wearing, their humans.
"I wonder how much we cost," says 33495 (the puppet with no left arm). He currently only has half the bones reattached to that shoulder, and they glow a bleached white in the darkness.
"Probably a lot," the puppet with three eyes, (19028) says from somewhere across the room. "I heard it costs extra for us, too, since we're broken."
92037 hears bedsprings creak as 33495 rolls over in his bunk. "Wow. All that to get somebody to love, huh." The sound of bedsprings as he rolls over; a sigh. "Hope we're worth it.... Hell, hope they're worth it."
"Well, it's not like we have a choice." 19028 says.
The shadows in his eyes gradually become shapes with softened edges, and the shades of gray become interlaced with sepia, and 90237 starts to think the world isn't as small as when it was dark.
"Have you ever been outside?" Seunghyun asks him one morning, after he taps 92037 on the shoulder and has to introduce himself all over again. They are sitting at the ledge, 92037 kicking his feet out in scissor motions to feel the funny shiver that goes up his heels when it bumps against the hard walls.
92037 shakes his head full of uneven hair, and Seunghyun says, his voice sounding rather surprised, "Why not?"
"I'll miss my appointment," 92037 says in a small voice. It's a mound of transparent lies, but that's his story and he's sticking to it.
"Liar," Seunghyun says (damn, 92037 thinks). "They don't call your number until exactly four thirty every afternoon. And anyway," he says, "it's fun out there. There's fresh air, not this filtered shit. And we can lie on the grass. And sometimes it rains. It's been raining a lot lately."
"I'm good," 92037 says. He just wants Seunghyun to leave him alone - but on the other hand, he's dreamed about what rain feels like ever since he heard it when he was being put together on the assembly line. Damn. Finally, when the other puppet hops off the ledge and extends his hand, 92037 sees enough of it to take it and follow him around winding hallways to a door that Seunghyun opens in a rather dramatic fashion.
"This is the world," Seunghyun says, and steps back to point to the space behind him. "Take a good long look. I mean - crap."
But 92037 doesn't even hear his profuse apologies, because there is a bright streak of white shining in through his soft-brown haze, and then prickly-soft things are tickling his feet, and wind sounds loud in his ears and blows a smattering of cool water onto his face and arms. The sound of rain is soft but consistent on the ground.
He doesn't know how long he stands there until Seunghyun, as always, interrupts things.
"Good, right?" He says. 92037 can hear the smile in his voice.
He smiles too.
"Yea," he answers, and takes his first step forward, out of the Factory and into the real (the real!) world.
"I spy a battleship.".
92037 squints at the clouds drifting above them, but they all look the same: bright things in a brighter expanse that resemble nothing but cotton balls. "I give up," he says. Seunghyun pokes him.
"Don't quit, you were doing great," He says. 92037 glares at him through the tall stalks of grass.
"Getting one right out of seven is not great," he corrects, annoyed at his lack of progress. The mechanic says his eyesight should be nothing less than perfect in about a week's time, but with how things look - or don't look, rather - 92037 doesn't exactly believe the man.
"Better than nothing. Battleship," Seunghyun repeats, and 92037 sighs, frustrated, and concentrates on the sky above him, biting his lip.
"That one?" he tries, and points. "The big one... on the left... next to the three smaller ones."
"The ones that look like mice?" 90237 squints. "No." Seunghyun chews his lip for a minute. "Then no," he finally admits, and 92037 sits up.
"The grass is making my head itch. I'm going inside," he says, but when he makes to stand up, Seunghyun's cold grip yanks on his fingers.
"Don't be such a Johnny Raincloud, Jiyong," he says. "And you love the grass. You're kind of a shitty liar."
92037's scowl deepens, but he flops back down on the field and feels Seunghyun gently nudge his side. "Battleship."
"This isn't fun," 92037 informs him. Seunghyun squeezes his fingers.
It takes 92037 another two tries (and by then there aren't a lot of other cloud formations to pick) to get it right, but when he does, Seunghyun crows over it so much that he can't help but grin, too. Seunghyun props himself up on his elbows.
"Hey," he comments, "you're smiling."
92037 feels his face heat up. He's suddenly aware that Seunghyun hasn't let go of his hand yet, either. "Oh," he says, a little unsure of where to go in this situation. "Yea?"
"I mean, I like it," Seunghyun says, "And I keep meaning to tell you, but I always forget. But I like it."
"You said that already," 92037 mumbles. He's heard the other puppets talk about things like this - and it all seems to lead down a kind of confusing, messy path involving third parties and unwanted babies and really he'd just rather not even poke the thing with a ten-foot pole. And, it makes no sense when they're supposed to save it for their humans, not each other.
"I have a pretty good smile too," Seunghyun says suddenly. "That's what the lunch lady says, anyway. You'd like it. Can you see?"
92037 blinks. "Uhh," he says, and runs his eyes over the blurry face in front of him: black hair that bleeds into the top of it in messy strands, two streaks of pink to signify lips. It looks like a messy watercolor painting. "Not really."
"What about if I do like this?" And Seunghyun uses his elbows to drag himself up to eye level and then roll onto his side above 92037, leaning closer to 92037's face. Dark eyes and long lashes swim in and out of view. His hair grazes 92037's forehead. "Now?"
Except 92037 can't really breathe anymore. So he stays silent and prays that Seunghyun can't hear his heart pounding from where he is, that he doesn't choose now to make some really stupid joke.
"Wow, you really are blind," Seunghyun says cheerfully, a little breathless from supporting his weight on one elbow for so long.
And then his tone changes, almost a whisper with a tilt of his head as he asks, "Can I kiss you?"
92037's mouth opens and closes, and he doesn't actually know what happens next, but something must've happened, because then Seunghyun's head is dipping down and their lips are together, and Seunghyun's breath is hot on his cheek. His hand cups his jaw, thumb softly stroking his cheek, and his other hand is still holding 92037's. Maybe that's what makes it okay.
This is kissing, 92037 thinks. This is kissing. The idea of what they're doing comes across as a little funny, makes him kind of want to laugh - but when Seunghyun pulls away 92037 is reeling instead and he doesn't even know if his eyes are open or closed anymore because all he sees are stars.
"I think we've made a breakthrough, Helen Keller," Seunghyun says. He manages to tactfully catch himself a moment later, lips pursing with guilt. "...Too soon for that one?"
They spend the rest of their afternoon with interlaced fingers and counting the birds that fly overhead until 92037's appointment.
And 92037 can almost read children's books, the ones with the bigger sized font, by the time they lie on his bed facing each other and 92037 knows exactly what Seunghyun smells like (toothpaste and oranges - the real kind, not the processed imitations they get in the cafeteria - and grass) and Seunghyun is running slow hands through 92037's hair.
"We should just run," 92037 says.
Seunghyun raises an eyebrow, kind of beautiful. It wasn't until a few days ago 92037 discovered things about Seunghyun he likes to keep, like he is rather pleasant looking, and he stands almost a full head taller than him, and his own serial number on his neck reads 19073.
"We can just leave," 92037 says. He tugs on Seunghyun's wrist lying by his chin like an incentive.
"Okay, Stevie Wonder. Why do you want to leave?" Seunghyun asks. "Your eyes aren't all the way done yet."
"Because when they are," 92037 says, "I'm going to be sent to my human." To live a life he isn't sure he wants, just like he wasn't so sure he was broken in the first place until somebody told him no, you're supposed to see. Except he predicts no happy reconsiderations for this one.
"And you don't want to meet your human." Seunghyun deduces. His curved finger traces down 92037's machine-crafted nose, to his lips, down his chin and across his jaw.
92037 ignores the shivers in his spine and stares him in the eyes. "Do you want me to?"
The way Seunghyun doesn't answer makes 92037 think that this is precisely the reason he even said hello, why he even sat down next him and ran his hands through his hair and named him Jiyong.
Everything will be okay. They'll figure something out.
Seunghyun kisses him, long and hard and until 92037 can't breathe, and when he pulls away, 92037 is sure he'll say yes and pull him up and run like hell out of the Factory, two fugitives with brands on their necks.
Instead, Seunghyun says, "You're not mine, Jiyong. Someone else wanted you, and they made you, paid for you. You'll probably break their heart."
Well.
92037 draws back on the bed, blinking, bewildered. "What - what?" He says. "You want me to make someone else happy? What about me?"
"You might be happy too. Happier. Don't you want that?" Seunghyun's tone is so carefully neutral that suddenly 92037 knows what he's doing. He's pulling this stupid thing he's seen in some of the romance movies they watched that never works - it's called self-sacrifice, when the leading role lets the person he loves just go because he doesn't think he's good enough for them or something equally ridiculous - and 92037 wants to hit something.
"I just want to be Jiyong," 92037 says. Angry, embarrassed tears threaten to spill over and 92037 bites his cheek, especially at the pitying look Seunghyun gives him after he says it. "Why did you name me, anyway?"
"I'm bad with numbers." Seunghyun says.
"You're an asshole," 92037 corrects. He drags his hand roughly across his eyes, pulls Seunghyun's shirt over his head instead of his own on accident, and walks out of the bunks, forgetting he can see now and almost crashing into a puppet with elephant ears on the way out as consequence.
There are humans in the Factory.
Apparently it's a new thing they're trying out for the people who got too impatient to wait for their broken puppets to be fixed.
Maybe it's not so bad to love one of these humans who will travel across the world for something put together by machines.
Jiyong watches them in the main hall from the observation deck, forehead pressed to the glass and blinking every so often as his eyes start to blur. The humans look almost exactly the same as the puppets - save for the lack of numbers tattooed on their necks.
He watches the puppet with three eyes sitting across a table from a fidgety girl with blond hair; the puppet with no left arm attempting to hide the naked bones of his hand from a balding man; the puppet with needles for body hair, every so often accidentally pricking the guy she's with.
His eyes start to hurt and he feels like he's blind again, but he keeps them open in a last-ditch effort to understand how he can love his human too. Maybe he could.
Dinner comes and goes. Jiyong doesn't move, hands wrapped around his tucked-in knees and a little scared that his human is somewhere in that crowd and will find him and take him to a home he doesn't want to belong in.
It shouldn't actually be that bad, he thinks, because maybe he'll get somebody really fun, and disgustingly beautiful, and who doesn't call him by every single famous blind person's name in the history of man.
It probably wasn't even love, anyway. He shouldn't be latching onto the first person who ever reached for him - but maybe that's how puppets are made to be, because maybe their makers expects the first person to show them interest to be their humans.
Damn Seunghyun. Jiyong hopes he ruined him back.
His eyes have been fixed one hundred percent since this morning, but he still feels broken, worse than ever before because now he can't pinprick what needs to be mended.
It starts raining outside. He can see the raindrops bouncing off the windowpanes with his new eyes.
"Hey, Ray Charles," somebody says, soft.
Jiyong swivels around.
Seunghyun is standing at the door with his hands in his pockets, Jiyong's shirt stretched too tight across his chest. He shuffles inside and keeps his eyes on the floor. "So, um. I think I might've lied to you once or twice," he says. The numbers on his neck look smudged.
"You think?" Jiyong says blankly.
Seunghyun takes a few more steps forward, until he's crouching down at eye level, arms crossed over his knees. "Well, see, I'm not really a puppet with a heart problem," he says; "I'm actually a human. Are you going to hit me?"
And god it takes Jiyong a few minutes to speak. "A human?" He says. "Are you somebody else's, or are you my human, or - "
"I'm your human," Seunghyun interrupts at once, and his face breaks into a wide smile at Jiyong's expression.
"If you could see your face right now," Seunghyun says. He seems to realize something after a minute of just staring at Jiyong with the stupid satisfied grin plastered on his face, and then suddenly adds, "And the best part about that is, you can see your face now! That's not funny," Seunghyun says hastily. "But I wanted to make sure you wanted to be with me because you wanted to, and not because some weird Factory chip told you to. And I know that's really stupid," he says, scuffing the toe of his shoe on the floor, "but you can't trust corporations."
Seunghyun grows a little impatient when Jiyong still doesn't talk, and he takes his hand. His fingers feel familiar, like ice. "So hey, I know this isn't as great as fighting the system and running away with your puppet boyfriend and being pioneers and stuff, but things don't always have to be that hard, right? Like, humans, we're not that hard to love, right?"
Jiyong finally unclamps his mouth. "I think you were better as a puppet," he says.
And that's when Seunghyun starts laughing, when he pulls Jiyong close and presses his lips to Jiyong's forehead. And maybe it's the storm outside, and maybe it's just the rain inside his head, but suddenly it feels like things are a little more cleared away and for the first time, Jiyong can finally, really, see.
note: stemmed from brainstorming for theme of 'handicap'. seunghyun was supposed to be snarky and cool and instead he came out awkward and kind of a trainwreck, but an earnest one. oh well!