(no subject)
Title: Talking Shadows Were Never Creepy (1/?)
Author: minhocchio
Rating: PG
Pairing/Focus: Myungjong
Sungjong tries hard to fall asleep, but the pitter patter of the raindrops hitting his window keeps him wide awake. He attempts to count sheep in his mind, hoping that the repetitive action would soon bore him to sleep. It didn’t work.
He tosses and turns, even gets up once to grab himself a glass of milk in the kitchen. All that did was make him feel bloated, and he silently cursed himself, knowing that his face was sure to look puffy the following day. He hated looking less than perfect, whether the band had schedules or not. He sighed.
Shuffling back to his room in the bunny slippers Sunggyu bought for his birthday, he hears a rap on the window.
Knock, knock.
He dismisses it quickly, thinking it’s just the rain growing more intense. Wait, was it hail? No, definitely not during the hot summer month of August. He shrugs it off, starting to climb up the ladder to his bunk.
Knock, knock, knock.
The sound grows more intense, almost urgent. Sungjong stops short in his tracks. He waited, wondering if the sound would continue. There was a long awkward pause, with Sungjong standing in the middle of the room; Sungyeol and Hoya still fast asleep. The knocking stopped for what seemed like eons, and just when Sungjong was about to reach his bunk, it started again.
This time the knocks were deafening, begging for an answer.
Sungjong inched towards the window, grabbing the large teddy bear off his bunk to shield him from whatever might be outside. He hoped it was a bird or something that kept flying into his window - at least then the only thing he had to worry about was a dead bird, and not something like extreme weather conditions. Or worse, something supernatu-
The window creaks open, and Sungjong lets out a high pitched squeal. What the heck… he had only started to reach his hand out to the window when it flew open by itself, and something - Sungjong couldn’t make out what it was against the dark sky - settled itself on the window sill.
Hugging the teddy bear in front of him tightly as a shield, Sungjong stares at the figure on the sill. Behind the white satin curtains, sits the silhouette of man. No, more like a boy to be exact. He seemed to have the perfect side view, with the perfectly angled nose and everything.
Sungjong felt drawn to that boy like a moth to a flame. For some reason the stranger’s beauty, even hidden behind the curtain, was enough to attract Sungjong. But he wasn’t stupid, and slowly approached the still figure.
“Sungjong.” A deep voice escapes from the shadow, and Sungjong is frightened stiff.
The shadowed figure senses the younger boy tensing up, and immediately softens his tone. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” he lets out, sounding almost apologetic. Sungjong eyes the figure, and his apprehension soon turns to frustration.
“Do I know you?” the boy hisses, albeit softly, because for some odd reason that he couldn’t quite understand, he didn’t want to wake his hyungs up to see this thing that let itself in.
“I don’t know, do you?” The shadow shifts behind the curtains and straightens his back, then reaches his hand out towards Sungjong. “Why don’t you come and find out?”
Sungjong is a little taken aback by the creature’s straightforwardness. It wasn’t normal behavior to crash someone’s room in the middle of the night, then speak in such a tone as if you expected to be listened to. Sungjong threw his teddy bear on the ground, his temper rising.
“Don’t talk to me in that tone. You know I don’t have to listen you!” Lee Sungjong’s respect and obedience was to be earned, not expected. He wasn’t a little kid that could be bribed with lollipops or a lovesick teenager that could be bribed with sweet nothings - the kid had more sense in him than people thought.
“Could you stop being prissy and get over here. Damn it, the rain’s soaking me…”
Sungjong lets the headstrong image he tried to put across falter a little, and lets out a soft giggle. “You deserve it, for sneaking into my room this way.”
The shadow smiles to himself, thinking, the old Lee Sungjong I knew is finally back.
“I suppose I do.” The shadow shakes his arms to get them dry, and Sungjong notices how toned they look. Who was this god-like guy? He shakes his head, mentally reminding himself not to flirt with some person he had just met, if you would even call this a meeting.
Sungjong puts his hands on his hips, realizing after glancing up at the clock that this conversation of theirs had been going on for nearly half an hour. Where had time flown to? He was growing impatient with this enigmatic character who seemed to be making empty conversation.
“Ok, I’ve run out of patience with you. If you haven’t noticed, it’s way past midnight -“
Sungjong jams his finger angrily into the air, pointing at the wall clock, “and I need to get to sleep. So could you do us all a favor, and get the fuck out of here?”
The contours of the mystery boy’s face changes, letting out what vaguely resembles a smile. “Lee Sungjong, you really haven’t changed one bit. Don’t you remember me?”
Sungjong faces a mental block, trying to connect body profile with voice, and all that with the memories of the hundreds of people he had come across in his lifetime. It was only eighteen years worth of people he had met, but yet, this voice seemed foreign. He was sure he had never heard this person speak to him before…
“No, I don’t,” replies Sungjong, curt with his reply.
“Think harder.” The boy’s voice has a playful tilt to it, as if implying that he wanted to continue playing this game of name guessing with Sungjong. “I’d be sad if you’ve forgotten me already.”
Sungjong wrecks his brain again, trying to think back, all the way back from the day he was born to now, in his bedroom with this stranger right in front of him.
“One thing I’m sure of is that I’ve never encountered speaking shadows before.” Sungjong mutters, still trying to figure out who this thing was.
He thinks back -
The day he was born, his family surrounded him at the hospital, patting his head and rubbing his belly. “What a chubby little baby you have! Aigoo, he’s such a cute boy,” he remembers well-wishers cooing, stroking his face. He thinks of the strange antiseptic smell of the hospital and the million nurses that worn stressed looks on their faces, having to look after so many babies at once. Nope, no shadows there.
The first day he entered kindergarten, the rest of the class ostracized him. His family had just moved to Incheon a few weeks ago, and the rest of the class was already halfway through the term. When he first went to class, the teacher told him to do a self introduction.
“Hello everybody, my name is Lee Sungjong. I am 6 this year. I hope we can be friends soon!” he wore a big grin on his face, hoping his enthusiasm for school and making friends would rub off on the rest of his classmates. But no, they all stared blankly back at him. A couple of the boys at the back of the classroom started snickering to themselves, and one let out a loud guffaw. “Seonsaengnim, he sounds like a girl!” the rest of the class immediately bursts into laughter, thinking to themselves how ridiculously high pitched Sungjong’s voice sounded.
Sungjong smiled and started laughing too, innocently thinking that this was how his class made friends. The teacher signaled for the laughing to stop, and patted Sungjong’s back. “You can sit next to Myungsoo over there.” Sungjong picked up his lunchbox and plopped himself in his seat.
He turns to Myungsoo. “Hello! My name is Lee Sungjong.” He smiles at Myungsoo, but Myungsoo just gives him a cold stare. Sungjong’s smile falters, but he still thinks to himself that his classmates are friendly people.
“Ok class, enough with the chatter. Let’s get back to our books…” the teacher continues with her lesson, and Sungjong tries to pay attention but it’s hard. He’s excited about starting kindergarten, making new friends, sharing the sandwiches his mum packed for him with his partner. He glances over at Myungsoo, who is staring blankly into space.
Maybe another time.
Soon the recess bell rings and the kids spill out of the classroom and onto the field, where the boys start playing an impromptu round of soccer, and the girls sit at the edges, cheering them on and chatting with each other. Sungjong doesn’t know where to go, until he spots Myungsoo sitting by himself, under a tree.
He walks, nearly skips, over to the boy. Sungjong sets his pororo lunchbox down on a dry patch of grass, and sits on the grass next to Myungsoo. The latter glances at Sungjong, who was opening his lunchbox. Without asking, Sungjong hands a tuna sandwich to Myungsoo. “This is for you, my omma made it for me today.”
Myungsoo doesn’t react, and continues looking at Sungjong, probably wondering why this new kid was being so nice to him. Didn’t he notice how the rest of the class ostracized him as well?
Sungjong doesn’t wait for a response, and shoves the sandwich into Myungsoo’s hands. “I hope you like tuna. If you don’t, I can ask my omma to make kimchi tomorrow,” he added, smiling.
Myungsoo chews on the sandwich quietly.
Sungjong speaks. “Myungsoo, where do you live?”
Myungsoo glances up from his sandwich and points at the school gates. “Down the road.”
Sungjong starts babbling excitedly. “Me too! Maybe we are neighbours! Then we can see each other every day and maybe play together. Do you want to come to my house today to play?”
Myungsoo stops chewing, and the sandwich stays still in his hand. No one had ever asked him over to their houses before. They all thought he was a weirdo, a silent child that nobody wanted to notice. He didn’t know how to respond to such an invitation - “maybe.”
“I’ll ask my omma to ask your omma when they pick us up later, okay? I can’t wait to show you all my teddy bears and remote cars!” Sungjong continues to talk, but Myungsoo slowly tunes him out.
Is this how people made friends?
He wouldn’t know.
That afternoon when school ended, his mother agreed to let him go for the playdate, but not before expressing her surprise - “you’re inviting Myungsoo over? Really? Oh, that’s very kind of you!” she hugged Myungsoo tight and let him enter Sungjong’s mother’s car, but not before she whispered in his ear “behave yourself, be polite and remember your manners.” Myungsoo shrugged and silently got into the car.
That afternoon he played with teddy bears, even having tea parties with them. Sungjong was such a lively character, in contrast to his own dull, muted one. He had trouble sometimes trying to keep up with Sungjong, who seemed like he had a list of things he wanted to do with Myungsoo before he went home at 5.
As the year drew on, Myungsoo grew used to his partner, and started to open up to him. The two grew close, soon becoming best friends. They were inseparable, the two boys. Their friendship grew by leaps and bounds, and had its highs and
Its lows.
It was near the end of elementary school, when Myungsoo’s family decided to shift to Daegu. Sungjong was distraught, but Myungsoo promised him that when they grew older and started to work, he would take whatever airplane he needed to visit his best friend again.
Sungjong’s family sent them off at the airport, and Myungsoo gave Sungjong a quick hug and a pat on the back before leaving. “Lee Sungjong, I will never forget you.”
He never turned back. He didn’t want to turn back. He knew his best friend was just pretending to be strong, but if he turned back now, his tears would start to flow. So he left, quickly and quietly.
Sungjong grew up just as any other teenager would, the only difference being that he was talent scouted along the streets for his good looks, and was recruited into an entertainment company at the age of 14. He had trained for 2 years, and had finally debuted as part of the boyband.
So, that was basically his eighteen years of life summed up. Never once had he met a talking shadow. Never once had he met a guy with a body as well defined as this one. Never once had he heard that low voice before. Never once had someone called him by his full name, Lee Sungjong -
- wait a minute.
Suddenly everything clicks in Sungjong’s brain and his eyes widen. He looks at the shadow in front of him again, wondering if maybe, just maybe, it was -
“Myungsoo?” he says, meekly.
The figure snickered. “Took you long enough.”
i just kept writing without stopping to think, so i hope this story is good enough! the story will continue! dedicating this to parad_oxical